N/A: Small fic about May and Wally, a pairing I like and that's so cute. Wally means so much for me. He tries. Even though he has everything against him. He still wants. He still dreams. That's why he's so awesome. As always I don't own Pokémon and I will be very happy if you tell me what you think about this fic! :)

It smells like fire

or rather tastes like love

WallyMay

Oneshot

-~#~-

It smells like wood.

Dry, sweet wood created from the bonfire that stings in his nose, makes it wrinkle, shrink. He angles his mouth in delight, since he likes this smell, it's normal, it's natural.

It's like him.

He wonders why it ends like this, why he's sitting here, reflecting about his life and wonders why he can't be content by what he has. He has reached far, gained eight badge in his casket, gained control over his pokémon like he wished since he started walking on his two, fragile legs. But sometimes he wonders why it took him that long to realize that this is what he's born to do. His parents said it was dangerous. And soon he too said it was dangerous. But was it really? Didn't he just use that as an excuse to veil his fear for the outside world? The world with wide plains and chipping Taillows and Teams that want to change the world? He doesn't know. Or rather, doesn't want to know.

(Since he doesn't like the answer.)

But he can't escape; sooner or later it comes back. The stinging, the pain, the urge to run back home and hide his head under the pillow. Since he's not ready for the world. Or the world isn't ready for him.

When he breathes it pains in his lungs, makes them shrink and his tears water but since he always cries, since his lungs always hurt he doesn't care anymore.

He doesn't want to care. He doesn't want the reality to tackle him down on the ground, the reality that he's sick, that he's abnormal, different. That he's scared of everything that moves, that he can't run (away), that he can't eat spicy food without tears flowing like rivers from his green, green eyes. It's easier to ignore than to accept, always.

He has lived with this his whole life. It's breaking his parents' hearts – that he doesn't care. They want him to care, they want him to be careful, but he really isn't, therefore he wants to jump from the cliff and fly.

(And no one can stop him.)

At least that's what he thinks before he meets her.

Brown hair and blue eyes. He never thought that it would merge into a perfect, perfect image he can't take his bloodshot eyes from. But it did. It does. He can't turn away, can't escape, she's there even though she's far away.

But even more he craves her warmth, her smiles, her kind words. She doesn't tell him how weak he is, that he should lie in the hospital instead of breathing clean air outside Verdanturf Town, how much he fails when he tries for the eight badge run, she just doesn't. It isn't important to her. She cheers him. No matter what he do. And that smile slowly eats him through his skin to his bones, where he lies defenseless, motionless for her to take over his mind, his everything. She controls her, no matter what she does, since he needs that smile, needs that smile to go on, needs that smile for his thin, fragile butterfly wings to open, to be free. He doesn't know when it happened, when she changed to be 'a friend' into the fairy that sways above his head. Maybe it has been there all the time.

(Like a recessive disease, now it's everywhere, making him gasp and gasp but not for the lack of air.)

One of his pokéballs loosens from his belt and rolls in the grass, where the light from the bonfire creates a shadow-gate pointing from the flames. He tilts his head and moves his fingers over the ball, inside rests Gardevoir, words cannot explain what feelings lingering insides his white skin for the pokémon.

Or rather, he doesn't want to explain, because it's almost the same as with May. Almost.

Since she's like a gemstone and he's the pirate (if you ignore the fact that he's too weak to be a pirate.) And he likes her. She raises him up when he falls, she's there when he cries (which he always does), she laughs when he says something, she looks down in the grass with entwined fingers when he compliments her.

She's perfect. She's perfect even when she doesn't do anything. Those blue, blue deep heaven-eyes follow him even when he tries to wave them away and he forgets that he's sick, that his lungs pains, that his feet bleed, that his eyes sting –

– It damages his heart instead.

And it's better. Since he likes the butterfly-wings touching his skin. It makes him smile, a small, small smile. It's normal. It's natural.

It's because of her.

However, even the blue sky has dark nimbuses, and there is one dark nimbus that captures him and makes the air tenser and the smell taste like acid. He enhances it.

Or rather chooses to enhance it since he's pessimistic, gives up before the book changes page.

(When it comes to relationships.)

There is a boy named Brendan who has everything. Looks, burning eyes and skills. But Wally doesn't care about that; he cares about the fact that Brendan is healthy. He can run around, reach the top of the mountain. He's strong and knows how to turn the mud into the shape he wants. When it comes to the boy named Brendan, Wally knows he will never win.

He can try, he can fight but he knows he will fall in the pith-black hole leading to the underground world where light is absent, long gone with the quenched candles. That page in the book doesn't exist.

And he boggles in the darkness. Alone with wide, newly opened eyes and dreams soaring above the clouds. He clips with his eyes and thinks, reasons, and understands that the biggest reason why everything is white and black and not dancing in colors is because he isn't thankful for what he has. Sure, he coughs up mucus and moves around with legs that don't fit for hunting after badges, but he still has a life. Parents that love him. Maybe they're too protective towards him, but they have reasons. And he still isn't thankful. He never tells them that he's thankful. Not because he doesn't want to but when the seconds twist into minutes he understands that he throws his life away and he can't crawl up in his mother's lap and hide the discernment that he has to stand on his two feet one day.

He has. And maybe he isn't thankful.

(For who can be thankful when you want to fall down and cry when fate hits you in the face?)

He doesn't want to be like this. But then again, isn't that what everyone says? You want to change, like mud, into something you think is better. But it doesn't have to be like that. And there is one thing he doesn't regret in his soon fifteen year old life – meeting May.

But he regrets that he's too pale, too weak, too abnormal to stand up for her like he wants.

Or rather, too inane to fight with Brendan for the princess. He will never, ever win. He gives up. Like he always does.

That's his life. Giving up. And it's sad. It hurts more than the air, smells more than the fire – since the genesis of this nightmare started when he fell in love with her, fell in love with those eyes and that sweet smile drenched in honey.

And when he was assured that Brendan loved her too.

He throws a wood in the fire; the flames hungrily eat it up to powder. Knows that she's out there, somewhere and he misses her. Wants to see her. But he knows that it's onesided.

It has to be. Right?

He removes the pokéNav from his pocket and lays it in the grass. Notices that the batteries are long gone and lost. When did he last recharge it? He doesn't know. It doesn't matter.

Who would call him?

And then he understands that he has learned nothing; he still drowns in his self-pity, because he's so used to it that it goes on like a formula without an end. But what can he do about it? Since he's shaped like this. He wants to change and parts of him already have but not enough. And it will never be enough.

Or rather, he doesn't know the definition of the word 'enough'.

He touches the bottom on his pokéNav, it's soft and sleek and filled with everything he wants but doesn't have. One single strand of hair hangs in front of his two emerald eyes. He strokes it back, bits his lips before he realizes something. That everything starts and ends with May. It was she who showed him the world and it's because of her that he's lost and scared and appalled by the thought that she's happy with Brendan and not him. He doesn't want her to be with Brendan. He doesn't want her to be with anyone.

(Maybe not even him.)

It smells like fire.

-~#~-

She drops her bike on the ground and angrily exclaims: "Why doesn't he answer my calls?"

-~#~-

He has been alone so long, it starts to become a habit and it's that kind of 'unwillingly'-habits that are there but you don't want them. They slowly erase the last once of sanity and start to push you over the edge. And you don't know what you should do about that. It's ingrained in your scheme; you don't want it but you're still used to it.

But he has his pokémon. He has this fire. Why will it never be enough?

(Since–)

But the interior sentence is cut off when he spots one (only one) shadow coming closer, growing in size and he knows who it is.

Or rather, feels who it (she) is.

It has been so long. Still, it feels like yesterday. Yesterday she swept him with the storm and spun around, around, till his eyes were with the stars.

But he doesn't remember those eyes she has. He remembers her eyes to be sweet, round and soft, reminding of crashing waves and bellflowers, not narrowed, suspicious, black.

She's angry. But he doesn't know why. That's one thing he's good at – swaying in the clouds, where anything complicated like 'feelings' are long gone and lost. It's not something intentional, it always seem to end there.

"Hi, Wally," she says, with a dry voice, words that don't roll, that isn't her voice. She looks down at him and he feels (once again) his chest shrinking, butterflies rise and a warm blush spread across his cheeks. Not because there is something sweet about this situation but because she means so much for him. He's so thankful for what she has done.

(But then again he never tells her, like he never tells anyone.)

"Hi." Then he can't bring himself to say anything more. He has crossed the line when he could treat her like a sister, hugging and smiling and then he's motionless, ingrained in the ground (in his trepidation of losing her.)

"Why haven't you answered my calls?" she then asks and then he knows (everything.)

And still nothing.

She's angry because he hasn't answered her calls. Wait. She has called?

She cares that much about him?

He looks up and meets her eyes and then he sees something he before threw away since it is easier to hide under the cloth than to remove it.

(And he sees that their relationship is full of scars, wounds and spicules that he created.)

And he's scared. Since he doesn't have a proper excuse for not answering them. The only one he has would never be enough.

What if everything is gone? He can't stand that fact but still prepares for it. May is sweet but she's still human – when lightning crashes into her she dies.

Tears slip down his cheeks and this time she doesn't comfort him. He cries for her, selfish tears that don't explain why he is like this and why he can't treat her as she deserves. That no one deserves. He's too broken to really care for others. He wishes it doesn't look like that, but it does. It does.

Or rather, he's too selfish to really care for others. They're there but still not. Not in his life. Not that he sees.

"May I–" but the letters disappear in the flames, where no one can hear them anymore (not even he.) It's too late. He can't string along anymore. This is the true. The true with its bright colors.

She bits her lip, but sits down, the flames dancing in her eyes. Now he notices that there full of tears too. Maybe she…

He can never forgive himself for doing this to her. The one. The one that's more important than everything. She's like Gardevoir. She means so much. Still he makes her cry. It sweeps away everything, nothing is left. He clenches his hand around one of his pokéballs.

"Did you answer any calls?" she asks now, still with that voice that makes everything rot and die. He hates that voice. Hates that he creates it.

"No," he says, his tone rising a bit when he sees something in her eyes. Maybe relief. Maybe something else. Maybe that doesn't really matter. "I didn't think anyone would call."

"When will you have more self esteem?" she signs. 'Never' hangs near the edge and will probably always hang there, in the air, swaying. He inhales, feels her cologne, feels her. Wipes away his stupid tears with his sleeves.

"I'm sorry."

It's okay. She doesn't say it but her eyes tell him that. She always forgives. People tend to do that to him.

(And that destroyed him. But maybe it will be easier when he knows the source.)

"And May? You know something?" he murmurs, hiccups, hides his hands in the sleeves. It's easier when he knows she will stay. For a life without it is like drowning, it only leads downhill. "I'm thankful."

"For what?" she asks, now smiling a little.

"For everything," he continues, hiccupping even more and it hurts in his throat. He feels his heart ponds against his ribs. "For what you have done."

"But I haven't done anything", she negates, as usual, but she knows it's true. Everybody does.

"You have!" he eagerly explains, putting his hands on his laps. "And if you love Brendan it's okay because I only want you to be–"

"I don't love Brendan," she snarls, making him mute. "I love another."

Steven? Brawly? Maxie? Nah, it can't be the last one. "Who?"

She smiles and puts her fingertip on his lips. He feels the warmth striking in him, he blushes, he can't breathe. "I won't tell you."

(And then he realizes it doesn't smell like fire anymore,

it tastes like love.)

And he's okay with that

or rather, he loves it.

He loves her

-~#~-

fin