Title: Whiteout
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,942
Genre: Romance, Drama, Character Study
Summary: Red/Green+Leaf. He feared the worst. The worst came.
Disclaimer: Pokémon isn't mine.
Author's Notes: Somehow inspired by "25 Lives" at S2B2. Google it, it's amazing. Please forgive the periods—they were the only way I could maintain proper paragraph spacing on FFN.

"This can't be happening," Green whispers.

He stands over the body, so still. The only sound is the roar of the wind.

"No—" He kneels down and touches his skin; he's so cold, snowflakes already gathering in his hair. Unmoving. So still.

"Red," he says. He trembles as he gathers him up. "Wake up. Wake up."

The eyes don't open; gloved hands fall limply to the snow.

"Please," he says. "Please."

Pikachu is nowhere to be found, and Eevee is in her Poké Ball. He's all alone with the silence and this still quiet cold. He shakes Red, hard. The other man's head rocks and settles back down into nothing. Nothing. That's all he is now.

He'd always known that one day, he would be too late.

—

This will be the last time.

That's what Red thinks to himself as he stumbles through the snow. He is so tired of aching bones and frostbitten fingers, of the long looks Green gives him over the fire, of challenger after challenger and no one being strong enough. He is tired of the isolation. Red, even Red, has had his fill of silence. And after Ethan there is no reason to stay.

So this is the last time. The last day. He will wake up, feed Pikachu, and train in the blizzard. When the sun sets, he will set Charizard free and sail down to civilization, open arms, and the sun shining warm on his face. He is going home.

But he never eats the extra food Green brings him because he can't see how thin he has become. He never takes the extra blankets because he hasn't realized that he needs them. He's lived too long without noticing, and now it is too late.

—

.
Wait.

.

.

There.

.
Under his ear—the faintest of breaths.

Green staggers to his feet with Red's body in his arms, biting his lip until it bleeds. "Hold on," he gasps, though it falls on deaf ears. He wastes no time. Pidgeot balks at the weather, but his trainer forces him to fly fast and hard to Viridian, to safety, to someone who can save him. Both of them.

He's lived too long without Red. He doesn't think he can last if he has to continue on alone, forever, and he pushes the thought from his mind. It can't happen. It won't happen.

He doesn't look at Red, but his hands clench tighter all the same.

—

Starvation and hypothermia: that's all the doctor finds wrong, as if that isn't already enough. He looks at Green like it's somehow his fault and he doesn't even try to explain, because in some ways, it is.

He should have said something. He should have made him eat. He should have stayed with him.

He should have made him come down.

This is his fault.

He sits beside Red with his head in his hands, numb and overwhelmed. Eevee has been left with Pikachu, who somehow found the way down the mountain alone, following his master until his body gave out. He, too, is in a hospital of his own, his diagnosis mirroring Red's too closely. It's too perfect. If Red goes, Pikachu goes. But if Red goes, Green stays, and the rest of the world will move on as if nothing has happened.

Machines beep. Liquids drip into Red's body.

In all his life, Green has never felt more alone.

—

He wakes to a hand on his shoulder.

"Leaf."

"You have to rest," she says. "I'll stay with him."

He shakes his head.

"Green," she whispers. "It's not your fault."

If Leaf had been around, she would have known, she would have seen—but she hadn't been. She'd trusted Green to take care of him, and so had everyone else.

He gets to his feet and doesn't see the hope in Leaf's face.

"Green, wait." He does. He can feel her searching for the words.

"He's going to be okay." Her voice is so strong, so certain, but Green shakes his head. He knows better.

He leaves the hospital. He's looking for snow.

—

Leaf takes over the gym. She goes to Mt. Silver, but Green's not there. There's a flurry of concern, people searching, announcements on the radio; nothing comes of it, and the attention soon dies. Only his friends and family remain.

Red's eyes open a week after his hospitalization, but it takes three months until he's declared healthy enough to leave. Leaf takes him in; she's moved into Green's old apartment. It was temporary at first, but now she can't find a reason to go. Someone, she decides, has to take care of it until Green comes back. Now it's their turn to wait for him.

Red spends his mornings sitting by the window, stroking Pikachu's fur. He spends his afternoons in the city, and his evenings on the balcony. Watching. Leaf chatters to fill the silence, tries to cook and eventually resigns herself to nightly take-out. Red listens, but barely speaks a word.

Eevee, too, has been left behind. She spends too much time sleeping and tries to stop eating, but Leaf is stern and cunning and keeps the Pokémon alive. After a few weeks, Eevee takes to following Red, a morose brown shadow who dogs his footsteps. He kneels to pick her up, but she bites him and backs away, growling with a ferocity that only challengers see. Pikachu cries out in confusion, but Eevee shrieks, and the mouse falls silent, trembling. Red waits with his hands bleeding and outstretched.

After two hours, Eevee tiptoes close enough to gently lick his wounds, her ears back and her beautiful tail dragging in the dirt. Red takes her into his arms and gets to his feet. Exhausted, she cries herself to sleep.

—

Green finds a cave that is similar enough to remind him of Red, but different enough to feel foreign.

He has no supplies and leaves his Pokémon in their balls, surviving off the land. He hasn't had to do this since he was a child just starting on his journey, and it makes him think of the past, when he stood over the young boy he'd knocked into the dirt and laughed at the young girl's attempts to make him stop. He'd hated the boy because he'd loved him, and he'd left home because he knew the boy would follow.

He had always been the one who pushed, but eventually, he grew up. His visits slowed. He stopped telling Red to eat and sleep and come back down. He wasn't a bully anymore; he didn't just want attention—he wanted more. But when he stopped pushing, Red fell.

Mt. Coronet is a strange place. The air feels wrong and there are Pokémon he doesn't recognize. He carves out a place for himself and lives quietly amongst the Chingling and Medicham, going out at sunset to forage for food and sleeping through the day. He doesn't want to be seen, and avoids the few trainers he stumbles across. He spends most of his time thinking.

After a month, the cave begins to feel like home.

So he leaves.

—

Leaf begins to lose battles, and Eevee begins to roam at night.

Red follows her. She's asleep, stumbling down the stairs with her eyes closed, wandering north. She drifts towards Route 2 and walks into the tall grass before Red picks her up. She struggles half-heartedly, then opens her eyes.

"North," Red whispers.

When he leaves the next day, Leaf masks her worry with an air of confidence. "Bring him back," she tells him, handing him a bag of supplies and folding her arms. "I want to kill him myself."

He nods.

—

Green no longer recognizes his hands: they're weathered and worn, with veins that stand out through his skin. He can trace them up his forearms until they disappear underneath the fraying edge of his rolled-up sleeves.

In his mind, he feels things settling. He tells himself he no longer feels lonely—it's not quite a lie, he's just learned how to work around it—but he can't stop the homesickness. And despite his best efforts, he's still alive.

After four months, he wanders into Snowpoint. People nod, seeing a hiker, a drifter, a man as unremarkable as the dirt he travels over. It's the first time he hasn't been recognized immediately since he became Champion, all those years ago, and he doesn't know what to make of it. Is this what Red had always wanted? To disappear?

After four months, he still doesn't think he understands.

He goes to the gym and shows Candice his leader identification. She doesn't believe him at first, but he knows too much to be lying, and even though he's out of practice he still beats her in less than ten minutes. Confused, she gives him a place to stay and offers to let him use her phone. He declines.

"What happened?" Candice asks.

"An accident," he says. It's true. "I don't want to talk about it."

He eats the food she gives him and falls asleep on her futon. Candice calls Professor Oak. Red arrives the next morning, but Green's already gone.

—

There's a wild, familiar scream. Green barely has time to lift his head before Eevee slams into him with all her strength. Her voice is shrill and she won't be calmed, head butting and scratching him despite his orders to stop.

Red appears a moment later, and suddenly he can't breathe.

He sets Eevee down, ignoring her when she bites him, and waits until Red crosses the distance. He can't tear his eyes away. Red stares back, inscrutable.

Then he lifts Green's callused hand and places it against his chest. His heart beats strongly under his fingers.

Green's eyes fill with tears.

Red pulls him close, fiercely, holding him with all his strength. "I'm here," he says quietly. "I'm okay."

They stand that way for a long time, until Green has fallen apart and put himself back together again.

—

Leaf is stronger than she looks: her slap makes his ears ring and her hug nearly cracks his ribs. She relinquishes the gym with relief, but she helps him run it for the first few days anyway. "Just until you're settled in," she says, looking at Red.

His apartment is too small for the three of them, and the crowding makes Green anxious after so many years of living alone. Red, too, appears on edge, and after two weeks, Leaf leaves. "I'll come back to visit," she says, kissing them both on the cheek. "Call me, okay?"

A few days later, Green goes looking for Red and finds Pikachu and Eevee sleeping on the windowsill, curled up together in Red's jacket. The man himself is standing on the balcony. The sun is setting, but he ignores it; instead, he looks north.

Green comes up behind him and rests his hands on his shoulders. Red glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "I'm sorry," he says at last, profiled by the setting sun.

The gym leader shakes his head. "I don't want to think about it." He wants his memory to fade until the still, snow-covered body is nothing but a dream. The other man nods.

"Red." Green hesitates, feeling the familiar pressure on his tongue. He needs to say it, now, while they are both here and safe and whole. "Red, I..."

The words die on his lips.

The former champion turns, breaking out of his light hold. "I know," he whispers, and kisses him.

His lips are warm.