title: love is blind
warnings: This is a fic focusing on humour, thus it is to be taken lightly. Also, it implies the possibility of two boys having a more than just platonic relationship with each other, although it is not explicitly featured. Read at your own risk.
notes: Meh, the ending sucks.
Barry had triumphed. As of course he would. After months of enduring the most impossible hardships and overcoming one obstacle after the other, he had at last managed to find him—him—Paul, (probably) the greatest trainer in the history of ever, whose very name was synonymous with victory—
"Do I know you?" Paul asked, forcing Barry to cut his monologue short, and glared.
Stars began to form in Barry's eyes, as his knees wobbled. "Yes I mean no I mean almost—BUT," Barry jabbered, blinded by Paul's awesomeness, "in the dream I had last night you did. It was pretty amazing, because—"
"Then stop staring at me."
"—then we battled against the evil lord and he lost and the world was finally free so we instantly got married. Arceus, you should've seen your dress!"
Paul was gone.
But Barry didn't give up. Because! How could he, now that Paul had accepted his challenge? If he did, he would be stomping on the other's feelings and his own pride!
Leaving only a cloud of dust behind, he ran off. In the opposite direction of the one Paul had taken.
By the time he realised this, instead of Paul, Dawn and her little idiot group stood before him.
Barry was appalled.
"He truly is a genius," he muttered and stared blankly at nothing particular, which just happened to be the hem of Dawn's mini skirt. "I never would have imagined he would be this wicked. What a beast of a man—which reminds me. Have any of you seen him?"
"Who?" Ash asked innocently, while Brock was wondering if it was really such a clever thing to do.
"Paul of course, you foolish fool!" Barry shouted haphazardly. Really, didn't that boy own a brain?
Ash and Brock exchanged a glance. Somewhere in the background Dawn frantically tried pulling her skirt longer. "Don't tell me," Ash breathed, "you're travelling with him now?"
Barry mulled it over. "Yeah," he eventually settled on saying. "I am."
"THE APOCALYPSE IS COMING," Ash screamed and began running around in circles, arms stretched skyward. "AND BEFORE I BECAME POKEMON MASTER, TOO!"
Several bystanders watched the scene with a mixture of worry and disgust in a distance of five metres each. Pikachu yawned.
Brock heaved a sigh, mildly satisfied. "Well, at least we don't need to worry about either of them reproducing now."
"Suddenly I so feel dirty," Dawn sniffed and hid her thighs behind her bag.
Barry was annoyed.
He rather dramatically threw his head and strode away.
He found Paul two days later in a forest clearing where he was training his torterra. The first five or ten minutes they spent with just sort of staring at each other until Paul gave up and demanded what Barry was doing here.
Barry was thrilled by this question. "I am merely observing your training methods in order to use them against you," he replied gleefully, as his face broke into a shining smile.
Paul's eyes narrowed down to small, dark slits. "Go away," he barked.
Barry considered this offer, found no logical reason to accept it and promptly sat himself, pulling out a notebook.
One after the other, the veins on Paul's forehead could be heard popping loudly.
At nightfall he finally snapped. Barry was currently busy unpacking his sleeping bag, when suddenly something knocked him down and hissed demonically, "Look, I don't know who you are or what you want with me, so can you just leave me alone?"
Barry puffed out his chest and put on an insulted expression. "You know, if you were just slightly more cooperative," he said, "we could know each other already."
Paul scowled, but Barry didn't mind since he tended to do that a lot.
The next morning turned out to be quite a disappointment to Barry. Paul had managed to escape and was now probably ahead of him by several hours. Also, someone had burnt his clothes.
Barry disliked caves. They ware always so dark and dirty and you never knew what kind of things were hiding in the corners and niches where your torch's light couldn't reach.
Even so, he disliked thunderstorms with hailstones as big as a pidgey's egg and wind speeds of over 150 km/h even more.
Thus, he was more than delirious with delight to find Paul at the end of the tunnel he had chosen as his place of refuge. "Oh thank Mew you're here!" He almost cried and let out a relieved sigh. "I was really getting bored with exploring this stupid cave. Seriously, I mean—"
"If you come any closer to me, Ursaring will bite your head off," Paul put in, not even looking at him.
Barry found this just a tad rude, but shrugged it off. He was wet and cold from the rain so it was understandable that Paul didn't want him nearby. Later, when his clothes had dried (or maybe even earlier, depending on how things went from here) they could cuddle all they wanted.
"So," he chirped merrily. He was steadily undressing. "How has it been going for you? I've heard you won another badge! You know what? Me, too! Would you like to see it? Wait, no, that's silly! You have the same—"
He was subtly interrupted by Paul's snoring.
Once again Barry woke up alone. And this time it was even worse than the last. His throat felt sore and he wondered why these darned walls kept mocking him by spinning around. (He hadn't done anything to upset them, had he?) When he sat up, he noticed with genuine surprise a small white box with 'Ibuprofen' imprinted on it and a bottle of nasal spray lying beside him. It took him a few moments to realise what this new development meant. Then he inwardly declared Paul the most generous person on the planet and decided he should be granted the Nobel Prize.
He was only semi-surprised when they met one week later in the public bathroom in the pokémon centre of Sunyshore City. Paul, too, was reacting very calm about it, which wasn't a wonder—he was the messiah, mind you—although, if he had looked more closely, Barry would have noticed the stantler in headlights sort of look on his features. Unsurprisingly, though, he was too occupied with studying the other's groin.
"Wow!" He exclaimed, as he unzipped his jeans. "You sure have—"
"Shut your goddamn mouth before Torterra vine whips it shut," Paul cut in. His voice accurately resembled the growl of a mightyena.
"I thought that one was at Veilstone," Barry said and, furtively, continued to eye Paul's crotch.
Paul ground his teeth, hard.
"By the way," Barry went on, not bothering to block the essentials. "Thanks for the medicine! It was so kind of you to think of me in such a thoughtful way!"
"I just didn't want to get sued for your death," Paul explained curtly, frantically glancing back and forth between Barry's genitals and the with condoms and other unsightly things covered floor. "So don't—STOP WINKING AT ME LIKE THAT."
"Oh you don't have to be so shy!" Barry gushed and Paul stalked—not hurried—away.
Outside the restrooms Barry met the idiot group again, which did not please him.
"Paul told us not to tell the psycho stalker where he went," Ash instantly informed him, sniggering, which pleased Barry even less.
"Psycho stalker?" He echoed, both furious and revolted at the very imagination. "Who? Where? I'll murder him with a toothbrush—"
"He meant you," Brock helpfully pointed out.
"Oh," Barry said intelligently and blinked. "I thought we were over the kinky nicknames thing."
"Brock, do something!" Dawn pleaded, banging her fists against his chest. "I don't wanna be imagining this!"
Next to them on the floor Ash was crouched down to a huddle, trying his best not to throw up on anyone's shoes.
Barry excused himself disdainfully, considering himself above such trivial matters, and stormed off.
A few days passed until he finally caught up with his role model.
"Paul, we need to talk!" He announced haughtily, as soon as he had gotten there.
Paul, who had been just about to do his laundry, looked at him like he was afraid to get (gang) raped. He was, apart from his boxers, stark naked.
"I've heard from a reliable source I want to leave unknown that you called me a psycho stalker! What is the deal with that?"
"And I told the twit to keep his mouth closed …," Paul muttered darkly, absentmindedly rubbing his temples.
Barry shifted and placed his hands on his hips. "Well?"
"In a few days you will receive a letter from my lawyer. Just so you know," Paul added in a very casual tone.
"You—you want a divorce?" Barry spluttered, flailing with his arms. "You asshole! But don't you think you get the good service, because I swear to Dialga—"
Paul took the opportunity and punched him in the stomach. "Can't you just cut the crap already?" he asked and couldn't hide a content grin when he saw Barry desperately gagging for air, who decided to respond to this by fuming for the rest of the day, but still followed down Paul to his camp.
When Barry awoke the next day, he expected to be left alone yet again, but no such thing—Paul was still there, fast asleep. And Barry felt genuinely surprised, wholly sceptical, kind of intrigued, faintly annoyed and probably far smugger than he had any right to be.
FIN.