First of all, let me say that I am REALLY EXCITED about this fic.

Secondly, I have a few things that I'm going to say for clarification in these notes.

It's mentioned in Omega Ruby by a nameless Team Magma grunt that Archie and Maxie used to be on the same team. It's pretty much directly stated in both Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire that ORAS and RSE take place in different universes, so, going off of that idea, this story takes place in /another/ different universe.

Also, when I take about Beval and his daughter, Winona, I am indeed talking about the Winona who is the leader of Fortree's gym. In this story, Beval has the gym before Winona, and she takes up the place as the leader of it later on.

I think at this point (or at least in the first few chapters because I don't know /exactly/ where I'm going with this story yet) that May and Brendan haven't been born yet, in fact their parents might not have even met yet. I'm kind of going off Archie being around 19 and Maxie being around 21 at the start of this story, going off of my personal thought that the two of them are in their early to mid thirties when you meet them in game.

In the first chapter there's a non-linear time skip between the first section and the second section, just so no one is confused!


"Pacifidlog town?" Maxie asks incredulously, "I never thought that anyone was from there; I thought that people living in Pacifidlog never actually left Pacifidlog."

"Shut up," Archie says, tapping his and Maxie's intertwined hands against the ground, "I thought people from Lavaridge froze whenever they tried to venture away from their home town."

"Oh, no, I am absolutely certain that I would melt you if we ever came together."

"If?" Archie asks, letting go of Maxie's hand so he can position himself over him, "Who's talking if we ever 'came together'?"

"Weren't we supposed to be getting to know each other?"

Archie groans. "Killjoy."

Maxie pushes Archie off of him and intertwines their hands again.

"What's your favorite flavor of ice-cream?" Archie laughs at the question.

"I like cookie dough."

"I like strawberry."

"I can't imagine you liking ice-cream."

"It gets hot in Lavaridge!"

"I'm gonna tell everyone that you like ice-cream."

"I'll tell everyone that you like Lava Cookies."

"I only know that I like them because you gave me some!"

"Mmhmm."

"Maaaaxxxxiiieeeee!"

"Yes?"

"Fuck off." Maxie snorts.

It's rather intimidating, the team base is. For one thing, it's dimly lit; the team admins look like faceless monsters, which, actually, might be intentional, all things considered. One admin points a finger at a young, new recruit and says, "You! You'll be bunking with him!" pointing at another new recruit, this one scrawnier than the burly recruit first pointed at, to articulate who 'him' is.

The two new recruits, Archie and Maxie as they are called, walk away from the main room of the base once they are given their room number. The sound of the room turns into a low rumble then fades to nothing as the two walk farther and farther away. Both had been given keys to the room they had been assigned, but it is Maxie who ends up sliding his key into the key slot once they get to their room.

Two other grunts are already in the room when they step inside. "Hey!" One says, "Some bodies to fill these beds!"

"Did anything in particular happen to the bodies that used to fill these beds?" Archie asks.

"Oh, yeah," The other says, "they died. It was really brutal; there was a lot of blood."

"I'm sure," Maxie says.

The other two grunts seem to lose interest after this, leaving Archie and Maxie to actually introduce themselves to each other and decide on which bunk bed each of them will be getting.

"The top bunk might seem nice, but if you have to pee in the middle of the night, it fucking sucks," The grunt sitting on the top bunk of the other bunk bed says.

"Yeah, a buddy of mine broke his leg by rolling off of one."

"I accept the challenge," Maxie says.

"Challenge? It's a fucking bunk bed!" Archie says.

There's not very much space in the room, so Maxie and Archie resolve to leave the majority of their things in their suitcases; the two other grunts, Greg and Joseph as Maxie and Archie have learned now, have used up most of the cabinet space already anyway.

Maxie reads until the late hours of the night, aided by a small flashlight that he had brought along with him. Maxie thinks his roommates are asleep, but Archie is quite awake, and he listens to the flutter of turning pages for hours until he falls out of consciousness.

Neither Archie nor Maxie ever would have guessed it when they first saw each other, but they work together very well. As new grunts, the two of them are most commonly assigned to guard duty, but, at least in their minds, they perform exceptionally well as guards.

"Hey," Maxie not-quite-whispers on his and Archie's first guard duty assignment, "don't you have a Carvanha?"

"I do," Archie says, furrowing his eyebrows together in thought, "you have a Numel, right? So, together, we've got a pretty solid type matchup for whoever's challenging us."

"That's exactly what I was getting at," Maxie says, smiling just the slightest.

The mission that they are tagging along on on this particular instance is rather low-key, so the only trouble Archie and Maxie face is a store owner with only a Wurmple to battle with. Maxie's Numel has the poor Pokemon knocked out in little time at all. After the battle, the store owner calls the Wurmple back into its Pokeball and rushes away.

"Up top!" Archie says so easily as if Maxie isn't a know-it-all nerd. Maxie thinks that, maybe, here, he isn't.

"A high five?" Maxie asks, like the concept is foreign to him.

"Yeah, hard ass. Unless you're worried about your uppity nerd persona being tarnished." Maxie rolls his eyes and gives Archie a high five.

As it turns out, other people notice how well Archie and Maxie work as a team as well. During one mission, an admin notices how Archie tells Maxie, quickly, "Be careful! I saw someone that way!" and how Maxie distracts someone prowling around the building with a Pokemon battle so that Archie can take what the team came there for.

"You two," The admin barks after they are all out of the way of anyone who might be looking to call the police on them, "you work together nicely. I'll be sure to tell the leader about it." Maxie and Archie give each other twin looks of excitement and nervousness.

"Arceus, I fucking hate this."

The tall grass covering the routes surrounding Fortree rubbing against Maxie's nose and making it feel raw is bad enough without all of the Pokemon scurrying by his legs. This feeling is made infinitely worse by the fact that it's dark outside and Maxie can hardly see the Pokemon scurrying past him, even with the light of his flashlight.

"Stop complaining," Archie says through a mouthful of grass, "we're finally being noticed!" Maxie grumbles.

"What do we need from Fortree anyway? The only remotely important thing about Fortree is the gym there."

"A flying type gym," Archie responds, "flying is cool. It's pretty useful too. I guess it could have something to do with that."

"We are taking something from Beval."

By now they have reached Fortree, and Archie is clambering up the steps to the houses positioned off the ground, Maxie following shortly behind him. "You would think," Maxie says in a whisper, "that the people of this town are constantly prepared for a flood with the way they build their houses."

"This sounds like the perfect place for you to live in then, you weird water hater."

"Weird! I'm not the one who wants to stick my dick in the ocean!"

"Better than sticking your dick into a Diglett hole." Archie and Maxie's tones have turned into a pseudo-agitated sort of hiss, growing in volume enough to cause the two of them to shush each other but not enough to wake anyone up.

"Which house do you think is Beval's?" Maxie asks. Archie shrugs.

Archie and Maxie walk from house to house, peeking through windows, looking for any indication that Beval lives in them. One house near the gym seems to be a little larger and better structured than the other houses, so Archie and Maxie opt to pick the lock (rather than climb through one of the windows and possibly cause a ruckus) and see if it is Beval's house.

Archie is remarkably good at picking locks, something Maxie teased him about quite a bit when he first found out ("You thief!" he had said, faking disapproval and shock) but learned to appreciate as the skill became useful more and more often during missions.

Once Archie has picked the lock, the two of them walk through the house, light on their feet, something especially important in Fortree, where the floor boards creak and moan at even the lightest of touches. Maxie had had to teach Archie how to tread lightly, as he 'walked like a Rhydon', as Maxie had put it.

With this information being as it is, it's rather ironic, then, that Maxie trips over a toy lying on the floor and would have fallen over completely if not for Archie reaching out and steadying him. Still, it makes a rather loud noise, and a light flickers on in another room in the house. Hardly thinking about it, Archie drags Maxie over to the corner of the house in front of the kitchen counter. The two of them sit as quiet as they can as Beval and his wife walk into the room.

"It's nothing, Beval! Come back to bed before we wake Winnie up."

"Winnie's fine. If she didn't wake up because of that sound, then she's not gonna wake up now."

"Oh, Beval, stop worrying." Beval stalks around the room, kicking at things and glancing around corners. Maxie and Archie hold their breath, hoping that the dark will conceal them. "Beval," His wife says after a few minutes, "I'm tired, I'm pregnant, and we have a sleeping daughter in the other room. There's nothing in here; a Pokemon probably flew through the window. Can we go back to bed now?" Beval gives the room one last scan over with his eyes, sighs, and finally agrees. He goes back into his and his wife's room and, shortly after, the light in that room is turned off. Archie and Maxie are absolutely silent for a few minutes, and then, Archie lets out a sigh of relief.

"I walk like a Rhydon? I walk like a Rhydon?" Archie hisses.

"Shut up, Archie. Let's just get the blueprints and leave."

"If you trip again I will pick you up by the ankles and throw you off the side of Mt. Pyre," Archie hisses once again as they slowly stand and creep through the house.

Without the mishap involving Maxie tripping, the objective to take a specific set of Beval's blueprints might have been too easy. In the back of the house, there is a room seemingly dedicated specifically to Beval's architectural ideas and inventions. Archie and Maxie look through only a few sets of blueprints before they find the ones that they are looking for. They take the blueprints and slip out of the house quietly, locking the door behind them so nothing seems out of place.

In the safety of the tall grass in the route next to Fortree, Archie laughs and slaps Maxie on the back. "That was terrifying!"

"You're damn right about that."

"We're a good time after all, eh, Max?"

"…I suppose so."

Really, though, the two of them knew that all along.

With the blueprints Archie and Maxie got from Beval's house, a new project sprouts up in the team. Some time in the process of the construction, Maxie and Archie are ordered to travel to Sootopolis to investigate the power of the Cave of Origin. Archie beams and says, "I get to drag you underwater after all!" Maxie resolves to get a flying Pokemon after their trip to Sootopolis.

Before Archie and Maxie set off on Archie's newly evolved Sharpedo, Archie throws a pair of gloves at Maxie. "My Sharpedo's skin will rip your hands up if you don't have a whole bunch of calluses like me," Archie says. Maxie slips on the gloves without a complaint.

Maxie might describe the ride on Archie's Sharpedo to Sootopolis using a number of adjectives and adverbs, however, if he had to describe it in one word and one word only, he would describe it as being unpleasant. Sea water drenches his feet and most of his legs, and the short back characteristic of a Sharpedo forces Maxie to sit very close to Archie, which (unadmittedly because Maxie would not admit this to himself. Maybe. Out loud) might not be so bad if Maxie wasn't so uncomfortable in the first place.

Maxie is tired in the sense that his eyes are starting to droop shut and in the sense that many of his muscles are aching by the time that he and Archie get to the outskirts of Sootopolis. "Shut your eyes and hold your breath," Archie says, "we're about to go underwater!" Maxie does, feeling a deep sense of dread as more and more of his body is submerged under the water.

Maxie has a death grip on Archie as they are navigated underwater. He can feel himself panicking, and he urges himself to stop, but it's not as easy as he would like it to be. Oh, Arceus, Maxie thinks, I'm going to drown because I can't fucking calm down! Maxie's lungs scream for air, and he screws his eyes impossibly tighter shut. Maxie is almost certain that he will run out of breath and die when he, Archie, and Archie's Sharpedo emerge from the water. Maxie takes a deep, hard breath in.

"Hey, are you okay?" Archie asks while steering them to land, glancing over his shoulder. Archie hops off of his Sharpedo onto land and looks at Maxie.

"I'm…no…no…." Maxie shakes his head a few times and Archie's takes it upon himself to pull Maxie off of his Sharpedo onto land.

"The way you were squeezing me, I'm sure my stomach's gonna be black and blue in a few hours." Maxie has his arms crossed over his stomach, his head dipped down so that he is staring into the water. "Come, on, Maxie, enough of that. Do you think you can stand?" Archie calls his Sharpedo back into his Pokeball and helps Maxie onto his feet.

"Let's go…let's go see the Cave of Origin," Maxie says, swaying but still trying to move forward. Archie stays close to him, an arm around his waist, ready to catch him if he teeters too far over.

The walk to the Cave of Origin is rather moderate, and Maxie grows sturdier with his steps as he walks. Some time during the walk it becomes apparent that Archie doesn't need to have his arm around him anymore, but Archie figures, well, it's just in case.

The door to the Cave of Origin is large and intimidating. Power radiates from within the cave, and Maxie and Archie can't help but to touch their fingers against the metal of the door. "I don't think even you could break this lock," Maxie says, quietly, not entirely willing to break the spell that the Cave of Origin's entrance seems to have caught them under. Archie shakes his head.

Somehow, someway, Maxie is pulled closer to Archie's side. The two of them look from the door to each other, then back again, their cheeks burning ever so slightly. They stay quiet and enraptured for minutes upon minutes before the bray of a Pokemon in the water breaks the spell just enough so that Archie and Maxie can pull their hands away from the door and turn away from it.

"That's definitely something," Archie says.

"Mmhmm," Maxie responds.

They stand together, facing away from the door for a little while. Then, together, at the same time, the two of them turn and kiss each other.

Their mouths bump together painfully due to this equal motion, but neither of them take pause at this, and the kiss molds itself into something more pleasurable. Maxie's arms wrap around Archie as well and they pull each other closer. Now so close to him, Archie can feel Maxie shivering from the combination of his wet skin and clothes and the chill of the nighttime air. The kiss ends, and Archie plans to say something about Maxie freezing, but his eyes catch Maxie's, and they're kissing again before much manages to cross through either of their minds at all. This time Maxie nips at Archie's lip, and Archie opens his mouth almost automatically. Their tongues slide together smoothly; they don't rush.

"Maxie," Archie says once he's caught his breath after his and Maxie's mouths part, "you're gonna get hypothermia if we stay out here much longer."

"Mmm…but you're warm…and your lips are soft."

"And I'd prefer to kiss your lips if they weren't blue and dead."

"Alright, alright, calm down, Shakespeare." Archie laughs and forces himself to detach himself from Maxie so that he can walk with him; he keeps his arm around Maxie's waist, however, still wanting to touch Maxie and never stop.

Archie's Sharpedo does have to be called back out of his Pokeball for Archie and Maxie to make it to the Pokemon Center, but the trip is very short. No questions come from the nurse as they step inside and make their way into one of the guest rooms, a fact that Archie and Maxie are thankful for.

"Hey, hey, Maxie," Archie says, a wide grin on his face, "take your clothes off." A pause. "So you don't freeze in your sleep."

"You're ridiculous," Maxie says, tossing his shirt onto the floor, "I'm sure that you'll be absolutely insufferable now that we're…." Maxie stops, his face turning bright red as he turns himself so that he isn't facing Archie.

"Dating?" Archie supplies, his voice soft but still filled with poorly contained joy.

"Yeah," Maxie says, "dating. We're dating." Archie walks across the room and pecks him on the cheek.

Maxie discovers that night that Archie likes to cuddle a lot, which is nice because he's still rather cold even when he slips under the covers of the Sootopolis City Pokemon Center's guest room bed.

"What's something that not a lot of people know about you?" Archie has moved now from a lying position to a sitting position; he runs his fingers through the grass and occasionally picks a flower and drops it on Maxie's face.

"What is this, a dating service?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I don't know. I guess a lot of people don't know that I can read tarot cards pretty well. And I mean without the little guidebooks that are included within the packs."

"Tell me my future," Archie says, twirling a lock of Maxie's bright red hair around his finger, "will I be kissing a saucy redhead anytime soon?"

"Oh, very soon." Maxie wraps an arm around the back of Archie's head, tugs him down, and kisses him. "Now, what about you?"

"Um…well, I'm kind of…really flexible." Maxie looks at Archie in a rather analytical fashion. "I know what you're thinking, pervert. Let me tell you, you're absolutely right to be thinking it." Archie scoots back a ways so that he has space and moves his leg into a position that looks grotesque and painful to Maxie.

"I'm aroused and mortified at the same time."

"Good."

The pair toss questions and anecdotes back and forth for a while before a particularly interesting question is asked.

"If you could accomplish one grandiose thing, what would it be?" Archie asks.

"I think…I think I'd want to expand the land…to give us all more room to live in." Archie frowns.

"I'd want to expand the sea. What about all the water Pokemon, Maxie?" The atmosphere becomes very harsh; it seems to almost be dipping into the category of being angry. Maxie's angry face—truly angry, not agitated at something asinine Archie did angry or angry at someone else angry—makes Archie feel like he's being burnt alive, and he can't stand it.

Archie says, guided by nothing at all, "We both…we just want to make the world better, don't we?" Still looking angry, but more cautiously so now, Maxie nods. "We could…we could work together and meet in the middle."

"That…that doesn't sound so bad." Maxie's hand finds Archie's again, and both of them are certain in that moment that they will be just fine.