It was that day again. Maxie was all too painfully aware of what day it was. The memories of what had happened on that same day a year ago were horribly fresh in his mind. He reached for the half-drunk bottle of vodka at the other side of the table. A stab of pain hit him in the side as he leaned over the table, and he cursed his weak, injured body. He grabbed the bottle and downed several mouthfuls, before setting it back down, and leaning his head into his hands, his forehead burning against his cold, white hands.
Ok, so he had hated Archie, they had been rivals for years... But that didn't change the fact that they had once been friends. It didn't change the fact that Maxie had seen his so-called arch enemy ripped apart in front of his eyes, and known that it was all his own fault. His fault for being selfish, greedy, too obsessed with reaching his goals to think about the possible consequences of his actions. When he had awoken Groudon, the blue orb which he had in his possession had completely failed to control the ancient monster. The awakened creature had gone wild, possessed with rage, anger and confusion, and in it's rage it had killed the Team Aqua leader who had followed Maxie into the cave to try to stop him.
Maxie himself hadn't exactly fared well either. When the creature had first awoken, it had gone straight for him, presumably because he was holding the orb. The memory of what had happened was more or less a blur in his mind. He remembered the creature leaping towards him, its vicious claws tearing through his skin, knocking him backwards against the wall of the cave with tremendous force. As he had lain on the floor gasping with pain, struggling for breath, he had seen the creature turn on Archie smashing him backwards against a huge rock. Archie had not been so lucky and he had hit his head so hard that he had no chance of waking up ever again.
Lucky. Maxie snorted with disgust. Whatever it was that had decided that he would survive and Archie would die was certainly not luck. He wished almost every day that he had been killed instead, as his life had been a living hell from that day on. He had only survived because at that moment, Steven had come into the cave and seen what was happening. He had defeated the Groudon (no mean feat as he trains steel pokemon which are fairly weak against ground and fire types), and then used his Metagross to carry the two team leaders to safety.
Maxie had presumably passed out at some point during the above events. He didn't remember much other than seeing Steven run in with a look of anger on his face, which quickly turned to horror as he saw the rampaging Groudon smashing the cave to pieces and the two rivals lying on the floor, both pale and drenched with blood.
Maxie took another swig of the burning liquid, gasping as the neat alcohol stung his throat. Both he and Archie had been taken straight to hospital, but only he had awoken from his unconsiousness. He had spent the next 3 weeks in hospital on so much morphine he could hardly think, while the nurses sewed up his countless wounds. His right leg had been badly broken in several places, as well as several other broken bones and other injuries. The doctors had told him he may be paralysed from the neck down, and he would certainly never walk again. He had been fortunate in that his spine was only fractured, not properly broken, but his leg was so badly damaged they had considered amputating it, and he would never again be able to walk without a cane.
He groaned aloud. He hated thinking about what had happened. He hated thinking about Archie or anything to do with him, and he felt ill everytime he remembered his time in hospital; barely able to move, alternating between being dazed from all the drugs he was on and practically screaming from pain. He hated thinking about it, but it almost never left his mind. He didn't have much to do anymore, since he had given up his position as leader of Team Magma. He mostly just drank, slept and sat thinking about things. None of them were enjoyable, but the alcohol was the only way he could numb the pain. Emotional pain, yes, from thinking about Archie's death as well as his pitiful life now, but also physical pain from the wounds that had never really healed all that well. For now at least, he'd drank enough vodka to numb most of the pain, but not to kill the thoughts that plagued his mind.
At that moment, however, his thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. He knew who it was. Well, only one person made any effort to see him now. "What do you want Tabitha?", he muttered. The door opened and Tabitha walked in looking a little sheepish.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you sir."
"How many times to I have to tell you, you don't have to call me sir anymore, or boss, or anything like that."
Tabitha blushed a little and nodded. "Yes sir... I mean Maxie. Um... I came to see if you were ok...", he trailed off, looking anxious.
Maxie sank his head into his hands again. Normally he would have taken his anger and frustration out on Tabitha, but today he was feeling more helpless than angry and he was almost glad of his ex-subordinate's company.
"You know how I am, Tabitha", he snapped.
The ex-Magma admin looked at his former boss with concern. "I know Maxie, I'm sorry. I thought maybe you'd like to talk about it?", he ventured, tentatively.
Maxie looked up at Tabitha for a moment, considering it, but he still had too much pride to admit how awful he felt. "No", he replied tersely. "Look Tabitha, I appreciate you are trying to help me, but I don't need help, ok? Now get out of my sight." His old rudeness with speaking to his subordinates died a hard death.
Tabitha knew to do what Maxie said when he was in a mood like this. Last time he'd annoyed his boss, er,ex-boss, he'd had a vodka bottle thrown at his head. He retreated quickly out of the door.
Maxie sank his head back onto the table with a deep sigh of misery. He reached out for the bottle of vodka, only to find to his intense annoyance that it was empty. He looked round the room for another bottle, only to realise that the only other one was on a shelf at the other end of the room. He groaned and tried to stand up, but a sharp pain shot through his back and he sank dejectedly back into his chair, cursing. If only Tabitha hadn't left, he could fetch it for him. "Tabitha!", he yelled, "Come here". It seemed, however, that he had actually listened when Maxie had told him to leave him alone, and no one answered his yells. It struck Maxie just how alone he was. No one cared about him. He didn't even have anyone to boss around anymore, just Tabitha.
"Ugh, no one around here can do anything properly", he muttered to himself, grabbing the empty bottle and smashing it against his desk, as if by destroying something else, he could get rid of some of the pain, anger and frustration that was building up inside him. Truthfully, he just wanted someone to talk to, someone to care about him. His whole team had deserted him after he was injured, he'd been widely blamed for Archie's death making him even more hated than before, and now that he wasn't busy with Team Magma he realised that he had no friends at all. The only person who had ever loved him was Tabitha, and he didn't know how to do anything other than push him away. He slumped miserably on his desk, his hands coming across a large and very sharp shard of glass from the bottle he'd smashed.
He picked the shard up and looked at it closely. It sparkled a little, even in the dim light of his room, the edges gleaming. It almost seemed to be speaking to him, whispering to him, telling him to end it. Maxie looked down at his slim, pale arms, looked again at the sparkling piece of glass in his hand. He'd thought about killing himself hundreds of times before, but had never done it. Now it seemed less clear than ever before why he hadn't just done it. He had nothing to live for anymore. He pressed the piece of glass against his smooth, bare skin then suddenly just drove the sharp end into his wrist. He could hardly feel it, he was so numbed by alcohol. He idly watched the blood trickling onto his arm, almost as if it wasn't real. It didn't look very much like this could kill him. He gave a small, sarcastic laugh, and made another, deeper cut in his arm. So presumably this was it. He'd finally lost it completely and he didn't even care. No one was there to care anyway.
He didn't feel any pain. He didn't feel anything other than the warm blood trickling down his arms and his mind slowly becoming more and more blurred and dizzy. It was at this moment that Tabitha came in, carrying a tray of food.
"I thought you might want something to eat...", Tabitha said, before seeing Maxie sprawled against the desk covered in blood.
The admin's mouth fell open with horror and he dropped the tray to the floor with a resounding crash. This alerted Maxie to the fact Tabitha was there and he struggled to sit up enough to look at him.
"Tabitha...", he slurred.
"Oh my God, Maxie, what have you done??". Tabitha ran over to the red-headed man's side and looked at his arms in shock.
"Go away Tabitha, this is nothing to do with you", Maxie muttered, incoherently.
For once, the other man ignored his boss' orders, and began to bandage his arms with a napkin, tears welling up in his eyes. The bleeding was stifled by the cloth, and Maxie hadn't yet lost enough blood for his life to be in any real danger. "Maxie, can you hear me? Are you ok? Maxie?". The younger man was almost hysterical with fear for his boss.
Maxie moaned. Whether it was with pain, annoyance or despair wasn't clear. "Where am I?" he slurred helplessly.
For once in his life, Tabitha had to take charge. He lifted Maxie up and carried him over to the bed in the corner. It was surprisingly easy, as the Magma leader was practically wasting away. Tabitha sat down on the bed next to him and stroked his damp red hair back out of his face.
"Its ok Maxie, I'm here. You're going to be ok."
Maxie groaned again. "But I don't want to be ok, you idiot. Didn't you get that bit?"
Another tear sprang into Tabitha's eye. He hated seeing Maxie like this. Helpless, with no sense of purpose at all, nothing to make him happy. He couldn't stand the thought that the man he loved with all his heart could be so unhappy that he wanted to die.
"Don't say that Max", he said quietly.
Maxie was slightly startled by Tabitha's use of the shortened version of his name. He hardly ever allowed anyone to call him that. He would normally have snapped at Tabitha, but right now he was too weak and miserable.
Tabitha realised he had inadvertantly called Maxie by the pet name he normally only referred to him with in his own mind. He blushed slightly, but realised that his boss had not complained. He couldn't really help it. He adored everything about the redheaded Magma leader. In fact, he couldn't remember who he was without Maxie, all the best years of his life had been spent in Team Magma, doing Maxie's bidding. He'd seen no reason to stop just because Team Magma had disbanded following the unsuccessful attempt at capturing Groudon. He wished for the 100th time, the 1000th time, that he' been in the cave with Maxie, that Groudon had attacked him instead, but the Magma leader had been very insistent about going in alone. He reached out his hand and touched his beloved Maxie's face, stroking his blood red hair.
Maxie frowned a little at how tactile his subordinate was being with him, but he didn't really have the energy to complain. In fact it was sort of comforting. The leader closed his eyes and, feeling safer and calmer than he had done in a long time, drifted off to sleep. Seeing that his leader had fallen asleep, Tabitha leaned forward and did the thing he had wanted to do so desperately for so long. He kissed Maxie on the forehead, and then ever so, ever so gently on the lips.