The title is taken from Sia's Fire Meet Gasoline.

Everyone is standing as far away from each other as possible. Some are sniffling but trying to fight back their tears; they know that they need to preserve their energy and fluids. Archie is the first to damn all societal concepts of decency to hell, tossing off his clothing. In response to the judgemental stares he receives, Archie says, bitterly, "I'm not going to be the first to die out here." The sun is still hot, blazing, and torturous when Archie isn't clothed, but it is lessened, just slightly. Archie knows, though, that part of the deep hurt that he is feeling out in this unbearable shine is emotional: his life-force being sucked out by the love of his life. His life-force being sucked out by the light of his life turned malicious and burning instead of pleasantly warm and comforting. Archie hates Maxie, but he still loves him so much.

Archie thinks that this is what he'll feel in hell. Maxie might feel as if he's perpetually drowning: that was always Maxie's biggest fear, Archie knows. Remembers from fifteen years ago. He remembers helping him get over his fear so that he could teach him how to swim, and even then, he had refused to stick his head underwater; that was too much. Archie, meanwhile, had slid into the water like it was more natural and comfortable to him than walking on land and breathing air, bobbing and gliding through it like a Seel.

Back then, they had been happy and carefree. Archie remembers splashing Maxie with water and patting his ass when he swam by his legs; Maxie had protested, but that was part of what had made it fun. Sometimes, Archie would kiss Maxie while they were in the water and then mess up his hair with his hands. Maxie would shove at him or try to push him underwater, but Archie wouldn't do it back because he knew that Maxie wasn't comfortable as it was and he knew where the line was between being playful and being spiteful.

Love does not hurt as much as the heat caused by the supernaturally intense sunlight: to say so would be poetic and, simply, incorrect. Archie can feel this horrible twisting in his gut because of love that feels like guilt and regret and longing, but it does not compare to the burning and tingling he feels along his skin; the dizziness, pulsing, and throbbing he feels in his head; the feeling of being dehydrated, evaporated as he stands. This pending death is ghastly, and Archie can see the water of Sootopolis sizzling and vaporizing at a rate that is alarming; the scene is reminiscent of a pot of boiling water, of water being heated in a controlled setting, not in one so open and vast. Archie feels hysterical, and Maxie is still standing there, fully clothed, panting like a Mightyena and sweating in that outfit that would honestly be too hot to wear even if this occult drought wasn't occurring.

"What are you doing?" Archie barks out at him. He really should be preserving his energy, not yelling and getting angry, but at this point, Archie kind of wants to die, and he can't just let Maxie do this and be stubborn and proud even at this lowest point of lows.

"I deserve to die," Maxie responds.

"Shut the fuck up. You're not leaving me, you ass. You're already sucking all of the moisture out of the Earth, you can at least do me the favor of sticking around."

"What?"

"I love you, you dick! And I don't think anyone here wants to see you die, especially me." Archie and Maxie look around at the small ensemble outside of the Cave of Origin; they're all distressingly still, their only movements seeming to be their eyes flitting around and, if they're still wearing them, their thumbs flicking at the elastic in their underwear, contemplating whether or not they should take them off.

After blinking a few times, Maxie begins to remove his clothing. Looking at Maxie's newly bare shoulders, Archie says, "I remember that you tan really well even though you're so pale. I think this might burn you, though, Max." Maxie looks up at him, surprised.

He almost says something about how he remembers the way that Archie would jerk and twitch when he trailed his fingernails down his spine in a certain way, but he recognizes that this might not be the best memory to resurface at the present moment. "I remember that all of your skin is soft except for your fingers because you ride Carvanhas and Sharpedos all the time. I've still never figured out how you do it," Maxie settles on after a moment of thought.

"…You think my skin is soft?" Archie asks after a moment.

"Yes," Maxie answers, and the two take a moment to look at each other. "I love you too, you know," Maxie divulges, looking tired and devastated. Archie notices the bags under Maxie's eyes; he had seen them before, but he had never comprehended them until now; they look like they run deep and ancient into his skin. How long had they been there? Archie can't remember first seeing them. His mind flashes forth an image of Maxie when he was younger, wrinkleless with bags just a fraction of the size they are now under his eyes. Archie suddenly doesn't feel angry anymore: just hurt and worn out. "I'm really…really sorry, Archie," Maxie says, attempting to drag a hand down his face but just having it slip and slide as if it had been greased because of all of the sweat accumulated on both his hand and his face. Maxie breathes out a sigh, and it feels like his lungs are balloons that have floated too high, too close to the sun and are ready to pop.

Archie has always had a low heat tolerance, and he feels unsteady on his feet as he stands out in the amplified sun. His vision is blurred, and he is reminded of fires, how just overtop of them you can see, but the image is distorted by heat. "Maxie," Archie says weakly, "if we die, I'm kicking your ass in hell." Hadn't he thought, earlier, though, that he and Maxie would be in completely opposite places in hell? Who knows? Who cares? All Archie knows now is heat.

"Archie, if we live, will you forgive me?" The question catches Archie off guard, and he moves his eyes over in Maxie's direction so that he can look at him, forgoing moving his head because he feels so drained and boneless.

"Damn it, I already forgive you, Maxie." Archie takes a moment, runs his dry tongue across his dry lips, "Who knows what I would have done to the Earth if I had managed to awaken Kyogre?"

"Nothing like this," Maxie says, despairing, "nothing like this."

Archie tells Shelly and Matt that he loves them in the fewest amount of words possible and waits.

He doesn't want to die, contrary to how he had felt just a few minutes before. He kind of feels like screaming and clawing at his face, but he knows that that will make death come sooner. Looking around with a subtle sweep of his eyes, Archie notices that the water level is significantly lower than it had been the last time he had looked. There aren't many plants in Sootopolis, but Archie feels that if there were, he would have seen them shrivel away and turn into dust. He finds that the image of water being stolen away from its rightful place is too gut-churning to watch, so he turns his attention back to Maxie, both because he simply likes looking at him and because he fears that if anyone is going to die because of this in this little circle, Maxie will probably be first.

It is while Archie is watching Maxie that, as abruptly and vertiginously as it had come on, the unbearable sunlight fades. Maxie, who had been staring resolutely forward with no flickers of emotion, looks to Archie at this new development, then spins all around, looking everywhere, as if he wants to observe everything around him before he believes what is happening. Archie wonders how he has the strength to do this, mentally and physically; even now that the harsh sunlight is gone, Archie still feels dry and unstable. Maxie immediately walks over to him once he has verified reality and seems to hover in front of him, not quite sure if he can or should touch him. Archie still feels sticky and stripped, but he desperately wants to touch Maxie, to kiss him again after so long.

Still, Archie knows that he, Maxie, and everyone else around are dehydrated and probably have numerous other health issues occurring because of the drought, so he settles for giving Maxie a quick, soft kiss. It's enough for now, enough to establish.

May comes out of the Cave of Origin shortly after, looking considerably less haggard than the rest of her company. When she sees what has become of the outside world, though, her eyes widen and she starts to wobble, her knees weak. "I…" she starts, "oh my Arceus, I… I caught Groudon. If I hadn't…oh Arceus, this wouldn't be…this wouldn't be…."

"No, no, May," Maxie says, gesturing her over because he's not too steady on his feet himself, "no, May, if…if you weren't around, there wouldn't be anything left. You saved us, May."

"If I hadn't been so selfish!" May screeches, now getting a better look at what's left of the water in Sootopolis and looking absolutely horrified. She starts to cry, pressing her hands against the dome of her Magma Suit.

"We have to go to a hospital," Wallace puts in from where he has placed himself in this disaster, his back pressed against the rock walls outside of the Cave of Origin.

"Oh, Arceus," May says, "what does everywhere else look like? Are people…are people dead?"

People probably are, Archie thinks, but he doesn't want May to have to think about this. He doesn't want her to blame this on herself or feel its weight like this. She doesn't deserve it. She's a hero.

May runs off to get medical assistance for everyone, and Archie watches the water. It looks strange and unnatural at the level it's at; he kind of feels like vomiting.

As Archie learns, being led away to a hospital and not allowing Maxie to go more than ten feet from his side, the devastation caused by the drought is not as bad as it could have been, and it's not as bad as Archie thought it would be. Sootopolis was the epicenter of the drought, and most people hadn't masochistically stood out in the burning sunlight like they were trying to scorch away all of the regrets and misdeeds worn in and underneath their skin. Some people had died, some Pokémon had died (and Archie had nearly cried out in anguish because he knew that they were mostly water and grass type Pokémon), but mostly, everyone was…alright, to some degree.

"You still love me after all of this?" Maxie asks as they are tended to in the same hospital room. Since everything had started to be pieced back together again, Maxie had kept quiet through most things, seeming to think that he had no right to speak on anything. Archie, though, had used strength that he didn't know that he had left to demand that he and Maxie be put together through their treatments.

"Forever," Archie answers, and he doesn't even want not to.

I want to tell you all where, exactly, this work came from; there are a few different sources of inspiration. First, I was listening to Sia's Fire Meet Gasoline one day, and it occurred to me how much those lyrics relate to Archie and Maxie. So, I was like, hey, why don't I write a song fic? Spoiler alert: I have never written a song fic before and this fic didn't break the chain. However, some of this fic is vaguely inspired by that song. Secondly, I was thinking about, as some people have mentioned before, the fact that-music and general amounts of devastation combined-Maxie seems to fuck up more than Archie does in Ruby/Omega Ruby vs. Sapphire/Alpha Sapphire. I wanted to write something detailing the actual, non-sugarcoated outcomes of Ruby/Omega Ruby and Sapphire/Alpha Sapphire with my own special Hardenshipping twist, which I did. But, I had a dilemma.

Basically, Emerald is my favorite game ever. No, not my favorite Pokémon game ever: my favorite game ever. I tend to completely skip over Ruby and Sapphire when I think about the events of Gen III, and I only really think about Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire because, much to my chagrin, Emerald never got a remake. I was caught between two conflicting desires: to write about Emerald always and forever, or create the story that I wanted. I decided to loosen the stronghold that I've had on Emerald for...probably literally around 11 years? Emerald still has the best ending and storyline in my opinion and is still my end-all be-all, though.

That might seem kind of trivial to you, but here's the thing: this story felt like a big leap for me as a writer. I sort of twisted out of what I normally do. I really do adore this story, and honestly, I adore Archie and Maxie too, even though that's probably obvious.

Also, for my inspiration, I wanted to show the dark side of the Heavy Rainfall and the Drought, as I already mentioned a little bit. The games really don't do the horror of these situations any justice; the water level doesn't rise at all during the Heavy Rainfall, and everyone stands out in the Drought as if the blazing sun isn't sucking out the Earth's moisture. I wanted to write about the rising water levels, the unbearable heat, the dark, ugly effects! People would have been swept away by water in the Heavy Rainfall, the water levels would have dramatically receeded in the Drought. And, honestly, do you think that people would have kept their clothes on if the sun was shining unnaturally intensely? I wanted to see people feeling ill, woozy, and desperate in these conditions. I wanted to make them realistic.

Lastly for my inspirations, I got a lot of my inspiration from this fic from the various songs I was listening to while I wrote it. Obviously I was listening to Heavy Rainfall and Drought some of the time, but I also listened to Archie, Marry Me and Next of Kin by Alvvays.