Chapter Text
Sixty-three thousand, two hundred and forty nine. Blue has lost to Red sixty-three thousand, two hundred and forty nine times.
He doesn’t know how it’s possible. It shouldn’t be, by any measure. He can’t comprehend how many years he’s spent just scaling the side of the monster Red lives on top of, but knows a normal human can’t possibly live that long. Yet, he's here again.
He has to win once, though. Somehow. He’ll do anything. That thought is what pushes him up the mountainside, shortness of breath be damned.
After what feels like an age of him stumbling through pure-white fog and ice, he makes it to the peak. A mass of snow that fell one day and never melted, and standing at its summit is Red, a distant crimson dot among the white.
He has to win… but for some reason, his legs feel weak, too weak to keep him upright. Maybe the altitude poisoning is finally getting to him, Blue dully thinks to himself. He kneels where he stands, snow melting into his trousers where he lands and freezing the skin underneath.
Blue blankly stares at the wind-sculpted snow in front of him until he hears Red’s footsteps draw near. The sound reignites his desperation and melts his resolve.
“Red,” He mumbles, voice raw from disuse. “Tell me how to beat you.”
“...”
“There has to be a way. Just lose once, and I’ll go home. I won’t bother you again.” His hands find a place to cling on the front of Red’s pants. The familiar, unchanged fabric feels warm. Dark brown eyes meet his own as Blue looks up at his best friend in the whole world.
“...”
“I know you hate this. You hate me being here. You just want me to go home, right? Fuck off and go back to being a washed-up nobody?” His pathetic, pleading cry turns to ragged shouts. “That’s what you want, right!?”
“...”
"Right?"
Blue presses his forehead into Red’s thighs. His breath leaves him in heaves, warm air fogging in front of his face. The young man coughs, coughs until he feels cold tears in the corner of his eyes, coughs until he can’t speak, coughs until he swears he'll pass out. The blizzard stings his throat.
In the midst of it, Blue feels a hand in his hair. Slowly petting him, running warm fingers along his freezing scalp, resting on the nape of his neck.
A palm on his cheek, pulling his tearstained face up.
A thumb near his eyes, gently wiping the salt away.
He hears the sound of ice crunching as Red drops to his own knees. He pulls Blue closer, into himself. Blue finds his hands running along the warm inside of his friend's jacket, over the familiar crest of his shoulder blade.
For a long time, Blue claimed his only loss against Red was at the league. It had been a bitter-tasting tearstained sore-loser fueled lie. He lost to him countless times before.
Blue then had thought that the first time he lost to Red had to be at the Lab. Decided that’s when everything went wrong, cursed the day they set out on their journeys.
Blue, kissing Red back in the midst of the never-ending blizzard, realizes that’s not quite true either. It was when he fell in love with him, exploring the woods behind Pallet Town as children. Comforting him after the incident at Silph. Grabbing his hand in the dark of the tower.
He’s going to keep losing to him, again and again. Every time he remembers him, every time someone talks about him- why is it always in the past tense?- every time he signs release form for a bright-eyed future league challenger, and every time he’ll...
He squeezes Red closer. Close enough to hear his heartbeat over the roar of Mt. Silver's ice.
If I can pull you closer, maybe we could win together. Even if I can’t win over you, as long as we’re together, it’s fine.
Fucking damn it, Red, why won’t you come home?
Why? Why did I lose? Why does it always have to be you, you, you!?
Why won’t you have some useless pity on me? Have you always been this selfish?
Is losing the only way I can have you again?
Will you ever come home? Back to me?
Do I deserve this? Do you hate me?
Have you ever lost to me the way I'm losing to you?
He's mumbled these words into Red's chest countless times before. Shouted them at him over the storm. Whispered them into the ear as they were slowly covered by fresh snow. Broke a pencil writing them into a doomed to be undelivered letter. Never are they answered. The thoughts now only echo against the inside of his dizzy head.
Never is a strong word, isn't it?
Statistically, it doesn't exist.
He learned this a long time ago as kid. Even moves that hit one hundred percent of the time can miss.
So, if he climbs this mountain enough times, if he asks these questions enough times, if he challenges his best friend enough times... He'll get lucky, and Red will call it quits. Call it a one in a sixty-five thousand chance.
He blinks, standing at the sun-dappled entrance of the Kantonian National Preserve. The sound of the blizzard is gone, replaced with only a gentle breeze through up-on-high pine branches.
The feeling of a warm hand against his cheek fades away too, and his body is dry. Mount Silver looms in the summer distance. His camping back strap is cutting into his shoulder once more, but he's used to the pain at this point.
Sixty-three thousand, two hundred and fifty. He’s lost to Red sixty-three thousand, two hundred and fifty times.