Chapter Text
Some days, he just… couldn’t.
Couldn’t push forward. Couldn’t keep going.
Couldn’t get out of bed.
He heard Corbeau’s alarm ring into the quiet of the morning. Heard both of his partners groan. He didn’t know how long he’d been awake, just drifting, staring at nothing. At some point during the night, he’d rolled away from them and curled up on the edge of their bed, far enough that even Philippe’s radiating warmth couldn’t reach him.
He heard the sounds of his partners greeting the day. Corbeau’s half-hearted curses, Philippe’s unimpressed chuckle. But the space between him and them was empty. Gaping. A cavern he didn’t know how to cross.
The dream wasn’t even a nightmare, was the thing. He’d had plenty of those—visions of running frantically through the city on the night the Tower awakened, fighting for his life, watching the streets and buildings and people he’d come to love be torn apart by roots and vines and, if he wasn’t fast enough (and he was never fucking fast enough), obliterated completely by that horrible pink-white light, more destructive than an atom bomb.
This hadn’t been that dream.
It was… after that, he thought. After he’d failed. The streets were in ruin. Taxis laid on their sides. Streetlamps twisted and mangled. The vibrant city that had taken him into itself when he had nowhere else to go was silent.
Empty.
He hadn’t been afraid. (Hadn’t been anything.) He’d just wandered. Around the plazas, through each district, not even looking for something because he already knew there would be nothing to find. His Pokéballs were hollow at his belt. Hotel Z was dark and still, one door hanging off its hinges, the foyer beyond it lost in shadow. The Rust Syndicate building stood tall, but the walls of its courtyard had crumbled, and the lobby was vast and silent.
In the dream, he’d wandered into it, and his footsteps hadn’t even echoed on the floor. And when he got to their apartment, it was empty. Silent. Cold. He wandered through each room, not because he expected to find them (they were gone, gone, gone, he was alone) but because he knew the sight of their bed without them in it would break him.
He was right.
Eventually, the only room left was the bedroom. He pushed the door open against his own will. There it stood, the huge bed that had once been only Corbeau’s (and when he could feel anything, the thought of his lover lying alone in that vast space, no other bodies to warm him, no arms to hold him close, no one to curl against his back and keep him safe, cut into him like a knife. But that was when he could feel things). The sheets were pulled up on one side and lay unmade on the other. Beckoning. He didn’t want to get closer, didn’t want to feel that cold emptiness that seemed to radiate from what should have been his greatest refuge, but his feet carried him across the room anyway. He watched, detached, as his hand pulled back the covers, as his knee pressed into the mattress, as the pillow came up to meet him.
Cold. Empty. A l o n e.
Then he’d opened his eyes. And the streetlights were on outside, and he could hear Philippe’s deep breaths like the bellows of a forge, and he could hear Corbeau muttering nonsense in his sleep. But he was still cold. Empty. Alone.
It would have been easier if he could cry, he thought. He’d read somewhere that tears looked different under a microscope if they were born of happiness or sadness or anger. That the body actually released some sort of hormones through tears—a safety valve when an emotion got too big to handle. But what was there to cry when he was just empty? (What would his tears look like then?)
Corbeau and Philippe had a more demanding schedule than he did. It wasn’t unusual for them to be dressed and out of their flat before he stumbled out of bed. Maybe they wouldn’t notice anything was wrong. Maybe they’d just leave, go on with their day, assume he was just sleeping. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to feel the emptiness that felt like it was leaking from his skin, burrowing down inside of him, hollowing him out.
Maybe that would be better.
He should just close his eyes. So they’d think he was asleep. That’s what he should do.
(But deep, deep inside him were their voices, Corbeau’s affectionate chiding, Philippe’s rumbling encouragement. Telling him that they loved him, that they were here for him, that he made them happy. It was the single spark of light in the echoing emptiness inside him, and he cupped it close in cold hands.)
He couldn’t open his mouth. Couldn’t speak to them, ask for their help. But he could keep his eyes open.
So when Corbeau circled the bed a few minutes later to press a goodbye kiss to his forehead, he paused. Paxton couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t raise his eyes that far. But he kept them open.
“Paxton?”
Corbeau crouched next to him. His face came into Paxton’s view. Paxton couldn’t meet his gaze. But he kept his eyes open.
“Paxton. Can you hear me?”
The concern in his partner’s voice broke through the cavernous emptiness inside him. Just a pinprick, but it was enough. Paxton dragged his eyes upward to meet Corbeau’s. (He wondered absently if he looked as empty as he felt.)
“Oh, darlin’,” Corbeau breathed. He looked up over Paxton’s shoulder, and he said something else, but Paxton’s eyes slid closed and the words didn’t make it into his mind. He was too busy replaying that moment. One of Corbeau’s treasured nicknames for him, his accent slipping out to soften the word, something that made him feel held and safe and treasured every time his partner said it. It was warm. Soft. He added it to the tiny spark of their affection in his mind and cradled them both close.
There were cool fingers in his hair. He couldn’t even move enough to nuzzle into them, but his next breath came a little easier. The hand in his hair stayed, and another came up to cup his cheek. Those thin fingers traced gently over his brow, down his nose, over his cheeks, gently brushing his lips, just soft, cool touches to his skin that gave him something to focus on. Something that made him feel a little less alone.
Oh. There were the tears.
“Oh, love,” came the soft, smooth murmur. “We’re here, sunshine. We’re with you.”
He was so, so grateful that they knew him. He’d explained to them, haltingly, embarrassed, that sometimes his brain just… went quiet. Left him feeling cut off, alone, isolated, empty. They’d asked what they could do to help, their gazes intent on him as if they were prepared to memorize every word that came out of his mouth. That unwavering attention had been a little much, but he’d never been one to shy from a challenge, so he did his best to meet their eyes as he explained that all he really needed was to not be alone.
They’d figured out the rest together. He’d never really… had anyone with him on those days. He hadn’t had too many during his early days in Lumiose, too caught up in the thrilling momentum of the Royale and the horrible pressure to go faster, do more, trying desperately to head off the disaster they could all sense looming over the city. At most, he just needed a quiet morning alone before he was able to rouse himself to face the day, so his team didn’t have a chance to notice anything out of the ordinary.
So when the first really bad day hit, after they’d become them but before they spent more time together than apart, he’d been left alone in his bed at Hotel Z, unable to answer the text messages that buzzed through his phone—just a few at first, then more and more crammed together as his silence started to truly worry them. Eventually, they’d burst through the door to his room, chests heaving as if they’d run all the way from the Syndicate.
The shock of their sudden entrance was enough to get him to open his eyes, but he still couldn’t move. Corbeau’s expression turned savage, and Paxton closed his eyes again, bracing himself for his partner’s anger, for accusations and biting questions of why he’d made them worry. But something must have stopped him, because all Corbeau did was let out an intentionally even breath, walk slowly to his side, and settle himself on the bed next to Paxton. Philippe had joined him, and together, they waited in silence until the shadow of evening fell across the room and the weight on Paxton’s chest lifted enough that he could begin to explain.
Each time after that, Corbeau and Philippe worked together, their incredible teamwork and partnership bent wholly toward helping him and figuring out anything they could do to reach him through that emptiness. Touches helped, they’d found. Gentle fingers on his skin to bring him out of his fog, then a firm embrace to keep him in his body. Their voices helped, too, calling his name, telling him they loved him, that he wasn’t alone. If he was able, he’d eat and drink whatever they gave him, gentle food to keep the nausea at bay, warm tea to take the edge off the frigid loneliness.
But really, it was just them. Their steady presence. Their love. Corbeau in front of him, his rival, his lover, the one who pushed him forward and never stopped challenging him, never stopped showing him how to grow. Philippe behind him, his partner, his confidante, the one who was a soft place to rest when he needed it and a wall between him and the rest of the world when all he wanted to do was hide.
They stayed with him for the rest of that day. The guilt of making them take a day off just to take care of him fluttered at the edges of his mind, but he’d apologized enough (and been told off enough) that it was a little easier to think around.
Corbeau kept a hand in his hair the entire time, nails scratching gently at his scalp or fingers coming around to cradle the curve of his skull. Philippe settled in behind him, his broad chest warm against Paxton’s back, one thick arm wound around his chest to hold him together, keep him from turning into a cloud of vapor and drifting away.
They talked the whole day, sometimes to him, sometimes to each other, alternating between gentle affirmations and practical business talk. The words weren’t important (except when they called his name, called him kid, sunshine, darlin’, love, love, love). They just talked. Let him know that they were there. That he wasn’t alone.
It was enough. The loneliness seeped out of him bit by bit, that horrible cold draining away, and in its place was them, their love, their warmth, their presence, the comfort that they knew him and stayed with him anyway. He felt it filling him up. Bit by bit. Drop by drop. Like waves on the sand, each one reaching just a bit higher, until he was submerged entirely in them. Until he could finally breathe.
And in the evening, wrapped up in them, safe with them, he opened his eyes again. He stretched his body, allowed himself to feel the sensation of their skin on his. He looked to each of them, reached out to them, gave them a gentle kiss, one by one. The relief in their eyes, the love, filled up the last of the empty places inside of him.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
And they held him close.