Title: Frozen
Author: Shadow/Phantomness
Pairing: Championshipping (Lance x Red)
Fandom: Pokémon
Theme: #49, Cold
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks. Special-verse

Warnings: AU, shonen-ai, insanity

On Mondays, Red does his laundry. He is very practiced as he sorts through a week’s worth of tangled shirts and underwear. He measures the blue detergent very precisely, one fifth of a cup, pouring it into the cold water as he closes the lid. The washing machine hums and whirrs white, and Red smiles.

On Tuesdays, Red vacuums all the rooms in the house, vacuum cleaner moving over clean carpet and leaving no dust in his wake.

On Wednesdays, Red works in the garden, pulling up weeds and coaxing the little tomatoes to grow, watching the herbs on his front porch bloom bright green. He waters the plants and smiles as he strokes a smooth leaf. Rosemary.

On Thursdays, Red cleans his bathroom, spraying Windex over glass surfaces and scouring white powder over porcelain surfaces to remove the stain of use. He wears bright yellow gloves and hums a little.

On Friday, Red is halfway through his shopping when he sees someone watching him. It’s a girl with long red hair, but it’s messy, and her eyes are very sad. Still, he doesn’t know her, so he picks up a dozen eggs and then walks to the checkout line and pays no more attention to her.

On Saturdays, Red lies on the couch and watches T.V., and wishes that he was a pokemon trainer but that’s ridiculous because he is much too old and Professor Oak wouldn’t give him a pokedex. He tried asking, but the Professor said no.

He doesn’t know why.

On Sundays, Red sleeps in, and then he gets up and goes outside. He feeds the little fish in his front yard pond and rakes leaves away from the front walk. The tomatoes are coming up nicely, and he spritzes them with some extra water. He makes himself a salad and chicken and biscuits for dinner, and is startled to see that he has set out two plates. He shakes his head and puts one away.

On Mondays, Red does laundry. He smiles as he turns all of his t-shirts inside out and watches the water fill the tub. The window is open, and he hears Pidgeys chirping outside. It is a good day, he thinks, but for a second, he feels a flash of something.

He frowns, and pours the detergent in, shaking his head.

On Tuesday, Red finds that he has run out of vacuum cleaner bags. With a shrug, heh goes to the grocery shop. He sees the girl there again, still wearing the long dark jacket, and he feels sorry for her, so he buys apricot cookies and asks if she’ll come over for tea.

She looks at him, and he sees that her eyes are very empty, just like his, but she nods, slowly, and as she follows him home, no one says anything.

They sit at the table and she eats two cookies, and when she takes her coat off he stares at her because underneath she is wearing a red jacket but there are horrible … things… embedded in her wrists that blink.

But they’re no worse than other things, and in a minute his fit passes. He says that she can stay the night, and she nods.

Somehow, she ends up staying longer than a night. She does little things for him, and sleeps in his mom’s room, and wears his mom’s old clothing that is a bit too big for her, but she looks good in it, even if she doesn’t have a big chest like a lot of other girls.

She cooks, too, better than the frozen dinners he makes, and for a while, they don’t speak, just nod to each other.

When he finds out that she’s really a boy, because he sees her coming out of the bathroom with only a towel, he doesn’t care because those things don’t matter. Nothing changes between them, but then he starts having nightmares, so they start sleeping in the same bed. It helps.

Five weeks later, he kisses him for the first time, and he cries, because even as Lance holds him close, he remembers why he forgot, and what he left behind after Cerise. And he aches, and he burns, as he holds Lance’s hands in his, and watches the control bracelets hum.

No wonder he felt so cold without him…

End Fic

Completed 1/17/07

I feel so drained for some reason. Stupid economics!