Pokemon Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ The Hardest Thing ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: TikiGoddess 
The next morning, Gary goes to Ash's house, hoping to talk things out and come up with an arrangement. But where's Ash?
Anime/Manga: Pokemon Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance | Type: Songfic | Uploaded On: 03.09.2003 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.0K | Visits: 513 | Status: Work In Progress
The next morning, Gary goes to Ash's house, hoping to talk things out and come up with an arrangement. But where's Ash?
Anime/Manga: Pokemon Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance | Type: Songfic | Uploaded On: 03.09.2003 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.0K | Visits: 513 | Status: Work In Progress
I woke up the next morning and could feel- without moving- that Ash was gone. I rolled over to the side of the bed he'd been sleeping on and inhaled deeply. I smelled mostly the scent of my own shampoo and soap, which he'd used that night while we showered, but it was laced with a scent I recognized as purely his. His sweat, or maybe his breath, maybe both, I couldn't tell. I lay with my face pressed into the pillow until I couldn't smell it anymore.
Finally sitting up, I got off the bed and resolved to go to his house and talk with him; surely, we could think of something, some way of being together without breaking any hearts. Part of me nagging to be heard insisted that it really was hopeless; the rest of me wasn't so sure, maybe even wanted to be shot down. Some people are meant to thrive on heartache; sometimes, I think I'm one of those people.
I could see his footprints in the lush carpet scuffing to where his clothes had been placed, then out the door and down the hall. As I stared at the spots, the events of last night replayed in my mind- the shower, with the lights off and candles sitting on the corner of the sink dimming the atmosphere while we tended to each other's wounds, each of us feeling unspeakably guilty. Both of us were hiding tears in the water from the shower, sometimes begging forgiveness with kisses, othertimes taking comfort in the presence of the other, stomachs pressed together, feeling the other's heart beating out the pain. The bedroom, which the shower was thankfully en suite to; Grampa would doubtlessly not react well to a pair of boys in towels and little else trying to go from bathroom to bedroom while maintaining as much physical contact as possible. As it was, we stumbled more than walked to the bed, our limbs entangling, until we fell onto the blankets. Who had their way with who, I couldn't say.
We'd said so much last night, in between bouts of love-making. "I'm sorry", "I love you," "I can't describe how you make me feel" spattered through out conversations about what my grampa would do if he caught us, what would Ash's mother say, what would Misty do, what if they accepted it, what would the rest of Pallet say, God why did all this have to hurt so much?
He promised he would never fall out of love with me, no matter what happened. That's probably why I wasn't as outraged as I could've been that he left.
I pulled on fresh clothes, carefully stepping around the foot prints Ash had left behind.
As I stepped out of the house, I wondered what it would be like, someday, to step outside with him next to me. Into broad day light, hand in hand or arm in arm, and not care who saw us. The thought gave me fuel, and I began a brisk walk towards his house.
As I stepped through the gate into his front yard, Misty came tearing out of the house and nearly collided with me.
"Misty? Are you all right?" Months upon years of practice had taught me to act civilly and even friendly with the whore-bitch who would try to steal my Ash from me. As I said it, I flashed back to last night, when Ash told me they were engaged; I quickly thought of the peaceful feeling I got when I held him tightly, and that's what saved Misty from being immediately thrown to the ground.
"Gary! Where's Ash? he said he was going over to your house last night and I swear I heard him come home early this morning but I might've been dreaming because he's not here and I don't know what to do..."
She was babbling, but what I could dicern made my heart leap into my throat, then fall into my stomach.
"Ash isn't here?" I asked, trying to keep the demanding edge off my voice. "Where's Delia?"
"Inside," Misty said, and when I began to speed walk towards the house, she continued, "I was just going to your house to see if he'd stayed the night there. So he did leave last night?"
"Yeah," I threw back, then began to form the lies. "We were watching a movie, after he told me the news and we talked for a while. Congratulations!"
I pushed the door open, then flung it a little too forcefully closed behind me, hoping maybe that would stall Misty for a few moments.
"Delia!?"
"In the kitchen, dear!"
I stepped into the kitchen to see Delia sitting at the table, looking out the window in a sad sort of thoughtfulness. "I could swear he came home this morning," she sighed, "but he must've left or something. Gary, do you think maybe I pushed him too hard this time? I was just trying to hurry him along, he's always been so bad at initiative..."
I tried to say something, but nothing helpful came to mind. Instead, I just sat down across the table from her, folded my hands together, and rested them in front of my mouth, trying to calm down enough to think.
Misty stepped in a moment later, and to my smug and completely internal pleasure, she was rubbing her forehead where the door must have hit her. She looked at Delia, then looked at me, sat down in resignation and burst into tears.
She'd never seemed like the dramatically emotional type, excluding her sometimes violent treatment of anything male. I almost felt sorry for her, if it weren't that a part of me wanted to do as she was doing, break down and cry and have Delia comfort me.
Instead, I stood up quickly and went up to Ash's room, leaving the two women to talk.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, sitting down on the bed and looking around for any sort of clue. The room was neat and clean, the bed was made, the collections of pokémon related junk covered every spare piece of furniture. I sighed, and closed my eyes.
The hours before I fell asleep swam behind my eyelids, a confused swirl of pain and frustration and love and desperation burning holes through my heart. It was like someone had taken all the memories, jammed them in a blender, and set it on liquefy.
Then I thought, 'God, where is he?' and broke down into tears.
I probably sat there for an hour, maybe even two. I cried, calmed down, thought too long, then cried some more in a cycle that felt never ending. Everything he'd said spun in circles in my mind, and I searched desperately for clues as to what happened. Nothing came.
When I went back downstairs, Delia and Misty had left, leaving a note on the table saying they'd gone to get groceries and ask around for anyone who may have seen Ash. I crumpled the note and threw it in the trash, opening the fridge as if looking for something and ended up just wasting energy.
When they returned home, I helped them unload the grocery bags. I noticed an increase in the amount of chocolate purchased- at least one grocery bag was dedicated to carrying chocolate products, from cookies to candy. I didn't ask, but offered to start some easy- to- bake cookies for the three of us. Delia pointed me to the cookie sheets.
Three hours later found us sitting around the living room, pretending to watch TV and periodically checking the clocks and asking "has anyone checked with Brock? Maybe he went to tell him" or "Has anyone asked Tracey?", running through the list of even the most obscure names of people Ash may have up and decided to contact about the engagement. I didn't say it, but I knew we were all thinking the same thing: He could've just as easily called those people, or at least told us what he was doing.
Misty finally went to bed, leaving Delia and myself to sit in relative silence. We were desperately trying to be entertained by whatever stupid cartoon was on when she said, "Gary... I'm certain he came home this morning."
I glanced at her, unsure of what to say. Delia had easily been the calmest about everything that happened behind a facade of vacancy; now I was afraid she'd become mentally unsettled.
"I think you mentioned that earlier," I said carefully.
"In fact," she added, voice still lilting, "I'm absolutely positive." She turned her head towards me, and I faultered under her gaze. Tears were building around her eyes. "Gary, what did I do? I did something wrong, I know it..."
I almost said something consoling, something like "It's all right, you didn't do anything," but my voice snagged on something I hadn't thought of earlier.
His room had been immaculately clean.
Ash's room was never clean. He never made his bed, he never picked his dirty socks and underwear off the floor unless he was going to wash it, and he never got all of it, his collections of junk were never organized.
Delia must've seen my expression change. "What's wrong?" she asked, but I was already standing and running for the stairs up to Ash's room.
I shoved the door open and froze in the door frame. Everything was spotless. The bed sheets were even put on straight. I opened the drawers- all that was left were clothes items I knew he was either too small for or would never wear, some small pieces of memorabilia from childhood, and little else. I opened his closet- his favorite sneakers were gone, along with his spare shoes for when his sneakers finally gave out. I looked to his shelf where he kept all his Pokémon, all his traveling things- it was bare.
"Gary?" Delia's voice called up the stairs. I heard her step into the room behind me, then turned to face her.
"He came home," I said, voice quavering. "He was here..."
Tears blurred my vision, and I tried to turn away before Delia could see, sitting on the bed and facing away from her. Delia stood still for several minutes, then closed the door on the hallway, sitting down next to me. I felt her hand rest between my shoulder blades.
"He didn't tell you he was going to do this?" she asked softly. I could hear her own tears building in her voice.
"No, he didn't tell me anything." I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself.
Delia fell silent again and maintained it for another several minutes before whispering, "Some people do things without warning because they don't want to hurt the ones they love the most."
I didn't say anything at first, then realized what she'd said. I turned my gaze on her, and saw her expression tell me everything I needed to know.
"You..."
"I know," she said, nodding. Her dark eyes were wide, tears falling now, and a small part of me suddenly understood what it meant to be a mother. "I didn't think he would leave... I hoped he would choose instead of run..." She smothered a sob. "I'm sorry, this is my fault..."
"I should be sorry, too," I conceded, trying to swallow back my own pain. "I didn't just let him break it off... That's why he came over last night, to break up. I didn't let him. He wanted to make you and Misty happy, and he couldn't because I wouldn't let him..." I smiled wanly. "See? He cares about you two more."
Delia shuddered from suppressed sobs, and said "but he should've cared more about himself."
I didn't know how to argue with that.
Finally sitting up, I got off the bed and resolved to go to his house and talk with him; surely, we could think of something, some way of being together without breaking any hearts. Part of me nagging to be heard insisted that it really was hopeless; the rest of me wasn't so sure, maybe even wanted to be shot down. Some people are meant to thrive on heartache; sometimes, I think I'm one of those people.
I could see his footprints in the lush carpet scuffing to where his clothes had been placed, then out the door and down the hall. As I stared at the spots, the events of last night replayed in my mind- the shower, with the lights off and candles sitting on the corner of the sink dimming the atmosphere while we tended to each other's wounds, each of us feeling unspeakably guilty. Both of us were hiding tears in the water from the shower, sometimes begging forgiveness with kisses, othertimes taking comfort in the presence of the other, stomachs pressed together, feeling the other's heart beating out the pain. The bedroom, which the shower was thankfully en suite to; Grampa would doubtlessly not react well to a pair of boys in towels and little else trying to go from bathroom to bedroom while maintaining as much physical contact as possible. As it was, we stumbled more than walked to the bed, our limbs entangling, until we fell onto the blankets. Who had their way with who, I couldn't say.
We'd said so much last night, in between bouts of love-making. "I'm sorry", "I love you," "I can't describe how you make me feel" spattered through out conversations about what my grampa would do if he caught us, what would Ash's mother say, what would Misty do, what if they accepted it, what would the rest of Pallet say, God why did all this have to hurt so much?
He promised he would never fall out of love with me, no matter what happened. That's probably why I wasn't as outraged as I could've been that he left.
I pulled on fresh clothes, carefully stepping around the foot prints Ash had left behind.
As I stepped out of the house, I wondered what it would be like, someday, to step outside with him next to me. Into broad day light, hand in hand or arm in arm, and not care who saw us. The thought gave me fuel, and I began a brisk walk towards his house.
As I stepped through the gate into his front yard, Misty came tearing out of the house and nearly collided with me.
"Misty? Are you all right?" Months upon years of practice had taught me to act civilly and even friendly with the whore-bitch who would try to steal my Ash from me. As I said it, I flashed back to last night, when Ash told me they were engaged; I quickly thought of the peaceful feeling I got when I held him tightly, and that's what saved Misty from being immediately thrown to the ground.
"Gary! Where's Ash? he said he was going over to your house last night and I swear I heard him come home early this morning but I might've been dreaming because he's not here and I don't know what to do..."
She was babbling, but what I could dicern made my heart leap into my throat, then fall into my stomach.
"Ash isn't here?" I asked, trying to keep the demanding edge off my voice. "Where's Delia?"
"Inside," Misty said, and when I began to speed walk towards the house, she continued, "I was just going to your house to see if he'd stayed the night there. So he did leave last night?"
"Yeah," I threw back, then began to form the lies. "We were watching a movie, after he told me the news and we talked for a while. Congratulations!"
I pushed the door open, then flung it a little too forcefully closed behind me, hoping maybe that would stall Misty for a few moments.
"Delia!?"
"In the kitchen, dear!"
I stepped into the kitchen to see Delia sitting at the table, looking out the window in a sad sort of thoughtfulness. "I could swear he came home this morning," she sighed, "but he must've left or something. Gary, do you think maybe I pushed him too hard this time? I was just trying to hurry him along, he's always been so bad at initiative..."
I tried to say something, but nothing helpful came to mind. Instead, I just sat down across the table from her, folded my hands together, and rested them in front of my mouth, trying to calm down enough to think.
Misty stepped in a moment later, and to my smug and completely internal pleasure, she was rubbing her forehead where the door must have hit her. She looked at Delia, then looked at me, sat down in resignation and burst into tears.
She'd never seemed like the dramatically emotional type, excluding her sometimes violent treatment of anything male. I almost felt sorry for her, if it weren't that a part of me wanted to do as she was doing, break down and cry and have Delia comfort me.
Instead, I stood up quickly and went up to Ash's room, leaving the two women to talk.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, sitting down on the bed and looking around for any sort of clue. The room was neat and clean, the bed was made, the collections of pokémon related junk covered every spare piece of furniture. I sighed, and closed my eyes.
The hours before I fell asleep swam behind my eyelids, a confused swirl of pain and frustration and love and desperation burning holes through my heart. It was like someone had taken all the memories, jammed them in a blender, and set it on liquefy.
Then I thought, 'God, where is he?' and broke down into tears.
I probably sat there for an hour, maybe even two. I cried, calmed down, thought too long, then cried some more in a cycle that felt never ending. Everything he'd said spun in circles in my mind, and I searched desperately for clues as to what happened. Nothing came.
When I went back downstairs, Delia and Misty had left, leaving a note on the table saying they'd gone to get groceries and ask around for anyone who may have seen Ash. I crumpled the note and threw it in the trash, opening the fridge as if looking for something and ended up just wasting energy.
When they returned home, I helped them unload the grocery bags. I noticed an increase in the amount of chocolate purchased- at least one grocery bag was dedicated to carrying chocolate products, from cookies to candy. I didn't ask, but offered to start some easy- to- bake cookies for the three of us. Delia pointed me to the cookie sheets.
Three hours later found us sitting around the living room, pretending to watch TV and periodically checking the clocks and asking "has anyone checked with Brock? Maybe he went to tell him" or "Has anyone asked Tracey?", running through the list of even the most obscure names of people Ash may have up and decided to contact about the engagement. I didn't say it, but I knew we were all thinking the same thing: He could've just as easily called those people, or at least told us what he was doing.
Misty finally went to bed, leaving Delia and myself to sit in relative silence. We were desperately trying to be entertained by whatever stupid cartoon was on when she said, "Gary... I'm certain he came home this morning."
I glanced at her, unsure of what to say. Delia had easily been the calmest about everything that happened behind a facade of vacancy; now I was afraid she'd become mentally unsettled.
"I think you mentioned that earlier," I said carefully.
"In fact," she added, voice still lilting, "I'm absolutely positive." She turned her head towards me, and I faultered under her gaze. Tears were building around her eyes. "Gary, what did I do? I did something wrong, I know it..."
I almost said something consoling, something like "It's all right, you didn't do anything," but my voice snagged on something I hadn't thought of earlier.
His room had been immaculately clean.
Ash's room was never clean. He never made his bed, he never picked his dirty socks and underwear off the floor unless he was going to wash it, and he never got all of it, his collections of junk were never organized.
Delia must've seen my expression change. "What's wrong?" she asked, but I was already standing and running for the stairs up to Ash's room.
I shoved the door open and froze in the door frame. Everything was spotless. The bed sheets were even put on straight. I opened the drawers- all that was left were clothes items I knew he was either too small for or would never wear, some small pieces of memorabilia from childhood, and little else. I opened his closet- his favorite sneakers were gone, along with his spare shoes for when his sneakers finally gave out. I looked to his shelf where he kept all his Pokémon, all his traveling things- it was bare.
"Gary?" Delia's voice called up the stairs. I heard her step into the room behind me, then turned to face her.
"He came home," I said, voice quavering. "He was here..."
Tears blurred my vision, and I tried to turn away before Delia could see, sitting on the bed and facing away from her. Delia stood still for several minutes, then closed the door on the hallway, sitting down next to me. I felt her hand rest between my shoulder blades.
"He didn't tell you he was going to do this?" she asked softly. I could hear her own tears building in her voice.
"No, he didn't tell me anything." I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself.
Delia fell silent again and maintained it for another several minutes before whispering, "Some people do things without warning because they don't want to hurt the ones they love the most."
I didn't say anything at first, then realized what she'd said. I turned my gaze on her, and saw her expression tell me everything I needed to know.
"You..."
"I know," she said, nodding. Her dark eyes were wide, tears falling now, and a small part of me suddenly understood what it meant to be a mother. "I didn't think he would leave... I hoped he would choose instead of run..." She smothered a sob. "I'm sorry, this is my fault..."
"I should be sorry, too," I conceded, trying to swallow back my own pain. "I didn't just let him break it off... That's why he came over last night, to break up. I didn't let him. He wanted to make you and Misty happy, and he couldn't because I wouldn't let him..." I smiled wanly. "See? He cares about you two more."
Delia shuddered from suppressed sobs, and said "but he should've cared more about himself."
I didn't know how to argue with that.