Dedicated to Chelle, 'cause she 'ships and 'cause there are red ships and green ships but no ships like partnerships. Or twinships. I'm sorry, Chelle, I don't know what the heck happened.
Disclaimer: Standard 'I-don't-own' disclaimers apply. Bonus "I-don't-earn-anything-from-writing-this' track included. Send SASE for the 'Please-don't-sue-me-I'm-broke' Special Addition.
My Best Friends
Ash Ketchum was home. But not for long. The Pokemon League Games were only a few weeks away and he'd had a standing date with the Games ever since his debut match four years ago. Ash smiled as he stepped out onto the front porch of his mother's home. Strange to think that he hadn't lived here in five years. That he and Misty and Brock were still traveling together after all this time. Ash frowned suddenly and his hand tightened on the porch rail as he watched his rival stroll down the nearby street on his way to Professor Oak's home. Horrible to know that Gary Oak was still ahead of him in terms of Pokemon League Standing.
Gary thought he was so hot! Just because he'd actually gotten a chance to face the first of the elite four and because he had over eighty pokemon and nineteen badges. Well, Ash could have had those things too, but he'd also taken time out for fun with his friends. Gary had lost all of his friends a few years ago. Ash wasn't quite sure what had happened to the cheerleaders that had used to follow Gary around, but he sure didn't miss them. Ash's eyes tightened as he watched his rival walking. Probably on his way to get some of his more exotic pokemon out of storage. Just another way of showing off. Ash glanced back into his mother's house where his best friends were finishing breakfast. Gary might be showing off but two could play at that game…
"Hey, Gary! Hey! Wait up!" And Ash jumped off the porch. To his surprise, Gary waited in the middle of the quiet street without saying a word.
"Hey Ash." Was all he said when Ash reached him; it wasn't a cold greeting, nor a sneering one. When Ash thought about it he realized that most of his run-ins with Gary were like that now. Not cold or taunting, but sort of distant. One day, Ash was gonna find out what kind of humiliating plan Gary Oak had up his sleeve.
"Hey Gary, what'chya doin'?" Gary began to walk again and Ash began to walk with him. Silence reined for a moment. At last Gary sighed.
"I'm going to do some work with my Vaporeon and my Sandslash." He sighed again. "Lately I haven't had much time with them and they might come in handy against The Four later." Neither young man said anything for a while and Gary finally roused himself to ask, "What are you up to?"
Ash felt himself smile. 'Show-off talk about the elite four, meet your match.' He thought to himself. "Oh, Misty and Brock and I are probably going to go into town a bit later, get a thank-you gift for my mom for putting up with us and all of our noise." He shrugged and slid a quick glance over at his rival. "Maybe hit one of the clubs in Cerulean later, if Brock can fix the car." Ash was readying his next barb, prepared for a stinging comeback about how important it was to be training, about how the Elite Four were waiting. So he was surprised to hear Gary sigh, a deep, windy sigh, a wistful one.
"That sounds nice." Gary sent Ash a smiling glance, he sounded…sad? Ash stopped dead in the street.
"Yeah." His voice was cold, and as hard as flint. "It is nice to go out with friends." He made a great show of looking around the empty neighborhood. "Where are your friends, Gary?" His voice was taunting now. Gary also stopped and turned to face Ash.
"The cheerleaders? I got rid of 'em two years ago. Free advice, Ash? Don't knock your friends, 'cause the higher up you go the scarcer they're gonna be." Gary's voice was resigned, calm and he started walking again, leaving Ash staring at his back. Two running steps brought Ash to his rival's side again.
"Trying to scare me off? It's not gonna work Gary!" Ash moved quickly in front of Gary, forcing him to stop walking again. "I'm gonna go all the way to the top and nothing you say or do is going to stop me."
"Good luck to you then, Ash." Gary's voice as he stepped around Ash was suddenly as hard and as cold as Ash's had been. "But you think that you'll have friends there? That the Elite Four are friends with anybody? With each other?" The older boy whirled on his spellbound audience. "You listen to me Ash Ketchum and you listen good." Gary got up close to him, got in his face to deliver his next words. "We were best friends before we got our own pokemon, but when we were first starting to train pokemon I ditched you." Gary's eyes were flashing. "You had talent but I had years of experience over you and I figured, hey, you'd just weigh me down. So I dumped you and figured I'd find friends that shone, that would make me shine. You know what I found? Do you?"
Mutely, Ash shook his head. Gary backed off a few steps and folded his arms, not saying a word. Waiting. Finally, Ash spoke. "Cheerleaders, fancy friends and fame." It was true, all the things that Ash envied, wanted, Gary had. But Gary Oak laughed, bitterly.
"I found people that wanted to use me; my talent, my name, my fame. I started dropping people, looking for my true friends and when I reached the top I found that I didn't have anybody. Nobody Ash!" Gary sat, suddenly, on the curb resting his bent elbows on his knees. He looked up at Ash. "We were friends, you an' me. We're not now. That's my fault. But if you're not careful, you're going to lose what's left of your friends, and that'll be your fault."
Ash looked down at his rival, his oldest friend, confused. "What do you mean 'what's left of your friends'? Brock, Misty, and I are best friends."
Gary laughed, soft and knowingly. "You think that you're their best friend?" He motioned for Ash to sit, which he did hesitantly. Something in Gary's eyes gave him no other choice. "They're your best friends. But lately all you've been doing is training, trying to beat me, to beat the Four. And do you know what they've been doing?"
Ash was suddenly furious. "Don't you try and insinuate anything! Brock and Misty are friends and anything else is just…just, not true!" Gary waved away his anger, his outburst.
"You're right. The rumors aren't true and they are friends. Ash, they are each other's best friends. Not you. You're a friend, the guy they hang around with and help train, but you're not a 'best friend' to either one of them."
Ash stood. "I don't have to listen to your crap, Gary. You're just jealous and trying to get me to stop training with all your talk about how it's lonely at the top." He turned to leave, started to leave, when Gary's voice stopped him.
"The rumors aren't true, Ash." Gary's voice floated after him. "Not yet. But anybody who takes a good look at them knows that pretty soon friends isn't all they're gonna be."
Ash risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Gary was standing now, hands in his pockets, rocking slightly on his feet. His pendant swayed gently with the motion, glinting in the bright sunlight.
"You've got talent Ash, and luck in spades, but the reason you've never beat me, the reason you're never gonna beat the Elite Four is that you don't open your eyes and see the big picture, the whole picture." Ash started walking again. "And one day Ash, it's gonna be the reason that you're even sadder and more alone than I am. Because I didn't know what was happening until it was too late, I was ignorant and blind. But you've been warned and if you end up where I am there's nothing you can blame it on but your own self." Ash kept walking. He almost, almost, almost didn't hear that last words that Gary spoke. "God, please listen to me." But even though he heard, Ash ignored him.
'Lonely at the top bullshit.' Ash thought to himself as he climbed the front steps to his mother's house. 'Oh, soon they're gonna be more than friends', he continued his inner monologue and then stopped dead in the door to the kitchen. Music was playing; how he'd missed that, he'd never know. It was an old song, ironically about best friends. He had the CD somewhere. And Brock and Misty were dancing to it. Together.
He hadn't known that either of them could dance, let alone with such grace and ease as they were now. They were supposed to be doing the dishes, Ash supposed, noting the sink full of hot water and bubbles. Obviously something else had taken precedence. As he watched, Brock grabbed a wooden spoon, dripping with water and bubbles, out of the sink and used it as a microphone.
"Remember when we first met…" He sang along to the song on the radio, twirling Misty away from him with his other hand. Misty whirled back into him and grabbed the 'microphone' away from he dance partner.
"We had such fun," She turned her back to him as she danced and sang. "Oh, I never will forget!" She tossed a playful, playful, Ash told himself, not flirtatious, glance over he shoulder during the last part of the line. And if Brock slid his arms around Misty's waist, drawing her back against his chest and holding her hand as he sang the next line, well that could just be a friendly gesture too.
"Since then the times are so good," Brock swayed with Misty in his arms and she turned to face him, still holding the spoon and his hand as she joined her voice to his. "We've always stuck together like best friends should." They were grinning into each other's faces, breathless even though they'd barely been moving in the past few moments.
Ash watched them dance, part of him wishing to step into the room, to interrupt, to re-insert himself into the easy friendship he was watching. But he didn't. Wouldn't. Couldn't. How many nights while he trained had they had time to perfect their movements together? How much time would it take him to learn? How much training would he miss dancing and laughing like they were? Maybe that was why he'd never seen them dance before. Never heard them laugh like they were doing now.
He left the kitchen and moved into the garden behind the house. Ash sat in the cool grass and let the music and laughter from the kitchen wash over him. He looked over the backyard and let himself slip into the past. Watched himself and his rival as friends, playing at being pokemon. Spinning dreams about being pokemon masters. And he realized that neither he nor Gary were living those dreams, even as close to the Elite Four as they both were.
Ash let the morning go by, listening to the best friends inside his mother's house. Neither Brock nor Misty came looking for him, assuming that he was training. And Ash Ketchum came to another realization. Gary's warning had come too late. Brock and Misty and he were no longer friends. They were simply sharing space with him now. As the morning turned to afternoon Ash stood and wiped away the tears that he hadn't noticed he'd cried. It was Gary's fault that the two of them had stopped being friends, but it was his fault that they had never gotten back to being friends. He made his way over to Professor Oak's lab and watched Gary calling out commands to the pokemon in front of him.
"Hey, Gary? I listened."