Season: I have never been more proud of FEELS than I have for this chapter. It's so beautiful *cries a river*

Narrator: I don't have feelings, therefore I'm not affected.

Season: I saw you with those tissues! I saw you!

Narrator: There was a bug.

Season: Anyways! This chapter is super duper beautiful and fresh off the oven JUST FOR YOU!

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Stupidity Does Not Earn You Heaven

by: Season Of Magic

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Since this was their first Christmas in Kanto, Ash wanted to make it perfect for Dawn and Brianna. Just a week after Thanksgiving, he had managed to secure a big pine tree from the Viridian Forest when he had gone on a trip near there for work. Brianna went ballistic when she saw it.

"All that's left is to fetch the decorations." Ash said as he finished putting it down.

"I'm pretty sure I brought at least something from what we had back in Sinnoh." Dawn said.

"The big bright star!?" Brianna said excited.

"Yeah, but I can't recall where I put it. Might be in the closet somewhere."

Ash waved a hand dismissively. "I have my old ones we can use."

"You may have decorations but not the star that we have." Brianna protested.

"I so too have a generic Christmas tree star."

"Brianna made ours back in kindergarten two years ago." Dawn said with a grin.

"I stand corrected." Ash said as he raised his hands in defeat."

"I'll have a look for it around the closet." Dawn promised.

Ash sent a message through his Poketch, signaling the Christmas decoration emergency to May and the gang. He received replies of "on it!", "I can maybe spare a couple string of lights, loser," "Sure!" instantly. He grinned.

"Meanwhile, I already have everything else sorted."

Brianna smiled. "Great!"

Dawn shook her head. "Whatever you're up to it can't be any good."

"We all spend more time here than at our own homes." Ash said It's only fair to help decorate the tree if Santa is stopping by this house for all of us either way." He added.

"Santa doesn't exist." Brianna said. "But I'm still expecting amazing presents from you all."

"I thought she had at least two more years of I-believe-in-Santa in her." Ash said in utter disbelief.

"She knows since kindergarten." Dawn said amusedly. "It's hard for children who go to private school to believe in anything made up." She added.

"Darn rich kids." Ash muttered.

"Actually, it was a school for gifted children. Government funded, but parents could make donations." Dawn said.

"I always got the highest grades." Brianna stated proudly.

"Kindergarten doesn't count, munchkin. All you do is color and take naps."

"She was already learning about the solar system." Dawn said.

"Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider." Brianna chirped.

"But now she's in public school and she's swapped her intelligence to learn ridiculous children rhymes."

"Boys are from Mars because they like to eat candy bars." Ash corrected Brianna.

Dawn shook her head.

"Are you sure this isn't going to break?" Ash said as he glanced to the glass star he was given.

"Only if you lose balance and it falls to the floor." Gary said as he stared to the tree.

In just one day they had managed to gather all the decorations needed, and even Brianna was impressed with all the pretty lights. She was immersed in hanging candy canes all over the tree.

"It took me a week to make that star with my teacher's help it better not break." She said as she carefully tiptoed to reach a higher place.

"I wouldn't dream of breaking it." Ash said as he climbed a ladder on the opposite side of Brianna.

"To the left, loser." Gary said.

"My left or your left?" Ash asked confusedly.

"I'm staring at the same side as you." Gary said, "moron." He couldn't help but add.

"Lalalalala!" Brianna covered her ears.

"How are you two best friends?" Dawn asked as she walked into the living room carrying a plate of gingerbread cookies and a pitcher of eggnog. She sat down.

"We're not!" Both Ash and Gary responded together.

Dawn wanted to roll her eyes but she glanced to Brianna instead. Brianna was beginning to peel the wrapper to one of the canes.

"Don't leave the tree bare before it even has anything on it, parrot." Dawn chastised her daughter from the couch.

"It's one candy cane." Brianna said with a pout.

"There's cookies and eggnog." Dawn said as she pointed to what she brought in. Brianna relented and went to grab some cookies.

"Okay, now a smidge to the right." Gary said. Ash did as told but Gary wasn't satisfied. "Not so much!"

"I'm doing the best I can! Stop yelling."

Gary shook his head. "I just like messing with him." He mouthed to Dawn.

Dawn stared amusedly, grabbing a cookie. "I know." She mouthed back.

"If you would stop whispering to my girlfriend behind my back and help me here instead, that'd be great you jerk." Ash stated.

Gary applauded. "Good job, it's looked great for the past five minutes."

"Then why didn't you say so!?" Ash screamed as he leaned his hands away from the tree and begged the star not to fall.

Gary smirked. "And miss the opportunity to order you around? Never."

Ash climbed down the ladder and went to chase after Gary . "You little..."

Brianna had sat down next to Dawn and was watching them as amusedly as Dawn was.

"If this is how "true" friendships are, I think I would rather stay friendless." Brianna admitted to her mom.

"Every friendship is different Bri." Dawn said. She was quite surprised at her daughter.

"Yeah but..."

Dawn whistled to try to stop the guys. "You're scaring Bri away from having friends! If she ends up a loner like Paul, I'm blaming you two."

Brianna was in total shock at hearing her dad's name.

Ash stopped and took a deep breath. Gary noticed and also stopped running. They stared at each other and it was as if were having a conversation with just their facial expressions.

Ash shook his head and walked over to the couch. "No way! Brianna is totally ending up a social butterfly like me." He said. "Aren't you munchkin?" He added quickly.

Brianna stared without blinking. "Uhhh..."

Ash gulped. "Ah, right, sorry." He scratched his head.

As Dawn stared between Brianna and Ash, Gary quickly excused himself from the room.

"Sorry," Ash apologized for the tenth time in a row. "Just hearing his name makes me want to scream."

Dawn placed her hand on Ash's leg. "I should apologize as well, I shouldn't have said what I did."

"Yeah, you shouldn't have. I don't want to be like him." Brianna said.

Ash shook his head. "No matter what, it is true that he is your father. Since you inherited his genius brain, who knows what else you might have gotten?"

"But Ash," Brianna pouted. "I don't want him to be my dad. Is it bad that I consider you my dad?"

Both Ash and Dawn stared in shock at the seven year old.

What had they just heard?

"Bri, honey..." Dawn started.

"You two are boyfriend and girlfriend, that means you're eventually going to get married and Ash will be dad." Brianna pointed out.

Ash coughed. "She's not entire wrong." He said in between coughs.

Dawn glanced to Ash. "Not helping." She said, fake coughing as well.

Brianna wanted to roll her eyes. "Grownups are so weird."

"Look Bri, for the most part you're not wrong."

"Most part?" She asked, tilting her head.

"It is true that being boyfriend and girlfriend can sometimes lead to marriage." Dawn started explaining. "But me and Ash haven't been dating long, nor do we know each other to that extent." She said.

Brianna nodded. "Yeah but you two like each other a lot! Ash said it himself that he and the others are here more than their own places."

"That doesn't mean I'm going to marry them now does it?" Dawn said laughing.

"I would sure hope not." Ash said chuckling.

"Well, I still don't understand what that has to do with Ash being my dad."

"Taking care of children is a big responsibility." Ash said. "Munchkins that are genius and understand things well beyond her years even more so."

"So you don't want to be my dad?" Brianna said sniffling.

Ash's heart broke and he went to scoop the seven year old in his arms. "Oh no sweetie that's not it at all. I would consider myself the luckiest man in the world if I had a daughter like you."

Dawn's heart got caught up in her chest, she was barely breathing and the heart beat rising each passing second. She knew that Brianna meant a lot to Ash but she didn't know just to what extent he liked—loved her. She also hadn't realized just how much Ash meant to Brianna as well. It seemed the feeling was more than mutual.

It brought tears to her eyes.

Ash heard Dawn sniffling as well and brought her in for a hug. All three of them stayed like that for what felt like an eternity but had only been a couple of minutes as much.

Ash pressed a kiss to Brianna's forehead. She was finally calming down.

"Thank you." Dawn said as she separated from him and let him focus on Brianna who needed his embrace more than her.

"You two are the most important people in my life, and if you both cry then I'm not doing my job right." Ash stated.

Brianna snuggled closer into Ash's embrace. "Yeah, Ash, thank you."

Ash glanced to Dawn. Dawn glanced to him. It seemed they too shared a talk-with-facial-feaures sense mode.

"If it's alright with Ash, you can call him whatever you want." Dawn said as she relented and brought in a compromise. It's not like she really minded.

"Yep! It's more than okay with me." Ash grinned.

Brianna simply remained snuggled to Ash. "I don't want to get in trouble."

"You're about to get tickled if you don't ever say your honest feelings in front of me Bri." Ash said.

"Nooooo!"

"Oh yes, munchkin."

"My honest feelings are that I want to call Ash my dad!" Brianna yelled out. Ash tickled her regardless. "That's not fair, Ash."

"What do you think Dawn?" Ash said.

"I'm staying out of this." She said with raised arms.

As soon as she arrived, May had taken Brianna to her room and was trying to keep her occupied while Ash and Dawn had a talk downstairs. Gary and Tracey were both cooking dinner in the kitchen to give them privacy.

"When we started dating a couple months ago I made it clear that Brianna is my top priority so I'm sure you can understand why I'm being like this." Dawn began. "She's never known her father, nor needed him in any way, but not even I can deny she's quite attached to you."

Ash nodded. "Yeah, and I understand. I'm also quite attached to her. It's only been a short while but I swear Dawn, I love her as if she was my own."

"I can see that." Dawn said softly. "I sincerely thank you for that and it makes me really happy. I just..."

"You just, what?" Ash couldn't help but ask.

"Well, you saw my relationship streak. I only ever dated one guy, and he turned out to be a total jerk."

Ash scoffed. "Paul's always been a jerk, you just never saw it when you were younger." Dawn glared at Ash and threw him a pillow. "Okay, okay, shutting up now."

"I just don't want Brianna to suffer because of me." Dawn said.

"Don't start comparing me to Paul now." Ash said. "I'm not him."

"I know that! I know you're different but I just can't help but think it's going to end someday."

"Like I said, don't go comparing me to that idiot. It's his fault for not noticing the treasure what he had."

Dawn bit her lips. "It feels as if we're having our first fight."

"We're just talking things out." Ash assured her. "The key to any relationship is trust."

Dawn nodded grimly. "Right."

Ash stared at Dawn. "You think I don't mean it when I said I consider Brianna my own already." Dawn shook her head and Ash sighed. "Dawn, I told you that you were both my priority when we started dating. That still hasn't changed and it applies to how I consider you."

Dawn stared confusedly. "What do you mean?"

"You're my girlfriend Dawn, I love everything about you, including Brianna. Obviously I wouldn't love her like a girlfriend, so she is my daughter."

Tears started to flow from Dawn's eyes again and for the second time that night Ash scooped her up into his arms.

"I just, I love you so much and I don't want to ruin it." Dawn whispered in between her crying.

Ash froze for a second but hugged Dawn even tighter. "I love you too." He whispered back.

"So I can really call you whatever I want?" Brianna asked when she was finally allowed to come back down.

Dawn was leaning on Ash's shoulder and they were eating some popcorn.

"You sure can, munchkin." Ash said as he leaned over to ruffle her hair. Brianna giggled at that.

"And I won't get in trouble or get you two mad at each other?" She asked again.

"Why would we be mad at each other?" Ash asked.

"Were you worried we'd be fighting?" Dawn said and Brianna nodded.

"Yeah."

"As you can see, we are getting along great." Dawn said she grabbed popcorn and fed it to Ash.

"Amazing, we're getting along amazing." Ash said in between mouthfuls. He patted the seat next to him.

Brianna quickly sat down. "So we're okay?"

"We are all amazing." Ash repeated.
He fed popcorn to her.

"Amazing!" Brianna cheered.

"Can you three stop ruining your appetite and wait for dinner instead?" Tracey said amusedly from the kitchen.

Despite knowing that Tracey couldn't see him, Ash stuck out his tongue regardless. "My girls and I are going to watch a movie." He stated.

"His girls?" Brianna mouthed to Dawn confusedly.

Dawn smirked. "Ash, Brianna doesn't seem to know she's your girl."

"Oh?" Ash asked as he glanced towards Brianna. He started to tickle her. "Suffer the consequences you munchkin! How dare you think you're not mine!?"

Brianna laughed and squealed loudly. "I give Ash, I give!"

"Ash? I don't know that name." Ash said.

"Mom, help!" Brianna said.

Dawn glanced to Brianna and grinned. "He wants to be called what you just called me." She offered in advice.

"Ash is not a mom." Brianna said in between giggles from both the tickling and the thought of Ash being called mom.

"You're right, he's not a mom." Dawn said. "What is he then?"

Brianna had enough of the tickling. "Dad, stop it."

Ash finally stopped tickling her. "As you wish."

"I can finally breathe!" Brianna exaggeratedly said.

"You were fine." Ash said laughing.

About a minute later, Brianna tackled Ash. "Can I really call you dad?"

"You can really call me dad." Ash confirmed.

Brianna screamed at the top of her lungs in utter happiness.

"Who died?" Gary said as he ran into the room. Tracey followed behind.

"No one died, I recorded everything!" May was squealing as she made her way down from the stairs.

"May!" Dawn said embarrassed.

"Someone had to." May said waving a hand.

"Well if no one died, let's all go eat dinner." Tracey said as he made his way back to the kitchen.

The movie Ash, Dawn and Brianna said they were going to watch was forgotten in exchange of food.

Season: I was going to leave it where Ash and Dawn said "I love you." To each other. But then I decided it was cruel of me. They totally meant it and talked a little more afterwards by the way. Ughhhhh they're so cute.