(A/N) Already dreaming of Christmas.
In Sweeter Company
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Snow, Glass and Heat
May
Rustboro glitters in its holiday regalia. From afar the entire city dazzles, but the shine is several watts dimmer on Charcoal Avenue where May Maple walks the snowy street listening to her companion drone. She thinks he's going on about a law, but it might be a bill, actually, or possibly it's a statute. Maybe they're all the same thing: the thread's already escaped her. Her attention instead goes to placing her footsteps exactly into the enormous prints left behind by some previous pedestrian.
"Hey," she says. "Do you think if a giant got shrunk to human size he'd have it harder than a human that got blown up to giant size?"
The boy gives her an odd look. This is the wrong question, apparently.
"I wouldn't know," he says. "But I was saying…"
She should be listening. She needs this boy. He's her only defense against the inquisition that comes yearly during this otherwise magical season, always headed by her well-meaning mother and always barraging her with the same questions:
You're dating, right?
How long has it been?
Is he older than you?
What does he do for a living?
When do we all get to meet him?
Christmas Eve, she'd said. Christmas Day was going to be just the two of them, so she'd bring him around Christmas Eve.
A dumb thing to say for someone without a boyfriend. Even dumber for someone whose prospects are so thin she'd had to resort to this guy with the all-grey outfit and nothing to talk about but politics. Not even the interesting politics where people get up on chairs and shout at each other: it's the tiny-print, back of the paper sort of politics that no one pays any mind. Legislature. That's what it is. And how does someone walk out of the house wearing nothing but grey anyway?
"-Hey, are you listening?"
She blinks at him.
"Sorry! I got distracted, this restaurant's so pretty."
It is pretty. The front wall is a single pane of glass through which May can see a roaring fireplace circled by tray tables and armchairs. In the chair closest to the fire is a boy with black hair whose profile looks strikingly familiar.
"We already ate, May."
"Yeah, I know."
She breathes on her hands trying to fend off the chill.
"I just…I think I'm still hungry. You know me, total glutton, right? So, uh, it was really nice seeing you and everything. And I'll definitely call you, okay? For sure. So…good night!"
She pats him on the shoulder. He tries to protest but she escapes into the restaurant where it's warm and bright and a plump woman wearing a brass pin welcomes her.
"Welcome to Estus," says LINDA, in all block letters. She glances at the grey figure outside. "Is it just you this evening?"
May shrugs the snow from her shoulders. "I guess it is just me."
"Oh," says Linda. Another glance, and then a huge smile. "Would you like a seat by the fire?" she asks.
"Sure."
Linda guides her to the brick fireplace and May takes the seat adjacent the boy, settling down in a big rustle of fabric. The boy goes on staring at the fire.
A little wounded, May strips off her outerwear and saunters past him to the coat rack. This too fails to draw his attention. She plots her next attempt on the way back but trips, really trips, and smashes into the hardwood floor. Lying there sprawled out and flushing red, the boy finally looks at her.
"May?"
She removes her face from the floor and looks up at the boy.
"Ash?"
She says this like a question, because even falling on her face a girl has to keep some things in reserve.
He helps her up and they hug, like old friends do. She notes that he's taller than she remembers, his chin scratching her forehead now when before they'd seen eye to eye.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah! Yeah, I'm totally fine."
She feels her nose and it seems alright. They sit down in the linen armchairs and look at each other for too long to be natural.
"It's been awhile!" he says, finally. "How are you?"
"Me? I'm great! I love Christmas, all the lights and presents and everything. So, yeah…I'm great… How are you?"
"Well. Who doesn't love Christmas?" He hands her his menu when the waiter approaches. "The hazelnut coffee's good," he says.
It occurs to her that she should just order that and not look at the menu at all. But her stomach's rumbling and the sign on the wall says Estus serves an all-day breakfast.
"I'll have the waffles," she says to their waiter. "And an extra side of bacon, and your hazelnut coffee, please."
Ash smiles at her. "Didn't you eat dinner?" he asks.
"It's been hours since then. And you're one to talk."
She points at his pancakes.
"Pancakes are special," he says.
"And waffles aren't?"
"Waffles are just funny-looking pancakes."
"You take that back."
"Yeah, yeah, okay. Let's just agree that French toast is best."
He gives her a very serious look.
"…You're joking."
"Yeah."
He laughs. The sober half of her brain tells her it isn't funny but she laughs too.
"I missed you, May," he says.
"I missed you too."
Maybe it's the heat of the fireplace. Maybe it's the smell of waffles. Maybe, probably it's her holiday desperation soaring on rom-com caricatures of love. But this feels like the ignition to passion and romance and candlelit dinners and walks on the beach and Christmas with the family and-
"What are you doing for Christmas?" she asks.
"It was going to be just me and Misty," says Ash.
But May knows Misty's an ocean away in Cerulean.
"What about you?" he asks. "You've got a boyfriend, right?"
"Oh. Sure, yeah." She watches a brunette couple in the corner holding hands over their table. "My boyfriend… He's just perfect, you know? Tall and dark and handsome. There's exactly one thing wrong with him."
"Yeah?"
"He's imaginary."
Ash laughs again.
"Sure," he says. "Who was that outside, then?"
"Who?"
"That guy you were with."
The waffles arrive. May hardly notices.
"You saw me!" she says. "And you pretended not to!"
"Hey, you did the same thing."
"I did not! I was-" She ponders, chin in her hand. "Okay, yeah."
Ash laughs again. May gives him a waffle.
"Call it even?" she says.
"Sure." He takes her syrup and floods his plate. "Once you've told me your plans for Christmas."
May chews her bacon slowly. She swallows, watching Ash tear the waffle into bite-sized pieces.
"I'll tell you if you tell me where you're staying," she says, smiling.
Ash shrugs. "It's this motel on Pumice Street. The Soapstone? You can come visit me sometime – bring your boyfriend, we'll do the whole meet and greet thing."
"See, that's it," says May. "All my Christmas plans just revolve around this boyfriend meets the family thing. It's like a whole big event."
"Lucky him," says Ash, chewing on some waffle.
"Mmh. Lucky." She sighs. "I don't know why everyone's so interested in my love life."
Ash points at her with another piece of waffle. "'Cause it's a waste," he says.
"What is?"
"You being single. It's a waste."
Her heart aches, but she pretends it doesn't.
"Maybe I like being single?" she says.
"Nah. You're into this romance stuff."
Very much so. The fireplace glow, the heat, the closeness. Ash has such pretty eyes, two pools of chocolate going forever…
"May?"
"Yeah? Yeah. Hey."
"You zoned out a little."
"I was just thinking. About chocolate."
"Oh." Ash rummages through his bag and pulls out a chocolate bar. "Here, I was going to eat it on the trip back but… merry Christmas, I guess."
May looks at the bar for a while. It's her favorite brand of chocolate. Favorite flavor too.
"Hey," she says, taking the chocolate. "Can I tell you what's really wrong with my boyfriend?"
Ash grins. "I figured he wasn't imaginary."
"Not exactly." May cuts her waffle into ever-smaller pieces. "It's two things, really."
Ash settles back in his chair and puts his hands on his stomach. "Alright," he says. "Shoot."
So May shoots.
"Well, one, he's not actually my boyfriend. Yet."
Their eyes meet. Ash leans in and May can feel the sweat on her neck.
"So you're not dating yet," he says. "You should just ask him, May. There isn't a guy on the planet who'd turn you down."
"Just go for it then?"
"Absolutely!"
He's got a giant smile. He could light the world with that grin.
"Okay. Okay, I'm going to do it," she says.
"That's the spirit!"
"I'm really going to."
"Awesome."
"Really, Ash."
"Really, May. But what's the second thing?"
May unclenches her fingers. "Second what?"
"You said it's two things. The first is that you haven't asked him." He leans a little closer. "What's the second?"
Moment of truth. She can't remember the last time she felt this hot.
"He likes pancakes," she says.
It takes a moment, an everlasting kind of moment where every sound deafens and the blank air stretches and everyone wishes it would just end.
And then Ash is leaning away from her. And then Ash is shaking his head, saying, "I'm so sorry, May."
May looks out the window at the white and grey. She feels the chill even as the fireplace crackles beside her.
"Is it someone else?" she asks. "Are you-"
"It's Misty, I told you it's Misty. We're-"
"-But you're in Hoenn-"
"-getting married. I came to Rustboro to find a ring."
To find a ring.
Not to see her.
"Oh. Wow." May stands, stumbling over herself as she goes for her coat on the wall. She says back at Ash, "Hey, that's great! That's really- congratulations, Ash! I just- I'm...busy, I have a thing, I told you right? No, I didn't sorry. But you know, holidays, so..."
She wraps herself in the manila fabric and bolts through the door, the heat in her eyes spilling down her cheeks.
Out in the cold she glances back just once through the glass wall of the coffee shop: at the fire, at the warm glow, at Linda adjusting her brass pin. At Ash.
Then she walks back up the snowy street, alone.