Secrets Told

Thanks to licoricejellybean and Defiant Vixen for reviewing! By the way, Tracey will definitely be back next chapter – I promise.

Chapter Twelve: Explanations

Ash was silent and Gary had to look over at him to judge his reaction. Having been expecting to find a disgusted expression on his face, Gary was surprised to see Ash considering him curiously again.

"Please say something," Gary muttered. The silence was becoming suffocating and they were approaching the beach, anything that needed to be said was going to have be said before they got out of the car.

"I – What do you want me to say, Gary? That's not what I was expecting… Why?" Ash sputtered.

"Why what?"

"I don't know… Why did you like me? What did that have to do with us being friends? Just, why?"

Releasing a breath that he had been holding, Gary pulled into a parking spot next to a car that he recognized at his friend Wyatt's. "You're not mad?" he asked, rather surprised. Given the rivalry that had between the two, he had expected a far different reaction. Given Ash's hyper and childish personality, he expected anything other than this fairly calm teenager that stared at him as though he had grown a second head.

"No, I'm confused!"

Gary couldn't help but laugh at that response as he retrieved his keys from the ignition. "Let's get some food and I'll explain everything," he suggested.

Ten minutes later found them sitting on the sand with Ash greedily devouring a rather large brownie sundae and Pikachu inhaling a small strawberry smoothie while Gary nursed a vanilla milkshake as he looked out over the waves, trying to think of where to start. Seeing that Ash was more focused on his food than anything else at the moment gave him a few moments to collect his thoughts but the fact that several of his friends were out on their surfboards did not help matters.

Another few minutes passed by in silence until Ash set the plastic dish in the sand next to him and considered the older teen who was sitting next to him. Gary had barely touched his milkshake, as though he had lost his appetite, and was currently gazing out at the blue-green water with a somber expression on his face; Ash knew him well enough to know that he was deep in thought and it wasn't hard to guess what was on his mind.

"When did you realize that you were gay?" Ash asked quietly, effectively pulling Gary out of his thoughts and back to the real world.

"That's kind of a complicated question," Gary replied, forcing down a smirk as one of his friends fell off their board. He shook his head, sometimes his friends were idiots.

"How is it complicated?" Ash's voice once more brought him back to the conversation. The boy sounded puzzled and Gary could see why; it seemed like such a simple question, didn't it? It was general enough – just a simple time frame or event would be enough to answer it, right?

In reality, it was quite complicated to answer and Gary couldn't help but sigh softly; he knew that Ash wouldn't really be able to understand this. It was just something that you had to experience to understand; words simply couldn't accurately depict it. "It's hard to explain, Ash." He paused and took a sip from his milkshake before looking back at the ocean; somehow, he seemed to gain some sort of strength and comfort from the rolling waves that sent up a small spray as they crashed along the shore. The roaring of the sea had always calmed him and made him feel at home as he loved the water and was quite fond of water type pokemon.

At the moment, he needed all the comfort the scenery could give him as he knew that he would need more than just his signature confidence to get him through this.

"Looking back, I guess I always knew…" Gary explained softly.

"Then how –"

"I told you, it's hard to explain. It's like, in the back of mind I always kind of knew that I liked guys but I never thought about it or acknowledged it or anything. Then one day I realized that I liked you and…" He paused again and took a deep breath; he had always hated opening up to people like this and the topic of discussion only made him more uncomfortable. He opened his mouth to continue and suddenly found that he couldn't stop talking once he started. "I was scared and confused so I just started being an ass to you because that was the only way I could deal with it. Once I realized that I liked you, I couldn't see you as my friend anymore; all I saw was this kid that I – for some god-forsaken reason – thought was cute and great. I was afraid that I would end up doing something stupid that would make it obvious to everyone so I just pushed you away until you finally left me the hell alone, and then it only got worse because not only did I have a crush on a guy, but I had just lost my best friend because I was a complete idiot!"

Ash was staring at him by now, paying rapt attention, hanging on to every word because he knew how closed off Gary usually was. He could tell that Gary hated telling him all of this; the visible tenseness in his muscles and the slight shrillness that had crept into his voice very clearly indicated this. Gary took a breath and calmed down a bit, letting some of the tension escape him.

"Then we left as trainers and it wasn't so bad since you weren't around and I could just ignore it and focus on training and I guess that worked because I outgrew that crush. When I started researching – when I went to Sayda – I pretty much forgot about it since I was around mostly girls and we were all focusing so much on the work… But then when I moved back home and started working with Grandpa in the lab and hanging out with my friends and May and her friends… I just hit me really hard one day – May kept trying to set me up with her friends, and her friends always flirted with me, and then all of my friends were either dating girls or hooking up with them. I was just so sick of it, so I started hanging out with Tracey and ended up… practically falling in love with him." His voice lowered a bit at the last part as memories of how they had gotten together came to his mind. A small smile crossed his face at the mere thought of Tracey and Gary laughed softly, shaking his head slightly; he was utterly hopelessly and helplessly in love with the pokemon watcher. "Tracey was great, he was the exact person I needed right then. I was in a really bad place; I was so depressed then… I was lying to my friends left and right, mouthing off to Grandpa, drinking a lot, barely eating… I even thought of killing myself a few times…"

Ash's eyes widened at the final admission, startled beyond belief that Gary, who had once been nearly as adventurous and outgoing as himself, could have been in that situation. Despite the way Gary had often belittled and teased him, Ash couldn't imagine him not being around; he was relieved that those thoughts hadn't evolved into suicide attempts… or worse.

He knew that he would have bitterly mourned the death of his childhood friend and the greatest rival that he had ever known as a pokemon trainer.

"My friends didn't even notice," Gary continued, his voice lowering even more. "Well, they probably did, they just didn't say anything – and Grandpa and May were either pissed off at me or were hovering over me, but Tracey was just there for me. He understood and he didn't lecture me or anything… Once Tracey came into the picture, I just knew; there was no doubt. I was practically obsessed with him; I couldn't stop thinking about him and I just wanted to be with him – not just sexually either."

"How did you two end up dating?" Ash spoke up for the first time in the past perhaps ten minutes while Gary had been speaking. He was genuinely curious now, as Tracey had not told him the details and he was still rather confused about how the two boys had gotten together – they were practically polar opposites, for god's sake!

Gary glanced at him and smiled ironically. "I made out with Darren's sister –"

"Amanda?" Gary nodded, his eyes scanning the waves until he saw the friend he had just mentioned. "Isn't she May's best friend?" Ash asked, scrunching his nose up in an adorable fashion. Without even looking at him, Gary knew what expression was upon his face; it was an expression that Ash had always worn in childhood whenever he was confused about something. It was cute then and it was even cuter now and, for that reason, the older boy avoided looking at his former crush.

"And Darren's my best friend," he reminded the younger boy.

"What does this have to do with you and Tracey?"

A slight frown crossed Gary's face as he recalled the night when they had first kissed. "Things started getting really hot and Amanda was… Well, let's just leave it at Darren would kill me if he knew. But I wasn't even into it; I mean, part of me really wanted to sleep with her just to make everyone back off a bit, you know? But I just couldn't… Anyway, I kind of freaked out because I knew she would tell May and I figured May would jump to conclusions about why I couldn't even get it up when I was making out with the hottest chick in Pallet. Tracey calmed me down and we… Kissed… Actually, 'kiss' is kind of a mild way of putting it; either way, it made things awkward for a few days. And then May gave us a lot of alcohol at her birthday party like two months later. One thing led to another and let's just say that the hangover the next day was rather enlightening." He glanced back at Ash and gave him a faint smile. "By the way, Tracey's the one who asked me out, not the other way around; so, no, I did not corrupt your friend."

A small laugh escaped Ash at that statement and it broke the palpable tension that was surrounding the boys. "No, Gary," he began dryly. "You didn't corrupt him – just your sarcasm corrupted him!"

Gary's usual smirk curved his lips and he bit back a laugh at the response. "My sarcasm corrupts everyone, Ashy-boy."

"There goes your arrogance again."

"That tends to corrupt as well," Gary replied with a soft laugh.

"You're impossible, you know that?"

"Of course I know that, Ash; I'm Gary, I know everything!"

Ash shook his head with an exasperated sigh, not entirely surprised by Gary's predictable response. He was quiet for a few minutes, absentmindedly playing with Pikachu while Gary remained focused on watching his friends in the water. "I still can't believe you liked me," he spoke up quietly after several moments. Gary frowned and glanced over at him but said nothing in return; the only indication that he had even heard Ash was the slight change in facial expression. "It's just really weird…"

The last word sent a spark of anger through Gary as he finally pulled his gaze away from the water. "Weird?" he snapped. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I didn't mean that you were weird because you're gay; I just meant that I don't get it –"

"Of course you don't get it, Ash! You're straight – straight people don't understand these things!"

"For god's sake, Gary, you're so full of shit." The minute it escaped his mouth, Ash regretted it; partially because he was the type of person who hated saying bad things about others, but part of it had to do with the fact of whom he was talking to. Whether or not Ash had returned the romantic feelings Gary had felt for him in their youth, he had always yearned for their friendship to be reinstated. Unfortunately, snapping at him was understandably not the correct way to go about resurrecting an old friendship that had turned sour for one reason or another.

Shocked not only by the uncharacteristic snap but also by the highly unusual curse, Gary found himself unable to immediately find a reply. It caught him completely off-guard with how staggeringly abnormal it was.

"Do you honestly think you're the only one who's ever wanted someone they couldn't have?" Ash continued. He had already apparently insulted and shocked Gary so he figured he may as well make his point. "Or that you're the only person that's ever been misunderstood? Seriously, think about it for a minute!"

Gary shook his head in annoyance at Ash's words, immediately dismissing them. "You don't know the shit I've been through in the past few years, Ash, so don't even start."

"Maybe you should take your own advice," Ash replied in a quiet voice so as to not attract attention from the other beachgoers. "I'm not discounting anything you've had to deal with – I know the way the world works as well as you do! I know people have issues with gays in general, much less an atheist pokemon researcher who's into heavy metal who just happens to be gay. You liked me? I liked your sister, I've liked all the girls I've traveled with! I'm not one to complain about crushes because then I'd be a hypocrite!" That particular bit of insight caught Gary's attention and Ash could tell that he wasn't necessarily instantly rejecting his words anymore. He had hit home and he could tell that he had done so just by taking in Gary's closed-off, yet mildly surprised, expression. Hoping that he was reading the surprised expression correctly, Ash pushed on. "Yeah, Gary, I've actually grown up; I can think on my own now –"

"I never said you couldn't," Gary interrupted. He knew that Ash could be rather simple at times but there had always been a spark of intelligence, or at least an ability to think on his feet – there was, after all, a reason behind that crush.

"Yeah, well, your teasing kind of always said otherwise."

"I already told you why I teased you in the first place!"

Ash groaned and picked up his discarded dish. "Why are we even arguing over this?" he asked tiredly.

"Because you started it," Gary replied flatly.

"I'm done, Gary," Ash said, standing up and allowing Pikachu to hop up onto his shoulder. "I'm going back home." With that said, he turned and walked away from his former rival, leaving him to stew in his own thoughts without interruption. He still couldn't understand how Tracey could be so in love with him; Gary may have changed a bit over the years, but he would never cease being that snarky rival in Ash's eyes.