A.N. This was inspired by a very cute piece of fanart showing Ash taking care of a bedridden Goh. Check it out here, making sure to correct the twitter url of course ( /kuro879/status/1462298494094299142), and beware of fluff ahead! /lh
Oh, also, Goh's house is referred to as the 'Motion household' at one point in this fic, and that's because the surname we gave Goh in the satogou server is Motion. You'd better get used to it, because it'll probably pop up again in the future ;)
Enjoy!
Goh looked at the ceiling in anger. He had been staring at it for hours, unable to move. It had been a week since he'd caught a really bad cold, and now he was too weak to go adventuring. Which really sucked.
Idly, he wondered what Ash might be getting up to at this moment without him. He doubted he ever got sick like this. Then again, with Ash being the way he was, there was every chance he might have gotten sick from staying in the rain for too long, or some other reckless thing like that.
But what Goh didn't know was what Ash was actually outside his room right now, trying to listen to how his boyfriend was feeling without letting him know he was there. Goh probably would feel ashamed if Ash came by just to check on him, so he was trying to be sneaky.
Upon hearing Goh sneeze and cough several times, however, Ash couldn't help himself. Opening the door to Goh's room, he immediately ran up to the bed and knelt before him. "Goh! Are you alright?"
Goh turned his head, trying not to look at Ash's face. "I told you (cough, cough) I wanted to be alone right now, Ash."
"I'm sorry, I haven't been able to focus on anything right now. I had to see how you were."
"Professor Cerise didn't send you on any more missions?"
"He did for the first couple of days, but it wasn't fun without you."
Goh coughed again. "…Sorry about all of this."
"You have nothing to be sorry about, Goh!" Ash protested. "Everyone gets sick sometimes!"
"Even you?"
"Yeah, I did get a fever once… it was embarrassing." Ash remarked, recalling his brief bout of illness in Kalos. "Speaking of a fever…"
Ash removed the cold compress from Goh's forehead and placed his hand on him. "You're really hot."
"Tell me something I don't know", Goh replied, trying to mask how awful he felt with his usual bravado. "Ah, ah… achoo!"
Goh's body seemed to shiver as he reeled from this latest sneeze. "I feel like I'm about to pass out."
"Don't go into the light, Goh!" Ash yelled in a panic.
Goh chortled at the other boy's fretfulness. "I'm fine, you dummy. You don't have to worry about me. I told you that."
"But I want to, though! I want to worry about you, because you're my boyfriend and I want you to be okay!"
Goh sighed. "But it's not like there's anything you can do to help. The doctor said it's going to take time for my immune system to battle the infection. We just gotta wait it out."
"And you're just gonna lie here in bed by yourself?"
"Nothing else I can do", Goh stated tersely. "And besides, you shouldn't be here, anyway. You might catch whatever I got!"
"…Right."
Ash knew Goh had a point, but it wasn't as though his parents were here to help him, either. Nor did Chloe have the time to visit him, being busy with the gigantic amount of schoolwork she had had to put off due to their adventures.
As he exited his boyfriend's room, Ash resolved to visit him at least once every day, so that he didn't get lonely.
The following day, Goh was very unsurprised to see Ash entering his room, carrying a tray with water and medicine bottles.
"Your grandma said she couldn't come here to give you your medicine today, so I volunteered!" Ash said to him.
"More like you asked her to let you do it so you'd have an excuse to see me", Goh snarked.
"I plead the fifth", Ash snarked back. "How are you feeling?"
"Like a fainted Garbodor, useless and noxious to everyone around them."
Ash suppressed a giggle at the analogy. "I would give you a pat on the forehead, but you know… the cold."
"Yeah", Goh agreed, coughing a few more times. "I miss everyone. I miss my pokémon. I miss Chloe, I miss Ren. I miss going on missions for Project Mew. Hell, I even miss Gary. That's how you know I'm really sick!"
Ash smiled. "Well, you sure seem to be in a better mood today!"
"It's a coping mechanism."
Pulling a few books from inside his backpack, Ash told him, "I also brought some books. I can read them to you if you want!"
"What are they about?"
"Chloe suggested them to me", Ash explained, "They're 'Diary of a Wimpy Elekid', 'The Phantump's Tollbooth' and 'Corsoraline'."
"These are all about sad, introverted or neglected kids, aren't they? (cough, cough). I think I'll pass."
"Come on, it'll be fun!" Ash replied, jumping up and down with the books in hand, a giddy expression adorning his face.
Goh sighed, knowing there's no way he'd be able to convince Ash otherwise. "Alright, then. Read on."
"I'll start with the Wimpy Elekid. Pikachu will appreciate it."
"Pika-pi!"
Trying to ignore the accursed fever assailing his body, Goh patiently waited for Ash to read everything, not saying much so as to not hurt his throat.
He liked the story of Elekid and his friend Slowpoke, and imagining the characters as people he knew made him laugh internally. Though other times, it just made him feel more depressed.
Eventually, Goh fell asleep, and Ash slowly tiptoed out of his room.
"Good night, sweet prince", he whispered softly.
The trend continued for the next few days, with Ash visiting Goh to read him a new book to take his mind off of things. It worked moderately well, though it was hard to ignore Goh's occasional coughs and sneezes.
There were some times where Goh would stop paying attention to the story and simply get lost in Ash's chocolate-covered eyes. Not that he'd ever admit to that.
"We called him Old Boltund", Ash read. "I remember like it was yesterday, how he strayed out of nowhere to our log cabin in the Oasis near Pyrite Town. He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then later, when I had to put him down, it felt like hurting one of my own folks."
"AH!" Goh yelled. "Spoilers!"
"But… the book's only just started…"
"That doesn't mean I wanted to hear that! Way to give away the fate of your book's title character, mister… who wrote this again?"
"Fred Gible", Ash replied.
"Yeah, that person."
Before Goh could say anything more, or Ash could proceed with the reading, Goh's stomach suddenly growled.
"Whoa! That sounded bad! You must be really hungry."
It was at this moment that Ash's eyes began to sparkle, as he came up with a new way that he could dote on his sick boyfriend.
Goh, knowing what that look meant, tried to admonish him, saying "Ash, don't even think about-" but Ash had already run off to the kitchen.
Goh leaned his head back against the bed, resigned. If Ash wanted to take care of him, there was no way he could stop him.
He just hoped that poor boy didn't end up catching whatever disease he had.
And so, Ash was now staring blankly at all the kitchen supplies before him, wondering what Goh would like best.
If only someone with experience making food was here! Like Brock, or Cilan, or Mallow…
"I know! I'll ask Mimey to teach me! He must have watched Mom cook hundreds of times, after all!"
Racing back to the laboratory, Ash swiftly grabbed his Mr. Mime by the arm and dragged him into Goh's house.
"M-Mime?!" The pokémon muttered confusedly.
"Mimey! I need you to teach me to cook!" Ash declared, grabbing a recipe book from the counter. "I want to make food for Goh! Just mime whatever I'm supposed to be doing, and I'll follow your lead!"
Mimey gulped, apprehensive of what allowing Ash to cook might lead to, but did nod in the end. It knew all too well what coming down with an illness felt like, and was all too glad to aid his trainer in doting after Goh. Doting was what Mimey did best, after all.
Ash opened up the recipe book onto a page with a recipe for soup, recommended for those suffering from colds, and the two got to work. "I know Goh doesn't like healthy foods much, and neither do I, but this will be for his own good!"
Were someone to enter the Motion household at this moment, they would have witnessed a very strange scene of a little boy in an apron dutifully concentrating on making soup, while intermittently turning his head to look at a Mr. Mime pretending to make soup.
But nevertheless, Ash did manage to finish his meal with little hassle. "Mime!" Mimey clapped, impressed at the unusual display of competency from his trainer.
"I must be better at this than I thought!" Ash noted, before leaving over the bowl of soup and sniffing it. "Oh man… I-It smells so good… But no! This is for Goh! Bad Ash!"
Afraid that he might not be able to resist the temptation for much longer, Ash quickly carried the bowl into Goh's bedroom, swift as a Rapidash.
Mr. Mime didn't seem to mind being left alone all that much. Looking at his own imaginary soup, he mimed taking a spoonful of it, and put it in his mouth. "Mmm… Mime, mime!" Mimey exclaimed, proud of his handiwork.
Inside his room, Goh tried to get himself up from his bed. He was almost recovered, surely he would have enough strength to get up and avoid this embarrassing situation-
- Nope. Goh immediately felt woozy, clutched his head, and fell back onto his pillow. Darn.
Well, then, he thought, it seems the only option really is to sit here and let Ash feed him like a doting parent to a toddler. The one bright side is that Ash really loved sugary foods, and so did Goh, so he would probably be making something along those lines.
I mean, really, what are the odds he'd pull a fast one and suddenly decide to cook something ultra-healthy… oh, wait. He's trying to help his bedridden boyfriend. That's exactly what he's going to do, isn't it?
"I made some soup for you, honey!" Ash declared as he ran in, confirming Goh's suspicions.
"S-Soup?!" Goh stammered fearfully, as though the soup were some kind of repugnant alien creature.
"You're too weak to use the spoon, so you'll let me feed it to you, yes?"
Goh took one look at Ash's jubilant expression and knew Ash couldn't wait to see what he thought of his soup. Then he looked at said soup, and gulped. It was exactly as he feared – nothing but vegetables!
He almost said 'no way', but… he didn't want to disappoint Ash. Oh, well. Maybe if he closed his eyes and thought of Mew, the veggies would go down easier.
So he nodded, and Ash immediately sat very close to him and started feeding him the soup, one spoonful at a time. "Airplane's landing, look at the airplane! Shooooooom!"
Goh swallowed, and tried not to pay attention to the taste…
…Only to find that the soup actually tasted very good, in fact. "Mmm! What in the world is this? There's no way it's actually soup, it tastes way too good!"
"Of course it tastes good, I made it!" Ash declared with a happy grin.
"First (cough) cake and now soup. You're weirdly good at cooking, you know?"
"Heh, heh. Mom owns a restaurant, so I guess you could say cooking is in my blood. Anyway, this soup will help make you stronger and fight the bad viruses!"
"Bacteria, in this case."
"Yeah, those! So make sure to eat it all!"
Goh eagerly gulped down each bit of soup Ash gave him after that, and pretty quickly – faster than he would've liked, actually, which was quite a surprise to him – he had finished it.
"Just like your grandma's cooking, wasn't it?"
"Grandma is an awful cook, actually."
Still in awe at how good it had tasted, Goh couldn't help but be glad that Ash was here with him, even though he had had plenty of misgivings about it at first, and still did to a degree.
Ash seemed to understand what Goh was thinking. "I get it, you know? You've been taking care of yourself ever since you were little, so letting someone else take care of you feels wrong."
"Y-Yeah…"
"But you know, everyone needs someone to be by their side when they're at their weakest. It's really no hassle at all!"
"I know, but it's really (achoo!) humiliating… I know you're my boyfriend and it's expected of you, but I sort of wish you'd only see me at my best, instead of like this."
"Actually, I think you're kind of cute when you're sick!"
Goh raised an eyebrow. "C-Cute?"
"Kidding!" Ash told him with a wink. "Or am I…?"
"You mischievous little (cough) dork…"
"Your dork, right?"
"Yes, of course." Goh replied. "…I think my cold compress is getting warm again. Can you get me another one?"
"Of course, honeybear!" Ash zoomed to the kitchen again and removed a bag of ice from the freezer, and then came back and placed it on Goh's forehead.
"You know (cough), it's okay to not run indoors sometimes, yeah?" Goh playfully remarked.
"Ehhh… I'll take it under advisement.
"My head feels heavy. I think I'll try going to sleep now. And it's getting late, so you should be on your way home, too!"
"Can I at least stay here till you fall asleep?" Ash inquired.
"I mean, sure. But don't try anything stupid like trying to sleep here so you can 'get a headstart' tomorrow, or something like that."
"I would never!" Ash replied with a mock-gasp.
Goh didn't take very long to sleep. Usually, he did, but it was quite hard to stay awake when you feel weakened and sapped of energy.
Ash felt his heart skip a beat as he looked at the figure of his sleeping boyfriend in his bed. "He looks so peaceful!" He cooed.
Like in so many other occasions, Ash felt like he would burst with all the love and affection he was feeling for the boy in front of him if he didn't express it somehow. He couldn't resist.
So, despite Goh's warning, Ash did something stupid. He leaned down and planted a kiss on Goh's head, softly enough that he wouldn't notice.
"Pika…" Pikachu shook his head in disapproval. 'Does Ash want to get sick?' He must have thought to himself.
"Oh, I'm sure it's not that big of a deal…" Ash muttered in response. "I mean, it was just a little kiss, right? Just one!"
Ash sheepishly walked with Pikachu out of Goh's house, feeling quite sleepy himself, but content.
Goh woke up the next morning feeling invigorated. Had the cold finally passed?
He got up from his bed, and noted how he didn't get dizzy from the effort, which was a good sign.
He took a few deep breaths, waiting to see if he'd cough, or sneeze or anything else. But nothing came.
"Heck yeah!" Goh shouted. "I'm back in action, baby! I can't wait to tell Ash the good news!"
Meanwhile, in the Cerise Laboratory…
"Ash, why didn't you tell us you were sick." Chloe asked with a deadpan expression. She, as well as her father and his assistants, were now all wearing masks for protection.
"Because (COUGH), I didn't realize it until just now!"
"And you didn't find the fact that you were suddenly coughing and hacking all the way here to be somewhat of a red flag?"
"I thought there was something in the air, I dunno! (Cough, wheeze)"
"Where could you have gotten sick?" Professor Cerise asked. "You've just been staying at home while we wait for Goh to recover, right?"
"Ehh… not exactly…" Ash replied awkwardly.
"Oh, I know where he got sick", Chloe stated, staring at Ash with daggers in her eyes. "He was spending too much time with a certain someone."
"Ah, hehehehe…" Ash rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. Then he sneezed some more. "The things we do for love…"
"Pikaaaaa", Pikachu sighed as he dragged his irresponsible trainer back to his room where he wouldn't accidentally infect anyone.
A.N. Reckless, reckless Ash. I guess now it'll be Goh's turn to babysit him, huh?
About Goh's taste preferences, I feel like he seems like the sort of kid who has a profound aversion to vegetables. He can be very childish sometimes!
You can probably guess where the names for the books Ash reads here came from – Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Phantom Tollbooth, Coraline and Old Yeller.
Relative to the previous fics I've written for pokémon, this one was pretty short, but I needed to get back in the groove of writing shorter fics, because otherwise there's no way I'll be ready for Satogou Week (which is in December 1-7, by the way)!
Stay tuned for more in the near future, hopefully…