Chapter Text
Pikachu sticks close, after the Kalos Crisis.
It’s nothing new, of course. Pikachu sticks close after any sort of… calamity with legendaries. Partly for his own sake: he has the stupidest, kindest, most giving partner in the whole world and it's going to get Ash killed one day, permanently, if Pikachu’s not careful about it. Everytime something like this happens it's an unpleasant reminder of that terrible little truth. A reminder he needs to be more careful.
“Pikachu?” A quiet, raspy whisper into the night. Pikachu’s ear flicks away from the door and then he hops from the end of the bedspread and into Ash’s lap, scrambling upwards until he can press his head under his chin.
It means, I’m here. It means, I'll protect you.
Little reassurances, pressed into Ash’s skin, held between them before the dawn. It’s such a small thing, but he wonders sometimes if the mythical pokemon they encounter take note of the scent markings he’s left on Ash, purely on the basis that there are just so many of them: This Human Is Protected. This Human is Precious. Harm This Human And There Is A Pikachu Who Will Be Very Very Mad.
They probably laugh, those legendaries. Afterall, what’s some pipsqueak yellow mouse to a god?
Pikachu takes solace in the fact that they probably stop laughing when he starts frying them.
Two hands come up, calloused and only shaking slightly. They rub up his back, then behind his ears, and above him Ash breathes out a little sigh of relief. Pikachu can feel the rush of warm air through his fur. Can feel the way those fingers tighten briefly around his small frame before purposely loosening.
Gentleness is a choice, and a gift. It always is.
“Pikachu,” Ash says again, but less uncertain this time. More firm, even if it stays sleep-soft and near silent. “We’re okay.”
Pikachu nods. Cuddles closer. He’s not the only one who gets clingy after their more dangerous adventures. Ash is not the only one who has died and come crawling and limping and gasping back to life.
“Where were you? Keeping watch?”
Another nod. Dark brown eyes meet dark brown. Clemont, sleeping fitfully in a cot on the other side of the room, lets out a soft mutter and rolls over, borrowed pajamas sliding against thin sheets. Outside, bug pokemon whir and buzz, backed only by distant sirens. The mechanical wails are a constant reminder as to why they're all here at Professor Sycamore’s lab in the first place: it had been saved from the majority of the damage that Lumiose proper had suffered, being far enough away from the inner workings of the city.
Still, Pikachu can hear the blares, smell the smoke. Still, the danger hasn’t ceased. If he had still been a wild pokemon, he would not have stopped running. Not yet.
“We’re okay,” Ash says again, combs his fingers through Pikachu’s fur, thumbs digging into where the muscles have clenched tight. “Nobody’s gonna attack us, here. Lysandre lost.”
Pikachu grumbles, arches his back to get that pressure in just the right spot, and then clambers up to affectionately butt against Ash’s forehead. For a second, in that quiet room after the almost end of the world, he lets himself stay there.
“We’re okay,” he tells Ash, because it’s what they do. The world goes to shit and they put it to rights, and then afterwards they reaffirm to each other, over and over and over again, that they can be set to rights, too. If they say it enough, if they believe it enough, it usually becomes true.
Apparently, Ash has been waiting on him to complete his part of the ritual, because immediately after his boy cracks a giant yawn and lays back down, curling onto his side. Pikachu finds that perfect little space that is always, always there, when it comes to his better half. That space where they’ll fit together like they were made to do just this: two pieces of a puzzle, two pieces of a whole.
“Goodnight, Pikachu.”
It’s hardly more than a mumble, words tripping over themselves as his boy quickly drops back into sleep. He was probably never fully awake in the first place, only aware enough to recognize that Pikachu wasn’t there and should have been.
“Goodnight, Ash.”
He says it, but he has no intention of falling asleep.
Ash had thought he’d been worried about Lysandre, of an attack coming from outside these hallowed halls of research and science. And he is, in some ways. There are weights Pikachu carries that he will never put down.
But in the end what really worries him, right here and right now, is not an outside attack. It’s an inside attack.
When Professor Sycamore had been offering all the children a place to stay for the next few days, while preliminary clean-up and inspections occurred, he had also extended the offer to Alain.
Alain, who had been Ash’s rival. His friend. Alain, who had betrayed them, who had stood by while Ash had been kidnapped. Who had collapsed to his knees over morals when Ash had been screaming.
No, Pikachu keeps his eyes wide open, watching the door. The older boy had come to Ash, in the aftermath, tears in his eyes and regret in his hands. He had apologised, seeming genuine. And Ash had forgiven him, because his boy has a bleeding heart the size of a wailord, and Pikachu had watched it happen.
He did not forgive, and he does not forget.
Pikachu doesn’t trust humans easily. He doesn’t. He’s learned to give them the benefit of the doubt, because Ash loves people almost as much as he loves pokemon and Pikachu can’t bring himself to hate anything Ash cares about. But at the end of the day he’s been burned more than once and he’s wary.
At the end of the day, the quickest way to fall out of his good graces is to harm his partner.
Alain had done just that. Pikachu is Very Very Mad.
Ash gets into enough trouble every day simply by existing. How dare Alain put him into more danger? How dare he betray them, put his precious partner at risk?
How dare he let him get hurt?
Some things can be forgiven and looked over, but not this. Never this.
Outside, a spatter of rain begins to fall. The moon begins to wane. Inside, Pikachu stays curled up in his best friend’s arms, watches the door, and seethes until morning.
Lunchtime. The cafeteria in Sycamore’s lab isn’t anything as homely and cosy as Delia’s kitchen, but it’ll make do in a pinch. Ash volunteers to set the table while the others work at putting together a meal, and so he and Pikachu gather up plates and bowls and cups and knives and spoons in one huge haul and clomp off to the long stretch of plastic tables and white tiles.
Pikachu keeps a careful eye on his trainer. There’s been something off about him all day. Something he’s been trying to hide. He keeps dropping things, or pausing awkwardly in the middle of sentences. Everyone else might be fooled by his partner’s good spirits and brilliant smile- or at least distracted enough by their own woes to not notice anything off- but Pikachu knows his best friend. He can see the tension gathered in the corners of his eyes, feel the tight way he holds his shoulders.
Still, still, Ash talks about how excited he is for soup, how hungry he is for a good homemade meal after these past few days of craziness, and Pikachu allows himself, tentatively, to relax.
Which is when- of course- Ash’s whole body suddenly spasms, dropping an armful of thankfully plastic bowls to the floor with a clatter. Immediately on edge once more, he lets his own load of plates and cutlery slide down to the tiles, rushing towards his partner who is standing, stark still, fingers twitching but otherwise not moving.
“Ash!”
His boy snaps out of it, blinks once, twice, then wavers unsteadily on his feet. Pikachu is forcefully reminded of the early phases of Ash-Greninja, when the bond hadn’t cemented yet and had resulted in collapse, especially when Ash’s knees give out from underneath him and his partner finds himself sitting disjointedly on the ground.
It reminds him of the Crisis: Ash on the cement, still, and Pikachu fading fast beside him.
Shaking memories out of his head, Pikachu scrambles up to Ash’s elbow, not wanting to clamber onto his shoulder until he’s sure it won’t make anything worse. “Are you okay? What’s wrong? How can I help? Ash?”
“Shh, Pikachu, ’m-okay. I promise- I’m. I’m okay.”
Ash’s arms shake, when they pick Pikachu up and deposit him onto his lap. He realises he’s shaking a little, too, all adrenaline with nowhere to go. He did not like that. He did not like that.
Breathing, breathing, cold tile floor. Pikachu scans his human, his trembling frame, the way Ash’s strained inhales and exhales are slowly settling, even as he hisses through his teeth.
“You’re hurting,” Pikachu murmurs. He knows how his partner carries pain.
Ash doesn’t deny it. Smiles, faintly. Whatever that had been, it’s fading now.
“It comes and goes.”
“The beam?”
A wince. Ash resettles himself so that he’s leaning most of his weight against the table, knees drawn up to his chest with Pikachu balanced carefully on top of them. “Yeah, yeah. I think so.”
Pikachu frowns and nuzzles carefully into Ash’s cheek. Remembering is worse than taking a Bone Club straight to the face, but he forces himself to do it. To push past the echo of Ash screaming and remember that red eerie glow, how long his partner had been forced to take it. That beam had been made to corrupt legendaries, and even though his friend is hardier than most humans, it couldn’t have been good for him.
He wishes, suddenly, desperately, that Brock was here. Brock would have insisted on checking Ash over, in the aftermath. Would have known that there is more to his friend than what meets the eye, than what he’s willing to admit out loud. Maybe he’d even know what to do with these- episodes. Whatever they are.
“Are you alright?”
Pikachu is off Ash’s lap and in a battle stance in an instant. Tail raised, feet apart, canines bared.
Alain, who had taken several steps closer, quickly backs up.
Smart move.
There are two stacks of glasses on one of the tables that hadn’t been there before. They must have forgotten them in their first major haul of dishes. The others in the kitchen must have sent Alain out with the cups in order to help finish off setting up for lunch.
Why him? Pikachu thinks, blood racing. Why couldn’t it have been anyone but him?
It’s not safe. It’s not safe. Ash can’t defend himself and Alain is too close and it’s not safe.
His cheeks spark. His fur bristles. He won’t be unprepared this time. If Alain takes even one step closer-
“Pikachu. Buddy.”
Warm hands, wrapped around his sides, and then he’s lifted and tucked away against Ash’s chest. Alain watches this all happen with a cautious air of confusion. Pikachu glares mutinously at Ash’s collarbones. For a moment, everything is quiet and strained.
“Sorry about that,” Ash says, all smiles. He doesn’t get off the ground. “I kinda took a tumble and Pikachu’s… jumpy.”
Pikachu snorts and squirms around. Jumpy. Yeah, right. More like justly wary of a known traitor, whom he takes the opportunity to leer at until Ash pointedly pinches his flank.
Alain watches this whole interaction with a continued befuddled expression, off-put and wrong-footed. Then, carefully, he takes a step back, glancing between Pikachu and Ash and then Pikachu again. There is something growing in his eyes. Some sort of understanding. Some sort of budding guilt.
Good, some vindictive part of Pikachu calls out. He’d better.
“Alright. If you’re sure you’re feeling well, then. I will return to the kitchen.”
The older boy does just that, turning on his heel, scarf trailing behind him.
One second. Two. He doesn’t come back.
Pikachu turns his focus on his partner. Checking him over. Looking him in the eye. Brown eyes, they both have dark brown eyes, two sides of the same whole. They’re okay.
They’re okay, they’re okay, they’re okay-
A sigh, inhale and exhale, and Ash plonks his head against the plastic edge of the bench, closing his eyes. “Try for me, okay, bud? You don’t- you don’t have to trust him, but, uh, let’s keep this at least kinda friendly.”
Immediately, guilt floods Pikachu senses. He’s been trying to help, but instead he’s just been making things harder for Ash. Another worry to heave onto his already aching shoulders.
“Fine,” Pikachu says, nuzzles back into him and gives a very gentle and loving buzz of static. “Anything you need.”
...He’ll just have to be sneakier with his watch.
From the kitchen, there’s a cacophony of yelps and Clemont’s frantic apologies. Bonnie’s groan of exasperation echoes clearly throughout the whole building. The overall tone of the interaction is a little more muted than usual, but a welcome grab at familiarity after the Kalos Crisis left everyone feeling so low.
Ash smiles, eyes brightening, lips twitching. “Guess we better go see what that’s all about, huh, Pikachu? Wouldn’t want to miss out on anything fun!"
Fondness blossoms deep in his core, brilliant and bright. There is so much strength in this boy. So much love for life and living it. Pikachu nods, scrambles off to the ground so there won’t be any extra burden as his human pulls himself slowly and carefully to his feet. He busies himself by gathering all the scattered plates and bowls and utensils, placing them haphazardly around the table in what he thinks is a suitable arrangement. Mimey would be proud.
By the time Ash is upright, his eyebrows are furrowed and his breath is far too controlled, escaping in and out in measured hisses. But he offers Pikachu his arm, eyes twinkling, and Pikachu takes the offer for what it is, leaping high and landing expertly on his shoulders. Adjusting easily to the little shifts Ash makes beneath him, they settle into their own well worn familiar.
His best friend’s gait has steadied by the time they’ve exited the cafeteria. Once they’ve reached the kitchen, it’s like nothing even happened at all. They laugh as Bonnie makes silly frosting moustaches and Serena enlists all their help in cleaning the counters, and no one suspects a thing.
No one at all.
….Well, Alain is suspiciously absent, but Pikachu does his best to keep that out of mind.
“ How many more times?”
“I’m fine.”
“Ash. How many more times.”
“...Just four, Pikachu. Didn't even fall down. Promise.”
“Okay. I’ll keep watch.”
“You don’t have to-”
“I’ll keep watch.”