Work Text:
Back To Our Roots
Ash frowned as he finished setting the kitchen table. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a chocolate dessert with his husband's favorite wine. The plans had been changed twice already, each time with Ash shelving a romantic gesture for later because Gary… just wasn't in the right mood.
He was quiet and distant today, and had seemed to be teetering on the edge of getting a migraine much of the day. He'd still been sweet – bringing Ash coffee and a pastry breakfast in bed and wishing him a happy Valentine’s Day – but he hadn't been himself all day.
Gary hadn't been himself in weeks.
He'd been preoccupied with something but Ash couldn't say what. Ash hadn't been the only one to notice either – everyone else had commented on it to Ash. Apparently Gary had been exceptionally quiet while Ash had been training near Galar a short time earlier. It was something Ash had felt bad for: only competitive trainers had been allowed and, his own prowess notwithstanding, Gary hadn't been able to go with him. Ash had considered refusing to go without his husband but Gary had balked at that and refused to let him pass up an intense training retreat in one of the northern regions near Galar.
Ash knew the exclusion stung, even if Gary pretended otherwise, never uttered a single complaint, and was nothing short of unwavering in his support of Ash’s career. But Ash knew.
And he knew that Gary would eventually talk about it with someone - if not him, then his mother or the professor, or maybe even Tracey.
But here they were on Valentine's Day, a little shy of two months since Ash’s return from that trip and Gary was still quiet and off.
He'd been working on something on his laptop all day, something that seemed to be making him even quieter and more stressed. He didn’t seem to want Ash to know details just yet either, judging by the way he kept closing his laptop any time Ash came by. He would have thought Gary was just working on plans for whatever their next adventure was, but that usually put him in a good mood – one where he teased details and flashed him mischievous smiles, a little smirk playing across his lips as he closed the laptop to keep Ash from seeing whatever the surprise was this time. It was one of Ash’s favorite ways to see his partner.
But with Gary’s mood being so far off from usual, Ash hadn't seen any of those things today.
And so Ash had put off his plan for a surprise picnic lunch for tomorrow. The plan for making dinner together was similarly shelved. Those things could wait until Gary was in the mood but Ash refused to change plans for dessert, and his other plans for the night – the ones involving massage oil and a bottle of fancy lube – would be saved for another day if the chocolate and wine failed to perk up his husband.
Ash sighed and picked up the corkscrew for the wine, struggling with it for a few minutes before finally getting the damn cork out. His husband would probably need some bribing to get him downstairs for dessert and Ash was sure a glass of his favorite wine would do the trick. He poured the glass carefully, somehow managing to avoid any drips of the dark red liquid - a small miracle in and of itself.
Now came the hard part.
He made his way up the stairs extra carefully to avoid any spills or trips and tapped on the open door to the spare room. It was part gear storage, part trophy room, part study and, sure enough, Gary was at his desk, still working on whatever was on the laptop. Ash could just barely see Pikachu's tail in his lap – unsurprising, really. Umbreon was lying next to his chair, her proximity also unsurprising, given Gary’s mood.
He crossed the room, set the glass in front of Gary and wrapped his arms about his shoulders with a kiss to the cheek. Gary left the laptop open for the first time all day and, though Ash tried not to look too closely, a display of pokemon stats caught his eye. Interesting.
Even more interesting, sticky notes were scattered across the desk, each one with pokemon scrawled upon them. Ash could barely make out the names but it seemed Gary was building teams – or at least brainstorming them. But why?
He wouldn't worry about it right now. Gary would divulge when he was good and ready. Besides, they had something else to attend to.
“Ready for a break, babe?” Ash asked, pressing another kiss to Gary’s cheek.
But Gary only shrugged listlessly. “I guess so,” he muttered. He reached for the wine glass and took a small sip, leaning back against Ash when a third kiss was pressed against his cheek.
That… didn't sound promising.
Ash hesitated, thrown off by the unusual quiet, the tired reply. “Hey,” he started softly after a moment, “What’s got you so down today? It's Valentine’s Day and you've got a cute husband and a buncha chocolate downstairs. What's going on?”
Gary sighed and looked down at his drink, swirling the dark liquid idly. “I've been working on something.”
Obviously.
“Well, what is it, a university assignment?” Ash joked. “Did you go back to school without telling me?” School had been the only thing in recent memory to make him this unhappy.
Gary huffed a tiny laugh at that and a little bit of relief fluttered through Ash. “No,” he replied pointedly, drawing a small laugh from Ash.
“Okay, so it can't be that bad then, right?” Gary shook his head and Ash took that as a sign to push on. “Does it have anything to do with these teams?” he asked, picking up a blue sticky note from the desk. He resisted the urge to read the pokemon listed out of respect for his husband – whatever Gary was working on was bothering him and Ash had learned to trust that Gary would talk about things in his own time.
Unsurprisingly, Gary took the little paper square back from him and stuck it back in the precise spot where Ash had plucked it from. Heaven forbid his cryptic organization was thrown off. “Sort of,” he admitted. He set the wine glass down and reached for the computer mouse instead, opening a different tab and leaving it for Ash to read. Ash didn't need to see his face to know that his gaze was determinedly focusing on the desk and looking away from him.
On the screen was the details of their summer trip to the Indigo Plateau later this year. Four months away, but excitement over the competition bubbled within him regardless.
Wait.
Ash went still as realization struck him.
The thing that was stressing Gary was their trip for this year's competition. Gary was building teams. Did that mean…
“I want to compete.” Gary’s voice was quiet but sure, with an edge of determined stubbornness that dared anyone to try talking him out of it.
Fortunately Ash wouldn’t even dream of doing that. How could he when it meant he was going to the competition with his best – his favorite – rival being back in the picture?
It took all of his self control to keep from cheering or squealing in pure excitement. He settled instead for squeezing his husband in as tight a hug as he could possibly manage, covering his face in kisses as he did so – it drew the first genuine laugh he’d heard from Gary in days and Ash’s heart soared even higher.
This was the best news possible.
“Yes!” he bubbled as soon as he was sure he could speak without shouting his excitement in Gary’s ear. “Babe, yes! That’s awesome – I’m so excited!” He peppered a few more kisses to Gary’s cheek and forehead until a hand gently pushed him away.
Gary was smiling now and his voice was breathless from laughter when he spoke again. “There’s more,” he said. He clicked on another tab and once again left it for Ash to figure out on his own.
There was a map of Kanto with a pin on each major city and several along pathways that Ash knew paralleled the trainer routes. Some of those pins were places they knew well, even when they were far off from major roads and trainer routes – pokemon hotspots that few knew about, beautiful and remote camping spots that made for good training locations… Ash wasn’t positive about all of the cities, but he recognized the locations of the pins on Cerulean and Pewter: the pokemon gyms.
“You’re gonna redo the gyms too?”
Gary nodded and Ash had to once again resist the urge to shriek excitedly. This was too perfect. Ash let his gaze stray from the map and noticed more details in the tab: a to-do list for Gary’s Jeep, a list of gear, a list of locations with dates.
They weren’t just hitting the gyms – it was a proper training expedition, a journey of sorts. A short journey – just two months, apparently – but a journey nonetheless. He couldn’t wait.
Mind running a mile a minute and heart thrumming with pure excited energy, all Ash could do was squeeze Gary tight and hope that he could tell just how happy this made him. It was special for so many reasons, but an important one stood out.
“Babe, we talked about redoing Kanto together before we started dating.” His voice cracked and he felt the warm trickle of a tear on his cheek but Ash couldn’t care less.
He had wanted this for so long – they had both wanted this, but had always gotten distracted by another trip, another region, another set of tasks pulling them apart for weeks at a time… And then Gary had left research (save for the select few projects he helped his favorite professors with) and stopped training the way he used to, and redoing a regional league suddenly hadn’t felt right anymore.
Ash wasn’t naive – he knew this change was at least partially spurred on by the frustration of not being allowed to join in, being left out from his peers based on a technicality once again. This last trip of Ash’s hadn't been the first time he'd had to go alone because other people assumed Gary was only around trainers and pokemon because of their relationship – Ash had turned down plenty of opportunities for that exact reason. What those people didn't know was that, champion or not, Ash still couldn't reliably beat Gary in a battle. That their win-loss ratio had been in Gary’s favor ever since that battle with Electivire. That, had Gary’s heart been in battling at the end of their Johto journeys, he would have won their Silver Conference battle. That Gary was a tougher opponent than even Lance.
What most people didn't understand was that Gary leaving competitive training didn't mean he ever stopped training, and that Gary deciding not to become a career researcher didn't mean he simply became a trophy husband. They trained together in the field nearly every day, and Gary trained with him more days than not when they were home in Pallet.
Ash knew this all meant that there were some old wounds that had been poked at, that Gary was feeling a need to prove himself, that his partner was once again feeling the pressure of expectations from people who didn't matter… But he'd heard that determination in Gary’s voice. He'd heard it before – on a beach on the other side of the world – when Gary had told him “I just want you. I want this.”
Ash knew what this was.
It wasn’t just a sentimental journey that they had wanted to do for nearly a decade, but it also wasn't just Gary feeling a need to prove himself. It was reclaiming a part of himself that was constantly questioned. There was a definite “fuck you” to everyone who doubted him in there too, but the journey to the Plateau would be just for them – Ash could see it on the map and in the list of locations.
One of Gary’s hands reached up and he threaded his fingers through Ash’s hair, knocking his hat off in the process. It was probably intentional but Ash didn’t care. The thought of redoing their first region together was exciting enough to overcome a displaced hat.
“I figured if we’re doing the competition, we might as well do the whole thing properly,” Gary explained. “Y’know, like going back to our roots, but not as ten-year-old idiots.”
Ash snorted and ducked his head to bury his face against Gary’s shoulder. “I like that,” he admitted. He didn't like that it had him stressed and distant all day, but an upcoming adventure was enough to outweigh that.
But he was reminded of why he had come up here in the first place when his stomach growled. There was a rich chocolate cake from the bakery downtown – one of Gary’s favorites – and now that Gary’s stressor was out in the open, it was definitely time to dig in. There would be other conversations about this later, probably even over the cake tonight, but it was time to spend the rest of their Valentine’s Day together. They could talk about the feelings that were spurring this all on another time – Gary was clearly not at the point of divulging those just yet, but Ash knew they would get there.
Ash pressed another kiss to his cheek. “Hey, I have a surprise waiting for us downstairs. How about we spend the rest of Valentine’s Day together?”
Gary turned in his arms and returned the kiss with a soft one on his lips. “Sounds good to me.”