Work Text:
“So you just wind it around like this…?”
“Not quite, Ash,” she chuckled, as the yarn got all tangled in his fingers. “You have to put it in between these two fingers, and then grab it with your thumb and middle finger.”
“Aww, Serena, I told you, I’m no good at this!”
“Where’s the Ash that says ‘Never give up ‘til it’s over,’ huh? Come on, you’re not a quitter. Watch me again.”
Serena hadn’t been expecting a knock at the door of her house in Vaniville Town from anyone at eleven PM, but least of all from Ash. She’d opened the front door to see her formal traveling partner, sheepish and soaked from the rain, hair dripping, his hat on Pikachu’s head. “Sorry to drop in,” he’d said, his voice softer than what she remembered of him. “Do you mind if I come in…?”
She’d ushered him in, grabbing a towel and watching as he used it first to dry off Pikachu before himself. Typical Ash, she thought fondly, always thinking of his pokemon before himself. She’d taken a moment, then, to regard him. The last time she’d seen Ash was briefly in Lilycove City, when he’d run past her while getting on a boat. She’d spent all day with a close friend of his and had no idea. Of course. She only saw him when he was leaving.
She hated how that felt a little like a metaphor for their whole relationship. They only really connected when he had one foot out the door.
His whole being was softer than it had been in Kalos. That year he’d spent in Alola, apparently becoming their Champion, had smoothed him out a little, polished the edges. His smile was a little less wide, but certainly more genuine. His shoulders were a little less tense. He didn’t carry himself with quite so much weight.
Serena had to confess, she hadn’t really kept up with him much after he became Monarch of the World Coronation. To think, the kid she met at camp all those years ago was the World Coronation Monarch. She never could’ve expected it, and yet it didn’t surprise her at all. If anyone was going to rise to such an achievement, it would be Ash.
Did he consider himself a Pokemon Master yet? What did that mean to him? Although, she supposed, since he was still on the road, always chasing a new adventure, she supposed not. She wasn’t sure it was really a fixed thing. His dream would never really be achieved; rather, it was an amorphous goal. He could never get it, because then he wouldn’t have anything to do after.
No, Serena knew: Ash would be chasing this dream for the rest of his life. And he would achieve and achieve and never truly realize just how extraordinary a person he was.
He was on a new journey, that much was clear. The months had passed after that, and she’d focused on coordinating, and now he was here, in her house, at eleven PM on a summer night.
“You’re lucky that I’m even here, Ash,” she said, and he looked at her. “Most of the time I’m not even in Kalos.”
He smiled, that great big smile she used to be in love with but now she just had a quiet appreciation for. “I took a chance, and it paid off! And thanks again, Serena, really.”
She’d found her softest pajamas and offered them into his arms. He tilted his head, surprised, like he’d expected her to just let him drip on the wood floors all night. “Go. Change. Get warm, and I’ll make some food.”
To his credit, though, he didn’t try to refuse the offer.
When he’d emerged from the bathroom, a pale pink sweatshirt and fuzzy light blue pajama pants on, she turned away to hide her smile. She hadn’t expected them to be small on him, given the fact that his clothes had fit her well enough that one time, but it didn’t often occur to her that Ash was shorter than her. He just…well, he felt so big, most of the time. His energy filled whatever space he occupied. The hems of the pants dragged on the floor.
“I have some apple pie laying around, if you want it.”
“Oh, man, that sounds great!”
And so they’d sat, on the living room couch, reheated pie warming them through. Lightning flashed in the windows, thunder rolling on by a minute later. Pikachu was happily going to town on a bottle of ketchup she’d wordlessly pulled out of the fridge.
They hadn’t talked much, not really, letting the comfortable silence envelop them like a blanket. Nothing felt awkward, not between friends that had spent a year on the road together, late nights and legendaries and miles side by side. She’d spent her entire first few months in Hoenn freaking out about the fact that the last thing she’d done with Ash was kiss him, incredibly embarrassed and appalled at her forward behavior. And as the months went on, distance between them, that obsession, those butterflies in her gut that used to flutter constantly, settled. And there were so many cute girls going for Top Coordinator, anyway.
She wasn’t quite sure how eating apple pie on the couch turned into her teaching Ash how to crochet, but that’s where they were now. (Really, she did. They’d gone to her room, ready to conk out for the night, when she’d pulled her current project out for the little late-night crocheting. He’d looked at her working, just watching silently for a while, before saying, a little unsure, “Can you teach me how to do that?”) She’d been incredibly surprised that Ash would ever express interest in something that required sitting still, but then again, Ash surprising her was kind of his whole thing. And besides, he was all soft now. Sitting here, his hands fumbling over the needle, she sent a silent thank you to whoever had been there for Ash when he spent a year going to school in Alola.
“There you go!” She cheered, when he successfully pulled one loop over the needle. “Amazing! Now you just keep going like that. Put the yarn there, and then pull the needle under, and voila! You’re crocheting!”
He laughed, and it was like his whole body moved with it. “Who woulda thought, huh?”
“Now keep going, Ash, keep going!”
Her eyes were heavy with sleep, but the two of them sat there for a long while, Ash slowly pulling loop after loop over the needle. Pikachu had curled up in between the two of them, and she relished in the familiar but long-awaited feeling of his fur under her hands. The room was dim, lit only by her twinkling lights from which she’d hung pictures of their adventures together. It was warm. It was good.
It was home.