Chapter Text
May & Dawn
May sneaks out of the bed carefully, as quietly as she can and delicately moving aside the arm that has so-gently been posed over her middle most of the night. Dawn stirs mildly at the sudden movement, but she doesn’t otherwise react and, a moment later, she’s turning on her side with a sigh, sleep apparently undisturbed.
May smiles down to her, eyes softening at the sight of her—friend, still, though they’ve been better as of recent with talking about that.
Dawn looks peaceful, and perfect, and like everything May has ever wanted.
Not-too-kindly, May’s stomach grumbles in the quiet of the room, and though she’d been considering simply staying in bed and lazying away the morning with Dawn, her stomach protests harder than her heart cries to return to Dawn’s embrace, winning this round of the battle.
It’s all right, May deems. She can always come back to bed with breakfast. Dawn will be most welcoming then, after all.
This may be Dawn’s apartment, but May spends enough time over—more and more, as of late—that she knows the ins-and-outs of it intimately. The quick of the coffee-maker—two taps to the back to get it to work,—which cabinets hold the cups and the plates—the ones Dawn likes the most, and not the ones she keeps around for when her mother comes to visit,—the way she classifies her fridge in alphabetical order, so it’s a journey to go from the butter to the fruit to the milk for their tea.
May knows the whole of it. And it’s a familiar, well-rehearsed process that of getting breakfast ready, as it as a path she knows by heart as she walks across the living-room, tray held in both hands, down two doors and back into Dawn’s room, using her hip to bump the door open, left ajar when she left a while ago.
Practiced ease, the way she sets the food-tray to the side and comes to sit on the bed by Dawn’s side, and May’s fingers linger on Dawn’s face as they’ve done dozens of times before, the path known, yes, but thrilling every-time. As it is the instant smile Dawn graces her with as her blue-eyes pry open for the first time today.
There’s an unconcealed yawn, tired-out but cheery, and Dawn leaning into the touch, chasing it with her face following the warmth of May’s hand as it pulls away.
“Good morning,” Dawn says, all messy hair and sleep-thick-voice, another yawn there for good measure.
“Morning, Dee,” May says, and she doesn’t lean in to kiss Dawn, though her lips ache for the contact. It’s not the type of thing they do, even when May knows she’s been indulging in more of Dawn’s gracious attentions as of late. Instead, she waves an exaggerated hand to the tray, diverting the attention to the food. “Made us breakfast. If you’re hungry?”
Dawn sits up slowly, oversized pajama shirt hanging loose and baring a shoulder, and May licks her lips at the creamy white skin while she thinks she’d like to taste that instead of the toast she’s fixed up. But her stomach grumbles again, and her heart heavily reminds that’s not a thing she could do, any-ways.
“Super hungry!” Dawn says, excitedly, ever-child-like and bright. “Thank you for taking care of me,” she adds a moment later, as May hands her the tea-mug she herself had gifted her a Christmas ago. It’s Dawn’s favorite.
May shakes her head, modest even as the blush takes over her face. It’s hot in the room, that is all. “Have some toast. Ah, there’s fruit as well…”
Dawn eats her toast and then half of May’s own, and May finds that her usual zealousness over food disappears when Dawn is concerned, because what’s more important than eating it all is making that Dawn has eaten enough. That she’s satisfied.
(If there’s a swift kiss pressed to her cheek after breakfast with another thank you from Dawn’s coffee-breath lips—well, that’s an added bonus, but May had already been content all the same.)
The room really is getting warm, and Dawn leaves the bed to crack the windows open around the room, chatting about all the things they should do today, as they make the most of the few days May has taken between their return from Kanto and her own return to Petalburg. They’re on borrowed time, but then again, they always are, and that hasn’t stopped them from making the most of the minutes together on every occasion.
“I’ll call Max and ask him about those gear-pieces he wanted, I think we might find them in that store downtown,” May says, when Dawn suggests—decides—they’ll spend the day shopping. That’s not something May would reject, anyways.
Humming, Dawn nods. “I also want to go to that home-store we got those cushions from, last time?” May certainly has good taste for those things, and Dawn could use her good eye. “I want to get a few things for Ash and Goh. You know, housewarming gifts.” They have that beautiful kitchen now, and they’ll need some equally beautiful stuff to fill it with.
May, for her part, is still somewhat disbelieving of her friends getting a house. She’d been there the day they’d gotten it (over lunch, which was once again interrupted by house-talk), when they’d gotten the call from the real-state agent-lady, saying that it was theirs, should they want it.
And boy, did they wanted. Goh had nearly broken into tears, and Ash’s smile was so wide for a moment May feared it was permanently stuck in that position. Even Pikachu, who’d been so calmly munching its lunch on the picnic blanked they’d set, shot forth and into its trainer’s arms with a happy shriek, lunch forgotten in the midst of joy and calls of we got it! Buddy! We’ll have a new home! —and it was wonderful, of course, and May was—is—genuinely so happy for her friends doing yet-another insane thing that only they would think of doing.
Not that buying a house was comparable to jumping atop Lugia’s back during a chance apparition in the Vermillion City harbor but…well…it’s up there, in May’s opinion. Right up there with getting into a relationship three weeks before having to part ways with your new-significant other, and enduring three years of certain hellish distance.
It’s the type of thing Ash and Goh do. The type of thing May doesn’t think she’s brave enough to do, and the type of thing she doesn’t want Dawn to go through. Hence why she’s so decided in keeping this as uncommitted, uncomplicated as possible, well-knowing they’ve crossed that line long ago, probably around the time May began to spend so much time in Jubilife, in Dawn’s apartment, where a good chunk of the closet has her clothes, and the lady in the reception downstairs welcomes her as though she actually lived here.
Which…
“I was thinking we can get them some matching towels? Embroiled or something, I’ve heard that’s a nice gift…” Dawn says, prancing around the room with the loose shirt reaching mid-thigh, probably still nothing underneath, and the pendant on her neck catching the filtering sunlight.
May turns to her as she makes the bed, raising a confused eyebrow. “Isn’t that a gift for married couples?”
Dawn shrugs. “Isn’t that what they are?” She asks back. Essentially, in her eyes, they’re as good as set as far that’s concerned. They’ve just gotten a house, for goodness’ sake. It’s kind of funny to Dawn—read:curious—to see how strangely May has reacted to all this. It feeds into her insecurity that commitment, of any kind, is not something May wants.
Or at least not with Dawn.
“I guess…” May offers, though she’s far from convinced.
And it’s not—she knows what Dawn says is right. Their friends are sure. Steady. There’s no doubt in her mind—or Dawn’s mind, Brock’s mind, Max’s mind, anyone who ever meets them mind…—that those two are in it for the long-haul.
It’s more her envy than anything else, if May were to be honest, her selfish wanting to understand how they can be so sure, while still being so young, having so much yet to figure out.
May wishes she could have that same conviction. Even when she knows; knows how she feels and how deep her yearning runs. It’s just that she knows how hasty she can be some-times, and how rushing into things—it’s been three years, but shut up—lands her in trouble more often than not.
And she couldn’t take it if this thing with Dawn went up in flames because of her indiscretion. She couldn’t take ruining what they have.
Losing Dawn, jeopardizing this is the worst punishment May can think of.
Just as the delicate kiss that’s just posed on her lips is the best privilege May has ever had. It tastes of coffee and orange jam, and the brunette savors every-second of it.
“Stop thinking so hard,” Dawn playfully chastises. “And come with me instead.”
“Where?” May asks, looking around the mostly neat-room, windows wide open and bet neatly made. Were it not for their last-night clothes still on the floor, or the disaster of make-up and stuff that is Dawn’s vanity, it would almost be clean.
But Dawn doesn’t mind a little mess, just as she doesn’t mind getting dirty when there’s work to be done.
“Hmm,” Dawn says, and it’s an invitation. “I don’t know what to wear?” She says, almost a question. And a lie. Dawn always knows what she wants to wear, and every-last-one of her outfits is stunning. “Help me choose something?”
That means she’ll have to try outfits on, and that, in turn, means she’ll be naked in between changes. Which is more than a good enough reason for May to follow-her, almost hypnotized, in the short trek from her bedroom to her spacious closet, which is in actuality another whole room, that Dawn has conditioned to fit her endless collection of clothes.
Dawn’s cheery laughter tumbles May’s heart into somersaults, happy and full and greedily taking in every note, a private melody that keeps May whole when they are apart.
At the same time, it tears something delicate within her, a certainly that only strengthens, a fear that, ironically, only grows.
…
Dawn holds May’s hand as they shop and she says it’s so that they don’t lose sight of each other, but the truth is she’s trying to memorize the shape of her friend’s hand before she leaves Dawn’s side again in a few days. Perhaps, if she holds onto it long enough, the warmth will linger; perhaps Dawn can fool herself for a day or two before the crushing reality of May being gone becomes too evident to ignore.
So they hold hands as they shop for clothes and for fancy-towels and for an elaborate kitchen set May has decided they’ll buy for Ash and Goh (Goh likes cooking. And Ash is good at…the chopping…stuff…), and they hold hands as they walk from the plaza to Dawn’s favorite restaurant in Jubilife (it’s May’s favorite, too. Though May will say that about any and every restaurant she comes across).
And they don’t quite hold hands but stay close enough any-ways on the metro, as they go the few stops into another edge of town, one that guards the best stores for Pokémon coordinators, and where both Dawn and May are recognized easily by the well-versed ladies in the stores. The Hoenn champion and the world champion, they say, flustered and excited to welcome the two ladies into their shops.
Nobody questions their held hands there, for everybody in the Pokémon Coordination world knows they are good friends; the best of friends; very-close-friends.
Yeah.
There is one thing, though, that Dawn needs to do without May today, and that’s why she says she’s going a store over to check on a special piece she’d asked to custom make some weeks before, and that she won’t take long. She takes advantage of a May who’s only two dresses in on a pile of seven, and promises to be back before she puts on the blue one, I definitely want to see you that one, she says, a lilt of dangerous flirting in her tone that, thankfully, their helping-store lady completely misses. Before more damage can be done, May herself ushers Dawn out the store, telling her to just go already, she’ll be just fine.
Yeah.
Dawn knows. Because where she feels helpless and already wilting at the idea of a soon-to-be-gone May, her friend, in contrast, seems to be perfectly all right with the way it all works out, and it’s probably the same to her to be here today and gone tomorrow, because she won’t be missing Dawn more than her usual when they part ways anew.
They care for each other, that much Dawn knows. But their affections and the intensity of these are vastly different. Where May looks after Dawn as a gentle friend, a little flame of tenderness shining into the most intimate parts of their relationship, Dawn rather feels as though her own feelings are a wildfire, taking over her heart and her mind and only hardly concealed by the grace Dawn has spent a lifetime mastering for the stage.
It’s not what May wants from her, and though they’ve been more open with their affections as of late—in private, that is,—Dawn refuses to take more than she’s given, and she certainly won’t go around making demands for what she already knows May can’t give. Not to Dawn. Not right now.
She walks in between stores and though there is something she’d had custom-made in the boutique a blocks down, there is something else she’d been hoping to get done today. Dawn doesn’t yet know if she’ll have the courage to go through with this idea, but her conversations with Ash had given her back some of the confidence she’d lost regarding this situation, and her own feelings, and she thinks that, at the very least, she can do this part, and then decide if she’ll be going through with the rest of it.
Then she goes to the store a few blocks over, and picks up the gift she’d tailored for May—and herself—a few months ago, something to keep them together in spirit—er…friends do that, right?—as they compete regions apart.
The secrecy lasts for as long as it takes them to get back to the metro-station, and even before that, May had already picked up on Dawn’s mysterious air.
“Is everything all right?” May dubiously questions, and she’s already got Dawn’s preferred answer at the tip of her tongue, so much so that she speaks at the same time as Dawn says:
“Yes! Of course, nothing to worry about.” Then promptly pouts as she realizes May has just mocked her. Not nice.
May cackles. “Sorry, Dee. You’re just too easy,” she airily says, pinching an inflated cheek, her eyes soft with affection. Their hands are full of bags and their feet hurt from walking so much, and yet, May feels whole. Happy. “Seriously, though. What is it?”
Dawn casts a look to the side, to other folks awaiting the train; the screen that says it’s still three minutes away; the orange-juice vending machine behind May’s back.
“It’s…” not nothing. But Dawn doesn’t know yet, if she’ll be brave enough to do it. If she can be brave like her friends. Like that. And she wouldn’t want to give May false expectations. “I’ll tell you later,” she says instead, a promise, and at the same time not.
It’s that same look in her eyes, May thinks, the one Dawn’s been having as of late, as if resigned to her fate with something May doesn’t know about. “Okay,” she offers, then tries to soothe Dawn’s evident worries with a smile. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
Even when May can’t be so honest herself.
But Dawn rewards her all the same, through her sins, with a smile. “I know,” she says, ever-so-subtly leaning into May’s space. “I do.”
And that trust, in turn, makes Dawn want to reciprocate. “Dee, I…” don’t want to leave in two days. Don’t want to leave, period. “I wanted to say…” that I want more than this. I want everything. I—
“Yes?” Dawn prompts, and the word comes out a little choked, because suddenly her heart is too big and squeezing her lungs. “What is it?”
It’s everything, May thinks. It’s everything at once; but that’s how it always is. “I—”
“The Jubilife downtown line is now arriving to platform three. The Jubilife downtown line is now arriving to platform three. Please board in a respectful and orderly manner.”
“That’s us,” Dawn says, and it’s only when she takes a step back that they realize how close they’d gotten, noses almost touching, handfuls of bags tangling between them. Dawn would be disappointed at the interruption, but the fact is, she’s all too used to their moments being crudely ruined like this. “We should, eh…”
“Yeah,” May says, nodding in order to will away her blush, the bitterness of her tone, “let’s go.”
…
Dinner is the usual affair of take-out and stolen kisses while cuddled up under the kotatsu, is a few of their Pokémon allowed outside as long as they don’t make too much of a mess (Dawn’s apartment complex is on the fancier side, and they don’t take well to lousy neighbors, even the internationally recognized ones—especially the internationally recognized ones), there’s a movie in the background and mostly conversation about today’s special finds, the really good stuff they’d found in the stores and couldn’t wait to try in a contest.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” May says, around another spoonful of fried-rice. There’s a grain stuck on the corner of her mouth that Dawn has no intention of informing her about. “What was that thing you went looking for? When you left the store?”
It would have probably been best for Dawn if May had forgotten about it. Except—no. Ash had been right, a week before, when he’d said all those things about her knowing better, about Dawn needing to be honest with herself, with May.
If she wants this—and gods, does Dawn want this—then she needs to stop lying to herself, needs to stop being afraid of a rejection that might not even come, and she absolutely needs to stop projecting her insecurities on May, because May is nothing if not fantastic, and kind to her, always. And Dawn needs to give that back, needs to let May know that she is so loved, so cared for, in fact, that Dawn wishes there was more to them.
…if May was open to that, of course. If that’s something she wanted, too. Otherwise it was all right, no worries, we can just be friends. only friends is great, only friends is—
“Dawn?” May asks, and they are seating so close the sound carries through perfectly, despite it being a whisper. “What was it, then?” May reminds, “What you got in the store?”
Right. “Right!” Dawn chirps, standing up so abruptly the kotatsu shakes in every which way, and sends one of the empty containers up and flying down the cloth. Oh, that’s a stain. “I’ll, I’ll be right back! I’ll show you!”
This is, probably, more nerve-wrecking than any contest has ever been; even the one for the championship a year ago had been a walk in the park when compared to the shakes and tremors of her body right now, and Dawn had been anxious then, yeah, but she’d still been able to breath, which is more than what she can say of this moment.
She manages to make the walk to her room, find her item(s), and stalk back to the living room, where May has continued to idly eat through her dinner, making small, playful chatter with Pipplup over who-knows-what this time, they’re always laughing about one thing or the other, and Dawn always has to pretend that isn’t the cutest thing ever.
Dawn’s got two packages in hand, and, if all else fails and she’s too much of a coward to go through with her plan, she can always say the medallion was the original gift, and come out of this graciously, though undignified.
“What have you got there?” May asks, not without clear interest in her tone. Food and shiny things, two of May’s favorites, and the easiest way to catch her attention.
“Something pretty,” Dawn taunts, enjoying the way her friend’s eyes sparkle, a stretched-out hand beckoning Dawn to return into their comfortable huddle.
“Oh?”
Dawn settles back on the kotatsu, and places the larger box on the surface as she places the other, smaller one behind her back, and out of May’s sight-line.
“I though…” Dawn begins, then aborts. “You got me this beautiful pendant last year,” she says, pointing to the necklace she never takes off. “And I thought—I love it so much—it would be, it would be nice if you had something like that, too.” Because that way May would know. “Because that way you would know, that I.” That I feel so much for you. “That I…that I think of you, too. When you are—when we are, um…” regions apart. “Not, not together.”
It’s mostly what Dawn had wanted to say, and as she offers her gift forward, she hopes with all of her fragile, flustered heart that the message has gone through.
Speechless, either by Dawn’s babbling or the blue-pendant cradled in the jewelry box, May reaches to grab the necklace, out of the box and holding the chain as it wraps around her fingers, the gold feels cool in her hands and the blue shines back into eyes of the same color. Beautiful indigo, just like Dawn’s eyes as well, just like her hair. Just like her.
“Oh, Dee,” she mutters, overwhelmed, not knowing what to make of the gift or rather, knowing exactly what it means, yet being too-afraid to say it out-loud. To acknowledge it.
“I belong with you, May,” Dawn declares, and for all of her fears, she’s temple and sure as she says this. “And I mean that…well…however you want to see it—but I just want you to know, that I always think of you.” To delirium, some-times. “And I miss you when you are away and—and I just wanted you to have something, because maybe you miss me, too?”
May flings herself over Dawn so fast that they tumble back, falling out of the kotatsu’s warm blanked and onto cool, ceramic floors. Still, it’s warm in their embrace, and May’s words to the space of her neck could get Dawn through the roughest of Winters.
“Thank you,” she breaths, followed by, “me too,” she admits. “I miss you, too. I belong with you, too. I—me too.” Me too, me too. I adore you, too. I think of you, too. I love you. “This is beautiful.” She says of the pendant, of the shade of blue and the incrusts of fire-red dots around it.
“Is it pretty enough for you?” Dawn teases, laughing as she blushes and brushes a kiss to May’s forehead, who huffs with a roll of eyes.
“Definitely.” She says, not having it in her at the moment to rise to the teasing. “So pretty.” Just like Dawn.
And it fits perfectly around her neck, just like Dawn’s arms do when they wrap there, as they kiss each other with abandon on the stolen, not-to-be-spoken-of-nights.
“Thank you,” May repeats, stealing a kiss now, taking advantage of the lightness of the moment.
Dawn bites her lip as they part, and fidgets only a little as she decides she will be going through with this, now that May’s reaction to her confession has been so positive. “There is—em, there is something else?” Sort of, maybe, if May wants it.
May nods, confusedly so, but accepting. “Yeah?” She invites. “What is it?” This is already so much. This is already so much more than she’d ever dared to hope for.
Reaching her hand behind her back, Dawn reveals another, even smaller box, which contains in it a bigger, more significant promise.
“A key,” May states, more as a question, looking down to the object curiously. It’s an unassuming silver key, paired with a small, cute Torchik keychain.
“It’s to this place,” Dawn explains. “I want you to have it.” I want you to think of this place as your home. “So even if, you know—maybe you are in Jubilife and, with how work can get and all, some-times I’m not around but—but either way, you can always come here, and rest. Even if I’m out of town, I want you to—and even if I’m here, just—I want you to have it.”
And maybe one day, when they finally get around to say the things they need to say, when it goes from impossible to possible to easy, then maybe May can use that key every-day, as she comes back to the home she shares with Dawn.
But that’s something else Dawn won’t say tonight.
For tonight, as it is, she hopes these tokens are enough; she hopes the dreams they hold will see them through another season, as they gather the courage to keep going, to shorten the distance between now and the day these dreams come true.
To this gift, May looks at more apprehensively. “Are you sure?” She asks, and it’s not a questioning to Dawn as it is more a question of how, again, can someone be so sure. How can Dawn be so sure about her, and even when May feels the same, she can’t quite admit to it so openly, doesn’t even want to think so far ahead of the implications of this gift, despite it being something she desperately wants?
Dawn nods. “I’m sure I want you to have it,” she says. “Only you,” she adds for good measure, because although it’s been years and she’s never even thought of being with anyone else, it can’t hurt to remind May that, to her, this is as serious as any relationship would be. She’s as committed as she would be, should they make it official.
May wants to say a thousand things. Like how can you be so sure? And why are you choosing me? Or we are so young, are you certain…?—but doubting Dawn would only insult her, because she wouldn’t do something like this without having thought about it, and it’s not fair of May to question her friend’s feelings when her own are the ones scattered all over the place. So instead she says, “Okay,” and tries to match Dawn’s resolution, tries to feed off her courage and make it her own. “Thank you,” she repeats, for the dozen time tonight. “I’ll take good care of it.”
Of the pendant; the key; Dawn’s heart, that cradles in her hands with so much trust, as if it knew it is safe there, that May would be careful. And it’s ironic, May thinks, because she’s never felt as clumsy as now, that she so fiercely wants to protect something. To protect them.
“Thank you,” May repeats, wishing she was good at just babbling her heart out like Ash, that her feelings flowed easily like Brock’s, or that at least she could formulate a well-structured sentence, like her brother. Anything, anything to help Dawn understand that she’s right there with her. She just can’t say it yet. “I—thank you.”
Dawn shakes her head. “Don’t worry,” she says, and if it weren’t her go-to-line, May would think she means something by it. “I know it’s not easy.”
To pry your heart open, to be honest and vulnerable and risk your heart to break. Even when you know the person in front of you cares so much, and perhaps because of that, it makes it all that much harder to bare yourself in front of them.
But it’s not easy that Dawn wants. Not any-more.
“Yeah,” May says, a wet chuckle leaving her as she looks down to her new gifts. The pendant already at home on her neck, the key to more than just this apartment fiddling in her right hand. “But you know that I—”
Dawn shakes her head again, her own watery smile drawing on her face. “I do, May,” she promises, and without another word she leans forward to wrap May in another hug, much gentler this time, their bodies fitting as well together as they’ve done all these years. “I know.”
This is far from easy, right now. Is a far-cry from what Dawn thought a relationship would look like. It’s eons away from the comfort that is Ash and Goh’s romance, or the one in the teen-magazines she read in her youth, not to mention its striking contrast to the ‘ideal love’ she’d plot about to Brock during their travels, where Ash would cover his ears and call them cheesy and say love like that is not even real (it figures, of course, he’d be the one to get a love just like it), while Dawn was left with the pining-tear-jerker of the group.
But as May’s arms tighten around her waist, Dawn remembers that it’s not about it being easy, and even the most beautiful love stories aren’t without their hardships, without obstacles to over-come. Dawn feels May’s kiss against her neck and thinks that ‘easy’ is the last thing this is.
But that’s all right, because what they need isn’t for it to be easy.
They only need it to be possible.
And right now, as the warmth radiating from May’s body settles in Dawn’s bones, she knows, clear as she knows the color of the sky, that they can make it through anything.