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His claws click against the counter as he paces- click, click, click- and Pikachu is so, so mad.
It’s exploding, inside of him, like a thunderbolt, like one of Team Rocket’s machines. This anger is big and Ash is watching him, watching him, and his better half’s heart is singing I’m sorry, I don’t understand but I’m sorry, I’m hurting because you are hurting and I am sorry.
The marble is cold under his paws.
“Why would you do that!?” he finally hisses, thrashing his tail. “Why would you ever, ever do that!?”
Ash is looking at him, eyes wide, hands fidgeting at his sides- as if he’s stopping himself from reaching out. Good. Pikachu would shock him if he tried to touch him, right now. The overwhelming relief when Ash had burst out of the water, golden and glowing and alive, has given away to a low hum and now he’s just. So mad.
“Buddy, everything was happening so fast and the temple was sinking and it was just like- voosh, in my heart, and I had to help. I just had to.”
For a second, Pikachu stares at his human. This boy is so kind and so brave and so stupid, sometimes. He thwacks him with his tail, and snarls at him, and tries to put all his hurts and all his angers into his words, to make Ash understand. Their communication is not always a perfect art. “ I know that! Not the problem. The problem is that you left me behind when you did it!”
Cold marble, cold room. The whole ship rocks ever so slightly, back and forth, back and forth, and Ash is staring at him steady. His hair is still damp.
“I just wanted you to be safe,” his human says, and it’s the same explanation he gave May. Pikachu is okay with this being said to May.
But not to him. Never to him. This is not how this works.
Pikachu leaps off the counter and scrambles up to Ash’s shoulder. He nips at his ear and it is too hard, making his human yelp, and there is a little guilt that blooms in his chest but mostly it is just rage.
“No,” he tells him, and he doesn't care that he is getting too loud, that someone might come looking. “No, no, you don’t get to do that to me. You’re not allowed!”
“Pikachu, I’m not doing anything- hey- Stop that!”
Another nip, sharp little teeth against soft flesh. Ash cranes his neck to glare at him, and then falters at the sight of Pikachu’s face. Maybe it’s finally getting through his thick head that this is serious. That he betrayed something important.
Pikachu’s heart hurts.
“Don’t treat me like everyone else. We’re partners.”
Everyone else. Everyone else is scattered throughout the yacht, whole and mostly hale, and Manaphy is in the currents living out its destiny. The Sea Temple still stands, and the evil has been defeated, and things have turned out okay.
But Ash had died again. His better half had drowned alone in cold waters while he had been stuck in a capsule breathing stale air. Manaphy had brought him back, lending its strength, but that doesn’t change the fact that Pikachu had been stuck somewhere, his human had trapped him, made him unable to help.
“Of course we’re partners,” his boy says, quiet now, and small calloused hands pluck around his middle and lift him up. The motion of Ash’s back sliding against the ship’s wall is smooth, and then they’re curled together in the corner of an empty room. “But, Pikachu, it’s just- What I do is dangerous. It's so, so dangerous and I’d understand, I mean- I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt. Ya know?”
The yacht rocks with the waves. In the next hallway down, Max passes chattering a mile a minute, Brock’s more sedate tone occasionally interjecting. Outside, the sun is shining, the sky an endless blue.
Pikachu wants to take that brightness and swallow it whole. He wants to feel that light. Instead, all there is in his chest is anger and bitterness and a heart that just keeps screaming. He squirms out of Ash’s grip and clambers up onto the boy’s knees so they can look at each other eye to eye.
“We’re partners. That means anywhere you go I’m following. I don’t care if it’s dangerous. I care that I’m with you!”
“But you could die!”
“So could you!”
They glare, brown on brown. Matching. Can’t you see, Pikachu wants to spit in his human’s face, can’t you see!?
There is something desperate creeping over Ash’s features. “Bud, I can’t risk-”
“Then stop saving the world, stop throwing yourself into danger for the sake of others, stop dying! It’s the only way I’ll stop.”
Ash looks pained. “You can’t ask that. I can’t- Pikachu, you know I can’t. If someone needs me, how can I turn my back on them? How can I just not help?”
Quiet. There is a weight between them and it’s not fair that either have to carry it. But here they are.
Here they are. They’re both still breathing.
Leaning forwards, Pikachu nuzzles into Ash’s cheek, brisk and affectionate and distracting. He knows stopping isn’t something he can ask of Ash. He knows his boy’s mom has tried before, has pleaded, and that Ash had sat at the kitchen table squeezing the fabric of his jeans and said I have to I have to I have to in all the ways he knew how.
Delia doesn’t understand. Pikachu does.
I know, his nudges are telling Ash. I know. I will not ask for you to do something you cannot.
But then Pikachu pulls back. Stares hard. This is the crux of it, and his human needs to get it. “We’re partners,” he says again, and noses under his best friend’s chin, gently licks at that poor abused ear. “I can leave you alone about as well as you can leave the world saving to someone else. To force me otherwise is cruel.”
Ash is looking at him, looking at him. He is so dense and so good and Pikachu loves him so so much. Maybe he is seeing it, the devotion, the determination, the fact that they are the same. Maybe he gets that the risk is worth it, as long as they are together.
When his boy speaks, it is hardly more than a breath. “Ok. Ok. I hear ya. I won’t leave you behind again.”
“Promise?”
A pause. A long pause. The clock on the wall goes click, click, click.
“Promise.”
The ship is rocking. Ash is warm underneath his paws and the anger inside his chest is fading, washed out by the tide. Their language is not perfect but Ash understands, now, that wherever he goes Pikachu has to has to has to follow. This is what’s important.
He clambers off knobbly knees and presses tight to his best friend so their hearts can beat together as one, rubbing and chuffing softly and saying I love you in the way he best knows how. Ash runs warm fingers down his back, behind his ear, and it means the same thing: I love you I love you I love you.
It feels like sunshine. Pikachu takes it into his chest and holds it.
He thinks that Ash can feel it too.