Work Text:
When he becomes aware of his surroundings, when he has fully pulled himself away from whatever dream-scene he had been immersed in previously, he is in freefall. He is in freefall and yet he should not be, because there is water rushing up, up, all around him, submerging him, and his body should be falling slower, should be acting against the water resistance. Physics, however, matter little in dreamscapes. He has learnt that lesson well.
The water that does nothing to slow his fall rushes into his ears and mouth and fills up his lungs, and when he tries to scream seaweed and coral burst out of his throat and lungs in incessant streams, reaching to tangle around his ankles and wrists, and although he pulls and pulls the knots only grow tighter.
He chokes on the seaweed and feels its vice grip around his wrists. He drowns limp in his dreamsea.
___________________
When the dream stops, as all dreams must, he finds himself in his bed, up in the loft. Sunlight streams in through the window and pools onto the floorboards— bright sunlight, golden and hot, because this is sunny Alola and he is in his loft at the professor’s house. His bedsheets are tangled in his legs. He exhales, and nothing comes out but air.
"Pikapi!”
Pikachu nuzzles Ash's cheek sleepily, squeaking softly, and little bursts of static zapping out of his cheeks serve to wake Ash up a bit more. His dark eyes bore into Ash’s.
"Pikapi?"
Ash scratches Pikachu behind the ears. “Morning, buddy.”
Usually, Ash heads straight down for breakfast, because he is always treated to a breakfast of champions, him and Pikachu both, but he cannot stomach the idea of leaving his room just yet. Every time he imagines walking into the kitchen, a sort of dread overcomes him, and when he tries to get out of bed his legs fail him and he sits back on his bed.
Pikachu watches the repeated attempts to get up, the failures to do so, the eventual acceptance and subsequent lying down on his bed. He stretches, yawns, and contemplatively watches Ash from where he is curled up by his pillow.
Ash runs his hands through his hair. “We’ll go down in a bit, right, Pikachu? Can’t keep the professor waiting.” His voice is slightly airy, as if his lungs have been replaced with leaky balloons.
Three minutes. Five. Seven. Pikachu lies on Ash's stomach. Ash strokes him behind the ears, gaze drifting aimlessly, and in his mind he is wandering through blurry memory, as if to make up for his present immobility. Sometimes the memories are clear and sharp and blinding and they make him want to—do what, he does not know, for in the face of fear all want dissipates, and he is left with the primal command to run in the opposite direction, to flee. Perhaps this is why so many others are shuttered away, locked up. Reinforced steel, bulletproof glass. His brain does not seem to trust his heart to forget.
Professor Kukui comes up to Ash's loft a while later, forehead wrinkled. Ash has his back to the doorway, Pikachu curled up in his lap, and he is wearing the yellow shirt they had picked out together at the department store in Hau'oli City. Kukui had been appalled when he learnt that Ash had had a maximum of two shirts on him when he had been traveling, come rain, snow, or shine, and that the only piece of apparel his boarder possessed in large quantities of was underpants. According to Ash, his mother had drilled very clearly into him the importance of clean briefs, which meant that the importance of clean shirts, pants, and socks had been somewhat understated.
Ash's eyes are unfocused, drifting aimlessly across the room, hand buried deep in Pikachu's fur, immobile. His shoulders are curled up in his yellow shirt, hunched up and giving the distinct impression that he is much smaller than he really is. Kukui stops for a few seconds in the doorway to get a better look at his student. He has spent over four months with Ash as of present, and he has only really ever seen the boy in a state of excitement, hunger, confusion, or all three. To stumble in on him like this, in a half-lethargic, half-distant state, is not something he had been prepared for, not when his mind had already been conjuring up images of Ash fast asleep and drooling with his mouth open and the blankets kicked off as he had climbed up the stairs here. The sight is inexplicably precious. Holy, even.
"Ash?" he says at last. Ash starts, turns to look in his direction, and his eyes bore right through Kukui's skull and land somewhere on the wall behind him. Kukui's eyes zero in on the wetness in Ash's eyes, the dried tracks running down his cheeks.
He's been crying. The thought comes delayed, because Ash does not cry. He just doesn't. Kukui didn't think he had functioning tear ducts until today, and the sight is uncanny. He is starting to feel very out of his depth, but years of teaching prepubescent adolescents had taught him that it is always better safe than sorry, and he feels the obligation to at least ask Ash how he is doing.
All the same...he loves Ash to the sun and the moon and beyond their galaxy, but he doesn't want to overstep any boundaries. (A flimsy excuse, really, for his own cowardice. As if there were ever limits to empathy.) At what point will he cross the line, at what point will Ash become something more than a ward and his student?
Well. If avoidance means cowardice, so be it. Kukui will commit to not acting like a caring paternal figure.
Ash's eyes finally focus on him, and Kukui seizes this moment eagerly. "Ash, kiddo," he says conversationally, like he's only just stopped by for a brief chat. "Breakfast is ready." Ash gazes blankly back at him for a few moments, one hand stroking Pikachu's head. His mouth is set in a straight line, and the overall expression seems so alien on his face. Pikachu nudges him, then, and his eyes flicker to life and he pulls himself together.
"Oh, thanks, Professor." Ash smiles. The alien expression vanishes. Kukui watches with apprehension as Ash makes his way to the floor on shaky legs, Pikachu on his shoulder, and he swears to absolute God that Pokemon is trying to tell him something.
Breakfast is a lethargic event. Kukui alternates between eating breakfast and trying to start up a conversation with Ash, whose appetite seems to have gone on its own journey and left him behind. He seems faraway, untethered to reality, and Pikachu keeps digging his nails into Ash's shoulder very hard, jolting him back to reality. If Ash were a helium balloon, he would have floated up high into the sky in his current state and eventually burst once he reached high altitudes.
Pikachu keeps squeaking. He keeps squeaking and looking at Kukui, and the expression on his face is ultimately very imploring, and very expectant. Help, Kukui imagines him saying. Help Ash. You saw him crying, you coward, and he's clearly not all here at the moment, the least you could do is ask him if he's feeling alright. For god's sake, Kukui, you work with children for a living, how are you so incapable when it comes to comforting them? You're usually an ace at it in a school setting, things don't have to change just because they're closer to home. At this point, Pikachu's voice has somehow been replaced by his own inner monologue.
Professor Kukui is many things.
He is the Masked Royal, a schoolteacher, researcher of all the Pokémon of Alola; and yet he is a coward and a fool. He cuts himself on the shards that the broken boy in front of him scatters like sand and lets himself bleed.
"Right," Kukui says. Ash won't look at him. Pikachu is still maintaining intense eye contact. "We'd better get going, then."
Ash is slow at putting on his clothes, at packing his backpack, at leaving the house. He trails behind Kukui, face blank, Pikachu sitting worriedly on his shoulder. Kukui strikes up a conversation, but the words slip out of his mouth and fall carelessly onto the sand. They leave imprints in the dunes, eaten away by the greedy tide seconds later.
___________________
Ash is tired.
Ash is very tired.
The Alolan sun beats down on his back and shoulders too harshly, too brightly, and the sky seems too blue and too large and vast and his head hurts, spins, is all jumbled up and all he wants to do is to return home, except where is home, where is it really, not in the geographical sense but in the other sense, in the way that matters. Where is home? Where is it?
Professor Kukui is saying something, but Ash cannot hear anything besides the roaring of the sea and Pikachu's breathing, so he just nods and tries not to close his eyes too long. Pikachu keeps squeaking in his ear, his voice low and muted, and although Ash usually understands exactly what he is saying, all he can hear now is a string of disconnected squeaks.
The sea is roaring beside them, crying out in pain. He sees red when he looks out at the horizon for too long.
___________________
Usually, compulsory education has the effect of making Ash very bored and very restless, unless it is hands-on-learning, which he excels at. Today, however, class sparks none of these emotions in him, and only serves as background noise. There is seaweed wrapped around his throat. He finds it hard to breathe through it.
Are you okay, Pikapi?
I'm okay. Ash is okay. He is always okay. He was okay when he went to Shamouti to save the world because of some stupid joke prophecy and nearly died, he was okay when he got swallowed up by the Tree of Beginning and the last thing he heard was his Pokemon wailing for him, he was okay when people kept leaving over and over and his only constant human companions ended up being members of the evil organization who had tried kidnapping his partner every day without fail. He is never not okay.
Professor Kukui is talking about status effects on Pokémon during battle. His voice trickles into Ash's ears and is promptly swallowed up by some dark, seething mass inside of him.
A shiver wracks his body. His fist curls and uncurls reflexively. In front of him, the classroom has melted into a blur of colours that slowly morph into red, a visceral shade of crimson that bleeds into the backs of his eyes.
Ash!
Pikapi!
He is falling
and
falling
and
f
a
l
l
i
n
g.
He tries to suck in a breath, but all that comes in is water, salty and filled with strands of seaweed that pull him down, down, down. His vision is tinted red, blurring, tunneling, a million fireworks going off at once behind his eyes, and he cannot breathe and his skin is on fire and he is choking on smoke and he is going to die, going to die, and this time no one is there to save him. He is high above the city, Lumiose, a billion volts of red energy coursing through him as he hangs, crucified for the world to see, atop the Prism Tower. He is in pain. He cannot feel anything anymore.
Pikapi!
He covers his face with both arms, shrinking away. The coppery tang of blood remains in his mouth, and he sucks in as much air as his lungs will allow, except his vision keeps blurring and he feels dizzy and his lungs are too small. The violent crimson has faded into muted red. Ash stares down at Pikachu in his lap and focuses on the yellow. He feels his claws digging into his thigh.
In, out.
In, out.
"...Ash? Hey, Ash! Kiddo."
In, out.
In, out.
"Ash, you're okay, you're okay."
He can't breathe. He can't breathe and the dark bottom of the ocean floor is racing up to meet him, and inexplicably despite being in the water he is burning up with fire, he is choking on acrid smoke. Light breaks the surface of the endless ocean in which he is drowning, shooting down after him. He grabs onto it like something physical, and then he is pulled up by it, out of the water, coughing, choking, spitting up seaweed, gasping raggedly, catching his breath. He plants both hands on his knees, crouches in the sand that is now the floor.
He looks up and into the eyes of Professor Kukui.
The professor is crouched in front of him. He's been gripping Ash's hand for some time now. He hadn't realized. "Ash," the professor breathes. "Hey. You with me?" Ash nods. His ears are waterlogged. "Yeah," he croaks.
Professor Kukui is looking at him searchingly. His eyes penetrate the wall of muscle that is Ash's heart, spear right through blood and flesh into the hollow cavity of his right atrium, and this must be why Ash's chest starts hurting again. This must be why he starts crying like a child, sobbing, sea salt on his lips and the phantom sensation of seaweed around his neck. "Professor," he starts, choking on his own words. "Professor, I--" The words do not come out. They stick in his throat, globus sensation on a verbal scale.
"It's okay, it's okay," the professor keeps saying. "You're okay, Ash. I'm right here, see?"
Ash sees. He sees and he does not know, because unbeknownst to him the seaweed has long since invaded his lungs, his chest, his heart, has tangled itself up in his inner workings, has poisoned him.
Another thing he does not know: seaweed is weak to excessive heat. The Alolan sun will dehydrate it until it shrivels and withers away.
"It's okay, Ash," Professor Kukui says. His voice is soft. "It's okay, see?"
Ash sees.
He waits for it to all be okay.