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Always A Surprise
The tinkering of the piano reached Ash's ears the moment he entered the Oak house and he couldn't hold back a grin. They had barely been back in Pallet for a day, but that was all it had taken for Gary to turn back to the one hobby that could rival working with pokemon. Ash wasn't surprised in the slightest — not after two years of dating. But what did surprise him was the fact that he was quite sure he hadn't heard this particular song yet. It may have struck people as a bit odd, but Ash always remembered the songs he had heard Gary play and he would have recognized that swift pattern of notes if he had heard it before.
It sounded like he was in for a bit of a treat this morning. It was fascinating to watch his boyfriend figure out new songs — Ash never knew what the original music sounded like, not with the earbuds that Gary wore when he played but that didn't make it any less interesting.
He made his way down the hallway to the living room and, sure enough, there was his boyfriend, seated at the piano, fingers dancing across the keys as though no time had passed since he had last played. It always amazed Ash how easily he returned to the instrument, even after traveling for the better part of three months.
He made his way into the room and wrapped his arms around Gary’s shoulders from behind, delighting in the tiny jump the move elicited. It wasn’t often that he got to surprise Gary but he took advantage of his focus every chance he could to do exactly that.
Gary paused in his playing and tapped the screen of his phone to pause the music before reaching up to remove his earbuds. He set them down on the ledge above the piano keys as he leaned back against Ash, looking up at him with a smile. Easily returning the smile, Ash dipped his head and pressed a quick kiss to his lips.
"Didn't mean to startle you," he said, pressing a second kiss to his cheek.
Gary rolled his eyes but grinned regardless. "Liar," he teased, his hands going right back to the keys in front of him.
Ash stayed put with his arms around Gary’s shoulders, happily watching and listening as Gary continued playing. He stayed that way for a long moment, simply savoring the quiet time together until…
"Don't you listen to anything other than piano music?" The question was out of Ash's mouth before he had even thought it through.
Gary glanced up with a thoroughly amused smirk. "You couldn't have possibly made it any more obvious that you don't know what kind of music I listen to." He sounded almost as though he were fighting back a laugh, which only confused Ash.
Not just any music could be played on piano, right? It had to be a certain type, didn't it? Classical or something pretty, right?
Actually, that didn't sound much like his boyfriend. But that begged the question: what did his boyfriend even listen to? There had been enough playful jabs back and forth between Gary and Tracey about questionable music taste for Ash to be curious.
Gary picked up the earbuds that he had set down and passed one of them to Ash. "I can't wait to see your reaction, considering you apparently think I only listen to boring classical music."
"I didn't say that," Ash protested but Gary’s smile was still teasing and he knew that his boyfriend was just picking on him.
Ash put the earbud in and waited for Gary to turn the music back on. He jumped when the music came back on and pointedly ignored Gary's laugh. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't this. This was loud, with heavy guitars and fast drums and vocals somewhere between a growl and a scream.
"What?" Ash's jaw dropped. Gary had to be fucking with him. There was no way his boyfriend actually listened to music this heavy, much less played it on piano. He was definitely screwing with him. "You can't play that on piano," he determined confidently.
Gary's smirk widened. "That's the exact song I was just playing."
"How?"
"By hitting the correct keys, obviously."
"I still don't believe you," Ash declared. He had to be messing with him.
"Why would I lie about that?"
"To fuck with me."
But then he heard it — that particular pattern of notes that had told Ash he hadn't heard this song before. Something must have shown on his face, because Gary simply looked at him expectantly.
"You hear it now, huh?"
"How?" Ash repeated, only drawing another laugh from his boyfriend.
So many questions ran through Ash's head all at once. How on earth did he manage to take this heavy guitar and drum-driven song and make it sound pretty? Had he looked up the notes? Did piano versions of this song even exist elsewhere? Or had Gary figured it out himself? How long had it taken to do that? He couldn't imagine it being easy.
He had known that Gary was good at piano, but figuring something so complicated out on piano seemed like something a person had to be better than just good to do. Just how good at this was Gary? Why did he have to be so good at everything? Was there anything he was actually bad at?
But it seemed Gary had some answers for him.
"When you've been playing as long as I have, you start recognizing the notes when you hear them," he said, fingers tracing out the melody playing through the ear buds. "If you know the keys, you can figure out what the melody is doing and you can figure out the chords."
"That sounds hard."
Gary smiled. The song hit an interlude, the guitar picking up the pace and flying through a complex-sounding solo — and if Gary missed a note, Ash wouldn't have known. One hand followed the melody and the other followed along with chords that seemed to push the whole thing along. It all flowed so smoothly and Ash was taken aback.
"Why is everything always a surprise with you?" he couldn’t help but blurt out.
"It's not like I'm hiding things from you." He sounded amused but Ash caught the faint defensive edge.
"I know you're not." Not intentionally, at least. Gary just kept things close to his chest in general, and sometimes things that weren't especially important just didn't get communicated. "I just mean, when we're home, you're always playing piano and listening to music but I never knew what it was until today. You always manage to surprise me, is all," he finished with a shrug.
Gary's usual little smirk returned at that. "Then I guess it's a good thing I like surprising you, huh?"
"Guess so," Ash agreed with a grin.
He watched, fascinated, as Gary played through the remainder of the song. How did he do that? How did he always make it look so easy? Playing for… how long had it been now? Fifteen years? That undoubtedly had something to do with it, but it still impressed Ash nonetheless.
The song ended and Gary paused the music on the phone as he held the final note with his left hand.
"Play something for me?" Ash asked.
"Like what?"
"I dunno — you're the musician!" Ash laughed. What did he know about music? "What's your favorite song sound like on piano?"
"You're gonna make me pick a favorite?" Gary groaned.
"Okay, okay!" He hadn't realized that would be such a difficult request for his boyfriend and while a whiney Gary was actually rather cute, he was also annoying to deal with. "What's a song you like playing a lot then?" he amended.
Gary thought for a moment before nodding and picking up his phone. He clicked through a few different screens and scrolled briefly before a new song began playing. A moody guitar melody came through the earbud, not quite as heavy as the last one, though still loud and guitar-heavy with fast drums beneath it. The melody was more pronounced in this song and it was easier to hear the translation from a song with multiple instruments to a single pretty melody on the piano. It only took a moment to recognize the song as one that Gary played rather frequently. Ash had definitely heard it multiple times in their stays in Pallet.
"Some things translate better than others, obviously," Gary said as his fingers traced out the notes. "This one is one of the better ones."
Ash could tell. He listened with a smile, watching raptly all the while. "We should get a piano whenever we get our own place." Once again, the words were out of Ash's mouth before they had registered in his brain.
Gary's fingers slipped on the keys, noticeably hitting the wrong note, but he recovered quickly, pretending it hadn't happened as he glanced over at Ash. "You want our own place?" he asked, voice curious, though Ash could hear the faint uncertainty beneath it.
That was what happened every time Ash mentioned change — especially a big change like that.
"I mean… Yeah, one day, eventually," he admitted. Somewhere near Pallet, but it was too early to think about that now. They could worry about that in a few years, when they were older than nineteen. "I'm just saying I like hearing you play."
"I'm surprised you're not complaining about us not already being outside on that hike we were gonna do."
Ash rolled his eyes at the obvious change in subject. "I said, I like hearing you play," he repeated. "I'm not gonna complain about waiting a few extra minutes when you're playing."
While he wouldn't complain, it seemed that someone else would. Pikachu chose that moment to run into the room, Umbreon close behind as they played a game of tag. Pikachu positively shrieked with delight when he spotted Gary and leapt up atop the piano to greet him, stepping on a dozen different keys all at once and creating a ruckus far less pleasant to hear than Gary's playing was.
He quickly scooped his pokemon off the keys and held the squirming creature as securely as he could. "Sorry," he muttered.
Fortunately Gary laughed as he greeted the electric mouse. "I think that's our cue to stop screwing around and get ready to go, right, buddy?"
"Pika pipichu!"
"It's not screwing around," Ash protested. Besides, he was enjoying these few minutes together.
Gary only shrugged his shoulders as he stood from the piano bench. "It is," he returned easily. "I was just passing time waiting on you."
Why did he always have to pass this off as something that didn't matter? As though is wasn't something he had dedicated so many hours of his life to? It was a mystery to figure out another day because they had plans today, as Pikachu had reminded them.
"Whatever you say, Gary," he sighed as he pulled the earbud out of ear and passed it back to his boyfriend. "Are you ready to go?"
As if he needed to ask — Gary had probably been ready since the night before, even though they were just going on a hike through the forests surrounding Pallet, just as they had done a hundred times in the past.
Sure enough…
"I've been ready."
"As long as you promise to play more for me later on, I'm ready too."
Gary smiled as he took the earbud and placed it in the case with the other one, leaving them on the top of the piano for later. "Deal," he agreed.
He would keep that promise, Ash knew, because even though Gary was always full of surprises, whether or not he kept a promise was never one of them. A promise was a promise, no matter how small and unimportant, and Gary always kept his promises.