It's My Party, for fugthimble
Title: It's My Party
Author: nekusagi
Rating: G
Verse: Games
Characters: Dawn, Lucas
Summary:The party was planned down to the last detail... nothing could go wrong, could it? For fugthimble.
I.
I had spent a month planning the party.
After all, your sixteenth birthday, as overmarketed and flat out overrated as the car, party goods, and greeting card industries seem to make it, is still, like it or not, that moment when you stand between childhood and adulthood. Somewhere in the midst of all that materialism is the bittersweet knowledge the time is drawing near to grow up.
For me, sixteen meant more than just a number. As a Trainer I'd achieved quite a bit in the six years since leaving home. So much in just the first two, more than most trainers ever expect to see in their lives.
The Lake Trio. Saving the world from a madman at the Spear Pillar. The Sinnoh League.
I had seen so much.
We had seen so much.
From the start he had been there at my side. For encouragement, for companionship, for a helping hand. I couldn't imagine life without Lucas. And without his help, wouldn't have seen so much that year I set out on his journey.
We were a team together. An unstoppable force.
And yet, as indispensible as he was to me, as indispensible as we were to each other, it felt like we could go further, like there was something more just ahead.
It was around my fifteenth birthday, one year ago today, that I realized we'd grown from childhood friends to something so much more. I knew it. He knew it. Everyone around knew it.
It was destiny.
The realization changed me for good. From the moment I'd found it in my heart that fate drew the two of us together, drew us both to adventure together and be friends and save humanity and battle the Elite Four and everything I felt like it'd all made perfect sense.
The legal age of marriage in Sinnoh is sixteen. The year I'd have to wait felt too long, but I swore to myself the day I turned 16, I would confess my love to him in front of everyone I knew and propose to him. We would get married in the chapel in Hearthome City. Honeymoon in Canalave City. Everything, down to the last stitch on the wedding dress, was a clear picture in my mind.
It was simply a matter of following through.
II.
I had spared no expense for the party, and spent the last three hours preparing the kitchen and living room. Every decoration had to be in place, every smudge of icing on the cake (vanilla ice cream cake with buttercream icing- everything made from scratch) flawless, balloons perfectly inflated.
The tables I'd covered with a red cloth. Red was his favorite color, and mine as well. On top of them was a variety of snacks and food- the ice cream cake, drinks, chips, and candy, as well as a small selection of Pokemon food for whatever Pokemon might show up to the party with their trainers.
The decorations were festive, if nothing else. Balloons lined the ceiling in all colors and streamers hung along every edged surface. I wore a pink, frilly dress- the one I wore for Contests years ago, that still somehow fit- and my hair in an elegant updo, a few locks falling over my face.
Today was a special day, and it had to look special. And the most special thing of all... the engagement ring, which I'd hidden on the table where presents were to be left, wrapped up just like the others would be, ready to casually open it as I opened presents and surprise him with it.
The guests started filing in, and the excitement grew, but not as much as the moment Lucas entered the room, dressed in a tuxedo, which I immediately recognized as his Contest suit. My heart skipped a beat and my eyes locked on to the present table.
Tonight is the night. I can't turn back now.
"Hi, Lucas," I said, smiling. I could feel the blood rushing to my face, I was blushing now and there was no way to hide it, but I didn't care.
"Happy birthday, Dawn," he said, gently shaking the gift bag in his hand to and fro. "Where do you want me to put this?"
"Leave it on the table over there," I said, pointing to the present and food table in the kitchen. I closed the door behind him as he made his way over there. In a few moments he'd returned with a red cup full of cola, a bowl of snack mix, and a girl I recalled helping through the forest early on my journey. She wore green from head to toe, and her hair, worn in a long braid, matched all this. Her style had matured in the last few years, however, and her demure forest girl clothes had been replaced by a more stylish denim miniskirt and tank top with a cozy cardigan on top. Something shiny glinted on her left hand. It was pretty and vaguely familiar.
"Hey Cheryl. I didn't know you knew Lucas."
"We met each other at the Battle Tower. We found out we both knew you so we spent the rest of the time talking."
Sickness rose in my body, the kind every woman instinctively gets the first time someone she really loves is with another woman, but I fought it. Friends are friends, and I wasn't the type to distrust someone who'd seen so much with me as Lucas. The thoughts dissipated like the flame of a birthday candle and I returned to our conversation.
"Well, now that Lucas is here, I suppose we can get started," I said. "Everyone, gather in the kitchen for cake and presents!"
The guests crowded in around the table and the candles on the cake were lit. Everyone helped themselves to a slice and we all sat down to eat- Lucas and Cheryl sitting down across from me- as I started opening the presents. I mentally counted down to the moment I'd reach the wrapped ring, one I'd planned to open last. The pile of presents grew smaller and smaller until I'd finally reached the tiny box.
"Cheryl," I said, realizing a predicament before me, "would you pass that over the table to me?"
"Sure thing, Dawn," Cheryl said, pushing the box to me with her left hand. I took the box, prepared to tear off the wrapping and announce my true feelings for Lucas, when the sparkle of Cheryl's ring distracted me. The sickness returned as I realized what it was.
A Pokemon League Champion ring. And I knew well who the current Pokemon League Champion was. Because he'd finally bested me two years ago.
Lucas.
Cheryl was wearing, on her hand, Lucas' Pokemon League ring. There were three explanations for this.
One, Cheryl had stolen the ring from Lucas. Unlikely, as Cheryl wasn't the type, and illogical too, since Lucas probably wouldn't take well to someone wearing his stolen property sitting right next to him. Two, Lucas had sold off his ring for money. Except that Lucas was making a decent amount of money tutoring young Trainers and even if he was that hard pressed, wouldn't sell off his ring even if he wanted to due to it being expressly forbidden under Sinnoh League regulations.
Three, and the obvious explanation, the one that drove me into near madness in this very moment. Lucas was dating her.
"Dawn? Is something wrong?" Cheryl asked, still beaming.
“Are you alright?” the others asked.
“Dawn?” Lucas finally said. That was what did it for me.
I rose from my seat. "Lucas, I was going to make a special announcement with this present I'd planted," I said, throwing the still-wrapped box in his face. "But now that I've seen how you really feel... keep it if you want, I don't even care anymore."
I ran out the door, tears streaming down my face, and retreated to inside the shed in the back yard- the one the two of us spend so many childhood hours playing make-believe in- to sob.
In a few minutes, Lucas appeared, carrying the still-giftwrapped box.
"Dawn? Is something wrong?"
"Is something wrong. Are you serious, Lucas?" I snapped.
He gave me a blank stare.
"Of course something's wrong," I said. "How long have you been seeing Cheryl? Don't deny it, I saw her wearing your Pokemon League Champion ring."
"Dawn, I-"
"It's been two years since you did those Battle Tower runs, right? With Cheryl?" I said. “The ones where you called me after your first hundredth battle victory? I was so happy for you, remember?”
"...Yes," Lucas finally said. I couldn't even look at him after that.
"I'm not about to tell you who you should and shouldn't date, Lucas," I said. "I'm not that kind of girl. But Lucas. All this time, through everything... Lake Acuity. Taking down the Galactics at the Spear Pillar. The League. The Battle Frontier. All this time, you could never tell that I was right there, loving you through all of it? That all we needed was each other? After all this time we've known each other, and you choose Cheryl?"
My whole face was red now, but for a different reason than it was earlier. "We faced so much, as a team, in the last six years. And you knew I was always going to be there for you."
I snatched the box out of his hand. "Do you want to know what this is, Lucas? I planted in the birthday present pile. I was going to open it and propose to you, but when I saw you no longer had room in your heart for me..."
"Dawn... You never said anything..."
"Did I have to?" I asked. "Lucas, all the signs were right there in front of your eyes and you never saw them? You never could see of all of them, it was you I wanted? How blind are you?"
I flung it out of the yard, into somewhere on the streets. I didn't care how much it cost at this point. It had lost all meaning in the last hour anyway.
"That's what I feel now. That's what you've done to my heart, Lucas," I said. "Get out. Get out now."
That night, I cried myself to sleep. I don't think I'd ever cried that much or that hard before.
When I woke up the next morning, my pillow was still soaked in tears.
III.
After the party, I hadn't heard from Lucas for a week. I'd begun to worry about him, despite the heartbreak he'd caused me. I had withdrawn myself from society, having fallen into a deep state of depression, and only ever left the house to shop for groceries or attend League meetings.
One day I received a text message on my Poketch.
"Dawn- meet me at Amity Square tomorrow at noon. Need to talk. - Lucas"
I was suspicious. What would Lucas want from me now, after proving he never considered my feelings once? Still, there was always the chance something was genuinely important... and I had within me yet the benefit of the doubt for him.
"OK," I messaged back, "see you there."
I sat on a bench in the park at noon that day, without him, fearing the worst. Worrying he'd stood me up, or worse, intentionally arranged this meeting without coming to get revenge for how I humiliated him at the party. He couldn't be that vindictive, could he possibly?
"Room for one more?" a voice asked. "Sorry I'm late. Apparently Alakazam wasn't cute enough for them so I had to run back to the Pokemon Center and get Clefairy out of the computer."
"Lucas," I said.
"I think this is yours, Dawn," Lucas said, handing me the now crumpled ring box.
"I don't want it back," I said, pushing it back towards him. "After what you did to me, I don't want to ever see that ring again."
"Well, I took mine back," Lucas said, flashing his left hand. Around his middle finger was his Pokemon League ring, the one Cheryl had been wearing a week earlier.
"Lucas...? Does that mean you've...?"
"Yeah, we talked a while after the party, and after a few days thinking it over, we decided we'd both jumped into something prematurely. Neither of us were truly happy with each other, so we parted ways. And you were right last week, Dawn, we really have shared so much that we're clearly made for each other."
Suddenly the huge hole last week's discovery left in my heart began to fill back up until it was good as new.
"Lucas..." I said, throwing my arms around him. "I'm so glad you returned. Just... thank you."
We shared a long embrace and Lucas pressed the box back into my hand. "Well, Dawn, I believe there's something you need to finish?"
I undid the boxes wrappings and removed the ring, then presented it to him. My eyes welled up with tears, but this time, they were happy tears. Tears of joy knowing that finally our destinies would be fulfilled.
"Lucas, will you marry me?"
His eyes lit up and he smiled warmly.
"Yes," he said. I moved in for a smooch, which he returned.
"Let's start over, then," Lucas said.
"We don't need to," I assured him. "We never ended."
Author: nekusagi
Rating: G
Verse: Games
Characters: Dawn, Lucas
Summary:The party was planned down to the last detail... nothing could go wrong, could it? For fugthimble.
I.
I had spent a month planning the party.
After all, your sixteenth birthday, as overmarketed and flat out overrated as the car, party goods, and greeting card industries seem to make it, is still, like it or not, that moment when you stand between childhood and adulthood. Somewhere in the midst of all that materialism is the bittersweet knowledge the time is drawing near to grow up.
For me, sixteen meant more than just a number. As a Trainer I'd achieved quite a bit in the six years since leaving home. So much in just the first two, more than most trainers ever expect to see in their lives.
The Lake Trio. Saving the world from a madman at the Spear Pillar. The Sinnoh League.
I had seen so much.
We had seen so much.
From the start he had been there at my side. For encouragement, for companionship, for a helping hand. I couldn't imagine life without Lucas. And without his help, wouldn't have seen so much that year I set out on his journey.
We were a team together. An unstoppable force.
And yet, as indispensible as he was to me, as indispensible as we were to each other, it felt like we could go further, like there was something more just ahead.
It was around my fifteenth birthday, one year ago today, that I realized we'd grown from childhood friends to something so much more. I knew it. He knew it. Everyone around knew it.
It was destiny.
The realization changed me for good. From the moment I'd found it in my heart that fate drew the two of us together, drew us both to adventure together and be friends and save humanity and battle the Elite Four and everything I felt like it'd all made perfect sense.
The legal age of marriage in Sinnoh is sixteen. The year I'd have to wait felt too long, but I swore to myself the day I turned 16, I would confess my love to him in front of everyone I knew and propose to him. We would get married in the chapel in Hearthome City. Honeymoon in Canalave City. Everything, down to the last stitch on the wedding dress, was a clear picture in my mind.
It was simply a matter of following through.
II.
I had spared no expense for the party, and spent the last three hours preparing the kitchen and living room. Every decoration had to be in place, every smudge of icing on the cake (vanilla ice cream cake with buttercream icing- everything made from scratch) flawless, balloons perfectly inflated.
The tables I'd covered with a red cloth. Red was his favorite color, and mine as well. On top of them was a variety of snacks and food- the ice cream cake, drinks, chips, and candy, as well as a small selection of Pokemon food for whatever Pokemon might show up to the party with their trainers.
The decorations were festive, if nothing else. Balloons lined the ceiling in all colors and streamers hung along every edged surface. I wore a pink, frilly dress- the one I wore for Contests years ago, that still somehow fit- and my hair in an elegant updo, a few locks falling over my face.
Today was a special day, and it had to look special. And the most special thing of all... the engagement ring, which I'd hidden on the table where presents were to be left, wrapped up just like the others would be, ready to casually open it as I opened presents and surprise him with it.
The guests started filing in, and the excitement grew, but not as much as the moment Lucas entered the room, dressed in a tuxedo, which I immediately recognized as his Contest suit. My heart skipped a beat and my eyes locked on to the present table.
Tonight is the night. I can't turn back now.
"Hi, Lucas," I said, smiling. I could feel the blood rushing to my face, I was blushing now and there was no way to hide it, but I didn't care.
"Happy birthday, Dawn," he said, gently shaking the gift bag in his hand to and fro. "Where do you want me to put this?"
"Leave it on the table over there," I said, pointing to the present and food table in the kitchen. I closed the door behind him as he made his way over there. In a few moments he'd returned with a red cup full of cola, a bowl of snack mix, and a girl I recalled helping through the forest early on my journey. She wore green from head to toe, and her hair, worn in a long braid, matched all this. Her style had matured in the last few years, however, and her demure forest girl clothes had been replaced by a more stylish denim miniskirt and tank top with a cozy cardigan on top. Something shiny glinted on her left hand. It was pretty and vaguely familiar.
"Hey Cheryl. I didn't know you knew Lucas."
"We met each other at the Battle Tower. We found out we both knew you so we spent the rest of the time talking."
Sickness rose in my body, the kind every woman instinctively gets the first time someone she really loves is with another woman, but I fought it. Friends are friends, and I wasn't the type to distrust someone who'd seen so much with me as Lucas. The thoughts dissipated like the flame of a birthday candle and I returned to our conversation.
"Well, now that Lucas is here, I suppose we can get started," I said. "Everyone, gather in the kitchen for cake and presents!"
The guests crowded in around the table and the candles on the cake were lit. Everyone helped themselves to a slice and we all sat down to eat- Lucas and Cheryl sitting down across from me- as I started opening the presents. I mentally counted down to the moment I'd reach the wrapped ring, one I'd planned to open last. The pile of presents grew smaller and smaller until I'd finally reached the tiny box.
"Cheryl," I said, realizing a predicament before me, "would you pass that over the table to me?"
"Sure thing, Dawn," Cheryl said, pushing the box to me with her left hand. I took the box, prepared to tear off the wrapping and announce my true feelings for Lucas, when the sparkle of Cheryl's ring distracted me. The sickness returned as I realized what it was.
A Pokemon League Champion ring. And I knew well who the current Pokemon League Champion was. Because he'd finally bested me two years ago.
Lucas.
Cheryl was wearing, on her hand, Lucas' Pokemon League ring. There were three explanations for this.
One, Cheryl had stolen the ring from Lucas. Unlikely, as Cheryl wasn't the type, and illogical too, since Lucas probably wouldn't take well to someone wearing his stolen property sitting right next to him. Two, Lucas had sold off his ring for money. Except that Lucas was making a decent amount of money tutoring young Trainers and even if he was that hard pressed, wouldn't sell off his ring even if he wanted to due to it being expressly forbidden under Sinnoh League regulations.
Three, and the obvious explanation, the one that drove me into near madness in this very moment. Lucas was dating her.
"Dawn? Is something wrong?" Cheryl asked, still beaming.
“Are you alright?” the others asked.
“Dawn?” Lucas finally said. That was what did it for me.
I rose from my seat. "Lucas, I was going to make a special announcement with this present I'd planted," I said, throwing the still-wrapped box in his face. "But now that I've seen how you really feel... keep it if you want, I don't even care anymore."
I ran out the door, tears streaming down my face, and retreated to inside the shed in the back yard- the one the two of us spend so many childhood hours playing make-believe in- to sob.
In a few minutes, Lucas appeared, carrying the still-giftwrapped box.
"Dawn? Is something wrong?"
"Is something wrong. Are you serious, Lucas?" I snapped.
He gave me a blank stare.
"Of course something's wrong," I said. "How long have you been seeing Cheryl? Don't deny it, I saw her wearing your Pokemon League Champion ring."
"Dawn, I-"
"It's been two years since you did those Battle Tower runs, right? With Cheryl?" I said. “The ones where you called me after your first hundredth battle victory? I was so happy for you, remember?”
"...Yes," Lucas finally said. I couldn't even look at him after that.
"I'm not about to tell you who you should and shouldn't date, Lucas," I said. "I'm not that kind of girl. But Lucas. All this time, through everything... Lake Acuity. Taking down the Galactics at the Spear Pillar. The League. The Battle Frontier. All this time, you could never tell that I was right there, loving you through all of it? That all we needed was each other? After all this time we've known each other, and you choose Cheryl?"
My whole face was red now, but for a different reason than it was earlier. "We faced so much, as a team, in the last six years. And you knew I was always going to be there for you."
I snatched the box out of his hand. "Do you want to know what this is, Lucas? I planted in the birthday present pile. I was going to open it and propose to you, but when I saw you no longer had room in your heart for me..."
"Dawn... You never said anything..."
"Did I have to?" I asked. "Lucas, all the signs were right there in front of your eyes and you never saw them? You never could see of all of them, it was you I wanted? How blind are you?"
I flung it out of the yard, into somewhere on the streets. I didn't care how much it cost at this point. It had lost all meaning in the last hour anyway.
"That's what I feel now. That's what you've done to my heart, Lucas," I said. "Get out. Get out now."
That night, I cried myself to sleep. I don't think I'd ever cried that much or that hard before.
When I woke up the next morning, my pillow was still soaked in tears.
III.
After the party, I hadn't heard from Lucas for a week. I'd begun to worry about him, despite the heartbreak he'd caused me. I had withdrawn myself from society, having fallen into a deep state of depression, and only ever left the house to shop for groceries or attend League meetings.
One day I received a text message on my Poketch.
"Dawn- meet me at Amity Square tomorrow at noon. Need to talk. - Lucas"
I was suspicious. What would Lucas want from me now, after proving he never considered my feelings once? Still, there was always the chance something was genuinely important... and I had within me yet the benefit of the doubt for him.
"OK," I messaged back, "see you there."
I sat on a bench in the park at noon that day, without him, fearing the worst. Worrying he'd stood me up, or worse, intentionally arranged this meeting without coming to get revenge for how I humiliated him at the party. He couldn't be that vindictive, could he possibly?
"Room for one more?" a voice asked. "Sorry I'm late. Apparently Alakazam wasn't cute enough for them so I had to run back to the Pokemon Center and get Clefairy out of the computer."
"Lucas," I said.
"I think this is yours, Dawn," Lucas said, handing me the now crumpled ring box.
"I don't want it back," I said, pushing it back towards him. "After what you did to me, I don't want to ever see that ring again."
"Well, I took mine back," Lucas said, flashing his left hand. Around his middle finger was his Pokemon League ring, the one Cheryl had been wearing a week earlier.
"Lucas...? Does that mean you've...?"
"Yeah, we talked a while after the party, and after a few days thinking it over, we decided we'd both jumped into something prematurely. Neither of us were truly happy with each other, so we parted ways. And you were right last week, Dawn, we really have shared so much that we're clearly made for each other."
Suddenly the huge hole last week's discovery left in my heart began to fill back up until it was good as new.
"Lucas..." I said, throwing my arms around him. "I'm so glad you returned. Just... thank you."
We shared a long embrace and Lucas pressed the box back into my hand. "Well, Dawn, I believe there's something you need to finish?"
I undid the boxes wrappings and removed the ring, then presented it to him. My eyes welled up with tears, but this time, they were happy tears. Tears of joy knowing that finally our destinies would be fulfilled.
"Lucas, will you marry me?"
His eyes lit up and he smiled warmly.
"Yes," he said. I moved in for a smooch, which he returned.
"Let's start over, then," Lucas said.
"We don't need to," I assured him. "We never ended."