“Ash, this is ridiculous.”
“No it’s not, it’s—Hi, Mom!”
Delia’s head spins on a swivel, trying to figure out where her son’s disembodied voice is coming from, and Misty, like an idiot, holds up her Rotom Phone so she can see him waving like a dork on the screen and wave back before going back to her conversation.
“I am not doing this all night,” Misty hisses, glaring into the camera so Ash really gets the hint, but it seems even Ash knows that’s a lie as he smirks at her and makes his big, dumb, brown eyes even bigger.
“But Misty,” he whines, “it’s Christmas Eve.”
“Okay,” she tuts. “And if that was so important to you, you would physically be here, so…”
Ash actually does frown at that, looking for the first time during this conversation, earnest. “I really tried to be there,” he reminds her. “The storm came outta nowhere. You know how it is flying out of Sinnoh in the winter.”
She doesn’t, actually, but she graciously decides not to bring that up, and points the phone camera at Dawn, who is animatedly talking about something with an equally enthusiastic May. “Dawn managed it,” she tells him.
“Anyway,” he drawls, changing the subject. “Bring me over to Brock, I wanna ask him something.”
Misty rolls her eyes. “I’m not your maid, call him yourself,” she huffs, but walks over to Brock anyway, because she’s down bad and pathetic.
Brock sees her coming, his grin getting progressively wider the closer she gets, so she glares pointedly in return, mouthing ‘Not a word’ behind the phone so Ash can’t see.
“Hey, man!” Brock greets Ash. “Glad you could…make it? Kinda?”
“Hey, Brocko!” Ash laughs, all smiles. “yeah, my flight got canceled. Bummer right? Anyway, I wanted to ask you about—”
Ash’s mouth snaps shut as Gary’s face pops into frame. Next to him, Misty groans, burying her face in her hands. “Hey, Gary!” he says. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas! Sorry you couldn’t make it, Gramps’ party hasn’t been the same without you.”
Ash shrugs and crosses his fingers. “Hopefully next year,” he offers optimistically.
“You gonna try to make it back for New Year’s Eve still?” Gary asks. “Cause as a heads up, I’ve got dibs for a midnight kiss with this one,” he purrs, and to Misty’s horror, holds up a spring of mistletoe over her head and kisses her loudly on the cheek.
“Would you cut that out?!” Misty snaps, pushing him away. Even in the tiny window on her phone screen, she sees the pink tinge to her cheeks. “And I am not kissing you on New Years.”
“We’ll see,” Gary says flippantly with a wink, giving Ash a single salute goodbye and disappearing back into the crowd as quickly as he appeared. She rolls her eyes, and goes to meet Brock with a commiserating look of annoyance, only to find him smirking weirdly back at her.
“What’s with you?” she asks, but Brock only raises his eyebrow and tilts his head quickly at her phone.
On the screen, Ash’s face has positively darkened.
“Did Gary just kiss you?” he asks, looking almost on the verge of being sick. Misty huffs.
“He’s done it, like, five times tonight. I’ve already taken his mistletoe twice. Dawn threw one in the fireplace an hour ago. I have no idea where he keeps getting more.”
Ash’s mouth sets itself into a hard line, his whole demeanor shifting to the point where even Pikachu hops up onto his shoulder to check on him with a concerned “Pikapi?”.
“Ash?” Brock asks, sounding as amused as he is concerned, and finally shakes Ash out of his mood with a small jolt, his eyes hardening into something startlingly determined.
“Sorry guys, gotta go,” he says, his lips quirking into a confident smile. “I gotta leave now if I’m gonna get there by New Years Eve.”
“But all the flights out of Sinnoh are cancelled,” Misty reminds him, but he ignores her, calling out a “see you soon!” with a wave goodbye.
And with that, he hangs up the phone, leaving Misty face to face with her confused reflection in the darkened screen.
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