Chapter 17:Sick
Ash grumbled under the thick blanket of his bed in the guest bedroom of Cynthia's apartment in the Champion's Tower, frustrated with his condition. "Cynthia, I'm telling you, I'm fine!"
The room was similar to Cynthia's room, a queen sized bed, light blue painted walls, a mahogany dresser, wardrobe and bedside table on either side of the bed. A large window gave a great view of the beach and the north-eastern sea of Sinnoh.
Cynthia's bedroom was mostly black and white with some purple, her favourite colour, believe it or not.
Cynthia sighed in irritation. "No Ash, you aren't!" She said for what felt like the tenth time that morning. "Listen to your mistress: You. Are. Sick!" She emphasised with three pokes to Ash's clogged up nose. She then immediately moved her finger to avoid Ash's sneezing fit.
"Aaron was nice enough to go to Sunnyshore for cold medicine, but until he gets back, you are going to stay in bed, get some much needed rest and watch tv."
Ash groaned in displeasure. "Come on, Cynthia, that tournament is coming up and-"
"You are going to relax and you're going to like it!" She commanded sharply.
"Can Pikachu-"
"No, it's almost impossible to predict how an individual pokemon will react to a human sickness, so it's best if he stays away until you're better!"
"Fine..."
She knew she didn't need to be so forceful, but she wasn't angry at Ash, she was angry at herself. She was the one who pushed Ash into the lake, both figuratively and literally. Ash being Ash, didn't complain in the slightest, he took it in his stride, as he did all the crap she put him through, even when he started turning blue and coughing up his lungs.
She felt guilty.
She was his mistress, his welfare was in her hands and she allowed him to get sick, she should have been smarter, she should have been thinking of him more. She should have... She should have...
Needless to say, Cynthia Shirona wasn't a woman used to making mistakes and watching her apprentice, her friend, someone she cared about suffering and looking half-dead because of her... It was awful. Every cough and every sneeze was like a dagger.
Her fault, her fault, all her fault.
"Ash... Please just rest today, okay? For me? She asked using the two words all men dread.
"Okay." He muttered. "For you. But what about you? You could catch it off of me!" Ash asked in concern as he wiped his nose on a tissue.
"Don't worry about me, I'm a Shirona." Cynthia replied in nonchalance, waving him off with a raised hand.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
She straightened her back in the chair she was sitting in and crossed her legs, as if to give a lecture. "The Shirona family are known for several things. One, our history as well-known exorcists, two, our extraordinary immune system and three, our complete inability to get a tan." She said, raising a finger with each one of her points.
Ash raised an incredulous eyebrow. "Really? The first two were noteworthy, but an inability to get a tan?"
"Hey, that's my family legacy there!" She heatedly retorted. "You weren't there when the Great Heatwave of 1382 forced my ancestors into the caves of Mt. Coronet for four months so they didn't burn to a crisp outside! It was what saved us from being turned from snow white to flareon red!
Though that was the reason why the Shirona Clan founded Celestic Town, when they discovered the Creation Shrine in one of those caves."
"Thanks for the history lesson." Ash tried to throw the bed cover off of himself, but Cynthia held him down by placing her hand on his chest.
"And where do you think you're going?" She asked sternly. Didn't she just tell him to sleep? His fever must have been messing with his head, because Cynthia knew that Ash didn't just knowingly ignore her instructions.
"To the kitchen, I haven't had breakfast yet!" He shouted hoarsely.
"I'll make you some soup, don't worry." She unconsciously ran her hand through his hair, almost like a caress. She wiped her palm, slightly damp from his sweat, on her pants.
"A-are you sure?" Ash nervously asked, worrying about anything else being added to his nausea, head-ache, stomach-ache and fever.
Cynthia frowned. She wasn't that bad. Really, she wasn't. Right? "Fine, I'll ask Bertha to make it if it makes you feel better."
"Well, she certainly won't make me worse, unlike you!" Cynthia didn't reply, unless you count a pillow to the face as a witty response.
"Ouff!"
"Oh, suck it up!"
Cynthia left the bedroom and into the hallway, walking down the stairs to the end of the hall and got in the elevator that lead to the other levels of the Champion's Tower. She took the elevator to the sixteenth floor, the lower floor of Bertha's apartment. Luckily, the older woman was taking a brief respite from her job as a therapist. Many Pokemon League members had hobbies or vocations that distracted from the boredom of waiting for the next challenger.
Cynthia was an archaeologist, Bertha, a therapist specialising in children, Flint volunteered at various Trainer Schools around Sinnoh while travelling the region, while Aaron designed clothes for pokemon. His dream job that stemmed from a childhood obsession of dressing wild pokemon as famous figures of the early nineteen hundreds.
Yes, really. It took some skill to dress a wild pinsir as Kenji Mayigi, the founder of the Pokemon Rangers.
Nobody cared about what Lucian did, even though he claimed it was really, really interesting and that they sucked for ignoring him and that they'd regret it, because he'd never let them use his services as a... whatever it was he did.
"Bertha! Are you here?" Cynthia shouted from the door.
"We're right in here, Cynthia!" Flint shouted from the living room.
Cynthia walked in and looked from Flint and Bertha to the flat screen on the wall. "What are you watching?" She asked with a sort of morbid curiosity. Bertha was bad enough on her own, but with Flint, who know what they might have been up to.
"Nights Of Our Restless Lives!" Flint happily supplied. "It's the season twenty six finale. Roberto's just found out that Gina's been masquerading as all four of her quintuplets for the seven seasons, including Steven and Jeff, Roberto's lover, to gain control of the Umstad family fortune! And Nadia's pregnant, but she's been cheating on the Count with his conjoined twin, so nobody knows who the father is!
And Kai's just come back from the Orre region with a new wife, that's the fifth one this season, but he better look out, because the Black Kelceon is still out there and Detective McDougall is still examining the crime scene of Kai's seventh wife! Personally, I think Trish is involved, she's always been after Kai's cousin Andrew, she even put that bra in his wardrobe for Lulubelle to find."
"Bitch." Bertha chimed while sipping from a cup of tea.
"Right..." Cynthia drawled. Flint needed a girlfriend. Badly. "So, anyway, would you mind making some soup for Ash, he's not feeling well and he's hungry."
As if they practised it, two knowing smirks grew simultaneously on the soap opera fan's faces. "Oh, he's sick, is he?"
"Well don't worry, Nurse Cynthia will take real good care of you!" Flint chortled.
"Do you need an outfit of do you already have the costume?"
Cynthia let out an aggravated sigh. "Are you going to help me or not, because I'm liable to kill him!" She barked. She didn't ask why Bertha had a nurse's outfit, she really, really didn't want to know.
"Fine, fine!" Bertha said. "Come with me, I know something that will fix him up."
They moved to the kitchen where Bertha opened a can of tomato soup that she put to boil and added some other ingredients. "Some pepper for his sinuses, a little powered oran berry to give him some pep, a bit of chilli powder for a real kick, a dash of whiskey..."
"Why do you keep whiskey in the kitchen and why are you giving it to my apprentice!" Why did she keep this old alcoholic around again? Oh right, she was the closest thing she had to a mother and had helped her get through a very difficult time in her life.
So what did that say about Cynthia exactly?
"Oh, I just love the way you say "MY apprentice!" The old woman giggled girlishly. "One, whiskey makes everything taste better and two, it's for his headache. And finally, a grounded sleeping pill."
"Are you sure this will help?" Cynthia inquired, looking at the dangerously bubbling spicy soup. Ah well, it was at least one hundred times better than anything she would fail to make.
"Of course I'm sure, as long as you don't let him fall asleep in it face first, this will cure almost anything! Now get, I want to see that Gina bitch get what she's owed!"
"Bertha! Chadwick's back from the Orange Islands! And he's pissed!"
"WHAT!" Bertha shrieked. "BUT HE LOST HIS ARMS AND LEGS IN THAT FREAK GARDENING ACCIDENT IN SEASON TEN! I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!"
Cynthia stood there mystified, until she remembered Ash and left Bertha's apartment for her own.
She swiftly returned to Ash's bedroom to find that he had fallen asleep in the time she had been gone. She placed the steaming bowl on his bedside table for later and sat back down in the chair she previously occupied.
Watching him sleep, his chest steadily moving up and down with only his constricted nasal passage implying something was wrong, Cynthia felt her body relax. There was just something so comforting in observing him, his already deep slumber and slightly drooling mouth gave her a definite feeling of peace for a reason she didn't want to describe.
Cynthia silently berated herself. She was acting weird again, staring at him while he slept. But she just couldn't help herself, she just needed to watch him, it was like she was addicted to his presence, she thought as she slowly reached out to his resting form.
She quickly drew her hand back. No, damn it! She could control herself!
It was her own damn fault, that weird "tension" between herself and Ash. She didn't know how or where it began, but sometimes she would catch herself just watching, his face as he played with his pokemon, his wide, happy smile, his slightly narrowed eyes when he was concentrating. She didn't know why she found him so fascinating all of a sudden, just that she did and that a day without at least fifteen minutes of unknowingly ogling Ash was a day unfulfilled.
Then there was the incident. She had just gotten out of the shower when she heard a knock at the door, believing it was Bertha, she invited her in.
But it wasn't Bertha and Ash Ketchum had gotten an eyeful of her uncovered chest. She couldn't reach up to cover herself or else she would've dropped the towel she had casually draped around her waist and that would've given Ash an even better look at her body.
In her mortification, she didn't realise that she could've used the towel she had just finished drying her hair with, so for a full six seconds (she counted) Ash performed a very good impression of a darumaka, without the wide grin, while trying to tear his eyes away from her breasts, before his coming to his senses, shouting an apology and running away.
The worst thing, after unintentionally flashing her apprentice, that took the cake, was the fact that she felt, and she honestly couldn't believe this, excited.
It was the first time a man had seen her naked body, what did he think, did he like them, he must have, right?
Cynthia couldn't deny that Ash was good-looking, you know, in a handsome kind of way, so the thought that he might be attracted to her, sexually, sent a shiver down her spine and a quiver somewhere else, which made for a very awkward conversation when Bertha finally did show up.
But then came her crowning glory of awkward sexual come-ons. At the lake, she offered to strip herself down to her underwear and Ash REFUSED. Granted, the idea had been less "I want to warm you up" and more "I want to rub my half-naked body against you to see your reaction." Did he not find her beautiful enough? She knew she was, in an aesthetic sense, physically beautiful, she had heard it enough times that it had become fact in her mind.
Then one day, Ash had managed to stutter it out when, for some reason, she asked him if he thought she was pretty.
She swore that her heart stopped for a full minute then started beating overtime to catch up with the beats it missed.
So why did Ash seem so repulsed at the thought of him and her cuddling under the blanket, why did her have to be so confusing and make her question herself?
Damn you, Ash Ketchum, she thought to herself with a small half-frown.
Her frown deepened when Ash shivered and moaned in his sleep. The back of her hand was on his forehead in a flash. He was really burning up. Where the hell was Aaron?
Looking at his pale face, Cynthia's eyes were drawn in by his lips and unconsciously licked her own.
It was silly, wasn't it, to let this tension come between them? She was a professional, she wasn't a schoolgirl with her first crush. She was Cynthia Shirona and she wasn't going to allow her head to be messed up because she was worried that a boy didn't think that she was pretty.
So she just had to kiss him, needed to kiss him, just once, to say she did, so she could just forget about it and go back to being mistress and apprentice. It was for their own good, right? Right!
Cynthia slowly stood from the chair, her heartbeat quickening with every second. She was going to do it, she was going to kiss Ash and then... She would do it again and again, an annoying part of her mind butted in.
No! She wouldn't! She was just going to do it once, to break the tension and have everything go back to normal!
But shouldn't he be awake too?
No, he didn't need to know that she was giving him her first kiss and stealing one from him. He didn't need to know how she felt, because he didn't feel the same, he couldn't feel the same! Please don't let him feel the same, she wasn't sure she'd ever stop kissing him if he did, and that thought terrified her. The thought that a man would make her feel so insecure and indecisive sickened her. That's why she needed to do this, to let go of these damned emotions.
She was hovering over his face now, she could feel his breath against his face, the overwhelming stench of sickness pervading her nose, but under it, she caught the scent of something else. When did Ash start wearing cologne? It smelled good, great actually, kind of a spicy, manly sort of scent. She took an extra few seconds to breathe it in.
She cupped his face with her delicate hands to hold him still. Just once, please give her the strength to do it just one time and stop there.
She closed her eyes and took a few steadying breaths, before leaning in, her nose brushing his.
So focused on the lips about to meet her own, she didn't notice until it was too late.
"Aah-choo!" Ash sneezed, covering Cynthia's chin with mucus and then he turned over onto his stomach.
Cynthia recoiled and rushed to the bathroom, valiantly resisting the urge to vomit violently. "Eww, eww, eww, eww!" She shouted as she splashed scalding hot water onto her face. "Ah, there's some in my mouth!" This wasn't what she wanted when she thought about swapping spit with Ash.
She had learned her lesson well, never sexually assault a sleeping sick guy. Her lips had been foiled by a sickness she had a hand in causing, was that irony or did the universe just hate her?
Wiping the last of the snot from her face, Cynthia returned to Ash's room to continue her vigil, her lips kept far away from his. This day couldn't get much worse and it was only 10:30 am.
What else could go wrong?
WTLM
She just had to ask, didn't she?
Four days later, Ash had recovered from his illness, the day that she had succumbed to her own. "Achoo!" She sneezed, wipe at her nose with her pyjama sleeve.
"Don't do that, that's disgusting." Ash scolded her, trying to hide a smirk. Extraordinary immune system, yeah right!
"Shut up!" She moaned pitifully. "Can't you see I'm dying! Just put me out of my misery!" This sucked, how did normal people go through this without killing themselves? And Ash wanted to get out of bed while he had this? There was something deeply wrong with that boy.
"You'll be fine in a few days, trust me. You've really never been sick before? Not even weedlepox?" He asked, holding a bowl of Bertha's special soup that she made for him to give to Cynthia.
"No, is that a thing?" Why wouldn't he stop talking?
"Yeah, you break out in all these little purple spots, like you've been stung by a lot of weedle. It doesn't hurt, but it really itches like hell. I thought every kid got that?"
Cynthia didn't seem to be listening. "Ash, if you have any sense of mercy or decency, please put this pillow over my face and don't take it off until I stop moving!"
"You drama queen! Do you want me to put on the tv for you?" He asked.
"And have more noises piercing my skull? Why do you hate me?" Ash gave up all pretence and started to laugh heartily.
"Shut uuuuuuuuuppppp!" Cynthia exclaimed miserably, covering her pounding head with her pillow.
"Come on, sit up. Bertha says this soup will help you get over it." Ash said, trying to tempt her with it's appetising aroma.
Cynthia's mass of messy blonde hair popped back out from under the pillow. "Then just shut up and feed me, you moron.
Taking the spoon, he blew onto it to cool it down before putting it near her mouth. "Say "Ah!"
"You're an ass-hole." She replied without an ounce of humour.
"And you're too cute." Ash muttered lowly. Come to think of it, she was cute all the time, even if he'd never say it out loud because of his fear of death by Cynthia.
"What did you say?" Wow, this fever was really messing with her mind, she was hearing things now.
"Ah nothing, now here comes the air-plane!" Ash gleefully told her. He was really enjoying that, wasn't he?
"I repeat, you're an ass-hole." She said with a smile. Maybe this whole being sick thing wasn't so bad, if Ash was with her at least.
Now all she had to do was ignore the intense warmth in her heart when he fed her.