Butterfly Weed

ONE: BUTTERCUP

1. THE SLEEPING MAN

Ash wants to go home.

It makes sense to no one; he is home, right? He's in Pallet town with his friends and family! No, he's not home. None of this is home.

Ash hasn't left Pallet Town in seven fucking years. He's been trapped in this tiny place with it's stupid weekly festivals and childish traditions. He doesn't hate it here, no, he just doesn't like being stuck in one place for seven goddamn years. And, of course, because everyone's view of him was a smiley boy who can't seem to stop being happy, he can't voice his thoughts. Ash has no voice. His shouts fall on deaf ears, and, yes, he knows that there is a good reason for his imprisonment, but he can't stand it here for any longer.

Ash wants to leave.

The last time his mother took him out of Pallet Town was when he was nine. He was nine and didn't know that this was the last time he was going to see anything other than the standard old town that he was leaving.

His memories of his last outing outside of Pallet are choppy and chipped, with little flashes of blurred faces and ice on the ground, green eyes staring into his soul. It doesn't matter, though. All he knows is that something happened and now he can't leave.

The only thing in his mind of those days that remembers is the sleeping man, skin pale as snow. His hair was black, with the roots a mixture of grey and white strands. He didn't look old, maybe in his late thirties. His lips were blue, standing out against his sickly skin. There were dark circles around his eyes, purple like bruises.

He was scary.

He looked like a ghost from the scary movies  that Mom watched. (He wasn't allowed to watch them but he would peek out from the wall to secretly watch with his mother.)

And, when the man's eyes snapped open, thats where Ash's recollection of the man was lost.

He doesn't know why he was in the same room as that man, or who the man was, or why he looked as scary as he did.

He remembers emerald eyes, though, that hold so much power with just a simple gaze. As if those eyes could freeze an entire room. Those eyes were terrifying. They know too much, see too much, revealing his secrets as if they were carefully unwrapping a bandage. Slow, but with a sickly sweet undertone that made him freeze.

Because he's always freezing.

He's wearing a hoodie in the summer because heat doesn't register.

He is never warm.

AAAAAAAAA

2. BRANCHED

Ash hears about the new kid from Serena, who heard it from Shauna, who heard it from Trevor, who heard it from Clemont, who heard it from Cilan, who heard it from Dawn, who heard it from May, who heard it from Brock, who heard it from Misty, who heard it from Tracey, who heard it from Professor Oak.

In Tracey's kind description of the boy, he's got spiky brown hair and a resting bitch face.

"He's a delinquent!" Tracey had whispered to him, retelling his first encounter with the boy. Rude, he had called the new Oak. That the guy ignored every attempt at conversation that Tracey had tried, told him to shut up after a while, and scowled at Professor Oak after the older man offered to give him a tour around town, then left the house with no shame.

Ash knows Tracey is embellishing, but all of his added on parts always come from truth. The new Oak was probably not the nicest of people but he was new, and he doesn't know anyone, and he has no friends, and Ash should become his friend.