Work Text:
Ash had made it into a sort of game.
First, he tried expressing his love in as many words as possible. He would explain in great long paragraphs how smart he thought Gary was, how he loved his fashion sense and choice of hair spray, and how he liked Gary's new haircut and the way he made spätzle with extra spinach. Ash would finish these long confessions of appreciation with a run-on sentence with too many occurrences of the word 'love', and Gary would roll his eyes and pretend that he wasn't blushing down to his socks.
This long-winded form was fun because it was simplest to express everything he liked about Gary in these ridiculous spiels of word-vomit. How could he ever cut things down? There was just so much he liked; it was hard to cut things out at all.
For a few weeks that was the game. Gary would stare at him, embarrassed and blushing as Ash listed every little thing he liked about his boyfriend. “Your hair is pretty,” Ash would say, and then a minute later repeat again, “I like your hair; it's pretty.”
Then Gary started to get in on the game, too. His version? Just saying “I love you” as many times as possible throughout the day.
Gary woke up early for work, then he would wake Ash up just to say he loved him and see the frustrated, sleepy look on his face.
They ate breakfast together, Gary would jokingly plug his ears and ignore Ash's speech about how much he appreciated Gary and simply interject with “nah, I love you more.” By the end of breakfast, Ash would be having such a hard time not laughing that it was hard to get words out properly.
Lunch was about the same.
In fact, just about every moment of their waking hours for the next while was about the same.
It was a game, after all, and they were both competitive enough to try to win it- even if it was impossible to 'win' this sort of game properly. There could only be more and more rounds of so-called competition until they were both laughing and blushing and unable to do more than smile.
When this point was met, it was fair to meet for a tie. To do this, they would get up from whatever they were doing and have a standing hug. After a while of this game, the standing part of the hug was in the rules. You weren't aloud to sit down to hug, that wasn't the point.
Then, after the tie was sufficiently signified, they could go back to whatever they were doing before the previous round of the game started- with dopey smiles on their faces and a happy silence in their air.
There were no 'winners', per-say, but both came away feeling like they had won every time. Somehow, that was enough to keep the game going as a game rather than simple complements.
After a few weeks, though, Ash started to parrot back Gary's side of the game instead. Rather than an interrupted, spur-of-the-moment speech, they would have a game of so-called tennis.
“I love you,” Gary would say.
Ash would shake his head seriously, and raise one eyebrow. “No, I love you,”
Gary would wave his hand dismissively to brush away the words. “No no no, you've got it all wrong,” he would say, “I love you.”
It was cheesy, but on and on they went just like that. Sometimes, they would get jokingly worked up and act like they were fighting over the phrase. Gary would give brief bits of evidence as to why he should win, and Ash would wave his hand and say that Gary should re-do his tests with more scientific rigor. Then the hug was still part of the unofficial rule book, and they would stand up and laugh as they squeezed each other in a tight hug.
It was playful and silly, and Ash wouldn't have it any other way.
After a while, the game shifted again. Now, the idea was that you had to express the love in as few words as possible without saying nothing. This iteration game was mostly just the same round again and again, because the phrase really was quite short to begin with. It only really had three words, and cutting out any of them sort of changed the sentence.
“Love you” was the checkmate for a few days, both using this version of the phrase like it was some sort of innovation.
After that, Ash tried this hand at “I love”. Gary said it sounded dumb, but Ash saw him smiling.
For a while, this was all the rage in their game. Short clipped sentences sent back and forth with smiles on their faces. Eyes looking down into their breakfast or papers or magazine to hide the blush running up their cheeks. Then when it was over, as always, a hug was required at the end to seal the fact that they had once again tied.
Then one day, Gary raised his hand for silence.
Ash raised an eyebrow, cut off from his seventh bout of “I love” since the start of that round.
There was a funny smile on Gary's face, like he had just gotten a very humorous idea. “Hang on, Ashy Boy,”
“Oh, did we tie again?” Ash felt himself smile, starting to stand up from the floor where he had been playing with Pikachu.
“Not quite yet,” Gary's eyes had a gentle light in them, just like how he always looked when he got a good idea. (Which was, as Ash knew well, very often.) “But I suppose I just broke this round, didn't I?”
Ash shrugged, brushing off his pants and Pikachu continued to roll around on the floor with the plastic ball they had been batting back and forth. He grinned, “It's still a tie then, unless you thought I might have won?”
Gary laughed at Ash's suggestion that it was impossible for him to loose, and shook his head. “No, no,” he was standing too, “I just had an innovation!”
“Ooh,” Ash lifted his eyebrows, “What kind of innovation?”
Gary was grinning, his hands on his hips. “So, the hypothetical idea is as few words as possible, right?”
Ash nodded knowingly. Though these rules had never been outright stated, the path of the game was abundantly clear. They were always on the same page with things like this.
“So,” Gary took one hand off his hip to gesture vaguely with his words, “I was wondering why we're still stuck at two words! Can't we cut it down to one?”
Laughing, Ash shook his head. “One word? Which one, Gary? None of them make sense on their own,”
“Ha ha,” Gary put his hand back on his hip, smile playful, “But that's the game, right? We've gotta cut down to one eventually,”
“So what's your thought?” Ash tilted his head to the side, watching Gary's smirk.
Gary reached out both his arms for a hug. “Well,” there was a spark in his eyes, glinting off his smile, “First of all, we should hug so you can have a tie before I beat you at your own game,”
Ash rolled his eyes, but went in for the hug anyway.
They just stood there for a moment, both on the verge of laughter at their little game- taken so seriously as always that the rules could not be broken.
“So what's your idea?” Ash asked at last.
Gary hesitated, then sounded sheepish as he spoke, “Er, well, I didn't really think of a way to cut the sentence down to one word yet, I just thought it was time for the game to progress...”
Ash laughed, “You think you're gonna beat me and you don't even have a plan? You're funny, you know that?”
“Well, I have hope that I'll win,” Gary snorted, “You've gotta have hope,”
“Obviously,” Ash rolled his eyes, grinning.
And again, they were silent for a long time. Tie-hugs didn't always last a while, but it was nice when they did. After all, they were a good way of expressing all the rest of the love that Ash had that he now had to cut down to two words, and there was something wonderfully joining in that fact.
Ash had never been one for kisses, and Gary had issues with germs so they didn't do that very much. Hugs, on the other hand, were prefect. They were warm and safe and felt like a promise to always stand by each other's sides. In Ash's opinion, they were highly underrated. That was part of the reason why they were a required part of the game now, so that this closeness could forever have a purpose in their lives, as a semi-joke or not.
Ash let himself sink into their contact, eyes closed as he felt Gary's slowly beating heart against his chest, and the scratch of his hair on the side of Ash's forehead. Listened to his soft breathing, and let the world move slowly around them. Somewhere on the floor, Pikachu was still rolling around with the plastic ball, but right now that didn't matter. There was something beautifully distracting in touch like this, and something comforting in the idea of being held.
Gary patted Ash on the back lightly, and nuzzled against his shoulder. “I feel like cutting it down to 'I' is the wrong answer,” he said at last, “At least we have the wrong answer,”
Ash nodded, still distracted by the warm presence of their closeness, “True, at least there's that.”
And they were quiet again for a long time, just letting the gentle warmth be, and feeling interconnected in their comfortable silence. Ash didn't mind the press of Gary's collarbone against his throat or the odd fleecy material of his jacket. None of that mattered, not when they were together like this,
Ash tried distantly to think of an answer to the single word dilemma. Somehow, even through there were only three options, the choice was difficult. 'I' was the wrong answer, but either of the other two words could have worked.
In his head, Ash pretended to flip a coin. 'You' or 'love', 'you' or 'love'. He spun it over and over in his head.
Finally, he made his decision- though he didn't exactly have an argument formed for it. Just rubbed Gary's back to let him know that he was about to speak, acting like he had some sort of grand revelation.
“I could just say 'love', then,” Ash mumbled into Gary's sweatshirt, his eyes gently closed and letting their tightness lull him into calm, “Who needs the rest of the words?”
Gary laughed lightly, shaking Ash as his ribcage pressed out for a moment. He shook his head, nuzzling into Ash's neck, his own head tilted down at such an angle that his forehead pressed against Ash's shoulder. Such was the life of the slightly taller boyfriend.
Then, he seemed to get a brilliant idea.
“No, because 'love' isn't the important part of the sentence,” Gary murmured, voice playful and light but still quiet. Gentle and yet excited.
Ash cracked one eye open and tried to glance over at him, his eyebrow raised. “Really, it isn't?”
“No, because the only thing that matters there is 'you',” Ash could feel Gary's mouth twist into a smile, at how sickly sweet this sounded.
Ash groaned, feeling his cheeks heat up as his eyes rolled closed again. “Ugh, I'm going to throw up if you keep talking like that...” but he was smiling.
Gary ignored Ash's snarkyness, “...and the word 'you' holds more love anyway, because of how much we've put into each other. So I think that should be the check-mate.”
And it was stupid and cheesy and lovesick, but Ash felt himself smile into Gary's shoulder.
“Sure, you,” Ash murmured, and squeezed the hug tighter, “You win.”