Title: Wake Unto Me
Author: Shadow/Phantomness
Pairing: Championshipping (Lance x Ash/Red)
Fandom: Pokémon
Theme: #12, Wake Unto Me
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks

Warnings: AU, shonen-ai, OC death

“You look troubled, milord,” Lance says, the boots he wears clicking against the marbled foyer. The walls have gilt-framed portraits on them, Ash’s old ancestors, but the young lord pays it little heed.

Ash frowns as he glances at his butler and oh, so much more. Lance is wearing black today, and Ash approves. He looks good in it.

“I am troubled.” He sighs. “Have you heard the news?”

Lance raises his eyebrows, and Ash remembers that he doesn’t gossip. “It’s about Lady Charlotte.”

“Ah, your older-half sister?”

“Yes. She’s fallen into a coma, the doctors are baffled, and her husband – well, he’s been dallying with someone younger for months, so it came as little surprise, but I wish… I wish he had been the one!”

“So do we all.” Lance agreed. “Would you like to go see her?”

Ash nodded, and Lance informed the old lord, who blinked lethargically from his bedchamber, that they were leaving, before they rode across town until they reached the house. The maids ushered them into the sickroom, where the unfortunate woman laid, her lips tinged pale blue and her hands looking small and cold on the coverlet.

Ash spent a few minutes talking to her before he left, and Lance drove them home, noticing the fear in those dark eyes.

“Lance… what if whatever happens to her… happens to me?”

That was a question to note. Charlotte would receive a good share of the estate, and since their father was practically dead…

Then her husband would inherit upon her death, and if he wanted the other half, well then, Ash would have to die.

“Don’t worry.” Lance reassured him. “I’ll wake you if that ever happens.”

Ash blinked, but accepted it.

Two weeks later, Lord Kitcham was found poisoned, the same strychnine used on his wife. She eventually recovered, but vowed never to remarry, and the gossips whispered that she must have loved him despite his poisonous nature.

As for Ash…

He spent that night in Lance’s arms, and watched as Lord Kitcham fell into the trap of his own making, believing that he had poisoned another when truthfully, he slipped the needle into his own arm.

Fool.

And he woke to find Lance regarding him with love in his eyes, and grinned.

End Fic

Completed 11/11/06

I blame Godchild. ^^ And Cain Saga!