Clinging on to the Past

Barry decides to clean up the mess in his closet, but that just brings back the memories that brought him and Lucas so close together. Clingyshipping, LucasBarry

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"What on earth…?" I looked down at the lazy bum laying on the sofa, a piece of half-eaten bread hanging loosely from his mouth with a hint of drool trailing down from his lips, and rolled my eyes, feeling the need to smack his head silly for the idiotic position he chose to pose at my house. Apparently, I can tell it was that time of day—the time for his mid-afternoon nap, I mean—but with his sloppy disposition… what, what, oh what on earth are you supposed to do with such a hopeless boy like Lucas?

I brought my head down and retracted the thought of smacking him from my mind, staring at the endless list of chores my mom decided to write down for us—meaning me and Lucas—to do while she was away, so we could stay out of trouble and do something productive at the same time. I had decided to work on a few of them to please my mom by even just a tiny bit (apparently, it was that time of the month for her, if you know what I mean), but seeing as Lucas is having his little beauty sleep, and it's nearly impossible to wake him up without food—quite ironically, we have no food right now except for that piece of bread dangling from his mouth that I am definitely not going to touch, which is why my mom's out shopping, and thus this list of chores was made—so I guess I'll have to tackle down the list by my lonesome self.

Looking at the list hurriedly, I chose the easiest from all of them, and that was to clean my closet. I figured there wouldn't be that much junk in my closet since I never really use it anymore (I mean, that doesn't mean I don't change my clothes, because I do! I just have them in a separate drawer and all). I rushed upstairs to my room and threw the list of chores on the floor, running to my closet and opening it with anticipation that there were only one or so spots to clean up. Unfortunately, I was wrong, as when I opened the door, I found a bunch of useless and dusty boxes sleeping around like Lucas back there.

I found an aggravated sigh escape me and I found myself almost turning back around, but remembering the other chores on the list made me heave an even bigger aggravated sigh (I was not going to clean out the garage nor my parent's bedroom without any help. Who knows what's in there…). I instead decided to just clean up the mess and get it over with.

Fumbling around with my mom's cleaning gear, I put on a pair of safety goggles and a face mask to protect myself from the dust collecting in the closet, and I even decided to change out of my normal attire to wear one of my old shirts and a pair of shorts and. With that, I took in a deep breath and charged into the closet once again, except that I was paired with my weapons this time: my mom's favorite feather duster and a packet of gummy worms to, y'know, satisfy my hunger at times of need and rejuvenate my energy at the same time.

I picked out the east corner closest to the door as my first victim, and I immediately started dusting away. However, as dust began to fly away from the box of what I once thought were just meaningless antiques, upon closer inspection I realized that these were all a bunch of items from back when me and Lucas were on the baseball team. I dipped my gloved hand into the box and pulled out a baseball, all raggedy and covered in dirt. The memories of our many victories in baseball began to recollect in my mind, and I found myself smiling—until, that is, I remembered that one time when the thought of winning got to my head and clouded it with only that in mind….

It was a bright and sunny day to play baseball, and it was definitely a perfect day for us to win yet again. Our winning streak was incredible, and it was all thanks to me and Lucas, pretty much. My batting average was the best out of anyone in the team, and Lucas had one mean two-seam fastball. With us on the team, we were absolutely unbeatable!

The team we were facing off today were known to be unsympathetic. That didn't stop me at all with my perseverance of winning it all, as we came this far; why only stop here when the championships were just a pitch away?

I chugged down the entire bottle of water and nodded my head at my teammates, glaring at our foes in almost hatred. There wasn't anyone that was gonna stop us now, especially not them.

I positioned myself in front of home base and clutched the wooden bat in my hands, feeling the sun beat down on me in a taunting sort of way. I kept my eye focused on the ball at all times, though, and when it finally came rushing towards me, I kept up my timing and swung the bat as hard as I could, dropping it in almost a hurry as cheers came and ran for what seemed like my dear life, letting my eyes wander on both the first base and the ball. No one was close to it yet as it landed far from anyone's reach, so I decided to aim for second base.

As I hurried and stepped off the first base plate, I heard someone yelling at me to duck, which to me sounded like Lucas's voice… and in a very distressed tone. My natural reflexes, however, made me turn my head to look at the owner of the voice and found his eyes wide. The ball had been shot right past me, and I found myself at second base in a split second. The crowd was astonished, but that didn't keep them from cheering vigorously afterwards.

I panted and smiled at the same time, and from that, I figured winning this thing would be a cinch. Swing after swing, pitch after pitch, I found that our team was in the lead—and by a lot. There was pretty much no hope for the other team now, but I wasn't about to get sloppy from our lead.

I was up to bat once again, and when I saw the ball—slower than usual—coming towards me, I swung my bat as hard as I had like my first time and dropped it in an instant, running to first base. My aim, however, was second base.

When I reached first base, I looked around for a split second to find that the ball was still pretty far away from anyone, and calculated that I could possibly run to second base easily. As I forced my already too tired feet to run to the next base, I heard that same distressed tone in yelling form from rather… a large group of people. I turned my head to meet Lucas's gaze again, but instead of just standing there and looking at me with an innocent face, he was rushing towards me.

I was definitely confused.

"Lucas, wha-" I heard a loud smack on the side of my head, and the last person I saw before I automatically began closing my eyes was Lucas with his distressed face.

Even though I knew I was unconscious, my subconscious mind made me think of Lucas's reaction to me getting hit by the ball. I figured all of this wouldn't have happened if I had just stayed at first base and kept my cool about the whole game instead of being the arrogant jerk I was. I paid the price, and seeing his face all tensed like that… did Lucas pay the price of my arrogance too?

My eyes shot open and the smell of mom's home cooked lasagna was dancing around my nose. My head felt like it was being used as a baseball in batting practice, but that didn't stop me from turning my head to the side to see Lucas damping a clean wash cloth for me. I had frowned at the fact that I was in such a vulnerable position, but he didn't seem to mind nor think about it. All he cared about was taking care of me.

How… unselfish.

I smiled at him stupidly as he replaced the old washcloth on my forehead with the new one, then stared at me with a mixed feeling of disappointment and contentment in his eyes. "Barry." He smiled at me for a minute, then his face grew abnormally stern, his voice sounding more mature than it ever had. "Winning isn't everything. Think about yourself for once, okay?"

How… selfish.

"I wanted us to win," I mumbled, stressing out the "us" part, albeit the great deal of throbbing pain in my head.

"Like I said, winning isn't everything. Didn't you say that the only reason you joined baseball was to be friends with the 'cooler' kids? I mean, if it wasn't for baseball, we wouldn't have been friends, you know…."

That hit me harder than his two-seam fastball could've, and after all that, all I could say was, "I know."

I brought myself back into reality and tossed the baseball back into the box, closing it and made a mental note to myself to make a stack of all the boxes in a corner so it would have a much "cleaner" presence.

Gazing around the room, I chose the next spot to clean be the opposite of the spot I was standing at right now. I dusted off everything in that corner, like before, and looked at the items inside the box. It turned out that the items in this box were from my sixth birthday—a birthday I would've never forgotten as it was the first of my birthday's Lucas came to….

The big six was a big occasion for me, as would be any other five-year-old's. No one could call me a little boy now as I thought the age of six was far superior to anyone else. Ha!

My birthday party had just commenced, and the one thing I was anticipating were the gifts. As each of my friends went through the door, I stared at the wrapped boxes in their hands stupidly, taking the note that the bigger the box the better the gift. It seemed that from each passing present I would stare at, they got bigger and bigger. That trend stopped right when the last person came through the door—and it was my newfound friend, Lucas.

Instead of having a giant box in his hands like everyone else's, he had a puny, non-ribboned, non-decorated box in his hands. All it had was little scribbles—his little scribbles—in various washable marker colors.

Booooooring.

Eh, I guess it didn't matter much considering everyone else definitely had an awesome present in store for me. I just feel bad for the guy a bit, since he might get all embarrassed when I open his present and regret getting me something pitiful compared to everyone else.

The thought escaped my mind in the moment when my mom yelled that it was game time. We played the games, ate my cake (which was a girly yellow one, thanks to mom), and as time passed, it finally narrowed down to opening my presents.

The first one I opened was the biggest of them all, and wrapped in awesome orange- and white-striped wrapping paper with green ribbons attached. Inside was a mechanical Empoleon action figure, reaching a few inches above me—and it was even the limited edition one! I was definitely satisfied at that.

The next one was an eight-inch Heracross action figure, and as I opened more and more of the presents, I received more and more action figures. Ha, I even got a girly Roserade action figure! How lame, but still so cool!

It finally came down to Lucas's present where I anticipated it to be yet another action figure (ugh, the Empoleon was enough, thank you very much!).

At first, I gazed at his scribbles and found that they were actually drawings of his interpretations of me and him, holding hands, and he wrote "To Barry, Love Lucas" tackily on the front. I admit, I had to snicker at that one.

Then, I opened it carefully, and found that it wasn't an action figure. Rather, it was a scarf—a green one. Normally, I would've been disgusted with such a piece as a gift, but when I wrapped it around my neck, fully aware of the awkwardness of it being the middle of July, I started to laugh for really no apparent reason whatsoever. I guess I was started of having all these action figures, but when I was asking for variety, I never would've thought of a scarf, of all things! Lucas is such an awkward guy!

Nonetheless, I went up to Lucas and found that he was wearing a matching scarf except in a red color, and hugged him, the moment shortly ruined by my other friends joining in for a group hug.

After that, everyone began to leave except for Lucas, who stayed behind with my reluctance of his going. Then, when everyone left and said they goodbye's with the exception of Lucas, I turned around to face him and asked, "Why a scarf?"

He smiled first and paused a minute before he gave his response. "Well… it's the only thing I can knit. My grandma taught me how to make this"—he poked at the red scarf dangling from his neck—"so I thought I'd make you one. My mom wanted me to buy something from the store… but… making your present was fun." He laughed and raised his hands, which were heavily bandaged. "My grandma passed away a long time ago, so I got to knit it by myself. It took a long time, so I couldn't decorate your box that well, but it's not what's on the outside, right?"

I couldn't believe him. Even with his hands all scratched up like that, he found the ability to laugh?

Lucas was one awkward guy. Even then, I couldn't help but feel like he's one of my best friends—no, is my best friend.

With that, I nodded at him and wrapped my arm around his neck, hugging him close to me. "What about we eat some of that leftover cake?"

The box he had given me that day was still in my hands, all bent up and stuff. I laughed at the irony that I still wear that scarf he gave me after these four years.

Huh, four years—it seems like we've been friends longer than that, hasn't it?

Anyway, with that thought aside, I closed up the box and pushed it next to the first box I had dusted off, looking at my next target. It was random now, but still the same dusting routine. I dusted, opened the box, and found something that made me remember those good ol' times.

Apparently, they were all with Lucas.

Like that silver medal I won—I mean, he won—at the spelling be back when we were six. The word he had to spell was "industry," but I don't think he could think clearly from spending an entire night helping me study, so he spelled it with an "I" at the end instead of a "y," or something along the lines of that (hmm, how do you spell industry?). He lost to his little kid named Max, but even with that, he was happy with second place and decided to give the medal to me for working hard studying the night before—even though I ended up ninth place by spelling "radio" wrong.

Oh, and there was that old wooden Piplup figurine he gave me when we went to visit his grandpa's house when we were eight. He pretty much knew that I had an obsession of getting a Piplup when I reach the age of ten, so the figurine was a nice gift.

Then there's that Ultraball he went and saved up for to help me with becoming the best Pokèmon trainer ever, because he knows that it's been my one dream since that baseball incident.

And then…

Ugh, all these memories—why do they have to be about Lucas? Is he that significant in my life that?

I closed the final box and shoved it next to the other boxes, sprinting out of the closet. I found my mom standing at the doorway with the chore list in hand and gave me an approving look. "Oh, Barry! You actually decided to work around the house for once! How's your progress?"

"Dusted off and reorganized, ma'am." I positioned my hand in a slanted way on my forehead and stood up straight and she went into the closet and inspected it. She came out a second later and pouted a bit. "You're supposed to get rid of the things you don't want, okay? That's what cleaning is all about."

"There's… nothing I want to get rid of, though."

She laughed. "Is that an excuse for you to not clean up this mess? Go on, I bought more Hefty bags so you can throw away as much as you can. Here, even Lukie is here to help you. Had a nice nap, sweetie?" I turned around to see a groggily-eyed Lucas and almost burst out laughing at the sight of his tousled hair and hanging head.

"You alright, Lucas?" I asked sarcastically, wrapping my arm around him. He laid his head on my shoulder and closed his eyes tiredly, mumbling a quiet "Yes."

My mom had awed at our closeness with one another and told us to have good luck properly cleaning the mess that is in my closet. She later left to buy more groceries as she felt there wasn't enough food to satisfy my big boy needs.

Yeah—"big boy needs".

Anyway, off with that embarrassing topic…

By now, Lucas was pretty much awake and aware of everything that had and was going on right now. "Hey, Barry, wanna clean up now?"

"Uh…" I looked him up and down, feeling a slight burn in my cheeks, and said, "sure," walking inside the closet hastily whilst knowingly he was trailing right behind me. The conscious side of me started to kick in at that fact, and my movements became somewhat jerky. Lucas didn't seem to notice—or maybe he decided to ignore it, or maybe he's secretly laughing behind me? Ugh!—but my movements stayed that way for the rest of the time as we opened each box up and slowly made a small pile of things we thought we didn't need any more, which usually ended up being those little tidbits of junk likes old scraps of paper and extremely damaged items (that had little value for me).

By the time we were halfway done with cleaning, I had grown extremely tired, especially from the fact that I was dusting all this afternoon. I flopped down on the wooden floor and gave out an exasperated sigh, hearing Lucas shift from his position to look at my body.

Err, I mean, to look at my body sprawled out like that!

Err, I mean… I mean… I mean—

"Hey, I remember this," Lucas said calmly yet with a hint of contentment. I sat back up and gazed at the item he was holding: a small, orange rattle, brutally.

My eyes kept locked on it, and I was very flustered at it as I never recalled ever finding that in any of the boxes, nor do I remember the memory hidden inside it.

Apparently, though, Lucas does.

He was childishly shaking it while making his way towards me, smiling slightly. "Don't you remember too, Barry?"

I pathetically nodded my head no, and he just laughed.

"I figured you wouldn't. Well, I guess I need to jog your memory, huh? I had just moved into Twinleaf, and you and your parents held a welcoming party for us. They left us in a crib, though, so we could stay out of trouble. We were pretty much ignoring each other the entire time, but I kept seeing you eyeing the rattle I kept clinging on."

The memory of that started to come back to my mind, although it was still fuzzy. But, there was enough information to let me know what exactly was going on in a nutshell.

"Welcome to our little old Twinleaf! We're glad to have some new neighbors!" My parents had always been the eccentric kind, always showing off their happiness in the world—always being nice to anyone and everyone, no matter what their past may have entailed. Our new neighbors were no exception, of course.

This lot just moved in today, and my parents were already welcoming them to our house. Me being a little bit cynical, I would've been cautious about it and just talked to them outside. But no, these are what my parents are like, and unfortunately, I can't change that.

The family seemed like a nice bunch, though. There was a father, a mother, and a little baby boy.

The father had kempt blue hair and wore a business suit—a grey one. And he had a blue tie. That just screamed sophistication for me, but the smile on his face—which showed his wrinkles—made him seem like a heartwarming, friendly kind of person.

The mother had pale green hair, but her eyes were a deep blue that shone with content. Her face still had a youth that was unmatched in most mothers, and it was definitely… heartwarming too. Cradled in her arms was a small, fragile boy with patches of blue hair on his head. He wasn't whimpering like other babies; he was silent and had a little smile to his face—just like the rest of his family.

Tch, what kind of family smiles all the time?

In a matter of minutes, we were all inside my house. My parents decided to drop me off in my crib alongside the little blue-haired baby.

I couldn't say I hated him. I couldn't say I liked him, either. There was just something about him that I couldn't comprehend. Maybe it was the fact that he was always smiling. Maybe it was the fact that he had a weird shade of blue hair. Maybe it was because of the orange rattle in his hands. Whatever the case, well… I chose to ignore him.

I know, I know, how baby-ish. I was a baby after all, so you can't blame me much.

Anyhoo, I continued to eye the rattle for reasons unnecessary to name. Maybe I just didn't have any, but it didn't matter much. I could sense that the boy was oblivious to my constant staring…

But anyway, I digress. They left a few minutes later, and we continued our relationship like that: me ignoring me, him ignoring me. It was peaceful, but I found myself thinking sometimes…

As I pictured the scene in my mind, he kept explaining, and when he was done, it got to the point where the mood was very intense. It was so intense that it felt like it was choking me, but Lucas seemed as calm as ever, albeit his deep and thoughtful expression. "Barry," he started off saying, his calm and collected tone ringing through my ears. "We ignored each other as kids. We became best friends all of a sudden. And here we are now. Ironic, isn't it?"

"Very," I let out breathlessly, looking at the boy in front of me. That boy—no, Lucas, my buddy—had always been like this. Not once have I ever seen him not be able to smile at any situation. Not once have I ever seen him do anything violent. Not once have I ever seen him give up.

That… Lucas… he's been there for me no matter what. Even when we ignored each other as babies, he was always there for me. He gave me the rattle, I remember, albeit subtly… And he gave me a lot of other things, I remember now… Like courage.

And wisdom.

And honesty.

And happiness.

And love.

Yes, yes, love. And you know what? I'm actually willing to reciprocate that.

Oh yes, here I was, admitting that I actually do love the little knucklehead. I don't mean as in "best friends," either. Someone who's always been there, even at my worst, deserves something that I can't give anyone else. And that's my heart.

Oh, dang, Lucas… if I can't give him anything else, then that should be the only thing I can give him successfully.

I turned to face him again, my face flushing madly with pink heat. "Lucas… we've been friends for so long…"

"I know," he said simply, smiling softly.

"And I feel like… I… like you." Those words choked out of my mouth hoarsely. It was almost impossible for me to say them. Oh, I sure was a baby when it came to proclamation of sentiments.

He just smiled at me. "I like you too." That brought a sense of happy feelings back into my eyes. I felt like I was about to explode from happiness. I would've, too, if it weren't for the next string of words he said, "but only as a friend."

My heart dropped right there and then. He must have misunderstood; maybe I should have used "love" instead of "like"? But wouldn't that have meant I was coming off too strong…?

A sort of awkward silence spread like the plague between the two of us. His cruel words stung the back of my mind: I like you, but only as a friend… He didn't know much that affected me—how much it drilled into my heart, letting it bleed profusely… all pathetic… all lonely…

But he was still there for me, and he continued smiling, completely oblivious of the broken sentiments I was feeling right now. That probably didn't matter to him, though; after all, he only liked me "as a friend," and only that. There was no use in running after him. There was no use in trying.

I was angry, though. Angry, because he didn't reciprocate feelings. Rejection was something I wasn't used to… and, it just hurt. I didn't like it at all….

Before I could even think, I hastily got up and ran out hurriedly. I was half-expecting Lucas to dash over to me, and I was also half-expecting he would call after me, telling me that he made a huge and grave mistake. Isn't that how it usually was with stories?

My expectations were not met, though. I feigned to look back, but out of curiosity, I ended up doing it anyway. I found that Lucas was still on the floor, looking at me calmly but with no intention of getting up. Ugh, that lazy guy…

Either way, I continued running. I wanted to keep running—to run away from everything and everyone, especially… of all people… Lucas. However, what I didn't want to run away from was our past. Our fruitful and happy past… the memories that bound us together to what we were today: best friends. But, it wasn't enough for me to be only "best friends" with him. I wanted something more—something that couldn't be attained, as Lucas doesn't think of me in that way. And, though I've said this before, it truly hurts to not have the person you love love you back. It just does.

More than anything, though, I wish that we could go back to where we were… in the past… where there were no troubles, no drama, and definitely no awkward feelings like these.

All I want is to cling to the past we shared; is that really so much to ask for?

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(Another old fic, so bear with the change in writing style.)

Ahh, I love Barry/Lucas so much. And this isn't just because I adore every single Barry pairing out there. No, I just find that they have this adorable chemistry. Calm and collected Lucas and hyperactive knucklehead Barry makes for an interesting couple, yes? :)

Anyway, I might add on to this, because to me, if it's not a happy ending it feels incomplete. Then again, I might not even make this a happy ending. But we'll see…