#i logged on and saw you on your ashe blog and just kinda. . . :]

[higans]

ur inbox is empty so im christening it. kiss kiss

dove i love you. KUHFDGHLGFD (KISS KISS)

[pokeshippingflashfic]

Prompt: "but why is she over your shoulder like that?"

(A friend actually helped me come up with a really good idea for this one so… thank you, friend! I’m worried tagging you will somehow reveal my identity to viewers of this blog so I won’t do that! I tweaked the idea some since we talked but it’s still good!)

“Ash, I swear, if you don’t put me down this instant, I’ll end you!” a particularly drenched redheaded female shrieked so loud that the aforementioned male trainer’s eardrums throbbed in retaliation to her ferocity.

There was a quick jab as a wildly flailing knee just happened to smash into his hip but he grunted, doing his best to ignore it and keep moving.

“Misty, c’mon, you can’t just attack every person who happens to rub you the wrong way, okay? I’m–,” Ash faltered as he was slapped over the head, presumably on accident if his captive’s next few seconds of apologetic silence and stillness were any indication, “–just trying to help ya out here!”

“You can’t tell me you weren’t mad too! I know you, Ash! You love Pokemon more than anyone else I’ve ever met!” Misty affirmed, slightly calmer than she’d been a few moments previous but she still struggled against his grip, intent on running back in the direction they’d just come from.

“Of course I am but times have changed and we’re older now! You know as well as I do it’s better to let Officer Jenny and the league handle situations like this! Or do you wanna be the next person in handcuffs?”

The redhead puckered her lips, blowing frustrated air from between the tight space, glaring at the upper back of her captor… er, savior’s? … head. He couldn’t just butt out, huh? Couldn’t let her do what needed to be done for the greater good. Couldn’t let her be right about things…

“What’s going on, guys?” Tracey asked them as the two teenagers reentered the campsite, brow raised in wonder. It wasn’t every day that Ash Ketchum carried Misty Waterflower like a sack of potatoes after all.

“Now can you put me down? I mean, we’re back, right?” the redhead practically whined and Ash chanced a wary glance in her direction.

“How can I be sure you won’t take off the second I do?”

“Gee, can’cha have a little faith in me?” she replied, suddenly feigning innocence as she laced her hands together and pouted at him with wide, glimmering eyes.

The two trainers stared each other down for a few seconds, sizing each other up, a battle of wills meant to intimidate the other into caving.

“Uuh, hey, I kinda wanna know what happened..?” their current traveling companion intruded as a reminder, both of them responding by breaking eye contact, causing a draw in their latest match.

“Do ya remember how Misty said she wanted to run back to the river and see if there were any Pokemon she could catch?” Ash began by means of explanation.

“Yeah but…why is she over your shoulder like that? What’s fishing for Pokemon got to do with it?”

“Well, she ran into a trainer who decided they wanted to especially battle the newest member of Indigo’s Elite Four champion class,”  the first young man went on, finally buckling and twisting around so that he could place the very same redhead back on her feet, dusting himself off after. 

“And he was a piece of shi–”

“–Misty!” her longest-time friend admonished her before she could finish.

“He was evil incarnate, you idiot! He’d clearly been abusing his Pokemon for ages! I mean, how hadn’t he ever been reported before?! Who doesn’t notice that? How could any Nurse Joy who happened to treat those Pokemon not realize they were victims of abuse?!” she shouted, arms gesturing wide, furious tears springing to her eyes.

“I don’t know, okay?!” Ash finally gave in to his own ire and yelled back, which was enough for Misty to sense a camaraderie that she hadn’t felt at all before, a complicated twinge of fear and ease culminating within her at his intense reaction. “Some people are just… they’re just bad. They deserve way worse than they get. I don’t know why he didn’t lose his training license before this. All we can hope is that he’ll get what’s coming to him now that we’ve turned him in.”

“Misty, I’m… sorry you had to meet someone like that. I know it’s not much help but I think it’s safe to say people like… like that guy, whoever he was, probably don’t make a habit of visiting a PokeCenter that often to begin with, which was why someone like Nurse Joy couldn’t report him. And also,” the Pokemon sketch artist paused long enough for both of his friends to stop staring so profoundly at each other so that they could actually pay attention to what he was going to say, “for all the bad out there in the world that we haven’t seen as much of, it’s… there’s just as much good when people like you will do what’s right over anything else. You should remember that.”

Misty looked as though she were still ready to go a few more rounds, venomously charged gaze rounding back and forth between her two friends for a few seconds following before she huffed, tightened her grip on her backpack, and walked to the edge of their clearing to take a few minutes alone while she presumably came to terms with the aftermath of their most recent fiasco. Pikachu followed her, intent on making one of his favorite humans feel better.

“I guess we won’t be leaving yet, will we?” Tracey asked Ash more cautiously next, tone soft enough so that the younger trainer knew the issue wasn’t being pressed out of more than mild curiosity.

“Yeah, truth be told… I think she’s angry about more than just the obvious…” came the cryptic reply.

“What do you mean by that?”

“That guy…” Clearly wrestling with demons of his own, Ash drew breath to calm himself, eyes closing while his brows knitted together in subdued wrath. “He wanted specifically to battle Misty one-on-one, water Pokemon against water Pokemon. Makes sense, right? See how he competes against an E4 member before he takes on the league as a whole? But when Misty saw how his Pokemon looked and brought up her allegations, the guy told her that she had to have been the same as him, that she’d just found a better way to hide the evidence since she’d been a trainer for a few years longer.”

“What?!” Tracey yelped in astonishment, pausing half a second to look in the still distant redhead’s direction, hoping against hope that she couldn’t overhear their conversation. “Why would he possibly think that?!”

“He said it was the only real way for someone who works with one specific type of Pokemon to rise through the trainer ranks, especially to be so revered as an Elite Four member, unless they’re using pseudo-legendaries or something.”

“Yikes…” Tracey whispered frigidly, “So what happened after… all that? I mean, Misty’s soaked, you look a mess, I guess from carrying her all this way?”

“Luckily…” And Ash went on to explain how, since the river was on the outskirts of Viridian City, a patrolling officer from Jenny’s unit had been close by and heard the shouting and scuffle that ensued. “Misty threw herself at him and they both ended up in the river but the current wasn’t strong enough at the time to carry ‘em off. Then the police showed up and heard both of them out. I think because of her status, they kinda knew already who to believe but they still got some personal information from her in case they need to contact her later.”

There was a distinctive snapping sound from behind them. Both boys involuntarily flinched in response, chancing a unanimous glance at their redheaded companion, who’d just picked up a dry twig to rip in half by way of venting her residual fury.

“Still…” Ash began warily, “I think we should talk to her, make sure she’s okay.”

There was another swift snap from her direction.

“Uh, yeah… Maybe just one of us,” Tracey replied. This was just in time for aforementioned young woman to pick up half a dozen more branches that she then successfully tore apart in one go. “In fact, maybe just you.”

The younger trainer stared wide-eyed at him, a young sacrifice to the cause.

“Well, you do know her best,” the artist replied earnestly.

The trek across the clearing seemed far too daunting for such a short distance. Ash wasn’t sure how he managed it but he was suddenly standing over Misty as she sat on her log, digging one heel into the earth while Pikachu curled around her other leg and did his best to comfort her.

“So…. I guess you’re both done talkin’ about me behind my back, huh?” she asked morbidly, her whisper icily calm.

“It wasn’t like that…” he responded, stepping over and sitting beside her. “I was just telling Tracey what happened. He was worried.”

“Hah!” Her response was dry, sardonic. “Worried about me or worried about that other guy? If it’s the latter then he’s not the only one! You two should go start a fan club, maybe an online fundraiser or petition to help get him escape the charges!”

“Misty, c’mon, I wasn’t–!” Ash replied hotly, swinging around to face her before pursing his lips shut, snorting, and staring ahead again instead. No, no. Misty was angry, and it wasn’t like she had no good reason to be. They were older now, more responsible, more mature. He had to handle this delicately. “I wasn’t worried about him. You should know that by now.”

“After he got out of the water and I went after him, you grabbed me and told him to go! To run, Ash! They idiot spent who knows how long–!” she paused, choking on her own emotion, “Years. Probably years beating, hurting, neglecting his Pokemon so that they’d be resilient to things they never should have been pitted against! And you tried to let him run from me!

“What’s changed, Ash?!” she cried out next, wrenching around and grabbing a hold of his shirt, yanking him forward so they were evenly prostrated. “We… I learned a lot of what I feel, how to react, from you! I remember a time when you did exactly the same as me because you thought a Pokemon was being treated wrongly! All you did was think it and act! Now you won’t stick up for me for knowing what went on! We used to be the same, think the same about so much! I loved that about you! But now…

“I… Now I don’t even know you.”

They sat there for a moment, Ash watching her trembling grip on his shirt before she finally released him and averted her gaze. It was a great burden to watch one of the most important people in his life appear to lose faith in him rather instantaneously.

“Misty, I know you have trouble seeing things this way but… I promise I wasn’t - I’d never defend or worry about a person who’d treat their Pokemon like that. But I did… I was trying to save someone else,” he explained somewhat ambiguously, waiting for any sort of reaction from his one person audience before he bothered to continue.

“C’mon, you… you just made it into the Elite Four. You have eyes on you everywhere you go now. I know how it is. It was the same for me last year when I made first division champion. People don’t take kindly to their idols making mistakes or acting aggressively, spontaneously. I mean, even if your average person sided with you, chances are that the league would have had to suspend or permanently rescind your eligibility to their ranks because of the assault. It was best to let the authorities handle things without us getting anymore involved… No matter how much we both wanted to.”

“Ash…”

She didn’t say anything more, tapering off after his name left her mouth and staring him up and down. She supposed, somewhat begrudgingly, that things had changed and not necessarily for the worse. Surprisingly it seemed that Ash Ketchum had grown up a lot since they’d last traveled together, and his insight into the bureaucracy of top tier trainers may have been a saving grace.

“So you’re saying that you were protecting me? To keep me from losing my progress towards my dream…?” The fledgling virgin romantic in her couldn’t help the flattery. This was quite the metamorphosis from their preteen years. “I guess… that makes sense.”

“And I hope you’d, uh, do me the same courtesy if such a situation ever…?” he inquired next, and a blushing, teary-eyed Misty gave a slight upwards jerk of her head before sighing and leaning into him.

“Now let’s just… not talk about it anymore for awhile. I’m still so,” a shuddering breath interrupted her statement, “so angry about it. I’m grateful too,” she assured him, misinterpreting the reason for his stiff shoulders and spine as her head rested against him, “that you knew what to do but if there’s a next time… let’s be on the same page first at least.”

“… That sounds reasonable to me.”

“And Ash?”

“Hm?”

“I’m… sorry,” she finished rather lamely, though she knew it was best to put her conscience at ease.

“Yeah, I am too.”

And something told her he was apologizing for much worse in the world than his own behavior.

(Actually the further I wrote on this fic the more worried I got... but here it is. :-/)