Disclaimer: If I owned "Pokèmon," it probably would suffer a drastic plunge in popularity. So it's probably a good thing that this brilliant idea is not mine. Neither is the album "Silver Side Up." No, this isn't a songfic, but...there's a song quote at the beginning that I felt was appropriate. Sort of.
Warning: Bitchshipping. Homophobes should stay away - from this story and preferably, from me. Blatant references to drugs and alcohol, and some mild language. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here...
Author's Note: Hey! Lookie! I used the Japanese names in this! For the people, at least. I don't know most of the Japanese names for the Pokèmon...
"Fancy Meeting You Here"
Cherry stem in her mouth
she can tie in a knot
favorite trick she does
one of ten that she's got
- Nickleback, "Money Bought"
"Light, damn it, light." Kasumi was getting annoyed. Stupid matches. She struck them against the back of the pack again. Not even a spark. "Ugh! Damn!" She stuffed the pack of cigarettes in her pocket and discarded the matches. If they didn't work now, they probably never would. Weren't worth keeping.
Kasumi's eyes scanned the bar for evidence of anyone she knew. Nobody. Wait...that redhead, the one in the center of that crowd over there...she looked familiar...
But Kasumi couldn't place her and shrugged it off. Probably an old, forgotten face of her childhood, if it was anyone at all. Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. "Well, I s'pose it would start to," she said to herself aloud, staring into her glass, "when you've had as much to drink as I have."
She made to pour the glass's alcoholic contents on the floor, but the bartender stopped her. "Nuh-uh, lady," he said gruffly, "don't you dump it."
Kasumi rolled her eyes. "Fine," she sighed. What a jackass. But now that she thought about it, she was *sure* she knew that redhead from somewhere. Positive. Wait...what the hell was the woman doing? Kasumi slammed her glass down and craned her neck around to see.
The redhead was leisurely eating a cherry. She stuck the stem in her mouth.
Why? Kasumi wondered. Oh...she was tying it in a knot. How, just *how,* did you do that? Kasumi was fascinated.
The small crowd clapped and cheered loudly. Kasumi rolled her eyes. Idiots, she thought contemptuously as she pushed her way out the back door.
A man was standing there, grinning stupidly and puffing a joint. Kasumi herself was no stranger to marijuana smoking, but it wasn't something she regularly indulged in. For one thing, it stank like hell.
"Hey, babe," the toker said, licking his lips suggestively. "You up for a night on the town?"
"No." Kasumi took a large step away.
"Come on, you know I turn you on."
"Get lost."
He giggled and inhaled again, increasing Kasumi's irritation. Stupid stoners...
Musashi!
The name went off in her mind like an alarm clock. *That* was who she'd seen back in the bar. Musashi. One of the Rockets who had trailed her friend Satoshi throughout his Pokèmon journey. Fancy them meeting - well, not actually "meeting" - again, now, in a bar of all places. Ugh...
"Eugh...buddy, don't blow smoke in my face."
"Hmph?" The sound was surprisingly feminine. And the smoke, Kasumi realized, wasn't smoke from a joint but a cigarette. "What did you say, bitch?" Kasumi turned slightly to see who'd just referred to her as a female Growlithe.
Musashi.
Kasumi irritably shoved her hands in her pockets and felt the shape of her own cigs. "Nothing," she said coolly, raising her eyes to meet the older woman's.
Musashi shrugged and said nothing. Kasumi supposed this *could* now be called "meeting."
For a few minutes the two of them stood in a silence; not an awkward silence, but not an entirely comfortable one, either. "I saw you playing with that cherry stem," she said finally. It was as good a conversation starter as any.
"Did you?" murmured Musashi as she crushed her cigarette butt under her boot. She wasn't wearing her Team Rocket uniform, but Kasumi suspected the knee-high black boots she wore now where the same ones she'd donned in her younger days. Amazing, how well Musashi had kept her figure...well, no, in reflection it wasn't amazing at all. She couldn't be older than twenty-seven or twenty-eight, after all. So retaining her teenage body was no great feat to speak of.
"Yeah. How do you do that, anyway?"
"That thing with the cherry stem?"
Kasumi nodded.
"It's easy. I got a dozen a those kinda tricks."
"But how do you *do* it?"
Musashi laughed a little. "I don't really know. How the hell should I know?"
Kasumi frowned. "Well, you do it, so I figured you'd know *how* you do it."
"Nah."
There was a pause.
"Where's Kojiro, anyway?"
"Where's Satoshi?"
As any woman would know, the mutal inquiries didn't really have anything to do with Kojiro or Satoshi. They were code for well, why aren't you married yet?
Musashi sighed. "He's gay."
Kasumi nodded. "Satoshi's already married."
"To who?"
"Imite."
"Imite?"
Kasumi nodded again. "The girl with the Ditto."
"Ohh." Musashi looked straight into Kasumi's face for the first time all night. "Does she *still have* that annoying little Ditto?"
"Yes. And Satoshi still has Pikachu."
Musashi nodded. "Huh." She looked over her shoulder and smiled a little. "Some stoner passed out over there."
Kasumi shrugged. "Do you usually pass out when you get high? I think he's probably drunk and stoned at the same time. It would help explain his behavior, anyway."
Musashi raised a bemused eyebrow. "What d'you mean?"
"He tried to hit on me. But," Kasumi added hastily, "the operative word there is tried."
Musashi nodded slowly. It's kind of odd, she thought, all those damn years of emnity and suppressed tension. Ending. Here. Over...what? A cherry stem I can tie in a knot? She shook her head, to clear it. Would wonders never cease. But something was still bothering her.
"How come you didn't get your hooks into Satoshi before Imite could?"
Kasumi bit her lip. "He's not my...*type,* to be honest."
"That's what they all say."
"No! I mean...he's not...I'm trying to say, I'm a...Satoshi's not a..." She took a deep breath. "I don't swing that way, all right? I don't like guys."
Kasumi was a lesbian? Musashi was surprised and not surprised. Part of her had known it all along...part of her had just hoped for it...
Feeling more than awkward when Musashi didn't say anything, Kasumi quickly tried to direct conversation toward someone other than herself. Almost accusingly, she asked, "So, why didn't *you* try getting *your* hooks into Kojiro?"
Musashi laughed a little. "First of all, I already told you he's gay. So...that makes it pretty hard. Second of all, *I'm* gay, so that makes it even harder."
"You're a...?" Kasumi felt herself consumed with a hot blush. "Ohh-oh. Small world, I guess..."
Musashi laughed again. "I guess."
There was another pause. A longer one. Kasumi stared at her feet, occassionally shuffling a little. Musashi gazed upwardly to the setting sun. "Nice view they've got out here," she commented, "especially for an alley behind an old bar."
"Uh-huh," said Kasumi weakly.
"Kind of romantic, almost."
"Uh-huh." Is she driving at what I think she's driving at?
"You know how, in those old Westerns, the hero always rides off into the sunset?"
"Not always." I hope that's what she's driving at. At least...I *think* I hope that's what she's driving at. Anyway, I sure as hell hope she hasn't just gone crazy or something.
"Yeah, well, most of the time. You know how he makes a big show of riding off into the sunset on his white Rapidash, and sometimes there's a girl with him?"
"Yeah..." That's got to be what she's driving at. "But...what does that have to do with us?"
Musashi smiled. "Nothing, really. I mean, we'll be going back to my apartment, not riding off into the sunset. And I've got a clunker in the front parking lot, not a white Rapidash."
Kasumi snorted. "You think we'll be going back to your apartment?" She frowned. "Soon as you find out I'd have you, you're talking about going back to your apartment. Who you think you are?"
"You'd have me?" Musashi's smile became mischevious. "That's the best news I've heard all day."
Kasumi wasn't sure how to react, really. On the one hand...she wanted to accept Musashi's offer. But on the other...Kasumi was not the kind of girl who went home with women she'd just met. Then again, Musashi wasn't somebody she'd 'just met.' She sighed and her mind floated back to where she'd first seen Musashi here. "That cherry stem..."
"What about it?"
"You don't know how you do it?"
"No. Why're you changing the subject?"
"So you couldn't just tell me..."
"No..."
"Then maybe you could..." Kasumi hesitated and sucked in her breath. "Maybe you could *show* me."
"Show you? But I don't have a cherry stem." What Kasumi had really said took a few seconds to hit her. "Oh! You mean, show you what to do with your mouth...I'd be happy to..."
Kasumi wriggled into Musashi's arms. "Do I stand here? Like this?"
"Uh-huh. And you move your tongue...like this...put your lips...here..."
Musashi tastes even better than cherries, Kasumi thought, but *what* makes her so damn sure we'll be going to *her* apartment in *her* car?