Summary: A is for Addiction

Pairing: Pokéshipping; Ash/Misty

Rating: K

Genre: Romance/Humor

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I affiliated in any way with the Pokémon franchise. This story is merely for entertainment.

Addiction

Misty was nothing if not true to her word.

Today, Ash found himself sitting in an uncomfortable plastic seat, the kind that he hadn't had to deal with since grade school. This one was missing the foot off of one of the corners, so Ash spent his time rocking from side to side while looking around room, subtly eyeing all the others seated in the "inviting" circle in the room. Most people were watching the person currently speaking and giving looks of support as he opened up about his life. Everyone looked at ease and not one bit as anxious as Ash felt.

Ash was dreading his turn. He hated talking about feelings with people and he honestly had no idea what to say. He didn't feel like he had a problem. He was only here because Misty had forced him. Wasn't there a rule or something that said that people could only be at these things of their own free will? As Ash pondered that question, it finally came to be his turn, and with all eyes on him, and an elbow to the ribs by Misty, Ash stood up.

"Hello, my name is Ash," Ash mumbled into his shirt as he avoided eye contact with all others in the room.

Resounding back to him was a dull chorus of, "Hi, Ash."

His mouth was dry. As much as he loved being the center of attention, Ash had never been good at the public speaking. He usually ended up saying something dumb that Misty would then make fun of him for later. So he said the only thing that he could think to say: "And I'm addicted to Pokémon Battling."

Through the pounding sound of blood rushing to the tips of his ears, Ash heard man asked if he had anything to share with the group. Seeing Ash's hesitation, Misty reached out to grab his hand and soothingly rubbed circles into the back of it. She gave him an encouraging look, urging him on.

His mouth opened and a breath of air came out with a small creak of his vocal folds, but no words. He didn't have anything to say. "Er, pass," Ash said, quickly, pointedly ignoring Misty's sudden frown.

Misty visibly deflated as Ash sat back down next to her. When the next person stood up to talk, Misty snatched her hand away from Ash and crossed her arms in front of her, throwing a glare his direction.

"You know," Ash began pleasantly as they began walking back to the car, "I think that you were right. That meeting really wasn't so bad and now that I've went through it, I feel like I've really grown as a person and don't need to ever go again."

Misty threw Ash a less-than-amused look. "Grown as a person, my ass," she muttered.

Ash kept on smiling good-naturedly. "Aw, Mist, it's not like you really believe that an addiction to Battling is a real thing, do you?"

Misty turned sharply to look at him. "Ash, you battled to the point where Pikachu could hardly breathe! We had to spend the whole day in the Pokémon Center, remember? Clearly you have a problem, and I couldn't think of any other solution besides peer pressure to get you to shape up."

From its perch on Ash's shoulder, Pikachu gave a small "Cha" of affirmation.

At that point, they had reached the car and Misty and Ash were standing on their respective sides of the sedan. Misty looked at him over the top and raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes as she glanced between the boy and the electric mouse as if to say, "See? Even the Pokémon agrees," before opening the door and plopping herself down in the passenger seat, taking Pikachu in her lap. Immediately, the car felt stuffy with tension, so as soon as Ash started the engine, he rolled down the windows. As the car started moving, Pikachu scooted closer to the window, ear's perking up excitedly and nose twitching at the interesting scents hitting it.

It really was a nice day. The air was warm, and the breeze passing through the open windows felt very inviting and refreshing. Ash did his best to focus on that and the road ahead of him, appreciating the soothing silence as he ignored the seething redhead beside him.

The silence, of course, wouldn't last.

"I know that you care about your Pokémon more than anything, but it's really starting to seem like you just can't control yourself. One of these days you're really going to hurt them or someone else's Pokémon."

Ash rolled his eyes and opened his mouth as if to speak, but Misty cut him off, continuing her spiel. "That's why I made you go to the meeting. But you obviously didn't make any progress in there," she said bitterly.

Ash gave a small chuckle. "Oh, come on, Mist. Did you really think that an AA meeting was the best place for me to recover from a 'Battling addiction?'" he asked, taking one hand off the wheel in order to make quotation marks, emphasizing his point.

Misty sighed again and contented herself with petting Pikachu for the rest of the trip, only speaking again to whisper under her breath, "I just don't know what else to do."

The next day, Ash came home from a hard day of training to be greeted by the overwhelming scent of chocolate, sugar, and flour. The entire house smelled of it and Ash inhaled deeply, reveling in the mouth-watering aroma. It was very rare that there was a scent of food in the house that didn't make Ash want to hurl, so he made sure to fully drink in each inhale, breathing to the point where it almost felt like he was hyperventilating.

His nose guided him into the kitchen and he soon found himself face to face with heaps of cookies and a smiling Misty. In her hands she was holding a platter of particularly scrumptious looking ones, so Ash grabbed two, one for each hand. He was just about to shove the first one in his mouth before he reminded himself of a question he always had to ask before he ate something of Misty's. "Did you make these?"

Letting out a sweet giggle, Misty replied, "No," and pointed to the counter where a number of yellow Pillsbury wrappers lay. Mollified by the fact that what he was eat was sure to taste good, he placed a whole cookie in his mouth, only chewing a few times before taking a bite out of the second one. Ash savored the sweet taste before he had a thought that made him pause mid-chew. He and Misty were fighting and she made him cookies? There was no scenario in his mind in which that made sense and he immediately went on the defensive.

"Hey, Mist," Ash began cautiously, spitting out a few crumbs in the process, "why did you make cookies?"

Misty kept an unfaltering, sickly-sweet smile plastered on her face and said, "Well, I was wracking my brain all day, trying to come up with something that would keep you from being a dumbass when you're battling and I couldn't come up with anything. I mean, no one's ever been able to stop you from being a dumbass in the past, so what made me think that I could handle such a daunting task?"

Since Ash couldn't speak, mouth still being filled with cookie, he sent what turned out to be a very amusing glare Misty's way. She brushed it off and continued, "Then I started to think of who had always done the best job of that in the past and it hit me. Your mother."

Ash began to choke at that line on a small bit of cookie that he inhaled and Misty calmly patted his back a few times, carrying on with her story. "I have to say, she was none too pleased with the way that you've been treating your Pokémon, even though I stressed that it had been merely accidental, so she gave me the best trick she had."

It was at that point that Misty gestured to the mountains of cookies covering the kitchen. She then turned back to Ash. "Food. She explained to me that you've always been like a little Growlithe puppy: good instincts, loyal, playful, cognitively undeveloped, and always counted on to come running at the sound of a treat.

"So I decided to make an investment in all these cookies as a reward system in order to get you to evolve from the little puppy, Growlithe, into a majestic Arcanine," Misty said, petting Ash's unruly hair ironically. "If you do anything stupid, no more cookies—I'll donate them all. But, if you don't do anything stupid, you'll continue to get a cookie every day."

Ash had since put a few more cookies into his mouth and was still unable to speak without risking spewing partially chewed cookie all over the place. So, he settled for responding to Misty's speech by sticking his tongue out at her. Misty grimaced at the little bits of cookie and chocolate and sighed.

"But for now you're definitely still a Growlithe."

A/N: Hey, you! Yeah, you right there, come over and read this author's note. Okay, I know that this isn't my best writing ever, but I don't care. I'm using these little alphabet challenges to practice writin, because I realized that I'm not that great and I really need to practice. The only way to do that effectively is to publish what I write and get feedback. So, I know these aren't masterpieces, but I'm really just using them to work out my writing muscles and try strange story ideas. I mean, I love reading a chapter that has a word that could go a really obvious direction but then the author does something completely unexpected with it.

Thank you so much for reading!