This story is dedicated to the awesome KuraOkami13 for all the brilliant stories she writes for this ship. It would be great to see more of them! In the meantime if you're looking for more of Lance & Misty check out her stories to curb your cravings.

Lance could never understand women. Not that he really spent all that much time with many women – upon reflection, that could be the problem – but he just didn't understand the way that they thought.

For instance, he was sitting at his dining table eating dinner just an hour earlier and Clair decided to call and demand that he come over to where she was staying in Cerulean City, to bring wine and bring it quickly.

Then she just hung up. Just like that.

He was her cousin, couldn't someone else do this for her? And what could they possibly need wine for at this time of night.

Nevertheless, he decided that doing it quickly was more effective than not doing it and getting yelled at followed by the silent treatment for who knows how long.

Sighing, he instructed Dragonite to land in front of the address she gave him, which was apparently the Cerulean Gym and he wondered if this was all a prank because why wouldn't she have just said that she was there rather than being vague and giving him an address to throw him off.

He debated what he should do for a minute, before deciding it wasn't terribly late in the night, 9pm or so, and it was a Saturday so surely if it turned out to be a prank he wouldn't be yelled at by any of the Waterflower sisters.

Giving in, he pressed the button to ring the doorbell and recalled Dragonite, thanking him for flying them from the Indigo Plateau.

So there he was, standing with a box of half a dozen bottles of wine, waiting to see if this was the place he was supposed to be.

He was considering leaving when the door opened by Clair who smiled brightly and ushered him inside.

"Finally!" She yelled as she kissed him on the cheek in greeting.

A squeal to the right of him caught his attention, "You didn't," Daisy, the eldest Waterflower said in disbelief, "Clair, how have we never been friends before. I can't believe you actually pulled it off."

Now Lance was starting to think this was a bad idea. "Pulled what off?" He asked, unsure if he actually wanted to know the answer.

"Nothing," Daisy said with a wave of her hands, "Just that she got wine delivered without any of us actually having to go and get it. Now that you're here though, why don't you stay? We just have a few people over for a little party I guess you could call it. It's Misty's birthday and she insisted on keeping it low key so naturally we had to do something to celebrate."

Lance nodded politely as Daisy explained, he couldn't have left regardless considering she had linked her arm through his and was guiding him through the hall to where he could hear some music laughter drifting through.

"Oh, cool." He offered, still trying to be polite.

As they entered the room at the end of the hall, Lance could see a group of about ten people lulling about drinking and a few were dancing, some were just chatting while sitting on the beanbags that he guessed had been laid out of the party.

"No way," Lance looked up when he heard the voice, which belonged to Brock Harrison, who he remembered well.

Lance's lips turned upwards, "Brock, it's good to see you again."

The men shook hands and Brock was smirking. "You're good," he said, directed at Clair, who just laughed and tapped him playfully.

Lance was confused. He had never seen Clair be like that around anyone before. It was as if she had suddenly gone all girly, which was unusual for his favourite – and only – cousin. Shrugging it and blaming the alcohol, he figured he may as well strike up a conversation. While he wasn't generally talkative with people, he liked Brock and when he was comfortable with someone it was a bit easier for him to be chatty.

"So what have you been up to?"

"Oh I run a breeding centre here in Cerulean actually. We just opened about eight weeks ago. We are different from other breeding centres because we also offer Pokemon Physiology and some medical attention all specific to Pokemon injuries."

"Wow," Lance replied, genuinely impressed, "I'll have to stop by sometime."

"Yeah of course, I can show you all about how we work," Brock responded in earnest.

Lance could see how passionate he was about his profession and couldn't help but be proud of the slightly younger man achieving his goals that he'd been working towards for so long.

"You know, Clair might be interested in having a look too, maybe we can both come to see," Lance suggested helpfully. Clair loved helping hurt Pokemon, it could be a good opportunity for her to be involved with other forms of Pokemon healing.

"I think that would be…eh…lovely. Lovely. Yes. Lovely."

Lance was confused. Brock had gone all rigid and a little pink in the cheeks before he let out an awkward laugh. He wasn't sure what was happening, had he said something wrong?

"Oh, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I can come to visit alone if you'd prefer."

Brock snorted and Lance knew he'd missed something.

"No you didn't make me uncomfortable. Clair is already going to come and see the Centre."

"Oh okay cool, then yeah we can both visit together to make it easier for you."

Brock sweat dropped, "Sure."

Shaking his head, Lance looked around the room, still unsure of what exactly was up with Brock.

Soon, one of the other Waterflower sisters came over to greet him, "Lance, how interesting to see you here." Violet giggled and wiggled her eyebrows at Brock, "Have you said hello to the birthday girl yet?"

"Oh, uh, no I haven't seen her yet." Violet made a face which Lance couldn't quite recognise and then she giggled again, "She's right there."

"Where?"

"Like, there." Violet repeated, pushing Lance in the direction of his cousin Clair and another woman who were about a metre from where he had been standing. Unfortunately for him, he was pushed so forcefully that he actually bumped into the woman in question.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I was just looking for the birthday girl." Some of her drink had spilt on his white t-shirt and he lightly wiped at it with his hand before looking up to see her face.

She was beautiful. Long orange hair, a front fringe that framed her face and the prettiest green eyes he had ever seen. He stared for a while until he realised he was staring and wondered why she hadn't talked to him yet. He shrugged it off as her knowing him as the champion as she had her mouth slightly opened in shock.

"Hi," he said, almost breathlessly, "I'm Lance," he started politely, holding out his hand for her to shake.

She didn't shake his hand and she didn't respond either, she just kept looking at him until her eyes turned into a glare and she whipped around to face his cousin.

"Clair, I'm going to kill you," he knew she was trying to be quiet so he couldn't hear her but he managed to catch the whispered words anyway.

He coughed, to remind her that she was still there and then he looked to Clair, wondering what was going on.

"Have fun now you two," Clair giggled and gave the woman a slight push towards him.

This once again caused her drink to spill on his shirt and he sighed while wiping his hand over it again. Luckily whatever she was drinking was a clear liquid.

"I'm sorry," she said, as she also went to wipe at his shirt, right above his chest muscles. Then she whipped her hand back to herself very quickly.

"It's okay," he assured her, figuring she would talk to him now. Still nothing.

"Lance, remember?" He said as he held out his hand towards her again and offered a smile.

After a few minutes of staring at him again, this time with a confused look on her face, she replied, without shaking his hand, "Misty. As in Waterflower. As in, we've met, plenty of times."

"What?" Lance was positive this woman in front of him could not be Misty Waterflower, the young kid he'd met all that time ago. This time he stuttered a little, "Y-you look different."

"Thanks." She looked uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry, I just don't remember you being this old."

"Thanks," this time she crossed her arms.

"Okay that came out wrong. What I mean to say is that I remember you as a young kid, I guess I wasn't expecting to see you look like this."

Misty didn't reply.

Lance let out an exasperated breath, "Wow. Okay let's try this again. I'm Lance, I'm the Indigo Champion and you have the same name as a girl I met a long time ago. But you're so beautiful that you couldn't possibly be her."

Misty beamed, then blushed, "Thanks Lance."

"Happy Birthday. I'm sorry I crashed your party. Clair asked me to bring wine, I didn't even realise where I was being asked to come to. I can go if you like?" He was really hoping she'd ask him to stay.

"Yeah we still can't believe Clair, like, actually got you here," chorused Misty's sisters as they walked over to the two.

Lily handed Lance a drink that he accepted to be polite.

"Yeah, I'm pretty impressive," Clair said as she leaned into the conversation, elbow casually draped on Lance's shoulder.

"I just brought the wine." Lance responded, confused until something clicked. "But you have plenty of wine here."

"Yes we do," Clair smirked.

"Then why am I here?" He asked again, unsure if he really wanted to know the answer, once again.

"Because Misty thinks you're sexy and we told Clair she wouldn't be able to get you here tonight," said Daisy.

"Okay, all of you suck. Off you go, see you later, go talk to someone else," Misty ushered them all to other parts of the room then sighed. "If you want to go, I'll understand."

She began to walk off but Lance realised that he couldn't let her go now. No woman had captivated him like that so quickly. He really wanted to see if he could rile her up so she could be all feisty once more for him.

"Why don't you stay here," He said as he grasped her wrist lightly.

She looked down at his hand then nodded.

"So I'm sexy huh?" He smirked.

Misty rolled her eyes, "You suck too."

"Yeah, but you think I'm sexy anyway."

"Shut up."

They both laughed and spent the rest of the night talking on the sofa, drinking the wine Lance brought because, well, why not? Others slowly started to turn in for the night and it was soon just the two of them with Brock and Clair lingering in the back ground.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

Misty nodded her head.

"What's up with Brock and Clair being so weird around each other? There was this whole thing with Clair giggling at him and don't even start me on how weird Brock was when I suggested Clair come to see his new Centre. I think she'd be really impressed with all the different injury healing techniques."

Misty laughed, "You really don't get what's going on?"

Lance shook his head so seriously that Misty decided to throw him a bone.

"Your cousin, and one of my best friends like each other."

"What do you mean? Like, romantically?"

"Yep?"

They both looked over to the couple in question and could see them both flirtatiously batting their eyelashes and smiling at each other.

"I think it's cute," Misty decided.

"I guess."

They sat in silence, watching the couple across the room before Lance spoke up again, "Do you really find me sexy?"

Misty blushed, "Okay enough poking fun at me. Yes! You're damn sexy, and I'm just some kid you met years ago that you'd never see like that and forgive me for hoping you'd see me as anything else and –"

She didn't get a chance to finish her sentence as Lance had leaned across from his beanbag to hers and kissed her gently. Her lips were soft. She was soft. And she smelt like vanilla with a hint of strawberry.

Lance was so in the moment that even he blushed when he heard "ooh" from the other side of the room. Apparently Clair, Brock and Misty's sisters had all lingered around for long enough to see them.

He coughed, "Clair why don't you and your boyfriend go entertain yourselves elsewhere."

The look on her face was priceless and he had to bite his lip in order to not laugh.

Clearly Brock was just as embarrassed as he scratched the back of his head and all three of the other Waterflower sisters looked directly at them both and "Oohed" again, apparently they didn't know how the two felt either.

"Okay fine, you win." Clair said as she laughed and dragged the rest of them with her, leaving Lance and Misty alone once more.

Misty looked like she was about to talk again so he quickly moved closer to her once more and kissed her, deepening the kiss this time with his tongue. He was delighted to feel her small hands venture into the back of his hair and soon enough she was in his lap kissing him as his hands found their way down the small of her back.

After a while she pulled away but remained sitting on him, pressing her forehead to his.

"Wow." She said breathily.

"Wow yourself." He replied. "Can I take you out sometime?"

Misty looked a little shocked, "I'd love that."

"Me too."

He kissed her again before sighing lightly, "I should be going then."

As he stood with Misty still in his arms, he slowly lowered her back down to the ground, kissing her one last time.

Lance made a start for the hallway when he felt Misty's hands latch onto his right hand and pull him back.

"Stay." Misty looked so enticing right there in that moment. Biting her lower lip he could see her nervousness at the bold requests. She really was beautiful. Lance didn't want to take advantage of her though and the gentleman thing to do would be to leave.

"I really want to, but I shouldn't." He offered her a small smile.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" She pouted her lips lightly and looked up at him with green doe eyes.

He let out a deep breath, "I definitely want to stay, but I shouldn't."

She had started leading him the opposite way, pulling him gently but holding onto his hand firmly.

"Misty, I don't want to take advantage of you."

"Contrary, it would be me taking advantage of you." She winked and he noticed they had finally gotten to a smaller corridor with the lights off.

"What if you're sisters want to kill me tomorrow?" Lance could feel his resolve weakening.

"They sleep in the other part of the gym, it's just us down here. Besides, they were the ones who helped get you here. It will be fine"

She stopped near a door and pulled him into her, leaning up to kiss him and he pushed her against the wall behind.

He wanted this. She wanted this. Lance was so used to being a rational guy and sacrificing his own desires for the sake of the world. For once, he was going to do this for him.

He lifted her up gently, leaning into her against the wall before he pulled back, taking her into the room next to him.

"Did I mention that I think you're sexy too?" He got out between kisses.

"Best. Birthday present. Ever." She replied between kisses and shut the door behind them with her foot.