A/n: sorry it's late, hopefully today's challenge will be up later as well. Also, there's a longer note below.
Lost Together
~10~
"We're lost," Misty shouts. Brock swallows hard and begins digging in his bag for the earplugs he had picked up on their way through Cerulean City . He hasn't known Ash and Misty very long but it hadn't taken more than a night to learn how loud their fights can get. He finally finds the plugs in his bag when Ash drops the map from his face.
"We are not." Ash retorts. Pikachu smacks his own face with his palm.
Misty takes a deep breath and puts her hands on her hips, stepping her feet out so that they are shoulder width apart. She takes a deep and leans forward. Brock cringes, dropping the ear plugs as he does.
"Are too." She replies and Pikachu scrambles from Ash's shoulder, grabbing the earplugs before Brock can get to them.
"Are not." Ash shouts back, taking a step towards Misty.
"Are too." She stands her ground, leaning forwards slightly so that she almost looms over Ash despite having only an inch on him. Pikachu tosses the earplugs into the woods and Brock swears the electric rodent smirks at him. Brock scowls back.
"Are not." Ash screams once more, close enough now to Misty that he can't move any further.
"Are too," Misty supplies, voice reaching tones that Brock is unsure even growlithe can hear.
"We're not lost, right Brock?." Ash asks, appealing to the older trainer for help.
"We're not lost, Misty." Brock sighs. "We're just...temporarily misplaced."
"Yeah," Ash adds, grinning smugly.
Misty sighs and turns her full scowl on Brock. "Really?" she says, her tone dark.
Brock shrugs, shrinking back at her voice as electricity arcs through Pikachu's fur. Pikachu growls, but Misty ignores him in favor of crossing her arms and glaring at Brock.
"I expect this from that slowpoke." Misty points her thumb towards Ash aggressively on the word and crosses her arms before continuing. "But you know better. And it's just mean picking on him when he doesn't understand."
"I'm not the slowpoke, Misty," Ash responds in a mocking tone. " Brock just said that we're not lost." He grins triumphantly, "we're just temp...tempor...we're..misplaced." He nods, pleased with himself for recalling at least some of the words.
Misty shoots one last disgusted look at Brock, raising both hands as if to say 'see, see what you did' before she rounds on Ash once more.
"OK, Ketchum," She says, "do you even know what 'temporarily misplaced" means?"
Ash shakes his head. "No."
"It means," Misty says sweetly, taking a step closer to Ash. Brock is almost certain that, with as close as she is standing,Misty could count Ash's eyelashes if she wanted to. "We're lost." She shouts, words louds enough that Ash steps back.
Blinking, Ash wipes a hands across his face and shakes it off in the dirt. "Say it, don't spray it."
"Grow up," Misty replies. "And show me the map. I'll get us out here."
Ash scoffs but holds the map up, "see we're not lost," he says, pointing at seemingly random to a spot on the paper. "We're here."
Brock groans, Ash is holding the map upside down and from the way Misty's face is getting red, he's sure that she's spotted it as well.
"Ash," Misty says calmly. "Did you happen to notice that you were holding the map," she takes a deep breath and Brock cringes once more, placing fingers in his ears to block out an extremely loud "upside down."
"I am not." Ash says defiantly.
"Then what does it say at the bottom of the map?" Misty asks.
Ash shrugs. "I can't read that, it's printed upside...down...oh."
"Slowpoke." Misty groans as Ash flips the map, studying it intensely.
"Ok," he says after a moment. "This is where we are." He points at the map again and Brock can't help himself. He leans forward and then groans.
"Ash," Misty says, smiling.
"Yes, Misty." Ash replies.
"You pointed at Pallet Town. Tell me, Ash. Does it look like we're in Pallet Town?" Ash shakes his head and Misty grins. "Then we're lost."
"Are not."
"Are too."
"Are not."
Pikachu sparks up and offers a low kaa in warning but neither Ash nor Misty notice, their argument continuing until Pikachu shocks them both and Brock begins setting up camp.
~15~
Misty sighs and smacks her head on the desk in front of the vid screen, frustrated as her conversation has once again dissolved into static. She's back at the gym, by herself as her sisters explore the world on some fancy cruise or another. And it's not fair, she wants to be out and exploring too. And learning. She would love to be out learning. She's never going to be able to be a water pokémon master if she doesn't learn about the new pokémon that are being discovered every day.
At least she still has Ash. As much as she wouldn't have admitted to it even a year ago, Ash has definitely been one of the few bright spots in this whole ordeal. Every week he finds time to talk to her and tell her all about the fantastic new things he's seeing. Or at least he tries to. Hoenn is so much more rural than Kanto had ever been and it's hard to call between the two regions. Really hard. It's not a single call between them that the signal doesn't get lost at some point, words fading to static until Misty hangs up and waits, hoping that they can reconnect. Not even new and better communication tools help: PokéNav's are no match for the huge distance between Kanto and Hoenn.
And then there's the time difference. Misty has been up so many late nights fighting with her connection in the hopes of gleaning just another few minutes of conversation that some days she's not even sure she can open the gym. And it can't be better for Ash. His mornings, when he's at a Pokémon Center, start so early that she's seen him fall asleep more times on the vid screen than she had when they'd been traveling together. Between the two of them, they have to have lost at least two months of sleep. Maybe more.
The phone rings again and Misty grins. It has to be Ash calling back, no one else would call at this time. She sits up, smoothes her hair and presses the button to answer the phone. Immediately the vid screen fills with the dim light and dull sounds of a Pokémon Center in the very early morning. Slowly, an exhausted Ash resolves in the middle of the frame.
"Mist," Ash says, voice crackling in the ever present static.
"Hey, Ash." Misty replies.
"I don't have much time," Ash sighs, frowning.
Misty nods, he never does. They never do. Already midnight is starting to creep in through the gym which means he has to leave soon to begin a day that she's sure will end in another gym victory. They'd lost probably the entire weeks conversation to the storm front that had scrambled the signals between the two regions. Misty sighs. "I miss you," she says, putting her hand up to the screen so that it's flat against it.
"I miss you too," Ash replies, placing his hand to the screen so that it lays over hers just as everything dissolves into static. He hits his head on the desk in the center as soon as the screen goes black.
He's...frustrated. Very frustrated. It's not fair that Misty has to stay at the gym while he's out getting to battle and grow. He's going to be a pokémon master but it won't be fun if Misty doesn't get to be a water pokémon master beside him.
He groans, the sound loud enough in the slowly awakening center that Nurse Joy comes over to make sure that he's alright.
He's not and he's not sure how to fix it.
~20~
Ash sighs and slumps against the wall of the locker room. He's by himself, truly by himself for the first time in years. All of his pokémon, Pikachu included, are at the center being healed. He takes a deep breath, and rubs his eyes with shaking hands.
He's done it, he's actually done it.
He's a pokémon master.
He laughs, quietly at first but he can't stop and the sound grows until it echoes around the empty locker room.
A master.
Him.
Ash Ketchum, from Pallet Town.
A pokémon master at-
"Have you finally lost it, Ash?" A familiar voice cuts in, breaking him from his thoughts.
Ash looks up and is unsurprised when his eyes meet bright blue ones framed by drenched, orange hair.
"Ugh," Ash says, grinning, "I would have thought that there would be more security at the League headquarters."
"Oh there is," Misty says simply, sitting on a bench across from him.
"Then how did you get in here. I thought this locker room was only for masters."
"It is," Misty says solemnly.
"So what, did you flash a guard or something?" Ash asks, smirking.
Misty scoffs and throws her towel at him. It's as wet as her hair.
"Hey."
"You deserved that Mr. pokémon master."
"Call me that again." Ash grins.
"Call you what again?" Misty asks, blinking her eyes in feigned innocence.
"A pokémon master."
"What, like it's special?"
"It's true," Ash grins, puffing out his chest. "But really, how did you get in here?"
"You said it yourself, Ketchum." Misty shrugs. "It's a locker room reserved only for masters."
"You won?" Ash asks, standing up.
Misty nods. It had been cruel of the League to schedule their matches for the same time of the same day. Cruel, but a brilliant marketing scheme. The networks had been full of round the clock speculation about fractured friendships and supposed fights behind the scenes. It was, afterall, the first time that such great friends had been competing on the same day. After months of their pictures being on every single newspaper, magazine and pokéblog and endless requests for interviews discussing only which of their friends were attending which match, Misty had had enough. She demanded as her right as a gym leader, a private exhibition. The results wouldn't even be made public for another day. She had told him first.
Ash runs over and hugs her, picking her feet off the ground so that he can spin the two of them around until the locker room is a blur of grey lockers and white walls.
"Ash," Misty laughs, "put me down, I'm going to puke."
Ash puts her feet on the floor, laughing and Misty can't help but join until both of them are laughing so hard that they're doubled over on the floor taking deep gulping breaths to stop and laughing again any time they meet each other's eyes.
"So," Misty says, once they've finally caught their breath. "Now what?"
Ash's brain stutters to a stop, grin frozen on his face. He doesn't know. Glancing at Misty, from the corner of his eye, he's pretty sure that she doesn't know either.
~25~
Misty is pretty sure that she is at least a little tipsy. She's at some League event or another, listening with feigned interest as some donor drones on about the shocking number of young women who have been declared masters when she sees him; Ash Ketchum, the League's reigning master. They'd lost touch in the years since they'd earned their titles, the requirements of their positions pulling them in entirely different directions so that it was really only at events like this that they managed to see one another.
Twisting her face into what she hopes is a pleasant smile, Misty excuses herself from the donor and walks towards Ash.
"Hey, Pallet Town," she calls.
Ash immediately whirls around. "Don't call me…" he starts in annoyed tone, only to stop, eyes widened in surprise. "Mist?"
"In the flesh." Misty grins, before raising an eyebrow, "who else calls you Pallet Town?"
Ash blushes, a light red that starts in his cheeks and spreads to his ears. "I only let you call me that." He says.
Misty shakes her head, smiling widely. "That's not what I asked."
"Girl I was seeing tried to call me that." He replies, eyes looking anywhere but Misty's.
"Girl you were seeing?" Misty whistles. "Sounds like there's a story there."
"Not really," Ash sings back. "She cheated on me and we broke up. What about you and..uh…"
"Taylor?" Misty supplies.
Ash nods. "Yeah, her."
Misty shrugs, "Buy me a drink and I'll tell you all about how that went up in literal flames."
An hour and 10 drinks between them and they are drunk, leaning against one another in a dark corner of the party and laughing.
"She lit what on fire?" Ash asks, stealing another sip out of Misty's cup.
Misty hands the glass over, not a fan of the sweet rum based drink that Ash had ordered. "The set of the 'Prince and the Mermaid' an hour before we had to put it on for the Vermillion elementary school."
"What?" Ash laughs, spilling half the drink down his shirt.
Misty clucks her tongue against her teeth and reaches for a napkin. " The whole set, poof," she says, dabbing at his shirt. "Up in smoke. I kicked her out then and made up some intro about an imaginary world. The teachers loved it, I'm never building a set again. Now hold still."
"I can't, you're tickling me." Ash replies, grabbing her hand. He knocks her off balance when he grabs her and she falls into him; a puddle of laughing limbs and messy hair. She sits up, grinning and Ash swallows hard. She's close enough that he can count the freckles that she'd tried so hard to hide under a layer of whatever it was that girls wore on their faces. He leans forward and before he knows it, he's kissing her.
It's quiet between them for minutes, a record in their lives until Misty has to pull back and breathe, lack of air clawing at her like a flamethrower in her lungs. She rocks back, eyes wide and touches her lips with her hand.
"What?" She asks.
Ash blinks, horror dawning as he realizes what's just happened. "I don't." he replies.
Misty nods. "So?" she asks quietly, eyes locked on the carpet.
Ash shakes his head. "No," he answers her unasked question. He doesn't regret it.
"We shouldn't, you've got..."
"We're done." Ash replies, reaching forward to lift her face up, to meet her eyes. "What about?"
"Flames, remember." Misty answers.
"So?" He whispers, leaning forward.
"Yes." Misty replies, the end of her word swallowed by Ash kissing her again. He has no idea what they are and where they're going, but he can't wait to figure it out with her.
~?~
A/n: So I wanted to tell the story of these two dorks growing up together and I think I got there? I had this idea that lost means so many different things over our lives and could mean different things to Ash and Misty so I wanted to show how they would get lost at 10 and then lose communication like so many of us do when starting college and then how lost I felt when I graduated and somehow between the time that I threw my cap up and caught it, I had been loaded with student debt, reminded that I had no job and had no idea what I was going to do and then at the end I wanted to show that confusion and loss of place that can happen when things shift in your personal life.
