[GALLANT]
Misty waited impatiently.
Ash picked at his nails.
Misty cleared her throat meaningfully.
Ash scuffed the toe of his trainer along a crack in the paving slabs.
"Ash…" She barely kept her temper in check.
"Misty..?" He looked up at her with a bored expression.
"The door…?" she gestured.
"What about it..?" he mocked her intonation.
"Well, aren't you going to open it?" she finally asked in exasperation.
"Aren't you?"
"No!" she exclaimed. "I can't open it!"
"Why not?" he asked, genuinely bewildered
"Because! That's what you're for."
"Since when!"
"Since you became my boyfriend!"
"Huh? What does that have to do with your ability to turn a handle!"
"It's about chivalry. Treating me like a lady, you idiot."
"Oh, nice Misty! Maybe you should try acting like one first?"
"Oh please, you just wouldn't know good manners if they slapped you in the face!"
"Would too!"
"Would not!"
"Would too!"
Misty cuffed him round the head.
"Oh yes! Real mature!" Ash scowled and rubbed his ear. Misty sighed.
"Look Ash, just open the door."
"No!"
"Open the door!"
"No!"
"Well I'm not opening it!"
"Well neither am I!"
"Well then I guess we're going to be waiting here a while then!"
"I guess so!"
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
After an hour fatigue triumphed over Misty's stubbornness and she sat down on the pavement, scowling furiously. Two hours later and she was asleep, her head back against the brick of the building, mouth open and snoring lightly. Ash looked across at her from where he was hunched over on the curb. He stretched out a finger and pushed her chin up, closing her mouth. After another moment's quiet regard he shifted across the pavement to put his back against the wall and slotted his sleeping girlfriend into place beside him, rubbing his hand against the chilled skin of her forearm.
He would be damned if he was going to be the one to open that door… but there was no need for her to be cold while they waited…
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
