Note: I am not being malicious towards any of these characters or pairings–this is just a parody, meaning FOR FUN. Geez, no flames, okay?

Pairing for today (again): ConflictingShipping - Blue (game) & Leaf

The continuation of Part I, obviously. Hope you enjoy it! (As a fun fact, the original name of this two-part story was "Believe," after Blue's struggles to make Leaf believe in the legends.)

Oh, and a note to O'possum, although I'll doubt he'll/she'll read this: I didn't tell you to take down your story from FFN. You can keep it up; I just don't want you spamming reviews to pick on romance stories, or any fanfic for that matter. Just try to be more mature next time, alright? This is a community for all fanfic-writers and -readers. Let's just enjoy writing, shall we?

Touching

Part II

"How's your . . . tailbone?"

Smiling a little at his hesitation, Leaf slowly rolled onto her side to stare at the fawn-haired boy sitting beside her, his back against a rock jutting out of the cave floor. His brown eyes were focused on the ground before him, his legs drawn up so he could rest his elbows on his knees, and he was so lost in thought that he didn't notice her movement. It was a few days after the ice incident, although she said she wouldn't have figured it out if they didn't have watches, and Charizard was out to keep them warm as well as to be a light in the darkness of the cave. Batteries were important to a trainer and needed to be conserved as much as possible. "Better, I guess."

Blue nodded absentmindedly. ". . . Good." His thoughts were a mad swarm of Beedrill, switching from the legendary to Leaf to training to the legendary to Leaf, all of his thoughts tripping over themselves to get his attention. He was having trouble sorting it all out, and so he decided to do it alphabetically–Leaf, legendary, training.

He frowned at the thought of working out Leaf's quirks first. I mean, alphabetically backwards–

Training, legendary, Leaf.

That's better. He turned his attention to the Pokemon he had on him and in the boxes, calculating which were ready to fight the skilled champion. He also had to figure out what strategy he was going to use, considering Leaf had probably planned herself while she had the free time from the League. She knew most of his Pokemon by now, and although she was absolutely aggravating to deal with, she was a skilled trainer and prepared to fight for the title of Kanto Champion. He had a lot of work ahead of him.

That determination hadn't changed much from her childhood, when she was always trying to beat him in competitions and sometimes succeeding–but of course only because he let her. Leaf used to get frustrated if he won every time, so every so often he'd let her win so she wouldn't feel so bad. Tag and hide-and-seek were his favorites, because he was more athletic and sneaky than she was more than half of the time. He had especially loved sneaking up on her while she hid and scaring the living daylights out of her, although he did receive a wallop or two in return for his cruelty. She had her days, though, where she would pull off some amazing victory that would shock him–much like the day she took the title of Kanto's Champion from him. She had matured a lot in some ways, but in others, she hadn't changed a bit.

After a few minutes of mulling over various combinations of teams, he realized it was much too difficult to figure out when he couldn't look through his boxes, and went on to the next topic: Legendary Pokemon. The creatures he had dreamed of capturing since he was a little boy, when he made up games with Leaf pretending to be the legendary and him playing as the trainer going to catch it. Although those games were long gone, the dream was still there, and he was prepared to go to the ends of the Earth to prove to the world–and to Leaf–that they did exist. All of the times she had teased him, saying he needed to stop living in his childhood and grow up, they would all mean nothing as soon as he proved her wrong. He was determined do to so, and that was why he was in the cave right now, with her. He would show her the truth, and she'd apologize for ever doubting him while he would simply grin and tell her it was alright, that he'd already forgiven her–yes, he already had the entire scenario in his mind, planning everything that was going to happen.

It was only then that he realized the subject he was trying to avoid thinking about the most was leaking into all of his thoughts: Leaf. His eyebrows furrowed as he sighed in exasperation. That girl's irritating, even without meaning to be. She's always touching me, confusing me, and getting me into all sorts of trouble. Boy, she really hasn't changed. Pulling his legs closer and crossing his arms on his knees, Blue went on to grab the Tauros by the horns–but jumped when he felt a light touch on his arm. He jerked away slightly as the brunette whispered, "What's wrong?" She sounded a little worried, and he glanced over to see her concerned frown before her chocolate eyes suddenly pierced his for an answer. He inhaled sharply and leaned away a little, unprepared to have her nearly touching him again, but she only leaned forward, furrowing her own eyebrows as she examined his expression.

Not wanting her to read too much into things, he cleared his throat and lied, "I'm fine." Although it was an obvious lie, his tone made it clear that he didn't want to talk about it. She had always respected other people's emotions, if not their personal space, and rarely ever pushed for an answer. He expected her to do the same here, ignoring when her frown deepened as he went back to staring at the rocky floor. He could still feel her presence hovering beside him, and although it unnerved him greatly, he remained silent about it. He wasn't anticipating for her to tap his shoulder again, or for her to jab his side forcefully when he didn't respond. He jumped and glared at her, wishing she wasn't so persistent all of a sudden. "What?"

"You're worried about something." Her eyes searched him again, but he refused to look away this time, instead mentally daring her to try to figure him out. After a pause, her expression grew more somber, and she mumbled, "Or irritated . . . at someone."

He blinked as his legs slid to lie straight on the ground, confused by what she meant. "Irritated? How?"

She frowned in confusion, appearing to be troubled by his answer. He tilted his head in curiosity, but before he could ask again, she explained, "Well, I am injured and slow, after all. I think that makes me a liability. That certainly wouldn't help your research." She ignored Charizard's rude snort, instead giving him an apologetic smile as she cleared her throat anxiously. "Really, I'm sorry."

Blue was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of guilt as he realized that she thought he was angry to have to take her through the cave, and to deal with her tailbone injury. Does it really seem like that? Did I somehow make her think that I hate having her around? Sure, he didn't like all of the touching, but otherwise, she was a breath of fresh air; he hadn't had a human companion since he had started to be a jerk to her more than six years ago. He didn't want her to think he was mad at her, especially since it wasn't true, and something crazy made him reach an arm up and–dear Mew–around her shoulders, gently pulling her to lean against him. He thought he heard the dragon give a shocked rumble, but he ignored it. She looked just about as surprised as he felt, and he wondered if her heartbeat was as quick as his.

"Leaf, I . . . I didn't mean it to look like I didn't like having you around." Although slightly uncomfortable with the contact between them, he pushed it aside once more to comfort her, knowing that an embrace was just as important as words to her. "In fact, it's nice to have a f-friend, since I haven't hung out with you in years. It's just . . . hard to get used to."

". . . I understand." Her voice was still strangely quiet, and he squeezed her shoulder slightly in encouragement. She glanced at him for a moment, eyes glazed over with nostalgia, and she mumbled, "It has been a while . . . hasn't it?" He nodded wistfully, remembering the times they had played together under their mothers' watchful eyes. She fiddled her thumbs, thinking deeply about something, before she slowly rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. "I wish we could go back and . . ."

"Change it?" When she nodded, her hair brushed against his neck and gave him goose bumps, and he almost lost his train of thought. "To be honest, so do I. I'd . . . change a lot, actually."

"You would?"

"Yeah." His own voice grew softer, as if the reflective atmosphere was making him quiet. "I'd . . . fix everything I messed up."

"Oh, you didn't mess everything up."

"Not everything, but I did." His gaze fell to the floor, a frown materializing out of his dark thoughts. "I wanted to be "cool" and decided that being a "jerk" was how I'd do it. It wasn't the smartest decision, I'll admit, but even worse was that I was a jerk to you. After all, throughout everything, you still tried to be nice, but I just wouldn't listen–"

He stopped when her arm snaked around his waist to hug him, and he was silent as he listened to her disappointed sigh. "Y'know, Blue, you really are silly. You didn't mess everything up. You just got . . . sidetracked. But, you're back now, and you've more than made up for anything you might have done. And . . ." She gave a small giggle, nudging his chin slightly with her head. "You never really lost me." As if to emphasize her point, she turned to face him and wrapped her other arm around him, fully hugging him now as she nuzzled him affectionately.

He was so tense he thought his muscles were going to knot up painfully on him and take weeks of massage to be loosened. She was so close, touching him so much, and his arm was now more or less trapped on her shoulders as he looked at her in confusion. "L-Leaf?" One of her knees rested on his leg, further ensnaring him in an inescapable embrace, and he felt as if Charizard had set him on fire. Said dragon was eyeing them in amusement, trying to cover its laughter at his awkwardness with a few raucous coughs.

After a breath of silence, the brunette blinked and looked as if she had just realized what she was doing. "Oh! I-I'm sorry, Blue, I don't . . ." She let go of him as her face turned an interesting shade of pink, and she retreated to his sleeping bag while mumbling, "Sorry, I'm just tired and . . . didn't think about . . ." She mumbled incoherently a little more as she slipped into the bag, and she rolled over so her back was facing him as she finally finished with a quietly repeated, "Sorry, Blue."

While she was quick to fall asleep, Blue found he had trouble even preparing for it, especially when he felt so cold after being so close to another warm body. A few minutes of driving himself crazy led him to take a quick walk to a stream and splash his face with the icy water in hopes of "waking him up." He stared at his reflection for a while, watching his mirror image as if waiting for it to explain everything, but it remained silent. He glared at it, blaming it for everything, and muttered, "Dammit. It's all your fault. If you just hadn't brought her here, you wouldn't be having these problems with . . . touching." He scowled, and when his reflection scowled back he huffed irritably and let his eyes skim across the water to avoid looking into his own confused gaze.

Then, something in his peripheral vision got his attention, and he watched the reflection of something shimmering before his eyes widened in alarm and he jerked his head upward. He caught a glimpse of a whip-like tail going around a turn in the cave, and after a moment of standing there in surprise he threw Blastoise's poke ball down and ordered it, "Let's surf, now!" It didn't question him as he leapt onto its back, and they took off while he kept his eyes peeled for what he had been hoping to find all along: A legendary.

No matter where they searched, though, they could not find a single clue as to where the creature had flown off to–and he was sure it could fly, for nothing else would have been able to elude them so easily, since Blastoise had already swam through the waters and found nothing extraordinary. Exhausted and disappointed, the two turned back and returned to the spot they had left an hour ago, and he glumly returned the water-type to its poke ball and trudged back to their "camp" in a depressed mood. He had come so close . . . so close . . .

Yeah, you were real close . . . earlier.

His cheeks coloring pink at the reminder, he flopped onto the ground and sighed, using his pack as a pillow while trying to finally go to sleep. He didn't seem to notice Leaf roll over, or how she examined his frustrated expression closely when his eyes were closed. Soon, he was gone, to a world where Leaf was flying just out of his reach, and he kept running slower and slower . . .

A week had gone by, and there was still no sign of that Pokemon he had seen. He was getting frustrated with this, and he was losing much needed sleep trying to figure out where it was. He searched the map he had brought with him fervently, trying to think of where the Pokemon could be hiding, almost walking into a stream once because he wasn't watching where he was going. He was yawning constantly and dozing off whenever they stopped to rest, and after a week of this Leaf decided to do something.

That night, when he started to scrutinize his map again, the paper was suddenly jerked from his grip. Startled, he looked up to see Leaf's stern face as she folded it up and placed it in a pocket of her backpack, and he stuttered, "Wha–Leaf, I–what're you–" He tensed when she grabbed his shirt and helped him stumble to his feet, and he let her lead him over to the sleep sack he had given to her as he tried to figure out what she was trying to pull.

She pinned him with an annoyed glare, placed her palms on his chest and forced him to sit on the sleeping bag. As he stared at her in confusion, she motioned for him to lie on his back. "Sleep."

He sighed, finally realizing what she was doing, and tried to stand up again, starting, "Now, look–"

"No!" She grabbed his shoulders so he remained where he was, and when he scowled at her she ordered, "Stay there, Blue. You need to rest, you've been staying up late way too much!"

"But I need to do some calculations, I've almost–"

"No more work." She knelt before him, anger being replaced with seriousness, and she covered his hands with her own as if to prevent them from working. "You've done enough tonight. It can wait until morning." She gently squeezed them as she nodded in encouragement. "Please."

He matched her gaze with his own solemn one, watching for a change in her expression that would hint to a crack in her resolve–but eventually he just sighed in defeat and dropped it, closing his eyes as exhaustion nearly overwhelmed him. "Fine . . . but . . . I'm so close."

"I don't care." She let go of his hands to cup his face, and he could almost hear her smile in her voice. "But I do care about you." He could feel her breath on his face, fanning across his cheeks and tickling his chin. He slowly leaned into it, tipping towards her until their foreheads touched and opening his eyes to stare into hers as intensely as his weary self could.

"You do?"

"Yes."

"You promise?"

She smiled at his insisting, as if it brought back memories from their childhood of pinkie promises and kid oaths. "Yes, I promise."

". . . Good." He closed his eyes again, feeling the fatigue slowly taking control of his body as he barely suppressed a yawn. Maybe it was a good thing she was forcing him to sleep after all. "Because I . . . care about you . . . way more than I should. I want to prove it to you so badly . . ."

"I know," she whispered, "I know. This is important to you, so it's important to me. I'll support you all of the way, as long as you take care of yourself." She then sat up straight, steadying him when he nearly fell face first into her lap, and tapped his nose playfully. "Okay? No more staying up."

"No more staying up," he echoed, barely feeling how she gently guided him onto his back and covered him with the sleep sack's cover. I might actually get used to her touching . . . He thought he felt her hands on his chest and her lips on his forehead, but he figured he was already dreaming, and he slowly drifted to a plane where she smiled when he was near but frowned when the legendary he had been chasing flew around her . . .

He woke up groggy the next morning, wanting to go back to sleep but feeling he had something important to do. Nn, what I'd give for more hours in the night. For the first time in days, he woke up not cold, but comfortingly warm, and the blanket felt so heavy when he tried to lift it off of him. Or, he thought it was simply the blanket. His hand wandered onto soft flesh and, after pausing in confusion when he realized it wasn't his flesh, gripped what felt to be an arm lying across his torso. His eyes flew open to observe Leaf snuggled up against him, asleep and partially laying on top of the bag–and him. One leg sprawled across him to further trap him–he felt a distinct case of déjà vu–and there was no way he could move out from under her without waking her up. He felt overheated and claustrophobic underneath her.

Oh . . . God. This is too much.

He caught a glimpse of Charizard's and, strangely enough, Blastoise's smug faces, and after he scowled at their immaturity he worked one arm out from under the covers to try to shake Leaf awake. His face was almost as red as a Charmeleon's as he tried not to think too much about their positions, sternly telling himself, We're not technically touching, there's a sleeping bag between us . . . He was relieved to watch her lift her head slowly, rubbing her eyes to help clear her vision as she gave a mighty yawn. He gulped and muttered, "Are you awake now, Leaf?"

"Yeah, I . . ." Her eyes traveled up to his awkward expression to figure out that he was surprised, and she blushed a little herself before clearing her throat and starting, "I'm assuming you want an, uh, explanation for this." He nodded. "Right. Well, uh, y'see, I was cold last night, and . . . well, there was enough room for you to scoot over, and I . . . yeah." She withdrew from him, greatly decreasing the amount of heat he felt, and stood up to dust herself off as she tried to act casual. "Breakfast?"

The cover of the sleeping bag slipped off of Blue as he propped himself up with his arms behind him, and he watched her dig through her backpack for something to eat as she tried to pretend nothing had happened. After a few minutes of silence had passed between them, he stood up and walked over to place a hand on her shoulder; she tensed in surprise at his touch before she reluctantly straightened up to face him. He gulped nervously, thinking about what he was going to do, before nodding. "Thank you. For last night."

". . . Oh." She swallowed anxiously herself, mumbling softly, "Don't mention it. I just . . . get worried about you sometimes." With their exchange over with, both of the trainers turned away from each other and obtained their own food for breakfast, eating without a word to the other until it was time to go. Even then, she simply asked him, "Ready?" At his nod, they started off on their journey again, followed by their still smirking Pokemon, who entertained themselves by making faces behind their backs.

It was coming to the end of their stay in the caves; they'd already been in there for fifteen days, and they had to start on their way back so they'd be able to leave on time. Leaf had the League to worry about, and Blue planned to be one of the first challengers so he had to hurry as well. He did so reluctantly, however, and as each night seemed to come too fast he gave a disheartened sigh before retreating to one side of the sleeping bag.

Strangely enough, during the last stretch of the trip, they started a system where they could both get to sleep on it together; he would take one side of the pretty wide sleep sack, and she'd take the other, while they'd switch who'd be under the cover and who'd be on top of it every night. Of course, they never slept underneath or over it together–that'd be too weird–and they tried to keep as much distance between each other without getting off of the sleep sack. However, whenever morning would come, they were always embarrassed to find themselves cuddling and had to silence their Pokemon's roaring laughter by returning them to their poke balls. They never escaped the mornings without blushes on their faces.

It was day nineteen when they were almost to the entrance again, and they decided to slow down their pace so they had a little more time inside of the caves. That night when they set up camp, Leaf scooted over to sit beside a miserable-looking Blue and touched shoulders with him. "I know you're disappointed, but they're not called "rare Pokemon" for nothing. Of course they're going to be hard to find." Despite her encouragement, he didn't look any happier, so she sighed and nudged him slightly. "Come on, can I see a smile? Even a tiny one?"

"I just wanted a sign," he mumbled instead. "Just one sign, so I could know that at least there was a chance. But, nothing." His expression spoke of his massive frustration as he tilted his head down to look at the floor. "Only a fleeting glimpse late at night, and it might not have been it anyways."

"But, that's more than some people, right?" She leaned forward to try to look at his face, but his bangs got in the way. "Some people have worked all of their lives and haven't seen even one legendary Pokemon. Few people get a glimpse, and even fewer actually have a sighting."

"You don't believe." His tone was sour, as if dissatisfied with his failure. "You still don't think the legends are anymore than what they're called. That was my goal, and I've failed to reach it."

"No, you haven't." She turned to face him and placed her hands on his shoulders, shaking him slightly to get his attention. When he lifted his head to look at her, she pursed her lips and thought deeply about her next words. "You're so passionate about your research, it's a little hard not to get into it. Your dedication has opened my eyes to a lot of things I hadn't thought of before, and . . ."

She trailed off, her gaze drifting over his shoulder as something caught her eye. When she remained quiet for a long period of time, Blue shifted slightly and tried to locate what she was looking at. "What is it? What's wrong?"

She pointed behind him, a curious frown on her face. "What's that?" They both scrambled to their feet and jogged over to the glinting she had seen on the ground, and she bent down to pick it up carefully and gave it to him for examination. He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the shiny object, before his jaw fell open.

"It's . . . a feather."

Indeed, it was; the soft feather was azure in color yet surprisingly sharp on its edges, and it was as long as his forearm and a little bit wider. It was highly flexible, and as he played with it a little it sparkled beautifully and reflected tiny pinpricks of light onto the rock surrounding them. That gave him an idea, and he handed it over to her momentarily before rummaging through his backpack and finding the vial with the rock and ice he had collected what felt like forever ago. The chilling atmosphere of the cave had kept it in its solid form, and he compared the sparkling of the two before a boyish grin overcame him.

"It's just what I thought. Whatever this feather came from . . . made this ice. See how the feather's iced over a bit?" He demonstrated it to her, pointing out the identical sparkling and laughing merrily. "That's why it's so sharp and cold! There aren't any normal kinds of bird Pokemon in this cave, but . . . !" He handed the vial to her as well and pulled out an ancient-looking book from his backpack, hastily flipping through the pages until he found a picture of what he was looking for, placing a fingertip on it. "That is said to live here!"

She leaned forward and read aloud, " "Articuno, the freeze Pokemon. A legendary bird Pokemon said to appear to doomed people who are lost in icy mountains. The magnificent seemingly translucent wings of this legendary bird Pokemon are said to be made of ice." " She glanced from the book to the feather several times before her eyes widened in realization. "You mean . . ."

"Yep." He grinned, looking wholly satisfied at their discovery. "Unless there's some other blue-feathered bird Pokemon native to Kanto that I don't know about, this . . . is Articuno's feather." His brown eyes shone with an overload of happiness, and he spun her around in the air as they both laughed ecstatically at the news. "I was right, Leaf! There are legendary Pokemon! I knew it!"

"You were right!" When he set her down, she suddenly leapt forward to embrace him and truly kissed him, and after a moment of indecision he hugged her fiercely and returned the kiss. Ignoring their Pokemon's whoops and hollers, the kiss lasted for more than ten seconds, enough to make them forget about the items they held until they nearly dropped them. Smiling sheepishly and placing the things on the ground, Leaf went back to embrace him tightly and gave a content sigh. "You did it, Blue. I'm so proud of you."

He shook slightly from all of the excitement, and he mumbled into her hair, "I'm just glad I was able to share it with you."

"Oh, you romantic." She giggled and pulled away from him slightly, looking up into his face with a warm smile. "Remind me to never doubt you again."

"That's right," he grinned arrogantly, "you shouldn't!"

She laughed and shoved him slightly. "Blue!"

As they chatted about the possibilities of legendaries all around Kanto, they failed to notice the two Pokemon standing together, Charizard grumbling dark things to itself. Blastoise smirked and motioned with a hand, and reluctantly the dragon held out a claw gripping a few TMs and an Oran berry–both of which were difficult for a Pokemon to find without assistance from its trainer. As the turtle gladly took the items from the loser of the bet, Charizard growled a warning to it, probably along the lines of "be careful with that" and "don't get too cocky."

Blastoise shrugged, popping the berry into its mouth and flipping the TMs like it would a deck of cards, and its voice became almost sing-song-like to taunt the dragon. Charizard snarled a furious response.

After the two humans and their Pokemon left the cave, a shimmering reflection on the pool's surface appeared to observe the entrance in curiosity. Standing as tall as Charizard and with an equally impressive wingspan, the azure-feathered Pokemon seemed to be a guardian of the Seafoam Islands protecting its people from invaders. Its expression looked content, however, and it preened a spot on its side that was losing feathers before turning and taking flight to patrol the rest of the caves. It would be ready for the next time the fawn-haired human entered the caves; the young male seemed worthy enough to test his might against the power of legends. Articuno was looking forward to it.

Lots of dragon-y love (and cookies!),
~DL ("Dragon Lover")