Reasons why you should hop aboard the S.S. Kingdra and sail it with me-
1)It has Misty, 2) It has Lance, 3) water plus dragon equals sea dragons and sea dragons are cool mkay 4) They're hot red-heads, 5) They're hot red-heads TOGETHER, 6) I'm lonely being one of the only writers for it.
Also quick spotlight- SOMEONE STARTED A KINGDRASHIPPING FIC 8D. It's called My Dragon, by cuteamu, the first chapter is up and it looks like it's going to be intense! You should def go read it and give your support like I did!
To the following:
sesshomaru-sama's lover: I'm trying not to dislike Iris, but she's too high-energy for me to handle. Personality clash I guess. I feel like Iris would be the type to misunderstand or misjudge a situation anyway, based on how she harshly judged Ash on their first meeting and onward. Like she'd have issues with judging people, or misunderstanding context. Also, I don't how or when but at some point I got fond of Koga and Janine, and them having an IOU seems so funny but appropriate. Ninjas pay their debts, after all lol XD.
New Readers: Emma3mikan. Welcome aboard C:
extra note, fuck it. His eyes are yellow, I already write them that way in the oneshots anyway.
"Okay, now knock that one to the left and that'll be the last one we get." Misty said loudly. Azurill chirped an affirmative as it balanced itself on the tree branch above Misty. It used Tail Whip to snap the mango off its stem and sent it falling. Misty snatched it up from the ground and placed it with the rest of the collection she harbored in a white stretched tank shirt with the Indigo Elite Four logo on the right breast.
"It sure was nice of Lance to let me borrow his shirt to carry all of this in, wasn't it Azurill?" she asked as the blue mouse slowly climbed its way down from the tree. It was also pretty lucky of Azurill to have gotten a tour of the islands while it had hung around its Growlithe friend. Otherwise, she'd have never have seen the mango tree mixed with the pecha berry and other berry trees.
"Zu!" it agreed, hopping off just so that it landed perfectly on Misty's shoulder then could bounce once more onto a shrub until finally its feet touched ground.
Traveling the forest back to their camp was almost a breeze now that her leg was healed. She hadn't meant to run and dance wildly like some crazy weirdo that night, but it had just felt so good to be able to stretch her leg without feeling any twinge or painful pulls of pain that Misty hadn't been able to stop herself. A tiny part of her had been concerned Lance would think she'd gone off the deep end and turned nutty but instead, he got to share in her elation. She would never be able to thank that Chansey or Growlithe enough for their generous help.
And then Lance had sort of... looked at her. She couldn't describe it because it had been fleeting but the depth of his golden eyes and that mysterious storm of emotion behind them had practically burned itself into her mind and flared up every so often to remind her. It disturbed her all at the same time that it intrigued her and brought her curiosity to flare to life. What was it that had pooled in his eyes when he had looked at her, that had her entire being pierced by his gaze so deeply and had her stomach doings flips that would put a gold medal gymnast to shame?
Could it have had to do with their shared elation at the Chansey's gift, or... something else?
"I must be reading in too much. Trying to making something out of nothing. Right Azurill?" she tried to shake off her thoughts. Ineffectively the baby mouse was too busy doing pirouettes as the two walked to have paid any attention to its trainer's inner turmoil.
"Ri?" it asked for clarification with a curious perk of its head.
"Nevermind." she sighed.
The forest gave way to the beachside where she could see Lance's silhouette standing up, attention focused on something in his hands while their miracle worker now possible friend Growlithe sat at the Dragon Tamer's front. The puppy pokemon had seen fit to come to their shelter early morning as the two woke up, tail whipping and a pleasant light in its eyes. Growlithe had greeted them all and agreed to do something for Lance just about the time she had left to go get food that Azurill wanted to show her.
"I'm back!" she announced as she rounded their shelter to face him, settling the fruit-load down before looking up where he turned to face her, "Hope you like mang-OH GOSH!"
Perhaps borrowing his shirt hadn't been a good idea because sweet mew's lollipop tail, he was gorgeous in the sunlight. She had previously been somewhat aware of the fact, especially when she'd had to get close to him during the nasty carvanha incident and the storm, but as if having been behind a curtain of sorts suddenly it had come out before her to smack her in the face.
His body glowed from the sunlight, pink along the shoulders and back from prolonged exposure, with highlights of the sun's rays and cast shadows that gave her a delectable show of every one of his body's many contours and ridges born of muscle. The various scars along his front and forearms, some thin and pale and others deep and dark, only seemed to help emphasize the muscle built up in his body, most decisively along the broad expanse of his chest where a thin arrangement of red hair curled, and down the ridges over his stomach. Some scars even dared to peek at her just above the band of his navy pants that contrasted with his skin, which only helped to draw her eyes into the dips of his lower navel and hips, and to the thin trail of red that lead from the stomach downward. Then he had the audacity to smile at her, all white teeth and high dimples in an expression of pure warm and gentle happiness at her returned presence.
"You're back!"
Now, having spent years traveling with Ash and Brock meant Misty had seen her fair share of barren upper bodies, both from the boys and from the other various cast of colorful characters they had come across. However, that did not stop her mind coming to a screeching and violent halt only to suddenly vault off a cliff into very dangerous, very foreign territory.
His smile faltered when he realized she was staring at him with saucer-wide eyes and a face burning up red with a strange mixture of shock and awe.
Concerned, he asked, "What? Is something wrong?"
His words snapped her out of her horrific trance, and allowed her to realize with horror that he'd caught her staring, not that she'd been hiding it. A furious red flared into her whole face in her embarrassment and horror, and panicking she uprooted the shirt from underneath the fruit and flung it at his face. The shirt lightly smacked his jaw and fell down his bare chest into his still arms, confusion lighting his face as she shouted, "Put your shirt back on!"
One of his sharp, elegant eyebrows rose up, and she had to wonder why the heck she was all of a sudden noticing such details as he puzzled, "Uh, why?"
"Just put it on!" she blurted, trying to think fast, "It-you-I-s-sunburn! You'll get sunburn!"
He of course only seemed more puzzled, as he glanced at the shirt in his hands, a thin white sleeveless men's tank top, and then his pink shoulders. The waiting only made her more antsy, and just as he began pulling it over his head with a confused shrug Misty forced herself to turn away then pick up the mangos and other fruit off the sand and move it onto a smooth, flat rock that had been stirred up, probably by Growlithe at some point. When she glanced back hurriedly, he was thankfully clothed once more, even if she could still see the accentuation of muscle underneath the fabric.
The entire time of the exchange, Growlithe had been shifting his gaze back and forth from Misty to Lance, and she could have sworn the corners of his snout were turned up.
"So, looks like the fruit hunt was a success." he commented awkwardly.
"What, huh?" she jumped, "Oh, y-yeah. Turns out there were mango trees just a little to the right of the Pecha berry trees. Makes me wonder if there's more around there... so what were you and Growlithe up to?"
He grinned at her, and pulled from nowhere the arbok-decorated dagger. He gripped the edge carefully and pointed the handle to her to grab. Misty took it and noticed it felt warm, and that it was dark around the flared hilt. Then, shifting it around in the sun, she realized it had changed. The edge was no long dull and flat, but even and sharp.
"It's sharp! How did you do that?"
"Growlithe Ember'd it hot, and I scored it against a smooth rock during cool down." he explained simply, "I'm not sure how strong it'll be, but at least we have something we can cut with."
"That's great! Oh, we can cut some branches, sharpen tips and make spears so we can fish again!" she said excitedly.
Lance chuckled, and she handed the dagger back to him, "Already ahead of you," he pointed over to their right, and when Misty followed with her sight, she spotted a small pile of three or four long sticks with sharpened ends, "No offense, but past experience has taught me to leave the fishing to you. I can continue to make the spears for you though."
"None taken, and sure. But first, the fruits of my labor!" she joked, holding up a mango like a trophy.
Lance laughed and sat down beside their impromptu rock-table, taking the offered mango from her and using the now-sharp dagger to cut it into halves. He offered her one half, and popped the pit out of his half before they both bit into their late breakfast. They ate in relative silence, Misty still reeling from her prior embarrassment. She felt the silence cut into her, and she wondered if it affected Lance too. When she glanced his way fleetingly, he seemed focused on his half of the mango, rather than the silence between them. That, or he was a good actor.
Misty finished hers in a hurry, still licking off all the juice that had dripped over her fingers, and before he could reply or react she hurriedly told him she was going to start spear-fishing, or more accurately, practicing it. Azurill trailed right behind her feet as she practically sprinted across the sand until finally she had turned the corner to the coral and rock shelves to their camp's far right, and she was safely hidden behind them.
"What was that!?" she harshly demanded from herself, "What was that about?!" she demanded, plastering her hands to either side of her face, framing the cheeks and bending the fingers like claws against her scalp, "Where had that even come from- why would-what?!"
"Zur?" chirped Azurill beneath her.
"Azurill, something's wrong with me; there must be!" she told her pokemon, "Because what just happened-that has never happened before!"
"Ri?" it chirped again, this time adding an inquisitive cock of its head to the side.
"Maybe it was Chansey healing us. Chansey's don't normally use their powers to heal humans, so obviously it might not work the same for pokemon, right?" she asked, "Maybe it healing me did something to me! That must be it, right?!"
Azurill responded by cocking its head to the other side, still confounded by her owner, which only further flustered Misty's nerves.
"I mean it, that-that staring and-oogling, oh gods I actually oogled at him like how my sisters do all those guys in their magazines!" she cried out, horrified at herself, "I'm turning into one of them! I'm turning into a creeper!"
Azurill's tail twitched as her owner's volume lowered, and Misty slumped to her knees in the sand and rock. The movement of the twitching tail caught the baby pokemon's peripherals, and intrigued she began to chase the bubble shaped tip. In normal circumstances, Misty might have tried to stop her, or found amusement in it, but she was not in any normal circumstance.
"Not with any of the crazy, numerous shirtless guys I saw and met on Ash's circuits through Kanto, Johto, the Orange Islands..." she groaned. She had never reacted like that before, not so strongly even, and the most bothersome fact was the amount of times she had seen Ash-her own first crush!- shirtless. Not even those moments had fazed her. Partially from the obvious- she had been eleven, but even the times when Ash visited with new friends and Brock should have inspired a reaction, right?
Why Lance? Why now?
"Oh man, he must think I'm such a creep, huh?" she sighed dramatically, knowing there was no way he hadn't noticed her reaction to his barren upper body.
-o00o-
"Do you think that she thinks I'm weird now?" Lance idly asked the Growlithe as they trekked through the outskirts of the woods near the camp. He had been happy to let her shrug off her strange behaviour, but it troubled him how weird she had suddenly been. He had been happy to see her, relieved that some mishap hadn't occurred in his absence as was usually common, and glad she had succeeded in her food-retrieving mission.
The first hour of lounging around the camp before they had decided to start the day and prior to Growlithe showing up had told him a lot about the gifts they had been blessed by the Chansey. The obvious, Misty was independently mobile again, and not a single one of their previous aches, pains, or injuries hindered them anymore. His mind was clear once again, allowing him to think clearly and sharply as he always had. His poke-telepathy was once again under his control, too, so he was sure he needn't worry about another backfire should he need to use it.
The healing had done a real number on their spirits, too. Lance was sure it was only temporary, but he was certain that Misty had, prior to the weird outburst, been a lot more lively. She had a pep in her step that hadn't quite been there, her pretty aquatic eyes lit like glittering water. He could remember the spirited girl he had met a long time ago at the lake in Mahogany, and that same spirit seemed to have been rekindled. Her body as well as his were healed and rejuvenated, thus hope was reinvigorated too.
But that outburst still bothered him, her sudden shout, the proceeding blush that ignited over her cheeks and spread down her neck to her shoulders, and the shirt-throwing...
Had he been too open with her, the night prior? The new canine friend chuffed at him like a disbelieving laugh.
"Well, she hadn't ever acted like that before, but suddenly a shirt makes the difference?" he wondered. Musing, he pulled the collar of his tank top away from his skin and looked down for a brief moment. His eyes met with muscle and scar tissue, lots of scar tissue, and he frowned and let the shirt go.
"Maybe she was repulsed? The scars are pretty bad, I know." No, he reminded himself, that couldn't be it, not really. When they had been forced to cauterize and wrap their wounds from the Carvanha meeting, she hadn't seemed affected by the blemishes on his skin no matter how many times she had to help him wrap the injuries up. In fact, he could dare say she had been intrigued rather than repulsed, asking the story behind some of them.
Growlithe nudged and nipped at his hand suddenly, trying to push his head into Lance's palm. He complied, and he felt the temporary mental bond form between him and the canine pokemon through their contact.
No, you're wrong. Your display was too aggressive. Your mate was surprised and a bit overwhelmed, that's all.
Lance broke the bond by swiftly removing his hand and jumping back, "Wait, what!? My 'display' was-wait- mate?!"
Growlithe barked with a nod, looking at his human friend rather patiently. He couldn't possibly mean what he thought he meant, Lance wished he could convince himself of. However, the emotion and will behind Growlithe's thoughts were far too strong to imply anything else. His stomach went into a funny series of knots as he realized, He thinks Misty and I are 'mates'; he thinks we're together!
But we aren't! At that, his heart seemed to droop a little amidst all the knots in his stomach, but he ignored it.
But what did he mean by display? Lance hadn't been trying to show off anything, or flaunting anything, so what was Growlithe meaning through an aggressive 'display' that had cause Misty's... outburst...
He frowned and fingered the collar of his shirt again, and mentally groaned to himself.
Ah. That "display".
For some reason the phrase "sweet mew's lollipop tail" amuses me. Mm, did someone say fanservice? Thought I'd give everyone a break from all the drama of mental break downs, dark angsty secrets, UST, and deus ex machinas, by making MORE UST! Also, Misty is way to fun to mess with. They're both fun to mess with. And now that Growlithe's in the mix, this can only be a barrel of laughs for everyone involved, except, you know, Misty and Lance themselves.
As always, reviews are very much appreciated. You are also free to hit me up on the PM if you have any questions, or just want to chat.
-KO13