It all started out so innocently enough. Just a couple of movies,
some junk food, staying up late... sleeping in late...
Perhaps the first deviation from a (relatively) safe evening was
the chocolate. Or, to be more precise, the quantity.
... the agreement, as she had understood it, was that each of them
would beg, borrow or steal a few movies of their choice, and also
snag some really evil food. The engagement had originally
included herself, Ash, and Brock... though strangely enough, Brock
had opted to stay home by himself.
Anyways, the point was that while she had selected her movies, and
managed to extricate some microwave popcorn from the disaster that
functioned as her kitchen, Ash still hadn't showed up. And it was
literally hours after the prescribed time.
Stomping her foot on the floor, she cursed vividly for a few
moments, scrabbling angrily on and about the sofa for her cell
phone. Just as she found it (wedged between the cushions) a loud
thumping noise was readily audible. Misty restrained herself from
screaming, instead settling with flinging the cell across the room.
After taking momentary joy in the sound of precisely designed
electronic components crunching and reverting to a decidedly
nonfunctional state, she strode briskly to the door, hands clenched
into white-knuckled fists. In retrospect, flinging the door open
was a bad, dumb, stupid, idiotic, doltish, all-around-not-very-
bright idea.
The result?
Introduction of one sopping wet individual, many damp video
cases, and a rather large cardboard box laden with a variety of
candy bars, to her nice clean (sic) hall.
Also a damnably huge mess when all of it tumbled onto the floor
in one giant wet miserable Godforsaken heap.
"Ash, is it possible for you to do ANYTHING right?"
The response was rather muffled, probably due to the fact that
said individual had landed face down on the ceramic floor. Being
covered with much chocolate probably didn't improve the acoustics,
either.
"Uhh, I guess I was kinda leaning on the door, heh... ahh...
sorry?"
"Ya think? ... no big deal, I guess..."
Ash cringed underneath the giant pile of chocolate, wishing the
evening had come off to a better start. The tone in which Misty
had added "no big deal" really suggested that she personally felt
otherwise, but was making great personal sacrifice to cope with
his personal inadequacy. And not enjoying it.
"Where did you get all this..." she waved her arms, gesticulating
wildly, "... junk?"
"It's not junk, Misty... I'll have you know that it's certainly a
premium chocolate product..."
"That wasn't my point, flyboy."
"Uh, okay. Well, you said to bring something. I was nearly sure
that chocolate would be a good choice, as usually you're less
ir-ri-ta-ble... uh, I mean, I know you really like chocolate."
Sitting up and starting to help Misty finish shoveling the myriad
bars of chocolatey goodness into the box again, Ash tried to
convince himself that she had missed his verbal slip-and-fall
accident.
"So anyways, there was a lot of chocolate to pick from, and lots of
it was on sale, so I just kinda randomly threw things in the box,
there."
"Lovely. What movies?"
Tilting his head to the side, tossing his hair back, Ash puffed his
chest out momentarily, reciting his videos in an over-dramatic,
overdone, overly-strange voice.
"'Aliens', 'The Evil Dead 2', and 'The Legend Of Drunken Master.'
See, I've got one from each of the movie-food-group staples.
Sci-fi, horror, and imported kung-fu..."
Misty rolled her eyes and smacked him with the back of her hand.
This measure did not, unfortunately, secure silence. Ash
continued prattling on, seemingly endlessly.
"... well, maybe 'Aliens' should be considered a horror movie, but
the title has aliens in it, so it counts as sci-fi too...
Anyways... what are my wholesome, lovable little flicks going to be
stacked up against tonight?"
Shoving him hard enough to send him sprawling back across the
floor, Misty carried the now-full box into the living room.
"Well, now that you've finally shut up, I can tell you. Jeez..."
"Hey, wait, come back with that!"
Scrabbling helplessly, Ash managed to scoop up his movies and half-
crawl-half-stagger semi-drunkenly down the hall after her.
Upon reaching the living room, he was confronted with Misty lying
sprawled, covering most of the sofa, the box of chocolate within
comfortable distance.
"My movie first," she gloated, using the remote control as a tool
of torture, beginning a session of pure unadulterated hate, that
would last an hour and a half. This hell was known as "Never Been
Kissed." And it was bad.
He voiced his opinion. To recieve a decidedly negative response.
In the form of a bar of chocolate bouncing off his head.
Unwrapping the chocolate and consuming it as rapidly as his body
would permit, Ash fumbled blindly, drunkenly in the dark. Finally,
he found the object of his search; two plastic cases.
Holding them up to the flickering blue light of the television,
he strained his already-bloodshot eyes, searching for the titles
of the modern Iron Maiden that the tapes construed. He cursed
fluently, fluidly, and vividly for several minutes.
"Oh dear God, have mercy upon my unclean soul... 'The Wedding
Planner', and 'Serendipity?'"
"Shut up and watch the damn movie, Ash."
"Alright, alright..."
He leaned up against the sofa; there was obviously no room to
accomodate him, unless he could shift Misty somehow, or she
consented to make room for him. Option one was a Bad Idea(tm) on
principle, option two was really, really unlikely.
Downing more chocolate, he looked up at her. Truly; a goddess clad
in pajamas dotted with miniature Pokemon, her red hair settling,
free of its customary ponytail, about her shoulders. Pink lips
were smeared with chocolate, her eyes slightly glazed and obviously
intent on the television.
Reminding himself that both breathing and eating chocolate were
vital to surviving through the rest of the movie, Ash managed to
draw his adoring stare from the object of his affection, and stare
dully at the movie.
He wouldn't mind being squeezed on the couch with Misty, really...
No! That's not an appropriate "watching movie with best friend"
thought pattern. No... think about... movie. And chocolate.
Bad stuff happened; he had some chocolate. Good stuff happened;
he had some more chocolate. "Funny" things happened; Misty giggled
and he had much chocolate.
Misty gradually came to realize that HER chocolate was being eaten
by the supposed giver of said delicious confection -- Ash was
munching at least as much chocolate as she was. She was almost
tempted to ignore it and just ruffle his hair or tease him
playfully, but then she remembered "Aliens" and knew that revenge
was to be extracted. Painful revenge.
She waited, listening as chocolate was greedily consumed by her
candy-thieving companion... withheld motion until Ash extended his
hand to the box-o-chocolate...
And then she pounced. Hopping down from the couch, Misty
purposefully tumbled down onto Ash, her momentum causing them both
to roll a few times.
At the end of several revolutions, the semi-tangle of Ash and Misty
came to a full and complete stop; as opposed to never stopping, or
stopping before starting, or any of an infinite number of other
things that could have alternatively happened.
The end configuration of the tumbling bout was with Misty on top,
half-on top of Ash. Partially supported by her bent arm, she was
held slightly aloft by Ash holding her somewhere about her
underarms.
The ensuing awkward silence and forced dialogue would have reduced
a howler monkey to uncontrollable laughter and most likely
subsequent death, had a howler monkey occupied the same continent
and actually been present.
"Ahh... sorry." she managed to squeak.
"No problem, I guess..."
"... would you mind, ummm... shifting your grip, a little... it's
kind of... uncomfortable?"
"Oh, uhh... yeah, I see what you mean."
Awkwardly moving to correct the Ash-causing-discomfort-to-Misty
inadvertantly situation, Ash was so intently trying to
concentrate upon other, more wholesome thoughts, that he neglected
to wonder why he didn't just run away.
Subsequently, he didn't. And thusly, subjected the nonexistant
howler monkey to more forced dialogue and silence.
Also, the gradual, simultaneous, unbelievably coordinated
gravitation of their lips together. Almost.
Almost, as in "close enough to taste the chocolate on her lips"
-- yeah, that sort of thing.
This romantic, chocolate-fueled moment was punctuated by the end
of "Never Been Kissed."
Suddenly, all considerations of further romantic involvement
vanished from the now-freed mind of Ash. Insertion of "Aliens"
into the video deck was now his sole purpose in life, overriding
true love, happiness, even making time with Misty. Yes, truly.
Without any warning whatsoever, Ash slipped away, slithering
sinously away, making hissing alien noises and strange faces, that,
thankfully went unseen in the dark.
One of the results of this event was Misty dropping rudely to the
floor. The other was a brilliant application of chaos theorem,
in which Ash's repeated blunders in the dark triggered a geological
fault across the world, causing a volcano eruption and countless
deaths. In a parallel universe.
Noises then pierced the dark silence. The silence was dark, and
then it was pierced. Rudely. With curses unfit for print.
Suddenly the loud rudeness of "Aliens" at some ungodly decibel-
level really punctuated the silence. For a moment, Misty believed
her eardrums had been punctuated as well, but further medical
inspection the following day proved otherwise.
And then, just as un-suddenly as the sudden was unexpected, all of
the noise stopped.
"Ash?"
"Ash... did you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Make it stop..."
"Why would I do that?"
"I don't KNOW... did you do it?"
"Uh, no. Misty, why aren't the lights working?"
"I don't know Ash, why don't you try and find some brilliant,
absolutely genius explanation for it. While your at it, how about,
'power outage?'"
"Oh, yeah..."
"... and, uhh... sorry about dropping you like that."
Her response made him afraid, very afraid.
"Oh, no problem..."
Sudden topic change was advisable. Escape from scary psycho-chick
also highly advisable.
"So, umm, yeah, Misty... what've you planned for the rest of the,
uhh, evening, now?"
"Maybe we could just pick up where we left off?"
"And, umm, yeah, where was, that, again? Dammit, who locked the
door! It's deadbolted... awww..."
Ash cringed again, at the sound of bare footsteps across the tiled
hall floor. And the jingling of keys dropping onto the floor.
"Before you do anything rash, I've got something reaaallly
important I've been meaning to tell you for a really long time now,
Misty... and it's, uh, really important. Yeah!"
"Anything important that you need to tell me, either I already
know myself, or you've said it in your sleep while you were staying
here before."
"Oh, then you, already know, then?"
"Yes, you dolt."
"So that means..."
"Yes again, yes."
"... it was just..."
"Yes, yes, already! Can't we get back to more pressing matters?"
"Oh, you mean like..."
Then there was a brief pause. Absolutely nothing interesting
happened during this interruption in the riveting dialogue.
Nothing that would have made the nonexistant howler monkey
avert eye contact.
"... that was pretty..."
"Chocolatey."
"Yeah."
And may I assure you that nothing remotely interested happened
after that, either. No proclamation of undying love, consummation
of secret relationships, or even innocently falling asleep curled
up together after making out. No.
Nothing to see here, move along.
some junk food, staying up late... sleeping in late...
Perhaps the first deviation from a (relatively) safe evening was
the chocolate. Or, to be more precise, the quantity.
... the agreement, as she had understood it, was that each of them
would beg, borrow or steal a few movies of their choice, and also
snag some really evil food. The engagement had originally
included herself, Ash, and Brock... though strangely enough, Brock
had opted to stay home by himself.
Anyways, the point was that while she had selected her movies, and
managed to extricate some microwave popcorn from the disaster that
functioned as her kitchen, Ash still hadn't showed up. And it was
literally hours after the prescribed time.
Stomping her foot on the floor, she cursed vividly for a few
moments, scrabbling angrily on and about the sofa for her cell
phone. Just as she found it (wedged between the cushions) a loud
thumping noise was readily audible. Misty restrained herself from
screaming, instead settling with flinging the cell across the room.
After taking momentary joy in the sound of precisely designed
electronic components crunching and reverting to a decidedly
nonfunctional state, she strode briskly to the door, hands clenched
into white-knuckled fists. In retrospect, flinging the door open
was a bad, dumb, stupid, idiotic, doltish, all-around-not-very-
bright idea.
The result?
Introduction of one sopping wet individual, many damp video
cases, and a rather large cardboard box laden with a variety of
candy bars, to her nice clean (sic) hall.
Also a damnably huge mess when all of it tumbled onto the floor
in one giant wet miserable Godforsaken heap.
"Ash, is it possible for you to do ANYTHING right?"
The response was rather muffled, probably due to the fact that
said individual had landed face down on the ceramic floor. Being
covered with much chocolate probably didn't improve the acoustics,
either.
"Uhh, I guess I was kinda leaning on the door, heh... ahh...
sorry?"
"Ya think? ... no big deal, I guess..."
Ash cringed underneath the giant pile of chocolate, wishing the
evening had come off to a better start. The tone in which Misty
had added "no big deal" really suggested that she personally felt
otherwise, but was making great personal sacrifice to cope with
his personal inadequacy. And not enjoying it.
"Where did you get all this..." she waved her arms, gesticulating
wildly, "... junk?"
"It's not junk, Misty... I'll have you know that it's certainly a
premium chocolate product..."
"That wasn't my point, flyboy."
"Uh, okay. Well, you said to bring something. I was nearly sure
that chocolate would be a good choice, as usually you're less
ir-ri-ta-ble... uh, I mean, I know you really like chocolate."
Sitting up and starting to help Misty finish shoveling the myriad
bars of chocolatey goodness into the box again, Ash tried to
convince himself that she had missed his verbal slip-and-fall
accident.
"So anyways, there was a lot of chocolate to pick from, and lots of
it was on sale, so I just kinda randomly threw things in the box,
there."
"Lovely. What movies?"
Tilting his head to the side, tossing his hair back, Ash puffed his
chest out momentarily, reciting his videos in an over-dramatic,
overdone, overly-strange voice.
"'Aliens', 'The Evil Dead 2', and 'The Legend Of Drunken Master.'
See, I've got one from each of the movie-food-group staples.
Sci-fi, horror, and imported kung-fu..."
Misty rolled her eyes and smacked him with the back of her hand.
This measure did not, unfortunately, secure silence. Ash
continued prattling on, seemingly endlessly.
"... well, maybe 'Aliens' should be considered a horror movie, but
the title has aliens in it, so it counts as sci-fi too...
Anyways... what are my wholesome, lovable little flicks going to be
stacked up against tonight?"
Shoving him hard enough to send him sprawling back across the
floor, Misty carried the now-full box into the living room.
"Well, now that you've finally shut up, I can tell you. Jeez..."
"Hey, wait, come back with that!"
Scrabbling helplessly, Ash managed to scoop up his movies and half-
crawl-half-stagger semi-drunkenly down the hall after her.
Upon reaching the living room, he was confronted with Misty lying
sprawled, covering most of the sofa, the box of chocolate within
comfortable distance.
"My movie first," she gloated, using the remote control as a tool
of torture, beginning a session of pure unadulterated hate, that
would last an hour and a half. This hell was known as "Never Been
Kissed." And it was bad.
He voiced his opinion. To recieve a decidedly negative response.
In the form of a bar of chocolate bouncing off his head.
Unwrapping the chocolate and consuming it as rapidly as his body
would permit, Ash fumbled blindly, drunkenly in the dark. Finally,
he found the object of his search; two plastic cases.
Holding them up to the flickering blue light of the television,
he strained his already-bloodshot eyes, searching for the titles
of the modern Iron Maiden that the tapes construed. He cursed
fluently, fluidly, and vividly for several minutes.
"Oh dear God, have mercy upon my unclean soul... 'The Wedding
Planner', and 'Serendipity?'"
"Shut up and watch the damn movie, Ash."
"Alright, alright..."
He leaned up against the sofa; there was obviously no room to
accomodate him, unless he could shift Misty somehow, or she
consented to make room for him. Option one was a Bad Idea(tm) on
principle, option two was really, really unlikely.
Downing more chocolate, he looked up at her. Truly; a goddess clad
in pajamas dotted with miniature Pokemon, her red hair settling,
free of its customary ponytail, about her shoulders. Pink lips
were smeared with chocolate, her eyes slightly glazed and obviously
intent on the television.
Reminding himself that both breathing and eating chocolate were
vital to surviving through the rest of the movie, Ash managed to
draw his adoring stare from the object of his affection, and stare
dully at the movie.
He wouldn't mind being squeezed on the couch with Misty, really...
No! That's not an appropriate "watching movie with best friend"
thought pattern. No... think about... movie. And chocolate.
Bad stuff happened; he had some chocolate. Good stuff happened;
he had some more chocolate. "Funny" things happened; Misty giggled
and he had much chocolate.
Misty gradually came to realize that HER chocolate was being eaten
by the supposed giver of said delicious confection -- Ash was
munching at least as much chocolate as she was. She was almost
tempted to ignore it and just ruffle his hair or tease him
playfully, but then she remembered "Aliens" and knew that revenge
was to be extracted. Painful revenge.
She waited, listening as chocolate was greedily consumed by her
candy-thieving companion... withheld motion until Ash extended his
hand to the box-o-chocolate...
And then she pounced. Hopping down from the couch, Misty
purposefully tumbled down onto Ash, her momentum causing them both
to roll a few times.
At the end of several revolutions, the semi-tangle of Ash and Misty
came to a full and complete stop; as opposed to never stopping, or
stopping before starting, or any of an infinite number of other
things that could have alternatively happened.
The end configuration of the tumbling bout was with Misty on top,
half-on top of Ash. Partially supported by her bent arm, she was
held slightly aloft by Ash holding her somewhere about her
underarms.
The ensuing awkward silence and forced dialogue would have reduced
a howler monkey to uncontrollable laughter and most likely
subsequent death, had a howler monkey occupied the same continent
and actually been present.
"Ahh... sorry." she managed to squeak.
"No problem, I guess..."
"... would you mind, ummm... shifting your grip, a little... it's
kind of... uncomfortable?"
"Oh, uhh... yeah, I see what you mean."
Awkwardly moving to correct the Ash-causing-discomfort-to-Misty
inadvertantly situation, Ash was so intently trying to
concentrate upon other, more wholesome thoughts, that he neglected
to wonder why he didn't just run away.
Subsequently, he didn't. And thusly, subjected the nonexistant
howler monkey to more forced dialogue and silence.
Also, the gradual, simultaneous, unbelievably coordinated
gravitation of their lips together. Almost.
Almost, as in "close enough to taste the chocolate on her lips"
-- yeah, that sort of thing.
This romantic, chocolate-fueled moment was punctuated by the end
of "Never Been Kissed."
Suddenly, all considerations of further romantic involvement
vanished from the now-freed mind of Ash. Insertion of "Aliens"
into the video deck was now his sole purpose in life, overriding
true love, happiness, even making time with Misty. Yes, truly.
Without any warning whatsoever, Ash slipped away, slithering
sinously away, making hissing alien noises and strange faces, that,
thankfully went unseen in the dark.
One of the results of this event was Misty dropping rudely to the
floor. The other was a brilliant application of chaos theorem,
in which Ash's repeated blunders in the dark triggered a geological
fault across the world, causing a volcano eruption and countless
deaths. In a parallel universe.
Noises then pierced the dark silence. The silence was dark, and
then it was pierced. Rudely. With curses unfit for print.
Suddenly the loud rudeness of "Aliens" at some ungodly decibel-
level really punctuated the silence. For a moment, Misty believed
her eardrums had been punctuated as well, but further medical
inspection the following day proved otherwise.
And then, just as un-suddenly as the sudden was unexpected, all of
the noise stopped.
"Ash?"
"Ash... did you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Make it stop..."
"Why would I do that?"
"I don't KNOW... did you do it?"
"Uh, no. Misty, why aren't the lights working?"
"I don't know Ash, why don't you try and find some brilliant,
absolutely genius explanation for it. While your at it, how about,
'power outage?'"
"Oh, yeah..."
"... and, uhh... sorry about dropping you like that."
Her response made him afraid, very afraid.
"Oh, no problem..."
Sudden topic change was advisable. Escape from scary psycho-chick
also highly advisable.
"So, umm, yeah, Misty... what've you planned for the rest of the,
uhh, evening, now?"
"Maybe we could just pick up where we left off?"
"And, umm, yeah, where was, that, again? Dammit, who locked the
door! It's deadbolted... awww..."
Ash cringed again, at the sound of bare footsteps across the tiled
hall floor. And the jingling of keys dropping onto the floor.
"Before you do anything rash, I've got something reaaallly
important I've been meaning to tell you for a really long time now,
Misty... and it's, uh, really important. Yeah!"
"Anything important that you need to tell me, either I already
know myself, or you've said it in your sleep while you were staying
here before."
"Oh, then you, already know, then?"
"Yes, you dolt."
"So that means..."
"Yes again, yes."
"... it was just..."
"Yes, yes, already! Can't we get back to more pressing matters?"
"Oh, you mean like..."
Then there was a brief pause. Absolutely nothing interesting
happened during this interruption in the riveting dialogue.
Nothing that would have made the nonexistant howler monkey
avert eye contact.
"... that was pretty..."
"Chocolatey."
"Yeah."
And may I assure you that nothing remotely interested happened
after that, either. No proclamation of undying love, consummation
of secret relationships, or even innocently falling asleep curled
up together after making out. No.
Nothing to see here, move along.