Pairing: Ash/Misty
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rated: T
Summary: In which Ash learns about Misty's parents.
XOX
Misty was a hopeless romantic.
A hopeless romantic. She liked letters, and phone calls. She liked romantic dates, long strolls through the park, or forest, or beach. She enjoyed surprises and flowers, gifts and music, long nights, and precious moments.
Misty was the living reincarnation of all things romance: she had a collection of the greatest romance novelist in the pokemon league, she attended a seminar for the music of love, was a supporter of every romantic chick flick and cliches. Her personal favorite was love at first sight and long-lost childhood sweethearts.
Every year her list grew longer, she developed more ideas, more infatuations, and more relationships with romance than she would ever willingly admit to her. The culture of love was her forte, and she basked in the glorious rays of romanticism, candles, and all things lovey-dovey.
So obviously, that meant she must have been the perfect girlfriend, too, right? Long kisses under the moonlight, detailed, extravagant adventures of star-crossed lovers, dancing in the rain... you know, cute-sy stuff that she fawned over.
The problem with Misty was, even though she loved all of these things; she was still...
"I love you." Slipped out in the middle of an odd conversation, following a brief spar that ended in a trip to the burger joint down the street. When the careless words slipped out of Ash's mouth in more of a mocking tone, less of a devote confession; her face turned pale. Not red like they expressed in those books that she read where the hero suddenly realizes he's loved his best friend all along—then it was followed by an exorcist color of green.
And well, maybe it was because they were in the middle of a busy street, or that his friends were there; or maybe it was because he was the one saying it: but..
She punched him in the chest. Knocked him down mostly from the shock of being assaulted after such a phrase; and also because Ash had no clue what he had just done; or said. Afterwards she ran, literally sprinted away from the group where she locked herself in her gym and refused to speak to anyone for three hours.
"C'mon, it's not that weird, is it!?" Ash whined, knocking his head against her bedroom door again. His friends had since abandoned ship for some ice cream and popcorn, but he was far from giving up. Ash had a few more hours in him, at least.
"It's weird!"
"You're the one who always told me that romantic crap was really important!"
"It is!"
"Then what's the problem!?"
"You're the problem!"
Ash banged his head not-so-subtly against her door again and let out a loud, frustrated growl before crawling to his feet and following after Brock and Tracey who were in town, too.
She was awkward.
The first time he tried to kiss her in public, she shoved the remainder of a fruit pie in his face. The second time she awkwardly placed maril against his lips; and the third time she collapsed. No, she didn't faint, she essentially melted in a heated pile of her own embarrassment, and sunk to her knees, leaving Ash puckering against a gust of wind. She wasn't shy; far from it, she was just... odd in public settings.
But no, he couldn't ask her about it, because she would deny that she acted in such a way until she was red in the face and yelling.
I don't avoid you!
I do not dodge intimacy.
What do you mean by that? You're the one bad at romance, I'm the queen of romance!
Her excuses were relentless, and often blind to her own misgivings. By the time Ash realized she had intimacy issues, he was already knees deep in the wonderful world of Misty Waterflower. It was how he knew about her being a hopeless romantic from the start.
After they started dating, she always made grand plans of adventure, a romantic get-away, that were mostly subdued the very moment Ash agreed to them.
But we can't, I have to run the gym that week.
Oh... but Daisy will be in town.
Isn't your mom going to be there?
If it wasn't someone else flaking into their plans, it was Ash's fault, of course. Sometimes her job would get in the way, but mostly Ash would give her what she described as a look and she would fall apart and think every plan she had was stupid and unnecessary and convince herself that he didn't want to go.
Misty also didn't stroll. She jogged, or trot; occasionally she ran and told Ash she was walking, but clearly, she didn't know what walking was!
It just takes so long.
Are we there yet?
When Ash tried to be romantic, it was like getting shot in the foot repeatedly, or stepping on a beedrill in the middle of the night, or being drowned by a tentacruel. He already wasn't very good at it. So because she was as oblivious to romance as Ash was to females until puberty, things were... always challenging.
Ash, what is that? She would ask him when he would surprise her with a gift.
You brought flowers on a boat... where the only source of available water...is salt water?
Where did you get the idea to leave notes everywhere?
Really? In the shower? There's soap scum!
There was no easy way to say that Misty Waterflower was a pain. An oblivious, red-haired, easily angered; pain.
Which lead him to the next observation. She was easily embarrassed. And an easily embarrassed Misty was an aggressive Misty.
"It was supposed to be a surprise!" Ash whined dodging the pillow she tossed at him. Her face was flushed,
"Leave me here to die." She groaned, hiding beneath her covers.
"I didn't know you were going to show up like that... Ahh, Misty, I'm s-"
"Leave!" She bellowed throwing her hand out of her covers to point to the door, leaving Ash to scamper as quickly as possible to the exit, huffing for dear life.
Surprises were better left planned. They had a special way of going awry when Ash planned events, to the point where she questioned him about all events she was sporadically invited to.
The Waterflower also refused to make plans herself. She said it was best to be spontaneous, because if someone hoped too much, they would only be let down; which meant Ash did most of the planning... all of the planning. What little there was of it. Misty popped in whenever she felt like it, sometimes during crucial events in his life; like his mother's house at the end of every league, or just because she felt like it.
Letters? Misty was all about phone calls; the shorter the better. She loved hearing from him, but their conversations were like business protocol, followed by a promise to see him soon; if he sent a letter, she sent a montage of pictures.
She was always too busy to sit and write a letter; and he should just call.
No for someone who was a hopeless romantic; she was the living embodiment of everything anti-romantic.
Kissing in the rain? No, she didn't want to catch a cold.
Spontaneous adventures? Nada, she would rather catch up on paperwork for the gym and watch the battle network with him on the couch.
Slow dances under the light of the moon, poetry, music; she never influenced any of them.
Simply put, for someone who lived, breathed, and adored the culture of love, she represented nothing of it.
She got angry when embarrassed, her flustered personality lead to many accidental bruising; her uncanny personality made romantic dates, meals, walks clearly impossible, and she refused public displays of affection. Even private displays of affection were sometimes nerve crippling; sometimes to the point of kicking Ash off her bed, out of her room, and depending on the infraction, she would ban him from the gym.
Misty was an oxymoron, a living paradox of a human being.
Yet, more times than not they would sit together; Ash nearly snoozing on the couch with one arm draped around Misty's shoulders while she tentatively stared at a television screen with her knees tucked to her chest under a shared blanket, and his other arm resting on Pikachu's back, who always sat beside the two of them.
"I'll never let go..." echoed from the screen, and when Misty started sniffling, Ash squeezed his eyes shut and prayed that she already thought he was asleep.
"It's so sad!" Misty whined, threw her hand backwards, abruptly hitting him against the chest, waking him up with a start. He glared daggers at the back of her head while she leaned forward, and then threw herself backwards, tucking her arms under the blanket like a child with tears in her eyes.
It was a movie they watched together a million times; that she, herself, watched a billion times, and yet the scene where Jack dies still made her cry, made her shoulders shake, her lip quiver, and her entire body quake.
Misty was nothing if not passionate.
By the time the credits rolled, she was the one who had passed out, indiscreetly drooling on Ash's chest and he was left to watch the end of the movie by himself again. Clarifying that she would never let go, that she did so only seconds after Jack died, and didn't share the stupid door with him.
Misty's greatest complaint when she woke up the next morning. The conversation would start all the same: "You know, there was plenty of room for Jack on that stupid door. If I had been the one there, you wouldn't have died."
And then she would continue on and on about how the producers messed up on a lot of things; missed the point; while Ash continuously reminded her that it was just a movie, she would refuse to listen and then criticize the direction of the movie: After all, she was an expert on the subject. Romance, that is.
Sometimes, when Ash was alone, he wondered if Misty even knew how she reacted to his advances. She never gave any cues that she recognized her behavior as anything but normal, and the few times she did give in, she was usually giddy, or, well, intoxicated somewhat.
Brock described it as tense; Misty was tense because she didn't see Ash that much, she didn't have time to get used to him because he wasn't around often; so when he was, she was afraid to get close. Ash didn't understand that, so Brock reminded him that Misty was a special flower, a delicate flower. So long as she wasn't angry, of course. If she was, then she was more like a tree.
...If trees could smash things with their fists.
So today, on a day much like any other day; Ash would finally approach her about these issues, about her tension about her... odd behavior.
A surprise visit. One that he didn't call her for; and went against the grain he was subdued for the last two years. With holidays pressing, the league closed the gyms. Ash had no where else to be but with Misty; especially since Delia was still vacationing with Professor Oak in the Orange Islands; so when Pokemon Day rolled around, his first stop was the Cerulean City Gym.
"Misty?" Ash called to her while stepping into the gym as natural as his own house. He instinctively tossed his bag behind the welcoming desk, and marched off to the next room where he saw the pool, non to surprising, empty.
Pikachu broke away from Ash's arm with the intention to visit the pokemon bay, where Misty's maril was, as well as the rest of her growing pokemon: Pysduck, mostly. For some odd reason, pikachu enjoyed being around the duck about as much as he originally liked being around togepi. Ash could never understand, but he wasn't opposed to it.
After all, he did want some privacy, and pikachu probably knew that.
When she didn't reply right away, Ash pursed his lips, rocking back and forth on the balls of his heels, and muttered a quiet okay before adventuring forward. He passed the first pool, then the training area, and finally crossed the cat walk into the living area of the gym; where all of the lights were turned off. At first, he suspected she wasn't home; off somewhere partying with her sisters; or participating in some league match.
Then, he heard a brief sniffling from the living room; and his breath caught in his throat. Misty wasn't a big crier. She cried only under specific situations; primarily sappy romance movies, and goodbyes. Her tears were special, rare, and so hearing them led him to believe she was watching or reading an exceptionally good book. And he might have convinced himself, if all of the lights weren't turned off except for a dim light beside the green couch where she sat, and the television was black.
Reading was still an option—but as Misty so clearly stated: she never read in dim light, it was bad for her eyes, and as a pokemon trainer, she needed her perfect eyesight.
Reading was out.
Ash didn't make a peep when he turned the corner to see her sitting on the couch, rubbing her temples with thin fingers, and shoulders shuddering with each breath. She hiccuped, though not intentionally and then hung her head before curling forward; staring down at her lap.
He tried to form words, but his brain meshed together so messily, the only sound he could manage was a strangled one that she couldn't hear. Her head fell backwards, cracking and popping in a battle-ish way, and she groaned before shaking her head, and releasing a pained, sorrowful sigh.
He was standing above the couch, garnering a brief view of the reason she was crying when words finally formed.
"...Misty?" His voice in the darkness startled her, and she not only flew to her feet, but she tossed whatever she was looking at across the room and spun to face him.
"Ash!" She gasped, wiping her tears away with the best of her ability, trying to prevent the belief that she was crying. "What are you doing here?" She questioned, inhaling sharp and turning away from him to gather herself, become presentable. She was still wearing her pajamas; the red, lose fitting pants, and a long-discarded black tee-shirt he left at her house.
"...League is closed for holidays..." Ash hummed, glancing at her back, then at the photo album that she discarded lividly. Then the questions spilled out with concern. "Why are you crying? Are you okay? Did something happen."
"I'm fine." She snapped a little too quickly, holding up her hand to wave him down.
"You don't look fine." Ash pressed, circling around her couch and approaching the book she tossed away. "Why are you sitting alone in the dark reading...?" He bent to grab the album, only to have it viciously snapped from his fingers, and then was faced with an assertive Misty.
"I said I'm fine." She growled, meeting his worried gaze with a glare of utmost frustration. Without passing a word, she turned from him, tucked the album closed, clicked the wrap closed, and stalked off to her bedroom, having recovered sometime in the distance from there, back to seeing Ash.
"Sorry about that, I haven't even changed out of my pajamas yet." She laughed hoarsely, rubbing the back of her neck as if nothing happened. Even her face seemed naturally flushed, her puffy eyes were no longer swollen, and if he couldn't see the veins in the white of her eyes, he might have thought he imagined the whole thing.
Still, her nonchalant behavior disturbed him. Catching onto the awkwardness of his gaze, Misty shrugged gently.
"How's the league going? Have you caught any cool pokemon?" She asked, spinning on her heels to click on the main light, shining brightness into her cold persona while she smiled warmly at him. He felt sick to his stomach, disturbed.
"What's wrong with you?" Slipped out uncanny, and Misty's back straightened, clearly insulted.
"What's wrong with me?" She echoed in clear disdain, pointing at her self with a scoff of disbelief. Her eyebrows narrowed dangerously, and her lips fell into a scowl. "What's wrong with you?" Ash's brain caught up with his words and he shook his head. "I don't mean like that; just..." He paused, taking a step closer to her. "...Why were you crying?"
"I wasn't crying." She denied, looking away from him stubbornly.
"You were, too." A disgruntled Ash argued.
"Pfft, why would I be crying?" She mocked, blowing a strand of hair from her face which was still a mess around her face, rather than being tied up.
"I don't know!" Ash gasped. "That's why I asked."
"Well, I wasn't, so don't worry about it. Anyways, why don't we-"
"I'm not stupid, Misty, what's wrong?" Ash very seldom allowed anger to slip into their conversations. More times than not, he would be frustrated, or annoyed with her behavior, but anger was a rare occurrence. However, right now he felt a great deal of it meshing into his deeply rooted concern for one of his oldest friends.
"It was just..." she heaved a heavy sigh. "I don't want to talk about it, okay?"
"You don't want to talk about anything!" he snapped, throwing his arms out for emphasis. Misty took a step back in surprise. "You just shut down when it's about you!" he accused suddenly and an offended Misty held her hand to her chest, then folded her arms defensively.
"I-I don't."
"You do!" He approached her, gripped her arms with his hands and forced her eyes on his own. Her green eyes were always much brighter after a few years, something about the way the red displayed the green; and while he loved it, he hated knowing the reason behind it.
She pursed her lips, and her eyes shifted away from his. Disillusioned, her eyelids closed halfway, and Ash released her with a frustrated sigh.
"Please?" Ash questioned, boggled by her sense of entitlement and stubbornness, that slowly crumbled with his final request.
Her eyebrows knit together; clearing disgruntled with having to share her emotions; but of course, shouldn't she have been used to that? At least with Ash. When they were kids, it was easy, she could mask her weird feelings with 'redhead' anger, and people didn't bat an eye, up until this point; Ash accepted her oddity as a quirk, but now, when expression read so pained, he refused to back down.
"It's stupid, really." Misty started, shifting her weight while sympathy crossed over Ash's eyes. Misty turned away from him with a frustrated sigh, and went to retrieve the item of her tears and shoved it at Ash before slumping onto her couch, defeated.
Even when he was genuinely concerned, she hated losing, and such frustration was displayed by the way she knotted strands of her hair between her fingers, and he clawed at the book.
Ash didn't speak when he first opened it to the image of a family portrait, one of Misty, her three sisters; and her parents. A rather charming father with dark brown hair, and a woman that shared a painfully identical resemblance to Misty smiled back at him. Misty was only a baby in the picture of them, but he carefully wondered why such an image wasn't on the wall. His mother had all of their family portraits on the wall; even if it was just the two of them. He flipped the next page, then the next, reliving moments from Misty's childhood; watching as she grew until finally the memories ended; the pages were empty, and the smiles and laughter came to an abrupt stop.
"Where's the rest of it?" Ash asked, turning at her. In the ten minutes it took him to look at each page, chuckle here and there, she calmed down into a motionless scowl, and that distant, pained expression featured over her face.
"That's all of it." Misty elaborated, clicking her nails against her arms. Ash approached, flopped onto the couch beside her while flipping back to personal favorites; especially the ones with a wild Misty acting inappropriately in public; typically throwing mud at other kids faces, or having a tantrum in public.
"How old were you in this photo?" Ash asked with a goofy, unaware, grin on his face while he pointed to an image of a child-shaped Misty holding a flopping goldeen on a hook, and posing with a grin. Misty huffed.
"I don't know... five?" She guessed, looking away from him with a scowl. Ash pointed to the next picture; one where she was dressed up with her sisters; she was the little mermaid at the center, scowling, frustrated, and refusing to smile for the picture, while her sisters were an assortment of popular princesses. He snickered.
"What about this one?"
"Could you stop?!" She snapped, jerking the album from his hands and closing the book with a snap. Ash grimaced.
"Sorry... I was just..." trying to cheer you up he added with a physical eye-roll, and a mental groan. Frustrated by her lack of response, or rather, out of character response to his questions, he exhaled and tried again.
"Okay, so you were looking at a photo album; why were you crying?" He faced her, looking past the bill of his hat to her face where she stared down at her lap. He wasn't positive, but the way her nose scrunched, and her mouth twitched, he almost thought she was going to start crying again. When a sharp inhaled followed a shaky breath, he knew otherwise.
Tougher than nails came to mind. Yet, she still didn't answer him; and after a five minute intermission, he was determined to let it go, change the subject, and order some kind of take out. If Ash had mastered anything in their short ranging relationship, it was the ability to cheer her up—which was also the main reason most of their nights landed them on the couch, watching movies, and eating ramen. She was a temperamental person, and where she didn't like intimate contact on most occasions; she liked physical contact. Being near him, having something to hold on to.
Misty turned to the last page of the album, one where Misty was spotted sitting a bench outside of her house, staring longingly at her sisters who played at the tire swing without her; and an unsure sigh formed.
"..This..ahh." Ash was about to speak, prepared to cheer her on, but the way her eyebrows pressed together, he thought better of it. She was struggling. "It's Daisy's birthday today." She elaborated, as if Ash would understand that.
"...Daisy's birthday?"
"When Daisy turned ten, they abandoned the gym. One night they were just... gone." She looked up at him finally, a deep frustration pinging in her eyes. "I was almost six at the time, my sisters were convinced it was my fault they left; you know, because I was a bit of a brat growing up. They used to be really mean about it.." She managed, eyes turning back to the picture below; the one where Misty was sitting on a bench. She then traced the outline of a photo of her father carrying her over his shoulders, and her mom laughing carelessly beside them.
"Daisy took over the gym, and we were left alone to fend for ourselves... just little kids—can you believe that?" Her voice cracked and her nails claws the image of her parents, upset. Ash's arms slouched in sympathy, looking forward at the coffee table, he felt like his heart was ripped out for her.
"Oh... wow, Misty. I'm sorry, I didn't know." He clarified, glancing away from her shamefully while she shrugged.
"It was a long time ago, not like it matters now." She admit, slamming the book closed once more, and placing it down onto the coffee table with a thump. She couldn't look at Ash when she leaned back and raised her shoulders hopelessly.
"Have you seen them since?" Ash questioned, glancing sideways at her. Her head shook subtly.
"No." She exhaled. "Not since I was five—god, that was almost fifteen years ago now." Her tongue clucked at the top of her mouth and she crossed her arms, feeling pathetic for letting it stillget to her.
"..Why did they leave?"
"I don't know."
"You all look so happy in the photos..."
"We were."
Desperation crossed into his confused voice. "Why would they leave the four of you?"
A troubled smirk tugged at her lips and she scoffed in spite of herself. "...Do you think I would still sit here in the dark if I knew the answer to that question?"
She immediately followed with: "People around us said it was because they couldn't handle the pressure of running a gym, they freaked out at the sudden, inexplicable responsibility, and ran for the hills..." Misty inhaled. "I think it was because they finally settled down, and it wasn't what they expected—a place to live, family, kids, we weren't what they wanted...and they split."
Suddenly very concerned with the life outside of those pictures, Ash cleared his throat awkwardly: "...Did they... you know, fight a lot?"
"Never." Misty's jaw rolled as she licked her lips in defeat. "The perfect relationship through and through; My mother was... and my dad was..." She couldn't form the words, they were like needles in her flesh.
"They used to tell us bedtime stories of great adventures to other regions; other leagues, how wonderful their life used to be together...but their voices would always crack when they would talk about the gym—what their life was like back then. I imagine they went off to some foreign country and are still living a responsibility free life style far away, pretending like they didn't leave a bunch of little girls all alone in the middle of the friggin world to-" While her vicious words poured out of her mouth, she tugged at the ends of the photo album, tempted to rip it into pieces where it laid, when Ash did the responsible boyfriendthing to do, and tucked two very warm arms around her waist, and pressed his chin against the top of her head.
"I'm sorry." he said absently into her hair, kissing her scalp in the same fashion his mother used to when he was upset as a child.
"Don't apologize, it's not your fault my parents sucked." Misty grimaced, shrugging away from him. The last thing she wanted was to be touched, but Ash held her firmly, anyways.
"I get that."
"What are you talking about? Your mom is awesome."
"I know, but she didn't miraculously conceive me, you know."
"I'm surprised you even know what that means." She mocked him, rolling her eyes while he glared down at her, huffed, and continued.
"I mean, I didn't know my dad, so...I guess it's different. But I get it...sort of." Ash elaborated while Misty expressed a sweet sigh, and nuzzled into his chest, wrapping her arms against the warmth of their bodies and pursed her lips.
"I guess so."
A pause.
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
Misty chuckled. "I guess it never came up...besides, I didn't really know how" She paused, taking on a mocking tone of herself. "Hi, my name is Misty and I have a lot of trust issues because my parents ditched me when I was just a kid? Yeah, that's a great conversation starter."
Ash snorted. "That would explain a lot." He offered, earning a pinch against his lower arm.
"Ow!" he hissed, releasing her to rub his arm. "I was joking."
Her face scrunched up awkwardly, and she gnawed on her lower lip. "Sorry." She deflected, sitting back once more and curling her legs up against her chest. She pulled away, but lucky for her, Ash was wonderful and repetition; how else could he repeat leagues and hope for the best?
"Don't be, I was joking. It barely hurt." He gestured to his arm, where a pink moon-shaped fingernail mark was left in his skin, causing her to huff in self-pity once more, and fall over onto her side, glaring motionlessly at the ticking clock beside the television.
Ash felt sweat on the back of his neck. Seeing her this way was odd, weird, she was always peppy, sarcastic, sharp tongued and prepared for anything—not... mopey.
"Misty..." he called to her while she jolted up to face him, only inches away from him.
"You're weird." She declared, eyes soft, yet oddly intense. He gulped, then scowled.
"I could say the same about you." He said quietly.
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
"Because you're the one dating a crazy lady." She observed with quirking eyebrows. Ash rolled his eyes.
"You're not crazy." he admit, then caught himself; he was supposed to be agreeing with her; she was crazy, but the knowing smile that tugged at her lips made his head fuzzy.
"You're a little crazy." He corrected, then offered his best, lopsided grin. "But you're also my favorite crazy person; everything is always a big surprise!" His voice was half-mocking, and she shoved him against the shoulder for it.
"Yeah? Well you're a girl."
Ash was clearly baffled by the statement. "I'm a girl? What in the world does that mean?" he scoffed, earning a playful glance from the redhead.
"You're the one who always wants to talk about feelings, and you wear your emotions on your sleeve. You cry when you lose battles—oh, and you're always touching me."
His lips pressed thinly together, then he popped them, and slipped an arm around her waist. "I happen to like touching you—and one of us has to be relationship alert."
"Hey, I'm the expert here." Misty growled.
"Really?" Ash challenged, watching the eagerness reach her eyes. "You panic when I kiss you in public places, you literally ruin dates I have planned because you would rather sit at home watching league battles than get dressed up for a night of fun. Also, when I bring you flowers, they're dead by the next day; you're like a living, breathing, embodiment of everything that you shouldn't do in a relationship."
She paused for a long time, mulling his words over in his head; thinking to deny them at first, then finally, her lips twitched. "I am not."
He grinned. "Uh-huh." He muttered, stealing a kiss, which she absolutely refused by throwing her head back; exposing her neck to him.
"And we go out." she tried in her defense, but Ash rolled his eyes playfully.
"Yep, for take-out, battles, and fishing, mostly." He mumbled against her neck.
"H-hey!" She scowled, putting some distance between them by placing her palms against his face and pushing him backwards; both chuckling.
"Well if it bothered you so much, why didn't you say anything?"
Ash stared at her stupidly.
"I never said that it bothered me." He confessed flatly, and Misty's heart fluttered.
She watched him with a stunned, dumbfounded expression before finally wrapping her entire body around his.
XOX
Mornings spent with Misty were always the best, weird, but amazing. She never objected to sharing the bed with pikachu; in fact, most of her non-slippery water pokemon somehow crawled their way to the foot of her bed, and occasionally above her pillows if given the chance.
With the sun light beaming in, Ash grimaced and rolled over, squeezing his eyes shut while patting the bed for his redheaded companion. When his arm met nothing but the empty space of bed sheets, his eyes creaked open to the lack of one Misty Waterflower laying where she should have been. He sat up slowly, for once recalling that they didn't end up watching movies until she, or both of them fell asleep; but spent the night talking about anything and everything. When he rolled over once more, catching the waft of smoke, he jumped from the bed, and rushed into the kitchen without skipping a beat.
Eyes wide and chest heaving, he watched while Misty peeled off the remains of her best attempt at pancakes into the sink. She coughed up a storm in her red pajamas and swiped at her face to clear the air around her while Ash rushed to the stove to turn down the burns and pat the growing fire out with a damp cloth.
"Sorry." She exhaled, watching him with taunting, embarrassed eyes.
"What were you doing?" Ash grimaced, rushing to the sink to take the pan from her fingers, and drop it into the sink where he ran water over the surface.
"Trying to cook?"
"Must everything you cook turn to ashes?" He groaned, earning a very passive growl from his lover.
"Har-har." She mocked the pun he apparently didn't notice, and looked over his shoulder at her.
"What are you up so early for, anyways?" He mumbled mentally complaining to himself that he was up before noon on his days off. "You should be tired."
She shifted on her feet, and stammered. "That's what coffee is for."
"Did you burn that, too?" He asked worriedly, and Misty scowled while pointing at the brewing machine. He sighed thankfully, and then turned the tap off.
"Why were you making breakfast, you never make breakfast?" He couldn't emphasis enough that Misty shouldn't, and couldn't cook. She once tried to take lessons from Delia, and even his mother banned the woman from touching her stove ever again.
"I don't know..." She hummed, looking away from him while she grabbed the traditional box of cereal off the top of the refrigerator, and placed it onto the table with a jar of milk. "My mom used to make breakfast for us." While it was refreshing to hear her speak about her parents—not being secretive, it was still bad.
"Was she a bad cook, too?" Ash's tone was insensitive, and he realized a moment too late, since the female was already glaring at him.
"No." She scowled. "Daisy used to do all the cooking when we were younger, so I guess I never learned. Never really wanted to." Misty expressed, sinking into a wooden table while Ash gathered two bowls from the cupboard, and two spoons.
"Well, that makes two of us." He looked up at her with wide eyes, and rubbed his face. "We just need to make enough money someday to hire a personal cook—or, you know, I've heard some people have trained their pokemon... its not impossible."
Misty giggled at his response, shaking her head. "Maybe we can just live with your mom forever; she makes the best macaroons."
Ash's face turned stoic. "No. No way."
"Why? What's wrong with Delia, is she some kind of closet crazy?"
"Motherly. Overly so. Spent sixteen hours questioning when I was going to ask y-" He looked up at Misty who ate a spoonful of cereal before immediately dropping the subject.
"She's just invasive." He clarified and Misty nodded painfully slow, raising her eyebrows in just that way that said she was skeptical of his response. Denial coming from a mamas-boy meant Delia must have had some critical flaw she didn't know about.
"Oh well, we can survive off of vegetables and fruit, right?"
Ash snorted at the very thought and shook in gleeful excitement before he realized Misty was serious and his face fell. "No."
"I think it could be good for us."
Again with the us thing; when did that become normal? "No."
"What? Are you afraid of carrots, Ash Ketchum?" her voice cooed in just the right way to give him chills and he glared at her.
"You can take away my freedom, but you are never taking away my meat, Misty Waterflower." he countered bravely, standing up with the bowl in his hands and storming off into the living room. Misty yelled back at him incoherently, laughing from the table and screaming threats about if he spilled milk on the floor he was going to pay for her shampooing bill.
"Yeah, yeah..." Ash grimaced happily, kicking on the television to the battle station to catch the early Kanto matches, and stumbled to the couch where he kicked over the blanket they shared the night prior, and slipped into the comfortable seat while sitting forward. Unlike yesterday, the house was full of light, and laughter, and the sound of Misty complaining about silly things that made his heart race all over again.
If he was strange for liking her, he must have been three times more crazy to be in love with her. Yet, he wouldn't trade it for the world.
"Misty, have you-!" Ash started, thinking aloud before his eyes caught a crumbled, folded letter stuffed halfway under the coffee table, and fished it out with a curious expression. Conversation stalled, and he listened to Misty who ran water into the sink to clean up her mess, and ignored his soggy cereal before clutching the letter, and unfolding it.
Daisy, Lily, Violet, and Misty.
It harms us deeply to say this, but we won't be around anymore. Best of luck running the gym; you'll do great.
Signed,
Mom and Dad
Ash read it again, then again, and again until he finally drew to the conclusion that her parents were heartless. This was heartless; they gave their only children no explanation! They just left!
The paper was still wet from where Misty's tears stained it earlier, and Ash thumbed the letter to feel for a second page, or some hidden message. The writing was scrawled, as an after thought, and he wondered if they even thought of leaving a letter in the first place! No love, no dear, just a cut and dry letter of abandonment.
His heart thundered in his chest while he slowly folded the paper back up and grit his teeth together tightly.
"Hey, Ash—did you..." She looked at him sitting at the coffee table, stiff as a board, cereal sitting forgotten. "What're doing?" She asked suddenly watching him jump. Instinctively, he slipped the letter behind one of his larger hands, and smiled to her effortlessly. He couldn't watch her get choked up again.
"Nothing." he said too quickly, and her eyebrows lowered sketpically, followed by narrowed eyes.
"Really?"
"Really." Ash swallowed while she leaned over the couch to stare closely at him. With her eyes fixated on his own, he tucked the letter between the couch cushions and kept his forced smile going strong. She didn't question it, didn't think to—until she nodded her face to his bowl.
"Your cereal is going to get soggy." She declared, reeling away from him while raising her arm above her head to stretch. "I'm going off for a shower." She hummed happily while Ash exhaled a sigh of relief. He wasn't caught.
"Maybe after wards we could try one of those dates you're always pinning for." She mocked him gleefully. His lips curled into frown and he stuck his tongue out at her.
"That depends solely on if you swear never to cook again!" Ash called after her, earning a snort.
"Oh, darn, guess we'll have to cancel again!" She yelled from the bathroom, Ash's skin crawled.
"You're going to burn your gym down one of these days!" Though the shower tap clicked on, and her response was drowned out by the sound of running pipes. Pikachu emerged from the kitchen, pouncing onto Ash's head while the trainer tugged the letter out once again, and peeled it open one corner at a time.
Something was wrong. They looked too happy for this to be it. To suddenly leave; they had so many pictures of their children—that didn't seem right to realize they didn't want them.
Maybe it was because he knew Misty so well, because they had been friends for so long—or perhaps even because he knew, himself, what it was like to have an absentee parent, that when he read the letter, he had the urge to find them.
For her.
...and maybe himself.
Author's Note:
Uhm, that ended up being a lot heavier than I wanted it to be.
This was originally going to have Ash somehow end up in a cross-dressing experience, but...what, how did this happen? XD;
A part of me always imagined that while Misty is into romance, she doesn't really understand it herself (which is why her reactions are sometime very volatile or spontaneous). Somehow, that ended up tying into her parents which I have always headcannoned as abandoning her sisters (like in that one interview) at a young age, and yeah. I guess we had a story where Ash's father is mentioned; now Misty's parents. Wee!~ Who's next? YES FEEL THE DRAMA/ANGST.
Got a few requests coming up soon after this one. I haven't forgotten about ya'! ;D