Disclaimer - I don't own the things. None of the things.

Author - Warlordess

Notes - I wrote this awhile ago for an odd, mildly inappropriate but entertaining fanfic request on Tumblr. The anonymous request was for a fic in which Ash accidentally fell and landed on Misty's boobs or something, so here's that thing. Lol.

There is a sequel but I'll be waiting a little bit before I actually post it. Until then, please enjoy!

This grew to be way too long. You've all been warned.

—

She was still mortified, even now.

They'd been traveling together again for a couple of weeks while Ash explored the Seafoam Islands as a favor to Professor Oak. The professor had thought it be best he not go alone but many of his friends were too far and too busy to accompany him. And then Misty had come up.

Misty, his water-type specialist friend who'd been cooped up at her gym for the better part of three years, who he hadn't spoken to much in the vast bulk of that time, and who he was pretty sure would love to be able to visit a place that primarily featured water-type Pokemon more than any other.

So they called her and she jumped at the opportunity to join him, claiming that her sisters could handle the gym for a little while and she'd needed a vacation anyway (and that, even if they didn't want to run the gym in her stead, she could make them; a confession Ash chose not to pry into further).

The first few days were relatively normal. Sure, it had been awkward breaking the ice since the two old friends hadn't spoken in awhile, but by the time they'd finished their first meal together on the ferry to Cinnabar Island, things had mostly returned to how they'd been in the past. (This was, for better or worse, due to the fact that Ash couldn't stop himself from stuffing his face with everything in sight and Misty couldn't stop herself from commenting on it. But hey, whatever brought them back together, you know?)

So it took them just over twelve hours to reach Cinnabar on their overnight ferry, and then another day to figure out how to get to the Seafoam Islands. Luckily, the gym leader Blaine had started going there every once in awhile in order to cool his head (that was how the ticket seller had said the fire-type gym leader worded it) so an answer to their conundrum wasn't so hard to come by.

"Ugh, so dark..." Misty murmured as they entered the dank entrance to the first cavern, taking in the sight of glistening dark slate glazed with sheets of ice. Pillars of rock held the walls up, making the cave seem more like a vicious gaping mouth... yet there was still some kind of beauty to it that she couldn't quite grasp.

She'd hardly ever been so scared and excited at the same time before.

"So why'd the professor ask you to come here again, Ash?" she asked instead, softly clearing her throat as the biting frigid air swept in and froze it more and more with each breath.

"He said that, after the events on Shamouti, the legendary bird Articuno had taken up residence here instead. Because of that, certain things about the underground had changed and there had been a lot of rumors about the existence of NeverMeltIce and Water Stones in abundance."

"Never... Melt... Wait, Water Stones?" the redhead yelped excitedly, her voice echoing around them.

They paused for a moment but nothing seemed to have stirred at all and they went back to their investigations, flashlights barely illuminating their way.

"You mean I could possibly evolve one of my Pokemon from this?!" she went on to whisper, eyes shining at the very thought. Oooh, how much she'd love to have a Poliwrath. She loved her Pokemon team, and her Politoed... but the idea of owning a powerhouse fighting sub-type like Poliwrath... And, luckily, being a gym leader meant she could really house as many Pokemon as she wanted since she constantly had to alternate them for her challengers...

Now the only problem was locating a Poliwhirl she could catch and train strong enough to evolve.

"... isty...? Misty!"

She snapped out of her internal planning and noticed for the first time that her friend was waving his arm in front of her face.

"Oh good, you came back," he laughed lightly with a wry smile, "But we're not here to take anything. We're just here to investigate. If we spooked Articuno, who knows what it'd do, right? None of our Pokemon could probably handle a legendary. We're just here to help Professor Oak because this kinda stuff fascinates him for some reason but the League won't send an actual excavation team unless there's more cause than some silly random rumors from the nearby town."

"O - oh..." the redhead replied to that, clearly put out. Water Stones were super pricey and hard to find outside of nature. Her only chance at getting one for free had been shot down so she had no other choice except to put her plans back on hold and face reality.

"Maaaan, it's really cold in here though!" Ash whispered, breath floating out before him. He pulled his one free hand out of his pocket and switched it with the one that had been holding the flashlight.

"Yeah, it's almost like it's an underwater ice cavern!"

"No need for the sarcasm, Myst. Doesn't mean what I said before wasn't truuue – whoa!" he yelped, suddenly losing balance and hitting the ground hard on his back.

"Ash, are you okay?"

Misty knelt down beside him and did a quick inspection. Other than a bruised backside, he seemed to be alright and groaned as he sat up.

"Sorry, there was an ice patch. Guess we'll have to get used to that."

The two of them stumbled back to their feet and carefully made their way forward and out of the first room, entering a narrow, uneven path. The walls glittered with dancing lights as their flashlights reflected off of them.

Misty, in awe of such things, couldn't help flushing and looking at Ash, who seemed to be completely unaware of the majesty himself.

Of course.

Mr. Pokemon Master had never really been a fan of or advocate for the hopelessly romantic. The redhead had hoped that a couple of years of growth would have been enough for him to mature some but apparently not. He was still the same one-track-minded kid she'd known before they separated all that time ago in Viridian City.

And speaking of one-track-minded...

"Maaan, I wish Pikachu could have come," the raven-haired trainer whined as he removed his one hand from the pocket he'd been warming it in and used it to balance himself by gripping the wall as they walked.

"Well, why didn't you bring him?" Misty asked with both a quirked brow as well as a suddenly boiling frustration growing in the pit of her stomach.

"He hadn't been feeling well the past couple of days before we left. The Professor said that he probably just had some electrical static built up that needed medical treatment to be discharged. Apparently it happens sometimes when Pokemon get a little older. Poor guy."

"Yeah, poor Pikachu..." the water-type trainer said earnestly in sympathy, "But Ash, I'm here, you know?"

"Yeah, that's nice I guess, but if Pikachu or Brock were here–"

Oh, so now it wasn't just Pikachu but Brock also?!

"What the heck, Ash?!" she shrieked, nearly throwing the flashlight she was carrying straight at his head. No, no Misty, bad idea. If it got swept down the path and broke, it'd be lost in the darkness forever and the two of them would have even less light to work with than before, and there already wasn't enough.

Her statement was vocalized just as they entered the second room of the cavern so her voice was carried off into the distance despite her hopes that it would be contained. She should have been a bit more careful so as not to attract unnecessary attention, right?

"What?!" he asked her quizzically, turning on his heel and facing her again with a blank, wide-eyed stare.

"First Pikachu, now Brock! I thought we were friends too but I guess I'm just not good enough company for you, huh?"

"Wait, what are you talking about? I just meant–"

"–You meant that you miss your real friends, right? Because I'm not really one of the guys? Or because I don't always just let you do what you want or talk about what you want?"

"That's not what..."

"J - just shut up, Ash!"

Misty hmphed to herself and brushed past him, roughly running into his shoulder for added effect and walking ahead.

Stupid, dense, rude, annoying, selfish jerk! She thought to herself with a particularly impressive stomp of her foot, tears prickling at the edges of her eyes. So much for the re-connection she thought they'd been experiencing! So much for the return of those feelings she'd had awhile ago. So much for the effort she'd hoped to put in when finally getting to see her best - yes, her best - friend for the first time in over two years.

So much... for all the confidence she thought she'd gained in herself...

The final thought coursed through her head, struck down her spinal chord, circulated through her lungs like air, and reverberated in her heart.

She thought she'd gotten better since the last time she'd seen him but she seemed to be right back where she started.

"H - hey, Misty, wait up!" Ash yelled distantly from behind her and she could hear him galloping in her direction, but she was in no mood, so she swiftly turned her head, held her chin high, and did her best to keep going, entering the next narrow pathway leading to the third room.

Unfortunately for both of them, they'd forgotten in the time-span of twenty minutes that the floor was very damp and very icy so it didn't take long for Ash to slip and fall again while he was running, but he'd gained so much momentum previously that he just kept sliding swiftly forward.

"Mwaaaah!" he shouted aloud, arms flailing out around him, one still tightly gripping the flashlight as he went.

"What's going... Wait, Ash, no–" the redhead screamed, but to no avail, so she did her best to brace herself instead, just in time for him to slam straight into her, knocking her over, sending him flying on top of her in a tangled mess of limbs.

Unfortunately, their mishap didn't stop there, because there was still enough velocity for them to keep careening backwards at half-speed now, the rest of the way through the tunnel (which Misty had thankfully made it most of the way through), until she finally felt her back make (not very comfortable) contact with one of the pillars just within the third room, her neck snapping backwards and the back of her head striking the icy stone behind her.

Both of them lost their grasp on their flashlights in the tumble, the small black devices sliding and spinning away on the ground, though so lightly that the beams of light coming from them thankfully didn't extinguish.

"A... agh," Misty moaned, one hand holding her up somewhat while the other went to grasp the back of her head, but it stopped halfway when she realized that there was a rather (un)pleasant weight suddenly sitting on top of her chest area.

"A - A - Aaaah, Aaaash!" She squeaked, trying to shove his face off of her breasts, face burning with such embarrassment that she was pretty sure she'd lose consciousness if she didn't try to regulate her breathing soon.

"Maaan, that hurt," the raven-haired trainer groaned, finally trying to pick himself up, one hand gripping his head. Then he realized he was still basically on top of his friend and decided it might be a good idea to move so they could both check their injuries after a fall like that, "Oops, sorry, Myst."

Except, in order to move, he chose to half-use her as leverage to prop himself back up into a kneeling position. And the hand he was using to do the propping had landed right on her left breast.

The redhead squeaked again, this time shoving him so strongly away that he lost balance and landed on the floor a few feet from her.

"Geez, what was that for?" he asked in annoyance, unable to see how watery her eyes were, how red her face was, since they were in the dark until they could pick their flashlights back up.

"Y - you were... You touched..." she tried to explain in broken attempts at proper accusations while at the same time she internally screamed to herself how she totally shouldn't have had to do that anyway because wasn't it freaking obvious what he'd done?!

"What?" he asked now, almost sounding concerned, leaning forward again and squinting to try and make out her facial expression.

"Nngh," the redhead muttered, doing her best to stumble back to her feet again, but she was met with a new form of resistance when spots formed before her eyes and vertigo struck her in an intense wave.

Still, she stood, doing her best to control her suddenly labored breathing at the odd wrenching pain in the back of her head. She hadn't thought she'd hit it that hard...

"Shoot, I got some cuts from when I was sliding through that tunnel. I didn't know that even ice could be so sharp," the raven-haired trainer rambled by means of random conversation after falling back to inspect himself like he'd originally planned.

"Mmm," Misty pursed her lips, both from the pain at the back of her head as well as a means of trying to dissuade Ash from getting any closer at the moment. Instead she decided to think.

Ash had landed face-first in her chest.

Ash Ketchum, the boy she'd liked for a good three or four years now, had made physical contact with an... intimately feminine part of her body.

Ash freaking Ketchum, her best friend, the guy she had liked for so long, and the densest teenage boy that might have ever come into existence, had done that... and hadn't even reacted. At all.

The entire thing that had just occurred and scarred her for what could have been the rest of her life, the scenario that was now implanted in her mind as being a failure on her part as a young woman, had not even been a blip on his stupid, single-minded radar.

Not only that, but he'd dived back in for round two upon deciding to use her as leverage to support him as he tried to get up and had grabbed her breast unintentionally.

She was still mortified, even now.

Yup. Game over. It was time to throw in the towel.

"Oooh," she moaned, crumbling back to her knees and ignoring the re-ignition of sparks and blinking spots lining the edges of her vision.

"Misty...?" he asked her almost concernedly after she hit the ground again.

Well, sure, she wasn't as developed as some other girls out there... Her sisters and May had clearly been early bloomers by comparison, as well as a couple of other people she'd met before, like Duplica or Giselle (ack, as if she wanted to remember one of the few girls Ash had obviously been physically attracted to when they were younger)... but she wasn't scrawny for her age by any means, was she?

And she was only fifteen years old to boot! She still had some growing to do, right? So of course she seemed a little on the small side...

"Misty, a - are you... okay?" Ash asked, finally close enough to her to grasp her by one of her shoulders and shake her lightly. She was momentarily blinded when he accidentally shined the flashlight in her face too, meaning she'd been wallowing in her misery long enough for him to go grab it off the floor.

The combination of physical contact and bright light was enough to wake her up again and return her to the present, and she jumped a bit, trying to shake his hand off of her and leaning back against the pillar again, hissing a bit when her back flared up in distress at the jagged surface.

"Yeah, I'm fine I guess..." she muttered dejectedly, not daring to look at him, and instead craning her neck and staring at the ceiling.

"Wait... Wait, Ash, look up," she said, mouth gaping open in awe at the fantastic sight and he did, turning the beam of light up at it as well.

It was epic and beautiful. The ceiling curved into an odd dome, where a giant Water Stone reef hung upside down, glossy and glowing and encircled by a fence of icy stalactites. Small glowing blue-gray lights blossomed and floated around as if protecting what had grown into a magnificent natural mineral formation.

"It's so..." the redhead attempted but failed to come up with the proper word to describe how such a sight made her feel, heart nearly bursting in fulfillment.

"Yeah," Ash agreed, finally removing his hand from her shoulder and kneeling down at her side.

It wasn't until a few minutes later when he gave his palm half a glance before he'd planned to place it on the ground that he realized his glove was covered in something... something... red?

"Misty?"

"Hm...?" she mumbled softly, almost sleepily.

"I don't think you're okay after all," he warned her before showing her the blood on his hand; the blood that had apparently oozed down the back of her head and dampened the backside of her neck and shoulders as it seeped into the material of her coat.

"O - oh," she replied just as softly and blankly as before, as if she couldn't quite grasp what she was looking at, "That's my..."

"We need to go," he told her urgently, doing his best to pick them both up at the same time. "We got what we came for anyway. Professor Oak can send his request into the League for an excavation team now. We need to... I gotta get you out of here."

"Yeah..." the redhead said, a little more aware now after being stirred and pulled back into a standing position, but her knees wobbled at the extra weight she suddenly had to carry.

"C'mon, let's go," he coaxed her in the most patient tone he could even as his head buzzed with concern. They had fallen almost fifteen to twenty minutes ago and Misty had been bleeding ever since.

Why didn't she say anything? Hadn't she noticed at all?

He didn't know much about medical treatment, usually that kind of stuff was left up to Brock or Cilan or Clemont or, yes, even Misty if she was around because she actually did know some basics. How much time did they have before a bleeding head wound became something serious? How much did below freezing temperatures effect those kinds of wounds anyway?

What if... what if Misty was in some real danger right now?

He gulped and tried to push the idea into the back of his mind. He didn't... he couldn't think about that. Misty was only there because he'd invited her there. This wouldn't have happened if he hadn't invited her. This wouldn't have happened if he'd been paying attention and hadn't slipped a second time and slammed right into her. This wouldn't have happened if... if not for him.

"Ash...?" Misty asked.

He snapped back to the present and realized they'd stopped moving, having not even made it back into the second chamber of the cavern yet.

Misty was back to sounding moderately lethargic now, eyes slightly glazed over and mouth a little slack as her head tilted a bit to the right.

"I'm just... Can we rest? I'm tired and my legs feel weak."

Rest. Rest meant sleep. Sleep and cold were two things he knew someone shouldn't mix, especially when that someone was hurt like she was.

"Probably not a good idea, Misty. Just c'mon, we're... we're pretty close to the entrance. It's only about twenty or thirty minutes from here."

"Twenty or..." The redhead groaned at such a vast distance. All she wanted to do was relax a little bit. They'd barely gotten to take in any of the sights, they never even got to see any water or ice-type Pokemon...

There was a voice in the back of her head telling her that rest really was a bad idea but she didn't know how much longer she could stay on her feet anyway... and she certainly didn't relish the thought of having to depend on Ash to get her out of this cave.

"Too far..." she muttered anyway despite herself, nearly coming to a stop just as they met the entrance to the second cavern room.

"I - it's not!" Ash did his best to laugh and lighten the mood, still holding her hand in hopes that he could pull her the rest of the way to the cave exit, "Trust me, Myst, it's totally not as far as you think! Here, why don't we... I don't know... Let's just keep talking! If we keep busy while we walk, time will fly, right? Besides, we really haven't had much time to talk since we left Pallet Town to come here!"

"Talk...? Okay..." And then she said the one thing he'd hoped she wouldn't. "You go first though."

Ash Ketchum was currently very, very preoccupied with getting the two of them out of the Seafoam underground without anymore damage being done and it would have been a lot easier to do if Misty had chosen to deafly start rambling while he did as he'd planned.

"Ah, okay, um. so..." he paused, one eye shut and brow creased as he tried to figure out what stimulating conversation topic he could choose... and then he remembered what had led to her injury from the beginning (as well as all of the guilt he'd tried to shove to the back of his mind over the part he'd played in that injury occurring).

"So I know you think that I didn't really want you here because I mentioned Pikachu and Brock, but that's not it at all, Misty. I was just thinking how... how nice it wold have been if we all could have come. You know, together. Just because I would have liked them to be here too doesn't mean I didn't want you here at all, you know?"

"Mmm, is that so...?" she asked him with bleary eyes and what he prayed weren't slurred words. Needless to say, he wasn't sure she'd been convinced.

"Yeah, I mean, when the professor and I were talking and going over all our options for people to join me, I was the one who thought you'd be a good fit since you love water-type Pokemon so much."

Misty was honestly a little touched by such game-changing news but withheld further comment.

"Speaking of which, sorry we didn't actually see any Pokemon. I guess they live further in the cave, especially now that people have been coming to disturb their territory in search of rumored Water Stones and Pokemon accessories."

"Yeah, well... I didn't really come for the Pokemon anyway."

They came to a stop again just a few steps into the narrow pathway that would lead them to the first cavern room. It wasn't much further now... maybe ten or fifteen minutes?

"Y - you... you didn't?" he asked, perplexed by such information. "Then why'd you come?"

"A - ah... I was..." she paused, pursed her lips again, tried to find a way out of the confession she'd accidentally stumbled into. "It was... Ash, I feel like everything is..."

And before she could finish her sentence, her legs crumbled beneath her and she hit the floor again a final time.

"Just... really dizzy now... Head hurts 'lot..."

Crap. Crap, crap, crap!

"Misty, you gotta get back up... I can't carry you in this tunnel, okay? It's too small and cramped..."

"Dizzy... head hurts..." she repeated, her free hand reaching behind her as if to try to hold the area that was hurting most.

Ash huffed in furious worry and spun around to take his first look at her wound for himself, heart nearly plunging into icy depths colder than the cave they stood in when he finally got to see it.

There was a baseball-sized lump on the back of her head, barely covered by the hat she was wearing. The mass was damp and matted with bloody hair and there was a trail half-dried that had traveled down the back of her neck and soaked into the collar of her coat, running through the material and turning the thick pink an ugly copper.

"Don't touch it, Misty," he warned her, swatting away the hand she was slowly and awkwardly reaching with, "It'll probably hurt worse if you do."

"Yeah... S'it bad...?"

"Uuuh..."

Ash knew it was probably best not to draw more attention to a bad situation, and he knew that Misty's state was deteriorating so quickly that he had to keep them focused on their goal... something that would be very hard to do if they were derailed any further by gross and possibly d - deadly head injuries.

Crap. He'd thought the "d"-word. There was no unthinking the "d"-word.

"Let's just keep going, just keep talking... It's my turn, right?" he asked, yanking her back onto her obviously unstable feet and placing her nearest arm around him, proceeding to walk through the tunnel sideways since they both wouldn't fit facing forward, at the same time still leading her as patiently as he could to their destination.

He didn't realize he'd also inadvertently given her a pass on the confession she'd offered him a few minutes previous.

"I - I guess I should at least say... when we fell back there, and just know I didn't mean it! But I guess I... I should apologize for what happened. This is my fault."

It was so much worse to say such a thing out loud. No, it wasn't any less true if he just kept things to himself, but he'd able to keep going, keep his hopes up that they could get out, get Misty better, and just not go back to feeling this way. But once such things were out in the open, how was he ever supposed to neglect taking responsibility for it? How could he ever hope to turn a bling eye just because they'd made it out alive?

"Ash... s'not all... I walked 'way firs'... It was..." and the redhead took a deep breath as if trying to clear her mind and sober herself up, "It was a bad idea. Shouldn't have done it. S'not good to... split up when there's just two of us like this..."

"Well, yeah but... that's not all either, Misty," he grunted, trying to rearrange her position as she leaned on him and he twisted his limbs around to successfully make it through the pathway.

"I also..." And Misty, had she been more conscious and aware of her surroundings, would have been proud of the intense flush suddenly donning her best friend's cheeks, "... When we fell, I didn't notice at first, but I grabbed your... I must have fallen on... but I didn't notice, okay? I didn't realize until after I tried to pick myself back up that I had grabbed your chest."

They had finally made it back to the first room of the Seafoam underground again, just in time for Misty to hear Ash admit his knowledge to this felony he'd committed against her.

Well, if any conversation topic was supposed to hold enough power to clear her head some, it was certainly this one.

"Y - you... you knew?" she asked accusingly, eyes suddenly forcibly wide as she spoke, breaking away and pointing ludicrously at him.

"Look, like I said, I didn't at first but I'm sorry I did it, I couldn't see in the dark so I didn't know what was happening and, look, Misty, we don't really have the time to be standing here fighting about it when–"

"–You knew that you touched me on my," the redhead went silent as she gestured at her chest before returning to the statement she'd been trying to make, "You knew but you didn't... It was practically haunting me, you idiot, but now it's obvi... obvious... that you..." She couldn't help stuttering more and more frequently as she went, momentary adrenaline wearing off and reducing her back to the same dizzy spells she'd been experiencing for a good hour now.

"H - haunting you...?"

"I can't believe this..."

"I just... didn't wanna make things weird or awkward after I noticed so I didn't say anything, okay? Look, Misty, this really isn't the time."

"You brought it up!"

"Yeah, okay, but I didn't think you'd be this upset! I was just trying to keep you conscious and focused!"

"By bringing up the most embarrassing thing to have ever happened between us in the entire five years we've known each other?! And I'm not upset! I - I'm not! I'm... I'm..."

She never finished what she had to say. She couldn't. How could she look Ash in the eye and tell him that the last thing she was feeling about his reaction to the incident was upset? Ash had been embarrassed too. Ash had reacted to touching her chest. Ash had felt something from the sensation of holding her there.

How could she explain that she was actually feeling... grateful about the whole thing?

"I don't... I don't get it. But like I said, we shouldn't talk about it now. The ferry should still be waiting for us outside. Let's go, Misty, before your condition gets any worse. If you faint or fall sleep, I'll probably have to drag you because this floor is so icy."

She couldn't think of much else to say to that and, besides the unnecessary end of his exclamation, he was basically right. They really needed to finish the rest of their five to ten minute walk out of the Seafoam Island cavern and get back to Cinnabar before she was truly unable to go any further.

"That's a nice sentiment, Ash, thank you."

"Great, you're welcome, can we go now?"

"Yeah," she said with an unexpected smile that made his heart lurch into his throat. Never mind that the back of her head was covered in blood and bruising, but at least her front side was pretty c - cute.

Oh, no, now he'd convinced himself to think the "c"-word. There was no coming back from that one either!

"Good," he nodded affirmatively as he took her arm and wound it back around his neck so he could help support her for the rest of their walk but, almost immediately, Misty shook herself free of him again.

"Hey, Ash?" she asked casually.

"Yeah, Misty?"

And she grabbed the hand that wasn't holding their only source of light and gently pulled him around before firmly placing it back on same breast he'd accidentally held on to earlier.

"MWAH! What do you think you're doing?!" he yelped, entire face a flaming red as he ripped it away and stared at it for a few seconds, fingers tingling oddly, then up at her face, where she wore the same smile she'd been sporting for the past few minutes.

"Just checking," she shrugged, confidence back in full swing and heart light and bubbly for the first time in far too long before leaning on him once more and marching forward at his much more stable side, noting that he was suddenly a lot stiffer than he'd previously been.

Perhaps Ash had grown up some, after all.