Disclaimer – Of course I own this stuff! But only 'cause I stole it first! Mwahahah…

Author - Me! I mean, uh, Warlordess

OoO

Title - "Trope Trip"

Summary - A fanfic series based on a common ship trope list from Tumblr applied to Ash and Misty. First on the list is "huddling for warmth", which ends up happening whether Ash likes it or not. Lol.

part one - "huddling for warmth"

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"Ash, you're being dense."

The raven-haired trainer sent a skeptical, proud glare in the direction of the splash of pale flesh draped in limp pink and turned away again, crossing his arms and effectively declining Misty's offer.

"I'm not wearing that. No way!"

"Seriously, Mr. Pokemon Master; you told me you just got over being sick. We're only a few hours from your house and you said barely thirty seconds ago that you were feeling chilly. Put on – the – stupid – jacket."

"I'm not doing it and I'd like to see you try and make me!" he retorted with a glare, "It's pink, Misty. Pink is for girls. And James. But mostly, it's for girls. I'm not going to let anyone I know blackmail me because they saw I was crazy enough to wear that! I'll just su – suffer…" But he faltered, mid-snarky remark, so that he could unleash a sneeze, followed by a pathetic sniffle, "… I'll just suffer through it. Like you said, it's only for a few hours. I'm man enough to take it!"

"Right," the redhead scoffed, still trying unsuccessfully to shove her old worn jacket into his arms even as she continued mocking him, "You were really manly when you wore that dress and wig and all that make-up just to get into the Celadon City Gym. And from what I hear," she went on with an airy tone even as her face tightened into a malicious smirk, "you haven't given up on that manly hobby of yours over the past couple of years."

Ash went stark still in horror. He couldn't believe his other friends would sell him out like that! Especially Cilan! Oh, man, what if he and Misty had been exchanging stories and photos and… and… He grimaced, shaking his head to try and rid himself of the very idea.

"I wouldn't have done that if I had any other options! But if it's going to help me get closer to my goal as a future Pokemon Master, of course I'd do anything it takes! Short of that, though, not on your life!"

"Pika…" his best buddy sighed from his shoulder before reaching around with his tail and bopping Ash softly on the back of the head, then raising his chin and nudging his small nose in Misty's direction, "Chu chu pika, Pikapi!"

"Pikachu, I know you're worried about me but it's fine! Besides, you don't understand what it means to have your masculinity tested by something as degrading as this!" the raven-haired trainer went on with another sniffle, sounding outright offended at his position in the argument, two against one.

"Pikachu!" the electric mouse exclaimed before hopping straight into Misty's arms and wrapping himself up in the jacket of his own accord.

"I think what he's trying to say is that," the redhead began with a confident smile, "there's no shame in accepting a bit of help from a friend, even if it may be somewhat embarrassing. He might also be saying that you should just be grateful you have someone who's willing to lend you their personal belongings when they could just as easily ignore your stupid whimpering and continue on their merry way, especially considering what happened the last time a certain someone got hold of a certain someone else's bi–"

"–I know what he's saying!" Ash sniped aggressively, but gave in and stubbornly ripped the semi-familiar pink jacket from her arms and held it before him with a twitching brow and a firm jaw. Pikachu fell to the ground but luckily landed right-side-up and stood beside the redhead, both of them watching the young trainer fumble with the apparently foreign and distasteful choice of attire.

"Guh… Urgh…" he gurgled and moaned aloud and Misty rolled her eyes, crossed her arms, and started tapping her foot impatiently.

This was getting ridiculous. For goodness sake, if the situation had been the other way around, she knew for sure she wouldn't be giving Ash such a hard time about borrowing his jacket!

But she froze at the thought and let an unfortunately very recognizable warmth wash over her. Darn it; she'd been trying to tell her stupid hormones to stop that over the past few months (or years) but they just never cared to listen to her…

"Pikapi…" Pikachu growled, staring up at his trainer with a mild snarl.

Misty rejoined the present predicament and realized that nothing had really changed.

Ash was still standing there, awkwardly holding her jacket out at arms' length before him and turning his nose up at it. At some point, he decided to try putting a single arm through the respective sleeve but, halfway through, he chickened out and retracted it at full speed.

The redhead couldn't help thinking that the whole situation would be rather funny if it wasn't so pitiful.

However, two minutes later, she finally snapped. Honestly, she didn't know how she'd managed to maintain her temper for so long already.

"Hey!" Ash yelped as she yanked the still-very-pink jacket from his grip and proceeded to wrap it around her own shoulders, glaring at him in frustration.

The raven-haired trainer thought for a moment that perhaps their most recent spat was over, that maybe Misty had given up… And he was right about part of that, though it certainly wasn't over in the way he'd hoped it to be.

The redhead draped the cotton around her and irritatedly slid her arms through the sleeves then, without breaking her stride, looped elbows with Ash and pulled him in her direction.

Now with their cheeks less than four inches from each other, he felt all of his internal alarms buzz in concern. This was definitely wrong, but maybe not as much as he first thought, but it was different and new and weird and he could feel her breath on his face and, if he turned his head just a couple of inches, they'd be practically touching and he shouldn't be thinking about that kind of stuff – ugh – especially not with Misty of all people but here they were and – and…

His internal tangent ended rather abruptly.

It only got stranger from there as the redhead took one half of the fabric and stretched it as far as it would go, halfway around the raven-haired trainer's torso.

All was still for the following few seconds, even Pikachu, who was staring up at the two of them with his mouth hanging open in awe.

"There," she stated firmly, and Ash internally bristled at the thought that she wasn't as freaked out by this turn of events as he was (though she had been the one to instigate it so maybe that had something do with it).

What he didn't know was that – of course – it was indeed burning her up and setting off multitudes of fireworks throughout her entire nervous system just by being so close to him despite her best attempts to quash such things before they went too far out of control.

"I just… What's happening right now?" he asked breathlessly, face flushed and throat suddenly quite dry.

"This is to keep you warm since you're too much of a wimp to just wear the jacket on your own," she told him warily, avoiding his line of sight even as she tried to keep a constant vigilance. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, him licking his lips, probably trying to salivate them after having the air, courage, and all else knocked out of him.

That sensible response didn't make it any less distracting for her though.

"Uh, um," Forming words was incredibly difficult but he was indeed doing his very best to say something. She'd just helped him and insulted him both at the same time; surely he could come up with a retort! Right? "Th – than…"

But the considerate appreciation he'd felt both unwilling and obligated to voice was cut off by the electric mouse staring up at the two of them from the ground below.

"Pikapi, Pikachupi, pi chu pipi pikachu!" he reminded them, glancing warily up at the sun, which was breaching a distant line at the base of the sky and the lip of the land. It was close to dusk and, if they didn't hurry, they'd be late for the feast Mrs. Ketchum had surely prepared her son and his friends.

Misty cleared her throat and began to move awkwardly forward, still bound to her best friend at the shoulders and hips. She didn't quite trust her voice enough to say aloud that she accepted his thank you, and she didn't trust him much either not to take it back out of sheer obstinacy.

Ash, for his part, decided he'd rather not look at her for the rest of the very uncomfortable walk home, especially now that his heart seemed to have decided to give out on him. Seriously, he didn't think it'd ever beat this fast before. If they could just make it back to the Ketchum house in as many pieces as they'd started with, he'd be quite impressed.

But hey, for the record, at least he wasn't cold anymore.

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Notes – So awhile back, I had stated that I was basically done with writing fanfics due to lack of reader response, and that there would be no activity on this account other than uploading fics that were otherwise uniquely posted elsewhere (like Tumblr). As it turns out, I forgot to upload this series here as I was making my mental list of everything that I hadn't added to my FFN page yet so, yeah... Here's this thing. There are two other one-shots that will be added some time in the near future. As with everything else, I don't really plan on continuing to add to this despite there absolutely being options and opportunities for it (there was, like, a whole list of tropes to choose from that I'd reblogged on Tumblr) but who knows? Until then, you can at least enjoy this.

Reviews and faves are wonderful but, of course, I have no expectations at this point.