[attr="class","leytag"]Alexei Ivanov

[attr="class","leymain"]Memo had been having an awful time.

Not as awful as Alex, of course. But still.

Their last interaction had been a fight-- a small fight, but even such a tiny tiff was momentous for their relationship. Memo had stubbornly dug in his heels about getting involved with Galarian bullshit and Alex had it all up in his head that he was going to go off and be a hero and--

--Memo hadn’t expected him to actually leave.

He’d awoken to a note on the counter, next to Alex’s wallet and phone. This, in itself, did not frighten him-- the first time he’d stumbled to the kitchen to find thus, he’d panicked, thinking Alex had left him, though it was quickly explained (although Memo was sobbing the entire time) that, no, this was just a promise to come home.

But he read the note and the sense of dread brewing in his stomach broke into an outright storm. He’d been a mess of nerves and anxiety since. He’d panic-cleaned the house from top to bottom. He’d given himself an anxiety haircut, lopping off his hard-earned 'locs in a fit of pique. To make matters worse, it was absolutely pouring, AND it was his day off, so it wasn’t even like he could go to work, or go outside and do anything, really.

He was halfway through ironing and folding all of Alex’s shirts-- the smell of them comforted him, okay-- when Kyouya’s ear-piercing screeching made him jump. He dropped the iron, narrowly missed it landing on his foot, and set off a muttered string of expletives as he unplugged the appliance, set it up so it wouldn’t burn, and booked it, as fast as humanly possible, to the door.

He didn’t know exactly what he was going to do or say when Alex finally came home-- if Alex came home-- though he’d run through a number of different scenarios. Some involved him prostrate in apology; others were more venty in nature. But that all fell by the wayside as he ripped open the door and ran out into the pouring rain as Kyouya screamed and screamed and screamed--

“Oh my god--,” interspersed with broken spanish-- “--is he okay?! Are you okay?! You’re not hurt, are you?”

And on God all 5’4” of him launched onto the Braviary’s back from flat standing to throw his arms around Alex and bury his face in his chest.

“Please just tell me you’re okay.”

[attr="class","leypoke"]

The good thing here was:

It was the Braviary, and not the Salamence that Memo ran into. For there were a few things:

One, Gabriel hadn’t forgiven him yet because of what happened last year; and two, the draconid would’ve likely chewed him in half because of all the shit he’d lived through. Twenty years, all gone in the blink of an eye?

So it was pure luck, and divine providence that it was Kyouya that Memo had run into. A surprised squawk came from the avian because of the way the 5’4” missile had literally launched himself right into his crazy owner’s arms.

Normally, Alexei would’ve attempted to deflect the incoming ball of energy—however due to his brain not computing properly, it took him several moments to realize he was no longer alone. No longer alone, and hearing the broken gay Spanish panic washing over him.

“…‘m fine,” were the first quiet words that left him. Normally he’d have been more subdued, but still have the same chaotic energy that the other had come to know and love. This, though?

“D…don’t. P-please d-don’t be just…just another figment…” tumbled out next, his arms too tired to lean up and hold him close. Thankfully the Braviary was still there, helping them get angled towards the door because it was still pouring outside after all.

“P-please be real,” he whispered; never mind if he was unnaturally hot under Memo’s touch.

---

timelined right after the end of the rusted sword raid; dorime

[attr="class","leytag"]Alexei Ivanov

[attr="class","leymain"]Alex didn’t react as he’d expected and that sent warning flags pinging off in Memo’s head. He immediately jumped to something was wrong with him.

“Arceus-- you’re burning up--,” Memo pulled back and slid off Kyouya, tugging at Alex’s waist to pull him off, too, getting him down to the ground and having to stand at an angle and lock his knees to keep him held up. “C’mon, water we doing standing around, it’s pouring… my abuela is rolling over in her grave. C’mon, now.”

Memo almost missed him speaking in the hustle to lift-drag-lead Alex to the still open doorway (where a veritable horde of creatures now gathered, awaiting their entry).

“What are you talking about?” Memo asked, tone rough with the exertion of lifting Alex, but voice still light, Alex’s arm around his shoulders as he walked him across the threshold. “Of course I’m real.”

[attr="class","leypoke"]

Most of the gatherers at the door were the ovine herd—noticeably, William and some of the other cutie pies had flocked around the door (but were smart enough to stay out of the splatter range). Unsurprisingly, Smokey was nowhere to be seen (neither was his hellspawn of a child, but that was neither here nor there.).

He still had the sense to keep his legs moving, and at least most of his weight off the other man… at least, until they crossed the threshold into the warmth of their shared living space wherein his legs promptly gave out from under him.

Kyouya the Braviary had long departed for the ‘bird house’ to rest, and so it was the herd of ovines that helped shove the door shut behind the two; William’s jingling crown quietly breaking the silence of the space.

If Memo blinked, he would’ve very nearly missed what he said next.

“I spent… twenty years, in. In H-Hammerlocke. T-two decades there… w-without you.”

Never again.

---

timelined right after the end of the rusted sword raid; dorime

[attr="class","leytag"]Alexei Ivanov

[attr="class","leymain"]Memo felt the collapse before it happened. “Woah--woah, hey,” he cautioned, barely able to direct Alex’s fall in the direction of a piece of furniture, not at all caring that it was going to get drenched in rainwater. “Here, let’s get these wet clothes off… get you in a warm tub, yeah?”

He dropped to his knees to unlace Alex’s boots, but he did catch what he said.

Brows furrowing, he looked up, lifting Alex’s heel and tugging the boot off.

“What?”

[attr="class","leypoke"]

Most of the herd had scattered at the sudden collapse; only William dared remain close, approaching the two cautiously. What was going on between them?

Concern wrinkled the cute ovine’s face, the normal smile turned into a look of utter alarm as he looked from his soaking-wet human to the other human, and felt his head overheat. What was happening?!

“Hammer…locke,” he repeated quietly. “Or… at least, some variant of it…”

His hands then scrambled through his dripping jacket, belatedly realizing that there was something trapped in one of his jacket pockets. What luck it was the inner waterproof pocket, too, as numb fingers fumbled around and tried to get the zipper open.

“We got trapped… in Hammerlocke. There were… a lot of us, just… stuck there, too.”

Once the zipper had finally been released, a collection of folded… folded parchment paper, yellowed with time; would tumble out of said pocket. If there was one good thing he’d done? It was taking down notes of everything that had happened while they were all stranded there.

“D-don’t… don’t go… anywhere, please?” he begged quietly, the fog clearing out of his head at last as he realized where he was—one arm trying to desperately grab the other and hold him close.

“D-don’t. Don’t leave me here, don’t leave me alone.”

---

timelined right after the end of the rusted sword raid; dorime

[attr="class","leytag"]Alexei Ivanov

[attr="class","leymain"]He has so many questions. Why Hammerlocke? How did he get stuck? What does he mean by stuck? But he busies himself with Alex’s other boot, pulling that off and tossing it aside, frowning at his damp socks that he’s ready to peel off when his boyfriend sits up like there’s an ember under his ass and begins pawing at his jacket.

“Alex, you’re not making any sense,” Memo said, note of panic creeping into his voice. Maybe he’d taken a blow to the head? That had to be it.

He dodges Alex’s hand when it reaches for him, taking it, instead, in both of his own.

“I’m not going anywhere, baby. I’m just trying to get you undressed. We’ll get you warm and get some food into you. You’ll feel better.”

[attr="class","leypoke"]

“You… you d-don’t get it.”

He was trying to reach for the other man, this bewildered, frantic look in his eyes now that the other could get a closer look at his face.

“We… we were, at the. At the outside… of this cave. Down farther than. The Slab place. It was. There was a lot. Too much, going on, and—”

The rest of the words are coming out in a frantic, unintelligible mess as he struggled to piece what little thoughts he could together.

“The… don’t let… don’t let Will or anything else g-get the papers,” he continued quietly, reaching for the parchment sheets that were folded up small enough to be hidden in an inside pocket. “Th-that’s…”

He let out a quiet gasp when he felt his partner’s fingers close around his own. Words had failed him at that point, however, as he bit back a sob he’d been trying not to let out.

“Please. Please. S-stay here. W-with me.”

---

timelined right after the end of the rusted sword raid; dorime

[attr="class","leytag"]Alexei Ivanov

[attr="class","leymain"]“Baby,” he said, softly, under Alex’s rambling, “I-- you’ve been through a lot. I don’t understand what, but I get that at least.”

He splayed Alex’s palm in his fingers and pressed a kiss to the center of it. To hold.

“Whatever it is, it’s over. You’re home, you’re safe. I’m not going anywhere. Let me take care of you, please?”

Shivani peeked from around a corner; three Pokeballs rolled along the ground to Memo’s feet.

Ester the Bisharp was sent to draw a bath; Mora the Roselia went with Shivani to start making food. Draja the Floatzel went to the bedroom to get dry clothes.

Memo peeled Alex out of his wet socks.

“Can you walk to the bathroom for me?”

[attr="class","leypoke"]

The only thing he could do at this point was to just… let it all out.

All. Of it. Out.

The second Memo was close enough within grabbing range, he all but threw himself onto the other man, hiding his face in his partner’s shoulder.

(No, he was not going to break down in front of him. No, not today, not ever—too late, he already did.)

The sounds of a hushed, nervous breakdown-filled sobbing filled the quiet space between them as he cried.

Cried for the extreme length of time that he had not seen (and been with) the other.

Cried for the longing, the pining, the soul-crushing loneliness he endured while mired in ‘that’ Hammerlocke; one blasted so far back in time they felt like encroaching parasites invading an already fragile ecosystem…

He hadn’t even noticed that Shivani the Banette was out and about, the way he was now crying hard into Memo’s shoulder. Both of his arms were struggling to hold him close—hold him as tight as possible; never wanting to let go.

Not once. Not even once. Had he looked at another man, while stranded back in… wherever they came from.

Such was the pain of being eternally loyal, forever faithful to one person—and one person alone.

“I…” he finally said at last, muffled from the emotion still pouring out of him.

---

timelined right after the end of the rusted sword raid; dorime

Am I crying? YES

[attr="class","leytag"]Alexei Ivanov

[attr="class","leymain"]He sat up to try and get Alex up and moving, get him on the way to the bathtub full of warm water, but then Alex was falling on him and it was all Memo could do to catch him and cushion the throw of him on the ground.

Alex gripped him like a vice, shaking and trembling as he cried into the curve of his shoulder, and Memo just let him, weaseling his arms out to hold him back, knees up to cradle him. One hand carded through Alex’s soft, wet hair, the other pressed against the span of his back, gently soothing back and forth.

He didn’t know what this weight was that Alex was carrying but he let him get it out, cheek turned to the top of his head, tears brimming in his own eyes at the state of emotions pouring out of his partner.

[attr="class","leypoke"]

The moment he felt the reassuring weight around him, it took all his willpower not to break down again, because this was real.

It wasn’t an eternally-spanning nightmare of being trapped in another world that felt real.

He was here.

Back home.

The terror in him, though, continued to hang on as tightly as he could to the other man. His words foreign as he began to apologize, again and again and again of how he was right, how pointless it was to get into trouble, how meaningless it was to try and fix a gigantic problem—

But could anyone blame him for trying, though?

“Nobody,” he went on quietly as he somehow managed to stop himself from careening down another cliff into another spiral of a breakdown, “…nobody, in Hammerlocke, could compare. Not to you. Nobody. Nobody else.”

(There was the little thing between him and Miss Elise Calcifet however he would get to that later once he was more coherent and had more than two brain cells to rub together.)

“I was. I was gone, for twenty fucking years, and all I could think of. Was you. You, here, h-home… wondering if you were here, w-waiting for me, to return, from… from that hellscape. From Hammerlocke, everything just. Just hurt w-without you.”

---

timelined right after the end of the rusted sword raid; dorime

:waagh:

[attr="class","leytag"]Alexei Ivanov

[attr="class","leymain"]Memo tilted his head, cheek brushing against Alex’s wet hair, as his rambling steadily began to take the shape of coherent words. His brows crease in the center as Alex speaks, and though Memo has a thousand questions, he imagines its rather like when he came home from the digital world-- crushed into a thousand pieces and barely able to hold them all in the palm of his hand.

“Well, duh,” he said, softly, a breath of air against Alex’s forehead. “I’m amazing.”

He took Alex’s jaw in both of his hands and pulled his tear-streaked face up to press a kiss into his forehead, along the bridge of his nose, softly against his lips.

“You’re home, okay? It’s not been twenty years, but even still, I’ve missed you the whole time. But I’m here, I’m real, and I’d like to take care of you, if you’ll let me?”

[attr="class","leypoke"]