[attr="class","rapha"]He’s not one to reminisce on the quote-unquote beauty of life, or other dumb, romantic things like that… but the Frosmoth crawls down over a low-hanging branch and flutters its wings, catching the sunlight and refracting it in diamond beams over the ground, and Raph is struck dumb for a moment.

He’s dumb a lot. But this might be the first time he’s dumb from beauty.

Esper is not quite so romantic. She zaps the Frosmoth with a psybeam, making Raph recoil and sending the bug fluttering down to the ground.

“Warn a body, next time!” he snarls, zapping it with a Pokeball.

[attr="class","raphatag"]solo wild - catch attempt frosmoth

[attr="class","rapha"]He definitely stands out here. He isn’t sure if its the poverty that clings to him like fine perfume or the lack of nepotism vibes that throw him out of sync with everyone else.

It doesn’t bother him, really, but he’s got enough survival instincts for it to prick the fine hairs on the back of his neck. Lizardbrain lone wolf habits that he’ll never escape.

He just wants to get something nice for mint frost, and there’s this really fancy ice cream place up here… should be just across the park.

[attr="class","raphatag"]solo wild - normal / bug / fairy

[attr="class","rapha"]Herbie makes a face and recoils, pulling his arms to him and shrinking away from the sniffing snoots. He tolerates it, though, because there’s a rule on Raph’s team where you have to take your losses, and Herb had bet money on Mint avoiding Raph again. So he winced and endured and Raph winked at him from across the kitchen.

“Both,” he said, flipping toast and cracking eggs, “mostly I do door work but I have been known to pour a whiskey or two.” Or three or four or ten or twenty.

He clicks his tongue when Mint strikes against his own intelligence. “You are too. And, anyway, you’ve got a good, strong team, from what I’ve seen. My motley crew wouldn’t know how to raise a kid if it bit them in the ass.”

Herbie shoots out a quick vine to smack Raph in the back of the head at being called motley. Raph rubs the spot, scowling. "Case in fuckin' point."

He turned his head to the side to drop a quick, chaste kiss on blue hair before Mint swept away, though the next words out of the smaller man’s mouth made all his chaste thoughts evaporate like water on a hot engine.

“Oh, yeah?” he said, battling the urge to lick his lips by paying extra close attention to the food. “Do tell.”

[attr="class","raphatag"]mint frost

[attr="class","rapha"]He grinned across the tables and counters at Mint, familiar with the sarcasm, the twist of his mouth, the lift of his brow. Like coming home, something scary says, and he has to turn away and clear his throat.

Setting battered bread to sizzle in a warming pan, he busies himself making a fizzy, clear concoction of splashes of three different kinds of alcohol and some mixer.

Herbie holds up the heavy egg in his liddol arms, biting back a sigh when it he is finally free of his burden.

“Uhh,” Raph says, in an extreme display of articulation, as he moves back to the pan to flip the french toast. “Won it in a card game.” There, that was true. “I wouldn’t know th’ first thing about Pokemon eggs and, well, yer very smart and probably a whole hell of a lot more gentle than I would be. Thought I’d give the thing a fightin’ chance, you know?”

[attr="class","raphatag"]mint frost

[attr="class","rapha"]“Another tithe, willingly given,” Raph affirmed, stepping into the kitchen and laying out ingredients. He caught a flash of his reflection in the stainless steel mirror and noted his eye was less puffy, but starting to turn yellow. “In exchange for your presence, my lord.”

I wanted to see you died on his tongue.

“Well, it’s… fuck, I dunno. Some sorta holiday, I’m sure.” He nudged Herbie forward with his stockinged foot as he began to make a sweet, cinnamon-y batter, fishing out booze from another bag as he stirred with one hand.

“Are you a bloody mary or a gummy bear kinda gal, mitten?”

[attr="class","raphatag"]mint frost

[attr="class","rapha"]A symphony goes off behind the door. Raph’s slight scowl breaks into a huge grin. “Eat shit, Herb,” he mutters under his breath to his Snivy, who harrumphs in a well-delivered defeat.

“Hey, stranger,” he says, when Mint opens the door, one eyebrow arched in a pointed, yet polite way.

They haven’t seen each other in a minute. Their communications have been all digital. Raph respects Mint, respects his space and his life; but he also cares about him, and so their distance has been… mildly concerning.

I noticed, his tone says, and I missed you.

In lieu of speaking his feelings like a normal, functioning human being, he holds up his plethora of bags and says, “I brought brunch.”

Mint welcomes him in with some reticence. Raph playfully rolls his eyes, but does as he is bid and turns his back to the apartment at large. “Mint, I don’t even have a box spring,” he says, and wants to go on about how Mint’s apartment could never be even remotely as grubby as his own, but realizes that might not be a good look for him. He sets down his grocery bags and alternates rubbing at the red lines on his forearms with holding his palm out for the canine Pokemon to sniff, greeting them with soft words as Herbie marched past them with his arm full of egg.

“Do you feel like sweet or savory?” Raph asks, then remembers. “Oh, yeah. Gotcha a present.”

[attr="class","raphatag"]mint frost

[attr="class","rapha"]Despite all evidence to the contrary, Raph had a widely varied skillset, and was good at many things. So when his fortunes at the poker table were dogshit, his size, strength, and fists usually made up for whatever shortcomings lady luck might right hook his way.

Maybe it spoke to the state of his standards that coming out of a long night several dollars, a bundle of assorted items, and one black-eye richer was considered a win in his book; maybe it was the punch to the head (slipped under his guard, made slippery by copious amount of cheap whiskey) that stopped him from taking stock of his small trove of treasures.

What he’d thought at first was a giant chocolate egg-- which should have struck him as odd, a grown ass man knee-deep in petty crime carrying around a seven pound chocolate egg in a very convincing shell, but, again, recent head trauma-- was revealed, in the light of a late afternoon and some embarrassingly many frustrating attempts at cracking, to be real.

There he was, in just his boxers, on his shitty mattress on the floor of his shitty one-bedroom apartment, hungover and aching, with a full-ass baby Pokemon nestled in the crook of his knee. So he did what any well-intentioned, single male with kind-of-a-little-bit-of a crush on someone did, whenever they found themselves suddenly beholden of something of certain value, but perhaps not inherently to themselves: he put a bow on it. An old shitty white one, from some old shitty Christmas white-elephant passed around at the bar.

And he got dressed and he invited himself over to Mint’s.

He was not a complete heathen. He stopped on the way to pick up a smattering of foodstuffs that could be fashioned into a decent, if rather rough, brunch; not a $60 dollar mimosa pitcher kind, but the kind he was familiar with from his youth, syrupy-sweet and carb-loaded and smacked together while bumping elbows and lovingly gruffing each other over a hot pan. The kind that gets into your bones and sticks to your ribs and makes you want to take a nap.

Rolling up to Mint’s apartment and returning the leer of the doorman with a smoke-filled grin of his own, he reshouldered his many grocery bags to free a hand to knock, hoping to god the boy was home, but preparing himself for the walk of shame should he not be.

Herbie looked up over the egg he held in his arms, serpent smile slightly sadistic, feeding off the anxiety Raph was trying to keep hidden.

“Yeah, yeah,” Raph growled under his breath, wishing for a cigarette, “shuddup.”

[attr="class","raphatag"]mint frost

[attr="class","rapha"]Raph wakes early, like he always does on nights where he doesn’t drink. Mint is pressed against his chest, unfurled slightly; he smiles, and extrapolates himself from the smaller man, tucking the blankets back up over him as he grumbles and rolls into the spot Raph once occupied.

He avails himself of Mint’s kitchen, keeping his promise of being good at various chores. He makes a small pot of coffee; he throws some leftover rice, scrambled egg, bacon, cheese, and green onion in a pan, then cleans up after himself, storing the leftovers in a tupperware; he tightens a leaky faucet with a wrench discovered buried at the bottom of a junk drawer; he folds his borrowed sleep clothes and sets them on top of the washing machine.

Mint seems content to sleep until the next year. Raph sneaks quietly back into the bedroom, not wanting to leave without saying goodbye.

“Hey,” he says, suppressing a laugh at sleepy eyes that crack open, "I have t' get goin', but I made somethin' quick in the fridge, you can throw in the microwave. Text me if you wanna hang out later. See you, darlin'."

He bends down to press a kiss gently into Mint’s forehead, makes sure he’s securely tucked back in, and heads out into the bright morning.

[attr="class","raphatag"]mint frost

[attr="class","rapha"]He pauses with his fingertips just dipped under the waistband of Mint’s pants, hearing the hesitation in his voice, and looking up, waiting for permission to proceed.

I’m ready to be impressed, then.

“Don’t close your eyes,” he says, and it’s partly a joke and partly a request, because he wants Mint to watch, and see, and realize how much Raph likes this, likes doing this.

He tugs Mint’s pants over the knobs of hips hips, and down.

[attr="class","raphatag"]mint frost

[attr="class","rapha"]Despite his earlier thought to catch the Magikarp, in the end, he decided not to.

“Got bigger fish to fry. Pun intended.”

The journey continued.

[attr="class","raphatag"]safari zone warden ticket - skipping magikarp 2/4

[attr="class","rapha"]He spent a decent amount of time looking at the little chunk of rock and scratching his head.

“What the fuck is this?” he asked no one in particular. Cage made a staticky noise that indicated he, too, was confused.

The strange Pokemon crawled over to Raph with a noise like bones grinding (he was intimately familiar with the sound) and began to nudge at the toe of his boot.

“You… wanna come with me?” he hazarded a guess, and the Pokemon looked up at him and blinked its square, orange eyes rapidly. “Uh, okay then.”

Bending, he picked up the odd stone-- it was heavier than it looked-- and tucked it under his arm.

“Why not.”

[attr="class","raphatag"]