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Wow. Josh, a rider—actually passing on an attraction that involved riding, even in theory, a mechanical Tauros?

(If it were a Bouffalant, would the other man change his mind, though?)

“I—I never thought I’d hear you say that, you? Passing on a riding game?” he blinked.

Just as a joke, he threw the next lines, “Who are you and what have you done with Josh Devlin?” before breaking into a fit of laughter.

Right then and there the carousel sped up—but to him it was nothing, he’d cruised at higher altitudes than this, and on actual ridable avianid Pokémon with no saddle whatsoever!

He looked almost lazy, even.

Hm, would he hit the Dugtrio Ring toss booth when they got off the ride next?

(Who knows if his cursed luck with carnival attractions would continue…)

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prompt: reference a Dugtrio ring toss game.

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From his comfortable perch, he had to do a take-two when he realized just where the other had chosen to ride. Wasn’t that the… huh. Unless he was seeing things, two of the ‘ridable’ Pokémon on the carousel resembled the ones that were sighted out on—

He had to fight down the momentary wave of panic that rose up his gut; forcing himself to take a deep breath before hanging onto his perch like it was nothing.

“Obviously,” he remarked with a knowing smirk. “I have several, too, however they’re all the way at the Sanctuary grounds because I can’t move the aviaries out of there, it’s too much trouble,” he cackled.

(Hello, Toucannon Sam.)

And then he realized—

“Have you gone to that booth? The Taurus rodeo?”

It didn’t hurt to ask!

---

prompt: reference a Taurus rodeo game.

Color him surprised the moment Ethan told him that someone wanted to book a personal tour—and it wasn’t a challenger (at least not yet anyway), but someone who wanted to see the Sanctuary as a whole!

Man, it reminded him of the time that Zac Ramsay came over and he’d given the other man the entire ten yards tour of the whole place. (But of course, back then, his Toucannon Armada™ wasn’t as large as it was now.)

“Alright, I’ll take it from here,” he said to the receptionist, who nodded and carted off a stack of envelopes to route through the sprawling grounds.

So now it was up to him to approach—

“Hello there,” he greeted the other… color him surprised again, another young man had come out all the way here? And…

“You need a blanket or something? I can’t help but notice you kind of look like you’ve been through a sudden thunderstorm or something.”

Odd. Were the weather readings near the Institute off again?

“You can call me Alex. Everyone here does.”

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Okay, for some reason one of the Wingull floaties got lost, and he now only had one left…

“Frooooooooog!” he remembered yelling before they went out for their daily dive, “…one of the floaties you got me is missing!”

Oh, djinni. What a fucking nightmare this was going to be for him. Yikes.

Good grief.

Either way, they were out here again at their quiet little diving spot, and he hung onto the remaining Wingull arm floatie with a vice grip.

“No, you are not going to get lost,” he grumbled as he wrestled with it, jamming it up high on his right arm before taking a dive for today.

What would he find this time, though?

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Of course he couldn’t be with Guillermo Marceliño every single waking second—as long as they were within the same city… then that would be fine, right?

Right?

(He hoped that the separation anxiety that he’d brought back from that alternate Hammerlocke didn’t rear its ugly fucking head in spades, because that would be a nice little breakdown…)

It didn’t take long for him to switch from ‘let’s go on all the rides’ like a big kid hopped up on sugar to ‘holy shit, someone needs my help’ when he saw a young girl holding a balloon, crying and looking for someone.

He was not expecting the kid to have a resemblance to Peony a certain face he’d only seen in that alternate world—

For a few moments he felt the crippling fear clench in his gut; however, he swallowed his fear down and then went right over to the kid, crouching down so that they were on an eye-to-eye level.

“Hey there,” he began softly. “Do you need help looking for your parents?”

All he got was a snivelly answer in the affirmative—and that was enough. Time for him to bring the kid over to the organizer’s booth so they could summon the kid’s parents.

Hell, he’d let the child get on his shoulders so that she could look over the crowd.

(The bonus of being a beanpole.)

“Let me know if you see them, okay? I’ll bring you over to them as fast as I can,” he confirmed once she was seated on his shoulders and they began walking around.

---

prompt: cheer up a distressed kid. and suffer bc why does the kid remind him of Peony?!

“I told you. I told you so!” he huffed from right next to her.

Never mind if he was towering over her, fact of the matter was that he was absolutely sure the damned stalls were rigged. He was more than certain of it.

(Unless we count that one time his boyfriend won him that gigantic plush Salamence but shh.)

Picking up the last dart he had, he tried to take aim at a purple balloon, closing one of his eyes in the process and taking aim. Little did he know his tongue was already sticking out one side of his mouth as he took one step backward, before letting the dart fly—

And watching as the danged thing actually fly towards the purple balloon he was aiming for, which then burst upon impact.

Wait. What?

“Wha—” he trailed off, blinking.

How—how in the hell did that—

Happen?!

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prompt: win at least one carnival game.