He’d been waffling over this decision for the past few weeks, but he knew there was nothing else to it—and, well, he wanted to make it official, so.

It was hard trying to plan around a very snoopy partner especially when they started asking the stickier questions he couldn’t laugh away because he wanted to make this day special for the both of them— more so for Memo.

Even if war was on the horizon outside Fortree; inside the Sanctuary, well…

He’d asked the others for help to get shit set up, and on the day itself where he would execute the literal definition of ‘manifest destiny’, he had to come up with some way to get his partner away from the Sanctuary for the afternoon!

(He’d made sure to tell the Frog to wear something white and classy, so hopefully he got the hint! Originally the plan was for Alex to wear something white but he realized the other loathed the absence of color, so this was going to be a sacrifice he would make for his partner.)

Meanwhile, he would be frantically getting his shit ready over at Ethan’s place—the receptionist was kind enough to lend him the apartment to prepare while Claire and the others got everything set up in the empty space at the Sanctuary—the decorations, the lights, the ‘dance floor’, the little everything…

“Are you sure?!” the mousy-haired receptionist asked, looking at the suit he’d picked out for this occasion.

“Yeah! I had one fucking hell of a time finding someone who could make something like this, to my specifications—”

“You’ve got this, man.”

He would hurriedly fix the Wooloo-patterned necktie—no, he wasn’t going to be wearing a scarf, so if that wasn’t a big enough hint that whatever was going to go down was big then he didn’t know anymore.

“You forgot the cufflinks!”

“What?!” he exclaimed as the other man ran over, popping the box open and pulling out the two tiny, feather-patterned studs from a box that the other man handed him, who looked just as rushed as he did.

Snapping them on, he would double-check the inside pocket for the thing—if he forgot this thing that everything he’d set up for today would’ve been all for naught—and breathed out a sigh of relief once he was reassured he had the danged thing ready.

---

It would be just after sunset when he would be waiting at the outside perimeter fence, holding this tiny little bouquet of white lilies when he pulled out his phone and sent his better half a short text.

‘Hey, are you… are you ready? I’m outside the Sanctuary, waiting for you. Sorry if this was all short-notice if I sent you away for the afternoon, but… I’m here.’

Twilight had just fallen around the city, but the way towards the empty space where the open-air arena used to be was decorated with tiny little lights; and while he decided not to have the flowers out just yet, well—

There was a little ‘party’ space set up on the arena grounds—a quiet little thing that had a table just for the two of them, and a small-enough dance floor not too far from where the table was located.


(artist’s rendition of what the setup looks like, only make it a really intimate one for just two people)

And pray tell, where were all the Pokémon?

Thankfully, most everyone had managed to wrangle them all and kept them out of sight for the evening… although, if one squinted hard enough there was a pair of Wooloo grazing not too far from where the location was.

Yes, he’d brought out William and Smokey especially just for this occasion.

(Because wasn’t that how they first met? Him showing the other sheep pictures?)

And yes, even the two ovines had cute little bowties around their collars! Thankfully Smokey was on top of things and kept his easily-distractable partner busy while waiting for the two idiot humans to come into the little party set-up.