He doesn’t want to talk about it. The fact that Alex doesn’t remember makes everything a thousand times worse: not only does Memo have to relive the situation, but he has to verbally explain it, too.

It’s bad enough it lives in his head. Speaking it makes it even more real.

He doesn’t say anything. He’s nauseous and squeezing his eyes shut so tight they hurt.

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

He would live and die by the blush on Alex’s cheeks. The way his whole face turned red, and it spread down his neck, across his collarbones-- even dusted his shoulders rosy.

Memo decides the blanket nest is a worthy sacrifice as he disrupts it for the purpose of sitting astride his boyfriend, knees on the mattress, resting on Alex’s thighs. He puts one palm on the pillows next to Alex’s head, about to lean in and kiss the rambling off his lips when--

“Oh.”

He doesn’t frown, but it sure does catch him off guard. He blinks, tensing a little.

“Y--yeah, sure.”

It wasn’t the Alex Leading part that put him on edge (a soft edge, but definitely an edge). Generally, they balanced each other well: Alex wasn't overtly pliant and knew what he was about enough to direct.

There were just… stipulations. To these things. Given his past history, you understand.

Memo was the performer, not the performee, if you would.

“What, um. What… were you thinking?”

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

Any creature that had a hand, direct or otherwise, in Alex’s continued survival had his lifelong devotion. Memo knew firsthand how trouble-prone the blonde was. It could not have been easy getting him this far.

“Yeah?” he said, sidestepping the Girafarig and pushing further into the night. He trusted ihs support team to have it handled. “It’s just a balloon. Not like it can hurt me, really.”

There was a squeaking noise from the undergrowth and Cora emerged carrying a Natu in her mouth. Memo frowned, zapped the thing with a Pokeball.

“We’re looking for a Wooloo, Cora. Will. You know him.”

Corazón ruffed an affirmative and stuck her nose back to the earth. After a few moments of loud sniffing she barked loudly and hustled into the dark.

Then came a cacophony of distressed baa-ing.

Alexei Ivanov
ghost/psychic
catch attempt natu

☉

Hydra tosses a Finneon up on the beach and Memo collects it in a Pokeball before it could thrash too much.

“Family,” he says, a soft exhale of laughter and a wry tone. “There are far too many of them in Galar. And we don’t get along.”

They had, after all, told him he was as good as dead to them and kicked him out on the street with nothing but the clothes on his back. And as good-natured as he was he wasn’t one to let bygones be bygones.

---

catch attempt finneon. water/flying/dragon

Remiel Calcifet

☉

Was this to be his lot in life? To absorb gay goats and sheep into his circle like a parched desert flower in a rainstorm?

“Right?” he says on the back half of a snort, suddenly filled with a strange feeling of warmth.

Maybe it was his lot in life.

A shy Snover peeked from behind a tree, thinking it was blending in well to its surroundings. Sibella lifted into the air, landed behind it, and chirped; startled, it ran forward, straight into a low-hanging tree branch, and fell over.

“Talk about low hanging fruit,” Memo said, zapping it with a Pokeball. “Speaking of fruit, are you hungry? Do you have time for a bite to eat?”

Alexei Ivanov
grass/bug/flying
catch attempt snover
<3 <3

☉

His eyes half-close and he lays there, content to exist in the warmth and the cadence of Alex’s breathing and the hum of the AC unit.

“Just once,” he says, “I’d like to… not have to kick and scream. To survive. You know?”

With you at my side.

“Of course.”

He tilts his head up, spark of mischief in his gaze.

“Did you have something in mind?” he asks, one eyebrow raised, tone turning flirtatious as his body washes with electricity. Like Alex was the piece that finished his circuit.

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

He closed his eyes and nodded shallowly, hands turning so he could press their palms together, lace their fingers, a grounding touch he desperately needed.

“Yeah. Zuza had her wits about her, thank god. Until she…”

And he was crying again through closed eyes. The memory of her deletion was too painful.

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

Memo frowned.

“Yeah, it. Does that.”

Eventually, his whole head would look like one of those stupid electrostatic balls that you touched to make the lightning jump to your fingers. Just a mess.

“This is why I keep it in ‘locs.”

If he stabbed the next snarl with a little more violence, who was to blame him?

“How can you be-- partially albino?” he asked, mind swimming back to the basic level genetics he was taught in gradeschool. “Aren’t you just-- white?”

Alexei Ivanov