Memo set a little pastelito at each grave, and next to it, a carnation. While it was more likely a wild Pokemon would come along and scavenge the sweet pastries, he liked to think it was the meaning behind the offering that would soothe the souls here.

It didn’t take him too long-- the graves were all rather new, the soil around them still soft and loamy. He was careful to not tread directly on top of them as he went back to their little picnic area, set off away from the burial sites in a place dedicated for gathering.

There were no bodies below them, was the important part.

“You doing okay?” he asked, coming to a seat on his knees. He knew Alex struggled with his fear of ghosts. “I really appreciate you coming out today. I made lots of good things to eat to thank you.” And to work out his guilt and conflicted feelings. But mostly for Alex.

Alexei Ivanov
autumn's ominous wind

☉

“Yeah, I bought, like, one of everything,” he said, setting down bag after bag of goodies. This was his first Halloween in Hoenn, after all; he had no idea how many trick-or-treaters they’d get, and he wanted to be prepared!

Also, he wanted candy for after, but that was beside the point.

“Oh, uh.” He paused to receive his kiss, then ripping open the sheet package and tossing it over the island. “If-- you want?” He didn’t sound very excited by the concept.

Memo still didn’t really enjoy carving pumpkins, and honestly, the idea of eating… the stuff that comes out of it? Yeck. But he liked the finished product, so he had to power through

Alex’s next comment caught him off-guard.

“I am?” he asked, blinking.

Alexei Ivanov
tricking or treating

☉

It was. It was a lot, okay. Memo hadn’t been to a real party in… maybe ever? And by ‘real party’ he meant one where you could actually think over the bass in the music. And it wasn’t in a bar. And they weren’t snorting coke in the bathroom.

Well. At least, they shouldn’t be.

There was a lot of anxiety, okay. He had a terrible, lingering fear that they’d get there and Alex would split off and go be social with all his other friends and the people who came to shmooze with him. And while Memo was normally extremely social and never had a problem making friends, he still wasn’t feeling entirely himself after the whole cyberspace fiasco.

It was… incredibly disconcerting, to feel like a stranger in your own body.

But his boyfriend was so fucking cute. And in makeup?

Yeah, he didn’t have a chance in hell.

“...do we have to stay long?”

He knew the answer, but still. He had other plans for the later half of their night.

Alexei Ivanov
this song has been stuck in my head since this mission came around

☉

Coming home to the door open and the living room in chaos was alarming, but it did add the final piece of the puzzle to the discombobulated texts Alex had been sending him all afternoon. Memo took a second to put things in order, grab Alex’s forgotten Pokeballs, and make sure everyone was accounted for.

Except not everyone was, which was the reason for all this chaos, to begin with. Alex must have been dealing with a real fright (or, at least, equal parts frustration and anger) to haven taken off from their flat on foot in pursuit of the missing Wooloo. Given that the man had enough birds to pick up every human being in Hoenn, it seemed, he figured Alex was continuing on stubbornness alone.

Memo was slowly starting to get a handle on his own panic, so instead of running off half-cocked he’d enlisted Paloma’s help in searching for his missing boyfriend. The fog was getting more dense as night drew closer, but luckily, Paloma’s keen eye spotted Alex after a brief search.

“Hey,” Memo called as Paloma set down for landing, “any luck finding him yet?” Frollo was perched on his shoulder, making genial chirping noises as Memo crossed the damp grass to hand Alex his Pokeballs.

Alexei Ivanov
ghost/psychic

☉

Alex, as it turned out, got invited to all sorts of parties. Being one of the longest-standing gym leaders in the Hoenn region would do that to you, Memo supposed.

The problems arose because now he invited Memo along, too, which wouldn’t inherently be a problem except for the fact that the entire scope of relationship experiences was new to him, okay?! So his soul was screaming be cute in matching costumes but he didn’t want to be overwhelming.

Plus, it was a charity benefit to be set aside for… whatever the fuck was about to happen with the Fortree Primal Point. Just in case anything did happen.

Also, the stupid teddy bear ears were unbelievably cute and, unfortunately, really doing it for him, which was distracting, alarming, and frustrating in equal measure.

“Is it too late to back out?” he asked, half a pout, staring down his eyeliner stick and contemplating another costume change.

Alexei Ivanov
this song has been stuck in my head since this mission came around

☉

As a child, Memo had hated pumpkin carving. The smell, the feeling of the guts on his hands, the fact that his family called them guts, the sharp knives that made him nervous… it had been overwhelming and awful and many tears had been shed and chanclas brandished.

But he’d loved the final product, the way they lit up with candles, and the shadows they threw over the front porch. Loved to draw faces in the dew collecting in their ridges in the morning while waiting for the school bus.

He’d been so busy, though, that the season had just… snuck up on him. That and, you know, there was an impending apocalypse looming all their heads. He’d been at the grocery store buying last-minute candy for handing out when he caught sight of a pumpkin display and had whiplashed between oh, neat, pumpkins to oh SHIT, PUMPKINS in point oh-two seconds.

As a result, bustled in the door with two of the biggest gourds he could find (an orange one for him and a white one for Alex) as well as a bag of carving implements and a cheap low-thread count sheet (and a metric fuckton of candy).

“We forgot to carve pumpkins," he lamented, hurrying to set up a carving station at the kitchen island. “Where did the time go?”

Alexei Ivanov
tricking or treating

☉

Memo had gotten quite used to not thinking about his home region, or his family, even in times of reflection. A veritable lifetime of parental abuse and general feeling of being replaced would do that to a guy.

But then Galar had gotten absolutely fucked up by Necrozma-- even more so than Hoenn, it seemed-- and the news had blasted across that sick fuck Maldacena’s digital screens.

Now, instead of a history of repressed sadness, Memo felt a distinct satisfaction at the presumed suffering and possible death of his nuclear family-- something he’d felt quite strongly at the time, given he’d been severed from his positive emotions. It was something he couldn’t shake, like a ghost in his own brain, and it always left him cripplingly nauseated and full of self-loathing.

He wasn’t the kind to celebrate at the misery of others. It was like a splinter, inorganic and festering in his skin. So antithetical to his own being that it immediately reset his subroutines and crashed him back to his basic programming.

He needed to do something. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to write or reach out. And, if they were alive, apparently neither could they.

Mt. Pyre was hardly their favorite spot for picnicking, but Memo needed to do… something. The mountain had set aside a section for victims of Necrozma’s attack in Hoenn who wished to be buried there. If Guillermo couldn’t mourn his own family, he could at least mourn for these souls-- and provide snacks for the lingering remnants of the ghosts that still clung to this side of the veil.

He’d poured his fricking heart out into enough pastelitos to feed Hoenn’s entire population and after dumping a metric ton of them off to a Slateport food kitchen he’d rerouted the remainder to Mt. Pyre.

There were other snacks, of course, and fresh bread and chicken skewers with grilled grapefruit and pasta salad and elote on the cob and an entire freezer section’s worth of chilled snacks in order to goad Alex into going with him. Which was asking a lot, Memo knew.

To assist, Memo’d enlisted the help of some of his Dark-types to be on guard duty, hoping their proficiency in defending against Ghost-types might keep Alex at ease. But he also didn’t want to piss off the ghosts in the cemetary that he was coming to appease.

It was-- it was kind of a cluster. But, to be fair, that’s kind of Memo felt his life was, right then.

A lovely autumn sky, warm but not too much so, spread above them; Memo spread the blanket in kind, then went to work with all of his restless energy to make sure the graves were clean and tidy. Sombra curled up in a comfortable pile next to the warm food, one golden-ringed ear twitching in her nap. Anita helped herself to a crisp, fall apple, slicing it into sections to eat, leaning up against a tall statue in the shape of a Gardevoir marking someone's resting place.

Alexei Ivanov
autumn's ominous wind

☉

Apparently, Alex’s definition of shit hitting the fan varied greatly from Memo’s because despite the other man’s best efforts Guilermo had a pit in his stomach that just would not go away.

The tension in his shoulders remained.

The air changed. The visible flood of Combee began to thrash, the buzzing kicking to a scream, as they tried desperately to make it back into the hive, throwing themselves willingly into the fire.

Praxidike cannot even begin to fathom the stupidity of the wretched, feathery creature she's been stuck with. She narrowly dodged that last Poison Sting and was on the move, zigging and zagging to avoid a barrage of stingers longer than the top section of her body. She wanted to pull up and launch an attack, but she couldn't sit still long enough for threat of being run through.

"ATTACK HER!" she all but screamed as she continued to play chicken with the venemous stakes.

Sibella lands briefly on the side of the hive, forcing a burst of fire down a hallway to smoke out any lingering bees.

Meat, Gabriel. Insects are also made of meat. Sibella managed to get out the scathing remark even as she was doing pirouettes and impossibly tricky aerial maneuvers to keep the swarm at bay. The Combee were undeterred, even as she and Gabe blasted them with flames. They no longer cared about the exterior interlopers and were being called to defend their queen.

Alexei Ivanov

☉

“Bats eat bugs,” Memo offered as a counterpoint, “so I’d say Fen is the weird one.”

He doesn’t recall ever meeting Fenrir, and if he had, it was only briefly. But probably, most likely, the Noivern would dislike him. It seemed like all of Alex’s old guard did, with the exception of Will, and Zelle.

He was fine with it. It was a little scary, sometimes, but mostly, he was fine with it.

Speaking of scary.

“Look, you two could bond over trying to eat things you probably shouldn’t,” he said as he gestured to the Salamence who’d been robbed of his own snack.

Sibella gave an excited chirp and lept into the air to chase down the Yanma, engaging in a tight-turning, breakneck-speed game of cat and mouse until she caught the insect between her jaws and brought it back. Memo zapped it with a Pokeball before she could even try to crunch it.

Freya rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, looking bored.

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

☉