[attr="class","rapha"]“Yeah, I found her in Slateport. She’s really pretty. Reminds me of you-- the whole ‘frost’ motif, and everything.”

Hierba, to her credit, was stoically pretending to not notice the attention, hovering in place such as she was.

Raph, meanwhile, was busy lowering himself, one foot at a time, into his grave. He just didn’t know it, yet.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, not thinking, definitely not thinking, not at all thinking, but thinking about putting Mint’s streams on in the background as he shaved or cleaned up or worked out or just had time to kill. Thinking about hitting the donate button and the Pavlovian response of seeing Mint’s face light up.

His heart and his face dropped in the next two seconds after he realized what he’d said. “Uh, I mean--,”

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

[attr="class","rapha"]Herbie opens his mouth and makes a silent noise of dismay as Mint scoops him up, letting his head loll back in embarrassed disgust. But once he’s up there… hey. This isn’t half bad. He gets a very smart idea and changes tactics, snuggling his serpine head against Mint’s neck, feeling the warmth of Mint’s pulse against his cheek, and waggles his eyebrows-- such as they are-- at Raph, who is trying his damndest to not look jealous of a goddamn snake.

It doesn’t last long. Herbie is set on top of a stool, and he leans an elbow on the counter and continues to flash his smarmy grin at Raph, who is furiously scrambling eggs.

“I like how I look in suits, cheap as they are,” Raph says, “an’ the buttons come loose easy if someone grabs it while they’re fighting back.” He smoothes a hand over the cotton of his t-shirt in an unconscious gesture, palming at a chest pocket where his cigarettes would be normally.

“So what if it is?” he asks, turning around to plate Kalosan toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon, and sliding it over to Mint. “It’s a gift. It’s yours, now.”

Unfortunately, with all the cooking done, he has no respite from the fact that Mint is still talking about goddamn breeding, holy sweet god, is there anything else to cook? Focus, Dos Plumas, focus.

He catches Mint’s stumble but doesn’t say anything about it, not caring, really. If Mint wanted to keep his past a mystery, that was on him. It didn’t bother Raph at all. Honestly and genuinely, he did not give a fuck. What a body did was their own business.

“Did you, uh, breed--,” he manages to get the word out with minimal flushing or stuttering, thank christ, “all your Pokemon?”

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

[attr="class","rapha"]Raph wasn’t paying attention and ended up soccer-kicking the Seedot into the great unknown, accidentally.

Raph shaded his eyes against the sun as he squinted for the Seedot’s path. “Aw, shit. Right through the uprights. Sorry, little guy.”

Spots retrieved the KO’d seed and Raph tapped it with a Safari Ball.

[attr="class","raphatag"]safari zone - 1/4 - catching seedot

[attr="class","rapha"]Raph did not begrudge Mint his time away. The man had a life Raph wasn’t part of, and that was okay. He missed him-- a lot-- but he never got mad or angry. Just a secret, third emotion, somewhere between kicked puppy lovesick and empty longing.

One of his arms stretched over Mint’s shoulders, not holding, just resting, body shifting slightly to press closer together; the other was busy patting at his pockets trying to discern between cigarettes and-- ah, there. Pokeball.

Light flashed bright in the dark, catching off of the Frosmoth’s wings and reflecting like fallen stars. She hovered in the air, flapping gently, deep blue eyes catching the streetlights.

Raph didn’t know a whole lot about Frosmoth but he figured she was a bit bigger than normal-- the Pokedex said they were usually around 4 feet but she was closer to five, five and a half-- and… just a serene picture of beauty that he didn’t have in his life before now.

“I’ve named her Hierbabuena,” he said, leaning close to whisper in Mint’s ear, “Peppermint.”

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

[attr="class","rapha"]Herbie is torn. He would honestly rather die than scuttle over to Raph for safety. But the crusty looking stuffed toy Zabaglione is picking up looks really rather gross. Surely he’d already lost this round enough? He turns his slightly desperate eyed glare on Mint, nose tipped downward, tiny hands gripping empty air. You have no idea what I have to put up with, he seems to be saying.

“More like getting paid to throw out customers, once they become more trouble than they’re worth,” Raph says, stacking finished Kalosian toast on a plate and starting on the eggs. He can’t flip an omelet to save his ass so its scrambled all the way.

What Mint says next strikes something in Raph’s chest, so sharp his breath catches; he covers his inhale with the sizzling of bacon freshly added to a hot pan. It’s less general orphan trauma and more like Mint’s skipping twenty-six steps and rolling into a future where they’ve already been together, married, and divorced. It sounds so stupid in Raph’s head that he laughs, loud and genuine, because how pathetic could he possibly be?

“Naw,” he says, moving away from the stove to finish mixing Mint’s drink-- orange juice, peach schnapps, raspberry vodka, shaken and poured over ice (he uses a small wire sifter as a straining net)-- and push it over the counter towards him, “I want you to do all the work an’ then reap the reward with whatever comes outta that thing.”

Thankfully, Mint does explain himself, and it makes enough sense for the lizard part of Raph’s brain to calm down and go back to slumbering. Thank god, because he didn’t want to ruin breakfast by bending Mint over the counter and--

--“Uh, is that something you… liked to do?” Raph asked, returning to the stove and trying to summon enough propriety to stave off the horny demons. “Bree-- uh, daycare things. Before you came to Hoenn?”

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

[attr="class","rapha"]Raph blinked his bleary eyes at the off-yellow shape snuffling under a berry bush.

“I didn’t think Pikachu was on the-- the menu, or whatever,” he said, confused.

Spots rolled his eyes and struck the Mimikyu with air slash. There was the sound of a bone breaking and its head lolled over onto its side.

“Fucking-- wait, what?” Raph’s brain was finally starting to catch up to him as the little, yellow shape swung towards them.

Spots beat back a shadow claw with another air slash as Raph hurled a Safari Ball at the Mimikyu with decisive force. “Christalive, this thing is creepy.”

[attr="class","raphatag"]safari zone - 2/4 - catching mimikyu

[attr="class","rapha"]Figuring it was time to get back to work, he ashed his cigarette against a boulder, exhaled his last lungful of smoke, turned, and--

--immediately tripped over something small and heavy, toes aching from where they’d jammed up against the Roggenrola. Cussing and swearing, Raph rolled himself over to glare daggers at the little thing, while Halcyone cackled and shreed in Fearow laughter.

“You sonofa- c’mere!” He wrestled a Pokeball out of his pocket and chucked it in anger, and was surprised when the Roggenrola did not re-emerge.

“Hm… maybe it’s not very smart?” he wondered, once the sphere had rocked its requisite three times and not opened.

Halcyon clacked her beak. That makes two of you.

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

[attr="class","rapha"]Raph didn’t even notice the Nickit hiding in the tall grass. Spots did, though, cutting the greenery down to ear-level with air slash.

Raph looked down as the little fox tried to hide, ears pinned to its skull, and shot it with a safari ball at hip level before yawning and carrying on.

[attr="class","raphatag"]safari zone - 3/4 - catching nickit

[attr="class","rapha"]Raph’s sense of pride was always at war with his overwhelming desire to make himself useful and willingness to make a buck. Being sent as an up-jumped go-for to pick up a package from Rustboro for the boss fell safely in the middle of ‘things he felt fine doing while also pissing him off just enough to bitch about’.

He stopped on the way to have a cigarette, giving Halcyon a brief respite from his weight and allowing the Fearow a chance to preen and rest.

[attr="class","raphatag"]solo wild - rock / fairy / dragon

[attr="class","rapha"]There was a balancing act to their rhythms, bouncing back and forth between periods of planned excursions versus Raph just showing up and surprising Mint. Usually when Mint had gone AWOL and Raph was nearing the end of the rope he very adamantly insisted did not exist.

This was one of the former, where they’d settled on a date and an activity-- dinner on the town proper and then hanging out-- and, criminally, Raph was having such a good time that he’d almost forgotten the point of it all.

They’d posted up on a bench in a park near Mint’s apartment complex when the lightbulb went off.

“Oh, yeah, I wanted to show you something.”

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

[attr="class","rapha"]He was still really sleepy and almost didn’t notice the Yamask. It swung low out of a tree and nearly brained him with the little etched piece of stone it carried. Raph swatted at it as though it were a fly.

Spots cut its dark body with an air slash and had to bop Raph in the shoulder to get him to throw a Pokeball.

[attr="class","raphatag"]safari zone - 4/4 - catching g!yamask

[attr="class","rapha"]He scrubs a hand over his face, tired and sore from a long night and little sleep. But his stupid ticket’s got a fuck-off early entry time and if he doesn’t show up then, it’s forfeit, and he’ll have nothing to show for it but one-hundred bucks in useless pieces of paper.

“I didn’t even get to eat breakfast,” he bemoans, though what he really means is have his morning cigarette.

Spots, perched on his shoulder, flutters his wings in mock sympathy.

[attr="class","raphatag"]safari zone - 4/4