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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?!

---

prompt: win at least one carnival game.

This was crazy in and on itself.

There was a merry-go-round of nothing but legendary Pokémon, and although ‘Enamorus’ wasn’t there, he almost laughed his face off when he saw the brothers three—or at least, familiar-looking visages that resembled the other two (he was more than certain that there was a bird-form Tornadus there) and made like an overgrown kid to ride the danged thing.

Of course, he wasn’t expecting to find a familiar face among the other ‘riders’ that had taken a trip among one of the ‘safer’ carnival attractions out here.

“Hey, Josh!” he waved from his perch on (unsurprisingly) the Therian-forme Tornadus. “What brings you all the way out here? You’re never away from Mauville!”

---

prompt: ride the merry-go-round.

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Having come from the caramel apple stand and holding two caramel-dipped apples (one had extra chocolate, which he was biting into) he then heard a familiar voice.

“There you are!” he exclaimed as he made his way over, fighting through the crowd of people that were swarming the area to either get food, get souvenirs, or fall in line for the rides—or all at once, really.

Once he’d arrived, he handed her the other caramel apple to take.

“Here you go, I got you a caramel apple,” he offered her. “Can’t miss these, they’re really tasty.”

He the chuckled at the ‘baby holder’ that had a curious little Riolu strapped in it.

“Aww, cute!” he tilted his head in the Riolu’s direction.

---

prompt: offer a carnival treat to someone else.

Count on his words failing him at that exact moment—what was that interjection the Galarians loved spamming… oh, right. ‘Bloody hell’!

(Not that he’d ever hear Guillermo Marceliño saying it but then again, hearing him actually saying it would be hilarious!)

“I am so sorry my mind just decided to clock out of the building!” he continued, embarrassment coloring his face as he remembered. “You see, uh…”

He looked around.

“Give me a few minutes, let me just get that Wooloo balloon.”

One quick exchange later, he returned with aforementioned Wooloo balloon trailing behind him. It was at this point he remembered what he wanted to ask her.

“Oh, right! Do you… do you do autographs? I’ve been trying to cobble together a gift for… for someone and I wanted to surprise him with music stuff. Th-that is, if you don’t m-mind!”

Great, Alex… just great.

---

prompt: buy a balloon Pokémon.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t so hot with that… Magikarp Fishing mini-game booth over there…

How many paper nets had he ruined just trying to catch one?! Well, he knew that if Guillermo Marceliño was there watching him, the other would’ve literally schooled him in the art of winning things from said carnival.

(As he personally maintained: all of the booths offering prizes were a fucking sham! Honestly! They were rigged so bad!)

So now here he was, wandering around (surprisingly, without his boyfriend beside him because well, the other was most likely trying to prove him wrong that the booths weren’t rigged and all that) alone, and had spotted what he thought were balloons—

Aw, none of them looked like Phione. But one of them looked suspiciously like a Wooloo…

Before he could even approach the seller and buy a balloon off of them, he saw a literal explosion of pink, and—

“Oh, hello!” he began, waving with one hand and shaking the other. “Wait, aren’t you the—”

Count on his memory to utterly fail him right then and there. However, he was more than certain she was one of the musicians on the rise in the region, that was certain!

---

prompt: reference a magikarp fishing game.

So he’d found a… okay, that was a shocker. An actual Clamperl.

(Wasn’t last year’s goal a little different, though? Or was his perception of the passage of time so fucked up he was getting shit mixed up already so soon?)

Either way, today was another day to dive—so what would he find next in the churning, dark waters of Slateport Beach?

Down for a quick dip with just one floatie on an arm!

(That was silly.)

He idly wondered what and how his boyfriend would think if the other saw him here… trying his shit luck again at the dunk tank.

Because he could honestly swear, the last time there was a dunk tank around he would always end up missing the throw!

So was this like, making up for lost time?

“Sorry!” he yelled as he threw the Pokéball-sized baseball with as much force as his noodly arms could muster.