say a little prayer for the child in me.

   yo. still around. been trying a couple times to make a proper come back here but it’s been hard for a lot of reasons. it sucks ‘cause writing is a great escape especially now of all times but I feel like that’s it, ya know? first lockdown here wasn’t so bad, the second was nothing really but the UK going into a third amongst the media just feeding us all of this constant negativity all the time I’m kinda losing all my shit man. I’m driven into a slump and it feels like it’s gettin harder and harder to swing back.

Nearly two years she’s spent on Galar, and trust her when she says she did try to turn her back on a lot of bad habits that had defined her for so long - successful in some, but others got worse the harder she tried. Smoking’s one of them. At minimum she burns through nearly two packs a day, but when the anxiety really hits? It leaves her lungs aching and feeling heavy at night and she always wakes up with the sour taste of used up tar on her tongue. For Rosie’s and Thursday’s sake she keeps it to herself, happy to freeze off her ass during the Galarian winters, but Rosie knows and nags until Max caves and promises all these changes she clearly can’t fucking make. But that’s always been the case between ‘em, and maybe that’s one of the many habits she shares with Guzma. How Max hates to admit it.

Standing here with him feels like a Déjà Vue - familiar and strange, comforting and daunting. Like she entered a door to the past, expecting to find a person she had learned inside and out, a life that Max thought she loved living, but instead she discovers that everything is turned upside down, painted in grey by the shadow of a man she thought she knew so well. It’s dizzying and leaves her fumbling for the next cigarette. Max’s lost count of ‘em but Guzma will find that she’s on her third already, while he’s still busy on his first, blowin’ smoke rings into the air. They may have shared this very same sight before, maybe even stood on the same spot. Alolan nights are best spent on the promenades and that’s where they have always flocked to before. The vastness of the ocean made the world outside of these small islands look so big. The dreams they’ve spun here, entangled on the warm sand with a blunt shared between ‘em, were even bigger. 

Her eyes track the wobbling rings of smoke for a time. She struggles against the pull on her lips, the promise of a smile, freezes her lips into a tight line instead because Guzma did not earn her smile yet. And soon enough, the urge vanishes, replaced by the familiar ice that always settles around her heart these days. Her throat bobs hard when she swallows against the tightness in her chest, to no avail, because it fucking hurts to stand together in such an intimate, familiar way. The silence between ‘em makes it worse. Max wonders if it’d be a better choice to break off this conversation and go home, maybe try it some other time, maybe never try again - but that would paint her as a coward. If there’s one thing she’ll never do again, it’s to cower to Guzma. 

Gotta leave it to him to really hold it together, though. The truth she’s laid out for him ain’t the only thing that she hurt him with tonight, but he takes it with little more than a clenched snarl and the need to tear off some stupid piece of filter. Does he know she’s watching him from the corner of her eye? She ain’t making it easy for him, but she’s got every right to be as difficult as possible, too. Still, she hears him out almost too patiently while her eyes take in the glimpses of artificial light sparkling on the horizon before they fall back on him. “You’re right, I won’t believe it. Because you know what it sounds like? A fucking excuse.” Narrowing her eyes, Max allows herself to dive into a memory that she was never quite able to shake off. 

“Remember when you fucked up that poor kid? The shit you said to me? I never took you for the junkie kinda guy, still dunno if I do - but she’s had you hooked on something. Still, it ain’t bugging me as much as the thought that you gave it all up for her, and it was the one thing you wanted more than anything else.” Weird, how she says all of this aloud now. A year ago she couldn’t even bring herself to think it. 

“That was the one fix you kept chasin’, wasn’t it? Until nothing else was good enough for you. I don’t even gotta tell you. The thing is, once things lose their value, they don’t become diamonds no more.” 

Her fingers snuff the stub out against the railing, its blue paint peeling off due to the humid and salty air, leaving behind patches of rust that look a lot like gaping wounds. She’s mindful enough to flick it into a bin next to ‘em before she runs her fingers through the short-ish locks of a hot pink mess. Though she’s grown fond of the pixie-cut, she has let ‘em grow out just a tad, and now the ends tickle the nape of her neck. A small weight’s fallen off after some of the more haunting thoughts were given voice. She can hear and see him shift and follows his example to rest the small of her back against the metal, but nothing could’ve prepared Max for the stunt Guzma pulls next. 

He’s right, she doesn’t want none of it. That’s why she’s staring ahead of him while cold sweat starts to shape little pearls on her forehead, while her body’s clenching up to the point it almost hurts. In the times they’ve left behind she would’ve broken out in laughter, ask him if he was gonna propose or something, but Max can’t laugh right now. And Guzma? He’s a fucking asshole who knows what he’s doing by putting himself into this position. 

Rain’s falling - when did it start falling? Max thinks she can hear the rumble of thunder in the distance, swallowing the stars and the moon she was so sure of seeing. Her side is throbbing and aching with Gala’s poison and her Pokémon are whimpering behind her. Guzma’s on his knees again, but tonight there’s no gun in her hands. When she finally looks at him, the same lonely emptiness she’s been chewing at for two and a half years reflects back. Is that what she’s been so afraid to see?

The thunder eases, the cries of her Pokémon are replaced with the gentle rush of sea breeze, and one by one the stars begin to gleam again. But the rain’s still there - until Max realizes that the wetness on her cheeks comes pouring from her own eyes. She can’t be fast enough to wipe them away, but the damage is done. Max notices that she has one arm wrapped around her torso, her palm splayed where an ugly scar stretches from hip to mid-rib. Guzma won’t know it’s there. Will he remember how he had planned to do much worse to the girl who loved him? 

“I’m done with this shit,” she pushes out tightly and finally shoulders her guitar like she should’ve done half an hour ago. “That was low, even for you.” Planning to leave him with nothing else on her tongue, Max turns for her way home - until an iron fist clasps around her wrist. Somehow, deep down, she knows it is the button that needed pressing. When she meets his eyes again, they are full of anger and the very fire that burns in her core as well. But they’re alive and human and desperate, too, aching for forgiveness that she may never be able to give. 

Her lips curl back when she slams down her guitar harder than she meant to, grateful that the case will cushion the impact, and then - then Max pulls up her shirt. Lets him see that ugly thing she’s learned to live with. Her heart is hammering in her chest, but her eyes won’t stray from his grey gaze for even a second when she finally answers his question.

“I see Guzma alright. But you wanted me to be real with you and here it is. That’s the ugly fuckin’ truth, and maybe you forgot but I didn’t. You were so ready to kill me that night. You nearly succeeded, too. And I?” A bitter laugh follows when she drops the shirt again, runs her free hand through her hair. “I was one step away from returnin’ the favour. I wanted to put you out on the spot for all you did to me, my Pokémon, Rosie. But I had the tiniest speck of hope left when I looked and saw a glimpse of the Guzma I knew. So, I guess one could say we’re even now.” The heat of his fingers burns into her skin, but Max makes no move to tug, to rip herself free from his grasp. Maybe that train’s long passed for her. Or she’s simply too tired and worn out to. 

“What do you want to hear from me? I won’t absolve you from your sins tonight. I don’t even think I can.”

   Right, a fucking excuse. That's what everything he'll ever say is gonna be, huh? The fact he expected to hear it don’t make it hit any less hard. Now ain't the time to carelessly throw out explanations for his actions if it's all sounding like nothin’ but an excuse. Guzma can't even argue with her on it anyway. Their time together's been like some twisted fairytale, and it’s too hard to look beyond blurred lines and tell the truths from the lies. That’s why Max is ready to start spilling some of the facts. When she calls him out on that crap he pulled with the kid, he wishes he could’ve seen it from her eyes. How he must’ve looked. Shit, he wishes he could’ve seen it from his own eyes. How that kid must’ve felt. Guzma knows. He knows, yet wiped the floor with him anyway. It’s picking away at his inflamed nerves even more that he cannot give her a concrete reason for why he gave up his entire foundation for somebody else’s.

          It all started with nothing, and it ended with even less. That’s her point.

   Everything he’s saying is an excuse, though, so what the fuck can he do about it? It’s simple, really. It’s a risk worth taking. Max don’t want none of it? That’s fine. She can struggle; he’ll struggle too. She’ll push; he’ll pull. He’s been through too much shit to let this go yet, not until he hears an answer from her. Needless to say, like always, she opts for the one Guzma never could have expected.

   He catches only a glimpse of it when she lifts her shirt. He has to close his eyes, snap his head away like some sorry mutt that doesn’t want to witness or face the scolding for what it did. There’s no avoiding it either way ‘cause behind the eyes, he sees Gala in a mad dash. Her careless flailing. Her claws drenched in her desperation. It didn’t occur to Guzma at the time how closely Max had stood. In such a crowded estate, it was like swingin' around a loaded gun. A Golisopod's poison can be potent and deadly to a human depending on its disposition, and Gala’s was anything but cordial. It speaks of Max’s will as a fighter. She still conquered against him despite all injury, and that causes Guzma to realise she might’ve been the strongest of them all along. His hands are no longer so tight against her. She should’ve pulled that trigger.

   I won't absolve you from your sins tonight. Guzma releases her, finally. I don't even think I can. And then releases a little something of his own. It starts with gritted teeth and his hot breath pushing out through the gaps before he roars out and sends his fist for---for the fucking trashcan right next to 'em both. His knuckles collide hard with the metal before he delivers a kick with all of his pent up aggression. Guzma nearly topples over himself as the tin can smashes to the floor, a streak of litter spilling out from its already over encumbered innards. It stinks.

   “What do I wanna hear from you? Ah, I'm ‘bout to go crazy on this little woman, man,” he mutters to himself, kicking at it once more for a last good measure ‘fore he swings around and stomps past Max and back again. He rakes his fingers through his hair and growls out some more. What’s it for? Scarring her? ‘cause this whole thing ain’t going the way he wanted it to? Maybe it’s a mix of both; all he knows is that ever since she opened her mouth this has been begging to get out. After Guzma’s tired himself out walking in circles, he slogs his way over to the other side of the bench and throws himself down right at the edge, swinging the direction of his body away from her. It’s time to breathe. Just fuckin’ breathe. Inhale, deep .  .  . 

   Hold it in for a moment, and exhale. Fuck. He shakes his limpened wrist ‘til the split knuckle quits stinging. No use. It never heals.

   “Ya know I never been good at this sorta shit, Max,” he sneers, fingers curled around his lips like he was anticipating another smoke to be there. Guzma needs something stronger than that. His other hand’s on his knee now, bobbing up and down where his leg bounces restlessly. “Ya do know it.” His sneer becomes an empty grin as he picks at the scruff of his chin. Is that the point she's trying to make? Rile him up, show to her he hasn't changed; give herself a reason to turn away? It's fuckin’ karmic, really. Maybe it’s how it should be, but Guzma refuses to allow things to be left at that. Ever since he knew she was back on his soil, he’d spent too many sleepless nights pretty much fucking rehearsing this moment. Funny thing about that---the show never goes on the way one expects. 

         Eventually you just gotta face it as it comes.

   “Think I’mma be the one askin’ that to you --- what you tryna get out me here, huh? You tryna piss me off? Get your boy all worked up so you can leave Alola feelin’ like you justified in---like you never wanna see my sorry face again? Fuck. Fuck!” He swipes his fist at the air again for no other reason than it feels good, leaves him burning with another volcanic sensation that has him back up on his feet in an instant. “Ya know it kinda does piss me off that you still act like you so much brighter than me,” he paces in front of her with steps heavy, daring to meet her in the eyes as he gestures toward his noggin. The raising of his voice inspires attention from a couple more nosy faces. One thing about Guzma and Max is that whenever they're together, everything else around ceases to exist. It’s comforting to know one thing certainly ain't changed.

   “I know somethin’ about you too, and it’s that you ain’t gonna bother with nobody if you ain’t interested in knowing ‘em. Yeah, ya actions speak louder than ya words. The Max I remember woulda turn my ass away first chance she got, but you still here. What’s up with that, huh?” He halts then, right in front of Max’s face. “You’re scared. You so fuckin’ scared to admit somethin’ makin’ you stay, ah? C’mon!” He pressures her. “You can finally take that shot!” Guzma points two fingers square at the wrinkles between his eyes, wanting to hear her scream out at him just like the night she walked away. 

   - After a pretty rough time in prison [context], Guzma is quite withdrawn for a long while after his release. He’s paranoid, generally keeps to himself and avoids contact with most people so as not to fuck up his probation. He stays with Plumeria in her trailer until he can get back on his feet and recover. Takes a long, long time for him to crack his first smile and a lot of encouragement from the various faces in his life, but eventually Guzma finds a happy medium between his old and new self.

   - Speaking of, Guzma’s mama, Leila, decides to finally hunt her son down after hearing of his imprisonment. Their first interaction since he ran away as a youth is during visitation. Her first words to him are a confession that she divorced from his father, and there begins a long and bumpy road to reconciliation. Guzma does love his mama. They went through shit together and got problems to work out, but he’s missed her and is willing to work at it for both of their sakes.

   - He’s learned to take his anger out in healthier ways---creating instead of destroying. Whether it is designing outfits for his side biz or scribbling angrily in a journal, it’s all better than lashing out at the world. Occasionally he will slip and boom there goes somebody’s furniture and oops now his knuckles are bleeding but it’s. It be like that sometimes.

   - As he begins to rely more on his personal clothing line for income, working with thread and needle sometimes for days without sleep leaves Guzma eventually rocking glasses whenever he’s doing something that requires long periods of focus. He’s not bugged by it at all and happens to think they make him look pretty dilf. Does he still wear his shades on his head even while wearing the glasses? Absolutely. #Swaggy

There’s a bench next to her. Good, she needs to sit the fuck down and find anything - anything at all to keep herself grounded right now. Leveling the guitar between her legs, she tries not to break the handle when she adjusts almost a little too much of her weight on it. It’s hard to feel connected to anything right now. The breeze, the smell of seasalt she can taste in the air, the screeches of Wingulls on the hunt for food, everything has lost its meaning, and she can’t even take much notice of the muttering voices of the bypassing youths who would otherwise remind her a lot of all the times she - they had roamed these streets at night before. Back then, not even a full three years ago, when they had found solace in the night together. When their lives were fun, carefree, easier. Before it all went to shit. 

Guzma’s saying all the things she expects him to say. Says ‘em because they’re rotting him from the inside, because he’s probably had too much time on his hands to think about everything he made himself lose. God knows what he’s been up to for the last couple years. Something cynical in Max feels surprised he has had made it out in one piece and briefly remembers watching him, alongside the president, fall from that wormhole on national television. It was the night she’s asked Rosie to cut her hair, vanish from his radar in case he goes lookin’. 

Amidst his heartfeltness, Max almost wants to laugh. Any douchebag could come to his conclusion, then shed some fat crocodile tears as a nice, clean wrap up of the bullshit he’s been feeding her - but there’s something about the way he’s holding himself that keeps her lips pressed together tightly. To keep listening. Max has had so much time to learn his body language, and to this day hasn’t forgotten to read. Like picking up a previously loved instrument, you don’t forget how to play it. 

And so she watches how his hands keep picking at any texture they can find. How they tear at his shirt when he tries to resist pulling his hair out instead, and how he gravitates forward like a beaten mutt waiting for another whiplash at the hand of his master. It’s not the regret in his voice she listens out for, although it sounds compelling enough and would tear at her heartstrings if she had any left. Something ‘bout the way he acts almost lets her believe his self-reflection is genuine. Almost. But Max would be foolish to fall for it so easily. 

                  ‘You the best I ever had, baby girl,’

There it is. There it fucking is, the slip-up that makes this girl flinch like someone’s smacked a hand across her face. She feels her insides coil like a pit of worms, cold sweat trickle from the back of her neck, legs urging to stand up and run out of his sight because it’s the one thing she cannot bear to hear. Not yet, not ever. Max hears herself whimper before she can even try to swallow the sound back. Gripping into the guitar until the wires cut into the flesh of her fingers, she hides her face away from his sight and urges her legs to finally move. Just fucking move, dammit. 

Fuck. They won’t budge, and Guzma - he ain’t done yet, either. Max doesn’t know if she can take any more tonight, though she wants…. really wants to say something now. He’s dropped his pitch, left her with the shards of his conscience, and she hates to admit that all of this really didn’t look easy on him. It’s new to hear him admit to fault. But, for all that’s worth it could be a motherfucking good act. 

The click of a lighter. Followed by a hiss, a shaky exhale. Max fumbles for a second cigarette, twirls it in her fingers, stares at the stick until she’s found her composure. In a fit of self-awareness, Guzma’s corrected his slip-up and, somehow, manages to look more miserable than before. Offers Max to leave because he got nothing left to say. “Gotta say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so small before.” Guzma’s got his back turned to her, but she’s finally regained control over her extremities and surprises herself by silently offering him that cig after a couple moments of a silent side-by-side. There’s no contact between them - Max makes sure he doesn’t touch her even when he takes the cig. She chucks the lighter at him before leaning against the railing, wishing she could appreciate the seaview. But she’s scrambling for words. There’s so much to say, but where can she even start? 

“You still in touch with the Prez?”, she never refers to the Prez by her name anymore. To be honest - in her opinion, she’s never been worthy of Max’s respect. Using her name has always felt like choking on toxic, volcanic ash. How she hates to admit she’s been wondering if he - if there’s still….. a relationship, or whatever the fuck it was, between ‘em. “I’m guessin’ she finally showed you that you meant absolutely fuck all to her.” Spite laces her voice, because for so long, her voice had fallen on deaf ears. All of ‘em had told him. Plumeria did. He never wanted to hear it. “Is that why you chasin’ me these days? Because it’s over with her an’ you miss my devotion?” Max doesn’t sugarcoat the admittedly petty truth of her own poison. Never afraid to lay it all out for him, no matter how much it’ll hurt his feelings. Let him hurt, a dark part of her claims. It’s the part who hurts up to this day. The part writing all these songs and finding a cynical satisfaction knowing he’s heard every. single. lyric.

She squeezes her eyes shut when the familiar burning reappears. There’s a knot in her throat while she reflects on everything Guzma has fed her tonight. She can’t doubt that he was being sincere, but…. isn’t it all a little too late? Even if he does realize what he has lost when she left, when he abandoned her for a different life, breaking Max’s dignity and taking the only thing that had mattered to her - from Rosie, too - how will she march through this desolation of losing all of her friends and family and the one fucking thing she wishes she had never loved? A night of talking will not fix the shards of bleeding hearts his damage has left behind. But, he made it clear he ain’t expecting that. A long, tense breath she’s been holding finally steals its way out. 

“To this day, I wasn’t able to tell anyone what….. what this shit did to me, y’know. I can’t tell anyone. The only way for me to process everything’s through my songs.” A cluster of Wingulls circle a fisherman’s boat in the distant sea. “And that’s just me. You don’t understand the shit Rosie’s gone through. They messed her up, Guzma. They messed her up big time, and that’s all I can say tonight. ” At last, Max turns around and puts the small of her back against the cold steel of the railing. “I swore to myself I’d make you feel like shit if I ever saw you again. To let go of all the pain I’ve been broodin’ on an’ make you feel just a piece of it. I wanted to hurt you back so bad, and now…. can’t do it. Can’t even feel happy to hear you’ve been struggling all the while.” Though, she must admit it’s hard to feel anything at all right now. She’s a fucking pro at suppressing her feelings when shit gets too painful. 

“I jus’…. all along, even back then, I couldn’t understand. And I still can’t. I don’t think I ever will. How fast you had changed, like, a switch’s been turned, y’know? You were cruel, all for the sake of appeasing her. Made me really wonder if you been playing nice to me and showed your true colours only ‘round her. Didn’t wanna believe it of course, until that…. that night. Oh yeah, I believed it then.” 

Fuck. The very thought of that battle will undoubtedly trigger nightmares tonight. She can’t bring herself to think of the horrors of watching her Pokémon being tortured at the hand of his madness, no matter how vivid the memory. The reason she keeps avoiding his eyes all the time is because yeah, she’s still afraid to catch a glimpse of it. But that’s where Max only knows the half truth of what had happened to him. 

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to hear what the fuck happened at Aether Paradise. This don’t feel like closure to me still and I dunno if… if that’s what you meant to find. Right now it’s too damned hard for me to trust the Guzma I saw back then, the Guzma who fucked me up so effortlessly, ain’t still hidden under all the regret.”

   He hears the click of a lighter and is surprised to peek back and find Max has read his mind with her offer. Is it really a surprise, though? She always seemed to know what he needed, when he needed, how he needed. Truthfully, her small charity ain’t the reason he’s thrown off. Guzma accepts it hesitantly, and looks upon the brand name etched in cursive along the paper. Heh. Magmaro. She always had a pretty shitty taste in cigs, just like him. Guzma snorts soundlessly as he pops it into his mouth, allowing his reflexes to catch the lighter she throws. He doesn’t thank her nor does he utter his surprise, because every word here counts. He knows she ain’t interested in niceties, the fake shit. Especially now that they can be considered equals. He cocks his head, sparking the cherry up beneath the cover of his palm. That first deep pull breathes euphoria into him. A stupid, nostalgic little kind. 

   He offers her lighter back, but then remembers how Max avoided his touch, and simply pitches it back on the bench before returning his weary eyes to the sea. There’s a ferry sailing away, and his brows pinch with envy. Now it is Guzma’s turn to listen, and Max's words cause him to reflect on the song she’d closed the night with. A certain line burns a hole in his chest just like this fucking cigarette.

              You’re not half the man you think that you are.

   That’s what she means ‘bout him being so small, huh? Though his back’s to her, his shoulders visibly stiffen up and he sinks into himself a bit when she mentions the President, bringing another of her lyrics to his reflection. She is the only thing you ever see. Once upon a time, as much as the both of ‘em hate to admit it, that’d been true. But now? Don’t be stupid, is what he wants to say. For whatever reason he can’t even mutter out his denial and simply shakes his head with it, mouthing a “no” that she’d easily miss if she wasn’t looking hard enough. Guzma hates this already. He wants to get angry. Break something. The cigarette’s filter will do for now. He pinches the end and rips it off, continuing to burn at it without.

   Blowing smoke rings is one of the many strange ways Guzma calms himself, and his idle hand traces them with a finger after he sends them out. The widening circle frames the Wingulls at sea. His features are surprisingly stoic for the things Max is telling him, because it feels like he’s heard some of this before. In voices and insanity, that is, but he’s heard them all the same. Would it comfort her to know he had suffered a millennium of punishments, or would it just hurt her more? Would she snap and tell him to fuck off for trying to make her feel bad for him? Maybe she’d think it wasn’t enough for the shit he put her, Rosie; everybody through? That’s fine, too---he’d do anything she asked him to right now. Point is, Max is still a tough gal to read. What Guzma once saw as fun in her’s become something that unsettles him.

   Until to hear you’ve been struggling all the while, it triggers something in him, and he grimaces as he fights an inner reflex. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know about the toxins. She doesn’t know about the regret as he collapsed over his throne seemingly for the last time, wishing he could take it all back and start over. She doesn’t know about the year ‘n a half he’d spent locked up. About Toruga. Just like he doesn’t know --- where’s she been all this time, huh? Did she find something new, something better? Is coming back to Alola merely just a nostalgic farewell before she turns her back and sails away upon whatever new wave she’s found? It always drove Guzma crazy, all the ways in which Plumeria would protect her from him whenever he caught glimpses of these letters, return addressed to Galar. Even just to fucking hear how she’s been would’ve eased some of .  .  . whatever this is. Now, Guzma understands why Plumeria---and everybody else---did the things they did.

   Maybe it’s because of their actions that Max is---she’s still here. Talking to him. He wants to be thankful for it if it didn’t leave such a bitter aftertaste. So he tokes it all away ‘til his lungs are burning for a release.

   “Maybe you right, y’know.” He lets his tracer hand fall back at his side and exhales a regular plume of smoke. Downstream it sways, taken with a gentle rush of sea breeze. Shifting from the harbour, Guzma’s eyes set into a daydream at the ground before his feet. “Wish I could tell you why I acted the way I did, but I don’t think you’d believe it. I still don’t believe it sometimes, ah? It’s .  .  . ” Rare it is that he wears long sleeves like he does now. The marks on his arms are only a fraction of the explanations he owes to her. “Truth is, I don’t even know myself anymore either, Max. Big bad Guzma? He’s a nobody. Always was.” Taking one last puff, he drops the roach on that same patch of ground and snuffs it out with his heel. “But there is somethin’ I do know.” He waits until she does the same before making his move.

   “A way.” Guzma drops onto a knee before her, putting her on the spot. No more looking up, no more looking down. Their eyes are equal now---his just a little lower---and he’s mindful of her guitar as he shifts closer. The Guzma she saw back then, huh?

   “Look. Fucking look at me. In the face. I’ma be real wit’ you if you gonna be real with me.” If she won’t, then he’s got no qualms taking her face in his hands and forcing her to despite how much she’ll act as though she hates it. He refuses to back down; has a feeling that’s exactly what she doesn’t want but needs. His eyes back then, they were white with apathy, blackened with corruption. Sunken, animal, lifeless. These that he looks at her with now---well, they’re no less hollow, but they’re clutching to life while she’s in it. The grey she knew, tinged with lavender when one looks close enough. It’s the subtle shade that'd taken Max almost an entire damn year to notice. He’d laughed at her when she finally asked him about it. Guzma remembers one thing, and that’s how much he enjoyed that there was still so much to learn about each other after all that time---even the littlest, stupidest fucking things. The monster he was couldn't cherish all the memories and ache to make new ones like he does now. 

   I’ve started playing the FF7 remake (fuck u Mary) and basically it’s gonna be my life for a while. Real talk tho I’ve been stressin myself over shit here again so I need to take a step back, clear my head and not think about Tumblr / writing for a couple days. When I return I’ll see bout putting a dent in my drafts (especially inbox, I see u guys sorry for takin forever). I’ll be around on Discord sporadically -- if you want mine feel free to hit me up through the IM thing.

“I know who you are,” he commented dryly with narrowing eyes that set themselves on the tossed keys.

The agent, naturally, had done his homework on Team Skull prior to arriving in Alola and during his stay here, he had personally grown more familiar with the gang. However, he was surprised that his first encounter with the leader was… so uneventful. This situation was quite mundane in reality.

“Nans? Oh. You must be speaking of Nanu.”

“I find it curious that he’d be paying off you of all people to look after the Meowth. Guess this is a way to make you redeem yourself for something. You surely look like you’re enjoying this good deed.” Of course, the statement was full of sarcasm. Looker couldn’t quite understand this scenario- mostly on Nanu’s behalf. It seemed unusual. 

Reaching into his jacket, the man pulled out his badge to display momentarily. 

“International Police. That is who I am.”

   “Ya hurt my feelings, yo. Last I heard, police don’t go handin’ out cash for community service or whatever you wanna call it. Nah, it jus’ somethin’ agreed between us.” Hmph, this dude must not know the Nanu that he knows. Figures---he looks too important anyway. 

             As it so turns out, that flashy badge?             Yeah, he actually kinda fuckin’ is. Shit.

   “So you a pretty big deal, huh.” The shift in Guzma’s gear is sharp, and he straightens his back. What biz would a suit like this have in Alola? Sure, his gang are notorious roughnecks ‘round these isles, but they ain’t exactly worth Interpol’s tender loving care. Well, maybe for a couple things, but those are things Guzma keeps under heavy lock ‘n key even from his own. 

        Right now, he only wants to sniff around; see if this’ll be worth a nod to boss lady.

   With watchful steps, the Skull King navigates the Meowth maze, which disperses when the Pokémon realise there’s no scraps awaiting this time. “Ain’t Nans ride with y’all once upon a time?” He takes a seat, makes himself at home by lazing back and crossing his ankle over his knee. “You the reason he been in ‘n out lately? Bad idea, ya know. No cops to keep us Skulls in check. Tsk, tsk. What you doin’ out here, anyway? Maybe we can help.”