'Petals'
City Bird's powerful Gust attack blew the unsettled dust into a frenzy, sending it all through the tiny window at the back of Shannon's attic. He and Heimdall were to do some cleaning up there, as years of collected items had piled up and Fuchsia had refused to set foot in that attic in the summer heat. Shannon coughed at the last of the dust, as he'd entered the room too early.
"HACK! KOFF! Thanks, City! I think we'll be fine from here!" He told his wife's Pidgeot, who cooed loudly and flew toward the window, squeezing her large body through it. She was off to enjoy the beach, her duties fulfilled. Kiwi and Heimdall proceeded to search through the mountains of cardboard boxes and storage crates. Anything that could be salvaged was to be donated to the Pokemon Center or kept, the rest would be fuel for a bonfire on the beach at some point in the near future. Heimdall's Poke'gear kept the tunes flowing as they worked, sorting everything they found into three piles of organized chaos.
Occasionally one of them would run across something familiar and announce it, and they would reminisce about whatever memories the item possessed. Heimdall dug up one such item: a denim jacket with patches and holes all throughout it. He could hardly believe it. It was like seeing an old friend after being apart for ages. "DUDE! I FOUND PETALS!"
"WHAT? Surely not..." Kiwi exclaimed in disbelief. He hadn't seen Petals since before he'd left for his Badge quest in Kanto. Could it really be? Heimdall threw the denim at his brother, and sure enough, this was the jacket in question. He sniffed the fabric, deeply inhaling the smell of incense and cigarette smoke. "It still smells like the old me!" He chortled at the thought of more-than-a-few-years-ago Shannon standing on the shore by Goldenrod, smoking the last cigarette he would ever smoke.
"Check the pockets for anything you might have stashed in it and forgotten..." Heim suggested.
"Perhaps when we're through here. For now, I'll put it downstairs." He ventured down the stairway, soon returning with ice-cold sodas and Lemonades. Before too much longer they had bagged up all the throw-away items and neatly stacked up all the keep and/or donate ones.
"So, let's see what I left for myself..." Kiwi spoke as he dug through Petals's many pockets and secret stowaway compartments. Each new item filled the men with nostalgia: a bracelet made from Heimdall's guitar strings that Shannon had broken the time they'd met in the Ilex Forest, a bag of Dragonair scales he'd found in the Dragon's Den in Blackthorn City, a lyric sheet for the second song they'd ever written ('District 12'). He even found an old bill of prize money his brother Morgan had given him years ago.
Something he felt in the very last pocket made him pause for a long time, feeling the item through the heavy denim fabric. "No..." He whispered as he dug into the pocket and pulled out an item straight from his nightmares. Heimdall was curious, as he couldn't see what his brother was holding. "Hey, let's go down to the shore, dude..." He decided aloud as he tucked the mystery item into a pocket of his jeans.
Heimdall followed his lead, and the two brothers left the house and walked through the city until they reached the shore. Olivine City remained much the same as it always had been. The Lighthouse illuminated the sand and the sky this particular summer evening with its spinning beacon. Jasmine had just left there, tending to the Ampharos that provided the light's power as she usually did, and waved at the guys as they walked toward the shoreline.
The ocean was beautiful by the fading light of the sunset dipping behind the horizon. Of course, to these two, the ocean was always the most beautiful thing they could lay their eyes upon... Except perhaps food. Both of them and their lovely wives could cook up something fierce.
"So, Shannon Kiwi, what item could possibly have made you SO nostalgic that you had to rush down to the shore without even showing it to me?" Heimdall asked once his curiosity got the better of him. Kiwi's face darkened a bit, but he shook it off and pulled the awful item from his pants pocket. Heim could see it perfectly now, lying across Kiwi's palm.
It was a deck of playing cards, a Helioptile drawn on the front of the box.
Heimdall's eyes opened impossibly wide at the sight of them. He'd only seen them once before, that time in Mahogany Town. Kiwi had bought them in Lumiose City, Kalos, for the woman called February Stars, and he had mistakenly (or so he always said) packed them with his things when he left there. Of all the games the two brothers had played, they never used this deck.
"Wow..." Was all Heimdall could say. His brother chuckled.
"I thought I burned these with everything else of hers, in that fire we had on the hidden beach south of Goldenrod. I don't know how these got into one of Petals's pockets..." Kiwi lamented, gazing at the tiny box of cards. Naming his jacket after a Vile Plumes song had blessed and cursed him, and this must have been one of the curses.
"You must have hidden them away before that, and forgotten when we lit that fire." Heimdall mused. Kiwi laughed at the thought, and at himself for being so sentimental. He pondered what he was about to do. This was his last memory of her, someone he never wished to see again. Severing ties was never his strong point, but he had grown past February and Lumiose many moons ago. He had Fuchsia, Vengeance and the radio; what did he need with anything that caused him to think of HER?
He threw his left arm up and backward, nearly hitting Heimdall before noticing he was that close. Without a second thought, he thrust his hand forward and tossed the cards into the air, watching intently as they soared into the horizon. They landed a fair distance out, splashing into the water to be forgotten forever.
"Goodbye Lumiose, and Gaara... and the girl with the bright red hair that I never knew in the first place..." Kiwi spoke. Heimdall grinned at him.
"Well...THAT was a thing! A thing CERTAINLY worth the walk down here, I'd say." Heimdall told his brother, reaching a hand forward and ruffling the taller man's long brown hair.
"I think so, too, brother. Now, how's about something from the Cafe' while we're out? My treat!"
"OOH, they have Casteliacones for half-price this month, part of their 'Taste of Unova' promotion!"
"Sounds amazing. Anything but a Lumiose Galette. Those things are awful!"Kiwi laughed as the two of them walked back toward the city. The Cafe's lights welcomed them warmly as they walked in and ordered two delicious ice cream cones.
"Oh yeah, so let's never tour in Kalos... IF we can help it." Heimdall noted between licks of his delectable dessert.
"Agreed." Kiwi replied, just before 'Counting Petals' by the Vile Plumes came on the restaurant's radio and took over both of their minds.
This would make a great story someday, Heimdall knew, and he and Kiwi would never tire of telling it.
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((A/N: This story was hard for me to write, but I was trying to write a song and this came out instead. This story was inspired by my best fish preparing to move away two years ago. As we two and a couple friends rummaged through the greater part of his possessions in an attempt to lessen his load, since he would be taking a bus ride and they don't let you pack a whole lot, we stumbled upon a denim jacket he'd loved. It had a Shakespearean name, I seem to recall.
He found all sorts of items inside it, stuff he'd even forgotten about, but among these was a deck of playing cards. These cards reminded him of someone I would sooner not talk about, even though I only knew them secondhand for a very short time. Anyway, he threw the cards away from him, though they didn't end up in the water because we weren't near any water.
Among all the other somber feelings I was feeling in that month or so leading up to his move, also getting the residual feelings from that whole surprise was especially difficult for some reason. Trying to write lyrics about it failed because I'm such a schmo at writing lyrics most of the time, so eventually I thrust it upon my Parasect's characters. Because I'm Evil, apparently. I'm still getting feels just from writing this note. Anyway, lots of great things have happened in the two years since I wrote this monstrosity, so let's not dwell on the bad.
This marks the last of the Parasect's related media I have at this time, but I've been so inspired by revisiting these fics that there will probably be more in the future. Catch you all next time, I guess. Thanks for stopping by! ^_^ ))