Tori skidded to a stop on her bare heels. The humanoid figure in front of her was not Aiden.

It stopped thrashing and froze in place when it caught sight of her. The moonlight outlined two thick arms and glinted off a set of ridges along its skull. A Machoke. In the seconds that passed between them, she took in the two backpacks at its feet, a tangle of rope, and tiny mounds in the dirt that might have been their wet clothes.

"Did you walk into a clothes line?" she asked aloud, breaking the tense silence between them.

The Machoke took a step towards her. When she didn't flinch, it took another.

"Machoke?" It made a gesture, vertically up and down its torso.

Tori looked down at her bare self, then up at the Pokémon.

"Hey! HEY!" Hisoka and Bulbasaur slid to a stop behind her, finally catching up. "Get out of here! Bulbasaur, use your vines!"

Before Tori could intervene, Bulbasaur charged past. It croaked mightily and waved its vines high over its head.

The Machoke was startled by the display. It took a step back, then turned and jogged off into the darkness.

"Are you okay? Holy shit." Hisoka asked after her, but it was his hands that were shaking. Tori watched her friend process what seemed like a much more extreme scenario than she'd just witnessed.

Bulbasaur gave chase for a couple meters before circling back. There was a triumphant swagger to its waddle on the return.

It met Tori by the backpacks where she was pulling out a set of pajamas. Its vines snaked out and reached for their packs again.

"No!" Tori protested, but she was focused on struggling into an oversized t-shirt. When her head popped out the collar, she saw what Bulbasaur was up to. Using the backpacks as counterweights, it has strung their canopy rope across two tree branches. With care, it scooped her wet dress off the ground and tried to shake off the leaves and dirt that clung to it, before draping it over the taut line.

Hisoka drew up beside Tori, wearing his mostly-dry jeans and holding his sopping wet hoodie. She met his eyes through straggles of her still-damp hair. It was dark, but she could see their corners crinkling.

"That guy…" he began, grinning already at his own observation.

"Stop…"

"You just…" A chuckle slipped out, but he fought through it a little longer to wheeze out, "hAaaaaiiidennn!" and wave his arms in a mockery of her excitement before surrendering to the laughter. Tori cackled at his imitation of her.

"STOOOPP!" she groaned, gasping for air. The nervous edge to her laughter was gone. Relief and more laughter brought tears to her eyes. "Hisokaaaaaaaa~!" Tori shoved him.

Growing up in stuffy upper-class society, no one ever "really made" fun of Tori. They just told her flatly her failings and short-comings...or mocked her for them in front of tittering socialite peers. Critiques were serious and shameful.

Except from Hisoka. He teased her constantly. Not in a mean way, but in a way that made her feel seen. Like, if she dribbled water from her mouth while taking a drink, he'd be there with a funny, judge-y eyebrow, but also a napkin.

Their camp was just beyond Bulbasaur's clothesline. In her startled panic earlier, Tori had run right past the items they'd been looking for.

Meowth sat placidly beside the fire. When it saw them, it stretched out its front paws and gave a mighty yawn.

"Oh yeah?" Tori asked.

Meowth looked back at her, eyes wide.

"Did you have a relaxing time while we were running around?" Tori walked forward and scooped up the tiny Pokémon. She sat down on the bench and resettled Meowth in her lap

"Mrph," it noised in satisfaction, or maybe protest.

Nearby, Hisoka took a moment to praise his Bulbasaur. It had tried so hard to help, hanging their clothes, then leading them back to camp and scaring off a Machoke. When Hisoka opened the kibble bag to slip Bulbasaur a reward, Meowth's ears perked up.

"Certainly not, you sweet, lazy cat." Meowth's head tilted back in her lap until it was looking up into her eyes. Tori looked down into them for a long moment. "Ok, fine, you were very good and did not leave camp and stayed safe and sound because there was no real danger and your trainer just got all excited for no reason."

Meowth began to purr.

Tori sighed in exasperation, or maybe adoration. "Hisoka! Can I get some kibble?" She reached out a hand behind her. A vine pressed a few nuggets into her palm, then drew back. "Oh! Thank you, Bulbasaur!"

Bulbasaur gurgled in reply.

In Tori's lap, Meowth munched on the treat. She stroked the Pokémon lightly along its neck.

Hisoka flopped down onto the bench next to Tori. He bent forward to warm his hands on the campfire, then tossed in more branches from the pile next to it. He still hadn't put on a dry shirt.

"You've got a t-shirt tan!" Tori poked Hisoka's arm, a few centimeters above his elbow. Hisoka cringed and looked down at her finger, then pulled his arm away, placing his hand over the contrasting area.

"So?"

"So nothin'! I was just noticing…" Tori's shoulders rose up toward her ears and she shrunk back. She felt bad that she had made him self-conscious.

"Yeah, well notice that I didn't notice anything when you were showing off your...tan."

Tori sat with the thought for a moment, embarrassed into a rare silent reflection. The new branches crackled in the fire.

"That's true. ...I'm sorry, Hisoka." And she was sorry. She hadn't expected her comment to elicit the response it did, but she could understand how he might have taken it negatively.

It was a social swing-and-a-miss for Tori; an experience she was intimately familiar with. She wanted to give Hisoka that same feeling of being seen that he gave her... that perfect kind of teasing. But she sucked at it. She was awkward twice as often as she was funny. Or more like she was never funny, and her friends were nice enough to laugh sometimes. Really, she was mostly just annoying.

"It's from working in the garden at home." Hisoka suddenly had his arm in front of her face. It was obvious, from his slight tremor, that he was flexing his bicep as hard as he could while he showed her.

"Dang, Hisoka!" She thought he might like a compliment about his bicep, but she stopped herself. That was also a body comment, right?

Her reaction was flattery enough, it seemed, as Hisoka continued.

"Yeah, been a lotta haulin' stuff around, digging some holes. Abby is a lot less helpful with heavy lifting than she is with delicate stuff." He lowered his arm from between their faces.

The flickering firelight made it hard to read his expression. Not for the first time, she worried he might kiss her.

But he stood up instead and walked over to the food basket and the moment was over.

Tori cringed internally at the hubris of her assumption. If he said he was over all that, she should believe him.