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Georgia Cross spared a sidelong glance to one of her oldest friends, and long time girlfriend, Burgundy Merlot. She should have known that Burgundy wouldn’t take Cilan’s death well. Though the two had a rocky relationship ever since they had first battled, she knew that Burgundy had loved Cilan in her way.
Georgia quietly wrapped an arm around the maroon haired girl as the fighting at the front of the church grew louder. She winced as the normally quite Cress Troccoli spat another hateful comment at his parents, about his green haired triplet's death, Chilli glaring in the background. As their mother began another fruitless attempt to calm her oldest son, Georgia’s mind drifted to an earlier conversation.
Burgundy had been nearly hysterical in the wake of Cilan’s death. Georgia had watched silently as her girlfriend raged around the house. She hadn’t been able to awaken that amount of emotion at Iris’s death much less Cilan’s. Maybe it was because she had never felt as close to Cilan, even after years of shared dinners and functions, maybe it's because the animal part of her brain would always view Cilan as competition for Burgundy, and Iris would always be the lover who lit every part of her being and burned her out in only a month or two. But maybe it was the little voice the the back of her head whispering that Cilan’s death, and Iris’s too, had been a long time coming.
With a sigh, Georgia hefted herself from the stool at the breakfast island and walked to where Burgundy was in the process of furiously chopping vegetables for who knows what, grumbling to herself the whole time.
“I know it’s hard to think that Cilan is-”
“Don’t you dare!” Burgundy snapped brandishing the knife in her hand. Both women froze for a minute eyes wide, locked on the knife, before Burgundy stiffly placed it on counter. “I’m … I’m sorry.”
“It's fine,” Georgia murmured wrapping Burgundy in her arms. She forced herself to shake off the memory of Iris in the same state on the other end of a videophone screen, telling her how the broken bodies of Ash Ketchum and his loyal Pikachu had been found at the base of a cliff.
“We’ll get through it…”
“Will we?” Burgundy grumbled pulling herself from Georgia’s arms and returning to her aggressive chopping. “You said that about Iris, and- and Cilan, and now,” she punctured the end of her sentence with a particularly aggressive chop.
“We did what we could for them Burgundy, and, well, that's it,” she concluded lamely, shifting her eyes away from the other woman's tense form.
Burgundy continued violently chopping the vegetables as Georgia stood awkwardly behind her. Eventually she finished and dumped them into a pot of boiling water, before taking the cutting board and knife to the sink.
“You know,” Burgundy broke the silence as she turned the water on. “They had another of those reports on earlier today?”
Georgia’s brow crinkled in confusion as she leaned against the countertop. “Which reports?”
As she glanced up, she was met with Burgundy’s fuchsia eyes boring into her own. “You know the ones,” she intoned before returning to the dishes.
Georgia continued to stare at her girlfriend’s back for several minutes as she tried to puzzle out what the other was talking about.
“Wait a minute,” Georgia exclaimed, realization Dawning on her face. “You don't mean- are you talking about those shitty cult rumors they trot out every few months!?”
“And what if I am?” She countered, shutting off the tap. “You can't tell me they didn't know it was coming! It was plain as day in their eyes!” Burgundy snapped, whirling to face Georgia.
“So what if- So what if they did? It doesn't mean they were part of some crazy death cult led by Ash Ketchum of all people!”
Burgundy tilted her head, observing Georgia for a long moment. “Maybe I should have known that a-a dragon buster, or whatever it is you want to go by wouldn't be able to properly observe someone and their motives, but there was more to that Ketchum boy than you saw.
“Don't you remember how fanatical they could be over him? How they would drop whatever they were doing when he even blipped on the media? Like they were waiting for a signal?”
“They were worried about him, they were his friends!” Georgia snapped stepping closer to the other.
“Ha, like they would do the same for us, and that little coordinator we met, Dane? Dede? Whatever her name was, she had the same look in her eyes,” Burgundy countered, stepping to meet Georgia.
“And where are they all now? Dead and buried, just like Ketchum and all of his other little apostles.”
The two women stood in the middle kitchen, glaring at each other, for a long minute.
“You were always a shitty connaisseuse” Georgia spat, breaking the silence. “But it looks like you finally beat Cilan at something.”
A look of shock followed quickly by outrage flashed over Burgundy’s face. It's soon began to color, making the woman resemble her namesake. Just as Georgia began to expect another screaming fit, the other turned on her heels and stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her.
Georgia was ripped from her memories by a shout at the front of the room. As her mind reacclimated to the present she realized that quiet, demure Cress was now demanding his parents leave the funeral, like they had apparently left their sons so many years ago.
She sunk further into her seat as the possible headlines flew through her head. It turned her stomach, but she knew? Deep in her bones Cress’s ranting would add more fuel to the conspiracy theorists claims. And as her eyes once more landed on Burgundy’s drawn expression, she couldn’t help but worry about where that path led.