K_S
Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
- Partners
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Chapter 2: Mechanics of Profit
"Stop drumming your feet boy, it's undignified."
"Yes, sir."
The boy stilled his feet with a sheepish smile. That smile was met with a glare. Realizing his mistake the boy of eleven sporting wild black hair and warm black eyes dropped the gesture and regard. The hard black eyes of his sire turned away from him, gazed at contempt at the world around them even if a curdle of satisfaction, of obedience seen, warmed him. Before both were two long wooden tables tangled with wires and flashing bits of metal. His Father might of found them dull they looked interesting enough, especially when a few of the more worn wires spat out false stars of electricity! A loud crackle snap drew the young boy’s regard to openly tip up and he leaned forward in his seat to better watch. He was taking a risk, he knew, in being curious openly… But he’d done enough in squelching his first impulse, which was to walk over and get a better look, and that was enough. He’d not be beat black and blue for this, there was media things coming soon and Father wouldn’t.
He did not see one of those eyes flick to him, read his interest, and glitter with scorn, previous satisfaction slayed.
Being the proper authority figure in the boy's life Raphael Giovanni did his best upon seeing the interest to crush it.
"Junk, toss off computer parts scavenged from the local trash heap."
The child knew the hidden rebuke, that the media would not be enough. So he rehid his curiosity by looking at the sun warmed hardwood floors intently until he could keep his face still. Pleased Raphael let his gaze drift to the watch strapped to his wrist, and once time was read he drummed his fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair and looked around the room in building anger. He'd have been less pleased could he pick out and see the defiant strain that tainted his son's thoughts. How he’d tipped his head just so he could see, if from the corner of his eyes. Because there was a wonder of what a scientist could be building with nuts, bolts, bits of computer chips, and all those other wonderful things scattered around. Looking up the boy stared at the strange orange thing in the wall, frowned, and greatly daring tugged on his father's sleeve.
"D- Sir, what's that?"
Raphael would pound him into next week if he made the mistake of being a child and calling him Dad, hearing the small lapse the man considered doing just that, but decided to answer the question.
"A telephone, unlike the one in my office you cannot see the person speaking, it only carries the voice of the speaker."
"Oh."
"It's primitive trash, only the poor use them."
"Yes sir, only the poor use telephones."
Seeing his lesson hit home Raphael drummed his fingers against the arm. They had come ten minutes early; the door had been left open for them. They were early yet in Raphael's eyes the wait was proof that the man sent to make this “fair” and “proper” was incompetent and lazy. While hardly asked, the boy thought it wasn't fair exactly, and it gave a lot of time for looking around. There were books, books everywhere. All the walls that could hold them did. All the book shelves were stuffed, books were piled on top of the shorter bookshelves, and the subjects weren’t the monotonous tomes of history and finance that filled his Father’s library in Viridian. A hodgepodge of titles and price stickers, mythology’s kept biology texts company, it was a surreal sorting system that seemed a little mad, only unified by the fact the most texts had obviously been on sale at the time, and bore their discount stickers proudly. While it looked as his father called it 'tacky' he liked it. It may look sloppy but it was a change from the pristine organized and stifling world elite he had come from.
"You would think we were poor fodder, I refuse to be this uncomfortable."
Storming across the room the elder of the Giovanni's took a rolling cushioned chair, was he… no he took it for himself. The boy dared not sigh with regret, he’d been eying the glossy thing with it’s padding since they settled in… But hadn’t been caught at that, and emboldened he’d let his roving attention linger with the table and it’s do-dads and been caught. So for survivals sake he didn't say he wanted.
Because the Media wouldn’t be enough and wanting wasn’t worth it.
Shifting in the hard chair, since he was going to be here a while, and since his father wasn't paying him much mind now that he’d resettled, the boy looked to the plant right by his chair. It was a small plant, he'd never seen anything like it. It was green with veins of red and gold, a tab about it’s stem was in an old language, the form and slant was similar to the fancy names you found in animal books, but what it meant meant nothing to a boy barely able to wrestle with Kalosian much less the dead language of Latin. He reached out, stroked one of the leaves, and the leaf bobbled up and down at his touch, near recoiling. It was springy, but it wasn't plastic, and he reached a bit harder to hold it and… it sweated under his fingers.. He smiled, released, tapped it to feel it recoil under his touch, and it wiggled away, near fearful, in response.
"Do you remember what I told you?"
"Yes sir." There was almost a pulse to the sap, and it was sweating a peculiar sweet smelling sap about his fingers. He traced the leaf’s vein to a miniscule slit and teased the frond about it, no-color sap speckled with yellow dots dripped like dew from the cut and from the leaf’s edges.
Some juvenile spore attack perhaps?
"Fighting or earth, and if he has neither then just pick something and I'll give you a real pokemon when we head back."
"Yes sir."
"What are the only virtues, boy?"
"Strength and monetary value are the only virtues in a pokemon."
"In anything." Raphael corrected. "To have attachments beyond that is?"
"Weakness."
Attack or not, weak or not, the stuff was gooping up his hands, the boy scraped a hand down his pant leg, forgetting in that moment the handkerchief in his vest’s breast pocket. Huffing, perhaps in bemused attachment elder turned to consider younger idle spite twisting to backhanded compliment.
"Maybe you aren't as worthless as I thought."
Just in time to see the boy recall cloth and dab at his fingers. Sport forgotten but obvious. The man growled.
"Stop that, you are a Giovanni!"
And never mind distance, it was easily crossed. The hand descended and the boy’s ears rang from the hit. He knew better to cry, he would be hit more if he cried.
So he never cried because he didn't dare.
“If you don’t clean yourself to an immaculate standard you’ll have to use your mothers makeup kit come tomorrow mornings interview.”
To that threat Leonardo Giovanni flinched into himself, but his hands held steady and he worked as quick and quiet as he could, an ear tipped to the door, awaiting the inevitably of a return, and a witness and the inevitable end of said witness and wondered how the fall out of a murder would affect his journey.
X
A scuffle for the hall made Giovanni lift his head from its perch of knotted fingers and tension. A click got Persian to stop batting at the potted oddish spawn, hardly mature to be leafing much less have a bulb to scream indignation at being a cat’s toy....
The feline looked up from play, bemused at the muck and perhaps recalling too clearly Giovanni sent the cat back to the door with a gesture. He’d see the scratch post and figure how to clean his paws, or a piece of furniture before that point, Giovanni was indifferent, just wanting the cat to be gone just then.
He stood, approached, even as the voices on the other side did the same and settled into coherent babble rather than a murmur that’d pierced his… distraction.
"Professor, you shouldn't be walking, the doctor said…"
"Tracy, thank you for your concern, but I am well aware of my limits. You don't live to see my crotchety age of fifty three without learning your limits."
"Professor…" The boy sighed, "Let me get the…"
Door obviously, the knob rattled, and then curiously stopped.
"Tracy, I need you to go back to the fields and stay there a few hours. Spend some time with the Pidgy with his broken wing, he likes your company."
"Leave you… with him…" The boy sputtered.
"You sound like I was asking you to leave me with an infuriated Charizard rubbed in oil."
"Well, I'd feel more comfortable, there's something about him that…"
"Ah he gave you the cold shoulder I take it. Trust me my young friend, he won't hurt me, we've known each other a long long time. I imagine after hearing I was hurt he almost broke his neck getting here he ran so fast." An age roughened voice broke out into a laugh. "Just, to make things easier on him and me, allow me a day to myself. He is capable of taking care of me if I need, which I assure you from the stance given to me by years of experience that I am fine, and I don’t."
"But…"
"And if you could perhaps stay with Mrs. Katchem tonight, that would be the best for us both."
"Alright, if that's what you want."
"Thank you, well you best get going, I can handle on measly door on my own."
"Merow!" Persian had returned, which alluded to a swift attack being employed, or a piece of furniture being destroyed between here and the front door. Regardless the feline was back, and head butting his leg. To that piece of impatience Giovanni smiled slightly, allowed the armor to slid down just a little, and stood. It was mere steps, a moment to reach out, and he opened the door near under Oak’s hand. The older man on the other side widened his eyes in surprise then smiled, setting the lines about his eyes and mouth to scrunch into familiar budding patterns.. A smile was the norm for Oak, so much so it was carving permanent paths across his face as the years wore on. I’d been a curious progress to watch, from no lines, to hints of, to some, and he wondered, idly, as he stepped back, the inevitable consequences of time and his customary no-tell expression would reap him.
Tracy, greatly daring, stared at them both, doubt write in every line of him.
"Professor," Giovanni inclined his head, stared into those steel hue eyes that had nothing of the hardness of the metal about them. His experienced eyes flicked across the man, bandages were hidden by the red shirt and the white lab coat, but still he could see the path they wound around his elder's chest. More obvious was the cast around the left leg, and the crutches that were tucked under both arms.
"Giovanni, it has been ages."
"Indeed, boy, don't you have work to do?"
The boy named Tracy gulped and after an awkward squirm around his elder, wiggled out of the hall, past the gym leader, and ran out the front door. Never mind there was a back door not so far away.
"Please, be a little colder to my aid, I believe having a hall coated in ice would make things much easier on me. I could slide back and forth instead of hop."
For Sam that was a biting criticism, and to that Leonardo Giovanni canted one eyebrow up in a gesture surly taken as a rebuke, even if it were lukewarm appreciation for budding bitterness.
"Let us start again." Leo smiled his warmest smile. "Sam, it has been ages."
"Too many ages Leo; and you're showing some grey, it looks very dignified on you."
Leo chuckled, ran a hand through his hair self-consciously.
"Men in my family grey faster than most, though you should be the one to talk."
"Too much work." The older man ran a hand through his mainly gray hair, hints of light brown threaded the mainly steal hued. "Plus a twelve year head start on you Leo, I have an excuse." The last ended in a pained hiss.
"Of course," Giovanni decided social rank be damned, snatched the black rolling chair and dragged it to the older man. "Sit."
"I am fine."
"Sit." Giovanni glared, when he did so only the bravest, or stupidest, did not obey.
Oak wisely sat in the offered chair. Giovanni snatched the crutches, propped them against the nearest book shelf, then closed the door Oak had entered from. He stood over the older man, and they said nothing for a while, both absorbing the other's presence, tallying differences between now and recollection. The in person visits between them both were very rare.
XXX
"Sorry sorry… I didn't mean to be late!" A young man of twenty some years dashed through the door, his stained lab vest only held on by one arm flapped behind him. "Am I late… no wait you're early! Nice to meet you, I am Samuel Oak, and you two must be… Ah the Giovanni's right?"
A hand was offered and with a slight grimace Raphael gripped it in his own.
The younger Giovanni's enthusiasm made up for it. There was something about this man who bubbled happiness that made it a tiny catchy. Seeing his father's gaze on him he tried to muffle the interest and something flashed in Oak's eyes. He saw the suppression of emotion and let go of the young boy's hand.
"Normally I offer parent to go in with their children to see what pokemon I have, as becoming a Trainer is something of a family affair at this age…"
"I'll wait here, he knows what to do."
Oak rose an eyebrow, frowned just a tiny bit, then nodded.
"Alright then. Come along, this way young man."
The door opened and the younger Giovanni met his father's cold eyes.
Remember, his father mouthed to him.
Then the door closed.
"So…." The young man seemed rather uncomfortable by his lack of childish enthusiasm. "Do you have a name?"
"I have a name!" He flared, nose sticking up in the air in arrogance. "Leonardo Giovanni."
"Hmmm all I see," Oak pinched the nose and bought it down. "Is that you shouldn't do that too often, what if your nose is dirty?"
Despite himself Leonardo giggled rubbed his nose.
"That's a little better." The man paused in their slow walk to worm his arm through the final hole. "So why do you want to become a trainer?"
Leonardo blinked, father had said that the man would just hand him a pokemon, and that there wouldn't be any kinds of questions at all!
"Ummm well D- er Raphael's a trainer so I wanna be like him and be one too?"
"That sounds like a question, not an answer."
"Ummm…"
"I think," The older man looked at him strangely. "We'll both have our answers once we get down this long hall. I swear one of these days I'm going to get a Vaporeon and just flood this hall so I can swim down it instead of walk, much faster don't you think?"
Leonardo thought it over. It did sound a lot faster and fun too. "Blizzard, water it and then ice and you can slide real fast!"
"Now there's an idea, why didn't I think of that before?"
"Well…" Oak hissed as he hopped down the hall, there were little comforts in the greeting room, mainly there was no ice, and being a primarily earth and fighting type trainer Giovanni did not have the means to make ice sans Nidoking. And the poison type was not allowed indoors per his physiology that made him seep acidic poison when startled. "It's never seemed this long before."
"That's what you said the last time you were hurt."
Catching the pained tone Samuel looked up, stared at his old friend intently.
"Leo, you aren't at fault. The Rockets do what they will. They are lawless, selfish, and a complete sociopathic, organization. You can't save me all the time; and I'll admit I did lose my head a bit and did the stupidest thing ever."
"You, you are never stupid old friend." Giovanni tried to smile. "You read too much to be stupid."
"I bopped an Arbok on the snout with a rock when it had my leg wrapped up. Add to the fact that when a woman said your pokemon or your leg I said… well a few things I'm not too proud of."
"You cussed her out." Leo blinked. "I never knew you could swear."
"I'm surprisingly fluent in the profanity dialect I've had a very good teacher."
Leo chuckled at the reference to himself and Samuel smiled around his pain.
"I swear Leo, getting you to smile and laugh is like pulling teeth from an angry Charizard."
"You've made several mentions of Charizard's already, what new discovery have you worked out now?"
Oak laughed at that. "I'm as transparent as glass I see.” They paused at a door and Leo slipped about the olde man to work it open. It creaked, and the sound left both of them thinking of how to remedy it, one for stelth the other to avoid irritating the hypersensitive ‘mon nestled in the area who might be hearing it. A few steps and it was beyond them and the living room in all it’s book lined glory lay before them. And beyond that was the dun hued couch that’d preceded Leo’s time on the planet and been reupholstered more times than Oak could easily count. To the promise of ease, or at least resting his leg on elevation, the professor pushed for a bit of speed. Leo kept pace a step behind him, steading him over a bit of lopsided rug corner, then it was two hops and Oak was surveying couch and pillows atop it. “ No earth shaking discovery, not yet, but I'm making a study of the residue of their fire breath. It seems as if mixed in the ashes is large amount of nitrogen."
Thinking of a few raids, a few would be heroes, and one spectacular incident at Silph… Leo hummed, taking the crutches and setting them aside while Oak worked on his nest of sorts. "That might explain the larger explosion then scientists calculate that occurs when the fire breath encounters something flammable."
"It might, but I'm working on making it into a fertilizer. Nitrogen is actually beneficial to most floras."
"But to make it, wouldn't you lose a great deal of healthy land?"
"Thinking in terms of negative profits already?"
"I am a business man." Giovanni scolded in a tone that to others would seem a bit cold, to Oak who knew him well enough he could read the 'gentle' rebuke that it was supposed to be.
"Imagine using it on areas set up to be already burned to prevent over growth, they're doing that near Celedon and a few other more populous regions."
"Now that has possibilities…"
"I can hear you counting the money already, be quieter about it if you would, it can get deafening sometimes." Sam drawled, settling himself just so, then huffing a bit as the ottoman, which would have allowed for a truly comfortable sprawl, was nowhere to be seen.
"I'll keep it to myself." Giovanni smirked. "If you keep the mental squealing of, 'I finally found something new before Elm did in the last three years!' to yourself."
"I was excited," Oak said in a pained tone, deflating bit but deciding this would do, he settled in. "And how was I supposed to know it was two a clock at New Bark, or that you were even staying at that town? Or that you would be holding a board meeting at that hour?"
"Business does not have a decent schedule, an emergency cropped up and I had little choice but to gather the head of my staff over to tend to it." Nearby chair grabbed and set so he could sit more comfortable before Oak’s sprawl, business man considered professor with dark, unblinking eyes.
"Is it always business?" Samuel asked.
To that simple question Leo sighed.
"Most of the time, yes, it is."
"Has there ever been something that you didn't do for business?" Oak wondered more to himself then to Giovanni.
In response Giovanni pointed to his Persian, who seeing the lot of trainers were sited on soft things had purloined a pillow form somewhere and was tossing his “kill” down. He settled himself on the fluff and after a long kneed looked up expectantly, tail rising, for being looked down upon meant pets and the proper pose encouraged the thought. When none came he mewed, then sat. Oblivious to the tenor of the attention Persian cleaned himself, and Sam swallowed, considered Leo’s somber turn and nodded. It was answer, and truth, enough for one afternoon.