K_S
Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
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AN:
Author's note/Salutation:Welcome to the edited version of my Villiantine's prompts. As it says on the tin, there be editing... as well as some dividing. My frantic note storage made the O.G version a nightmare to read, so I'm splicing them up into standalone pieces and re-releasing so anyone who wants to read my most recent work can skip a migraine.
Enjoy!
Villains-tine prompt, a book/reading
Part 1
Summary:
It started as an idle day in. Trying to ignore Mother Nature's temper tantrum and pass the time. It ended with the discovery of a long-abandoned scion of the Sakaki bloodline. Other traumas are also revisited.
(where my situation/character notes for Antonio Sakaki, as well as other Sakaki's from Giovanni's family, are converted into narrative form)
Content warnings: Racism, criminal activities, established adult relationships, discussions of a pandemic,
Grace and Giovanni had, during the start of the day, taken a view of the world beyond their Forest-side home, and the consensus was mutual. No way in Hell were they going out. The normally blue skies were slate grey. Lightning snapped its electric fingers along the cloud banks like a Capo making death threats. The air was thick, and the wind hissed among the forest branches at a pitch that forewarned of a probable power outage.
The ground types were sheltering among the rock garden. Digging familiar trenches to prevent overflow from flooding their dens. The whole battlefield in his backyard was a crazed mess of tunnels set up to divert the upcoming overflow. Each scrape honed claws, so all the better for him. He ignored the looks his team canted up, cringing first at the sky, then at him. They were vetrens to his methods, and knew they weren't going to sit this out in their pokeballs unless it became a hurricane level threat outside.
It was one of the few downsides of having a trainer who believed whole heartedly in survival of the fittest.
Watching the subdued panicked excavation from the dry, sheltered, span of his porch, he only spoke up once. To warn Sandslash from the waterline, Giovanni waited until the spiney critter filled the tunnel and started working away from the house in safer soil. Content the rodent wasnt going to flood his house, Giovanni took a long sip. Least his 'mon note his frown and tear into the sod with too much enthusiasm.
'Queen was going quite a bit slower than her norm. She, he decided, would need a check up. After all the ground 'mon had set right his training grounds.
But that was tomorrow Giovanni's problem.
Today's finished his cup, left them to it. The consigliere, owed no man, 'mon, or Capo anything worth going into that upcoming downpour for.
So he went in, and let his lessers wallow in anxiety and wet both.
When the downfall came, it skipped Meowths and Growlithes stage and jumped right into the Persians and Arcanines. The Sakaki's had indulged intimacy with a childish twist. Lazing in a comfortable twining of flesh, pillows, and blankets that might have resembled a pillow fort in a certain light. Granted it was one build on a king sized bed...
The fireplace was set, going full tilt, and commandeering the place of honor previously held by the alarm clock was a tray of odd and end snacks and two cups.
The finest Cinnibarian blend was their favorite brew, though each had radically different opinions on what to put in it.
Hers was spiked with cinnamon, his with a splash of vanilla and cream. Indulging further weakness, and braving drafts and cool floors like a madwoman, Grace had indulged nostalgia further. She'd left him to slip into the attic. A quick root around, and she'd came back with some books from her old things.
Though books were a generous term.
They squeaked through existence on the merest of technicalities. There were the requisite covers and pages, everything was glossy, glaringly so. If there was a word to encapsulate them, "shiny" would have been in the top four spot.
Godawful gaudy and would have covered slots one through three.
Following the trend of irrelevance, the collection was more pictures than words.
She'd laughed at him and asked if he'd never seen a school photo album before. Then nestled into his arms, boodle in tow, she decided that his "no" was an invitation to catch him up.
The awards and titles doled out to the smiling children had baffled him. How they'd been decided, their merit, was a mystery. And her explanation, that they didn't mean anything at all, left him bemused. What was the point of it then? Some of the alien wordplay were references to old pop culture, and Grace had declared him "too young to be this clueless," and that at a later date, she was going to "catch him up".
She chattered about familiar faces. Friends, acquaintances, that weird kid in the back row... It rolled over his head, an idle storm, but he perked at the word rival.
"Welcome back," she'd snarked, then returned to reminiscing about her grade school days. And mildly rebuked, he paid her more than half a mind.
He supposed there was some charm to be found in a preadolescent rivalry that had been boiled down to "They'd been at each other's throats", with informative tidbits of "Little Ms. Perfect Wannabe had wanted to be a trainer". And that's all it'd taken to get Grace on board.
Because "Ms. Perfect" was the meanest girl in the second grade, having a thing for pulling Grace's hair. After one stinging assault, Grace had decided that she was going to be the best trainer Viridian had ever seen.
Spite had carried her through rigorous training. Getting her first 'mon, a Meowth, and permission to battle at a stupid young age, she'd been eager to get out and train.
One scratch attack later, because meowth weren't shy in slashing up their trainers, Grace decided that rivalries were stupid. She was going to run a 'mon petting zoo. Soft, fluffy, not bite-y things, were more her speed. And training, and trainers, could go rot.
Except Giovanni, because he was her special exception...
And Andre, because that man and that man's charmeleon were inseparable.
How that ambition had changed to nursing was quite the mystery.
He'd poked and prodded, and Nurse Grace Evens let slip none of her secrets. In tones, one was told about the bird types and the beedrill, she drawled out her sarcastic tale that was more snark than informative.
There was this fun thing called a "medi-experience share", and when someone equipped with that was passed a "degree stone"...
"For the last time, that's not how stone evolution works." Giovanni snorted. "So should I fear death via cancer per a surfeit of evolution stone radiation?"
"Only if I had gone into radiology." She countered sweetly.
Thunder rumbled above them, the windows rattled, and cradling her close, he considered what of his past he dared share. Because the lightning strikes were getting closer together and he could feel her heart hammering under his touch.
Grace's brave front would not hold forever.
For him, vulnerability and history were a calculated risk. He weighed truths to lies, and settled for a sanitized middle ground. Wheeling out a rather pedestrian tale of his childhood.
It was a mild defilement of old memories, all done for the sake of providing Grace a distraction.
He confessed he hadn't gone to school. His childhood was a thing peppered with just enough education to avoid sbario attention. The second they were able, the elder Sakaki's had pulled him out of academia, and tossed him at every apprenticeship they could. Some were of a mildly illegal slant, and odd jobs were at odd hours, which meant he never got to interact with kids on a normal schedule that weren't tied to his familgia. While he was deliberately vague, one of the shady gigs he expanded on. It had been a spat of plumbing jobs at what he'd suspected to be a mob hideout.
"Between frat boys and mobsters, I'd be hard to say which had the worst habits."
"Well, I'd say you avoided the worst of both worlds, you know the perks of taking a good shower, and you're living on the straight and narrow."
He snorted a laugh, and Grace considered something, one of her fingers tracing a path up his arm. Her nail was not cutting sharp, but a pleasant prickle along the circular scars that'd been Zio Sal's neglect more than anger. "So where's your coat of arms, Mr. My Family's Been in Existence for Centuries?"
"The tacky old thing with the white blob that's supposed to be a mew stamped on it? I wrapped my mother in it for her funeral shroud and burned it all."
"Gio!"
"In my defense, it was ugly as sin."
"Seriously! You could have given it to a museum or something, not indulge in some... history... deleting... arson kick!"
"Seriously," he chuckled, "it... doesn't exist." He deserved that pillow to his side. "I think Nona might have something like that, somewhere, but I wouldn't know what it looked like. Or could care less. It's an off-mainland treasure if it exists at all. I'm not passing it up to a mainland region, much less one as anti-Italian as Kanto."
"Alright, but you have to have something like a photo album, right?"
The no he uttered sounded lame, even to his own ears. He frowned in confusion because he knew lies. And this felt like a lie, even though he hadn't meant it as such.
Mind reaching back, through the years, he remembered that first plane ride to Nonas as a little boy. There'd been an endless seeming book, the old Madam drilling him on names and dates for the whole five-hour flight... He hadn't touched it since. But it'd been among her things, and perhaps he hadn't thrown it out...
Discharge met wind burst just right; the resulting racket sounded downright apocalyptic. Lights flickered, making Grace curl into him as the faux night's shadows spawned into impenetrability.
Before worry could set to roost that something was down rather than rattled, light returned with a staticy flick.
And the alarm went off, because it always did whenever there was a blip in the power grid.
"Fuck, Arceus damn it!" She was quicker than him, and closer. Digging the clock out from under the bed by its cord, Grace slapped the mute button with enough force his hand stung in sympathetic pain.
Unfortunatly Grace had hit the temporary mute button. The clock howled to life as soon as she set it down and pushed it away. The resultant tug to rip on its power cord from the wall and kill it for good was more than understandable. Even if the violence of her doing so had him half up and lunging to save the tray. If he hadn't they would have had a shit ton of laundry to deal with.
"I hate that thing."
Perversely enough, it was hers. Alarm clock and complaint both. Any attempt to replace it had been met with resistance as she swore it was the only thing that got her up after a bleed eye shift.
He'd pointed out that she could just not take those shifts anymore. She was her own Made woman. Why play these games? She'd rattled off her standard excuses. Obligations to coworkers preferred patients with special needs needing stability... And when he was unmoved, she told him to shut up. From the set of her shoulders and the pointed glare as she shoved the unplugged monstrosity back under the bed, he knew not to push his luck.
Between her mood and the aggravation of modern technology, another round of "why keep it?" would wind up with him on the couch.
"Do you think there's... like a... Zapdos up there who's done the 'mon equivalent of hit the sultry music, got his girlfriend over, and they're doing love loops or something to make baby Zapdos over our heads?"
That was an image for the ages.
But realistically?
"There's not enough discharge going off for one Zapdos, much less two," He ruled. "The last Zapdos sighting off of Vermilion left miles of molten rock, blasted everything taller than a blade of grass, and people went deaf from the thunder. I guess if you need a god 'mon to bitch at... Palkia?"
"HIS Pearlescent Embessary of Space isn't supposed to be petty enough to be moving choice bits of sky matter to scare us, mere mortals." His chuckle made her rib him. "Alright, fine, I'm spooked, Mr. Unflappable. You're fine. And a troll, but that's how I pick them." She huffed. "The TRIO is supposed to be better than that." She flinched as the lights flickered again. "Not that I'm saying HE might get bored occasionally. But..."
"Maybe it's Pikachu season?" He wondered. Taking the opportunity to get her to curl into him. She steadied in his arms, distracted and comforted.
And that finger was back to tracing, swirling around one particularly thick scar by his wrist. Her strokes slowed as she spoke.
"You're the trainer, not me. Are they?"
"No idea. There are almost nine hundred of these pain-in-the-ass, god-mode capable critters. And you want me to know what gets them in the mood?"
His mind... might be lingering in the gutter a bit today. But with the thrumb of thunder rattling his bones, her warmth, and proximity, it was a recipe to put him in the mood.
A kiss-nip on her shoulder got her to tip her head back with a smile and hum. Her wordless acceptance of his offer of distraction was met with him pressing kisses along her jaw and down her neck. As he worked, her nails continued their patterns along his arms in feigned indifference.
Feigned, because he could feel and hear the uptick in her breathing and pulse. Her muffled, throaty chuckle was sweeter than any Persian's pur.
And her hand was busy. Her nails scraped along his skin in a distracting pattern.
Was she writing something, or doodling? He couldn't tell, but the feathering touch and its attendant edge made him want her more.
With a blistering crack, the lights gave up the ghost. He snarled a soft oath at God because it figured. Spite done, for now, he shifted his grip. Loosened but close enough to be present. He was not going to take advantage of the claustrophobic dark. Because he knew Grace's phobias.
His once coaxing motions turned to steadying. He twined their hands together, interlocking their fingers to still their tremor. Curling so he could press his head into her back, between her shoulders. He felt her shiver in his hold, as thunder spit and snarled above their heads.
He slowed his breathing, humming a familiar tune; his calm cut through her panic.
She followed his lead, no longer on the edge of hysterics, but definitely not happy.
"Sorry... sorry... it's so fucking stupid... I know it's just thunder..."
Distraction. Her panic flicked a sympathetic twinge of nerves over him, and he grabbed the first idea he had and ran with it.
"I'm scared of Garchomp."
She stiffened in shock. Very much aware of the old saw, of a Sakaki never admitting weakness.
And perhaps she wondered where this was going.
Honestly he was wondering himself.
"One of the strongest 'mon in the ground type genome. Why do you think I don't have one? During a Rocket assault," he needed to edit this, quick, "its off the official records..."
It was sloppy as shit, was what it was. But the floodgates were open. She could hear that familiar inflection, a breathy rush that told of his control giving out. He loosened his grip because while she might pick and scratch in her terror, he had a habit of crushing whatever was under his hands. He'd not hurt her. Unfortunately, letting her get free meant that she could turn to him in concern. Coward he was, he closed his eyes as he continued.
"You know I get called in to help with rabid mon?" He felt her nod. "It wasn't feral. It was augmented. This splinter cell of Rocket had gotten hold of a berserk gene, a god complex, and decided to start End Times."
He swallowed and recalled his doctor's advice. That sometimes those horrid things you saw tumbled out, and that if he was safe, to let it.
Here and now, there was nowhere safer. But that didn't mean he didn't feel regret in indulging.
"Pitch dark room... this biped thing that was all spines and soft sand sloughing off. You couldn't breathe when it was near. All you could hear was hissing. That's it, no footsteps, and you couldn't scream. You choked. Everything was muffled. It was twice the size of a man, almost as broad... and it made this awful raspy chitter. It was... talking to itself while it killed. Raving. Tearing through men and 'mon, croaking, "So hungry."
So very hungry.
They both shuddered, and Gio swallowed.
"I'm sorry, it... I was going to make light of it but..."
The truth had tumbled out. A dangerous truth that was almost totally uncensored.
"It happens." She poked him, and he cracked open his eyes. There was nothing but affection undercut by concern. "Gio, the doc said this is going to happen. You had a messy time, we both did. And you," another poke, "bottle things up. That's bad."
He huffed a wordless nonsense noise that he let her decide the meaning of.
Her arch tone and prod told him she was suspicious but she wasn't calling him out on his bullshit, yet.
"You letting it out is good. Is it going to make a mess, yes. Do I care, no."
A look of horror slid across her face, and Giovanni braced himself.
"Seriously, Gio, in all truth... You have nothing on that last super flu. My first year in Scrubs, I thought I could handle anything. And then this mutation moseys out, and it's a real killer. Most of my patients got cramps so bad they were immobilized, a few older folk got broken legs. It was like something from the Dark Ages. There were relentless fevers, and everyone got sick. Young adult, old, child, they just staggered in vomiting... You want to talk about a mess?"
Her tone warbled, a ghost of old suppressed hysteria trying to come to the fore.
"The first round of symptoms was cramps that could snap bones, and add on unrestrained vomiting, and diarrhea. It lasted for seventy-two hours in mild cases. People were coming in with bone bruises, immobility, and were utterly desiccated. We needed an all-hands-on-deck until they were able to modify the vaccine. Everything smelled and tasted like vomit." She swallowed back remembered nausia. Her fingers feathered up his chest, as she used the touch to remember she wasn't there.
That it was now, not then.
As for him, he hadn't been in the Regions. He'd been trapped off the mainland by sheer chance. A famiglia meeting that had been meant to last days, and been nearly half a year per that illness. Being trapped among the swarm of Sakaki's had been it's own hell. He'd ran his affairs remotely, been basically untouched, but he'd lost enough men, lost enough revenue, to know the damage was bad.
Grace's narrative added a fresh hellish skeen to the disaster he'd missed out on by sheer happenstance
"You burned your clothes at the end of the day... And it was damn virulent. You saw the quarantine scrubs, the whole body covering?" He nodded, the news had been controlled but not that controlled. He felt her resultant shiver. "I hated those, not because you got bruises wearing them. You did, everyone did, that wasn't the problem. It was with all those layers you couldn't see anyone. The person next to you could pass out mid-IV. And you wouldn't know why. You'd be left scrambling between a panicking patient and your peer. Not knowing if it was sickness, or exhaustion, or just some older practitioner's heart just giving out from stress."
"That happened." Her voice was tight, old loss, familiar pain at some mentors passing. His hands ran soothing patterns down her back, she let out a shutter sigh. "During the worst, the beginning, when they were yanking doctors out of retirement, the stress would peak and.."
Silence, while both stared unseeing into empty space.
"I know its not a Rocket monster from hell, but it's a sort of proof, you know? I've seen and done things. And if I need to, I can do it again. So... don't hold back. Not for my sake. I'm not glass, I won't break"
Giovanni sighed and repeated the tired mantra for days like this.
"Sometimes it comes out," Then he pecked the top of Grace's head, both a thanks, and an apology. "And I get the sentiment. Thank you for trying."
Lightning rumbled outside, a crackling slash that made him wonder if he shouldn't go to a second-story window and check for two Zapdos going at it.
"I'd really like to get out of Stephen King's head now." Grace whimpered, stiffening against him.
"I could see if anyone in the extended family could arrange someth-" She really was abusing that poor pillow. And him. He'd of felt ill-used if she'd hit, but somehow she managed to miss. He wrested the softness from her for himself, tucking it behind his back. "A simple no would have sufficed."
"No mob jokes."
"You know. Ah ah," his mild scolding kept her from ripping off the sheets. Well, it was her own fault that she was out of pillows. He'd made quite the nest and wasn't budging. "Let me finish... I think I do remember something. Madam Sakaki," Because he'd never lied about what his mother was, Grace was very well aware that his mother had been Kanto's Capo de Capi. He'd had to swear on everything sacred to him he hadn't inherited the title, that she wasn't marrying into some evil Saprano's knock off.
Rocket, not being a monarchy, didn't believe in members inheriting thier rank. So it hadn't been a lie when he told her he wasn't anything like his mother. Either in rank, or personality...
"She had an old picture album,"
Really, if the lightning didn't let up, he was going to poke his head out and see if some stock horror villain was nattering about bringing a cadaver to life...
And if there wasn't a better sign, a better atmosphere to fit the mood, he couldn't think of one. The beginning of a horror film, and Madam Sakaki, the ideas fit together like a hand in a glove.
"I can't guarantee "no mob", but I can promise most of them are old enough to be safely mocked without fear of retribution. Most of them likely being dead..."
She gnawed her lip, outre morals wrestling with boredom and fear. Finally curiosity pushed through, giving her enough wiggle room for her to hang her scruples. And perhaps indulge in gossip against old mobsters centuries dead.
"You have a deal."
It was the best one he'd gotten all week.
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