[FIN] With nowhere else to go

[insidiousEnigma]

"s**t kid, what happened to you?"

That was about the fifth time he'd heard that since emerging from the alleyways later in the afternoon. "....I..." He coughed, wincing as his split lip cracked again. "I am looking for Jerome." He said quietly, ducking his head in an attempt to hide his bloody face from the curious eyes of the tattoo shop owner. "Tell him...Tell him Twitchy is looking for him." The large man nodded, opening his mouth to say something that he had no interest in hearing. "Just make sure to tell him." He snapped before hurrying out the door and into the alleyway where'd he'd met Jerome about a week ago.

...Had he really been out on the streets for that long?

The days had been blurrying, most likely due to the fever that was only getting worse. Letting out a shaky breath, Zacharie pressed the back of his hand to his forehead and flinched as the sleeve of his shirt grazed the still tender gash that ran across his face. "Fever rising...need Yarrow and sterile, hot water." He muttered, swaying slightly as another wave of dizziness hit him. "Dammit." He cursed under his breath as he leaned heavily against the cool brick of the tattoo parlor. If he couldn't find Jerome soon he'd have to figure out some other way to come across a sterile enough environment to make his medicine.

He shuddered to think about the jagged, painful gashes becoming infected.
Lucky enough for him the congealing blood seemed to be doing a fair enough job of keeping the injuries clean. He knew that wouldn't last much longer though.

"Shuppet!"
Jumping, the teen roused himself from his hazy thoughts to peer up at his oddly complacent pokemon. "...I take it you didn't find them." He said softly, pushing himself to a standing position. "Shup-Shup." Jabari circled him a few times, obviously worried, before nudging him down the alleyway. "Yeah...let's get back to our setup." Staggering, Zacharie let himself be led down a few short alleys and into a large, plastic crate he'd come across his second night out on the streets. "Shuppet....Shup-Shuppet." With a tired groan, he curled up in the crate. His legs didn't quite fit all the way in but at least it hid most of his body from view. "I'm...I'm just going to rest a bit." He mumbled, clutching his bag of various herbs and equipment to his chest before drifting off into a fretful sleep.  

[Blood_Goddess]

The owner of the tattoo shop knew Jerome of course, but like any of the other few number of people that Jerome knew on the streets, they had no way of contacting him, nor did they really know what he was up to.
Thus, the only time the tattoo artist had to give Jerome this message, was when the man had returned to get the finishing touches done on his tattoos.

"TJ, Someone's been looking for you." He called from over the counter when the shop door rang, and he looked up to see the dark skinned gangster.

Jerome stopped in his tracks halfway through the entrance of the building, dark eyes shifting up to the other man while an eyebrow slowly arched.
"Who?" He questioned cautiously and was answered with a hand being held up to indicate a height "a kid, said his name was Twitchy? that one of your names?"

At Jerome's deeper frown on confusion the owner could only assume that it did mean something to the gangster "Yeah, looked kinda roughed up, was asking about you, came in just last night to leave that message."

Jerome let out a sort grunt as he thought, glancing over to the side at Bro' who has his pointed ears slicked back, and one eye narrowed.

"Ya dealing agian TJ?"

"Naw," Jerome replied "Sorry man M'ganna have t'go." He told the artist "I'll hit ya up later."

He didn't get all that many days off at Team Rocket, so he didn't want to cancel this, but if the kid he had met before was in trouble, he wouldn't feel right just leaving him out there alone.
With a wave Jerome turned and left the building, stepping swiftly out into the street again and glancing to Bro as he reached to the belt that held his other pokeballs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the night went on, the city streets fell silent, save for a rare outburst of laughter of over exerted burst of testosterone arguments echoing off of the buildings.

Where Zacharie was curled up in the crate, there was a sudden deep and heavy vibration that could be felt, rather then heard. a massive white and gray metal creature glided down from the buildings, its four hulking legs tucked up over its body as a single red eye scanned from its white oval body.

"Grooooos" It hummed mechanically, drifting over to the crates where the red eye fixed in a pare of legs.
"Meta... CHRRR CHRR CHRR"
A series of three high pitched alarms was set off by the creature as it leaned in closer for inspection.  

[insidiousEnigma]

Zacharie stirred slightly at the shrill sound of his pokemon, a tired groan working its way out of his sore throat. "Jabari?" Dizzy and more than a little disoriented, he pulled himself up onto his elbows so he could peer out at the commotion. "Shuppet! Shup-Shup-pet!" Heart stuttering in a concerning manner, the teen took in the large, mechanical looking pokemon currently drifting a scant few feet from his hiding spot. "...J-Jabari...don't." He rasped, eyes wide in terror as he made a frantic, but weak, motion with his hand. The shuppet ignored him (What else was new?) and continued to float protectively in front of his human.

Wheezing in a decidedly unattractive manner, the teen curled even farther into himself and tucked himself fully into the crate. He'd never had a run in with an aggressive pokemon before, most tended to avoid humans, and was at a loss of what to do. He hadn't particularly trained Jabari to fight, he'd never really seen the need to. Fretfully, he ran a hand over his face and hissed loudly as he nails caught on the scabs, reopening the tentatively healing wound. He was too weak to fight off the pokemon himself, he knew that. His head was swimming just from sitting up and if he shifted even a little bit black dots danced in front of his vision. He wasn't entirely sure if Jabari could handle such a large pokemon and he wasn't too keen on trying to find out.

"Shuppet!"
 

[Blood_Goddess]

The Metagross shifted backwards slightly when a Shupper suddenly invaded its view, the eye glowing brightly as it let off the startled alarm again.


Now that she could see the Shuppet more closely, even though it was quite angry and defensive, her statement turned into curiosity, and the large Pokemon leaned in closer toward the Shuppet with a heavy "Wwoooomm" of magnetic vibrations. making the boxes around the ally rattle.

"Meettaaaa"

It didn't seem to have any intentions of leaving as it continued to hover and observe the Shuppet.
After a couple of minutes however, the Metagross' voice was joined with another much more familiar
"Gengar! Gar!"
The dark purple half glowing gangster pokemon appearing from no where over next to the Large white pokemon, arms at his side and eyes wide as he looked around, spotting Jabari.
"GEN!" He burst out pointing wildly at the other Ghost type.  

[insidiousEnigma]

Jabari held his ground as the larger pokemon leaned into his space.


The hidden teen let out a pained groan as the vibrations rattled his crate and jostled him along with it. His head felt as if it were going to split in two and he felt the distinct urge to vomit. At his pained noise, the Shuppet became even more defensive.


It was then that a familiar voice caught his attention.

He launched himself into the Gengar's personal space, his eyes narrowed angrily. Where in the hell had he been? His human needed help and he had the nerve to just disappear without a trace!
He screeched, practically vibrating with aggravation.

"Stop...please." Zacharie pleaded, clutching at his aching head. "Be quiet." Leaning heavily to his right, he toppled out of the crate and onto his side. With shaking limbs he managed to push himself up onto his hands and knees so he could shuffle a bit towards the piles of trash nearby. Coughing and sputtering, he dry heaved a few times before managing to throw up what little he had left in his stomach. Panting heavily, he spit to try to rid his mouth of the blood that had dripped down his face and into his mouth before it made him sick again.

"Shuppet!" The two other pokemon were forgotten for a moment as Jabari hurried to his human's side. "Shup-Shup." He nudge the teen as carefully as he could to the side so he could collapse onto the relatively clean pavement away from the trash. He could tell that the boy was getting worse. His skin was unnaturally pale and shone with sweat and he was bleeding again. His bangs sticking to his cheeks and caked with fresh and drying blood.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Bro' scowled lightly a Jabari when he floated up and glared, Though when Zacharie suddenly stumbled out of the crate and over to the trash Bro's eyes widened in surprise a hand rained up as he jumped up and smacked the Mettaross over the head <******** off ya hunka' Look what yer doing! Idiot!>

the Large pokemon chirped back in alarm, its large legs rocking back and forth as it tilted to look at Bro, then other to the boy who had hunched over out of the crate.<... shutting down.>

The large creature lowered its self toward the ground, its legs folding back down around its body as the massive weight was dropped onto them.
All at once the vibrations and noise stopped, save for the heavy grinding of metal on concrete as it shifted its legs.

"Over ya." A deep voice suddenly barked, causing the large red eye to shift upwards as a dark figure practically fell out of no where and landed with a surprising amount of control and lithe ontop of the Metagross' head.

The hunched posture lifted, black inked eyes peered through a drape of dreadlocks to find the boy on the ground in an instant, and the lean man stepped off of his pokemon's head, walking straight for where Zacharie was laying.
"The ******** happened?" He asked gruffly, kneeling down next to the boy.  

[insidiousEnigma]

Zacharie let out a shuddering breath as the insistent vibrating stopped and the alleyway became quiet once again. "...Thank you." He mumbled to the pokemon as he relaxed against the mercifully cold concrete. "Shuppet..." He felt his ghost pokemon nudging at his side, trying to get him to roll over onto his side, but he felt too heavy and lethargic to do more than shift his arm out from underneath his torso. "...Shup...pet." He shook his head minutely, wincing as he scraped his face along the pavement. "'M so tired." He mumbled.


Jabari shouted, circling the boy in a panicked manner. Nudging him every so often in an attempt to keep him awake.

It was then that a familiar voice floated through the haze of semi-consciousness. With effort, the teen cracked an eye open to peer up at Jerome through his parted bangs. "Hhh..." He breathed before licking his chapped lips and trying again. "H-Hot water...Yarrow...sterile room." He rasped, motioning towards the crate where his bag was hidden with a jerky head movement.  

[Blood_Goddess]

<********! ******** he's dyin'?> bro added to the panic, looking from the boy to the Shuppet <******** man what the ******** s**t did you two get yer selves into! He's dyin'!>
Holy crap the kid looked terrible, Bro' would know! Jerome used to be an enforcer, he saw all kinds of bad beat downs, but that sickly affect... that just took the cake.

'Shut up!" Jerome barked suddenly back at the two panicking pokemon, almost not catching what Twitchy had said over their yammering.
Jerome understood most of what the kid had said, he didn't know what Yarrow was though...
It raised a problem though, Jerome didn't exactly have any place to take this kid... And he couldn't just take him to the Tattoo parlor, not like this, and any contacts Jerome had wouldn't exactly be reliable enough to trust for long term.

"Bro' grab the kids stuff." Jerome said after a moment of lingering over the kid, thinking of what he could do, Jerome just had to do the best he could.

There was no question that Zacharie would have a hard time supporting himself, so Jerome reached down, putting a hand on either side of the kids side and helped getting him stood up.
"I've got s'm stuff back at m'ride, S'the best I can do Twitchy. C'mon, C'n ya get up?"  

[insidiousEnigma]

"Fever...Yarrow leaves...soak in hot water...make tea..." The teen let out a pained wheeze as he was lifted from the ground. It took him a moment to figure out how to get his legs working, but he managed to stand with the others help. "Bathe in tea...soak washcloth if no bath..." He instructed, his voice slurred. "Can't find...clean water. Disinfect injuries...bleeding." He mumbled, leaning heavily against Jerome's side.


Jabari exclaimed, circling the two humans worriedly.


Vision swimming, he let his head flop forward and closed his eyes. "Bag..." Again he made a vague motion towards the crate. He couldn't lose that bag, it had all of his most important experiments and rare plants. "Shuppet." Jabari muttered in an irritated manner following after the Gengar to ensure that the bag was brought along.  

[Blood_Goddess]

"'Aight kid, stop talkin f'now." Jerome said, he still just had no idea how this kid expected him to do all of this. He just had to get him back to the Truck, where he had some supplies and then go from there.
The kid would talk all he wanted there.

Jerome Turned around to make sure Bro was grabbing the things out of the crate, returning Turret back into her Pokeball so the large Pokemon would not get in the way and half supporting Zacharie as they went.

Bro' frowned as he bug the kids bag out of the box, looking at Jabari when he said someone hit him, though who that person was Bro' had no idea.
It seemed though it might have to wait since Jerome seemed to be already laving.
Bro' said, back peddling from his earlier panic.

Thankfully it didn't take long to get Zacharie back to the Vehicle he borrowed from HQ to get down here.
Popping over the back gate, Jerome lead Zacharie to sit down in the opened back.
"Sit." He grunted, "F'got some water, ya should drink some first." Jerome told him, leaving the boy at the back of the SUV while he circled around the the one of the side doors, opening it and digging around.  

[insidiousEnigma]

days! He's sick, he's sick!>
Jabari rambled, torn between immediately following after his retreating human and trying to explain to the other pokemon. He'd never felt this worried for the human before, he'd never really needed too much looking after.

Stumbling, Zacharie let himself be led out of the alley and to the back of a truck. He remained silent except for his heavy breathing and occasional pained grunt until he was seated in the truck. He tried to stay upright, swaying heavily as if on a boat, but he soon flopped backwards. He barely felt his head hitting the floor. He knew that couldn't be good, considering just a few minutes ago he'd had a headache. "Noticeable loss of feeling..." He brought a hand up and dropped it onto his forehead. "Fever dropped...or hands hot." He mumbled before threading his fingers through his hair. "...hands clammy. Fever dropping...likely due to bleeding." As hazy as his thoughts were, he couldn't decide if that was a good sign or not. He grew quiet again as he waited for Jerome to return.

Or maybe he was dreaming?
...Maybe he was dead.
If his wasn't real then he hoped he was dead. Not like he'd last much longer without help anyway.

"Shuppet...Shup." He cracked his eyes open again, not remember quite when he'd closed them, to look up at his pokemon. "...Thank you, Jabari." He muttered, noticing the Gengar had grabbed his bag.  

[Blood_Goddess]

As Bro went to move after Jerome, he made a pass by Jabary, wrapping his arm around the pokemon's head, with his hand covering the pokemon's mouth.
One arm holding the bag, the other arm holding onto Jabari The Gengar hurried along with Jerome.

Jerome returned with a couple of bottled waters, setting them down on the tail of the black vehicle and reaching over to put hid own hand over the kid's forehead.
He hung there for a second trying to feel for a fever, as well as look over the injuries.
a frown set on the man's face, as his eyes scanned over the bleeding mark on his face... who the ******** did that? Had he run into some bangers on the streets? Got into a fight?
Either way it didn't look good, and Jerome was feeling that he was out of his league with this.

"Kid I don't know how t'help ya with this... s'this Yarrow stuff? Will it help?"

Bro thumped the bag down on the back of the Truck, Jerome moving to try and help Zacharie to sit back up.
Reaching to his belt for another pokeball among three others.  

[insidiousEnigma]

Grunting quietly, Zacharie shifted and managed to stay sitting up as he reached for a bottle of water. "Mmmhm." He hummed, struggling with the cap for a moment before tossing the offending piece of plastic away. "Lowers fevers." He said simply before downing half of the water bottle. That certainly helped, didn't feel like he was going to pass at any moment anymore. "Grows...everywhere." With shaky hands, he dug around in his bag to retrieve a book. With a tired huff, he pressed it into Jerome's hands. "Page..." He racked his brain for the page number, combing through his still hazy thoughts. "89...picture..." That said, he turned back to the bag and pulled out his last, clean scrap of fabric. He'd used up most of them to stanch blood flow his first night out here and then more to try to pat the grit off of his face.

He'd never been more thankful to bottled water in his entire life.

Tilting his head back, and nearly toppling back over, he pushed his bangs back to reveal the extent of his injuries. His left eye was practically swollen shut as the would over it tried to heal itself. Luckily, there hadn't been any damage done to his cornea. If he hadn't drawn back when he did, he'd probably be blind in that eye. The cut spanning across the bridge of his nose and cheekbones was what worried him the most though. It was deep and was having the hardest time forming scabs. Gritting his teeth, he ran his hand firmly over the cuts. Scratching as much of the scabs as he can before dumping the water over his face. "<********>!" The teen let out a pained shout as he fell back onto his back, scrabbling for the clean fabric. Trembling, he gently patted his face dry.

"Ointment...little white tube." He gasped, addressing the tattooed male. He was thankful that Jerome had found him, he wouldn't have been able to do this without him. Though this wasn't the most ideal place for disinfecting, it was better than a dirty alleyway with grimy puddle water.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Jerome placed the pokeball he had pulled off of his belt into his hand, closing it around it as he took the book that Zacharie had handed to him.
Jerome took the book, though somewhat awkwardly, putting his foot up on the bumper of the vehicle to that he could support it over his knee while he flipped through the book to the page that Zacharie had told him.

He eyes the picture for a couple of seconds, before he held it up to the ghosts.
"Y'guys go find this." He told them, handing Bro' the book, who took it, frowning at the picture of the plant that Jerome wanted them to look for.

The Gengar looked over to the other Ghost, before he shrugged and gestured for him to follow.

Jerome in the meantime, turned his attention back to Zacharie, as the boy drank some water, not seeming to be any better, then used the water to clean off his face.
Jerome's expression tightened when he got a good look at the state of the boy's face. Who knew how long he was in this kind of condition, or how it was caused, but its looked back.

When Zacharie yelled out in pain, trying to clean his face off, Jerome reached for the bag to look for the tube that he had asked for.
"s**t Twitch." Jerome swore, frowning at the younger boy "I told ya t'watch yer back, who ******** cut ya up like that?" The man asked in a half growl.

Remembering that he needed hot water, Jerome expanded the pokeball in his hand.
"M'ganna get ya s'm hot water, Lettin' mah girl Hirss out, s'don't go freakin' out when ya see her, chill?"
He warned the boy, the last thing he needed was an angry Hirss and a panicking boy. It was the general reaction to a pokemon with her severe mutation.  

[insidiousEnigma]

Now that Zacharie was more or less safe, Jabari wasn't too worried about leaving him alone. The smaller ghost pokemon said as he trailed along after the Gengar. He made a motion to their left.

Feeling cleaner than he had in days, the teen let out a soft sigh. "I was watching my back." He muttered with a frown. How was he to know that he was supposed to watch his back in the safety of his own home? "My..." What did he call them now? He'd never wanted to call them his parents before, but now he'd essentially been disowned. "...They found out...." He said miserably as he ran a hand through his hair. "About me sneaking into the morgue." He'd never been worried about being caught, he'd always planned his visits so meticulously. How had they found out? After all of these years....
"Said that I was disgusting and that I was turning out just like 'the other one'. I don't know who he was talking about but..." Zacharie turned his face away as he felt tears he'd been holding back break free. "I told them that they were idiots. They were already dead and going to be tested on so it's not like it would hurt anyone." He sniffled, trying to gather his resolve. "...He hit me. With the hand that he wore that ridiculous ring on. That's how I got this one." He pointed to the longest, jagged gash. "I was shocked and...and so angry. They finally noticed and instead of noticing the good I've been doing they...called me disgusting." A sob tore its way free of his throat as he curled up into himself. "...I threw a punch back. I've never hit anyone before...but I managed to land one on him. That's when he gave me the other cut. She didn't even say anything, just stood there and watched him hit me." He hiccuped and patted the tears away so they wouldn't get into his injuries. "I ran. I grabbed my bag and I ran. I didn't have anywhere to go though, not like I could go to a hospital." The teen said bitterly as he wrapped his arms around his knees.

At Jerome's warning he nodded, not that he could really see what the other was doing anyway. "Go ahead." He muttered.