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 Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2012 5:04 pm
It was pushing the third week since the Rocket team had returned with their kidnapped members, Most everyone had come out alright, at the very least alive, and were working on returning to recovery, and a sense of normality.
Or at least as much normality as they got, being in Team Rocket.
for the last two weeks, the Grunt called Jerome had been in stable, but uncertain condition.
After the surgery, where they removed five bullets from his torso, shoulder and leg, the doctors were able to get him stable enough and get more blood in him to move him to a room where they could keep a close eye on his condition.
There had been no word of him waking up for those two weeks, and the Doctors were not acting optimistic about it.
The rest of his injuries from the stay at Galactic had been patched up, his broken arm had been set in a tight sling.
From there, it was just a waiting game to see if he would come around.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It had been late at night when the dark man's eyes opened, for a while he seemed confused, but calm, mostly to do with the drugs they had him on.
He had slipped in and out of sleep since then, for most of the night and morning.
But by the time the afternoon had come, the doctors were surprised to see that he was staying awake, and with all things considering, doing really well.
Jerome was laying by himself in the quiet room, leaned back in the bed that had its head propped up, giving the man something to sit up against.
He had been cleaned up, though he still had at least and inch of black facial hair, the piercing on his lip and silver plugs on his ears were gone, missing a long time ago sometime between his time in the cell and being beaten to s**t.
He had a remote in his hand, passively switching through channels on the TV without looking particularly interested in anything that was on.
By his side his Gengar, Bro' was sitting up by his head, arms crossed, and looking just as board.
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Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2012 5:20 pm
With one thing and another it had been a stressful few weeks, but for all that it was good to be home and he was just about starting to believe that they might be safe. Well, most of the time anyway, he couldn't help the flares of paranoia and panic about Alex and the lingering worry about Jerome. All things considered he was lucky to be alive, but Aulus wouldn't be happy until he saw him awake again. He had to believe that it was a when, not an if.
Another afternoon swung around, and Aulus slouched into the infirmary before he got an angry text for being late again. The process of having his back cleaned up and bandaged up again was unpleasant, but not half as much as it had been even just a week ago. All things considered he was healing up well, though the scars promised to be very impressive indeed. There were worse things in the world than scars though, and in fact he actually felt far more positive than negative about the raised and twisted flesh that was beginning to form. These scars meant something, it might actually do him some good to have a constant reminder that he wasn't a complete failure as a friend.
Eventually he was free to go, and as he pulled his shirt back on a nurse flippantly handed him a lolly for being such a good boy. He treated her to a dirty look but took it anyway, because Bro might fancy a snack. If not he'd probably eat it himself later on.
More or less on auto pilot Aulus wandered down to Jerome's room and pushed the door open. "Afternoon Bro," he said, because the Gengar was no doubt around even if not visible. Ah, but no, there he was sitting beside Jerome who was channel hopping....
Jerome who was channel hopping.
A huge grin spread across Aulus' face, and he felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Jerome was channel hopping. Awake. "And good afternoon to you too Jerome!"
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Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2012 5:34 pm
Jerome expected another nurse to walk in, since thy had been making a deal about fussing over him and the machines around. Was fine by him really, when he heard how long he had been out he was shocked, and pretty okay with the fact that they were keeping him alive.
But when the door opened, an a more familiar voice spoke, talking to Bro' before Scars noticed Jerome.
Inked eyes slid from the TV to find Scars standing in the door.
Jerome returned the smile, though tiredly.
"Gar!" Bro greeted, throwing an arm in the air and smirking.
The Gengar didn't know this man, but he had been one of the people to stop by and check on Jerome quiet often. This dude was alright.
"Scars." Jerome said, lowering the remote and grinning at the other man, happy to see him. "********, don't you look bout'a thousand times better, man."
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Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2012 6:17 pm
Still grinning Aulus crossed the room and sat down on the chair beside Jerome's bed. "And you," he said with a nod, "good to see you with your eyes open!" Thank Arceus. "You had us all worried for a while there," he went on, leaning his elbows on his knees because leaning back against anything still hurt somewhat. "How do you feel?" He looked good for somebody that had been beaten and starved for a month and then shot repeatedly but that wasn't saying too much. As for whether or not he'd get an answer to his question.... Somehow he couldn't see Jerome admitting it if he was in a lot of pain but it had felt right to ask all the same.
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Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2012 8:11 pm
"Yeah, The nurse told me I was out fer a while." He reached a hand up gingerly, running his fingers over the side of his head that should really be shaved, but had since grown out into a fluffy patch. "Said everyone else was alright, S'true?"
At the question of how he was doing he lowered his hand again, glancing down at himself.
He was thin, way too thin, and he had identified a surprising number of bullet wounds, and he had though two were bad.
"A'ight." He replied casually. "Lookin' forward to gettin' out of here," He added with a slight grin.
"S'what happened? how'r the others?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 4:13 am
The answer seemed genuine enough, as did the following grin, but he didn't know Jerome like he did Alex. Still, he guessed if any of them were going to be relatively alright after all that happened it would be Jerome. "Everyone else is doing alright," he replied, "rescue party and us lot alike; everyone but you's been discharged now though there's some of us still have to come back to be poked at and checked on."
What had happened. It was hard to think back to... to that place, even to think about their escape but Jerome wanted to know so he would do his best to recount it. "You got shot when we ran around the corner straight into," his stomach knotted fear and loathing, "Tethys and a gang of Galactics. She let out that moth of hers and it shot a fireball down the corridor, cooked my back quite prettily. Massive battle kicked off and TRP ordered that creepy little mechanic - Frost - to take us lot and find another way down to the hanger. He had his Metang grab you, Paul slapped some web over your bullet wounds and we legged it, or came as close to legging it as possible." He didn't mention Frost's complete disinterest in Jerome's condition; he still meant to have a Word with the little sociopath about that.
"After a bit we ran into somebody: Deimos." Aulus paused for a moment, more to collect his thoughts again than for dramatic effect; his concentration and awareness had been getting fuzzy by then. "If I remember right he ran smack into Frost and landed on his arse. Mr Chilly got us to surround him so that his Shaymin couldn't use seed flare and Paul tied him up. We tossed him on top of the Metang and headed on down to the hanger before the exploding hedgehog could follow." This was where things started to get really unclear, and Aulus frowned deeply as he tried to make sense of the pain blurred memories. "We arrived in the hanger nearly at the same time as the rescue party, and then... then Tethys arrived but she couldn't do anything because Frost had a gun against Deimos' head. After that...." Aulus shrugged and shook his head. "I don't remember really. I know we were planning to get on one of their jets and we must have made it on there but I was pretty out of it by that point." He remembered leaning on Alex and Alex's arm around him, supporting him and guiding him, but that was about all and he wasn't about to share such a detail with Jerome.
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 1:27 pm
It was honestly so shocked to him, even more so as he was listening to Aulus explain what happened.
They had all made it out alive.
He had grown very quiet when Aulus talked, still listening, but having this sense of confusion, almost too numb to really understand and sort this out. For a month Jerome had been fully expecting every one of them to die, he had prepared himself to accept that he wasn't going to make it out, but he had... they all had.
"Deimos?" He asked, clearly not recognizing the name of a man they had seemed to grab on the way out.
He narrowed his eyes slightly as he considered who it might be though, clearly someone important enough to stop the group from killing them, and actually letting them get away.
He paused
"Don't tell me we grabbed Eye-patch..."
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 1:46 pm
Aulus smiled grimly and nodded; "That's right; he's down in our cells right now actually. Oh, and guess how they found us?" Aulus paused for only a moment before continuing; "That skinny guy who poked his head in on us the first day. He sold them out in exchange for Executive rank here... only when we all got back, the Boss had him made a Grunt. Tam's stuck with him as a roommate poor girl, don't envy her in the least. Oh! And Lore? He's opted to become a grunt, seems pretty happy with the arrangement."
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 2:30 pm
That string of news seemed to greatly surprise the gangster, as the man's eyes widened a little, his jaw dropping open.
"Got their ********' boss?" He gaped, shifting as if he was going to push himself up, but didn't manage to get far.
"Holy s**t,"
That was a lot of news, "An that dudes here? with Books?" Jerome frowned at this, looking a little confused. "He switched sides?"
that was surprising by itself, but what he didn't like hearing, was that Books was sharing a room with him, were they serious!?
The mention of Lore, one Jerome knew from the cell becoming a grunt, Jerome paused "He's a grunt now? why'd he do that?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 2:38 pm
"Got him good," Aulus affirmed with a nod, "he's not going anywhere in a rush. I've no doubt his Ice b***h will be looking for him but Twinkle disabled tracking on the jet we took - apparently - so she'll have a job of finding us and even if she does I'd like to see her take on the whole damn base." They were safe here, and even if she did appear she'd be on the back foot. No more interrogation rooms. No more screams. It was really over, and Jerome was going to be alright.
"Anyway, yeah, he did. I dunno how he got paired with Tam, if it was just bad luck or what. She'll handle him though, if it were me in her place I'd probably have snapped him in half already. As for Lore," a shrug, "He just said he felt more comfortable, that the stuffiness of Executives didn't suit him. I can understand that, he really isn't the type to schmooze around up there sucking up and shuffling papers." It would make it easier to interact with him too which was nice, he wouldn't have liked there to be such a big barrier between them. Agent to grunt was one thing, even elite to grunt - well when it was Alex who was the elite anyway - but being an executive just set you apart so much.
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 3:32 pm
"Man, told em we would tag em back." Jerome said in a relaxed and casual grumble of his voice.
It was amazing to him, they had gotten the rivals Boss,
He had no double that someone else would be taking the place, this war was far from over, but ********, this Team Rocket's got some serious skills.
"Yeah I get it." Jerome agreed, with a slight nod. "Bein' that high up, it ain't for everyone, takes a different kinda person."
the face of an old friend flashed into Jerome's mind, and he flinched, closing his head and reaching a hand out toward his shoulder, not touching it.
"... Whats the guy like?" He asked, continuing to talk after that flare of pain. "the one Book's is roomin' with."
He was glad to hear that she was handling him, but it was still a very dangerous situation, admittedly he wasn't comfortable with it.
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 3:45 pm
Aulus didn't miss Jerome's flinch but he didn't know what to do about it, if Jerome would even acknowledge it, so he let it be for now at least. "He's... screechy," Aulus said after a pause. "Screechy, and cowardly, and unbelievably arrogant and entitled. I've heard he expects to be an Agent within a couple of weeks, come to that expects that we will be begging him to take the promotion because he's so bloody amazing. That's just grapevine though, I haven't actually spoken to him myself." When he did run into the former Galactic he would... well he would do something. He didn't know what yet but he would do something. The man's indifference to their plight was not forgotten.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 1:46 am
Jerome quirked an eyebrow as Aulus went on about an individual that sounded extremely confident in himself... though Jerome could relate this kind of person to someone who would get the s**t beaten out of him before too long.
at least that's how it was on the streets.
The dark man gave a soft grunt, "Wonder why he helped us." He asked in a low tone.
It was extremely unusual for someone to switch sides, not to mention dangerous though it seemed like the red "R" was the place to be.
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:40 am
Aulus grunted and shrugged. "Just power lust is my guess; certainly wasn't out of compassion for us. Seems like the sort of person who's only familiar the concept of loyalty so far as they can use it to their advantage too. Maybe Tam can tell us more though; she's stuck with the bugger after all." Why couldn't Tam have ended up rooming with Lore? That would have made much more sense, surely, but maybe whoever did room assignments didn't care about the feelings of a few grunts... yeah, that seemed pretty damn likely actually.
"Anyway, least we're back now," Aulus gave Jerome a slight smile, "What's the first thing you want to do when they let you out of here?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 11:31 am
Jerome snorted lightly "Don't sound like it worked out the way he wanted." Being made a grunt, not a position of power by any stretch of the imagination.
He did frown a little, but didn't seem to inclined much more to his comment.
Sounded like this guy wasn't going to be a safe one if he got too angry.
Jerome glanced back at Aulus when he asked what he wanted to do when he got out of here.
Jerome thought about it for a couple of seconds, before replying "Have a cigarette." He answered.
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