This Is Fine

[FTR2017]

Hey! Welcome to QQ, I for one have been reading your work as a lurker in SB, and knowing you're importing your work here? I am overjoyed, that's what!

Loving your grounded perspective in spite of the 'rare' pokemon the protagonist has managed to befriend and how you gave each 'mon their own personality and quirks, I really appreciate how the man knows the pokemon better than he realizes, as most regular natives would've ended up doing a faux-pas and ruining their chances with 'mons such as Mama Swampert.

Looking forward to how he grows after he leaves the town into literally warmer pastures!

 

[BazDog25]

Serves em right for attacking a Dragon Trainer. Time for heals

 

[Zauber]

Nice, good realism on the fight! I hope we get another interlude of post-fight harvey and jess, i'd like to see how they and their bosses react to this. Still find it weird his name is Harvey instead of James though.

 

[Manfat]

"Jimmy sent some thugs to grab the Gible." Jess' words were as unwelcome as they were unsurprising. I was glad she'd come by to let me know. I was even more glad she'd waited for Jen and the girls to go out when she did so.

When we'd hit a rough patch, Jen had asked why I never married Jess with how well we'd gotten along. We'd tried dating, first date, she'd told me I was a beard because her father hated gays. I'd been her beard for three years until she fell for Mika, and Jess didn't want to hide who she was anymore.

Being there as emotional support was one of the great highlights of my life when she told her Dad to 'go fuck yourself' and walked out. Shame it didn't work out , but Jess was still my best friend. I shook my head.

I was trying to distract myself from what she'd just said.

"Fuck. Tell me it worked." I already knew it hadn't. Otherwise, Jess would have led with Jimmy got the Gible.

"No. Apparently, they got the shit beaten out of them."

"Fuck! I told him to let me handle this."

"Harvey, he gave you more than a month to do something. I know you, I know you wanted to find a way to do this without anyone getting hurt. But that ship has sailed." As usual, Jess was right; we'd worked out who had the Gible from Geddes' League Day.

Some middle-aged guy who no one seemed to know. The same damned guy who had picked it up and delivered it to the Pokémon Center. Ever since then, we'd been working on a plan to find some way to separate them.

Ah, who was I kiddin'?

I was just wasting time.

I didn't like the idea of actually taking a Pokemon off someone. Sure, I transported them, most likely anyway. Didn't take a genius to work out what our no-questions-asked cargo was. Especially after our last two failures, but I wasn't a bad guy.

I did what I had to do to keep my family afloat, and if some people or Pokemon had to suffer for that, I was sorry about that, but those were the breaks, and, as selfish as it was.

Better them than mine.

This, though, there'd be no walkin' this back. Still, if I did nothing, then Kobie would be on the hook. Which meant we'd all be on the hook, because none of us were leaving him to hang alone.

"You're right, Jess. You're right."

"I usually am, now what are we gonna do?"

"We." I pointed between the two of us.

"Are not going to do anything. I am going to get the Gible back." Her face pinched inward in that argumentative way I was more than familiar with.

"Alone?"

"Well I ain't gonna fist fight the guy."

"Probably for the best." She shivered a little, something cold dropped into my chest.

"How bad was it?" A morbid question, maybe, but I needed to know.

"Between the two of them? Bad Harvey real bad." I licked my lips, my mouth feeling a little dry. Jess had seen some shit. If she said it was bad, then it was bad.

"I didn't get the whole story from Jimmy, but I know they've both got cracked skulls, one has a ruptured testicle, and his finger was almost bitten off. The other got a broken nose and jaw out of it."

"Right, definitely not going to fist fight the guy." I let out a laugh that sounded completely fake. The look on Jess's face told me I certainly hadn't fooled her.

"I'm sure that my partner can handle a Gible. And it doesn't matter how well he can fight, he ain't beating a Pokemon." Besides, if everything went wrong and we somehow lost, then at the very least I'd be the only one getting the shit beat out of em' she took a sharp breath in. Letting it out in a hiss.

"And what are the rest of us supposed to do?"

"Rat-Face, Jimmy, whatever you wanna call him. He's moving the operation to Icirrus City. Told me that a couple of weeks ago. His boys' failure probably sped his timetable up."

"Too bad Jimmy didn't get the shit beaten out of him," Jess muttered mulishly.

"Isn't it just. More seriously start taking more jobs up that way. Stay out of Warren County where you can and make money, Jess. Make as much as you can because I have no idea when this storm is gonna be over."

"What about Roger and Kobie?"

"Roger will do the same. Kobie had a personal meeting with Mr. Barristan yesterday. He's still alive." Jess' face almost collapsed in relief, it disappeared behind an iron mask of self control almost immediately.

"What's the damage?"

"Nine and a half." I didn't need to specify million.

"Fuck!"

"Yeah, we can work that off eventually. With prices going up somewhere between a year and two, depending on what works available. But we'll be deeper in, much deeper, more difficult to get back out again." We could still leave anytime we didn't know enough to need disappearing. We just needed to get to a place where we had enough to call it quits. It would happen soon, just a little longer.

"So the Gible then."

"Yeah."

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, first I'm gonna call Rat-Face and see what he knows about our guy. Maybe find a place he frequents with no people."

"Doubt he'll do that for a while if he's been attacked."

"Probably not, but I don't intend to go straight at him. I'll spend a bit of time learning about his habits first."

"Like you have for over a month?" A low blow, but not inaccurate.

"In any case, I'll have to let sleeping Stoutland lie for now. But a month from now? Two? I'll hit him and get the cargo back." I'd need the heat to die down a bit before I tried this that was all.

"Let me help." I really wish I could. I'd love some backup for this. But Jess, for all her abrasiveness, was the best person to take care of my family if I couldn't. I wasn't risking that, not if there was any way I could avoid it.

"No."

"Why not!?"

"Cause If I go down, I ain't bringing you with me." I kept my voice calm, but I couldn't keep the stiffness out of it completely.

"God damn it, Harvey, I'm already involved!" She snarled. I grit my teeth. She was. Because of me. Reminded of my failures yet again, the story of my life really.

"I know, and that's on me." That hurt to say, but it was no less than the truth.

"Please, Jess, I'm beggin' you let me do this. If I go down, my girls are gonna need their Godmother more than ever. You can't help if you're stuck in a cell with me!" We looked at each. She closed her eyes, and a brittle, bitter look passed over her face.

"Fine, Harvey, fine."

"Thanks, Jess."

"Just don't fuck this up, Harv." I gave her a wide grin that I definitely didn't feel and put on my best laid-back tone.

"Who me!?" I don't think I convinced her. Arceus knows I didn't convince myself. I thought about the guy who'd taken care of the Gible. He was probably just trying to get by, just like me. Just like Jess, Kobie, and Roger.

I laid a hand on my pokeball again, feeling a reassuring thrum of electricity pass through it.

But still.

Better him and his than me and mine.

Interlude 2 – END.

---

And there's the Interlude.

Manfat Patreon
Support is welcome. But never expected.
This is Fine Volume 1 - Complete.
No Strings On Me (Nikke x Gundam) - 2 chapters ahead. Biweekly, going to weekly as of 5/6 of July. (If I've got my math right)

 

[FTR2017]

Yeah, that's not gonna work out as you intend it to, man.

You better start working out how to off the mobster once you fail ... .