silph_co | if we can call them friends then we can call them on their telephones

if we can call them friends then we can call them on their telephones

Who: Steven Durante + the other Rockets
Where: Various places in Goldenrod City + over poke-Skype
When: Late March/Early April
Summary: Steven has a few emotional conversations with his co-workers
Rating: PG-13, with the inevitable likeliness of some threads going up to R in terms of language and conversational subjects. ~~Anything too wicked goes to an inbox.~~

[This is a catchall post for various inter-Rocket threads with Steven taking place at the end of March/first half of April, with the starters for those threads in their own comments inside.]

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They do lunch at a fairly classy place with private dining rooms, near to the water, and needless to say, the card that Steven hands back to the waiter at the end of the meal has Handsome Jack's name on it and not his--but it's also clear enough that said waiter knows him already. The meal itself passes convivially enough in one of those private rooms, with Steven describing his own, earlier trips to Lavender Town and listening raptly to Lydia's tales of Wonderland in return, occasionally asking questions about the visitors there to prompt yet another recollection.

Lunch goes a bit longer than usual, but then Steven only had a half-shift this morning at the Tower. The rest of his day is free. So once they're done, he takes her back to Jack's house with him, unlocking the door with his own key, and ushering her into Jack's living room, where he takes a moment to indicate that she sit on one of the leather couches while he lights a fire in the fireplace.

Once that's done, he says, almost gently, "So. You were going to tell me about the circumstances that led up to needing Wonderland."

It's a full day after the native Rocket security grunt posts the footage of Connie's beatdown of Dirk on the main Rocket network that Steven finally tries to 'skype' her on the pokegear. The truth is, it takes that long because Steven has to calm down from what had been nothing short of blind murderous fury at the goddamn mook who'd decided to leak private footage of two of Steven's people in an absolutely humiliating position for shits and giggles--and an equal amount of fury at every other goddamn mook who'd replied to laugh it up.

(Given how black and rotten Steven's own innate sense of humor was, it was possibly highly hypocritical how angry he'd been at them, but Connie and Dirk were his people and the entire point of having your people is actually really giving a shit about what happens to them, so whatever.)

So yes. He'd had to let the anger take its course, which he had by ranting to a bemused Jack about everything he'd wanted to do to the goddamn mooks until even Steven had recognized he'd started to get repetitive. Mugging some random asshole that morning, even though he hadn't had a Pokemon worth stealing, had helped too a little. And so had just-- disinvesting entirely from the native Rockets in general. Honestly, being able to write them all off was even more of a relief than he'd thought it might be.

Connie, though, she was Steven's. And he'd watched (and watched and re-watched) her have a complete breakdown on Dirk, spurred on by Dirk's amazing ability to say the absolute shittiest thing possible at any given time... and at the time it had actually been happening, Steven hadn't had a goddamn clue about it.

No matter how long overdue it is, Steven really does want to check up on her. So once he's home that night, waiting for Jack to follow, he sets the gear down on the kitchen table and opens up the video chat.

"Mija?" he says, once it connects, peering at the screen with a worried expression. "I don't know if you've been paying much attention to the channels for your internship, but, ah... some fucker in security posted footage of you fighting with Dirk and. Well. I wanted to check up on you. And, uh, let you know that your Pokemon might have made some promises on your behalf that I won't make you honor."

Dirk, Steven waits to talk to until after he's had his chance to talk to Connie first. Although, in retrospect, knowing what he knows now, Dirk's decision to pretty much barricade himself into the robotics lab since the night Connie's pokemon had posted their meme video makes much more sense--back then, Steven had just assumed he'd been butthurt over the video's existence in the first place.

Now he knows that Dirk's sore from... well, from goading his protege into a full-fledge beatdown-slash-breakdown on his ass, Steven finds he... kind of pities Dirk a little. Not that Dirk hadn't brought it on himself, but--

But it had been brutal.

Steven could probably get Jack to let him into the lab. He is dating Dirk's alpha, after all. But it seems easier and simpler just to use Acatl to teleport in. And it's probably time someone fed and watered Dirk anyway.

So when Steven comes, it's with a bowl of rice and gravy, topped with a fried egg, in one hand and a liter bottle of room temperature orange soda in the other. If he's already pre-shaken the orange soda before the teleport... well. He's only human. At least physically these days.

"I don't know if you've seen what that fucking security mook put on the main Rocket channel," Steven says, setting the food down next to Dirk, "but I'm sure everyone in the organization has by now. My God, Dirk, could you have shoved your leg any further down your throat?"

He's not mad. It's worse than that.

He's disappointed.

A few days after their exchange of Pokemon and attempt at getting high together, Tyler will receive a text from Steven at about the time the latter would be finishing his shift at the Radio Tower.

So, it says. Quick question: do you have any experience with payroll, scheduling, accounting, hiring, purchasing, or management? If you don't, are any of these things you want to learn in order for a side hustle that should be pretty fucking lucrative? And since it's a cover business, the profits would mostly be going to us and our investor, except for a ten percent tithe back to the company.

Carly will end up getting the video call in the early afternoon, a few days into the new month.

"Hey," Steven says if she answers it, looking... well, kind of tired and concerned. "Are you somewhere that you we can talk privately? I've got-- something I can't really talk to anyone else about right now. If not, that's fine. I can text. Or you can call me back. Jack shouldn't be home for a while yet anyway and this-- well, it's nothing that won't keep for a week or two."

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