Good God, it was good to be home. Sinnoh was so damn cold Gio had been sleeping with multiple pairs of socks on, but when the jet finally touched down he was itching to get the doors open and feel the marginally warmer air. First, however, he'd need to worry about disguises, since they'd landed at a commercial airport. Gio parted his hair and put his sunglasses back on, and after locating Cyrus, swept his hair back and put a pair of wireframe glasses on him.
"I don't think this is going to fool anyone." Cyrus had muttered, looking in the mirror. Honchkrow pecked at the glasses. "If Martin actually went and posted pictures of my injuries, anyone familiar with the story will recognize the scars."
"You say that, but you'd be surprised what glasses and a different hairstyle will do for you." Gio called Persian back into its pokéball. "Just wait and see. So till we get to the headquarters, I am gonna actually have you call me Vinny; do you have any sort of pseudonym you use?"
"I mean if Giovanni is just your middle name, I guess I could go by Abner." Cyrus shrugged, petting the bird in his lap. The pilot opened the door of the plane and the two of them went down the enclosed ramp into the airport. The place was absolutely packed; a lot of Kanto's more well-off retirees were what Gio called "snowbirds" that would spend the summer in Kanto or Sinnoh, and then go to Hoenn or Alola for the winter. As the cooler weather set in, lots of people were off to vacation elsewhere.
As Gio had predicted, their half-assed disguises were more than effective at making the two men look like innocent enough passersby that nobody gave them a second look. Cyrus still seemed a little stiff, but Honchkrow had settled right down and appeared to be asleep in his lap. Gio made a few offers to him while they were there; coffee? Food? Wanna go see the Magikarp pond on the third floor? He was mostly just trying to fill the silence at this point, since it had been so long since he'd had to deal with someone so damn quiet—
"Dad!?"
Gio swiveled around, immediately catching the startled face of a red-haired young man just coming out of security.
"H-hey, Silver!" Gio waved weakly; Silver looked back and forth across the terminals and then back behind him before walking over.
"What are you doing here?" Silver hissed, repeatedly looking over his shoulder back to security. Finally, he noticed Cyrus, who was still staring straight ahead with the sleeping Honchkrow in his lap. "…And who's that?"
"Weellll, this is Abner," Gio patted Cyrus's shoulder, making him jump, "And we just came back from Sinnoh to, uh, pick him up. What are you back in Kanto for?"
"Uhh, I'm actually on my way back to Alola, because—"
Silver abruptly stopped talking, and Gio with him, as another familiar face approached from security. It'd been ages since Gio had seen him, but he'd recognize the cap and the pissed-off eyebrows anywhere.
"Daaad…this is Red, the reigning champion of Kanto." Silver cautiously motioned between his father and his friend. "Red, uh, this is my dad."
Red smiled and saluted. Apparently the disguise was good enough to fool him, or perhaps it had just been that long since he'd seen Giovanni that he didn't recognize him from twenty years of aging.
"Hi there, Red!" Gio tried to disguise his voice as he stuck his hand out to shake Red's. The champion reciprocated, and then slowly signed something to Silver.
"What? W-well, he's usually out on business, so there isn't, uh, a lot of time." Silver stuttered. He clarified for Gio, "Red wanted to know why I hadn't told him you live in Kanto. Uhh, I'm tutoring Red in sign language. And Red, this is, uh…Abner?" He raised an eyebrow at Gio, and Cyrus awkwardly waved.
"Yes. Hi." Cyrus deadpanned. Red saluted back, somewhat hesitatingly signed something else, and grinned.
"Red said we're headed to Alola to go participate in the Battle Tree. Blue's already there, so he wanted in on it as well." Silver glanced over to their terminal. "Um, actually, Red, we don't have a ton of time before the plane leaves. We should probably get going."
Red nodded in agreement, waved goodbye, and started off towards the terminal without Silver.
"W-wait for me, man!" Silver started off after him, but turned around to Gio to say one last thing: "Please stay out of trouble."
"Come on, kiddo, you know that ain't my style." Gio grinned. Silver rolled his eyes dramatically before jogging off to catch up with Red. Once they were out of earshot, Gio let his face fall into one hand as he continued towards the front doors of the airport.
"…Red looked older than I thought he would." Cyrus said quietly.
"Yeah, well, he's gotta be thirty something by now." Gio grumbled. His phone vibrated in his pocket; when he pulled it out to check, he had a text from Silver.
Silver | 1:15pm
PLEASE tell me that was not Cyrus Solberg.
Gio took a second to respond, pushing Cyrus's wheelchair forward with his elbows.
Gio | 1:17
That Was Not Cyrus Solberg. :)
Silver | 1:17
I'm going to kill you
Gio | 1:19
You Keep Saying That And Yet Here I Am, Not Dead? So?
"Having fun back there?" Cyrus sighed. Something about the way he said it made Gio feel a little weird.
"Don't worry about it." Gio chuckled absentmindedly.
"I didn't know you had a son." Cyrus said. "Is he, uh, part of this as well?"
"Well…no. Not at all, actually." Gio paused; even all these years later, it was still a sore spot. "He's got no interest in taking over when I retire. Honestly our relationship had been a little, uh, strained over it until fairly recently."
"Oh." Cyrus fiddled with the glasses, seemingly remembering something. "When we get to the headquarters, I need to call my grandfather and let him know we landed safe."
"Does…how much did you tell him?" Gio asked slowly.
"Same thing we told the nurses, that I got discharged and that I'm going to Kanto to live with a college TA who could help me." Cyrus shrugged. "I couldn't live with him since he's getting to the age where he's reliant on a walker and wouldn't be able to afford a caretaker with what he's getting for social security, at least not until he needs one himself."
"How old's your grandad, Toothpaste?"
"He's…" Cyrus paused, scratching the back of his head. "Uh…he was sixty-five when I was sixteen…and I'm…twen—no, thirty…six? So he's eighty seven. But he's in good shape, apparently. How old is Silver?"
"Silver just turned twenty eight." As they approached the front doors, Gio hit the button on the wall with a wheelchair on it to open the doors. Cyrus paused for a very long couple of seconds, before turning around to look back at Gio.
"How old are you?"
"…How old do you think I am?" Gio asked.
"That's a loaded question." Cyrus stated.
"No, no it's not! Really, how old do you think I am?" Gio pushed the wheelchair into the parking lot, where an out-of-uniform grunt was waiting by a sleek black car to drive them back to the headquarters. She helped Cyrus into his seat before folding the chair and putting it in the trunk while Gio got in on his side.
"…if your son is almost thirty, I doubt you're younger than fifty." Cyrus said, looking out the window as the grunt started up the car. "I would have otherwise guessed mid-forties."
"I mean, close." Gio shrugged, which Honchkrow apparently took as a threat display action because it shrugged back at him in a rather aggressive manner. "I'm fifty three."
"Huh." Cyrus patted Honchkrow's head to try to get it to calm down, to no avail. The bird honked loudly at Gio, making the grunt driving jump a little. Cyrus responded to this by gently grabbing Honchkrow's beak in his hand, turning the bird's head to look it in the eyes, and saying, "Hey. Locate your chill."
Gio turned on the radio, and Cyrus clicked through the channels until he found one appropriately unbearable that made Gio want to tear his eardrums out.
"Why are they yelling at me?" Gio asked nobody in particular, now deeply regretting that he'd elected against taking his headphones out of his suitcase or knowing how to use the music app on his phone. Cyrus snorted, presumably amused by the fact that Gio was not enjoying the music choice. After the song ended, Gio managed to beat Cyrus to the punch on selecting a station, and found something a little easier on his brain. Naturally, however, Cyrus was now looking at the radio with an expression of mild disgust.
"What, never heard any jazz before?" Gio scoffed.
"It sounds like…late 80's softcore porn music." Cyrus shook his head and looked out the window, entirely missing Gio's flabbergasted reaction. Before the song even ended, the driver pulled up to the front of the new Rocket headquarters, cleverly disguised as a conglomerate building, where she quickly got out to unfold Cyrus's chair. Gio stood up and stretched his legs while the grunt helped Cyrus into his chair. Finally he was actually all the way home, and he could sleep in his own damn bed for a while.
First, however, there were a few things he'd need to take care of. Cyrus had already been fitted for a Rocket uniform (Archer had made alterations to the admin garb for Cyrus's particular aesthetic), and fortunately it was ready by the time they walked in…however, Cyrus's live-in nurse was not.
"Uhh, she said she'd be here at like seven tonight…" the grunt at the front desk scrambled through her files trying to offer more information. "She's already been briefed, she signed the nondisclosure agreement, but, um, she had an appointment. Or something." The grunt dropped a small stack of papers and nearly fell over trying to pick them up.
"I mean…I can probably put it on myself, it would just take a while." Cyrus thought for a moment. "It'd be fine if someone was outside the room I could yell to if I fall or get stuck or something."
"I can't really walk off without you til you meet the other admins. I can wait." Gio shrugged. "The bathrooms are over here."
Gio led Cyrus to the bathroom and handed him the uniform, which was neatly pressed and wrapped in plastic film. After about ten minutes of standing awkwardly outside the bathroom twiddling his thumbs, Gio finally heard something.
"Why the fuck is it a turtleneck? I can't get this thing on."
"Do you, uh, need a hand?" Gio called into the bathroom. Cyrus sighed.
"Yeah. It's only got one sleeve—why's it only got one sleeve?"
Gio slowly opened the door, which Cyrus hadn't locked. He'd gotten the pants and shoes on fine, but as he said, he was struggling to get the shirt on. Gio was somewhat taken aback by Cyrus's scars; he knew they were going to be there, obviously, but something about how extensively they covered him left Gio a little startled. The entirety of Cyrus's right shoulder was enveloped in scar tissue, leaving more of a dent than a stump in his right arm's place. Gio shook it off and took the sweater from Cyrus, helping him pull it over his head, while Honchkrow rather unhelpfully threw the vest onto the floor.
"Who designed this?" Cyrus grumbled, slowly snaking his arm through the sleeve.
"Uhh, Archer." Gio handed him the vest, which was easy enough to put on. "Looks sharp, though!"
"What if I end up getting a prosthetic?" Cryus motioned towards the right side of the shirt, which had no sleeve and instead was neatly stitched shut.
"Archer said he had more standard sweaters made as well." Gio shrugged as he and Cyrus left the bathroom. "I mean, take it up with him. He does all of the designing shit."
The elevator was a short walk away, and once they were in it slowly crawled up the floors. Quiet, generic piano music playing over the speakers kept the prolonged silence from being too awkward, barely enough so that Gio didn't feel the need to fill the void with empty chatter. The elevator opened up on floor 20, and he led Cyrus down the hall to his office.
"Cyrus, these are the standing Rocket executives." Gio introduced them as he closed the door behind Cyrus. "Left to right: Petrel, Proton, Archer, and Ariana."
"Order of helpfulness." Ariana hummed.
"Debatable at best." Petrel snorted.
"Guys. This is Cyrus." Gio patted the back of Cyrus's wheelchair. "Also his Honchkrow. As I've already informed you, he'll be our lead engineering executive as we move forward with our wormhole research; you guys wanna talk about yourselves for a sec for Toothpaste here?"
"I'm Petrel, as Bossman already said." Petrel stepped up to plate first. "Generally I get put on for training new hires, though this past week I got to take a nice little break from that to build your PC. Oh, you should see that thing, honestly I haven't gotten to build a computer in ages, but you could run the entire Adobe creative suite all at once and it wouldn't even get toasty—"
"Name's Proton." He tried to cut Petrel off, but he wouldn't shut up about the computer, so Proton just talked over him. "I guess I'm sort of the project manager. I see to it that everyone is working on whatever their skills are most useful at, and making sure they have the supplies to do so."
"Archer." Archer stood a little taller and smiled charmingly. "I'm the closest thing we have to PR here; I handle relations between other teams, and anything that will affect the way Team Rocket is perceived by the public, our allies, and our enemies. Including the design element," with a flourish he motioned towards the outfits of his comrades. "Hope you like yours."
"My name is Ariana. I'm, at this point, Vice President to Giovanni." Ariana shot Archer a look, which he didn't seem to notice. "I handle the general organization of the team, seeing to it that Bossman's orders are carried out in the most efficient manner possible. I handle the budgeting, and serve as interim leader when he's away."
"And, as you already know, I'm Giovanni, the boss." Gio moved to stand in front of Cyrus and grinned at him. "You wanna ask them anything, Toothpaste?"
"I've got one for you, actually." Cyrus said flatly.
"What's that?"
"Why do you keep calling me Toothpaste?"
The admins snickered behind him as Gio shrugged melodramatically.
"I dunno, you look like a toothbrush!" He shot a look at his admins. "I call Archer Sagittarius, man. Any serious questions?"
"Eh." Cyrus gave a disinterested shrug.
"In that case, let's continue the tour." Gio started to move towards the door but was interrupted by a beep in his pocket. When he stopped walking, staring dejectedly at his phone, Ariana took her queue to take over.
"We'll catch up with you later, Gio. We can handle the tour from here." She patted her boss on the shoulder as she walked past him, motioning for Cyrus and the other admins to follow her. "Cyrus, we're gonna show you your lab next, and then your apartment. I think you'll be pleased with both."
Gio waited a minute or two after the door closed behind them to leave, quietly making a beeline to the elevator. He pulled out his phone again as the elevator doors slid shut, feeling some very familiar wrist pain. The only open message was from his mother.
Mother | 2:20 pm
I expect an update in person.
.
It had been 23 years since Madame Boss had stepped down as Rocket Boss, but she never really left the place. The elevator took Gio to the 20th floor, the top, and he quietly walked to the door of her office, which he paused before knocking on.
"Come in." The voice from within said. Gio opened the door.
The face he was greeted with behind the desk was only vaguely familiar at this point; repeated cosmetic procedures performed in denial of old age made Gio's mother look more like a caricature than anyone he felt comfortable calling "mom." Gio stood in front of her desk rather than taking a seat; Madame Boss simply folded her hands on her desk and stared at him.
"Well?" She tapped her nails impatiently on the hardwood surface of the desk. "Where is he?"
"I left him with the executives to finish the tour, since you called me in here." Gio replied flatly. "They're showing him the lab."
"Aside from first-hand experience, what good is he going to be to making sure we use these Ultra Wormholes to their fullest potential?" She demanded over the clacking of her acrylics on the desk. "I want to know that this investment is more justified than some of your past ones."
"It's his entire specialization, and unlike most of our other options, he's stable and out of the eye of the InterPol." Gio said. "He—"
"In what way could this man possibly be out of the eye of the InterPol?" Madame Boss brought all of her nails down onto the desk at once, and then stood up out of her chair. "He was tried for an attempted crime against humanity, you fucking moron!"
"He was found not guilty and he did his time in the hospital." Gio kept his voice low. "The InterPol got what they wanted out of the situation. I have my own connections, Ma. They've got bigger fish to fry."
"This InterPol connection has failed you before." She narrowed her eyes. "What makes you think he's confident this time?"
"The fact that he was involved in Cyrus's case." Gio looked at the wall behind his mother rather than right at her. "All they wanted out of the case was to get him hospitalized to make breaking up the team easier. They got that. They don't care about him anymore."
"And I can't imagine they let him continue his studies in the hospital. When was the last time he actually got to work on something? How long has it been since he's put his skills to use?"
"I hired him understanding that he'd need time to get back into the swing of things—"
"Why? Why would you do that, when there's so many fucking engineers who don't need to start their employment with fucking vacation time?" Madame Boss motioned wildly towards the windows' view down upon Viridian City, and Gio flinched reflexively.
"'Cause I know the downtime is going to be worth it." Gio stated. Madame Boss let there be silence for a moment, as if expecting to explain himself more.
"How much longer are you gonna make me wait to see you actually do something good with this fucking business?" She started to raise her voice, which Gio had been fully expecting. "Fuck's sake, Vincenzo, you couldn't even make an heir to the place, at least not right. Am I even gonna be alive by the time you follow through with any of your shitty plans?"
Gio knew what he wanted to say to her. He wanted to say Silver thought him just as much a loser as she did. He wanted to say that the constant failures were wearing more on him than they could possibly be on her. He wanted to say that he knew, when she handed him Team Rocket, she still wanted all the power, just not the responsibility. He wanted to say, you want this thing back? Here's the fucking keys. Take them. I'm out.
Instead, Gio stood, dead-faced, staring past his mother while she continued her tirade on the subject of Giovanni's disappointment to her as a businessman and as a son. He may as well have been deaf to the sound of her shouting at that point; most attempted conversations with her ended this way. Recruitment rates were shit compared to her time (nevermind the fact that turnover rates were at an all-time low). He was making too nice with rival gangs rather than snuffing them out (nevermind that Gio was trying to reduce how much violence the public sees them commit). Gio, once again, thought about taking the keys to the building out of his pocket and tossing them on her desk. The only thing stopping him was that he knew what her reaction would be; was being a loser not enough, did he want to be a quitter, too? The thought of succeeding to spite her, to show her he's been a better boss for Team Rocket than she had ever been, was the only thing keeping the keys in his pocket rather than chucking them down and retiring for good, but even that was wearing thin. Madame Boss's rant slowed for a second, while her back was to Gio.
"You done?" He deadpanned. She whirled around to glare at him.
"Is that what you think this is? A fucking joke?" She hissed.
"I don't know about you, but I have things I need to be working on." Gio said flatly. His mother shook her head and looked back out the window.
"Then fucking go." She ordered. Gio obediently did an about-face and turned towards the door, which closed just late enough for him to hear his mother call him a worthless shithead. Once again he walked straight to the elevator, this time descending to the 7th floor where the lounge was located. The entire lounge area was dark and empty. Gio sank down onto a couch where a nearby TV was turned to a blank channel, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose, turning his face to the back of the couch where he could hide until he had the energy to drive home.
.
Through the process of the tour, the admins had grown on Cyrus tremendously. His lab was everything he could have hoped for, and the apartment was more than accessible for him to be in his wheelchair full-time, to the point he wasn't sure he'd really need the caregiver. They'd invited him to play a tabletop RPG afterwords; apparently their last GM had crapped out on them, so they'd been rotating who runs each one-off dungeon crawl. Cyrus had been itching to play since he'd been hospitalized, partly because he kept remembering all the people who played in college that he didn't really spend time with. Fortunately, Archer had all of the books, so Cyrus spent two hours whipping something together and the next six enrapturing the executives with a roleplay-intensive story and some shaky attempts at combat. Around 10 they defeated a slapdash boss Cyrus had thrown at them, and after discussing the campaign and deciding to continue the game next week, they'd gone their separate ways for the evening. Cyrus wandered to the 7th floor lounge to look at what games he could play til he was tired enough to go to bed; Ariana said there was a Switch with Snipperclips already in it there, and Petrel had 3D-printed a one-handed joycon holder for him to use. The lounge was dark when he got there, so he flicked on one of the smaller lamps near the TV to see better, only to see a figure lying on the couch suddenly jump in surprise. When the figure slowly turned to Cyrus, eyes clamped shut from the light, he recognized Gio; what was he still doing here so late? Didn't he have a house?
"Sorry. I didn't realize you were sleeping." Cyrus mumbled. "It's like 10, I wasn't expecting anyone to be in here still."
"Oh, damn, is it really that late?" Gio rubbed his eyes as he slowly sat up. "I dozed off…huh. What are you still doing up?"
"Well…it's been over eight years since I've touched a video game." Cyrus found the docked Switch and turned it on; the TV, already turned to the HDMI channel, flickered to life. "Ariana said there was a game in here she thought I'd like. I can just bring it upstairs to my apartment if you want to be alone—"
"Nah, nah, it's fine." Gio stretched his legs while Cyrus located the controllers. "What did she tell you about?"
"Uh, it's a puzzle game called Snipperclips." Cyrus got the joycon holder situated and moved his chair to be in front of the TV. "She said it was two player if you want to give it a go."
"Ehh…I'll just watch, if that's alright." Gio mumbled. Cyrus shrugged. It took him a moment to figure out the controller, but once he'd selected the game it loaded up fine. Ariana's description had been pretty apt, basically only describing it as a puzzle game. Cyrus selected the first level, which taught him the controls. When he glanced to his side at Gio, he'd pulled a blanket down off the back of the couch and was mostly covered in it; only the top of his face and his feet were sticking out.
Cyrus played a few levels alone, needing to switch back and forth between the two characters in order to complete the puzzle. The next time he looked over, to again offer Gio the second controller, he'd fallen asleep. Cyrus turned the volume on the TV down to keep from disturbing him. The elevator's gentle ding sounded in the hallway, and after a moment Cyrus saw someone out of the corner of his eye enter the lounge and quietly approach the TV.
Only when it was within arm's reach did Cyrus realize it wasn't human.
Cyrus dropped the controller and nearly screamed, but the thing's eyes glowed cold violet and suddenly he couldn't make a sound. It put a finger up to its short snout, and released its psychic grip on the engineer. Cyrus remained silent, though still shaken, as it lowered its hand and looked down at Giovanni, asleep on the couch.
"Shame I didn't get here fast enough." It murmured. "I would have loved to bid him a welcome home." It turned its head to Cyrus, who had been inching away from it. "Oh, I'm sorry, Cyrus; did he not tell you about me? How rude of him."
"…Mewtwo." Cyrus breathed, still unsure whether or not he should attempt to flee. It flashed a toothy smile at him— why did it have fangs like that?—and chuckled.
"Aww, he remembered! I already know who you are, of course." Mewtwo strode away from the television, towards the pool table, where the balls began to float. "I had to make sure Giovanni did his research before he left, but I have been so terribly bored while he has been away."
"What…what do you normally do around here?" Cyrus asked after hesitating for a moment.
"Oh, that's funny. I don't do anything." Mewtwo arranged the floating balls into a triangle a few inches above the table. "I was expected to stay in my ball. Hah. They catch me after all these years and do nothing to try to keep me occupied. His Persian probably gets more entertainment than I do. So, naturally, I have to make my own." It paused, and looked back at Giovanni. "But of course it's late, and he's so old. No point in waking him now; nothing I say will get a reaction."
"Do…you want to play Snipperclips?"
The billiards balls all dropped onto the table with a heavy THUNK, enough to make Giovanni jump but not enough to totally awaken him. Mewtwo didn't respond.
"It was just an offer…" Cyrus mumbled, backing his chair towards the couch where he could wake Giovanni if he needed to.
"…What is it?" Mewtwo asked, its voice much lower.
"Uhh, just a puzzle game." Cyrus exited the level he was on, disconnected one of the joycons, and switched it to two-player mode. "Do you want to be pink or orange?"
"Is there a difference?" It came back towards the TV, looking more at the screen than at Cyrus.
"No, uh, just the way they look." Cyrus replied.
"…Pink."
Cyrus held out the joycon, which Mewtwo cautiously took before sitting on the floor. Cyrus re-loaded the first level, which as it turned out was actually much more entertaining in two-player mode. Attempts to keep their voices hushed were ultimately futile, and after a handful of levels, Giovanni woke up again, this time as startled to see Mewtwo as Cyrus had been.
"How the hell do you keep getting out!?" He groaned, putting his face in his hands.
"Silph Co. man probably gave you a crap ball." Mewtwo replied flatly. "One of us needs to be a gear. Let me make you pointy."
"It's almost midnight." Cyrus said, getting sort of sleepy himself. "Are you just going to spend the whole night in the lounge?"
"It wasn't my initial plan, but I'm sure as hell not awake enough to drive home now." Gio grumbled. He motioned towards the pokémon on the floor. "How long that thing been in here?"
"Mmm, about forty minutes?" Mewtwo glanced at the clock on the wall. "Nearly an hour."
"I'm probably going to be going to bed myself pretty soon here." Cyrus said, yawning.
"How unfortunate. I'm assuming I can play this alone as well?" Mewtwo turned around to look at Cyrus.
"Yeah, I'll just change game modes. You can press X to change which one you are." Cyrus hooked the joycons together and handed the controller to Mewtwo. When he caught Gio's uncomfortable expression, he considered for a moment how to proceed. "My apartment has a pull-out couch if you don't want to drive home. I can't imagine the couch has been good for your back."
"I think I'll take you up on that." Gio sighed, slowly standing up as nearly every joint in his body creaked or popped.
"Least I can do, I figure." Cyrus shrugged, moving his chair back towards the door. "Mewtwo, Ariana said there's more games on the shelf over there if you get bored with Snipperclips."
"Uh-huh." Mewtwo mumbled, not looking away from the TV as Cyrus and Gio left. "I'll be here."
Gio stumbled as he stepped into the elevator, and was quiet the whole way up to the apartment. Cyrus fumbled somewhat with his key as he unlocked the door, and directed Gio to the couch. Gio limply pulled the cushions from the couch as Cyrus made his way to his own room, quickly showered off, and finally climbed into bed. Holy hell, it was refreshing to be on a real mattress for the first time in so long, with new blankets that still smelled like fabric softener. Getting to sleep in a totally dark room, with the door closed and no bright hall light that cast the shadows of nurses on an hourly basis. He hadn't really thought much about it when he was being given the tour, but it felt spectacular to have a place to call his own, or even just a private area to himself.
Maybe this Rocket thing wouldn't be too bad at all. He'd initially agreed just to escape the monotony of the hospital, and one day in is awfully early to decide whether or not he loved the environment. But he'd found a new hobby— and probably new friends—within hours of coming here, something he'd literally never experienced before. And while he wouldn't say he got along as well with Giovanni as he had with the executives, he didn't feel paranoid about letting Gio stay on the pull-out for the night. Was this a testament to how far his treatment had brought him?
Back in the hospital, the antipsychotics had Cyrus "feeling" again within the first year, and it had been wildly distressing. He remembered crying for the first time in over a decade, and the first time he cried in front of Grandpa Finn; those had been considered enormous milestones. After that first year, however, Cyrus thought his progress, in both physical and psychiatric therapy, had plateaued, but maybe he'd come a little further than he initially thought. And maybe this Rocket business would help him to continue to improve, both in his mental health and socially. Of course, before he could make that decision, he'd need to see how his own experiments go. There was a very real possibility that this could end as badly, if not worse, than his attempts at Spear Pillar. It was entirely possible that this time it would kill him, and all of that progress would be for naught.
But…for some reason, that thought didn't scare him as it may have in the past. Cyrus rolled himself into a loose blanket burrito and closed his eyes, savoring the feeling of the soft fabric on his skin. As he felt himself drifting off, he could just faintly hear Giovanni snore in the living room, barely audible over the hum of the air conditioning. Honchkrow flew silently over to the bed, nestling up close to Cyrus's head, and tucking its beak under its wing.
It was good to be home.