Dark Puck - moar pokefic!

Three years before...

Jim Maguire eyed the Dragonair’s Den with a raised brow.  The place had definitely seen better days, but he had no doubt that this was where he would find his quarry.  Cyrus Walker was not an easy man to track down, mainly because at the time of his retirement, he had been fairly low down the power ladder of Team Rocket.  However, Jim was patient, and had managed to dig up the man’s current location.  Now, however, outside the pub, the teenager hesitated.

The Poochyena pup in his arms squirmed and licked his hand; absently, Jim petted him.  “This is all your fault, you know,” he told him softly before glancing at the pub again.  He winced.  Some protection.  He took a deep breath, and walked inside.

The pub was... well, a pub. It was not like Jim had a wide basis for comparison. Sure enough, the barkeep carded him as soon as he stepped up to the bar. Without missing a beat, Jim showed him the fake ID his superiors had provided him, which passed with a cursory glance. "What can I get for you, Mister Fincke?" he asked.

“Just a beer.  Amber if you’ve got it,” Jim said, praising the Legendaries that his father loved beer.  He’d absorbed some of his father’s knowledge by osmosis.

Nodding, the pubkeep drew him a pint and passed it over.

Jim paid the man and then retired to a corner table, casually looking the clientele over.  Come on, Walker, where are you?

The pub was not very crowded, and Jim wondered if it ever was. His eye was drawn to a corner booth. There was a man there, drinking some kind of cocktail. His brown hair was going grey, it looked like he hadn't shaved him a few days, and he was wearing a well-worn and slightly patched greatcoat. Under the table, a Marowak was slumbering peacefully, leaning against the man's leg.

Jim’s eyes narrowed as he mentally matched the man to the picture he’d been provided.  That was him, all right.  Now to approach him.

…

Jim, if you’re going to approach, you need to move your legs.

The Poochyena – Jim had named him Kiba – yawned and gently gnawed on his thumb.  “No,” he told Kiba sternly.

The man suspected of being Cyrus Walker yawned, then sipped his drink, turning to look at Jim as he did so.  Deliberately, the teen kept his attention on Kiba, disengaging his thumb from the seeking jaws and slipping the puppy a Pokéblock to gnaw on.  Had Team Aqua never heard of discipline?

The man cleared his throat politely, and Jim looked in his direction.  When their eyes met, he gave a humourless little smirk and made a come-hither gesture. That, Jim thought, is either very good, or very bad.  Gathering Kiba carefully into one arm, and grabbing his beer with the other, Jim crossed the room to him.

As he approached, Jim noticed that the Marowak lazily opened one eye and focused it on him.

"May I help you?" asked might-be-Cyrus.

“You might be able to,” the teenager replied, setting his beer down and grabbing Kiba with both arms.  The Poochyena was struggling to get at the Marowak for sniffing purposes, and Jim would rather not drop him.

The skull-headed 'mon under the table shifted its gaze to Kiba, seeming to imply that it's maimed for less. "Glad to hear it. But do I want to ?"

“That’s entirely up to you,” Jim responded.  He was not a small man, but possibly-Cyrus was even bigger than he was, an a little intimidating.

May-or-may-not-be-Cyrus chuckled a bit. "You're an odd one," he said, sipping his drink. It smelled like there was gin in it. "Normally, I'd have expected the threats to start coming by now. And believe me when I say you wouldn't like what happens to people who make threats in my bar."

“I’ve found that threats don’t get me very far in the long run,” Jim replied.  “Not to mention you could probably bounce me around the room a couple dozen times and then toss me out the window if I tried to follow through.”

"Backdoor, actually. They make me pay for the windows."

Screwing up his courage, Jim took a seat at the table.  “Then you’re Cyrus Walker.”

“Sure, why not," said definitely-Cyrus, downing the rest of his drink. "And you are?"

“Jim Maguire,” the teen replied, braving another sip of his beer.  Actually wasn’t that bad.  “Kiba,” he added sharply, turning his attention to the puppy now chewing on his sleeve.

So, Jimbo," said Cyrus, leaning back in his seat, "what's a man like you want from a bitter old drunk of an ex-gangster?"

Well, honesty was working so far.  Why not try it some more?  “I’m looking for some records I’m told fell into your possession,” he replied.

"What, not even going to try and buy me a few more drinks before making the pitch?" said Cyrus, feigning offence. "That's been tried before. I've drunk better men than you under the table. Still, I appreciate the directness. It's not something I've grown accustomed to. Let's say - hypothetically - that I have these things. Which I'm not saying I do. What do I have to gain?"

Shit.  “I’ll owe you a favour?” the younger man tried.

Cyrus let out a bark of laughter at this. "Are you the best they could spare? Back in my day, the Rockets had better hiring standards."

Jim’s lips curved in a smile.  “We all have to start somewhere,” he pointed out, gently stroking Kiba.  The puppy turned its head, trying to catch Jim’s hand in its jaws.  “Maybe I should consider this a training exercise.”

"If it is, I can't say you're doing terribly well," muttered Cyrus, flagging down the barman. "Though I really can't say I blame you."

“Sink or swim,” Jim replied with another sip of his beer.  “Kiba, stop that.”  He lightly smacked the puppy on the nose.  “No,” he said again, firmly.

"Feisty little bugger you got there," noted Cyrus as a fresh drink was placed on the table.

“High energy.  He can’t run around and let it all out, so he tries to chew things.  He wants training.”  A sigh.  “It’ll take a lot of time, but it will be done.  Once the cast is off, he’ll be able to work off a lot of that energy.”

The ex-Rocket eyed Jim strangely, as if... sizing him up? He took a sip of his gin-and-something as the head of the Marowak popped up beside him. It had apparently hopped onto the seat, and it, too, was looking at Jim. It made a sort of growly purr as it did, and Cyrus patted it on the head.

“Pretty girl you have there,” Jim commented, watching it.  “She have a name?”

"Surprised you could tell," Cyrus replied. "She's Lucy. Been watching my arse for as long as I'd care to remember."

Glancing to Cyrus for permission, Jim carefully extended a hand to Lucy, palm up, so she could get to know him.  “I’ve got a talent for dealing with Pokémon.”

Lucy eyed the hand, but instead of touching it or sniffing it, she poked it with the ubiquitous club made of bone that her kin carried. She then looked Jim straight in the eye and snarled curtly.

“Sometimes,” Jim added as he withdrew his hand.

"Don't take it personally," said Cyrus. "She's like that for everyone except me. In fact, I think she likes you."

“Because she warned me rather than crush my hand?”

"I was right, you are a bright one, if not the most sensible."

Jim arched an eyebrow at Cyrus.  Okay, so the big man was right about his lack of common sense, but he wanted to know what made him think so.

"Life," explained Cyrus between sips of booze, "is a lot like a card game, and people have all sorts of little tells that they're not aware of. You strike me as intelligent. And the way you're handling your 'mon tells me a lot about your character. But you lack a certain kind of...tact. Which tells me you've not been in the biz long."

“You have no idea,” Jim muttered.  A month?  Maybe two?

"I can hazard a pretty good guess," Cyrus replied, rolling his eyes. He briefly glanced at his watch. "I'm sure you're a very busy man. Why don't you come back here tomorrow? Perhaps we'll have something interesting to converse about."

“…sure,” Jim said at last.  Kiba was chewing on his beer mug now.  “Damn it, Kiba, no.”  Chew toys.  Definitely chew toys.

 

~*~

 

The Den looked the same as it did yesterday, and Jim suspected it would look similar tomorrow. All the same patrons were there, including Cyrus and Lucy, in the exact same spots.  Like yesterday, Jim had Kiba with him, though now the Poochyena was happily gnawing on a chew toy.  It had taken the Rocket hours to find one that didn’t squeak.

Cyrus waved Jim over immediately. The first thing Jim noticed was that his glass was empty.

The blond Rocket raised an eyebrow at Cyrus as he took a seat.  I really hope he isn’t expecting me to buy him his drinks.  I dunno if I can afford everything he’d put away.

"You came back," said Cyrus stoically. "Wasn't sure you would."

“You’re not that scary,” Jim lied.  “And I wanted to apologise to Lucy for sticking my hand in her face.”

Lucy had a sort of 'hmph' sound and banged on the table with her bone. This, he supposed, meant either "apology accepted" or "I will kill you in your sleep".

"Really? Guess I wasn't trying hard enough." Laughing quietly to himself, the older man whistled to the barman, and a fresh drink was summarily brought his way.

Jim elected for a soft drink today – he needed to think clearly, and he wasn’t entirely certain that he wouldn’t attempt to match Cyrus drink for drink.  At the same time, he reached into his bag and removed a Poffin, offering it to Lucy.  “Additional apologies for the hand in the face thing,” he said to her.

With reflexes not common in ground-types, the Marowak snatched it and ate it, making what was probably a happy sound.

"Congratulations," said Cyrus. "You have successfully bribed your way into her good graces."

“Until I screw up again, right?”  Jim turned blue eyes onto the bigger man.  He was no closer now to figuring out how he was going to get what he wanted from the older man.

"And now you're ready to get married." The man grinned smugly as he sipped his drink. "So have you revised your pitch at all?"

“Nope.  The other things I thought up would either get me bounced around the room a couple dozen times, or leave me with much less money than I like.  Occasionally both.  Unless the magic word scenario works.”

"You're free to try it."

Jim shrugged a shoulder.  “Very well.  Please, may I take those documents if in fact you do have them?”

The ex-gangster stroked his fuzzy chin in thought for a moment.

"Well, since you asked so nicely," he said, withdrawing a manila folder from the folds of his coat and plopping it down on the table.

The younger man blinked once, twice, then swept out a hand and quickly drew the folder to him, just in case Cyrus was messing with him.  “Thank you.”

"It's nothing I ever really needed anyway," Cyrus muttered into his glass.

Jim bit his tongue to keep from asking the question that tried to roll off it.  “Still.”

Cyrus finished off his drink in silence, still eyeing Jim strangely. "So I suppose your bosses need this ASAP?" he said after he drained the glass.

“I was given a deadline,” Jim replied carefully, “but I have plenty of time.”

There was another brief silence.

"Want to hear about the time we pinched a load of experimental performance-enhacers straight from the police's evidence locker?"

Jim nearly choked on his soda.  Coughing, he glanced up at Cyrus.  “That… sounds like a… story,” he said, between gasps.

"You bet your rookie ass it is."

“Yes, I think I do want to hear it.”

And so began a tale of thrills and intrigue, with embellishments in all the right places. Many drinks were consumed, and it was dark outside when Jim walked out.  Kiba had fallen asleep in his arms, and Jim smiled, leaning against the wall for a moment.  Thank the Legendaries that Cyrus hadn’t asked why he’d joined.