Archive of Our Own

"Plums! I'm back!"
The Team Skull Boss strolled into the hot kitchen.
"Smells good. Whatcha cookin'?" he asked, leaning over Plumeria's shoulder to peer into the large pot on the stove.

Snom, who was sitting on top of her head, jumped off and onto her trainer's shoulder.

"Back up lolo," she says, nudging him with her elbow, "You're just as bad as the grunts! Crowding me when I'm cookin'."

Guzma shrugged and stepped to the side, leaning backwards on the counter and scratching Snom's head.
She was looking a little warm so he pulled her ball out of his pocket and returned her.

"But, to answer your question," Plumeria continues, "I boiled down a couple Rare Bones I picked up for cheap at the store yesterday. Threw in some veggies and seasonings to simmer."

This is a pretty standard dish served in the Po Town household. It's inexpensive to make a lot of and is really nutritious. It's also convenient because they can make a big vat of it one day and just eat from it the rest of the week. It has decent flavor but it's easy to get sick of after a few days. Sometimes Plumeria will cook down some rice into it after a couple days to help keep it interesting.

"Also, 'bout a half hour ago," she said, placing a lid on the steaming pot, "a couple delibird flew in and dropped off a whole bunch of berries! Tons of different kinds too!"
She pulled out an envelope from her pocket and handed it to her boss.
That came with it."

Guzma accepted the envelope and examined it.
His name was on the back in hand written letters.

He opened it up and began to read.

Alola Guzma,
I sent the delies over with a bunch of the ugly fruits I can't sell at market. Figured y'all wouldn't care what they looked like. They work and taste the same anyways.
Remember that you're always welcome in my house.
-Uncle

"So... what's it say?" asked Plumeria.

"The berries are from my friend at the Berry Fields. Says that he can't sell these, so he's just givin' 'em to us."

"Shoots! I've always liked that guy! I wonder what made him think of it... Did you run into him while you were over there?"

Guzma glanced down at the envelope again and realized that there was something else inside; he reaches in and pulls out an old, faded polaroid.

In the photo, two young, Alolan men sat on the fence of what looked to be the Berry Fields. They were smiling and had an arm around each other's shoulders.

The man on the left is a lot younger, but is unmistakably the Berry Field's owner.
The man on the right had pale skin and jet-black, shoulder length hair.

To Plumeria, this young man looked eerily familiar, but she couldn't quite place why.

She nudged her boss.
"Guzma, who is that?"

He smiled faintly.
"That's my kapunakāne."

"No kidding! Damn, you look so much like him! It's a little uncanny valley."
She deftly took the photograph from him and studied it.
"Were the two of them friends?"

"You could say that."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, they've known each other since they were kids. He was the best man at my grandparent's wedding."
Guzma leaned his forearm on the admin's shoulder.
"My grandmother died young and it was pretty hard on him. I never met her, but Tutu use to tell me stories. She was kind and loving, but a giant tita. Just like you!"

She punched him playfully in the arm.

"Anyway, after she died he apparently had a real hard time dealing with it. But, he got a helluva lot better after moving in with the good Uncle there."

Plumeria smiled and said softly, "That's really sweet."

"Pissed my dad off to no end though. He'd always be going off about how Tutu 'betrayed' and 'disgraced' his wife's memory by living with a māhū."

Plumeria nodded in understanding. But then she thought of something.

"Just 'living?' " she asked curiously.

"Pffft! Of course not!" he laughed. "But ya think my asshole makuakāne would ever admit that?"¹

Guzma took the photo back and tucked it into an inner pocket of his jacket.

"Enough reminiscing. When's them 'ono grinds gon' be ready?"²

Plumeria pulled the lid off the pot and stirred.

"Another minute or so. Why don't ya call in everyone?"

"Sure," he said as he walked to the door.

"It'd sure be nice if you learned to cook one of these days," she called after him.

"Hey! I can cook!"

"No. You can follow a recipe. Sometimes. Most of the time you just set the fire alarm off."

He shrugged and continued out the door.

~~~

The 'dining hall', which is just the large room adjacent to the kitchen, was filled with laughter and chatter as all the grunts happily ate their dinner.
There's a few folding chairs and tables but for the most part everyone either sat or squatted on the ground. Three or four of them could always squeeze up on the mantle of the fireplace too.

Guzma and Plumeria sat off to the side with their backs against the wall. The admin sat flat with her legs stretched out and her bowl in her lap while the boss squatted with his elbows on his knees.

"Ain't you hungry?" she asked, shoveling food into her mouth.

"Nah, I ate while I was out. Oi! Knock that shit off!"

Across the way, a couple of grunts were passing Snom back and forth like she was a football.
Despite this, she was chirping and chortling excitedly.

"She's fine, Guzma. Quit being such an overprotective Papa," Plumeria teased, nudging him.

"Tch..."

Another few minutes went by as Guzma carefully surveyed the room.
He watched vigilantly while making mental note of which grunts were interacting, if any of them seemed uncomfortable, if any heated debates seemed to be escalating...

"Hey," he mutters, leaning toward Plumeria, "you seen the twins around?"

She scratched her head as she thought, then she answered, "Umm... no, now that you mention it. I haven't seen them since earlier."

Guzma stood up.
"I'll be right back."

He walked towards the exit, grabbing Snom as he went by, despite the grunts' protests, and placing her on top of his head.

The boss wandered down the hallway, turned, and continued down another corridor. He moved softly, listening for any usual sounds.

He was about to pass a door but then stopped as Snom gently tugged on his hair. He reached up and petted the bug.

"Good girl..." he said quietly.

The pale man grabbed the door handle and opened the door slowly.
Sure enough, the twins were sat on the edge of a mattress on the floor.

Pink sprung up.
"B-boss! What are you... I mean... please don't be mad..."

Guzma narrowed his eyes at the boy before pushing him out of the way.
He crouched down to be eye to eye with Blue.

The boy refused to look at him. Even so, Guzma could tell his eyes were red from crying. Also, he was awkwardly holding a wadded up t shirt on the left side his face with the opposite hand.

Then the boss glanced downward. Blue's left arm was swollen and hanging limply in his lap.

Guzma lifted Snom off his head and set her down next to the boy. He turned back to the brother.

"What happened," he asked calmly.

"We... we were screwing around on the roof... like you told us not too... I'm sorry, but don't be mad at Blue! It's my fault! It was my idea-"

Guzma cut him off by standing up and grabbing the front of his shirt.
"Oh, I'm mad. I'm mad because I have three rules in the house," he growled, "What are they?"

"Umm..." -the boy swallowed hard- "W-what the boss says goes... respect y-ya brothers and sisters... a-and.."

"Never keep secrets..." Blue finished quietly from behind them.

Guzma let go of Pink.
Down on the floor, Snom was nosing Blue's leg in concern.

"How long?" asked Guzma.

"An hour... or two..."

"You should've told me or Plums immediately. What kind of family are we if we can't talk to each other?"

"I know boss... I'm sorry... just... you were in such a good mood this morning..." Pink tried to explain.

"We haven't seen you like that in a while..." continued Blue, "we didn't want to ruin if for you..."

"That's a stupid-ass excuse," their boss deadpanned.

"We know..." they said in unison.

Guzma sighed and kneeled down in front of the boy. He gently took his hand in his, examining the injured arm.

"Can you turn your wrist?" he asked.

"No."

Guzma gently removed the boy's other hand, and t-shirt, from his face. He winced as the air hit the open wound.

Guzma's hummed to himself
"That's a nasty gash you got, Brother."

"I fell into a bush... I think it broke the fall some, but I got cut..." Blue revealed.

"Golisopod!"

The pokémon emerged from his ball at his trainer's call.

The boss turned to the pokémon and instructed, "I need you to go to the kitchen and grab the following: aspear, lum, sitrus, babiri, and chople. Meet us at the center in ten."

The isopod nodded dutifully and left.

"C'mon," Guzma says, about to help the boy up, "let's go."

"No," he snapped, which was very unusual for the soft spoken boy, "I don't wanna go to the hospital!"

"I ain't asking, ya numbskull," he snapped back, lifting the boy up in his arms.

The boy blushed in embarrassment but didn't try to argue further.

~~~

Guzma carried Blue all the way to the Pokémon Center at the edge of Po Town. As it turns out, he hurt his ankle on the fall as well, so Guzma wouldn't of made him walk in the first place.

He set the boy down and let him lean on his brother as he pushed open the front doors to the Center.
He keeps a lot of supplies in here but Guzma never felt like he needed to lock the building, seeing as he had a... 'different' kind of security system.

"No...."

A haunting voice rumbled from the darkness as they entered the building.
Demonic, red eyes stared at them from the void. Objects on the floor began to stir and then lift into midair.

The grunts were shaking and took some nervous steps back towards the door.

Guzma held up his hand, signaling the two to halt.
He then called out, "Stand down Hypno, it's just me."

The lights flipped on and everything fell back into place.
In the corner, on one of the cafe bar stools, sat the yellow, psychic pokémon.

"Hi hi!" it said, waving at the grunts.

They waved back, but their faces looked confused and apprehensive.

"Da da!"

A spinda came stumbling up to them.

"Yo Spinda, howzit hangin'?" asked Guzma.

"Da!" it answered, spinning around on its heel and then falling flat on its behind.

Blue and Pink giggled at the silly little pokémon.

For the briefest of moments, Guzma's shoulders relaxed before he became serious once more.
"C'mon now. Sit up on the counter so I can get a better look at ya. I promise you that I will do everything that I can to prevent ya from having to go to the ER. A'ight?"

Guzma had the grunt turn his head and roll his neck in every direction. He's lucky. Dude fell off a roof but doesn't appear to have any sort of neck injury!

Next, he had him flex the ankle that's bothering him. Although it hurt, he had a normal range of motion.

"Looks like just a sprain, but the arm is anuddah story. Ya shoulder's dislocated."

He pulled a drawer out, grabbed a few different things, and set them on the counter: a couple packages of medical looking stuff, some gauze, a mortar and pestle...

"I can fix it, but it's gonna hurt like hell," he explained honestly.

The boys looked hesitantly at each other and then nodded.

Guzma held Blue's wrist in one hand and supported his elbow with the other.

He paused.

This wasn't going to work; Blue was way too tense. The poor kid's jaw was quivering and he was just barely holding back tears.

The boss gently laid the arm back down.

He put his hand on the back of the boy's head and brought him in to touch his forehead.

"Shh..." murmurs Guzma more carefully and gently than either boy ever thought possible of him, "breathe litto bruddah. Breathe..."

They stayed like that for several minutes. Blue did his best to match his breathing with his boss.

Once the boy started to breathe calmly and evenly, Guzma pulled away and had him lay down on the counter.

Pink held onto his brother's good hand while the white haired man began to slowly move his arm to the side and then up above Blue's head.
Snom watched curiously atop Pink's moppy head.

"Keep breathing..." he reminded the boy gently.

A reduction like this can be performed with little to no pain if the muscles stay relaxed. Unfortunately, Guzma's pretty certain the boy's forearm is broken, so manipulating it will hurt regardless. Even so, he tried to move as slowly and precisely as possible to minimize the pain and keep the boy calm.

POP!

The grunt gasped as the joint slipped back into the socket.

Guzma smiled and laid a hand atop the grunt's head.
"See? Wasn't so bad, eh? Let's take care of that cut now."

Just then. Golisopod pushed the doors open and walked in. He scuttled up to the counter with the berries Guzma asked for cradled in his arms.

"Mahalo Goli."

He examined the different fruits as his pokémon placed them on the counter.
Pulling his old pocket knife out, he began cutting small pieces of the different berries and placing them in the mortar he pulled out earlier.

"Um... hey, Boss?" asked Pink as Guzma carefully mashed and mixed the different ingredients. "Were you like... an EMT or something?"

Guzma chuckled.
"Nah... I just had a good teacher..."

He walked back over, setting the concoction on the counter and opening up one of the packets he pulled out earlier to reveal a pair of surgical gloves. He pulled them on and then dipped a couple gauze squares in the mixture.

"This'll sting at first, but it'll numb ya and act as a disinfectant," he told them before dabbing at Blue's open wound. "We'll let it sit for about ten minutes then it should be numb enough to put some stitches. Lucky for ya, I got some polyglactin in here that hasn't expired yet."

He let Blue hold the gauze against his face so he could get into the drawer again.

"Are you sure you weren't a nurse or something?" Pink asked again skeptically.

"The thing is," Guzma begins to explain, pulling out a stainless steel tub and a pair of needle drivers, "My old man loved to beat the shit outta me, right? So I'd end up in the hospital a lot when I was a kid. I don't think I have enough fingers to count how many times I've broken 'em. But yeah, broken bones, lacerations, luxations, you name it..."

He set some clean gauze into the tray and poured a strange smelling, brown liquid onto them.

"There was a doc on Akala that always helped me out. But, since I couldn't pay, she'd have me come after school and assist her- Hey Hyp, ya know where I put te plastic... de kine... de plastic kine... grocery bags?"

The hypno waddled over to a cabinet and pulled it open, revealing a grocery bag stuffed and overflowing with more grocery bags.

Guzma grabbed a couple out and held one up to Snom.

"Hey, Malihini, how 'bout some powdered snow?"

"Sno!" she squeaked, happy to be included, before filling the bags.

He tied them shut and placed one on Blue's ankle. He handed the other one directly to him.

"If you can stand it, you can hold it against ya arm to numb the pain."

After a few minutes, he removed the gauze from Blue's face and cleaned the gash with the squares he had soaking.

"Pain?" he asked.

"Not really, actually."

"Perfect. Can you lay down again?"

Pink's jaw dropped in a mixture of fascination and disbelief as the Team Skull Boss began stitching the wound shut with an unexpected amount of expertise.

"So... what happened to her?" asked Blue.

"Who?"

"The doctor you said you was friends with."

"Oh. She umm... she got a job outside of the region..."

"Really, where?"

"A little bit of everywhere I guess... got hired by the international police..."

"What's police need with a doctor?" asked Pink.

"Well... Nanu says that she was their 'forensic medical examiner.' I never quite understood why she did it, she hated cops... finished."

Guzma pulled off his gloves and walked back over to where the other berries sat.

"So, where is she now, Boss?"

"Gone," he answered flatly, tossing Blue a sitrus berry, "Eat that."

Guzma sat down on a stool nearby and sighed. He looked at the boys very seriously.

"Look... I've done everything I can for you right now, but I'm certain your arm's broken, Brother," he says as he ran his fingers through his hair, "And I can't fix what I can't see. I know you ain't got good experiences with doctors, but you need to go to the hospital-"

"No, Boss, Please! You said-"

"I said that I would do what I can! Did I lie to you?"

"No..."

Guzma got back up and walked over to the boy's side.
"Pink or I will be with you the whole time. I promise. Ok?"

Blue stared at the ground but eventually nodded.

"Good. Before we go I would really like to examine you for any internal injuries. If I don't find anything, then I'd be comfortable letting the docs at the hospital skip it. But I'll need to touch your torso to do it. Is that ok?"

The boy nervously squeezed his brother's hand.

"It's ok, if it's not ok," the boss added calmly.

"Um... c-can big Sis-"

Guzma nodded.
"Goli, go get Plums."

After a few short minutes, Golisopod returned with Plumeria and she was helping Guzma finish his examination. Mainly, she just had to palpate different spots under Blue's shirt on his back, chest, and stomach.
Thankfully, there didn't appear to be anything amiss. Nevertheless, they still need to get radiographs of his arm.

In the back of his mind, Guzma couldn't help but think of what it was going to cost...

~~~

Guzma sat with the boys in the waiting room of the ER.

Blue was fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. The kid seemed so anxious.

The boys were wearing non-Team Skull street clothes.
Guzma had them change before they left since members tend to get treated differently than just regular kids.

When it was their turn, Guzma walked them over to the door but then crouched down and spoke quietly. "Blue. Look at me. All they need to do is check out your arm. Nothing else. If they ask you to take your shirt off, you do not have to if you don't want. They're perfectly capable of examining you properly as you are. Got it?"

The boy nodded.

Guzma turned to Pink and said, "Back ya brother up"- he looked back and forth between them- "And if they ask who stitched ya up, just say 'a good sumeritan'. Just keep saying it if they try to pry. If they ask who your legal guardian is, tell them it's me, your older brother. You can give 'em my legal name. You don't gotta give 'em your's unless ya want. Shoots?"

They nodded and then followed the nurse into the back.

About a half hour went by and one of the nurses finally approached him.
"So. You're the 'brother' of those twins?"

"Hey Nurse Joy, what's shakin'."

The pink haired woman, who also happened to be the head nurse on call, was not amused.

"Guzma, you don't even look remotely Johtonian."

"Cut to chase, Joy. Whaddya want."

"The kids won't say nothing so I'm asking you. Who put in those sutures?"

"Dunno," he lied.

"You're lying."

"No I'm not," he lied again.

She crossed her arms and rubbed her forehead.
"I've only seen sutures that clean done by seasoned plastic surgeons! And this isn't the first time you've brought in someone with sutures like them. Did... did you do that?"

Guzma chuckled. "Wouldya listen to yaself? Where would a low life, thug like me learn te do someting like that? Quit wastin' my Arc-damn time!"

She returned to the back in an angry huff.

Another half hour went by and a doctor wearing surgical scrubs and a lowered mask on his face walked out and handed Guzma a clipboard and a pen.

"I'm going to need a signature to consent to surgery for 'Blue's' arm."

"Surgery? What kind of fracture was it?"

"There's fractures in both the radius and ulna. The radial fracture is unstable. That means-"

"I know what it fucking means. You have to put a plate in then? I'm assuming neither fracture were too distal or proximal? Were either displaced?"

"Uhh... yeah. And... no they aren't."

The surgeon looked at him strangely as if he did not expect the man to know nearly as much as he does.

"So you're telling me there's absolutely no nonsurgical options?" Guzma pressed.

"I'm really sorry sir, but there's no other way. If you want her arm to heal properly-"

In an instant, Guzma was on his feet. He towered over the man, leaning down uncomfortably into his face.

"His," he seeths through gritted teeth, "his arm... doctor."

"Oh uhh... y-yes, my m-mistake...
He was visibly sweating bullets.
"Please j-just sign the form."

Guzma signed the sheet and handed it back without moving an inch or breaking eye contact.

The man quickly retreated to safety.

Guzma thumped heavily down into his seat. He leaned his head back, closing his eyes for a moment.

This was not going to be cheap...
If the stupid suits who run the government would just legalize the use of healing moves, surgeries like this would become completely unnecessary.
But that's the problem.
No surgeries with lengthy recovery times and follow up appointments means a loss in profit.

Guzma dropped his head into his hands.
Arceus, he wished D.J. taught him how to train healing moves before she... moved on.
But you can't just go using them however it pleases. You could end up healing something wrong or overdoing it to the point of benign yet cancerous cell growth.

Well, there's nothing he can do about it now. As much as he hates to admit it, this is the world they live in. So, for now... he'll just have to figure out how he's going to pay for all of it, because not getting them medical care was never an option.

As he sat there, he eventually realized what'd he'd have to do.

The white haired man stared down at the Team Skull emblem at the end of his chain and muttered to himself, "I'm sorry Moon..."