Notes: This was for pyromanicofthesea for the 2018 Pokemon Holiday Exchange on A03.
Also, all the thanks to SeeASweetSmile who did a translation of this work! If you'd like to read it in French, you can find it here (just add the website name before it when making the link):
s/13239351/1/City-of-Our-Minds-Our-Hearts
It was getting dark, they were lost, they were tired, Jessie was yelling at him for losing all their camping stuff and bags—which had all their possessions, money and food—to a horde of linoones (even though it was completely her idea to leave their equipment unattended—he didn't mention that), Meowth was trying to decipher the map and get them out of the forest and he was just trying to not freeze to death at the young age of 25.
"Let's just stay here for the night," Meowth said. "This map is impossible to read."
Jessie growled at him. "And freeze? What about food? I'm starving. If it weren't for somebody, maybe that would have been a good idea." She gave a pointed look at James and he winced.
Meowth smiled. "We can make a fire to stay warm. Also, look what I picked up." He held up an open bag half-full with marshmallows.
"What?! Give me that!" Jessie snatched the bag out of Meowth's paws and held it up to her face as if she couldn't believe her eyes. She shoved the bag in James's face. "We're camping right here. Go start a fire and roast the marshmallows," she ordered. "Meowth and I will search around the area and see if we can find anything else.
James meekly took the bag and did what he was told.
By the time Jessie and Meowth came back, James had already set up the fire and was toasting the marshmallows on sticks. Jessie and Meowth sat around the fire with him looking glum as they showed off what they found. Pinecones, dry leaves, pieces of tree bark, and two branches of old berries were all that were scavenged. Unfortunately, the bag of marshmallows was the exception to their finds.
"How miserable," Jessie spat out. She brought her knees to her face and wrapped her arms around them to stay warm. It's Christmas but it certainly doesn't feel like it."
"Yeah. I can't even wish Boss a nice Christmas," Meowth pouted. He stared blankly into the light of the fire.
James said nothing.
"The marshmallows aren't going to fill us up at all. We're going to have to eat tree bark and pretend it's chocolate and drink snow water and pretend it's sugar water." Jessie leaned forward to hover her hands near the fire.
No one said anything for about a minute as they all just stared into the fire.
Meowth opened his mouth to speak. "You know, if we have to resort to eating leaves and bark to stay alive, we might as well imagine that they're delicious things because maybe if we try to convince ourselves they are, they'll taste better."
Jessie glanced at him and suddenly, a determined gleam shone in her eyes. "I guess. I'll tell you what, this is probably just another small obstacle in the greater path of my life. One day, when I become a world-famous coordinator, actress, performer, and whatever else I'll want to be, I'll be spending every Christmas in a warm, mansion eating all the food I want."
"I just want to live with Boss and be Boss's number one," Meowth said quietly. "Which I will make happen," he said even quieter.
"And I'll live in a big city with fabulous lights and Christmas decorations like wreaths and bells and ribbons… just like the city over there, just beyond the forest." Jessie pointed upwards to the treetops in front of them. James looked up.
"What city? There's no city," James said. He strained his eyes to see beyond the trees but there were no lights or skyscrapers or anything to indicate that there was a city just beyond the forest.
Jessie rolled her eyes and Meowth sighed. Jessie continued to talk about her aspirations and Meowth replied with his own while James tuned out from their chat and started getting lost in his own thoughts.
He didn't think about the past too much but at times like these it was hard not to think about warm mansions, glittering chandeliers, exuberant Christmas trees and rows upon rows of food. Fragrant leek and jazz berry soup, roast bird with a dollop of pecha berry sauce, crispy custard fruit tarts… it made his mouth water thinking about Christmases once spent. It was only during these times, times where he actually had to consider snow as sugar and bark as chocolate and bitter berries as candy, that he thought about unclaimed inheritances and an alternate version of him feasting on lavish dinners. He found the food to be utterly perfect but somehow his family had always managed to find something wrong with their food. One of the cookies may not have been made perfectly round or the decorative leaf may have been placed slightly crooked and other nitpicky mistakes. James scrunched up his face in distaste. His family always had to make it seem like they got nothing out of the meals for those tiny imperfections.
It was one of those times where he actually let himself miss parts of the past like Growlie, his growlithe. Growlie, his loyal companion, so warm and fuzzy and cheery. He would warm him up in a second if he were here. He would keep James solid company unlike the talking cat and hot-headed woman he was with now.
Where was Growlie now? James shook his head. It had been too long to wonder.
"James, you idiot! The marshmallows!" screeched Jessie as Meowth turned to gape in horror at the burning marshmallows he only now noticed going up in flames.
He let out a sound which was a mix between a gargle and a scream as he jerked his arm to move the sticks out of the fire and into the snow to stop them from burning, nearly missing the snowbank in the process and burning down the forest. The acrid smell of burnt sugar rose above them in a spiral of smoke, which revealed the unfortunately coal-like colour and shape of the marshmallows.
Jessie continued screeching at him about his incompetence—"you had one job, James!"—all the while trying to salvage what remained of the marshmallows while Meowth shook his head disappointedly. James sat in shock, partially from the cold, partially from the noise of Jessie, and partially because they had practically lost their only meal for the night.
"Look, we could peel the black the burnt bits and eat the middle," he said in a last attempt to cheer them up. Which was futile judging from both Jessie and Meowth's crestfallen faces.
But then Jessie said, "I guess. The middle is all soft and it'd go well with the bark. Like a sandwich."
"Yeah, and the bitterness of these berries can balance out the sweetness of it," Meowth said, dangling a branch of dry and grey-looking rawst berries.
"Plus we have the leaves for a crunchy snack," Jessie said, holding up another branch of dead leaves.
"And the pinecones kernels can be broken off and eaten like corn," Meowth rambled. He broke a piece off a pinecone and popped it into his mouth.
"Snow as sweet water," Jessie said. Her red hands raw from the cold cupped some snow and she brought the snow up to her face.
James looked back and forth between them. Were their statements earlier about eating snow and all that actually serious?
"A-are you both insane?" he blurted out. Hypothermia was no joke and he could feel his mind growing numb as his body grew cold but it seemed like they were already past that point. "You know that just because you pretend it's food, it's not-"
They both turned and squinted at him like he was the insane one here and he stopped.
Was he wrong?
Technically not. But as Jessie and Meowth proceeded to ignore him and continue eating their 'food' and chatting about festive cities with bright lights and cosy futures which the new year would bring, James found himself feeling that even though he was right, it didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
They had nothing and yet, they had managed to create what they needed and wanted from thin air. It just took a little imagination.
And perhaps that was all that James needed to be happy too.
He settled closer to the fire, trying to warm himself as much as he could as he created his own marshmallow-bark sandwich and bit into it. It was bland and tough to chew.
But he took another bite. And another. And another. Each time he chewed off a piece, he let his mind drift further away into a faraway place where the bark was chocolate, the milkiest chocolate in the world, and the marshmallow fluff with bits of burnt pieces was cream, the softest cream to dip into. He could almost taste the richness of the milk and the lightness of the cream.
"See, it's good," Jessie said. She popped a shrivelled berry into her mouth. "Mmm… amazing. Fresh off the tree."
"Look, there are fireworks going off in the city," Meowth said as he pointed upwards.
Jessie gasped and both her and Meowth stared, amazed at the bare branches of the trees in the forest.
James looked harder. No, there weren't only branches actually. Between the branches, he could just see the golden lights of the city, tinged with reds and greens and blues from the fireworks. If he strained his ears, he could just hear the popping sound of them going off. It must be a beautiful city. The fireworks were a wonderful sight.
He took another bite of chocolate and sighed. Delicious.
Notes: Boss refers to Giovanni. Thank you for reading!