A/N: I'm posting these now for the simple fact that I'll never get around to it because I've got so much work on at the moment it's actually insane. I know for a fact that I'm going to be equally busy right the way into the end of January. Sucks to be me. :P

Anyway, enough of that. Fair warning...there's a lot of angst in this chapter. I thought it was fitting for the title.


3. To Denounce the Evils of Truth and Love


1. Ring

If she was a better person, she would support James through his run in the Poké Ringer contest; instead she turns away from him with a sneer, more interested on her latest Pokémon swiping scheme than cheering her friend.


2. Hero

Sometimes, when she's down, she doubts she'll ever find a hero in her line of work.


3. Memory

She's not the sort of person who forgives and forgets easily, and it is no exception when James comes to her side and apologises for being insufferable today through gritted teeth; she can only turn away, her silent anger the dismissal of his weak attempt of friendship.


4. Box

One day James brings out a box that he claims he's had since childhood; Jessie and Meowth take turns attempting to prise it open only to find that it's filled with bottle caps, not money, when they do; at this point Jessie turns her flashing eyes on her partner and snaps that if that's the only useless junk that he can produce, then they might as well give up now.


5. Run

Before now, James has never felt like the friendship that he shares with Jessie was disintegrating right before his eyes; now, on the darkest of nights, he silently wonders if it would have been better for everyone if he'd continued to run from his past instead of stopping at Team Rocket headquarters, if they'd never been partnered together all those years ago.


6. Hurricane

When she wants it to be, Jessie's temper is like a hurricane; destroying everything in its path and leaving her friendship with James on only the most frayed of threads.


7. Wings

I wish I could fly away from here, James thinks bitterly, glaring daggers at Jessie as he squares up to her; she sneers coldly at him.


8. Cold

They sit several feet apart from each other, each shivering in the bitter night air; tentatively, as though fearing the consequences, James suggests that they sit closer; Jessie can only snort and turn away, preferring to suffer alone than be anywhere near him.


9. Red

The sun's dying rays splash across his features like a fatal, bloody wound; for a moment she thinks about reaching out to him, bridging the space between them…but that could leave her nursing the remains of a slain heart if she does so, and she therefore turns away before she sees the hurt in his eyes.


10. Drink

She's taken to drinking on the sly whenever she can – anything to numb the damn pain of this repetitive cycle – but tonight she finds that she's not alone in the act; slowly, James offers her the bottle, and she takes it with a cynical quirk of her lips, thinking perhaps they aren't so different after all.


11. Midnight

Midnight: the witching hour, the magic minute, the time where anything can happen; James glances across at his silent partner who is poking the fire morosely and wonders if things will get better for them today.


12. Temptation

The temptation to just ditch him and go solo is constantly on her mind nowadays, but somehow she can't find the strength to do just that.


13. View

"This here view used to be beautiful before everything went wrong," the old man tells them as they file past him and James can't help but compare it to his friendship with Jessie; once a sight of beauty to behold, now nothing but a barren and unwelcoming landscape.


14. Music

Chimecho's pretty little voice rings out clearly, and the three thieves pause in their work to simply listen; with the sound of the cheerful notes coursing through his veins, James turns to his partner to smile and she reciprocates the action; for the first time in a long while they feel connected by the song.


15. Silk

There are numerous things that annoy her about James nowadays, not least his nerve-shredding ability to whine about how much his life sucks when he could just hightail the hell out of the endless cycle of humiliation to return to silken sheets and warm meals and more money than she could ever dream of holding.


16. Cover

Jessie rouses and rolls over sleepily, feeling the space beside her empty; she sits up on one elbow and surveys the room in exasperation because James is just not there; her eyes find him slumped over the little desk in the corner where he'd been devising a plan for their next attempt to capture Pikachu when she'd retired; she gnashes her teeth together (she'd told the bloody idiot to not fall asleep there but he just does not fucking listen) and instead of slipping out of bed to drape their thin blanket over his shoulders as she would've done in the past, she rolls back over and determinedly pushes his shivering form out of her mind.


17. Promise

"I swear, I'll never let you down," James had once said, but Jessie can't help but bitterly think that he's failed her as she watches their lives crumble all over again.


18. Dream

Jessie doesn't dream, not anymore; she'd given that up the moment that James had turned on her and begun to sever the fragile bond of friendship for good.


19. Candle

One look at her face has the tentative hope that had ignited within him snuffed out like a candle's fragile flame.


20. Talent

She'd always had the talent for picking out complete bastards, Jessie reflects; men who pretended to support her and then turned their backs the moment that they couldn't get what they wanted, and James appears to be no different as he and Meowth sneer about her love for Contests behind her back and leave her to struggle with her dream alone.


21. Silence

The silence is an ocean of despair between them, threatening to choke the breath from their lungs and destroy them for good.


22. Journey

The journey they've undertaken in life has had its ups and downs; sometimes it has been the most beautiful thing in the world, leaving them cruising effortlessly as they take in the sights, and sometimes it has left them grasping desperately at the unrelenting cliff face for purchase, but now they've reached the top and life is perfect.


23. Fire

The unnatural wildfire in his eyes threatens to reduce her to ash.


24. Strength

It takes every ounce of his willpower to not beg her to stay as he watches her walk resolutely away from him.


25. Mask

At night, when she is alone, she allows herself to fall apart in the face of everything that has gone wrong for them since reaching Hoenn; in the morning she rises with the sun, with her mask of calculated indifference back in place, no one any the wiser.


26. Ice

She's encased her heart in ice, determined that no one will ever break through the unforgiving wall and scar her again.


27. Fall

It's over before he's really comprehended that it's begun, and all that he knows – thought he knew – about the world and the two of them has fallen down around him.


28. Forgotten

She's forgotten what it's like to have a friend that she can rely on.


29. Dance

Sometimes they'd dance just because they were happy, two souls twisting together to the song of the heart; now they don't even have the heart to reminisce over what used to be.


30. Body

She's shivering and trying to push him away as he gazes down on the damage that Pikachu has done to her body today but this time he's insistent, and when the weak, trembling, "that rat has ruined me," issues from her parched lips, he covers her mouth with his own and proceeds to show her that she's anything but ruined.


31. Sacred

He's more precious than gold, rarer than the rarest jewel and more sacred than a Moltres' flame, but she'll never admit that, not to anyone.


32. Farewells

This time they're really going solo, and at that moment James is too angry with her for her stubbornness to think of anything but a jubilant farewell.


33. World

They'd once had the whole world at their fingertips…now they have nothing.


34. Formal

The stiff, clipped way that he speaks to her now hurts her more than Pikachu ever could, but she'll take that secret with her to the grave.


35. Fever

She shivers beneath the too-thin blanket, and James smooths the sweaty hair away from her hot forehead and presses the cool cloth against her, murmuring words of comfort as he does so; even in her illness, Jessie can't help but smile.


36. Laugh

The foreign sound of her laughter almost breaks his heart; he watches from a distance as she flirts lightly with the handsome cashier attendant in the superstore and he can't help but bitterly think that she doesn't need him to be happy.


37. Lies

Don't worry, I won't leave you…We may not make a lot of money, but we sure have got our freedom…Team Rocket's friendship never ends…at the end of the day, all they'd been were lies.


38. Forever

She doesn't believe in happily ever afters or promises of forever because they'll never ever be for her.


39. Overwhelmed

The gentle pressure of her fingers on his shoulder overwhelms everything else; he turns to find her almost smiling at him.


40. Whisper

Her sleeping breath wafts gently across his face as he holds her in his arms, and his fingertips whisper down the soft swell of her hip as he guides them down her body, silently marvelling at how far they've come.


41. Wait

He doesn't know how much longer he can wait for the friend that he once thought he had to return to him.


42. Talk

They're just not communicating anymore, that's the problem, and for once in his life Meowth doesn't have the foggiest idea of how to intervene and prevent his two human friends from tearing each other apart at the seams.


43. Search

At one time Jessie had thought that her search for that one person who understands her no matter what was over; now she knows that she couldn't have been more wrong, but she doesn't have the strength to begin that laborious task of searching again; instead she vows to seal her heart in a casket of ice…until he begins to melt it.


44. Hope

The last glimmer of hope disappears with the bite of her insincere smile.


45. Eclipse

The lunar eclipse reaches everything in sight…even their friendship.


46. Gravity

Gravity always pulls them back down to earth, no matter the consequences.


47. Highway

With the hateful look in his partner's eyes, James feels as though he's on the highway to oblivion, too late to stop the inevitable car crash.


48. Unknown

Perhaps not knowing the future is for the best, James thinks as he glances over at his partner; after all, he doesn't really want to know how there story will end.


49. Lock

She'll lock away the smile he has given her in her chest and throw away the key so that nobody can take it away from her.


50. Breathe

Just breathe, Jess, the female Rocket instructs herself as James hand brushes against her skin, almost setting it on fire, just breathe.


A/N: I sincerely hope that I can get the next chapter done in time for Christmas.