Hello! It is Wednesday and I am back with a new chapter. I can't believe that Shannon and I came up with the AU featured in this story two years ago now! But it took me ever such a long time to actually write about, because I think it was so vivid to us in other mediums that I didn't really know how to begin it for here. Actually, I wrote another chapter for uploading but I knew I needed to tackle this one and upload it first, otherwise it wouldn't have made much sense :P This story is about what we call our "Team Rocket AU". Essentially, it's an AU where instead of going on a Pokémon Journey and her parent's being absent after their death, Jordan and Lynne are able to visit a lot more and that leads to Misty joining Team Rocket as a teenager. And James is of course still part of the organisation! He is not busy tracking down Pikachu with Jessie and Meowth though, and they are more traditional agents. I hope you enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I own the story but none of the characters mentioned for once!
The lavender haired male with an "R" upon his chest barely had enough time to seat his bottom down on the dining chair below when all attention turned to him, as if they had been awaiting his arrival. Distance was barely closed between his dinner tray and the table. And words began.
"Ugh, it's getting so close to the end of the Rocket cycle and so many candidates to choose from but so little proper options." A sunny haired woman with her own pecked at dinner tray groaned, her gloved hand disappearing under bangs. "Any luck yet, James?"
While Cassidy's initial words could be argued that they were not actually for the man who sat down, her second comment couldn't be denied. Already, James had an array of eyes looking over at him and especially from the amethyst hues of the woman who directly spoke to him.
His dining tray finally settled on the table and his legs safely tucked under the legs of the chair for comfortable position. Apparently he didn't answer quickly enough for the gaggle of people that had been waiting for him in one of the Team Rocket Dining Halls. He was prompted to speak yet again.
"You gotta tell us. How did the date actually go?" A man with locks to match the healthy smoothie in the glass bottle of Cassidy next to him tried to prompt in his best encouraging voice. But from those smoke laced vocal chords, anything sounded harsh and probing!
James' eyes at last locked onto all of the people who were looking right at him and had been waiting for his return. They had been talking about him and his adventures while he was in the lunch queue and now that he was finally here, they could really get him to open up.
From Butch's words, it was clear that the lavender haired male had only let a few details slip so far, even throwing in some entirely fictitious (good-humoured and playful) fibs to really throw everybody off the scent.
But from the moment they sat down, he could tell that they were all inquisitive enough to hunt down the scent to the point of chasing entirely the wrong thing. They just wanted answers.
James' eyes scanned his audience, his expression that of one with weariness and also dismay that his business interested them so. Butch and Cassidy in their black, fully fledged agent uniforms. Meowth looking like the cat that licked the cream. But then again, he always did. He was the only talking Pokémon in the organisation.
Jessie. His eyes fell on her last. And in similar fashion, she was pretending to look at her nails concealed in her own black gloves, her eyes flickering between there and the man who had just joined them. She wanted to know the most but she wanted to show it the least, Meowth observed.
"It was fine." James' silence was broken. Edging forward in his seat and bringing his elbows to rest on either side of his dinner tray like a protective cage, silky lavender locks felt the touch of a gloved hand. "Behave. It wasn't a date."
Jessie's eyes didn't have any qualms about where her gaze longed to move to in that moment. The only women at the table, she and Cassidy shared the same look. Yes, they could often be on the same page for two people who liked to butt heads, both figuratively and literally.
Meowth didn't hesitate to speak with his feline lips the words that the two girls' were most definitely conveying wordlessly to each other in a single, brief look.
"Oh Jimmy, you mustn't ever say the company of a lady was just 'fine'." He educated the only other male of their Team Rocket Trio. His opinion was unsolicited but the nods of the heads from everybody but James spoke volumes. "And trust me; she definitely thought it was a date."
A light clanging of his fork and spoon together on the tray as he stopped running a hand through his hair, James' elbow altering its position on the table. After his previous chosen silence, he decided to speak his mind.
"Domino isn't silly." James pointed out, and Butch wasn't blind to the way that the yellow haired lady lounging close to him felt her lip tugging upwards, practically mirroring the curvaceous smirk that Meowth often possessed. "We just grabbed a bite to eat here and talked. Really." His gloved palm fell softly flat on the table. "Nothing more or less happened. It wasn't a date."
Following disagreeing with James' opinion over the smartness of her young cousin, Cassidy tried to get lucky twice in a row by looking over at Jessie in the hopes of sharing another look with her. However, her attention was garnered by her concealed nails all over again.
Meowth knew that he wasn't seeing things from the way that her shoulders fell further away from her ears at the answers that James had.
"Oh, I dunno. Sounds like a date to me." Butch was the one to reply. Understanding his humour and his meaning, Meowth looked away from Jessie and with a claw with a noodle wrapped around it from his own lunch; he chuckled out loud at the words that he heard.
It wasn't a rare sight to see people following suit after Meowth's laughter. Whether he was a bit of a gang leader in his own right or it was the sounds that came from his mouth that amused people so, he often lead the humoured responses and that occasion was no exception.
Even James who had previously felt a bit probed even though he had done his best to hide it, felt his mouth relaxing and moving closer in the direction of his ear, taking his Team Rocket gloves off to begin his own food.
He had just picked up a fork in his bare hold when he decided to dig at everybody else as much as they had tried to do with him.
"I guess that's me further and further away from having a date for the end of cycle dance." James began. His casual, words of his own experience were chosen carefully to catch the attention of everybody else once more and it quickly worked to his advantage. "What about everyone else? What are your success rates looking like?"
Attention had been captured swiftly. He hardly ever played into their discussions of dates and pairing up, but especially when it came to the famous end of Team Rocket Cycle Dances. And naturally, because that subject was hot off the press for everybody and not that gaggle of people eating lunch together, someone didn't hesitate to put their woes across.
"I was born alone and I will die alone." Started Meowth, capturing the focus of the group but for a very different reason to the way that James had gained it. He received the expressions of people with eyebrows who looked like they had been caught on a fish hook. "I will attend dances alone. All I need is me."
And with that, a profuse nod of the head erupted from the being of Meowth and he went back to using all his claws to dip into the water of his noodles, as if he was also yet another of the group who had been fishing.
James' acute hearing picked up on the mumbling of Cassidy to Butch, her arm wrapping around him but to pull him closer to speak into his ear rather than a display of affection. In return, he looked out from his curtain-like hair at Meowth and nodded after his team mate believed that the Cat Pokémon was in denial.
It seemed that a strong bout of hearing wasn't the only well-developed sense when it came to the lavender haired male. After he had some dimples of skin bubbling together between his brows as he knew Meowth well enough to take his words for dramatic but futile, his attention turned to his other team mate.
Like he, she was rare to talk about finding partners outside of scheming Team Rocket ones but the reason for this was because she thought it best to discuss it with the fellow female. It was a curse to let it be known to the opposite sex!
On that day though, she seemed more absorbed than usual with finding faults in her nails that nobody else could see.
A different, gentler smile eloped James' lips and his fork forwent actually picking up any food, instead being held in his hand like a fashion accessory as his other hand felt the cupping of his own chin, elbow back on the table.
"Any luck, Jess?" he asked her, hardly noticing any of the people around him then and not even the hundreds of chattering and giggling voices of the other members of the organisation.
Even if they were invisible to him, everybody at that particular dining table turned to watch and listen to as Jessie and James interacted with each other. In spite of the fact that the touch had not been for affection, Cassidy's arm lingered around Butch as she took a mouthful of her smoothie that matched the tone of his hair.
For a good few seconds, the magenta haired woman's gaze did not leave from tracing along every ridge and edge of her nails that she knew to be under her glove. But then feeling the round part of a fork politely poking against her own arm that was resting on the table, she was forced to come back to reality.
Some more moments of silence passed as she did not engage. But then, she did speak of that own reality of hers.
"Oh, with my luck, James, I'll have to end up taking you." She finally replied to him in a deadpan voice, the way that she recoiled and frowned against the touch of his fork through the material of her glove leading everyone to believe that she was being seriously mean but James. "I don't know." She changed her tune. "Getting with Attila would of course would be the best possible outcome."
James should have been offended at the insinuation that she would be settling by taking him along to the dance. But he wasn't. And he should have been really put off by the way that she was speaking aloud of her plan to go after another guy. But he wasn't.
Meowth thought that he was an idiot! But he had these thoughts alone and in private, sent telepathically with a craned neck down towards the remaining strings of noodles in his soup bowl.
Very outwardly, Butch and Cassidy thought James was entirely foolish too, for the same reasons as the cat Pokémon and for other ones too. They certainly thought this was the case and that he was a pushover as well more and more when he replied to his team partner with words.
"Nice." He told her, his fork no longer being used the other way as a tool to get her attention and being used the correct way to at last sink into the battered thing that was on his plate.
It was the more likely of the two that his tongue ever so slightly poked out of his lips at the moment that he met the gaze of Jessie because he was preparing to fill his stomach with food for lunch after a good amount of time of focusing on talking instead.
But the magenta haired woman took this look and definitely his one, single word as something else entirely. She felt the need to clarify and her hardened look was for the gazes she could feel burning into her that weren't from James, though she directed it towards that same man.
"Getting to go to the dance with Attila." She corrected, a steely gaze of blue meeting meadow green calmness. A twitching motion of her head proved her point. She didn't look away though she longed to burn her features right to the people who were really misinterpreting her.
Meowth did it for her and Butch and Cassidy soon were forced to stop their fiasco of sharing private looks that appeared to scream for all, all the words that they were conveying to one and other.
Again, James assisted in moving the conversation elsewhere and towards the people who did the probing – or in this case – the judging.
After a bite of a fish fillet was at last chewed on and swallowed and eaten too, he made sure to diffuse the situation before moving it in a better direction too. It was his natural way to ooze sincerity and for this he did not need to even try a jot.
"He would say yes." James spoke to Jessie and though he probably would have loved nothing more than to keep the conversation going just the two of them, he brought Butch and Cassidy back into the conversation again. "You guys not going with each other?"
A twitching of his head like Jessie's moments before spoke volumes but James' was in order to flick a hair away from his line of vision before he went back to eating. Immediately forgetting the way that they believed the other woman at the table was likely to get her way with anyone she wanted, Butch and Cassidy hooted out loud.
It must have stung for Butch that Cassidy yelped and shrieked with far more volume.
"Oh, don't be silly." The woman with hair the colour of sunflowers but certainly not in disposition told James with a roll of the eyes after she was finally done cackling. She looked everybody else around the table in the eye and somehow missed Jessie undoubtedly wincing at her volume. "We share a bed together. It's the one night of the year that we get to go out and have fun with other people and then come back and have even more fun with each other."
It was as if Meowth was making up for the fact that he hadn't been invited into the laughing ceremony before and from the way that he then burst into raucous chuckles at Cassidy's words, noodle soup liquid threatening to shoot out of his nostrils and flick someone in the eye.
Jessie had a curling upwards of the upper lip as though she had indeed been hit but of course, it was for the words that had tumbled out of Cassidy's own mouth. James' countenance didn't change an inch but he definitely heard it and he must've thought something or other.
But the person who thought the most things spoke up next. Wriggling away from the hold of Cassidy at long last, his own stance changed as he edged towards his dinner tray that was the first to have been emptied.
There was a touch of vulnerability in his squint and his head shaking as he rid himself from hairs in front of his own eyes. But his rough, cigarette coated voice caused a contrast.
"Well, we could end up going together, just like Jess and Jim." Butch tried to steal some of James' earnestness but because that was a birth given thing, it was far from possible. He also directed his words over to Meowth once his over-the-top laughter had died down, speaking of the cat Pokémon's nicknames for his team mates back to him. "It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."
He was finally brave enough to look away from the bizarre comfort of the loud-mouthed Pokémon and share the briefest of glances towards the woman that was sat to his left. Butch's broad shoulders shrugged. In that same instant that they did this, Cassidy's perfectly arched brows began to move separately from one and another against her porcelain skin.
Jessie was not usually the type to enjoy a display of vulnerability, nor was she the person who would step in in a hurry to prevent someone from being hurt. However, on that day there was something in her and something in the way that she saw blonde eyebrows threatening to convey all that she could not just let a lipstick coated mouth spew out even more.
She knew what it was like to be on the other end of Cassidy's catty tongue. And though she would never speak of this for a single second, but she thought he was admirable for being so wholeheartedly loyal to her.
"You don't want to go with Cassidy, Butch." Jessie started telling him, hoping that her direct including him in her words paired with a gaze that didn't leave his unusual, angular features would bring his attention right to her. "James is the most available person in Team Rocket. And think how brilliant the two of you would look in matching suits."
Needless to say, Jessie not only captured the attention of Butch in that moment but she won the attention of everybody else for her own as well! Cassidy could not help but erupt into more ear-piercing giggles that were far more catty than even Meowth's hoots.
A good sport, Butch managed to swallow any weirdness of his previous interaction with his team mate and he smirked over at Jessie, giving her a look that told her to 'shut up' but with a mouth pursing that enjoyed her humour, telling her it was fine for her to carry on.
James didn't say all that much at all. While he shared a look with Butch and tried to picture them both in matching suits, let alone having fun in each other's singular company, there were no words on earth that could capture how bizarre he believed that scenario would be!
But one thing that he did share with the broad shouldered male was that he too was good in nature. He let Jessie be with her fantasies and her comedy because it was the polite thing to do. And hey, going with Butch to a silly old dance definitely wouldn't have been the world thing in the world.
Like Jessie, he had a lot of respect for him for putting up with Cassidy. And he often could be found as the referee for the two women's fights because neither James nor Meowth simply dared to do this.
James continued letting the situation be. An arm falling back around Butch again to go against the way that she seemingly did not want him for a date, the yellow haired woman soon got stuck in to picturing what on earth those two boy's would wear if they did attend the event together.
The last thing that the lavender haired male remembered of that little reality was the way that Jessie engaged back in response to Cassidy, her words were laced with a tone of voice that spoke of how she wasn't good enough to engage in that joke with her.
James finally had a minute to himself to tune out the rest of the world and eat his lunch in peace. And it was when he stopped focusing on everything that he might have been able to hear and looked around the rest of the dining hall for everything that he might be able to see, he found something that truly piqued his interest.
Like a cat in the wild that found a glowing firefly and could not resist the urge to chase it, James could not stop his attention from focusing there. His fork was back in his hand again but not being put to use. His elbow gaining back the company of the cheap plastic of the table and his fingers cupping around his chin, he studied.
No, he told himself when his brain was able to work as much as his eyes were; he had definitely not seen that person around in the organisation before. James began to see them from an angle, a twinge in his neck as his head sloped. He would remember that colour hair against the blue of that particular uniform any day of the week.
And for this, he continued staring.
The orange haired girl sitting alone at a table captured his attention for reasons that he did not know why but because she was looking in every direction other than him, he was free to observe away. It was not unusual for Team Rocket to be taking recruits on every single day. And they came in all age ranges, shapes and sizes and backgrounds.
But there was something… familiar about her? No, that couldn't be it at all. That cascading sunset waterfall had never been seen by him before and definitely not floating against the cerulean blue of one particular common Team Rocket uniform.
A newbie, James thought to himself. That should have been it. That should have been all. He should have tuned back in to his friends all around him or at the very least, to eating his lunch for the end of the break was quickly approaching!
No, instead, he continued staring. And in some cases, he should have probably gone on to regret doing so. But in his case, he would end up not being able to feel that for a single second.
But at first, he was jolted back to his senses by the young lady that he had been observing so much like she was a new artefact in a museum that he had always known. And he was jolted back by her finally settling her own gaze on settling one place and one place only and for good.
Of course, her focus made a straight beeline for the lavender haired, older Team Rocket member. And no sooner had she noticed his unrelenting stare, she tried to put a stop to it by her greatest steely expression washing over her absentminded and porcelain features.
"Hey!" she began, nobody else present at her table to be forced to recoil because of the sharpness of her tone. Her expression didn't ease from scrunching up for a single second. "Stop staring, okay?!"
Her warning came swiftly. Naturally, because of her furrowed and hawk-like expression burying into the features of the person across the dining room, there was no doubt who she was referring to. He was guilty as hell!
But James hadn't been staring, had he? From his point of view, he couldn't have been staring at all. His mind went blank into calm nothingness when he had a focal point of his gaze and it had been dreamy but it had only lasted for a second or two. Hadn't it? That couldn't be classed at as staring. Could it?
It couldn't be denied when he heard that girl across the dining room staying these words. But because he was entirely oblivious and his friends all around him were even more so and couldn't help him out, he turned behind him to see who was the culprit of the stares that had angered the unnamed girl further.
It shouldn't be a surprise that when he turned back to her after seeing no one behind him with beady eyes, she appeared all the more flushed at the way that he had acted!
"Obviously I'm talking to you!" her skin that could have matched fine china became the same intensity as her hair as she allowed a few more seconds to pass before she, like a twitching volcano, prepared to get to her feet. Her mouth appeared to move quicker than the rest of her body. "Who else would I be talking to?"
These words then were half muttered. James was quickly feeling like some sort of practical joke was being played on him that he didn't have the smallest clue what the reason to this would be. He watched the girl with a flushed appearance and shaking demeanour make sure she grabbed her dinner plate before she marched on her way.
Damn, whoever had been staring at her was about to get a piece of her mind and perhaps a piece of her food wedged somewhere that would take the organisation nurse to pry it back out from where the sun didn't shine. Poor sod, he thought to himself. He hoped that she was wrong and that she hadn't been stared at.
And then, he definitely hoped this was the case when with frustrated, shaking but sturdy legs, the orange haired girl matched straight over to the middle table that was between her lonesome one and his one that he shared with a gaggle of other people.
Coldness to contrast her fire rushed through James as he realised that he was the victim of her hostility, and she had indeed been a victim of a stare – his stare.
"What were you staring for?!" she tried to insist with the same gusto as her first eruption. But whether it was the fact that she ran out like ink on printing paper the more that she raged or falling closer to the lavender haired male, her words didn't have the same oomph as before.
Meowth noticed that James had an awful lot of oomph when he sped up from the table, clutching his half eaten dining tray before he left the circle. But everyone was still talking dates and dances and matching outfits so he didn't bother to ponder why all of a sudden, his team mate possessed ants in his pants.
His dinner tray almost going flying in the sheer speed which James broke the distance between he and the unknown girl, his inner dialogue was chattering away to himself and wondering why on earth he was going near someone with such a short fuse.
Naturally, the main party within his chattering brain told him that he was in the wrong. And she couldn't be worse than Jessie on her worst day so he had to make things right.
"I wasn't… staring…?" he started and after a strong beginning, his voice trailed off as he started to question if he had only glanced in her direction once or twice like he initially believed. Hotness capturing her temples, she held two fingers up. "Alright… Maybe I was." He managed to avoid slipping on a loose pea from someone else's dinner as he closed the distance between them even more. "It was only because I haven't seen you around before… I'm really sorry for any weirdness."
He was also lucky that the two fingers that were held up were to indicate how many occasions he had been caught peering.
James watched but didn't stare as the stranger's being then buckled like she had been the one to feel the rolling of a single pea under the foot of her black, thigh length boots. It was true that her passion for her words had teetered out a fraction since her initial explosion but she had still gone over to the man with the intention of being highly cautious and to not accept a single apology. Someone of his age should have known better.
However, something strange happened when she heard his voice and she heard his apology. It was so… lame? It was so damn lame and oddly… Genuine?
Yes, he had been bloody weird. But at least he had said sorry for it. Still, she told herself not to fall for anything. She told herself to keep him at arm's length. God knows when he would start doing it again. But she couldn't deny that he possessed quite the flickering gaze that was somehow steady all the same since they had started actually conversing.
"Well, don't make it a habit. But I guess it makes sense." It was times like this that she wished she had left the tray of her dinner on the table so she could fold her arms around her chest for extra posture and support too. No, she reminded herself. She could not have appeared weak. "I'm new here. I've only just had my first proper day of training."
Whether or not his gang back on his table were watching or not, James was none the wiser. Instead, he focused on feeling the sensation of his head nod rippling through his body. His own dinner tray resting in his hold but sharing the same feeling that he wished he left it back at that table, he managed to focus on other things.
Somehow, he forwent showing all humour that he could have proffered to someone closer to him by not making a joke about 'new here' being her name. Instead, his gloveless fist stated to secretly clench underneath his dinner tray long before it had the full intention of extending towards the girl.
"Well, welcome. I'm James." He told her and he surveyed her reaction while the rounds of his knuckles silently and subtly drummed underneath the plastic blue tray containing his own dinner.
James saw the way that her head barely twitched for a nod but couldn't stop his hand from stopping resting underneath the dinner tray and instead extending out towards her, in the hope of a peace offering if he didn't even get her name.
It was then the blue uniformed clad girl's turn to have a twitching gaze rather than a twitching head. Her gaze flickered towards his gloveless outstretched hand, taking the time to stare at it in the same way that he had been looking at her in a lingering manner, though this too was not intentional on her part.
Her own mind went blank and in hindsight, she could not remember anything other than when her body started to move separate from her mind and her usual behaviours. Soon enough, she felt the warm and soft touch from beneath the thin layer of her training uniform gloves.
Words tumbled out before she could stop them and snatch them back into her gullet for good, keeping her identity a firm secret.
"Misty." One single syllable floated out from her lips. That was it. But that wasn't a problem. James then knew her name.
She wasn't just the girl with a fiery temper to match her fiery hair and hot blue uniform to mirror the way that she battled between longing to assert herself and to just invisibly fall into the crowd of other faces within Team Rocket. She was Misty.
Because Misty didn't give him much else to work with, James did something that was quite unheard of for him and started becoming the one that lead the conversation, offering more words.
He observed, again, making sure he did not stare too much as he did so and certainly not down at her hand clutching her tray once their touch had fallen away from each other.
"You're Blue Team." He pointed out. It didn't take a genius to figure out. Misty would have liked to point out that he would have had to be an idiot to get this wrong. But in the same way that he withheld his humour for a later date, she did so as well with her candour!
A single beat as she paused, her head bowing lightly towards his hand that was by his side and not clutching his own tray. Her eyes twitched back up in a telling manner and then words – or word – poured out.
"Yes." She replied. James' lips found companionship in each other and they pressed together, his head nodding for another occasion. Misty squinted again. Thankfully, it was then out of her own observation rather than contempt. "You're… Black Team?"
Her presented itself doubtfully and her cheeks threatened to have that warm quality to them once more but this time due to her own foolishness rather than the man she then knew to be called James.
Misty might have only been new but it had been drummed into her the three core teams of Team Rocket. Red Team. Blue Team. Yellow Team. Her mind didn't bother to cast to the secondary teams that were common knowledge because none of them were black. And though she had seen that toned uniform before, it had not presented itself like that.
While holding his dining tray and standing in front of her, James flashed the no longer unnamed girl a smile to which she felt hotness creeping up her neck again. She sure hoped that she wasn't going to snap at him again! She would run herself hoarse by the time the moon appeared in the sky.
"Red Team." He corrected her, the elevation of his lips not evening out and although he had proven her wrong, he didn't have a smile or a gaze that seemed to revel in his rightness. Not that she allowed herself to look at it for more than a split second at a time. "I guess we were destined to get off on the wrong foot."
There it was a second time. Another apology. And another one that was as real as it was lame.
To stop herself from being a hypocrite and staring at him hard in return, Misty spoke swiftly again for something to do.
"Guess so." She responded for the sake of it. And then James went on to respond for the sheer intuition of it.
It was most peculiar for him to take the reins in a conversation and most certainly to try and drive it further. Then again, he surrounded himself with larger than life characters.
And in truth, he was more than happy to conceal himself in the background and hear all of their chatterings, piping up once or twice at the most.
"So what are your reasons for being here?" James asked Misty, inwardly hoping that he wasn't coming off as probing as some of his friends could be, his silky strands of lavender hair finding the company of a gloveless hand, an action that was to settle his brain from overthinking his intuition.
Once more, Misty managed to control herself. She had exploded on him once and that was enough. It had been in front of the entire dining all. Although thanks to their usual noise that usually drove her up the wall, nobody broke away from their own chattering and laughter and conversations to take notice of what she was doing.
Then again, nobody took notice of her, she felt. Except for James. But his staring was wrong, she reminded herself.
Misty refrained from telling him that her reasons for being there were because they had indeed got off on the wrong foot. She switched her tray to the opposite hand and used the back of her other hand to briefly push her bangs out of the way.
"To prove a point to my parents." She informed him with utter honesty yet also utter mystery. It was more the latter than the former that put a glint in James' eye for the first time in his life with her and it brought the rest of his face to life.
A bobbing motion of his head came long before words but then they joined his action as well, holding his half empty dining tray with both hands. He nodded like he understood. But his response made it a possibility that he couldn't understand at all.
"Wow that's funny. The same as me." Misty couldn't help but notice how his tone came out that he actually thought it was the furthest thing from being funny. She took a metaphorical step back rather than a literal one. Nevertheless, her brow danced closer together. "I wanted to prove that they have even less idea about what is going on in my life than they initially believed."
If Misty had actually taken a step back seconds moments before then she would have surely closed the distance back between she and James with the words that she then heard. She couldn't prevent a touch of a sparkle taking over her own hue, though it was a bit of a parallel to the lavender haired male's.
There were equal measures of heaviness yet lightness to his words. She had never heard someone be so easy-going over something that was quite a lot to say to a stranger upon your first meeting! Maybe that was just what Team Rocket members were like, she told herself; and that she would meet many more people like that.
No. In truth, she would not. It was only James.
"Would you like to have lunch with me and some folks I know over on our table?" he suddenly offered to her, in his mind coming across as very forward. Even so, he didn't think he was overcompensating for the way that she hadn't said anything following his bout of humour that had that time slipped out. "They're tolerable. Kind of okay, I guess."
A third wave of humour. Misty's eye diamond was because of the recognition of his personality that time.
While he balanced his dining tray to run a hand through his hair, trying to appear casual or maybe that was just his natural urge and demeanour, Misty considered. Having lunch with people rather than alone wouldn't be half bad. And James reassured her that his company weren't half bad either.
She hoped that this was the case for him as well! She continued considering. After the lavender haired male absentmindedly looked down to his dining tray, she followed his gaze and then it went to her own one. There wasn't much point in him asking her to join them for lunch; she hadn't been staring at people so she had eaten everything apart from her dessert.
All became clear. Her answer was decided.
"Let me just swap my dessert cup first. I didn't get the flavour that I wanted." Misty informed James and to show that she was a woman of her word and a woman who acted on her words, she prepared to indeed turn her heel back towards the hatch and the lady that was serving dinner.
As for James, his intuition was growing stronger every day. And he hardly thought anything of it at all when he found himself speaking after believing that he knew why she had followed his gaze towards his dining tray.
"There's no honeycomb ones left. I took the last one." He informed her and this absolutely stopped her from turning around on her heel. She heard no apology in his tone that time. She couldn't garner his attention. Head facing elsewhere, only her eyes travelled to him. Before it could fully form in her mind that he was gloating to her, his arm extended towards her for a second time that short span of moments. "Here."
Misty's hypocritically (but understandable) staring gaze watched as with a single skilful hand, James swapped his honeycomb cup for her vanilla one and the alteration was swiftly made. Again, her gaze shot and danced towards his face.
She wanted to tell him that it was okay; he didn't have to do that for her. He must've liked that flavour too if he nabbed the last one. She would go on in months to come to realise that was far from the case. But that's another story.
In spite of the fact that she wanted to tell him that it was okay; she didn't. Maybe in her mind she felt like he owed it to her, actions to back up his apology for the way that things had started so unusually for them both.
Misty didn't allow her lips to curve. But she locked her sea, dual toned orbs with his alluring meadow ones and he did enough smiling for the two of them. He lead her back to the table which he had previously come from and even allowed her to go first, reassuring her with the gentlest of nudges with the tips of his boots against the back of hers that he was still there.
She would look back to know that this constricting wave that coursed through her body was her wishing that he wouldn't be so damn polite. She had never met any of them before. He could at least lead the way!
Thankfully, after she awkwardly in her own mind hovered by the table that he had pointed her in the direction of, he was soon enough right by her side again. And the ice was promptly broken by the way that a good few Team Rocket members of the table did a double take when they saw James standing there, clearly not realising that he had even been gone for a single second.
Extroverted and dramatic as always, of course it was Meowth to react the most vehemently, needing Butch to steady him.
"Everyone…" James initiated, managing to see the funny side to the way that his presence (or lack of it) had been unnoticed and putting his blue dining tray back down on the table to prove that he was back again for good. "This is Misty, she's new and I don't need to tell you that she's in Blue Team." Eyes creased and not just from the orange haired girl standing next to the lavender haired male. "Misty… Everyone."
James went on to point to everyone gathered around the table and speak of their names too. Butch and Cassidy looked at each other before they actually greeted Misty, inwardly noting that their own team colour had yet another youngster bringing success to their side. Jessie proffered a nod, then just reaching across to nab James' vanilla dessert cup on his plate before he had a chance to notice.
Misty did notice, however, yet before her eyes had a chance to narrow more and she went against Team Rocket code and snitched on James by telling him that Jessie who she knew to be his partner had swiped something off his tray, Meowth very vocally didn't hesitate to greet the newest Team Rocket member.
"Greetings, my darling. And what a true pleasure to see James with a proper lady for once." He tried to charm the porcelain skinned, young, rocket recruit and he was the one to feel the disadvantage of Jessie stealing James' pudding off him from the way that it slammed down onto the top of his head, threating to crumble and break his gold charm.
For a rare occasion, a fish hook pulled at James' brow as he absorbed Meowth's insinuation. But then, his full attention was directed towards the way that Misty's body stiffened next to him and before she remained permanently fixed like that as if she had glanced upon a snake haired woman, she plonked her dining tray next to James'.
Butch quietly observed that she had apparently chosen where she was going to sit and Meowth would have to budge along a bit.
"It… It talks…?" Misty felt as though it would have been appropriate for her tray to clatter on the table to convey her surprise but it spoke hardly a sound. She found it natural for her dismay to search for James and she looked right at him with eyes the shape of everyone's dessert cups before she hesitantly looked back at Meowth.
Misty half believed that the cat Pokémon would remain firmly silent because she imagined the whole thing about him talking. But she had not. And to prove his very realness, Meowth's expression changed like he had ingested sour milk and he looked over at the orange haired young lady with his own narrowed eyes.
"Less of the 'it', bub!" he warned her, apparently quickly forgetting his compliments of her grace and calling her what he called everyone else when they displeased him.
She next to James managed not to jump and again controlled herself in that way, but she might have failed if his claws had extended. James next to her immediately had a look of air about his features despite the fact that his old friend had got quite boisterous towards his new companion.
Again, he tried to diffuse the situation. He turned to Misty like she was the only person he was interested in talking to or looking at, that's what Jessie observed as she tried to focus on observing his dessert pot instead.
"Meowth talks, indeed does he. Frankly, he doesn't shut up." A funny way to diffuse the situation to be sure, but it worked! Narrowed eyes from feline features were then on him instead of Misty. "And try to call him 'he' from now on. He's extremely specific about it."
And with that, James invited himself to sit down with a nudge of the leg that didn't make contact with Misty's at all and a nod of the head to encourage her to choose a seat. He acted like he didn't know that she had already selected her place even if she hadn't sat. Or maybe it had gone over his head.
Meowth's eyes like the chopsticks that were on his tray continued burning into James not only at the way that he had burned him twice but from the way his gloveless hand gestured for him to move along in his chair. There and then, the talkative cat Pokémon decided that he would do a grander gesture and move onto the opposite side completely.
Thankfully, Butch was there to reach his hands out and temporarily invite him onto his side of the table, understanding and a close mouthed knowing in his eyes and lacing his features and not just from the way that he had been pushed to one side. A glove decorated hand resting down on the top of his head where Jessie's weapon had previously landed only proved this further.
"He's not just specific about it, he can get very heated." Jessie decided that it was her turn to warn the new member of Blue Team about Meowth, just like her male team mate had done. She normally would have been more reluctant to clue an opposite team member in about any sort of thing, let alone such things. "Oddly heated."
Cassidy could feel the head shake that longed to sizzle from Butch's head from their closeness, in proximity and their team sharing intimacy. James merely looked between Meowth and Jessie before then focusing on observing how Misty was reacting to them all. She didn't seem too much like a fish out of water.
Again, James allowed the situation to play out. And Meowth having new found perspective from being on the opposite side of the bench, he was able to take a deep breath and spite Jessie in his own way rather than biting her head off too.
"Less of the attitude, ole Jess." The feline Pokémon used his lips to simply reply and it seemed as though he didn't need to do another single thing or utter another single syllable.
A vanilla cup wasn't quite launched in his direction but a spewing volcano of rage and disdain – a very worthy contender for Misty's earlier on towards James – came out from Jessie. She only spat a few choice words but they got their point across perfectly.
Cassidy shook her head at how in a twist one could get ones knickers while yet again; it was James' turn to attempt to bring calmness back to the group.
"Oh yes, Meowth is definitely the heated one of me, Jess and him in this trio…" Misty observed that serious tone to his voice all over again and immediately understood his intention. Time on their side as well as his playful widening of the eyes, led everybody else except for Jessie oddly enough to understand what he was getting at. "He knows his stuff about the organization though. So feel free to ask him any questions that you may have."
Misty must've felt the sceptical gaze that was pushed onto her by Meowth and the belief that he wouldn't tell her a single thing after she had basically hinted he was an inanimate object. And she must've felt the wordless but steely all the same, watchful expression from Jessie as she wondered why James wasn't getting her to help the fellow girl out.
Nevertheless, when the lavender haired male smiled at Misty from sitting next to her after giving her his own bit of a heads up, everything else paled into insignificance. It was quickly becoming almost laughable at how badly they had started with one and other! And while it was true that his politeness probably was him making things up to her. It was awfully sweet that he was making things up to him. And he had a good way of drawing you in while he did so. Not that she would speak this aloud for a very long time.
"I guess…" Misty started, tearing her sensations away from whatever was going on inside of her and focusing on forming her words. Already, she had the attention of everybody and this was somehow more of an alien experience than anything else on that day. "I'd quite like to know why everyone is so keenly playing match makers at the moment like it is a high school." Her brow was sewn together and her shoulders drew upwards like a puppet on a string. "It's nauseating."
While he utterly kept this to himself, Butch's arm that wasn't leaning continually against Meowth and was bent on the dining table drew closer towards him and his lower lip felt the pinch of his forefinger and thumb. As well as this, his eyebrows bobbed up closer to his hairline.
Two peas in a pod were Misty and James. One far more expressive than the other, though.
And out of the two of him and his own team mate, Cassidy was of course the more verbal of the two of them as well! She didn't bother to hold back from answering the new member of Blue Team, wanting to take her under her wing for the sole reason of her following in her footsteps of blueness. And irking Jessie, of course!
It was explained to Misty by Cassidy that at the end of the Team Rocket Cycle – in September – there was an annual dance and everyone was invited for yet another hard working year at the organization.
It was the biggest thing that they all looked forward to. There was music. There was dancing. There were dates. There was usually an elaborate way in which couples would pair up and it often became a competition, not just who could ask who in the most outrageous way but who could get a date the quickest and who could bag the most sought after candidate.
James shared Misty's expression as Cassidy explained, even though he had experienced nearly six of them in total at that point in time. The orange haired female's countenance was as though she had taken a mouthful of her vanilla cup after all rather than the honeycomb which she far more keenly desired.
To show her sheer disbelief, she even looked at Meowth as she glanced at each and every member of the table.
"But a new cycle has only just begun. That's why I got recruited." Misty's eyes danced around the rest of the group once again and she hoped that within the gaze of at least one of them, she would be given a reassuring look and told a somewhat sane response.
But naturally, none of them could deny the sheer extravagance of what was going on and how it got more and more popular and a race against time each and every year.
Eventually, try as she might, Misty sought refuge in the brief glance of James and he was the one to give her answers. Raising two fingers to his lips like he was smoking an invisible cigarette, he nodded his head in agreement before his touch dropped down once again.
"Yup. It gets earlier and earlier each and every year." He informed her with a nod of his head and a glance that was equally as beguiling before leaning to the rest of the gaggle of people but many his team mates, Jessie and Meowth. Elbows planted on the table, he humoured in a deadpan voice. "I hear some people have promised to link up three dances from now."
Eyes rotated inside the sockets of Jessie and Meowth like ping pong balls on a table but then they couldn't deny themselves sharing a look of amusement between the both of them even if their mouths did not convey this.
Butch's did, though. He was never the type to deny himself laughter, or anything really. And while he didn't have quite the nerve to speak to Misty with the same sweetness that Meowth had oozed with within his first words towards the young lady, the same care was there.
For the first time that day, Misty locked eyes onto a hue of red that was vastly opposite to the meadow gaze that she was beginning to find both comfort and apprehension within.
"So do you have your eye on anyone, yet?" he asked her. Again, he didn't dare utter a pet name for her in the same way that Meowth that initially done.
And before Butch could have a chance to wonder whether he should be even talking to a young lady such as herself, Cassidy had no qualms about it and flattered that same young lady, painfully obviously trying to cajole the newest member of Blue Team.
"I don't doubt that you'd be able to go with anyone that your heart desired. You're so cute." Cassidy near enough cooed and for a very fleeting and rare occasion, Jessie and Misty were united in their desire to not only glance at one and other but feel nausea for a different reason plucking at their bellies.
Misty had never been called anything of the sort from a woman close to her sister's ages. And Jessie had never witnessed Cassidy trying to be somewhat motherly and kind towards anything before!
To be sure, it wasn't exactly fortunately that this happened but something did indeed occur that brought everything away from that moment that would only happen once in a blue moon.
You see, it shouldn't have been a surprise that after attention was brought over to Misty and her possibly of finding someone to take to that prestigious dance and her level of beauty within Team Rocket, all of a sudden, gaggles of boys from other tables started whooping and whistling.
At first, it couldn't be clear that they were doing it towards that Rocket table in particular from the way that their leering orbs danced all over but when names were mentioned – names that they'd heard on the grape vine buzzed around – it started to become clearer than crystal.
James' ears were honed into it immediately. Butch too, for that matter. And when he heard the first crude comment towards Misty and how one boy wanted to do more than just take her to the dance, he leaned backwards in his chair and growled something incomprehensible but it was indeed a growl all the same.
It got some of them to be quiet at least. It got some of them to be quiet for a second at least. Flushed in the face and uncertain about all this new attention, Misty tried to focus on feeling grateful for the back-up.
However, that feeling couldn't last for all that much longer when the comments and the whoops and the hoots became all the more obvious and louder too. Not only that but the gestures became undeniable.
It might have been an organisation filled with criminal activity but there was one thing for certain and that was that Team Rocket members everywhere united in making sure unwanted advances and comments were kept to a minimum.
For a second time, Butch had to do the calm and protective thing by growling and gesturing, with a hand motion telling young boys where to go. Again, Misty felt appreciative. That in itself was yet another unusual feeling bubbling within her being. And then in the next few minutes, she was engulfed with a sensation that she really had never experienced before.
You see, James had been in the organization long enough to see it happen time and time again. Hear it happen time and time again. Prevent it from happening time and time again. Except the more that it happened, he didn't grow desensitised from it. He grew more angered. Rage was not something that he allowed himself into often. But he could not tolerate that sort of behaviour.
It was bad enough with Jessie. Now he had a new friend he was starting to care for and she was going through the same thing. He knew that she, like his female Team Rocket Trio partner, could handle herself. But he couldn't just stand by and let her think that he was a bystander.
He was far beyond that. In that moment, he was far beyond that. And since meeting Misty, he was then an action taker too.
One boy – practically a man who should know better – took it too far with his lewd words and his gestures and his fingers pretending to wander the curves of Misty's body beyond the R printed on her new blue chest.
Her cheeks were aflame the same shade of her hair at what was happening but somehow, it became all the more this way when James leaned closer to her. But she just had to try and focus on what he was saying.
"I'm so sorry to take this from you when I only just gave it to you." He told her, a sudden look of gentleness and sincerity encapsulating his orbs, a great difference to the no nonsense that had laced his face beforehand.
Misty had barely a second to allow her stance to express her confusion, wondering what on earth he was talking about and what on earth he was going to do. Wordlessly, it was explained when his hand shot out to the honeycomb pudding cup on her plate and then everybody was lost for words with what happened next.
Butch, Cassidy, Meowth and Jessie – Team Rocket member and Team Rocket member alike – were united in their sheer wordlessness and their opening of their mouths as they watched what James did next.
The boy didn't know what hit him when the honeycomb pudding cup quite literally floored him. James vaulted it right at his skull and the flimsy plastic of the container burst immediately, sending a cold pudding smacking right into his features.
Silence fell across the room rather than the usual whoops. Only Misty was able to somehow find her voice.
"James!" she cried out to him, not knowing whether her uttering was out or horror or it was due to admiration. Misty turned to look at the man next to her who had just done what he had done for the sake of her. And in return, he looked back into her eyes.
He didn't push her any particular way, that was the thing. His accepting, steady gaze from the moment that they met pushed her to where she needed to be. And in that moment, she could not stop her upper lip from twitching before she formed a smile, shaking her head in disbelief – but out of admiration filled disbelief.
The entire dining hall erupted into chaos. And James had only just half a second to have a semi-smirk back before he knew where he needed to be next. He needed to get out of there. Breathing outwards, he scrambled to his feet and at last prepared to abandon his barely eaten dinner plate for good.
"Well, it was so nice getting to know you but I'd better make myself scarce before nobody knows me ever again!" he spoke to her hurriedly, he spoke to everyone at the table hurriedly but he spoke to her most of all. Two more words and then James would be gone. "See ya!"
He caught the eye of the male who had been a victim of his pudding launching. And then James got himself out of there, attempting to run out of the hallway but finding it very difficult from the chaos that he had forced to ensue.
All of the rest of his friends could do was share looks, some of shared disbelief, some out of admiration, some out of humour and some down to the fact that they did not know who this James was! And they were taken aback from the way that they had never seen him before.
Looking at the people that James had left in his wake, Misty decided that it would have been all well and good to stay with them and try to act like everything was normal and get to know a bit about the rest of them. But the truth was, Misty did not know all of who this James guy was. And she wanted to find out so much more!
She wanted to thank him too. So she acted on her own, new found intuition by suddenly chasing after him, nimbly catching up with him in spite of the delay and rushing right behind him.
"Wait!" she called out and for barely even one single second, in the middle of trying to get out of the hall but having everyone bustling towards him, James shot her a look. Misty received that single look. She knew that waiting wasn't an option and she explained. "Lead the way to your dorm. I think someone needs to make sure you get there in one piece."
And it was James' natural reaction to halt there and then. But it was one of the few occasions when he was in the company of Misty that he did not allow himself to go along with this. Instead, all he did allow himself to go along with was his of breath smirk and head turning back towards her. And he embraced the sensation of her hand on his shoulder, pushing him towards the doors and heading out with him.
Chaos all around them and a food fight erupting, it clearly not being just left at the pudding missile that James had launched, he and Misty tried their very best to make themselves scarce. Eventually they got lost in the crowds. Together, they got lost in the crowds. And it was this moment that James nudged his shoulder back against Misty's hand and referred to the way that after coming to her aid, she was coming to his.
"Thanks, honey." Were the two single words that he uttered before they were out of the double doors together, into the calmness of the hall and into the situation of being alone together for the first time but certainly not the last time.
It was true that Misty then did not know all of who James was. And James did not know all of who Misty was. But that wasn't an issue. That was exciting. They got off on the wrong foot and then it quickly became right. Because they gave each other a chance. Because they were thrown into the deep end from day one.
What blossomed afterwards was something so very becoming. Something as sweet as honey. And as fuelled as a rocket. This was their journey. It had only just begun. If that was the excitement of the beginning, then just imagine the rest of it all!
But that is another tale. For another day. One day.
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) So yes, as you can imagine, I know the inside and out's of this AU after two years of creating various things for it, off and on. James actually ends up working in the Team Rocket crèche while Jessie and Meowth go onto higher things. Misty too, for that matter. But there is lot's of things that go on before that! And yes, including some romance for James and Misty. Of course Shannon and I wanted an AU where we could properly tackle the two of them as a couple :P Thanks again for reading and I will be back again on Wednesday so see you then!
Amy signing out :)