Hello :P It is Wednesday and I am back once again with a new chapter. This story is another one about Justin but it's about Jessie too and I've never written about their interaction and bond together. I really came up with this on the spot. I had to portray their bond and the difficulties they went through while Justin was figuring out who he was as the ideas came into my head. As you know, I have a very huge soft spot for him so it was fun showing the sides of him that are like his Mother and also his relationship with her. I hope you enjoy :3
Ages:
Justin: 18
Jessie: 40
Disclaimer: I own the story and OCs mentioned!
The long haired and hat wearing male hovered quietly outside the door of the room that his mother was sitting inside, the top of his index finger resting lightly on the wood. He breathed out. He frowned to himself. He didn't know why he was hesitating outside of the door. He didn't know why he wasn't going in. He didn't know why he felt the need to just be quiet and watch. But he did. He did just that. He did those things. He hovered. He watched. And he breathed out quietly to himself.
Jessie was sat cross legged on the living room floor of the Morgan Mansion with photos spread out in front of her on the carpet. Photos from many different times were fanned out. Her and James' Team Rocket days. When she and her lavender haired life partner first became proper friends with Ash and Misty and were being goofy together. Her parents. Many photos of her deceased relative were spread out in front of her. She paid attention to them most. Of course she did.
And while she continued studying and being fascinated by the photos, the clothing in them and the era, Justin studied her. He found his lips pursing. He gently leaned his forehead against the wooden frame of the door. His index finger pushed the door open slightly wider. But still, he didn't go in. He paused. And he studied.
Life had gone on fairly normally since slowly and one by one, telling all of his closest relatives the news about himself that he'd kept silent for so long. To tell you the truth, it was easy for everyone to carry on. It wasn't that Justin wasn't important or his words hadn't made us proud – they really had. But like in every situation in life; life went on. Lynne was still heavily pregnant with her and James' baby. Jaxon was still rebelling. Jessie still had clothes to specially design for Ash and Misty. That was what she was doing as the deep purple haired male was watching her and I was sitting on the arm chair. And after he saw his mother smiling slightly to herself, he couldn't stop himself from letting out a quiet exhale before finally joining her.
He approached her softly but casually. He walked behind her and towered over her from his slim and great height, lightly touching the top of his hat as he peered down. He saw all of the photographs. He had seen them from peering in through the door but he saw them even better up close. Naturally he did. He didn't hesitate to smile. And after Jessie looked up at him and gave him the smile of a greeting back, he sat down next to her. He crossed his long and skinny jean covered legs over one and other and reached for one of the photo memories.
"Ah, it's my hair colour twin." He commented as he picked up a glossy photograph between his pointer finger and his thumb and he skilfully gave it one flick to look at date on the back. After he saw it, he gave himself almost a nod as if he had predicted a certain time and was proved to be near enough right. After that, he continued talking lowly but airily. "I should have guessed that I'd be drawn to picking that one up right away."
The magenta haired female nodded slowly and she smiled thoughtfully but she didn't say anything. But she wasn't sad. Well, the subject of her parents was always a sad one but she was in the company of her eldest boy. And she liked talking about them. She liked looking at them. It made it feel as though they were alive for her. If everyone stopped talking about them over fear of causing upset without realising it, they would start to feel as if they never existed. Which they did. Of course they did. And a massive part of them existed in the teenage boy with the long hair and the hat. I believed that's why, after a momentary silence, the ex-rocketeer female couldn't stop herself from breaking her own silence.
"Your hair is a very similar colour to my Mom's. But it has a twinge of your Dad and his family's purples in there too." She commented back to her son with a wan smile before it stretched out in a playful way. She had since taken the photo out of his hold to look at it herself and following that, she pretended to bop him on the nose with it. He scrunched his face up and smiled. "They had to get their hands on it somehow. Your eyes are like hers though."
I thought to myself that his eyes also had a twinge of green from his Father and his family in there too but needless to say I remained quiet. I didn't even want to say anything. I just smiled to myself. And I just listened. Justin did too. He liked when his mother was just a teensy bit vulnerable with him. It wasn't too much and too obvious but it was there. She always seemed to show that side with all of her children but especially him. He bought it out of her. And after he took the photo back from her and studied a second time, he smiled even more. He felt even more love for his family.
"Look at them…" he breathed out slightly as he looked at a photo of Jessie's parents, her magenta haired father on the right and her amethyst hair coloured mother on the left. Upon hearing her son's thoughtfulness and his breath, Jessie looked up. And after feeling his mother's gaze, he felt almost a pressure to say something meaningful enough. But he couldn't find it on the spot. So instead he shook his head and smirked slightly. "That era. That must've been a fun era to be young during. All the music."
"Of course you would focus on that." Jessie responded to Justin quickly but in an amused way, shaking her head fondly at him. He laughed back at her and after continuing to shake his head, he gave her an innocent smile which showed off his dimples. Following that, she continued shaking her head at him all the more and she lightly poked his knee before picking up another photograph. Her eyes changed when she saw the face. But once again, she wasn't sad. She was reflective. She was enjoying seeing two of her boys. "And there's Jaxon's hair colour twin."
Indeed. She was right. There was Jaxon's hair colour twin and hers too. It was her father. It was Isaac. He looked as strong and stable and mysterious and gentle as I had always seen him in the photographs. Jessie and Justin were having a little moment with their family's history but I was nodding to myself too. I was smiling too. In a way, I was part of that family. I was always part of moments. No matter what they were.
A good few members of our group didn't have fathers around but they always seemed to have the same image of them in mind. They all seemed to remember the same kind of man. Strong. Providing. Nurturing. One of a kind. They were all definitely different but it was almost a comfort that they were so similar. They had all lost the same thing and could seek comfort in one and other in a strange way.
But needless to say, on the flip side, they had all lost the same thing. And it was terrible. And no feeling of another person understanding or going through the same way made it feel better. In fact, some days, it made it feel worse. Because if you know the pain of losing your father, you really don't want to know that someone else has gone through that heartache either. It's horrible. It isn't fair. But they always live on. Whether they come down and visit like Jordan or live through the offspring like Justin and Jaxon with Isaac. They live on. And it makes the people left behind able to live on.
The deep purple haired male didn't say anything after he saw his mother picking up a photo of her father and he didn't ask to take it from her either. He just sat and held onto the photo of both his Grandparents while keeping a Team Rocket day's photo memory behind it to look at after. He just sat. He just breathed. And he waited. He didn't intrude. He didn't hurry. He didn't lean over to look. But he did study. And he thought to himself. He almost shook his head at himself.
Justin thought that his mother was incredibly strong. Well, he knew that his mother was incredibly strong but when she was looking at photos of people who were no longer around or she was talking about them, he was reaffirmed of that each and every time. Jessie was a very guarded person, that's what Justin thought. And I agreed with him. She was so loud and forceful and slightly terrifying in her younger days that I never could have dreamt that we'd end up close, let alone the fact that I'd seen some of her softer sides.
Being a mother definitely softened her. James had softened her day by day but it really became obvious after she had their first few children. It still wasn't a dramatic change right away; she had a lot of growing and healing to do. But from day one, she adored those kids. She hadn't ever really thought about being a parent, let alone to that many offspring. She didn't like every single young person in the world. But she loved her children. She adored them. They were her friends. And that was obvious by how much she had secretly suffered when she saw Justin quietly struggling in the way that he had for many years until a few days ago. It was obvious by what she came out with next.
"He would have been so proud of you, you know that?" the magenta haired female told her son in a truthful and strong tone, finally tearing her eyes away from the photo memory of her father and handing it over to the younger male. After Justin's eyes widened slightly at the sudden words and accepted the photo, she shook her head at herself and corrected herself. "I mean, he is so proud. Wherever he is. We all are. We're all proud."
I was almost baffled by the deep purple haired male's reaction when he seemed to my eyes quickly nod his head upon hearing Jessie's words and almost cringe. But I had watched that particular young male for years. I had watched their whole family for many many years. And I knew to watch and to wait and to be patient. Like how the deep purple haired teenager and his father often quietly studied, I had learnt too as well. So I watched. I watched and I waited. And after not too many seconds, I understood his expressions.
Part of Justin wanted to carry on as normal. Part of him wanted to never mention what he'd come out with and said ever again. Needless to say, he knew that wasn't possible and he knew even he'd start talking about it again sooner or later. But the thing was, he hadn't really planned on actually coming out and saying anything. And he knew that after he had told his father, he had to tell other people. He had to tell everyone. He just had to. And he'd done that. And he'd been accepted. He felt very relieved. But he also had lots of other feelings. Feelings that only he understood because nobody else had been through every little thing that he had.
After reacting to his mother's words in the way that he had, I believed that Justin somehow could feel my gaze and me giving him the time to do and say what he wanted, because he glanced over at me. I didn't act as if I was looking at him. But I didn't act as if I wasn't looking at him either. I didn't act. I just was. I just looked at him. And it worked okay. He looked away. He got over the fact that he'd cringed slightly while holding beloved photo memories in his hand. And like how his mother had blurted words out, he came out with words that had been in the back of his mind and on the tip of his tongue since a few days ago.
"Did… Did you know? Did you have any idea at all?" the deep purple haired male looked at the older female but it took him a while to do so. He wasn't focusing on the people in the photos either. He was focusing on some point on the carpet that looked uninteresting to me. But his gaze slowly travelled to his Mother and locked onto her somewhat shyly.
Jessie hadn't noticed her son cringing to her words like I had. Since telling him what she wanted to tell him, she had gone back to looking at the photo of her father in his hand. She was surprised with what he came out with next. She wasn't expecting it. She almost had to ask him to repeat them to make sure she hadn't missed any extra words. But she didn't. She could see in his face that he looked vulnerable and almost emotional enough as it was by just saying them the once.
So she didn't ask him to repeat them. She just looked back at him, hesitating in the same way that Justin had hesitated outside of the room. Truthfully, she hadn't expected him to ask this question over the past few days so she didn't have an already thought-out answer that she could conjure up. This caused her to hesitate. And Justin, in his position, swallowed rather obviously. This encouraged the magenta haired female to answer her son. She would have to make up an answer and express her feelings as she went.
"I… I didn't know…" she told Justin truthfully and quietly and that side of her greatly contrasted the woman in Team Rocket that I used to know. It was equal parts worrying and comforting to me that that person was still in there, somewhere. She told Justin the truth right away but she also said her words slowly to give herself time to come up with a proper answer. She had one in the end. The deep purple male had started looking down at his lap and picking at his thumbnail while his mother sighed. "I knew… I knew there was something you weren't telling me. I knew there was something that you weren't telling us. But I didn't want to pry. That was for you to figure out. All I could do was be there-."
"Oh, I'm sorry." Justin interrupted his mother in a passionate way like he often did but like he had shown multiple times in the past few weeks; it wasn't a positive moment of energy. It was a somewhat negative one. The frown on his forehead had prominently come back and he took the hat off his head quickly and started massaging his scalp. His shoulders looked tense. But he didn't let go of his family's photos. "I never meant to lie. I never wanted to lie. Especially not to you. I-"
Justin tried to explain himself and Jessie was finding it hard seeing her eldest son get so worked up about that subject for the first time. But she hid it well. And she focused on him. She reached out and squeezed his shoulder. And this was the reason that he stopped speaking. He could feel her touch. He could feel her stability. He briefly looked up at her. And became choked up with even more emotion, though he did his best to copy her and hide it. He had looked up at her. And he had seen the face that he hadn't meant to be untruthful too. He found a wave of guilt washing over him as he looked down.
"I never meant to lie to you, Mum, okay? Especially not you. I… Ugh…" Justin had tried to begin in a brave and strong way like his mother had always taught him how but for a second time, he found himself trailing off and unable to say exactly what he wanted to say. He felt slightly embarrassed. He clenched his jaw. He tried to ignore his cheeks getting a little bit red. He shut his eyes.
I felt my skin shivering and crawling with empathy for the deep purple haired male. I felt every inch of how brave he was trying to be and (in his own mind) failing and I also shivered with the embarrassment that he was trying to express and he wanted to express but was unable to. He never normally was that tongue-tied. Apart from a few moments when he was very low, he always seemed to know what to do and say. He was opening up to his mother in a big way. Maybe that was the problem. He had shut her out for so many years when he was trying to avoid lying to her. It was difficult for himself to allow himself to be completely emotional and vulnerable to her so close after his big bit of news. He didn't know what to say. But Jessie did.
"Take your time…" was all she said in that strong tone of hers that was also laced with softness and care. She looked at her son's face and waited for his eyes to open. They didn't. They remained shut and his jaw remained clenched. She had felt the wall between them for many years, though she didn't often acknowledge it or speak of it. And she was feeling that distance then. But she wasn't going to let it impact them. She didn't want to upset him but she knew that she just had to go for it. So she reached out her hand. And she carefully ran her fingers through his long locks. She repeated. "Take your time, Justin."
The deep purple haired male's teal orbs laced with green fluttered open and they looked so wide and endearing with longer lashes from his tears threatening to leak. He sniffed. He swallowed. He was still embarrassed. But he felt his mother's touch against his hair. He was so used to acting in certain ways and thinking twice about everything but for the first time in a very long time, he did something impulsively. He reached and briefly held onto Jessie's fingers before they stopped stroking his hair. And following that, he had the courage and the composure to say what he really wanted to say.
"I… I never wanted to lie to you. Especially not to you…" he told her and he repeated words that he had already been trying to say but Jessie nodded and met his eyes as if she was hearing them for the first time. Justin felt very exposed and very vulnerable. But he almost liked it. It was a second coming out for him. He was moving forward. "I don't know. I never wanted to lie to Dad either. Or anyone. But I know that you've been lied to a lot in the past. And I didn't want to do that to you. I didn't want to be another person to do that to you. I'm sorry…"
Justin trailed off his words for yet another time and he shut his eyes a second time after his voice cracked. But it was okay. He would be okay. He had told the truth. He had been honest. The truth was out there. If his Mother reacted badly, it would have to be okay because he was just being truthful. And Jessie was okay. She was pleased with the truth. But she was very shocked and moved and almost hurt by the true heart of what her son was saying.
She needed a moment. She too shut her eyes and as thoughts started flooding her brain, she frowned as well. She didn't say anything. She didn't move. She just thought. She let every thought and memory and emotion flood her brain. It would be alright. She had her son by her side. And soon enough, she had her son even closer to her side.
"I never meant to shut you out. I never meant to lose touch of us. I never meant to lie to you. I didn't want to lie to you. I really didn't. I'm so sorry." He told his mother emotionally and he had finally stopped shutting his eyes and clenching his jaw. He had moved closer to Jessie. And he had wrapped his arms around her. He was clinging to her properly in what felt like the first time in years.
It was a moving scene to be sure. They both hadn't exactly expressed it many times until that moment but it was obvious of the distance that had come between them in recent years. When I thought about it sitting in the arm chair, I had noticed it, but I was almost too naïve to really notice it. Or perhaps I didn't want to feel the sadness that came with it. Either way, there was an obvious wall between them. But that was starting to come down. It was starting to come down, slowly, and then all at once.
If Justin had been my child and I had of been Jessie, it would have taken me a long while to compose myself after hearing his word's. But luckily, I wasn't Jessie. And only Jessie was Jessie. And her gaining composure seemed to speed up at Justin hugging her. Feeling her oldest boy's arms around her, made her certain of what was important. And that was togetherness. A new start. And truth. So she told him the truth back. She didn't stop her fingers from making their way back to his soft and long locks.
"Justin…" she breathed out and she spoke to him and she only opened her blue coloured orbs after she had said her son's name. The deep purple haired male was listening. His eyelashes were still spiky with emotion and his eyes were shaking slightly but he was listening. So Jessie spoke. She spoke nothing but the truth. "Thank you for caring. But you didn't lie to me. And even if you had, I wouldn't have cared. I would have gotten over it. If you needed to lie to protect yourself until you were ready for whatever then I really don't care. I just want you to be happy. I just want you to be you."
"I'm still me, Mum…" Justin shut his eyes all over again to protect himself in a different way while he mumbled and found himself leaning his cheek against the hand of Jessie's that was stroking his hand. His chest was moving a fraction quicker than normal. He swallowed. It was like he was saying his words but wasn't really believing them. It was like he was saying his words but he needed them to be reassured.
And luckily, for yet another time, Jessie was there to step in and do that. She lightly touched her eldest son's cheek to get his attention and after his eyes slipped open once more, she told him. She told him the truth. She told him more truths. She didn't look away from him. She didn't look away from the boy that she and her husband had made with love so many years ago.
"I know that, Justin. And I believe that. But you need to too, okay? You need to hear this." She began to him and right away, the deep purple haired male could feel the sentiment and the emotion that was about to come from her words. He pursed his lips. He was anxious about displaying more vulnerable emotion but after a while, he didn't care. He was ready. So Jessie proceeded.
"You are still you, Justin. You're still that boy who makes your father's face light up in so many ways. You're still that boy who is sweet enough to take Katie out when she needed a boost. You're still that boy who little James looks up to so much. You're still my boy who I am so happy to see walk into a room. You're my boy who is going to be the best big brother to a little half-sister. You get to continue being you, Justin, but even more so. You don't have to lie. You don't have to hide. You don't have to pretend. You can keep being you. And you can keep enjoying every little bit of being you. You deserve everything."
And after Jessie had said all of that, Jessie could say no more. Her own voice cracked. As she held onto her son and as her hands moved back to her eldest boy's face, she found herself having to shut her eyes all over again. She couldn't handle it. But she couldn't handle it in a good way. She couldn't handle the emotion. She couldn't handle the love. She couldn't handle the pride. She couldn't handle all of those feelings for the person she had bought into the world.
She was overwhelmed. With emotion. With love. With pride. And with closeness too. She had felt her big little boy slipping through her fingers every single day, though she rarely said anything about it. She could feel him struggling to breathe. She could feel him holding his breath. But no more. Thanks to the love that James and her provided him with and the stable home environment despite everything, he didn't have to do it anymore.
He could be himself for the very first time. He had always been himself. He had always been himself with whatever himself at been at a certain moment in time. But in that moment in time, he could be himself and completely and utterly himself. And it was great. It was freeing. But it was the closeness that he was feeling with his mother all over again which was the most liberating thing.
And you could tell that that was true by the way they continued holding onto each other and the way that even when they went back to looking at family photos together, their knees never stopped touching one and other. They were back. Jessie and Justin were back. And they were going to have one hell of a bond.
Truthfully, I had always believed that Justin was more like his father. Aside from the uncanny appearance, he was playful and he was child-like and he was genuine and he was creative. But he had this drive. And he had this passion. And he had this confidence. And that was most definitely from his mother. And after they got closer all over again, that was even more apparent.
Jessie and James were in many ways, the polar opposites. But they made a boy who was pretty much very evenly balanced out. He was polite. He was loud. He was enthusiastic. He was thoughtful. He was innovative. He was predictable. He was smart. He was innocent. He was Justin. He was inspired. He was inspiring. He inspired everyone. He paved a bit of a path, really, without even noticing. Without even intending either. He just did his thing. And he made everybody proud. He made everybody down here proud. And Jessie was right; he made lots of people up there proud too. And one day they would be around again to tell him that themselves.
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :3 I had a good time writing this chapter. It seems like I write about Justin a hell of a lot (which I kind of do because his character is really taking off in my mind) but I have been writing lots of other stuff too. But it's for uploads in the future so I can't upload it yet! Like this chapter discusses, distance grows between Justin and Jessie when he's figuring stuff out. And Justin himself mentions the reason why. I think it's quite bittersweet. He's protecting his loved ones in a time that he needs protecting as well. He definitely has a lot of Jessie in him even though I write more about the James in him. I get the feeling he can be rather confident and talkative but also a little bit bossy. He has Jessie's Dad in him too and James' as well. Maybe I'll write more about the latter one day! Thanks again and I will be back on Sunday to update "Dear Daddy" so see you then!
AmyBieberKetchum signing out :P