Hello! It is Wednesday and I am back with a new chapter. This felt like old times writing this! I was inspired after having a girly film night with my Mum and I decided I wanted to revisit some James and Lynne, while also tackling some things that I've never really written before. Although their romance begins when their relationships with Jessie and Jordan respectively come to a brief close while Misty is in the hospital following the birth of her daughter, Rey, and Ash has run away, the timing of it as well as other aspects of James' past can be deemed controversial. Because of knowing this while also loving James and Lynne together, sometimes I don't write about them! But I did here. Messiness, romance, yearning and all. I hope you enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I own the story and the OCs mentioned!
James had hoped that people groaning when his presence became known was a thing of the past. Apparently not. He had tried to keep his head high on his shoulders and march right over to the other male when he saw him. However, he was forced to duck in order to peer through the opposing side of the fish tank, his vision blurred and warped but focused all the same.
He could not bottle out.
"Hey Jordan." James greeted, strands of hair at the crown of his head feeling a tussling hand roaming through them, as if courage was located there and could be enticed out. His digits ended up hovering with the response he got.
Jordan with only a fish tank between the both of them was shrinking his body so it was far smaller than usual so he too could get a proper look at all the specimens minding their own business, swimming up and down and up and down.
It seemed that they had far more than an aquarium of fish coming between them during that moment in time and the yellow haired male showed that with how he responded next. Eyes revolving momentarily to the ceiling rather than the vessel that usually fascinated him, James then felt his shoulders falling downwards at the response he got.
Though it probably would have been best to keep his countenance a secret, he found his stance doing the opposing action of his shoulders and he started to see over the fish tank rather than through it like before. He tried to look at Jordan with a closed mouth pressed firmly together, strands of hair no longer experiencing a touch and feeling very lonesome.
James tried to speak with his eyes. Jordan didn't bother to look at him. But eventually, he decided that it was weird for him to not even talk to the other male and muttered out a singular word as a greeting.
"Hi." Jordan's mouth decided to at least say something, his nose twitching above the place that had chosen to make at least one sound as if he was suffering some sort of tic.
It wasn't exactly a happy greeting. But it was a greeting nonetheless, and James had to focus on this rather than a plethora of other things that could swallow up his mind on that particular day.
Taking some time for himself in the same way that Jordan had demonstrated, the lavender haired of the two made sure that he really wanted to say the words that he would go on to offer before they were the thing between the both of them.
Once more as he found his voice, his hand roamed through his newer, shorter locks. Apparently what was lurking within the strands that time was compliance rather than courage.
"Do you think we should talk?" James posed. If anyone else lurking around the hospital waiting room had grown bored with anxiously twiddling their thumbs or staring blankly down at a newspaper in their lap then they would've wondered, and perhaps been mightily intrigued why this question required a great deal of fore thinking.
I knew. But I was off doing other things during this particular occasion unfortunately. I only know this in great hindsight.
Although as if he had been caught at sea and resisted swallowing mouthfuls of water even if he got caught up in a great storm, James managed not to focus too heavily on his heartrate increasing after he posed these words, he couldn't stop his gaze from flickering.
Part of him wished that he was still ducking in order to peer through the fish tank rather than over it. At least then he could kid himself that some of Jordan's fierce features were just the water moving and grooving and playing tricks on reality.
But as he peered over what was distancing them both, he could tell that this was very much wishful thinking. Jordan offered an expression of steel that was made worse by him actually interacting with James rather than giving him the complete cold shoulder.
His twisted in a shape that James had never seen before as he went on to answer at him, possibly spraying the glass of the water tank with a different liquid than water from the way that he was trying so hard not to be completely unreasonable as he wished that he could be.
"We probably should talk." Jordan agreed. Another long silence followed this half of his words and rather than encouraging his heartrate to resume at its usual pace at the fact that he was at least being given the time of day, James knew not to get his hopes completely up. And he was right to. The next sentence hit like a ton of bricks. "But the last thing I want to do is say anything to you."
A bold move came next and possibly even a stupid one. James crouched back down on his side of the fish tank as the other male's name was fresh on his lips.
"Jordan…" he tried to say. He tried to say everything that he wanted to say just by speaking this word but it didn't come across very well.
Jordan still hadn't looked at James, instead, focusing on the brightly coloured gravel at the bottom of the tank and where some particular species of fish were pecking at the rainbow jewels curiously. He however snarled – a devastatingly, silent snarl – before continuing to interact with him in a way that made it clear that he wasn't speaking to anybody else despite the lack of eye contact.
"I think you have some things that you might want to say to me." He said, loathing inside that he was doing this but he started to mirror the other male's previous actions by standing, hovering over the surface of the fish tank instead. But still, to him James was a mythical creature with tousling snakes for hair and he did not dare look. "But I don't want to listen to what you have to say either."
He did not dare look but he did dare to retort. And he certainly did dare to put James in his place. The lavender haired of the two was left flinching for half a second when Jordan's strong arms suddenly rose following his response but all he actually was doing was resting his limbs on top of the fish tank glass, continuing to peer down.
James didn't know if he was free to let out his sigh of relief when he ended up not receiving a decking on that particular day, certainly not from the way that he seemed not to be welcome to do a great many things. But I can't say I exactly blamed Jordan.
In hindsight, I learn that James couldn't hold a finger at him either and he showed this by taking a break from the translucent cage of distance between the both of them but still kept his eyes on Jordan as much as he could manage.
After briefly pressing his lips together all over again and trying to conduct himself in the best way that he could manage, after a few seconds, he decided that the best bet was to just be candid. With a gentle breeze escaping from his nostrils and lips at the same time, the tips of James' fingertips enclosed together as he chose to say what he wanted to say.
"Well I won't force you to talk to me or listen to whatever I have to say and I certainly will give you the space to process all of this however you see fit." James answered. He might have resisted adding some other, quite complimentary words to Jordan such as telling him that he deserved nothing more, but the other male wasn't so keen to hold back his curt response of the word good. James had to encourage his mouth to prise back open again after it limply pressed together at hearing another, singular word. "When do you think that you will be ready for the two of us to clear the air?"
Even as I look back a great many years after hearing this story for the first time, I still don't know why Jordan chose this as the moment to finally behave in the way that he really wanted to behave.
Whether it was because he was a silently rattling kettle and there and then just so happened to be the moment that he reached boiling point was unknown to me. Maybe it was hearing the words two of us spoken and thinking that James had a nerve to act as if they were still friends or a duo that could be paired together after all that he had done.
Or perhaps, Jordan was sick and tired of acting like he could hold it together and he was equally as frustrated with this as he was with James trying to appear like a good guy.
The lavender haired male had missed Jordan's eyes looking into his as they interacted in spite of it all. But when he was finally given that bit of contact for the first time on that day, it was as if the fish tank had splintered into shards and the sharpest piece of glass had punctured his lung.
Jordan's steely gaze was of the exact same quality as he erupted once and for all, greatly contrasting the placid stillness of a river in his name.
"When do you think you will be ready for you to stop fucking stealing other people's women?!" he retorted, somehow unaware of the natural activity of the hospital waiting room all around them and instead thinking that they were the only two in the room. "Their wives." For some reason Jordan corrected as if this alteration mattered, his voice lowering even if his looming presence did not shrink.
As soon as James was on the receiving end of this response, he took a step back and the way that his eyebrows dance on his face and his head threatened to twitch made it clear that he was perfectly aware that they were not alone and their drama could be the talking point of the hospital if they didn't watch out.
That was the last thing anybody needed!
However, James was not foolish enough to tell Jordan to keep his voice at the newly lowered tone or to suggest that they take this discussion elsewhere. Skin flushing the colour of a certain letter of the alphabet that used to reside on his chest long, long ago; he had to tell himself that there had been more words following the expletive. Furthermore, another correction was there to focus on.
At the best of times, James thought diligently about words that he went on to say and he certainly did after he was on the receiving end of Jordan's temper that was justly presenting itself.
Jordan's gaze had been hesitant to be shared with James moments before but now that it had decided to take that leap to the other side, there wasn't anything stopping it. His stare was a weapon even if the colour of his orbs were often a cosy hue to find yourself daydreaming into. And when James was continually aware of the look that he was bedding into him, he knew that he couldn't come out with the first thought that etched across his mind.
He couldn't exactly tell Jordan that his words were completely untrue because he didn't exactly have the evidence to back this claim up, did he?
The iciness that had started to creep over James' own features from the inside out began to take on the quality of a thudding heartrate all over again and he encouraged himself to be cooled down by thinking of other things that he could say.
But then, James decided that Jordan's arms really might end up being used for something else other than leaning on the fish tank bridging the gap between them both if he pointed out to him that the yellow haired male wasn't even married, so why was he worried about having a wife stolen from him?
His lips might've parted but this was to encourage some more air into his being, even if he almost did come close to pointing out this exact thing.
In the end, James did come out with at least something and it felt like the looming clock behind the reception desk of the waiting room had swung its massive hands around and around many times before he finally had the courage to let his own voice be known.
"I think we need to talk about this. I just don't get it." James started and although his hand brushed through his hair, it was as if he was dismissing any of the qualities that might have been hiding in there like specs of jewels scattered among the desert sand. He must've wished that he could brush away Jordan's reddening appearance but James had begun so for some reason he felt he needed to finish. "You told me that this kind of thing was okay. Maybe it was just jokes to you but…" He was running a mighty risk. Apparently he didn't have all that much left to lose. "It wasn't a joke to me. You told me that it was okay."
How James wished that he possessed the strength of Jordan and when he set himself out to ignore someone, he was able to not look at them for minute after minute. However, he was not him and neither one of them was each other. No matter how close they had once felt before.
Jordan didn't know how he was still looking at James as his flushed skin contorted and he seethed at him across the fish tank.
"Because I didn't realise that it was serious!" he answered with a crocodile snap of his jaw, and James for a rare occasion was unable to read Jordan and garner whether his hostility was towards him or he could kid himself that it was towards himself. At least he had the sense not to question how Jordan didn't believe his feelings were all that serious, even if the whites of his eyes presenting themselves allowed this to be a wordless message. They occurred for a different reason when Jordan altered his words. "I didn't… I didn't realise how much it would hurt if you listened to me…"
Oh how James wished that he could will himself to look away from Jordan when it dawned on him that maybe it had been for the best that Jordan hadn't wanted to talk to him and had been insistent on not looking at him before he tried to goad him into a different reaction.
He knew that it was never safe for him to keep his feelings to himself. But it made everything so much harder when he was showing humanity in the midst of his hostility. He could no longer kid himself that they were having a pointless spat.
Damage had been done. James had caused real damage. And God, he did not know if any of them involved would ever recover there and then.
He did not know what to do. He did not know what to say. He knew that he had been cowardly before and so didn't dare act in this same manner by looking away after such a long time, acting like nothing had slipped and nothing had been said and they were free to just call it a day there.
James had so many qualms about acting in the wrong way. In the end, even if Jordan's display had been a slap to the face as he realised what he had half been the cause of, he knew that he still deserved honesty. And he still deserved to be treated in the same way that had always transpired between the two of them.
Remorse could never change that.
"Jordan…" James chose to say his name all over again and as the both of them were standing at their full heights over the fish tank rather than crouching down to distort their vision with the ripples of the water; he took a chance by breaking the distance raising his own arms too.
If Jordan hadn't recoiled at hearing the other male say his name for a second time in order to offer consolation, then he certainly did when he felt the white shirt sleeves of James brushing against his bare arms as they too rested on the fish tank, hands outstretched and almost delicate compared to the bigger male's balled fists.
He responded like the lavender haired male was a diseased person and he wanted nothing more than to be as far away from him as possible. But he still didn't take it out on the fish tank. His fists might've uncurled and smacked against the bare air as a warning but they didn't dream of slamming against the glass for a single second.
Apparently it was only James that deserved being startled.
"Just give me some space." Jordan ordered, a flushing sensation that had initially started in the pit of his belly was then being shown like scorched ivy trailing out of the v neck of his t-shirt and crawling up his actual neck. "Please." James' eyes discovered themselves widening, his own stomach feeling a differing, sinking sensation as Jordan's jaw contorted and he aimed to compose it with a rubbing motion from his strong fingers. "I can't handle any of this right now."
And with that, Jordan prepared to turn away from him entirely, deciding that it was best to go one further from avoiding all eye contact with James and to remove himself from his presence entirely.
James felt as if his stomach was an elevator and it contained an infinite drop down towards the pits of nowhere. It was a stab to his most sensitive part of him when Jordan uttered a sentence that he often spoke of but for the first time, he was the cause of the helplessness and he certainly couldn't do anything to offer consolation.
It was habit for him to want to comfort him all the same. But instead, he knew that he had to act fast. It wasn't fair for Jordan to have to leave the waiting room and the tiniest touch of normality for him by gazing with intrigue into the tank of fish.
It wasn't fair for Jordan to have to be the one to remove himself when he taking a step back from his long-term relationship had resulted in what had taken place and with James being the instigator.
Acting as promptly as he could even if his body felt that it could hardly move from the guilty weight of it all, James tried to convey all that he was trying to say in just the single word that he offered.
"Sure." He at least complied with Jordan calmly begging for some space and then went one further, deciding to be the person to turn around and to walk straight out of there, hands bedding into his pockets for his own search for consolation.
James might've tried to kid himself that he was doing the right and mighty thing by allowing Jordan to remain where he had previously been, but surely, it must've been a great relief for him to get out of there. No longer did he have to face all that he had done. No longer did he have to face the repercussions of his actions.
They might have been a long time coming and hardly a surprise to many. But it was the kind of actions that altered entire courses of people's lives and ones that took a lifetime to really get over. No wonder he wanted to run.
Still, I continually believe that he was somehow still rewarded for all that he had chosen to do no matter how many people he stepped on along the way. It wasn't a prize that unfolded over the years either. It was there straight away and waiting for him. And it came along in the second part of our story.
James knew how it felt to be faced with a groan when he made his presence known so he knew that it would be cruel to inflict that on someone else when they came swanning into a room to join him. It was one of the first few times that he had ever longed to look away when he was joined by Lynne, and most certainly for this reason.
However, she had been unaware of how much it used to kill him inside when she breezed past him and filled him with deep yearning mixed with indescribable bliss – and there and then, she was unaware of the effect that she was having on him on that day.
Somehow, even after their most recent closeness!
"Hello, Jim Dear." Lynne greeted James as she welcomed herself into the empty hospital suite, not showing it for a second even if she felt it herself that she should probably hold some of her actions back. She had started to notice the flickering of his eyes but she told herself it was him adjusting to the light after it had been a pretty grey day for most of the morning. "It's nice to see the sun, isn't it?"
If James' eyes had kept up the slow albeit certain pace of their flicking for much longer then he would surely give himself eye strain. Even if he wanted to stop his gestures for this reason, of course he ended up halting them for a different one when, after a few silent ticks of the wall clock past, he couldn't help but look over at Lynne as she moved ever closer to him.
It hurt him. It physically hurt him. Sunlight had arrived now that they were moving into late morning but he still couldn't bask in it properly. It was the most challenging thing.
Still, James managed a smile at her – a weak smile – and he nodded his head, leaning backwards against the chair of the hospital room even if that thing that was usually comfortable felt stark and uninviting.
How could anything else compare to burying himself against the softness of porcelain skin and feeling hands roaming along something far different than the arm of a hospital chair?
"It's a long time coming, that's for sure." James found his voice after taking some time for himself, his eyes risking doing themselves a different kind of damage by squinting as if the sun was so strong that it was blinding him.
When Lynne saw the beginnings of James' smile, she couldn't stop from showing off the same gesture. After her lightly glossed lower lip fell briefly into her mouth and she nodded her head in agreement even if it was him agreeing with words that she had said, her legs drifting across the room finally came to a halt and she stopped in front of James.
From his point of view, when her dainty hands stopped clasping together over the front of her floral dress, they pointed over to the seat in front of his own one rather than anywhere else.
"Is this spot available?" she asked, looking down at James with hands unintentionally giving a different message and managing to resist her lower lip falling back into the rest of her mouth again in spite of it all. Lynne hardly took notice of the words oh yeah, sure tumbling out of James' own mouth in almost a whisper, far different from how he had spoken that singular word to Jordan earlier on in the day. She took strides towards the seat that she wanted most. She then couldn't stop herself biting on her lower lip then before her legs were on either side of James' and her forehead pressing against his. "Hello, Jim Dear."
For the second time in a short space of time, these words were uttered but unlike how the first ones were as a greeting and suitable in case anybody else was lurking in the room, Lynne had started to observe things enough to know that James was alone.
He was truly alone.
Then, he was forced to catch up with what Lynne had meant all along, not hesitating to pull her even closer against his lap even if the words that escaped his lips conveyed continual innocence.
"Oh, you meant that…" James began but he soon trailed off, his eyes then not caring about risking any sort of damage by rising so high in his sockets to meet Lynne's gaze as their foreheads were still connected. He decided not to finish her sentence for her, realising that she meant a different kind of seat or spot. He might have gone into the day telling himself that he would restrain his affections. But that went out of the window when Lynne set a different tone. "You never have to ask that. Hello my love."
And with that, the woman with hair the colour of a paling sunset may have tried to remove her forehead away from James' in order to gaze at him properly but he wasn't having any of it from the way that his hands gently cupped on either side of her face and resumed the contact with their beating hairlines greeting one and other.
Like was often the case when it came to James and self-discipline, he might have told himself that he was going to act a certain way but now he was in the company of something that he could hardly resist, he didn't see too many benefits of not acting in the ways that were undeniably natural to him.
It was a bold move to make any sort of claims that Lynne belonged to him in any way when even just her presence on earth was fleeting at the best of times. But of course, they melted her like he was then the sunshine of the day and she didn't stop her hand from trailing down towards the collar of his white shirt, making a stop against his chiselled cheek that was still surprisingly soft along the way.
However, her gaze was then for the actual sunshine of the Kanto Region rather than the kind that she had found herself drawn to closer and closer over the past bleak few months.
She might have wanted to hold a hand against her own chest as she spoke but it was occupied with stroking through the white cotton material, not unaware of what was sculpted underneath. That wasn't even mentioning the greyscale illustrations etching his bare skin.
"It is so lovely to see the sunshine, isn't it?" Lynne reaffirmed, her legs not leaving either side of James' own ones and her hand not dreaming of leaving his chest for a single second even if her gaze travelled out of the window, observing the way that the winter sunshine streamed in the glass and touched the tops of wilting trees of the world outside. "Just beautiful."
And with that, she continued to enjoy the beauty that nature had to offer while also waiting for James to add something or other too, whatever it was that he saw fit. In the end, Lynne waited for at least a couple of heartbeats so she prepared to turn and gaze, wanting to garner why it was taking him so long.
"Mm…" he eventually mumbled out in agreement, leading Lynne to believe that he was looking ahead out the window also before she saw things for how they really were. Even she couldn't be naïve to the way that she had started to feel James' loving hands wandering down to either side of her legs rested against his, his gaze hungry for the outline of her rather than anything that Mother Nature had to display.
She might have exhaled his name and she might've began to closely swing her face from side to side but nobody, not even she, could deny the girlish blush like that of a rose that encapsulated her cheeks and caused her graceful neck to slant, creases appearing on the edges of her nose as well as her eyes.
James went on to further believe that he hadn't been in the wrong for a single second by leaning forward and pressing a kiss to that sloped nose before not trying to prove anything at all and just acting as himself when he chose to look out of the window after all.
It was a beautifully sunny day. And it was one made even more pleasing to the eye by having someone who portrayed such gentle presence to enjoy it with.
He felt Lynne's own legs gripping close against his own ones but it was only in the process of leaning her cheek down to his shoulder while she perched on him, content enough with the sunshine warming her locks from behind rather than needing to stare at it for all that much longer, still remembering it in her mind's eye.
Only was a funny word when it came to James and Lynne because nothing was ever really just that. The simplest things could be the most fulfilling. Their love didn't need to be shown in great gestures and could easily be displayed by the touch of an innocent hand against a shoulder as much as it was with bodies intertwining while the stars filled up the night sky.
However, it sure felt magical to them both when the learnt of the bigger ways to express their affections.
With complete and utter silence of the lips, James' body spoke of the way he was relinquishing any prior expectation of himself and welcoming the pure presence of Lynne, his eyelashes fluttering as his eyes longed to fan shut in contentment but not wanting to miss a single second of her company either.
He told her in messages of private braille of how he felt about her presence of more than just his day by the way that, as her hand crept back upwards towards his cheek and brushed along the bare skin poking out of his button down white shirt, the skin of his neck grew tickled pink as if he was then the flower that he often bestowed upon her.
Lynne decided to speak with human language instead when she broke the silence. She, however, reminded them both of something beyond their little bubble of the two of them being together at last. Whichever way they were together at that point.
"I'm so glad that Misty is out there enjoying the weather today too…" Lynne spoke her mind, the closeness of her cheek against James' shoulder causing her words to be spoken directly in his ear. Needless to say, he would've still probably heard them just as clearly even if she had been on the other side of the glass window. "Little Rey too." she added, possibly aware of the proximity of her voice to James' ear by her hand abandoning his cheek and playing with his earring adorned lobe instead. "It's so wonderful they are bonding."
The closeness in which Lynne was offering to him as she conversed with him as well as the mention of another positive thing to keep his mind looking forwards rather than behind him should have been a consolation to James' heart there and then. The mention of the darling girl that was a beam of sunshine in so many people's lives should have been enough alone to encourage words of equal calm within him.
But James was unable to muster any of this. While he did try to nod his head and he did take a couple of seconds to himself to cast his mind inward while his eyes looked outwards, wondering if he could spot Misty wandering the hospital grounds with her infant baby girl close to her chest and Delia clutching onto the crook of her arm, he couldn't nurture anything other than the truth as he felt it.
And the truth was, as it had been over the past month or so but for differing reasons, even the reminder of his best friend and her own presence in his life bought nothing but weight dragging down his heart that had previously began to feel like a cloud all over again as he tricked himself into thinking that if he had Lynne by his side, everything was hunky dory.
Everything was not hunky dory. And if Misty found out certain things in the same way that his wife and Jordan had been told, then a whole different wave of darkness was sure to cloud over all of them like unwelcomed thick smog.
Lynne was not clueless to James' heavy silence and he spoke to her with equal honesty as he allowed within his own mind when her cheek at last started to draw away from his shoulder, even if the touch of her forefinger and thumb against the velvet of his earlobe did not falter.
"I saw Jordan not too long ago." He confessed, perhaps an unusual topic of conversation to counter what Lynne had had to say with. However, Lynne could read the way that his gaze briefly dropped down and the way that his teeth for a moment were visible in between his lips opening before pressing together seriously. "He was down by the fish tank in the waiting room."
James did not know why he added this. Jordan could have been swimming in the ocean with mermaids for all either of them cared. In the end, he supposed that in spite of what people thought, he did have an honest streak and very often it did win in the end.
Maybe he wanted to paint a picture too. To tell Lynne that Jordan still was somewhat himself in spite of the closeness that they had decided to experience together and after a very particular dark day when it seemed all hope had been lost for Misty and her family.
He expected Lynne to portray an expression of her own that was similar to his, understanding why James had chosen to tell her of this and why exactly it added such extra weight to his heart to be reminded of his best friend and her daughter at all.
But she didn't. Instead, her hand found something better to do than to latch onto his earlobe and fingertips with nails painted the same shade as the cherry gloss of her lips clutched around the entire ball of James' shoulder.
It was funny how a touch that was full of such gentility could make one stop as if the world had offered their strength to Lynne so that James could wholly be stopped in his tracks no matter where he was.
"You did?" her question came with no readable quality at first but then when James plainly nodded his head, she proceeded in a way that was peculiar even for Lynne. And even he couldn't help but see it is such, even if he tried not to allow two pencil lines of a frown to be drawn between his two eyebrows. "How is he?" Lynne asked. Light bounced off her oceanic eyes at the best of times but certainly when discussing someone who owned her heart.
Even during that time.
With Lynne still on his lap, James really did try to encourage hardly a frown to be gestured on his brow and even if that did make itself known against his will, he tried to make sure that all other displays were just within his mind.
But he could not conceal the debate that took over his thoughts. To be honest or to lie. He couldn't lie to Lynne. That brought him almost as much pain as longing to hold her while it not being acceptable for him to do so in the slightest.
He had been able to hold her recently. He had been able to share more with her than just his arms wrapped against her body while they connected in a way that they never thought would be possible for them to share under the same sky.
James was reminded of this twist of fate and he was also encouraged to be honest when, for a split second, just like earlier on, he felt the skin of his forehead was no longer alone and it had a companion.
He found his words as Lynne drew back from him all over again in order to look into his eyes and listen while he spoke.
"He's… He's… Okay." James tried to reply with honesty but in the end his tone just sounded like someone who wasn't sure if they wanted water or something stronger at a restaurant. Nevertheless, he knew honesty needed to prevail. He couldn't hide how he had discovered Jordan. Or caused him to be. "I don't know." A small fib came. One that was made up for. "He's mad at me. Very, very mad at me. He didn't want to talk, nor did he want to hear me talk."
Some would think that it was peculiar that Lynne would even ask how Jordan was feeling during such a time. They would believe that she couldn't even have the audacity to fret about him after she had decided to find herself in the arms of another even if Jordan had called it quits on their relationship while their daughter was struggling.
You could also argue that it was pointless getting James' point of view. She should just ask Jordan herself if she cared so much. But then again, even I know that Lynne knew that Jordan's okay-ness from other people's point of view could be a very different thing.
James was often a highly skilled judge. Beyond trusting him with herself, Lynne wholeheartedly and willingly often put her faith regarding Jordan in James' hands. She knew he would tell her if she really needed to fret.
There and then, however, it seemed that even he didn't know.
"I hope that he stops being mad at you." Lynne's reply came innocently, perhaps naively to some. Yet to James, her words sounded of an entirely different quality as her hands went to herself for the first time since being there with him and one palm rested over her breast. He wished that he could live in the sanctity of her sincerity sometimes. "What would you say to him, do you think? If he wanted to hear you talk?" she wondered.
A question that James had not been prepared for. Granted, he could think of a great many enquiries that were worse. But he knew that he would need another few minutes in order to know what to say.
Thankfully, Lynne was a patient soul. She even glanced back towards the sun streaming in through the window and perhaps it was this that gave James the inspiration to say what he really needed to say.
Even if it still did take a good few minutes.
"That things can go back to how they always were if that's what he needs." James began. In spite of the fact that he was half chewing on his lower lip in the middle of speaking, he was talking with his own genuineness and he was not uttering any ounce of a lie. He refrained from saying the word wishes. He was not a granter of any sort. He knew that Lynne was a necessity to people's hearts. "He doesn't have to share you." He clarified in case it hadn't been clear before. Then he went on to speak in a way that was still audible regardless of the intensifying of his lip nibbling. "I'm no wife stealer, even if that's what he thinks of me."
James didn't exactly expect Lynne to begin to smile as she heard him continually talk because he never would have the nerve to think such a thing. But he also didn't expect her not to talk. After all, even if his self that liked to pull himself apart could admit that she often had the corners of her nose and her eyes creasing when he spoke to her whatever it was that he had to say.
He was shown an entirely different reaction seemingly out of nowhere. James was quick to be attuned to Lynne shifting the weight around against his lap and it wasn't because she was preparing to draw nearer to him.
He was beginning to lose her and that started to be shown to her with words as well as actions.
"That's not a very nice thing to say, you know, James." Lynne began by telling him, at first him only watching with a frown that he didn't bother to conceal as she removed herself from his lap completely, just standing there rather than giving him a continual message by finding a comfier seat elsewhere. "You might not be a wife stealer but you needn't be so careless either." Her limbs were lost without James. He was not there to reach out too. But they didn't want to fold over her chest either. Her head shook. "If this between us was to come to an end then I had hoped that you would tell me yourself rather than by presenting me back to Jordan after all."
And with that, after Lynne had got this off of her chest, it seemed that it wasn't only a pair of arms that was lonesome and her torso felt pretty hapless now that she had spoken her mind. In addition to this, she perched her bottom down on the edge of the hospital bed with arms around her being as she prepared for what James would have to say in response.
She imagined him saying nothing, nothing at all like how he could sometimes shut down when he was confronted. He was hardly confrontational at all and especially not when guilt was soaring through his veins.
Lynne didn't realise that in some areas, he was no longer the blueprint of the man that had once been. And it had been this way since their first hello, let alone when they allowed themselves to be vulnerable with each other in ways that they had just experienced in the past couple of days.
Immediately, James understood his mistake and he did so from the first few moments that Lynne had replied to him, let alone as she continued. He didn't hesitate to put things right. Not because he wanted to win her back. Being a misleading book was the last thing that made his heart feel at ease.
"I didn't mean it like that." he started to make his case in this way, not thinking it appropriate to reach out to her straight away but the way that he straightened his spine in the hospital chair before leaning slightly forward trying to portray an attitude of rectification. "I meant…" James could feel her eyes not holding back from looking at his and whites the same shade as his shirt flashed back. "I didn't ever believe that the two of us could experience what we have been lucky to share even once in our lifetimes." As he breathed out and offered himself more time to think carefully, his spine sunk back against the chair. "Jordan finding out and reacting like this is just the tip of the iceberg. I don't think this could stand a chance against his and other people's judgement."
Though in his own mind his eyes felt like they were popping out of his head from the way that he couldn't believe he had brushed Lynne the wrong way so, the further that he got into his words, the more that they started to even out and present themselves how they often were.
James also held back some words even if he wanted to be nothing but honest. Regardless, as Lynne's own walls started to go down as she listened, leg crossing over the other while she sat on the end of the hospital bed, she started to gather another part of the message that hadn't dared to be spoken.
If she allowed it, it could make her heart sing and this sound to never cease.
James might have been realistic about other people's struggles with their adoration for each other to be too much to bear but this wasn't a cop out. He wanted nothing more than to be able to keep everything that he already held dear while embracing the full journey of whatever he had yet to experience more.
Lynne didn't feel dissimilarly. And when she allowed her heart to recognise that in spite of the brief sensation of hurt, she started to feel her own voice all over again.
Her legs unfolded.
"Maybe…" Were all she discovered herself saying as she spied the floral pattern of her dress as if she had never seen it before, let alone it once being a pair of curtains that draped in the office of James. Then, her eyes gained the confidence to flicker back over at his face.
Her glossed lips that were pressed together and soulful, for once serious eyes sent a very clear message and it was one that James understood. He didn't bother to stop himself from sitting further up all over again, that time reaching out to her in the smallest of ways and his fingertips only just brushing over the satin material of her skirt.
This was enough to connect them all over again. One touch was enough of a reminder.
"Do you mean that…?" he wondered, uttering out unusual words because, as anybody could tell, there wasn't much within her words that had been up for debate. His eyes couldn't help but lock onto hers, nostrils widening ever so gently as his head didn't have the nerve to jerk in dismay or otherwise. "That you intend for this to continue…? This isn't just…?"
James knew what he meant. And Lynne would go on to know what he meant. Even so, though when it came to the woman with hair the colour of a paling sunset that he could sit with and admire for hours he often perfectly knew what he wanted to say and would scribble it down in notebooks during the early hours of the night, on that day he couldn't hardly find the right words.
The structure of his jaw clenched even if it appeared softer, more vulnerable than almost ever.
Surely he knew that Lynne's affections for him were far from fleeting. But still, like he had expressed, he never thought that a night of entwining with her and allowing all of their worries to melt into each other's skin and dissipate into the ether and being left with nothing but blissful euphoria would ever take place in his lifetime.
So how could he believe that as long as other miracles fell into place, that he might be able to get used to waking up Lynne with a flutter of kisses against the slope of her nose?
His touch was forced to leave the kneecap of Lynne as she stood up on the ground, moving away from the bed behind her but not away from James. She found her feet but she was not standing her ground. For some reason, she needed her shoes planted against the hospital floor in order to speak from her heart.
That palm was back against her beating chest as she found honesty thudding within her own being.
"I believed that what we share is magical enough to be enjoyed no matter how long or short we are allowed to be in the same place." Lynne expressed. Hope that it would be the former rather than the latter was on the tip of the tongue but not quite enough courage to push this forward. James watched as her eyes stopped enticing him in and flicked towards the ceiling. For the first time in a few days, he saw a quality in her orbs that was not just the hue of the ocean. "Or, I hoped that it was. I kid myself that it was." James found himself swallowing back raindrops in his own eyes when her pair shared themselves with him again, not hiding her emotion as she showed that she wasn't distancing herself from him completely and even reached to hold each of his cheeks in her hands like he had once done to her. "Maybe Jordan doesn't want to share me with you but I so want you to be shared with me."
And with that, James didn't get another look of the oceanic puddling of her eyes because they fluttered shut and Lynne slowly inhaled and exhaled, not allowing her touch to slip away from either side of his face. He wanted nothing more than to mirror her display, not out of habit but because he felt the exact same things pumping in his heart and coursing around in his veins.
Somehow, he was able to continually keep her in his sight with hands that gently cupped around her elbows as she didn't let him go either. He wanted nothing more than to share with her how much he wanted to share parts of, if not all of his life with her. He wanted to tell her that it was the same for him; of course that it was the same for him.
But for some reason, a sad smile started to tug at his lips and it was frown lines of sorrow that displayed there and then rather than bewilderment or any other kind of thing.
Lynne's eyes swanned back open again as she heard a voice that she was expecting but words that she was not preparing to hear.
"Jordan isn't a fool towards how we feel about each other but he might have been a little bit naïve towards how difficult it would be to see you share certain things with someone other than him…" James said and as he started speaking, the soft touch around Lynne's elbows grew more assertive and he pulled Lynne back onto his lap once more, this time him being the one to encourage her forehead against his. "But I could not ask that of him. Even if he was willing. Which I think a part of him wanted to be."
It's hard to describe him as loyal towards Jordan during those times. But he showed an everlasting fragment of it with what he said then, Lynne still taking a moment to contain her emotions by keeping her eyes shut as her forehead was bedded against James'.
After she heard these words, though, she knew that it was time to be courageous towards reality and with a silent sniff, she pulled away from James, not in order to add distance between them all over again but to look at him as much as she could while still sitting on his lap.
Slowly, her head began to nod and she composed herself, hands no longer on either side of his face and one hand in the back of his hair, the other bedding against the top and finding everything that she wanted and more hiding in between those strands.
Truthfully, she felt she had everything that she wanted and more within Jordan. It had never been her who walked away from him.
"He's very selfless." Lynne said with a sniff, that time a louder one but one that only put more affection in the heart of James even if he showed it with a wan smile. His hands were on either side of her neck, only just feeling the pulsing beneath the soft skin. He would never get used to that feeling. And he would probably never be given the time to. Words that came from Lynne next made him more certain of this. "He's stronger than he would ever give himself credit for."
And with that, her forehead was back against James' but with her eyes not shutting that time. For a rare occasion, James didn't hear the words in Lynne's mind as they were practically entwined in another, different way, unware of the fact that she knew in her heart that these words summed up both of the men who fiercely took up each chamber of her organs.
Instead, he took the words for how exactly he perceived them. He had always been in awe of the love story of Jordan and Lynne. You would think that is bizarre from the way that he felt about Lynne most of all. But it was the truth even if it sometimes grew clouded by other things.
He had always been in awe of their loyalty. And there and then, he knew that it was this that would win out in the end. Jordan didn't want to share and he would never dream of asking him to do this. And there were certain things in life that just couldn't be separated.
It started to become clear the fate of James and Lynne and how their time together was surely going to be short. Just a fleeting moment in time that was yearned after for a lifetime.
James didn't hide this understanding from washing over his features. He saw the way that Lynne looked at Jordan. He heard the way that she spoke about him.
In almost a torturous way, he couldn't help but ask her with two hands travelling so four of his fingers were pressed flat against her cheeks while his thumbs tucked underneath her jawline.
"Do you think that you could ever feel that way about someone like me…?" he wondered. He wasn't doing the bold thing by continually searching for her eyes and he wasn't doing the foolish thing either. He was just acting in the way that felt right.
Moreover, his gaze that was then for her and only for her wasn't trying to manipulate sympathy out of her. He just wanted to know.
What he didn't realise was that words sprung to Lynne's mind straight away even if she took a couple of seconds to answer her. Her expression misled him too by not conveying the dismay that she felt.
She didn't speak the words, asking him to clarify what he meant by someone like him. Truthfully, she had never met anyone like him so it was hard to understand exactly what he was saying.
Still, in spite of it all and the knowing that good things came to an end which meant what they were sharing could be removed from their lives very, very soon, the smallest of smiles streaked across her lips.
Lynne's hands were on either of James' shoulders, comforting him as well as levelling him.
"I feel nothing I have ever felt before for you and that is the truth. You have been on my mind almost every single day since I first learned of your name." she told him, garnering his attention from the moment that her voice sounded, not to mention when one stray finger couldn't help but flick back upwards towards his ear lobe. Eyes met and affections were affirmed. "Even during all of this disarray…" her words might have been confirming the same sentiment but her hands couldn't make their minds up. "I want nothing more or nothing less than to be sat with you."
James felt a hand brushing over his forehead. It was true that her words were painting a picture and they were confirming to him that they were so much further than being on the same page as each other that they were practically the same story.
He experienced his eyelids shaking as he listened, at first his throat displaying any sort of response back to her by merely swallowing, one hand of his breaking away from the side of her face to emotionally trail down the slope of her nose, like it was a sculpture in the museum that no money in the world could supplement it.
Funnily enough, it was that touch that brought words to the forefront of his mind. That, and his mind casting to the fact that things were a mess even if other things were beginning to tidy themselves up. It was only just the beginning.
"I don't regret it, you know? Falling for you…" James found his voice at last and told Lynne, thinking that he was doing a poor job in summarising all of his feelings for her over the years but actually painting it pretty well. Maybe he should've regretted it. Maybe he should have distanced himself from the first time his heart sped up for her. But he didn't. And there they were. One more sentence tumbled out of him as his forehead felt that familiar feeling for one more time. "Kissing you…"
For some reason he said this. For some reason he said this as if that had been the only way that they discovered new intimacy together. In retrospect, I supposed it was in the same way that things were never an only for them.
I still know that a part of James could have been happy if only their lips ever found each other. After all, they could speak of such things when they used their words and when they shut up entirely and used actions instead.
Their love didn't need to grow to the level that they had discovered themselves to be on recently. Truthfully, they had loved each other from the minute that their fingertips had ever found each other. Sometimes James wanted to regret. Sometimes he felt that he should regret. But when her legs were on either side of his and she was looking at him with those eyes that had travelled through things that he had once never even known to be possible, he just couldn't do it.
That was one thing that was impossible to him when he was in the presence of Lynne. Regret couldn't truly live in his heart. There was only room for love. A love that people could only dream of experiencing once. And then there he was. Certainly not a beginner!
Lynne melted under these words. Unlike how James sometimes tried to steer his emotions elsewhere, she didn't try to hide the fact that her loving words towards him had been reciprocated and, from her point of view, had been absolutely knocked off the top spot and in the best way.
As she moved gently backwards away from him to fill her eyes with more of the wonder that she saw, she wanted nothing more than her thumb reaching out and slowly trailing along his lower lip to encourage more loving words to spill out of him.
But then, as she felt his lips pursing together and doing what they did best and gently pressing the smallest most intentional kisses against the pad of her thumb, after just a split second of eyes fluttering shut later, she knew how she wanted things to proceed.
Lynne managed to conceal a shiver from him. Her thumb remained pressed against his lips with that other arm wrapped around his neck as she looked into his eyes, enticing him.
She was his temptress. And he was more than willing to fall for her innocently seducing ways.
"If you don't regret it…" she put forth. She was not ignorant to the flash of white eyes that she received from him. She giggled. She knew to promptly continue. "And if you believe that this could be the last time…" This time giggles didn't occur. Not from her and certainly not from him. His whites of his eyes remained as he started to see her from an angle, lips a line against her thumb rather than puckered. "Then why don't you not regret kissing me some more…?"
Lynne encouraged. James didn't know if it was heaven or hell how she could take him through each and every emotion through a singularly passing second but most of all experienced complete and utter bliss. Surely it was both. And even if part of him sometimes liked to ruminate on the darker side, he could not deny himself the opportunity of radiance.
The sun was still beating in through the window. As his heart continually thudded in his chest, he knew that he had found sunshine just for him. He wanted nothing more than to claim it.
But still, out of habit and out of his gentlemanly ways despite it all, he asked. And Lynne melted as James asked.
"Are you sure…?" he wondered, regardless of his question, his eyes flickering down to her own lips now that both of her hands were back against his shoulders and a smile unable to resist tugging at his own mouth as he knew that in seconds to come, once her answer had been revealed to him, he would not be able to resist her.
Another giggle started to sound. A girlish blush the hue of a rose washed over Lynne's face and James' shoulders grew squeezed at as she initially consented with gestures rather than words. But of course, these too soon came.
Her lower lip fell into her mouth and her own eyes mirrored James' previous action, knowing that it wouldn't be long she was reminded that she too could hardly regret a thing.
"James…" she said his name. And, unlike how it had felt to him the last time she had said it that way rather than a shortened version, it brought nothing but heaven to him with a single word. Her thumbnail tucked into her own mouth as her forehead closed the distance with his, searching for his eyes despite their closeness. "I have never been more certain of anything."
James didn't exactly have many other reasons not to comply, did he? Although he waited a couple of seconds as he allowed the joyful anticipation sink into his veins, filled with nothing but love for the sunshine in his life following the showers that had seemed to be present for months on end, he soon chose to give Lynne exactly what he wanted.
He needed to give her exactly what she wanted. Their love really could be sealed with a great many things. It didn't need to be a kiss. But when it was, to them, it certainly felt like the earth moved around them. Maybe it did. Maybe they really were able to transcend space and time and the reason that Lynne was able to spend as much time on earth as she had wasn't because of dutiful behaviour after all. Maybe it was risky behaviour. But with the right person.
It was risky, this couldn't be denied. But James and Lynne took their leap of faith and not only did the earth start to move around them, but other people did as well.
You see, something that is meant to be can't be denied. You can try. You can attempt to bury your head in the sand and look the other way. But it catches up with you in the end. Sometimes worlds are meant to be turned upside down. And in the process, something truly treasured is discovered.
On that day in the hospital, lives continued to be altered and some even crumbled while Lynne was sat on James' lap and as both of his hands caressed through her hair, he kissed her with such tenderness and such passionate intention that maybe somehow, somewhere other things were fixed.
The world turned and they learned to capture their moments in time together just in case they would cease. Fortunately for them, even the greatest distance that the world has ever known could never tear them apart.
Sometimes love prevails. Sometimes it just does. I can tell a great many tales about that sort of thing. Because, in truth, everything is about love. The presence of it. The absence too. Most problems in the world are caused by love. The beauty of it. The destruction of it. What a beautifully human thing.
And how funny that I can say that I experienced it in the exact same way, from looking on at it and, like James and Lynne, having it beating in my own heart too.
Love heals. And remembering these times does the exact same thing for me as well. Messiness and all. That's life as well as love.
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) I find James and Lynne tricky to write about sometimes because while these kind of situations and yearning and almost 'forbidden romance' can be enjoyable to write about, in real life they are messy and definitely painful. While other stories being written by me and focusing on other characters over the years has tugged me away from James and Lynne at times, also personal experiences have made it a challenge to sit with how I feel about how they came to be. But it felt somewhat healing to me to write this. I'm learning to balance accepting that messiness and things I don't feel completely okay with do happen in my characters lives, but I can enjoy exploring certain dynamics too :P Thanks again for reading and I will be back on the 28th to update Dear Darlings so see you then!
Amy signing out :)