Hello, it is Wednesday, and I am back with a new chapter! I debated whether or not this was the right chapter to upload this week, given that last week's had the potential to be quite heavy as well. I think this one gets more intense! Again, the subject of men's mental health comes up as this story focuses on me and Shannon's latest character called Bear. Bear - real name Arthur - is an ex-Team Rocket chef and the older brother of Christopher from the episode Noodles! Roamin' Off. I've mentioned before that I headcanon that Christopher and Mondo (from the Team Rocket Radio Drama) are the same person and he unfortunately passes away to a drug overdose while the TRio are still in the organisation. You can see that the death is an understandably traumatic thing for Bear. I wrote about it in Chapter 9 of Rocket Daze if you're interested to learn more. Here we really get to learn more about Bear, his connection to other character's, including Misty's sister, Daisy, who is his girlfriend for quite a long time. Like the title suggests, lots of things go wrong! I hope you enjoy :P
Ages:
Ash: 27
Misty: 27
Daisy: 33
James: 34
Jessie: 35
Bear: 35
If you skipped my rambling author's note and just read this, this chapter contains mentions of grief, loss, a bit of violence and a meltdown!
The evening had arrived. After all of the phone calls, plotting and exchanging of ideas and painstakingly arduous work – not to mention the blood, sweat, and the tears – the evening was finally in full swing. It was finally the opening night of Bear's restaurant! And what an evening it was sure to be.
Though one particular table was filled with Ash, Misty, Meowth and Daisy, James could not help but zone out, away from the company every few minutes and look around the now fully bustling restaurant. Unlike Daisy who had been there from the first minute that Bear's dream had been planted like a seed destined to bloom, James had only swung by the restaurant a handful of times while it was being constructed from the ground up.
Where rickety, crumbling wood had once laid, now was shiny deep mahogany flooring. Instead of the splashes of the sound of water jetting from a toilet in the back of the restaurant suddenly exploding over an unsuspecting Bear, the liquid noises that hovered the air were from a sound system, offering the sounds of the rain forest.
This had never been Christopher's dream. He had only been interested in noodles. But it was Bear's, a vision come to reality after months of demanding work. The rainforest decor was a clear nudge to not only the person he was becoming but the person he then was.
Bear's Grill was destined to be a success. And James was one of the people who would be sure to offer Bear a firm handshake when the night finally ended, and he revealed himself from the kitchen.
"Ash, don't you think you've had enough of those?" Misty's warning like a firm but fair reminder to a child but to her new husband brought James' attention back to the table from his reverie. Everybody else at the table turned to watch the couple interest. Misty opened her mouth a second time before Ash could indicate that there was enough for everybody in a muffled tone. "Would you at least like to offer the last one to James? Or perhaps Meowth?"
The basket of bread for the table firmly in my best friend's hold, Ash's cheeks stuffed with bread had prepared to burst even more to defend his position. He wished to state that splitting the last breadstick between the rest of the table was easily doable.
However, catching the eye of Meowth who flashed ice blue slits back at him in return, Ash had another barrage of words that he wanted to set free. Swallowing his mouthful of bread down his gullet loudly though it still needed a lot more chewing, my best friend's nose stuck in the air, and he could not help but quip as if he was still ten years of age.
"Haven't I done enough to not have to share with those two?" Ash began. Meowth's gaze threatened to cut as much as his claws had the potential to while James merely looked onwards, disinterested in the interaction entirely. "They were the ones who tried to steal my Pikachu again and again!"
If I had been at the table like I had previously been, I would have been unable to resist cooing at Ash's urge to defend my honor! Not that he really needed to, even I am able to admit. It had been more than a decade since James or even Meowth had been up to their old tricks.
I was not present, so nobody tittered. My half full glass of orange juice was the thing that spoke of my previous presence while I was otherwise engaged.
"Ash..." Misty breathed out her husband's name, though a fond smirk could not help but twitch at the corner of her lips as she glanced between James and Meowth even if a proper grin did not form. She then turned to gesture to her eldest sister instead. "Would you at least like to offer it to Daisy?"
James considered chipping in that Ash might have liked to offer it to Misty instead, but Ash always took offense to him referring to Misty as his wife and believed it to be to make a point.
I wonder why!
James, however, did not have the chance as Daisy held a hand up towards her sister promptly, shaking her head before turning towards her new brother-in-law. James noticed that she looked at him in the same way that she looked at his own children whose youngest was only up to his elbow.
"Don't worry about it. Knock yourself out, kid." Daisy told him coolly, the wave of her hand that had been for her sister then being for the benefit of Ash. Rather than looking over at his wife with smugness – or indeed James or Meowth – Ash's hand was already delving back into the breadbasket. "You'll regret it when you don't have room for what's on Bear's amazing menu."
Misty's smile could not refrain from appearing fully that time, but it was for a different reason, relaxing back into her chair and reaching for her glass of wine. She had heard her sister excitedly talking about all of Bear's brainstormed ideas and she could not wait to find out what had made it to the final menu.
Meowth answered Daisy's comment before Ash could, his eyes softening down but still looking across at my best friend like he was holding a grudge.
"Doubt that very much. The boy is like a bottomless pit." he muttered and with that, his retracted claws reached out and took hold of my forgotten glass of orange juice.
The orange liquid pooled in his gaping mouth!
Upon future reflection and after hearing this side of the story, however, I must give Meowth credit for not calling Ash the name that he had bestowed upon him when he really was ten years old.
Things did change as much as they stayed the same. And it was not always as obvious as Bear's restaurant going from a derelict building to the one it was there and then – teeming with anticipation and friendly faces on packed tables all around.
Sometimes things changed like the gradual ticking of a clock. And though I was not at the table at that point, I knew I still felt gratitude for the way that all our lives had changed.
Even if that did mean that I dined with ex-Team Rocket members!
"Have you seen Bear this evening, James?" Daisy turned in her chair from watching her brother-in-law smack his lips after he devoured the final breadstick all by himself. She blocked out the irritating sounds by making conversation with one of the very same ex-Rocketeers.
Though James' attention had just moved elsewhere all over again – his spy-like actions not totally behind him as he could not help but try and listen in to the conversation of the people on another table – he focused on Daisy as soon as she addressed him.
Misty watched James' smile come before his shake of his head, silently thinking how different he looked in a white crisp and pressed shirt and suspenders to hold his trousers up. It was a different image than the number of versions of him that she used to know. But it was not terrible.
Far from it, she thought.
"No, Daisy. Not this evening." James began. In between answering her properly, his own hand reached for his glass of wine, and he swilled the maroon liquid around rather than sipping it, his plethora of rings quietly chinking against the glass. "You know what he's like. He's probably got tunnel vision right about now and will finally be able to breathe once this evening is over."
Meowth, having drained my glass of its contents, watched as James offered Daisy a second, different smile, his head bobbing up and down in an imperceptible motion. Even he knew why one of his oldest friends had decided to say all these words.
Daisy had tried to act like it had not wounded her that Bear wanted her to keep away from him as much as possible on that day. On some level, she understood. He wanted to honor his brother in the best way possible. It was already enough pressure on him to try and do his memory proud.
If he thought that he was letting her down as well then, he was sure to crack. She did not know how he had not during the entire process, though it had come close more than just the one time!
Within James' words, he inadvertently soothed Bear as well as Daisy. After years of keeping to himself, he had been seen. And though Daisy did not find it necessary to say her own words in response to James, she mirrored his actions. She decided to reach for her glass of grape juice and drink it at the same time he relished in his alcoholic drink, touched by his astute observations.
James reads people like a book, she thought to herself. Impressive. He even understood the people who tried to keep him at arm's length the most.
"I gotta tell you guys, I am emptying fast." Ash announced, pushing the empty breadbasket towards the center of the table, and almost accidentally sending James and Daisy's half empty glasses flying in the process since they had just been put down.
Instead of turning to look at Ash because of this, Daisy, Misty and Meowth's heads swung towards him, something their mouths gaping open at what they were hearing. When he had first opened his own mouth, they assumed that his stubborn streak had faded, and he was going to admit that he was filling up and that Daisy was right. He might end up missing some of Bear's specials!
But no, Meowth was the one who was right. Though I was loath to agree with him, my best friend was a bottom-less pit. And the way that his stomach groaned following his words proved this even further!
James, however, was tuning into something other than Ash's stomach noises. He thought he could hear something coming from the kitchen and his head turned, looking through the transparent glass where all the team of chefs were working tirelessly. He tried to silently work out what had caught his attention.
Forgoing giving her husband her full attention though she did exasperatedly sigh over at him, nudging the pitcher of water for the table closer to him to see if that satiated him in some way for the time being, Misty followed James' gaze.
Mistaking what noises he was hearing from the kitchen, Misty's eyes lit up underneath the lamp hovering above their booth, her elbows leaning on the rainforest green tablecloth to edge closer to her own best friend.
Daisy watched curiously, the tablecloth that she had helped pick samples for in between her fingers for something to do.
"Is there something juicy going on?" she wondered, a smile of curiosity gracing her lips before she turned to Daisy, filling her in. She figured that Meowth already knew this about James - and Ash, well – Ash was sure to not care. "You want to take this guy with you everywhere. He hears all the best gossip with those ears of his."
Daisy's fingers let go of the tablecloth, her nose scrunching up on her face as she watched her sister lean further across the booth again, this time to teasingly tug on the part of James' ear where no piercings could be found.
James' nose scrunched on his face as well, loosely pushing Misty's touch away. Although there seemed to be part of his brain that, like Misty, was longing to find out what he believed that he had been hearing, he looked between the two sisters and shrugged.
He disappointed Misty by reaching for his wine but not to keep it safe from Ash, giving up on being a human radar system.
"I can't really separate out all the noises." James lied, trying to keep his attention on the company at the table and the smooth, silky liquid filling his mouth and warming him from the inside out. The noise thumping in his head, however, surely was not his own heartrate. "They are all hard at work in there, that's for sure."
Everybody's head lifted to look through the panes of glass where there indeed was action happening all around. A man who they recognized to have previously been striding through the eating area was then in the kitchen, calling out different items off the menu and ticking them when he got answers.
The sous-chef was flitting back and forth a million miles a second! A sweet girl. But Bear had given her the chance to work directly underneath him for a reason.
Though the scenes through the glass were better than any television set and they were all far too busy to feel self-conscious about anybody potentially watching, Misty looked away first and it encouraged everybody else to do so.
Then she resumed the conversation, unable to hide her disappointment at getting no gossip but smiling all the same. She leaned back in her chair and as she did so, she affectionately looped her arm through her hungry husband's.
She did this even though it was James she was saying fond words about.
"You either have the hearing of a Noibat or it all gets jumbled together, huh, Jimmy?" Misty pointed out. Her smile was wiped off her face when the man that she was talking to was suddenly standing and both her and everybody else followed his actions upwards.
Had Misty offended him? Surely after everything that she had said to him over the years, that was not the kind of thing that would make him leave the table?
Fortunately, her anxieties were soothed quickly. James explained his actions, having to get used to standing before moving anywhere after the glasses of wine that he had ingested!
"I'm going to go check on Bear." he said, Meowth's ice blue eyes growing second to most concerned behind Daisy's. Daisy was turned to, and she felt James' hand on her shoulder, his fingers closed to her exposed neck as he spoke for her and her alone. "Just so he knows that things are going really well from where we are standing."
Ash and Misty shrugged, not noticing the concern secretly swimming through James. They were completely unaware of the noises that he knew that he was hearing coming from the kitchen. Ash finally noticed something else other than his rumbling stomach and squeezed his bicep against Misty's arm, resting his head against her shoulder.
Their fingers intwined on the tablecloth.
Daisy was suddenly standing alongside James. She accidentally brushed his touch off her shoulder, though it had brought her comfort even if had had been filled with private worry.
"Should I come with you?" Daisy asked. An unusual question. If anybody was going to read Bear like a book, then it was her given how intertwined their lives had been recently.
But it was because James had known him first, albeit distantly. Truthfully, it was probably because James read things better than anybody.
It was Daisy, however, who read the smile on James' face before words complemented the softness of his lips.
"Stay put for a minute." Misty's touch suddenly loosened against Ash's when she saw James reach for her sister's hand, patting it reassuringly before he hopped away from the booth and prepared to head into the kitchen. "I'll give you a signal to know when a good time is to come so keep an eye out."
James' hand left Daisy's and, listening to his words, her bottom plant back against the seat that she had previously been occupying. Meowth wanted to cackle out that she did not usually need another reason to keep an eye on James!
And even though that urge had tickled through him, what won out on the end was quiet concern as he watched one of his oldest friend's disappear into the kitchen. He too hoped that Bear was okay. He had worked with him closely for a while when he, Jessie, and James first quit Team Rocket and Meowth had been given the opportunity to be sous chef of the first of Christopher's restaurants in Kanto.
Though Meowth had not been able to stand the bossy, impenetrable attitude of the head chef, Bear, he had grown to respect him when he saw from a distance the way that he turned that restaurant around after he had left to go help Professor Oak with his research.
And then, Meowth had grown to care from him when Daisy began to date him, thus bringing him into everybody's lives all over.
He was a good kid. He had had a tough time. And sometimes because of his own mind, he continued to have a tough time.
I can tell you now that this moment was one of them. James had no idea what he would soon be faced with as he strode in through the kitchen, asking where Bear had gotten to.
He was not where he usually was, darting from station to station, sampling food, complimenting his chefs work and speedily chopping vegetables. The sound of his voice taking command could not be heard.
Somehow even though she had a million and one other things to be worrying about, Bear's sous chef furrowed her brow at James from the second that he walked into the kitchen.
In her focused state, she did not remember that she knew him from Bear introducing them both, them shaking hands across crumbling wood before the complete renovation.
"Excuse me, you're not supposed to-"
Another chef piped up. He mopped his brow in between doing intricate swirls of dessert on a plate and for a rare occasion cut the sous chef off. This man had recognized James.
They needed all the help they could get in making things right.
"Bear has been locked in the walk-in freezer with some random Pikachu." My hearing was even better than James'. From the other side of the door, I did not take kindly to it being insinuated that I had walked off the street. "He is completely freaking out right about now."
The man chuckled! He wiped his brow a second time before continuing to focus on the job at hand.
In hindsight I learn that he was not being unkind. And I know that everybody had taken their turn in being on the other side of the door and trying to reassure Bear, just like I had been trying to do on the inside of there with him.
But the truth is, the biggest help that they could offer him was keeping the restaurant going and everybody getting their food on time and the rest of the team working as the team they could be.
Although in that moment Bear, with one hand clutching his head and the other pounding on the door and muttering expletives because he did not know what else to do, suddenly had a new person on the other side of the door trying to make things right.
James' eyes had filled with horror as soon as he had heard the news, and then they had filled with dislike towards the man's attitude even though his own feelings towards Bear were complicated. Me at the restaurant owner's feet, trying to pat his ankle to in some way get him to focus on his breathing, James broke the distance with the other side of the door.
In that moment, I was not sure if Bear had made the freezer soundproof.
"Bear?" he asked, his hand pressing flat against the door from the other side after it had tried to move towards the handle. But it clanged on the floor! No wonder nobody was trying to break him out. They needed some sort of heavy machinery to do that. "It's James." Bear smacked the door from his side one more time, muttering helpless expletives one more time. "Can you just take a breath for me? And tell me that you're okay?"
Of course, Bear was not okay! Without even looking at him, I could feel the anguish coursing through him as my paws touched the white leg of his chef's uniform. And no wonder he was breaking down.
This is the day that he had been waiting for even longer than the months of demanding work that he had put into starting a restaurant from the ground up in an impossible time frame. He had used the tears of grief he had cried for his brother since all those years ago to wash him towards this venture of his.
The evening had finally arrived. He had managed to keep his nerves under lock and key. Lips pressing against a photo of Daisy that he kept in his locker; he had told himself that he was going to be okay.
How could he tell James that he was okay? That was a bigger lie than thinking he could pull all this off.
Bear had struggled to hear James' words through the distorted echoes of his own mind telling him that he had been destined to fail his brother. He had failed him then. And he certainly failed him now.
"I don't know why I thought that I could do this." Bear croaked, suddenly saying words other than expletives and a proper sentence for the first time since being locked in the freezer with me. Though he stopped pounding on the door, his body remained as rigid as a corpse.
But then he flopped down onto the floor next to me, one hand clamping over a mouth that did not know if it wanted to set free sobs or a torrent of vomit. The other flapped frantically.
As my eyes took all of this in, I felt I must take a step backwards. I had seen him distressed before. But never like this.
"You can do this." James told Bear in a voice like a breeze over a meadow, his hand still pressed against the door from the other side as if his Zen could be passed from man to man during his moment of need. He could feel the chill of the room on the other side.
Imagine what it was like for me!
But somehow, I did not even feel the cold. I just wanted to get out of there. But any Iron Tail attack of mine would cause more repairs to the restaurant and I could not do that to Bear.
I was useless. But he was the one who felt most useless. This was obvious from the way that his own hand was distressing himself and he tried to sit on it to soothe its desire to shake, his other hand firmly pressed over his lips.
"I can't do this." Bear insisted, his tone of voice thick with suppressing sobs that he did not know if he even had the energy to set free. His hand still concealing his mouth, he hoped that he could stifle all urges back, all words. But some escaped and he hated hearing them echo around the room more than he loathed the ones inside his own mind. "I'm letting my own team down right now..."
My ears pricked while James' turned, looking at Bear's beloved team and seeing a vastly different image to what the man trapped on the inside of the freezer with me was imagining. He should have described it to him, reassuring him that they were cracking on in the best way that they knew how.
But for the time being, James watched, and though he knew not to voice these thoughts – like Bear, they would have been quite shocking echoing around in the ether – but it made him miss his Team Rocket days.
Their Team Rocket days.
Each one of Bear's team worked together, picking the other person up when they slacked and forgetting about their stations sometimes. They were all working towards the same goal. All they wanted to do was honor a man that they had never met.
A man who would forever be a boy and that boy was still very much alive inside of Bear.
"They are a credit to you, Bear." James murmured, turning his attention back to the door and his elbow bending, resting his forehead up against his forearm as it pressed against the cold. "They are handling their shit right now because you taught them how."
Bear was still sitting but he still felt like he was tumbling down, down, and down. This was obvious from the way that he suddenly flopped backwards against the floor, defeated. Letting out a strangled, suppressed sob, his palms pressed harshly against the sockets of his eyes, and he could not stand it any longer.
Could not stand his failure. His disappointment. But worst of all – he could not stand James' patience. James' words of reassurance. His kindness.
He did not deserve that, he felt, and he did not deserve it from me either. I experienced my throat harshly swallowing and I knew that I should not be offended when Bear shuddered my touch against his clammy forehead away.
"I didn't teach them anything!" Bear argued, his hopeless body suddenly sitting upright, and his foot kicked against the door for the first time instead. But then he crumbled again, his head in his hands. "I'm letting them all down right now and most of all I'm letting my brother down..." Tears did not spit from his anguished eyelids, but saliva frothed at the corners of his mouth instead. "I should have just taken over one of his noodle shops like I did before. I am an idiot to think I could start a business from scratch like he did..."
From the other side of the door, the urge to swallow took over James' throat. And unlike Bear, when the sensation of crying trickled into James' heart, soon water could be seen pooling in his eyes and his eyelids pressed together but not to stifle them.
Despite the wine that he had knocked back, he felt every emotion as it rippled through and tugged at his heart strings.
The words that Bear was not saying were right. Christopher had done a tremendous thing and so young too and that could not be replicated. Perhaps should not be replicated.
That had been his journey. Bear was on his own one. one that could not be duplicated. Comparison was always the thief of joy.
James understood why he wanted to honor him in such a way. But he could see how easily that dedication and that devotion could turn nasty until you sabotaged your own path.
"But you are..." James told Bear. Bear had had so many thoughts in between his outburst and James' response that for half a frail heartbeat of his, he did not know what he was. He did not understand what the other man was saying. "Despite all the ups and downs and things going wrong, you are doing it." James told him, his hand briefly moving away from the door to wipe the corner of his eye. "This is it."
While Bear did not say anything and from being on that side of the door with him, I watched him draw his previously kicking foot closer to him and hold it in his hands, his chest heaving as he thought for something to say. Images filled James' mind other than sweet Christopher.
He thought of all the other people who had trusted their emotions with him and how they too had desperately cried to him, insisting to him that they could not do things either and that they were failing. James instinctively looked over at one of these people now.
Across the restaurant, Daisy's head was already raised, waiting for James' signal for her to come and join in. She believed that was it when he looked over at her even though his attention for some reason soon went back towards the door. Daisy's bottom left the seat. Her seat was soon filled for the time being since Jessie had then arrived after the children's babysitter had been running late.
This time when another person strode through the kitchen, the rest of the chefs knew exactly who she was. She was the person who held Bear together when he doubted himself like the most loving needle and thread. Though they all pieced him together and uplifted him in different ways, she was the calm at the end of a chaotic day.
And even though she pieced together what was happening from the way that James was still lingering against the freezer door – she knew that Bear had forgotten to get the door repaired despite her efforts to remind him – she still was the embodiment of ease.
She breezed next to the other side of the door.
This time it was James to feel a touch on his shoulder but not his neck because his long locks cascading down concealed this part of his skin.
"I'm just a failure, you know that...?" Bear insisted, still flopped down on the floor but this time not allergic to my touch as I took a chance by reaching out to him another time. This time, he allowed my two front paws to rest on the white trouser concealing his thigh. "And what's worse is that I was way better before all of this other stuff in my life." James' breath hitched in his throat. Yes, he read people. "I was way more successful before I had to divide my attention."
Another kick was sent towards the door as Bear's leg, the opposite one to the one I was soothingly resting against, feebly knocking against the door from our side of it. James' tone of voice was too low for him to hear it as it sounded but I caught onto it.
Regrettably, I did not have the urgency to warn Bear as to what exactly it meant.
"Bear..." James murmured his name but that was all that he could do. Daisy's touch lingering on his shoulder switched up on him. He could feel it tugging him backwards.
He could not do anything else other than respect her wishes. James reluctantly headed back out of the kitchen when Daisy signaled for him to do so, and that it was her turn to take over now.
But Bear continued talking as if James were still there.
"You say that I am doing it and maybe you are right, but I am doing it to an embarrassing degree." his head was back in his hands. Bear chuckled against his clammy palms, crow's feet slicing by his eyes not as a signal of joy but of despair. "I just can't be the person that I was before Daisy was around."
I knew that she was outside. My gasp to Bear signaled that this was the truth. But I am ashamed to admit that the gasp only echoed around my own head, and I did not have the nerve to let it be heard.
Bear did not mean what he said. In time I was told what these words mean. But that is the trouble, isn't it? That is the trouble with human language. How wonderful would it be to be like a psychic Pokémon and send your thoughts directly to another person, so no room exists for misinterpretation.
This would hurry a lot of things along – and certainly would hurry some people out of your life if they heard what they did not wish to hear!
Bear did not mean what he said. He did not mean it like that.
But Daisy, of course, heard it in one way.
While Bear started to have the energy for more than just his own outburst and his head had lifted from his hands, wondering why James had not replied so quickly this time, Daisy's eyes puddled with tears, but she knew she must fight them back.
She knew that she had to absorb her tears back into her eyes, not as a sign of strength but so she was able to say these words to Bear. If it was the last words that she ever spoke to him, she at least wanted to get them right.
Her gapped two front teeth bedding down into her lip that was trembling like a leaf, Daisy finally let it be known that she was there.
And that she had heard every part of Bear's brutal honesty.
"Arthur, I just want you to be happy..." Daisy began. Though he was already on the floor, for some reason, as Bear stumbled in horror, he tripped into standing up. Blood ran cold in his veins from her words, let alone his real name slipping from her as it often did. "Don't let me stop you from being who you need to be."
And with that, Daisy could not act like she believed that her tears were shameful. Not that she even had. But her tears were proof of the hurt she felt. She had seen other people bottle down their feelings until it killed them. Not her. She felt every single one of her emotions.
Even if she bled for eternity. Unlike her father, she was living.
"Daisy!" Bear bellowed out, his shoes slipping on the floor as if the ice of the freezer had melted into puddles of water. He resumed banging on the door all over again but this time it was no good. Not that it had been good at any point. But there was no point in doing this.
Daisy had fled the scene. Had left the kitchen. Only her tears to accompanied her.
Bear was not so alone. And not just because I was still there with him, though I did not reach out to him anymore following what he had done. I should not have taken sides. And if I was angry at anybody, then I should have been angry at myself the most for not stopping it.
When James saw Daisy head back out of the restaurant and head to the restroom in tears, he needed to know what had happened. Just like when he had heard noises coming from the kitchen and needed to get to the bottom of it, it was then his sole purpose to learn the cause of it.
But he knew.
All over again, James left the table of Misty, Ash and Meowth but this time he left Jessie rather than Daisy. He strode back into the kitchen, the rest of the chefs too busy making up for Bear's prolonged absence to ask what he was doing.
The sooner their leader was back the better. Although, by now, after what he had done, he probably was voluntarily going to stay in the freezer with me! Forever!
Inadvertently mirroring James' prior stance, Bear's forehead was pressed up against his own forearm as his crooked arm rested up against the door. He could sense the other man's growing anger with every slow, drawn-out step that he took towards the other side of the door.
Then, he could hear it in his voice when James addressed him for another occasion.
"Bear..." James began. His name was said so differently compared to the last time. Bear's chest was already heaving up and down from the mistake that he had made. And this only made it worse. "What, did you just say to your girl?"
A bitter potion of remorse, hatred for himself and helplessness was coursing through Bear's veins, causing his chest to heave. But instead of dropping to his knees and letting his sobs escape, another urge possessed him.
For some reason, a switch flicked inside Bear, and he latched onto old emotions. He began to get angry. Angrier than James' stifled hostility.
This was shown from the punch against our side of the door, and the snapping noise of his strained voice.
"Why can't you just leave it alone?!" Bear raged. I took another step back. This time I did not regret it. He was on his own as far as I was concerned. The cold was at last beginning to bite at my fur. "You've done enough!"
As I carefully moved away from Bear, I was wondering if James was doing the same. But then, in half a frail heartbeat of my own, I decided that it did not even matter. I knew that he was pausing, taking some very brief time to himself.
In that moment, James had a choice. He could draw an intentional breath into his lungs and realize that Bear was having a dreadful day. That everything was going wrong in his own head and all around him and that James arguing with him, James losing patience with him was only going to make things worse.
Perhaps Bear deserved it. He was not exactly being reasonable.
But humans are full of imperfections, aren't they? Pokémon too. Bear certainly was. James was another of these people.
In James' mind, however, one obvious choice presented itself. It was not even a choice. Before he knew it, he was reacting from instinct equally as much as the other man. His body too had latched onto old emotion.
A child inside of him that was always wrong no matter what caused his eyes to double in size, his eyebrows moving closer to his hairline.
" I've done enough...?" James repeated. Then that broken, inner child of his was purged. Another, later version of him became known. A sound erupted from his throat, and it was filled with vinegary spite. "I'm not the one pushing away my girl because I'm too afraid to be happy for once!"
And just like the time before, as soon as these words were out there, gone was another version of James that he had laid to rest a long time ago. Unlike the little boy inside of him, he swore that this other counterpart of his was buried for good.
James heard his own words echoing around the bustling kitchen as if he were then on the outside of his own body. Another urge began at the core of his throat. This time, he felt the need to swallow rather than scoff.
Unlike Bear, I sensed it. And I knew why.
No, James was not behaving that way there and then. But he had been that person. He had been like Bear. On a road to self-sabotage after self-sabotage because you had not found a path of your own while everybody else seemed to have a far more promising future.
Anybody could see that Bear's future let alone his present was shimmering. But that did not matter. Deep wounds of the past – sometimes even from when you were a mere idea of a person rather than a full person – are often the biggest hurdle.
Bear might have had wounds from his childhood like James but the biggest wound he wore like a big red cut slicing through his heart happened in his twenties.
He could never get over the death of his brother, Christopher. Little Christopher Mondo. That was clear as day then in the frozen blue light of the freezer.
I watched, beginning to slowly shiver as Bear became the embodiment of his name. It still fascinated me despite it all how rage is often the disguise for so many other emotions.
"You're the reason I had to even try this thing!" Bear roared. His words seemed vague but to James who swallowed again, he knew what kind of accusations were going to follow. "If it wasn't for you, my brother would still be alive, and I would be working with him rather than desperately trying to recreate his memory!"
Another slam of his fist against the freezer door before Bear flopped helplessly down onto the floor again. At that rate, nobody would need to phone the mechanic because he might bust the door down himself!
I was told that James took a step backwards then. Though he sensed these words coming, it did not make it any easier to hear them. He could not even begin to digest them.
Raising a hand closer to his mouth to brush along his lower lip to soothe himself, he could not believe that Bear still felt that way, let alone had it in him to address this subject with him in such a way.
When Daisy and Bear were first dating, it is an understatement to say that Bear and James got off on to the wrong foot. Bear had caused quite a commotion at a dinner party with Ash and Misty when his fist showed James that he had not forgotten his connection to Christopher, even if they had both long since quit the organization!
Sometimes I wondered why he did not take it out on Jessie. Or Meowth. That Pokémon with the gaping mouth seemed like he would warrant a punch or two.
But, aside from the fact that James was the ex-rocketeer that he laid eyes on first, it is because he knew that he was one of the people who cared about Christopher the most. He was there for him when Bear forgot the rest of the world existed and went from being a lowly Team Rocket chef to being known throughout the organization for his unique meals.
James did care for Christopher more than anybody else in the organization. He was like a little brother to everybody. The wind had been knocked out of him when he saw him unconscious on the pavement outside of the nightclub, taking his last breath.
Yes, the trio cared about Christopher as much as each other.
So, in Bear's head, how could they let him go down that path? How could they sit back – or worse – actively let him try those terrible things?
As much as Bear tried to forgive and forget, he saw blood on all their hands.
James suddenly used these metaphorically soiled hands. His hand slapped against the other side of the door, awakening Bear from his own reverie. Their shared reverie. Mourning the loss of a beautiful boy.
"Me, Jess and Meowth are the reason that his memory is fondly alive!" James corrected, a labored quality taking over his breath as his hand helplessly slid down the door. He had worked so hard to exercise this anger out of him. It was not going to come back. Not on his watch. Not to the satisfaction of Bear. "You have people to talk to about him!"
Unbeknownst to James, Bear would not have been satisfied with a display of hostility from him. Would not have enjoyed it. He would not have twisted it into another reason James was partially to blame for his brother's death.
It was not the cold of the freezer that got to Bear first. It was a chill that spread from the inside and out. Just like he had pushed Daisy away on the opening night of his restaurant – and just like he had pushed Christopher away by caring more about his own projects than his own brother – Bear was running the risk of pushing that trio away too. Starting with James.
It was not like they were firm friends. But like James said, they were all a link to the past. They kept Christopher alive with their fond smiles, touching anecdotes and the way that they had not repeated his mistakes. Not even during their own most troubling times.
Bear suddenly decided that he did not care about anything anymore. His restaurant was a bust already. Daisy would not be coming back. James was a fraud, no matter how much he tried to act like a nice guy.
One hand hovering over his hollow chest and the other twitching close to his own leg to try and soothe himself though it like trying to control the moon or tides, Bear blocked everything out.
He muttered willfully:
"I don't want to talk to you." Bear told James. From behind him, I could not help but let a low scoff erupt from my throat before I decided that I should not get involved. But it was a bit late for that!
My path had threaded through Bear's from the second that I went to congratulate him and ended up locked in the freezer with him instead.
I heard James' heavy breath of exasperation from the other side of the door, lacking the cloud tumbling out of him like it would have been for me. Though he should have left Bear alone then, emotion was begging him to be given the chance to be expressed and as he ran a thumb tiredly over the door, it catching on a piece sticking out of it, his voice whispered quietly.
He still had not swallowed Christopher's death. And he would not tolerate anyone acting like he had done anything but love that boy.
"You're not the only one who lost him..." James reminded him. He had seen this before. Both of us had.
Grief is a peculiarly tricky thing to navigate, isn't it? Sometimes in your own deep suffering, you can forget that you are not alone. You can think that you are the only person in the world who has lost anyone.
I think Bear does sometimes forget that so many people mourned his brother. It was a tragedy that spread from the pavement outside of that Team Rocket nightclub in Kanto and ran like a hurt filled virus all the way to Sinnoh where Christopher owned many of his restaurants.
It is easy to forget that you are not alone in your suffering. However, I really think James should have walked away long before then, and not said these words.
It is not surprising that Bear took them as competition. He said that he was done talking. But a hate-filled tone spat from behind the door in response.
"He was my brother!" Bear roared another time before his voice became a runaway, his etched hand rising from his ribcage to the base of his throat showing that he was losing fuel there. He still could not believe that he had to say the word was rather than is.
James' jaw hollowed out even more than normal hearing this eruption from the other man. Squeezing his eyes tightly together, he could not help but do the next thing even though it was again the wrong thing.
Like a scab you cannot help but pick at, James pointed out, the hurt from that miserable night in October of 2013 spreading through his entire body rather than just the chambers of his heart.
He was glad for the wine he had had at the table to numb some of this sensation.
"And he was ours too! Maybe not by blood." James argued. And then that was it. A frustrated version of himself had been shown the door. Unlike how Bear had taken his words, it had not been a competition. It had never been a competition. And he wanted to put an end to things before it was seen as such. "Christopher will always be in your heart..." My ears pricked up. I would never get over how soft James' voice could sound right after shouting. "But you need to wise up or this restaurant won't be in your hands and Daisy certainly won't be in your life."
Bear's own jaw contorted as he was forced to digest these words. Though he was positively doubled over from the exhaustion of it all – he had been bled dry from getting his restaurant up and running let alone the utter gut punch from things going so terribly wrong – he managed to rise to his feet.
From still shivering with my legs planted firmly on the ground below, my eyes rose and followed Bear's silhouette while he squared up to the door as if he could see James on the other side. From his right hand shaking like a leaf to offer himself some reprieve, I could tell that these words were causing him some worry and he would have to make a massive effort for them not to affect him.
But of course, they would. They would knock him for six. Daisy was the best thing that had entered in his life in the longest of times. He just did not know how to do it anymore. He did not know how to act like starting a restaurant from scratch was the greatest dream of all time anymore since she had walked into his life and painted his visions a whole new color.
That is what he had meant when he had accidentally spoken to her.
She gave him new dreams. He now lived for their slow mornings in bed together rather than the high of something that he could sink himself into to keep him sane for the next few months. Lived for seeing her walk through the restaurant as it was being fixed up, arms already open for him no matter the state of it – or the state of him for that matter.
He lived for Daisy. It was like her face was dotted in the particles of oxygen in his lungs and she gave him more reasons to take breath.
That is what he meant.
But, as much as he wanted to say a great many things to James too – to explain himself – he meant it when he said these words as well:
"Fuck you..." he snarled from behind the door, his posture still hunched from all the hurt that was coursing through his veins but not giving up on squaring up to the door as if it were James.
I shook my head from behind him. But thankfully, I knew that James could hold his own even though it made me want to shake my head a second time remembering all the mistakes that he had made as a byproduct of hurt just like Bear.
It was not exactly the first time that James had heard these words! But I heard undeniable growth in his tone of voice with the way that he responded at first.
"No..." he murmured. I could tell that he was beginning to check out of it all as well. I just had to hope that he hurried a repair man along before he left otherwise my electric attacks would become permanently ice type ones! "What the fuck did you say to that girl, man...?"
For some reason, James needed to know the answer to this question and that was shown by the way that he repeated a prior question. I did not know why. To me, though I understand that I knew why so it was hard for me to put myself in James' shoes, it did not matter what Bear said to Daisy or what he had not said to her.
She was upset. She had been pushed away after all of her unwavering support. She did not deserve that. Nobody did. But especially not her.
Bear did not take this question from James very well at all. He had pushed Daisy away but, it was a wounded man thing, and this made a glint of competition brew for the second time in Bear's weary being.
He stood taller on the other side of the door as if he were squaring up to James, looking at him levelly right in the eye. He stood taller as if he could square up to James.
One more slap of the palm against the door sounded before acidy words flew into the air.
"Have her as your girl then if that's the point that you're trying to make!" Bear hissed. I shook my head vehemently from side to side and flopped back against the frozen goods behind me, not caring about the further chill that I received. He was then even smaller in my eyes. "You might as well! You have already taken enough from me!"
A loud sigh escaped from me and sent a torrent of warmth around the frozen room. In the future I learned that by this point, everybody who had been sat at the table and even Daisy who had been fixing her make up in the bathroom had come to the kitchen to see how James was getting on.
They heard the childishness in Bear's explosion. And then they witnessed James take a purposeful inhale inward, not rising to the bait. He, however, still addressed the other man's pettiness. This was an occasion that James tried to stop himself. Knew that he should not. But the urge ran through him like a hunger that he could not ignore.
He leaned into the door himself as if he were looking at Bear dead in the eye. And then he moved away. He was not going to waste any more of his time on someone so intent on self-destruction.
"The funny thing is, I'd take a hell of a lot better care of her than you ever could." James sneered before he could stop himself. And then he turned around to see everyone there. Ash and Misty. Meowth. Daisy. And Jessie. He added these words, not because he had an audience other than Bear and me and the bustling kitchen staff. "Because, despite what you think, you're the one who lets everything in your life wither away."
And with that, James joined the people who had gathered to celebrate Bear's opening night of his restaurant. He saw that no amount of fixing could disguise the swollenness of Daisy's eyes below her make up and his eyebrows moved tenderly for her, reaching to loop his arm through hers to accompany her out of Bear's Grill.
With his other hand, he reached for his wife and intertwined his fingers with hers. A nod of his head indicted everybody else to leave with him. Despite it all, they followed. And Bear would have to deal with being set free and greeted by no audience to congratulate him. No friendly faces to tell him that they knew that he could do it.
Unfortunately, on that night, he had done a great deal of other things too. Said far too much that he should not have done.
Bear had so desperately wanted to honor his brother. And in the process, he had forgotten to be the person that Christopher loved him being. Simply the person who had loved to cook for him. Adored whipping up a new dish and delighting in the fact that Christopher had been able to stomach it.
Bear had never been able to stomach life without his little brother. But if he were not careful, he would lose him all over again thanks to pushing away everybody who too held him dearly.
And as for Daisy, well, she had another choice to make commencing that evening:
Would she hear Bear out? Listen to his apology? Forgive him? Would she stand to be disappointed by yet another man in her life?
It is now the future, and I am happy to say that they did sort things out. Though, in the end, he was more the man who got away rather than the man of her dreams, Bear, for her, was still a man of some dreams.
He certainly brought the ones of his own to reality! And, with a bit of extra love and patience, he was able to make peace with it all.
He may have named that restaurant after himself, but Christopher was in every piece of it. Every conversation that happened under that roof. In every lick of paint. In every mouthful of every meal that Bear, and his team cultivated in his memory.
Christopher may have been taken too soon at the age of twenty-one. But so many things happened in his honor.
How funny it is that I never met him. But I feel him alive inside of me too. And certainly, these stories that I get to share with him at the heart of them.
The End.
There you go, thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :) It's pretty obvious that Bear is inspired by Carmy in The Bear, and this whole chapter is inspired by the episode where he too gets locked inside the freezer. I literally finished watching that episode and wrote all the notes out for this story. I was so enthralled by that series and itching to make an older brother for Christopher! I think James handles all of this quite wrong. In hindsight, you realise that Bear was having a meltdown. I headcanon that Bear finds out he is autistic during a break up with Daisy (not because of this chapter. Their relationship has a few ups and downs!) and before they get back together. The way it affects him the most is definitely his relationships - and the way that he tends to hyper fixate on his career and everything else blurs into the background. I liked getting to write James and Daisy's relationship here. I have a few more chapters in store that show the full picture of their bond :P Thanks again for reading and I think I will be updating Pikachu Tales next in October which seems like forever away! But September is pretty busy for me and I do want to write about a few things but I might just be focusing on other stuff. I will, however, be uploading a new monthly story for upload on the 28th of each month so catch me over on that new story for the time being maybe :) Until then and until whenever we catch up again, keep well!
Amy signing out :3