Hello, it is the 23rd and I am back today with an upload for my best friend, Shannon's, birthday! As teenagers we made the ship of James and Misty and it's been a guilty pleasure since then. When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday - a cute James and Misty fic or an angsty one - I already knew the answer. We have an angsty one here. James does not come across very well at all xD In this chapter, we dive into their regrettable affair and a choice that James makes to land in him prison. I hope you enjoy but especially you, Shannon. This chapter is filled with everything that we hate to love x
James barely moved when he heard the clicking and clacking of heels against the tarnished floor. A couple of seconds later, the door of his cell opened with a groan. Officer Jenny stepped inside. Though his head had turned, unable to deny to himself that he was curious regarding who it was going to be, the rest of his body felt filled with sand. As his frame hung rigidly, it was like it no longer belonged to him.
James sat at the desk of his paint peeling room and did not even bother to trace circles with his finger, making art out of the dust collecting on the surface.
"Morgan." Officer Jenny began. James' eyebrows lifted just a fraction closer to his hairline. The police in Kanto sure did remain consistent at retaining the hierarchy of the dynamic. "You have a visitor." All numbness left James' body like he had found himself in a warm room after only just frolicking in the snow. His whole body was able to move, turning to the officer, his eyebrows merging with hairs tumbling from his scalp. "You have one hour to see them. Come with me."
And with that, a white gloved hand gestured to the prisoner. Before he could take note of what was happening, he was scrabbling to his feet, and he was following her. Though his lips did not dare ask who it was – James had a feeling that anything could be used against him – his mind flashed to the thought of one specific person over and over again.
Hope encouraged their name to beam like neon lights in his head.
Could it be...? No, it was not going to be, was it? And why did he wish so much that it were going to be her? She was the reason that he was in there. Jessie had thought so when he had made his only phone call to her – and during their pitiful visitation with glass between them both.
To stop from spiraling as his mind ran away from him and to stop his heart from hammering harder and harder in his chest the longer that he followed Jenny - the closer that he got getting an answer - James cast his mind back.
He found himself thinking of who he had once called the oldest twerp. And how if the roles were reversed, his heart rate beating out of his chest would have been because he was side by side with Officer Jenny!
James cast a coy glance at her but did not take in her shape for more than a second or two. He might have been a prisoner, but he still had manners. (I disagreed!)
Jenny was an attractive woman like all her other relatives. But that was as far as it went for James. And not just because he was married, and she was the one responsible for holding him there. He needed to get to know a person before really seeing their beauty blossom in front of him like a flower.
Sometimes he fancied that he might like to go blind for a day to see if his heart still sung for his special someone. He passionately believed that it would. He would have been able to pluck her out in any universe, encased in any sort of vessel for that lifetime.
Jenny did not announce with words to James that they had arrived in the visitor's room in the same way that he did not choose to converse with her at all. She merely nodded her head and guided him into the room. A haze cloaked his vision. With eyes much more animated than usual, they scanned all the people at the tables, waiting to see somebody sitting alone.
He suddenly wondered if his theory was being put to the test. He had been thrust into an alternative universe and had to prove that he could find his weakest spot. His prisoner. His temptress who was also his ticking heart.
Officer Jenny, who had been secretly observing him during his time there, quickly saw that he did not know where he was meant to be heading, and she decided to do something that she did not normally do. Her and the other Jennys had not managed to find too much against him, but she recognized him as being in Team Rocket – or formerly being in Team Rocket. This Jenny could not set him free all that easily.
But still, her gloved hand brushed against the slenderness of his shoulder and after he quizzically turned back to look at her, at once feeling the touch that was not typical, his eyes followed to where she was pointing to now that hand had left him.
James' heart became an acrobat when he saw who it was. He wanted the ground to swallow him whole. But he could not leave. His visitor had made an effort to come and see him. Though no doubt it was to question him as much as the police had been doing, she was still there. He had to at least give her his time of day. It was not like he had much else to do other than stare at walls and try to block out the unnerving chatter of the other inmates.
His head bobbing in a subtle motion as a thank you to Officer Jenny for leading him there, James strode forward and broke the distance with the one specific visitor's table. Daisy looked up from the second that she felt somebody standing there.
With a silent gasp hitching in her throat, she was suddenly standing also. She did not know why she was doing that, why her mouth was suddenly so dry. She did not want him to think that he had some authority - some power. He may have been slightly older, but now she trusted that she could pull the strings.
She tried to drum it into her own head that he was a low life, and she did not know why her sister bothered giving him the time of day after all he and the other two had put her and her friends through all those years ago. Why she had given him the time of day.
Daisy had a horrible feeling why Misty was so insistent on keeping him in her life when she had last seen the two of them together. And her wanting to know what was going on there was one of the other reasons why she had phoned the jail, asking to visit.
"James." His name slipped out from her lips before she could stop it. Unbeknownst to her, James' shoulders were slipping further away from his unusually naked earlobes upon hearing his name for the first time in a while. And it being said genuinely. Not filled with disdain.
To gain some of the power back from her momentary blip, Daisy gestured for the man opposite to sit down and only mirrored his actions once his bottom was placed on the creaky, plastic chair.
James had gotten quite used to the habit of not speaking. At the best of times, he was able to say a lot with his gestures and his eyes. His time in prison had been a good test to prove to him that he did not mind the silence too much. Words were sometimes very deceptive. Though it was a bit of a rough situation to be in to find out something new about oneself.
Tilting his head to the side and tucking a long, loose strand of hair behind his ear after a flicking motion of his head had edged it closer to where it needed to go, James continued pursuing his silence and he fixed his gaze on Daisy.
He waited for her to say more. But she did not wish to be the one to proceed things. She had come to speak with him, but she did not want him to think that she was begging for his time, begging for answers.
An apology.
And it was more than just because his eyes had done that enough as he forwent looking at Misty while he was slammed down on the police car and his hands cuffed behind his back, his eyes finding hers instead of shutting with shame.
Maybe he had been trying to make her feel sorry for him. That it had all been just a mistake. That everything was a mistake. That he might have been once in Team Rocket, but he was not like that, not really. And he had not been like that for a long time – if ever.
Daisy had this to think about when James was not so stubborn as to allow their hour-long visitation to be filled with mere silence. He could see that she wanted him to be the one to commence things, for whatever reason.
And so, he did.
"Are you okay, Daisy?" James wondered, his hands settling down on his lap underneath the white, plastic table, having just run through his locks that were a little greasier than he would have liked. He performed this gesture, even though he had only just tucked his hair behind his ear.
Daisy could not help but be filled with a silence that was not purposeful when she heard this. And then, after the words bled into her ears and fell against her skin like an acidy rain drop, the only thing that she knew how to do was get defensive.
James silently observed that she was not so different from her sister in that way, though he had once been as sure as Misty that they were as different as night and day. His lower lip fell into his mouth as he thought about this and tried not to miss that little sister of hers.
Her cheeks flushing like she had been victimized by a thorny rose bush, Daisy defensively questioned the man opposite her, her voice as hardened as steel.
"Why are you asking me that?" As she asked, the inside of her throat burned until it felt raw. She knew that this attitude was not like her. To tell you the truth, she did not know how Misty was rubbing off on her when Misty kept her at arm's length. But still, she did not think that she could stop it. "Why are you pretending to care about me?"
These words were even more telling than the first and Daisy could not believe that these had spat out like a hissing hot flame from the second that she had said them.
This was not how she wanted things to go.
She tried to comfort herself by bringing her own hands clasped together against her lap, praying that if she did not look at James then he would not see the wetness pricking her eyes, contrasting the heat of her words.
In hindsight, she would learn that James would have guessed them whether she looked at him or not. Whether he was indeed blind, he would have been able to understand why she was putting on such a display and why this felt like the right thing to do.
James refrained from looking at her with sorrow. Misty hated when he did that so he figured that she might be the same. He did not defend himself. He did not get defensive either. He merely shrugged and answered.
One of his hands was playing with his hair again as, despite what one would think, all he could do was tell the truth.
"I figured that all of this is new for you." he began. Though she tried not to, Daisy could not stop her face from twitching to look at him again, secretly wondering how on earth he could read her like they were old friends. How did he know that her rage was new, and it was frightening her? James clarified, as he took her silence for confusion. "It can't be fun for you. Being here. Having to deal with police questions. I doubt you've ever had to do this before."
James' words were meant to soften Daisy. Initially, they had the opposite effect. She did not know where it was coming from as she homed her stoney green gaze on him as much as she could, and her voice burned with rigidity.
She had not even acted like that with him when she had found him breaking into her house, let alone other things.
"Unlike you?" Daisy supposed, unable to stop herself from sneering. Somehow, James seemed undeterred, unbothered, and it was this that began to allow the first layer of her walls to come down.
James leaned further backwards in his uncomfortably hard seat, casting his mind back as he did so but did not allow it to travel too far backwards. He was okay with the silence because he had survived it more dreadfully so in Team Rocket confinement. Just the once. But it had been enough to make anything tolerable.
It had been the time when he was a new father. And he would have done anything to get back to his little family.
"Oh, I was never caught while I was in Team Rocket." he said. His tone seized Daisy's interest, as much as she resisted. She encouraged her eyebrows to furrow rather than rise with curiosity. "My standards must be slipping. They'll never want me back now."
One of James' own eyebrows shot up, subtly arching towards his hairline. From somebody else, his words would have been perceived as dreadfully cocky. But Daisy, though she had only just been filled with so much anger as she tried to keep him at arm's length and tried to remind herself that he was no good, could help but feel that he was just being... honest?
No arrogance arose there. He had been telling her the truth. Had not been trying to win her over. To get her to soften. But it still... somehow worked.
Daisy fought to keep her mouth an even line. But proving that the second layer encased around her heart had crumbled, she mirrored James' stance of leaning backwards in her own chair. But then her clasped hands rested on the table.
For the first time and eagerly so now that they had dried up, Daisy met James' gaze. And she could not help but ask him a more genuine question of her own.
"Will you tell me what happened?" Daisy asked. Her eye contact had lured James in. Now it was too late for it to drop down.
He had run out of time to act like he mistook her words. For him to lie. He did not wish to do that anyway.
His right hand falling into his hair, preparing to tousle through it to soothe himself, James' lungs set free a weighty sigh that he did not know that he had been holding onto. He forwent reminding Daisy that he had already told her most of it when she had discovered him creeping about in her hallway. He resisted falling back into his habit of silence.
James explained everything in detail.
Misty had confided in him one day about a box that she had forgotten was in her bedroom which in her mind was so thoughtless because it held records and other knickknacks that once belonged to her father. She did not like Jordan's name to spill from her much. But the fact that she had brought it up allowed James to understand that it was important. And he encouraged her to go back home and collect it.
She might not have had the courage to do that, but she had phoned Daisy up, asking if she could stop by their family home and take what was rightfully hers. Misty had learnt that Daisy was on the other side of Kanto for work. Daisy wanted Misty to feel that she could go and collect it, but she asked her to do it when all the sisters could be there for a little catch up as well.
Misty had hung up the phone. She had told James everything and got pretty pissed off when he said he could see where Daisy was coming from by wanting to use this as an opportunity to reconnect. Her relationship with her sisters – especially Violet and Lily – had taken a hit when she had informed them that she was taking an indefinite break from running the Cerulean Gym and told the Pokémon League to announce its hiatus rather than that her three sisters were taking over the duties.
James had wanted to make it up to Misty. So, he had phoned Daisy himself to see if there was any wriggle room. Daisy knew this part, of course. He was surprised that she picked up his call! But there was no wiggle room. Daisy really wanted them all to meet at the house and have a chat because, as much as anything else, there was other stuff that belonged to their parents that needed sorting out. She would be back in a couple of days. Misty just had to wait. And they would all sort things out.
James had tried to take this for what it was. But, you see, he had a brain that had a mind of its own and the more he tried to let things go and the more he tried to not think about something, the more that his mind would wander.
Unfortunately for him, Misty was the exact same way. Though she had forgotten about the box for years, she suddenly could not bear the idea of it and its contents being in her room and where her three sisters could spy now knowing that it was important to her.
Unlike James, as Misty's mind spiraled, she got increasingly outwardly frustrated and louder too. While his own mind was equally as voluminous as it tried to think of solutions, he tried to reassure her, to distract her and get her to fill her time with other things. Fill her time with him.
But it was no good. And that was when he had begun plotting.
With all three sisters in different cities dotted around Kanto, James was going to make his way to the Cerulean Gym at night and locate Misty's bedroom window (he reminded her that he knew which one it was from dropping her off to housesit for her sisters that spring) and the rest would be easy. He had been in Team Rocket. He knew a thing or two about breaking and entering. It was going to be straight forward to climb through the window to secure the box since Misty no longer had the key.
What James, however, did not factor in was that all this box fiasco was keeping Misty from sleeping. She had been looking out of Ash's bedroom window when she spied James exiting Pallet House across the way and getting his motorbike out of Delia's garage to head to Cerulean City.
When Misty made her way from the Ketchum household and broke the distance with James and found out what he was doing for her, she wanted to go with him. Her heart hammered and elevated to her throat. She told herself that it was because she could not believe that somebody would do that for her.
The real reason would be revealed once James had left Misty looking after his motorbike and he had long since shimmied up the drainpipe and clambered into her bedroom. He had taken a risk by holding the box in both arms and had decided to head downstairs to find a window that was easier to clamber out of while holding the precious belongings.
He soon realized how foolish it had been when he came face to face with Daisy at the front door as he had tiptoed around the house, trying to recall where a good ground floor window was. She had called the police when she heard somebody creeping around in her house. Thanks to her speediness as well as the fact that she and James had conversed for a while in the hall, her trying to find out why he was doing all of this, the police were pulling up by the time that Misty decided to bang on the door from the outside.
All James could do was to refuse to look Misty in the eye as he realized she knew Daisy had come home early. He could only put the box down and throw his hands in the air to allow the police to do whatever they liked with him.
They slammed him down on the bonnet of their car and cuffed his hands behind his back. James had not looked at Misty once. He had not seen her face for days. He had refused to allow her to visit. Had refused to properly think about her.
He did not know why. He was past being mad. Past being angry. Now he was just sad. For her. He gathered why she had lied even though that did not make it hurt any less. Most of all, he was frightened.
And he suddenly had a lump in his throat as he realized that he might never look into Misty's eyes again – mad or sad – and all he could do was fixate on Daisy's hoping that they would be enough.
It was not the same. They did not belong to Misty. The itch that he just could not scratch.
But at least she did not seem so despising towards him anymore. Perhaps that was because he was the one with answers to the questions that she wished to know the most.
That became clear from the way that James finished saying everything that he had decided to say with this:
"When Misty needs you to do something..." James began answering Daisy before she had a chance to exactly ask him why he had even done it.
Immediately, Daisy's eyes that were not Misty's were widening, and she could not help but speak with her own promptness, her voice rising in pitch a good few levels more than usual.
"What, you just do it?" she questioned, dismayed. Daisy did not know what it was about her sister. It had been the same when it came to their father. Somehow, Misty always got what she wanted without even needing to ask.
James caught himself off guard by his own swiftness in answering. It was absurd to him why he was so quickly leaping to her defense. In the end, he supposed that it was often because they only had each other. Especially when they messed up everything else.
All they could do was just seek solace within each other against the horrors that they had created.
"No!" James answered, aware that his voice had conjured up a pitch that he had never heard from himself before. He cleared his throat, his brow furrowing as he contemplated what he really wanted to say instead of blurting it out. Daisy was admirably patient. "It's just that... Well... Misty doesn't like to ask for help." Daisy's patience did not wane. But her heart rate began to pound in her chest. "She didn't even ask me for help... But she kept bringing it all up... And that's how I knew that it was important to her... I'd do anything for her."
The words that James were saying were reasonable. Nice, even. And Daisy might have been able to push some of her own bias out of her mind for a good few seconds, even though her body was beginning to ring alarm bells in the shape of an elevating heart rate.
But then James said that last sentence. It was the kind of string of words that could have soothed some pesky nerves. But in Daisy's case, it only encouraged more of them. She had been paranoid of their dynamic a few times before. Most recently it had been when she saw James refusing to look at Misty as his rights were read to him and Misty had grown hysterical, begging James for forgiveness straight away – and begging him not to hate her.
Daisy knew that there was one other emotion and one other emotion alone that bred hatred.
She really did not want to have to ask him. She knew that he could easily lie. Knew that she could ruin things between her and her sister and the other two sisters for good by questioning what could be just a friendship – and by accusing Misty of being disloyal to Ash.
She also ran the risk of James becoming a different man to her. Not some soft-spoken man that she had once spoken hours to at an anniversary party of Ash and Misty. She was beginning to realize that he could wear many different guises, and she was not ready to meet one she plainly despised.
But Daisy just needed to know. She needed to keep Misty away from trouble. Even if that meant her sister would not like her for an exceedingly long time. That she would not like herself.
"Is there something going on between you two...?" Daisy suddenly asked. It was not so prompt for her. She had wondered for a while and, truthfully, she had been restlessly up most of the nights that James was in prison, knowing that she could not ask Misty for the truth.
This sentence to her sounded so immature. It echoed with distrust. After James had been nothing but reasonable and polite and honest with her – even while she had secretly stalled him and waited for the police to arrive.
She hated that he was still reasonable after met with this question. He did not laugh in her face. He did not grow enraged. In fact, from Daisy's point of view, he looked sincerely taken aback with his hands no longer in his hair and on the table instead and his tongue seeking refuge against the inside of his own cheek.
Eventually, he set free an answer. Or moreover, he set free a noise, the tip of his tongue still pressing against the inside of his fleshy cheek.
Upon future reflection, I know what that was. He was so used to lying. But he did not know how he was going to do that to someone crafted from Misty's flesh and blood. To someone that saw more to than most people did. He was so used to lying. But he knew how easily his affection for Misty could spill like ink on a page.
"Mmm?!" James answered. While his mouth sounded no words and all it was, was a noise elevating in pitch, he put across a great level of likeability – to Daisy. He looked as though butter would not melt without trying to do at all.
Daisy began to titter – the rhythm of it uncertain and off beat – as she really did not know how to proceed. It was quite the thing that she was accusing this man of. This married man. As far as she knew, he was committed at this time, though she had declined the wedding invite for reasons I did not know. And her sister had only been in love with the one boy her entire life.
But Daisy knew why these thoughts had entered her mind. Her frame grew welcoming in the stiff chair, and this was purposeful. She had been a great reader of people from an early age. She had to be with keeping an eye on her father and replacing Jordan's role before he had even passed on.
Daisy knew that the picture was not all as it seemed to be. One piece lingered out of place. A single, jagged line aggravated her.
She decided to take a leaf out of the book of an ex-Team Rocket member.
She tried to kid the kidder.
"James, I'm not going to press charges for breaking into the house." Daisy announced. James suddenly did not have to orchestrate his expressions anymore. His body language was poised as he sat further up in his chair. "I just need to know this. To know that I do know my sister as much as I think I do. Misty is clearly deeply fond of you."
James is an idiot. I have tried to keep this tale neutral for the sake of storytelling and to not let my hatred of this time bleed into the pages. But I must confess even decades on and with a lot of clarity in my mind and heart: that James is an idiot.
He was an idiot there and he was an idiot then.
His carefully constructed bricks and layers that kept everything tucked away and not people's business suddenly came down willingly from the words of Daisy. He heard her words very clearly. Then he heard the validation. It was as if they were just chatting like they had been at that party back in the summer. Any following messiness had been wiped away and it was simple again as it had been back then.
Suddenly, he was looking down at the desk and he was smiling, his hand running through his hair. Daisy felt like her glass of water from the waiting room was rising in her stomach. But she could not make a run for it. Not yet at least. She wanted a worded confession.
It was not enough that his ducking head and warmed cheeks were giving everything away. It was enough to make her know rather than just suspect. But it still was not the thing she wanted most. She wanted his words. If she could not have his respect, then she wanted his words.
"Well... Then I suppose I must confess to you that I am fond of Misty too. Deeply." James said. It took all of Daisy's strength to keep her expression level like a calm current. One wrong move and she could ruin it all. James was suddenly chuckling to go along with his smitten smile. It was the first time that she wanted to vomit hearing his laughter. He had come so alive and not because one of her blunt comments had made him crease. "So fond of her that it makes it hard to be married sometimes."
Daisy, like anybody, was a soup of a lot of different people. She had chunks of her sister in there. And not that James yet knew the man, but he was shown the spark of their father by what happened next.
Like a bolt of lightning had taken over her, Daisy was suddenly up like a shot. And James was left realizing that she would always be on her sister's side more than anybody else, even if they scarcely saw each other anymore.
"You are disgusting." she suddenly spat as James' gaze switched from filled with boyish coyness to filled with confusion, following her stance upward. "I am going to tell Officer Jenny exactly about you and I hope that she sees fit to allow you to rot in here for a very long time!"
The kidder had successfully been kidded. All earlier emotion had been whacked off his face as if Daisy had slapped him. That would have winded him far less.
Though his knees had turned to dust, and he fought to stand up, his voice was still strong, and it was fighting. Daisy hated that as much as she suddenly hated the man that she was only just beginning to allow herself to see the good within. Good that had once been effortless to spy.
Clearly her sister gave him strength to fight. Daisy wished that he had enough strength to realize what he was doing was distasteful.
"Daisy!" James did not remember a time that he had yelped her name, but it happened then. He did not know what else to do. But words that he had told himself for much of the year washed over his brain. Then he knew exactly what to do. "If merely loving your sister is a crime than I'll stand convicted." James had never been so certain of anything. Daisy was glad she had not eaten anything that day. "But I would never do wrong by her. And if you think so poorly of me then you must think poorly of yourself as well."
James' trembling knees were contagious. Daisy's buckled underneath her and oh how she loathed this sign of weakness – this sign of submission – but it forced her to sit back down.
She should have known that if she had so much on him then he would have so much on her as well. He was not exactly lying either. Was not mistaken. There had been spying eyes and sideways glances when she had dated Tracey as well and he had been the only person that had taken the time to really love her. Even if he had to try harder than sat well with her sometimes.
Not that she ever admitted it to anybody, but she still thought that one day they could try again and have the future that they both had been so certain that they were going to have when she was a young teen, and he was an even younger one.
Daisy did not know how Misty could do this to Ash when she had been so embarrassedly and embarrassingly besotted with him since they were children. Even worse, she did not know how James could do that to Jessie. She found her easy to talk to once before when they had a conversation that she never expected to be a part of.
Team Rocket clearly messed people up in many ways. But Daisy still did not have the heart to let a parent's decision ruin innocent lives.
She had met James' children.
"I'm not going to press charges... At least I don't think so." Daisy began. James did not show it, but all the air returned to his lungs. But still, he knew that his knees would not yet support his light weight if he were to stand. "Doing that would only invite Misty into all of this and clearly she's going through enough as is." James' eyelashes twitched. But he stayed purposefully silent. "But you must stay away from her going forward. I mean it."
James suddenly realized why he had been silent, and it was not so Daisy was unable to use anything against him as if she were a police officer. He needed all his strength to deal with what was inevitably coming.
There was a catch. There always was.
The breath from his lungs had been snatched yet again. James could not tell her the truth. She would not hear it anyway. Any declaration of his affection for her little sister would send her galloping towards the nearest wastepaper bin and forcefully emptying her guts.
But still, James told the truth anyway.
What did he have to lose? He had already fucked everything for himself and his family more than once.
He may as well go down honestly.
"I can't do that." James' head swung softly from side to side. The nothingness inside Daisy's stomach twitched, longing for release.
She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Decided to get him used to lying. Because, in time, those lies would become the truth.
Soon enough, there would be nothing between him and Misty but genuine friendship. And not one disguised under so much more and complicatedly so.
"Because you live together?" Daisy prompted. She half imagined that his chuckles would ignite again. That would have been easier. But they did not.
She had to not look away as James' eyebrows began to crumble closer together and he was the one to look away. And then as his eyes fought to look at her while his chin pointed down towards the table, more than his gaze pleaded.
James whispered. But it was as if his heart had shouted.
"I... I can't..." he admitted. Then his eyes closed. And he properly looked away.
The next thing that he knew, they were forced to open again as Daisy stood to her feet a second time, more than just her deceased father's energy coursing through her. Protectiveness of her sister guided her.
She was not going to let anyone crumple her. Not going to let this man toy with her family one by one.
"Well, you have to!" Daisy exclaimed aloud. She knew that she was close to being thrown out and James being sent back to his cell, but she just did not care anymore.
She was the same as him. What did she have to lose?
James did not often fight fire with fire unless it was with the women who had his heart wrapped around their little fingers. He just could not believe the turn that this had taken. That he had been so stupid. And not just with trusting Daisy. But trusting them both.
The Williams' girls were like a permanent thorn in his side.
"You can't change your mind!" James exclaimed in return. He did not know why. It was lost on him the purpose of this. He stayed seated, his palms colliding with the table with a harsh slap.
Daisy flopped back down as if his hand had contacted her already flushed skin. She did not need to be quick on her feet. Her words were right there.
All her patience for that man had evaporated into thin air for good. All her rose-tinted thoughts of him as she had kid herself that he was a dependably sweet person.
She looked at him as she looked at a lot of men. They always ended up abandoning their families.
"Oh! Like you changed your mind about your wife?!" Daisy interrogated. This was out there before she could even think about stopping it. But she did not regret it.
She had no sense of remorse or even fear as she measured every second that happened with the way that James' face changed with the passing of time.
His head tilted to the one side. His eyes that were so light and so full of allure were suddenly narrowing. Were darkening. She could see his tongue growing fidgety against his cheek as a thorny blush crept up his neck and his chest heaved, his breathing quickening.
She had made him angry. He was dangerous because he did not let it out. Instead, he breathed through it, looking right at Daisy.
And enough time passed for her to think of more words to say. This time as she set them free, she was not channeling the hurt of her mother that she had once imagined her feeling when she realized what their father had done.
Thankfully, there was no afterlife, so all was forgiven.
Or so she thought.
This time as Daisy said her words, she spoke of them as a young woman who knew what it was like to be walked out on. James should have been nothing to her, and she was starting to tell herself that he did not deserve an ounce of her energy. Had never done.
But a family did. Her heart and her efforts went out to his family. She wanted to prevent some of the hurt that she still wore like scars slashing across her skin.
"Are you seriously going to leave a wife without a husband and children without a father over all this...?" Daisy whispered. James flinched. He told himself that it was because he did not know what she meant. His thing with Misty - or was she going to run her mouth to Officer Jenny after all?
In the end, all James could do was tell the truth. For a man so attracted by lies, he told the truth equally as much as he bent it for his own benefit.
He was a hard man to fathom and one that produces more than enough stories. But for now, we are continuing with this one and are almost reaching the final part.
James' hands were back clasped together on his lap. He leaned back in his chair all over again. His tongue pressed against his cheek caused him to mumble as he reiterated to Daisy, somehow able to meet her gaze even after everything.
He shrugged.
"I told you I'd do anything for her..." James told Daisy. This was not what she wanted to hear. The nausea in her stomach turned to bleeding in her heart when she could see how unwilling he was to sever his ties with her sister.
She knew it was the same for Misty with him without even discussing it with her. She had decided to discuss it with him because she believed that he would be more reasonable. That it would cause less damage.
Pain was going to erupt regardless, she saw that now.
As her time with James drew to a close, Daisy decided to say just one more thing.
Just like it had been once before, it pained Daisy to meet his gaze. But still, she did it. For herself. For her little sister. For him. He needed to acknowledge the ache within himself and to stop it causing nothing but problems for everybody else.
For his future.
Daisy suddenly looked and sounded a lot older than her years as she sighed and made it to her feet for the final time. She did not know why she always encountered men who loved so hard that it cut people like a knife.
And she did not know why she always tried to help them still. Tried to love them.
"James." she said his name for the last time. It was still not filled with disdain. But not filled with the same nothingness, a blank canvas up for interpretation, as it had been at the beginning of the story. "Do the right thing."
And that was that. That was all. That was all that was spoken between James and Daisy for quite some time. It was up to James what he was going to do. Whether he was brave enough to stop hurting other people. To stop hurting himself. And to be brave enough to become the man that he was destined to become outside all this destruction.
What he chose to do is in the next little part of our story. It is a story that I wished never happened. But I cannot control these things. I can only tell these tales. And pray that they have some sort of use. Some sort of healing.
Because these events required a lot of healing afterwards.
It was a blood bath, looking back.
Misty saw James sitting in Delia's living room. Though his back was glowering at the door in which she entered, her heart skipped a beat. She had walked into him standing there like that a dozen times. Long hair slicked back. Leather jacket still on although he was indoors. The delicate slope of his neck. His earrings that may as well be treasure. His cheekbones - somehow soft from the side and yet could cut like a knife all at once.
Seeing James in this way, Misty could pretend that everything was all right. Everything was normal. There had been no breaking in fiasco. No devastation for either party. Any party. There certainly had been no prison stay. No arrest.
Misty chose to pretend that everything was all right. And while even she was not blind to the way that he could sense that she was there but was not turning to look over at his shoulder at her – smile at her in the way that he usually did – she approached him.
He was smoking by the window. Not his wisest move given Delia had only allowed him back into the house so he could collect the last of his children's things. But his leather jacket was on. Delia was in the kitchen. He would be going back to Pallet House soon. And no doubt could Delia smell his bad habit. Her senses were attuned like a hawk from the second that she had reluctantly said that Misty could go in and see him.
Misty had seen him do that a dozen times. She had only shared it with him a few times – it was not really her thing; she had not liked the way it burned – but she still appreciated the way that he behaved when he smoked. It was like a ritual. He made it like art. Whether it burned him too, she never really knew.
All that she knew was that she liked him like that. Quiet. Contemplative. Steady. There.
She thought that she was never going to see him again.
Her body lurched her forward before she could stop herself. She could tell that he was ignoring her presence, but she pushed this to the back of her mind, told herself that she could make things right. As his hand lifted closer to his face so he could suck on the end of his cigarette once more, Misty wrapped her arms tightly around him from behind.
Pressing her face against the black, worn leather of his jacket, she shut her eyes.
He was home. And so was she.
"Thank you for not telling them that I..." Misty trailed off, eyes squeezing tighter shut as the crooks of her elbows tried to hold onto James so vehemently that he might become a part of her. His leather could be her skin. She would not have to worry again.
Thankfully, her cheek was now burying against the back of his leather jacket so she could not lift her head, looking at the reflection of the window and see the way that his face responded to her touch. With a lip that curled. But it was not because he decided that that was going to be his last inhale.
He stubbed his cigarette out, leaving the window open to clear the fumes. He, however, did reply with words.
"You're welcome." he mumbled. Misty felt like she had been swept out to sea. There had been nothing between them for what felt like forever. He had refused her visits. She had not been his only call.
It had been worse than talking to a brick wall when she had only the memory of him and the melodies of the songs that they dubbed ours to fill the distance between them. She hated being shut out. For her, it was the worst thing in the world. It was like being cut off from oxygen. Especially from him.
She heard his voice again and she wondered if tears would spurt from her eyes. It was not even due to how she could feel the walls that sometimes could encapsulate his heart were suddenly closing around his words. He was not entirely shutting her out.
It had been an unusual way for her to begin interacting with him. There had been no hello. No I missed you. Not even an I'm sorry. But then again, as I look back, I cannot help but feel like that was entirely them.
Their dynamic had no chronology. No leader. No follower. No rules. It just was. It was weird to many. Frightening to a few more. But it was what it was.
And there and then, it did not stop being so stilted. So strange. But so them.
"It must have been awful for you when..." This time as Misty's words came to end, it was because James interjected them.
Oh, how he wished that he had not stubbed out his cigarette. He felt so much more comfortable with that as a prop between his fingers as his right eye momentarily shut, the back of his thumb bone rubbing over the lid.
He spoke a second time and Misty's heart became an acrobat. She could not fool herself any longer. He sounded cross.
Cross with her.
"Mmhmm." he muttered, still standing there, by the window, with no cigarette to smoke. He could have brushed Misty's continual clasp on him away, but he did not. Somehow it was no better or worse that he did not.
His walls were climbing like petulant ivory. Misty could feel them. She was glad in some ways that he had cut her off. It would have been even worse if she had said what she wished to say. Not that she even knew what she should say.
She was sorry for so many things. She had not meant for things to end up that way.
Squeezing her eyes tightly shut all over again, Misty's hands clenched into fists, and they began to bed into his slim chest as she clung onto him even tighter. She hated that his distance made her want to latch onto him more. She loathed how she was behaving. But she could not stop.
Not until she had gotten it out of her system. The minutes passed with James not reaching behind him like he often did and slinking his arms around her waist from behind.
That hurt.
But she had hurt him. Had told him that Cerulean View was empty. That it was safe for him to go in there. She did not blame him for not wanting to interact with her. She had to make it up to him.
Misty's cheek stopped pressing against his back. While standing behind him, her arms not faltering around him, her face began to edge nearer to his shoulder. Her lips tried to break the distance with the leather there.
She was so close. Nearly remembering what it felt like to leave red lipstick stains against his favorite garment.
But James shuddered.
The truth was, he was not angry with her. Was not upset. Disappointed. He did not feel like she had tricked him into anything now that he had had enough never-ending hours to contemplate everything.
He knew that he would have done everything for her and more had she asked. She had not even asked. But he had wanted to make her happy.
The truth was, James just could not do this anymore. Whatever it was. And he did not know how to say it.
James pulled away from Misty entirely, finally facing her. And Misty's heart cracked from the second that she saw his expression.
Like a nocturnal creature to a flame, she broke the distance between them and tried to touch his shoulder from the front.
He could not slip from her hold. From her life.
"Are you angry with me?" she wondered. Within the same breath in which she drew into her shuddering lungs, she knew that she was right, and she knew that she was wrong.
He was something. Something towards her. Something within herself. She could not tell what. And it made that acrobat that had gotten so used to flipping in her chest drop down to her stomach and perform a few moves there.
Again, James brushed contact with her away. His mouth curled closer to the tip of his nose, and he sniffed harshly as if he wanted to snuff her into nothingness. But he spoke to her. At least he did that.
"No." he denied. His hands fell inside the pockets of his dark wash jeans before Misty could even think about reaching for them. His shoulders shrugged his leather jacket in a motion that made it murmur. "I have to go."
Though his voice did not rise in the slightest, an undeniable hardened edge existed that made Misty's ears bleed. His hands may have encased themselves in his jeans, but this still did not stop her from wanting to cling onto them.
Desperately, she reached for a bit of wrist showing and it made James understand that he was going to have to keep his gaze towards anywhere but her.
This was going to be an even bigger challenge than the solitude that he had previously overcome.
"You don't have to go anywhere." she argued. This was not exactly true. Delia had told Misty herself that James was getting ready to head back to Pallet House. She was running a risk by going against her wishes. Especially after everything. "I know you're angry with me."
As firmly as he could but still with his natural gentle air, James removed his hands from his pockets and before Misty could seize her chance, he hid them behind his back.
Misty's heart plummeted.
So, he can embrace the air behind him but not me, her thoughts screeched.
"No." James repeated. He tried to show her that he was not mad. But the way that he was continually not looking at her and the way that his cheekbones were sucking in even more than usual made it an unconvincing display.
Misty suddenly felt very deceived. She did not feel so determined to be a part of his skin anymore. She was on the cusp of becoming the very thing that she was accusing James of being.
A flush the same color as the roses that he liked to bestow upon her and the smeared kisses that she liked to leave on his skin stained her cheeks.
She just did not understand why he was not looking at her.
Had the time apart made him stop caring about her? Had he somehow met somebody else?
"You are though." Misty said and although the skin of her cheeks was beginning to slowly throb like the wound of a papercut, she managed to keep her voice steady. Managed to absorb some of his usual demeanor.
If, however, he lost his cool and showed off his rare but potent temper, then she was sure to become a volcano that would wipe out more than just the life in that house.
The whole region could be in danger!
James did not lose his cool. But he lost the ability to fib. To have the restraint to not meet her gaze. His eyes met hers swiftly. And they knocked the wind right out of Misty's lungs when they appeared like an animal that had been forgotten at the rehoming center.
"You lied to me." his voice came out as barely whisper. He had before been so sure that he had not been wounded by her actions. Had been so used to taking the blame that he told himself that it was all him. She was innocent. He had been in full control.
Now that he knew that he had to keep away from her – had to push her away – he realized how little control that he had.
He was a people pleaser at the best of times. But he would do anything for Misty. In his mind, they were two souls of the exact same concoction. The last two pieces that made up an intricate puzzle.
He would have gone to prison repeatedly to save her skin. But he could not hack being betrayed by her.
The irony was not lost on me. And not Misty either.
The breath in which had been snatched from her lungs somehow made her able to see this. And without air inside her to keep her going, her body encouraged her to run from a different energy source.
A switch flipped inside Misty. She could not deal with the shame that his haunting eyes had inflicted on her. She chose to get mad instead.
"We always lie!" she thundered. Her finger pointed as she pointed this out and when James barely responded to her fury, she decided to give him something else to respond to. Something to make it up to him. Her finger drew back to her and her hand ran listlessly through her bangs. "Mostly we lie together..."
They were a team. It was always them against anything. Usually against the chaos and destruction in which they had created. But still, it was them together and when she had James by her side, Misty felt unstoppable.
He was calm to her chaos. The reasonable nature against her unsettled thoughts. A friend. But he was more than that. James was more of her than she was sometimes.
Not that she meant to, but there and then she had proved James' own point. And he pointed this out. He was done being emotional. Like a wounded little fawn. He could not entertain her anymore otherwise he would become a lifelong jester willingly.
He forced his walls to close around him, his face hardening as he shrugged his shoulders inside the tired leather. But he could not stop from speaking his mind.
"Not to each other..." this was the last piece of truth that slipped from James. This was the last time that he would not calculate his actions and his words to be something other than himself.
His tone of voice spoke of what he really thought – what really was inside his heart – as his hand ran through his hair and unraveled it. Long tendrils framed his face.
This change of appearance from James disrupted something inside of Misty even though he often looked like this. Especially in the morning. There was always something angelic about him despite his devilish actions of that time.
She had not ever met a man before that was pretty like he was. He had the air about him of the misunderstood musicians that she adored. Especially the ones that sung the records that she was sure that her father had left only to her.
When he spoke, his voice sang a song that seemed to hum just for her. Together they spoke language that only the two of them could understand.
Now she was on the cusp of losing all of that. She could feel it. The fear came torrenting back through her like a wave of the ocean that did not allow sea dwellers to stand a chance. This pure fright caused her to speak the truth rather than cling.
She knew that she would rather lose him to the truth than to the lies that were certain to drive him away as well.
"I didn't know what else to do." she admitted. Her hand had only just fallen limply to her side, but it reached back to her bangs all over again as if rummaging helplessly through there would find her something. Anything. Anything to work in her favor. "I was tired of feeling like nobody was on my side..." Misty's voice trembled. Unbeknownst to her, James' eyes had to fight extremely hard not to look at her. Let alone to not water. "And I knew that you would be."
James fought with all his might not to gasp aloud as his heart shattered into splinters inside of his chest. Misty was too busy shutting her eyes to compose herself following the tremble that she had heard inside her own voice to see the way that his mouth moved.
It was not a smile. But what happened was that his lips quirked upwards the second before they pressed together in a firm line.
When James had an answer for her, it sounded simply. He wanted to say far more. But he had to do the right thing, just like Daisy had said.
If he did not sever things there, then he never would.
"Okay." Was James' answer and it caused Misty's eyebrows to knot together as they knew that they were close to the end. But they still could not abandon all hope. Misty's eyes hesitantly opened to see if, despite everything, he was looking back at her.
He was not.
His shoulders were moving again, and the rest of his body was too, preparing him to walk out of the door.
Misty sprang into action one last time. That single word from him was like he had offered a whole novel to her and in return, she had to say every one of her thoughts from the second that she had been born.
She could feel that she was losing him. She did not know why. She had once been so certain that it was because of what she had done. The way that she had tricked him. And the way that she had watched him get arrested with no real remorse, only sheer panic, and a massive display of apologetic words.
Now she realized that she was not the only person to blame. She could not tell what it was, and it made her want to buckle over and heave.
She prayed that he was not deceiving her like the two of them deceived Ash and Jessie.
"James, I'm sorry." Misty finally heaved out these words, seeing the way that his body was trying to angle around her and prepare to leave the door. She tried to stop him, grabbing onto his shoulders. It was not the gentle touches that she usually peppered there, and they both knew it. "I don't know what I can do to make you see that I-"
These words were never finished. James did not wish for her to finish them. He could tell that she had a barrage of words for him, but he did not wish to hear any more of them, and certainly not the end of this sentence.
He could not allow himself to hear that she wanted him to see that she was sorry. That she had taken him for granted. That she had used his dedication towards her to slap him in the face. He certainly could not allow himself to hear that she loved him.
He had only heard it from her a handful of times and even then, he was not so sure if it was true. As much as they were the same flick of a match and she was everything to him and the missing puzzle to the confusing picture of his heart, they were also a nightmare when they were together.
When they fought, they fought for hours at a time and relentlessly so. When they pushed each other away, they still left each other with the stitches to remind them of their passion. When they swore that they would keep away from each other, their bodies glued together harder, and the tip of James' tongue did not stop searching for hers.
Together, they were a dream. A dream that could quickly turn into a nightmare.
James knew that it was the right thing to end it for good. And he knew that if he did not leave then, then he never would.
His shoulders shuddered away from her touch, and Misty mistook his mouth trembling and his lack of eye contact - his determination to move out of her way and get going - for something else entirely.
As his voice brokenly whispered, she took it as him wanting to openly hurt her.
"I have to go." he told her. And this might have been the first time that his words and his actions aligned. The first time that James willingly walked away from her. And he had not brushed her hair out of her eyes first and kissed her in a way that started off as gentle before showing her how fiercely their souls were bound.
It all had been a lie.
And Misty could only watch and will herself not to cry as James lifted the bag holding the last of the things belonging to his true family off the armchair and walk away from her for the very last time.
He did not look back once.
As James walked out of the door, he took everything with him. He certainly took everything from Misty who suddenly stopped being so brave in the face of sorrow and dropped down to her knees, her hands covering her face and her whole body shuddering even if tears did not yet come.
Part of her was hoping that there was a chance that he would come back. That he would change his mind. And it would be her turn to feel his arms hugging around her from behind and lips travelling to press upon her shoulder.
But he did not come back. And as Misty's body shook like a leaf that had been discarded by the huge oak of a tree, her tears were the only thing that kept her company.
Misty sobbed. James stayed away. The world continued to turn.
But Misty felt like the clocks should have stopped from the moment that James' boots stepped onto the gravel outside. A part of her world certainly did.
But meanwhile, everything else carried on as normal. And as the world turned, she could only grow and learn to be incomplete. To be without the person who was like another limb to her. To go through life with a piece missing from her.
Yet another man had left her. All she could do was stitch up a second wound that had been caused by somebody else.
Daisy had been wrong about so many things but sorrowfully right about one thing, Misty thought a couple of days later:
All the men in their lives did was leave you in a worse state than when they found you.
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed but especially you, Shannon. After all, this is for you :P I've spent so many editing sessions perfecting this chapter and I certainly will always remember this one. One of the inspirations here was Edward Scissorhands with the trickery leading to an arrest - and some of the initial dialogue between James and Misty. I loved getting to write Daisy interrogating him too. I think this was one of the first times I wrote the two of them though I have gone on to be a bit more familiar with them. My recent chapter The One In The Party Bathroom details Misty finding out that Daisy is the reason that James keeps away :P Thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoyed what Shannon and I like to call "Jisty Trash" :P Happy Birthday, Shannon! I hope you have a lovely day - I feel like I have the gift knowing you and getting to write stories about characters and pairings we've made together T.T I will be back on the 28th to update Misty's Memoirs so maybe I'll see you there!
Amy signing out :)