Pokémon: Love Stories Chapter 3: Jordan and James, a pokémon fanfic

Hello, it is Wednesday, and I am back to update this story! For my last update of Pikachu Tales, I said that I would be updating that story again this week. But while editing this chapter, I realised it was a perfect addition to Pokemon: Love Stories. So, here we are! Like the title suggests, this story focuses on James and Jordan. For those of you who don't know, Jordan is me and Shannon's OC for Misty's father. He is able to come back to earth after his passing. This chapter shows how - after a rough go of life the first time around - Jordan learns to fall in love with life again. I hope you enjoy :3

For someone who had once shrunk themselves so small in heartache – had rendered themselves so silent to the point that they snuffed out their own candle – Jordan made quite an impact on his second go of life.

James mused this to himself, the smallest of smiles elevating his lip as Jordan bolted up suddenly from kneeling on the floor, his solid shoulder colliding with his.

But not to cause pain. Jordan would never.

Out of habit, James' hand broke the distance with the turntables that were spinning one of his vinyl records. His hand did not make it all the way. Not that it needed to anyway.

The floor beneath them both had not exactly wobbled like a record on a loose spindle, though Jordan's swift movement might have made one imagine that it had!

"I'm going to go get in the shower before we get things started." Jordan spoke. Now that James' hands had gone back to what they were doing - holding a different vinyl record and daintily cleaning it with a cloth - he focused on bobbing his head just once. An action that went unnoticed by Jordan because these words followed: "We are still watching it, right?"

Jordan hovering above him, a statuesque height that would give the ones made of marble in Kalos a run for their money, James understood what the other man needed from him. The black rounded disc was left perching on his knee as his legs crossed on the floor.

James spread his smile wider for Jordan, looking up at him and bobbing his head a second time, this one slower and with more intention.

"We are." James confirmed. Jordan's wide-set shoulders relaxed but he still waited before reaching for the towel that he had left on the floor of James' office after the previous use. "Take your time, though. " James may have picked up his record a second time, but his attention did not leave the other man until he eventually padded away on bare feet. "We have all of the time in the world."

A sentence like that would have once put a kind of unease in Jordan's stomach like the kind that floods a child's mind when they realize that they must to grow up the following morning.

All the time in the world once upon a time felt like a curse to him even if it had been his choice.

Not anymore.

Jordan copied James' smile and not out of an attempt to be easy-going. To show that he could fit in with humans even if he were technically something beyond that temporary state.

His scarlet towel was reached for from the damp heap that it had been left in the day before and a welcomed breath drew into the lungs of Jordan.

They had all the time in the world.

Jordan headed off to the shower. But he intended to be quick. He could not wait to show James this version of one of his favorite films!

One hand holding the vinyl record and the other using a small cloth to rid the midnight, glossy material of any specs of dust - checking for any cracks with it as he followed the lines daintily engraved - James waited for Jordan to disappear round the corner leading to his bathroom before he turned his head, following where his wide frame had lead him.

A fresh smile swiped over James' lips, this time a new one and he could not help but shake his head to keep his mouth company. He was still thinking about what he had observed when Jordan's shoulder had collided with his. But now all sorts of different thoughts flooded his mind.

It was as though he was a fresh canvas, and his musings were the paint. He allowed all of them to take shape. And as he continued cleaning up his vinyl record, his mouth might have evened out, but his heart remained affectionate. Even sentimental, you could say.

Somehow, James experienced a nostalgia. He did not know where that was coming from. But in time he gathered that it was from Jordan.

It was no secret that the two of them were oddly in sync for all their differences.

Jordan might have been described as chaotic and James as calm – and one might have wallowed in darkness while the other desperately scrabbled for the light – but at that point in time, there seemed to be no beings so alike as the two of them.

And similarly to how it was for Jordan, this was not James trying on various masks to see which one truly fit like he had in Team Rocket. As he had done ever since he could remember thanks to his parents.

In time, the desire to wonder why he was thinking such things dissipated and for a rare occasion, James allowed his thoughts to come and accepted what greeted him. It helped that his hands were occupied. And it helped that Jordan was in the next room.

It had been one of the most interesting days of his life the day that he met Jordan. Because of the memories that Misty had shared with him, he had not really known what to expect! Despite her own colorful storytelling, James could not conjure an image in his mind beforehand and that feeling prevailed when he actually met him.

Jordan had not been what he had expected at all. Granted, he had been as tall as Misty had described, and James did not know how to feel about his arms bulging out of his sleeve when Jordan reluctantly shook his hand. But he had been told that, for all the loss that he had endured, he was still vibrant of character.

On the day that they met, he found him to be quite dull. Not boring so that is the wrong word, James considered.

Muted. Jordan was muted.

Muted in the way that his large shape somehow disappeared into any chair that he sunk against and how few words spilled out of him. But James did not cast a haughty gaze on him. He was not sure he had it in him after his upbringing. James might have had the gift of the gab and the flair to boot when he pranced around with an R slapped right on his chest, but the sun had moved through the sky a thousand times since then.

The passing of seasons encouraged the reveal of the James that he had left behind as a little boy. Like Jordan, he preferred to only speak when he had something important to say. Sure, he could often be caught nattering to a person on the checkout of a shop or another customer while waiting in line. But old habits were had to break. People were oddly drawn to him, and he could not disappoint them by retorting with only a word or two.

James did not judge Jordan by the man that he met all those years ago. And thank goodness for that! Like a garden that needed time and sunshine before it was able to bloom, Jordan coming out of his shell around him and everyone else was a gradual thing.

When James looks back, he cannot help but chuckle. Now he cannot remember the last time that Jordan was silent!

But that is a good thing. Jordan in his natural, most untainted state could talk the hind legs off a Mudbray and – well – if you dared challenge him to something be it a sport or a Pokémon battle then you were left wishing that you had kept your mouth shut!

Calling him competitive was an understatement. That was a vast difference to the man that James once met. But he knew that everybody had different sides. It was Jessie who had taught him that thanks to one of her favorite mythological tales passed down from her mother:

Everybody had different sides. Different incarnations. You had to accept both in someone that you loved.

Loved.

James was temporarily stolen away from his reverie by the sound of Jordan's booming hums echoing around the small bathroom attached to his office and a smirk captured his mouth all over again. His lips drew closer to his bejeweled ear lobe.

After he flipped the vinyl record that was playing onto the different side now that, like his thoughts, the music had gradually halted, he shook his head. His hair might have fallen into his eyes, but it did not distract him from what he had been doing.

His thoughts and the soundtrack of his daydream may have ceased but that was not the last of them. In time a new instrumental slowly built up. James' mind took over the rest of him once more.

This time he could not help but think of how something so mundane like heading off to the shower was once the most unbelievable notion that you could think of for Jordan. You see, he had grown up as poor as a family could be. James had seen the photos of the rickety house right on the shoreline and saw how the already rotting wood took another hit if the tide was particularly high, flooding the house increasingly with every lap of the sea.

Jordan had grown up with not a lot. And like James, he had not been nurtured with gentle hands either. Love bubbled in his heart like the springs further southwest of his home region of Johto but it was not allowed to openly pour out of Jordan. He had never been taught how to express it.

He did not remember being hugged by his mother, Florence. And his father, Bo's, way of showing affection was enlisting his son to work for his business with him and leaving him with as many callouses on his hands as the older gentleman had blemishing his heart.

When the last of Florence and Bo's four children had come along, Jordan finally had a place to deliver his own sentimentalities and his gentle, caring ways. He adored his little sister, Morgan. But before that, he adored being by the sea even if his house right on the water's edge might as well have been a vice for how suffocated it made him feel.

Jordan loved the ocean. Was a fanatic about everything about it. The way that it changed with a certain instruction from the moon and how the sun glittered off it like it was reflecting a perfect display of the heavens above. The sound was like his very own siren song. He, however, adored more the soundlessness when he lay flat on his back and floated in the sea, water plugging his ears. His usually frenzied mind was rendered utterly silent.

Jordan was fascinated by all the creatures that could be found lurking in the open water. It did not matter if they were tiny enough to perch on his pinky finger or loomed over even he. They were all a friend of his. All of them had a place in his heart. His favorite time of day was swimming alongside them in the sea. Oh, how he loved catching dinner from the vast blue ocean and feeding his little sister up as much as he could.

He loved bathing in it and not just merely because he had no choice. Because of this, he had not liked his first few visits on earth because, peculiarly, everyone else's method of getting clean seemed barbaric to him. It had been all right when he built the home next door to the Cerulean Gym with his beloved Lynne because he had fashioned an outdoor bath just for him.

James still remembered the first time that Jordan had showered over at his family home when he stayed over at his. He had not wanted to make a fuss. Did not want to indicate that it was a momentous occasion when Jordan casually asked for a towel and asked if he could freshen up.

But the look that James had shared with Misty – and then the smile that he had later shared with Lynne – had said everything.

Now James thought about how well Jordan had done adjusting to life on earth again. Not that he had spoken to him about it at the time, but it must have been a lot for him. And he was not thinking about the work that he had to do in his mind and within his family to make sure that the same storyline did not follow them all over again.

It was a lot for Jordan getting used to having lots of new people caring for him. But now Jordan cared about them equally as much. He had once had so much love that the only place that he could express it was his private adoration of the sea and his perseverance in fixing up old sailing ships for his father's business.

Now he had so much adoration that it could go wherever it wanted. It still had many more paths that it could take. But for the time being, it was time for movie night to occur. And James looked up straight away when Jordan entered the room all over again, having done the smart thing by putting his record collection away for when the other man came back.

Jordan had been raised by the sea. And in some ways, he was the embodiment of that vast body of water. When he came out of the shower, he brought all the droplets with him!

"Did I keep you waiting while I was in there?" Jordan wondered, these being the first words that he spoke after padding on wet, bare feet back into the office with James. One hand securing the blushing towel around his waist, the other rose to ruffle his own wet locks, sprinkling water everywhere. "I seemed to lose track of time in there."

Rather than feeling something tugging on his mouth, causing his smirk to edge towards his ear lobe once more, James felt something pulling on his heart. Though it was also the private amusement that Jordan was always losing track of time, it was not merely just that!

How in alignment Jordan's feelings were with his own. James had only just been thinking how much he had changed since he first met him – and his first begrudging shower on earth – and now the proof was in the pudding that there was a new man standing in front of him.

But Jordan would always be Jordan.

As water droplets from his frame fell to satiate James' own locks, thankfully he had showered prior, so it did not really make much of a difference to him. Making sure that the bath robe was secure with the tie around James' waist as the other man stood up, James prepared to make a suggestion.

It was then that he realized that all Jordan's unwanted water had fallen on him because he had squeezed the ends of his hair with his hand!

"I didn't notice the time passing either." James admitted. "Do you want to get dry and in your clothes before we begin?" he tried not to make it obvious that his insides were itching to make him smirk, seeing the way that the sea could never be pried away from Jordan. "I haven't even got the disc out so there's no rush."

In an instant, Jordan forgot about ridding himself of the wetness in his hair by squeezing it with both hands this time, putting all his faith in the knot in the towel keeping it around his waist. And it was not because he went along with what James was saying.

The ground forwent rumbling this time as, despite his size, Jordan was quick on his feet. James' shoulder took another beating as Jordan dropped down to the floor to help him look for the DVD.

Unlike James, he did not care about his movie collection getting sodden.

"I'm going to stay like this and air dry." Jordan answered. Yes, he might have been as much angel as he looked like an ordinary human, but the blood of a wild, untamed child still ran through his veins. As he settled on the carpet in a patch of sunshine after handing James the disc, it was obvious that he had found his position for the evening. "It's been such a lovely, warm day."

James accepted the disc, the sleeve of the DVD that Jordan discarded on the floor behind them not going unnoticed. The cover art was different than usual, this did not escape James' notice either. He suspected why, but rather than making this known, unlike the golden-haired male, he took the time to rid the disc of droplets with the sleeve of his bath robe.

Jordan experienced joy in lingering water dampening his skin, but this was not shared by everybody.

"It has been a lovely day." James concurred, the moss green sleeve of his bath robe ridding the disc of the final water droplet and he made sure no streaks marked the cover either.

Before James had a chance to reach forward and press the button that would open the DVD player, a sturdy shoulder collided with his once more. An expression that could only be described as sheepish washed over Jordan's face like the sea lapping the shore.

Boyishly, he pushed his air-drying locks from his eyes.

"This is the extended version of the movie. You know that, right?" For a man haunted by so many ghosts that he once felt he had aged rapidly, Jordan still possessed a youthful charm. His lopsided grin echoed that sentiment. Taking a moment to settle back with him, James' eyes said I know. "I wanted to tell you bits and pieces that you might not know."

Regrettably, James needed to move away from Jordan to put the disc in the DVD player once it opened. But the machine gratefully engulfed it in no time at all and he was able to sit back with Jordan once again.

This time it was his shoulder to bump against the other mans, but it was barely enough to make an imprint. James looked over at him after their limbs made contact, surprised by his own promptness.

"I'd like to hear it all." he spoke with truth. The mottled blush that ran up his neck like persistent ivy showed off an even bigger degree of honesty. Strands of James' hair discovered themselves being played with by his fingers, his head tilting on the side as he thought of something to tell Jordan. "Did you know I was on the Kanto version of this ship a long time ago? The St. Anne?"

The DVD had jumped into life, the television screen portraying the ship that had once seemed unsinkable and with two star crossed lovers entwining fingers as they were sure they were royalty of the entire world, let alone the sea.

But for a rare occasion, this was the last thing that interested Jordan. James' words had been like bait on the end of a hook and now he was reeling him in.

Dimples sliced through Jordan's cheek on either side of his disbelieved grin, his eyes that were the shade of green algae underneath a blue ocean giving any summer's day a run for its money. For another occasion, James experienced his shoulder getting shoved, this time by a hand.

But the last thing that Jordan wanted to truly do was push him away.

"No way." Jordan's tumbling breath joined his grin in disbelief. James' head nodded just the once. He was saying no such lie.

And so, Jordan heard all about it.

Well, mostly!

Jordan was told about St. Anne – or S.S. Anne - and how he, Jessie and Meowth had boarded the ship along with Ash, Misty, and Brock. He left out the part about the Team Rocket trio's trickery! He did not want to mention his foolishness with the Magikarp salesman either.

Unlike the S.S. Cussler which had set sail from Kalos, this ship had been constructed by Team Rocket and for the profit of the organization's boss, Giovanni. After Team Rocket grunts attacked innocent passengers and tried to steal their Pokémon, a great hole punctured the S.S. Anne.

The unsinkable ship began to sink!

This was one of the many times that the Team Rocket trio and the children joined forces, James told Jordan. For all the details that he left out, James still included the bit about how Ash, Misty, Brock, and a Pikachu tried to push him and his friends overboard when he believed that they were no more!

Though the flush of the sun's rays lingering on James' neck faded away the more that the afternoon made way for the evening, his cheeks had a similar blush of enthusiasm as Jordan's. Unlike the other man, he was the troubadour to Jordan's enthralled listener. But in that moment, the two of them were firmly joined. Not just by the room that they were in and the film they were about to watch – not even by the people who connected them.

A red string that matched the hue of their skin was beginning to invisibly loop around their wrists, the string that connected them, both pulling tighter.

"Imagine that." James finished a tale of his own by enthusing. "A burial at sea."

It did not surprise him that Jordan was prompt to nod his head, James equally as unsurprised as he was unbothered by the droplets that he sent from his hair to the skin of James' neck that was poking out of his bath robe.

He wanted to cool him down, perhaps. But the heat fading from his chest was now burning in his eyes.

He could talk to Jordan in a way that he could not talk to many people.

"You're so lucky." Jordan raved, for half a second looking back over at the screen as the beginning summary played on a loop until the movie was given permission to begin.

But then his lingering gaze was back on James just in case he had more to listen to. What transpired between them both firstly was James' eyebrows moving together and then edging closer to his hairline.

Amused by the other man as well as the diverse ways that these words could be taken, James' words matched his thoughts.

"I'm not sure about that." he spoke. As his lower lip briefly fell into the rest of his mouth, he wanted to say more. He could not, however, think of more off the top of his head that seemed natural enough to keep the conversation going.

James wondered whether it was time to begin the movie. But Jordan stepped in there.

This time, rather than a shoulder or a hand breaking the distance with his shoulder, James' eyes watched as a calloused, hardworking hand met the top of his leg where the bottom of his bathrobe had run out of coverage.

But then he was captured by Jordan's eyes coming alive as he suggested:

"I could take you to the museum about the S.S. Anne in Vermillion City sometime." Jordan offered. Underneath the material of his bathrobe, his heart missed a step. Jordan had once never wanted to plan anything. "I'm sure there's stuff about it that you don't know."

Jordan's eyes fixated on him; he nodded so James did too. His own expression breaking into a grin as the other man settled down next to him for movie time, his hand still not leaving him, this time he knew what words needed to come right away.

James knew what his answer was. He would have followed him anywhere.

"Sure." he began, oddly indifferent at first. But then Jordan smiled at him and allowed his true feelings to break the surface. He continued to nod even though the other man had stopped. "I'd love to learn more about it."

Warmth from the bright day captured James' throat this time and crept into his cheeks too as Jordan's head leaned closer to his. But it was because his mouth was stretching wide all over again and he was giving James a look that the other male could not decipher at first.

But then he knew!

Jordan's eyes had once been captured by such darkness as his lips did not dare admit the sleepless nights he faced even if underneath his eyelids whispered the truth. Now they were alight. They were more than alight – they were unfalteringly alive.

Sometimes he did not know what to say. As a child he had been captured by wordlessness when he did not know how to respond to the excruciating taunting from his two brothers. Even in those moments, his eyes said everything.

In these moments – in these much happier ones – this talent of his had not disappeared along with the harsh wounds of the past. Jordan's eyes told James that he did not need a museum to find out everything.

Hearing these words from his eyes as clearly as he would have done from his lips, James chuckled. It was his turn to listen. And listen he did.

James heard all about the origins of the ship and why it was known as the St. Anne to some and the S.S. Anne to others. He learned that models of the ship had been rolled out to the public for them to collect before it had ever even been completed, let alone set sail.

Jordan had decided that he did not need to spend money on that keepsake for Misty or his other three daughters. He had built his very own with the help of his littlest lady. James learned about that.

James listened to Jordan talk about the kind of engine that powered the supposedly unsinkable ship – and how any ship crowned this way was always destined to end up at the bottom of the ocean thanks to the world's cruel irony. He listed each and every material that went into building the decks and why this was the wrong choice for it made the St Anne weak in the presence of a Pokémon Battle.

When Jordan ran out of things to say about the ship (which was at least ten movements of the big clock hand later!), he told James about vessels that he had helped restore back in his youth. He told him about his most beloved one The Valentine, and the care that had gone into bringing that back to life as well.

James understood why it was called such and learned a bit more about Jordan in the process. Being due to be born in February, his father's gentle heart that was contradicted often by gruff comments had thought it an incredibly romantic notion for their second son to be born on Valentine's Day.

His wife had scoffed at the idea, her sharp tongue telling her husband exactly of the silliness that she believed that idea to be. She had always been an impatient woman, Jordan told James. In some ways he was as well which is why he had been born two days before the day celebrating Saint Valentine.

Jordan might have disappointed his parents but the enthralling presence of The Valentine as it was finally deemed seaworthy once again certainly did not. Well, until Jordan and Lynne used it to sail away to begin a new life together in Kanto.

Any touch between the two men might have faded away like dreams come the morning as Jordan continued talking but as they lounged on the floor together, cradled by the beginning of the sofa behind them.

The string that had brought them together pulled tighter and tighter.

Two shades of green eyes bled into each other's until they were like watercolors that were one of the same. One chatted away. The other listened. And even when the movie started on its own accord because it had grown bored with its own starting screen, their bodies did not alter to face the television and instead continued facing each other.

As that renowned music blasted through the living room – the eerie growing chorus that echoed the mystery of the sea - Jordan did not stop talking to James. The movie went ahead, and different scenes came on. James heard about them all.

How they were filmed and how they were portrayed versus how they were written. The names of the dozens of actors and actresses who had auditioned for these highly sought after roles. James did not know how Jordan kept it all inside that brain of his. He already nearly got mixed up a few times with the Xatu and Natu version that Jordan also had on disc!

But he chose to listen as if he was hearing the most important story. Because, in some ways he was. He was learning of every nook and cranny in the other man's brain and what made him tick. This was certainly the case as the couple on the screen began to fall in love and, red cheeked, Jordan compared them with stories of his own love.

Contact between them both had picked up all over again. A shoulder pressed against a shoulder. But this time it was not boisterous and done out of an affectionate greeting or to direct attention. Jordan's bare shoulder seemed to naturally bed against James' clothed one in the same way that a winged creature always knows how to find their way back home.

There seemed to be no thinking. For a rare occasion in both these men's cases, no overthinking could take place.

Only James' office existed. The floor that cradled them both. A film shared between friends. Looks shared between people who could be more. The string was tightening. The path was looming closer. But it was not yet time.

On that day it was a time for sharing. A time for listening. And as James continued listening to Jordan chat away, the touch of their shoulders not leaving each other once, his head could not help but shake although he did mask it to be more subtle than he would have liked.

How beautiful, James silently thought in private awe to himself though his unfaltering gaze surely gave everything away.

He had once not wanted to go on with life. But there he was. He was there. Not only continuing to take part in it but enjoying it as well. How incredibly lucky James felt to be witnessing any part of that himself.

And then he realized: slowly but surely, Jordan had fallen in love with life.

The shake of James' head stopped. His mouth stopped smiling though he had not been rendered unhappy like Jordan once had been as his lower lip fell into the rest of his mouth. Jordan's chatter continued to buzz in his ears. But a realization started to buzz in James' heart.

Jordan had fallen in love with life. And as he had found the strength to do this, James had found that he had fallen in love with him.

It had not been a decision. In fact, until that moment he had been completely unaware with it. But the truth was always going to be the truth. And that was the truth.

Realization fluttered in his heart and that tightly pulled string that connected them both vibrated like the string of a guitar.

A song of the future had begun. The first steppingstone of a path never before travelled to revealed itself.

It was nearly time for Jordan to see the full picture of what had been waiting for him all those years.

On his second go of this life that he had fallen in love with, the time was now right.

He just needed to be brave all over again.

The End.

There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) So yeah, before there was James and Jorginho's romantic relationship that I've written about lots over on Pikachu Tales, there was James and Jordan! I think we came up with that idea in 2017 so a very long time ago now. Their pairing has always been tough to write about because Jordan is in the closet and does not want anyone to know about his bisexuality for a very long time. Writing it here worked well because it's not from the POV of Pikachu or anybody else. It's difficult to write about something that Jordan doesn't want out there. But we'll get there :P I enjoyed writing and editing this story. It made me laugh last FaceTime because Shannon made me realise that the Titanic/SS Anne is Jordan's special interest. I always knew he was neurodivergent most likely and perhaps has a personality disorder because of his traumatic childhood. But she helped me realise that he has ADHD. And yes, those ships are his special interests xD Thanks again and I will be back to update Pikachu Tales next week so see you then maybe!

Amy signing out :)