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Telling the boss is a lot harder than either of them thought it would be.
It’s not something they think about until around a week and a half after the initial passing. It’s James who realizes what they’ll have to do after he finds their communication… device (he doesn’t know what to call it).
“Jess,” His voice was hoarse, and even if it was for a good reason, he touched a hand to his throat and frowned at the sound. He didn’t like when his voice sounded like this because it was just a reminder of what had happened. The silence before he continued was way too loud. “When's the next time we’re due for a report to the boss?”
“ Shit, it’s tomorrow.” He heard her swear from across the room, and he turned to look at her. She had begun pacing across the floor as he had turned around. Despite not wearing her boots, the sound was still loud and echoed around the room. “We’re gonna- we-”
Despite not finishing her thought, it was pretty obvious what she was thinking and what they would have to do. He sighed, pressing a hand against one eye with more frustration than anything. Both of them had been in notably worse moods than usual, and it was starting to get on everyone’s nerves- including the Pokémon. Mimikyu acted out more often now and Mareanie would practically never leave James’ side if given the opportunity. That would be normal except for the fact that it did go out sometimes but now? It was pretty much always in his line of sight. Bewear hadn’t changed much, but it did hesitate a little more sometimes. It also got up earlier and stayed out later, but other than that, there wasn’t a huge change.
Wobbuffet seemed to be taking it the worst out of all their Pokémon, which checked out. Out of all of them, it had known him the longest except for Jessie and James. It had taken to either sitting outside close to the gravestone or wandering aimlessly around their base as if to search for something, and James had begun to notice that it wasn’t sleeping as much as well as the fact that it stayed in its Pokéball more often than not.
As for him…
The silence became unbearable. Occasionally, he’d have to start doing an activity that he knew he didn’t want to do just to fill up the room he was in with noise. There wasn’t any of the usual team banter going on and it made him feel physically sick sometimes, just knowing there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Jessie wasn’t much better, either. She had gone awfully quiet except when she was spoken to, to which she was snappy and had this constant sense of something akin to stress hidden in her tone. She had put herself to working on anything and everything to keep her mind away from everything else. He couldn’t blame her, but he did wish that she wasn’t like that sometimes. Somehow, he was pretty sure those times and the times when everything was too quiet overlapped a lot.
He glanced off to the side. It wasn’t his place to blame her for something like that. They were all going through some sort of grief and they all had different ways to cope with it-
He was getting off-topic.
“Yeah,” He finally responded, letting his hand fall from his face as he went back to watching Jessie pace. “We should probably keep our Pokéballs tomorrow.”
She stopped and turned to look at where Mimikyu was making crackling sounds that he could only guess were strings of curses at Bewear who was pointedly ignoring it. “Yeah…” She hesitated before continuing as if trying to decide her words carefully. “... Wobbuffet’ll probably pop out during it, though.”
“Maybe,” James huffed bitterly, glancing at a Pokéball that sat on the table that currently held the previously mentioned Pokémon. “If we get lucky.”
Both of them were silent for a moment, but Jessie ultimately dismissed herself back to work.
James sighed.
He would be okay. It just needed some mental preparation.
Turns out, it needed a hell of a lot more than that.
They had set up the communication system the night before just so they didn’t put it off with feelings of dread, but having nothing to do was probably stressing both of them out more. They had returned their Pokémon to their balls a while ago, so now they were sitting in silence and waiting for the call.
Usually, in times like this, there would’ve been loud bantering between everyone. They would have been joking about Matori and trying to form an idea on how to give a good progress report, buzzing with excitement that covered the stress. Now, there wasn’t any of that. He didn’t feel the stress that came with these silly reports- there wasn’t any space for it. He had too much dread for the news they were about to share and his mourning- or, five stages of grief, he supposed- took up the rest of the space that the dread didn’t.
The silence, which appeared to be a recurring theme in his thoughts, was suffocating him.
He did not feel better hearing the ring.
Jessie reached over and pressed a button that accepted the call, and he automatically stiffened to attention. Look how you don’t feel.
The screen lit up and it showed Matori whose face was already a scowl. He cringed lightly as she crossed her arms and leaned back, and he almost thought that she was going to ignore how messed up they looked, but that theory was quickly proven wrong when her grating voice emerged from static on the speakers. “You two look like shit.”
The ‘two’ stung more than it should have, and he let his professional demeanor drop. Jessie wasn’t as quick to do that, but she eventually slipped into a more… not relaxed, perse, but not a front of her normal confidence and egotistic attitude. Matori definitely caught onto that, as she quirked up an eyebrow and continued speaking. “What? You look like you’ve been to hell. What happened?”
Her voice was not laced with genuine concern but instead coldness and boredom. It was like she wanted to get this over with- and he, quite frankly, agreed. This wasn’t a conversation any of them wanted to have. With a slight breath, he was about to answer when Jessie shot back a reply that sounded pretty pissed off.
“Just hand the phone to Giovanni! We have news to share that he needs to be here for.”
He shot a side glance at her, frowning at her phrasing. Sure, they had news that the boss needed to know, but she made it sound good. It was all the opposite of that, but he just sighed and nodded along with her. He was really wishing there was someone he could make exasperated eye contact with right now.
“All good, I assume?” Sarcasm reeked in her voice as if she read his mind and saw his thoughts. He shifted uncomfortably and looked at Jessie to egg her on to explain, but she had only huffed and crossed her arms. She said something about how she’ll find out and that they just needed to get the phone to the boss. “Don’t waste his time.”
In just a minute or two, the video feed being projected to them showed Giovanni and his Persian, sitting contently in a chair that was partially hidden by a desk. Once the camera was situated, Matori slipped into the frame and joined the boss without a word. Then, after a second or so, Giovanni sighed and addressed them. “You better have a good reason for calling me into this.” His voice was rough and gravelly and even more-so distorted under the speakers. “Make it… where’s the third one?”
James thought he might’ve vomited if he wasn’t speaking to his boss. With a hard swallow, he forced himself to finally speak. “That’s what we’re… that’s the news we have to tell you.” Giovanni and Matori shared a quick, unreadable look at the state of his voice. Then, they looked back and their silence prompted a continuation. “Uhh…” He ducked his head slightly to wipe his tears without making it obvious. “... Meowth-”
He couldn’t hold in all the tears just by saying the name. He sobbed slightly and Jessie took over to keep the attention off of him. He appreciated that- he’d have to figure out a way to repay her for that.
“He’s gone.” She put it in a way that was blunt but shuffled around any words surrounding death. That was something they had been doing a lot, he realized. She continued to speak, giving basic information in the way one would give a Pokémon Center. It seemed almost like an automated message, despite the hesitation. “He passed… awa- aahhhh, he passed last week around midnight.”
He looked up to catch their reactions, curiosity getting the better of him rather than dignity or pride.
Giovanni’s face remained blank, and the only indication that he heard was how he stopped petting his Persian and instead just had his hand placed on its back. Matori had been a bit more reactive, albeit just by a bit. Her eyebrows had raised minimally and her mouth was open as if she had just gotten cut off from what she was staying. Surprise showed easily on her, and he could’ve laughed. Jessie should have made fun of her right now.
He’d have to keep on imagining.
See. imagining, because silence hung heavy in the air. He could have probably heard a pin drop from how quiet it had gotten.
He stared at the two people on the projection screen, waiting for any sort of reaction. If it weren’t for the Persian’s tail twitching, he would’ve thought they were frozen.
A minute and a half passed before the silence broke with a simple sound from Giovanni.
“Ah.”
The silence lasted a little longer, and James really couldn’t tell what anyone was thinking. He finally ducked down and hid his face again to try and disguise the fact he was crying with… something else. He didn’t know the point in it but it was all he could do at this point because no one was saying anything and the silence was getting unbearable, and he was starting to wonder when it got so hard to breathe, and oh fuck he is pretty sure he miiight be crying again-
“I need you two to go on a mission.”
Fuck the hiding his face thing- he looked up immediately with confusion. They already had to go on a mission? Did the boss have no empathy at all? They just told him that their best friend was dead-
He sobbed dryly and pressed an arm against his face. He still couldn’t think about it without at least having his body react as if he were about to have a whole breakdown. Not that he could cry anymore- he already did that last week. His eyes were painfully dry at this point. Speaking of points, thinking about breakdowns was not part of his previous point.
They were being sent on a mission… immediately.
He looked at Jessie who glanced at him with a look that communicated something along the lines of ‘who the fuck does he think he is’ and he had to agree with that. Despite it, they both held their tongues. As much as both of them hated this, they needed to have a job so they could actually get paid and… live.
“Go put yourselves to work keeping an eye on the Pikachu and its trainer. You need to distract yourselves, considering the state you’re in.” His voice gave away nothing he was feeling- a little too well, in James’ opinion. Maybe he was hiding what he was actually thinking, which made sense in a way. “Do not let him be in vain.”
Then, with a sudden movement, the projection shut off and the call ended. Almost immediately, Jessie burst out with anger. “We’re already going on a mission to watch those stupid twerps!? Does he not know how hard that’ll be without- without-” She stamped her foot against the ground and then began pacing again. “He can’t just… just- fucking do that! We should be on leave or something!”
He frowned, nodding along with her. He was also pretty iffy on that part because she had been doing nothing but work since the event. He had also been doing work, but it didn’t pertain to the Team Rocket business. It was more of just cleaning and cooking for the group to make sure no one starved when Bewear was away for longer periods of time. Though, that was also just part of the whole ‘I-can’t-handle-silence’ thing. Still- work.
There was one other thing he was thinking about, though.
“He didn’t sound happy, but he didn’t sound… sad, either. Actually, he didn’t sound like anything.” He muttered, walking over to a chair and collapsing in it while his companion paces around the table. “The boss is definitely hiding what he thinks about all this.”
“What else is new?” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, instead releasing her Pokémon from their balls. He did the same and let Mareanie sit on his lap. “He’s not gonna be honest with some random members of his big-ass team. Besides, the only emotions he might ever show us are disappointment and pissed-off. Maybe pride if we’re lucky, once in a blue moon.”
James frowned. ‘Pissed-off’ was not grammatically correct for that sentence, but he wasn’t going to correct her on it. Otherwise, though, she was right. There wasn’t much they could do now, though, so he sighed and slumped over in his chair. “Whatever. We have to go watch the twerps now if we want to have a job, right?”
He heard Jessie hum affirmative and he groaned. “It’s gonna be such a disaster, I bet you. The twerps are gonna notice that-”
He was quick to notice things, and that was even more of a frequent occurrence recently. However, this one was probably the biggest out of all of them.
“We either are going to have to tell the twerps or they’ll figure it out.”
He heard Jessie stop dead in her tracks, then make a noise that sounded like a weird combo of exasperation, hurt, and anger. “Let them figure it out themselves,” Her voice was shaking and it sounded like she was restraining herself from yelling. “It isn’t our job to tell them our business of life.”
James pet Mareanie quietly, not answering. A whole new weight was settling in his chest, so heavy that he thought he may never get up again. He didn’t know what they were going to do now. It felt like there wasn’t a point in keeping on, besides carrying out the one mission he had died never completing.
Well, maybe there was something he could do. Something that all of them could do.
He looked away and out of the base, staring in the direction of the trainer school, even if he couldn’t see it from deep in the forest.
Don’t fret, Meowth. We’ll capture that twerp’s Pikachu for you.
(Giovanni decided to bring some color into his office after the call ended. He remembered reading somewhere that flowers could help people feel calmer, which he definitely needed so he didn’t focus on what news had just been brought to him. Mourning wasn’t really his thing, after all.
He placed
Yellow Carnations
in a pot near a window in his office.)