James x Reader | Pokemon | - | REWRITE |

TR | More Important Matters

When James was finally back, he was heaving and sweaty. 

Jessie immediately took notice of the body that he was carrying bridal style. She smiled. "What, killed them already?"

James gave Jessie a glare, which he usually wasn't angry or confident enough to do. It could have been because he was tired---in fact, it most certainly was, he concluded. He was too tired to put on his entertaining filter, as well, which he was sure Jessie would find as an attitude. Because it was an attitude, because that's what happens when you exist. It's impossible to not have some sort of attitude. But he knew Jessie wouldn't like this one. He mumbled, "They were put to sleep by a Parasect." He looked away from Jessie and back down and in front of himself, with his head tilted down. He started to walk to his room.

"Don't you dare look at me that way, James. I know exactly what you're thinking," Jessie said. "You're thinking that it's all my fault. You're thinking that I'm the one to blame for this." She took a deep breath and smiled. "But that's where you're wrong, obviously. If I had been there, I would have made you leave them in the forest. Think of how effective that would have been. With the poison affecting their cognitive ability, they probably wouldn't have been able to remember enough information to clearly identify us. Well," Jessie clarified, "more than we already have been."

James was still quiet. "You're suggesting that I should have left them in the forest?"

"Yes, James, that's what I said." Jessie sighed. "What, did the poison make you deaf or something?"

James felt anger stirring inside of him. He had gotten angry at Jessie often, but all of those other times, it was more of a passive sort of anger; able to be yelled out or complained through. But this was real anger, anger that festered and lingered, anger that smoldered in him. 

He wanted to yell at Jessie. He wanted to say all of the things that were on his mind recently. He wanted to shout about how the trainer didn't deserve to be kidnapped, used, and then abandoned the moment their existence became inconvenient to the trio. He wanted to yell about how this time, this one time in particular, Jessie had gone too far. James could withstand her pettiness and her anger issues, but this was too far. 

But James felt the trainer's weight in his arms, and he kept the anger. There would be a time where James could talk to Jessie about all of these things, and that time wouldn't be now. It would be far from now, in fact, because there were much more important matters in his hands. Resting in his hands, unable to escape from the sleep of their mind or the sleep of their freedom. 

And so he continued walking until he had reached his room. He would avoid Jessie as much as he could until the more important matters had not been dealt with, but handled accordingly.