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mareanie stared up at the moon through the professors' living room window, the stars shining brightly and normally that would make her smile, but her grief was too strong to even consider that.
love just wasn't working in her favor, huh?
james wanted to release her, he really wanted to let her go.....what had she done wrong? was he mad about what mentor did? that thing was kinda her fault, wasn't it?
mareanie sighed, closing her eyes and resting further into the couch cushions, hoping to just fall asleep before her thoughts got worse.
however, a strange sound from outside caught her attention, the water type opening her eyes as the noise continued and she climbed higher on the couch, wanting to be able to see down onto the beach.
her heart leaped into her throat at what she saw, intense fear and panic filling her whole body; it was james! james was on the beach! what was he doing on the beach?! even more horrifically, she watched the ill man simply fall over onto the sand, the poison in his body still going strong.
mareanie, not knowing what else to do, began to make as much noise as possible, leaping off the couch and crying out at the top of her lungs, seeing pokemon around her start to wake up at her noise, " WAKE UP! WAKE UP! PLEASE EVERYONE WAKE UP!! "
" stop yelling ." the litten on the green couch grumbled, annoyed with being woken up, but the lycanroc near it seemed to recognize mareanie's fear, " what's wrong? are you okay ?" it asked, coming down onto the floor to ask her, mareanie tried to form other words, but she simply couldn't find a way to say anything else, just needing to get people's attention.
"what's going on?" the "twerp", as james called him, asked as he and the professors came to see what the screaming was about, mareanie continuing to babble and cry as she went for the door, jumping up and trying to get a hold of the doorknob, "what is it doing?" the tall man with a small beard yawned, the kind lady with white hair walking over and opening the door for mareanie, the poison type frantically motioning for them to follow her as she moved as fast as she could down the porch steps and across the sand.
james wasn't that far from the professors' property, the lavenderhead face down in the sand as his body was too weak to remain conscious, mareanie hopping over to him and pushing his side, " wake up, wake up, wake up! please, prince, wake up !"
the twerp gasped, shocked at what he saw, "oh my god!" he cried and ran over, the professors not far behind him as they recognized the fallen human too, the twerp kneeling down in the sand and rolling james onto his back, hoping to at least help him get his face out of the sand so he could breathe.
james' hair was a tangled mess, covered in sand and damp with sweat, dark pink skin, a horribly high temperature radiating from him, his body shaking from chills and/or something worse.
ash began to shake the villain, fear actually starting to boil inside of him as he realized how injured the man must be if he looked like this, and the fact that he was alone , "james! james, can you hear me?! james!" he screamed, trying to get any response from the lavenderhead but failing, looking up at the professors with a terrified gaze, seeing worry in their expressions too, "we have to help him! please, professors!"
kukui seemed a little shocked by ash's pleading, but his morality was stronger and he knelt down in the sand, carefully picking the unconscious man up and feeling the pit of worry growing in his stomach at how overheated and rather underweight the man was, the group of people and pokemon rushing back to the house, kukui laying james out on the nearest couch and mareanie immediately jumped onto the furniture, clinging to james' arm as she began to softly weep, beyond terrified.
" i'm so sorry for what they did to you, this is my fault, i'm sorry, please don't die, please please please don't die ."
mareanie felt a fuzzy paw on her back, turning slightly and seeing the twerp's pikachu trying to comfort her, " he won't die, he's strong ." it reassured, mareanie wanting to trust it's words as she knew that it has known her beloved for years and years, but the fear wouldn't go away, not to mention that she could smell the worried undertones to the pikachu's scent.
"i'll go look in the first aid kit for medicine." burnett spoke before rushing away, focused on helping someone in desperate need, ash hovering around james and worriedly fiddling with his hands, unsure on what to do with his body, "i-i've never seen anything like this before." he stammered, having seen several things happen to james and the other villains before, but never anything that knocked them out so intensely.
"it's toxapex venom." kukui spoke, trying to help the teenager's distress by answering some questions, "looks like he's been dealing with it for a while too.", ash turned to the professor, "you can help him, right? h-he's gonna be okay, right?"
kukui gave ash a small smile, "we got meds, he'll enter the recovery process once we give him that."
ash nodded just as burnett walked back into the room with a small tear dropper bottle in her hand, a cartoon picture of a toxapex on the label, "you might want to give him more than a normal dose." ash spoke up as the professor went over to the lavenderhead, looking up at the teenager with confusion, "he has some immunities, not sure if it actually works this way, b-but his body might need more than a normal person, ya know?"
burnett nodded, understanding ash's concern before she filled the tear dropper with an opaque brown liquid, gently opening james' mouth enough for her to put the antidote in, taking ash's words into consideration and giving another dosage, knowing that the medicine had no overdose risk.
the female professor helped james swallow, doing it a similar way you'd help an animal as he was still completely unconscious despite the amount of noise and movement around him, several pokemon gathered around the humans as they worriedly made sure that the man made it through this.
some of the pokemon knew him, some didn't, but all felt some level of concern, especially since mareanie was in absolute shambles over this, still softly crying against his shoulder as she clung to his bicep.
ash's eyes widened as he realized something, "oh crap, jessie and meowth!" he cried before he ran for the door, bare foot and in pajamas but his brain was literally screaming at him to go find james' partners, knowing that they were either worriedly looking for him or in a just as terrible, if not worse, state than he currently was.
of course, pikachu followed him out the door and ash could hear the professor's yelling for him, but he didn't slow down even a little, running through the sandy beach and towards the forest, knowing that the bewear he saw come and retrieve them all the time lived in said forest and hopefully they lived near her.
ash's legs and feet ached as he ran on the forest's ground, feeling sticks and rocks poke at his skin occasionally and he was sure there were leaves in his hair, but he just wanted to make sure the rest of the trio knew, it's not like he could call them, so he just had to find them.
unfortunately, ash's foot got caught on a broken branch, the teenager crying out as he crashed to the ground, face first into moist dirt, "dammit." he huffed as he got back to his feet, getting ready to keep running but his eyes landed on familiar shadows a few feet ahead of him, the moonlight allowing him to see a bun of pink hair and black ears, "isn't it past your bedtime?"
ash rushed forward, grabbing jessie's arm and pulling her with him, "what the hell?! i don't have time for you, let go!" the woman snapped as she yanked herself away from the teen, only for ash to grab at her again, needing her to stay with him, "we found james and mareanie, okay?! just come with me!"
jessie's eyes widened at that, meowth's too, "where is he?" the cat pokemon asked, seeming cautious of the fact that the twerp could be lying, "at the professors' house, they're giving him medicine for a....toxipa or something like that, mareanie's there too because we found her on the beach earlier and she won't stop crying and james won't wake up, and--"
meowth interrupted him, "kid, breathe ."
oh, he hadn't been doing that, had he?
ash took a deep breath, almost choking from how intensely he inhaled, shaking his head to organize his thoughts before grabbing jessie's arm again, "let's go!" he cried and this time, jessie went with him, grabbing meowth first before the two took off running, ash leading her to the professors' house on the beach as quickly as he could, not wanting to waste any time on getting them to their partner but his muscles also burning from running so much already.
"ash!" kukui cried as he saw the teenager coming up the porch stairs with the other two members of team rocket in tow, "we could've just called." the professor sighed, clearly stressed by the boy just taking off like that, "i don't know their number."
jessie pushed past the twerp, going immediately to james side as she put meowth back down on the floor, mareanie looking up and seeing her friends, tears coating her face and meowth climbed onto the couch, sitting on james' leg and the water type threw herself at him, hugging the cat pokemon tightly and her crying picking up in intensity, " i'm so sorry, everything's going wrong and it's my fault, i'm so so sorry! "
meowth smiled sadly at her, gently hugging her back, "none'a 'dis is ya' fault, don't say 'dat." he cooed, jessie's heart sinking at his words and she looked over to the professors, "was he given an antidote? how long ago?" she asked, burnett immediately providing an answer, "i gave him two doses no more than ten minutes ago, he should be entering the recovery stage soon."
"what does that mean?"
"the antidote works, but it doesn't work incredibly fast. he'll be fine, just needs to be treated with caution and in all honesty, i would keep him right where he is."
jessie scoffed out a small laugh at that, "like you want us to stay here."
without hesitation, burnett spoke again, "i mean it. keep him here until he's recovered enough to at least walk the distance off this beach. he's already here and i'd rather you keep him here then you bring him back home without his body being ready to function."
jessie blinked up at the woman, shocked at the hospitality, "well.....if you insist ...." she trailed off, catching the small smile that appeared on ash's face at the acceptance of the request, burnett smiling too, "we just restocked on berries, i'll make him something for when he's awake that'll help too."
jessie nodded as burnett walked away, kukui walking away before pulling up a chair for jessie to sit on, the pinkhead taking it with a smile before sitting down on it, grabbing james' slightly trembling and clammy hand in her own, pressing a gentle kiss to the knuckles.
mareanie nuzzled against james' face, no longer crying but her cheeks damp with stray tears, a small noise emitting from james' throat at the feeling of her cool skin, the pokemon gasping in shock, that being the first response out of james since she saw him on the beach, cooing a little as she poked at his cheek, a small moan leaving him as he rolled his head to the side, a chorus of hushed gasps sounding from the few who were still surrounding him.
jessie reached forward, placing a hand on james' cheek and tilting his head up towards her, "can you hear me, flower?" she cooed, speaking a little louder than normal, james' eyes slowly fluttering open but remaining half closed, exhaustion heavy in his body but he fought it, wanting to confirm if he was dreaming or in reality, "j...jess?"
jessie smiled at him, relief washing over her, "good morning, sleeping beauty."
james tried to move his head towards a window, wanting to see if it was actually morning but unable to move that much, "wh...where...." he breathed out, voice a whisper and crackling from a dry throat, "twerp's pad, he found ya on the beach."
at that, james tensed up, his eyes searching for said twerp before he noticed ash standing behind jessie, worriedly wringing his hands in his sleep shirt, awkwardly raising one hand and waving, trying to show james that he was genuinely helping and not setting him up for betrayal or something terrible like that.
james tried to find words, but he couldn't, just swallowing thickly and cringing at how dry his throat was, the pink haired woman turning to ash, "can you get him water?" she asked and ash nodded, rushing to the kitchen where the professors were chopping various berries into smaller bits for a blender to mix better, returning with a small cup of cool water.
meowth moved off james' leg, mareanie backing up as well as jessie gently sat him up enough for him to drink safely, holding his head up with one hand and carefully tilting the cool water into his mouth, james gulping it down greedily as he was unbelievably thirsty, his dehydration definitely not aiding his body in fighting off the poison, "don't make yourself sick, love, slow down a bit."
james listened, sipping slower before weakly reaching up and touching jessie's hand that was holding the cup, signaling that he was done and she listened, lowering the cup and letting his head fall back down, resting on a pillow against the armrest of the couch.
now that he was sat up, james could see more of the room around him, a somewhat blurry sight of the professors making a berry drink for him, the various pokemon around the living room, some watching him in worry, mareanie and meowth sitting on the cushion that his legs didn't reach, giving him room.
wait......was he seeing properly?; ".....'reanie?"
the water type perked up at james' voice, looking to him with several emotions in her watery eyes, james weakly raising a hand and motioning for her to come to him, which she happily hopped over to him and snuggled against his torso, his arms slowly wrapping around her and holding her close, tears flooding into his eyes, "i....i was so worried..." he whispered, tears falling down his cheeks at the relief of see his beloved pokemon, having been extremely worried when they realized she had ran off earlier that night.
mareanie cooed at him, beginning to speak in a language he wouldn't understand, " i'm so sorry, i didn't want to scare you, i just thought.....i thought you.... "
tears began to fall down her cheeks again, her heart aching at the thought of him not wanting her around, james hugging her closer and shushing her weakly, "s'okay, dear, s'okay." he whispered, gently petting her tentacles with his thumbs, wanting to let her know that everything would be fine, that he loved her and that he was going to be alright.
the sound of the blender starting caused james to jump, as well as the others surrounding him, but it didn't last long as the blender easily turned the chopped up bits of berries into a smoothie like drink, just noticeably less thick than a smoothie should be, wanting it to be drinkable for james.
jessie leaned forward, brushing pieces of sandy hair out of james' face and her fingers brushed against his still hot and still pink skin, though it was no longer such an intensely dark shade, his normal skin tone starting to return as the antidote worked at its slow pace.
"you're a mess." jessie tsked lowly, more so making a note of observation than making a snide comment, james weakly laughing, "nothin' new."
the blender was shut off, james tiredly watching as the white haired woman whose name escapes him poured the drink that was more similar to a juice from how fine they blended it for him, which james appreciated as anything remotely solid sounded like a nightmare to keep in his stomach right now.
the woman walked over with the tall cup after placing a straw in it, handing it to jessie as she figured james wasn't ready to hold it on yet, which was a good assumption, and jessie took it from her with a thanks, leaning over to james and helping him drink, pecha berries and other familiar fruit flavors flooding his taste buds as he slowly drank, pulling away after drinking a little less than half of the juice, not wanting to make himself sick.
james' head flopped against the couch cushion, eyes feeling heavy again as he was still really tired, everything his body was doing to heal him draining the little energy he had, also being curled up on actual cushions was really nice, making it harder to stay awake to not take advantage of the softness.
mareanie snuggled closer to his chest, meowth also crawling over and finding his way into james' arms, the squid pokemon moving over to give the cat pokemon room to rest, james holding the two closely as he let his eyes close, it taking literal seconds for him to fall asleep and jessie leaned forward, kissing his forehead and letting her lips linger there for a moment, relieved that he was finally healing.
ash walked over with a pink blanket in his hands, staring at james' sleeping form for a moment before he put the blanket on top of james' lower body, wanting to help more in some way because he felt useless just sitting and staring like some weirdo.
jessie smiled at him, "you can go back to bed, twerp, i'm sure it's past your bedtime."
ash looked hesitant to leave, but he walked away and up a set of stairs, pikachu following right behind and jessie turned her attention back to james, the two being the only human remaining in the room with pokemon resting in various places, jessie rising from her chair and forcing herself to fit onto the couch beside james, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him closer, settling into sleep.