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Fern frowns. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? No, I told you it felt like a bad idea. I wanted us to turn around and go back.”[break][break]

Us. We.[break][break]

His words make them wince, flinching back as each syllable stings deep under their skin. “You…want me to leave without you?”

It’s a thought that hadn’t once crossed their mind, and uncertainty roots itself in their mind. How can he speak so calmly in a moment like this? Fern, with their temper gone, is reduced to shouts that get swallowed up in the thick of the fog.[break][break]

Frustration and hurt feeding whatever force it is residing in the otherworldly plane.[break][break]

Fern sucks in a sharp breath. The sound is audibly shaky as their eyes burn and their vision begins to blur ever so slightly. “You! You’re keeping us here.”[break][break]

Their hands ball into trembling fists at their sides. Their face feels hot and flushed despite the chill of the smothering mist. “You’re missing the point entirely, and it’s driving me mad!”[break][break]

They mirror the same raw pain, but they don’t try to leave him there. That would be defeating the whole purpose. Instead, they step closer. Hands find his upper arms as Fern tries to steer him to the tent instead.

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frustration builds in his chest, making it feel tight.

[break][break] "so what if it's a bad idea? what's the worst that can happen?"

[break][break] he had grown up under dmitri's iron fist, had grown up under the cruelty of monsters like THEO BECKETT and SILAS BLACKWELL.

[break][break] what could be worse?

[break][break] he grits his teeth. "i don't want you to leave - " he never wanted them to leave. he wanted to be with them always. hadn't he already told them that? "but i won't stop you from leaving, if that's what you want."

[break][break] because what could he do? he was hopeless — hopeless to the betrayals that littered their organization as of recent. it made him feel awful. helpless.

[break][break] "i'm not - "

[break][break] his words break off as the other admin grips his biceps, trying to shove him backwards towards - somewhere - anywhere? his head snaps to the side, only viewing the CLIFFSIDE. was fern trying to - ?

[break][break] immediately, his hands flash out, gripping their wrists. tight and forceful, like that day in the washroom.

[break][break] "i don't want to leave!" he snaps, shouts really, as the emotion climbs even higher. the voice that claws out of his throat seems like a voice not his own, like an animal dragged out of it's cage.

[break][break] "everyone's already left. i don't want to leave you."

[break][break] don't leave me.

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They push a hand through their hair. Condensation from the mist dampens it. Makes it unruly as their hand falls back down. A disbelieving laugh creeps up their throat.[break][break]

“Do you have that little regard for yourself? This is a holding place for all sorts of spirits, and you’re wide open right now, you’re so exhausted. So yeah. The worst can happen.”[break][break]

Fern can conjure up plenty of things in their active imagination. All of them horrible.[break][break]

Like a loose thread in a sweater, it all unspools at their feet in heaps. Something ugly and aching pits in their stomach. A desire to hide flares up. But they’ve come too far now to back off of their point, even if that initial concern has been warped beyond recognition. “I never said I was leaving without you. Stop putting words in my mouth!”[break][break]

Vice grips curl around his wrists, eliciting a pained hiss, but rather than release his hold as he once did before, Fern only grabs tighter. Fingernails with chipped varnish snag in the other’s jacket fabric and he digs his heels in, trying to push harder. “Why won’t you get in the stupid tent?”[break][break]

Their voice pitches higher, matching the frantic energy of the moment set in place. “Why not?” The question borders on a wail. “It’s clearly not doing you any good right now.” Or them. This place isn’t right.[break][break]

Surely Fern isn’t the only one to see that.[break][break]

“Who? Who’s left? There’s no one here but us. I don’t know what you’re talking about! None of it makes sense, Michail.” Their vision blurs worse as tension builds, their nose tingles. The warning precursor to crying.

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frustration builds in his chest, making it feel tight.

[break][break] "the worst?" he repeats. "what's the worst? that i die?"

[break][break] the way he says it is offhand. casual. easy — as if he's thought about it a hundred times over, and maybe he has.

[break][break] "i'm my father's son, fern. what do you expect?"

[break][break] he was a tool of rocket, always meant to be used and never to be saved. it was a fact that he had accepted a long time ago. as was evident by the scars that were still faded on his wrists. fern would see them still, as the mist around them continued to thicken.

[break][break] as their argument pitches to an all-time high, even his own gaze starts to blur. not that he notices it.

[break][break] "i don't want to leave you! how many times do i have to say it? what if something happens while i'm in the tent — what if you —"

[break][break] what if you leave?

[break][break] "i came here with you. leave on your own if you want, but i won't leave you."

[break][break] he refuses to let go, even as their nails dig hard into his jacket. maybe even making him bleed. FEAR rises high in his throat.

[break][break] "i just want to stay here with you, by your side. why can't you see that?"

[break][break]

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Their eyes go wide as they stare at him, biting down on their lip until pain sparks behind their eyes and grounds them before their thoughts can run away with them.[break][break]

“Yes, of course that’s the worst!” they still manage to snap back as something pitiful claws up their throat. “Do you think I could live with myself if that happened? If I couldn’t—“[break][break]

save you?[break][break]

Inadequacy coils through them, wrapping tight around their bones and burrowing deep. The same helplessness when Ceci was thrown from the cliff. The same as he sat by Marza Volchitsa alone in their darkened house as she failed to wake up.[break][break]

The idea of something similar happening here, now, because Jayden refused to step away from something brews furious desperation in their mind. A tempest of too many emotions to track.[break][break]

“No, you are your own person. Fuck your father, and the you haven’t made your own ground to stand on.”[break][break]

They continue to grapple with him, even though their footing now feels wobbly. They just want to sink down to their knees and curl up. But the ache in their wrists where he’s clamped them reminds them that they can’t.[break][break]

“What if I what? I just want to look after you! That’s all I want to do—is that so wrong?”[break][break]

It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make one single bit of sense. Their mind whirs, too fast to keep up with.[break][break]

“Why can’t we leave together? Look at what this place is doing.”

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despair between the pair grows as the misunderstanding continues to foster in the awful atmosphere of the BORDER. the border's strength continues to sink it's metaphorical claws into jayden, brewing a mixture of confusion and angst, as he can't bear to understand why fern just doesn't get it.

[break][break] so what if he dies? it's something that he - that every rocket - should be willing to do. it was for the sake of the organization, burned into them again and again, in the fires of kanto rocket.

[break][break] "of course you can! you have to."

[break][break] just like he had to do this for rocket, had to sacrifice himself and everything that he was all for the glory of the organization that he'd been born to live for.

[break][break] fuck your father.

[break][break] his expression grows steely cold as the words settle in. he drops his grip on their wrist, stumbling back.

[break][break] "don't say that," he whispers, suddenly afraid. as if saying those words outloud would bring them to fruition. the borders had brought back his mother — who was to say that it wouldn't bring back his father too?

[break][break] who was to say that his father had even died in the first place?

[break][break] were demons even vulnerable to things like death?

[break][break] a mixture of ENVY crawls up his spine as he looks at fern. the desire to make him understand, and yet knowing - forlornly - that it was impossible.

[break][break] he steps back further, as the metaphorical distance between them grows and grows. as if an entire crater yawns between them.

[break][break] the back of his heel hits the edge of the CLIFFSIDE.

[break][break] pebbles fall.

[break][break] "you don't —" his eyes are wide now, panicked. "you don't understand. you - "

[break][break] he falls.

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Fern shakes their head. “No, you don’t get it! I couldn’t. I-“ They swallow the words that crowd their throat. Words he brushed the surface of in recent conversation with THEO BECKETT, but can’t manage to say aloud. Not like this. Not when everything is so corroded and twisted from the normal warmth they know when they’re with Jayden.[break][break]

It’s just another fear that manipulates their frustrations. Their nose wrinkles in distaste as their insult is rebutted. “Why shouldn’t I? He’s buried in the dirt and I still hate him.” There’s something savage in their voice, unlike the normal lightness they carry in their presence. They hate.[break][break]

There is more to add. How Jayden is their’s and not his father’s any longer. But they can’t get the words out as Jayden steps back, pulling from their grasp. Too far back. So far that their heart jolts painfully, dispelling some of the fog in their mind for a few, precious seconds.[break][break]

No. Nononononono.[break][break]

They’re not watching this happen, they’re not going to stand there helplessly as the person they can’t stand to lose most pitches down to an unknown end.[break][break]

“MICHAIL,” it’s a cry that crawls up their throat and cuts through the fog—alerting their gengar to trouble. Behind the scene they set, her megastone flares with light where it’s tied to one wrist on a bracelet.[break][break]

She hovers, vanishing into a shadowed opening to reappear below the cliff’s edge, but they’re not paying attention to this.[break][break]

Fern lurches forward as Jayden slips back. But their fingers miss hooking into the front of his shirt. Gravity and momentum carries them until they propel themself straight after him.[break][break]

And then they latch on, eyes squeezing shut, and refuse to let go.

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fern delaney doesn't know what he's talking about. he can't — not when he had never met dmitri, when he had never known the sheer terror of being under the control of such a man. in fact, many rockets didn't. most of them only the new, softened version of rocket that had been cultivated under the likes of Cillian Quinn and Chu-e Choi, the one that spoke of kinship and warmth and safety.

[break][break] they didn't know the terror.

[break][break] and how strong - how successful - a motivator like FEAR could be.

[break][break] but jayden needs them to understands this, needs it like he needs air to breathe.

[break][break] but the earth crumbles underfoot, and all of a sudden, he is falling straight into the abyss. his heart lurches, feeling dread creep through him as he finds himself falling through the air. he sees the wide, panicked eyes of fern delaney and then the hand that reaches for him — he extends his own, grabbing their hand and then pressing them close to his chest as he pulled them close together.

[break][break] there is a flash of light as twin DRAGAPULTS emerges from it's ball and sweeps them up in a gust of wind, gathering both jayden and fern in their grasp.

[break][break] lowering them safely to the ground.

[break][break] a puff of smoke against the ground as they're lowered, fumbling in the grass, until jayden kneels atop of his lover. he breathes harsh:

[break][break] "why - " his voice is choked. "why did you jump?"

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They want to howl at him. They don’t get this. They wish they’d never set foot here on their own without the familiar presence of the beasts who had traveled with them previously. The FEAR they feel is different from what Jayden pictures in his mind. It doesn’t linger in the past and in the way it was once manipulated.[break][break]

For Fern, it exists in the present. For what could be broken. For the thing that shatters inside of them the moment his feet slip backward off the edge. For how they react without a second thought.[break][break]

An arm curls tightly around them, fingers interlocked where they’d first reached out. Their heart beats frantically in their throat as they wait for an impact that doesn’t come. The dragapults are better at slowing the fall than their idle gengar. Buoyant, Fern’s face remains burrowed in Jayden’s shoulder until they’re both tumbling in the grass at the bottom of the sharp drop.[break][break]

Before they can hope to push themself up, jayden cross is hovering over them, and they’re trapped again. Though this is of their own making.
They know that—chose it despite their lack of understanding.[break][break]

They stare up at him, their own gaze panicked as their bottom lip wobbles. They aren’t sure whether it’s FEAR from the fall, or from the intensive way Jayden watches them.[break][break]

Is he mad at them for this?[break][break]

Fern tries to swallow down the watery lump in their throat, but their voice still comes out hoarse and on the cusp of a meltdown. “Why wouldn’t I?” They want to ask, wouldn’t you do the same if it were me? but they bite the question in half before it can roll off their tongue. It’s all too much as what they’ve just done hits them fully.[break][break]

Their hands are trembling violently as they find his face. Shaky as their thumbs glide over cool, wind-whipped skin. It’s too much, it’s too much, but—[break][break]

“I go where you go. I can’t leave you alone, Michail. Mischa. I won’t.”

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thrumming in his own heart is a mangled combination of FEAR and GRUDGE. it's not that everything that had occured above the clifftop was worn away just because they'd managed to avoid death, but there was an unavoidable sense of relief in knowing that they were alive. that they had survived.

[break][break] so, no, jayden wasn't mad.

[break][break] he was terrified.

[break][break] "don't then," he murmurs, breathing harsh, as his palms clutch against the grass behind fern. warm hands slide up his wind-whipped cheeks, and he draws comfort in their touch.

[break][break] "don't ever leave me."

[break][break] his voice is choked.

[break][break] "i didn't want to leave you on that clifftop either. not even to sleep." he swallows, his vision blurred with desperation. fern had to understand. "what if something happened while i was asleep? what if you got hurt?"

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“I won’t, I won’t. I promise.”

It’s genuinely meant, even if they don’t know what’s going on with him. That watery feeling in their throat builds, their eyes frantic as he babbles about things that Fern doesn’t believe would’ve happened. But still the anxiety crawls under their skin at the mention because he believes it so wholeheartedly.[break][break]

“I’m right here, okay?” they stammer out, composure finally beginning to crumble in a way that can’t be reeled back in. “I won’t get hurt. You’re going to get hurt if you don’t sleep. See? It’s not so different from one another.”[break][break]

Just as Jayden doesn’t want Fern to get hurt or leave, Fern wants the same of him. And—[break][break]

“I just want to go home.” Their words hinge on a garbled sound that’s maybe a sob. But their arms hook around his neck to pull him close enough to burrow their face against his neck. Muffling the sound.

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youdontgetityoudontget-

[break][break] the words rise without preamble, poison spreading into his thoughts against his will. it's impossible to tell if it's the effects of the borders or if it's the result of his own trauma. did dmitri's influence still spread so deeply, so profoundly and intensely that it would effect him even now?

[break][break] or was it the BORDERS influence on him? was it the BORDERS that morphed dmitri's power and control beyond normal means?

[break][break] his thoughts spiral, threatening to tear apart at the seams.

[break][break] "i - "

[break][break] don't listen to him.

[break][break] mischa, you know better than this.

[break][break] mischa, don't disappoint me.

[break][break] he takes a breath, looking down at fern delaney's eyes. the only that that's ever able to steady him.

[break][break] fern pulls him close, a choked sob in their throat, and jayden shuts his eyes, focusing on the feeling of them in his arms. a hand reaches up, tangling themselves in his hair, as he buries his face back in the junction of their neck and shoulder.

[break][break] "... okay."

[break][break] a shuddering breath.

[break][break] "okay, let's go home duck."

[break][break] he relents.

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Their hands flutter against his face as he looks down at them, conflict swimming in his eyes as his face shifts expressions—seemingly at odds with himself.[break][break]

But Fern doesn’t look away as their breath snags with overwhelmed emotion again. Not until he’s drawn close again, and something resilient in his weight sags and gives up against them.[break][break]

“There you are,” their voice feels weak and childish when he relents, and they hold on tighter—grounding themself from the warmth of breath on their neck and fingers in their hair. “Thank you.”[break][break]

He’s here, and maybe he’s not totally okay.[break][break]

But he’s safe.[break][break]

Eventually they roll out from under him and up to their knees. Their hands are quick to find him, though, and help pull him up to his feet. Fern leans against him, eyes shut as their breath slowly evens out.[break][break]

“Okay, let’s go home.”[break][break]

Reluctant to be parted from him again, even for a few moments. Scared that he might vanish into thin air right in front of them again if they do.