[attr="class","body"] good. what a complicated question. were they good? were they bad?

[break][break] according to Elisabeth Fiorelli and many others, they were just nothing but monsters.

[break][break] "you're probably right," he says after a moment of silence, expression contemplative as he pushed the cargo alongside the uneven ground. wheels crumbled over rock, which tumbled over the edge.

[break][break] "but it's not like we have a choice."

[break][break] he didn't have a choice. the reminder rang hollow in his chest.

[break][break] "at least it isn't the same as silas."

[break][break] declan walsh had kept them alive, after all, for one reason or another.

[attr="class","oocnotes"]

Ashley Shepard [break]

+ CARGO [2/2]

[attr="class,"tldr"]
+ YORU disguise [break]
+ takes place before landon cassidy 2

10MP (ic post) [break]
50MP (participation)

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[attr="class","body"] for jayden, they had never stopped being friends. sure, betrayal had forced them apart but it was rocket who had brought them together. in more ways than one.

[break][break] the hand that is placed on his shoulder makes him flinch, but it speaks volumes of their friendship that jayden doesn't otherwise react.

[break][break] 'yes i did,' he thought. 'you don't understand.'

[break][break] but if not Ashley Shepard, then who would understand the mindfield that was jayden's thoughts? they had grown up together, had understood the oath that all rocket's took and knew what it meant for someone like jayden to break it. even minimally.

[break][break] "you —" - didn't have to, you shouldn't have - " - you're... right. it's just like when we were kids." a smile flickers to the forefront of his expression, both wry and bemused in nature. but it's only to mask the pain he feels when he thinks of the lash that declan walsh had given him.

[break][break] 'sorry. for what i did to you, jay. really.'

[break][break] he tenses.

[break][break] sorry.

[break][break] fingers flex tight around the sides of the cart as they push them through the space. the rift cracks and shimmers before them, before disappearing again.

[break][break] sorry.

[break][break] "don't apologize," he huffs. "just never do it again."

[break][break] his steps slow to a stop.

[break][break] "... would you?"

[break][break] for the first time, violet eyes lift towards his old friend. a shimmer of the old person he used to be. a shimmer of vulnerability.

[attr="class","oocnotes"]

Ashley Shepard [break]

+ CARGO

[attr="class,"tldr"]
+ YORU disguise [break]
+ takes place before landon cassidy 2

[attr="class","credit"]☉

[attr="class","body"] 'rocket is a bad organization - '

[break][break] immediately his gaze snaps to his ex-friend, burning fire in his eyes. but then he remembers all that Ashley Shepard has done for him in the past few days, and he bites the inside of his cheek.

[break][break] HATRED burns, but it's not for ashley. for his own incompetence.

[break][break] as ashley's saga continues, though, jayden can't help but cut in a reply. his lips twist into a frown, his voice pained.

[break][break] "and you think i don't, ash? you know me. you know i - "

[break][break] 'you were there when theo made me kill my eevee.'

[break][break] at fourteen no less, and immediately after, THEO BECKETT had tried to kill jayden himself.

[break][break] he quiets enough to let his friend continue. surprise flickers in his eyes as he mentions that theo, their theo, had given him an out. it didn't make sense — none of it did.

[break][break] but there must have been a reason. there was always a reason.

[break][break] a manipulation tactic to get Ashley Shepard back into rocket? if it was, it was smart. smarter than jayden. because it had worked.

[break][break] when it's all over, a hand snaps to ashley's wrist.

[break][break] a tree branch, when all rocket had offered them was burning logs.

[break][break] "you're a good person ash," he says, thinking back on what bryan delarosa had told him a year ago. "the world isn't as black and white as we want to make it out to be. you can be a good person and bad person at the same time."

[break][break] bad to each other, good to rocket. weren't they fucked up that way?

[break][break] he takes a deep breath. his chest still burns.

[break][break] "don't let the league's shallow ideals mess that up."

[attr="class","oocnotes"]

Ashley Shepard [break]

+ CARGO

[attr="class,"tldr"]
+ YORU disguise [break]
+ takes place before landon cassidy 2

[attr="class","credit"]☉

[attr="class","body"] All pokemon were for the glory of Team Rocket.

[break][break] Rockets were thought to be heartless and cruel, as painted that way by the League. However, that didn't mean they just shot down pokemon willynilly — it was just that Pokemon were respected in the same way that humans were. They were all there for Rocket, to use and be used by the organization.

[break][break] But that didn't mean people like Jayden couldn't care. That didn't mean he didn't let his Umbreon sleep in his house, in his shared bed with fern delaney.

[break][break] "Isaac is a Rocket, though."

[break][break] A gleam of suspicion enters his eyes. He had trained Isaac Merlo himself, had given him his own recipes. Treated him like family.

[break][break] But Jayden agreed. People like Isaac Merlo or mint frost - people who weren't ruined the same way he and Ashley were.

[break][break] A silence passes between them as the hand drops, and Jayden just watches his friend put his head between his hands.

[break][break] Then he breaks the news.

[break][break] The room is so loud a pin could drop.

[break][break] "Welcome to the Dead Dad's club then, I guess."

[break][break] His lips twist into a rueful smile, one only Ashley Shepard could understand.

[attr="class","oocnotes"]

Ashley Shepard [break]

+ CARGO

[attr="class,"tldr"]
+ YORU disguise [break]
+ takes place before landon cassidy 2

[attr="class","credit"]☉

[attr="class","body"] "..."

[break][break] 'You have nothing to apologize for.' How much did Jayden wish to say those words to his old friend. He wished it could be easy like that, assure him that everything was good and fine. In fact, Jayden had spent several weeks pretending that was the truth.

[break][break] But Walsh had all but lashed that out of him. Of them.

[break][break] "I'm just glad you get it now," he relents, voice softened to a murmur.

[break][break] Glad that Ashley Shepard was in Rocket and here to stay.

[break][break] There is an almost amusement in his eyes as he looks at Ashley as he breaks what is possible the worst news to him. It's not like Jayden was particularly close to Ashley's parents, but the death of any family member was bound to be raw. Ironic almost - they killed people every day, and yet it was those that closest to them that needed to burn.

[break][break] "... to OD you?" Pause. "Were you an accident?"

[break][break] It's only now that Jayden's brow furrowed, brimming with a sudden HATE for these people. Jayden and Ashley didn't have the kind of relationship where they often talked about their pasts; as kids, it seemed too real and they were too scared. Ashley had seen Dmitri, but probably never the version of him that Jayden did. And Jayden had never been the type to ask. Except now he was - that is, asking.

[break][break] Another pause.

[break][break] "Did you do it yourself?"

[break][break]

[attr="class","oocnotes"]

Ashley Shepard [break]

+ CARGO

[attr="class,"tldr"]
+ YORU disguise [break]
+ takes place before landon cassidy 2

[attr="class","credit"]☉

[attr="class","body"] For all the awful things that his family had done to him, it could not be said that they did not love him and his brother. Maybe in their own twisted way. But Jayden had always born to fill expectation — whether it was his father's perfectionist mindset, his mother's twisted view, or his inheritance.

[break][break] Rocket was his inheritance in the same way that tragedy seemed to be Ashley Shepard's.

[break][break] Jayden was not a touchy person. In fact, the number of people he allowed to touch him were ones that he could count on his hands. However, the sight of Ashley Shepard crying evoked emotion in him — the same way that it had been evoked when he'd seen mint frost crying that day he had returned to Hoenn.

[break][break] He'd always been better with actions instead of words and so, silently, he steps forward. Gently, he reaches for Ashley's head and places it on the crux of his shoulder.

[break][break] Jayden knew that there weren't any words he could say to make it better. There weren't any words to make it so Ashley had grown up with a normal family.

[break][break] "When this is all over," he says, mimicking Cillian Quinn's words to him. "We'll go visit her."

[break][break] Silently - the words go unspoken:

[break][break] You don't have them. But you have me.

[break][break] It's the way they always were.

[attr="class","oocnotes"]

Ashley Shepard [break]

+ CARGO

[attr="class,"tldr"]
+ YORU disguise [break]
+ takes place before landon cassidy 2

[attr="class","credit"]☉