[attr="class","jaytop"]

[attr="class","littlejay"]

'There's no talking with that shit father of yours, and you know it!'

[break][break] His jaw clenches.

[break][break] Something fierce and protective rises in him like an ember needing to burn, only dampened by the fact that this is Ash. Anyone else would've resulted in a sailing punch to the jaw.

[break][break] It didn't matter what Dmitri did, he was still his father. He was still family. And if he had been taught anything in his young adult life, it was that family was everything.

[break][break] "Don't call him that!" he hisses, eyes ablaze like amethyst fire . But Ash continues anyway. He barrels on and on, treason spilling from his lips like water.

[break][break] "What the hell are you talking about, Ash? What we're doing? Everything we're doing is for Rocket! For us! Who cares how about any lives we have to take — they're not our lives. Why do you care so much about them —"

[break][break] Why don't you care about us?

[break][break] Jayden's voice breaks. He's pleading, begging, willing Ashley Shepard to understand.

[break][break] He can feel it now. The way they stand, on the precipice of a treasonous cliff.

[break][break] This wasn't the first time either. They had stood here before too, as the winds billowed at their backs. Ash always brought them here, again and again. But Jayden had always been able to bring him back down. Jayden had always been able to help them see sense.

[break][break] 'I don't like that boy for you, Mischa. He's not worth your time.'

[break][break] How many times had he ignored his father's warnings? How many time had he fought for Ash and their friendship, as the risk of his own safety?

[break][break] It was Ash. They were best friends. Ash was the person he cared about most in the world.

[break][break] Panicked, Jayden does the only thing he can think of. He reaches for him, grappling forward in an attempt to steer him in the right direction, to pull him back —

[break][break] But instead it exposes Jayden, leaving him vulnerable and defenseless.

[break][break] It leaves room for the unthinkable.

[break][break] "...!"

[break][break] Jayden gasps, lets out a pained cry and then falls to his knees.

[break][break] Blood trickles down from where his best friend's knife is imbedded into his shoulderblade, both metaphorically and physically. Fingers grapple rapidly around the edge of that knife, as if he can stop it from hurting, as if he can stop the pain, as if he can stop himself from bleeding out.

[break][break] "A...sh. Why.. did you..."

[break][break] He glances up, vision blurry with pain, and sees the retreating form of his friend's back. Kanto's crimson sky burns in the distance, the last thing he sees, before he crumples to the floor and lets the pain swallow him whole.

[break][break]
[break][break]

Ashley Shepard had done the unthinkable.

[break][break] He had defected.

[break][break] He had betrayed Rocket.

[break][break] And in doing that, he had betrayed him.

[attr="class","ooc"] Ashley Shepard

☉