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it's amazing how much - how little - things have changed.

[break][break] they are teleported out of that dastardly prison — each and every one of it's memories chained to the deepest corner of his heart. much like Zev Harcourt, jayden knows how to sequester the most traumatic memories away, to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze them down until they are merely nothing. just a speck of dust in the grand scheme of life, particles of dust floating along a person's lifestream.

[break][break] but that is not the thing that encompasses him as he channels through the motions of their daily life. returning home, hand in hand with fern delaney, as it should be.

[break][break] no, it is the sharp echo of a bell, of something FEARFUL that reminds him of his time with illeana reyes in palkia's rift. the way that he had watched her weave the world back together, surging through those cracked panes in nothing but bonds of blood.

[break][break] like many other rockets, they return home without avail. jayden turns on his phone to see a thousand texts from mint frost, each one more panicked than the last. he even sees calls from Hitoshi Inoue and bryan delarosa.

[break][break] he should call back, he thinks. he should text back, he thinks.

[break][break] he doesn't.

[break][break] he can see the cracked bowl in the corner of his vision; the way that CYLLORA cried for release; the way that VELMOS blood drained from his face as he died in THEO BECKETT's arms at the hands of Greyson Connors.

[break][break] he thinks about the way illeana reyes's shield had shimmered out in front of him, protecting him from the blow of Melody Miro's attacks.

[break][break] he thinks about how many days had been spent in that prison cell, and how much of it had felt so similar to the way that dmitri had once trapped him in one too.

[break][break] jayden tells fern that they can shower first; he'll handle dinner. something sweet. something comforting. something to warm their bones and heal their heart.

[break][break] but it is not the prison that jayden worries about. it is not the prison that effects him. it is the after.

[break][break] how the threads of time could fray so easily, and how their bonds could break apart in the blink of an eye.

[break][break] he thinks about the persistent ache in his chest he'd felt when his patron was gone, the lack of power through his veins when he'd had TOXIC CHAINS repressing each and everything that he did. freedom of his curse had not been enough to wane his weakness; in fact, it had made it all the more clear when CHIEN PAO had returned to him.

[break][break] returned.

[break][break] chien pao was gone now. jayden didn't know where it went. but it was not far — that much he knew.

[break][break] still, it made his heart anxious. the same kind of anxious it had made his heart when he had woken up from DIONYSUS' nightmare, needing to find fern by his side.

[break][break] it is only the sound of a familiar sound that breaks his train of thought.

[break][break] "what," jayden blinks, suddenly thrust back into the present. blue eyes glimpse over the bruised expression of his lover, their sudden laughter cutting through the room like diamond knives. "is it too sweet?"

[break][break]

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fern delaney [break]
m: post-prismatic penitentiary

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Naturally, Jayden misses the point, even though they’ve not bothered to make that point yet..[break][break]
It is so painfully like him to drift to something else entirely. And this doubles Fern over. Makes them laugh harder in their exasperation and frustration.[break][break]
“No.” They manage it after the exhausted, delirium-laced giggles subside. “It is not too sweet.”[break][break]
Something slices through them when they look up at him, note the confusion in his stare that is almost achingly familiar. Intimate and memorized in their mind like a still frame from those first days when they had been strangers and Fern felt like a younger version of themself.[break][break]
In fact they feel entirely separate from the person who stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the supermarket, mulling over the preferred color of grapes. Different from the person who dared to get too close to him in the confined space of his laundry room. The bruising clamp of a panicked hand around their wrist and apologetic, violet eyes.[break][break]
But his eyes burn frosty blue now.[break][break]
And Fern suddenly realizes what the Wellspring Mask had itched to reveal to them. Their deepest desires were not a reflection of the Ballonlea they left behind in another reality, but rather a return to the them they’d been before.[break][break]
He is as severed from those memories as Fern is.[break][break]
The flight from a makeshift holding room and a disgruntled mall cop.[break][break]
Talk of crystablooms as he salvages their poor baking skills, and that first kiss shared— snickerdoodle-sweet and exciting and new.[break][break]
They are light years away from that feeling—light years away from their jealousy and longing at the masquerade, when all they craved was his attention on them and only them. What they have now feels like a false imitation of it, all twisted up by guilt and the desire to make up for the way he turned away from them in a dream.[break][break]
All of that adoration and contrition cannot remove how they felt in the face of rejection in favor of a father’s love and approval they always knew to be false.[break][break]
Fern glimpsed the real thing in the prison.[break][break]
The return of something true and real before the city dreaming began again. Curled on the cot, even with BARNABY FINCH piled in with them. Fern felt it before the cold front swept in again, and all of Chien Pao’s hatred pulled him away again. Their calming presence only reaches so far, only lasts for so long.[break][break]
They soothe him, but he haunts them.[break][break]
The ghost of himself that he's become. Pale haired and spectral, forming cold spots that linger in the halls of their home.[break][break]
“You know, I don’t know how this has become our life now.” Their voice steeped like a bitter tea they’d sooner spit out than swallow. And the more they talk, the more worked up they grow—their words thickening into a tangle of heavy Galarian they can’t manage to smooth out into a posh lilt.[break][break]
“It’s all so commonplace, it’s laughable. All of this ridiculous, cataclysmic rubbish is bloody normal by now. I take my morning tea with a side of cosmic disaster and ridicule.” Their resilience in the face of fezandipiti’s mockery finally cracks in the shelter of their living room. “And still I cannot get your laughter out of my head.”[break][break]
But it’s more than just that. It is everything else too. Everything, everything and then some. “I am a joke to you.”

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jayden cross[break]
m: post-prismatic penitentiary

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he blinks. [break][break]

the laughter doesn't subside; in fact, it only seems to grow more in intensity, just as the confusion in the admin's cerulean gaze swells like low tide. [break][break]

"if it isn't too sweet, then what is it?" [break][break]

with someone else, anyone else, jayden's voice would have been cutting. it would've fallen upon the air like a piece of metal to a slab, threatening — no, demanding the answer that his body sought. but with fern, things are different. they are always different with them, because they are them because jayden never wants anything more desperately than to understand them, for them to understand him. [break][break]

fern is far-away and removed and jayden is desperately, desperately running to the edge of that cliff, wanting his powers of frost to wield a bridge for them to cross, no matter how much they hate it. hate chien pao. hate him. [break][break]

because by now, that is what he is. he and chien pao are equal, the same, in the same way that he breathes rocket. [break][break]

with each and every breath. [break][break]

outside of that poisonous cell now, there is nothing that keeps him from chien pao. there is nothing that keeps him from the tension that floods the room like noxious liquid, like the waves of toxic sludge that had threatened to climb over their city in that forgotten galar. [break][break]

no BARNABY FINCH with his clever, flirtatious quips to trigger the nervous, heart-thrumming, hair-trigger jealousy that is always a breath away from his heart, because of a fear of losing the only thing he's ever had. [break][break]

he hears fern's words but they only bring about more confusion. more frustration. more misunderstanding. unsettled feelings threaten to claw to the surface, dragging away from that haunting bell that he heard the moment they left the megalopolan spaceship, and instead anchoring him to the present. [break][break]

his eyes, now, turn sharp as daggers. [break][break]

"what are you talking about," he says. "you know that wasn't me." [break][break]

"that was the chain." [break][break]

it was them! he wants to scream, claw, demand a recount of the events as he remembered them. [break][break]

the way that he had laughed and the way that blood had filled his throat at the instant it did. [break][break]

"i love you, duck," he said, with a dismissive shake of his head, carving a spoon into the curry and bringing it to his mouht. "don't be ridiculous. i would never laugh at you." [break][break]

avoiding the truth. avoiding everything. because it was easier to avoid than deal with the feelings that were swiftly rising to the surface, threatening to swallow them whole.

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fern delaney [break]
m: post-prismatic penitentiary

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It almost prompts them to laugh even harder, that puzzlement that writes itself across Jayden’s face like it is a mind teaser that is just too difficult to work out.[break][break]
Something darkens in Fern’s gaze, disbelieving as his partner’s own eyes sharpen with an indignance that flares up immediately. The insecurity still crawls under their skin as they look at him and then back at the curry held in their hands. They can’t believe they’re still holding onto it. The styrofoam container scraping dissonantly under their nails.[break][break]
“The chain only brought out the deep down truth,” they mutter, words bitter as their smile hitches upward with a painful twist. “I am a joke to you. You do not take my authority or opinion seriously.”[break][break]
The words tumble out faster than they can keep up with. They claw their way up Fern’s throat to spill out, frustrated and twisting with a watery edge that is so unlike them.[break][break]
So, so pitifully self-deprecating.[break][break]
Fern Delaney is not insecure. They are not. But they are a liar on the best of days, even to themself. They no longer trust their footing. That they stand on an equal level with him. He does not see it this way, why should they? Fern, not born of Rocket and its bloodline fealty, but by choice and the desire for their own gain.[break][break]
It is pathetic to someone like jayden cross; they are certain of it.[break][break]
There are hurts that they carry now that they did not before. Hurts that were dragged out into the light in that prison that have been curled up and festering inside of them since the moment they woke up from Father Winter’s dream. It’s a pain that rubs raw, unable to fully close. They were not taken seriously in that dream space, and they are not taken seriously now.[break][break]
And it is clear in the way he shrugs off Fern’s claim. Continuing to eat as though they have said something so foolish and silly that it is not worth the time. The i love you stings. As does the pet name. All of it suddenly feels so much like placating. Soothe the angry child so that they do not throw a tantrum. [break][break]
“If I were not a joke, you would not have spoken over me. You would not have denied my opportunity to engage with Cyllora.” The mystery of Tapu Koko’s origin had finally begun to come into view. It was smart to preserve that connection. To engage with it.[break][break]
And he had brushed it aside as he is doing now. Fern wants to smack the bowl of curry from his hands. But they sit there and let theirs go cold instead, fingers curled tight into balls in their lap.

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jayden cross[break]
m: post-prismatic penitentiary

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a joke?

[break][break] "why would you say that?"

[break][break] the confusion flickers in eyes of sapphire-blue, frosted remains of the very thing that had been lost the moment that they had returned to the present. the tender-sweet thing lost beneath the suffocating emptyness of that jail cell. the childhood home of that fern delaney had never known, and jayden had never known to tell them about.

[break][break] instead of voicing the bewilderment that arises from such cruel claims, his voice rings through their dining room like shards of glass. hurt. pain. confusion.

[break][break] "what about our life is a joke to you?"

[break][break] the life that he would crawl through glass to protect.

[break][break] the life that he would endure countless beatings for, no matter the cost.

[break][break] hands close tightly around the silver utensil in his grip, not quite willing to fall prey to the claims that ring through his head.

[break][break] 'see? they are weak. just you were weak, inside that cell.'

[break][break] "i didn't do it on purpose," he says, mind filled with the haunting echo of trumpets once more. fear rises in his throat, confusion clawing against the cage of bitterness. of resentment. "i only wanted us safe from harm."

[break][break] "they imprisoned us, duck."

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fern delaney [break]
m: post-prismatic penitentiary

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Frustration makes them irrational. Their insecurities, no matter how unfounded, spill out with little regard for how they might cut. "Because it is true, you just don't want to say it out loud."[break][break]
Finally, they thrust their food onto the coffee table in front of them so that it doesn't not topple into a mess on the floor. Their nervous energy is too great to hold onto anything. Fern can barely hold onto themself. All of their atoms, alight with crackling static threatening to scatter apart so that they come undone entirely.[break][break]
"Not our life," they insist, panic rising in their voice as they register his upset. It is unfair. They are the one who has been made a fool of, who is hurt. Why should they have to diminish their feelings to soothe his? "You don't think I'm credible in our position. My opinions mean little when it is Chien Pao dictating your decisions."[break][break]
Their distasted for the harbinger of hatred bleeds through their cracks. Exposing itself plainly.[break][break]
"No?" They laugh and the sound is harsh. Humorless. "Or are you only telling yourself as much? The sad truth is that I am useless. To you, to everyone."[break][break]
All of their confidence crumbles away in that moment, and normally they are able to temper this side of themself. But not right now. The careful act finally rocked at its foundation by what they've endured.[break][break]
"I don't care! It was obvious that their information could have been important. I have been desperate to understand Tapu Koko's origins, and you did not value my authority in a moment when it mattered most. You did not care enough to pause and consider what I could have done with that knowledge. You were too busy reveling in that hatred."

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jayden cross[break]
m: post-prismatic penitentiary

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'because it is true, you just don't want to say it outloud'

[break][break] it isn't. there are plenty of things that jayden has been afraid of. but never fern delaney, not like this.

[break][break] and the fact that fern delaney would even think that he would rather lie to them then say the truth is -

[break][break] "that - that isn't true!"

[break][break] but even as he says it, a small part of him rings out, sinister and awful.

[break][break] 'what if they are speaking the truth?'

[break][break] "i would never let that happen," he says instead, brow furrowed. he and chien pao were the same, they were one, but that meant that he was even more impassioned to make sure that nothing would happen to them. why couldn't they understand? "you are anything but useless to me."

[break][break] plates clatter on the table, curry splashing, but jayden didn't see. all he could see was the pain and grief that pierced through fern delaney's gaze, and the world that spun around him. panic closed around his throat, staring into the depths of that teal-colored gaze.

[break][break] "it wasn't hatred! it was love!"

[break][break] "don't you understand what you mean to me?"

[break][break] "what i would do if something happened to you?"

[break][break] his own tortured expression twists, as he stands up, crossing the threshold and closing the distance between them. a hand reaches for their wrist.

[break][break] "lyuubeemiy, i love you."

[break][break] reaching for them, he unfurls their clenched fist, finger by careful finger. he reaches into his pocket and then drops the treasure into his lover's hand — a glimmering silver ring — a promise of the future that had been stolen from them.

[break]

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fern delaney [break]
m: post-prismatic penitentiary

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Is this a fight truly worth having?[break][break]
Despite their wounded pride, Fern isn’t terribly certain. There is a high chance that the stress of what they’ve just endured is catching up and overwhelming them. Allowing the offense they feel to swell greater than it normally might.[break][break]
But they still can’t get the sound of his laughter out of their head.[break][break]
It clings like a grating second skin.[break][break]
“You say that now,” they retort, stubbornly clinging to the idea that everyone is against them. That he is against them. “But when it’s important to me, my opinions are put to the side.”[break][break]
For the sake of his hatred. Cold claws have sunk into their beloved’s shoulders. He is different now. (And so are they, though they refuse to acknowledge this at the moment.) His hair, his eyes. The quick trigger of disdain that chills like a frost. Because of Chien Pao.[break][break]
Fern pins their frustrations on the feline, but it doesn’t feel effective.[break][break]
The relative quiet of their evening shatters. Neither of them back down from their sides. But Jayden continues to insist. Why doesn’t he see it?[break][break]
Fern falls silent with every question that falls from his mouth. Their hands remain balled into fists at their sides as he approaches. His palm is cold against their skin, but they allow him to turn their hand–expecting him to lace their fingers together. A huff escapes them, “I love you too, but that doesn’t–”[break][break]
Something solid drops into their palm, and their stomach turns leaden at the cool weight. Cold washes through them, followed immediately by a hot flush of frustration. “What…what is this? What’re you doing?” Fern’s eyes remain fixed on the ring. They do not look up at him as they ask.

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jayden cross[break]
m: post-prismatic penitentiary

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