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"parker, it's all my fault."

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[attr="class","oocnotes"] [attr="class","fas fa-book-open"] chapter five

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"i told him this was a stupid idea." [break][break]

"you knew what the risks were like anyone else. you have no one to blame but yourself if you didn't like the outcome." [break][break]

"stop bickering. what's done is done. all we can do now is wait."

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[attr="class","oocnotes"] [attr="class","fas fa-book-open"] chapter five

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"you said — you said —" [break][break]

"i never thought he would...!" [break][break]

"..." [break][break]

"yes, sir." [break][break]

"no, sir. no, i know sir. i'm sorry, sir." [break][break]

"..." [break][break]

"will he... you think, get better?" [break][break]

"..." [break][break]

"of course, sir. i would never doubt ro - i would never doubt you." [break][break]

"you're right. this is for the best, sir." [break][break]

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[attr="class","oocnotes"] [attr="class","fas fa-book-open"] chapter five

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if fern was here, they would tell him not to do it.

[break][break] if fern was here, they would save him from it.

[break][break] if fern was here, they would protect him.

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...

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fern isn't here.

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...

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"jay!"

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mint's smiles, pushing the doorway open. he wears a lab coat that looks too perfect on him, a clipboard in his hands. he looks just like Lulu Flint's protegee. a genius of his own making.

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"are you ready?"

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[attr="class","oocnotes"] [attr="class","fas fa-book-open"] chapter five

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[attr="class","textbox"] fern delaney is gone.

[break][break] There is no rhyme or reason for it.

[break][break] No explanation. No letter. No records of their absence or possible defection.

[break][break] They are just... gone.

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"Aw fuck, dude, I'm sorry," knox prescott says empathetically, sucking sugar from his thumb as he bites into a pastry. He makes a gesture with a hand at his throat. "Rocket dead? Kccch! Or just missing?" [break][break]

But Knox doesn't know them. Not really. To him, they're just another Rocket. [break][break]

Knox has no way of knowing that they are his Sam — Jayden's never told him.

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"I'unno where he is, Senpai, but I'll be lookin'. I can do that much for ya. If I sniff anything out, promise I'll let you know." [break][break]

Loyal, always loyal, but even a dog reaches the end of his rope.

[break][break] Hitoshi Inoue can search the ends of the earth for his senpai, but he'll never find them.

[break][break] All Hitoshi knows it that the smile that Senpai used to wear, the one that was soft at the edges, is gone now. The spark in his eyes dead. Cold, frozen, just like the dreadful Beast that always hung around him.

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He and Hitoshi can only search this universe, so the admin seeks the help of the only person he knows who can traverse them. His sister.

[break][break] "Jayden, we'll find Fern. I promise. The Unown can find anything, anyone. We can help you."

[break][break] But Naomi Sato and her Unown search and search and search.

[break][break] There is no trace of them, not anywhere.

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He starts to give up. He doesn't want to.

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Yumi Hasegawa and him have never gotten along, not the way that they and her do. But even she and her network of influence can't find any details on fern delaney's sudden absence.

[break][break] She tries her best, but at the end of the day, she is like all the other Rockets.

[break][break] Jayden watches the way that she and his father look at each other. The secrets that they share but that he doesn't want to know about. He turns away, pretending that he never saw it in the first place.

[break][break] Fern would hate this.

[break][break] Was Fern wrong?

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Even mint frost gives up hope.

[break][break] Gives up hope for the brother that he never had but wanted. After all, fern delaney was family. Fern was family until Dmitri became family — until Dmitri came in and snaked his way into the poor boy's heart, giving him all the starved affection and support that his family - despite all their riches - never offered him.

[break][break] Jayden knows that Mint feels the same way as him, but he also knows that Mint can't say it.

[break][break] Can't speak to it.

[break][break] He's always at Dmitri's beck and call after all, hanging out with Alexei or Aleks or Alex.

[break][break] "Mint. Do you think Fern is ... "

[break][break] He doesn't want to say it. He can't say it. And yet the words are ready to leap out of his mouth anyway, a reflection of the things that his father has warned him about time and time again.

[break][break] 'They didn't deserve you anyway. You're better off without them.'

[break][break] "God! Work has been non-stop lately," Mint cuts him off, chipper as ever, as he busies himself with gathering all the files and machinery and tools in his hand for PROJECT GENESIS. "Dmitri runs me ragged sometimes, not a euphemism."

[break][break] Flashes of Yumi Hasegawa and Elisabeth Fiorelli in his father's lab come to mind, but he pushes them away. Represses them.

[break][break] "I know," Jayden says instead. "Father thinks that —"

[break][break] "Sometimes I forget what day it is if I'm in the labs or office! Crazy, right? Not that it's great, just. You know, exhausting."

[break][break] Mint rambles on and on. Every time Jayden tries to get in a word edgewise to talk to him, he can't. Everytime he thinks he can get him alone, Dmitri or Alexei pop around the corner.

[break][break] "I'm so excited for this project, though, Jay! You don't know how good it's going to be for us."

[break][break] 'Jay?' When did Mint start calling him Jay?

[break][break] "Well, now! I have to go. Oh wait. You were going to say something weren't you? Oh well. Next time, yeah?"

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Jayden has no choice but to think that Mint agrees with Dmitri.

[break][break] Fern's not coming back.

[break][break] It's a good thing they're gone.

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Even his brother, who was and would always be suspicious of Dmitri, has his reservations. Cillian Quinn is the one to notice the way Jayden's life has come to a full-stop. Not unlike the way he'd acted when his parents first passed.

[break][break] "It's okay to have hope, but don't stop living because of it. You think Fern would want that?"

[break][break] Jayden swallows, shaking his head.

[break][break] "No."

[break][break] His brother is right. He's always right.

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Relief comes in the unlikeliest of places.

[break][break] Jayden never thought that it would be Chu-e Choi of all people that he seeks comfort in, never thought it would be Chu-e Choi who helps him look for Fern even when everyone else has grown tired of it.

[break][break] "I'll help you look."

[break][break] It was easy, simple, sure.

[break][break] But Chu-e Choi had said it when Fern had gone missing, and then again and again every day since.

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He understood, Jayden thought, in a way that most people didn't.

[break][break] After all, of all people, it was Chu-e Choi who knew what it was like to lose the love of your life.

[break][break] His husband had died, hadn't he?

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[attr="class","oocnotes"] [attr="class","fas fa-book-open"] chapter five

[attr="class","textbox"] the door opens.

[break][break] "ah, there's one more thing."

[break][break] dmitri appears again, all dark shadows and red eyes, smiling bone-white teeth.

[break][break] "i forgot to mention."

[break][break] dark hair bleeds away into a familiar sharpness, blue eyes gleaming like cobalt in the unending dark. the sound of a flipping golden coin echoes, growing louder by the minute. the room suddenly seems smaller, squeezing tight as the space around them glitches, tearing into the fabric of space.

[break][break] "you, my boy, have overstayed your welcome."

[break][break] the gateway unfurls, a swirling abyss of blue and black, as his hand snaps abruptly around the coin.

[break][break] DIONYSUS grabs fern delaney, kicking them sharply in the ribs. returning them back to whence they came.

[break][break] "after all, we can only use one anomaly here."

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[attr="class","oocnotes"][attr="class","fas fa-book-open"] y̸̪͋̃o̶̘̟̅̂u̴̘͓̟̍͊͠ ̴̢̄͆͘a̵̹͍͐r̸̜̍̎͂ę̶̖̗͗̾ ̸̥̋a̸̯̼̪̽n̵̖̘̝͂͝ ̷̛͓̲̿a̵̻͛͂n̵̡̕ớ̵̻m̴͎̖̈́ǫ̶̠̲͑͆̎l̴̳͙̾̍y̴̼̘̗͑̊

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"Only lead to trouble?"

[break][break] Foolish child.

[break][break] It just went to show how much fern delaney did not know, how much they did not deserve his son.

[break][break] "It will lead to glory — Rocket's glory. I suggest you re-read your books and playthings, if you think that it is merely a decision of mine."

[break][break] But there was no arguing with idiots, after all.

[break][break] Dmitri certainly had no time for it.

[break][break] The hiss of air that releases from the boy is pleasurable, endeared to the way that he can push and prickle into their thorny spine as he whispers their worst fears.

[break][break] fern delaney does not need to agree. They do not even need to say it aloud.

[break][break] They both know —

[break][break] Dmitri Volkov's influence goes well beyond that of the living.

[break][break] fern delaney, Cillian Quinn, mint frost, THEO BECKETT... all have spent years softening and molding his son into something lesser. Yet, all it takes is a single moment for Dmitri to come back to life, to snap chains around his ankles and claim what is rightfully his.

[break][break] Electricity sparks fever-bright in those eyes of scarlet as fern delaney raises a fist to him, threatening. But a demon does not know fear. He stares down at the other, expression infuriatingly unchanging, as his lips turn into the corner of a smile. As if it is slightly approving, now that Fern has shown his teeth.

[break][break] "If you believe so," he says as he walks past them, handing a folder to Alexei waiting at the door. "Then you better bet your life on it, myshonok."

[break][break] Father and son both turn back to Fern, bone-white teeth and scarlet eyes. In an unsettling moment, they vanish from sight, swallowed by the sound of a closing door.

[break][break] Leaving Fern in the eerie stillness.

[break][break] Alone.

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fern delaney[break]
[attr="class","fas fa-book-open"] CHAPTER FOUR