[attr="class","jaytop"]

[attr="class","littlejay"]

jayden has lost so many people in his life. he isn't sure he can bear it if he loses mint too.

[break][break] it's not something he can ever admit outloud, for fear of losing him by virtue of expressing it. but if there's anything that this argument has shown, it has shown how much he cares about mint even though he has never bothered to admit it outloud.

[break][break] but because he didn't think he needed to.

[break][break] they were family. they didn't need to tell each other things like this.

[break][break] but it's clear that mint frost isn't built like him. isn't built like THEO BECKETT or Cillian Quinn.

[break][break] and jayden's still learning that. luckily, it seems that he must have said the right thing, because suddenly mint frost is careening towards him. embracing him into the hug that jayden sorely needed all along.

[break][break] normally, when they hug, there is a moment of pause. of tension. before jayden forces himself to let his guard down and relax and remind himself that mint is not a threat. however, this time, when they hug, it is akin to coming home — of a breath in his chest that he had not quite realized he'd been holding in. his arms wrap around the younger man's body, tugging him close as he buries his face in that mint-colored hair.

[break][break] family.

[break][break] in that moment, it was clear as day:

[break][break] galar had changed the both of them.

[attr="class","ooc"] mint frost [break]
post-gg [break][break]

tw: self-harm mention

☉

[attr="class","jaytop"]

[attr="class","littlejay"]

it spirals. the feelings turn and turn and turn between them, curving inwards. bitterness, hate, resentment, loyalty, love, desperation.

[break][break] they overlap so many times until mint frost carves it out of him, cuts him open with a surgical knife.

[break][break] 'you don't get me either!'

[break][break] mint is bawling tears now, and jayden's face is stony-cold, tears sparking at the edges of his eyes. it looks different on them both, but they are still very much the same. they are hurt.

[break][break] and they find the middle, somehow, in the center of all this hurt.

[break][break] like the scars that run tiretracks around their wrists, marking them the same in the darkest of ways.

[break][break] a palm rubs against his eye.

[break][break] "i don't," he says, throat thick. "you're right."

[break][break] "but i do care about you, mint. in the only way that i can. the only way that i know how."

[break][break] he steps towards him then, softer steps than before.

[break][break] "believe me, please."

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

[attr="class","ooc"] mint frost [break]
post-gg [break][break]

tw: self-harm mention

☉

[attr="class","jaytop"]

[attr="class","littlejay"]

it is hurt.

[break][break] it's hurt upon hurt upon hurt, stacked on each other like a paper house that's just meant to fall down.

[break][break] "what do you mean?"

[break][break] "you're my family, mint. could i be any clearer?"

[break][break] it feels like glass shards in his throat.

[break][break] "rocket is my life. fern is my life."

[break][break] "but you're family."

[break][break] his hands clutch into white-hard fists at his side.

[break][break] "the fact that you would ever think otherwise — " he sucks in a breath, hurt bleeding all the way through. "you don't understand me at all, do you?"

[break][break] he looks away. and it's the first time — in front of mint, in that home of his — that he sheds a tear.

[attr="class","ooc"] mint frost [break]
post-gg [break][break]

tw: self-harm mention

☉

[attr="class","jaytop"]

[attr="class","littlejay"]

"yes!"

[break][break] "he'd made a fool of me, mint."

[break][break] "he broke me in a way i didn't know was possible."

[break][break] "he made me feel like - like i wasn't capable of love. wasn't deserving."

[break][break] he'd never said it outloud before, had never spoke it into existent.

[break][break] "and then i found someone new, and he left too."

[break][break] "he betrayed rocket, betrayed me, betrayed all of us."

[break][break] whether he was talking about CIAN MAHER or someone else, he left ambiguous. vague. he pressed on.

[break][break] "are you listening to yourself, mint?"

[break][break] "you say you care, you say you always reach out. you text me or call me. you plan things. you think of me."

[break][break] "but are you really thinking of me? if you were, would we be having this conversation?"

[break][break] "you didn't have to ask me to take care of you, to protect you, to make sure you were safe. to vouch for you against underboss THEO BECKETT and Cillian Quinn, to fight for your position in spectra, or your spot as a beast."

[break][break] "you think i do that for just anyone?"

[break][break] he shakes his head.

[break][break] "you're wrong, mint. we aren't best friends."

[break][break] he steps back, eyes crackling in the cold light of the room.

[break][break] "we're family."

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] mint frost [break]
post-gg [break][break]

tw: self-harm mention

☉

[attr="class","littlejay"] it's familiar, it's easy.

[break][break] dancing with knox prescott is like falling into a shadow of a thought, jumping into a past that he had long ago left behind.

[break][break] "huh? oh - " his hands fall to the sides of knox's hips, dancing along with the music. he's not good at it, but knox makes it so easy and simple, that it feels easy and simple. "maybe."

[break][break] childhood memories aloft, jayden thinks about the easy summers spent with the prescott siblings. of the summers spent in broom closets and midnight galas, of hiding away from all the things in the world that hurt.

[break][break] he could hide in the dark with samuel carter, but fern delaney brought him into the light. they were his sun.

[break][break] "but i think you'd be sad without sam. and i'd be sad without fern."

[break][break] a thought flickers through.

[break][break] "how'd - how'd you know it was sam?"

[break][break] "that he was your forever?"

[break]

[attr="class","ooc"] knox prescott

☉

[attr="class","jaytop"]

[attr="class","littlejay"]

"i don't know the first thing about a broken heart?"

[break][break] "you have no idea, mint. you have no idea what chu-e put me through —"

[break][break] he bites down on the words, on the feeling that the ex-underboss brings up in his chest. it's been long enough that he doesn't care anymore, or at least he tells himself that he doesn't. but when pushed to the edge, when mint frost carves them out of him, he can't help it.

[break][break] mint yells at him, and it reminds him of the time that they'd first met again after kanto. but of a bubbling, sobbing mint and a guilty jayden cross, it's two men with wounds torn wide open, two men hurt —

[break][break] "or what, mint?"

[break][break] "you'll hurt me?"

[break][break] "how many times do i have to say it? i've been hurt before, and i've been hurt worse."

[break][break] "and yet i let you in. i trained you, protected you, vouched for you."

[break][break] would mint frost really be a beast without him?

[break][break] "do you really believe that i don't care about you?"

[break]

[attr="class","ooc"] mint frost [break]
post-gg [break][break]

tw: self-harm mention

☉

[attr="class","jaytop"]

[attr="class","littlejay"]

"how can it be paradise if you can't remember it?"

[break][break] the bitterness rises in his tone, but it isn't for mint but it's for himself. disappointment that it should have been a thing he remembered with the utmost clarity, guilt that he had somehow let down rocket yet again.

[break][break] 'i hated who we were with.'

[break][break] "you hated - " me? fern? felix? "us?"

[break][break] and the second he said us, mint said you.

[break][break] the coldness from his face drops into hurt. it cracks across his face, splitting like lightning, and he steps back.

[break][break] suddenly, memories roll forth. but they're not memories from galar, they're not from hoenn, they're from kanto. from Ashley Shepard, confronting him in the dark of a warzone, of telling him that he was leaving.

[break][break] mint says words, but he doesn't hear them. he can only think, can only remember —

[break][break] the flash of silver hair. of teal-colored eyes staring innocently back up at him. of tear-stained letters sent to Isaac Merlo.

[break][break] "what makes you think you understand a thing about me? what i've been through?"

[break][break] he steps forward.

[break][break] "you care so much about galar, about a dream, that you don't even pay attention to what's here and what's in the present."

[break][break] another step forward. his face shutters away from the kind, nonchalant face that mint would know and into the cold expression of a rocket beast. of the thing that jayden had tried to craft mint into.

[break][break] "you don't think i've hurt before, mint? you don't think i know what it's like to be left behind?"

[break][break] "to have my heart broken?"

[break][break] a weapon built for rocket. a weapon made to shoot without mercy.

[break][break] "you tell me i don't care, but who came after you when we returned home? who made sure you were okay?"

[break][break] "did you," he steps forward, voice dropping lethal, as he corners him against the island corner. a growl slips through. "ever think about me? even once?"

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] mint frost [break]
post-gg [break][break]

tw: self-harm mention

☉

[attr="class","jaytop"]

[attr="class","littlejay"]

speaking of corn dogs, they pass by a stand and jayden silently hands over cash in order to procure one for him and parker jones.

[break][break] without looking at her, he hands her one and waits on his own.

[break][break] "no."

[break][break] the admin blinks at the clown that wobbles by.

[break][break] "well. oldale had a festival years ago - the one that tapu bulu appeared at." a strange look crosses his face then at the memory, reminded of what had happened at that festival too. "Chu-e Choi and i held hands at that festival."

[break][break] he glanced at her.

[break][break] did she want to hold hands? was that what friends did at carnivals?

[break]

[attr="class","ooc"] [attr="class","fas fa-crow"] magnificent funtasia [break]
[attr="class","fas fa-crow"] parker jones [break]

Offer a carnival treat to someone else.

☉

[attr="class","jaytop"]

[attr="class","littlejay"]

"not in particular."

[break][break] he'd already come to the festival with both Cillian Quinn and Naomi Sato, and experienced more than he'd anticipated. though, looking at all of the sprawling lights, it seemed like there was plenty more to experience.

[break][break] he watched a group of children crouch around a game titled DUGTRIO RING TOSS. one of the children shouted with glee as a ring swung around a glass bottle, pulling a squishy plush to their chest with glee. it was an over-sized dragapult.

[break][break] it didn't seem particularly interesting to him, but a gunshot alerted him to a new set of games. balloons were erected in the middle of a stand, and a carny stood watch, handing over plastic guns in exchange for dollar bills.

[break][break] "what about that one?"

[break][break] his head tilted.

[break][break] "do you fancy a bet?"

[break]

[attr="class","ooc"] [attr="class","fas fa-crow"] magnificent funtasia [break]
[attr="class","fas fa-crow"] Yumi Hasegawa
[break] — Reference Dugtrio Ring Toss

☉

[attr="class","jaytop"]

[attr="class","littlejay"]

'paradise?'

[break][break] "you think my childhood was paradise?"

[break][break] electricity lights up in his violet gaze — but unkind, volatile.

[break][break] jayden had never, not once, laid a hand on mint. in the same way that Cillian Quinn had never laid a hand on him. but perhaps that was sheer luck, not intention.

[break][break] it's the your majesty that has him triggered though, standing stiff above mint frost. his jaw locked.

[break][break] "what exactly are you so upset about, mint?"

[break]

[attr="class","ooc"] mint frost [break]
post-gg [break][break]

tw: self-harm mention

☉