Rowan doesn't understand.

Not the gravity of the situation, at least — but there is one thing he does see.

'You're afraid of him, aren't you?'

Pride had been beaten out of him, once. Under Cadis it had returned, under Walsh it had flourished... and now, Gavin closes his eyes and takes a breath as he swallows it willingly. Pride didn't matter to the dead.

"Rowan, I'm terrified of him."

There's a surprising amount of vulnerability in the pause that follows, as Gavin collects his scattered thoughts into something he can digest.

"I'm sure you've heard stories of Kanto." Who hadn't? "I was recruited there. Trained there. It's — Rocket's changed a lot, since then, but there's still — hierarchy. Orders are orders." Obedient. Blind. "Kanto Rocket, they'd kill your whole family if you betrayed them. Walsh is from Kanto, too. You see what I'm saying?"

His heart is racing, the panic he'd worked so hard to quell rising in his chest.

"I served under Blackwell, Rowan. I might be underboss, but Walsh is the boss. He tells me to jump, I'll jump. I need you to swear you'll do the same."

"Sit down." Gavin's tone, sharp and insistent, suggests command over request; his expression pinches before he amends, "Please. That's not an order."

The composure upon which he prides himself is less necessary around a man who knows his name, his fears, and so he lets the stiffness of formality leech from his shoulders as he leans back in the chair.

"This goes both ways, you know. I have no intention of putting you in danger, and you'd be in far more danger than I am. I'm an underboss, an Avatar, an asset."

The door behind them remains locked, still shimmering pink.

"Hoenn is not Kanto, and I am not Blackwell. I won't punish those who speak their mind, so long as they do so respectfully. If you have concerns, voice them."

"Three remnants remain in charge," Gavin corrects. "Walsh, Choi, myself."

It did not make him feel proud, to claim criminal heritage from a place that had brought him such suffering. But neither was there a point in pretending to be something else.

Rowan Wrynn meets his gaze, and Gavin's throat bobs as he swallows.

"Then he'll kill me, Rowan."

He remembers watching the shadows shift along the wall of their own accord, a promise of Darkrai's power. How powerless he'd been in comparison, with Lugia close but unable to intervene.

"But I am trying very hard to prove to him that we don't need to return to Kanto's brutality to run our branch effectively. We don't need to beat our soldiers into blind submission before they've done anything wrong. We can look out for one another, protect one another."

Had Gavin stood up in the middle of a meeting with Beckett and tried to leave, Beckett would've slammed him up against the wall and forced his submission.

The knowledge sits heavily in the pit of his stomach.

'I'm not a murderer, Gavin.'

For a moment, Gavin looks older than his thirty-three years.

Age settles heavily in tired eyes. "Neither was I."

Slowly, he pushes up the sleeves of his shirt. The scars that mark his skin are rough, jagged, suggesting a long healing process and lack of proper medical attention. He'd patched most of them up himself, with shaking hands in a dingy Saffron apartment.

"My first day in Rocket, they ordered me to kill a man. Him or me. I couldn't tell you how many people I've killed since, because I've lost count. I didn't ask you to do the same, because I don't want Rocket to be what it was to me, at first."

It had been a prison cell, a life sentence.

"I'll tell you what I told you before our mission: I can't guarantee there'll never be blood on your hands. But I can guarantee I'll never ask you to kill anyone who stands aside. I'll never ask you to kill at all, if I can help it. I could've kidnapped you and tortured the information I wanted out of you. They've taught me how." He turns the palm of his left hand up, reveals a scar that splits his palm. When he closes his hand, there is a stiffness to the movement. "But I didn't, because I want Rocket to be different. I've found my home, here. My family — because our dad was a piece of shit, Rowan, and you didn't miss out. These ones were his." He runs his fingers over his left forearm, old scars covered in tattoo ink. "Rocket's not good. I'm not good; I am a murderer. But I'm going to make it better than it was, for as long as Walsh lets me."

He feels empathy, for Rowan — for someone who'd been like him, and stepped into a world he wasn't prepared to face.

"Your place is here, now, I'm afraid."

Gavin frowns at the even, methodical scars. It's a moment before it clicks.

His gaze shifts from the scars to Rowan Wrynn's eyes of familiar amber.

"Kanto was horrible. Blackwell was horrible."

Rocket had been horrible; under their influence, Gavin had done many horrible things.

"They've trained me well, but I've never forgotten that."

Gavin's gaze softens similarly as Rowan looks him in the eye. To be believed in — it wasn't the first time he'd heard the words, but it meant no less than all the others. They kept him tethered to the last scraps of humanity he hoped not to lose.

"I was weak, once. How old are you, like twenty? That's how old I was when they got a hold of me. They've helped me get stronger, and I can help you. Stay loyal to me, Rowan, and I'll do everything in my power to make sure you survive."

He thinks of THEO BECKETT.
Stay with me and you'll be safe.

In Rowan Wrynn, Gavin sees himself.

Though now his hands were marked with scars, once they had been smooth, untouched by hard work or the hard lessons Rocket had since taught. He hopes Rowan will find strength without the scars to mark his path.

"They will be," he vows. "We'll make them fear you."

He shakes his head.

"No guarantee, but avatarship is not the only way to command strength. Have you met our Beasts? None of them are avatars, but I wouldn't want to meet one on a bad day."