"You've got a funny way of showing it."

It's a relief when Beckett doesn't lunge for him, as Gavin had half expected.

"I will let you question my orders, but to defy them directly is not something I will tolerate. If you would question my treatment of insubordination from a teenager, how then am I meant to view your own?"

A flick of his wrist instructs Klefki to return to him, but the door remains locked.

[attr="class","beck"]"i meant..."

he exhales, slowly catching his breath. his eyes move from the floor to the porthole, lingering for moments, then to merlino.

he feels little to nothing of what he felt before. the discomfort is suppressed enough to allow the words that follow.

"i didn't want to leave."

[attr="class","noodles"]Cillian Quinn

The pain in Gavin's knuckles feels suddenly deserved.

"Fuck's sakes, Beckett."

But Gavin doesn't sound angry; he sounds exasperated, mildly distressed. There had been no warning for the first punch, thanks to the miasma, but the rest?

"Why didn't you—?" But he cuts himself off, for he knows the answer. Beckett hadn't questioned his sudden impulse to violence, because it is what they'd been taught. Gavin winces and takes another step back. "Fuck. I'm — sorry."

Lugia's pressure abates as his distress rises, but the legend does not leave.

[attr="class","beck"]this is all he's ever known. take that away, and what is he?

"i wasn't taught to feel, merlino. it was beaten out of me long before you came around."

he spits blood, never once breaking away.

"but you matter to me. i just — don't know why."

[attr="class","noodles"]Cillian Quinn

"You beat it out of me, too."

For all the weight of the words, Gavin delivers them without bitterness or accusation. Rocket had not been kind to him. Theo hadn't been kind, not at first. But Rocket had changed. Gavin had changed.

Theo's changed, too, Gavin thinks. It shows in the way he allows himself a glimpse of vulnerability, admission. It's not much, but it's enough.

"It's enough to know that I do. I don't care about why."

You matter to me, too.

[attr="class","beck"]"you do."

he says it as if acceptance would only bury it in his subconscious. it's how the others were buried, too.

he finally stands, resting against the wall to help him to his feet. he pauses, then asks:

"do i?"

[attr="class","noodles"]Cillian Quinn

It settles in his chest; not comfortable, but there.

Amber eyes trace Beckett's struggle to right himself, but he does not offer a hand. He'd learned better a long time ago.

His lip quirks at the question's return.

"Yeah," he admits. "You do."

[attr="class","beck"]good.

he exhales, reaching a hand to tend to sore ribs. with little hesitation, he forces the shift in topic, and returns them to what's more familiar.

"if you can hit me, you can hit vela."

[attr="class","noodles"]Cillian Quinn

He never expects the jarring shift in subject like he should. His lips press tight as his guard goes up.

He is calmer, this time.

"You're a grown man who's laid me out more times than I can count. Vela is a seventeen-year-old girl." He sighs and pushes sweat-damp blond hair from his eyes. "I can, and I would if I thought it would be effective. I should've done it myself."

It had felt wrong to stand by and watch. He shakes the thought.

"I don't want her to look at me the way I used to look at Blackwell."

[attr="class","beck"]"you're not blackwell."

he repeats it and he suspects he'll have to again in the future. he sighs, considering an alternative.

"she's angry like you were but she seems to have more control over it. can we use it?"

[attr="class","noodles"]Cillian Quinn

"You think Blackwell was always like that?"

It's half rhetorical; like Gavin, like Theo, Silas had once been a child. Who was the boy before the man he'd grown into? It didn't matter, now — all that mattered was the possibility for change, and Gavin's fear of it.

Gavin's lip quirks, a bitter smile for a bitter memory.

"She's young, and she's arrogant. Could be it just goes to her head." He recalls how haughty she'd been about the gym challenge. "The way she's going, she'll snap at the wrong person and get herself killed."

[attr="class","beck"]"she'll continue to snap because you enable her."

he remembers how she had looked to merlino in her last moments. whether it was out of anger or betrayal or something else entirely — theo isn't sure. but he is sure of this:

"you won't always be there to save her, merlino."

[attr="class","noodles"]Cillian Quinn

More than anything else, it's the last words that ring true.

Theo hadn't been there to save him from Hoenn. He hadn't been there when Rocket fell and Gavin had nearly fallen apart from a loss of purpose. Nor for the war, or Necrozma — because in spite of their promise, safety was not absolute.

"I know," he sighs, heavy. Then, "You're right."

He hates it, for it means acknowledging demons he'd hoped to shut away, but—

"If it's life or death, I'd sooner see her survive."