There's humour in Tempest Quinn's words, a gentle teasing, but Gavin's expression shifts sad.

He'd gotten too used to it, he thinks, with her.

Had taken it for granted.

He blinks and the sadness is softened by affection as he leans forward to brush his nose against Temp's and press their foreheads together as if in silent apology.

He can get used to it again.

"Look bad?" Gavin sounds confused.

Temp offers an explanation that doesn't satisfy.

"Temp. You sucked my dick in the bloody gym." A sharp, incredulous laugh. "I think the entire sub's aware by now that we've fucked."

A pause, then,

"Unless — you don't think I'd be ashamed, do you?"

Temp has a salacious reputation within Rocket but Gavin's never given it a second thought.

"Well, I'm not...."

This was hard to explain. Gavin was Gavin. Even if his heart was hurting now, he could still have anyone he wanted.

Or maybe it was the angry little hard rock that nestled in Temp's chest making itself known. That twinge of insecurity of who he really was verses what he wanted other people to see.

"I'm the kind of guy people come to when they don't want anything deeper, you know?"

People typically didn't want Temp to keep. They wanted him to use. He would use them back, then they would part ways. Exclusivity wasn't worried about because no one wanted him in that way.

It was less that he had sucked Cillian Quinn's dick in the gym. It was more that he had been willing to do that in the first place.

"I guess I worry you would. Or you'd realize I'm not really good enough for you."

But he wanted so badly.

"Come off it!" he exclaims when Tempest Quinn voices concerns of inadequacy. Then, softer, "Who says you're not good enough for me, mm? Think that'd be for me to judge."

He reaches up to cup Temp's face in his hands.

"Nothing wrong with a bit of casual fun. Had a lot of it at university."

It was back when he'd been trying to figure out so desperately why he lacked those feelings of love so coveted by others, why there were never any butterflies in his stomach or warm surges of affection for those that shared his bed. The sex had been fun but there'd never been anything deeper because he'd never let anyone get close enough to feel anything for them.

He feels for Temp, now, heart wrenching in his chest and stomach fluttering.

"Doesn't mean you don't deserve more than that — if you want it."

His amber eyes are searching, pleading. Do you?

"I want that," he affirms, hands slipping down to rest against the crook of the other's neck. "With you."

When Cillian Quinn exclaims, Temp can't help but flinch a bit.

But he made it sound so easy, didn't he?

A sudden laugh erupts, he leans into the touch, nuzzles his head further into Gavin's hand.

"Why wouldn't I want that?"

His insecurities settled, for now, Temp does what he always does. Dives in headfirst, thinking of what might come of it later.

Trying to pull Gavin closer, so impossibly closer, it was his turn to bump foreheads. Only he keeps the pose, looks up at Gavin from under his lashes in this position, that wide and stupid grin nestled on his face.

"Okay, you've got me. I'll be your boyfriend, Cillie."

"Guess I worry the same about — not being enough."

Because he hadn't been good for Emma in the ways that she'd wanted him to be. Hadn't been enough to keep Theo around, even though the man himself had claimed reciprocation of his feelings.

Insecurity was not something Gavin often felt but the heaviness of heartbreak leans against these weaker parts of him.

"Cillie?"

It makes him chuckle for how silly it sounds, as ridiculous as he'd once found Gavvie to be. Yet it also sparks a spreading warmth, for such a term of endearment belonged to Tempest Quinn alone.

"I'll allow it," he decides, cheeky. "And for the record, I don't give a damn who you tell about us."

With their foreheads pressed close, it's all too tempting to kiss him again. He gives into that temptation, tastes the sweetness of apple and ginger on his lips.

"You still want me to call you Temp?"

There is a giddy feeling in his chest just now sinking in.

Boyfriend.

Cillian Quinn is his boyfriend now.

Not what he expected when he came over to Gavin's house for a suck-n-fuck to try and get him to rest, but, like, he's not going to complain about it.

Temp returns the kiss. With great reluctance he tries to disengage their tangle of limbs. They were still standing naked in the kitchen. Poor Clover was probably having a great time watching to soap opera play out, at least.

"You can call me whatever you want." It's a good thing he had the okay to call him 'Cillie', since he probably wouldn't have stopped. Much like how he hadn't stopped calling him 'Gavvie'.

"You know I'm not that attached to my birth name, though." 'Norman' had belonged to a grandfather he had never met, never even seen a picture of. 'Temp' was a nickname given with nasty intent, sure, but it seemed to fit better than Norman ever had.

"Still Gavin at work, though," he adds; he doesn't think Temp would make the mistake, but, "Not many people know. Just Walsh, Emma, and Theo."

He doesn't mention Lulu Flint and Rowan Wrynn. Not because he doesn't trust Tempest Quinn but because it doesn't feel like the right time.

One perception-altering conversation at a time.

Of Temp's name, he says, "Why don't you like it? I never asked."

Temp had simply told Gavin his preference and, after pointing out that it was meant to be an insult, Gavin had accepted Temp as the other's name without further fuss. It had been a bit jarring to meet Tulio and be reminded that his — boyfriend, now, had another name.

"I'll call you whatever you want."

It's the way Cillian sparks something sweet and vulnerable in his chest, an ache for an identity left behind.

"Still Gavvie at work." Temp repeats back.

It was probably for the best not to spill the whole of the family secrets for a bit. Temp still liked Lulu Flint and hadn't really met Rowan Wrynn at this point. However, when he found out, it would be fucking over for them. Not in a bad way, just in the way that Temp would be insufferable.

"Uh, well..." It was weird to explain, really. It felt dumb to even explain. Temp rubbed the back of his neck as he thought of how to put the words together. "My mom named me after her dad, but I guess he wasn't, uh... good to her? But still loved him? I never really understood it. It just feels like someone else's name." It feels almost lame on his tongue. There was more, like how his name had never fit in around Pacifidlog, just like how his slightly lighter skin had made him feel other in the town.

Gavin listens quietly to the explanation, head canted.

"I get it, I think."

He'd never be able to understand the barrier of culture that Tempest Quinn had endured growing up, but he understood in other ways.

"Took a long time to feel comfortable being called Gavin. Still feels weird, sometimes." Because he'd always know, in the back of his mind, that he was Cillian Quinn. "But that's just an alias. My middle name, though — it's Patrick, after my granddad."

Pádraig had been the old man's name, old Galarian that his parents had opted to modernize.

"He was—" Gavin frowns, brow furrowed. "Not good to me."

It had taken a long time to come to terms with how his family's treatment of him hadn't been right, just because it had seemed normal growing up. Emma had helped him see a lot of it.

"Felt more like an expectation than a name."

"i guess for us it was kind of opposite, just still really close. You were happy as Cillian and Gavin just feels like a shirt that's too tight, right? For me, Norman always felt wrong, and I didn't feel right until people started calling me something else." And that the 'something else' was a nickname that was intended to be an insult? It was unclear if it was sad or not that's what it took to make him feel more normal.

He drops his head on Cillian Quinn's shoulder.

"We should go to Galar and beat up your family." There was still things Temp didn't know about Gavin, at least not in detail, but he wasn't blind. In the years they had known each other, he had picked up on a few things. Even the tension when Gavin had met Tulio. He could put two and two together.

If anything, though, it just made Temp cement himself in these feelings harder. Moore himself in deep, a barb in a wound. If no one else would, he would give Gavin all the sweet feelings that he had missed out on. Make up for all the hurt he'd felt up until now the best he could.

".... I'm kind of cold."

They were still naked in Gavin's antarctic kitchen, after all.

"Not happy, I don't think."

He'd always been pushing himself, harder and harder, because even greatness wasn't good enough for them. His family, the unachievable praise he sought.

"But I didn't like that they took my name from me, too."

He'd been too smart to join Rocket under anything but an alias, which meant that his parents, in disowning him, had effectively stripped him of his identity as well as a place of belonging, a support system, a sister.

His lip quirks at the mention of beating up his family.

I'd like to show him Galar, someday.

"I think 'Temp' bugs me because of what it's supposed to mean." Incoming cheese in three, two... "Temporary, like you're not good enough to be anything else. I don't like that people treat you like you're disposable."

Because you've been anything but, for me.

"But if you like it... I'm just gonna imagine it stands for something else. Like... I dunno, Tempest." He laughs, smiles in spite of the silliness. A kiss is laid against Temp's nose. "My summer storm."

He kisses him again, soft, then detaches.

"You want to borrow some clothes, or do you want me to turn up the thermostat?"

"Tempest?" Repeated, tasting the new 'Temp', with a small bubble of a laugh. A hell of a lot had happened here and somehow this feels like the perfect way to end it, to really cement themselves together as a couple and not just to jackasses dancing around one another. A new name and an old name, built on trust. Sealed with a kiss.

"That sounds like something you'd name a sword." But it's his now, and it can't be taken away, something more than what he had before. "I love it." He doesn't want to part from Cillian Quinn but it's needed if he wants to warm up.

"Give me your clothes." An instant answer. Usually, the thermostat would be the way to go. But having a chance to lounge around not in his own clothes? There was a deep power in wearing your boyfriend's clothes, one that Temp planned to use to his advantage as much as possible.