"Mine."

As Theo had never been, as Emma could have been.

But he doesn't think of them, now. He thinks only of Temp — of the spreading warmth between them, of the flush to his cheeks, of family.

A light laugh, nervous under the release of pressure.

Mine.

"Oh, he, ah, already knows," Gavin admits, and it's his turn to blush. "Might've told him when I was asking about the recipe."

He tilts his head at the question, eyes bright and curious.

"Of course, anything." Another laugh, then, half-joking, "How soon can they set it up?"

A small sigh. Temp just seems more amused than any type of real frustration.

"Of course he does... I was wondering why Granny Tuetue was looking at me like that earlier." Tulio had probably already told the whole of Pacifidlog. Plus any passing visitors.... maybe some poachers.... anyone with ears.

"We could do it as early as tomorrow, but... I've... always wanted to do it on a full moon." Fingers squeeze lightly before Temp looks almost shyly over at Cillian Quinn. "I don't think I've ever told you about our, uh... well, it's pretty much a marriage ceremony."

"I didn't know he'd tell the whole town," Gavin insists in his defense, but a light tone and a tug at the corner of his mouth suggests that he's not upset about Tulio's gossiping. It's sweet, if anything.

It meant, to Gavin, that Tulio had faith in the outcome.

"We can do it whenever you want," Gavin insists again. "Is there some kind of ah, cultural significance to the moon?" He remembers the children telling him something about diving for the moon. Arceus. Would he be expected to do that? Even as the thought crosses his mind, Gavin knows he'd do anything for Temp. Even brave the ocean. "Full moon, blue moon, on the moon..." He laughs at the absurdity of the latter, his smile radiant. "I don't care when or where. All I care about is you."

He'd do anything if it meant they'd be together, forever.

Tempest Quinn

"Dad can't keep secrets." At least the good ones. Temp had always known when Tulio was getting him a surprise present as a kid. The man just got too giddy and couldn't keep his mouth shut. It was a cute quirk his mother would tease him about sometimes.

"The ocean and the moon are married. The moon dips down into the waves to sleep every day so the two of them can be together. The tide rises when the moon rises because the ocean wants to be closer to her lover." One of the sweeter tales they had. "When the moon rises in the sky at night, couples will swim under it together and dive under the water. The love of the ocean for the moon and the love for the couple together links their souls forever."

He sounded almost dreamy, voice quiet as he recounted the story.

"It means a lot to us." Which was maybe putting it lightly. In his culture's eyes, Cillian Quinn would be stuck with Temp as long as they both lived. It wasn't a decision anyone took lightly.

"Swimming. Of course."

But behind his good-natured exasperation is a smile of genuine warmth.

"That sounds nice," he admits. "I'd like that."

He's never given much thought to souls, but there's no way in which he doesn't want to be linked with Temp. And if it meant so much to his lover, then it was equally important to him that they do this the right way.

"Do I still get to call you my fiancé?" He adopts a teasing tone, humour in his amber eyes. "And my husband, after?"

Tempest Quinn

"You're marrying a guy who worships the ocean! What did you expect?" It feels thrilling to say it. Marrying. They're getting married.

Temp wants to take the Luvdisc out again- to see it and touch it's scales and confirm this isn't a dream. He wants to kiss Cillian Quinn. He wants to go outside and run through the streets and yell about how much he loves the man across from him. He even wants to go outside and hug Lugia around her neck and thank her for keeping this beautiful, wonderful man safe for as long as she has.

"You would. You can. After the ceremony, we'd be husbands. But... we'd be more, too. Soulmates."

"I can admire the ocean from the shore!"

But he's smiling, can't seem to stop smiling now that the decision has been made.

"Soulmates," he repeats, warm. "You know... even in another world, when I went through that portal... we were together then, too. Even though we were different. I was different. We still found each other." It sounds silly, but he doesn't know how else to express what he's feeling. "I don't really know anything about soulmates, but that's got to be a sign of something, right?"

A year ago, if someone had told him he had a soulmate, he'd probably have rolled his eyes. Now? He can almost believe it.

"You're already my soulmate," he murmurs, lifting their twined hands to kiss Temp's fingers. "Might as well make it official, yeah?"

Tempest Quinn

It's nice, just sitting and talking. To feel so in love in this moment.

"I wish I could have met another you." Instead Temp had been 200 years removed. He'd met an ancestor, a woman who he both would never understand and understood without words. At some point Temp needs to remember to have Cillian Quinn check over the strange egg that was entrusted to him at the shrine.

But later. Now was just a time for them.

"You'll officially be a Hoyeon if you do." Idly, he traced Gavin's hand. "You could get your own lineage tattoo, if you wanted." His mother had never chosen to take one after marrying his father. That was okay; not everyone needed one.

"Who did you meet?"

He hasn't asked much about the cave, the portal. Gavin had been so glad to be reunited with his lover after their spat that he hadn't cared what had happened in the interim, only that Temp had made it back alive. Now, though, curiosity finds room to blossom.

"You think they'll accept me?" Some of them already had, after the incident with the pirates, and for that Gavin found himself grateful. Other than in Rocket, he'd never felt such a sense of belonging before. Of the tattoo, he asks, "Which one's yours?"

Tempest Quinn

Who did he meet? How to put it into words.

"I think she was my great-great-... great? Grandma." Idly, he touches his arm. The tattoo that connected them between the generations, that made her spare his life.

"They already accept you." An easy answer because it was true. The elders loved him, the kids loved him, everyone had accepted Cillian Quinn in their own way. It was sweet to watch his community bend themselves to fit around his partner. Make room for him.

He taps his right arm, the coiling Milotic wrapped around it. The big, thick black lines and chunky style. "This one." Temp had had it since he became an adult; it matched the one that his own father had. His paternal grandmother before she passed away.

With a look of soft fascination, Gavin traces his fingers over the patterns of ink. He'd seen the tattoos before, of course, but it was another thing to understand the meaning behind them.

Touch has always been the language of his love, mapping scars and skin beneath the pads of his fingers. Idly, he recalls a time where such a gentle caress had provoked an unexpected reaction. He pauses, the pressure of his touch feather-light.

"This OK?"

Cillian Quinn

Maybe, in time, Cillian Quinn would understand it all. The meanings of little things to him. Why he would give spoons a quick flip before using them, why spilled salt was thrown into the water. Little pieces of himself so insignificant but so part of him he never thought to mention them.

He hums and enjoys the touches. The warmth of the moment. He might get more soup soon.

"Hm?" It takes a minute for him to follow. Then he tilts his head but nods. "Yeah? Why wouldn't it be?"

With permission, Gavin continues to trace the lines of his lover's lineage.

"Oh, it's just that you got real aggressive that one time I touched the scar on your back." He smiles with the memory; it hadn't been the bad kind of aggression. Really, Temp had the opportunity to realise right then and there that Gavin would be willing to let him do almost anything he wanted. But they'd been fresh, then, still pretending that it was nothing more than friends blowing off steam. "I never asked you why that was."

Because it shouldn't have mattered, he'd told himself, if Temp was just a quick fuck. It wasn't his business.

But he was so much more than that, to Gavin, and so now he seeks to bridge that gap in his understanding of the other.

"You don't have to tell me," he adds, quickly, but his tone implies, but I'd like it if you did?

Tempest Quinn