Are you in want of company?

Though subtle, the involuntary twitch of his lip as Gavin turns to greet the florist is almost sad. Not because of her words, per se, but because of what those words bring to mind. Tempest Quinn. They'd planned to spend the festivities together in celebration, and yet...

The brief flicker of regret vanishes behind Gavin's more stoic baseline, then melts into a genuine smile.

"Certainly, if it's yours."

Gavin chuckles as the Leafeon bounds up to meet him, gently stroking its long, leafy ears in the way that his own seemed to like.

Besides the blanket on which Gavin sits, an umbrella staked into the sand to provide some shade from the relentless sun, a collection of buckets and small shovels can be seen nearby. He gestures to them.

"Someone abandoned their stuff, and I couldn't resist the shade. This sun's a bloody nightmare."

Elisabeth Fiorelli

Thieving. He smirks at the choice of words, lips parting to crack a joke before Elisabeth makes one of her own. We really are similar, you and I. He finds himself truly grateful for the company as his previous melancholy fades.

"You ought to be wearing sunscreen; you'll get a nasty BURN if you don't. I was a right mess for my first summer."

Summers in Kanto had been warmer than those of Circhester, the city of ever-present snow, but Kanto had done nothing to prepare him for the tropical hell he now called home. He'd learned of Hoenn's harshness the hard way.

Pulling a bottle of sunscreen from the beach bag beside him, he tosses it over.

"You can borrow mine. Our skin's not too different, should do the trick."

With the sunscreen relinquished, he leans down to scratch the Leafeon along its belly. His lip twitches at the name, thinking of the Alcremie that Elisabeth would have met during her visit to his home. His Clover was obsessed with feeding his guests.

"Is the ocean there as nice as this one?" Hoenn's waters were a beautiful, tropical shade, but, "It's an ugly thing in Galar, cold and choppy as all hell. Compared to this, at least."

Elisabeth Fiorelli

"It isn't difficult to be warmer than Circhester." It was always winter there, so far as the weather was concerned. He'd been ill-equipped even for Galarian summers on account of his upbringing in the frigid city. "Where most of Galar gets rain, we got snow."

He doesn't miss much of Galar, and has long since stopped considering it home, but he does sometimes pine for the snowy slopes of the mountains that loomed over the city. He hasn't been snowboarding since college... has it really been over a decade?

"Course," he says of her request, taking the bottle of lotion and squirting a generous amount onto his palm. He smooths it over her back and shoulders with a quiet, practiced ease, and no hint of discomfort from being so close.

"I tend not to tell anyone." Gavin lets the façade drop, his natural accent bleeding through. It's not as strong as it had been in his youth, but the colourful notes of Circhester are present in his deep voice. "But you already know of my sister, and her accent's no secret. You might well have figured it out on your own."

There's another, unspoken reason he's sure she'll understand: trust.

Elisabeth Fiorelli

Perhaps it's the slim ring around his finger that offers some comfort, the tiny Luvdisc forever seeking the partner piece belonging to Tempest Quinn. He was engaged, faithful, and utterly disinterested in anything but friendship.

Might that make him safe, too?

Her laugh shakes her shoulders beneath his touch, and he smiles in spite of her inability to see it. She might hear it in his voice, instead, when he says, "Oh, I dropped the accent long before Hoenn."

It had been Kanto that necessitated a reimagination of the self.

There's something so soft and genuine to her statement that it gives Gavin pause, as well, so much that his fingers still against her skin. Her meaning registers, and he returns to his task, though he does not immediately break the silence.

He couldn't say the same; what did that say of him?

(That he has trusted and suffered one too many times to be certain of anyone?)

"Well, now you know," he decides. "You're good to go with the lotion."

He rubs his hands together to spread out any remaining residue and then flicks blond hair back from his face. Warmth that has nothing to do with the sun has settled in his chest; it's good to have friends. Even if trust came difficult.

"Do you miss it?" he wonders. "Kalos?"

Is it still home, for you?

Elisabeth Fiorelli

"A mourning," Gavin echoes, pensive. "Yes, I think so."

For it was not the parents who'd raised him nor the organization who'd conditioned him that he missed, but some specific memories that held a special place in his heart.

Snowboarding down the Circhester slopes. Chasing his sister around the manor's backyard until they were both red-faced from the cold. The dingy apartment in Saffron where his Lucario and Crobat had evolved, a testament of the bond he'd later understand too late.

(The doors of the manor closed to him. Fury in his sister's eyes as he turned her away. Cities burning, the acrid tang of smoke in the back of his throat—)

As always, what pleasant memories remained are tainted by others.

"I won't laugh." There's gravity in his tone. "Circhester I miss the same."

But not Kanto. Never Kanto.

That hangs in the air a long moment before he says, "Rocket are the reason such memories are mourned in Kanto."

He had seen the bones of its beauty in the ashes they'd spread.

Elisabeth Fiorelli

"Yes."

Gavin lets his response, the weight behind its meaning, hang in the air between them for a long moment.

He is an underboss. A leader. The blood of countless traitors is on his hands. Yet it's clear in that moment as he meets her gaze that Gavin is not leading her astray with his answer.

"Violence without purpose. That was Kanto's norm." There had been purposeful violence, too, how they'd burned their cities to lay claim over ash and ruin. But what he remembers most vividly is a dark alleyway and the choking scent of blood mixed with the aroma of flowers. A scar is visible on his thigh, and Gavin traces it idly. "Not all who joined in Kanto did so willingly."

He doesn't count himself among their unfortunate number; he'd stepped boldly into the lion's den, and only felt regret when they'd shown him their teeth.

There's a pause as he watches the Wingull snatch a hotdog bun from a startled child's hands. There's innocence in the way the kid looks startled, then sad, then bursts into laughter as the seagull flies off with its prize.

"Child soldiers. Hostages. They'd kill your family if you didn't satisfy them."

Did she wonder why he'd concealed every aspect of his old life?

"There was a time I could have left. After Blackwell." His gaze is on the ocean, but he doesn't truly see its waves. "I didn't. Rocket is my family, now, and there's little I wouldn't do to protect them."

Elisabeth Fiorelli

"You were either with Rocket, or against them."

It was the coward's decision, to join, but then here he sat while so many others had met their end in the fires. There were many choices he might've made differently. He'd been caught by the League, once, could've sworn his loyalty in exchange for—

A different kind of prison.

Elisabeth, though, she understands. The ghost of a smile greets her fledgling castle.

"Building, yes. It is my wish to see that Rocket never returns to its poisoned roots."

Quietly, he leaves the sanctuary of the beach blanket to join her amidst a small forest of buckets and budding towers, a delicate touch smoothing out sandy walls and notching small battlements. He hasn't done this since he was a small child on a cold, stony beach in Galar. Years of restoring fossils, handling tiny fragments of bone and brushing individual grains of sand from fossils have left him practiced and careful.

"Rocket has never been good; never will be. Only different." He brushes sand from his fingers and tucks blond hair behind his ear. His lip curls as he adds, "Different from the League and their false promises."

A pause, then, "I am glad you don't regret your choice."

It means that my choices have been the right ones.

Elisabeth Fiorelli