Kanto.

The source of his nightmares, and also his strengths.

"I did." His eyes close for a moment as he remembers. "I was what, twenty? Couldn't have been much older. Followed a few sketchy leads when trying to find an outlet for my research and they led me to Rocket."

It had been idealistic to hope that they'd allow him to research in peace. That he'd be allowed to be nothing but a scientist.

"What they needed was soldiers, though." They'd taken advantage of his mind where they could, under the tutelage of men like Raphael Pryde, but they'd taken a disgruntled academic and forged him into a weapon. "Yeah, it was hell. Took more than a few lessons for it to stick."

Lessons from men like Calem Pollet, who'd taken the brilliant mind of Cillian Quinn and twisted it to suit their mold. Hatterene still make his skin crawl.

He knows from Mars what the underboss has told him, and bits and pieces strung together from his Rocket file. He'd perused them when the talk of a promotion to admin had come up for a man he'd not yet known.

The question he asks is a heavy one.

"Why'd they do it?"

Why did they take your wife and child?

notes

Gavin looks at the signet ring in particular, reminded of his own family's Corviknight sigil. In spite of it all, he'd grown to love the species, but he couldn't look at them without thinking of the rookery at the manor. Was it the same, for Mars?

He can't think of what to say. Nothing could be said to console his friend on his loss that hasn't already been expressed. "We'll make them pay." So, instead, he simply reaches out to Mars and lays his scarred left palm over the hand of his fellow underboss in quiet sympathy.

One day, they will dismantle the Marzán family from the inside out.

Together.

When a question is posed of him in return, Gavin retracts his hand to turn it palm-up and reveal a smaller, less noticeable scar on the side of his index finger.

"I never knew his name."

He'll never forget his face.

"Kill him. That's all he said." Amber eyes meet matching hues. "Theo. I said no, so he gave me a choice. Him or me."

Whatever it takes to survive. His life's mantra.

"I was sloppy and scared, so I cut my hand in the struggle." He runs his thumb over the gentle ridge of the scar. "He was a traitor. They'd have killed him anyways." But it still haunts him, shadowed in his eyes.

A pause for breath, for another drink. "Yours?"

notes

He'd asked Theo for his gun, Gavin remembers. Had often thought, in later years, that it would've been so much cleaner. But that wasn't true, was it? His hands had been shaking. His aim, like that of a young Martín Marzán, would have been off.

"His brother."

It was when they'd made him take his first innocent life.

"He'd just come back from the fucking funeral." Gavin remembers the young man's red-rimmed eyes and kind smile. He remembers how easy it had been to lure him into the dark Celadon alley. So trusting. The choking sound of a crushed windpipe, the smell of smoke and summer roses. "He was a civilian. Hadn't done anything to Rocket 'cept have the misfortune to be born."

He has scars for this memory, too: a jagged mark along his brow from a cracked bathroom mirror, a clean line on his thigh in the shape of his knife's blade.

There had been morally worse crimes, after that. Mothers. Children. But the worst to him was the first innocent life taken, long before he'd built up the barriers against guilt and regret.

"I lured him into an alley and cut his throat."

Both hands grip his glass.

"Yours?"

notes

A friend.

Raziel Beckett. Katherine Fairburne. boruta maher.

How many friends has he seen become enemies?

Archon.

He'd felt nothing but disgust as the blood of a former friend pooled at his feet. A righteous anger. That's what happens when you betray our family. But what if he'd been misled?

He can only imagine.

To beat someone to death with bare hands is an intimate experience like no other. Gavin can remember his first in vivid detail. Another grunt on a mission they'd both failed, an ultimatum offered by their superiors.

They'd had to pull him off, in the end.

No question is posed to him in turn, but Gavin endures the somber silence for the sake of his friend.

notes

"Year?" It's a guess, his throat hoarse. He clears it, takes another sip of Scotch. "Maybe less. All kind of blurs after a while."

He knows why. There's a pause before he decides to share.

"They fucked with my head." He shakes it. "Like, actually fucked with it. M'lucky Pollet didn't scramble my damn brain." Calem Pollet was very good at what he did. Gavin shudders. "Somewhere during all of that, I learned to stop fighting back."

Is it a blessing that much of the psychological torture is a glassy blur? He remembers mostly what happened in the aftermath, puking his guts out and lying on cold, unforgiving bathroom tile as he shook and cried. Migraines. Feelings that were not his own. An iron resolve that had proved too resilient for fists and words alone had been shattered by an invasion of the mind.

"There's a reason I've never been fond of Psychics."

He traces his thumb over the scar on his palm, not having missed the way Mars indicated it.

"I didn't fight this one." He'd felt, at the time, that he even deserved it. "I knew it was coming, but..."

He'd closed his eyes and clenched his teeth.

His exhale is long and slow, as if reliving the memory, purple-black miasma leaking from his nose.

"Why'd they lie to you?" He clarifies, "About your friend."

notes

Control.

The mere word makes Gavin's lip curl in disgust.

His whole life, he has bent to the whims of others. First his family, then Rocket. Even now, after clawing his way up the bone pile, he cannot reach the top. Walsh commands and he obeys, a dog beneath a master still.

He understands the bitterness in Mars' voice.

In a mirror of an earlier question, his reflex is to answer no.

He laughs, the sound soft and somewhat strained.

"It's silly," he prefaces, "but, you know the way I command my Pokémon?" He's infamous for his clicks and whistles, but also for the hand signals that allow him to communicate more precise direction, or quiet direction. "Sign language. Marcel and I developed a whole system, and I taught it to others. Helps a lot on stealth ops, when you can't risk noise."

He's still thinking about Mars' friend. The thoughts circle.

"How did you find out they'd lied?"

notes

"Mine extends to people, too. If they know it."

In lieu of teaching an entirely new language all at once in the form of signs, Gavin taught only what might be needed. Stay. Follow. Hide. Retreat. Commands that could be relayed to partner and Pokémon both. Once they'd learned the basics, they could work on things more complex. He'd even taught Beckett.

"I'll show you sometime," he offers. "For fun."

Any notion of fun is put to rest by the question he asks Mars next, however, and the underboss stills into somber silence as he listens. Years. He'd thought for years that one of his friends had betrayed him.

That Mars has placed trust in Gavin means all the more, now.

Bile rises in the back of his throat at the question. Gavin washes it down with another sip of Scotch, barely tasting it. He can't remember the last time he'd been well and truly drunk; it was something he tried to avoid.

But it makes sharing easier, so after another rough clear of his throat, he answers.

"I'm sure you're familiar with SHATTERED PSYCHE." The power of the move was immense and unavoidable. No amount of willpower had been able to block out the assault on his mind. "They'd put the pieces back wrong. Leave stuff out, add false memories. I have gaps where those have faded." He looks immensely uncomfortable as he admits this, even drunk. "Mind control. Brainwashing. Conditioning."

There was physical torture, too, but the attack on his mind, the very thing he'd cherished most, was a deep violation like no other.

"But they were careful." He smiles, but there's nothing pleasant in it. "Wouldn't want to break a valuable tool."

He licks his lips. They're dry and taste of iron where he'd pierced skin.

"You ever been tortured like that?"