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Gavin crosses the room with a grace that's offset by the ginger way in which he moves. He doesn't take a seat at the bar, instead opting to lean against it and study the various expensive bottles on display.

"Scotch, if you have it. Whatever you're having, if you don't."

He'd serve himself if not for the stiffness in bloodied hands; the last thing Mars needs is shattered glass and spilled liquor all over his floor. He gestures with one of his hands as if in silent explanation or apology.

He knows the identity of the elephant between them, but does not yet acknowledge its suffocating presence.

His conversation with Tempest Quinn had not gone in the way he'd expected. Might this one surprise him also?

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"I'm a masochist, Martín." He means for it to be a joke, yet it comes out weighted and tired. More seriously, he admits, "It helps ground me."

He'd been forced to live with the pain in Kanto, was punished harder if he resorted to healing his wounds. In time, he'd learned to find solace in that pain.

It helped remind him that he was alive.

Carefully, Gavin unwinds the wraps from his left hand and flexes bruised and bloody knuckles. His jaw clenches with the agony of it, but after working the stiffness from his fingers some he feels safe enough to grip the glass and drink.

"Something like that." He studies his battered hands. "It's more like... reminding myself of who I am."

Of where he'd come from. Of where he'd soon return.

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Might've overdone it. Gavin unwinds the wrap from his other hand and marvels the colours upon the canvas of his knuckles. He had healed only what had been broken, had left split skin to bleed and clot. He pockets the wrap, hissing a breath through clenched teeth as he works his fingers and feels skin tighten around the wounds.

Alcohol distracts, a soothing burn in his throat.

He grunts softly in sour agreement to Mars' words, but it's a long moment before he can find words of his own. He had struggled enough to be open with his husband — remnants of yesterday are present in a bite mark high on his neck, deep and visible and claiming.

"It was inevitable."

They've been building toward it for years now, haven't they? Sootopolis was only the beginning. Sootopolis. He draws comfort in the thought of his city, their city, in the knowledge that it was not a smoking ruin but a bustling metropolis.

"We can't have peace without war."

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Mars' deductions are correct: Gavin had bent to Walsh's will and authority, for Rocket have already broken him. It is disturbingly simple to submit again to a process that had once taken years to perfect.

But if I must repeat myself, then I shall.

Innocuous words. Walsh hadn't even seemed angry when he'd spoken them, yet to Gavin it was as effective as if he'd cracked a whip.

It reminds him, shamefully, of his father. Know your place, Cillian. Are you in need of reminding? He knows his place. They needn't remind him. Not again, please, not again.

"Will you be all right?"

There are no false pretenses, no insistence that they'll take on Walsh together, nothing but resignation to the inevitable. He's been a soldier before. He can do it again. All that matters is that Tempest Quinn is with him.

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The look that Gavin gives Martín is tight-lipped and bleak.

"We expressed similar doubts, is all."

Gavin had folded easily on account of conditioning in Kanto, but Mars had found a different experience in Rocket until now. He knew how resistant one could be to change; after all, it had taken a long time for him to shake Kanto's chains.

"I want to trust him." Walsh had helped Lugia, after all. Had kept Gavin on as underboss after Cadis had gotten sick, had listened to him about Sootopolis, had shared with him a secret. "Rocket is my family. Where they go, I'll follow."

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His smile is warm, genuine, but tinged with sadness.

The things he'd do for the ones he loved. The things he had done. Once, he'd stayed in Rocket to protect himself. Now it's others he thinks of when treachery dances in the back of his thoughts. His husband, his siblings, his friends. Even those who looked up to him as a mentor. He couldn't — wouldn't — let them down.

Even if it meant a return to Kanto.

"Whatever it takes to survive." It had been his mantra in that region of ruin, shared now in a moment of solidarity. "Our family will survive this. We'll make sure of it."

It was not their place to know the whims of declan walsh. It was theirs to follow, and follow Gavin would — to the end of the world and beyond it.

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