this was a mistake, is her first thought. her second thought is, he looks good. and not in a weird way. in the way that she finds it in herself to stare right at him and even though he looks scared shitless, his face looks whole. unblemished. handsome in a masculine way.

she holds up her hands, palms out, presses her back against the wall and tries to make herself look as unthreatening as possible. but she slides her foot in front of the door too. just to get the point across.

"i ain't on duty," she says. "just gimme - just... i'm here 'cause of Naomi Sato."

GIDEON GRAVES

☉

he stands 0 chance. maybe less than 0, but she doesn't understand numbers most of the time, nevermind negatives. except when she looks at some sorry fuck who's several grand deep in the hole, but there's no math about that shit. it's just sad. 

but he grabs a pen and then he pauses and she looks down at his weakass hand holding that pen, raises a brow up at him. 

"you gonna write me a detention slip with that?" she quips. she tucks her thumb into her hood and relaxes just a smidge. she doesn't stand, but she opens her legs, keeps her foot wedged where it's gotta go, and props her elbows on her knees. 

"'cause she cares 'bout you an' respects ya and you oughta know she's tryin' her damn best to save all our asses. and i dunno, shit's rough and everythin' sucks so fuck it? 'n also sorry 'bout the face, but y'healed a lot better 'an how i thought ya would."

GIDEON GRAVES

☉

"she didn't send me," she says, exasperated. his frustrated look has turned into some sort of controlled constipation. she shifts her weight from side to side, elbows creaking.

she barks out a laugh. a rocket like her. gods, he doesn't get it, does he? and how could he? no one does. not when they're out here in the sunshine, sniffing the godsdamned roses. they don't get the impossible choices, the life or death snap decisions, the orders to beat some stupid passersby bloody.

"i'm shit 'n rocket's shit so that sneer ya got ain't unfounded, but nomes? she's better 'an the rest of us. all of us. and she's got 'er reasons for bein' where she is, and sure she's done some questionable shit, but we've careened straight past 'oh fuck' to 'we're fucked,' gids, and she's tryna pull us back out."

she snubs her nose, offers a wan smile. "so, y'gonna put your 'weapon' down?"

GIDEON GRAVES

☉

he seems so...tired. and a pang of worry, like one might have for a dear old friend, knots in her stomach, but then her head hurts and she metaphorically slaps away the memories. imstead, she replaces it with annoyance - the hell could he be so fuckin' stressed about? dino bones?

okay, sure, maybe the fact that they could all become bones in the ground for some crazy alien species to discover one day. but still.

he puts the pen down, at least, and when he asks about nomi, parker finally softens. she runs a hand through her hair and sighs.

"swear she wouldn't sleep if i didn't make 'er. and we gotta sleep with her creepy hot dog eyes open on us in case that holo bitch tries to assassinate 'er again. but she's fuckin' managing. somehow. she's tryna do a whole lot of good, just, from the wrong side."

she rubs her face. "but hey, gotta play the cards you're dealt an' all that, yeah? and i'm sorry, for the deep sea."

GIDEON GRAVES

☉

poor gideon. sometimes parker forgets that civvies are so different. sure, hoenn's been through shit, but she's been in the fuckin' breakroom when other folks have talked about choking the life out of people. funny, she thinks, that there might've been a world in which she did bat an eye when someone casually mentions assassination.

parker stares at him when he stares at her. she frowns. he looks constipated again...

"parker," she says, even though that's like a big fucking no-no and everyone knows who nomi is now, but maybe she could have kept herself secret. maybe gideon won't talk though.

but honestly, she's past caring.

"and er, don't think 'bout it too hard. i see those wheels turnin' and i'm not being an ass when i say you're gonna hurt yourself." she winces as something presses and her hand goes to her side, slowly.

she unclips a pokeball and rolls it on his desk.

"it kinda feels like nostalgia, right? but nostalgia for a thing that don't exist. that you've never had." she scratches the back of her head. 

GIDEON GRAVES

☉

gideon doesn't listen. well, he doesn't not listen, but he shuts out the wrong thing. shuts her out and goes to peek behind the curtain, which is more than parker's ever done. she watches the pokeball roll on his desk. 

it has the vivillon she caught all those months ago. the vivillon she caught and thought, wouldn't he like this? without knowing who he was, and thinking, that's fuckin' weird, but at the same time holding onto it, knowing that at the right moment, at the right time, it'd make itself clear. 

and then she read up on him, this museum director who has a fascination with creepy crawlies on the side. and she'd known, just like that.

she doesn't need to look back there. she just needs to trust her instincts. trust her gut.

she stands and she shuffles closer, heart in her chest. her teeth sink into her lower lip. pages flit by, scenes come to life that feel nostalgic and heavy with grief. half of her is telling her to walk away, to close her eyes, to turn the other cheek. 

the other half already knows what's waiting with that final turn of the page. 

"yeah," she says softly, "i think we 'ad a strawberry weddin' cake."

her fingers twitch. a hand comes up, as though to rest on his shoulder, but then she thinks better of it. those people in his pictures - they're figments. part of a dream. and dreams are made to be shattered, best left forgotten.

"i dunno that we'll get our happy ending 'n all this go around. but i thought, 'ey, why not make the in between better in the meantime?" she looks away, shrugs off. "i dunno that she'd put ya in danger talkin' to ya directly, but...y'ever need anythin', lemme know, 'kay?" she lingers.

"anythin' you want me to tell 'er?"

GIDEON GRAVES

☉