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Upon being offered a treat, Emma hesitates. Not often one to indulge in sweets of any kind, not since she was a child, Emma's fingers hover before ultimately taking the mint candy. It falls into her palm and she glances from it to the Alcremie, expression thoughtful. It disappears past her lips before Gavin arrives, her breath minty as she's pulled up off the couch.[break][break]

Gavin's remark goes unanswered verbally, but Emma's discreet smile is likely seen by the Pokemon herself.[break][break]

He laughs at her before helping her up, his voice ending in a cough. Concern flashes in her eyes when he isn't quite paying attention, though she struggles to mask it before he might notice. Like Alcremie, it appears she's worried about him, too.[break][break]

Emma's hand folds into his tightly, using him as a crutch as she pulls herself to her feet - though Gavin almost certainly provided more than enough help himself. Her steps are light as she puts her weight against him in order to keep it off of her leg. [break][break]

And when they reach the bathroom she allows him to remain - the thought of ushering him away despite her tease had never truly crossed her mind. She trusted him, and peeling the clothing off of her proved to be more taxing than she imagined.[break][break]

She does, of course, feel his gaze linger on the imperfections on her skin. At some point she glances back at him with an expression she can't understand herself, her golden eyes clouded with something akin to disappointment, perhaps. At some point, Emma had been pure and unscarred, at some point, she hadn't yet stepped on this path.[break][break]

But his eyes chase the bruising on her hip and she glances down at it herself for the first time. He sucks in a breath and she does too, her fingertips brushing the pattern of colour as it climbs her pale skin. It hurts.[break][break]

Eventually, Emma reaches for Gavin, looking for his steady hand to help her sink into the tub. When the warm water touches bare skin she flushes, a genuine sigh of relief escaping her lips as she leans her head back.

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Gavin does not miss the subtle hint of concern as he recovers from his coughing fit. He is used to it being viewed with disdain or even disgust — it's his own fault, after all, why doesn't he just quit? — but concern is a different beast.[break][break]

He chooses to pretend he hadn't noticed at all, does his best to ignore the self-conscious twinge in his gut.[break][break][break]


There's something in her eyes when she looks at him, his gaze lifting from the map of scars across her skin to meet her own. He struggles to properly identify the emotion behind it, settles on something negative. Did she hate her scars as he used to? Vanity was a far-flung concept to Gavin now, but his youth had been filled with bitter rumination on every collected flaw. A scar on his eyebrow parts it with a faint line upon which nothing could grow, and geometric patterns along his left arm do their best to conceal old injuries.[break][break]

He blinks at her, hopes to convey understanding in the stretching silence.[break][break]

After helping her into the bath with a sympathetic grimace as water no doubt stung the exposed injury on her hip, he glances back over his shoulder to the door. Alcremie lingered just outside, of course.[break][break]

He looks back to her. She had not explicitly told him to leave, but he assumes she does not want him staring at her as she bathed. Though there was nothing in the situation that made him uncomfortable, he understood the intimacy of it may be awkward for... well, most other people.[break][break]

"I'll be in the living room if you need anything?"[break][break]

His tone lifts at the end: a question, or perhaps a request for confirmation.

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The porcelain is smooth under her skin as she sinks to the bottom. Her cheek tilts and rests against the cold surface on the edge of the bath. Her fingers have wrapped around it tightly as if she's still holding herself stiff. The heat pulses pain in her leg and she sucks in a breath as the temperature levels off, as comfort rises. Eventually, relaxation hits and her fingers slip into the warm water with a quiet splash. [break][break]

And, even despite the nakedness, the openness of the situation, Emma feels a tinge of dismay or something akin to it when Gavin ultimately makes an effort to leave. He hesitates and so does she - because does she really want him to stay? Is that not unnatural? [break][break]

Instead of expressing the clear desire for his company she opts to be guarded, unsure of what it is she really wants. But her hand shifts and clings to the bath as she glances at him. Water trickles down the outside from her damp hands, soaking into the mat below.[break][break]

"You don't have to leave."[break][break]

In the end, however, she would remain too proud to admit she preferred he stayed, that she had missed his idle conversation even if she almost never participated in it.

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"You don't have to leave."[break][break]

There are a few beats of silence that Gavin is relieved to find comfortable as he digests her words. She does not want him to leave. Had she been truly indifferent, she wouldn't have said anything.
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The clunk of the toilet lid slamming down onto the seat is loud in the small space, and Gavin sits down.[break][break]

Silence, to him, is companionable. With the bathroom door open, the sharp scent of bleach-and-lemon has filtered out into the hallway and lingers as only the pleasant smell of clean.

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He turns around, dropping the lid of the toilet with a resounding smack and she blinks because wow, this feels awkward. The silence swallows up the space between them as she rests. From time to time she shifts her weight and brings one knee to her chest or the other, stretching tight muscles.[break][break]

But she eventually sighs in exasperation.[break][break]

"Say something, Gavin. You're making this awkward."[break][break]

She lays her head back, tilting her cheek away from him to hide the awkward blush that spreads across the bridge of her nose. It could easily be disguised or dismissed as a result of the hot water, but she still refuses to admit what uncomfortable burn resides in the pit of her stomach.[break][break]

It had been a long time since she had felt this way.

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He is quick to slip into deep thought, gaze distant as he dwells on different things in turn: Rocket, his research, Emma. He is relieved to see her alive-if-not-well and even more so to find that the discomfort that had plagued them upon her return is ebbing away.[break][break]

Her voice draws him out of this train of thought, and he blinks at her. The blank stare is quick to sharpen with clarity.[break][break]

"Was it awkward?" His laugh echoes. "Sorry, I was thinking. I'm not used to filling silences."[break][break]

It's almost funny, then, that this statement is followed by a few beats of silence. It occurs to him that he's not usually put on the spot to just speak without having anything to say. His thoughts backtrack to the last thing that had happened before the stretch of silence, the imperfections of skin. He stretches out his left arm, tilts it so that the light catches scars mostly hidden by ink.[break][break]

"I've got so many that I don't bother covering them up any more, but these were some of the first."[break][break]

The raised white lines of old scars are bordered by lines of black ink in near-perfect geometrical patterns, intricate in their design.[break][break]

There's a certain vulnerability to pointing out the flaws of his own flesh, but he finds it does not trouble him as it should.

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He gazes at her and she exhales sharply, looking away, at anything but the dazed-turned-sharp attention he brings to her. He's odd, and yet she finds herself drawn to it like a moth to flame. Doesn't mean he doesn't annoy her, though.[break][break]

Emma distracts herself by tracing old scars, lingering on fresher imperfections that still feel soft and uneven, not smooth and silver like the others.[break][break]

"You were staring, it was weird."[break][break]

'Am I difficult to look at?' The thought weighs heavily but she doesn't let it fall from her lips. Vanity had never been something she'd dwelled on, because vanity was superficial. [break][break]

Movement on his end pulls her away from her own skin to gaze upon his. She finds that she lingers on his tattoos, the fairness of his skin, the silver lines that had become stained with colour - hidden. He had hidden his scars.[break][break]

"Are you ashamed of them? The scars."[break][break]

Could he be ashamed of her own?

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Had Emma been anyone else, his answer would have been an immediate no. Gavin wished the world to believe he wasn't ashamed of anything, that he had no flaws. With Emma, he takes his time. Fingers ghost over his arm, feel every line and bump and jagged edge.[break][break]

"Once," he admits. "Not anymore."[break][break]

He twists around and lifts the hem of his shirt to show two parallel scars that curved along his ribs. Hideous things, it was clear that they'd cut deep and healed badly — he had been inexperienced and in too much pain to tend to them properly on his own.[break][break]

Perhaps he should be ashamed. Scars mapped out his weaknesses, permanent reminders burned into flesh.[break][break]

"We're humans, not machines. Everyone's gonna slip up at least once. Some people would give up, getting hurt like this." His gaze finds the blackened bruising along her hip. There is no judgement. "But we just keep fucking going, because we don't have another choice."[break][break]

Her words ring through his thoughts: You never escape Rocket.[break][break]

"So I don't feel shame, because it's just proof that I don't go down easy. Same as you."

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Her eyes, though tired as they peer half-lidded, watch as his fingers skirt slowly over damaged skin. They lift up to watch in quiet sadness as he turns the hem of his shirt up to expose the horror hiding beneath. [break][break]

Gavin speaks nothing but the truth and yet she sighs as if her response exhausts her. [break][break]

"We cannot afford to slip up."[break][break]

And yet he continues, breathing life into her worries. He gives her confidence because she, on several occasions, has slipped up. The woman swallows the bile in her throat, the regret and pain. She shifts as she tilts her head away, sighs as her eyes drift closed and she pulls the weight off of her injury, giving Gavin a better angle.[break][break]

"We do have a choice - and I choose to keep fighting. If I don't, someone else will, and I will not let someone else take my place."[break][break]

She's seen many horrors, endured so much pain. She is strong so that others don't have to be. That is the life she chooses to live.

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"I'd sooner die than stop fighting."[break][break]

His voice is soft in the quiet of the small bathroom. His hands are folded in his lap, eyes tracing disjointed scars across his knuckles. Every scar could have been the last, and yet here they were.[break][break]

When he looks up, he sees her blackened bruise it all its glory. She had given little context behind it, but Gavin was certain Emma Wolfe was too careful to receive such an injury without significant threat driving her forward. It would have been easy, he thinks, to let that threat consume her. Yet she'd struggled through the pain and the limp to make her way here, home.[break][break]

"Ah, no one could take your place." There's a lightness to his tone, an amusement. Should she look at him, she'd see the barest hint of a smile. "Never met another like you."[break][break]

Perhaps that's why Emma was the only one who'd ever seen the inside of his home, caught glimpses of who he was when he wasn't putting on a mask.

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Emma's breathing has slowed, her cheek rests against the edge of the tub. She's listening but exhaustion and the soothing warmth of the tub has coaxed her into a daze. Slowly but surely, she begins to slumber, slipping further and further away from consciousness thanks to Gavin's soft voice.[break][break]

She is not present for the kindness of his words. If she had been she might have grown quiet and awkward at how intimate he made that sound. She might have even made fun of him for it.[break][break]

Instead, however, she had begun to snore softly, the porcelain ridge of the tub pressing a red mark in her cheek. It's clear then, that she feels safe. She would never have fallen asleep so easily otherwise. [break][break]

The woman's hand slips into the tub, her chest rising and falling in slow breaths.

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When he looks over at her, Gavin finds that Emma's eyes have drifted closed. Her breathing has taken on the softness of sleep, and she had not heard the words of a quiet confession.[break][break]

A part of him is thankful; it had been a moment of vulnerability. Of weakness, he might've once felt, but there is none of that now.[break][break]

He could let her rest here, but knows it would be best for her to be dry, and that the soothing warmth would soon turn cold. Layers of blood and grime from her rough journey have seeped into the water, a breeding ground for infection.[break][break]

It's with careful hands that he pulls her from the bath, half expecting her to stir as he adjusts his grip. That she continues to snore softly is a testament to how tired she'd been, how long it must've been since she'd slept. Rather than subjecting her to the relative discomfort of the living room couch, he brings her to his own bed and tucks a blanket around her dozing form. It's about time, he thinks, that he sets her up with a place of her own to sleep. Though unspoken, the terms of their arrangement were becoming clear.
[break][break]
Flicking off the lights in the room, he makes his way to the spare room to begin assessing what could be done with it. First, it would need rearranging, and she'd need somewhere to sleep, not to mention it could use a good clean...

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