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A scream pierces the night, and Gavin bolts upright in bed with damp palms and a racing heart.[break][break]

Hand clamped over a heaving chest, it takes a moment for him to gather himself and register where he was. Had he been dreaming? His thoughts are a swirl of incoherent imagery, but not the normal product of his nightmares. There is no haunting visage of frosted glass burned into his mind's eye, and the pounding of his heart had begun to slow the moment he'd found himself awake.[break][break]

Pushing disheveled hair back from his brow, he finds it is not damp with sweat.[break][break]

Emma.[break][break]

It clicks as the fog of sleep dissipates: it had been a woman's scream.[break][break]

The Lycanroc at the foot of his bed perks up, ears twitching at some disturbance, then whines low in its throat. It's looking toward the door, and Gavin gets out of bed with socked feet padding softly on the floor.[break][break]

Her door is open, and he finds her twisting uncomfortably in her sleep. Teeth worry at the inside of his lip before he makes the decision to wake her — whatever she's dreaming about, it can't be pleasant.[break][break]

If she is like him, she sleeps light and ever-cautious of threat. It will not take much to rouse her. He clears his throat.[break][break]

"Emma?"

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Her name creeps into her subconscious, a familiar voice reaching out to her amidst the pain and the fear. And she reaches for it because it spells her survival.[break][break]

Emma gasps, chest heaving as she sits up in her bed. Her hair is damp, slick to her skin as she gathers her surroundings, works through her fight or flight. The womans eyes adjust to the darkness and stills on the man hovering by the doorway.[break][break]

Silence engulfs the pair as she forces her fingers to let go of the sheets that she had scooped into terrified piles in her fists. Her heart hammers violently and she lifts a hand to her chest, patting it quietly as if to make surprise shes still here.[break][break]

"I'm fine. I'm sorry I woke you."[break][break]

Fear makes her voice sound weak, her eyes scan the room as if searching for something, whatever still haunts her.

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Fear is a weakness, and weakness gets you killed.[break][break]

Gavin knows what it is to wake in the night with wide eyes and a racing heart. He also understands the need to downplay that crippling fear: he had made the mistake, once, of seeking comfort from his parents. Never again.[break][break]

She tells him she's fine. He doesn't believe her.[break][break]

"I'm a light sleeper. I'd just as easily have woken if you sneezed."[break][break]

His gaze shifts downward as his Lycanroc pushes its muzzle against his palm in silent greeting, rock scraping uncomfortably against skin. He scratches it behind the ears. Accustomed to living alone, he rarely slept without his canine companion nearby.[break][break]

A yawn cracks his jaw, and Gavin smooths down out of place hairs. His amber eyes find her again in the dark, note the way she seeks out an invisible threat. He wonders at her demons, what takes the place of ice-and-metal in her nightmares.[break][break]

"Think you'll go back to bed?"[break][break]

He knows he couldn't, were the roles reversed.

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He comes up with an excuse, downplays his own lack of sleep - but she knew it wasn't true. She had never seen him stir, never heard his sleep go interrupted in the night whenever she made the smallest noise.[break][break]

But she doesn't have the strength to challenge him as she brings her hands to her face. Sleep evades her now, her nerves shot wide awake. She slides to the edge of the bed, legs dangling, toes brushing the cold floor.[break][break]

She gathers her breath as he asks her if she's going back to sleep and it pains her because this scenario feels so familiar, but so wrong all at once.[break][break]

'Let's take a walk in the moonlight. We'll wash away the rest of those nightmares.'[break][break]

Freya's voice echoes in the back of her mind, gripping her chest with a painful, mournful squeeze. It practically sucks the air from her lungs, to hear her voice so vividly in her mind. Her eyes stop searching the room for terrors and look for comfort, for her - and she settles on Gavin - and some degree of relief pulls her out of her fear.[break][break]

"No.. no, I don't think I will."[break][break]

The woman sighs as she pushes off the bed, feet pressing against the hardwood as she turns to face him. But her attention seems elsewhere, her expression lost, mixed with grief. She exhales softly as she reaches for a robe, something Gavin had likely given her.[break][break]

'You're here now. You're here now and you're safe.'[break][break]

Emma brushes past Gavin as Freya's words replay in her head, as if reminding her of something she had struggled to come to terms with. She hesitates, swallowing her pride.[break][break]

"Will you... walk with me? I need some air."

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There is a grief in her silence, and Gavin's curiosity deepens. He senses loss in the gaze that falls upon him, but lacks the pieces required to finish the puzzle. He knows only that there is a sadness, an emptiness, and that a part of him wishes to help.[break][break]

She brushes past him, her presence heavy in the dark.[break][break]

Her question is unexpected — but there is no hesitation in his answer. "Of course."[break][break]

Moonlight casts shadow in the cramped space of the hall, catches on Gavin's bare chest and the scars that mark it. Hoenn is warm, especially Fallarbor with its proximity to Mount Chimney, but he does not wish to wander the dusty streets in only his pajama bottoms.[break][break]

"Just let me grab a shirt."[break][break]

He meets her by the front door as he's still buttoning it, the motions deft and quick even in his sleep-drunk state. He squints at his reflection in the hallway mirror, frowns as he tucks in a few more strands of blond. The door opens to a warm, cloudless night, the sky a glittering expanse of stars. Circhester's skies had never been as clear as this, the smog of a big city obscuring natural beauty. Occasionally, the ash from the mountain would result in a reddish haze, but it appeared the winds blew another direction tonight.[break][break]

He allows Emma to guide their steps, and doesn't shoo his Lycanroc back inside when it follows them out. No doubt she'd like to stretch her legs, too.

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It scares her, the relief she feels when he breathes the words 'of course.' That he had, without hesitation, agreed to stay awake with her. It pulled to the surface a feeling she had convinced herself would never return. Try as she might to choke the fire warming her heart, it continued to burn and burn and burn.[break][break]

Emma lingers in the hallway, restless, perhaps impatient, as Gavin leaves to retrieve a shirt. Beneath her robe is a thin nightgown, simple, because she likely would have opted for nothing at all. But she did not live alone and this was not really her home - as much as it felt as such. Despite her own lack of shame, she felt odd without the robe to conceal herself in some way.[break][break]

Her pacing footsteps draw her to the front door, eyes searching, fingers, tugging and pinching at the fabric of her coverup. Gavin appears behind her and she nearly startles, eyes catching on his fingers fumbling the buttons of his shirt.[break][break]

The woman abandons shoes in favor of bare feet in the grass, against the dirt. It helps ground her, draw her back to reality. She finds peace in the natural texture of the ground. [break][break]

And yet she walks in silence, gaze distant, distracted.

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Emma elects to walk barefoot; it's a decision Gavin notes, curious.[break][break]

She seems distracted as they walk. It's silent but for the rare cries of nocturnal Pokemon and the soft rustle of a breeze through the grass. Fallarbor was remote, peaceful, a far cry from the city he'd grown up in.[break][break]

"Do you get bad dreams often?"[break][break]

His voice breaks the silence softly, just loud enough for her to hear. They are entirely alone save for a Zubat that wings overhead, but he has always been a quiet man.

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For a long time, Emma walks in cold silence. She focuses on the grass beneath her feet and the blades tickling her toes and ankles. She pulls the robe closer around her, but she isn't cold. The sounds of the night are soothing, grounding, and she listens closely as they walk.[break][break]

It's Gavin who breaks the silence first and the woman doesn't stop walking nor does she glance over at him. Instead, she just takes a deep breath before replying, her voice sounding distracted.[break][break]

"Yes."[break][break]

She swallows at how easily it had been for her to admit that, to admit that she was often plagued with night terrors. Her fingers clench the fabric of her cover-up.

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She doesn't stop, but he hadn't expected her to. His easy stride keeps pace with her, gaze tracing the moonlight that catches on her cheeks and in her hair as she answers him with eyes straight ahead. There is something deeper, a trouble whose origins he cannot place. It is more than nightmares, for certain.[break][break]

He says, "I do, too."[break][break]

Though he cannot bring himself to elaborate, this simple admission is difficult on its own. Nightmares, he had been taught, were the products of children and those of weak minds. Those lessons had not stopped him from waking with sweat-soaked sheets and a racing heart. It had only fostered a deep self-loathing, a cold reminder each time he opened his eyes.[break][break]

His Lycanroc pants in the warm Hoenn night, her breathing added to the midnight orchestra.

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Gavin brings her a great deal of comfort, listening to his familiar footfalls behind her, his quiet breathing. He has quickly become a staple partner of hers, someone she has unexpectedly and suddenly come to seek out and appreciate. It surprises her, more often than not, how floored she is when he isn't there when she goes looking.[break][break]

But when she turns to find him keeping pace just behind her, it buds warmth in her chest that she finds herself swallowing and looking away from.[break][break]

She sighs when he responds, but she's comforted by his admittance. The fact that she wasn't alone with her thoughts was sobering.[break][break]

A gust of wind pulls hair from behind her ear and she catches it, twisting it and replacing it. The warm wind brings the smell of damp leaves and grass. It's soothing. Even the soft panting of his Lycanroc is comforting.[break][break]

"It's a punishment for all the horrors we've seen, a reminder of all of the wrong we've done and had done to us."

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A punishment?[break][break]

It certainly felt as such, sometimes, when he woke from dreams of ice and glass to a Pokemon that should not exist. He swallows a lump in his throat, pushes the thought aside. His collarbone burns with the ghost of pain.[break][break]

"Sometimes, dreams are just dreams."
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He had done no wrong as the innocent child waking to fears of monsters and boogeymen, after all.[break][break]

Now, the monsters he feared in his sleep could plague his reality as well. Had he gone too far in pursuit of progress, in his efforts to understand? He wonders what Emma might think of the evils he'd committed, whether she'd feel as comfortable in his home if she understood the true purpose of the containment chamber below. He wonders, but dares not ask.[break][break]

"To live with our choices is punishment enough, I feel."

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Gavin hesitates and Emma pauses in her path to actually look at him. They've reached an outlook, it seems, like the edge of the world. From here the stars seem to shine even brighter, but Emma isn't looking at them. She's looking at him.[break][break]

"Are they? Then why do they feel so real?"[break][break]

It's a genuine question and there's a haunted look in her eyes. She's reliving the event even now, watching all of those familiar faces in the crowd die horrific deaths.[break][break]

She swallows, focusing on her breathing and prying herself out of the dark. [break][break]

There's a faraway look in his eye, she can see it. Like her, he's thinking about those nightmares that plague them. [break][break]

"Perhaps you're right."

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Emma turns to meet his gaze, and the haunted look in her eyes is one he's seen in the mirror too many times. He recalls something Cadis had asked him: Are we the heroes, or the villains? The confidence he'd responded with then was harder to summon in the wake of his nightmares.[break][break]

"I don't know," he says honestly, shaking his head. "But they fade, with time."[break][break]

It had not always been ice-and-metal that plagued his unconscious mind. Once, it had been the darkness of the ocean, the turbulent waves. He would wake gasping for the air he was deprived of in his dream. Soon, it might be something else.[break][break]

Nature spreads out beneath them like a living sea, and Gavin sits down in the grass and silently invites Emma to take the space next to him.

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