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Emma's attention lingers on him a moment longer than it probably should have, than what might be appropriate. But she slides down to the soft grass next to him - giving space because she's still her own person - and letting her fingers smooth through the blades of grass. They almost papercut her with how thin they are.[break][break]

She sighs again, heavily, like the weight of the world is being lifted off her shoulders. The woman leans her cheek against her shoulder, head tilted toward Gavin. They sit in mutual silence for a bit until he pats himself down. Her attention shifts to him with mild annoyance, especially with what he follows up his fruitless pursuit with.[break][break]

"What made you start?"

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He does not miss the annoyance in her gaze when it shifts to him. It's something he's used to, after years of the habit — disdain, disgust. Yet still it bothers him more, when it's her.[break][break]

He looks away, up at the stars.[break][break]

"Stress," he says. A pause. "Stupidity."[break][break]

His father had smoked, and his grandfather before him. His childhood was full of smoke-wreathed imagery; truthfully, his lungs were suffering long before he'd taken up the habit himself. It had seemed a natural vice to take the edge off the anxiety, the stress, but now...[break][break]

Now, it was a black mark on his self-control.[break][break]

"Started when I was eleven years old." With his knees pulled up to his chest, his eyes find the moon. It's bright tonight, almost full. He stares at it for a time before summoning the courage to look back at Emma. Perhaps he's afraid he'll find further judgement, there. "Always told myself I'd stop once there wasn't so much to worry about, but, well..."[break][break]

He laughs bitterly, threads his fingers through Lycanroc's rough fur as it flops down on his other side.[break][break]

"That'll never happen."

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She's only disgusted because addiction is a weakness. It's why she never indulged too heavily in drinking or drugs. Her own fear of losing control prevented her from relying on a substance to keep her sane. Even she had smoked cigarettes from time to time but the foul taste and the smell drove her away. In a crowd, one could easily pick out the smokers. She never wanted to be one of the ones easily picked out in a crowd.[break][break]

But then he looks away from her quickly and she can sense that her disdainful look has struck a chord in him - and she's surprised. For a moment, the woman sits in silence and looks away from him, unsure how to proceed. [break][break]

"You aren't stupid."[break][break]

Emma says this softly, digging her nails into the ground and thinking hard on her response. It had come out involuntarily, without hesitation.[break][break]

She watches in the corner of her eye as he pulls his knees to his chest and how suddenly smaller and younger he appears to be. Less rough around the edges, more kind, warm. Even in the cold moonlight she can see something different in him than she probably first realized. It sits awkwardly in her heart.[break][break]

And he would catch her staring at him when he finally pulls his eyes away from the moon. Her golden eyes, so much like a hawks or a wolf's piercing stare, are somber and quiet. [break][break]

"There's always something to worry about. Humans are never truly satisfied, we fret and worry and search for something we can't see or understand. There isn't any shame by curbing the worry with comfort."[break][break]

She glances away before returning her gaze.[break][break]

"But dying of cancer shouldn't be a comfort. To survive with so many scars only for cigarette smoke to be your silent killer - that's wrong."

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Emma Wolfe, since Gavin has known her, is not warm. He catches glimpses of himself in her hard edges and thick walls. They are not people who trust easily, if at all. Yet he's coming to trust her after weeks of sharing their space, and her soft attempt to reassure him hits something buried deep. His lip twitches sadly, and he glances at her.[break][break]

She's been watching him.[break][break]

With a golden gaze that seems to emulate the moniker for which she was known, she stares, and he stares back. His throat bobs as he swallows, and the Lycanroc beside him shifts with a soft huff. Her words are more comforting than he'd come to expect.[break][break]

Her criticism seems less harsh, then.
[break][break]
"I was stupid," he corrects. "Back then. I never thought I'd make it to thirty, so who cares what I did to my body, right?" His laugh is dry, humourless. The idiocy of youth wasn't lost on him. "Now, I have every intention of making it to fifty, maybe beyond that if I want to be ambitious." The humour creeps in, then. Amber eyes glint with it, and there's a flicker of a smile before he's back to being somber. "But you're right, it's not a comfort any more. It's a fucking — pain in my ass."[break][break]

His hand comes up to the back of his neck, nails scraping skin. He looks away again, sighs.[break][break]

"Haven't tried to quit because I'm worried I can't. How's that for stupidity?"

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Emma exhales then, as their eyes meet. They feel magnetized for a moment and she struggles to look anywhere else. She eventually settles on the stars, tracing old constellations she still remembered from her youth.[break][break]

She can hear crickets chirping, strange noises bumping in the night. One might almost call it eerie, but it provides a sense of peace and calming for the woman. The rustle of the grass every time Gavin shifts, or his wolf moves, it's comforting as well.[break][break]

The man makes a comment and promptly laughs at it, but she knows he doesn't find it funny. In fact, in that very moment she feels closer to him than she had, perhaps, with anyone. She had once never imagined herself living as long as she had. For a long time, she'd almost hoped to die.[break][break]

Dying meant no longer feeling pain, grief, sorrow; emotions that still plague her today. And yet here she was, still breathing. [break][break]

Her attention remains fixated on an indistinct point in the stars, but her gaze gradually shifts to Gavin as she speaks.[break][break]

"What changed?"[break][break]

He scratches the back of his neck, a nervous tick, perhaps - she can't tell. She's never seen him do that before. He asks her a question, then, and she blinks. But her answer really has nothing to do with his self-deprecating joke.[break][break]

"Because we know that failure is not an option."

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'What changed?' she asks, and at first it is only the crickets who answer with their chirps. Yet it's clear that he's thinking as his eyes trace constellations of their own in the glittering expanse of sky. A blade of grass is twirled round his finger, snapped.[break][break]

"I did."[break][break]

He is not the man he once was. The change had happened slowly, so gradual that he had failed to notice. Too proud to take his own life, he'd sought danger in his youth like a moth drawn to flame. At what point had he gone from wishing for death to doing everything in his power to avoid it? Try as he might, he could not place it. All he knew was that he wanted to live.[break][break]

The realization is comforting and terrifying in equal measure. Amber eyes smolder as they watch her.[break][break]

"I don't fear Rocket like I used to. Not now that I've come so far."[break][break]

It finally feels as if he is in control of his fate, at least to some degree, not jumping at the shadow of the one who held the leash.
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Failure had never been an option then, and it wasn't now — but the reasons were different. It was no longer fear that motivated him, but ambition.[break][break]

"I won't let myself fail."

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Silence engulfs the pair and she, for a moment, worries that she's overstepped. No apology falls from her lips, however, and instead she lets the silence continue. She's not a remorseful person. He will answer if he wishes, and then he does.[break][break]

Emma glances at him quietly, eyes scanning him somberly. She's come to see this man as a close companion, perhaps even a friend. It used to scare her, how attached to him she had become - because attachments were weakness. But those thoughts had started to fade to the back of her mind.[break][break]

She sees a likeness in him, a piece of herself. She sees the rash kid running into danger because he prays for the end. She sees the journey he's taken, like her own, where that drive to end their torment had turned into a drive to survive at all cost. The scars they wore, the horrors they faced, it all meant something in the end. It meant they were still alive.[break][break]

He watches her and she watches him. The woman exhales softly as she flexes her toes outward. When he admits to something she had already suspected, the woman lays back, flat against the ground. The rough terrain digs into her back uncomfortably but she lays still, hands folded in her lap.[break][break]

"You should always fear Rocket. Fear is what keeps you alive and has kept you alive for so long. It doesn't matter how far you climb, there will always be someone waiting for you to fuck up."[break][break]

She closes her eyes, her expression mildly pinched and surprisingly serious. Although she doesn't reach for him physically, she reaches for him emotionally.[break][break]

"You won't fail."

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"Just Cadis, now." Gavin's voice is soft as he studies her stare. He'd never mentioned his position explicitly, and doesn't now, but Emma is no fool. Perhaps she's already guessed. "There are no secrets between us, not any more. He has leverage, but..."[break][break]

He's not sure how to put into words what it makes him feel. 'But I'm less afraid than I was before, somehow?' It sounds ridiculous in his head, yet there's no better way to describe it. He's quiet for a while, ruminating.[break][break]

"I still fear Rocket," he amends at last, for it's the truth. Emma is right — fear is a motivator. He would not be where he was now without the paranoia that had chased him to this point. "But it's different than it was. Rocket. You must feel the same, or you'd never have come back."[break][break]

You never escape Rocket.[break][break]

Those were words he'd carried with him since she'd spoken them, even before they'd grown as unexpectedly close as they had. If there was no escape, he'd decided, then the only way to go was up. He'd expected Emma to run from them forever, yet here she was.[break][break]

They can, at least, agree on one thing. Gavin nods, solemn. "I won't."

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She knows how important he has become to Rocket, how high he's climbed. He reeks of ambition, perseverance. He'd worked hard to be recognized and now he was. Part of her is proud of him, in some way. The other part harbors an unsettling feeling, something she can't quite put her finger on. The first time they'd spoken, really spoken, she had warned him that Rocket was dangerous, that there was no escaping it. Once you were in, you were in for good.[break][break]

It seemed as if he had taken those words to heart. But then again, so had she. Cadis had promised things she couldn't pass on, ideals and dreams that she had hoped to accomplish herself. While she didn't trust the man one hundred percent, there was something about him that drew her in. He offered safety and sanctuary, and he wasn't cruel - at least not in the ways that mattered. She had found kinship in his similar ideals and understanding of the world. They both wanted the same thing, and so she'd stayed.[break][break]

And so far she hadn't regretted it.[break][break]

"Good," is her only response to his admittance of fear. She lays her cheek against the grass, letting it tickle her skin as she stares at him a moment longer. It appears as if she's trying to read his expression, his motive. [break][break]

"Something is different. I want to believe that it's good. For the first time in a long time, I feel a sense of peace."[break][break]

She swallows, pulling her gaze away and instead looking up into the sky. The woman exhales as if she'd been holding her breath, counting the seconds or maybe the stars. There's a quiet and unreadable expression on her face, but it isn't her typical seriousness or severity.[break][break]

Her hands slide from their nest against her belly, spreading out on either side of her to tug at the grass. As he agrees with her, uttering two quiet words: 'I won't', Emma's fingers brush his.

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Something is different.[break][break]

He nods, his agreement silent but firm. It's almost a relief to know he wasn't the only one who'd sensed the change in their organization. Much had changed since the days of Silas, and even still since the recent shifts within the ranks.[break][break]

"It's good," he decides. "For us."[break][break]

For those among them who were not governed by chaos and evil, whose motives ran deeper. He had not joined Rocket for the sake of committing crime. He had joined Rocket because it had felt necessary to continue his research in peace. He had stayed out of fear, and remained now out of a twisted loyalty for others like him. Rocket was beginning to feel more like a family than those individuals across the pond whose selfish motivations had forced him down the path he'd forged.[break][break]

"I can't claim to understand all of his goals," he admits of Cadis, "but he's not Silas."[break][break]

And when he'd told Gavin that his aim was to help all of Rocket achieve their dreams, well, Gavin had wanted to believe him.[break][break]

He is quiet in his introspection, reveling in the peace of the moonlit night. His eyes are on the moon, the stars, when he feels the brush of Emma's hand against his own.[break][break]

His heart jumps to his throat for reasons he can't explain, but it's a different kind of fear — a nervous, jittery energy that's closer to excitement than terror. When he glances at her, reflexively, he finds something serene in her expression.[break][break]

His fingers curl around hers, squeeze wordless thanks.

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Gavin seems certain that the change is good, and Emma puts her faith in that. It surprises her, but she relents anyway, willing to set aside her own fears for the sake of his. [break][break]

She had already begun to see potential in the new recruits, the younger grunts who had aspirations bigger than themselves. Those whose motives weren't as black and white as the world wanted them to be, who's gray backgrounds made it nearly impossible for them to achieve their goals. Rocket gave them that helping hand, that step up to see what they could truly be.[break][break]

That was the Rocket she had wanted to fight for, the family she had been looking for. It was a relief to know that that vision might still come true.[break][break]

But Gavin is right about one thing. Cadis is not Silas, and for that she is thankful.[break][break]

The woman's breathing slows as she relaxes into the grass. Even the uneven ground beneath her seems to melt away. She's content. Although that emotion quickly changes to surprise as her fingertips brush his hand - a physical expression she hadn't intended for and had sent a twinge of panic as a result. But instead of pulling away as she normally would she finds her heart beating uncomfortably fast in her chest, but relief washes over and the tightness in her muscles relents as his fingers curl around hers.[break][break]

Her hand instinctively squeezes back.

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