It was only when Valere actually jumped that Gladion really
got the cleverness of Laura's plan. He was connected to team communications like everyone else, sure, but he wasn't sure if
any amount of communication would have persuaded him something like that would actually have gone so cleanly. But it went off without a hitch, and as he watched he could feel in real time his respect for Laura increasing.
Perhaps he let it distract him a bit much from the Boomburst that pummelled him a moment later, but hey, he had a reviver seed. Not healing left him with a leftover oran berry, too. He decided to offer it to Valere, in part because it seemed magnanimous to offer someone from the other side a healing item, but also because he wanted to say something...
"Do you think I decide for her? And do you think I'm unwilling to do the same for her?" he pressed, and there was a flurry of sudden emotion in his voice. Something between the earnest need for the boy to understand that their conviction wasn't, couldn't be one-sided, and a flicker of anger that they hadn't attacked him until now, even when he'd invited it.
...because Valere had a
point there. And Gladion's first instinct was to find a way to indict himself— to assume he must have mapped Valere onto a more human role in their partnership, or assumed his declarations pressured Farin to keep going, but he stumbled on one that
felt truer to him, more like what he'd meant to communicate. He... wanted to clear the air, and the oran berry would be a good enough excuse to approach the guy.
So he walked up, and offered Valere the berry with an air of mild sheepishness. Then he offered his thoughts.
"I... I
know you'd do the same for her in a heartbeat. It's easy to tell. So... I wouldn't say you
choose for her but I— I think she'd have listened to you anyway. I guess I might've had the wrong idea, but I've always felt like it can be easier to listen to a partner say you've given them enough than to decide not to offer any more..."
He felt an emotional crack that left him glad he didn't have any tear ducts or anything. (As far as he knew, anyways.) He tried to brush the thought aside, letting brusque insincerity rise as a shield without really thinking about what he was doing.
"And it's not like shouting 'Hey Farin, ditch that nerd so you can rest' would've gone over any better."
He couldn't even bring himself to act amused by it though. He couldn't undo the course he'd just set his train of thought on, though.
I miss Hazel.
It was an easy admission to start with. He was comfortable with that thought, would be
more uncomfortable if he'd left and found out he
didn't miss her somehow. But thinking about it consciously was dragging out another realization, a feeling that felt more unsettling. He had never really thought of himself as someone who could feel like that. But once he'd put a name to the feeling of hollow meaninglessness, of having nothing here to anchor him, he couldn't help but realize he was
lonely. He missed having a partnership like Valere and Farin did.
But that was another problem he didn't have time to think about right now. They were here to make some allies, maybe even friends if they were lucky. His personal emotional issues could and would wait for another time.