Obvious exits:
Out <O> leads to Celadon City: Main Street (North).

Grayson has arrived.

Snow flurries drift silently down from the pale grey sky. The air is damp and cold, and there is little wind. In the forest, snowflurries dust the bare branches of the broadleaves and the needles of the conifers. While at the coast, light snowflakes sprinkle the glossy, black, and calm surface of the ocean.

Though there hangs in the air outside a cold, draining chill, the Cup and Hole Cafe is nearly empty this afternoon. The waitress, an old sort of woman with far too much mascara that fails to cover her wrinkles, chews and snaps gum as she struts around the building, preparing for the business the night will certainly bring. A few stragglers do wait at some of the dining tables, mostly elderly folks with nothing better. One young teenage girl stands out. She looks down into a mug of coffee, clutching it with both hands, her light brown hair falling over her face like a mass of tangled vines. It's apparent she hasn't had a change to comb it for days. She carries an air of uncertaintly about her, and every person who walksk by her causes her to lift her head, stare at them from behind her glasses, and dismiss them with a gentle shrug. It's apparent she's waiting for someone. There's a small card on the table right next to the cup of coffee. Hrm - wonder what that's for.

Another figure darkens the soft, indirect light outside the small cafe; he casts no shadow, but the light about him is dimmer than the rest of the near-luminous world. The tall, slender man is easily recogniseable to those who know him - Grayson, in his trenchcoated, scarfed and booted usual outfit, rather less formal than he used to be but still just as neat and clean. The tall man ducks into the cafe, face expressionless, and looks around. Ice-blue eyes settle on a few faces and then find Melissa's; he waits for her to notice him, then nods ever so slightly to her. "Mind if I join you?"

Sure enough, Melissa lifts her head up from her coffee as Grayson approaches. This time, however, her neck stays stiff. The girl simply peers at the Rocket. Her face does not change in expression at all. "... Yeah," she mumbles at last, stripping her right hand off of the cup to pull a couple strands of loose hair off of her face. "Just... um, sit down right there," she adds softly, directing her eyes to the dusty seat across from her. As though the older man didn't know where he wanted to sit. Out of the corner of her eye, Melissa realizes that she's left the man's card out, and without a word, she pries it off of the table, folds it once with her one hand, and slides it into her pocket.

Grayson nods as he steps over and slips gracefully into the seat. "Thanks," he says quietly. "Good place to choose for a first meeting," he adds with a faint, approving smile. "Plenty of cops around this place, all the time." He sets his hat down on the table, neat and careful, then pauses halfway through stripping his gloves off. "We're staying here, right?" A brightly-purple nose pushes its way out between two layers of scarf, Sid making his presence known as he looks around the restaurant. "Easy, Sid," Grayson murmurs. "Settle down, hmm?" The Ekans eyes the pictures of PokeForcers and their Growlithes, then retreats back into hiding, curling up in the warmth again.

Melissa nods several times, with each successive nod turning her head more and more back down to the cup of coffee. "... Yeah," she repeats again, in an almost distracted tone. Even with her head tilted, Grayson should see her blink and bite her lip before she lifts her head back up. "N-not that... not that I mean anything... you know, um, um... by the cops, it just..." Her cheeks redden, and she locks her attention onto a particularly small looking Growlithe, led by a rather overweight woman in a PokeForce suit. "... looked like a nice place to eat, that's all." If she's noticed the Ekans, she doesn't pay him any notice. She sighs out of her nose, continuing to watch the Growlithe as though watching him scratch a flea really is more interesting than Grayson.

Grayson simply nods, glancing over at the woman and then looking back to Melissa; he doesn't so much as extend a hand towards the girl, despite his calm, friendly air. "It's okay," he says quietly. "I understand completely. For a little while after it happened to me, my friends always made sure that one of them was with me. Took me months to learn to trust them again." He offers another smile, this one softer and more hesitant than the last, but his eyes have turned down to where his hands clasp together on the table. A few moments later he looks up again, a sudden and reaching urgency in those blue eyes. "I'm glad you rang me, hmm?"

"Hmmm," is Melissa's uninterested grunt, an almost apathetic sort of sort mixed with a glazed faraway look. It doesn't suit the girl's appearance well; it's quite likely that she's been rehearsing how she'd react for hours. Grappling her fingers around the hook on the cup, she lifts it off of the table, brings it up to her lips, and sips, all the while still avoiding Grayson's glance. It's only as she puts the mug back down that she finally locks her light blue eyes to Grayson's own icy blues, staring at him from behind her glasses. "I'm... only sorry I took so long to reply, sir." Vapid formalities. She doesn't mean it, that much is obvious; her tone of voice gives it away. But is it that she didn't care, or is it that she was frightened? That much is not quite so apparent.

Grayson simply watches, then nods in reply. "You're still not sure why you called me," he states quietly. "You're still not sure why you're here, or why I'm here." He shrugs, offering an ever-so-faint smile. "That's just the way it goes sometimes, hmm? But right now I'm the one with the best chance of helping you sort it all out and get over it. Do you still get the bad dreams, Melissa? Do you still avoid certain situations and people, without even realising why until afterwards? It is affecting you, even if you think it isn't, or neither of us would be here now."

Melissa makes no attempts to cover up the frown that pulls at the corner of her mouth; it's likely she doesn't even notice it. Once again, Melissa turns her eyes and refuses to watch Grayson, but this time, she's more or less submitting. She focuses on her coffee cup, turning it so the hook is on the right, then the left, then the right again. It's an idle, nervous sort of game. "... Sort of," she mutters, the words carried on a whisper. All of her speeches simply diffuse out of her right now. She feels virtually powerless. "... But... but I've got my family and my friends and my pokemon to help me... right? Aren't they enough?" She still refuses to take Grayson on eye to eye.

Uh oh! The Rockets are scheming! Better save than sorry! (Saving)

The hands unclasp and reclasp again, Grayson gazing at Melissa's eyes; "Look at me," he murmurs, then shakes his head in a quiet, sorrowful 'no'. "If they were enough, we wouldn't be here. For some reason, there's something about it that you can't share with them, hmm? Something you can't talk about, even to yourself, something you just can't accept." He shrugs. "I may be completely off the mark, but I don't think so, hmm?" He stays quiet, calm and gentle, perhaps oddly so.

Melissa tries to keep her attention focused on the coffee cup. Oh, she really tries, but there's something about this man that draws her up. She can't help her. Her arms and shoulder go limp as her head helplessly lifts, meeting Grayson in the eye with her own half closed ones. She is silent for a few seconds, before she finally speaks. Her voice is cracked and quiet, barely more than a croak. "... How do you know this?" She remains in that position for a moment, before straightening herself, brushing her hair off to the side, making herself appear more presentable. "Why do you think this?" The enunciation on "think" is light but present. "It's... it's... I've been over it. It... it was a long time ago."

Grayson shakes his head again, the motion more pronounced this time. "Your first reaction's the accurate one. You paper it over with the second, as you've papered over the problem." He smiles faintly again, genuine warmth in the expression, and his head tilts a little to one side as he shrugs. "And as for how I know it? I just do." The warmth reaches out, trying to draw some hint of warmth in return, a flicker of childlike innocence growing to fill Grayson's eyes and then his expression, and drawing a trace of vulnerability with it. "I've been there."

Melissa's eyebrows quirk at Grayson's last comment, before they narrow at him. The Pewter trainer gets her first real good look at the Rocket - his face, his neck, his chest. She scrutinizes every aspect of him, all with the look of a mathematician bubbling over an equation. She's almost entranced. She closes her eyes for a moment to reaffirm a thought in her head, perhaps to gather the swirl in her head. "No..." Her eyes flutter open. "... You don't know... what it's like, though. I... I, I didn't even know people were... were like that. He didn't... care about what I thought, or felt, or anything. He would have... could have killed me if he... wanted to, and he... h-h-he probably would have, just for himself, just because..." Her voice raises in pitch drastically. "... Just because those ten minutes were so damn important to him!" At this point, Melissa slams her fist down on the table out of the blue. The flimsy structure shakes and wobbles, and part of the girl's coffee splashes out of the cup. Mumbling a curse under her breath, she fumbles to grab some napkins, clumsily attempting to clean up the spill, blushing fiercely the whole while.

Grayson watches Melissa, staying calm as she yells and not looking too surprised when she thumps the table. He retrieves some napkins in one long-fingered hand and offers them over with a nod before reaching to lift the coffee cup so that the trainer can mop up beneath it. "You're right there," he says quietly. "I was brought up on the streets of Celadon, I knew what people could do. Didn't make it any less humiliating, any less fear-inducing, though. And you might want to calm down a little, hmm? If you want to yell, we can go outside and not disturb all these hard-working officers at rest."

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry, sorry, I know..." the girl mutters under her breath, her cheeks cherry red, her head low. She is using far, far too many napkins for such a small spill, though whether the waitress notices or not Melissa doesn't bother checking. Even after the spill is more than buried under a mound of paper, the teenager continues wiping. The suggestion to go outside causes the girl to cease her pointless table rubbing for a second, but she resumes her task quickly enough. Silence. "... ... What did they do to you?" she asks at last, finally setting the napkin down to rest on the mountain before her. "... How long ago was it?"

Grayson glances around the room with a flicker of nervousness, then looks back at the trainer, twin points of colour rising high in his cheeks. "Um. Can we go outside anyway? Discussing it indoors with lots of people around tends to make me a little edgy." 'A little', apparently, is an understatement, by the way his face is busily going very pale again. He waits until she's finished with the napkins before setting the coffee cup down again, then withdraws his arm back to his own side of the table, hands clasping in front of him again.

Melissa's vocal chords react before her brain does. "Okay," she agrees, winces, and hesitantly lifts out of her seat. She takes one last look at the table she's leaving; a barely touched cup of coffee, and the coffee's value in soggy napkins. "Heh." The girl actually smiles for the first time in hours, and though it is by no means a kind or warm smile, it matches well with the redness of her cheeks. Unless Grayson moves very quickly, Melissa will probably be the first one to head for the exit, her head low and her shoulders high, as if shielding herself from the glares of customers that are undoubtedly staring at her. Screaming, smashing the table, making a spill... Ms. Barlette just knows she'll not have the guts to come back to this restaurant.

Grayson fishes a few small coins out of one pocket when he rises, leaving them on the table behind him and then picking his hat up and following Melissa out, ducking under the lintel and then closing the door behind him. "Thanks," he says quietly, then turns down the road towards the more populous areas of Celadon, stopping at a waist-high wall a little distance away from the cafe itself. Gloved hands clean the wall of snow and the tall man takes a seat, glancing around the area and then nodding. "We're out of the way, but there are still people around," he says quietly, occupying one end of the wall and leaving plenty more for Melissa, waiting for her to get settled while he watches the snow fall gently.

Uh oh! The Rockets are scheming! Better save than sorry! (Saving)

As the two walk through the brisk air, Melissa constantly takes looks back at the cafe, a worried look on her face. "... Gosh," she mumbles to herself, or maybe to Grayson, or maybe to nobody at all. "... Th... Think they'll ever... let me back in?" After the cafe is far enough behind them, Melissa now focuses more of her attentions on the sights around her. The trees, the sky, the tall buildings, and the people. Definitely the people; they're the most important part. After the two approach the wall, and Grayson hops right on it, the teenager simply glances at it for a moment. "... Um... ... all right." It's something of a struggle, as the girl is none too athletic and her jeans don't help her much, but she does make it onto the snow-capped wall. Shifting herself into as comfortable a position as possible, she waits for Grayson to speak. She, herself, is mostly silent, the only noise coming in short exhales as she watches her wispy breath hang in the air and fade out of existence.

Grayson nods. "Of course they'll let you back in," he smiles quietly in reply; the wall's been brushed clear of most of the snow, and Grayson lifts one booted foot so that he can lean on his knee and perhaps hide just a little behind his own leg. "To cut a long story short," the tall Rocket shrugs, "A gang of adults decided a friend of mine needed to get raped when he was about sixteen, seventeen. The guys took him to what they thought was a safe house and tied him down, and the women took advantage." He's trying to remain cool and calm, but it's harder the more he speaks, a flicker of horror resurfacing and then fading again. "It's different for a guy, but the mental reaction's the same."

Melissa, admittedly, didn't know what she was expecting when this older man told her he has some idea of what she's going through. Whatever it was, however, this was not it. The words "he needed to get raped" cause Melissa, though keeping her head straight ahead, to flick her eyes to the side, peering at what little she can see of Grayson out of the corner of her eye. "Women took advantage" starts the rotation, and by the time Grayson is finished, Melissa has turned her entire upper torso toward the Rocket, eyes wide behind her glasses, lips parted. She continues peering, almost gawking, at the older man for many long moments, before she finally snaps back into reality. "Oh! Um." Her stance straightens, and the girl lifts her bare hands and removes her glasses, rubbing them on her thick navy blue sweater. She slides them back onto her nose. She seems to struggle thinking of something to say. An apology? A sympathetic, vapid statement of how that's-so-sad-you-poor-man? "... ... Why did they... choose that for him?" She turns back to Grayson. "Why was it their decision... that should have been his?" It's rhetorical, of course, but Melissa half expects the answer.

Grayson's eyebrows lift a little, a faint smile twisting at his lips as any hint of vulnerability vanishes as if it'd never been. "Don't patronise me," he says gently but firmly. "They chose it for him because they thought he needed it. And the choice should have been his, but it wasn't. Same thing, just different ways of going about it." A shrug. "They expected him to be grateful for it, too. To be grateful for having his own body's reactions used against him." He pauses, then looks back at the trainer with a smile. "But still. That's water under the bridge now, you know?"

Melissa glances back at Grayson while he speaks, looking over his entire body, absorbing all he says but saving some space for her own thoughts. Sixteen or seventeen... how long ago must that have been for this person? "Well, um, you... you, um, you -say- it's water under the bridge," Melissa mumbles, placing her fingernails on the top of the wall, gently scraping a little circle in the thin layer of snow that has collected since Grayson wiped it off, watching it the whole time. She exhales out of her nose. Her legs squeeze together, and her body shifts to accomodate for this new position. "... What happened... to me was one thing, but he didn't... -do- it. I... I mean, I still... have the choice. I almost didn't. But you-" She stops twirling her finger. Her mouth remains open. Slowly, her head raises. Painfully slowly. Almost dramatically. "... You let me have what your companion had to give away." Her voice is absolutely exasperated. Her emotions show in her face, in her breath, in her body. She continues watching Grayson for as long as she'll let him.

Grayson smiles, shrugging. "Of course," he says quietly. "Rape is something that gets me hot under the collar, even now. I won't stand by and just let it happen if there's anything I can do to prevent it." There's a flicker of something in his eyes at that idea, something unhappy, but he doesn't try to look away. "My friend was unlucky. You were unlucky. I'm sorry I didn't get there quicker for you."

Melissa frowns, turning back to the street. Her gaze takes her up the highest skyscaper, quickly fading as the darkness sets, the grey clouds above fading into the night. "Makes sense," she mumbles, placing her hands on her lap and playing with her fingers. She's quiet for a few seconds. A cheerful couple walks by, both laughing as the man tells the woman some fantastic story he heard some time ago. Melissa turns her attention from the building to the people, and she watches them disappear around the corner. A sigh. "It... it could have been worse." She adds on "Sir" hurriedly, something she's been forgetting to do. Her head drops down, and her chin touches her chest. "It's... still mine. The choice, I mean. I... uh... I've been grateful for that, even before..." Her eyes struggle to see the man without moving her head. Back to staring at her hands. "... now."

Uh oh! The Rockets are scheming! Better save than sorry! (Saving)

Grayson nods. "The choice is a wonderful thing," he says quietly. "I've made it quite a few times. It's nothing to be scared of, as long as the choice is yours." A quick wink, one eyelid drooping for just long enough to be seen. "Sex is great fun if you get it right, trust me on that. Thing is, you've got to trust whoever you're with. Trust that they'll let you make the choice, and that they'll trust you to let them make it too." He shrugs. "When you've been forced to accept that sometimes there isn't a choice, whether it actually went through to the bitter end or not, it damages your ability to trust. Everyone turns into someone who might just make it happen again."

Melissa nods to her hands as Grayson speaks, blushing fiercely when the man comments on sex being great fun. Thankfully, he has more to say, so she's recover and has found a ledge to speak from by the time his speech is over. "Of... of -course- I'll make sure I get it right. Of course I'll... trust the person I'm with." She lifts her head now, a twinkle in her eye, a half smile perking up the corners of her mouth. "I... I'm not... I don..." The grin dissipates into nothingness, and she turns back to her fingers. Twiddle twiddle. "... I... was dumb then... but now I know. Not... not everybody is... is that boy." She exhales loudly here, shaking her head back and forth, an overexaggerated motion. "... I've been a lot more careful. A lot." She opens her mouth to say more, but decides to give Grayson a chance instead.

Grayson nods. "That's good to hear," he smiles quietly; one gloved hand gestures for the teen to go on. He shifts on the wall, leaning back against the building he's sitting next to and swivelling to face the trainer. As he shifts his long limbs move until he's in an elegant but conservative posture, evidently paying attention but equally evidently much more at ease now, and definitely listening. He might even be comfortable on the cold, hard and too-narrow surface.

When Grayson himself doesn't let forth his words of wisdom, Melissa finds herself looking up at him, her lips tight. She's never quite seen the motions he makes before, but when he does not speak, she catches the general drift. "... Oh, I... um. You know, uh... sometimes... You know, I've been careful and safe..." She tilts her head and raises her eyebrows when she says "careful" and "safe", though she must quickly whip her hand up to keep her glasses from falling off of her nose on the second nod. Once they are safely adjusted, she clears her throat. "... But it's... all because of what happened. Where I didn't but almost... got..." She blushes fiercely at the word, making elaborate circling gestures with her right hand as she speaks. "... raped." She quickly continues. "But... but now I try to think... before situations... try to trust people less... um, you know, just be more... um, you know, aware. But..." And here, she turns her head back down to her chest, her teeth clenched for a few moments. "... But it's all because of what happened that I've become... less ignorant. Sometimes I, uh, wonder if it's not a... um... what's the term? When it's, uh, when a bad thing might actually turn out to be good?"

Grayson simply listens, and at the end of the long and painful process, he simply nods. "In some ways it's very good, yeah. You were far too trusting, but you've got to be careful not to go too far the other way. I've seen people who couldn't get within six feet of the people they'd considered their best friends, never mind random intimidating-looking strangers, you know? Hell, I was one of them." Another smile, this one amused. "Yeah, it's good that you've managed to get some common sense. The school of hard knocks can teach rather too well, though, sometimes."

"Ohh, I won't," Melissa assures the man, tacking on a soft chuckle. "... I won't... take it too far. Most people I've met... they're not at all like... like him. But there... th-there are some, and I try, I want to keep that in mind all the time. Right?" Another chuckle, this one more airy, more like an exhale than anything else. It fades into a sigh halfway through, and the girl brushes her hair back from her face, hunching her shoulders forward. "There... uh... there's actually... one of the reasons I called you... I, um, I wanted to ask you a question." She swallows audibly, peeking up at the man to catch his reaction.

Grayson nods to the first few parts. "Actually," he says quietly, "There are fewer people like him than you might think. Always best to be aware of your surroundings, though - a mugger might not want to rape you, but he'll certainly try and steal everything you've got. And there's always Team Rocket. Besides, if you're aware of your surroundings, you'll see things you'd otherwise miss - pokemon, bits of nature and the world around you." He nods, settling back to listen to the rest. "Ask away," he smiles gently. "I can't promise answers, but by all means ask."

Melissa nods her head softly in reply to Grayson's words of wisdom, consuming them into her mind. She opens her mouth to reply, but decides against it. Her question has been draining at her for months; now that she has the opportunity to ask it, she wants to make sure it gets out right. "... Wh..." She clears her throat and tries again. "... When y... grf," she mumbles, blushing yet again, idly lifting a hand to scratch her neck. "... When he... that boy... when you were...stopping him... uh, from me. You know, um, when he had..." She shakes her head quickly. "Anyway, um, uh... you... um... you sounded like you knew him. Like... uh... b-before. Who..." Twiddle twiddle. Swallow. "... Who is he?"

Grayson shakes his head. "That's a question I'm afraid I can't answer," he says quietly. "I can tell you that yes, I did know him. He spent a fair amount of time with me when he was younger. But I can't tell you who he is. He's changed a great deal and grown up a lot in this last year, and I've got to protect him as well as you. He did turn aside and he didn't go through with it..." A gentle but ultimately apologetic smile crosses the tall man's sharp face, his eyes liquid pools of sorrow. "I'm sorry, but he'll have to stay a mystery."

Uh oh! The Rockets are scheming! Better save than sorry! (Saving)

Though Melissa lifted up her head long enough to listen to Grayson for a moment, it fell the moment the man mentioned he can't answer. She sits there quietly, kicking her legs against the wall childishly as the Rocket explains himself. Once he finishes, she nods softly, giving Grayson a smile of her own. "I... um... I don't know why, but I assumed... you'd say something like that." She sits there and watches him, realizing how small she looks and feels next to him, more like a confused little girl talking to grandpa than a young adult talking to a man about similar experiences. "... It is getting late," she notes softly, glancing up at the darkened, starless sky, wiping away the snowflakes that fall onto her glasses as she does so. Her hair falls behind her, a random mass of rugged strands, motionless in the still, hazy air.

Grayson simply nods, then smiles quiet agreement. "It is," he agrees. "Want me to walk you back to the Pokemon Centre?" He stretches, then grins, picking himself up to stand on the wall. "I can if you like, but it's up to you." There's a flicker of pure mischief in his eyes as he makes sure that his gloves are in place and then turns sideways, bending down to touch his toes and then the wall and then picking his feet up in a well-controlled handstand. "Or I can just hang around for a bit," he grins from somewhere inside his coat.

Melissa jumps up to her feet when she realizes what in the world Grayson is doing. The initial shock wears off quickly, and a bewildered Melissa peers, half confused, half amused at the man's rather graceful handstand. "... Very impressive," she notes, nodding in approval, her casual tone disguising her surprise. "Oh, but... but I won't inconvenience you. I'll... I'll go alone." Silence for a moment. "Thanks... uh, thank you for talking... you know, letting me feel better. You're..." And she can't help it. The prospect of talking to an upside down man elicits a giggle from the girl, and she raises a hand to press on her lips as the mirthful sounds emerge.

Grayson flips gracefully off the wall, landing neatly on his booted feet on the sidewalk - only to have those feet slide out from beneath him on the snow. He tucks himself into a little ball and rolls, absorbing the excess momentum, and picks himself up again; when he turns around to look at the trainer, it's with a grin. "I like helping people feel better," he declares firmly - and then he turns a cartwheel, apparently just because he can. "You can ring me again, you know?", he points out as he gets upside-down, still grinning as he heads back to another landing on his feet. "Up to you. Listen to your heart, it'll know what you need."

Melissa jumps yet again when Grayson flips onto the sidewalk, and a third time when he... falls. Her giggle turns into a gasp as the man tumbles to the ground, but once he looks back up at her with that grin, she can't help it. She giggles louder when Grayson pulls himself up onto his feet, and shakes her head when he cartwheels. "You do a good job of it," she says softly, probably too quiet for the man to hear. And perhaps the man's crazy antics have put her in a half giddy mood, for she ventures upon a joke of her own. "I... I don't know what my heart is telling me... but my head is telling me... I need to get to sleep. G... good night, sir. ... And thanks again." Supposing Grayson has no more acrobatics for her, no triple flips or wall jumps to further dazzle her, she will give the man a wave, whirl around, and take the long way back home, presumably alone.

Grayson bows flamboyantly in response to the so-quiet praise, ice-blue eyes bright and warm. "Thank you, thank you," he grins, then shifts his weight once more - and stops, hmphing at the ground and kicking at some of the snow. "I could give you a real demonstration if it wasn't so icy," he sighs, one hand going over his heart melodramatically - and then he grins another devil-may-care grin. "Look after yourself," he adds with a wave - and then he too turns and is gone. As far as Melissa can tell, at least. The fluttering snow makes keeping track of shadows harder, and makes the life of a shadowing Rocket far, far easier. The teen is followed back to wherever she's going, even if she doesn't realise it.