#tl;dr: local man joins military instead of seeking therapy

[multiimistakes]

Gavin is a flighty and self-preserving asshole to the point he took an offer to rat out his entire team he'd operated with for four years and had considered, more or less, family. Let's talk about it.

CHILDHOOD.

Gavin Payne was born to-—well, he doesn't know. Put up for adoption at birth or at some point before he could recall, he was placed in a moderately average and lower middle class family. It wasn't an abusive childhood in the way you saw in movies or read in books, but it was arguably one of neglect. A roof over his head, clothes on his body, and food in his stomach was about all he got from his adoptive parents.

As a child, he'd attempted to gain his parents affection like any normal child would. Perfect grades, a pleasant demeanor, did his chores, minded his bedtime. He was bright and clever and was open and wanting of the sort of family you saw on TV. Everything that was deemed the typical way to earn praise and love, Gavin was that. When these attempts were met with nothing, he flipped to what any ignored child would flip to-—he acted out. Poor grades, horrid behavior at school. Anything that could more or less FORCE his parents to do SOMETHING with him. Nothing.

This continued on into and through high school and he jumped into the army as soon as he could. Childhood had taught Gavin that the only one who would look out for him and ever really be in his corner was himself and this mentality would stick with him.

ON PURPOSE, BELONGING, & STABILITY.

The army gave him something he hadn't had before. Purpose. He had a reason to use his brain, had a reason to try. There were incentives, you were noticed. Up until now he'd been screaming that he was there, that he existed and now, suddenly, people were actually acknowledging it. He threw himself into it. Not because of any foolish idea of patriotism or fighting for his country, but because he had found a place that had provided him with everything his childhood hadn't.

DISCHARGED.

Gavin was good. He was quick and clever and incredibly tactical. He excelled in just about every aspect of the field except for the part that would inevitably lead him to his discharge. His incompatibility with any semblance of brotherhood or caring for his fellow man would serve to be the nail in his ccoffin that would lose him everything he'd gained up until that point. He was too individualistic, too transactional.

When he was out, it was hell. And as soon as he'd been given a chance to get back in? He took it without asking many questions. This would become a reoccurring thing in his life.

MISC. (Because I'm tired and I want to wrap this up, lmao)

When you're raised with only yourself to count on, sacrifice for your fellow man isn't really a concept to you. When you haven't learned that ability to trust and let others in, it's easy to see things from a very simplified THEM or ME standpoint when put in dire situations. When it came down to either the high likelihood of dying alongside his squad after they'd been burn noticed or living at the cost of ENSURING they died-—it wasn't as hard of a choice to make as Gavin likes to tell himself sometimes.

Ironically enough, it is PMC work/Shadow Company that finally sort of makes something shift in him. It's slow and it's twisted in its execution but he starts to care, actually care. Bringing men back alive isn't just done because of some obligation. Putting himself at risk isn't done with the expectation of some transactional return later. His fellow shadows aren't just names and faces and bodies, they're individuals he comes to know.

And when he has to pull all of that out from under himself, it's not easy. He can't detach from it as he had with his old squad. What he'd grown to know with Shadow Co. couldn't be written off as just numbers or just more bodies. In a situation of THEM or ME, he still had ultimately chose himself but it hadn't been quick and clean. For once, and finally, he genuinely felt like a traitor and one with remorse no less.