Welcome to Gaia! ::

To the best of Lucas's knowledge, he had turned in for the evening, retiring early to catch up on sleep he had lost to work, guitar, and attempting to acclimate Snow. Where one mind descended into the embrace of slumber, though, another awakened. Before long, he was in the gym. Sweatpants and a dark t-shirt replaced his usual sweater and jeans, and his glasses and shoes were left on a shelf near the entrance. He had taken up a place near a series of dummies and punching bags with the intent to brush up on his hand-to-hand combat.

The muffled din of his fists against the heavy bag was swallowed by the high ceilings and the whirring of the assorted exercise equipment. He eventually noticed out of the corner of his eye as someone approached the bench press and began removing weights, lifting an eyebrow in vague curiosity. Weight training for the bird, it seemed. Interesting. Even more interesting was that he recognized that someone. With a mental shrug he abandoned the bags and moved towards the cycling machines. No harm in a balanced workout, right? He chose a machine a few down from the one Claire was using, hesitant to call out to her.

Lucas responded with a curt nod, "Evening, Claire." He was vaguely relieved that she had noticed him and saved him the awkward task of making himself known, though it did leave him to wonder how she had managed it so nonchalantly. It was rare that he had the opportunity to speak with others, and he was finding all this 'polite socialization' business terribly troubling. "I'm here a few nights a week. Have to keep up my form in case a mission comes up." He watched the almost fumbling Pidgeot with something between curiosity and amusement. It was an interesting way to go about training pokemon, for sure, and if he had an affinity for raising the things he would have been tempted to strap a weight to Snow and see how that worked out.

"Hmm." He studied his own arm, wondering how he would train if he were suddenly unable to use it. He had suffered various gunshot wounds, cuts, and mild sprains, but thinking about it he realized that he had never actually broken a limb before. "...One-handed push-ups," he remarked absently, more to himself than to Claire.

Lucas watched as she got into position, studying her form and poise as she attempted the push-up. "Careful," he said, noting the slight quiver of her arm. "I've seen people injure themselves terribly doing this sort of exercise." Not that he was trying to frighten her away from trying. He simply didn't want to be held responsible if she did hurt herself. He was starting to feel a bit like a training coach standing there watching her do push-ups, though - and he had never liked leading trainee exercises in Galactic - so he mimicked Claire's stance, folding his arm across the small of his back. He managed a few of the push-ups before a mist of sweat began to accumulate on his brow. They really were much more difficult than their standard counterparts.

He would switch to his other arm and match the number he had done with the first before bringing both arms to the floor, winding down with a few normal push-ups, and moving to a sitting position. He swiped the back of his hand across his brow and rotated his wrist slightly. "A good call," he commented offhandedly at her decision to stop, watching the round little Pikachu practically pass out beside the machine. "You should have him do cool-down exercises. It's bad for the body to come to rest suddenly." Perhaps Lucas took exercise a little too seriously...

"What qualifies as a 'real' conversation?" It struck him as an odd thing to ask, but then a number of things about casual chatting struck him as odd.

Some part of him was impressed that the Pikachu was so obedient about something it so obviously did not want to do. He recalled overhearing that the mouse would do anything for treats and idly wondered what kinds of rewards Claire used as such perfect motivation.

"In that case, no. I handle conversation that could be disconcerting or troubling. In the past this has been by and large restricted to topics pertaining to missions. I also supervised training exercises fairly frequently." Not that he ever did a whole lot of talking during any of that. In fact, it seemed that he had spoken with his own will more often in the past few days than he had in the previous several years.

Lucas's gaze followed Claire's briefly as the bird continued to circle. He returned his eyes to her when she spoke, and his brow furrowed with confusion. "What? Lonely?" He pronounced the word as though it were foreign. "I'm... not sure I understand...?"

He took her rising as a cue to do so himself. Her second question was much easier to wrap his head around, and he was able to answer with little effort, "Yes. It's been like this since I was thirteen."