Gavin, half asleep, glances at his phone on the beside table and laughs out loud. The sound is sharp enough to rouse him from the warm embrace of slumber, and he slides on his glasses to read the other messages as they're sent. Blond human, he repeats in his head, and snickers.

'I hope he's not vegetarian.' It's the only message he sends, and it's not responded to directly.

They are not so far removed from the incident with the ODD FRAGMENT that Gavin doesn't connect the dots: immediately, he wonders if the other had picked up some kind of bacteria after he'd licked it in the laboratory.

He arrives a short time after with a thermos tucked under his arm, lifting a hand to knock loudly on the door to Chu-e Choi's house.

There is silence after the knock. Quiet... too quiet... the feeling of being watched... a predator nearby.....

The door opens to reveal Prince, the Gardevoir who had bullied Chu-e into taking his medicine on Cillian Quinn's last visit. He has Chu-e's phone in hand. Before the man even has a chance to step inside, a flood of kitten pokemon bound out the door, surround him. They sniff at him, meow up at him, and a few even rub themselves on him; Gavin will have plenty of cat hair to worry about later.

Prince, looking annoyed, shoos them away; only one defies the psychic type, a Skitty which Prince just picks up and carries with him.

The pokemon finally allows Gavin inside, motioning down a side hallway where one door is open. It's dark in the house, only the kitchen light on, and the blue light of what might be a television comes from the room down the hall.

If Gavin decided to go right for the room in question, he would find Chu-e in bed; his bed swallows him, dozens of pillows propping him up and he is covered in blankets. While many of he cats had scattered, a few are on the bed, kneading to make new nests. He is surrounded by dozens of balled up tissues, a puke bucket, and some abandoned, half empty bottles of various sports drinks. The man himself looks like shit, pale but flushed with fever.

He is immediately on edge, hairs raising at the back of his neck. His muscles tense, free hand curling around the grip of his gun.

Whatever annoyance he might've felt toward the Gardevoir that opens the door — had it been the one to send a chill up his spine? — is immediately waylaid by a horde of cats. With both hands occupied, he is quickly surrounded by the mewling, purring, distracting mass of fur. His fingers relax against the pistol grip, and then he pulls his hand away.

An instinct to pet is dismissed as the Gardevoir handles the furry flock.

Though his fellow underboss is decidedly out of commission, and though curiosity gnaws at the back of his mind, Gavin chooses to respect Chu-e Choi's privacy. He moves directly to the indicated room, pausing only to shuffle around a couple cats occupying the hall.

He blinks at Chu-e, swaddled within blankets and used tissues.

"You look like shit, mate."

"Thanks." His voice is rough and gravely. When Chu-e blinks his gummy eyes up at Cillian Quinn, they're dazed and bleary.

"Mmmmmmh... Witchie?" A psychic pulse emanates from under the bed, his desk chair pulled out and moved to sit beside his bed. That way, Gavin can sit if he likes. He gives a rough cough, barely covering his mouth, and uses his feeble strength to sit himself up. "I got uh.... I think... your rock gave me a disease...." Even in his addled state, Chu-e had managed to connect the dots. Or maybe it was before the fever took him and his brain was just latching.

Prince entered the room, a small tray with a bowl and some napkins on it. Approaching Gavin, he held out a hand, expectant.

If Gavin goes to sit down, he will need to shoo away a Purrloin that has hopped up into the chair, colored blue instead of the normal purple. She would stare up at him as if daring him to do anything about it. Needy animals.

"Welcome," Gavin returns, deadpan.

Sympathy is a rare commodity in Gavin's emotional depth; there is little of it in his eyes as he sweeps them over Chu-e Choi's haggard form. Neither does he delight in his cohort's misery — it simply is.

Witchie? He wonders, but doesn't ask.

Gavin tucks the blue Purrloin under one arm and sits, but rolls the chair back an extra foot or two and scrunches his nose when Chu-e doesn't cover his mouth. Whatever he had, it had better not be infectious. Choi seemed to think it came from the fragment, which was as good a guess as any.

"Not a rock," he insists, and hands the soup to Prince. "It's Torchic soup; hope you're not vegetarian." He doesn't sound as if he particularly cares. Plunking the Purrloin on his lap, had it not already struggled free, he'd absently scratch it behind its ears. "What are the symptoms?"

The Purrloin seems unbothered or simply used to being manhandled. She is limp like a rag-doll when Cillian Quinn moves her around, only the tip of her tail flicking to show any annoyance. Yet, when he settles down and places her on his lap, she stretches out to make herself comfortable. Her eyes close and head tilts so Gavin can scratch the good spots, earning a stilted and rumbly purr.

"Fever, sore throat, sore stomach, shooting out both holes, uh...." Chu-e rubs his face, as if just thinking of what ails him is really that hard for him right now. "Headache."

The question of the soup isn't answered. Prince merely takes it and prepares the bowl; the pokemon does take a moment to inspect the soup but it does pass whatever test he had in mind, the Gardevoir offering it to his trainer. Chu-e whines and Prince sets him with a stern look. He will eat it and it is clear he has no choice in the matter.

Reluctantly, Chu-e gets a slurp. He makes a face- but then perks up a little. "This is good."

"Gross," says Gavin, in a tone that suggests amusement rather than disgust.

At signal from Gavin, his Rotom phone takes notes. If this were contagious in any way, he didn't want to end up too delirious to remember the details. As Rotom records, Gavin watches the exchange between Chu-e Choi and Prince the way one might watch a vaguely entertaining television program. He continues to scratch the now-purring cat, moving his hand to itch beneath its chin. His Persian seemed to like that.

"Thanks." Gavin's grin, though brief, seems surprisingly genuine. He thumbs toward the Gardevoir. "Doctor's orders. It's homemade, 'cause most of the store-bought shit would make me vomit if I wasn't suffering from space flu." Amber eyes glinting with humour, he asks, "So how long did it take before it started? You seemed fine at first."

His casual tone affords Chu-e as much time as he wishes before answering, if at all.

Chu-e hums loudly in response, shoving another spoonful of the broth past his lips lips. He does have a bit of trouble focusing on Cillian Quinn's words, some of them slipping from his head like water. Even from what he misses, thankfully he can put the pieces together of what the other wants.

"Uuuuum.... few days. I, um... Lesse'...." He tilts his head back, almost sloshing soup on the bed as he does so, and loses his eyes to think. It takes a few moments for him to collect his thoughts, glance back at the other. "Few days? I licked the rock, then I got sick the next day but I thought it was just my normal seasickness...." That was when he had visited elijah gardner. "Next day I was sick worse, when I dropped of the Larvitar to the lab... um..." At that point he had realized he was getting actually sick and had returned home after the interaction. "I didn't realize how bad it was and jayden cross came over and rescued my ass..." Which, hadn't happened in writing yet but it would fall before this in the time-line of events.

"Um.... That's about it." He had been here since, other than when Prince had forced him to go to the doctor. Time was running together in the muddy sort of way that he didn't know if it had one day or one week since that had happened.

"The fuckin'... um...." His eyes widened and he jerked forward, actually sloshing the soup now- it's only with a very quick pulse of psychic energy from under the bed again, and a hiss with it, that the soup manages to not spill; it and the bowl instead hovers in the air for a moment before being righted. "The laser! Gav, the laser! The fuckin', the fuckin' ship shot at me 'n Princey Boy!" Which was Remiel Calcifet.

Seasickness was an unfortunate reality of the submarine that Gavin, thankfully, did not suffer from. His expression pinches in a brief flash of sympathy before Chu-e Choi goes on.


There's a possibility the sickness is unrelated to licking the odd fragment, but Gavin is doubtful enough to barely consider it.

He blinks, nonplussed, when Chu-e starts going on about lasers. "The ship?" he echoes, and can only think of the submarine, which... doesn't make a lot of sense. Of 'Princey Boy', he asks, "That one of your Pokémon or something?"

"Ye', the ship!" His eyes are a little wild and the soup almost topples again. Whatever controlled it before sighs and moves it over to sit on the nightstand for now. May as well avoid the mess. "My poke... No! No, it's uh... uh... Prince guy! Galar man! The uh...." Remiel's name was very much escaping him in his addled state. "Fancy pants!" He finally exclaims, as if that is exactly what he wanted. Hopefully, Cillian Quinn would be able to put what he means together.

Regardless, he continues.

"We were havin' a battle, on the ship, and uh... um... oh, I got a mega thing!" Sidetracked by his own story, Chu-e turned his head and pulled back some of the hair over his ear, revealing the daith piercing that was now his mega accessory. He hadn't had a chance to tell Gavin, from what he could remember, since he had expressed interest after watching his bird mega evolve.

"Oh! Uh, wait, I was talking... what was I talkin about... um... wait, ship! Attack! Yeah!" His lapse over, he nodded and looked serious again. Well. As serious as he could look when he also looked on death's door. "So me 'n Fancy Pants were battlin' and then this big laser shot at our pokemon!"

Gavin is, admittedly, starting to worry about Chu-e Choi. He knew that high fever could often present hallucinations; he'd been through it himself, when an old injury had been infected. Rocket's medical care hadn't been the best, back then, especially not for a lab grunt.

It's Galar man that clues him in, though he does let out a sharp, caught-off-guard bark of laughter at fancy pants. "Oh, you mean Remiel Calcifet?"

He offers an appraising nod to the earring. "Grats."

He's still unfortunately unconvinced about the laser, though he'll be sure to reach out to Remiel and confirm his side of things. "What fired the laser? Was it the submarine?"

High fever? Hell, Chu-e was so drugged up on the shit the doctor had given him he was on another planet. Weed brownies had nothing on pure cough syrup and high dose antibiotics. Before Cillian Quinn had come over, even if he was miserable in bed, Chu-e had been having a very vivid waking fantasy about being a space pilot in a giant metal cat. It had been cool as hell. (The fever certainly didn't help with all this, though.)

"Fancy pants." Chu-e repeated back to Gavin, to confirm it was indeed Remy he was talking about. For a moment he was confused, though, the swap in topic too fast for his blitzed out mind. But, slowly, understanding spread over him and he fumbled for the laptop at his side.

"It was the uh... the grate. Thing. On the ceiling." Words were slipping through his hands like sand, making it hard to talk. It took four tries before he got his own password right, the screen lighting up with copious amounts of cat videos and pictures of kittens. There was also one tab dedicated to some 'writing tips' forum that seemed to be about murders.

All of these were quickly closed and a video pulled up, showing off the training room. It was an odd angle, but he turned the laptop around for Gavin to take. After a few moments, Remy and Chu-e were shown on the camera, no sound. They sent out their pokemon, had some banter... and then from the vents was the laser, shot at their pokemon. Chu-e had put in the work before getting sick.

Though Gavin struggles to process Chu-e Choi's delirious explanation, his counterpart seems to have thought things through before the illness had settled in. The underboss' lip twitches at the sight of so many cats; only Chu-e, he thinks, fond.

Curious amber eyes settle on the laptop screen, observe as Remiel Calcifet and Chu-e are assaulted by an actual-fucking-laser from the vent. Grate thing, ceiling. It makes sense, now that he has all the pieces to the puzzle

"So that's what's been in the vents..." Gavin frowns, remembering the vague reports he's received from others. Strange sounds, like the pipes are rattling in a submarine that's ordinarily serene. "Did you see what fired it?"