A nurse pokes her head into the room and gives Chu-e a once-over from the door. When he seems to be breathing and doesn't appear to be in pain, the monitor already slowing down, she only gives Zac Ramsay an assessing look before backing away. She closes the door behind her, giving them some semblance of privacy.

Chu-e, dazed, hardly seems to notice Zac for the moment.

"What?" It's raspy and weak, throat raw. Bewildered eyes stare at Zac as if he doesn't know who he is, then down at the box of adorable treats as the redhead just offered him alien eggs. A pause. "Oh."

Chu-e is in rough shape in his own right, covered in bruises with his right arm and leg wrapped in casts and elevated off the bed. He had wriggled the blankets off his body a bit, the hospital gown pulled down to show the starting of his terrible scars on his chest.

"Can I have a Litten?" Since Chu-e can't move himself, he'll have to rely on the other. More himself, now he's able to really take in Zac. Eyes lingered on the metal burned into his skin in particular. He takes a breath, then it all rushes back.

And Chu-e bursts into tear, fat and thick, his good hand raising up in a feeble attempt to cover his shame.

"What the fuck happened out there, Zac?"

The Litten does it's job of shutting Chu-e up. Much like a confused child, he blinks, stunned, eyes misty before he comprehends what Zac Ramsay had just done. The pain medicine in his system slows his reflexes and some higher brain function, as it turns out. He sniffs, nose runny from his previous crying fit, but ends up rubbing his eyes and his face twisting into a cracked smile. A laugh, wet and weak but genuine, starts slow before building. It hurts to laugh, his insides still sore, but it doesn't stop him. Nor does the crumbs on his bed or the mess all over his face.

When Zac starts talking he does quiet down, feeling oddly a whole lot better. The whole crystal thing is still eating him up inside, but so far between this and Leon Vercetti's visit last night it makes him feel a lot less heavy.

"My husband was from a family of Kalosian oil barons, Zac. I probably have enough money to buy this hospital and all the debt inside of it. A few times over." Not to mention the stipends he still received from his false identity. If Chu-e hadn't been homeless for a good portion of his life he might have lived more extravagantly. It made him feel better that Zac was so willing to help him, though. Chu-e was unclear on how much Gym Leader's got paid; plus the vlogging thing, which was also pretty cool.

"I remember...." He makes a vague motion with his good hand, finally picking his Litten back off his chest where it had dropped to take a bite. "Something wasn't... right? Bombs went off, then everything inside the building went crazy. I only avoided it because I saw you start acting weird." A frown, smaller. "And Fl-... my friend shouldn't have shot at all."

His voice lowered a bit, just between them.

"The plan was to put the workers to sleep, take what we were after, then just leave and let them wake back up."

"His name was Arthur. He was good to me." Despite Zac Ramsay's discomfort, Chu-e just gave him another small smile. Arthur was an older wound, still fresh enough to throb sometimes but already scarred over. It didn't bother him to talk about him anymore and he still loved him, but it was a longing sort of ache for what you couldn't have again. At the end of the day, it was better to think of the good memories they had together.

But, more pressing matters at hand, which was the explosion and the mess that had been the bong shop.

"I can't remember if you did. There was a pink mist.... that might have caused it? Even my own pokemon went crazy. Creams just... mega evolved herself, then started attacking everything. That's not like her. She's a good girl." It was a shame, then, that Chu-e had been outside for most of it. It meant a lot of the dialogue was missed on his end.

"The roof collapsed at one point, and I crawled on the top to try and see what was happening. I kind of remember Fairburne hovering over Silph, who seemed to be unconscious? Then you were fighting... a guy in the green suit? Pokkenger, I think?"

He pauses, something nagging at the back of his mind.

""Oh, at the end, he tried to stop me and Zeke from teleporting to safety. Was that Kazimir? His helmet was off." The Pokkenger was a high profile name. Yet, that information had really slipped his mind. Honestly, he didn't intend to do anything with it, either. "You have a lot of cool friends if it was. Makes me a little jealous I can't crush a watermelon with my thighs."

At the confirmation of Kazimir Wynter's name, Chu-e 'zips' his mouth shut with his good hand. The man's secret is safe. For now.

"He seems nice. Maybe we could have a boy's night, sometime. I bet he'd be a riot." Sitting up the best he could, Chu-e sighed. He glanced over at the flowers Leon had left him and had an idea what was coming before Zac Ramsay even asked the question.

"Feel like hell, dude. I think if you could just... get the bruising down, I'd be good." Settling, Chu-e tried to brace himself for the slap in the face this healing would be. Zac never did anything in half measures.

The truck hit, but it wasn't like last time.

It took his breath away like it did before, sure, but instead of just a vague kind of ghost-pain it was building to be real.

The bruises would fade and heal. And with what Zac Ramsay offered? The Bones would set but not heal fully. Just speed up the process.

Only, this wasn't just what Zac was offering.

Zac would be able to feel it, a pull, like something from Chu-e's side was draining. Was trying to tap into the spigot that was Zac's power and take more than the abundance of energy that he had offered. It would feel not dissimilar to unloading what he had into a bottomless pit instead of the confined space of a person.

That's when Chu-e would start screaming.

It was ripped out of him loud and raw, every nerve alight like fire was burning from the inside out.

They couldn't see it, but black crystal spread, feeling off the energy provided. They covered cracks in bone and sunk down deep into the marrow, overtook the dying and weakest parts of his organs, a fine and shiny coating.

Chu-e screamed for the second time that day except the nightmare was real. The monitor went off again, a high pitched alarm over the bedlam.

Zac would, in the end, be able to pull away. But it would be with more effort than he normally needed. Like something was trying to hold him there so it could drink freely, grasping and desperate.

The band-aid of Zac Ramsay's powers ripped off and Chu-e gasped a deep lungful of air. The machine flat lined- which was at odds with the frantic breathing and movement coming from the bed bound man. Blood started to pour from his nose, seeping down to join the stains from where Zac had been touching him. The cloth itself from where Zac's hands hand been were poked through and shredded, like something had torn through the cloth to get to him. Yet, Chu-e's skin under was fine, not counting previously healed scars.

"h҉u҉n҉g҉r҉y҉

It was quiet but rough, like it was pulled from the deepest part of Chu-e's chest, like something that didn't know how to speak was trying to for the first time.

He forced himself to sit up, sagging, leaning on the arm with the cast as his free hand slapped doctors and nurses away.

Eyes only for Zac.

Eyes which were empty, dead, nothing inside of them.

Then another sharp breath, he slumped forward, strings cut. The machine started to beat at a steady rhythm again.