Temp usually likes to call before he comes over.

Their relationship had been solid so far. Cillian Quinn had never made him feel like a burden or an idiot or like he was, as his nickname might be, temporary. Some things were just too hard on his nerves. A constant worry that he would fuck it all up. Today, though, he's brave. So Temp had bought two heaping plates of takeout (lots of rice, lots of spice, pineapple, delicious) and even dessert. Packed a toothbrush and a change of underwear.

He gives a light knock. No reply.

Waits a moment before he takes out his spare key. The one he was told was okay to use. He'd used before.

"Cillie?"

The door is locked back, bags dropped on the couch, food placed on the counter. It's quiet... but... no, not quiet. Slow footfalls make their way towards the bedroom. The bathroom light is on. Temp gently pulls it open.

"Cillie?"

Gavin's slumped against the wall, nigh unresponsive, knees pressed to his chest. He's shaking.

When the sound of his name draws his gaze to Tempest Quinn, his eyes are damp with tears he's refused to let fall. They're red, dark circles beneath them, a hollowness in the amber depths that are usually bright while focused on his lover.

He opens his mouth as if to say something, but no sound comes out.

How could he put it into words? That feeling that something has broken beyond repair?

His lip quivers and he looks frustrated with himself, pressing his lips together and letting out a shaky breath.

"Chu-e's — gone."

His tone as hollow as his eyes had been, his expression distant.

Temp's adrenaline jumps for a moment. His eyes are sharp and quick as he takes in what Cillian Quinn looks like. But... no cuts, no bleeding, no blemishes. No obvious injuries.

He's hung there in a fine limbo until he speaks.

No physical injuries, at least.

"Oh." Temp isn't sure what to say more than that, for a moment. His pulse dies back down from where it had been. Temp hadn't been fond of Choi. He'd only met the man a few times and he had seemed more of a wild bother than anything, hurting Gavin and being a nuisance. But, he was one of Gavin's closest friends, so his heart aches.

Temp doesn't close the door behind him but he does slide down the wall next to Gavin, tries to wrap an arm around him, pull him close and into comfort.

"Come here."

Because Temp can't offer much. There are no words he can give Gavin that will close the hole that's been ripped into his heart. He can only offer a shoulder while he waits for it to scab over.

Temp's arm is a heavy, comforting weight against his shoulders, and Gavin subconsciously leans into the touch even before his partner speaks. He shifts even closer on demand, curling against Temp's side and leaning against his shoulder.

With the closeness, Temp will be able to feel him trembling like a leaf. The effort of suppressing his emotions is taking its toll.

"I — I've never... lost..." His words come out slow and disjointed. He feels like he has to wade through a thick fog to access his thoughts. "Not since Kanto."

Kanto. It always comes back to those days, somehow.

Touches accepted, Temp raises his other arm to wrap around Cillian Quinn. Make a cocoon of comfort for his boyfriend. Idly, he rubs circles into his shoulder.

A soft kiss pressed to his temple, a little 'I'm here' as Gavin tries to find the words.

He wants to tell him it'll be okay, this will pass, but somehow that feels more like he would be spitting sugar into his lover's eyes than telling any type of truth. So he doesn't, stays quiet, listens, tightens his grip.

"You should let it out, babe/" A gentle coaxing. The hollowness under his boyfriend's eyes speaks volumes. If Gavin needs permission to cry, Temp will tear down the world to give it to him.

In spite of the heat behind his eyelids and the way his lip quivers with the effort of holding back his grief, Gavin offers a mute shake of his head in response to Temp's coaxing. He's never been allowed to cry.

You're not weak, are you?

It's always what he asks himself, in times like these, only it's his father's voice that rings through his thoughts. Sometimes it's Theo, and the memory of wanting to wrap his hands around the admin's throat and choke off the stolen words.

Temp has never insinuated his weakness, but Gavin is slow to change.

Gulping a few desperate breaths of air, he focuses on grounding himself with the feel of Temp's presence against him, the scent of his cologne.

"I knew he was dying," he says, at last, "I should've expected..."

Tempest Quinn

"He was your friend." Even if Temp still didn't understand why.

"That doesn't make it hurt any less." He drops his head on Cillian Quinn's shoulder, squeezes him a little tighter. The pressure of it always helps him when he's sad. Temp hopes it helps Gavin feel better.

And Temp can't force Gavin to cry. He won't even try. Just gently encourage it. Or, at least have him try and process the emotions other than to swallow them down till he chokes on them.

His eyes are hot with the tears he won't allow himself to shed.

"He was more than that," Gavin insists. "He was like a brother."

Like the brother he'd never had, for a while, until fate had brought Rowan Wrynn into Rocket's fold. But even the existence of a blood brother didn't make the bond he felt with Chu-e any weaker. Brothers. His gut twists. He'll have to let Chung-Hee know.

Slowly, the hot shame brought on by his weaker emotions fades beneath the steady reassurance of his lover's touch. Temp loved him no less because of it. He still won't allow himself to cry, but he allows himself to lean his weight against his partner in earnest and take advantage of his company to ride through the worst of the grief.

"I promised I'd help him find some way to get through this," he says, voice thick. "But in the end there was nothing I could do."

It feels as if he'd failed him.

Tempest Quinn

Heavy words and a heavier burden. His words drip slow around his tongue, carefully crafted to make sure that he didn't fuck this up. Say something that would stab into Cillian Quinn worse and prick open the wound even further.

"What's something you two used to do together? That was, like... fun?"

Looking back on memories of Choi would always have that sting for Gavin now. But that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy some of the old honey as he remembered.

Temp means well, and Gavin understands. But his words have the opposite effect to what's intended; it's a sharp stab in his gut as he tries to think and realizes that most of their recent memories are not good ones.

Necrozma had taken Chu-e from him long before he'd taken his lifeless corpse.

His lip quivers on a shaky inhale but Gavin steadies himself and closes his eyes. Thinks back further, to before Choi had licked that damn rock and sent everything spiraling. His lip twitches sadly.

"We'd talk a lot of shit," he remembers, and though his laugh is soft and strangled by grief, it's genuine enough. "Arceus, I miss that. We'd finish up a meeting and then just hang around gossiping like a pair of old women."

He rubs at his eyes with a hand.

"He was really good at cheering me up, always dragging me along with his latest nonsense." Then his look turns sadder, still. "That's how the whole... parasite thing started. We were fucking around with the fragment."

Tempest Quinn

"Do you think he'd want you to remember all the bad parts?" Temp still didn't fully grasp 'the parasite thing', probably never would, but it seemed like it had driven some type of wedge between Choi and Cillian Quinn.

And Gavin should remember. Chu-e pleading after their fight. To remember him as who he was and not what he became. His raw fear at being reduced to something he wasn't in memory even before Necrozma took it's hold. Of ending up a victim of his illness long before it took him.

Gavin's brow furrows, the grief fogging his mind.

"I..."

His fingers curl to fists as he slogs through memories better repressed to find the ones less tainted by the thing Chu-e had become. A sharp jerk against Temp's side when he remembers giving up the fragment to that thing.

But...

"No," he says softly, "but it's hard to forget."

Guilt weighs heavy upon him. He wanted to honor Chu-e's wish to be remembered for what was good, but how could he drive out the nightmares that haunted his thoughts? He had dreams of it still, woke shivering and clutching at his throat. Temp knew. Temp had seen him through those nights, even if he didn't understand what they had meant.

"It'll take time."

Temp thinks it over. Was now a good time to tell Cillian Quinn a personal anecdote? He didn't want it to seem like he was trying to draw attention away from Gavin's pain, though...

"It wasn't pretty when my mom died. It was really slow, went on for days. We did everything we could, but in the end it wasn't enough... She was the strongest woman I've ever known, you know? But it took a while before I could divorce the her that was scarred up and sickly on a bed from the woman who raised me. It gets better even if it doesn't feel like it right now."

Another quick squeeze.

"When was the last time you ate? Had something to drink?" Because, while it might feel or seem silly, Gavin probably wasn't taking care of his body. And that made grief so much harder to deal with.