Gavin hasn't been well since the Darkest Day. From nearly losing his fiancé to the wrath of his shadow Pokémon to the numbing discovery that Chu-e Choi was, in fact, alive, to the terrible state that the city of Sootopolis is in...

He'd stayed in the infirmary as long as his schedule would allow in the aftermath, straying from Tempest Quinn's bedside when sleep claimed him to check on the status of his once-best-friend. (What were they, now?) There hasn't been a change. Only the monitors with their slow, steady beeping affirm activity in the brain, in the heart. But was it Choi, or the parasite?

When Temp was discharged, Gavin is here even less. There are always other things to do.

But he orders them to alert him if there's any changes... so when Chu-e Choi opens his eyes, Gavin gets a notification on his phone.

He's there in minutes, though the time elapsed offers opportunity for father-daughter reunion before he enters. When he does, Rocket's underboss is silent and somber, lingering back from Choi's bedside with an air of something like trepidation.

He still bears scars from when his best friend had tried to kill him.

When Gavin speaks, it's with caution. (Not hope.)

"That you in there, Choi?"

Chu-e Choi Eris Halla

The brain reboots.

After so long of his body being piloted by something else, Chu-e is unfamiliar with it's workings. The air filling his lungs and the stretch of his chest is off. The weight of clothes and blanket strange. His hair sticks to his face and tickles but he can't remember how to move his hands.

It's not paralysis. It's slotting back into the body he was denied access.

At first he doesn't really register that Eris Halla is there. Eyes, though open, just stare listlessly at the ceiling. Like nothing is there at all yet not with the same emptiness as when Necrozma would try and force control.

Her small hand squeezes and he feels that, though, and a weak hand tries to grip back. His fingers are clumsy. Eventually he's able to remember how to move his eyes, to slide them over to take in her sweet face.

Enter Cillian Quinn.

His body is lagging. Chu-e knows, vaguely, what he wants to do. It's a computer running a game to advanced. The metaphorical fans are running hot as synapses try to fire. He pushes his 'up' key but the game does nothing to comply, so he's frozen and waiting for some response. That also doesn't account for the fog still in his brain as memories try and catch up. From the very moment he could process memories until now, his twenty eight years of life trying to explode all at once into reason and sense.

Chu-e doesn't answer with words. After a long, to long, pause his mouth opens.

Words try and form, something like a groan, but it catches. He starts to cough instead. Something black dribbles from his lips as the gunk dislodges.

A headache starts to pound and he closes his eyes again, vision growing fuzzy. For a moment it seems like he might have went back to sleep.

"Wha' happa?" Slurred, as he tried to take control of his tongue, process what words mean again.

Don't trust it.

It hurts, to be so guarded around a man he'd once entrusted his secrets to. He may never have told Chu-e his name, but he'd told him of his siblings and his childhood in Galar and his deep, turbulent feelings about the ones he loved.

Instinct wars with itself, on one hand begging him to rush to Chu-e's side and on the other urging him to leave. He is out of range of Necrozma's strangling crystal tendrils, far on the other side of the room, but he does not feel safe.

Would he ever feel safe with Chu-e again?

That's not him.

It's Eris' tears that move him, emotionally and physically; he strides closer to place a bracing hand on her shoulder. He can't find the words, but the sharp look he shoots the creature in the bed speaks for him: hurt her and perish.

"What do you remember?

His voice is colder than it's ever been.

Chu-e Choi Eris Halla

Tears spill down Eris Halla's cheeks. Cillian Quinn is frigid as a glacier. Chu-e still responds slow, defrosting.

Eris first.

It takes great effort. More than it probably should. Muscles learning how to flex again. His hand and arm trembles as he lifts it. Her cheek is cupped. Chu-e tries to be gentle, he really does, but the lack of coordination sees him touching her with slightly more force than needed.

"Shhhh...." Whispered and wheezy, his lips twitch as he tries to smile for her.

Distantly, he tries to look up at Gavin. His thoughts and memories are confused. What was the last thing he remembers?

"Silph." Even in his state he hisses it out. If he had the energy, anger would still roil in his gut.

But it doesn't, and something about that is more worrying than anything else.

There is another long pause. His hand drops from Eris' cheek. Chu-e takes a deep breath, bracing himself. Then he surges upwards. Sitting up on the bed, he lists dangerously to the side before he's able to right himself. The other two would see he looks kind of ill, eyes squeezed shut, but eventually he just belches (rancid) and sighs.

"What happened... ugh..." There is an audible 'pop!' as something in his jaw shifts. Like rust wearing off a machine. "What happened... to me?"

Silph.

Nothing else? Not the way he'd wrapped his hand around Gavin's throat and tried to take his life? Not the gradual decline of his personality into something less than human? Gavin's eyes are narrowed, lips pressed tight.

He killed you, Eris says, speaking of Silph, but Gavin spits, "Necrozma."

It had been Walsh to provide Gavin with a name for the thing he'd come to loathe.

Chu-e Choi Eris Halla

A gentle little 'shh, shh' was echoed back to Eris Halla. His hand dropped and Chu-e tried to pull the girl into a hug, onto the bed with him for some father-daughter cuddling she probably needed. It was less than effective given his weak state but hopefully she would get the idea and be able to help on her own, if she so chose.

"I'm here now." Was promised, quiet.

Cillian Quinn seems more intend on ending him (again) than seeking some sort of comfort in his safety. It confuses Chu-e; yet from what he can remember of his treatment of his friend for the last few months (because, to him, the actual death was mostly a blank or confusing blur) he can understand the reasoning.

As weak and pathetic and needing some TLC as he is right now, Chu-e still does his best to meet the other's hard stare. Pout up at his friend with something like indignation.

"Stop looking at me like that and give me a hug, Gav. I've been out for... what? A week? And you treat me like this?"
The arm further from Eris opens in an offering to the other man.

"You've been dead for a year."

Not quite, but the mere difference of a couple months makes little difference to Gavin. He had grieved his lost friend, shattered by the death of a man he'd lost months before the finality of his end.

Necrozma had taken him while he was still breathing.

Gavin doesn't step forward to accept the embrace as Eris does.

"You tried to kill me. More than once."

I'm not taking that risk again.

Chu-e Choi Eris Halla

A nod is given to Reiner, hand lifted for a quick pat of the Luxray's head.

The arm offered to Cillian Quinn drops. A shark intake of breath.

"A year." His grip tightens on Eris Halla. Vision blurs as the information sinks in. So long. It had been so long.

Blinking his vision back, he really looks at Eris and Gavin. Eris has new scars. The lines of Gavin's face are a little deeper, harsher.

Chu-e takes this all in and a cold chill and panic runs up his back. Something acrid and hot festers up the back of his throat. This reaction because.... because....

Chu-e realizes he doesn't feel anything about it.

Not one way or the other.

It's different from a lack of care. It's different from his own mental illnesses and trauma putting a mental block there. Chu-e could still feel, that was never gone, it was always just disconnected and disjointed. He had to make a more concentrated effort to do things as simple as love; which he always felt made it more special when he did.

Now was nothing. There wasn't even an emptiness there. It was just.... nothing.

The wrongness of it is what makes him choke. The panic spreads; natural bodily functions couldn't be erased. A sob leaves him, hand coming to cover his mouth as fat tears start to fall down his cheeks. That feels unnatural, too. Just a reaction.

"A year." Sniffling, he pulls Eris closer to his chest, tries to nose against her head. Warm tears would drop onto the girl's head.