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Molayne had been happy to live the soft life for a good long while after completing the Island Challenge. He had traveled all over Alola, spent countless nights under the stars, gotten enough fresh air and sunshine to last a lifetime. Sleeping indoors suited him much better.
But Kukui had a habit of pulling him in stange directions, and so it was back to a mountainside, back to thermal underwear and waking up with his clammy face pressed against the wall of a tent, shivering in a hoodie and thick socks.
Mornings had always been the worst, back in the day, but Kukui had a habit of waking up early to start the fire and, more importantly, breakfast, leaving Molayne to crawl out from the tent and squint and cough in the smoke, and shiver until Kukui pressed a cup of coffee into his hands with a laugh and an affectionate ruffle of his hair. After that, boundless freedom.
Today, Molayne stretched out by the river while Kukui swam and paddled and skipped rocks, and that was alright. Probably the softest life one could have while camping without learning how to drive an RV.
"Woo!" Kukui emerged from the water like he was in a commercial, all rippling abs and droplets catching the sunlight. He crashed down next to Molayne, scattering freezing droplets, and reached into the cooler. "You're not gonna swim?"
"The water's cold!" Molayne said, flinching.
Kukui cracked open a beer with a satisfying hiss and sat back. "You get used to it."
Molayne sat up and looked out at the water. Here, the rapids upstream gave way to a wide, tranquil stretch lined with trees and dotted here and there with rocks. Fish Pokémon darted in the shady patches, out of the hopeful gazes of the Fearow and Braviary circling overhead. "It does look kind of nice..."
"Just stick your feet in!" Kukui said.
They both ended up swimming, and wrestling a bit in the she shallows, although maybe 'wrestling' was a bit of an exaggeration. Kukui picked up Molayne and dunked him a few times, while Molayne laughed and flailed helplessly.
They came out in the early evening, spent and laughing and not quite as sober as they should have been.
The world tilted when Molayne bent to pick up his towel.
He braced his hand on the ground, suddenly aware of an ache spreading across his shoulders. New? Or had it been building all day, and finally passed the threshold of his noticing?
He straightened slowly, swallowing with a sting and a sudden shiver. The rush of the water came too loud now, and the evening calls of the birds flashed in his head like concurrent fire alarms.
"Take this," Kukui draped his towel over Molayne's shoulders, not seeming to notice anything amiss. "I'll get the cooler."
"Uh..." Molayne shook himself, slipping his glasses over his wet face. "...Thanks."
Kukui turned to look at him. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Molayne said, too quickly. He shook himself again, suppressing a shiver as the mountain breeze came over them. "I think I wore myself out."
Kukui's gaze lingered for a moment. "Let's get back to the tent, yeah! I'll get the fire going again."
It would have been easier to feel self-conscious about letting Kukui do all the work if he didn't seem to genuinely enjoy it. He whistled as he built the fire back up, paying no apparent mind to the clumsy sounds of Molayne changing into dry clothes in the tent, elbows going this way and that, losing his balance and falling against the tent walls.
He felt uncannily like he had a flu coming on. His body ached as he pulled himself out of the tent, the back of his head starting to throb toward the temples. He sat heavily next to Kukui, who was feeding a stick into the fire seemingly more for the simple pleasure of watching something burn than for any useful purpose.
"Hey." Kukui pushed the stick into the flames and turned to face Molayne, then frowned. "You don't look so good."
"Just tired," Molayne said, because he probably was. He was indoorsy. He'd gotten deconditioned sitting in his office all day, worn himself out.
"You can go and lie down if you want, yeah. I'll wake you up when dinner's ready. I'm making fajitas, woo!"
Molayne smiled, but faintly. Kukui was too good to him. "I could help."
"You've been washing the dishes every night," Kukui said. "That's plenty of help."
"Yeah, but you..." Molayne sniffed. "You set up the tent, make the fire every day, cook everything—"
"And I'm happy to do it, yeah!" Kukui interrupted, patting Molayne's arm. "Go on and take a nap."
Molayne sighed and got up, and his legs shook a little with the effort. "I owe you one. Or several."
"Name a star after me," Kukui said, laughing.
—
The evening passed in a cold, sweaty blur. Coughing, thrashing, brushing the wall of the tent with a skin-crawling zzt! every so often.
Kukui might have called out to him at some point, but it all blended together, hot and cold and pure sensation, none of it particularly pleasant. Maybe Kukui had said something about dinner, and maybe Molayne had croaked "later" sometime after. Maybe he'd been dreaming the whole time.
He woke with a start to the low growl of a zipper opening slowly, and the crinkle of the tent door. He sat up with a jerk, catching himself on an arm that didn't want to hold him. The world was dark except for the tiny glow of a flashlight which, upon inspection, appeared to the tucked under Kukui's shirt.
"Oh, man," Kukui whispered. "That's what wakes you up?"
Molayne only managed to cough at him.
The sleeping bags rustled. The light, and Kukui, moved closer. "You don't sound good. I thought maybe the smoke was blowing toward you, but..."
"S'nothing," Molayne said, because he was exhausted and not thinking straight, and this was the surest path back to the relative comfort of his sleeping bag.
Kukui, naturally, saw straight through him. "Do you feel feverish?"
"Tired," Molayne said pointedly, which was as close to grumpy as he ever got.
Kukui placed a hand on his forehead. It was so cold and so sudden that it made Molayne gasp and jump, which made him cough, which probably ruined any chances of burying himself in his sleeping bag and hibernating until he felt better.
"Shit!" Kukui said with feeling. "Mo, you're burning up. Why didn't you say anything?"
"Not in the mood to problem-solve," Molayne mumbled, and sank back to the floor. He managed to miss his sleeping bag and his sleeping pad, and thus subject his aching body to the shock of the cold tent floor.
"Hey, hey, hey." Kukui took out the flashlight, which hit like a Dazzling Gleam.
Molayne couldn't suppress a moan as he covered his eyes.
"Sorry," Kukui said, and the light dimmed a little. "I have a first aid kit in my bag. You just— Try to get comfortable, okay?"
"Don't need anything," Molayne mumbled into the tent floor, which seemed like it was going to be his resting place for the forseeable future.
He must have drifted off for a moment, because he jerked awake to a light in his face and Kukui's hand at his collar. He groaned and shrank away.
"Turn over," Kukui said; then, almost under his breath, "You feel really hot."
"Go to sleep," Molayne said, summoning all his willpower so he could turn over like Kukui had asked. "Don't worry 'bout me. Been looking after me this whole trip."
"We look after each other," Kukui said. "I knew I had a thermometer in my first aid kit. Open your mouth."
He slipped the thermometer in without really waiting for compliance, so Molayne just lay still on the hard earth, his head tilted too far back and his bones aching with cold.
"Oh, jeeze," Kukui said after pulling the thermometer free, sounding pained. "Mo. You have a fever of 103."
"Wha—?"
"Yeah, no kidding." A hand on his head.
"We're not staying here. There's a motel a little ways down the mountain. Sit tight, yeah?"
Molayne came back to himself a little as Kukui began to stir in earnest, inevitably making noise as he moved around the tent zipping up bags and shifting things around. He got Molayne wrapped up in a blanket and walked him to the truck, tucking him away in the backseat with the motor running.
Molayne gazed into the side mirror, shivering, watching the tent sway in the breeze.
It was still standing when Kukui pulled the truck out, barely 5 minutes later.
"What are you doing?" Molayne mumbled.
"I'll come back tomorrow to get everything and check out," Kukui said. "I wasn't kidding, Mo. 103.2. You have the flu."
"Ah," said Molayne, which was about all that he could manage. "M'sorry. I don't think I... realized..."
Kukui let out a shaky breath. "Don't worry about it. Just try to sleep if you can."
"Mm." Molayne closed his eyes, his head aching with every rattle of the truck.
Camping was definitely not for him.
The rest of the night passed in a blur that was briefly unpleasant when he had to get out of the truck. But it was worth it, because Kukui opened the door to a motel room that had beds, real beds, and Molayne collapsed onto one like all his bones had turned to liquid.
A warm hand settled in his hair, fingertips scrubbing lightly. "Sorry you're not feeling good, Mo."
Then he slipped under.