Work Text:
Recall how to breathe.
I will help you, says the winter wind, biting and seizing on its way down his throat, purging the otherworld's heavy fluid from his lungs. Cyrus is doubled over the whole flight from Mt. Coronet to Veilstone's city limits, hacking, gasping as learns again. The blistering cold peppers his nose, whips through the holes in his clothes, relentless and true and mocking and cruel. The sharp tongue of an honest friend. He is grateful. Do you remember?
Winter, and perched atop Magnezone, Cyrus spies fresh snow creeping softly over the northern routes. Early winter. So it has been eight months since riotous spring and his attempted rebirth of everything. In the otherworld, where his heart slowed to once a minute if it beat at all, Cyrus first tracked time by counting, matching the imagined tick to the slow undulations of the ghostly seaweed, then to the rotations of a particular clock island, after which he forgot and simply sensed.
Two months passed in the otherworld. A time dilation factor of 4. It will do.
Saturn has not changed the locks on the closet tunnel. The dust inside triggers more sneezing and coughing, and in the embrace of comparative warmth Cyrus's hands scream for attention, palms split and bruised where the red chain shattered. The breaks in his skin ooze freshly where he picked out the crystal bits, and ghastly fire rages through his arms up to the elbow. Lamplight and shadow start to dance and sway, sparking across his vision as Cyrus puts one foot in front of the other, finally moving up the ramp to where this tunnel exits inside his office.
Cyrus hesitates. There is faint movement in the next room, intermittent shuffling, scratching, rolling, drawer opening and closing. No air seeps through the door's cracks, but something tells him it isn't police. Cyrus unlatches the door and tumbles into a closet full of clothes. This smell he knows. He opens the closet door.
"Saturn." Cyrus coughs, speaks louder. "Saturn. I return."
-
Saturn has not slept. Instead, he drinks his seventh cup of coffee since the night before, staving off the sleepiness that eats away at his consciousness. He's spent the entire day alone in the office, having called off work for every other employee of Galactic. A well needed vacation after all that.
He hears someone approach. He assumes it's a stray employee, having left something. He ignores it, typing away at the work computer, looking through the files submitted during the disastrous meeting.
A voice; one that Saturn hears in his dreams - nightmares, less frequent with the years. He glances up, jaw dropping along with his coffee cup. Saturn hisses as it spills onto the desk, swearing under his breath as he mops it up with a bunch of tissues he's pulled from the box on his desk. A hallucination, really. He laughs. Maybe he's drank one cup of coffee too much. The ghost of his former boss tumbling out of a closet. No fucking way. He's dreaming.
So, he elects to ignore it. Yup. Hallucinations go away eventually.
-
Cyrus squints as he comes closer. Same hairstyle, same eyes and soft straight nose, gold Galactic G still emblazoned on his chest. This must be Saturn, but he has neither leapt for joy nor shouted at him in anger. Cyrus understands, even as he is a little surprised. Eight months is a long time. He must be taken for dead, a vengeful ghost.
Cyrus rounds the table, staring at the man determined to avoid his gaze. Yes, the same voice, hissing and swearing, the same tinkling laugh -- but older. Taller, broader, and that isn't just the different clothes. Cyrus leans in so close that he can feel his own breath reflecting off Saturn's cheek. This is not a boy anymore, the chipper late teenager he left behind, his eager sham lieutenant.
Saturn turns in his chair to get away from him, and Cyrus places his hands on Saturn's shoulders, searching the eyes that won't meet his.
"How long has passed?" Cyrus says at last, as he brushes through Saturn's hair with one hand, the soft strands slipping through his stiff fingers. "Commander. You have gray hairs."
-
He stares at the apparition for a while, his eyes darting around the form. He doesn't look a day older, like he'd just walked back out of the distortion world.. His clothes are ratty, his hands are cold. Saturn finally makes eye contact with him, a confused noise in his throat as he meets his eyes.
He's real.
Saturn pushes back, almost violently; he twitches, mouth opening, closing, like a Goldeen beached on the sand. "You--" He starts, feeling himself shake; something in his chest pounding at him. "This is a fucking joke." Denial. No, he's not real. This is a fucked up dream. Saturn has overdosed on caffeine and is dying. He's in hell. His real body is on the ground writhing in a nightmare, surely. He laughs again. What wonderful timing, this dream. Torture, in his sleep.
"You're not fucking real." Saturn's hands thread through his hair where the ghost of his former boss touched him. "It's been a fucking decade. You should be--" His voice shakes, pulling at blue strands. "You're not."
-
Cyrus feels a ripple of doting sadness watching Saturn contort and protest before the meaning of his words finally strikes earth.
Ten years.
Cyrus straightens up, breathes as deep as he can without triggering another cough. A time dilation factor of 60. Interesting.
He lets the confusion wash over him in blinks, staring up at the ceiling of the renovated office. The wood ceiling decals wink and wave back. Their inlaid lights are set low, the room dim and warm except for Saturn's monitor. The air reeks of coffee. At his side, Saturn is still shaking, laughing, or is it sobbing...
"But I am," is all Cyrus can say for himself. "I am alive. I am real. I am here. I.." I am sorry, the words push upwards towards the surface. He did not mean to-- a time dilation factor of 60. He did not ... account for that. He did not foresee it. He did not imagine...
He wonders how many nights Saturn spent wishing he were dead, alone in the grips of Sinnoh's criminal justice system, young and confused but evidently inflamed with enough fight to endure and struggle, enough fight to not only survive but also, judging by the contents of Saturn's computer screen and the overall feel of the office, thrive, converting Team Galactic's shell corporation into a legitimate Galactic Energy.
A wholly unnecessary parade of humiliation and misery. Pointless, but Cyrus is admittedly...
"You've done well for yourself. I'm proud." Cyrus takes another deep breath, and softly: "I am truly, deeply sorry, Saturn. I would have returned sooner if I had known. I experienced only two months in the other world." He reaches for the wet bolus of coffee-stained napkins still on Saturn's desk, drops them into the trash. The cold coffee stings, but it is a curious agony.
"Be calm, Saturn. It is late and I need medical attention for my hands. We will talk later."
-
"Liar," Saturn's mouth curls into something of a snarl, jabbing a finger at him. "You wouldn't have come back. You were never going to come back. And you're still not back because this is a fucking nightmare." He throws his hands up, exasperated. "Just fucking... go to a ghost Pokémon center, or wherever dream ghosts go to get themselves fixed up. Fuck!"
His hands shove themselves into his hair, ruffling through it frustratedly. "I'm literally going insane. No fucking way." He huffs, pacing around the desk, trying to ignore Cyrus. "We will not talk later, because you're still not real."
-
Cyrus puts his arms around Saturn, draws him into a hug. He does not pull back at any juncture, makes sure that Saturn feels every inch of his body firmly pressing up against his own, has no qualms about Saturn smelling the char and stink of his skin and hair. He says nothing.
-
Saturn bristles, stiffening. This is wrong. His touch feels wrong. An embrace that would have brought him to tears ten years ago feels like a suffocating cage. He feels like something is crawling under his skin. Get away, his mind screams. Saturn uses every bit of his strength to shove the man away, his breathing erratic and distressed as he immediately moves to put the huge desk inbetween the two of them, pulling a drawer open and rustling out a letter opener, holding it threateningly. (And he remembers; dreams of blood and gore, a corpse on the floor in front of him. The man in front of him, dead. He shakes the thought.)
"Get out." He breathes, shakily. "Get the fuck out."
-
Cyrus stumbles, nearly falls over from the violence of Saturn's rejection. From the other side of the desk a safe few paces back, Cyrus's eyes flick between Saturn's crazed expression and the letter opener. He can't go to a Pokemon center in these clothes, even at this hour, cannot risk the larger world knowing of his return. And by the time Cyrus comes back to this office, who knows how Saturn will feel, what he will do. No. He needs to defuse this now.
"I need a change of clothes," he simply states. "I have nowhere to go, Saturn." Less a plea and more a dull admission of fact. Palms uptilted, open, bleeding. "I don't begrudge you your hatred. So I want to know. Did you search for me once in the otherworld, in your ten long years?"
-
His mouth is dry, mind on red alert. Feels like something is lodged in his throat. Saturn shakes as he holds the letter opener in his hand. "Don't." Saturn starts. There's sweat dripping down his back.
"There's spare uniforms in that closet you came out of. Take it or leave it," he starts, voice raising. "I don't give a fuck if you don't have anywhere. Maybe you should have thought about if any of us had anywhere to go when you pulled your fucking stunt back at Spear Pillar, huh? Every single damn employee of Galactic? Do you know how many people were lost without you? Do you? You didn't even think about that, huh? Hundreds of fucking people!" Saturn snarls, jabbing the letter opener in the air towards him, pissed. "You didn't give a damn about any of us, you fucking.." He breathes, teeth gritting. "Take the clothes and get out. If I ever see you in here again, I'll fucking stab you. I don't care. I will kill you."
-
Cyrus lets the threat hang in the air. "I was not meant to fail," he finally says. "I wanted a better world... for... all of us." Cyrus carefully enunciates these words. "Every member of Galactic. Every last soul on this Earth. Of course I care." He takes a step forward, eyes coolly fixed on Saturn's, ignoring the blade jutting and piercing his vision. "You led them, and gathered them. You protected them in my stead. Thank you very much, Lieutenant. You did your duty well."
"You did not have to, Saturn," Cyrus continues walking around the desk slowly, fingers gently trailing on the wood surface. "I hid my true aims from you. You could have denounced me. Shed the title, the name. The Team. Let them all go back to their little lives. Let the dream end. It would have spared you. Because it was I who built this building. It is not your legacy. But you stayed. You stayed and you fought. You must have suffered. I am sorry."
He is now but a pace away from Saturn and the blade pointed straight at his throat. "I will stay-- for a little while, and then there will be no more troubles." Cyrus raises a hand as Saturn protests. "I doubt you have much altered the basement lab suite. I need a place to rest my head, and running water. In the morning I will go to a Pokemon center. I will stay in the basement lab. You need not see me ever again."
"Put down the knife, Saturn," Cyrus says, as gently as he can, before leaning away to cough into his other shoulder, hand still up in supplication. "I will take the clothes and leave you be." His open, battered palm inches towards the blade. Gently, gently...
-
Saturn feels a part of him want to accept his words, his apologies, take him in kindly; that part of him from ten years ago aches. But Cyrus grows closer, and he feels his heart hammer in his chest from the fear and anger.
*Bullshit!* His mind screams, gritting his teeth. It doesn't matter whatever he says now - he did what he did, the past is in the past. He twitches and thrusts the letter opener forwards, knuckles white from gripping it too hard - part of him still believes that this is some sort of apparition in front of him, an image conjured by dream or Pokémon. But whatever it is, he needs it gone. The blade speeds towards the other man's throat.
-
Cyrus's hand shoots forward to intercept, and--
A white-hot wall flattens it. As if fingers crushed and sticky, as if bone rent from bone, the pain surges forth and reverberates throughout his entire body. A gasp of agony escapes Cyrus's mouth, and he closes his eyes to focus on the pulsing sensation, going weak in the knees for a moment and stumbling, uses his weight to push his hand further onto the letter opener until his palm touches Saturn's grip. He does not try to wrest the blade away, but instead clasps his rigid fingers over Saturn's, won't let go, opens his eyes and looks straight into him.
"Have you... been well, Saturn?" A few coughs, pants, struggling to keep his gaze steady as the waves of pain wash over him. Then, softer: "Is the world any kinder than it was?"
-
The dose of adrenaline that went for the stab dissipates, and Saturn finds himself prickling at the touch once again. He bristles, breathing heavy.
"That's none of your business." Saturn replies, something like sickness filling the pit of his stomach. "..Let go of me. I don't care if you go to the basement." He attempts to pull his hand away. "Just.. fucking go."
-
Cyrus's heart faintly echoes the wrenching in his hands as Saturn pulls away. He does not move for ten long seconds, taking it all in, Saturn's rasping breath perfuming the air, his body so close, shuddering, warm.
He straightens up, still looking at Saturn, then looks away for what he needs to do next. Cyrus slides his free hand between Saturn's knuckles and his palm—even those fingertips protesting—then pulls his impaled palm away from Saturn's hilt.
His brain shuts off. Autopilot. Autopilot will not kick in, autopilot is screaming for the pain to stop, to stop moving and curl up and hide and let it go away. So Cyrus strips off everything except for his will, focusing his mind on the singular act of slowly moving his hand along the shaft. His eyes flash open and he gags in pain as the flesh catches on the blade's decorative ridges. Then, squeezing his eyes shut for one last forceful yank, he is free.
Cyrus's other hand still gingerly holds Saturn's, not attempting to take the bloodied thing from its grasp but instead slowly returning it to its resting position. Then Cyrus lets go entirely, backs away a little, looks back at Saturn. Warm liquid gurgles from his palm, dripping steadily on the floor.
Cyrus looks away again. Smiles a wry smile. Waits for Saturn to attack, and when he doesn't, he speaks.
"You have had this nightmare many times, but none so real. I did not hear your voice in the otherworld. So, if this were a dream... If I am a ghost that, too, will soon disappear with the morning dew... Do you truly have nothing to say to me?"
-
Saturn's eyes track every movement, hands shaking as they return to his side. He can't help but think about the blood; was Proton's flesh not enough? Staining, spreading, pooling. He almost retches at the thought of having to clean it up later, if at all. Cyrus speaks as easily as ever. Smoothly. Confidently. Nothing has changed.
His hand was cold, unnervingly so, a chill that spread to Saturn's own hand. He wants to run it under boiling water. Cyrus speaks, and Saturn is quiet.
"Fuck you." He says, face scrunching. "You don't get to ask that after all these years." In truth, he has more profanity to spill - the part of him from a decade ago wants to ask him why, why now? Why appear now? But he doesn't give in. It's too small, any yearning or confusion overwritten by the years. He just wants him gone. "You don't get anything else from me. Not anymore."
-
"So that is your answer." Cyrus sighs, the sound is almost a little petulant. After all these years, Saturn says -- But I didn't know, Saturn, I didn't know. How could I know? It wasn't my intention. You're being unreasonable. Cyrus is-- yes, that feeling is frustrated, but now is not the time.
Because a little voice reminds him he could have returned earlier. A time dilation factor of 60, that was not within his control. But he is reminded, as he was now and again while in the otherworld, that he abandoned his duty as leader (I was not meant to fail! How could I have known about that shadowy Pokemon?! About the otherworld!?!) but you did not come together you did not pick up the pieces fast enough you didn't even try.
Because yes, on some level, at first with his whole vehement being, he hadn't given a damn. Screw them all: Saturn, his grunts, the people, anyone or anything else. Cyrus was too busy cursing himself, the world, universe, existence, causality, for failing-- for not getting what he wanted and not knowing how to try for it again.
And then afterwards he was... stewing. Mulling. Investigating the otherworld, the shadowy Pokemon. Interrogating and quieting himself, purging his mind of clouded emotion and unuseful identities. And a few days ago, the shadow Pokemon had become increasingly violent for some unknown reason, reminding him that he had exhausted all he would find there and was ready to return.
But two months -- eight weeks, fifty-six days -- two months turning to ten years... Could it be called fair? I didn't know. How could I know? How...
He shrugs a small shrug. "Farewell." Stretches his back slightly, body cracking from stiffness. Hobbles over to the closet, selects a uniform of roughly correct size, opens the office door, leaves.
-
Saturn holds his breath as Cyrus (or the apparition of him, he's quite honestly, still not sure) leaves, taking a uniform with him. He slowly sits in his seat, exhaustion setting in almost immediately. A sigh leaves him, and he inhales.
His skin crawls, originating from his hands - he needs to wash them, at least. But for now, he sits, laying them on the desk, palms up, staring down.
He needs more coffee.
-
Five paces down the hallway, Cyrus almost keels over. He's grateful for the privacy of the late hour as he sways, stumbles, half-skids down the wall all the way through the corridors to the basement lab, bleeding hand staunched with his shirt, careful to not dirty the spare uniform bundled under his good (comparatively) arm.
The basement lab suite is caked in half an inch of dust and Cyrus must hike his collar up over his nose to breathe, but the lights still work, even as they flicker. Somehow, thankfully, all the doors are unlocked -- not that he would go back to Saturn for a keycard, he would simply have Magnezone zap the local circuits, even frying them he and Saturn surely understood to be preferable -- and Cyrus quickly finds the bathroom, the first-aid kit. Sees himself in the mirror.
Oh, yes, of course Saturn took this for a ghost. Not that Saturn himself was the picture of health. Cyrus wonders with some curious sadness about that. The office, the company did not seem in dire straits. Why...?
The sting of soap and water demand his attention. The sting, really the flaming tenthousandneedles of the alcohol wipes almost makes him pass out. Cyrus yelps and from then on lets his swears flow freely, teeth chattering as he first bandages his bad hand, then patches up his other one as best he can. Strips and inspects himself for other wounds to disinfect. Thinks.
It was not good to be stabbed. He needs medical care rightaway, will seek that first thing after sleep. Cyrus sees now that he sealed his fate with the hug. But he can appreciate the stabbing and Saturn's insistent rejection. It shook him, made him react. Rattled his mind free from the otherworld, the lingering strange thought cycles unstuck in time. Reminded him what it was like to live, to respond to the myriad concerns and demands of people, to move among them.
And what it was like to touch. He did not expect this, but seeing Saturn, he wanted to hold him. That was all.
Cyrus finds the spare beds. He spent a couple nights here, it really feels so recently, inspecting progress on the replica red chain. Saturn had the vats full of preserved and living Pokemon emptied, but the main machinery remains, likely due to its bulk. This is heartening, and Cyrus makes note to see if it will boot in the morning.
As Cyrus turns off the lights, the image of Saturn, eyes wild, gripping the letter opener resurges. Unmistakably pointed at his throat. Cyrus sighs, clumsily clambers in and pulls the blanket over his legs. Later. He will handle it later.
The soft embrace of nothing catches him before his head can hit the pillow.