Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Every one of Cyrus' breaths crackled audibly in his chest, reaching Saturn's ears even from where he sat across the room. He bit at his nails, his gaze darting to the door, to the clock, the the window. The lights from the marina lit the room pale green through the cracks in the plywood obscuring the glass, deepening the sickly hollows of Cyrus' face. Above the bobbing lights of the boats, a thick crescent moon hung pale but resolute in the dark sky.

“Saturn?” A voice sounded, clear and quiet, its identity disguised in a whisper.
Saturn stood and tip-toed to the kitchen, the floorboards creaking under him in open defiance of his caution. He'd have to be more careful. This place had been dangerously old even when he'd been a kid, probably condemned or about to be. Nothing was sure.

“Saturn?” the voice came again, clearer. "This better not be a trap."

“Mars?” He rounded the corner and paused in the doorway to the kitchen. Mars squinted at him, crouched awkwardly in the windowsill. At the sight of him, she extricated herself, revealing a large backpack rumpling the fabric of her dress.

“Where is he?” Mars demanded, looking around as though Cyrus might be lurking in the shadows.

“Sleeping. I told you, he's sick.”

“I want to see him.”

Saturn tossed his head. She'd have to learn to respect his authority if they wanted any hope of success. “Did you bring what I asked?”

Mars spared a moment to glare at him before shrugging off the backpack. She unloaded her cargo onto the rickety wooden table: non-perishables, medicines, instant coffee, toiletries, water, even a first-aid kit. “I told the cashier I was preparing for a snowstorm.”

“Not here, right?” Saturn spared a moment to search her face before falling on the supplies, squinting in the darkness. Cyrus had gone without treatment for far too long.

Mars’ eyes glinted in the moonlight as she rolled them. “Obviously not here. I came from Hearthome?”

“Hearthome?” Saturn paused in his search for a thermometer, his hand stilling over the latches of the first aid kit. “What were you doing there?”

“None of your business.” Mars crossed her arms, shifting her weight between her feet. “Can't I at least see him?”

“He's sleeping.”

“I won't make a sound.”

Saturn huffed and threw open the first aid kit. “Wait a moment.” He bent nearly double, straining his eyes to make sense of the packaging within. Painkillers, scissors, bandagages— aha. A temporal thermometer. Perfect. “Alright, come on.”

True to her word, Mars fell silent as they broached the guestroom where Saturn had dragged his master two days prior. At the sound of Cyrus’ labored breathing, she gave Saturn a curious look, but he only pressed a finger to his lips and crept closer to the bed. Mars followed him silently; even her tread was lighter than his, her breathing nearly inaudible.
After pulling the plastic from the battery compartment, Saturn pressed the thermometer gently to Cyrus’ temple.
39.7.

Saturn huffed, the aborted beginning of a heavy sigh. In his sleep, Cyrus coughed and wheezed, his breath coming in strained whistles for a few heart-stopping moments.

When it passed, Saturn led Mars back to the kitchen. She sat at the table, her chin in her palm, face grave. “What's wrong with him? Why can't he breathe?”

“I think it's pneumonia. He's… he keeps waking up in the night. He can't even… I mean—” Saturn cut himself off. The particulars of the strange, intimate moments he had shared with Cyrus were his alone. And Cyrus would probably prefer discretion, or at least a strict adherence to the facts. Still, the truth of his panic and despair welled up on his tongue like blood from a cut. Saturn swallowed hard and did not speak.

Mars let her breath out slowly, almost laughing. “I thought he was dead. When that— that monster took him away, I really— She straightened suddenly, shaking her head. “Is Jupiter coming?”

Saturn shrugged. “I called her. She said she'd come.”

“Right.” Mars sat back in her chair, casting an uneasy glance at the long-neglected kitchenette. "What is this place, anyway? Don't tell me it's one of your childhood haunts; that's the first place the feds will look."

Saturn shuddered. He wasn't an idiot; of course coming back to his hometown had not been the smartest move. But what else was he supposed to do? Cyrus needed shelter, and Saturn, well... He'd done his best.

"Saturn," Mars pressed. "Tell me it's not."

Saturn shook his head. "It's just an old hotel. The Harbor Inn." She didn't need to know how many drunken nights he'd spent here, playing spin the bottle while his more amorous friends broke in the beds.

"And you're sure it's safe?"

"As safe as it can be, given the circumstances." Saturn ran a hand through his hair, only just managing to not roll his eyes. Did she think he was stupid? That he hadn't made the best possible decision? She wasn't the one who had had dragged Cyrus like a broken doll because he'd been too close to death to even stand up on his own. Who had kept vigil in the night, cradling Cyrus' head and covering his mouth to keep him from calling out in his feverish sleep.

"And there's not, like, asbestos in the walls?" Mars stuck her hands into the pile on the table, dragging forth a container of something that rattled.

She held it out to Saturn, and he extended his hand automatically. She shook a few small, pill-shaped objects into his palm "No, there's no asbestos... What is this?"

"Chocolate." Mars tossed a handful into her mouth. "Is there asbestos?"

"No." Saturn stared at the little chocolate pellets in his palm.

"Buuut?"

"It's just a rumor." For lack of anything else to do with it, Saturn paused to eat the chocolate Mars had given him. Unable to risk going out, neither he nor Cyrus had eaten in the last two days. The chocolate tasted artifical on his tongue, nauseatingly sweet. "Apparently, a sailor came to stay at this inn one night. An explorer, I guess. He had just come from some far-off island, and— Well, the rumor is that he went somewhere he shouldn't have, and he caught the attention of a spirit. It followed him here, to the inn. When night fell, he went to sleep and never woke up."

"Uh-huh..." Mars arched her brows. "You mean he died?"

"No, I mean he went to sleep. And he stayed asleep, gradually growing weaker and weaker, until he died. They say the spirit never left, and it lurks in the shadows, waiting to claim its next victim."

"Urgh." Mars shuddered.

"Oh, it gets worse." Saturn sighed and put his head on his hand. What a life, having nothing better to do but tell ghost stories while waiting for the feds to kick down the door. "Apparently, every night on the new moon, a guest would disappear from their bed, never to be seen again." When Mars turned to look out the window, he scoffed. “It's still practically a quarter moon. And besides, it's just a ghost story.”

“You're not even a little creeped out?”
Saturn fixed her with a glare, his nerves fraught. “We have real problems to worry about.”

—

Jupiter arrived hours later, crawling in through the kitchen window just as Mars had done. She came toting camping supplies, unrepentant about rushing into Cyrus’ sickroom amid the sounds of his coughing.

Saturn only just beat her there, falling to his knees by the bedside. Cyrus clung to him, gasping for breaths between coughs that would not abate.

Jupiter did not gasp as Mars had done, nor did she rush to intervene. She simply watched. Once Cyrus had finished coughing and fallen back to sleep, she fixed Saturn with a bold, unimpressed stare. "That cough sounds like a death sentence."

Saturn, though not normally given to violence, could have slapped her. “Shut up. Did you bring what I asked for?”

“A lot of good it'll do you.” She led the way back to the kitchen, unloading her backpack on the old, peeling countertop while Saturn closed the window and drew the blinds again. A bit of eerie green light leaked through from the marina, making stripes on the wall. “How did you find this dump, anyway?”

“Never mind that,” Saturn said coldly. “This inn has been abandoned as long as you've been alive. No one will come.”

“Saturn.” Jupiter set a camp stove down with a thud. “I thought you were smarter than this. If you don't get Master Cyrus to a doctor, arrest will be the least of his concerns.”

Saturn leveled a glare at her. “I told you he was ill.”

“Yes, ill, not on his deathbed.”

“Are you going to leave, then?”

Jupiter was quiet for a long moment, her teeth bared. Finally, she sighed and threw up her hands. “I don't want him to die, Saturn. But you can't seriously—”

“Prepare for the worst if you must,” Saturn interrupted hotly, “but at least do me the favor of expecting the best.”

—

Saturn took one final shift watching over Cyrus, half-dozing in a chair only to rouse when Cyrus would wake to cough and cough and cough.

When the light of dawn coaxed Saturn's eyes open, he found Cyrus lying awake, though flat against the pillows. He looked terribly gaunt in the semi-darkness. Saturn bit his thumbnail. They'd have to get some food into him, and quickly.
"Saturn," Cyrus said gravely.

Saturn straightened in his chair, blinking the sleep from his eyes. “Master Cyrus?”

“Stop this.” Cyrus’ voice came only as a hoarse whisper, his breathing wet and labored. “Give this up… This sentimentality... will get you... killed."

“You're delirious,” Saturn said firmly, taking Cyrus’ hand where it rested on the covers. “You had faith in something, Master Cyrus. That means something, even if I don't understand it. I want— I want to show you what loyalty means."

“Saturn—” For a moment, Cyrus’ voice, though raspy and weak, took on its usual commanding qualities. He had to stop and cough, falling just short of the choking fits that had plagued him all through the night. Saturn spoke over him, voice rising: “I'll show you, Master Cyrus. The world hasn't seen the last of Team Galactic!”

Chapter Text

So he's dead?" Saturn bit his lip, his gaze falling to Jupiter's boots, which doubled snd coalesced sickeningly in front of his eyes.

At the edge of his vision, Jupiter shrugged. "I told you what I know."

"So he's dead," Saturn pressed, grasping for certainty that slipped between his fingers like water.

Jupiter raised her palms, a quick, violent gesture. "What do you want me to say? He disappeared. I don't know if the shadow killed him. I don't know what was on the other side of that portal. The Champion went after him, and she's not dead; I saw her on live TV."

"But—"

"Listen! I risked my ass coming here to warn you. I don't know why Interpol hasn't raided the place yet, but it could happen any minute, so don't expect me to stand around all day giving interviews." She huffed and turned away from him, the toe of her boot dragging on the linoleum. "There's no Team Galactic without Master Cyrus. No offense." A half-step away. "Mars and I are keeping our phones, but..."

"I know," Saturn said bitterly, swallowing hard against the ache on his tongue.

"Goodbye, Jupiter."

He didn't wait for a response before turning on his heel and striding away. Tears blurred his vision, returning stubbornly no matter how many times he wiped his eyes.

Muscle memory brought him to his quarters. Like a sullen teenager, he threw himself down onto his bed as the first sob rocked him. His rage burned in his face. Crying like a child...! All his beliefs fracturing along their weaknesses without Master Cyrus' reassurances to fortify them. A victim of his howling, wounded, wretched human spirit— vague and incomplete, as Cyrus would remind him. This was his final failure. He had never understood Cyrus, and now he never would.

Pulsing light drew Saturn to wakefulness. He kept his eyes closed for a moment, breathing through the headache pinching at his temples. He'd cried himself to sleep like a petulant child.

A rainbow of lights thrummed gently just beyond his eyelids, gentle imperatives pushing on him: Act. Love. Claim.

Blue, pink, yellow.

Red.

Saturn opened his eyes. In front of him, the Lake Guardians hovered. The combined efforts of their intense power throbbed behind his eyes. Act. Love. Claim. Beneath it all, and undercurrent of wounded-feral rage his brain couldn't translate into words.

"I— I'm sorry," Saturn gasped. If they were back for revenge, they had earned it. The memory of their cries echoing in the laboratory still sent ripples of nausea through his stomach when it sneaked up on him in quiet moments. Though he had no psychic powers of his own, he pushed back as hard as he could, throwing everything into one thought, one feeling: Remorse.

The Guardians advanced on him, and pain and pressure exploded in his head: Atone. Die.

Saturn's vision whited out.

Damp grass under his knees. Blood chilling under his nose. Vertigo.

Saturn fell forward onto his palms and vomited, icy air filling his mouth during the ragged gasps that followed. His head throbbed at the flex of his jaw. He fell back and opened his eyes, his vision full with the dark drying blood on his trembling fingers.

The waning quarter moon had yet enough presence in the sky to light the scene as he looked around. All around him, tall meadow grass swayed in the sweet mountain breeze. Farther off in the distance, water trickled as it flowed. Patches of frozen snow glinted here and there among the claustrophobic press of the dark fir trees.

Following the lush slap of water on water, Saturn walked to the stream and crouched at its edge. His boots kept a sure hold on the mossy rocks just as his insulated jumpsuit kept the worst of the mountain chill from his skin.

Still, the water numbed his hands and stung his face as he washed the blood from his lips and chin. The Lake Guardians had disappeared, leaving him alone in this forest.

It was obviously a Route; though the grassy path had grown long, it lay down under the influence of human activity. Someone had been here, if not exactly recently.

Saturn rose and followed the tracks.
The Guardians had brought him here for a reason— his head pulsed with the word and the rage that accompanied it: Atone.
Whatever that meant. Likely they meant for him to die here, cold and alone, his brain screaming with the memories of his perversion of the natural order.

Saturn walked on.

What else could he do?

Beyond the jagged mouth of a cave, swirling fog turned to water on Saturn's face. He lingered near the entrance and waited for his eyes to adjust. Something more than the frigid air chilled him; an innate danger pricked his brain stem.

And... a presence.

A second breath pattern emerged from the darkness, heavier than Saturn's own, ragged, colored with clipped, guttural moans.

Against his better judgment, Saturn whispered into the darkness: "Hello?"
No response.

Carefully, Saturn released Bronzor from its Ball, closing his eyes against the stab of light. Intuiting his plan, Bronzor angled itself, slowly reflecting the light of the moon round the cave. The watery spotlight roved and moved, until it finally landed on the body.

Cyrus lay slumped against the cave wall, his body canted awkwardly to the side. Feathers peeked out from tears in his jumpsuit, especially from a large gash near the elbow of his left arm. His breaths came fast and shallow.

"M-Master?" Saturn's breath caught. "Master Cyrus, can you hear me?"

Cyrus didn't say a word. Forcing in a deep, tremulous breath, Saturn edged closer. He could handle this; he just had to keep his head. A lifetime in Sinnoh had certainly exposed him to enough wilderness survival education to know what to do.

Kneeling, Saturn tapped Cyrus on the shoulder. "Are you alright? Can you hear me? Cyrus? Can you hear me?"

For a moment, Cyrus' lips moved soundlessly. Saturn leaned in until the icy breaths ghosted across his cheek. "Jiisan? S'cold..."

Saturn pressed his hand to Cyrus' forehead and winced. Cold. Freezing. And not a tremor passing through Cyrus' body. Dammit, he needed to act, not just sit here assessing!

His own breath escaped him in unstable bursts, sending tendrils of fog spiraling into the ether. He slowed in with force of will, calming himself. Cyrus hadn't made him lieutenant for nothing. He had to handle this or Cyrus would die.

Biting his lip, Saturn freed Kadabra from his Ball. The LED flare made Cyrus groan and turn his head away, which was something. At least he was responsive, if not oriented. "Sorry," Saturn whispered. "Kadabra, I need you to do something for me. I know it's not what you're used to. Do you remember where you evolved?"

Despite everything, Saturn's chest swelled with the memory. His little Abra beaming at him from the riverside off Route 218. "I need you to Teleport us there. Can you do it?"

In response, Kadabra blinked out of existence and reappeared a few feet away. When Saturn spotted him, he repeated the exercise and returned to Saturn's side.

"Good." Saturn recalled Bronzong and rested a hand on Cyrus' shoulder. "Let's go."

—

Canalave had always been a sleepy town. Most of the action came from the marina and usually only involved sailors getting into fights or the handful of local burnouts vandalizing the boardwalk. Saturn breathed a sigh of relief when the foggy cave gave way to a dark and empty street. Even on the water, the air was much warmer, and beside him, Cyrus had already begun to shiver.

Saturn knelt beside him. "Master Cyrus, if you can understand me, I need you to put your arm around me. We're going to stand, alright?"

"J-jiisan... It h-hurts..."

"What hurts?" Saturn drew back. He'd positioned himself on Cyrus' left side, where his jumpsuit had torn so badly. Even now, a few handfuls of down caught the breeze and drifted off toward the water. Saturn leaned in, squinting, but the streetlights only revealed more feathers. Gingerly, Saturn took Cyrus' arm.
Cyrus hissed, baring his teeth. A tear streaked from his eyes, gleaming silver on his cheek. "Who are you?" He shifted away, raising his good arm to ward Saturn off.

"No, don't." Saturn switched sides and caught Cyrus' right arm, forcing himself under it before Cyrus could decide to hit him.

"Oh," Cyrus sad sadly. "Father."

"Stand up and come with me," Saturn said, doing his best to look around without losing hold of Cyrus. The streets wouldn't stay abandoned forever. For all he knew, alarms were waking residents all over Canalave to get them ready for the workday.

"Yes, s-s-sir," Cyrus slurred.

"Now." Grunting, Saturn hauled the two of them up. Even with Cyrus trying his best, Saturn took the brunt of the weight. Keeping their balance was an active endeavor, made slightly easier by the motion of walking. Indicating with his head for Kadabra to return, Saturn set to work hauling Cyrus to the back side of the Harbor Inn.

The thin strip of land separating the hotel from the marina was barely enough for one person to creep along, and that if they were careful and leaned against the siding. The dirt sloped heavily toward the rock seawall, which towered above the lapping waves at a slant. A fall would drop a body directly onto the rocks.
Sighing, Saturn left Cyrus prostrate on the grass and crept toward the back window, as he had so many times as a teenager.

"F-Father?" Cyrus called.

Saturn flinched.

"I'm s-sorry! I'm sorry! I d-didn't m-mean to make you l-leave. Should I g-get up?"

"Be quiet!" Saturn hissed, for a moment pressing his forehead into the weather-beaten siding. What did he think he was doing? His heart hammered in his chest, his breathing speeding up to accommodate it, until sparkling black vignetted his vision. He had no handle on this situation, none whatsoever, and he was going to fall into the fucking harbor and Cyrus would die of exposure.

That thought alone was enough to sober Saturn. He thumped his forehead against the siding to bring himself back to reality, and continued his sideways shuffle to the window. Opening it was a simple matter of pushing up the sash, since the lock had long since been destroyed by some fellow delinquent.

Saturn propped the window open with a stick that had been placed there for exactly that purpose and made his way back to Cyrus. Determined not to panic now, he took Cyrus by the ankles and dragged him along the narrow strip of grass. This was utter insanity. Cyrus would probably rather have died than see himself subjected to such indignities, but— Well, according to the Team Galactic bylaws, Saturn was in charge. He was in charge, dammit; this was his call. So he dragged his master on the ground like a child with a toy, gritting his teeth against the cries of pain Cyrus loosed when his apparently injured arm touched the rocks.
Under the window, Cyrus began to cough. It was a short fit, but a bad one that had him spitting in the grass and wincing.

Saturn held fast to his ankles. "Cyrus, if you have any strength left, if you can hear me at all, I need you to sit up."

"S-S-Saturn?" Cyrus was shivering worse than ever now, and thank goodness. His body was trying to warm itself up.

"You're incapacitated," Saturn said with as much calm as he could force into his voice. "I'm in charge. Sit up and grab the window sill."

"Tired..." Cyrus' head rolled in the grass. Saturn squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers aching front his death grip on Cyrus' boots. "Jiisan w-was here?"

"Shit!" Saturn ground his teeth and sighed.
This, for some reason, stirred Cyrus into motion. Though his whole body trembled with the effort, he got himself up with a painful effort and gripped the windowsill with his right hand. Saturn got under him and shoved. The resulting clamor made his heart speed up, which really shouldn't have been possible. Somehow, his body found a way. His chest ached, but he wasted no time recovering. He all but flew through the window, carefully lowering the stick to the grass before easing it shut.

He dismounted from the countertop carefully. Cyrus had obviously fallen. It would have been impossible for him to keep his balance.

A hysterical laugh escaped Saturn's chest. He'd shoved Cyrus in headfirst. What if he'd died?

A low groan from the floor drew him back to reality. "N-nobody— Nnh... Nobody w-will come looking f-for me. Better... t'just kill me..."

Fighting the urge to scream, Saturn took Cyrus' ankles once again and dragged him over the dusty floorboards. He could only hope that an errant nail didn't catch Cyrus' back and bleed him.

Saturn's back and forearms ached, but he held tight and kept walking, tugging Cyrus along. He just needed to get Cyrus into a bed. That was all.

Cyrus started coughing again, the force of them curling his body up. He coughed long and wet, curling on his side once Saturn got him into a bedroom. An ancient, dusty rug bunched up underneath him, and Cyrus dug his fingers into the material as his whole body shuddered.

"Stay here," Saturn said, turning to the closet. Finding an blanket, he shook it out as best as he could and spread it over Cyrus where he lay on the rug. "Get into bed if you can. I'll be right back."

Practically running, he returned to the kitchen and began to dig through the cabinets. Sure enough, some high schoolers had had the foresight to leave a few party cups behind. Finding the one that smelled the least like alcohol, Saturn took it and climbed out the window.

He hurried to the marina, going just slow enough to ensure he didn't trip and fall to his death... or draw unwanted attention to himself, which could have been a very different kind of death sentence. Every instinct told him to run, but he didn't. He walked, his knuckles white around the cup.

He rinsed it as best as he could at the marina's water fountain, then filled it to the brim and set off back to the Harbor Inn.

Cyrus had gotten himself into the bed, by some miracle, and appeared to be asleep despite the violent shudders running through him.

"Cyrus? Master Cyrus?" Saturn leaned over him.

Like lightning, Cyrus shot an arm out and squeezed his wrist. "Kill me," he demanded in his familiar tone of grave imperative. "There's n-nothing I can g-give you."

"Sh, sh. Drink this." Saturn brought the cup to Cyrus' lips. "Just drink."

Cyrus drank, though he stopped too soon for Saturn's taste. Saturn set the cup on the bedside table.

In low light, the white of Cyrus' boots seemed to glow. Saturn knelt at the foot of the bed and pulled them off by the heels. Chunks of dirt and gravel fell from the soles, clattering onto the hardwood, and brown dust made his fingers skid across the leather. Had Cyrus traversed that whole cave system by himself? How had he gotten there? Jupiter had been very clear about the rip in space-time— a portal, she'd said.

Shaking his head, Saturn got to his feet and arranged the covers over Cyrus, who coughed intermittently. "Please try to sleep. There's water on the nightstand for you. Call me if you need anything." For a moment, the absurd urge to squeeze Cyrus' hand nearly overwhelmed him. He made fists instead. "It's— It's Saturn, by the way. It's just the two of us. You're safe."

Cyrus made no reply.

After burying Cyrus under every blanket he could find (save one, which he kept for himself), Saturn carried the suite's desk chair to Cyrus' bedside and arranged himself in it. Spring nights in Sinnoh still got bitterly cold, but between the building's insulation, the blanket, and his good down jumpsuit, Saturn found nothing to complain of. With a sigh, he propped his feet on the edge of Cyrus' bed and closed his eyes.

Cyrus coughed all night long.

Chapter Text

Cyrus' fever continued to climb as the morning crawled toward afternoon. His coughing grew harsher and more frequent. If it wasn't pneumonia, then it was definitely some sort of infection in his chest, and a bad one.

Saturn ran a hand down his face, the floorboards creaking as he paced up and down the hall. Three days in the dry dust of the Harbor Inn and he was already about to chew his leg off.
His eyes roved over the graffiti hacked into the walls, knife gouges and cigarette burns.

"Hey." Appearing from one of the guestrooms, Mars eased up to him with a bunch of rugs bundled up in her arms. A scrap of cloth, tied at the back, hid most of her face.

Saturn stopped his pacing and pressed his back to the wall to let her pass. "What are you doing?"

Somewhere in the distance, Cyrus' choking coughs sounded.

"This place has a blind spot," Mars said, the corners of her eyes tightening. "If you go out the back window and immediately turn right, nobody can see you but the boats, and there aren't any out right now."

Saturn bit his lip. No use picking a fight, even if it was a stupid risk to take. The ocean never dtayed empty for long. "And the rugs?"

"I'm shaking the dust out. I don't know if you've noticed, but this place is disgusting."

Anger flared in Saturn's chest and dissipated just as suddenly. With an almighty sigh, he rested his head on the wall and blinked at the ceiling. "Here," he said weakly, his words punctuated by more of Cyrus' coughing. "Let me help."
Mars bristled. "Was that an order, Lieutenant?"

"No, no." Saturn sighed again, the ghost of that morning's cold instant coffee washing over his tongue. "I'm sorry."
"Hey, I was kidding." Mars indicated the kitchenette with her head. "Grab a mask and open the window for me, okay?" This will go faster with two of us."

—

The Harbor Inn was not particularly large, but Jupiter somehow managed to make herself scarce until 3:00, when she summoned them to the kitchenette for yet another meal of shelf-stable food. A styrofoam cup noodles container steamed on the counter, smelling perplexingly of mint tea.

"Where have you been?" Saturn asked, taking the plate of crackers and canned fish she offered him.

Jupiter passed her eyes right over him, turning to pass a plate to Mars. "I don't like cleaning."

"And I do?"

"Glad to hear it." She smirked, cutting Saturn off when he opened his mouth to reply: "Come on." She took the two remaining plates and the noodle cup and turned toward Cyrus' room.

With a glance at Mars, Saturn followed.
The sunlight streamed in through the cracks in the boarded-up windows, revealing all the dust motes in the air.

Saturn stopped short and put a hand to his brow. "That's bright!"

"Sit... at the opposite... wall." Cyrus. His voice came weak, his words broken up by shallow gasps for air.

"Master Cyrus!" Saturn hurried in, quick to press his back to the wall to get a better view. Irritated starbursts still danced in his vision, but the flashes weren't quite enough to obscure the figure of Cyrus sitting up in bed, one hand pressed to his chest.

"You're awake?!" Mars added joyfully.

"It won't last," Jupiter said in a warning tone.

Saturn turned to glare at her, but he kept his mouth shut. Every blink cleared his vision a little more, and the sight before him was not exactly a pleasant one. Cyrus had just been a few short steps away from death's door, and he didn't look much better for all Saturn's efforts— so pale he looked gray, shivering, his hair stuck to his face with sweat... Not to mention the ragged breathing.

"Team Galactic... is disbanded," Cyrus said firmly, letting out his breath in a wet exhale. "If I need... your assistance again... I will call upon it." He ducked his head to the side and coughed, long and wet and choking, until Saturn rose and struck him firmly between the shoulder blades.

"You're incapacitated," Saturn said, just as firmly. "The bylaws clearly—"

"Damn the bylaws!" Cyrus burst out. He curled forward on himself, pressing a fist to his forehead, chest heaving. "You can't help me with this."

"Well, you need someone's help," Jupiter cut in. "With all due respect, Master Cyrus, you're only awake right now because I poured an inadvisable amount of baby aspirin down your throat." She jerked her head at the nightstand, where a medicine dropper lay next to a bottle of liquid medicine.

"Why are you fighting us on this, anyway?" Mars asked, quiet and cautious. "We stood by you, and we'll stay by you."

"I... Yes..." Cyrus fell back against the pillows, blinking hard. "I'm not thinking straight."

Jupiter straightened. "You made us Commanders because you trusted us. Hold onto that. When you're well again, we'll do whatever you ask. You know that."

"Yes..." Cyrus murmured, though he still looked troubled. He flicked his eyes to Saturn. "I defer to your judgment."

Saturn nodded shortly. "You- your arm," he said, cursing himself for stammering.
For just a second, Cyrus' face darkened. He cast baleful looks at each of them in turn, only recovering his composure after a visible effort. "You'll need to help me with the jumpsuit," he said to Saturn.

"Eat first," Jupiter said. Then, after a dark look of her own, she added, "If that's what you think is right, Commander Saturn."
"You're right." The little plate of fish and crackers Jupiter had set aside for him looked like a feast, especially after so long without food. Breakfast this morning could have been a thousand years ago.

They ate in a silence filled sporadically by Mars' attempts at conversation with Jupiter. Cyrus didn't say a word, and Saturn stuttered so badly when he tried to contribute, he eventually gave up. As second-in-command, he wasn't even a pale imitation of Cyrus' cool eloquence. What Cyrus was capable of doing with his words, Saturn could only dream about.
Cyrus ate little, but he drank the tea Jupiter had brought him without even a raise of his eyebrows at the unusual container. Even in his condition, he had probably guessed at the details of their dire circumstances.

At last, Jupiter got to her feet, carelessly casting her empty paper plate in Mars' direction. "Can anyone do better than my basic first aid training?"

A prolonged silence followed.

"I know how to make a tourniquet, if it comes to that," Saturn said to his knees. Useless again.

"Right." Jupiter looked like she was fighting to not roll her eyes. She smiled with faux-sweetness. "Can you please help Master Cyrus get undressed while I get the supplies ready?"

"What should I do?" Mars asked, springing to her feet, her cheeks approaching the same vivid red as her hair.
Saturn hastened to answer before Jupiter could usurp him again: "You can— You— You can help Jupiter."

Mars and Jupiter flounced out, leaving Saturn to unzip Cyrus jumpsuit and pull it down, to the waist, apologizing when his shaky hands made contact with Cyrus' skin.

Cyrus bore the whole thing in silence, the rhythm of his breathing serving as Saturn's only indication of his discomfort.

It picked up when Saturn approached the left sleeve. He got the jumpsuit down to just above the gash, and then Cyrus started breathing so rapidly it sounded like he might pass out.

"Am I hurting you?" Saturn asked, like the idiot that he was.

"Do what you need to do," Cyrus said faintly.

More gently now, Saturn kept pushing the sleeve down. He encountered some resistance at the elbow, where the exposed down peeked out, and had to slide his fingers in to separate the nylon from a sticky mix of feathers and blood which had matted to Cyrus' skin. A wave of dizziness passed over him and he swallowed hard, not allowing himself to close his eyes. It was just blood. Blood and plasma and down. No matter how grotesque the mixture looked, it was nothing he hadn't seen before.

The textures under his fingertips changed grotesquely, making him salivate dangerously no matter what he told himself— wet feathers, the crumbled edges of scabs, hot and swollen bruises.

By the time he got Cyrus' arm free from the sleeve, Saturn's fingers were streaked with maroon at the tips, and sticky.

He occupied himself throwing a blanket over Cyrus to cover his chest, trying not to stare as he did so.

He saw anyway.

Under his jumpsuit, Cyrus had a stocky build that suggested muscles, or at least an underlying sturdyness. Without all the padding, the truth stood out in the graceful arcs of jutting bones and taut skin. Hard living had left him teetering on the edge of underweight.

Saturn closed his eyes and refocused them on Cyrus' exposed arm, where scabs studded the pale flesh like raw garnets. White down feathers stuck out here and there in the dried blood, and bruises spanned the skin between them. Saturn frowned, studying the uniform pattern. "Master, did something... bite you?"

Cyrus didn't answer, his face drawn and his eyes closed.

"I told you" —Jupiter stomped in with her ames full of medical supplies; she must have been waiting at the door— "that shadowy Pokémon dragged him away."

"Giratina," Cyrus said hoarsely. He opened his eyes and studied his injury with his customary blank expression. "It had teeth in its beak."

Saturn tried not to make a face, but his nose wrinkled of its own accord, the corners of his mouth drawing down. A massive shadowy monster, many-legged and beaked? He'd rather take his chances with the Lake Guardians. At least they'd probably have the decency to just melt his brain and get it over with.

"Here," Jupiter said, nudging Saturn out of the way with her leg, "let me work."
Somehow, he didnt hate the contact.

"Where's Mars?"

"Right here." Mars came around him to stand by Jupiter's side, brandishing a flashlight and directing the beam toward Cyrus' arm. The light revealed new dimension to the scabs, new color in the bruises. Saturn swallowed hard. Mars squeaked. "I, um. I couldn't find the batteries."

Jupiter heaved a sigh and dropped all the medical supplies on the mattress, where they landed in a heap. "Well, I have good news and bad news. Everything is healing, nothing is bleeding, and I don't see any signs of infection. But if any of these needed stitches, it's way too late for that now. They might scar."

Saturn stared at the wounds. Cyrus' whole arm, from just below his deltoid to just above his wrist, was just a mess of scabs and bruises and dried fluids. "How can you tell all that?"

"Infection has a smell," Jupiter said blandly.

"How do you know that?" Mars asked, making a face. The beam of the flashlight wobbled as she lifted her head to look at Jupiter.

"I have some experience with hospice care," Jupiter said, her face just as cold and expressionless as Cyrus'. "Anyway, there's nothing I can do except get these feathers out and wrap the scabs so they don't tear off."

"Oh—" Saturn hurriedly slapped a hand over his mouth, muffling his gag but not entirely stifling it.

"That was a little, uh, visceral," Mars said, wincing.

"You get used to it," Jupiter said flatly.

Cyrus shifted on the bed, which creaked, drawing all their eyes to him. "Saturn will do it."

Saturn flinched. "I'm sorry?"
Cyrus didn't say a word.

"Master," Jupiter said hurriedly, raising her hand like she wanted to press it to Cyrus' temple, "Saturn has command of Team Galactic."

Saturn sank his teeth into his tongue. What was his life? 25 short years washed over him like the lap of the water against the boardwalk. School in Canalave, sky-high test scores, the cramped sensation of being the biggest Magikarp in the smallest pond. Burnout, alcohol, the arrival of his supposed destiny on Cyrus' open palm. And now this. En pointe on a cliffs edge, staring down these... these strangers; two compatriots and his savior. He had no right to any of this. He owed his position to an affinity for chemistry and nothing more.

The cough —which Saturn realized in violent retrospect that Cyrus must have been fighting this whole time— consumed him then. Cyrus lost himself to it, and the increasingly desperate blows Saturn delivered to his shoulder blades only didn't seem to help.

It tapered rather than stopped, and Saturn closed his eyes, his palm burning with Cyrus' fever. "Give us the room," he said, in a distant voice that came to his ears as though from someone else. "I'll do it."

Saturn pressed a wet rag to one of the small, white feathers pinned to Cyrus' skin by dried blood and... and saliva, probably, and plasma and sweat and mud. His stomach turned over. He held the rag in place.

"Saturn," Cyrus said, his voice slightly too grave to be confrontational, "what are you doing?"

Saturn lifted the rag and tugged at the feather, refusing to lift his eyes from it. The first answer that sprung to his lips, 'I have no idea,' would not be acceptable. Cyrus had chosen him as second-in-command; he needed to prove he deserved it. "I'm keeping Team Galactic alive." The feather came loose from the mess on Cyrus' arm; Saturn set it on the mattress and moved on to the next.

"Jupiter came back. She told me what happened, and I..." Atone. Die. "I found you."

"You could have turned me in and bargained for your freedom."
"I don't want my freedom." Another blood-stained feather for the pile. "I want to stay with you."

Saturn chanced a glance up. Cyrus' features remained cold, but faint lines had appeared under his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. Disgust.

"You're like me," Saturn said quickly, and returned his attention to Cyrus' arm. "Smarter than everyone else, always trying to do more. I mean, you're better with machines and I'm better with chemistry, but it's all the same. Everyone thought I was a freak until I stopped going to brain bowls and started sneaking my dad's whiskey."

"This... devotion... of yours," Cyrus said carefully. His breaths wheezed between every word. "It doesn't make you strong."

"Oh, I know." More feathers in the pile. It was starting to look like Saturn had plucked a shiny Chatot. "But once we achieve your new world, it won't be a problem, right?"

Cyrus was quiet for a long moment while Saturn continued to pick down feathers out of the dried blood. They'd have to find a way to repair Cyrus' jumpsuit, or he'd keep shedding feathers like this.

"Do you know why I never told you the details of my plan?" Cyrus asked at last.
Saturn shook his head. That very question had plagued him once he'd finally realized what was happening, those long few days ago at the old headquarters. He hadn't had time to dwell on it since... Well, everything.

"Because you... were willing to do what I asked. Without question."

Saturn sank back on his heels, fighting the smile that wanted to bloom across his face. It wasn't some defect after all, not some flaw that Cyrus had spied and accounted for. "Team Galactic is everything I have, sir." He brushed the bloodied feathers into a wastebasket and reach for the roll of bandages. "I'm not like Jupiter and Mars. I don't want anything but this."

Cyrus didn't say a word.

Chapter Text

By nightfall, the effects of Jupiter's careful tending had completely worn off. Cyrus fell asleep not long after lunch, and stayed asleep through sunset. The moonless night oppressed the Harbor Inn from all sides, and even the lights from the marina seemed paler than they had before.

The inn had five beds in total, including the little cot behind the reception desk, but Saturn still preferred his armchair in Cyrus' room. He needed the rasping rush of Cyrus' breath or he couldn't sleep.

Saturn crept along the cave, wincing when his foot came down hard on something. A pale hand, nearly luminous in the darkness. Cyrus lay still, curled up on the damp earth. Saturn pressed his fingertips to the icy neck. No pulse.

A roaring, ember-eyed shadow took Cyrus by the arm and shook him. Somewhere beneath the roaring came the gut-wrenching snap of shattering bone. Cyrus screamed.

"Saturn, wake up!" Mother. He stirred. "Saturn! You can't sleep through the first day of school!"

"Saturn, wake up!"

Someone else was shouting, but the sound of his name and a shocking sting against his cheek kept his attention anchored firmly inward. His heart pounded and he stared without seeing. Mother would come in any second and flip the lights on and hustle him off to another day of torture. But the room was all wrong. "What... what?"

Cyrus' voice rang out, low and raspy from all the coughing he'd been doing. "Darkrai! Darkrai!"

"You were talking in your sleep," someone else said.

Saturn felt his cheek. "Who hit me?"

"I'm sorry!" Cyrus again. The back of Saturn's neck prickled. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please don't touch that— don't!"

He sounded so young. Saturn swallowed down a surge of nausea. "What's going on?"

He blinked, and finally made sense of Mars hovering above him. Her face was just a smudge. Only the contour of her upturned nose gave him any clue. "I don't know," she said. "We just woke up and heard you both yelling. We couldn't get you to wake up."

"Darkrai!" Cyrus shouted, like he was being tortured, and that was all the information he had.

"He's being too loud," Saturn whispered.

"You think I don't know that?" Jupiter. She must have been by the bed. "He won't wake up!"

"His fever?"

"It's too dark; I can't find the thermometer. But he doesn't feel that hot."

"Saturn," Mars said urgently. She fumbled across his body until she found his hand, and squeezed it in both of her own. "That— that story."

"What story?"

"The one you told me!" Her voice was urgent, her hands tense. "That sailor, the one who... who went to sleep and never woke up."

Saturn's stomach lurched. Cold sweat made his palm slick against Mars', so he pulled his hand away. "That's ridiculous. It's just a dumb ghost story the upperclassmen told us to try to scare us." His voice went flatter and quieter as he spoke, as the truth crept in. It wasn't just the upperclassmen, though. The sailors said it, too, and the librarians.

On the bed, Cyrus groaned and struggled. "I hate you!"

Saturn put his face in his hands. "Oh, fuck."

Jupiter must have gotten her hands on the thermometer, because a beep sounded, followed by a dull green light. "Well, I don't think it's the fever."

"Then..." What had all the fiest aid and wilderness survival manuals said? Of all the problems you encountered in the wilds of Sinnoh, hallucinations typically weren't among them. "Is he dehydrated?"

"Yes," Jupiter snapped. "That's not what this is."

"Well, it's not a ghost!"

"Says who?" Jupiter rounded on him, displaced air swishing across his face.

"Just because you can't see it— don't understand it—"

"Jupiter," Mars whispered.

"He wasn't there! He didn't see—"

Cyrus interrupted them with another groan, one that wanted to be a yell. He was holding it back, even in his sleep. "You won't break me this way. I will never yield."

"Look at the facts," Mars said hurriedly. "What's happening here matches up exactly with the story you told me.

"Guardians!" The oath slipped put before Saturn could stop it, and he had to swallow a hysterical laugh. The Guardians weren't going to help him, not ever. Reality shuddered and fell into its new context heavily, leaving Saturn's entire worldview juddering with the aftershocks. So the monster from his childhood ghost stories was apparently real, and apparently killing the only person in the world he gave a damn about.

"It's not the monster from Spear Pillar, is it?" Jupiter asked, her voice wobbling in a way Saturn had never heard before.

"No," Mars said. "Right, Saturn?"

"I don't think so." Saturn took a breath and ran his hands through his hair. All of Sinnoh's myths and legends had a home in the Canalave Library. Canalave was steeped in them, though not in the same way Celestic was. In Celestic, people had lived them. But here, people passed them around like anecdotes at a party; Dialga and Heatran were as much small talk fodder as they were figures in dense academic papers that no one bothered to read. They weren't real things, just concepts. Explanations superstitious old Sinnohans had made up to explain scary things like volcanoes and aging.

Cyrus whimpered.

Saturn shot to his feet. "Stay here with him. We need a plan."

He found a tiny flashlight in the camping supplies. The beam dimmed visibly upon entering Cyrus' room. Saturn swallowed. It was tangingble, reproducible. He could wave it back and forth over the doorway and watch the light waver.

Maybe there really was something more to this than the lingering effects of hypothermia...

Sighing, he came in properly and joined Jupiter and Mars on the empty side of the queen bed where Cyrus lay twitching and murmuring still. Just so he could say he tried it, Saturn shone the flashlight on Cyrus' face and reached over to shake his good shoulder.

Nothing.

Saturn turned back to Jupiter and Mars and propped the flashlight between his knees. It cast an awkward light and distorted their faces, but it was better than sitting around in the pitch black. Something in the room was dampening the light.

"Well?" Jupiter demanded.

Saturn forced himself to not shy away from her, and only half because leaning back would make him plant his hands directly on Cyrus' legs. "There are plenty of Pokémon that can cause bad dreams. How do we know this isn't the result of a Hypno infestation?"

Jupiter said, with great restraint, "Are you stupid?"

Saturn put up his hands. "Let's just talk this through, okay? We have time."

"Here," Mars interjected. "Because Hypno aren't that strong or that subtle. We'd have heard its cry by now. Not to mention that it probably would have attacked sooner than now. This attack came on the first night of the new moon, just loke the story you told me. Hypno aren't associated with the new moon."

"And Sinnoh's legends aren't based on ordinary Pokémon like Hypno," Saturn agreed. "Jupiter, you're really sure that dehydration can't cause this?"

Jupiter shook her head. She looked murderous. "He's not delirious," she said firmly. "He's asleep. Look, you can see his eyes twitch."

Saturn didn't look. "Okay." He clicked his tongue. A brief glance at his watch showed that it was a little after 4:00 in the morning. It weighed on him; he didn't feel like he'd slept at all. "Someone needs to go to the library tomorrow."

"I'm staying here," Jupiter said immediately.

Saturn nodded. "I do want to go, but I don't have any other clothes."

"I have cash," Mars said. "Let me go out first. We can do this."

"Why the library, anyway?" Jupiter asked, sounding exactly as exhausted as Saturn felt.

Saturn shrugged. "I don't have any other leads."

They kept vigil by Cyrus' bedside, woken intermittently by his shouting.