Chapter Text
He was tinkering peacefully with his arm when Ragan sprinted into his room in a flash of light. He looked up at her, raising an eyebrow. “What now?” he asked.
“It’s Kodya,” she said. His screwdriver hit the floor, and he winced. “He got hurt on a supply run,” she continued nervously, “Neph says it’s bad.”
“He’s in the infirmary?” Gyrus asked, knocking several papers to the floor as he stood up.
“Yep,” Ragan said.
“Can you run me there?” he asked. She nodded, holding out her arms for him.
Gyrus wasn’t sure if he was unable to catch his breath because of how fast Ragan was running or in worry for his apprentice.
“Thanks,” he said once Ragan had deposited him outside the infirmary, then sprinted into the room.
Kodya’s head shot up, and he stared at Gyrus. He exhaled shakily when he couldn’t see any blood or obvious injuries. Clearly, Neph had already given him a vitalitablet or two. That being said, he was still worried about his apprentice. Just because they died or almost died so often didn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic.
“Are you okay?” Gyrus asked, glancing over at Neph. She didn’t seem too worried about Kodya, so he assumed the kid was doing better.
“He’s going to be okay!” Neph confirmed cheerfully. Gyrus’s shoulders settled a little more. Still, he couldn’t have stopped himself from reaching out and pulling Kodya close if he’d tried. It was something about his body’s warmth that finally slowed Gyrus’s racing heartbeat.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he murmured into the kid’s hair, “Ragan said you were seriously injured. I didn’t know what to think.”
“I’m sorry,” Kodya said, “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
Gyrus’s heart hurt at the smallness in his voice, so he said firmly, “Don’t ever be sorry for that.”
“Okay,” Kodya said unconvincingly. That set alarm bells ringing in Gyrus’s head. If nothing else, Kodya must have been a better liar, usually, because he always seemed to know his worth. He alone knew how to stand up to Don, because he knew exactly what was right and what wasn’t, and nobody could convince him he didn’t know his own feelings. He’d even called Gyrus out on that once or twice.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he pressed, grabbing his apprentice’s chin to force him to meet his eyes.
“Yep,” he said, “Fine. Not hurt.”
Gyrus’s shoulders slumped in annoyance. Obviously, there was something wrong, but why wouldn’t Kodya trust him with it? Had he not shown the kid that he could tell him anything? But if he kept pressing, Kodya would probably just shut up further. So Gyrus elected to pretend to believe him.
“I’m glad,” he settled on, “I hate seeing you in danger. I mean, we’re all kind of in danger, at all times, but it still really worries me… I don’t want you to get hurt… and if it’s at all possible, I really don’t want you to get killed.”
“I’m not dying,” Kodya argued, “I’m not going to get killed.” Gyrus smiled inwardly; there was the Kodya he knew. Stubborn to a fault.
So stubborn, in fact, that he immediately started coughing.
“Kodya!” Gyrus exclaimed. The kid curled into him, his hands digging into Gyrus’s arms as he tried desperately to expel something, even verging on dry-heaving, unable to catch his breath. He was panicking, drawing in rapid breaths between coughs that only worsened his hacking.
“Neph, help him!” Gyrus cried, and she finally jerked out of her shock (though he caught a gleam of bright purple in her eyes — a prophetic trance, maybe? He made a mental note to ask her) and she leaned forward to kiss the top of Kodya’s head as his coughing subsided. There were tears streaking his cheeks. Gyrus’s heart tightened.
“What’s going on?” he asked Nephthys. He brushed a comforting hand up and down Kodya’s spine.
“I don’t know,” she said worriedly.
“Can you heal him?” Gyrus asked anyway.
“I don’t know,” she repeated, “I don’t think my kiss did anything.”
“He stopped coughing,” he argued futilely. He knew he wasn’t the healer here, but for as long as he could defy reality to make Kodya be okay, he’d do it.
“I’m fine,” Kodya said, like he meant to agree with Gyrus. “It’s just a cough. I can’t get the plague here, can I?”
“That’s not what we’re worried about, but no, you can’t,” Gyrus told him, “At least, I don’t think you can? It’s a bacteria from Earth, so one of us would have to carry it, and then we’d probably all be dead.”
Kodya smiled triumphantly, but it faded when Nephthys said, “You’re staying here until we figure out what’s going on. Gyrus, you can stay, too, but if you don’t, I’ve got some things I want you to make.”
“Of course,” Gyrus agreed, “Up to Kodya.”
“I’m fine,” Kodya said. Gyrus tried really hard not to roll his eyes, since Kodya was presumably sick and not (just) being stubborn on purpose. Rolling eyes and bedside manner were two things that generally did not go together.
“You’re not,” Neph put in, visibly upset.
“Come on,” Gyrus begged, “I’ll bring in some blankets and pillows and stuff. We can do a movie night.”
For some reason, Kodya’s shoulders tensed as Gyrus spoke, and he gritted out, “No.” as soon as he finished.
“He might be right?” Neph winced, “We need an x-ray.”
Gyrus nodded. “I’ll leave you alone,” he whispered to Kodya, “Call me if anything happens.”
Against his chest, Kodya nodded.
“I’ll get to work on that x-ray,” Gyrus promised Neph. She nodded solemnly, worry brewing in her dark eyes. He pulled his arms away from Kodya regretfully, then strode purposefully from the room. He had a lot of research to do.
***
Gyrus woke up to his phone ringing, several papers plastered against his cheek.
“Kodya?” he mumbled, pressing the answer button.
“No, it’s Nephthys,” Nephthys said.
“Neat,” Gyrus groaned, peeling a couple papers off of his face. They were slightly smudged, and he winced.
“It’s also Kodya,” she continued, “He’s, uh, significantly worse.”
“Shit,” Gyrus swore, “I’m on my way.”
“Hurry,” Neph advised.
“Hurrying,” he grunted, cutting off the call and sticking his phone in his inventory, along with a couple papers as proof he was working on a solution, even if he didn’t have one right now. He was trying his best (it wasn’t enough) and he’d be able to save Kodya (this time).
He stumbled into the infirmary, his foot having caught on the doorway and nearly thrown him flat on his face. In that moment, if someone had held up their hand and asked how many fingers they were holding up, he would have laughed in their face and guessed something greater than ten.
“Are you okay?” Kodya said, sitting up in his bed. He looked so concerned, his hands twisting in his sheets that smelled like the hospitals Gyrus remembered, and Gyrus wanted to plead with him to turn a fraction of that worry inward and think about himself for once.
“Just had a late night,” he answered breezily instead, “X-rays are shockingly hard to build. Anyway, Neph said things are worse with you. What’s wrong?”
“I think I coughed up blood in my sleep,” Kodya said grimly.
“Fuck,” Gyrus hissed, “That’s bad. That’s really bad.” That meant there was blood in his trachea, or worse, his lungs. That meant he wasn’t going to be able to breathe. That made Gyrus afraid in a way that not many things could.
“Yeah, that’s what Neph said,” Kodya muttered, rolling his eyes.
“Emotionally, are you okay?” Gyrus said immediately.
“I’m fine,” Kodya answered, and Gyrus hated those two words more every time he said them. “Neph is pretty worried, though.”
“I didn’t ask about Neph,” Gyrus said, frustrated, “I asked about you.”
“I said I’m fine,” Kodya snapped, his shoulders curling inward. He wouldn’t meet Gyrus’s gaze.
Gyrus sat down next to him, bumping their shoulders together. “You know you can be honest with me, right? If there’s anything I’ve done to make you think otherwise —”
“I’m just tired,” Kodya said, “It’s.. a lot.” His voice was hoarse and weary, and it looked like he’d slept about as much as Gyrus had.
He slid his arms around his apprentice, letting Kodya’s head rest on his shoulders. He meant to say something like, “It’s going to be okay,” or “I know,” but Kodya started coughing before he could. He held on to his apprentice as best he could.
“Kodya!” Gyrus screeched as the man doubled over next to him, vomiting flowers onto the infirmary floor as his knees hit the cold linoleum with a dull thunk. Kodya shuddered under his desperate hands, and more flowers dropped inelegantly from his blood-covered lips.
“Neph,” Gyrus shouted, half-wild, “Help him! What’s happening?”
Kodya’s body stilled in his arms, and the younger man lifted a hand to his mouth and wiped off the blood and flowers that had accumulated there, as well as a not-insignificant amount of tears.
“Amun-ra,” Neph choked.
“At least the coughing is over,” Kodya offered up. His voice rasped from his throat. Gyrus nearly sobbed.
“This is not a good thing!” Neph hissed, “You're coughing up plants, and I don’t know how to help you!”
Gyrus agreed with everything she said wholeheartedly.
“Hey, look on the bright side,” Kodya picked a flower up off the floor. It was damp. “Now we have more symptoms. We’re closer than before to figuring this out.”
Gyrus hated to admit it, but he was right. “If we know what disease you have, we can fix it,” he added, offering a small smile to his apprentice, “Unfortunately, that doesn’t solve the problem of your coughs right now.”
Kodya groaned.
“I should go finish the x-ray,” Gyrus said softly, “It’s our best bet right now. While I do that, I’ll have Scout run a blanket search on your symptoms, and Neph can look in the databank I built for her as well. If it’s all right with you, Kodya, I’d like to ask around our friends, too. The more eyes we have on this, the better.”
“Don’t tell them,” Kodya pleaded, and Gyrus folded under his wide blue eyes.
“Okay,” he promised, pulling his arms free of the kid. Kodya whined softly. It hurt to leave him behind, to stride from the room and pull his papers from his inventory, scanning over the formulas he’d jotted down, but he did anyway. He wandered to Oli’s studio, summoning a pencil and adding notes as he walked. When he got there, he tapped on the doorframe twice.
“Oh! Hey, Gyrus!” Oli said cheerfully, turning around.
“Hey, Oli,” Gyrus said absentmindedly, “I need your help with something.”
“Sure!” Oli grinned, “What do you need?”
Gyrus sighed. “So much stuff, Oli. So much.”
“Show me the diagrams,” Oli said, rolling up his sleeves.
“Here,” Gyrus passed him the notes he’d made, still smeared from his power nap that morning. Oli winced at the rough sketches. “Sorry,” Gyrus apologized, “I didn’t have the time to make anything better.”
“Is this for Kodya?” Oli asked instead of commenting on his hideous drawings.
“Well, it’s for Neph,” he tried to squirm out of answering.
“I can see that,” Oli said kindly, showing him the top of the page, where he’d written “FOR NEPH” in bold letters.
“It’s a machine to look inside people’s bodies,” Gyrus explained, “It’s called an x-ray, and basically it passes electromagnetic radiation through the body, which then shows up on the detector. Where the rays can’t get through as well, it won’t be detected, and where the softer tissues are, the radiation will show up. That way, we can see what’s going on with people’s bones and stuff. In my time, we also have MRIs and other scanners that can give us much more accurate information, so I might need to build one of those, but this works for now.”
“Does Kodya have broken bones?” Oli asked worriedly. Inwardly, Gyrus cursed. He didn’t want to think about Kodya. He didn’t want to have a breakdown right now.
“No,” he told Oli, “But we need this to figure out what he does have, so Neph can fix him.”
“Her healing abilities aren’t working?” Oli stammered.
“Nope,” Gyrus said, “So, we’ll need metal to build the frame, first. Can you help me with that?”
***
Gyrus hadn’t slept in days. When Oli insisted they stop working, Gyrus would summon Scout and refine their diagrams more, or record their progress, or pore over old medical records Scout had salvaged from Earth. When Scout told Gyrus to go to sleep and wouldn’t let him do any more research “for his health” or whatever, he’d walk to the infirmary and sit by Kodya’s side.
Mostly, the kid dozed. Not for very long, and it was a shallow kind of sleep, marked by tight breaths and cold sweat, and it never gave him much energy. He wasn’t restless or demanding to be let out of the infirmary, and he didn’t have the strength to do much else than sit in bed all day, but he lit up when Gyrus visited him. He’d be leaning back, twirling a flower around in his hands, and when Gyrus walked in, he’d drop everything and smile so brightly at him. He couldn’t help but match that grin, no matter how badly things were going with the x-ray or research.
Speaking of, he made a mental note to ask Maria and Knox if they’d ever heard of Kodya’s illness. With everything that had been happening, he hadn’t found the time to sneak away. He hadn’t wanted to take time away from Kodya.
He had a sinking feeling that there wasn’t much of that left.
***
“Ta da!” Gyrus said triumphantly, wheeling his x-ray into the infirmary.
“Gyrus, no offense, but what the fuck is that?” Kodya said. Gyrus frowned. Sure, it was a messy lump of metal fused together haphazardly and the black screen in the middle had a lump of something shoved under one corner to keep it even, but what else had Gyrus been talking about for the past several days?
“It’s an x-ray!!!” he said.
Kodya raised an eyebrow. “It looks like a robot after Ragan punched it,” he commented drily.
“There’s not that many wires sticking out!” Gyrus cried defensively, “And it’s functioning!” He pressed a button, and the machine started humming.
“I don’t see anything,” Kodya said.
“Stand behind it,” Gyrus encouraged, “Your bones will glow.”
“That’s ominous,” Kodya muttered, clambering out of bed. Gyrus had to grab his arm to steady him, since his legs started shaking halfway there.
I could make his legs shake for a different reason, Gyrus’s mind whispered, and then immediately started screaming and beating itself with a stick. What the fuck? Who let me be horny? It’s Kodya! Get a grip!
Still…
Gyrus called Nephthys over while Kodya poked suspiciously at the frame, eyes narrowed. Gyrus swatted his hand away.
“Is that supposed to be an x-ray?” Nephthys asked, glancing at the ugly lump of metal in her infirmary.
“Kodya, stand behind it,” Gyrus instructed. He complied, and once he was positioned properly, Gyrus pressed another button to take the x-ray. Then he hit some more buttons, fiddled with a couple wires, and kicked the frame once. A glowing picture appeared on the previously black screen.
Gyrus’s first, immediate reaction was joy. It worked! His ugly machine worked! He could build good things!
And then he saw the picture.
***
Gyrus made it to his room without running into anyone, so that was good. That was a good thing. That was one thing not affected by his shitty luck stat.
Kodya, on the other hand, was not so lucky.
Gyrus slid to the floor, his back still pressed against his door, tears streaming down his face. Sobs bubbled up in his chest, and he gripped the front of his shirt, trying to stuff them down. He felt like he was drowning. That image of Kodya’s lungs – full to the brim with flowers and vines – kept flashing into his mind, dark and cruel, and he wished to whatever god was listening that it was another one of the Shadows’ tricks. That he was going insane.
At least then it would be his life instead of Kodya’s.
Because here was a secret: Gyrus loved him. He didn’t want to figure out the exact words, but every time he was somewhere that Kodya wasn’t, it wasn’t the place he wanted to be. When he was fighting for his life, his eyes found Kodya’s first. On their missions, it was Kodya he sought out, Kodya that he found first, Kodya who made his heart leap in fear and dance in joy when he smiled. When the shadows whispered to him of his greatest fears, it was Kodya at the top of that list. His nightmares featured Kodya’s mangled body and Kodya turning on him and Kodya taken from him. When Maria asked him what there was to save about the Room of Swords, he answered, without hesitation, “Kodya.” Despite every cruelty given to him, it was made worth it by Kodya.
And now it was Kodya that was dying. Kodya that was drawing in on himself, day by day, his eyes sinking deeper into his face and his skin turning paler, more waxy and dull, Kodya’s hair that was turning lank and stringy, since he couldn’t stand up long enough to shower. Kodya that watched Gyrus try in vain to save him with his blue eyes turning greyer every day.
And that was it, wasn’t it? Not just that it was Kodya dying (his heart started racing again. He prayed he’d never hear “dying” and “Kodya” in the same sentence ever again), but that Gyrus couldn’t do anything about it. If he’d been struck down in a fight, Gyrus could have wrought his revenge on the realm, turned it into so desolate a wasteland that he’d have been appalled, but with an illness, who was there to take revenge on? The world? That was too vast. Too lonely, without Kodya in it. He could stamp out every semblance of life he saw and it wouldn’t change a thing. He felt sick with helplessness.
He curled his arms around his knees and let himself sob.
***
Gyrus pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders, slinking through the shadows of the Room of Swords. He hadn’t gone back to visit Kodya ever since the x-ray, ever since Kodya had told him to get out and refused to look him in the eyes, and he hadn’t slept since then, either. He read files and he examined Scout’s database and he paced and worried and dreaded, but he didn’t sleep. Every time he tried, that image of Kodya vomiting up flowers, his cheeks tearstained, his eyes wild, his body shaking in Gyrus’s arms invaded his mind, curled at the corners of his thoughts and whispered, “it’s your fault you can’t save him.”
So he was sneaking away to get help from sources farther afield. Namely, Knox and Maria. He tiptoed into one of the realms they had agreed to meet in, and although he was roughly three days late, he hoped they’d be there. Only their persistence could combat his luck stat.
True to form, when he reached their rendezvous point, Maria burst out of the ship, yelling, “Where have you been?”
“Relax,” Gyrus said tiredly, holding up his arm, “I’m fine. I need your help.”
“Damn right you do,” Maria said, “You’re going to need so many vitalitablets once I’m done with you.”
“We should let him explain himself,” Knox advised, sticking his head out of the ship’s door.
“Thank you, Knox,” Gyrus said. And then he started crying.
“Jeez!” Maria said, “C’mon, get in the ship.”
“I have determined you are upset,” Knox said, guiding Gyrus into the main room, “What is causing you to have this reaction? I cannot determine why my words would make you cry.”
“It’s not you, Knox,” Gyrus sniffled, “It’s Kodya. He’s really sick.”
“I’m so sorry, leafy greens,” Maria said sympathetically, “Do you know if he’s going to be alright?”
“I don’t know,” Gyrus sobbed, burying his head in his hands, “He’s got this terrible cough, and there are plants in his lungs —”
“Hold on,” Maria frowned, “What kind of plants?”
“Oh,” Gyrus said. He remembered the flowers – pale, creamy petals with a gorgeous deep purple radiating from the center, with a conical white pistil rising from where the color deepened into a magenta starburst. They were hibiscus flowers, he realized. His favorite.
“What kind?” Maria pressed, looking almost frantic under her casual veneer.
“Hibiscus flowers,” he managed, “From Earth.”
“Okay,” Maria said, “Okay, we can work with that. Knox, you have access to medical files from Earth, right?”
“Yes,” the robot answered simply.
“Search for files with ‘hanahaki’ and tell me what you find,” Maria instructed.
“Hanahaki. A rare disease where flowers grow within the lungs,” Knox said after a pause.
“That’s it!” Gyrus said, “That’s what he has!” He thought he saw Maria roll her eyes, but he figured he was just imagining things, so he focused back on what Knox was saying.
“Theorized to be caused by unrequited love,” the robot said, “While some scholars have proposed that its true root is a lack of self worth – as stated in the essay Hanahaki in a Culture of Insecurity: “hanahaki is not sourced from only a lack of love, but the feeling that love might be impossible – in other words, that one could not be loved – and as such, in the modern age, cases of hanahaki have risen exponentially.” – others disagree, and use it as a case study of psychosomatic illnesses. Regardless, scholars agree that it is a fascinating example of the mental state on physical health, and —”
“Okay, we get the idea,” Maria said, “The knock of it is that Kodya is in love.”
“Is he?” Gyrus said, finding his mouth suddenly dry. The flowers.
“And if I had to guess, I’d say he was in love with —”
“No,” Gyrus interrupted her, “Don’t say it. That’s not for you to say.”
“It can be cured,” Maria told him gently, “Knox, skip to the part about how it’s cured.”
“Hanahaki can be cured in one of two ways,” Knox said, “The most reliable is through extensive therapy, typically after their relationships come together, though doctors dismiss the “true love’s kiss” theory as folklore rather than fact. The second is through a surgery to remove the vines that have accumulated within the patient’s lungs, and although this method is far less reliable and has even seen a few relapses, doctors typically prefer it, since it is more rooted in modern science than the folkloric therapy treatment.”
“He’s not going to die?” Gyrus asked shakily.
“Not if you can do anything about it,” Maria promised softly, “We’ll wait until he’s better. As long as you need.”
“Thank you,” he said, “Maria? How did you know?”
“Know what?” she asked, avoiding eye contact.
“About hanahaki,” he pressed. She sighed, then relented.
“I had a friend. Back on Earth. She got it.”
“Oh,” Gyrus said, “I’m sorry. Did she recover?”
“No,” Maria said, fiddling with her gloves, “She died.”
***
He headed towards the infirmary as soon as he got back from the realm. Gods help him, he was excited for the first time since Kodya’s illness began. He had a name for it now, and a cure, and that meant he could save him. That meant Kodya didn’t have to die. He was practically cheerful.
“I know what it is!” he called as he pulled his cloak off his shoulders, stepping into the infirmary. Kodya still looked up, a smile spreading across his face, but he seemed more dejected, more exhausted than before. Even that couldn’t bring down Gyrus’s spirits, though.
“What is it, then?” Kodya urged, struggling upright in his bed.
“It’s called hanahaki,” he explained, “And, it can be treated! It stems from unrequited love. So that’s a cause. I didn’t totally understand any of the records I found, since they seemed highly superstitious and none of them were medical, but there should be some kind of surgery to take the vines out. The records said that there could be extreme consequences of the surgery, but nobody’s really done it, except for the second or third-hand reports that my sources mentioned.” It was true – he’d had Scout pull up some more sources that he scanned on the walk to the infirmary. Still, he winced a little at the omission of information, even if it was for the best. Kodya seemed a little shellshocked.
“That’s amazing!” Neph cheered, “We should try the surgery. We have so many more tools, and death isn’t even that big of a concern for us. Kodya, what do you say?”
“Neph…” Gyrus cautioned, but she didn’t even look at him.
“I don’t…” Kodya trailed off listlessly.
“The surgery,” Neph pressed, “Do you want to go for it?”
“I don’t know, Neph,” Gyrus argued, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck, “It’s not just that it’s dangerous — it is. We’d have to cut open his chest and pull out all of the plants. But my sources said it could have a different effect. He could lose his ability to feel, Neph. He’s an empath. We can’t risk taking that from him, not if we can help it.”
“Hush,” Neph said, “Let him answer.”
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Kodya agreed crossly, though he still seemed a little dazed.
“I’m sorry,” Gyrus said, softening when Kodya laid his eyes on him the way he always did.
“If we don’t heal the disease,” Neph said, looking unbelievably stressed, “You are going to die. What do you want to do?”
“Neph, let him breathe,” Gyrus snapped, “It’s a lot to take in.”
Kodya started crying.
“He’s going to die, Gyrus,” Neph argued, “We don’t have time.”
“We have enough time to let him think for a minute,” he argued back, “I don’t know what it is you saw, but frankly, I don’t care. This is about him and his feelings, not ours.”
“Come on, Kodya,” Neph urged, turning back to the hunter, “Don’t you want to try it, at least?”
“Just let me die,” Kodya half sobbed from his bed. Gyrus felt himself start to cry, too.
“Kodya —” he began. Coughing interrupted him, and he darted forward to help Kodya roll himself onto his side so he wouldn’t choke on the vast amount of hibiscus blossoms ejecting themselves from his lungs, and oh, the flowers. The hibiscus flowers that he used to love so much. The last remnants he had of Earth, that oddly enough reminded him of the family he couldn’t remember. He used to put them in his hair, tuck them behind his ears, before his Captain told him he was contaminating the ship. He still loved them.
And now they were spilling from Kodya’s lips with horrible half-vomiting sounds that punctuated the space in between each cough, turning Kodya’s pillows and bedsheets purple with the enormous wave of flowers and green with the leaves that accompanied them. Gyrus was sobbing. Slowly, the cough petered out, and Kodya drifted immediately into a shallow slumber, exhausted from the sheer mass of greenery that had piled up on the floor next to his head. His too-thin shoulders stopped shaking, and Gyrus breathed a shaky sigh of relief.
“He’s going to die,” Neph said from behind him, and he half-turned to see tears dripping down her face.
He slumped down by Kodya’s side, leaning his head against the bedsheets, still gripping one of Kodya’s hands in his. “I know,” he murmured, dull-eyed, “There doesn’t seem to be a good option here.”
“There is one,” Neph suggested.
“No,” Gyrus said immediately, “That one’s for him. Not for you.”
“I’ve seen it,” she muttered, “It’s our only choice.”
“Please don’t,” Gyrus begged, “It’s not just that. It’s not just that he doesn’t know I…” he swallowed, hesitant to voice the end of that sentence. “It’s because he doesn’t think I could. Neph, he doesn’t know he’s loved at all. And I hate to see him like this, dying and not knowing we care about him. Thinking that it’s his fault, when, if anything, it’s mine. I didn’t show him how much I need him, how much he matters to me.”
“Then it’s my fault, too,” she whispered, “There must have been something I could have done to show him how much I care. We’re in this one together.” She laughed mirthlessly.
“I just want him to know,” Gyrus said thickly, “No matter who he loves, even if it’s not me. And don’t say anything about that, because it’s not your place. I need him to know, no matter who it is, whether they feel the same or not. He is loved. To the stars and back.” He was crying again. He scrubbed the tears off his cheeks.
“He loves —” Neph began insistently.
“No,” Gyrus said harshly, “Let him tell me himself.”
“Okay,” Neph relented, “I’m going to get three more coffees, and they’re all for me. Stay here as long as you need. He probably won’t wake up until tomorrow.” She strode out of the room angrily, her heels clacking on the cold linoleum floor. Gyrus sighed deeply.
“I love you,” he spoke aloud to Kodya’s sleeping form. “I know it’s important that you say it first. But I do, Kodya, I love you so much. I love you so much I’m a little scared of it. Actually, no, I’m scared of it a lot. You terrify me, Kodya.” He chuckled wetly, “But I guess that’s love, isn’t it? I just wish you knew it. How amazing you are.”
Silence was the only thing that answered him.
***
“I’m not doing the surgery,” Kodya said. Neph glowered, but she didn’t say anything.
“Why not?” Gyrus asked gently.
He took a deep, careful breath, then responded, “That’s my heart in there, isn’t it? I need it.”
Gyrus smiled softly at him. There he went again, phrasing things so carelessly yet so eloquently, capturing feelings Gyrus didn’t know how to put into words. Gyrus didn’t know how he could be more in love.
“It’s not your heart,” Nephthys pointed out, “It’s just a reflection of it.”
“It’s his feelings,” Gyrus snapped at her, then turned back to Kodya. “And it’s whatever you think. We’ll support you, whatever you decide.”
“I don’t want to do it,” Kodya said, “I’d rather die.”
Gyrus hated that those were the only two options he saw, but it was Kodya’s choice, and he’d stand by it. He trusted him, no matter what, and he needed to show Kodya that.
“Okay,” he agreed gently.
“I wish there was something else I could do,” Nephthys said, her voice cracking, tears welling up in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Kodya muttered, curling back into his pillows. Already, he was getting tired again.
“No,” Neph said firmly, “Rest. This isn’t your fault.”
Once Kodya drifted off into sleep, Gyrus pressed a soft kiss to his forehead.
I love you.
“Oye, amigo! There you are!”
Gyrus flinched, jerking away from his sleeping apprentice.
“Don,” he greeted smoothly.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” the man said cheerfully, “Is everything alright?”
“Kodya’s dying,” he confessed.
Don’s face fell, the perfect picture of concern, “Oh, dios mio! What happened? Not an accident of yours, I hope?” Gyrus felt sick at his words.
“No,” he choked out, “Just a disease that Neph can’t cure.”
“I’m so sorry, amigo,” Don said, “I’m here for you. Let me know if you want to talk.”
“I just want to be left alone right now,” Gyrus mumbled.
“I hope he gets better,” Don said, “Just remember, Gyrus?”
“Yeah?”
“No matter what, nobody can find out your secret.”
“You’re the only one that knows,” Gyrus promised.
“Bueno.” With that, the man took his leave.
Gyrus cursed aloud. He didn’t have time to worry about Don’s manipulation tactics, not when Kodya was actually, actively dying. He’d put the whole battle between Don and the shadows on pause if he could. Couldn’t they see that Kodya was so much more important than their petty fighting? His love was dying here.
He curled up in the chair next to Kodya’s bed and tried to sleep.
***
“Just tell me if you’re alright!”
“Leave me alone!” Kodya shouted, “Stop trying to get me to talk about my feelings!”
Gyrus laughed derisively, “Answer me and I will.”
“You know what?” he snapped, “I do fucking care. I don’t want to die!”
Gyrus tried to hug him, to comfort him in any way, but Kodya shoved his arms away.
“It’s because of you I’m dying,” he choked out, “It’s because every time I try to remind myself you really only tolerate me, you pull some shit like hugging me! Or holding my hand! Or crying because you finally caught on to the reason we’re all here, and I’m currently, at present moment, dying. I’m not stupid, Gyrus, I know you don’t love me, but can you please stop pretending you do? Cause you’re making this a lot harder.”
Gyrus’s eyes wided, and he fought down the urge to laugh. It was all so ridiculous! There he was, watching the man he loved tell him there was no way he felt the way he did. He was almost offended. How could Kodya not see it? His love was not like a fire. Not even like the heat of a star. Gyrus’s love was like the expansion of the universe. Infinite and unmeasurably large.
“Kodya,” he started, “I really hate to say it, but you are being a little stupid.”
“Jesus Christ, Gyrus,” Kodya said, scowling at him.
“You’re acting like your feelings are the only ones that make a difference here,” Gyrus protested.
“Because they’re the ones killing me,” Kodya snapped.
“That doesn’t mean my feelings don’t matter! All I want, Kodya, is to help you,” he took a deep breath, then continued, “Everything I do, it’s for you. I give everything I have to make this somewhere that we can all live, and I do it because if there’s one thing I want in the world, it’s that you make it out of here alive. And now your feelings are killing you? If that were true, do you think I’d be here right now?. No, the only thing that’s killing you is you.”
I love you.
Tears rolled down Kodya’s cheeks, and flowers spilled from his mouth. Gyrus snatched one up, careful not to crush the delicate purple petals, and waved it in front of his face.
“I mean, if you looked past your nose for one second, and I do mean one, you’d see that these are my favorite flowers,” his voice softened, “And I hate to see them hurting you. You think I haven’t believed this was my fault? Me, Kodya? The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is blame myself for everything that goes wrong. But I have tried so hard to fix this, and I can’t, because you won’t let me. Kodya, why won’t you let me?”
I love you.
“I love you,” Kodya said, sounding far more heartbroken than he or the flowers that fell from his lips had any right to be, “And I know you can’t love me back.”
“Why not?” Gyrus argued. He could have laughed. Arguing with Kodya that he could, in fact, be in love with him was not how he ever expected his confession to go.
Kodya’s words broke his heart. “Look at me,” he sobbed, “How could anybody, least of all you?”
Well. That was more unexpected than it should have been, all things considered. But Kodya had finally said he loved Gyrus, so he wasn’t under any obligation to hold himself back. This realization was one he needed Kodya to voice, but the kiss he pressed to the younger man’s lips? That was all his own.
Kodya inhaled sharply, entirely frozen. “What?” he croaked, “I thought. What?”
“Honestly, you didn’t do much thinking, babe,” Gyrus said lovingly.
“It was supposed to be unrequited,” Kodya said, almost frantically, “The flowers — it was supposed to be because you didn’t love me back.”
“Oh!” Gyrus drew back, “Yeah, I guess I didn’t explain that very well, but honestly, it seemed self-evident? Kodya, as an empath, you know that what people feel isn’t always the truth. Sometimes it is, and usually it aligns with the truth, but really, the truth has no bearing on one’s perception of the truth. Feelings operate off of that perception, not the objective reality. So, for example, if you thought I didn’t love you, which by the way is stupid, then that’s what your body would believe. Despite all evidence for the contrary.”
Kodya started to smile at that, and Gyrus’s heart glowed with that simple expression. “So you love me too?” he asked boldly, worry still shining in his gorgeous eyes.
“Of course I do,” Gyrus reassured him, reaching for his hand, “How could I not? You’re amazing, Kodya. You’re beautiful. You’re so funny, and kind, and so strong. You’re smart and witty and you put up with me yapping about mathematical concepts even though you don’t have to. You’re the most astonishing person I’ve ever met. Of course I love you. I adore you.”
“Kiss me again,” Kodya said.
***
“Kodya,” Gyrus nudged his sleeping boyfriend, “X-ray time.”
“Nooooo,” Kodya mumbled, nuzzling against his chest.
“Yeeeesssss,” Gyrus whispered back.
“Why can’t I heal quickly like a normal person?” Kodya complained.
“You’re healing so fast, babe,” Gyrus assured him, “We just need to make sure you keep healing.”
“I’m holding you to your promise that if I’m clear, we fuck,” Kodya said. Gyrus blushed.
“Get up,” he grumbled, “Neph’s gonna blame me if you don’t get out of bed.”
“She should,” Kodya said, “You’re warm and comfy.”
They walked to the infirmary hand-in-hand, resting in early-morning comfortable silence. Neph greeted them with a smile; every time they visited, she looked a little more relaxed. They were all settling down from the fear of losing Kodya. Gyrus had a lot of sleep to make up for, but with his boyfriend by his side, there was time. They had time.
Kodya dropped Gyrus’s hand to stand behind the x-ray, and Gyrus fired up the machine. The picture flashed, and Kodya joined Gyrus and Nephthys to examine his lungs. His face fell, and he stumbled back into Gyrus’s waiting arms.
“Hey, babe,” Gyrus said comfortingly, “It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Kodya said, tears welling up in his eyes.
“Nobody expects you to be magically healed right away,” Gyrus said, “We tried that already, remember? It didn’t work.”
“I should be better,” Kodya sobbed, “I’m such a burden.”
“You’re not a burden!” Gyrus protested, “We love you, babe, and we’re here for you. Healing takes time, and I’m so proud of how far you’ve come. You’re doing so good.”
“Then why am I still sick?” Kodya asked, “Why are there still flowers?”
“Kodya,” Neph said gently, joining their hug, “You’re going to be okay.”
They stayed with him until he sniffled and said, “Thank you.”
“We love you,” Gyrus murmured, “Say it.”
“You love me,” Kodya grumbled, kissing his cheek. “You both do.”
***
“So this is the famous Kodya!” Maria shouted. Vela smiled from the ship’s table, where she was playing cards against Knox.
“Hi,” Kodya said, embarrassed.
“He’s healing,” Gyrus said proudly, beaming at her.
Maria smiled, but he didn’t miss the faint sadness in her eyes.
“That’s awesome, Gyrus!” Vela said.
“Which hypothesis proved correct?” Knox asked, “I assume you used the “true love’s kiss” cure?”
“I think the first theory,” Gyrus said, “But maybe both. It was kind of psychosomatic, in a way. And it wasn’t a “true love’s kiss.” It’s a process.”
“The kiss didn’t hurt, though,” Kodya said, nudging his shoulder.
Gyrus planted one on his lips just to prove some kind of point.
While Kodya introduced himself to Vela, Maria walked over to him, looking forlornly at Kodya.
“So he’s better now?” she asked, and Gyrus detected a note of bitterness in her voice.
“There wasn’t anything you could do, you know,” he murmured, “About your friend. We can’t force people to heal. We just have to be there for them while they put in the work themselves.”
“I know,” Maria said, wiping away a tear, “I’m happy for you both. I really am.”
“Thanks,” he said, hugging her, “And thanks for helping me figure out what it was.”
“No problem, lettuce top,” she said, then wandered off to help Knox cheat at cards. Kodya had a hand dealt in, and Gyrus pulled up a chair to watch him play.
It was nice to see him laughing.
***
Healing wasn’t a thing that happened overnight. It took a few months, with some good days and some rocky nights, but Gyrus was there for all of it. He held Kodya at night and whispered his love to him. He made sure he knew how precious he was. To everyone, not just to him and Nephthys. To Ragan and Ciboulette and Oli and Feather and Anan. To Vela and Bronzo and Knox and Maria and Alastair. He mattered; he was loved. During one monthly x-ray, his chest was free of vines and Gyrus hugged and kissed him and told him he was so proud. And at the end of it, Kodya finally knew he was truly loved, in his entirety.
And that was the end goal, wasn’t it? That he was loved? That he knew, in every waking moment and every corner of his dreams, Gyrus had one thought above all else.
I love you.
And even in this crazy world, that was enough.