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Even at rest, Cyrus's expression always made him look like he was frowning, if only a little bit. He stood at the threshold of Sunyshore's Gym, wearing the dirty overalls Volkner had provided him so he wouldn't ruin the rest of his clothes – especially since the sum total of his clothing seemed to be three shirts and one pair of pants, all of which Volkner suspected had been bought by Cynthia – with his lips pressed together, his pale face even whiter under the harsh artificial lights. As usual, Volkner could only boggle at the knowledge that they were about the same age.
He'd been staying at the Gym for only a couple of months. It was Cynthia, of course, who'd come to Volkner one late evening, looking so grim that he'd worried something terrible had happened, to ask if there would be room for Cyrus there. He wasn't privy to all the sordid details, whatever they may be; all he knew was that Cynthia had gotten Cyrus back from someplace he'd gone to, and had been working on getting him rehabilitated. What Cyrus thought about that, Volkner couldn't be sure. He was about as easy to read as a magnemite.
Still, it hadn't hurt to agree. Volkner owed Cynthia as much. As the Champion, she was a major source of support for the Gyms in Sinnoh, and she'd been on Volkner's side even when he'd gotten in trouble for taking up too much energy or too much space, or for being too self-absorbed when it came to battling and renovating. She also kept Flint in check, which was always nice. What Cyrus had been up to was serious, but he was just a guy, at the end of the day. No matter how out of place he looked.
Volkner had soon found out he was a perfect fit for the job, too, though it seemed obvious in retrospect that Cynthia would arrange for him to get to work somewhere he would thrive. He liked machines, and he liked taking care of them. He could spend hours kneeling on the hard steel floors to dig through wires and mechanical bits, unfazed by any noise or presence, solely focused on what he was doing. It took Volkner showing up with food to get him to pay attention to anything else, most of the time.
The first day, once Cynthia had left him with what little stuff he had, standing in front of the small private building they reserved for one-off workers who weren't Sunyshore residents, about twice as deep as a backyard shed and not much taller than that, Volkner had looked him up and down and said, "So, you like tinkering?"
Cyrus had tilted his head, none of his features moving as he did, and blinked once, before finally replying, "Tinkering?" After he'd gotten that single word out, he'd glanced up to stare right into Volkner's eyes, and added, "I suppose so."
He did, in fact, like tinkering, although Volkner doubted he'd ever called it that before.
The trainers at the Gym didn't seem to mind him much. They acted like he wasn't really there, walking around him while he worked, never attempting to interact with him in any way. Cyrus didn't seem to mind, either. It was hard to say whether he minded anything ever.
It made him kind of fascinating to Volkner, in a way he hadn't been taken with somebody else in a long time, like a strange machine that'd landed on his porch and that he couldn't figure out the workings of. Except, well, unlike a machine, he couldn't pull Cyrus apart and dig through his insides to find out the answers to his questions.
"Hey," he said to him at last. At such a late hour, the Gym was empty. The janitors had finished their evening round, the trainers had gone home for the day. Sometimes, Volkner stayed overnight to do some maintenance on the rotating gears. He'd always done it alone, but that had changed in the last few weeks. "Are you going home?"
He always felt awkward calling where Cyrus had to live "home" even though Cyrus didn't seem to care one way or the other. Apparently, as long as he got to be elbow-deep in machinery all day long, sleeping in a 5m² shed – or close to that – was alright with him.
"I came to talk to you," Cyrus said. He rarely responded to greetings. Volkner had gotten used to it pretty quickly; he was more than happy to cut down on small talk. "Regarding your mechanism."
After only a few seconds of hesitation, Volkner nodded. "Alright. Do you want to come in? It's getting pretty chilly out there."
The sea breeze had been growing stronger as the cold season grew closer. Not that Cyrus seemed preoccupied with that, either. Sometimes, it felt as if Cyrus existed on a different plane of existence that Volkner found himself yearning for. A world where he was alone with nobody to disturb him.
Maybe that was why he always looked oddly put off by displays of kindness. Or maybe he was just confused. It wasn't as if anybody else cared to hang out with him. Sitting by his side while he carefully inspected the equipment was nice, though. It had a sort of mindfulness to it. Volkner would crouch next to him and just watch his hands as they moved through the wires, alternating between hard and soft touches like he was manipulating a living creature. It was... relaxing, was the word.
"I don't mind," Cyrus said. It took a few seconds for Volkner to realize he meant that he didn't mind being out in the cold. "It won't take long."
"Don't be silly, just come in." With that, Volkner stepped aside, walking further into the Gym, confident that Cyrus would follow.
The footsteps behind him confirmed it. He held back his smile. Together, they walked in silence toward the door that led to the employees-only area of the building, and then farther in, to the break room, where Volkner was determined to make Cyrus drink at least one cup of hot tea before he left.
Cyrus sat down at one of the hard plastic tables, surprisingly docile, and stared into the scalding hot matcha he'd been served with the same blank expression with which he considered everything else. Volkner sat across him, leaning in to give him a grin.
"So," Volkner said, "what is this about?"
Even when he was allowed to openly embrace his obvious enthusiasm for technology, Cyrus's face remained the same. As Volkner had grown accustomed to it, he'd begun to notice a few things here and there: a slight twitch of his brow when he was about to segue into something he wasn't sure how to fix yet, a series of blinks spaced out perfectly when he was confronted with new information he didn't expect, a hint of nasal flaring when he was aggravated. Maybe it was a little creepy that he'd started to make mental notes of these things, but he told himself he had to do it to ensure Cyrus was getting better. Whatever that meant. Cynthia had given him a mission, when he thought about it.
There was one thing that did change, as Cyrus began to ramble about electricity consumption and how they could ensure that the Gym would no longer run the risk of brownouts: the pace at which he spoke picked up, giving his usual monotone a breathiness that was akin to an emotion. Volkner's responses always jolted him further into that state, until he was almost frantic, his voice getting progressively louder. It was in those moments that Volkner understood how that man had been able to gather so many people behind him, to follow his lead despite not fully knowing what awaited them at the end of that road. It was kind of frightening, as exhilarating as it was.
"You're the one who oversaw the installation of the solar panels," Cyrus said after a pause, his thin fingers interlaced around the cup he hadn't even touched yet, "isn't that right?"
They were in the middle of discussing improvements to some of the core gears of the Gym, and so Volkner had to roll back to understand what he was being asked.
"Huh," he let out. He scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, I am. Well, some of it, anyway. This Gym's responsible for most of the city's electricity usage, as I'm sure you've already guessed, and there's plenty of sunlight to go around. It's better for the environment, which means it's better for the pokémons, and for the people, too. If it were up to me..."
He shut himself up. He hadn't made himself tea, and now he regretted it; he needed something to do with his hands. Cyrus was staring at him unblinkingly, like he was a pokémon using Shadow Tag on its opponent.
"Does the city not want to make things better for the environment?" Cyrus asked.
Volkner's stomach tightened. Was this bad? Was he about to send this guy on some new spiral where he ended up trying to rebuild humanity from scratch for the crime of not caring enough about pokémon welfare? He craved exciting things in his life, but maybe not that exciting.
"It does, but, you know how it is. People are afraid of change, so it takes a while." He tried to smile, knowing these sorts of things had very little effect on Cyrus anyway. At least it helped soothe him. "Have you ever been to Hoenn?"
Cyrus's knuckles tensed, and he finally lifted his cup to take a sip. Then, he simply said, "No."
Sometimes, Volkner wondered how many people had tried to get words out of him and given up. Cynthia had told him he'd been raised in Sunyshore, too, though Volkner had no memories of him as a child. When he'd said as much, Cynthia had shaken her head and explained that Cyrus had never gotten along with humans, preferring to stay alone with pokémons and machines. It was a childhood Volkner could relate to, for sure, but his had been split between his technological interests and his search for opponents to observe and measure himself up against. Machines were fun to figure out, yet they couldn't exactly serve as a replacement for other humans. Pokémons could, in some ways. Not in others.
"I think you'd enjoy Mauville," Volkner said. "It's an in-door city with a fascinating design. It was renovated after the Gym Leader there got inspired by Lumiose, in Kalos..." He paused. "I imagine you've never been there either."
Cyrus didn't blink. He took another sip of matcha.
"I have not."
Volkner chuckled, the laugh escaping him despite himself. There was just something about Cyrus's demeanor that both excited him and made him way more nervous than was truly warranted. He'd planned all these things Cynthia had told him about, done all this stuff he'd seen on the news... but, right now, he really was just a guy in dirty, lopsided overalls, sitting in the back room of his Gym and drinking tea little by little like a meowth afraid of getting scalded.
"It's a pretty big city," Volkner said, "and the Gym Leader there is a tech enthusiast, too. Have you never traveled outside Sinnoh, then?"
With what was undoubtedly a half-shrug, Cyrus put his cup back down. There was still a little bit of matcha left at the very bottom.
"Why would I? The world and its people are the same everywhere."
"The pokémons aren't," Volkner replied without even thinking about it. He bit the inside of his lower lip. "The technology isn't, either. Kalos and Hoenn have come together to look for renewable sources of energy in the last few years, and they're pioneering things that Sinnoh can only dream of. Solar panels are nice, but..."
"You truly do care about these things," Cyrus said as if he still doubted it even as he said it.
Volkner chuckled again, though he was sure his unease was obvious this time. "Is that wrong?"
"Putting your faith in humanity is a waste of time." His tone had not changed, yet the words gave it a different edge, even as he spoke slowly and quietly. "It won't do you any good."
"And yet you're here, helping at the Gym."
He watched Cyrus blink with purpose, his gaze flickering from the bottom of his cup back to Volkner's face in the same repetitive motion.
"Not by choice."
"What would you rather be doing, then? Trying to take over the world again?"
It was kind of a joke. Cyrus's nostrils flared ever-so-slightly. In fairness, Volkner wasn't even certain he knew what jokes were, let alone how to take them.
"Is that what she tells people I'd been doing?" he asked, dragging the words out like they were hard for him to say.
Volkner shook his head, bringing his hands up apologetically.
"Of course not! It was just a bad joke. Sorry."
The atmosphere shifted too much for them to keep on talking, after that, to Volkner's dismay. To say that he wasn't curious about Cyrus's motivations would have been lying – it was part of his inner workings, after all – but it was clearly a sore subject, and for good reasons. Whatever had inspired him to do what he did, he'd failed at it, and had been brought back against his will, to live in a world full of people he held nothing but contempt for.
He didn't try to keep him longer. The worst part, as he watched Cyrus walk back to his temporary home, the edges of his silhouette illuminated by the lights of the Gym that were still on, was that Volkner couldn't even tell how upset he was – if he even was.
Cyrus was the same as always throughout the rest of the week that followed. He worked silently and efficiently, paid no mind to anybody else, and accepted his meals from Volkner without a word. At most, he would thank him using as few words as possible and then move on. With anybody else, Volkner would have felt insulted. Coming from Cyrus, it was so par for the course that it barely registered as rude.
Still, Volkner did wonder if their conversation had affected whatever sort of relationship they'd been developing. There was a spark there that was gone, or so he thought. Maybe he was just imagining things.
He didn't try to push it, because he doubted it would have the effect he wanted. He left Cyrus alone and just kept watching him, telling himself he was doing his job. Supervising, or something.
Slowly, the routine began again. Cyrus didn't relax nor relent, but he spoke more than two words at a time, and he asked him questions or provided suggestions, usually unprompted. It was on one such occasion that Volkner noticed the way Cyrus's gaze kept drifting toward the trainers as they practiced within the Gym. It was common for them to battle each other to prepare for the next challengers, though Cyrus was rarely around when they did, something that Volkner couldn't believe he hadn't noticed until now.
It wasn't much, and had he not been watching so intently he might not have caught it, but it was there. Cyrus would blink, give one glance to a nearby magneton or electabuzz, and then blink again, looking away just as quickly. His expression didn't change, and yet, Volkner knew this had to be something he could grab on to.
He waited for the Gym to be empty again. Cyrus was standing on one of the platforms, peering down at the gears below, and kept restarting and resetting them, perhaps to catch an inconsistency he wanted to fix. As far as Volkner could tell, the timing of the Gym's puzzles had never been smoother. He'd even stopped trying to better it himself. He couldn't get between Cyrus and his desire for perfection, however.
Volkner stepped toward him. There was no muffling the sounds of his arrival, not that he wanted to. Cyrus didn't so much as twitch.
"Hey," Volkner said, "can I ask you a question?"
They hadn't had a one-on-one conversation since the tea "incident". Cyrus pressed the button on the remote he was holding. The gears stopped moving.
"I hold no grudge against you, if that is what you wonder," he said. He pressed the button again and watched the gears slowly reset back to their initial position, moving the nearby platform along with them. "I don't care what you think of me."
"I know." Volkner did know. It still stung a little to hear it confirmed. "It's not about that. I saw you were watching the Gym trainers today."
There it was: Cyrus blinked, once, twice, his lips tightening almost imperceptibly. His thumb slid off from where it was resting on the button to lie against the dark plastic instead.
"Do you... miss battling?"
It wasn't the question Volkner had thought to ask, at first, but he'd deduced that asking whether Cyrus missed his pokémons would earn him a swift dismissal. For a moment, Cyrus simply kept staring at the gears. The way he was able to keep his face perfectly still was truly captivating.
Cyrus had come without his pokémons. Volkner hadn't asked, at first, because he'd figured they would join him later, but when a week had passed, and he was still alone, he'd asked Cynthia, just in case there had been a mix-up. She'd explained that they couldn't trust him with them for now, that they'd give them back later, once they'd finished investigating Team Galactic and ensured he couldn't be a threat anymore. She hadn't said it was part of his punishment, but it had seemed that way to Volkner, who couldn't imagine life without his partner pokémons.
Who was a pokémon trainer without their team? Not much.
After what felt to Volkner like a full minute of silence if not more, he cleared his throat, rubbed the back of his neck, and added, "If you do, we might be able to arrange something. I know you're not allowed to see your pokémons right now..."
"Do you?"
Cyrus's lips had barely moved as he let out those two words.
"Cynthia told me," Volkner admitted, for the sake of being truthful. "I asked. You've been doing great here, though. I don't see why you wouldn't be allowed to have pokémons of your own, even if they're not the ones you're used to."
The longer he stayed unmoving, the more Cyrus's blank expression became unsettling. It reminded Volkner of a machine that'd suddenly short-circuited and become stuck on the same action, a computer frozen in the middle of playing a sound and condemned to hold the same note indefinitely. When he blinked, Volkner nearly started.
"How are they?" Cyrus asked.
He was still staring at the gears, with an intensity that could have melted the steel they were made out of.
"What?" Volkner said.
Cyrus took a deep breath. It shook his whole body and made him straighten himself up, detaching his gaze from the mechanism below at last, to pierce right through Volkner's eyes.
"My pokémons. How are they? Did she tell you?"
"Oh," Volkner said. It was such a clean break of his usual character that he didn't even know how to react. The way Cyrus was staring right through him wasn't helping. Still, he held on. "She didn't, but... I could ask."
He was going to ask whether Cyrus wanted to or not, now that it'd become clear it was something he cared about. Something about that thought must have been evident on his face because Cyrus shook his head slowly.
"Do as you wish," he let out, in that same flat affect, and then crouched down to go back to what he was doing before, pushing the button that started the gears back up.
Volkner could have left, then, but he found that he didn't want to. He sat down on his knees next to Cyrus and watched him check the gears, his gestures almost mesmerizing, until the sky visible through the highly set windows of the Gym darkened, and he was forced to close up for the day.
He called Cynthia as soon as he got home. It took a few tries, and her voice sounded strained with fatigue when she finally answered, yet she listened to his plea with no complaints. She told him that Cyrus's team was safe and sound, and would be returned to him whenever she managed to convince the higher-ups that he was no longer a threat to anybody but himself. In the meantime, allowing him to take care of a new pokémon didn't seem like such a bad idea.
"As long as you keep an eye on him," she said. Her tone had relaxed progressively as they spoke as if their conversation brought her comfort as well. "I'm sorry to push that kind of responsibility on you."
"Don't worry about it," Volkner said, and meant it.
She'd given him a puzzle to solve, and he was grateful for that, no matter what the outcome would be – or, well. Maybe that wasn't quite true. He was beginning to think that his failure to put the pieces of Cyrus back together in the right way would crush him more than he thought it would when he'd agreed to take him in.
He didn't tell Cynthia that.
A magnemite had to be the best choice: not strong enough to cause trouble, not stubborn enough to try to butt heads, and he'd seen Cyrus look at them with interest. They were alike, too, which made it tempting. The mental image of Cyrus and his magnemite was too charming to pass up.
In the end, though, the perfect candidate came to Volkner while he was browsing the web one morning, scrolling with one hand and sipping high-caffeine tea with the other. There'd been an outbreak of rotoms in the region lately, one that had begun in an abandoned building and been spread unwittingly by trainers who'd traveled there and whose electronic devices had become "infected". They were harmless so long as they were kept in check. People were encouraged to pick them up, provided they could handle caring for them.
If there was anybody who could handle a rotom, it had to be Cyrus. Under Volkner's supervision.
He decided to bring it to him outside the Gym, to avoid making him feel like he'd been put on the spot. Cyrus opened the front door to his miniature house after only two knocks, and Volkner lost his voice upon seeing him.
It was early in the morning, but he'd grown so used to seeing Cyrus up at all kinds of odd hours that he hadn't even taken the time to wonder if he'd be waking him up. Even as Cyrus was trying to keep up a good front, the evidence was plainly there: his hair, usually styled in spikes that made his face look even thinner, was unrecognizable, floppy strands falling over his forehead, and his gaze wasn't as piercing on account of how heavy his eyelids looked. He also, the most incongruous detail of all, had what were undeniably imprints from his pillow on the side of his face.
That Volkner's first thought at that was cute was somewhat alarming – though, if he were honest with himself, not completely unexpected.
"Huh, hey," Volkner finally managed to get out, "sorry if I woke you up. I have something I wanted to give you."
Cyrus blinked. "Come in."
He stepped aside before Volkner could protest, which felt kind of like payback for all the times it had happened in reverse. The inside of Cyrus's new home was as spacious as the outside made it seem: not at all.
There was a bed, crammed into a corner, and a table, that Volkner imagined was to be used as both an eating area and a bedside area. In the other corner, there was a kettle and one of those hotplates used for camping trips perched over a small fridge, and in the back, Volkner could see a door that probably led to a bathroom half as small.
Its current occupant hadn't added any decor of his own, unless one could call a random assortment of stuff and things Volkner had allowed him to take home from the Gym "decor". It was mostly leftover parts from the Gym's various mechanisms that Cyrus "tinkered" with whenever he had free time, so not that often.
Cyrus stood at the foot of the bed and tilted his head. Volkner was standing about three footsteps away from him, the plastic table digging into the back of his thighs.
"What is it?" Cyrus asked.
Feeling uncharacteristically nervous, Volkner took out the pokéball he'd slipped in his jacket's pocket and held it up for Cyrus to see.
"You're allowed a new pokémon," he said. "I got this one for you."
Cyrus's expression darkened, his brow furrowing lower than Volkner had ever seen it.
"I don't need it."
His tone was firm, but there was an edge to it Volkner had never heard that made his blood pump a little faster.
"Why not? If you get along well, you could add it to your team. I think you'll like it."
Cyrus shook his head.
"I don't need it," he repeated.
Volkner shrugged. He breached the distance between them to deposit the pokéball on the bed, where he was sure it wouldn't roll over.
"Give it a try, alright?" he said. He smiled, more to put himself at ease than anything else, as had become customary. "If you're really sure, you can give it back to me tomorrow."
Cyrus closed his eyes. He didn't refuse it a second time. He didn't say anything else, either, simply stood there while Volkner made his way back out.
On second thought, maybe magnemites were easier to read.
The next day went, and the pokéball stayed with Cyrus. Volkner didn't see the rotom around, so he could only guess that Cyrus was leaving it untouched at home, which was something. What that something was, he couldn't say yet, but it was something for sure. Or maybe he was once again telling himself that to make himself feel better.
Cyrus kept doing what he'd grown used to doing: maintenance work, testing the gears, observing the trainers, crouching to stare at a specific spot of the Gym like it held some kind of cosmic knowledge that was beyond their grasp. He didn't seem any different, though, sometimes, Volkner thought he'd caught him glancing toward him, the movement of his eyes so quick that he could never be sure. That, too, was something, he supposed.
A week later, he'd resigned himself to the fact that even if Cyrus was planning on keeping the pokéball, he wasn't going to release the pokémon inside it, or at least not for a while. Maybe he could go back when Cyrus was away and get it, to give it away to somebody else. If he didn't want it, there was no reason for him to keep it.
In that case, why was he keeping it? Volkner couldn't say. If Cyrus had been a machine he'd been trying to fix, he would have declared it a bust. He didn't blame the man for it; it was his fault, really, for believing he could be the one fixing it in the first place.
On the second day of the month that followed, the Gym's fuses blew out, and everyone inside was suddenly stuck in total darkness. It took a few seconds for the emergency supply to start up. Nobody panicked; it was only recently that this had stopped being a common occurrence. Volkner scratched the side of his jaw and wondered how long it would take for someone to yell at him.
He felt oddly tired. Cyrus hadn't been talking to him. He wasn't ignoring him, exactly, except he kind of was. That very morning, he'd left the Gym early without a word, and Volkner hadn't been able to stop himself from thinking that perhaps this truly wasn't working out.
That was when he heard it: a sort of swirly sound, whatever that meant, like something that would come out of a toy with a defective sound box, one of those that usually played songs or repeated the same lines over and over. He turned around and spotted Cyrus, standing on the upper platform that was meant for Volkner's battles, and behind him, a zigzagging shape that glowed so bright it highlighted the edges of Cyrus's body like a spotlight was pointed at him.
A nauseating mix of anger and fear traveled through Volkner's body so fast he nearly got light-headed from it. What had Cyrus done? What had he done, by giving him access to something like this? A rotom could do irreparable technological damage if allowed. That was the whole reason they'd been trying to contain the outbreak to begin with. And now he'd served one to this man on a silver platter. His stomach churned as he imagined Cynthia finding out, Cynthia, who'd trusted him with this–
"Volkner," Cyrus called out. Hearing his name in that mouth jarred Volkner out of his unnerved state instantly. "Sorry."
The rest of the trainers had already left, thank Arceus. They'd gotten into the habit of training outside whenever the Gym malfunctioned, just in case. Volkner climbed up to him, feeling both incredibly stupid and incredibly relieved, his shoulders shaking from the rush of adrenaline.
"What the hell did you do?" he snapped.
Cyrus's expression didn't shift, yet there was something in the way he was clearly attempting to soften his features that made Volkner's resolve falter.
"It needed energy," Cyrus said. The rotom, still hovering behind him, buzzed happily. "I didn't realize it would take this much."
Volkner let out a laugh that was more like a hiccup. "You didn't realize– You're telling me you've been taking care of it this whole time?"
"I was keeping it inside."
That was all the explanation Volkner was getting, probably. Still, the realization that Cyrus had actually been bonding with his new pokémon in secret, and that he, far from fomenting any evil deeds, just wanted to ensure his partner could get what it needed, crashed upon him like a Shock Wave. He laughed, again, the sound of his own voice taking him by surprise, and soon ended up bent over in half, howling with uncontrollable laughter.
He could hear the rotom buzzing again. Predictably, Cyrus said nothing. When Volkner finally managed to calm down and unfold himself, he found him staring silently, his blank expression as unreadable as always.
"I'm getting you out of there," Volkner said.
Cyrus tilted his head. "Are you?"
"That shed. I'm getting you out of it. You can stay with me instead." Volkner paused, suddenly self-conscious. Cyrus kept staring. "If that's okay with you, of course."
The rotom kept buzzing. It floated over Cyrus's shoulders, its blue eyes sparkling, its grin vibrating with the electricity that flowed around it. None of it seemed to bother its new trainer, who let it happen without even a flinch.
"I wouldn't be opposed to living somewhere larger," Cyrus said. It was as good an answer as any.
He didn't have much to his name, so the matter of moving his belongings from one place to another was quickly settled. Volkner told himself it was better this way. He would be able to keep an eye on Cyrus, and his rotom would be able to recharge and not have to rely on stealing electricity. He was confident enough in the security of his private devices. If he got his stuff hacked by a rotom, he only had himself to blame.
Cyrus was uninterested as ever in the whole process. Still, his willingness to agree to it made Volkner wonder. Even considering the possibility that pragmatism won over his distaste for human feelings and bonds, it only explained some of his behavior. It didn't explain the rotom. Unless he was playing the long con, but Volkner couldn't allow himself to believe that.
That, in itself, was a weakness Cyrus could make use of. Yet, moving into Volkner's modest home, full of all kinds of mechanical junk, he didn't seem in any rush to outsmart him.
He looked at everything Volkner had, stopping to lean in and stare at the most incongruous items as if he were cataloging them in his mind. It should have been alarming, probably, yet Volkner found it encouraging instead. He was taking in a new environment not with apprehension or the expectation that he'd have to reject it, but with actual interest.
Cyrus was interested in him.
Well, maybe that was the wrong way to phrase it. Volkner was beginning to find it harder to deny the nature of his own curiosity. The fact that he had no idea how cohabitation was going to work out didn't help.
He had a couch. He didn't have a guest room; it was more of a storage room, really, and it would take a little while to clear up, not to mention getting another bed. Cyrus appeared as unfazed as expected upon being informed. He didn't mind the couch. As far as he was concerned, as long as he could spend most of his time doing things he enjoyed, he would have been alright sleeping on the floor.
"I wouldn't do that to you," Volkner clarified in the middle of showing him how to unfold the couch and put it back together. "Make you sleep on the floor, I mean."
Cyrus's shoulders lifted just a bit. "It builds character."
"No way," Volkner said with a scoff. "Your character seems well-built to me already."
Somehow, of all the things he'd said to him, that was what made Cyrus pause. For the very first time, he stayed silent not because he didn't want to speak, but because he seemed at a loss for words.
Volkner straightened himself up, the couch back to how it was, and scratched the back of his neck.
"I meant that in a good way."
"You did," Cyrus said. Then, blinking away, he added, "I've noticed."
Now it was Volkner's turn to be speechless. Worse, he felt his face warm up a little. What was that supposed to mean?
"What is that supposed to mean?" Volkner asked.
They could hear the soft, content buzzing of Cyrus's rotom in the kitchen. Volkner had let it take refuge in the toaster that he never used anyway. It couldn't do any harm there, and it didn't consume enough electricity to be a problem. Volkner's pokémons had been somewhat perplexed by the intrusion, at first, but he suspected it would take less than a week for his luxray and raichu to welcome it into the family.
Cyrus was staring at a mug that had been left at some point on the coffee table. "My... distaste for human emotions doesn't shield me from noticing them. Your attraction is obvious." Swiftly, before Volkner could even think of a reply, he added, "Not that I understand it."
His eagerness to deny it was only a little suspicious. Volkner raised one eyebrow, though Cyrus was still avoiding his gaze.
"I don't know if I'd call it 'attraction'," Volkner said, just to see what he'd say next. "More like 'professional curiosity', maybe."
"Professional?" Cyrus echoed.
He was still looking at the mug, but Volkner swore he could see the corners of his lips twitching, like he was actually fighting back a smile. Volkner cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck.
"Well, maybe 'professional' is pushing it."
Cyrus breathed out through his nose, barely a snort, and let the following silence linger between them. He didn't seem angry, or even annoyed; not that he would have shown it on his face if he was, Volkner supposed. If anything, he seemed... politely surprised was the mildest way to put it.
"You're a very talented man," Volkner went on, letting his mouth move faster than he could overthink the words, "very quick to figure out inconsistencies in how a machine works and fix the associated bugs in a few hours at most. I care about that more than I care about your people skills." He paused, and let out with a smile, "Which are clearly nonexistent."
His words were met with more silence, yet he could see Cyrus's face had relaxed, the tension he usually carried in his brow and jaw almost entirely gone. It was not an emotion, per se, but it meant more to Volkner than seeing him smile would have. He leaned in, to take the mug off the table, and gestured to the door that led to the next room.
"Anyway," he said, "come to the kitchen. I'll make us some tea."
It took Volkner another month to admit it to himself: he was falling for Cyrus, and he was falling hard. Seeing him in the morning, half-awake and even less able to pretend to project an understanding of human emotions he was uninterested in mastering, only made it worse. With each passing day, Volkner was coming to a slow but oddly comforting realization: the reason why he couldn't figure out how to fix the machine Cyrus was, was that there wasn't anything to fix to begin with.
In retrospect, it seemed obvious. Cyrus's worldview in itself was an attempt to fix a problem that was never there. That Volkner could trip into the same foregone conclusion made it all the more human. No matter how much Cyrus wanted to deny it.
He did emote, in his own way. Volkner had become so accustomed to it that he couldn't believe nobody else could notice. Whenever he spoke of it to Cynthia, she always seemed a little taken aback, like he was telling her that he'd seen her garchomp sprout wings and fly away.
"I'm glad he's happy with you," she said at the end of one of her biweekly calls, one evening after Cyrus had gone to bed early, leaving his rotom to snooze inside the toaster that had become its primary dwelling. "I won't be able to deliver his pokémons myself, but do tell him I send my well-wishes."
Sometimes, Volkner wondered what had happened between them that meant Cynthia couldn't just give the man a call to bring him the good news directly. He didn't try to ask.
Cyrus was happy. He showed it in ways that reminded Volkner of a pokémon that wouldn't let itself be tamed completely. He drank Volkner's tea and ate the food he prepared, never leaving even a scrap. At home, as soon as Volkner made it known that he was working or required quiet, he knew there would be no sound to be heard, not even the faint buzzing of Cyrus's rotom. He continued fixing up the Gym, of course, calibrating the gears quicker than they could malfunction, cleaning up after himself without being asked, sitting by Volkner's side at lunchtime so they could discuss the latest developments in technology and what could be done with them. It was... nice.
If he'd been bold enough, Volkner would have called this new routine almost domestic. The hardest part was that he couldn't be sure Cyrus felt the same way.
He slept on the couch, which was apparently comfortable enough. Volkner usually woke up after him, though he'd managed to catch him still asleep a few times, curled into a ball, his face hidden in a corner. He wasn't a terribly imposing man, his intimidating aura notwithstanding, but he looked a lot smaller like that, like a child seeking warmth, wrapped under as many layers as possible.
Volkner thought he would have liked to wrap himself around him, too, and then he'd left to make tea in the kitchen, waking up Cyrus's rotom and provoking enough ruckus that Cyrus had soon joined him to calm it down.
"Do you think this one'll get along with the rest of your team?" Volkner asked on the day Cynthia had told him they would come. Cyrus had blinked at him upon being told he was going to see his pokémons again and let his mouth relax into something resembling a smile. "It's kind of a lot to handle."
"Of course," Cyrus said.
The rotom buzzed as if to agree. It was halfway inside the toaster, watching them have breakfast. Cyrus always ate his rice in quarters, which made no sense to Volkner, but was sort of satisfying.
"You really do like your pokémons, despite it all," Volkner mused. Cyrus kept chewing his mouthful, his expression carefully neutral. "It's sweet, actually."
"Pokémons do not have to wrestle with useless emotions the way we humans do."
Volkner's next words fell out of his mouth before he could do anything to stop them. "What kind of 'useless' emotions do you wrestle with, exactly?"
Cyrus blinked. Volkner felt not unlike he'd been struck by Gravity. Except he'd just used the move on himself, for whatever reason.
"Perhaps one might say there is a... shared fascination," Cyrus said after what seemed to Volkner like an eternity and some. There was still rice in his bowl. "One might even dare to call it 'professional'... if one was audacious enough."
He looked so serious as he said it that Volkner couldn't hold back a wheezy laugh. "Did you just make a joke?"
At the right angle, under the right lighting, the way the edges of Cyrus's mouth curved at that could almost be called a smirk. As if on cue, his rotom popped out of the toaster like it was its own piece of toast, buzzing all the while.
An hour later, walking side by side back to the Gym, Volkner let his hand brush against Cyrus, just to see what he would do. Their knuckles knocked together, the contact sending goosebumps up Volkner's arm like static electricity, and Cyrus flexed his fingers without pulling away.
It could hardly be called a first step, more of a toe dip, really, and yet.
The pokémons arrived in the evening, past the time the trainers usually left the Gym, exactly as Volkner had advised. He didn't think Cyrus would enjoy having an audience for his reunion, emotional or not. The people bringing them in didn't say much, simply handed a box to Volkner and a device that allowed them both to sign and confirm that Cyrus was once again in full possession of his team. If something were to happen, then, it would be both Volkner's and Cynthia's responsibility. Not that Volkner wasted any time worrying about that.
They waited to be alone to allow them out. Volkner had suggested doing it at home, but Cyrus had argued his pokémons would need the fresh air, and that they had to take in their new surroundings. All sensible arguments.
Watching Cyrus hold out one of his pokéballs, his expression nothing but sharp focus, Volkner was nervous enough for the both of them. He'd brought out his luxray to soothe himself, and he was all but draped around his legs, his tail lashing softly every few seconds while they waited.
Cyrus's honchkrow came out first, flying off with a cry and then coming back in a twirl of black feathers to land behind his trainer's shoulders. Then came his houndoom, who eyed Volkner's luxray warily, his head held down, and his weavile, who ran to cling to Cyrus's pants near instantly, pressing his face against the fabric and whining a little bit.
"It's alright," Cyrus said. His low voice did not sound kind, yet there was kindness in the way he bent down to scratch the pokémon's head. "We won't be separated again."
His gyarados could only stay out for a few moments, on account of his size and power. Volkner had already looked into accommodations they could build for him in time. He couldn't really have an aquarium in an Electric-type Gym, but he could figure something out. There was plenty of water to go around. Cyrus had assured that he could stay in the vicinity of the Vista Lighthouse and not cause trouble, and Volkner believed him.
Cyrus had saved his crobat for last. He stared down at the pokéball, his brow furrowed, perhaps gathering the nerves to throw it at last. Volkner's luxray, who was now getting acquainted with Cyrus's houndoom with a lot of sniffing and bumping and even a few licks, stopped to watch, his ears flicking with interest.
The crobat did not fly off. Upon being released, he froze, his wings flapping rapidly, and turned toward his trainer with round, wide eyes.
Then he rushed directly into his chest, narrowly sending him tumbling down on the rocky floor. He screeched, rubbing the top of his head over Cyrus's sternum, and still kept struggling even when Cyrus wrapped his arms around him to hold him close.
Cyrus spoke, too quietly for Volkner to hear, murmuring reassurances and apologies. He'd shut his eyes, and, for the first time, something in the way his features were drawn betrayed an anguish that he'd learned to keep at bay.
Seeing him like this felt too intimate, like it was something Volkner wasn't meant to see – but Cyrus had wanted him to be there. Cyrus had invited him in, into his own world, full of strange and exciting challenges, the kinds Volkner had never imagined.
On their way home, escorted by their pokémons, Volkner reached out for Cyrus's hand – and took it.
"So, huh..."
It was the tail-end of the League season, and Volkner was happy to be able to catch a break, if only for a day. Flint had shown up, his hands buried in his pockets and his grin about as suspicious as it could get. Cyrus had glanced at Volkner, one eyebrow twitching up half a centimeter as if to ask, "Should I be worried?" and Volkner had shrugged, prompting him to go back to what he was doing, which was sinking his arms up to the elbow into the prototype device they'd been working on together.
The device was meant to create a periphery within which a pokémon – namely, Cyrus's gyarados – could remain without risking any fights with the local wildlife. It had proven trickier than expected, something Volkner was very happy about. He liked keeping his hands and mind busy.
Cyrus mostly seemed frustrated with it, a feeling he communicated through spending hours trying the same things over and over and only responding to questions via grunts and hums. Rather than finding it off-putting, Volkner thought it was funny, in an aggravatingly adorable way.
"That's, huh, your guy, right?" Flint asked. He'd greeted Cyrus with his signature boldness – to not much of a response – and then moved on to observing him and Volkner like he was studying two caterpies in the tall grass. "Cynthia didn't want to talk about it too much, but I overheard a little."
Volkner rolled his eyes. "You can say that."
"And he's not been too much of a problem?"
It wasn't as if they hadn't talked about this before; Volkner had no desire to hide things from his oldest friend. That didn't mean he'd gone into the nitty gritty of it all. He resisted the urge to scratch the back of his neck.
"No," he said.
Flint gave him a look like he was expecting more information than that.
"He's just been helping out. It's been nice, actually, having someone who knows their way around the tech I've built for the Gym."
That was a pretty good summary, or at least Volkner thought it was. Flint kept staring at him, his eyes occasionally flicking to Cyrus instead.
"What is it?" Volkner snapped. He crossed his arms.
Before Flint could answer, Cyrus unfolded himself back to a standing position. He'd rolled up his sleeves, but his arms were covered in black residue and surface-level scratches. Volkner frowned, stepping toward him to check it out.
"I need my rotom," Cyrus said. He didn't pull away as Volkner felt his wrist. "I've got it figured out."
"Gloves are what you need. I've told you not to just stick your hands in there."
Cyrus breathed out through his nose. "I'm fine."
Volkner squeezed his fingers between his, just once.
"I don't care. This isn't the kind of risk we take, alright?"
"...Alright."
The faint resignation in Cyrus's voice was a victory in itself. Volkner let him go and watched him take out the pair of rubber gloves he'd agreed to keep in the front pocket of his overalls and slip them on. He then released his rotom from its pokéball, greeting the Electric-type pokémon with a nod toward the device. It dove in nearly instantly, allowing its trainer to monitor it closely.
When Volkner turned back around, rubbing his hands together to get rid of some of the residue stuck to his fingers, Flint was sporting the sort of knowing smile that he was all too familiar with.
"What is it?" Volkner repeated.
"Nothing." Flint's grin grew larger. "I can see everything's going well for sure. Got yourself a new challenge, am I right?"
Volkner glared at him. He hadn't had much time for battling outside his regular training sessions lately, with how busy he was with taking care of Cyrus. Maybe this was the occasion.
He glanced back at Cyrus, who was now hunched over their device holding two screwdrivers in one hand and speaking to his rotom, too low for Volkner to hear. Outwardly, he was the same man who'd agreed to work with him months ago: same neutral expression, same icy gaze, same brevity whenever he spoke. The trainers at the Gym still kept their distance most of the time, though the return of his pokémons had begun to allow Cyrus to carve himself a spot among them, with Volkner's help.
Yet, some things mattered more than the impression you gave off. Cyrus wasn't a machine to fix – no matter how badly Cyrus himself wished he was – but that didn't mean he had to be discarded any more than the rest of humanity. If there was one thing Volkner hoped to make him understand, it was this.
He held up his arm and slammed it on Flint's shoulder as hard as he could, grabbing one of his pokéballs with his other hand.
"Why don't we continue this conversation inside?"
Flint shook his head before winking at him.
"Afraid I'm gonna kick your ass in front of your boyf–"
With a strength he didn't know himself capable of, Volkner dragged him into the Gym kicking and whining. Cyrus watched with what Volkner could only describe as polite disinterest.
That was the one good thing about falling for someone who cared little about what other people were doing with their lives: at least he wouldn't have to suffer explaining this to him later. There were silver linings to be found everywhere, given the opportunity.
Maybe even Cyrus would find that idea amusing.