#i actually did this like.. a whilte ago

[ivyfart]

camp scene for an oc project im working on :3

[justaghostingon]

Misunderstandings, Trauma, and How to Accidentally Fall in Love

Note: Giving this valentines Ros fic a shot

All things considered, Gyrus thought he was doing pretty well hiding his plans. He’d returned to the Room of Swords and played up the tramatised survivor, which wasn’t to hard considering it was mostly true. He told Don about the shadow kidnapping him and how he escaped, although he left out to arm and anything to do with his friends and what he has learned. Don had bought it hook line and sinker, noding his head in fake sympathy and reminding him how this was all the more reason to stay strong against the shadows. Gyrus had pretended to be greatful, nodding along like he didn’t know the man was just as bad.

He began to take more time for building inventions alone in his quarters. Using the excuse of needing solitude to work to justify locking his door and not reponding for hours. He hinted to Don his inventions were mostly defense related, in preparation for another abduction. But the truth was the moment he was alone he’d activate the arm and go check on Maria and Alistar in the base the three of them had built. There they spent their time searching for more allies and plotting how to deal with Don, the shadows, and the contract.

The others assumed his new found love of solitude was just an after effect of the captivity and didn’t push. Even Don seemed to think it was for the best to let him rest and recover. With Don’s encouragement the rest seemed to silently agree to let him work it out on his own. Everyone except for Kodya.

At first he didn’t think to much of it. Kodya was his friend and apprentice, and he’d been the last person to speak with him before he disappeared. It made sense that he harbored a bit more guilt and concern than the rest. Gyrus had tolerated his constant concerned looks and flimsy excuses to follow him around. He’d acted normal, turning down all offers of help with a grin on his lips and a lie on his tongue, confident Kodya would accept it like he always had.

Kodya didn’t push, but he also didn’t stop. If anything, he got worse. He would come up with every excuse he could think of to simply be around Gyrus, offering to train together, ‘accidentally’ running in to him in the halls, and perhaps the worst of all, always trying to convince Gyrus to let him help with Gyrus’s supposed inventions.

“I’m your apprentice,” he insisted. “I can help you.”

“Kodya I appreciate the offer, but you don’t know a thing about robotics,” Gyrus quirked an eyebrow, but kept his voice light.

“I’m a quick learner.” Kodya insisted, standing straight backed with his hands balled into fists. “You’ve said so yourself. Wouldn’t two make it easier?”

“Kodya, it’s fine,” Gyrus lightly elbowed him on the arm. “I’ve got it under control.”

“You’ve been holed up in your chambers for weeks and haven’t got anything done!” Kodya snapped, “You never take that long! You need help!”

Gyrus froze at Kodya’s sudden anger. He realized distantly that they had never fought before. One look at his face and Kodya had instantly whilted, apologizing over and over. Gyrus waved the apologies off, but worry curled in his stomach.

He waited a full hour before he next teleported out.

————————————

“I think Kodya’s on to me,” he said by way of greeting as he teleported into Maria and Ailstair’s base. Maria was the only one in the room, patching up the metal sides from a recent attack.

“Someone’s on to you?” Maria dropped the hammer she’d been using and hurried over. “How do you know?”

Ailstair popped his head around the corner. “What’s was that noise?” his eyes slid from Maria’s fallen hammer to Gyrus and lit up. “Oh Gyrus you’re back!”

“Someone’s on to Gyrus,” Maria turned her head to shout back at him. His expression grew grave as he too hurried over.

“I think you’d better start from the beginning,” he said, glancing up at Gyrus’s contract to ensure it hadn’t be altered.

So Gyrus told them everything: about how Kodya would following him around and keep an eye on him, and about the arguement where he’d realized Kodya knew he wasn’t really making technology in his room.

“Oh thats not so bad,” Maria sighed in relief as she lightly punched Gyrus, “you had me really worried!”

Gyrus winced and rubbed the spot she’d hit. “He knows I’m lying guys. If he mentions it to Don, even if its just out of concern, we are in serious trouble.”

Ailstair rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “you’re right, we really should have thought about what it would look like if you didn’t actually produce something. You should spend some time actually working on projects instead of always coming to us.”

“I do work on projects!” Gyrus objected, “just not very often.” He looked down at his hands, clasped in his lap. “I haven’t really been able to finish any.”

“Well, take a bit more time then,” said Maria. “We’ve got pretty used to this realm, we can handle it ourselves. Go and build something useless to show Don and Kodya and end this whole mess,” Maria rolled her eyes and picked up her hammer. Gyrus didn’t move and she waved it at him, “Go on! You’ve got a mess to fix.”

——————————-

At first it seemed to work. Gyrus spent nearly a week barely leaving his rooms to build the single most useless device he could think of: an automatic galaxy map - a tool his ship had used calculate distances between stars and spaceships - and presented it to Kodya.

He was predictably fascinated. Gyrus felt a sudden warmth rush through him at the unadulterated joy on Kodya’s face as he turned the object around and around in his hands, pushing buttons and testing it out.

“Try the middle one,” Gyrus grinned, and Kodya nodded, pressing the large red button with his finger. The whole room lit up as Gyrus’s creation began to levitate out of Kodya’s grasp, light poring out of every inch. Holographic stars flew from the device and took their places around the room, hanging suspended in mid air. Kodya gasped as the device hovering above his hands was now a little model spaceship, designed down to the smallest detail to match Iro’s. His eyes met Gyrus’s across the little galaxy, shining so brightly that for a second Gyrus mistook them for stars.

He’d had a whole speech lined up, about how he’d uploaded Scout’s memories of the stars from Iro’s missions. How with this they could compare realms to see if they could find out where they were and get off world for help. It was an idea he’d had a few years ago but dismissed when he realized just how alien the realms were. But somehow all his planned excuses didn’t seem to matter as he watched Kodya hesitantly reach up to touch the closest star.

This is amazing,” Kodya’s voice was barely a whisper, but Gyrus heard every word. ‘And,’ he thought as he took Kodya’s hand and gently showed him how to use the holographic controls to move the ship along its journey, ‘somehow that’s all that needs to be said.’

Needless to say, everyone else had been thrilled with the invention. Even if it was, as Gyrus already knew, quite useless for actually finding out where they were. Don even congratulated him on coming up with such a clever idea to escape and seemed genuinely sympathetic towards Gyrus for what he perceived as disappointment at its failure.

Gyrus was able to go about his secret meetings freely, safe from the assumption that he was losing his touch and needed help. He simply had to present an equally useless but clever seeming device every few weeks and everyone would simply except it.

Or rather that’s how it should have been. But it seemed Kodya was not so easily deterred. Sure, he was fascinated by the objects Gyrus produced. Gyrus even made sure to show them off to Kodya first as a way to reasure him that Gyrus really was doing fine on his own. But now Kodya took another angle with his doubts.

“When was the last time you ate?” Kodya interupted Gyrus’s rant over his latest invention: suction cups useful for sticking to the side of a spaceship in flight. Gyrus frowned, because he’d really thought his explanation of why these might be important for the Room of Swords was pretty good and he’d though Kodya would actually like it. “I don’t know?” He shrugged, “when was lunch?”

“You didn’t come to lunch,” Kodya’s eyes narrowed. “And you didn’t come to breakfast or yesterday’s dinner.”

“I have snacks in my room,” Gyrus waved it away.

“No,” Kodya’s voice rose a bit in barely contained frustration. “You had snacks in your room. You brought them in a week ago and since then you’ve missed so many meals Oli’s started to think he’s done something wrong. There’s no way you have any left.”

Now Gyrus had in fact eaten last night. Ailstar had managed to con an NPC out of a resturant and had invited him to try it out. But its not like he could tell Kodya that. And even as the flimsy excuse of, “I just got carried away and lost track of time!” rolled off his tongue he could tell by the unimpressed quirk of Kodya’s eyebrow that it did him more harm than good.

——————————

“And now he told me he’s gonna bang on my door every meal so I don’t forget again.” Gyrus complained as he took a bite of the fried corn Ailstair put in front of him. “Hey, this is actually pretty good!” He gulped down a few more bites before continuing, “so I have to make sure I’m in my room every six hours. I’m not going to be able to help fight shadows or conquer other realms unless its by night.”

“Considering how long it takes to conquer a realm, time was always going to be a problem,” Maria said as she absently tore off half of her potato on a stick. “We’ve improved a lot though. You don’t need to be there for the entire campaign.”

“But it will be three entire hours where I can’t do anything! If you guys are in serious trouble, or the shadow hour starts, I’m going to be trapped in the Room of Swords unable to do anything!” Gyrus stabbed his stick viciously into another fried corn.

“Any idea what got him so worried?” Maria absently used her stick to pick at her teeth.

Gyrus sighed, “I don’t know. I thought he was fine with it after the galaxy map.” He took another bite of the fried corn, but found it had lost all its flavor.

“When you held his hand surrounded by stars?” Ailstair called over as he bustled over to their spot at the bar, signalling one of his staff to take his place waiting on customers. Gyrus rolled his eyes which made Maria quirked an eyebrow, but he didn’t bother to argue, to used to Ailstair’s antics to correct him. “What’s the trouble in paradise?”

Gyrus explained again, absently twirling the fried corn as he did to avoid having to look at Ailstair when he told him he couldn’t help. But to his surprise Ailstair laughed. “Oh that’s nothing!” He said with a grin, “you just need to prove to your Kodya that he can trust you not to die of starvation in your room.”

“And how do I do that?” Gyrus glanced up at Ailstair, eyes wide.

“By building trust of course! Spend time with him one on one outside of introducing an invention. Enough time together and he’ll be able to trust you to miss a meal once or twice for a project without having to worry about you dying if he takes his eyes off you,” he ended this explination with a wink.

“I don’t think it’ll be that easy,” Gyrus frowned down at his half eaten fried corn.

“I hate to agree with Ailstair,” Maria pulled the stick out of her mouth and tossed it in the trash, “but he’s right. You’ve got more influence than you think. Just show him your fine and he’ll ease up on all the worrying.”

Gyrus looked between Maria and Ailstair. They rarely agreed on anything. If they both thought this was the best plan then it was probably worth a shot. “Ok, I’ll give it a try. Any idea where to start?”

Ailstair’s eyes lit up. He opened his mouth but Maria lunged sideways and tackled him, shoving her hand over his mouth. “I’m sure it will come to you, you know him best after all,” she smiled in a way that was likely meant to be reassuring, but fell kind of flat from her position on the floor pinning Ailstair down.

“Mumufff,” Ailstair added from underneath her. Maria suddenly yelped and let go of his mouth as he shouted, “don’t forget to hold him in your big strong arms!”

“You licked me!” Maria shrieked. And Gyrus figured it was time to head out.

———————

The next time Kodya came to remind him of a meal, Gyrus made sure he got there first. Kodya stood with one fist raised in surprise as Gyrus opened the door. He smiled up at Kodya, who hastily dropped his fist, “Shall we go?”

Kodya nodded and the headed down the hallway together. Gyrus kept the conversation light, asking how he’d slept and what his plans for the day were. Kodya happily replied, talking about training and chores and how he was hoping to go on the next mission.

“Speaking of training,” Gyrus cut in casually as they approached the kitchen. “Would you like to do some sparing with me?”

Kodya stopped dead. “You want to train?”

Gyrus raised an eyebrow as he turned to face him, “Well yes. I know its been a while, but you are still my apprentice.” Kodya continued to stare, mouth slightly open. Gyrus began to feel he’d said something wrong. Glancing away he added, “if you’ve got other plans...”

“No!” Kodya shouted, surprised Gyrus glanced up to meet Kodya’s eyes. Kodya held his gaze firmly. “I absolutely want to train with you,” he said.

Gyrus smiled, “We’ll spar in the rock realm. does after lunch work for you?”

————————

The rock realm, as it was affectionately called, was home to a lot of rocks and little else. But it was a rock that Gyrus was looking for, so it did the trick. He found a good one eventually. It towered over the others, top smooth and flat like something large had come through and cut it in two. But most important of all, it was wide enough for two people to use it to spar.

He and Kodya climbed up and stood on opposite sides. “Ready?” Gyrus asked.

“Ready,” Kodya grinned. And the game was on.

Kodya, Gyrus noticed as he ducked under a blow, was doing really well. He’d obviously put a lot of time into training during Gyrus’s capture. ‘He’s good,’ Gyrus thought as Kodya managed to land a punch, ‘but not good enough.’ Gyrus rolled with the punch and kicked his leg out, knocking Kodya off balance and onto the ground.

“Sorry to sweep you off your feet,” Gyrus smirked down at Kodya. Kodya started, face going red. Then he scowled at the twinkle in Gyrus’s eye.

“Your not as funny as you think you are,” he said. Gyrus chuckled in disagreement and extended a hand. Kodya took it, than yanked hard, sending Gyrus tumbling down beside him.

Kodya rolled to his feet and summoned his sword. He smirked as he pointed the tip at Gyrus’s throat. “Now whose the one swept of their feet?”

Gyrus blinked, brain taking half a second to catch up with to what had just happened. The black sun was behind Kodya, causing him to appear radiant. The sword glistened and reflected the light between them, making it hard to focus. He squinted, and noticed Kodya’s face was framed in a halo of light. One eyebrow quirked up as his lips slid into a smirk. He looked so incredibly proud of his dirty trick.

Gyrus tipped back his head and laughed. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t funny, not at all. But for some reason he couldn’t help himself. Kodya lowered his sword to stare at him in confusion, before throwing back his head and laughing along.

———————

The end of their sparring session had them both lying on the rock, panting with exhaustion. A faint breeze ran over Gyrus, causing him to sigh with relief. He gazed up at the sky, absently watching the clouds above.

To his left he heard Kodya give a dry huff of laughter. “What is it?” he turned his head to look at him.

“Its nothing, just something Neph and I would do.” Kodya glanced away.

“Ohh?” Gyrus rolled on his side, expectant.

Kodya blushed and gestured to the sky. “That cloud...it looks like Don.”

Gyrus lay back down and followed his line of sight, “I’d say it looks more like a wheelchair.”

“No, no!” Kodya shook his head and pointed to the left, “not that one. That one! See his guitar?”

Gyrus frowned up at the cloud above. It did look a bit like it was holding a guitar. “His beard is coming back in.”

“Don had a beard?” Kodya glanced over at Gyrus.

“Oh yeah. Back when I first came to the Room of Swords, he had a huge one. It made him look like a wild man.”

Kodya chuckled softly and Gyrus smiled. Don had looked ridiculous when they’d first met, but Gyrus had been so relieved he hadn’t though to point it out. The smile slipped off of Gyrus’s face. He wondered how much of that friendly relief had been an act. Probably all of it.

“You ok?” Kodya’s voice cut through his thoughts. He rolled toward Gyrus, face creased with concern.

“Yeah! Yeah. I’m fine,” Gyrus glanced up at the black sun. “It’s getting late. We should head back before people start asking where we are.” He pulled himself up to his feet, and offered a hand to Kodya.

Kodya took the hand, but kept glancing at Gyrus with worry in his eyes the whole way back.

———————

Gyrus wandered down the hallways absently. Ainju and Oli had ambushed him after dinner with a whole list of broken objects that needed fixing. Oli had been to scared to bother Gyrus with it for the last month due to his slow recovery, and he’s missed too many meals and events for Ainju to ambush him. Most of them had been fairly easy to fix, but a few needed a lot more time and attention and would take more than one evening to fix. He’d left the kitchen with an apology and a promise to return tomorrow and do better at maintence from then on.

He half regreted leaving it for tomorrow, figuring a late night trapped in the kitchen would be better than wandering aimlessly through the halls. He’d promised Maria and Ailstair to spend more time in the Room of Swords to avoid suspicion, but now he was here he didn’t know what to do. He tried to remember what he’d done before, but it seemed like a lifetime ago. Probably stayed in his rooms, fighting his inner demons.

He wondered what Kodya was up to. Maybe he wasn’t busy and wouldn’t mind company. Or maybe he was hanging out with Nephthys and didn’t want to be bothered.

“...Gyrus,” his name caused him to draw up short. He glanced to the side and saw he was at the med bay. The door was open a crack, and he could hear voices coming through. He hesitated, then slipped soundlessly closer, keeping out of the line of sight of anyone inside.

“...I don’t know Neph, I really don’t.” Gyrus’s ears pricked up, that was Kodya’s voice. “It started good, really. We spared, and he kicked me to the ground a few times, and I knocked him down once too! Well, I tricked him and dragged him to the ground. But he laughed! He actually laughed! I haven’t heard him laugh once since he got back.”

A high pitched squeal came from the direction of the room, and a voice Gyrus recognized as Nephthys said, “You got him to laugh! That’s adorable! Good job Kody!”

“Yeah it kinda was,” Kodya’s voice sounded fond. Gyrus blinked. He hadn’t thought adorable would be the go to word for recovering trauma. Kodya went on, “but that’s not the point! It was great ok? But then I messed up.” He sounded almost angry.

“What happened?” Nephthys’s voice was sympathetic.

“I don’t know.” Kodya sounded frustrated. “We’d finished sparing and we were both just lying on the ground...and you know that cloud game?...The one you taught me?...I made some stupid comment about the cloud looking like Don.”

“That doesn’t seem so bad,” Nephthys said. On the otherside of the door Gyrus nodded. It really hadn’t been.

“It wasn’t a first,” Kodya replied. “He went along with it, even told me about how Don used to have a beard. But then he got really quiet. I asked what was wrong but he wouldn’t say and insisted we leave.”

“Oh Kody,” Nephthys sounded sad. Gyrus’s gut twisted. He hadn’t intended to upset Kodya.

Nephthys spoke up again, voice tentative, “I know its been hard, and he’s been really withdrawn since the kidnapping...But Kodya,” Her voice became more firm. “He’s been reaching out to you. That means something. He asked you to spar right?”

Kodya grunted in agreement.

“So he wanted to spend time with you. Not me, not Don, you.”

“But...”Kodya protested.

“No buts! Who did he show the galaxy map to first?”

“Me but...”

“And who has he shown every other invention to first? Who is it he lets drag him to meals?”

“Me...”

“That’s right! You,” Nephthys’s voice turned soft. “I know its hard when someone whose been hurt starts to withdraw, especially on loved ones. I’ve seen it before with the wounded soldiers who passed through my temple. But all you can do is be there for them Kody. It’s not gonna be overnight, he’s still gonna have relapses. But he’s trying.”

“Is that one of your feelings?” Kodya asked.

“Its a fact,” Nephthys’s voice was firm. Then in a lighter tone she added, “My feelings tell me you should just confess already!”

“Nephthys!” Kodya snapped.

“What? I’ve a feeling it will work out!” Nephthys giggled.

“We just had an entire conversation about him being traumatized! I don’t wanna give him something else to worry about!”

“Oh come on!...” Nephthys kept talking but Gyrus wasn’t listening. The conversation playing over and over in his head instead as he began to process the meaning behind the words. Guilt curdled in his gut as he slipped quietly away.

———————

“I think I messed up,” Gyrus admitted to Maria and Ailstair as he pushed his food around his plate. Ailstair and Maria exchanged a look.

“Something happen with Kodya?” Maria asked, taking out the stick she’d been chewing on.

“Yes! No? I overheard something, and it put into perspective how awful I’m being,” he ran his hands through his hair in frustration.

“It can’t be that bad...” Ailstair started to say.

“Kodya’s in love with me,” Gyrus said, his voice flat. He waited for Maria and Ailstair to react, to realize what a big deal this was. But they only looked confused.

“Well yeah,” Maria raised an eyebrow. “It’s kinda obvious.”

“You knew?! All this time and...” Gyrus cut himself off, to full of emotion. He took a deep breath and continued, “He loves me, and he’s been so worried about how I’m isolating myself...and how my trauma’s affecting my health...and I’ve been leading him on! I’m letting him think I was getting better, when I’ve really just been lying to direct his attention away from what I’ve really been doing.”

Maria and Ailstair exchanged a look. Ailstair raised his hand with a sigh, “You’re oversimplifying. You did just find out someone you trusted had lied to you and everyone you knew.”

“That has nothing to do...”

“You’ve been traumatized,” Ailstair plowed on. “And you’re stuggling with opening back up to people. That isn’t a lie. Spending time with us doesn’t mean you aren’t isolating yourself from the people in the Room of Swords. He’s not worrying over nothing.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m not honest with him about why I’m spending time with him!” Gyrus snapped.

“Do you love him?” Maria asked as she leaned forward to look Gyrus directly in the eye.

Gyrus sputtered, looking anywhere but at Maria and Ailstair. “I...I” he struggled to come up with an answer, whole face burning. His first instinct was to deny it. Love wasn’t his thing, never really had been. But he though of training with Kodya, of how well they got along, of Kodya’s face when he saw the holographic stars, and of his laughter loud and joyous under the sun.

Gyrus slumped forward, forehead pressing against the cool of the bar counter. “Yes,” he whispered.

“There you go then,” Maria leaned back.

��That doesn’t change anything!” Gyrus’s head snapped up. Maria only raised an eyebrow.

“Sure it does,” Ailstair jumped in. “You spent time with him because you wanted to spend time with him.”

“And to mislead him!”

“So?” Ailstair shrugged. “Most people do things for multiple reasons. Doesn’t make any of those reasons less valid.”

“Look, Gyrus,” Maria sighed. “We aren’t saying you have to do anything with this knowledge. We’re just saying you being a couple with Kodya doesn’t get in the way of the plan. Ailstair can run a resturant, you can have a boyfriend. We’ll still defeat Don and the shadows.”

“I...” Gyrus looked between Maria and Ailstair, “I have to think about this.”

“Of course,” Maria said. Ailstair nodded in agreement.

Feeling like he was half in a dream, Gyrus teleported himself back to his room and collapsed on his bed.

He didn’t get any sleep that night.

———————

The knock on his door startled Gyrus, even though he was wide awake. His heart felt like it had tsken up gymnastics. He dragged himself to the door, each footstep echoing in his ear drums. He’d been up all night going back and forth over what to do, and he still couldn’t deside. A part of him wanted to go to Kodya and confess anything, the other wanted to push him away for fear of what Don or the shadows might do.

With no decision reached, he opened the door.

Kodya stood on the other end, and wow he looked good, had he always looked good? He probably had, Gyrus begrudgingly admitted to himself.

“You look terrible,” Kodya’s voice broke Gyrus out of his thoughts. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Ahhaha,” Gyrus ran his hand through his hair, “Not really? I just...had a lot on my mind.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Kodya offered.

Gyrus twisted his hands, “I don’t no...Suppose... suppose you had to a revelation but you didn’t know if you should act on it or not?” He stared at his boots.

Kodya was quiet for a bit. Eventually he said, “Would it make you happy?”

Gyrus hadn’t thought of that. How hadn’t he thought of that? “I think so, yeah,” he peaked up at Kodya through his bangs.

“Then do what makes you happy,” Kodya nodded, “You can sort the rest out later.”

Relief flooded through Gyrus at his words. Of course. He didn’t need to have all the answers. These things took time. It didn’t need to get figured out today.

“Hey,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “you wanna do something today? Just the two of us?”

“Like training?” Gyrus felt dissected under Kodya’s gaze.

“If you want too, or we could do anything else. Its completely up to you,” Gyrus finally met Kodya’s eyes.

Kodya smiled.

—————

Epilogue

Building inventions not what Gyrus expected Kodya to ask for. But he had promised him anything.

“Am I doing this right?” Kodya held up a half mangled circuit board.

“Not exactly, Gyrus eyed the half broken remains, but he gave Kodya a smile. “Here, let me see what we can do.” It probably wasn’t salvagable, but Kodya didn’t need to know that.

“I’m sorry,” Kodya gave him a sheepish smile, “I’m not very good at this.”

“Don’t worry about it! Its pretty complicated stuff,” Gyrus laughed as he took the circuit board from him. “Let me walk you through it one more time.”

Another explication was not going to suddenly make Kodya understand basic engineering. But Gyrus couldn’t bring himself to care. He loved talking about circuitry. And from the way Kodya looked at him, head propped on his hand and a fond smile on his lips, he like listening to it just as much as Gyrus liked talking about it.

As he launched into another lecture, Gyrus realized he finally felt happy.