Chapter Text
Flashing lights and blurs of color dancing in his kaleidoscope vision. Music blasting from the speakers and trembling across the tiled floor. His hands gripping an empty glass and a slip of paper with a hastily written number belonging to a random woman named Sabine. He looks down at his hands - surprisingly human, surprisingly red and pale at the exact same time - and with that, nausea bears down on him, squeezing his throat closed with bile.
Names being called in the distance. Unstable legs trudging toward the voices, familiar to his ears. Arms pushing past faceless bodies, their laughter and mirth all dulled in his head. With each step, gravity holds onto his feet a little longer, threatening to take him under the illuminated floor. It’s a miracle that he can even hold himself up; his own bones feel ready to crumble from the sheer pressure surrounding his limbs.
His mind whirrs as it struggles. Their voices are loud, echoing in the sound chamber until it is all he can hear and think of. They are so potent that he can cusp them in his hands and feel their words shrouding him in nostalgia and warmth. Memories fail him. They always have during these moments, when his heart begins to stop beating and his hands slip back into blue and black.
Another step. Eyes glazed over with newfound panic. He can’t feel his hands anymore. His skin is being peeled off of his chest by an invisible force, uncovering all of his pearly bones. Black blood splatters across the floor as each limb is to follow.
All he hears now is screaming from his own mouth, raw agony and despair.
“Cypher.”
The voice is sharp through the dusty air, jolting him out of focus. Camera in one hand and screwdriver in the other, he swivels toward the open door of his workshop, using the wrinkled sleeve of his shirt to brush his mask over his face. Cybernetic eyes glow a brighter blue as he sets his gear down; the woman at the door looks rather unamused at the mess in his room, her lips pulled into a tight line.
“Ah, Viper.” A small smile creeps below his mask. “What are you doing here?”
She crosses her arms, leaning back into the door frame. The corners of her eyes carry with it a red tinge - whether from a lack of sleep or something else, Cypher doesn’t know. “How much would you ask for if I needed information on a fellow agent?”
“It depends on who.” He gestures over to his chair as he stands. “If it’s someone like Brimstone, then I can bring you his life story with no problem. Anyway, have a seat. Let me get you a drink.”
“No need. What if it was someone like Omen?”
Omen. And with that, Cypher’s posture shifts a little. The tea in his hands remains suspended, frozen in the air. His eyes glint with a twisted curiosity, visible even through the worn out mask. The air feels charged with tension the second his name leaves Viper’s mouth, and it doesn’t take him long to realize why. Viper’s nails are digging into her arms; her knuckles are white as they press; her face carries with it a tinge of regret as green eyes flicker away into a wall.
Viper knows the storm she’s started, and there is no end in sight.