Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It started out simply enough, you know. 

With secrets. 

Omen was a puzzle with half the pieces painted over in black. Cypher was a jigsaw with half the pieces swept under the carpet. For so long, they had taken to each other in the worst possible way, grappling with the barbed wire stitched throughout each other’s cores, tearing at it in vain to see what darknesses laid underneath. All that existed between them was tension and blood. 

Until they forgave each other. Until the realization dawned that the other’s need for secrets was no different than one’s own, and that to war amongst themselves was to war against oneself. 

You may keep your secrets, Omen, Cypher had once deposited himself beside the shadow, deliberately inside the arms-reach radius that no one was allowed into. If you’ll allow me to keep mine. 

In his surprise, Omen hadn’t bothered to move. To shove the other Agent away like he would to anyone else who dared come so close. But even after unleashing a threatening growl, he’d permitted the Moroccan to stay, a sign that— even if hesitantly— he agreed. 

Cypher had fallen asleep on his shoulder that night, and something inside him clicked. This was more than a truce. It was trust. 

Then it became gentler. 

Taking watch in turns, heads napping on each other’s shoulders as the stars glinted overhead. Making sure they were eating properly and keeping warm. Training together in the Range. Ridiculing banter, delivered with fond overtones and easygoing undertones. They treasured each other, not despite knowing nothing about the other, but because of it. In the throes of anonymity, they could forget the weight of their pasts. No years-old luggage burdening their backs, no crimes coming to bite their heels. Just the present moment. It was as close to escape that a doomed-to-die soldier could get. 

It was enough, for a time. But as support bled into comfort and understanding into attachment, they found themselves wanting more. Because trust, as lovely and awe-inspiring as it can be, is a hungry beast that needs to be fed, and fed generously. 

Therein laid the problem, of course. Everything each had ever known about the other was built on the pillars of secretive stoicism and passive kindness. To connect with each other personally, as friends normally might, was a damn near impossibility. Frivolous things like watching movies, browsing the web, playing pool or chess were... too intimate. If that made sense. Invited too many questions, removed that precious anonymity. Gave flavor to flavorless, surface-level affection.

So naturally, physical connection would do just fine. 

Omen was the first to gamble, but Cypher egged him on. Snuggling after particularly rough missions with a tenderness neither remembered they could give. Secret neck bites in the technician’s workshop, lights off to hide the Moroccan’s face and the true form of the ghostly man. Perhaps sooner than either cared to admit, they crash-landed with Cypher’s fingers ambitiously dancing in the slick between Omen’s shadowed thighs, drawing out the sweetest of hushed moans.

Protect me, screamed the shy tremble of Omen’s hands. 

Savor me, pleaded the reassuring grasp of Cypher’s own. 

It was formidable, what they had, fantastic and terrible all at once. It was stupid, so stupid. What kind of remotely mature human being only expresses trust with physicality and sex? Why did they tolerate the loneliness that came with the mutual fear of intimacy? But regardless, they had a bond, and that was that. They might not have been lovers, but they loved the road they shared— even through its unconventional form.

They thought they were safe. 

Oh, so safe. 

Cypher returned from his mission alone and earlier than expected, on special orders from his Captain. The purpose for his departure? Undisclosed, but urgent, urgent enough to recall the only Sentinel in a sea of Duelists. (He had implored them to not do anything rash, but Reyna laughed in his face and Yoru boasted that he could handle it all with ease, whether five enemies or fifty.)   

Heeding the summons, the information broker found himself striding directly into Brimstone’s private office. If he didn’t find the whole business strange before, he did now: almost no one was ever allowed in there. Any important business was discussed in the briefing room, which wasn’t even occupied at the moment. Dread prickled at the nape of his neck. 

“Please sit.”

A second chair was placed in front of the desk, opposite that of the commanding officer. The wooden surface was clean but not empty, for there was a lamp, a few folders, and neat stacks of unfinished paperwork placed in the table’s corners. As Cypher took a seat, one such folder was gingerly opened and from it a single sheet of paper was withdrawn. 

“What do you know about this person?” 

The chair fell backwards with a clatter as the agent jumped to his feet. 

"Where did you get this picture?”  

He glanced back down at the mugshot splayed out before him, featuring an all-too-familiar face. What Brimstone knew about her was the real question. Had his Captain been investigating his past behind his back? Had he discovered everything about the Moroccan’s previous life, all the secrets he vowed never to see the light of day?

Brimstone lifted his hands, startled at the outburst from the usually-calm man. When he chose to speak, the voice that came was consoling and warning all at once. “Easy there, kid, easy.” 

Cypher did not hide the pure revulsion that crossed his face. Not for the woman in the picture, but for the man before him. Easy? What was that supposed to mean? This was an abhorrent breach of privacy, unforgivable and despicable. Was he going to be blackmailed by his Captain, forced to finally tell his story? Millions of possibilities, all of them awful and bitter, flooded his mind. 

“That photo was taken five hours ago.” 

Now the revulsion was replaced with sickly confusion. 

“W-what?” 

“I will explain, but first, I need to know: who is this woman, and what does she mean to you?” 

His stomach plummeted. Five hours? That wasn’t possible, that woman had died years ago and he watched it happen. Even if Brimstone had taken hold of her body, it wouldn’t look like that— her eyes would have no light, she wouldn’t be standing, and a five-year-old corpse would definitely show signs of significant decay. 

But this was Brimstone. The almost-father figure of the entire group. Surely the Captain would not dare to approach and manipulate his fellow soldier in such a way?

He couldn’t breathe. 

Pull yourself together, a faint voice scolded. 

“That’s… my wife. Was, at least. She passed sometime ago.” 

Brimstone nodded as his arms lowered, as if he’d been looking for that answer all along. 

“Her name?” 

“... Nora. I may have mentioned her once.” 

There was another nod, more thoughtful this time. Brimstone leaned forward, gloved fingers laced together, the weight of his torso braced on his elbows. This time, his voice was kind. “Please sit, Cypher. I have some news for you and you might want to be grounded to hear it.” 

After a moment’s hesitation, the information broker picked up the displaced chair, planted it down, and once again sat in it. There was a pause as he took a breath, trying to tamp down his anxiety, and make himself as comfortable as he could. 

“This woman— Nora— is on base. She came here looking for you.” 

They never said goodbye. They didn’t need to. Omen withdrew from Cypher’s side like the high tide to a rocky seashore: just as surely, and just as silently. It went without saying: there was no room for shadow in the face of blinding light; there was no room for Omen when Nora had returned. 

The Moroccans were inseparable. She lived in his quarters. She tinkered in his workshop. She took meals with him, flirted with him, then took him to bed with a young-blooded, heated passion. With each action, Cypher looked more smitten than he did with the last. She was his one and only weakness. 

For the first time since joining Valorant, he looked happy. He no longer slunk around looking hollow in the chest, no longer took on the appearance of a lonesome raccoon scavenging for scraps. Whereas before it was doubted whether he could ever love, now it was clearer than the daytime. He was more patient, more kind, to everyone he interacted with. He seemed more present, appreciating what laid right before his eyes, rather than predicting what could be around the next corner. 

(Sage noticed during his weekly checkups that he was slowly gaining weight; Nora seemed to be trying to fatten him up. Not that this was a bad thing, he barely ate properly as it was.) 

As for the shadow, well. They never acknowledged what they’d done. Not in speech, nor in writing. As far as physical contact was concerned, it was as if they were new recruits again, never coming closer than arm’s length apart. Days passed steadily and no more was exchanged than greetings, now mild and politely sunny. 

It was easy, easier than it should have been, to quickly do so apart. But all things considered, who were they if not adamant secret-keepers? Adamant guardians of damning silence? So they kept mum, burying everything without a trace, sealing the lightless tomb of their bond with one last, wretched secret. 

It was the only one they’d ever shared. And the only one vesting them both. 

How poetic. 

Omen swept into the room more dissatisfied than Viper had ever seen him. 

“Fred,” she called with the sarcastic contempt that only she had mastered, using a name the shadow often forgot was his. “What are you skulking about now? It’s distracting and I need to finish this procedure.” 

“Shut up, Sabine.” Omen whirled, pacing the length of the laboratory. He didn’t mean to intrude, he was never even close to this venomous woman in the first place (she was a monster , if she shared his form then maybe the others would see it too). Nothing he had ever done had led him to seek her out, much less while she was busy. What was he doing here? 

He paced the length of the lab again, brooding. He didn’t even know why his mood was so foul. 

Or maybe, that was what led him to Viper? Practically speaking, she was the only one who could match such potent negativity. She radiated this… stormy gravity that could crown her the Queen of Hell, if she just so much as asked for it. Combined with her iron-clad clarity, she could be a perfect grounding force for all the raging hatred in the world. 

It was a perfect match for the unnamed emotion crowning his hooded figure.

Thorny. That was a good word for it. A thorny emotion. 

Calmly she dipped a syringe into a test tube, extracting the contents with measured precision, before emptying the syringe into another vial. The glassware clinked as she set it down on the black countertop, so quietly and gently that it could almost be misheard as a wind chime. 

He paced another length of the lab. It was his third time around. 

“Fred, stop stomping around, you’re shaking my samples.” She quipped without looking up. “If you must, take a seat in that stool over there.” 

Did she sense the thorny emotion? Is that why she permitted him to stay? 

He threw himself onto said stool with a grouchiness befitting arthritic joints. His claws, the color and luster of raven feathers, laid themselves on the equally black lab bench. They tapped on the surface, one by one from pinky to index finger, slowly but somehow noisily. 

Itchy. Thorny, itchy, and restless. 

“May I stand now?” 

“No.” 

She repeated the action with the syringe, depositing the extracted contents in yet another empty test tube. Then another. And another. Then there were ten. 

“What happens if they are shaken too much?” Omen asked, still tapping away. 

“Then I’d get angry at you for distracting me and pour it down your throat.” She glared down at him, though some of the edge was taken off by the goofiness of the protective goggles. “This particular substance isn’t toxic, so not much will happen to your body after that, but I imagine this would deter you from distracting me again.” 

(Suddenly Omen realized that she hadn’t bothered to give him any sort of protective equipment.)

“It would.” He remarked, and stayed put. 

But the dissonance in his core did not abate. It nagged, and he wanted to show it and how nice would it be to smash those stupidly innocent little vials, not the ones in use but the empty ones off to the side that were so annoyingly pristine…  

Viper continued her work, unfazed. 

Suddenly he wished he had some kind of laboratory of his own to distract himself with, though he then supposed he’d spend more time destroying his equipment than actually using it. Sticking to his usual routines in the Range would probably suit him better. 

He leapt to his feet, talons dragging on the black tile. There it was, that awful, thorny restlessness, prickling down his spine. 

He needed to move . Do something. Find something. 

But what the hell was he looking for? He felt fine, in terms of baseline physical health. There weren’t any problems with the shadows he usually immersed himself in, no premonitions about horrific events to come. 

But it wasn’t fine. If he sought company like Viper, for fuck’s sake, it was not fine. 

The shade noticed how the chemist observed him out of the corner of her eye, sneaking glances as she added some new solution to her vials. He watched her note how he didn’t move, how he stood stock-still in front of the stool. 

He took a seat once again, huffing. 

She walked to the back of the room, opening an enormous refrigerator presumably filled with any chemical she might ever need. A rack of about a dozen test tubes was withdrawn and brought to the table with care. Upon closer inspection the murky substance could be recognizable as samples of centrifuged blood— likely withdrawn from the Agents or their clones. Her brow was knit in concentration as she carded through them, examining the labels on each. 

Three of the vials had elements of wild discoloring: the third, entirely black and with a strange vapor wafting off it (definitely Omen’s own, he recognized it); the last (bottom layer a silvery-luminescent azure), and the second to last (top layer a warm lemon-green). Viper selected the blue one first, shaking the sample to mix the layers before pipetting a small amount into one of the test tubes from earlier, scrawling some series of numbers on some masking tape which was then pasted onto said test tube. The same treatment was repeated on Omen’s and the green sample, and then with four of the other blood samples. 

How she had the patience for this, Omen would never know. Did she never feel the need to sprint off in whatever direction, in a barely hidden, longing-wreathed angst, furiously hunting some invisible, nameless prey? Did she never feel the sensation of thornbushes growing, writhing in her veins, screeching for something just out of reach, something equally coated in blood and filthy impatience—

He needed to pace again. He needed to placate the saw-toothed frenzy rising in his pulsating sinews. He needed to get rid of that prickling itch . 

It was all he could do to suppress his urge to swipe his talons across the tile again, raking into it with all his restless might. 

“There.” He jerked to the sound of her voice, watching her shut the doors of some other device emitting a coal-red glow (an oven?), before coming to a halt on the other side of the unmarred table. She leant against it, weight on her palms, fingertips wrapped around the edge of the creamy black. “You’re lucky I have a soft spot for you. Anyone else would have already been dead.” 

She sighed, removing the goggles and stripping the purple latex off of her hands. The lab coat stayed on, unsurprisingly. “Now spill. I only have thirty minutes until that furnace is done.” 

The shadow hesitated, caught off guard. Spill? Spill what? He didn’t even know why he’d come, for what nefarious or glorious objective he served. 

But the thorns. The restlessness. That was something . 

“There is a feeling. In me.” He started, voice grating with the usual strain of speech. 

“A feeling. Thank you, Captain Obvious.” She clasped her hands and nodded with a snarky sincerity. 

He was walking again. Walking with a darkness heralding his path and a seething flame in his blood. “I can’t identify it.” 

Turn around. Walk the other way. Turn around again, ignore the burning . 

“I’m looking for something.” 

Do another round. 

“But I don’t. Know. What.” 

There was a pain in his palms, sharp and unforgiving, likely from the barely-registered clench of his fists. The palms opened briefly; there was no blood, not yet. 

That thorny restlessness throbbed and frothed, ramming against his rib cage like the storm-torn seatide. It starved , it begged , but how to feed it, he did not know. 

“And you think I can help you?” Her eyes pierced his, but with no wrath. 

“I never intended to come here. To you.” He glowered, but his fury was not addressed to the chemist herself. She raised her brows, debating on whether to be insulted. “But it seems that some other instinct has drawn me here rather than anywhere else.” 

She laughed now, shaking her head. “The last time you said that to me, we burned down Kingdom’s California headquarters and ran for our lives.” 

“I know.” 

Her brows knit, uneasy emerald irises flashing a warning. “Fred—“

“I’m not here to destroy, Sabine. Not this time.” He ensured. 

Furious. Thorny, itchy, restless, and furious . 

Streaking through every hollow space in his body, stretching every brittle fiber that held him together, begging to seize whatever it wanted that was just out of reach, the thing that he knew was it was and recognized its lyrical screams but vanished when its form was questioned—

“There is something calling me, Sabine. Something not in the realm of shadows.” 

She was musing from afar, a curious interest on her face: the half-suppressed curl of her lip she always had in the face of a challenge. It wasn’t rare for her to see him frustrated, but it was for him to seek her aid. Or to help him cure it in some other way. 

Missing. He was missing something. He had to find something that was his. 

“It once belonged to me. A part of my soul.” He glanced around, as if he’d find it stranded beside him, materializing from the void. He looked up. Looked down. To the right and to the left. 

Turn around, choking on the thorns snaking around his throat and bulging in his veins like the spindly legs of a thousand spiders, spinning a web of dread and in his heartless, hollow chest… 

He missed a weight on his chest. 

What was that weight. What was that prickling thing in its place ? And what was the toxic fury that blasted from every aching bone in his body? Something was searing through every convulsing joint, threatening to purge him, threatening to draw every inch of life from his sticky, bloody throat—  

“I’ve told you everything I know about your past.” Viper’s voice was not hard or soft in its consolation. “You’ve been ripped apart more times than I can count or calculate, but you’ve always been whole.” 

“A piece is missing.” He stated resolutely, fighting the barbs lancing through his every inch, struggling to stay grounded, and sane, and it was biting at that hollow space in his chest, biting at the thing he was missing but forgotten that he’d lost—

Green eyes studied him, wary and reserved. Did she believe him? He knew what he said was true, somehow, even if she was right about him always being whole. 

“If it’s not in the shadows...” She noted slowly, horror dawning on her face. She stepped closer. And closer. And ripped back his hood. 

She was the only one who had ever seen under that tattered cloth. 

“Fred.”

He shuddered, the boiling replaced by apprehensive clamor. 

“Are you… becoming human again?” 

Cypher was… trying … to forgive himself. 

He didn’t cheat on Nora if he honest-to-god thought she was dead. That he was sure of, that he could tolerate. 

But everything else was a wreck derived from three hasty, foolish mistakes. 

The first mistake was to think he could forget. To think that the second the shadow’s claws retreated from his skin, Cypher would never think about them again. 

One month ago, that didn’t seem like an unreasonable assumption. Omen’s touch had been given only out of a promise of a bond that otherwise might never bear fruit. So far they had only seen the barest blooming of their friendship’s buds; letting go looked like it would be easy. 

And it had been. 

Until one winter’s eve, Cypher dreamed. Dreamed of the half-ethereal, half-human flesh he’d once sanken his teeth into, vividly remembered with equally vivid horror the contour of the shadow’s barely-visible collarbones, and how delicious that exposed neck had tasted. The spread of Omen’s legs was a nauseatingly familiar shelter for Moroccan hips, sinfully warm and slick. Uncontrollable moans, husky and barely contained, spilled from the phantom with a vigor Cypher thought was forgotten. 

He woke with a start, sweating and panicked, cock throbbing so hard he almost blacked out on the spot. 

After that, eye contact with Omen was forbidden. 

The second mistake was just as dangerous as the first: to assume that he wouldn’t grieve. 

Like the first, it had made sense a few weeks ago. Their physical connection had been the seeds for what might one day be more, a substitute for something they weren’t ready to give. Nora’s presence would mean that they’d be moving forward to a more conventional friendship… let’s just say… ahead of schedule. 

Yet Cypher had underestimated the sheer gravity of that physicality. The way it complemented and underscored every playful insult, every doting rescue mission, every moment they’d spent musing about the other. Their friendship was their physicality, as twisted and awful as that sounded. 

Once Nora was back, they didn’t stand a chance. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust each other, or that they no longer enjoyed the other little moments they shared. It was just… 

Cypher felt so guilty . 

He couldn’t hide his ongoing lust. Couldn’t hide the anger at the lust, for feeling like his mind was betraying him. He couldn’t look at Omen in that way, not when Nora shared his bed. But all the same, without that he had no idea how to be there for his best friend, and it didn’t look like Omen knew either. Despite attempt after attempt Cypher felt himself giving up, unsure of how to proceed. With every passing day they drifted further apart, everything slowly disintegrating before their very eyes, and Cypher could find no one to blame but himself.

Of course in the middle of it all, Omen had to leave. On a whim, the shadow and Viper had departed on a classified mission “concerning a potential lead on Omen’s past and path to humanity.” No one knew if they were still alive, or whether they intended to return. 

Even more upsetting, the technician finally, finally realized what he missed most about their bond. It wasn’t what they had already built, it was what could’ve been. In the throes of desire and timid kinship, he had overlooked it: the way the shadow held him with hope . A promise of someday , whatever that meant. 

Someday, I will open to you. 

But now that gravity, and the promise that it had enclosed, was gone. The one person he’d ever come even considered sharing his secrets with, now no more than a stranger. The one person who saw him as more than just an information broker and a killer, the one person who might have ever willingly, willingly given their secrets to Cypher if they’d gotten that far, likely never going to come back. 

Everything was gone, and oh, didn’t it sting . 

Nora tried to provide support from the outside, but it only made him feel worse. He didn’t deserve her care, he didn’t deserve to love her, he didn’t deserve her optimism and light. Sometimes she asked what was on his mind, but he told less and less of the truth, so she stopped trying. He loved her, he knew that. But his hidden crimes still haunted him. 

Cypher started losing weight again. Buried himself in his work, weaving an impenetrable web, forcing himself to go an extra mile on every mission at the cost of his own wellbeing. He didn’t dare sleep, didn’t dare rest, didn’t dare let his mind stray to anything , because he knew exactly which path it would follow. Weeks spun on in a dizzying haze, tearing him apart. Sometimes he wondered if he still felt anything for Nora at all. 

He’d never felt so lost and meaningless. Never so scared, and alone. 

Sage scolded him. Raze worried. Even Neon, ever the speedy one, chided him to slow down. 

Which led to the third mistake: he drank. Told Nora he was going to the Range or his workshop, and instead went to Sage’s greenhouse to down some ungodly amount of whiskey. The stuff didn’t make him forget, but it sure as hell made everything slower, and that was everything he needed. 

It only got worse. Longing turned into want, want into desperation. Grief and confusion plagued him day in and day out. Fury, because he’d done this all to himself. There were more dreams, more overwork, more drinking. He went unsupervised and unchecked, barely keeping all the shrieking anguish under lock and key. 

Someday. 

Someday. 

Someday. 

It chanted lowly in the back of his mind, until something in the universe decided to break. 

Six weeks after Omen’s sudden departure, Cypher staggered into their quarters drunk out of his mind, vomiting into the toilet like there was no tomorrow. He ugly-sobbed into Nora’s shoulder, cursing in both Arabic and English, and it was suddenly evident to her that something was very, very wrong. 

“I’m a fool, 'ahmaq ,” he snivelled, not recognizing her presence in the slightest, even when her torso was the only thing preventing his head from hitting the puke-stained floor tiles. “I always--” he hiccuped-- “know where everisjdhfjh is hiding!” 

He curled into himself, wailing in distress. “Where’re’re… 'iilaa 'ayn tadhhab, Omen?” 

The next day he missed a mission briefing, for the very first time since joining the Valorant Protocol. In a panic Brimstone and Sage (who thought he might have been assassinated or kidnapped) barged into his room only to find the man groaning in the arms of his wife, sporting one of the worst hangovers the medic had ever seen. 

Sage promptly whisked him off to the medbay. His head hurt, his body hurt, his heart hurt, everything felt awful . It was too quiet, but somehow he was grateful for it. For the first time in his life, he was glad that Nora wasn’t allowed to see him. He knew she worried, but the pressure of facing her was overwhelming. She’d want an explanation, of which he had none. 

He just wanted to give up on life, right then. 

If there were any blades in the room, he just might have tried. 

“Cypher, I need you to tell me what’s wrong.” 

He rolled over, pulling the blankets higher, eyes fluttering shut. 

“This isn’t normal, especially for you. Please, Cypher. You have us all very worried.” The woman’s voice got closer to the cot. He could feel her gaze on his back. 

Her hand touched his shoulder. 

His breath hitched. 

She tugged on his joint— which suddenly felt very, very sore— and he allowed her to roll him over so that he was flat on his back. The ceiling of the medbay stared back at him, just as blank as his mind was. The woman suddenly came into view, leaning over him with serious hazelnut eyes. 

“Sage,” he murmured blearily, trying to blink the fogginess out of his eyes. The slant of natural light from the windowpane, which spilled onto the sheets with a pale edge, indicated that it was afternoon. When had he fallen asleep? He never woke up this late. 

Oh, right. This morning he’d been hungover for the first time in years. 

He swallowed, feeling vaguely nauseous. The feeling wasn’t anything new, but it was uncomfortable nonetheless. It wasn’t entirely from the alcohol, however, it was from guilt. The fear. The paranoia. 

He pushed Omen away because he didn’t know how to be a good friend, how to love platonically, how to simply connect like normal friends should. Pulled away from Nora out of shame, shame for all his insidious fantasies. Tried his damndest to hide it all. 

Now he’d gone and drunk himself into a dazed incapacity. How was it that he’d been able to fuck it all up so badly? When had it come to this? 

The only thing he wanted was to just run away, far away, forever. Then he’d never have to face Nora, or Sage, for that matter. He could live with the shame of his mistakes in perfect solitude, suffering through it without anyone’s watchful gaze. Besides, what else could he do with the terrifying loneliness gripping his heart captive?

“Can you sit up for me?” She held a small white cup before him. The water was nice on his throat, he gave a quiet thanks. 

Usually he would leap out of bed no matter how badly injured, already buzzing with ideas about gadgets and battle strategies, refusing any further aid from the usually-disgruntled healer. Not this time. Glumly, numbly, he stared at his hands. 

Tan and scarred. Like his face. 

Which wasn’t wearing his mask right now. 

Palms pressed to his cheeks, back stiffening, a blank horror washed over him. But what did it matter? None of the other Agents cared about Aamir from the past anyway, not after five years in the Protocol. It didn’t matter if they saw his face. 

(Actually, it did, he thought with revulsion. Because he’d wanted Omen, that stupid shadow, to see it first. Wasn’t that pathetic?)

The hands fell to his lap again, head hanging between weak and slouching shoulders. There was no energy. No vigor. Nothing, just like the cloudless December sky, just like the colorlessness of the sheets tousled around his legs. 

“How do you feel?” She asked kindly, taking the cup from him. 

His throat closed. He wanted to throw up. But there was nothing, not even a twitch in the diaphragm. 

“Blinded,” he blurted, surprising them both. 

“Bl-”

“Well, I mean, just a little woozy,” he quickly tried to correct himself, but only received a confused look in return. “My… head hurts.” 

He made to lie back down, and she let him, all the while running thorough eyes along the length of his body. Where had all his energy gone? No wonder he swore off drinking when he got married. 

A pause. He registered a hand briefly rubbing his upper arm in a quick motion of comfort, but by the time he looked to the healer, she was gone, refilling the little white cup in the nearby sink. She sighed, knelt down to draw something from a cabinet. Some other cabinets opened and shut, and there was a click of an electric boiler off in the corner. 

“I know you’ve been drinking in my garden,” she accused, but softly. When his head snapped up in surprise, she only shook her head. “The wastebin around the corner is being filled with bottles that I didn’t put in, but the rest of the garbage is mine. I figured it could’ve been Breach at first but… well… most of us don’t drink alone. And you’re here now.” 

Cypher felt his cheeks burn, but he couldn’t even bring himself to feel completely embarrassed. 

“I’m sorry, Sage.” 

I was just so lonely, and the greenhouse was unfairly perfect. 

Tension swirled in the air. She wasn’t angry at him, just disappointed and concerned, and somehow that was infinitely worse. He wished he could beg her not to worry, to tell her that he was fine, but it was far too late for that. 

“Alcohol won’t ease your pain, you know.” There was a tenderness there, but mixed with the pruny taste of pity-- the kind of tender pity one only gives when they see a broken man.  

The sheets held his gaze. “I know.” 

Wordlessly he downed the coolness of the tap water again, fiddling with the plastic. 

The silence stretched, as awkward and stiff as his joints, but he did not dare break it. In the meantime Sage busied herself with whatever had been taken from the shelves (yellow flowers and some root?). They were diced, the resulting mixture poured into a mug, which was then filled with freshly boiled water. 

“This is from traditional Chinese medicine, used for hangovers like yours,” said the woman as she exchanged the little white cup for the steaming mug. The heat was homely against the Moroccan’s dry skin, and he sat up to properly hold the ceramic. “Ginger and chrysanthemums are typically separate but for the sake of efficiency I combined them. Would you like honey?” 

Cypher mouthed some nonsense, which it seemed she took as a yes, because she fetched a small jar from the cabinet.

It was good. Exotic, maybe, likely due to the mixed flavors, but nice. He didn’t feel his muscles relax, and the exhausted soreness and pounding headache did not rescind, but at least the warmth made it seem slightly more manageable. 

He watched her brew a different mixture for herself. There was nothing stellar there, just pre-dried leaves sprinkled into a mug. He recognized the scent as green tea, as she carefully settled in the doctor’s chair once again. 

“Nora… told me what you said last night. About Omen.”

Dread bubbled up, his throat clenched tighter. Breathe, Aamir . “Wh… what did I say?” 

“Asking where he was. Begging him to come back.” The medic answered with an air of sorrow. A hesitant sympathy. 

“Oh. I see.” he tried to play it off, shrugging, but no sooner had he done so then did he realize how helpless and fake it must have looked. The nagging wish returned, for him to just be alone. 

But here he was, trapped in the cot next to the medic. 

“Cypher,” she coaxed gently, waiting for his eyes to make contact with hers. “He will return. I am sure of it.” 

That’s not what I’m afraid of , a voice inside him wanted to scream. But instead he just nodded and made some vague sound of agreement, not finding the energy or will to respond properly. Listlessly, he waited, passing the seconds by staring at the liquid occupying the mug. He couldn’t really name exactly what he did fear, though. Being abandoned? No, he was used to that. 

“You also…” she began, then restarted her sentence with an almost bashful tone, as if she’d never meant to know what she did. “You also said that… you failed him.” 

Oh.  

Cypher closed his eyes, inhaling. It hurt, inexplicably, having his deepest insecurity voiced to him from outside of his own skull. Like she had ripped out his own consciousness and was showing it to him like a little museum exhibit. 

Every single limb suddenly felt four times heavier. It was true. He butchered everything. Threw it all away in his foolishness, his misunderstanding, his ignorance. Rashly, he’d pushed his only friend away, the only person he’d ever trusted since Nora had died. When he wasn’t looking, when he was stuck wallowing in his guilt, the man had vanished. 

Omen had barely even said goodbye. 

Maybe Cypher was afraid that he’d never see the wraith again. That the technician would never get to say his own goodbye to that shadow, never able to even try to make things right. 

Her voice was forlorn and apprehensive. 

“It’s not my place to ask, but,” her jade earrings twinkled as she turned to face him. Curiosity and concern were together pooled in her pupils, knitting her elegant brows together. “How did you fail him? Omen?” 

Maybe he wasn’t destined to share affection. Maybe everyone was always going to be just out of reach, or maybe even dead , and there was nothing he’d ever be able to do about it, nothing to keep the horrible undercurrents of grief and fury and regret from robbing him of everything he tried to love …  

Love? 

His eyes met hers, but almost as quickly he jerked them away in shame. 

“I- I won’t tell anyone, not even your wife, I promise. I’ve only…” she trailed off, hesitating, waving her hands about in a flustered motion. “You two were once very close, and then she arrived and, um, it seemed that you two had an, um, a feud of some…” 

Keep it together, Cypher. He tried to tell himself, but nonetheless his shoulders trembled as another wave of guilt crashed against his wall. He missed Omen. He wanted the shadow back. He wanted to take Omen in his arms and apologize for everything he’d been doing wrong . 

He wasn’t supposed to care, he wasn’t supposed to be upset. He wasn’t supposed to have needed to trade Omen for Nora, to lose a new treasure for one he was just beginning to forget.

“... and if it’s getting to the point where it affects your overall health then it should be discussed…” the words floated around his consciousness, but none were registered. 

There was a hand over his mouth. It was his own. 

Something was stinging in his eyes--- it was all blurry--- 

Was he crying? 

No, no, no, he couldn’t cry, not now, not in front of Sage. Everything was fine, it was fine , he was going to be safe and his heart didn’t hurt, not at all, his head wasn’t pounding and he definitely didn’t need a drink right now… 

Cypher was always stoic. Always playful, but calm and level-headed. No matter what, he didn’t break. He had his wife to support him, he had his wits, he had his life and more than rags on his shoulders. There was nothing, nothing , to cry for. 

But he did. 

First he couldn’t control his breathing. Then something hot slipped down his cheek, and the rest of the tears came hard and unstemmable. Something clasped his ribs-- his forearms, clutching his chest.

Someday, someday, someday. 

Why did his chest feel so hollow? 

“C-Cypher?” she interrupted her own rambling, astonished. 

He bawled like a small child, not knowing what else to do. There was a storm, a storm in his mind, ear-splitting and blinding. The furious melancholy swelled, blending together in an overwhelming, sickening heap. It was grey, it was bleak and it was black, gruesome and grimy. Where was he? What was he doing? He wanted to die. He felt so guilty. So ashamed . 

And yet. 

In the chaos, there was one realization that ran pure and true. It was dainty and luminescent, fluttering and warm: like hope blooming last from Pandora’s box. 

He gasped softly. 

“I’m in love. With Omen. I’m in love.”

For every pound he felt lifted from his weary shoulders, there were another ten crushing his stolen heart. 

Chapter Text

It always surprised him when it snowed on Haven. 

Somehow the quiet made it seem more… holy. Tranquil. 

Good for thinking. 

Omen sighed, huddling closer to the sputtering campfire before him, prodding it with a stick. The cold pinched at his fingertips and toes-- two things he was not used to feeling. 

Viper was right from the beginning: he was becoming human. Somehow, but surely. His limbs were starting to feel like limbs again, his body less like it was only barely in touch with the physical world. He walked with more weight, more substance in his stride. On a good day, the weight of blood and bone could be felt, weighing like rocks on the phantom’s elbows and ankles. 

Ever since that day in her laboratory, however… he’d felt empty. That restlessness, the thorny one, never left him. Neither had that feeling of missing something in his chest. 

For a month and a half, they’d been searching. More like aimless wandering, actually, since they had very few clues to guide them. The wreckage of the old Kingdom Headquarters, the one that they’d burned to the ground, left nothing in the rubble that remained. Viper said that they had made sure nothing survived all those years ago; silently both of them felt a twinge of regret for the inconvenience they caused to themselves. All the bomb sites were checked several times over, staying at each never more than a few days, following wherever Omen’s instincts said they were to go. There was nothing of note among the bullet-holes and burnt shrapnel scattered throughout the areas. Very little, if anything, could explain what was happening to him. 

He leaned his back against the nearby wall. Three weeks ago, he never would’ve noticed how… stony it was. 

Snowy Haven was beautiful. 

Four days after that day in the lab, the pull had become more concrete. He’d heard a calling, an echo of a familiar voice that couldn’t be placed. Summoning him. The sound originated not from any cardinal direction, and came from neither near nor far— simultaneously perched on his shoulder, and hovering just over the horizon. Alien and other-worldly, it bade him rise and look upon it, but was nowhere to be found. 

There were no words, only a melody, but its desires were clear. 

He didn’t hear it here, in the cold. 

Who are you? He asked the shadows, for what seemed like the thousandth time. 

The ethereal mists didn’t even laugh at him. 

You’re not a shadow but you’re calling me through them. How did you access the realm? 

Something far away in the universe shifted, tipping the balance ever so slightly. Unimportant, it seemed— Perhaps it was a Sage clone, those came to the monastery often. 

There was more silence, both within and around. 

He sank deeper into meditation, searching for it. How was it that it could call him from across the globe, yet vanish when he snatched at its heels? How was it that it could pulse in his core yet be n a dream just beyond reach? 

Answer me. 

Little by little, he heard voices. Indistinct, certain syllables jumping out amongst the overlap of whispers. Men, women, children, animals, the eldest of the trees, all murmuring and humming together in a hushed chorus. Conversations he’d never know, people he’d never meet, situations he’d never even begin to understand. They were familiar, but not what he was looking for. 

Answer me!

Deeper he plunged into the sea of souls. The whispers rose in volume almost as if to keep him above the surface, pushing him back like a brisk wind, but then jarringly subsided into nothingness. He’d broken through the first layer. 

Then he fell, fell from the sky, from the midnight and the stars overhead, landing on a lush likeness of a grassland. The violet-colored fields were full of glimmering flowers, swaying in an unfelt breeze, each petal laden with eerie cyan speckles whose hue matched his stripes. 

The remote space was also familiar, having been visited by the wraith many times over the years. It was quiet, tranquil, forgiving— all the things well missed in gun-blazing, flame-ridden warzones. Many of the Shadows resided here: messengers, memories, guardians, lost ones. Deer strode amongst the grasses and fish swam in the river below, accompanied by other-worldly figures that Omen could not name nor recognize. The voice, the Melody, was clearest here. Coming from a raven-like figure on a boulder just a few meters away. 

I’ve found you again. 

It turned its beady, glimmering eyes at him now. Fuschia with copper-bronze pupils— the only warm colors in the vicinity— piercing his eyes, while a song pierced his ear. 

You shouldn’t be this far down. Not if you aren’t a Shadow like me.  

There was a way further down into the collective consciousness. Omen had only been there once--the first time he’d died. While unlikely, it was possible that this strange language barrier would fall away once they reached the abyss. There all entities melded together, speaking the common language of death and nothingness. Would the little bird speak to him if they went there?

Well, it’s not like I was ever meant to be here either, he thought to himself. 

The wraith held out his forearm in a horizontal position, and the bird eagerly jumped onto it like a falcon to its master. This was surprising; Omen didn’t expect to tame the creature so easily. Together they stared at the lone river that snaked through the plains, watching its lavender current pass them by. The horizon was scanned once more, but no other clues were to be found. To decode the birdsong, he would have to go deeper.

Sensations didn’t very much exist in the shadow realm, so no feeling of cold or warmth came with the silver-twilight transparency. The silt was visible, but no more than a vague inkling on his soles. He waded further in, the waterline rising impossibly fast, up to his chest not four steps from where it had barely licked his ankles. 

Don’t panic , he told the raven, as it perched calmly on his shoulder. 

His head dipped under, and he lost himself to the void. 

Any semblance of feeling was gone. He hovered in void, with nothing to see and nothing to touch. There was no gravity, no scent, no texture, no color. Except a ringing, so quiet it could almost be considered static. 

Show yourself, Raven. There is nothing else to see you here. 

[You already know me.]

If Omen was still in his body, he would have scrambled back in shock. He almost couldn’t believe his idea had worked. 

You’re a part of my consciousness that left me. Why?

There was an incredible weight here, despite the floating feeling. Everything in the universe was concentrated here, but nothing was awake but him and the bird. Despite being formless, he felt squeezed and flattened in all directions at once. The weight of the universe was crushing.

[I never left, little shadow. You abandoned me.]

Something about that name rang a distant bell in his memory. 

You take on a separate form in the Fields. 

A sudden and sharp force tugged on his mind, warning him that time was running out. If he stayed longer, he risked permanent death.

[Only because you believe me to be separate.]

Omen could feel his own bafflement swirling in the vast shrouds around him. 

[Remember who I am, and your answers will be found.]  

Wait— 

He felt the spirit’s consciousness twining with the edges of his— wherever those were in the infinite, jam-packed emptiness. 

[Walk the path behind you to reveal the path before you.] 

Omen fought the blackness, hungering for answers. 

Raven— 

[Good luck, Fred.] 

A breath was heaved, infecting his lungs. The lilac current dripped off his shoulders as he stumbled onto the shore, collapsing onto the shimmering sands. Then he was lifted by an invisible force, drawing him through the sky, through the sea of voices, then up into the purple realms, each layer flicking by at the speed of light. 

He opened his eyes. 

He was covered in almost an entire foot of snow. His campfire was out. 

He heard the song of the Raven, resounding over the temple, emanating from the top of the highest basalt mountain. 

They wandered for another two weeks, revisiting everywhere they’d already been. Their rations were low, communication devices long dead, and almost completely out of arms and adequate weaponry. Despite the growing numbers of the Protocol, both agents knew their absence would be wearing on the team. The time they could spend out in the wilderness was waning. 

“I don’t know what you think we’re still doing out here.” Viper holstered her pistol with a disgruntled look on her face, slumping against a nearby wall. Sweat was wiped from her brow, and she glared up at the glaring sun peeking through the damp, overcast clouds. “There aren’t any clues anywhere. I don’t care what that Raven wants, it’s distracting us from our goal.”

“I need to remember what I lost,” Omen replied sternly from his seat under the protective awning of Split’s Ramen shop. “And why its loss is making me turn human again.” 

“We’re not going to find it here.” She stated bluntly. “There’s nothing from your past that could be valuable now.”

“You don’t know everything, Sabine,” he coarsely reminded her, but privately agreed. They’d looked everywhere, discussed everything, leaving no stone unturned. All that was left to do was aimlessly ponder, and better to do that back in headquarters and on missions than in this strange solitary limbo. 

But he didn’t want to go back yet, and for one reason. 

Cypher. 

When Omen had left, they hadn’t been on the best of terms. There wasn’t any fighting or disagreements, just a shoulder so cold it might as well have been bruised. 

When Nora had arrived Cypher almost completely detached himself from the shadow. It seemed reasonable: she was his long-lost wife and he wanted to spend every waking moment with her. Omen had been just a… friend with benefits, after all, and those benefits could no longer exist. It was only natural that they’d spend some time apart, adjusting to this new pattern of life. 

But before Omen knew it, everything was gone, as if it never existed. Their dialogue became restrained and ambivalent, as if they’d never met. Any foothold developed in previous months was destroyed in the blink of an eye. Cypher had cast Omen aside, like a featureless rag doll fashioned from rubbish. 

It didn’t exactly leave a good taste in the shadow’s mouth. 

But duty came first. If the Protocol was in need of his return, then he wouldn’t be one to keep them waiting. Even if that meant running into his former friend once again, even if it meant hiding how awful and robbed he felt. 

Yes, robbed. Maybe it wasn’t fair to say that Nora was a thief, but Cypher had been taken from him nonetheless. 

“The longer we stay away, the more our forces suffer. I’m done compromising. Kingdom needs to end.” Viper added with a note of finality. “If I’m being honest? I’m not even sure there is an explanation for your returning humanity. Also, if your abilities aren’t suffering, then we have nothing to worry about.”

He could always distract himself from that bitter feeling by further investigating this Raven. 

“Fine. Tomorrow morning. I need to think about something in the meantime.” 

Viper huffed, clearly impatient, and Omen stood, turning away from her and striding off into the nighttime dark. 

Omen felt strange without that Moroccan by his side. It felt too quiet, almost, too reclusive. Where there had once been the ever-present, background hum of the tactician’s mind, there was now nothing but jarring silence. The flurry of jokes and insights, the subtle yet incredible command of the surrounding area— gone, packed up too quickly and too neatly. What brilliance, now muted and curtained off without a second thought. Was it saved for Nora? 

(Why was Omen jealous?) 

He stopped to examine some graffiti on the adjacent building wall. 

Maybe more than anything, the wraith simply missed Cypher’s warmth. Just being held. Cared for like he wasn’t a monster, doing the same in turn. Resonating with someone through an elegant dance of knowing both too much and too little about the other. Kindness that tasted like mint and silvertine starlight, and trust that caressed like the steady current of the ocean. Security that felt like warm blankets in a blizzard.

But it was all gone and he’d never get it back. 

An experimental claw ran down the concrete face, leaving a lengthy indent in the barely-visible swirl of faded color. Another line was etched parallel to it, diagonally across the dilapidated surface. 

It was going to be alright, though, he assured himself. He’d lost an entire lifetime once, countless memories and understandings and truths. Losing a man he’d only been somewhat close to was almost insignificant in comparison, wasn’t it? 

He was going to find out what this Raven was leading him to. That was all he had to do. Find out why his body was becoming human again instead of just some ghost, and push it full throttle until it couldn’t be pushed anymore. Even if he wouldn’t ever be Fred Henderson again, he could damn well try to be something like it, and it would have to be good enough. 

More lines were made, criss-crossing and weeping across the stone face. 

Bronze and magenta. Those eyes flashed across the wraith’s mind, stark and luminescent, despite being only a memory of what he’d seen on Haven. 

What had he left behind? What was there to return to? How was he supposed to walk the path of his past, when it was hidden from him forever?

A growl escaped him, talons digging deeper. Despite his better form the emptiness still wracked at him from the inside. The only thing he could see were the faint outlines of paint and the edges of the lines he scored. Powdered cement glittered on his fingertip, contrasting the dark of his skin in the dim moonlight. 

He was so close. He knew the Raven, he knew what it was asking for, he knew it wanted to reunite with him but he didn’t have the godforsaken key. The answer. The memory he couldn’t place, the little detail that he remembered like the back of his hand but eluded him, and oh, there were those thorns again, needling at his throat … 

The gritty sound of claws on stone filled the air, along with agitated, shallow breathing. A curve there, then another line meeting the others at a pointed angle, and then a few more in seemingly random directions. A small voice wondered what he was doing, but he couldn’t stop. There was a picture he was making, a story he was telling, but its subject and outcome were mysteries. 

With every passing moment, more strokes arced and wove across the barely-lit surface, decimating whatever mural had originally lain beneath. He’d never considered himself an artist of any kind, but this… this felt natural. 

The Raven was weaving this portrait for him . 

Three lines beside each other. Two lines perpendicular. One line teasing its way down from the top, in a languid S-formation. 

Almost there, almost.

Answer me!

The talon stopped, perfectly meeting the first line he’d made at a perfect ninety-degree angle. 

His hand dropped back to his side, regaining feeling with a tingling sensation. His surroundings suddenly became real again, calling his attention with surprisingly tumultuous clarity. The flickering radianite lantern haunting his periphery, the leftover puddles of rain flowing into the gutters with a soft hush, the swirling darkness of the night snuffing out everything but the singular alley he stood in. 

He’d drawn the Raven. 

Something told him to turn on his flashlight. 

Fumbling hands drew it out of his cloak. 

Come on, come on!  

A spotlight. The paint. 

White and black and gold and blue-- 

The Raven was perched atop a shoulder, the shoulder in the mural. Nuzzling the temple of the very man Omen refused to see. 

Cypher. 

Cypher was the answer. 

… “I never left, you abandoned me…”  

Omen leapt back as if burned, staring at his hands. It shouldn’t have been possible that Cypher was tied to the Raven, but Omen knew . Of course: once that woman was here he’d been all too eager to flee, and he’d forced Cypher from his consciousness so violently that maybe, maybe it was just possible that whatever their connection was took a form all on its own, or something, but anyway Cypher was the answer and Omen had to get back to him . 

[Didn’t I tell you, little shadow?]  

They arrived back to base on a chilly Saturday afternoon, much to the surprise of all those present. Skye prodded Omen’s limbs, noting how they did seem to have changed; Brimstone gave a relieved sigh and clapped them both on the shoulder; Reyna not-so-subtly hounded for Viper’s attention. Within hours, they were fed, spilled (most of) their tales, and were right back in the normal rhythm of the road. 

When night fell he prowled the hallways, soundless and catlike as usual, although this time the Raven was calling. 

Cypher was calling. 

But how? And from where? 

He wasn’t in his room or workshop. The range was empty, the washrooms too. The greenhouse and common rooms were occupied but the Moroccan was nowhere to be found. Turning back, Omen retraced his steps. Through the corridors, to the same rooms, again. His footsteps were agitated, strides short and quick. A lump formed in his throat. This wasn’t like Cypher, not at all. 

(Usually he was among the first to see Omen when either returned from missions, even the shorter ones. By this hour, he’d definitely know that the Controller duo had returned, so why… why wasn’t he here…?)

He heard a voice around the corner, piquing his interest, but it turned out to be merely Sage and Raze wishing each other goodnight. Striding past their doors, he made towards the technician’s workshop once again.

Silence still. 

Was Cypher simply avoiding him? Did he really think that Omen just wasn’t worth seeing anymore? 

Oh, that stung. 

Omen glanced around the hallway, at the various doors sprinkled among bright fluorescents and tile floors. Not that they’d give him any inspiration— 

The medbay? 

It was the one place Omen hadn’t checked. 

He glanced up the corridor. Glanced down. It was devoid of people or bots. 

Gingerly he tiptoed to the door across the hallway, laying a hand atop the silver-colored handle. A small tilt of the palm told him that it was unlocked, which came as both a surprise and a spark of curiosity. Sage didn’t usually leave it unlocked, especially after retiring for the night. Had she forgotten tonight?  

Just check quickly and make sure, Omen.

He yanked the door open with a swift and decisive motion. 

“I’m fine, Sage, you really didn’t need to…” 

Blue. 

Halo of fushia. 

They stared at each other, not sure who was more surprised. 

“O…… Omen?”

Cypher’s back was graced with a pair of lusciously feathered, jet-black wings . 

“What the hell happened when I was gone?!” 

You happened. You happened when you were gone, Cypher bit back the answer if only for the sake of his dignity. 

Omen flicked on the desk lamp beside the bed, yellow-tint illuminating the room, and immediately Cypher’s heart twinged. It was worse, somehow, seeing him in person after months of wandering imagination. The perfect crest of the wraith’s shoulders, the suddenly noticeable beauty in those three neon stripes— they taunted him, stoking the flames of the desire he was never supposed to have. 

“I just had too much to drink, that’s all,” he murmured, abashed. His voice was papery and thin from the sobbing he had done mere hours before. Of course his only weakness had come to seek him out at his lowest moment. Had Omen delayed by merely a day, Cypher could have swept the whole hangover affair under the carpet. But no, of course he arrived in the thick of it, able to mock him as he saw fit. 

“Too much to drink?” The shadow was incredulous. “Y… you never drink.” 

“I was stressed.” He replied shortly, cheeks burning. He didn’t deserve the concern that was evident in every inch of the other man’s body language. 

“What about?” the shadow demanded. 

Cypher folded his arms, as if to create a wall across his chest. “It is none of your concern.” 

Because I’m fucking in love with you, the thought clawed at the back of his mind. Never realizing it before it was too late.

There was a pause as the other man grappled with incomplete information. 

“And the wings on your back?” 

Now it was the Moroccan’s turn to stare. Wings? He swept a hand across the area between his shoulder blades, feeling nothing. Dread pooled in his stomach. 

“Wings? I don’t understand, Omen, I don’t have wings,” he pleaded weakly. 

“I can see them. Right here,” the shadow went on, raising a hand to rest on something invisible, running his hand down its side. The palm was clearly pressed back from a relaxed posture, perpendicular to the wrist, indicating that some solid object was definitely there. Cypher squinted, but saw nothing, and wondered if it was the fault of his bionic eyes. “You can’t?” 

Cypher shook his head, just as baffled as the man before him, concern bleeding into his voice. “No? If Sage has, she hasn't said anything.” 

There was a long pause. Omen seemed to be examining these so-called wings, marveling at them in perplexed silence. A hand stroked the air (presumably on the surface of the unseen appendage) with curious tenderness. 

(It was the same touch he’d used when he’d first held the Moroccan all those months ago. That hopeful, itsy-bitsy little request of someday . Oh, how Cypher wished that it would be soothingly traced down his lonely shoulders. He needed it, far too much for his own good.) 

With the fingertips of both hands, Omen gently lifted a mass about twice the size of his torso. He scanned the outer side, then the inner side, before placing it down back by the Moroccan’s shoulder. One could only guess what he saw. 

“You’re the key, Cypher,” he whispered. 

“W-what?” 

“I- I- I don’t know,” Omen stammered. He paused, trying to explain. “When I was out there, a Raven appeared to me in the Realm of Shadows. You have its wings.”

“That’s impossible,” he murmured. “I… I’m not a shadow. I’m not even Radiant.” 

“But it’s real. You’re the one.” He leaned forward, insistent. “The Raven led me back to you. You’re the one who has the secret.” 

Cypher’s head spun with the mysteries being presented all at once. “Secret? What secret?” 

“The secret. The reason why I’m becoming more human again. Look,” Omen brandished his forearm, palm up. The usual grey bandaging was gone, leaving a fully-formed, jet-black limb exposed. “I have a pulse , Cypher. You know something, don’t you?” 

Know something? Bewildered, the Moroccan just stared at the blue-flecked blackness with a frown. Last he checked, Omen had no heartbeat because he physically didn’t have a heart to begin with. The mere fact that he had one now was mildly frightening, to say the least. But the man seemed stable, more stable than he did before, didn’t he? 

Did those three stripes always look at him like that? 

“Don’t you, Cypher?” The desperate intonation was impossible to miss. 

“No,” he insisted, glancing up at the hooded figure. He didn’t know the first thing about the other Agent’s ghostly form in the first place, let how to institute or reverse it. Not to mention, Cypher had stopped searching sometime ago. 

“You lie,” Omen lowered his arm, clenching his fist in confused disappointment. This was wrong. “Why else would the Raven bring me to you? Why else would you be the Raven?” 

The only thing I know is that I’m in love, and that it’s tearing me apart.  

“I don’t know anything, Omen. I promise, I don’t,” he looked away, shame welling up before he could stop it. Part of him wanted to curl up and cry again, but he refused to. He’d already broken down in front of Sage;  he sure as hell wasn’t going to break down in front of the very man the breakdown had been over. “I’ve never heard of this Raven in my life, I swear.” 

You don’t want to hug him right now. Stop it, Aamir.  

You’re married . 

Omen began to pace back and forth, across the length of the room, a stormy aura surrounding his hunched frame. He’d walked the entire earth, listening to that dratted melody, and it led him to a dead end. What did it want from him? Why was the Moroccan relevant at all? 

He paced faster. Then it hit him. 

“The Raven asked me to find what I’ve lost, and it’s you.” he turned, staring into those blue eyes, that ocean of hurt and wonder and confusion. “You are the thing I lost. You’re the reason I’m turning human.” 

Lost? Well, Cypher could agree that he was definitely lost. 

“But I’m just a mortal, a nobody!” a stupid, silly human. “I couldn’t change your form if I tried.”

“No!” Omen stopped short, unleashing a growl. “A piece of my soul is taped to your back like… like a ‘kick me’ sign from Breach. There has to be a reason for it. There has to be a reason for my transformation!” 

“We’re friends? That’s all I have,” Cypher supplemented, forcing a calm voice in response to the agitation rolling off of the other man’s shoulders. “I don’t have a reason, Omen. I don’t know why losing me has anything to do with your humanity. I also don’t think you’ve lost me--” 

“Fine then!” the shadow threw his hands up in exasperated defeat, trying to ignore the itchy feeling, trying to ignore just how annoyingly close he was to the answers, how he was one step away from the final nail in the coffin that stayed determinedly out of reach. He’d finally found the fucking Raven, found it in Cypher, but still he remained empty-handed. 

He pounded a fist against the wall, relishing the painful tingling the plaster left behind. It mirrored the prickling feeling in his gut. 

Cypher couldn’t have nothing , that was impossible. Omen refused to believe that something like friendship was the answer, magic like that only existed in fantasy novels for frivolous and solitary children.

What was the invisible link? 

What could Cypher have that Omen didn’t?

“What do you know about me? About my past?” If his present life had nothing to do with his humanity, then it would have to be something that happened before the Protocol. It was the only explanation.

“Nothing.” the technician shook his head. 

There had to be something. The information broker knew more about him than anyone else, except perhaps Sabine, didn’t he? For fuck’s sake, the man had tasted Omen’s neck, pushed his hips against the shadow’s own, heard the shadow moan like there was no tomorrow. They’d been more intimate than Omen could have ever imagined himself being with anyone .  

“That’s a lie and we both know it.” the wraith asserted furiously, claws gleaming. 

The technician gaped. “Lie to you? I’ve never lied to you in my life!” 

“You’ve been investigating me, haven’t you?” The scent of betrayal, bitter and cold, gutted him more with every word that crawled out of his mouth. Omen strode forward, bold and inky anger simmering, manifesting in a charcoal-toned aura around him. “Haven’t you, Cypher? You… . How much do you know? What have you been keeping from me? ” 

Cypher was wordless, only staring at the fellow agent in a state of semi-panic. 

“Really, Cy? I fucking thought I could trust you! I thought we were friends, I thought--” 

“I thought we had an AGREEMENT!” Cypher howled, rising to the challenge that was Omen’s wrath. Bionic blue eyes glittered with some mix of fear and demonic intent, expression somewhere between fury and bitterness. “I thought…” he paused to lower his voice, every syllable dripping with a remorse that sent chills down Omen’s spine. “That I’d stop. We’d stop. Our secrets are ours and ours alone. I thought I could trust you .”

He paused, swearing under his breath in Arabic, hard expression breaking into a worn and defeated melancholy. “Did you really think that I wasn’t being genuine? That whole time?”

Defeated, the shadow stopped where he stood. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Cypher gasped out shakily. “You’re Omen. My best friend, my little shadow—” he merely choked on the nickname, how dare he call him that silly phrase that reminded him too much of the insuppressible pain in his chest — “And I’ve never found anything about you, never, because that’s how we are now, right? W-when you left I didn’t even try to look for you, I don’t know where you went, I—— I thought you were going to die, the one time I wasn’t tracking you, and I drank because I missed you, and—” 

He broke down into the tears he’d been holding back. “You’re scaring me, Omen.” 

Omen took one look at the man’s trembling shoulders and deflated. 

The shadow approached the man again, but this time without a shred of vice. Carefully, as not to startle his friend, the shadow took a seat on the mattress in line with the other’s legs, torsos only a small distance apart. 

Of course Cypher would know nothing of his past, that was the premise for their entire dynamic. Omen felt foolish for even imagining that he’d violated that sacred oath. 

“Am I going to die, Omen? Are the shadows going to take me? Why is your soul on my body?” 

Meanwhile regret punched the Radiant in the gut. Cypher missed him? Through the cold shoulder he’d given? Maybe their friendship wasn’t completely forsaken after all. “You’re not going to die. The Shadows aren’t fatal. And the Raven means something else.” 

“How do you—” 

“Shh. Trust me,” Omen’s mind raced. “We’ll figure this out.”

Cypher nodded slowly, wiping the tears away with shaking palms. Omen saw the wings shift, downwards towards the man’s centerline, nearly encasing them both in an isolated, protective bubble. Unexpectedly, the shadow had to resist the urge to curl up in Cypher’s arms and sleep the night away. 

In the hanging silence, the Moroccan scrubbed a hand at his raw eyelids, wiping the tears on his shirt. A wispy palm rested on the small of his back, just below the wings, in Omen’s small attempt to comfort his friend (a compromise for the urge to curl into the information broker’s body warmth). The gasping sobs abated almost immediately, soon leading to a drained Cypher slumped against his own bent knees. 

Meanwhile, the wraith was lost in thought. He had gotten back to Cypher. He had found the Raven, attached to Cypher. But what did that mean? The exhausted man was right, he wasn’t a shadow, nothing about the bird’s existence or communication methods made sense at all. Cypher himself knew nothing, that much was evident: had Omen not returned when he did, the wings might never have been noticed at all. 

“I only spoke to the Raven once. I’m going to try again.” 

“Huh?” 

“Move over and close your eyes.”  

You’re not entirely a shadow, Raven, I can tell from your eyes and appearance in the world above. Are you a part of my soul or Cypher’s subconscious? Where did you come from?

[I am both.] 

But why? My soul should be whole, there's no reason for it to split and bond itself to another being. 

[I wasn’t created by accident, Fred.]

So there is a reason? 

[Your bond with Aamir is much more than you give it credit for.] 

But—

[Walk the path behind you to reveal the path before you.]

That’s not enough ! 

[My word still stands.]

Omen’s eyes fluttered open. The clock on the wall read just after 2:30. He made to sit up, but stopped midway, feeling a limb resting on the base of his rib cage. 

“Cypher,” the man whispered to the winged man, who appeared to have fallen asleep beside him. “Cy.”  

Since when did I call him that? 

After a moment’s hesitation, the shadow-man laid a hand on the nearest shoulder, gently shaking it. Thank goodness he tended to sleep lightly. Soon enough, blue lenses flickered to life, fixating on the person before them. 

“Did you do it?” The Moroccan asked blearily, murmuring about the time as he pushed himself up. Crammed side by side on the cot, they weren’t even a foot apart. 

Not that they hadn’t been closer. 

“Both of us. Both of us are the Raven.” 

The bronze halos surrounding the blue irises widened. 

“From our bond. It was created from something between us. I… think. I wasn’t able to communicate for long. The Shadow Realm can be… dangerous.” He explained, hoping the other man was following along. 

There was a substance on his shoulder, he turned slightly to find one of the wings nuzzling his upper back. With the motion came the small realization that if Cypher couldn’t see the wings, he likely did not have any sort of bodily control over them. Omen almost shifted away. 

But… the touch was nice. 

Turning back to face the Moroccan, the wraith continued, “there’s a sentence it keeps repeating. ‘Walk the path behind you to reveal the path before you.’” Omen sighed in quiet defeat, leaning back into the soft caress of the feathers. “I first assumed it had to do with the past that was wiped from my memory when I died for the first time and became a Radiant. But since you’re involved…” he trailed off, letting the other man finish. 

“The path behind us.” 

The shadow nodded. 

Cypher exhaled, shaking his head. “You know I can’t do that.” 

The allusion towards their physicality went unsaid. 

“I know.” 

For a long moment, the only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall. The Moroccan shifted, wing incidentally brushing the shadow’s back in an inviting motion. 

“It also said,” Omen recalled softly, “that our bond is ‘much more than I give it credit for.’”

Both agents were at a loss for words, internally debating what conclusions could be drawn. They trusted each other, yes. They were so familiar with each other, so compatible that it hurt. The same introverted wavelength, the same love for secrets, the same disciplined silence. Years of training together, surviving the warzones, moving in a liquid tandem that Omen never noticed until he reflected upon it now. They knew when to give, when to take; when to push or hold steady. Cypher protected Omen and Omen looked out for Cypher, both savoring each other in a way no one else could. 

But there was more, wasn’t there? On its own, a simple harmony didn't seem to be sufficient cause for this soul-merging transformation. Omen knew that Souls are flexible, but not that malleable. Perhaps this was different because Omen’s soul was already broken from having died so many times, being violently thrown from the Shadow Realm to the material plane. A loose shard could have simply broken off and been picked up by the man before him. They’d become so mutually mired in each other’s presences that their recent and violent separation could have torn apart and mixed around some pieces. At least, that was the only plausible explanation the shadow could have, but it didn’t seem true. The wraith’s intuition about souls and shadows grumbled in disagreement.  

A small, pained gasp escaped the Moroccan’s mouth. They made eye contact. He looked away, back at the shadow, and then away again. 

“Cy?” 

He shook his head. “No.”

“‘No’ what?” 

There was only silence from the other man. 

“Cy? What’s wrong?” 

The magenta aura wavered and dimmed, wings pulling back and towards the spine as the man shrank away. As if to hide his expression, his chin tucked downwards into his collarbone, away from the ghost. The half-illuminated profile shivered, withering, the harsh sound of unsteady breathing raking the air again. 

Underneath the layers of chaotic static, Omen could sense something breaking. A brittle, delicate spread of fault lines across the breast, jabbed at with an unknown force. 

“Cypher,” the shadow whispered, placing a reassuring hand on his companion’s knee as if to provide grounding, a low-lying panic stealing across his chest. “What’s going on?” 

There was no response other than a face wordlessly buried in gloved hands. His shoulders heaved in sudden, jerking motions, wings flinching with every sob.

Omen’s throat constricted. Shadowed hands leapt forward, hovering in front of the human’s chest as if to catch the angel if he fell. It was merely an instinct, but a powerful one, accompanied by the clenching of Omen’s heart. He reached into the shadows, hurriedly searching for anything out of place. Nothing. Cypher’s pain was right here in the concrete world, gaping and begging to be nursed. 

“Cy—” 

“Omen,” the name was breathless, wretched and desperate, whispered with a careless neediness that had never been heard by the shadow before. The plea that followed was ugly and demoralized. “Don’t.” 

The shadow frowned in worry, but lowered his hand and followed the command. With a start he realized that his other palm was still pressed against the inside of the other man’s knee, and quickly he withdrew his grasp. 

There was a long moment of silence. Each one of Cypher’s breaths was monitored by the wisp, jagged and forced. 

“I…” Cypher began, hesitantly, so timidly that it almost fell on deaf ears. “I have an answer, Omen.” 

His voice shook. His hands trembled when he took them away from his face, immediately clasping into a white-knuckled heap in his lap. The bronze-laden lids closed, as if to provide its owner with a solace nothing but blackness could provide. 

“Does our… bond,” the inquiry began slowly, as if testing the individual phrases along the way, “include strong emotions?” 

Omen cocked his head, unarticulated questions whirling through his mind, a strange excitement and dread mingling in a noisy, mysterious chorus. He tried to ignore the sound of cracking glass coming from somewhere in the room. “I suppose so, depending on which emotion.” 

Cypher nodded, contemplating in sheepish hesitation, forcing his shallow breaths to slow in an attempt to maintain calm. His eyes closed again, fists clenched. 

“Cypher. Talk to me.” The whisper came out more gravely than intended. Scared. But Omen didn’t mind showing his fear for his companion’s safety— it was all he could do without breaching the other man’s boundaries. 

“I guess… then…” 

The blue rose to meet him. Like a neon light, the violet-fuschia blinked back into existence, nothing more than a subtle tinge in the corner of Omen’s vision. The crackling stopped, a storm subsiding— or were they in the eerily calm eye of a hurricane? Somewhere within his subconscious, the cry of the Raven was ringing, begging to be heard and heeded. 

“What I’m trying to say is that I…”

The wings spread as the man heaved a great sigh. The lenses slipped sideways, came to rest on Omen, and went down to the sheets again. 

“I love you, Omen,” the shadow’s companion breathed. 

Since when was that cyan so beautiful? 

He didn’t remember putting his hand back on the warmth of that inner thigh. Or the ever so slight inclination of the other man’s torso, leaning towards him in timid affection. Had he ever seen Cypher’s hair in this lighting before, the cute way the curls framed that perfectly tanned face? He’d definitely never seen the white-line scar, tracing elegantly from cheekbone to chin… 

A kiss never felt so good .

Not ever in his damn life. 

Chapter Text

He was going to break her heart. 

No. He couldn’t. 

He had to. 

“Nora.” 

Part of him didn’t even register that he’d called her name as he stared blankly at the wall. 

You have to do this, Aamir. 

He’d been brought here by his own mistakes. By the feelings he couldn’t forget, the attachment that he’d once brushed off. In hindsight, how naive it was to think Omen was little more than a fleeting glimpse of friendship. How naive it was to think that he could go that far with another man, to trust him with his life and the body he never let anyone else see, and come out unscathed. 

It was laughable now: the fact that he’d tried to shut the door on it all forever.

The Moroccan prided himself on his intelligence. Keeping the pieces in check, backup plans at the ready, a whole arsenal of defense mechanisms at his disposal. But here, he’d been a fool. Such a damn fool, falling for the classic blunder, finding love where it shouldn’t be: right in front of him. 

Now he was paying the price. 

She sat down before him, the mattress of their shared bed sinking gently with her weight. Her expression was neutral, but expectant. 

He took her in, savoring every last moment. Unquestionably he still loved her, but how strongly, he couldn’t say. After losing her all those years ago, the last remains of his energy were spent forcing himself to move on. These affections he had now were real, but… detached. Like he’d pulled a book off some dusty shelf and flipped to a chapter he’d tried to forget, merely following along with the script of a younger Aamir. 

It wasn’t the same anymore, even without Omen in the picture. 

Nora herself wasn’t the same either. She was older and had been through more, body and mind alike aging with the weight. She carried herself differently, when she didn’t think her husband was looking, no longer as young and rosy as she once was. The adventure of their younger days was gone. 

They’d been so in tune before.  

Was this the end? Was he about to break everything? 

Her hair was so smooth. Dark, silky, down to her shoulders, shimmering as he ran his fingers through the strands. Her skin was unfairly smooth, paler than his but a healthy golden brown nonetheless. Her lovely eyes were dark, the same shade as his once were, irises blending in with the pupils. 

The necklace gracing her collarbones sent a pang through his chest: it was the one he’d bought the second she returned, moonstone and diamond laden in gold. He was so proud that he could afford to pay the money rather than steal it off the shelf. He’d have to let that go too, wouldn’t he? 

(The first time he’d looked at her like this, sitting so close to one another, he’d tucked a pink blossom behind her ear and promised he’d never leave her side. How that had changed.) 

There was no going back now. 

His lips were numb when he began to speak. The voice that came out was cracked, disheveled even, but he did not bother to clear his throat. Somehow the message, the failure, the guilt, all came through clearer this way. 

She needed to know that this hurt him. 

No, he needed her to know, needed her to understand. He never wanted this. Never wished for it, but here he was, pooled in despair and fright. He might be hurting her by revealing the truth, but he too had been scarred by it, forced to suffer under its unyielding fist. Maybe that mutual agony might make it seem more fair. 

“Nora, I need to tell you something.”

Fair didn’t exist. Morocco had taught him that. 

But oh, maybe if he could treat her right one final time, what kind of man was he not to leap to the opportunity? 

“I… can’t do this anymore.” 

Her gaze was not cruel but he could feel himself withering under it nonetheless. Why, why was he doing this? 

For once in your goddamn life, face the truth. 

“I love you,” he whispered, pretending like it wasn’t the last time he’d say it. He wanted to hold onto her forever, cherish her like he did back on the sands of Rabat, tuck flowers behind her hair every single day until they’d pass on to the afterlife. 

He put his hand through her hair one more time, trying to memorize it, trying to cling to the feeling. Unhappily his fingers parted with the strands, tingling with the last dregs of the feeling as the hand fell into his lap. 

“But this isn’t right. For me.”

She deserved better. She deserved someone who could love her true. Someone who could love her as he once did, all those thousands of years ago. 

A part of him cringed at the thought of her standing by another’s side. Laughing wonderfully and without a care in the world, feeling young again in the embrace of another’s arms. Jealousy rose from within, stinging and crude, but it was just as lackluster as everything else in the script. This was for the best. She’d never achieve that paradise by remaining fast to Aamir’s side, and both of them knew it. 

Could he bring that paradise to Omen? 

He almost couldn’t bear the thought. Omen would never replace Nora, never, ever , but that didn’t negate the fact that he had to let her go . 

“Before you came back, I was… involved. With someone else.” 

In his split attractions he could not choose her, not when kissing Omen reminded him of just how stale his feelings had become. Omen… the shadow had made him feel so alive , and for god’s sake, their souls were irreversibly bonded. 

“I thought you were dead. I thought I was never going to see you again,” he rambled, as if it would cushion the impending heartbreak. “We broke it off as soon as you came back but I…” 

But I can’t forget him.  

He was moving on. Forever. No matter what was cherry-picked to protect him, this was the truth it all boiled down to. 

“I know.” 

He stiffened. 

Somehow the soft forgiveness in her tone made everything hurt worse. He was ruining everything; she had every right to be angry with him, every right to destroy him with the words that danced like peppercorns on her tongue. Even in the end she was giving him kindness that he didn’t deserve. Maybe it was right, that he was leaving her. 

No. 

He wouldn’t dare try and convince himself of that. But he didn’t have another choice, did he? It wasn’t right to leave, but he couldn’t stay. Betraying her like that was infinitely worse. 

“It’s Omen, isn’t it? The one with the blue hood?” 

Somehow he was relieved that she’d guessed correctly, but it brought the question: how obvious was it? Part of him didn’t even want to know. 

He nodded, refusing to look up.

This wasn’t fair to her. It wasn’t fair to rob their marriage of himself. It wasn’t fair to take himself away from her, not when she’d pursued him this far, not when she had every opportunity to step away and still chose him. It wasn’t fair to leave their memory of themselves in the dust, destroying half of a whole, decimating the picture they’d painted together for so long.

She sighed, gently, wringing her hands. “Do you want to continue seeing him?” 

But oh, yes, yes he did. He loved Omen in a way he couldn’t even begin to explain. 

“I do.” 

He shrank back. 

“I’m sorry.” 

He could feel her disappointment. The wish that it wasn’t like this, that the truth didn’t have to come out in the way that it did. Oh, didn’t he share it, didn’t he hate how sheltered he felt in the arms of someone that wasn’t her. He knew the revulsion, the repulsion that was washing up like the tide in her mind. 

He wanted to kick himself. 

How dare he do this? How dare he let her down, how dare he turn away, how dare he abandon her like that? They were supposed to get their happily ever after, they were supposed to grow old together as they always thought they would. 

“So is it over? For us?” 

The silence said more than words ever could. She wasn’t looking at him either, head pointing in the opposite direction. She was keeping it together by a thread, he knew, recognized it in the barely-hidden grimace he saw out of the corner of his eye. The way her shoulders sagged ever so slightly, the stiffness in her lower back to feign upright posture. 

Don’t go. Please don’t go.  

But she stood up, climbing off the bed in a careful manner as if made of porcelain, as if to prevent herself from breaking the instant her feet touched the ground. She never moved like that, she was usually so agile and quick, hastening with an energy he’d never master. As for his own body, he was frozen in place, not believing what he’d done. 

It felt like he’d just ripped a masterpiece to shreds, the scraps of canvas littered about his feet like fallen feathers. 

He registered her fingers running through his hair, once, ruffling it with the same forlorn deference he had done unto her mere minutes before. It was brief, only a second long, but it felt like an entire lifetime. With every lock that passed under her fingers, another wound was gashed into his chest, pouring out blood that could not be seen. 

She was saying goodbye. 

He wanted to call her name. Tell her that he loved her. Tell her all the thoughts running through his mind, tell her just how awful he felt, but the words wouldn’t come out. His throat had said, ‘enough’, and wasn’t going to talk anymore. 

Don’t go. Please don’t go. 

He stared at the wall, straight past her, as she stepped away and into the washroom. Swaying back and forth, cradling his chest with hands that couldn’t stop his heart from being cloven in two. He’d been such a fool. 

The clock struck midnight, far too late in the night for her to leave the building right then, so she stayed in his bed. She nuzzled him, and he embraced her, crushing her to his torso as if the contact would communicate all the anguish crushing his chest. They undressed each other, not needing to ask whether to or why, doing what couples do in silence. They went slowly, heartbroken, savoring every little detail of each other’s bodies, capturing the day before it could fade into the currents of time. 

If his mind hadn’t been completely glazed over by the agony stabbing straight through his chest, he might not have done the deed. Nevertheless, he welcomed it. It was a final chance, a proof. Evidence that they’d once been something great, evidence that there was once a closeness between them that would remain imprinted on their souls forever. A promise that they’d never forget each other, that love was still there, buried within each of them somewhere. 

It was tragic. 

It was improper. 

It was wrong. 

But this was the farewell they got. This was the farewell they gave. 

As he spilled his seed into her depths, he spilled silent tears onto her chest. 

I will always love you, Nora. 

The next morning, all her belongings were gone without a trace, almost as if she’d never arrived at all. Everywhere a clean surface, a void, a blank slate. 

He didn’t eat. Didn’t work. Just laid on his bed, nestled in sheets that still smelled like her, not understanding yet fully knowing why she’d left. It was all his fault. He had no one to blame but himself. 

He cried, wailing like a small child. Went blank and stared at the ceiling. Cried again, rolling over, convulsing in torment. On and off, for hours and hours, somehow finding tears to shed when he thought he’d expended them all. His eyes hurt, his head hurt, his entire body hurt. 

Why did he do it? 

It was the right thing to do. He couldn’t lead her on. 

It was over. It was over. It was over. 

He cut himself. He bled. He drank. Spiraling downward, forgetting what control felt like, able to feel nothing but agony and the sluggishness of time. 

Three days passed like this, listless and knowledgeless. His phone went off a few times, but he never bothered to check what it said. Did the others know that Nora was gone? She’d likely said goodbye to Killjoy and Skye, at least, maybe those two had spread the word. Brimstone knocked once, Sage once or twice, and once Sova announced that he’d left some food from the mess on the doorstep. 

Omen never came by. Cypher wasn’t sure whether or not to be thankful. But as it stood, he couldn’t bear the implications of seeing him at the moment. Indirectly, Omen was the reason all this happened, and as he wallowed and wept for Nora, the wraith’s appearance would likely cause so much dissonance that he’d completely give out.

Not that he wasn’t at his lowest point already. 

He looked through his old messages with Nora. Watched old recordings of her, minding her business as she went around the base, to and fro from some civil job the Protocol had given her. Watched footage of himself holding her hand, flipping further and further back through the days, each one sending more sparks of pain than the last. 

His heart stopped when he found the recording of when he gave her that pretty little necklace. They looked so, so happy. 

Why did he break her heart? 

Why did his own heart betray him? 

He stopped looking at the videotapes after that. 

On the fifth day, Brimstone knocked again, asking the technician to merely knock back if he was awake (he didn’t). Sova left more food, this time a hearty Russian stew he made himself. Killjoy left a package labeled ‘spare parts,’ which was full of gadget components typically found in Cypher’s workshop (she must have guessed that he was tinkering to cope). That was endearing, to say the least, he’d have to thank both the hunter and fellow technician when he next saw them. 

He went through three boxes of tissues. 

Set fire to a few of the flimsy things just to watch something burn. 

Hurled scrapped gadget prototypes out the window, relishing in how they plummeted into the lifeless dirt, taking demonic satisfaction in how they splintered into unsalvageable shards. (They were returned to him the next day, good as new, in another box labeled ‘the spare parts you threw out, you’re welcome’ this time from both Killjoy and Raze.) 

Everything about the world screamed, bleeding into amorphous static. The walls couldn’t distract him, but nothing else he put his mind to would hold it. At some point he put on his bloodstained coat and sprinted around the base, in a furious hurry to go nowhere, going so fast that he lost all feeling in his legs but an aching and incessant protest. Those who saw him called his name as he went by, but were left only with the image of his flapping, soiled coattails. As he put each step in front of the other, he wanted nothing more than to chase Nora down, cradle in her arms, and apologize again and again and again. 

Where had she gone? Was she safe? 

How was it that he’d managed to lose her again? After all this time, after she’d come to find him, after months of her return. And this time, it had been his goddamn fault. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this! 

But it was, and he hated himself for it. 

Nora loved him. Nora wanted to stay. Nora had embraced him back on that last night, sharing his tears, clinging onto him like there was no tomorrow— because there wouldn’t be. She was gone, gone and she’d never come back, lost all over again like he had lost her in Morocco. Memories in a colorful mosaic, expertly woven by years of love, years of partnership, years of believing they were each other’s other halves— all of it, shattered into oblivion. 

Was he crazy?  

He cheated on her. Kissed Omen in the heat of guilty passion, pursuing the wraith out of wedlock. He was nothing but unfaithful scum, blatantly admitting that he’d found a different significant other. Not only that, but also that he wanted to continue seeing them, and Nora— Nora wouldn’t stand for that. 

Nora wouldn’t stand for him being a whore.  

He was such fucking slut. Wasting away at the mere thought of Omen’s touch, an unholy and despicable touch that hadn’t even been borne of romance. And Omen himself hadn’t even tried to stop him. Done the opposite, in fact. Lured the stupid informant further down the path of his worst nightmare, encouraging every step towards the ending he’d never wanted. Grabbed his collar and greedily pulled him closer on that night in the medbay, sealing a piece of his own soul inside of Cypher’s putrid, starving heart. 

They were both despicable. 

Nora would never want him back. 

Maybe Omen turned the Moroccan man into a monster over the years. No longer human, barely human at least, good grace leached out of his soul like water from a leaking cup. The shadow knew the other man was taken but planted the horrific seeds into the other Agent’s heart anyway. Cypher fought the urge to vomit. He had been reduced to a creature of treachery, black wings and all. 

Of course it wasn’t fair to Omen to say that, and he didn’t really think that of the shadow, but what did he care? His Nora was gone, forever this time. None of this was fair. None of this was right. 

None of this was supposed to happen this way. 

He smashed more things. Built some gadgets, not even following his blueprints or trying to make them remotely functional, before flinging them straight into the wall. Glass and ceramic littered the floor from when he’d smashed empty bottles and a couple plates. The walls were mutilated, covered in deep lacerations from the raking of a combat knife. The room looked like the offspring of a landfill and a crime scene, no longer inhabitable by anything but trash. 

Trash . That’s all he was now. Just an empty plastic bag floating purposelessly in the air, at the full mercy of whatever stormwinds blew its way. 

He screamed himself hoarse, no longer caring who heard and who didn’t. It would just be another secret he’d have to hide later on.

Omen couldn’t stop himself. He waited, every day, listening to the soul-shattering agony coming from inside the fellow Agent’s door. Hunched over, cross-legged, back pressed against the wall beside the door frame, he listened to every guttural noise that cut through the miserable air. 

Every time Cypher screamed, the phantom’s heart broke. He caused this. He was the reason Cypher was suffering, and suffering needlessly. 

The man had been so happy with his wife. Who was Omen, a lowly and misshapen memory, to take that away from him? It didn’t matter how close they’d become. However well they knew each other’s minds and bodies, Nora had made Cypher off-limits. 

Well, he didn’t mean to, it was an accident! He didn’t know his soul was capable of fragmenting like that. If given the choice, he never, ever would have done this to his comrade. He would have stayed to himself, he should have stayed to himself— figured out how to pluck those wings off and then never talked again. They could have fixed this mess without Nora ever knowing, without them splitting apart, without Omen messing everything up with that stupid kiss. 

What had taken him over at that moment? Lust, exhaustion, affection? Sympathy for a man in tears? Hope that it would reunite all these broken pieces? Grief, possibly, but for what; it’s not like they had anything significant to begin with. Just a hookup, just a person to give body warmth. Well, not really, the spirit surmised, given their actions the previous night. Whatever. Regardless of the reason, it was a lapse in discipline with catastrophic consequences. 

He’d been stupid. So, so, stupid. 

Over the years he’d come to know the entire color palette of the technician’s emotions and the little cues that went with each. Anticipation, exhaustion, guilt, fury, pride, tenderness; the postures, the facial expressions, whatever he was doing with his hands, all of it. But this? This was a side that had never surfaced before. The supernova of destructive anguish left Omen terrified speechless, scrambling to understand. He wanted to do something, anything, to make the pain stop. As a friend, of course. 

Whenever something crashed against the wall, splintering with a horrible noise, the shadow visibly flinched. Not only was he incapable of help, he was unable to. This was all his fault. 

The worst sound to hear was the sobbing. It was barely audible, and Omen could feel it more than anything, feel it through the wounded vocalizing of the wordless Raven. The poor bird— the part of Omen’s soul bound to Cypher’s through the spineless, worthless bond— was being fiercely rejected from its host as if it was a parasite. Beaten to a pulp, torn at and stretched, denied forgiveness for its mere existence. 

Hearing those noises, facing what he’d caused… It hurt more than anything else in his life, viscerally and revoltingly. But still he sat and waited, unable to find the strength to leave. He was a monster, through and through, a pitiful creature incapable of anything but harm. This was no form of caring friendship, this was destruction, all done by his clumsy clawed hands. He’d done this. This was his. 

( Cypher was his.) 

Some twisted braid between responsibility, guilt, and empathy chained him to that damned door. A lament, a requiem for them both, two lost souls with no compass to guide them but the sins they’d committed together. There was fear, even, he smelled it in the air. Fear for who they were, for where they were going. Fear of everything they’d ever understood about themselves, fear of everything that was yet to come. Who would’ve thought, when he first embraced the fellow Agent all those months ago, that they would end up here? Neither of them, for sure. 

The edge in Viper’s voice was as menacing as her poison. “You’ve known this for how long?” 

“Three days,” the spirit glanced behind him, making sure that the laboratory door was locked. The last thing he wanted was for another Agent to hear what was going on. Wherever this conversation was going… it had to stay private. There was already enough gossip in the Protocol as it was. 

“And you didn’t tell me?” the chemist facepalmed, then pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fred, Fred. A scientist must always know new developments as soon as possible. Fine, ugh. Just… don’t waste time like this again.” Her voice lifted at the end of the sentence as if asking a question, but her words were nothing but a command. 

 “I had to be sure,” Omen defended, but not very well. He knew he should have gone to Sabine as soon as possible, but time must have eluded him while lost in thought. “Cypher was not aware of the situation until I informed him.” 

Her ballpoint pen stopped its scrawling mid-sentence. “You’re joking.” 

Three cyan stripes regarded emerald eyes coolly. 

“Idiots,” she finished her sentence, and flipped open to a new page in her notebook. “Idiots, idiots, everywhere. Now, Fred, tell me again from the top? Do me a favor, and don’t omit anything this time, please.” 

Pretending not to be offended in the slightest, Omen mustered his best narrative voice. “I spoke to the Raven in the Realm of Shadows, but not on the Shadow Plane. It was the Plane of Death.” When Viper frowned, Omen elaborated. “The last time I went to that level, it was the first time I died. As far as I know, it is the collective subconscious of all living beings, and it was only there that the Raven and I could communicate. It emphasized that it was forged from something between Cypher and I. Our ‘bond.’ it said.” 

He paused to let her note down the keywords. 

She stared at them, thinking. Rolled her eyes, shook her head, exasperation coloring her voice. “You went all the way into the Collective Subconscious so that a bird could tell you that you liked fucking each other?” 

“I-- no!” he spluttered, unsure how to react to the obscenity of his coworker’s statement. The wraith felt his cheeks turning hot, thanking whatever gods that existed that the blush wouldn’t show up on pitch-black skin. “That’s-- why would--” 

“If you got Cypher pregnant--”  

“He is a cyborg , he barely has working intestines let alone a womb-- ” 

“I don’t know how Shadow Realm semen works, I study toxin for a living, not conception and reproduction , for all I know--” 

“HE IS NOT PREGNANT!” Omen slammed his fists down on the laboratory table, eye to eye with the preposterous statement-maker. 

“What would it be other than a child, Fred? It’s not a Shadow, it was created from your bond, and now part of your consciousness is attached to Cypher’s. Tell me that doesn’t point to your idiotic boyfriend carrying your child.” Her gaze was stern, but not condescending like usual. He couldn’t tell if she was worried; but there was a flicker of internal tension in her eye. But Omen was more concerned with her wording. 

“He is not--” he growled in frustration, making a face to demonstrate revulsion for the idea. “He is NOT my… ‘boyfriend’! There was no. Romantic. Attraction. Between us. That would be—” 

He cut himself off, realizing that his words were false. Silence lingered as he sank down, grounding himself on the same stool that he had two months ago. They’d kissed last Sunday night. But no, surely the Moroccan had only done that to try and aid the phantom, in hopes that the Raven would unravel its own secrets, right? Their previous connection was gone. Down the drain. 

Or was it? 

“ What did you do, Fred?” She hissed. “If we lose our information broker the Protocol is doomed, do you understand that? We have a blackmailer on our hands, and if Cypher isn’t on top of everything… I don’t want to think about the consequences.” 

Omen didn’t meet her eyes as he pondered further. “Cypher…” the shadow’s lips lingered on the name. “He asked if the bond could include emotions about each other. Then said he loved me.” 

Not to mention, Nora had vanished immediately afterwards. That couldn't be a coincidence, could it? 

“Loooove.” The scientist scoffed, and rightfully so, Omen couldn’t agree more. But against his expectations, there was no element of surprise in any aspect of her body language, not even raised eyebrows. The question that came next was dripping with sarcasm. “He loves you. And tell me again how you aren’t dating?” 

“This is new , Sabine. He never said that before now. Neither did I,” he disagreed with adamance. She might not spread his secrets, but he still did not want any incorrect ideas flying around. 

“But did you want to?” Her ballpoint pen was back to the page. “Now’s your chance, lover boy.” 

Somehow it sounded different when Viper said it like that. Tone softened, wistful, higher in pitch than her usual cold. She tilted her head forwards and to the side, straight strands of hair sweeping down over her cheek. It was strange, coming from the usually-feared toxicologist. 

“I never considered it,” he lied, but poorly. Oh, he definitely did want to, when their lips had met those few days ago. He wanted to claim the Moroccan as his own, and it was only out of sensibility for Cypher’s existing relationship that he didn’t. 

“Never? Not in three years of sleeping together?” The chemist stared him in the eyes, skepticism clear with a single quirked eyebrow. When he didn’t immediately jump to reveal the fallacy, she pinched the bridge of her nose again. The humiliation was coming, so he bowed his head as the words hailed down. “Fred, Fred. Get over yourself. Everyone can see the way you two look at each other. God, did you forget what romance felt like when your old life was destroyed? I can’t believe I have to say this.”

His breath hitched, unable to muster a rebuttal. Well, when she put it like that… Cypher had always been looking at Omen differently, hadn’t he? The kisses. The touches. The way Omen’s safety was always his priority, despite the greater practical utility of other agents in the Protocol. The way the shadow waited for the Moroccan after every separation like a dutiful watchdog; the doting way he made sure the desert rat was dressed warmly enough on non-tropical missions. The extra miles he put in for Cypher, that would never be for any other agent-- not even Sabine herself, who he generally trusted. 

“Uhmm… err…” Various syllables and words came out of the shadow’s mouth, none of them forming anything coherent. If Viper herself was telling him to stop being so emotionally constipated, then he probably was doing something wrong. 

“Forget the duelists, you're the biggest airhead in this entire organization.” She leered down on him, arms folded tightly across her chest, clearly deciding right then that this Hopeless Gay needed a full-on crash course in romance. Ruefully, the scientist assessed the man before her, pupils flicking over every joint in his body. While the spirit continued to cringe under her gaze, she demanded, “well? How did you respond to Cypher’s cutesy little love declaration? If you couldn't even admit to me how head over heels you are, you certainly didn't say a damned thing to him.” 

The memory of Cypher's lips was enough to turn his cheeks hot again. 

“ Don’t tell me you did nothing—” 

“I did not do nothing . I—” The spirit was standing now, entire body warm even through the cool temperature of the laboratory. Despite all the open space unoccupied by equipment and stools Omen felt cornered and rooted to the ground, like a small child being disciplined by a disapproving mother. “We kissed! Sunday, in the medbay. Happy now?!” 

He threw himself back down into the chair, unable to reign in his emotions now that they’d been riled up. With a start he heard the screams of the Moroccan ringing throughout his recent memory, the sounds of machinery and glass shattering against the wall. Omen might have enjoyed that sin on Sunday night, but Cypher definitely did not. 

More gravelly than usual, the phantom’s voice sprang from his rib cage, daring his colleague to push further. “You know nothing about us. I kissed him, and now he is emotionally splintering apart because of it! Have you seen him? Locked up in his room for FOUR DAYS?” 

Clawed hands rose up to hide bright blue stripes as he slumped over the wax-shine countertop in defeat. “This was a fucking mistake. It’s ruined , Sabine.” 

The expression on her face was now that of pity. Seconds of silence dragged on, neither Agent moving until a timer went off across the room. Viper rose to attend to it; a cabinet opened and closed, and a faucet could be heard for a minute, but the overall actions of the scientist were fully unknown to the phantom, whose palms were still pressed harshly to his eye sockets. Soon her footsteps approached the sitting man, followed by a much louder clatter from his right. When he lifted his head, the black-haired woman was sitting in another stool beside him, leaning against the counter with shoulders squared over elbows. 

“You’re wrong.” 

She waited for him to meet her gaze, irises rising with difficulty as if weighed down with anchors. This time, her face was calm, absent of the storm and shadows that usually swirled across it. Not concerned, not pitying, not condescending, only resolute on her conclusions. Her voice was neither soft or hard, neither consoling nor harsh. “Nora never mattered. No, listen to me, she and Cypher were never going to work out. He’s been in love with you for years.” 

Omen only stared at her. This would mark the second time he’s seen new faces of his friends this week; tenderness had never been an attribute given to Viper before. Before too many questions bubbled up in the spirit, however, she cut him off. 

“Have you ever lost anyone you loved?” She asked, but the question was clearly rhetorical. Since joining Valorant Omen hadn’t lost anyone forever, and anything felt before that was wiped away by amnesia. A few seconds passed as she made room for him to at least imagine the scenario— Cypher or Sabine’s blood, staining his cloak as their souls sank down into the Realm of Souls— but Sabine continued her verbal essay before he could get carried away. “Loss is the most memorable emotion. It’s the heaviest driver of change. Think about it: all of us are here because Kingdom has taken something.” 

Omen had lost his memories, Viper was consumed by vengeance. Skye wanted to protect her country, while Sage had nowhere else to go. Yoru was looking for his ancestors, and Cypher… 

“Nora.” He murmured, to which Sabine nodded. 

“I am not a sympathetic woman, Fred. But for both your sakes, imagine what he sees.” 

Seconds ticked by. Losing Nora was Cypher’s cause, his fuel, according to Viper’s telling of the tale. It was easy to understand that heavy-handed grief and moving on to a new partner did not mix well. The woman beside him nodded once, satisfied. “He wants you at his side more than anything, but Nora’s memory guides everything he does.” 

But that brought the question: how long had Cypher been keeping these feelings under wraps? The thought of Cypher suffering in silence made the spirit uncomfortable: all Omen wanted was to keep that Moroccan safe and happy. The possibility of failure began to eat at him. 

“What should I do?” asked the helpless lover.  

The corner of her lip curled up in a cross between a sneer and a smile, the usual predatory glint returning to her dark-colored irises. Although the expression was vaguely threatening, Omen knew it was not directed at him at all. In a strange way, it was a small comfort to see some semblance of normal after whatever softness was just displayed. “Nora coming back is the best thing that could have ever happened. She’s a doll, do you think she would have given up and left just because you kissed her husband? Of course not. Cypher left her— for you. ” 

Halfway between dumbstruck awe and disbelief, Omen floundered for a proper response. Despite the claim making logical sense, it was still hard to accept. Perhaps Cypher’s feelings were indeed so strong, but why? The ghost didn’t deserve that, not even for a second. He was just a memory of a troubled past, while Nora had built an entire life with Cypher once. She was more valuable to the Moroccan man than the phantom could ever hope to be. 

But on the other hand, Cypher’s eyes were nothing but starbound on that night in the Medbay. Suddenly the spirit remembered all the times he had teleported the other Agent to safety, loving tension in the air as they fretted over each other’s wounds. Whenever Omen had nightmares, the information broker was always there to calm him, and provide warmth until the sun rose. Each time the informant used his ultimate, the phantom would dutifully find that precious hat to prevent the enemy from taking and hacking into it. And lastly, Omen remembered the time Cypher complimented his knitting, and asked him to make camera fleeces so the technician’s equipment wouldn’t freeze over when deployed to Icebox. 

Nora might have had a life with Aamir, before the Protocol. But that man was Cypher now, and he belonged to Omen. All this time, the two men had been weaving a new life together without even realizing it. The tables had long been turned; now she was a memory left in the dust, and Omen was a whole man with flesh and bone fast to his companion’s side.

Viper was right. 

A hand grasped his shoulder as emerald green eyes gazed intently at cyan strips. “If you love him, you need to make a move. Don’t let him think that choice was worthless.” 

“I won’t.” The spirit promised, speaking a bit too quickly for comfort. Yet the uncertainty he carried before had evaporated. Cypher loved him, and he felt something similar. Maybe not something he would definitively call love, but something was there. They needed each other. “But when? And how? He is still in pain.” 

When he looked up from the surface of the table, her gaze was on the cabinets lining the wall. But her irises were not moving, not reading the little white labels near the handles, simply pointed straight on and slightly unfocused. It seemed that she was immersed in memories of romance from a lifetime ago. The woman blinked once, withdrawing from whatever nostalgic headspace it was, and turned to face the other Agent. “Tell him how you feel, and watch him crawl into your lap faster than you can say his name. You’ll… you’ll know when the time is right.” 

On the eighth day, Omen finally roused the courage to knock. 

“Cy,” he tried not to let his voice shake with shame. “It’s me.” 

There had been silence all morning. No crying, no screaming, no tinkering, no throwing. Maybe he was asleep, the shadow began to think, but was surprised when the door creaked ajar. The man in question hid behind its wooden face as if afraid to expose himself, the only visible elements being a singular electric-blue lens and the white-line scar. A hand was wrapped around the doorframe, gloved despite the fact that the technician needed not go anywhere. A sign that he didn’t feel safe, the shadow remembered with a twinge. 

“Are you… alright?” 

The Moroccan didn’t respond, regarding him with silent caution. 

“Look, I know it’s my fault, I just—” 

“No, Omen—” 

“I just wanted to check on you. I won’t come back if you don’t want me to.” 

“ No. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

Fred faltered at the sincerity. Cypher couldn’t take the blame, could he? There was no way that was fair or even correct at all, because Omen’s stupid soul was to blame for all of this, the pitiful wraith’s wretched, broken soul— but before Omen could vocalize his response the technician stated flatly, “I got you involved where I shouldn’t have.” 

“But—“

The Moroccan shook his head. “Please. I know why I fell in love, and it wasn’t any fault of your own.” 

He paused, closing that blue eye, hanging his head against the door with his forehead on the wood. The exhaustion was evident: unkempt curls swept down over sallow cheeks, eye bags so prominent they almost looked like bruises against the otherwise graying skin. After a long moment and a deep breath, the Moroccan’s eyes opened with a forlorn emptiness. 

“There was a lot between us. I just… didn’t realize how deep it went until I saw Nora again.” 

The haggard loneliness with which he spoke sent pangs through Omen’s chest. Never had there been more longing to rush forward and embrace the man, holding him in warmth until that dead-eyed look was gone. Never was there such a need to comfort his beloved, to assuage the guilt that weighed down those slumping shoulders. 

But he stayed back. The door, so clearly employed as a shield, was warning enough. 

“Just give me time, Omen.” Cypher added gently, pleading. Then he mumbled, sheepishly, “I… want to be ready. For us.”

“….Ready?” The phantom rasped, deliberately missing the point. Given the noise and the anguish and undeniable suffering he’d caused, Omen had been expecting to be torn into with unforgiving rage, spat upon and cursed, and told to never come back. Cypher didn’t mean what he said. He couldn’t. Not when everything he loved was dead or gone. There was too much grief. Too much destruction. Too much for a single man to bear all at once. It didn’t matter what Viper said about the informant’s feelings— if Omen were in the other man's position, he wouldn’t want to take anything further at all. At least not for a long, long time. 

There was a nod. 

The shadow opened his mouth, readying a retort, but then closed it. No matter how those words could be spun, they all led to the same conclusion: he wanted Omen back.  

And… readiness? Such was only reserved for serious relationships, not just simple flings. When they had first become close there was no question of readiness or ability. It simply happened, step by careless step. Why was all this caring thoughtfulness coming through now? 

“For… me?” The ghost asked. Who else would it be but him? Still he found himself unsure at the proposal. He didn’t dare hope. Cypher's feelings might exist, but acting on them in this way was leagues beyond what Omen could have ever envisioned happening between them. 

“Yes,” his companion replied, a gush of relief and excitement that shone like purified moonlight into the shadow’s heart. So it was him. 

Omen could only gape. Everything they’d built together over the years had brought them here. The dreams, the hiatus; the drinking, the visions; the songbird’s call. Their souls sewn together, bound with an invisible thread. Now here they stood, separated only by hesitation and wood. 

It almost didn’t make sense to gamble like this. But… Cypher’s eyes were so beautiful. And they were looking at him more sweetly than ever before. 

“What do you mean?” Omen pressed. No more mistakes. Everything has to be clear. 

There was an indistinguishable noise-- a bashful murmur, it seemed. The blazing blue within those bronze rims flicked around, from the floor to the wraith’s hand and then to the informant’s own. He was shy, the poor man-- was that a blush? Oh, he is pretty , the thought ran across Omen’s mind without permission. 

“... want…” Cypher cleared his throat, and paused to swallow. “I lo--” He fell silent, biting his bottom lip, still battling himself. A gloved hand drifted up, brushing past the worry-wrinkles on his forehead and weaving through those elegant black curls. Eyes closed, the man fell silent, struggling to clear his mind in the turbulence of emotion. A breath was taken in, lips parting as the exhausted exhale was released into the tense air. When he spoke again, those eyes were still closed, as if to liberate the pressure of the other man’s expectant gaze. “I love you. I want to keep that. If you do, too.”

So that dratted Moroccan was gambling. The newest bet was being placed down right in front of Omen’s widened eyes. For a brief moment, the half-ghost wondered what trickery these now-flesh borne ears were up to. But no, there were no problems with hearing, it was only the mind in disbelief. 

Cypher loved him. Cypher wanted him. With these words, a metaphorical door to greater intimacy was opened. But is that what Omen desired? 

“I… do want to keep this,” he murmured, conviction increasing with every second that passed. Silence hung as the shadow stared at the ground, taste-testing the statement rolling off his tongue. “Yes,” he verified, making eye contact now.  

That bronze-outlined cyan was stirring up something in the gap between Omen’s ribs. For the first time, he felt a faint thudding in his chest: a heartbeat. Like magic, the restlessness— the thorny emotion he’d been learning to cope with— evaporated off his shoulders. The internal noise stopped, snuffed out by the blooming of something dainty, warm, and precious. 

The compass of his heart was pointed straight through the door, course set by all the little gambles they’d been taking from the beginning. The voice of every instinct showered down upon him as his lips began to move. “Time is insignificant, Cy. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

“You will?” 

They belonged together: Secret keepers. Mask-wearers. Guardians. But this— their togetherness — that didn’t have to be a secret anymore. The time had come, just like Viper said it would. The hallway spun, every bodily fiber apprehensive but cheering in insuppressible joy. His crimes were forgiven, and the man he loved was waiting for him. 

“I mean it.” 

To go through that metaphorical door, into a more intimate future— that required care and understanding unlike anything they’d seen before. Depth and wonder, maybe even a dose of courage. Courage they had, no one could be a Valorant member without it. Wonder: both of them had plenty of that. Omen saw the curious way Cypher had been looking at Omen’s body right from the day the information broker initially joined the protocol. As for depth, well, that would come with time-- precisely the thing that Cypher asked for, and what Omen would readily give. The wounds would close. The agitation would abate. Time was a healer more skilled than Sage in that way. 

Suddenly there was a hand in front of him, extending out past the wooden panel with delicately parted fingers. Palm upward and expectant, accompanied by the aged gaze of someone who had lost too much. 

Immediately the shadow knew to lace his fingers between those hovering before him, and he relished the grateful way they closed around his palm. He could feel the flesh, clearer now that his limbs were more solid than before. These gloves were leathery but smooth, synthetic fabric thinner than he’d always imagined it to be. How he longed to grasp the still-covered skin— the spirit imagined it would be nice.  

Protect him, the thought ran through the back of the shadow’s mind. Cherish him . 

A smile cracked on Omen’s lips, coyly mirrored on Cypher’s own. For a minute, they simply stood there, admiring the connection between them. They were stepping through that metaphorical doorway, hand in hand. Sheepish and self-conscious, yet honest and forthcoming. Someday when the dust settled they’d come out alive and happy, together. 

More than you give it credit for, the Raven’s words rang in his head. 

They’d be alright, eventually.