Chapter Text
Darkness.
Darkness was all that enveloped Hazal as her eyes flew upon, her breathing heavy and laboured. Despite her awful and delirious state, and not being able to use her radiance to observe the lightless surroundings, she immediately remembered where exactly she was. Hazal let out a breathy groan, slumping back into the slightly-more-comfortable-than-expected interrogation chair to which her aching hands were bound behind.
Despite the horrific nightmare that had just woken her from her three-hour sleep, and the dull pain running through her, she couldn’t help but groan in memory of how she was captured by the very people she had been blackmailing, groaning moreso upon remembering the previous day in this exact chair, where she had learnt from two men from the Valorant Protocol, codenamed Brimstone and Cypher, that they weren’t even the culprits behind his disappearance. When they told her about an alternate world, exactly like their own, that housed the people behind her situation, she couldn’t even doubt the far-fetched story due to the overwhelming amount of evidence that they had shown her. Not only that, but due to her blackmail, she knew exactly the type of people, mostly innocent people, she had hurt with her powers, and couldn’t help but feel guilty and remorseful, despite her convictions.
Hazal mentally cursed herself and wrenched herself from that line of thought - after all, she would never have to see or hear about these people again, whether they let her go, or more likely killed her for being the monstrous threat to them that she was. That’s right - she was a monster. Her damn Nightmare would never let her forget that, especially with what she had done to blackmail the denizens of the Protocol. Even after the nightmares she had just endured - of losing the trail of him forever after yet another failed (and arduous at that) attempt, or of her own death, of course not without some torture from the people she knew to be capable of doing so all too well - Nightmare still whispered to her, telling her how she was going to die here, how she deserved it for failing him again, how she deserved to be maimed and killed for all she had imposed the Protocol.
Given what she did to them, she deserved it, really - she meekly agreed with Nightmare on that. She couldn’t help but give in to its dark thoughts now, wrestling against her bindings not in any attempt to escape, or use her powers (not only was she too exhausted, but given its toll on her she was convinced Nightmare would finally take over) but to meekly try and fail to shut the voices up. Just as she was wondering why exactly they had shown her that they were not worthy targets of her blackmail if they were surely going to kill her anyway, a dim light suddenly permeated the room with a click, bathing the room in yellowish-orange.
As Hazal scowled and adjusted her eyes to the frankly pathetic amount of light, the metal door to the room quietly screeched open and shut, and Hazal’s eyes darted to the door - was this her punishment? Who was to be the one to put her out of her misery? So many questions spurred on by her rapidly declining mental state were brought to a grinding halt as she finally recognised the woman who had just entered the lonely interrogation room. Oh. It’s the healer ? As her confusion mounted, Nightmare wasted no time providing her a charming fantasy about the healer in question using her radiance to repeatedly kill and resurrect the dream seer in a beautiful cycle of never-ending torment. Hazal didn’t even get the chance to give in to these thoughts before the healer, Sage, walked over to the prisoner, far too gracefully for her being in a dingy room made for interrogations, and began speaking in a voice far too soft for a torturer or an interrogator, startling Hazal out of her glassy-eyed communion with her own thoughts.
“Hazal?” Sage half-whispered, ever sensitive of the situation. “Are you conscious?”
Even if it seemed like an odd question, Sage had already been informed of the dream seer’s tenuous relationship with sleep and nightmares after the blackmailer’s first day in the interrogation room. It wasn’t out of the question that she was completely out of it as well.
As Sage patiently waited for a response from the now clearly conscious Hazal, she cringed upon seeing her injuries, as well as the obviously old and faded scars littered about her skin. The healer knew that her bloodied and dishevelled hair and face were from her initial apprehension by the Istanbul strike team, but seeing her bound to an old rickety wooden chair obviously meant for interrogation made her mind wander to the awful thought of her being tortured in here, even if she knew Brimstone and Cypher would not hurt the blackmailer.
Sage was snapped out of her own thoughts when the Turk slowly turned her head towards Sage, a slight scowl on her face, “They sent the healer to kill me? Please, I only want a painful death, not a slow one.” Hazal said, and while she tried to grin through the ebbing pain, she was unable too, and she knew she must have only sounded weak and pathetic in that moment.
Instead of pushing the healer away in case Sage was actually there to heal her and not torment her, the strained and pitiful way in which the blackmailer spoke only spurred Sage on to try to help her and heal her, as she had convinced Brimstone to let her do before Cypher came into the interrogation room that day. “You’re hurt”, Sage simply whispered, putting a hand on Hazal’s shoulder. “Let me heal you.”
Hazal could only turn away and sulk at what Sage had said. Did she really sound that pathetic? Was the older woman really here to heal her? From the wounds her own organisation had inflicted? After all Hazal had done to hurt and blackmail Sage and her friends personally?
Hazal simply shrugged Sage’s hand off her shoulder, almost hissing as the sound of her handcuffs rattling echoed through the room. “And why would you do that when you know all too well what I’ve done to you? To the people you care about? You would heal me and treat me as you do them?” Hazal scoffs, not able to meet Sage’s hopeful gaze. “Just get this over and done with and kill me, or whatever it is that you were sent to do.” Her mismatched eyes, still not meeting Sage’s soft brown ones, darkened, and she tensed up, forcing herself to remember what she inflicted on the kindly woman standing over her. “You know what I’m capable of. I’m a monster. You’ve seen the blackmail I personally sent you. The nightmares I gave you. I don’t deserve or want your healing.”
Sage hesitated to touch Hazal again, instead staying close but making sure to give her space. “I can see past the walls you put up, Hazal.” she whispered gently, “I know you’re scared and you feel guilty. But it isn’t your fault. None of this is any of our faults. For what it’s worth, I forgive you. I know what it feels like to be desperate, to be grasping at something that always seems to slip away. I fully understand your situation and what you were going through. All I want to do is help you, Hazal. You’re not the monster you think you are. I know you aren’t.”
“I don’t need your fucking pity.” the blackmailer quickly rasped, looking down at the floor of the holding room as if it were the most interesting thing in the world, wondering why she had to incessantly push away the woman giving her a chance despite what Hazal put her through, who was acting more kind and more gentle to her than anyone ever had since before the First Light - before that damn Nightmare reared its head. Yet it seemed Sage could see, or wanted to see past the Nightmare, but Hazal was anything if not self-destructive. Hazal involuntarily grimaced at the cuffs digging into her skin from this action, traitorously betraying how much pain and discomfort she was really in, and trying to hide from the healer.
Despite her words, Sage couldn’t help but feel anything but pity for the woman in front of her. Her heart ached for the lonely, chained woman in front of her and her sad situation. Sage wished there was a way to let the stubborn nightmare woman know she genuinely forgave her and wanted nothing more than to help her. Instead of words, Sage moved to the cuffs binding Hazal to the chair, and moved to uncuff her with the key Brimstone had reluctantly given her.
The foggy and silent confusion at the unexpected action was quickly broken as Hazal heard the cuffs drop onto the floor with a resounding clink. Trying to collect herself enough to question why , she slowly brought her hands to her front, her wrists aching from the sudden release of her bindings, only given respite from the dull pain from the bones cracking in her arms as she finally was able to move them after however long she had been in this chair. Sage couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt witnessing Hazal wince and silently curse as she tried to nurse her wrists - she knew that in the Protocol’s captivity, the blackmailer would never have a hand laid on her.
So why did it look so much like the broken woman in front of her had been tortured to within an inch of her life? She was skin and bone, as if she hadn’t eaten for months on end, her features gaunt and haggard, any semblance of hope or any other emotion long drained from her otherwise colourful eyes - not to mention the bloodied wounds littering her body, skin caked in dirt and grime.
Sage had collected her thoughts by the time Hazal had begun to speak, still not meeting the healer’s gaze and cradling her own hands, hunched over with her elbows on her thighs. “Why… why would you-” Hazal’s voice hitched in her throat and she struggled to continue speaking, afraid of her voice breaking off again despite spending time to make sure she didn’t sound so pathetic and helpless. She cleared her throat and tensed up, trying again. “Why would you uncuff me? You… you know what I can do. What I can make you see.” Sage cut her off for the first time, inching closer, “So I can heal you.” She said, matter-of-factly. “So I can help you, Hazal. I just need you to accept that help. We’re not here to hurt you.”
Hazal winced as Nightmare, now unchained, coiled in her mind, waiting to unleash on Sage as its host’s empty threat had promised, yet it stayed put as Hazal painfully willed it to.
Sage hesitantly put a hand over Hazal’s wounded ones - even though she winced from the pain and cast her gaze further downwards, she didn’t shy away from the touch. Sage took this as a sign of good progress and continued. “If anything, I’m here to protect you. I can understand if you don’t trust me, but…” Sage trailed off, unsure of how to phrase her next sentence, “but the only reason I’m here is to help, Hazal. I promise.”
Tears threatened to well up in Hazal’s eyes as Sage softly brushed her hand over Hazal’s bruised wrists, and she now noticed the healer kneeling down beside her, keeping her at eye level to try to bring any sort of comfort to the woman. She saw the expectant, soft brown eyes looking at her, examining her for any sign of an answer from her. Hazal looked away before Sage could see the tears fall, and tried to start speaking, but her voice cracked and broke from the now obvious tears falling down her face. Fuck. She hadn’t cried in so long, no matter how broken, alone, or hopeless she had felt. She had kept her walls up and her stoic mask fit for as long as she could remember, never even threatening to show any sort of emotion she didn’t want others to see. So why now ? Why was she unable to push Sage away in the slightest? She mentally cursed herself for being this weak in such a moment, for being so pathetic in front of the woman she was sure was here to torture her, or kill her in some manner.
The overwhelming guilt of being treated in such a kind and gentle manner by someone she only knew through her extensive research and blackmail. Sage was so understanding for someone who didn’t know much about the woman who had literally tormented her, her friends, and threatened her entire damn livelihood. Her care that she had come to know to have been shown to her friends and coworkers now being shown to the blackmailer of all people? She couldn’t understand it. It made Hazal’s head spin. Did she not remember the nightmares she had given Sage? Nightmares of her friends dying and her life crumbling due to the ‘care’ Sage gave?
It crushed Hazal that someone she had tormented like that, someone she had subjected to her own worst fears was treating her better than she could even remember being treated. Was trying to care more than anyone ever had. Well, maybe apart from him , but Hazal didn’t let her mind wander to that, knowing how much more vulnerable it would make her - the amount to which Sage was making Hazal feel vulnerable was already uncomfortable.
Sage waited patiently for Hazal to collect herself, occasionally running her own hands across the blackmailer’s to let her know that she was there for her, that she was grounded. She even risked reaching across to wipe some tears away from Hazal’s face with her thumb. The healer was concerned that this might only make her emotional outburst worse, but it seemed to calm Hazal down - the silent tears slowly began to stop falling, and her shaky breathing and heaving chest eventually calmed and stilled.
After a few minutes like that, with Sage being a silent anchor for Hazal to calm down with, Hazal turned to face Sage, eyes wet with fresh tears still not entirely meeting Sage’s gaze. “Th-thank you.” Hazal shakily mumbled, slowly breathing in and out to try to calm herself. Finally looking up at her, she whispered a more silent thanks - Sage understood the implication that this wasn’t just for uncuffing her. Sage softly smiled at Hazal and took Hazal’s hands in her own, thwarting the blackmailer’s attempt to avoid the eye contact that made her feel even more vulnerable and guilty. Sage’s warm and understanding deep brown eyes were too much for Hazal’s mismatched ones - broken and fractured like her.
Sage saw the sadness, the loneliness, the desperation, everything in her eyes. All the emotions she had been bottling up, never letting slip for god knows how long finally being released into the world. While she couldn’t help but feel ecstatic at the fact that she had managed to get past the blackmailer’s hardened, stubborn exterior, finding the woman who so desperately needed help behind the façade of one who insisted she never even wanted it, Sage had also never felt so much empathy for one person in her life. While she knew what it was like to be rejected or abandoned, or even to fail at something you so desperately needed to succeed at, she knew, she saw in those eyes how deep and how scathing Hazal’s trauma really was. She knew Hazal had said not to pity her, but she couldn’t help it, staring into those brown and orange eyes threatening to spill over with tears once again, with tears that had been denied for so long - too long.
Sage held Hazal’s hands tighter, squeezing them, satisfied and relieved that Hazal didn’t even flinch, simply choosing to avert her soulful gaze from the healer’s heartful one. “Let me heal you?” Sage finally whispered, hoping that this interaction was the breakthrough she needed. While she wanted so desperately to heal Hazal’s mental scars, she knew that focusing on her physical wounds would at least alleviate some of Hazal’s discomfort - her heart sank knowing that she could not simply whisk away someone’s mental pain as easily as using her radiance on them. No, it was far, far more complex. Especially for someone as, well, fucked up as Hazal.
The Turkish woman looked back up at Sage before quickly averting her gaze, closing her eyes and making her traitorous tears escape from them. After a few laboured breaths, she calmed her breathing and looked to where Sage was holding her hands. She swallowed the lump in her throat, then slowly nodded, giving Sage that unspoken permission she had so desperately wanted. Sage leaned in closer, a kind smile on her lips, choosing to break the silence between them. “Thank you, Hazal. This may feel odd, but please don’t shy away; I- I’m here to help you. I’m here for you, alright?”
Hazal again gently nodded, this time looking at Sage, giving her a pained and tear-stained smile, but one that she could easily tell was genuine. Sage couldn’t help but smile even wider back at the woman as her hands began to gain an ethereal green glow while caressing the blackmailer’s hands and wrists in the same way that she had been doing - this time, however, the hands she was trying to make better through her touch literally became better through it. Hazal stifled a gasp as she felt a cooling sensation throughout her hands and wrists, feeling the pain being soothed and easily melting away. Though she almost wanted to keep holding onto Sage’s hands after the healer had worked her literal magic, she pulled away to inspect them. It was as if the cuffs had never even been on her hands, as well as the pain that came with it, as if the cuts and scars there had never even formed. As familiar as she was with Sage’s powers by now, with Radiance itself, Hazal could barely believe it. Not so much that it could be done, but that Sage had done it for her .
Hazal looked back at the healer quickly and mumbled another thank you, desperately trying to compose herself. Sage warmly smiled and continued healing the blackmailer as the woman in question relaxed a little into the surely uncomfortable chair, slowly dissipating the tension built up within her. Sage simply healed all her wounds without question, using her own radiance to find out where Hazal needed healing, using her powers and jade orbs accordingly. The healer made sure to avoid any scars or long-healed injuries, healing carefully and with precision so as to make Hazal feel more comfortable - she had accepted her healing of the injuries sustained from Istanbul onward, and nothing more. Sage desperately did not want to break what little trust Hazal had managed to give her. The comfortable silence had to be broken at some point though, as Sage needed to ask the woman in front of her to roll up her tattered and torn sleeves so that she could heal there.
“Hazal?” Sage quietly asked, snapping the woman in question out of her glassy-eyed trance. Those same eyes stained with dried tears looked in her direction, acknowledging the healer calling her her. “Can you roll up your sleeves for me? I need access to heal the damage there.”
Hazal’s eyes briefly widened before turning away from the healer completely, hugging her arms to herself at the same time. “I’ll live.” Was the blunt answer that came through. Despite Hazal’s attempt at putting her mask back on, it was far too late for her to effectively do so, and far too obvious to Sage from Hazal’s body language and speech why the injured woman was being so guarded. “Hazal… whatever you want to hide from me there, I’m not here to judge you. Or heal anything you don’t want me to heal. You don’t have to say anything or do anything, I just need to make sure any cuts that could become infected are closed up, ok?”
After a few moments of thought, Hazal reluctantly freed her arms from herself and rolled up the torn sleeves to give Sage access, pointedly not even glancing in the healer’s direction the whole time.
While there were quite a few marks and cuts from the raid, they were far outnumbered by the amount of self-inflicted wounds the blackmailer’s arms were littered with. Clear marks of self harm below her wrists - some done with a knife, others with a razor. Sage cringed at the sight. Scratch marks that had clearly broken the skin and drawn blood on the backs of her forearms, some running the whole length. While most were clearly faded, there were some that were far too recent, just like her self-harm scars. There were more recent scratch marks though - Sage supposed they might be from during the raid. Sage wasn’t able to contain herself as she had liked, and stifled a gasp on seeing the sight, before gingerly running her fingers across one of the older scratch marks. Hazal jerked her arm away, folding in on herself and slightly turned away from the healer.
Hazal knew what she was thinking. Ugly. Disgusting. A freak. A freak who took pleasure in harming herself, giving herself pain. A monster who took that same physical and mental pain out on others. She knew what her Nightmare did to her, what she did to herself, and she still inflicted it on her enemies. On Sage . The woman kneeling beside her, healing her. Hazal couldn’t bear to look at her. She had given into her gentle nature, cautiously allowed her healing, not understanding why Sage would want to, why she trusted her even slightly when uncuffing her. But the curtain had dropped now. This was when Sage would realise the blackmailer, the monster who tormented her, was beyond redemption. A freak who didn’t deserve healing. It would be a waste. A waste to use it on someone so pathetic, yet so dangerous. The one person who Hazal maybe could have even befriended, the one who seemed insistent on being kind to her in particular. The one person for whom she’d let her mask slip for god knows whatever reason, and now it would all come crashing down. Right as she met somebody who seemed to even regard her as human. Sage wo-
“Hazal!”
The tormented woman was ripped out of her thoughts by-
By Sage.
Why was she still there? Why was she holding onto the blackmailer, concern in her eyes and panic in her voice?
Hazal still couldn’t bear to look at Sage head on, instead slowly looking down at her arm, which Sage was holding away from her other arm, finding herself whispering panicked, quick and broken apologies to the healer as she slowly realised what was happening.
“Hazal, please, look at me.” Sage whispered, desperation mounting in her voice. “Please, Hazal, I need you to look at me.”
From Sage’s perspective, the Turkish woman was clearly having some kind of a panic attack - her breathing was heavy and laboured, on the verge of hyperventilating, she was barely responding to anything Sage said or did, had cold sweat on her brow, and she was shaking almost violently. But Hazal also had signs of her radiance seeping off her, smoky black and red encircling her as Hazal had tried to violently scratch at her forearms - she had succeeded once, the black nightmare tendrils smoking from her fingertips as she did so, before Sage could intervene, stopping the movement entirely.
Hazal finally fully came to after a few more of Sage’s pleas, the desperation and concern in her voice getting through to the dream seer. The fact that Sage had just seen her try to fight an attack of her Nightmare off herself was almost enough to give her a second panic attack, were it not for Sage’s oddly comforting presence. Did she not hate her? Could she not see what her radiance had just done? What she had tried to do to herself to fight off the Nightmare?
Sage cupped the blackmailer’s cheek, urging the woman to finally face her. The tears threatening Hazal’s eyes were apparent, and before Hazal could say anything, or shrug Sage off (which she found so difficult to do for some reason), she began speaking in that soft, comforting tone of hers.
“Hazal, I know I don’t have your abilities, your power to read fears, but I know what you’re scared of right now. And trust me, I do not hate you for this. I do not think any less of you. Please, Hazal, my goal here is only to help and heal you. What kind of a healer would I be if I hated my patients for the provenance of their wounds?” Sage forced a gentle smile, trying to reassure the distressed woman.
After a short while of waiting, and Hazal attempting to direct her gaze anywhere but Sage, she finally spoke. “I’m a freak, Sage. I- sometimes, it feels like I’m not even human. I take a sick pleasure in-” Hazal lowered her already muffled voice, “in hurting myself. That’s not enough, so I hurt others. I hurt you . It isn’t enough to suffer the torment Nightmare puts me through alone, so I inflict it on other people. Innocent people. Because I’m a monster. A freak like me doesn’t deserve your healing.”
“Is that the Nightmare speaking, or you? It seems to be your Nightmare that takes the pleasure in your suffering. You hurt yourself to distract yourself from how much it torments you, and scratch and break your skin to try to keep it at bay, do you not?”
Hazal’s eyes suddenly met Sage’s, widening before quickly looking away, a solemn look in her distant eyes. How could this woman read her so easily? How could she understand her better than anyone, sifting out the hidden, tangled truth behind her self-hatred? “I-it hurts Nightmare more than me. It's the only way I can silence it when it torments me. The only way I can stop myself from losing control.” Hazal croaked, silent tears now flowing down her cheeks. When did those tears start falling without her noticing? Had Hazal scratched at herself to try to get Nightmare to leave her the fuck alone in front of Sage without the dream seer noticing? Her mind was so dogged with questions that she could barely think or speak.
“It’s my punishment.” Hazal finally breathed out, voice more broken with every word. “It’s the price I have to pay to commune with Nightmare, one way or the other. A price it seems to want to wrangle out of me too fucking often. I-” Hazal, averted her gaze, not wanting to fully move her head, so as not to remove Sage’s comforting hand from her cheek, swiping away tears from her thumbs. She was saying far too much. Why, why was she opening up so much? It was as if Sage had split her mind open and seen the surface, laying it out bare, and letting Hazal show her what lay deeper. Why could she understand her so well? It made Hazal’s head spin. She should be unimaginably distressed right now in Sage’s presence, with her knowing so much, yet she couldn’t help but feel comforted.
Once Hazal’s tears had stopped falling and the only noise left in the room was her pathetically sniffling, Sage removed the comforting point of contact from Hazal’s cheek. It would have stung the extremely vulnerable Hazal were it not for Sage’s hands immediately going to the blackmailer’s, taking them in hers. Hazal finally looked back at Sage, into her expectant, deep brown eyes, asking a silent question. Hazal cracked and gave into her gaze, averting her own as she did so. Did her eyes alone have to be so convincing, drawing the younger woman in so easily? “You can heal everything,” she began, fidgeting with her hands in Sage’s, and more quietly continued “but not- not the self-harm, a- and the scratching. Please? I- I don’t expect you to understand, but please, if you can-”
As Hazal stifled a tearless sob, interrupting what she was saying, Sage dropped one of her hands from Hazal’s, using it to gingerly run her fingers along her left arm. Hazal slowly blinked at the gesture as she looked up and saw Sage smiling at her reassuringly, her comforting gaze fixed on her as always. “Of course, Hazal, only the healing you want. Even if you think you don’t deserve it, you do. You deserve help and healing more than anyone I know. But I do understand, Hazal. If anything, I want to understand more.”
Sage’s soothing words would have made Hazal burst into tears right there had she not been all cried out. If she had more resolve, she might have argued, said she didn’t deserve anything, that she deserved the torment she subjected herself to. Instead, her composure gone, she mutely nodded, accepting the olive branch Sage seemed insistent on throwing her, looking down at her arms as the familiar green glow carefully healed the grizzly cuts she had sustained from battle - and nothing more - on one arm, then the other.
When the blackmailer quickly put her sleeves back as soon as the healing had finished, Sage couldn’t help but breathe a soft sigh of relief before standing up. Brimstone had called her unendingly stubborn and entirely walled up emotionally - they couldn’t seem to get anywhere, from the sounds of it. After her aggressive first meeting with the healer, her adamant refusal to be healed or even believe that Sage wasn’t there to outright torture her, she almost gave up hope. It really seemed like a miracle that Hazal had even let herself be healed, let alone having an entire emotional dam burst at the hands of the healer. Sage knew she sometimes just had that effect on people, what with her gentleness and social wherewithal, but there had to be something else going on with Hazal. Maybe Sage was just the straw that broke the camel’s back? She wanted to believe that, but she still had her doubts. Unbeknownst to Sage, Hazal was thinking along a similar line. No matter how close to the edge she was pushed, she had never let the mask slip. Never let her guard down, no matter what. But, even with the circumstances of her literally being captured, she broke down like that in an interrogation room of all places? Mentally cursing herself for doing so, Hazal also blocked out all thoughts of it being anything to do with Sage herself. Maybe her radiance made people emotionally vulnerable? That’s what Hazal chose to believe anyway, forcefully shoving any thoughts about Sage to the back of her mind.
Hazal spared a quick glance to the healer after a few moments of thought after Sage had stood. Sage was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t even notice until she heard the familiar, muted voice.
“Stop staring at me like that…” she trailed off, mumbling and barely audible as she looked away as quickly as she looked toward her. Why did Sage’s gaze make her squirm in her seat and feel vulnerable like that? Her dumbass smile, equally gentle, was just as infuriating to Hazal as it was endearing to her in a way she would never admit.
Sage would have continued to just stare at the woman in front of her, now with her arms crossed, looking like she wanted to fold in on herself. Her thoughts about wishing she could be more help to the woman who oh so clearly needed it and her own tangled mess of emotions were, however, interrupted by a quick knuckle rap on the metal door and it opening swiftly after, causing both mildly shocked women to turn towards the intruder.
Cypher quickly closed the door, paperwork in hand, gave a curt nod to Sage and simply sat down opposite the still-surprised Hazal, having been roughly shaken out of her own thoughts. Her time with Sage had made her even forget the outside world existed, if she was honest.
Cypher turned to Sage, and after a moment of silence, Sage went to speak, yet Cypher was simply doing “his thing” where he would treat every conversation as if it were a game, or bartering for information. While it infuriated Sage at times, she had to admit that Cypher was a personality she thoroughly enjoyed - she was almost glad that Cypher seemed to be as much of himself in an interrogation room. Wait - maybe she was the one being interrogated here?
“Sage, are you quite done with our little nightmare here? You have spent far more time than I expected.”
“Ah, Hazal was simply…” Sage spared a glance at the now pouty woman in the interrogation chair, who had quickly turned to her and turned away. While Sage was enraptured in how adorable she looked like that, even as a dishevelled captive in a dingy interrogation room, she understood the message. She was also glad that Hazal seemed to be somehow playful, instead of crossing her arms and shooting daggers at Sage as she might have expected.
“She just took a longer time to be healed, that’s all.” Sage sent Cypher a soft, but stern smile, sending yet another wordless message across the room.
“Perhaps it was removing the handcuffs that took the most time?” Cypher mused, rolling a pen in between his fingers as he would a trapwire.
“You know that both you and Brimstone agreed to that, correct? I can’t very well heal a woman who is actively being harmed by her bindings. In fact, you had less reservations than Brimstone about the idea.”
“I simply thought that you might not get that far. I must say, this is excellent news for what I have brought here today, in fact.”
Sage quirked an eyebrow as Cypher rotated the papers he had on the desk, pushing them to Hazal’s side of the table, and gestured to both them and the woman in front of him, who had turned toward the sudden noise.
“While I know you have been quite… uncooperative, especially in our previous session, I do not doubt that you now know we are not those who currently are holding your, ah, person of interest in custody,” Cypher began, his tone leisurely, “and also know that we are some of the only people in this world with the means to help you find your missing man. And seeing as your cuffs are already off, I take it that you have taken a liking to our dear healer?”
Both women blushed and turned away at that statement. For Sage, why was such a statement making her blush? For Hazal, she simply chalked it up to embarrassment at the phrasing, still desperately trying to pick up the pieces of her invisible, and once intangible mask that Sage had so easily broken and scattered over the floor. Pushing all your emotions to the very back of your mind was very healthy behaviour to the very mentally unstable woman.
Cypher smirked under his mask at the reactions, and taking out his pen once again, continued his monologue.
“Given your, ahem, scarily impressive abilities, our capacity to greatly aid in your search, and our willingness to grant you a clean slate on the record with us and a fresh start in the life you lead, I believe we have all the ingredients necessary for a very mutually beneficial relationship.”
The blackmailer’s eyes, unable to take them off the papers, widened as she realised what Cypher was asking, as did Sage’s.
The enigmatic spy clicked his pen and offered it to Hazal, looking directly at her. “Won’t you join the Protocol, Miss Eylemetz?”
Before she could get taken aback by shock, the blackmailer simply did what she did best and began deflecting and self-deprecating, albeit with an annoyingly still shaky and hurt voice. Was there some sort of refractory period after having an emotional breakdown? “You’d want me living and fighting alongside the same people I’ve blackmailed? Threatened? Tortured with nightmares? Why would you do that to your friends and coworkers? Why would you force them to breathe the same air as the ‘little nightmare’?
“Ah, but this is the perfect chance to make amends, no?”
“Bullshit. They won’t accept me. Have you even asked them? Any of them?”
“While reception to having you on the team is… mixed, none can deny the power of your abilities, and most importantly, your value as an ally.”
Hazal scoffed and leaned back in her chair, probably torturing herself with the nightmares of the people she’d blackmailed, Sage thought. Another thing she can’t heal. Sage couldn’t help but hold it against herself, mentally sighing at her inability to heal the blackmailer, so desperately hurting with injuries far beyond her scope of healing. The healer chewed the inside of her cheek, trying to think of something to convince or reassure the tormented woman without outright lying, She knew the general consensus about Hazal - while mostly the extreme attitudes of a few, even Sage herself only reluctantly vouched for her - oh great, another thing for her to hold against herself. It’s not like Sage now would hold that same distrust, seeing what she’s seen from the blackmailer; she still had to beat herself up over it, though.
“I trust you, Hazal.” The words escaped her mouth before she could ever realise it, betraying Sage as she was still as lost in her own thoughts as the other two in the room were. With both captor and captee looking at her now, a look of mild surprise on the former, and a look of shock on the latter, blush threatening to creep up her cheeks yet again, Sage collected herself, cleared her throat, and continued. “You have me, Brimstone, Omen, Viper and Cypher actively vouching for you. Almost all the senior members of the Protocol. You’re not a monster, or a threat to us - such is clear to anyone who knows why you did what you did. They know full well that they would have done what you did in a heartbeat if it meant protecting their loved ones. I promise that their opinions of you will not last forever.” Sage was impressed with how smoothly that came out, considering she was snowballing, not expecting to have to speak so soon. Her and her big mouth. Maybe it was Hazal’s nightmare powers or something that made her do that. Definitely.
Cypher continued on, clearly seeing how Sage hadn’t actually meant to speak there. “Brimstone wants to trust you - he and I equally suggested asking you to join - and after such a short encounter with our healer and second-in-command, I now have no doubts about trusting you too if you have earned her trust so quickly. The sour opinions of the others are irrelevant - I am sure they will see eye to eye with you in time.” Now with a jovial tone in his voice, Cypher invisibly smiled and again gestured to the paperwork. “Any objections, dream seer?”
While she was deep in thought, Cypher didn’t have to be a mind reader to tell that the blackmailer had made her decision rather quickly. She picked up the pen, trying her best to not shake while doing so, and sighed. One last glance at Sage stolen (is it ‘stealing a glance’ if both people in the room notice?), and her pen met the paper.
Sage tuned out Cypher’s congratulations and words of approval, her focus solely on Hazal as she was being talked to. As much as Sage knew that Hazal likely would have caved to Cypher and joined without her, Sage couldn’t help but smile at the idea that she herself was the dealbreaker.
As Cypher stood up and motioned for Hazal, now codenamed ‘Fade’, to do the same. Sage quickly stepped over to help her up, knowing she’d have trouble. While Fade didn’t accept her help until she found that it was difficult on her own, having been stuck sitting for over 24 hours, it was comforting that she both wordlessly and fully accepted the Sage’s help. Giving one last soft smile to the woman absolutely determined to hide her embarrassment by looking everywhere but Sage, she watched as Fade followed behind Cypher out of the room, catching one last ashamed glance behind with those big blue and orange eyes before they both disappeared from Sage’s view entirely.
Sage felt a pang in her chest watching Hazal leave. She felt the overwhelming urge to go after her, to help her settle in and show her around, to attempt to get closer to her and try to give her the help she so clearly needed, but she ultimately knew that was Cypher’s job. She would have to try once Fade was actually settled into the Protocol. Sage just hoped that the thick walls the taller woman would most assuredly put up after her induction could be broken down again.
Suddenly yawning, Sage realised just how lost in thought she was, how obsessed she seemed to be with “the new girl” and simply sighed.
“Oh Hazal…”