Work Text:
It was cold in October. Billy hadn't been able to pay for the heat since two months ago; as such, the cold only ever got colder.
Many nights Billy preferred to be anywhere else but home. Wherever he could find a spot to sleep with his jacket pulled up to his eyes, he stole it. There were not many places that he could do so without being kicked out immediately, however. He'd take to the streets, but he remembered how often the air outside misled him into believing it was warmer than it really was, and the pesky colds that ran deeper than his bones. Long ago he'd sworn off sleeping outside, even if he was truly desperate to escape his cage.
Something was better than nothing. He wondered how many times he had heard that throughout his life. His mother surely wouldn't have minded saying it again, if she saw him now, clutching at his arms as if they would provide the equivalent warmth of a wool blanket.
There was a different kind of cold that he felt, too, and one that he felt much less privy to seek out comfort for. There was no name to it, and he couldn't feel it. But it stuck between his chattering teeth, and pricked the skin on the back of his neck, and it wanted to get in.
The cold—the actual, physical cold—staved it off. For now. But Billy knew how urgent it could become, when his anger finally let him chase the release of dreams, when there was nowhere left to hide.
He shivered. The goddamn mattress was too small. His feet hung off of it, his socks barely keeping the remainder of his body warmth from seeping out through his toes. God, New York was miserable.
No, he couldn't say that. He loved the city. He loved to belong to a place, even if that place hated him. And…he did belong. To something.
There it was again. He was already curled up, but then it started to hurt, right there in his chest, right next to everything else he was angry about, and he could only curl up tighter, his knees practically touching his forehead. Why couldn't he just go to fucking sleep?
He thought he might just get up and go for a damn walk when—
Rap a tat tat.
His eyelids snapped open at the sound of something sharp tapping against his door. Pure instinct softened into something evasive as he shut his eyelids again, willing the sound away.
“Not tonight,” he mumbled, but the cold made his teeth chatter so hard that none of the syllables really sounded like a real word. The sound of his voice did not carry through even the thin, splintering wood of his walls.
There was no additional knock. She never needed to knock twice.
After a short moment, perhaps while she waited for a more verbal rejection, the woman opened the door. The creaking sound of his loose doorknob made his inner ear twitch, and he waited for the sound that came immediately after like clockwork.
Claws scraping against warped hardwood. Click. Click. Click. Slower than normal. Was she drunk? Then, a smoother sound. Her tail, heavy behind her as she walked into his living room. They had never slept in his actual bedroom; if he thought about it, Billy had never slept in there at all. He had no reason to, as the living room worked just fine, and had a clear line of sight with the door.
After hearing her stop, his heartbeat thumped in his throat. Like clockwork.
“Hey,” she greeted, and she didn't sound drunk. This revelation disappointed Billy. When Vyper was drunk, she didn't ask questions. His eyes did not open. “Ain't you cold?”
“‘S nothin’.”
“That so? Then why’re ya all curled up like a roly-poly?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Harsher than intended came the reply, but he knew nothing he said would ever scare her away. One day she would, he knew. He'd say something horrendous, and she'd slap him and curse him and tell him he was born to die alone, and that'd be the end. Finally.
A sharp, rattling hiss of air came from above him. If he decided to look up now, he'd see her amber eyes boring into him, likely filled with judgment. It wasn't a pleasant image.
“Come on, Billy. Scoot.”
“The mattress is too small.”
“We'll fit.”
“Like hell we will. Last time I woke up on the floor and you were spread out up here like a goddamn pig.”
“Swear I won't this time. I'll sleep like a baby. Please? I'm about to turn into stone, here.”
“I thought you were supposed to turn other people into stone.”
“Shit, baby, I'm trying. Only so much a perfect reptilian specimen like myself is capable of getting done in one day.”
Within seconds, his chest had felt lighter. Vyper was, frustratingly, the only person he had ever felt willing to let in like this. Into his home, into his space. As disgusting as that was to admit, she was the only person he knew wouldn't dirty it. Well, at least only in the metaphorical sense.
The warmth from her breath fanning down on him retreated, then reappeared again at his back. When Billy didn't tell her to piss off, she moved closer, her claws sinking into the terribly thin mattress and making Billy’s back slide down with it. He steeled himself for the moment her scales sent glacial waves crashing down his poorly insulated spine.
“Just—” Billy hissed before she could touch him, “I don't wanna tonight. ‘Kay?”
Vyper paused. For a long, painful moment, he was ready to accept that she would get up and leave. But then she exhaled, her smoke-laden breath wafting over his nostrils.
“Yeah, okay. Ain't a problem for ol’ V.”
When she settled in, the cold didn't hurt. No, it was quite the opposite. Her underbelly was smooth against his back, and even through his tee, he could feel her heart beating slowly, almost frighteningly so. Thump. Billy counted to sixty. Finally, another thump.
“Vyper,” he whispered.
“Yeah, Billy?” She responded with his name. She would, because they weren't having sex.
“You can…y’know.” Billy snorted softly, then reached behind him in a manner he wanted to think was perfectly nonchalant and casual. Good thing Vyper wasn't the type to keep a score, otherwise he'd have succumbed to the frigid distance between them already.
“Hm,” she mumbled, her arm lazily slinking over his waist. She rubbed the dip, right over the ridge of his pelvis, before moving under his shirt.
“Um,” he started. How to start? Where to start? She must've known, because she slithered closer. Her breast pressed solidly—warmly—against Billy’s back, now, and her shoulder melted into his.
“Like that?” Her voice wasn't as grating when she wasn't prattling about pruno or Lash or stealing some guy’s kidneys. Almost sensual, if Billy imagined it wasn't coming from her.
“Mm.”
“Billy…”
Would he have expected anything else from her tonight? Maybe he should have let her get her rocks off, maybe it would have kept her silent. She wasn't one to pry, usually, but Billy had been extra salty the past few days, and he hadn't been doing a good job at covering it up with an appropriate ratio of reluctant indulgence in her hobbies. The reason for why, he was sure she'd be able to easily wrangle out of him. She always did, and on some level, he believed she might have already known why he sought out her warmth.
“What.”
“You're being weird. I mean, weirder than normal, and I like—nah, love it when you're weird, but this is just…like, yeah.”
“It's just fuckin’ cold, Vyper, Jesus. And I’m fuckin’ tired.”
“Yeah, babe. I…I did get that, yeah. Hm, how do I put this…it's like you're talkin’ right, sayin’ stuff ya usually say, but…” her claw came up to tap over his chest, “you’re not feelin’ it.”
Billy couldn't possibly curl in any further. But god, it hurt. “Oh, come off it.”
“Nah, I don't think so. Listen, if y’want, I'll shut my mouth and we can go to sleep. I won't say another word, gorgon’s honor. But, uh…if you wanna tell me somethin’. Anythin’.” The claw that rested over his heart moved further around his torso, encircling him, holding him close to her. He was afraid to confess how nice it felt to be held tightly, like he was something to protect.
“It's…stupid,” he muttered. Just saying that alone was enough to make him cringe, the words similar to ones he had spoken as a teenager.
“Nothing more stupid than gettin’ arrested three times on the same block for the same charge. Come on, lay it on me.”
Shame kept his mouth from opening just as much as the cold did. Suddenly, Vyper’s warmth, as subtle and as encompassing as it was, felt like nothing but a prick of a lighter flame against his pinky finger as that overpowering self-disgust came back like a wildfire. He chuffed, coughing lightly as his chest squeezed. He knew right then and there that the words would truly never come out, and he wasn't sure if he'd ever want someone to know this side of him.
“Billy, babe, you're freakin’ me out.” Only now could he feel her claw rubbing circles into his chest, trying to jumpstart it the only way she knew how. God, the care coming from her of all people was the worst part. She should've sold his organs on the dark web back when they first met.
“J-just…gimme a sec.”
Her paw stilled per his request, but he could feel the weight of her gaze on the back of his neck as he forced himself to breathe with some effort. It wasn't deep, nor did it fill his lungs to a satisfying capacity, but it stopped him from choking on his own spit, so it was enough.
When he spoke, his voice barely sounded familiar at all.
“Shit. It's like…when you smoke a cigarette wrong.”
Vyper chortled. “The hell? That's what's got ya so worked up? God, Billy, you're a riot.”
“No, man, I mean…the thing. In my chest.”
“Uh…your heart?”
“Yeah. It's, like…thumpin’ fast. All the damn time. It feels good, usually, like…like when you're all horny and you see someone smokin’ and they look at you—”
Vyper shivered against his back. “Shit, keep talkin’.”
“Hey, I'm tryin’ to be serious here.” He slapped her hand. She swiped her tongue across his ear, and despite himself, he groaned.
“Yeah, yeah, I'm listenin’.”
“But, it's like, suddenly you're too fuckin’...everything is too much. And it's all loud, and you're tryin’ not to hurl but that person is lookin’ at you like you're fuckin’ poisoned or somethin’. And…and it hurts. And you feel like…I dunno. Like you're fake, and they're real.”
Crushing silence louder than his own breathing was all he could hear.
Panic filled his throat. “Vyper, come on. Say something.”
“...I'd ask if you're high right about now, but I know Louie’s outta town for the week, so there's no way you're gettin’ that shit somewhere else.”
“Jesus f—y’know what, forget I fuckin’ said anything. Goodnight, V.”
Before he could wrench her hand off of him, she was protesting loudly, which only made him regret his decisions more.
“Hey—! Hey, Billy, come on, man, I was kidding! I'm fuckin’ listening. Man, don't be a pussy. I'm only kidding, you know me.”
He was half tempted to just ignore her and go back to sleep. It would be easy to retreat into that familiar blankness of his own body, the one he returned to every night even when someone else was there. Vyper made no difference. Even with her relentless effort to give him something to care about, he always seemed to forget just how terrible she was, in every aspect. Maybe that was why it felt so awful talking to her like this, because that made him just as terrible as she was.
There was no retreating from here, though. Even if he shut his mouth, forced his eyes shut and entered some purgatory in which he pretended he could forget about it, there'd still be that ache. The stubborn, angry ache that never slept.
So he continued. Throwing himself over the cliff, into the jaw of the giant.
“I don't feel…like my head is on right.” Billy gritted. Vyper was silent now, her pleas sucked out of her mouth. There was nothing she could say to that. He went on.
“It's not my head. But it’s his. Billy's. William’s. Whoever, shit. And…t-that person…in the mirror, the one…the one that fuckin’...stares at you…”
His jaw stuttered. God, he really wouldn't be able to say it, after all.
“...It's a she, huh?”
Billy couldn't hear it. He'd heard it already. The eyes from before showed up when he closed his own. Woman, man. Then—animal.
“...And it’s him. And something else. And she. And fuckin’ none of it at all. And then, in a second, it's fuckin’ gone. Like…like a car crash.”
Vyper was still, but her hands remained on his body all the same. Holding him.
“Yeah. Yeah, babe.”
“You think I'm fuckin’ psycho.”
“No, I don't.” He was shivering, but she was still holding him. “I think you're just fine.”
The cold seeped into his face and eyes, tussling his fur and eyelashes. The breeze passed right over Vyper’s scales, their warmth a gentle bubble against the storm that had been chasing Billy for what felt like years. It was still cold, but maybe not for much longer.
“I don't get it,” he sighed. “I can't…understand it.”
“I think it's one of those things you just hafta let happen,” Vyper said, strangely introspective. “Like…oh, when my skin gets all scratchy whenever my scales molt off. Oh, man, that shit burns like a bad rash. But, eh, it's gotta happen. Y’know?”
Billy thought he knew. Maybe, though, he'd been fighting too hard. In his struggle with the world, he'd been losing himself in the process. Back at the beginning, he thought that was a good thing. A dedication to the cause would put his strong hands to good use and keep him out of the stupid kind of trouble he'd been too eager to get into. Along the way, he'd fallen further into that justification he'd sold himself, and it was no longer possible to return to that peace until everyone else could say they'd had it, too.
It was taking too long. His anger had festered and manifested physically and taken root within his vertebrae. Billy didn't know if he was allowed this grace to understand himself anymore. The identity he used to have that meant something was just as buried as his old face, now.
Maybe Billy was none of that. And the thought of that, soul-crushing as it was, came along with the next gust of wind that had him pressing his snout into the crook of Vyper’s neck, their bodies having faced each other at some point.
“How are you doing that,” Billy wondered aloud as he embraced Vyper. It wasn't comforting or anything, and he was still shaking, but the rumble of her voice against his sternum muted that ache for a moment.
“Doin’ what?”
“Not bein’ a disgusting asshole.”
“My services stop after midnight.”
Her claw ran down his back, tripping over every knob in his spinal column. Billy snorted.
“Jesus. I can't believe I told you all that.”
“It's not surprising, honestly. I always knew you had some baggage. All the hotties do.”
Billy pulled back to look at Vyper’s face for the first time since she came in. Her striking orange eyes turned towards him, her lips moving into a knowing smile. Anyone else would've been reeling; Billy knew this was Vyper in her most humane moment.
“You're gonna be alright, baby.” Vyper’s claw moved up to the back of his neck and pressed his forehead into hers. “No matter what you are, woman, man, nothing at all. You’re fuckin' hardcore, is what you are.”
If it had ever been cold outside, Billy couldn't remember what it felt like, what with the flames that were bursting from his cheeks.
“Shut the fuck up. That's gross.”
“Aw, come on! I was going for a dollar store greeting card. Did it work?”
“Nah, it was just stupid.”
“You love it, though. Wait, so do you want me to, like, call ya somethin’ else now? What about Bertha? Oh, I knew a Bertha, she was a real smokeshow. Not too good in the kissing department, though, man. Had lips like a fish. Just sucked and sucked—”
“Enough. Stop it. And like fuck I'm being called Bertha.”
Billy paused and turned his eyes down. What would it be like, to be called something else, to be someone else? He wanted to be someone who knew who they were, who could fight for others and still feel proud of themselves. Was there a name for someone like that?
It didn't feel right. Not yet. Billy hadn't found his name yet. He had one, but it was the jacket he wore, and the nails in his horns, and the black magic sigils he still couldn't figure out. A name that didn’t belong to him, but was given to him. He just had to earn it back and make it mean something.
“I dunno. But…I don't hate this.”
Vyper’s eyes widened so large he thought he accidentally offered his hand in marriage. By the time he realized he hadn't said that, she was already flipped on again. Her tail thumped against the mattress hard again and again as she exploded with energy.
“Oh, god, babe. Wait. This is perfect, actually, ‘cuz it's super cold and honestly I love cuddlin’ but nobody ever wants to do it because they keep sayin’ I stink, but it's awesome with you because you stink too, so I'm really fuckin’ glad we're on the same page here.”
Quite honestly, Billy wasn't sure if he'd made the right decision at all. Both in speaking to Vyper about something so inherently unspeakable, and in letting her stay and hold him to her. Billy could try to pretend that doing any of this took him even that much closer to understanding what it was about him that didn't line up right, but he wouldn't, and he didn't want to. Figuring it out was the very least of his priorities. He had all the time in the world to figure himself out, just like Vyper did. In some other world, maybe he had a second skin, too, and it was shedding now, falling right off the tip of his horns.
When he fell asleep, he didn't feel cold. The other person in the mirror waited, for now, holding that small broken piece that contained so many reflections of himself, each one happier than the last. Endless possibilities, and they were all there for him. If they could be patient, then so could he.