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Vyper is one of eight sisters. When she wasn't stabbing and stealing, she liked making papier-mâché replicas of the prisons she escaped. Her favorite drink is not just pruno but the Waupun pruno, “Waupruno” from Wisconsin, it reminded her of her first love. His handlebar moustache tickled her lips, and his hands were gentle. They drank wine and held hands watching a liquor store go up in flames.
These are the details that no one really knows about Vyper. Not because she didn't say, but because no one cared, at least not enough to remember. That was fine. Vyper didn't need people to care, she just needed to have fun and be free.
Prison wine, watching Lash kick ass in the Bear Pit, convincing everyone from that punk Billy to the fancy oil baron heir that she was a great time in bed, and of course a good score that netted her money and hooch to do it all over again tomorrow. Simple pleasures. Simple woman. That's who Vyper was. She was called moronic, repugnant, disgusting, off-putting, and creepy. All of that was water sliding off her shoulders, words that didn't matter from faces that were too blurry or temporary to care about.
So why did it annoy her that this goody two-shoes Gargoyle was crying? The ArchMother gig failed, Hidden King’s little weirdos were out in full force now. The city was on fire, the people were either dead or being transformed into the antler having, pus filled monsters the Hidden King called his “sons”.
Vyper couldn't tell you what happened in the past hour or two. How she got here,a dusty old building, bleeding out on the floor like an easy mark.
A lot of stabbing, bolas, and venom. A lot of sliding around the city so fast that the faces and voices became nothing more than smudges and hums in the theatre of her brain. A flirt here, a joke there, Vyper thought this was just another day in New York City.
But here she was with this lame Gargoyle who probably doesn't even know what a cocktail is. She’s crying? Why is she crying?
Ivy’s first memory was of Sophie, and of helping others. A little girl being targeted because she was the daughter of a powerful man, Sophie was about to be abducted when Ivy’s stone body landed on the spine of a man wearing a balaclava.
Ivy, nameless then, was covered in kudzu and perpetually worried. She held Sophie softly. As if this little girl, who didn't even flinch at the man, was made of glass. “Are you okay?” She asked Sophie. Her first words.
The Arroyos took Ivy in, named her after her invasive vines kept latching onto them. They fed her, clothed her, and for two decades and some change, Ivy became someone, the Savior of Spanish Harlem, Daughter of the Arroyos, the Gardener of New York.
The piled on identities felt like a beaming light in the sky sometimes. It guided her. “This is who you are. You help. You save. You heal.” It made things easy even when the world insisted on life’s definition being “miserable and hardly worth the effort”.
So why couldn't she heal this criminal? Why wasn't her one purpose in this life working?
“Hey. You know you could have been out of here any time you wanted to? Go fly or something. V’s gonna be fine.” Vyper was slowly bleeding out, she didn't feel bad yet, she had enough near death experiences to know: she had plenty of time.
“Be quiet please. Let me focus. I said that I'm turning you in.” Ivy didn't even notice that she was crying, little tear tracks tracing through her scales.
“Oh great. I’m stuck with a gargoyle who's somehow a narc. You’d think after seeing so many priests steal, you'd be okay with a gal makin’ some mon- Ah!” A sharp sting, she moved wrong. Okay maybe she didn't have time. She's not a doctor, sue her.
“Don't move. Every time you say something, your wounds get worse.”
“Oh, what do you care? You're being so dramatic.”
“Because…. I care because I do.”
“Oh I get it. Heh. Hehehehe. You're more fun than you let on.” Vyper had that knowing smile on, the one that had her jumping to conclusions.
“You want ol’ V to owe the Arroyos a favor, right? Okay, I'll play ball. Always wanted to do some work for a politician.”
Ivy’s hands stopped working, though her flowery vines never stopped their endless march. “Señor Arroyo wouldn't have someone like you working for him. He's a good man.”
Vyper’s smile slowly died. “A good man. Yeah, I bet. Classists, all of you. You don't think he has skeletons in his closet? Everyone in this city does.”
Ivy went back to work but she found that her eyes kept going back to Vyper’s, even as Vyper looked somewhat annoyed.
“You talk to Billy too much. He's starting to rub off on you.”
Vyper scoffed and chuckled bitterly. “Billy’s one of the only people to talk to me without judging me.”
“I've heard him call you a moron.”
“Without judging me to my face.”
There was an awkward silence.
Vyper finally asked the question.
“Why are you crying?” No smile to hide behind, no witty little joke to deliver her intentions. She just said it outright.
“Because lemme tell ya, there’s no one that has cried over me. So why?”
Ivy didn't know how to answer that. Her hands were shaking now. When did that happen?
“I don't know. I… I can't help you. That's… It's….”
She trailed off, her hands and flowers doing nothing to help stitch the large hole in Vyper up.
“I need to fly you to the hospital.”
Vyper laughed, “Hahahaha. Hah. Hospitals. Uh, yeah. There ain't a hospital in the east coast that I'm not banned from.”
Ivy's face tightened. “I don't care. You're going.”
Vyper’s smile was still there but it didn't reach her eyes. “Yeah okay, Mom.”
Ivy wrapped her vines around Vyper, doing her best to keep Vyper’s wound closed but ever since the Hidden King won, her kudzu just wasn't working right. She burst out of the window and started to fly above the building tops, looking down at the ground, she saw the Hidden King’s sons burn buildings, assaulting spirits and people alike, she knew that she had to get home soon. She’d drop Vyper off at some hospital far from here and-
“I’m not saying thank you.”
Ivy’s thoughts derailed slightly, she didn't look down at Vyper. She just kept flying.
“What?”
“I’m not saying thank you. You ain't gonna hook a girl up with a job? She ain't gonna say thanks.”
“I don't care.”
“Goody two-shoes knows how to lie. Huh. Color me surprised.”
Another awkward silence. Ivy could almost see the hospital. They could help Vyper, she’d talk to the cops and turn Vyp-
“Hey, do you and Sophie ever do each other’s hair?”
Ivy finally looked down at Vyper.
“What? Uh. Yes. She’s the one who gave me this haircut. Why?”
Vyper shrugged, lounging in the vines as if she was in a first class flight despite the pain in her side.
“You read a couple stories about sisters and family and stuff and you get curious if any of that's real.”
“You don't have sisters, Vyper?”
“I got seven.”
“Oh.”
“Plus I don't have hair so…”
Vyper raised her hand to Ivy.
“But I do have killer french tipped nails. D’ya like ‘em?”
Ivy’s mind kept saying to her, drop this criminal off. Her mind screamed that she had To get back home to the Arroyos. But the part of her that cried, she was now realizing, was getting louder and louder. Vyper was vulgar, disgusting, and she’d steal from and stab anyone.
But she never had “real” moments with her family? That was sad. Without Sophie or the Arroyos, would Ivy have been like Vyper? Even worse, would she just have stayed stone?
She turned, going to Spanish Harlem now.
“Hey, woah woah woah. Where we goin’? The hospital was right there! I was planning on scorin’ some meds to move as product.”
Ivy was now on auto pilot, she could fly home with her eyes closed.
“You’re coming over for dinner. You're going to get patched up. After that, whatever happens happens.”
Vyper was silent now. Her eyes studying Ivy’s, waiting for the eventual “but”. It never came.
“I like papier-mâché.”
“What’s that?”
“Like… Arts and crafts. You get paper and you cut it up and you wet it. You can make sculptures.”
Ivy noticed that the raspy nonchalant tone Vyper usually spoke in was gone. She sounded like a completely different woman. She was almost home now. Maybe Vyper was trying to be home too.
“That's uh… That's cool, Vyper.”
“They're in my apartment. Replicas of all the prisons I've escaped. You can't hold V down, baby!”
For the first time since the ritual started, Ivy smiled.
For the first time since… Forever, Vyper actually wanted to memorize a face besides Lash’s.
Ivy landed them down on the roof, Vyper dusted herself off with one hand, holding the kudzu to her wound with the other.
“Thanks. Goody two-shoes.”
“I thought you weren't going to say thanks, Vyper.”
“I lied. Have you met me? I lie all the time.”
Another silence. Less awkward. More comfort. Comfortable enough to let a few seconds breathe.
“I can't do your hair but do you want to eat something and talk while I make sure you don't die?”
“Oh yeah, I can grab a bite. Anything’s better than prison food.”
Vyper had a real smile as she walked inside with Ivy. It didn't matter that she felt woozy with the blood loss. Vyper didn't need people to care. But, damn, it felt good to have someone care.
Ivy knew Vyper was no Sophie. She knew that she'd have to watch her like a hawk, making sure she wouldn't steal something. But somehow she also knew that Vyper wouldn't cause trouble in the home.
Slowly, cautiously, Ivy took Vyper's hand. Their fingers interlaced now, she looked into Vyper’s eyes.
“I’m still going to turn you in.”
“That's okay. I’ll break out anyways.”