20.1 Fic: Cypher Reflection 1

The second he could, Cypher slipped away from the party, wandered the ship with pretended purpose until he found a quiet corner, put his back on the wall, and slid down it.   The world was spinning. His thoughts were a swarm of flies. His ears rang.   Christ, just breathe. Breathing’s easy. In and out.   Inhale. Cool air, lungs filling, chest rising, smell of dust and wood.   Exhale. Warm, ribs collapsing, the faint tickle of air on his lip.   Inhale. A brush of feather-light fingers on the back of his hand. His eyes flew open, muscles tensed to stand.   No one there.   Fucking hell. Again. In. Out. Dead simple.   Inhale. Cool, expanding.   Exhale. Warm, compression.   I guess I can write about places. We go cool places. Is it lying if I sanitize what happened there?   ‘Dear dad, killed a man on a mountainside today. Fucker would’ve knifed Cri if I didn’t. Does that make it okay?’   .... damnit. You’re not composing letters right now, you’re breathing. Breathing. In and out, in and out.   Inhale.   Exhale.   Watching should be simpler here; should still keep an eye on any crew that come by, but the ship’s lookout can handle beast-spotting.   Fuck. How hard is it to just breathe? Focus, focus, thinking later, breathing now.   Inhale.   Exhale.   I don’t have time for this. I need to work or I’m going to run out of time.   I can’t work with a head full of bees.   In. Out. C’mon.   Inhale.   Exhale.   Finally. Few more. C’mon.   Inhale.   Exhale.   Relax, damnit.   Inhale. Tension in the shoulders, jaw, neck, brow.   Exhale. Letting go, sinking, heavy limbs.   Inhale. Fingers, stomach, shoulders again.   Exhale. Slack, loose, leaden.   Inhale.   This wall is going to flatten the back of my head.   He breathed out as he pushed off the floor to stand. Checked his pulse. Normal – probably. It wasn’t jumping out of his neck anymore, so that was something.   He looked up and down the hall he was in. It was narrow, more of a stairway. He was sitting on a brief landing between the stairs up to the deck where sunlight streaked though the space below, illuminating a knife-slice of dust in the air, and the steeper descent into the bowels of the hold.   I guess it makes sense this would be open. What am I going to do, jump overboard with the cargo?   He wandered down the stairs, balancing with a hand on the wall. The turbulance was minimal; a soft swaying that made his fingers itch for the leatherbound bumps of a bookshelf. Or maybe the brush of warm hands in a music hall.   It still didn’t feel real, even days ad-hoc.   She was lighter than air, brighter than a star, spinning and swaying like a sylph, like a stormwind, diverted by a hand. He barely heard the music. He still felt electricity in his hands, his chest, still felt the air rushing in like a thunderclap when she moved away.   Still held the frozen frame of her starry face flushed like a sunrise, smiling. Scarlet with memory.   Do we remember that night the same?   He still didn’t have a good answer for why her implication that he couldn’t even sweet-talk his way into the arms of a loose shirt had so objectively demanded rebuttal.   Maybe it was the flat, sourceless nature of a simple “yes I could.” Maybe it was the indignation of being compared with mister “Hey cutie, come here often?” McGee.   Maybe he just missed flirting. Dancing. Seeing an outside chance of forever in the glitter of a stranger’s eye.   Maybe it was that, while he’d seen Mirage blush before, seen her giggle, seen her smile, but he’d never seen her come unravelled from being seen, really seen, skipping the scripts, straight to truth, coração a coração.   Simple pride, he’d thought. A chance to deliver on all his silent ‘I could do better’s.   Still could.   He’d told her she set him free, having no idea how right he’d be. Shackles of certainty lay shattered in the wake of her unflinching, inscrutable trust. Sure, Ta’lok let him stick around, part of the team, with all the expectations that entailed. Saeldor and Cri had only deepened their worry lines. But it started with her. She’d made that space to speak without reprisal. She’d vouched for him. He was still in wonderment as to why.   Did she just feel bad for assuming he had a part in her imprisonment? Was it guilt for the cold point of her knife on his throat? Penance for the blood where it broke skin?   He considered it. It sure felt like it made more sense than the alternative. He’d seen the way her eyes fell on a topic that should have made them shine with pride. The rainclouds he summoned with his big mouth.   But we already talked about that. I told her its fine.   Then again, I’ve told her a lot of things are “fine,” haven’t I?   Did he need to bring it up again? It felt cruel. Would she even let him? Would finding a moment to tell her directly that he didn’t blame her, that he’d done it to himself as much as if it had been his own hand on the haft, do anything to convince her? Did any oath he could swear that it wasn’t bothersome hold any more weight than “it’s fine”?   Siobhan wasn’t buying that one anymore, either. He couldn’t decide if he’d really just lost all ability to sell a lie, or if he was cursed to only befriend women who could see straight through him.   He couldn’t be resentful, though. Siobhan could give him as much shit as she liked. She’d given him his name back.   He’d not expected it to hit him like that. It brought a tide of ownership and pride and shame for having lost it. It filled his head with sound like pounding waves. It echoed, reverberated, repeated in the cheerful, plaintive, elated, chastising, frustrated, whispering, teasing, pleading, incensed, laughing voices of everyone who’d ever known it.   Almost everyone.   Her avoidance was conspicuous, balancing on a tightrope of care and expectations while he hung on her words like lifelines, staring like he could will her to say it. Straining his ears for the sound that never came.   To be fair, he’d never used her name, either. It never felt fair before, when she couldn’t answer in kind. If she wanted to. And now that things were different he didn’t know how to try. He wanted to hear how it sounded in his voice, as much as he wanted to hear his in the glittering cadence of hers. He wanted to know what it meant, if she had any others, what constellation they formed for her soul’s navigation.   His wandering steps took him to a ladder. It let him out near the mess hall. Empty, mostly. A good smell – earthy, spiced – was emanating from the kitchen.   Ta’lok had said something about a strategy meeting before lunch. He headed for the deck.