Tala Valdez did not like to hear the words “today you stay” or “you should rest.” And the worst sentence was “today you are staying because you are supposed to rest.” It was as if she couldn't take care of herself.
And she could – it's not like she spent her whole life protecting the people around her so she wouldn't do them some harm. That she hid her abilities, telling everyone around her that she had a rare skin disease and it would be better if no one touched her.
She was coping. She was not a child, after all.
However, the fact that she was the youngest agent in the Valorant Protocol did not help her hold the title of young adult. Which she was, after all, since she had already turned twenty-one. Even Jett and Raze, who were both twenty-four, often reproached Neon for being younger. This irritated Tala. To the point where she would unconsciously let the volts jump around her body and finally shoot out at the nearest person. It didn't hurt; at least that's what people who experienced the discharges said. Even so, she apologized each time anyway.
Sometimes she would leave the organization and not return for a long, long time. She would take her communicator with her to be on hand at all times, but magically then no one wanted anything from her. She didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing – if it irritated her even more, or if she didn't give a damn.
Some in the Protocol laughed that if they couldn't find Neon in the building, she was definitely at the shooting range. And they weren't wrong – it was the only place Tala went to unload figuratively and literally.
Sometimes she didn't know if she liked her... skills. Whether what she was doing was right.
Another robot fell from a shot fired at it by Neon. Breaking them had long since ceased to satisfy the young agent in any way. She had the impression that she knew all their movements – which was quite impossible, since they moved without much formation. This bored Tala.
That's why when the system announced another victory for Tala over the robots, she put the weapons back in the arsenal and turned off the system. The imitation buildings hid in the walls and floor – the room became empty again.
She sighed. Most people were currently on a mission, or if not on a mission, somewhere where Neon was not needed.
A slight jolt went through her body, caused by the discharge of bioenergetics. They had intensified since her stabilizer was destroyed in the last action. Neon was used to the occasional pain it brought her, but she had to admit to herself that she had had enough. That she didn't want to feel it anymore. She missed... the warmth of the other person. Those surprise hugs she sometimes bestowed on her peers, or they on her. Now she had to be careful. “You better not, I don't want to hurt you,” she would say when Raze, Killjoy or Jett asked if they could embrace her. It was unpleasant. Bloody unpleasant.
She wanted to rush Klara to fix the stabilizer. She was afraid that the temporary one wouldn't last, and eventually she would have to return to the room where she was relieving tension. And this went on - she was bored there like a moppet, feeling more and more tired, until finally, weakening on her feet, she was able to go to her own room, because that was all she was good for at the time – to go to sleep. And she would sleep a long time; too long for a person who should spend most of her time on missions.
Sage categorically forbade Neon to leave the Protocol facility. Tala understood this; she herself did not want to harm innocent people. But the time was getting so damn long...
She walked back into the shooting range and, thinking very little, lay down in the middle. She didn't feel like going back to her bed. She didn't feel like going to the living room or the kitchen. She didn't feel like doing anything. She didn't feel good.
She had no idea how much had passed and how many times she had to wave her hand to get the light back on. She suspected a very long time. She wasn't surprised that no one had come for her – Omen, Viper, Cypher and Sova were on a mission, as were Sage, Reyna, Raze, Killjoy and Jett, with whom she got along best. There was also Skye and Astra, but they spent little time at the facility. The rest simply had no reason to find Tala.
Oh, and then there was Fade. She couldn't figure her out. She didn't understand the stares she got from the corner of the room, from the shadows she hid in whenever there were a lot of people in the room. It was as if she didn't want to be here, but was forced to be among people. Even Omen showed more enthusiasm in sitting with others. Maybe it was because he had been in the Protocol longer?
Or maybe because he wasn't the one blackmailing the entire facility?
Neon sighed, wanting to defuse her growing anger. Fade had been with them for more than six months, and even though she hadn't done something like this a second time, and had performed her duties almost perfectly, Tala still felt... distaste, toward her. She couldn't trust her. She had mixed feelings.
She threw an electric beam into space, which left two not very loud explosions in its wake. Neon looked at her hand – volts jumped between her twitching fingers. Sometimes she discharged bioelectricity this way; it took longer than “overdriving”, but it didn't force her to sit in her hated room.
And combined with running around the room, she was losing energy rather quickly.
While dodging her own bullets, Sage's voice sounded in Neon's head to be careful. Well, it wasn't shooting or anything risky. It was just her, Neon. Neon was not dangerous to herself... right?
The electric beam steered far too close to Tala and before she could bounce in the opposite direction, she hit the floor. Valdez's ears beeped, for a moment all the objects that had previously been single now had two copies each, and Neon herself fell to her knees, unable to keep her balance. She must have looked weird – paralyzed by her own ability, on all fours, afraid that if she even lifted her head, she would coo to the ground. She had the feeling that she had an eternity to wait before returning to normalcy – and that this normalcy will never come.
Eventually she was able to see and hear properly again. With difficulty, she rose to her feet, which she immediately brushed off and took a breath. She was trembling; she had no idea whether this was caused by shock or the final stage of the discharge. Whatever it was, she no longer felt like staying at the shooting range. She wanted to get back to her place already.
“Are you all right?”
Tala instinctively fired the beam.
Silence. Silence. Silence.
She could hear her own heart thudding in her chest.
She electrocuted a team member.
“Fuck” fell from between the blue-haired woman's lips. Cursing was not her style; she didn't do that.
Situations like this were the exception. The damned exception.
“Fade,” she wheezed as she ran up to an older woman leaning with her forearm against the door. “Fade, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
“No” she gasped, raising her hand “touch.”
Neon withdrew her hands quickly – electricity jumped on her fingers, just like a dozen minutes ago.
The initiator slid down the wall to the floor.
“I'm sorry,” Neon said immediately, kneeling by Fade. “I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to, I didn't... I didn't know you were there.”
“My ears are ringing, wait,” she gasped, pawing at her head: as if in this way she was trying to control the whirling in the hallway.
They sat down. Silence seemed to creep into Neon's head, wanting to make room for one annoying thought – she had hurt a team member. She. Neon. Tala. She had hurt an ally.
And now Fade was trying to pretend that nothing of the sort had happened.
“I thought we were square for my transgressions,” she said, slowly picking herself up from the floor. Perhaps she still didn't trust her own legs.
“Transgressions?”
“Yes, sorry, I don't know how to call it,” said Fade and leaned against the wall.
“You mean blackmailing the organization through our own minds?”
Her anger still hasn't passed her by. Fade realized it a tad too late.
“If I had known that you were not behind his kidnapping, you would never have seen me in your life,” muttered the dream seer and pushed herself away from the wall. “I'm sorry for interrupting ... what you were doing. And for everything else, I'm sorry, too.”
Neon watched as Fade slowly headed toward the main rooms, and sighed. How long has it been? Six months since the radiant was hired?
“Fade.”
The woman stopped in mid-step, but did not turn her silhouette toward Tala. She knew, however, that in some way, she was being watched. That the woman was listening to whether Valdez was making an attempt to approach.
She was considering this option.
“I didn't do it on purpose,” she said, playing with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I didn't want to hurt you.”
“I know,” Fade replied, turning her head to the side so Neon could see her profile. “But I deserved it anyway.”
This was one of the first longer conversations Neon had with Fade. She often returned to it – she recalled the tired expression on the elder's face, wondering if it was due to Neon's attack or if something had happened before.
Fade was... a mystery. She didn't participate in the occasional party they sometimes held after major victories – not an active one. She stood in a corner, hiding in the shadows with an unidentified drink in her hand, and watched what the others were doing. She was constantly watching. She was perpetually in defensive mode. Her body seemed to be making attempts to survive, not... live.
Neon didn't think there were any more people in the organization who said absolutely nothing about themselves. Even Viper, when her mind temporarily gave her a break from nasty thoughts of revenge, occasionally said something about her former life. Fade... seemed to adopt Omen's style; not asking questions, not being asked. And although with a woman it was easier to recognize that something was wrong, that something was bothering her, tormenting her and keeping her awake, she hid it at all costs.
Neon began to feel sorry for her after eight months of her stay in Valorant Protocol.
Tala was not... an important person in the team. Not like Sage, Viper and Brimstone. So she didn't know why Fade's bedroom was built... differently. Further away from all the bedrooms. Even her door was different.
She tried to ask, more than once; however, she was taken for being overly curious and ‘looking for a hole in the whole,’ so her peers said. She didn't even approach their leaders, not wanting to make an idiot of herself in front of her mentors.
She guessed that Fade's bedroom was made for the powers that be, for which she ‘paid a high price.’ No one knew what she was talking about, no one dared to ask, and the dreamer did not continue the topic. Not only that – she never mentioned it again, as if she had said it by accident the first time.
“You're staring,” Jett remarked, throwing the last blade at the very center of the shield. “And it's slowly starting to make me wonder.”
“Oh yeah? And what are you wondering about?” reflected Neon, not even trying to pretend she wasn't doing it anymore.
Her eyes were practically glued to Fade's back.
“That it's weird,” the Korean replied just like that, clasping her hands on her chest. “We have rules, Neon.”
“I know them by heart,” burbled Tala and checked how many more bullets were left in the magazine. Then she furrowed her eyebrows. “What are you suggesting?”
“That you either plan on getting revenge on Fade or asking her out. And honestly? I would prefer the first option.” Jett sat down on the table, blocking Neon's access to the shield.
“Very funny. I laughed to tears.”
Sunwoo tilted her head to the side. Neon understood that this wasn't a typical chat with sarcasm and jokes. If it was, they would have already tried to start another race or a ‘whoever does something there first wins’ competition. That was their style – the eternal struggle to be the fastest. And now... Now the Korean woman wasn't trying to joke around. She was serious. Tala didn't like that at all.
“Sunwhoo Hen.”
“You're pronouncing it wrong, Neon,” muttered Jett, rolling her eyes. “Have you noticed that you do that every time the topic is serious?”
“Sunwuhan.”
“It wasn't even close?”
“Sun.”
“No.”
The duelist’s heavy gaze forced Neon to get serious.
“You don't have to worry about my ‘bonding’ with her,” she announced after a heavy sigh. “I am not a dyke.”
“Lesbian. Just because you're annoyed doesn't mean you should call everyone out right away,” she admonished her as if she were at least ten years older than the blue-haired woman. “Besides, I'm not interested in whether you are one. My point is that you are needed by the team. And I like you. I wouldn't want you to be kicked out just because this... dreamer exists.”
“I have the impression that you don't know my intentions.”
“So what are your intentions, Neon?”
Valdez sighed, walking over to her locker and putting her frenzy away in it. She used it to look around the room – Fade was no longer in it.
“Even now you are looking for her with your eyes," Jett noted suspiciously. “It's not…”
“I shot her with a beam. Two months ago,” announced Neon, interrupting the 24-year-old. “She walked into the shooting range while I was unloading.”
“And that was the reason you aimed at her?”
“Of course not!” Neon rolled her eyes. “She surprised me. I didn't hear her go, I got scared. She took a hit.”
“Does this have any long-lasting effect?” Sunwoo asked, wrinkling her eyebrows slightly.
“No, but just... Didn't you notice that she is always tired? And even about Viper we know more than about her.”
“We don't know much about Omen either,” Han remarked, sliding off the table. “I don't quite understand what you're getting at.”
“What I'm getting at is that something is wrong with her. This bedroom speaks for itself.”
Jett sighed, turning her head in the direction where Neon was not. She wondered, nibbling her lower lip.
“And are you saying this because you don't like her or are you worried?”
“What do you think when she goes on a mission with you?” asked Neon, clasping her hands on her chest. “But really. Not that it's cool that she marks people for you, because I know that. Something else.”
“That I am annoyed by her jokes,” replied Jett without hesitation. “Look, I haven't forgiven her either. But I don't give a damn what she does or doesn't do. As long as she does her job, I don't give a damn.”
“And aren't you afraid that she'll ruin the action because she's tired?” Neon tilted her head slightly to the side. -”Think about it.”
“Have you seen how much coffee she pours into herself during missions? If I drank that much, I could fly on the ceiling.”
“You already fly, this is not something special for you.”
“The point is,” began Jett rather sharply and sighed, “that Sage is not complaining. Brimstone doesn't complain. Even Viper, and she... you know how she is. So why are you complaining?”
Exactly, why was Neon complaining?
It wasn't her problem. Everything during the mission was going well. Fade... Fade was not failing. Yes, she hid in her room after returning for... a really long time, but she didn't do anything wrong. No one was suffering. Everyone was fine.
After eleven months, Tala began to tolerate Fade. To Jett's displeasure, she still happened to observe the Turkish, but Sunwoo no longer made any comments. She knew the younger woman's attitude toward the initiator. She knew what she thought of her. She decided not to get involved. Not to be afraid of the younger woman's dismissal.
Neon followed the rules at the end.
While writing a report in her own room after the mission, Neon felt calm. Even if usually the writing didn't go so well and she got mad at the document like few others, today it didn't bother her that much at all. The mission wasn't particularly complicated either, with lots of details. So filling out the paperwork wasn't all that strenuous. She almost relaxed in the process.
Someone knocked on the door. Neon glanced quickly at the time, but didn't focus on it enough to actually remember what the numbers showed. That wasn't important. What was important was that it was late, and that someone had just knocked on the door.
Quietly. With hesitation. With pauses between the three knocks.
She didn't pay much attention to it. A knock is a knock.
She got up from her chair, as usual avoiding its metal parts with her fingers, and approached the door. The handle on both sides was covered with a thick rubber protector, so that someone who is not Neon would not be kicked by electricity when opening the door. And so that these wouldn't be electrified, like most things Tala touched or owned. The new stabilizers worked much better than the ones that burned out when Valdez took a bullet in the back during one of her missions. But it was still just something that dampened her power – and energy was huge if Neon was having a good day. And that in turn turned into electrifying things around her. And kicking people with electricity when someone accidentally touched or poked her. Or worse, tried to hug her.
Neon so damn longed for a simple touch on some days.
Not thinking much, she pulled the handle, opening the door, and headed back toward the desk.
“There are those chocolate sticks of yours in the drawer, you'll have to wait until I'm done, because I'm doing well with this report,” she chuckled, slumping back in her chair. “And don't touch the lamp.”
“Well, I wasn't going to.”
Neon turned her head in record time toward the door, which she left open for Jett. Jett, who wasn't Jett, because Jett was a blonde-haired Korean, and in the threshold of the bedroom stood a woman with black roots and white tips, originally from damn Türkiye.
And judging by her odd little smile, Tala's reaction must have amused her. And Tala wasn't trying to be funny.
“I brought my report in case you need a pattern. I heard you had a problem with writing. We went practically all the time together, so most of it is identical anyway.”
Neon got up from her chair, not understanding what had just happened. Fade's facial expression had returned to her natural, emotion-washed look, and now she was just watching what Valdez was doing. Perhaps she was wondering what she could do.
“Who told you about this?” asked Neon; it sounded harsh, too harsh for what was supposed to be a simple question.
If Fade felt offended, she hid it perfectly.
“Nobody. I heard it from Sage,” she replied, extending the document toward Neon.
Now she noticed that Fade had not crossed the threshold of the room. That she was half hiding in the shadows again.
Do you want something for this? - She asked another question. It was no longer as sharp as the previous one.
Fade only shrugged her shoulders.
“This is just a friendly favor.”
Tala then took her first look at the Turkish face. And if earlier she thought she had already seen tiredness on her face, now she was convinced of it. Devoid of makeup, she probably didn't even try to hide that something was wrong.
“Do you sleep at all?”
It came out fast; too fast for Neon to stop herself from asking the question. And she probably regretted it.
But Fade didn't look angry. Just tired. As always.
“Nightmares don't let its victims sleep.”
This was the second longer conversation they had with each other.
Neon started sitting with Fade two weeks after this conversation. She did so only when there was no one in the room, which was rare. Very rarely did a word come out of their mouths. They didn't talk very often. Not like normal people did. And they... well, they weren't normal. Neon was not normal. Fade was not normal.
Fade once fainted at the shooting range. Neon heard the jaw of a gun hitting the floor and turned her head toward the sound. She then broke into a run to secure the gun, and grabbed the older woman's arm. ‘I'm fine,’ she said then, but didn't tell to let her go.
So Neon didn't let her go.
From that moment on, Tala involuntarily followed Fade's actions when she was in the room with her. She noticed how often she would suddenly catch herself on a wall, a chair, a tabletop, the back of a couch. How often she turned the situation into a joke when someone asked if she was okay. She never asked for help. She never wanted the favor of others.
Fade was for herself. And into her world she had no intention of letting anyone in. That was her plan.
People didn't notice it. Neon hated herself for the fact that she noticed. Because now it was also her problem. Because now she began to worry. Because now she discovered that things were worse with Fade than she had assumed.
“Are you all right?” Sage asked softly during one of her missions.
Cypher, sitting at the table in the small living room, involuntarily turned his head toward them.
“Me? Yes, why do you ask?” reflected Tala immediately, drawing her legs to her chest.
The Chinese woman sighed, slipping her shoes off her feet before sitting down on the couch. Neon watched as she sat down on her own feet and leaned against the backrest, not letting the younger woman out of her sight.
“Jett, since you came here, has been revived a dozen times,” the black-haired woman began, stroking her shin sleeve. “You had such a situation for the first time. And it's been two years.”
Two years since Neon appeared in the ranks of Valorant. One year since Fade's attack and her party. Two months since the silent befriending with Fade.
“How do you feel?” Sage renewed her question, placing a hand on Valdez's shoulder.
She looked at her slender, long fingers; her thumb moved up and down reassuringly, as if the whole gesture meant ‘calm down, you can talk to me, that's what I'm for.’ Neon wanted to ask if she could feel the electricity – if she had accidentally kicked her with it. But she couldn't find the right words for it.
“It's okay,” she finally said, resting her cheek against her knee. “It's like I was asleep and was woken up. I wasn't in any pain.”
“I understand.”
Sage wanted her to continue. She didn't say it out loud, but on the other hand – she didn't have to at all. Neon knew.
“But it's a strange feeling,” she added, breathing out. “I can't even describe it, you know? It's just weird. I was killed, and yet... I'm alive.”
Sage smiled softly.
“You don't have to be afraid of death,” she said, lowering her hand. “As long as I'm next to you, you won't experience it for long.”
“And if you are gone?”
“Then we'll take your corpse to Sage,” Cypher interjected into the conversation, repairing the stumbling block that had been destroyed during the last battle. “We have done this more than once.”
“That calmed me down,” announced Neon with a slight smile. “That was Jett, wasn't it?”
“Well…”
“Of course it was Jett. She's the only one who throws herself at her opponent face first,” replied the man, putting his hat down on the countertop.
“Jett is loyal,” announced Sage suddenly, as if to warm up the young woman's image. “If she had a chance to save you, she would have thrown herself under a speeding car.”
“Please, she would throw herself under a speeding car for fun.”
Neon laughed quietly. She didn't know that Jett did such things during missions. And that others thought of her that way.
Omen, hitherto sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room, murmured quietly. It was his kind of greeting, because at the same moment Fade, who entered the room, raised her hand toward him.
Neon immediately noticed that something was wrong.
“When will the jet arrive?” she asked, looking at Sage. She was anxious.
Tired. So damn, damn tired.
“It should be here soon,” the healer replied, sliding off the couch. “I hope you are all packed up by now.”
“Okay, good.” Fade sighed, leaning dangerously against the chair next to Cypher. She ran her other hand over her face. “I'll go make myself some coffee.”
Usually missions with Fade lasted two, three days at most. This one lasted five. Neon was sure it was too long for an initiator, so she also got up from the couch, ready to run up to the older woman.
“Fade, you drank coffee half an hour ago,” Sage remarked in a worried voice.
The woman did not respond. She doubted that she had heard Neon's mentor words at all, as she simply turned toward the kitchen and let go of the chair.
“Fade?”
She took one step, a second, a third. At the fourth, she wiped her face with her hand again. The fifth she did not manage to put up.
“Fade!”
Omen was quickest to appear by the woman's side, catching her before she met the wooden floor. She muttered something, he couldn't tell what – no one was able to repeat.
“Omen, great reflexes,” said Cypher, who sprang from his seat just as Fade began to tilt to one side. “Hand me her.”
“I'm fine!” said in a raised voice Fade, trying to push the hands of men away from herself. “I'm fine, you don't have to hold me.”
“Fade, you need to lie down,” said Sage in a firm voice, together with Neon, approaching the three standing. “You can't…”
A quiet sob broke from between the lips of the Turkish, which no one expected.
“Why can't you understand?” she asked in a broken voice. Cypher felt that she was shaking all over. “I can't fall asleep. I really can't.”
The jet arrived not long after.
The return to the organization was nerve-wracking. If someone wasn't watching Fade, was walking back and forth on the deck. Neon did both at the same time, well aware that if she sat down in her condition, the jet would suffer serious damage. So she circled – the soles of her shoes leaving a distinctive blue trail of bioelectricity behind her.
Fade leaned against Sage. She wiped the tears flowing out of her eyes from time to time and shook off the fear that she had fallen asleep in an unfamiliar place. The Chinese woman tried to use her power to help her through this period, but it didn't seem to help her. Nothing she could do seemed to improve Fade's situation.
“You need to get some sleep, Fade.” Neon heard Sage whisper after a while. She was worried. It frightened Tala.
“Everything is fine.”
“No, it's not fine,” growled Neon, finally crouching in front of the women. She didn't give a damn what her outburst looked like. “You look bad and you feel bad. You need to go to bed. I'm going to make you go to sleep.”
Fade let out the trembling air from between her lips.
“In the bedroom,” she whispered weakly, as if she could not afford more. “That's where I can lie down.”
The plan was clear. The jet arrived at HQ a moment before two o'clock, and from that moment the five newcomers put it into practice. Omen took Fade in his arms (they knew she wouldn't be able to walk such a distance on her own) and teleported with her to her bedroom. There he laid her on the bed and closed the door from the inside. He sat with her for two hours – Sage didn't allow more. Fade protested, not wanting anyone in the room while she slept, but her voice was not going to be heeded by anyone. So when two hours passed, Omen changed places with Cypher. Then Cypher changed places with Sage. For the last two hours, Neon volunteered.
A little before four in the morning, the alarm clock on her phone let Neon know that her watch was starting any minute. Reluctantly, she got out of bed, tossing aside the covers and yawning widely, put on a sweatshirt over her shirt. She slipped her feet into her slippers and, with the phone in her hand, headed toward the outermost room.
She would never in her life get up at such an hour and so soon. But Sage was waiting for her. Fade was waiting for her.
After Fade fell asleep, they didn't close the door – they didn't want a knock to wake her up. So Neon pulled the sleeve of her sweatshirt over her hand and pulled as gently as she could on the doorknob.
“I've come to change you,” she whispered in Sage's direction and left the door ajar enough for the woman to pass through.
“Go get Reyna, please,” the Chinese woman said instead of ‘thank you’; her voice was tired. It was trembling. Perhaps she was afraid, but even if she was, she didn't let it show so much.
Neon furrowed her brow.
“What? No, I'm staying. I won't wake anyone up,” Neon protested immediately, trying to keep her voice as hushed as possible.
“I'd rather have Reyna stay,” Sage said firmly, having no intention of rising from her swivel chair.
“Sage, it's only two hours, I can handle it,” she announced, clasping her hands on her chest.
“Fade's power is out of control when she sleeps.” Sage no longer hid her fear. “That's why she didn't want to fall asleep anywhere other than her own bedroom. It's the only place adapted to it.”
Neon slowly nodded her head. Now she understood. Now it all made sense.
“I can manage. I'm already on my feet, I'm not going to wake anyone else up. Go get some rest.”
Sage sighed. She didn't want to leave Neon alone with Fade, but eventually she left the room. At the threshold she hesitated half a step – I think she wanted to say something, but whatever it was, it must not have been that important. So she left. Neon closed the door. The room fell silent again.
The exchange of words with Sage cleared Neon's mind of any remaining sleep. She sat down in a chair - a surprisingly comfortable chair – and hesitantly began to look around Fade's bedroom. She felt as if she was stripping the woman of her privacy, but she told herself that Fade had done the same when she came to her room. That's why, after inspecting every wall in the dark, she concluded that Fade's bedroom might as well not have been her bedroom – it was painfully universal. Devoid of all the things that are characteristic of Fade. It was as if she didn't want to get used to living here. How many times had the Turkish changed her location? How many nights did she not sleep while in a new place?
How did Fade function all these years?
The first nightmare flowed out of Fade's hand after just half an hour. Neon watched in horror as the black ooze formed into a ball and then changed shape. It made a strange sound, and at the same time was quiet. The red blinds of the nightmare immediately found Neon in the room. It sensed that she was paralyzed with fear. That she had no way to defend herself. It took advantage of this.
Neon could not move. She saw Fade's room and at the same time did not recognize it at all. She breathed and at the same time could not get air in her lungs. She was silent and at the same time heard a scream in her head – her scream, it belonged to her, to Tala Nicole Dimaapi Valdez. She was afraid. God, how damn scared she was. But of what? What was she afraid of?
She saw images, all sorts of images. She heard all sorts of sounds. She felt all sorts of things. And it was all forming into a nightmare that she was dreaming awake.
“Neon?”
And suddenly it all stopped.
Neon breathed deeply. She felt that she was all sweaty, that her heart was pounding faster than after a long effort. And most importantly – that she could finally move, which she immediately took advantage of by glancing at the watch on her phone.
It was a few minutes past six.
“I need...,” she began, but the hoarseness in her voice prevented her from finishing. “I need…”
“Calm down, wait,” Fade asked, throwing back the quilt and sitting down on the edge of the bed facing the younger woman. “Look at me.”
Oh, Neon tried to do just that. And she looked at Fade, but that didn't help her calm down at all.
Fade was calm. Fade was not tired that much. Why was Fade calm? Why couldn't Neon be calm?
Her heart was thudding in her chest. Was she running? Was she exercising? What was Neon doing? Or was she getting tired? Was she tired? Was she sleepy? She felt a strange tingling in her legs. Why did she feel it? Was she resting after running? Was she running?
Her breathing was raging. She could hear that she was breathing hard. Or maybe it was Fade's breathing? Maybe it was Fade breathing so hard in her sleep? But Fade was awake, sitting in front of her and holding her hands. Oh, her hands were so warm. She stroked her with her thumbs so pleasantly.
“Neon, you are fine.”
Is she fine? There's something wrong with her, her heart is pounding, she's breathing fast, too fast, her heart is beating too fast, she's about to go crazy, something is wrong, Neon doesn't feel good, she feels terrible, something is chasing her, her chest hurts, did she run? Is it all from running? Was she running away from something? God, after all, she can't stop, something must have happened, her heart is beating so fast, her lungs are working so fast....
“It's a panic attack,” she heard a soft voice. She felt a hand pushing back a strand of hair from her wet forehead.
Neon took these words personally. In her mind she was taking things apart and putting them back together. She would shuffle, pull out, sift through, looking for the other bottom. But there was no second bottom, there was only a simple statement: ‘it's a panic attack.’
“I am here. You are not alone. You are safe.” The voice broke through the thick wall of thought again. It found a hole and oozed through it to the center.
It was soothing. It was cuddling. It was rocking.
Neon was awake, but at the same time she felt she was dreaming.
The warmth of Fade's hand was so pleasant.
“Are you already with me?”
Neon nodded her head hesitantly. She already found herself back in the bedroom. She no longer felt the tingling sensation. No longer did her heart beat so fast. She was no longer breathing fast.
It was already normal.
“What time is it?” she asked quietly; she didn't trust her voice.
“A few minutes past seven.”
“Oh.”
Fade took care of her for an hour.
“I'm sorry,” she said quietly, driving her gaze into their hands. She still didn't let go of Neon's cool hands, no matter how many times she was kicked with electricity. She owed it to her.
“For what?”
She couldn't look Tala in the face.
“People often have panic attacks after coming into contact with my power.” She stroked the top of the younger woman's hand; they both didn't know who she was just calming down.
“It's okay,” Neon stated bluntly, shrugging her shoulders. “How do you feel?”
“Good.” Valdez didn't know if it was a lie or not. “Do you want to…”
“Can I get a hug?”
This caught Fade off guard. She furrowed her eyebrows. She wondered, probably. That's what it looked like. She let go of Neon's hands in favor of patting the spot next to her, so Tala didn't wait for anything else.
Fade's heart beat calmly as she hugged the youngest dualist.
“I owe you an explanation.”
“Fade, you really don't need to tell me anything.”
A moment of silence fell. A minute, two, three.
“I have to tell you. I want to,” she whispered, drawing circles with her fingers on Neon's back, just below the stabilizer.
Tala moved away from Fade with hesitation. With her gaze she jumped from blue eye to brown eye – so rare these days.
“I know what I look like,” she began, sighing. “People don't want to go on missions with me. I'm not surprised, I've been messing with everyone's minds and because of me you've had confusion in the organization. It's been a long time since I've slept so that I actually get enough sleep, and it's also affecting my image.”
Neon noticed that her hairstyle was a mess. It was such a... strange sight that she couldn't take her eyes off them for a few minutes.
“They are afraid. I don't blame them,” she said quietly, combing her fingers through strands of hair tangled from sleep. She seemed to have noticed what Neon was looking at.
“How do you know that they are afraid?”
“I feel their fear,” she replied, glancing briefly at her own fingers, from between which she pulled a few hairs. “The young ones in particular.”
“And... do you feel mine, too?” asked Neon quietly, unable to look Fade in the eyes.
A silence fell. Tala sensed what answer would come, but prayed it wouldn't be her.
“No,” she whispered. “You are not afraid. You are... you were mad at me.”
“I was,” she confirmed with hesitation. “I'm not anymore.”
“I know that.”
Valdez leaned her head hesitantly against the elder's shoulder and sighed quietly. Fade got rid of the last hair from between her fingers and arranged her hands on her own thighs. Neon looked at them.
And then she slid her hand between Fade's body and arm and wrapped her fingers around the Turkish right hand.
She was... delicate. Neon hesitantly rode her fingers, up and down, from her fingernails to the corner of the sleeve of her sweater in which Omen had laid her on bed. Noone dared to dress Fade. Only stripped her hands of her rings so she wouldn't scratch herself with them in her sleep. Neon had a strong suspicion that it was Sage.
“I can't go to sleep during a mission.” Fade decided to continue the subject; as if Neon's gentle stroking had encouraged her to do so. “If I go, the rest of the agents won't be able to work for the next day. Not to mention other people if we stay in some hotels.”
“And you drink coffee to stay awake,” interjected Tala, catching herself shifting closer to Fade.
She must have noticed it – but she didn't say a word.
“Or I take pure caffeine in pills,” Fade added; her fingers twitched oddly. “And I sleep it off when I get back. Agents are afraid that this makes me not fully functional on missions. They are afraid to walk hand in hand with me, because if they don't notice someone and I don't pay attention, we will both get hurt.”
“But nothing happened to anyone,” noted Neon, running her index finger over Fade's henna.
“But they are still afraid,” sighed the elder. Tala felt her rest cheek against her head. “You know, I don't blame them. The bags under the eyes are not convincing. It just puzzles me why Brimstone wanted to bring such confusion into his ranks.”
“Your powers are very useful, Fade,” Neon replied immediately. “You are a valuable person.”
She laughed quietly; as if she did not believe at all what Tala was saying.
“Thank you.”
Neon felt Fade's lips on her head.
“My name is Hazal. I thought you might know it, since I know yours.”
Tala smiled slightly, hesitantly joining their fingers together. It was... such a gentle gesture, so peaceful and... she didn't think Fade would clench her fingers as well.
“I'm glad you're here, Hazal.”