riverviewlogs | [semi-open] it was so quiet

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[semi-open] it was so quiet

who: established cr (anybody who has interacted with cisco before)
what: cisco kills someone in self-defense, is a m e s s
when: june 8
where: various
warnings: death, guilt, will add as needed

Cisco doesn't have very many people he considers enemies, and almost none of them are in the Quarantine. But there is one. One motherfucker on his radar: the guy who stole schematics from him and Tony Stark and tried to sell the stuff (through a third party, of course, because the coward didn't want to show his face) at the tech expo back in March. Cisco doesn't know the guy's name, or where he works, or what world he came from, or anything about him. Well, anything except two things. Cisco knows what he looks like, and he knows the guy can turn invisible. That was how he'd stolen the designs. Cisco wouldn't have ever solved it, probably, if it hadn't been for his powers - and even that was mostly just luck.

He and Tony had tried to set up a sting operation, catch the guy in the act the next time he snuck into either of their workshops. But he must have had allies, because their trap was never sprung: he never came back, and so Cisco moved on. It was always there in the back of his mind, though. Unfinished business. A loose thread.

So when Cisco is out walking through the city one day and sees the guy, just wandering through the club exhibition like he's thinking about taking up badminton maybe, Cisco almost doesn't believe his eyes. He rubs them, looks again... and he isn't sure. Not one hundred percent. So he walks over, with purpose, a frown just beginning to form between his brows.

"Hey..."

And then he gets the confirmation he needs. Because the second the guy looks up and sees Cisco striding towards him, he clearly recognizes Cisco. Cisco's heart is racing, and he's expecting confrontation, sure. But he's definitely not expecting the guy to whip a laser gun out of a shoulder holster and just open fire in the middle of a crowded club faire. Cisco reacts on instinct, diving out of the way, though he feels a stinging heat against his cheek. He raises his fingers to it and they come away bloody.

No time to think about that, though, because everything bursts into chaos - everyone at the booths around them runs away - panic, commotion, gawking, and the guy still coming towards him. Cisco rolls back onto his feet, pushing his hair out of his face and holding up both hands, placating.

"Whoa! Whoa whoa, come on, man, there's no need to get all shoot-y here-"

Evidently, knowing Cisco is unarmed and trying to negotiate is only encouragement; the guy fires again, and as Cisco dodges, he loses sight of him. Which, of course, is when the guy goes invisible. Cisco yells at all the people nearby, telling them to get out of there. He can't see where the guy is, but the laser gun makes a sound when it fires, just far enough in advance of when the beam of light arrives that Cisco can get out of the way - for the most part. His shoulder gets hit, which is when he starts firing back.

The fight is short but ugly, and at every moment Cisco is convinced he's going to get shot and die and it's going to be so pointless, or some bystander is going to get in the way and they're going to get hurt. It feels like it lasts forever, but it's probably only about three minutes until he gets lucky, and one his vibe blast makes contact. He knows, because the guy goes visible again as he's flying through the air. Cisco isn't sure, later, if it was the blast that killed him, or the way he hit the back of his head against the corner of that table on the way down. Either way, the guy dropped, like a sack of potatoes, and didn't move. At all.

The next few minutes were even more of a blur than the fight itself. Running over. Trying to get the guy to respond. Realizing he wasn't breathing, that there was blood all over. Calling out for help. Standing back, shaking all over, as medics showed up - too fast, someone in the crowd had probably called them. There were police, too. They all know Cisco, of course; he makes some of the tech they use, and recognizing the face of the officer who walks up to him is just another level of surreality. Cisco explains, in stuttered and broken words, what had happened. He sees other cops talking to the people in the crowd - apparently plenty of them had stayed close enough to see what happened, are giving their account.

He keeps asking the woman interviewing him if there's any news from the hospital, did the ambulance get there, did they resuscitate him, bring him back? There is all kinds of fancy tech, all manner of magic. The guy was just unconscious, anyway. Just passed. Nothing really serious.

The officer seems to realize, belatedly, that not all the blood on Cisco is someone else's, and that his shoulder is injured. She insists on shepherding him into her car, then, to take him to the hospital to get checked up. On the way there, she gets a call, and Cisco listens to her monosyllabic answers like he's trying to crack a code.

She tells him that the person who attacked him came from a species that were immune to the effects of magic, that the people at the hospital had done everything they could, but they hadn't been able to save him. Then, her stoic professionalism cracking a little, she tells him that everyone knows it wasn't his fault, that about two dozen people saw him just come at Cisco out of nowhere. She says there isn't even going to be that much paperwork, and Cisco feels like he's going to be sick. He doesn't even know the guy's name, and how does he even start to ask that, when apparently, he'd killed him?

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[ Phaser weapon. Was that what it was? Cisco hadn't gotten a good chance to look. Or ask, obviously. He'd just assumed whatever it was, it was capable of deadly force. But now, his stomach sinks in horror as he wonders if maybe it wasn't. Maybe his life had never been in danger at all. Sure, his shoulder had been hit, and the guy wouldn't stop firing. But what if it was a weapon that could almost certainly not kill someone, and Cisco had responded way out of proportion.

Those thoughts stir up a thousand other uncertainties. What is going to happen to him next? What will people say when they find out? Is this going to lose him his job? Is there going to be some kind of inquiry or trial or news coverage? Did the guy have a family? Cisco's breaths, without him realizing it, begin to come faster, thin and a bit shaky. ]

They brought him here, right? Is he- Officer Grant said... is he really dead?

[ It still seems so impossible, so unreal. Death didn't work like that. It had been so quick, so accidental, so abrupt. But Cisco had seen the guy's face. And there had been so much blood... ]

[She nods.] We did everything we could, but he died only a few minutes after he arrived.

[But she can see Cisco spiraling, his breathing and heart rate going up. Not good.]

Cisco, I need you to take some deep breaths for me. [She takes a few deep breaths of her own to demonstrate, to breathe with him.] In and out.

[ That is it. A confirmation, from the doctor herself. Beverly wouldn't be wrong, and she wouldn't lie. Cisco wants to keep clinging to the denial, but it's slipping away from him, with the awful implacable reality of the situation taking its place. He wants this to be a sick joke, wants it to be a nightmare. But he knows it isn't. Dead is dead and this is really happening and he had really, actually, killed someone.

He has to tell her. Has to make sure she knows... ]

I- I didn't mean to-

[ Cisco's begun panicking without even realizing it, and it takes a few moments for Beverly's calm, firm instructions to sink in. He tries to match his breathing to hers, but it's difficult, when it feels like the ground is splitting underneath him. He just can't stop thinking it. He'd killed someone. He'd killed someone. He had killed someone. ]

Oh, god.

[ He looks away from Beverly, gripping at the edge of the exam table so tightly his knuckles are white. All he want to do is run right out of there - out the front door and just run and keep running, far enough that none of this could catch him. It's a struggle to make himself sit still, to not hyperventilate or break down sobbing. Cisco's head feels light, but he keeps himself sitting there, keeps himself breathing. ]

I tried to help him. When he fell, I- but there was already so much blood.

[Her heart breaks for him and she hates this, wishes more than anything that she could somehow change it for him, fight for him or stop the other man from attacking him in the first place. But she can't, all she can do is be there for him now. Gently, she cups his cheek in her hand and brings him to face her again.]

I know because I know you. And... because I have been there too. Sometimes... [She takes a deep breath, at a momentary loss for words. Her eyes are starting to well up with tears.] What happened today... Cisco, if you didn't stop him, who knows what he would have done, to you, or to somebody else in that crowd?

[ This isn't her job, and Cisco knows it. This isn't her, being a doctor in an ER. This is Beverly, his friend, trying to console him. Somehow, that makes the pain in his chest twist even tighter. He can't bring himself to look at her for more than a few seconds. Not when her face is so pale and grave and full of sympathy. She even looks like she's about to cry, and Cisco shuts his eyes, trying to shut her out, shut all of it out.

But when she says she's been there, too... that something like this has happened to her, that startles him enough to open them once more ]

You...?

[ The word comes out choked, but the question there is clear enough. Cisco's seen Beverly in a crisis. He'd seen her memory of the Borg, had seen her composure when Eddie got shot and he was falling apart. She'd kept it together, even when she got infected with that pseudo-plague. He can't imagine her ever fucking up as badly as he's just fucked up. She's too good for that. Too smart, too capable. ]

[Satisfied that, for the moment, they've averted a panic attack, she finishes cleaning him up, talking as she goes.]

His name was Jo'Bril. He was a scientist. That's really all I knew about him. That and that he was interested in new shielding technology my friend, Dr. Reyga, was working on. [She shifts her focus from the wounds on Cisco's face to the more substantial injury on his shoulder. Hopefully referring to Reyga as "friend" isn't too much. They didn't know each other very long, admittedly, but Beverly felt a connection to him, perhaps one that's been amplified because of what happened after. ] I invited him and some other scientists onto the Enterprise, for a live demonstration. It... he volunteered to demonstrate the shield's capabilities himself, claiming that Reyga couldn't be trusted, was too biased and too invested in the project. But it was Jo'Bril we shouldn't have trusted. Jo'Bril faked his own death during the test, to discredit Reyga. Then...

[She stops what she's doing for a moment. It's always hard to talk about this, no matter how many people she's told. Jean-Luc, Guinan, Lucretia, now Cisco.]

He murdered Reyga. Set it up to look like a suicide. Then he could steal all his notes and schematics and plans and no one would know. But... I knew, I knew something was wrong, that Reyga would never....

[She takes a deep breath to gather her composure. She needs to stay steady and calm, for Cisco.]

[ It is a small comfort, at least, that Cisco is so distraught over what he'd done, and listening so intently to Beverly's explanation of how she'd been put in a similarly awful position, that he is scarcely aware of anything else. He feels no embarrassment at taking his shirt off - bloody and with a hole burned in it where he'd been shot, he's going to have to get rid of it - and no pain even as she cleans and starts treating the (actually rather nasty-looking) burn on his shoulder. He is aware of it all, but distantly, the majority of his mind occupied with what Beverly is telling him.

He's never met any of these people, of course. Doesn't know what species they were or what they looked like. But he recognizes the emotion in Beverly's voice, and that pause as she has to compose herself to continue the story. Cisco thinks this Jo'Bril sounds underhanded, manipulative. Using Beverly's desire for scientific accuracy, and to ensure that the accusations against her friend would be proved false, against her. He knows all too vividly, the horrible feeling that comes from realizing your trust was misplaced, and you've been betrayed. ]

You knew it wasn't true.

[ He wonders, reflexively, horribly, if Eobard would have set it up to look like Cisco had killed himself, after he murdered him. Or like it was natural causes, or who knows. Cisco is glad, despite how painful this story clearly is, that Beverly was there for her friend. That even though he was killed, and no one had stopped that, that she hadn't just accepted it. That she hadn't stopped asking questions.

Cisco reaches up, touching her wrist as she is waving some kind of whirring piece of medical tech near to his burn. ]

Beverly. You... don't have to. If it's too hard.

[ His words are quiet, but loud enough to be heard. The last thing he wants now is to make Beverly feel awful, only for the sake of comforting himself. She deserves better than that. He's not sure he's ever seen Beverly this upset, and feels a new sting of guilt for making her dig all this up. Maybe it's something she needs to say for herself, but also, maybe it isn't. ]

[Beverly starts, surprised when he takes hold of her wrist. She shouldn't be, of course. He cares about people. Even at what is most undoubtedly one his lowest moments in life, he's thinking of her. Taking a deep breath, she shakes her head.]

No, really... it's all right.

[It's important to finish the story. For his sake as well as hers. So as his burn slowly heals and his skin knits itself back together under her instrument, she continues.]

I knew something was wrong. So I started investigating, talking to the other scientists who'd been there and well, they didn't like where those questions were going.

[Got herself thrown against a wall for her troubles, in fact. But she'll leave that part out for now. It's already a lot.]

I wasn't getting anywhere so... I performed an autopsy, even though Reyga's family had forbidden it.

[ Cisco doesn't say anything more to interrupt; Beverly is still clearly upset, still clearly having trouble telling the story, but it's what she wants. So he listens. In the state he's in, it's not quite like just hearing a friend tell a story - not even one as clearly awful as this one. He feels so completely raw, so without defenses, that it all feels more intense than that. ]

People- people don't see what they don't want to see sometimes.

[ He doesn't ask why Reyga's family hadn't wanted the autopsy. Shame, cultural reasons, stubbornness, what did it matter? What mattered was Beverly hadn't given up on the truth. She'd kept fighting to avenge her dead friend. ]

And you could tell that this... Jo'Bril guy did it, and it was a set-up?

[ Had she confronted him, the way Cisco had been about to confront that guy earlier? No, probably not. Beverly is smarter than that. Better than that. Her hand must have been forced in some more awful way, some way she couldn't possibly be responsible for. ]

What happened?

[She shakes her head.]

Actually, the autopsy proved nothing. All I managed to do was nearly get myself court-martialed.

[She sighs. Cisco may readily accept her reasoning but fact is, she directly violated the Prime Directive. A court martial was only to be expected.]

At that point, I was at my wit's end and... well, I was already relieved of my duties and about to be charged so I suppose it made me a little more reckless than I might have otherwise been. So I stole Dr. Reyga's shuttle, outfitted with his shielding technology, to prove that it truly worked. Little did I know that Jo'Bril was already there, waiting for the right opportunity to steal the shuttle himself, and I provided that opportunity.

Oh.

[ Cisco can imagine how disheartening that must have been. Beverly is, after all, a doctor with a very strong moral compass. She would probably be a whole lot more bothered breaking that sort of rule than Cisco would be, in similar circumstances. Hell, he hadn't said anything when he knew that Dr. Wells was doing autopsies on the bodies of metas who had died. Cisco had accepted that. Hadn't taken it as proof that he might be a supervillain in disguise.

He winces a little as she keeps repairing the burn to his shoulder, but he is too caught up in her story to pay much attention. ]

But you didn't have proof that it worked, what if-

[ Taking the shuttle out doesn't sound like it was just reckless, to Cisco, based on the information she has given him. It sounds practically suicidal. Like that is some Barry Allen level bad decision making.

If she was facing court martial, and grieving her friend, and thinking she had gone against her principles as a doctor, she can't have been in a very good headspace. Sure, Jo'Bril showing up would prove that she was right, but that didn't just make it all okay again. It didn't reset her emotions automatically. ]

So... so you found him?

Yes. You're probably familiar with the Earth saying "playing possum." A defense mechanism. His species takes it even further. They have the unusual ability to slow down their biological processes enough where they can successfully feign their own deaths.

[Even when examined by an experienced eye such as her. She still sometimes feels intense guilt that she didn't catch him earlier, before Reyga had to pay with his own life.]

He decided to do to me what he did to Reyga: make my death look like a result of the shield's failure, then he'd be free to take the technology to his government, where they could turn it into a weapon. So of course, I had to stop him. We fought and when my phaser failed to stun him...

[ Cisco just nods, not questioning her story for a moment. He's seen too many metas who can do too many outrageous things for him to doubt even for a moment that there might be a species of alien that could do that. ]

He pulled a Juliet.

[ It's not quite a joke, but it is approaching one. Strange, how it would be impossible to even try to cheer himself up, but when it comes to listening to Beverly, Cisco wants to help, wants to take away a little of that remembered horror in his face and her voice. ]

You didn't have a choice.

[ That is only too clear. But Beverly had been trapped, with a murderer - a murderer who had killed her friend and who she knew, without a trace of a doubt, was going to try to murder her, and steal technology that could be used to cause untold amounts of violence and destruction. She'd been using a regulation weapon that she was trained in, she had made the conscious decision to switch to lethal force.

Cisco had none of those excuses. A little of those thoughts are visible as he rubs a thumb hard across the palm of his hand, kneading it, thinking about the power that lay there. She'd used a weapon, intentionally; his own body was like a weapon that had fired without him really stopping to make that choice. ]

You did the right thing. You were cut off, and he was a murderer, he was definitely gonna try and kill you...

[ It's clear, though Cisco doesn't mean it to be, that he thinks those are the factors that made it okay for Beverly, but made his own actions not the right thing. Cisco keeps wringing at his hands, dropping his gaze from her. But he still manages to say, voice slightly strangled. ]

I'm sorry... that happened to you.

That didn't make it any easier to take his life. It ate at me for a long time. What if I had done this or that, could I have avoided killing him, could I have saved Reyga, could, could, could.

[Cisco's wounds now cleaned and bandaged properly, she takes off her gloves and dumps them in the biohazard container before washing her hands off. She comes back to sit in front of Cisco, taking his restless hands in hers.]

I know you feel guilty and as much as I wish I could wipe that feeling away for you, I know I can't. Sometimes it is far easier to forgive others than it is to forgive ourselves. But please remember you are not alone and I am here for you.

[ It's so clear, that Beverly understands exactly what he's going through. Those were the exact questions that had been going through his mind, on the ride to the hospital, the kind that are pressing at the edges of his mind even now. It hurts, to hear them said aloud. He flinches, drops his gaze. He can't seem to make himself look at Beverly, but he at least doesn't resist when she takes his hands. Cisco even manages a faint little squeeze, by way of thank you.

When the silence stretches, and he knows Beverly is waiting for him to speak, Cisco croaks out: ]

I'll- I'll remember.

[ He is holding back tears as much as he can, but one still manages to skitter down his cheek; Cisco wipes it away hastily, blinking hard and letting out a very slow, long breath. As if he could make all the hurt go away just by holding it down for long enough. It's not healthy, and he knows it; if it were really just Beverly and him, he might let himself break down, now. But the sounds of the hospital around them are impossible to ignore, and emphasized when a nurse peeks her head in to check that everything is going okay and no assistance is needed.

Cisco sniffs wetly, swallows, and says a little less hoarsely: ]

Thank you, Beverly.

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[semi-open] it was so quiet

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