In an instant, he was ripped upwards again and his lungs were consumed by the same painful burning sensation. It wasn't just like he'd had the wind knocked out of him, it was as if the oxygen had been sucked out of the air. He blacked out as he felt his body thrown against something solid. It was a wall. He was out of that weird- whatever it was. Vortex?
He groaned weakly. His eyes felt heavy and when he opened them, the scarce light made them burn. He felt weak and he was shaking again. Dammit.
Cisco opened his eyes and stared around for a moment, trying to place his surroundings. It was dark and he was in an apartment- there was a large window to his left and a door on the other side of the room.
He felt a sharp pain in his face and realized his nose was bleeding. Crap. The last time this happened was when Barry caused a temporal rupture… except I didn't. So what is happening to me?
Caitlin was jolted out of a deep sleep when she heard a loud thump from outside her bedroom door. It wasn't just a thump- it had been accompanied by a somewhat electronic whir. It's got to be a meta. Although we don't have any on the loose right now, and if we didn't know of them they wouldn't have a reason to come after me. What kind of meta could make that noise?
She sat upright and quietly jumped out of bed. She looked around frantically for anything that could be used as a weapon. She settled on the small lamp that sat atop her dresser- she could turn it upside down and yield the hard metal base as an effective blunt object. She cracked the door open and winced when it creaked. I really should keep a real weapon in my room. Based off of the number of break-ins we've had in the lab, I'm actually shocked I've never had a meta break into my apartment before.
Caitlin squinted to look through the tiny crack in the door, bracing herself for the worst. All she could see was a shadowy figure standing in the corner. She opened the door and raised the lamp, preparing to defend herself, when the figure in the corner spoke out.
"…Cait?"
Caitlin froze, lowering the lamp. "Cisco?" she asked, bewildered.
He stood up and practically tripped forward into the light, confirming that it was him. Her heart sank when she realized how sick and weak he still looked. He looked up at her and offered an exhausted, mirthless smile.
It took her a moment to process the situation, but when her brain caught up, she exploded. "What in the hell are you doing? Showing up, unannounced in the middle of the night? I mean, of course you're always welcome here but you scared the wits out of me!"
"I'm sorry," he mumbled, and looked down. His weak, tired voice should have elicited her sympathy, but instead it made her even more exasperated.
"It's not just me! You can barely stand! You should be sleeping, not traipsing across town in the middle of the night! You should've called if you needed something, you know I would have come to you!"
"I didn't," he muttered.
"You didn't what?" Caitlin asked indignantly.
"I didn't- I didn't come," he murmured, and that was when Caitlin realized he looked even worse than the last time she'd seen him. His eyes were bloodshot and had a faraway look in them, like he couldn't see what was right in front of him. His forehead beaded with sweat, his nose was bleeding, and he was holding onto the wall as if he could barely stand.
"What do you mean?" she asked carefully, taking a few steps forward. He stepped forward to meet her in the middle of the room, but his legs buckled beneath him. Caitlin was at his side in an instant. She wrapped her arm around his back and helped him over to the couch. As soon as she took her arm off of him, he collapsed onto the sofa. His whole body seemed to go limp, but his eyes were still open, just staring straight ahead.
She waited a few moments to see if he would speak. When he didn't so much as look at her, she realized that something was seriously wrong. She shoved her worries aside and switched gears to doctor.
"Cisco, I'm going to ask you some questions and it's really important that you answer them. Even if you can't remember, just try your best, okay?" He nodded blankly. "What's the last thing you remember before you got here?"
"I was in my apartment," he mumbled.
"I need you to be more specific than that." Caitlin leaned forward and pressed her fingers against his neck to take his pulse. She glanced at the clock on the wall to keep track. "Do you remember where you were in your apartment?"
"Uh…" He paused, still staring straight ahead. "In my room… I think."
"Why were you awake?" It had been a minute. 145? That's too damn fast, he'll have a stroke if I don't get his heartrate down. She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. Too damn hot. He's probably dehydrated.
"I didn't sleep all night, Cait. Haven't in days." Hearing him speak a full sentence made her realize how slurred his speech was. "I was freaking out- I was scared."
Finally, they were getting somewhere. "What were you scared of? Did you vibe Dante again?"
Cisco shook his head. "What did you Vibe about?" Again, he shook his head no.
"I was hallucinating," he mumbled. "He- he was talking to me."
Of course he was. "Dante?" she asked, to get him to keep talking.
"N- yes." Even in this pathetic, delirious state, he still caught himself. Caitlin saw right through his lie.
"Cisco, tell me the truth. Who was it?"
"It was Dante," Cisco insisted, and for the first time in five minutes, his eyes changed expression. From vacant to terrified and defeated. "What's wrong with me?"
"You're sick." She reached forward and brushed his hair behind his ear, an almost subconscious reaction. "I don't know why yet, but I'm gonna figure how to help you."
"I don't think you can." Cisco laughed, but it was a hollow and bitter sound.
"I definitely can't if you won't talk to me," Caitlin said firmly. "So please tell me the truth. What's the last thing you remember doing?"
"I- I opened a breach." He tore a hand through his thick black hair, his expression tense. "I was trying to go to Earth-2, to-"
"-to see Harry," Caitlin finished, and sighed. Of course Cisco's instinct would be to go to Harry, his mentor and a genius, because she hadn't been able to help him.
Cisco nodded, surprised. "Yeah. But it didn't work. I- got stuck inside the breach. I was stuck inside this, like, vortex thing. Straight outta Star Trek. And then I heard you talking and I ended up here."
"You heard me talking?" Caitlin leaned forward. "What was I saying?"
"I- I dunno." He shook his head, distressed. "None of it made any sense. I must have been hallucinating again." He sunk his head into his hands miserably. "I think I'm losing my mind."
"Maybe you're not hallucinating," Caitlin suggested. "Maybe there's another explanation. Like when Barry first got his powers, he thought something was wrong with him, because his body wasn't used to such a fast metabolism, faster sensory comprehension- until he found out what happened, he probably thought he was losing it too." His head was still dropped down to his knees but she could tell that he was listening. "There could be some element of your powers that we haven't discovered yet, something that's affecting you because you don't know how to utilize it. Maybe - if this is how your powers make you feel, imagine what you'd be capable of if you used them instead of- being used."
Cisco slowly lifted his head up to look at her. "What did you say?" He asked, looking at her apprehensively.
"I mean, just look." She picked up one of his hands, which was still trembling. "Your body is just full of pent-up energy. Maybe once you put it to use, it'll go away." Caitlin stopped talking when she noticed that Cisco was looking at her suspiciously. "What?"
He suddenly rose to his feet and backed away from her. "Dammit, I can't believe I fell for it again!"
"What are you talking about?" Caitlin stood up quickly, but he backed away from her, tearing his hands through his hair anxiously.
"Is anything real?" he mumbled, and started to pace feverishly. "Get out of my head, you jackass!" he shouted at the ceiling.
"Cisco!" Caitlin rushed to his side and grabbed his arm. "Shh, it's okay. It's just me." He was staring straight past her with such a horrified expression that even though she knew they were alone, Caitlin quickly looked over her shoulder just to make sure. No-one was there. She turned her attention back to Cisco and gently turned his head so that he was looking directly at her. "Listen, I don't know who else is talking to you right now, but I promise, it's not real."
He looked at her wordlessly, and everything on his face read fear and exhaustion.
"Come on," she said quietly. "Whether it's your powers or not, there's something messing with your mind and I need you to trust me to figure it out. Come lay down on the couch. I'll get you some medicine to help you feel better until we know what's causing this. I'll tell Barry to send word over to Earth-2 and with Harry over here we'll figure it out in no time."
He hesitated, and then sighed. "Yeah, okay." He wandered back to the couch and collapsed. Caitlin bit her lip with worry and then shook her head. She had to keep a level head. Cisco needed her.
Cisco stared at the ceiling tensely. Caitlin had given him something to slow his heart rate, but it was just making him feel more restless. Caitlin had stayed up with him for a while, but now she was fast asleep, curled up in the armchair on the other side of the room. He wanted desperately to tell her the whole truth, about how he'd seen Reverb, but it seemed like the wisest plan of action would be to keep it to himself until he knew why it was happening.
He was pretty sure now that Caitlin was real and not a hallucination, but he was still wary. What she had said about him using his powers was almost exactly what Reverb had said verbatim. Of course, Reverb hadn't said that, that was his own thoughts using Reverb as a vessel to present them. So for all he knew, Caitlin was a figment of his imagination, too.
There were a lot of things he didn't know right now, and it frustrated the hell out of him. Why did his mind choose Reverb as a vessel for his thoughts? Why had he gotten stuck in that vortex when he'd opened breaches successfully before? His guess was that he'd gotten distracted by thinking about Caitlin while he was trying to open the breach, hence his ending up in her apartment- but why had he heard her talking while he was in the vortex?
He glanced over at Caitlin to make sure she was still sleeping, and then sat up. "Reverb?" he asked hesitantly. "Are you-"
"I'm always here, Cisco." Even though he had been expecting it this time, he still jumped when he heard the unnerving voice right behind him. "I'm an extension of your thoughts. Always with you."
"Right." Cisco winced. This was going to take some getting used to. He turned around to face Reverb. "So does that mean you can't tell me anything I don't already know?"
"Not exactly. I'm a manifestation of your subconscious. I can help you dig out things that you know, but wouldn't realize without my help."
"So this is like a Twin Peaks kinda deal? You're the Giant and I'm Cooper?" Cisco paused thoughtfully. "Or is it more like the Amber hallucination in House?" He shook his head. Not important. "Okay, but if you're just me, then why are you telling me things I don't want to hear? Shouldn't you just agree with me by default?"
"Like I said, subconscious. I'm all of the thoughts that you keep below the surface. I'm kind of like your dark side." Reverb grinned unpleasantly. "So yeah, I'm gonna say some things that you don't want to hear, but hey, you're the one who thought them."
Cisco paused, considering the implications of this. "But that means you can help me out, yeah? Since they're all of my subconscious thoughts- you can help me figure out things that I couldn't on my own. Like the-"
"-like the Amber hallucination in House," Reverb finished. "Yes. I can help you solve all the problems that have stumped you before. I can help you figure out how to use your powers, why you couldn't go through the breach, everything that you don't know the answer to. All you have to do is accept my presence and everything that comes with it."
Cisco bit his lip nervously. He was basically making a pact with Satan here. But what were his other options? Losing his mind and getting locked up by Barry? Besides, this was just an extension of his mind. How bad could it be?
He turned his attention back to Reverb. "Deal."
Reverb grinned. "I thought you'd say that."
Cisco glanced over at Caitlin. Still sound asleep. "Okay," he said, turning back to Reverb. "We have a lot of work to do."