FIC: Brief Candles (1/1)
Heeey 
Udontknoowme! I finally got it done! You got out of my car at like, 12:30am, and the whole ride home I was thinking of what awesomeness I could write to finish it. Which I forgot upon sitting down to my computer. It's now 3:30am and I only wrote another couple paragraphs and formatted it, but it's finally done! ...ish. I couldn't think of a way to have Bart say all the crazy stuff which I speculate about and then rant at you. Perhaps now I will be able to write fic in a timely manner and can save the rest for other stories. I hope I hope. Ooo and I stole your fic header from your blurryline post. See, I don't even watch Gilmore Girls and I still found your community useful!
Title: Brief Candles
Author: DenimDamsel
Fandom: DC Comics
Rating: Harmless aka G-PG
Pairing/Characters: Bart Allen (Kid Flash) and Garfield Logan (Beast Boy) friendship-fic (though if you choose to see slash, be my guest). Mentions Superboy, and, if you squint, Brainiac 5. ^_^
Warning(s): Angst. Vagueness. Angsty vagueness. And meandering Point, since this was written in several different sittings. Also, this is my first serious attempt at fanfiction, and it hasn’t been beta-ed. Consider yourself warned!
Notes: I started writing this right after the Titans/Legion Special came out. Yes it’s taken me that long. It’s had to adapt as the following story arcs came out, and finally wound up taking place right after the whole “Superboy is Luthor’s crazy puppet-clone” Insiders arc. So definitely post- TT#25, maybe during TT#26. The title is a reference to the “Tomorrow” soliloquy from Shakespeare’s MacBeth. Wow, ain't I classy?
Summary: Beast Boy comes across Kid Flash lost in thought as he stares out a window in Titans Tower. Simple questions don’t always have simple answers.
Brief Candles
He’s just sitting there. And okay, so Gar doesn’t really know the kid all that well, hasn’t known him all that long, and maybe it could be said he hasn’t really tried so hard to use what time they have had. But Gar does know about Bart, from Wally and the spandex-grapevine. Gar knows about Bart, enough to know that he shouldn’t just be sitting there, staring off into the darkening twilight, not if everything is normal and good. And Gar also knows he’s technically this kid’s “mentor” and if Bart isn’t normal and good (flighty and all smiles), then he’s supposed to at least ask about it.
“So in subjective time, have you out-brooded Bats yet?” If Bart is startled then only Bart knows, because one instant he’s facing the window and the next Gar is blinking under the gaze of those strange yellow eyes. The kid’s hair isn’t even swishing. And that’s not really fair Gar thinks. There should be some part of Bart Allen, the boy, that can be followed, still moves normally. Gar may not have really known Impulse, but he can’t shake the feeling that this new kid, this Kid Flash, is, if anything, even more unpredictable.
Bart waits a beat, what must be an awkward eternity it occures to Gar, before his gaze blinks back to the window and he’s saying “…waiting for the stars to show up.”
And that’s safe, that’s not mentor-alert material, and Gar is so thankful.
“Never pegged you as the astronomy type. I mean, they’re gonna be there, every night. Thought that kind of regularity would bore the super-attention-deficit.” There’s a joke woven into the tone of the words, like there usually is. Like normal. But this time when Gar realizes too late that maybe it didn’t belong there, it’s worse. It’s like he’s living in the same uncomfortable forevers as the kid , just from trying to predict what the boy perceives, guesstimate how many times that insensitive tone has replayed in that shaggy, too-fast head.
“What if they’re not?” If Bart has glanced back over his shoulder, then only Bart knows. “Everything I’ve read agrees that since they’re so far away, even with the speed of light, a star could be dead for thousands of years before we’d know.” The speed of light? Suddenly Gar hears the sirens.
“Hey man, what’s with all this cheery chit-chat? I thought you were the perky one to balance out Junior Bats and Romeo and Juliet. What’s gnawing at you?” Gar decides to be a beaver for good measure. Nobody said this mentor business had to be stuffy and dull. Bart’s mouth flickers upwards at the corners, held just long enough, Gar suspects, for him to register it. The boy’s eyes look more foreign than ever.
“I guess I’m just feeling kinda… misplaced.”
There we go, Gar has seen this Hallmark Special, and he prays to those stars that the boy will keep to the script he knows the answers for.
“It’s been crazy the last few weeks.” Getting pulled off to the far future, and then a not so far future, and a whole lot of shenanigans involved along the way that Gar can’t seem to remember clearly for some reason. It’s like it’s been wiped out by the more recent fiasco with Superboy. “One thing after another. Comes with the spandex, I guess.”
“Guess so. Or maybe the spandex comes with it.”
Something clicks in Gar’s mind, passing comments Wally and others have made, and he shifts back to human to give himself a moment to think (how long is that to Bart?) before he dives in.
“That’s right. I guess you were just sort of born into all of this, weren’t you? The hero stuff is just the same type of game they had you playing from the start?”
And then Bart is looking at him again, those strange eyes fixed on his, now orange in the darkening light, and Gar doesn’t even breathe because again, he realizes he’s being seriously considered, for an hour at least, a full two seconds, long enough for him to suddenly hope that this young man, his teammate, will trust what he’s seeing-
“I didn’t know.”
And Gar can breathe all of a sudden because he’s looking at Bart’s back again, as Bart has resumed facing the window.
“’Didn’t know’?”
“That it wasn’t real. That it was a ‘game’.”
Gar thinks wildly that this whole “mentor” shtick is way too dangerous, because there’re so many things that statement could mean, many of them terrible, but he can’t just leave it alone.
“You didn’t know it was VR? You thought living in a Playtendo was normal? I guess that makes weird sense, I mean, ‘normal’ is what ever you’re used to…but didn’t they take you out every now and then to, I don’t know, see your grandmother and stuff? That’s what Wally told us.”
“They took me out when she found out I wasn’t dead, yeah. But before that there was no reason, why interrupt training?”
“Training? For what?”
Gar is pretty sure that Bart doesn’t glance back at him, considering, in the unbearably long beat of silence before he half-mutters “I should talk to Kon.” Their teammate’s disused name sounds both deliberate and not.
And there are those sirens again, louder than ever. Gar wants to laugh, wants to joke, mentoring be damned, but he’s not sure he’s able to, so he tries going back to the beginning. The sunset is down to a grey glow close to the horizon and the moon is just peaking out above Oakland. He can just make out Orion’s Belt over Bart’s shoulder.
Gar is surprised to hear the reassuring tone in his voice as he gestures out the window and says “See, there they are. Right where you left ‘em.” The last thing he feels is reassuring.
“I hope so.” It’s barely a whisper. “Who knows if I’ll get to check again.”
The pieces finally begin to come together, and Gar gives up on saying anything more, simply shifts into a small dog, a green copy of the little white mutt he’s seen in a picture in Bart’s quarters (‘Dox’ he remembers in a rush), and jumps up onto the sill next to the kid. If Bart looks at him for an hour, amber eyes deep in memory, then only the two of them know.
Maybe this kid doesn't need another mentor, Gar thinks, maybe he just needs a friend that's here right now. They sit in silence as Bart absentmindedly pets Gar’s head, looking out at the stars that Gar finally understands were never really Bart’s concern at all.
*****
Udontknoowme! I finally got it done! You got out of my car at like, 12:30am, and the whole ride home I was thinking of what awesomeness I could write to finish it. Which I forgot upon sitting down to my computer. It's now 3:30am and I only wrote another couple paragraphs and formatted it, but it's finally done! ...ish. I couldn't think of a way to have Bart say all the crazy stuff which I speculate about and then rant at you. Perhaps now I will be able to write fic in a timely manner and can save the rest for other stories. I hope I hope. Ooo and I stole your fic header from your blurryline post. See, I don't even watch Gilmore Girls and I still found your community useful!
Title: Brief Candles
Author: DenimDamsel
Fandom: DC Comics
Rating: Harmless aka G-PG
Pairing/Characters: Bart Allen (Kid Flash) and Garfield Logan (Beast Boy) friendship-fic (though if you choose to see slash, be my guest). Mentions Superboy, and, if you squint, Brainiac 5. ^_^
Warning(s): Angst. Vagueness. Angsty vagueness. And meandering Point, since this was written in several different sittings. Also, this is my first serious attempt at fanfiction, and it hasn’t been beta-ed. Consider yourself warned!
Notes: I started writing this right after the Titans/Legion Special came out. Yes it’s taken me that long. It’s had to adapt as the following story arcs came out, and finally wound up taking place right after the whole “Superboy is Luthor’s crazy puppet-clone” Insiders arc. So definitely post- TT#25, maybe during TT#26. The title is a reference to the “Tomorrow” soliloquy from Shakespeare’s MacBeth. Wow, ain't I classy?
Summary: Beast Boy comes across Kid Flash lost in thought as he stares out a window in Titans Tower. Simple questions don’t always have simple answers.
Brief Candles
He’s just sitting there. And okay, so Gar doesn’t really know the kid all that well, hasn’t known him all that long, and maybe it could be said he hasn’t really tried so hard to use what time they have had. But Gar does know about Bart, from Wally and the spandex-grapevine. Gar knows about Bart, enough to know that he shouldn’t just be sitting there, staring off into the darkening twilight, not if everything is normal and good. And Gar also knows he’s technically this kid’s “mentor” and if Bart isn’t normal and good (flighty and all smiles), then he’s supposed to at least ask about it.
“So in subjective time, have you out-brooded Bats yet?” If Bart is startled then only Bart knows, because one instant he’s facing the window and the next Gar is blinking under the gaze of those strange yellow eyes. The kid’s hair isn’t even swishing. And that’s not really fair Gar thinks. There should be some part of Bart Allen, the boy, that can be followed, still moves normally. Gar may not have really known Impulse, but he can’t shake the feeling that this new kid, this Kid Flash, is, if anything, even more unpredictable.
Bart waits a beat, what must be an awkward eternity it occures to Gar, before his gaze blinks back to the window and he’s saying “…waiting for the stars to show up.”
And that’s safe, that’s not mentor-alert material, and Gar is so thankful.
“Never pegged you as the astronomy type. I mean, they’re gonna be there, every night. Thought that kind of regularity would bore the super-attention-deficit.” There’s a joke woven into the tone of the words, like there usually is. Like normal. But this time when Gar realizes too late that maybe it didn’t belong there, it’s worse. It’s like he’s living in the same uncomfortable forevers as the kid , just from trying to predict what the boy perceives, guesstimate how many times that insensitive tone has replayed in that shaggy, too-fast head.
“What if they’re not?” If Bart has glanced back over his shoulder, then only Bart knows. “Everything I’ve read agrees that since they’re so far away, even with the speed of light, a star could be dead for thousands of years before we’d know.” The speed of light? Suddenly Gar hears the sirens.
“Hey man, what’s with all this cheery chit-chat? I thought you were the perky one to balance out Junior Bats and Romeo and Juliet. What’s gnawing at you?” Gar decides to be a beaver for good measure. Nobody said this mentor business had to be stuffy and dull. Bart’s mouth flickers upwards at the corners, held just long enough, Gar suspects, for him to register it. The boy’s eyes look more foreign than ever.
“I guess I’m just feeling kinda… misplaced.”
There we go, Gar has seen this Hallmark Special, and he prays to those stars that the boy will keep to the script he knows the answers for.
“It’s been crazy the last few weeks.” Getting pulled off to the far future, and then a not so far future, and a whole lot of shenanigans involved along the way that Gar can’t seem to remember clearly for some reason. It’s like it’s been wiped out by the more recent fiasco with Superboy. “One thing after another. Comes with the spandex, I guess.”
“Guess so. Or maybe the spandex comes with it.”
Something clicks in Gar’s mind, passing comments Wally and others have made, and he shifts back to human to give himself a moment to think (how long is that to Bart?) before he dives in.
“That’s right. I guess you were just sort of born into all of this, weren’t you? The hero stuff is just the same type of game they had you playing from the start?”
And then Bart is looking at him again, those strange eyes fixed on his, now orange in the darkening light, and Gar doesn’t even breathe because again, he realizes he’s being seriously considered, for an hour at least, a full two seconds, long enough for him to suddenly hope that this young man, his teammate, will trust what he’s seeing-
“I didn’t know.”
And Gar can breathe all of a sudden because he’s looking at Bart’s back again, as Bart has resumed facing the window.
“’Didn’t know’?”
“That it wasn’t real. That it was a ‘game’.”
Gar thinks wildly that this whole “mentor” shtick is way too dangerous, because there’re so many things that statement could mean, many of them terrible, but he can’t just leave it alone.
“You didn’t know it was VR? You thought living in a Playtendo was normal? I guess that makes weird sense, I mean, ‘normal’ is what ever you’re used to…but didn’t they take you out every now and then to, I don’t know, see your grandmother and stuff? That’s what Wally told us.”
“They took me out when she found out I wasn’t dead, yeah. But before that there was no reason, why interrupt training?”
“Training? For what?”
Gar is pretty sure that Bart doesn’t glance back at him, considering, in the unbearably long beat of silence before he half-mutters “I should talk to Kon.” Their teammate’s disused name sounds both deliberate and not.
And there are those sirens again, louder than ever. Gar wants to laugh, wants to joke, mentoring be damned, but he’s not sure he’s able to, so he tries going back to the beginning. The sunset is down to a grey glow close to the horizon and the moon is just peaking out above Oakland. He can just make out Orion’s Belt over Bart’s shoulder.
Gar is surprised to hear the reassuring tone in his voice as he gestures out the window and says “See, there they are. Right where you left ‘em.” The last thing he feels is reassuring.
“I hope so.” It’s barely a whisper. “Who knows if I’ll get to check again.”
The pieces finally begin to come together, and Gar gives up on saying anything more, simply shifts into a small dog, a green copy of the little white mutt he’s seen in a picture in Bart’s quarters (‘Dox’ he remembers in a rush), and jumps up onto the sill next to the kid. If Bart looks at him for an hour, amber eyes deep in memory, then only the two of them know.
Maybe this kid doesn't need another mentor, Gar thinks, maybe he just needs a friend that's here right now. They sit in silence as Bart absentmindedly pets Gar’s head, looking out at the stars that Gar finally understands were never really Bart’s concern at all.
*****