Fic: Hear the Voice
Apologies if this looks a bit wonky. I used some special formatting and LJ kept eating it unless I use the Rich Text function which is iffy at best.
Anyhow, as usual dullscythe draws amazing artses and axolotl_lan and I got inspired aaaaaand here is the result.
Title: Hear the Voice
Author: Katzedecimal and Axolotl_lan
Characters: Pied Piper, Trickster, Flashes I - IV
Rating: G
Notes: This follows Le Papillon by axolotl_lan and incorporates the poem "Hear the Voice" by William Blake
Hear the voice of the Bard who past, present and future sees.
Piper tossed and turned sweating and shivering beneath the blankets. James was floating above the bed, his faint gossamer wings sparkling. It had been like this a month since his miraculous resurrection. James was finding himself more aware of the world around him, the fancy flight didn't seem to be the end of it. He knew that Piper had suffered in his absence but he couldn't identify exactly how. He watched the other man shake and whisper in his sleep. Lowering himself back to the bed, James held onto the man he loved and cooed and made soft noises until the fever chills faded and Piper's distress lessened somewhat.
Whose ears have heard the Holy Word that walked among the ancient trees.
'Play!' the voice screamed, 'Play and become a god!' Then the cloaked figure pulled back its hood but the face wasn't the same, not the deranged demon, red hair spilled forth and the face, the beautiful face, it was...
Another disturbed whine and tears slipped from beneath the coppery lashes fluttering against the freckled cheek like a butterfly's wings. James laid Piper against the mattress, then spread his wings and flew out the open window. He could feel it, like words wanting to slip off of the tip of his tongue. He knew what this was. Flying into the sky, ever upwards on faint wings, he could see himself, the clouds shaping to his demands and the trees below calling out to him. He choked back a primal scream as he felt himself covered from head to toe in butterflies in his colours. He finally shouted and they fell like sparkles to the ground, no sign of the life they had once had. James lowered himself to the earth and when his feet touched solid ground, it hit him like a tidal wave: He knew what was building. He knew what he had become, what Piper was becoming. The world wouldn't know what hit them.
He returned to the apartment and stared. Hartley didn't know how his rats kept escaping. He'd checked wire widths and looked for chewed bolt holes but found nothing. He didn't understand. In the grip of dream, he moaned with fear and every latch opened, every door flung wide. The doors of the cages burst open and the rats streamed out to crawl over and cuddle their beloved master, responding to his soul's distress.
James followed them and sat on the edge of the bed. Gently, he laid his hand on his lover's shoulder, "Piper... Piper, we need to talk." He waited, letting his energy reach out and surrounded Piper urging him to wake. "Piper, I need to know what happened after I died.” He stroked the man's face tenderly, brushing back a lock of sweat-plastered hair. “Piper, we're... You're changing, I've changed and... Hart, please it's important."
Calling the lapsed soul and weeping in the evening dew.
Hartley looked up. His face was pale, drenched with cold sweat and he clutched the rats to his chest. "...I don't know how they keep getting out," he rasped. The cage doors stood wide open; he didn't look at them. He didn't look at James. His eyes were drawn to the thick scar on his right wrist and stayed there. "...I told you already," his voice was low, a monotone imperfectly hiding his despair, "I lost you in the desert, I got taken to Apokalips, I wound up back home."
James threaded his fingers through Hartley's, left over right. A butterfly fluttered in through the open window and lighted briefly on their twined knuckles, then fluttered to sit on Piper's principal rat. "There's more to it, and I think it's coming to a head. I can't make you tell me but... I think it woke something in us both.”
That might control the starry pole and fallen, fallen light renew.
"Nothing is happening," Hartley's voice was level, desperate, "Nothing is happening." The cage doors started to rattle.
"Sure. Absolutely nothing," James said. Letting himself go, he felt the wings emerge fully and the walls and ceiling shed into thousands of butterflies in glowing blue, yellow and black. He stared Hartley in the eyes, "Can't you feel it, it's in you too, I know you heard it. I know it's building up inside you." The rat looked up, wearing the butterfly like a hat, and began to call. The wings beat faster and faster filling the room with the pressure of thousands of light fluttering creatures before they turned to sparkling dust and the room was left as it had been. "Is this absolutely nothing?"
O Earth, O Earth, return! Arise from out the dewy grass!
Hartley trembled but was unable to look away from the depthless sapphires that James's eyes had become after his miraculous transformation. "..I didn't know..." he whispered at last, "I didn't know. I meant to drive it away but the next thing I knew, the whole planet was crumbling around me! I didn't know I could do that."
"The entire planet?" James looked at Piper, "it's happening, Hart. We're not just ourselves anymore. We're being set up for something more than ourselves." James kissed Piper's neck gently. "Tell me. Tell me everything."
"The whole planet. The whole hellworld. He told me I could have it and I... I..........." Hartley turned away, unable to meet James's gaze any longer. Not with this shame. "I killed him. He got you killed and I killed him. And then I killed his world."
James nodded, not expecting much different from the snippets in nightmarish moans from Piper's restless sleep. "How? None of the costumes have anywhere near the sort of power to do that sort of thing. Apokalips is the sort of place the JLA won't even go in without being full-team readied or calling reinforcements. Hartley, if you did that, think of what they are there and what this means. How did you do it?"
"I just.... I just played my flute..."
“A flute made of car parts, practically spit and duct tape.” Hartley looked away. James could see the expression on Piper's face. "Come with me. Come with me, truly let go and let's play. I'll hold you up and you let your notes fly upon the breeze and tell the Twin Cities just how far we've come."
Night is worn and the morn rises from the slumbrous mass.
Hartley lowered his face. Defeated, he nodded. "We need to go to the Flash Museum."
"Whhhhhhhy my dear Hartley of my very own heart, I have been waiting for you to ask me for just this. I can feel the pitter-patter of my beating chest already. Ally-oop!" James hugged Hartley close in an almost indecent embrace and flew them half dressed in their nightclothes towards the Flash museum. Piper never did specify a need to dress or wait for morning to come.
Once there, Hartley walked purposefully. He knew where it was, the hated thing. Young, arrogant, he'd played it once and suffered for his hubris. Then the hero Firestorm had sealed it away in a steel box and buried it in the sea. But these things have a way. The steel had rusted, the currents had changed and one day someone had caught a fish... And because he had played it, it wound up here, in the Flash Museum.
The Pipes of Pan.
Turn away no more; why wilt thou turn away?
He broke the glass, heedless of the alarms. He'd worked his sonic genius with everything from grass whistles to car parts and never once questioned that it would work. 'You will become a god!' the mad god had screamed, and he'd replied, 'I would become a devil.' His hand closed around the Pipes and the image of the hooded god rose unbidden in his mind's eye. 'No,' the god said, and pushed back the hood and the face that looked back was his sister's, his mother's, his own, 'You will become a Muse.'
He brought the Pipes to his lips. He knew now what he'd done wrong, the first time. He'd played a, hah, a 'goatsong.' But this time.. He glanced back at James, his miraculous butterfly lover, the spirit of the Trickster himself....
He played the Ode to Joy and the world went white around him.
The starry floor, the watery shore, is given thee 'til the break of day.
Piper awoke to a wolf whistle and four confused speedsters. He startled at a cobwebby feel and noticed that his hair had apparently tripled in length. Then he noticed something else. He was even less dressed than before but despite the feeling of embarassment, for once his light pink complexion had not fallen into a full bodied blush. He was floating on the music. He felt.... strange... and at peace. Then he turned to look at James.
James was similarly less than fully clothed, butterfly wings on full glow. He wiggled his hips and winked and Hartley smiled. He reached for James's hand and his right hand was no longer scarred. "We're...flying?"
"Just thinking happy thoughts," James said with a wicked grin.
"Hey, you just robbed the flash museum! You won't get away with this, you Rogues!"
The Pied Piper played. The music lifted the speedsters and buoyed them into the air to meet him at eye level. He smiled beatifically, "Just taking back what's mine."
"What makes you think it's yours?"
The boy who was once Impulse looked at Barry, the second Flash, "What makes you think it belongs to us here? Just because we arrested him?"
James beamed, his arms wrapped tightly around Piper's sculpted waist. "Hey, good to see you back amongst the living, kid! I was dead too for a bit, fantastic when things work out."
"Piper's done some pretty amazing things with sound, over the years. It could explain a lot," Wally West, the third Flash said. Then he looked down, "Plus he's holding us twenty feet off the floor with the power of Beethoven."
“So what do you plan on becoming?" Barry asked.
“Becoming?" the Piper arched a puzzled eyebrow then smiled. "What I've always been," he said and stroked the Pipes tenderly, "Music."
Jay Garrick, the original Flash, looked at them thoughtfully. He and Piper had always been courteous to each other, they'd gotten along alright, and he'd admired the young man's integrity with his reform and community service. He looked between Barry's stubborn reluctance, Wally's uncertainty and Bart's general acceptance and then nodded. “The JSA would love to have you. I could use a buffer for Magog and some of the young'uns. Same for you Trickster, provided you only silly-string the kids. And Alan," he added as an afterthought.
The Piper turned to look at The Trickster. "What do you think?" he said, smiling, "He's offering to let you silly-string Green Lantern. And I've heard that Magog has a huge ego bubble."
"I think we ought to show him what godliness means!" James said happily. Wally rolled his eyes and muttered something about "being less than dressed."
Anyhow, as usual dullscythe draws amazing artses and axolotl_lan and I got inspired aaaaaand here is the result.
Title: Hear the Voice
Author: Katzedecimal and Axolotl_lan
Characters: Pied Piper, Trickster, Flashes I - IV
Rating: G
Notes: This follows Le Papillon by axolotl_lan and incorporates the poem "Hear the Voice" by William Blake
Hear the voice of the Bard who past, present and future sees.
Piper tossed and turned sweating and shivering beneath the blankets. James was floating above the bed, his faint gossamer wings sparkling. It had been like this a month since his miraculous resurrection. James was finding himself more aware of the world around him, the fancy flight didn't seem to be the end of it. He knew that Piper had suffered in his absence but he couldn't identify exactly how. He watched the other man shake and whisper in his sleep. Lowering himself back to the bed, James held onto the man he loved and cooed and made soft noises until the fever chills faded and Piper's distress lessened somewhat.
Whose ears have heard the Holy Word that walked among the ancient trees.
'Play!' the voice screamed, 'Play and become a god!' Then the cloaked figure pulled back its hood but the face wasn't the same, not the deranged demon, red hair spilled forth and the face, the beautiful face, it was...
Another disturbed whine and tears slipped from beneath the coppery lashes fluttering against the freckled cheek like a butterfly's wings. James laid Piper against the mattress, then spread his wings and flew out the open window. He could feel it, like words wanting to slip off of the tip of his tongue. He knew what this was. Flying into the sky, ever upwards on faint wings, he could see himself, the clouds shaping to his demands and the trees below calling out to him. He choked back a primal scream as he felt himself covered from head to toe in butterflies in his colours. He finally shouted and they fell like sparkles to the ground, no sign of the life they had once had. James lowered himself to the earth and when his feet touched solid ground, it hit him like a tidal wave: He knew what was building. He knew what he had become, what Piper was becoming. The world wouldn't know what hit them.
He returned to the apartment and stared. Hartley didn't know how his rats kept escaping. He'd checked wire widths and looked for chewed bolt holes but found nothing. He didn't understand. In the grip of dream, he moaned with fear and every latch opened, every door flung wide. The doors of the cages burst open and the rats streamed out to crawl over and cuddle their beloved master, responding to his soul's distress.
James followed them and sat on the edge of the bed. Gently, he laid his hand on his lover's shoulder, "Piper... Piper, we need to talk." He waited, letting his energy reach out and surrounded Piper urging him to wake. "Piper, I need to know what happened after I died.” He stroked the man's face tenderly, brushing back a lock of sweat-plastered hair. “Piper, we're... You're changing, I've changed and... Hart, please it's important."
Calling the lapsed soul and weeping in the evening dew.
Hartley looked up. His face was pale, drenched with cold sweat and he clutched the rats to his chest. "...I don't know how they keep getting out," he rasped. The cage doors stood wide open; he didn't look at them. He didn't look at James. His eyes were drawn to the thick scar on his right wrist and stayed there. "...I told you already," his voice was low, a monotone imperfectly hiding his despair, "I lost you in the desert, I got taken to Apokalips, I wound up back home."
James threaded his fingers through Hartley's, left over right. A butterfly fluttered in through the open window and lighted briefly on their twined knuckles, then fluttered to sit on Piper's principal rat. "There's more to it, and I think it's coming to a head. I can't make you tell me but... I think it woke something in us both.”
That might control the starry pole and fallen, fallen light renew.
"Nothing is happening," Hartley's voice was level, desperate, "Nothing is happening." The cage doors started to rattle.
"Sure. Absolutely nothing," James said. Letting himself go, he felt the wings emerge fully and the walls and ceiling shed into thousands of butterflies in glowing blue, yellow and black. He stared Hartley in the eyes, "Can't you feel it, it's in you too, I know you heard it. I know it's building up inside you." The rat looked up, wearing the butterfly like a hat, and began to call. The wings beat faster and faster filling the room with the pressure of thousands of light fluttering creatures before they turned to sparkling dust and the room was left as it had been. "Is this absolutely nothing?"
O Earth, O Earth, return! Arise from out the dewy grass!
Hartley trembled but was unable to look away from the depthless sapphires that James's eyes had become after his miraculous transformation. "..I didn't know..." he whispered at last, "I didn't know. I meant to drive it away but the next thing I knew, the whole planet was crumbling around me! I didn't know I could do that."
"The entire planet?" James looked at Piper, "it's happening, Hart. We're not just ourselves anymore. We're being set up for something more than ourselves." James kissed Piper's neck gently. "Tell me. Tell me everything."
"The whole planet. The whole hellworld. He told me I could have it and I... I..........." Hartley turned away, unable to meet James's gaze any longer. Not with this shame. "I killed him. He got you killed and I killed him. And then I killed his world."
James nodded, not expecting much different from the snippets in nightmarish moans from Piper's restless sleep. "How? None of the costumes have anywhere near the sort of power to do that sort of thing. Apokalips is the sort of place the JLA won't even go in without being full-team readied or calling reinforcements. Hartley, if you did that, think of what they are there and what this means. How did you do it?"
"I just.... I just played my flute..."
“A flute made of car parts, practically spit and duct tape.” Hartley looked away. James could see the expression on Piper's face. "Come with me. Come with me, truly let go and let's play. I'll hold you up and you let your notes fly upon the breeze and tell the Twin Cities just how far we've come."
Night is worn and the morn rises from the slumbrous mass.
Hartley lowered his face. Defeated, he nodded. "We need to go to the Flash Museum."
"Whhhhhhhy my dear Hartley of my very own heart, I have been waiting for you to ask me for just this. I can feel the pitter-patter of my beating chest already. Ally-oop!" James hugged Hartley close in an almost indecent embrace and flew them half dressed in their nightclothes towards the Flash museum. Piper never did specify a need to dress or wait for morning to come.
Once there, Hartley walked purposefully. He knew where it was, the hated thing. Young, arrogant, he'd played it once and suffered for his hubris. Then the hero Firestorm had sealed it away in a steel box and buried it in the sea. But these things have a way. The steel had rusted, the currents had changed and one day someone had caught a fish... And because he had played it, it wound up here, in the Flash Museum.
The Pipes of Pan.
Turn away no more; why wilt thou turn away?
He broke the glass, heedless of the alarms. He'd worked his sonic genius with everything from grass whistles to car parts and never once questioned that it would work. 'You will become a god!' the mad god had screamed, and he'd replied, 'I would become a devil.' His hand closed around the Pipes and the image of the hooded god rose unbidden in his mind's eye. 'No,' the god said, and pushed back the hood and the face that looked back was his sister's, his mother's, his own, 'You will become a Muse.'
He brought the Pipes to his lips. He knew now what he'd done wrong, the first time. He'd played a, hah, a 'goatsong.' But this time.. He glanced back at James, his miraculous butterfly lover, the spirit of the Trickster himself....
He played the Ode to Joy and the world went white around him.
The starry floor, the watery shore, is given thee 'til the break of day.
Piper awoke to a wolf whistle and four confused speedsters. He startled at a cobwebby feel and noticed that his hair had apparently tripled in length. Then he noticed something else. He was even less dressed than before but despite the feeling of embarassment, for once his light pink complexion had not fallen into a full bodied blush. He was floating on the music. He felt.... strange... and at peace. Then he turned to look at James.
James was similarly less than fully clothed, butterfly wings on full glow. He wiggled his hips and winked and Hartley smiled. He reached for James's hand and his right hand was no longer scarred. "We're...flying?"
"Just thinking happy thoughts," James said with a wicked grin.
"Hey, you just robbed the flash museum! You won't get away with this, you Rogues!"
The Pied Piper played. The music lifted the speedsters and buoyed them into the air to meet him at eye level. He smiled beatifically, "Just taking back what's mine."
"What makes you think it's yours?"
The boy who was once Impulse looked at Barry, the second Flash, "What makes you think it belongs to us here? Just because we arrested him?"
James beamed, his arms wrapped tightly around Piper's sculpted waist. "Hey, good to see you back amongst the living, kid! I was dead too for a bit, fantastic when things work out."
"Piper's done some pretty amazing things with sound, over the years. It could explain a lot," Wally West, the third Flash said. Then he looked down, "Plus he's holding us twenty feet off the floor with the power of Beethoven."
“So what do you plan on becoming?" Barry asked.
“Becoming?" the Piper arched a puzzled eyebrow then smiled. "What I've always been," he said and stroked the Pipes tenderly, "Music."
Jay Garrick, the original Flash, looked at them thoughtfully. He and Piper had always been courteous to each other, they'd gotten along alright, and he'd admired the young man's integrity with his reform and community service. He looked between Barry's stubborn reluctance, Wally's uncertainty and Bart's general acceptance and then nodded. “The JSA would love to have you. I could use a buffer for Magog and some of the young'uns. Same for you Trickster, provided you only silly-string the kids. And Alan," he added as an afterthought.
The Piper turned to look at The Trickster. "What do you think?" he said, smiling, "He's offering to let you silly-string Green Lantern. And I've heard that Magog has a huge ego bubble."
"I think we ought to show him what godliness means!" James said happily. Wally rolled his eyes and muttered something about "being less than dressed."