The Redemption of Booster Gold. Chapter 5
Title: The Redemption of Booster Gold -- Chapter Five: Flagellation
Fandom: Justice League
Characters: Booster, Beetle, Junior (OMC), Max
Prompt: "How."
Word Count: 2333
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: The how of Booster going from shooting Batman to bringing Ted back from the dead. A prequel of sorts, going over the things the first Mullet-verse Prologue skipped over. Exploring the details and day-to-day of the progression of obsession and mourning, as well as the origins of Junior and Zombie Max.
CHAPTERS: { Prologue: Absolution }{ Chapter One: Benediction }{ Chapter Two: Consecration }{ Chapter Three: Delegation }{ Chapter Four: Education }{ Chapter Five: Flagellation }{ Epilogue: Glorification }
<-{ previous story: Mullet-verse handbook/guide } { next story: Hairy Situations and Situational Hair }->
Beta and suggestions by lakidaa.
~5th Chapter: Flagellation
Flagellation is an extreme form of mortification of the flesh, putting the flesh to death.
-----
The basement was paisley for exactly fourteen seconds.
Booster wasn't sure why paisley, or even why it happened in the first place, but it seemed a lot like magic had suddenly gone completely wonky for a bit. Luckily, it wore off after the fourteen seconds. And Junior had been there to confirm that Booster wasn't just hallucinating.
They agreed to never speak of it again.
---------------
Afterward, Junior went upstairs to look through rubble. Booster wasn't sure what he was doing, but the boy kept...finding things. The goggles, the pair of lime green shoes that he'd formed an odd attachment to, a paperclip chain that was several feet long.
The other day, Booster had found Junior staring at an old Justice League photo with cracked glass. He looked like he was trying to figure something out, and occasionally reached out to press his fingers over the images of Booster and Beetle.
Booster wasn't sure what to make of that. It seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't remember where he'd seen that particular mannerism before.
Whatever the boy was up to, he wasn't in the basement and he wasn't in the way. Which meant there was one less thing for Booster to worry about.
Lately, Booster had been worrying about a lot. About whatever strange goings on were going on in the world, that he was only catching glimpses of. About Junior, who Booster was becoming fond of despite the uncertainty surrounding the boy's lifespan. About whether he was doing anything right.
When he first started, everything had seemed so clear. The cloning technology in this century was imperfect and uncertain, and anyway he didn't have any way to download Ted's brain into a clone. So that was out. But magic...magic was capable of things that the current technology available to him wasn't. The radio commercial that led him to The Big Book of Resurrection Rituals had seemed like a bright, shining ray of hope.
But now, after so many failed attempts, he was starting to wonder if maybe the whole thing was pointless.
Sighing, Booster put those thoughts aside and got to work.
---------------
Several things combined in the next few minutes to throw off the intended outcome of the spell.
Magic, worldwide, fluctuated wildly. Booster was not, by nature, a magic-user, and so he was not in tune enough with such magical energies that he would, or even could, notice.
One of the ingredients that, as the book specifically stated, was supposed to be fresh had been difficult to find at all. So Booster had had to make due with...not so fresh.
And finally, one of the powdered components of the spell drifted up to curl around Booster's nose when he added it. This resulted in Booster sneezing at an important point. Specifically, the point when he was pronouncing a name.
Apparently accuracy was important.
---------------
There wasn't much smoke this time. In fact, Booster wasn't even sure it was smoke.
The combined ingredients started bulging up and out, sending some of the powdered ingredients up in a tiny cloud. A smell like burning garbage rose from the sickeningly lurching blob of grey and brown. The mess grew quickly, rising up from the floor with choked squelching sounds, shuddering and seizing until it was a human size and shape.
The slimy figure stood motionless for a moment, then there was a sucking squish and all the wetness was abruptly pulled in. A sound like a death rattle escaped it, just before the mass became recognizable as a person.
"Look. Guys. Your best days in tights are behind you. You need to stop looking backward. And start looking toward the future."
"Max?" Booster whispered in frozen horror.
At the sound of his voice, Max twitched and groaned softly. That was when Booster finally realized what it was that his brain had been screaming at him to notice.
Max's head was facing almost completely backward.
The unnatural angle of his neck suggested that it was broken. Badly. And Max's skin had a sickly gray pallor.
Booster opened his mouth to say "Oh crap," but no sound came out. Then Max twitched again and his head tilted so his dead white eyes were staring directly at Booster.
He lurched forward.
Booster screamed.
He would later deny that it was high-pitched or girly, but at the moment he wasn't paying attention to that.
A zombie. He had created a zombie. And Max was dead. When had Max died? Booster had seen him just before Ted--
What the hell? Was there some sort of vast conspiracy to kill all his old friends? Who was next? Beatriz? Dmitri?
Booster's thoughts were cut short when Max lurched again and reduced them to a single terrified mantra of "Oh crap it's a zombie! Oh crap it's a zombie!" Darting away from the rotting corpse, Booster briefly wondered why the hell he hadn't thought to put on his suit, which had a forcefield, and blasters. Things that could protect his juicy, delicious brains better than crappy hair dye!
Max groaned again.
Booster screamed again.
Max lurched again.
Booster...stayed where he was to stare at the slow, shuffling progress of his former business associate.
It was slow. Very slow. Max was barely moving at all, in fact. The fingers of one flaking gray hand twitched like a snail having a seizure.
It was a little sad, actually.
"Crap," Booster sighed, covering his face with a hand. Max groaned in response and Booster lifted his gaze to glare at him. "Oh shut up."
---------------
As Booster tried to find a way to send Max back to...wherever he came from, he ignored the shambling reanimated corpse. Until Max finally got close enough to touch him.
At the touch of a rotting hand on his back, Booster screamed once more (and would deny with his dying breath that it was girly) and leapt up from his seat at the desk. Shuddering and frantically brushing moist skin flakes from himself, he cursed and berated Max. Then he looked back and saw that Max was still partially bent over from stiffly trying to line his mouth up with Booster's head.
Well, that answered the question of whether he was the kind of zombie that ate the flesh of the living.
And also helped to reinforce the fact that while Max was incredibly slow, he was also persistent. If Booster intended to stay in any one place for an extended period of time, such as reading or sleeping, Max would eventually catch up.
Eventually.
Booster stared at Max as he slowly straightened, trying to decide what to do about him. The book didn't have anything useful to say about how to undo the spell, as usual. He considered fire, since that seemed to be a pretty standard way of getting rid of zombies, but...well, it was Max. Whatever Max was or had been, he was one of Booster's oldest acquaintances, friends even. Nevermind that Max was dead, rotting, and intent on eating Booster's flesh while he still had use for it. He was still Max.
"You gonna help me, or you gonna wallow in nostalgia?"
"Dammit," Booster sighed.
Zombie Max would not be destroyed.
---------------
Eventually Booster noticed a closet, partially hidden by a stack of boxes and a long metal pole with a claw on one end. A quick check inside revealed nothing very important in it besides some old coats and a few other clothes, a box marked "SUPERBUDDIES," and something that looked like a moldy pet rock. At least, Booster hoped there was a rock under all that mold.
Knowing Ted, there was really no telling.
The trouble was getting Max into it.
Booster was still wary of getting too close to the zombie, and really didn't like the idea of touching the moist rot. So he stood in front of the open closet and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
When Max was about halfway to him, Booster rushed over to the desk, grabbed some of his notes, and ran back to the closet. Leaning against the doorway, he started going over his plans for his next attempt, occasionally glancing up to check Max's progress.
Booster really didn't want a repeat of this disaster. Or the one that created Junior, for that matter. One child who might not survive to his first birthday was bad enough, two was just irresponsible.
Looking up again, Booster noted that Max was close enough that he could see a small spider hanging from the zombie's ear like some kind of macabre earring. That was close enough, he decided.
With all the speed and skill of someone whose livelihood had for most of his life depended on being nimble, Booster slipped around Zombie Max and shoved him the rest of the way into the closet with his shoulder. Slamming the door behind the corpse, Booster took a deep breath...
...and gagged.
"Augh!" he exclaimed, pinching his nose as his eyes watered.
It took him a few moments to find the source of the smell. Apparently when he shoved Max, some of the rotting grey skin had sluiced off and stuck to his shirt. Stripping out of it gladly, Booster opened the closet to toss the shirt in with Max. How he hadn't noticed the putrid miasma of stench surrounding the undead man before, Booster wasn't sure. Probably he had just managed to stay far enough away from the invisible reach of the stink to avoid it.
Now enough of it had soaked through his shirt and onto his skin that Booster couldn't avoid it.
Grabbing a different shirt, Booster went upstairs to shower.
---------------
Junior didn't seem phased by the smell, except to ask curiously what it was. Booster told him it was rotting human skin just to see what he would do.
What Junior did was get an expression on his face like he was filing that away in his head, then nodded and said "'Kay." Booster shook his head and continued on his way to the bathroom.
He wondered if Ted had been a weird kid. He thought it was pretty likely.
When all he could smell on himself was soap and his own skin, Booster finally got out of the shower and dressed. It didn't occur to him until he was already halfway down the basement stairs that he hadn't warned Junior about Zombie Max. Since the kid got into everything eventually, Booster decided to do so sooner rather than later.
Then he realized that he didn't need to, because Junior had already found Zombie Max. One hand on the door, the boy watched with curious interest as the zombie attempted to shuffle around to face him in the cramped closet.
Before he realized what he was doing, Booster had shouted a warning and was running to snatch Junior back from the closet and slam the door closed. Heart pounding, Booster dropped to one knee, cupping the boy's face with both hands as he checked him for damage he knew, intellectually, wasn't there. "Are you okay?" he blurted.
Junior stared at him in confusion, unsure what to make of his strange behavior. "He's a lot slower than the zombies on TV," he said.
Letting out a breathless chuckle, Booster dropped his hands to Junior's shoulders and nodded. "Yes, yes he is," he agreed. "I still don't want you messing with him."
Junior tilted his head to one side, brow furrowing, and asked, "Who is he?"
Booster opened his mouth to answer, then closed it and silently glanced at the closet door. Coming to a decision, he squeezed Junior's shoulders and stood up. "Go upstairs, I'll be up in a few minutes," he said.
Grinning, Junior chirped "'Kay!" and darted up the stairs as Booster looked on. Then turning his attention back to the closet, Booster opened the door.
Zombie Max still hadn't turned completely around, and had somehow gotten an arm tangled in a hanging pair of pants. Booster held his breath as he sidled past him to nudge the mold rock off the SUPERBUDDIES box with one foot, then backed out pulling the box with him.
Closing the door behind him, Booster leaned back against it to slide to the ground and open the box. Inside were some tapes, a photo album, and various knick-knacks from their time with the SuperBuddies group and a few other groups.
"Wallowing in nostalgia, huh Ted?" Booster murmured with an amused, affectionate smile.
---------------
Setting the box down beside Junior, Booster fished out the tape he was looking for and put it in the VCR. Junior handed the remote over to him and he pressed a few buttons before sliding the box aside and sitting next to the boy. Reaching into the box again, Booster pulled out the photo album and set it on his lap.
"SuperBuddies! Captain Atom. The fallout free--"
"This is the last group Ted and I were in together," Booster told Junior, eyes fixed on the cheesy promotional video that Max had been so optimistic about. "That guy in the basement is the one who put it together. But we knew him before that."
"Got a super problem call: 1-800-SUPERBUDDIES! Ask for Ron."
As he opened the album, Booster glanced up to find Junior gazing at him with something like awe. It made a glowing feeling of warmth spread through his chest.
Booster turned his attention back to the album and moved it so Junior could see it better. "See, there's Max."
"Who's the short metal guy with him?" Junior asked, pointing.
"That's L-Ron," Booster replied, grinning. "He was--Actually, it's a funny story."
Leaning close, Junior listened intently as Booster waxed nostalgic on the various adventures he and Ted had taken part in. It was nice to have someone so eager to hear about it, and Booster thought maybe talking about the past made the present hurt a little less.
Junior thought it was almost like one of those father/son bonding moments he had seen on TV.
He'd always liked those.
-----
Various quotes taken from: Countdown to Infinite Crisis and Formerly Known As The Justice League.
[ETA of epilogue: ...within the next week.]
Mullet-verse handbook/guide. (AKA "Are you as lost as I am?")
PIMP: The fifth chapter to the crazy!Junior story, Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide, has been posted in my journal. New updates to it will be pimped with new updates to this fic. Enjoy.
Aaand, just because I like you people so much, the sixth chapter is also available. It can be found HERE.
Fandom: Justice League
Characters: Booster, Beetle, Junior (OMC), Max
Prompt: "How."
Word Count: 2333
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: The how of Booster going from shooting Batman to bringing Ted back from the dead. A prequel of sorts, going over the things the first Mullet-verse Prologue skipped over. Exploring the details and day-to-day of the progression of obsession and mourning, as well as the origins of Junior and Zombie Max.
CHAPTERS: { Prologue: Absolution }{ Chapter One: Benediction }{ Chapter Two: Consecration }{ Chapter Three: Delegation }{ Chapter Four: Education }{ Chapter Five: Flagellation }{ Epilogue: Glorification }
<-{ previous story: Mullet-verse handbook/guide } { next story: Hairy Situations and Situational Hair }->
Beta and suggestions by lakidaa.
~5th Chapter: Flagellation
Flagellation is an extreme form of mortification of the flesh, putting the flesh to death.
-----
The basement was paisley for exactly fourteen seconds.
Booster wasn't sure why paisley, or even why it happened in the first place, but it seemed a lot like magic had suddenly gone completely wonky for a bit. Luckily, it wore off after the fourteen seconds. And Junior had been there to confirm that Booster wasn't just hallucinating.
They agreed to never speak of it again.
---------------
Afterward, Junior went upstairs to look through rubble. Booster wasn't sure what he was doing, but the boy kept...finding things. The goggles, the pair of lime green shoes that he'd formed an odd attachment to, a paperclip chain that was several feet long.
The other day, Booster had found Junior staring at an old Justice League photo with cracked glass. He looked like he was trying to figure something out, and occasionally reached out to press his fingers over the images of Booster and Beetle.
Booster wasn't sure what to make of that. It seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't remember where he'd seen that particular mannerism before.
Whatever the boy was up to, he wasn't in the basement and he wasn't in the way. Which meant there was one less thing for Booster to worry about.
Lately, Booster had been worrying about a lot. About whatever strange goings on were going on in the world, that he was only catching glimpses of. About Junior, who Booster was becoming fond of despite the uncertainty surrounding the boy's lifespan. About whether he was doing anything right.
When he first started, everything had seemed so clear. The cloning technology in this century was imperfect and uncertain, and anyway he didn't have any way to download Ted's brain into a clone. So that was out. But magic...magic was capable of things that the current technology available to him wasn't. The radio commercial that led him to The Big Book of Resurrection Rituals had seemed like a bright, shining ray of hope.
But now, after so many failed attempts, he was starting to wonder if maybe the whole thing was pointless.
Sighing, Booster put those thoughts aside and got to work.
---------------
Several things combined in the next few minutes to throw off the intended outcome of the spell.
Magic, worldwide, fluctuated wildly. Booster was not, by nature, a magic-user, and so he was not in tune enough with such magical energies that he would, or even could, notice.
One of the ingredients that, as the book specifically stated, was supposed to be fresh had been difficult to find at all. So Booster had had to make due with...not so fresh.
And finally, one of the powdered components of the spell drifted up to curl around Booster's nose when he added it. This resulted in Booster sneezing at an important point. Specifically, the point when he was pronouncing a name.
Apparently accuracy was important.
---------------
There wasn't much smoke this time. In fact, Booster wasn't even sure it was smoke.
The combined ingredients started bulging up and out, sending some of the powdered ingredients up in a tiny cloud. A smell like burning garbage rose from the sickeningly lurching blob of grey and brown. The mess grew quickly, rising up from the floor with choked squelching sounds, shuddering and seizing until it was a human size and shape.
The slimy figure stood motionless for a moment, then there was a sucking squish and all the wetness was abruptly pulled in. A sound like a death rattle escaped it, just before the mass became recognizable as a person.
"Look. Guys. Your best days in tights are behind you. You need to stop looking backward. And start looking toward the future."
"Max?" Booster whispered in frozen horror.
At the sound of his voice, Max twitched and groaned softly. That was when Booster finally realized what it was that his brain had been screaming at him to notice.
Max's head was facing almost completely backward.
The unnatural angle of his neck suggested that it was broken. Badly. And Max's skin had a sickly gray pallor.
Booster opened his mouth to say "Oh crap," but no sound came out. Then Max twitched again and his head tilted so his dead white eyes were staring directly at Booster.
He lurched forward.
Booster screamed.
He would later deny that it was high-pitched or girly, but at the moment he wasn't paying attention to that.
A zombie. He had created a zombie. And Max was dead. When had Max died? Booster had seen him just before Ted--
What the hell? Was there some sort of vast conspiracy to kill all his old friends? Who was next? Beatriz? Dmitri?
Booster's thoughts were cut short when Max lurched again and reduced them to a single terrified mantra of "Oh crap it's a zombie! Oh crap it's a zombie!" Darting away from the rotting corpse, Booster briefly wondered why the hell he hadn't thought to put on his suit, which had a forcefield, and blasters. Things that could protect his juicy, delicious brains better than crappy hair dye!
Max groaned again.
Booster screamed again.
Max lurched again.
Booster...stayed where he was to stare at the slow, shuffling progress of his former business associate.
It was slow. Very slow. Max was barely moving at all, in fact. The fingers of one flaking gray hand twitched like a snail having a seizure.
It was a little sad, actually.
"Crap," Booster sighed, covering his face with a hand. Max groaned in response and Booster lifted his gaze to glare at him. "Oh shut up."
---------------
As Booster tried to find a way to send Max back to...wherever he came from, he ignored the shambling reanimated corpse. Until Max finally got close enough to touch him.
At the touch of a rotting hand on his back, Booster screamed once more (and would deny with his dying breath that it was girly) and leapt up from his seat at the desk. Shuddering and frantically brushing moist skin flakes from himself, he cursed and berated Max. Then he looked back and saw that Max was still partially bent over from stiffly trying to line his mouth up with Booster's head.
Well, that answered the question of whether he was the kind of zombie that ate the flesh of the living.
And also helped to reinforce the fact that while Max was incredibly slow, he was also persistent. If Booster intended to stay in any one place for an extended period of time, such as reading or sleeping, Max would eventually catch up.
Eventually.
Booster stared at Max as he slowly straightened, trying to decide what to do about him. The book didn't have anything useful to say about how to undo the spell, as usual. He considered fire, since that seemed to be a pretty standard way of getting rid of zombies, but...well, it was Max. Whatever Max was or had been, he was one of Booster's oldest acquaintances, friends even. Nevermind that Max was dead, rotting, and intent on eating Booster's flesh while he still had use for it. He was still Max.
"You gonna help me, or you gonna wallow in nostalgia?"
"Dammit," Booster sighed.
Zombie Max would not be destroyed.
---------------
Eventually Booster noticed a closet, partially hidden by a stack of boxes and a long metal pole with a claw on one end. A quick check inside revealed nothing very important in it besides some old coats and a few other clothes, a box marked "SUPERBUDDIES," and something that looked like a moldy pet rock. At least, Booster hoped there was a rock under all that mold.
Knowing Ted, there was really no telling.
The trouble was getting Max into it.
Booster was still wary of getting too close to the zombie, and really didn't like the idea of touching the moist rot. So he stood in front of the open closet and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
When Max was about halfway to him, Booster rushed over to the desk, grabbed some of his notes, and ran back to the closet. Leaning against the doorway, he started going over his plans for his next attempt, occasionally glancing up to check Max's progress.
Booster really didn't want a repeat of this disaster. Or the one that created Junior, for that matter. One child who might not survive to his first birthday was bad enough, two was just irresponsible.
Looking up again, Booster noted that Max was close enough that he could see a small spider hanging from the zombie's ear like some kind of macabre earring. That was close enough, he decided.
With all the speed and skill of someone whose livelihood had for most of his life depended on being nimble, Booster slipped around Zombie Max and shoved him the rest of the way into the closet with his shoulder. Slamming the door behind the corpse, Booster took a deep breath...
...and gagged.
"Augh!" he exclaimed, pinching his nose as his eyes watered.
It took him a few moments to find the source of the smell. Apparently when he shoved Max, some of the rotting grey skin had sluiced off and stuck to his shirt. Stripping out of it gladly, Booster opened the closet to toss the shirt in with Max. How he hadn't noticed the putrid miasma of stench surrounding the undead man before, Booster wasn't sure. Probably he had just managed to stay far enough away from the invisible reach of the stink to avoid it.
Now enough of it had soaked through his shirt and onto his skin that Booster couldn't avoid it.
Grabbing a different shirt, Booster went upstairs to shower.
---------------
Junior didn't seem phased by the smell, except to ask curiously what it was. Booster told him it was rotting human skin just to see what he would do.
What Junior did was get an expression on his face like he was filing that away in his head, then nodded and said "'Kay." Booster shook his head and continued on his way to the bathroom.
He wondered if Ted had been a weird kid. He thought it was pretty likely.
When all he could smell on himself was soap and his own skin, Booster finally got out of the shower and dressed. It didn't occur to him until he was already halfway down the basement stairs that he hadn't warned Junior about Zombie Max. Since the kid got into everything eventually, Booster decided to do so sooner rather than later.
Then he realized that he didn't need to, because Junior had already found Zombie Max. One hand on the door, the boy watched with curious interest as the zombie attempted to shuffle around to face him in the cramped closet.
Before he realized what he was doing, Booster had shouted a warning and was running to snatch Junior back from the closet and slam the door closed. Heart pounding, Booster dropped to one knee, cupping the boy's face with both hands as he checked him for damage he knew, intellectually, wasn't there. "Are you okay?" he blurted.
Junior stared at him in confusion, unsure what to make of his strange behavior. "He's a lot slower than the zombies on TV," he said.
Letting out a breathless chuckle, Booster dropped his hands to Junior's shoulders and nodded. "Yes, yes he is," he agreed. "I still don't want you messing with him."
Junior tilted his head to one side, brow furrowing, and asked, "Who is he?"
Booster opened his mouth to answer, then closed it and silently glanced at the closet door. Coming to a decision, he squeezed Junior's shoulders and stood up. "Go upstairs, I'll be up in a few minutes," he said.
Grinning, Junior chirped "'Kay!" and darted up the stairs as Booster looked on. Then turning his attention back to the closet, Booster opened the door.
Zombie Max still hadn't turned completely around, and had somehow gotten an arm tangled in a hanging pair of pants. Booster held his breath as he sidled past him to nudge the mold rock off the SUPERBUDDIES box with one foot, then backed out pulling the box with him.
Closing the door behind him, Booster leaned back against it to slide to the ground and open the box. Inside were some tapes, a photo album, and various knick-knacks from their time with the SuperBuddies group and a few other groups.
"Wallowing in nostalgia, huh Ted?" Booster murmured with an amused, affectionate smile.
---------------
Setting the box down beside Junior, Booster fished out the tape he was looking for and put it in the VCR. Junior handed the remote over to him and he pressed a few buttons before sliding the box aside and sitting next to the boy. Reaching into the box again, Booster pulled out the photo album and set it on his lap.
"SuperBuddies! Captain Atom. The fallout free--"
"This is the last group Ted and I were in together," Booster told Junior, eyes fixed on the cheesy promotional video that Max had been so optimistic about. "That guy in the basement is the one who put it together. But we knew him before that."
"Got a super problem call: 1-800-SUPERBUDDIES! Ask for Ron."
As he opened the album, Booster glanced up to find Junior gazing at him with something like awe. It made a glowing feeling of warmth spread through his chest.
Booster turned his attention back to the album and moved it so Junior could see it better. "See, there's Max."
"Who's the short metal guy with him?" Junior asked, pointing.
"That's L-Ron," Booster replied, grinning. "He was--Actually, it's a funny story."
Leaning close, Junior listened intently as Booster waxed nostalgic on the various adventures he and Ted had taken part in. It was nice to have someone so eager to hear about it, and Booster thought maybe talking about the past made the present hurt a little less.
Junior thought it was almost like one of those father/son bonding moments he had seen on TV.
He'd always liked those.
-----
Various quotes taken from: Countdown to Infinite Crisis and Formerly Known As The Justice League.
[ETA of epilogue: ...within the next week.]
Mullet-verse handbook/guide. (AKA "Are you as lost as I am?")
PIMP: The fifth chapter to the crazy!Junior story, Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide, has been posted in my journal. New updates to it will be pimped with new updates to this fic. Enjoy.
Aaand, just because I like you people so much, the sixth chapter is also available. It can be found HERE.