Mullet-verse fic: Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide, prologue
Title: Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide (tentative title)
Fandom: Justice League
Characters: Junior, Max, Goldie, Luke (McDunnagh), Robin
Word Count: 1162
Rating: PG-13?
Author's Notes: Since the Boostle content in this will be minimal, I've decided to post it here in my own journal. New updates are linked to on boostle in the notes for stories that are actually Boostlecentric enough to be posted there.
And now I present the crazy!Junior story, 'cause people done asked for it. (LJ-cut quote is from David Rosenhan's On Being Sane in Insane Places.)
CHAPTERS: { Prologue }{ Chapter One }{ Chapter Two }{ Chapter Three }{ Chapter Four }{ Chapter Five }{ Chapter Six }{ Chapter Seven }{ Epilogue }
<-{ previous story: Legacies and Traditions } { next story: Little Boy Blue }->
Beta by alba_aulbath.
Prologue~
As I was walking down the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish...I wish he'd go...go...I....
Where am I?
---------------
It wasn't until Blue Beetle failed to answer a direct question over the comm, nearly unheard of for him, that anyone realized he was missing.
"Blue?" Gold Star called, flying above the debris of the now-finished battle. A hint of blue in the corner of her vision made her heart leap with both hope and apprehension. If he was out in the open but not answering, something was wrong with him.
It was with a mix of disappointment and relief that she recognized it as a mannequin, in something that looked like a blue jogging suit, displaced from a wrecked window display. As she continued looking, she caught sight of Robin darting from rooftop to rooftop with a pair of small but no doubt high-powered binoculars. Below, Luke was looking for a sign of him from ground level.
None of them were having any luck.
Landing beside Robin before the young speedster could head for another roof, Goldie placed a hand on the teen's shoulder and reached up to tap her comm with her other hand. "OMAX, need a trace on Blue," she said.
"On it," he replied instantly. There wasn't a trace of surprise or concern in his voice and she wondered if he was multitasking and not paying attention to the meaning of her words, or if he just wasn't letting emotion touch his voice. "Overlaying coordinates on a map of the area--He's down at least one level below ground, should be Honest Pete's Discount Thrift if this map is still current. Alley access leads to stairs."
"I see the place you're talking about," Goldie said, patting Robin's shoulder and taking to the air again. "You can rest easy, Maxie, your map's still good."
"Actually it's the city's map, I would hope it's accurate." There was a pause before Max said calmly, "He's not dead."
"You would know?"
"If either of them died, yes, Bug and I would know instantly. ...Injuries are more of a gray area."
Goldie scowled as she landed in the alley and cautiously tried the door. Unlocked. "So he's not dead, but he might be close and you wouldn't know?"
"I'll know if his heart stops," Max snapped. "What the hell do you want from me? Find him."
There it was. The emotion. Somehow it made her feel better that Max wasn't trying to pretend he was above such human things. It meant he wasn't trying to convince himself of it.
The sunlight from outside barely managed to light the stairs and Goldie set her visor to night vision, blasters at the ready. When she reached the door at the bottom, she hesitated for a tense second before checking the knob. It gave easily and she quickly threw up her forcefield before yanking the door open.
It looked like a basement, boxes and dark shapes lining the walls, dimly lit by a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. Beside an overturned wooden chair, Blue Beetle knelt over a man limp from unconsciousness. One hand held the front of the man's shirt in a fist, holding him sitting up as if examining him.
"Blue?" Goldie asked, wrist-blaster still pointing at him.
Blue Beetle dropped the man and was on his feet instantly, faltering a moment before grabbing his dartgun from its holster and aiming it at her. They held their standoff for a few seconds before he cocked his head. "Hey, Gold."
"Hey, hon," Goldie replied, smiling tentatively. "We were worried when you didn't answer your comm."
Blue straightened, looking surprised, then shook his head and smiled wryly. "Didn't hear a thing," he apologized, lowering the gun and putting it back in his holster. "Probably jammed it somehow." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the unconscious man.
Dropping her raised hand to her hip, Goldie slumped with relief. "Looks like you took care of him. You okay?"
Blue grinned at her. "I'm fine."
---------------
It was white on white on white on white. White on all four sides. Soft and padded.
Glancing up, then down, he added two on whites to his earlier assessment. Ceiling and floor were the same color, and though he couldn't speak for the ceiling he could tell that the floor under his feet was padded the same as the walls.
A cot with a mattress of padded white was set against one wall and shoved into the corner to meet another wall. It was like a soft, sterilized jail cell. Without a toilet.
He really wished he knew how he'd gotten there.
Thinking back to his first memory of the place, which was just a few minutes ago, and then trying to think back past that...made him come up against the same soft, padded white of the room. In his mind. Soft, padded white had no business being in his mind.
Smoothly lowering himself to sit crosslegged in the middle of his padded white room, he closed his eyes and took stock of himself.
He didn't appear to be in any pain. The lack of memory on how he had gotten there was worrying, but not entirely new, and not entirely unexpected given his vocation. He appeared to be wearing something like hospital scrubs. White, of course. He was barefoot.
He was in a nut house.
Frowning at a patch of floor in front of him, he tried to think of some reason why he might be in a loony bin, but could think of nothing. He was a little eccentric at times, certainly, but nothing that warranted being locked up like this. Right? He was fine.
There was a door with a small window in front of him and he stood up to see if he could see anything through it. What he saw was just the other side of a white hallway.
"Hey!" he shouted, pounding on the door with a fist. "Is anyone there?! Can somebody tell me anything? Hey! I'm fine! Can anyone hear me? I. Am. Fine!"
When he saw not so much as a flicker of movement from the white hallway, he frowned again.
Then, Junior Carter-Kord let a smile stretch across his face that had been known to make people either run from his parents or tell them not to do whatever it was they were thinking of doing.
"Fine, then," he said, then took a deep breath and started singing in a voice that was better suited to yaks in heat.
"I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves! Everybody's nerves! Everybody's nerves! I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves! And this is how it goes! Dun, dun, dun. I know a song that gets on EVERYBODY'S NERVES! Everybody's nerves! EVeryBOdy's NERVES! I know a SONG that gets on EVERYBODY'S NERVES! And this is how it GOES! Dun, dun, dun...."
-----
[ETA of chapter the first: ...unknown]
Mullet-verse handbook/guide. (AKA "Are you as lost as I am?")
Fandom: Justice League
Characters: Junior, Max, Goldie, Luke (McDunnagh), Robin
Word Count: 1162
Rating: PG-13?
Author's Notes: Since the Boostle content in this will be minimal, I've decided to post it here in my own journal. New updates are linked to on boostle in the notes for stories that are actually Boostlecentric enough to be posted there.
And now I present the crazy!Junior story, 'cause people done asked for it. (LJ-cut quote is from David Rosenhan's On Being Sane in Insane Places.)
CHAPTERS: { Prologue }{ Chapter One }{ Chapter Two }{ Chapter Three }{ Chapter Four }{ Chapter Five }{ Chapter Six }{ Chapter Seven }{ Epilogue }
<-{ previous story: Legacies and Traditions } { next story: Little Boy Blue }->
Beta by alba_aulbath.
Prologue~
As I was walking down the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish...I wish he'd go...go...I....
Where am I?
---------------
It wasn't until Blue Beetle failed to answer a direct question over the comm, nearly unheard of for him, that anyone realized he was missing.
"Blue?" Gold Star called, flying above the debris of the now-finished battle. A hint of blue in the corner of her vision made her heart leap with both hope and apprehension. If he was out in the open but not answering, something was wrong with him.
It was with a mix of disappointment and relief that she recognized it as a mannequin, in something that looked like a blue jogging suit, displaced from a wrecked window display. As she continued looking, she caught sight of Robin darting from rooftop to rooftop with a pair of small but no doubt high-powered binoculars. Below, Luke was looking for a sign of him from ground level.
None of them were having any luck.
Landing beside Robin before the young speedster could head for another roof, Goldie placed a hand on the teen's shoulder and reached up to tap her comm with her other hand. "OMAX, need a trace on Blue," she said.
"On it," he replied instantly. There wasn't a trace of surprise or concern in his voice and she wondered if he was multitasking and not paying attention to the meaning of her words, or if he just wasn't letting emotion touch his voice. "Overlaying coordinates on a map of the area--He's down at least one level below ground, should be Honest Pete's Discount Thrift if this map is still current. Alley access leads to stairs."
"I see the place you're talking about," Goldie said, patting Robin's shoulder and taking to the air again. "You can rest easy, Maxie, your map's still good."
"Actually it's the city's map, I would hope it's accurate." There was a pause before Max said calmly, "He's not dead."
"You would know?"
"If either of them died, yes, Bug and I would know instantly. ...Injuries are more of a gray area."
Goldie scowled as she landed in the alley and cautiously tried the door. Unlocked. "So he's not dead, but he might be close and you wouldn't know?"
"I'll know if his heart stops," Max snapped. "What the hell do you want from me? Find him."
There it was. The emotion. Somehow it made her feel better that Max wasn't trying to pretend he was above such human things. It meant he wasn't trying to convince himself of it.
The sunlight from outside barely managed to light the stairs and Goldie set her visor to night vision, blasters at the ready. When she reached the door at the bottom, she hesitated for a tense second before checking the knob. It gave easily and she quickly threw up her forcefield before yanking the door open.
It looked like a basement, boxes and dark shapes lining the walls, dimly lit by a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. Beside an overturned wooden chair, Blue Beetle knelt over a man limp from unconsciousness. One hand held the front of the man's shirt in a fist, holding him sitting up as if examining him.
"Blue?" Goldie asked, wrist-blaster still pointing at him.
Blue Beetle dropped the man and was on his feet instantly, faltering a moment before grabbing his dartgun from its holster and aiming it at her. They held their standoff for a few seconds before he cocked his head. "Hey, Gold."
"Hey, hon," Goldie replied, smiling tentatively. "We were worried when you didn't answer your comm."
Blue straightened, looking surprised, then shook his head and smiled wryly. "Didn't hear a thing," he apologized, lowering the gun and putting it back in his holster. "Probably jammed it somehow." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the unconscious man.
Dropping her raised hand to her hip, Goldie slumped with relief. "Looks like you took care of him. You okay?"
Blue grinned at her. "I'm fine."
---------------
It was white on white on white on white. White on all four sides. Soft and padded.
Glancing up, then down, he added two on whites to his earlier assessment. Ceiling and floor were the same color, and though he couldn't speak for the ceiling he could tell that the floor under his feet was padded the same as the walls.
A cot with a mattress of padded white was set against one wall and shoved into the corner to meet another wall. It was like a soft, sterilized jail cell. Without a toilet.
He really wished he knew how he'd gotten there.
Thinking back to his first memory of the place, which was just a few minutes ago, and then trying to think back past that...made him come up against the same soft, padded white of the room. In his mind. Soft, padded white had no business being in his mind.
Smoothly lowering himself to sit crosslegged in the middle of his padded white room, he closed his eyes and took stock of himself.
He didn't appear to be in any pain. The lack of memory on how he had gotten there was worrying, but not entirely new, and not entirely unexpected given his vocation. He appeared to be wearing something like hospital scrubs. White, of course. He was barefoot.
He was in a nut house.
Frowning at a patch of floor in front of him, he tried to think of some reason why he might be in a loony bin, but could think of nothing. He was a little eccentric at times, certainly, but nothing that warranted being locked up like this. Right? He was fine.
There was a door with a small window in front of him and he stood up to see if he could see anything through it. What he saw was just the other side of a white hallway.
"Hey!" he shouted, pounding on the door with a fist. "Is anyone there?! Can somebody tell me anything? Hey! I'm fine! Can anyone hear me? I. Am. Fine!"
When he saw not so much as a flicker of movement from the white hallway, he frowned again.
Then, Junior Carter-Kord let a smile stretch across his face that had been known to make people either run from his parents or tell them not to do whatever it was they were thinking of doing.
"Fine, then," he said, then took a deep breath and started singing in a voice that was better suited to yaks in heat.
"I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves! Everybody's nerves! Everybody's nerves! I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves! And this is how it goes! Dun, dun, dun. I know a song that gets on EVERYBODY'S NERVES! Everybody's nerves! EVeryBOdy's NERVES! I know a SONG that gets on EVERYBODY'S NERVES! And this is how it GOES! Dun, dun, dun...."
-----
[ETA of chapter the first: ...unknown]
Mullet-verse handbook/guide. (AKA "Are you as lost as I am?")