Glee!fic, AtOG: Grey part 2
Grey part 2, AtOGverse, superhero!AU.
Disclaimer: By the time I post this I'll be like two episodes behind on Glee, oops. That programme is not my problem. My only connection with it is scrabbling around trying to fix things through fanfic ^^;
Rating: Fic as a whole NC-17, this part R
Warnings: Yes. There's a really comprehensive list of them on part one for a reason.
Summary: Mercedes Jones, superstar.
Note: Just for the record LJ, your new posting format *fucks* fanficcers really badly since entries this long slow a browser to a crawl. Go sit in the corner and think about what you did. [Edit: total up to £1130, thank yoouuu! <3]
Now that Kurt has no secrets to keep from his roommate, locking his door pretty much only means one thing and in all honesty they are far more likely to be napping than naked in there. So when Rachel bangs the door wide open that Thursday night, stark light stabbing into their dark warm den of sleep, Blaine moans like he's been wounded and Kurt spits like a cat and throws a pillow in her general direction.
"-sleeping Rachel-"
"TV, on the TV -"
He sits up and puts a hand on his head because his still-drowsing brain feels ready to topple loose. "What -?"
"Mercedes Jones is talking about you on the TV!"
Blaine comes up so violently that they somehow manage to headbutt each other, ridiculous coconut-clop of their skulls and two groaned curses before they're scrabbling up in their socks and careening through the doorway because what the fuck -
It's a talk show on the TV, not the news, not some super threat in the city Rachel thought they needed waking to deal with but Mercedes Jones in this gorgeous blue sequinned dress sitting on the host's sofa and saying, "Well I've always been a huge fan -" with one of her million carat Mercedes Jones smiles, and Rachel turns the volume up loud.
"And now you're offering -" the host says, and checks his card. "Have I got this right? Ten thousand dollars -"
She's still smiling her million carat smile, but through the hot thumping of his heart Kurt's eyes are drawn to her hands, twisting themselves together in her lap. "That's right."
"For a private audience with the Ghost and Phalanx? You want to hire a couple of superheroes, is this for your show? You want backing dancers with capes?"
She laughs, and Blaine leans on the back of the sofa like he's not sure of staying standing otherwise, and Kurt stares at her hands, and the way her eyes look, too fixed, too wild. "I don't know about hire. I just wanna say hello, get their autographs. Hey, celebrities can be fans too, am I right?"
The studio audience claps and whistles. Blaine says slowly, "Is this really happening?"
"She's doing that huge show at Madison Square Gardens," Rachel says, a little faint. "She wants you guys to go to her dressing room beforehand."
Blaine says, "I tried to get us tickets to that, it sold out in - this cannot seriously be happening."
Kurt watches her hands, her eyes. How her smile doesn't move.
"And what do you want them for?" the host says, and the audience hoots a little, and Mercedes smiles around at them all and Kurt watches her hands separate, squeeze themselves tight into fists on her lap.
"Hey, superheroes aren't the only ones with secrets." She laughs, and Rachel - remote clamped in one white-knuckled hand - is either gesturing I cannot believe this is happening or else absolutely enormous breasts, there's a reason they never team up with each other for charades. "Seriously, a girl can't want to meet the cutest heroes in the country? I just - wanna talk to them." The wattage of her smile never falters, not for one second. "I seriously, seriously would like to talk to them."
Rachel screams through her hand, "She wants to meet you!"
Blaine says, "Does this make it okay for us to sneak into the concert using your powers?"
Kurt says, just quietly, "She's terrified."
They stop. They stare at him. And then they stare at Mercedes Jones.
Fixed, hollow smile. Hands pressed so tight into fists that they look painful. Panic, like the host might be holding a machine gun, behind her eyes. Kurt knows terror when he sees it. Kurt knows terror.
"What is she . . . ?"
"She's offering you guys ten thousand dollars for an audience." Rachel says. "Ten thousand dollars. That's -"
"That's a lot of utility belts," Blaine says, and looks at Kurt. "This is - crazy. You think this is real?"
". . . I think her fear's real."
"But she's Mercedes Jones, she must have an army of bodyguards -"
"- and she's scared enough to want to pay superheroes to drop by anyway." Kurt watches her, arms folded around himself and very, very alert, for every cue to -
(Someone very dangerous could have threatened her into this.)
(Why aren't her bodyguards enough, why aren't the cops enough?)
(Hasn't she done some acting before? What if she's the dangerous one . . . ?)
(. . . she looks so afraid, and how can someone loved by millions feel alone?)
Blaine says, trying not to make his voice sound too hopeful, "Kurt?"
He does not like being manipulated into doing things. There are eight million people in this city and he doesn't sell his help to the highest bidder. But she looks so scared, and he knows what that's like, of course he knows what that's like, if he'd had it to give then he would have given anything . . .
He squirms his shoulders a little. ". . . what time is this concert?"
Blaine squeezes his arm, and Rachel squeals. And on the TV Mercedes Jones smiles through her interview, running into an anecdote about singing for the President in the world's most uncomfortable shoes, smiles and the fear gradually fades from her eyes. Mostly, anyway.
*
Kurt sits at this desk, drumming a mechanical pencil off his work, cheek propped on a hand, thinking thinking thinking. He usually manages to put the Ghost out of his head during the day, but then he usually has no idea exactly what the Ghost's night will entail during the day before, there's nothing specific to linger on; today he's just waiting to hurry home, to pull his cloak on and get to that concert, and it's not exactly like he can forget what tonight will be when the entire office . . .
"God if I had superpowers I would be at that gig in a heartbeat."
"You think they'll show? They don't exactly go looking for publicity."
"Would you turn down Mercedes Jones?"
"Mercedes Jones is a goddess," Chandler sighs, smiling dreamily at the air.
"She does know they're gay, right?"
"They might not be gay. They might be bi."
"So what, that makes a pop star making them an indecent proposal okay? Being bi doesn't mean you date one gender and fuck the other on the side -"
"Maybe she's just a hag supreme. Nothing less than superheroes for the queen of pop."
Kurt blinks, clears his throat, lifts his head to say, "Guys, seriously, we have to get this fall -"
His cell goes off, and while he's distracted their voices raise in volume again.
"Did you see her dress? That rose was a bit much but I loved the sleeves -"
"Did not work with those shoes."
"Oh my god wash your mouth out she looked divine."
The text is from Finn, and says, You heard about Mercedes Jones?? Kurt texts back, No, Finn, I live under a rock, I had no idea. We'll both be there.
"Guys," he says, because Chandler is wafting both hands at his face like he's not getting enough air and Robbie is sitting back with a grin, turning his pen in his fingers, watching the fight heat up - but then his cell goes off again, Finn again, saying, I'll be there too, since it's officially a 'super' incident :P
He's just typing a reply when he gets another text, Blaine now, saying, I accidentally got into a prank war with Paul :(
"Silver shoes with a blue dress?"
"Because she's a star!"
"Guys," he calls, while texting Blaine, Surrender, now. and then Finn, Explain to me how this is my fault. "I don't care if you're talking shop but I better be able to hear pencils at the same time or so help me god I am taping your mouths cl-"
The door clicks closed behind someone, and a voice says, "The voice of leadership, Mr Hummel."
He drops his cell as the room mumbles itself to industrious silence, looks up at - Brian, who dresses in a way that makes Kurt look drab and works somewhere parallel to Sophie in the arcane management system of his office, now smiling a little wickedly as Kurt coughs, and flicks his pencil nervously in his hand.
"Mercedes Jones' style choices from last night are proving particularly contentious."
He waves a hand. "Creative chitchat. It's all part of the process. How is our groundbreaking fall collection coming along?"
His cell vibrates on his desk again, and they both look at it. Kurt puts a hand over his eyes and would quite like to disappear; "Not without distractions," he says, tight-jawed, but Brian just laughs and pats his shoulder - he tries not to jump, Brian's always been easily physically affectionate with everyone in the office, he's seen him hug Sophie right off her feet, and, unmalicious and oblivious, Kurt's antsy need for personal space never has registered with him.
"We'll get there. Wow me, folks!" he calls, and walks out waving, and Kurt massages his forehead with his fingers, taps his cell awake with the other hand; Blaine's text reads, Paul won :(
Four more hours until he can leave. Four more hours. The gossip in the office is beginning to buzz higher again. Just hold out for four more hours . . .
*
Blaine heads straight to Kurt's after his placement, because the Ghost and Phalanx need to be out a lot earlier than normal to make it to this concert on time. No time for a nap, barely time to bolt the sushi Kurt brought home with him, Kurt's already showering while Blaine swallows maki and checks the internet, which is predictably crazed with conspiracy theories about what Mercedes Jones wants 'ghostlanx' for and whether they'll actually turn up to find out. Kurt returns from the bathroom in the Ghost's clinging pale suit, scooping his cloak up from the foot of the bed. "Bathroom's free."
Blaine can't believe that he has to wash the gel out of his hair when he's going to meet Mercedes Jones. It's Mercedes Jones. He couldn't meet her neatly groomed as Blaine, he has to meet her with Phalanx's storm cloud of crazed hair . . . ?
The Ghost is checking utility belt compartments when he's back, hair wet and springing wild, half Phalanx already. "Yours was low on antiseptic pads, I topped up for you."
"Thanks. Are you, um. Nervous? I'm kind of nervous."
The Ghost keeps his eyes on the pocket of flash-bangs, counting them through his fingers and gently slipping them back in. "It's just another night, Phalanx."
"We're going to meet Mercedes Jones."
"Tell me you're not going to ask her for her autograph."
"You're not excited?"
The Ghost props himself back on his hands, sitting on the edge of the bed with a utility belt over his lap, and quirks his mouth. "I'd rather be going to this concert without the cloak. You know. Um. Together. As us." He looks down at the belt again. "That would have been nice."
He watches him but doesn't try to touch him yet, because the moments when the Ghost is Kurt-like are as disconcerting as the moments when Kurt is Ghost-like. "We're always together as us. Just . . . sometimes we're working."
He looks up, smiles, a little, a quiet shy smile, and then it's easier to lean down and kiss him, the Ghost's gloved fingers curling in his still-damp hair. He holds his jaw and murmurs to his mouth, "Help me with my mask?"
*
The Ghost tucks his gloves into his belt to smooth his mask onto Phalanx's forehead, down his cheeks. Phalanx says, "Where's Rachel? I kind of thought she'd be on our backs the whole time we were getting ready."
"She's already there, gathering quotes from the queue, sulking because I wouldn't tell her any of our plans."
He grins. "You ever think we should throw her a bone to keep her quiet for a while?"
"No. You don't know Rachel, if you encourage her she'll be impossible. The best thing to do is try to train her out of it, just ignore her until she moves on to her next obsession."
"You're the roommate, you're the one who knows her."
"Mm, for my sins. Finn's there too, waiting for us to show."
The NYPD SIU is proving a more complicated project than anyone guessed. Officially, vigilantism in all forms is illegal: you are not allowed to put a mask on and make it your job to bring down criminals and pass them on to the police. There's also the super issue, still, there's always the super issue - they will never be universally trusted, never be universally liked. Because they have be trusted, because their powers just are and just are scary to people, and people resent being told that they just have to believe that someone else is a good person because frankly there's nothing they could do about them anyway if they weren't. People don't like being powerless and don't like not having a choice. The fact that supers never got a choice in their powers either is something that they mostly manage to ignore.
Unofficially, behind the scenes, it has been made clear to Commissioner Figgins that Phalanx and the Ghost are not to be incarcerated, for the good of the whole country. As a policy this can't be openly enacted, but the cops are very obviously slower to move on them now, and very often just stand around chatting, making no attempt to arrest either of them at a crime scene. But without legal precedent, it can't be public policy; the public can't know. The Super Incident Unit's purpose is to manage super-based crime - they need some unit with very particular expertise when supervillains do start tearing up the city - but as far as the population of New York knows, their purpose is to arrest the superheroes too, if they stay still long enough for it to happen. The difficulty of keeping appearance and fact apart troubles Detective Finn Hudson immensely, and the Ghost might tease him for it, but now that he knows that if there's trouble and they do face a jail cell, it's his stepbrother who'll have the key - that does make him feel better. He knows they'd already be in serious danger if anyone was able to arrest them; but Finn wouldn't let anyone hurt them, wouldn't let anyone unmask them, and would call Agent Sylvester to bust them out as soon as possible. One small weight off his back, one small weight and Atlas flexes his muscles, as the whole world resettles itself on his shoulders.
He runs his thumb down the edge of Phalanx's mask, following his cheek, and murmurs, "Come on." His eyes are that hypnotic honey-brown in the lamplight, and for a fraction of a second he really could just forget Mercedes Jones and all of New York and slide sideways onto the bed with him; selfishness, greed for Blaine, really would be too easy to him, at first. He makes himself take his hand and turn for the window instead.
Phalanx turns the lamp off behind himself.
Even just getting through the subway system without accidentally invisibly colliding with someone is difficult, that night, and the noisy winding queue outside Madison Square Gardens is insane, he can't spot Rachel through the heave of the crowds. Over the entrance is the image of Mercedes Jones in a silver dress, laughing and gorgeous, god knows how many times larger than life size, and excitement lifts the air like summer heat off the sidewalk. The Ghost holds Phalanx's hand, which squeezes his with excitement, and he feels almost guilty cutting ahead of the queue and through a door, into the building and after a pause, following a security guard to see where he leads.
There is a lot of security, Mercedes Jones is certainly a cautious woman. Or a very scared one. Once upon a time, if Kurt could have had a whole phalanx of security guards, wouldn't he . . . ? But then, Kurt wouldn't even have trusted the security guards. Phalanx's fingers fit through his so right; there's only really one shield he ever can trust.
Through an unmarked door and into the bowels of the building, quieter corridors of industriously bustling people, this isn't the public's place. People with headsets are discussing catering at a junction of corridors, and the Ghost stops following the security guard to follow a man with a clipboard instead, off down another route, to a door with a security guard next to it and a bouquet on the table opposite it, an enormous burst of bright spiked irises and trailing lilacs and purple freesias. In his mind, without even thinking about it, Kurt catalogues it; too rich a colour scheme for Rachel's wedding, she'll want something cooler, more classic, but maybe if Mike and Tina decide . . .
(For Blaine, rich reds and golds, to bring out the warmth of his beautiful skin; but Kurt gets ahead of himself, turns blushing from the thought of planning his own wedding, feels presumptuous and like it must show on his face, embarrassingly too much. Other people, first. It's so much easier to plan for other people.)
The man with the clipboard taps on the door. "Half an hour, Miss Jones."
A voice mm-hms its recognition through the wood, and the Ghost presses Phalanx's hand, which squeezes excitedly back. He just dips his head through to peek, first, because if she's dressing then they probably shouldn't . . .
She's sitting in front of a mirror, hands squeezing and squeezing on the vanity's surface, alone in the room. The Ghost pulls Phalanx through after himself, and she looks so elegant, Mercedes Jones, a classic diva who never relies on avant-garde costumery, just the power of her voice and the dazzle of her smile. The Ghost fades them into sight, standing in front of her dressing room door, and she's running her tongue over her glossy lips, staring at herself in the mirror when she sees their reflection and starts her breath in, jumps in her seat like she's seen a -
Well . . .
She stands, turning to them wide-eyed and open-mouthed. "Oh my holy . . ."
Phalanx shifts, nervy with excitement, very liable to blurt anything right now. So the Ghost says, "Well - we're hardly uninvited, Ms Jones."
She puts a hand over her eyes for a second, and he sees - the relief, the shudder in her shoulders, that they're here. "God, you came. Oh my god, you actually . . ."
The Ghost discreetly stands on Phalanx's foot because he's beginning to squirm in a seriously overexcited way and they are not here to be fanboys (even if oh god above Mercedes Jones, and Kurt could never tell her - there is no way it would ever be appropriate for anyone else to ever know - that Blaine likes to play her music after they've made love, lying in the sheets together with her voice prickling the naked nape of Kurt's neck, Blaine's hand skimming his bare arm, both of them awed to quiet, sharing skin and safety): they're here to work. "Why did you want to see us?" he says, keeping his voice neutral. "Because we have eight million people out there to help out, and you seem to think that this is more important than that. And we would like to know why."
She draws herself up, settles herself out, ruffling herself like a bird resettling its rather glorious peacock-green feathers, her dress all glinting and gorgeous. The emeralds at her throat gleam dangerously as her breathing steadies under them. "'cause twenty thousand of those people are out there right now an' I don't know what's gonna happen, okay."
The Ghost narrows his eyes a little under the hood. "What is going to happen, Ms Jones?"
She swallows, head raised proud, and picks up her iPhone from the dressing table. "Been getting weird messages for a while, I have people to deal with them but these got pretty insistent so they told me to get security amped up, an' then . . ."
She holds for cell out, for him to read - a screenshot of tweets, @MercedesJones:
I can taste you from here.
You'll taste incredible.
I'm thinking about how you'll taste.
He scrolls down, admittedly disturbed, because these are just creepy. There's a lot of them, covering the past five months. The last tweet, from this week, says, Friday, Miss Jones, you'll taste so good.
He hands the cell to Phalanx to read, says, "You have a stalker."
"This isn't like the crazy fans, okay, I have done my share of the crazy fans, this is -" She rubs her bare arms, bangles chiming down her wrists. "It doesn't feel right. Feels like - I feel like someone's watching me. All the time. An' I always am bein' watched, cameras everywhere an' I know it but this is - this is different, this feels all wrong -"
"Why didn't you take this to the police?"
"They might make me cancel the show."
Phalanx hands him the cell back but he's still just staring incredulously at her. "You're not worried about some crazy stalker killing you, you're worried about the show getting cancelled?"
She pulls her head up even higher, proud and stubborn and sure. "Twenty thousand people," she says. "I am not letting one of them down. I wouldn't be Mercedes Jones without those people, you know that? Just be some girl, they make me everything. I never drop a note, I always smile for a camera, an' I never cancel a show." Her finger stabs the air. "Not. Ever. Hell no."
"That entire audience could be in danger because of this!"
"That's why you're here! It's just one night, I just need -"
"You got some disturbing tweets and a funny feeling and you pull in superheroes to -"
"My fans deserve the best." She folds her arms, eyes narrowed at him. "They got good taste an' I appreciate that."
The Ghost holds her cell out for her. "Call the cops. We're not for hire, this is something you need them for."
"No - don't go, no -"
There it is again. The Ghost knows fear, knows every nuance of fear, knows it as intimately as his own breath, and Mercedes Jones - glorious peacock-bright Mercedes Jones - is terrified. If they leave, no-one's protecting her. She won't feel any safer if she cancels her show and submits herself to the police. The only thing that can make her feel safe is a pair of superheroes. And the Ghost is caught between her and her audience and eight million other people and what they might face, and this is -
She sits back down in her chair, presses her lips together, rasps, "Please. I can't cancel. I am not cancelling. If you go, I'm still goin' out there. An' I really don't know what happens next, okay? I don't. But I'll go out there either way. I just - I don't wanna do it alone -"
Phalanx's hand brushes the back of his arm. "Ghost . . ."
He holds his jaw hard for one second. Then he plucks a tissue from the box on the table and kneels down, and gently brushes her hand aside to pat at the hanging tears. "At this rate your make-up people will murder you before some crazy stalker does."
She laughs, a little weakly, and obediently puts her head up, eyes on the ceiling, while he carefully blots the damp away. "We'll be out there watching," he says. "Even if you can't see us, we will be there. But is there anything else you can tell us, anything else we should know . . . ?"
She sniffs, and takes the tissue to blow her nose. "First number's for you two," she says, and smiles, a million carat diamond of a Mercedes Jones smile.
*
They stand invisible amongst the enormous stacks of equipment, as Mercedes Jones rises up onto the stage and waves to her screaming crowd, and cameras flash and glitter like galaxies explode wherever she turns. Phalanx knows that the Ghost didn't agree to do this for her money, or her celebrity, or even really for her safety because, after all, with all her security she hardly needs a couple of superheroes to protect her from a potential crazed fan. They're here because she's scared. Because the Ghost can't bear to see people be afraid, because that, really, is all he's ever here for, because people should never be on their own, not when the worst things happen but not ever, really. And if people need to feel the ghost of another presence at their shoulders, well, they've got him . . .
They mean more than what they are. They're never more, really, than mortal human beings, just two guys, but they mean so much more and the Ghost knows that and resigns himself to it. That isn't what he set out to do, it's a side-effect he didn't anticipate, that people would notice him. He has never in his life expected that people would notice him (oh, Kurt). But now they are where they are he's not leaving someone to be afraid, not like he was. His cloak covers more than just him; he would settle it around the whole world if he could, and the size of his heart awes Phalanx every time, it's like Phalanx could walk through its chambers like a whale's heart, as cavernous as a cathedral around him, echoing to his footsteps, arteries arched high over his head, veins as wide as city streets . . .
Mercedes Jones smiles through the dazzle of the cameras, and says into the mike, "Hello New York, city of superheroes!"
And then she opens, immediately, as the crowd's roar swallows the first lines of the instruments' intro, with Hero. Phalanx squeezes the Ghost's arm and grins, invisible and delighted, and feels the Ghost's breath let out at his side, hard with amusement.
By the end of the song he's leaning his head on the Ghost's shoulder, the Ghost's arm around his waist, and god she raises the hair on his skin, her voice. He has to stop himself from applauding hard with the crowd, since they're officially not there, while the Ghost rocks him side-to-side a little in his arm, and Phalanx nuzzles his nose into the hang of his hood, nudging it out of the way to lay a kiss under his jaw.
It's a good show. Alright, the lighting and the dancers are pretty amazing, but all she ever really relies on is her voice, it needs no further decoration, she's an old school soul diva, it's all about her and the music. She's incredible. And this, for them, is not remotely a bad way to spend a Friday night, it's even early enough for them to head to Mr Conti's afterwards, as Phalanx settles his arms around the Ghost's hips and rests his chin on his shoulder, invisible and fitting together as exactly as hexagon shields at the edge of the stage, the Ghost's hands settling over Phalanx's wrists at his stomach, relaxed under his body's lean.
They're halfway through the sass-fest of her latest single, Phalanx invisibly dancing the Ghost a little from behind while his body shakes with laughter and he smacks ineffectually at his hands folded on his stomach, when there's a suddenly different pitch to some of the screaming out there. The Ghost goes stiff, and Phalanx stills instantly, and Mercedes' voice - hesitates.
And then there's no denying that the audience is screaming, and the instruments begin cutting out, and musicians stand, flee from the stage -
The only people who run towards the edge of the stage, suddenly visible, are the two of them, as out there in the audience something pale and growing is rearing over the heads of everyone else as they pour away, run away screaming, confused and fear-crazed and Jesus they'll trample each other to -
Mercedes stands with a hand over her mouth, like she can't move, next to the microphone in the centre of the stage. Over the panicked roar of sound the Ghost yells to Phalanx, "Can you help them, contain it, I'll try to get her somewhere safe -"
"On it!"
The Ghost runs to Mercedes, and Phalanx vaults down from the stage, skids over the seats on a slide made of shields, for that - thing -
Which unfolds itself over him and he stares up open-mouthed, because he's fought supers, he's fought people he genuinely would call evil, he's fought by any standards what would count as 'monsters' but this - actually is one.
A great rearing snake, its flesh a horrible pale colour, its face weirdly flat and human in the most horrific way, tiny, tiny little limbs hanging from it halfway down, useless little arms and its huge wide body overhead, looking down at him mouth open, and it makes a noise he hears over the screaming people, so low and loud that it shakes the seating, and it sounds like laughter . . .
He throws the shields up in a hell of a hurry as it slams itself down like its whole body is a weapon and the shields pound with its weight, Phalanx's knees are unsteadied, but he holds them. The great pale snake rolls off the shields and its body smashes a band of seating, god there are still people trying to get out -
"Please stay calm and help each other out!" Mercedes' voice calls over the speakers. "Please don't panic, help each other out if you can-!"
Phalanx is just drawing his breath in to work out how to attack when a bloody star bursts high on the back of the monster's neck and it rears its head up, bellows a roar as it turns, eyes wide on oh Jesus Finn Hudson walking up to them through the flow of people running past him, white-faced, gun raised in both hands. The snake heaves its body around, tiny arms flapping, gathering its weight, and Phalanx sees its neck - seal itself together again, blood-stained but healed, as it lunges.
Finn fires twice more but throws his arms over his head just as the great snake hits the globe of shields suddenly around him, coils and coils thumping off them with the force of its spring. Phalanx feels his eyes unfocus a little, god it's so heavy, and from the stage Mercedes's voice yells through the microphone, "Hey, I'm over here! You wanna taste, I'm right here, come an' get me!"
The snake lifts its head, hissing a widening smile, and rolls its body into a turn, back towards the stage, through the wrecked seating and Phalanx has to scramble out of its path as it heads for Mercedes and the Ghost standing in front of her, facing that thing as small as a moth . . .
Phalanx scrambles to kneel next to Finn, who's sitting stunned on the floor, checks over his shoulder but the last people are making their way out now, some of them struggling and limping from the stampede. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Finn scuffs a hand back through his hair, his face still drained pale. "Just - hell. How do you guys do this?"
This isn't what either of them do, they deal with muggers and carjackers, this is . . . "You need to make sure everyone's out and okay. Don't let anyone back in."
"I'm on it. Look after - him."
He just nods. "I'm on it."
There's no time for anything else. Phalanx runs back to the stage and Finn runs to help people get out, and the Ghost is backing Mercedes from the edge of the stage, arms held out behind himself to keep her behind his body, and Phalanx can see how he's breathing quick but he's -
He's talking to it. He's talking to - ? Oh god, Ghost; he's trying to reason with a giant goddamn snake-monster.
As Phalanx gets closer he can hear him, the room is weirdly quiet and echoing now the screaming has run away from them, and as he jumps wrecked seating and skids through dropped drinks, the Ghost is saying, "Why her? Why do you even want to hurt her? You don't have to hurt anybody -"
The snake lowers its enormous head so it's meeting him eye to eye, and the Ghost is stiff but he's not backing down, and Mercedes grips his arms so tight she must be leaving bruises. "Can you hear me? Can you understand me?" He stares into its eyes like he can't move. "Can you -"
It swings its head back, and lashes it around again so hard and so fast that Phalanx can't even scream in time, he'll never be able to -
Its head swishes right through the Ghost and Mercedes, ghosting, his cloak flaring and she's screaming so loud and suddenly -
Phalanx trips, falling painfully to his knees in shock, grabbing the wrecked back of a seat to stay up as the stage bursts like the Fourth of July, brilliantly coloured lights breaking off that snake's body like a firework factory just exploded, and he stares open-mouthed as the snake reels back, mouth open and the shriek it makes shakes the ceiling and runs like a rusted nail up Phalanx's spine as lights explode pink-violet-green-gold-white-blue-scarlet all around it.
When the fireworks stop the Ghost is staring at Mercedes Jones, who has multicoloured sparks running down her arms, falling like bright droplets, multicoloured fireflies from her fingertips, crackling in her eyes like electricity, and Phalanx thinks - through the dumb pounding of his too-loud heart - Oh god, she's a super. She's a super. That's why some giant snake monster is interested in a pop star, she's a super . . .
A super who stares at her own hands, mouth open, stunned beyond speech. The Ghost snaps out of it first, with a glance at that scorched and writhing snake picking itself up, its long rumbling growl rattling the whole stage as it lifts its smoking, bloodied head again. The Ghost grabs Mercedes' arm and looks at Phalanx, and Phalanx understands. Mercedes can't be here. The whole venue is now empty but for them and this is their fight, not anyone else's; the Ghost will get her out, and Phalanx will have to hold that monster here until he can get back.
The blistered marks on its flesh are already healing themselves. Phalanx draws his strength up and slams a shield into the side of it, and the Ghost vanishes straight down, Mercedes falling with a cut-off scream after him, through the stage and gone.
The snake shakes its head out, rears up to smash right down through the stage after them and hits, instead, the gleaming platform of Phalanx's shields. Its head strikes hard and then the weight of its coils hit behind it and Phalanx grabs the seat back he's holding harder, feeling the blow like it struck him in the bones; this isn't like a single bullet striking off them, this is like fighting Karofsky again, strength should never be concentrated like that, and he actually doesn't know how much of this he can take.
Except he does, because he'll take as much as the Ghost needs him to. He hauls himself to his shaky feet, as the snake struggles to turn its huge heavy body around, to face him, too many too-heavy coils, face all narrowed into something so angry, something made out of hate and murder. And its coils heave around after it, and it throws itself forward, building momentum -
He staggers back, slams two shields up at it to try to batter it into a different course, scrambles away and throws up a shield diagonal-on to the snake, so it doesn't hit it and pound his bones like that, instead it glances clumsily off it and rolls furiously to the side, has to regather itself and lunge again, Phalanx backing up quick and sending it glancing off on another odd-angled set of shields and -
His ankle catches in -
It's the strap of someone's abandoned bag. There's not much time to appreciate that when he falls over with a helpless yelp, tries to roll himself immediately to his hands and upright again but something swings in and knocks him in a tumbled confusion sideways, rolling over and over, head banging off the floor, and he can't raise his arms to shield himself.
He can't move.
The snake doesn't wrap its coils around him, doesn't - as he so heart-stoppingly fears - lift its tail and smash it down onto him, because it could crush him into a bloody smear. It just uncoils and lays its tail over him, and gives a long hissed satisfied breath, horrible rush of air overhead as Phalanx lays there on his front with his head fallen to the side, staring at the underneath of an unbroken row of seating with that snake's tail a weight over his back, and he can't move.
He can't move.
Why can't he move?
It's ridiculous, it's - he tries so hard, so hard the strain hurts, to put his hands down and heave himself up. He can't. He can't even twitch a fingertip. Panic and incredulity are too much too fast as he realises that he can't even blink, his eyes are beginning to burn in the air, and the weight of the snake's tail is beginning to feel heavier, and he tries to open his mouth and he can't. He can't even scream.
The snake hisses, long as a slit in the air, overhead. He stares into the darkness under the seating, deserted bags and dropped drinks and someone's cell buzzing around taking a call there's no-one to pick up, and he can't move a single muscle, and the heaviness of that snake's body over him grows and grows . . .
No. It's not the snake that's getting heavier. He's getting weaker. It's - it's draining him. And there's nothing he can do, he's completely paralysed, can't even blink, as all the strength runs out of him and the snake lowers its head, so its breath runs over Phalanx's hair, cold on the back of his neck, and its hissing sounds like laughter.
The Ghost will come back. The Ghost will save him. Where is he - ?
He realises that his breath is, slowly, fading. His lungs and heart are, slowly, going as still as the rest of him. He wants to blink, his eyes feel maddeningly dry, he wants to open his mouth and scream, he can feel the saliva in there and he can't swallow it, can't even cough, can only lay there feeling the cold floor against his cheek and the heavy, sickly weight of the flesh of the snake over him, pressing him into the ground, killing him by slow draining centimetres, bleeding, like the smallest nicked artery, all of the life out of him.
He can't die like this. He's twenty-four years old, he can't - he wants to wrench his head up, fight, make a shield but his powers are as dead as his body, he can't do anything. He can't die like this. What the hell will - Cooper, his parents -
Kurt. Kurt, he can't - where is he, why isn't he here, why doesn't he help -
He feels wetness build in his eyes, doesn't know if it's because he can't blink while they burn or just the fact that he's alone and he can't move and everything's darker, he's noticed that everything is darker, either because he hasn't the breath any more to keep to consciousness or just because if that snake fades him weak enough, fades him enough, everything will just go dark forever . . .
Kurt, Kurt, help me, please -
But if Kurt - if he faces that thing -
Get up get up you have to get up -
The snake sighs so satisfied, and from his screaming eyes a tear runs cool across into his hairline, and everything is so dim, and slow, and heavy, and is fading somewhere further and further beyond his reach . . .
He doesn't know how many flash-bangs hit the snake in the side of the head before the Ghost rushes past, blur of pale grey, and throws himself right through that snake; its head rears back with a howl of pain and Phalanx - blinks, as its weight is off him and his breath shudders into his lungs, and the snake still has three throwing stars and the handle of the Ghost's knife sticking out of the side of its neck, and a thin lasso of rope circling it.
The Ghost skids around, loops the end of the rope tight around a still-fixed seat and with all his strength heaves. The snake is wrenched sideways, away from Phalanx who tries to pick himself to his hands and knees but can only roll, coughing clumsily, wheezing his way back into breathing, as the snake bunches its confused body and thrusts itself at the Ghost -
- and screams as the taser runs right through it.
Phalanx tries to heave himself up again and falls, jarring his chest, still weakly coughing. But the Ghost falls from his run to his knees, grabs his shoulder and whispers, "It's okay you're okay I've got you -"
And maybe it's just because he doesn't think about it, because Phalanx knows that he's not exactly light, but the Ghost grabs him up, heaves him into his arms, and staggers off towards the stage, away from that still-lashing, moaning snake, stumbling and ghosting them down as the end of a tail slashes through where they were.
They fall through the ceiling and a little into the floor below, the Ghost pulling Phalanx back up onto the floor itself, some understage area, all pulleys and wiring and equipment and a tear-stained Mercedes Jones clattering up in her heels sobbing, "Jesus Jesus Jesus -"
The Ghost lays Phalanx down, propping his head in his arm, a hand on his chest. "Are you okay, can you - are you -"
He coughs, and makes himself nod, gets out, barely, "Don't . . ."
The Ghost fumbles on his belt, pulls out his cell and works through its screens with his face too pale, even by his standards. He hits call and thrusts the cell at Mercedes. "Speak to them. Tell them what's happened and to send help, we need some way to contain that thing, they'll have - they'll know what to do. And look after him."
Someone's already picked up on the other end of the line, Mercedes stares at him and says, "What?" but the voice on the line snaps her attention sideways. "I - I'm Mercedes Jones, I'm - under the stage at Madison Square Gardens with the Ghost and - and Phalanx -"
The Ghost leans his head down and whispers, "I'll be right back." and kisses him on the forehead, over the mask. And it's all the strength he has, everything he's got left, just to mumble out, "Don't . . ."
"I love you." he lays his head so gently down and then he's gone, invisible and gone, leaving Phalanx tipped carefully into the recovery position and Mercedes Jones wiping her nose on the back of her wrist, choking into the cell, "Some giant snake thing, he said you'd - you'd know how to 'contain' it -"
Don't, Phalanx thinks, but even panic can't make him do more than jerk ineffectually, knock his head off the floor, he can't get up, he can't warn him -
Don't let it touch you.
*
The empty, ruined area around the stage - really is empty, he thinks at first. There's no sign of that giant snake, as he stands there invisible, hands in fists at his sides and breath very quiet and straining-scared in his chest, because god it hurt Phalanx and he doesn't know how badly and he needs to be with him but he needs to stop it first before it can hurt anyone else -
He can hear a noise, someone groaning, something like a sob, out there amongst the seating . . .
He picks his way over, through the broken bits of seats and people's abandoned belongings, and he sees, up ahead on the floor, a pale naked ankle, a shoeless foot, toes stretching out on the floor as that whispered groan runs out again. He walks over, quickly, fading back into view, but he stops a few feet away just to watch. He's not stupid, and that thing hurt Phalanx, and the Ghost knows Phalanx isn't helpless; this thing is dangerous . . .
There's a naked man lying there between two rows of seating, rolling painfully onto his side, looking dazedly up at the Ghost. "Too much," he rasps up at him. "Couldn't - couldn't. Didn't let me drain him enough. Can't keep healing myself like this."
The Ghost watches him and doesn't say anything. Lying next to him, bloody and dropped, is the short knife the Ghost took from his own leg holster to stab deep into that snake's neck.
"Hurts," the man on the floor says, and closes his eyes, his back arches a little as he hisses his breath out. "Not enough energy. You don't know - how much it hurts -"
This is the monster who did that to Blaine. He keeps his hands in fists, because if he loosens their grip, they will shake. He says, voice coming very low and too heavy with breath, "You could have killed so many people."
"Don't know what it's like," the man on the floor moans. "You don't know what it's -"
"Do you know what it was like for them? They thought they would die like that, you hurt people, you could have killed -"
"So thirsty," he rasps at the floor, and his fingers scrape on the ground. "You don't . . . you think I asked for this? To need this?" He wets his lips, his eyelids flutter like he's struggling. "It hurts when I don't. Hurts every minute until I - I drink someone enough - you think I wanted to be a monster?"
The Ghost stands there and watches him, and he could have killed Phalanx. 'Drink'. He would have killed him, 'drunk' him dead . . .
He says, quietly, "You absorb other supers' powers."
The man on the floor swallows, wets his lips again. "Can smell them. Taste them in the air. Need - need it. Can't live without - hurts every second I'm not - you don't know, it hurts -"
His hands are held less tightly, now. That man can't even sit up, and his naked body starts shivering. You think I wanted to be a monster?
He says softly, "What's your name?"
He gulps again, like he's struggling with his breath. "Brody. You have no idea. It hurts."
". . . there are people coming to help. People who understand - us, as much as anyone does. They can help. They might be able to help." He thinks of Schuester, a man he tries not to think about, but could he help? If Brody was close enough to him that his powers stopped working, would he stop needing to drain others . . . ?
"Hurts. It just hurts."
"It'll be okay. They're on their way."
"I don't want . . ." He closes his eyes, drops his head closer to his own chest. "Don't want to be this. Just a - a monster. Killing people to live. You think I wanted to be this?"
His voice is choking, and the Ghost's throat is hardening in sympathy-hurt, as he crouches, to be closer. "It's okay. They'll help. They'll try to help, I promise -"
"Can't ever - ever be anything, do anything, just need all the time, hurt with needing it, starve unless I'm . . . I don't want, I don't want to be this -"
His voice begins to hurt him. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. They'll help, you don't have to be alone, you really don't have to -"
He whispers against the floor, "I'm so cold, it, it hurts -"
What would you be, the Ghost thinks, if you needed to hurt other people just to not be in agony? What must it be like to live like that, god, how do you live like that . . . ?
"It's okay," he whispers, and reaches out, and touches, just gently, his ankle. "I-"
It's so sudden he can't - his muscles just go as loose as liquid, he hits the floor on his back, head thumping off the ground, and Brody laughs, very low and breathy, like a snake.
He grips his arm spitefully tight, rolling himself onto the Ghost's body, and the Ghost stares stunned up at him - can't move can't lift himself can't - can't blink as Brody breathes, "Need to drink something, should've let me drain him, need to heal myself somehow, Casper." He settles his hands around the Ghost's throat, presses his thumbs in hard, and the Ghost stares dumb at his eyes (can't even blink) as his breath's cut off.
Brody puts his head back, rocks his hips a little, hisses his smile up at the ceiling, "Oh, and you taste good. I'd savour this but there's no time, I need my energy back up, change form and find those two and drain them dead before your 'help' gets here, three for the price of one, this is the best night -" He trails into laughter, and the Ghost can feel his heart's quick panic but he can't move, can't breathe, and Brody's hands bite into his throat hard. "God I still can't believe you fell for that. How pathetic are you? All I have to do is whimper a bit and you don't even care that I wanted to eat your boyfriend?" His hands tighten, and the Ghost is laying on his back with a naked man holding him down and strangling him, and he can't move, can't ghost, can't do anything, can't even close his eyes to not see him, can't not be seen -
But it won't be long until he can't see him, because the blackness is closing in already, as even his blood struggles to get past Brody's throttling hands, and he's the one who tried to comfort a monster. He's the one who - idiot, idiot, You think I wanted to be a monster? He taunted Mercedes just to scare her, he enjoys it, and all he had to do was sound upset and you just . . .
"Hurry up and die, Casper, give it up already -" Brody laughs a little again, shifting his hands to fit his thumbs in harder and his face is out of focus, sunk in shadow as lack of air sinks the Ghost into the dark. The suddenness of how he's going to die is a daze, Phalanx, Blaine, Dad as Brody says, amused at himself, "Hurry up and give up the ghos-"
He's smashed off him so quickly that the Ghost's breath chokes him, his body wrenches itself up, breaths almost retching into him as Mercedes Jones crashes the broken back of seat off Brody's head one last time and then stands there breathing hard, clutching that hunk of plastic and staring at Brody not getting up, while the Ghost rolls to the side and puts his hands to his burning throat, panting his way into breathing again, blinking moisture from his eyes, coughing and coughing and coughing through the agony of not being dead.
The back of the seat hits the floor, and Mercedes kneels shakily next to him, touches his shoulder. "You - are you okay?"
He nods, and wheezes, and coughs and coughs into his glove, manages - his voice sounds almost as rough and wrecked as after that fire - "He - ?"
"He gets up again I smack his head up again."
"Phal-"
"Comin' around, he said I had to stop him touching you - said he would -"
He closes his eyes, nods his hanging head, rasps, "Yeah. He did." Because the Ghost really is that pathetic, that stupid, that he just almost died because he tried to comfort a monster.
And I'll do it again, he thinks, closing his eyes in weary knowledge of himself. I'll do it every time, just in the hope that this time it will help. Because if I'd only known to try to comfort the monsters way back then instead of just being afraid of them, everything might be different; all you can ever do is try . . .
. . . Phalanx is going to kill me.
*
The SIU have taken over the area by the time Agent Sylvester arrives, and Brody is being carefully manipulated onto a stretcher, no-one sure about really touching him, not even the non-supers. The arena's been sealed, and Mercedes Jones in a silver blanket for the shock is sitting on the edge of the stage beside the Ghost, who's feeling mostly okay now - woozy and weak and sore in the throat but okay - propping Phalanx up against his side, holding him slumped to his shoulder. Brody had his hands on the Ghost for maybe a minute; he had Phalanx pinned down for minutes, god really knows how long, and he still can't stand up, can't even sit up when not leaned into something. He just lays his weight against the Ghost's side, and the Ghost holds him, arm wrapped around his waist, thumb gently stroking his side, just above his belt.
"Miss Jones." Agent Sylvester says. "Agent Sylvester. I'm going to have to ask you to keep details of tonight's incident to yourself, you don't even get to tell your best friends on the talk show circuit."
Mercedes looks down at her own hands, loose in her lap, and bites her bottom lip inwards, lets it go. "Yeah," she says, quietly. "I didn't see anything anyone else didn't. There was a monster, I got rescued by superheroes. That's all that happened. I don't know anything else."
Agent Sylvester nods curtly. "Casper, curly, you two up for a debriefing?"
The Ghost strokes Phalanx's side with his thumb, and shakes his head. His voice still comes rough. "I already told Detective Hudson everything you need to know. I need to get him out of here as soon as possible, we'll see you next week anyway."
"You didn't hear that," she says to Mercedes, who just shrugs, and doesn't even lift her head. "I'll go find your pet detective to get the info. Try not to get killed for the next few minutes at least."
She walks away, and the Ghost waits until she's distant, speaking to Finn, before he looks at Mercedes again. "We won't tell them anything," he says, quietly. "You don't have to either."
She looks at her hands, mutters, "Nothin' to tell."
"What you did . . . that's not something that's going to go away, not even if you want it to."
"He wasn't paying attention so I hit him with a chair. Doesn't make me a superhero."
"We both know that's not what we're talking about."
"Don' have t'be a superhero," Phalanx mumbles into the Ghost's cloak, where it bunches over his shoulder. "Jus'. Jus' have t'know it's part of who you are."
He rubs Phalanx's side. "We don't really encourage people to do what we do, even if they can."
"Good." she says to her hands. "'cause I'm not. I got fans. I got a tour. I got a contract. I don't want - that, that - monsters like that every night, I just want to sing. I just want to make people happy when I sing. An' that was - that was -"
"I know," the Ghost says, softly, because he knows what that was, paralysed on his back with a man holding him down and strangling him, and he couldn't disappear, couldn't be intangible, couldn't even close his eyes against it happening. No-one would want to face that again. The only reason he thinks that he's as okay as he is is because he knows that Phalanx is worse, that Phalanx needs him, and so he can't even think about what was done to him when there's what was done to him to deal with.
He tips his head down to Phalanx's a little. "As soon as you can walk, I'll get you home. It'll be okay."
He squirms a little, exhausted and embarrassed at his side. "Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. You did everything right." He runs his thumb down his side, says, very quietly, "Very brave soldier."
Mercedes takes a shaky breath, lets it out, lifts her head. She's dusty from clambering about in the wreckage, her dress has shed quite a few sequins, and her hair and make-up have very definitely seen better days, but she's got something of her Mercedes-steadiness back, that sure-of-itself charisma of a trueborn star. "I said ten thousand, didn't I? I think you guys more than earned it."
"We don't want it." the Ghost says, and strokes his side. "We can't take it anyway. Bills can be traced and superheroes can't have bank accounts for transfers. And we didn't come to help you because of the money."
"I made a promise on national TV, you damn well are taking it if I have to stuff it in your pockets myself."
He strokes Phalanx's side, too tired to have a fight over who's the most stubborn between himself and, god this surreal evening, Mercedes Jones. Then he shifts an arm, Phalanx kept carefully tucked to his side, and begins digging through his belt, for a little block of paper and a pen. He writes an address, tears it out and hands it over. She frowns at it, says, "What's this?"
"It's a women's shelter, they always need donations. Please be discreet."
"You - you want me to give it to -"
The Ghost glances down at Phalanx, and Phalanx looks drowsily up at him from his shoulder, and after a pause, smiles. Ten thousand dollars is indeed a hell of a lot of utility belts, but they get by, and the world needs more than just superheroes there in the heat of the moment. It needs all those everyday heroes who help people through the long haul of surviving. They need it a lot more than they do.
"You really don't have to tell them anything about this. Us. Please."
She stares at the address, shakes her head. "So long as we're all guarding secrets for each other I guess we're all okay." She looks up at him, and this smile isn't one of her showbiz ones, it's serious and it's warm and it's meant. "Right?"
The Ghost murmurs, "Mercedes Jones, actual super-star." and Phalanx's body jogs a little laugh against his side.
*
Silent and invisible through Cooper's apartment building, the Ghost supports Phalanx's weight with his arm across his shoulders, one hand on his chest to steady him. They know each other's bodies, each other's rhythms, and it's not as difficult a journey as it could be, but Phalanx's legs tremble and the Ghost has to murmur him through it, hands holding him hard, solidity of his body holding him up.
He remembers being shot. Was that this bad? He doesn't remember if that was this bad; pain was almost better, pain gave him something to focus on, now he just feels weak. He feels so weak and they have to creep through the apartment not even creaking a floorboard, they don't know if Cooper's in or not, and he only realises how tense the Ghost has been when he finally ghosts them into Blaine's bedroom and all his muscles sag, he staggers them sideways to let Phalanx collapse onto the bed.
For a moment they just sit leaning hard into each other, panting, the Ghost's hand slipping exhausted down his side to fit loosely over his hip. His head bumps off Phalanx's, he sighs hard and shaky in the dark, and he whispers, "Okay."
They're okay now.
Aren't they?
The Ghost takes a little breath and heaves himself up, pulls the blinds and turns the lamp on, and it's really hard for Phalanx to stay sitting up without him, his head hangs like a cannonball. The Ghost catches his face in his hands, strokes for a second at his hair, then unpeels the mask for him; Blaine closes his eyes, head like a bowling ball between his hands, mumbles, "Ghost."
"Everything's okay." he murmurs, brushing his hair back. "Very brave soldier."
He tries to lay down and the Ghost says, "No, no, I'm sorry, sweetheart." and starts unclipping his armour, his utility belts. "Can't sleep in that." he sing-songs to him, very softly. "Nasty uncomfortable things. Do you want a drink, something to eat - ?"
"Nuh. Sleep."
He pulls the costume off him, head popping awkwardly through, the Ghost tugging it down his arms for him, kissing the palm of one before setting it back on the bed. "Almost done," he breathes, tugging a t-shirt on over his hair. "Give me your arm again . . ."
He kneels to pull his boots off, and get the remainder of the costume off, substituting it for a pair of pyjama pants. And then he lifts Blaine's legs and lays him onto the bed, squirms the covers out from underneath him, shakes them comfortable over him. Blaine digs his cheek into the pillow and his breath whispers out a moan; sleep . . .
A hand settles in his hair for a long moment, thumb just, gently, running down his cheek.
And then there's the soft sound of the Ghost undressing, dealing with their costumes, but it's so dim and warm and he's tired like he's never slept, tired like he's never in his life had the chance even to lay down. He feels like his bone marrow is made of iron. He feels like his skull is lined with lead. Nothing he can move, nothing he can . . .
That thing, he thinks, struggling with the thought of it - the fear of it, because he understands now what could have happened, if the Ghost had been slower, if that thing had had him for any longer than it did; that thing, it was interested in Mercedes because she was a super, it drained me, it drained him -
Powers. It doesn't drain normal people, it drains - oh god. His powers. Does he still have - ?
He fights his eyes open, squints them hard, struggling to make a shield, just one, just one, in the air next to the bed. Because it pinned him down for so long, what if it sucked all the powers out of him, what if it left him -
The fear begins to clot, cold in his chest. What if he's just normal now? No powers, nothing? What use is he to the Ghost without his powers? What the hell is he next to Kurt without his powers?
The bathroom door creaks behind Kurt, and the light clicks on.
His jaw begins to hurt, he really doesn't have the strength to bite his teeth together this hard right now. Shield. Just one. Just one. You've been making them without even trying to since you were a teenager, you can do this now, you can make one, just one, Jesus he needs them too, you have to be able to . . .
Everything he has, all the strength left into him, he forces into the memory of shielding: the sense of the certainty of them, nothing gets through them, nothing moves them, they are, the most solid thing in the universe; the safety of them, how they enclose and keep out, keep safe and keep distant, deflect, defend, shelter, protect . . . he knows how to do it, he knows how to make shields like he knows how to blink, he knows how to do it and why won't -
What is he without them? Just - Blaine, just nothing, just a bow tie learning physical therapy, if he can't make shields then Phalanx just died. Crap, fuck, shield, make a shield, you know how to do this, you know you can do this, think about him, what if he needed it, think of how you need to shield defend protect guard shelter help him -
It gleams and flickers out in the air, a fraction of a second's green ghost of a hexagon-shaped shield. And his breath falls out of him as Kurt turns the bathroom light off behind himself, walks to the bed looking drained in what little light there is, barefoot in pyjamas rubbing at his hair with a hand. "Thought you'd already be asleep," he murmurs, lifting the covers and nudging Blaine's body along with his, letting them settle tangled comfortable together on the mattress. His hands run down Blaine's back, his feet nudge in alongside his. "Mmf. You're always warm."
I can still do it, he wants to tell him in dazed triumph, dizzy lying on his side, his body rings with all that effort. I can still do it -
"Go to sleep," Kurt whispers, and kisses him next to his nose, leans up and turns the lamp off. He shuffles back down again, tangled in warm and hard against Blaine's side, the bone and muscle and beating blood of him, thin fabric between their skin. Blaine nudges, as much as he can manage, his naked foot off Kurt's.
Silently in the dark, Kurt's foot nudges his back. And, warm, held, safe and still super, Blaine slips into sleep.
Part 3
Disclaimer: By the time I post this I'll be like two episodes behind on Glee, oops. That programme is not my problem. My only connection with it is scrabbling around trying to fix things through fanfic ^^;
Rating: Fic as a whole NC-17, this part R
Warnings: Yes. There's a really comprehensive list of them on part one for a reason.
Summary: Mercedes Jones, superstar.
Note: Just for the record LJ, your new posting format *fucks* fanficcers really badly since entries this long slow a browser to a crawl. Go sit in the corner and think about what you did. [Edit: total up to £1130, thank yoouuu! <3]
Now that Kurt has no secrets to keep from his roommate, locking his door pretty much only means one thing and in all honesty they are far more likely to be napping than naked in there. So when Rachel bangs the door wide open that Thursday night, stark light stabbing into their dark warm den of sleep, Blaine moans like he's been wounded and Kurt spits like a cat and throws a pillow in her general direction.
"-sleeping Rachel-"
"TV, on the TV -"
He sits up and puts a hand on his head because his still-drowsing brain feels ready to topple loose. "What -?"
"Mercedes Jones is talking about you on the TV!"
Blaine comes up so violently that they somehow manage to headbutt each other, ridiculous coconut-clop of their skulls and two groaned curses before they're scrabbling up in their socks and careening through the doorway because what the fuck -
It's a talk show on the TV, not the news, not some super threat in the city Rachel thought they needed waking to deal with but Mercedes Jones in this gorgeous blue sequinned dress sitting on the host's sofa and saying, "Well I've always been a huge fan -" with one of her million carat Mercedes Jones smiles, and Rachel turns the volume up loud.
"And now you're offering -" the host says, and checks his card. "Have I got this right? Ten thousand dollars -"
She's still smiling her million carat smile, but through the hot thumping of his heart Kurt's eyes are drawn to her hands, twisting themselves together in her lap. "That's right."
"For a private audience with the Ghost and Phalanx? You want to hire a couple of superheroes, is this for your show? You want backing dancers with capes?"
She laughs, and Blaine leans on the back of the sofa like he's not sure of staying standing otherwise, and Kurt stares at her hands, and the way her eyes look, too fixed, too wild. "I don't know about hire. I just wanna say hello, get their autographs. Hey, celebrities can be fans too, am I right?"
The studio audience claps and whistles. Blaine says slowly, "Is this really happening?"
"She's doing that huge show at Madison Square Gardens," Rachel says, a little faint. "She wants you guys to go to her dressing room beforehand."
Blaine says, "I tried to get us tickets to that, it sold out in - this cannot seriously be happening."
Kurt watches her hands, her eyes. How her smile doesn't move.
"And what do you want them for?" the host says, and the audience hoots a little, and Mercedes smiles around at them all and Kurt watches her hands separate, squeeze themselves tight into fists on her lap.
"Hey, superheroes aren't the only ones with secrets." She laughs, and Rachel - remote clamped in one white-knuckled hand - is either gesturing I cannot believe this is happening or else absolutely enormous breasts, there's a reason they never team up with each other for charades. "Seriously, a girl can't want to meet the cutest heroes in the country? I just - wanna talk to them." The wattage of her smile never falters, not for one second. "I seriously, seriously would like to talk to them."
Rachel screams through her hand, "She wants to meet you!"
Blaine says, "Does this make it okay for us to sneak into the concert using your powers?"
Kurt says, just quietly, "She's terrified."
They stop. They stare at him. And then they stare at Mercedes Jones.
Fixed, hollow smile. Hands pressed so tight into fists that they look painful. Panic, like the host might be holding a machine gun, behind her eyes. Kurt knows terror when he sees it. Kurt knows terror.
"What is she . . . ?"
"She's offering you guys ten thousand dollars for an audience." Rachel says. "Ten thousand dollars. That's -"
"That's a lot of utility belts," Blaine says, and looks at Kurt. "This is - crazy. You think this is real?"
". . . I think her fear's real."
"But she's Mercedes Jones, she must have an army of bodyguards -"
"- and she's scared enough to want to pay superheroes to drop by anyway." Kurt watches her, arms folded around himself and very, very alert, for every cue to -
(Someone very dangerous could have threatened her into this.)
(Why aren't her bodyguards enough, why aren't the cops enough?)
(Hasn't she done some acting before? What if she's the dangerous one . . . ?)
(. . . she looks so afraid, and how can someone loved by millions feel alone?)
Blaine says, trying not to make his voice sound too hopeful, "Kurt?"
He does not like being manipulated into doing things. There are eight million people in this city and he doesn't sell his help to the highest bidder. But she looks so scared, and he knows what that's like, of course he knows what that's like, if he'd had it to give then he would have given anything . . .
He squirms his shoulders a little. ". . . what time is this concert?"
Blaine squeezes his arm, and Rachel squeals. And on the TV Mercedes Jones smiles through her interview, running into an anecdote about singing for the President in the world's most uncomfortable shoes, smiles and the fear gradually fades from her eyes. Mostly, anyway.
*
Kurt sits at this desk, drumming a mechanical pencil off his work, cheek propped on a hand, thinking thinking thinking. He usually manages to put the Ghost out of his head during the day, but then he usually has no idea exactly what the Ghost's night will entail during the day before, there's nothing specific to linger on; today he's just waiting to hurry home, to pull his cloak on and get to that concert, and it's not exactly like he can forget what tonight will be when the entire office . . .
"God if I had superpowers I would be at that gig in a heartbeat."
"You think they'll show? They don't exactly go looking for publicity."
"Would you turn down Mercedes Jones?"
"Mercedes Jones is a goddess," Chandler sighs, smiling dreamily at the air.
"She does know they're gay, right?"
"They might not be gay. They might be bi."
"So what, that makes a pop star making them an indecent proposal okay? Being bi doesn't mean you date one gender and fuck the other on the side -"
"Maybe she's just a hag supreme. Nothing less than superheroes for the queen of pop."
Kurt blinks, clears his throat, lifts his head to say, "Guys, seriously, we have to get this fall -"
His cell goes off, and while he's distracted their voices raise in volume again.
"Did you see her dress? That rose was a bit much but I loved the sleeves -"
"Did not work with those shoes."
"Oh my god wash your mouth out she looked divine."
The text is from Finn, and says, You heard about Mercedes Jones?? Kurt texts back, No, Finn, I live under a rock, I had no idea. We'll both be there.
"Guys," he says, because Chandler is wafting both hands at his face like he's not getting enough air and Robbie is sitting back with a grin, turning his pen in his fingers, watching the fight heat up - but then his cell goes off again, Finn again, saying, I'll be there too, since it's officially a 'super' incident :P
He's just typing a reply when he gets another text, Blaine now, saying, I accidentally got into a prank war with Paul :(
"Silver shoes with a blue dress?"
"Because she's a star!"
"Guys," he calls, while texting Blaine, Surrender, now. and then Finn, Explain to me how this is my fault. "I don't care if you're talking shop but I better be able to hear pencils at the same time or so help me god I am taping your mouths cl-"
The door clicks closed behind someone, and a voice says, "The voice of leadership, Mr Hummel."
He drops his cell as the room mumbles itself to industrious silence, looks up at - Brian, who dresses in a way that makes Kurt look drab and works somewhere parallel to Sophie in the arcane management system of his office, now smiling a little wickedly as Kurt coughs, and flicks his pencil nervously in his hand.
"Mercedes Jones' style choices from last night are proving particularly contentious."
He waves a hand. "Creative chitchat. It's all part of the process. How is our groundbreaking fall collection coming along?"
His cell vibrates on his desk again, and they both look at it. Kurt puts a hand over his eyes and would quite like to disappear; "Not without distractions," he says, tight-jawed, but Brian just laughs and pats his shoulder - he tries not to jump, Brian's always been easily physically affectionate with everyone in the office, he's seen him hug Sophie right off her feet, and, unmalicious and oblivious, Kurt's antsy need for personal space never has registered with him.
"We'll get there. Wow me, folks!" he calls, and walks out waving, and Kurt massages his forehead with his fingers, taps his cell awake with the other hand; Blaine's text reads, Paul won :(
Four more hours until he can leave. Four more hours. The gossip in the office is beginning to buzz higher again. Just hold out for four more hours . . .
*
Blaine heads straight to Kurt's after his placement, because the Ghost and Phalanx need to be out a lot earlier than normal to make it to this concert on time. No time for a nap, barely time to bolt the sushi Kurt brought home with him, Kurt's already showering while Blaine swallows maki and checks the internet, which is predictably crazed with conspiracy theories about what Mercedes Jones wants 'ghostlanx' for and whether they'll actually turn up to find out. Kurt returns from the bathroom in the Ghost's clinging pale suit, scooping his cloak up from the foot of the bed. "Bathroom's free."
Blaine can't believe that he has to wash the gel out of his hair when he's going to meet Mercedes Jones. It's Mercedes Jones. He couldn't meet her neatly groomed as Blaine, he has to meet her with Phalanx's storm cloud of crazed hair . . . ?
The Ghost is checking utility belt compartments when he's back, hair wet and springing wild, half Phalanx already. "Yours was low on antiseptic pads, I topped up for you."
"Thanks. Are you, um. Nervous? I'm kind of nervous."
The Ghost keeps his eyes on the pocket of flash-bangs, counting them through his fingers and gently slipping them back in. "It's just another night, Phalanx."
"We're going to meet Mercedes Jones."
"Tell me you're not going to ask her for her autograph."
"You're not excited?"
The Ghost props himself back on his hands, sitting on the edge of the bed with a utility belt over his lap, and quirks his mouth. "I'd rather be going to this concert without the cloak. You know. Um. Together. As us." He looks down at the belt again. "That would have been nice."
He watches him but doesn't try to touch him yet, because the moments when the Ghost is Kurt-like are as disconcerting as the moments when Kurt is Ghost-like. "We're always together as us. Just . . . sometimes we're working."
He looks up, smiles, a little, a quiet shy smile, and then it's easier to lean down and kiss him, the Ghost's gloved fingers curling in his still-damp hair. He holds his jaw and murmurs to his mouth, "Help me with my mask?"
*
The Ghost tucks his gloves into his belt to smooth his mask onto Phalanx's forehead, down his cheeks. Phalanx says, "Where's Rachel? I kind of thought she'd be on our backs the whole time we were getting ready."
"She's already there, gathering quotes from the queue, sulking because I wouldn't tell her any of our plans."
He grins. "You ever think we should throw her a bone to keep her quiet for a while?"
"No. You don't know Rachel, if you encourage her she'll be impossible. The best thing to do is try to train her out of it, just ignore her until she moves on to her next obsession."
"You're the roommate, you're the one who knows her."
"Mm, for my sins. Finn's there too, waiting for us to show."
The NYPD SIU is proving a more complicated project than anyone guessed. Officially, vigilantism in all forms is illegal: you are not allowed to put a mask on and make it your job to bring down criminals and pass them on to the police. There's also the super issue, still, there's always the super issue - they will never be universally trusted, never be universally liked. Because they have be trusted, because their powers just are and just are scary to people, and people resent being told that they just have to believe that someone else is a good person because frankly there's nothing they could do about them anyway if they weren't. People don't like being powerless and don't like not having a choice. The fact that supers never got a choice in their powers either is something that they mostly manage to ignore.
Unofficially, behind the scenes, it has been made clear to Commissioner Figgins that Phalanx and the Ghost are not to be incarcerated, for the good of the whole country. As a policy this can't be openly enacted, but the cops are very obviously slower to move on them now, and very often just stand around chatting, making no attempt to arrest either of them at a crime scene. But without legal precedent, it can't be public policy; the public can't know. The Super Incident Unit's purpose is to manage super-based crime - they need some unit with very particular expertise when supervillains do start tearing up the city - but as far as the population of New York knows, their purpose is to arrest the superheroes too, if they stay still long enough for it to happen. The difficulty of keeping appearance and fact apart troubles Detective Finn Hudson immensely, and the Ghost might tease him for it, but now that he knows that if there's trouble and they do face a jail cell, it's his stepbrother who'll have the key - that does make him feel better. He knows they'd already be in serious danger if anyone was able to arrest them; but Finn wouldn't let anyone hurt them, wouldn't let anyone unmask them, and would call Agent Sylvester to bust them out as soon as possible. One small weight off his back, one small weight and Atlas flexes his muscles, as the whole world resettles itself on his shoulders.
He runs his thumb down the edge of Phalanx's mask, following his cheek, and murmurs, "Come on." His eyes are that hypnotic honey-brown in the lamplight, and for a fraction of a second he really could just forget Mercedes Jones and all of New York and slide sideways onto the bed with him; selfishness, greed for Blaine, really would be too easy to him, at first. He makes himself take his hand and turn for the window instead.
Phalanx turns the lamp off behind himself.
Even just getting through the subway system without accidentally invisibly colliding with someone is difficult, that night, and the noisy winding queue outside Madison Square Gardens is insane, he can't spot Rachel through the heave of the crowds. Over the entrance is the image of Mercedes Jones in a silver dress, laughing and gorgeous, god knows how many times larger than life size, and excitement lifts the air like summer heat off the sidewalk. The Ghost holds Phalanx's hand, which squeezes his with excitement, and he feels almost guilty cutting ahead of the queue and through a door, into the building and after a pause, following a security guard to see where he leads.
There is a lot of security, Mercedes Jones is certainly a cautious woman. Or a very scared one. Once upon a time, if Kurt could have had a whole phalanx of security guards, wouldn't he . . . ? But then, Kurt wouldn't even have trusted the security guards. Phalanx's fingers fit through his so right; there's only really one shield he ever can trust.
Through an unmarked door and into the bowels of the building, quieter corridors of industriously bustling people, this isn't the public's place. People with headsets are discussing catering at a junction of corridors, and the Ghost stops following the security guard to follow a man with a clipboard instead, off down another route, to a door with a security guard next to it and a bouquet on the table opposite it, an enormous burst of bright spiked irises and trailing lilacs and purple freesias. In his mind, without even thinking about it, Kurt catalogues it; too rich a colour scheme for Rachel's wedding, she'll want something cooler, more classic, but maybe if Mike and Tina decide . . .
(For Blaine, rich reds and golds, to bring out the warmth of his beautiful skin; but Kurt gets ahead of himself, turns blushing from the thought of planning his own wedding, feels presumptuous and like it must show on his face, embarrassingly too much. Other people, first. It's so much easier to plan for other people.)
The man with the clipboard taps on the door. "Half an hour, Miss Jones."
A voice mm-hms its recognition through the wood, and the Ghost presses Phalanx's hand, which squeezes excitedly back. He just dips his head through to peek, first, because if she's dressing then they probably shouldn't . . .
She's sitting in front of a mirror, hands squeezing and squeezing on the vanity's surface, alone in the room. The Ghost pulls Phalanx through after himself, and she looks so elegant, Mercedes Jones, a classic diva who never relies on avant-garde costumery, just the power of her voice and the dazzle of her smile. The Ghost fades them into sight, standing in front of her dressing room door, and she's running her tongue over her glossy lips, staring at herself in the mirror when she sees their reflection and starts her breath in, jumps in her seat like she's seen a -
Well . . .
She stands, turning to them wide-eyed and open-mouthed. "Oh my holy . . ."
Phalanx shifts, nervy with excitement, very liable to blurt anything right now. So the Ghost says, "Well - we're hardly uninvited, Ms Jones."
She puts a hand over her eyes for a second, and he sees - the relief, the shudder in her shoulders, that they're here. "God, you came. Oh my god, you actually . . ."
The Ghost discreetly stands on Phalanx's foot because he's beginning to squirm in a seriously overexcited way and they are not here to be fanboys (even if oh god above Mercedes Jones, and Kurt could never tell her - there is no way it would ever be appropriate for anyone else to ever know - that Blaine likes to play her music after they've made love, lying in the sheets together with her voice prickling the naked nape of Kurt's neck, Blaine's hand skimming his bare arm, both of them awed to quiet, sharing skin and safety): they're here to work. "Why did you want to see us?" he says, keeping his voice neutral. "Because we have eight million people out there to help out, and you seem to think that this is more important than that. And we would like to know why."
She draws herself up, settles herself out, ruffling herself like a bird resettling its rather glorious peacock-green feathers, her dress all glinting and gorgeous. The emeralds at her throat gleam dangerously as her breathing steadies under them. "'cause twenty thousand of those people are out there right now an' I don't know what's gonna happen, okay."
The Ghost narrows his eyes a little under the hood. "What is going to happen, Ms Jones?"
She swallows, head raised proud, and picks up her iPhone from the dressing table. "Been getting weird messages for a while, I have people to deal with them but these got pretty insistent so they told me to get security amped up, an' then . . ."
She holds for cell out, for him to read - a screenshot of tweets, @MercedesJones:
I can taste you from here.
You'll taste incredible.
I'm thinking about how you'll taste.
He scrolls down, admittedly disturbed, because these are just creepy. There's a lot of them, covering the past five months. The last tweet, from this week, says, Friday, Miss Jones, you'll taste so good.
He hands the cell to Phalanx to read, says, "You have a stalker."
"This isn't like the crazy fans, okay, I have done my share of the crazy fans, this is -" She rubs her bare arms, bangles chiming down her wrists. "It doesn't feel right. Feels like - I feel like someone's watching me. All the time. An' I always am bein' watched, cameras everywhere an' I know it but this is - this is different, this feels all wrong -"
"Why didn't you take this to the police?"
"They might make me cancel the show."
Phalanx hands him the cell back but he's still just staring incredulously at her. "You're not worried about some crazy stalker killing you, you're worried about the show getting cancelled?"
She pulls her head up even higher, proud and stubborn and sure. "Twenty thousand people," she says. "I am not letting one of them down. I wouldn't be Mercedes Jones without those people, you know that? Just be some girl, they make me everything. I never drop a note, I always smile for a camera, an' I never cancel a show." Her finger stabs the air. "Not. Ever. Hell no."
"That entire audience could be in danger because of this!"
"That's why you're here! It's just one night, I just need -"
"You got some disturbing tweets and a funny feeling and you pull in superheroes to -"
"My fans deserve the best." She folds her arms, eyes narrowed at him. "They got good taste an' I appreciate that."
The Ghost holds her cell out for her. "Call the cops. We're not for hire, this is something you need them for."
"No - don't go, no -"
There it is again. The Ghost knows fear, knows every nuance of fear, knows it as intimately as his own breath, and Mercedes Jones - glorious peacock-bright Mercedes Jones - is terrified. If they leave, no-one's protecting her. She won't feel any safer if she cancels her show and submits herself to the police. The only thing that can make her feel safe is a pair of superheroes. And the Ghost is caught between her and her audience and eight million other people and what they might face, and this is -
She sits back down in her chair, presses her lips together, rasps, "Please. I can't cancel. I am not cancelling. If you go, I'm still goin' out there. An' I really don't know what happens next, okay? I don't. But I'll go out there either way. I just - I don't wanna do it alone -"
Phalanx's hand brushes the back of his arm. "Ghost . . ."
He holds his jaw hard for one second. Then he plucks a tissue from the box on the table and kneels down, and gently brushes her hand aside to pat at the hanging tears. "At this rate your make-up people will murder you before some crazy stalker does."
She laughs, a little weakly, and obediently puts her head up, eyes on the ceiling, while he carefully blots the damp away. "We'll be out there watching," he says. "Even if you can't see us, we will be there. But is there anything else you can tell us, anything else we should know . . . ?"
She sniffs, and takes the tissue to blow her nose. "First number's for you two," she says, and smiles, a million carat diamond of a Mercedes Jones smile.
*
They stand invisible amongst the enormous stacks of equipment, as Mercedes Jones rises up onto the stage and waves to her screaming crowd, and cameras flash and glitter like galaxies explode wherever she turns. Phalanx knows that the Ghost didn't agree to do this for her money, or her celebrity, or even really for her safety because, after all, with all her security she hardly needs a couple of superheroes to protect her from a potential crazed fan. They're here because she's scared. Because the Ghost can't bear to see people be afraid, because that, really, is all he's ever here for, because people should never be on their own, not when the worst things happen but not ever, really. And if people need to feel the ghost of another presence at their shoulders, well, they've got him . . .
They mean more than what they are. They're never more, really, than mortal human beings, just two guys, but they mean so much more and the Ghost knows that and resigns himself to it. That isn't what he set out to do, it's a side-effect he didn't anticipate, that people would notice him. He has never in his life expected that people would notice him (oh, Kurt). But now they are where they are he's not leaving someone to be afraid, not like he was. His cloak covers more than just him; he would settle it around the whole world if he could, and the size of his heart awes Phalanx every time, it's like Phalanx could walk through its chambers like a whale's heart, as cavernous as a cathedral around him, echoing to his footsteps, arteries arched high over his head, veins as wide as city streets . . .
Mercedes Jones smiles through the dazzle of the cameras, and says into the mike, "Hello New York, city of superheroes!"
And then she opens, immediately, as the crowd's roar swallows the first lines of the instruments' intro, with Hero. Phalanx squeezes the Ghost's arm and grins, invisible and delighted, and feels the Ghost's breath let out at his side, hard with amusement.
By the end of the song he's leaning his head on the Ghost's shoulder, the Ghost's arm around his waist, and god she raises the hair on his skin, her voice. He has to stop himself from applauding hard with the crowd, since they're officially not there, while the Ghost rocks him side-to-side a little in his arm, and Phalanx nuzzles his nose into the hang of his hood, nudging it out of the way to lay a kiss under his jaw.
It's a good show. Alright, the lighting and the dancers are pretty amazing, but all she ever really relies on is her voice, it needs no further decoration, she's an old school soul diva, it's all about her and the music. She's incredible. And this, for them, is not remotely a bad way to spend a Friday night, it's even early enough for them to head to Mr Conti's afterwards, as Phalanx settles his arms around the Ghost's hips and rests his chin on his shoulder, invisible and fitting together as exactly as hexagon shields at the edge of the stage, the Ghost's hands settling over Phalanx's wrists at his stomach, relaxed under his body's lean.
They're halfway through the sass-fest of her latest single, Phalanx invisibly dancing the Ghost a little from behind while his body shakes with laughter and he smacks ineffectually at his hands folded on his stomach, when there's a suddenly different pitch to some of the screaming out there. The Ghost goes stiff, and Phalanx stills instantly, and Mercedes' voice - hesitates.
And then there's no denying that the audience is screaming, and the instruments begin cutting out, and musicians stand, flee from the stage -
The only people who run towards the edge of the stage, suddenly visible, are the two of them, as out there in the audience something pale and growing is rearing over the heads of everyone else as they pour away, run away screaming, confused and fear-crazed and Jesus they'll trample each other to -
Mercedes stands with a hand over her mouth, like she can't move, next to the microphone in the centre of the stage. Over the panicked roar of sound the Ghost yells to Phalanx, "Can you help them, contain it, I'll try to get her somewhere safe -"
"On it!"
The Ghost runs to Mercedes, and Phalanx vaults down from the stage, skids over the seats on a slide made of shields, for that - thing -
Which unfolds itself over him and he stares up open-mouthed, because he's fought supers, he's fought people he genuinely would call evil, he's fought by any standards what would count as 'monsters' but this - actually is one.
A great rearing snake, its flesh a horrible pale colour, its face weirdly flat and human in the most horrific way, tiny, tiny little limbs hanging from it halfway down, useless little arms and its huge wide body overhead, looking down at him mouth open, and it makes a noise he hears over the screaming people, so low and loud that it shakes the seating, and it sounds like laughter . . .
He throws the shields up in a hell of a hurry as it slams itself down like its whole body is a weapon and the shields pound with its weight, Phalanx's knees are unsteadied, but he holds them. The great pale snake rolls off the shields and its body smashes a band of seating, god there are still people trying to get out -
"Please stay calm and help each other out!" Mercedes' voice calls over the speakers. "Please don't panic, help each other out if you can-!"
Phalanx is just drawing his breath in to work out how to attack when a bloody star bursts high on the back of the monster's neck and it rears its head up, bellows a roar as it turns, eyes wide on oh Jesus Finn Hudson walking up to them through the flow of people running past him, white-faced, gun raised in both hands. The snake heaves its body around, tiny arms flapping, gathering its weight, and Phalanx sees its neck - seal itself together again, blood-stained but healed, as it lunges.
Finn fires twice more but throws his arms over his head just as the great snake hits the globe of shields suddenly around him, coils and coils thumping off them with the force of its spring. Phalanx feels his eyes unfocus a little, god it's so heavy, and from the stage Mercedes's voice yells through the microphone, "Hey, I'm over here! You wanna taste, I'm right here, come an' get me!"
The snake lifts its head, hissing a widening smile, and rolls its body into a turn, back towards the stage, through the wrecked seating and Phalanx has to scramble out of its path as it heads for Mercedes and the Ghost standing in front of her, facing that thing as small as a moth . . .
Phalanx scrambles to kneel next to Finn, who's sitting stunned on the floor, checks over his shoulder but the last people are making their way out now, some of them struggling and limping from the stampede. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Finn scuffs a hand back through his hair, his face still drained pale. "Just - hell. How do you guys do this?"
This isn't what either of them do, they deal with muggers and carjackers, this is . . . "You need to make sure everyone's out and okay. Don't let anyone back in."
"I'm on it. Look after - him."
He just nods. "I'm on it."
There's no time for anything else. Phalanx runs back to the stage and Finn runs to help people get out, and the Ghost is backing Mercedes from the edge of the stage, arms held out behind himself to keep her behind his body, and Phalanx can see how he's breathing quick but he's -
He's talking to it. He's talking to - ? Oh god, Ghost; he's trying to reason with a giant goddamn snake-monster.
As Phalanx gets closer he can hear him, the room is weirdly quiet and echoing now the screaming has run away from them, and as he jumps wrecked seating and skids through dropped drinks, the Ghost is saying, "Why her? Why do you even want to hurt her? You don't have to hurt anybody -"
The snake lowers its enormous head so it's meeting him eye to eye, and the Ghost is stiff but he's not backing down, and Mercedes grips his arms so tight she must be leaving bruises. "Can you hear me? Can you understand me?" He stares into its eyes like he can't move. "Can you -"
It swings its head back, and lashes it around again so hard and so fast that Phalanx can't even scream in time, he'll never be able to -
Its head swishes right through the Ghost and Mercedes, ghosting, his cloak flaring and she's screaming so loud and suddenly -
Phalanx trips, falling painfully to his knees in shock, grabbing the wrecked back of a seat to stay up as the stage bursts like the Fourth of July, brilliantly coloured lights breaking off that snake's body like a firework factory just exploded, and he stares open-mouthed as the snake reels back, mouth open and the shriek it makes shakes the ceiling and runs like a rusted nail up Phalanx's spine as lights explode pink-violet-green-gold-white-blue-scarlet all around it.
When the fireworks stop the Ghost is staring at Mercedes Jones, who has multicoloured sparks running down her arms, falling like bright droplets, multicoloured fireflies from her fingertips, crackling in her eyes like electricity, and Phalanx thinks - through the dumb pounding of his too-loud heart - Oh god, she's a super. She's a super. That's why some giant snake monster is interested in a pop star, she's a super . . .
A super who stares at her own hands, mouth open, stunned beyond speech. The Ghost snaps out of it first, with a glance at that scorched and writhing snake picking itself up, its long rumbling growl rattling the whole stage as it lifts its smoking, bloodied head again. The Ghost grabs Mercedes' arm and looks at Phalanx, and Phalanx understands. Mercedes can't be here. The whole venue is now empty but for them and this is their fight, not anyone else's; the Ghost will get her out, and Phalanx will have to hold that monster here until he can get back.
The blistered marks on its flesh are already healing themselves. Phalanx draws his strength up and slams a shield into the side of it, and the Ghost vanishes straight down, Mercedes falling with a cut-off scream after him, through the stage and gone.
The snake shakes its head out, rears up to smash right down through the stage after them and hits, instead, the gleaming platform of Phalanx's shields. Its head strikes hard and then the weight of its coils hit behind it and Phalanx grabs the seat back he's holding harder, feeling the blow like it struck him in the bones; this isn't like a single bullet striking off them, this is like fighting Karofsky again, strength should never be concentrated like that, and he actually doesn't know how much of this he can take.
Except he does, because he'll take as much as the Ghost needs him to. He hauls himself to his shaky feet, as the snake struggles to turn its huge heavy body around, to face him, too many too-heavy coils, face all narrowed into something so angry, something made out of hate and murder. And its coils heave around after it, and it throws itself forward, building momentum -
He staggers back, slams two shields up at it to try to batter it into a different course, scrambles away and throws up a shield diagonal-on to the snake, so it doesn't hit it and pound his bones like that, instead it glances clumsily off it and rolls furiously to the side, has to regather itself and lunge again, Phalanx backing up quick and sending it glancing off on another odd-angled set of shields and -
His ankle catches in -
It's the strap of someone's abandoned bag. There's not much time to appreciate that when he falls over with a helpless yelp, tries to roll himself immediately to his hands and upright again but something swings in and knocks him in a tumbled confusion sideways, rolling over and over, head banging off the floor, and he can't raise his arms to shield himself.
He can't move.
The snake doesn't wrap its coils around him, doesn't - as he so heart-stoppingly fears - lift its tail and smash it down onto him, because it could crush him into a bloody smear. It just uncoils and lays its tail over him, and gives a long hissed satisfied breath, horrible rush of air overhead as Phalanx lays there on his front with his head fallen to the side, staring at the underneath of an unbroken row of seating with that snake's tail a weight over his back, and he can't move.
He can't move.
Why can't he move?
It's ridiculous, it's - he tries so hard, so hard the strain hurts, to put his hands down and heave himself up. He can't. He can't even twitch a fingertip. Panic and incredulity are too much too fast as he realises that he can't even blink, his eyes are beginning to burn in the air, and the weight of the snake's tail is beginning to feel heavier, and he tries to open his mouth and he can't. He can't even scream.
The snake hisses, long as a slit in the air, overhead. He stares into the darkness under the seating, deserted bags and dropped drinks and someone's cell buzzing around taking a call there's no-one to pick up, and he can't move a single muscle, and the heaviness of that snake's body over him grows and grows . . .
No. It's not the snake that's getting heavier. He's getting weaker. It's - it's draining him. And there's nothing he can do, he's completely paralysed, can't even blink, as all the strength runs out of him and the snake lowers its head, so its breath runs over Phalanx's hair, cold on the back of his neck, and its hissing sounds like laughter.
The Ghost will come back. The Ghost will save him. Where is he - ?
He realises that his breath is, slowly, fading. His lungs and heart are, slowly, going as still as the rest of him. He wants to blink, his eyes feel maddeningly dry, he wants to open his mouth and scream, he can feel the saliva in there and he can't swallow it, can't even cough, can only lay there feeling the cold floor against his cheek and the heavy, sickly weight of the flesh of the snake over him, pressing him into the ground, killing him by slow draining centimetres, bleeding, like the smallest nicked artery, all of the life out of him.
He can't die like this. He's twenty-four years old, he can't - he wants to wrench his head up, fight, make a shield but his powers are as dead as his body, he can't do anything. He can't die like this. What the hell will - Cooper, his parents -
Kurt. Kurt, he can't - where is he, why isn't he here, why doesn't he help -
He feels wetness build in his eyes, doesn't know if it's because he can't blink while they burn or just the fact that he's alone and he can't move and everything's darker, he's noticed that everything is darker, either because he hasn't the breath any more to keep to consciousness or just because if that snake fades him weak enough, fades him enough, everything will just go dark forever . . .
Kurt, Kurt, help me, please -
But if Kurt - if he faces that thing -
Get up get up you have to get up -
The snake sighs so satisfied, and from his screaming eyes a tear runs cool across into his hairline, and everything is so dim, and slow, and heavy, and is fading somewhere further and further beyond his reach . . .
He doesn't know how many flash-bangs hit the snake in the side of the head before the Ghost rushes past, blur of pale grey, and throws himself right through that snake; its head rears back with a howl of pain and Phalanx - blinks, as its weight is off him and his breath shudders into his lungs, and the snake still has three throwing stars and the handle of the Ghost's knife sticking out of the side of its neck, and a thin lasso of rope circling it.
The Ghost skids around, loops the end of the rope tight around a still-fixed seat and with all his strength heaves. The snake is wrenched sideways, away from Phalanx who tries to pick himself to his hands and knees but can only roll, coughing clumsily, wheezing his way back into breathing, as the snake bunches its confused body and thrusts itself at the Ghost -
- and screams as the taser runs right through it.
Phalanx tries to heave himself up again and falls, jarring his chest, still weakly coughing. But the Ghost falls from his run to his knees, grabs his shoulder and whispers, "It's okay you're okay I've got you -"
And maybe it's just because he doesn't think about it, because Phalanx knows that he's not exactly light, but the Ghost grabs him up, heaves him into his arms, and staggers off towards the stage, away from that still-lashing, moaning snake, stumbling and ghosting them down as the end of a tail slashes through where they were.
They fall through the ceiling and a little into the floor below, the Ghost pulling Phalanx back up onto the floor itself, some understage area, all pulleys and wiring and equipment and a tear-stained Mercedes Jones clattering up in her heels sobbing, "Jesus Jesus Jesus -"
The Ghost lays Phalanx down, propping his head in his arm, a hand on his chest. "Are you okay, can you - are you -"
He coughs, and makes himself nod, gets out, barely, "Don't . . ."
The Ghost fumbles on his belt, pulls out his cell and works through its screens with his face too pale, even by his standards. He hits call and thrusts the cell at Mercedes. "Speak to them. Tell them what's happened and to send help, we need some way to contain that thing, they'll have - they'll know what to do. And look after him."
Someone's already picked up on the other end of the line, Mercedes stares at him and says, "What?" but the voice on the line snaps her attention sideways. "I - I'm Mercedes Jones, I'm - under the stage at Madison Square Gardens with the Ghost and - and Phalanx -"
The Ghost leans his head down and whispers, "I'll be right back." and kisses him on the forehead, over the mask. And it's all the strength he has, everything he's got left, just to mumble out, "Don't . . ."
"I love you." he lays his head so gently down and then he's gone, invisible and gone, leaving Phalanx tipped carefully into the recovery position and Mercedes Jones wiping her nose on the back of her wrist, choking into the cell, "Some giant snake thing, he said you'd - you'd know how to 'contain' it -"
Don't, Phalanx thinks, but even panic can't make him do more than jerk ineffectually, knock his head off the floor, he can't get up, he can't warn him -
Don't let it touch you.
*
The empty, ruined area around the stage - really is empty, he thinks at first. There's no sign of that giant snake, as he stands there invisible, hands in fists at his sides and breath very quiet and straining-scared in his chest, because god it hurt Phalanx and he doesn't know how badly and he needs to be with him but he needs to stop it first before it can hurt anyone else -
He can hear a noise, someone groaning, something like a sob, out there amongst the seating . . .
He picks his way over, through the broken bits of seats and people's abandoned belongings, and he sees, up ahead on the floor, a pale naked ankle, a shoeless foot, toes stretching out on the floor as that whispered groan runs out again. He walks over, quickly, fading back into view, but he stops a few feet away just to watch. He's not stupid, and that thing hurt Phalanx, and the Ghost knows Phalanx isn't helpless; this thing is dangerous . . .
There's a naked man lying there between two rows of seating, rolling painfully onto his side, looking dazedly up at the Ghost. "Too much," he rasps up at him. "Couldn't - couldn't. Didn't let me drain him enough. Can't keep healing myself like this."
The Ghost watches him and doesn't say anything. Lying next to him, bloody and dropped, is the short knife the Ghost took from his own leg holster to stab deep into that snake's neck.
"Hurts," the man on the floor says, and closes his eyes, his back arches a little as he hisses his breath out. "Not enough energy. You don't know - how much it hurts -"
This is the monster who did that to Blaine. He keeps his hands in fists, because if he loosens their grip, they will shake. He says, voice coming very low and too heavy with breath, "You could have killed so many people."
"Don't know what it's like," the man on the floor moans. "You don't know what it's -"
"Do you know what it was like for them? They thought they would die like that, you hurt people, you could have killed -"
"So thirsty," he rasps at the floor, and his fingers scrape on the ground. "You don't . . . you think I asked for this? To need this?" He wets his lips, his eyelids flutter like he's struggling. "It hurts when I don't. Hurts every minute until I - I drink someone enough - you think I wanted to be a monster?"
The Ghost stands there and watches him, and he could have killed Phalanx. 'Drink'. He would have killed him, 'drunk' him dead . . .
He says, quietly, "You absorb other supers' powers."
The man on the floor swallows, wets his lips again. "Can smell them. Taste them in the air. Need - need it. Can't live without - hurts every second I'm not - you don't know, it hurts -"
His hands are held less tightly, now. That man can't even sit up, and his naked body starts shivering. You think I wanted to be a monster?
He says softly, "What's your name?"
He gulps again, like he's struggling with his breath. "Brody. You have no idea. It hurts."
". . . there are people coming to help. People who understand - us, as much as anyone does. They can help. They might be able to help." He thinks of Schuester, a man he tries not to think about, but could he help? If Brody was close enough to him that his powers stopped working, would he stop needing to drain others . . . ?
"Hurts. It just hurts."
"It'll be okay. They're on their way."
"I don't want . . ." He closes his eyes, drops his head closer to his own chest. "Don't want to be this. Just a - a monster. Killing people to live. You think I wanted to be this?"
His voice is choking, and the Ghost's throat is hardening in sympathy-hurt, as he crouches, to be closer. "It's okay. They'll help. They'll try to help, I promise -"
"Can't ever - ever be anything, do anything, just need all the time, hurt with needing it, starve unless I'm . . . I don't want, I don't want to be this -"
His voice begins to hurt him. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. They'll help, you don't have to be alone, you really don't have to -"
He whispers against the floor, "I'm so cold, it, it hurts -"
What would you be, the Ghost thinks, if you needed to hurt other people just to not be in agony? What must it be like to live like that, god, how do you live like that . . . ?
"It's okay," he whispers, and reaches out, and touches, just gently, his ankle. "I-"
It's so sudden he can't - his muscles just go as loose as liquid, he hits the floor on his back, head thumping off the ground, and Brody laughs, very low and breathy, like a snake.
He grips his arm spitefully tight, rolling himself onto the Ghost's body, and the Ghost stares stunned up at him - can't move can't lift himself can't - can't blink as Brody breathes, "Need to drink something, should've let me drain him, need to heal myself somehow, Casper." He settles his hands around the Ghost's throat, presses his thumbs in hard, and the Ghost stares dumb at his eyes (can't even blink) as his breath's cut off.
Brody puts his head back, rocks his hips a little, hisses his smile up at the ceiling, "Oh, and you taste good. I'd savour this but there's no time, I need my energy back up, change form and find those two and drain them dead before your 'help' gets here, three for the price of one, this is the best night -" He trails into laughter, and the Ghost can feel his heart's quick panic but he can't move, can't breathe, and Brody's hands bite into his throat hard. "God I still can't believe you fell for that. How pathetic are you? All I have to do is whimper a bit and you don't even care that I wanted to eat your boyfriend?" His hands tighten, and the Ghost is laying on his back with a naked man holding him down and strangling him, and he can't move, can't ghost, can't do anything, can't even close his eyes to not see him, can't not be seen -
But it won't be long until he can't see him, because the blackness is closing in already, as even his blood struggles to get past Brody's throttling hands, and he's the one who tried to comfort a monster. He's the one who - idiot, idiot, You think I wanted to be a monster? He taunted Mercedes just to scare her, he enjoys it, and all he had to do was sound upset and you just . . .
"Hurry up and die, Casper, give it up already -" Brody laughs a little again, shifting his hands to fit his thumbs in harder and his face is out of focus, sunk in shadow as lack of air sinks the Ghost into the dark. The suddenness of how he's going to die is a daze, Phalanx, Blaine, Dad as Brody says, amused at himself, "Hurry up and give up the ghos-"
He's smashed off him so quickly that the Ghost's breath chokes him, his body wrenches itself up, breaths almost retching into him as Mercedes Jones crashes the broken back of seat off Brody's head one last time and then stands there breathing hard, clutching that hunk of plastic and staring at Brody not getting up, while the Ghost rolls to the side and puts his hands to his burning throat, panting his way into breathing again, blinking moisture from his eyes, coughing and coughing and coughing through the agony of not being dead.
The back of the seat hits the floor, and Mercedes kneels shakily next to him, touches his shoulder. "You - are you okay?"
He nods, and wheezes, and coughs and coughs into his glove, manages - his voice sounds almost as rough and wrecked as after that fire - "He - ?"
"He gets up again I smack his head up again."
"Phal-"
"Comin' around, he said I had to stop him touching you - said he would -"
He closes his eyes, nods his hanging head, rasps, "Yeah. He did." Because the Ghost really is that pathetic, that stupid, that he just almost died because he tried to comfort a monster.
And I'll do it again, he thinks, closing his eyes in weary knowledge of himself. I'll do it every time, just in the hope that this time it will help. Because if I'd only known to try to comfort the monsters way back then instead of just being afraid of them, everything might be different; all you can ever do is try . . .
. . . Phalanx is going to kill me.
*
The SIU have taken over the area by the time Agent Sylvester arrives, and Brody is being carefully manipulated onto a stretcher, no-one sure about really touching him, not even the non-supers. The arena's been sealed, and Mercedes Jones in a silver blanket for the shock is sitting on the edge of the stage beside the Ghost, who's feeling mostly okay now - woozy and weak and sore in the throat but okay - propping Phalanx up against his side, holding him slumped to his shoulder. Brody had his hands on the Ghost for maybe a minute; he had Phalanx pinned down for minutes, god really knows how long, and he still can't stand up, can't even sit up when not leaned into something. He just lays his weight against the Ghost's side, and the Ghost holds him, arm wrapped around his waist, thumb gently stroking his side, just above his belt.
"Miss Jones." Agent Sylvester says. "Agent Sylvester. I'm going to have to ask you to keep details of tonight's incident to yourself, you don't even get to tell your best friends on the talk show circuit."
Mercedes looks down at her own hands, loose in her lap, and bites her bottom lip inwards, lets it go. "Yeah," she says, quietly. "I didn't see anything anyone else didn't. There was a monster, I got rescued by superheroes. That's all that happened. I don't know anything else."
Agent Sylvester nods curtly. "Casper, curly, you two up for a debriefing?"
The Ghost strokes Phalanx's side with his thumb, and shakes his head. His voice still comes rough. "I already told Detective Hudson everything you need to know. I need to get him out of here as soon as possible, we'll see you next week anyway."
"You didn't hear that," she says to Mercedes, who just shrugs, and doesn't even lift her head. "I'll go find your pet detective to get the info. Try not to get killed for the next few minutes at least."
She walks away, and the Ghost waits until she's distant, speaking to Finn, before he looks at Mercedes again. "We won't tell them anything," he says, quietly. "You don't have to either."
She looks at her hands, mutters, "Nothin' to tell."
"What you did . . . that's not something that's going to go away, not even if you want it to."
"He wasn't paying attention so I hit him with a chair. Doesn't make me a superhero."
"We both know that's not what we're talking about."
"Don' have t'be a superhero," Phalanx mumbles into the Ghost's cloak, where it bunches over his shoulder. "Jus'. Jus' have t'know it's part of who you are."
He rubs Phalanx's side. "We don't really encourage people to do what we do, even if they can."
"Good." she says to her hands. "'cause I'm not. I got fans. I got a tour. I got a contract. I don't want - that, that - monsters like that every night, I just want to sing. I just want to make people happy when I sing. An' that was - that was -"
"I know," the Ghost says, softly, because he knows what that was, paralysed on his back with a man holding him down and strangling him, and he couldn't disappear, couldn't be intangible, couldn't even close his eyes against it happening. No-one would want to face that again. The only reason he thinks that he's as okay as he is is because he knows that Phalanx is worse, that Phalanx needs him, and so he can't even think about what was done to him when there's what was done to him to deal with.
He tips his head down to Phalanx's a little. "As soon as you can walk, I'll get you home. It'll be okay."
He squirms a little, exhausted and embarrassed at his side. "Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. You did everything right." He runs his thumb down his side, says, very quietly, "Very brave soldier."
Mercedes takes a shaky breath, lets it out, lifts her head. She's dusty from clambering about in the wreckage, her dress has shed quite a few sequins, and her hair and make-up have very definitely seen better days, but she's got something of her Mercedes-steadiness back, that sure-of-itself charisma of a trueborn star. "I said ten thousand, didn't I? I think you guys more than earned it."
"We don't want it." the Ghost says, and strokes his side. "We can't take it anyway. Bills can be traced and superheroes can't have bank accounts for transfers. And we didn't come to help you because of the money."
"I made a promise on national TV, you damn well are taking it if I have to stuff it in your pockets myself."
He strokes Phalanx's side, too tired to have a fight over who's the most stubborn between himself and, god this surreal evening, Mercedes Jones. Then he shifts an arm, Phalanx kept carefully tucked to his side, and begins digging through his belt, for a little block of paper and a pen. He writes an address, tears it out and hands it over. She frowns at it, says, "What's this?"
"It's a women's shelter, they always need donations. Please be discreet."
"You - you want me to give it to -"
The Ghost glances down at Phalanx, and Phalanx looks drowsily up at him from his shoulder, and after a pause, smiles. Ten thousand dollars is indeed a hell of a lot of utility belts, but they get by, and the world needs more than just superheroes there in the heat of the moment. It needs all those everyday heroes who help people through the long haul of surviving. They need it a lot more than they do.
"You really don't have to tell them anything about this. Us. Please."
She stares at the address, shakes her head. "So long as we're all guarding secrets for each other I guess we're all okay." She looks up at him, and this smile isn't one of her showbiz ones, it's serious and it's warm and it's meant. "Right?"
The Ghost murmurs, "Mercedes Jones, actual super-star." and Phalanx's body jogs a little laugh against his side.
*
Silent and invisible through Cooper's apartment building, the Ghost supports Phalanx's weight with his arm across his shoulders, one hand on his chest to steady him. They know each other's bodies, each other's rhythms, and it's not as difficult a journey as it could be, but Phalanx's legs tremble and the Ghost has to murmur him through it, hands holding him hard, solidity of his body holding him up.
He remembers being shot. Was that this bad? He doesn't remember if that was this bad; pain was almost better, pain gave him something to focus on, now he just feels weak. He feels so weak and they have to creep through the apartment not even creaking a floorboard, they don't know if Cooper's in or not, and he only realises how tense the Ghost has been when he finally ghosts them into Blaine's bedroom and all his muscles sag, he staggers them sideways to let Phalanx collapse onto the bed.
For a moment they just sit leaning hard into each other, panting, the Ghost's hand slipping exhausted down his side to fit loosely over his hip. His head bumps off Phalanx's, he sighs hard and shaky in the dark, and he whispers, "Okay."
They're okay now.
Aren't they?
The Ghost takes a little breath and heaves himself up, pulls the blinds and turns the lamp on, and it's really hard for Phalanx to stay sitting up without him, his head hangs like a cannonball. The Ghost catches his face in his hands, strokes for a second at his hair, then unpeels the mask for him; Blaine closes his eyes, head like a bowling ball between his hands, mumbles, "Ghost."
"Everything's okay." he murmurs, brushing his hair back. "Very brave soldier."
He tries to lay down and the Ghost says, "No, no, I'm sorry, sweetheart." and starts unclipping his armour, his utility belts. "Can't sleep in that." he sing-songs to him, very softly. "Nasty uncomfortable things. Do you want a drink, something to eat - ?"
"Nuh. Sleep."
He pulls the costume off him, head popping awkwardly through, the Ghost tugging it down his arms for him, kissing the palm of one before setting it back on the bed. "Almost done," he breathes, tugging a t-shirt on over his hair. "Give me your arm again . . ."
He kneels to pull his boots off, and get the remainder of the costume off, substituting it for a pair of pyjama pants. And then he lifts Blaine's legs and lays him onto the bed, squirms the covers out from underneath him, shakes them comfortable over him. Blaine digs his cheek into the pillow and his breath whispers out a moan; sleep . . .
A hand settles in his hair for a long moment, thumb just, gently, running down his cheek.
And then there's the soft sound of the Ghost undressing, dealing with their costumes, but it's so dim and warm and he's tired like he's never slept, tired like he's never in his life had the chance even to lay down. He feels like his bone marrow is made of iron. He feels like his skull is lined with lead. Nothing he can move, nothing he can . . .
That thing, he thinks, struggling with the thought of it - the fear of it, because he understands now what could have happened, if the Ghost had been slower, if that thing had had him for any longer than it did; that thing, it was interested in Mercedes because she was a super, it drained me, it drained him -
Powers. It doesn't drain normal people, it drains - oh god. His powers. Does he still have - ?
He fights his eyes open, squints them hard, struggling to make a shield, just one, just one, in the air next to the bed. Because it pinned him down for so long, what if it sucked all the powers out of him, what if it left him -
The fear begins to clot, cold in his chest. What if he's just normal now? No powers, nothing? What use is he to the Ghost without his powers? What the hell is he next to Kurt without his powers?
The bathroom door creaks behind Kurt, and the light clicks on.
His jaw begins to hurt, he really doesn't have the strength to bite his teeth together this hard right now. Shield. Just one. Just one. You've been making them without even trying to since you were a teenager, you can do this now, you can make one, just one, Jesus he needs them too, you have to be able to . . .
Everything he has, all the strength left into him, he forces into the memory of shielding: the sense of the certainty of them, nothing gets through them, nothing moves them, they are, the most solid thing in the universe; the safety of them, how they enclose and keep out, keep safe and keep distant, deflect, defend, shelter, protect . . . he knows how to do it, he knows how to make shields like he knows how to blink, he knows how to do it and why won't -
What is he without them? Just - Blaine, just nothing, just a bow tie learning physical therapy, if he can't make shields then Phalanx just died. Crap, fuck, shield, make a shield, you know how to do this, you know you can do this, think about him, what if he needed it, think of how you need to shield defend protect guard shelter help him -
It gleams and flickers out in the air, a fraction of a second's green ghost of a hexagon-shaped shield. And his breath falls out of him as Kurt turns the bathroom light off behind himself, walks to the bed looking drained in what little light there is, barefoot in pyjamas rubbing at his hair with a hand. "Thought you'd already be asleep," he murmurs, lifting the covers and nudging Blaine's body along with his, letting them settle tangled comfortable together on the mattress. His hands run down Blaine's back, his feet nudge in alongside his. "Mmf. You're always warm."
I can still do it, he wants to tell him in dazed triumph, dizzy lying on his side, his body rings with all that effort. I can still do it -
"Go to sleep," Kurt whispers, and kisses him next to his nose, leans up and turns the lamp off. He shuffles back down again, tangled in warm and hard against Blaine's side, the bone and muscle and beating blood of him, thin fabric between their skin. Blaine nudges, as much as he can manage, his naked foot off Kurt's.
Silently in the dark, Kurt's foot nudges his back. And, warm, held, safe and still super, Blaine slips into sleep.
Part 3