DPXDC Prompt 58 Part 7
The long dining room that held the ornate old dining table that seated way too many people already held most of the family. Bruce was missing and Damian informed them he was at work, the only other person missing was Jason but it was typical for him to skip out as he didn’t live there and didn’t have the best track record with the rest of the family. That left Damian, Tim, Cass, Duke, and Dick seated.
Damian sat next to the chair that Bruce normally sat in at the head of the table. Tim sat across from Damian followed by Dick, Duke, and Cass. Danny sat next to Damian and Jazz sat next to Danny.
“So, how was school?” Dick asked his elbows on the table with his head on his hands and a smile. He was the only adult in their life besides Bruce that actually cared about their schooling.
Danny had actually forgotten that all of this had happened in just one day. The thought was a little jarring if Danny was being honest with himself. He wasn’t sure what to tell Dick, on one hand he was just asking about school on the other… no he wasn’t going to think about what happened right now. Just the thought caused phantom volts to go through his body like he was reliving the accident. He felt a nudge to his foot from the right and looked up to see Damian giving him a quizzical look. He cleared his throat and looked back over to Dick who was giving him the same kind of look.
“I-I’m, uh… school was fine, didn’t learn much since school just started,” He eventually decided to say after stumbling on his words a little.
“Dash isn’t picking on you again this year is he?” Dick asked with a concerned look on his face.
Danny wished it was just Dash, the pain he felt from the portal was a thousand times worse than anything the bullying blond could pull. If it was just Dash, Danny could have just laughed it off and forgotten it probably, but it wasn’t just Dash and Danny couldn’t help but take a deep breath trying to gather his thoughts and calm himself.
He startled as he felt a hand on his knee, he looked to his left to see Jazz giving him a look of sympathy as she rubs her thumb comfortingly on his knee. She then spoke, “Danny you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Okay?”
Danny gave her a small nod, a small smile on his face.
Before a new topic could be discussed Alfred arrived with their food and began serving them. Danny loved the food the old butler cooked especially since he was able to do so in a kitchen that wasn’t contaminated. Alfred did his best to make sure everyone was served food to their liking, as long as it was a balanced meal at the end of the day the elderly butler would serve just about anything you’d request.
Danny picked up his fork to begin on his salad, however when he tried to push the fork into the lettuce his hand felt a cooling sensation with pins and needles and his fork went through his hand. He stared at his hand for a moment wondering what just happened. He then picked up his fork to try again and was able to get a mouth full, but when he went for a second bite it happened again, his fork clanging against the bowl again.
“Something wrong Danny? You're staring at your hand weird,” Danny heard Dick speaking and looked up to see Dick staring at him giving him an odd look.
Danny couldn’t help but rub his neck nervously with his other hand, he hoped to get ahold of whatever this was so no one noticed. Though knowing his luck everyone probably did notice, over the years he and Jazz both noticed that the Wayne family was much more observant than their media persona’s showed.
Dinner continued and Danny struggled to eat anything as anything he tried to hold fell through his hand frustratingly and Danny couldn’t help but get agitated.
Eventually his glass he was holding slipped through his hand and tumbled onto the floor shattering into a thousand pieces. Danny let out a frustrated sigh as he stared at the mess he made.
Before he could stand to clean up Alfred appeared by his side with a dustpan and broom and began cleaning it up, “are you still feeling unwell Master Daniel? Perhaps you should retire for the evening, I will attend to this mess.” Danny begrudgingly nodded his head and made his way out of the room.
He wasn’t alone for long as Damian and Jazz tailed him out of the room.
“What was that? It looked like your spoon was going through your hand,” Jazz asked after they were a ways from the dinning room.
“Jazz, honestly I don’t know, it felt cold and then anything I tried holding fell through my hand.” Danny brushed his bangs away from his forehead and they dropped back into his face as he dropped his hands back down to his side.
The walk went silent after that, although it didn’t stay for long as Danny felt the cooling sensation again but this time through his whole body, he let out a yelp as he felt his body sink into the floor.
Damian and Jazz looked at him with panic but as they grabbed at his arms or his hands to pull him back up they went through him just as the spoon and apparently the ground now.
He let out a panicked yell as the floor swallowed him whole, so now he was sinking further down further into the earth. What was going to happen to him? Would he ever find his way back up?
Thankfully he didn’t have to wait long as the cooling sensation left and as gravity took hold of him again he fell. Apparently there was a cave under the manor and he was able to turn back into solid as he felt air again. There was no way he was surviving this, even with new weird powers now was when he’d get impaled by spikes right?
The cave was too dark to make out much but Danny thought he might have seen a computer with several monitors. That didn’t matter now as he finally landed, and he grunted as he landed on a person who also grunted as having a teen land on you couldn’t be the most comfortable.
He knew he was in big trouble when he realized who he landed on, “Batman??”
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ghost stares at the ceiling, chest heaving in a harsh pant; sweat ice on his clammy flesh and soaked into the sheet he restlessly kicks away.
ears still ringing, his fingertips blindly drift down to trail along his vivisection scar. he half-expects blood to smear in their wake. his own line of solomon, who ordered him split in twain; half of him given to a grieving mother and half left with the grieving to be.
just for both his broken halves to be rejected.
what did it make him that his mother grieved him more than she loved him? that she begged to be relieved of him more adamantly than she begged to receive him? why did his worth spill out with his drawn blood? why was his pain lesser than hers?
his hand flexes, digging into the raised scar like it’ll part beneath his fingertips to plunge into his mangled insides. no one knows the cruelty of reforming the halved; his name, his being, not nearly as important as his body when he was stripped from himself. no one knows the pain of healing and understanding losing pieces of yourself means losing your value along with them.
how many more pieces did he have to lose before he was halved once more? before his very presence incurred grief so strong it was better to be rid of him than cradle his bloodied remains?
did the infant fight himself? did he age always at odds with himself; his halves never truly whole? he hopes he wasn’t, that he was spared the loss of self; the fear that one may be welcomed over the other.
who will he lose when the inevitable comes? when he’s ripped apart again? simon? or ghost? is it better to be cursed with choice just like his mother or live with an aftermath chosen for him? does it matter if in the end, he convinces himself there was nothing of him left to lose?
his head lolls to the side and the wild buck of his chest slows. he watches johnny beside him, his face lax with the rare peace of sleep; his cheek squished against the pillow, his lips pursed as long breaths escape him.
johnny. soap. never torn asunder but two all the same.
he carefully reaches out and ghosts his fingers along the jagged scar on his chin. even in sleep, he presses into his bloodied touch. he’s never fled his half-flesh, never shies away from his gore as it spills unbidden from his cleaved torso. he holds on where his mother let him go; cups his stomach to hold his insides in place and never minds the blood that drips through his fingers.
simon will never let him become his own solomon and cannibalise himself. he will never let him question which half of him has more value; which pieces he can afford to lose before he’s cast aside.
ghost’s soap. simon’s johnny. his.
whole, in any incarnation.
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