The Big Damn List sometimes delights in tormenting characters.
Title: Bonding Through Forced Proximity
Fandom: Justice League
Characters: Beetle, Guy, Booster (eventually)
Prompt: "Sight."
Word Count: 1996
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: I think duskdog717 is to blame for this. Comments to one of her fics possibly led to the idea that Ted and Guy stuck in a cave together would be a great idea. ...I still believe this. Also, I'm not entirely sure when this takes place. Just...that it's probably some time after Guy has regained the use of his brain and a ring.
Uh...I chose "sight" for the prompt because of the lack of it, and because they get some insight into each other. (God I'm lame. *facepalm*)
Beta by phoenixfire_lia.
Bonding Through Forced Proximity
"...hey...Blue Butt..." Silence. "You dead?"
"Nnh."
"...m'I dead?"
"...Nph?"
"'Kay."
Silence.
---------------
"--course it would be you. Dammit, why couldn't I have gotten trapped with Booster? At least I'd have someone to talk to."
"Y'seem t'be holdin' the conversation just fine by yerself."
"Guy!?"
Grimacing, Guy shifted until he could get a hand to his head. He felt like Doomsday was tap-dancing on his skull and Ted's voice wasn't helping any. "Yeah, yeah, quitcher yellin', I got a headache."
Ted was silent for a moment, then he said in a much quieter voice, "I...wasn't sure you were...."
When he trailed off, it took Guy a moment to realize that was all he intended to say on the matter. It didn't take the world's greatest detective to figure out the shade of Ted's thoughts alone in the dark while Guy was unconscious.
"Takes more'n a mountain fallin' on me t'stop Guy Gardner," Guy boasted.
Ted snorted. "No kidding. Your ego must've cushioned the blow."
"Yeah? What's your excuse?"
Rather than drawing Ted out, as Guy had intended, the question made him fall silent. For a while, the only sound in the darkness was their breaths echoing off of stone. And if Guy's ears weren't failing him, Ted's breath was coming quicker.
"Hey, don't leave me in suspense here," Guy grumbled at him.
"I...think I'm under a...a ledge?" Ted paused to swallow loudly. "It's pretty narrow."
"How narrow?"
"And there are really big rocks in front of it," Ted continued.
"How narrow, Ted?"
"I can't move."
Guy couldn't think of anything to say to that and they lapsed into silence again. He thought he could hear the echo of water dripping somewhere.
"Good thing I'm not claustrophobic, huh?" Ted chuckled shakily.
"Yeah, otherwise you'd be wussin' and cryin' like a baby," Guy agreed.
"Yeah..."
---------------
"...that gets on everybody's nerves! Everybody's nerves! Everybody's nerves!"
"Goddammit, bug, I know where you live!"
"I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves and this is how it goes!"
"Singin' ain't gonna make it any less true!"
"I know a song that--Dammit, I don't wear a girdle, Guy!"
"What, it's a pansyass corset?"
"Fuck you, Gardner!"
"You ain't my type, ladybug."
"Hnn--Grr--DAMMIT! I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves! Everybody's nerves! EVERYBODY'S NERVES! I KNOW A SONG THAT GETS ON EVERYBODY'S NERVES AND THIS IS HOW IT GOES, (you asshole)!"
Turning his head to press one ear against the gritty stone floor, Guy jammed his free hand against his other ear, attempting to block out Ted's increasingly out of tune singing. Apparently all that laughing had built up his lung power.
"--AND THIS IS HOW IT GOES!"
---------------
"Mineral."
"Is it--Oh dammit, it's not a rock is it?"
Guy didn't reply, choosing instead to study the imaginary patterns his eyes were making in the darkness above him. One looked almost like Hal Can-Do-No-Wrong Jordan being hit over the head with a bag of garbage.
Having been conscious longer than Guy, Ted had already tried and failed to move. As Guy understood it, he had about enough room to talk and breathe and not much else. Guy, on the other hand, had been able to get an entire arm free. Any other attempts to extract himself from the rubble were met with significantly less success. Some of the rocks, as far as he could tell by touch alone, were too big to move just by pushing.
Unfortunately, he also couldn't get so much as a spark from his ring.
So they were trapped, alone together in the dark, until help noticed they were missing and came to dig them out. By Guy's guess it had already been over forty-eight hours, but Ted told him it was not, quit being so dramatic, it's been two hours, tops.
"Fine, it's my turn," Ted groused. "Got it, go ahead."
Guy sighed and searched out the Hal-getting-hit-by-garbage pattern in the dark again. "Animal, vegetable, or mineral?"
"Animal."
"Issit bigger'n a breadbox?"
"No."
Closing his eyes, Guy suppressed a groan. It was a bug, he just knew it. Now he remembered why no one played twenty questions with Ted anymore.
"Issit bigger'n a nickel?"
"Yes."
---------------
"Just sold it off, without even telling me! Without asking."
"Dads suck," Guy sympathized.
They were both silent for a moment before Ted slowly asked, "So what about you?"
"What about me?"
"Oh come on. I'm pouring my heart out here and I don't know the first thing about you. Where you came from. I assume you didn't hatch from an egg full grown and already taking a swing at the world."
Guy chuckled. "I like that. When I write my biography, I'm usin' it."
"Guy..." Ted sighed.
"I'm not givin' you credit, just so's you know."
"Guy."
Guy frowned up at the darkness. Hal wasn't getting hit by garbage anymore, but if he squinted, it kind of looked like someone gave him a hotfoot.
"My folks liked my big brother more'n me," he said in a flat, disinterested voice. "Mace couldn't do no wrong in their eyes and I couldn't do no right. Not even after I got my head outta my ass and started studyin'. After Mace got himself paralyzed an' then killed himself, my old man drank himself to death."
No response from Ted. If Guy tilted his head a little, Hal looked like he was jumping up and down beating at the flames on his foot.
"Dads suck."
Guy smiled at Hal's failed attempts to beat back the flame. "Yeah."
---------------
"Sexual. Tension."
"God, would you just drop it?"
"C'mon. All the time you known each other, you can't tell me you two ain't never..." Guy's leer didn't need to be seen to make its presence known.
"No!"
Incredulous, Guy pressed, "What, not even--"
"Nothing happened!"
That, Guy realized, was not a "no." That was a denial. As in in denial.
"The stuff we do, ya get all that adrenaline inya, gets the blood hot an' pumpin'. You're tellin' me you never hit that?"
"Nnh!"
Guy fell silent for a moment, thinking it over. Finally, he decided to go for sincere. It was radical, and untested in the field, but he liked living dangerously.
"I won't tell nobody," he said in an absent tone. "Nobody cares if you two're a li'l gay fer each other, been sayin' it for years, but I won't tell. An' I'll leave ya alone about it."
Leaving it at that, Guy fell silent again. From the ragged edge he could hear in Ted's breathing, the man was struggling with something in his head. Guy figured if he just let the man stew for a while, eventually he would--
"Once."
Ted's voice was so soft, Guy almost missed it. "Huh?"
"Once," Ted whispered. "We kissed. I...he was alive."
Guy nodded, though the movement was lost on a man who couldn't see him. He knew that feeling. When you were alive and they were alive and you just really needed to know it.
Still...
"That's it?"
"What?!"
"Well hell, so you kissed him, issat all?" Guy asked dismissively. "Th' way you keep breakin' up and makin' up, I'd-a thought you was havin' some sorta torrid affair."
Ted sighed. "That's it, that's all, there is no more."
"Not even second base?"
"No!" A pause. "Maybe. I don't know, I was drunk!"
Guy grinned. "Now it's gettin' interestin'."
"It doesn't count."
"Second base is second base."
"I was drunk! And anyway, I don't remember."
"Pff, alcohol don't make you gay. An' anyway, gay while drunk ain't any less gay."
"...Shut up."
"No shame bein' a switch hitter."
"Can we not be having this conversation? Ever?"
"Nah, s'healthy talkin' about things."
"When does the leaving me alone thing start?"
"Ted and Booster sittin' in a tree--"
"I hate you."
"K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"
"Hate."
---------------
"...The rock's moving."
"Wh--"
"The rock's moving! It's getting tighter."
"Look, calm down, Beetle--"
"You're not getting it! I'm stuck in a hole and it's closing in and I'm going to be squashed like a bug and to top it off I'm going to die trapped in a damn cave with you!"
"Calm--"
"I can FEEL IT moving!"
"CALM DOWN, TED!"
Silence.
"You're not gonna die. We're not gonna die stuck in a cave. C'mon. Us? We're superheroes. We'll probably buy it savin' the planet some day. Blaze'a glory, that's what'll get us."
"...I'd rather die in bed. Old and grey."
"Jeez, Ted..."
"I didn't expect to make a career out of this!"
"Hell, who does? I expected t'be married and teachin' kids right about now."
"Kids? ...Really?"
Guy growled. "I got a bachelor's in Education and Psychology, jackass."
"Really?"
"Ah shaddup."
"Never really saw you as the nurturing type, Guy."
"Brain damage'll do that to ya."
Silence.
"Oh. Right."
"Ah jeez."
"If it makes it any better, I didn't know."
"Yeah, Ted, it makes my heart go all pitter patter."
"Guy--"
"It ain't important."
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah...well...m'sorry too. Bug Butt."
"...Heh."
---------------
"Guy, the rock's moving."
Guy groaned. "Not this again."
"No really, it's really moving this time! I think someone's outside!"
That made Guy sit up and pay attention. Figuratively speaking, at least.
Now that he was looking for it, he could feel a faint, rhythmic vibration coming from all around. He thought it felt a bit like someone outside was pounding against the rocks blocking the entrance of the cave.
"Hey!" Ted shouted. "Hey! We're in here!"
"They probably got that figured if they're tryin'a dig us out," Guy grumbled.
Ted pointedly ignored him, raising his voice as he shouted encouragement, even though his voice was scratchy from being trapped in a cave without water. After a while, they could both hear a combination of impacts and laser fire.
"Booster?" Ted called.
There was a pause, then a faint shout that could have been Ted's name.
"We're here!" Ted shouted as loud as he could, then broke into a fit of coughing.
"Hey, save yer lungs, Beetle, he's comin' for ya whether yer hollerin' or not."
Ted grunted something at him but appeared to have lost his voice for the moment. That was fine, though, because at that moment there was an explosion of laser fire and a sudden intrusion of light into the pitch dark gloom of the cave. Guy winced as his eyes painfully remembered what it was like to be able to see things.
"Ted?"
"In here!" Guy called, tilting his head until he could see Booster peeking in. Lifting his free hand, he pointed toward where he was pretty sure Ted was.
Glancing over, he realized Ted hadn't been exaggerating. He could make out what looked like a small chunk taken out of the wall, as if water had flowed against it for a few thousand years until it was worn down enough that a grown man could just barely fit in it. Wedged tightly against the opening was a large rock.
Guy could just barely see a hint of blue behind the rock.
In seconds, Booster had muscled his way into the cave and walked right over Guy to reach Ted's rock. "Ted?" Booster asked, dropping to his knees and running his hands over the rock.
"Hey," Ted croaked hoarsely.
With a grunt, Booster braced himself and slowly shoved the rock aside. Finally he got it moved enough that he could reach in and pull Ted out of the crevice. The way Ted was clutching at him was, as far as Guy was concerned, probably because he'd been stationary for so long and having trouble moving.
That was what he would tell anyone who asked, anyway.
"Hey, chopped liver here," he groused after they'd had a minute to cuddle. "Wanna dig me out too?"
Booster and Ted both looked his way in surprise, clearly having forgotten him for a moment. "Uh..." Booster mumbled, blushing.
Grinning, Ted said, "Calm down, Guy."
Guy snorted and flipped him off with his free hand.
---------------
Fandom: Justice League
Characters: Beetle, Guy, Booster (eventually)
Prompt: "Sight."
Word Count: 1996
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: I think duskdog717 is to blame for this. Comments to one of her fics possibly led to the idea that Ted and Guy stuck in a cave together would be a great idea. ...I still believe this. Also, I'm not entirely sure when this takes place. Just...that it's probably some time after Guy has regained the use of his brain and a ring.
Uh...I chose "sight" for the prompt because of the lack of it, and because they get some insight into each other. (God I'm lame. *facepalm*)
Beta by phoenixfire_lia.
Bonding Through Forced Proximity
"...hey...Blue Butt..." Silence. "You dead?"
"Nnh."
"...m'I dead?"
"...Nph?"
"'Kay."
Silence.
---------------
"--course it would be you. Dammit, why couldn't I have gotten trapped with Booster? At least I'd have someone to talk to."
"Y'seem t'be holdin' the conversation just fine by yerself."
"Guy!?"
Grimacing, Guy shifted until he could get a hand to his head. He felt like Doomsday was tap-dancing on his skull and Ted's voice wasn't helping any. "Yeah, yeah, quitcher yellin', I got a headache."
Ted was silent for a moment, then he said in a much quieter voice, "I...wasn't sure you were...."
When he trailed off, it took Guy a moment to realize that was all he intended to say on the matter. It didn't take the world's greatest detective to figure out the shade of Ted's thoughts alone in the dark while Guy was unconscious.
"Takes more'n a mountain fallin' on me t'stop Guy Gardner," Guy boasted.
Ted snorted. "No kidding. Your ego must've cushioned the blow."
"Yeah? What's your excuse?"
Rather than drawing Ted out, as Guy had intended, the question made him fall silent. For a while, the only sound in the darkness was their breaths echoing off of stone. And if Guy's ears weren't failing him, Ted's breath was coming quicker.
"Hey, don't leave me in suspense here," Guy grumbled at him.
"I...think I'm under a...a ledge?" Ted paused to swallow loudly. "It's pretty narrow."
"How narrow?"
"And there are really big rocks in front of it," Ted continued.
"How narrow, Ted?"
"I can't move."
Guy couldn't think of anything to say to that and they lapsed into silence again. He thought he could hear the echo of water dripping somewhere.
"Good thing I'm not claustrophobic, huh?" Ted chuckled shakily.
"Yeah, otherwise you'd be wussin' and cryin' like a baby," Guy agreed.
"Yeah..."
---------------
"...that gets on everybody's nerves! Everybody's nerves! Everybody's nerves!"
"Goddammit, bug, I know where you live!"
"I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves and this is how it goes!"
"Singin' ain't gonna make it any less true!"
"I know a song that--Dammit, I don't wear a girdle, Guy!"
"What, it's a pansyass corset?"
"Fuck you, Gardner!"
"You ain't my type, ladybug."
"Hnn--Grr--DAMMIT! I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves! Everybody's nerves! EVERYBODY'S NERVES! I KNOW A SONG THAT GETS ON EVERYBODY'S NERVES AND THIS IS HOW IT GOES, (you asshole)!"
Turning his head to press one ear against the gritty stone floor, Guy jammed his free hand against his other ear, attempting to block out Ted's increasingly out of tune singing. Apparently all that laughing had built up his lung power.
"--AND THIS IS HOW IT GOES!"
---------------
"Mineral."
"Is it--Oh dammit, it's not a rock is it?"
Guy didn't reply, choosing instead to study the imaginary patterns his eyes were making in the darkness above him. One looked almost like Hal Can-Do-No-Wrong Jordan being hit over the head with a bag of garbage.
Having been conscious longer than Guy, Ted had already tried and failed to move. As Guy understood it, he had about enough room to talk and breathe and not much else. Guy, on the other hand, had been able to get an entire arm free. Any other attempts to extract himself from the rubble were met with significantly less success. Some of the rocks, as far as he could tell by touch alone, were too big to move just by pushing.
Unfortunately, he also couldn't get so much as a spark from his ring.
So they were trapped, alone together in the dark, until help noticed they were missing and came to dig them out. By Guy's guess it had already been over forty-eight hours, but Ted told him it was not, quit being so dramatic, it's been two hours, tops.
"Fine, it's my turn," Ted groused. "Got it, go ahead."
Guy sighed and searched out the Hal-getting-hit-by-garbage pattern in the dark again. "Animal, vegetable, or mineral?"
"Animal."
"Issit bigger'n a breadbox?"
"No."
Closing his eyes, Guy suppressed a groan. It was a bug, he just knew it. Now he remembered why no one played twenty questions with Ted anymore.
"Issit bigger'n a nickel?"
"Yes."
---------------
"Just sold it off, without even telling me! Without asking."
"Dads suck," Guy sympathized.
They were both silent for a moment before Ted slowly asked, "So what about you?"
"What about me?"
"Oh come on. I'm pouring my heart out here and I don't know the first thing about you. Where you came from. I assume you didn't hatch from an egg full grown and already taking a swing at the world."
Guy chuckled. "I like that. When I write my biography, I'm usin' it."
"Guy..." Ted sighed.
"I'm not givin' you credit, just so's you know."
"Guy."
Guy frowned up at the darkness. Hal wasn't getting hit by garbage anymore, but if he squinted, it kind of looked like someone gave him a hotfoot.
"My folks liked my big brother more'n me," he said in a flat, disinterested voice. "Mace couldn't do no wrong in their eyes and I couldn't do no right. Not even after I got my head outta my ass and started studyin'. After Mace got himself paralyzed an' then killed himself, my old man drank himself to death."
No response from Ted. If Guy tilted his head a little, Hal looked like he was jumping up and down beating at the flames on his foot.
"Dads suck."
Guy smiled at Hal's failed attempts to beat back the flame. "Yeah."
---------------
"Sexual. Tension."
"God, would you just drop it?"
"C'mon. All the time you known each other, you can't tell me you two ain't never..." Guy's leer didn't need to be seen to make its presence known.
"No!"
Incredulous, Guy pressed, "What, not even--"
"Nothing happened!"
That, Guy realized, was not a "no." That was a denial. As in in denial.
"The stuff we do, ya get all that adrenaline inya, gets the blood hot an' pumpin'. You're tellin' me you never hit that?"
"Nnh!"
Guy fell silent for a moment, thinking it over. Finally, he decided to go for sincere. It was radical, and untested in the field, but he liked living dangerously.
"I won't tell nobody," he said in an absent tone. "Nobody cares if you two're a li'l gay fer each other, been sayin' it for years, but I won't tell. An' I'll leave ya alone about it."
Leaving it at that, Guy fell silent again. From the ragged edge he could hear in Ted's breathing, the man was struggling with something in his head. Guy figured if he just let the man stew for a while, eventually he would--
"Once."
Ted's voice was so soft, Guy almost missed it. "Huh?"
"Once," Ted whispered. "We kissed. I...he was alive."
Guy nodded, though the movement was lost on a man who couldn't see him. He knew that feeling. When you were alive and they were alive and you just really needed to know it.
Still...
"That's it?"
"What?!"
"Well hell, so you kissed him, issat all?" Guy asked dismissively. "Th' way you keep breakin' up and makin' up, I'd-a thought you was havin' some sorta torrid affair."
Ted sighed. "That's it, that's all, there is no more."
"Not even second base?"
"No!" A pause. "Maybe. I don't know, I was drunk!"
Guy grinned. "Now it's gettin' interestin'."
"It doesn't count."
"Second base is second base."
"I was drunk! And anyway, I don't remember."
"Pff, alcohol don't make you gay. An' anyway, gay while drunk ain't any less gay."
"...Shut up."
"No shame bein' a switch hitter."
"Can we not be having this conversation? Ever?"
"Nah, s'healthy talkin' about things."
"When does the leaving me alone thing start?"
"Ted and Booster sittin' in a tree--"
"I hate you."
"K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"
"Hate."
---------------
"...The rock's moving."
"Wh--"
"The rock's moving! It's getting tighter."
"Look, calm down, Beetle--"
"You're not getting it! I'm stuck in a hole and it's closing in and I'm going to be squashed like a bug and to top it off I'm going to die trapped in a damn cave with you!"
"Calm--"
"I can FEEL IT moving!"
"CALM DOWN, TED!"
Silence.
"You're not gonna die. We're not gonna die stuck in a cave. C'mon. Us? We're superheroes. We'll probably buy it savin' the planet some day. Blaze'a glory, that's what'll get us."
"...I'd rather die in bed. Old and grey."
"Jeez, Ted..."
"I didn't expect to make a career out of this!"
"Hell, who does? I expected t'be married and teachin' kids right about now."
"Kids? ...Really?"
Guy growled. "I got a bachelor's in Education and Psychology, jackass."
"Really?"
"Ah shaddup."
"Never really saw you as the nurturing type, Guy."
"Brain damage'll do that to ya."
Silence.
"Oh. Right."
"Ah jeez."
"If it makes it any better, I didn't know."
"Yeah, Ted, it makes my heart go all pitter patter."
"Guy--"
"It ain't important."
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah...well...m'sorry too. Bug Butt."
"...Heh."
---------------
"Guy, the rock's moving."
Guy groaned. "Not this again."
"No really, it's really moving this time! I think someone's outside!"
That made Guy sit up and pay attention. Figuratively speaking, at least.
Now that he was looking for it, he could feel a faint, rhythmic vibration coming from all around. He thought it felt a bit like someone outside was pounding against the rocks blocking the entrance of the cave.
"Hey!" Ted shouted. "Hey! We're in here!"
"They probably got that figured if they're tryin'a dig us out," Guy grumbled.
Ted pointedly ignored him, raising his voice as he shouted encouragement, even though his voice was scratchy from being trapped in a cave without water. After a while, they could both hear a combination of impacts and laser fire.
"Booster?" Ted called.
There was a pause, then a faint shout that could have been Ted's name.
"We're here!" Ted shouted as loud as he could, then broke into a fit of coughing.
"Hey, save yer lungs, Beetle, he's comin' for ya whether yer hollerin' or not."
Ted grunted something at him but appeared to have lost his voice for the moment. That was fine, though, because at that moment there was an explosion of laser fire and a sudden intrusion of light into the pitch dark gloom of the cave. Guy winced as his eyes painfully remembered what it was like to be able to see things.
"Ted?"
"In here!" Guy called, tilting his head until he could see Booster peeking in. Lifting his free hand, he pointed toward where he was pretty sure Ted was.
Glancing over, he realized Ted hadn't been exaggerating. He could make out what looked like a small chunk taken out of the wall, as if water had flowed against it for a few thousand years until it was worn down enough that a grown man could just barely fit in it. Wedged tightly against the opening was a large rock.
Guy could just barely see a hint of blue behind the rock.
In seconds, Booster had muscled his way into the cave and walked right over Guy to reach Ted's rock. "Ted?" Booster asked, dropping to his knees and running his hands over the rock.
"Hey," Ted croaked hoarsely.
With a grunt, Booster braced himself and slowly shoved the rock aside. Finally he got it moved enough that he could reach in and pull Ted out of the crevice. The way Ted was clutching at him was, as far as Guy was concerned, probably because he'd been stationary for so long and having trouble moving.
That was what he would tell anyone who asked, anyway.
"Hey, chopped liver here," he groused after they'd had a minute to cuddle. "Wanna dig me out too?"
Booster and Ted both looked his way in surprise, clearly having forgotten him for a moment. "Uh..." Booster mumbled, blushing.
Grinning, Ted said, "Calm down, Guy."
Guy snorted and flipped him off with his free hand.
---------------