Mullet-verse fic: Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide, chapter 1
Title: Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide
Fandom: Justice League
Characters: Junior, Goldie, Luke (McDunnagh), Robin, Booster/Beetle (mention)
Word Count: 1740
Rating: PG-13?
Author's Notes: Since the Boostle content in this will be minimal, I've decided to post it here in my own journal. New updates are linked to on boostle in the notes for stories that are actually Boostlecentric enough to be posted there.
First five people to get the reference to a previous Mullet-verse fic can request a picture from me. My drawing muscles are up for some exercise. (To be fair, I'll neither confirm nor deny until five people have guessed correctly.) ;D
(LJ-cut quote is from David Rosenhan's On Being Sane in Insane Places.)
CHAPTERS: { Prologue }{ Chapter One }{ Chapter Two }{ Chapter Three }{ Chapter Four }{ Chapter Five }{ Chapter Six }{ Chapter Seven }{ Epilogue }
Beta by alba_aulbath.
<-{ previous story: Legacies and Traditions } { next story: Little Boy Blue }->
~1st Chapter
She tracks them down and calls herself Booster Gold's biggest fan. She even has an action figure from his short jaunt into the toy market, complete with a Corporate Crusader business suit. She's a fan of not just the hero but the businessman, and it's then that Junior thinks he started to love her. So few people recognized that his father was actually intelligent, buying in to Booster's self-made image. Sure it makes them underestimate him, but sometimes it also makes Junior want to wave his hands in front of their faces and demand to know how well they thought they could adapt to a time some five hundred years in the past.
But she sees past the bright, vacant smile to the whirling cogs beneath blond hair and admires and respects Booster Gold. She wants to be Booster Gold when she grows up. And that's why she begs Booster to take her on as a plucky young sidekick. She's already dyed her hair the exact same shade as his. And maybe that's what eventually makes him agree. Or maybe he just sees something in her, a glimpse of a possible future with another generation of Blue and Gold, that cries out to be shaped and molded and encouraged to strive toward greatness. That's how Junior first meets her. Only that's not how it happened....
Junior has never been to a playground before, and now he's been set loose in one. It's so much different from climbing on the roof. No weak spots to avoid, for fear of falling through. No sharp edges or burnt bits that crumble away to ashes at a touch. No, the playground equipment is bright and shining and well-used, a shade of orange like he once saw on one of the older fruits in the produce section of the grocery store. It's a brave new world with curves and loops and straight lines and fascinating shapes that make his mind try to remember something he never learned or invent something he doesn't know already exists just so he can put numbers on all the new and beautiful dimensions.
He's probably the oldest kid there, but he doesn't care because finally he can move the way his body has been begging and straining to move. He climbs and shimmies and flips and bends and his muscles sing with such delight that he just has to laugh. His father's watching from the edge of the playground area, face standing out amid a sea of other parents, the same worried expression on his face that Junior saw so often before Ted came and made Booster smile again, so Junior waves occasionally in the hope that he won't worry so much.
He's climbing on top of the monkey bars when he sees her, tiny chubby face screwed up with determination, trying to reach the bars. But she's just a little too short and no matter how she clings to the ladder and stretches she just can't touch them. Her cheery little pigtails, color forgotten in the gray-toned haze of memory, flop around her head as she wiggles, stubbornly not giving up. So Junior does what only seems natural and logical and offers to help. And when she smiles shyly and reaches for him, he grips her waist, firm but gentle, and lifts her up to the bars. She grabs hold of them, gripping tightly, and hangs on for a moment, skinny little arms stronger than they look. Then her legs are flailing as she's making her way across the bars and he's keeping his hands near her waist just to be safe, because he wants her to succeed, and maybe this is when a tiny spark of love first formed for her, burning steadily and increasing in size and intensity over the years. All because she saw what she wanted and went after it and wouldn't give up no matter how hopeless it seemed and perhaps some shred of precognition in him latched onto that and knew she was someone he would want watching his back some day. That's how Junior first meets her. Only that's not how it happened either....
They meet in college, in a class they share, and spend most of the lecture passing notes and trying not to laugh at each other or the professor, because he sounds exactly like the teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and the day that he calls role and Eric Bowler is absent they both finally crack and laugh like hyenas. No one but them gets it, and they both agree that it's a shame and what is society coming to, then they stay up all night watching old Eighties movies when they should be doing homework and the next morning they both scurry to do half the problems and copy the other half off each other. Grades saved, they celebrate with a MacGyver marathon and fall asleep on each other. The next morning isn't awkward and they eat cold pizza while watching Zombie Beach Party II and comparing it to Zombie Beach Party I and they're best friends.
He takes her home and introduces her to his father and his Uncle Mike and doesn't even mention his dad's brother, because they hardly ever see him anyway. And there's no one else to introduce and they all get along just fine and Sunday dinner with his family becomes a tradition. That's how Junior first meets her. Only something's wrong with that too....
He misses Goldie.
---------------
When they reached streetlevel again, mystery bad guy in tow, Goldie tapped her comm and let the others know she had found Blue unharmed. There was a blur of red and green, then Robin abruptly stopped in front of them, grinning. The teen zipped forward with a high-pitched happy noise and hugged Blue's middle.
"I'msogladyou'reokay!" Robin blurted happily. "Gottagonow--training!" And with that, the speedster disappeared in another blur.
Goldie grinned and glanced at Blue, who looked dazed and awkward. She frowned worriedly and touched his shoulder with one hand. He jumped.
"Hey," she said softly, a line of concern forming between her eyebrows. "You okay, babe?"
"Fine!" Blue snapped, then quickly smiled sheepishly. "Just...surprised me."
Goldie stared at him for a moment, lips pursed in thought, then nodded and patted his shoulder. "It's been a long day, we should get home. Get some rest."
Smiling again, Blue said, "Sounds good. I'm...a little tired."
Giving his shoulder another pat, Goldie went to go find Luke and explained that she and Blue were heading home, handing the bad guy over to him as she did. The man straightened his spine sharply as his appearance morphed into a generic military grunt and he snapped off a salute that would have brought tears of joy to any general, promising that Blue's mystery assailant would be taken care of.
Raising an eyebrow, Goldie said, "Just make sure he can talk to Andy later."
Luke grinned and melted back to his regular form. "Aye aye, mon capitain," he said with a suggestive wink.
Rolling her eyes and throwing up her hands, Goldie walked back over to Blue without another word. Grabbing hold of her partner, she flew up to where the cloaked Bug was hovering. Blue flailed a little, sounding surprised, before stiffening motionlessly.
Resisting the urge to hug him closer to her chest, to protect and comfort, Goldie worriedly wondered what had happened in that room before she got there.
Whatever he said, Blue was definitely not "fine."
---------------
Time passed.
At least Junior assumed it did. It occurred to him that time could have frozen for some reason, leaving him to live out the rest of his life in the space of an eye blink. But that was fairly low on the list of possibilities, so he assumed that time passed.
The white room was a little like a sensory deprivation tank, he decided. Only less wet.
It was a little like not existing.
Junior didn't like that.
At all.
The circumstances of his birth were such that, for a while, he hadn't feared death, he had feared nonexistence. Death had loopholes, death could be gotten around. Not existing meant there was significantly less opportunity to come back. When he was younger, he had even collected DNA samples from himself (hair, skin, blood, saliva, snot, toenail clippings) and stored them using instructions he had found online and a scaled-down container he had built based on the same instructions. Just in case something somehow undid the magic that had created him in the first place, in the hopes that his parents would somehow be able to bring him back...provided the samples didn't disappear along with him.
Just in case.
He was older now, and wiser, though a tiny treacherous nook in the back of his mind still whispered sometimes, lies he considered himself too old to believe anymore, that he wasn't real, not completely. That the humans and beings he lived and worked and played beside were more real than him, that he was a fake.
It was ridiculous, and he usually didn't listen to it, or put much credence in it. But sometimes he did listen, and then he went and found Goldie or Max or someone and bugged them until the thought went away.
But now in the padded white room, he was all alone with his thoughts, including that one, and time passed.
When the door opened, Junior shot to his feet and stared with happy disbelief.
"Hey, hon," Goldie said, smiling tentatively. "You okay?"
"Oh, just fine," he replied blithely, waving a hand. "It's a little bland, and white after Labor Day? Can you say faux pas? But with, like, a few tasteful prints, some curtains, maybe a rug, y'know I really think I can do something here."
Goldie just looked concerned and he sighed.
"Okay. Sweetie, y'know I love ya, but...what gives?" Junior spread his hands to indicate his current state and surroundings.
"I'm sorry, babe," Goldie murmured, the concern not leaving her face. "We didn't have any choice."
"Didn't have any--What? Is this about reprogramming the sounds on your computer to play great moments from classic zombie movies? Honestly, I thought you'd like it!"
"Hon, it's...." Goldie bowed her head for a moment. "We didn't have a choice."
Reaching out, she tentatively touched his shoulder and stared at him earnestly from behind her mirrored sunglasses. "You're a danger to yourself and others."
-----
[ETA of chapter the second: ...unknown]
Mullet-verse handbook/guide. (AKA "Are you as lost as I am?")
Fandom: Justice League
Characters: Junior, Goldie, Luke (McDunnagh), Robin, Booster/Beetle (mention)
Word Count: 1740
Rating: PG-13?
Author's Notes: Since the Boostle content in this will be minimal, I've decided to post it here in my own journal. New updates are linked to on boostle in the notes for stories that are actually Boostlecentric enough to be posted there.
First five people to get the reference to a previous Mullet-verse fic can request a picture from me. My drawing muscles are up for some exercise. (To be fair, I'll neither confirm nor deny until five people have guessed correctly.) ;D
(LJ-cut quote is from David Rosenhan's On Being Sane in Insane Places.)
CHAPTERS: { Prologue }{ Chapter One }{ Chapter Two }{ Chapter Three }{ Chapter Four }{ Chapter Five }{ Chapter Six }{ Chapter Seven }{ Epilogue }
Beta by alba_aulbath.
<-{ previous story: Legacies and Traditions } { next story: Little Boy Blue }->
~1st Chapter
She tracks them down and calls herself Booster Gold's biggest fan. She even has an action figure from his short jaunt into the toy market, complete with a Corporate Crusader business suit. She's a fan of not just the hero but the businessman, and it's then that Junior thinks he started to love her. So few people recognized that his father was actually intelligent, buying in to Booster's self-made image. Sure it makes them underestimate him, but sometimes it also makes Junior want to wave his hands in front of their faces and demand to know how well they thought they could adapt to a time some five hundred years in the past.
But she sees past the bright, vacant smile to the whirling cogs beneath blond hair and admires and respects Booster Gold. She wants to be Booster Gold when she grows up. And that's why she begs Booster to take her on as a plucky young sidekick. She's already dyed her hair the exact same shade as his. And maybe that's what eventually makes him agree. Or maybe he just sees something in her, a glimpse of a possible future with another generation of Blue and Gold, that cries out to be shaped and molded and encouraged to strive toward greatness. That's how Junior first meets her. Only that's not how it happened....
Junior has never been to a playground before, and now he's been set loose in one. It's so much different from climbing on the roof. No weak spots to avoid, for fear of falling through. No sharp edges or burnt bits that crumble away to ashes at a touch. No, the playground equipment is bright and shining and well-used, a shade of orange like he once saw on one of the older fruits in the produce section of the grocery store. It's a brave new world with curves and loops and straight lines and fascinating shapes that make his mind try to remember something he never learned or invent something he doesn't know already exists just so he can put numbers on all the new and beautiful dimensions.
He's probably the oldest kid there, but he doesn't care because finally he can move the way his body has been begging and straining to move. He climbs and shimmies and flips and bends and his muscles sing with such delight that he just has to laugh. His father's watching from the edge of the playground area, face standing out amid a sea of other parents, the same worried expression on his face that Junior saw so often before Ted came and made Booster smile again, so Junior waves occasionally in the hope that he won't worry so much.
He's climbing on top of the monkey bars when he sees her, tiny chubby face screwed up with determination, trying to reach the bars. But she's just a little too short and no matter how she clings to the ladder and stretches she just can't touch them. Her cheery little pigtails, color forgotten in the gray-toned haze of memory, flop around her head as she wiggles, stubbornly not giving up. So Junior does what only seems natural and logical and offers to help. And when she smiles shyly and reaches for him, he grips her waist, firm but gentle, and lifts her up to the bars. She grabs hold of them, gripping tightly, and hangs on for a moment, skinny little arms stronger than they look. Then her legs are flailing as she's making her way across the bars and he's keeping his hands near her waist just to be safe, because he wants her to succeed, and maybe this is when a tiny spark of love first formed for her, burning steadily and increasing in size and intensity over the years. All because she saw what she wanted and went after it and wouldn't give up no matter how hopeless it seemed and perhaps some shred of precognition in him latched onto that and knew she was someone he would want watching his back some day. That's how Junior first meets her. Only that's not how it happened either....
They meet in college, in a class they share, and spend most of the lecture passing notes and trying not to laugh at each other or the professor, because he sounds exactly like the teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and the day that he calls role and Eric Bowler is absent they both finally crack and laugh like hyenas. No one but them gets it, and they both agree that it's a shame and what is society coming to, then they stay up all night watching old Eighties movies when they should be doing homework and the next morning they both scurry to do half the problems and copy the other half off each other. Grades saved, they celebrate with a MacGyver marathon and fall asleep on each other. The next morning isn't awkward and they eat cold pizza while watching Zombie Beach Party II and comparing it to Zombie Beach Party I and they're best friends.
He takes her home and introduces her to his father and his Uncle Mike and doesn't even mention his dad's brother, because they hardly ever see him anyway. And there's no one else to introduce and they all get along just fine and Sunday dinner with his family becomes a tradition. That's how Junior first meets her. Only something's wrong with that too....
He misses Goldie.
---------------
When they reached streetlevel again, mystery bad guy in tow, Goldie tapped her comm and let the others know she had found Blue unharmed. There was a blur of red and green, then Robin abruptly stopped in front of them, grinning. The teen zipped forward with a high-pitched happy noise and hugged Blue's middle.
"I'msogladyou'reokay!" Robin blurted happily. "Gottagonow--training!" And with that, the speedster disappeared in another blur.
Goldie grinned and glanced at Blue, who looked dazed and awkward. She frowned worriedly and touched his shoulder with one hand. He jumped.
"Hey," she said softly, a line of concern forming between her eyebrows. "You okay, babe?"
"Fine!" Blue snapped, then quickly smiled sheepishly. "Just...surprised me."
Goldie stared at him for a moment, lips pursed in thought, then nodded and patted his shoulder. "It's been a long day, we should get home. Get some rest."
Smiling again, Blue said, "Sounds good. I'm...a little tired."
Giving his shoulder another pat, Goldie went to go find Luke and explained that she and Blue were heading home, handing the bad guy over to him as she did. The man straightened his spine sharply as his appearance morphed into a generic military grunt and he snapped off a salute that would have brought tears of joy to any general, promising that Blue's mystery assailant would be taken care of.
Raising an eyebrow, Goldie said, "Just make sure he can talk to Andy later."
Luke grinned and melted back to his regular form. "Aye aye, mon capitain," he said with a suggestive wink.
Rolling her eyes and throwing up her hands, Goldie walked back over to Blue without another word. Grabbing hold of her partner, she flew up to where the cloaked Bug was hovering. Blue flailed a little, sounding surprised, before stiffening motionlessly.
Resisting the urge to hug him closer to her chest, to protect and comfort, Goldie worriedly wondered what had happened in that room before she got there.
Whatever he said, Blue was definitely not "fine."
---------------
Time passed.
At least Junior assumed it did. It occurred to him that time could have frozen for some reason, leaving him to live out the rest of his life in the space of an eye blink. But that was fairly low on the list of possibilities, so he assumed that time passed.
The white room was a little like a sensory deprivation tank, he decided. Only less wet.
It was a little like not existing.
Junior didn't like that.
At all.
The circumstances of his birth were such that, for a while, he hadn't feared death, he had feared nonexistence. Death had loopholes, death could be gotten around. Not existing meant there was significantly less opportunity to come back. When he was younger, he had even collected DNA samples from himself (hair, skin, blood, saliva, snot, toenail clippings) and stored them using instructions he had found online and a scaled-down container he had built based on the same instructions. Just in case something somehow undid the magic that had created him in the first place, in the hopes that his parents would somehow be able to bring him back...provided the samples didn't disappear along with him.
Just in case.
He was older now, and wiser, though a tiny treacherous nook in the back of his mind still whispered sometimes, lies he considered himself too old to believe anymore, that he wasn't real, not completely. That the humans and beings he lived and worked and played beside were more real than him, that he was a fake.
It was ridiculous, and he usually didn't listen to it, or put much credence in it. But sometimes he did listen, and then he went and found Goldie or Max or someone and bugged them until the thought went away.
But now in the padded white room, he was all alone with his thoughts, including that one, and time passed.
When the door opened, Junior shot to his feet and stared with happy disbelief.
"Hey, hon," Goldie said, smiling tentatively. "You okay?"
"Oh, just fine," he replied blithely, waving a hand. "It's a little bland, and white after Labor Day? Can you say faux pas? But with, like, a few tasteful prints, some curtains, maybe a rug, y'know I really think I can do something here."
Goldie just looked concerned and he sighed.
"Okay. Sweetie, y'know I love ya, but...what gives?" Junior spread his hands to indicate his current state and surroundings.
"I'm sorry, babe," Goldie murmured, the concern not leaving her face. "We didn't have any choice."
"Didn't have any--What? Is this about reprogramming the sounds on your computer to play great moments from classic zombie movies? Honestly, I thought you'd like it!"
"Hon, it's...." Goldie bowed her head for a moment. "We didn't have a choice."
Reaching out, she tentatively touched his shoulder and stared at him earnestly from behind her mirrored sunglasses. "You're a danger to yourself and others."
-----
[ETA of chapter the second: ...unknown]
Mullet-verse handbook/guide. (AKA "Are you as lost as I am?")