Liminal Garden

Danny swung open the door before Jason could dwell too deeply on it. His crop top rose high as he leaned on the door, showing a sliver of tan skin that Jason wanted to run his fingers along. “Hey there.”

“Hey,” Jason said and then floundered for a moment before he just held out the bottle of wine. “Not sure if this goes with what you’re cooking tonight, but if not, you can have it another time.”

“That’s sweet, thank you,” Danny said as he took the bottle with a little smile. “Come on in. Dinner still needs a little bit, but we can get this open to enjoy.”

Jason nodded even though Danny was already turned away. He was so quick to show Jason his back. Only after making sure the door was secured did Jason move on. His fingers twitched, wanting to check over the rest of the security of Danny’s apartment. He took a breath and let it out slowly.

“All the windows and stuff are covered if you want to take off your mask,” Danny called from the kitchen. “Not even a laptop open.”

It’s easier to listen to Danny and remove his mask than it should be.

Easier to want to be Jason than it should be.

“Will you be going out after this?” Danny asked from the kitchen.

“Maybe. Probably,” Jason said. He hadn’t really thought about it. Going out as Red Hood was just who he was.

“Maybe that depends on how long I keep your enchanting company around?”

“Maybe. The night is young, though,” Jason said. He accepted the glass from Danny and gave the wine a little swirl. He hadn’t seen Danny pour it. He knew the bottle was safe, as he brought it, but he hadn’t seen Danny pour it. He should have gone to the kitchen to watch.

“To the young night then,” Danny said. He clinked their glasses in toast before taking a sip of his own. He held out his glass with raised brows. “This is good.”

Jason gave an offended noise. “You think I’d bring bad wine?”

Danny just shrugs, unconcerned. He moved to sit down, folding elegantly onto his couch. “I just didn’t expect it to be the kind of thing you paid attention to.”

“I… maybe had some help,” Jason admits. He glances from Danny to his wineglass.

“Oh, shit. Shit. I’m sorry, Hood,” Danny said. He got up, more speed than elegance now, and left his glass on the coffee table. “Here, I’ll take your glass for dinner. Or I can pour it back in the bottle and then drink from a fresh glass to show it’s safe? I shouldn’t have just poured it in the kitchen like that.”

Jason… he doesn’t know what to say to that. To Danny’s concerned offer.

Danny smiled, sadly, and reached out. One hand took the glass of wine. The other reached out and brushed over Jason’s brow. “You’re so expressive like this, without your mask and your hood.”

“I, um,” Jason cleared his throat. “Just you thought of that so quickly…”

“Comes with the job,” Danny says, short words ending that line of questioning quickly. “What would make you feel safe enough to drink the wine?”

“I trust you,” Jason answers with a frown.

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t, but that doesn’t mean that your brain feels safe. What would make you feel safe?”

Jason actually thought about that. Danny gave Jason the time to think about that. “I… pouring it back into the bottle would work, I think.”

“Okay. Come on, come to the kitchen with me.” Danny hooked his fingers in Jason’s and moved them forward with a little tug.

With them both in the kitchen, Danny carefully poured the wine back into the bottle. He gave it a good swirl before pouring a fresh glass, which he toasted Jason with before taking a sip. Jason huffed out a little, half laugh at Danny’s dramatic flair about it all. But it did help. Jason took the glass from Danny’s graceful fingers and drank.

“Next time, I’ll remember,” Danny said.

“Next time?” Jason asked instead of dwelling on the hangups of his own brain any longer.

“Of course next time. This could be a thing, if you want it to be. I mean, with our schedules it will have to be a flexible sort of thing, but it could still be a thing.”

Jason tilted his head. “I… yeah, I’d like that, this being a thing.”

Danny rubs his nose against the hoodie he wore. He refuses to wear any sort of super suit, even the domino feels like too much. He isn’t a hero anymore. How can he be? He doesn't know how dead he is anymore. Somethings that…

Things that should be easy…

He flexes his hands. His still healing skin pulls taut. The skin is startling pink, and Danny wonders if it will fade out to white like the rest of his scars.

“Are you okay?” Superboy asks. His words are quiet, but everyone zeros in anyways.

Danny shrugs. “It hurts. Being here hurts.”

“It hurts?! What do you mean it hurts? Why didn’t you—” Bart’s babble is cut off by Superboy shoving Bart back by a hand on his cheek.

“Are you okay?” Superboy asks again, calmly, but with a serious sort of pinch between his brows. He’s been different today, still distant but more… attentive, somehow.

Danny lets out a slow breath and nods. “Yeah. It’s like an old bruise or something. I think it’s because… I think it’s close. My core, I mean, I think that it’s close. The hallow of it aches.”

Superboy scowls, but it’s Super Girl who says, “That… doesn’t sound good.”

Danny gives a little snort at the understatement of it. The problem is, he doesn’t know what to do about it. Even if they find what’s left of his core it could be too broken to put back in. Maybe he can’t even put it back in. No one has said that’s even how it works. No one has said he could be whole again.

Half again.

A whole half and a half.

A half and a half to be a whole whole whole—

“Hey!”

Danny gasps in a startled breath. Superboy’s hands are pressed against Danny’s cheeks and there’s warmth suddenly, so much warmth. His exhale is as shaky as he feels.

“Okay, yeah, like that, keep breathing,” Superboy says. He’s close enough for Danny to see the little flakes of brown in the otherwise perfectly blue eyes.

Danny does his best to listen, but he doesn’t really feel that in control of what his body is doing right then. He’s pretty sure that he just had another panic attack. He tries to turn and look at the blob he’s holding, wanting to make sure he didn’t hurt the little thing, but wavers when Superboy moves his hands away. It leaves him cradling the blob and slumped against Superboy’s chest.

If he had the energy, he would’ve been painfully embarrassed.

As it is, Danny can only manage a weak smile for Barry and Wally as they suddenly appear in the room. “I’m okay.”

Superboy makes a derisive noise that says what he thinks of that claim.

“I—okay, I mean… I didn’t hurt myself, not like that last time,” Danny says. He makes an aborted move to try and sit up, but just ends up surprised by the fact that one of Superboy’s arms is around him. Danny blinks down at the ring covered fingers. But Superboy doesn’t even like him?

“What? No? I don’t… it’s not like I dislike you,” Superboy protests.

Oh. He maybe said that part out loud.

“Yeah, you’re sort of out of it,” Bart says from between the Flashes.

Barry reaches out and brushes a chunk of sweaty hair from Danny’s forehead. Danny closes his eyes at the touch. “Can you tell us what set you off? And if not that’s okay! But we don’t want whatever it is to keep eating at you.”

“My core. I was thinking about my core and… and I don’t know if it’s here and what you all found and—” Superboy’s arm tightens across Danny’s chest, and he sucks in a breath. “Sorry. It’s just…”

“No, you’re allowed to be upset,” Barry says, as patience as ever with him. “We do have something to show you, but we needed to secure and clear the area first. It should be almost done. Can you drink some water and have a few bites of a bar first?”

“Yeah, I can try,” Danny agrees because of course he does. He doesn’t want to be trouble for Barry and Iris. They’ve been so kind to him, opening up their house, taking him to doctors, never getting mad at him… he just needs things to calm down, just for a little bit.

Danny sips at more of the water than he eats the bar. The slightly off peanut butter taste wrapped in dubious chocolate turns his stomach a little, but he manages a few bites by the time he’s finished most of the water.

Barry has zipped back and forth a few times, and he’s back now, smiling tensely. “Okay, we’ve got the clear to go into the room. Flash and I are going to take you, but do you want Impulse to come too?”

“Yes, please,” Danny says quickly. He sits up and this time Superboy lets him. He makes sure to sand firmly and not waver, but Bart is by his side just in case. It’s nice, to know that he can break and people will be there to catch the pieces.

They go through the halls at normal speed. Danny keeps his eyes at their feet, following Barry, flanked by Bart, and with Wally behind them. Danny doesn’t need to see these halls again. He doesn’t need to be back here other than getting his core.

His core, they were taking him there now.

There was enough of it left to show him.

That was something.

It would be enough.

It had to be.

It was…

Except it was…

“Phantom,” Danny whispers, pressed up against the tube.

Phantom’s eyes snap open. That bright green gaze finds Danny’s instantly. A pale hand lifts, moving slowly through the ecto mixture in the tube. It presses against Danny’s, that damn glass in between. The glass fogs up where Danny breathes against it.

In the caves with Dami, it doesn’t hurt so much. The pain was still there, of course it was, it was something that he could never let go of, but in the caves it was muted by the rough stone and the pool of green. Here there is none of that. Here Danny is truly alive. Or as alive as he has ever been since the…

Danny shakes his head. It feels like his brain is sloshing against the inside of his skull. Bones, they were overrated, really. At least he (or Gotham) had the forethought to make sure that Danny came out clothed. He smooths his hands over the lapels of the coat and the vest under it. Definitely Gotham’s doing. Danny didn’t think he had ever worn anything so fancy in his life.

Well, half-life.

The alleyway that he steps out of may have been next to a theater, but by the boarded up windows and smell of piss, it has obviously seen better days. He stands under the unlit marquee, looking up at the graffiti and fallen letters. There’s something beautiful about the decay of it, as much as the space is steeped in tragedy.

Danny tucks his hands in his pockets and starts off. Where? He isn’t sure, really. Danny trusts that Gotham will keep him moving in the right direction as long as he listens to it. And Gotham hums with information. Stepping onto its streets is like stepping into a bee hive. Danny follows the energy as it ebbs and flows, leads and warns. He trusts it.

Which is why it’s extra insulting for Danny to end up with a knife pointed at his throat and his hands raised.

“I told you, I really don’t have anything on me,” Danny says calmly.

“Bullshit! Who the fuck doesn’t carry at least their phone anymore?” The knife waves with the words. “Hand it the fuck over!”

“Cursing won’t make something magically appear,” Danny says. He probably should get an identity again. What year was it?

“Or I say what I fucking want to and fucking gut you so I can loot your body!”

“This body really isn’t worth that much effort,” Danny says, with as much of a shrug as he can do with his hands raised.

“Fuck y—”

Before the thug an even lunge, a mass of shadow drops between them and Danny. Fora moment, Danny is convinced that it’s Gotham, for all that Gotham is the one who led him there. It feels like Gotham, with the same deep love for the city and the same chasm where the little bird once was but… this one is alive.

Danny takes in the caped figure with no small amount of wounder. They feel like the honored dead, but they clearly live and breathe and ache. Their fist pulls back, ready to strike the cowering thug. Danny rests his hand on the arm. “I think making them piss themselves with fear is enough.”

Both the thug and whatever this creature is turn to incredulously look at Danny. He just offers a smile and a shrug. He plucks the knife delicately from the thug’s hand and flips it closed. “Now, maybe you should promise not to do this again since you’ve gotten to keep your face intact.”

“Y-yeah! S-s-shur! I, um, I’m s-sorry mister Batman, sir! I just… things have been really tight and my brother is still sick from the last fear gas—yeah. I, um, will just be going!” The thug says, jutting a thumb behind themselves. When neither Danny nor ‘Batman’ move, they turn tail and run.

After watching them disappear behind a corner, Danny turned and smiled at the looming specter. (He tucks the knife into his pocket.) “Thank you, Batman, for your gallant rescue.”

“Hn,” the Batman utters. He pauses a long time before saying, “You shouldn’t be out here this late.”

“Absolutely not. I believe I will be heading right home,” Danny says. The Batman looks at Danny’s hand, pale and slender against the dark, still on his arm. Danny holds up his hands and steps back. As the Batman aims some sort of gadget at the grungy architecture, Danny adds, “and I am sorry for your loss.”

There’s another long look before the Batman flees like the hounds of hell are on their heels, rather than just standing on a random street corner in Gotham. Danny watches until they vanish and then slip into the shadows himself.

He has a great deal to talk with Gotham about. He hadn’t understood that this about a little specterling. That changed things. Complicated them. Made them clearer.

John throws the sheets off and sits up. His long limbs feel endless for a moment as he stretches before he snaps back into his aching, (mostly) mortal body. The smell of the room, of endless visitors and days, has him craving a cigarette. Sometimes he’s lucky enough that there’s a pack on the bedside table. Today is one of them. He peels the seal open and taps out a fag from the pack. The first inhale makes him wistful; this brand went out of business twenty years ago.

He sits there long enough that he has to tap a solid bit of ash into the soot stained ashtray. He wants to stay longer. Schrodinger’s cat and all that.

Maybe he should just go look.

He grabs the pack and the room key from the bedside. The key has a battered plastic tag that feels right in his hand. He thinks the room is number twenty-one, but it hurts to look too long at it. The key itself is different with each glance.

The cigarette is just balanced between John’s lips, stuck there so that he can toss on the robe over the boxer briefs that he has on. He wears it mostly to have a pocket to stash things in. It also helps stave off the chill of the halls.

Every door looks exactly the same—yellowed oak wood set into even more yellow wallpaper. There’s no decoration other than the hall sconces. The way the light pours out of them is fragmented and shifting. Every so often a door is cracked open, held tight by the chain. There’s something there behind those doors. Other ones too, sometimes, when John knows he’s being watched from behind a peephole. John’s careful to never look back.

He just smokes his cigarette, lighting the next off the old butt of the last, and keeps walking down the hall. He’ll get to where he’s going eventually, wherever that may be.

There’s one place he’s hoping for more than the other.

He just keeps walking.

Finally, suddenly, he’s come to a set of brass and glass doors. The thick fog of condensataion on the doors make it impossible to see through. It doesn’t matter, John knows what will greet him as he pushed both doors open. A smile plays on his lips and in his voice. “Hello, handsome, how’s the water?”

“Just about the same as always. Too fucking green and weirdly warm.”

John eyes the pool as he walks around the outside of it. His steps sound sacrilegiously loud against the tiles, but what is his whole fucking life but being sacrilegiously loud?

“It is very green,” John settles for saying.

The other makes a noise that manages to sound sarcastic as he sets his book aside. “Green is sorta its most defining trait.”

“Hum… nah, mate,” John says. He braces his arms on either side of the plastic pool chair as he leans down. “I would go with other worldly first.”

“Everything is other worldly here, Hellblazer.” Those sea-glass green eyes meet John’s steadily. “Including you and me.”

“Yet you won’t tell me your secrets,” John points out. The words are a whisper and nearly cut off by the kiss that follows. It’s as much a kiss John starts as one that John meets in the middle. He lets himself enjoy the taste of it before he pulls back just enough to get a look. “What are your secrets, Dan?”

Dan rolls his eyes, but it’s mostly an excuse to look away. “I’ve told you, you really don’t want to know.”

“Oh but I do, lovely. I’m curious,” John cajoles as he straddles the chair and Dan. Dan is likewise in a robe, but only with swim trunks on underneath.

Tiny, yellow swim trunks.

Dan runs his hands up under John’s robes. He has the calloused hands of of a craftsman, and his thumbs are rough where they rub against John’s hip bones.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Dan says.

“But boredom killed it quicker,” John sings back.

“Oh, well, if boredom is what you wanted to avoid…” Dan purrs. His grip tightens, keeping John held down as he arches up.

John hums happily. He would rather understand what Dan is, but ever visit he learns a little more. What’s so wrong about having some fun at the same time? “I’ll learn your secrets.”

“Not if you want me to keep fucking you.”

It shouldn’t even be out right then. The other’s had dropped back, exhausted after a high of nerves, but they were not in danger. Here was safe, it had decided. There was a father, but not Father. There were brothers and a sister. There was no mother (or Mother), but there was a caretaker. There was no reason for it to be there.

But it was.

Drops of water splashed suddenly against the window, and it jerked back with soft noise of surprise.

“It’s just rain.”

Now it really jolted. It spun, crouched now on the window seat and ready to run. Or not. Sometimes running made it all worse. Sometimes Father wanted him to run run run—

“We’ve spoken before, haven’t we?” They had come closer and were squatted now. Trying to make themselves small. Why?

It shook it’s head to clear it. It had talked with them before. They had been kind. It nodded, a small, barely there move. “Jason.”

They smile like it had done something good. “That’s right, I’m Jason. And I’m pretty sure you aren’t Tim, Alvin, or Caroline.”

It pressed further back against the cool window.

It shouldn’t be out.

“Hey,” Jason said, voice low and gentle. “That’s okay. I just was hoping to know your name.”

It shook its head slowly, not taking its eyes off Jason.

“No? That’s okay, maybe you’ll feel okay telling me later.”

“No,” it whispered. It didn’t want Jason to have it wrong. It didn’t… it wanted Jason to like it maybe. “No name.”

Jason’s brow scrunched up. “You don’t have a name?”

It nodded, please that Jason had understood.

Jason rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “Right. Yeah, I guess that tracks. Tim didn’t mention you when he talked about the others. He doesn’t know about you, does he?”

It flinched back. The glass rattled, making it jump in surprise. It stumbled, feet cold against the floor. Always cold. Cold cold cold—

The breath it sucked in burned at its lungs. It took another shaky breath, following the gentle press of the large hand on its chest.

“There you go,” Jason rumbled. Their voice vibrated through its bones like it was the only thing holding it together.

Oh.

It was behind held by them. Somehow now it was on the couch, with a blanket, wrapped up in their arms. Jason’s large hand pressed a rhythm for it to breath.

It had messed up.

It had lost time.

It couldn’t—

“Hey, no, don’t,” Jason ordered. “I just got you back. Just keep breathing, okay baby bird?”

It tried to listen. It breathed. It got easier.

“There you go. You’re okay. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

It shook its head. “Need to be… aware. To protect.”

“…not here,” Jason said. Their voice sounded odd. “You don’t have to worry about that here, okay? We’ll all protect you. All of you.”

It wanted to argue. Jason was wrong. But Jason was safe. Here was safe.

It breathed with with rhythm.

Its eyes closed.

“There you go, baby bird, just rest, okay?”

It couldn’t—

Damian is waiting for him to come… not home. Danny doesn’t have a home anymore, not since— but Damian is important to Danny and he needs Danny to protect him. He needs Danny’s help. He needs Danny’s care.

Danny blinks into the green. It swirls into focus around him, or as in focus as the green ever gets. The blur between the ever shifting shades never truly settles, but it’s easier to pick out the objects floating in the void. The stones. The doors. The bones.

It’s too much. Danny isn’t sure if he can navigate it anymore. That part of him that was meant to be a normal ghost… never mind. The present mattered more than the past. Damian mattered more than the past. The broken bird too. Apparently his name was Robin.

A Robin from Gotham.

Danny had never been to Gotham. He had heard of it, of course he had, who hadn’t? But he never traveled much while he was alive. As a half ghost it had been easier, but never just because he wanted to. His world had been Amity Park, Aunt Alicia’s homestead, Vlad’s mansion, and the haunted places in between.

It is fortunate for Danny that Gotham has quite a presence in the green, as certain cities do. After taking a deep breath that does nothing for him here, Danny lets his senses extend into the green. The pool he came from swirls just above his senses. Further there is Paris with its mound of carefully stacked bones. London and its tunnels. Stonehenge. The vast, deep sea, still so out of reach by humans.

Gotham.

The city sits heavily in the green. Chunks of gothic architecture pierce through the veil like ribs through skin. After the blood red of Paris and the kaleidoscope of Barcelona, Gotham’s aura is startling dark. It hangs like a heavy shadow, the sort that that gently wraps one up as night settles. Jagged lines of cures cut though the dark like lightning.

He’ll have to take care not to get struck by one.

Danny sinks into the dark. His eyes hang around him, keeping careful watch on as Danny digs claws into footholds. The dark shifts around him, defensive and resistant like a dog with its fangs bared. Danny tries to say he means no harm, but oh how Gotham wails!

A son lost.

A protector untethered.

Oh how Gotham tried!

Oh how Gotham gave so that the son could live!

But it moved the pieces too early. The son, so vibrant with new life, moved too early. Gotham hadn’t the time to make him whole. To give him back his spark!

And then the son had been taken.

Gotham roiled, the darkness frothing around Danny. No!, he soothed, The son yet lives. He is without his spark but he lives! Danny has seen him, touched him, felt where the soul is missing like a weeping wound. But Danny needs to understand what happened to know what he should do.

Gotham’s moods shift swiftly between anguish and hope, pain and joy, anger. Gotham bristles. The dark becomes different—menacing shadows that stretch across a midnight street. The shadows close in, oppressively tight.

Danny lets his powers flair. Not fully, no, never, but just enough. Just enough to let Gotham know he is no pup to be threatened like that. He is Phantom! He has been broken and remade by the green itself time and time again! He has been fused with it! Saved by it! Doomed by it.

He is not to be threatened.

Gotham flairs. Its grip eases. Its wary now, but still stays on the aggressive despite what it must feel now from Danny. Danny can appreciate how dictated to its people Gotham is.

Explain it to me, Danny asks gently. Explain him to me. Your son. Your prince of a prince.