#daniel 003

She didn’t like him bald. That short, buzzed hair gave him… an energy. Nova didn’t like it. Not that she could just tell him to never shave his head again, she didn’t own his hair. Daniel was many things (probably, Nova didn’t know him that well; he came in sometimes and he worked out and he seemed sad, but that described at least fifty percent of the clientele) but someone amenable to the opinions of a sorta-stranger was not one of those things (again, probably). He was still hot though. Not that she was going to tell him that; white men didn’t need bigger egos. Though, she should say ‘hi’ instead of staring at him. Then again, it was fun to stare. Decisions… 

She settled on bothering him. “Dannykins,” she said, specifically because she suspected he hated the name. “Nice to see you again! I was worried you’d let all your muscles die.” Nova glanced at his arms, brazen in her appreciation—let her live a little, she liked an arm. “And clearly not.” She tilted her head at him. Maybe she should ask him how he was, or why he thought murdering his hair was a good idea, but they weren’t friends. They were friendly, sometimes. She saw him around, and he humoured her. There were some people she knew she could crack and slip into a shallow rhythm of friendship with: people who left at least some pieces of themselves vulnerable for connection. Daniel seemed harder to crack, though Nova wasn’t sure why. It could’ve been the sadness—welded like a shield to his skin—or something that swung closer to home. She certainly would die before ever letting anyone peel her open and see inside. Haha, yes she meant it literally. Wasn’t she funny? Forget all the other stuff; pay no attention to what was behind the curtain. 

“Want me to hold the bag for you?” she asked, already holding it for him without his input. “You seem a little sloppy today.”

—

It was annoying enough wrapping his hands for the first time in weeks, but slipping on the boxing gloves reminded Daniel how he hadn’t been working out at all since his accident. Well, sort of accident. He didn’t know what other word to use for it. Not that it mattered. After a few swings, he realized how tired and sore he was. His glove hit the bag a little harder than he meant, and pain shot through his hand, up through his arm. The bag swung around as he pulled his hand back and shook his arm to try to get rid of the pain. Maybe he decided to go back to the gym too soon. Maybe he decided to go back too late. Either way, his arm hurt. 

He felt like someone was staring at him, so he glanced around the gym and spotted Nova looking at him. Fine. She was okay enough to talk to about working out and gym things, but that was all he wanted to chat about with her. Just someone he knew from around the gym. Daniel held back a sigh as she walked over to him, but he couldn’t stop his eye roll as she referred to him as Dannykins. He should have tried to put a stop to that awful nickname back when he got that first weird anonymous message. Actually, he should have just deleted it. Whatever. 

“Hey, Nova,” he said, right before he threw another punch at the bag. (At least his footwork was still fine, all things considered.) “Ah, these muscles ain’t going nowhere.” He held up his gloves and threw another punch at the bag, fully aware of his muscles on display as he hit the bag. Daniel raised a brow as she held the punching bag for him, but whatever. He wasn’t going to argue with her about his technique that day. “Yeah, thanks,” he said. He ran through a combination of jabs and hooks, bouncing on his feet before taking a quick break, feeling way more tired than usual. “Gotta make sure to keep your muscles intact,” he commented as he glanced down at her arms. “You wanna take a swing at it?” He could use a brief break. 

—

Nova tried to look like she wasn’t cataloguing. Her mind picked things like a magnet; she wasn’t really watching, except that she was. And she was really trying to analyze, except that she was. She was smart; people told her that all the time when she was a child (as an adult, not so much). Her cheeks burned from the friendly smile she kept steady. It was just that, if she knew how to crack Daniel—get at the machine of his mind—then she’d know how to deal with him. And that’s what people were sometimes, things to deal with. Nova was generally friendly, generally likeable—it wasn’t hard, you just smiled a lot and pretended not to know things—and all of this made possible with the breaking and entering into people’s minds. Metaphorically. 

There was just one problem: Daniel was withdrawn. Nova’s usual techniques of friendliness were repelled with the expert precision of someone who… really didn’t seem like he wanted any friends at all. To make matters worse: he was bald now. Still, she watched him. He punched like he was hurt—Nova catalogued that. He moved like he was tired—well, he did always seem to be in some state of tiredness so she wasn’t sure how useful that was to know. “No, it’d be a real shame if someone took those muscles away,” she said, then laughed. “Wow. Sorry. That sounded vaguely threatening. Promise I’m not a muscle thief—I’d be bulkier if I were.” 

She nodded when he suggested that she try; any opportunity to show off her punches was welcome, but it was the invitation that excited her. Camaraderie! This was basically the first step to friendship. A few punches and Nova would have Daniel talking all about why he was both bald and injured. She wrapped her own hands with alacrity and got into stance. Fighting came to her like breathing—everything fell into place. She went in for a lead cross and… missed? Her fist glanced off the bag. Odd. She weaved and went in for a rear hook—couldn’t miss one of those!

She missed one of those. “OK,” Nova said. “Very funny. Did you grease the bag or something?” Hands on her hips, sure that this was his doing, she frowned at him. “First you show up bald, now you’re evil too?”

—

“Ah, didn’t think you was. But now I’ve got my eyes on you,” Daniel joked back. There weren’t any muscle thieving beings out there, as far as he knew. Only thing stealing his muscles would be lack of working out, and even then, he still had his hunter strength to fall back on. Sometimes he thought he could stop working out and still be incredibly strong. 

They switched positions, and he held onto the bag and waited for Nova to punch it. He raised a brow as she missed her hit, though he felt the bag move under his hands. Did he somehow mess up her punch? She swung again but another miss. Her form was great, and he had seen her box a few times in the past. He doubted that it was because she secretly didn’t know what she was doing. “Now, why would I grease the bag?” he asked. He shook his head about her comment on him being bald—listen, he was growing it out again, and he just needed to get past the awkward hair phase. “And I ain’t evil.” Daniel wished he could sincerely believe that statement these days. 

The bag moved in his hands, and he paused for a moment. His eyes were on Nova, and her hands were on her hips, not the bag. So why did it feel like the bag moved? Daniel let go, and it slightly swung. The bag swung further from side to side and picked up speed, moving on its own as far as he could tell. “Is the AC on blast or some shit?” he asked Nova, though he guessed that wasn’t the case. Especially not in this town. He looked back towards her right as the bag swung at him and whacked him in the chest. He groaned but forced himself to not crumple over from the impact against his wounds. He may have been mostly healed, but he was still sore from everything. The bag swung at him again, but he slid to the side right before it made impact with him again. 

—

Nova shouldn’t have laughed. Was it objectively kinda funny to watch Daniel get hit in the chest by a swinging punching bag? Yes. But should she have bent over, one hand on her knee, the other pointing at him, and let loose a cartoon HA-HA at his pain? No, probably not. But she did. It was the younger sibling in her—she’d point and laugh at her brother if he fell down the stairs, or tripped. When he slipped on his socks, she’d ridden that high of laughter for hours. It still made her giggle to think about Mars’s wide-eyed stunned expression as he hit the ground groaning. Naturally, she was going to laugh at Daniel; laugh at him so hard she wasn’t thinking about why the bag was moving without anyone touching it, or if she should be worried about Daniel’s safety—he was injured, after all. 

And so when the bag swung back and knocked her in the chest and down to the ground, she figured it was karma and stopped laughing. Nova sat up. The bag swung back and forth, back and forth, a raging pendulum of leather. It snapped off the hook and chain that kept it attached to the ceiling and hopped on the ground. It was kinda cute, actually. It moved like a bean-bag bunny, hopping around. “Aw,” Nova said. “I think it likes you, Daniel!” As a Wicked’s Rest native, this was not surprising. As a spellcaster, it was even less so. As someone worried at all moments about the general wellbeing of people (ignoring the fact that she sometimes laughed at them), it was mildly concerning. 

Then a mouth tore open, pulling shreds of leather to form a jagged seam of teeth. The punching bag wasn’t just into Daniel, it was hungry. 

—

Daniel grumbled as he held one arm against his chest where the bag made impact. The sound of Nova’s hysterical laughter made him roll his eyes, but he was well-acquainted with someone pointing and laughing at his pain. The sight of her almost made him laugh—if it wasn’t for his already sore muscles now feeling even worse, maybe he would have—and he thought back to all the times Maya used to laugh at him, like when he lost his balance and slipped in the river during one of their many fishing days. She joked that he was the one who was supposed to have impeccable coordination and reflexes, but look at her, standing there tall and fine, not slipping over her own two feet. 

As the back swung over and hit Nova this time, he let himself laugh just a little bit. Just enough for her to know that his laughter was payback for her own hysterics at his pain. But then the bag seemed to have a mind of its own as it escaped its chain and moved freely across the floor. Fucking great. Daniel groaned as he looked around the gym at the other people, who seemed far more focused on their own workouts than whatever was happening with Nova and Daniel. The punching bag jumped towards him, and he jumped back too, giving some distance between them. What the fuck was he supposed to do about a punching bag with a mind of its own? 

He raised his fists, ready to … throw punches, he guessed, at the bag, right as a mouth tore open and exposed sharp teeth. Why was it always teeth? Did every single supernatural thing in this town have teeth that wanted to bite him? 

The bag toppled over towards Daniel, but he dodged it right before it could get those teeth into him. He kicked at the side of it, knocking it onto the ground. The bag rolled around on the gym floor, as it harmonized with people running on the treadmills, weights crashing on the floor, and boxing punches as everyone else ignored the situation. He stood ready in a fighting position as he watched the bag attempt to get back up. “What the fuck do we-” but he was interrupted as another bag tore open a mouth and moved towards Nova. 

—

Something something bystander effect, or something. Nova was perpetually amazed by the complete lack of helpful interest of the people around Wicked’s Rest. No one seemed at all bothered, or concerned, about the sentient punching bags. The one person who did turn to look just shrugged and went back to flexing in the mirror. Sure, she’d laughed at Daniel but that was different—and she totally planned on helping. Nova got up, stretching her arms. She cracked her knuckles, which didn’t really help with anything, but did always make her feel like she was ready to punch something. 

She was disappointed that Daniel seemed to have it covered. Now she really felt her little-sister DNA rise up like pouty bile. She was two seconds from calling for Mooooom, because Mars wasn’t sharing, and as both the only girl and the youngest, she got the whiny right to complain about that. She could just about hear her mother’s suffering sigh, and the automatic chiding to command Mars to share, without looking at whatever it was Nova was asking for. Naturally, the same rules did not apply to her brother, but he was five years her senior, and not all that interested in what she had anyway. Huh. Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure her home life had been all that good. Probably that explained the issues™. (But it all seemed so regular in its dysfunction, a kind of twisting she could put into a normal shape. How was she supposed to know what other families were like? She had only her own experiences, which were now slanted memories of people she didn’t talk to anymore. Maybe everyone had it this way. Maybe everyone always hated and loved their family a little. Maybe everyone else missed them with curling fingers that could sculpt any stranger into similar shapes; feel again the sensation of little sisterhood, sit again inside home. Maybe it hadn’t been so bad. Maybe she wanted it again. Maybe she could never have it. Maybe everyone else felt this too. Nova didn’t want to be alone.)

She didn’t have to think about it for long: as any second sibling knew, things had to be given in doubles. Daniel couldn’t just get his own punching bag, leaving Nova punching-bag-less; she had to get one too. Hers was pink. Why did she always get the pink things? “Fifty bucks to whoever beats up their punching bag first?” she suggested, fists raised. “I actually don’t know how you beat up a—y’know what? We’ll figure it out.”

—

The punching bag wobbled around as it attempted to stand back up to its full height, but Daniel kicked it again, making sure his foot stayed away from that chomping mouth. Part of him wondered why everything wanted to bite him, but it sort of made sense that all this killer supernatural shit would have sharp teeth to maim and kill. The pink punching bag made its way over to Nova, and Daniel was about to step between her and the bag until his own punching bag rolled over onto his foot. He kicked it and sent the bag rolling over against the side of the boxing ring. He noted how she raised her fists in preparation of a fight. Maybe she’d be okay. Maybe she knew a thing or two about fighting supernatural punching bags—nope, she just said she wasn’t sure how to do that. 

“You’re on,” he agreed, though he knew that Nova already owed him plenty of money anyway. He’d just take off fifty dollars from the … two hundred or whatever she owed for his really good advice. “Ain’t got a clue either, but it’s a fucking bag, so …” If she wanted to try fighting this thing, then she could go for it. He’d step in if it got too bitey and dangerous for her to handle. Daniel didn’t know too much about her besides her work at the gym and she seemed like she might be a good fighter. She didn’t give off the aura of a pathetic, depressed, paranoid hunter, so he assumed she might be just a regular human who was ready to fight a biting punching bag. 

Speaking of which, that punching bag of his own used the side of the boxing ring to get itself back upright. It hopped over towards Daniel, with its mouth wide open and revealing its sharp set of teeth. He swung his fist into its side, and the bag wobbled back and forth for a moment before hopping towards him again. The bag flung itself against Daniel, sending both of them falling down into the gym floor. He grabbed onto the bag and pushed it up away from him as those teeth chomped at him, narrowly missing his face. He shoved the bag off, and it landed on the floor next to him with a thump.

Daniel grabbed his knife tucked away in his gym shorts—he would never be caught without a knife on him, even while working out—and took off the sheath and sliced the knife into the side of the punching bag. The knife cut through the leather and revealed the old, shredded textile filling. He swore that the bag hissed as he raised his knife up into the air and dug it into the bag again. The punching bag squirmed around the floor in an effort to escape, but Daniel straddled the bag and stabbed at it again. (Fuck, it was probably weird that he carried around a knife while working out, huh? Luckily most people had glanced over at them and just left the boxing area to finish their workouts elsewhere. But he was going to have to deal with Nova’s questions now.) 

—

“A knife? C’mon, dude. That’s cheating.” Nova pouted. For her part, the punching bag had… OK, to be fair, you really couldn’t punch a punching bag to injury. Yeah, yeah, the punching bag had her more than a little pinned to the mats. In fact, its heavy pink body was threatening to squeeze the air out of her. She was down on her back, hands pressed above the bag’s jagged-leather mouth, trying to stop it from taking a bite out of her. It drooled sand on to her, which she turned her head to the side and spat out. “Some of us”—she spat out more sand—“don’t carry weapons like”—more sand—“John fuckin’ Wick over here.” At least it was just a knife. Wait, why did Daniel have a knife in his shorts? That seemed like a hazard. To him. Since when were gym shorts known to be the pinnacle of pocket security? 

Nova had done an alright job initially with the bag; as much as someone could, she thought. She bobbed, she weaved, she dodged, she hooked and jabbed but it was a punching bag—it was used to those things. If she knew Daniel had a knife, she wouldn’t have bet fifty bucks on beating it. She’d use her magic—since cheating was apparently fine now—except she couldn’t just ZAP-ZAP. No, she had to take out the chalk in her pocket (she never went anywhere without some chalk) and draw a stupid circle, hope she got all the lines and symbols right, and then do something about it. God, being an alchemist was so lame sometimes. Since all she could do was hold the bag off, she watched Daniel stab the rags out of his bag. She sighed. There goes fifty bucks. 

But, again, why did Daniel have a knife? Did he expect to be cutting open a lot of boxes at the gym? Nova conceded that it was helpful, in this one case, so she wasn’t holding it against him; anyway, because of how outdoorsy as Daniel seemed, the knife didn’t feel too out of place. As much as she hated it, a lot of people around here probably carried knives too. (She was working on it! Eventually Wicked’s Rest would be a safe place. Hopefully soon. Please). Nova looked back up at her snarling pink punching bag. She could either ask Daniel for help (lame, gross, embarrassing) or try to use her alchemy (cool, fun, what could go wrong?). 

Nova decided on her alchemy. She’d just explain it away; how hard could that be? Witch hunting was totally a thing of the past, anyway. Grunting, she switched to elbowing the bag so she could pull out her chalk. With a shaky hand, she drew a wiggly circle on the bag’s head, and some wiggly lines, and a few wiggly symbols. Alchemy loved to be neat—bad things tended to happen if the circle was poorly drawn—but this was the best she could do while pinned. How bad could it be? All she wanted was to deconstruct the bag, gently. It was practically a little baby transmutation circle that totally couldn’t fuck up at all—she knew what she was doing! Nova pressed her finger to her circle. 

The bag exploded. It popped like an overfilled balloon and shot fluffy rags and sand around the gym. At least one person was hit by an errant shred of propelled leather. Nova realized, blinking sand out of her eyes, that she was lucky the material inside was relatively light—if she’d done that to a dumbbell for example… 

“My punches are just that good,” she said, wobbling to her feet, temporarily blind, ears ringing, room spinning. “Totally… When did you grow a new head?” She shook her head out and her double-vision of Daniel coalesced. “Fibity buckos fer me, pal,” she slurred, grabbing the wall. Nova considered, for the millionth time in her life, that she really needed to start thinking things through. 

—

The punching bag squirmed underneath Daniel as he carved his knife deeper. Nova said something about how he was cheating. Sure, maybe she was right that he had a knife to tear apart the bag, but he guessed it was better than letting the punching bag eat him. He didn’t say anything in response though as more of the filling poured out of the bag. The bag wheezed underneath him as its mouth opened and closed, as if gasping for air in its final moments. The bag tried to roll him over onto his back as if it wanted one last attempt at getting a bite out of him, but he kept it in its place as he mustered up the rest of his strength to keep the bag in place. 

The bag took one final shaky breath as pieces of sand dripped out of its mouth. It stopped wiggling underneath him, but he gave it one final slice, releasing more filling out of the bag. 

Daniel released a deep breath as he took in the sight of the textiles and sand covering the floor around him and the punching bag. He looked over at Nova, ready to jump in and stab at her bag to keep it from attacking her when he noticed the squiggly chalk lines she drew on the bag. He narrowed his eyes as she touched the misshapen circle. 

In an instant, the punching bag exploded. Daniel covered his face as the filling launched into the air. Pieces of sand hit his arms like tiny little stings. A piece of sandy clothing landed on the top of his head. He grumbled as he yanked it off and tossed it down onto the (dead?) punching bag beneath him. His ears rang from the explosive sound. He held his hand against his forehead and shut his eyes as he tried to ignore the painful sensation in his head. 

People finally seemed to realize the bullshit happening with the punching bags, acting like they had no idea about the two people wrestling bags with gaping mouths. A few people took photos of the mess. One woman recorded a video of herself as she pointed out the sand covering her hair and the treadmill she stood on. She tripped at one point but quickly recovered to tell her followers about her sponsorship with ShroomState®, where they could get a discount on bundling their home and auto insurance by using her special code TRIPPIN666.

He turned his attention back to Nova who seemed worse for wear than him. He stood up but paused for a moment as block spots clouded his vision and his head spun for a moment. He steadied himself and waited a couple moments until it all seemed back to normal. Or as normal as things could be here. 

Daniel leaned against the same wall as he faced Nova—he tried to act like he wasn’t feeling all that dizzy right then. “Right. Punches.” His head hurt as he spoke, and were the lights brighter? They had to be brighter. He closed his eyes as he tried to ignore the pain in his head. “Think you owe me. I still need …,” he trailed off for a moment as he tried to remember the total amount that she owed him. “Four hundred and twenty.” 

—

The amount of money didn’t seem right. Nova’s vision spun; she felt like she’d skipped over all the fun parts about being drunk and plopped right into disorientation and nausea. The amount of money really didn’t seem right, but neither did her head, and it was a funny number, and Nova liked funny numbers (instead of those un-funny numbers), so probably it was true. Why would Daniel lie to her? He had a knife. Wait, did that make him trustworthy or suspicious? Nova groaned and clutched her head. “Yeah, yeah, my wallet is in my locker. I’ll give you your…” How much was it? “Four hundred and thirty dollars.” That seemed right. 

She leaned against the wall. The gym was the same way it always was; which was to say everyone went back to minding their business. In some cases, literal business. Was that a ShroomState® discount code? Nova noted it; she was looking to switch insurances. WormFarm® was totally and useless, and—honestly—kinda a scam. ShroomState® sounded a lot more legitimate if it was sponsoring fitness influencers, who definitely had an audience that was worried about saving on their home and auto insurance. “Wait here,” she said, “let me just get your money…” 

Despite her wobbling condition, Nova went as fast as she could. It was always slightly awkward to make someone wait around while you fetched something, and Nova was always worried that if she took her eyes off someone, they would disappear—probably some peek-a-boo related trauma, she wasn’t going to think about it. She’d set some cash aside for Daniel, but it wasn’t the four hundred and forty dollars that they agreed on. Thankfully, the gym had an ATM (why it did, or if it was safe, were questions Nova was also not thinking about). Her checking account balance was an un-funny number, so she didn’t look at it. Nova returned with Daniel’s four hundred and fifty dollars in steaming (why was it steaming?) cash and handed it over. “There! We’re all squared up.” She beamed at him, feeling triumphant despite the deep sting of losing a chunk of money she couldn’t entirely afford to part with. 

Then, the punching bags—one an exploded mess of rags and the other a deflated victim of multiple knife wounds. “Oh, right. I guess I have to clean this up now.” Nova looked at him, hope twinkling in her eyes—or maybe that was tears from all the sand. Maybe he’d help her? After all they’ve been through? After the steaming (why was it still steaming?) stack of cash in his hands? She felt, being younger than him, that it was his duty to clean up, and that she’d help but in a way where she wouldn’t really help because she hoped he’d just do all the work himself. Pretty please? She blinked at him, expectant. 

—

Did she say four hundred and thirty dollars? Daniel could’ve sworn he said three hundred and twenty … but he really couldn’t remember right then as his head pounded and his ears still rang from the exploding punching bag. How did it even explode anyway? Did it just give up even though it was clearly winning that fight against Nova? It had her pinned down but then just boom! explosion of the punching bag’s innards. Anyway, if Nova wanted to give him four hundred dollars, he would take that amount. He was in need of some cash anyway. 

She returned to him and handed over the hot cash. The steaming hot cash burned his palm, and he grimaced in pain—why were these paper bills so hot? He swore he saw steam coming off them. “Thanks,” he said as he looked over towards the lockers. “Just … hold on …” He walked to the lockers, trying to not trip over the piles of sand and rags everywhere. He swore the sand was multiplying with the piles of sand growing exponentially higher. He almost tripped over an old t-shirt torn to shreds, but he reached the lockers without falling over himself. He unlocked the one he picked for the day and shoved the burning hot cash into his gym bag and locked the door back. He looked down at his palm that now had a burn mark of a fifty dollar bill. He hoped that would go away quick enough, or at least blend in with the many scars lining his palm. 

Daniel made his way back to Nova, and he leaned his back against the wall. How did she make the punching bag explode? Whatever. He didn’t care. She was asking him to help clean up the mess. As if he worked there. She was an employee, not him. But she looked like a mess with tears all over her face and after almost getting her ass kicked by a punching bag. He raised his hands in defeat. “Ain’t no reason to look at me like that,” he said. “I’ll pick up the textiles.” She could deal with the sand, especially with how much of it seemed to be stuck in her hair after it exploded all over her. 

—

Nova clapped her hands and hopped in place. Sure, he wasn’t getting the sand—she didn’t want to get the sand, it looked like it was multiplying, and multiplying sand was the worst kind of sand—but he was helping! “Is your hand OK? It looked like the money was kinda hot. I mean in the temperature sense; you’re not gonna catch me lusting after a president or a founding father. Hey, do you think…” Their conversation faded out, swallowed by the sounds of the gym—peaceful. 

Her shirt said “what happens at bingo, stays at bingo”, stylized in multi-colored bingo ball font. She pulled down her chunky, drug-store sunglasses and clicked her tongue against her dentures. Walking past the man and the woman—her discounted rose water perfume lifting too-sweet floral notes between them—she shook her head. “Such a mess,” she said. “I hope you two are going to clean all this junk,” she added, despite the fact the two were clearly engaged in cleaning. The woman didn’t concern herself with non-bingo matters. She shook her head again, thinning gray hairs loosening from her compacted hair bun, and walked away, muttering. 

Someone ought to do something about the youth.