Crackling Flames and Humming Electricity
Prompt courtesy of @stealingyourbones Jason gets his neck sliced by Bruce’s batarang. It irreversibly damaged his vocal cords.
Pros: He can still use ghost speak
Cons: None of his family knows ghost speak (as it’s sounds aren’t for living men to understand)
It had been an accident when it happened. That’s what Bruce had said anyway. He had been so focused on saving Joker from being killed by Red Hood that he hadn’t even realized what he had done to his son . That he had permanently disabled Jason in a way that could never be repaired.
The slice to his throat had destroyed his vocal chords. He hadn’t been able to say a single word in over a year now. After a year of vocal therapy, Jason had learned how to do these strange chirps and growls, these weird noises that didn’t seem to come from his throat at all but moreso his very being let out the noises. The only problem was that no one understood what he was saying.
Cass had been a blessing and had taken the time to teach Jason how to successfully sign. She had taken it on as her mission as the only other person in the family who was mute to make sure that Jason could effectively communicate.
He hadn’t been back at the manor since the accident, hadn’t been around Bruce since it happened. But each of his siblings had come to check on him, they checked in on him every so often and they had even managed to develop their own way of understanding the strange rumblings that came from Jason’s body that were now his only form of vocal communication.
A chirp meant that he was happy.
A long snarling growl? He was pissed and you better leave him the fuck alone.
It wasn’t the best, but it worked when they spoke with him on comms. They couldn’t understand any of the other noises that came from Jason, the wails, the crackling of fire that somehow espaped him sometimes. A sound that could only be described as the sound of smoke itself slipping through the air. They were sounds that didn’t have names, there were no true words to describe the noises that would come from Jason at times.
His family tried. Oh his siblings desperately tried to understand this new way of communication with their brother but none of it was effective. No one truly understood him anymore. Not even Cass could always understand what Jason was trying to explain in his broken sounds and strange chirps.
That had all changed one fateful day, though.
Jason had gone to pick up a coffee from the only functioning shop in Crime Alley. It had just opened a few weeks before and he had been meaning to try it out. Wanted to see the brave bastard willing to open up such a pretty coffee and tea shop in the middle of Crime Alley of places. Something had been tugging at Jason’s gut about the place, almost as though it was calling Jason here, like he needed to be at the coffe shop.
Seriously, though, as he inspected the layout, it looked like the kinda place to be opened in one of the fancier neighborhoods in Gotham, not Red Hood’s home.
Red Hood had managed to keep his operations running even after the accident. If anything, it had made his people even more loyal to him. Those closest even taking the time to learn sign language just so that they could communicate and translate. They had all seen the way he had tried to take down Joker, only for the fucking Batman attempt to murder him just to save the very man who tormented the people of Gotham. Of course, the people of Crime Alley were more commonly his victims, less likely to be noticed if they were murdered, less likely to be taken seriously.
So it had come as a personal offense to all of them when Red Hood had been nearly killed. They had all respected Red Hood even more after it had happened, realizing that not only had he gone against the bat, but he had done it and lived out of pure spite.
Jason slipped through the door of the shop, Phantom’s Oasis it was called and looked around. Dark black metal chairs and tables lined the walls, Boston ivy grew along the charcoal grey walls. Any parts that were not covered by ivy were covered by bookshelves overfilled with books. And while tables and chairs lined the walls, comfy, overstuffed chairs filled the corners with small coffee tables, the middle of the area sat large velvet green couches. It was like it was the perfect oasis for Jason.
He made it up to the back counter where a single employee stood cleaning the counter. He was young, probably just a year or two younger that Jason. He was tall and lanky with deep black hair pulled back in a pony tail, showing off the shaved sides of his head. Cosmic themed earrings hung from his lobes and cartilage and when the man glanced up, Jason was also surprised to find a ring on either nostril in the man’s nose along with a septum piercing. For all that his looks screamed edgy, though, he exuded nothing but safety and warmth. Something in Jason’s very being ached to be close to the man.
Unable to stop himself he released a soft sound, the sound of walls breaking under strong flames. The man’s head shot up and he smiled at Jason before releasing a sound of his own.
It was the sound of the stirrings of a storm. Hello, it said. How are you?
“You know what I’m saying?” Jason asked, only the words came out in the sound of a roaring flame, those of a bonfire finally growing higher and higher. He signed the words as well causing the barista to grin in response.
“Of course I do, we’re the same,” he explained through sounds of a building creaking against harsh winds.
A childlike peel rang from Jason’s mouth unable to stop himself. It was the laughter of a child who thought Robin was magic. The laughter of someone who had finally found someone who understood him.
“How?” Jason asked, tilting his head to the side, his heart racing.
The barista smiled and a single black painted finger nail beckoned him closer.
In English the man whispered in Jason’s ear once he approached. “Because just like you, I died wrong and came back wrong,” he murmured before he pulled away and took in Jason’s form. “It’s why you were drawn here.”
Smoke crackled in the air showing Jason’s curiosity, his confusion.
The barista smiled. “You don’t know what you are, do you?” after a shake of Jason’s head the man smiled. “Jason Todd, you are an extraordinary being that is both of life and death. A being that has lost more than he ever gained but continued on stubbornly, refusing to back down. You were called to Phantom’s Oasis because your core heard my ghost speak and like calls to like.”
Ghost speak? Is that what the sounds that escaped Jason were? A language of those who had died and come back wrong? Or didn’t come back at all judging by the name. The sound of fire crackling filled the empty coffee shop.
“I’m Danny, by the way. Now, what would you like to drink? I can make it real quick, close up shop and we can talk.”
The crackling of a sparkler escaped Jason’s being causing Danny’s noseto wrinkle in amusement. “You’ve got yoursel a fire core, huh?”
Pops and crackles slipped from Jason, showing his curiosity.
“Order first, then I’ll answer your questions,” Danny said in the form of the sounds of electricity crackling through the air.
Jason frowned and started to sign his order only for Danny to push his hands down. “Use your words,” he said quietly. “I’ll understand.” The sounds that came from Danny were reminiscent of an old generator turning on for the first time in years, the electricity hummed the words out for Jason to understand.
Rustling and crinkling of a fire’s flames going out sounded throughout the room. “Vanilla late with sweet cream,” it said to Danny.
The hum of white noise came through in response, telling him that Danny understood as he got to work. He waved a hand causing Jason to look back as the door to the shop locked itself.
“I’m a halfa,” Danny told him through the sizzling of lightning that had just hit the earth. “You are what feels like a revenant. Someone who died a brutal death and came back to seek revenge. You have someone we ectoplasmic entities call a core.”
Jason listened as Danny spoke in sounds of crackling electricity and quiet hums of white noise as he explained ghost cores to Jason. Ghost cores were their very being, they were created in result of the person’s death. In their examples, Danny had died by electocution, it was why his ghost speak sounded like electricity coursing in the air and lighting crackling angrily and wildly. He didn’t need Jason to confirm before he had said that the revenant had died in a fire of some sort. He explained that all ghosts had the basic chirps and growls for ghost speak but that the rest was specific to their cores as they were all different.
It wasn’t Jason making the noises that came out of him but his very core himself. For the first time in a year, though, Jason was finally able to speak to someone without sign, to use his words to explain what happened to him, the pain he had gone through when realizing that his father would rather kill him than let him get revenge. He had finally found someone who understood the ache of not being able to exact revenge on the person who had killed him.
For the first time in Jason’s life, he had finally found someone who understood. Danny had sat there drinking his own London Fog as he listened to Jason’s tell. Responding in chirps, whistles and a gentle hum of running appliances. He gave insight and advice, had even given Jason his number explaining that yes, they could use ghost speak over the phone as well.
He had never felt so seen in all of his life.
Maybe that explained why he kept coming back to the coffee shop. Every day he would come, order his coffee, using a language that just he and Danny knew and curled up on a couch and read for hours, feeling at peace in a way he hadn’t experienced since he had died.
Maybe it explained why he went out on a limb and asked Danny on a date, demanding that the halfa come over to his place for dinner.
Of course, Danny had only agreed if Jason promised to make the halfa’s favorite. The night had quickly ended with their cores singing for one another as their legs tangled together under the safety of Jason’s blankets.
Rustling and crackling of a candle flame sounded through the room as electricity hummed along with it, creating a symphony of white noise that Jason loved more than anything in the world. The noises provided a sense of comfort and safety unlike anything he had ever experienced. He wanted to drown in the sounds, drown in the sounds of Danny’s crackling electricity that whispered promises of happiness and safety. Just as the whispering flames of Jason’s core told Danny stories of love and promises of companionship, holding him close, wrapping around him in a warm comforting blanket.
The air crackled around Jason as he stood in the kitchen quietly making breakfast, revelling in the feeling of Danny surrounding him from all sides.
His fire chirped at the halfa in curiosity. One or two it asked him.
Two, electricity said with a charged hum, thin arms snaked around Jason’s waist.
“I think you’re going to have to invite me over more often,” lightning crackled, a crash exploding from Danny in a way that made Jason shiver in delight.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let you leave,” fire roared, flames licking high in the air, causing wood to shatter and break under the heat. Danny just chuckled and kissed the side of his neck softly.
Electricity flowed from Danny along with a series of chirps, whistles and growls, telling Jason he had no problem with staying by Jason’s side.
