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The Doom Patrol was a lot to take in all at once. Since Larry and Rita had been together from nearly the beginning, he had no frame of reference for how it might feel to stand in front of them all, just a crowd of damaged, willful, messy people. He just knew that he’d watched as anyone new who walked through their doors struggled to gain their footing amongst the tight familiarity of this house’s residents. Not to mention the raw insanity they faced on a daily basis.
“So, you saw the kitchen and dining room. There’s a breakfast nook behind there, near the kitchen itself,” Larry said as he took Rama down the hallway of the first floor.
“Your domain, I suppose,” Rama said.
“Sometimes.” Larry touched the back of his neck. “I put breakfast out from 7-9am, unless we have an early mission planned. Jane will tell you I can be convinced to make pancakes after that, but that was only once or twice when one or more of her alters was going through a rough spot. Flit, or Babydoll… but Babydoll isn’t with us anymore.”
“How did you end up team chef?”
Larry hesitated. Walking down this hallway was now an exercise in repressing the memory of his brutal, and potentially inevitable, death. Keeg throbbed in sympathy.
Sorry, kid. I’m okay. We’re okay.
“Larry?”
“Hm? Through here, and we’re back at the day room. We do pretty much everything here, I guess. Briefings, down time… occasional self-directed therapy sessions.”
“I see.”
Larry turned to Rama. His eyes seemed to be cataloguing every detail. Not of the room around him, but of Larry. He hadn’t been watched this closely in some time. Not like this. Sure, he’d caught the Chief watching him at times, in what he knew now to be the prurient interest of a scientist toward his subject. Forsythe had watched with a more intense devotion, occasionally licking his lips at Larry’s agony.
“Granted, our first group session was a rat’s idea.”
Rama grinned. “Yeah, okay.”
“We freak you out yet? Ready to run the other way?”
“Not at all.” Rama stepped closer. “If anything, you’re becoming more and more intriguing.”
“Huh.”
“Disappointed? Did you think you’d run me off so easy?” Rama asked quietly.
“Uh…” Larry frowned and glanced at the bookcase, taking a step away from Rama. “There’s a pretty good selection of books here. Anything you could think of… I think there are more scientific texts in Chief’s office. I don’t know how up to date they are.”
“Not very, I admit.” Again, Rama inched closer to Larry.
“There’s a second library on the second floor.”
“Well, lead the way.”
The ache in Larry’s bones distracted from the simultaneously uncomfortable and sort of wonderful attention directed at him. Lack of longevity didn’t bother Larry in the change in his appearance. He hadn’t even looked in a mirror yet, actually. What difference would a few wrinkles be, among an endless field of scars and melted tissue? What really rankled was feeling just… weary. Like every bone of his skeleton wanted to be known.
He'd had aches and pains over the years. It was inevitable for Larry to have pain, after the crash and his subsequent injuries. Or so the Chief had said. Nothing to do for the pain. Endure it. Wait it out. Make it through the bad days hoping there had to be good ones eventually. Rita had inadvertently set him on the path to horticulture (supposedly a balm for chronic pain) with a small aloe vera plant she’d gifted him early on when he’d been less than certain of how well his bandages would block radiation.
It was unlikely the whole of his garden would help with this, though.
Larry startled as Rama’s hand touched his back, and he stopped mid-step to look back.
“Sorry. Are you alright? You look…”
“It’s okay. It will be.” Larry drew in a slow breath. “There is an elevator, by the way. We’ll have to use it to get to the third floor. But I’d like to use the stairs, until I don’t have the choice.”
Rama nodded, his lips pinched together in a vaguely alarmed, vaguely guilty expression.
“I’m okay. This was inevitable once I lost my longevity.”
“I truly wish I’d been able to spare you this.”
Larry shrugged and gripped the handrail. “We’ll see how it all shakes out. C’mon.”
Rama hovered close by as they reached the second floor.
“This is where everyone’s rooms are.” Larry pointed. “Rita’s over there, and Vic, that was the Chief’s room but Laura took it over, Cliff, and Jane.”
Rama glanced around, a slight frown creasing his forehead as they made their way down the hallway. Jane and Vic’s doors were closed. Vic’s likely since he and Derek were still downstairs. Larry didn’t want to hazard a guess as to what Jane or whoever was at the helm was up to in there. The two of them jumped when something thudded against Jane’s door. LOUDLY. Then, a moan followed.
Sure. Why not.
Rita and Laura’s doors were both cracked open, but their voices were coming from Rita’s room. Which was curious, but Larry counted it as a good sign.
Larry pointed out the secondary library on the way to the elevator. It was uncomfortably quiet while they waited for it to eek its way back up from the bottom floor. It announced its arrival with a violent squeal. Rita and Laura’s voices silenced.
“Sorry!” Larry yelled.
“Don’t die in that ancient monstrosity!” Laura answered.
Rama chuckled. “Maybe I should check out the gears? They sound rusty.”
“If we make it up, maybe.”
As the doors closed, Larry felt Keeg growing unsettled. He touched his chest curiously. “What’s going on, buddy?”
Keeg popped out in front of them. Something about the way he glowed suggested he had some kind of concern, but Larry couldn’t say what it was, or why he felt that was true.
“You worried about something, darling?” Rama asked, smiling.
Keeg circled around Rama, getting quite close, but then zipped out as soon as the doors opened. He hovered in front of Larry’s door. The Negative Spirit had been able to make it through the doors on his own, but Keeg didn’t have that kind of strength, yet, so he waited by the door for Larry to open it for him.
Rama blinked and seemed frozen in place as he looked out onto the third floor. It was fairly empty and lacked the lighting and décor of the second floor. It wasn’t needed, really. Only Larry lived up here.
“This is… intense,” Rama said finally as they entered the antechamber to Larry’s room.
“It’s necessary.” Larry glanced down at him as the mist surrounded them. “I mean, if anyone else wants to come in here.”
The door unlocked itself once the decontamination protocol finished, and Larry opened it for them.
Rama stepped in after him, turning slowly as he took everything in. “Ah. This is… as I expected.”
“Okay, okay. Let me have it.”
“I make it a point not to pick on the clergy.”
Larry smacked Rama’s arm a bit hard.
“At least you have light. Or would, were it daylight.” Rama approached the windows where he looked out and grazed his fingers over the plants. “There would be more ambient radiation in the room without these, I presume.”
“They’re not entirely functional.” Larry shrugged. “I like caring for them.”
Keeg hovered behind Rama as he investigated.
“I have to say, though, that is… just the tiniest little bed.” Rama dropped down onto it and bounced once, grimacing. “What crime did you commit to deserve such a sparse and dreary cell?”
“I’ve always had this bed. It’s for sleeping. I think we’ve replaced the mattress twice since I got here?”
“What was it like before?” Rama pressed his palm into the mattress. “Is this really better than sleeping on the floor?”
“Marginally. I suppose you like a soft mattress.”
“Softer than a slab of concrete, yes.”
Larry dipped his head, trying to fight a smile. (Which made zero amount of sense, since Rama couldn’t see it under the bandages anyway.) “Yeah, okay. I’ve just gotten used to it. It’s not that bad. Better than the Ant Farm.”
“That is an astoundingly low bar.” Rama tilted his head back to glance at the ceiling and then returned to the door. “Why are there locks?”
Larry shrugged. “To keep people out? I never thought about it. They’ve never been used.”
“There were locks on Jane’s door as well.”
“Oh.” Ohhh. Fuck. “Then, that’s probably because the Chief meant for these rooms to be our cages. I’ve used the locks from the inside a few times, not that it mattered. No one’s ever locked my room from the outside… Jane’s have been used a few times. When parts of her were feeling particularly violent.”
Rama was scowling deeply now. It was the farthest from his regular sunny expression Larry had ever seen.
“Just you and Jane?”
“I doubt they would’ve worked for Cliff or Rita. Cliff would break the door down, and Rita could just slide out somewhere.” Larry pushed against the dresser where he’d been leaning and straightened up. “We weren’t that hard to keep in one place. Sort of embarrassingly easy, actually. It was the one thing the Chief was really good at.”
“The Chief, as in Niles Caulder? The one who—?”
“Yep.”
“And he’s gone now?”
“Definitively. He died. Then, his head was resurrected and destroyed.”
“Good.” Rama slipped his hands into his pockets. “And you’ve never thought of leaving this place?”
“We… did. Once. Right after we found out what he’d done to us. It’s kind of complicated for me, though.” Larry shook his head. “Rita and I got a place. Built in the 50s, I think, with an anti-radiation bunker underneath. I mostly slept on the couch, but if I want to take a bath or… well. Do anything that required taking off the bandages ever, the bunker was necessary.”
“I could help…” Rama drifted closer to Larry again. “If your team ever desired to relocate…”
“You’re so helpful.”
“I’d like to be.”
“You didn’t start this mess. You weren’t even in charge of the Immortus cult.”-
“No, but… Still.”
“Look, I could wish for a lot of things that would help our situation. I could wish that Niles had told us thing fucking one about what he was doing with Immortus. I could wish he’d told me the Negative Spirit wasn’t psychotic and evil, or about any of our powers. I could wish our future selves had bothered to give us an idea what we were going to face.” Larry shook his head. “We don’t have any of that. Hoping for that doesn’t help us. We just have to figure out how to deal with this with what we do have.”
“You do have me. For what it’s worth.”
“It’s worth a lot,” Larry assured him. “To me, anyway.”
Keeg zipped between them.
“And Keeg, too.”
“I see that.”
Keeg floated over to the door. Larry felt a stab of anxiety at the thought of Keeg darting off again, but he’d promised to trust him more often.
“Don’t go too far, okay?” Larry felt a little push of assurance from Keeg before he floated out of the room. The one light in the hall flickered, announcing Keeg’s presence. “He likes to play in the lights.”
“That’s cute.” Rama peered out of the little window facing the hallway. “Does it ever get…?”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I’d feel trapped having to stay in here.”
“You’re exaggerating. I’ve had worse. At least I have a bed.”
Larry glanced around his room. He never thought of it as a cell. Or a cage. Room 721, now that had been a fucking cage. It had been his whole identity for six years.
“You didn’t get a bed?”
Larry didn’t have to ask what Rama meant. They were both thinking the same thing.
“I should’ve guessed you would. Charmer.”
“Oh, I am.” Rama bit his lower lip as his eyes danced. “Dr. Janus worked for them before she got her own cell. I’m not surprised she chose me out of all her former subjects to join her. And not because I was already a serial escapee.”
Larry tilted his head to the side. “Did she…? I mean, you and she—?”
“No!”
“I’m kidding. Kind of.”
“She wishes she’d never worked for them. I’d wager many Bureau agents feel the same. Not all of them, but enough.”
“Oh, am I supposed to feel sorry for her? Must be hard to run all those experiments on us circus freaks.” Larry turned away, only to find himself staring back from the mirror. Rama seemed at a loss from the harsh tone, but Larry corrected quickly. “Sorry. Sorry. I have no right to be… I actually have a friend who used to be an agent. So I should be less of an asshole about that.”
“She’s not come around to our side yet.” Rama stepped up to him, touching the back of his neck gently. “Though, we could try getting her in a room with you. See if you could work your magic. You can be charming.”
“I’m anything but.”
Rama’s thumb rubbed a circle at the top of Larry’s spine. He closed his eyes as the strong hand moved to the dip in his shoulder, squeezed, stroked, found the tension there and squeezed… stroked.
“You charmed me,” Rama murmured.
“I think Keeg did that.”
“Your kid is very adorable, yes.”
A second hand rested on his other shoulder. Both moved fluidly against the rough, thick fabric of his coat.
“But he wasn’t the one who convinced me. He’s not the one I put my faith in.”
Those hands slipped back Larry’s coat, exposing… well. Still two layers of fabric. When Rama squeezed again, Larry tensed slightly. With every layer down, he was more exposed. Rama’s hands stilled.
“It’s okay.” Larry turned to face Rama and took his hand.
“You know… There was this moment at dinner when you were telling me about all these things you’d all done, and your voice just came to life…” Rama brushed his fingers against Larry’s chin. “I wondered what those starlight eyes of yours looked like, so excited.”
“Me? Excited?”
“Janus said they called you Negative Man for a reason. I think your negativity is greatly over exaggerated.” Rama reached for Larry’s glasses… hesitated.
“Maybe.” Larry gripped his glasses at the broadest part and pushed slightly, unhooking the latch that kept them secure. “Can you—?”
Rama’s long fingers clasped and unclasped, and a ripple of energy flowed over him effortlessly. When did effortless become stuck for Rama? Larry brushed the concern aside as he pulled his glasses back and blinked a few times. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the light. And Rama’s eager little grin.
Next, the bandages. He could do this.
He could do this.
His hands didn’t want to, though. He moved to begin unwrapping but found his fingers fumbling. What was wrong with him? Rama had seen this already.
“You don’t have to.”
Stop being a punk, Larry ordered himself. You’re not a blushing schoolboy. You were a captain. You’re a superhero. Sort of.
He grabbed the edge of the bandages and began to unravel himself.
Rama’s voice was a whisper. “Open your eyes.”
He hadn’t realized he’d pinched them shut. With an effort, Larry obeyed, finding before him the same kind, open expression Rama’s face had held in the stolen memory they’d experienced together.
“There he is,” Rama murmured.
“More or less,” Larry said. “Mostly less.”
“Oh, hush.”
Larry’s tongue moved over his lips, and he sucked in the lower one, feeling awkward.
“Maybe not the expression you were hoping for.”
“Well, you did take the glasses off. Now all I have to do is get you excited.” Rama tilted his head to the side and took him in.
The pressure of Rama’s gaze without the bandages between them was almost overwhelming. No one ever saw Larry’s face. Only Rita, once or twice. The Chief had never asked, even when he brought him down for an “exam.” Larry doubted Cliff or Jane had ever seen it, apart from the old face his subconscious had worn during the eternal flagellation.
But Rama was drinking him in as if he couldn’t get enough.
How was that possible? What did Rama really want with him? But he had been the one to suggest there was a bridge. There was a chance. Why else would he be in this room, staring at Larry like he was the most fascinating creature he’d ever seen?
“What?” Rama asked finally with a little laugh.
With a broad stride, Larry closed the distance between them and reached up to cradle the back of Rama’s head in his hands. His thumbs brushed over Rama’s jawline, and Larry searched Rama’s dark, intense eyes for a moment before leaning in to take his mouth.
It had been a long time. A lifetime. Maybe memories weren’t, in fact, enough. The tingle of Rama’s powers tickled Larry’s skin slightly as he tasted Rama’s upper, then lower lips. Those curious hands moved down Larry’s back, and their bodies pressed flush together. Now partly metal but malleable enough, Rama let Larry tilt his head back. Deeper, harder, faster. Larry channeled years of loneliness into the heat of this moment and all the little sounds of his room, the weird rattle of the windows and buzz of the meager lighting, had been sucked into a vacuum to leave them truly isolated in this sad little cell.
Rama stepped back, almost stumbling against the nightstand, and Larry encircled his waist with one arm. Held secure against him, Rama let out a noise of surprise and smiled against his lips.
They ended up on the bed—small, hard, and inadequate as it was. Their noses brushed against one another, and Rama went in this time, hungrily coming at Larry like he’d also been touch-starved for the past sixty years. His hands moved up Larry’s biceps and then down his sides, seeming to glut themselves on the simple shape of him.
Larry was vaguely aware that as they kissed, somehow his suspenders had fallen to the sides and Rama’s dress shirt had come open. But neither seemed able to pull away long enough to make a more determined effort to shed further layers. If only he could really feel Rama’s hair, the soft skin on the back of his neck. But the bandages took time. They were dissolving into one another, giving and taking with a frenzy of need for closeness, and Larry couldn’t spare the time for further unravelling.
And then, abruptly, gravity had other ideas. In their eagerness, they’d neglected the treacherous edge of the bed, and before either could grab something other than each other, both had landed hard on tungsten floor paneling.
Larry groaned. Rama’s head fell back as a laugh bubbled up from within him. The sound of it, that deep, joyful timbre, made it impossible for Larry not to join him.
“Okay. Maybe I need a bigger bed.”
“Maybe?” Rama pressed a hand to the center of Larry’s chest and bowed his head toward him.
Larry scooted closer and met his eye. “Y’know, I think the floor is a bit softer.”
Rama chuckled and cupped Larry’s face as he kissed his forehead. “Alright.” He rose and offered Larry a hand.
“Oh, God…”
Larry braced himself against the scream of his joints as he pushed himself up. Once he was on the bed again, Rama planted a gentle kiss on the shoulder that had taken the brunt of the hard floor.
“I’ve been wanting to try that since I laid eyes on you.”
“Roll around on my floor?” Larry drawled.
Rama sat beside him and bumped against his shoulder.
“Oof. Careful. I’m a creaky old man now.”
“I’ll have to be more careful with you, then.” Rama let out an exhale of a laugh. “I love your smile.”
“Do you.” Larry moved to look away again, but Rama moved in to kiss him again.
This time it was tender. Lingering. Larry looked at him and crooked his lips to the side.
“Did you really want to kiss me in that gazebo?”
“Was your first clue when I immediately began flirting with you?”
“I dunno. Maybe that was your strategy to abduct me with you to Orqwith.”
“Not really.” Rama trailed his finger along the back of Larry’s hand and licked his lips. “I was simply… taken with you.”
Larry sighed. “You say that. And I know you aren’t lying. But it’s… I don’t understand it.”
“Then, I guess we’ll have to work on that.”
Sliding his fingers upward, Rama interlocked them with Larry’s and offered him a raised brow.
“Expecting a bridge, not a project, huh?” Larry muttered.
“Actually, when you know me better, you might find you’ve taken on quite the disaster in the making.”
Larry leaned in. “Hey. Don’t think you’re a bigger mess than the rest of us. We’ll all get jealous.”
“I could definitely cause a bigger explosion. Or…”
Without looking away, Rama had retreated into himself. Larry pressed his forehead against Rama’s and closed his eyes. “I know. You don’t have to say right now, but I know.”
“It’s… bad.”
Larry pulled him close, rubbing his bicep, and let Rama nuzzle into his shoulder. He hated for Rama to be so troubled for something so out of his control. It was a weight, those lives that you couldn’t save. Not just couldn’t save, but were the cause of leaving this world. Larry knew it. He knew the fear that the world was worse just for having you in it.
Larry removed one glove and unraveled the bandages on that hand so he could caress Rama’s soft curls, his cheekbone, the roughness of his stubble. “I’m so glad you’re here with us.”
Almost like a force of nature, their lips were drawn together again. Slow, searching kisses as Larry’s strong arm steadied Rama. Rama’s hand touched Larry’s thigh. It took an active will for Larry not to lean into it, let Rama explore with his curious hands.
He sat back, taking in a deep breath. Rama’s smile began to return, tentatively.
“Maybe we should set up the sofa in the second library for you,” Larry suggested. “We’re going to need to be up early to make our world-saving plans.”
“Or…” Rama grazed his fingers over the side of Larry’s head. “We could let you get in a shower, and I’ll bring up some pillows.”
Larry raised his brows. “Oh?”
“And we shove this ‘bed’ to the side, bring your boy back in, and… have a little sleepover.”
Larry glanced out the window. Keeg was zipping around in the dark. There was worry in the little guy. So scared that what he’d seen would become a reality now, even after what he’d tried to do to protect Larry. Pressing a hand to his chest, Larry urged Keeg to return.
“We can try that.”
Rama awarded him another kiss before walking back to the door. “I’ll be back.”
The mist deployed, and Rama waited a moment before opening the outside door, closing it, and letting Keeg in through the inner door.
“Go keep your daddy company while I get us some bedding.”
Keeg shot right into Larry’s chest, and Larry felt the warmth filling him. The fear was still there, both his and Keeg’s, but Keeg was happy to have Rama nearby. The one person who could keep Larry in check, and maybe, Larry could help Rama with that, too. He hadn’t anticipated personally being that stopgap measure for Rama, but if that was what kept Rama stable, and safe, then that’s what it would have to be.
They didn’t have much to work with. The Doom Patrol never did. But they had their family here. It would have to be enough.
After a quick shower, Larry shoved the bed to the side in time for Rama to come in with a pile of pillows and blankets and the biggest grin. Together, they made up a makeshift nest and sat down. As it turned out, Rama had also raided a few drinks from the kitchen and coaxed Larry into having a drink with him as they settled in.
This cell had always seemed… sterile. It had to be. Larry had always been shut away from the others in a way that both made sense and could be deeply alarming. He’d never considered that Niles could have kept him here by force, if he so desired. The danger of that man had gone completely over their heads. Each of them had come out of the wreckage looking at the Chief as a savior who offered a comforting if false sense of safety.
Lying there, facing Rama in the dark (apart from Keeg’s excited little glow), Larry felt a barrier in him breaking down. Not one but two doors protected the world from him—but inside, here he was with Rama, who didn’t need the protection, who could offer it to others. Rama, who had been taken with him, somehow. Who wanted to learn more about him, who carried so much guilt from before they’d even met.
Larry engulfed Rama in both arms, and they settled into the blankets, talking softly in the night about absolutely nothing of importance. Eventually, as he grew drowsy, Larry reached over to grab some ophthalmic ointment from the nightstand, and Rama teased him when he applied it to his eyes and everything was too bleary to make out.
He lay back down and reached out blindly for Rama’s face, pawing until Rama laughed and grabbed his hand. Rama squeezed and planted a kiss right between Larry’s eyes. He closed them, and they curled together so close Larry could feel Rama’s heart beating alongside his own and Keeg’s glow. Gradually, the warmth overtook him, and with Rama’s hand holding the back of his neck, Larry drifted away into the deepest sleep he’d had in perhaps his whole life adult life.