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John has a lot of regrets. Too fucking many to list. And now he had another: Stabbing an apparently random fucking teenager in the heart.
The good (?) news was he wasn’t dead. The bad news was that it meant he wasn’t human. Or a vampire like John had originally thought. Which was kinda good news. Did mean he hadn’t the faintest idea what the hell this kid was, though.
“Huh. That’s inconvenient.”
John had to move quickly to catch the guy as he collapsed to the ground, trying to keep his head from cracking open on the pavement. Shit! How do you stop someone from bleeding out when you stab them in the literal heart?
“Hold on, kid. I’m going to get you help. Ok? You’re going to be alright.”
“Stake to the heart is new.” Before John could stop him, the guy grabbed hold of the stake and ripped it out of his chest. Blood splattered on them both. “Ow. Splinters.”
“Fucking hell! Are you trying to die faster?”
“Eh. Kinda. It’d make this easier to fix,” he said, poking the hole in his chest. John grabbed his hand to stop him.
“Quit that! You’re not dying. Got it?”
“Why not?”
“Why n- because I’m not going to let some kid die!”
“You stabbed me though.”
“Yeah, because you were supposed to be a vampire.”
“Oh yeah,” he chuckled, causing a spurt of blood to come out of his chest. “Forgot I did that. Huh.”
“Come on. Let’s get you to a doctor or something.”
“No! No, no, no. Nooo doctors,” the kid said, trying to scramble away and causing himself to lose blood faster. “I’m fine! I’ll just go home.”
“You’ll die on your own!”
“So?”
“No. Dying.”
“Let me just die a little!”
“No!” John reached over, going to scoop the teen into his arms. “Come on. We’re getting you medical treatment.”
“Noooo.”
John’s arm, that he had slipped under the teen’s shoulders, suddenly slid into the boy’s chest. He could feel his lungs moving around his arm. Oh, that was not pleasant at all.
He looked at the kid and, in as calm a voice as he could manage said, “Let me go.”
“Can’t.”
“What do you mean, can’t?”
“I can’t. I’m stuck.”
“You’re stuck? I’m the one that’s stuck with my arm in your bloody chest!” John shouted, tugging his arm to try and get it out with no luck. The teen winced as John probably jostled around his internal organs. Well, change that to definitely, there was even more blood coming out of his chest.
“You could probably get out if I die.”
“THAT’S NOT A BLOODY OPTION!” He hadn’t meant to lose his temper. He needed to stay calm. Fuck, he was not in the least bit calm. He carefully stood up, holding the teen to his chest and trying to ignore the frankly concerning amount of blood that was now soaking into his shirt.
“Alright, kid-”
“Danny.”
“Sure. Danny. I am taking you to get medical help and hopefully get my arm back without having to hack it off. So, we are going.”
He started walking, trying really hard to ignore the wriggling teen in his arms.
The door to the Watchtower meeting room opened with a whoosh. The meeting was at least partway through, Bats droning on about something or other. John frankly didn’t give a shit.
“Oh my god! John, who is that? And whose blood?”
“It’s mine. It’s fine,” Danny said with a slight smile, clearly a bit delirious from blood loss.
“Who is this?” Batman demanded.
“His name’s Danny. He’s the vamp we were getting reports of. Only, he’s not a vamp.”
“Hold on, is your arm inside of him?” Green Arrow asked, looking a little queasy.
“Little bastard decided to density shift when I tried to pick him up. So, yes.”
“Medical bay,” Zatanna said in a tone that left little room to argue. Considering John wanted to go there anyways, he didn’t feel like trying to disagree.
“Meeting is adjourned until further notice,” Wonder Woman announced, standing.
Z led the way down the hall to the med bay. Most of the Justice League was following at a staggered pace. Danny kept wriggling in John’s arms every time they passed a window, which fucking hurt considering one of his arms was still inside him. Wonder Woman opened the door to an open room in the med bay and gestured for John to enter. He walked in and carefully laid Danny down on the bed. The sterilized sheets started to instantly darken with blood. Z grabbed John a chair, thankfully, so he could stop squatting awkwardly and actually sit, leaving his one arm in Danny.
“So, any clue how to fix any of… that?” Green Arrow asked, not quite looking at Danny or John as he gestured vaguely at them.
“If I knew, do you think I’d bloody be here?” John snapped.
“John,” Zatanna said soothingly, “We’ll find a solution.”
“I have a solution,” Danny piped up. “Let me die.”
“No!” cried the majority of the heroes in the room.
Batman walked over to the side of the bed, looking down at Danny. “We’re not giving up just yet. There is no reason to believe that the most extreme option is the only option.” His tone was not as harsh as usual.
Danny blinked up at him. “It’s not that extreme,” he said after a beat.
“Not tha- kid, you’re asking us to fucking kill you!”
“Language.”
There was a noticeable pause as everyone looked over at Batman, who had, in fact, just chastised John for swearing. The man appeared to not notice, or not care.
“I forget you've got kids, Jesus,” John sighed, rubbing his face with his free hand. “Can someone do something to at least try and get my arm out of him? I'd rather not have to cut it off.”
“Danny, you density shifted which caused John’s arm to end up inside you. Can you do the same to get his arm out?” Wonder Woman asked gently.
Danny sighed, sounding frustrated. “I could. If you would just let me die.”
John tugged at his hair in frustration. “For the 15th fucking time, kid, we’re not letting you die.”
“Sorry I’m late. I heard there was a commotion.”
John looked up to see Captain Marvel poking his head into the room curiously. He looked at all the Justice League members in the room, eventually finding Batman. The Champion of Magic opened his mouth to say something before his gaze was pulled down to the bed. His eyes widened, his face going a little pale.
“Is he dead?” Captain Marvel asked.
“Not yet. They won’t let me,” Danny bemoaned.
“No shit we won’t let you. Marvel, this is Danny. He’s the vamp we’d been getting word of. ‘Cept he’s not a vamp.” John explained.
“Danny…” Marvel frowned slightly, his brows furrowed in thought. Suddenly, his face lit up in realization. “Oh! Danny!”
“You know him?” Batman asked, turning to look at Captain Marvel.
The other members of the Justice League moved out of the way to let him enter the room, Green Arrow straight up leaving the room.
Captain Marvel rubbed the back of his neck. “A little. We’ve never formally met. But I know of him. Hadn’t pieced it together that the vampire rumors were him, though. Sorry about that,” he said, smiling apologetically at Danny.
“It’s ok,” Danny said, waving him off.
“But the main thing I do know,” Marvel said, looking back at Batman, “is that Danny dying isn’t as bad as we think it is. It’s not like dead dead. Just mostly dead.”
“Mostly dead?” Wonder Woman asked.
“It means he’s slightly alive,” Flash grinned. At the several deadpan looks from other heroes, he cleared his throat. “It’s a Princess Bride reference.”
“Explain,” Batman demanded, stepping towards Marvel and ignoring Flash’s comment.
“Well, what I mean is that is Danny dies, it’s not like he’ll be fully dead. He’ll be ok after and we can treat the stab wound easier.”
“Yeah, what he said,” Danny agreed. “Can I die now?”
That question was directed at John. This wasn’t the sort of decision usually deferred to him. He had a reputation for letting people die, one which wasn’t unwarranted. But that didn’t mean that he wanted people to die, it just meant that he’d do whatever it took to get the job done. And it seemed like in this case, he had to let another person die.
John sighed. “Fine.”
Danny smiled and let out a sigh. Then, before anyone had the chance to try and object, Danny flickered. A ring of bright white light formed around his middle. Before John could even think of reacting (not that he could do much with his arm stuck in Danny’s chest) the ring split into two, one passing over the top half of his body, including John’s arm.
The feeling shot a jolt through his arm. It felt like electricity surged through his arm. Then the body around his arm felt different. It was no longer the warmth of a living person. It was cold. But not the same throughout. Towards the outside the body, it was cold as a corpse, which John did unfortunately have enough experience to know that. But in the center of Danny’s chest was so much colder. It was cold like the arctic tundra or the vacuum of space. It was so cold it hurt. It burned.
A tingle surrounded John’s arm and the pressure against him suddenly released. He moved his arm, quickly pulling it out of Danny’s chest when he wasn’t met with resistance. He rubbed his arm, which was pink, visible through the new holes in his coat and shirt.
“Thanks,” John muttered, looking back at Danny who looked different now.
His black hair had gone white, his blue eyes were vibrant green, and his jeans and t-shirt had changed into a one-piece black and white suit.
Fuck, that explained a lot.
Danny let out a sigh as he relaxed back into the bed. “That’s better.”
“Explain,” Batman demanded.
“Relax,” Captain Marvel said, stepping forward. “He’s not a threat. He’s a ghost, or at least partly. Which is why he wanted to die.”
“What he said,” Danny confirmed, waving a hand vaguely at Marvel.
John looked over at the kid’s chest. He could see where he’d stabbed him. The hole was still there but instead of being able to see his punctured heart, it was just green. And slowly stitching itself back together.
“This isn’t possession,” John added, because he knew at least one person was thinking it. He didn’t add that it wasn’t anything he’d seen before either. He’d never met someone who could be both alive and dead.
“Then what is it?” Flash asked, glancing around Wonder Woman.
“I would like to know that as well.”
“Can’t the interrogation wait? Kid’s tired. And I doubt he’s going anywhere.” John glanced at Danny who nodded in confirmation, his eyes closed.
“He’s an unknown.”
“He’s not a threat,” Marvel insisted, looking at Batman.
“Look, Bats, if you want the kid to not be left alone, I’ll stay here and keep an eye on him. Happy?”
The grunt Batman made was decidedly not happy, but it was acceptable. John sighed, watching the dark vigilante sweep out of the room. Others followed, though Wonder Woman, Zatanna, and Captain Marvel lingered.
“Inform us if you need anything.” Wonder Woman offered a smile before she left.
“You ok, John?”
“Yeah, I’m fine Z.”
She nodded. “Ok. Try not to stab him again.”
“Oi!”
Zatanna chuckled, heading out the door. She paused, halfway through and looked back. “I mean it.”
John rolled his eyes and watched her disappear. He turned his gaze towards Captain Marvel.
“You know him?”
Marvel shrugged, finding a chair and sitting. “More of know of him.”
“Good enough I guess.” He leaned back in his chair, watching the two out of the corner of his eye.
Marvel took a deep breath. “Well, if you need me, let me know, I guess. Feel better, Danny.”
Danny smiled. “Working on it.”
Marvel smiled back before quietly leaving the room. John sighed. It was going to be a long night.
John took another look around the room. The wards were good. Being in space meant less things to go after them, but less wasn’t zero. And this kid was half ghost, so rare as fuck, and hurt. John was going to be dammed before anything happened to the kid. Especially as he needed sleep too.
“There. Nothing is getting in or out without me knowing. And nothing should be able to get in that isn’t at least mostly human. Which means you’ll be safe. And if you try and bugger off, I’ll know.”
Danny nodded, watching as John sat back down in his chair. The teen chewed on his lip in thought as John pulled out his lighter to fiddle with. God, he wanted a smoke.
“Why do you care so much about my health?” Danny asked hesitantly.
John stopped flicking his lighter and looked over. “First of all, you’re a kid. And secondly, you’re only here because of me. I should have verified you were a vampire before I stabbed you. I want to fix my mistake.”
“No dissections?”
John froze. “What?”
Danny sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “You know, cut me open. Figure out how I work.”
When John didn’t immediately respond, he continued. “Thinking about it, it might be considered vivisection cause I’m partly alive.”
John’s brain and tongue finally started working as he registered what the fuck Danny was saying. “No! Wha-” he took a deep breath. He didn’t need to get angry at the kid.
“Danny, I need you to tell me why the hell dissection is even an option to you.”
Danny looked at him, confusion clearly visible on his face. “Because I’m weird?”
“Shit, if that was the qualification, then I would have been cut open a long time ago.”
Danny frowned, looking down. He chewed at his lip, contemplating. The amount of uncertainty this kid had over not being cut open worried John a lot.
“Danny, has anyone tried to cut you open like that?”
Danny shrugged, not meeting John’s eyes. “Yeah, a few times.” The way he said it made it sound like no big deal.
“Only tried, right? Never succeeded?”
Silence followed his question, twisting his gut uneasily. John’s fist clenched tightly around his lighter. He wanted to find whoever decided a fucking kid was a good test subject for their little science experiment. He wanted to have a few words with the fucker (or fuckers).
“Danny, I need you to promise me something.”
The teen nodded, looking at John confused.
“Never let anyone hurt you. If you’re in trouble, you call someone. Me, Superman, Marvel, bloody anyone! We’ll help, you got it? You’re a kid, not a frog in science class.”
Danny looked at him for a long moment before nodding. “Ok.”
John relaxed back into his chair. He’d have to get Danny a way to contact him, or other members of the Justice League, but he could do that when Danny didn’t have a hole through his chest.
“Besides, the frogs are usually dead. Or, well, deader.”
John turned slowly to look at Danny, feeling his eye twitch slightly. Danny was staring at the ceiling, oblivious.
“Though, Sam did get the frogs switched to fake frogs.”
“Kid.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not a frog.”
“Ok.”
John sighed, looking at the lighter in his hand. He had a lot of questions. Where had this kid come from? What had happened to cause him to be half dead? Who the hell wanted to dissect him? And what, if anything, was John going to do about it?
He turned, looking over at where Danny was. He’d closed his eyes, looking peaceful. He was still a ghost at the moment and glowed faintly, his hair swirling around his head. It had been decided that it was safer for him to stay a ghost until the hole closed up a bit more. Less risk of infection and he seemed to be healing faster like this. The Watchtower medical staff had still bandaged up his chest, stitching him closed as best they could. But there’s only so much you can do when someone is stabbed in the heart with a wooden stake.
John sighed, flipping the lighter closed before slipping it into his pocket. He was the reason this kid was in this position in the first place. He was going to stick around to make sure the kid got through it.
Then they could worry about everything else.