Chapter Text
The world is more full and much bigger than you thought.
So being back on the Pacific coast is a strange thing, but not the worst. The oceans are so, so big and the sun so bright. Skating along the Japanese islands and hopping across to the Malay archipelago showed you giant monsters and giant humans or giant aliens, soft robots and robot monkeys and colorful squads of people with ancient alien powers, and strange but not alien creatures.
So many things that aren’t ghosts. But are super and hero.
It hurt to watch. But you did — watched, that is. Just looked at all that which is larger than life, and felt really, really weird about it.
Until… a big city, Mumbai? A boy in blue overhead, and then a voice in your ear.
Aren’t you interesting? Come here.
You don’t remember much after that. Bits and pieces — for a while. Bars. Lashing rain. Howls and shrieks, and, and.
Then trees. A breath you didn’t need, and clawed runs in your cape, the one thing of you not actually made of ectoplasm.
And now —
“Hey, got breakfast!” calls a voice, and you peek out from under the wrinkle hem of your cape. “I know you’re awake! C’mon!”
Zak stands below your place on the arch, a plate of burritos in hand. Komodo prowls by his feet, eyes on the food, while Fiskerton looms by the door to the room, glowering. You feel the briefest feather of assurance, a strange power that isn’t meant for ghosts.
Because you're a ghost, not a cryptid.
With a bitten off sigh, you run your hands hard over your face before flipping your cape back over to slip to a slow float down. Zak grins wide at your thump to the floor, and presses the plate into your hands. You match it, though it’s … not your best.
Komodo slips close, and you raise your arms as he lunges for the plate, falling through you with a thud.
“Hey, no, not for you!” Zak yelps at the motion, surprised. “Komodo — wait, you can see him when he’s invisible?”
“Yes,” you say, tilting your head. Then dump the food to the floor anyway to Komodo’s hiss of delight. “I don’t think light passes through him.”
Zak frowns, conflicted. “That was your breakfast,” he repeats. "Aren't you hungry?”
Handing him back the plate, you shrug. “I’ve never been hungry.”
Fiskerton chitters, and Zak shakes his head, continues with, “Well… Mom wanted to see you after you ate, if you feel up to it…”
“Okay,” you agree, because they’ve all been so… nice to you. “Lead the way!”
And it’s not terribly far to go. Zak takes you from his bedroom to the kitchen, full of gleaming appliances. Through the large windows, Zon basks in the sunlight out on the terrace. In a way, it only, kinda, sorta, reminds you of —
“Wow,” Drew starts at your entrance, turning from the stove and hiss of grease, "finished already boys? Still hungry? I can whip up some more —”
“No, Mom, he’s not hungry,” Zak interrupts, hopping up onto a stool at the island counter. You float hesitantly after to settle next to him, Komodo at your heels. Fiskerton still hovers several feet behind. “Apparently not ever? Komodo ate the burritos.”
Intrigue yet concern marrs the woman’s face. “Well, that’s not good for his stomach,” she says, casting brief attention back to the pan in her hand to shift around what looks like eggs. “Please don’t feed Komodo any more people food, alright?”
Oh.
“S-Sorry!” you yelp, though Komodo looks entirely too pleased despite the reprimand. “I won’t, I promise!”
Because cryptids are more animal than people. And you can have people food because you’re close enough, they assume, anyway. Because you told them you can eat, just not that you were never hungry.
Drew chuckles. “It’s alright, Komodo is very convincing.” Fiskerton says something that makes Zak laugh. “No need to rub it in, Fisk. And get your butt over here, you’re being rude.”
That gets a grumble, but you watch as he closes the distance at her words, your hands finding purchase in the torn side of your cape. A gorilla cat, they said. A cryptid. Not a ghost — because they’re cryptozoologists. And don’t understand why Zak’s cryptid-related powers sorta work on you.
Don’t understand how V.V. Argost charmed you much like other cryptids before.
You have an idea, but. You don’t know if you like it.
“ — how old are you?” she’s asking all of a sudden, all eyes expectant and on you. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
You don’t… think you do.
He was fourteen. Maybe you're only four or five about now. Either way, you're objectively young by ghost standards when there's forever. New, still, though, but not a baby.
Definitely not a baby.
But you'll always be fourteen or something until you suddenly aren't. Probably.
“I don't know how to answer your question,” you offer honestly, beaming, and feel a tear widen under your fingers.
Drew doesn't look like she knows what to do with that answer either, a minute frown marring her face as she glances between you and Zak. “Well, I suppose… yes, that would be a hard question, huh? Okay, how about this: do you know how long ago you were born, and if you're considered young among your kind?”
You abort a frown. “I'm not a baby,” you say, and that, weirdly, makes her smile as Zak snickers. “I can exist for forever. It just hasn't been that long.”
“Are you like a lobster?” Zak asks, smirking, but.
“Yes.”
“Huh,” Drew says, eyes roving your person. Much like when all of the other creatures fled into the jungle and you didn’t. “Interesting.”
Because they've never met something quite like you.
But they don’t. There’s something just — different. About them. She says interesting and it doesn’t make the hair along the back of your neck stand on end. Doesn’t remind you of the need to be careful and to keep all the lies straight. The weight of failure when papers came back marked red, red, red.
It makes you think of them but not. And it makes you feel like —
If you didn’t want to smile it’d be okay.
Is it wrong to like the people before you more than the ones he knew?
A lump catches in your throat. Then something heavy and furred drops onto your shoulder, a hot, smelly breath pressing in on your cheek. You go still as Fiskerton grumbles, then. Purrs.
The vibration isn’t quite right — quicker, audible to all of those around you for the most part, but it’s. Enough. Out from in, your core returns the hum.
“Whoa,” Zak says, his eyes going golden. ‘What’s that?”
You don’t know how much you want to share with them. Apparently anyone can just figure out the past if you tell them you’re from Illinois, so you’ve not said much. Not enough, by Doc’s mumbles, but you drew a quick line at No tests! because he, they, do want them, but even if they’re nicer, maybe even… better, that’s too much still.
They all love each other a lot. You see it in the easy ribbing and care — with nothing overshadowed by molecule by molecule it all feels so different.
And you know they all loved each other too, loved him, but you… were, are, different. Ghosts are different.
So, you only lie a little by saying I don’t know.
“Looks like Fiskerton’s approval to me,” Drew says.
“Approval for what?” you ask, confused, maybe even a little suspicious.
“To be a Saturday, of course; it’s best if this sorta thing is unanimous,” comes Doc’s voice from an opposite doorway. You blink at his winked blue eye. “How about it, kid?”
Huddling down, you dart your gaze from one to another, gray hair getting in one eye as Fiskerton follows.
You liked the Titans. You liked them a whole lot — but this… also feels different. You’re not sure why exactly.
Or why you say Okay, or why that makes them all so happy in yet one more different way.
It’s weird.