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Khandaq sun. Khandaq heat. The air is thick, the fruit laid out on the table dewy and ripe.
(Don’t eat the food.)
Booster is standing -- no, he’s seated. He’s always seated. His place is on one side of the table, the table where everything smells so nice, where every color pops and dances in the corner of his eye, making his mouth water.
(Don’t eat the food. Don’t eat the food and don’t drink the wine.)
Black Adam’s place is opposite. Always.
It’s okay, Booster tells himself. It’s okay. He’s had this dream before. So many times before.
(Maybe it isn’t a dream.)
(No, it’s a dream. It's a dream. He's had it before.)
- Look, Black Adam tells him in his sonorous voice, his king’s voice, and points to something behind Booster, who has to twist around in his massive carved chair to look.
He can see the dungeon. Somehow he can always see the dungeon from here. He sees his team, imprisoned. Maxi-Man and Echo and Reverb, and Reverb is bleeding. Reverb is dying.
No, not yet. Too fast.
(You’re always too fast.)
Reverb is fine, just hungry and cold in the dark.
He sees his team down there, and he sees the guard, huge and faceless, grab hold of Reverb and swiftly plunge his knife into him, splitting leather and skin and flesh, letting loose torrents of black blood.
It’s okay. He’s had this dream before.
- What kind of leader are you? Adam asks him coolly as Reverb falls to the floor, choking on his own blood, halfway ripped apart like a paper doll. - Sitting here playing games in the sunshine while your teammates are dying.
- No, no, Booster protests in a voice that doesn’t seem to carry more than a few inches in front of his mouth. - No, that isn’t how it happened. It's not true, I was there.
(How can I be there when I'm here?)
- That isn’t how it happened, Booster tells him again. He squints into the dungeon searching for his own silhouette, to see himself where he was, the place he's meant to be, but he can’t because he’s here. He keeps being here, and Reverb is dying because of it. Then he remembers, and the flash of relief feels like heavy sand flowing out of him. He holds up his hand, and the palm is split open like a blister, oozing dark gritty liquid down his wrist and arm.
His hand pricks and stings, but it's proof. Reverb is fine, and complete and not ripped apart at all. Even if he’s still there in the dungeon, locked up and cold and starving while Booster is up here with all the delicious food (Don’t eat) and Black Adam looking at him with disdain.
Yes, Booster's there now, both in the murky dungeon and the sunlit hall. Now the guard grabs hold of Booster instead and plunges his dagger into him, cold and sharp like an ice pick.
Yes. Good. Good. The way it’s supposed to be.
He’s had this dream before.
Black Adam laughs, each exhale syrupy and chilling. - Come on, who do you think you’re fooling?
The viscous gritty blood, like used motor oil, drips from Booster’s hand and stains the platter of oranges in front of him, pooling at the base, and he doesn’t want to eat them anymore. That’s good, too. He’s doing well.
- Look now, Adam points, and Booster twists in his seat again, his hand throbbing with ice-cold, sticky pain, and he sees himself down there. Not at the mercy of the guard, but in place of the guard, golden-gloved hands wrapped around the handle of the knife, plunging it down, pushing it with all his might, splitting soft skin just below a collarbone.
Whose collarbone? Michelle's.
No.
No, no, no, no. This isn’t how this dream goes.
- You're not allowed to change it now, Booster hisses, furious, to Black Adam or the room or the guard or himself or the fruit on the table. Whoever will listen. - This isn’t fair!
- This isn’t fair, Michelle gasps at him as he twists the knife in her, and he can feel both the handle in his hand and the cold metal edge in his chest and in his palm. She’s in her waitress’ uniform, she’s only sixteen. Her eyes are welling up as black gritty blood pours out from the wound. She cries, and he cries, because it hurts and it's not fair.
- No, I’m here! Booster tells them all, voice choked, unable to take his eyes off the scene. - You’re right, you were right all along, Adam. I’m here, I can’t be there. And when he looks it’s not him holding the knife, it’s Praxis. Praxis who wrinkles his ugly nose in disgust and plunges the serrated edge deeper into his sister, motor oil blood pouring out everywhere, dulling the blade.
Good. Good. Booster’s hand hurts and he cries and he’s grateful, because he’s here and not there, he’s not part of it. It was Praxis all along.
- Come on, Michael. Who are you trying to fool?
- Don't call me that. That's not me, I'm not him. Booster curls around his burst hand, and he wants to fly away, but his ring is covered by the oily ooze, he knows he’ll never find it. The tears fall and mingle with the gritty black blood, everything is wet with it, disgusting and slimy with it.
- Like you get to decide who you are? Listen when I talk to you, Michael! Concentrate!
He turns back to Black Adam, but it’s not Black Adam. It’s not, it’s his sister. No, it’s his mom. She’s tired from work and her knees hurt and she’s so angry with him, he’s ruining the food on the table with his blood and his tears, it’s all that they have and now they have to throw it all away.
- I’m sorry, he murmurs. Sorry. He tries to staunch the flow with his other hand, but it oozes between his fingers, it arcs further from the pressure, staining everything, ruining it. He's making everything worse. It's all they have.
- How can you do this to us? There’s crackling when she speaks, like a radio with a bad signal. He can't even remember her voice right. His own mom. She doesn't exist anymore, doesn't exist yet, and he can't remember her voice. - I always worked so hard for you, Michael. I wasted my life on you.
- I know, mom, he whispers, nauseous with shame. - I’m sorry.
- Selfish. You’ve been selfish since the day you were born, Michael. You always take, you always want. You take up so much space. And after everything, you forget the people who tore themselves apart for you.
He shakes his head desperately, trying to stop crying, choking on the tears and the blood. No. No, I don’t do that. I don’t mean to.
- Can’t even use your name. We’re all dead in the past (future) and you won’t even carry the name I gave you.
Michelle chokes and sputters behind him, dying, but he won’t look. He won’t look.
He opens his mouth to speak, but his mouth is filled with ripened flesh of the fruit on the table, sweet intermixing with the salt of his tears and the bitterness of the black oozing blood. He cries, choking on it, choking on all the food he wasn’t supposed to eat, the food he didn’t deserve to eat. He ruined it, he ate it. Now there’s nothing left for the others.
(Selfish since the day you were born.)
- You take up so much space. Like have you any idea how exhausting you are, Michael?
He looks up, still trying to speak, and it’s Ted. Ted on the opposite end of the table, in his costume, looking at him.
Booster’s glad, his heart fills with light (not sand, not fruit pulp, not motor oil). He’ll tell him this isn’t how it’s supposed to go, everything's all mixed up, and Ted will help him. Ted will figure it out.
- Oh, what a surprise! Ted makes a face. - I have to figure it out. I have to figure everything out for you, every fucking day.
No, no. - That wasn’t what I meant, Booster whispers, looking down at his hands, the burst one throbbing with pulses of pain that go all the way to his heart.
Ted snorts. - Well, what the hell did you mean, then? I swear, you should come with a manual.
- I just thought maybe you could help me, Booster tells him in a thin voice, fruit juice and blood running down his chin. - I can't get it right. I can't figure it out.
Ted claps his gloves hands together and chuckles for a long while. - See? That's the problem, you don’t even know how stupid you are. Too much of an idiot to realize you are one.
- No, I know I’m stupid, Booster murmurs, avoiding his gaze, his disgusting hand painting the room with black slime. - I know I’m stupid, that makes it okay.
Ted laughs. - Oh, you think that helps? Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to dumb everything down for you every day? How much you slow us all down?
Booster sobs and curls around his hand, his pounding, excruciating hand, closing his eyes, trying to figure it out himself, but he can't, he's so stupid. He only knows this isn’t how it’s meant to go. None of this is right. This is about the dungeon and the oranges and the knife and the
- Hey! Ted snaps his fingers at him, twice, loud, like his old English teacher used to do. - Hey! Concentrate! Christ, why can’t you ever concentrate? Why can’t you make a fucking effort, Michael? Ted's eyes are dark beneath his orange goggles, looking down at him. - You’re so far behind and you don’t even try to keep up.
(You always do this!)
It’s okay, he’s had this dream before.
(No, he hasn’t.)
Ted pauses, studying him for a moment, then he laughs. - What, you think you’ll seem smarter when you’re with me? You think having a brain is a sexually transmittable condition?
- Funny, Booster whispers, so disgusted with himself, with his hand, with the food he’s eaten which he wasn’t supposed to ever eat and he ate it and it was all they had.
- Yeah, always funny. Haha. Ted squints at him. - I’m just waiting for you to realize that you’re the punchline. You do know that?
No. No.
- See? I have to explain everything to you. Jesus, I’m so sick of it. You don’t know anything. You don’t know when people see you in the Justice League, you’re the clown. You’re the idiot we put there to make the rest of us look good.
Stop. Just stop it, please.
- You know what? I’m done feeling sorry for you, Ted continues. He continues and continues and continues. - You and me, what do you think I get out if it?
- Stop, Booster begs him, clamping his other hand around his wrist, trying to stop the flow and the pain, pain creeping up his arm into his shoulder, hurting hurting hurting so much his body feels like it’ll shatter. Everything hurts all the time it doesn't stop it doesn't stop. - Stop. Please. I love you.
- You and me, do you think I’m in it for the intellectual back-and-forth? The riveting conversation? Ted laughs and it's sharp and cold and sticky, painful like Booster's hand and arm and everything is, it hurts it doesn't stop nothing's stopping even though he wants it to. - All you can give me are a few good blow jobs and a fucking ulcer from nannying you every day.
(Why don’t you ever think?)
- Funniest thing of all is --
No. Stop. Stop it or I'll
-- you actually think I could love someone like you, you dumb shit! You crack me up!
His gloved hands on the knife again, the knife that was somehow still and always in his grip, pushing the serrated edge deep deep deep deep deep into Ted’s hand, his arm, his body splintering like balsa wood, he’s baring down and stopping it and he doesn't want it he doesn't want this as Ted claws at him trying to make him stop but he won’t he just want
“Booster!”
to stop it and his hand is cut to ribbons but he pushes the knife with everything in him and there's a sputter and choking and he knew all along, he knows how stupid he is and that makes it alright he knows he is
“Booster! Shh. Booster.”
Done.
It's dark. Pressure and warmth surrounding him. Booster's head is numb and dizzy, his body fizzing like TV static. He hears heaving gasps and panicked muttering and it takes him a few moments to realize they sound like his own voice.
“Boos, it’s okay, it’s okay. Shh.”
He swallows, and it makes his breath hitch, panting with parted lips, and he's already sitting up in bed, every muscle in him tensed, the prickling static in his arm, skin on fire, needles and pins that flows and spreads into his fingertips from where he laid on it.
“Ah. Ah, fuck,” he mutters, and his voice is hoarse from crying. He feels warm fingers curling gently around the back of his neck, a palm massaging the area between his shoulder blades.
“It’s okay, you’re here. You’re okay.”
He blinks in the darkness of his bedroom, a sliver of pale light on the wall above the closed curtains showing it’s very early in the morning. He forces his mouth closed and takes an uneven, shuddering breath, nostrils flaring, and finally turns his gaze to Ted sitting next to him in a dark yellow T-shirt.
“I’m sorry,” Booster murmurs, voice breaking. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. “I woke you up.”
Ted rubs an eye with two fingers and exhales softly, obviously groggy from sleep. “It's okay, I was just dozing.”
Something pricks and hurts in Booster, and not just the needles and pins in his arm. (Why don’t you ever think?) He tries forcing his breath calm, but the tears are still coming, wetting his face, and his body is heavy with embarrassment and heart-pounding stress. “I’m sorry,” he whispers again, hiding his face in his hands, trying to calm down everything tight and heavy and anxious inside him, but his body trembles and something like a sob forces its way out of his throat.
(Who are you trying to fool?)
“Hey,” Ted murmurs, wrapping a gentle arm around him, pulling him close, and he’s warm. And soft, and safe. “It’s okay. No, it's okay. Bad dream?”
Booster hesitates, then hooks his fingers together behind Ted, clinging to him like a child, and squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his cheek to Ted’s shoulder. This is good, isn’t it? This is real. “Yeah. Um, yeah. It was kinda...” Booster swallows, his mouth full of salty tears (Motor oil?). “Real bad.”
Ted exhales softly. “I could tell.” His voice is so gentle, murmured in his ear. Real. “Talk about it or don’t talk about it?”
“No, it was just --” Booster blinks, not letting go. The edges of the dream gradually dissolving like letters carved into beach sand, starting to get pushed away by real things. “The Khandaq one.”
“Again?” Ted trails a palm down Booster’s back, over his tank, and up again.
Booster snorts. “More or less. With some fun new variations.”
Ted sits back, looking at him. “No one died in Khandaq.” His voice is soft.
Booster nods, not looking at him. “I know.”
“Everybody made it out just fine. No casualties, no lasting damage.”
“I know.”
Ted shifts, reaching for Booster’s hand. “Except this.” He gently coaxes Booster’s fingers open, trailing a thumb down the scar in his palm. Then he closes his eyes and lifts it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against the healed skin.
It helps. A little bit.
His proof.
“I just thought I was done with it,” Booster mutters, careful not to pull his hand out of Ted’s gentle grip. "I haven’t had that stupid nightmare in ages. Months.” It feels like some kind of punishment. Like his mind is ambushing him now he's let his guard down.
“You’ve had a lot on your mind lately,” Ted tells him, gently massaging Booster’s hand with his thumb. It feels nice. Soft sensations in that palm pushing away memories of pain and stitches and endless bandage changes. “Not to mention some really unnecessary guilt.”
"Don't." Unnecessary, Booster thinks with a grimace. Like I'm just being silly. (Too much of an idiot to know you are one.) He shifts in bed and breathes in deep. "You've already told me."
"I know, I'm just saying --"
"Well, stop saying it." Booster pulls his hand away, and already he's angry at himself. Why is he trying to pick a fight with the one person who's trying to understand? The one person who's looking out for him?
He can hear Ted's calm breathing next to him in bed.
"No. I'm sorry," Booster clicks his tongue at himself, wipes his nose. His head feels all clogged up from crying. "I'm sorry, I'm just... I don't even know what I am. On edge." He finds Ted's hand again and holds it. "I'm sorry."
Ted smiles, regarding him in the dim light from the covered window. "Stop apologizing already. You don't have to apologize."
"Yeah, I'm sorr--" Booster catches himself and giggles weakly. Then he feels Ted's warm hands cupping his face, and Ted pulls him in for a soft, soft kiss. The familiar fullness of his lips against Booster's. Somehow he tolerates kissing Booster even now, when his face is all gross from tears and snot.
"I love you," Ted murmurs, and it feels like such a relief hearing it. For a moment his nightmare made him think he'd never hear those words again.
"I love you," Booster tells him back, though his voice is all broken and it comes out barely audible. Ted kisses him again.
"You'll feel better when we've got a real mission again," Ted tells him with a smile, sitting back, leaning against the headboard. "You know everybody's on edge during these quiet periods. You haven't even had a real chance to work after you got back."
Booster nods, because of course that's true, too. How can he prove himself when it's all quiet out there? Not even a cat that needs rescuing from a tree. "I was just so ready to get going again with the League," Booster mutters, looking up at him. "Where are all the evildoers all of as sudden? Is there a villain cruise out at sea or something?"
Ted giggles, trailing his hand along Booster's arm. "They heard you were back on the team, obviously. Every last one reformed the moment the news broke."
Booster snorts, wiping his face again with his hand.
Ted makes a soft noise. "Or maybe it's time I turned, you know. I could selflessly become a villain so you'll have something to do."
Booster twist and curls up to lean his upper back against Ted's chest, the back of his head resting on Ted's shoulder. "Mm. Evil Beetle. You'd have to dress in all black, of course. With copious amounts of eyeliner."
There's a snort, and Ted's arms wrap around him. "I could be your arch enemy. Kidnap you every other week."
"Uh huh." Booster smiles and settles deeper into Ted's embrace, curling a hand around his forearm. "You'd haul me off to your secret den and do unspeakable things to me."
"I was thinking more along the lines of tying you to the train tracks."
Booster slides further down and looks up at Ted's face. "Oh no, I'd be so mad at you if you tied me up and all you did was plop me down on some train tracks."
They both giggle, and it feels good to giggle, curled up together in the dimness of the early morning. Ted angles his head and presses a kiss to Booster's temple. "I think your arch enemy is supposed to make you mad."
"Not you," Booster murmurs, raising his hands and clasping them behind Ted's neck above him. "I'd make a show of resistance, of course. Unhand me, Black Beetle!" He scrunches his nose and giggles at the look Ted gives him. "But then when our hero friends would try to rescue me I'd tell them to fuck off, they're not cutting into my hapless victim time."
There's a soft giggle from Ted. "You know, you're starting to sound like you're into this."
Booster grins, the back of his head resting against Ted's stomach. "Oh, you have no idea." He stretches his neck while pulling Ted down for a lovely upside down kiss, and though he can't quite see him blush in the dark, he can feel the heat in Ted's face. Booster considers for a moment committing to some delicious escalation -- sitting up and kissing him deeper, pushing him down on his back and letting his hands wander. Flush out some of the jitteriness and nightmare tension with some head-clearing physical intensity, but it feels selfish. It's late -- or early -- and he already woke up Ted with his stupid dream.
Booster sits up, wiping the last traces of tears from his jaw. "Thank you," he murmurs. "You're always so good at... You know, calming me down. Distracting me. I really appreciate it."
Ted looks at him, and even in the darkness of the room Booster can see the gentle smile on his face. "Anytime, Boos."
"I really feel bad for waking you up."
"No, honest." Ted scratches a temple with his fingertips. "I wasn't asleep."
Booster smirks, not buying it. "Really? It's --" He glances at the squat rectangle of the electronic alarm clock on the nightstand. "Almost three thirty in the morning. You're saying you've just been lying awake next to me?"
"I don't know, I haven't been sleeping too good." Ted yawns, and Booster realizes -- even though it hasn't been too obvious now when the League's been sitting around twiddling their thumbs for a week, Ted has seemed a little more low-key. A little tired.
Booster regards him as well as he can in the low light. "Why? What's bothering you?" His first impulse is to ask: Is it me? Booster back on the team, everybody conscious of the abrupt way he left before. Does Ted feel responsible for him? That it's his job somehow, making the return as smooth as possible? (Nannying you every day!) But he stops himself, telling himself that Ted is allowed to feel things that don't revolve around him.
"Nothing." Ted grins and clears his throat. "It's really nothing. I don't know why I keep..." His voice trails off.
"Well, it seems like it's not nothing," Booster urges softly.
"No, just something Murray told me."
"At the club last week?"
Ted nods, not looking at him.
Booster waits for elaboration, but Ted seems hesitant, distant. "What, the secret identity thing?" Booster ventures with a smile. "You're still thinking about going public with your name?"
Ted stirs. "No," he chuckles weakly. "No, it's -- Apparently, uh... My dad’s had a heart attack.” There's no emotion in his voice. “He’s not... doing too well, apparently.”
“Oh.” Booster blinks. This is the first time he's heard of this. Almost two weeks and Ted hasn't told him something like that? “I’m sorry.”
That seems to send a small jolt through Ted and he turns and looks at him, frowning. “No, that -- that doesn’t feel like the right thing to say to me.” He pulls his fingers through his short hair. “I don’t know. I feel like I don’t deserve sympathy for it. It’s not anything to do with me.” He exhales sharply, something between frustration and a chuckle. "No, it has absolutely nothing to do with me, really."
Booster twists in bed and reaches over to turn on the lamp on the nightstand. This doesn't feel like a conversation to be held in the dark. "Do you know when it happened?"
"Not exactly, but not too long ago. A few months, perhaps." He blinks in the warm light. "I mean, why am I even wasting calories thinking about it?" Ted turns to look at him, an anxious tension in his forehead. "We aren't even family anymore -- by his own wish! He might as well be a total stranger to me. Some random old bastard out there is sick, why should that bother me?"
Booster frowns at him, lips parted as he tries to figure out how to handle this. “That’s -- Ted, I don’t know what to say.”
“You think you’ve got it bad?” Ted makes a face like he’s about to burst into laughter. “I don’t even know how to feel about it!”
Booster regards him for a moment. “Like, what was your first reaction? Sad feelings or happy feelings?”
“I don’t know,” Ted mutters, massaging his shoulder with a restless hand. Then he blinks and gives Booster a look. “I’m not happy my dad is sick, Booster.”
“Fuck, sorry. Sorry, that wasn’t what I meant,” Booster tells him softly. (You dumb shit.) “I mean more --”
“Like, I -- I don’t think anyone deserves something like that, obviously,” Ted continues abruptly, something distant in his eyes. “But there was, like, a... A tiny thing inside me that went, ‘Yeah, serves him right’.” He looks at Booster and chuckles weakly. “That’s really fucked up, right? I'm such a horrible person.”
“You’re not,” Booster tells him earnestly. “You two just have a complicated relationship. I get it.”
"I just don't know." Ted gestures limply. “Like when I heard, I was -- I don’t know, I was everything. I felt every kind of thing. Shocked. Sad. Guilty and angry and, and I guess even... kinda hopeful? For a minute. Like dad would lie in his bed and regret everything and send for me to, to apologize to me.” He tilts his head back and laughs, but there’s something strained in his voice. “Like some kind of Oscar bait movie. God, I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re not,” Booster tells him again, frowning at him. “You’re allowed to react, Ted. For fuck’s sake. It doesn’t say anything about you.”
Ted's never been keen to talk much about his dad, but through the years Booster feels he's been able to piece some of the narrative together. Ted's dad, demanding perfection and top results all through Ted's life; a fraught relationship put under a lot more strain when they went from father and son to boss and employee as well. And then a catastrophic climax when the Blue Beetle's enemies targeted K.O.R.D Industries -- Blue Beetle so busy saving lives Ted Kord was noticeably missing in the company's hour of need, assumed to have only saved himself, endangering his colleagues and employees. A bad look at a point where the same Ted Kord was already a media punching bag for failing as head of his department. Then his dad publicly cutting his ties with him, the newspapers salivating at the family drama.
Booster knows some of that pain, the public humiliation. Newspapers not only gloating at your misfortune, but constantly repeating how you deserved everything that came to you. Well, okay, Booster deserved it, he fucked up, made some terrible mistakes. But Ted, most of what they said about him wasn't true at all. He would have cleared his name if he'd revealed his secret identity, and he couldn't.
“I guess I was just so used to thinking about him like this... This unchanging character out there somewhere.” Ted glances towards the blinds. “It was a lot easier to just quietly go on hating him like that. But now he might, I guess, die and I’m just -- What am I supposed to do? What’s the protocol here? Last time we spoke he said he was finally done with me, good riddance.”
Booster exhales softly through his nose, pondering. “I don’t think there’s a protocol, Teddy. You should do what feels best for you. You don’t owe him anything.” Like Booster didn’t owe his own asshole dad anything. What is it with fathers, and the hole they leave inside you? Why do you keep carrying that grief with you, that they weren't what they were meant to be?
Ted wipes his face, grinning. “I keep imagining, like, showing up in his room, popping in through the door like ‘Hi dad! Last chance, you wanna say goodbye like a fucking adult this time?’. Just... gloating at him.” He chuckles. “Like the fucking monster of a son I am. Proving him right, I guess.”
Booster looks at him, because this too feels so familiar. The guilt and resentment and every past emotion whirling up like a dust cloud the moment you realize you probably won't ever get any kind of closure. When you realize endings aren’t like in the movies, things aren’t neatly tied up and forgiven and resolved. Most times things just end, and you’re left standing there, alone and hurt, and then you have to go to work the next day.
He can't figure what words to say that'll show Ted that he understands, that he's been and keeps being right where Ted is now, for so many things in his own past. He can't find a way to say something like that that doesn't sound trivializing, or even patronizing, so he shifts forward and gently wraps his arms around Ted, hugging him close, and Ted’s body stiffens for a second in a way Booster hasn't felt him hesitate in months.
Ted chuckles bitterly. “God, he’d really hate this,” he whispers in a strained voice, grinning. “He’d throw a fucking fit if he saw me like this. Hate me even more than he does.”
“He can’t see you,” Booster murmurs, and then, defiantly, he presses a soft kiss to Ted’s temple.
“Maybe that’s what I should do,” Ted continues, his shoulders easing down a little bit, lifting his arms to hold Booster back, resting his cheek on his shoulder. “Just... Tell him everything! ‘Hey dad, I’m --’ “ He inhales sharply, like he’s choking on words that still refuse to come out.
Booster doesn’t mind. Those words aren’t important right now.
"With a guy." Ted lets his hands drop to his lap and sits back, a strange light in his eyes. “God, that would completely ruin his day. Finish him off, probably. Or you know, I could tell him who I am, my work. Rub it all in, finally.” He wipes his face with a restless hand. “Oh, I fucking hate that, you know. He thinks I’m just some unemployed loser, that not even the competition would want me.”
Booster's never seen Ted like this, thoughts and worries flowing out of him in this way, like Booster's do when he gets too caught up in his own head. In a way it feels... Comforting. In a strange way it makes him happy, because Ted is comfortable enough around him to spill out his feelings like this in the night.
“So fuck what he thinks,” Booster tells him softly, worried for a moment that Ted might bristle at Booster talking that way about him.
“Not that he’d approve of what I do at all, really," Ted continues, unaffected. "I guess hero work, that’s... That's about the same as if I’d run away to join the circus. Or be an actor or something. He never liked masked heroes. No status in it. I think he thought it was all a bit suspect." He lifts his chin, and intones in an unfamiliar voice: "Not the kind of thing a Kord should stoop to.” Then he chuckles, shifting in bed, flopping down on his back and staring at the ceiling.
"You've been thinking about this all week?" Booster murmurs, reaching out a hand and petting Ted's hair.
"Not all the time." Ted sighs and stretches, meeting Booster's hand. "I mean, Murray told me and I felt... Weird about it, but you know, we got drunk and I could push it away. And then after that, I mean, a lot of time it doesn't bother me. It's just... Information. Neutral. And then other times, I get all --" He snorts, massaging the bridge of his nose. "Why am I even wasting energy on this? Why am I giving him that satisfaction?"
"Well, it's not like he knows that it bothers you. I won't tell him," Booster smirks, not trying to guess why Ted might be haunted by this, though he has his suspicions. Maybe it's because Ted's been too good at pushing these feelings away for so long. Maybe it's because their parting, the disowning, was so painful. Maybe it's because he doesn't feel what he thinks he should feel.
The curse of parents is that even years after you last spoke, they can still push your buttons.
"Why do I keep wondering if I -- I owe him this?" Ted makes a face at the ceiling. "Like I try to do good. I try to be a... somewhat selfless person."
"You are," Booster murmurs, stooping down to press a quick kiss to Ted's forehead, his short curls tickling his nose. One of the kindest, most considerate people in both centuries Booster has existed in. Such an unbelievably wonderful person he doesn't mind comforting and kissing his boyfriend in the middle of the night after horrific nightmares.
"So -- why am I the bad guy here, if I don't want to be the bigger person, try to reconnect? Forgive and forget, isn't that what a hero should do?" He pauses, suddenly looking up at Booster with pleading eyes, waiting for an answer.
Booster stutters, caught off guard because he sees how much Ted yearns for a simple solution. "Look. Ted," Booster begins, frowning down at him. "Forgiving people who mistreated you aren't part of the job description. Nobody's making the world a better place by being a complete doormat."
Ted makes a noise at the back of his throat, and it pains Booster that he doesn't seem content with that answer. "I mean, he's not... A supervillain. He was my hero when I was a kid, you know? Taught me... to build things. Metalworking, making blueprints, applied mathematics, physics. He's not actively evil, set on world domination, or -- or physically abusive, at least when I knew him. He's just..." He closes his eyes and smiles awkwardly, though his voice wavers a little as he says it: "A really shitty dad."
Booster shuffles on his side, sitting up on his elbow close to Ted while he continues slowly petting those soft auburn curls. Tonight's the most Ted has talked uninterrupted about his past since they met. All these worries and guilts and counter-arguments tumbling out him -- it pains Booster to think how much they must have weighed him down, not only after last week but somewhere deep inside him for years.
"While I -- I try to be a good guy," Ted continues abruptly, inhaling between his teeth. "I try to make a difference, but I've always had this nagging thought, like --" Something like an exhausted giggle escapes him. "I mean, the Kords... Talk about a legacy of assholes. Just chock full of horrible people. Uncle Jarvis, dad... My grandfather was a real piece of work, let me tell you. So why --”
“Ted.”
“So why shouldn’t I carry on the family tradition?" He gestures weakly at the ceiling. "Maybe you were right, back then. Maybe there are things that are... Encoded in me, in my DNA. Parts I can't hide or-- or suppress, and I'm only kidding myself. Why should I pretend I’m better than them?”
“Ted,” Booster tells him softly again. He waits until Ted's gaze meets his. “You're not a horrible person. You're not. You're nothing like what you've told me about them."
Ted makes a face. "Yeah, but you only know my side of it. I could just have, like, the world's most skewed perspective."
Booster exhales, feeling a smile creep into his expression. "Well, no matter what they're like, I don't think you're anything close to a bad person." He leans down, pressing a kiss to Ted's lip. "And you're just going around in circles right now.”
If there's one thing Booster knows inside and out, it's when your mind gets stuck in the same groove, tearing you a down a little more every time it makes a lap. A feedback loop that convinces you if you just stick with it a little longer, it'll resolve itself, and it never does, it only gets worse, more stuck in the circle it's carved out for itself.
Ted presses his palms against his face, elbows pointed up at the ceiling. “I'm sorry, I'll be okay again in the morning. Like, I thought I was handling it. I thought I'd... put it aside.”
“Look, you’re not gonna figure anything out at --” Booster squints at the clock on his nightstand. “Four in the morning.”
Ted doesn’t move, doesn’t uncover his face. “I know. I know. Doesn't stop me from trying.”
“Hey, it’s, um --” Booster pauses, trying to get his bearings. “Tuesday? No, Wednesday. You know, channel 89’s showing old goofy sci-fi movies right now.” He shuffles to the edge of the bed. “Come on.”
This time Ted lowers his hands, looking at Booster with a disbelieving frown. “How do you know that?”
Booster offers a grin. “Spent my fair share of sleepless nights alone in this apartment.” This apartment he used to hate, but which he now can't quite bring himself to get rid of, even if he spends most of his nights in his old room at the Embassy these days. But with Ted, these rooms have become a little oasis, a little area that feels almost something like home. Even if they have to come up with excuses why Ted stays over every so often, now they're both on the same team; Making a big show of going out to party, crashing at Booster's place because it apparently was closer to where they were, or planning rowdy movie marathons that would only have kept their teammates up with all the noise. "Come on, channel 89 awaits."
Ted regards him, something softening in his face. “We've got work in the morning.”
“Another day of sitting around waiting for a distress call that doesn't come, probably. And you’re not gonna fall asleep like this anyway.” Booster smiles, reaching a hand under the covers and grasping Ted’s ankle, pulling gently at it to make his point. “Might as well laugh at terrible fifties' special effects while we’re up.”
Ted sits up on his elbows, frowning. “Look, you can’t stay up for my sake. I don’t want you to be exhausted tomorrow just because I can’t stop obsessing about--" He makes a face. "Family issues.”
“Mm,” Booster smiles, rubbing an eye and stretching. “Like I’m gonna let you have all the fun. I still got some strawberries in the fridge too, they're just gonna get moldy, if they aren't already.” He nods and pulls more resolutely on Ted’s ankle, who finally shuffles to the edge of the bed and sits next to him.
“Fuck,” Ted chuckles, wiping his face with a self-conscious grin. “Alright, then.” He wraps an arm around Booster, body warm and soft, and presses a kiss to his cheek. “You really are the real brains of this operation, you know that?”