Mooooore fanfic

[eliyes]

This was a little something I thought up, then let rot in my notebook because I was unhappy with the ending, and then when I typed it I changed the ending and went on to begin a continuation. It's not slash, but it could be, if you wanted it to. Just sayin'. Enjoy?

Pressing Concerns

 

They’d been taken off-guard.

 

The attack on K.O.R.D.’s New York research labs had seemed like aggressive industrial espionage, or perhaps a criminal group hoping to score some prime equipment. So of course Ted Kord, a.k.a. the Blue Beetle, had gone to investigate. Booster Gold, his fellow JLAer and best bud, had gone with him.

 

But the thieves had been slick operators, already loading stolen goods into an experimental hovercraft they intended to steal, K.O.R.D. personnel lying unconscious all around the place thanks to a hefty dosing with sleep gas.

 

Booster had engaged them, his force field calibrated to protect him from the gas. Beetle had tried to block their escape in the Bug, hoping to avoid shooting down his invention.

 

Neither of them had expected to be dealing with magic. Most magic-users they knew wouldn’t steal technology; they’d go for the ancient mystic whozawhatsit in the museum or something like that.

 

It had probably been an earth elemental. The ground had risen up against them, slamming into the Bug first. Beetle had had to abandon ship, and Booster had flown in to catch him.

 

That’s when the very rocks and soil below had grabbed them and pulled them down. If not for Booster’s force field, they’d have been ground like pepper in a mill, as they were forced down through what might have been miles of rock.

 

Now, they’d stopped. Booster’s force field still protected them, keeping them from being crushed.

 

That was the good news.

 

The bad news was that he wasn’t sure how much longer the field could withstand this kind of pressure, they were trapped in a space not much bigger than a phone booth, and they were soon going to run out of air if Beetle didn’t shut up.

 

Booster tried a few times to interrupt his friend’s outraged ranting, and he dearly wished he could just clamp a hand over his mouth. Unfortunately he’d had his arms around Beetle from catching him, and now they were trapped under both of them. They were falling asleep, in fact.

 

So, without a hand, Booster found another way. He turned his head to the side and squashed his cheek against Ted’s face. It wasn’t spot on -- they weren’t lined up quite right -- but it did the trick.

 

“Mmphmng mghmm!” Beetle protested. Booster let up.

 

“Are you trying to kill me?!” Beetle yelled.

 

“You’re using up the air.” One look at Booster’s desperate and grim expression drove the fact home for the other hero.

 

“Oh, god.”

 

Booster grunted. He didn’t believe in god. In his time, there was a religion dedicated to Superman, and the Man of Steel would be the first to assure you that he wasn’t a god, just a powerful alien. Booster figured all so-called gods were the same.

 

“Maybe they’ll get Superman to look for us with his x-ray vision,” Booster suggested.

 

“If we’re not under a few tonnes of lead, it might work,” Ted agreed.

 

Silence again. It wasn’t a good silence. Both of them preferred to talk, joke during tough situations like this, especially Beetle. But even if Booster could have recalibrated his force field to let in whatever air might reach them through the rubble -- which he couldn’t, arms trapped and all -- there was the possibility that what they’d get would be from a pocket of poisonous gas. They had to conserve air, because they were fresh out of canaries.

 

Booster was laying full length on top of Beetle, more or less, so he was in a very good position to gauge how tense his friend was. It probably wasn’t good for Beetle to be so tense. He was probably pumping all kinds of blood to clench his muscles that hard.

 

The silence dragged on, ponderous and heavy as the weight of the earth threatening to squash them. Both of them tried to breathe slowly, shallowly. Booster was practically meditating, but Beetle’s mind was in a whirl. And finally he managed to think his way past the rage and frustration and fear enough to come up with an idea.

 

He started to wriggle, trying to get his hand into the pocket of his belt that held his JLA communicator.

 

“Stop that,” Booster said sharply. Beetle ignored him, continuing to try to get his body angled so that he could find and open the correct protected compartment. Hopefully the communicator hadn’t been damaged. If only there were a little more elbow room.

 

“Stop!” Booster said, and the tone of his voice was like a slap in the face.

 

Beetle stopped, looking at his friend curiously. Booster was sweating.

 

“You’re rubbing against my crotch,” Booster informed him through gritted teeth. “Which won’t help me conserve air.”

 

“Oops,” Beetle said. Well, that was embarrassing. But...

 

“I’m trying to get to my communicator,” Beetle explained apologetically.

 

Booster sighed. It was a good idea. He did his best lift himself up off his friend. Beetle checked his belt as quickly as he could.

 

It wasn’t in any of the front or side pockets.

 

Well, no help for it. He had three pockets around the back to check. He lifted his hips and tried to be quick.

 

Booster made a startled noise, hitting his head on top of the force field defined area.

 

“Sorry! Sorry,” Beetle said hastily. Booster was, er.... warm. Booster desperately replayed in his head the last football game he’d watched.

 

“Eureka,” Beetle muttered, dropping down again. After a moment longer, Booster relaxed enough to also settle back down. He could hear Ted trying to work the communicator blind with his off-hand.

 

Booster tried to maneuver himself so that beetle could at least get a look at the device. After much wriggling, squashing, and fumbling (and a lot more thinking about football), this was achieved.

 

“Blue Beetle to JLA.” Pause. “Blue Beetle to JLA, this is an emergency.” Nothing. “Your force field wouldn’t stop this, would it?”

 

“No.”

 

“Great. Well, the reception around here sucks.”

 

“Figures.” They were both trying not to pant now. The air was thick and warm.

 

“I’m going to set it to broadcast a continuous distress beacon. With luck, they’ll find us before the battery runs out.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Beetle tightened his arms around Booster in a hug, and the blond dropped his head down next to Beetle’s. They were both scared. They both knew there wasn’t much air left. They both knew Guy Gardner was on monitor duty.

 

They were probably doomed.

 

“Hey,” Beetle said softly. “You’re alright.”

 

“Ted, you aren’t dying here,” Booster replied, voice thick with emotion. “I won’t let you. It’s not your time.”

 

“What are you going to do, hold your breath?”

 

Silence.

 

“Don’t you dare!”

 

“Shh. Not so loud.”

 

“If you die, I will kill you!”

 

“Okay, Ted.”

 

“...You know how I’m going to bite it?”

 

“I didn’t say that.”

 

“Do you?”

 

“Not... exactly. I just. You can’t die yet. There’s... stuff that has to happen first.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Ted...” Booster really didn’t want to talk about it. Nevermind that they shouldn’t be talking now, anyway; they both needed to.

 

“Come on.”

 

“...Superman.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“He’ll ... he’ll die. Before you do.”

 

Beetle was stunned into silence. Well, silence broken by labored breathing. They were both sweating now, clammy, dizzy.

 

“I’ll... tell you more... later.”

 

“’Kay.”

 

That was the last they said. Beetle clasped his hands tightly around Booster’s back. Hard to say who went first, or whether they passed out or fell asleep... At any rate, neither was conscious when a giant scoop made of green energy lifted the last of the rock off of their golden pocket of refuge.

 

“And once again, Guy Gardner saves the day!” Guy crowed. He did a little victory dance midair in the vertical tunnel he’d made. Then, having gotten no response, he frowned at the immobile bodies.

 

“Ring. Assess life signs.” He pointed his fist, and a green beam played over the pair of heroes. It was soon apparent that this tactic wouldn’t work. Guy muttered a curse against yellow. And Booster. And little blue smarty-pants aliens.

 

Since he couldn’t breach the force field directly, he instructed his ring to scan the debris he’d created in getting down here for something that would work against the force field if he put enough power behind it, without turning his teammates into so much chunky salsa. He noticed that they didn’t seem to be breathing, and a burst of willpower had the ring producing both a sharp stone spike, and a target hovering over the weakest point of the force field (judging by shape) in a matter of milliseconds.

 

“YAAAH!” Guy hollered, as energy from his ring smashed the rock into the force field. Somehow, it worked, and the field fizzled out of existence.

 

A sudden gasp as air was sucked into oxygen-starved lungs.

 

One pair of lungs.

 

Blue Beetle breathed, his mind coming back to consciousness and bringing with it a doozy of a headache. If he’d had the energy, he would have winced at the noise of a power ring blasting and disintegrating rock beside him, would have protested as his weakened arms were forced apart and the heavy, still weight of his friend was lifted off of him.

 

After another few breaths of wonderful, life-giving, strangely sandy-tasting air, he managed to turn his head.

 

At first he thought he was hallucinating. Surely that could be the only explanation for the sight of Guy Gardner bent over Booster Gold, lips pressed to his. But then Guy lifted his head , and began pumping Booster’s chest with his hands. the Green Lantern was cursing and swearing, and the ringing in Beetle’s ears subsided just in time to hear “--ammit, Gold, BREATHE!”, and then Guy was again pinching Booster’s nose, trying to force air into his lungs.

 

It was through a veil of shock, horror, and denial that Beetle watched Guy try to resuscitate his best friend. That couldn’t be Booster lying there so still, so hideously unmoving as Guy labored over him. Not energetic, lively Booster. It couldn’t be.

 

It seemed like time slowed, and the world narrowed to just the cycle of Guy’s actions. Everything was distorted. Beetle was unaware of the energy bubble flying the three of them. His ears did not hear anything but the huff of Guy’s breath, his strangely muffled cursing, straining as he was for that one sound, the sound of Booster inhaling on his own. It seemed like forever between his own breaths, eternity between heartbeats.

 

At last, at last it came. He heard the gasp, saw Booster’s chest inflate, and then shudder with coughing. Relief washed over him and he fainted.

 

Next came a confusion of paramedics, emergency room, hospital. It was all a blur. Little plastic tubes were inserted in unpleasant ways, but brought sweet, fresh, pure oxygen. Booster was too weak to even protest. Beetle worried about this until sleep overtook him. His sleep was punctuated now and then by voices; someone telling Guy he’d done the right thing, and Guy tiredly replying that he was just glad he’d kept up his First Aid training; J’onn’s deep, soothing voice urging him to sleep; and again, later, Batman repeating the same with a whispered promise that both he and Booster were going to be fine.

 

The morning dawned bright and clear, and eventually the sunlight penetrated the hospital room where the two heroes had been put. Beetle groaned, opening his eyes but shielding them with the back of a hand. Mercifully, he didn’t have a headache.

 

“Ted!” came an urgent whisper from the door. He turned his head to look, and saw a familiar face framed by snow white hair in a pageboy cut smiling at him. Ice wiggled her fingers at him. He smiled and tipped his hand in a sorry excuse for a wave. She was gone from view before he realized she was guarding them.

 

A nurse came to check on him, and Beetle made a subpar attempt at flirting with her. Fortunately, this woke Booster, and even though he was hoarse and still weak, by the time she left she’d given the blond hero her phone number. Water and orange juice were soon brought in, along with what might possibly be meant to be breakfast of some kind. They suffered through this trial -- actually, mostly Beetle suffered; Booster barely noticed how bland the food was. He napped while Beetle read, and by the time he woke up again, Beetle couldn’t take it any more.

 

Slipping out of the hospital bed was a challenge, but Beetle had gotten out of worse, and was soon leaning over Booster.

 

“You said you’d tell me about Superman,” he said, voice low. Booster groaned.

 

“I was hoping you’d forget.”

 

“Don’t hold your breath.”

 

An awkward pause followed this ill-chosen cliché.

 

“...You better not have.” Ted muttered. Booster shrugged.

 

“I don’t remember.” This earned him a suspicious look.

 

“Answer me honestly?”

 

“Depends.”

 

“Do you know how you’re going to die, Booster?”

 

They stared at each other for a quiet, tense moment. Then Booster nodded.

 

“Tell me.”

 

“In my sleep.”

 

 

 

Comments

[covenhouse-cat.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I love it!
Just filled with great moments.

One question: I assume this takes place before Superman's "death" of the early-mid nineties?

I think the ending is fine. You don't need a big slap of an ending to a sweet, moody little story like this. It's quiet. That's okay. Good, in fact.

I love the cameos of people-- for a moment, I thought Ice was a ghost, but then I realized you had set the story in the past.

Please post it over on Boostle, eh? It's too quiet over there.

[teriyakibroth.livejournal.com]

"They were both scared. They both knew there wasn’t much air left. They both knew Guy Gardner was on monitor duty."
I love that! It is an excellent way to express their attitude towards Guy.
The ending is great. It's a wonderful way to end a one shot, or even a first chapter should you choose to continue it.