OTC 45.5: The Lost Boys

[notarrowette]

on_thecouch 45.5: The Lost Boys (originally 14.4); muse_shuffle March 2009, disk 2, song 17:

Music changes but the dance steps don't
When the good die young
[‘Good Die Young' – Divinyls]


Everyone has nightmares. Bad dreams. Things that wake them up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and shaking. Cissie's no exception.

The problem with her worst nightmares is that they aren't just her imagination at work.

They happened.



It's chaos. The world is ending and everyone knows it. People are panicked and injured and Metropolis is falling apart around them. Cissie hasn't slept since she hopped on a bus two days ago and headed for the city in a desperate attempt to do something. All of her friends are out there, in the middle of all that, and she wasn't. She couldn't. It made her sick, watching the news. Every time she heard the word "Titans" her throat closed up and she couldn't breathe. She couldn't just sit at home and do nothing. Elias was closed, and she had nowhere else to go, and nothing to do. If she couldn't help with a mask, she'd help without one.

Which is how she finds herself in the emergency room of Metropolis General Hospital while the world is ending. She is too busy lugging medical supplies and suturing wounds to do much more than focus on the task at hand. For once, her mother's training comes in handy—the hospital is desperately short-staffed and she has experience as a field-medic. She's been a medic on Apokalips, for goodness sake.

The scary thing is, Metropolis is kind of feeling like Apokalips right now.

Cissie is carrying an arm load of gauze and medical tape to the clinic. She makes it to the supply cart and is unloading when her brain finally catches up with her and clues in on the conversation around her.

"I don't believe it. I just can't—"

"—how can that be?"

"No! He can't be—"

"—dead?"

Cissie's entire world narrows to the gauze she's holding in her hands and there's a rushing noise in her ears. She can't breathe. She can't not turn around and follow the gaze of every single person in the room to the television. She is only dimly aware of everyone else's tears, as if they have any real, legitimate reason to be grieving.

"Superboy dead," declares the news ticker.

Cissie's legs almost give out from under her, and she can't breathe and she can't see because she's crying but she doesn't even know it but it doesn't matter because Kon is dead and nothing is ever, ever going to be okay again.

~*~

Cissie is returning to the dorms after practice. She's tired and achy in all the right ways, and she shouldn't have pushed herself that extra half hour, because she'll be feeling it tomorrow. But for now she's in a pretty good mood; her arm muscles are burning and her legs feel a little like jell-o, but she's looking forward to a nice long shower before dinner, followed by some quality time with Traya. Cassie's off with Kara again, but Cissie's in a good enough mood that her usual jealousy doesn't bother her.

All in all, things feel pretty good in Cissie's world.

She finishes the climb to the fourth floor and makes her way through the hall. There seem to be a lot of girls out of their rooms for this time of day, running from one room to the next, or heading for the lounge. She doesn't think much of it, and no one tries to catch her attention, so she doesn't take out her headphones.

Cissie rounds the corner to pass through the lounge and stops short, surprised. Half the floor seems to be in there, crowded onto the chairs and couch and standing around in small groups, huddled in front of the television. She pulls an earbud out curiously. "What's going on?" she asks Ellen.

Ellen looks back at her, pale. "The Flash was killed."

And then it's just like Kon. Except it's not, because it's Bart, and because no one else is crying—this is a school in Pennsylvania, not Metropolis or Keystone, and the girls here don't know that Flash is Bart Allen, that Bart is the first friend Cissie ever had, that Bart is the reason she met any of her friends, that Bart is--Bart. They don't know that Bart can't be dead, because everything about Bart is life and movement and Cissie feels like another piece of her soul has just fallen off and she'll never get it back again.