#trying to keep danny from sticking his hand inside himself is. a Fight lmao

[liketolaugh-writes]

Dimly, it occurred to Danny that it probably would have been less painful to let his core stay out.

As soon as the star shards had pulled back together into one clean orb, Danny phased it back into his chest, sighing with relief as it seamlessly filled the open wound in his psychogenic ghost half. That relief only lasted for a split second before the pain set back in, reminding him why his core had splintered in the first place.

Danny curled down with a moan, his hands already creeping back to his chest. His core twisted and spasmed in agony, sending waves of stress and frustration through him, and instinctively he wanted to try and physically comfort it, like he would a broken wrist.

"Fuck!" Red Hood cursed, grabbing both his hands to keep him from ripping his physical wound back open. Danny didn't resist, but his hands trembled in Hood's as he tried to breathe through the pain. "I thought that thing was supposed to help you?"

Danny drew in a shaky, hitching breath and nodded without lifting his head.

"Need it," he rasped, trying to reassure Hood - a guardian spirit, he must be, it was the only thing he'd shown an interest in so far. "It's mine, need it inside me, it's- it's part of me. Holds me together." He dragged in another shuddering, difficult breath. It had never taken so much effort just to breathe. "Just- injured. Hurts."

"Alright." Nightwing was back, meeting Danny's eyes with a calm certainty that Danny wished he could achieve with civilians. "Is it because it was broken? Is that why it hurts?" Danny shook his head. "Can you tell us why it's hurting? Is there something you need?"

"I need to go back," Danny blurted out. His core spasmed, and he tried to pull his hands back and reach for his chest again. Hood didn't let him, and Danny quickly gave up, trembling. He'd felt his core throb and shudder in frustration before - when the Nasty Burger exploded, when Pariah Dark pulled Amity into the Ghost Zone - but never this bad, he had no idea it could hurt this much. "I need to get the other ghosts out, I need to protect them."

All of them went still at the ghostly resonance in his voice, and one of them, Nightwing, glanced at Hood.

"We'll do that," Nightwing said at last, meeting Danny's eyes again with confidence. "We're not going to leave them there. But we're trying to help you right now, okay? Is there something that would help your chest? Another dose of painkillers, maybe?"

"I need to protect them!" Danny insisted, his voice coming out echoey even in his human form, and then all but collapsed forward as his head spun in protest, darkness threatening to creep in at the corners of his eyes. "Just left them there to get cut open, experimented on, all of those..." He shuddered, nearly choking on his next breath.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Red Hood said, catching Danny and pushing him to lay down altogether. Danny let him, too weak and dazed to put up a proper fight. "We're going to help them, okay, kid? I promise. They're gonna be okay."

Danny nodded shakily, finding that it was easy to believe Hood. He was a guardian spirit; he'd keep his word. "Doesn't hurt as much when I can't hear them screaming," he admitted shamefully, thinking of the near-convulsions of anguish that made him scream alongside the ghost being tortured. "But please. Please. I need to help them."

"I know, kid," Hood said, unexpectedly soft. "That cop ghost said to remind you that you could come back for them when you healed. That makes sense, doesn't it? Can't help them if you're still split like a fish."

Yes. That made sense. Danny nodded jerkily, his breath easing a bit.

"So you're in pain because you need to help," Red Robin deduced, frowning at him thoughtfully. "You have a physical need to help."

Danny nodded, reached for his chest again, was stopped again, this time by Orphan, who simply grabbed his hands and held them. "It's my obsession," he explained, strained and feeling exhaustion set in anew. "It's... what holds me together as a ghost. Walker, the cop ghost, he enforces rules. Youngblood needs to play. I... I keep people from getting hurt. But..." He shuddered, a weak noise of pain escaping him. "But you protect people too, don't you? You can help."

He meant all of them, really - they were obviously heroes - but he was looking at Hood, who just nodded.

"I protect kids," he said, and then looked surprised at his own response. All of the others looked at him too, with varying degrees of worry and alarm. "What was that?"

Danny cocked his head. "You're liminal, right? You've been around ectoplasm before, or maybe had a really close call with death." Red Hood's expression shuttered. "It's okay. You've just... already decided what's most important to you. It feels good, doesn't it? It feels right." Unreadable now. "And that's... why you took me, isn't it? I get it now. You had to take a kid because you couldn't take an adult when there were kids that needed you."

"Wouldn't be right," Hood said gruffly, though the unsettled look didn't leave his face.

"'S okay," Danny said, letting his eyes fluttered shut in exhaustion. "We're all like that."

Nightwing cleared his throat, drawing Danny's attention back to him. "So you have a physical need that's not being met. Is there something that would help just a little bit? Something that doesn't mean letting you rip open all your injuries?"

"...Space?" Danny suggested tentatively, hopefully. "Can we watch a space documentary maybe? I like space too."

Nightwing grinned at him. "Easy."

Prompt: Prison Break

Walker wouldn't have expected it, but one of the worst parts of being imprisoned by the GIW was watching Phantom suffer through the descending stages of violent obsession failure.

All of them were feeling it, obviously, but for most of them it was a slow decline - the pull of longing, developing over days and weeks into a sharp ache. Ember, ignored and silenced, was lashing out, kicking the glass walls and screaming for attention, even when it hurt. Johnny and Kitty, kept out of each other's sight, pressed against the walls closest together. Walker's whole body throbbed with frustration and self-loathing, needing to return to his territory and drag everyone back with him, away from this place of torture.

But Phantom, not three years dead and with an obsession that demanded that he keep everyone completely unharmed, had declined rapidly. Sure, for the first week or so, he'd been preoccupied with troubles of his own, strapped constantly to a table with hands digging through his insides. But then they'd started to spread out their attention.

At first, Phantom didn't seem to realize what was happening. He cried out in anguish and fear, trying to break open his cell and being punished for it, collapsing under the shock collar's control. Walker could almost see when he figured it out, when he started to clutch at his chest, and scribble constellations onto the walls and floor in his dripping ectoplasm with hands that trembled, trying to ease the pain in his core.

Then he started to curl up and choke on his tears, shuddering in pain whenever screams echoed down the hall. Finally, in between his own turns on the table, he started to shove his hand into his open chest, clutching his burning core directly, moans of pain rising into yells in nearly perfect unison with whoever else was the victim this time.

(Sidney had declined in nearly perfectly unison with Phantom, which a part of Walker hoped the punk hadn't noticed.)

If Phantom wasn't a halfa, he probably would've shattered into dust by now. It probably would've been a mercy.

When the yelling started, Walker almost didn't notice. Phantom, delirious with pain, for sure didn't. But before long, most of the rest of them had stirred to alertness, dragging themselves closer to the glass to peer down the hall. A troop of GIW stormed down the hall without glancing at any of them, and an alarm started going off. Phantom whined and rolled over, his hand buried in his autopsy wound while he shivered. (The scientists had tried stitching it closed, but Phantom just clawed it blindly open.)

"What's happening?" the Lunch Lady croaked. (Youngblood and Phantom were starving, and it was doing her no favors.)

"Prison break," Walker rasped. He recognized the signs. "Someone's here." He'd never imagined that it would be a relief.