Page 111 of Lovesick Titan

This would be like then. Danny would heal and leave nothing behind, not even a scar to show what he’d been through. But Mal would know. Mal would always know about the scars buried deep inside of Danny that no one else got to see.

“You’ll heal. You’ll heal…”

He refused to believe that maybe this was what Danny wanted. That he’d hoped for this, for a martyr’s end, anything to stop the pain he’d been struggling through.

No…no, Danny had promised him. He swore he’d never… He swore he’d stay, that he’dfight. One good day at a time, just one good day.

“Come on, Sparky…don’t keep me waiting,” he said, ignoring the biting of the glass into his bleeding hands as he continued to pull more and more shards free, faster,faster, though it never seemed to be enough. “Wake up now…wake up.”

“Cho…” a voice broke into the small, shallow world Mal was in, picking glass out of Danny’s skin, out of the suit and torn sinew. “Cho,stop.”

A hand landed on his shoulder, but he shook it off. “We have to get the glass out so he heals.”

“Mickey…” It was Lucy’s voice now.

“Malcolm,” and Lynn.

“He’llheal. Help me!” Mal cried. He wouldn’t look at them. He wouldn’t stop. Danny wasnotgone.

The quiet was too much, broken only by soft whimpers. Mal reached for another piece of glass. He couldn’t have been certain how much time passed, but eventually someone joined him.

It was Joey who dropped to his knees on Danny’s other side to help. Mal paused a moment, shivering, before he forced himself to be still and nodded.

They kept on, piece by piece, until Stella was there too, and Andre. There wasn’t room for any of the others, but the four of them were enough, shard by shard pulled free, none of them ever in too deep, which gave Mal hope that Danny really could survive this. He had to.

Mal had so much blood covering his hands soon that he didn’t know how much was his own. The others were slower, more careful in their work, but they weathered their own cuts with quiet resolve. The fewer shards remained in Danny, the more Mal ached for the kid to move, tobreathe, to open his eyes.

But as the minutes stretched on, he didn’t.

“It’s not working…” Andre sniffled back a sob.

“He’ll heal,” Mal said again. “He’llheal.”

A gentler hand rested on Mal’s shoulder. He assumed it was Lucy, but when he glanced up, it was Lynn, her other arm still in a cast, though she stood vigil to help however she could.

“Let someone else take your place. Let me check you over. You…” She trailed as her hand smoothed down his back only to pull away. She lifted it and stared at the red smeared across her palm, too dark to have easily seen against the navy of Mal’s duster. “Oh my god…”

That was the moment Mal heard it—laughter. Cruel and loud and carefree. Fire burned inside of him where he could no longer feel the pain of his wounds.

“Malcolm,” Lynn said, returning to pull at his duster, which he shrugged off uncaringly as he sprang to his feet, swaying only slightly before he stormed away from the limp form of Danny to reach Ludgate. “Wait!” she called after him, gasping when she saw the damage more clearly through his bodysuit.

Ludgate was bookended by Priestly and Lucy. She had used her vines to tie him up, and Captain Shan chimed over the comms that backup was on its way, but Mal didn’t care. He descended on the laughing form of Ludgate and grabbed him by the burnt remains of his suit.

“You bastard!” Mal reared back and punched him clean across the jaw. Ludgate needed to be more unrecognizable—like Danny. He needed to have nothing left of him. So Mal punched him again, and though Ludgate coughed and sputtered and cringed, he still laughed.

“Go ahead…hahahaha…hit me!” he cackled. “I already won!”

“Shut up!” Mal shook him and slammed his head into the ground, dazing him enough to finally cease that grating laughter. “He was just akid. Just a sad, lonely kid, and you had to tear him down.” He punched him again, harder, almost wishing he could strike himself too, because he’d torn Danny down first.

Mal had been part of the problem in the beginning. He’d been a villain that pushed and prodded and whittled Danny down, like all the rest. Because it was fun. Because he’d been selfish and ignorant back then, but now heknew, and he didn’t want that life. He wanted more. He wanted to be more.

“Cho,” someone called to stop him, and this time Mal recognized the voice as John Grant, safe, free of the mirror world, with Oz hovering in the distance.

John placed his hands on Mal’s shoulders, but his voice betrayed his tears, his own fierce anger and grief. He didn’t try hard enough to pull Mal off of Ludgate, so Mal shook him away and hit Ludgate again.Again.

“Hold him!” Lynn yelled. “Look at hisback!”

Mal’s vision grew hazier with every passing second, his breaths shallower, but none of that mattered. He coughed and spit blood as helaid into Ludgate, panting with every strike, but he wouldn’t stop, he couldn’t stop. He didn’t need his ice for this.

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