Chapter Text
Adrian likes you a little more when you’re like this. He thought you were pretty cool when you were killing Cranes or when you regenerated after taking a bullet to the head, but he really likes you how you are now. Hanging out with him at your place, listening to all of the cool facts he knows about goldfish, getting super hyped when he goes over the plans for your next coop kill.
This is the real you, right? Laughing at the bizarre list of services that Corrinthleigh Crane provides out of her weird basement “plastic surgery” studio. You’re not worried about your missing hand at all! You’re not brooding about anything! Best of all, you’re not asking questions about why he took over one of your tables earlier!
“Whoa! Adrian, look at this!” You’re leaning over with your phone in hand, holding up the screen so he can see. You’re laughing way more than usual as you show him a totally botched picture of a skin tag removal. “How did she even do that? And look at the comments under it!”
“Nasty! I want to see them!” He leans in to read the comments, but he’s watching you from the corner of his eye. You noticed it, too, right? You just seem happier without that demon in you.
Yeah, you need that thing if you want to be able to regenerate. Or turn invisible. Or revive yourself when you die. But look at how happy you are without it! What if Oreo never brings it back?
Adrian kind of hopes that it stays in the dog for a while. You can probably still kill Corrinthleigh Crane without the demon’s help. You’re a total badass! A natural killer, just like him! Working together, it should be really easy to kill a single scam artist!
The problem is that you’re still missing a hand. That might make things difficult. Until you get the demon back, it’s not going to regenerate. Maybe now’s a good time for him to teach you about firearms. Adrian could probably get you a handgun and with enough practice, you could shoot one-handed. You do look really cool when you’re just going crazy on someone with that hammer and knife, though.
“Did Chris call you back?” The question comes out of nowhere, drawing Adrian out of his internal conflict about whether to ruin your aesthetic with a gun or not. You’re scrolling on your phone, checking out a few more posts about Corrinthleigh’s “work”.
He pushes up his glasses and checks his phone. All he has is a text message from Peacemaker with a thumbs up emoji. That could mean anything! Does that mean he needs help escaping from the government agents in the hospital? Does that mean the possessed dog attacked him, but he’s on his way to your house? Maybe it means he caught that guy you were handcuffed to and he’s bringing your severed hand back!
“Do you think Oreo could fight a miniature horse?” Adrian looks over at you. The question has been eating away at him since you both left the hospital. Just tickling at the back of his head, lingering unanswered.
Leaning back against the couch cushion, you consider it. Oreo is a pretty sturdy dog, for being so little. You remember how he was able to scare those cattle that were infected by the fear gas. You’d been terrified that he would be trampled, but he came sprinting out of the herd with his mouth covered in bovine blood. So, obviously, he can fight a cow. Not to mention those booming, demon barks he can make when Glasya-Labolas possesses him.
“Are we talking about just Oreo or Oreo when he’s possessed? I don’t know if he can hold his own against a miniature horse if he’s fighting by himself,” you finally answer. A cocker spaniel against a hooved thing that may or may not bite children at a petting zoo? The odds are questionable.
“No way! He could totally take a miniature horse by himself! Cocker spaniels were bred for that kind of stuff!” Adrian looks up from his phone for a few seconds before he starts typing something.
When you try to lean over to see his screen, he actually climbs over the back of your couch and walks over to the fish tank to finish typing. A sigh slips past your lips and you slump onto your side across the couch cushions. “I think I saw a show on Animal Planet when I was a kid…oh! Do you remember that show “Too Cute!”? They’d have a litter of baby animals and they’d talk about the breeds and 40% of the time, something really upsetting happened to one of them.”
“Oh yeah! That was super fucked up!”
You’re about to point out that cocker spaniels were bred as hunting dogs that focused on birds, but now that you’ve brought up that old tv show, your good mood is fading. You can remember watching that show with your younger sibling when you were a kid, spending weekend afternoons talking about which one was your favorite, daydreaming about getting a puppy or a kitten. It’s been a while since you thought about your younger sibling. It’s been a while since you got to really look back on any good memories with your family.
Is it the demon’s influence? Has he been suppressing those happy memories and only letting you remember the bad things? When you got the news about your mother’s diagnosis, when you had to abandon your dream and move back to Gotham, when you lost your family. Has Glasya-Labolas been controlling what you’re able to focus on, what you’re able to remember?
It hurts. The tightness at the center of your chest, the way your eyes itch at the corners as your vision blurs. You’re remembering your sibling’s face, remembering the sound of their voice and their laugh, how they were joking with you about something right before that maniac broke into your house.
The tears spill down your face, tickling your skin, but you don’t hate it. You can feel something right now. You can grieve right now. Things that he never let you do before. Any time the melancholy would start to surface, it was pushed down too quickly for you to process it.
“You okay?” Adrian crouches in front of the couch, making direct eye contact with you and frowning. “Bunny? Is it your stump?”
A laugh bursts from your mouth before you can stop it, so thrown off by the way he asked that. Shaking your head, you push yourself up and wipe your face with your sleeve. “I’m okay. I was just thinking about someone that I haven’t thought about in a while.”
“Was it that guy you were straddling in the hallway? Because we still need to talk about that! You were on top of that guy!”
“No. I was thinking about my sibling.” You move to let him sit next to you and your head falls back against the cushion. Maybe it’s the blood loss that’s making you more open right now, more willing to talk about the stuff that’s been bothering you lately.
“I think the demon has been fucking with my head. Like, he’s stopping me from thinking about my family. Ever since I lost them and he said he’d help me get revenge, I haven’t really thought about it a lot. He’d say to do something and I just followed whatever he said without questioning it. When I really think about it, I can’t help thinking that I’m only still alive so he can use me. Like I’m just a weapon that he’s wielding, without getting to have my own dreams or goals. I never thought about what was really happening until after I met you, Adrian.”
Beside you, his mouth contorts into a frown. “Uh, yeah! Manipulating people and fucking with their heads is like the main thing demons do!”
“Yeah. I mean, you’re right, but that’s not the point. The point is, I don’t know what I should do. Inside my head is so quiet right now and I feel like I can actually think for myself, but the second he’s back, things will go back to the way they were. He’ll be constantly grumbling at me to do what he thinks I need to do and I’ll just go back to being a puppet until he transfers back to Oreo again.”
Adrian is uncharacteristically quiet for a moment before he asks, “Why did he chase me?”
You know what he’s really wondering. He wants to know if Glasya-Labolas wanted to kill him and you know the answer to that. “He wanted to possess you.”
“What? No way! I don’t even have a pact or a ring or whatever you need for that stuff!” He’s turning to face you, glasses sitting a little crookedly on his face.
“No, but he would’ve tried to talk you into letting him in. He left me for Oreo because I’d been drugged and he needed a host that he could easily control. He probably wanted to possess you so he could use your body to kill…” A frown tugs at the corners of your mouth as you hear a scratching sound at the door. There’s a prickling at the back of your neck, a chill across the surface of your skin, as you stare at the door.
You don’t want to reconnect with Glasya-Labolas. Not yet. You still have things that you want to think about, things that you want to remember. For just a little longer, you want to actually feel like yourself and not just a demon’s tool.
It’s only when the scratching is joined by frantic barking that you feel a real sense of urgency as you remember something pretty fucking important. If Rick Flag Sr. knows where you work, he definitely knows where you live. “Backdoor!”
“What?” Adrian watches you dart towards the front door, totally contradicting what you just said. “Bunny? Hey! What’s going on?”
You’re opening the front door just long enough to pull Oreo inside and you tuck him under your arm as you turn back to Adrian. “Backdoor! Now! We have to get out of here before that Flag guy finds me!”
“Flag guy? What are you talking about? Are you sure the blood loss isn’t messing with your head?” He still grabs his bag of gear from behind the couch and follows you to the backdoor.
Oreo is squirming in your hold as you hurry to unlock the door. The demon hasn’t transferred back to you yet and you’re not sure how long he’ll stay in the dog. You’re not ready for him to come back to you, not ready to lose yourself. It’s not like you’ll be completely different, but you know that as soon as you feel that rumble against your skull, you won’t be fully in control anymore. Your emotions, your memories, your actions…Glasya-Labolas can control any part of you that he wants.
Even as you’re sprinting across your backyard with Adrian and climbing over the chain-link fence, you feel a nagging at the back of your mind. Not the snarl of the demon, not the pressure of his presence on the surface of your brain, but an idea that you can’t ignore. What if that man really could’ve helped you? What if you could just be you without Glasya-Labolas? But would you still get to see Adrian?
“This way!” Adrian grabs your wrist when you’re in the alley with him and starts running, a grin spreading across his face. When you said “flag guy”, you’re totally talking about the government guy that kidnapped you! Of course, Adrian understands exactly what you mean without you explaining yourself! He gets you better than anyone else does, which is why you guys were made for each other!
He’s not going to let the government capture you again. He’ll hide you like that kid hid E.T or the Iron Giant, if he has to. He just needs to make sure that Peacemaker is okay. What if the “flag guy” tries to kidnap him to lure you out? Using your boyfriend’s best friend as bait? That’s pretty fucked up!
“Where are we going?” You’re keeping up with him just fine without that demon’s help, which just confirms Adrian’s belief that you don’t really need it. The dog is grumbling, still tucked under your right arm.
“I can’t tell you right now. Just trust me!” Adrian is ecstatic. This is going to be the first time you’ve seen his hideout before. You’re going to love it! The best part is that his mom is probably asleep, so he can just sneak you downstairs without having to explain why you’re missing a hand or why you’re bringing a dog into the house! It’s going to be perfect!