You Weren't Supposed to See That (Rainforest Spirit and Tinder)

[Tinder]

The sound of car horns blaring roused Jareth from sleep mid snore. He sat up with snort, running one hand through his ashen hair while stretching. Diagrams of the human skeletal structure lay on the folding table before him covered in meticulous notes with an array of white notecards scattered in haphazard stacks. He'd dozed off in the middle of the torso bones. The study sheet for it sat nearest to the window fluttering in the early morning breeze with his glasses weighing it down. He blinked in a vain attempt to banish the sleep from his eyes, starting after another chorus of horns screamed at him. He grabbed his phone and silenced the alarm with a few furious clicks. Note to self: change alarm tone. He brought the screen closer to his face to read the time. A growl escaped his throat when he saw the display read 4 am. Only three hours left to cram before he would need to leave for classes.

He rose from his rickety chair and stumbled across the room toward his kitchenette, slamming his toe into the corner of his bed along the way. A string of incoherent curses poured from his lips as he limped over to his refrigerator. He yanked the door open and reached down to dig out an Animal energy drink.

Only his hand found nothing. He frowned and pulled out the old cardboard box, empty as his hand had found it. Recognition flashed through his mind briefly as he glanced down his right hand. Smeared ink remained on the back where he had written a note telling himself to buy more Animal after work. "Damnit."

He slammed the door to his fridge, pushing it closed with his foot when it rebounded. "No getting around it, I suppose," he muttered. No caffeine meant no studying. No studying meant failing the anatomy test or guaranteed failing it. He returned to the table where he retrieved his phone and wallet and shoved them into the front pocket of his black work pants. Changing had been somewhere near cleaning on the bottom of his priority after his shift. He pulled his brown jacket off the back of the chair and yanked it on over the black Fusion t-shirt still reeking of spilled drinks from his shift. He paused to lock the door on his way out before making his way down the four flights of stairs to street level.

A few years ago he might have thought twice about wandering around Metro City at night. With new villains turning up every other day, hardly anywhere felt safe even with a local superheroine extraordinaire. However constant exposure to the madness had stolen away his fear piece by piece until he was as numb to the terror as any other local. If someone wanted to mess with him, it wouldn't matter if the sun was out or not. He smirked coldly and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. Maybe some of that crazy had rubbed off on him.

He stifled a yawn as he walked down the familiar path to the twenty-four hour gas station on the corner. Silence had settled over the city as it often did in the early morning after the party rats had all passed out but before the working class had to get out of their beds. Outside of the occasional car, nothing stirred. "Only idiots who forgot to go shopping," Jareth said as he reached the doors of the station. Only then did he realize he'd forgotten to put on his glasses. Damn early mornings.

He made a beeline for the back of the store where they kept energy drinks, opening the case and selecting three of the Ultra cans. That'd get him through the morning, long enough to go shopping between class and work. With the prizes in hand, he returned to the front of the store and dropped his purchase on the counter.

The cashier glanced up from her magazine and popped the bubble of gum she'd been blowing. Silence highlighted by the crappy pop song playing in the background stretched between them. Jareth coughed, making a sorry attempt at eye contact with what he could only describe as a blurry mannequin. The woman ended the tension with another gum bubble as she set aside her magazine. She chewed noisily while she scanned the cans, "This it?"

Jareth found his gaze wandering to the shelves behind her. Every weary bone in his bone cried out for him to do something to ease some of the stress of the past week. He pulled out his wallet and leafed through his dwindling resources. "No, miss. That's it."

She shrugged and rang up the total. "6.32"

He dug out exact change and dropped it on the counter, taking two of the cans as he did and placing them in the pockets of his jacket.

"Have a nice day," the cashier mumbled as she counted the change.

Jareth opened the third can as he stepped out of the store, gulping down half of it before he came up for air. He sighed and began to make his way back across the street toward his building. A pleasant buzz worked its way through his body, banishing some of the exhaustion. The sky began to lighten as dawn neared and for that first time that morning, Jareth welcomed the new day.

As he neared the door to his apartment, he eyed the alleyway out back. His studies demanded his attention but… He walked around to the edge of the alleyway and dug out his e-cigarette. It had some juice left and he could use the break. He raised it to his lips and took puff, leaning back against the wall. Just ten minutes, he promised himself. Then studying.

 

[Cactus Jack]

You know, for all their talk of world domination, infinite wealth, power and fear, the usual suspects, the supervillain brochures had failed to mention just how much of a learning experience the whole villainy gig could be. After all, Phantasm had certainly learned a thing or two in his time as Metro City's dashing thief extraordinaire. He'd learned, for example, that being a supervillain consisted of about 90% witty repartee with superheroes and maybe 10% actual villainy of the super variety. He'd learned, much to his disappointment, that banks didn't actually keep their money in large sacks conveniently labelled with dollar signs. And he'd learned that part of being a supervillain was ignoring the cruel remarks of jealous onlookers who were, of course, masking their envy for his totally rad costume by making fun of it. Not that, you know, he was bitter or anything.

That night marked another lesson added to his repertoire-- or perhaps, another key piece of evidence in an ongoing lesson that spanned his career in villainy: the hero is always, always right around the corner. It seemed he'd hardly phased through the front door of the jewellery shop and out into the street, alarms blaring behind him and three hefty burlap sacks full of assorted gems, trinkets and knickknacks orbiting him in the air, before he caught a familiar voice from above.

"Going above and beyond for some lucky girl, Phantasm?"

Ah, goddamn it. Nisha was here. Arms crossed across a sweatshirt-clad chest, pale skin and hair stark against the backdrop of night, she drifted several meters off the ground, looking down at him with an eyebrow quirked as if in amusement.

"Oh, come on," he groused, glancing up at the hero of Metro City. "That alarm went off one minute ago. How do you always get here so damn fast?"

She shrugged. "Guess you could say I'm a diamond in the rough," she suggested, and then she was hurtling towards him.

In that instance, he learned another valuable lesson: a sack of jewellery doesn't make a very useful projectile against a lady who can shrug off a freight train to the face. The sack all but exploded, showering both Phantasm and a distinctly undeterred Nisha in a gemstone cascade worth obscene sums of money as Phantasm used the same telekinesis that kept the other two sacks airbound to lift himself from the ground. He took off just in the nick of time, leaving nothing for Nisha to barrel into but empty space.

"That was a gneiss one, I have to say," he shot back with a bold grin as the superhero made to give chase. "Of quartz, you know you can't top my arsenal of geoscience puns."

"I think you take my wit for granite." She came zooming in for another attack, and thinking quickly, he grabbed some flashy sports car parked by the street and put it between them as a makeshift shield. She battered through it like a hammer through tissue paper, but it bought him time enough to put a little more distance between them.

"No matter how good your puns may be, I assure you, mineral better," he parried, glancing around as he soared across the sky over Metro City with Nisha in hot pursuit; he had, he'd realised, flown himself a little too close to his apartment building for comfort-- he had to lose Nisha, and quick. He wasn't about to get into a contest of endurance with her.

A contest of wits, however? Far be it for him to back down from that! "Oh my, your attempts at wit are getting boulder by the minute," she answered in kind as the two of them paused for a moment, suspended in mid-air. Panting a little, sweating beneath the fabric of his costume, he retaliated with "Yours seem to be losing their edge, though."

"Nah, I'm just saving the good ones for wittier villains," she said, thin lips drawn taut in a daring grin. "You know what they say. Never cast pearls before swine."

"Oh, come on, that one was just mea-- oof!"

And there was another valuable learning experience his career in supervillainy had so charitably afforded him more than a few times in the past: the unique sensation of a fist colliding into his midsection with the weight of a planet behind it, a potent reminder that Nisha could move a whole lot faster than he could talk. His concentration shattered, he lost his telekinetic grasp on the sacks of jewellery, both of which plummeted into the city streets down below. More importantly, he lost his telekinetic grasp on himself: he found himself careening through the air towards a nearby block of apartments.

He had just enough foresight to go incorporeal and phase through the wall rather than crash through it, though that didn't stop him from landing on the floor with a pained groan. Much to his ongoing ire, the occupant of the bedroom he'd just unceremoniously appeared in decided to start screaming, too. "Okay, okay, I'm going," he grumbled as he scampered back up to his feet. "Jeez, you'd think nobody's ever been thrown through the wall of your apartment at 4 AM."

He took to the air again and then hurtled off, phasing through the walls of each successive apartment before appearing once again out in the cool night air of Metro City. Nisha was nowhere to be seen, but he wasn't about to hang around and check for sure: this heist was a bust, and now, he was mostly just trying to get the hell out of Dodge, jewels or no. He gunned it for his apartment building, throwing in a few twists and turns and phasing sojourns through other buildings just in case Nisha was on his tail; by the time he arrived, dawn was on the cusp of breaking.

"Shit," Phantasm muttered under his breath as he slinked off into the alleyway behind his apartment building. "Shit, shit, shit. That was a shitshow. That was a shitshow with an extra side of shit to go along with it." He yanked his mask off, wiping sweat from his forehead before leaning back against the alley wall, doubled over and groaning in pain. "Christ, that girl can punch. She may not pun on my level but christ can she punch." Bent over and cradling his stomach as though he were a child who'd eaten too much ice cream and was now suffering the mother of all bellyaches, the not-so-debonair supervillain appeared much too concerned with moaning and groaning to notice that he wasn't alone-- at least until he happened to glance up and find himself met with another pair of eyes staring back at him.

Oh crap. Oh, crap. That was his neighbour, the one down the hall, Jareth! Er, not his neighbour-- more specifically, it was Jack Liang's neighbour-- as if he wasn't Jack Liang now that he'd taken off the mask-- Wait, what the hell am I thinking about? He's seen me without my mask! I've got to do something!

With a thought-- a frantic, panicked thought-- Jack Liang pushed Jareth up against the wall, pinning him. "You-- you better forget what you just saw!" he said, shooting for 'threatening badass' and mostly ending up with 'nerd imploring the high school jock not to break his glasses' instead. "Or I'll-- I'll phase you into this wall, you hear? You ever been inside a wall? It's-- it's probably not fun!"

 

[Tinder]

Jareth had tipped back the can to finish the remainder of his drink when he heard someone cursing. Jareth could hardly blame him--at least it sounded like a him--considering the early hour. However the sudden proximity of the voice and talk of punching did unnerve him. He looked over and saw the hazy outline of the person leaning against the wall beside him. He seemed to be having a rough morning. Jareth briefly considered telling the guy that whoever "she" was wasn't worth the trouble if she'd punch him over a joke, but he remained silent. He tried to avoid talking with strangers in alleys before the sun came out. The guy could have been a drunk hobo talking to his left foot for all he knew. The wisest course of action would be to slip away quietly. Rule number one of keeping out of trouble: keep your head down at all times.

Which might have worked had the other person not noticed Jareth.

The man flew at Jareth and pinned him to the wall before he could move, bringing the stranger's face into view. The empty can fell from Jareth's hand when he saw his attacker. "The hell? Liang? Is that you?" Jack Liang was one of his quieter neighbors from down the hall. Jareth had never imagined he would be the type to jump people in an alleyway. Packs a punch too. And what the hell is he wearing? It looked familiar, though Jareth couldn't imagine why.

The situation grew stranger when Liang spat out a jumbled threat to phase Jareth into the wall. While the threat easily ranked among the oddest he'd ever received, he nonetheless raised his hands up some to placate Liang. "Hang on. It's way too damn early for this. What am I supposed to forget I saw? You hiding out here? Listen, man, if things are that bad with your girlfriend maybe you should…"

Liang's strange outfit clicked in Jareth's memory. "Wait." He'd seen it in the newspapers for years, always attached to some headline about a major heist. His green eyes dropped to examine the outfit directly before returning to Liang's face, his voice only a whisper when he spoke again, "Are you…the Phantasm?"

Suddenly Liang's fear and threat made perfect sense. Jareth could hardly believe his terrible luck. All this time he'd been living down the hall from the city's most wanted criminal. And I've just become his biggest liability. Jareth swallowed to find his voice again, speaking calmly and deliberately as though Liang were a man with broken leg rather than a villain capable of ending Jareth with a single thought. "We can work this out. No need to get violent. If I swear not to say anything, will you let me go?"

 

[Cactus Jack]

Liang had never really understood the phrase 'emotional roller coaster' (perhaps ironically, given his vocation, he had a strong aversion to extreme amusement rides and preferred to avoid roller coasters, emotional or otherwise). That being said, from the very moment Jareth opened his mouth, what followed was nothing if not the mother of all emotional roller coasters. The sinking feeling that had seized at the pit of his stomach when Jareth had said his name and confirmed that he had recognised him gave way to horror when he realised Jareth hadn't actually recognised him until he'd panicked and pinned him to the wall.

And then Jareth went and indirectly suggested Nisha was Liang's girlfriend, which instantly led Liang's cart on the emotional roller coaster straight into a corkscrew of disgust (Ugh, dude-- if I was into women, I'd prefer somebody who wouldn't find fifty reasons to arrest me before breakfast.) It was a lot to take in, and certainly a lot to respond to, but in such dangerous circumstances, one had to prioritise and address the most urgent concerns, so obviously--

"I am not the Phantasm," he said stiffly, scratching the back of his head. "It's Phantasm. No 'the'. There's no such thing as 'the Phantasm'. Nobody talks about 'the notorious supervillain the Goldhand'. Nobody's ever heard of 'the Nisha'. But one freakin' newspaper sneaks an errant 'the' in front of my name and all of a sudden the entire city's decided 'hey, screw Phantasm, let's just call him whatever the hell we want, in defiance of all the time and effort he put into his name'. Nobody's got any goddamn decency anymore."

He didn't appear anywhere near finished with his tirade-- indeed, it was clear that this was something of a sore spot for Metro City's Public Enemy No. 1-- but the distinct sound of sirens echoing down a nearby street shut him up handily, and he instinctively glanced to the skies. Nisha's still up there looking for me, he reminded himself. If she gets the drop on me now, Jareth's going to be the least of my worries. He had to get inside-- and out of this costume, too.

His gaze fell upon the second of his immediate concerns at that moment-- who was still, Liang realised, suspended in the air; he brought him back down to the earth about as gently as possible. "Look, I need to get off the streets," he mumbled. "This is going to have to wait. Rest assured, though, if you-- I mean, you so much as whisper my name to anybody and I'll... I'll make good on that whole wall-phasing thing, understand?"

 

[Tinder]

Jareth's attempt to smooth things over went unnoticed or ignored when the supervillain launched into an unending rant about the improper use of his name. He seemed to have forgotten the whole issue of Jareth unmasking. I wonder if Nisha has ever realized how easy it is to distract him. Jareth saw no fitting place to interrupt so he hung there waiting for Liang to finish. He might have been comfortable were it not for the nagging brunette in front of him.

Sirens arrived to save Jareth from the verbal slaughter. Liang finally let him down; being remarkably gentle for someone trying to threaten his life. Jareth added that little detail to the pile of nonsensical information he'd discovered this morning. He nodded to confirm that he'd heard Liang. "I get it, man. Not a word."

With that all said, Jareth had no clue what happened next. He'd never dealt with a supervillain before, much less one that lived in the same building as him. Should he just go? Maybe Liang needed to go in first, to officially make his escape or something. Would it be awkward to walk in together? Wait, th-Phantasm would probably just go through a wall or something to keep off the street. If Jareth left first, he'd run into him somewhere in the halls.

Screw it. Jareth leaned back against the wall and brought his e-cig back up to his lips. It was too early for this much thinking. Better to let Liang lead since he had more experience with this shit. Jareth had an anatomy test to focus on. Shit, my test. Liang had better get the lead out or Jareth would go in first regardless of the protocol.

He took a short puff and tapped his can on the ground with his foot. "I, uh, get home around 3 usually…yeah."

He shifted his gaze away from Liang to the street. Hell if he knew why he said that. Just seemed impossible to fully end this sputtering attempt at conversation with his neighbor. Their previous encounters had never amounted to more than a passing nod. Unpleasant circumstances aside, this was their first time speaking. It didn't seem right to end it with an ominous threat.

Or maybe he disliked the idea of a thief hanging around his apartment all day and he was inventing a noble intention to quiet his conscious. Too much thinking for 4 am.

 

[Cactus Jack]

Despite the many lessons his career as a supervillain had taught Liang, handling the awkward aftermath of inadvertently betraying your secret identity had not been one of them. Call it what you would-- the product of circumspect discretion, or of the luck of a fool-- but Liang had managed to avoid being unmasked thus far and he'd had no designs on that changing either by way of arrest or confession. As such, he could perhaps be pardoned for having no clue what to say or do now that Jareth had agreed not to share the secret he was now privy to.

Speaking of Jareth, the current object of Liang's distress was leaning against the wall of the alley, puffing on one of those weird electronic cigarette things that had become all the rage lately. "I, uh, get home around three, usually..." he said, and Liang nodded.

"Right. Well, er..." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "I should go. I have work tomorrow. I mean, actual work, not-- you know--" He made an odd general motion with his hand that served no explicative purpose whatsoever, and then, without another word, the fearless supervillain turned tail and, phasing through the wall of the alley, fled.

.

.

.

The events of the night were on Liang's mind well into the following day, driving him to distraction all throughout his shift at the warehouse; he spent much of the time castigating himself for his negligence, tormented himself with panicked thoughts that Jareth was, even now, handing out Phantasm's secret identity as freely as Liang's grandmother would hand out little red envelopes with cash during his childhood New Years'. At several points, he desperately attempted to manifest his latent time manipulation powers in hopes of reversing time and just staying home that night, but he eventually had to concede it was getting him nowhere.

He must not have been very discreet about his ordeal, however; at one point, towards the end of his shift, one of his coworkers asked if something was wrong, remarking quite colourfully that Liang looked 'like somebody just ran you down with the forklift and then backed over you just to make sure'.

"It's nothing," he'd said. "Just, uh... a little back pain." Which was not, indeed, a lie; that punch of Nisha's hadn't exactly been a gentle tap.

"Doing some heavy lifting outside of work?" his coworker mused as the two of them made to clock out for the day.

"You could say that."

It was around six by the time Liang got back home; Jareth, he reminded himself, would have been long since home from school, which left him with no real excuse to put off... whatever the hell was going to happen when Liang knocked on that door. I mean, what the hell am I going to do, really? he groused silently as he popped into his apartment briefly to shower and change out of his work clothes. I'm not going to actually phase the dude into a wall. I don't even know if I can phase him into a wall. Don't want to find out, either. Christ, I just want this to not be a problem.

But Jareth didn't know that, did he? Liang was banking on that. He grabbed fistfuls of whatever clothes were within reach and yanked them on, tied his hair back into the laziest excuse for a ponytail in the history of hair, shoved his glasses onto his face and ignored or didn't notice their crookedness. He'd just have to count on Jareth buying into his threat, because how else was he supposed to keep the guy marching down to Nisha's house and telling her exactly who Phantasm was? Wait, does Nisha even have a house? I don't think she does. Now that I think of it, where the hell does that woman sleep at ni-- damn it, Jack, not relevant! To anything!

He was out of time to think of excuses. He was standing in front of Jareth's door. With a sigh, he reached out and gave the door a couple of taps that were perhaps a little comically polite given the circumstances.

 

[Tinder]

Jareth watched Liang go, eyes widening some when the villain's blurry outline merged with the wall. Looked like the stories about Phantasm's ability to move through solid objects were true. Which meant that threat from earlier was genuine. Jareth cursed and slapped a hand over his face. And I handed him my schedule like we're going out for drinks after work.

He took another drag from his e-cig, trying to block out some of the regrets rattling around in his brain. His focus had to be on his test. A villain holding up traffic hardly constituted missing one of Herder's tests. Informing him that one of his students had been threatened by one that morning wouldn't illicit any more sympathy from him. Not from the man who routinely bragged that he'd never missed a day of work despite his neighborhood having been hit by three separate attacks. Jareth shoved his e-cig into one of the inner pockets of his coat and started for the door.

He returned to his desk and cracked open his second can of Animal. Three groups of bone remained for him to review: the legs, the feet, and the hands. He put his glasses back on before picking up the cards remaining in the torso pile and flipping through. "True ribs…floating ribs…vertebrae…lumbar vertebrae…" He paused for a sip of his drink, glancing back at his door. What kind of day job would a supervillain have? His gaze lingered until he realized his attention had wandered. He forced himself to look back at the cards.

The pattern repeated itself for the remainder of the morning. Between his sputtering attempts at study, Jareth found his mind wandering back to Jack Liang time and time again. He couldn't wrap his head around the secret he now knew. It made some sense--Liang had always felt too clean to live in an apartment building like this—but the two entities known as Phantasm and Liang remained separate in Jareth's mind. Something was missing, something that would make sense of disparity between fiction and reality.

The mystery of his neighbor would have to wait, however, for Jareth's time ran out before he could even start in on the hands. His alarm sounded to give him his fifteen minute warning, forcing Jareth to shove his study supplies into the purple backpack beneath the table. It had been a gift from his sister, currently being held together by duct tape. He deposited his last Animal into the front pocket before changing out of his work clothes into another pair of black pants with a light blue button-up shirt and a black tie he'd found at a thrift store. The program at his college demanded their students dress professionally for classes, hurdle number two hundred for him on the road to this damned degree. He managed to get himself into a semi-presentable state before his last alarm went off and sent him scurrying from the apartment with only enough time to grab a banana for lunch.

His bus ride to the college consisted of him pointing to random parts of his body and muttering the names of the bones within. More than a few glanced his way warily. "Carpal," he said, touching his hand near his wrist. "Metacarpal…phalanges…Damn, what was the first one called?" He dug through his bag, mentally kicking himself for not organizing his flash cards. The search took up so much of his attention he nearly missed his stop. He glanced up just as the doors began to close. "Shit!" He slammed on the stop button nearest him, forcing the doors back open. A few commuters nearest him grumbled about the delay, but Jareth jumped off before more could be said. He jogged into the college, arriving in the classroom just as Herder finished his usual preamble about cheating and the grading curve. Jareth slumped into his usual seat in the back and opened his last can of Animal. He downed half while Herder handed out the test. The slight buzz that followed did little to calm his frayed nerves.

It might have gone well had it not been for the constant battle between his memory of scientific names and his wandering imagination that continually attempt to marry the image of his neighbor to that of Phantasm. The conflicting ideas hung around in the back of his mind through his sorry attempts to remember what the bones in the toes were called and which ribs were floating.

By the end of the hour, Jareth became the second to last person to leave the classroom. He downed the remainder of his drink and tossed his can at the nearest bin, cursing when it hit the wall instead. Today was determined to be awful. He retrieved it and dropped it into recycling before starting down the hall toward the computer lab by the library. First he'd spent half the night breaking up a bar fight that nearly spilled out in the street then he accidentally unmasked a supervillain and likely failed a test. He pushed open the door to the lab, a frown clearly displaying his foul mood. Things might have been able to get worse, but he struggled to understand how.

A waving hand drew his attention to a nearby computer bank. He recognized the woman as Cara, an acquaintance from his nursing practices class. He joined her at the computer, dropping into the chair with a sigh. She smiled, tucking a strand of her black hair behind her ear. "Rotten morning?"

Jareth nodded. "Absolute shit. Herder slammed us with an anatomy test this morning."

"On a Friday too. That's Herder for you," she replied, looking back at her computer screen. "You finish the homework for Monday yet?"

"Not even close. I'm hoping to get through most of it before class."

Cara frowned. "You're skipping lunch then?"

Jareth gestured to his bag. "Brought a snack. I'll get coffee later. No money for the cafeteria today."

"For someone who wants to be in the healthcare field, you don't take very good care of yourself."

Jareth stifled a yawn. "Why don't you just worry about that pet football player of yours?"

She arched an eyebrow. "He's not a pet. We've been friends since high school."

The remainder of the conversation and the day sped by. He managed to get through most of the homework, leaving only a short reflection he could finish before class on Monday. Class came next and he nearly drifted off during the lecture. Cara elbowed him awake, throwing him another accusing look before continuing her note taking. He left as soon as the professor dismissed everyone, going directly back to the bus stop and catching the earliest bus he could. He stopped by the grocery store for a bundle of noddle bowls and canned goods with a thing of coffee and bag of bruised apples as his indulgences for the week. Enough food to get him through to payday at least, just in time for rent and bills to eat up most of his paycheck.

He arrived back at his apartment around 4, a tad later than he'd intended but traffic had been backed up. Surprisingly only ordinary city congestion was to blame today. He found his door intact and his room empty. It seemed Liang hadn't been by yet. Jareth stepped inside and put the groceries away before grabbing an apple and putting on a pot of coffee. After throwing on plain white t-shirt, he dropped onto his bed to wait for his caffeine to brew. He opened the textbook and his notebook. If he reviewed the information from the lecture, he could check in with Cara on Monday to be sure he had the correct information. He started in, taking generous bites of his apple as he read.

He woke up to a knock on the door, starting when he realized he'd fallen asleep again. His book fell to the ground near the apple core that had fallen from his hand when he stood. He ran a hand through his ruffled hair and adjusted the glasses on his face, calling out, "One second." He made a small attempt to tidy the apartment, grabbing the trash near his bed and dumping into the can by the kitchenette. He stumbled to the door after that and cracked it open. Sure enough, he saw Liang standing before him in his usual polo shirt and pants combo, making their interaction that morning seem like a dream. Judging by his wet hair, Liang had only just arrived home from work. Jareth pushed the door open fully. "Hey. Come in." He headed back toward his kitchenette. "I've got coffee and…water. If you want something to drink." Jareth had already retrieved a mug for himself to help wake himself up.

 

[Cactus Jack]

The moment he heard Jareth, voice muted by the door between them, call out at his knock, a bolt of nervousness ran through Liang's spine like a current of lightning through a clear blue sky. Shit, what was he even doing right now? In what way was this entire situation not completely bizarre? Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, he decided pensively. I should've just told him to keep his mouth shut and left it at that. Or maybe I should've just gotten the hell out of that alleyway the second I realised he was there. Hell, I shouldn't have gone out at all last night. That jewellery store would've still been there the night after, right? I should've just--

"Hey. Come in."

That was the sound of two different things. It was the sound of Jareth Henson's voice, no longer muffled by a closed door. It was also the sound of Jack Liang's mental train catastrophically derailing, leaving dozens of mental passengers dead and millions of mental dollars in mental damages. Liang blinked as if his brain had just been subjected to a hard restart, and then realised Jareth had opened the door and invited him in.

Oh jeez, he thinks I'm going ins--? "Er, no no, I--" Liang raised a tentative hand, index finger outstretched as Jareth turned away. "I was just thinking--"

"I've got coffee."

"... well, if you're offering..." Liang scratched the back of his head and then made haste to follow Jareth inside, shutting the door behind him. He peered almost suspiciously around each nook and cranny of the apartment-- as if he wasn't convinced that Nisha wasn't about to leap out from behind some corner crying, 'Aha! I've got you now, Phantasm, all with the aid of my trusty new sidekick, Jareth!' It was a scenario somewhere between 'Jareth turning out to be the Headhunter, escaped from prison and bent on wreaking vengeance upon Liang' and 'Hyperion returning from the dead' in terms of things that were definitely not going to happen, but Liang had never let something like that stop him from panicking.

He decided to solve that particular issue by getting back to the thing he'd been panicking about in the first place. "So, er, look," he began. "I'm not going to phase you into a wall or anything. But you can't tell anybody what you saw. I know what you might think, but what I'm doing, it's-- it's actually a good thing."

 

[Tinder]

Jareth never heard Liang's protests. His mind was on a one way track to coffee, unable to move on to more complex thoughts until the miracle liquid had been supplied. He managed to catch Liang's acceptance as he filled his chipped mug emblazoned with symbol of some union from god-knew-where. He downed half in two gulps. A warm buzz woke some of his senses, eliciting a content sigh from him. I should make another pot before work.

The caffeine kicked his brain back into gear. He refilled his own cup and poured a second for Liang in a "World's #1 Grandma" mug from one of his thrift store trips. It was chintzy, but Jareth found it charming in its own way. The fact that it cost him next to nothing always helped. Those qualities could be used to describe most of this dishware collection.

He turned back to Liang in time to hear his confession. Jareth's face remained passive as he walked over to hand Liang the mug, gesturing toward his little kitchen. "I've got sugar on the counter and some milk in the fridge if you need it. Should still be good; I checked this morning." With his message delivered, Jareth drifted back to his bed and sat on the edge. Some relief washed over him as he took in Liang's message. After the series of metaphorical gut punches he'd received that morning, he reveled in the scrap of good news. At least death is less imminent. His relief gave way to curiosity after his brain captured the remainder of what Liang had said. He had to admit Liang had caught his interest. Jareth had never imagined he'd have the chance to speak with a supervillain, much less a friendly—for lack of a better word—one. Today could be a once in a lifetime sort of opportunity.

He crossed his legs and leaned back onto his free hand, taking a sip from his mug. "Alright, I'll bite. What's your reason for stealing from people and royally pissing off the local hero?"

 

[Cactus Jack]

It was readily apparent that Jareth wasn't the sort of person who frequently entertained company-- if not by virtue of the fact that Liang had been his neighbour for quite a while now and had never known him to have friends over or anything of that nature, then by virtue of the lack of anywhere else for Liang to, you know, sit. It felt a little rude to just walk over to that chair a few meters away and drag it over to Jareth, nor did it seem very feasible to sit over there and talk to Jareth from afar, so he opted for the most natural solution, which was to awkwardly stand in front of Jareth like a child bashfully presenting their work to a teacher.

At least the mug of coffee gave him something to do with his hands so he wasn't just standing there, hands by his sides, staring at Jareth like some kind of loonie. He downed a quick gulp of it-- when it came to the nectar of the gods, he preferred it sweet, perhaps sweeter than coffee had any right to be, but it was fine by him all the same-- and had been about to take another when Jareth spoke up. "Alright," he said, crossing his legs and leaning back. Liang blinked. "I'll bite. What's your reason for stealing from people and royally pissing off the local hero?"

"... I didn't think you'd actually ask," Liang admitted, scratching the back of his head before blurting out, "It's hardly stealing, though! I don't just-- I don't go around taking shit from people for kicks. These are people who've never had to really work a day in their lives-- they just take from those who do and-- and just try to pass it off as their own. People whose main concern in life is 'gee, I wonder what ten thousand dollar piece of jewellery I should buy?' when just a few blocks away, people are slaving away at seventy hour work weeks just to keep food on the table. If you've got enough money to literally swim in it and you don't care enough to give even a little of it to people who actually need it, then screw you, you deserve to have it taken."

He paused just long enough to realise he'd ended up at least two meters away from where he'd started-- at some point he'd begun pacing-- before adding dourly, "As for the local hero, she thinks just because something's legal, it's the right thing to do. I don't hate Nisha-- hell, I don't know anybody I respect more-- but when the law favours the rich, enforcing the law just means putting down the poor."

 

[Tinder]

For a supervillain who regularly made headlines, Liang lacked many of the characteristics that Jareth would have expected the infamous Phantasm to have. He sounded exactly like Jack Liang which might have made sense in any other circumstance, but here? The reasoning behind his villainous—if they could be called that—schemes sounded more at home in a blue collar worker's fantasy rather than the sole motivation for a crime spree that had lasted years.

Not that Jareth found fault with that reasoning.

He'd seen enough of the wage gap working at Fusion. Every night some punk walked in holding daddy's credit card, announcing his or her dedication to finding a real party. Like a shitty brick building at the ass end of town was some exotic wonder from the East. He could never decide if he ought to punch them in the face or get them into a cab.

He took another sip of coffee as Liang finished his explanation. "I get you. Can't say I expected such a…simple explanation. Kind of figured a famous thief would be a little more…" He pursed his lips. "Selfish. Devious, maybe. No offence."

The levity left his face as he rose from the bed. He crossed over to the window by his study table, gazing out into the dirty alley below. "This town is full of rich bastards who'd sooner find a way to cut their employees' wages than their own." Something of a grim smile crossed his lips. "They treat you bad enough when you have a job. Their tolerance for bums is next to nothing." He turned back to face Liang, hands sliding into his pockets. "But I don't know if I agree that breaking the law is the best way to deal with them. Things might start off harmless enough, but compromises tend to lead to more down the line" He paused, his eyes growing distant before locking onto Liang. "What makes you think you'll never go too far?"

 

[Cactus Jack]

"I get you" was among a number of phrases most supervillains, as a rule, had learned not to expect from people-- somewhere between 'nice lair, what kind of rent are you looking at with this thing?' and 'hey, nice job lasering the Metro Bridge in half the other day, I always did think it was kind of an eyesore'. Liang merely shook his head, something like indignation betraying itself in his furrowed brow and the thin line of his frowning lips. "No way. Sensationalist newspaper headlines and mid-fight bravado aside, I'm no Goldhand or Headhunter. I'm not in this just for the power trip, or to stuff my wallet. Hell, to this day I don't know how I managed to end up in the crosshairs of somebody like Nisha, I'm not even--"

He fell starkly silent, realising that he was going much too far-- that he'd perhaps already gone too far, said too much. Jareth knew who he was, the face beneath the mask, and if that was dangerous, it was because it made it tempting to be too comfortable around him. It made it tempting to admit that maybe Phantasm was already in over his head.

"It was never about that," he finally added quietly. "The power, the press, the money (you know, outside of reasonable expenses). It was about justice. And you can never go too far in pursuit of justice."

 

[Tinder]

Jareth raised an eyebrow at Liang's outburst and subsequent silence. For someone Jareth might have labeled a hardened criminal earlier that day, Liang had a surprising passion for justice. It was admirable in its own odd way. Jareth had heard similar speeches before, usually long winded excuses for someone's criminal activities. There was always a good reason buried beneath the compromises. Hide the greed and anger beneath a veneer of a glorious purpose to up-end the establishment and suddenly nothing went too far. But those words had smacked of paper thin contrivance. Liang sounded earnest. Earnest enough to remind Jareth that he hadn't intended to debate ethics with his neighbor during their first proper conversation.

"Suppose we may have to agree to disagree." He rubbed the back of his neck, his expression softening. "Sorry, man. Didn't mean to turn this into an interrogation."

He pulled his desk chair over by the bed and sat down. He made something of a gesture toward bed to indicate that Liang to make himself comfortable. Jareth would have offered him a chair if the desk chair weren't the only one he had in his apartment. Might be time to consider buying another folding chair. He took another sip of coffee. "On a less serious note, why are you living in this shit hole? With the kind of heists you pull off, you should be able to afford a place with more than 10 square feet of space and complimentary rats."

 

[Cactus Jack]

Well, now this was just kind of awkward, wasn't it? For just a moment-- a rather ludicrous moment-- Liang entertained the notion of other prominent villains of the super variety going through this ordeal. He tried to imagine the notoriously unhinged Animus, obsessing over his various increasingly absurd scheme of human extinction, clumsily explaining his hatred for humanity to a nonplussed neighbour. Or the debonair Goldhand, attempting to convey to the gangly college student he'd met the night before just why the contents of the Metro City Public Bank would be most appropriately used refurnishing his secret volcano lair.

Somehow, the mental picture just wasn't really working out, which left Liang to suspect that he was probably the only supervillain to find himself in this awkward position. You know, when I think of it that way, he mused with a troubled frown. I'm not so sure I'm very good at this.

Evidently he wasn't the only one basking in the awkwardness of the whole affair; Jareth apologised for the cavalcade of questions he'd posed, and then motioned vaguely towards his bed—presumably for Liang to take a seat. Liang glanced at it as if somewhat worried it might eat him alive if he sat on it, and shook his head. "I, uh, I think I probably better get going, honestly," he said. "But uh… thanks for the coffee." He raised the mug—realising a little too late that he had, in fact, only taken a couple of sips, and suspecting it might be a little unseemly to down the remainder now—and then moved to set it down on the kitchenette counter before making for the door.

A few steps away, however, he paused and then glanced back at Jareth. "As for why I still live here… Might attract some attention if a warehouse peon living on minimum wage moves into the high-rise district, don't you think?"

 

[Tinder]

Liang's abrupt decision to leave told Jareth he had indeed taken the conversation in an all too serious direction and made his neighbor uncomfortable. Arguable understandable considering the other's criminal record, but he still felt some remorse. Jareth liked to think he was a well-adjusted individual who could carry on a conversation with a stranger, but the circumstances of this encounter had left him at a bit of a loss. You couldn't just ask a supervillain what his favorite TV show was. Even if you could, Jareth wouldn't be able to do much with the information. He hadn't watched anything more than the occasional movie in years. Couldn't really talk about books either considering he only read for classes and Liang didn't seem the type to spend his spare time pouring over medical textbooks. Not to mention the only music Jareth listened to was whatever they played in the club. Maybe I do need to work on my social skills. Or get myself a hobby.

He waved Liang off when he thanked him. "Don't sweat it. I should probably get some reading done before I go to work anyway." He threw back the remainder of the coffee in his cup, getting back to his feet to move back to his desk once Liang had left. He needed more caffeine to navigate the remainder of his day otherwise he risked falling back asleep. Harrison would kill him if he was late on a Friday. Jareth suppressed a groan. He hated working Friday shifts.

He turned his attention back to Liang when the other man paused by the door. A smirk worked its way onto Jareth's face. "I'll give you that one. You've got more self-control than I do, but that's why you've never been caught, I suppose."

 

[Cactus Jack]

.

.

.​

This was, Liang had decided, all Jareth Henson's fault.

A little heftier of a constitution sort of came with the territory where superpowers were concerned-- call it happenstance, some quirk of the mysterious scientific or supernatural underpinnings of the superpowers. Now, Liang was no Nisha or Ares, and he wasn't about to be brushing aside getting hit by a speeding Mack truck or something, but he could take a far weightier punch than your average Joe could; he did, after all, regularly do battle with a woman who could punch holes in concrete. Barring that constitution of his, Liang was fairly certain Phantasm would have been reduced to a fine red mist with every blow.

But as last night's escapade had demonstrated, he wasn't invulnerable.

"Oof," he groaned as he limped into the kitchen, clutching at his side and feeling out the contours of what he was still fairly certain were broken ribs. It was an improvement, at least; they ached sharply if he twisted his body certain ways, but the diminishing constancy of the pain indicated they were already healing up. The black eye, ugly and stark beneath the skewed glasses? The bruises? The limp? Those would take care of themselves as well in due time, perhaps by the following morning.

For the time being, though, they were a damn nuisance, and by God, Liang blamed Jareth Henson for them. "He distracted me," he insisted out loud to his refrigerator. "I was so busy worrying about whether I'd done the right thing, about whether he was going to spill the beans or something, that it made me all... all careless. I need my focus when the goddamn Mighty Midget shows up. If not for that... that tall bastard, I'd've made a clean break and gotten out of that bank with the money in tow." The refrigerator didn't seem particularly convinced.

Scowling, Liang yanked it open, and was only all the more irked to find it contained two sticks of celery, a small container of margarine, and a carton of milk he was fairly certain had expired days ago. "Great," he groused, grabbing the carton and slamming it down onto the counter. "I forgot to go grocery shopping yesterday. This is also Jareth's fault." He frowned, stomach growling, and decided that if he'd already seen fit to blame his neighbour for all his woes, the least he could do was get proper remuneration.

Five minutes later, Jack Liang was at Jareth's door. "This is your fault," he said flatly, pointing at his black eye. "Get me lunch and we'll call it even."

 

[Tinder]

Jareth used the remainder of his evening to skim the remainder of the chapter while eating a quick dinner of chicken noodle soup directly out of the can. Hot food was for attentive students. He chugged the remainder of his coffee before changing into work clothes and jacket. He slipped two cans of Animal into his pockets before jogging out of his apartment to catch the bus over to Fusion. Located down a series of back alleys, only the neon lights surrounding the door distinguished it from rundown stores lining the road. Already a small line stood outside the entrance when Jareth arrived, mostly regulars with a few already tipsy from their pre-gaming. He ignored the crowds as he ducked into the club, already dreading the shift.

For once the night passed by with few incidents. No more than a few minor scuffles broke out most of which ended before Jareth could be bothered to intervene. Had the idiots bothered to be this calm the night before when he'd been killing his brain studying? Nope. Instead the crowds left him alone tonight with only his conversation with Liang to distract him from the monotony. That talk had not gone as he'd expected. Not that he gave much thought to what a conversation with a famous villain would be like. He spent more time planning ways to avoid ever meeting one. And now I know I live down the hall from one of the more infamous.

One incident came along to distract him near the latter half of his shift. A woman in an overly tight black dress came stumbling out of the bar with her much younger friend trailing behind holding both their bags. She let loose a cackle that could have made dogs howl and babies cry. "Oh my god," she squealed, "Did you see that DJ? I should've given him my number." She followed with a loud whistle as she negotiated her way out of the door.

Her friend waited behind her, a sober cabbie who looked to be regretting her choices that Friday night. "Yeah whatever, Rosie. Just keep walking."

Rosie jumped out onto the sidewalk. "I'm an untamable stallion…or mare. No, that's sounds way dumber. An untamable stallion! Say do you think we could stop for a nightcap in the hotel—"

She tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and began to fall backwards, screaming as though the earth had opened beneath her feet to swallow her whole. Jareth, who happened to be standing behind her, caught her shoulders and managed to steady her. Rosie spun around, a look of awe on her face as she took hold of his hand. "Holy crap, you just saved my ass. Thank you."

Jareth shrugged, tugging his hand away from her. "Whatever you say."

"You're my hero," she insisted, grabbing his arm before giving a possibly flirtatious smile. "How can I ever make it up to you? Maybe a date?"

Her friend rolled her eyes before stepping up to pull her away from Jareth. "Sorry, she gets this way after too many shots. Leave the guy alone, Rosie. I want to go to bed."

"Wait," Rosie batted her friend away before reaching into her wallet and pulling out a twenty. She scribbled a series of numbers onto it and slipped into Jareth's shirt collar. "Call me." She blew a kiss before throwing herself onto her friend's shoulders and wandering down the way.

The guy working the door with him, Craig, snickered. "Low on rent money again, Professor?"

Jareth took the money out of his shirt, ignoring the comment. The numbers were practically illegible, but twenty bucks was twenty bucks. He put the money into his pocket, grateful for the new topic to think over for the remainder of his shift.

By the time 4 am rolled around, Jareth had gone through two more cans of Animal and still managed to doze on the bus back to his apartment. He managed the climb up the stairs and kick off his shoes before collapsing onto his bed without a thought about changing clothes or taking out his contacts. All he wanted was sleep.

Which he found a few hours of until a knock at the door woke him. He sat up, glancing around the room filled with sunlight. Why am I awake? Nothing told him how long he'd been asleep, but a second knock did let him know what woke him. Swear if this is some stupid shit about rent… He walked to his door and opened it to find Liang standing there. Again.

Jareth watched the brunette disinterestedly as he gave his demands. "Looks like someone threw an anvil at your face," Jareth replied. He assumed the headlines tomorrow or today would be reading something along the lines of "The Phantasm Foiled Again." I'm not awake enough for this. Jareth stifled a yawn before continuing. "First off, I remember you leaving here yesterday in one piece, completely unassaulted. So I'm going to need you to explain how your eye is my problem." He leaned his arm on his doorframe, resisting the urge to close the door and go back to his bed. "Secondly, I'm broke. Don't tell me you're out of extra cash after one bad night."

 

[Cactus Jack]

Distressingly, Jareth did not immediately acquiesce to what Liang considered to be a very reasonable request. More distressingly, he reminded Liang that he was, in fact, a notorious supervillain with more cash stuffed away in the bank than everybody else in the building put together, which meant that realistically speaking, Liang didn't actually have much of an excuse to demand he go buying him lunch.

"... well," Liang began stiffly, clearly a little less convinced than he'd been a moment ago. "You-- you distracted me. I should have been focusing on not getting punched repeatedly by a five-foot-tall super-midget, but instead I was thinking about you. I mean, about you... you know, knowing. So I was distracted. So this happened." He pointed helpfully at the black eye again, as if concerned that Jareth may have forgotten the subject of conversation.

It was not a very compelling argument, and this appeared to have finally dawned on Liang, because he rolled his eyes and said, "Alright, fine, so it's not 100% your fault. Whatever. I'll pay, okay? Jeez, you rob a couple dozen banks and all of a sudden people think you're loaded."

 

[Tinder]

Liang lost some of his confidence while answering Jareth's questions. Seemed he'd worked himself up enough to walk over but had failed to fully think through his reasoning. A smirk worked its way onto Jareth's face as Liang stumbled over his words in an attempt to explain himself. How had their superheroine not managed to catch him yet? The city's most infamous supervillain couldn't talk his way into a free lunch and yet somehow this guy routinely emptied out banks.

Despite this detail, Liang did manage to catch Jareth by surprise. Instead of walking away from the door and leaving him to finish his sleep in peace, Liang offered to buy him lunch. Jareth lost the smirk and managed to perk up some. "Wait, seriously?" Liang didn't just want free food. He actually wanted to go to lunch with him. Or Jareth assumed he did. Why else would he still be standing there? Unless this was some kind of nefarious plan to get…something. Jareth really had nothing that would interest someone with more than five bucks in his pocket.

He couldn't even remember the last time he'd gone out just to relax. Most of his free days he stayed home to sleep. There had been that day he met—no that was for a group project. The Tuesday when he—wait, he canceled to pick up a shift at work. That free concert a few weekends back—he'd gone alone.

When did my social life die? Jareth straightened up. "It's against the code of the broke student to turn away free food. Just let me find some relatively clean clothes." He went back into his room, pulling off his t-shirt and tossing it onto the floor near his bed. He pulled out a pair of jeans and a faded black shirt with the logo of a band he'd liked in high school. Not fresh from the dryer but he wouldn't smell like a bar. He took his clothes into the bathroom where he quickly changed and splashed some water onto his face. His hair remained a disheveled mess and the dark circles stood out under his eyes, but he didn't have the will to work a miracle. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his work pants to retrieve his wallet and phone only to find the twenty from last night. The numbers remained illegible, but it gave him an idea.

He returned to Liang after about five minutes. "Sorry about that. Late night at work. Worth the effort through. I remembered that I came into something of a small fortune last night." He flashed the defaced twenty in mock triumph. "You buy for me and I buy for you?"

 

[Cactus Jack]

Liang almost hoped the guy would demur. He almost hoped he'd roll his eyes, tell him to get lost, and shut the door in his face or something. It wasn't the rather impulsive offer of paying for the both of them that Liang regretted; Jareth could eat his way through every highfalutin restaurant from one end of the city to the other-- you know, those places where you pay roughly the cost of a house for a massive plate with two bites of food elegantly arranged in the middle of it-- and Liang's bank account wouldn't be smarting too much for the cost.

No, it was just that, in the five or so minutes in which Jareth had retreated into his apartment to change, Liang remembered that he was, in fact, the most notorious damn supervillain in Metro City, inviting his next-door neighbour-- the possessor of a secret which could simply end Liang if he delivered it to the wrong people-- out for a bite to eat. As if he were starved for company!

Oh, hell, who am I kidding? Liang was starved for company. Ever since he'd begun his stint as Metro's Most Wanted, his circle of friends had withered, drifted, disintegrated; friends he'd considered invaluable back in college had simply, quietly waltzed out of his life, or he out of theirs. Funny thing about being a supervillain: it didn't leave a whole lot of elbow room for things like a social life. Maybe I'll have to join one of those villainous leagues that sprout up whenever a bunch of the other guys decide they've got a better chance of taking Nisha down together, he mused. They tended not to last long, and usually ended with the constituent villains turning on one another over some perceived slight, but they seemed fun while they lasted.

For now, though, his company would be the decidedly-not-very-supervillainous-at-all Jareth Henson, who had the grace to stir Liang from his thoughts as he emerged from his apartment. "Sorry about that," he intoned as he shut the door behind him. "Late night at work. Worth the effort through. I remembered that I came into something of a small fortune last night." And then he brandished a twenty dollar bill as though it were a trophy of war, adding, "You buy for me and I buy for you?"

"... you, uh, you've got phone number all over that," Liang pointed out rather self-evidently, and more than a little curiously. "But yeah, that's cool." He gestured awkwardly down the hall, as if to say, please, you first-- and then started walking anyway. Eager to cover up the little misstep, he blurted out thoughtlessly, "I know this fantastic Chinese place downtown. Really good. Great stuff." He paused, realising with dread the mistake he'd just made.

... I sure hope there actually is a fantastic Chinese place downtown.