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Abner Krill was cold. Well, as cold as one could be when there was no body with skin and nerve endings to sense cold with. The last thing he remembered was the euphoria of doing something right in his life, being the hero that he never got to be - not the one that his mother was trying to create- but for himself, doing the right thing. Being a motherfucking superhero.
The nothingness that surrounded him seemed to stretch on forever, blinding and achingly empty all at once. He thinks he got killed. Squished? He‘s not sure what happened, but he’s pretty sure that he doesn’t… exist anymore. Not in his dimension anyway.
Back in his own dimension, he was making connections. He thought of Cleo and little Sebastian, Flag ruffling his hair, the whole team laughing around that club table, drinking together like… friends.
He had friends.
The surge of emotion that followed those words sent a shockwave through the void. Abner Krill, who had been imprisoned, ridiculed, tortured, and literally haunted by the abuse of his mother, had experienced friendship. No matter how brief.
And he wanted that back.
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“You are kidding with that outfit, right?” Harley was sprawled across Cleo’s bed, munching on the honey peanuts the bodega downstairs sold by the pound. She (and Sebastian) had quickly gotten addicted to them since moving into the apartment.
It had been over a month and a half since the battle against Starro the Conqueror. She and Cleo had moved into a crappy two-bedroom together after DuBois had left to reconnect with his daughter and Nanaue went off to… do something, Harley wasn’t really sure where the shark had been saying he was going to be honest. However, there had definitely been a promise about “No leaving friends,” so she was pretty sure the big guy would come back sooner rather than later.
“What do you mean?” Cleo asked, spinning to examine the back of her raincoat, searching for anything glaringly wrong with the garment, “What’s wrong with it?”
“Only the lack of anything happening at all!!” The harlequin flung herself up towards the younger woman, sending a startled squeak out of Sebastian who clutched tighter to his tasty snack.
“The thing is blander than bland! No sequins, no fringe, no color for Christ's sake!” Harley turned both of them to face the bedroom mirror, “Does it make you feel like you can go kick some ass in amazing style? I don’t think so, babes.”
Cleo smiled tiredly at Harley’s playful jabs at the, admittedly, plain jacket. The ratcatcher had chosen it instead of a fun pink and yellow raincoat, because it was functional, but also because…
“I just haven’t felt very colorful lately, Harley.”
The weight of that sentence wiped the smiles off the faces of both women. Even Sebastian's whiskers drooped at the reminder of who was missing from the squad. Permanently missing.
The loss of Flag had been the one to hit Harley the hardest, but she could see in her new roommate’s sorrowful blue eyes that the death of the Polka Dot man had been weighing on her.
It was twice now that she had walked in on her sitting and holding the dotted scrap of costume pulled from the rubble of Corto Maltese. The blood stains still hadn’t come out.
“Okay then Ratsy, come on,” Harley led her gently by the shoulders out into the tiny main room of the flat. “I am going to make you the best turkey, ham, pickle, potato chip sandwich you’ve ever had and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
The ratcatcher ducked her head and gave a bittersweet grin behind her hair at the obvious attempt to get her mind off of Abner’s absence.
“Okay Quinn, show me this magical sandwich,” Cleo teased, resigned to let her crazy friend do what she wanted in their already messy kitchen. Harley squealed and clapped her hands, before whirling around to search for ingredients, black and red pigtails bobbing.
Cleo Cazo took a seat at the kitchen counter to watch the chaos (“art!” claimed Harley) of superior-sandwich-making unfold, wishing the whole while that Abner was there.
_________________________________________
The ceiling was glowing.
Sebastian the rat looked up from where he was chewing a hole in the left cushion of the loveseat to gaze up at the rainbow illuminating the, previously, beige room. Stashing the honey peanuts he had saved from earlier would have to wait.
Cleo had to see this.
_________________________________________
“... Abner?”
Cleo could hardly believe what she was seeing. She had woken up to Sebastian frantically squeaking and pushing at her cheek with his tiny hands, trying his absolute hardest to wake up his human.
Now she was standing in the living room in her oversized sleep shirt, staring at a very naked and very alive Abner Krill. His pale shoulders shook with obvious exhaustion, and she couldn't be certain, but she was pretty sure that the smoking hole in the ceiling, directly above her previously smooshed teammate, wasn't there before.
The polka dot man turned at her voice, eyes wide and searching before they met hers.
“Oh my god I did it,” he said, voice cracking with feeling.
The emotion that surged through Cleo propelled her forward, out of her frozen position in the doorway, and sent her hurtling toward him.
For a nanosecond she caught sight of a moment of fear in Abner’s eyes before her arms wound around him and crushed him to her chest. It did not matter that he was half a foot taller than her, or that he had somehow pushed himself through layers of space and time to arrive back to his home dimension, or even that he was completely and utterly nude.
All that mattered was that he was being hugged by someone who had missed him terribly, and he was so tired, and he had never felt safer in his whole life.
The tears were gushing before he could stop them, rattling his ribcage. He collapsed to the carpet like a ragdoll with its strings cut, and Cleo went with him, wrapping around him, as if trying to shield him from any more harm. The ugly sobs were tearing their way out of his chest, letting out everything he had been through.
Cleo’s own tears were soaking Abner’s hair, and she felt him shiver violently. She spotted the tattered crocheted blanket that Harley liked to keep on the couch and pulled it over him to give her friend some deserved privacy.
Eventually the tears ebbed and the shaking stopped, and Abner looked up at her with red eyes and asked, “Where are we?”
Cleo barely opened her mouth to answer before she was cut off by the excited screech of, “DOTTIE!” and suddenly they were both getting barreled into by a ball of hair and rainbow pokemon pajamas.
“I knew you’d come back!” Harley squealed into Abner’s ear, pulling him a little too hard by the neck into a crushing embrace. He vaguely recognized that she smelled like peppermint as he returned the hug as best as he could. As she pulled back, Cleo subtly tossed the blanket over Abner’s lap and he shot her a grateful look.
Harley launched into an ecstatic play-by-play of everything he had missed in the time that he was gone (two months apparently?), as she pulled them both up and bundled them into the kitchen to make celebratory pancakes.
As he sat and tried to listen to it all, Harley’s brilliant grin and Cleo’s wonder filled stares let Abner in on the answer to the question he’d asked Cleo. He knew where he was.
He was home.