#thockj

[radioactive-earthshine]

“Then why did you hang up Superboy’s picture?”  

Cissie chewed the inside of her cheek then stretched out her long legs as she thought about her question. “I guess I just needed to feel like I had someone that understood me.” 

Greta floated next to her. “Do you feel like he really understands you?” 

How could he? How could anyone? Cissie shook her head. “No, Greta. I don’t think- ugh - can we talk about something else? I dunno, what’s it like being a ghost?” 

“Boring,” Greta replied. “If you show yourself to people they get scared and run away, so you hide all day and have to sneak around. I hate it! I’d love to just be able to exist without people calling me a freak or… thinking I’m dangerous or evil. I know I'm not dangerous or evil! At least… I think I’m not,” said Greta and she darkened. 

“I understand how all that feels at least,” muttered Cissie and then she looked at Greta and smiled, a small little thing. “We’re really sort of the same, y’know? We have to hide who we really are.” 

“I wish we didn’t need to hide,” Greta replied. 

“One day we won’t,” Cissie said and Greta looked at her. 

“Do you really think that? I won’t have to hide one day?” 

The Haunting of Cissie King-Jones Chapter Five "Hiding" Something something being a ghost being an allegory to the queer experience something something

[radioactive-earthshine]

Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness she looked out the window and was glad to see that she could see the lighthouse, and the light did in fact rotate around. It was a beautiful emerald green, like a Green Lantern. 

Cissie watched it for a long time before her eyelids grew too heavy to keep open and she fell asleep, but before she did she could have sworn she felt someone sit on the bed next to her. But that was impossible. 

From: The Haunting of Cissie King-Jones Chapter One "The Favor" My favorite thing about writing these AUs is still keeping in details that confirms this IS the world of super heroes even if the main character is not a super hero. I love that lighthouse tremendously. Yeah Greta just stared at Cissie while she was sleeping for at least two hours before she started panicking about what to do now that her safe place was inhabited by people she was certain were going to fear her. She wasn't entirely happy, and had a great amount of fear herself.

[radioactive-earthshine]

“You can change the station if you want to, girlie,” Bonnie said and flicked the ashes off her cigarette lazily out the window as she drove along the winding coastline. “I’m no fan of ABBA.”

Cissie was only half paying attention to the music as she stared out her window, her chin resting on the palm of her hand. “It’s fine,” she said and continued to stare at the landscape as it went by her. Rhode Island was in full Autumn blush; reds, oranges and bright gold cascaded like clouds on Cissie’s side of the car, and on Bonnie’s side stretched a blue October ocean under white cliffs.

Bonnie reached for the radio and changed it anyway and kept turning the dial until she found a station that was not broadcasting a commercial. “There, Ozzy. You know, you used to dance to his music before you could even run.” 

“To Ozzy Osbourne?” Cissie asked with a small disbelieving laugh. 

Bonnie chuckled. “You’d put your little hands on the side of the coffee table and pull yourself up and you would bop up and down like you were in a mosh pit! Didn’t matter what song of his it was. If it came on the radio you would be right there dancing,” she sighed fondly then and put out her cigarette on the side of her door then flicked it into oblivion. “Bernie would laugh so hard! He got a video of you doing it once! It’s on a tape in a box those neanderthals are moving for us!” 

From: The Haunting of Cissie King-Jones Chapter One "The Favor" The song I imagined playing was none other than Dancing Queen 😂 I do have a funny story though, this headcanon about Cissie as a baby dancing to Ozzy actually comes from an old memory I have from my mother before she died, she said I did this but to "I Feel Good" by James Brown, and ONLY that song. There was allegedly a tape, but it's been long since lost.

[radioactive-earthshine]

When Cissie ran out of arrows Bernell whistled. “You’re going to be set for life Suzie, get everything you could ever want.” 

Cissie smiled. “Everything I could ever want huh?” she sighed. 

“What is it that you want, Suzie? A bigger house? Your mom’s insurance money is practically untouched, we got more than enough to move if you want!” 

Cissie shook her head. “No, I’m fine here, dad.” She realized then that the house was her old childhood home, the first home she remembered. 

“A new car then? Remember our lessons last summer? You got your license but you’ve been driving that beat up thing ever since!” 

Cissie shook her head again and she didn’t know why. “N-no, I’m fine for now.” 

“Hmm, new shoes?” 

“I…” Cissie felt like she was choking. 

“Just tell me what you want, and I will make sure it is yours Suzie.” His voice was his, but it wasn’t, it had the same cadence as her mother’s and when she looked closer at him he suddenly morphed into Bonnie. “Come on girlie, spit it out. Tell me how to fix it and I’ll just do it. You don’t need to go through all this dramatic bullshit.”

Cissie recoiled from her. “Mother?!” 

“Did you really think I was dead? Pssh, you would want that, wouldn’t you?” she drawled and then took a long drag of a cigarette. 

“N-no! I would never!” Cissie denied but then something in her heart felt like she lied. 

Bonnie flicked her cigarette on the lawn.”Tell that to your psyche girlie.” 

“Mom, I don’t want you dead, I want you to stop trying to keep Arrowette alive! She’s dead! Deader than dad!” 

Bonnie spun around and she looked terrifying. She was dressed in her old Miss Arrowette costume as she snarled at her. “Then kill her girlie! Kill your mommy because she is Arrowette!” 

Cissie felt her arms shake as she pointed an arrow right at her mother’s throat. 

“Come on girlie! One A+ shot! Just one and you will be free forever!” 

Cissie trembled, her breaths coming in short little gasps as she desperately tried to put the arrow down, but she just couldn’t. “What are you waiting for? It’s what you’ve always wanted!” 

Cissie snarled and managed to violently throw the bow and arrow down to the grass. “I’m not killing you! I love you!”

The Haunting of Cissie King-Jones Chapter Four "Little Ghost" This was honestly one of my favorite dream sequences to write and I love the visuals as Bernell morphs into Bonnie and Cissie works through the dream, her complicated feelings regarding her mother, and her fears about possibly killing someone. Cissie wants so desperately to have had a life of her own and it is a harsh reality that she would have possibly had it if it was Bonnie that died instead. She can't help the feelings of joy and relief at the possibility, but that's not reality. The reality is Bernell died, Bonnie lived, and Arrowette consumed them.

[radioactive-earthshine]

“Don’t breathe that girlie, it probably has lead in it!” Bonnie said through her mask.

The Haunting of Cissie King-Jones Chapter 3 "Howl" This line was just hilarious to me and it still makes me giggle for reasons I cannot explain.

[radioactive-earthshine]

“Wait,” Bonnie suddenly seethed. “If it’s that fast boy from Alabama sneaking around here, I will shoot him dead, do you understand me?” 

“You mean Impulse? Oh my God mom, he wouldn’t! He’s not interested in me like that! I don’t think he’d ever do that to anyone!” 

Bonnie glared at her. “How do you know? Boys always think it’s cute and romantic to just slip into a girl’s bedroom! I mean it girlie, if I catch one glimpse of him around here, he’s dead!”  

“You’re just still mad at Impulse and his mentor for reporting you to CPS. He doesn’t know I am even here. Ugh, whatever! This is pointless. I need to go.”  

The Haunting of Cissie King-Jones Chapter Three "Howl" The only person Bart would legitimately creep around is Tim because he's gonna fucking GET HIM. I headcanoned that Bonnie held a grudge against Max and by extension Bart for the fallout that occurred after Max reported her. Bonnie however is not wrong, in a world of metas where teenagers can just vibrate through walls it opens the doors wide open for all sorts of problems particularly with the types of media that was popular of the time. Bonnie has a lot of problems but recognizing that uninvited contact and stalking is NOT romantic is not one of them. I would like to see her try to shoot Bart though.

[radioactive-earthshine]

Ignoring the cold, she went to her closet and pulled out a poster tube and withdrew the poster she was looking for; a slightly cringey one of Superboy that was even autographed by him. The history lesson from earlier made her think more about him and how similar they actually were as manufactured heroes that didn’t have much say in it. 

She hoped one day Superboy would wake up like she did, because she was convinced that if he didn’t, then in a few years she would have to endure news reports about how he spiraled and took the route that River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain did becoming addicted to some illegal drug and killing himself tragically. 

Oh that was so mean of a thought, Cissie chastised herself. 

In apology and as a reminder for why she turned away from the hero circuit, she decided to hang his poster up on the wall above her desk. She could see it from every angle in her room and she had to admit, he looked good right there. It was funny how she could appreciate how good he looked but the thought of kissing him, dating him and him touching her made her literally want to gag. But if he was a butch chick… 

Well, maybe things would have been different and Cissie might have made some bad decisions that definitely would have made her mother extremely mad because she was certain lesbianism was not in her plans for her as Arrowette. 

The Haunting of Cissie King-Jones Chapter Two: Lavender I genuinely like how Cissie and Kon both had some similarities in that they did not really have any control over if they wanted to be heroes or not. Kon was created in a tube to replace Superman, and Cissie was raised to be Arrowette that died when Bonnie had to retire. So they are both these kids that had to replace someone that had died, but their paths were completely different and their opinions on it utterly different as well. Cissie here naturally doesn't have the full nuance here nor does she know Kon's true thoughts and how at this time he is not any sort of replacement for Superman. She also doesn't know the depth of how far he was exploited. She's 17. I had drafted a flashback scene that explained how Cissie got this poster and her past relationship with Superboy but it was too convoluted and detracted from Cissie, so I left it out. Basically, she met him shortly after she won the gold medal at the Olympics when she was 15 while her mother was negotiating contracts, because when you are an Olympian that wins the gold medal commercial offers come in very quickly. Rex Leech was unfortunately the one trying to sign Cissie on in a collab project with Superboy which Bonnie heard him out, then pulled the plug before he was even halfway through the pitch. Bonnie might have been abusive, and controlling and deeply mentally unwell herself, but she knows how sexism works in the industry and will do anything to protect her daughter from that. Anyway, Cissie met Kon then. He left an impression on her, mostly positive, but also something else too. Maybe one day I'll post that somewhere or include it as a bonus scene once this fic is done. But for now it exists as a draft.

[radioactive-earthshine]

The brown haired girl’s green eyes widened delightfully. “Okay, so. The story you will find anywhere is that the father killed his two kids then his wife - which is pretty mundane, it happens everywhere all the time, there’s nothing exciting about a man bumping off his brood. It’s how and why he killed them that made them all famous. You see, he slit all their throats in a satanic ritual. His company was tanking, you know what I mean? So he got desperate and decided to cast black magic and make deals with demons to make sure he didn't go broke and his family was worth the price.” 

And Cissie thought her mother was bad sometimes. “He really did that?” she bit her lip and remembered how her mother said Hayes' fortune was much greater now, something about offshore oil drilling. “Did it work?” 

The girl nodded. “It sure did. It’s all blood money now, every single cent.” 

“That’s not how it happened at all,” the redheaded girl deadpanned. “That’s all conspiracy theory horseshit! The dad smothered each of them in their sleep, then they electrocuted him for it, the end! No black magic, besides, magic doesn’t exist!” 

“Tell that to Zatanna,” chuckled the freckled boy and the redheaded girl rolled her eyes. 

“That’s different, that’s meta powers not fantasy magic!” 

 “Black magic isn’t fantasy, Karen!” 

“Whatever Ashley,” Karen looked at Cissie. “There was no magic or demons or whatever involved in it.” 

The Haunting of Cissie King-Jones Chapter Two "Lavender" I feel like in a world of meta powers the debate over magic would have its levels of discourse we could never possible understand, particularly among teenagers. "Is this magic or meta powers? Well magic isn't real so it HAS to be meta powers, but no, wait, magic is real and it's totally separate, no it's not you dipshit it's all the same, can it dweeb." No but really, Ashley, Karen and Dillon are three teenagers I loved writing and can't wait to feature more of. Yes, Ashley will return (for those who have read this). The names all were chosen at random, technically, but I did know I wanted an Ashley because my childhood was spent sharing a classroom with at LEAST 3 Ashleys, or Ashleighs, or Ashleas, so for a story taking place in 1997 there HAD to be at least one. I settled on Karen just bc unfortunately the Karen trend did a disservice to the name, it's a lovely name. Dillon is just fun.