Head In The Clouds (Patreon)

It could’ve been a normal, everyday, white, fluffy cloud, except for its shape. Somehow, some way, that puffy, insubstantial cloud-stuff had been rearranged into a castle. Not a vague resemblance, a three-dimensional Rorschach test, but a literal castle seemingly built of clouds. It floated over Metropolis, no more threatening than any other cloud, except for the sheer weirdness of its impossible shape.

“We should do something about that, huh?” Jinny Hex asked, patting her holstered sidearm for reassurance it was as ready as she was.

“I don’t know,” Cassie Sandsmark replied with a wry grin, “it doesn’t look like rain or anything.”

“Aw heck,” Jinny muttered, scoffing her cowboy boots on the city street. “Y’all made me a superhero, dragging me along on your caped crusades, now ya gotta be all sardonic?”

Cassie sighed. “I was just kidding. We’ll go see what it’s all about.”

Jinny cleared her throat.

“And I’ll give you a lift—unless you have a jetpack in your magic bag.”

“It’s a trunk. And nah.”

“Maybe jet boots.”

“That’d be cool. But I like these boots.”

“Shut up already: if that really does turn out to be a threat, I’m gonna feel like an ass if we did a soft-shoes routine for any longer.”

“They’re pretty hard,” Jinny said, stomping her boots one at a time.

***

“Oh geez, oh God, oh for fuck’s sake,” Jinny moaned as they skydived in reverse, Cassie holding onto the cowgirl while they rocketed straight up. “I think I’m gonna be sick!”

“You’ve gotta get used to this stuff sometime if you want to be a superhero,” Cassie advised her. “You can’t complain about Impulse giving you whiplash either.”

“Oh lord, oh lord, why do I hang out with you?”

“Are you asking me or Jesus? Because I think you might be better off talking to a minister if it’s the second.”

Jinny just moaned miserably.

“Settle down,” Cassie told her. Jinny had her hands locked on Cassie’s forearm, making sure of her grip, and Cassie patted her wrist in return. “We’re almost there.”

They’d reached the underbelly of the cloud castle and now they skirted it, flying up to the coastline of this floating island, then hovering up to the minarets and towers of the castle itself. Jinny helplessly reached out to run her fingers through the white cotton candy—found that her hand skated away. The cloud grabbed at her fingers with traction like she’d touched a wall while riding on her bike.

“Cassie! Holy crap! It’s solid!”

“Is it?” Cassie asked, reaching out with her toe to prod the cloud. It didn’t give except with the mildest sag, like a Jello mold that’d been in the freezer way too long. “You think we can walk on it?”

“Oh no, oh no, oh God, God, no, nuh-uh, don’t you dare—“

“Relax,” Cassie told her. “I’m not gonna drop you. Just let me…”

She hovered down towards one of the floors offered by the castle’s walkways and staircases. This ground was as solid as the cloud’s sides had been before. It wasn’t quite as… substantial as anything Cassie had ever walked on before, but it wasn’t as bouncy as a trampoline. It reminded Cassie more of riding a people mover, or maybe stepping on bubble-wrap.

She probed out with her toes in a few different directions, but the cloud-ground was solid wherever she stepped. Cassie gave Jinny a prod away from her body—the cowgirl was standing on her toes, refusing to give up her spider monkey act.

“It’s fine, Jinny. It’s fine. I’m standing on it right now.”

“How do I know ya not just making it look that way while you keep flying? An’ I’ll fall right through it!”

“Why would I do that?”

“I dunno!” Jinny admitted with a shout. “But it’s not like I know why Impulse or Superboy or that weirdo Robin do any of the things they do either!”

“You’re going with Robin being the weirdo in that mix?” Cassie asked. “Look, you wanted to come up here. If you want me to take you back down, just say so. But I’m not gonna have you hang off of me the whole time we’re here!”

That got through to Jinny—she guffawed. “Shame. Might be entertaining.”

Jinny reached out with her toe experimentally, just as Cassie had done, until she’d found the solid footing the cloud provided and shifted her weight onto it. After a few moments of confidence-building, she detached herself from Cassie—going so far as to rock up and down on her heels to test the ground’s impossible solidness. She laughed; a little bit at herself.

“Well, don’t that beat all… you should try this routine on dates. Instead of a fella taking his girl to a scary movie, getting her all nice and frightened so she wants to cuddle, you just take someone up here. Even Batman would be snuggling up to you!”

“Who says I’m not doing that right now?” Cassie quipped, looking around for a way deeper into the castle—some indication of where they should go from here. There had to be a center to this thing, right? Some nexus point? It couldn’t just be an objet d'art… could it?

“Don’t know if you’re my type, blondie—but I’d be willing to let you try.” Jinny grinned, then saw Cassie wasn’t paying attention to her, instead heading off in a random direction. She followed. “Seriously though—aren’t you going out with Superboy? Ain’t you two a big thing? And now he’s back, so…”

“So? Yeah, so?” Cassie chimed. “What am I supposed to do? Throw off my clothes, jump into bed, and go ‘where were we?’”

“I consider him something of a bro, on account a’ I’m pretty sure he’s saved the world, thus me, on a few occasions—so on his behalf, I gotta say, that’d probably work.”

Cassie came across a shadowed archway. The opening led to a spiral staircase going straight down, into the interior of the cloud.

“Well, I’m just not built that way. I can’t just pick up where we left off. What if the spark isn’t there anymore? What if we’ve changed too much?”

The marshmallow whiteness the stairway was made out of pressed in on them on all sides, but it was flimsy enough to let in sufficient light to see by.

“What if there’s someone else you care about now?” Jinny quipped.

“Oh, no, me and Robin, that was barely a fling… wait, what?”

“What?” Jinny repeated.

Cassie stopped, turning around to look up the staircase at Jinny. “What, was that a—“

“Did you and Robin?”

“Did you and me?”

“Obviously we didn’t.”

“You mean we haven’t.”

“But you—“

“But I—“

“But you wouldn’t be interested.”

“But you are interested?” Cassie questioned.

“I never said that.”

“What are you saying?”

“What were you saying?”

“When?”

“Just now!”

“About Robin?”

“No, before.”

“Before Robin I was with Kon, you know that—“

“No, before—today.”

“Yesterday?”

“No! Today! Before now! And after Robin I suppose… when you said you were maybe taking me on a date!” Jinny declaimed.

“I was just joking.”

“I was just joking,” Jinny retorted.

“When?”

“When I said I might like hanging off you for the whole mission.”

Cassie smirked. “So you wouldn’t like that?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, you just said you should take me out on a date.”

“That was you!” Jinny insisted.

“Oh yeah.”

“Oh, Kon… such a beautiful prick!” The voice that ran through the castle, pushing through the insubstantial building blocks of it, was clearly wide-eyed with admiration. “I want to feel it… in my mouth… I want to taste it… I WANT IT!”

Cassie and Jinny blinked, identical surprise etched on their faces. They looked at each other.

“Was that…” Cassie started suspiciously.

“Kon?”

“Cass?”

“You’re Cass.”

“No, the other Cass! With Kon!”

“Does Kon have a beautiful—“

“She said his name!” Cass insisted, cutting Jinny off at the pass—appropriately enough. “Come on!”

She took off down the stairs and Jinny followed her.

“Why are we coming on?” Jinny asked.

“I wanna catch them… him and his beautiful cock,” Cassie muttered.

“Catch who? Doing what?”

“Kon! And Cass!”

“The other Cass, who’s the other—y’know what, never mind? Why do you care? I thought you just said—“

“I know what I said!”

“Are you sure? Because you didn’t remember saying you wanted to take me out on a date.”

“I remember saying th—wait, no I didn’t, I never said that!” Cassie protested.

“Words to that effect,” Jinny reasoned.

“No, words to some other effect, because I didn’t say those words.”

“So you don’t want to go out with me.”

“Right!”

“Because you’re going out with Kon.”

“No!”

“Which is why you’re so mad someone’s sucking his beautiful—“

“Not someone! Cassie!”

“You’re Cassie.”

“No I’m not!”

“That’s a double negative. Which means yes, you are.”

“No, it doesn’t!”

“’Nother double negative.”

“Why are you talking about grammar? You think ‘ain’t’ is a word!”

“Course I don’t! It’s a contradiction.”

“Contraction!”

“That too.”

“You’re an idiot. I’m surrounded by idiots!”

“Not yet, we haven’t found your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Cass insisted, just as they reached the foot of the stairs and stopped in the doorway of the room where Kon was.

Cass froze. Jinny rammed into her back, but since Cass was halfway to being a Greek god, she didn’t budge her. They both stopped, not far enough into the room to garner attention—Kon’s prick, and what Batgirl was doing to it, were taking up far too much of that.

“And how,” Jinny muttered.