Chapter Text
The rain was coming down hard, large droplets that hissed and turned into steam as they made contact with the supernatural hellfire that held the Ghost Rider together. Lightning flashed in the heavens above, briefly illuminating the empty side street before the rolling crash of thunder that was to follow came down upon the city. It momentarily smothered the growling of Ghost Rider's motorcycle as it rent the air but soon the motorcycle's engine reigned supreme once more. He came to a slow, rolling stop just at the mouth of an dark alleyway, which yawned open in an almost sinister manner. And then, despite the booming thunder and the pouring rain, a small noise at the edge of his awareness that only his supernaturally enhanced senses could have picked up.
A pathetic meow from deep inside the alley.
He paused for a second before heading in, flickering flames casting strange shadows on the alleyway clutter. Another second, another meow, and he had pinpointed the location of the sound. A cat, soaked and shivering, cowering under a sopping cardboard box. Not wholly aware of his own actions, Ghost Rider outstretched a single gloved hand, stopping just short of the waterlogged box. When the cat did not hiss or make an attempt at escape he reached for it carefully, securing a grip on the scruff of its neck and hauling it forward. It pressed closer to him, seeking out the internal warmth hellfire provided him with. Its rib cage vibrated against his fingers, and he could feel its rapid heartbeat through the leather of his gloves. He tucked the shivering ball of fur into his jacket, close to his burning core at the centre of his sternum, its little head peaking out from the collar, just above where the zipper ended.
Dan would be upset with him about this, no doubt, but a cat constituted as an innocent, right? And it was his duty as a spirit of vengeance to prevent innocent blood from being spilt, having no doubt that the cat would no survive the night at the rate the rain was falling.
So he quieted down the engine until it was barely a whisper and dimmed the fiery glow that came with his flame until it was lost to the street lamps above, and took a winding path back to Dan's apartment. He parked the motorcycle in the alleyway, confident that it would not allow itself to be stolen, and came in through the window. The cat jumped out of his jacket when he crouched down, fur only slightly damp but still spiked. A whisper of something at the back of his mind, maybe Dan's consciousness from his location in the Void, told him to stroke it down. He did so, soothing the ruffled fur until it was flat. The cat purred and rubbed its face against his hand. He scratched under its chin and the purring ratcheted up a notch. Ghost Rider stayed there for what had to be minutes, kneeling on the carpeted living room and letting the cat headbutt his knuckles, still and silent. The only sounds in the apartment being the rumbling purrs of the cat, the muffled hiss and crackle of flame, the electronic buzzing of appliances in the kitchen. And the thunder and the rain from outside, of course.
Eventually, Ghost Rider stood, leaving the cat to its own devices in the living room, and traveled across the apartment to Dan's bedroom. There, in the doorway, he opened the door to the Void and slipped inside its dark embrace to let Dan back into the world. In a single painful instant, flame receded back into the hollow, deep parts of his body and flesh bubbled up from bone to sculpt a face with eyes, a mouth, and a nose. A second of agony before Daniel Ketch stood at the entrance of his bedroom in his Brooklyn apartment, head pressed to the doorframe and breathing heavily. He stepped inside and left the door slightly ajar, a thin strip of darkness pouring in from the unlit living room and kitchen that lay beyond it.
"Bedroom, huh?" He asked no one in particular. "Not the cemetery?" He wondered why for a second, but then his head was hitting the pillow and he suddenly wasn't in the mood for thinking.
The morning went a little like this: Danny woke up just as the sun was coming up, and lay there in bed for a few more minutes before finally getting up. He sat up, yawned, and stretched, feeling and hearing his spine crunch in ways a spine belonging to a man in his twenties shouldn't and changed out of the stiff clothes he'd worn to bed. He'd fallen asleep in the clothes he had been wearing before he changed into the Ghost Rider again. Wouldn't be the first time, and it probably wouldn't be the last. Dressed in a more comfortable pair of boxers and white wife beater he stumbled into the kitchen, only to come to a dead stop. There was a cat sitting on the counter, staring at him with yellow-green eyes.
That wasn't his cat. He didn't have a cat.