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Chapter Text

Hello, please take a moment of your time to read this, it’ll probably help you out.

A few things to cover:

Timeline: This story takes place over three different timelines, all within the same world and same characters, nothing supernatural going on, no time travel or anything like that, but things can get confusing if you don’t check the date labeled at the top of every chapter. 

Chapter introductions: The beginning of each chapter states the date, location, time, and more detailed location (which might be literal or figurative) just to really clarify where in time and condition they are. 

Other potentially upsetting content: 

• Graphic violence (war setting)
• Alcohol 
• Sexual content
• PTSD
• Graphic descriptions of injuries

Thank you!

Chapter Text

Prologue: Temporal Interludes

The space between phenomena is composed of a fragile type of time: slow, unnoticed, unappreciated, almost akin to oxygen. Overlooked unless it were to disappear; suddenly we’d drop like flies. 

The space between eras is a time frame of its own: something that feels like a whole lot of nothing, ending with the happening of something. Whether it has antecedent causes or exists as a matter of pure happenstance, it is always the end of some type of lull in time. Just weeks before the Killjoys met their own untimely ends, before the slums of BLI had their returning-of-Christ equivalent, before the coming of the third war, there was a time that claimed such a conclusion. 

After the second Helium War, the Killjoys lived in the desert for five years: a period of dormancy where nothing really happened. Nothing happened until the fateful day of August 12th, 2019, when a combination of forced espionage, Oscar Wilde, and a bullet gone askew caused the beginning of something, a spike of activity in the timeline. 

“Damn it, please. Please get up.” Tears were rolling quickly and continuously down his face, into his mouth, onto the body below him that lay ebbing on the dust like a ticking clock. 

There was blood on his hands, in his hair, soaking into the sun-baked ground; turning tan to burgundy. He clutched the face of the person dying below him, ran his fingers through their hair, tried to brush off the dust, tried to keep his breath steady. The person wheezed, tears of their own leaking from their eyes, trailing down their temples, collecting the dust that clung to their face and leaving shimmering, clean trails behind before disappearing into the crimson sand. 

Their hand gripped his and squeezed it with what little remaining strength they had left. “I’m sorry,” they wept. “I’m sorry I let them find you.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Desert Dwellers

July 15th, 2019.

Zone Three. 

Four weeks earlier. 

“Shit,” a voice hissed from his left, following the sound of a sharp collision; his companion had hit the top of his head on the wing mirror beneath which he crouched. 

Kobra Kid snorted a laugh, also tucked behind the car, the motor rumbling in his ears as his fingers whitened against his gun. Dust was rising in heavy brown clouds several dozen feet up, sent askew by the feet of his enemies. 

“You take out the ones on the left, I’ll get the one on the right,” firmly instructed a voice from the passenger seat. 

Kobra breathed heavily and gave a quick, affirming nod, mostly for his own sake. He began to count down in his head.

Three.

Two.

One.

His feet gripping the cracked, dry ground, he leapt into sight of the Dracs, pulled the trigger of his weapon, and let the white-hot beam of light penetrate its collared neck. As it sank to the ground, he shot another beam at its accomplice, hitting it in the shoulder. A whirl of red hair and the Drac took two more shots to the chest, hitting the ground in a similar fashion to the first. 

With a final few shuddering inhales, their breathing ceased as they lay collapsed upon the sand, their curled fingertips facing the bright blue sky. 

What a beautiful day to die. 

The white vehicle of the third and only remaining Drac was rapidly skidding on its back wheels, and as its roar began to grow fainter as it sped away, Kobra looked at Ghoul. 

“You wanna do the honors?”

Ghoul said nothing, and instead raised his gun, his chin pointed at his target, his hands steady, and fired. The white car, a good four hundred feet away, began to putter to a stop as no live foot was pressing upon its pedals any longer. The glass of the rear windshield hadn’t shattered, the bullet-like beam of light having melted through it at a rate the human eye could not see. It made it very anticlimactic, really. 

The four stood in silence, the dust beginning to settle, guns still in-hand. The sun started to feel a little heavier now that they found themselves at standstill. 

Party Poison was the first to speak. “C’mon. We should get ‘outta here before they’re collected.”

Slowed by the post-killing haze, Kobra nodded and opened the door to the passenger side. “Nicked the car,” murmured his brother, running his fingers over a blackened gash on the hood before turning to get in the driver's seat, slamming the door behind him. Party peeled out in a quick, sharp turn, and sped off in the direction of home. 

Kobra wasn’t a killer at heart, per se.

Draculoids were shells of beings, masks over what was merely a poorly and mass-produced robot. Kobra felt no guilt in bringing down the mechanical soldiers, whom he assumed likely couldn’t even feel actual pain when a beam pierced its exterior. 

Besides, Dracs weren’t supposed to be down here anyway; unfortunately in having the privilege of greater power, one believes they have the right to act in violation of their own treaty. The folks at BLI were clearly having a time sending out Dracs to hunt down random desert-dwellers for sport (the result of which usually ended up against their favor). 

No, there was no business crying over a circuit in a mask. You can’t kill the lifeless; a concept with which Kobra found himself all too familiar.

The car ride home contained very little conversation, and Kobra subconsciously occupied himself by rubbing the thick scar on his palm and staring through the dusty window. They weren’t far from their neck of the woods (perhaps an ironic expression given their location); they were currently only a zone over from the resurrected rubble they called home. 

A humble dwelling that had at one point been an offroad diner came into view and Party Poison, a skilled and practiced driver (at least considering a complete absence of road laws, [and roads for that matter, having been covered with sand due a lack of maintenance]), cut the corner and skidded to a halt around the back, where passers-through wouldn't see the vehicle and mess with it. 

They pulled open the heavy, metallic back door of the diner and filed in one at a time. Kobra trudged his way to the staff-room, which had been cleared out to make a living space for the four, a wooden door separated their space from the rest of the diner. The room’s main furniture consisted of a rickety wooden desk pushed up against the wall with a wobbly, wooden chair, a small, olefin couch, two hammocks, and a mattress on the floor that they’d scavenged from an old motel. It had come home strapped to the top of the Trans Am, dust embedding itself in the soft surface, just like it did with everything else they owned. They never seemed to get away from the dust, it felt like.

They had quite a collection of decor: stolen street signs, an old country flag (which were no longer official to the nation it originally represented since BLI took over), and all sorts of other memorabilia, like a BLI-issued can of food which, after empty, Ghoul had carved vampire fangs into. On the wall behind the desk, there hung a dusty mirror. In the corner sat a small shelf of records that had been left in the diner when they found the place next to a battery-run record player. When they’d first arrived, Jet had sat down and shuffled through each one upon finding them, having heard of such machines only through stories from his father. 

The actual diner part was left mostly unaltered. Cans upon cans of various non-perishables from stocked the powerless refrigerators and the pantry and a few of the seats were graffitied, some left by the four, some left before they ever laid eyes on the place. The seats were a sun-bleached red, ribbed metal lining the table and the bass of the booths. The sun hung low in the sky, lighting up the metal rimmings of the counter and barstools, making them glitter in the back of the golden, hazy sunbeams. 

The diner’s exterior resembled that of what was once a charming hidden gem of a restaurant, probably built in the 1950’s. Large, metallic letters, most of which had by now corroded over time or been stolen by scavengers, spelled out the name of the restaurant. Of course, at this point, only three remained, confidently spelling out the word “die” (enchanting, really). Underneath existed a smaller, more cheerful sign that read “home-style cooking.”

No one said much as they unloaded their gear, Party shedding his jacket and hanging it on a bent piece of scrap metal he’d nailed into the wall as a hook. Kobra Kid slid off his leather, fingerless gloves and flexed his hands before falling into his hammock. The hammocks were nailed to the ceiling with scrap metal, so they were fairly secure; the only time one had ever fallen was when Ghoul had taken a running leap and dived into the netting, ripping the meshy weaving. Jet had smacked him on the backside of the head for that, but Ghoul’d seemed pretty pleased with himself. That is, until he had to give Jet his couch to sleep on while he figured out how to fix the hammock, although Party had been generous enough (Ghoul never asked) to let Ghoul crash with him on the mattress while the hammock was under repair. 

All in all, it was a place they were proud of. It was one of the more desirable buildings to have claimed: It was already full of non-perishables (although a good amount of them turned out to be dog food), it had good natural lighting to make up for a lack of electricity, plenty of space, and was overall quite charming. 

As far as supplies went in the desert, this particular group of Killjoys often found themselves being the ones to fetch and return resources to the larger group, which, honestly, was only fair. They were the only ones within the vicinity who had a car, and the mall where most of everything came from was at least a five hour drive away. They’d discovered it on an adventure, and returned home with the entire car stuffed to the brim with hair dye, blankets, pillows, tents, hammocks, sleeping bags, batteries, clothes, jackets, underwear, lotion, soap, makeup, you name it. They made several trips to the mall that week, raiding the staff rooms for bottled water and tea bags. All water in the area was bottled, taken from any structure that was still recognizable, or pumped from an old well that must have been a hundred years old at least. The area they lived in, their “neighborhood,” if you will, was fairly small; there were maybe forty full-time residents in the area, maybe fifty or sixty if you included temporary scavengers and travelers. 

Kobra, shoes on, collapsed into his hammock, feeling extremely worn down for what was a fairly non-abrasive day. Party gave him a slightly judgemental glance. 

“The sun hasn’t hit the ground yet, neither should you.” 

“I’m tired.”

“You’re depressed.” 

Speaking of abrasivity, Party Poison, most often, was about as gentle as a ray gun to the face. He was incredibly cautious and highly intelligent, but he must have had some sort of death wish or something because when action rang, he answered. His hair was a bright red, which Kobra had argued, stood next to a wet-haired Poison with his head over the sink, made it easier for enemies to spot him.

“Let them,” he’d said, pouring the bottle onto his roots. 

And yet, this was the same guy who advocated seatbelt safety more than the fucking national American government had before the first war. When Kobra had asked why, he’d replied, “Are you stupid? How incredibly vacuous would it be to die in a car crash, of all things?” 

Kobra had been too taken aback to ask what the word vacuous meant. 

Party wasn’t mean , exactly. He rarely held malice when speaking toward any of his friends, but he was such a hardass sometimes. Most of the time, really. The situation found itself so that it was just difficult to have fun with him unless there was absolutely zero threat of danger whatsoever and he didn’t feel the need to supervise the group like some sort of chaperone, which was basically one hundred percent of all the time. 

However, being related and all, Kobra had known him before his mind had become calloused, before he’d been exposed to this world and learned from it. 

He didn’t tell his older brother this, but he frequently found himself missing who Party used to be, the person that, in Kobra’s eyes, had disappeared when he was about nineteen. Kobra had been fifteen then, and he still remembered his last glance of the boy who was not “Party Poison,” but his older brother, under a given and worn-out name. 

Ghoul and Jet had come along later, and as far as Kobra knew, had never met who his brother was before everything happened. Before he toughened up. The most possible instance that Kobra could think up was the day they found the diner. The rest of the “neighborhood” was settling into the Visitor’s center and the radio station, the mostly-in-tact liquor store had just been discovered, the war was over, and to celebrate, naturally everyone got completely black-out drunk. Kobra couldn’t remember much of that night himself (it was his first time drinking), but the image of his brother swinging his shirt around on a table came clearly to mind, and since that night Party was very careful about his alcohol consumption. Since he’d been made aware of his “uncharacteristic and subconscious drinking behaviors,” he didn’t drink further than the faint beginning of a buzz. 

Party stuck his hand out to his younger brother, who was practically melted to the hammock. Kobra grabbed it. 

“C’mon. We’re getting outta here. You’ve gotta get your mind off that damn kid and touch some grass.”

“What grass?”

“It’s an expression, Kobra, shut up.”

“Where are we-?” Kobra said, but he was cut off as Party hauled him to his feet with surprising strength and let go as soon as Kobra was vertical. Party started walking toward the diner exit as Kobra regained his balance before stumbling after him. 

“Jet, Ghoul.”

The two were sitting across from one another in the booth nearest the door. Jet Star looked up from where he had been leaning on the table, and Ghoul turned his head to look at the two, a knife poised over the table where he had been carving something. “I thought I told you not to do that,” said Party, slapping the back of Ghoul’s head as he walked by. “C’mon. We’re going to the station.”

Ghoul scowled as he ruffled the back of his hair, rubbing his hand over where he’d been hit. 

The Killjoys got along incredibly well for the most part, but Ghoul and Party had always had some sort of spoken or unspoken debate over maturity going on, really for as long as they’d been acquainted. Jet and Kobra had learned to ignore it by now unless things got violent, which a couple of times (mostly on Ghoul’s end), it had. Party even had a small scar just above his eyebrow, from the time that Ghoul insisted he not be such a “fun-sucking cunt all the time,” to which he’d retorted, “At least I don’t destroy everything I look at,” (one of the last good coffee mugs had broken by Ghoul’s hand earlier that day) and that was all it took to set him off. Those two were touchy like that; the slightest insult and someone was ready to fight.

But overall, as mentioned, the Killjoys got along, their fragile inner balances outweighed on the scale of circumstance. 

Ghoul was the youngest of the Killjoys. He was a whirlwind of action, his shoulder-length, dyed black hair always in the way, constantly needing to be blown out of his eyes when he moved. He was the best shot out of the four of them, able to hit almost any target they gave him. He was funny, and always found himself to be the guy who made people laugh, but he was rambunctious and could be incredibly obnoxious at times. Party had really laid into him once because he’d shot at a Draculoid who hadn’t noticed them and accidentally summoned an entire fleet. 

“Listen, we took care of them, didn’t we? What happens next is unrelated,” he’d said. Party had shaken his head in disbelief and spent the rest of the day doing target practice with a couple of pop cans. Ghoul was lively and clever, but he simply forgot to think sometimes. 

His tension with Party probably also had something to do with the fact that Ghoul, unlike the rest of them, had grown up in BLI, raised within its sterile borders until the end of his fourteenth year. Party and his brother had lived a dark, antebellum life for most of their childhoods, and although Party would never admit it, he was a little bitter that Ghoul had gotten to grow up happy, got to go to school, have fresh meals and clothes and showers, longer than he had. He hadn’t had any of that since he was eleven. 

Jet stood up and followed. In complete contrast to Ghoul, Jet had never even caught a glance of the inside of the Industries, having grown up the way Kobra and Party had, although he had lived that way since he was born. He was a quiet individual, very observant and thoughtful. He was sort of the force of reason and logic in the group, which nicely balanced out Ghoul’s action-then-consequence approach. He came up with incredible strategies and was most definitely the reason they’d survived upright all this time. 

Since Jet’s father had been extremely involved in the first war, Jet had picked up a lot of strategic thinking skills growing up. His father taught him everything he knew about everything, and Jet had absorbed every drop of it. Killing Moon (named after a song from a very long time ago, he’d been told) died for the cause of thousands of people, and Jet had promised himself that one day, he would do the same; he would do something with as great of a power and impact, continue his father’s legacy and honor him. He drove himself a little crazy with legacy sometimes, in Kobra’s opinion, but he figured whatever kept him running. 

Jet was also the doctor of the group, and he was usually the one people in the neighborhood went to when they needed medical assistance, especially considering that Jet was the most social of the four and everyone within ten miles knew him. Which today in particular would be displayed, because it also happened to be his twenty-fourth birthday. 

And Kobra…

He didn’t know how to think of himself, really. Maybe some type of balance between the four; not hot-headed and reclusive like Party, but not the life of the party like Jet. He wasn’t as callous as his brother, but he wasn’t a pushover. He was smart, but nowhere near as witty and clever as Ghoul.

Overall, he concluded that he must be the boring one. He had no distinctive traits that made him special; he was ordinary, uninteresting, and, as Party had so delicately pointed out, situationally depressed. 

It wasn’t a far walk to the Den. Formerly an old visitors’ center, it had become a landmark and gathering spot for Killjoys and other desert-dwellers to hang out. It resembled a small, one story house after it had been furnished (using whatever furniture they could salvage from nearby buildings). Bedrooms had been built into the back, and what had become the living room could hold about fifteen people, horizontally. Four bedrooms total had been built, each holding four to five occupants, so all in all the house slept about forty five. That was the absolute max capacity for sleeping, talking head-to-toe, sleeping on the floor with throw blankets. Anyway, it was usually only slept in by about twenty residents, maybe thirty if there was a party or gathering. 

There was an (un)abandoned radio station across from it, the metal letters spelling out its name long gone, leaving sun-faded ghosts of their message behind. This was where a certain smooth-spoken, wheelchair-bound local celebrity lived, known statewide as Doctor Death-Defying. The man had lived through both wars and a brutal bomb blast that resulted in the amputation of both of his legs. Jet was the one who knew him the most, having been raised in his company, his father having been Dr. Death’s best friend and all. He was a legend of sorts around here (so unlike Kobra Kid; he couldn’t help but dwell). Dr. Death’s radio show was known unofficially as the Voice of the Desert; it was a beacon of hope for the dwellers and a representative for all of the Killjoys alike.

Party quietly pushed the door open to where the forty-something-year-old sat in his wheelchair in front of a silent and unmoving electric fan. When the door got to the part of its swing where the hinges squeaked, he lifted his head and turned to face them. The skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled at them. 

“My friends,” he greeted. He turned his head back toward the powerless fan. “Sometimes I think if I camp in front of this fan long enough, it’ll start blowing air. It never does.” 

Pulling his gaze away from the fan, he turned himself toward Jet. “Happy birthday, Jeterino.” He then faced the rest of them and smiled. “What can I do for you folks on this colorful day of remembrance?”

“Hey, D. You hosting anything tonight? Some sort of anniversary party or something?” Party leaned against the wall. 

“I figured I’d let the young ones do it this year. You all know how to light up the desert without an old man draggin’ you down, by now.” 

A voice called from around the wall of the radio station. “I found some tea candles people can leave out.” Cola looked at them. “Hey, all. Happy birthday, Jet.”

Cherri Cola, another permanent resident of the area, was a well-set figure: broad in the shoulders, The tallest of any of them as well as probably the strongest. He had auburn hair with a faint blue streak in the front, and was clean-shaven (another thing Kobra was envious of, he couldn’t grow any facial hair for the life of him). He was Dr. Death’s closest companion, which made him something like a cousin to Jet. He was the best shot any of them knew, even outperforming Ghoul. 

“So I take it you’re running this thing?” Party asked.

“I mean, I’m helping. People are setting up their own stuff in the Den. It’s gonna be major this year, I think. You guys coming?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. Anything we can do?”

☆☆☆

Six rows of paper streamers, ten minutes of arranging the special-occasion-stale-chip-bowls, and an incredible amount of complaining from Ghoul later, it got too crowded for anyone to do anything else to help, so they called it good enough. The sun was far under the horizon now, the sky an inky blue stretching to black. A few bats flew by outside but no one noticed, because everyone on the premises was completely wasted. The battery-operated radio was blasting at top volume, running songs from the only punk band left in the country (Which everyone had no choice but to love because it was all there really was to listen to besides classical [except for Jet’s vinyls, which didn’t work anyway. Even then, he’d never even let the guys touch those, much less a bunch of drunken anarchists]). 

Jet, speaking of, had disappeared, moderately intoxicated the last Kobra had seen him. Ghoul, on the other hand, was entirely flat-out drunk, sprawled out on the sofa with some vile, undeterminable stain down his front and drunkenly slurring to some girl with bright pink hair who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. Party lurked against the wall, holding a cup but not drinking from it, frowning as he watched Ghoul disapprovingly. 

Kobra wasn’t entirely sober himself, thank God, and the battery powered rows of Christmas lights adorning the walls and ceiling were soft, blurry circles in his eyes, which he was sure he could feel moving around in their sockets. The music was sort of drowning out any thought he could have had, which was nice, honestly. This was nice. He was having fun. This was more fun than waiting until Party was out of the house to drink it out of his mind, and if caught, making up incredibly clever excuses like “It’s a Thursday.” 

Yeah, it was a good feeling, the weight lifted from his psyche, a temporary fix that he knew would land on him twice as hard when he sobered up. 

And then Kobra saw him.

At first he thought he was hallucinating, that his constant dwelling was finally taking on a physical form, but he wasn’t. Standing a dangerous eight-ish feet away from him, looking sober enough not to be drunk, but drunk enough not to be fully sober, he was talking to a group of Killjoys, all of their hair some sort of bright blue (who did they think they were, some sort of cult? Jesus), which was blurring together into one long cerulean wave in Kobra’s mind. 

I need to look away, some part of Kobra realized; he’d been staring, he would see him. 

The other person finished their conversation and his head started to turn, Kobra ripped his eyes downward, but it was too late, he’d had been looking for too long. 

Their eyes connected.

“Ren?” he slurred, his voice not his own. 

He promptly vomited.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: Potential Energy

July 15, 2014.

The Helium War.

The Bunkers.

“Listen up, Killjoys.”

His voice silenced the rowdy group immediately; they turned to him with fiery eyes and listened.

“This day. This moment… This is what we’ve been preparing for. This is our time, ours to be alive, and we will not stand for injustice! We are here to destroy them , to tear down their system once and for all. We are here to give those fucking zombies a piece of our blades. We are here to make them pay for what they’ve done to us. To our children. To the people who are still in there.” The people in the room nodded, the anticipation and emotion thick in the air. 

“To the people we’ve lost along the way. We do it for them.” He banged his fist twice on the metal wall. “We do it for us!”

The bunkers erupted with uproarious cheering, and everyone swarmed to the ladders, climbing quickly out of the metallic boxes under the ground in which they dwelled and into the crisp beginnings of a sunset, where faint heat waves were fading above the sand which hadn’t yet cooled, ever so slightly still warping the horizon on the clear, light purple-blue sky. The few who had guns, mostly people who had only escaped recently, held them in ready position, and the rest of the seventy-five-odd people carried varying lengths of sharpened scrap metal, sharpened to lethality. 

The bunkers were located just short of three miles from the edge of Better Living Industries. There were probably twelve of them total, each with a holding capacity of about seventy people, more if there were children. 

The bunkers were probably a good mile from each other, but every full moon the leaders of each one would arrange meetings if it felt safe, and if there was an emergency they would get ahold of each other by radio. That was risky, though; no one knew if BLI was also able to pick up those signals. 

A boy, just over nineteen years old, who hadn’t quite yet grown up into his name, jogged with the rest of the scrappy, underground rebels. His fifteen-year-old brother, also still under his given first name, followed closely to his right. Many of the other Killjoys had code names, at least the leaders. The nineteen-year-old had thought for months on what he could title himself with no conclusion, but in the meantime preferred his given name be used as little as possible. 

Nine years.

That was how long he and his brother had been in the desert. Their father, proceeding the disappearance of their mother, had declared himself a rebel and dropped his children with a friend of his, known by the code name of Scarlet Crow before returning to BLI, miraculously undetected, without them. At least, that’s all the boy was willing to tell people. 

Some time after the boys had first arrived at the bunker, the child who would be Party Poison asked Crow how he’d gotten his name. 

“Scarlet is the color of sacrifice,” he’d replied, fiddling with the wires on a small radio. “And crows symbolize death, destiny, and transformation of the future.” He looked at the two little boys. “Plus, I like to use their own name against them,” he said, smiling. He was referring to the head soldiers, generals, of the BLI army, which were known as Scarecrows. Highly honored in the city. He had looked the boys in each of their eyes. “I’m not afraid to die for this. And I’m not afraid to wait.”

And wait they did. 

From the ripe young ages of eight and eleven, the two brothers had grown up underground, seeing only the night sky during the sixteen minutes a day where there was a known gap in the satellite footage, and even then the radiation sensor had to come back clean. On top of that, they had to wear beige clothes (their clothes were all beige, anyway) and stand moderately still to avoid detection. 

There were usually close to seventy people in the bunker. Crow tried to turn people away as rarely as possible, but sometimes there was simply not enough room for more. Those people, after being given a night and a meal, were spat back out to the mercy of the desert, where they either came across another bunker or found a way to survive the harsh conditions. The latter was unlikely. With the radiation, the extreme temperatures, BLI satellites, and the lack of resources, the desert was safe for no one. 

But things were going to change, now. 

July 15th. July 15th had been a day to look forward to for just under a year for the Killjoys, because that was the day that they would take back the city. 

Most of the people in the bunkers had grown up within the confines of the city, knew how it functioned. Knew that it was a poisoned paradise and that the totalitarian rule of BLI was the cause, knew about the propaganda the residents swallowed.

The city itself was quite beautiful; plants that were greener than green, never a single piece of litter on the pristine, unchipped sidewalk. But the rules, the punishments, the sterility, the drugs, the white, the borders. Those were the issue. 

If Scarlet Crow’s army could get inside the city and take over the Capitol building, they could do it. They could free the citizens of BLI, so they could live in the city without fear of corruption. 

The older boy was just barely nineteen. He wasn’t sure how much help he could really be, with watching after his brother and not being incredibly strong in the first place. He didn’t even have a Killjoy name. 

Nonetheless, the city was getting closer and his adrenaline was rising. 

He carried a scrap metal sword that could be used to stab a Drac or Scarecrow, which from an objective view didn’t seem like much, but was actually quite effective. He knew this because he still had a scab on his upper arm from when his brother had accidentally sliced him. 

The people around him began to pick up speed. The city had large white walls that served as borders, and the first wave of people, following the plan, started throwing grappling hooks (also made of scrap metal) up to the top, some only sticking after a few tries.

The nineteen-year-old could see the other factions of Killjoys, the ones from the other bunkers, executing a similar plan and starting to up the ropes. 

It seemed like it might have been working, as the stronger ones pulled themselves up the ropes, scaling the wall at a decent speed when the shots started. 

A flood of Draculoids, who must have had easy access from the inside, were starting to line the top of the wall, their stark white uniforms lit aglow by the red sun. They started shooting at the climbers. The brothers saw someone from another bunker get shot in the chest with a laser beam, and fall from the rope, lifeless. He landed with a sickening crack and the older knew his neck or spine had snapped.

His heart was thumping in his ears, the sick feeling in his stomach rising. He felt behind him and panicked when he grasped empty air. He wildly looked around. “ Mikey !” He screamed, before his brother was clutching his arm, his fingernails digging into the skin. Someone next to them, a woman who had shared the bunker with them for the past five or so years, convulsed and then fell to the ground as a beam of heat hit her neck. She had been so frail when she came to the bunker, having survived for months in the desert. The boy had seen the life in her eyes come back, and now he had just seen it leave again, this time permanently. He felt like he might just throw up as her tangled, auburn hair grew crimson, as her blood seeped from the crack in her skull into the sand. Others were beginning to falter as well, crouching and looking behind them as if they should turn back. 

An offense was what they had been expecting, this was a war after all, but now that it was really happening, it was suddenly a whole lot scarier to be the face of the Revolutions. 

Some people had made it to the top of the wall by now, and some managed to stab or shoot a few of the Dracs, which toppled from the walls and fell to the ground. 

It was then that some of the BLI soldiers decided to start sliding down the grappling hooks, and onto the desert floor with the Killjoys. They started running at them, ray guns raised, and the Killjoys ran back, swords and guns at the ready.

His breath was ragged and terrified, a fear so strong it felt like liquid numbness coating his skin, his very bones alight with terror, and what ensued was just as brutal as it could have been. People on both sides were shot, stabbed, beaten, broken, and the scent of blood and burnt flesh was heavy in the air. 

A Drac ran directly at the brothers, and without thinking, the oldest grabbed his sibling by the hand and ran. They ran for their lives into the desert, turning behind them every few seconds to see if they were still being followed. 

After several minutes, the Drac gave up, turning back toward the battle. It must be programmed to go where it’s needed most, the boy thought, as he slowed and caught his breath. The sun was almost set by now, perched above the horizon and painting the sky a hazy red. It was starting to get colder. 

“C’mon. We need to get back to the bunker.” The oldest looked toward the rising sun, the light illuminating his features into a glowing orange and tinting his brown hair a soft, golden color. They were all alone, and not even the sound of fighting could be heard anymore. Just the wind whistling in their ears, and the fear pounding behind their skulls. 

“We need to walk East. Away from the sun.”

And so the boy who would be Party Poison retreated to the metal box he called home, brother in tow, shivering, hungry, and quite the revolutionary hero.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2.5: Introductions

April 9th, 2018.

A Birthday Party.

In A Room That Contains A New Beginning.

Kobra Kid smiled from the edge of the room where he watched his brother get moshed around to the heavy punk booming from the radio speakers to celebrate his twenty-third birthday. Kobra himself was a mere five months away from twenty years old, and couldn’t wait– Killjoys never, ever passed up a chance to throw a party. 

He did not have much of a desire to dance with the majority of the other people including his friends– Ghoul and his sweaty, short and spiky turquoise hair were  doing most of the shoving and annoying of Party. Jet’s hair was a sweaty version of his normal curls. He was sort of doing his own thing with a group of his friends. Party’s hair at the moment was a vibrant magenta, his color of choice as of late. Before that, it had been an energetic violet (his hands had been stained for weeks). Kobra’s own hair was its natural brown color with one streak of red in the front. He also wore a pair of star-shaped yellow sunglasses, which he had found in the “mall shit” pile and thought were funny. They seemed like good party apparel, anyway. He was drinking, but he wasn’t drunk, and he was having a fun time just watching the people jostle each other around, just having fun. 

Kobra didn’t really have many friends. Which, of course, was his own fault; he wasn’t the most social of people. Hell, he should be in the pit of people right now, trying to amend that. But to be honest, it looked gross, it looked sweaty, and he was sure to lose his sunglasses in there. 

“Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.”

Kobra jumped a little and turned his head to the direction from which the voice had come; directly to his left stood a guy probably about his own age, watching the party with amusement. He was of fairly short stature, and his black dreadlocks had streaks of purple in the front. He wore a brown leather jacket with a patch depicting the anarchy symbol sewed to the pocket, and he had plain black studs in his earlobes. He wore a smudge of eyeliner, something a lot of the Killjoys did (not really anyone in Kobra’s circle, though). His hands were in the pockets of his faded jeans, decorated with hand-sewn patches and rips. 

Kobra liked him at once. 

He realized he must have been staring, because the guy looked awkward and said “Emerson.” 

“What?” Kobra asked, feeling stupid. 

“Emerson said that. ‘ Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.’ I don’t know, you look like you’d agree.” 

Kobra raised an eyebrow. “And who are you to wonder what I might agree with?”

The guy shrugged, a half smile playing on his lips. Pretty lips, Kobra noted. 

“I mean, you wear sunglasses inside. You must like being outlandish, at least a little.” The guy nodded toward the crowd of people, which looked more like one large mass in the darkness. “Plus. You’re not in there with everyone else. Probably scared you’ll lose the shades, am I right?”

It was safe Kobra had never been more infatuated with another human being in his life. 

When Kobra did not respond, his jaw slightly slack, the guy chuckled and stuck out his hand. 

“Rennaisance,” he said. 

“What the hell kind of a name is that?” 

“If you can get down off your high horse for long enough, I’ll tell you.”

And Kobra was quickly taken with this breath of fresh air, who so happened to call himself a name synonymous with rebirth.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Flames for the Fallen

July 15th, 2019.

The Witch’s Mailbox

“Today, we rally.”

The crowd fell silent over the booming voice of Dr. Death, who had rolled all the way out to the cliff to speak. 

“For the deathless souls who had the fire of justice within them, the valor to spark about the second Helium War, to run unflinchingly into massacre, and give up their precious and unwasteable lives that made it so we can breathe this free and sweet air into our lungs tonight.” 

Kobra watched solemnly as Dr. Death gave his speech, having sobered up enough to understand words again, and enough to feel incredibly uncomfortable and exhausted, having just thrown up less than an hour ago. The large crowd of maybe two or three hundred were gathered around a rusting, blue mailbox. It was said to belong to the Phoenix Witch: A mythical being that, according to contemporary legend, found itself to be a form of God in the desert, rumored to take lost souls to the afterlife. 

“While in light we celebrate, in darkness we mourn.”

The sky was dark and inky, and there was a dense, lovely smattering of stars visible out here where the light pollution wasn’t so bad. Kobra focused, feeling queasy, on the North Star as the speaker continued.

 “A few of those souls are around you in body...” he paused and gestured to the group. “...And the rest are around you in spirit. Hold on to them. Let ‘em know you feel them. Let ‘em know their energy is safe with us.” 

Kobra felt something touch his hand, and he jumped before he realized it was his only brother, which, of course, made him feel like a complete moron. Party wasn’t typically the affectionate type, so on the few occasions where he was, it caught Kobra by surprise. Jet, who had also reappeared, leaned his head on Kobra’s shoulder, smelling like he wasn’t going to remember any of this tomorrow, and Ghoul had his arm linked in Jet’s. 

“Hush the air and speak within your mind– to the ones we’ve lost and the ones that we’ve left behind. Hold on tight to the ones that we’ve still got alive.” 

Only the sound of the dead bushes rustling, and the occasional quiet hoot of a desert owl could be heard. Kobra was almost asleep where he stood, staring at the sky, before Dr. Death spoke again.

“Let’s light up our flames for the fallen.”

Cola passed around the packages of tea-candles, some of them new, most of them reused from last year. Once he had the crowd passing the candles around on their own, he knelt near where Dr. Death sat and rolled a stick into a piece of bark he’d set up earlier, deftly twisting it downward in his hands until a small plume of smoke formed, which eventually sparked and became a tiny flame. He lit his own candle right away to prevent the fire on the stick from going out, and then lit the candle of the person closest to the front, a woman with bright purple hair who was missing an eye. 

Around the crowd the little flame traveled, illuminating one shadowed face at a time until a sea of tiny, lit candles flickered against the sable sky. It was silent for a few more moments before the first person with the missing eye walked up and set her candle on the top of the mailbox. People followed after her, setting their own candles atop the old letterbox, and when there was no more room they placed them on the ground surrounding it.

Kobra shielded the small fire from the wind and set it just to the left of the mailbox, watching the little flame dance among its likes. Someone else set their candle right next to his, and Kobra’s eyes followed the hand up to the person’s arm, all the way to his face even though he knew who it was, knew he didn’t want to see his face, but nonetheless, suddenly he found himself looking at the person who had hurt him so badly.

Kobra pulled his hand away and disappeared back into the crowd, not turning back, trying to keep his mind blank. Renaissance was left staring at the other’s back as Kobra wove his way through the crowd, leaving him. Party Poison, having quietly noticed this brief interaction, walked forward to gently set his candle next to Kobra’s. He took a moment for himself, muttering gently to the candle, before opening his eyes with a cool, deadly smoothness and turning to Renaissance. 

“If you so much as fucking look at him, it will be the last thing you do, do you understand me?” He said in a quiet, calm, and casual voice. The people around him didn’t even notice there was anything going on as they placed their candles and talked hushedly to each other or to the Witch. 

Renaissance nodded, threatened, drawn back with fear. “I just-”

“That goes for me, too. Get out of my face.” 

Renaissance scurried off through the rapidly diminishing crowd of people heading back toward the Den and chattering amongst themselves. 

Jet approached. He set his candle down next to Party’s, closed his eyes and mumbled for a second, then stood up and turned to the redhead.

 “Go easy on him, you know? He’s just a kid.”

“Yeah, and so’s Kobra. I don’t want him near us. He’s done enough damage.”

Despite the extra four inches of height Jet held on him, he felt small next to Party as he bit his lip thoughtfully. “Yeah, but… you gotta let them make their own decisions, you know? I know we think of them as kids but… Kobra’s almost twenty one. You’re not gonna be able to tell him what to do much longer. I’m shocked you’re still getting away with it.” 

Party glowered, looking ahead as if he could still spot Ren’s matted hair in the crowd. “Well, I can prevent it before it happens.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Just leave it, Jet. Leave it alone.”

Jet Star fell silent; it was useless to argue with Party when he was like this.

“C’mon, let’s head back to the Den.”

☆☆☆

Kobra Kid, having swallowed whatever he could get his hands on before he left and smuggled a whiskey bottle (or four) in his inside pocket, was drunk again as he walked home, kicking up clouds of dust and whistling discordantly to himself. Why couldn’t it be simple? Why did he have to show up, how dare he show up? 

Party would most definitely berate him for leaving without telling him, but he didn’t care. Let him get angry. 

“I’m an adult,” he said to the sand. “I can do what I want.”

The sand did not reply. 

“I’m an adult!!” he yelled, his hands outstretched and his head tipped back toward the sky. 

“I know you are.”

Kobra yelped and turned around, two of his bottles falling out of his jacket and shattering on the ground. He groaned. “What the fuck, man? Why are you always fucking… following me?” He rubbed his eyes, the sentences all cramming together in his mind. 

“I just want to talk.”

“You wanna talk ? That’s... that's funny, coming from you. Runaway,” Kobra slurred, pointing his finger, dramatically. 

“Listen, maybe we should do this when you’re sober–”

“No, you listen to me , Peter . I’m done with you. I’m done. ”

Renaissance flinched. “Don’t call me that.”

Kobra stared at him. “I’m an adult. I’ll do what I want,” he said, conclusively, as if that excused it. He started walking in the direction of home again.

Renaissance closed his eyes, exasperated. “Please, this is important. Let’s talk this over tomorrow after you’ve slept it off. If your brother doesn’t shoot me first.”

Kobra scoffed. “I hope he does.”

Renaissance’s face slackened. “You don’t mean that.”

Kobra stopped to turn around, almost falling over in the process. “I do mean it, Ren. I hope he shoots some sense into you.”

“You’re drunk. I know you don’t mean it.”

Kobra stared at him and then groaned, looking frustratedly at the sand like he was searching for the right words, before exasperatedly throwing his hands up. “You’re the reason!”

“What? I’m the reason what?”

“You-” 

And he was going down, down, collapsing onto the dust. He was unconscious, face down against the packed ground. 

Renaissance pinched the bridge of his nose in his fingers, exhausted and pondering his equally unlikely-to-have-a-good-outcome options. Wearily, he chose the high road and stuck his hands under Kobra, wincing under the weight, lifted him up and carried him the rest of the quarter-mile to the diner.

He opened the door quietly, and then sort of dumped Kobra onto the mattress on the floor, the strength in his arms too depleted to hold on one for one more second. Ghoul was already asleep on the small, brown sofa, his black hair spilling over his forehead and his arm dangling over the side of the couch. His brow was furrowed, and Renaissance couldn't help but feel like Ghoul was scowling at him. He turned back to Kobra, who was sort of just a heap of limbs on the dusty mattress and suddenly realized that he had in fact just dumped him there, and quickly righted it so the other laid more comfortably. He untied Kobra’s boots and set them by the entrance, and then slipped out the back door as if he’d never been there at all. 

☆☆☆

“Jesus H. Christ, if they don’t show up somewhere around here within the next four seconds, I’m going to flip my shit.”

“Would you please fucking relax? Dude, they probably just went home.”

“They know it’s dangerous to travel alone!!”

“They’re capable of walking home! They can take care of themselves!” 

Party ignored him. 

Jet thrust out an arm in front of the other and forced him to turn to him, to listen to him, just for once. “Look, if you wanna try and protect them their whole life, be my guest. I don’t think it’ll do you any favors, but be my guest. Doesn’t matter where he grew up, Ghoul knows how to take care of himself and so does Kobra. If you wanna search all fucking night for them, that’s great, but I’m going home, where they probably are.” Jet turned to the front door of the visitor’s center and walked out, shutting it roughly behind him. 

Party stood there for a minute, weighing his choices of a fight with Jet or sacrificing his pride. Growling in frustration and rolling his eyes, he ran after Jet, pushing open the door. 

“Listen, listen, you’re right,” Party called, his voice traveling through the cold, night air. Jet turned around. 

Party continued. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so protective over him. I can’t help it. I just don’t want him getting hurt again, you know? He’s still my little brother.”

Jet looked at him thoughtfully. “I know, man. You’re just looking out for him. But he’s gotta make his own mistakes, you know?”

Party nodded, trudging toward his friend. “Thank you.” He gave Jet a light punch on the arm. “You’ve always been the smart one.”

Jet pulled him into a side hug and messed up Party’s hair, and they walked home, Jet celebrating a silent victory that maybe, for once, he’d actually talked some sense into him.

☆☆☆

Kobra woke up lightly discombobulated, not surrounded by the normal familiar press of his hammock against him. He scrunched up his face, the sun glowing through his eyelids, and opened his eyes. He sat up and immediately winced, brought a hand to his head, and then laid back down. He was home, but he was on Party’s mattress. He was still trying to gain his bearings when Party walked into the room, holding two mugs, one of them shaped like three donuts stacked on top of each other (Kobra’s favorite). 

“Oh good, you’re up.” He passed Kobra the donut mug. 

“Coffee? Did somebody die?” 

Coffee was sort of a delicacy around here. There had been a few hundred coffee pods in the pantry of the diner when the group had first settled here, and it was agreed upon by them that they were to be preserved for special occasions. Especially because with their lack of electricity, coffee wasn’t easy to make, either; it involved cutting a few pods open, pouring them into the French Press and pressing them into water, which had to be heated up by sitting in the hot sun for a good thirty minutes, double that if the day was on the cooler side. 

“No. Just felt like you could use it.”

Kobra accepted, sipping gently on the bitter liquid. He grimaced.

The sugar, on the other hand, had run out within the first year. That was mostly (entirely) Ghoul’s fault. He’d been barely fifteen when they’d found the place, and had refused to listen when the other guys told him that it was a limited commodity. 

Kobra laughed into the mug, remembering. “You remember when Ghoul would just put sugar on rice?”

Party threw a hand over his mouth to stifle a giggle. “Oh my God, I forgot about that.” Party looked over to Ghoul, who was practically off the couch more than on, snoring quietly. He smiled to himself and looked down into his coffee. “Yeah, I remember that. Didn’t he put it on, like, beans at one point?”

Kobra covered his face with his hand. He totally had put it on beans.

“Mm, simpler times,” Kobra sighed, and took another sip of his coffee, wrinkling his nose again at the sharp, sugarless taste. 

“So, uh.” Party shifted uncomfortably. “The ‘Sance is back.”

Kobra’s reminiscent smile gently fell. 

“Yeah.” He sipped his coffee.

“He, um. He tell you why?”

Kobra looked at him, tiredly. “I’ll be honest with you, I was a little out of it last night.” 

Party widened his eyes as if to say, ‘obviously. ’ 

Kobra continued. “I don’t even remember getting home. I vaguely recall talking to him at some point, but… I could have made that up.” He brought the coffee to his lips, smelling it. “I did almost throw up on him, though. I do remember that.” 

And Party laughed, genuinely, which felt almost as rare as the coffee nowadays. 

It made Kobra smile, and he laughed too. Party snorted, laughing even harder, and let his head fall on Kobra’s shoulder. Something like “sucks you missed,” he barely got out through laughter. It wasn’t even that funny, but Kobra scrunched up his face, simultaneously smiling at his brother and cringing at his own embarrassment. A groan came from across the room. 

“Would you two shut up? God.” 

Ghoul. He was the meanest guy on the planet between the moment he woke up and the five minutes that followed, and after that window had passed he would deny anything had ever happened. “You two and your brotherly love make me sick.”

Party Poison stared at him a moment, grinning, before lifting his hands so they hovered parallel to each other.

“No, no, no, no-”

Party started clapping his hands repeatedly. Kobra and Ghoul covered their ears and buried their heads, groaning. Jet woke up then, too, and shouted for Party to please God, shut the fuck up. Party smirked. “I’ll let you guys sleep. We don’t have anything to do today, and even if we did you’d be too hungover to do it.” He stood up to leave the room, before pausing.

“Like I could sleep now; fuck you,” Ghoul growled from under his pillow.

 “You’ll find a way. Oh, yeah, Kobra,” Party said, as if he’d just remembered something. Kobra looked at him expectantly. “Don’t do that,” he said, gesturing to Kobra’s jacket, discarded on the floor, awkwardly bent and sad-looking. 

Kobra stared at the jacket as Party (neat freak) left the break room. He couldn’t even remember taking it off. Leaving it on the floor like that didn’t seem like something he’d do, but maybe in his drunken state he hadn’t cared enough to hang it up. But it was left in such a way, turned inside out, dropped to the floor; even a drunken version of himself wouldn’t have just haphazardly thrown it down. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even in his own hammock, he was on Party’s dusty floor mattress. He racked his brain, trying to think. What the hell had he been doing before he got home? 

He remembered stealing the last of the alcohol from the Den and downing it before he walked home. He remembered that he’d wanted to forget. To forget the feeling, the face, the corroding away of his insides. His stomach dropped. He remembered yelling, shouting at Renaissance. He couldn’t remember what he’d said, but he figured, knowing himself, it was probably going to bite him in the ass sooner or later. Leaning back, he drank the last of the coffee, quietly dreading his demise.

☆☆☆

Ghoul breathed heavily, Party’s sweaty red hair blurring in his vision, his head swimming from the sucking on his neck and the hand entangled in the bottom of his hair, tugging gently. Party ran his tongue over the hollow at the base of Ghoul’s neck and Ghoul shivered, his hips twitching. 

Party wiped his mouth and sat up, his face flushed, looking exasperatedly at Ghoul. “Dude. It’s been, like, four minutes. Already?” 

Ghoul rolled his eyes. “Shut the fuck up.”

Party huffed, his face still flushed and hot to the touch. “See this, this is why no one hooks up with you,” he said breathily, his lips coming to rest below Ghoul’s ear. 

Ghoul was about to retort when Party’s lips were on his jaw and his hand back in his hair, and he fell silent. He moved to sit on Ghoul’s thighs and rolled his hips into the other’s, pulling him in by the waist to intensify the friction he caused. Ghoul’s head fell backward with a hitching moan, and Party went after his neck, cradling the back of it in his palm and running his tongue and lips over his sweaty flesh again. “Shh,” murmured Party, and Ghoul forced his lips together to keep silent. 

It had been just under four months now since they started hooking up, and despite the diner being empty, Party was not willing to risk them getting caught just because Ghoul couldn’t keep his dumb voice to himself. 

It wasn’t something Party was proud of. 

It had just sort of happened, really. The first time. They’d been fighting. Party had returned to the diner, where Ghoul was sleeping (midday, naturally). Party had shoved him off his couch to wake him up.

“When are you going to learn to grow the hell up?” Party had said, his face red with anger. 

Ghoul, having woken up on impact, let out a groan of pain. He whined and glared at Party. 

“When are you going to learn to pull the giant stick out of your ass?” He had growled, pushing himself up off the floor and wincing. 

Earlier that morning, trying to be funny, Ghoul had taped a piece of paper saying “Peepee Poison” to the back of Party’s jacket. Party hadn’t noticed until the twins, two little zippy kids who hung around the Den, had run around him in circles shouting “Peepee! Peepee Poison!” Ghoul knew it wasn’t even that funny of a joke, in fact it was probably one of the least clever things he’d ever come up with, but what could he say? Boring things suddenly get more entertaining when you live in a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland. 

“God, you are the fucking worst, did you know that?” Party had said, exasperatedly. 

Ghoul scoffed. “ I’m the worst? At least I know how to have fun. And not just be a giant pain in everyone’s ass. It’s not that deep, dude. You suck the fun out of everything. ” He was standing now, and brushed the dust off his jeans, his brow furrowed and angry.

Party jabbed Ghoul in the chest with his pointer finger. “That’s because I’m in charge. I keep you all safe. ”

Ghoul shoved him back, causing Party to stumble a little bit. “From what?! We fight Dracs, like, once a month! We don’t do shit, Poison, and you know it; you just wanna feel like a leader. We’re all plenty capable of taking care of ourselves, you just like the credit.”

Party, too annoyed to consider that what he was doing was childish, pushed Ghoul in return. “I am the reason that you’re alive, did you forget that?” He pushed Ghoul harder, making him stumble backwards a little. “If it weren’t for me and Jet all those years ago, your dead, fifteen-year-old ass would be six feet under the desert right now.” He shoved him again, so Ghoul was now backed against the wall. Party put his fists on Ghoul’s shoulders to keep him in place; the other felt slightly actually intimidated now, although he would never admit it. Party had turned his head to the side and spat on the ground before turning back to Ghoul, eyes ablaze. “And if you chose to leave right now, I guarantee you’d be dead in a ditch within the first three days.”

Ghoul had stared at him, his mouth agape in stunned silence, a faint glimmer of fear behind his hazel eyes. For just a few moments, there was nothing but the sound of their own panting and the adrenaline-fueled blood hammering through their veins, then Ghoul’s eyes briefly flicked from Party’s eyes to his mouth and back again, and it was unclear who moved first, but their lips connected quickly and mutually, to the surprise of them both. Party’s hands, seemingly with minds of their own, had relocated; one around the top of Ghoul’s waist and one twisted in his hair. Their lips moved frantically and erratically, gasping, not even really feeling, and after a few moments Party had nosed at the side of Ghoul’s neck, and pushed his knee up in between Ghoul’s thighs... 

You can imagine where it went from there. 

And even now, four months later, as Party sat covering Ghoul’s mouth with his hand and palming him through his jeans, it still had that same sense of urgency and lust. It was like they couldn’t help it, the goal was to get off as fast as possible and be done with it.

“Party, I’m-” Ghoul tried to say, his speech muffled by Party’s sweaty palm. Party removed his hand. 

“I’m close,” Ghoul said, his voice high and shaking.

Party ceased his pressure before taking his hand off of Ghoul altogether. 

“You’re serious? Already? I didn’t even touch you!” 

Ghoul writhed a little. “It’s been, like, six days. Since we last.” 

Party shook his head. “Oh my God. I take it back: this is why no one hooks up with you.” 

Ghoul’s head fell back with a short groan and he sharply inhaled a quick, shaking breath, his eyes shut tight, and let out a shuddery exhale, in a way that Party knew by now meant he was about to finish. He couldn’t believe he was even still doing this, if he had any sense, he’d just get up and leave Ghoul to deal with himself. 

Party rolled his eyes, still sat upon Ghoul’s thighs. “Jesus. Is there anything you don’t get off on? I can’t even insult you anymore.”

“Shut it,” said Ghoul, his voice pinched. 

Party stared at him exasperatedly. “I hate you sometimes, you know that?”  He rolled his eyes again and shoved his hand down Ghoul’s jeans, shifting his wrist quickly and intentionally, and Ghoul gasped, his throat convulsing and eyes squeezing shut as he came, gripping the mattress under him with white knuckles.

There was a silence. Then,

“You are the most submissive–” 

“Shut up, ” Ghoul said, his sweaty hair clinging to his forehead as he caught his breath.

“Whatever,” said Party, climbing off of Ghoul. “Have fun dealing with your crusty pants. I doubt you’ll wanna waste bottled water on those.” 

“Fuck you,” said Ghoul, lamely throwing a punch and missing. Party held up a middle finger, brushed off his pants, and without looking back, walked into the diner like nothing ever happened. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: To Be Someone

July 17, 2014.

The Helium War.

The Bunkers, again.

The boy grunted as he let go of his handmade spear, and watched in anticipation as it sailed through the air before lodging itself cleanly into his small, flat pillow. He smiled to himself. 

Much to the annoyance of everyone else in the bunker, he’d been practicing. Knives were much too small. Too close of combat for comfort. He figured if he wanted to be even at all useful, he’d need to go long-distance. 

It had been a miserable two days since the Killjoys had retreated, and they’d been taking absolutely zero risks of being seen. They stayed underground at all times, and the radios weren’t even so much as looked at. The five people from their bunker that had died were left on the battlefield, and for each a small ceremony had been held.

Food was being rationed even more thinly than normal. Normally, their main source consisted of freeze dried meals, most of it stolen from BLI over the years, or some of it even still from the first Analog war when they’d built this place. There was usually enough, whenever someone new escaped BLI they usually brought a good twenty of them along, and there had been several hundred to begin with when the bunkers were originally built during the first war. Since their dad had known about the bunkers, the boys themselves had arrived with fifty each, crammed inside their school backpacks and another two their father brought, after being told to buy one but not eat it at school every day for several months. Water could be found under cacti, or collected in precipitation, but it was also an extremely valuable commodity. Someone from the other bunker knew a person in BLI, and had communicated with them by radio before. They’d met at the wall, very very carefully, and the person inside had thrown down several hundred packs of plastic water bottles and more freeze-dried meals. It had taken close to an hour to throw them all over and even longer to hoard them inside BLI, and it was a miracle no one got caught. 

At the next Moon Meeting, that bunker leader had shared the water with the others, so each bunker had just under fifty six-packs of water. 

In general, meals were halved and you got one water bottle to reuse. If the air was too dry or it was too risky to dig, the full spare bottles were used. 

It wasn’t great to begin with, but now, with the war having just begun, meals were quartered and people were sharing water. You could fill it with the precipitation water, but that gave you close to nothing, with all the other people in the bunker. 

Almost everyone complained of nausea, headaches, and feeling exhausted, which really would not help their case if they had to fight.

But plans were being made. There was going to be another attack, this time by night. And they would be prepared. They knew what they were up against time, and as long as someone could get over the high, white, featureless wall and into the city and somehow make it to the headquarters, they would succeed. But it would take every able body, on both sides. They knew hundreds of Dracs and dozens of Scarecrows would be sent to fight, and that every Killjoy from the bunkers needed to step forward.

The plan was scheduled for tomorrow night.

Crow had given a speech earlier. He called the attention of the small, ragged group and said: “A long time ago, there were people like us. People who wanted to fight against tyranny. And there was a meeting between all the former countries to discuss what they might do. The discussion finally gets to a group of anarchists from a country called Greece. Their spokesperson addressed the gathered people and said simply, ‘We will make total destroy.’ Everyone looked around, confused. The Greek spokesperson worried he had miscommunicated, and conferred with his people. Everyone is waiting for further explanation, and the man then turns back to the room again and says, ‘Yes, we will make total destroy.’ And we…” he had gestured to the group of people. “We will make total destroy as well.”

No one knew if the story was true or not, he might have made it up for all they knew, but they liked it. 

The two teens had been practicing. The younger had snagged a gun from a dead Drac on the way home, and while he hadn’t actually shot it yet, he’d been practicing aiming. The older had made a spear out of scrap metal, and had absolutely destroyed his pillow by aiming at it from different points around the room (hence the annoyance of his many roomates). But he felt confident. Like maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t screw it up time.

The Killjoys were mourning, fearful, hungry, and the dryness in their mouths didn’t seem to go away, but they felt ready. The eldest especially: he felt he had something to prove after his moment of weakness in the last battle. He was going to make his mark; he was going to be someone.

He looked at his shredded pillow, took a breath, and readied his spear again.

Chapter Text

April 9th, 2018.

Outside.

“So, where’re you from? I haven’t seen you around here.”

Renaissance cracked his knuckles absentmindedly. “I’ve been traveling. I’m originally from around southwestern zone eight, my dad was camped there from the first war. Never even been near BLI. What about you?”

“Born in BLI, lived there until I was eight, then lived underground until the second war ended. Same as a lot of folks around here.”

“Man, that’s rough, though. Sounds so boring.” 

“I mean, yeah,” Kobra said. “We definitely had to entertain ourselves with what we had. There was this, like, one decaying deck of cards and a guitar that was missing a string, both already down there from the first war. We made up stories a lot. Haircuts were fun.”

“Yeesh. I was pretty lonely but. At least I had shit to do. I grew up in a library, my dad was a big literature freak and it was one of the only places still intact after the war. I read a lot. ”

“Yeah, what were you saying earlier? Emerson? Who is that?”

Ren’s face lit up, and Kobra knew he was in for a long talk. He didn’t mind.

“Okay, so way, way back in the day, back when there were still forests and lakes and shit, there were these people. They believed in, like, nature…” 

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: Cryptics and Afflictions

July 16, 2019.

The Witch’s Mailbox, again.

The wind lifted Kobra’s hair, whistling gently in his ears as his feet dangled from the overlook. The Joshua tree behind him provided little shade, its small shadows dancing on Kobra’s back. The wind chime hanging from the tree, made from shards of broken glass and shoelaces, clinked gently. The Mailbox, strong and silent as ever, stood in his peripherals, its bright graffiti blinding in the glaring sun. It sat near the edge of a small cliff, under one of the only trees around. It was a nice place to think. Or a nice place to wait for someone.

If Renaissance was ever going to look for him someplace, this was it. This was their meeting spot, always had been. Kobra looked at his hands, running his thumb over the scar on his palm and swinging his feet, slightly. He looked out over the cracked, dry desert, lost in thought, and he almost didn't hear the approaching footsteps behind him. He whipped his head around, and there he stood. He was masked, which around here was usually a sign of formality. Or distance. It was sort of akin to wearing your coat inside at a stranger’s house: you want to clarify that you aren’t making yourself at home. 

He approached tentatively, his left hand clutching the sleeve of his right arm, a new nervous habit, Kobra figured. Kobra just stared. Stared into the masked eyes of the one who had caused him so much pain, no alcohol to protect him this time. 

“Hi,” Renaissance said, his voice barely above a whisper. Kobra just looked at him. Renaissance walked slowly forward and sat down a good few feet to the left of Kobra and let his feet hang from the overlook, mirroring Kobra’s own position. For a few moments, they both just gazed out at the desert, the reticence thick between them. 

“Is that all you’re going to say?” asked Kobra, breaking the silence and looking in Renaissance’s direction.

Renaissance looked down at his feet. “I don’t really know where to begin,” he confessed, quietly.

“Why did you leave?”

Renaissance stayed silent for a minute, before looking up at Kobra. Even with the mask, Kobra could tell that the other’s eyes were beginning to fill. 

“I can’t tell you,” Renaissance whispered, his voice shaking. He wouldn’t look up.

“Why did you leave me?” 

He hadn’t meant to raise his voice on that, and the tears were now falling freely down his face, and God, this was embarrassing. 

“I’m sorry,” Ren said, his voice sounding stretched from trying not to get emotional. “I’m sorry. I really… I just can’t. I can’t tell you.”

Kobra sniffed and rolled his eyes. “Of course you can’t.” He shook his head in disbelief. I knew this would be a waste of time.” He stood up to leave when Renaissance shook his head.

“Wait!” 

Kobra turned around and raised his eyebrows expectantly.
“Stay,” Renaissance pleaded, a hint of desperation catching the word as it escaped his lips. “Please.” 

Kobra hesitated for a good while. This was so, so, confusing. He felt so angry, betrayed. And yet, the part of him that reminisced on how it once had been told him maybe he should stay. The voices argued in his head and eventually, Kobra made a decision; he shook his head at himself before returning to where he had been sitting on the edge of the overlook. “You’ve got two minutes.”

“Look,” Renaissance said. “I really can’t tell you what happened. And it’s not… not because of you. I promise. But I can tell you that I didn’t want to leave.”

Kobra shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why can’t you just tell me?”

Ren sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. “I just can’t, okay? I can’t.” He exhaled again. “Just…” he looked over at Kobra. “I didn’t… I didn’t want to leave you.” His breath hitched as he inhaled. “I get it, if– if you’re too angry to forgive me. I know Party definitely is.”

Kobra shook his head. “Nah, he’s…” he sighed. “Actually, yeah, you’re probably right.” He let out a small laugh, more of just a quick exhale through his nose. 

Kobra looked over at Renaissance, studying him. He’d almost forgotten what he looked like. The purple in the front of his hair was much more faded than when he’d seen it last, and his roots had grown out. He looked dustier than usual, somehow. And he looked tired. He looked as if it hurt his whole body just to breathe. Kobra couldn’t see much under the mask, but he could bet anything that the corners of his eyes were dark and exhausted. He was more tired than Kobra had seen him in his dreams. 

God, and he hated that he was concerned. He didn’t owe this guy anything, and yet he still continued to talk…

“Where have you been sleeping?” 

Renaissance shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it covered.” He scratched the back of his head, which was how Kobra immediately knew he was lying. 

“Don’t lie to me. Where have you been sleeping?”

Renaissance’s jaw tightened. “Listen, Kobra, I said don’t worry about it. It’s not your problem.” 

“Dude!” Kobra said, reaching over and grabbing him by the shoulders. Renaissance winced, like the contact hurt him. “Where have you-”

Renaissance threw his hands up in exasperation. “Damnit, Kobra! I’ve been sleeping where I can. Ditches! Empty toll booths, if I can find one! Other people’s places if they let me. But I don’t see why that’s any of your goddamn business, so would you just stay out of it?” 

Kobra released him and stared. “You need somewhere to stay,” he said, dread setting on him. It wasn’t a question. 

Ren stood up and brushed himself off, turning to walk away.“No, I don’t,” he said, his voice hard. “I don’t need anything. I just wanted to tell you why I left.” 

“Which you didn’t– what the fuck happened to your ear?” gasped Kobra, bewildered, still sitting on the edge of the cliff, gaping at the bruised, scabbed, and even charred cuff of flesh on the side of Renaissance’s face. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Renaissance mumbled, walking away. 

Kobra, still in shock, sat there for a moment before coming to his senses and scrambling after him. “Ren!” he called. “Damnit, Ren, don’t walk away from me,” he said, jogging after the other. “Renaissance,” he said. Renaissance ignored him. 

“Ren!” Kobra yelled, shoving him. Renaissance’s face contorted into an expression of unbearable pain, and a high shriek escaped his lips. He hissed as he doubled over. “Would you fucking watch it?” 

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you, like, frail?”

“Because I’ve been through a lot of shit, okay? I don’t want to get into it!” Ren gasped out, his voice high pitched and strained in a way that sounded like he was about to cry. Wincing again, he took his hands off his knees and stood himself upright. “Listen,” he said, his voice trembling. “I didn’t come here to… to start something. Or to… to get anything from you. I just wanted to tell you that it wasn’t your fault I left.” 

“Who’s fault was it? Please. ” Kobra begged, desperately. Renaissance looked at him. 

“It’s safer if you don’t know, okay? I’m sorry.” He turned and started walking the other way. He exhaled. “I’ll see you around, Kobra.” 

Kobra frustratedly grunted to himself as Renaissance walked away, frantically trying to figure out what to do. On one hand, he was still so, so angry, and Ren hadn’t even done shit to try and make it up. He had just shown up out of nowhere , given a half-assed excuse with no actual information, and had apparently turned into some kind of old man. 

But on the other hand...

Ren was homeless. And depending on how long he’d been living like that, it was a miracle he was even still alive. He knew what the desert was like.

So he had the choice: his own pride, or Ren’s life?

He sighed.

“Wait!” he called. Ren turned around, his bad ear facing Kobra, which, in full honesty, made him a little bit nauseous.

“Stay,” Kobra said. The few dozen feet of desert between them seemed to hold its breath as the seconds ticked by. “Please.”

 He paused, then admitted, “I don’t… I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Nearly a full thirty seconds passed before Renaissance nodded, defeated. 

“Yeah, okay,” he sighed.

They stood, looking at each other across the sand for a few moments more before Renaissance spoke again. 

“You get to be the one to tell Poison, though.”

☆☆☆

“Goddamnit,” Party said, blowing his hair out of his eyes and lowering the gun. “I don’t think it even matters how much I practice anymore. I’m never gonna get good at this.” 

Jet shrugged where he was sitting behind Party in a faded sun chair, sipping on a warm soda. “It’s been, like, five years. Maybe shooting just isn’t your thing.” 

Party brought the gun up again, and blew his hair out of his eyes. He shot and missed again, barely catching the snort from Jet behind him. Party narrowed his eyes and shot again, hitting the empty pop can from where it stood about fifty feet away. 

“Attaboy,” Jet said, tipping back the soda. “At least you’re better than Kobra. Dude can’t shoot to save his life.” 

Party fired at the can next to where the other one had been, knocking it down in one shot as well (he tried to remain nonchalant). “I know,” he said. “It’s a problem. He’s gonna get hurt one day.”

He fired at the third can and missed. He lowered the gun, frustrated. “Damnit,” he hissed. “I need Ghoul to teach me. He’s better at this than anyone, except maybe Cola. Beat him at his own game.”

Jet stood up, and walking to where the shredded cans were, he said, “Ghoul’s probably asleep right now. It’s too damn hot to be awake.” He positioned his freshly emptied can atop the box. 

“Lazy bitch,” Party muttered as Jet walked back. He paused when he reached Party. 

“Cut him a break, man. Nothin’ wrong with sleeping. Like I said, it’s too damn hot to be awake, anyway. Kobra’s probably sleeping too, just somewhere you won’t catch him.” He collapsed back into the chair. “Speaking of Kobra, what’s the deal with the whole Renaissance thing? Is he, like, back? For good?”

Party, gun lowered at his side, ran a hand through his hair and looked at Jet. “I don’t know. Kobra‘s totally pissed at him, so I doubt it. We were talking about it this morning.” He looked down at the gun, turning it over in his hands. “I don’t think they’ll talk. He sounded really, really, pissed. And rightfully.” He huffed. “I hope Kobra’s smart about it. I hope he tells him to get the hell out of here. I don’t even wanna look at the kid, after watching Kobra hate to wake up every day for the past six months because of him.”

Jet considered this for a moment. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m pissed at him too. Just up and leaving like that? Fucked. I thought they were, like. I don’t know. They were tight. But Party… just– remember you can’t really tell him what to do anymore, you know? Ghoul, either. They can be idiots, especially Ghoul, but. You know. That’s why we love ‘em.” 

Party ran the last sentence over in his mind. “Yeah,” he said. 

Jet turned his head to the side and lifted a hand to shield his eyes. “Speak of the Devil, actually.”

“Kobra or Ghoul?” Party said, bringing his focus back to the raised gun, staring at the blue can that was his target. 

“Kobra, I think. He’s with someone.” Jet squinted, leaning forward in his chair. “Ah, shit. It’s Ren.”

Party shot without meaning to, gun still aimed at the cans although his head had snapped toward where Jet was looking. The beam hit the can and it fell to the ground with a metallic clatter, but neither of them were looking at it. It rolled for a minute, hollow against the dry ground, before falling silent as Party stared at the pair in the distance. 

He and Jet turned to look at each other. 

“I’m going to murder him.”

☆☆☆

Ghoul was in the middle of a dream when the yelling started. 

Party had been straddling Ghoul’s thighs, running his hands over Ghoul’s torso, nosing at his neck. He’d curved his fingers slightly, dragging them down Ghoul’s sides, making him arch up off the dusty mattress. Ghoul had just let his neck tip back when suddenly, something cold and hard pressed into his pulse point. 

A gun. Party was holding a gun up to Ghoul’s neck, the hard cylinder pushing into his skin. 

“Why?” Ghoul asked. 

“Are you fucking stupid?” Party was saying. 

Ghoul was beyond lost. He blinked. “What??” 

“After everything he did to you?” 

Ghoul stared, confused out of his mind. “Who?” he asked, looking around, panic creeping into the edges of his voice.

A loud bang woke him up. 

The yelling was coming from the diner. “I can’t believe you’re just letting him waltz back in here like he didn’t make you fucking miserable!” 

Ghoul, frozen, sat there, trying to piece together exactly what the fuck was going on. He carefully stood up from the couch and peeked through the door, which was ajar. He opened it and walked in quietly, so he wouldn’t interrupt whatever the fuck was happening. There was broken glass on the floor, and Kobra and Party were standing in the aisle between the booths and the bar, and Jet sat in one of the booths, his knees facing the aisle. His eyes landed on Ghoul, and immediately his eyebrows furrowed, and he glanced downward, then back at Ghoul. 

Okay…

“Listen, man. You don’t know what he’s been going through.” 

“Do you!?” Party’s voice rose a few pitches. He cleared his throat. “Bring him in here, I wanna talk to him.”

“No, you’re gonna be a prick!” 

“Damn straight,” Party said, walking past Kobra and opening the door. Someone was sitting in one of the sun chairs out front, but Ghoul couldn’t see who. He couldn’t even tell if he was still dreaming or not. Party forcefully pushed the door, holding it open for the short and tired-looking frame of Renaissance. Ghoul’s eyes widened. He hadn’t seen that guy for months. Renaissance looked at him, and did the same weird thing Jet had done: Looked into his eyes, looked down, and then looked back, making a weirded-out face. What the fuck?

Party, catching on that Renaissance was looking at Ghoul, turned to him. His eyes landed squarely on Ghoul’s crotch, and he raised his eyebrows condescendingly. “Ghoul. Adjust yourself before you bust yourself.” 

Ghoul looked down, and quickly understanding what was happening, he booked it for the door he had come from. Shutting it behind him, he just stood there in shock for a few minutes, trying to process what exactly had happened in the maybe sixty-two seconds since he’d woken up. For one, he’d had a wet dream about Party, which was not something that had ever happened before, and secondly, what the fuck was Renaissance doing back here? Hadn’t Kobra been moping about him for, like, six months, or something? And thirdly, he thought, facepalming: how could he have not noticed? He looked down at his tightened jeans and cringed, looking away. Jesus.

Meanwhile, back in the diner, Renaissance was looking like he was halfway in the grave as Party laid into him. He appeared as if the words were going in one busted ear and out the other, his still-masked eyes unfocused.

“Look at him!” Kobra spoke angrily, gesturing toward Renaissance. “He’s, like, hardly even conscious! Yelling at him isn’t doing anything!”

“This isn’t a goddamn hotel, Kobra. I want him— both of you— to know that he is not welcome here!” Party growled back. 

“Okay, okay, hold on-”

“That isn’t your decision!” 

Kobra and Jet had talked at the same time, both objecting to what Party had said. Renaissance seemed to come to for a moment, and tried to tell them that it was fine, he’d find somewhere else, they didn’t have to worry about him, but when he opened his mouth, the last of his strength seemed to leave and after letting out a quiet, panicked gasp, he collapsed onto the tiled floor, unconscious. They all three just stared at him for a moment, Kobra looking concerned, Jet looking mildly surprised, and Party looking like his skin was about to burst into flames. 

They all looked up as the door clicked, and an embarrassed-looking Ghoul entered. 

“Well, well, if it isn’t bricked-up Bob, here.”

Ghoul scoffed. “Shut up, you know that just happens by itself sometimes.”

“Whatever you say, Boner Bill.”

“Come on, now,” Jet said. “He’s right, sometimes bodies just do what they want–”

Party rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I don’t care. We need to deal with him.” He tilted his head toward the crumpled figure on the floor, bent in a weird position from falling at such an awkward angle. 

Kobra scoffed. “Can’t we just let him stay? Look, I’m not happy with him either, but he’s homeless. And injured. He’s gonna die if we send him back out there, look at him!”

“Oh, I’m looking at him, and I want him out of here.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you so damn insistent? Why are you defending him?”

“Because something clearly happened to him and I want to find out what!”

“So you’re just doing it for yourself. I have always done what’s best for–”

Kobra grunted angrily and balled his fists. “Would you shut up for once in your goddamn life? I am so sick of you telling me what to do every second of the day: Don’t leave the diner without telling me, Kobra! Don’t breathe without checking with me first, Kobra!’ Jesus Christ!!” He jabbed his finger angrily at Party. “If you don’t let him stay, I will move to the Den. I swear I will.”

Party, his muscles tensed, was rendered speechless. He wasn’t speechless very often, and he didn’t like it when he was. It felt like a glitch in the system. He didn’t like when things didn’t go how he planned. He stared at the grown-up person who was his little brother, knuckles white, jaw tightened. Kobra had done that as a kid, too. Balled his fists when he was angry. 

“Fine,” Party said. It sounded weird in his ears, like it had come from someone else. “Fine.”

Kobra’s eyebrows twitched, as if he were surprised at Party’s answer, which made him feel just about equivalent in value to the dust on the bottom of his shoes. 

“He’s staying in the diner, though. We don’t have room for him in the back.”

Kobra nodded stiffly, still seeming surprised that he’d gotten his way. Party huffed, and mumbled something like “I’m taking a walk,” and the three were left staring at each other, Renaissance’s heavy breathing the only sound to fill the space.

Chapter Text

July 18, 2014.

The Helium War.

Zone 1.

The Frontlines.

His breath escaped him in rapid, short pants, his blood beating in his ears as he swallowed his fear. He tightened his grip on his handmade spear as the specks that were Crows and Dracs started coming over the wall, sliding down white nylon ropes. The first wave of Killjoys started running, charging at the soldiers, weapons raised. The Draculoids, masks blank and unblinking, raised their guns and started firing. The Killjoys who held guns fired right back, and the ones with handheld weapons sprinted toward the white adversaries, fists clenched tightly around their handles. The first wave of people were meant to weaken the army, taking out as many people as possible, before the second wave was to attempt to make their way over the BLI border and into the city. The third wave was to continue firing at the soldiers and keep them occupied while the second wave did their job. The fourth, fifth, and sixth waves followed the same pattern, respectively.The two young boys were a part of the sixth wave, sweat soaking their dust-stained clothes, the heat of the heavy desert sun only fueling their adrenaline. They had never seen so many Killjoys in the same place; all sorts of men, women, in-betweens, children. All of them here to fight. And potentially lose their lives. 

The older felt sick as he tried not to look at his little brother, his best friend, gun clutched tightly between his whitened knuckles. They were toward the back of the crowd, but soon enough it would be their turn. Agonized yelling could be heard hundreds of yards ahead. 

From which army, the boy didn’t know, but he figured the robots couldn’t scream. 

The Crows could, though. He knew that much. Scarecrows were real people, unlike the lifeless yet realistic, mass produced intelligent robots that were the Dracs, Because of that, the Crows, he decided, were eternally more frightening. He watched as the second wave started trying to make their way up the nylon ropes, a few people falling to the ground, dead, or soon to be. The third wave charged forward, attacking the swarm of BLI soldiers that seemed to be doubling by the minute. More and more ropes were coming over the edge, and more Dracs and Crows slid down them, shooting at Killjoys who were climbing up.

It was pandemonium. 

The battle was quickly losing any sense of organization as it deteriorated into what could only be described as a killing frenzy. Dracs, Crows, and Killjoys alike took the lives of their enemies and lost their own in a wave of blood and heat as they fell to the ground. The boys just stood there and watched, horrified. It was all they could do. 

That is, until the fifth wave took off running. 

They sprinted through the chaos, the clutters of melee, hurtling the corpses on the ground as they made their way to the wall. 

As he had been instructed, the boy began to count down. 

Seven .

His heart beat, and the freeze dried food he had made himself eat was threatening to reappear.

Six . 

He looked over at his baby brother, greasy auburn hair shining dully in the sunlight, hoping that this wasn’t the last time he’d ever see him.

Five . 

A female Killjoy from the third wave slit the throat of a charging Crow.

Four .

The Crow fell to the ground, choking on the hot, thick, rivers of blood that flowed from its neck.

Three . The boy, impossibly tightened his grip on his weapon, watching the general bleed out in front of him.

Two . 

The Crow’s breathing stilled. 

One . 

And it was like a switch had clicked within him. He didn’t feel it as his feet started propelling him across the dust. He didn’t notice the rest of the sixth wave taking off next to him. It was like the sound in his brain had been shut off. His vision locked in on the Drac running toward him, and as if he were controlled by someone else, the boy raised his hand back and threw the spear at the robot. It lodged itself cleanly in the Drac’s “flesh” and it toppled to the sand. The boy retrieved the spear, his eyes darting around wildly, in search of their next target. He honed in on a Crow this time, who was shooting at a couple of Killjoy children that were making a run for it. The boy grunted as he wound back and released the spear again, watching it sail through the air before directly impaling the Crow’s throat. 

And just like that, the switch had turned back off. The boy stood there, frozen, as the Crow, in shock and still standing, choked, and as the boy realized what he had done. The Crow began to sink toward the desert floor. 

It was as if the boy fell back in time. 

Suddenly, he was eleven years old, walking down a dirty alley in the year 2005.

The dozens of scores of freeze dried food in his backpack was weighing him down as he walked, clutching the arm of his father. He looked at his brother around his dad’s back, who made eye contact with him and smiled. The younger was only eight. He knew something unusual was going on, but he didn’t care so much that they were in the sketchy part of the city, more that his shoulders were beginning to ache from his backpack. He shifted his backpack uncomfortably. “Almost there,” their dad reassured him, quietly.

Their mother had disappeared a few months prior, and the boys’ father hadn’t been the same since. They had awoken for school one day, walking into the clean, white kitchen in their white footie pajamas, and found their father red eyed and haunted-looking on the couch, his face pale to match the colorless fabric. The younger, oblivious as usual, had blundered over to his father and collapsed onto his lap. “I’m hungry. Where’s mom?” 

The man had stayed frozen before he began to shake, silent sobs escaping him. He covered his mouth, trying to silence them. 

“Gerard,” he had said, his voice high and shaky, with an eerie, forced calm. “Can you get your brother breakfast, please?”

The oldest was a smart kid. He knew when to do what he was told, he knew something important was happening. He knew something was wrong, and he knew he’d find out soon enough. 

He nodded, and still in his pajamas he had begun to take the freeze-dried waffles out of the slick, white cabinet, and put them in the hydrator: the standard BLI kitchen appliance. The machine hummed quietly, as the younger boy kept pestering his father about the whereabouts of his mother. The man just brushed him off, staring at the wall in front of him. The hydrator beeped, signaling that the food was done, and the boy took them out and set them on a plate on the white, granite countertop. His brother, now distracted that there was food, ran over and began to shovel it down. The older looked at his father, who beckoned to him. 

“Gerard, would you mind getting me my book?” he had said, his voice still that odd, odd calm that did not at all match his demeanor. The boy had nodded, running to his father’s room and grabbing the book on his nightstand, a book about the dangers of desert radiation (BLI-issued, of course. Every book in the city was approved by the government first). There was a pen tucked into the page as a bookmark, and that was the first thing his father had reached for when the boy held the book out to him. Opening to a random page, the man began to write in the margins. The boy looked over his shoulder to read the words:

Do not speak when you read this. Do not reply, unless it is in code.  Your mother was out past curfew last night. They took her. She’s not coming back. 

The man exhaled a shaky breath, before continuing.

They bugged me.

He looked up at the boy, whose expression remained confused. The man crossed his previous sentence out, and rewrote it. 

They bugged me.

They put a microphone in my skin. To make sure I don’t plan any sort of retaliation revenge. 

The boy had looked at his father with large eyes, not really sure how to process what he’d read. The younger stayed blissful, his fork scraping against his plate, as the father looked at his oldest son, a silent tear escaping his tired, tired eyes. 

The weeks that followed were some of the strangest of the boy’s life. Everything he knew about the city seemed to change. The government safety measures started looking a lot more like stringent laws in disguise, the constant reminders at his school, on the street, in the daily announcements about how everything was great began to look a lot more like propaganda. While nothjng outside him had changed, his views certainly had. And after several months of hoarding extra food from school, vending machines, monthly handouts– they were walking through the slums of Battery city, approaching the border. The boy didn’t really know what his father’s plan was, just that his back hurt and his father was retrieving a long, nylon rope from his bag. 

Security and maintenance were low in this part of the city. The ground hadn’t been paved away as neatly here as everywhere else, and several piles of garbage were rotting on the uneven ground. This was the one unclean part of the city, the one part that wasn’t constantly maintained. It was where all the droids lived: The janitor droids, the mechanic droids, the pretty lady droids, and various other service bots. Everyone he never really paid much attention to until he realized they could be programmed to do whatever BLI wished, much like the Draculoids.

 Both boy’s eyes widened in surprise as their father had begun to climb up the nearest and largest pile of trash and droid parts, bringing him maybe ten feet higher to the thirty-foot wall. “Why is he–” the younger sibling started, before the older clapped a hand over his mouth. He held a finger to his lips, and the younger nodded, scared, not quite sure what he had done wrong. Their father turned and beckoned to them, and the boys began to climb up the mound of waste as well, wrinkling their noses. Luckily, it wasn’t anything too gross: mostly just discarded wrappers from dehydrated food and abandoned metal parts, as well as many broken or dead droid batteries. The oldest was careful not to let himself get cut on any of the metal jutting out, but the younger, with his lack of motor skills, wasn’t so lucky. The boy heard a gasp of pain from behind him, and watched in horror as a trail of blood began to slink down his brother’s knee. He scrambled down as fast as he could to get to the little boy, covering his mouth just before he started sobbing. “Shh, shh,” the older mumbled. “We have to be quiet. I know it hurts.” 

The younger tried to hush his cries as his brother wiped the blood from his leg, in hopes that it would calm him down. The older now had blood all over his palms, but he tried not to focus on it as he continued climbing, listening to the soft whimpers behind him. 

When he made it to the top, he held out his hand to hoist his brother up, and once they were both carefully perched on top of the pile, they looked at their dad expectantly. The man positioned his arms, rope in hand, and threw the end as powerfully as he could. It flew over the edge of the wall, and the man lowered it. “Hey, first try!” the younger cheered. His brother turned to him with wide eyes, holding a finger over his mouth again. The younger clapped his hands over his mouth, having forgotten that he was supposed to be quiet. 

Their father kept lowering the rope, when suddenly it jumped, as if someone were pulling it. Astounded, the boys gaped at their dad, who turned to the older, pointing at the rope, and signaled for him to climb up it. 

“You–” 

The younger boy wasn’t able to finish his sentence because his brother had yet again covered his mouth with his bloody palm. When it was removed, the younger mouthed the word “sorry” before doing the lip-zipping movement, signaling it wouldn’t be a problem again. His mouth was ringed with drying blood. 

The older turned from him, and looked up at the rope, giving it a tug. Whatever was on the other side tugged back. Slowly but surely, he began to pull himself up the rope, crossing his feet and gripping it tightly just like how they climbed the ropes in Physical Education at school. 

It felt sturdy in his hands, and when he reached the top, puffing a little as he sat on the edge, he couldn’t help but take a look at the city in which he’d grown up, before turning to face the barren desert, heat waves suspended above the golden-brown sand. The sound of a whistle broke him out of his trance. He looked down, and almost fell off the wall when he saw that there was a man down there. The man twitched his neck, signaling for the boy to come down. 

He couldn’t be serious.

Could he? 

All his life he’d been told about the desert. In school, they’d had a lesson on animals that had been poisoned by radiation and had morphed into monsters beyond comprehension. They told him the sand was so hot that it would melt through his shoes, and had shown him a video to prove it. He couldn’t go down there, right?

The man beckoned again, his eyes flashing a sense of urgency.

Okay, he thought. This was really happening. 

Trying to be brave, the child swallowed his apprehension before slowly beginning to slide down the rope, taking his time as to not burn his hands. When he reached the bottom, he dangled for a moment before bracing himself, then letting go and falling onto the sand. He landed on his feet, but the ground was harder than he expected, and he toppled backwards to the ground. His face was scrunched up, expecting pain, and he was quite surprised when there was only the chalky feeling of dust, to which he was unfamiliar. 

They were lying, he realized. 

The man who had held the rope continued holding the rope with one hand and held the other out to the boy, who grasped it and pulled himself up. 

“Scarlet Crow,” the man had introduced himself. What kind of a name is that? The boy wanted to ask, but didn’t because he knew it wasn’t polite. He didn’t know what was going on, where he was, or why this guy was here, but he figured  his questions might be answered soon enough. 

The boy looked up to the wall, where his brother was even more slowly making his way down the rope, spinning slightly, which made the older boy giggle. The man, “Scarlet Crow” smiled too, and the boy found he trusted him a little bit more, now. When the younger boy hit the ground, he said, “Daddy tied it down, he’s coming up next.”

Scarlet Crow frowned and squinted at the top of the wall. “That wasn’t part of the plan,” he said. 

“What plan?” the two young boys asked, simultaneously. Scarlet Crow shook his head, and they didn’t ask for more information. 

The children’s father appeared over the top of the wall, and slid down at an alarming pace, which made the kids gasp with empathetic pain before they realized he was wearing gloves. “Why didn’t he bring us gloves?” the younger muttered, sulkily. 

The man’s feet touched the ground deftly, and he quickly pulled something out of his pocket. A piece of paper. There were words already written on it, but the man also retrieved a pen and added something more to the bottom, scrawling quickly. 

He passed the note to the older sibling, and while he read it, he pulled the younger into a tight embrace, squeezing his eyes shut. Then he did the same to the older. The youngest tried to read the note, but he couldn’t because of the hurried handwriting and his limited reading ability. The oldest read it to him very, very quietly. The younger one started to panic. 

“No,” he said. His sibling shushed him, but the younger shook his head wildly. “No! No! You can’t leave us! I don’t want to leave! I don’t want you to leave us! Take me home!” The older tackled the younger to the ground, covering his mouth with his hand, but the child began screaming and kicking, and yelling through his palm. “Don’t leave us!! Don’t leave us! Bring me back up! I want to go home!” His words were muffled, but everyone understood him. 

Which only meant the microphone embedded under the skin of the man’s scalp heard it too. 

The man panicked; he would be caught. He grabbed the older child, giving him a final embrace and a kiss on the cheek, and picked up the younger child from where he lay, calming him temporarily. Sat on his hip, the young boy’s teary eyes looked into the tired, sad eyes of his father. “I love you,” the man mouthed, before giving the boy a kiss on the cheek and setting him down. After taking a final, fleeting glance at them both, he turned and began to climb the rope again. Which, of course, made the young boy wail again, screaming at his father not to leave him. 

“We have to go,” Scarlet Crow said, firmly, eyes darting around. “We have to go! Right now!” He picked up the younger and in one impressive movement flung him over his shoulder, where the boy pounded and yelled against his back. “Come on!” he yelled, and he began to run. The older boy, cramming the note from his father into his pocket, sprinted after the man, no time to look behind him. They ran for what felt like hours. The sun beat down upon him, the sand was hard to run on. He did not like the desert. He was out of breath and panting when they arrived at what looked like a small metal door in the ground, with a wheel sticking out. The man set the child, who had ceased his screaming by now (endless crying in its place) on the ground, where he immediately tried to make a run for it in the direction from which they’d come. His brother grabbed him, trying to keep him still, as the boy kicked and yelled again. 

Crow turned the wheel, which opened the hatch door to a ladder. Intrigued, the younger stopped his struggling and looked down into the hole. “Come on,” The man had said. 

Too curious to protest, the boys cautiously descended the ladder,  surprised at the temperature change as they went down; the air cooled the further they went. They saw the man above them climbing down too, shutting the hatch door behind him. 

The boys landed on the ground, which was made out of metal, and looked at their new surroundings, jaws on the floor, eyes wide.

There were other people down here, maybe fifteen of them. They looked pale, skin almost translucent, their faces tired, and they were highly interested in the newcomers. 

The older boy turned to Scarlet Crow, fear and question in his eyes, his mouth still agape. 

“Welcome to the revolution,” Crow said. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 6.5: The Game of What to Say

June, 2018.

The Diner.

“Shut up, man, listen, it’s not anything yet–”

Kobra was cut off by the arrival of Renaissance (speaking of), who had burst into the diner, panting, saying he found something Kobra “needed to see right now, like right now,” before grabbing him by the hand and dragging him out the door, leaving the other three Killjoys staring after them. 

“Ren, what the hell? Where are we going?” 

“I found something cool!”

“How far is it? You’ve been gone all day.” 

“It’s not too far!”

The tension between them had been high for the entire months of April and May, and each of them felt it, but neither of them were brave enough to make the first move, each convinced that surely, the other wasn’t interested. There had been two months of catching stares, blushes in the dark, and quirks of the lips when they thought of the other, in the company of solitude. They both denied it, of course, but the rest of the group could see it quite plainly. Frankly, it was getting ridiculous. 

“Kobrassance” had sort of become an inside joke between the three others, constantly trying to set them up or get Kobra to man up and ask him out.  

Renaissance was lying, by the way.  It ended up being almost an hour, and night had fallen by the time they arrived at what looked like a bunch of dusty parking spots and a few rusty trailers, with a broken sign reading something that had been worn away by sandy wind long ago. 

“This?” Kobra had asked, unimpressed. “We walked all this way for this?”

Renaissance’s face had fallen a little. “It’s an old campground. I thought you’d think it was cool.”

“What’s a campground?”

“It’s where people used to bring their campers, and they paid to stay out here for a few days.”

Kobra knew what a camper was; the Killjoys had stumbled across a few in the desert over time. Why anyone would pay to stay in the middle of West Jesus Nowhere, though, he wasn’t sure.

“C’mon,” Renaissance said, grabbing Kobra’s hand again and pulling him through the broken front gates. 

The stars were brilliant in the desert. On some nights, you could see the cloudy, billowing streak of the Milky Way stretched across the black canvas, littered with stars like sand on asphalt. 

They walked down the path between parking spaces, their footprints and the desert crickets their only sonic accompaniment. A few trailers remained from before the first war, probably belonging to the owners of the campground. Kobra tried not to focus on the fact that his hand was still clutched within Renaissance’s, and prayed he wasn’t sweating too much despite the cold of the desert. 

He had been so busy focusing on whether his hand was excessively perspiring to notice that they had stopped, before Renaissance said “look,” and pointed in front of him.

There was a decrepit playground before them, the dusty equipment painted a chipped, sunshine yellow. There was a metal merry-go-round, the base slightly buried. There was a tall structure, stairs leading up to the top that had a few plastic slides coming down. There was a swingset off to the side, creaking slightly. Renaissance let go of Kobra’s hand (from which Kobra then immediately tried to wipe his own sweat) and made his way to the swingset, gingerly sitting on it, and after waiting a moment to make sure it was stable enough to hold him, began to pump his legs. He stared at Kobra before nodding his head sideways toward the adjacent swing, signaling for Kobra to come sit down next to him. Kobra walked over, his feet crunching on the gravel, and sat on the swing. He began to pump fit feet, too, until they were swinging together; not too high, just enough to get a good motion back and forth, giggling. The metal creaked above them. It made Kobra a little nervous, but not as nervous as Renaissance made him. 

“You always talk about how much you liked the playgrounds. In BLI. How that was the thing you missed. When you were a kid, I mean.” Ren had stopped pumping his legs, so now he just pendulated back and forth, losing momentum with each swing. Kobra did the same, and looked at him. 

“Yeah,” he said, getting that fluttery feeling in his stomach again. “Yeah, you’re right. Thank you, Ren. I’m surprised you remembered. ” 

Renaissance giggled. “I always remember. Wanna see how high we can go without bringing down the whole swingset?”

Kobra smiled. “You’re on.”

Later, when the night had grown even colder despite the brutal July heat and their breath appeared in foggy clouds, they sat perched on the top of the play structure in a gap between the yellow metal bars that surrounded it. There were more bars leading up to the gap, probably meant for climbing, but it was a good place to sit. It was a bit of a squeeze, though; their thighs and knees were touching as they sat staring at the moon. Not that either of them were complaining. 

Kobra stole a glance at Renaissance. He was focused on the sky, his dark eyes reflecting the pricks of light scattered over the night. 

The flutters were back. He looked beautiful; that was the only way Kobra could describe it. 

Renaissance felt him staring, and turned to him. “What?” he asked, grinning slightly. 

Kobra just shook his head, smiling, and returned his attention to the void above them. Renaissance did the same. Kobra wanted them to talk; he wanted to hear Renaissance’s voice, he wanted the sound to fill his mind until it spilled from his fingertips.

“What’s your favorite color?”

Renaissance glanced at him, then looked thoughtfully into the inky sky. “The moon.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Ren. The moon’s not a color.”

He clicked his tongue, his gaze still upon the glowing, rocky mass suspended above the atmosphere. “See, that’s where you’re wrong, my friend. The moon is a multitude of colors, we just have to be in a place to look for them.

“‘Nature always wears the colors of the spirit,’” Kobra said. 

It was silent for a moment before the other spoke, the trace of a laugh tinting the edges of his words. 

“Did you just quote Ralph Waldo Emerson at me?”

Kobra laughed. 

“Yeah, you never shut up--” he started, before he was cut off by a pair of lips on his own, and the sudden feeling of a calloused hand on his cheek. He was too surprised to react, and at first, Renaissance pulled back. 

“Sorry,” he said, ashamed, his face burning. “I shouldn’t have done that. I thought, maybe…” he trailed off and his head started drifting toward the ground before Kobra caught Renaissance’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, and pulled him up to face him, just for a moment, just to look at him. And then he leaned back in, pressing his lips to Renaissance’s, repositioning his hand to hold the back of Ren’s neck and tangle his fingers in his matted hair, just slightly. Renaissance placed a hand on Kobra’s waist, which made him shudder a little, but he moved his lips again and Ren did the same. After a moment, the kiss broke on its own, and the two just stared at each other for a second with blown pupils and wet lips.

They laughed, a little awkwardly, then Kobra pulled Renaissance closer to him, so Ren’s head rested on his shoulder. Kobra leaned his head atop Renaissance’s, unable to stop smiling. 

“So Emerson was all it took, huh?”

“Shut up.” 

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: Unrecognized Heroism: To Cloak Oneself in Shadow to Conceal What’s Better Off Unseen.

July 16, 2019.

The dirty floor of a 50s-style diner. 

Renaissance found peace in unconsciousness, where he could fall deep into the folds of his mind, away from the things that impeded tranquility, a respite from the things that made his life almost intolerable. He found solace when he was shut out from the world, safe behind the barrier of sleep. 

But, of course, all good things must come to an end. 

He awoke with his cheek pressed to something cold, and a terrible soreness in his back. He pulled himself up, wincing when his skin peeled painfully off the ground, and sat on his backside, trying to figure out where exactly he was. Which, of course, was the dirty diner floor onto which he had fallen. He tried to push himself into a standing position with his left arm, and after gasping in pain when he put pressure on it, switched to his right arm. He pulled himself into the booth that he figured he must have fallen from, and took off his mask, which had been pressing painfully into his forehead.

It was probably around eight at night; the sun hung low in the orange sky, sending yellow rays through the diner’s transparent front door that illuminated thousands of motes of dust and glinted off the metal ribbings of the counter. Renaissance rubbed his eyes, trying to figure out if he had finally died. It was too pretty a thing to wake up to to be real, he thought. 

“So,” a voice said, scaring the shit out of Ren and causing him to jump about twenty feet in the air. “What exactly are your intentions in returning?” 

Renaissance turned to face Jet Star, leaning against the doorway to the background, his curls illuminated in the golden glow, his face firm but not unfriendly. Renaissance tried to catch his breath, his heart racing. “Jesus,” he said, breathlessly. He turned to face the man in the doorway, who was laughing a little apologetically as he tried to conjure up a way he could phrase the reasons for his return without giving away too much. 

“I just… I wanted to tell Kobra it wasn’t his fault. That I left.”

Jet remained still against the wooden frame, his face neutral. “Who’s fault was it?”

Renaissance stared at him, puzzled. Who’s fault could it be but his own?

“Party? Did he threaten you or something?” 

Renaissance’s jaw fell, slightly. He wasn’t aware there was tension between the group, and he prayed to God he wouldn’t be the one accused of causing it.

“No,” he said. “No, we got along, then. He just doesn’t like me now… I mean, anymore.” Ren looked down. It was true; before he’d disappeared he’d been fairly close with all of the Killjoys. Kobra the most, of course, but since they spent so much time in the same area and with the same company, they became friends fairly quickly.

Jet nodded, understanding. “You leave because of something Kobra did?”

Silence.

“Or something you did?” 

Damn him and his mediation. 

“Neither.”

Jet raised an eyebrow. “I don’t follow.” 

Ren rubbed his eye. “Listen, man. I can’t tell you. I’d like to, but it would just cause a bunch of problems, and nobody wants that. Trust me.”

Jet, after considering for a moment, nodded. “I’ll trust you, Ren. I don’t know what the others will think, but you’ve never been much of a liar, at least that I know of.” 

Renaissance smiled, relieved, and at that moment, Kobra walked through the clear doors to the diner, the bell ringing as he stepped in, and faltered when he saw the two talking. 

“Am I… interrupting something?” he asked curiously, looking between the two. 

“Nope,” said Jet, pushing himself off the doorway. “We were just wrapping up.” 

He gave Kobra a pat on the arm before walking through the same door, the bell ringing again as he exited. 

And just like that, it was just the two of them again.

Renaissance glanced at Kobra, the side of his face gilded and sharp in the warm lighting, his hair catching bits of light. They just stayed there for a moment, the suspended beams of dust the only ones who dared move. 

“So…” Kobra began, rocking on his heels.

And that was when Renaissance began to cry. 

He didn’t mean to, he didn’t want to, but it felt like it had been ripped out of him against his will as the choked sobs left his body, ragged and heavy despite his efforts to shove them back down, to stop them from leaving. It was like he’d been possessed. He wrapped his arms around his torso as his breath hitched and shuddered, his eyes crushed together, trying to prevent anything from leaving them. 

Kobra simply stood there for a moment, taken aback, before he found himself walking toward the table and sitting next to Renaissance, wrapping him in his arms letting the other bury his head into his shoulder. He didn’t know why.

The pair stayed like that for a while. Just them, Ren’s tears, the dusty golden sun beams, the glints of light on metal, the quiet gasping sobs. 

The golden light rays faded to a deeper orange, eventually fading altogether as the sky became a light, gradient purple. The diner was fairly dark now; it wasn’t dim enough that you had to squint, but it was no longer getting the full force of direct sunlight. The cries soon faded to sniffs, then to a soft shudder, then to silence. Kobra Kid now had Renaissance’s head on his shoulder, with his own temple leaned against it, his hand resting on the side of Renaissance’s face, thumb gently stroking the skin above his (good) ear. 

After it had been a good three minutes since a noise had left Renaissance’s mouth, Kobra quietly broke the silence. 

“Party said you can stay.”

“Here?” Renaissance asked, his voice croaky. “I don’t– I don’t need–”

“Shut up, Ren.” 

It was not a sentence that held malice; Renaissance could tell that, and for that reason he complied. 

Plus, if he was being honest, he had really, really missed this. Being close to Kobra. His ear was throbbing, pressed against Kobra’s jacket, but he ignored it, instead reveling in the soft touch of Kobra’s thumb against his temple, and the light tickle of his breath on his hair. He almost felt like he could fall asleep again, with the temperature just starting to cool and Kobra providing a steady source of body heat.

But again, all good things must come to an end. 

The bell on the door rang as Party came in. Kobra lifted his head off of Renaissance’s instantly. Renaissance followed, but not quickly enough because Party briefly paused to furrow his brows at the pair before disappearing into the back room. 

“I, um. I better go talk to him. I have to get you some blankets and stuff, anyway.”

Kobra scooted out from the booth and disappeared into the break room, and Renaissance felt his skin grow cold. He rubbed his bad ear, wincing, trying to bring some feeling back into it after it had been pressed to Kobra’s jacket for so long. He was sort of glad that he was allowed to stay here, as embarrassing as it was. He would get to spend more time with Kobra, and it would be nice having things like blankets, pillows, and food again. As long as he kept his mouth shut, it should be fine, he figured. Hopefully.

“So, are you back together?” 

Party’s voice was cold as he took off his jacket, aggressively hanging it on a hook. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, his jaw gritted, his eyes staring daggers. 

Kobra rolled his eyes. “You idiot, he just woke up, like, thirty minutes ago. He’s going through shit and I, unlike some people, have a shred of empathy in me. Despite what I might be feeling.” He collected the spare blanket and pillow from the corner, and tucked them under his arm. 

Party’s glower intensified, and he huffed. “Whatever, Kobra. I don’t trust him. If you wanna let him stay here, I guess I can’t stop you, but know I’m not gonna be happy about it.”

“Fine with me. You know that I can move to the Den anytime.”

Party’s eye twitched, something that only happened when he was really trying not to lose it, and honestly, it sort of brought Kobra a cruel sense of satisfaction.

And then Party’s firm gaze broke, just a little, and his voice got softer. Sadder. “Why are you doing this, Kobra?” 

Kobra wasn’t sure whether he meant keeping Renaissance around or threatening to move out or both, but his answer was the same either way. 

“Because you need to know that you are not in charge of me anymore.” 

Party’s face slackened, just a little. Once more, he was robbed of words. And maybe Kobra had made it up, but as he looked at his older brother, Party looked as if something in him had broken. 

Kobra’s gaze softened, and he suddenly started feeling bad. “Party-”

And Party’s face hardened, any signs of emotion wiped like sand from a windshield. 

“No, it’s fine, Kobra. You’re right. You can take care of yourself.”

Somehow, that hurt more than it would have if he had just argued with him.

Party grabbed the jacket he had just hung up and slung it over his shoulder. “I’m staying at the Den tonight. Don’t know when Ghoul and Jet are getting home.” 

He walked toward the diner door, and Kobra chased after him. 

“Wait, Party-” 

The door shut behind Party Poison as he left, jacket still draped over his right shoulder as he walked east. Kobra stood there for a second, cold guilt settling in his stomach, just staring after his brother, when a cough came from the diner. Kobra turned toward Renaissance, who was watching him guiltily. 

“You okay?” 

Kobra sighed, looking down. “I don’t know, man. I think I really actually hurt him this time.”

Renaissance patted the table in front of him, and Kobra, after hesitating, reluctantly walked over and sat opposed to him, setting the bedding next to him on the booth.

Kobra ran a hand through his hair, his elbow on the table, and turned to look out the diner window at the inky sky, the hue of the atmosphere adding a faint shade of purple to his eyes. 

Ren would be lying if he said he didn’t let his gaze linger.

Kobra turned back toward him and the other cast his eyes downward, hoping it wasn’t obvious that he’d been staring. 

“You remember that time we found that campground?” 

It was Ren who spoke, looking at Kobra, who was looking at his hands on the table and rubbing the scar on his palm absentmindedly. Kobra tried not to smile at the memory. He knew what Ren’s game was, and he wouldn’t let him have that. 

“I know what you’re doing,” he said.

“And there was that playground…” 

They looked up and made eye contact, briefly, before looking down instantly, Ren emitting a small, awkward laugh, a hint of red shading both of their cheeks. 

“And then we just sat at the top of the slide. Watching the sky.”

“Must have been hours,” Kobra slipped; he’d been trying to forget it. He felt a deep fluttering in his stomach, a feeling from which he’d been estranged for quite a while; newly familiar. He recalled that night, which had probably been just about a year ago, now. 

Renaissance was laughing. “I’ll never forget what you said to me, I don’t think. ‘So, Emerson–’”

“–all it took, huh?” Kobra finished, smiling. And just then, it felt like old times. Everything may have been an absolute trainwreck, Renaissance’s laugh may have had a slight wheeze of pain to it, and Kobra might have just absolutely obliviated his relationship with his brother, but right then, he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about the person in front of him, and what it had been like to laugh with him. What it was like to be near him. And for a brief, sudden moment, a slip of the mind, he wanted all of that again. He sobered upon this realization, and looked at Renaissance. The other could tell what Kobra was thinking, he knew it. 

Slowly, wordlessly, their hands resting on the table began to move toward each other, lessening the distance between their fingers. Their hands had been maybe two inches apart when the bell on the door rang out, and a tired and slightly dazed-looking Ghoul entered. Kobra pulled back, and Ghoul, oblivious as always, hadn’t noticed that he’d interrupted. Which, Kobra thought, was probably a good thing anyway. What was he doing, letting this happen so easily? This guy had left him. For six months. With no warning and no explanation.

The butterflies were exterminated quickly.

“There you are,” Ghoul said. “What time is it?” 

Kobra looked at the analog clock on the wall. “Nine thirty-four. You know, you’ve really got to learn to read that thing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ghoul said dismissively, slipping into the back room. “I’m going to bed,” he said, before pausing and turning to face them, his face firm. “If you’re gonna fuck, don’t let it wake me up,” he said, seriously, then closed the door behind him. 

Kobra’s face turned a deep shade of red, and Renaissance’s eyes widened, his face reddening as well. 

There was a moment of awkward quiet before they both started talking at once.

“Um, so I should probably be going–”

“–feeling kind of tired.” 

They sat there in awkward, awkward silence for a few minutes before Kobra finally came to his senses and got up. “Um, blankets are on the–”

“–the booth, yeah.”

Crickets. 

“Um, well. Goodnight.” And Kobra was out of there before Renaissance even had a chance to respond, closing the door quickly behind him.

Renaissance, left alone, whispered to the empty room, “Goodnight.” 

☆☆☆

Party Poison never ended up making it to the Den. He’d walked about twenty feet East when he decided it was too late to walk all that way. After the day he’d had, he really just did not feel like it. So he looped around the back of the building so he wouldn’t have to walk past the front glass again and opened the back door of the Trans-Am, planning to sleep there instead. It was cold, but he kept a blanket in the back in case of emergencies. 

That, and the fact that this wasn’t his first time escaping to the car when he needed a break. He already knew what to expect, temperature wise.

What he didn’t expect was Ghoul. 

It was probably about nine at night and Party was just starting to fall asleep despite the dusky sky not even being fully dark when a knock sounded from the window, scaring the absolute crap out of him. He jumped, and then did a double take upon seeing Ghoul’s nose smashed up on the window, his nostrils on full display against the glass. “Jesus H. Christ,” Party mumbled, before leaning forward to open the door. Ghoul heard it click, so he was able to get out of the way just in time before Party roughly kicked the door open. Ghoul dodged it, then sent him a questioning look. “Someone’s in a good mood,” he said, sarcastically, before ducking through the door, sitting down, and shutting the door behind him. He then mirrored Party’s position across from him: leaning against the door with his legs stretched out across the backseat, so each of their boots now rested near the other’s hips. He stared at Party, who scowled at him and kicked his foot up against the car door next to the other’s neck.

Ghoul’s eyes followed the action, then stared at Party condescendingly. “And you say I’m immature. How ya feelin’, Sunshine?”

“You’re not cute.”

“You wish that were true. Give me some of the blanket, I’m cold.”

Party rolled his eyes before begrudgingly throwing a very small corner of the blanket over Ghoul’s knees. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think I am, dumb? Don’t answer that. I know you come out here sometimes when you say you’re going to the Den. You’ve done it forever.”

Party’s eyebrows pulled up a bit in faint surprise. He wasn’t aware anyone had noticed. “Did anyone see you?”

“Nah. Besides, it’s not that weird. We have lived together for like, five years.”

“Yeah, but.”

“Whatever, man. It’s not like we’re even doing anything wrong anyway.”

“Are you stupid?”

“I’m whatever you want me to be.” He winked.

“You’re unbelievable. Get a life.”

“Don’t hit on me.”

Before Party had the chance to retort, Ghoul had changed the topic. “So, what happened?”

“What happened when?”

“I mean, Ren passed out, you went somewhere, for like, three hours, Jet went… I don’t know, somewhere, and I hung around the Den. When I came back, the car’s light was on, and I dunno, I just guessed.” 

And for what felt like the millionth time just today, Party didn’t know what to say. Part of him wanted to reply with some insult, or some witty quip that would shut him up, but ultimately, he decided on the truth. 

“Kobra said he doesn’t need me.”

Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry. 

Tears stung the back of his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Especially not in front of this smug fucker. 

Ghoul shook his head, tilting it to the side. “Nah,” he said. “I doubt he said those words exactly. You always exaggerate everything to shit.” He began to examine his nails, picking the dirt out from underneath. “Besides. Of course he needs you. He just doesn’t feel like being bossed around anymore.” Then under his breath he mumbled, “and he’s not the only one.”

Party scoffed. “Oh, please. Tell that to the other day when you totally lost in the storage closet just because I told you to. You love it.” 

Ghoul rolled his eyes. “That’s different. You can boss me around all you want if we’re screwing around, but you could stand to loosen the reins a little bit in our actual lives.” 

Party chose to ignore the second half of the sentence. He didn’t really want to talk about this anymore. So he honed in his attention on the first part, assuming Ghoul would probably stop talking about what a controlling prick Party was if his mouth was busy. Still under the blanket, he started to trace circles on Ghoul’s calf, which was just about lined up with Party’s thigh. Not making eye contact or looking up, he spoke quietly.

“So, you wanna be bossed around, huh?”

Ghoul’s mouth fell open, just slightly. Party didn’t know why Ghoul was surprised; every single time they’d been left alone for the past four months, someone always ended up pants-dropped. 

He stared directly at Ghoul, face dead serious, and started rolling down the window with the hand crank, never breaking eye contact. He left the window about ⅔ of the way up, and Ghoul was still, watching him. So, Party decided to take matters into his own hands. Literally. 

He pulled the blanket off of them, and let it fall to the car floor, trying not to think about how dusty it would probably get down there. He moved to straddle Ghoul’s hips, struggling slightly with their limited space. Ghoul shifted himself to the right a little more, to give Party some more room. Party unzipped him, and found him already halfway there; he started shifting his hand along Ghoul’s length, completely poker faced, making ceaseless eye contact. Somehow, his seriousness turned Ghoul on even more, and he rocked his hips upward into Party’s hand. Ghoul pursed his lips shut, the desperation clear in his eyes. 

Party removed his hand, and Ghoul scowled. He didn’t touch him again, but he figured Ghoul would be okay with that in a second. He kicked out of his jeans, tossing them to the car floor to join the blanket. He brought his fingers to his lips, and licked up the side of them before bringing them fully into his mouth, coating them in saliva. Ghoul looked like he was fighting not to do anything, and weirdly, it only increasingly turned Party on. 

He reached under himself, and slowly began rocking back onto his own fingers. He tilted his head back, breathing heavily, scissoring his fingers and hissing at the sting. Ghoul stared wantingly, his eyes full and dark, and Party’s lips twisted; never in his life had someone looked at him like that. He spat on his hand and touched Ghoul once more, trying to provide at least a little bit of lubrication to limit the pain. They’d done it this way before when they didn’t have anything else, but it always burned a lot more than he would prefer. Wiping his mouth, Party returned to his original position, grabbing onto the front seat’s headrest for support and lining himself up. 

“You good?” he asked, his voice slightly shaking in anticipation. 

Ghoul nodded, and Party sunk down onto him. Ghoul immediately let out a moan of relief, and Party glowered at him. “Quiet.” He shifted his hips, slightly, still trying to adjust. “Fuck,” he muttered. It hurt. 

Ignoring the pain, he pulled his hips upward again, still clutching the headrest, before pushing himself back down. Ghoul was biting his lip so hard that it could have bled, and his throat convulsed rapidly as he tried to stay quiet, his breathing heavy; and while that was definitely, definitely something that he would probably think about for a long time after, Party unexpectedly found he missed all the noises he was used to hearing him make.

“Actually,” Party said, trying to sound casual despite the strain in his voice. “I changed my mind. We always have to be quiet, we should take advantage of this.” He canted his hips again, and closed his eyes against the pain. “Do whatever,” he said, dismissively, before pulling himself up and thrusting downward once more. Ghoul moaned loudly, and grabbed Party’s hips, panting. 

“Attaboy,” Party exhaled heavily.

He repeated his actions, trying to pick up speed. He shifted himself around, frustratedly, trying to get this to be more rewarding than it was. He pulled himself up and sunk down again, wincing uncomfortably. Ghoul noticed what he was trying to do, and tried moving upward at different angles. He grabbed the car safety handle above the window to have something to help him move without becoming too tired. 

Party let out a high gasp, almost a shriek. “That’s it, that’s it, right there–”

Following his instructions, Ghoul, still holding the handle, grunted as he thrusted up into Party, making him groan again. He wasn’t loud, usually. 

“Please, don't– keep–”

“What happened to your whole… ‘I-tell-you-what-to-do’ thing?” Ghoul panted.

“Shut up and fuck me,” Party snapped, his voice a breathy whine. 

Ghoul shifted himself and thrust into the spot again, making Party’s entire body jerk, too lost in it to let a noise leave his mouth. Ghoul did it again and again, and Party let out a shuddering gasp as Ghoul thrust faster into him. Party’s breathing was becoming increasingly more erratic, and he was gasping for air, his head down as he continued to pull himself up and push back down, their pace ever-quickening.

Finally, Party fell backwards against the car door, the window cold on his sweaty hair. A low, shaking groan left his lips as he climaxed, and his hand groped around to find the edge of the seat, gripping it so tightly his fingers were void of color. A second moan escaped him, woven into a heavy exhale as his head swam. 

“Party,” Ghoul whined, neglected, before ultimately pulling out and immediately finishing himself off, his hand moving desperately and quickly. He came within seconds, leaning forward as he released, a loud, broken sound leaving him. His eyes were squeezed shut, and Party just watched in awe, panting slightly, at Ghoul shaking in front of him with Party’s legs still draped over his thighs. Ghoul panted, before slowly opening his eyes and looking at Party. They just stared at each other for a moment, catching their breath, before Ghoul swallowed and spoke, laughing slightly. “We should do it back here more often.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: to Take a Life

July 18, 2014.

The Helium War.

Zone 1.

The Frontlines, again.

The Scarecrow that the boy had just killed was still bleeding out onto the sand, blood flooding from his body.

And the boy started to scream. 

It felt like his skin was ripping off, or something. He couldn’t turn away. He began to sink to the ground, too distraught to worry about his own safety. He had just killed someone. He had just killed a real, living, breathing person, and their blood was on his hands. Literally. He hadn’t realized, but he had crawled over to the Crow, desperately, and uselessly, trying to stop the blood from leaving its throat. The nineteen-year-old was shaking so violently that the blood was dripping from his hands, knocked loose by his erratic movements. He was hyperventilating, trying anything just to get the Crow to wake up. “Wake up,” he yelled, but it came out as a hoarse whisper. 

He felt a pair of hands on his shoulders, and someone telling him to stand up.

“No,” he said. 

The person stuck their arms under the boy’s and lifted him. “No!” the boy screamed. “No, no! No! No!!” It was as if that was all he knew how to say as he kicked at whoever had lifted him. It was like he was two years old again.

The person shifted and pulled him up more before flinging the teenager over his shoulder. 

The boy cried. He was in too much agony to care who was carrying him or where exactly he was, all he knew was that he had killed. He had taken a life and the ghost was creeping up his back, crawling its fingers over his eyes and shutting them.  

★★★

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he awoke to a strange tickling sensation on his palms. He groggily opened his eyes, and seeing nothing but a blur, chose to close them again. His hands felt strange, and he pulled them in toward himself. “Hey, now,” someone said.  The voice was female, and gentle. 

“Mom?” the boy mumbled. 

“Not quite,” he heard her say. 

He tried again to open his eyes, blinking a few times to clear the film of dried tears and sleep that obstructed them. He looked at the woman. She had purple hair. 

Was he dreaming? How could a person have purple hair? That didn’t make any sense. 

“Are you real?” he asked, still doused in light delirium, his arm reaching out to touch her hair.  

The woman chuckled, not answering, and brought something very close to his face. Normally, he would have pulled away, but for some reason he trusted her. He sighed in relief when it was just a cloth of cold water pressed against his forehead. He closed his eyes and let her wipe his face, letting himself be taken care of. He hadn’t had that in a long time.

“Your brother is in the other bunker. He’s safe.” 

The boy’s eyes snapped open, and he sat up, feeling slightly lightheaded. “Where am I?” he asked. “Where’s Mikey?” 

The woman placed a hand on his shoulder, shushing him gently and pressing the cloth back to his cheek. “He’s safe. You’re in a different bunker than you’re used to.  It was the closest one we could get you to. It’s okay. I’ll explain everything when I’m finished with this,” she said, gesturing to the cloth, which the boy couldn’t help but notice had blood on it, wiped from his face. That must have been what the strange feeling was on his hands, because he looked down at them and found them clean. 

He looked at the woman, now alert enough to take in more details about her. She had darker skin, dotted with various freckles and moles. She had dark eyes, and a small nose. She wore a green tank top with tan, dusty cargo pants. And most bewildering, her hair was bright, bright purple. It was up in a ponytail, but it looked like if she let it down it would fall to just above shoulder length. She had bangs, with longer bits of hair on the edge framing her face. “How does your hair grow like that?” he asked, gently fingering one of the strands. 

She laughed, gently. “It’s dyed like that. I put a type of color in there.” 

It was nothing like he’d ever seen. Vibrant colors were not permitted within BLI borders, and the Killjoys didn’t have the resources to do that. “Who are you? Where are you from?” he asked. 

“Asteroid,” she smiled confidently, sticking out her hand. The boy shook it, still in half a trance. He was fairly used to people creating new names for themselves, after growing up in the bunkers, it was the purple hair that threw him off. “And you’re from…”

“BLI.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “What? How do you look so clean? And-”

“I escaped. I just got out a few days ago. You guys aren’t the only ones who want to bring it down BLI, you know. There are a few inside who are fed up too.”

“So, how-”

“I created my own dye. I worked in their chemistry department.”

“You worked for the government ? And you got out?”

She nodded, proudly. “I did. I worked for the government. Chemist,” she reminded him gently, catching on that he was still a little out of it.

“Didn’t they stop you?” 

“Not after I made a few Nitrogen bombs.”

The boy felt silent, then his face began to crumple. 

“Oh, honey,” said Asteroid, pulling him to her chest. There he sobbed, trembling against her. She stroked his hair, softly. 

“I killed someone,” he admitted, gasping through his choked sobs. 

“I know,” she said. “Blight was the one who brought you here.”

And for the first time, the boy had the brains to look around. The bunker was empty. It looked similar to the one he’d grown up in, except that it had maybe ten more beds than his own. 

“Where is… anyone?” 

“Fighting. But we brought you back here; you would have been killed. It was the furthest from BLI and closest to where you were, most people are bunking in the ones closer to the city.”

“What happened to my brother?” 

“He was injured, last I heard, but I know it wasn’t serious. But they took him in because he’s a kid, you know? The biggest bunker, the one around zone two, is being used as a hospital. Blight is watching over it right now.”

“How long have I… how long have I been here?”

Asteroid paused, wondering if it would upset him. Ultimately, she chose to tell him the truth. “Almost three days.” 

His eyes widened. “What? How? There’s no way I– how?”

Asteroid rubbed her eye and looked down. “I had to drug you.”

The boy almost choked. That fleeting feeling of safety had come and gone. “Drugged me? With what? Why? I need to get out of here, I need to get my brother.” He repositioned himself, ready to hop down from the table he was sat upon, ignoring Asteroid’s frantic warnings that he stay put. “And if I was here for three days, why did you wait until now to clean that Crow’s blood off me?” he said, now angered as he pushed himself off the table, ready to land on his feet. But the second he touched the ground, he felt pain like nothing he’d ever felt. He buckled immediately, letting out a strangled yell. Asteroid winced, and reached out her hand to pull him up. Still gasping in pain, he took it and pulled himself up with his good leg, before using his arms to hoist himself back onto the table. 

“I tried to warn you,” Asteroid said.  “This is why we had to drug you. I’d have explained, if you’d given me a minute.”

Gently, she knelt down to the ground, and opened the calf of his pants, which, one, were not the pants he’d been wearing last, and two, he hadn’t noticed before that there was a clean slice in the fabric from the knee down on the left leg. She pulled the folds of fabric away from the skin, revealing the ugly mark of a ray-gun beam, which had gone through one side of the skin and out the other. It hadn’t hit his bone, but it had gone clean through the muscle around it. 

“It didn’t really bleed, because of, you know, the heat and all. The blood on your hands was from your face. You picked at the scab in your sleep.”

He reached up and felt around, until he came across a large, softly-scabbed gash on his forehead. 

“Dunno how you got that one. A Drac probably got you while you were, uh, distracted.” She pointed to a few bottles on the table, far to the right. “I’ve been giving you that to keep you sedated and stuff, so you don’t feel the pain. And ‘cause you were a little. Erratic.”

“How did you get all that?” he asked, bewildered, staring at the various bottles and ignoring the comment on his previous unpredictable behavior. 

“I told you, I was a chemist. I’ve been hoarding supplies for months. The rest is down at the hospital bunker, along with all the dye I made. Like I said, we would have taken you there, but Blight could only carry you so far. They’re not real good with upper body strength.” 

The boy didn’t really know what she meant by that, but alright. He didn’t even know who “Blight” was. 

“I would have carried you myself, but.” She patted her stomach. “No heavy lifting.” 

The boy’s mouth dropped. He hadn’t noticed the slight convex of her stomach. She must not be too far along , he figured. Suddenly, there came a rhythmic knocking coming from the trap door. Asteroid fell silent for a moment, listening to the pattern. “It’s Blight,” she said, her face lighting up. She climbed up the ladder and undid the lock, and a slightly heavyset person climbed down after her. They had a trimmed auburn beard, and bright pink hair. They wore what looked like just a standard black T-shirt. The boy noticed that the person was missing their left arm. 

Oh, he thought. That was what Asteroid meant.

“The kid woke up, finally. You can tell his brother he’s alright,” said Asteroid, squeezing Blight’s hand. Interesting. 

“Nice to meet ya,” said Blight, holding out their hand. The boy shook it, uncertainly. Somehow having two strangers in the same room was more nerve wracking than just the one.

“And you can tell him yourself. Now that you’re up and running, we’re gonna take you to the hospital bunker, okay? Kid won’t stop talking about his brother, his brother, his brother, we found out it was you he was talkin’ about pretty fast. You two look like you got chipped off the same block.” 

The boy could hardly keep up with how fast Blight spoke, but he didn’t really think he had room or time to dwell on it. So clutching the hands of Blight and Asteroid, he hopped down from the table, landing on his good leg. 

When they closed the trapdoor behind them, Blight turned to him. “It’s gonna be faster if you just piggy back, okay? It might seem silly, but we do not want to get caught. People are fighting, and we’re far enough away from it that we probably won’t get caught in the melee, but just to be safe.” 

He nodded, and let himself be pulled onto Blight’s back. He did feel sort of silly; he was nineteen after all. He should be able to take care of himself.

But in full honesty, it was nice having someone else take care of him for once. It was the first time in a long time.

It was a good thirty minutes to the hospital bunker, and every once in a while Blight would have to take a break from piggybacking and just help the boy hobble along instead. 

The boy had never been to any other bunker besides his own and the one he had just come from. When they arrived at the hospital bunker,  Asteroid knocked on the metal trap door. Knock-knock. Knock… knock-knock-knock. 

The sound of someone climbing the ladder could be heard, and the hatch clicked. Blight opened up the door, and the three made their way down.

When he touched the ground, careful not to put pressure on his bad foot, the boy turned to face the bunker. His jaw dropped. 

“Holy sh-”

Chapter Text

Chapter 8.5: Developments

August, 2018.

The Diner. 

Ren’s head rested on Kobra’s chest, the other stroking his hair. Everyone was out of the house, and the two laid on Ghoul’s couch, half asleep, the August sun drifting lazily through the window, lighting up motes of dust all around them. 

Ren’s hand, resting next to his head, was clasped in Kobra’s, their fingers hooking together like links of a chain.  Ren sighed contentedly despite the heat of the room. His eyes were gently closing; the warm sun, Kobra under him gently twisting strands of his hair, it was overcoming him with drowsiness. 

The sound of the other’s heartbeat lulled him to sleep. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 9: Undesirable (Re)Alliances

July 19, 2019.

The break room behind what has become a secret, make-shift hospital.

Renaissance had been staying with the Killjoys for three days now, and even Party had to admit that he was a decent houseguest. He did take quite a lot of food when it was dinner time, but Party guessed he could let that slide; the guy had been living alone in the desert for a couple months after all. But overall, he was a good guest. He was neat, he helped around the diner with cleaning and such, he didn’t make too much noise, he entertained the others with detailed fictional stories, and most importantly, he stayed out of Party’s way.

But in full honesty, Party couldn’t stand the guy. He may have been a fine houseguest, but he was too pretentious, too annoying, and frankly, Party was goddamn sick of that holier-than-thou poetic bullshit he was always spewing off. Like, no one cares about your transcendentalism-based principles, Ren, Jesus.

And the worst part was Kobra.

The two had started acting like casual acquaintances, Kobra occasionally being short and angry with Ren, but Party saw through him. He saw the glances they took at each other when the other wasn’t looking, he saw the heated cheeks, he saw all the awkward look-aways.

Nothing was even officially happening between them. Party rarely saw them touch more than an accidental brush against the other’s arm, or wiping the dust off someone's back (which was just common courtesy), but he knew. He sensed that there was a sort of tension, and he absolutely did not want it there.

It was maybe four in the morning when Party was awakened by a weird sound coming from the diner. He sat up and strained his ears, trying to listen. There was sort of a gasp, and then a quiet moan. Party’s eyes widened, and he prayed to God no one was fucking anybody in there.

He looked around the room, and was relieved to see everyone in their normal beds.

Which left Renaissance.

Party was puzzled. There’s no way that guy is pulling anybody, he thought, scoffing.

He rose quietly, boots treading gently on the carpet. He pushed the door open quickly, so it wouldn’t squeak, but not too abruptly as to be noticeable. He crept into the diner, listening.

The sharp inhale came again from behind the counter, followed by a shuddery exhale. And then the sound of muffled weeping.

He was crying. 

After a minute of debating whether to just turn his ass around or not, Party slinked around the counter, and found Renaissance sitting on the ground against the back cooking counters, an array of various medical supplies around him (there were a few first aid kits that had been combined into one big first aid kit, as well as a few –probably ineffective by now— heavy sedatives left over from the war). The jacket sleeve on Ren’s right arm was rolled all the way up, and he was holding a washcloth to his inner elbow. He hadn’t noticed Party yet, and his hands were shaking incredibly as he pulled the washcloth away to reveal a wound probably close to a centimeter and a half deep, blood and pus accumulating rapidly on the inside with a ring of purple and yellow bruises surrounding it.

It took everything Party had to not gasp out loud. Actually, he had to fight not to gag. 

Ren then bit down on the collar of his jacket, keeping it pressed between his teeth. He picked up the bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the first aid kit, and shaking violently, began pouring it over the wound. He let out what would have been an agonized scream, muffled by the jacket between his lips. He quickly set down the bottle and covered his mouth, gasping and heaving each time a new wave of pain hit him, the wound fizzing and hissing next to him, gagging occasionally.

And as much as he hated Ren’s guts for what he did, Party couldn't stand to watch this anymore without doing something. It was all too familiar. Watching people suffer. He cleared his throat and Renaissance gasped, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes, his face red and wet. 

“I– I’m sorry, I didn’t ask about the–” He hissed and covered his mouth with the back of his hand, squeezing his eyes shut as he breathed in short, rapid inhales.

“Shh, hey, don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it,” Party hushed as he knelt on the ground in front of Renaissance. All too familiar. He held his hand out, and nodded toward the injured arm. “Can I?”

Renaissance carefully tilted his arm toward Party, trembling all over. Party panicked when he remembered that he didn’t wash his hands, but somehow it felt too late now and he pushed it out of his mind. He could practically hear Jet chastising him for being so unsanitary. He looked at the cut and immediately his stomach churned. He hesitated.

“You know, Jet’s actually trained in this stuff. We should really get him.”

“No,” Renaissance said, actually sweating despite the cold. “I didn’t– didn’t want anyone to know.” 

“ Why? ” Party urged, desperate to know why he was so secretive all the damn time. Desperate to know what was so serious that he couldn’t even tell Kobra. 

“It’s just safer if I don’t tell you. Safer for all of you.” 

Party shook his head. “I don’t understand, I really don’t. I think we should get Jet.” He paused. “But if you really don’t want me to, I won’t.” 

“Don’t. Please. I already got you involved; you should probably just go back to bed anyway, I’m sorry for waking you up. Don’t worry about–” 

Party held up a hand, cutting him off. “Listen. I may not like you all that much after what you did, but Kobra does. He really does. He’s acting pissy, but I can see it. I don’t like that either, but there’s not… much I can do about it.” He shook his head. He was getting sidetracked. “Anyway. I don’t forgive you, but I’m not just gonna let you sit here and suffer. I’m not a total monster.”

Renaissance stared, tearfully. “I haven’t had anything to treat it,” he said, looking at his arm. “But yesterday I saw the first-aid kit.”

Party nodded, stomach still unsettled at the sight of the wound. “Yeah, um. Trying to think of what Jet does with an infection. He uses hydrogen peroxide once, or a few times, and then, uhhh. Some long word that starts with an A.”

“So…” he looked warningly at Renaissance. “We gotta do one more round of peroxide.”

Renaissance squeezed his eyes shut, nodding. He pulled his knees in closer to himself, leaning his temple on one of them. He bit down on the sleeve of his jacket, and waited. 

Party gently poured about a teaspoon’s worth of the liquid onto the festering wound, and winced as it erupted in a fire of white, sizzling bubbles. Renaissance, again muffled by his jacket, let out an agonized cry, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes as he shook. Party almost wanted to pet him or something, he felt so bad. He instead settled on gently rubbing Ren’s knee while he waited for the sizzling to cease. 

“Okay, we’re gonna take some of this, uh, what is this…” He squinted at the tiny tube. “ Neosporin. Yeah.” 

He applied a minimal amount, considering the tube was probably about two inches in length and there were only three of them in total, figuring they’d want to conserve them. He used about half of one tube, which scarcely covered a wound that deep, but he figured it was better than nothing. He then took an ace bandage from the box and wrapped Ren’s arm in it, pinned it off, and then carefully rolled his sleeve back down. Both people were sweating, one from concentration and one from the pain. 

“Thank you,” Ren said, squeezing Party’s hand with his good arm. It wasn’t a romantic gesture or anything like that. He just couldn’t find the words.

“Yeah,” Party said, dumbly. “No problem.” 

It actually really was a huge fucking problem, but Party decided it was too early in the morning to think about that right now. He started packing all the materials back into the box from which they’d come. He closed it and was about to put it back in the storage closet with all the mops and shit, but realized that was probably unsanitary, and ultimately decided on storing it under one of the booths in the back. He’d never really thought much about sanitation conditions for the first aid kid; they rarely used it. They’d scarcely been seriously injured in the past 5 years, more just smaller things like the occasional scrap metal cut (at that point you just had to hope you didn’t get tetanus) or a skinned knee. 

He began walking back toward the break room. It was about five in the morning by now, and he wanted to go back to sleep. He turned to Ren. “Try and get some sleep,” he said, and after an awkward moment adding, “Helps shit heal faster.” He patted the doorway once, then walked into the break room, leaving Renaissance staring silently after him. 

☆☆☆

Obviously, Kobra was completely unaware anything had happened when he woke up around nine in the morning, stretching his arms as he walked into the diner. He walked up to the booth that Ren had taken to sleeping on, and was surprised to find him fast asleep; he usually got up around eight, or at least earlier than Kobra. He was sort of pouting in his sleep, his eyebrows looking worried. His cheek was squished up against his hand, his head close to the outer edge of the seat. Kobra smiled, and without thinking, stroked the side of Ren’s head, even though it was his bad ear that was facing him (which still really grossed him out). 

Renaissance stirred, exhaling, his eyes scrunching together before opening. He looked up at Kobra, who had yet to move his hand from Ren’s temple. 

“Hi,” Ren whispered, his sleepy eyes gazing up at Kobra. 

“Hi,” Kobra whispered back.

“Ahem,” said a voice across the room. Party. He appeared to have come from the storage closet; why, Kobra couldn’t guess. Probably to spy on him, the creep.

Kobra snapped out of it and withdrew his hand quickly. He hadn’t even meant to put it there in the first place. 

“It’s D’s birthday today. In case you forgot.” 

“No, no, I didn’t,” Kobra said, having forgotten entirely.

Party narrowed his eyes. “Sure. Anyway, Cola’s throwing a party later, so. That’s at, like, seven.” 

“Okay,” Kobra said, awkwardly, still not really knowing how to position himself like he hadn’t just been caught petting Renaissance’s head. 

Party huffed, and walked out the front door, bell chiming behind him. Kobra turned back toward Renaissance, and they both kind of huffed awkwardly, neither of them quite knowing what to say.

Just then, Ghoul crept out of the storage closet, trying to be quiet, so knocking over three dried up mops on his way. Naturally.

He hissed a curse and replaced the mops. Kobra laughed. “Was he yelling at you in there? What did you do this time?” 

Ghoul’s face reddened, slightly. “Uhh,” he said, stalling. “I spilled something in the back of the car. You know how overprotective of that thing he is. Didn’t want to wake up Ren.” 

Technically, it wasn’t a lie. 

Kobra shrugged, not stopping to think too hard about it. He had enough on his mind.

Ghoul waved– more of an awkward solute– before following Party out the front door, jogging to catch up with him. 

Renaissance grunted as he pushed himself up with his left (good) arm, and turned so his knees were bent in front of him and his back was leaning against the table, with Kobra leaning on the side of the back of the booth.

“So, we’ve got the day. What should we do?”

“Hm?” Ren said, turning his head so his good ear was closer to Kobra. 

“Are you– are you deaf in the other ear?” 

“I mean, yeah. Look at it.”

He turned back forward until his bad ear faced Kobra. Kobra didn’t really want to look at it; he’d seen it, but ultimately he glanced at the ear again: bruised, burned, scabbed, and chunks of it were missing.

 “I know you probably won’t tell me,” he whispered in awe, slowly reaching toward Ren’s ear. “But what the fuck did you do?”  

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Ren, wincing as Kobra gently ran his finger over the cuff of his ear, the only part that seemed to be unscathed. “I can’t tell you.”

The damage went all the way down into the inner ear, dried blood crusted all around the ear canal. Yeah, no wonder he couldn’t hear. Kobra couldn't believe he hadn’t noticed that Ren must have been turning his body to hear things until now. Would explain the dizziness, too. 

Kobra removed his hand and moved to sit in the booth across the table. Ren turned to face him.

“I said, what do you wanna do today? We have until seven.” 

“You wanna hang out with me ?” Ren was puzzled. “Weren’t you done with me?”

Kobra narrowed his eyes. “Shut up. This doesn’t mean anything. I’m just bored. And it’s been a while since I did any exploring. Remember the time we found that old drive through restaurant? The one with the big M?”

“Yeah, that was cool. I’m not really up for walking too far, though.” He would not have admitted that to anyone else; he didn’t want them to think anything was up, but he knew Kobra would understand, or at least would know that if he asked any questions they wouldn’t get answered. 

A light smirk came to Kobra’s face. “We could take the car.”

Ren shook his head. “Hell no. He would kill us. He was barely willing to let me stay here as it is.”

Kobra shook his head right back. “Nah, dawg. I’ve got him wrapped around my finger. Every time he’s done something pissy lately, I’ve threatened to move to the Den. Works every time.” 

“If we get in trouble, you’re taking the blame for it. Dawg.” 

“I’ve got ya covered, dawg. Don’t worry about it.”

“When did the dawg thing start?”

“No clue, dawg. Let’s go!”

☆☆☆

They were speeding along the road, still within the lines of Zone Six. Renaissance looked extremely nervous. Kobra assumed it was just because he was scared of the repercussions from Party. The large quantities of gasoline they had collected originally was by now pretty much expired, so they had to use way more for every drive. He wouldn’t be happy about it, but at that point, it was whatever. If it was Dracs Ren was worried about, Kobra definitely wasn’t. BLI sent them out every once in a while to take out any roaming Killjoys they found, but they never tried too hard to actually locate the hubs where large groups of them lived, like the Den. 

Kobra suddenly got a mischievous grin on his face, and before Ren had a chance to ask, Kobra had turned the wheel sharply to the right, and kept it there as he held the gas, so the car spun in a circle, making donut-shaped outlines on the sand. Kobra whooped gleefully, while Ren gripped tightly to the handles, the pressure of the turns causing him intense pain in his arm and ear. When Kobra finally slowed it down, he exhaled contentedly. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” he squeaked. Ren stayed silent, trying to catch his breath. 

Kobra continued speeding off in the same direction, the car crunching along the desert sand. They just drove in that direction for a while, keeping their eyes peeled for any sort of structure. 

The bombs from the Analog Wars took out most of the towns in California, flattening them into oblivion, eventually to be covered by sand. The state had begun drying up long before the Wars; lakes got smaller and smaller, plants became more scarce, and the air grew more arid by the year. The towns that were completely obliterated weren’t safe to get too close to because of the radiation. The whole desert was radioactive, really, but when you spend close to your entire life out there, your body adapts.

“I see something,” Ren said, squinting. 

And there on the horizon, there was a building. As they got closer and Kobra slowed the car, they were able to spot more details. It was fairly tall, and sort of a large semi-circle. There was an open crater in one of the top edges from a bombing. On the front hung a large cartoon shoe with wheels on the bottom, and large wire letters that had once most certainly glowed in the dark once spelled out Rollerama. The very large parking lot surrounding it was cracked and faded, and the other buildings a few hundred feet past the parking lot were nothing but piles of blackened debris.

“What is this place?” asked Kobra, staring up in awe at the wheel-shoe. 

“Beats me,” said Ren. “Wanna go check it out?”

After the car was parked haphazardly in the middle of the lot and they’d slammed the metal doors behind them, they walked toward the large curved building, sweating in the hot sun. They climbed the stairs, now doused in shadow as they approached the door, which was tucked into an indent. Ren backed up as Kobra grabbed a rock nearby and hurled it through the window, shattering it. Some of the broken panes of glass clung to what they used to be one with for a few moments, falling and splintering even more upon impact. Kobra pulled his sleeve over his hand and knocked loose the remaining glass, leaving large enough of a gap for them to walk through.

They entered the building and found it uncomfortably warm and surprisingly dark. To their left was a small, powerless arcade, and a large counter where it appeared  hot dogs and slushies had once been sold. Ren could only hope they hadn’t been actually serving up real dogs. He only knew about dogs from books, but he knew they weren’t usually eaten. 

As for the “slushy” it just looked like a mound of blue shit in a cup, so he had no clue.

Most of the floor was carpeted, which they found strange. They continued walking through the restaurant area. Renaissance was staring at the gumball machines when Kobra whacked his shoulder excitedly. 

“Ow, Kobra!”

“Oh my God, I forgot! Sorry! But look at this!” He pointed excitedly up ahead of them, where around the corner from the restaurant there was a large, white oval on the ground, surrounded by carpeted barriers. The large hole in the ceiling had debris hanging precariously from it; more pieces of the ceiling were already scattered around the oval. The hole allowed a clean patch of sunlight to light the dark room, a glowing splotch on the shadowed floor, dust motes shimmering in the rays.

“What the fuck?” Renaissance followed Kobra up the few stairs to the oval. 

“What do they do with it?” asked Kobra, stepping onto it. “Was it powered by something?” 

Renaissance looked around, trying to get an idea of what the oval was for. When he noticed the booth in the back, he nodded his head toward it. “Look,” he said. “It’s the wheel-shoes. You put them on and roll around. Could explain the name.” 

“Oh, you’re so right,” Kobra gasped excitedly, rushing over to the booth. 

It was a while before they found sizes that fit. Kobra struggled with the sweaty boots before pulling on the skates. When he stood up, he immediately felt unstable and clutched onto one of the barriers. And he wasn’t even on the oval yet, which looked incredibly slippery. Renaissance, after shoving his feet into the skates while trying to be as careful with his arm as he could, got to his feet and wobbled, leaning over to hold onto the same barrier as Kobra. 

“Should we… try going on the thing?” 

Kobra nodded  before hesitantly stepping onto the oval, still clinging to the barrier for dear life. He straightened his posture, and slowly, slowly let go. 

“I’m just standing,” he pointed out, confused as to why the shoes weren’t doing anything. He reached out to the barrier and pushed it, sending him rolling very slowly in the other direction. He giggled. He then moved his feet, trying to see if he could push himself forward like you would to walk, and fell directly onto his rear end. Ren snorted, pointing his good arm. 

“Yeah, yeah, point and laugh. I’d like to see you try,” winced Kobra, still on the ground. He tried to push himself up, but the wheels made him slip and fall again, which made Ren laugh even harder. 

Kobra held onto the top of the barrier this time, and pulled himself back into a standing position. “Laugh it up, asshole! It’s your turn,” he said, pulling Renaissance by his good arm onto the oval. As his wheels slid forward on the slick surface, Ren panicked and squeezed his eyes shut before realizing he was fine and still holding onto the barrier. He gingerly opened one eye, and then propelled himself forward, harder than Kobra had, using the barrier. He rolled forward a couple feet. Still holding onto the edge, he tried to push his feet out a little bit, and surprisingly found himself moving. 

“How are you doing that?” Kobra marveled.

“I don’t know! I’m scared,” Ren said, laughing nervously as he picked up speed. 

“Lemme try,” said Kobra, doing the same thing as Ren had. He actually held quite a bit of confidence with it, and found himself speeding (a breakneck pace of maybe one mile per hour) past Renaissance, shakily rolling forward without the help of the wall. He did it again, this time with no outside assistance, and moved along the edge of the oval, slowly completing a whole lap. 

“Why are you good at everything?” Ren whined, still squeezing the wall next to him. 

“C’mon,” Kobra said, reaching both of his hands out. Ren shook his head back and forth. 

“No way.”

“C’mon!”

Ren rolled his eyes. “Fine!” He held out his hands, and let Kobra take them. He felt his stomach flip as Kobra slowly started skating backwards– which, how the fuck– and pulling him along. Renaissance smiled, laughing a little as he moved, and together they slowly made their way around the oval, hand in hand. When they found themselves just under the hole in the ceiling, their skates battered-looking in the patch of light, Kobra told Renaissance that he thought he had the hang of it now. “I’m gonna let go, you push off some debris and come to me.” He backed up a little. 

Ren exhaled in preparation, then pushed himself off the wall, shakily rolling toward Kobra, who intercepted him loosely. 

“Told you,” he said. 

Their noses were almost touching. 

“We should go,” Ren whispered. “Poison will probably dehydrate to death from all the steam coming out of his ears if we take too long.”

Kobra swallowed stupidly and nodded.  He was such a fucking–

“Yeah,” he said, his voice pinched. “Yeah, let’s go.” 

☆☆☆

It was 6:34 pm and Party was fuming. Not only had his moron younger brother and his dumbass (ex-)ex-boyfriend taken the car and probably crashed it directly into BLI or something, but they definitely were not going to be there on time, which within the last hour, Party had somehow morphed into meaning “He doesn’t care about me anymore and he’s leaving forever,” so. He was fabulous.

Ghoul and Jet were in the break room, yelling at each other; something about Ghoul messing with Jet’s record player. 

They were giving him a headache. 

“Would you two for the love of Christ mind shutting up?” He snapped harshly, quickly silencing them both. 

When he heard the telltale rumble of the Trans-Am a few minutes later, he did not move, instead leaning back against the booth in which he sat. 

When the culprits entered, laughing as the bell tinkled happily and the fading sun lit up their backs, Party scowled. “Where the hell have you been?” 

Their smiles vanished immediately, and their laughing ceased. Renaissance looked like maybe he would shit himself, but Kobra stepped forward confidently. .

“We went exploring.”

Party was starting to get really sick of this guy.

“Couldn’t you have let me know before you just disappeared? What if you got attacked?”

Kobra scoffed. “Ren and I could take them, we’re tough.” 

Party raised an eyebrow doubtfully, his skeptical gaze resting a little too long on Renaissance, to which the other raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes, subtly nodding toward Kobra (who was oblivious to this entire interaction) as if to say “ Remember our deal…”

Party rolled his eyes. “Whatever. We have to go.” 

Ghoul and Jet, who had resumed their bickering, started walking out of the break room while continuing to argue. 

“I swear to God, Ghoul, you can’t just touch things that aren’t yours!”

“I didn’t even break it!”

“But you-”

“Guys!” Party broke the conversation in half, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you two don’t shut up, someone is getting their dick cut off.”

Everyone in the room’s eyes widened to the size of baseballs, and it was dead silent for a full five seconds before everyone started talking at once.

“Why would you even say that?”

“Too far.”

“What the hell? Where did that even–”

“Jesus Christ–”

Party snorted. He had to admit that that had cheered him up. 

He looked over to Ghoul, the only one who hadn’t said anything, and was horrified to find him making those eyes at him. 

Jesus Christ Jesus Christ Jesus Christ Jesus–

Choosing to worry later about the fact that Ghoul had been aroused by the threat of castration, he decided he needed to get him alone in a room as soon as possible. 

“Okay, okay, let’s start walking,” he said, trying not to sound like he was in a hurry. 

When they arrived at the Den just past seven, the place was overflowing with people. The raided liquor was plentiful, and people had come in from all over the desert. As previously mentioned, the radio host was pretty much a celebrity. 

The sun had just gone down and the sky was a light purple, fading into a gauzy indigo. The crescent moon glowed in the blackening sky, alone, the stars yet to join it. 

There was heavy punk music blasting from the small, battery-operated radio, as per usual. People loitered all around outside, standing around and talking or sitting in camping chairs. A few people were gathered around a small fire. It was pretty calm, for now, but the sky wasn’t black yet. There was still plenty of potential for this to turn into a whole rager. Which was kind of what Party wanted, to be honest. So no one would notice if he and Ghoul slipped away. 

Jet quickly saw someone he knew and excused himself to go talk to them. Ghoul and Party glanced at each other once, which rapidly turned into an eyes-only conversation. 

Ghoul pursed his lips, raised his eyebrows, and subtly titled his head toward the building. 

Party shook his head and discreetly  tapped his wrist, indicating that it was too early. 

Ghoul scowled at the ground as if to say “You’re right” and nodded. It would be too risky right now.

Ren and Kobra didn’t notice the silent conversation because they were too busy having their own. 

Kobra had discreetly jerked his thumb toward the building as if to say wanna ditch these losers? 

Ren mouthed “How?”

Kobra was about to respond when next to him, Party was clapped heavily on the shoulder by a man with greasy, black hair, grinning at him under light facial hair. 

“Good to see you, dude,” the guy said, his voice raspy and high-set. “It’s been a while.” 

“Yeah, you too,” Party said, uncomfortably. Ghoul and Kobra had seen the guy around, but hadn’t ever actually met him. In full honesty, neither had Party, really. They hadn’t done much talking the one and only time they’d interacted.

“Don’t believe I caught your name last time.” said the guy, sticking out his hand. “Rook.”

Like the chess piece? Party stared for a minute, lost, before snapping out of it. “Um, yeah, this is Kobra Kid, my brother, and um, that’s Renaissance, and that’s Fun Ghoul. I’m Party Poison”

Rook shook each of their hands. “Nice to put a name to the face.”

Ghoul immediately picked up on the sexual history between Party and Rook, and very much to Party’s surprise, he got possessive. 

“Well, Rook, as much as we’d love to chat, your hair is making me a little nauseous, so. We’ll probably be going, now,” Ghoul said, wiping the hand he’d used to shake Rook’s on his shirt.

“Ghoul!” Party hissed, slapping Ghoul’s arm with the back of his hand. 

“What?” asked Ghoul, innocently. 

Kobra and Ren were slowly backing away. “We’re gonna, um, leave now,” Kobra said, also by now having picked up on the situation, and that was way too awkward for him to stick around. He’d been looking for an excuse to leave anyway.

“Don’t go too far! And do not go back to the diner without telling me!” Party called after them.

“How long’s it been since you got laid? You’re so uptight,” asked Rook. 

“Subtle,” Ghoul remarked. 

Some chick with blue hair carrying around little shot glasses walked past, and Party grabbed one and quickly shot it back. This day was a disaster. Ghoul raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t seen Party drink once in the past four years. Party scowled at the both of them, hissing at the taste. “Today sucks,” he explained, dropping the small glass to the ground carelessly. “This? Is awkward, and you both should leave me alone, like right now.” 

Ghoul looked Rook up and down, judgmentally. “Nah, I’m good,” he said. 

Party honestly would never expected this, expected Ghoul to get protective over him like that. Because why would he? They were just– they weren’t… he didn’t owe him anything. 

Party rolled his eyes and turned around, and to his utmost displeasure, both Rook and Ghoul followed him. 

He turned around in exasperation. “Oh my God! Leave me alone!”

Rook put his hands up innocently. “Fine, we can skip the pleasantries. You wanna get out of here?”

“No,” Party said, walking away. 

“C’mon, man! You don’t seem busy, unless you’re, like, babysitting,” he said, gesturing dismissively to Ghoul. 

It’s been briefly mentioned that Ghoul kept a pocket knife with him, and that he was not afraid to get it out at a moment’s notice or at the slightest altercation, which is exactly what he did.

He had it ready quickly, and flicked it out, the tip of the blade pointing to the other. He was discreet with it, and he wasn’t holding it lethally or anything. It was a warning. Party could not believe his eyes.

“He said no, bitch. Get lost.” 

Rook raised his eyebrows, and turned to leave, but not before mumbling something about who let the little guy have a knife. 

Ghoul lunged after him, but Party caught him. “Not worth it,” he whispered, harshly. “I’ll make it up to you,” he said, more quietly, and Ghoul ceased his struggling. 

“Now?” Ghoul huffed, still trapped in Party’s grasp. 

“Now,” Party confirmed, and with the alcohol in his system making him forget that they were in public, grabbed his hand and dragged him inside. 

Party pulled Ghoul through the masses of people, at two different points snatching a drink from a table and downing them, until they got to the back hallway, in which he opened up one of the bedroom doors. No one was in there, and Party shut the door behind him and pushed Ghoul up against the adjacent wall, reminding him of the first time they did this. There was an oil lantern on the windowsill, next to the bunk beds (which were just regular beds stacked precariously on top of each other), and it provided dim lighting along with the moon shining through the window as Party went after Ghoul’s neck, still keeping him pinned tightly to the wall. 

He rolled his hips into Ghoul’s crotch, making Ghoul gasp and tilt his head back, letting it fall against the wall behind him. 

“The knife was hot,” Party said, breathily, his face still buried in Ghoul’s neck. 

“Yeah?” Ghoul asked, his voice strained. 

“Yeah,” Party said, licking a stripe up the side of Ghoul’s neck. “And when you called him a bitch.”

“It was the only thing I could think of. I could have–” the rest of the sentence turned into a moan; Party had rutted his hips into the other’s again, grabbing his ass at the same time.

Just then, the door opened, and a pained-looking Renaissance stumbled into the room clutching his injured arm, shut the door behind him, and immediately laid eyes on Ghoul and Party, who were too stunned (and in Party’s case, a little tipsy) to move until it was too late. Renaissance’s face slackened as the two jumped apart. “Uh,” he said, blindly fumbling for the doorknob. “I’m going to go, um. I’ll leave you be.” His voice sounded high-pitched and far away, and it was a full five seconds before Party came to his senses and ran after him. Renaissance was still walking down the short hallway, and Party caught him by the collar and spun him around, pointing aggressively at his chest.

“I kept your secret, now you keep mine,” he growled. “No one hears a word about this, got it? Not one. Word.”

Renaissance nodded, swallowing thickly before quickly turning in the other direction and walking away. Party ran a hand through his hair, closing his eyes in frustration. 

Fuck .

Chapter Text

Chapter 10: Other People

July 23, 2014.

The Helium War.

The Desert Hospital.

The older boy giggled as he knocked down the small wooden figure with his own darker one, his little brother glaring at him from across the board. 

“Checkmate.”

The younger stuck out his tongue. 

They had been staying in the Underground hospital bunker for an entire nine days, and this was the last night they would sleep knowing they wouldn't potentially get a beam through the throat the next day. The nineteen year old wasn’t fully healed, but they were in a war. He had to get back out there “ASAP,” which Asteroid, upon his blank stare, had told him meant “as soon as possible.”

“ASAP” meant tomorrow. 

Until then, they’d been passing the time by learning to play chess. They were pretty good at it by now, actually, though the older was better, much to the younger’s dismay. The younger had made it his life’s goal to beat him, to no avail so far. 

Storytelling was a fantastic form of entertainment as well. After a few silly ghost stories from the other Killjoys, Asteroid had told the much wondered-about tale of how she and Blight managed to escape BLI.

“There’s a secret service tunnel for Dracs and Crows to come in and out of by car. I took a Scarecrow suit– they always have a few extras around where I work– and took the car from the back garage. I had to pass Blight off as an experiment: working with a new chemical. That was the hardest part, getting Blight out, 'cause’ they’re not registered as a person, you know; they should have been ‘disposed of’ at birth.” She gestured to Blight’s arm, or lack of, which ended roundly at the elbow. The kids had been wondering about that: No one was disabled in BLI. They’d never seen anyone with only half an arm before and had discussed among themselves how in the world that could have happened, but they hadn’t asked for fear of seeming impolite. 

“Luckily, I’m buddies with the Crow who was on duty, and he didn’t ask questions. I think he was high on painkillers, actually.” She mumbled the last part. “Either way, we covered the arm, or… whatever, with a jacket, snuck them into the building, and took the service tunnel out, and before security could bat an eye, they had to rumble with the ammonium nitrate bomb I dropped behind me. I’m just lucky I worked in the government building, I guess.” 

Blight had also told them a story of their own. They’d been born with their arm like that, just some sort of ‘malfunction,’ as they called it.  The nurse who helped deliver the baby was a good friend of Blight’s mother. 

Upon seeing the deformity, the nurses were legally required to euthanize the baby and dispose of it properly. So their mother’s friend– Talia, she’d been called– offered to be the one to do it, when really, she’d handed the child to its father once she was concealed by the curtain behind which she was supposed to be getting rid of it.

Blight had lived their life in hiding: not allowed to go out, not allowed to have friends, not allowed to speak to anyone outside the family. Quite familiar to how the boys had grown up. They’d met Asteroid through the window– she lived across the street and caught them looking out one day. She’d never seen them around before and went to investigate, suspecting a break-in, and they became close friends soon after. They’d married shortly before they escaped together.

Asteroid and Blight had been teaching the boys, mostly the older, various battle techniques in both offense and defense, and had given him a ray-gun. They thought less blood might be better in keeping him emotionally stable, based on his previous reaction.  They’d shown him how to aim, and although he hadn’t yet actually pulled the trigger, he knew how to turn the safety on and off, and how to be efficient in his beam usage. 

He’d been able to place his hand over Asteroid’s convex belly and feel a kick– it brought him right back to when he’d been a little boy, his small palm atop his own mother’s stomach, feeling the little foot of his baby brother disturb the smooth skin. 

Speaking of the littler of the two, the younger was to go back out tomorrow as well. Asteroid and Blight had insisted that he stay in the hospital, that it was safer, but he was determined. “I’m fifteen,” he reasoned. “I’m old enough. I can do it.”

So they taught him the same skills they taught the older.

Asteroid was incredibly talented, medically. She could make a remedy out of anything: she managed to create a shocking amount of various chemical mixtures by only using small quantities of what she’d smuggled out of BLI, enough for the hospital that held probably one hundred and thirty people at the moment. And she still had a whole stockpile of raw materials.

Another thing: the army had grown. Blight had actually been out on the battlefield recently, and brought back the news that more and more people were escaping BLI, finally having the courage and the ways to leave now that they knew there really was a  war going on. BLI had tried to keep it under wraps, of course, but people always find out, if they really want to. 

As Asteroid had said to a group of children in the hospital: “You can always get around the government. They watch their own back, not yours.”

The older’s stomach was wrecked with nerves as he thought about what awaited him tomorrow. The boys started a new game of chess and continued to play.

★★★

They couldn’t tell what time it was when the first explosion shook the bunker. 

There were six more within the hour and everyone looked at the ceiling, hardly daring to breathe as they awaited the next one. 

Then, startling everyone, there was a patterned knock on the hatch door, rapid and frantic. Someone went up the ladder and opened the hatch quickly, and after her came a stream of Killjoy after Killjoy, burned, injured, bleeding, carrying dead. 

One with faded blue hair and a nasty burn on her calf fell to the ground.

She let out a gentle sob, sounding something like the word “bombs,” before she stilled.

Chapter Text

Chapter 11: Omission and Denial

July 23, 2019.

The mattress in the break room, which probably needs to be washed.

Somewhere between shock, shame, and paranoia.

Party Poison leaned against the wall behind the mattress, staring blankly into space. It had been four days since they’d been caught, and this had been the first time they’d done anything since. Party had been nervous, freakishly paranoid of being walked in on again, but Ghoul had talked him into it, reassuring him that Kobra and Renaissance had gone off for some gay-sounding picnic and Jet was hanging out with Dr. Death and Cola at the Den. 

Really, Party was still sort of in shock from the other night. He had returned back to the bedroom in the back of the Den, where Ghoul was waiting, looking concerned. Party had taken a seat on the floor next to the bunk beds (the actual bed was too close to the one stacked on top of it to sit upright), staring numbly at the wall in front of him. 

“He’s not gonna tell anyone,” he’d said, softly.

Ghoul had taken a seat next to him, and Party looked at him, his lips screwed together in an attempt to suppress the tears that very desperately wished to fall. 

Ghoul looked at him with sympathetic eyes, and gently asked, “You okay?”

And Party just lost it.

His face crumpled, and he brought his hands to his eyes immediately to cover them. Ghoul, after recovering from his momentary shock at seeing the usually stoic, pragmatic Party break down in front of him, was wrapping him up in his arms instantly. And it felt immensely right, almost refreshing. It felt like a friend thing. 

They’d been friends before they’d been fuck-buddies, after all. 

Party leaned into him, sobbing quietly. It had been a long time since he cried. He absolutely hated it. It reminded him too much of everything over which he’d wept during the war, made him feel small and immature. Ghoul stroked the side of Party’s hair, gently running his thumb over the bright red strands. He had his head leaned against Party’s, and as Party let his emotion spill from his eyes, shaking, Ghoul pressed a gentle kiss to the top right side of his head. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” he said. “He’s not gonna tell anyone.” He kissed his temple, and Party raised his head to look at him, his eyes red and brimmed with tears, his face red and splotchy, and sniffed. He placed a hand on Ghoul’s cheek, and before he could process what he was doing, he was kissing him. 

Ghoul went with it, leaning into the kiss, closing his eyes as their lips moved together. They had never done this before. It wasn’t quick or desperate or angry like normal, but almost… sweet. Real. 

It broke on its own, and then after a silent, contemplative moment, Party wiped his lips, stood up, and walked out, shutting the door behind him.

And now, as he sat arms crossed against the wall, he looked over at Ghoul, who was wrapped up in a blanket, fast asleep next to him. He was scowling in his sleep, and his eyebrows were furrowed, creasing a line between them. He always looked grouchy when he slept.

As soon as he realized it was there Party quickly wiped the fond smile off his face. 

To be honest, he was still really weirded out by that kiss. Because they just weren’t like that. They had frenzied, rushed crashings of the mouth, they attached lips to necks, but they didn’t kiss. Not like that. 

Nothing about them was affectionate; it was a flurry of sex and secrecy and banter. They were like oil and water, or fire and water, or something else that is the opposite of water because the two simply were nothing alike. In fact, it was such a horrific and embarrassing act for Party to be taking part of in the first place; being caught had reduced him to a numb type of anxiety, caught somewhere between shock, shame, and paranoia. Nothing about this was right.

They had discussed it only once before, that there was nothing romantic between them. The one time it had been brought up was after a hurried rush job in the storage closet, probably two weeks after the first time. When they were finished, they’d leaned against either side of the closet, catching their breaths. 

“So… so what does this mean?” 

Party had looked at Ghoul, who was waiting curiously for the answer. “What does what mean?”

Ghoul looked embarrassed. “Like, what… are we?”

Party raised one eyebrow. “Um, fucking?’

“That’s it?” Ghoul clarified. 

“Yes.”

Ghoul had nodded, glad for the confirmation, and then they made sure no one was outside before they snuck out of the closet. 

Ghoul shifted in his sleep, trying and failing to toss his hair out of his eyes and sighing, still looking pissed off. Again, Party couldn't help the small smile that crept onto his face. 

Without even thinking he found himself pushing the strands of hair out of Ghoul’s eyes for him, quickly withdrawing his hand when he realized what he was doing. It was just biology , human urges, that was all. But they weren’t like that. Party turned away from Ghoul and stared at the wall instead. They weren’t like that.

☆☆☆

Renaissance was in excruciating pain for the fourth day in a row. Technically,  he’d been in pain for about six days, but this was the fourth day that it had reached this level of atrocity. The other night at the party, someone had bumped into his bad arm, and it had sent shooting pains throughout his body like nothing he’d ever felt. He’d collapsed at the pain, falling briefly unconscious in the middle of the living room. Kobra had been off pissing behind the building somewhere, and everyone around him had probably assumed he was drunk off his ass, so no one questioned his odd behavior. When he’d stood up, he’d rushed himself to the nearest bedroom to get away from the crowd, and, well. Let’s just say finding Kobra’s brother feeling up one of their best friends wasn’t exactly better. 

And now, he was sat near the mailbox with Kobra, who’d insisted they do a “picnic” (which in the desert, did not involve food, it just involved grabbing a blanket and sitting outside to chat), trying his best to pretend like he didn’t want to throw himself off the edge of the nearby cliff just to stop the pain. Kobra was talking about something, but Renaissance wasn’t listening. Currently, he was trying to fight the dizziness and sudden copious amounts of sweat pouring from his skin, which meant he was well on his way to passing out again. 

His ears were ringing and he didn’t hear Kobra talking to him (“Are you okay? Why do you look like you’re about to die?”) before he eventually slumped over, unconscious, onto the ground, glad there wasn’t any food for him to fall into. 

When he regained consciousness a few seconds later, Kobra was hovering worriedly over him. “You alright, dude? Was it the heat or am I just that boring?”

Renaissance faked a laugh, feeling overheated and covered in sweat. “Will you hand me the water over there?” he asked, gesturing to the bottle they’d brought. Kobra passed it to him. Ren opened the bottle and tipped it over his head, to which Kobra protested. 

Even though there was a decent amount of bottled water (salvaged from various buildings, just like everything around here) it was considered very rude, almost offensive to waste water, especially to those who grew up underground. You used water to drink or to wipe yourself down (the closest you could get to bathing) or occasionally to wash out your clothes, but you didn’t just dump it over your head (unless you were rinsing out dye, in which you did it over a bucket so it could be recycled). 

But Ren didn’t really care, at the moment. “We should go back,” he said, water dripping from his soaked hair. Kobra scowled, still kind of pissed about the water-dumping.

“Okay, yeah,” he said, trying not to be too mad. The guy had just passed out, after all, and that was never fun.

Kobra helped him back to the diner, which wasn’t too far away, sitting him down in one of the booths. Party emerged from the break room, which Kobra found strange (Party wasn’t one to lounge about during the day), a curious look on his face. 

“What happened to him?” he asked, nodding toward the damp Renaissance (who was already almost dry, having walked home in the heat).

“Passed out a bit ago. Heat exhaustion.”

Party knew it probably wasn’t heat exhaustion. 

“Hey, Kobra, will you get Ghoul out of the house? He’s been sleeping all morning. You two should go see Cola or explore or something.”

Kobra looked puzzled. “Why?”

“Because your boyfriend here probably needs to rest and I know you won’t leave him alone for more than two seconds to let him do that.”

It was uncalled for, but it worked because Kobra, after denying frantically that Renaissance was his boyfriend, collected Ghoul and left, muttering something about how Party better be civil while he was gone. Party knew it would work: If Kobra had stayed it would have looked like he and Renaissance were together. God forbid.

Party waited for Kobra and the disheveled, confused Ghoul to be out of the house before turning to Ren. “How’s the arm?”

“Holy shit,” Ren exhaled in relief, glad he didn’t have to keep up a front anymore. “It’s bad, it’s so bad, I’ve been trying to act normal but it’s so bad I can’t think.” He shed his jacket, leaving him in just a black tank top and revealing the bandages still wrapped around his arm. 

“You didn’t change these?!” Party asked, alarmed. 

“I didn’t have a chance! And besides, this shit hurts so fucking bad that I can’t even be, like, awake anymore, apparently, so I don’t know if I have it in me to go through the whole disinfecting process again.”

Party unwound the bandages from Ren’s arm, and immediately dropped them to the table once he saw what was underneath. He gagged, and turned away, trying to catch his breath. “Holy– holy shit,” he whispered. 

He turned back, slowly, to examine the wound. How it had looked previously was nothing compared to now. The skin was an angry fuschia, pus was quite literally dripping from his arm, and to Party’s horror, there were faint, red streaks stemming from the wound. He’d seen this before. And it was far, far from a good thing. His heart hammered in his chest, remembering. Far from a good thing. 

“We need to get Jet.”

“You promised!” 

“I don’t care. You have a blood infection.”

Renaissance looked taken aback. “Is that what it is? I first noticed it at the party the other day.”

“The other day? And you didn’t say anything!?” 

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Kobra hangs onto me like a leech. I love the guy, but.”

His eyes widened briefly as he realized what he’d said, and he could tell Party had registered it too, so he quickly took the attention away from himself. “And besides, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little apprehensive about potentially walking in on you and Ghoul again.”

Party narrowed his eyes. “Thin ice,” he warned. “Anyway, yeah, we have to get Jet. I’m sorry, man, but he’s actually trained. He knows more than me.”

Ren reluctantly nodded, having seemingly no other choice.

And so they tracked down Jet Star, who usually spent most of his time at the Den. He was the most sociable of the group, and he had a fairly large circle of friends who lived in the Visitor’s Center. Party had driven there alone, which was how Jet immediately knew something was up. It was only about a mile walk, no use risking the car getting stolen by someone stopping through, so they never drove. Jet was outside when Party pulled up, chatting with the girl with pink hair from last night as well as a few other people. Hearing the familiar rumble of the Trans-Am, he’d turned around and spotted Party, and then excused himself from his friends to go get in the passenger’s seat. 

“What’s up?” he asked, concerned, shutting the door behind him. Party peeled out and started explaining.

When they got back to the diner (thankful to find that Kobra and Ghoul were still gone), Ren was curled up on his side in the booth, sweating. 

“Show him,” Party demanded, gesturing to Ren’s elbow. Ren sat up, shaking, and held out his arm for Jet to see. 

“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Jet, peering closer at the wound. “What the hell did you do ?” 

“I don’t want to-

“-doesn’t want to talk about it.”

Party and Renaissance had spoken at the same time. “Yeah, good luck getting any info out of him. He hasn’t told me shit. Not about the ear, either.” 

Ren turned to show his ear to Jet too, who said something he didn’t hear. 

“Repeat that?” He asked tiredly. He was beginning to regret this. 

“Are you d-”

“Deaf in that ear? Yeah. Now what were you saying?”

“It’s just… it’s almost impressive, I guess, that’s all. Anyway, let me see your arm again.”

Ren set his arm out on the table for Jet to inspect. 

“Yeah, that’s… that’s really bad, man. That’s lymphangitis.”

Party and Ren blinked at him cluelessly. 

“It’s when bacteria gets in a wound? And corrupts your lymphatic system…?” 

The other two gave each other a side glance, neither of them knowing what the hell a lymphatic system was. 

“It can lead to septicemia…?”

Silence. Party rolled his eyes. “Fuck’s sake, Jet, speak English for the non-professionals, here!”

“It’s lethal.”

And a hush fell over the room. 

Renaissance stared, expressionless, at the floor for a moment, processing what he’d just heard, before he broke the silence. 

“How– how lethal? Like, days lethal? Or, like,  maybe-it’s-fine lethal?”

Jet shook his head. “There’s not really a way to tell, but… I’d, um. Go with the first one. I’m sorry.”

He really did look sorry, too. Jet considered Ren a friend, and he hated that he had to be the one to tell him that he probably didn’t have more than a few weeks left on this stupid, sandy rock they called home.

Ren didn’t really know how to feel. He’d been through so much… survived so much to get back here… and now he would lose his life to a little scratch. 

Party looked shocked, and to Ren’s surprise, really upset. 

“What about Kobra?” Party whispered, his voice teetering on the edge of tears. “He can’t– he can’t lose you. As much as it kills me to say it, he can’t lose you again, man. You’re just about everything to him.”

Normally, that would have sent Renaissance into sobbing hysterics, but right now all he could do was stare numbly at the floor, trying to impossibly figure out how to feel about all this.

Naturally, that’s when Kobra and Ghoul came back.

Ren rapidly threw his jacket back on, and the others tried their best to look emotionally composed.

The door chimed as they entered, each with a few pairs of shoes with wheels hung around their necks, tied together by the laces. 

Kobra, upon noticing the three gathered and looking vaguely upset, frowned. “What are you guys doing?” he asked, skeptically. 

“Chatting,” Party said, casually, pulling his hair into a bun and securing it with a band he kept on his wrist. Ren knew that that was a tell of his: messing with his hair when he lied. He was good at noticing things like that. When he lied, Kobra rubbed the scar on his palm, Party messed with his hair, Ghoul stammered and his voice got lower. Jet, though, who could tell? He could convince a lie detector the Earth was flat. 

“Right…” Kobra said, suspiciously, absolutely intending to ask Ren about it later. “Anyway, we brought back a few wheel shoes to keep at the diner! Could be fun,” he shrugged, throwing the skates down on the closest table.

It was awkwardly silent for a few moments, none of them knowing what to say. 

“Ghoul.”

Ghoul’s head snapped toward Party, who’d spoken. 

“I need a haircut. It’s getting itchy and you’re just a little less shitty at cutting hair than me,” Party said, throwing that last bit on just to make sure the pair didn’t look too chummy (he was not paranoid). Ghoul, picking up the hint, nodded, and after a few minutes they shut the wooden door to the break room behind them, leaving Jet, Kobra, and Renaissance alone. Kobra had taken a seat across from Ren, and Jet stood behind the booth. He mouthed to Renaissance “Tell him,” and then made up some excuse about having to meet someone. 

And then there were two. 

Kobra leaned forward, curiously. “What was going on when we got here, dude? You guys looked like you were discussing how to murder me.”

Ren forced a laugh. “No, it’s not that. It’s um…” He shook his head, trying again. “It’s…”

But he couldn’t make the words come. He took a good look at Kobra, and his concerned eyes. Concerned about Ren. Because he cared about him. 

Fuck, he couldn’t tell Kobra. Party was right. It would hurt him too badly. 

“Um, he was just telling me about how you guys ended up in the desert. It was just a sad story, you know?”

“I already told you that a while ago, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but. I didn’t want to be rude.”

Ren’s stomach twisted with guilt. How could he sit here within days of his time on Earth coming to an end and not tell his best friend?

Ren tried to convince himself he was doing the right thing. 

Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, he quoted silently in his head. 

And how beautifully untrue it was. 

☆☆☆

“You know I was just making excuses, right?”

“Yeah, but. You weren’t wrong. Your hair’s a wreck.” Ghoul dug through his box of stuff until he found the good scissors as well as an old apron, and finally, a large cooking pot holding a few bottles of water. He began to unscrew them and pour them into the pot, the liquid pattering metallically as it hit the bottom. “Are you gonna sit down, or just watch me all day? Creep.” He didn’t look up as he spoke, and Party sent him a withering glare before hesitantly doing as he was told. He sat hunched over, picking out the dirt from under his fingernails, when someone was grabbing his shirt by the shoulders and swiftly pulling it over his head. Party batted at the air behind him, spluttering. “What the hell!” 

Ghoul giggled. “Please, like you wouldn’t complain about your shirt getting all wet. Shut up and brush out your rat’s nest,” Ghoul said, tossing him a shitty comb with half of the teeth missing. Party scowled and tried his best, feeling at least two more of the comb’s plastic teeth break off somewhere. He hadn’t actually wanted his hair cut. Meanwhile, Ghoul dragged over one of the plastic crates that were probably once used to hold some type of produce and set the metal pot atop it so it sat about sink-hight behind the rickety chair, careful to limit the splashing, then putting the apron on Party, backwards and draped over the chair.

Party reluctantly leaned back and let just the ends of his hair be softened by the clear water. Ghoul rolled his eyes and pushed Party’s forehead down, grabbing a glass and pouring water over the other’s darkening hair. 

“Watch it,” Party snapped. He felt terribly vulnerable like this, stripped down when Ghoul was not, his hair wet and clinging to his head which tilted toward the ceiling as he tried not to look at Ghoul. He didn’t like it. 

“Would you please relax?” Ghoul said, his voice a little softer this time. “I’m not gonna, like, kill you. Didn’t I cut your hair just six months ago, or something?”

We weren’t… whatever this is, back then, Party wanted to say, instead settling for a pursing of the lips and an attempt to let his shoulders slacken, which they reluctantly did. 

He let the water wash over his scalp, let it sooth the dust from his hair, let it claim the sweat and grease. He let it wash away the calloused hands of Ghoul that had tugged it in fervent moments, wash away the guilt in that. 

Suddenly, Ghoul was sitting him up; he’d zoned out. Ghoul stared at him briefly, then huffed a short laugh. “You look like a wet rat.” 

Party was no longer relaxed.

Ghoul took no notice as he looked at Party in the dusty mirror before them, which he’d forgotten was even there. He never took much time to look at his own reflection; he didn’t want to know. He didn’t like perception. 

He looked down, not making eye contact with himself. Ghoul combed his wet hair out and guided with two fingers a lock of Party’s hair slightly upward, began to snip the ends with a low shnk sound of the scissors closing and opening, catching glinting rays of light from the solitary window. Party, without even meaning to, found himself looking up at Ghoul in the mirror, watching the crease between his eyebrows deepen with focus, watching the careful deftness of his movements, just watching. Ghoul briefly caught the other’s eyes in the glass, and Party averted them immediately, going back to staring at his hands. 

The haircut was completed in gradually comfortable silence, the room lit with the golden tinge of the not-quite-fading sun, the always-present motes of dust floating gently in the air. 

“Okay. Done.” 

Party looked up for the first time since before and examined the trimmed edges, essentially the same haircut as before but neatened and reset. He was about to begrudgingly thank him when suddenly Ghoul was setting his palm on Party’s bare shoulder blade, causing the other’s breath to hitch as he watched Ghoul in the mirror. Ghoul wasn’t looking back at him, but instead inspecting Party’s pale skin, lit aglow by the hazy rays. “You should let me give you a tattoo.”

Party scoffed. “Hell no. Just because you’re willing to risk dying of infection doesn’t–” 

“Blah, blah, blah, blah. Touch up just the front of my hair, will you? It’s starting to look stupid.” 

“It always looks stupid. Besides, I suck at cutting hair, you know that.”

“You’ll manage.” 

Party rolled his eyes and stood from the chair, removing the apron from his neck and finding his shirt. When he had pulled the fabric over his head, Ghoul was already shirtless and pulling the apron on backwards over his head. He repeated the actions Party had taken, wetting his hair and combing it out. Party picked up the scissors and gingerly clutched a few strands with two fingers the way Ghoul had, and trimmed just the front locks of his hair. Although he rarely looked up to confirm it, he knew Ghoul was watching him in the mirror. 

While he trimmed, he thought about the tattoo comment. He just wasn’t a tattoo type of guy. He wasn’t big on needles, and he definitely wasn’t big on infections, especially after Ren’s deal. He looked at the scattered stick and poke tattoos over Ghoul’s back and shoulders; wondering who made them, pondering what they could mean. He didn’t notice himself tracing the faded lines of ink etched into the other’s skin, fascinated, didn’t realize he’d stopped cutting the other’s hair. He’d never noticed how attractive they were before, either. 

The room was stuffy, and the deepening sun was beginning to cast the brown, dingy walls in a fiery orange, also lighting Ghoul’s skin and in turn the ink within it. The atmosphere was almost dizzying, as in a dream. 

Ghoul, who had been amusedly but silently watching this thought process unfold, was just about to snap Party out of it when the door opened. Kobra rummaged around in his stuff for a solid three minutes, eventually extracting a tattered, dull looking book which Party knew Kobra had only read at Ren’s insistence. Kobra raised his eyebrows as if to say, “what are you looking at?” before exiting the room, leaving the door open. As fleetingly as it had been ignited, the sun was losing its glow and the dim beginnings of dusk were creeping in, the room soon to cool.

Party finished the haircut quickly without stalling, and when he was finished he curtly handed the scissors back to Ghoul then left without saying a word; the ignominy in his eyes said it for him.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12: Make Total Destroy

August 1st, 2014

Zone 2.

Hell.

“Mikey, get down! Get down!!” The younger threw himself down behind the mound of sand and rock that had been built up in front of him. The desert floor was too dense and hard to dig any sort of trench, but they could create the closest they could get to a similar effect by scooping up walls of sand around them. 

The older stuck his head over the mound of sand and aimed at the back of a Draculoid that was dueling with a woman whose leg was bleeding viciously from the thigh. The Drac toppled, and the boy ducked back behind the sand just in time to see his younger brother take aim at a second Drac, missing by miles. Over his shoulder, the older shot the same Drac at the precise moment that the younger had pulled the trigger. 

“I got it!” the younger celebrated. 

The older had neither the heart nor the time to respond or correct him, because the familiar distant humming sound was filling his ears, and from a quick look around he knew the other Killjoys heard it too, looking anxiously at the sky. 

“It’s bomb-o-clock,” said a young woman to the left of the boys. She was very new to the army, having just crossed over today. She had snuck out as a Crow, an increasingly popular strategy (although surely not for much longer, they were bound to be increasing security tenfold as they spoke). She had explained to everyone within range that bombs could only be dropped when the citizens of BLI were made to wear headphones to block the noise, but they could only be required to wear them for small increments because it would raise suspicion if they had to wear them full-time. So for about an hour a day, bombs rained like hail from the sky, not incredibly powerful for the sake of noise and blast radius, but enough to kill or at the very least seriously injure anyone within fifty feet each. 

Asteroid had started utilizing her materials to make hand-grenades herself, but only a few had been created so far. They seemed to be lightly effective, not strong enough to kill, but enough to maim. 

“C’mon, we have to get to the bunker,” the older boy said, watching the Dracs retreat toward BLI as the humming grew louder in his ears. “Let’s go,” he said, still watching the sky as he stood up and started toward the bunkers, like many around him were doing. He began to pick up his pace, jogging toward the bunker as the humming got even louder, his heart beating with adrenaline. 

“Go!” 

It only grew louder still, his ears throbbing with the sound. He started to sprint, hoping his brother was close behind. 

The first bomb fell, a deafening explosion reverberating through the desert; his ears were ringing, he heard screams behind him. The bunker hatch was in sight, and he ran with everything he had, ignoring the ache in his body. He rapidly fell to the sand and knocked on the door desperately , ignoring the code; it flew open immediately. He held it up for his little brother, who scampered down the ladder. The last thing the older boy saw before he followed was the woman who had told them it was bomb-o-clock explode before his eyes as a bomb detonated a mere two or so feet from her. Parts of her flew outward; she didn’t even have time to scream before her very being had shattered. The boy felt it hit his face and closed the hatch as fast as possible, trying to wipe the horrific scene which he had just witnessed out of his mind.

He sort of fell down the ladder, not having the strength in his fingers to hold on. He felt someone catch him, he didn’t know who. As he laid in the arms that caught him, he closed his eyes; he swore he had dropped straight into Hell’s underground.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12.5: If the Stars Should Appear One Night in A Thousand

March 14, 2019.

Zone 4.

The dusty floor of a decrepit tollbooth.

Renaissance was not in good shape. 

His ear was throbbing; it was still reeling from Ren’s third attempt to get the audio recording device out (to no avail) and blood was beginning to dry around the entrance. He was cold, he was hungry, and he honestly wondered why he hadn’t just killed himself yet and got it over with. 

Currently, he was sitting on the floor, leaning against the tollbooth wall, huddling in a spare jacket that had been hanging there. He had cried when he saw it, (or at least tried, he was so dehydrated that no tears fell) a miracle after four months of cold so extreme he was amazed he hadn’t died of exposure yet. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t kill himself, he figured. He’d survived too much to throw it all away. 

The past three months, ever since he’d been returned, had been a hellish nightmare that no human was meant to endure. The few times he’d found shelter with actual people living there, he made sure he never spoke and he warned them not to speak either. He had a notebook with him, he’d carried it with him for years, and used it to write in tiny, tiny words what he wanted to say to people, making sure they didn’t write anything back (he didn’t want the bug to pick up the sound of the pencil scratching in a different tone, which would lead whoever was listening to assume there were more people there and send Dracs to exterminate them).  When he explained his predicament, a few people had turned him away entirely, which he figured was only fair. The best time he’d had since he’d been returned was in February, when a couple of two older people, living on their own, had welcomed him into their home (which used to be an old flower shop on the side of the road) with such kindness that Renaissance had cried. Having slept in ditches he dug himself for the past two weeks, a blanket on the floor was pure luxury. They gave him lots of food to eat, and lots of non-perishables to take with him. He stayed there for about five days, not wanting whoever was looking at his location to think he had found a populated area. 

On the third day, it rained. 

Rain in the desert was like a holiday. It was like a miracle. Ren had watched the dark clouds roll in as he wiped the furniture down, not thinking much of it. The door was open, as always, and when the first few drops started, Ren thought he might have been hallucinating. And then a crack of thunder came, and the downpour began. His jaw had dropped, and he’d taken the nearest empty can and banged it on the cashier desk over and over, getting the attention of the elderly couple, who were playing checkers at the table. Once they’d looked up, he pointed excitedly at the rain outside, and then ran through the open door and let the rain swallow him, holding his arms out to the heavens and letting them weep upon him, his tears mingling with the water running down every part of him. He whooped loudly, almost drowned out by the cacophony of white noise that came with the rain, and he knew the elderly couple had come to stand on the small porch and watch in awe as the rain fell.  “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown,” Ren had whispered to the rain, water falling into his mouth as he spoke. He’d memorized the quote by heart. 

And now in his tollbooth, the thick coat protecting him against the bitter March air, he recalled that memory as he shivered. It seemed to be that the only things keeping him alive were a series of miracles, and he figured it would be insulting to the universe if he killed himself. 

He covered his ear with the hood, trying to ignore the stabs of pain. He would try to get the mic out again tomorrow. 

As for the tracker, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. He held his left arm out in front of him, pushed up the sleeve of the coat, and examined the small lump on his inner elbow. He scoffed, pushing his sleeve back down. You know, for being a tyrannical mega-corporation, you’d think BLI would learn to hide things better. His ear, he hoped, could be solved. It had to be tiny, he figured, but there would be a scar if they had embedded it in the skin and he had no mirror.

He wanted to go back home more than anything. He missed his friends, he missed the diner, he missed the Den. He missed Kobra. 

He missed Kobra more than anything.

Six months before BLI took him, and now Kobra probably thought that he had just up and abandoned him for the fun of it, and the idea was tearing him apart.

★★★

On the 14th of July, exactly four months later, Renaissance made a decision. 

He was going home. 

The mic in his ear was a lost cause, no matter what he did he knew it was there. Before he’d ended up deafening himself in that ear, he’d heard occasional feedback coming from it, and that’s how he knew it was still active. After he’d lost his hearing, there was no way to tell whether the mic was still functional, so he just had to assume it was. 

But he figured if he could get the tracker out, it wouldn't matter if his conversations were heard. BLI already knew there were people in the desert, but without the tracker, it's not like they could hunt them down. He just had to watch what he said and watch what he heard.

So on July 14th, Ren took the knife that he’d gotten from a lone killjoy (who hadn’t let him stay with him, but gave him some water and the weapon) and, inhaling deeply, pressed it to the inside of his skin, digging around until he felt the smooth plastic of the tracker against the knife. He then reached into the wound with his bare fingers and pulled out the tracker. And then he passed out. 

When he awoke, he’d been bleeding heavily for quite a while. He wrapped his arm in a spare T-shirt he’d been given (from a mother clutching the hands of two excited children, trying to stop them from jumping on him. They lived in an old Crackerbarrel) and hoped that would be good enough. It was only about an inch in length. It would heal on its own. 

Renaissance buried the tracker and followed the sun, heading southeast for the diner. 

He’d arrived a day later, and it looked like there was some sort of party happening at the Den. Which was honestly perfect; Renaissance hadn’t spoken a word to another human in close to six months, and he didn’t want the first thing he said to Kobra to be “testing” to see if his voice even still worked at all.

Of course, nothing ever goes as planned, because who is Renaissance if the basic structure of his life doesn’t come crashing down once a week?

And now, on July 23rd, he was dying. It was like he could feel himself ticking; tick, tick, tick, running out the clock. 

He was trying to be okay with it. The universe works in mysterious ways , and all that.

And it wasn’t like he’d wasted his life away. He’d survived unimaginable odds just to get back here, and now one of them was simply backfiring, that’s all. It was like Tecumseh said: “When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.”

He tried to be okay with it. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 13: Lithospherians

July 24th, 2019.

The diner, again.

Caught between a rock and a hard place.

“What do you mean you didn’t tell him?!”

Ren groaned, apologetically. “I just couldn’t do it, man! I couldn’t do it! I just can’t hurt him like that.” 

Party, Ghoul, and Jet stared at him in disbelief, each with varying levels of emotions about it (aka, Party was losing his shit while Jet kept his face fairly neutral, because when did he ever lose his cool, ever? (Ren found this incredibly annoying)). 

Ghoul had been told about the situation yesterday, and he hadn’t had much to say about it yet, until now.

“You don’t think you’ll hurt him more by not telling him?” He asked.

It was the first time he’d said something actually insightful, and the attention of the group turned to him. “I mean, like, he’s gonna find out one way or another. Better if you, you know, at least… warn him. Before it happens.” 

Ren buried his head in his good arm. Did he seriously think he hadn’t thought of that already? 

“Maybe I just, I don’t know. He’s gonna be upset either way, maybe I just want to leave him blissfully unaware for a few more days.”

Jet looked at him, raising his eyebrows. “I hate to tell you dude, but we don’t even know if you have that long.” 

“I know,” Ren whined, the sound muffled, still hidden in his jacket sleeve. 

Kobra was currently at the Den making an “errand”– which none of them protested against because they wanted to talk to Ren alone– and it was uncertain when he’d be back. 

“I’ll tell him when I’m ready, you know? I’ll do it.” 

“You’d better,” said Jet. 

☆☆☆

Kobra Kid was on a mission.

As he walked the short mile to the Den, he planned what he was going to say, exactly, to get the advice he needed. With anyone else, it would be embarrassing, but Dr. D was chill. He was the second-closest thing Kobra had to a dad, second to Scarlet Crow, who was no longer around. 

When he arrived at the small radio station, he knocked on the door, and Dr. D himself opened it, to his surprise. Cola usually did that sort of stuff for him. 

“Hey, Kid. Cola’s not here if you’re lookin’ for him.”

“I actually wanted to talk to you? You know things, I think.” 

Dr. D laughed. “You think? Come on in.”

Kobra made himself at home, sitting on the little couch that had been in the radio station since the beginning of time, probably.

“What do you need, kid?”

“I think… I think I want back someone who did something really shitty. To me.”

Dr. D scoffed. “You think? I could see it a lightyear away. And I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

Kobra’s eyes widened. “Can everyone else see it too?” He asked, taken aback.

“If they’re not a bonehead, then probably.” 

“Shit,” Kobra mumbled. “Anyway, you know things. Should I tell him?”

“Of course! You only live once. You take what chances you’re given on this little lithosphere of ours. Death is always around the corner.”

Kobra considered it. “Yeah, okay. That’s a good point,” he said, standing up. “I just needed a second opinion. You need anything while I’m here?” He asked.

Dr. D smiled. “You came here for my help, Kobra. Not the other way around. I’ll manage.”

“Right,” Kobra said, embarrassed, before saying goodbye and beginning to lay the foundations of a plan inside his mind.

☆☆☆

Back in the diner, Ren politely excused himself for a walk. He was quite tired of being told how he should break the news that he was fucking dying to Kobra. Jet left too, saying the emotional tension was too high in here and he needed a break. 

And so, yet again, Party and Ghoul were left alone. 

Nothing happened, not at first. In fact, they were just talking. 

“He needs to tell Kobra, you know? What if he just… falls asleep and never wakes up and Kobra doesn't get to say goodbye?” continued Ghoul, his hair falling in front of his eyes. Party reached out and wove one of the strands between his fingers. 

“Your hair’s getting long,” he said, changing the subject. He didn’t want to discuss ruining Kobra’s life anymore. He lightly tugged the strand of black hair, almost subconsciously. 

And of course, Ghoul exhaled a little too hard, because what wasn’t this guy into? Party should have chopped it all off when he had the chance.

Party rolled his eyes and withdrew his hand. “Oh, right. I forgot there’s not one thing under the sun you can be normal about.”

Ghoul sat back casually, examining his nails. “I have lots of things I’m not normal about.”

“Oh?” Party inquired. “You should tell me about them. Or show me.”

Ghoul raised a condescending eyebrow. “Weren’t we talking about your brother’s dying lover?”

“You ruin everything,” Party snapped, rolling his eyes yet again, pulling Ghoul in by his hair and locking their lips together. 

They broke apart briefly, Party instantly grabbing Ghoul by the hand and dragging him to the break room, shutting the door behind them. They immediately connected again, and Party began shedding his jacket as he panted against Ghoul’s mouth, leaving him in just a black sleeveless shirt. He felt lightly crazed. He pulled Ghoul in and rolled his hips against the other’s, making Ghoul’s head fall back as a moan trailed from his lips. 

Party away once more to push Ghoul onto the mattress, which was actually kind of a big fall because it was on the floor. Party almost apologized before he remembered that he wasn't supposed to care.

Ghoul collapsed onto the mattress, falling backwards with an “oof!”, a cloud of dust flying up from the fabric. Party sank to his knees and crawled over to straddle Ghoul, pinning him down by the shoulders and putting his lips to Ghoul’s neck. He pulled back and reached under Ghoul’s shirt, pulling it over his head as Ghoul sat up and raised his arms to speed up the process. Party pulled the now shirtless Ghoul against him and–

“What… the fuck.”

Party’s breath froze in his throat. A horrible, terrible jab of horror flooded his stomach as he turned to Jet, standing in the doorway. 

“You’re not serious?” Jet asked in a low, stunned voice.

All Party could do was stutter, desperately trying to come up with a logical explanation for this. Nothing came to mind.

“Un-fucking-believable,” Jet mumbled, turning away from the pair and walking out into the diner. Party scurried to his feet and quickly chased after Jet, trying not to think about the horrific bout of déjà vu he was experiencing. Jet was just about to push open the door and leave when Party grabbed him by the arm to stop him. Jet pulled his arm away, angrily, and went to open the door anyway before Party jumped in front of it.

“Move,” Jet commanded. He was normally a very level-headed person; you had to get him really pissed off for him to be aggressive. Party shook his head, tears (much to his horror) forming in his eyes. 

“No, please. Please don’t leave. I can try to explain this. Sort of.” Party’s voice was broken and stupid sounding, and he swallowed thickly, trying to keep the sharp prickles behind his eyes where they belonged. Jet stayed frozen for a minute, deciding, before ultimately rolling his eyes and pushing open the door, holding it for the other to walk through. Party knew he was only staying out of pity, but honestly, he’d take whatever he could get. 

They walked outside. Jet sat down in one of the sun chairs outside the diner, nodding to the one adjacent. Party took a seat, feeling small and helpless as he sniffed, his eyes red and teary.

Jet crossed his arms, and raised his eyebrows expectantly. “So?”

Party took a shaky inhale. “Um, well. I don’t know exactly how to, like. Explain.”

“When did it start? This month?”

Party closed his eyes. “March,” he mumbled guiltily. 

“Jesus Christ, Party!”

“I know, I know, it’s bad, I just…” he buried his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. “It’s nothing… romantic. It’s just… it’s just, um.” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. 

“Anyone else know?”

“Ren.” 

“Caught you?”

“Yeah.”

“Kobra?”

“What do you think?” Party meant to snap, but instead the sentence broke in the middle and came out as more of a sob.

Jet bit his lip, conflicted. “You have to tell him.”

Party shook his head without looking up, his head still in his hands.

“You have to tell him or I will.”

Party looked at him in shock, his face red and splotchy. “No. No, you can’t. Please. No one was supposed to know.”

Jet narrowed his eyes. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, because you’ve been so busy, apparently” —Party cringed— “but you and Kobra are creating a giant rift in our whole group. If you keep on like this, doing things like keeping major secrets from each other, you’re gonna end up tearing us all apart.”

Party, who had pretty much stopped crying now, stared out into the desert, heat waves warping the pale horizon. 

“What secrets is he keeping from me?” He asked, curiously.

“I mean, I don’t think it’s really a secret, but. He obviously likes Ren again. Don’t think he ever stopped.” 

Party closed his eyes and sighed. “Yeah, I know. I just didn’t want to believe it.” Still leaning his elbows on his legs, he turned to Jet, and just looked at him, unsure of what to do, another round of tears pooling in his eyes. 

“C’mere,” Jet said, pulling Party into a side hug. “It’s gonna be okay, you know? It’s gonna be fine.” 

Party sniffed and let another couple sobs out leaning into Jet, who rubbed his shoulder reassuringly. At least there was him. 

After Party had calmed down again, Jet spoke. “This doesn’t change what I said, though. You have two days.”

“You want me to pile that on top of the news that Ren’s gonna kick the bucket soon?”

“Would you rather do it after, when he’s leaning on you for support?”

Party sniffed again, considering. “That’s a good point.” 

Jet rolled his eyes, and rubbed his knuckle into Party’s head sharply, so he yelped and recoiled. 

“Karma for being so damn clumsy with it. You got caught by two people ? Within ten days? That’s almost impressive.” 

Party covered his eyes with his hands. “Listen! It just… happened!” He raised his eyebrow at Jet. “Besides, you didn’t know about it for four whole months. We only got sloppy with it recently .”

“Ew, I don’t want to hear about you guys getting sloppy with each other!”

“ That’s not what I meant! ”

Jet fell over himself laughing as Party rapidly tried to explain that he meant “careless” and not… whatever, before giving up and falling into a fit of giggles himself. The weight on his shoulders, while not entirely removed, had lightened significantly. 

They didn’t see Kobra approaching until he was right in front of them, and they just stayed where they were, leaning on each other, still laughing a little slap-happily as they looked up at him. 

Kobra furrowed his brow. “What are you two so happy about? And Party, where’s your jacket? You’re the one always bitching about sun protection.”

Jet and Party gave each other the side eye, and then immediately burst out into laughter again. 

“Okay,” Kobra said, confused and annoyed, raising an eyebrow before rolling his eyes and going into the diner. 

Jet and Party continued laughing until it died out on its own, with each sighing contentedly.

There was a pause before:

“All jokes aside, though… is he any good?”

“Jet!”

“Just sayin’! He’s got so much experience… in getting rejected…” 

“Jesus Christ!” Party shook his head, then paused, considering thoughtfully. “Actually… he’s, like. He’s kind of a freak. You’d be surprised.” 

“Does he bottom?”

“Jet, oh my God!”

“What! I mean, he bottoms, right?” 

Party said nothing.

“No way.”

Party snickered, covering his face with his hands again. 

“No way!” Jet said again, shoving him. “Never in my life would I have guessed—”

“Oh my God, please, we’re not talking about this anymore! You have to see us every day.”

“I already saw you wrapped around him like some kind of horny octopus. I think that ship has sailed.”

“ Jet!”

☆☆☆

Renaissance sat with his feet dangling over the ledge, staring out at the cracked desert floor, waving and rippling in the heat. 

Was this what the universe wanted for him? 

He had been so prepared to die back in the winter; why was he becoming so chickenshit all of a sudden? 

Death was fairly common in the desert. People took comfort in the idea of the Phoenix Witch, because she was an empyrean sort of figure who surpassed this plane of life. She was something to believe in.

Ren tended to believe more in the laws of nature. Everyone has their time on Earth as part of an ecosystem, and then they die just like anything else. Nothing good lasts forever, you know? That had sort of become his motto over the last few months. Just to remind himself that everything comes to an end, sooner or later. 

And yet…

As he stared over the horizon, the breeze weaving its fingers through his hair and the sand blowing in sheets over the desert below, he came to a quiet, sinking conclusion. 

Renaissance wasn’t quite ready to die.

Maybe he had been a few months ago, when he’d been practically draped over death’s doorstep anyhow, but things were different now. Now there were things he wanted to live for. People he wanted to live for. 

He smiled just at the thought of him, and just like that the sob fell from his lips. He hadn’t expected it, but they kept coming, one after another. He folded in on himself, ignoring the pain, and cried. He cried like he had the first night at the diner, because his time was running out. He’d finally found something that made this place feel a little more like home, and now he was going to leave it. He heaved as he let everything go, clutching onto his elbows and shaking as he wept. 

The sky darkened above him, and he cried until he ran out of tears. He exhaled shakily, and stared up at the stars above him, eyes wet and red. He looked at the Milky Way streaking across the sky. The moon was only a quarter full, but fairly bright, keeping them both company. 

He couldn’t help but think of that night at the campground. Just how real it had been. It was hard to fake it in front of Kobra, to pretend everything was fine when it was everything but. He was just so, so tired. 

He wanted to keep things normal for thirty-six more hours. That’s all. 

And after those thirty-six hours, he would accept his death, he decided. He had until then to feel however he wanted about it. 

He closed his eyes, the quarter-moon’s light still fading behind his eyelids.

The moon thy mourner, he thought, before he remembered the moon didn’t give a shit if he dropped dead.

Chapter Text

Chapter 14: One Day Robots Will Cry, Part 1

October 29th, 2014

Zone 1, a mere few hundred feet from the walls of BLI.

A place of accustomed terror.

A beam of light flew past the now sixteen-year-old Kobra Kid’s ear. He dodged it and slithered through the blockade of Dracs, making it that much closer to the wall. His newly discovered ability to weave through the enemy, agile and nimble, (his complete inability to shoot had been the reason for developing this method) had given him the snake-related nickname. 

Back in September, there had been one particular instance in which he had spun around behind the back of a Drac and wove his way through to take out the more dangerous Crows, and Asteroid had shouted, “Look at the Cobra Kid!” whooping loudly as she took aim at the Dracs around him. 

Later, down in the bomb shelter, Asteroid had explained to him what a cobra was. In BLI, there were no animals besides simple domestic dogs and cats (and if you were in the slummy parts, rats). Her parents had (illegally) told her about them as a child.  Scarlet Crow had also told stories of life before BLI, before the Analog War came to bat. He told everyone about small animals that flew through the air, (“Vultures?” The younger had asked. “No. Smaller, nicer than vultures. But they’re gone,  it’s too hot for them to live here, now,” Scarlet had answered). He told them of creatures of all sizes that swam and drifted through big bodies of water (another thing that had to be explained to those who had come from BLI or lived in the desert their whole life), and creatures that were so big they could step on you and hardly feel it. 

A cobra, it had been explained, had no legs or arms, and slithered around the ground on its stomach using pure muscle, biting and poisoning those it came into contact with. 

Once the younger sibling had learned what exactly his new nickname referred to, he was quite proud of himself. He wrote it down on a corner of the table, just to see how it looked (and maybe to leave his mark). 

Kobra Kid, it read. 

No one had bothered to correct his spelling; most of them didn’t know that it was spelled incorrectly in the first place. Their formal education had ended whenever they’d left BLI, which in the case of the brothers, was quite young. The others in the bunker had continued to teach them to read and write as they grew up, as far as words they’d never heard before, spelling was up in the air.

Kobra Kid was so proud to finally have a Killjoy name, something that proved he belonged here, proved he was capable of doing anything that the adults could do. 

His brother, on the other hand, had yet to have such an experience. 

In the four months since the war had begun, the older felt that he had contributed very little. He wasn’t a good shot (although, thankfully, not as bad as Kobra), he didn’t have any special skills, and he was being outshone by his barely-sixteen-year-old brother. Kobra’s birthday had been in September, and although there were no extra resources to be given away as gifts, the Killjoys in the bunker wished him their best all the same. 

He was frustrated with his lack of exceptionality, and in his desperation to change this outcome, he had come up with a plan. He was going to steal one of the ear monitors from one of the Crows. Maybe if he could get some sort of useful inside information, he could contribute somehow. 

It was early in the morning when they rose. Every day was sort of the same, wake up, kill Dracs, try to get over the wall and survive. Anyone who had gotten over so far had been killed on the other side. 

This morning, the boy had tugged on his boots, his blood simmering with anxiety. He had followed the rest of the army from the bunker and felt the cold, early chill of before-dawn on his face, the sky rimmed with a gentle lavender as the day approached.  Asteroid was still fighting even though she was now very much pregnant, her due date any day now. Blight begged her to stay back, but she said she’d do what she wanted and fought every day that she wasn’t busy in the hospital or making hand grenades.

An hour later and the air was cool on the older boy’s skin, a mere seventy degrees due to the approaching winter. The sun blinding him, he scanned the bodies on the ground for one of a Crow. Right then, a kid who couldn’t have been more than the age of seven fired and brought down a Crow conveniently near to the boy. The boy sprinted toward the Crow’s body and tried to keep his fingers from fumbling as little as possible, pulling the monitor out of the Crow’s ear and tugging until the wire was free from where it was tucked into his uniform. The boy stood up and rushed to kneel behind a mound of sand, fairly out of the way of harm. He put the monitor into his ear, or tried, at least; it seemed to be custom-fit. 

“–down, so is Dewees. Wait, Dewees’s heart rate– not flatlining anymore. Dewees, what’s going on?” 

Figuring he must be Dewees, the boy mustered up a gruff voice and spoke into the monitor. “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Monitor fell out.”

There was silence on the other end, and the boy’s heart hammered against his sternum. They had to know it wasn’t really him.

“Dewees, what’s the name of the car we drove this morning?”

Shit. 

“Uh… The Dewees-mobile?” 

Fuck. This was totally the way he got killed. They were going to know there was an imposter and hunt him down and–

“Yeah, okay, it’s him. Mic sounds weird.”

The boy barely had time to process how in the fuck that had worked when someone else’s voice came through the monitor. 

“Is everything ready for the Launch?” 

“Almost. Couple more hours. Their dusty asses are screwed.”

The boy didn’t have time to figure out what “the Launch” meant because someone was tapping him on the shoulder. He yelped, startled. The kid in front of him laughed a little, his hand still outstretched. He looked almost the same age as the boy, auburn curls framing his head, matted with dust. He was holding a crumpled sheet of paper, and behind him was a group of Killjoys kneeling in a circle; it was obvious they were working on some sort of plan, and Curly was in charge.

“C’mon, we need another input here. What is that?” Curly looked down at the ear monitor. The boy told him, and Curly looked impressed, his eyes wide. “Holy shit! Anything useful yet?” 

The boy was about to point out that he had been about to get information when he’d been interrupted, but Curly was dragging him over to the circle of three others of varying ages. He flattened the paper on the ground and started talking about “fleet formation” and all sorts of other stuff that the boy wasn’t paying attention to, as he was trying to listen to the monitor again. 

“–make sure you do it at exactly 4:36. That’s 4:36 on the dot. Any earlier and our troops’ll still be on the ground. The catapults can’t be reprogrammed, so either get grilled or get going, people. Everyone knows the plan, right?” 

The boy lowered his voice again to be the gruff tone he imagined Dewees to have and spoke. “Uh, can someone catch me up?”

“God, Dewees, you dunce, you do you ever pay attention during strat-meets? Also, your mic is still fucked.” It was a voice he didn’t recognize, but it continued to speak, slowly annunciating each word like he was dumbing it down. “At 4:30, we all retreat. They think the coast is clear. They start climbing. The catapults, set for exactly 4:36 PM, will launch the Nitric from the other side. Got it?” 

The boy could hardly get his response out. “Yeah, right. My bad.” 

The guy said something else, but he didn’t hear it because he took the monitor out again. He looked up, still in shock, to find Curly and his whole group staring at him. 

“What did you hear?” Curly asked, and the rest of the group stared eagerly (the boy assumed Curly had caught them up on the situation). 

“At 4:30, they’re going to clear the field so we think we’re safe. Then they’re going to catapult something called “Nitric” from the other side.”

Curly frowned. “What’s ‘ Nitric?” 

“Hell if I know,” replied the boy. 

“Well, we have to find a way to make sure their people are still on the field and we’re nowhere to be found. 4:30, you said?”

The boy nodded. Curly looked at the sky. “It’s eleven-ish right now. We have five hours to figure out a plan.” His eyebrows were creased with determination, and the boy could practically see the gears turning in his head before Curly’s face suddenly lifted. 

“Oh, I forgot,” he said, and gestured to the person to his left, a boy with blonde hair, maybe around Kobra’s age. “This is Sunfire…” he went around the rest of the circle. “This is Cianuro, we’re tight, and this is Phantasma.” 

Cianuro (what that meant, the boy couldn’t even begin to guess), was a woman with dark skin and light blue hair, maybe around her forties. Phantasma was a girl with a shock of pink and purple hair who couldn’t be more than fourteen. 

Curly stuck out his hand. “And I’m Jet Star. Nice to meet you.” 

The boy knew he was supposed to introduce himself now, and he felt incredibly stupid when he mumbled back a lame “Gerard” with his hand stuck out. He really had to work on that. 

★★★

The kid named Jet Star had gone back to his home bunker to talk to someone called “Doctor Death,” who couldn’t leave the bunker, as he’d lost both of his legs in the Analog Wars. The boy was back in the hospital bunker, talking to Asteroid, who was very distracted with trying to sooth a nasty ray-gun burn on the arm of a young woman. “Nitric!?” she asked, when the boy told her about what he’d heard. “They can’t possibly mean Nitric Acid, that’s–” 

The patient let out a yelp when Asteroid distractedly spread some sort of ointment on the burn. “Sorry, I know. Anyway, Nitric Acid? That’s– that’s insane! Although, I wouldn’t put it past them, actually. It’s dangerous stuff. Burns you when you touch it, it’s a liquid. Spread the word.” 

The boy had planned to make his way to Jet’s bunker after bomb-o-clock, which he could only hope would happen before the Launch. Jet was just two bunkers over, and if the boy was careful, he could make it. There were still people fighting out there; there always were, even into the night, so he figured he could sneak past fairly easily in the chaos. 

Bomb-o-clock came and went, an awful hour and a half in the bunker where conversation swung and missed, sweaty hand clutched sweaty hand, and breath was held before every explosion. 

In between blasts, the older explained to Kobra Kid what had occurred, and wasn’t shocked when he started begging to come along. The older didn’t really want to take him. He felt that he was finally making his own way, finally finding a crowd, finally having a purpose, and that having Kobra there would take that away. It was selfish and he knew it, but he really liked feeling like he was necessary for once. In the end, he agreed to bring Kobra only because he couldn’t think of a valid excuse not to. 

It was around two in the afternoon now, and the boy was rushing to get to the other bunker, gun out, skirting around the people dueling, the ear monitor wrapped in cloth in his pocket. There weren’t many people out on either side, but it looked like the Killjoy’s side was getting slaughtered. Kobra took the time to shoot at (and miss) a few, but the older avoided any sort of conflict; the information he held was important and he didn’t want to risk being incapacitated. 

Okay, or maybe he was in a rush to hang out with his new friends, sue him. 

It was only when they actually arrived at the bunker did they realize they didn’t know the secret knock. 

Luckily, only a few minutes later they heard someone coming up the ladder and open the hatch, and Jet’s curly head popped through. 

“Oh, good, you’re here. I’ve been checking every ten minutes or so; I realized I forgot to give you the knock. Come on down.” 

They followed him down the hatch, and found that this bunker was quite small. It had maybe fifteen bunk beds total; he figured this must have been one of the first ones built, when the rebel army in the Analog Wars was still minute. 

Jet, Cianuro, Phantasma, and Sunfire were sitting around a table, on which a game of poker was taking place. 

A tall, burly man with auburn hair and curls, who the boy could only assume to be Jet’s father, sat juxtaposed to an empty chair where he presumed Jet had been sitting. A man with coarse, black hair and the palest skin imaginable sat in a chair unlike anything the boy had seen, it had wheels attached to either side. That must be how he got around. “That’s genius,” he said, pointing to the chair. 

“Thanks, kid,” the man said, his voice somehow both gravelly and smooth. The boy frowned. He wasn’t that young, he was nineteen. 

“I am called Doctor Death Defying,” he said, proudly, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why. His pants hung from stumps that ended at the knee, and he had scars decorating every probably once-smooth area of his body. 

“And you are?” he asked, looking between the brothers. 

“Kobra Kid,” the younger said confidently, sticking out his hand to shake. The older had to physically stop himself from rolling his eyes. Death Defying took it, then turned to the older. 

“Um, Gerard,” he said, stupidly. 

“We’re gonna have to work on that, aren’t we?” Death said, his eyes twinkling. 

The boy smiled awkwardly. 

“This is my father,” Jet said, gesturing toward the burly man to his left. 

“Killing Moon,” the man introduced himself, his voice deep but amiable. “Pleased to have you here.”

“And then you’ve met everyone else,” Jet said, gesturing around to the others. “So, we have about two hours...”

★★★

Twenty minutes in, Cianuro, after having been in deep thought for a while, finally piped up. It had occurred to the boy just then that he had never actually heard her speak before, and was extremely puzzled when what seemed like a random collection of syllables tumbled from her mouth. 

"Si podemos encontrar una manera para que permanezcan en el terreno durante The Launch…”

Jet Star buried his hands in his hair. "Sí, ¿pero cómo? ¿Y si pueden saber la hora usando el sol?"

Cianuro rolled her eyes. “Por supuesto que no pueden decir la hora usando el sol! Nunca han tenido que hacerlo.” 

The brothers gave each other a sideways glance, completely unsure as to what exactly the hell was going on right now. 

Jet noticed their puzzled faces and grinned. “Cianuro, Dad, and Dr. D were around for the first Analog War, so they lived here before everything went crazy, and some people spoke Spanish where we are now. They’ve been teaching me since I was born.”

“Cianuro’s been here since you were born?”

“Uh-huh. She’s my aunt. Solía tener un tío, pero…” he shook his head and Cianuro’s lips tightened. “Anyway, her name means Cyanide. It’s basically, like, a poison. And get this, some sentences are flipped around backwards…” 

After a scurrying search for Asteroid, an experiment with the headset, a very short Spanish lesson, and a brain-ache to challenge Einstein, the plan was spreading rapidly through the Killjoy army, with the help of Blight, Asteroid, and all of Jet’s crew minus Dr. Death, who made himself useful by speaking into the radio that connected to the other bunkers and telling them  (in code, obviously) what to do. The time was three o’clock. 

★★★

Jet Star, Cianuro, and Killing Moon were some of the best gunmen the boy had ever seen, and he watched in awe as they shot target after target, tiny shards of glass flying from the enemies’ wrists. The boy was doing his own job of holding Dewees’s ear monitor to another one that he had scooped from the ground, creating horrible feedback that blocked communication. He would stop every few minutes, just so it seemed a little more random, and then would place them back together and have a fantastic time watching every Crow on the field clutch at their ears in pain. 

To shoot a wristwatch was a difficult task, but not for Cianuro, Jet, and his father. They took out watch after watch; no enemy in white was safe. The boy spread the message around to every Killjoy who was fighting, which was many, many people at this point, more than he had ever seen out here before. There had to be at least seven thousand total in their army. BLI’s Army contained at least a thousand less soldiers, but they were much better trained, armed, and protected. All in all, it was a fairly even battle. 

The boy spread the word to everyone he could, and told them to pass it on. You don’t even need to kill the Crow, just take out the wristwatch. The message was spreading even faster than he could have hoped as watch after watch exploded. The feedback could be heard from where the boy held the monitors in his pocket, and he could still see the postures of pain and discomfort in the stances of the Crows. 

The boy looked to the sky. It was probably about 4:20, and this was when he had another task. 

He brought the mic of Dewees’s ear monitor to his mouth, and brought about a panicked disposition to his voice. “Holy shit! Are they targeting the watches?” he yelled, frantically. 

“Are you slow, Dewees? Of course they’re targeting the fucking watches! They found out about The Launch. I don’t know how, but they know. Does anyone have the time? And what the hell is going on with the mics?”

“3:55,” the boy told them in his Dewees-voice. 

“So thirty minutes and we get the hell out of here?” 

“Yeah. My watch still works, it’s 3:56 now.”

“Okay, well take out anyone else you can get. We have thirty-four minutes. Good luck, gentlemen.” 

“To better living.”

“To better living!”

“To better living,” the boy said, before gleefully putting the mics together again and watching the Crows buckle in pain.

The boy could see many of the Killjoys looking at the sky, now; he knew they were watching for 4:30. 

And at last, the scream came. 

An ear splitting shriek flew across the desert, louder than the yells or panicked screams from the people fighting. It was the loudest noise the boy had ever heard a human produce, and growing up with a baby brother, that was saying something. Even the BLI soldiers got briefly distracted and raised their head toward the source of the noise. The Killjoys, looking extremely concerned, fled to the source of the scream. 

Making sure he couldn’t be seen doing this, the boy yelled into the mic, “There’s a woman giving birth over there! They’re flocking to help her!”

“ Well, that makes congregating them a lot easier. What time is it, Dewees? If you know how to read.” 

“ 4:15. We’re not off the hook yet, orders said we stay out here ‘till 4:30.” 

“ Since when did you start paying attention? Whatever, just look busy. They’re watching.”

“Wait, all of them are going over there. They don’t need that many people.”

“Something’s not ri–”

And the boy put the monitors together again so they could no longer continue their discussion and fled toward Asteroid, who was doing quite a brilliant job of pretending to have contractions. The surrounding Killjoys were bringing her to the hospital bunker, following after and disappearing from view as they descended the ladder. The desert grew emptier and emptier of anyone that wasn’t dressed in white, but as he followed the group the boy saw the first wave of hundreds of tiny pods of acid come over the wall, heard the shrieks of terror from the enemy, heard the sound of the acid hitting them, burning them, killing them, and then he turned and lowered himself into the bunker.

★★★

When his feet connected with the floor, a cheer so loud he worried for the structural integrity of the bunker erupted from the Killjoys. It took him a whole five seconds before he realized the cheers were for him. For his idea. 

Kobra punched him in the shoulder giddily, and Blight gave him a hearty pound on the back (he pretended it didn’t actually really fucking hurt) Cianuro chattered loudly in Spanish, and Jet grinned proudly; he too was being applauded. 

“Did it work?! Did it work?!” Asteroid was shouting over the crowd, clamoring to get to the boy, oblivious to many a confused stare at why she had suddenly stopped having a baby. 

“It worked.” 

His ears hurt from the yelling, and he felt the floor fall out from under him as someone lifted him onto their shoulder (embarrassing, was he really that light?), and saw Jet in a similar boat across from him, his curls bouncing wildly as he was passed around. 

“We need to have a party or something!” Asteroid screeched, her face red with joy. 

“¡Es una fiesta venenosa!” Cianuro cheered. 

“What did she say?” the boy yelled to Jet. 

Jet yelled back. “It’s a party poison! I mean, poison party! Backwards sentences–” 

But the boy didn’t hear the rest over the giddy thrum whirling around the inside of his head that told him he had found his name at last.

Chapter Text

Chapter 15: The Collapse

July 26, 2019

The Diner, again, again.

Oblivious/Wishing To Be

“Ho-lee shit,” Kobra marveled, holding up the metal to the light. “I’ve never seen one made of metal before.” 

Ren nodded what he hoped was enthusiastically, biting back the vomit that he felt crawling up his stomach. 

“I’m, like, scared to shoot it,” Kobra said, turning the silver firearm over in his hands, looking for the safety switch. It was true, he’d never seen a ray-gun made from such a material before. He found the safety and made sure it was on before tucking it into his belt. 

He and Ren had gone exploring again, this time finding half of a 7-11 convenience store. The other half had been bombed into the ground, and it probably wasn’t safe to approach radiation-wise, but that didn’t stop the two from looting what was left: the front desk and half of the bathroom. 

They quickly took the soap, paper towels, and toilet paper from the bathroom, and stole breath mints and magazines from the cashier desk. When Kobra looked in the cabinet under the register, the metallic glint of the ray-gun had caught his eye.

Now they sat in the diner, their haul dumped on the table in front of them.

Ren really was feeling very queasy, and closed his eyes as he tried to move as minimally as possible. He took a few of the probably expired Tylenol he’d looted from the gas station. 

He had ended up ignoring his own thirty-six hours rule. 

Did he feel guilty about it? Yeah, but he also sort of felt like he was doing Kobra a favor. Saving him a lot of pain. If Ren just went to sleep and never woke up, he wouldn't have to spend his last days, hours even, with Kobra mourning him before he was even dead. That wasn’t good for either of them.

And so he developed a new plan.

Surely, if he were going to die in the middle of the day, he would feel it. He was absolutely sure that on the day he was going to die, he’d be well aware that it was his final day on earth, and he would tell Kobra then. Absolutely last minute. In addition, he decided to write everything he wanted to say in his notebook, and leave it on his person at all times. That way if he were to die in his sleep or run out of time to explain, everything he wanted to say could still be told. 

He’d always been better at writing than talking, anyway. And maybe he could use it to sneak in a few other things that maybe he didn’t have the balls to say in person. 

He was planning on starting tonight after Kobra went to sleep. That was the only time possible: Kobra had gotten somehow even clingier in the past few days. Ren could hardly take a bathroom break without the guy hanging out twenty feet away. All the same, he clung to every moment he could with Kobra. Savored what was left of Kobra’s oblivion to the situation, savored the last of the uncertainty, the things left unsaid, the secrets hanging in the air above them like fragile glass bubbles. 

He looked over at Kobra, who was still examining the metal ray-gun. 

He was glad he didn’t know their time was limited.

☆☆☆

Kobra was going to tell him. He was going to tell Renaissance that (un)fortunately, he was still completely in love with him. Today.

His stomach twisted in anxious knots as he thought about it. He hadn’t much of a plan, but he knew he wanted to tell him at their spot by the mailbox. Preferably around sunset. For aesthetic purposes, and all. He didn’t really know what he was going to say. He’d just wing it, he supposed. But it had been eating and eating at him, and he had to get it off his chest.

Ren had been in pain recently. Kobra figured it was just damage from living months in the desert; he knew what that was like. Ren hadn’t really brought it up much, so Kobra figured it wasn’t anything too serious. He too had experienced some desert injuries: sand burns, sunburns, various cuts and bruises and abrasions. After six months exposed to the elements, you’re bound to get a little dinged up. 

He rubbed the scar on his palm nervously. It was probably six hours until the sun would set. His heart thudded against his ribcage. Six hours until everything was spilled out in the open, exposed for the world to see. Nothing left unsaid.

His lips twisted despite themselves, a hum of anxiety thrumming deep within him. 

☆☆☆

Party Poison paced the diner. To call him nervous would be an understatement: he couldn’t sit still for more than a single second while he spouted all the “what if’s” and “but’s” aloud to Ghoul, who sat on the edge of the booth, watching wearily. 

It was completely maddening. 

“Party! Would you shut up?!” Ghoul finally snapped. 

Party stopped his pacing, his hands frozen midair, his theory about Kobra tying him to the back of the car and dragging him around as punishment having been interrupted. He turned slowly toward Ghoul. “What did you just say?” 

“I said, would you shut up ? He’s not gonna tie you to the back of the car. Or shave your head. Or any of the other weird shit you said. Worst outcome is he doesn’t talk to us for a week. You’re way overthinking it.”

Party collapsed into the seat in front of Ghoul, burying his head in his arms atop the table, whining. 

“I guess I am being a little paranoid, aren’t I?” he said, before setting his chin on his forearm, still resting on the table and looking up at Ghoul. 

“A batshit, freak ass nutjob is what you’re being,” Ghoul supplied, before belching thunderously.

“Oh, you flirt, you.”

Ghoul gave him his most charming smile, batting his eyelashes. 

Party rolled his eyes before sitting up and sobering. “No, but for real. He’s gonna hate us. And, like, today is the last day. Jet said we had two days. It’s been two days.”

Ghoul shrugged. 

Party wanted to shake him by the shoulders. “It’s been two days, you fuck!” he screeched. “ Why are you not more worried about this!?”

Ghoul rolled his eyes. “They’re our friends. They won’t hate us. They love us. And I love you , you know? I’ll back you up.” His head snapped up as he realized what he said and immediately stammered to clarify. “Like, as a friend. As a friend thing.”

“Obviously,” Party said, too quickly.
“Obviously.”

You could hear a pin drop. 

“Anyway.” 

The pin awkwardly cleared its throat, and then dropped again.

Finally, Ghoul broke the tension. 

“Wanna?”

Party stared dumbfoundedly for a moment before ultimately rolling his eyes in defeat.

“I guess. Anyone around?”

“Jet’s with friends. Kobra’s with Ren. We should be good.”

It had been about three minutes when Ghoul turned his head from Party’s face, pausing for breath. “You know,” he said. “You’ve um. You’ve never actually, like, bottom bottomed. You’ve always been, like. On top, still.”

Party rolled his eyes. “Yeah, ‘cause I’m not a submissive little bitch. Like some people.”  

“I mean. You could be. And have no idea. Don’t knock it till you try it.” 

Party stared, trying to come up with some sort of insult or something, coming up empty. 

“I mean. Maybe,” he said, weakly. 

He’d be lying if he said that that idea wasn’t scary to him, and he tried to play it off as if he were simply uninterested in the prospect, but of course Ghoul saw right through him. “If you’re nervous we don’t have to,” he said. 

Party hesitated. He just felt weird about giving up that sort of control. Letting himself want Ghoul in the first place was embarrassing enough, but giving up any shred of say he had left in the situation? That scared him.

“You can still be as bossy as you want.” 

Goddamnit. 

“Maybe,” Party reasoned. He stripped himself of his shirt before reaching over to remove Ghoul’s as well. Then he just looked at Ghoul for a moment, his pale skin outlined in light from the window, scars scattered among stick and poke tattoos, and Ghoul watched him stare, watched him look over his skin as if it were art. Party ran his palm over Ghoul’s shoulder. 

“You’re kinda pretty, you know that?” he whispered, not even really to Ghoul. 

“Of course I know that,” Ghoul tried to say nonchalantly, failing miserably when the sentence hitched in the middle and his cheeks glowed red. Party brought his lips to Ghoul’s cheek (which– what? Ghoul couldn’t breathe) before kissing him on the mouth gently, and Ghoul just let Party take the lead, trying not to combust because what the fuck was happening right now– pliant under Party’s touch. 

“Okay,” Party said.

“What?” Ghoul asked, confused. 

“I’ll do it. Like, for real.” 

“Oh.” Ghoul was frozen for a minute, still sort of surprised that he’d actually said yes, before snapping out of it. “Yeah. Yeah, sure, okay.” 

Now he was actually kind of nervous. 

Party wasn’t really one for trying new things, usually. Ghoul suggested they experiment with different… methods before, but Party was never really into it. Now that it was actually happening, Ghoul found himself losing all his confidence. Party pulled down his jeans and stepped out of them, until he was standing in just a pair of underwear, looking down at Ghoul. It would have been funny if Ghoul didn’t feel so intimidated. 

“So? What’s your plan here?”

Ghoul was still gaping up at him. “I’m… I’m actually not sure. It’s been a while since I’ve… done it like this. And she was, like… a she.” 

Party rolled his eyes, knelt in front of Ghoul, and started undoing the zipper to his pants before pulling them down all together. He flung them in a random direction behind him, and hooked his finger around Ghoul’s waistband and made eye contact, a wordless fortelling. He moved his hand down under the fabric, and Ghoul’s breathing shook as Party touched him. Out of habit, Party used his other hand to push Ghoul’s chest so he laid down on the mattress, setting his left hand right next to Ghoul’s head and continuing to move his right. Ghoul’s eyes were closed, but once he remembered they were supposed to be switching it up, he opened them, and moved his hand to knock Party’s arm out from under him and roll over him so he was now on top. 

Party was genuinely stunned, brown eyes wide, his red hair spread around him like a shitty, dyed halo. 

“I want to be mad… but that was really fucking smooth,” he said, breathlessly, staring up at Ghoul, his pupils blown. Ghoul put his hand down next to Party’s head, not gently, and Party jumped, looking up at Ghoul with widened eyes. He looked fairly intimidated, but Ghoul knew if he wanted him to stop he would say something. They’d discussed it before. 

It was now Ghoul who was slipping his hand under the other’s waistband. Party gasped lightly as Ghoul squeezed him before removing his hand and pressing two fingers to Party’s lips, and Party wanted to say “ this isn’t how we normally do it” or even “ can you not use the hand that was just touching my dick” but he couldn’t, he somehow found himself wanting this, wanting the loss of power. He allowed Ghoul to slip his fingers into his mouth, hoping Ghoul didn’t notice the twitch from his lower half. Of course Ghoul noticed, and he looked smug as he retracted his fingers and moved them to press one into Party, quickly moving on to two. Once Party felt adjusted, he nodded wordlessly, and Ghoul removed his hand, spat on it copiously, and used it to slick himself up. He spread apart Party Poison’s legs and aligned himself. He looked at Party. “You good?”

Party nodded. “Yeah. Good.” 

Ghoul pushed in and the breath left Party’s body– this felt so, so different than normal. It wasn’t a bad difference, but it was definitely not a sensation he was used to: being on his back, having Ghoul hovering above him, not being the one who chooses when to move. 

Ghoul pulled back and thrust himself forward again, and Party’s head fell back, his Adam's apple tipped toward the ceiling, and then he remembered that that’s what Ghoul did normally. He let out a small laugh, which felt strange in his throat at this angle. “What are you laughing at?” asked Ghoul, panting. Party chuckled and turned his head to the side. 

“You,” he said, and then he was gasping brokenly; Ghoul had pushed in harder than before. 

“Why, not good?” he huffed, joking. 

“Mhm,” Party confirmed, but his voice was strained and his head was still tipped back, so Ghoul was pretty sure that that was 100% not true. But he couldn’t help it, he pulled himself almost all the way back out and shoved himself in again, roughly. 

Party hissed, clutching the blanket below him, grasping it between his fingers. Ghoul thrust into him again, gripping onto Party’s shoulders as moved. Party squeezed his eyes shut and moaned heavily, wrapping his legs around the other, his muscles twitching. Ghoul, his sweaty black hair hanging in strings in front of his eyes, licked at Party’s neck, mostly as a backup plan in case it really did suck. He was at an uncomfortable angle, but at the end of the day he figured he had it easier, so he dealt.

He pulled back and thrust in again, grunting with effort, and Party shook a little below him, his stomach sweaty, his chest rising and falling in gasps. Ghoul could barely look at him. “I’m- I’m close,” Ghoul warned, his voice strained. 

Party just panted. Ghoul canted his hips again, and then Party spoke.

“Bite me,” he said, his eyes off in the distance.

And that was the last thing Ghoul expected. 

“ What ?” He said, thoroughly confused, halting his movements. 

“Just fucking bite me! Bite my neck,” Party commanded, turning his head to  the side.

So, bewildered but on-board, Ghoul pulled back, thrust back in again as hard as he could, then kind of awkwardly latched onto the curve between Party’s neck and shoulder with his teeth, biting down hard enough to hurt but not enough to break the skin.

And Party, with a shaking, broken, moan, spasmed and came. Just like that. 

“What the fuck,” Ghoul breathed quietly. 

“Just finish,” Party begged, and Ghoul grabbed him by the hips and just pushed himself in and out until he too was bent over, shaking as he climaxed inside the other.

“And you… have the nerve… to make fun of me ?” Ghoul panted, exhausted.

“You’re the one… who wanted to try new things.” huffed Party, equally as spent. 

“Fair enough,” said Ghoul, rolling to the left of Party, staring at the decaying ceiling with him. 

“So… so that was fine, then? Ten out of ten?” 

“That was the last time we could do anything without my brother knowing. I figured I’d indulge you.” 

It was silent for a moment before he spoke again. “But yeah. Ten out of ten.” 

☆☆☆

The sun hung low in the sky, and Kobra was sort of itching to get Renaissance out to the cliff. Kobra was sitting across from the other in the booth next to the door, and Ren was laying his head on his arm. He’d been so tired lately. Maybe it was because Kobra dragged him around all the time, he thought, feeling guilty. Oh, well. This would be the last outing of the day, then they could come back and go to bed. 

Well. Kobra would go to his hammock and Ren would sleep on the restaurant booth, but. You can’t have everything. 

“C’mon,” Kobra said. “I promise we can just chill when we get back, but I really wanna go watch the sunset. It looks like it’s gonna be a good one.”

Ren lifted his head wearily, staring at Kobra. He was so, so tired, but he knew he was on borrowed time. What if this was the last sunset he ever saw? 

“Yeah, sure. We can go,” he said, scooting out of the booth and fighting the wave of nausea swirling around his stomach like bitter wine. He stood up shakily, feeling slightly dizzy. What had Jet even told him? He had lymph-something. What did that even mean? He had no idea, but whatever it was, it was starting to really fuck with him.

He trudged after Kobra, ignoring the ache that seemed to stretch through most of his body by now. At least the sun was setting; the heat in his condition would have been unbearable. 

The trek to the mailbox was most certainly vomit inducing, but he managed to keep it down. For Kobra, he kept telling himself. 

He could have kissed the ground when they arrived; he was so thankful to sit down. He braced his hands on either side of his legs to steady himself as he looked at the wide stretch of desert laid before him, lit ablaze by the setting sun. Kobra took a seat next to him.

“So, I have to talk to you.”

Ren’s stomach dropped into his fucking feet.

“About what?” He kept his voice steady but he was shaking inside, panic creeping into the edges of his skull because what ? How did he find out?

It came to him with a sudden realization. 

Jet. Jet must have told Kobra. He must have told Kobra that Ren was dying because he was too much of a pussy to do it himself. That mother —

“This is, like, humiliating to admit to you, but…”

Ren froze.

“I’m… I’m still, like. In love with you. Since… since, like, even before you disappeared.”

Oh!

Oh. 

And something broke. 

Kobra’s heart was beating in his ears, stomach churning anxiously as he waited for a response, any response. 

Ren turned his head toward Kobra, his wet eyes filled with horror. Which was definitely not the way he was hoping this would go. 

Ren was shaking as his petrified eyes moistened, glossy over his brown irises. 

“Kobra, you can’t… I can’t—” Ren gagged, before kneeling over the side of the overhang like he was going to throw up. Kobra wanted to jump. What the hell kind of a reaction was that?

Coughing, Renaissance crawled away from the ledge, stood up, and Kobra watched as he toppled to the ground, whimpering in a way Kobra had never heard. He twitched, crying out, ragged gasping breaths leaving his lips, inhaled dust taking their space. He uttered one word.

“Help.”

 And that was when Kobra realized that something was very, very wrong with Renaissance, and that it wasn’t to do with his confession. 

☆☆☆

Ghoul and Party had taken advantage of the empty diner once more since this morning and were considering a second when they saw him.

On the fading horizon, Kobra Kid was running toward the diner, holding something large and awkward in his hands. They wouldn’t have noticed it if Party hadn’t gone outside to let the breeze dry his skin (he didn’t like feeling sweaty) and happen to squint to the north, watching the heatwaves ripple above the ground. 

He stood up, immediately running inside to tell Ghoul.

“Put some clothes on. Kobra is sprinting in our direction right now, like, full speed.”

Party went back outside, black tank top rippling in the light wind, and squinted to see better. 

Then he saw it: The thing in his brother’s arms was in fact the unconscious— maybe worse— body of Renaissance.

Party cursed, then instantly ducked back inside, scrambling for the first aid kit in the closet. He cleared everything off of the table closest to the door, brushing it to the linoleum floor. Kobra suddenly appeared at the door, kicking at it with his boots because his hands were full. Ghoul, now clothed, ran over from the break room and pulled open the door, which Kobra turned sideways through immediately and dumped a wheezing, shaking Ren on the table. 

“ What the hell is wrong with him?!” Kobra’s voice was on the edge of hysterical, and his hands were curled tightly. 

Party’s eyes widened and he turned to look at Ghoul, who looked equally stunned. 

“He didn’t tell you?” Party asked, carefully, turning his head back toward Kobra.

“Tell me what?!” Kobra shrieked, his eyes lit with panic. 

And naturally, that’s when Jet Star walked through the door, immediately slowing as he took in the situation in front of him.

“He didn’t tell him,” Party said to Jet, hushedly. 

“Tell me what?” Kobra was crying now, frustrated, clueless tears that caught in his throat and made his breath hitch. 

“He’s dying.”

Party whirled around with wide, furious eyes. “Jet!” 

“Someone had to tell him!”

“You couldn’t have worked on your bedside manner a little?!” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kobra asked.

“How else was I supposed to—”

“ What does that mean?! ” Kobra’s hysterical voice broke through their arguing. “What do you– you can’t just say things like that! ”  

Jet wordlessly walked over and pulled the right sleeve of Ren’s jacket off. Ren jerked and a quiet exhale left his mouth as the cause of his downfall was exposed to the elements, and Kobra’s eyes dropped in fear.

“It’s just— it’s just, like, a cut, though. It’s not— it’s not that bad.” 

The “cut” in question had swelled up incredibly since the last time Party had seen it, rings of red stretching around the wound, pus gathering at the darkened opening. 

It was, in fact, that bad.

“And you knew about this?!” The fear in Kobra’s eyes had been replaced by fury as he whipped around to face his friends, one hand clutching the table and one curled into a fist. 

“Ren was supposed to tell you. He– we all– wanted it to come from him. I’m sorry. I’d be surprised if he has more than a day left in him,” said Jet.

Party could have punched him. “What the hell is your problem!?” he hissed.  “We just had to tell him his best friend is dying and you’re being all fucking clinical about it!”

“If you have a problem with the way I break news, feel free to tell Kobra about what else you’ve been keeping from him all by yourself.” He backed away, hands up in mock surrender. 

Kobra looked between the two, confused. “What else have you been keeping from me?” He asked, his voice quivering, eyes wild and confused. 

“ Jet!” Party hissed, furious. It was as if a spotlight shone upon him. Traitor.

“Go ahead,” Jet said unapologetically, leaning on the counter. 

“Can’t we tell him later? He’s sort of overwh—”

“Ghoul and Party are hooking up. Have been for months.”

“ Jet!! ” 

And this time, Party actually swung at him. He regretted it pretty much instantly though, when Jet punched him in the face. Party stumbled back, wincing. 

“Stop it. I don’t want to do it again,” Jet said, evenly, and Party agreed. It was a fight he’d never win.

“You fucking –” Party hissed, spitting at him.

“Party, come on, he was going to find out eventually,” Ghoul tried to say, reaching out, but Party pulled away from his touch. “Get the fuck away from me.”

Kobra just stared at them, his face in complete and utter shock. Even Renaissance was quiet as he laid painfully on the table.  

Kobra turned to Ren. “Did you know about this too?” 

Ren nodded, wordlessly, his eyes closed. 

“And all of you knew about him?” He was facing the rest of the group now, and they nodded, no one making eye contact.

A moment of silence, in which Kobra just stared.

And then he turned around and left the diner, the bell ringing after him. 

It was quiet before Jet spoke. “He’ll be back. He just needs a minute alone, I think.”

The sound of the car starting could be heard.

“Um. I think he’s leaving.”

“He’s just processing.”

The car revved, and the group heard it speed away, far, far away until the sound faded out entirely. 

Ren gagged. 

“Turn him on his side,” Jet instructed. 

Party didn’t move.

Ghoul stepped forward and did as he was told, grimacing as Ren puked again, trailing down the side of the table, and Party shook his head, turning away from the sight and toward Jet.

“ Fuck you.” 

“I gave you time to tell him.”

“You are such a shithead. I want you out.”

Ghoul looked back at Party, surprised. “Party…”

“Forever?” Jet mused, raising an eyebrow.

“If you keep talking, yeah. Get out.”

Jet, after staring for a minute, scoffed, shook his head, and left the diner.

Party buried his head in his hands. How had things managed to go so wrong ? Ren was passed out on the table, Kobra was God knows where doing God knows what, Jet, by Party’s own command, was banned from the diner until further notice, and Ghoul… well…

He felt the warm arms around him from behind right before Ghoul’s chin rested on his shoulder. Party pulled out his hands from where they were tucked against his body and wrapped them around Ghoul. He couldn’t help it. 

They just stood there wrapped in each other, the darkening sky a navy-indigo through the windows, the chill starting to pick up in the room. Party’s cheek throbbed from the punch.

“It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna be okay,” Ghoul said into Party’s shoulder.

He pulled his head back and gently turned Party around, looking into his eyes, and Party’s breath halted as he stared back into the brown irises. 

He barely felt himself trace Ghoul’s lips with his thumb. Hardly registered exhaling and pressing his mouth to Ghoul’s, slow, shaky, soft.

Ghoul’s hands snaked under Party’s shirt, but somehow Party knew it wasn’t a sex thing; he just wanted to feel him, the touch of skin to skin. 

It was slow, but not lasting. Their foreheads rested against the other, their hands found the others, and Party knew that something had changed that afternoon: changed between him and Ghoul, him and Kobra, him and Jet, him and the world. 

After tonight, things would never be the same, and he knew that, so he felt Ghoul’s calloused hands under his own, his gentle exhale on his face, clinging to the last of his ataraxy. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 16: One Day Robots Will Cry, Part 2

October 30th, 2014

On the battlefield. 3:57 pm.

The beginning of the end.

The desert landscape quaked with the violent conflict and Party Poison, Jet Star, and Kobra Kid moved with a choreographed chaos, their movements fluid yet precise as they engaged their enemy, having learned each other’s blind spots, strengths and weaknesses. Jet was blazing, lighting up the pandemonium, his ray-gun firing with pinpoint accuracy, taking down Drac after Drac. His movements were an elaborate dance, he walked the line between agility and ferocity. He’d been raised in the desert by veterans, so it wasn’t shocking, but it was impressive, especially compared to Kobra’s about 10% success rate. Party ignored the things he saw: a woman half the way decapitated with a piece of scrap metal, a child bleeding out face down on the sand, a man’s face perforated with laser beam holes. Out of the corner of his eye, Party noticed a large collection of Crows starting to swarm around them and after giving a swift signal, Jet laid down suppressing fire while Kobra positioned himself, taking down the advancing enemies with what was an attempt at calculated precision. The guy really was not a good shot. Asteroid was behind a mound to their left, one hand on her pregnant belly, one hand shooting at Dracs. Blight was in a different zone; they went to whatever area they heard needed the most help.

It was a comfortable operation, hiding behind the dune and shooting Dracs from behind, occasionally looking over at the others to make sure they were okay. The Killjoys moved as a well-oiled machine, constructed from blood, bones, and fire, through battles fought and won and battles barely escaped. They communicated through quick glances and subtle gestures, each understanding the other's next move without the need for words. This is what it’s like having friends, Party thought. 

And then a scream rang across the desert,  a different one than the ones they were accustomed to. It was a call for help. Party suddenly remembered when he’d heard it before…

“Asteroid!”

Party followed the scream, and found Asteroid crouched behind a rock, keeling over in pain. She yelled, her eyes squeezed shut. Jet and Kobra followed soon after, and Kobra raised an eyebrow. “Um, did she-”

“It’s not piss, my water broke, I don’t know what to do–” 

“Oh, shit,” Jet said, paling in the face. “Um, I need to find my dad. He’s a doctor, he’ll know.”

The other two called after him, trying to stop him. “You’ll never find him!” Kobra said, but Jet was out of earshot. 

“Okay, A, what do you need?” Party said, turning his attention back toward her and feeling incredibly helpless and a little scared of Asteroid, who was grimacing and yelling.

“Blight!! Get Blight!” She screamed, before emitting another cry of pain. “Now!”

Party looked at Kobra. “You up for finding ‘em?”

Kobra nodded and cocked his ray-gun as he turned and ran.

★★★

Jet Star scanned the floods of people rapidly, keeping an eye out for the auburn and gray-streaked hair of his father, who’d said he would remain in this general area. The nineteen year old shot any Drac that came too near, and focused on the mission at hand. Asteroid was too important to lose. 

Kobra Kid, meanwhile, was in a similar position, keeping his eyes peeled and his gun at the ready. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that he would not reach Blight until far too late, long after the life of Asteroid had been claimed by BLI. 

He searched and searched, losing hope as the hours passed.  The air was thick with smoke and screams, he was losing light, his legs were sore, his eyes were determined to forget who they were looking for, and just when he was about to call it quits, a cry of anger that could only be recognized as the large and baritone force that was Blight skipped over the sand. Kobra whirled in the direction of the sound, just in time to see Blight raising a long, flat piece of metal over their head to smash over the Drac in front of them. Kobra took aim at the Drac, but before he could pull the trigger, a beam of light flew through the air, zooming cleanly into the space between Blight’s ribs. 

Blight’s gaze slackened in pain, and they dropped the piece of metal and put a hand over the hole in their chest. 

They locked eyes with Kobra, and then sank down.

Kobra quickly shot the three Dracs, reminding himself to celebrate later that he’d hit them all on the first try. They collapsed, and Kobra ran to Blight.

“It’s okay, it’s not fatal. It’s just a burn wound,” Kobra said, not sure who he was convincing, but Blight shook their head. “Not the only one.” 

They laid their head on the sand, hissing in pain. 

Kobra didn’t know what to say. “Asteroid… She's having the kid.” 

Blight closed their tearing eyes, and smiled toward the sky that they did not see. 

“Tell Jenny that I know it’s a girl. She said I wouldn’t know. But I know.”

Their voice was becoming increasingly slurred, and Kobra had never seen someone slip away like this, so aware that they were going to die. He was terrified. 

“I’ll tell her,” Kobra said, squeezing their hand with his good one. “I’ll tell Jenny.” 

Across the desert, too far away for Kobra to hear, Asteroid screamed, but somehow he knew that something, somewhere, had gone terribly wrong. 

★★★

Asteroid's breaths came in ragged gasps as the pain intensified, her hand gripping the fabric of her tattered jacket. She leaned against a rocky outcrop, sweating, as Party tried to fight off any Dracs who came near. Jet and Moon had returned, and Moon was instructing Asteroid on what to do while Jet looked anywhere but at the whole baby situation, his face pale. He’d finally met his medical match, his weak spot. Asteroid gritted her teeth, summoning every ounce of strength within her. She drew deep breaths, focusing on the rhythm of the desert winds, trying to drown out the clash of weapons and shouts that echoed in the distance, tried to focus on the cool purple of the night blowing against her face.

And finally, finally, as the desert wind swept around them, it happened. With a final push, a cry pierced the air, sounding like fresh hope amidst the war-torn night. Jet and Party shared a brief, relieved glance and a quick high five before refocusing on the ongoing battle, still trying to keep them away from Asteroid and the kid. Asteroid cradled the infant in her arms, still tethered to her, the fragile little symbol of the future they were fighting to protect. For a moment, they had everything.

But everything never lasts. 

Suddenly, Jet was screaming “Shit, run!” and Party scrambled to his feet and rolled out of the way of the grenade that had just exploded several feet from where they’d been sitting. He looked at Jet, who was okay except for having a rough landing and clearly some ringing in his ears, by the way he winced and covered them. The ringing in Party’s own ears drowned out the sounds around him, but other than that he was mostly unharmed. Kobra was screaming. Shrapnel from the explosion had flown outward and marred him, he bled from his face, his arms, particularly his left hand, which was pouring rivers of bright red in Party’s blurry vision. His brother was covered in blood, and Party felt his breath get hysterical, fumbling to get to his feet. He started to stand, but then came a second sharp hit to his temple; Party was knocked to the ground, soon followed by Jet. Out of the corner of his blurry vision, he saw a Crow pull something over Asteroid’s head, then sever the umbilical cord. 

Jet’s probably thinking about how unsanitary that is, Party thought deliriously, before he was struck again. 

★★★

When he was roused awake, Kobra and Jet were whispering quietly to each other, and immediately he knew something had gone very, very wrong. They were tucked behind a cluster of rocks, and their breath came out in puffs from the cold. Kobra’s face was covered in rusty, dry blood. 

“Where’s–” He started to ask, and the other two looked at him, startled by his voice, then each other. 

Party forced himself to say it anyway. “Where’s Asteroid? And the kid?”

Jet didn’t make eye contact. “They’re– they’re gone. They took them.”

Party was puzzled. “ Took them? Didn’t kill them?” 

“They’ve started taking people. I think they’re testing something out. Some sort of mask. I dunno.”

“Blight?”

The other two stayed quiet. 

Party stared at the ground, his body feeling heavy, sad, numb. The fighting sounds on the other side of the rocks seemed to fade in his ears. 

Blight, who taught him, Asteroid, who cared for him, the both of them who saved him. 

He heard yelling. He felt someone pick him up and drag him a short distance, the world around him still blurry with exhaustion, pain, and grief. His head hurt. He wondered if there would be a lump where he’d been hit. There were more sounds of fighting, and Party wanted to cover his ears. His head really hurt. 

Someone yelled, Jet, maybe, and then the blur in front of his eyes faded to black, the thump of his pulse prodding the ache in his head with every beat. 

★★★

He woke up in the hospital bunker. 

“Thank God.” someone said. Kobra. He had a thick bandage around his left hand, and his face was covered in small cuts and from them, streaks of dried blood, though not nearly as much as before. His jacket was off, and a nasty burn wound covered the side of his arm. 

“What happened?” Party asked. He was starting to get incredibly annoyed with all of this unconsciousness. “Where’s Jet? He still out fighting?” he asked, after noting that it was only his brother standing there waiting for him to wake up. “And what happened to you? He honestly couldn’t remember. He just remembered blood. 

Kobra tightened his lips and Party’s stomach dropped. Jet couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t be. His first friend…

“He’s, well. He’s not fine. He’s alive, but. He’s not well.” 

Kobra nodded toward a bed a few rows over, where the curly-headed boy laid facing away from them on the uncomfortable mattress, folded in on himself. 

“He, um.” Kobra started, fumbling to find the words, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Moon is dead. Cianuro, too.” 

“Oh, Jesus.” Party said, his voice low. “That’s, like. His whole family.”

Kobra nodded, grimly. “Sun’s still alive, and so’s Crow, but. Things are… things are bad out there.”

“And…” Party gestured to the younger’s bandaged hand. 

“Explosion. Some broken pieces of something flew out everywhere.” He stared off to the side somewhere and said quietly, “I don’t know how I know, but I think tonight’s the night. I think tonight’s the night it ends.” 

Party looked over to Jet, solemnly. 

“Then we’ve got to go help end it.”

★★★

For the first time, Party was a little afraid of his friend. Jet was aflame like nothing Party had ever seen. His eyes held rage, malice, outrage; they were alight with remedy for his family. 

He slew Drac after Drac, Crow after Crow, he took down everyone in white. 

Beside him fought Party, Kobra, Sunfire, and a gaggle of others though none of them quite matching Jet’s lethality. 

It was probably two in the morning by now, but the white of the enemies’ clothes made it easy to distinguish friend and foe in the dark. 

And yet, the Killjoy army was losing its strength. 

As the hours passed, people around them were dropping like flies, simply too exhausted to keep fighting. Party could see the bright white figures overtaking the dingy colors of the army, and he gave a worried look to Kobra. This was getting dire. 

While they had shared that sideways glance, a spear had found itself impaling the torso of Sunfire, mere inches away from Party, and as the paralyzed body fell to the ground, light began to seep over the horizon. And then, before the group even had time to process his death, the three young boys turned to face the incredible sound emitted by a younger boy standing on top of a large rock, screaming something at the top of his lungs against the rising bloody sun.

It took a second to figure out what he was saying, but at the halted movements of both armies, Party understood.

“Truce.”

The boy was screaming “truce.” 

And maybe it wasn’t his call, but no one of higher authority was around to call the shots and if the army had kept on any longer, they would have faced a slow and sure defeat. 

Other Killjoys began picking up the word, shouting it as well, dropping their weapons. A wave of yelling passed over the six-hundred-odd people remaining until no one was moving. 

The boy on the rock, who Party now noticed was clutching a bleeding abdomen, looked around at the people shouting, smiled faintly, and then collapsed, falling several feet down to the desert floor. 

“Oh, shit!” Kobra said, running toward the boy. Jet stayed behind, kneeling next to the lifeless Sunfire. The two brothers ran toward the younger guy and turned him over from where he’d fallen facedown. The guy was probably a year or so younger than Kobra, his pale face smudged with dirt and dust, his hand stained copper from the blood oozing from his torso. His clothes, Party noticed, were dusty but not grungy like the rest of the Killjoys. His hair was a uniform BLI length, cropped close to his head but not buzzed.

If Party didn’t know any better, he’d say the kid had just gotten out today . 

The kid coughed, his eyes dazed and hazy, his brow furrowed so that a thin line appeared between them. He was breathing heavily, and shaking a little, trying to hold still. 

“Today’s my birthday,” he croaked, before his hazel irises disappeared behind his lids, a worrying stillness coming over his face. 

“Oh, no, okay,” Party said, to no one in particular. “Um, what do we do? Jet!” 

Jet turned to him, exhaustion clear in his eyes. 

“Jet, how do we, um.” 

But Jet was already walking over, unrolling a spool of bandage from his belt. He wearily lifted the bottom of the guy’s shirt (the other two recoiled at the sight of the wound) and unflinchingly wrapped the guy’s waist tightly, then checked his pulse. “He’s still breathing. He should be fine. He’s just in shock.”

Just then, a loud crackling sound reverberated through the desert, and everyone turned to the looming white walls of Better Living Industries. A crisp voice, a loudspeaker, began to speak:

“Enemies of the state, we accept your truce for the present. All militia from BLI are commanded to return to your bases. Enemies of the state, appear at 9:30 in the morning, approximately three hours and twenty six minutes from now, to discuss the conditions of Truce. A beacon will be erected at the meeting point. If you fail to make an appearance, your Truce no longer holds valid. I repeat, if you fail to appear, your Truce is no longer valid.”

The sound of the loudspeaker being put back into its holder sounded, and everyone looked around, unsure of what to do. 

Then, wordlessly, the Dracs around them robotically lifted their heads, turned to face BLI, and marched homeward. 

The Crows, after also sharing an unsure glace around, soon followed. 

The sky was growing lighter, casting the Army of the Desert in a chilly glow. Party Poison looked to the paling sky, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath in. 

Maybe, for the first time in almost ten long years, he was safe.

At least, for the next three hours and twenty-six minutes.

Chapter Text

Chapter 17: Aftermath

July 27, 2019

The break room, which feels very, very empty.

Party Poison awoke with a start, pupils dilating as he took in his surroundings: the dark break room, lit faintly by the light of the moon through the window. Renaissance was asleep on the couch, and Ghoul was on the mattress next to Party. Ghoul was sleeping on his stomach, his hands up on either side of his head, a scowl marking his pale face. Party ran his thumb over Ghoul’s cheek, the corner of his own mouth lifting fondly. Ghoul’s eyes scrunched together then opened blearily, his irises aglow in the moonlight. 

“Sorry,” Party whispered. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Ghoul turned on his side and nodded his head to Party’s side of the mattress, indicating that he should lay back down. Party obeyed and laid his head next to Ghoul’s, their noses facing each other. 

They figured it was fine to sleep in the same bed at this point. Kobra hadn’t returned yet and Ren had been drifting in and out of consciousness for several hours; they’d moved him to the couch so he’d be more comfortable. But either way, it’s not like it was a secret anymore.

It was just past midnight now, and Party stared at Ghoul, parallel to his own body. Ghoul reached down under the blanket, and for a wild second, Party thought he was going to try to jerk him off. What are you, crazy? Ren is right there , He wanted to say, but to his surprise, he found his hand being woven into Ghoul’s, the other’s thumb rubbing the side of Party’s hand reassuringly. 

“C’mere,” Ghoul whispered, and lifted his hand, gently beckoning. Party scooched closer to Ghoul and turned around so he faced the window and away from the other. Ghoul wrapped his arm around Party’s waist, briefly letting go of his hand– Party was surprised at how much he disliked the brief loss of contact– and rested his chin on Party’s shoulder. He found Party’s hand again so they were clasped together, juxtaposed to Party’s chest. 

And it was insane how much Party didn’t hate this– he’d never been the cuddling type, not ever, and especially not with Ghoul. Especially not with Ghoul. There had been times in the past when the four of them had had to technically cuddle to stay warm, but that was different. That was so different from this, when Ghoul was planting gentle kisses to his bare shoulder, and Party was staring at the moon through the blinds, pretending that his eyes weren’t filling, pretending his little brother wasn’t out alone in the desert somewhere, cold, scared, and heartbroken.

“I think I’m just meant to drive people away,” Party confessed, hardly above a breath, a slow inhale shaking on his lips. 

Ghoul kept stroking Party’s hand, and to his knowledge, didn’t stop until Party fell asleep.

☆☆☆

He was awakened by a frantic scribbling sound and an empty bed. Sunlight was streaming through the windows, catching motes of dust in the air. Ren was sitting with his legs crossed and a small notebook in his lap, scratching away like his life depended on it. It could, for all Party knew. His hair stuck up at funny angles, and he seemed to not even notice Party sitting up. 

“Where’s Ghoul?” Party asked, rubbing his eyes. 

“Shh,” Ren hushed, not looking up.

Okay.

Party made a face, then stood up and left the break room. He walked outside to find Ghoul cross legged in one of the chairs on the shaded sidewalk outside the diner, staring at a pan full of fruit from a can which was sitting out in the sun. 

Party looked up to the sky, squinting. The sun was fairly high in the sky, but not enough to be noon yet, so he figured it was probably about eleven o’clock. Ghoul turned to him.

“Oo, your bruise is way worse,” Ghoul winced, pointing to Party’s jaw. It felt like it.

“No sign of Kobra?” Party asked, even though he already knew the answer.

Ghoul shook his head. “Makin’ us breakfast, though.” He gestured toward the cooking fruit, and Party felt a wave of unease flood his stomach.

“Listen, Ghoul…”

This was getting too weird. They just weren’t like this. The arrangement had been “friends (debatably) who fuck sometimes,” not “let’s cuddle all night and hold hands and then in the morning I make you breakfast.” It wasn’t like they were actually, like. Fuck’s sake. Was this not the same Ghoul who got on his nerves like crazy? All the time? What was he doing?

Ghoul was staring at him expectantly. 

“You should have spread them out more,” Party said, pointing to the pan. Ghoul scowled. 

“I don’t recall you doing anything to help, I-woke-up-ten-minutes-ago.”

Party narrowed his eyes. See, this was better. This was the way it was supposed to be. Two debatably-best-friends who occasionally do other stuff on the side sometimes. That’s it. 

“Whatever. I’m going to go check on Ren.”

Party turned around and walked through the front door without a backward glance, but he knew Ghoul well enough to know that he had probably stuck his tongue out or flipped him off behind his back. 

Party went back into the break room, where Ren was still madly scribbling away in his notebook, his eyes intensely focused, sweat beading on his forehead. His jacket was off, and his cut was out in the open. Party’s stomach turned. 

“Hey, man, are you... okay?” Party approached cautiously, because something about the look in Ren’s eyes felt... off. 

Ren ignored him, turning a page in the notebook. Party stepped closer, and upon further examination, he could see that the writing was impossibly small, at least two lines of his slanted handwriting per margin. 

“What are you writing?” Party asked, peeking over. Ren looked up at him, his eyes bloodshot, a single drop of perspiration rolling down the side of his temple. 

“It’s none of your business.” 

“Jesus, okay. Ghoul’s making breakfast, so. Come eat when you feel like it, I guess.”

Ren did not respond, instead continuing to write. 

“Okay,” Party whispered, quietly. How had he gotten stuck babysitting his little brother’s pretentious dying boyfriend again?

Party went back outside. The fruit was sizzling now under the glaring sun, and Ghoul was stirring it with a spatula. 

“What’s up with Ren? I’m not the only one who thinks he’s acting weird, right?”

“He’s writing his last words. Pretty sure, at least.”

“Oh.” He should have guessed. 

“Anyway,” Ghoul said, picking up the pan by the handle and standing up. “‘Scuse me,” he said, gesturing for Party to move out of the way. And– what? Since when did Ghoul ever say “excuse me” instead of just barging through and barking, ‘ get the hell out of my way!’? Since when did he get so… domestic?

Party moved, and Ghoul went inside. Party followed and watched him scrape out the cooked fruit onto plates. He took two to the table, then went back to bring the third to the break room. When he came out, Party had sat down at the table, and looked at him questioningly. 

“Still batshit,” Ghoul said, before sitting down and beginning to shovel fruit in his mouth. 

Party wrinkled his nose. “Can you not?” 

Ghoul looked up at him, juice dripping down his chin. “Can I not what?”

Party gestured toward him. “Eat like… like a creature.”

Ghoul wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glared. “Why are you being so bitchy all of a sudden?”

“All of a sudden? I’ve been bitchy since the day we met.”

“Is this about last night?”

Goddamnit, this guy. How could he be so dumb and so smart at the same time?

“So what if it is?” Party asked, leaning back with his arms crossed. “It was weird, Ghoul.”

“You seemed to feel differently about it when you were blubbering about driving everyone away but me in your life.”

“Fuck you!”

Ghoul stood up, hands braced on the table. “No, dude, fuck you. You care so much about what everyone else thinks. You act like you’re better than the rest of us, like you know so much more, but you don’t. You are just a guy trapped in the fucking desert just like the rest of us, and it’s time you got your shit together and recognized it. I am not the one who wanted to hide it from Kobra and Jet; I don’t give a shit what they think. I am not the one who tried to turn away Kobra’s boy, I’m not the one who kicked Jet out, and I’m not the one who’s afraid to let anybody fucking love them!”

His eyes were glossy, enraged, his mouth was pulled into a tight scowl, and Party felt his face burn as he stared up at the other, his jaw slackened. 

“You love me?” Party asked, his voice quiet. 

Ghoul rolled his eyes. “Of course I do, idiot. You think I’d be alive if it wasn’t for you? I love you, I love the rest of the guys, I love whatever this is that we have, and I love our friendship. And I want them back. I want Kobra and Jet to come back.”

Oh. 

Wanting to slap himself for thinking… whatever he thought, Party closed his eyes. “I don’t… I don’t know how to…” 

“Kobra, we just have to wait for. We have to give him space. But Jet is probably at the Den, and you know it. You’ve gotta talk to him.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Party said into his hands. “I don’t wanna.”

“I don’t care,” Ghoul said, shaking his head. 

Party sniffed bitterly.

“I know.”

Ghoul paused and bit his lip, like he was about to say something controversial. “Look, man. I know you don’t talk about it. But I know you still get scared. I know you think you still have to protect everybody, that you always have to be on the defense. But you don’t. The war is over. Do you get that?” His voice was firm.

“Of course I get it!” Party snapped, his arms folded, and the heated tension in the air rose again. “And you don’t know what you’re talking about, man. You showed up on the last day– ”

“Oh, here we go again with that bullshit. We get it. You saved me. You’re a real fucking hero.” Ghoul scoffed and put his hands on his head, as if in disbelief, turning away, then spinning back around. “You know, you think you’re owed something by everyone, but we were all just trying to keep each other alive. We don’t owe you shit, Poison. The war. Is. Over.”

“Well, sometimes it doesn’t feel like it!” Party had practically shrieked, and found himself collapsing into the booth; he didn’t recall ever standing up. Ghoul was silent, stunned. Party buried his head in his hands as stupid sobs slipped from his throat. “Sometimes it feels like I’m still there. Sometimes I still wake up because I swear I hear bombs, or feel like I’m gonna step outside and watch one of you get blown to bits right in front of me.”

Ghoul just stood, frozen; Party had never talked about this, not once. At least not to him. Kobra had mentioned some “buried feelings,” but never this. 

“And it’s so fucking stupid, all of it. I should be over it by now, it’s been fucking… five years, or something.”

Ghoul cautiously approached, and sat down timidly in the booth next to Party, whose head was still in his hands, tears slipping down his face. 

“I didn’t know. I don’t think it’s stupid.” He was truly at a loss of what to say. He felt guilty now. “I think you did everything to protect yourself and your brother and your friends, and, well. You saw a lot of shit, man. It makes sense. I don’t think it’s stupid.”  

Party inhaled sharply as another sob escaped from his lips and he covered his mouth, trying to stifle it. Ghoul leaned against Party’s almost-bare shoulder, his cheek resting upon the black t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, slightly warmed from his skin. He pressed his lips gently to a thick scar that ran from the join of Party’s neck and shoulder down to just above the gap between his arm and back. “I know you’ve got scars. We all do. And it’s fine…” His lips found another raised line on Party’s jaw, “...If they don’t heal the same way as ours. We all went through different shitty things.” 

Party let his head fall upon Ghoul’s, feeling drained and empty. 

“This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t the plan, you know?”

Ghoul closed his eyes. 

“Sometimes that’s just the way it goes.”

☆☆☆

Jet Star was in the middle of an intense game of poker (he was winning, by the way) when his poker friend nudged him and pointed to the door where a solemn looking Party stood, Ghoul a shadow behind him.

Jet turned back to the game. “I’m all in,” he said, and stood up to leave as the table erupted in angry shouts of defeat. 

They walked outside of the Den and followed Jet to a picnic table, where the three of them sat down. 

Jet raised his eyebrows, waiting.

“Listen, I’m gonna say this, but don’t think you’re completely innocent here, either,” Party said. 

Ghoul kicked him under the table.

“Ow! Damn you. Okay, okay. Look, I’m sorry for kicking you out. And trying to punch you. And yelling at you.” 

Jet chuckled. “I sort of deserved it. Besides, you’re looking a little worse for wear than me,” Jet said, pointing at Party’s jaw. Party knew Jet wasn’t trying to be rude or rub it in or anything, and he laughed lightly in response. “I’m sorry too,” Jet said, looking down. “I know I can be too… tactical with things. I’ve been playing it back in my head, and I shouldn’t have told him like that. Or exposed you guys in the first place. I just didn’t want there to be any more big secrets, and I thought that was the best way to go about it.

Party nodded and let the corners of his lips lift upwards as he looked at Jet. “Yeah, I get it.”

It was awkwardly silent for a moment before Party spoke again.

“Please come home. The place is empty as hell. Minus goddamn Marbles back there. As in, he’s lost his.”

“He writing his last words and all that?” 

Party nodded solemnly. “He’s mad into it, too. Hasn’t looked up all morning. Sweating and shit. He’s probably still working on it.”

Jet frowned. “He’s sweating?”

Party looked at him, confused. They were in the middle of the desert in post-apocalyptic California. It was very normal to sweat when the weather was over at least 90° every single day.

“...Yeah? But that’s pretty normal, you know. For where we live.” 

Jet shook his head dismissively. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.” 

“Let’s go home,” Party said. 

Jet shook his head again. “Nah. I have more poker to win. If I win one more time I get a bottle of lotion.”

The other two friends nodded, and turned to head back to the diner. Once they  were out of earshot, they turned to each other, giggling giddily. 

“We’re going to steal the hell out of that.”

☆☆☆

That night, Kobra still hadn’t returned. 

Afternoon had crept into evening which had faded to night, the ever-cloudless sky darkening from a deep purple to black above the diner, where Renaissance was spread out on the floor of the break room just below the couch (he claimed it was more comfortable that way), his hair sticking to his forehead with sweat, the vein in his neck protruding slightly as he wrote. The worn tip of the pen rarely left the paper, even though the ink was beginning to dwindle. 

Party Poison stood over him, watching concernedly, while Ghoul sat on the couch doing the same. 

“Okay… I know it was normal for him to sweat before. But it’s cold now. This is weird.”

Ghoul gently nudged Ren with his foot. “You good there, man? I think I can smell your hair burning.”

Ren nodded, distractedly.

“C’mon, Ren. You haven’t eaten all day.”

“Not hungry.” 

Ghoul and Party looked at each other, frowning.

They’d been trying for twenty minutes now to get him to stop writing and respond to them to no avail. They were running out of ideas.

The bell could be heard from the diner and Party’s head snapped up.  “Thank god, Jet’s back. He’ll know what’s up.”

Party quickly spun on his heel and jumped over the mattress, heading toward the main entrance. “Jet, dude, Ren got worse–”

His sentence dropped off in the middle as his jaw slackened, his body frozen in place. 

“What do you mean he got worse?” 

Kobra was staring at Party, his hair disheveled, dust smearing his face, skin lightly burned from the sun, his eyes red and glossy. 

“You look like hell,” Party observed. 

Kobra sniffed and wiped his nose. “I need to talk to Ren.”

Party could hardly bring the words to his mouth as he stared at his little brother, for once so certain of what he wanted. “Good luck,” was all he could say as Kobra pushed past him into the break room.

Party, after taking a moment to recalibrate himself, followed, only to be shocked once again to find Ren fully aware of his surroundings and staring at Kobra, for once not looking at the mysterious notebook.  

“Please,” Kobra was saying. “I need to talk to you.”

And to everyone’s surprise, Ren stood up, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Okay,” he said.

Kobra led him out of the break room and out of the diner, where Ghoul and Party watched them take a seat in the sun chairs outside from their position in the break room. 

“I wanna eavesdrop,” Ghoul whispered, excitedly. 

“Don’t,” Party said. 

“But I really, really want to.”

Party walked over to where Ghoul was sitting on the couch and sat himself on Ghoul’s lap, his torso flush against the other’s. He wove his fingers into Ghoul’s hair, and tugged gently. 

“Don’t.”

Ghoul’s voice was a strained whisper as he twitched against the touch. “Okay.”

☆☆☆

The stars were bright above Ren and Kobra as they walked, littered across the sky like that time Ghoul tipped the sugar over onto the counter, sending hundreds of the little grains flying across the slick surface.

“Why’d you come back? Thought you were just gonna... wait me out?” Ren asked, the freezing night air a refreshing coolant against his hot, clammy skin. His faded bangs, the purple almost entirely gone by now, had dried into clumps. 

“Didn’t wanna spend the last of our time angry with you.”

Ren looked at Kobra and his watering eyes. 

“Thank you.”

And that was just enough to send Kobra over the edge; his face crumpled, and he immediately covered his face. Ren instantly stood to comfort him out of instinct, but as soon as he felt the sharp ache that shot through his veins and a swirling in his head, he felt himself stumble, grimacing. Kobra instantly reached his arms out to catch him, and they sunk onto the cracked desert floor where he pulled Ren into a hug. 

They sat there like that for several minutes, a crumpled, interwoven heap on the frigid ground, Ren ignoring the pain and Kobra wishing he could let his own life ooze out on the ground around them and let Ren soak it up and absorb it, giving him all the time he could need. 

“I’ve been writing,” Ren said, staring into the distance.

Kobra sniffed. “Your last… things?” 

“Yeah. And all the things that I can’t tell you.”

Kobra leaned his head on Ren’s shoulder, which sort of really hurt. They both pretended it didn’t. 

“I love you,” Kobra said, his eyes closed, his voice pinched and shaking.

“I know,” Ren said. He just couldn’t say it back. Not like this. “I know you do.” 

Kobra sniffed and removed his head, squeezing Ren’s wrist. He released him fairly quickly because he knew it hurt, but his hands traveled to the other’s and interwove them. Ren’s hands were hot and clammy compared to the cold night air. They leaned their foreheads together, drops of despair clinging to Kobra’s eyelashes as he breathed, inhaling before he spoke. “I’ll be with you, okay? I won’t leave you. I won’t leave you until the very end.” 

“I know.” How desperately he wanted to say it back. 

Their noses were touching. 

Ren could feel Kobra’s breath against his lips, and he wanted to, he wanted to more than anything, but he made himself turn away, made himself release Kobra’s calloused hands. 

“I can’t, Kobra. We can’t. Not… not when.”

Kobra looked at him, solemnly, the last of his tears having been wiped away. “If this is all we have left,” he said, his wavering . “We should make the most of it.”

Ren looked at the moon, wishing it could answer for him, tell Kobra that he loved him too, say that he wouldn’t leave him either, say he too wanted to spend the last of their fleeting time with conjoined spirits. 

The moon stayed silent.

And while they knew things would come to an end eventually, they were currently blissfully unaware of what the few days that awaited them entailed, and just how much Rennaicense’s malady could escalate.

Chapter Text

Chapter 18: Conditions

November 1st, 2014

6:34 AM

Outside the official entrance of BLI. 

Seeped in hard-earned defeat.

“We, the Army of the Desert and proclaimed Enemy of the State, accept hereby that we have surrendered in part to Better Living Industries and accept Better Living Industries’ terms, which require we cross no further than three zones within vicinity of the city at all times. We recognize that any Killjoys found within this territory will be hunted down and terminated. We recognize that we are not to raise any attack on any entity originating from Better Living Industries, nor attack the state itself.”

Jet cleared his throat. “Signed, the Killjoys.”

Jet rolled the scroll up and looked at the leader of BLI expectantly. The woman looked at him, her eyes void of any sign of humanity, her hair cut unnaturally straight. 

Only a small remainder of the army, maybe two hundred people or so, stuck around to hear about the official terms of surrender, including the boys and Fun Ghoul (the truce caller), who had introduced himself upon his waking. He was newly fifteen years old, about a year younger than Kobra. The Killjoys who didn’t stick around had already taken off into the desert, assuming BLI was going to wipe them all out upon their surrender. 

Luckily, the woman in charge, with her creepy, robotic eyes, had an advisor: a balding man with oddly Shakespearian frills under his sleeves, who had convinced the woman to have a shred of humanity and to not do exactly that. You leave us alone, we leave you alone. That was the new policy. 

“Very good,” said the woman. “Now flee. The terms begin when the sun next rises.” 

The Killjoys scattered. It wasn’t much of a celebration, there was no cheering. Just a long trek into the desert, some people grouping together, some heading off in their own direction, some looking around as if they couldn’t pick a direction in which to travel. It was all very anticlimactic.

The four teenagers were among the last type. They looked from one to the other.  No one said anything. 

“Southbound?” Jet suggested, a faint gleam in his tired, grief-stained eye. 

The three other boys looked around at each other and nodded: a silent agreement that they were sticking together. 

Together, they walked adjacent to the setting sun into the fading horizon. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 18.5: Paper Constellations

September 28th, 2004

The Library.

The boy’s feet waved in the air behind him as he laid on his stomach, his face inches from a book that he’d been unable to look up from. 

“Back up a little, Pete, you’ll strain your eyes.”

The boy, around the age of eight, did not back up; he was entranced in the story just like he had been in the last book he’d read, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that. He was amazed at things he couldn’t even comprehend, things like oceans and forests and schools. He wished he could go to a real school. 

The library was a good place to live. It was full of books on anything he could ever want to learn about; the stars, animals, life before the wars, and best yet, pasts that had never existed. Those were the ones he liked the most, the fictional stories. Often, he let himself wander through the rows and rows of books, pretending he was on an adventure like Frodo and Sam, or imagining he could fly, like Daedalus, or getting up to mischief with his friends like Tom Sawyer. In reality, he was surrounded by nothing but words and a radioactive desert, but in his young mind he climbed trees and swam in oceans and made up friends, and he was free. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 19: This Boat is Obviously Sinking

August 1st, 2019

The Diner, again, again, again. 

Two days had passed since Kobra had declared his undying loyalty until Ren’s last exhalation, and the situation had worsened considerably. Ren did almost nothing but write, madly cramming three lines of his rushed handwriting into each margin over and over. He sweated on the bitterly cold nights, and shivered in ninety degree heat. He often mentioned feeling dizzy, or like he was going to faint. He had passed out twice already. 

Jet, Party, and Kobra had all seen fever before, obviously; they had lived in a small bunker where a head cold could spread very easily from person to person. Ghoul, however, was completely fascinated at how a person could be shivering with cold on the hottest of days, and still be sweating at the same time. 

Jet tried his best to regulate the fever by sending Ren outside when he was too hot (during the night), and out in the hot air above the sand when he was too cold, hoping it would balance out his temperature. 

It hadn’t.

It was the beginning of August now, and it was at this point nothing short of miraculous that Renaissance was still alive. 

He slept now, laid out on the brown couch, frowning in his sleep and watched over by Kobra, who clutched his hand, even though the other’s hands were clammy and hot to the touch. 

It was a fairly nice day out, a cool eighty-ish degrees, which was atypical for this time of year. Usually, August was the worst month, often bringing temperatures in the hundreds on the daily. It was too nice a day not to be outside, so Ghoul, Party and Jet sat in the sun chairs out front in the shade, a decaying deck of cards on the small outdoor table between them . They’d tried to get Ren to come outside, but he hotly refused, and Kobra, naturally, was glued to him at all times, so he wouldn’t come out either. 

“Got any threes?” Party asked. 

“Go fish,” Jet said, shaking his head and staring at his hand. 

Party cursed under his breath and picked up a card. 

“Ghoul, your turn.” 

Ghoul was holding his cards, not looking at them, but rather trying to see through the dusty glass door into the break room. 

“Ghoul.”

Ghoul kept his gaze upon the door. “Do you think it’s gonna be today?” 

“Maybe,” Jet said. “But there’s not much we can do  if it is. Play your turn.”

“I mean… like, what if it’s today? What do we even do?”

Jet stared solemnmly at Ghoul. “We bury him. Then we have a ceremony at the mailbox.”

“Will you just play your fucking turn?” Party snapped, quite exhausted of predicting the exact date that his brother’s heart would shatter. 

The group went silent for a moment.

“Have any sixes?” 

“Go fish.”

☆☆☆

Ren was mumbling in his sleep. 

Kobra leaned closer, trying to hear what he was saying, only catching fragments of meaningless words here and there, and potentially the word “sorry.”

Whatever that meant, Kobra didn’t like it, and his knee bounced anxiously as he watched Ren’s eyebrows furrow, still asleep. 

Kobra never wanted to let him get too far, not if any second could be the one that Ren’s heart stopped beating, if every breath could be his last. 

Ren mumbled again. “Life,” (then a word Kobra couldn’t quite catch) “Art,” he finished, before he shot awake, scaring the crap out of Kobra, who screeched embarrassingly. Ren frantically patted himself down. “Where’s my notebook?” He shrieked, hysterically. Kobra procured it from the floor next to the couch and handed it to him quickly and wordlessly. Ren opened it faster than he could blink, snatching the pen from inside and scribbling madly, mouthing the words he wrote, sweat trailing down his forehead. 

Kobra felt sick to his stomach.  

It had been like this for two days, and it didn’t show any sign of stopping. He must run out of paper eventually, Kobra thought, as he watched Ren, blankly. But something told him that Ren would probably start writing on the walls if he had to. 

The others had been giving them their space, and being very cautious of Kobra, like they were stepping on eggshells when they spoke to him. Normally, such behavior would have pissed him off, but nowadays it was nice to just be left alone with Ren. 

And he knew Ren loved him. He knew it. Even if he couldn’t bring himself to say it, he saw the way his eyes flashed with unspoken words every time Kobra said it, felt the muscles in his hand twitch with their fingers woven together, felt it in the way Ren trusted him, in the way that he was spending his last days writing the answers to all of Kobra’s questions in extremely thorough detail. He knew Ren loved him, and he understood why couldn’t bring himself to say it, but still, something horrible itched inside him, something that wanted him to just get down on the ground and beg for Renaissance to confirm that he loved him back. 

Kobra had taken the mattress with Party so he could stay close to Ren on the couch, and Ghoul had taken Kobra’s hammock. It wasn’t ideal, but Ghoul and Party kept their mouths shut about it; they were on thin enough ice as it was. 

Speaking of Ghoul and Party, now that everything was out in the open, they weren’t quite sure what to do. If they snuck off, everyone would know where they’d gone, or rather why they’d gone, and then it was just awkward. 

Now, more than anything, it was furtive looks over whatever meal they were eating, a suggestive quirk of the lips across the room, a thigh squeeze under the table. Frankly, it was exhilarating. 

The sneaking around had been fun, but somehow this different type of sneaking around with less fear of getting caught and shunned forever by his younger brother was even more so.

Over dinner that night, it had been just Jet, Ghoul, and Party. They sat inside, the sun streaming through the windows and casting a golden haze over everything. Ghoul and Jet sat on one side while Party sat on the other. Ghoul and Jet had been animatedly discussing the arrival of someone new to the Den, a girl with a shock of green hair and several facial piercings, talking about some story she had told Jet.

“It doesn’t matter if she can't tell the difference between water and a mirage, she’s cute!” Jet said. 

Ghoul rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I guess, but what happens when she wanders out into the middle of the desert ‘cause she thinks she saw water and forgets her way back? And dies? That’s cute to you?”

“You haven’t even met her!”

“I’ve seen her around, she’s pretty,” Ghoul said. 

Jet rolled his eyes and tilted his head down, pulling up his hair to put into a ponytail, and while he did this, Ghoul caught Party’s eye and distinctly mouthed, she’s got nothing on you, all casually, and looked back down to his plate as if he’d said nothing. Party’s jaw slackened. Had he hallucinated that? Was the heat finally getting to him? Was Ren’s madman-ism spreading? His heart rate was rapid with adrenaline.

“D’jyou burn your face today, Party?” Jet asked. “You’re looking red.” 

Party was going to explode. 

“Yeah, a little,” he said, as Ghoul smirked down at his plate across the table. 

That night, Party waited for the others to fall asleep. Once he was sure that Kobra was out (his hand had fallen limply from Ren’s), he turned his attention to Ghoul’s hammock. 

“ Psst.” 

Ghoul didn’t wake up, so Party crab-crawled forward and nudged the hammock with his foot. 

He had to repeat this process at least twice more before Ghoul got up, his dark eyes sparkling with curiosity in the faint light from the half moon beyond the window. 

“C’mon,” Party whispered, extending his hand and helping Ghoul out of the hammock as quietly as possible. They slipped through the front door, Party holding the bell clapper as not to let it announce their departure.

Still clutching onto Ghoul’s hand, Party led him out to the car. He opened the back door and shoved Ghoul in, who backed up and leaned himself as comfortably as he could against the window, which was conveniently already rolled down a third of the way. Party’s stomach fluttered excitedly as he pulled the door shut behind him and adjusted himself onto Ghoul’s thighs as he worked on unzipping his jeans. 

“What the hell’s gotten into you?” Ghoul said, watching him breathlessly, his pupils blown. 

He looked pointedly at Ghoul. 

Ghoul was frozen for a second, then let out a laugh of shock and disbelief before abruptly sitting up and kissing Party on the lips, his hand sneaking around the small of his waist and pulling him closer. He just kissed him like that for a minute or so, heavy but gentle (Party’s stomach was alight in a feeling he couldn’t quite place), before his lips started trailing down Party’s jaw and to his neck. 

“Dude, no, we can’t leave…”

Marks , he was going to say, but the words were lost through the open window as Ghoul ran his tongue over the spot where jaw meets neck, properly shutting Party up. He moved lower and caught Party by surprise completely when he nipped at the skin. Party jumped and let out a cry, his hips twitching upward; he felt Ghoul smirk against him. Continuing to suck along the side of Party’s neck, he snaked his hand downward and giggled. “Was that just from the bite?” Ghoul teased, whispering. 

“Shut up,” Party said, his breath heavy as Ghoul took hold of him.

After they snuck back into the break room, Party laid on his back on the mattress, his arms tucked behind his head, staring at the ceiling, finding that he was unable to stop smiling. Images flashed through his head: Ghoul kissing him, Ghoul’s head falling back against the window, Ghoul kissing him again. Just Ghoul. Just him . 

Party tried to screw his lips together and get them to stop smiling but he couldn’t, his face aflame, his stomach fluttering madly with what felt not like butterflies but hawks.

This could mean certainly nothing good, he speculated, as he turned over to bury his giddy face into his pillow. The memory of Ghoul’s lips on his own filled his mind again.

☆☆☆

Ren scratched the date  (August 4th) into the top right corner of his page before setting the pen down and starting to write. He had documented up to about the three-month mark of his six-month absence now, and he wanted to be done with all of it by at least tomorrow, if he made it that far.

It had been maybe two hours, enough time to write down the happenings of the entire third month, when the first shadow appeared. 

Something black flickered in the corner of his eye, and he looked up, thinking someone had moved in his peripheral vision, but Kobra and Party were fast asleep on the mattress and Ghoul in his hammock. It was probably about ten in the morning, so Jet had left to go do whatever he did in a day.

He returned to his writing, but the black shape flashed in the corner of his eye again. He swatted at the side of his head out of instinct, flinching when the pain rippled through the rest of his body. 

He tried to ignore it, tried to keep on writing, but it really was very distracting and he was getting almost nothing done. Kobra was beginning to stir on the mattress. Maybe I’ll just take a break for breakfast, Ren thought. Maybe he just needed to eat. 

But throughout breakfast (A new dish of Ghoul’s; Ren had noticed that he had started making good meals every single day instead of rationing the more appetizing canned foods like he normally would. He supposed it had something to do with Ghoul not wanting Ren to eat disgusting caveman food like canned sardines in mustard sauce for a last meal), which was instant oatmeal with canned pumpkin mixed in, the dark shapes continued to sporadically appear in the peripherals of Ren’s vision. He found himself blinking and swatting at them many times, and of course the others noticed as well. 

“You okay, Ren?” Kobra asked. The other three looked at him, having clearly wondered the same thing. Jet had just gotten back, and he had that look on his face, like he was about to diagnose Ren with some other horrible condition that he didn’t want to hear about, so he chose to keep it to himself. 

“Yeah. Just thought I felt a bug flying around or something.” 

Jet opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but he was interrupted by a loud banging on the table from Ghoul in the corner. He crossed his hands in front of his throat, signaling that he was choking. Party rolled his eyes and thumped Ghoul heavily on the back, sending the clump of oatmeal flying onto Kobra’s chest across from him. Kobra scowled. 

“You didn’t have to do that in my direction.”

Of course chaos ensued, Ghoul arguing about how it wasn’t under his control where he aimed, and Kobra saying he should learn how to eat more like a human, and Ren just sort of smiled to himself, glad the attention was on someone else for once. 

☆☆☆

August 6th, Ren wrote into the top left corner. 

August 6th, he thought, as he scribbled mindlessly on the other corner of the page. Shapes flickered in front of his eyes; he tried to ignore it. Something whispered right next to him, and he swatted at his ear and turned to find the space empty. 

August 6th, he thought, trying to keep his train of thought. He looked down and realized he had written “August 6th” three times. 

The sound itched his other ear this time, but he forced himself to keep writing. He was probably at around the fifth month in his documentation. Only that one and one more, he told himself as he blinked, trying to clear away the specks. 

He hadn’t slept well last night. 

In his dream, he had been in water. So, so, so much water. Ren had never seen so much water in his entire life. He was kicking, fighting to stay above the surface. Where could he be? Where could they have even fit this much water? Kobra was in a vessel, something Ren knew the name of but couldn’t quite remember. Wood. Kobra was reaching out to him, saying something, but he was drowned out by the sound of the water. Ren had kicked and treaded, trying to stay afloat, but he felt the exhaustion pull his limbs down, down, down. 

He had then sunk to the bottom of the water and somehow found himself in a library, the very library he’d grown up in. Ghoul was there, crouched in the corner, his face grotesque and horrible as he tried to shove an entire book down his throat. Party was sprawled out, quite dead looking, eyes blank and empty on the table. Ren went to take the book from Ghoul, but found his feet stuck to the ground. He’d pulled as hard as he could, and felt his foot tear from the rest of his leg.

Needless to say it hadn’t been a barrel of laughs. Ren looked down at his notebook and found that his writing had sloped upward into the previous line, so the two crashed into each other like bolts of lightning. “ The thunderbolt falls on an inch of ground,” Ren thought, “but the light of it fills the horizon.”  

What had he meant to write again?

Closing his eyes in concentration, he tried to remember where he was in his story, what exactly he was supposed to write down next, but all he could think about was the sound of his leg snapping, skin tearing, the severed and bloody foot left on the wooden floor of the library.

☆☆☆

“Shh, shh, shh, it’s okay, you’re okay…” Kobra held Ren’s head against his chest as he rocked, Ren hyperventilating and clawing at his own skin. Kobra took his other hand and took both of Ren’s within it, holding them to his chest as well.

“Shh, I’ve got you. I’ve got you, love…” 

It had started five minutes ago, when Ren had twitched uncomfortably. He had  then looked down at his skin and with great alarm, swore there were ants crawling on him, hundreds of them, that he could feel them. He clearly still felt them, because he twitched and writhed under Kobra’s touch, whimpering and sobbing against his chest. 

“They’re not there… there’s nothing there… just me…” Kobra kept talking, kept hushing, kept stroking Ren’s hair until the other’s frantic breathing stuttered, slowing as he gradually fell asleep from exhaustion, becoming heavy on top of Kobra. 

Kobra leaned back against the armrest of the couch and repositioned Ren, so they were both more comfortable before continuing to gently stroke his hair. 

Ren’s notebook laid open on the floor, the page covered in what looked like the scribbling of a child. They weren’t even letters or symbols anymore, just a wild, meaningless maze over the lined page. The date, August 8th, was in the top corner, the only actual writing on the sheet. 

Ren twitched in his sleep, muttering something about the essence of water. Kobra rolled his eyes fondly and brought his lips gently to the top of Ren’s head, his hand never ceasing its gentle stroking of his hair, which felt sweaty under his touch. 

Kobra looked at the notebook again. It seemed that Ren could no longer write, that he was no longer capable of stringing together the words in a way that made sense. But knowing Ren, Kobra knew he wouldn’t give up trying to tell as much of his story as possible, not until he was in the ground, not until the last force of nature made him stop. 

☆☆☆

The night air was hotter than normal, as the day had held a high of around 110 degrees. Fun Ghoul and Party Poison were sitting on the hood of the car, something that Party would never have allowed a few months ago. They stared up at the star-strewn night, not saying anything. Party’s stomach was fluttering widely as he snuck a glance at the black hair and dark eyes, the rips on the knees of his jeans, the way he bit the skin from his lips. 

The impulse in Party’s stomach lurched, and without even realizing what he was doing, Party had placed his hand on Ghoul’s cheek that faced the desert, and turned his head so Party could see him, just see his face. The thing inside him reared again and Party kissed him, their mouths connecting and disconnecting as their lips moved, breath heavy, both of their stomachs filled with fresh butterflies. Party felt Ghoul lean further into it, putting his feet down from where they’d been set upon the car and pulling Party in by the waist. It was quiet around them. Party twitched at the touch and felt Ghoul smile; he knew he was amused by Party’s ticklish-ness. Party moved his hand from Ghoul’s cheek and wove it into his hair, careful not to tug it; he found he had no desire to turn this into something more. 

And then, as the adrenaline picked up again, he felt Ghoul’s hand finding his own and clutching it tightly, their sweaty fingers interlocked. Party pulled softly from the kiss; he had to tell him. He had to know. 

“Ghoul—”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Yeah.” 

“Well, do you—”

“Yeah. I do.” 

Party pushed his lips to the other’s, unable to contain the smile against them. Ghoul smiled too, and it caused them both to laugh, and to break the kiss once more. They leaned their foreheads together, and Party lowered his hand to stroke Ghoul’s cheek. 

“I thought you didn’t…”

“I thought you didn’t.”

Their heads together and the stars keeping watch, for a moment they could forget where they were, who they were, forget all of the death and fever and terrible shit that was happening inside. Right now it was between them, and not a breath of a whisper existed outside. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 20: Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves

August 11th, 2019

The depths of Renaissance’s unconscious mind.

The water thrashed around him, filled him up, icy in his lungs. He was gasping for air, but it only dired the situation; the water stuttered in his throat and he coughed, flailing to stay afloat. Transient and relentless, the water stung every part of him. He looked up to the sky, bruised and tormented, and wished that he would die. 

But death did not come.

The water’s biting tentacles enveloped him, smothered him, blinded him, and still death would not come. 

And then swarmed the insects. 

How they got into the water, Ren had no idea, but they were crawling over every inch of him, burrowing into his skin, swimming through his blood, cutting into his brain, and he cried out to anything that might hear to give him the release of death, to let him go, let him fall, let him leave this fucking place.

But death would not come. 

☆☆☆

He awoke gasping, sure that he could still feel the water in his lungs, feel the bugs crawling into and under his skin. 

“What, what is it?” Kobra was there in an instant, one knee resting on the couch. 

Nothing made sense. Ren’s vision swam with black specks, and although he was not aware of it, he thrust out his injured arm. 

He felt Kobra pull away the sleeve and recoil, yelping. Not quite able to make out what he said, he knew Kobra had sprinted off somewhere. Maybe to come back with a weapon to finally just kill him. 

He closed his eyes, but soon heard Jet’s voice warbling in the room, he couldn’t understand nor care what he said. 

“Oh, Jesus,” he heard him say. 

He wasn’t real, didn’t he know that? If Jesus was real he would have done Ren a favor by now. 

“God is dead,” Ren corrected him, heavily. “Neitzche.” 

There was a moment of silence. 

“I don’t know what to do,” said Jet. 

Do about what? Hadn’t they discussed this already? 

Ren’s arm felt so, so, strange. He reached over with his other hand to touch it and jumped, startled, when all the other guys yelled in protest. 

“Don’t touch it, Ren,” Party said, gripping his red hair, anxiously. His roots needed to be re-dyed. 

Actually, Ren’s own hair really needed to be fixed, too. He reached out and fingered the split ends of his dark hair, which now reached his shoulders. He needed a haircut. 

“I need a haircut,” he said. 

“Okay,” Jet said, slowly, calmly. “We’ll give you a haircut.” 

He sounded odd. In Ren’s blurry vision, he noticed Ghoul was all the way across the room. What was he, contagious?

“Ghoul,” he said, feeling slightly delirious. “Why are you over there?”

Ghoul shook his head, looking pale. 

Jet, Party, and Kobra were talking hushedly to each other, furtive and concerned. 

“Spit it out,” Ren said, nausea swimming in his stomach. 

“Okay, man, you should go back to sleep. You need to rest, okay?

Ren started to mumble in opposition, but was interrupted by a small bottle being pressed to his lips. He didn’t panic, just swallowed. He didn’t care what was in it. If they had poisoned him, at least he would be away from here. 

☆☆☆

It was quiet around the table outside. It was a beautiful day, the heat was comfortable (that is, bearable) and there was a gentle breeze, but the mood around the small table did not match its setting. Ghoul rested with his chin on his arms, which were crossed atop the table. Party was gripping his hair, elbows resting on the tabletop. Jet’s elbows also sat on the flat surface, his mouth pressed to his hands, clenched together. Kobra stared at a scratch in the table.  

“I mean,” Party said, his hands still tightened in the sides of his hair. “I mean, what can we do? I've never–”

“Me either,” said Jet, not moving his position. “I didn’t even know that could happen. I mean… I’ve seen maggots with, like, rotten food, but–”

“Don’t say that word,” Ghoul said, looking green again. 

“I didn’t know that could happen to a person. ”

“I mean, we can’t, like. What do we do?” Party said, his voice low with worry. 

Jet leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, the wheels in his brain turning. “I think, at this point, we just try to wash him off, especially the– you know.” Ghoul shuddered. Jet continued. “Give him his haircut, Ghoul, you can do that. I’ll wash his arm off and maybe one of us can just scrub him down a little. If that’s, like, good with you, Kobra.”

Kobra didn’t respond. He felt numb. 

The others looked at each other, and Jet shrugged, softly, as if to say, “what can you do?”

“Okay, well. He’s sedated. That should keep him out for a few hours.” If it doesn’t kill him, he wanted to add. “Let’s get going, I guess.”

It was a terrible, awful job. They dragged Ren behind the diner, where they had the metal basin one could wash themself in, followed many feet behind by an apprehensive Ghoul, who carried the first-aid kit and a bar of hand soap. 

Jet removed Ren’s jacket and had Party hold Ren up and drape his arm over the edge of the basin. That arm had to be one of the most horrifying things he’d ever had to look at, and he’d seen another person blown to pieces thirty feet from where he stood. The wound was a decaying, dark color, and squirmed with the small, white worms. Dark lines stretched across his skin where his veins were, and the area smelled exactly how it looked.

“Jesus,” Party gagged, and Ghoul backed away even further so he now stood a solid forty feet from the group, pale in the face.

Even Jet looked a little queasy as he opened the bottle of hydrogen peroxide (“It kills infection, maybe it’ll kill them?”) and tipped it over the wound, which sizzled furiously, the small white entities slowing their movement in response. 

Jet began to wipe off the area with a wet cloth, digging in slightly to displace the larva that burrowed there. He poured another small round of peroxide on the wound and followed it with water, before patting it dry and wrapping it in gauze, noticing quietly how little of the roll remained.

“Okay, um. Ghoul, you wanna cut his hair now? The sooner we get the part with scissors out of the way, the better.”

“Is it covered?” Ghoul called, peering from where he stood. 

“Yes! Get the hell over here.” 

Bits of hair fell to the ground, what was left of the faded purple streaks wetly met the sand. Ren was slumped over the basin, and Ghoul tried to get as much of it on the outside as possible so the tub wouldn’t be full of hair. They didn’t have shampoo, but they had water and a glass, so Ghoul poured the water over Ren’s head into the basin (careful not to accidentally waterboard him) and scooped up the water that fell into the bottom with the glass, the scraping sound of glass on metal grating his ears. He trimmed Ren’s bangs so they no longer hung in front of his eyes, cut his hair in the back so the ends no longer graced his shoulders. He feathered the bangs, the way he knew Ren used to wear it back before he left. Ghoul sat for a moment, his hands wet, thinking. He wanted to dye Ren’s hair back; it was tradition to make a body colorful before it was buried. Making his decision, he left Ren outside under the watch of Kobra (who hadn’t moved much or spoken since they’d been outside) and came back with a new bottle of bleach (Party’s roots needed to be touched up anyway; he could use it later) and an unopened bottle of purple dye. They had taken pretty much the entire stock from the mall, so they had a good variety of colors.

Ghoul came back and kneeled by Ren, who looked uncomfortably bent over the basin, and applied the bleach to the front streaks of his hair, and soon after a wash, the purple. He washed out the sun-dried dye and admired his work; Ren’s hair looked just as it had before he’d disappeared.  

He looked around. It didn’t seem like Jet or Party was coming back, so Ghoul sighed and picked up the hand soap, slippery under his wet hands, and feeling incredibly invasive, stripped Renaissance of his shirt. 

“Here, let me,” Kobra said. Ghoul handed him the bar of soap, relieved. He figured if anyone should touch an unconscious Renaissance, it should be someone who’d done it while he was awake. 

Ghoul excused himself to the diner and left, and Kobra was left alone with Ren. 

Carefully, he picked Ren up and set him in the basin. The bottom of his pants would get wet, but it was nothing the sun wouldn’t dry. 

Kobra opened a new bottle of water and poured it over Ren’s skin, the water pattering into the basin below as it slid over him. He leaned the other forward and dragged the hand soap over his shoulder blades, noticing a volley of new scabs and scars littering his back that hadn’t been there before. He traced his finger over them, watching it make a clean line in the white film of soap. 

He dragged the bar in gentle circles, running over the bumps of his spine, the slight curve of his underfed torso; there was less of him than Kobra remembered. 

Kobra poured the water over his back, cleaning away the soap, and repeated the process on the front side, then patted the skin dry before letting the sun take over. Kobra lifted Ren from the basin, leaving his shirt on the sand, the bottom of his pants dripping a little, and tipped the basin with his foot. He then, with difficulty, opened the back door one-handedly and made his way to the back room. No one else was inside, but all outside in the front. He set Ren on the couch, and then went back outside. 

He poured one more bottle of water into the metal tub, followed by Ren’s frayed black sleeveless shirt. He wrung it out, watching the brown water flow from the tightened fabric, and repeated the process after adding a little bit of soap to the mix. 

After wringing it out for a final time, he tipped the basin and turned it upside down, spreading the shirt over the surface for the sun to dry. 

He went back inside to find Ren opening his eyes, sleepily, looking morbid.

His brown eyes landed on Kobra (whose stomach dropped), and he said, “Where’s my shirt?”

Kobra took a second to snap out of it before he shook his head and said, “um, I washed it. We cut your hair for you. Ghoul added the purple again.” 

Ren smiled, feeling the newly trimmed edges of his hair.  “I didn’t dream,” he said. 

“Yeah.” Kobra didn’t know what to say. 

“Sit with me.”

It wasn’t what Kobra expected, and it took him a second to react. Ren, for once, seemed lucid, not like he was losing his mind. Ren sat up from where he’d been leaning against the arm of the couch, and patted the area next to him. Kobra wordlessly sat where Ren had been sitting, his back against the corner between the armrest and the back of the couch, and let Ren lean back onto him, the bare skin of his back warm against Kobra. It was kind of an odd position, because one leg stayed touching the floor and one was parallel to Ren’s body which lay atop his own, Ren’s head on his chest, but Kobra couldn’t complain. The last thing he’d do was complain.

Ren’s hair tickled Kobra’s face, and Kobra brought his lips to Ren's head, his arms wrapped around his bare torso. Ren giggled, drowsily, and Kobra sighed, knowing that once again, Ren’s mind was being reclaimed by whatever had it in its clutches. Kobra kissed just above his ear, and Ren turned his head to the side so his bare neck lay exposed, covered in goose-bumps. Kobra hesitantly pressed his lips to the soft skin, and Ren’s breathing grew heavy as he craned his neck even further, clearly lost in the feeling, too lost to remember his we-can’t-be-in-love-if-I’m-dying rule. Kobra flattened his palms against Ren’s stomach, feeling the skin there, feeling the warmth that meant he was still with him, and deepened the kisses he placed along Ren’s neck, slow, wet, intentional. When he reached the spot just at the edge of his jaw, Ren let out a whimper, and Kobra barely bit back his own noise, conceived from just how long it had been since he’d heard that sound. Ren tilted his head backwards, so he was looking at Kobra upside down. Kobra softly cupped the underneath of Ren’s chin, and Ren giggled again, his pupils odd. Kobra placed a kiss to the tip of his nose, and Ren sighed, tilting his head again with a weird, almost nuzzling type of motion. 

“You’re so pretty,” Ren said, breathlessly, staring straight into Kobra’s eyes, and even though wow, wow, the last thing he wanted to do was stop this, it was then that he knew they could not continue. 

Ren wasn’t in his right mind. The slightly distracted look in his eyes, the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead, the way he was just letting this happen, told him that.

“Don’t stop,” Ren said, his head falling back to the side so his neck was exposed again. God, how much Kobra wanted to take advantage of this situation, kiss the breath out of him, feel his pulse under his lips, but he didn’t. 

He could have kissed Ren. He could have felt the taste of his lips on his own once more before those lips became cold, could have touched them while they still held breath, felt his pulse under them before it became still, but he didn’t. 

He couldn’t. 

☆☆☆

When he awoke, the room was dark and cold in a way that suggested the sun had not yet risen. He lay in a more comfortable version of the position he’d been in when he and Ren had fallen asleep sometime yesterday, but his weight had been removed from Kobra. Everyone else was asleep; he couldn’t help but notice Ghoul and Party were intertwined, sleeping as closely as people could. Renaissance was nowhere to be seen. It was quiet in the room, and his breath appeared in misty white clouds amid the chilly air. 

Then, a strangled sound came from the diner, as if one had screamed with their mouth closed, or into their sleeve. Either way, Kobra rolled off the couch so quickly his head spun and leaped over the mattress on the floor, accidentally catching Ghoul’s arm with his foot. 

Ghoul’s exclamation of pain fell on deaf ears as Kobra skidded into the diner, where he was just in time to see Ren throw the notebook he so treasured across the room, clutching his hair as he fell to curl in on himself, looking absolutely and utterly deranged. 

“I can’t… fucking….” His voice was strangled in his throat, and he clawed at his face. Kobra fell to the ground next to him and caught his hand before he could inflict any more self-injury and asked, desperately, “What, what can’t you?” 

“A diner, home-style cooking, Southern Zone Six. There’s more in the visitor’s center two miles to the east, I can’t take this anymore, just stop listening, just come fucking kill me already !” The last part of the sentence was screamed, Ren’s reddened eyes wide and psychotic, before he pushed himself up from the ground and started running, pushing open the door roughly and sprinting like nothing Kobra had ever seen. Kobra took off after him, running past a confused Ghoul standing in the doorway to the breakroom. 

“Ren! Ren, stop it!” 

But Renaissance did not stop, he just kept moving, even when he tripped and fell onto his hands, he pushed himself up and kept propelling himself forward, forward, forward. 

At this rate, he’s gonna run himself all the way to BLI, Kobra thought, before he realized maybe that was exactly what was happening. “Stop! Why are you running?” Kobra’s lungs burned as he yelled, his sore muscles aching in the cold. 

Ren turned around, still half-running, and yelled, “Stop following! Turn around! They’ll find you, I don’t want them to find you, I didn’t mean to–” He had tripped and fallen onto his already-bleeding hands again, and miraculously, he pulled himself up and continued running at full speed. 

Kobra took a deep inhale, and then sprinted, pushing himself harder than he ever had in his life, until he was in front of Ren. He grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to keep him still; Ren was thrashing around, trying to wrench himself from Kobra’s grasp. 

“Stop, I need… I need… let me go!” Ren threw a punch, which was luckily weak enough the Kobra kept his hold on Ren’s jacket. 

“What, what do you need?” Kobra tightened his grip as Ren grunted with effort, trying to get away. 

Ren’s voice was erratic and choked with sobs, and barely intelligible. “They’re listening, they’re always listening, and I told them where we were, I didn’t want to, I just wanted them to take me, not you, and I have to get them before they get you, I–” 

They were interrupted by a low sound in the distance, something they both knew well to be the sound of a car. 

It came from the direction of BLI, not the diner. 

“They’re coming for us,” Ren said, suddenly no longer fighting to escape Kobra, a horrified glaze over his eyes. 

A huffing and puffing behind them told Kobra that the rest of the gang had arrived, the faint beginnings of a sunrise lighting the horizon to the east. 

The car was coming closer now, followed by several others, their white, sleek bodies rumbling across the sand. 

Three clicks sounded behind him; he knew that Jet, Party, and Ghoul had all drawn their guns and turned off the safety, and he reached down to do the same. When his gun was cool to the touch, he realized that he still had the metal one on him, not his normal ray-gun. But it had the same controls, so he ignored the way it felt atypical in his hand, heavy, silver and cold. 

The approaching cars did not slow; instead hands holding guns protruded from the window and began to fire. 

The Killjoys sprung into action immediately, Ghoul quickly hit three of the outstretched hands so they dropped their guns and quickly withdrew their limbs back into the cars. The first car grew closer and closer until at last it was upon them, slowing briefly as three Dracs deftly jumped out of the moving vehicle and continued to fire. 

The three fired back, except for Kobra, who was focused on keeping Ren, who had started yelling about “not meaning to,” calm. Ren broke away from Kobra and started running, and at this point, Kobra just let him. 

It was absolute chaos. Dracs were hopping out of cars and firing left and right, Renaissance was running around, pleading with the Dracs for god knows what, the Killjoys were yelling to each other, and just when Kobra thought things couldn’t get any more hectic, a small girl, hardly older than five, tumbled out of the back seat of one of the cars, her hands bound behind her back. She took off running, tripping and falling on her face before pushing herself back up with her feet alone and sprinting toward Jet.  Jet stopped shooting and looked down at the curly-headed little girl, beyond confused. “What the– who are you?”

But in his distraction, a Crow had taken aim at Jet, and was about to fire; Kobra raised his gun and–

BANG. 

Everyone jumped and froze, not knowing what the sound was. Kobra, repelled backwards by the force of the handgun, regained his balance and rubbed his ringing ears at the sound, absolutely puzzled. Ray guns didn’t make a noise like that, nor did they have that much recoil…

The Crow at which he’d aimed seemed frozen in time as a hole in the very edge of his torso began to bleed, and he fell to the ground to reveal Renaissance behind him, who had raised his shaking hand to the bullet wound in his chest. 

“What,” Kobra whispered. 

Renaissance, pale and wide-eyed, crumpled and hit the dust with a soft thud. 

The three killjoys, the girl, and the seven remaining BLI soldiers were quiet, likely out of confusion over what the hell exactly had just happened. 

Kobra was running, sprinting, but he felt nothing around him, not the dust under his feet, not the wind on his face, not the eyes watching. 

He slid on his knees to where Ren lay, bleeding heavily now, staining the sand around him a dark brown. 

Kobra put his left hand to the side of Ren’s body as he hyperventilated, his right hand shaking over the bloody mess that was Ren’s chest, as if it was a wound he could heal, and he was so confused– guns didn’t make people bleed that much, they didn’t make that noise, they didn’t go through people… 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” was all Kobra could get out through his accelerated breathing, just touching Ren’s hair, feeling the slowing pulse at his temple.

“Damnit it, please. Please get up,” he said, uselessly, desperately, his eyes blurring. He touched the wound, as if that would help, or maybe just to feel proof that this was really happening; his hand felt warm and sticky as it dripped red. Ren’s eyes leaked too, and Kobra brushed the other’s cheek, whether to clear the dust or the tears, he wasn’t sure. Red smeared the skin. 

“I’m sorry,” Ren said, a sob choking his words. “I’m sorry I let them find you. They were... they were only supposed to get me.”

“I know. I love you,” Kobra said, knowing his time was fleeting, knowing, somehow, that he had less than a minute left. 

“I love you... so much. Always.” Ren squeezed Kobra’s bloody hand a final time; his breath stuttered, slowed, and stopped, his pulse under Kobra’s left hand beat only once more. 

The lights flipped off. 

Kobra couldn’t see the blood, couldn’t feel the heat on his back, just the stillness of the body, the air, his mind. 

His world had gone quiet.

– End –