Every word you left behind
“You’re so bad at this!” Fun Ghoul exclaims, as Party Poison steps on his foot for the third time in five minutes.
Party lets out an exaggerated gasp, “How could you! I’m an amazing dancer!”
Fun rolls his eyes, “Maybe on stage when you flounce around, not when you’re dancing to Queen.”
Poison steps back with their mouth hanging open in mock offence. “You know what, I don’ have to deal with this!” Party walks over to the radio and flips to Dr. Death’s channel
Shut up and let me see your jazz hands
Remember when you were a madman
Party turns back to Ghoul with a look of utter glee on their face, a grin plastered there. Fun lets out a groan, feigning annoyance that Poison got their way.
“Oh, c’mon, you know you wanna,” Poison says cockily while replicating the shenanigans they do on stage. Huffing, Ghouls pretends to play his guitar part in the song. It’s like second nature to him at this point. The idea to start a band was originally pitched by Poison, because of course. Everyone was excited about the prospect, and they immediately began searching for any instruments and tools they could find.
“Thas the spirit!” Poison is having the time of their life, dancing (more like strutting dramatically) back and forth across the living room. They found a mic lying around and are screaming their lungs out with their voice coming from the radio. Occasionally, Party would circle Fun and get in his face as they played their respective parts of the song, flirting violently the whole way like they do on stage.
That was also second nature, being with Party. At first, they were awkward, not sure what to do with their feelings after hiding them for years. It wasn't till Ghoul admitted they were pastel for Poison that everything seemed to fall into place.
All the way in Battery City
Raise their open, filthy palms
Like tiny daggers up to heaven
Their song is cut off by Dr. Death’s familiar voice.
“Bad news from the zones, tumbleweeds. It looks like Jet-Star and the Kobra Kid had a clap with an Exterminator that went all Costa Rica and uh. Got themselves ghosted, dusted out on Route Guano.”
The rest of the broadcast is drowned out by the guttural sob that escapes Party’s mouth. Their eyes are unfocused, staring into nothing as if the faded concrete floor will whisper that it’s all a lie. That they aren't truly gone.
Party still isn’t quite sure they heard that right. Because it couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t
Jet, with their comforting presence and deadpan observations. And Kobra, his perfect equal, with his sharp tongue and quiet demeanour.
Kobra? Jet..? Ghosted? It couldn’t be true. It was a lie. They couldn’t be gone.
They were going to walk through the door any second, their raid a success.
More sobs and screams escaped Poison’s soul. They sink to their knees on the carpet, Fun’s arms winding around them, his tears mixing with theirs on their lap.
Fun also still hasn’t quite processed what has happened.
Jet and Kobra always seemed so untouchable; they all did, and now they were gone. Now it was just him, Party and Girlie.
As if on cue, Ghoul’s thoughts are cut off by a soft voice from the doorway, “Fun? Party? What’s going on?”
Looking up, Fun sees Motorbaby in the entrance to the room, her eyes wide with concern, looking lost. Fun doesn’t want to leave Poison. Not in their current state, curled over their knees, their hands vicelike around his arms. But he needs to get The Girl away so she doesn’t get more panicked and concerned.
Slowly extracting himself from Party is like physically ripping out a piece of his soul, and Poison seems to feel it as well, holding onto any bit of flesh with more conviction. As soon as Ghoul begins to attempt to stand, they claw at his arms and sob harder.
Walking towards the doorway on shaky legs, he puts his arms around her shoulders and guides her from the room. “What’s going on? Why is Party crying?” Her eyes get impossibly wider as she stares up at Fun in confusion.
Fun is lost. What did he do? How does he explain what happened?
He hasn’t even given himself enough time to truly believe it; he can’t bring himself to speak it out loud. He can’t comfort two people who just lost their only family.
“Uhm, Party is just kind of sad right now.” Wow, great save! “Why don’t you go practice your shootin’?”
The Girl positively lights up, all worry dropping from her face to make way for a massive grin. “Okay! Don’t worry, I’ll be safe!!” she yells over her shoulder as she scurries in the direction of the “back yard” (it’s really just the old patio from before The Wars), her curls flying behind her like a ghost.
Ghoul felt awful, lying to her like that, but he couldn’t console both of them right now.
Turning back towards the faint cries coming from the living room of the diner, he steels himself to deal with Party.
Party has collapsed in on themselves further without Ghoul to hold them up; they’ve made themselves as small as possible, the only movement being their hands, which are grasping at anything they can and the occasional hiccups and sobs that rack their body.
Two steps are all it takes for Ghoul to reach them, dropping to their knees beside them. Party immediately latches onto all bits of Ghoul they can find. “Shh, it’s okay, baby. I’ve got you.” Fun wraps his arms around Party again.
They collapse into him, going boneless. “Kobra…” “I know. I know…”
He doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know if there was anything else to say. Anything else to do other than hold his lover and cry with them.
