Chapter Text
It was quiet. Among all the flashing lights, the chaos and the movement, no sound reached their ears. That was the main thing they noticed.
The barrel of the gun was cold like ice and sharp, digging in under their jaw and forcing their head to slam back against the wall behind them. It forced them to look up at the man holding the gun. They met his eyes.
Scenes flashed in the corner of their vision. Electricity flashing and sparks flying, and familiar faces falling to the ground. They ignored the scenes and kept their eyes locked with his.
They knew what would happen next. It wasn’t hard to figure it out.
The man’s face twisted, cold apathy contorting into a wide, evil grin.
Everything was getting brighter, louder, but somehow there was still only silence. A horribly loud silence, like ringing in their ears, and all they could see was his face.
They took one last shaky breath. And then it happened. They heard the click of the trigger, and their vision filled with white light and pain. And in that moment the silence was broken with a loud blast that shook the world, an ear shattering, all consuming explosion so loud it slammed through their head and rattled their brain inside their skull. So loud that they could feel it as they faded, and it was still reverberating as their vision went to black and their mind filled with silence.
~~~
When Poison opened their eyes, they were staring up into a cloudy night sky. The silence was gone. The blast was still reverberating through their skull, but now it was matched by a head-splitting ringing and behind that, a wailing chorus of sirens.
Fuck. Fuck. Their head was pounding with this numb, staticky ache. Everything hurt.
Where the fuck were they? Party’s thoughts were fuzzy, and they willed their mind to zero in on the moments before they opened their eyes, but all they found was a heavy white fog. They couldn’t think, their head was fucking splitting in half, not to mention they couldn’t hear shit.
All they could hear, faintly, was sirens, and they were getting closer.
The thing is, Party hadn’t lived in the City in a long time, but they still had their lobby rat instincts. Sirens mean you get up and fucking go. But, shit, it didn’t even seem like they could move, with their head buzzing and ringing and their whole body feeling broken like this. They moved their arms and felt the bones grating into place as they lifted their hands over their face. Their palms were covered in blood.
Fuck, what the fuck, there was a ton of broken glass in their hands. What the fuck.
Okay, shit, they were getting distracted, and suddenly their surroundings were lighting up with flashing red and blue. The sirens were louder than ever. They had to go.
They forced themselves to sit up, and their head swam but they pushed through it, letting their vision fade to black for a moment as they got to a standing position. They felt the crunch of glass under their feet but they couldn’t hear anything. That fucking ringing was filling their brain and making their ears numb.
Poison had hoped that once they were up their surroundings would be familiar. They weren’t. It didn’t really matter because they were in full escape mode, and their brain was so fuzzy and staticky anyways. They only really saw what they needed to: the blown out windows of the shop, where the broken glass was scattered over the pavement, and the corner of the building, and the alleyway beside it. An alleyway, dark, dirty hidden from the red and blue lights that filled the air and glittered on the ground. Yeah, that would work.
It would have to. Stumbling, covered in glass and with the blast still ringing in their ears, Poison started running.
~~~
The alleyways were like a maze, but with each step the sirens faded more and more, so Party kept running. They skidded clumsily between brick walls and around corners. They tried to clear their head as they ran, thinking back to that white fog before they had opened their eyes.
Right. The City. The fight. The Girl.
They started to remember the firefight, the way it had all gone so silent all of a sudden. And then the pain, and that bright light and that indescribable sound.
They were so lost in that shaky memory that they didn’t see the man running toward them until they slammed straight into him.
“Fuck!” they cried instinctively as they stumbled back, hearing their own voice echo strangely between their ears.
The man almost fell, but managed to only stumble before righting himself. Poison, meanwhile, was still struggling to catch their balance, and the fact that their head was already spinning didn’t help. The man reached out and put a hand on Party’s arm to steady them. He said something fast and urgent looking, and Party tried for a few seconds to figure it out from context clues before giving up. “Honey, I can’t hear you, like, at all, my head just fucking exploded or something.”
He repeated it, to no effect. Poison stuttered helplessly.
Finally the man seemed to catch on. He grabbed Poison’s hand and said something that they could reasonably assume to be “Run.” And then he took off, pulling Party around the way they had just come and then starting back off through the labyrinthine alleyways.
When they stopped running Poison felt like they were going to pass out. The ringing in their ears was starting to fade, but the pain wasn’t, not to mention the dizziness. And from what they could tell they were now covered in a horrid sticky mixture of sweat and blood. And they still had fucking glass sticking out of their palms and probably elsewhere, and all in all they were fucking miserable.
Their new friend didn’t seem to be much better off. He was holding himself up against the wall with his right hand while his left hand- wait, no, left hook- was clutched to his chest. He was breathing hard and his eyes looked almost wild with panic. And he was muttering to himself, though of course Poison couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“Hey,” they said, as they tried to blink the dizziness away. “Hey, kid.”
He looked up at Poison, still with that panicky look.
“Um. What the fuck just happened?”
The man spoke, and Party could actually hear his voice now. “I d-don’t know- I just had to run, I’m s-sorry-” He was going a mile a minute, almost hyperventilating. Poison took a shaky step toward him.
“Hey, slow down a sec, sweetheart. My ears are blown to shit, it’s hard to hear when you’re going that fast.”
He stopped and started just breathing, which was better, Party supposed. Maybe the kid was bluelined on uppers or some shit, maybe that’s why he was running.
“Where are we?” they continued. “What district is this?”
“D-district?”
“Yeah, this ain’t downtown but I’ve never seen this part of the Lobby.”
He stared at them. “The what? I- I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He sounded so distressed, and he was starting to hyperventilate again. He turned, leaned back and slid down against the wall, making his already small form even smaller.
Poison kind of swayed awkwardly, staring at this small, panicking man in front of them. Then they slowly got down to their knees.
“Hey. Hey, what’s your name, dust angel?” they said softly, meeting his eyes.
“P-Patrick.”
“Alright, Patrick. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on. And I don’t think you do either, and I think maybe we can help each other.”
“Who are you?”
Party was almost surprised to meet anyone who didn’t know their name. But then they remembered that nothing made sense right now. This wasn’t the City and it sure as hell wasn’t the Zones, and they were starting to get the idea it wasn’t the Lobby either.
They swallowed and tried for a reassuring smile. “Name’s Party Poison,” they said. “Leader of the Fabulous Killjoys.”
Patrick didn’t look reassured by that. All things considered, Party didn’t really expect him to. He just kept staring at them and looking almost skeptical.
“So,” Poison said anyways. “Can we do that? Can we help each other?”
“I don’t think you can help me,” Patrick replied almost flatly, wringing his hands as best he could when one of them was a hook.
“Why not?”
“Well, I was trying to quietly get out of the city without any police. And you kind of, uh, blew up a building right next to me. Which wasn’t really helpful.”
Party frowned. “Alright, yeah. Fair. But then why’d you help me get away?”
“I don’t know,” Patrick huffed. “I don’t know what to do. I’m kind of panicking.”
“So am I. Those pigs out there think I bombed a fucking building and also I might have traveled through time.”
Patrick stared up at Poison. Then he said, in a tiny voice, “I think my best friends are dead. And I think I killed them.”
Party blinked. “Oh. Wow, okay, yeah. Yours is worse.”
“I mean, not me, it wasn’t me me. I’m not a killer, I just, I think it’s my fault. I think I was involved.” Patrick clumsily adjusted his fedora with his hook hand. “That’s why I was running. Th- the police, I think they’re after me- they’ve got to be after me, right? If I really did do that, they’d know, they’d find out-”
Poison sighed. “Alright, listen, kid. I can help, okay? Since to be fair I probably did blow up that building. Accidentally, but still. Let me help.”
Patrick blew out a wobbly breath. “Okay. But how?”
Poison grinned, even though they weren’t sure if they should be happy about having convinced a maybe-murderer to cooperate. Although, really, they found it hard to believe that the small, pretty, anxious little man in front of them could kill anyone.
They stood, and then winced as their head throbbed and their vision went dark for a second. Shit, they had almost forgotten about that. Suddenly Patrick was standing with a hand on their shoulder, looking more concerned than what seemed to to be his default.
“I’m fine,” they said, getting their balance.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m shiny, I promise. Come on, sweetheart, let’s find a road without any cops on it.”