Work Text:
A light sleeper in a bad neighborhood, in a small town? Dante was bound to see a few unexplainable phenomenons as time went on.
The most intriguing of those unexplainable bumps in the night showed up at two a.m., one of those nights where his parents were out at some comedy show they wouldn’t be back from until the sun began to rise.
Woken up by rattling - like, like...metal rattling, Dante thought? Yeah, metal rattling, the confirmation crossed his mind as he sat up, blankets rustling from the sudden movement. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, blearily looking around for the source of the noise that so wretchedly woke him up.
His eyes found their way to his window. More accurately, the sneaker disappearing from view the moment he saw it.
With a shake of his head, Dante laid back down, wishing he hadn’t blinked the sleep away already. It was just someone on the fire escape. Nothing he needed to question. And certainly not at two in the morning, when he was in his pajamas, and not when he knew he wasn’t going to be falling back asleep soon…
Dante sat back up to turn his lamp on, a sigh on his lips, ambling in the mess surrounding his room for the cheap, knock-off Converse that were perfect for being a teenage delinquent on the roof in the middle of the night.
Of course he was going to ask why someone was going up to the roof in the dead of night; the drug dealers stayed on the ground, and the delinquents only dared so far as to sit outside Dr. D’s window. That was on the second floor, so someone going up to the roof? Color Dante confused and intrigued.
Throwing a jacket on proved to be a good idea, Dante decided, the chill of a cold November night hitting him full-force as he slid open his window. Winter had come early, the first snow having hit nearly a month ago in October, so the frostbit as if it was January.
“You!” Dante yelled, his breath visible in the air, looking up to find the person wasn’t quite to the top of the fire escape yet - a few more flights of stairs and then a ladder and they would be out of Dante’s view. It was useless with his voice lost to the wind. Still, he swore they hesitated before climbing the next flight of stairs.
Great. This was most definitely the best way Dante could spend his night. He could still be asleep, far, far away in dreamland. But no, he cursed, clumsily climbing onto the metal framework. He had to be the curious type. Curiosity killed the cat; Dante was the cat who saw no discernible reason he shouldn’t climb to the roof of an eight-story apartment solely to chase a stranger.
He clearly made excellent decisions. Yeah, he was confident about that, even after a stumble that nearly busted his face wide open, in his rush to catch his potential murderer before they disappeared from his view. Maybe he could jump roofs and Dante would never see him again if he had to take the time to keep his jaw from getting mangled.
Paying attention during gym could’ve helped a lot - he was panting, exhausted. Four more flights to go. Who sanely decided sprinting up all the stairs was a good idea when there was a perfectly functional elevator inside?
Donuts were going to be consumed later to counteract all the calories he was burning as he found himself almost at the roof, calves burning and back muscles crying from the betrayal of leaving his soft, warm bed.
The stranger better be interesting, in some way, shape, or form, or Dante was going to mug them for taking his time.
Of course, all the physical exertion didn’t mean a damned thing when he was climbing the ladder to the roof -
And right as he was about to climb far enough to see over the edge, Dante only registered someone popping ut and shouting “Boo!” inches away from his face before he lost his grip on the ladder.
Dante was panicking even before he fully realized his fingers slipped and he was freefalling backward, he was going to die and he was going to be a splat on the ground and he was going to fall to his death and, and, wasn’t his life supposed to flash before his eyes or someone, was this really how he died?
A hand shot out to grab him by his stupid Batman shirt. He had no idea why that was the idea that latched onto him when his brain was in overdrive; he was going to die in a goddamn Batman t-shirt and fuzzy Batman pajamas.
Dante stared. And stared. And stared, his erratic breathing not getting any steadier as the stranger slowly pulled him back up where he could safely grasp the ladder again.
If Dante wasn’t too busy being terrified, he would say the stranger - his almost-killer and live-saver - was rather pretty. Even in the bad lighting of the moon and the brick-building as backdrop, which was a feat in itself.
“You alive in there?” The stranger asked, leaning over the roof further, flicking Dante on the nose, letting go of his shirt. “Can’t have you dead yet, right?”
“Yet?“ said Dante, fumbling over his words as he scrambled to the gravelly roof, lying on his back to stare at a cloudy night sky. Mostly happy to not be splat on the pavement...His mind caught up, said he wasn’t in danger anymore, but his body was disagreeing backed on the flush to his face and the erratic heartbeat and heavy breathing. Typical nearly-dying symptoms.
The stranger nodded somewhere in Dante’s peripheral vision, sitting next to him with crossed legs. “Yeah, ‘yet’. Still got a few years left for you to cause some anarchy.”
There was a question on anarchy slipping off the tip of Dante’s tongue as he rolled on his side, but his words died in his throat. The stranger came into focus, his mind leaving fight or flight
Dirty cherry red hair down to their chin. Oddly distinctive hazel eyes... He couldn’t help but blurt, “Do I know you?”
“Do you want to?” the stranger said, a languid smile plating on their face, watching Dante’s brows furrow in curiosity.
“Maybe. Who are you?” Dante propped himself up on his elbows, studying the stranger once more. Too relaxed.
The stranger hesitated, only slightly, but Dante caught the split-second wait. “Party Poison. He/him. Who are you, doll?”
“What’s up with the superhero name?” Dante questioned instead of answering,
“Call it a ‘family tradition’,” the stranger - no, no, Poison - snickered, air-quoting around family tradition, pushing his grimy red fringe out of his face. “You can have a weird codename, too. If you want.”
Did Dante think it wise to give a near stranger - who’d nearly killed him, by the way - his name? ...The answer was a definitive no. What nerdy codename could he give? He was never good at naming things (his childhood stuffed animal was an elephant named Elephant, for God’s sake).
Dante grinned, his old Italian classes popping up in his head as he thought.
“Fun Ghoul. Call me Fun Ghoul.”
Poison returned the grin, a mischievous glint to hazel eyes. They nearly glowed, but Dante was just imagining that, right? “...Fun Ghoul. I like it. Nice of you to join me.”
“I was seconds away from falling to my death,” Dante hummed, narrowing his eyes at Poison’s nonchalant tone.
Poison snorted, lazily snapping his fingers and then fiddling with his fingers on his other hand in his lap. “You didn’t, though. You chased me up here, if you recall, doll.”
“Because you were outside my window at two a.m. being loud!”
“Could’a gone back to bed,” said Poison with a shrug. He was drumming his finger on his leg, now, a mysterious thrum of energy in every direction he looked. Then Dante finally took note of what he was wearing.
Dante stifled a laugh, looking Poison over. Poison was no priest, but he pulled off the clothes sinfully well. A perfect time for Dante to remember he was hopelessly homosexual. “You don’t look like you’re even allowed in church, y’know that?”
“I know,” Poison winked, batting his dark lashes. “But then again. I make people get on their knees for a different reason.”
With a face as red as Poison’s hair, a swoosh in the bottom of his stomach, Dante sputtered, “That was uncalled for! Where do you even buy a clerical collar, anyway?”
“Same place ya find a Raven in the dead of night in Batman ‘jamas - here and there,” Poison grinned, no doubt about the shade of Dante’s face, “You gonna ask what I’m doing, or you gonna offer me some scones during our small talk sesh?”
“You nearly murdered me, this is NOT small talk!” Dante huffed, defensively crossing his arms, but lacking most of the malice that usually went along with that sentence. “Yeah, no, yeah - what the Hell are you doing out here?”
“Tryin’ to find my wings.” Poison’s face was dead serious as he stood up, kicking up gravel. Dante’s eyes widened, shock and a thousand ramblings filling his mind about what Poison should and shouldn’t do. This sounded a bit too much like a dark grunge song Dante heard on his mom’s Pandora station.
Then Poison broke into a childish, mischievous grin. “Just kiddin’. Not quite that delusional. ‘M lookin’ for somethin’.”
“On a rooftop?”
“In the city. This the tallest building this side of town, ain’t it?” Poison gave a lazy grin, walking backward until he met the upraised barrier at the edge of the roof.
Dante had to refrain himself from jumping forward to pull Poison away from the ledge, realizing Poison knew exactly what he was doing. Dante sighed. “City-gazing? You woke me up for city-gazing?”
“Hey, you followed me up here. You didn’t have’ta do that,” Poison shrugged, tossing his hair out of his face once again, to turn and look over at the city.
Standing up only to walk next to him, Dante had to admit, the city - even the bad part of town - had a mesmerizing lull, a mix of dark windows and yellow streetlights and a light blanket of fog covering the ground.
You certainly couldn’t find anything from this height.
Before Dante could ask bout it, though, Poison answered the unspoken question. “Kinda useless, I know. Ya really stop carin’ ‘bout the objective every once in a while. ‘S too pretty up here to be worryin’ ‘bout anythin’.”
“Maybe nothing except getting murdered by the guy who woke you up at two a.m. by climbing to your roof and making death jokes.”
“He did save your life - maybe be a little more appreciative? ‘Sides, you’re too cute to be concrete splatter.” Poison gave a crooked, mischievous grin, reaching over to pull gently on a lock of Dante’s curly, ratty black hair for emphasis. He was going to blame the cold air for his red face.
Blush or cold or not, Dante rolled his eyes and swatted Poison’s hand away. “Whatever, you’re the reason I climbed up here in the first place. What’cha looking for?”
“Anything out-of-place in this sunset town, I guess. Anything to make it more real.” Ah, fervent teenage hatred of dream hometowns.
Poison didn’t sound like he was from here, though. Dante just noticed; he didn’t have the same lilt to his voice, didn’t drawl his r’s, didn’t enunciate in quite the same way, not like the way Dante was told he had after growing up in the same town his whole life. And he dropped the beginnings of his sentences, and the ends of his words, and it was a dead giveaway that he wasn’t born here.
The revelation was so jarring, so obvious, that Dante had to blink himself back to reality, where he was staring at Poison.
And Poison was staring back at him. Oh, wait.
He had pretty eyes. Dante was way too intrigued by delinquents, always had been, but this one was in a clerical collar, for God’s sake.
God’s sake! The irony, Dante laughed quietly to himself.
“Where are you from?” Dante blurted, looking back at the lights of the city below them. The windchill was starting to pick up, whipping his hair around his face, but he didn’t bother moving it.
Poison shrugged. He’d make a bad priest. “Here and there. Maybe a little from Wonderland.”
“Maybe a little from the asylum down in Battery?” Dante laughed, a quick thing lost to the wind.
It made Poison smile, though. He had a cute smile; it was a complete contradiction to the cocky and mysterious vibe he had. “Maybe I’m just someone you dreamt up, Ghoulie. You sure you really woke up?”
Ghoulie. He liked the nickname. Ghoulie...Fun Ghoul. He liked the name, it suited him, he realized; he liked the way Poison said it.
He could be Fun Ghoul, for now. With a boy called Party Poison, standing on a roof-top, with the city bowing belong him and the cold nipping at his face, he was Fun Ghoul.
“If I haven’t woken up yet, I’d like to know why my subconscious dreamed up a hot guy in priest’s clothes.”
“Aww!” Poison swooned, sweeping his arm out over the edge in over-exaggeration. “You think I’m hot?”
And like that, the moment was ruined, but Ghoul wasn’t too sure he liked the road it was going down had Poison kept everything serious. He was too tired to start contemplating the secrets of the universe with a stranger.
“Not the point I’m making at all!”
Poison pouted. This better be a dream, Ghoul thought; he was too pretty to be real. “That’s the point I got….I am hot though, right?”
“You’re ridiculous!”
“And you’re the one arguing with a stranger on a roof-top,” Poison retorted, tsking. Ghoul would be calling him ridiculous again, but it was a fair argument.
But hey, Ghoul was intrigued he didn’t want to go, now, because then he’d never be able to figure out the mystery behind the cherry-haired boy on the roof.
As if on cue, Poison gave him a one-over. “Aren’t you cold? You should be getting back to bed. Bit late out isn’t it?”
“Obviously,” Ghoul deadpanned. “I wanna stay out here with the pretty boy.”
“So we are to the ‘I’m hot and you’ll admit it’ stage?” POison quirked a brow, pushing more cherry-red strands of hair out of his face.
Ghoul snorted. “I think we’re at the ‘you cocky son of a gun’ stage. Bonus points for you though, since you’ve kept my attention this long.”
“And I’ll lose it, now, thank you very much. You’ve gotta get back to bed and I - clearly didn’t find what I wanted.” Poison’s eyes peered over to him - Ghoul swore for a second they were cat’s eyes, glowing white; but they changed back to that lovely shade of hazel. He should go back to sleep.
“So are you leaving, then?” Ghoul asked. The answer was already there, though.
Poison winked at him. “‘Course I am, doll. See you ‘round?”
Before Ghoul could say “good-bye” - Poison had already given him one final grin, spun on his heel, and ran to the other side of the roof - jumping off.
Ghoul gasped and began running toward the ledge before he heard the metal clang of Poison hitting the fire escape.
A grin and a wink and a mystery. Ghoul was screwed.
He wanted to know more.
_
The next time Dante saw Party Poison, it was two months later - in the heart of winter -, and Dante had all but forgotten about that night on the roof.
He still thought about it, sometimes, like when he was trying to fall asleep, but he’d mostly moved on from the cherry-haired not-priest on the roof.
So it was fitting that the moment he was sure he was going to put that encounter to the back of his head and accept that he was never going to see Party Poison again, or figure out what was going on with him, he saw him while he was walking home.
And, how fittingly, Poison wasn’t just someone walking on the street, but it was still the red of his hair that pulled Dante’s eyes to him.
Dante had his backpack slung on his shoulder, complaining in his head about the weight of his fifteen thousand notebooks he refused to leave at home, when bright red caught his eye.
It wasn’t a drug deal or blood, (which was surprising for the area he lived in) but it was red hair, and it was Poison, clambering up the side of the fire escape of an apartment building a block or so away from Dante’s building.
“What is it with you and fire escapes?” Dante asked, stopping at the entrance of the alley and leaning against the grimy red brick.
Poison stopped cold for all of two seconds before he turned to look in Dante’s general direction - before zeroing in on Dante and crouching on the slanted railing of the ladder, which probably wasn’t safe or comfortable in the slightest and for dramatic effect. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Right back at’cha,” Dante nodded, still waiting for an answer.
Poison seemed to realize that (and then nearly lost his balance, but Dante refrained from doubling over in laughter. He actually liked talking to Poison, thank you very much. But...the way he caught himself. It was almost like he levitated or something?). “Oh - I’m still lookin’ for what I was lookin’ for last we talked.”
“Haven’t you figured out by now that it isn’t working?” Ghoul asked, tilting his head in confusion. “I mean, if it’s been two months and you still haven’t found it…”
Then again, some people searched for one thing for years on end before giving up. And even then, never gave up hope.
Maybe Poison would be one of those people.
“It’s less...a specific thing I’m searchin’ for,” Poison sighed. “‘M lookin’ for a...feeling, I guess.”
“Seems like you’re doing a shit job of it,” Ghoul snickered, setting his backpack on the ground. He had no intention of climbing after Poison, but his backpack was heavy and surely nothing on the ground could ruin his stupid notebooks. (Odd that he assumed that, considering the last time he left his backpack on the ground he set it in a puddle and his laptop wouldn’t turn on for a week.)
“I am.” But Poison gestured him to start following up after him, and for some reason, Ghoul started walking. This was why he was so getting murdered in an alleyway when he was older. “You might be able to help me, though. You did last time.”
Ghoul stopped walking and crossed his arms with a playful smirk. He was almost below the fire escape, and the situation made him think of Romeo and Juliet, a little, except it was him and Poison, and a grimy alleyway instead of a balcony. “Did I now?”
Poison nodded. “Yeah, you did. I can’t place it, but….you did. I’m testing something now, though, and I have to go, it’s a little pressing.”
“What could possibly be- “
“D’ya want to me at the cemetery, some time?” Poison blurted, cutting Ghoul off, and looked over his shoulder at the rest of the fire escape; to the roof, where he was hopefully going instead of breaking into apartments, but what did Ghoul know?
“That’s a little weird, dude.” Was it a good idea to meet a stranger at a cemetery? Absolutely. Ghoul was totally going should Poison give further instruction.
Poison looked back to Ghoul, and once again there was something in his eyes other than the hazel Ghoul remembered, but then it was gone and he was probably going crazy. “Yeah, I know. It’s fine - it’s - er. Look, if you want, meet me at the Burial Gardens on - oh, fuck, Saturday night at midnight?”
“I’m never going to - “
“Saturday night, midnight,” Poison cut him off, again, more confidently as he repeated himself. He looked like he was going to add something to that, but shook his head, and as Ghoul watched the red splay around his face, Ghoul didn’t notice wherever he pulled the rose from.
But he did know Poison pulled out a rose during that time, because seconds later Ghoul was holding a jet black rose that had landed perfectly in his hands, furrowing his brows in confusion; when he looked up once again, Poison was scampering up the fire escape, quicker than Ghoul thought was fair to anyone who ever tried to follow him.
He wasn’t planning on being that idiot - today, at least, because he had to get home before his mom asked where he was, and Gabriel was grounded so he couldn’t use that excuse.
Poison’s voice echoed in his head - Saturday, midnight, Burial Gardens - as he accidentally plucked his thumb on one of the rose’s thorns.
Dramatic and cryptic and downright unnatural. Dante was even more intrigued than he was the night on the roof. How great.
This was so going to get him killed.
But those thoughts faded from his mind before he even got home - there was a little black kitten in a different alley, right next to his apartment building, with an injured ear that he couldn’t help but pick up and bring home.
His mom and mama instantly took to taking care of him, and as he and his mama decided on naming her - the kitten - “Crow” (because mom didn’t have a say in that) and keeping her, Poison was the last thing on his mind.
_
“He has bad taste.”
Dante blinked, looking up - confused to find someone sitting in the lowest branch of the pine trees the cemetery held.
It was Saturday night, a quarter to midnight, so of course, Dante showed up to the Burial Gardens, holding the jet black rose that hadn’t miraculously died tight in his hands to avoid the thorns.
There was snow blanketing the ground and even Dante was having trouble coming to terms with the weather in his winter jacket, but the person sitting in the tree only had a muscle tank top and skinny jeans on, so they must be freezing.
“Who are you?” Dante asked, squinting at them. It was dark and cemeteries didn’t generally have the best lighting, so he was surprised he’d even been able to discern what they were wearing.
The person laughed. It sounded almost like Poison’s laugh, actually; it didn’t quite fit the person, a bit too high-pitched. Didn’t go with the mysterious cool demeanor. “His brother. You can call me Kobra Kid.”
“That sounds stupid as Hell,” Dante pointed out, huffing, seeing his breath in the air.
Kobra shrugged, glancing down at his lap - Dante took a moment to realize he was looking at what he was doing, slicing the skin off an apple with a knife. A switchblade? “Says the guy named Fun Ghoul. At least I’m not a swear.”
“What are you doing? Don’t only, like, old people do that?” He gestured to the apple and switchblade, but quickly shoved his hands back in his pockets. It was cold out, and Dante’s winter gloves were still tucked away in the winter bin, so he only had the shitty Walmart mittens that did absolutely nothing to keep him from frostbite.
Kobra shrugged once again. He didn’t seem like the type to show all too many emotions, and Dante wasn’t sure what he thought about that. “Heard he had a meeting here, so I came. Seems he might show you up, though. Odd.”
“Why’s that odd?”
“Not my place to tell. Want a slice?” Kobra gestured vaguely toward with a slice of apple on his switchblade. It was a green apple, so not in season, but even if it was it wasn’t like Dante was going to accept it.
“My mama always told me to not take food from strangers.” He was half-joking. Not because of the imprinted life lesson, no - but his mama was going to kill him regardless of the food he consumed while out here if she ever found out he’d snuck out to meet a stranger in a cemetery. Not even his mom could talk her out of grounding him for eternity if that ever happened.
Kobra went quiet, not saying anything, and Dante was just about to accept that their conversation was over when Kobra looked him dead in the eyes (even from so far away; it sent a shiver down Dante’s spine) and blurted - “He’s as much trouble as a black cat, you know.”
“Lucky for me, I like black cats,” said Dante, a stubborn set to his jaw. Crow was a testament to that.
It was kinda weird that Kobra brought up black cats, though, he thought offhand. The day he’d found Crow was the same day he last talked to Poison...Huh. Weird.
“They do have a bad rep,” Kobra nodded. “Poison does as well, but you don’t know that yet, do you? Either way, I do so hope Crow is doing well.”
“She’s doing well! The vet says she should be able to walk right, even with a limp, in a few weeks after she gets out of the cast!” Dante beamed, happy to talk about his kitten -
Wait a second.
Dante hadn’t told Kobra about Crow.
And it was smack in the middle of winter break and he never actually texted anyone; there was no way Kobra should know about Crow.
He was about to say as much before Kobra spoke again, a smug tone to a blank face, still slicing that damn apple. “Annie tells me things, you know. I hear you’re taking good care of her, and she’s fond of the name. Annie’s kind-of jealous.”
“Who the fuck is Annie?” If Dante was on high alert now, could you really blame him? He had reason too. Did he even really know Kobra was Poison’s brother? Sure, the weird names matched up…
Or maybe they were, like, a criminal brother duo or something, and were about to kidnap Dante to, like, torture him and demand ransom or something. He wasn’t worth too much, but he wasn’t going to say that.
“The talking fox, naturally,” Kobra hummed, still as expressionless as ever.
“A talking fuckin’ fox? You have got to be fucking with me by now,” Dante scoffed, crossing his arms despite how the cold said that was a stupid, dumb decision made out of spite and not the human instinct to keep oneself alive.
“My brother’s eyes glow -,” Kobra said.
And then he wasn’t in the tree anymore, he was inches away from Dante, their noses barely touching.
Dante tried to process how he’d gone from there to there so quickly; nothing came up.
“- And I can do that, and you think the weirdest thing around here is a talking fox?”
Swallowing nervously, Dante’s brain tried to come up with a witty reply or, or something, and came up with one for one in his sad, sad life! “I think we’re not in fuckin’ X-Men or something.”
Okay. Maybe it wasn’t the best.
There was a lot more processing going on here then there was thinking. As you can probably tell. Fuck, Dante needed to stop being dumb for one second -
Kobra rolled his eyes, going back to his place in the tree in the blink of an eye. He didn’t sound annoyed, though. “I mean, if we are the X-Men, I’m so waiting for Jean Grey.”
“She caused the apocalypse.”
“And? Supposedly I’m gonna do that too, I need to do it with a bang, don’t I?”
Dante stayed silent for a moment, for once in his life. Tonight was a night of firsts, it seemed. “That;s….Sounds lovely. You do you, bro. D’ya really think Poison’s not gonna show up?”
Kobra opened his mouth to answer, and then shut it abruptly, and Dante watched with close scrutiny as he went from the tree to sitting on one of the benches on the path, overlooking some of the graves.
“What is it?” Dante asked, rushed, because suddenly Kobra was standing in front of him again, and every sense of neutrality in his face was long gone - there was anger and a bit of panic and something Dante couldn’t place.
It was probably whatever went along with the red spark in his eye.
“We need to go. We need to go, now,” Kobra mumbled, half-incomprehensible, barely able to be heard above the blood suddenly pumping through Dante’s body as Kobra roughly grabbed him by the arm and broke into a run.
“I did not agree to this!” Dante was shouting. Fuck, he didn’t mean to shout. But could you blame him? He didn’t know what was going on and why was Kobra running and why was he dragging Dante along with him and Dante was going to trip over some of the loose pebbles if they kept running this quickly and he dropped the rose he was carrying -
Kobra didn’t let go of him. “Shut up! Look - you wanted to see Poison, right? Well, Poison is in trouble and you must be useful in some way if he kept talking to you. So how would you like to see how good you are at not getting stabbed?”
“Not getting - where the fuck are we going?!” Dante asked, getting increasingly panicked because - hey, his mom would SO kill him if he got stabbed!
And he didn’t want to get stabbed in general, thank you very much!
“This might rearrange your stomach, give it a sec - “
And before Dante could give any protests to that, he wasn’t in the cold of the cemetery - in fact, he had no idea where he was, because everything was pitch black and there was slimy cold feeling crawling across his skin and his jacket didn’t help with it at all.
That all lasted a split second.
The next time he looked around, he certainly wasn’t still in the cemetery, and Kobra was still dragging him, and his lungs were screaming in protest, and everything was still too dark, but they were inside, and there was…
There was...Dante didn’t know. It was still unnaturally dark. He couldn’t see anything, not even his hand two inches away from his eye (the hand that Kobra wasn’t dragging).
Finally, Kobra stopped, Dante crashing into him from the lack of warning, but before he could even grunt Kobra’s hand was on his mouth to shush him., having turned around to face him. “Don’t say anything,” Kobra whispered harshly. “‘Anything’ gets you killed. You are so not cut out for this but I’m gonna trust that you’re not the guy in the beginning of a horror movie. Stay here, stay dirty, and stay dangerous. Got it?”
“No, not at all, where are you - “
What was it with Kobra and cutting him off? “You’re Fun Ghoul right now, leave Dante behind. Pois trusted you had somethin’ special, let’s see what, yeah? He’ll be pissed at me if you die.”
Kobra was the rambly type when he was panicked, okay; Dante - no, no, Ghoul - filed the information away for later use, and by the time he’d done that Kobra was already gone, the place where his hand was abnormally cold.
And, in his hand, the one Kobra had been holding…A knife. A switchblade. Like the one Kobra had been using to slice the apple.
Ghoul didn’t know what to do. What was he supposed to do? Besides not getting himself stabbed, at least?
Then the blanket of silence that had been allowing him to keep panicking dropped, almost like someone had just dropped a curtain.
Instead of the silence around him, what he heard was the sound of a fight - rustling clothing, grunting, screaming, metal smashing into metal.
Generally not good stuff in general, which made it even worse, because it was still too dark for Ghoul to see anything and his hearing wasn’t the best and he couldn’t figure out exactly where the sounds were coming from or how close they were to him and he was suddenly clutching Kobra’s switchblade until his fingers were numb.
Don’t get stabbed.
Well - how could he not get stabbed if he had no idea who he was fighting or what he was doing or why it was so goddamn dark or what was going on in general and oh God he was starting to hyperventilate, okay, okay, breath, breath, Ghoul, everything’s going to be alright, everything’s gonna be alright…
Ghoul squeezed his eyes shut, like it was doing to help anything, or like it was going to somehow be darker than the world already was around him. If he was rocking on his heels it was because he was this close to breaking down and crying right there, sobbing then probably failing his only goal of not getting stabbed.
“Are you okay?”
Ghoul froze, then jerkily threw his arm out, the one with Kobra’s switchblade in it.
His arm was grabbed easily before it ever reached its target.
There was no reason to, he knew that, because it was dark and there was nothing he could see in a blanket of darkness that thick, but Ghoul cracked his eyes open, and found himself face-to-face with glowing eyes.
Glowing white eyes that illuminated a face that Ghoul knew. Poison! “I - I - what the fuck is going on?" Why did your brother drag me here? What’s happening? Why are people fighting? Are you okay?”
Ghoul caught sight of the blood dribbling down Poison’s chin, starting at the large tear in his lip; the blood above his eyebrow, the bloody nose. What was going on?
If Poison was getting that bloody…
Poison moved his hand to give Ghoul a reassuring shoulder pat, talking gently. Usually Ghoul would hate being babied, but he was confused and panicked and wanted to know what was going on. “Okay, okay...Fuck, Kobra shouldn’t have brought you. He’s one dumb fucker sometimes, okay, so - he handed you that knife, right?”
Poison gently held up Ghoul’s hand, delicately touching him as if he was about to break into a thousand pieces and maybe he was, to where the glimmering knife was illuminated by Poison’s eyes as well and Ghoul could see it.
Ghoul nodded numbly.
“Okay, so, I hope you’re not gonna have to use it.” There was something uncharacteristically soft in Poison’s voice, but maybe that was because Ghoul was uncharacteristically confused and scared. “I hope so, but you might. This is hard to explain, but Kobra and I and my friend Jet - we’re all, um, special. And I think you are too, and everything is really confusing right now, I know. But if anyone that isn’t Kobra, me, or the guy with the blue ‘fro - Jet - come close to you, I want you to take this knife and…”
While Poison’s speech trailed off, he slowly guided Ghoul’s hand in a fluid motion to where the knife was gently biting into the leather of Poison’s jacket right beneath his ribs. “...And stab it up. Got it?”
“Kobra asked me earlier and my answer is still no,” Ghoul muttered; his brain was short-circuiting, but he somehow managed to understood Poison and whatever Poison was saying. “But - but I got - but - I can’t see anything, how can I…?”
“Then we hope to Destroya I was right about you,’ Poison said softly, fingers brushing the side of Ghoul’s cheek before pushing the knife close to his own heart and running off. Taking the light with him.
So, Ghoul hid.
He’d vaguely seen some of his surroundings while Poison was talking to him, and he was standing behind some tall wooden looking crate.
He couldn’t see anything to hide well, and he didn’t exactly know where this fight was going on or who was in it or why, but he knew where his friends were, and he scampered onto the top of that wooden crate, squeezed his eyes shut and prayed -
It wasn’t his own God he prayed to. He’d never been the religious type; didn’t really believe in God, actually, but a voice in the back of his head echoed Poison’s call of ‘Destroya’, and that’s who he found himself sending his hopeless prayers too.
He kept murmuring to himself, hope for him, hope for Poison, hope for Kobra, hope for whoever Jet was, hope for Crow, even, as the sounds got worse and worse, around him, circling, circling, closing in, closing in, the sound of something slicing through the air before Ghoul threw his eyes opened and caught the hand of who’d tried to slice his throat.
And he knew they’d tried to slice his throat, because he could see in a tinted blue when he opened his eyes, and the person he grabbed had a hunting knife in their hands and didn’t fit the description of anyone else.
“I’m tired,” Ghoul hissed, and with every syllable, he felt a pressure building and building in his chest, “I’m tired, of being scared.”
“I’m tired,” he started again, shoving the person - who seemed surprised (Ghoul was surprised at himself, too, but that was veiled behind how pissed off he was beginning to feel) - off him, off the crate. “Of being in the dark!”
The blue glow got brighter and brighter. “I’m tired - of panicking!”
“Ghoul, no - !” echoed throughout the warehouse, and they were in a warehouse, Ghoul could see that now, with his blue-tinted vision.
It was too late.
“I’m tired of being confused!”
And then the blue got blinding bright, and the loudest boom Ghoul had ever heard echoed in every direction, and Ghoul was suddenly falling to the ground - when did he stop standing on the crate?
And why was everything so silent?
Maybe Ghoul would’ve gotten his questions answered if he wasn’t thinking about them while he was falling to the ground. His skull didn’t sound good impacting on the ground and that’s when his head started to spin and he was starting to think that maybe all those questions could wait until his head stopped hurting.
_
“So...I’m a bomb?” Ghoul asked, sitting up and gently putting his palm against his forehead and the killer headache that had taken root.
He’d passed out on the floor of the warehouse, according to the blue-haired ‘fro guy that was apparently Jet.
Jet was the one who was explaining to him what happened - not what was going on, because Destroya forbid Ghoul know what was happening.
So, apparently the world was not tinted blue, and it had been Ghoul’s eyes glowing. In fact, all of him had been glowing.
And then he’d, according to the combined accounts of Poison, Kobra, and Jet (since they were apparently the only good guys around at the time), blown a blue concussive force in all directions. Out of his body.
Exactly like a bomb.
Jet nodded. “Um...From what we saw, yeah. The more important thing is that you’re okay.”
“I think - Oh! Shit! How long have I been out?” And why did he not ask this earlier? “And where am I? I need’ta get home, fuck, I need to get home.”
“It’s been a few hours...So, yeah, it’s daylight out, and Kobes says you’re still in the same town, but, um - “
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck is there anything serious I need to know of? Other than my moms going to skin me alive for sneaking out and then becoming a bomb and then blacking out?” Ghoul cursed under his breath, eyes frantically darting around (even though his head screamed at him not to do that) to make sure he looked the same and still wasn’t, like, glowing blue or anything.
“Um...no?” Jet almost sounded confused. “Not that we can see. But there’s also nothing to point to your whole self-destruction thing…”
“If there’s any real issue I’m sure my cat can figure it out,” Ghoul mumbled, half-joking and half not as he clumsily stood up, adjusting the way his jacket sat on his shoulders, looking around for an exit.
Or Kobra. He seemed to be his own transportation system.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea…” It sounded like a warning, and Jet seemed like the kind of person who didn’t give those out too sparingly, but Ghoul was going to ignore it.
Of course he ignored the only sensible one he’d met in the last few months.
“Well, I don’t really care,” Ghoul sighed. It was like he was disappointed in himself for not caring about Jet’s warning, He probably was. “I’ve got a mom and mama and a kitten to get back to that are worried sick.”
Jet winced, slightly. “Yeah, um...That’s gonna be a little worse than you thought it would be. According to Kobes...um, you knocked out everyone’s power. Like, whole city.”
“I am so, so dead…” said Ghoul, knowing worried mothers were the worst to go home to after they’d had their reunion hugs, because then they gave you the whole spiel about whatever you did and how it made them worried and how they wanted you to be careful and he had two moms so you can imagine how that’ll go.
_
To his credit, he did not, in fact, get murdered by his mothers, but he was grounded for about eternity (or until they forgot), and was definitely stuck in charge of cleaning the litter box, and definitely was not going to be texting anyone any time soon.
But hey. No bombs went off. That was a score, right?
It really was a shame Poison just kept showing up in his life….