Work Text:
When Awsten first left Battery City, this was not what he had expected of his newfound free life at all. Not that he had expected much of course, as the pills were still wearing off at the time, but the thought of seeing one of his new killjoy friends standing speechless in front of the honest-to-the-witch Fabulous Killjoys definitely hadn’t crossed his mind.
No matter how surprised Awsten was with the circumstances, Otto’s reaction was completely in character and wholly expected, as Geoff will testify. Desert-born Otto would not shut up about them on regular days, and from his rants city-born Awsten and Geoff understood that they were a big fucking deal out here.
They had all met Kobra Kid, of course, as Dr. D had managed to convince him to play bass for their band that one time. Every up and coming gang made music of a sort, considering it was one thing the city abhorred, but most bands played bad covers of old pre-war pop or heavy metal. The only reason Kobra had agreed to help them was because they wrote their own music and a lot of it was a similar style to what he had played before. Thanks in part to the music and in part to Awsten’s natural sharpshooting ability, the Noise Boys broke the mould and became one of the youngest well-known gangs in the whole desert, up there with the Suitehearts and the Fabulous Killjoys themselves despite their relative newness to the concept of music and freedom. They may have been two thirds city-born, but they had taken to desert life fairly quickly.
After that incident, Awsten briefly entertained the idea that Otto might calm down a little, maybe not hero-worship as much, but his hopes were quickly crushed. If anything, the whole experience had left Otto in even more awe of the Killjoys than before, and Awsten and Geoff had resigned themselves to hearing a lot more about them than was strictly necessary.
When all of this was taken into consideration, the fact that Otto would freak out when they were invited to discuss a alliance with Kobra and the rest of the Fabulous Killjoys was fairly obvious and so Awsten and Geoff had come up with contingency plans aplenty. Plan E, in fact, had involved lighting a flare to signal the aliens to pull them out of there in case of extreme mortification, and the less said about Plan K (the one involving The Spoon and a couple of Dracs) the better.
“Hi, I’m Royal,” Awsten introduced himself to draw attention away from Otto, struck dumb as he was, “That’s New Wave,” he indicated to Geoff, who nodded his head, “And this is Little Violence. It’s good to see you again, Kobra.” Hoping that Otto might have recovered, Awsten turned his head to check up on him, not anticipating the rock Party Poison tossed at his head. It hit him square on the temple, though not with enough force to seriously hurt him. Briefly he considered taking his mask off to check if he had started bleeding or not, but decided against it. In the desert, your mask was as important as your desert name, was your identity and your soul. Awsten may have changed masks as often as he changed his hair (which was bright comic-book-radiation green at the moment), but he had learnt to keep every single one to preserve his story for the Witch. And he had learnt to never take them off in front of people he wouldn’t trust with his life.
Poison smirked as if they knew what Awsten was thinking. “I hope your aim is better than your reflexes, boys, or the Dracs will have your heads soon enough.”
“Royal’s one of the best shots in all the zones, actually, and he’s certainly the best city-born out here.” Geoff was mostly unassuming, was definitely the calmest and sanest of the three of them, but he was fiercely proud of what they had achieved. He had spent so long with his emotions dulled by the city that when he did experience them now, he felt them tenfold of what others might have.
“Chill, kid, I’m joking. Everyone outside of the city knows about you three and that SCARECROW, and the desert would respect the hell out of anyone who could make that shot. I’m not so easily convinced. My brother seems to like you, which is a step in right direction, but we’ll see. The witch is not kind to people who trust so easily.”
“Poison, stop trying to be threatening. These kids are here to discuss an alliance that’ll be beneficial to all of us, and I really don’t want your bad mood to mess it up.” Jet lectured, and that seemed to diffuse the situation enough for the seven of them to actually sit down and begin talking, albeit with Poison sulking a little.
Afterwards, Jet and Kobra came up to Otto and the others as Ghoul and Poison packed up the Trans Am.
“Sorry about Poison. They’ve been kind of on edge recently, ever since that new kid moved into Dr. Ds place. He says he’s lying low, though I’m not sure how successful he’s been at that, since he’s singing all the time. It’s good stuff, original, but Poison says they hate it.” Jet winks. “Kobra and I just think they’re jealous, though. Victorious has an incredible voice.”
“Victorious?” Geoff asks for the three of them. Awsten is curious to know about a singer good enough to be praised by Jet and Kobra, seeing as he only knows of two or three they’ve ever actually taken note of.
“One of the juvie halls, but a better runner than I’ve seen in a while. And an amazing singer. On par with Royal, Soul Punk and Poison, I’d say. You’ll have to meet him sometime.”
Awsten was speechless, similar to Otto not two hours before. He had been complimented on his voice before, but never by someone as legendary as Jet ( The Jet Star! Just complimented him!). Luckily it didn’t become much more awkward as Geoff jumped in, always willing to embarrass someone , glorious leader or not.
“I’m so glad we got together for this. Royal and V were really looking forward to meeting you guys,” he smiled sweetly, innocently, “Royal doubted you and wanted to know why you’re so popular and V has a massive crush on-“ Unfortunately, at that moment Otto jumped on him for almost saying something embarrassing and they began to wrestle on the sun bleached sand. Without hesitation, Awsten joined in and started tickling them like the child he was. Jet and Kobra’s faces were almost unreadable, but of you looked closely you might see a hint of a wistful smile pulling at the edge of Kobra’s lips as he watched them.
Jet grinned, “Oh, to be young again. Do you remember when we were like that? You thought Ghoul had a crush on Poison at one point, and you were so jealous he was taking them away from you that you-“
“Yeah, yeah, I know the story. I’m not proud of my younger self.”
“It was two weeks ago, Kobra. Ghoul’s leg still hasn’t healed properly.”
“Oh would you look at the time!” Kobra indicated to his wrist that was decidedly empty of time-keeping devices, “Oh, and Poison and Ghoul have already left. Come, friend of my sibling who loves to betray me in front of the children, we must catch up with them.”
And with that, Kobra jumped on his bike with Jet complaining behind him and raced off after his crazy sibling in their car.
The Noise Boys sat there a while watching the dust clouds slowly shrink, tussle broken up for the moment, before Geoff broke the silence.
“You still want that Party Poison figurine in the truck then, V?”
“It’s Little Violence to you idiots!” Otto stood, turned to them and hissed furiously, “Did you have to embarrass me in front of my heroes like that? God damn city-born juvie halls, never know when to shut up.”
Awsten grabbed his head and ruffled his hair. “Aww, you love us really, V darling. If we weren’t here, you’d have joined some subpar gang, your drumming talents would’ve been absolutely wasted and you’d be a puppy running errands for the rest of your life, however short that may be with no one watching your back.”
Otto shrugged him off and gave him an exaggerated pout. “Doesn’t mean I have to like you.” His face softened. “C’mon then, we’ve got stuff to do. No rest for the wicked, and all that.”