I am brought to consciousness with a bit of rustling and groan softly as shifting on my place, about to roll onto my side when a sharp pain on my arm wakes me up completely – I open my eyes with a soft cry, pulling myself to sit up, the sudden motion making the room spin around me. My breath is heavy for no apparent reason and I find myself unable to remember whatever I have dreamed with. On the other hand, however, the memories from the previous day flood my mind at once and without pity.
The pain isn't that strong, probably from my body getting kind of used to it. It is more like an annoying and repeated action and the worst part might not even be this, but the way it reminds me of everything and it makes me even more frustrated. I can feel tears welling up in my eyes. I just want it all to go away.
"Hey, sorry if I woke you up," Kobra says and I see him standing by his bed, pulling his jacket on.
"Ah, no, you didn't," I say with a sigh, rubbing my eyes with my free hand, pushing the thoughts away. "Actually, I woke up because of my arm. For how long have I been sleeping?"
"Some good hours," he replies, checking his wrist watch. "About twelve or more, I'm not so sure about when you went to sleep, to be honest. How are you feeling? If it's too bad, we can fix something with Doctor Death."
"No, I'm actually feeling better." The tiredness already wore out and my head doesn't feel as heavier as it did yesterday. All the unfortunate events feel like a distant dream in the back of my head, but much more real than one and then I also would like it to be. "What time is it?"
"Almost ten in the morning. Come on, let's go eat," he says with a smile.
When we reach the restaurant, the other guys are already gathered in a booth. Jet and Party share a seat and Ghoul grins at the same time he sees me approaching, scooting closer to the window and patting the space he once took. Party rolls his eyes at that, but Kobra doesn't seem to mind the lack of seat for him, bringing a chair over instead. Sitting with them like this is a bit uncomfortable despite how they seem to do their best to help me. Are their intentions really genuine?
An open can of Power Pup is suddenly pushed in front of me and I see Ghoul offering me a spoon, smiling.
"Thank you." I smile back at him and take the spoon, messily starting to eat along with the others, the action not so easy with me not using my dominant hand. Party doesn't eat, at first, noticeably observing me – it lasts until I look back at him.
"Are you a neutral, killjoy...? Maybe undergrad or BCU?" Ghoul interrupts the silence, looking at me curiously.
"Killjoy," I reply in a brief pause. "For how long can I stay?"
"We'd prefer you to leave when you're healed up," Kobra answers and, as much as he's nice, I wish I would talk more to the others to know them more. "But nothing really is holding you back."
After finishing eating in an awful silence and a painful change of bandages, I continue sitting there in the booth, looking out the window in thought after having moved closer to it. My heart still heaves in my chest at the thought of War and Sour being in problems, despite all the calmness and comfort. I just want them to be fine. Fuck the miserable state I've been put under.
Hiding the pain is terribly hard and I'm not talking about the physical one. As far as I know, War and Sour can be either in the best or worst situation right now and we are clearly a strong target, meaning BLI won't give up so far.
Tears end up filling my eyes whenever the thoughts hit me a bit too hard, so, a moment after Jet changes my bandages, I grab some food and try looking for a discreet place where I can be alone and not risk having anyone seeing me in such a terrible moment of weakness. I mean, I know they are
Fabulous Four, but that doesn't mean anything apart from the fact they are good at killing Dracs, fighting 'Crows or whatever. All I want to do is to find War and Sour again, find a new place, hide...
"(K/n)."
My new name being called brings me back to reality and, just now, I notice how long I've spent so far sitting under the gas station area with my back against the convenience store's wall. My ass and my back are kinda hurting now.
I hum as I look at Kobra, questioningly.
"Ghoul and I are leaving," he continues, adjusting his gun in its holster. "We need to do some BCU work for Dr. Death and we must be returning after tomorrow. I want to let you know you can use my bed while I'm out."
"Oh, I'll do, thank you," I say with a genuine smile as I appreciate what he's doing. He's the only one, besides Ghoul, really trying to be nice with me, though I don't have anything to complain about Jet either. This point is actually a complex one out here in the desert. Due to how tough things are, a lot of people tend to develop issues or even mental disorders, in a way it's not really my place to judge why in the hell Party doesn't want to talk with me – but I'm also not obligated to trust them, this is important.
Kobra walks away and, leaning a bit forward, I can see Ghoul has been waiting for him and gets in the passenger seat as soon as Kobra approaches.
The car soon drives away; I return to my previous position, but I don't plan to continue like this for long because of discomfort and try my best to stand up and grab the trash from what I've eaten without falling considering the injured arm affects my balance more than I thought it would. Finding Party leaning forward on the counter when I walk in the restaurant is certainly something I didn't exactly expect, seeing him reading what seems to be the city's newspaper.
"Kobra told me to keep an eye on you, so don't get startled when I walk in his room in the middle of the night," he says suddenly, eyes not even averting from the paper.
"Okay," I mutter in response, throwing the empty cans in the trash can. "I think I'll be heading to Kobra's room already, by the way. I need some time alone."
All I receive in response is a faint hum, but I don't care enough.
The last golden sun rays bathe the desert already when I walk into the room, pleased with the familiar place that now became a synonym of comfort to me.
And Kobra was right – the couch is certainly not bad, still, the bed is another fucking level. Besides being a comfort to all the physical pain, I wish the bed could also help with how mentally wracked I feel. Things aren't as wonderful as they sound, anyways, the silence and limited space makes the pain on my arm much more noticeable, bringing the frustration back. I swear that, if I could, I would just yank the fucking pain away.
I apparently fall asleep at some point because I wake up to the room already full of darkness and only the light of the moon slipping into the room, along with the cold breeze, through the half open window.
Sadness weights down in my chest, like if having made itself a nice spot in there, though I don't find the strength to keep thinking about what bothered me earlier. Whether it's better or worse, I don't know, because the mess in my mind almost makes my head ache, thoughts being interrupted, mixed together or Destroya knows what. Some time passes by while I'm staring at the ceiling and I have no idea of how much.
The sound of footsteps makes me turn my attention to the doorway and, soon, there is a sleepy Party with a blanket over his head and clutching onto it as he approaches me.
"What's up?" I ask him and it's noticeable he didn't expect me to be awake.
"I said I was going to check on you," he grumbles, approaching me. "Move over, give me space."
Rolling my eyes, I do as said. "But do you need to sleep here?"
"I don't want to have to walk until here whenever I need to check on you," he replies with a yawn and I believe it's an invitation for the silence to fall between us.
Sleep, once again, hits me before I can notice and it's not exactly a good night. I didn't wake up during the night and can't even remember what my dreams were about, but this discomfort bothers me nonetheless and leaving the bed sounds terrible after I wake up. My eyes are wet and sore, probably from a crying I don't remember, and I sigh as I notice the bed is empty, averting my attention to look out the window. The room is so different under the daylight.
"Good morning." Party walks into the room out of sudden, a can of dog food and a spoon in hand. His red hair is messy, something he doesn't seem to care about.
I hum in response and I'm a bit confused by him just sitting beside me; he motions for me to sit up and opens the can while waiting for me to do it.
Only when he holds the spoon in front of my lips that I understand what is going on.
"You don't need to do that." I furrow my eyebrows, a bit concerned. My body feels weirdly heavy and, if it wasn't enough, my brain does too, like if my thoughts carried certain toxicity or had their own life and decided to attack me. There are also these bags under my eyes – not literal ones, but making me feel as if the sadness pooled down there somehow.
"I see that you aren't aware of how it looks like a truck ran over you." Party doesn't even seem to mind my hesitance and just pushes the spoon forward, giving me no choice rather than to eat the food – I roll my eyes at it. At least he's finally being nice. "You had a lot of nightmares, you know? I doubt you had a pause from them in these last hours of the night, after you fell asleep with me here."
"I can't even remember what they were about," I mutter with a sigh before opening my mouth for more food.
"You can't remember, but I'm sure you do know." And Party is bold and doesn't seem to fear or be nervous because of anything, but it sounds a bit too much for me. Kind of a forced automatic reaction. Defense mode.
"It doesn't need much for it." There's no way I will be intimidated by him. I'm already in this state, being intimidated by an idiot like him wouldn't be convenient.
Party clearly tries to not show emotion, but fails with how his jaw clenches. Silence falls between us and, at most, he is the only one bothered by that, seeming each time more uncomfortable under my gaze, which I don't avert away from him. He seems even relieved when the food is finally over.
The room currently feels like the most comfortable thing in the world and somewhere I highly doubt I'll be leaving so soon. All the tension from the previous day demonstrates its results now through annoying muscle pains, bothering me whenever I move in certain ways, still, they're certainly not worse than the pain coming from my arm. My mind feels tired from spending so long thinking about what happened, in a way I can barely bring myself to conclude thoughts relating to the subject.
My attention is averted away from my thoughts as soon as Party walks back into the room, taking a seat beside me. He has a white gun and a box with him and, with a closer look, I can see markers, pencils, stickers, paint and other similar things inside the box.
None of us say anything. I know Party is here to keep an eye on me like promised to Kobra and he knows I'm aware of it. Leaning back against the pillows, I simply close my eyes, continuing to feel tired despite the many hours spent sleeping for the past days.
"Are these tattoos?" Party asks suddenly and I momentarily open an eye to see him looking at my good arm.
"Yeah. I didn't have the opportunity to finish them, though. I only could have the outlines done before... you know..." And with BLI intensely looking for me lately, I doubt I'll be going anywhere like this in weeks.
Party hums in response. There's a bit of rustling and I am about to fall asleep when I feel something against my arm, making me open my eyes startled. Out of all the things that could have been happening, I swear this isn't anything what I was expecting for – Party is peacefully coloring one of my unfinished tattoos with his marker. He seems so focused on it, following all the details meticulously, and I find myself just gazing at him without finding any problem in it.
"Done," Party says after a moment.
Blinking a few times, I bring my arm up to inspect the result. "Oh." I take a moment to process everything. "It looks nice, thank you."
"I'm customizing you a new gun, by the way," he says as going back to what he was previously doing, painting a gun with colors that match my outfit. "You mentioned at some point that you lost yours and I've got nothing to do now that doesn't require me outside, so I'm just doing this to not get bored, don't get your expectations too high."
"I wouldn't." A smile curls my lips up into a smile, a smug one, and I'm pleased with the situation even if Party isn't aware of it.
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