A songfic for
teh_slush , and apologies for the fact that this took forever.
Title: This Place About to Blow
Disclaimer: I do not own Kesha's music, My Chemical Romance's music, Danger Days, the Killjoy, etc etc
Rating: PG
A/N: Based loosely on Kesha's "Blow" The switches between past and present tense are intentional.
Summary: Kobra Kid has been kidnapped and the Killjoys are declaring fucking war
They'd found the gun on the second day, with the note that stated Kobra Kid's life was worth only six guns, some food, and the real identities of each Killjoy. By that time, Doctor D had narrowed it down to only one rival gang who had the balls for something like this.
He had given Party Poison a slip of paper with their name on it: Slam Bashers. They were a gang that hadn't forsaken the BL/ind drugs, not completely. They continued to use them, for getting high, for pain, for sex, for relaxing, for hunger. Their only thoughts were about feeling good, and finding new ways to feel good.
Party clenched the paper in his fist and looked across the zone, in the direction of the Bashers' hideout. Ghoul came up beside him and glanced at his leader's face. "So...where is he?" he asked quietly. Party's jaw worked as he tried to calm himself enough to reply. "The Bashers have him." he finally ground out. Somehow, saying it made it so much more real. His brother had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. His stomach was in knots just thinking about. "He's likely at their creepy little dance club." Ghoul shuddered. They'd all gone there, once, on whim, just to see how the other gangs in Zones lived. It had been filthy and dark, and not at all friendly.
"We can get him tonight, Poison. We've got enough explosives, easy, and enough gas to get there." The redhead nodded once, sharply, clearly already sketching out a plan in his head. "It’s not a can. It’s a have to. I’m not letting them keep him another night.” He snapped into leader mode, ready to give orders.
“I'm gonna need you to set a perimeter, keep them from following us out," he said. Ghoul shrugged. "I can do that. I can wire the whole damn place up. But I think we need stealth more than boom. At least at first." Poison huffed but nodded his assent. "C'mon. Let's go find Jet and get everything ready." He spun on his heel and stalked back into the diner, desperately praying he could think of a way to get his brother back alive.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jet squatted by the back door of the sleazy club, eyeballing the keyhole. He tuned out the throbbing bass from inside the building, the cool night air, the muffled scries of the sentry that Poison and Ghoul were working over; everything narrowed down to how this particular lock worked. After a moment, he pulled out the necessary tools and set to work. Usually, the gang would have just shot both the sentry and the lock, easy as pie....hmmm. Pie. "No," Jet thought. "Focus." He fiddled for a moment, then grinned as the lock popped open. "Que bella," he whispered, and kissed his fingertips in a gesture he'd seen people do on old tapes. He turned to let Poison know that they could go in anytime.
Ghoul and Poison were hunched over the prone form of the sentry. Ghoul was kneeling on his shoulders, the man's head between his knees, prying his mouth open. Party straddled the man's hips, pinning his arms and hands, and was preparing to force a tiny blue pill down his throat. It was a relaxant, something to soothe and comfort, make him feel safe. They'd paid dearly for it, and all they could do was hope it would work the way they wanted it to. They needed the man to trust them long enough to give them information. The problem was, this pill wasn't designed for forcing confessions. They'd come this far by being clever, and now, it was time to be tricky.
Poison used his finger to shove the pill as far down the Basher's throat as he could. The man gagged and tried to bring it back up, but Poison yanked his hand back and Ghoul pinched the man's nose shut. He flailed, whipping his head back and forth, eyes bugging out. His chest jerked as he fought for breath, but he had to swallow first. He finally complied and dragged in air, and Poison watched as something faded from his eyes. It was amazing how fast BL/ind drugs worked.
The man's body relaxed completely underneath their bodies and he blinked up at them lazily. Ghoul scooted backwards off his shoulders, but Poison stayed sitting on the man's stomach. "Hey, man. What's up?" he asked the sentry. He kept his voice slow and casual, as though they'd known each other forever. The sentry shrugged. "Not much. Hey...why you sitting on me?" Poison smirked. "You're comfy. Hey, how many people are here tonight, do you think?" The man thought for a moment. It seemed to take effort. "Uh....I dunno, man. Maybe....a hundred?" Party's eyebrows rose. He hadn't expected so many. Either the Bashers' numbers were growing very fast, or their club had gotten more popular. He was betting on the former.
He glanced at Ghoul, who gave him a thumbs up. He could handle that many people. Great. Poison looked back down at his happy prisoner. They still needed to know where they were keeping Kobra, before any other part of the plan could move forward. "Hey, dude. Didja see that new guy? The blondie?" he smirked. The sentry let a slow grin spread across his face. "The one from that other gang? Yeah man." He laughed and wiggled his hips a little. "He was a good lay. You had him yet?" Poison froze, staring at the man's face, feeling his veins turn to ice, then enflame with rage. He had to be lying, or bragging. He couldn't possibly be telling the truth. ‘God, please don’t let him be telling the truth.’ The man laughed again. "Ah, you haven't, have you? God, he's a sweet piece. You should try it." Poison forced a rictus grin onto his face. "Uh huh. Where is he?" he ground out, trying to keep the act up, even as he felt anger boiling its way through him.
The sentry furrowed his brow again. "You don't know?" Party blinked, then shrugged. "I wasn't here when they brought him in." Ghoul smiled, hoping they hadn’t just blown it. But the sentry seemed to accept the cover up without question. "Oh. He's in Vegas's room, in the back." He smiled, like he'd done a good thing. "Man, you'll probably have to wait in line. Cleveland and Francisco and Richmond were talking about ganging up on the little twat." Poison lurched to his feet, his breath catching in his chest. His brother was in there, being raped right now, and he was sitting here, playing chums with one of the rapists. His stomach rolled and his jaw tensed. He was going to be sick. "Poison?" Jet stepped forward. "Door's cracked. There's no one in sight. It's now or never." Poison took a steadying breath and nodded, looking down at their languid informant. "What should we do with him?" Ghoul asked, nudging the man's ribs with his boot. Poison's face thinned down, anger making him frightening and beautiful. "Cover his mouth," he ordered. Ghoul obeyed, holding the head between his knees again. Poison drew his ray gun and pointed it between the sentry's legs, shooting without hesitation.
“That was for my brother.”
The man screamed into Ghoul's glove, and Party pressed the gun to the man's temple and fired again. The screaming stopped. Ghoul let go and stood up as Jet opened the door. The three entered the blackness of the interior and left the sentry still bleeding in the dust.
Jet took point, as he always did. He eased down the dark, shabby hallway, ray gun pointed at the floor. Ghoul and Poison followed, watching their backs. Ghoul stopped periodically, pressing small packages onto the walls, corners, doorframes, wherever. They were tiny explosives, concocted of anything he could find out in the desert. Some would only put little holes in the walls, but with a building this old and rotted, it would help. Others would make bigger booms.
One door at the far end had a strip of orange light under it. The door across from it had flashing white lights, greens, blues, and purples. Clearly, that one led into the main area of the club. They'd go there, but Kobra first. Jet tried the handle on the first door. It clicked open, and he slammed the door inwards, pressing it flat to the wall and covering the room with his gun before he could even see who was there. Poison and Ghoul followed.
Poison's stomach clenched as he took in the room. Kobra was tied to a bed, spread eagled on his back, but all Poison could see was a leg and part of his chest. The rest was covered by men. They were- God! Poison let out a scream and launched himself at the bed.
~~~
Kobra has long since blocked out everything around him, eyes open and vacant, focused only on the sliver of handcuff he can see out of the corner of his eye. He barely re-acts when a new man climbs on top of him; he can't go any-more numb.
Then, a scream cuts through his mind, a voice he knows as well as his own, echoes around the room, and the man is being yanked off of him by--
"Poison?"
At first his mind only registers red hair, moving towards him like a streak of blood across a window. Hands are at the bindings holding him to the bed, working them free, but he stares numbly at his brother's face, disbelieving, and hopeful. "Poison?" he repeats. "Yeah, Kobra, I'm here, we're all here. C'mon, sit up, we gotta go." Kobra feels a hand under his back, pushing him up, and his muscles scream in protest. After being locked in one position for nearly three days, every movement is agonizing. He lets out a moan and tries to fall backwards, tries to indulge his body, but more hands keep him upright. He hangs his head, letting it loll against Poison's shoulder. His entire body aches, inside and out. He can hear Ghoul and Poison trying to figure out how to move him, can see Jet keeping watch by the door, but he focuses on breathing and slowly moving his limbs.
"You'll have to help me," he mumbles. Party nods, and slides Kobra's arm over his shoulders, bracing his brother's too-thin body against his. "Ready?" he whispers. Kobra lies and nods. "One...two...three..." and Poison stands, pulling Kobra with him. He lets out a choked scream as everything wrenches at once. Blood rushes back into places it hasn't been in too long. His vision swims to black, and when it returns they've somehow moved to the hallway. Ghoul comes out of the room last, having placed a few more charges around the room. Kobra blinks and Ghoul is gone. Jet is further down the hall, checking their retreat. "Where'd Ghoul go?" he mumbled into Poison's chest. "He's setting the last charges and getting to the fuse box," his brother answered. "We're not just getting you out, Mikey. We're burning down their fucking playground."
Kobra smiled.
~~~
Ghoul had placed a few more charges at key points in the building's structure. It was like kicking someone in the backs of the knees: hit the right spot, down they go. Back in the hallway, Poison was making his slow way back towards the exit, half dragging Kobra with him. It pained Ghoul to see Kobra so....empty, and he could see in Poison’s face that he felt the same. But he had a job right now, and with some effort, he turned his mind from his friend's pain. The fuse box was at the very end of the hall, and he popped it open with a practiced movement. There were a dozen switches, and none of them were labeled, but that didn't matter. With a gleeful smirk, he hit them all, slamming each switch down until the entire club was left in complete darkness and silence. A moment of hushed confusion settled over the club, and then the roar of the crowd filled the dark. Ghoul drew his gun and moved for where the dead sentry had said the top banana hung out. He wasn't getting out of this easy.
In the end, it was far easier than he had expected. He'd had no problem in wrenching the Bashers' leader out of his cushy seat and dragging him down the hall by his hair, and finally throwing him outside in the dirt at Poison's feet. The redhead’s jaw twitched when he saw him, and he squatted down, poking at the man's face with his gun. "So. You're the bastard that took my brother and tried to blackmail us, eh?" Utter terror washed over the man's face. "What's your name?" Poison hissed. The man trembled, gasping like he was overdosing. Ghoul slammed the butt of his gun onto the man's spine, and felt oddly pleased with the cry of pain that he had drawn out. "Name. Now." Poison spat the words onto the top of the man's cowering head.
"Phoenix. I am Phoenix." Something about saying his own name seemed to give him a bit of courage, and he raised himself up until he was kneeling, on eye level with the leader of the Killjoys. "And your brother was an easy mark and a fucking good who-" Poison let out a strangled cry and tore his gun across the bastard's face. Ghoul stepped forward, ready to jump Phoenix if he tried to retaliate. But the bastard only raised himself back up. "You going to kill me?" he whispered. Ghoul chuckled before Poison could answer. "You bet your favorite body part, we are."
Phoenix smiled. "My people will find you. They will never stop. My death will bring all of hell down on your heads." Poison dug his gun into the man's cheek, while Ghoul dug his into his back. "See, that's the thing," Poison said. "Ghoul here has rigged up your little club, all nice and neat. Press a little red button, and your entire world goes boom." Ghoul wrenched Phoenix's head around and made sure he saw the button. He smiled, letting the Basher see the pleasure that the idea of destroying the club gave him.
Phoenix's face went slack, then hard as he shifted his eyes back to Poison. "What do you want? Whatever it is, you'll have it." He ground the words out, as if it pained him to give in. Poison didn't smile. "I want for this to have never happened. I want my brother to be okay. I want for you-" he tapped the man's cheek with his gun again. "-to disappear. For fucking ever. I want the next time someone thinks about fucking with the Killjoys, that they remember what we did to you." He stood up and motioned for Ghoul to turn the man around so he could see the destruction of his home. "Say bye bye." Ghoul whispered malevolently.
He pushed the button.
A deafening blast shook the ground while the building vomited its innards out into the desert. Blinding fire consumed everything, and screams echoed across the desert. A second blast detonated, knocking them all backwards. Jet and Poison covered Kobra's body, and Ghoul hid himself behind Phoenix, letting him take the worst of it.
"Coup de grace, motherfucker!" Ghoul screamed to no one in particular, and as if on cue, a third and final explosion rocked the earth. Heat and wind and debris washed over them in an agonizing wave. Ghoul waited for a count of ten, then peered around the still kneeling form of Phoenix. The building had been completely leveled. A few beams stood up here and there, and the foundation was partially visible, but it was mostly just a pile of shit. Phoenix made a small choking noise, and Ghoul looked at him more closely. "Poison." he called.
~~~
Jet lifted his head as Poison rose and went over to Ghoul and....Phoenix? He wasn't sure of the name, he'd been seeing to Kobra. The kid had bruises, contusions, possibly a few busted ribs, and it'd all heal. He was more worried about his mind. Kobra hadn't spoken since they'd gotten outside. He acknowledged them, looked at them, but didn't speak. But Jet would have to worry about it later. Poison and Ghoul were bending over Phoenix, and there seemed to be.....something sticking out of the man's chest. Debris, probably. Poison straightened suddenly, said something that Jet couldn't hear, and shot the man between the eyes. They watched the body topple over, Jet, Poison, and Ghoul, and then met each other's eyes. There was nothing more they could do. The Bashers were all dead. Their leader was dead. Their hideout was demolished. There is nothing you can do beyond that.
Jet stood, cradling Kobra in his arms like a child. He knew Kobra could walk, but right now he needed to be comforted. Poison stopped him before he could begin walking, and carefully lifted his brother out of Jet's arms. Jet pulled the car keys out of Poison's pocket without being asked and slid behind the wheel of the beat up Trans Am. Ghoul stripped the jacket off of the dead man and used it to cover Kobra once he and Poison were settled into the backseat. Jet gunned the engine and aimed the car in the general direction of the diner. They left the smoking ruins in silence, not saying a word.