Fic: Turn Up the Fakes and Lies
Title: Turn Up the Fakes and Lies
Author:iron_fist123 and vinvy
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating: R (for language)
Summary: You know what Jet said about not getting hit again? Yeah that’s goin’ out the window and you know it.
Warnings: Warnings: Profanity, Slimy ladies, Violence, Creepers, drug use (technically)
Disclaimer: Do not use near water. Seriously, folks, no laptops or other electronics in the shower. Not even if you're Mikey Way. (If you are Mikey Way, LEAVE NOW PLEASE because none of this happened and you don't need to see it.)
(Previous Chapters)
Act 4
Fuck You Houses- so named because they, essentially, were a giant middle finger raised to BLI- were hard to come by in the Zones. Frank had only ever heard about them while he was running messages from Korse to Ms. F about successful raids. He’d never even realized what success has entailed until now, on their way to save Kandy and whoever else was taking refuge in the House. The phrase he’d so often repeated to Ms. F, “Raid successful- killjoy threat exterminated” now made him feel sick.
“Don’t slow down, don’t let a Drac anywhere near you or the people you’re evacuating. Shoot first or they’ll shoot you,” Jet was instructing, wiping his blue flasher down with a dirty rag. “Don’t ask questions.”
Frank nodded, fingering his own flasher. The sun had gone down just minutes ago and he was starting to shiver in the cold air. The House was all the way out in Zone 6, as far away from the City as it could get and, unfortunately, as far away from the safety of the diner as it could get, too.
“Don’t let your flasher get too hot. You’re fucked if that happens. And for Christ’s sake, don’t get hit in the head again, okay? Poison’ll probably have a seizure if you do.”
“Can’t promise anything,” Frank muttered, tugging his bandana up over his mouth in an attempt to keep his face warm. The thin material did nothing to help.
“We’re almost there, drive faster, G,” Kobra said suddenly, speaking for the first time since they’d left the diner four hours ago. He’d been hidden behind his aviator shades, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“I’ve got it floored to the max, bro. Goin’ as fast as I can,” Poison told him, fingers squeezing the steering wheel in anxiety.
There were lights in the distance, pulsing pinks and greens. Even given the urgent nature of their mission, Frank couldn’t help but feel a sense of longing for the old days when he could go to a club and just be. Anticipation flooded his veins as they drew closer. That longing part of him wished he’d have time to dance.
The House was more conspicuous than Frank had expected it to be, an old warehouse club with peeling paint and posters advertising bands that used to be. Dozens of vehicles were parked around its perimeter, most of them vans. A sign flashed red just above a dark doorway, titling the place: Smoke & Sound. Frank hadn’t even realized that the Trans Am had screeched to a halt until Jet punched him in the shoulder to get his attention, so fixated he was by the mesmerizing lights pulsing from behind the tinted and dusty windows. Poison and Kobra were already inside, heading in as quickly as possible to search for Kandy and the manager of the House.
“There’s gonna be a heavy crowd tonight, there always is after holidays.” Jet bit his lip. “Stay close, alright?”
“Will do,” Frank nodded, wondering just how many people could be in the House. How many people were there out in the Zones? More than he’d previously thought, apparently.
Jet pushed him through the door first, into a long, thin hallway. The small area could barely contain the bass beat that was pulsating throughout the House, drowning out the sound of Frank’s own thoughts. Just ahead, a haze of smoke covered a dark square shape which Frank assumed to be another doorway. Jet led him down the long hallway and straight through the smoke. The room beyond was huge, swarmed with a mass of bodies, moving to the beat.
Smoke hung heavy over the room and Frank wondered briefly how Kandy could stay here when there were so many things that could hurt her and her baby around this place. He lost his train of thought as Jet pushed him through the swarm bodies, nearly losing himself to the music. It was a thick, intoxicating beat with the perfect tempo for dancing. He would have been gone completely, had Jet not been digging his fingers into Frank’s shoulder painfully.
A soft, damp touch on his arm caused him to turn abruptly. The girl still had her hand extended, a smirk firmly in place on her face. Despite the sweat pasting her hair to her forehead, she was pretty, very pretty, her eyes defiant, almost like Poison’s.
‘Dance with me?’ she mouthed.
Frank shook his head violently, Jet’s grip tightening. The man pulled him through the crowd, towards the DJ booth in the back of the room. The man had his masked eyes shut, head bobbing to the music. There was a vast amount of skin showing, the man’s shirt cut into a low v-neck, and a cape hung from his shoulders, fluttering slightly in time to the man’s movement.
“Yo, Nomad!” Jet shouted over the noise.
The man’s eyes flew open in annoyance, “I told you lady no requests!” His eyes softened as he realized who he was looking at and he broke into a chipper grin. “Jet Star, is that you? What are you doing all the way out here?”
“We need to get everybody out of here now! There’s a raid squad headed this way!”
Nomad’s cheerful expression dropped. “Do you know that for sure?”
“Kobra fucking Kid himself picked up the transmission and you know he’s never wrong!”
The man hit a button and the music stopped abruptly. “We’re running hot, babies, everybody move out the doors and to your transport in a calm, orderly fashion. Follow the Killjoys!” Nomad spoke into a brightly colored microphone.
There was a moment of complete silence. Then a shower of sparks hit the crowd, the whir of a flasher announcing the arrival of the raid unit. A few people had the sense to head calmly for the exits. Others started screaming. Jet grabbed Frank by the arm, pulling him into the crowd again. “Get as many people out as you can!”
Frank nodded, watching as Jet disappeared into the crowd. A second later a hand was pulling at his sleeve, dragging him into a quieter corner of the club. His flasher was drawn, directed at the girl’s head in a second.
“I need your help to get out,” she said, so quietly he almost couldn’t hear her. “I know a back way, a safer way, but I can’t get past the Dracs. I- I lost my flasher.” She flashed him a shy smile.
Frank nodded and she slid her hand into his own, pressing her palm against his more intimately than he cared to experience. Her hands were slimy with sweat and he grimaced but let her pull him towards the back of the club, where there were three Dracs firing haphazardly into the crowd.
It was almost too easy to fire off three shots and send them to the ground. The flasher was warm in his bandaged hand. The girl with alluring almond eyes was urging him onward, now down a dark hallway. His hand was going numb in hers. Why did he feel light headed? A belated onset of guilt?
“It’s right through here,” she told him breathlessly, pulling him through a covered doorway. Her voice was nice to listen to, easy to get lost in and probably the most trustworthy thing he’d heard since leaving Battery City.
For a moment, Frank was confused. That seemed to be happening more and more often lately. Something in his head told him it was fine, there was another door in the back of this ridiculously luxurious room. Something else told him that he was so fucked right now that he should probably start limping.
“I danced with you.” He had to mention it- she was just like the imaginary dance partner, slender, the perfect height. “In my apartment. To Sinatra. I dropped you when Poison showed up though.” Why was he telling her about this again?
Her green eyes turned towards him, holding him in place for a second. “Wanna dance again?”
She pulled Frank towards the fluffy couch on the wall, pushing him down on it. A part of him thought that maybe this needed to stop, right now, but there was a larger part that just didn’t give a fuck. She was cute and he was in a club- what else was he supposed to do? She pressed her lips to the tattoo on his neck, her tongue tracing the outline of the scorpion.
“These are from Poison, aren’t they?” She murmured, pressing against the bruises on his neck with the insistent muscle. “I can make you feel so much better than he can. Trust me.”
Frank couldn’t stop the breathy moan from spilling out of his mouth. This was wrong, so wrong. She was this tiny girl, slim and scrawny... But she was so pretty, so enchanting, he didn’t want it to stop. He knew she didn’t want to stop. She gently reached around him to unbuckle his shoulder holster, sliding it off.
Frank had one hand on the girl’s throat, the other pushing up the orange netting over her waist. The skin there was just as slick as her palms had been. She smelled like cigarettes and anaesthetic. He wanted to kiss her...
This is a fucking death wish waiting to happen- Poison is gonna be so pissed when he finds out. There was his conscience, the ultimate buzzkill that not even Show Pony could compete with. He gently pushed her off of his lap.
“I have a... boyfriend,” he managed to get out of his dry throat.
“Oh, no you don’t, Frankie-”
She reached up to cup his cheek and he swatted her hand away. “Don’t call me that,” he stood up, his vision blurring, “Don’t touch me there’s something fucking wrong with you... wrong with your skin. Freak.”
He staggered forward a few steps, rubbing a hand over his face. He bumped into something solid that shouldn’t have been in the center of the room.
“He’s so dainty- I can see why Gerard likes him. Its a shame about the greasy hair though... Thank you, Kai.” Korse steadied Frank with one hand and nodded to the girl on the couch.
“But I wasn’t done with him, Daddy,” she pouted, playing with Frank’s flasher.
That bitch took your gun. ...You know what Jet said about not getting hit again? Yeah that’s goin’ out the window and you know it.
Frank tried to shove Korse’s hand off but he kept missing it. It was like he had a concussion all over again.
“I know, I know, but I’ve got business with him. You can have him later, I promise.” He turned to stare at Frank. “Where are the other Killjoys?”
“Do you ever fuckin’ blink?” His extremities were still a numb from the girl and her freakish skin, which made it painless when Korse slapped him. It was actually a little helpful for making him pay attention, part of him mused, and brought some of the blood back to his face. A hook to the stomach doubled him over.
“Where are the other Killjoys?”
“There was a whole club full of them, asswipe, and you chased ‘em off.”
There was that hand again, on the other side of his face. Keeping it even, I see. Lovely. He stumbled backwards, bracing himself against the wall.
“Where are the Fabulous Killjoys,” Korse spit out the reclaimed title as if it burned his mouth to say it.
“Good fuckin’ question,” Frank replied. Some of the sensation was edging back into his body. He could feel his face throbbing and the side of his head as well- if he ripped any stitches out Show Pony was gonna be so angry. “Last I checked they were evacuating the rest of the House.”
“They aren’t here! Where did they go?”
How long have I been back here? ... Holy shit Poison left me? The thought must have plastered itself across Frank’s face because Korse laughed instead of hitting him again for not answering. He lifted Frank’s chin. The clammy touch made his skin crawl.
“Did he have you thinking you were someone special? That’s sad, it really is. You’re not the only one though. Kai was one of his pets, too. He left her out in the middle of the desert a couple of years ago so he wouldn’t get caught by a Scarecrow.”
Frank’s hand inched towards his pocket, hoping Korse would remain distracted by the pleasure of screwing up the pedestal he’d placed Party Poison on. Korse was taking his time describing the horrible injuries that Kai had sustained, thinking that he had Frank mesmerized. Now he just had to hope the girl didn’t come in and mess up the plan.
“... they brought her home to me,” he went on with a cold smile, “ and I just couldn’t let something so sweet be euthanized. I got permission to take her to my lab and, well, as you can see she’s much improved.” He leaned in close to Frank’s face, “I can make you just like her if you’ll let me.”
Frank looked contemplative for a second, holding eye contact with the Exterminator. “That is a really tempting offer,” he flipped open the butterfly knife he’d so painstakingly removed and stabbed Korse in the stomach. “But I’m taking my business elsewhere.”
He stabbed him again and again, twisting the knife each time he pulled it back out. Korse’s inhuman hands were clawing at him and damn if the bastard didn’t draw blood. Frank slashed at his stomach. The black ooze and wiring spilled out along with a good length of intestine. He shoved Korse to the floor, leaving him there to writhe with sparks flying up from his body.
“A fuckin’ cyborg, of course, what else? Christ...” He turned to Kai, who had her back to the doorway and was staring at him blankly. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you. Give me my gun and we’ll call it good, okay? I’ll let you leave.”
An eerie smile touched her face. Some of her teeth were sharpened steel. How had he thought that attractive?
“Just how do you plan on getting out without touching me?” She dangled the flasher before her. Whatever it was that she secreted was dripping down the barrel, onto the floor. “How do you plan to get this back without touching it? Just a drop and you’re mine again, Frankie.”
Her head jerked forward with a crunch, blood flying from her mouth. She fell forward onto her knees then slumped sideways onto the concrete. Jet Star stood behind her with a wooden beam hanging from one hand.
“Bitch, please,” he scoffed, “you underestimate his friends.” He bent and picked up Frank’s flasher with a bandanna, making a disgusted noise, “You are gonna have to clean this thing.”
Frank grabbed his holster from the couch and slipped it on. His hands trembled a bit as he took his flasher back from Jet, still wrapped in the bandanna.
“You are a fucking imbecile, I hope you know that,” Jet began as they walked out of the room. “Do you have any idea what would have happened to you if I hadn’t noticed you were missing? You could have been killed. You probably would have gotten all of us killed.”
Try as he might to tune Jet Star out while he led him back out of the House, he couldn’t. (Had the girl really made that many turns? They’d been in the basement? He didn’t remember anything.) It wasn’t like being lectured by an annoyed parent. The mellow Killjoy’s opinion of him actually mattered. There was genuine disappointment in Jet Star’s voice and it made Frank feel about three inches tall to have been the cause of it.
“Do you even know what that girl was? Who she was? She was bio engineered to be a super-weapon, Frank! You’re stupider than even Kobra thought.”
They had entered the main part of the club, vastly different and colder now that it wasn’t filled with dancing bodies.
“ You had me worried fuckin’ sick and when Poison finds out- don’t look at me like that, I have to tell him if he doesn’t already know- he’s gonna skin you! Hell, he’s gonna skin me for letting you out of my sight. Jesus when I joined the Killjoys I didn’t think babysitter was in the job description!”
Something behind them dropped and Jet wheeled around. “Run, Ghoul, now.”
Kai was stumbling along after them, her face bloody and her gait jerking. “Frankie, please come here.”
Frank hesitated, watching her get closer in awe. She shouldn’t be awake for another hour or more. She probably shouldn’t even be alive with how hard Jet had hit her.
“Frank!” Jet was already back peddling towards the main door of the warehouse. “Move it!”
Kai threw herself onto him. Her teeth sliced neatly through the muscle of his forearm when he tried to push her off. He punched her out of reflex, right between the eyes. She went down and he took off towards Jet. He tripped over his own feet more than once. The room started looking like the view from a carousel horse.
“Fuck,” he slurred, going down on his hands and knees. His head was filled with plaster, heavy and hard to move.
Jet hauled him up by the arm, half-dragging him out to the car. Frank wanted to say something in thanks or as an apology for being such a burden but he couldn’t make his mouth work right. He was unceremoniously shoved into the back seat, next to a lady with a very round belly. She was pregnant, right? He blinked at her dumbly.
When Jet tried to get in after Frank, Poison grabbed him by the collar. “You’re driving.”
“Dude, I can’t- Fun Ghoul got-”
“I know! You’re fucking driving! Don’t question me!” He crawled in and faced Frank, half sitting on top of him. He grabbed a hold of Frank’s head, forcing it upright from where it’d been lolling on his shoulder. “Frank, what did he do to you?”
Frank’s eyes tried to focus. He attempted to answer but all that came out was a sloppy string of vowels.
“Focus! Did he touch you? What the fuck did he do to you!”
Having his head shaken like that really pissed Frank off. It made the headache worse and all he wanted to do was sleep. After a long moment he slurred out, “He fuckin’ hit me! What’s it look like dumbass?”
The sigh might have been one of irritation or relief. Frank was suddenly pressed up against Poison’s chest. He pushed at him. “Ge’ offa me... You’re mean.”
“Shut up Frank.”
It was too much effort to move so he stayed put, squished against Poison, his legs bent to keep from touching the lady beside him. At this point he’d have loved to pass out. The heartbeat against he ear was kind of nice, though he’d never admit it aloud, and it made him forget about how sore his face was. The radio hummed softly in the front seat- it sounded like Dr. D’s voice reporting on the raid. Kobra had one hand hanging back over his headrest, holding onto the pregnant woman’s hand, stroking it with his thumb. The warm body behind Frank was a pleasant contrast to the icy air blasting through the car from the cracked windows.
Frank didn’t pass out, though. That would have been too easy. The medicated, paralyzed sensation in his limbs crept away. A headache settled in for the long haul in the front of his skull and his mouth dried out enough to make the Zones whizzing past the windows outside look like a rain forest.
“Shit,” he bit out, pressing one hand to his head. It did nothing to dull the pain. “How long?”
“We’re almost back to the diner, so for a couple of hours at least. You’re funny when you’re high,” Jet Star said, reaching up to turn on the car’s dome light. “You like to sing along to the radio and point out how pretty everyone is. What’s that arm of yours lookin’ like?”
He tried to raise his arm to flip the man off but the burning agony that laced through it made the gesture a hard on to make. He tugged up his sleeve and stared at the perfect bite mark on his left forearm.
“Oh hell the fuck no, she did not bite you. Bitch. That’s my job.”
Poison held onto Frank’s arm and traced a careful finger along the side of the wound. Frank exhaled sharply through his teeth. The touch sent electricity stabbing along the bite. The individual placement of the girl’s teeth was clear. Each swollen puncture had blood bubbling up to the surface. He took his bandanna and wrapped it tightly around the wound.
Frank punched the back of the seat. “Fuck, Poison, that hurts!”
“I will not have you bleeding all over my leather seats.”
Frank groaned as Poison knotted the bandanna twice, tugging on it to make sure it was snug. “I don’t like you right now.”
“You don’t have to like me,” the red head replied, pulling Frank’s sleeve over the makeshift bandage. “You just have to listen to me.” He pulled Frank against his chest again. Frank was less thrilled about that now.
“So what was with the girl, Poison? She said she knew you.” He saw opportunity to get an answer and took it.
“What girl?”
“The one that bit me- Frog Lady. I think her name was Kai or something?”
In the front seat Kobra laughed. “Hell yeah she knew us. She was a spy. She ran with us five years ago. She reported on us to Korse and almost got us killed twice before we found her out. I should have blown her brains all over the dirt but there wasn’t enough time. Those BLI bastards must have used my bio-tech on her, seeing as she’s obviously alive and well.”
“We don’t like to talk about Kai,” Poison murmured into Frank’s ear, “She was bad for my brother and me.”
Frank nodded in understanding. It made sense now, why Kobra had tried almost made him choke to death on his flasher. How could he not be suspicious of new comers?
~~
“Hey angels,” Show Pony greeted when they filed into the diner, “you better dig down somewhere deep tonight. There’s a blaster rollin’ in- one of the biggest ones of the year, like limeaide and pig bombs put together- and it’s hot for lootin’. D just got the transmission from Hot Chimp hidin’ in 2.”
Frank frowned, finally thrown by Show Pony’s Lifelong-Zone-Runner dialect. “What?”
Jet Star grabbed the back of Frank’s vest, leading him to the nearest table. “Sand storm. The odds of getting attacked by some roaming bandits are high. Get that bandanna off your arm.”
“Why?”
He gestured to the first aid kit on the table. “I need to look at that bite and get a clean dressing on it. You’re such an accident-prone asshole. Christ- you’re gonna be made of gauze and stitching with antibiotics for blood if this shit keeps up.”
Grumbling, he did as he was told. The skin around the deep bite was a bright, irritated pink. He didn’t see what Jet did until later. All Frank could think about was the sudden blinding fire that shot itself up his nerve endings, making the rest of his body go numb and a scream rip itself from his throat.
Kandy jumped and spilled the coffee she held. Kobra handed her a towel, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders. “Shut your face and take it like a man, Ghoul. You’re bugging my girl.”
“Fuck!”
Jet poured yet more rubbing alcohol into the bite, sopping up the excess with a rag. “Quit bitching. I told you it needed to be clean.”
“You didn’t tell me you were gonna dump acid on it!”
“It’s only rubbing alcohol, Fun Ghoul, relax.” He rubbed some minty-smelling paste into the bite a little more roughly than necessary.
“Don’t tell me to relax! That shit hurts! Give me some warning next time will ya?”
“Quit gettin’ hurt and there’ll be no reason to warn you about anything. It’s a waste of good napkins and medical tape- this stuff’s hard to come by out here.”
Frank was glad to pull his arm back when Jet was done bandaging it. The paste he’d rubbed on it made it go mercifully numb. He didn’t bother looking at anyone as he shuffled back to the bedroom he’d woken up in that morning.
He dropped onto the bed and hunched over, staring at his scuffed boots. Jet had a point- everything Frank had been involved in since he’d joined them had ended up going so wrong… It would have almost been preferable if Kobra had let that Scarecrow kill him. It would have certainly saved the Killjoys some trouble.
The door opened. Poison walked in and clicked it shut quietly behind him. He stood in front of Frank, his hands in the back pockets of his dirty white jeans. “Hey, quit runnin’ the on the blues. We don’t like that station. You did well today, Fun Ghoul, real well.”
“I didn’t do shit but get fuckin’ hurt again.”
“Hush before I find something to gag you with. Accept the compliment. If you hadn’t kept Korse and Kai busy we’d have had them to deal with on top of the Dracs and the evacuation. Besides, you didn’t give them any intell-”
“- Its not like I knew anything useful-”
“- and loyalty like that is what we need. Thank you, Frank.”
Author:iron_fist123 and vinvy
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating: R (for language)
Summary: You know what Jet said about not getting hit again? Yeah that’s goin’ out the window and you know it.
Warnings: Warnings: Profanity, Slimy ladies, Violence, Creepers, drug use (technically)
Disclaimer: Do not use near water. Seriously, folks, no laptops or other electronics in the shower. Not even if you're Mikey Way. (If you are Mikey Way, LEAVE NOW PLEASE because none of this happened and you don't need to see it.)
(Previous Chapters)
Act 4
Fuck You Houses- so named because they, essentially, were a giant middle finger raised to BLI- were hard to come by in the Zones. Frank had only ever heard about them while he was running messages from Korse to Ms. F about successful raids. He’d never even realized what success has entailed until now, on their way to save Kandy and whoever else was taking refuge in the House. The phrase he’d so often repeated to Ms. F, “Raid successful- killjoy threat exterminated” now made him feel sick.
“Don’t slow down, don’t let a Drac anywhere near you or the people you’re evacuating. Shoot first or they’ll shoot you,” Jet was instructing, wiping his blue flasher down with a dirty rag. “Don’t ask questions.”
Frank nodded, fingering his own flasher. The sun had gone down just minutes ago and he was starting to shiver in the cold air. The House was all the way out in Zone 6, as far away from the City as it could get and, unfortunately, as far away from the safety of the diner as it could get, too.
“Don’t let your flasher get too hot. You’re fucked if that happens. And for Christ’s sake, don’t get hit in the head again, okay? Poison’ll probably have a seizure if you do.”
“Can’t promise anything,” Frank muttered, tugging his bandana up over his mouth in an attempt to keep his face warm. The thin material did nothing to help.
“We’re almost there, drive faster, G,” Kobra said suddenly, speaking for the first time since they’d left the diner four hours ago. He’d been hidden behind his aviator shades, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“I’ve got it floored to the max, bro. Goin’ as fast as I can,” Poison told him, fingers squeezing the steering wheel in anxiety.
There were lights in the distance, pulsing pinks and greens. Even given the urgent nature of their mission, Frank couldn’t help but feel a sense of longing for the old days when he could go to a club and just be. Anticipation flooded his veins as they drew closer. That longing part of him wished he’d have time to dance.
The House was more conspicuous than Frank had expected it to be, an old warehouse club with peeling paint and posters advertising bands that used to be. Dozens of vehicles were parked around its perimeter, most of them vans. A sign flashed red just above a dark doorway, titling the place: Smoke & Sound. Frank hadn’t even realized that the Trans Am had screeched to a halt until Jet punched him in the shoulder to get his attention, so fixated he was by the mesmerizing lights pulsing from behind the tinted and dusty windows. Poison and Kobra were already inside, heading in as quickly as possible to search for Kandy and the manager of the House.
“There’s gonna be a heavy crowd tonight, there always is after holidays.” Jet bit his lip. “Stay close, alright?”
“Will do,” Frank nodded, wondering just how many people could be in the House. How many people were there out in the Zones? More than he’d previously thought, apparently.
Jet pushed him through the door first, into a long, thin hallway. The small area could barely contain the bass beat that was pulsating throughout the House, drowning out the sound of Frank’s own thoughts. Just ahead, a haze of smoke covered a dark square shape which Frank assumed to be another doorway. Jet led him down the long hallway and straight through the smoke. The room beyond was huge, swarmed with a mass of bodies, moving to the beat.
Smoke hung heavy over the room and Frank wondered briefly how Kandy could stay here when there were so many things that could hurt her and her baby around this place. He lost his train of thought as Jet pushed him through the swarm bodies, nearly losing himself to the music. It was a thick, intoxicating beat with the perfect tempo for dancing. He would have been gone completely, had Jet not been digging his fingers into Frank’s shoulder painfully.
A soft, damp touch on his arm caused him to turn abruptly. The girl still had her hand extended, a smirk firmly in place on her face. Despite the sweat pasting her hair to her forehead, she was pretty, very pretty, her eyes defiant, almost like Poison’s.
‘Dance with me?’ she mouthed.
Frank shook his head violently, Jet’s grip tightening. The man pulled him through the crowd, towards the DJ booth in the back of the room. The man had his masked eyes shut, head bobbing to the music. There was a vast amount of skin showing, the man’s shirt cut into a low v-neck, and a cape hung from his shoulders, fluttering slightly in time to the man’s movement.
“Yo, Nomad!” Jet shouted over the noise.
The man’s eyes flew open in annoyance, “I told you lady no requests!” His eyes softened as he realized who he was looking at and he broke into a chipper grin. “Jet Star, is that you? What are you doing all the way out here?”
“We need to get everybody out of here now! There’s a raid squad headed this way!”
Nomad’s cheerful expression dropped. “Do you know that for sure?”
“Kobra fucking Kid himself picked up the transmission and you know he’s never wrong!”
The man hit a button and the music stopped abruptly. “We’re running hot, babies, everybody move out the doors and to your transport in a calm, orderly fashion. Follow the Killjoys!” Nomad spoke into a brightly colored microphone.
There was a moment of complete silence. Then a shower of sparks hit the crowd, the whir of a flasher announcing the arrival of the raid unit. A few people had the sense to head calmly for the exits. Others started screaming. Jet grabbed Frank by the arm, pulling him into the crowd again. “Get as many people out as you can!”
Frank nodded, watching as Jet disappeared into the crowd. A second later a hand was pulling at his sleeve, dragging him into a quieter corner of the club. His flasher was drawn, directed at the girl’s head in a second.
“I need your help to get out,” she said, so quietly he almost couldn’t hear her. “I know a back way, a safer way, but I can’t get past the Dracs. I- I lost my flasher.” She flashed him a shy smile.
Frank nodded and she slid her hand into his own, pressing her palm against his more intimately than he cared to experience. Her hands were slimy with sweat and he grimaced but let her pull him towards the back of the club, where there were three Dracs firing haphazardly into the crowd.
It was almost too easy to fire off three shots and send them to the ground. The flasher was warm in his bandaged hand. The girl with alluring almond eyes was urging him onward, now down a dark hallway. His hand was going numb in hers. Why did he feel light headed? A belated onset of guilt?
“It’s right through here,” she told him breathlessly, pulling him through a covered doorway. Her voice was nice to listen to, easy to get lost in and probably the most trustworthy thing he’d heard since leaving Battery City.
For a moment, Frank was confused. That seemed to be happening more and more often lately. Something in his head told him it was fine, there was another door in the back of this ridiculously luxurious room. Something else told him that he was so fucked right now that he should probably start limping.
“I danced with you.” He had to mention it- she was just like the imaginary dance partner, slender, the perfect height. “In my apartment. To Sinatra. I dropped you when Poison showed up though.” Why was he telling her about this again?
Her green eyes turned towards him, holding him in place for a second. “Wanna dance again?”
She pulled Frank towards the fluffy couch on the wall, pushing him down on it. A part of him thought that maybe this needed to stop, right now, but there was a larger part that just didn’t give a fuck. She was cute and he was in a club- what else was he supposed to do? She pressed her lips to the tattoo on his neck, her tongue tracing the outline of the scorpion.
“These are from Poison, aren’t they?” She murmured, pressing against the bruises on his neck with the insistent muscle. “I can make you feel so much better than he can. Trust me.”
Frank couldn’t stop the breathy moan from spilling out of his mouth. This was wrong, so wrong. She was this tiny girl, slim and scrawny... But she was so pretty, so enchanting, he didn’t want it to stop. He knew she didn’t want to stop. She gently reached around him to unbuckle his shoulder holster, sliding it off.
Frank had one hand on the girl’s throat, the other pushing up the orange netting over her waist. The skin there was just as slick as her palms had been. She smelled like cigarettes and anaesthetic. He wanted to kiss her...
This is a fucking death wish waiting to happen- Poison is gonna be so pissed when he finds out. There was his conscience, the ultimate buzzkill that not even Show Pony could compete with. He gently pushed her off of his lap.
“I have a... boyfriend,” he managed to get out of his dry throat.
“Oh, no you don’t, Frankie-”
She reached up to cup his cheek and he swatted her hand away. “Don’t call me that,” he stood up, his vision blurring, “Don’t touch me there’s something fucking wrong with you... wrong with your skin. Freak.”
He staggered forward a few steps, rubbing a hand over his face. He bumped into something solid that shouldn’t have been in the center of the room.
“He’s so dainty- I can see why Gerard likes him. Its a shame about the greasy hair though... Thank you, Kai.” Korse steadied Frank with one hand and nodded to the girl on the couch.
“But I wasn’t done with him, Daddy,” she pouted, playing with Frank’s flasher.
That bitch took your gun. ...You know what Jet said about not getting hit again? Yeah that’s goin’ out the window and you know it.
Frank tried to shove Korse’s hand off but he kept missing it. It was like he had a concussion all over again.
“I know, I know, but I’ve got business with him. You can have him later, I promise.” He turned to stare at Frank. “Where are the other Killjoys?”
“Do you ever fuckin’ blink?” His extremities were still a numb from the girl and her freakish skin, which made it painless when Korse slapped him. It was actually a little helpful for making him pay attention, part of him mused, and brought some of the blood back to his face. A hook to the stomach doubled him over.
“Where are the other Killjoys?”
“There was a whole club full of them, asswipe, and you chased ‘em off.”
There was that hand again, on the other side of his face. Keeping it even, I see. Lovely. He stumbled backwards, bracing himself against the wall.
“Where are the Fabulous Killjoys,” Korse spit out the reclaimed title as if it burned his mouth to say it.
“Good fuckin’ question,” Frank replied. Some of the sensation was edging back into his body. He could feel his face throbbing and the side of his head as well- if he ripped any stitches out Show Pony was gonna be so angry. “Last I checked they were evacuating the rest of the House.”
“They aren’t here! Where did they go?”
How long have I been back here? ... Holy shit Poison left me? The thought must have plastered itself across Frank’s face because Korse laughed instead of hitting him again for not answering. He lifted Frank’s chin. The clammy touch made his skin crawl.
“Did he have you thinking you were someone special? That’s sad, it really is. You’re not the only one though. Kai was one of his pets, too. He left her out in the middle of the desert a couple of years ago so he wouldn’t get caught by a Scarecrow.”
Frank’s hand inched towards his pocket, hoping Korse would remain distracted by the pleasure of screwing up the pedestal he’d placed Party Poison on. Korse was taking his time describing the horrible injuries that Kai had sustained, thinking that he had Frank mesmerized. Now he just had to hope the girl didn’t come in and mess up the plan.
“... they brought her home to me,” he went on with a cold smile, “ and I just couldn’t let something so sweet be euthanized. I got permission to take her to my lab and, well, as you can see she’s much improved.” He leaned in close to Frank’s face, “I can make you just like her if you’ll let me.”
Frank looked contemplative for a second, holding eye contact with the Exterminator. “That is a really tempting offer,” he flipped open the butterfly knife he’d so painstakingly removed and stabbed Korse in the stomach. “But I’m taking my business elsewhere.”
He stabbed him again and again, twisting the knife each time he pulled it back out. Korse’s inhuman hands were clawing at him and damn if the bastard didn’t draw blood. Frank slashed at his stomach. The black ooze and wiring spilled out along with a good length of intestine. He shoved Korse to the floor, leaving him there to writhe with sparks flying up from his body.
“A fuckin’ cyborg, of course, what else? Christ...” He turned to Kai, who had her back to the doorway and was staring at him blankly. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you. Give me my gun and we’ll call it good, okay? I’ll let you leave.”
An eerie smile touched her face. Some of her teeth were sharpened steel. How had he thought that attractive?
“Just how do you plan on getting out without touching me?” She dangled the flasher before her. Whatever it was that she secreted was dripping down the barrel, onto the floor. “How do you plan to get this back without touching it? Just a drop and you’re mine again, Frankie.”
Her head jerked forward with a crunch, blood flying from her mouth. She fell forward onto her knees then slumped sideways onto the concrete. Jet Star stood behind her with a wooden beam hanging from one hand.
“Bitch, please,” he scoffed, “you underestimate his friends.” He bent and picked up Frank’s flasher with a bandanna, making a disgusted noise, “You are gonna have to clean this thing.”
Frank grabbed his holster from the couch and slipped it on. His hands trembled a bit as he took his flasher back from Jet, still wrapped in the bandanna.
“You are a fucking imbecile, I hope you know that,” Jet began as they walked out of the room. “Do you have any idea what would have happened to you if I hadn’t noticed you were missing? You could have been killed. You probably would have gotten all of us killed.”
Try as he might to tune Jet Star out while he led him back out of the House, he couldn’t. (Had the girl really made that many turns? They’d been in the basement? He didn’t remember anything.) It wasn’t like being lectured by an annoyed parent. The mellow Killjoy’s opinion of him actually mattered. There was genuine disappointment in Jet Star’s voice and it made Frank feel about three inches tall to have been the cause of it.
“Do you even know what that girl was? Who she was? She was bio engineered to be a super-weapon, Frank! You’re stupider than even Kobra thought.”
They had entered the main part of the club, vastly different and colder now that it wasn’t filled with dancing bodies.
“ You had me worried fuckin’ sick and when Poison finds out- don’t look at me like that, I have to tell him if he doesn’t already know- he’s gonna skin you! Hell, he’s gonna skin me for letting you out of my sight. Jesus when I joined the Killjoys I didn’t think babysitter was in the job description!”
Something behind them dropped and Jet wheeled around. “Run, Ghoul, now.”
Kai was stumbling along after them, her face bloody and her gait jerking. “Frankie, please come here.”
Frank hesitated, watching her get closer in awe. She shouldn’t be awake for another hour or more. She probably shouldn’t even be alive with how hard Jet had hit her.
“Frank!” Jet was already back peddling towards the main door of the warehouse. “Move it!”
Kai threw herself onto him. Her teeth sliced neatly through the muscle of his forearm when he tried to push her off. He punched her out of reflex, right between the eyes. She went down and he took off towards Jet. He tripped over his own feet more than once. The room started looking like the view from a carousel horse.
“Fuck,” he slurred, going down on his hands and knees. His head was filled with plaster, heavy and hard to move.
Jet hauled him up by the arm, half-dragging him out to the car. Frank wanted to say something in thanks or as an apology for being such a burden but he couldn’t make his mouth work right. He was unceremoniously shoved into the back seat, next to a lady with a very round belly. She was pregnant, right? He blinked at her dumbly.
When Jet tried to get in after Frank, Poison grabbed him by the collar. “You’re driving.”
“Dude, I can’t- Fun Ghoul got-”
“I know! You’re fucking driving! Don’t question me!” He crawled in and faced Frank, half sitting on top of him. He grabbed a hold of Frank’s head, forcing it upright from where it’d been lolling on his shoulder. “Frank, what did he do to you?”
Frank’s eyes tried to focus. He attempted to answer but all that came out was a sloppy string of vowels.
“Focus! Did he touch you? What the fuck did he do to you!”
Having his head shaken like that really pissed Frank off. It made the headache worse and all he wanted to do was sleep. After a long moment he slurred out, “He fuckin’ hit me! What’s it look like dumbass?”
The sigh might have been one of irritation or relief. Frank was suddenly pressed up against Poison’s chest. He pushed at him. “Ge’ offa me... You’re mean.”
“Shut up Frank.”
It was too much effort to move so he stayed put, squished against Poison, his legs bent to keep from touching the lady beside him. At this point he’d have loved to pass out. The heartbeat against he ear was kind of nice, though he’d never admit it aloud, and it made him forget about how sore his face was. The radio hummed softly in the front seat- it sounded like Dr. D’s voice reporting on the raid. Kobra had one hand hanging back over his headrest, holding onto the pregnant woman’s hand, stroking it with his thumb. The warm body behind Frank was a pleasant contrast to the icy air blasting through the car from the cracked windows.
Frank didn’t pass out, though. That would have been too easy. The medicated, paralyzed sensation in his limbs crept away. A headache settled in for the long haul in the front of his skull and his mouth dried out enough to make the Zones whizzing past the windows outside look like a rain forest.
“Shit,” he bit out, pressing one hand to his head. It did nothing to dull the pain. “How long?”
“We’re almost back to the diner, so for a couple of hours at least. You’re funny when you’re high,” Jet Star said, reaching up to turn on the car’s dome light. “You like to sing along to the radio and point out how pretty everyone is. What’s that arm of yours lookin’ like?”
He tried to raise his arm to flip the man off but the burning agony that laced through it made the gesture a hard on to make. He tugged up his sleeve and stared at the perfect bite mark on his left forearm.
“Oh hell the fuck no, she did not bite you. Bitch. That’s my job.”
Poison held onto Frank’s arm and traced a careful finger along the side of the wound. Frank exhaled sharply through his teeth. The touch sent electricity stabbing along the bite. The individual placement of the girl’s teeth was clear. Each swollen puncture had blood bubbling up to the surface. He took his bandanna and wrapped it tightly around the wound.
Frank punched the back of the seat. “Fuck, Poison, that hurts!”
“I will not have you bleeding all over my leather seats.”
Frank groaned as Poison knotted the bandanna twice, tugging on it to make sure it was snug. “I don’t like you right now.”
“You don’t have to like me,” the red head replied, pulling Frank’s sleeve over the makeshift bandage. “You just have to listen to me.” He pulled Frank against his chest again. Frank was less thrilled about that now.
“So what was with the girl, Poison? She said she knew you.” He saw opportunity to get an answer and took it.
“What girl?”
“The one that bit me- Frog Lady. I think her name was Kai or something?”
In the front seat Kobra laughed. “Hell yeah she knew us. She was a spy. She ran with us five years ago. She reported on us to Korse and almost got us killed twice before we found her out. I should have blown her brains all over the dirt but there wasn’t enough time. Those BLI bastards must have used my bio-tech on her, seeing as she’s obviously alive and well.”
“We don’t like to talk about Kai,” Poison murmured into Frank’s ear, “She was bad for my brother and me.”
Frank nodded in understanding. It made sense now, why Kobra had tried almost made him choke to death on his flasher. How could he not be suspicious of new comers?
~~
“Hey angels,” Show Pony greeted when they filed into the diner, “you better dig down somewhere deep tonight. There’s a blaster rollin’ in- one of the biggest ones of the year, like limeaide and pig bombs put together- and it’s hot for lootin’. D just got the transmission from Hot Chimp hidin’ in 2.”
Frank frowned, finally thrown by Show Pony’s Lifelong-Zone-Runner dialect. “What?”
Jet Star grabbed the back of Frank’s vest, leading him to the nearest table. “Sand storm. The odds of getting attacked by some roaming bandits are high. Get that bandanna off your arm.”
“Why?”
He gestured to the first aid kit on the table. “I need to look at that bite and get a clean dressing on it. You’re such an accident-prone asshole. Christ- you’re gonna be made of gauze and stitching with antibiotics for blood if this shit keeps up.”
Grumbling, he did as he was told. The skin around the deep bite was a bright, irritated pink. He didn’t see what Jet did until later. All Frank could think about was the sudden blinding fire that shot itself up his nerve endings, making the rest of his body go numb and a scream rip itself from his throat.
Kandy jumped and spilled the coffee she held. Kobra handed her a towel, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders. “Shut your face and take it like a man, Ghoul. You’re bugging my girl.”
“Fuck!”
Jet poured yet more rubbing alcohol into the bite, sopping up the excess with a rag. “Quit bitching. I told you it needed to be clean.”
“You didn’t tell me you were gonna dump acid on it!”
“It’s only rubbing alcohol, Fun Ghoul, relax.” He rubbed some minty-smelling paste into the bite a little more roughly than necessary.
“Don’t tell me to relax! That shit hurts! Give me some warning next time will ya?”
“Quit gettin’ hurt and there’ll be no reason to warn you about anything. It’s a waste of good napkins and medical tape- this stuff’s hard to come by out here.”
Frank was glad to pull his arm back when Jet was done bandaging it. The paste he’d rubbed on it made it go mercifully numb. He didn’t bother looking at anyone as he shuffled back to the bedroom he’d woken up in that morning.
He dropped onto the bed and hunched over, staring at his scuffed boots. Jet had a point- everything Frank had been involved in since he’d joined them had ended up going so wrong… It would have almost been preferable if Kobra had let that Scarecrow kill him. It would have certainly saved the Killjoys some trouble.
The door opened. Poison walked in and clicked it shut quietly behind him. He stood in front of Frank, his hands in the back pockets of his dirty white jeans. “Hey, quit runnin’ the on the blues. We don’t like that station. You did well today, Fun Ghoul, real well.”
“I didn’t do shit but get fuckin’ hurt again.”
“Hush before I find something to gag you with. Accept the compliment. If you hadn’t kept Korse and Kai busy we’d have had them to deal with on top of the Dracs and the evacuation. Besides, you didn’t give them any intell-”
“- Its not like I knew anything useful-”
“- and loyalty like that is what we need. Thank you, Frank.”