Danger Days

I Do My Talking with a Laser Beam

To no one's surprise, Kobra was banging on doors early in the morning.

"Come on! We gotta go! We'll be at this base longer than the last one! Hurry up!"

"We're coming, god dammit!" Jet came out of his room and into the main room, yawning, his hair everywhere. Diamond, already dressed and having some coffee at the table with Emerald, couldn't help herself. Both girls burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Jet asked.

"Y-Your hair!" Diamond said through her laughter.

"It's everywhere!" Emerald managed to choke out through her giggles.

"Women..." Jet muttered before retreating to the bathroom, probably to shower and try and control his wild mane.

"Ghoul!" Kobra pounded on the next door, "I swear to god we'll leave you here-"

"I'm up! I'm up!" Ghoul yelled, rushing out of his room already fully dressed and ready to go. He looked up at Kobra in annoyance, blowing his long bangs away from his eyes. "Happy?"

"Thrilled." Kobra coldly replied before heading back to the main room. Ghoul glared at the back of his head.

"What is your deal?" Ghoul asked angrily.

"I should be asking you the same thing." Kobra retorted, "What were you doing in Diamond's room last night?"

"What the-you little-" Ghoul fumed, at loss for words.

"What was so important that you just had to go tell her right away?"

No response.

"And why didn't you ever actually tell her?"

More silence. Diamond and Emerald sat, shocked and speechless.

Finally Ghoul choked out a sentence.

"I don't know...what the fuck...you're talking about."

"Really?"

"Really." Kobra turned to look at Ghoul, his sunglasses giving him the appearance of being emotionless. Diamond knew, though, that if looks could kill Ghoul would be dead in about two seconds.

"I can't believe you."

"You're telling me!"

"What gives you the right to-"

"Don't try to turn this on me!"

"Who should I turn it on? Her?" Ghoul pointed at Diamond, though he was still glaring at Kobra with loathing and anger.

"Well I don't know, does it seem fair to blame her for your mistakes?" Kobra demanded, now standing, his voice rising with every breath.

Diamond saw Ghoul's anger falter, crack into a mask of sadness and self-loathing. But soon the rage was back.

"Don't even think about it, Kobra."

"Think about what? What don't you want me to say, Fun Ghoul?" Kobra said his name with icy venom.

"You know all too fucking well, Kobra!"

"What? You think not saying her name is going to bring her back? It's not that easy."

Ghoul's face immediately crumbled.

"I fucking hate you." he spat before turning around and storming back into his room. The door slammed with a sense of finality.

Kobra sat back down slowly and sighed, his rage drained, but his irritation remained. He put his head in his hands, leaning on the table.

Diamond sat there, stunned.

Emerald simply got up and walked out.

"What the hell were you thinking, Kobra?"

"I wasn't." he replied grimly, "I was just so pissed off. I don't even know why...this whole thing with Party has me so much more on-edge than usual..."

Diamond accepted the excuse. "I guess I can see where you're coming from. But you were still so mean..."

"I know. I just...wanted to hit him where it would hurt the most."

"And what hurt him the most?"

A pause. Kobra sat back, took off his sunglasses, and sighed.

"I guess I'd better start around nine years ago."

Diamond sat back in her chair.

"As you can probably figure, Party, Jet, Ghoul and I weren't always Killjoys. We had...families. We had lives and homes. We had a band. We were all so happy..."

He was lost in memories, faint visions of the past flooding his mind.

"All four of us had wives. But Party and Ghoul had something more...they had children. Daughters." Kobra smiled faintly.

"Ghoul had twin daughters. Party had one. My niece. They were such beautiful little girls...looked just like their mothers..."

He was too far gone into the memories. Breaking him out of his nostalgia would be impossible.

"The twins were only two when the world began to collapse. Bandit was four..." his voice trailed off.

"We lost all of them that year. The disasters took our families. Our wives. Our children. We all blamed ourselves a little but...Ghoul is so hard on himself."

The tears fell silently down Kobra's cheeks. Diamond felt tears of her own began to pool in her eyes. She couldn't imagine what it felt like...sure, she'd lost her mother in the very same disasters, but she had been young. She couldn't remember much about her mother. But the Killjoys could remember. They had lost so much more...

"Because we never had...children...it was a bit easier for Jet and I to-for lack of a better phrase-let go of the past. We've accepted it. But Party and Ghoul had lost so much...I still remember the first month after they were all gone. Party wouldn't stop sobbing. Ghoul was a wreck."

Kobra wiped his eyes. "A few years later, when we found Grace, she immediately became attached to Party. It was good for both of them. She needed a father-figure; he needed a child to care for. But I could tell Ghoul was a bit jealous. He does a pretty damn good job of hiding himself behind happiness and jokes."

He sighed, "We could tell he wanted what Party had. Someone that looked up to him like a parent. Someone who could be a daughter to him."

Kobra let himself smile a little. "I think that's why he wanted to talk to you last night. He wanted to get to know you a bit better. Establish a connection or whatever." Kobra finally looked at Diamond, running his fingers through his blonde hair.

"I-I..." Diamond tried to find something to say. Pity overwhelmed her.

"You know, Jet and I were talking and...we saw how happy you were here with other girls around your age..."

Diamond immediately saw where this was going. "No." she flat-out refused.

"You're obviously a helluva lot safer here. You'll be much happier."

"N-O. No." Diamond crossed her arms. "I'm not leaving you guys. Emerald and Candy are both great, sure, but...they're not the family I need right now."

"This really isn't the family you need right now either." Kobra muttered.

"How do you figure?"

Kobra just shook his head. "You wouldn't get it. You'd have to be older to understand."

That did it.

"Why is everyone treating me like a fucking child!" Diamond demanded, standing up and knocking her chair back. "I'm not a damn three-year-old! I've had to take care of myself for the past three fucking years; you don't think I've had to grow up a bit to do that?"

Kobra just sat there, staring at her, wide-eyed.

"Well I'm ready to go!" Jet stepped out if the bathroom, smiling, and shrugging on his jacket. His smile fell when he stepped into the main room, seeing Diamond standing over Kobra, fuming. "What happened here?"

"Nothing." Diamond spat. She stormed out of the room.