Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
Okay, so this is a random little ficcy. Based on the Danger Days album. However, not meant to be the band members ... I don't think. Based solidly on four blokes and how the Killjoys live anyway. Told from the POV of the Kobra Kid.
Dust
You remember the present and breathe the future and somehow the past gets lost.
You wake up most mornings with dust in your mouth. Dust gets everywhere, and your lips are chapped as you take sparing sips of water laced with the stuff.
Your brother drives too fast, and you should tell him not to, but when you're running, with the wind in your hair, sand on your glasses, in your nose, billowing out behind you like so many memories, you shut your mouth and look away.
Your hands are shaking, covered in grime and old cuts, and you wonder what it felt like to be clean.
You're tired, overly warm and it's your turn to keep watch. Your brother sleeps, with his head in your lap, covered in blankets that don't hold heat or stave off the chill and it's easy to forget which one of you is older.
You wonder when names stopped being important. When you forgot everyting but the heat, the desert, the road and the constant movement. When life in a world with showers and food that doesn't come from cans wasn't some obscure dream. When road trips were fun and ray guns were science fiction.
When you weren't the Killjoys.
You shut your eyes and the dust collects on your lashes, and you just can't remember what it felt like to be safe.
It's something that creeps up inside you, an anger that's equal parts insanity and terror. And you keep it squashed, hide it from your brother and the others, but sometimes it springs out and the little girl watches you, terrified and your brother swears he's alright so just calm down please.
You don't remember a time when you weren''t half terrified of yourself.
Your brother tells you it's okay, even as he presses his foot down on the accelerator and takes the corner far faster than he should. It's okay that you can't remember, that you scare yourself and him and the next corner almost flips the car and you and the others are hanging on for dear life.
It's okay, he doesn't blame you, because you know what they say about people and glass houses, except you really don't, but the car is skidding wildly and you're grabbing the wheel and pulling it straight and someone from the back all but shrieks for you or him to stop the damn car.
Which you do, or he does, you don't really remember, but you're sitting there, all of you trembling and the insanity is bleeding away, and you're holding his shaking hands on the wheel and somehow this is funny now because the little girl is laughing. It's five of you, wanted and starving and all mostly insane, sitting in a car in the middle of the desert laughing about almost killing yourselves.
Later on, when the world has bled every bit of memory away from you, all knowledge of who you were spread along the highway like laser burns, you'll remember that moment, sitting there, shaking and laughing and you'll feel human.
But the future is bulletproof, the present is a blur and the past is billowing out behind the car like so many memories and you don't remember why that doesn't bother you anymore.
xXx
Okay, well, that's all she wrote. Drop a review on the way out and thanks for looking.
- Panda