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The Diner is quiet when Kobra Kid wakes up, warm in the fading light of the late afternoon sun. Cherri Cola is still asleep next to him, so Kobra slips carefully out from under the sheets, tucking them back up over Cherri’s shoulders before stealing softly for the door.
The open door at the end of the hall tells Kobra that Jet Star must already be awake, though there’s no audible indication of where she might be, and the kitchen is empty. Breaking the quiet still doesn’t feel right, so Kobra silently sets water boiling on the stove, the clinking of dishware his only accompaniment while he puts together a small tray.
The cabinets are almost empty. Usually Pony would’ve noticed that and made the run aerself, but they’re with Doc, of course, so they can’t do that right now. Kobra makes a mental note to have someone go to the market tomorrow, and reaches for one of the last cans of soup in the back corner. The crack of the pulltab is almost too loud even with the slowly growing whistle of the kettle. Kobra lets the soup heat while he pours the hot water into a chipped mug, adding a little bit of lemon juice and stirring with a mismatched spoon.
Jet is coming through the front door when Kobra is carrying the tray towards the back hall. “Hey,” they say softly, wiping at their graying hairline with a cloth, jacket slung over her shoulder. Their eyes catch on the tray in Kobra’s hands and their half-smile gets a little more forced. “Dinnertime already?” she jokes, halfheartedly.
“Yeah,” Kobra responds, quietly. Jet places their hand over his, briefly. Then she disappears into the kitchen, and Kobra can hear the sink running as he pushes the Employees-Only swinging door open with his shoulder.
Party Poison’s door is closed, and has been pretty consistently for the past week. Kobra knocks anyways, shifting the tray to one hand and twisting the knob.
The blinds are closed, again, even though Kobra swears he opened them last time he was in here. It casts the room in shadow, leaving his sibling as a dark shape under the covers, only just visible in the dim light.
Kobra lets the door swing shut behind him, shuffling carefully along his regular path to the mattress. Party is exactly where he left them, a little before noon: curled on their side on the left half of the bed, sheets pulled up to their neck. Their eyes are fixed on the wall across from them, though Kobra doubts they’re looking at any particular photograph out of the ones pinned in that part of the room. Hands clasped in loose half-fists, the pillowcase not under their head barely held between the fingers of their left.
Kobra shifts the tray still on the side table just enough that he can set the one he’s holding down. The scrambled eggs are untouched, gone cold and grey, and it doesn’t look like they had any of the water either. He sighs. Settling on the bed, his sibling’s feet pressed up against his thigh through the blankets, Kobra lays a light hand on their calf.
“Hey, P,” he says, softly, tone calm and soothing. He shakes their leg gently. “I brought dinner,” he tries. Party blinks, slowly. Kobra squeezes the quilt over their ankle. “Can you eat a little for me? I know y’ haven’t had anything yet today. ‘T would make me feel better. Can y’ do that for me?”
A shuddering sigh works through their lungs, but they still don’t really move. Kobra drops that subject, soothingly drawing his thumb back and forth. “Can I at least clean you up a bit?”
Party’s hand moves just enough to sign, “Okay,” and then thumps gracelessly back to the pillow. The two matching bracelets on their wrist catch what little light there is in the room, a dull gleam matched by their eyes, grey and shadowed. The white of the fabric makes their skin look ghostly against the old beads, a disembodied hand clinging to its sheet covering.
Kobra uses the sort-of clean rag he brought from the kitchen, dipped in the mug of water, to dab at the dried tracks of salt across their cheeks, where they’ve pooled at the curve of their chin and the crow’s feet at the corners of their eyes. Party’s lids slide closed as Kobra works, breathing steady but tired and shallow. Like they don’t have the energy to draw air properly so they aren’t even bothering to try.
They keep their eyes shut when Kobra sits back, just watching the slow rise and fall of their chest for a bit. “Worried about you, Pois,” he manages, clearing his throat to try and get rid of the gravel in his voice. It won’t help his sibling to cry right now. They’re barely hanging in there as it is — staying holed up in their room, eating sporadically and very little, spending the days staring listlessly at the wall — and he needs to be strong for them. They still haven’t spoken a word out loud, not since the earthquake, and the crumbling of the tired old house they’d been sweeping at the time.
Not since the floor gave out under their feet, the wooden supports of the attic creaking and groaning and ultimately giving way, and Party had watched Fun Ghoul fall three stories, hit the concrete shell of the basement, and not get up.
Kobra had already been running for the half-collapsed doorjamb, Jet on his heels, as soon as the ground had stopped shaking enough for him to get his footing, and he’d had to hear the frantic rise and fall of voices, and then Party’s hysterical sobs of “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!” turn to inconsolable screaming — kneeling-in-the-dust, wordless screaming like the world was ending. In a way, it kind of was. Kobra’s own lungs had been hurting, out of his personal grief or in sympathy, by the time Party lost their voice, screams turning to raw, rasping breaths. He’d scooped them up with hands under their arms and helped them back to the Trans Am, pretending not to see the red fingerprints at the highest point of their cheek, or the bloody impression of a lower lip at the corner of their mouth.
He’d gotten them into the backseat, tucked one of the spare blankets from the trunk around their shoulders to try and combat shock and the hopeless emptiness already settling in their expression, and that had been the last time Kobra heard their voice for the past week.
Jet carried Ghoul’s body back, looking so much smaller than he ever had in life, curled in their lap in the passenger seat — jaw tight but arms circled protectively around his still form, gentle to the end. Party hadn’t looked up once, not even when Kobra, with trembling hands, slid Ghoul’s commitment band over their left wrist, nestling up against their matching one. As soon as the car had pulled to a stop in front of the Diner, Party had stood up, robotically, on their own, walked to their room like they were running on autopilot, and hadn’t moved from the bed since.
They acknowledge his words with a slight shift of their shoulder. Kobra stills his hand, just resting it on their knee, and lets the silence sit for a bit. “Charlie called,” he tries again. “Her crew ‘s almost back in th’ Zones, she said she’d be here by tomorrow, probably. Okay?” He lets his voice go softer by the end.
“Okay,” Party signs again. Kobra draws a breath through his nose and lets it out. He pats their foot, unsteadily.
“Can I get you t’ at least drink some water?” he says, barely above a whisper. Party doesn’t answer for a long moment, and then nods. Kobra eases them into a sitting position with an arm around their shoulders, and places the mug of warm lemon water in their hands. They stare at it blankly until he helps bring it to their mouth, and then they manage a few long, slow sips. He lays them back down, heart hurting at the dull grief in their eyes, fixed on some point off in the distance, beyond the peeling paint of the ceiling. “No soup today, huh?” Kobra asks, halfheartedly, aiming for light and falling considerably short.
Party ignores him, and he’s about to turn around and leave, let them have some space again, when motion catches his eye. “Promised,” Party signs, still staring into space. “Long time ago. Promised him I wouldn’t follow.” Their face crumples, just a tiny bit, but more than anything they’ve shown since Ghoul died. “It’s hard,” they finish, and their hands freeze in place, hovering over their chest. Kobra swallows, pushing past the lump in his throat and the sudden pressure behind his eyes.
“I know,” he says, softly, and his voice hitches, slightly. He blinks sharply. “I know.”
Party’s hands tremble, and then they add, “I thought we were finally safe.” Their fingers shake so much on the word “safe” that the motion is barely legible, but Kobra understands what they mean.
“Me, too,” he squeezes out, feeling the grey tide in his chest rising in a wave, washing through him. He clenches his fingers in the fabric of his sleeves, arms tight across his chest. “I thought we were, too, P.” He stands there for a moment, before he feels steady enough to move. He keeps his hands balled tight, hidden in his pockets where Party can’t see them, when he does. Kobra clears his throat, shifting a little. “I’ll let you get some rest,” he says. “I’ll let you know when Charlie an’ Girly get here, t’morrow. Love you.”
He just catches Party signing “Love you,” in return, movements tiny and slow, but present, before he carefully pulls the door shut behind him.
*
A little after two the next day, the powder blue RV Charlie’s crew travels in pulls up in front of the Diner, kicking up stagnant dust. Kobra looks out the window at the creaking of brakes and wheels in time to see Charlie hurrying down the stairs before the vehicle’s even fully stopped, overnight bag thumping on her hip.
He meets her at the door, opening it to her hand raised about to knock, her other thumbnail worrying between her teeth. Her mouth twists up when she sees him, so similar to his sibling that Kobra’s heart breaks a little more.
“Uncle Kobra,” she chokes, before she makes a heartbroken little noise and folds herself into his arms. He hugs her tight, feeling her lean frame tremble against him.
“Hey, ‘s okay,” Kobra says, even though it’s not. “Glad you’re here, muffin.”
“I’m almost twenty, Uncle Kobra,” she protests weakly, but her heart doesn’t seem to be in it. She swipes at her eyes with her wrist when she pulls away, other hand moving to worry at the loose threads on her denim shorts. One of her crewmates leans out of the open RV door, face pinched and apologetic, waiting for Kobra to tap her shoulder and indicate for her to turn around before they start to sign.
“The Captain needs gas, we’re gonna hop over a couple Zones. You’ll radio us, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Charlie calls back, shoulders hunched.
Her crewmate’s brows furrow, but they reply, “Okay. We’ll see you later, then. I’m really sorry.”
They disappear back inside, and a few moments later, the RV rumbles and rolls off of the cracked pavement lot in front back onto the open sand.
Charlie rubs at her face again, chunks of brown hair falling across her eyes as she dips her head further. “I wanna see Oya,” she signs, jerkily, motions soft and a little lost-looking.
“They’ll be happy t’ see you,” Kobra replies, gently chucking her under the chin. Wordlessly, he closes the door, letting Charlie set her dusty duffle on the armchair nearby before leading her further into the Diner. He pauses at the Employees-Only entrance, unsure of what to do with his hands for a minute before ultimately shoving them into his jean pockets. “I just — ” Kobra sighs, turning just enough that she can see his mouth as he speaks. “I want y’ t’ know. ‘Fore you see ‘em. They — they haven’t been doin’ too well. As, um, as y’ might imagine.” He rubs his nose. “So jus’...I dunno. Maybe they’ll feel a bit better now you’re here. ‘S jus’ a little concernin’. An’ they’re your parent. So I don’ want you t’ jus’ walk in on that, without, y’know. Me tellin’ you.”
Charlie clears her throat, wetly, and Kobra can’t really bear to do more than glance back at her quickly to see her nod, before he nods absently in return and pushes through to the back hall.
He knocks on the door to Party’s room. “Pois? CJ’s here t’ see you.”
Party’s still in bed, still and silent even when Kobra pushes open the door and steps to the side to let Charlie through. She shuffles uncertainly into the dark room, pausing briefly at the wall still painted with a sunset mural and letting her fingers brush against it, before taking a few nervous steps towards the mattress.
Party still doesn’t move, and Charlie glances at Kobra with wide eyes before cautiously moving to sit on the end of the bed, right where Kobra had sat the other day. “Oya...?” she says softly, sounding shaky and unsure. She carefully moves a piece of fading red hair out of their face, tucking it behind their ear. “‘S me. I’m here. Um. Uncle Kobra told me about Dad.” Her voice shatters on the last word, and either Party hears it, or they recognize their daughter’s touch, because they stir a little.
“Charlie,” they rasp, voice crackling and soft from not speaking for a week, still almost sounding like they’ve lost their voice. Kobra is still getting over his surprise at hearing them actually talk before they shift — pushing themself up in the bed a bit more and repeating, a little stronger, “Charlie,” — and burst into tears.
Charlie looks startled, eyes wide and shiny with her own tears, and Kobra takes a step forwards, when Party sobs, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I — he reached for me an’ I tried t’ save him but I couldn’t, an’ he’s gone, an’ I’m so sorry, sweetheart — “
“Oya,” Charlie says weakly, helpless, and crawls into her parent’s lap like she’s five again, curling up and clinging to them tightly as they cling just as hard back. Party’s shoulders are shaking as they cry and Charlie hides her face in their neck, balling both her hands in their shirt like she used to do when she had a nightmare. Kobra looks away, out through the dim doorway, to try and give them a semblance of privacy, eyes stinging as his vision blurs a bit. He blinks the tears away, squeezing his own arm with the hand tucked against his ribs.
Charlie’s sniffling still when they’ve gotten Party calmed down enough to sleep again, looking small with the sheets tucked around their shoulders and the other side of the mattress empty. They’d managed to have some food and water as well, so Kobra is more than a little relieved, but Charlie seems bone-tired and slumps onto the ancient green corduroy couch with her hands tucked between her knees. One reaches up to fiddle with one of her bright orange hearing aids, ticking the volume higher and lower the way she’s always done when she’s upset.
Kobra sits next to her, and she leans against his shoulder, so he can feel her trembling a little. She twists to look up at him, Ghoul’s mouth pulled up in a paper maché smile, Ghoul’s eyes creasing at the corners. Especially like this, trying to put on a brave face, she looks more like him than ever, and Kobra has to swallow the sound that tries to rise in his throat, at the reminder that she’s the last bit of Fun Ghoul that exists on this earth. Charlie attempts a laugh, that comes out miserable. “I want my dad,” she says, voice shaking, and then she hides her face in her hands, quiet little sobs slipping past her fingers. Kobra puts an arm around her waist and squeezes his eyes shut, biting back the grief rising in his throat again.
“It’s alright,” he forces out, trying to keep his voice steady and soothing. “I’ve got you. I know. It’s gonna be alright.”
*
Charlie had asked eventually, in a small voice, to see Auntie Jet, and Jet had taken one look at her and hugged her tight, gotten Cherri’s truck from the garage, and bundled her off to go get ice cream, so now Kobra is alone again on the couch in the Diner’s main room. Party’s room is still silent, so it’s easy to hear when one of the doors down the hall softly opens and closes, and the footsteps approaching.
Kobra sits up in time to see Cherri push through the Employees-Only door, casting his eyes around until they land on Kobra, and soften. “Hi,” he offers, and opens his arms. Kobra is all too happy to collapse into their warmth, burrowing into Cherri’s shoulder like he isn’t a good half-foot taller than him. A memory — something warm and sweet and faded with time — of Party, huddled in a fort made of Kobra’s blankets (even though they weren’t kids anymore, but twenty and eighteen respectively), smiling even against Kobra’s teasing, tries to surface. (Doesn’t matter that ‘m taller, ‘s only a few inches anyway. I just...I like being close. Y’know?) Kobra pushes it away. He remembers that time, and all Party had ever talked about for about four straight months was Ghoul, and their shiny new relationship. And now Ghoul is gone, and it would just hurt to touch on that right now.
“I called th’ Station while you an’ CJ were talking. Just t’ check in,” Cherri says against the side of his neck, pulling Kobra back to the present. “Pony said Doc ‘s doing okay...he’s comfortable, ‘t least, but they aren’t sure they can really do anything else. I told aer that’s all they ever could do, anyway, an’ that Doc appreciates it.”
“He does,” Kobra murmurs. “Pony worries too much. Ae’ve been one’a D’s closest friends for decades, they can’t help th’ fact that he’s—“ Kobra bites his tongue to keep himself from saying the word ‘dying’. “ — Gettin’ older.”
“‘S what I said,” Cherri answers back, gently sliding one of his hands up to Kobra’s shoulder and back down, arms still around him. “Anyways. They aren’t comin’ home for a while yet, but ae’re doin’ alright. An’ then Ollie got on th’ transmitter an’ he says ‘Ba-ba ga’, which ‘s best as I can figure means hello an’ that he misses us.”
Kobra freezes. Ollie. “Fuck. Fuck, I am the worst parent, Cher.”
“‘S okay that you weren’t thinkin’ about it,” Cherri soothes. “You’ve been dealin’ with a lot. An’ I’ve been keepin’ an eye on you; ‘s why we let Pony watch him. You needed a little time on th’ bench, doesn’t mean you’re a bad dad, Kobes.”
Kobra breathes out a heavy breath and hides in Cherri’s flannel again. Cherri shakes his arm lightly. “Kobra. C’mon.” His voice drops softer and more gentle, like he’s calming a frightened animal, and if Kobra wasn’t feeling like he was about to cry from the overwhelming emotions threatening to drown him he’d bristle at the implication. Instead, he sags further into the steadying grip Cherri has around his waist, letting him stroke a hand through his hair. “Your best friend jus’ died. An’ if that wasn’t enough, you’re also trying t’ take care of your sibling, ‘cause they just lost their partner, an’ your niece, ‘cause she just lost her dad. You’re strong, Kobes, I know you are, y’ don’t have to prove it. Let me help you carry some ‘f the weight.”
Kobra takes deep breaths against Cherri’s shoulder, concealing the fact that his face and eyes are burning in the fleecy fabric. “They were t’gether thirty years, Cher.”
“An’ you two were best friends for almost forty.”
An agonized sound rips out of his throat before Kobra can stop it, and he steps back, sharply, hands balling into fists. “So what, ‘s not fair t’ pit ‘em up against each other like ‘t matters, We — we all lost him. ‘S not — I can’t — I don’t have it worse jus’ cause we knew each other longer or something.”
“No,” Cherri corrects, catching Kobra’s wrists gently in his hands. “But ‘t means you’re allowed to grieve, too.”
Kobra stops clamping down on the painful feeling burning in his chest, then, and once the first sob has slipped past his clenched teeth, he can’t stop them. Cherri guides him back to the couch, pulling him into his lap and placing a hand on the back of his neck.
Now that he’s not trying to choke it back, everything he’s been trying not to think about comes flooding to the surface. The first day they met, Ghoul managing to grit out “B-5,” and motion for Kobra to put the marker on the Battleship board even as Show Pony was threading a needle through the skin on his hip. Ghoul offering up his only blanket so Kobra could sleep better with a fever, his first month in the Diner. Cradling the baby Girl to his shoulder protectively, sharp and firm when he insisted that “She can’t go t’ Gertie’s, we can take care ‘f her — she’s so little an’ she needs a family now .” Leaned back on his elbows, wide eyes flicking over to Kobra beside him on the Diner roof and away again just as quickly, before his mouth twisted wryly and he asked, “So... How — when you knew that — that you were in love with Cherri. What did that feel like?” Back-to-back with Kobra in a firefight, a wild laugh in his ear and a hot raygun muzzle inches from his cheek, crackling with the discharge of energy. Ghoul, in a dark tux jacket over a threadbare, but almost-overly-bleached white shirt, making a face at Kobra in the cracked mirror as Jet braided a swathe of unusually-neat raven hair over his ear, splitting into a brilliant grin a moment later and batting Kobra’s hands away when he tried to reach in and mess it up. Wobbling on Jet’s shoulders to fix the gutter, both of them playfully cursing at each other, a drill precariously balanced on Ghoul’s knee. Squeezing Kobra’s hand during one of their only jaunts to the tattoo shops together, two little crows — beaks pressed together, perched on a wire — being etched across the base of his back. Staring down in gentle, awed reverence at his two-day-old daughter, her tiny fingers wrapped tight around his pinky in the dim light of a single hanging lamp in the kitchen. Hugging Kobra tight, beaming lopsidedly over a shared birthday cake with unevenly-melted candles. Eyes twinkling, falling as easily into the motions of their “secret” handshake as if it were twenty-five years earlier, rather than just two weeks ago. Just a week before he died.
“I miss him,” Kobra whispers pathetically before he can stop himself, but Cherri just presses a kiss to his hair, holding him a little closer.
“I know, love. Me, too.”
*
The sun is well and sunken into the horizon by the time the Girl’s motorbike roars down the stretch of sand between Guano and the Diner, lit up lavender and pink by the last traces of sunset fading into twilight. The roar turns into a purr as she slows, and Kobra doesn’t have to come outside to meet her because he was already sitting on the dusty carpark, smoking a cigarette between the cracks and miniature drifts of sand.
The Girl pulls her helmet off, methodically, taking her time setting it on the seat and zipping her keys into the pocket of her vest.
When she sits down next to him on the pavement, she smells like wind and cactus water, two things Kobra hasn’t seen in a week and a half. “Hi, Kobra,” she says, tone soft, staring at the scuffed toes of her leather boots.
He takes another drag off his cig, blowing the smoke up towards the stars just starting to appear. “Hey, Girly.”
She sighs, pulling a battered neon pink shoelace out of her jeans and starting to methodically wind it around her knuckle. “How’s CJ?”
Kobra takes his time sucking the last dregs of smoke out of his cigarette before tossing the butt aside and shaking out another one from the pack. “She’s…probably ‘bout as good as she could be, given th’ circumstances. Better than Party. Then ‘gain, I think all ‘f us ‘ve been tryin’ t’ put on a bit ‘f a face for ‘em. Witch, I haven’t even really asked Jet ‘f they’re alright.” He hides his shaky inhalation behind his lighter, taking a drag to get his fresh cig lit.
The Girl is silent for a second. “Goldie really wanted t’ come,” she offers. “Was beatin’ hirself up about not gettin’ t’ know you guys better. I told hir I’d tell ‘v’ryone she sends hir condolences. So.”
Kobra laughs a little at that. “‘S sweet ‘f hir. How ‘s Golden Hour doin’, anyways?”
The Girl brightens, slightly, and tells him about the old firehouse in Zone 1 that they’ve been restoring together. It’s nice to pretend for a little while like everything is normal, the Girl just visiting for a bit like she sometimes does, catching him up on her life and her girlfriend and that yes, she has been eating enough, Kobra, and she’s been sleeping fine, too.
Until the Girl explains how they were checking out the electrical wiring because Golden Hour thought they could get a generator hooked up — but the old wiring was grounded in all the wrong places and she kept setting the current running and shocking Goldie and they didn’t know the first thing about fixing it, so they called the Diner. And Ghoul took the ‘Am down to One to help. She stutters to a halt, biting her lip, eyes getting shiny.
Kobra reaches out to pull her into his side. “Hey. I know. ‘S is really hard.”
“What ‘re we gonna do without him, Kobes?” she whispers, sounding a little choked up.
He closes his eyes against the sliver of sun still splicing the horizon and sky. “I dunno, jackrabbit.” The nicotine in his lungs isn’t enough to fill the jagged, exigent hole in their crew. “We gotta keep goin’, though. He’d want us t’ be happy.”
He lets her cry into his shoulder and pretends not to notice her wiping her nose on his shirt. All of his clothes have seen enough blood and sweat and tears anyways, especially in the past few weeks, for him to begrudge her that. He hears a faint squeak and looks down to see the battered, lumpy head of her childhood stuffed animal sticking out above the zip of her vest, and a bittersweet rush numbs over the painful static for a second.
“Fuffy came too, huh?
The Girl wipes surreptitiously at her eyes, smiling just a tiny bit despite herself, though it looks sad. “Yeah. Ze didn’t want to miss seeing everyone. Or...or th’ wake, ‘r anythin’.” She pulls zem out, using her hands to make the plush wave wonkily with one rounded, pilling paw. Then she tucks Fuffy into the crook of her neck and leans back into Kobra’s side, letting out a long, shaky sigh.
“You wanna go in and see everyone?” Kobra asks softly.
“Can we just sit here for a little bit longer?” The Girl whispers. “I haven’t really looked at the stars in a while.”
Kobra nods silently, turning his face back towards the shattered diamond sky.
*
It’s been a rough day. With Charlie and the Girl home, Kobra and Jet had been in agreement on trying to sort through some of Ghoul’s things — and being as it was Party’s room that they were gathered in, it had coaxed them out of bed for a little bit, even if it had just been to sit on the floor. It had been bad enough, unearthing items and memories that Kobra had thought he’d forgotten about, but the worst part had been when they’d opened up a box tucked in the farthest, tightest corner of the storage closet and found carefully hidden gifts: the motorcycle gloves Kobra had been admiring a month ago at the market but hadn’t felt comfortable splurging on for himself, somehow simultaneously neatly and messily wrapped in newspaper with a “Happy Birthday! -Ghoul :)” message tucked into the fold of it, and a brand-new, engraved wooden box — the perfect length and width for Party’s paintbrushes, with a note in Ghoul’s dark, blocky writing that said “Happy 29th Anniversary, I love you, here’s to another thirty years” — which had set Party crying again to the point where no one could keep going and shoved all of the things back into the closet.
That had lasted all of the afternoon, perfectly audible even in the front room where Kobra had dug out a deck of cards in an attempt to offer a distraction. When gasping and retching for air started to mix itself between the choked sobs, Charlie had put her hands over her ears, white in the face, and speed-walked outside of the Diner so fast the bell over the door almost crashed to the ground — so the card game, as feeble as it had already been, was effectively over.
Even now, though the sun went down hours ago, Kobra can still hear uneven, shivery sniffling from behind their door, and it’s just as he’s debating going to check on his sibling and trying — however in vain — to help that Party’s door swings open and they come shuffling out, face blotchy and streaked with tears. They collapse onto the couch, next to Kobra but not touching, curling up with their knees to their chin and their face hidden in the cushion.
Kobra hovers a hand over their knee, then thinks better of it; if they wanted touch they knew how to ask for it. He watches Party tangle their fingers in their own hair and tug rhythmically on it, trying to self-soothe, and swallows a sigh. He digs a hand between the couch cushions, finding one of their clickers where it’s been buried for about, he guesses, six or seven years. Party still isn’t talking, but they close their hand around the toy when Kobra gently pries it away from their head, and shifts to clicking it rather than yanking on their hair.
Kobra watches them sadly for a few moments, before he tries, carefully, “…Ghoul wouldn’t want you t’ do this to yourself.”
Kobra regrets opening his mouth when Party’s head whips up, their expression clouded with grief and fury. It takes a few seconds where they’re clearly trying to find their words, but when they hiss, venomously, “You think I don’t know that?” it’s strong, if a little hoarse. “Witch fucking damn it, I know what he’d want. I know what he’d want, I —” Their voice breaks, right as their eyes slam shut and they curl back into themself. “‘S been too long, K.” They clear their throat wetly. “I don’t know how t’ live by myself anymore.”
“Y’ don’ have to,” Kobra says gently. He scoots a little closer on the couch, tentatively laying an arm across their shoulders. Party shudders, trembling like the earthquake is still clinging to them somehow. “We’re all here for you. We’re all still here.”
“‘S not the same. I wake up an’ he’s not there an’ it’s not the same.” A few stray tears slide down their cheeks, following the trails already there from days earlier. Their breaths start to pick up, coming harsh and quick and strangled, and Kobra pulls them in tighter against his side.
“Hey. Hey, c’mon, P, breathe with me. Breathe.”
Slowly, they get their breathing under control again, a little uneven, but steady, and Kobra picks the toy up from where they dropped it and slips it back into their hand. Party presses the hand holding it against their temple, head dropping to their knees. Rhythmic, fast-paced clicking fills the silence hanging between them again, soft but somehow deafeningly loud at the same time.
“I miss him, too,” Kobra adds, quietly. “We all lost him. You’re not alone.”
Party looks up, miserably. “But he is,” they croak, free hand tightening in the shoulder of Kobra’s cutoff tee. “He’s alone, an’ I promised him he didn’t have t’ be anymore.” They start to tremble again. “I broke my vows an’ I failed him an’ now ‘m never going t’ see him again.”
Kobra shushes them as they start to sob again, trying to sound soothing. “You’ll see him again. Hey, ‘s okay, he’s not alone. ‘S with the Witch, Pois, okay? You didn’t fail him. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It wasn’t, an’ you know Ghoul’d tell you the same thing. He’d tell you y’ don’ have t’ cry, ‘cause he’s okay. Okay?”
Party’s voice is clogged-sounding when they sniff and say, barely above a whisper, “Feels like ‘s never going t’ stop hurting.”
“It will,” Kobra answers, tugging his sibling closer to wrap his arms around them. He tries to believe it himself. “It’ll get better, P. Promise.”
Party sighs, slumping against his chest and tugging the sleeves of their sweater — one of Jet’s, upon slightly closer inspection — up over their hands. Kobra shifts a little to prop a leg up on the couch arm, and lets his head drop against the top of his sibling’s, listening to the quiet sounds of the desert waking up for the evening outside, the coyote calls and the wind carrying loose sand against the Diner walls. Muted thunder rumbles somewhere off in the distance.
“You should write t’ him,” he says, softly. Party stays silent, but shifts in a way that indicates they’re listening. “Take a letter t’ the Mailbox. Then he won’t be alone. Right?”
Party makes a little mournful sound. “I dunno.”
Kobra gently squeezes their upper arm. “What could ‘t hurt, though?”
Party seems to think on that for a long, long moment. “Okay,” they whisper, finally. Then, after another long pause, “...Thanks.”
“Yeah.” Kobra uses his free hand to pull his sunglasses off, wiping the lenses on the worn-soft fabric of his jeans. “Think I might do ‘t, too,” he adds, quietly.
“Fuck. Kobes —” Party sounds distressed again, but for a different reason this time. Kobra cuts them off with a shake of his head.
“‘Member how I said all ‘f us were here for you? Same ‘s true ‘f me, Cher an’ Jet have been helpin’ a lot.” He gnaws on his lower lip, feeling the flaky chapped skin under his tongue. “You —” Kobra sighs. “Y’ needed t’ mourn on your own, until y’ were ready. I knew y’ weren’t gonna let any ‘f us help ‘til y’ could ask for it yourself.”
Maybe Party can hear the faint hint of a smile in his voice, because they hiccup and start tearing up again, burying their face in Kobra’s shirt.
“I don’t wanna…” Party hesitates, sounding miserable. “I didn’t want t’ seem like. Like I was replacing him ‘th you. ‘R like you were my second choice ‘r anything. I just — he —” they break off on a sharp swallow. “I couldn’t,” they end, flatly, any emotion having been strangled out of their voice. Their hands twitch under the hems of their sleeves, compulsive. “I don’t…I can’t do it. Not without him.”
Kobra pulls Party’s hand away from where it’s creeping towards their mouth, folding their fingers together and giving Party’s hand a squeeze. “I know you think that.” He briefly considers sharing his own doubts, but that particular hurdle feels insurmountable right now. In his head, a voice that sounds an awful lot like Ghoul reminds him that he’s really not being emotionally sustainable — or whatever word Ghoul would actually use. Ghoul would probably tell him to stop being an asshole and “listen to your own advice, dickhead”. He ignores that too, just swallowing the words back down and looking back out towards the bay window and the dusty pitch blackness beyond.
*
The sun is low in the sky the next evening, when Jet parks the Trans Am a few yards away from the Zone 4 Mailbox. Ghoul’s body had been buried behind the Diner, by Jet, only a few short hours after he had died — they had no way to preserve a corpse in the desert heat, and Kobra is sure that Ghoul wouldn’t have begrudged them that of all things. In the wake of that day, though, Kobra finds himself regretting a lot of things. Not being able to keep the body of his best friend long enough for a proper funeral. Leaving Jet to labor in the sun and dirt to bury a family member alone. Not staying with Party as they self-destructed in solitude. Not radioing the Girl and Charlie right away. Having a screaming fit in front of his baby son — who, of course, had started crying and been swept away on Show Pony’s gentle shoulder.
Fresh footprints are in the dust around the base of the Mailbox when their doleful little party makes its way over, but now, the area is deserted. Kobra kneels first, breaking away to crouch at the metal feet of the altar and strike a match. He lights the prayer candle he brought with them first, then the others scattered in a loose semicircle around the Mailbox, marking it a holy site.
He only sits back on his heels when there’s a small pile of burnt-out sticks at his knees and every wick has been set to flickering flame. Then, he takes the folded letter from his pocket, and with a carefully constructed invocation to the Witch for safe travels, slides it into the mail slot sandwiched between the words of hope, loss, gratitude, pain, scribbled along the steel flanks.
More than one of them brought letters, though, and Kobra steps back to let the Girl and Charlie shuffle forwards, hand-in-hand. Charlie’s cheeks are damp, but she’s putting on a brave face again, eyes darting to her lone parent and then back to the Box furtively, and she pushes her thick envelope inside almost too quickly before dropping her gaze to her shoes. The Girl slips her thinner piece of paper in after her sister’s, and then gently guides Charlie back to Cherri and Party. Or where Party was, because they’re standing in front of the Mailbox now, hands trembling.
It takes a few moments, but eventually they sigh shakily, press their lips to the fold of the envelope, and slip their letter into the mail slot, fingers lingering before they abruptly pull back, and take a few uneven steps back towards their daughter. She hesitantly takes their hand, lacing their fingers together, and Kobra feels a little better when Party leans up to kiss the side of Charlie’s head, resting their free hand on her shoulder.
Then, everyone sinks to their knees, and they pray.
Or at least, Kobra does. It’s not his business whether the others do or not, but everyone is knelt in front of the Mailbox, dirt staining their already-dusty jeans, and Cherri’s hand is clasped tightly in his.
Hi, Kobra thinks. He’s still not really sure how to do this. He believes in the Witch more than Party does, definitely, but they’re still cityborns. How Ghoul had become as devoted as he had is still a mystery to Kobra, but he’s not here anymore to give him any kind of guidance, so he’s on his own for this one. I hope you can hear me. Please take care of him for us. He’s family. And he revered you and your mailboxes, so it’s well-deserved, if we’re being fair. I hope he’s there with you. If anyone out here deserved a peaceful life After, it was him. Tell him we love him, and that we’re going to miss him, so much. Please.
After a little while, their group gets to their feet, with the exception of Party, and retreats back to the ‘Am. Kobra can hear them talking out loud behind him — indistinctly, but he still tries to tune it out to give them some privacy.
“Hey, Star,” he says softly, once they’re out of range. Jet leans back against the Trans Am, springs shifting and creaking as she tilts her head in acknowledgement. Kobra hesitates uncomfortably, Cherri’s warm arm sliding around his waist encouragingly. “Y’doin’ okay?” Kobra murmurs. He shifts his feet a little in the sand. “Haven’t really checked in.”
Jet smiles, tiredly. They cross their arms, head dropping back as they laugh, drily, but their eyes are warm when they look back up. “Yeah. Yeah, ‘m okay.” Her expression slips a little bit, and Charlie uncurls from the Girl’s side to wrap her arms around Jet’s waist tightly.
Kobra gets what they mean without them having to speak, and wordlessly, everyone crowds in, a comforting, tight-knit mass of tangled arms and heads on shoulders. Jet’s hair is in Kobra’s nose and someone’s elbow — he thinks it’s the Girl’s — is jammed into his side right over his hipbone, but he doesn’t try to move away. Party is still talking to themself, or the Witch, or Ghoul over by the Mailbox, and the rest of their family is clinging to each other like they’re scared to let go — and this, somehow, even with all that has happened, are the Zones Kobra feels most familiar with. Sand and loss and sweat on your brow. ‘ And on an’ out into the sunset,’ Ghoul’s voice echoes ruefully in his head. He takes a drag off of Kobra’s cigarette. ‘Some things jus’ don’ really ever change.’