Work Text:
The Zones will quite happily go months without rain. Force its residents to scavenge for water and desperately try to conserve what little they have. That’s the natural state of any true Zonerunner- grimy, sweaty, and slightly dehydrated. It’s only natural when you go months without fresh water.
Then, just a few times a year, the sky will darken, and the wind picks up and the Killjoys will get everything they’ve prayed to the Witch for all at once. It’s cruel, really. There’s never enough space to store all the rain the desert pours down, never a way to save it all, and in a few weeks’ time they’ll be back to scrounging and stealing bottled water from old BLi vending machines. But still it’s glorious. A chance to get clean, to drink, to wash the dust from your hair. To thank the desert for keeping you alive.
Storms are rare in a nuclear wasteland. But they’re even rarer in Battery City, where the worst weather granted to the population is an occasional light drizzle to keep the carefully monitored air from drying out. The atmosphere is stale and perfect and suffocating.
So whenever the sky turns dark and the wind whips up sand from the desert floor, Party Poison fucking rejoices.
It’s ass O’ clock in the morning when Ghoul is woken by an excited hand shaking his shoulder.
“Ghoul. Ghoul wake up already!” His eyes pry open to see a halo of electric red hair illuminated by the neon lights of the diner, and he groans at the light against his eyes.
“What the fuck Pois?”
“No no no, come on there’s a storm outside!”
What? Why’s Poison so excited by a bit of rain? All Ghoul remembers rain as is damp and annoying. Ruining his perfectly good chances of scamming the scum of Battery City ‘cause everyone just stayed home.
“Ugh,” he groans again into the pillow.
Poison’s hand grabs his shoulder, and they force him to roll over and look at them. He does his best to glare.
“I promise you’ll like it.” They’re oddly serious about the whole thing, even with a giddy grin plastered across their face.
He rolls his eyes. “Fine.”
Poison’s smile stretches even wider and they grab both of his hands and they pull him up with surprisingly little effort, and lead him out of the room.
There’s something about Poison that’s infectious. Something Ghoul knows none of the four of them can resist when they decide to pull the whole crew into something highly irresponsible and exciting. Ghoul thinks he might be the most susceptible of them all, gladly getting dragged into Party Poison’s undercurrent as they careen through life with a concerning amount of energy.
He’s still caught up in his thoughts when they drag Ghoul though the diner doors and out into the cold air of the almost-morning. And the rain.
Well, he calls it rain, but Party’s right. It’s a storm. A proper storm with thunder and lighting and fat drops of rain that sink through Ghoul’s light sleepwear. The kind he imagined back in the city where the climate was artificial and delicate and perfect. The dirt under his bare feet is wet and soft already, startlingly different to regular days in the Zones, where you can’t touch the sand at all for fear of getting burned.
He turns his head as Party Poison lets go of his hand to raise their face to the sky and laugh into the rain. The red of their hair is already flattened to their face, soaking up water and Ghoul can’t stop staring.
Jet and Kobra are already outside, doing something with water tanks and funnels and Ghoul quickly scarpers over to them before Poison can notice him staring.
Kobra hands him a pocketknife and tells him to “hold this,” as he does something awkward with a water tank and a pipe that Ghoul can’t be bothered to pay attention to. He’s too busy focusing on the distant rumbles of thunder and the way the water chills his bones. And definitely not thinking about Party Poison.
Something clicks loudly into place and Kobra looks satisfied as he draws away. Jet smiles and takes the knife from Ghoul.
“All done,” Jet tells him, walking back towards Poison, who’s still grinning at the rain.
Kobra eyes him, standing completely still in that unnerving way only he can.
“You’ve never seen a storm before have you? A proper Zone storm?”
Ghoul shakes his head and drops of water fly from his choppy hair. He hasn’t cut it since leaving Battery City and even he has to admit at this point that it’s getting too long, especially for the boiling heat of the desert. He has no idea how Poison copes with it constantly in their face.
Kobra nods clearly and walks off to join Jet and Poison. Creepy dick. He thinks fondly.
Ghoul and Kobra never really clicked, not for a long time at least. To be honest Ghoul thought Kobra hated him when he first joined the crew, for all he glared and barely talked. After a while he learned that the hard stares and sullen silences? That’s just Kobra Kid.
Poison chooses that moment to turn their head and look right at Ghoul with another blinding smile.
“C’mere, Ghoulie!” they yell over the rush of rain hitting the sand, and Fun Ghoul needs no more convincing.
Kobra rolls his eyes at Poison and Jet smirks knowingly. The two of them walk away to stand under the awning of the diner. Jet drapes an old scruffy blanket around Kobra as he reaches for a magazine.
As soon as they’re within range Poison steps forward to wrap their hands around Ghoul’s wrists and pulls him to stand close. Ghoul absently recognises that someone’s moved their crappy radio outside, hidden from the rain under a decaying plastic table. Probably Jet.
A gentle tune plays out, barely audible over the rain but distinctly recognisable to him with its distorted guitars and heavy drums.
“Did I ever tell you what my first storm was like?” Ghoul shakes his head, head swimming from Poison’s gentle grip on his wrists. It’s been months since he joined the crew and Ghoul still struggles to function when Poison has their full attention on him. Right now they’re staring right at him, and he can’t look away. It’s like there’s nothing but him and Poison at that moment, just the two of them safe in the storm.
“I was sixteen, fresh out of Batt City. Kobra and I had been walking through the Zones for days. We were hot and sunburnt and honestly we had no fucking clue where we were going.”
Ghoul stays quiet. Poison doesn’t often talk about the time before they were a Killjoy, and while this isn’t exactly Battery City levels of awful, he knows this is… something. So he doesn’t say anything, just stares up at Poison as the rain drenches them both.
“Kobra was tired and thirsty and we were both so close to passing out from the heat. He was only fourteen.” Their voice is strained and tired. “I thought I’d failed, Ghoul. I thought I’d killed us.” They look up to the rain again, closing their eyes. A heavy breath blew from their nose, and they smiled again at the cold air.
“And then the sky went dark. And the wind picked up. And I’m certain that if the storm hadn’t come right then, right there, I’d be dead.”
Their hands move down, just a little, so instead of holding Ghoul’s wrists it’s more like Poison’s carefully resting their hands on top of his. They look him right in the eye.
“The desert saved me. Each storm is a reminder of that- that I didn’t make a mistake by bringing us out of Battery City. That Kobra and I are safe here.”
Their fingers finally- finally reach Ghoul’s, and they take his hands in theirs.
“I just wanted you to know that beforehand.” Their smile turns nervous, and it’s such an unusual look for them that he only realises halfway through that Poison’s taken a step forwards, hands gripping his a little tighter, and leant down a little to put their face inches from his. They’re so close now; Ghoul fixates on the droplets of water that run from Poison’s hairline down past their eyes.
Ghoul’s breath hitches in his throat.
“Before what?”
Poison’s eyes scrunch up at the corners with the force of their grin, and before Ghoul can process anything that’s happening to him right now Poison’s mouth collides with his, and he melts. Poison’s lips are wet and cold from the rain and oh so soft, and it’s so much better than Ghoul had ever imagined, even if their mouths don’t quite meet right because Poison can’t seem to stop smiling for even a moment.
Ghoul leans up into them, and when one of Poison’s hands leaves his he almost panics for a moment before that hand comes to rest at the base of his skull, cold against his skin, and it makes him shiver slightly. Ghoul’s hand rises up to grasp at their shirt, which just seems to make Poison smile even fucking wider and pull his body against theirs, one hand’s fingers still interlaced with Ghoul’s.
The storm’s calmed down now. No more thunder, rain slowed to a drizzle. When they part the sun has risen higher over the horizon and now casts warm rays across the desert. Ghoul feels breathless as he stares into Party Poison’s warm brown eyes, their hand still resting tenderly just behind Ghoul’s jaw. The expanse of sand and rock is bathed in soft orange morning light, and Poison fucking shines with it.