I woke up in a bed in a room with dim light filtering through the windows. I couldn't remember how I got there. I sat up quickly, only to be met with searing pain in my left leg. I involuntarily let out a strangled yell and fell back, my head spinning from pain. Although my brain was fuzzy, I knew that the wound had to be deep to cause that much pain. Missile Kid rain in and immediately yelled out the door, "She's awake!"

"Hey, Kid," I hissed, trying to focus on breathing. The pain was subsiding, but very slowly. Party Poison came in, and I was in no mood to deal with him. I clutched at the bandage; my leg felt like it was on fire. "Party get the hell out of here," I growled with teeth bared.

"Let me look at that leg," he demanded as he sat down on the edge of the bed. Every movement was torture. Every movement burned and I felt like I had the worst flu of my life. He studied my face for a moment. "Try to take deep breaths. It'll help." His voice didn't have the same edge it normally did.

"Party fixed your leg, Acid. I helped." Missile Kid smiled at me and brushed some hair out of my face. Party gently unwound the bandages around my leg. I pressed the base of my palms against my eyes and groaned. Tears pricked my eyes and seeped out of the corners.

"I really wish I could sew you up, but we don't - " I cut him off.

"My backpack. Suture needles and thread, in individual packages," I said. The air touching the wound was pure torture. It felt like the wound had grown from what I hazily remembered from just after the fight and before I had apparently passed out. "Hey! Party! There's a bottle of whiskey in there too. Bring that." He nodded and headed out the door.

Missile Kid grabbed my hand and squeezed. "I cleaned your wound, and helped Party bandage you up," she explained. "That's what my job always is when someone gets hurt. You must have been really awesome out there. Jet said you killed Scarecrows." She gently brushed the tears from my face and blotted sweat from my brow.

"I sure did, Kid. I'll teach you how to, too," I tried to smile at her, but I probably snarled more than smiled. Party came back in with the suture package and my whiskey. "Gimme that!" I reached for the bottle. I propped myself up on one arm gingerly and took a long swig of the stuff. Warmth spread through my body, just enough to take the edge off of the pain.

"You probably ought to take a couple more," Party said. I shook my head.

"Need to save it. Just get it over with," I said. The truth was, even though I had drank a lot during my lifetime, it didn't take much to get me drunk. I didn't want them to know that, it wasn't something that I was proud of. And, that whiskey needed to last. Once it was gone, I didn't know where I would get any more and if I got hurt again, I would want it.

"Try not to kill me, okay?" Party asked. He looked sick to his stomach and eyed the needle. It surprised me that he was the one who took care of injuries. If I was going to pick one of them, just based on the impressions I had formed, I would've said Jet Star. He held the suture needle between his fingers gingerly, glancing at me right before he began to sew my skin together. I gasped, surprised at how painful it was. Missile Kid grabbed my hand and squeezed firmly.

"It's going to be okay," she said to me with complete certainty. "Part is really good with wounds, aren't you Party?" He nodded. His tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth in stern concentration.

"FUCK!" I yelled. He must have hit a nerve and it sent rivers of pain flooding through my leg. My hands began to shake and white spots appeared on my closed eyelids. I forced myself to open my eyes to try to keep from passing out. Missile Kid grimaced quickly from my grip on her fingers.

"It's okay, Acid, he's almost done," she said to me, wiping sweat from my brow with her free hand. I was panting. I hadn't been in so much pain in a long time, and the only times I had were few and far between. I gritted my teeth.

"It would help if you could relax the muscles in your leg," Party said. "The tension makes it worse." His voice was soft, almost soothing. This wasn't a side of Party that I even knew existed. "There. Finished." He sat up and used the sheet to wipe a small trickle of blood from my leg while I panted on the bed. He chuckled briefly and smiled. "Kinda funny, I sew everyone up, but I fuckin' hate needles."

"Thanks, Party," I said, gasping for air. I laid there and tried to catch my breath. Missile Kid and Party were moving around me, cleaning up or something. Maybe ten minutes later, I was breathing normally again. I slowly pushed myself up onto my elbows, taking extra care not to move my leg. "Can I have something to eat? It's time for supper right?"

Missile Kid and Party shared a strange look. He gestured from her to me, clearly indicating for her to explain. "Well...It's like eight o'clock...You've um..."

"You've been passed out for about thirty-six hours," Party finished for her.

"What?! You're shitting me right - sorry, Kid - that's not possible!" I cried, sitting up the rest of the way and sending waves of pain through my body again. The bruises on my torso protested the swift movement painfully.

"The guns those Dracs were using were new. I'd never seen them before. Fun took one of them before we were left, he's been pulling it apart ever since. Speaking of the scene, that's something we all need to talk about. You were recognized, probably because of the pistols. You're going to have to alter your appearance," he said. I reached for their hands and they both looked at me skeptically. I wanted off of this bed and some food. I left my hands there until they took them.

"I know. It's the danger of carrying them, they're so rare. But they recognized you too." I grunted from the effort it took to stand up, even with their help. "Fuck, Party. I can't." I gasped for breath as I collapsed onto my butt on the bed. It was pissing me off that I couldn't get up by myself, and I was beginning to worry about what was in these new ray guns. If they had something new that we didn't have, it was going to be bad news for us. "Either you're carrying me out of here or I'm staying," I muttered, barely looking at Party through my dirty hair.

"Ha ha ha, Acid Angel actually needs help from Party Poison," he laughed at me. I growled at him, so not in the mood for teasing and especially not from him. He scooped me up, bridal style, and grunted. "Damn, you're heavy for such a little bit of a woman.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Calling me fat is not going to help. I can still break your nose from here. And for you information, I am roughly one hundred and twenty pounds of raw muscle and badassness, so fuck off." Missile Kid laughed behind us. Party was stronger than I thought he was because it didn't seem like he was actually struggling under my weight. The movement was making my leg burn like nothing I'd ever felt before. "You said something about those Dracs' guns being new? What exactly does that mean?" I asked him as we entered the dining room of the diner.

"I'll let Fun explain it to you, he knows the most about weapons," Party answered. "You should probably keep your leg straight, can you scoot into a booth?"

"I think so. Thanks," I said to him. He put me down on the edge of a booth and I scooted backwards until I was against the wall. I panted and rested my head against the window. I was already exhausted and I'd only been awake for about half an hour. "So, Fun, what's up with these guns?" I asked him. He was in the booth next to me with ray gun parts all over the table.

"This is what's up," he said, grimly presenting a small vial to me. It had a clear blue liquid in it that fizzed when moved. "I don't have the equipment to test it here, but I have a feeling that you're going to be out of commission for a little while, Acid. Watch." He carefully took the cap off of the vial and dripped a tiny bit onto a piece of paper on the table. It made a horrible fizzing sound as the stuff ate away at the napkin. "Somehow, this is mixed with the shot from the gun and it worsens the wound, obviously."

I swallowed hard. "Can...Can this stuff keep eating at my leg?" I asked, fearful and horrified. The worse think in the world was that we didn't know what it was or how to treat it.

"I don't know. Party and Kid spend about an hour cleaning out your wound but, like I said, I don't know what it is and I have no way of finding out. I used all of it from one of the guns that had barely been used, testing it on different things. The closest thing we had to human flesh was a slightly rotten tomato and it...it ate all the way through. I had Missile Kid clean you up really well with rubbing alcohol from her stash. The kid has more medical stuff than she knows what to do with." He laughed as she sat down next to him with a huge smile on her face. "Our little nurse watched you real close for a while." He ruffled her hair and turned back to me. "How ya feelin'?"

"Honestly? I've been better," I sighed and he laughed. I found myself laughing too, his laugh was so infectious. "I think the only time I've felt this bad was when I got tortured by this Russian bastard..." Fun's eyes went wide. "That was a long time ago, though." I really didn't want to think about that ever again. A few years later, I would suffer from some pretty intense arthritis in my left hand. "Hey, do you think you could reconstruct those guns so we can used them?"

"I've been trying to and I can't get them back together right! I took them apart and made notes and diagrams as I did it and when I get it back together, it won't fire. It's like a toy with poison in it. Kobra's going to work on it with me later, I think." Party came back over with three bowls of some sort of soup. He game me, Kid, and Fun one and went back and got one for himself. He sat down opposite of me. Kobra joined Fun and Missile Kid, and Jet joined Party and me. We ate in silence. Whatever soup this was - it was good. Way better than the beans we had...two days ago? I couldn't believe I'd been passed out for so long. After we finished eating, Missile Kid, Fun, Jet, and Kobra all became engrossed by the guns and trying to make them work again. Party and I sat and watched.

"I'm no good with weapons," he said to me quietly. "I'd probably accidentally shoot myself in the face if I tried to help." I laughed.

"I'm the same way, mostly. I know how to use my weapons and keep them fully functional, but beyond that I'm a little helpless." I smiled. I supposed I owed it to him to be nice, because he was playing nice today and I should take advantage of that. Also, I was too tired and felt too terrible to be mean. It would just take too much effort. "So, um, who's bed was I occupying?" I asked him. "I don't want to keep putting anyone out."

"Um...Mine. But it's okay. Missile Kid slept with Jet and let me have her bed. As soon as you can, we'll go scavenging and find you a bed, so until then, you can keep staying in mine," he said.

"I'm perfectly fine sleeping in one of these booths, you know," I had more to say, but I felt a little lightheaded, which was odd.

"Acid, just do it," he said a little icily. I put my hand to my head and brought it back sweaty. My tongue felt thick in my mouth. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm just really tired." I was having a little trouble getting my breath. "I feel like I've got the flu of the century."

"Here," Party said as he got up. He held a hand out and I scooted forward. My leg burned terribly and I felt so tired.




I spent the next two weeks in a similar state. I felt like I had a horrible flu, my leg got no better, and towards the end of the two weeks, I stopped being able to get out of bed. Missile Kid worried herself silly over me. One day, she and Fun had propped me up on a couple of pillows and they were eating with me. I'd been spending a lot of time with Fun Ghoul. He didn't want me to have to sit in here alone and we were actually becoming friends. We were resorting to having beans again. They finished theirs and I had only taken a couple of bites. The energy it took for me to lift the fork to my mouth was overwhelming. My body burned with fever, I could tell, but I was too disoriented to tell them. My stomach churned and I sloppily set the bowl on the bed next to me.

"She's really pale, Fr-Fun," Missile Kid stuttered, glancing at me with concern on her face.

"I know. I'm afraid we're going to have to take her to Show Pony's. I'm going to go get Party to help me check her wound." Fun ducked out and I lazily watched Missile Kid clean up. My head felt like it was full of fuzz. I could barely hear what they were saying, and although both Missile Kid and Fun Ghoul had been pumping me full of water, I had terrible cottonmouth. Fun and Party came in the room and I noticed that kid had left.

"Acid, we're going to check your wound now," Fun Ghoul said. I trained my eyes on him and tried to respond, but my mouth didn't form the words.

"You hold her down, I'll check the wound," Party Poison said with a grim look on his face. Fun grabbed my hands and squeezed, leaning in front of my torso. I lazily smiled at him and let out a mix of coughing and laughing. I felt Party start taking the bandage off but it didn't hit me until the air touched it and I cried out. I felt tears squeeze out of my eyes.

"It's okay, Acid, it's okay," Fun whispered. I felt him wipe tears off my face. "Party, she's burning up. It's been almost two weeks of this. We've gotta take her. I don't want to deal with Adrenaline Raven any more than anyone else, but...Party, I think it's gonna kill her." I started feeling like I couldn't get enough air. I squeezed my eyes shut and focused hard on forming words.

"I know. That thing is only getting worse," Party replied, sounding tired. I was gasping, trying to breathe.

"Fun..." I whispered. "Fun, I can't breathe. I...I can't..." The last thing I remember was being picked up as everything went black.

Notes

Title: "If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?" by Mayday Parade