Dead!

A week passed with Darling where nothing happened. For the most part, the two of us sat around the restaurant listening to Dr. D’s broadcast. Darling also had an old acoustic guitar she’d taken up trying to teach me to play. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t very good at it.
We spent a lot of time talking. I told her about my escape from Battery City when I was only 13 and she told me about her partner she used to ride with before he was killed in a run in with a Scarecrow.
The change, although mind-numbingly boring at times, proved to be beneficial. My general constant anxiety and worry went down. Being with Darling made me feel far safer than at the diner.
One thing that didn’t change, however, were the nightmares. In addition to my normal nightmares, I’ve also started having dreams of BLI finding me at Darling’s place, killing her, and leaving me alone again. I tried hiding it from Darling, but she definitely knew something was up, considering I tended to wake her up in the middle of the night with my jolting awake. This turned into a routine. Every night I’d wake up, waking her up, she’d ask if I was okay, I’d say yes, even though that was a lie, she’d go back to sleep, and I’d stay up the rest of the night, unable to force myself experience those dreams again.
However, one night, I woke up and found Darling waiting for me.
“I’m fi-“ “No you’re not.” She cut me off with a hard glare. “Listen, I get nightmares sometimes too, but not this often. Something really bad happened to you and I don’t want you bottling it up like this.” I blinked at her a few times incomprehensively. “I-“ “Okay, shit, wait. I’m being too forceful.” Darling shook her head. “Look, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, I just feel like it’d help you ease your mind.”
I hesitated. I’d never been entirely truthful about what happened in BLI. I’d always told people that Rose had been killed by BLI personnel like Night and Joker. But, the fact of the matter was that I killed her. I knew it was an accident, but I still felt guilty and I was worried that if I told people the truth, they’d be angry with me, think of me as a traitor. The idea terrified me to the point where I kept it a secret.
So, yeah, Darling was completely correct. I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m so-“
“It’s from when you got captured in BLI, isn’t it?” She took my silence as a yes. Her expression turned sympathetic. “You miss them?” Darling asked. “I-I get that. My older brother… he got ghosted about a year back and it’s hard. It still haunts me, but it gets better with time.” She gave me a small smile.
I was surprised. Darling hadn’t mentioned a brother before, just a partner whom she didn’t even seem that attached to. The way that she mentioned him, giving no details about him or the circumstances of his demise, she was still a lot more affected by his death than she let on. But, if she could bring herself to open up about him, well then, I should too.
“It’s not just that,” I said drawing my knees up to my chest. “I mean, I miss them. I really do. I’d do anything to get them back. It’s just Rose, she…” I paused to swallow the lump in my throat before taking a deep breath. “Rose and I tried to take out a drac at the same time. She got it first but she was behind it so I didn’t see her, and I couldn’t stop fast enough and I… I shot her.”
Darling was silent, staring at me with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. The panic was rising, and tears were pricking at the edges of my vision as the event replayed through my mind.
“It was an accident. I-I didn’t-“ Darling grabbed at the front of my shirt and I let out a small shriek because oh my god she’s going to hurt me,before I felt her arms wrapping around my middle and she was pulling me into a tight hug. “It’s okay” she said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I lost it; fisting my hands in her shirt and letting out a sob before just flat out bawling my eyes out. Darling held me through it, rubbing my back and whispering comforting words into my ear. Eventually, I began to calm down. By then I had shifted myself, so my head was resting in her lap. Darling continued running her fingers through my long hair but after a while her movements began to slow and then stop completely. I turned my head a bit to see that she’d fallen asleep.
I smiled and moved myself off of her and laid back down in my bag. Hours later, when the sun came out and light began pouring in from the cracks in boards covering the windows, Darling finally awoke.
“You up?” she asked, her bleary eyes blinking at me slowly. “Yeah,” I answered. I didn’t want to concern her further by revealing I’d never actually gone back to sleep. Although our little talk made me feel better and lifted a huge weight off my shoulders, I was sure it wouldn’t cure my nightmares.
We both got up and started going about our daily activities of doing basically nothing until midday when Dr. D announced on his radio show that Mad Gear and the Missile Kid would be having a show that night at the Riot Room.
“That’s not far from here!” Darling exclaimed, perking up from absentmindedly plucking at the strings of her guitar. “We should go!” I hesitated. Normally I loved going to concerts. I loved Mad Gear too. But something about the atmosphere, that large gathering of people was putting me on edge. Large gatherings might attract a lot of attention from a certain corporation. Not to mention, the last time I was in a large room with a lot of people…
“Kittie, come on. It’ll be fun!” Darling pressed. “It’ll help you get your mind off of things.” She was giving me those same puppy dog eyes she’d given me when she begged me to let her try to teach me how to play the guitar. I couldn’t say no to her when she was doing that. Besides, maybe she was right, maybe it would help. “I guess…” I sighed, relenting.
We had to start getting ready pretty much immediately due to how long the commute would take. We didn’t want to show up late and end up at the back of the crowd.
So, I was looking through my small collection of clothing, feeling dissatisfied and uncomfortable as I shifted through the pink and pastel fabrics. “You good?” Darling asked. “Yeah, I just… I don’t know, I don’t really feel like any of this is me anymore. Ya know?” I explained motioning to the tee shirts and jeans in front of me. Darling frowned. “I mean we can go out to the warehouse and grab some clothes for you later, but until then you can borrow some of my stuff if you want.” Darling didn’t have much more thank I did, but I already knew most of it wouldn’t fit since she was smaller than me. In addition, what she had was a combination or more pastel colors that made me internally cringe.
“Do you have anything more… masculine?” I asked before shaking my head, not sure of that request. “Or, um, brighter and harder and less soft?” Darling blinked and frowned again, looking conflicted. “I um… have some of my brother’s clothes. They might be a little big, but you could borrow a few things if you want.” She offered quietly.
I was shocked. I couldn’t imagine lending someone the belongings of a dead loved one. What if I fucked them up somehow?
“Are you sure?” I asked. She nodded. “Yeah, it’s fine. Go ahead.” Darling pulled a small box out of the bottom of her sleeping bag and lifted the top off before passing over to me. The clothes in the box were neatly folded and coated with dust after a year of disuse. I shuffled through the box, trying not to disturb anything too bad.
After a moment, I found and pulled out a slightly faded dark blue wife beater. I kept digging, not wanting my arms to be exposed, before my fingers brushed against something leather and next thing I know, I’m pulling out this lavender leather jacket with patches sown into the shoulders and button pressed into the lapels. I completely unfold it and turn it over to find a large patch of a skeletal middle finger ironed on the back. Turning it back over, I find more patches sown into the breast pockets featuring kanji I couldn’t understand.
My breath left my lungs. It was the most beautiful jacket I’d ever seen in my life. Between the color (I know I requested darker colors, but I love lavender too much to exclude it from my wardrobe) and all the interesting patches, it was stunning. I couldn’t believe Darling would be willing to let me wear something so gorgeous and sentimental. I almost felt like I’d be disrespecting Darling’s brother by wearing it.
“Are you sure you’re okay with me wearing these?” I asked again. Darling nodded. “It’s fine, don’t worry.” Her voice was slightly strained, so I stared at her concerned until she turned around and told me to hurry up and change or we’d be late. Begrudgingly, I pulled my top off and replaced it with the wife beater and jacket.
The jacket was way oversized, the bottom of it covering my ass and the sleeve hiding my fingers when I let my arms hang. The wife beater, thankfully, is smaller and just barely hangs off my frame.
Darling turns back toward me and looks me over approvingly. “You know,” she comments, “If you had a blue mohawk and were way taller, you’d look just like him.” “Shiny” I reply with a smile. “Now, let’s head out.”
It took us somewhere close to an hour to walk to the venue since the venue didn’t have anywhere to part my car or Darling’s bike. There were already a few people inside, but we were both able to push our way up to the stage. The show began a little while later. The club had filled up considerably and was beginning to feel very claustrophobic but with the speakers deafening me, the bass vibrating through my bones, and the crowd enthusiastically pushing and dancing around me, I could ignore it. I felt myself having more fun than I had in months.
By the time Mad Gear left the stage and crowd started to disperse, I was exhausted, and my voice was hoarse from screaming. On the way back, my neck started to get sore and my head was constantly trying to fall forward. “It’s because you were headbanging so much.” Darling explained when I voiced this. “It fucks up your neck. Whiplash or something. It’ll get better in a day or two just don’t move your neck too much.”
Eventually, we made it back to the restaurant. I headed straight for my sleeping bag. I was really cold and super tired. Darling chuckled as I curled up in the bag, my eyes already shut.
It didn’t take me long to fall asleep and for the first time since I escaped BLI, I didn’t dream.

Notes

Yo yo yo hello. It's been awhile since I updated this. I think I started writing this chapter like??? 2 years ago? Anyway I hope yall like it. Leave some comments, ratings subscribe, all that stuff yeah!

Song of the Moment: The Visitation of the Ghost- The Brobecks

- xo Ghostie