killjoy's mcm day two!! wow i still made it sad <3... isn't it just such a joy to follow me
tw for just.. general sad stuff. if you do not want sad.. whoops
She’s only a baby.
She’s only a baby, and he’s across the room, standing, staring, too afraid to approach. Like a deer in headlights, he is, brown eyes like saucers, legs too tepid to move back or propel forward. He’s done this many times before- loved with the strength of a king-cobra snake, wound too close, and loved too much, loved like the hands of a broken clock, which of course, is always too late.
She’s only a baby, and he’s so far away, but he thinks he will kill her, just by the slight of being himself.
“You okay?” A voice asks of his plight, the lilt of a constant smirk clear in the words, like it’s scarred there.
“‘M alright,” Kobra sighs, shaking his head, taking his sunglasses off of the hem of his shirt, and when placing them on the bridge of his nose, he once again dims his view of the world. The voice knocks a head into his arm at his curt response, egging him to go on.
“Just stressed, G. It’s a lot.”
“A kid,” The voice says, and Kobra looks down to see him smile, laugh lines etched into his face and ever-present, one of his eyes cloaked by a tangled lock of dark hair. He’d think of giving Ghoul the brush later, but if his judgment were any better, he knows he’d never see it again.
“That’s crazy, isn’t it? That’s just what we need, a baby to take care of. Y’know, that’s how I know th’ Witch ain’t real- because she pulls backwards shit like this.” Fun Ghoul albeit announces, so sure of himself and his words, nerves so unwavering by the presence of new life.
“You’re not afraid that we’re gonna screw her up?” Kobra muses, more withdrawn, more asked of himself than anyone, words stated more like a question. As if it’s verbatim- no other way they can look after her than mess her up. No other way he can.
“I mean- yeah, a bit, I guess, but that’s kind of a given. Of course, she’s going to grow up all fucked- everyone does, but the worst we can do is try, right? I mean, we’ll love her and feed her and shit, take her for rides in the ‘Am and clean up her barf. I don’t know- I guess I’m not scared, it could be worse.”
All he can do is sigh, closing his eyes, quieting his brain for a second longer than he should before he opens them again, observes what’s around him. Poison and Pony are on the couch, the baby laying in Pony’s arms, gurgling, making strange noises as Jet stands behind the three of them, hands placed on Pony’s shoulders. It’s all warm- they’re all painted with smiles and honey-hues, and if Kobra were to go up to them, he’s sure it’d be the same as warming himself by the fire. The three of them, all of them, look at her like she’ll save them- like she’s the definition of hope, a beacon of light, like she’s the spark that lights their fire. He’s never seen anything like that before, and maybe that’s because he’s just afraid of getting burned.
He doesn’t know how they can do it- how they’re going to do it, how they’re doing it now. All of them, himself included- they’re kids. They’re kids with car-crash-hearts that always chase the thrill, unable to slow down or settle. He can’t think of a way that they aren’t going to fail this kid- a way that he can’t fail her. Nothing in his mind can prove to him to a worthy strength or viable notion that she will grow up right, and that he’ll still be there to see himself succeed.
“Have you even held her yet, Kobes?”
His words feel like a punch to the stomach when they finally settle somewhere in his head and make themselves known. It takes Kobra a minute to process them- to roll them around on his tongue or in his brain, to pinch himself and make sure they’re real. He responds after a few seconds. “What?”
“You haven’t even held her yet, man, c’mon! What do you think you’ll do to her?”
“That’s kind of a loaded question, Ghoulie.” He laughs, enigmatic. Fun Ghoul looks at him expectantly, still waiting for an answer. In the hanging silence, the words go unsaid.
The words go unsaid, they do, because the answer is right there, and the answer is Party Poison.
They’re holding the baby now, and this isn’t new to them, just stranger- Kobra can see it in their eyes, the way they dart around, looking for rescue, for once in their life, but they are given nothing. He knows, though, that they’re relaxed, that this will be a moment they hold dear to their heart, a mental snapshot that they’d tape to the dashboard of the ‘Am, if they could. But though it all, what Kobra can see most is the hurt- somewhere deep down, maybe it’s that pit in their center or the knot in their neck, somewhere, he knows there’s an ache.
When Poison looks at her, he knows they see him- they see little baby Mikey, the brother they gave up on too early, because he himself never gave them a chance. And that’s a fall that he just has to take. A burden he just has to hold, to tether himself onto and let weigh him down. It’s what he has to do to protect them from anything like that again.
But he knows that that isn’t what he’s supposed to do. He’s not supposed to blame himself for every scraped knee and sleepless night his sibling’s ever had, every time they’ve ever called him from the freezing club, tired and alone, drained of both color and life. It’s not his fault that they’ve messed up, and their still-living state will never be something he should ever get credited with. He’s much too careless- or maybe he’s not, maybe he cares too much. Maybe he’s attached himself and his snake-skin to anyone and everything tangible in his life, so much so, that he’s lost himself in them, in so deep and drowning to the point where there is no more Kobra Kid. He’s defined himself so much by everyone else's perception that he can no longer be perceived.
He’ll live and die by the sword, a brother in arms, and he’ll bring everyone down with him just so they can’t see him fall, and he won’t see them, either.
He won’t see her fall, and he won’t see himself let go. Again.
She’s only a baby, but she’s already broken him, and he’s already pushed himself away before he even got close.
3 notes
·
View notes