Asleep or Dead

Coming Clean

I lie in the dried up grass and sand watching the stars. To my left is my brother, Kobra Kid, and to my right is my friend, Jet Star. My best friend, sort of crush, maybe... I don't know, whatever, Fun Ghoul, he's hiding out in our room in the back of the diner with the girl. She won't give us her name, I'm starting to think she doesn't have one, she wasn't even born yet when her mom died so I guess she's just the girl.

I sigh and sit up, my arms on my knees and posture horrible, almost shrimp-like. Kobra looks and me, tilting his head. He's clearly confused by my sudden movement. I put my hands down, I can feel the sand under my fingernails. Yuck. "I'm gonna go check on Ghoul, I need to talk to him alone. Is it cool if I send the girl out here with you two?" Jet nods, his puffy hair bounces even though he's laying down. "Thank you, I'll be back... probably" I stand up. Kobra watches me leave.

Slowly, I open the glass restaurant door and head to the back. There are so many shitty-tasting cans of food scattered around. It's our only food, we have to eat it everytime we're hungry.

I approach the door to the back and open it. After that, I turn to the left and open the door to our bedroom. I see Ghoul and the girl playing a card game, they appear to be playing trash on some old, worn-out cards. So old that the cards are turning brown.

I sigh as they both look up at me. "Hey, Ghoul. Can we talk, please? Also, girl could you head outside with Jet and Kobra?" The girl nods and heads out the door. I couldn't be more grateful that she's so understanding, at her age I would've been pissed if I had to go in the middle of my game of trash.

I close the door and walks quietly over to ghoul, sitting down own the floor next to him. I take my boots of and just throw them across the room, I'm not really sure where they landed but that's the least of my worries right now.

Ghoul looks at me, he looks worried. I probably look worried aswell so I don't blame him. "What is it, Poison?" He spoke quietly, I don't think I've ever seen him this worried. Hell, I don't think I've ever seen him worried at all. He's always so happy and active, stupid sometimes but I like that about him.

"A lot... I'm not sure where to start." I sigh and the speed through my next mess of a sentence. "Do you ever feel like you aren't really any gender or something cuz labels fucking suck and also that men are fuckin' hot and I mean you're hot and-." I stop myself, realizing how much I just said. My face is burning with embarrassment and Ghoul is just staring blankly at me. "I'm sorry"

Ghoul sighs. "Don't apologize. Uh.. Some people identify as non-binary because they don't really identify with a gender, or something like that. And good lord I already know about the men thing, you literally used to be dating korse of all people. Come on. You have to love men a fucking lot to date him." He just nods, his cheeks are a light pink, I think he's just trying to ignore that I called him hot, thank god.

"Yeah yeah I know I'm non-binary and all that shit... I just wanted to talk about it, you know?" My voice is barely above a whisper now, an embarrassed whisper.

"Poison... Are you okay?"

Tears race into my eyes. It's like all the water in my body ran a marathon into my eyes. I wipe my eyes, blinking multiple times a second so I don't cry. After the Girl's mom died, I became the leader of us killjoys, I can't be weak. "I'm sorry" My words barely make it out before a couple tears escape. Shit, I am weak. Those tears are followed by more, then those tears are followed, so on and so forth.

Ghoul pulls me into a tight, loving hug. All I can do is sob, I sob more and more by the second. I haven't cried in too long, way too long. "Shh.. It's okay"

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Half an hour later, I physically cannot cry anymore. My stomach hurts, I feel like throwing up, killing myself, or both. I've messed up, I showed weakness. Now Ghoul is going to think I'm weak, which I am, but I'm still fucked if anyone knows how weak I am. So for now, I'll just stay here with Ghoul. Hell, that's all I can really do.

Ghoul sighs and finally says something. "I love you" It's only three quietly spoken words but it's so powerful. I feel happy? I think. More that my heart feels happy. But, it doesn't last long as he speaks again. "You're a good friend, trust me" He said more but I don't pick it up, all I can hear is the echo of the word 'friend'. My heart hurts. It feels like it was loved temporarily but shattered, hit twenty-seven times with a hammer. I just feel empty.

It won't get better from here. It gets worse.

I rush words out, I'm pretty sure he was still speaking but I don't know. "Uh yeah thank you.."

"Poison, are you listening and understanding me or just hearing me. I wasn't done speaking, please just listen." Fuck, he was speaking. I nod slowly. "What you said earlier... Did you mean that or was it just you panicking?"

"Uhh..." I can't think of any words. I'm not sure if he's mad at me or not.

"Listen, we can talk about this later." He hugs me one more time before standing up. "For now let's just go to sleep."

We share a bed, well more of a mattress on the floor. Jet and Kobra share a mattress in their room. The girl just sleeps in whichever room she feels like. As far as I know she's sleeping in Jet and Kobra's room tonight. I move onto the mattress, my mind racing. I messed up. Worst fuck up of my life.

I turn away when I feel Ghoul lay down I can't bare the awkwardness.

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The sun peaks in from the broken windows, waking me up. I don't want to wake Ghoul up, he needs sleep. I stand up with caution so he doesn't wake up. The girl isn't anywhere to be seen in our room so she must've slept in Kobra and Jet's room. She hasn't slept in here in a while because Ghoul snores. Like, he snores loud. I'm not even sure how I sleep with him.

When I manage my way out of our room into the bathroom, I don't look in the mirror. I don't want to see myself. I'm not sure when the last time I dyed my hair was so my roots are probably growing in. That makes my hair a mess of red and brown. I do the basic morning shit. Like peeing and whatever. As I'm washing my hands, Ghoul bursts into the bathroom. It scares the shit out of me.

"Dude I could've been in the middle of pissing or jacking off or some shit. You've gotta learn how to knock." He is so lucky that I love him. He is a big mess and I love that big mess.

"No it's like flipping a coin it's fun. I'm not gonna knock." He announces that so proudly I think that it was heard all the way in battery city. "Anyways, there's a Mad Gear and Missile Kid concert tonight. It's gonna be huge! Like massive. They're going on a big break after this and it's their last concert for a while. I heard that they're gonna play 'fuck this whole wide world' and they haven't played that in years. I was wondering if you would want to go out- or I mean go with me tonight. I know that they're your favorite band and I hope you want to go."

"Ghoul oh my god you speak so much. Yes I want to go with you! How the fuck did you get tickets?" All the tickets sold out quickly. I'm sure he did something stupid to get them.

"I have my ways! So it's a date then?"

I can feel my face heating up. A date. I'm sure my face is redder than my hair right now. "Yeah... Yeah it is"

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A/N

Heyyyy Miles here!! I hope you enjoyed

Thank you so so so much for reading if you made it this far

This is the first chapter obviously and if there are mistakes I'm sorry

I kinda proud of this but it's also pretty shitty

Anyways so long and goodnight killjoys

-Miles