Without a Whisper //Danger Days//

15. Glory Days

It had been years since the last A.K.A Loretta concert had taken place in the Pit, but Val remembered every detail of the last one. Of course, tonight wasn't the night to be dwelling on his past. He was living again. The music pumped into his veins as he let his body loose. He felt like he was younger, like he first felt when he came out to The Zones. He must have been only seventeen. Now, his thirty-first year of life was approaching fast, and he was scared. Out in The Zones, forty was considered old. Not many people lived past forty.

Half a bottle of Gin Tonic later, and the music sounded better than ever. With Vamos and Vaya at his side, he felt like his glory days were all coming back to him. Despite how annoying the twins could be, they were his only real friends, and the first people he met when he fled the city. Val moved to Los Angeles when he was only 16, after his father finally kicked the bucket. He hadn't seen his mother since then, but she knew that she was long dead. He wondered of London even existed anymore, and if it did, why they haven't helped the United States at all.

All he really wanted when he was younger was to be a musician, but now, music seemed silly to him. His mother always talked about what potential he had, but he never realized that he was capable of so much more.

The concert was reaching its peak, but he was rudely disrupted by Missle Kid and Mad Gear dragging his drunken self out of the Pit. The children hauled him through the bodies of the dancing Killjoys, ignoring his protests. Finally, he felt the fresh, cool air fall onto his face as he was released from the party.

"Fuck you! Fuck all of you!" He hissed at the children.

"Can you shut the fuck up, please?" Another voice ordered. Val spun around, only to be greeted with the disapproving faces of what Val liked to call the 'inevitable five,' because every time he was having a good time, they always managed to show up and ruin it.

"Well," he sneered. "Look who the fuck decided to show up.

"What the hell happened to you?"Smoke Bomb narrowed his eyes in a disappointing way. Val scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"Why, is this too out of the ordinary for you lot?"

Toxic Rift crossed his arms, arching his eyebrow.

"Weren't you supposed to be a good person or whatever?" He asked, not having any of Val's bullshit.

"Yeah, last I heard, you actually stopped being a dick." Charismatic Volume commented . This ticked Val off quite a bit. They have hardly ever been to the Nest, ever since Atomic left.

"Look, I know you're all heartbroken and stuff, but come on, man! You're in charge now! You can't be this reckless anymore. She was our friend too." Neon Blast tried to reason with him, but this made Val even angrier.

"Heartbroken?" He clenched his fists. "Really? Piss off. I don't want to even hear about her. You don't have the right to talk about her. I knew her better than all of you. How dare you come here to tell me that I'm not the only one having a hard time. She abandoned me! You don't even know the half of it!" He raved, spit coming out of the corner of his mouth.

This made Ghost Shot very, very angry.

"You piece of shit. You fucking piece of dog shit!" He spat. "Do you have any idea what you did to her? Do you understand how much of a fucking trash heap you were? If anything, you should never be allowed to even think about her ever again. You fucking ruined her! I don't give a rat's ass about how you feel now that she's left. This isn't your pity party. This isn't your 'redeeming scenario.' We've known her since she was a child, and you know what you did?" Ghost asked, storming towards Val.

"What." He grumbled in return.

"You fucking took that away." Ghost hissed, before Val punched him right in the face.

"Shut up!" The white haired man cried out, swinging again.

"Stop!" Missile jumped into action, separating the two. She expected Val to keep trying to fight, and was surprised to see him standing a bit too still. The others shuffled backwards, waiting for any sign of movement.

"You're right." Was all he said.

"You're right, I took everything away from her. I think about that every day. Every single day, I think about what I should have done instead."

"Val-" Smoke started, but he didn't listen.

"I remember when I saw her for the first time. I was so much younger than I was now. I knew that she would do wonderful things for the rebels, and she did. Despite everything, she was so strong. At the time, it scared me. I was so used to being in control, but there she was. I was worried that she would ruin everything. When I found out that she was with Party Poison, I knew that they could have done something to take down any kind of leadership I had out here. I was so desperate to have all the power, and that was where everything went wrong. I thought that I could control her, I would be unstoppable. Then Poison and the others came back and-"

He stopped, taking time to look at the group. They were staring at him, their eyes wide. They had never seen Val talk like this. He had always been cruel, and quick to cut every sentence off. This was unsettling.

"I fell in love." He finished.

Mad Gear was the most shocked. This is the man who kept his depressed older sister in some sort of mental chain for years. He was cut out of her life for a huge part of his childhood. He was neglected and alone, and was raised by a community of drug addicts instead of his own family.

And after all this time, he managed to see Val transform into somewhat of a decent man, not like how he was acting now.

"If she ever comes back," Val continued, "I don't want it to be because of me. I don't think it will be, but if she ever does, I want her to come back to sort this shit storm out. God knows she can do a better job than I could."

"Damn straight." Ghost scoffed, breaking Val out of his trance. He let out a deep cough, rubbing his hands against his face.

"Now, if you don't mind, I need to go check up on Maya." He said as he began to walk towards the house.

"Who's Maya?" Toxic asked.

"A little girl that he's been looking after." Gear answered, causing a cry of outrage among the group.

"A kid!"

"A little girl?!"

"Who let him take care of a fucking kid??"

"Is this safe?!"

"The Fuck?"

But Val shook them off as he walked into his home.

Maya was half asleep, watching an old cartoon on the T.V.

"What happened to you?" She murmured, her sleepy eyes looking at the raggedy mess of a man.

"I was just out at a party." He reassured her.

"No, what happened to you? You got so cold for a while."

Val felt a pang of guilt in his chest.

"I'm sure you know that things have been rough lately." He sat down on the couch, falling into the leather cushions.

"I promise, I'm gonna try and get everything back on track. I don't know how long you're gonna be here for, but while you're here, this is your home as well. I'm not going to be this reckless anymore."

Maya tilted her head, searching for any sense of a lie, but she couldn't find one.

"I believe you." She smiled, resting her tiny head on his lap. Val tensed up for a moment, still terrified at the very idea of children, but as the girl drifted off to sleep, he relaxed, focusing his attention on the mouse cartoon playing on the television.

"Have a better day!" The mouse's squeaky voice seemed to repeat, over and over again.

"Shut the fuck up!" He responded quietly, mimicking the mouses voice before falling asleep himself.