Peppermint And Gunpowder

Chapter Eighteen: For Just A Moment

Head on a makeshift pillow of Poison's Dead Pegasus jacket and hair slightly tousled, Poison sleeps still. I had woken up before, but do not move, so not to wake the man below me. He breathes softly, and I smile, inhaling the smell of cigarettes and unscented soap.

It's bitter but oddly sweet, mixing with faded soot and sweat and iron. Comforting, almost, in a strange way. Just something to bring me to reality when the world has lost its mind.

His hand runs up and down my back, but his eyes stay closed, and his breathing is uneven. He wakes but does not move, nothing more than his hand tracing the curve of my waist.

"How's your side?" I whisper to him, unsure if Kobra and Gracie had woken yet. I drag my finger along the outline of his bandage, his wound facing the dash of the Trans-am, whilst I lay between him and the backrest. He sighs.

"Better than it was yesterday, but it's still sore. Like I was punched and not shot. Would you believe me if I said I didn't even feel the initial hit? I just went... numb, I guess. Shocked because I knew something happened but I didn't know what, then I felt the blood spill over my fingers and through my shirt when I realized something was wrong. But the look in your eyes... I would be willing to be shot a hundred times over again, just to never see that look again."

I lay my head on his shoulder, closing my eyes, feeling the material of his bandage protruding through his shirt and hand on my side. He breathes deeply, exhaling slowly.

As we lay there, silently, a thought comes to mind. "Are you sure you could ever love someone like me?"

"I'm sure, never been more sure." He fiddles with the ending of my shirt, more of an absent mind's behaviour than anything. "Why would you question it?"

"I have too many problems. Too much of a screwed up past to just be left in the past. Too many trust issues. I refused to open up to you five for many months, hell, you don't even know my real name." I don't look at him, focusing on his hands playing with the fabric of my shirt than him.

"You don't know our real names either." His hand rests on my side, half tangling with my shirt and half laying on the waistband of my jeans.

"It doesn't matter, you..." I trail off, unsure of how to continue.

He's right; I don't know their real names, if they even have real names to begin with. He will always be Poison to me, and Kobra will be Kobra, Ghoul will be Ghoul, and Jet will be Jet. No matter their real names, no matter their birth names or what their mothers call them, they will always be the Fabulous Four.

This is their identity, their way of changing who they once were into something they never thought they could become. With their old identity, I'm sure none of them could lead a rebellion. But here we are, years, if not decades, into a war that we don't know if we can win, with leaders who've made their own identities.

Party Poison, Kobra Kid, Fun Ghoul, Jet Star. The Fabulous Four.

"My name..." Poison whispers, wondering if he should continue. If he should reveal his name, a gateway to who he once was. "My name is not important, but... everyone called me Gee. Before this happened, before I was Party Poison, I was Gee."

"It's a nice name, or nickname, more like." I prop my chin on his shoulder and smile. "But you'll always be Poison to me."

"That's because it's who I am now. I'm not Gee anymore, I'm Poison. Besides, you've never known me as anything but Poison." He drops the hem of my shirt and just rests his hand. "Just like you'll always be Mercury to me, real name or not, you're Mercury Monster, a Fabulous Killjoy."

I pause for a moment, inhaling the bitter sweet smell of cigarettes and unscented soap before continuing. "My name..."

"You don't have to tell me, like I said, you'll always be Mercury to me." His eyes are soft, comforting, loving.

"I want to tell you. I want to tell someone." I breathe deeply and exhale strongly. "My name is Marie Grace."

"It's beautiful." He leans up to kiss me softly. "An innocent name, not like the one you have now. The name you've given yourself. The name you have now, your identity, is a warrior, a fighter. A Killjoy."

"That's the first time I've spoken my birth name aloud in four years..." I feel emotion build in my throat. "It sounds wrong, like it belongs to someone else. A child maybe."

"Because you were a child when you were called upon by that. But that child is no more, you're no longer a child--you're a fighter, a survivor. I don't think you ever were a child, or had the time to be. Like Gracie, you both had to grow up too fast." He shifts slightly, playing with my hair and tracing my features, fingers grazing my cheeks and brim of my nose, my jaw and collarbone. He moves to kiss where his fingers once danced across my skin and to the soft part below my ear and jaw. "But I still love you. Both parts; Mercury Monster and Marie Grace, though you hide the latter from the world."

I do not speak anymore, just reviling in the fact that I have finally spoken my birth name aloud for the first time in over four years. I never thought I would, aloud or in my head. Never to another person.

I never thought I could trust someone so much I would tell them my real name. Something inside tells me I made a mistake, that I should never speak such abomination as my name aloud.

As I lay here, wrapped in Poison's arms, the screaming voice in my head, the one that wails in agonized voices that I am wrong, dies slightly, for just a moment.

As I lay here, wrapped in Poison's arms, I forget the world for just a moment. The past that cannot be left in the past stands at the threshold of my mind but does not enter. He does not let it, just for a moment

As I lay here, wrapped in Poison's arms, I am safe, for just a moment.