Danger Days: The Escape

The sun’s rays shone faintly through the thick curtains of the master bedroom early the following morning. Gerard and Frank laid tangled together underneath the covers of the queen size bed. After their intense love making that was followed by confessions of love they had fallen into a peaceful sleep.

Gerard was the first one awake that morning. He glanced down at the figure with his leg wrapped around his waist and smiled; Frank really slept in some odd positions. There had been many happy moments in his life, but this by far was his favourite. Last night he and Frank had shared something so deeply intimate with each other despite all that was going on around them, and he had to admit, that since meeting that beautiful man, it was all he’d ever wanted.

He remembered the first time he’d met Frank. Kobra Kid and himself had only been in the war for a few days when their worlds had collided – quite literally. They were driving along a road on the outskirts of Zone 5 when they had heard something – most likely a grenade, but they’d never gone to check – exploding in the distance. Naturally they pulled over and ran out to where the action was happening; back then everyone had wanted the glory of being the one to kill Korse, and they’d assumed he would be there. As they had been about to round a corner, Gerard crashed into none other than Frank Iero – Fun Ghoul. He was instantly attracted to the man, with his shaggy dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and mass of tattoos that seemed to cover every inch of him. Frank had warned them about the draculoids coming for him; they’d offered him a ride and a few minutes later all three of them were in the trans-am on their way to anywhere. He’d had the intention of dropping him off somewhere safe, but when he’d learned that Frank was on his own, there was no way he was letting him go. It would have been a crime against humanity to let someone as drop dead gorgeous as Frank be taken and killed by draculoids.

Best decision of my life.

Gerard’s coffee craving hit in soon after he awoke. He disentangled himself carefully from Frank, being sure to cover him over again, put his pyjama’s on and padded out of the bedroom. When he reached the kitchen he flicked on the kettle and waited patiently at the island for it to boil. His mind was racing widely with the memories of his night with Frank when his brother shuffled sleepily into the kitchen.

“Morning, Mikes,” Gerard said absentmindedly. “Sleep well?”

He folded his arms across his chest and gave him a disbelieving look. “I witnessed my older brother come downstairs panting wearing nothing but his underwear while fully hard as he asked for condoms; how do you think I slept?”

Being the typical big brother, Gerard smirked. “Quite happily knowing that his brother was getting laid?”

“I had nightmares,” he replied deadpanned.

The kettle boiled and the two men each poured themselves a cup of coffee. They sat down across from each other at the island counter and enjoyed the warmth that the steaming cup was providing them with.

“I’m happy for you two, Gee, I really am...” Mikey said quietly after a few minutes of silence. “I just don’t want to know what you guys are doing all the time.”

“Thanks Mi–Kobra,” Gerard quickly covered as Lady Killer entered the room.

Lady Killer was smiling widely at Gerard when she sat down with the two men. She stared at him intently for a few moments, trying to detect how he was feeling after his activities a few hours ago. As she was about to bring it up, Bob, Jet Star, and Fun Ghoul trudged into the kitchen. They all muttered their good mornings to each other and got started on breakfast. The topic of last night was quickly forgotten.

During breakfast they started talking about the killjoy ball and the aftermath of Korse’s appearance. They had all been traumatised by the things they had witnessed in the hanger, but it just fuelled their determination further. The group were beginning to realised, though, just how dangerous the situation was becoming.

Lady Killer added her own opinion. “After I went to bed last night I got to thinking; we almost died yesterday. Things are getting tougher out here and soon enough we’re going to have to have a showdown with BL/IND – it’s the only way this war will end. If I, or any of us, die when we fight them, I don’t want to go only being known as ‘Lady Killer’. I think it’s time we told each other who we really are, just so that if any of us die the truth is out there.”

Party Poison nodded. “Kill’s right. This is something that we need to do.”

The other killjoys slowly agreed, and so confessions began.

“I’ll go first,” Kobra Kid said. “My name is Mikey Way.”

Jet Star went next. “Ray Toro.”

“Frank Iero,” Fun Ghoul added.

Party Poison revealed himself next. “Gerard Way.”

Lady Killer looked around the island at her friends and smiled. “Lauren Everett.”

Silence consumed the group; now that they had all revealed their names to each other things had become quickly uneasy. They were all just looking around the room, taking in the faces of the people they had grown so close to and quite literally trusted with their life.

Lauren recited the names over in her head. Mikey Way, Ray Toro, Frank Iero, Gerard Way, Bob – wait – Way.

“Hey, you two have the same last name!” she announced to Gerard and Mikey, looking between them both carefully.

“Uh, yeah...” Mikey trailed off. “I guess it’s about time we told you guys that – ”

“That we’re brothers,” Gerard interjected. “Mikey and I are brothers.”

The room fell quickly silent. Everyone, all bar Frank who knew of the secret from that night at the Zone 30 compound, looked at Gerard and Mikey in shock. They had all assumed that no one knew where their family was, or had any human connection to their lives prior to the war. No one was angry with them for keeping such a thing like that a secret; they were just surprised at how long they had been able to keep up the ruse, that and the fact that none of them had even noticed the slight resemblance the pair had to each other.

“Well, that explains why you acted the way you did when we thought Ko–Mikey was dead,” Bob said matter-of-factly as he connected the dots in his head.

“All that stuff I said...” Lauren trailed off guiltily.

Gerard touched her arm gently. “It’s fine, really. I probably would have done the same thing in your position.”

“And you!” she swung around, poking Mikey in the chest with every word that followed. She suppressed a laugh. “How did it feel hearing your brother do it last night?”

Bob, Ray, and Lauren erupted with laughter as Mikey, Gerard, and Frank all flushed red with embarrassment. Frank hadn’t realised quite how loud they had been last night and now to find out that all his friends knew about what had happened and heard it, too... it just made him feel even more awkward.

“It was traumatic, like hearing your parents...”

The laughter continued as did the blushing from Gerard and Frank. It was good just to be laughing again after all the drama that had happened at the killjoy ball.

The day passed at its usual speed and soon nightfall approached. The killjoys hadn’t spoken much about what had happened at the ball, instead choosing to retell stories of their pasts to each other now that their names were out in the open. The tales that Mikey had of their fearless leader had them in stitches for ages, particularly the one about Gerard being Peter Pan in a school play.

Now that they were seated in the kitchen for dinner, they knew they couldn’t put off talking about BL/IND any longer.

“We have to get revenge,” Mikey said through a mouthful of mashed potato. “I mean, look at all the damage they caused last night. Look at Kill’s face for Christ sake!”

Lauren instinctively touched her fingers to her bruised cheek. “Let’s not worry about what they did to me, I survived. What about all those killjoys who were burnt, and broken, and killed because of what BL/IND did last night? They’re the ones who we need to take revenge for.”

“How would we do it?” Ray questioned, glancing around at each killjoy to see if anyone had an answer. His eyes lingered on Bob.

“Killjoys,” Bob said definitively. When all he got was confused stares he elaborated. “Get all the killjoys we know involved. The six of us, we won’t be able to take them down alone, but all the killjoys out there infiltrating BL/IND at once, it’s the only way.”

“Right,” Gerard said, rising from his seat. “I guess we should make some calls then, organise a meeting with as many killjoys as we can. I got some numbers last night before the explosion so we’ll start there.”

He disappeared upstairs to retrieve the numbers he’d gotten from his suit jacket. While in the bedroom he couldn’t help but let a lazy smile come to his lips as his eyes came into contact with the discarded clothing. One day, he thought, one day this will be all that matters.

Less than an hour later the six killjoys had managed to get into contact with the majority of the killjoys that had been at last night’s ball. A meeting had been organised for midnight, just a few hours away, at the old Town Hall in Zone 2.

As midnight neared, the killjoys headed out to the mustang for their journey to the Town Hall. Mikey hadn’t made it to the car and everyone was ready to go, so Lauren went back into the house to get him. Earlier that day they had managed to get hold of a mattress for him, and the study had begun it transformation into his bedroom; so she knew she’d find him in there. The door had been left ajar, so she pushed it opened and her mouth gaped. Mikey was standing there shirtless, but that wasn’t what had caught her attention; her eyes were drawn to the circular mark on his right hip.

“Mikey...” she trailed off, her eyes fixed on the obvious burn.

He spun around at the sound of her voice, noticing what she was looking at immediately. Ashamed, he covered the exposed skin with his shirt and attempted to walk past her.

Lauren clasped a hand tightly around his wrist and sat him down on the mattress.

“I did a first aid course when I was in high school; that’s a second degree burn, almost a third,” she told him, lifting the hem of the black material up so she could take a closer look. Her eyes returned to his, and although he dreaded her gaze, he stared back sadly. “When I was asking how everyone was on the ride back, why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“You were upset; I didn’t want to worry you more. It was nothing I couldn’t handle anyway.” He uncurled her fingers from his shirt and forced them to hold his hand instead. “I’m sorry, though.”

“We have to go to the meeting, but when we get back I’ll be fixing you up.”

Lauren rose from the bed and let his hand drop from hers. Her eyes were cold as she walked out of the study; she actually felt betrayed.

***

At five minutes past midnight Gerard stood firmly on the stage at the front of Town Hall. The room was packed with killjoys, dressed in their disguises with the obvious bulge of their ray guns beneath their shirts. More caution had been taken with this meeting, with small contingents of killjoys acting as security out the front of the hall and a two block radius from the car park. If Korse located them tonight at least they’d be in a position to fight back.

Gerard cleared his throat loudly to get everyone’s attention. When they became quiet he began.

“Thanks for all coming tonight. I know that choosing to come here scared some of you after what happened at the ball, but you made the right choice in coming. For those of you who I haven’t met before, my name’s Party Poison. The purpose of this meeting is to organise our revenge against BL/IND – it’s time to end this war.” He paused for a moment while the sound of applause took over. “We’ve seen things that no one should have had to witness, and lost so many possessions and so many people because we chose to fight. That should be our motivation to win.”

When the second round of applause died down a female killjoy stood up from the sea of colour. Her eyes were bloodshot and fresh tears were tracking their way down her cheeks. She spoke timidly.

“I’m Catatonic Catastrophe, and before the ball I was part of a group of eleven killjoys... eight of them didn’t make it out from the fire.” As she spoke, hiccupping after every couple of words, more silent tears fell from her eyes. The two killjoys on either side of her grasped her hands, attempting to pull her back down to her seat, but she resisted and continued. “If we don’t stop them, more people are going to die! I can’t be alone, I can’t!”

Now the girl was sobbing uncontrollably, falling back to her chair and allowing her friends to hold her as she cried. Her outburst was the first of many to come, each killjoy wanting to share what they had lost, why they were here.

The second to stand was a girl who looked to be in her mid twenties, with waist length brown hair and poignant eyes; you could tell her heart was breaking, but she was strong enough to hold back tears. She had two visible tattoos – a widow spider on her neck, and the words ‘run away with me’ in italics down her upper left arm that lead to a newly placed white cast. Unlike Catatonic Catastrophe, she had the courage to step onto the stage to address her fellow killjoys. Gerard happily stepped aside to let her speak, taking note of the word ‘Destroya!’ stitched into her jeans.

“I’m Thrill Killer, and last night I had my future taken away from me,” she began, unhooking the aviator sunglasses from the left pocket of her jeans and placing them over her eyes, purposely to hide the tears that she sensed were forming. “My boyfriend, Killer Diamond, was crushed when the roof collapsed because at the last second he moved to push me out of the way. We were going to get married after the war was over, but now that is never going to happen. Those bastards at BL/IND are going down!”

As Thrill Killer resumed her seat, another killjoy stood to take her place. This one was only a teenager. Her upper right arm had a jagged cut, an obvious injury from the fire, and her right eye was blackened from a beating that she had incurred from one of the draculoids – Gerard recognised her; she was standing near him when BL/IND flooded in.

“Gasoline Angel. Because of BL/IND my mum is dead, my boyfriend has been beaten repeatedly, and I lost the only thing I had left of my mum, a gold heart shaped locket,” she said boldly. “And if I have to take them on alone I will, because they can’t get away with this!”

As each killjoy stood and told their story, from Catatonic Catastrophe, through to Bloody Bunny and Acidic Venom, Gerard could feel a sense of empowerment rip through him. A plan was quickly forming in his mind. He waited until each killjoy had spoken before he revealed their course of action.

When the last killjoy stepped down from the stage and resumed their seat he stepped forward, a determined look in his eyes.

“BL/IND has destroyed our lives; they’ve taken our loved ones from us, tortured us in their cells, and tried to kill us in inhumane ways. It’s only fitting that we exact the same revenge on them.” A few murmurs could be heard during his pause. “Tomorrow morning at 2am we all drive out to Battery City, leave our cars in the shopping complex car park, then walk to their head quarters. When we get there, all rules go out the window. You are to shoot, fight, kill, take them down in the name of all the killjoys who have died to protect us. Killing Korse is our main objective. Once he’s dead, those draculoids will give up; they’re nothing without him. By breakfast time tomorrow this war will be over.”

Slowly, each killjoy rose from their seat and held their ray guns high in salute. There were no questions following Gerard’s speech; they all knew what had to be done. Soon the hall was vacated, with everyone returning to their own hideouts, and hope was once again restored to the killjoys. Finally the war would be over.