If You're The Party, I'll Be Your Poison

“So how’d you two sleep last night?” Fun Ghoul asked with a cheeky smile when I shuffled out into the kitchen in the morning.

“Fine,” I mumbled, ignoring the pointed glare Poison shot him. My focus was on food and my stomach let out a low growl while I tried to find some semblance of sustenance. Throwing open a cabinet I found a rusted coffee can behind some old sponges and ripped the top open.

The smell of coffee wafted out and I took a deep breath in. The beans were a little old but I didn’t care. I set to finding something to grind them as Jet Star joined us in the kitchen, yawning and stretching.

“She found coffee,” Jet Star noted as I ground up the beans. “I think she’s a keeper.”

“Very funny.” I threw a bean at him and resumed opening and closing cabinets for mugs. “Do you guys keep mugs in one spot? My goodness.”

“We’re not big on putting shit away,” Fun Ghoul said, turning the page in his issue of Battery City Times. “Looks like there was a bust on a hideout in Zone Three. Five Killjoys ghosted for mugging a citizen. That’s bullshit.”

“Guess we know where we’re going today then.” Kobra entered the room rubbing his eyes.

“Morning!” I chirped and he smiled at me.

“You found coffee?” he perked up and I poured him the first mug.

“That I did.”

“I love you,” he took the mug from me and sank into an open seat just breathing in the steam.

The four of them laughed and Jet leaned on the counter beside me to take his mug. “It’s rare to find coffee around here. We’re all seriously addicted to the stuff. We thought we’d been out of it for almost a month and you find a can. You’re pretty much our hero.”

“I’m flattered.”

“You should be,” Poison muttered.

I felt my cheeks flush again and Ghoul piped up from his seat. “So Poison, you slept in your own bed last night. Did you get any action?” He wiggled his eyebrows and I took my turn to burry my face in my coffee mug.

“Shut the fuck up, Ghoul. She’s not some sexborg or some shit.”

“Inquiring minds would like to know though,” Ghoul persisted. “Rev?”

“No.” I grumbled. “And for future inquiries, my sex life, or lack there of, is none of your business.”

Ghoul chuckled and shook his head at me. “Not here.”

“Anyway,” Poison interjected and I buried my face back in my mug, the steam from the hot coffee blurring my vision. “While you guys go check out that raid, I was going to hang back with Rev… you know… see what we can dig up.”

The guys nodded and Jet and Ghoul shared a look. Instead of saying anything I pretended not to notice and finished off my coffee. As the guys geared up to go out into the desert I concentrated on cleaning up their disaster of a kitchen. Not only was there zero organization but also everything was filthy and old. By the time the guys left I was elbows deep in soapy water and only making a small dent in the dirty dishes lining the entire kitchen counter. But I didn’t mind, it kept my hands busy so I didn’t have to think about anything else. Until I remembered Poison had stuck around.

He’d disappeared with the other three and finally decided to grace me with his presence after a few minutes outside. His hair was windswept and he leaned against the wall beside the fridge, his hip cocked and his arms crossed over his chest. My instinctual reaction was to keep my eyes on my task at hand and remain silent, so that’s exactly what I did.

“It must be killing you,” he mumbled after a while to which I paused and stared at him. He pushed away from the wall and grabbed a towel, picking up one of the wet dishes and drying it.

“Pardon?”

He shrugged, “To live with strangers, alone without your brother. The lonliness must be killing you.” He shrugged.

“Oh,” I kept my eyes on the dishes, scrubbing a mug with a bit more fervor than needed. I could feel the emotions stirring in my gut and my eyes prickled with threatening tears but I did my best to keep my mouth shut and my focus on the dishes. This wasn’t a time to be weak.

Poison dried a few more dishes before tossing the towel on the counter and leaning his back against it. He crossed his arms over his chest. I bit my lip and kept scrubbing. My hands shook and I could barely think. Swirling through the emotional knot in my guts I couldn’t help but be distracted. All I could focus on was how he smelled. Like laundry detergent and sweat and it threw off my senses now that he was so close.

“So?” he asked and I placed the clean dish on the counter.

“Um. Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of lonely but I’m dealing with it.”

He nodded and the rag I was using slipped into the sink. “Why won’t you tell me who you are?” he finally asked and I gave up trying to dig the rag out of the suds.

I shrugged.

He sighed and slouched over to the table where Ghoul left the newspaper and flipped through a few pages. I focused back on my dish washing and we were silent for a while. Poison read quietly while I finished the dishes until I couldn’t take the silence any longer. I dropped the towel on the counter and turned to him but he ignored me.

“Poison I—” I started, sitting down at the table across from him. He looked up at me, his hair hanging in his face like it always did. “I’m just confused and scared.”

“Who are you?” he asked slowly, pushing the paper toward me. The black and white photo under the headline he’d been reading made my eyes water. Daniel smiled up at me, his arm draped around my shoulders. It was an old family photo our mother had kept framed in our house. It was one of the only pictures we had of before the war and our mother cherished it as one of her most prized belongings. Above the picture the headline read in big bold lettering ‘Battery City Traitors- Former Draculoid found dead, Sister missing’. I skimmed the article that explained the wreckage I’d left of our car on Route Guano. It described my appearance and my real name along with a few speculations that might have lead to the catastrophe of the night we left the city.

“So your name is Korra?” Poison asked and I folded the paper closed.

“Yes.”

“You’re Bobby Swanson’s daughter. You’re Reaper blood.” He said.

“Yes.”

He stared at me. “The last Reaper, huh? That makes you very valuable and very, very dangerous.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know about that…”

“You know the inner workings of the city and you’re good with your hands. That makes you extremely dangerous.”

“Oh.”

He stared at me for a moment but I couldn’t look at him. Now that he knew my name I had little else to hide, especially if he’d known my family before the wars. He could know everything if he tried. I shivered just thinking about it.

“I knew your brother,” Poison looked up at me and I froze. I think he wanted more of a reaction from me but I just stared at him, silently trying not to cry in front of him. I needed to be tough.

“Not personally or anything but…I worked down the street from your uncle’s garage. Swanson Repair, where Daniel worked. He used to stop in and pick up comics and stuff for you every few days. He always said you were a fan of Batman.”

My lips twitched as I battled my own emotions and memories. Batman. I remembered him. I had a fascination with the darkness of Batman and how he didn’t need superpowers to be special. Daniel thought I was a loser for it but he always brought home a different comic for me to read. And I’d loved the villains. The Joker and Harley Quinn were my favorites.

“Daniel thought Poison Ivy was hot,” I finally choked out and Poison chuckled.

“Not surprising.”

“The note said you knew my father.” I watched him and he rubbed the spot above the stitches in his eyebrow. The lump had gone down considerably but it was still black and blue. He winced, remembering the cut and frowned.

“I don’t remember. Not really,” he shrugged. “I think I worked for him before the war... only for a short time, though. He hired me in the shop but I’m shit when it comes to mechanics and cars so I wasn’t there long and then your uncle hired Daniel. He was going to keep me around for clerical shit but I got the job at the bookstore with my brother….”

He ran his fingers through the tangles of red hair in his face and looked away. I could tell he was lost in his own memory. The urge to ask what he was seeing consumed me but I didn’t want to be rude so instead I stood to get back to drying the dishes. The towel had fallen into the sink so I fished it out and grabbed a chipped bowl. My movements must have pulled Poison back to reality because he coughed and rustled the newspaper.

“Sorry.” Was all he said before getting up. I couldn’t tell if he’d left or not but I couldn’t contain my emotions any longer. They bubbled up, choking me, and I let out a hollow sob. For a second I couldn’t breathe from fighting the crying but it won out and the tears streamed down my face again. I tried wiping them away on my arm but they just wouldn’t stop so I let them fall as I finished drying the dishes and grabbed a new rag to clean the counters.


I kept my distance from the guys for a few days, cleaning, washing their clothes and keeping my hands busy to avoid conversation. Whenever one of them tried to ask me something I deflected with a quick shrug and shied away before anything else was said. I knew Poison had filled them in on the newspaper article and what he’d gleaned from my fractured memories but he didn’t push me to talk again for another few days.

The nights were even worse. I kept to my side of his bed, curled up on the edge as far away from him as I could. He didn’t try to curl up with me like the first time and even left to sleep on the couch a few times. I would pretend to be asleep to avoid talking and he would tiptoe around trying to not wake me. Most nights I just cried but others I had to fight the urge to keep silent. No matter how much I wanted to trust him with information I couldn’t risk getting attached, not with what had happened to my brother. The scenarios plagued my nightmares and I would wake up in a cold sweat. It was during one of these nightmares that Poison shook me awake mid-scream.

“Jesus Christ, Rev, wake up!” he was saying when my scream cut off and I returned to consciousness. The image of him and Kobra being tortured by Korse was still fresh in my mind so seeing him so close to my face startled me. On instinct I reached out, placing both hands on his face to make sure he was real.

“Oh thank God.” I breathed and let my hands drop. Then I realized what I’d done and my face heated up. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he whispered and sat back, giving me some space. “What’s going on? I’ve let you have your distance but this is getting out of control. I thought you were getting better not worse.”

I just shrugged which ticked him off because he sighed and leaned back on his heels. He just glared at me with his eyebrows drawn together and his mouth pouted.

“You have to say something,” he insisted. “This can’t go on any longer. The nightmares are getting worse and you’re turning back into a drone. Your brother wouldn’t have wanted this and I know you don’t either. I understand if you’re scared but I can’t stand the silence. We showed our trust in you by letting you stay with us, the least you can do is trust us with some information.”

The defeated tone of his voice broke me and I sagged back into the pillows. He was right. They proved their trust the night they took me in, even if I was originally intended as a prisoner. The least I could do was try to trust them. The fear that was driving me insane had to be ignored or nothing would be accomplished. It was on me this time and I knew it.

“I’m sorry. I just… I don’t know how to do this,” I muttered and he shifted to sit beside me, the covers tangled in my legs from my trashing. He pushed them around so they came free and covered both of us.

“Baby steps, babe,” he said and nudged me. “Let’s start with this. I’m Gerard, nice to meet you. They call me Party Poison in the Zones. My brother is Mikey or Kobra Kid and we’re the only family we’ve got out here. Now you.”

He held his hand out and I took it loosely, shaking it slightly. “I’m Korra. My alias is Revenge Reaper and my brother was Daniel. I was a mechanic in Battery City and then a nurse. That’s all I know.”

Poison nodded. “There. We’re making progress already. Do you feel better?”

“I guess.”

Wrapping his arm around me he pulled me into a one-armed hug, resting his chin on top of my head. “Don’t disappear on us again, Rev. We need you and you might not realize it yet but you need us too.”