The Kids From Yesterday ➸ Danger Days

thirty one • a disloyal order of water buffaloes (boycott love)

Kobra stands up, looking down at everyone and quietly making his leave to go outside. He clutches at his bandana as he stands outside, biting on his tongue as he shuts the door and makes a few steps out before he begins to cough into the small cloth. There's a long silence as he crouches down to the ground and relaxes underneath the cover of night. The blonde stays down, shutting his eyes to wince before he begins to cough again.

Muffling his coughs with the bandana, he feels the warm, sticky blood staining his lips. He shut his eyes, wincing but jerking upright as soon as he feels a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, Mikes, you okay?" Party asks, crouching down next to his brother and actually setting his knees on the ground to get a better look at the blonde. "Oh, Lord, it's getting worse, isn't it?"

Once he's contained himself, Kobra nods and clears his throat. "Yeah, it is. We're out of my medicine aren't we?"

"I...yeah," the redhead mumbles, not ready to go get more by any means.

"Whatever. You should get ou-" Kobra continues saying until being abruptly cut off by another series of coughing spasms.

"I got a vaccine last time I was in the city. So did Ray. You don't have to worry about either of us. That, and we've been taking some different meds. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine." Party repeats the last bit as he takes Kobra in his arms, swaying back and forth slowly. "It would help if you didn't smoke so much."

"Frank smokes more than me and he's better than I am."

"He hasn't had this as long...fuck, we should have brought him to get vaccinated too..."

Kobra at this point pulls away from Party, staring down. "It's my fault he's sick too. If I hadn't infected him, you'd all be fine and we wouldn't have to worry about any more drama."

"We're done with drama. Have been since we had Gracie, and before then too. Ever since we got back together, we've been a family. Don't blame yourself for this-"

"You told me not to go into that condemned building and I should have listened."

"But you found us what we needed to live. Otherwise we would probably have starved."

Kobra rolls his eyes, still looking away from Party as he lights a cigarette. "Not all of us would have. Some of us would waste away before they died."

Party sighs at that remark, rubbing Kobra's back as he alternates between the slowly dying down coughing spasm and his long drags that had become elegant with practice.

"C'mon, we should head back in. It's freezing out here."

"Let me finish my smoke."

"I'll meet you in there..." Pause. "Hey, I love you, baby bro."

There is a short period of silence, which consisted of Kobra turning around with the faintest of smiles. "Love you too, Party."

-

Kobra found himself waking up a lot in what used to be Joe Trohman's bed, sometimes having coffee and sometimes just making a quick and scrappy meal out of Power Pup before heading out with the Youngbloods for their daily patrol of the Zones.

Afterwards, he'd usually go play a few rounds of poker at a Hyper Thrust. That on it's own made him good money, especially due to practicing on his draw to get faster and faster (this seems like a useless detail until you consider the angry killjoys at being 'robbed', and that they liked to draw their guns quite often- however, when you have the fastest draw in all of Battery City and the surrounding Zones, it's not hard to get out your gun faster than them). Luck, it seemed, was usually on his side.