You'll be my detonator...

[madesomenoise]

She dreams she's in the Zones. The Witch is nowhere to be seen, but Cherri's body is there, sprawled lifeless on the sand. She feels an ache for him, tucked between her ribs. He'd been so kind to her in the few hours they'd spent together, close together. She'd started to wonder if that kindness was what love really felt like.

Cherri's isn't the only body. All of her family are there: Poison with a scorch mark under his jaw, Kid with his arms outstretched for his brother, Jet with his hair all crazy across his face and Ghoul with blank, unseeing eyes, his gun still in his hand.

And then they come for her. They talk hold of her, rough handed, and there's an exterminator with her father's face. He looks her in the eye.

"Say hi to your mommy for me," he says. And then he pulls the hood down over her eyes.

The world goes dark, goes grey and lightless, and Girl sees terrible things, horrible things. Help me, she thinks. Help me, help me, help me

She had a name, but she can't remember what it was.
In the mask, she screams.

Comments

[boywhoflew]

High Gate was closer to Barton than Carson's own apartment, so sleeping over with Dee the night before an early class just made sense. There was still the lingering weirdness of knowing that Poison (and often Jack) was just a few walls away, but buried down under the covers with his girlfriend a warm shape next to him made it a little easier to ignore.

Sleeping next to someone, no matter how often they might do it, was still an experience. Too hot sometimes, with wayward knees and elbows and blankets that snuck away and ended up bunched on the floor or wrapped around her like a cocoon. Hair everywhere, especially in his mouth if he wasn't careful. Even the occasional sleep mumble, usually incoherent, but with odd and out of context words strewn in.

Screaming was new, though.

Jolting upright it took him a second to realize that yes, the screaming was real, and no, it had nothing to do with the muddled dream he'd been having about accepting his first Pullitzer. Blinking rapidly, he scrambled in the dark and found Dee's shoulder, shaking her roughly. "Hey," he said, tongue heavy with sleep and squinting in the dark. "Hey. Wake up, you're fine!"

[madesomenoise]

She wakes up and it's still on her, the mask. It's followed her out of her dream. She claws at her face, trying to get it off. She can't breath. She can't breathe.

And then it slams through her. Light. Sound. Sonic boom.

And every light in the building goes out.

[boywhoflew]

"Shit."

He had no idea what that was. But something had just happened, something too fast for his sleep muddled brain to keep up with, but if it had been dark before it was black now. There was the grossly still silence that came from a lack of electricity, no buzzing from the appliances or electronics, and instead just Dee's heavy breathing in the dark, the squeak of the mattress as she writhed in the bed.

Sucking in a breath, Carson scooted a bit further away and tried to ignore the building apprehension that had settled in between his ribs. "Everything's okay," he said dumbly, cautiously reaching out to find her shoulder again. He wasn't sure if he was trying to assure her or himself, but it felt like a lie either way.

[madesomenoise]

She can hear him, the familiar tone and rhythm of his voice, but she can't make out what he's saying and she can't see him. She flails out, her hand connecting with something soft, something that gives.

She can't speak, can't make herself heard.

[boywhoflew]

He wasn't sure if it was a fist or an elbow, but something clocks him right in the mouth hard enough to make his head snap back. It wasn't the worst hit, not as bad as that douche from prom or even that time in seventh grade when he got hit in the face with a soft ball during gym, but enough to flinch and taste copper. Sliding off the bed he scrambled out from under the covers, carefully avoiding anything that might trip him and touching his lip, which was wet (fucking great) he stared at the vague Dee-like shape on the bed with a deepening frown.

"Oh, what the hell?" He muttered, staring hard and willing his eyes to adjust. "C'mon, I don't know what the fuck just happened, but everything's okay. Everything's fine. I'll just--" he cut off, blinking slowly and then squinting. It was Dee, it had to be her, but the more clearly he saw in the dark the more obvious it was that that was not her face.

Fuck.

Gaping, he backed up a step, nearly tripping on some clothing piece on the floor. "I'm getting Poison," he promised, voice strained.

[afabulouskilljoy]

He wakes up the instant the power goes out.

It's a weird thing to notice, but he does. The sudden stop of all electric background noise, the aching quiet he knew in the desert. Poison lays there for a while, listening in the sudden quiet; it makes his own heartbeat much louder.

He can hear the yelling, hear Sunny's distressed voice, and that's what has him vaulting out of bed. This is why he almost never sleeps naked.

Poison darts into the hall, moving by memory in the dark. When he open's Sunny's door he nearly slams into Carson, grabbing him to keep them both from falling over. It takes him a second to see, but even in the dim light from the moon he catches the stark white color of the mask.

"Fuck," he breathes, leaving Carson to go to his Girl. "Hey Sunny Girl, you're okay. Hang on."

He grabs one wrist to keep from getting hit, then, reluctantly but quickly, he uses his knees to pin down both of her hands so he has his free to get the fucking thing off. They're stubborn, he knows that.

With a rip and a yank he pulls the mask off and throws it, immediately releasing Girl's hands. He holds her face. "Hey Sunshine, hey, come back. You're okay."

[madesomenoise]

It's his voice she comes back for, his voice she follows out of the dark. She comes to all of a sudden, gasping like she's been held under water. The tears are instantaneous, fat and hot, rolling down her cheek. She shoves herself into his arms, pressing her face into his shoulder. For a moment, she forgets that Carson is even there.

"I dreamed they got me, P."

[boywhoflew]

Considering whatever the hell was going on, Carson couldn't even muster up any indignation at almost being knocked over by Poison. If anything it was just a breath of relief that he didn't have to go tripping and yelling through the apartment in the dark, or trying to call 911 or whoever might be helpful. So instead he just got out of the way and stood back, chewing his cheek nervously as he watched Poison pin her down pull that gross looking thing off of Dee's pretty face.

He didn't know what the hell this was. He felt like he should know, and if he had the time he'd try to backtrace every conversation they'd ever had about the Zones for a clue. But so much screaming and weirdness in the dark made it hard to concentrate, even if hearing Dee's murmur made his chest relax enough to breathe properly.

Inching a little closer, he tried to get a better look. "Is she okay?" He whispered, unsure if he should stay quiet or not and then deciding he didn't care. He just had to know.

[afabulouskilljoy]

"I got you, Sunny. Not them," he murmurs, holding her tight against him as she cries. He adjusts his position so she can be comfortable, so he can kind of cradle her, and looks over at Carson with a tired, but kind of relieved look.

"Yeah," he answers, keeping his voice soft. "She uhm. Those things can fuck you up pretty good." He nods toward the mask that was laying on the floor, ugly but harmless. Just a scare mask. "What happened?"

[boywhoflew]

"Hell if I even know," Carson admitted with a shrug. It was the middle of the night and he had class in the morning, but he was wide awake after whatever the fuck had just happened. Scrubbing a hand over his face he glanced at Dee, just to check and be sure that she was in fact still okay, and then took a seat on the floor in front of the bed, carefully avoiding the weird mask-thing. Crossing his legs he sighed and checked his lip with the pad of his thumb, happy to see it was already clotting over.

"She can be a restless sleeper sometimes, but she just started screaming. Like, really screaming. I thought she was having a nightmare so I tried to wake her up. But then something happened and all the power went out." Running a hand through his hair he looked up at her curly mop cradled in Poison's arm. "I think she did it."

[afabulouskilljoy]

"Fucking Darrow," he murmurs. Jack and Kavinsky both got cars; the item Girl gets from home is possibly the worst fucking thing she could get. He rests his head against hers for a moment, listening to her breathe.

"It's a drac mask," he says. "BLI used them to like... brain wash new recruits or something, I don't know. They can make you hallucinate really fuckin' bad."

[boywhoflew]

"She told me about those," Carson admitted, sparing a glance at the mask on the floor. On it's own it didn't look like much. Just the same sort of cheap plastic and latex that could be found at any Halloween shop or drug store instead of some kind of high tech torture device. "I probably should have known that."

If he was honest, it kind of felt like a failure that he hadn't. But at least Poison had.

"One of Darrow's bright ideas for a joke, huh?" He guessed with a scoff. "Love this place."

[afabulouskilljoy]

Poison shrugs. "If she didn't talk about it much, how would you've known?" He can't blame Carson. Instead, he's just pissed at Darrow. "Hopefully that's the end of it... though it's kinda weird that the power went out. There's not even streetlights outside the building."

He can't tell if it's the whole block or just their building and the area around it. But it's weird. He frowns a little, looking down at their Girl.

[boywhoflew]

"Something happened while she was screaming," Carson said, nodding his chin in Dee's direction. What he still wasn't quite sure, not with how quick it was or how he had still been half asleep himself. If he'd been forced to bet money though, he would bet it all on having something to do with her and the drac mask that had been on her head.

"I don't know if it was the mask or just her, but there was this... thing. Then all the power went out." His teeth caught his bottom lip, but at the sting he stopped and chewed his cheek instead. "I can't say sure if it was Darrow or her, but I'm pretty sure it was her."

[afabulouskilljoy]

Poison touches her hair, smiling weakly. "Sunshine Detonator," he murmurs. More accurate than he could have imagined, but here she is. He always knew she was special, he just hadn't been quite sure how beyond the symbolic.

"Knew you were gonna rock the world, kid."

He sighs, blowing his hair out of his face.

"She's gonna be pissed or thrilled or freaked out when she wakes up."

[boywhoflew]

"Maybe all of the above," Carson offered with a weak grin. He was personally still kind of lingering on freaked out himself, but it could have been worse. No one was hurt (aside from his lip) and Dee was probably fine if not a bit shaken up. Of all of Darrow's fuckery, it honestly could have been worse.

Somehow that was less reassuring than it should have been.

"Do you think she's going to do that a lot?" He asked, feeling completely out of his element. Super powers and strange abilities were, as much as they were a day to day ordeal in Darrow, still science fiction in his book. "Or does she have to recharge it or something?"

[afabulouskilljoy]

"I don't know," he admits. "Never happened when she was a kid. Pretty sure we would've been scrambling a lot more if it did." He smiles though. They'll have to talk when she wakes up.

"Hey, are you okay?"

[boywhoflew]

From his understanding of Dee's unorthodox childhood as it was, Carson actually thought it might have been a bit more funny if a group of teenagers had been running around after a toddler EMP grenade. Or maybe not, but it still made for a funny mental image if he let his imagination go the right way.

Rubbing his neck he shrugged, a bit caught off guard by Poison's question. "I'm fine," he answered honestly. Nothing bad had happened to him, but he'd still feel a bit more relieved once Dee woke up and talked to them. "I'm not really worried about me, anyway. Yeah, she gave me a good scare. That's it. That and," he grinned a bit, feeling a tug at the split in his lip. "She clocked me pretty good. I knew she could kick my ass if she wanted."

[afabulouskilljoy]

"That's my girl," he says fondly. He huffs a laugh. "She gets that from her other dad." Maybe she got it from both of them; they had PTSD enough to sleep fight and there had been more than a couple bloody noses and split lips between them.

"Hey, open that window? I feel weird with the power off. The silence is extra silent." He hopes some street noise will break it up, and he doesn't want to move and risk Dee waking up.

[boywhoflew]

Carson was tempted to ask which one? but refrained, instead nodding and climbing to his feet long enough to open the window. "I always forget how creepy it is when the power goes out." He mentioned off hand, knowing full well that Poison and Dee both had far more experience with that than he did. The worst he'd ever dealt with was his mom forgetting to pay the electric bill, which while more often than was probably necessary, still wasn't any kind of life altering.

"How long do you think this will last for?" He asked, dropping back to the floor with a sigh. "Somehow I don't think calling the power company to explain that a girl turned into an EMP would go over smoothly. Or maybe it would. Who knows with this place."

[afabulouskilljoy]

"Someone else has probably called by now. Hopefully it's something fixable." He isn't quite sure what Sunny did, exactly, but it kind of makes him think of an EMP weapon, especially when Carson uses the comparison out loud. Yeah, pretty much. Those were handy, and they could do some damage, especially in Bat City.

"Wonder if she knows anything about it."

[boywhoflew]

Scratching at his cheek, Carson shrugged. The power itself probably wasn't all that important in the long run. Not when Dee had to deal with some kind of hallucinogenic Halloween mask getting shrink wrapped onto her face in the middle of the night and then having her chosen-one powers kicked on. They didn't even know if they were around to stay or if it was just some kind of fluke.

"I dunno," he said honestly, picking at the memories of past conversations for a clue, but his attention span at the moment was shit, so he gave up. Glancing back at the mask he made a face at it and then looked back at Dee curled up against Poison. "You said those things made you hallucinate," he pointed as he watched her sleep. "How-- I mean, is she actually going to be okay?"

[afabulouskilljoy]

"We might have to wait to find out, man. I mean... she should be fine now that it's off, y'know? I have no idea what she saw, that might freak her out for a bit but, like. I don't think it was on long enough to have any lasting effects."

Poison shrugs one shoulder, feeling helpless and hating it.

[madesomenoise]

Girl stirs, rubbing her face against the thin stuff of Poison's t-shirt before she lifts her head, blinking sleepily. The bedside lamp flickers and comes back on.

"What happened?" she asks, looking from Poison to Carson and back again. "I dreamed..."

[boywhoflew]

The second the light flickered Carson froze, one eyebrow arching as he watched Dee shift and sit up. He was half tempted to say maybe she should just shut her eyes and keep sleeping, but instead he shot Poison a prompting look before shuffling up onto his knees and dropping his elbows onto the side of the bed so he could look at her properly.

"Yeah," he said, resting his chin on his knuckles. "One hell of a dream. You okay?"

[madesomenoise]

Girl nods and then frowns, noticing the split in his swollen lip. She reaches out gently touching with the pad of her thumb. It's then that she realises how weird it is that Poison's bed with them.

"What did you do to your lip, baby?"

[afabulouskilljoy]

"You got a wicked elbow when you're hallucinating, baby girl." Poison smiles gently and fluffs her hair. Then he points at the drac mask, innocuous there on the floor.

"Wasn't quite a dream, though."

[boywhoflew]

Carson had just enough time to open his mouth to respond before Poison cut in, and he glanced at him just long enough to decide that yeah, it was probably better to have him explain that as opposed to himself. It wasn't even bad, but with Dee confused and still coming down from some kind of freaky hallucinogenic freak out it was probably better from her dad.

"Darrow decided to fuck with you while we were asleep," he added in, lifting and dropping one shoulder in a shrug. "I got a little bit of cross fire. No big deal."

[madesomenoise]

Girl stares at the Drac mask on the floor and a heavy shudder goes through her entire body. She buries her face into her hands for a minute and then she shifts away from Poison, leaning down to brush her fingers against Carson's lip.

"I'm sorry, baby."

[afabulouskilljoy]

Poison lets Girl go, lets her move as she needs to so she can check on Carson. "How are you feeling, Sunshine? We think uh... well. The power went out when you flipped out."

Maybe that's too much for right now, but they both come from a world where there's no time.

[boywhoflew]

There was a shitty knee jerk reaction where he was tempted to milk the split lip for what it was worth, but between everything that had happened and having Poison right there, Carson stamped the impulse down quick. Instead he just gave Dee a sideways grin and caught her hand to give it a squeeze, his attention darting between her and Poison.

"Don't worry about it," he told her, squeezing her hand a second time before reluctantly dropping it. "Like he said, shit got kinda wacky. Are you okay?"

[madesomenoise]

"Holy shit." She breathes it out for a second, and then she thinks about what that means, thinks about what the Phoenix Witch told her. Her hand tightens on Carson and she tugs, trying to get him to get back up on the bed with them. "Did I detonate?"

[afabulouskilljoy]

Poison smiles faintly. "Yeah, baby girl. I think you did a little bit." He isn't sure what she means by detonate, and it scares him a little, but... it kinda seems like that's what happened. Like an EMP weapon going off or something.

[boywhoflew]

Carson shot Dee a skeptical look if only because clambering into bed with his girlfriend and her dad sounded like the world's most uncomfortable idea ever, but he decided to take to the selfless route and only huffed a little bit before climbing up onto the mattress. Even then, he sat with her bracketed between them because it seemed like the least awkward option.

At least he was wearing pants.

"Looks like it," he shrugged because at the end of the day, the only person who knew hadn't been fully conscious for it. And had hit him in the face. "Can I just say, the whole power going out is a step up from the explosion I would have expected."

[madesomenoise]

When Carson's up on the bed, Dee leans away from Poison, tucks her head in against Carson's shoulder. She keeps the fingers of one hand wrapped in the hem of Poison's t-shirt, keeps as many points of contact as she can.

"Cherri said something about it when he was teaching me to shoot," she says. "Feeling the waves. Guiding your shot."

[afabulouskilljoy]

"Always thought Cherri had been in the sun a little too long. Maybe he knew more than we did." Then again, maybe Poison had always known there might be something extra special about Girl. He always knew she was more than just a child, anyway. A symbol of resistance. Everything. He wraps his hand gently around hers.

"You okay, Sunny?"

[boywhoflew]

Cuddling in bed with Poison there would be weird no matter the circumstances, but it didn't stop Carson from relaxing a bit and tipping his chin to rest on Dee's head. Most of the conversation at this point had him halfway to zoning out, only names stirring a bit of recollection from past conversations, but otherwise going over his head. He had a feeling like he might need to brush up on his science fiction if Dee was going to start causing power outages out of the blue.

"What he said," he remarked, jerking his chin in Poison's direction.

[madesomenoise]

"Neither of them know the truth about Cherri and now? Now isn't the time to tell them. Dee just nods sleepily and burrows in against Carson a little. "M'okay," she says. "Think I want to go back to sleep? Maybe?"

[afabulouskilljoy]

"You want me to stay or are you okay with Carson?" he asks, offering them privacy if they want it. He doesn't want Dee feeling like he's hovering, but... he wants to - needs to - make sure that she's okay.

[boywhoflew]

Carson would have gladly and quickly kicked Poison out, but it wasn't his call. It was Dee's room and her fucked up night, so instead he just tipped his head to rest it against her's. Whether she wanted him there or even if she wanted him to leave so she could have a night with her dad, he figured the only supportive motion was to just go with whatever she wanted. Even if surrendering the reigns to any situation still felt bizarre and more than a little uncomfortable.

"We can definitely sleep," he said, considering they had all had kind of gotten a rude awakening. And he still had class the next day. Shit. "But if you need your dad I can deal with that." Mostly.

[madesomenoise]

"I'm okay," says Dee, nodding, and then she leans away from Carson for a moment to press a kiss to Poison's slightly stubbled jaw. "Seriously. I'm fine. Go back to bed."