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Either the afternoon heat was affecting Jet’s hearing, or Kobra Kid was as stealthy as he thought he was. Still, if the latter was the case, Jet probably would have heard the diner door open and close and he didn’t, so Jet was going with the heat.
He set down his screwdriver and the piece of the transmission he was tinkering with and pulled the parts of his body the sun was touching further into the shade cast by the diner. He didn’t say anything but looked over. Kobra was holding himself very still, watching Jet work. It wasn’t an intrusion.
He liked it when Kobra was nearby.
“Ready to finally let me teach you engine maintenance? Or avoiding something inside?” Jet asked. He rested his head back against the side of the building and wondered how long he’d been working. His left leg was going numb so he stretched them both out in front of him.
“Which do you think?” Kobra answered wryly, giving Jet a small smile. Kobra’s smiles were always small, except when they weren’t. He pulled his long, bony legs up to chest and wrapped his arms around them.
For the fraction of an instant Jet had the impulse to run his hand up Kobra’s bare arm, like he did along the hood of the trans am. He kept his hands to himself.
Before Jet could open his mouth and ask what was happening inside the diner, the “what was happening” spilled out the door.
“Ghoul found a sharpie that wasn’t dried up”, Kobra told Jet. They both watched, transfixed, as Party Poison bolted out 20 feet into the dessert with Fun Ghoul close behind. Ghoul was holding a marker menacingly.
They circled each other a few times, slowly, like gunslingers reluctant to be the first to draw. Party ran his fingers through his mop of unwashed hair, the red starting to fade from sweat and sunlight, and opened his mouth like he was willing to negotiate. Ghoul, recognizing his opening, lunged forward with a cackle and tried to grab him, missing by inches as Party was off running again.
Kobra leaned closer to Jet so he could be heard over the squealing and flailing happening yards away. “He wants to draw on Party,” Kobra told him.
Party was wearing what at one time was a t-shirt but was clinging to that label only in the most technical sense at this point. Jet could see how the expanse of bare, tan flesh would be irresistible to Ghoul with his newly acquired access to a marker.
Even in the oppressive heat, Ghoul wore long sleeves, but Jet knew that under his clothes, his skin was covered in tattoos- all varying in levels of artistry and in the risk that Ghoul had taken to get them done. He’d told Jet once sadly that he had to be more careful with his decisions, and he hadn’t meant better at judging the hygiene of the tattooer, he meant that he was running out of space. He’d then looked speculatively at Jet’s bare forearm and Jet changed the subject as fast as he could.
“Party doesn’t trust him”, Kobra added, “because you know… he’ll probably just write ‘penis’ on Party’s forehead, or something.”
Party stopped and held his hand out in front of him. “Ghoul … fucking, stop for a second!” He did. Only then, did either of them seem to notice Jet and Kobra in the shade. Party looked between Ghoul and the two of them with wide eyes vacillating between annoyance and humor and possibly a tiny bit of genuine fear at the situation he’d found himself in.
Ghoul had stopped and was leaning over catching his breath. “Come on,” he panted out, “not fair…stop hoarding all that good, bare skin.” Then he sprung forward catching Party around the waist and taking them both down. And then there were elbows and knees blocking pulled-punches, and Party’s voice going up two octaves in protest.
Jet felt Kobra’s muscle stiffen minutely where their arms were touching and just as he was wondering if maybe he should intervene, or at least shout something from the shade, Ghoul stopped fighting. Jet realized that even though Party had Ghoul’s wrists tightly gripped still, he’d stopped trying to buck Ghoul off of his hips, where Ghoul was sitting to pin him down.
“Wait! Just wait,” Party hummed. Then, letting go of the wrist of the hand without the marker, he traced his fingers along Ghoul’s jaw. His eyes slid back down Ghoul’s neck along a the path of skin between tattoos. “What if I draw on you? What if I can find some bare spots…” he drawled out.
Jet felt rather than heard Kobra sigh which he knew from experience was accompanied by an eye roll. But he did feel Kobra relax again.
Then Ghoul was standing, pulling Party up and dragging him back toward the diner. Party stopped in front of Jet and Kobra and opened his mouth to speak. Jet watched an apology, then a warning against coming into the diner for a bit, then possibly what was going to be something-that-had-just-popped-into-Party’s-head-about-art flash across his face, all before any words had actually come out.
Impatient, Ghoul had stepped back, grabbed him, and running his hands up under Party’s shirt, he squeezed just above his hips hard enough to pull a squeal out of him.
The color rose high up in his Party’s cheeks. He elbowed Ghoul in the stomach, then instead of saying anything after all, settled on striking a pose, giving Jet and Kobra dazzling smiles, and disappearing back through the diner door.
Ghoul tried to giggle but it came out as a cough as he hadn’t caught his breath from the elbow to the stomach yet. So instead, he winked obnoxiously at Kobra, who groaned and flipped him off in return.
As quickly as the chaos had come, it was gone and Jet and Kobra were alone again.
Jet wished that Ghoul didn’t always push things a little too hard and a little too far. Jet wished Party would just tell Ghoul the thing Ghoul wanted to hear.
Party told everyone he loved them. Party told Jet and Ghoul and Kobra that the four of them were brothers, and he loved them all and he’d do anything for them. And Jet knew that Party did not tell Ghoul he was special and he did not tell Ghoul that he was loved differently. Jet suspected this was why Ghoul pushed too hard and too far.
He wondered for a moment about Kobra, who was Party’s actual, biological brother. He glanced up again at Kobra’s face, his eyes unreadable, hidden behind dark glasses. Did it hurt Kobra the way it hurt Ghoul to be just one of the group?
He brain thought better of asking and on the way out of his mouth the words turning into “Just think, if Ghoul hadn’t wandered into that warehouse you guys were in that day, how boring things would be around here.” He meant it as a self deprecating joke, that they’d be stuck with reserved, linear-thinking Jet.
Kobra didn’t huff out a laugh under his breath, which was Jet’s goal. Making Kobra laugh was more and more frequently Jet’s goal. Instead, his forehead creased, and he stretched his long legs back out in front of him, his boots now fully past the the strip of shade. “Huh. Thats not what actually happened, you know,” he said quietly, tilting his head a bit to the right like he was trying to see the memory more clearly. “I know that’s how Party tells it.”
Jet set the engine part down fully and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Wait… what?”, he asked, totally confused. In the zones, everyone has stories, and while they changed over time as they are told over and over, Jet knew this one well enough he could easily retell it, possibly word-for-word, if he needed to. Party and Ghoul told slightly different versions, mostly varying in what they said and what the other person said, although Jet had noticed Ghouls version morphing into Party’s as time went on. But both were clear on Ghoul wandering into the warehouse.
“Ghoul didn’t wander in,” Kobra said, “I’d invited him.” He paused. “I met him at a swap meet. We met up a couple of times and…I wanted him to meet Party.”
Jet knew Kobra well and was used to having to read between the lines so it actually took longer than it should have for what Kobra meant to click into place. And when it did, Jet’s ears rang with it. Kobra didn’t mean he was bringing a potential ally or teammate to possibly join up, he meant he was bringing someone he liked home to meet his brother.
Met up a couple of times.
Jet felt nausea spread through his gut and the image of Kobra and Ghoul kissing, Ghoul’s tattooed hand slipping under the hem of Kobra’s shirt instead of Party’s, flashed uninvited into his head accompanied by the desire to punch Ghoul in the face next time he smirked anywhere near Jet. He shook his head to clear it.
Kobra said “Don’t.”
“What?” Jet asked, confused.
Kobra nodded his head toward Jet’s balled fist. Oh, right. Kobra knew Jet pretty well too.
Jet relaxed his fist and let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and pushed that image away. He forced himself to focus on Kobra, with his sharp cheekbones and hidden eyes holding his body perfectly still at Jet’s side. Instead, he was suddenly picturing the face Kobra made when he was hurt and trying to conceal it, pale and pinched and determined. The roiling in his stomach was now a dull ache.
What had crossed Kobra’s face that day in the warehouse?
“I’m sorry-” he started before Kobra cut him off with the huff of laughter Jet was angling for earlier.
“Why?” Kobra smiled, larger that usual, “Are you kidding…,” he said and paused again, like he was trying to think of a nice way of saying it. “Ghoul is such a dick. I’m so happy I dodged that bullet.” So… maybe not a nice way of saying it. Kobra leaned his arm minutely harder into Jet’s, and answered more seriously, “I got over it pretty quick.”
That eased Jet’s inner turmoil a little, but not enough. He wished he could see Kobra’s eyes. He frowned and asked, “Why do they leave that part out?” He couldn’t imagine either of them doing it to be tactful, it was just not how either of them operated.
Kobra shrugged, “Honestly? I think at this point they’ve both forgotten.” At that moment the muffled laughter from inside increased in pitch. Jet waited for Kobra to tense or sigh or roll his eyes but he didn’t. He could just feel Kobra’s gentle, even breathing.
Jet believed fully that Party had no memory of Kobra inviting Ghoul to that meeting. Party told stories to himself as well as everyone else, rewriting his memory of events constantly. But Jet suspected that maybe Ghoul did. Jet had caught him before, watching Kobra, with a distant look Jet couldn’t place. He realized in this moment that look was guilt.
Yeah, he was pretty sure Ghoul remembered.
He clenched his fist again and Kobra shifted against him. Jet wished he could hold himself still. He unclenched his fist and tried to let Kobra’s stillness seep in through his skin.
Jet pictured the scene from the story he’d heard over and over but with the newly added information, a nondescript warehouse, light seeping in through to cracks and the dust-caked windows. He tried to picture the two brothers working side by side in the stifling heat; Party curious to meet the stranger Kobra had been spending time with, Kobra waiting for Ghoul to show up, chewing on his lower lip, worried about how things might go, worried that Party and Ghoul would clash.
Jet loved Party, would follow Party into anything, would die for Party, but Party was flashy. Party was obvious. Jet didn’t understand how Ghoul could have been distracted by him, how Ghoul could choose Party over Kobra.
“The Ghoul part wasn’t the bad part,” Kobra said, like he was reading Jet's mind again.
“What was the bad part?” Jet asked, his voice gruffer than he intended, still trying to push out some residual anger at the scene in his head.
“Oh. I…” Kobra started, and stopped. He breathed in the baking afternoon heat for a moment like it would give him strength, and started again, “You know, it had always just been me and Party…”
As much as Kobra’s voice had reassured him before there was no regret in losing whatever brief thing he’d had with Ghoul, Jet could hear the layers of injury underneath this, like just by saying it out loud he was poking an old bruise.
Jet jumped in, in a sudden need to make Kobra stop saying the words that were hurting him, “You lost Party.” He had to clear his throat suddenly to keep his voice steady. “You lost Party to Ghoul.”
He thought about the intensity of Party’s attention, and then suddenly living in the shadow as it was directed somewhere else. Would it make it any easier that the bond wasn’t romantic, that it was brotherly? Would that make it harder?
“Yeah,” Kobra answered, barely audible.
Jet wanted to shift around until he was facing Kobra, lift off his sunglasses so he could see his eyes. Jet wanted to wrap his arm around Kobra’s bony shoulders and mash his greasy bird nest of a hairdo into Jet’s neck. He wanted to do… something. But knew from experience that any movement in this moment would be interpreted as pity and Kobra would freeze up and bolt. So instead he hooked his finger into the top of Kobra’s boot and tugged until their knees knocked together, until their legs were pressed together like their arms.
He felt Kobra sigh against him.
There was never a decision made, at least not on Jet’s part, that he would join the three of them. It just sort of happened. He’d met up with them for a trade outside a burned-out house trailer. Things were going smoothly and suddenly there were two dracs out of no where, opening fire at him. His bike took the brunt of it because he was tackled safely to the ground by a grinning dark-haired ball of fury. Ghoul had saved his life.
He remembered Party’s confusion when Jet assumed they’d just leave now that the supplies they’d come for had been destroyed. Instead, they helped him salvage what he could, stash his disabled bike in wreckage of the trailer, and offered him a spot in the Trans am until he could fix it. Mostly though he remembered Kobra’s curious eyes watching from next to him in the back seat. He remembered Kobra, after awhile, pulling down his bandana without comment and letting Jet see his face, and then the other two following suit. And somehow they worked so well together, that by the time Jet got around to fixing his bike, Jet was already one of them.
The moment still felt fragile so Jet stayed still. He wanted to tell Kobra that he could see how special he was, how important he was, but words were Party’s thing. He wanted to grab Kobra and pull him closer and dig his fingers into Kobra’s flesh, under the edges of his clothes, press his lips to the bare skin along his hairline, comfort through physical affection. That is what Ghoul would do.
Jet had been staring into the desert, thinking when he felt Kobra shifting beside him. Kobra had pushed his sunglasses up onto his head. Jet looked up into Kobra’s eyes looking back at him, squinting from the light.
“But then you came,” said Kobra, giving Jet the smallest smile, “and now I have you.” He leaned toward Jet and with both his hands gently lifted Jet’s sun glasses off his eyes as well.
Jet wasn't sure why Kobra had done it. He felt vulnerable like this. He felt like Kobra was opening doors that had been closed up until this point, doors Jet hadn't even realized had existed. He was feeling things that weren't totally pleasant, in fact it was kind of like getting punched in the chest.
And they stayed that way in silence just looking at each other. In that moment Jet understood. He didn’t think he could say it out loud, definitely not yet, anyway. But he understood right then that out of everyone in the world, Kobra was the most important to him. He would protect all of them, love all of them, die for all of them. But even if it was never reciprocated, he would treasure Kobra.
Jet could see Kobra for all that he was and Kobra deserved to be treasured.
He had forgotten that even when he couldn't see Jet’s eyes, Kobra knew what he was thinking. So staring into them, naked, must have given Kobra a window straight into Jet’s soul. He heard Kobra’s breath catch. Yep, for better or worse, Kobra was seeing it all. Jet felt the color flood his cheeks, but Kobra didn’t look away.
Instead, Kobra told him, quietly, still holding his gaze, “You know you have me too, right? We have each other?”
And Jet felt his breath catch in his own chest and then whatever anger and anxiety was knotted up inside him, untied itself.
Kobra picked up Jet’s hand and tangled their fingers together. He leaned his head down on Jet’s shoulder and they sat in silence, pressed together in the stifling heat, watching the sun sink lower in the sky, waiting for the chaos to die down inside the diner.
Later, Party came out to tell them that the marker had dried up and it was safe to come in. Ghoul had new snakes wrapping themselves between existing tattoos on his arms and birds peaking out of his shirt collar up his neck flanking the scorpion. Party had a line of tombstones and ghosts up his forearm, and hearts…lots of hearts. Jet glimpsed at what he guessed was supposed to be the trans am on his chest under his shirt. The drawings were all slightly smudged and each of them had not-quite-identifiable black smudges that looked suspiciously like each other’s drawings transferred between skin pressed closely together.
The thing about Party and Ghoul, Jet realized, was that even though Ghoul always pushed a little too hard and too far, Party always let him, and in the end, always gave in. And even though Party never said the words out loud, Ghoul could hear them loud and clear in the long looks Party gave him, and the soft murmured words at night too low for Kobra and Jet to make out, and those blinding smiles, just for Ghoul.
They were broken, but they fit together so neatly in the ways they were broken.
———
The next morning, Jet, Kobra and Party woke up to find Ghoul with a black tongue and lips where he had sucked on the sharpie after they’d gone to sleep, to wet it enough to draw penises on each of their foreheads. Because Ghoul was not just a dick… but an immature dick.
Kobra pressed himself into Jet’s side as Jet stood in front of the mirror in what was once the diner bathroom, and used the tiniest bit of the desert-distilled, alcohol they’d traded for to try to wipe-off the sharpie from his forehead. It mostly just smeared it into a black blob.
He said to Jet in the mirror, “If we ever find another Sharpie that isn’t dried up I’m burying it.”
Jet gave up and dropped the rag he was using, and wrapped his arm around Kobra’s waist. “To be on the safe side, let’s bury the dried up ones too.”
Kobra smiled at him and Jet smiled back.
It turned out Jet and Kobra fit pretty well together too.