I sat outside with B, helping her dig some holes. She kept picking up rocks as she did so, setting them aside in a pile. She found one that was a little glassy and squealed happily.

"That one is very pretty, B," I said.

She set it with the others before sitting back down to the current hole she was working on. They weren't really holes, per se, just divots in the sand. She was still little, she couldn't go more than a few inches into the sand before finding a new stop to dig holes. It was really just pushing some sand to the side.

The door opened and Poison walked out with a bag on his shoulder I looked up at him, his hair greasy and eyes puffy. It's the first time he's really come out of his room in three days.

He went over to the shower, going in and locking the door. He hung his clothes over the side and I could hear him cleaning himself up.

"Fun," B said and I looked over to see her holding another rock.

She felt the need to show me every rock she found, making sure I gave a compliment to each one.

"So pretty," I said.

She set it down and continued on with the sand. Poison came out in new clothes, grabbing his old clothes and putting them in the bag. He sat down on the ground next to me, making B gasp and go to plop herself down on his lap.

Poison and I didn't say anything for the longest time. He seemed to be thinking. I didn't want to speak, scared of ruining the moment or saying the wrong thing and making him go hole himself up in his room again.

"I'm sorry for what I said the other night at the mailbox," he finally said with a deep sigh. "Th-that you didn't know what it was like. That was unfair of me. I don't know you or your life."

"It's okay, you were upset," I said.

"That doesn't make it completely okay and I should at least apologize," he said. He paused before his next words came out. "I never...never really thought about her...death...until the mailbox."

Poison had choked out the word death and I put a hand on his knee.

"That's when it hits the hardest, at the mailbox," I said. "You're in the worst of it now. It's gonna be okay, Poison. She loved you until the end. It's hard to find that out here. True love. You were lucky. And you got such a beautiful, smart daughter as well."

Poison sniffled and nodded, kissing B on her forehead.

"I'm sorry that I've been slacking the past few days," he said. "You've all been working getting supplies and making food, bringing me food and taking care of my daughter for me."

"It's okay, Poison," I said. "You're grieving, it's normal."

I ran my hands over the sand.

"There's another killjoy ritual, you know," I said.

"I don't know if I can handle another death ritual right now," he said.

"No, no, it's not like that," I said. "It's actually a ritual to become a killjoy. Obviously you don't have to do it but a lot do. Decorating your own blaster."

"You found some?" He asked.

"Yeah, Jet and Kobra did," I said.

"I'm sorry again about my behavior recently," he said.

"Poison, it's okay," I said. "I don't know what it's like to lose a spouse but I know it's probably hard. I lost my parents and my sister. It's not something you can just get over in a day. It takes time and you can deal with it however you feel is best for you. I'll be here to help if you need anything at all."

"I'm sorry, Ghoul, I didn't know all that happened to you," he said.

"It's okay," I said. "We haven't known each other all that long. Also, if I'm gonna be completely honest, I don't bring it up a lot. Actually, the first time I ever said it out loud was to Kobra two days ago...I-I guess maybe I've got some repressed shit too."

"B loves you, I was worried how she'd react being around strangers for the first time," he said, deciding to change the subject, which I was thankful for. "I know stranger anxiety starts at around eight months. It had already settled in for B when I first met her. She wouldn't let me touch her. It was hard, obviously, but eventually she learned who I was and now we're inseparable. Well, maybe I'm just inseparable from her, she's clearly gotten better with her stranger anxiety."

"Well, she may not have known you at first but she loves you so much now," I said. "And she will love you for the rest of her life. You'll be everything to her, the one to teach her about lip gloss and boys and going to the mall."

Poison looked at me in confusion.

"I don't know, apparently that's what parents would teach their daughters," I said. "I remember reading it in one of my mom's old pre-war magazines. Or maybe it was that that's what teenage girls would obsess over. I don't remember, I just remember not knowing what a mall was or lip gloss. Also being confused why people dated boys. News flash, kid, you're gay you just don't know it."

"I didn't know you were gay," he said.

"Sorry, I'll try acting more faggy next time," I said.

"No, sorry, I just meant that I think that's really cool," he said. "Not cool like you're some weird species or I want to show you off as my gay best friend. I'm pan and have never actually met someone else who wasn't straight. It's nice."

"Never?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Well, I guess maybe I have but I didn't know. It's illegal in the city, they're very stupid in that way. Or every way I guess. But yeah, it's not even that gay marriage is illegal, it's illegal to simply be gay at all. Or bi or trans or anything. So everyone who isn't straight is closeted. I've never heard someone say they were gay before."

"Sorry, seems like it was even harder living in the city than I thought," I said. "My dad used to teach us about the city, he would homeschool us. He had been a teacher in the city before he was able to escape. I guess I was too young to really be told all the bad stuff about the city, there were things I weren't old enough and ready for yet. He was killed before I ever got to learn them."

"How old were you?" He asked.

"I was twelve," I said.

"Can I ask what happened?" He asked.

"Yeah, it was seven years ago. I haven't forgotten a single second of that day and I've also never told anyone what happened, not even Jet knows the entire story," I said. "Jet and I had been in our room, he was showing me this mutant toy he was creating from toy parts he found in the trash around the zone. There was a van and I saw a Blind van. A scarecrow unit with some dracs got out and the dracs started raiding the house. Jet took me to the other bedroom. He was gonna help me out through the window but it was jammed. The blasters were downstairs so we were unarmed and being cornered, I could hear my parents scream before I could hear them coming upstairs. My sister was in her crib in the room crying. She was B's age. Maybe that's why I'm so protective of B.

"Jet barricaded the door with the bed and pulled a drawer out of the dresser, throwing it out the window and smashing the glass. I couldn't go down first because I was too small to catch my sister, he had to go first so he could catch us. He jumped down but the sound of him landing alerted the scarecrow unit. Jet fought them off with a wooden plank on the ground from whatever he had been building. The barricade didn't hold off the dracs long, they got in and found us.

"They wanted to take my sister to be raised for the scarecrow unit, she was young and impressionable. She wouldn't know the difference within a year. I held my sister in the corner but they yanked her from my arms. I-I didn't know what to do, I was young. I just knew I couldn't let them take her. I grabbed a lamp and hit the back of the head of the guy holding my sister and he fell down on her. Her leg broke. She was screaming and they felt like she was too much of a medical burden so they just...they shot her instead. And then they shot me. I didn't die but I pretended I did. They left and I held her in my arms until I eventually passed out from blood loss. When Jet was able to fight them off he told me he came up and got me and we took off. He took care of me. He was seventeen."

"Shit, I'm sorry," he said. "That's traumatizing."

"Yeah, it is," I mumbled.

"Well, we can both work through some shit together," he said.

I nodded, smiling down at B.

"She looks like my sister," I said. "The brown hair and the big brown eyes. My sister didn't really talk much, though. B is so smart."

"She is, my smart, smart Bandit," Poison said.

"Bandit?" I asked.

Poison looked at me before seeming to realize what he said.

"Yeah, that's her name," he said quietly.

"It's cute," I said. "I won't tell anyone."

"Thank you," he said.

"It's a very killjoy-esque name," I said.

"Yeah, Flash named her," he said. "I wasn't really part of that process but it's okay, I love the name Bandit."

"Bant," Bandit said.

Poison smiled. "That's how she says her name. She hasn't quite learned how to move from pronouncing a d to a t."

I smiled, reached over to ruffle her hair. She smiled and looked up at me.

"Hey, I know that this is maybe not the best thing to say or something but I think that if there were no other way to save her--which there probably wasn't, Jet was preoccupied and you were too young--then the last thing anyone in your family would've wanted was for your sister to be taken and trained for the scarecrow unit, getting ghosted might have been better than the alternative," he said and I nodded as I looked down. "Bandit loves you though, seriously. Thank you again for helping me with her these past few days. It means a lot to me, really."

He put a hand on my shoulder and I looked up at his puffy eyes. But then the puffiness seemed to fade a bit from my vision and the only thing I could focus on were the beautiful hazel irises. Poison smiled at me before he got up and went inside. I let out a frustrated sigh as I pulled out the rock from my pocket. It was the rock Bandit had given me. I smiled down at it and sighed, laying down under the hot sun.