overlithe (overlithe) wrote in batmanjoker, @ 2009-05-15 14:49:00 |
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Current mood: | bouncy |
Current music: | radiohead |
Entry tags: | artist: thanks_to_god, author: thanks_to_god, chaptered story: yellow spots, fanart, fanfic, knight vs anarchy round 9, rating: pg13, team knight |
Team Knight - Round 9 - Yellow spots, chapter 8 [fanfiction]
Original poster: thanks_to_god
Title: Yellow spots
Pairing: Batman(Bruce)/Joker
Rating: PG-13 (this chapter)
Words: ~4000
Warnings: slash, violence, sexual content
Disclaimer: don't own anything
Summary: Something happens with the Joker, something that may change his life forever
Beta: elizabeth_elf
Hey hey! I'm here again with a new chapter, thanks to my wonderful Liz! =D
And here's some art to the chapter, too.
Chapter 8.
Bruce finds himself in a room, an empty room, and there’s no sound to hear. He looks around, but it is completely empty and dark. Bruce doesn’t know how he can see through the darkness, but he can. The room is tiny, making him feel like he’s trapped in a box, making him feel small and insignificant. He glances around over his shoulder as sudden panic overwhelms him.
He doesn’t know how he got here, or why he’s here. He just… found himself here. He’s fully dressed; even his tie is bound tightly around his neck.
He looks around again and again, trying to see a door, a window, anything, but there’re only empty walls around and not a single object in the room. His heart is beating fast inside his chest, so fast it hurts him, and his breathing is shallow.
Bruce looks up to where the ceiling is supposed to be, but he sees none. There is nothing above him but the infinite darkness stretching high above to the sky, and Bruce can’t see the end of it. The darkness around him swallows him whole, sucks the life out of him, makes him shudder and tremble with tension and fear. He swallows past the cotton he feels in his throat, not wanting to let this thing get him, willing his heart to beat slower.
He gasps and his heart stops completely before remembering how to beat again as he sees small lines of yellow golden light appear in the air, twisting and shaping, dancing and shimmering all shades of gold, giving some light to the room. Bruce watches, mesmerized, as more and more shining lines come out of nowhere, and he wants to reach out and touch one of them. Their soft gleaming wants to be touched.
“Am I dead?”
Rachel is there, right behind him, thick, long, black blanket covering her body as she holds it on her shoulders. She looks at him, her eyes half-closed and vacant, her long hair loosened. Bruce stares, wide-eyed, his mouth opened slightly, as he keeps telling himself, this can’t be, this can’t be. There’re are gleams of gold dancing on her face, making odd shadows, but Rachel just stands there, staring at him, her gaze empty.
Bruce’s chest is tight and there’s a lump in his throat. He lets out small shaky breaths; his guts leap and the sight in front of him turning him inside out. His lip begins to tremble and he bites it hard, feeling the metallic taste of blood in his mouth almost immediately. Everything inside him is shaking with the mix of desperation, grief, and fear, and his eyes sting.
“Am I dead?” Rachel whispers, staring at some point behind Bruce she’s not really seeing. “Am I dead? Am I dead?” she repeats like a mantra, her voice small and weak, shadows dancing on her face.
Bruce grimaces at the words, clenching his teeth so hard they creak. His lips are now trembling harder. He screws his eyes shut tightly and takes one deep breath.
“No.” His voice is hoarse, as if he hasn’t spoken for days. He feels his heart pounding in his ears painfully. “No. No, no, no, no! God, Rachel, no!”
Her gaze shifts to him, her head cocked to the side.
“I am dead,” she now states, convinced, and a small smile twists her lips. “I am dead,” she repeats. The smile grows bigger, and a sparkle of life flickers in her eyes for the first time.
“No, Rachel, please, you are not dead,” Bruce groans out with desperation, lost for words to convince Rachel she’s not dead, not dead, she’s right here, with him, he can touch her if he lifts his hand and reaches out to her.
How can she be dead if she’s right in front of him, he sees her, hears her, how can she be dead?!
He feels like crying. He pants, closing his eyes again, but before he can, he feels something wet run down his cheek, and he wipes the tear away furiously before it reaches his chin.
“I am dead,” Rachel whispers and that’s too much for Bruce. More tears run down from his eyes, his heart aches, the words physically forcing him to grab Rachel by the shoulders and shake her, will the person he knew to come back to that empty shell. He shakes the thin form violently, his face wet with tears, his body trembling.
The gold shining lines are flying above them like some magic fairies, gleaming and shimmering.
“You are not dead! Rachel! You never were dead!” Bruce cries out loudly, his face inches away from Rachel’s. “You are not dead! You are not, you are not –” He trails off, his knees too weak to hold his body, and he slips down, suddenly sitting on a chair which is right beneath him, though Bruce is sure there was no furniture five minutes ago.
Bruce is crying and whimpering and he lifts his hands to his face, pressing them to his eyes so hard he sees stars. He braces himself, feeling the temperature in the room drop several degrees.
He feels a cold hand suddenly on his shoulder, and when he opens his teary eyes, he sees Rachel staring down at him, a tiny smile on her face. The hand is icy even through the fabric of his shirt, and Bruce shudders.
Rachel’s eyes are dark and he can’t see anything in them no matter how hard he tries.
“Do you hear it? I hear it,” she whispers, and her voice goes straight to Bruce’s head. His body convulses in another seizure of crying and he can’t force himself to speak.
“Can you hear it?” she asks him again, her voice hollow and emotionless. “Can you?”
Through the horror that overwhelms him, Bruce gains the last sparks of strength left in his body to shake his head no.
“Listen,” Rachel says. Her hand goes back to hold the blanket covering her body, and Bruce realizes she’s naked. “Try to hear it,” she tells him firmly.
“What, dear?” Bruce manages to whisper. “What do you hear?”
“The dead march.”
Bruce swallows the bile in his throat with a great effort, his insides burning as he gives in and sobs hard, shaking as his vision becomes a blur, and he can’t see anything through tears and the darkness, his nostrils flaring.
He clenches his hands in fists, nails digging in his palms painfully. Everything is spinning, his head spins, the golden lines mix together, the air thick with fear and insanity.
“Try to hear it,” Rachel whispers again his ear, her cold breath making Bruce start.
“Please, I don’t want to,” he whimpers, and it’s true, so true, he doesn’t want to try, to hear it, any of it.
There’s silence.
“Funerals,” Rachel suddenly says with a smile, cocking her head to the side, not looking at Bruce again. “Funerals, feelings, bats,” she says almost happily. Her eyes are huge and she looks somewhat fragile and small. “So much. So much.” She shakes her head slightly, almost laughing at her own words.
The insanity of the situation doesn’t let Bruce breathe; he’s choking with sobs and screws his eyes shut, suddenly afraid of this Rachel in front of him more than anything else. His hands ball up, toes curled in his shoes and he presses his chin to his chest, willing her to go away and stay at the same time. Oh God, please, please –
“I love you,” he whispers to the darkness, his eyes still closed tightly. “I’ve always loved you Rachel, so long -”
“I am dead,” she says again, cutting him off. “I am dead.”
She takes a few steps back and leans her back against the wall, letting her head fall back as she stares above in the darkness and the golden mist in the air.
“Rachel -” he moans her name, but she doesn’t let him finish.
“You know what to do, Bruce,” Rachel whispers, and the breath catches up in Bruce’s throat as he hears Rachel say his name for the first time. He misses it so much, oh God, so fucking much!
Everything’s very quiet suddenly, and his panting and whimpering sound awfully loud in the dark room.
Rachel’s face goes blank again as she speaks, her voice low. Bruce almost misses it, but he doesn’t, and her voice fills the room and his body, going straight to his very soul.
“Sleep.”
Bruce wakes up, sweating awfully, his hands clenched in fists, squeezing the sheets tightly, his bed a mess. He pants, his eyes wide, his heart racing, and when he looks up he sees Alfred, sitting on the edge of his bed, worry and concern on his face, emotions Bruce hasn’t seen for almost a month now.
His face is wet and he realizes with shock that he’s been crying in his sleep, like a child, and Alfred probably heard him sobbing and came in to wake him up. This thought itself makes Bruce feel sick, but the sensation of reality of the dream, of Rachel’s presence, doesn’t let him go.
God, she was right there, with him, how could he let her go the second time?!
Bruce is panicking again, choking with sobs, making Alfred put an arm on his shoulder and rub it soothingly.
He feels lost, small, stupid, scared, all these feeling mixing inside him in a giant shaking ball, replacing his insides. He’s hot suddenly and he coughs as he almost feels something choke him. He screws his eyes shut, but there’s a reflection on the inside of his eyelids of the golden shining mist of lines, and electricity goes down his spine.
Oh, God, God, God, God –
He shakes his head, trying to brush away the fear clutching his chest, his heart pounding in his throat. What was all that insane shit he just dreamed about?
“Master Wayne?” He hears Alfred’s soft voice. “Bruce?”
The butler rarely calls him by his name until there’s something really deep and important, not wishing to break his personal space and cross the borders of their employer/employee relationship. But now Alfred does and Bruce looks up at him, his vision still blurry from the tears.
“Everything’s alright,” Alfred says quietly, convinced, his eyes twinkling. “Please, calm down, I’ll bring you a cup of tea.” And with that Alfred rises slowly, his hand leaving Bruce’s shoulder as he walks out of the room. Bruce feels disappointment at the loss of the touch.
Turning to his bedside-table, he grabs the small bottle of his tranquillizers and pops two dry.
Well, he finally got his sleep.
And was it worth it?
He falls back on the bed, letting his muscles relax. The only sound he hears are Rachel’s words ringing in his ears over and over again, mixing with his own thoughts.
I am dead.
He doesn’t want to think about that, not now, no, he can already feel another wave of grief going through his body at these words.
Gosh, the dream was so real, as if he indeed was there, in that tiny dark room with flying, shinning lines, and Rachel in front of him, talking to him, touching him.
Funerals, feeling, bats. So much. So much.
Bruce wonders bitterly, bile in his mouth, what is that supposed to mean, stunned at how deep down to unknown passages his subconsciousness led him. What can truly be the meaning of all that? Of Rachel, telling him she’s dead and she can hear the dead fucking march?
Bruce swallows the bitterness in his throat, and his lip begins to tremble again. He curls up in a ball, covered under the blankets, his arms wrapping tightly his knees.
He’s not stupid, after all. He can analyze the dream and understand it’s not-so-deep meaning. He can do this, of course.
Only he doesn’t want to.
He doesn’t want to analyze himself, his emotions and dreams, his attitude to different things, to Rachel, because it means he would have to let her go, and this he can’t manage - not right now, not ever. He doesn’t want to deal with this, all these hard feelings that tear his soul apart. It’s so much easier to just shove his grief in the back of his mind and forget about it, distract himself from it and pretend everything’s alright. So much easier for him to pretend that he’s OK, nothing’s wrong, his best friend and her fiancé are not murderer by a psychotic clown, and Bruce desperately wants this man, killer, to be by his side for some unintelligible, insane reason.
He shudders as the thought of the clown enters his mind, and he’s glad to find a distraction from that damn dream that makes his chest hurt. He wipes away the dried tears from his eyes furiously, gritting his teeth so hard his cheek-bones ache.
How insane is he if he’s gonna do what he wants to right now?
And how is he going to do it anyway? Break into police station, grab the Joker and run away with him to meet the sunset? Really, just how stupid is the idea itself?
Or, even more important, what is he gonna do afterwards? What is he gonna do once he has the Joker to himself? Why does he even want to get the criminal clown?
Again, Bruce stubbornly refuses to think it over. He certainly wouldn’t like to face the true reasons for this absolutely stupid desire.
Alfred opens the door and walks in with a tray with tea in his hands.
“Are you OK, sir?” the butler asks him and Bruce is a bit disappointed at being called in a formal way again. He sighs quietly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Here’s your tea.”
Alfred’s voice goes back to its usual tone – cold and a bit indifferent. Bruce takes a deep breath, shaking his head slightly, barely noticeably; his heart slowly goes back to its normal rhythm.
So the game is on again.
He gets up heading for the bathroom, intending to brush his teeth, as they have become a bit yellowish lately because of the lack of attention from the Bruce. He certainly doesn’t want to end up with the Joker’s teeth, now does he?
Joker. Again. Bruce snorts, irritated, as all of his thoughts seem to somehow eventually end up with the Joker on his mind.
He has to do something now, before it turns into something serious.
Bruce nods to himself silently as he makes up his mind.
The Joker is sitting in the bull-pen, wincing in disgust at the smell in the small room. His head is spinning and he closes his eyes, straining himself not to fall through. His arms are handcuffed behind his back.
His nose is itching awfully, and the sensation is killing him as he can’t curve to scratch his nose. His blood is boiling with rage at himself and the fucking cops, but mostly at himself. How could he break apart like that?! What the hell is wrong is him, seeing things he can’t fucking see like some stupid schizophrenic! How in the name of god could he let himself be ruled by his emotions, especially this kind of emotions?!
He grits his teeth, breathing out through his flaring nostrils. There’s no make-up on his face; part of it was washed away by the rain, another part wiped away – or better to say kicked away - by the damn cops who couldn’t help jeering at him when he was “finally at their mercy.” His lips curve into a dark, lopsided smirk as he chuckles darkly at the imbecility of the men working for the ‘greater good’ of this city.
There’s a cop sitting outside, and Joker can see him rather clearly through the metallic crossbars of his cell. He’s bored out of his mind, so a little entertainment would be great, he thinks, as he slowly rises from the filthy bench and walks up to the locked door, staring at the cop all the while.
“Hello there,” he sing songs, quirking his eyebrows and cocking his head to the side. The cop glares at him with pure hatred, but deep inside the Joker can see the dread in his eyes. He can sense it in the air, and that pleases him, his smirk grows wider. “How goes it?” he asks him in almost friendly way, and the man turns away, pointedly ignoring the clown.
“Oh my, such a rude man,” the Joker clicks, shaking his head slightly in disapproval. “Didn’t your Mommy teach you to be polite?” he says, putting emphasis on the ‘t’.
“Shut your mouth, clown!” the man snaps, and the Joker feels pure satisfaction, his eyes twinkling. The man’s hands are clenched in fists now, and his breathing is a bit too fast to be normal.
“My, my,” Joker sighs with fake sadness. “Here I am, trying to be nice…” He sighs again, cocking his head to the left slightly. “I guess, I now have to have a… uh, little therapy session, since both you and me have nothing to do.”
The policeman doesn’t respond, turning away from the Joker.
Choosing the ignoring tactics, aren’t we?
“Now, tell old Uncle Jay, how did a man like you end up in a place like that?” Joker wonders, his tone too innocent and sugary to be sincere.
“What do you want from me?” the cop sighs wearily, rubbing his nose.
“Me? Nothing but a small talk!” the clown purrs, pacing around the cell, his eyes never leaving the man’s. “Just to lighten the mood a little!”
The policeman closes his eyes again, not responding, and that’s enough encouragement for Joker to continue.
“C’mon, c’mon, tell me, how did you get to that point in your life?” The Joker’s voice comes out deadly serious. “I mean, you look like forty-five, maybe even more -”
“I’m thirty-seven,” the man hisses. The clown looks at his uniform attentively, trying to find a plate with a name. He grins like a Cheshire Cat when he finally sees it.
“Of course you are, my dear Dick Grey,” he smirks deviously. “Really, what kind of a name is it? How much of a loser does it make you, hmm? I mean, seriously, who would name a kid Dick Grey?”
Dick keeps silent, but Joker can hear his teeth gnashing, and it encourages him to go further.
“Did your parents hate you, huh? I mean it, Dick, how did you come to that point in your pathetic little life?”
Now Dick Grey lifts his head and stares at the Joker, his eyes full of anger, hurt and hatred, and Joker knows he’s hit a nerve.
“Seriously, Dickey, look at yourself! You are – what, thirty-seven? – but anyone would think you’re forty-something, and, really, what is your job? Normally at your age, guys are something more than just security, but those guys obviously don’t let you do anything more important and complicated than to sit and watch a criminal locked in a cell, do they?
“You are squinting, and I can see the outlines of glasses in your front pocket, but you’re not wearing them, they just lie in your pocket. Still you’re obviously uncomfortable without the glasses, which means you try to look cooler by not putting them on, even if it makes you screw up your eyes all the time,” the clown says quietly with a smirk on his face, now feeling a power he hasn’t felt in a long time, feeling he can twist and turn this man in his arms however he wants to. The cop gulps nervously, and Joker continues.
“You’re a brunet, but your hair is really light at the crown, so I can figure that you dye your naturally blonde hair a dark color, which means you have complexes about being blonde or other guys tease you about being a, uh, silly blondie, which you could simply choose not to paying attention to unless you don’t consider yourself truly to be stupid.
“What else, what else? Hmmm.” He pauses meaningfully, before his gaze shifts to Dick again. “Oh yeah, there’s a white spot of a donut on your pants, I can see it even from my place - it’s bright as a sun, and it looks rather old and dried, but it’s still there, so you don’t really care or don’t care enough to go and clean it, and if you had a wife she would have done it for you already. But the spot is there, Dick, and I see you have no wife, nor girlfriend, and you don’t give a fuck about how your clothes look. Still you wonder why you can’t get a girlfriend?”
The policeman was on his feet already, his hands curled in fists, blushing furiously and shooting Joker the glare of doom, only to make the criminal giggle.
If he only takes a few more steps towards the cage, Joker would be able to catch him off-guard and then use that moron as a hostage.
“Or should I mention the red spot of lipstick that you pointedly left unwashed right on your collar, probably to show everyone that you do have some sexual experience and you’re not an impotent or a, uh, eunuch -”
“SHUT UP!” the cop roared, his hand automatically reaching down to his belt to grab his gun. The Joker opens his mouth to say something to prevent the fuming guy from shooting him, but no sound leaves his scarred lips as he suddenly catches a glimpse of something black, some dark shadow out of a corner of his eye.
He freezes immediately for a long moment, closing his mouth with a loud clatter. Everything seems to still for a moment as he turns around sharply, his pulse quickening. He feels movement behind himself, and then a muffled sound, and when he turns back to Dick, the cop is lying on the floor unconscious.
Through the panic that rises in his chest with each second he manages to catch a glimpse of a black Kevlar suit, and he’s suddenly awfully embarrassed about the first thought that crossed his mind about who or what the shadow may be. He tries to relax a little, breathing out through his nostrils, waiting for the Bat to show himself finally.
He’s so happy all of a sudden that a huge grin makes its way onto his face. The Bat has come for him, it means he truly cares, it means Joker won’t go to Arkham - at least today.
There’s a loud bang, making the Joker jump, and the door of his cage snaps open violently, pieces of metallic grating flying in all directions. Coughing from the dust and rubbing his eyes, the clown feels a strong hand on his forearm, squeezing him tightly. Joker grabs Batman in return, pulling him closer desperately to make sure the Bat is real, is here, is not going to disappear like he does in Joker’s dreams.
Batman is stunned by such a welcome for a moment before regaining his composure again. His grip on the Joker’s arm becomes rather brutal.
“Try any of your tricks and you’re not seeing the sunlight ever again,” Batman growls in his ear, and Joker doesn’t doubt his words for a second. The Bat has sure meant it.
What’s his plan? Joker wonders as the Batman drags him out of the room and into a corridor, probably full of cops with guns.
Well, he’ll see… right now.
Please review guys, i'm very anxious about what you think!