Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-07-26 13:27:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | batman |
Who: Luke (and Bruce)
What: Reactions narrative, also known as a complete and utter breakdown.
Where: His apartment.
When: Memories plot.
Warnings/Rating: Everything ever.
Luke didn't realize anything was wrong, not at first. The dizziness could be explained by lack of sleep, nausea chalked up to the fact that he probably didn't eat as much as he should have. Simple explanations for simple things, and he thought it would just take a few seconds to pass, but he was wrong. Oh, how he was wrong.
The first memory blindsided him. It wasn't familiar, not really, but the feelings captured within it were; being helpless, unable to help the one who depended on you, seeing that light of hope and belief fade in a woman's eyes. He groaned, his weight collapsing against the wall which, fortunately, held him up, and he squeezed his eyes together as he attempted to figure out what the fuck had just happened. Bruce was a faint stir in the back of his mind, becoming alert, taking note, but he said nothing. Maybe that was it. If it was, it was bearable, he thought.
But that wasn't the end, and he was such a goddamn idiot sometimes.
It was so much worse, the next one. He tried so hard to stop, to not move forward, because there were no words to describe just how badly he did not want to see what was happening in the alley. The woman was achingly familiar, and Luke started screaming then, when recognition sank in, but he couldn't be sure if it was just within his own mind or if the sounds were actually escaping his lips. He couldn't look away, couldn't make it stop, and as the men finally left, tossing a meager twenty for the woman who was so evidently not okay, the urge to kill them rose, thick and heavy, in his chest. He tried, fighting against the memory to tear their throats out with his bare hands, but he couldn't, he couldn't. He was helpless, left reeling when the memory ended, somehow having ended up on the cool tile floor, tears streaking his cheeks and choked sobs, what he thought had been screams, caught in his throat.
"No," he whispered, unable to rid himself of the image of the woman on her knees, of what the men had done to her. "No, no, no. Why, Wren? You didn't have to-- if you'd just stayed--" He turned his face against the floor, whimpering, and ceased attempting to get the words out. It didn't matter. No one was listening. No one cared. The memory replayed within his mind, even as it faded, and bile rose in his throat; he barely managed to crawl over to the toilet in time to empty the contents of his stomach into the porcelain bowl.
What came next took his agony and hardened it into anger. Luke clawed at the floor and looked up, eyes hazy and unseeing, thinking of the man beyond the door, who stayed with his son, who he trusted. "Jack," he said aloud. He'd sworn he would never hurt her, but he would have, had the chains not held. Lies, all lies. How dare he?
But there isn't time to dwell on Jack, not just then, because the next one followed without mercy. "I need to know your name.. do you know why you're here?" The line between reality and the memories has blurred, and he tries to respond. I'm Luke, no, where am I, make it stop, but it doesn't work, and the memory continues. It didn't make sense, the hospital bed and the cop and the drugs, not at first, but by the end Luke was putting the pieces together, despite being curled up in a ball, as though that would make the the feel of stitches and bruises and drugs flowing through his veins go away. She knew who had done this to her, the woman. She knew, but she wouldn't say, and he wondered if the tired cop knew that too. Why didn't they try harder? Why did they leave her? And the nurse, calling her husband, how fucking stupid could she be? He'd seen this so many times before, but he'd never felt what it was like to be one of those women.
He was wondering about the lost baby when the next one hit. The fuzzy face on the tv screen was familiar, but not to him. This was meant for Bruce, and his presence became stronger as the memory progressed, the feelings of betrayal and anger so very familiar. Not to him, but to Luke, who had known such a man so long ago. He bit down on his hand to keep from screaming again, and he could feel as recognition sank in for Bruce, followed by guilt, however misplaced it might be. Jason, he thought, and Luke let him bear the weight of the memory, not wanting it, no, no, Jason was his problem, his responsibility.
With Luke momentarily lost in his own inner torment, it was Bruce who recognized the one that followed, primarily because he was seeing himself through the eyes of whoever the memory belonged to. No, not him, but the other one, and he knew almost immediately who he was meant to be. Compared to the others, it wasn't terrible, though it was a little disconcerting to be on the other end of such a memory. So that was how it had begun, Selina's relationship with her Bat, and he supposed he could see hints of himself in this man. Luke might have laughed, if he was in any state to do so, but he wasn't, just like he might have pointed out that Bruce could disapprove all he wanted, but that didn't change the hint of jealousy the memory brought forth. But Bruce didn't need such things to be pointed out for him; he might not have acknowledged them, but he knew. He knew.
Had it continued on with Gotham memories, Luke might have been able to recover. But then the memory of screaming came, and he rolled onto his back, eyes squeezed shut as he tried to ride it out. Somebody was dead, and there was blood and fire, and a needle pricking his skin. He thrashed about at an invisible assailant, trying to fight it off, but there was nothing there, and Bruce's attempts at calming him down fell on empty ears. It was only the imagined feel of drugs that slowed him down, made him feel heavy, and he wished it would stop then, that that would be the end, but it wasn't.
A red orb containing a baby. Luke whimpered, because this was nothing like his own mother, this woman, no, no, he wasn't going to have her tainted by this. Bruce knew, though, oh, he knew whose memory this was, knew who the woman was, and he felt a spike of anger towards her for her treatment of her own son. So much like her father, like Ra's Al Ghul, and then he realized that Damian had likely believed he felt the same. It took his breath away, the realization that the boy had truly thought he didn't want him. I'm sorry, he thought, but there was no one to hear, no one but Luke, and he wasn't exactly listening.
Then, another, mercifully brief. Familiar to Bruce, who bristled at the sensation, but Luke identified with the sense of loneliness, and somehow, using the toilet for balance, managed to stagger to his feet and make it to the sink. Water. He needed water.
He'd just managed to turn the tap on when his senses were blinded by spring time and steamed up windows, and while Luke steeled himself for the worst, the worst never came. It was a good memory, a soothing balm in the midst of hell, and he let the feelings wash over him; love, happiness, contentment. Things he hadn't felt in so long, and could never seem to have for more than painfully short periods at a time. He sobbed, the running water drowning out the sound, because he envied these people, whoever they were, wanted what they had, wanted it with a woman who was just as broken as he was.
Surprisingly, the next one didn't bother him. Had he not known better, Luke would have thought it belonged to him. He couldn't bring himself to feel pity for the man who was pushed, Mr. Freedman, and he wondered briefly whose eyes he was seeing it through. Perhaps it was someone who would understand. But he had no energy to search the person out, not just then, and he leaned heavily against the sink and took a deep, shaky breath as he tried--and failed--to keep the worst memories from resurfacing, feeling as though he was about to shatter at any moment.
It pushed him closer to the edge, what came next. "Gus," he whispered, staring in the mirror but seeing the little boy instead, hiding under the bed, afraid, while his father had left him to hunt down a murderer. In that moment, Luke hated himself, and it twisted his stomach into knots, the pure, raw loathing he felt. He knew the memory belonged to Jack, and it soothed some of the anger which had risen after Wren's memory. Some, but not all; he still remembered how he'd looked, the way he'd tried to lunge at her, and he knew he would never be able to forget that, never forget what the man he thought of as one of his only friends was capable of.
Yet, how could he begrudge him that, when he was capable of the same? Luke knew he didn't deserve a family, didn't deserve a child like Gus. Someone should be happy, but he was incapable of being able to provide that. It hurt, feeling inadequate, and he wished things were different, that he was the kind of man his son would be able to be proud of one day.
He barely paid attention to the next one. It washed over him, but Bruce took note, and the fact that she had slapped him--well, a version of him--was nothing short of surprising. All the tests, however, did sound like things he might do, things he had done, and he had never considered what it might feel like to be on the receiving end. As Batman, he held everyone else up to his standards, required that they prove themselves trustworthy to him, and it would not be an easy habit to break.
And then, oh god, then, something familiar. Luke knew her too well to not recognize that he was in her mind, and with the thoughts of prison and him not being in touch, he knew where it was leading, and he didn't want to go there. No, no, no more, but he couldn't make it stop, and there was nowhere to run. He turned wildly in a circle, clawing at the walls, but the memory continued, unconcerned, and he saw the Polaroids, felt what she'd felt, listened to Brielle's pitiful attempts at explanation. "No," he screamed, over and over, almost loud enough to rise above the sound of water. "It wasn't like that, no, no, please," but the betrayal cuts deep, and he started to cry again, somehow having enough tears left for that, because she hurt so much and he had done that to her. But she hadn't trusted him, hadn't even given him a chance; she'd just assumed the worst, and yes, that hurt too. It all hurt, and he begged for it to stop, to stop, and he shook his head as though that might help somehow.
But it didn't help, and as another hit, familiar, Gus again, Luke wondered if this was punishment. Maybe someone, somewhere, was finally ensuring he reaped what he'd sowed, because all of this was so, so much worse than any physical torture he could have been subjected to.
The taste of silver and blood made him freeze, deer caught in the headlights, and then he couldn't breathe, and he was clawing blindly at his throat in a desperate attempt at relief. There's a knife in his mouth, a fucking knife, and Luke let out a strangled cry as he swiped at the air, lost in the memory of a boy pinned against the floor-- and blood, so much blood. It's the devil himself cutting into him, or at least that's what it looked like, and he couldn't scream, caught in a slow suffocation that became a burst of white-hot pain a moment later. Something exploded behind his eyes and he was screaming then, or at least he thought it was, and oh god it hurt so bad and within his mind Bruce's presence spiked into something like concern, or perhaps disgust, and he wasn't sure if it was a conscious choice on his part or something to do with Bruce's reaction that brought his fists into contact with the mirror. The glass shattered, dug into his flesh and drew blood, but he didn't feel any of it.
The Joker, Bruce thought. His scars... he likes to tell people how he got his scars... But Luke wasn't listening. He was bent over the sink, the sides slick with his own blood, bile mixing with water as he retched, the burn of white-hot pain and the image of a mutilated, torn face dancing behind his eyes.
Somehow he found himself on the floor again, glass and blood and running water, and he didn't hear the sound of a little boy being roused from sleep on the other side of the door, or his quiet whimper at the sounds coming from the bathroom. Luke crawled blindly, no set direction, just the desperate desire to escape fueling his movements, but he couldn't get away from what came next. "No," he whimpered, as he stood on a corner in a red dress. "No," as he got into the car, but he couldn't stop it, couldn't stop him--her--from offering herself up like a sacrificial lamb to a monster, all to see his--her--son. He couldn't fight the feel of rough fingers between his legs, or fingers around his neck, and when it got really, really bad he didn't have the energy to scream anymore. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he coughed, choking on his own disgust, his own anguish, unable to stop the horror; being strangled, fucked, abused, bled, nothing short of hell incarnate. All because he wasn't there, because he drove her away, and he clawed at his eyes in a frenzied attempt to make it stop.
Something inside him snapped then. Luke went still, his breathing shallow, eyes wide and unseeing. As the last one came, he merely flinched, a choked sound escaping his throat. "Make it stop," he gurgled, reaching out for someone who wasn't there. "Make it stop. Please, Bruce, make it stop."
He didn't wait for a response. Shaking fingers curled around a nearby shard of glass, longer and sharper than the pieces lodged within his skin, and brought it to his chest, holding it like a dagger. From the other side of the door, there was a small knock, a whimpered Luke?, but he didn't hear it. He didn't hear anything.
What are you doing? Bruce's concern was immediate, and while there was something unsteady about his presence, as though he too was having difficulty maintaining his composure after the barrage of memories, there was no doubt that he was the stronger of the two.
"Can't," he mumbled, digging the point of the glass into his skin, through the fabric of his shirt. "Make it go numb again. Don't feel. Nothing. Please, please."
NO. Bruce took control with a roar, fighting through the haze of madness and despair in order to push Luke back, into a safe corner of his mind, until he managed to piece himself back together. There was no power struggle; it was what he wanted, the boy, and Bruce sat up in his body, casting his gaze around the bathroom in dismay. Blood streaked the tile, glass was strewn about, and the sink and toilet were streaked with the contents of the poor boy's stomach.
"Luke?" Gus' voice sounded again, louder this time, with an audible sniffle, and Bruce climbed unsteadily to his feet and crossed the floor to turn the tap off. "Just a minute, kiddo," he called, with Luke's voice, attempting to sound as reassuring as possible. "I'll be out soon, okay? Just go back into bed with Finch and wait for me."
There was a long pause, followed a soft wuff. "Okay," the child agreed, uncertain, but his quiet footsteps indicated that he'd done as he was told. Bruce sighed in relief, looking down at the glass embedded in his--no, Luke's--hands. First, he needed to clean this mess up, and take care of the boy's injuries. Then, somehow, he would need to get Gus out of the apartment. Should it happen again, the child could not be here. Perhaps he would call his babysitter, and have her take him out for the day. Just until he could be sure this had passed, and until Luke was stable enough to once again be in control of himself.
Unfortunately, Bruce could not be sure of when that would be. Unlike him, Luke could not endure; he was not as strong as he pretended to be. Yet, in a way, strength was as much a burden as weakness.