Team Anarchy - Round 3- Title: Not Only the Good Die Young [fic]
Title: Not Only the Good Die Young
Author:Medorikoi
Prompt: Bad Luck!
Pairing: Batman/Joker
Word Count: 1,629
Disclaimers:I own nothing except my own twisted mind.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Bad luck...
Summary: But what about the bad? The wicked? They die young too.
Except no one cares.
Only the good die young.
No…but you notice when they do.
Why him? Why now? He paid his bills. He had three kids, a wife, a dog. He did everything he was suppose to and nothing he wasn’t. And he died.
Gone.
Stolen in the night.
“We are sorry for your loss”
“If you need anything…”
“He was a good man.”
But what about the bad? The wicked? They die young too.
Except no one cares.
“It’s a dog eat dog world”
“He deserved it”
“-ran around with the wrong crowd.”
Or my personal favorite, the most heartfelt.
“Good riddance.”
And those loved by the wicked? What was left to them?
Did they receive 8 lasagnas to freeze? Did they get calls and hugs and false remorse? Were they shunned with the dead? Left to freeze in permafrost grave?
Left to whither alone?
Left to die?
Pale white hands ran down yellow pages - beautiful and thick, leather-bound, the smell of ink and leather and knowledge rose from the pages. His life with nothing held back.
What he knew
What mattered.
He was born. He lived. He died.
No.
So much more. So much less.
He drifted. He existed. The Bat came. He lived. He died.
Well… not yet.
But soon.
He heard the whispers. They did not care if he heard. They laughed when the said it.
A tumor.
Malignant.
Inoperable.
Jokes on him, Jokers going to die.
The chemicals had burned and mixed and boiled in his brain and what they changed, what they manipulated was more than they had ever hoped for. The end of the Joker.
No battle with the Bat.
No brilliance.
No anarchy.
No beauty.
No final understanding.
No luring the Bat to him and feeling…feeling that for one moment in his life he really existed.
And what would his Bat be left with when he was gone? Would he be left aching in the darkness, never understanding what could have been? What they could have been?
No.
He would not be the brutal dead slipping away in the night and leaving nothing but a hollowed shell. He would not leave this world with a whimpering gasp lost in the breath of the world. He would leave himself. His words would echo in the Bat, live on in his mind, in the life they should have shared.
And the Bat would understand.
In place of cards and hugs and false promises of the faceless good dead he would leave himself, he would leave final brilliant understanding.
How long did he have left? His eyes burned, tears welled and fell. He was afraid to sleep. He might die and never finish.
He would rest in the grave, Rest when his mind had fled and his brain was left to rot.
If people even rot anymore.
He would be encased in earth, in a coffin, in a cement box. A perfect porcelain doll, gutted and embalmed and painted. Shot full of chemicals until what remained was more science than human, more monster than Frankenstein.
Would they paint him to look like a human? Would they leave him his chosen face? Would they take his scars from him?
He hoped the Bat never saw him like that.
He closed the book- his tomb. Time to leave it where it could be found. Time to escape.
A blur- all of it. Black and white and red - purple and green. Life and death and rot.
His mind was melting. Thought- thought was almost beyond him. How many days since he had slept? Need to write, need to finish…
The breeze was cold, bitter and heartless in his dark Gotham. Would he live to see the ground thaw and the grey slush melt back into the earth? Would he live to see the sun rise again over a doomed land?
Would he live long enough to see the Bat?
Maybe- maybe if he was really lucky, luckier than he had ever been in his god forsaken life he would be able to hand the Bat the book. He would sit and regain his strength even as his life slipped away, stolen by the cold hands of imminent death. He would watch the dawning comprehension in the Bat.
He would see understanding
He would see a heart broken…for him. He would watch the Bat gain true life and lose it in the same breath.
If he was lucky- if the time remained left to him- he would stop playing the games he never should have started.
He would say all the things he should have said every moment of his worthless life. He would gain the meaning that would make his life complete.
Maybe in the last moments of his cursed existence- when his eyes shut and the world was numb and cold - the Bat would be his.
But for now he was alive- breathing, pulsing- freezing. Sirens were blaring, hookers stood on street corners bending over for men who should be at home with their wives. His city called to him, it cried for him.
He was on the rooftops, his impromptu will, his gift and his life presses to his chest. The wind ruffled his hair- his gown and thin scrub pants moving across pale exposed skin. He longed for his suit, warm and protective- beautiful and unique, to hold him, to comfort him and make him normal, alive… but there was no time. The words of Arkham Asylum remained blazing on his back.
The Bat would come.
An hour passed. It was early still. He sat and let his naked feet dangle over the rooftop. His fingers curled around his book, clutching it to him.
Hurry Bats. There is a lot to read.
Maybe a lot to say.
Were his fingers slowing because of the cold? Was the numbness in his mind sleep deprivation? Did his heart beat with the rhythm of a child, the too quick th-thumop th-thump from fear? From love?
Or was it something deadly more?
When one siren stopped another began, gunshots count the half hour, honking peppered the night. The Joker smiled. His Gotham. She sang for him. She ached.
Two hours.
Did the Bat know? Did he hear?
He would come if he knew.
What if they didn’t tell him?
His legs were numb, he tripped as he ran, stumbled over connected rooftops, scrambled up. He was close to the MCU and there it was.
The Bat phone.
Big metal and beautiful.
How odd. Just the flip of a tiny switch. He always thought it would be more,
BAM
Light fills the sky- a black shadow engulfs the light, winging hope in its darkness.
It is late, very late. No cops come up. They pretend it does not exist, pretend they do not know the Bat flies to their roof. They pretend that it is they who try to hold Gotham city together with duct tape and glue as crime destroys its foundation.
In fact no one comes at all.
No cops.
No police commissioner.
No Bat.
But the Bat always comes to the signal. It is what he does, what he lives for, what gets him dressed at night.
The Joker walked to the edge, the gravel crushed beneath his feet. He peered down at his screaming city.
Nothing.
Not a single cop.
Car horns blared, babies screamed at teenage mothers and as the night wind caressed his face he understood.
Gotham city did not cry for him.
They never said a name.
Never said who would die.
A tumor.
Metastasized.
Inoperable.
No cops, no Bat even an hour after the signal painted the sky.
No.
NO.
His book, cradled so carefully to his chest, fell like a stone from dead hands onto the thick ledge.
The book was not his life. It was nothing. He was nothing without the Bat.
Too late. He missed his chance.
And the Bat would never know. Never know him, them, what they could have had.
He would never know any of it.
And without the Bat neither would he.
His toes hover over nothing- freezing- numb. Feet balanced carelessly beside gruesome stone gargoyles and the remnants of his life. Arms stretched out to the side, chest exposed and free, he closed his eyes and felt the final embrace of his city. Their city.
Their city forever.
They were meant to be gods untouched by death.
Only the good die young.
The bad do too.
When they follow the good.
And he steps, he flies and all the cables and swinging make sense. Bats was right, to fly as mortal man is wonderful.
But he was a god flying with melted wings.
He was joining the Bat where they had never been meant to fall.
Death rushes up, it gives no warning.
And so it didn’t.
Police cars surrounded the MCU, parked in their own lot, out on the street. Mulling about- lost- dressed in their dress blues with nowhere to go.
Commissioner Gordon stood on the roof next to the cold unlit Bat signal, looking down to where he could just make out a sheet stories below.
He imagined he could still see the shape of a body beneath.
So far to fall.
“It just does not make sense.”
“No.”
Out of the shadows stepped a figure as dark as night. The cape whipped around him, revealing just for an instant a book cradled against his chest.
“But maybe it will…” A whisper in the wind.
“What was that?”Gordon turned from the body below but the Bat was gone, vanished as if he had never been there.
“Hate it when he does that…” Gordon looked out at his beautiful city, just a little more peaceful, a little less color.
“It was only the Mayor…”
Author:Medorikoi
Prompt: Bad Luck!
Pairing: Batman/Joker
Word Count: 1,629
Disclaimers:I own nothing except my own twisted mind.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Bad luck...
Summary: But what about the bad? The wicked? They die young too.
Except no one cares.
Only the good die young.
No…but you notice when they do.
Why him? Why now? He paid his bills. He had three kids, a wife, a dog. He did everything he was suppose to and nothing he wasn’t. And he died.
Gone.
Stolen in the night.
“We are sorry for your loss”
“If you need anything…”
“He was a good man.”
But what about the bad? The wicked? They die young too.
Except no one cares.
“It’s a dog eat dog world”
“He deserved it”
“-ran around with the wrong crowd.”
Or my personal favorite, the most heartfelt.
“Good riddance.”
And those loved by the wicked? What was left to them?
Did they receive 8 lasagnas to freeze? Did they get calls and hugs and false remorse? Were they shunned with the dead? Left to freeze in permafrost grave?
Left to whither alone?
Left to die?
Pale white hands ran down yellow pages - beautiful and thick, leather-bound, the smell of ink and leather and knowledge rose from the pages. His life with nothing held back.
What he knew
What mattered.
He was born. He lived. He died.
No.
So much more. So much less.
He drifted. He existed. The Bat came. He lived. He died.
Well… not yet.
But soon.
He heard the whispers. They did not care if he heard. They laughed when the said it.
A tumor.
Malignant.
Inoperable.
Jokes on him, Jokers going to die.
The chemicals had burned and mixed and boiled in his brain and what they changed, what they manipulated was more than they had ever hoped for. The end of the Joker.
No battle with the Bat.
No brilliance.
No anarchy.
No beauty.
No final understanding.
No luring the Bat to him and feeling…feeling that for one moment in his life he really existed.
And what would his Bat be left with when he was gone? Would he be left aching in the darkness, never understanding what could have been? What they could have been?
No.
He would not be the brutal dead slipping away in the night and leaving nothing but a hollowed shell. He would not leave this world with a whimpering gasp lost in the breath of the world. He would leave himself. His words would echo in the Bat, live on in his mind, in the life they should have shared.
And the Bat would understand.
In place of cards and hugs and false promises of the faceless good dead he would leave himself, he would leave final brilliant understanding.
How long did he have left? His eyes burned, tears welled and fell. He was afraid to sleep. He might die and never finish.
He would rest in the grave, Rest when his mind had fled and his brain was left to rot.
If people even rot anymore.
He would be encased in earth, in a coffin, in a cement box. A perfect porcelain doll, gutted and embalmed and painted. Shot full of chemicals until what remained was more science than human, more monster than Frankenstein.
Would they paint him to look like a human? Would they leave him his chosen face? Would they take his scars from him?
He hoped the Bat never saw him like that.
He closed the book- his tomb. Time to leave it where it could be found. Time to escape.
A blur- all of it. Black and white and red - purple and green. Life and death and rot.
His mind was melting. Thought- thought was almost beyond him. How many days since he had slept? Need to write, need to finish…
The breeze was cold, bitter and heartless in his dark Gotham. Would he live to see the ground thaw and the grey slush melt back into the earth? Would he live to see the sun rise again over a doomed land?
Would he live long enough to see the Bat?
Maybe- maybe if he was really lucky, luckier than he had ever been in his god forsaken life he would be able to hand the Bat the book. He would sit and regain his strength even as his life slipped away, stolen by the cold hands of imminent death. He would watch the dawning comprehension in the Bat.
He would see understanding
He would see a heart broken…for him. He would watch the Bat gain true life and lose it in the same breath.
If he was lucky- if the time remained left to him- he would stop playing the games he never should have started.
He would say all the things he should have said every moment of his worthless life. He would gain the meaning that would make his life complete.
Maybe in the last moments of his cursed existence- when his eyes shut and the world was numb and cold - the Bat would be his.
But for now he was alive- breathing, pulsing- freezing. Sirens were blaring, hookers stood on street corners bending over for men who should be at home with their wives. His city called to him, it cried for him.
He was on the rooftops, his impromptu will, his gift and his life presses to his chest. The wind ruffled his hair- his gown and thin scrub pants moving across pale exposed skin. He longed for his suit, warm and protective- beautiful and unique, to hold him, to comfort him and make him normal, alive… but there was no time. The words of Arkham Asylum remained blazing on his back.
The Bat would come.
An hour passed. It was early still. He sat and let his naked feet dangle over the rooftop. His fingers curled around his book, clutching it to him.
Hurry Bats. There is a lot to read.
Maybe a lot to say.
Were his fingers slowing because of the cold? Was the numbness in his mind sleep deprivation? Did his heart beat with the rhythm of a child, the too quick th-thumop th-thump from fear? From love?
Or was it something deadly more?
When one siren stopped another began, gunshots count the half hour, honking peppered the night. The Joker smiled. His Gotham. She sang for him. She ached.
Two hours.
Did the Bat know? Did he hear?
He would come if he knew.
What if they didn’t tell him?
His legs were numb, he tripped as he ran, stumbled over connected rooftops, scrambled up. He was close to the MCU and there it was.
The Bat phone.
Big metal and beautiful.
How odd. Just the flip of a tiny switch. He always thought it would be more,
BAM
Light fills the sky- a black shadow engulfs the light, winging hope in its darkness.
It is late, very late. No cops come up. They pretend it does not exist, pretend they do not know the Bat flies to their roof. They pretend that it is they who try to hold Gotham city together with duct tape and glue as crime destroys its foundation.
In fact no one comes at all.
No cops.
No police commissioner.
No Bat.
But the Bat always comes to the signal. It is what he does, what he lives for, what gets him dressed at night.
The Joker walked to the edge, the gravel crushed beneath his feet. He peered down at his screaming city.
Nothing.
Not a single cop.
Car horns blared, babies screamed at teenage mothers and as the night wind caressed his face he understood.
Gotham city did not cry for him.
They never said a name.
Never said who would die.
A tumor.
Metastasized.
Inoperable.
No cops, no Bat even an hour after the signal painted the sky.
No.
NO.
His book, cradled so carefully to his chest, fell like a stone from dead hands onto the thick ledge.
The book was not his life. It was nothing. He was nothing without the Bat.
Too late. He missed his chance.
And the Bat would never know. Never know him, them, what they could have had.
He would never know any of it.
And without the Bat neither would he.
His toes hover over nothing- freezing- numb. Feet balanced carelessly beside gruesome stone gargoyles and the remnants of his life. Arms stretched out to the side, chest exposed and free, he closed his eyes and felt the final embrace of his city. Their city.
Their city forever.
They were meant to be gods untouched by death.
Only the good die young.
The bad do too.
When they follow the good.
And he steps, he flies and all the cables and swinging make sense. Bats was right, to fly as mortal man is wonderful.
But he was a god flying with melted wings.
He was joining the Bat where they had never been meant to fall.
Death rushes up, it gives no warning.
And so it didn’t.
Police cars surrounded the MCU, parked in their own lot, out on the street. Mulling about- lost- dressed in their dress blues with nowhere to go.
Commissioner Gordon stood on the roof next to the cold unlit Bat signal, looking down to where he could just make out a sheet stories below.
He imagined he could still see the shape of a body beneath.
So far to fall.
“It just does not make sense.”
“No.”
Out of the shadows stepped a figure as dark as night. The cape whipped around him, revealing just for an instant a book cradled against his chest.
“But maybe it will…” A whisper in the wind.
“What was that?”Gordon turned from the body below but the Bat was gone, vanished as if he had never been there.
“Hate it when he does that…” Gordon looked out at his beautiful city, just a little more peaceful, a little less color.
“It was only the Mayor…”