couples_therapy 70.7 Annoyed [also an rp thread for arkhams_dr]
Harvey woke up with a start. He'd slept so heavily that he barely budged all night and now, for reasons he couldn't explain, maybe due to some internal alarm, the former district attorney sat up in bed, heart racing. He never remembered having these starts - it wasn't the first time it happened - until after the explosion. More precisely, he didn't recall them happening until after Crane and Stansfield "fixed" his face. Leave it to Crane and his damn drugs to give him some potential life-long side effect. He managed a hoarse scoff. Not that it mattered. When Harvey let Crane--no, asked Crane--for help--it had been at the realization (once again) that nothing that used to matter made a difference any more. Life-threatening? What did that even mean? His life was already over. Harvey Dent was like the papers said - dead and gone. Long live Gotham City's villains.
With a sneer, Harvey reached up and felt the bad side of his face. This was who he was now. But the feel of his fingers against his skin made him remember the scene from the night before -- Nadine's hand to his cheek, her fingers tracing a twisted scar.
She was willing to let him in on her game of pretend. The one where she insisted everything was okay, everything was fine. For a few minutes, he played along. They could be, for some fleeting moments, Dent and Lewis, taking on Gotham City, making jokes, ordering Italian food, going too far in their mutual attraction--
--but that's all it ever was. Fleeting moments, stolen bits of time that were now gone. He couldn't reclaim anything here - there was never anything that was his in the first place. As Harvey got out of bed, he knew he'd have to figure out how he was going to survive in Gotham City without Nadine's help. Her aid had been almost necessary in the days following the Joker's antics and even in the days after his surgery, but he couldn't live like this - cooped up in her apartment like some sort of wounded dog, imposing on her, putting them both in the situation they'd been in last night - forever.
When he looked into the bathroom mirror, he wished that she'd refused to help him, wished he'd fallen into the gutter, rotted on the street. Wouldn't that have been a story for Gordon to explain - Harvey Dent, whose funeral already occurred, found dead and severely disfigured in the street. He continued staring at his reflection.
Then a curious thing happened.
He wasn't sure why he did it, but for a moment, he covered the bad side of his face and stared back at only the good side.
"Not looking so bad there, Mr. Dent," he said, moving only one half of his mouth. "Handsome fellow like you - what's a few setbacks? You could move to Florida or Arizona and no one would know you...start your own law practice..."
The laughter--hurt, hollow at first, then maniacal as it continued--racked his body, and his hand dropped from his face. After a moment, he raised his other hand and covered the good side of his face.
"Well, if it isn't that two-faced son of a bitch," he snarled. "You--you're headed straight for Arkham." Harvey practically growled at the maimed half of his reflection. "You deserve it--just like all the other petty criminals."
He let out a guttural cry, but didn't break anything, instead turning and using his fists on the bathroom wall, pounding like a small child having a tantrum until his energy subsided. When it finally did, he picked himself up from where he'd slumped on the floor and went out into the living room.
Calmly, Harvey turned on the television and began flipping through the channels. He would figure out how he was going to live on his own, how he would survive. It couldn't be that difficult. But for now, he needed to watch the news. It had become his only link to the larger world, the one he'd once been a part of, and it made him feel better, watching the misfortunes of others play out across the screen.
Nadine would be back later, and he would address the issues then. For now, he would be uninterrupted in his TV viewing and his mind would be pleasantly turned to 'automatic.' In case that wasn't enough, he poured a shot of scotch and downed it as the first strains of the midday news theme played and the anchorman came into view.
With a sneer, Harvey reached up and felt the bad side of his face. This was who he was now. But the feel of his fingers against his skin made him remember the scene from the night before -- Nadine's hand to his cheek, her fingers tracing a twisted scar.
She was willing to let him in on her game of pretend. The one where she insisted everything was okay, everything was fine. For a few minutes, he played along. They could be, for some fleeting moments, Dent and Lewis, taking on Gotham City, making jokes, ordering Italian food, going too far in their mutual attraction--
--but that's all it ever was. Fleeting moments, stolen bits of time that were now gone. He couldn't reclaim anything here - there was never anything that was his in the first place. As Harvey got out of bed, he knew he'd have to figure out how he was going to survive in Gotham City without Nadine's help. Her aid had been almost necessary in the days following the Joker's antics and even in the days after his surgery, but he couldn't live like this - cooped up in her apartment like some sort of wounded dog, imposing on her, putting them both in the situation they'd been in last night - forever.
When he looked into the bathroom mirror, he wished that she'd refused to help him, wished he'd fallen into the gutter, rotted on the street. Wouldn't that have been a story for Gordon to explain - Harvey Dent, whose funeral already occurred, found dead and severely disfigured in the street. He continued staring at his reflection.
Then a curious thing happened.
He wasn't sure why he did it, but for a moment, he covered the bad side of his face and stared back at only the good side.
"Not looking so bad there, Mr. Dent," he said, moving only one half of his mouth. "Handsome fellow like you - what's a few setbacks? You could move to Florida or Arizona and no one would know you...start your own law practice..."
The laughter--hurt, hollow at first, then maniacal as it continued--racked his body, and his hand dropped from his face. After a moment, he raised his other hand and covered the good side of his face.
"Well, if it isn't that two-faced son of a bitch," he snarled. "You--you're headed straight for Arkham." Harvey practically growled at the maimed half of his reflection. "You deserve it--just like all the other petty criminals."
He let out a guttural cry, but didn't break anything, instead turning and using his fists on the bathroom wall, pounding like a small child having a tantrum until his energy subsided. When it finally did, he picked himself up from where he'd slumped on the floor and went out into the living room.
Calmly, Harvey turned on the television and began flipping through the channels. He would figure out how he was going to live on his own, how he would survive. It couldn't be that difficult. But for now, he needed to watch the news. It had become his only link to the larger world, the one he'd once been a part of, and it made him feel better, watching the misfortunes of others play out across the screen.
Nadine would be back later, and he would address the issues then. For now, he would be uninterrupted in his TV viewing and his mind would be pleasantly turned to 'automatic.' In case that wasn't enough, he poured a shot of scotch and downed it as the first strains of the midday news theme played and the anchorman came into view.