TDK Fic- Intervals- Taste
Title: Intervals- Taste
Author: newbluemoon
Summary: The fifth in a series of drabbles depicting the twisted relationship of Batman and Joker.
Pairing/characters: Bruce/Joker
Rating: Overall NC-17, this chapter pg-13
Warnings For Series: Graphic sex, swearing, violence, slash, procrastinating
Word count: 1374(this chapter)
Disclaimer: Nolan's, not mine.
The first time it happened, it wasn't shocking or surprising. There was no grand debate on morality, no second guessing. It wasn't some horrific revelation like you'd expect. It was merely the next level in an eternally mutual struggle. When you let go of a rock, it is destined to fall to the floor and when two halves meet and their jagged edges slide into each other [1] in an acidic battle with more might than a dozen Persian armies, it was inevitable that they would arrive at this point.
A battlefield meeting off snarling lips. Blood, teeth,fury. Passion. Not a thing is twisted or removed from normality. Nothing had changed beyond recognition. The battle raged on, the two of them locked onto their enemy, hands still clawing with savage brutality as they forced each other up against the charcoaled walls of a lost shipping yard. The death rattle of the burning building in front of them erupted through their eerily quiet soundings as it succumbed to its end and sank down into the ashed earth, collapsing like everything, in the end, must. And then the air became spiked with silence as though the rest of the world was stopping, their blank eyes falling onto the pair, adopting the visage of one looking into a black hole. Awe inspiring. Maddening. Deadly.
Neither of them noticed.
They were too consumed in the other, too lost in the way the biting kisses had adopted a rhythmic quality about them, like they'd been doing it their whole lives. The rough, marred cheeks of the painted maniac felt no more foreign against Bruce's exposed, stubble speckled skin than his own armour felt around his carefully crafted body. The violence they found in this joining of mouths danced along in tandem with their insatiable urge to connect bodily with the other, their hunger for physical contact finally manifesting in the gnawing of yellowed fangs, the mashing of puckered flesh, the brawling of baneful tongues.
Thunder tore open the frenzied sky as the Joker slammed his counterpart hard against the wall, grunting and gnashing like a wild animal. Bleached lightning followed immediately, gutting the atmosphere with a lethal incision, casting an A-bomb bright light through the night. The wind conjured up a train of trash, swirling it around their bodies, tightly pressed together, moving against the man close to them in a way one would associate with practitioners of the martial arts, certainly not lovers sharing a first kiss. This wasn't romance. This was anger and hate and lust puking out a spoiled brand of intimacy. Corroded, oxidised metal gates clanged simultaneously with another roar of mercurial thunder and the wind crying out into a city where no-one answered because no one was listening but the two men making battle with tongue and teeth and to them, it was all a symphony perfected by their own private orchestra. It was as though the elements themselves were taking notice of the most sickeningly ineludible bond ever to play out being shared under the tumultuous skies. Joker thought there should have been fireworks, explosions and rapid gunfire let off in the background as though this was the birth of Thor, the second coming of Jesus, the Titanomachy between the Elder Gods and the Olympians, a clash between Vishnu and Shiva. But he'd settle for the growling mouth of his warm enemy, the pounding tattoo emitting from his armoured chest and that interesting way he moved his perfect lips.
Bruce wasn't thinking of anything beyond the taste of the Joker's mouth. The rest of the universe had become utterly disconnected to them. This struggle, this distorted, bastardised form of combat was the only thing in existence. And it swarmed his senses, devouring every slither of self that he possessed each and every time the maniac's blood would spill into his hungry mouth, always followed by a pugnacious slippery muscle moving along his gums just so...
And he'd force his own tongue right back at him, not caring about the hard wall he was being pressed into, not wary of the savage teeth ravaging him. He just needed more. Needed to win. He sought out the peculiar combination of tastes within the cavern that was sucking out his soul.
The flavour, just like the man himself, was confusing. Unique. Everything clashed and collided, nothing quite making sense. At first he noticed the tang of the chemicals contained in his vermilion red lip paint, and the way his nostrils flared as it hit the back of his contracting throat was almost enough to make him want to pull back. As if that was possible. Then the first taste of the bitter, metallic ambrosia touched his taste buds followed with something that faintly reminded him of gingerbread. It was like drinking from the devil's cup, he knew this somewhere in his withered mind, he knew. But he needed more. It pierced his blood cells like a billion tiny hypodermic needles injecting him with a solution that could only be defined as absolute. And it was more addictive than the crack he'd never accepted at high society balls. The Joker gasped into his mouth as he began to grind up against him, shoving his head closer to his own and sucking at that aggressive tongue. He wondered what he tasted like to his arch foe. Nothing had passed his mouth for days, save for mints, but the way the Joker was meeting his motions actively and desperately told him there was something more. The taste of victory. As he ran his tongue over the bumpy surface of scar tissue on the Joker's lower lip, he thought momentarily that he could taste ash and embers and decay and he was certain he was experiencing the flavour of death. Something told him that this would be the taste of the man he'd never be able to forget. Something no amount of teeth brushing or gargling with store bought mouthwash could eradicate from the guilty corners of his mangled mind.
It wasn't until the twenty eighth time he had kissed the Joker that he stopped trying to rid that taste from his mouth. The way the thoughts kept him up in the brief moments he allowed himself rest as he woke up dripping with salty sweat revealed to him how much he hopelessly craved the flavour. These episodes felt a lot like withdrawal. He let them pass.
And the thirty fifth time they connected in this manner, inside the back of an armoured vehicle destined for Arkham, he realised that he had long ago started to associate this taste- the embodiment of chaos and bane- with his idea of home. And for the first time kissing the Joker was no longer another stage in their war. It wasn't about power, domination or winning. It wasn't just another after taste left on his palate or something to keep him wide awake when he knew he by all rights should be sleeping. In that instant, something had shattered. Realisation sank it's venomous fangs into somewhere deep inside Bruce and he could tell that it was all just...different.
Now, it meant something.
In seconds he had ripped his mouth away and kicked his way out of the van, leaving nothing in his wake but the distant echo of knowing laughter swiping at his eardrums.