[ location :: various ] you take all the shapes that i make

[obscuronoctis]

Religion is a word that inspires apathy at best in Bruce Wayne; he didn't grow up with it outside a handful of awkward, politically-required visits on holidays. It brings up memories of cold, uncomfortable buildings and droning music and the expression on his mother's face as she barely suppressed rolling her eyes - certainly not shrines and

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[ location: wayne manor ]

[mightyfallen]

Jack is beginning to suspect he shouldn't be surprised by Bruce calling him up out of the blue for help with something, while somehow failing to elaborate on what that something is. He might actually mind the request (a little, at least for show) if he weren't already dying to get out of the castle. The place reminds him more and more of home every day, which unfortunately means ungodly stressful more than familiar.

By the time he walks up to Wayne Manor, though, he's had a chance to settle into a more relaxed persona than Remarkably Headache-Prone Prison Warden. With Jack, there isn't middle ground between tense and mellow so much as a thin line, which he's casually flip-flopped to the other side of by now with his usual less-than-healthy ease. This isn't stress relief, it's repression, but it's easier and anyway, he's curious what Bruce thinks is so important.

He rings the bell with one capricious finger and leans against the door frame to wait.

[ location: wayne manor ]

[obscuronoctis]

Having been out and about, Bruce would have stopped by if not for a variety of factors, the two most pressing of which are his desire to stay the hell away from the Doctor and the fact that he doesn't like leaving Penelope alone in the house. Hell, he doesn't really like leaving Enfys or Tim alone in the house, but he's made those concessions to far; it's something he's getting used to by necessity.

Presently he's in a low setting of 'work mode', meaning the gravity of what, exactly, he's going to end up doing to Jack hasn't settled in and probably won't for a bit. He has something to prove and a method to confirm it, and it's ringing the side entrance's doorbell. Bruce opens up one side of the doors and nods a greeting at Jack before stepping aside to let him in, verbose as always.

[ location: wayne manor ]

[mightyfallen]

"Bruce, long time no scintillatingly terse conversation," he greets, more for sake of talking than any particular care over what he's saying. Per usual, Bruce's silence just gives Jack more auditory space to occupy--and so he will. He follows Bruce's lead inside, sparing only a quick glance around. Manors are really more his style than castles, but now isn't the time.

"So, you needed me desperately?" Maybe he thinks demonstrating how terrible an idea it is to let him control the conversation will inspire Bruce toward verbosity. (Maybe he's just like this.)

[ location: wayne manor ]

[obscuronoctis]

If Jack wants to talk, he can talk; Bruce has been chatty with him before, but he's sure the other man knows by now that it wasn't genuine. He's become far less skeptical of Jack over the past few weeks, enough to invite him over without preamble - but not without purpose. In a drawing room near the entrance, Bruce doesn't waste any time:

"I need to take your picture." Yes, he's holding a camera.

[ location: wayne manor ]

[mightyfallen]

Jack is aware that joking with Bruce is on par with trying to get water from a stone, yes, but that doesn't dissuade him. He appreciates that the other man is more real now; he'd just like to dig up a real sense of humor, too, someday. Probably not today.

"Do you." He could ask why, but given it's Bruce he'd be asking, he assumes the answer would be a short, evasive and thus completely useless string of words; instead, he asks, "Shall I autograph it too? 'To Brucio, XOXO, Prince Jack'?"

[ location: wayne manor ]

[obscuronoctis]

Oh, Jack, so little faith. Without looking up - because he's making sure the Polaroid camera is loaded properly (it's old and bits of it looked like it's been repaired with painter's tape) - he says, "If I wanted something to remember you by I'd screencap the security feed from your shower."

When he does look up it's with a brief, charming smile, and he snaps a picture before Jack can respond. Hope you were making a nice face!

[ location: wayne manor ]

[mightyfallen]

In a minute Jack may be glad the camera doesn't capture exactly what's in front of it (or he may not, all things considered), but suffice to say he makes a face worth remembering, for the split second before it breaks into a smile. "Now you're just flattering me." Oh, Bruce. You creeper you.

"In all seriousness, though, I'm guessing you didn't call me all the way over here to bear witness to your new hobby."

[ location: wayne manor ]

[obscuronoctis]

"I don't have hobbies, I have crippling addictions," he says, mostly murmured - on impulse, some leftover echo of his playboy persona running on auto-pilot for Jack's benefit. He's distracted already, staring at the plastic square that's starting to develop.

For one sudden slightly disturbing moment (none of it shows on his face), Bruce wonders if it'll show a body. Something rotting. Something dead. He has no idea what will appear once the black turns to gray and then takes shape--

Nothing. Just a warped, unclear filter of the space in which Jack is standing in. A black hole, a void. No look into Jack's world, no alternative... he doesn't respond further, expression thoughtful, staring at the photo.

[ location: wayne manor ]

[mightyfallen]

"If that were the case, we'd have much more in common," he responds, which isn't much more real than Bruce's statement, not anymore, but it's still how he sees himself, a creature trapped by addictions and inadvisable desires, even years after he's let anything of the sort control him.

But the silence and the look on Bruce's face worry him, in a slow, creeping way that doesn't kill his smile entirely, but it does put a damper on the expression. "What? Was I making a face? Lemme see."

[ location: wayne manor ]

[obscuronoctis]

There's nothing inherently sinister about it, because despite Bruce's urgency to get it solved it's not actually having a negative impact on him (unlike the other objects - yes, he's aware that's what this is, but with the ring leader posting drunk and the trial going on, he's giving connecting with them a bit of distance for now). Still, he can't stand leaving threads hanging if he can do anything about it, and so here he is, springing this on a dead man.

Perhaps this wasn't such a brilliant idea.

"It hasn't shown so far on a single person what's supposed to be shown," he says, and despite the guilt inching into his thoughts, he doesn't prevent Jack from looking. "Different clothes, different hair, injuries... being in totally different settings." He thought it might be what they were missing, because for the most part, people looked physically the same. But not all of them. A sliding scale, it seems, and now he's sure: it's showing the future. Ever-changing, except for one variable; you can't change that you're dead.

[ location: wayne manor ]

[mightyfallen]

Jack's reaction to the photograph is the kind an unobservant person might miss, a subtle tightening of his posture, the way what's left of his smile doesn't fade so much as go fake, plastic, a mask to cover whatever real emotion threatens to show. That twisted photographic void (like he's nothing, like he doesn't even exist), it's nothing he's prepared to see.

"Different, but not random." He glances to Bruce there, testing. "Or you wouldn't have called me. You know plenty of people, Bruce, but you wanted to try this thing out on me. Why?"

He's putting the pieces together. But he doesn't have enough pieces, and he doesn't like where the ones he does have are going.

[ location: wayne manor ]

[obscuronoctis]

"Your future is fixed." Blunt but not harsh - muted, not apologetic because he thinks it would seem patronizing. Jack doesn't have a future, not really, and maybe he could keep trying and get him a few minutes from now, or a few days, here in this contained city, but what happened is exactly what Bruce thought might happen. His theory is correct, but he doesn't feel great for it.

[ location: wayne manor ]

[mightyfallen]

"Of course." Eyes on Bruce, he pulls his lips in under his teeth a second, then shakes his head, looking down, a razor's edge smile breaking across his face. Another expression that doesn't mean what it should, like he retrained himself to emote exactly what he doesn't feel, but only at surface level; he never could stop feeling.

"Because I don't have one, and you know that." The accusation in his tone is barely a breath's weight, but he doesn't need it. It's not as if he told Bruce about his death in any confidence, and hadn't the point of advertising it been to pretend it didn't matter? A miscalculation on his part, maybe.

"And now we both know for sure, I suppose. So thanks for that, Bruce." Well, he can't help being a little petty.

[ location: wayne manor ]

[obscuronoctis]

"I could have been wrong." On anyone else, it would sound defensive or pleading, but from Bruce it's just an incidental concession. He could have been, but he wasn't, and he honestly didn't expect to be, anyway. It's certainly not comforting; if the thought counted it might be, but probably not right now.

He's quiet for another moment, then: "I'm not going to duck if you hit me."

So there's that.

[ location: wayne manor ]

[mightyfallen]

He laughs.

That probably isn't the healthiest reaction. It's brief, precariously balanced between genuine and genuinely pained.

"I'm not going to hit you." It might be better for him if he did, and he knows that, but that's not the way he works. Everything is twists and turns with Jack; nothing hurts straightforwardly. He'll shut this up inside him until it dies or it comes out somewhere else, a hundred times worse for having been locked away, but he can't just give up on controlling it from the start.

"But you may want to work on your people skills; you're remarkably terrible at this." That may be a genuine tease, right there. Maybe. If he refuses to lash out at Bruce, he can at least pull a facade of humor over the rest of his vulnerabilities.

[ location: wayne manor ]

[obscuronoctis]

It's the closest thing to an apology that Jack's going to get, especially with that reaction. Bruce is no stranger to the repression game, but even he recognizes the strangeness, here. He tilts his head a little to watch him, and someone else might have pointed out aloud that if people keep validating his behavior that his people skills are never going to improve. (Just punch him, Jack. You'll feel better and he might learn something.)

"Yeah," he says, probably an agreement, though he's still watching the other man closely. "I'm sure you'll be shocked to know I don't usually work closely with other people."