Round Two Prompt Post
Round Two Is Currently Closed To New Prompts
Welcome to 'Round Two' of The Dark Knight Rises Kink Meme.
This round will close when it reaches four thousand comments and after two weeks, another prompt post will open.
( General Policies )
Welcome to 'Round Two' of The Dark Knight Rises Kink Meme.
This round will close when it reaches four thousand comments and after two weeks, another prompt post will open.
( General Policies )
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The first time John sees Bane kill a man in person is the first time Bane personally takes him out. John finds almost right away that he prefers Barsad. Bane's mere presence, vast and brooding, is enough to unsettle him.
Bane's speaking with his inner circle, having delegated John to the corner with a book, when the man appears from a hallway. He starts speaking rapidly in the same language Bane and his men are using, while Bane rises silently to meet him. The man's voice grows higher and more pleading while Bane listens.
Apparently, Bane doesn't like what he hears. He doesn't snap the man's neck or bother with a weapon-he wraps one huge hand around the victim's neck and crushes his windpipe. Then he drops the body to the floor and turns away to take his seat again.
“Why did you do that?” John demands, getting to his feet from the corner where he sits and reads. He's shocked into speaking, and at once regrets it. All of the men at the table look at him, including Bane.
“The loss of this life bothers you?” Bane inquires genially, turning to face John.
“You had no reason to kill him.” John doesn't know that. All he knows is that the man's life had been snuffed out as easily as squashing a fly, without a single word from Bane.
Bane's eyes glitter.
“Would you and your men not kill him if you met him on the street?”
“Look, I only kill to save my own life,” John says, gritting his teeth, thinking of those construction workers. “That was pointless. He's one of your guys.”
Bane shrugs, sitting back in his seat. “He made a mistake. It will not be repeated. Word will spread. A warlord requires the respect of his men, Blake.”
“You're a terrorist.”
“So I am,” Bane agrees. The meeting resumes with the body still lying on the floor.
*
Sleeping in handcuffs is uncomfortable, and John soon learns that trying to sleep in handcuffs on a cold leather couch is even worse. Still, he's reluctant to take the bed. Bane sleeps in that bed, when he bothers to sleep here at all.
Eventually John is too exhausted to think about it. Bane's not here; it's late. He's obviously not coming tonight. John collapses into the bed and drops into the best sleep he's had since he was captured two weeks ago. He makes this a nightly habit: waiting, waiting for Bane to appear, and when he does not, sneaking furtively under the covers. He feels better when he's well-rested, better equipped to take whatever they throw at him next.
He wakes up one morning and can sense the presence of another warm body in the bed before he opens his eyes to confirm that Bane is lying within arm's reach, on his side facing the wall, shirtless. John sucks in a breath, not sure what to do. He ends up lying there, breathing shallowly, until Bane suddenly stirs and rolls out of bed like he was never asleep at all.
Maybe he wasn't.
It's a jarring experience, and the next time he can hear Bane's voice in the penthouse late at night, he curls up blanketless on the couch instead, and shivers. He's dozing when Bane comes in, and without a word the mercenary scoops him up and dumps him onto the bed as if John being on the couch is somehow an annoyance. John lies there, throat dry, watching as Bane pulls off everything except his cargo pants and drops onto the other side of the massive bed, where he promptly rolls onto his side again and stays like that for the rest of the night.
What the hell, John thinks. He closes his eyes and the sound of Bane breathing-he doesn't snore, but every breath sounds like a forced effort through that mask-is somehow soothing enough to lull him back to sleep. After that John just takes the bed every night.
After all, when Bane finally gets bored enough to make proper use of him, John being a few more yards away isn't going to stop him.
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About three weeks after John's arrival, things finally come to a head with the Blackgate conscripts. It happens when Bane leaves John alone on the roof to read while he and Barsad and two of the others discuss things in one of the rooms below, a private meeting. Maybe he does it on purpose; John doesn't know.
They ambush him silently-two of them. One attacks from behind, grabbing John's elbows and lifting him, unable to bring his arms around because of the handcuffs, while the other rushes him from the front.
Instinctively John brings his feet off the ground and kicks out, throwing off the second man, and in the same motion he swings his head back and connects with the other's face. He's dropped unceremoniously, and leaps upright, using his momentum to headbutt the man in front, who is rallying. Blood fountains from the man's nose. John swings around in time to leap back, avoiding a jab from a blade the other one has pulled. The second jab nicks his side, and the man behind him shoves him forward, intending to impale him, but John twists and can't correct in time due to the way his hands are bound.
He overbalances and hits the ground, and knows immediately that it's over. He curls up. They fall on him like wolves on their prey.
A crack of gunfire gets their attention. John dares to glance up and sees Barsad standing there by the doorway to the stairwell, rifle pointed at the sky. Then, like a silent, wrathful god, Bane descends on them.
John curls up again, just to block out the sight and sound of Bane slamming their skulls into the ground and then throwing their bodies off the roof, but Barsad is there in a moment to haul him to his feet.
“Foolish,” he says, in typical laconic fashion, and John doesn't know if Barsad means him or the men.
Bane's mask makes him look, now more than ever, like a snarling animal. His eyes are narrowed when they focus on John.
“I suppose you mourn them as well,” he says bitingly.
John just glares at him, one hand pressed against the cut on his side. Bane brushes past him.
“Patch him up,” he growls, on his way out.
Barsad does just that, dragging John back to Bane's bedroom and leaving him cuffed to the bed again when he's done. It doesn't seem fair, that John should be punished when he didn't do anything wrong. He doesn't feel any safer in here than he did out there. This fact is brought home when Bane arrives that night. Apparently this is one of the nights he'll spend in his room.
He handles John roughly while uncuffing him, and gives him a bottle of water. John sits against the wall and drinks it, watching him carefully.
“You were losing,” Bane says, when a long stretch of silence has passed. “Badly. Do they not teach police officers in Gotham how to fight?”
“There were two of them,” John says, prickling with defensiveness. “They had a weapon.”
“So have you.” Bane spreads his hands, looking down at him mockingly. “Your body.”
“Yeah, well,” John says, snide, “that's true when you're built like a tank, but I'm not quite there yet.”
“If your opponents are bigger and stronger than you then you must be faster than them. You must know where and how to strike so as to incapacitate them as swiftly as possible. That is how Miranda Tate defeated you.” He says her name like it's foreign and sour on his tongue. “Get on your feet.”
John does, because he's feeling reckless and angry. Bane moves closer, until he's looming over him.
“Hit me,” he challenges, “if you can.”
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He feints and throws a left jab. Bane swats his hand aside without looking away from his face.
“Again.”
John flushes angrily. He circles, Bane turning slowly to follow him. He swings. Bane knocks his arm away and kicks his legs out from under him. John shouts when his injured shoulder hits the floor.
“Get up.”
John breathes for a moment, before Bane drags him up by the scruff. Seizing the opportunity while he's close, John lashes out. Bane catches his fist.
“Your body betrays you by telling me where you intend to strike. You're sloppy and uncoordinated. You have no plan, make no use of my weaknesses.”
“I'd split my hand open,” John gasps, his knees starting to buckle as Bane's hand tightens around his fist. The bones grind together. He imagines Bane crushing his hand into dust, as easily as he'd crushed that man's trachea. He thinks of the sound it made.
Abruptly Bane twists his arm behind his back and shoves him face-first into the wall. John squeezes his eyes shut.
“Would you have killed those men, if you could?”
“No,” John grits out. “I'd have hurt them enough to make them stop. But I couldn't.”
“You think death is the worst thing that can happen to a man,” Bane says, musingly. He's about to wrench John's arm out of its socket again. “Do you not think that to be left alive, suffering, is a worse fate?”
“Anything is better than death,” John wheezes.
Bane, leaning on him, goes still for a moment; and John has a second of terrifying clarity. That weight on the back of his thigh is not Bane's leg, like he'd thought. It's his arousal.
He clamps his eyes shut. Waits for it to happen, because he's too fucking weak to do anything about it. Bane has made his point. Next to him, John is as helpless as a child. It infuriates and terrifies him but fuck, at least the nauseating wait will be over. He pants like a cornered animal.
Slowly, Bane eases his weight off of John's back. He lets go of his arm, and John gasps as sensation returns to his fingers, his wrist badly wrenched. He cradles his arm to his chest, not daring to pick himself up off the wall just yet.
“I see,” Bane says, after a pause.
“See what?” John asks, his voice a ragged whisper. He can hear Bane crossing the room, back to the bed.
“Why Talia chose you,” Bane says. The light goes out.
---
All for now. :)
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If you want to write that alternative version, I'd be the last person to say no, but this is so amazing that I'm ecstatic either way. ♥
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Omfg, I love this SOMUCH. Barsad is so badass and Bane and John, fuck everyone is awesome. SOGOOD!!
How bad is it that I want Barsad and John to strike up a friendship? Lol.
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(reposting comment because of anon-fail!)
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srsly, this is an addiction
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it occurred to me while commenting that john thought it was his leg, holy mackerel! yes, i read the prompt but, dayum
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