Hearts of Darkness [1/??]
First part of my "epic" Batman fic. I finally got the "good start" I was hoping the get (and of course I get it when I'm about to go back to work after being off for 5 days :P).
And I pretty much knew the moment I got this idea after watching the film it was going to be long...and epic...fuckin' epic....*lol* But since it has been getting some pretty good reviews (which I am very relieved by that) that only feeds fuel to the fandom fire :D
Now, I MUST see the film again. I MUST.
Title: Hearts of Darkness [ 1 / ??]
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Jim Gordon, Harley Quinn (implied Batman/Gordon)
Genre: Drama
Summary: There are repercussions after TDK and as characters (old and new) go through them some try to keep their hearts from descending into the darkness, while others flourish in it. A kind of sequel while telling a kind of AU BB and TDK in flashbacks. (slash will be prominent)
Word Count: 3040
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of fictional characters that do not belong to me. All music lyrics used do not belong to me.
Author's Notes:
- This is un-betaed; anybody who is willing to beta for me I am taking offers. Otherwise, please be gentle.
- This is MY version of Harley Quinn. So while it is not canon by any means there are some similarities. Just wanting to give Harley Quinn fans a heads up and hopefully you will like my version despite that.
Prologue ~ The White Rabbit
*
It had been about a month after the capture of the Joker, the death of Harvey Dent and the exile of the Batman.
Jim Gordon was Commissioner of Gotham’s police force but he had essentially lost everything.
His wife had asked for a divorce after the incident with Harvey Dent (and his continued association with Batman); wanting to leave Gotham with the kids and change their names.
Jim hadn’t tried to fight it because...she was right...He didn’t want to put his children in any more danger.
But then he had lost either way. No family to come home to, no “white knight” he could depend on to keep the justice system strong, and no “dark knight” to....No Batman to...just be there...when Jim needed him. Both professionally and....
They had never talked about that part of their relationship - it was something that was almost too primal and raw to put into words...At least that’s what Gordon thought based on those kind of encounters...
The other side was a partnership based on a mutual respect and a desire to see Gotham rise above the malignance that had settled into it - so deep it was in the very roots of the streets and subways. They had a desire to make sure that justice was something that was still tangible in Gotham.
He was still surprised that he was able to smash the Bat-signal with as steady a hand as he did...Or with the kind of composure he did. Nobody seemed to notice what it really did to him.
A part of him wondered why he even stayed on the force. Everything seemed so bleak...so hopeless...so pointless.
Crime was only escalating on the streets - even though every now and then he would get “packages” addressed to him - it didn’t seem to make much difference.
He would get phone calls of Batman sightings and complaints of citizens saying he wasn’t doing his job in capturing him.
That only served to tear at him even more. These calls were like people outright teasing him, taunting him with how they got to see him while Gordon saw nothing and heard nothing.
He would go home and routinely peer into the shadows at night on his back stoop, only to return inside (hours later) with the weight in his chest heavier. Always heavier.
No calls on his cell.
Gordon could never figure out how to call him back, the number was untraceable or never showed up on his phone. As much as the Batman’s obvious technological superiority baffled Jim he would have given anything to actually talk to him again.
Jim Gordon could do nothing more than sigh as he reached the door to his (now) empty house. By a lucky chance he was able to go home early tonight. But then that usually meant he would have to pull an all-nighter tomorrow. As cliché as it is, crime never does rest - it just takes a lunch break and then heads back to “work”.
Opening the door he knew he would have to force himself to eat tonight. His stomach was always so clenched it was a miracle he ever got any sleep (especially the three to four hours he got at home).
He followed his routine of re-locking all the bolts on his door and checking his answering machine. Again, no messages.
Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck stood up on end.
From the darkness, “Good evening, Commissioner Gordon.”
He moved fast with his gun but not fast enough. The sound of a silencer and a blow to his neck and chest.
He fell to the floor and felt his body start to numb.
‘Paralyzing darts...,’he thought as his vision blurred slightly. ‘Idiot! You were so damn busy sulking you forgot your basic training!’
A lamp was turned on and the voice returned, “Now, don’t try to spoil my fun, Jimbo.”
The voice was feminine but there was something about it...Something that made it disturbing.
He heard footsteps muffled by the carpet. All he could do was stare at the ceiling, moving his eyeballs only made him dizzy.
What did come into his line of vision was more than a little unsettling: a woman, wearing nothing but red and black had white and black make up all over her face. Black around her eyes and mouth, even covering the far sides of her face and ears. Everything else was white. Even what skin he could see was pale. As were her eyes - pale, blue steel staring down at him with a maniacal glee he had only seen in one other person....Except, unlike the Joker, she was emaciated in face and body, making the red leather trench coat she was wearing practically engulf her. Her hair was a sickening bleached color - greasy and stringy and too short to pull off the two small pigtails perched on the top of her head successfully.
“Are you surprised? I know I would be! Especially after facing off with that little pussy “clown prince”!!,” she burst out laughing at her own insult. It sounded similar to the Joker but more more demented...if that was even possible...
She suddenly got a thoughtful look on her face, “How do you like my hair? Too much? I think the pigtails make me look cute...I mean, I don’t want to be like every other prepy skank on the street!”
“You’re just a...pale imi....tation of the....Jok..er!,” Gordon was still able to talk, but he knew it was going to be much harder to say anything more.
She gave him an irritated pout, “Well, that’s just being rude, Jimmy! I didn’t say anything bad about your horribly styled hair! AND,” she moved to squat over him, one large black boot beside each shoulder and leaned down, “I may be pale but I am FAR from being an imitation. If anything, that little bastard copied me!! I’m older than him for God’s sake!”
She quickly recovered that demented grin, “D’ya want to know who I am? No? Well I’ll tell you anyway; Harley Quinn....medicine woman!!,” she launched into hysterical giggles but abruptly stopped. “Hmmm...that sounded much better in my head...”
“In...sane,” was all Gordon could get out. His gun was still in his hand but he couldn’t even move his finger down on the trigger.
Quinn blinks and then giggles, patting the sides of his face with gloved hands, “Oh, such names you call me! I am not “insane” - I’m just mentally and emotionally unstable, that’s all! And, technically, if you want to talk about insanity look at your ex-partner-in-crime! You know what I mean? I mean, it’s pretty bad when even the crazies are looking at him and going ‘what the fuck?!’,” she broke into giggles again.
Gordon couldn’t think of anything to get out of this situation - he was virtually alone, he couldn’t move and it was getting harder for him to work his vocal cords (why the hell didn’t he yell out when he had the chance?). He wondered how the hell he was still able to breathe...All he could really do was...He had no choice but to just....accept what was happening while secretly praying something, anything would happen to turn the tables on this....”woman”. He kept his breathing regular in the hopes of keeping the panic running through him under control.
“Speaking of Batsykins, how did your wife take the divorce?,” she moved from over him and walked back in the direction she came. When he didn’t answer (he refused to and he wasn’t sure he could talk even if he wanted) she continued as if he had, “I heard she asked for it. That she wanted to get away from you and your work-dominated marriage. I also heard you didn’t really put up much of a fight...That you just accepted it.” She came into his line of vision with something under her arm. He knew she was working up something but he couldn’t tell what it was exactly. Fabrice being unrolled, metal clinking, busy hands.
‘Her tools, apparently.,’ came the answer as he tried to keep his breathing under control. It was like he was in some dumbass B-grade horror movie...
“What was that?,” came the voice again from his left, “ “There was no point in fighting her for the kids or marriage?” If that’s how it was I don’t feel half as bad for paying her a little visit...”
Jim couldn’t tell if his face showed it but he felt a mixture of rage and panic flood him. His breathing became erratic and a strangled grunt came from his throat. Not Barbara....
“Now - I know what you’re thinking. But trust me - you didn’t really love her, if you did you would have fought the divorce. You may have cared for her because she was the mother of your children but you didn’t love her. You haven’t loved her for quite a while...Did she know you were seeing another? A man?,” the clicking of a gun chamber was recognizable to Gordon.
She came back into his line of vision, giggling to herself, “A Bat man perhaps?”
Her brow furrowed and she mumbled, “Damn - that sounded so much better in my head, actually....” She shrugged it off and continued to put bullets into the empty chambers.
“Anyways, as I was saying, caring and loving aren’t exactly the same - no matter how strongly you feel about it, Commissioner. I mean, I’m a demented shrew and even I know that!”
Harley clicked the chamber back into place after spinning it some, “You can glare those hateful baby blues at me all you want but that’s not gonna change the fact that they are dead.”
Jim’s heart stopped for a few beats as the words sunk in...“They”...his children.
No. Nononononono.....
His two small children who had done nothing wrong, whom he had not talked to or seen for a month were....gone. A guttural wail came up, struggling past his throat and lips. His body wanted to thrash around violently - mainly to kill this psychotic bitch who had deprived his children a better life out side of Gotham. It hadn’t made any difference at all - Gotham’s monsters still got them.
The wail came out again as tears came out of his eyes, his eyelids moving lazily. “Oops - you didn’t know that...Hmmm, sorry about that. But really, what I did was actually quite merciful.”
The rage was too much - it pushed up past his throat and came out as a scream, “Monster!!”
Tears continued to blur his vision but he could see she was surprised, “Wow - that is some weird paralyzing serum...You shouldn’t still be able to talk! But in any case, you are very much mistaken. I am no “monster”, Mr. Gordon.”
She knelt over him again, this time on her knees, straddling him, and her face very close to his. Her eyes suddenly becoming very dark. “I know monsters; REAL monsters. I have been at their mercy - or lack thereof. And what I did for your children was merciful. To make them live after what they saw me do to their mother, THAT would have been monstrous. I didn’t draw theirs out, not like hers. She deserved to feel the pain, for it to be drawn out. What kind of mother - who truly loves her children - would let them be born into a world like this? I put them out of their misery and punished her. “
She pulled her face away from his a bit, “So, now it is time for your punishment because you share the blame with your wife. You see, what I plan to do to you is to make you experience a waking nightmare...” She gently starts to stroke his face, removing his glasses as she spoke in a very controlled and calm voice, a whisper almost, “In dreams it is said you can’t feel any pain. If you are shot you don’t die. But in my little “dream”, you will die. You will see me hurt you, shoot you, stab you - but you won’t feel it. No, no - instead you will have no choice but to remain completely conscious and to act as witness to what is happening to your body. Completely helpless. It will be my living, breathing nightmare - all for you. The mind can only take so much....” She said the lost part more to herself than to him.
She backed away from his face and sat on his stomach, the trench coat bunching around her as she got an almost thoughtful look on her face. Gordon was surprised at how light she seemed to be....
“In a way, I am an “angel of mercy”....Gotham needs to be cleaned out, and I really am the perfect person for that. Because people who have always known stability take it for granted. I know did. But not no more. Nope, nope. Not no more. Those who don’t have it haven’t had the opportunity to do that thus know how truly rare it is...How fragile it is. It means more to them. Worth more....,”Jim hated to look into those eyes but he saw something flicker in them that made the timbre of her voice change slightly. “But I’m really just rambling now.,” she mumbled.
She stared at him without blinking and then shook her head and tweaked his nose, “You are just too cute!!,” in a high pitched voice and slapped him on both cheeks with such force that his head moved from side to side. He didn’t feel a thing.
She was off of him and over at his shelves, opening the CD player on his stereo, “Hmm - what kind of music do ya got? I like to listen to some while I....I’d like to say “work” or “perform” but that’s just cliché serial killer, don’t you think?”
Quinn went down the shelf, gun still in hand, tossing away CDs she didn’t like one by one:
“Crap.”
“Shit.”
“Shit.”
“Crap.”
“Bullshit.”
“Horseshit.”
“Complete and utter shit.”
“Oh my God!! ’Huey Lewis and the News’?! LA-AAME!!,” her laughter took on a hysterical edge.
“Celine Dion? Seriously?! Oh, Jimbo, you dirty bird!,” more laughter, “How CRAPTASTIC, honey!! You sure your wife didn’t know about you “leaning” that way?”
Throwing that one actually broke something. More CDs were tossed carelessly around the room and Gordon forced his mind to take control over his body - to move. Do something. Do something! Move! But his mind was getting foggy. His thoughts jumbling, complete hopelessness sinking in fully, and his efforts to make his body move in vain. He knew....he wanted it to end.
“Jefferson Airplane? Showing your age there a bit, aren’t ya?,” she giggled. But she didn’t throw it, “They do have that song on here! Goodie!! What better music to use than what sounds like a constant head-trip? You have slightly redeemed yourself in your taste in music, Commissioner.” He could hear the closing of the CD player and buttons being pressed. The guitar strummed through the speakers, then the steady drumming.
“Ah, I love this song.” Quinn finally removed her coat, revealing a red button-up shirt much too loose on her. Black suspenders keeping her black pants up - much too big on her skeletal frame. She pushed up her sleeves past her elbows, revealing that the shiny black gloves she was wearing extended beyond even where the sleeves stopped. She was singing with the music.
“One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small.”
She screwed the silencer onto her gun and used it as a microphone, “And the ones that mother gives you don’t do anything at all. Go ask Alice, when she’s ten feet tall..”
She slowly started swaying over Gordon, “And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you’re going to fall.”
His heart was beating fast, too fast. She was enjoying this, drawing it out. He noticed the chains wrapped around her waist as light from the lamp glinted off them as she swung her hips.
“Tell ’em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call.”
Those eyes held his, “Go call Alice, when she was just small.”
She fired - his body jerked up involuntarily from the force. He didn’t feel anything. Didn’t know where she had fired exactly.
As the music picked up, she fired more shots, “When the men on the chessboard get up and tell you where to go.”
She changed out her gun for two knives, “And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom, and your mind is moving low.”
She got down to her knees and moved his legs apart, positioning the knife downward toward the thigh. She sang louder as the music built up more, “Go ask Alice, I think she’ll know.”
She drove the knife into one thigh, then the other, opening the flesh up. Jim still didn’t feel anything or know exactly what she was doing. Until she crawled upward and removed the gun from his left hand and waved it front of him, “When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.” Then she took one knife and stabbed the hand, sticking it to the floor.
She picked up his right hand and did the same thing with it except stabbed it to a leg of the table where the answering machine was, “And the white knight is talking backwards.”
“And the red queens’s off with her head.,” she dragged a finger across her neck, smearing Gordon’s blood along her throat with a gleeful grin spreading across her face.
“Remember what the dormouse said,” she went over to one side and returned twirling a hatchet.
“Feed your head,” practically screaming it. Gordon closed his eyes, he couldn’t watch as she hacked at his body.
She forced his eyes open with two fingers covered in his own blood, “Feed your head!”
She raised the hatchet and brought it down.
All Jim knew was darkness.
His last thoughts ran together: I hope Harvey forgives me I’ll get to see my kids again I wish I had seen him just once more.
Then - nothing more.
*
And I pretty much knew the moment I got this idea after watching the film it was going to be long...and epic...fuckin' epic....*lol* But since it has been getting some pretty good reviews (which I am very relieved by that) that only feeds fuel to the fandom fire :D
Now, I MUST see the film again. I MUST.
Title: Hearts of Darkness [ 1 / ??]
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Jim Gordon, Harley Quinn (implied Batman/Gordon)
Genre: Drama
Summary: There are repercussions after TDK and as characters (old and new) go through them some try to keep their hearts from descending into the darkness, while others flourish in it. A kind of sequel while telling a kind of AU BB and TDK in flashbacks. (slash will be prominent)
Word Count: 3040
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of fictional characters that do not belong to me. All music lyrics used do not belong to me.
Author's Notes:
- This is un-betaed; anybody who is willing to beta for me I am taking offers. Otherwise, please be gentle.
- This is MY version of Harley Quinn. So while it is not canon by any means there are some similarities. Just wanting to give Harley Quinn fans a heads up and hopefully you will like my version despite that.
Prologue ~ The White Rabbit
*
It had been about a month after the capture of the Joker, the death of Harvey Dent and the exile of the Batman.
Jim Gordon was Commissioner of Gotham’s police force but he had essentially lost everything.
His wife had asked for a divorce after the incident with Harvey Dent (and his continued association with Batman); wanting to leave Gotham with the kids and change their names.
Jim hadn’t tried to fight it because...she was right...He didn’t want to put his children in any more danger.
But then he had lost either way. No family to come home to, no “white knight” he could depend on to keep the justice system strong, and no “dark knight” to....No Batman to...just be there...when Jim needed him. Both professionally and....
They had never talked about that part of their relationship - it was something that was almost too primal and raw to put into words...At least that’s what Gordon thought based on those kind of encounters...
The other side was a partnership based on a mutual respect and a desire to see Gotham rise above the malignance that had settled into it - so deep it was in the very roots of the streets and subways. They had a desire to make sure that justice was something that was still tangible in Gotham.
He was still surprised that he was able to smash the Bat-signal with as steady a hand as he did...Or with the kind of composure he did. Nobody seemed to notice what it really did to him.
A part of him wondered why he even stayed on the force. Everything seemed so bleak...so hopeless...so pointless.
Crime was only escalating on the streets - even though every now and then he would get “packages” addressed to him - it didn’t seem to make much difference.
He would get phone calls of Batman sightings and complaints of citizens saying he wasn’t doing his job in capturing him.
That only served to tear at him even more. These calls were like people outright teasing him, taunting him with how they got to see him while Gordon saw nothing and heard nothing.
He would go home and routinely peer into the shadows at night on his back stoop, only to return inside (hours later) with the weight in his chest heavier. Always heavier.
No calls on his cell.
Gordon could never figure out how to call him back, the number was untraceable or never showed up on his phone. As much as the Batman’s obvious technological superiority baffled Jim he would have given anything to actually talk to him again.
Jim Gordon could do nothing more than sigh as he reached the door to his (now) empty house. By a lucky chance he was able to go home early tonight. But then that usually meant he would have to pull an all-nighter tomorrow. As cliché as it is, crime never does rest - it just takes a lunch break and then heads back to “work”.
Opening the door he knew he would have to force himself to eat tonight. His stomach was always so clenched it was a miracle he ever got any sleep (especially the three to four hours he got at home).
He followed his routine of re-locking all the bolts on his door and checking his answering machine. Again, no messages.
Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck stood up on end.
From the darkness, “Good evening, Commissioner Gordon.”
He moved fast with his gun but not fast enough. The sound of a silencer and a blow to his neck and chest.
He fell to the floor and felt his body start to numb.
‘Paralyzing darts...,’he thought as his vision blurred slightly. ‘Idiot! You were so damn busy sulking you forgot your basic training!’
A lamp was turned on and the voice returned, “Now, don’t try to spoil my fun, Jimbo.”
The voice was feminine but there was something about it...Something that made it disturbing.
He heard footsteps muffled by the carpet. All he could do was stare at the ceiling, moving his eyeballs only made him dizzy.
What did come into his line of vision was more than a little unsettling: a woman, wearing nothing but red and black had white and black make up all over her face. Black around her eyes and mouth, even covering the far sides of her face and ears. Everything else was white. Even what skin he could see was pale. As were her eyes - pale, blue steel staring down at him with a maniacal glee he had only seen in one other person....Except, unlike the Joker, she was emaciated in face and body, making the red leather trench coat she was wearing practically engulf her. Her hair was a sickening bleached color - greasy and stringy and too short to pull off the two small pigtails perched on the top of her head successfully.
“Are you surprised? I know I would be! Especially after facing off with that little pussy “clown prince”!!,” she burst out laughing at her own insult. It sounded similar to the Joker but more more demented...if that was even possible...
She suddenly got a thoughtful look on her face, “How do you like my hair? Too much? I think the pigtails make me look cute...I mean, I don’t want to be like every other prepy skank on the street!”
“You’re just a...pale imi....tation of the....Jok..er!,” Gordon was still able to talk, but he knew it was going to be much harder to say anything more.
She gave him an irritated pout, “Well, that’s just being rude, Jimmy! I didn’t say anything bad about your horribly styled hair! AND,” she moved to squat over him, one large black boot beside each shoulder and leaned down, “I may be pale but I am FAR from being an imitation. If anything, that little bastard copied me!! I’m older than him for God’s sake!”
She quickly recovered that demented grin, “D’ya want to know who I am? No? Well I’ll tell you anyway; Harley Quinn....medicine woman!!,” she launched into hysterical giggles but abruptly stopped. “Hmmm...that sounded much better in my head...”
“In...sane,” was all Gordon could get out. His gun was still in his hand but he couldn’t even move his finger down on the trigger.
Quinn blinks and then giggles, patting the sides of his face with gloved hands, “Oh, such names you call me! I am not “insane” - I’m just mentally and emotionally unstable, that’s all! And, technically, if you want to talk about insanity look at your ex-partner-in-crime! You know what I mean? I mean, it’s pretty bad when even the crazies are looking at him and going ‘what the fuck?!’,” she broke into giggles again.
Gordon couldn’t think of anything to get out of this situation - he was virtually alone, he couldn’t move and it was getting harder for him to work his vocal cords (why the hell didn’t he yell out when he had the chance?). He wondered how the hell he was still able to breathe...All he could really do was...He had no choice but to just....accept what was happening while secretly praying something, anything would happen to turn the tables on this....”woman”. He kept his breathing regular in the hopes of keeping the panic running through him under control.
“Speaking of Batsykins, how did your wife take the divorce?,” she moved from over him and walked back in the direction she came. When he didn’t answer (he refused to and he wasn’t sure he could talk even if he wanted) she continued as if he had, “I heard she asked for it. That she wanted to get away from you and your work-dominated marriage. I also heard you didn’t really put up much of a fight...That you just accepted it.” She came into his line of vision with something under her arm. He knew she was working up something but he couldn’t tell what it was exactly. Fabrice being unrolled, metal clinking, busy hands.
‘Her tools, apparently.,’ came the answer as he tried to keep his breathing under control. It was like he was in some dumbass B-grade horror movie...
“What was that?,” came the voice again from his left, “ “There was no point in fighting her for the kids or marriage?” If that’s how it was I don’t feel half as bad for paying her a little visit...”
Jim couldn’t tell if his face showed it but he felt a mixture of rage and panic flood him. His breathing became erratic and a strangled grunt came from his throat. Not Barbara....
“Now - I know what you’re thinking. But trust me - you didn’t really love her, if you did you would have fought the divorce. You may have cared for her because she was the mother of your children but you didn’t love her. You haven’t loved her for quite a while...Did she know you were seeing another? A man?,” the clicking of a gun chamber was recognizable to Gordon.
She came back into his line of vision, giggling to herself, “A Bat man perhaps?”
Her brow furrowed and she mumbled, “Damn - that sounded so much better in my head, actually....” She shrugged it off and continued to put bullets into the empty chambers.
“Anyways, as I was saying, caring and loving aren’t exactly the same - no matter how strongly you feel about it, Commissioner. I mean, I’m a demented shrew and even I know that!”
Harley clicked the chamber back into place after spinning it some, “You can glare those hateful baby blues at me all you want but that’s not gonna change the fact that they are dead.”
Jim’s heart stopped for a few beats as the words sunk in...“They”...his children.
No. Nononononono.....
His two small children who had done nothing wrong, whom he had not talked to or seen for a month were....gone. A guttural wail came up, struggling past his throat and lips. His body wanted to thrash around violently - mainly to kill this psychotic bitch who had deprived his children a better life out side of Gotham. It hadn’t made any difference at all - Gotham’s monsters still got them.
The wail came out again as tears came out of his eyes, his eyelids moving lazily. “Oops - you didn’t know that...Hmmm, sorry about that. But really, what I did was actually quite merciful.”
The rage was too much - it pushed up past his throat and came out as a scream, “Monster!!”
Tears continued to blur his vision but he could see she was surprised, “Wow - that is some weird paralyzing serum...You shouldn’t still be able to talk! But in any case, you are very much mistaken. I am no “monster”, Mr. Gordon.”
She knelt over him again, this time on her knees, straddling him, and her face very close to his. Her eyes suddenly becoming very dark. “I know monsters; REAL monsters. I have been at their mercy - or lack thereof. And what I did for your children was merciful. To make them live after what they saw me do to their mother, THAT would have been monstrous. I didn’t draw theirs out, not like hers. She deserved to feel the pain, for it to be drawn out. What kind of mother - who truly loves her children - would let them be born into a world like this? I put them out of their misery and punished her. “
She pulled her face away from his a bit, “So, now it is time for your punishment because you share the blame with your wife. You see, what I plan to do to you is to make you experience a waking nightmare...” She gently starts to stroke his face, removing his glasses as she spoke in a very controlled and calm voice, a whisper almost, “In dreams it is said you can’t feel any pain. If you are shot you don’t die. But in my little “dream”, you will die. You will see me hurt you, shoot you, stab you - but you won’t feel it. No, no - instead you will have no choice but to remain completely conscious and to act as witness to what is happening to your body. Completely helpless. It will be my living, breathing nightmare - all for you. The mind can only take so much....” She said the lost part more to herself than to him.
She backed away from his face and sat on his stomach, the trench coat bunching around her as she got an almost thoughtful look on her face. Gordon was surprised at how light she seemed to be....
“In a way, I am an “angel of mercy”....Gotham needs to be cleaned out, and I really am the perfect person for that. Because people who have always known stability take it for granted. I know did. But not no more. Nope, nope. Not no more. Those who don’t have it haven’t had the opportunity to do that thus know how truly rare it is...How fragile it is. It means more to them. Worth more....,”Jim hated to look into those eyes but he saw something flicker in them that made the timbre of her voice change slightly. “But I’m really just rambling now.,” she mumbled.
She stared at him without blinking and then shook her head and tweaked his nose, “You are just too cute!!,” in a high pitched voice and slapped him on both cheeks with such force that his head moved from side to side. He didn’t feel a thing.
She was off of him and over at his shelves, opening the CD player on his stereo, “Hmm - what kind of music do ya got? I like to listen to some while I....I’d like to say “work” or “perform” but that’s just cliché serial killer, don’t you think?”
Quinn went down the shelf, gun still in hand, tossing away CDs she didn’t like one by one:
“Crap.”
“Shit.”
“Shit.”
“Crap.”
“Bullshit.”
“Horseshit.”
“Complete and utter shit.”
“Oh my God!! ’Huey Lewis and the News’?! LA-AAME!!,” her laughter took on a hysterical edge.
“Celine Dion? Seriously?! Oh, Jimbo, you dirty bird!,” more laughter, “How CRAPTASTIC, honey!! You sure your wife didn’t know about you “leaning” that way?”
Throwing that one actually broke something. More CDs were tossed carelessly around the room and Gordon forced his mind to take control over his body - to move. Do something. Do something! Move! But his mind was getting foggy. His thoughts jumbling, complete hopelessness sinking in fully, and his efforts to make his body move in vain. He knew....he wanted it to end.
“Jefferson Airplane? Showing your age there a bit, aren’t ya?,” she giggled. But she didn’t throw it, “They do have that song on here! Goodie!! What better music to use than what sounds like a constant head-trip? You have slightly redeemed yourself in your taste in music, Commissioner.” He could hear the closing of the CD player and buttons being pressed. The guitar strummed through the speakers, then the steady drumming.
“Ah, I love this song.” Quinn finally removed her coat, revealing a red button-up shirt much too loose on her. Black suspenders keeping her black pants up - much too big on her skeletal frame. She pushed up her sleeves past her elbows, revealing that the shiny black gloves she was wearing extended beyond even where the sleeves stopped. She was singing with the music.
“One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small.”
She screwed the silencer onto her gun and used it as a microphone, “And the ones that mother gives you don’t do anything at all. Go ask Alice, when she’s ten feet tall..”
She slowly started swaying over Gordon, “And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you’re going to fall.”
His heart was beating fast, too fast. She was enjoying this, drawing it out. He noticed the chains wrapped around her waist as light from the lamp glinted off them as she swung her hips.
“Tell ’em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call.”
Those eyes held his, “Go call Alice, when she was just small.”
She fired - his body jerked up involuntarily from the force. He didn’t feel anything. Didn’t know where she had fired exactly.
As the music picked up, she fired more shots, “When the men on the chessboard get up and tell you where to go.”
She changed out her gun for two knives, “And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom, and your mind is moving low.”
She got down to her knees and moved his legs apart, positioning the knife downward toward the thigh. She sang louder as the music built up more, “Go ask Alice, I think she’ll know.”
She drove the knife into one thigh, then the other, opening the flesh up. Jim still didn’t feel anything or know exactly what she was doing. Until she crawled upward and removed the gun from his left hand and waved it front of him, “When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.” Then she took one knife and stabbed the hand, sticking it to the floor.
She picked up his right hand and did the same thing with it except stabbed it to a leg of the table where the answering machine was, “And the white knight is talking backwards.”
“And the red queens’s off with her head.,” she dragged a finger across her neck, smearing Gordon’s blood along her throat with a gleeful grin spreading across her face.
“Remember what the dormouse said,” she went over to one side and returned twirling a hatchet.
“Feed your head,” practically screaming it. Gordon closed his eyes, he couldn’t watch as she hacked at his body.
She forced his eyes open with two fingers covered in his own blood, “Feed your head!”
She raised the hatchet and brought it down.
All Jim knew was darkness.
His last thoughts ran together: I hope Harvey forgives me I’ll get to see my kids again I wish I had seen him just once more.
Then - nothing more.
*