Darker Shades of Grey - Part 1 (M15+, angst)
Darker Shades of Grey (Sequel to Shadows of a Past Life)
AUTHOR: Henri
Pairings: (slash) Helena/Dinah -- Barbara/Helena -- Dinah/Gabby
Disclaimer: All characters, places and episodic memories are property of WB or who ever happens to own the rights to Birds of Prey. I make no money, I make nothing.
Warnings/Rating: NC17. There’s a little naughty touching and it’s almost as angsty as the story itself. So, this is a revised warning, there’s disturbing-ness, angst, naughty touching, angry Barbara’s.
I also bought back Evil Barbara, that naughty little……
Author’s notes: Still no Beta Reader. My muse bought me coffee and cake while I wrote this she’s handier than she looks.
Any mistakes are completely my own.
Enjoy
Part One
Gabby
She’s here again tonight standing vigil over the place where she fell from grace. Where she failed and she - we - lost something we both love.
“See anything interesting?” I ask as I stop by her side and stare at the pavement below us. There’s still a spot, red and cracked concrete. It silently mocks me. After spending hours scrubbing that patch of pavement with soap, bleach, scourers, brushes and there’s still a red spot. Helena will freak if she sees it.
“Not really,” she admits quietly as her concentration breaks away from Wayne Tower and she runs her hand through her new short hair.
“Are you ready to go home?” It’s the same question I ask her every night when I find her here. Sometimes she comes home, most of the time she sprints off into the darkness and on the very odd occasion she just silently sits here with me. Quiet companionship.
Sometimes she makes me feel like a failure. When she disappears I can never keep up. Even with all the training Barbara insists I do, I still can’t keep up with her.
I never wanted to be a superhero -- that was Dinah’s gig. I accepted her decision but that didn’t mean I wanted the black eyes, bruises and late nights. But Barbara still insists I do the training if I want to hang around the Clocktower I have to know how to take care of myself.
I’m lucky tonight it looks like I won’t need the training. Not that she’s the best anymore. All her conditioning and training seem to be disappearing as she refuses to use it. She barely leaves the Clocktower for school let alone to do a sweep. She doesn’t care anymore.
Barbara says she’ll be alright. What did she call it? Barbara said it was her Calling. Whatever the hell that is.
She’s still standing beside me, her attention back on the piece of pavement.
“Hey,” I reach out and squeeze her shoulder. I choose to ignore the flinch that automatically flows through her body. “Are you ready to come home? Barbara’s worrying again.”
“I wish she wouldn’t,” she tells me softly as she shakes short bangs out of her face. “I’m old enough to take care of myself.”
“She just worries sweetheart…because she cares.”
Her head turns sharply towards me, her eyes blazing with an untameable anger that seems to have been growing bit by bit over the past nine months. “That’s a laugh. She doesn’t care she just pretends to care.”
“You know that’s not--“
I know I can’t fix this. I want to but I can’t. She makes it impossible. When ever I try to start a serious conversation with her she either stands up and suddenly has something very important to do with her homework or looks at me with eyes filled with desperation and lust.
Just like the eyes that are trailing along my hips right now.
I tilt my head to the side and consider her for a second. She seems happier when we’re loving each other. Maybe I could just give in this once. Let her put everything behind her just for a half an hour. No it wouldn’t work. She’ll just go back to avoiding everything.
“Please,” she whispers softly as she pushes herself against me. Her lips seek mine and I give in without another thought.
“Not here,” I beg as she shoves me against an air conditioner unit and runs her lips along my chin.
“Isn’t this what you want? Isn’t this what you said you wanted? You said you wanted love. You wanted Dinah Redmond, Zipper Girl to love you. I’m loving you Gabby, what else can I do?” she purrs into my ear. Her voice is filled with desire, anger and something else I’ve come to know as desperation.
Is this what I want? What do I want? And if this isn’t what I want do I even want her to stop?
I may not know what I want for me but I know what I want for her.
I want her to be safe. I want her to be better. I want her to be sane.
I know there’s nothing I can do to stop her now.
There’s nothing I want to do to stop her.
Her fingers slide down my body teasing my belly button and pushing at the buttons of my jeans teasing me mercilessly while her lips claim mine in a hungry kiss.
Desperation, it’s always about desperation.
“Please,” I moan as she rips her lips away then bends to pull my jeans and panties down my legs.
My back hits the cold metal of the air conditioner unit and I squeak. She doesn’t even look at me to make sure I’m alright. She lifts me up and I perch on the end of the cold steel. She gets on her knees in front of me. I think I might freeze if I sit here to long.
She’s not paying any attention to what I want -- she’s forgotten what I want -- as she lifts my legs over her head not even bothering to remove my pants.
Her head bobs as she finally looks up at me. Her eyes are so filled with lust that they burn in their intensity. She’s to far gone to stop -- even if I asked her to.
She gasps in a mouth full of air as she finally lowers her head to the liquid heat between my legs. I groan but bite my lip to stop myself. We could still get caught.
I know that this is a diversion born of abandonment and desperation. She’s also stalling trying to keep away from the Clocktower and Barbara -- and Barbara’s lectures about right and good.
Their relationship is up the proverbial creek without the paddle.
She bites my inner thigh -- hard. It hurts like hell but we’re on top of a building in the middle of New Gotham boinking like over rabbits, it’s wrong and quite possibly illegal which just adds to my excitement.
She bites my other thigh and I cry out as hot waves of pleasure radiated through my tight body.
I yelp again as I feel her disappear from between my legs. She’s gone before I’m even finished.
I jump down from the unit and pull my pants. Part of me is disgusted with myself. I shouldn’t have taken advantage.
“Bad idea, bad,” I whisper.
I catch a shadow merge with other shadows out of the corner of my eye and a slight rustle reaches my ears. I know it’s fruitful to think it’s her, more likely to be a sicko waiting in the shadows to kill me but still I call out to her. She might have stayed around to make sure I get home safely.
“Dinah?”
Dinah
My behaviour disgusted her. I took advantage. I know I hurt her. I saw the look in her eyes as I pulled away from her. I saw the disgust.
I do it far too often but she’s still here. She’s always there, ever since I slipped.
She hangs by the Delphi as Barbara, Helena and I have our pre-sweep talk.
She sits at the kitchen table watching me do my homework.
She even waits by the window while I pretend to sleep at night.
I sigh to myself. At least right now I can’t disgust her - unless she’s dreaming about me. She tells me she does sometimes.
She’s naked beneath the dark red sheets on my bed. I can make out the slim curve of her hips and the fullness of her breasts. She’s beautiful. As beautiful as the first time I saw her. More beautiful than the first time we slept together.
I reach out and touch her collar bone. There’s a deep red bite mark from our earlier liaison on the air conditioner unit.
I was rougher than I meant to be.
At least I didn’t break her perfect white skin. I’ve broken enough people lately.
I have two choices now. I can pull off my leather and crawl into her arms. Arms that I don’t deserve to have wrapped around me.
Or I can go out to the Delphi platform and check the Arkham systems, Make sure Quinn is still safely locked away. Barbara would be there. She’d be tapping away at her keyboard waiting for my return. I know she’ll have a nice long responsibility speech all planned out for me. Maybe even some diagrams to go with it.
Loving warm arms or pissed off Barbara.
I slip my jacket from my shoulders and lay it across my desk.
As I watch the leather drape loosely over my note books, pens and pencils my head almost clears. Something is different. My head is quiet, my thoughts are…organised and clear. No more grey area, no more darkness. Crystal clear.
I tried to kill Barbara because of Harley Quinn, it wasn’t my fault.
I fell off a building, spent time in hospital and almost died, all of that wasn’t my fault.
Now I’m shutting out the people in my life that care, the people who were willing to help and love me unconditionally.
My eyes hurt.
Tears.
I haven’t cried since….I wish I had sooner. It feels really good, like I’m letting something go. It makes my heart hurt.
“Oh NO, please tell me you aren’t going to cry,” the mocking, exasperated voice asks from behind me.
Well, this is just what I need right now.
“Shit. The little baby birdy needs her mummy again. I could go find her if you want. I’m sure her dead ass is around here somewhere.”
“Shut up,” I clench my hands, my teeth, my entire body. The pain in my jaw and palms helps to clear my head again, a little bit, but I can feel the control on my mind slowly slip. Things become dark again.
“I gotta say Blondie. Even dead the Black Canary has one fine ass, just like her pretty little birdy offspring.”
“SHUT UP!”
Gabby jumps awake on the bed, her eyes and voice are weary with sleep. “Dinah?”
“Just shut the hell up! You don’t know what you’re talking about! Shut your disgusting mouth!”
I spin around -- ready to let my fists take over from my words.
A flash of red hair and even white teeth and she’s gone.
“Dinah,” Gabby’s scared timid voice calls from the bed. “Dinah…honey? You’re scaring me. What do you see?”
I blink stupidly at Gabby then check the space where I am sure Barbara had been just seconds ago.
“I could have sworn…” I shake my head quickly and want to finish my sentence but the look of horror on my lover’s face is enough to shut me up.
“Nothing. It’s nothing, just a little tired…”
Gabby looks at me for a few seconds, she’s studying my face and the tense state of my body. I don’t blame her for not believing me. “Barbara said she’d like you to check in before you come to bed.”
Barbara.
I’d rather crawl into Gabby’s arms and accept the comfort I know I don’t deserve. I could pray for dream-free sleep.
My mind hurts now. I’m lonely in here. I miss the happiness I used to feel. I even miss the clarity of just five minutes ago.
I run my fingers through my hair roughly. I pull at the short strands until it hurts. I won’t see things again. I can’t start seeing things again. I won’t.
“Yeah. I’ll go check-in,” I whisper to Gabby then storm from the room.
I hear the typing before I hear anything else. Barbara’s back is to me, her face barely inches from the computer screen as she does something brainy with her millions of dollars of technology. She’s an amazing woman.
“You’re in late,” she says without even turning around. I catch my reflection in the computer screen. Yes, she’s obviously brainy.
“I had some stuff to do,” I murmur and hope she doesn’t start pestering to find out just what I was doing and whom I was doing it with.
“Did any of this stuff include getting a better attitude cos I’m just fucking sick of the one you’ve got now,” her chair spins around and she glares at me with an evil smile. “You thought I wouldn’t show up again, huh?” she looks amused.
“You aren’t real.”
“No need to tell me that baby D, I know.” She grins again, sliding her glasses down her nose and crossing her legs.
I close my eyes and ball my hands into fists. “Not real, not real,” I repeat over and over under my breath.
She laughs.
“Baby doll give me a break I’ve been torturing…oh sorry, talking to you for months and you still don’t believe I’m real! And anyway you think wishing and hoping is going to get you anywhere? You think holding your breath and counting to ten is going to make me disappear? You’re a complete nutcase if you think so….oh wait,” she’s amused by her own joke. She’s annoying and scary all at the same time.
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” I ask stupidly.
“Hmm, let me think…because you won’t let me leave you alone. Barbara needs to get her revenge somehow and she certainly isn’t going to do it on her own.” She stands and walks towards me, circling me slowly her eyes begin to roam. I feel dirty. Very, very dirty.
“See, I’m your way of making you feel better about what you did Dinah.” She continues to circle me. She’s graceful, moving slowly but stealthily.
“You’re completely…psycho,” she crosses her eyes at me and grins.
“I’m not. You aren’t real, you aren’t real.”
She chuckles at me and runs her hand around my waist, “oh sweetheart, are we having a bad dream? Is big bad Barbara getting too much for you? Helena can handle me…Helena handles me quiet well actually.”
I flinch. She sees it.
Her body closes in on me and I want to run away. I can feel her breath on the back of my neck.
“Helena knows just where to…handle me. Helena makes me want to be handled. And you know what…baby birdy?”
I shake my head but I close my eyes.
“When I touch Helena…I know just how to handle her too.” She chuckles into the back of my neck and I feel her finger tips brush the small hairs away from my ear. She leans forward I can physically feel her presence around me. It’s scary.
“Poor, frustrated, sexually charged, teenage Dinah. Can’t have the woman she wants, can’t please the woman she has.”
My eyes fly open in surprise.
“Oooh yes, I know all about that. Gabby and I are close…real close. Tell you what D if you don’t hurry up and do something maybe Gabby will get fed up and crawl into my bed. That would be really ironic. Then I’d have both your dream women and you’d have nothing.”
“No,” I whisper closing my eyes again. This isn’t happening this isn’t real.
“Sure it is. You want to hurt me now don’t you Dee Dee? Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“Yes,” I scream at her. She’s got a grin on her face that just manages to piss me off even more.
“So take a swing baby, don’t be such a little pussy. Hit me.”
Without a second thought I grip my fist and swing wildly, blindly. I expect her to disappear or for my hand to go straight through her. I’m surprised when my fist connects solidly and with a sharp crack Barbara is on the floor laughing her ass off.
“What’s funny,” I sneer as she curls into a ball and looks up at me, still smiling.
“You are sweetheart.”
“Why? What did I do?” I ask as I eye her off.
“You…you want to forgive and forget and go back to being a big happy family…but you’re willing to hit me. The holier than thou Barbara Gordon, the woman who took you in when you had no where else to go. The person who agreed to teach you the tricks of the superhero trade, the loving lady who so selflessly told your mother she’d take care of you. Do you have no shame Dinah? How could you do such things to a woman who has done nothing but love and care for you?”
I stop but only for a second. She isn’t real, yet she is in my mind.
“You don’t love me,” I sneer though clenched teeth. “You never loved me.” I swing my foot catching her in the ribs. There’s a wet thud and another sharp crack. She starts to laugh. I kick harder.
“You never fucking loved me. You wouldn’t have sent me there! You wouldn’t have sent me away if you loved me! NEVER! You wouldn’t have sent me away!”
“You forget Dinah,” she says gasping from the floor, “You’re the one that wanted to go to that place. You’re the one that checked yourself in. We did nothing but support your decision. We love you. We love you Dinah. And you’re killing us.”
She smiles at me one more time, the mocking and sarcasm is gone. She smiles sweetly, softly and her eyes show a great sadness, “Because who you choose as an enemy Dinah, because that is who you become most like.”
Her eyes glaze over and she becomes still. Blood is pouring from her nose, the corner of her lip is split and her eyes are almost black. I did it. I actually did it. I killed Barbara.
I let out a bark of laughter because it was never supposed to happen. She was never supposed to die, just suffer. Suffer for the crimes she had committed. For taking something that wasn’t hers. For taking that from me.
I take a step back and hit a wall. My knees fall out from under me and I only just manage to control my lifeless slide down egg shell white. I watch the bloody and broken woman in front of me. It’s real now. I’m a real murderer.
I don’t deserve anything anymore but I got what I wanted. She isn’t going to be with Helena anymore.
I curl my legs up to my chest and bury my face into my knees as the tears I’ve been holding onto for months start to spill.
AUTHOR: Henri
Pairings: (slash) Helena/Dinah -- Barbara/Helena -- Dinah/Gabby
Disclaimer: All characters, places and episodic memories are property of WB or who ever happens to own the rights to Birds of Prey. I make no money, I make nothing.
Warnings/Rating: NC17. There’s a little naughty touching and it’s almost as angsty as the story itself. So, this is a revised warning, there’s disturbing-ness, angst, naughty touching, angry Barbara’s.
I also bought back Evil Barbara, that naughty little……
Author’s notes: Still no Beta Reader. My muse bought me coffee and cake while I wrote this she’s handier than she looks.
Any mistakes are completely my own.
Enjoy
Part One
Gabby
She’s here again tonight standing vigil over the place where she fell from grace. Where she failed and she - we - lost something we both love.
“See anything interesting?” I ask as I stop by her side and stare at the pavement below us. There’s still a spot, red and cracked concrete. It silently mocks me. After spending hours scrubbing that patch of pavement with soap, bleach, scourers, brushes and there’s still a red spot. Helena will freak if she sees it.
“Not really,” she admits quietly as her concentration breaks away from Wayne Tower and she runs her hand through her new short hair.
“Are you ready to go home?” It’s the same question I ask her every night when I find her here. Sometimes she comes home, most of the time she sprints off into the darkness and on the very odd occasion she just silently sits here with me. Quiet companionship.
Sometimes she makes me feel like a failure. When she disappears I can never keep up. Even with all the training Barbara insists I do, I still can’t keep up with her.
I never wanted to be a superhero -- that was Dinah’s gig. I accepted her decision but that didn’t mean I wanted the black eyes, bruises and late nights. But Barbara still insists I do the training if I want to hang around the Clocktower I have to know how to take care of myself.
I’m lucky tonight it looks like I won’t need the training. Not that she’s the best anymore. All her conditioning and training seem to be disappearing as she refuses to use it. She barely leaves the Clocktower for school let alone to do a sweep. She doesn’t care anymore.
Barbara says she’ll be alright. What did she call it? Barbara said it was her Calling. Whatever the hell that is.
She’s still standing beside me, her attention back on the piece of pavement.
“Hey,” I reach out and squeeze her shoulder. I choose to ignore the flinch that automatically flows through her body. “Are you ready to come home? Barbara’s worrying again.”
“I wish she wouldn’t,” she tells me softly as she shakes short bangs out of her face. “I’m old enough to take care of myself.”
“She just worries sweetheart…because she cares.”
Her head turns sharply towards me, her eyes blazing with an untameable anger that seems to have been growing bit by bit over the past nine months. “That’s a laugh. She doesn’t care she just pretends to care.”
“You know that’s not--“
I know I can’t fix this. I want to but I can’t. She makes it impossible. When ever I try to start a serious conversation with her she either stands up and suddenly has something very important to do with her homework or looks at me with eyes filled with desperation and lust.
Just like the eyes that are trailing along my hips right now.
I tilt my head to the side and consider her for a second. She seems happier when we’re loving each other. Maybe I could just give in this once. Let her put everything behind her just for a half an hour. No it wouldn’t work. She’ll just go back to avoiding everything.
“Please,” she whispers softly as she pushes herself against me. Her lips seek mine and I give in without another thought.
“Not here,” I beg as she shoves me against an air conditioner unit and runs her lips along my chin.
“Isn’t this what you want? Isn’t this what you said you wanted? You said you wanted love. You wanted Dinah Redmond, Zipper Girl to love you. I’m loving you Gabby, what else can I do?” she purrs into my ear. Her voice is filled with desire, anger and something else I’ve come to know as desperation.
Is this what I want? What do I want? And if this isn’t what I want do I even want her to stop?
I may not know what I want for me but I know what I want for her.
I want her to be safe. I want her to be better. I want her to be sane.
I know there’s nothing I can do to stop her now.
There’s nothing I want to do to stop her.
Her fingers slide down my body teasing my belly button and pushing at the buttons of my jeans teasing me mercilessly while her lips claim mine in a hungry kiss.
Desperation, it’s always about desperation.
“Please,” I moan as she rips her lips away then bends to pull my jeans and panties down my legs.
My back hits the cold metal of the air conditioner unit and I squeak. She doesn’t even look at me to make sure I’m alright. She lifts me up and I perch on the end of the cold steel. She gets on her knees in front of me. I think I might freeze if I sit here to long.
She’s not paying any attention to what I want -- she’s forgotten what I want -- as she lifts my legs over her head not even bothering to remove my pants.
Her head bobs as she finally looks up at me. Her eyes are so filled with lust that they burn in their intensity. She’s to far gone to stop -- even if I asked her to.
She gasps in a mouth full of air as she finally lowers her head to the liquid heat between my legs. I groan but bite my lip to stop myself. We could still get caught.
I know that this is a diversion born of abandonment and desperation. She’s also stalling trying to keep away from the Clocktower and Barbara -- and Barbara’s lectures about right and good.
Their relationship is up the proverbial creek without the paddle.
She bites my inner thigh -- hard. It hurts like hell but we’re on top of a building in the middle of New Gotham boinking like over rabbits, it’s wrong and quite possibly illegal which just adds to my excitement.
She bites my other thigh and I cry out as hot waves of pleasure radiated through my tight body.
I yelp again as I feel her disappear from between my legs. She’s gone before I’m even finished.
I jump down from the unit and pull my pants. Part of me is disgusted with myself. I shouldn’t have taken advantage.
“Bad idea, bad,” I whisper.
I catch a shadow merge with other shadows out of the corner of my eye and a slight rustle reaches my ears. I know it’s fruitful to think it’s her, more likely to be a sicko waiting in the shadows to kill me but still I call out to her. She might have stayed around to make sure I get home safely.
“Dinah?”
Dinah
My behaviour disgusted her. I took advantage. I know I hurt her. I saw the look in her eyes as I pulled away from her. I saw the disgust.
I do it far too often but she’s still here. She’s always there, ever since I slipped.
She hangs by the Delphi as Barbara, Helena and I have our pre-sweep talk.
She sits at the kitchen table watching me do my homework.
She even waits by the window while I pretend to sleep at night.
I sigh to myself. At least right now I can’t disgust her - unless she’s dreaming about me. She tells me she does sometimes.
She’s naked beneath the dark red sheets on my bed. I can make out the slim curve of her hips and the fullness of her breasts. She’s beautiful. As beautiful as the first time I saw her. More beautiful than the first time we slept together.
I reach out and touch her collar bone. There’s a deep red bite mark from our earlier liaison on the air conditioner unit.
I was rougher than I meant to be.
At least I didn’t break her perfect white skin. I’ve broken enough people lately.
I have two choices now. I can pull off my leather and crawl into her arms. Arms that I don’t deserve to have wrapped around me.
Or I can go out to the Delphi platform and check the Arkham systems, Make sure Quinn is still safely locked away. Barbara would be there. She’d be tapping away at her keyboard waiting for my return. I know she’ll have a nice long responsibility speech all planned out for me. Maybe even some diagrams to go with it.
Loving warm arms or pissed off Barbara.
I slip my jacket from my shoulders and lay it across my desk.
As I watch the leather drape loosely over my note books, pens and pencils my head almost clears. Something is different. My head is quiet, my thoughts are…organised and clear. No more grey area, no more darkness. Crystal clear.
I tried to kill Barbara because of Harley Quinn, it wasn’t my fault.
I fell off a building, spent time in hospital and almost died, all of that wasn’t my fault.
Now I’m shutting out the people in my life that care, the people who were willing to help and love me unconditionally.
My eyes hurt.
Tears.
I haven’t cried since….I wish I had sooner. It feels really good, like I’m letting something go. It makes my heart hurt.
“Oh NO, please tell me you aren’t going to cry,” the mocking, exasperated voice asks from behind me.
Well, this is just what I need right now.
“Shit. The little baby birdy needs her mummy again. I could go find her if you want. I’m sure her dead ass is around here somewhere.”
“Shut up,” I clench my hands, my teeth, my entire body. The pain in my jaw and palms helps to clear my head again, a little bit, but I can feel the control on my mind slowly slip. Things become dark again.
“I gotta say Blondie. Even dead the Black Canary has one fine ass, just like her pretty little birdy offspring.”
“SHUT UP!”
Gabby jumps awake on the bed, her eyes and voice are weary with sleep. “Dinah?”
“Just shut the hell up! You don’t know what you’re talking about! Shut your disgusting mouth!”
I spin around -- ready to let my fists take over from my words.
A flash of red hair and even white teeth and she’s gone.
“Dinah,” Gabby’s scared timid voice calls from the bed. “Dinah…honey? You’re scaring me. What do you see?”
I blink stupidly at Gabby then check the space where I am sure Barbara had been just seconds ago.
“I could have sworn…” I shake my head quickly and want to finish my sentence but the look of horror on my lover’s face is enough to shut me up.
“Nothing. It’s nothing, just a little tired…”
Gabby looks at me for a few seconds, she’s studying my face and the tense state of my body. I don’t blame her for not believing me. “Barbara said she’d like you to check in before you come to bed.”
Barbara.
I’d rather crawl into Gabby’s arms and accept the comfort I know I don’t deserve. I could pray for dream-free sleep.
My mind hurts now. I’m lonely in here. I miss the happiness I used to feel. I even miss the clarity of just five minutes ago.
I run my fingers through my hair roughly. I pull at the short strands until it hurts. I won’t see things again. I can’t start seeing things again. I won’t.
“Yeah. I’ll go check-in,” I whisper to Gabby then storm from the room.
I hear the typing before I hear anything else. Barbara’s back is to me, her face barely inches from the computer screen as she does something brainy with her millions of dollars of technology. She’s an amazing woman.
“You’re in late,” she says without even turning around. I catch my reflection in the computer screen. Yes, she’s obviously brainy.
“I had some stuff to do,” I murmur and hope she doesn’t start pestering to find out just what I was doing and whom I was doing it with.
“Did any of this stuff include getting a better attitude cos I’m just fucking sick of the one you’ve got now,” her chair spins around and she glares at me with an evil smile. “You thought I wouldn’t show up again, huh?” she looks amused.
“You aren’t real.”
“No need to tell me that baby D, I know.” She grins again, sliding her glasses down her nose and crossing her legs.
I close my eyes and ball my hands into fists. “Not real, not real,” I repeat over and over under my breath.
She laughs.
“Baby doll give me a break I’ve been torturing…oh sorry, talking to you for months and you still don’t believe I’m real! And anyway you think wishing and hoping is going to get you anywhere? You think holding your breath and counting to ten is going to make me disappear? You’re a complete nutcase if you think so….oh wait,” she’s amused by her own joke. She’s annoying and scary all at the same time.
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” I ask stupidly.
“Hmm, let me think…because you won’t let me leave you alone. Barbara needs to get her revenge somehow and she certainly isn’t going to do it on her own.” She stands and walks towards me, circling me slowly her eyes begin to roam. I feel dirty. Very, very dirty.
“See, I’m your way of making you feel better about what you did Dinah.” She continues to circle me. She’s graceful, moving slowly but stealthily.
“You’re completely…psycho,” she crosses her eyes at me and grins.
“I’m not. You aren’t real, you aren’t real.”
She chuckles at me and runs her hand around my waist, “oh sweetheart, are we having a bad dream? Is big bad Barbara getting too much for you? Helena can handle me…Helena handles me quiet well actually.”
I flinch. She sees it.
Her body closes in on me and I want to run away. I can feel her breath on the back of my neck.
“Helena knows just where to…handle me. Helena makes me want to be handled. And you know what…baby birdy?”
I shake my head but I close my eyes.
“When I touch Helena…I know just how to handle her too.” She chuckles into the back of my neck and I feel her finger tips brush the small hairs away from my ear. She leans forward I can physically feel her presence around me. It’s scary.
“Poor, frustrated, sexually charged, teenage Dinah. Can’t have the woman she wants, can’t please the woman she has.”
My eyes fly open in surprise.
“Oooh yes, I know all about that. Gabby and I are close…real close. Tell you what D if you don’t hurry up and do something maybe Gabby will get fed up and crawl into my bed. That would be really ironic. Then I’d have both your dream women and you’d have nothing.”
“No,” I whisper closing my eyes again. This isn’t happening this isn’t real.
“Sure it is. You want to hurt me now don’t you Dee Dee? Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“Yes,” I scream at her. She’s got a grin on her face that just manages to piss me off even more.
“So take a swing baby, don’t be such a little pussy. Hit me.”
Without a second thought I grip my fist and swing wildly, blindly. I expect her to disappear or for my hand to go straight through her. I’m surprised when my fist connects solidly and with a sharp crack Barbara is on the floor laughing her ass off.
“What’s funny,” I sneer as she curls into a ball and looks up at me, still smiling.
“You are sweetheart.”
“Why? What did I do?” I ask as I eye her off.
“You…you want to forgive and forget and go back to being a big happy family…but you’re willing to hit me. The holier than thou Barbara Gordon, the woman who took you in when you had no where else to go. The person who agreed to teach you the tricks of the superhero trade, the loving lady who so selflessly told your mother she’d take care of you. Do you have no shame Dinah? How could you do such things to a woman who has done nothing but love and care for you?”
I stop but only for a second. She isn’t real, yet she is in my mind.
“You don’t love me,” I sneer though clenched teeth. “You never loved me.” I swing my foot catching her in the ribs. There’s a wet thud and another sharp crack. She starts to laugh. I kick harder.
“You never fucking loved me. You wouldn’t have sent me there! You wouldn’t have sent me away if you loved me! NEVER! You wouldn’t have sent me away!”
“You forget Dinah,” she says gasping from the floor, “You’re the one that wanted to go to that place. You’re the one that checked yourself in. We did nothing but support your decision. We love you. We love you Dinah. And you’re killing us.”
She smiles at me one more time, the mocking and sarcasm is gone. She smiles sweetly, softly and her eyes show a great sadness, “Because who you choose as an enemy Dinah, because that is who you become most like.”
Her eyes glaze over and she becomes still. Blood is pouring from her nose, the corner of her lip is split and her eyes are almost black. I did it. I actually did it. I killed Barbara.
I let out a bark of laughter because it was never supposed to happen. She was never supposed to die, just suffer. Suffer for the crimes she had committed. For taking something that wasn’t hers. For taking that from me.
I take a step back and hit a wall. My knees fall out from under me and I only just manage to control my lifeless slide down egg shell white. I watch the bloody and broken woman in front of me. It’s real now. I’m a real murderer.
I don’t deserve anything anymore but I got what I wanted. She isn’t going to be with Helena anymore.
I curl my legs up to my chest and bury my face into my knees as the tears I’ve been holding onto for months start to spill.