Slipping Into Entropy - Part 31
When they reached the top floor and were safely behind closed doors once again, Bruce wasted little time peeling the fake mustache off. The rest of his clothes were comfortable, so he paid them little mind. He checked his phone for messages and, to his relief although slight suspicion, there were none. He had talked to Lucius not that long ago. And Alfred....had practically given him an ultimatum. He hoped the both of them were simply giving him some time to himself.
Pulling off the hat he'd used to hide most of his green hair, pulling the tucked ponytail out from the back of his shirt and untying it, Joker wandered over to where Bruce was standing, punching digits on his cell and listening intently. Sneaking up behind him, he snaked arms around the taller man's middle, his fingers hooking into his shirt like claws. "I changed my mind. I have two things I'd like to do."
Snapping the phone shut, Bruce looked their reflection in the wall length windows up and down. Two of the worst men this country had ever known stood superimposed over the city skyline. Something hard twisted inside of him. When had his life gone to hell? Standing still, Bruce tilted his head to look at the real Joker behind him.
Eyes slitted, the madman tilted his head up to meet Bruce's gaze. "...why so serious?" he asked half-mockingly, reaching up with one hand to tug at one corner of the knight's mouth, trying to get him to smile. "You don't like what you see?"
"No," Bruce whispered. At the glint in the Joker's eye, he knew it wasn't what he wanted to hear, but he'd said it honestly. Looking at their reflection again, all Bruce could think was that this was not what he wanted to be. He wasn't sure how the Joker had become so comfortable with him, after everything. If Bruce were in his place......well, he wasn't.
Looking where Bruce was, green eyes stared into reflected brown, the shorter man tucking himself under his companion's arm while keeping his own twined about the man's waist. "...and why not? What displeases you?"
"I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space. Were it not that I have bad dreams." It was true that Batman would do whatever it took to get a job done, just and true or not, but as for Bruce.....this vision could very well haunt him in the dead of night, that ambiguous time just before sleep comes. Watching that intent gaze watch him, Bruce's thoughts shifted in a different direction. "Lose the makeup."
Joker grinned back; a perfect smile graced his double in the silvery surface. "Oh, is Bat frightened to see what I used to be? I thought that was the point of this whole trip - for you to get to know me better," he rasped, grabbing one of Bruce's hands and drawing it to his seemingly-unmarked cheek. "Or is it that all you can see is a pretty shell, and that disturbs you? I cast off this face long ago to free myself."
"Yes," Bruce agreed in a lower tone. "This is not you." It was uncanny how the Joker put it into words for him, what had been bothering him about the Joker all night. "I don't like it," he snarled softly. His fingers ghosted over the Joker's cheeks at first, then slowly spread to wrap around his jaw. He needed to see the scars ripped across the Joker's face to feel even remotely comfortable with him. His hand turned the Joker's head, this way and that, then fingers dug into the false skin and ripped into it, peeling it down the side of his face.
The greenhaired man just closed his eyes as he felt his skin pull with the latex, a flutter in his chest; the Bat had chosen, and he had chosen harsh imperfection over false veneers, the truly fallen over a pretense of normalcy. When Bruce was done with both sides he opened his eyes again, his skin reddening around the scars that stood out starkly against his unflawed skin. "...and you like this?"
A vein stood out at Bruce's temple. "No." .....but it was better. At least he didn't have to look at the other face anymore. He knew who he was talking to now. Bruce shook his hand, letting the rubbery skin fall to the floor.
The answer drew a tired, melancholy look from the Joker, quickly turning into stony anger. "...then what do you like, Bat? What impossibility are you wishing for? I can change appearances for a brief time, but I can only ever be what I am." His jaw tightened, a look entering his eyes like he was ready to bite. "You are bound by your promises. Learn to be content with them. I will listen to what you have to say, but that never means I'll do it."
"I am not wishing for anything," Bruce answered flatly. Because really, if wishes were fishes......
"I think you're the one who's wishing." Bruce turned, pulling out of the Joker's grip though not moving far. He walked slowly around the fuming man. "Don't you know that's a bad idea?" A little voice in his head told him that it was not in his best interests to tell the Joker to stop wishing and start doing. But out of the general context and into the more specific, between them in particular, wishes may never hold up to the light of day.
Bruce's words and behavior were having a visible effect on the other man, the tension within him winding up until he was perceptibly shaking, his jaw clenched as he watched Bat's pacing with a glare. "Oh? I happen to be full of bad ideas. Enlighten me, Bat. Exactly what do you think I'm wishing for?" he snarled, his tone more venomous than had been heard in a long while.
Bruce stared at him. "I thought that was obvious. You told me as much." He stopped pacing and stood still, arms at his sides, but tense all the same. How he was remaining, relatively, calm through the Joker's tirade was beyond him. He was amazed at how much he had effected the other man's emotional state. "You want me to see us the way you do."
A violent sort of shiver rocked the madman from his feet to his crown. Bizarrely enough, a shimmering dampness seemed to appear at the rims of eyes mixed with frustration, rage, and something else. "You never see the right things when it matters most!" he yelled, hands balling into fists as he crouched like he was about to pounce... then turned and fled, ironically enough into the very room he professed to hate. The door slammed with such force that it bounced back, hit the bathroom wall, and came to a stop just before touching the door frame, a sliver of light escaping from the little room.
Bruce was left standing alone in the gilded, spacious room in shock. What in the bloody hell of Joker's universe did he not get? They lived hard lives, and Bruce had accepted that a long time ago. Nothing ever....really kept the guilt away.....but it was the only thing he could do to try. He gazed after the door, hearing little from inside it. He turned away, walking around the room, from one to the next. He wanted to collapse. He really wanted a drink. But that was also not a good idea. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually drank. It didn't take him long to wind up right back where he'd started, staring at that crack of light seeping through the bathroom door.
The other room was completely silent... almost. A bizarre sort of choked, stilted breathing seemed to be coming from behind the door, barely perceptible and without a regular rhythm. Difficult to spot from the narrow open slit of doorway, Joker had wedged himself into a small empty space between the sink and bathtub, curled up in a ball. Face buried in his arms, all that was visible was a shock of green hair that rocked back and forth as his heels left and returned to the cold, tiled floor. The quiet vocalizations continued throughout, echoing some internal misery.
Moving closer, Bruce felt like he'd stepped into an alien world. What he could see did not ease his apprehension at all. He closed his eyes, deciding that should he receive another outburst, he'd better figure out where he stood before he went into that room. That footing he searched for was elusive to him. He kept waiting for the Joker to jump out at him from behind this mask in full fury, with his twisting knives and anarchistic dreams. On the other hand, distrust was a default, even.....if this had been someone other than the Joker, he could call it an excuse. Bruce knew he had his own inner failings. As long as that didn't affect his judgement, his work, he could live with it. That was what his life was about now. Now that his hope was gone and the man who had killed her in order to take her place was breaking down in his.......... The Joker killed her.
So that he could take her place.
Bruce felt suddenly lightheaded as he stepped forward, moving the door aside.
The man froze at the sound of movement, his arms tightening around himself as he refused to look up... or perhaps feared to. The rocking motions had ceased, but the odd, harsh breathing still remained, punctuated now and again with what might have been hiccups, his body shaking as his chest hitched.
Stepping lightly, moving soundlessly, Bruce got as close as he dared, then closer. He got well within the Joker's space and crouched down, not directly in front of him, but unable to sit quite at his side because of the sink and bathtub in his way. He reached out and rested his hand on the Joker's shoulder.
Shivering at the touch, after a few long moments when nothing else happened he uncurled slowly, his head still tilted downward to hide his face in shadow. The world must have gone insane, indeed, for the lunatic scooted forward until he was up against the hero, pushing him over into a sitting position and curling up in his lap like a lost child. Arms wrapped around Bruce's torso, a damp spot soon began spreading across the front of his shirt.
Bruce didn't.....know what to do with his hands. To be honest, he was a bit freaked out. How could someone so cruel, so merciless, come to this? Bruce sat there like that, his arms finally finding their way over the Joker's back, one moving over the base of his head, knowing there wasn't much he could say to remedy the situation. Joker had brought this on himself in the end. So he waited, and held on. Part of him, a very, very tiny part of him didn't want to move.
It was strange for someone who was ordinarily so loud, so full of bravado and spite, to suddenly shift into a wretched, helpless, quietly weeping wreck of a man. He seemed almost afraid to make a sound, but as the minutes passed his restraint wore away, fingers digging into Bruce's muscles as the man's sobs were muffled by fabric.
The grip around Joker tightened. Bruce let him carry on, and as it got worse, his head fell to the Joker's shoulder, green hair resting against his cheek. The slighter man felt cold. Sitting on the tile floor would do that. He smelled of dirt and grass and the street. He was shaking, leaning into Bruce. And Bruce, for once, just this once, could allow himself to be the rock for a reason outside of his work. This was his universe in a nutshell.
Joker eventually exhausted himself, growing quiet but still unwilling to move or give up his hold. Anything he did or said after this moment might provoke his stubborn captor to resume the cold facade he was normally given, push him away and lock him out.
He reflected for a moment that this must mean he'd gone completely, irrevocably insane. All he'd ever wanted was utter freedom, breaking through and burning every tie he came across. Now, once one had stuck on him once again, he found that he only wanted it pulled tighter and more binding, fearing what would happen should that rope be cut. ...I've lost my mind.
Bruce's hand moved through his hair. Neither of them stirred more than that. Silence hung over the room, the short intakes of breath from the Joker slightly muffled against Bruce's shirt. His jacket was restrictive, but it was also warm and he had a feeling the Joker didn't care. Finally, without thinking too hard on the matter, Bruce shifted their position. He leaned back and onto his side, pulling Joker up with him so that they wound up lying together on the floor.
The slighter man offered no resistance, eyes shut tight as he was tugged down to Bruce's side. Whatever this was, he wanted it to stop. He hadn't felt pain, actually felt it as it had originally been, since before... ...I can't remember. There had been so much, before; pain that had filled his mind and body until it went numb with shock and felt no more. Then one day something had snapped, and the pain had changed. What had been meant as punishments became blessings and no longer held any sway, and the rest of the world had altered with his senses. I can't go back, not again, not to that.
Bruce's arms stayed around the Joker. The floor was cold, and hard, but could easily ignore it. He honestly didn't know what to do. He didn't know if he should do anything at all. He doubted there was anything that could be done. Whatever was going on, it was all in Joker's head.
For the first time with this man, Bruce felt the old, familiar tendrils of guilt creep upon him.
Disjointed thoughts twisted around each other, mingled and separated. He couldn't doubt that all of this was Bat's fault - oh yes, it was. He had been doing just fine until the TVs across the nation were flooded with speculation, sketches and reputed photos of a supposedly insane vigilante stalking the streets of infamous Gotham. Fine until an amusing interest became a fascination, then a job and opportunity to play a series of pranks that would ring through history and stir mediocre minds... and then an obsession as the job, the pranks ceased to matter, and it all focused on how the Batman would react.
Going back to what had been before could destroy him, but killing the Bat to stop what he was doing? Joker mused, hands flexing as his mind considered various images, different methods of murder before discarding them all. ...I can't. "...end it then, Bat. Just kill me. I can't...survive that again." Of course you can. We can kill him. But I don't want to.
The request surprised Bruce, and for a while he rolled it around in his head. No one had ever asked him to kill them before. He had laid down the law on himself never to take a life out of spite, anger, even justice. But no one had ever asked for it. Never had he been given the option to kill out of mercy. He suspected Joker didn't really mean it, not here and not now at least. He was having some sort of emotional breakdown. It was in his mind, and he would survive. One of Bruce's hands pressed over the Joker's gunshot wound. If Bruce were to take the request seriously, he wouldn't be able to justify it. "You know I won't."
"...you will, one way or another. If not now, through driving me off the edge into that pit again." A dry laugh shook him. "You'll kill me in body, or simply kill my mind first before the end. Are you refusing simply because you think I deserve it? Inflicting suffering as another part of your own brand of justice?"
"The world knows you deserve it." It was the very first thing that came to Bruce's mind. "You were the one who came to me, Joker. Whatever you think I'm doing to you.......you're doing it to yourself." Bruce remained motionless. The question of the bathroom and the Joker's sudden ability to overcome it had lodged itself in the back of his mind. "C'mon. Let's get out of here." Slowly he picked Joker up off the floor. He could see the weariness written across the madman's face plain as day. Exhaustion ran through his own veins.
"...that's a lie, Bruce. Whether you know it or not." Regardless, he didn't fight when the taller man picked him up like a rag doll, falling against him into the comforting heat and scent. A mountainous weight felt like it had settled into his bones, and for once he wished his thoughts would stop flitting about and leave him in peaceful silence to sleep.
Bruce carried him to the master bed, and after ripping the neatly tucked, folded blankets and arrangement of pillows apart enough to be actually used as a place to sleep, he climbed in alongside his charge. His heart was beating faster than normal. The entire situation had him on edge. He felt like he'd been that way for days, which was absolutely true. He was tired, yet unable to quell the constantly alert state of his mind. Like staying up for days, drinking nothing but coffee, too high to come down, too fatigued to think straight.
Moving close again until he was within that circle of radiating heat, it took a moment for his agitated mind to absorb the sound beneath his ear, hidden deep beneath the cage of bone. ...getting off on inflicted pain, as usual? Tilting his head up, internal turmoil and longing vivid behind his eyes, he stared curiously at the captor who'd, apparently, decided he liked the role of torturer better.
The Joker's gaze was met with Bruce's own, who couldn't read the look in those questioning eyes. He wanted to know what was going on inside that madman's head, and at the same time, he didn't. Part of him thought it would be extremely relevant, another part was already dismissing it as emotionally unstable madness. He didn't know which to side with, so he remained silent. Strangely, he didn't mind just watching the Joker.
Melancholy gradually got pierced through with something that wasn't quite apathy or despair. Joker's hands moved to the buttons of the shirt before him, unfastening until he could see and touch the pale, healing monogram he'd carved into the man's skin to mark him as his own. Tracing the edges with his fingers, his eyes flicked back up again. ...have it your way. Hunger ate its way through him, and Joker suddenly wrapped arms around Bruce and crushed them together, answering the call.
Bruce had not been expecting that. He'd thought the Joker was as tired as he had looked. The embrace was difficult to let go of, it sparked something in Bruce that he hadn't been exactly aware of, but eventually rationale won out. He pulled the Joker's head back, but was unable to do much about the legs winding around his own. "What are you doing?"
The madman didn't look pleased; he looked resigned. "You win, Bat. You have me until you push me off the edge and to my death. Go ahead and enjoy your victory. I won't be able to stop it."
Bruce's eyes narrowed. This cold, hot, cold thing was not helping him understand nor empathize with the Joker's situation at all. Whatever it was. "Fuck off." He rolled away from the Joker, pulling himself up. "Whatever game you think this is, I'm not playing it.
"The game is done, you fool," the man murmured, trying to cling to the moving figure and stay near him. "You won. Do I have to carve out my heart and eyes and offer them up before you'll accept it?" His hand hovered over where the bandages lay with a hint of suggestion, the healing wound just beneath the surface.
It was enough to halt Bruce's motion. "No. I don't, I don't want you to die for me." He looked the Joker over, from head to toe. Not an ounce of deception could be found. Taking Bruce's own scrutiny into observation, he came to a little epiphany on the situation. This is what must must happen when two people try to con each other over. Neither could ever trust the other. Once he understood that the Joker's words hadn't been intended to incite pity, he calmed significantly. Sitting back down, within the other man's space once more, he began again. "I don't trust you. And even though you......feel for me, you don't trust me, either."
"No." The tone was flat, though despair filtered through his features. "It's just fun for you, shut away in another cold room as soon as possible. You would twist and warp and break everything I am if you could, or lock me away forever. You promise things, yet never fulfill them completely. I'm treated like some neglected pet, something subhuman, despite the fact I've kept all my sides of the damned bargains. I think if you could, you'd drug me into a coma forever, like those doctors tried so very hard to do."
Bruce stared in disbelief. "You tried to destroy everything i've fought so hard for, just to tear me apart, to get a thrill. And then you come to me making promises and bargains and laying your heart out and saying that you've fulfilled them like an honest man. There isn't a thing you can do to make up for what you've done, to me.... Or have you forgotten all of that? Put it behind you, perhaps. Is it so hard to believe why I wouldn't trust you?"
"No, just the fact that you never try. Kill me, or remove your microchip and set me free to be what I am. I won't lived trapped in a cage. As far as I'm concerned, you've broken your word. All bets are off," he hissed, wriggling backwards and away from Bruce, one hand clawing at the back of his neck.
The whole premise of their bargain, and that one little detail about Bruce especially, had been deliberately sketchy. The Joker knew it, but he wouldn't accept it. "You know if you try to kill again, I'll be there to stop you." Bruce let him go, his attempts to feel for the tiny device futile. If it came to that, Bruce knew he would be in for the fight of his life once again. The Joker had told him once that they were destined to do it forever. He could keep the madman at bay, but he may never really be able to defeat him like that. "I told Rachel....when I'd realized what I'd have to become to stop a man like you. It was why I tried to turn myself in. I didn't want to go there."
Joker laughed, the sound carrying a dark, malevolent undercurrent. "No one does, and once you set foot there, it never comes off. If you don't want me and will not honor the bargain, I won't either. I won't do as you say or wish, and everything will go down in flames with me as I burn. I will do everything in my power to break free of what you've done to me, then punish you for ever coaxing me into a leash and collar."
The choice had never before been laid out so clearly for Bruce. "I've already got one foot in." He had a chance, a chance to change......everything. To save dozens, if not hundreds, of lives in the future. Right. Now.
He worked alone. And he didn't....didn't want to see what he would become if he "felt" for the Joker. But the damage had been done, the line between criminal and vigilante had already been crossed. Isn't.......that what Batman had always been about? Someone who had no rules, no limitations, because sometimes, in order to do the greater good you had to go off the deep end? Bruce had obviously found one of his limits, and now, he was being given the choice to break it. If he could. "Why do you give me the chance?"
"...since when do I ever know the reason I do anything?" Joker shot back with self-deprecating smirk. "I feel like it. You've been a clever bastard and caught my foot in your snare, and now everything's upside down and I'm dancing to your tune. Whether I wanted to or not." His eyes narrowed, watching Bruce for any sudden moves, his body language speaking volumes; he found Bruce to be a threat. "I've never had an alternate goal, another path. Never one that I was tempted to take. If that door closes, I have nothing but what I've known before. Since you've learned so much and stuck your little tracker in me, all I can do is tear until I break free."
Bruce put a hand over his forehead as he let the Joker's strange words sink in. He laid back and let the exhaustion seep out of his body. "Give me a day. One more day, to make that choice. If it doesn't work, I'll let you go. I'll deactivate the tracker. We'll start on even ground. And then we'll fight, tooth and nail, for as long as it takes for one of us to go down."
"I have no way to trust your word," the lunatic snapped, still bristling. "Decide whatever you will, but you'd best let it show through your actions. Speech alone won't do anymore." That said, Joker slipped off the bed, backing up and leaving the bedroom to go into the small living room that was part of the suite. He flopped down on the couch irritably, knowing he wouldn't sleep while he had to be on guard from the other.
Bruce closed his eyes after the Joker left and didn't open them for some time. His mind was filled with too much jumbled information, and the rest of him felt like an old car sputtering to a start. How could he make himself feel? Who said he didn't feel already? Would he know it if he did feel? Whatever this was, it was entirely alien to him. There was no precedent in his life for it. He could understand it, he felt the draw, the allure, the inability to let go of that which hurts him in his work, in his surroundings, and beliefs, but never in a person. Comparing it to Rachel was like apples to oranges. He'd lived among criminals for many years; he'd never felt for one, especially one like this. Petty thieves had been easier to sympathize with, an attempted mass murderer like the Joker was a whole new ball game. He was losing his mind.
Joker couldn't sit still for long, up on his feet and pacing the room like a caged creature, not enjoying his circumstances in the slightest. This was everything he should have seen, known, avoided from the beginning. He'd known that he should sidestep any ties, yet his fascination with the man who was his opposite-yet-double had kept drawing him in despite everything he'd learned in the past. He was trapped now, and it filled him with a vague sort of fear.
It was enraging. It wasn't right. And if the Bat wouldn't stop it, fix it? He'd rip the world until it settled into its old, familiar fit, then pursue his vengeance for the trick.
That was what his mind dredged up, ranting and railing against everything in his head. It didn't calm or soothe anything else, however, and his nerves kept him high-strung, tensely walking the small room for lack of another output.
On the other side of the wall, exhaustion finally won out its war with Bruce. Face buried into the pillow, one arm sprawled out at his side, he slipped into unconsciousness. He slept as if he hadn't in days, breath ghosting over his own skin lightly but audibly. He dreamt of his time in the Himalayas, and every story he'd learned of yin and yang came to life.
Still paranoid mania incarnate, Joker purloined more cutlery from the kitchenette, settling into a corner with his back against the wall. The carpeted floor was more uncomfortable than the beds and cots he'd been sleeping in recently, but it didn't matter. He'd slept on far worse. His sleep, however, was broken and fitful, something always on edge to hold a knife point out against the dark.
A/N: For those who don't know, Bruce is canonly a complete teetotaler in case he must become Batman at any given moment.