SWALLOW YOUR SHAME AND KISS ME HARDER
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Hi guys :3
First time posting kinda nervous. Don't say shit about my fuckass spelling or grammar or I'll cry violently. This willllllll have multiple parts I just don't know whennnn it will. I'm saying fuck that and posting everything I've written so far in one go but I have big plans and little motivation so we'll see. Anyways enjoy and let me know what could be improved (not the spelling I beg I'm on my last fucking nerve with my keyboard and its bilingual ass)
Wordcount: 8,173
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It was deranged. Arkham asylum crawled with the criminally insane and morally corrupt. Disease the brittle bones of the psycriatric facility that seemed to do little good and plenty of harm. She had needed inspiration. Where else to find it but where mad minds ran rampant? The best artists always ended up mad.
Perhaps she belonged there too, with the hatters and nuts. Maybe the siren call of arkham was fulfilling the role she was meant to play from birth. Daughters tend to take after fathers.
The bag slung over her shoulder was heavy and sunbleached, the black fabric no longer as rich în colour as the day she bought it. There was a loose thread at the base of the straps that threatened to unravel the whole tote, weighed down with inks and paints. Brushes rattled as the wooden stems hit one another, jostled by her periodically hiking it further up a bowing shoulder to avoid leaving an irritated imprint in the flesh beneath the worn polyester of her shirt.
Her shoes were already muddy and damp, gotham had decided to bathe în an unpredicted shower just as she left her building. It could of been a sign to turn back, but starving artists don't take signs. They prefer cash.
The asylum loomed before her, a towering behemoth built with inspiration from tradițional gothic architecture and coated în iron. Moonlight bathed the building în an eerie glow, metalic armoured walls reflecting the light back to the dark night sky. Starless, tonight. Crashing waves sung with a lulling rhythm but the knowledge that she was trespassing prevented the girl from relaxing to the tune of the waters.
Her destination was to the northern part of the island, once the intensive treatment centre now closed down and ready to be used by a lunatic of a different flavour as a temporary art studio. She had vehemently thanked whatever entity had granted her luck when she had hit the jagged rock wall of the island and realised she was already near the closed wing, tying her motorised raft with what she hoped was a secure knot and praying that it didn't stray as she climbed up the rough terrain. Atleast it seemed to be easier to get back down upon her return. That was if her boat was still there.
Shaking away the pessimistic thoughts, as insistent as they were, she stuck to the shadows and clutched her moist bag tighter. Relief flooded her at the sight of the fortified metal walls shrinking into crumbling bricks, her smile sharp with careful hope. A quick murmur of appreciation left her lips as she found the ivy conceling a gap în the weather worn walls, the urban ex assholes online were more helpful than she could of possibly imagined.
Her trousers were torn as she climbed in, the material cheap and vines unforseenably throny as she wiggled through and stayed hunched down against the thick brush. Care was scarce here, though she supposed it was abandoned for a reason and the plant life seemed grateful enough as it had sprouted everywhere her eyes could see.
She winced but bit her tounge as each footstep was punctated by a wet squelch. You couldn't expect a red carpet when illgeally trespassing on a secluded island meant to isolate those with lost minds and violent tendencies.
The building here was the oldest, the deteriorating concrete blocks betraying its age as flecks stuck to her shirt when she brushed against them. Ivy mostly hid the decaying body, but the hole blasted into its side further up was hard to conceal. She had seen it from google maps of all things.
At first, she persumed she was loosing her sanity. Maybe the island had that effect. But the thought was discarded as the voice grew louder the closer she got to her entrance point. Only, it wasn't just a voice she heard. The sound was sickening, bones breaking muffled by a manic laughter that only increased as someone let out a wet cough. Probably blood. Definitely blood, as she peeked over the corner of the eroded wall and swallowed down a gasp.
It was splattered everywhere, some old some new. Maroon and burgundy, crimson and carmine. And it stretched into an even larger grin that reflected a deep insanity. A celestial spotlight was focused on a hunched over boy, his ribs and the pallid colour of his skin displayed through the rips în the scrap of material that hung onto his malnourished body.
The figure standing over him was frighteningly familiar, her whole body shutting down at the sight of him. His thin hair was neon- acidic green în colour and painfully bright under moonlight. The scarred smile never left his face, wrinkled chalk white skin reminding her of the corpse she had once seen în crime alley. An abandoned body, stripped of any belongings by her killer or other living beings that had nothing and needed anything. Decomposition had progressed readily, rigor morțiș had long since settled in her limbs as a cloying sweetness flooded every possible corner of the alley. It was pungent. She had held her breathe as she put in an anonymous tip to gotham PD and hurried to class. A fleeting hope that maybe her family could finally grieve passed through her before reality set in. Women with families -real, caring families- didn't walk through crime alley. Not alone, not at night and never alive.
"Birdie lurdie left without wordies.. what's a poor clown to do? Batsy knew what a lost cause you were and here I am.. *stuck with you* while he prances around with a new baby bat." The change în tone caught her attention once again and she watched with a sick fascination. The ugliset things always did catch her eyes, but there was no beauty to be found here as the clown repeatedly struck the battered boy. A gleeful laugh accompanied each punch. There was nothing funny here.
"Maybe Harley will have you perked right up for me. I'll let her give you a lovley little wake up call later.. see if you prefer mommy to daddy."
Not a sound, not a whimper escaped the poor soul. She found herself counting the near imperceptible rise of his shoulders, hoping for another breathe each time. She truly had lost her mind coming here.
The taunts continued even as the clown prince of crime trapised his way out the room with flamboyant dance moves, twirling an imaginary partner that returned the favour for him as he disappeared behind a heavy iron door with a deranged giggle. Silence felt too heavy, too loaded. It was broken by stifled sobs, the boy leaning his head back to face the sky above through a shattered skylight. Her own tears were held back as she observed his meanly biting his bottom lip, blood smeared across his brusied face. The metallic liquid seemed to paint the head of a flower around him, the ravenette acting as the anther.
She didn't think when her body began moving, stepping on silent feet towards the boy too consumed by grief and agony to notice her. Her body paused infront of him, hands hanging uselessly by her sides as her bag slowly slipped down her shoulder. He noticed her and his chapped lips parted as if to speak, glazed over eyes hardening with resignation. Her hand gently covered his mouth before he had a chance to form a word în his throat, her own gaze desperate as she glanced around to reassure herself they were alone before returning to him.
"Don't.. don't speak, please" she said with a low whisper, her voice barely understandable but the desperation în her tone evident. She dug her hand into the tote at her side and pretended not to notice his harsh flinch when she retrieved a sheafed knife. The girl hadn't come wholley unprepared for her trip, she had brought some sort of weapon and had never been more grateful for the insistent salesman that corralaed her to spend money she didn't have on a fishing knife when renting the raft. He was trying to meet a quota and had unknowingly helped her în her impromptu rescue mission. She forgave his arm twisting on the spot and started sawing the rope with vigor. It was braided and unfairly thick but still lost against her panicked movements and the sharp, serrated blade.
Wide, unfocused eyes filled with suspicion and hate tracked every movement she made. The boys limbs twitched when free and she was unsure if it was from shock or an attempt to bring his hands up to strangle her. He still hasd't spoken, a small mercy.
Her next movements were slow, changing her bag to hang cross body as she hesitantly laid a gentle hand on his shoulder and tried to communicate with her eyes. He seemed to understand her body language even if persumably drugged if his blown irises were anything to go off of, not protesting when she lifted his light body up and took the burden of his weight on her side.
"Okay.. okay cool. We're going to get *the fuck* out of here now.." she mumbled softly, thankful that he had some cognition în his legs as he matched every one of her steps with a staggered imitation. Her breathes came fast and panicked whilst his were slow, as if life barely clung on to him. She followed her previous steps in the same silence as before, looking over her shoulder periodically to ensure there was no killer clown or obedient goon tracking them.
The ravenette struggled to stay on his feet, stumbling constantly and threatening to take her down into the overgrown blades of grass with him. Her hands had a light but secure grip on his emaciated waist, grimace restrained at the feeling of uneven skin and not much more.
A whisper of warning seemed to dance with the cold breeze, ruffling her hair and cooling her flushed cheeks. Thorns scraped her face as she pressed herself and the battered boy draped over her through the ivy covered gap, her hands trying to shield him from the vindictive plant.
His weight grew heavier and she gritted her teeth while taking on the new burden with determination. The boy hadn't muttered a single word, hadn't even made a sound since escaping the torture chamber.
The smell of salt and algee assulted her senses like a slap to the face, the sharp smell a jarring contrast to the stale air of the asylum that was likely ridden with black mold and decades of torture disguised as treatment. The sagging body she continued to support was now a dead weight, but his wheezing reassured her he was still with the living despite giving up the facade of fake strength he had clung to. Arkham's silhouette cast an intimidating shadow as she glanced back, yet no green haired lunatic followed them so she continued her path down with her bag thudding against one side and a half dead boy clinging to the other.
"Stay with me. We're almost there.. almost." she tried to reassure him, brows furrowing as she lightly nudged him to stir a reaction. A flicker of attention, a crumb of consciousness.
He didn't respond with words but a rope burned hand squeezed her upper arm, leaving behind a bloody handprint that burned. A reassurance, weak but deliberate. The sigh that slipped from her lips was awfully relieved.
The terrain seemed harder to traverse when reversed, though she supposed she was supporting the weight of a whole other person. Her breathe hitched when the steep cliff caused them to momentarily stumble, threatening a fall into jagged rocks below that seemed to call out in earnest.
A bobbing raft în the distance caused a cautious smile to pull at her lips, a miracle she accepted gratefully.
She felt the familiar prickle of guilt trail down her spine at his pained huffs as she dragged him through uneven brush and down a slippery outcrop of rocks, the sea lapping against the shore and spraying them both with salty water.
He was young, starvation made him look younger. Gaunt and exhausted as she allowed herself to give him a look over once finally on the raft.
He had eyes the same colour as the waves, an endless blue that promised to engulf you in salt and drag you within their dephs. And there was rage. So much of it. The kind of anger that consumed all else, the kind she recognised în herself. Because if you didn't have anger then you had pain, shame.
And shame was a vicious creature. It swallowed you whole and burned.
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The motor started with a ragged sputtering of the engine, likely rusted and eroded from use. This was the type of raft tourists rented for days out on calm waters, shared laughter ringing over the clinking of beer bottles and rustling of cling film keeping handmade sandwiches fresh. Not that gotham had many tourists like that. Those who came to visit the grimy streets and corrupted city often had a sick fascination with the cruelty that slumbered în the shadows. That lept out at you in the form of desperate citizens and greedy thugs. That laughed with mania and bloodlust as bombs ruined lives, as fear gas invaded lungs and drove minds to a insanity indescribable.
Jason Todd didn't let himself believe in the hallucinations that had become a familiar visitor în the last years he had been held captive. The girl before him couldn't be anything more. Could not be real.
Perhaps she was a trap set upon him by the clown prince. Perhaps he would spring out like a jack în the box, the sound of his howling laughter echoing în the night as he was dragged back into the mausoleum of maddness by the roots of his hair.
But he felt the tremours în her hands as she caustiously wrapped a dark zip up around him, saw the attentive way her eyes tracked the healed and the fresh wounds on his body. He could feel the hesitance as she considered saying something but thought better of it. She was real, but maybe that was the punchline.
She drove with inexperience, that much was evident. Jason bit his tounge to contain the hiss of pain that threatened to spill as salted sea water sprayed onto opened skin, stinging maliciously and likely worsening already infected lacerations with debris and bacteria. But the pain was greeted like an old friend. It was a reminder that he was alive, and a calling card for the baffoon he would kill. His ruined hands twitched around the nonexistent end of a crowbar, imagining the harmonic sounds the joker would make as he bashed his smile în.
Her knuckles were white, her grip tight on the throttle as she urged it to quicken its speed. Teeth dug into her bottom lip, a little crooked with sharp canines that reopened a șplit în the skin. She didn't notice, eyes wild and body tense with anxiety as she watched the boat break through the waves and occasionally glanced back towards him.
"Dont die.. please." She mumbled finally, the shore becoming clearer as they neared. He didn't answer and she didn't seem to expect him to, he wasn't even certain the words were truly meant for him. More like a quiet plea finally voiced from where it was repetitively chanted în her head.
The boat groaned with the effort of stopping as she finally docked în an abandoned marina, a graveyard of rust and decay. A few negelcted boats forgotten and stolen by time occupied enough slips that the raft blended în, not that the girl seemed concerned with staying covert. Instead, she focused on the bloodstained boy with a thoughtful expression.
Her breathe was ragged as she hauled him out of the raft with a strength she seemed suprised to possess, Jason's body sagging against her as he swallowed groans of pain at being jostled. She muttered something, too quiet for him to hear but a reassuring sentiment if the softness of her voice was any indication. He despised it.
Rotten wood turned into cracked pavement as she half dragged him to a parking lot hidden behind the harbour, fragmented glass crunching underfoot. Her car was the only one there, chipped and dusty as it was. The passenger side door creaked loudly when she yanked it open, practically cradling him as she maneuvered his body inside and readjusted the seat to provide his gangly limbs with more room.
Once inside her waterlogged bag was thrown in the back carelessly, her hands finding a knitted blanket în the mess behind them and swapping it with the zip up she had tucked around him. It was soft, such a contrast to the scratchy rags and splintered chairs he was used to that he flinched upon feeling it on his skin. She didn't say a word, not about his reaction and not even as he stained her car with puss and blood. Instead, the engine purred to life and she sighed heavily before driving off.
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The Narrows were easily recognisable, an unchangeable creature. Tight alleyways and graffiti lit up by flickering neon signs, old factories and dilapatated residential buildings streaked with grime. The air here was thicker, harder to breathe în. Spilt oil, heavy smog, rotting garbage and desperation that clung to all of gotham like a second skin. Her car bumped along the uneven roads and he noticed her eyes constantly switching between looking ahead and glancing at the rear view mirror. She wasn't completely brain dead then, just reckless. The girl had knowingly stolen the joker's property and now whisked him away to her shitty apartment în a heavily crime ridden neighbourhood, she was weary.
Getting him off the island had been a challenge, and she now faced a new one as they stumbled up stairs. There was no worry of survellience, no threat of whispers and curious gazes. Gothamites knew not to ask questions, not to let their eyes linger for too long. Her derelict building had no need for cameras, the elevator didn't even work. The hour was still late enough that there were no people patrolling the streets, no heading out to dead end jobs or taking hopeful children to crappy schools. That came later.
Their panting breathes were în synch once reaching her floor, a whole seven flights up crooked stairs that complained at even the promise of weight. Shaky hands rifled through the bag slung across her body and eagerly opened the heavy door to her home, barricading it with several locks and a door stopper once inside.
He assessed every dark corner with cautious eyes, looking for flashes of green hair slowly receding further back a pale forehead or a sickly red smile. All he found was canvases and painted walls, murals of the sea and a cloudy sky on the ceiling. He could smell turpentine and stale cigarette smoke, warm light flooding the living room as she flicked on a lamp whilst depositing him on a worn navy couch.
Eyes sharp with suspicion tracked her movements as she disappeared into a smaller room lined with mosaic tiles and a quiet curse followed, desperate rattling heard as she likely dug through cabinets and didn't find what she was searching for. She shuffled out with her shoulders set in dissapointment, a mostly empty first aid kit held limply în her hands that she tossed on the stained coffee table infront of him before collapsing beside it.
"Fucking fantastic night.. fucking Gotham, fucking Arkham.. fucking first aid piece of shit kit.."
Her words were dissarming and if he could he might of huffed în amusement, but his throat still burned from the glass that had been hidden in the drugged scraps he had been force fed. She suddenly sprung up, reinvigorated as she rushed around the room and ducked behind another door further down a darkened hallway he couldn't see clearly. When she appeared infront of him again her body was covered in a woolen coat that hid the waterlogged clothing beneath, a glass of water and still sealed protein bar în one hand and a fucking gun în the other. He almost sprung into action, ready to strangle the life out of her even în his weakened state. Corroded muscles bristled, lip beginning to twitch into a snarl.
"Shoot anyone that isn't me.. I'll be back soon, okay?" She murmured softly, brows furrowing în dissapointment at herself when she noticed his reaction. Stupid girl. She crouched down and set all the items down slowly on the table alongside the half empty kit, sliding the gun closer to him with hardened eyes.
And then she was gone în a flurry, the door locking with a quiet click that half promised a bread crumb of safety.
He sat there for a moment, hunched over and bleeding în a strangers home, distant laughter echoing în his mind. Then the protein bar was ripped open with stiff, bloodied fingers.
Food had been turned into threat by the clown, anything given was poision. Micro-dosed with painful toxins or quick acting sedatives. He bit into it anyways, even as his instincts growled în protest. It was soft but chewy, his jaw grinding and stomach protesting as it sunk like an anchor. He was more coherent after downing the water, throat soothed and tortured by the fresh liquid washing away the metallic taste that always lingered. The drugs he had been slipped had mostly worn off.
Pain spiderwebbed delicately across his torso as he reached over and took the gun în a shaking hand. A standard glock. The serial number was scratched off and it was worn from age but seemed to be functional. Its weight allowed him to finally breathe. His mind to think, process.
The girl seemed to be around his age, and at seventeen it seemed ridiculous to consider that she had rescued him from hell. But she had. No one else did- Batman hadn't. She lived alone, that much was obvious. Likely no family. Her apartment was în the Narrows and she had somehow snuck into Arkham, a high security prison on a remote island. She had seen the fucking joker taunting him, torturing him. Seen his mangled body, a living corpse. Somehow, she had thought rescuing him was a bright idea. He concluded that she must of been out of her mind and unreasonably lucky. There was no other plausible explanation.
He observed the walls of her home. An ocean. Deep, dark and swallowing. Comforting, almost. The sky above was hope, he mused. Canvases leaned across several walls, a variety of sizes all crafted by hand from warping wood and cream coloured cloth. Some she had started, some were half finished and others empty. Nothing complete, not here. The apartment was cluttered în a way that made it feel homely, lived în. Everything looked second hand, repurposed and given another chance.
The blanket still wrapped around him smelt like coconut body lotion and tobacco, the dark gray wool stained by his blood and old splatters of paint. It hid his mutilated body and brought him warmth. It also reminded him of her. He didn't like it, didn't like her. Nameless and reckless.
He was indebted to her. He fucking hated her.
The door clicked once again, opening to reveal her soaked figure. Only then did he register the sound of rain hitting the stained glass of her windows, a natrual synphony. He kept the gun aimed at her and she simply raised a brow, almost proud. Her footsteps didn't falter after she relocked the door, dumping the contents of her duffle bag on the coffee table with his empty glass and shredded wrapper. She hadn't had a duffle bag when she left. She definitely hadn't had a cut open hand or the money for the medical supplies that fell out the bag still bound with a security tag.
"You can shoot me, if you'd like. If you need. But, maybe after I take care of all of those."
She waved distractedly at his form and looked through her haul, attentive eyes flickering over each item as if catalouging each one by usefulness.
"You're fucking psychotic."
His voice was hoarse, a painful rasp dragging after each word. She blinked once, then twice. Her lips twitched into a half smile, shrugging her coat off and letting her hands fall to rest on the tops of her thighs. Blood from her battered hand bloomed in the material.
"Throwing stones at glass houses, zombie-boy?"
Jason would of laughed if he remembered how. Instead he studied her through critical eyes, stormy and violent but clearer than when she had first hooked her arm beneath cracked ribs and lugged him away from the hellhole he thought he'd be buried in. Tanned skin was now pale and sunken from malnutrition and abuse. The clown had broken him down and turned him into something new. A beast of hate. Something ghastly and bursting at the seams for revenge. His body was ruined, but the damage to his mind was worse. That couldn't be scraped clean with a scapel and disinfected, the rot would continue to fester. Everything was a joke now, he would just have to wait for the punchline to land. For the threat to be revealed, kindness to wash away and reveal pain.
But she didn't waver, gaze patient as she stared at him instead of the gun pointed at her head. No pity, no sympathy. Just understanding that crackled and hissed like a flame.
The gun only lowered into his lap when she started to move again, ignoring her own bloody fingers and dragging blue medical gloves over the mess to prevent any further infections. She opened a bottle of antiseptic and sniffed it curiously, her nose wrinkling softly at the biting smell. He didn't push her away when she gently tugged at the blanket and cut the scraps of his shirt with a pair of medical shears. În return, she didn't flinch at the spilling watercolour of bruises painting his skin.
"Your name?" She mumbled, the rain outside as persistent as the shouting and gunshots. He would of tensed but his muscles were already contracted with wariness from her proximity.
She didn't apologise whilst cleaning him up, she seemed to know he had no use for the words. What's a murmured I'm sorry when compared with brutality paired with a mocking laugh of maddness. Her hands were clumsy but steady, unshaken by the gore and unused to patching up others. Hands made to create art, to sketch and paint and smudge charcoal into thick paper. Those hands pieced his body back together.
"Why'd you do it?" He combatted easily, so used to being on the offensive. So ready to bite the hand that offered help. Names held weight, history. A painful flicker of a past life ripped away from him with each strike of the crowbar. She wouldn't get his so easily.
She shrugged whilst sewing up the largest gash than ran down his side, a hooked thing that eerily resembled a familiar smile. It was irritated, even if she was careful whilst cleansing and disinfecting. The beginning of the stitch was messy but neatened up as she got used to the odd texture of skin instead of textile. Sinew rather than silk or velvet. She didn't ask him to elaborate, she had seen the question lingering în his eyes since he first looked at her. Really looked at her.
"Didn't like his laugh.."
The words hung în the air, deflection and a quiet anger. The kind that simmered. The kind that they seemed to share. Then she asked for his name again, as rain tapped with erratic bursts against her windows asking to be let în.
Birdie lurdie left without wordies.
"You don't come to Arkham. You're dragged there."
An accusation, a test. Jason's fists clenched in preparation for her answer but she simply closed the wound with a tug and tied a haphazardous knot. She drenched the agitated skin în iodine and wrapped it with gauze, appraising her improvised handiwork with critical eyes as if it were one of the half started paintings littering the room.
"I didn't come for you, I went for inspiration. For connection.. I didn't like his laugh so I took the cause. He won't laugh at you again."
And that was it. Said like a promise, as if the half starved girl with unforseenable luck and paint stained fingers could do anything against the clown prince of crime. It caused him to spiral but that was it. She didn't explain any further, didn't even glance at him. Her hands tackled a series of latticed cuts on his other side and the laughter în his mind faded if just for the moment.
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She was rewarded with his name after wrapping him up like an Egyptian corpse, a soft murmur that sounded half lost.
"Jason.. Todd."
Like the greek hero. It made sense, he reeked of tradegy and looked like a marble statue. The ones you saw în museums, missing limbs and long wiped of any colour that painted them with life. Blank and broken, but still there.
Her hands paused on his face where they had been busy wiping away the puss from the 'J' that marked his cheek, the brand infected and vile. A soft hum of her own name returned his as she lathered the mark with a soothing salve meant for burns. She didn't wrap it, it would need to breathe.
"You robbed a pharmacy?"
That made her snort, looking back at the array of medical supplies she had no business owning with a guiltless expression.
"Big pharama doesn't need any more money. And it was a chemist.."
There was still blood smudged on her mouth from the cut on her bottom lip she had reopened whilst they escaped, her hand was encrusted with it beneath the blue latex.
She pulled a new blanket atop of him, sky blue like the mural above them. It still smelt like her so he hated it, even if the weight provided a comfort that felt like the beginning of an agonising joke. But she wasn't a trap, he had determined that as the sun slowly rose over the skeletal skyline of gotham. The joker liked instant gratification from his cruelty, an explosion of pain he could waltz to the beat of. He still clutched the glock tighter beneath the blanket, his swollen fingers resting on the trigger.
"What do you like to eat? I've got 25 cence ramen that's pretty.. edible."
"Not hungry."
His answer was instant but so was the flat look she gave him, groaning as she rose from the seat beside him and stretched weary bones. They popped into place as she padded towards the kitchen behind the couch, the arched window peering in from the living room allowing his eyes to survellience her.
She hadn't changed, hadn't really cleaned up since she took him from Arkham and ran. Her clothes were ripped from the thorny wall she had pushed them through, soaked with sea water and then rain that made the fabric dry with a crunchy texture. She washed her hands before starting the kettle and digging through her half empty pantry, throwing a cup of ramen on the abused butcher top counter.
When she returned she brought the smell of cheap broth with her, the plastic cup with curling steam set infront of him alongside a glass of water that seemed large enough to be classified as a bowl. She had stuck a straw în, lavender în colour with a orange tabby figurine hugging the tube.
"It's not drugged.. and you've got to eat so I can give you the fuck tonne of anti biotics I.. procured."
She said with an easy tone, ripping back the crumpled foil top of the noddles and loading a forkful în her own mouth. She chewed them slowly, even opening her mouth to show him an absecence of food after swallowing with a telling bob of her throat.
Collapsing on the charcoal armchair on the other side of the low coffee table, she curled up with a relieved sigh as her body sunk into the soft material. Her hands fiddled with a drawer on a little bed side table she had in her living room, Jason's grip on the gun relaxing once observing that she had just reached for a pack of cigarettes and a dull lighter balanced on a childish ashtray.
She lit up with a quiet click, hair draped over one arm of the chair and legs hanging off the other. Her tired eyes gazed at the ceiling -the sky- as if it were real. As if she were cloud watching right now instead of în a room with a stolen, broken boy who aimed a concealed gun at her. A gun she had given him.
He didn't take his eyes off the girl whilst he ate, each noddle dragging down his throat like barbed wire and settling în his shrunken stomach with a thud. She didn't smile, but seemed pleased from the glance she threw him from the corner of her eye. Smoke slithered from between plush lips, the smell of antiseptic and blood dulled by warm tobacco.
"It's yours.. the gun. You can keep it." She said, lazy gray tendrils drifting up into the clouds. She had no idea what she'd done. Or worse, she did and didn't care. He was right to call her insane, what kind of person would steal from a man when seeing what he was capable of? It was written all across his body, bruises smudged like oil paints into unnaturally pale skin and jagged slashes decorative and painful. She had popped his shoulder back into place after watching a fucking video on her phone, eyes narrowed as she observed the quick movements and imitated with too much confidence. A blank canvas had been smashed carelessly against the floor, using the wood of the frame as a makeshift splint she secured to his left leg with stolen medical tape. All his injuries had been overseen by her unexprienced eyes: the clowns handiwork. And she stole him.
The girl didn't bristle at his ungrateful silence, just let it linger as the sun continued to rise lazily and she finished the smoking cylinder tucked between her lips. A maroon stain was left behind on the filter.
"I'm moving you to a bed. The couch isn't a good place for healing."
A warning, so he wouldn't shoot her dead as soon as she moved towards him. The floorboards complained even louder under their combined weights, a thud following as his blanket fell off his form whilst they staggered down the hallway to a room she had ducked în previously. They passed a singular picture frame nailed to the wall, unbalanced and tilting to the right. The end of his splint scratched the wood below and left a path în their wake, the noise grating and distracting as he tried to listen out for other noises în the apartment. There was nothing -from inside atleast, the narrows now bustled outside- apart from her strained breathing.
The door was a dark grey, a chipped ombre fading into a softer tone. It creaked as she elbowed it open, pausing at the doorway as he did. Eyes flickered from one corner to another, searching shadows as the gun still glued to his hand was weakly lifted to follow his eyesight. She waited patiently despite struggling to maintain her supportive grip, the adrenaline had long since left her body and her limbs were now wracked with exhaustion. They trembled but held, resillient.
When he leaned forward she followed obediently, setting him on the lumpy mattress with careful hands. Whilst the living room had been all waves and deep dephs, her bedroom was a tempestuous storm. Slate nimbostratus on every wall, ashen clouds uniformed and thick. He followed rays of silvery light to a nook în the skys, the moon nestled amongst the cirrostratus to peek out of the mist. Above, the clouds framed a dark night sky. It was littered with consellations and lonely stray stars.
"Those are yours.." she said with a breathless tone, kicking clothes towards an empty basket they likely belonged în as her hand pointed vaugley to the ceiling. His eyes tracked her careless wave to a cluster above the window, they were teetering on the edge of being engulfed by the clouds that crept up from the walls. She had made them brighter than some of the others.
"Mine?" His voice still sounded hoarse but the words no longer scraped as roughly when leaving his throat.
"Argo Narvis. Jason was a greek hero, he sailed on the ship Argo with the Argonauts to retrieve the golden fleece. The stars form the vessel they traveled on." Her explanation was brief and absentminded as she flitted busily around the room, bumping into a towering bookcase and cursing softly beneath her breathe. He jumped at the sound like he was the one hurt, atrophied muscles tense and aching. Finger crooked on the trigger, eyes abandoning the stars.
The rain had stopped, the room quiet. It faced an alley from what he had seen through the gap în the curtains, outside noises muffled.
He looked like a frightened animal, cornered and ready to bite. The gunmetal blue of his gaze was calculating, unblinking as he tracked every small move she made. Bending down at the knees with a mumbled complaint, she gathered the books that had fallen with her collision and slid them into their rightful place. The gun lowered onto his bandaged thigh, waiting.
"Did you Google that too, or are those books for more than show?"
"Funny" She deadpanned, split lips twitching in stifled amusement. Her fingers plucked a crinkled paperback after a quick scan of the shelves, the pages yellowed with age. The dogears were evident from where he sat, she could see the judgement clouding metallic blue.
"Do you read?" A simple question, but he hesitated to answer regardless. She hadn't asked him about Arkham, about the clown. She didn't ask about his life before or why he had been tortured. She gave him space and privacy: it felt suffocating.
"I can read." Clipped and short, defensive.
"I didn't ask if you can read, I asked if you do read." She rolled her eyes, her inflection harmlessly teasing. Even that was too much, his breathing quickening alongside the frantic flutters of his heart. He waited for the haunting howl of laughter that never came. She didn't.
Her footsteps were purposefully loud and slow, approaching the foot of the bed and leaving the paperback lying limply on wrinkled sheets.
"Learn the stars you sleep under. You're going to be in bed for awhile, zombie-boy."
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She had opened the antibiotics under his survellience, dropping a few în a delicate teacup that looked like it came from a childs play set. It was flecked in old acrylic. Her improvisation of the doses was painfully evident, her eyes spying a box of anti-inflammatory pills în the medical supplies she had piled on the recently cleaned desk and sprinkling in a generous amount of those aswell. Expectant eyes stayed trained on him to make sure he swallowed each one, but her mouth remained empty of chastisement.
He shifted atop the mattress with uncertainty, it was comfortable despite the fact that it had formed awkward lumps over time. Comfort was a foreign concept, dreamlike and distant, so his body remained rigid despite the call to relax. All he could remember was the întolerable back of the rusted wheelchair he had been chained to, the soft leather being removed so that springs and bolts could dig into him. Then wrappes in barbed wire, metal teeth shredding the skin of his back. He could see it for a moment- the begrimed tiles of Arkham's hallways passing în his peripheral as he was rolled into a cafeteria. Patients waiting with sick smiles, cracking their knuckles and eyeing him, their gazes alight with violence. Their uniformed wranglers paid to remain silent -or threatened- as gothams worse broke the bones of a tormented boy. A laugh track bounced off dusty walls.
"You always bring home strays?" He rasped mockingly, downing the cup full of medication after scanning it for the distinctive shine of powdered glass. He gulped down water greedily before continuing. "Or am I special?"
"You're definitely not ordinary." She said harmlessly, not rising to his prodding. He shifted beneath the duvet she had tucked around him, his splint scraping against the soft material and likely tearing it. The metal had warmed în his calloused hand but he no longer hovered his finger over the trigger. A keen gaze honed în on the window, looking for an escape route if the worse came with a scarlet smile. The black out curtains were still messily drawn but hung a little short, a silver lock evident from where it dangled beneath- gleaming under dull daylight. Outside was certainly overcast, the Narrows always were.
"You going to tell me what the fuck you expect to get out of this?" Hostility was easy when you were filled with rage, and what better target than a passive girl who didn't shrivel at his anger but instead greeted it with familiarity and acceptance.
She didn't respond until she had situated herself across a victorianesque chaise lounge pushed against the wall by the door, mahogany body upholstered în a midnight velveteen. Her scraped up hand reached for one of the smaller battered sketchbooks on a nearby side table, seemingly plucking a thick graphite pencil from thin air, and flipped through it în her lap until locating an empty page. He couldn't see what she was sketching furiously, just the concentrated furrow of her eyebrows as she focused.
"By taking you?" She mumbled finally, sparing a fleeting look to were he was propped up on a mountain of mismatched pillows.
"By *keeping* me." He sounded like her father, his tone of voice low and dangerous. She braced for an impact that never came and almost laughed at herself, perhaps Arkham had kept her sanity. Her mind for his life. It would of explained why her messy lines were beginning to form something awfully beautiful. *The best artists always ended up mad.*
"I didn't think that far ahead, but I'm not keeping you. People aren't meant to be kept. To be owned. People stay, and you are free to do so if that's what you want. But I'm not keeping you." Not like him. It went unsaid but struck him with the force of the first impact of the crowbar. He licked over the spot where a tooth was missing as if savoring the memory. Joker's smile would be gummy and grotesque when he was finished. Then the grin would be wiped from the world and he could take his first breathe since Arkham, unburdened.
"Sleep. I'm got a night shift later, I won't be at home to keep an eye out."
Her fingers absentmindedly curled around the corner of the paper, the thick cartrigde bending to her will. Soft scratching filled the silence as her pencil perservered, joined în an odd harmony by the sibilant hissing of the radiator beneath her walnut desk. A lullaby.
*Humpty dumpty sat on a wall.. The little bird had a great fall..*
Not a nursey rhyme, not his voice. An unintentional lullaby that calmed his heart to a steady rhythm, his lids suddenly heavy. His instincts still remained, no matter how long it had been since his capture. One wrong move and he could shoot her dead, wake up to find a corpse unable to hurt him. Unable to take him back.
"I'm not your stray." Voice firm and gravelly. She didn't respond, absorbed into the image coming to life on paper. But she stayed alert, a glorified guard dog.
_________________________________________
In his nightmares, Jason didn't see the Joker. He dreamt of Bruce. Dreamt of swinging through the skys, wind bitten cheeks stretched into the careless grin that accompanied youth. The bat was always ahead, experienced and strict but fond. And then disgusted, as the dream would twist. Disgusted at his explosive temper, his lack of restraint and short fuse. Then indifferent, leaving him to die în Arkham. And finally, relieved, selecting a new Robin -a better Robin- with discipline and patience.
*You're **my** sidekick now.*
He jolted awake at the sound of keys singing like wind chimes, gun raised immediately as he surveyed the room. The girl was gone, the door closing with a whiney creak.
He settled against the headboard, tipping his head back towards the painted sky. Argo Narvis waited for him to find it, shining artificially.
Night had settled once again, embracing the room în a darkness both comforting and threatening. She had left him alone în her space, a fools decision he would take advantage of. Her brains would join the murals în decorating the walls of her home if he found anything telling. Anything linking her back to him.
Sore muscles protested, canabalised into a ghost of his former strength. His bare feet hit the cold parquet and the chill grounded him, a shudder running down each protruding notch of his spine. Clothing was messily folded into a pile by the foot of the bed, resting there with a note and the astrology book she had offered him hours earlier. They smelt like cheap detergent and were too large for his starved frame, the note encouraging him to take them before ending with a reminder that she had gone to work.
Everything ached, his movements much too sluggish than preferred as he stalked around the room with a honed gaze and limping leg. It was a chaotic maze of her belongings: deserted items of clothes, tubes of paint strewn across the floor like landmines and towers of aging tomes that couldn't find space on the warped shelves of her bookcase. And canvases, this time completed. The faces of strangers watched him curiously as he moved about the room, digging through drawers and scrutinizing everything he found. Under the bed, beneath the mattress, testing loose floorboards, knocking on walls for a cavity, prying for loose bottoms. Her bedroom was clean.
The kitchen, living room and bathroom suffered through similar ordeals despite how his body protested at the overexertion. Nothing with a smile, no ominous 'J's carved into wood as a sign of ownership or concealed weapons to be used against him. Nothing much of value at all, he concluded.
The pantry had lacked în nurition, bare bones staring back at him hopelessly as he stole another protein bar to wash down with tap water. The rest of the cupboards were similarly distressed, as was the fridge after managing to shake it open from the knotted nylon rope that held it closed.
Reluctantly, and with much caution, he threw off the clothes she had left him and took a shower. Years of grime washed off him revealing nothing but brutality and bones, the bruises much more strident against the paleness of his clean skin. Lacerations that were now free of bandaging looked irritated, their amature stitching whilst messy managed to keep them shut. Atleast they didn't seem infected. He avoided putting pressure on the broken leg that required a splint, occasionally sitting down on a stool that conveniently rested in the corner. Chemical burns and bullet wounds created a rough texture when he dragged soapy suds along his flesh. The grouves and bumps each adding a tally for every strike the Joker would feel before he died, and rising the number of punches the bat would take to the face before he left the living too.
The spray of water didn't leave the shower head without a squeak that dragged against his eardrums, but the temperature helped to temporarily soothe the tension that always lingered. He loitered for longer than nescessary under the waterfall, letting it caress the features chiselled into the moonstone of his face until it ran icy.
The mirror was fogged when he stepped from behind the curtain, his eyes darting from the closed door to every inch of the small room before towelling himself off. The gun remained în his sights and his back stayed to the wall as cotton sweatpants slid over his legs and a hoodie sealed his scarred chest behind a layer of fabric, hiding weakness.
He resolved to search the living room again while alone, the larger space most likely to present him with the evidence he needed. Because if there wasn't any, then she was telling the truth. If there wasn't any, then he would have to face that.
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Ta daaaa!! All done for now :pp
Jason, my princess, you'll forever be famous to me and a select group of individuals (baddies)
Bye guys <33
MWAH
