I’m going to be honest but I’ve actually still been thinking about the Neglected Wayne and the Best Friend!Reader. Like I can imagine that the reader is still grieving their friend while they’re stuck in that fvckass mansion 🥲 Will the batfam at least let us visit their grave to mourn or something?? 😭 Or would they only let us visit if we’re on “good behavior” towards them (If they’re the type to do that 😓)
Best friend reader is grieving horribly. While Best friend reader and Neglected Wayne were never lovers or shared blood, their bond was strong, being the others favorite person.
As an example to show how close there were to each other, neglected Wayne once had a dream that Best friend Reader was going to install a shelf, but after they got done they realized they didn't like the placement and got sad. Neglected Wayne woke up, called Best friend Reader, told them to not install the shelf, that they wont like it and then fell back asleep. Best friend Reader was holding the shelf when Neglected Wayne called and has no idea how they knew about the shelf, but listened. The next day NW stopped by and and they both isntalled the shelf in a better place, it was fun.
I think when NW died, a part of Best friend Reader died with them, they couldnt eat, nothing tasted good anymore. It was tasteless, flavors that used to coat their tongue deliciously now just ashen mush. What was the point when you couldn't share your favorite meal with your favorite person?
You couldn't sleep because every time you would close your eyes, your mind would assault you with nightmares of Neglected Wayne's last moments. You wonder if they felt scared and alone, if they felt like you abandoned them.
You have dreams of happy times you could never get back. Your heart broke more each time you had a good dream of your best friend because you would be looking at them, truly looking at them and then realized something was wrong. A miniscule detail that would cause the dream to crumple all around you as you felt your heart break, remembering that they were gone. You'd try desperately to stay asleep, to stay by their side like you promised each other when you both were little, exchanging matching bracelets. It broke you how you would never get to laugh and joke with your dearest friend ever again, never hear them give updates on the office drama of Wayne Enterprise... never see them fall in love and live the life they deserve.
It was torture. They say the firsts after a death is the worst, but nothing could prepare you for the first that will never come. If your in high school, you'll never see your friend graduate. Never see them possibly fall in love, get married and start a family, or pursue their passions and start up a business they always imagined. You'll never be able to take that dream vacation with them, never tell them about your life and watch as they get excited for you.
You'll never get to make and share future inside jokes.
Hell, even color became less vibrant. You use to think that when a character in a movie or book spoke about how the world lost its color when they lost a love one was an exaggeration, with you and Neglected Wayne making an off colored joke about how grief makes people colorblind... Now you know its true. You dream in vibrant warm colors, only to wake up to grey.
But what got to you the most in your grief were the moments you felt okay. Those were the moments that really gut punched you, they made you wonder if you were a good person and friend. How could you take a 'break' from grieving? How dare you 'forget' momentarily that you lost someone? Why are you smiling? Their dead. Their gone forever and you cant do a damn thing about it, no matter how much you cry, how much you beg, you can't do a damn thing except swallow that fact. And if you don't? Life will shove it down your throat and demand that you thank it.
You hate the Wayne's, you hate how those fuckass, vampire looking motherfuckers drained the life from your dear friend, how they never cared.
They were never family to your friend, they were truly the opposite of love, they were indifferent.
It was the softest cruelty you've ever seen.
It reminded you of frostbite, it left you cold, numb and having to cut off the dead parts of you so that they don't infect your blood, poisoning the rest of your body.
You tried your best to shield your friend from the cold of their indifference, tried to light fires under them to make them see how cruel they were being, you tried over and over and over aND OVER-
And somehow, they took your harsh criticisms and morphed them into some delusional, perverse and down right STUPID belief that you were just trying to get their attention, speaking amongst themselves as they theorized if you were truly friends with NW or if you were trying to just use them to get close to the "family".
You had to pull your friend aside and let them know that you could never come back to the manor, telling them if you were to return and see their family that you would either end up injured or in jail from trying to attack them.
You loved your friend, truly, but your hatred for their family was like a bullet lodged inside of you, infecting your bloodstream and making you rabid.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
But, back to your question, my apologies, my brain is being eaten with these thought worms.
I think they would use seeing your friends grave as a means to control you and your behavior.
If you are trapped in the mansion with them, they will dangle the prospect of going outside and visiting your friend's grave over your head to make you more compliant and less volitile.
"Of course you can visit their grave today! Only if you spend time with me instead of the others though, fledgling."
"If you keep disrespecting me and the others in the house you can forget visiting them today and for the rest of the week."
"Lets make a deal, for every 15 minutes you spend in my room, you get 15 minutes outside visiting them."
If you behave extremely badly, screaming, cussing, throwing things, hurting them, hurting yourself, they will threaten to either not let you outside the manor for an extended but undetermined amount of time, or threaten to move the remains of your friend.
Clearly your proximity to the grave is making you act out, trying to escape, grabbing furniture and slamming it against the windows, trying to break it.
Trying to get out so that you could breath without being overwhelmed with the intense hatred that refused to leave you.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
If you live outside the manor, they will use visiting thier grave as a way to lure you in.
You aren't dumb, you know that they are trying to lure you in, whether its a trap or to coaks you into spending time with them you are unsure, but what you do know is that you can't go to that house.
Not without experiencing so much rage and hatred that you struggle to not shake and cry.
But you don't want to abandon your friend. Would they manage thier grave? Would they remember to leave flowers out for their birthday? No...
You doubt they would, so you swallow your rage and hold back your tears as you put on an Oscar worthy fake smile and agree to take a visit to the manor.
