Monsters

YO! Ok these next two chapters are looooong, which is why I've taken my sweet time with them hehe. Hope you enjoy the increasing chaos ;).

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The entrance to Wayne Enterprises was abuzz with expensive suited business people, as it always was. But Bruce Wayne himself was stock still as the swarms of people flowed past him, eyeing the television behind the Reception desk with a grim expression on his face, a fixed determination that didn’t quite reach the darkness of his eyes. It had been inevitable. He had known that much as soon as he had heard that the Joker had escaped Arkham.

‘It seeeems, that everyone in Gotham is divided. Divided upon the issue of, The Batman.’ A high-pitched giggle interrupted the Joker’s spiel, his lurid face wobbling in and out of focus on the clearly hand-held camera.

‘Has he come to save us, or kill us all? Well, I’m as curious as the next guy, to test the integrity of our favourite caped crusader. Which is why tonight, Batman will take part in a little test of priorities. Either he comes and stops me from freeing the majority of felons cooling off in Gotham County, or he protects three key buildings which are in danger of being reduced to rubble tonight. Which three buildings, is all, part of the fun. Let’s see what matters most, to the Batman.’

Even as the Joker was finishing his sentence and the connection was cutting off Bruce was turning and heading out of the building, cutting a swathe through the people. He reached for his phone inside his jacket and headed towards his parking space.

‘Alfred? We have a problem...’

‘I know sir, I just saw the news.’

‘I need you to go and do some research for me. Find out which public buildings have accessible cellars or rooftops; find out which of them are closed and the distance between them. Include power stations, water company systems. “Key buildings” isn’t exactly giving us much. We need to find out which buildings the Joker is focusing on.’

‘Will do sir. Should I prepare the Batpod?’

‘Isn’t Lucius finished with the car’s new design?’

‘I’m afraid not sir.’

‘Looks like the bike will have to do. ‘

Bruce hung up and pulled out of the parking area, the Lamborghini’s engine roaring as he accelerated.

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The longer they drove, the more Sally felt cold clear reality grip at her. Crammed in to a seat in the front with the Joker, a seat that was sensibly only meant to take one person, she watched the familiar streets of Gotham sail past her window in the pale morning light. As crisp as the sun hitting those graffiti-smudged buildings, she felt dread. Nameless fears came with seeing the streets she worked on, the districts she knew like the back of her hand. Even the heat of the Joker’s thigh pressed against her own did little to confirm for her that she had not dreamt everything that had occurred. She knew even as she struggled with the feeling, that everything had changed. What he had shown her, and the world she had slunk around the edges of before, could not co-exist. All the memories of nights she had tried to drink away, the blood she had washed away, the rush of the screaming, were stitching themselves together into a different world. And she could not indulge both as she had before.

Her silence had not disrupted the Joker’s good cheer in the slightest however – he was positively jiggling in the seat with enthusiasm, murmuring to himself as he stared out at the messy streets. Sally had avoided disrupting him at all costs – she already knew just how unpredictable his changes of mood could be. Abruptly he snaked an arm around her shoulders and gave her a long hard squeeze, reaching into his inside pocket.

‘Now if I give you this, you’re going to have to promise to be a good girl, and behave.’ He drawled slowly, fixing her with a look which would have been serious on anyone else’s face. When she simply stared back at him and didn’t reply, he pulled a long sheathed knife from his pocket. He dangled it in front of her nose, waiting for her reaction, giggling when she finally took a swipe at it and snatched it from him. She unsheathed it and stared at the perfect razor sharp edge of it for a moment. Things immediately felt more solid, more safe, more easy to control, now that she had a knife in her hands. The urge to test the knife was so strong it almost mastered her muscles without her permission.

‘And you want me to be a GOOD girl with this? What do you expect me to do with it? Whittle something?’ she asked finally. He waved the arm around her shoulders vaguely.

‘Improvise. I want you to play on a whole new scale than you’re used to. ‘ As one of his gloved hands coiled in to her hair he seemed momentarily distracted, while he leant forward and smelt the nape of her neck, the thick coil of her hair he held on to. His scent invaded her, paint and sweat and blood. Her spine whiplashed in sheer reaction, her skin tingling as she jerked away from him. He was making thinking hard.

‘Time to make a choice sweetheart.’ He said it so casually it almost didn’t seem a threat. But all the same, she knew that was what it was.
‘Civilisation, or someone who can actually see clearly. And I think we both know, where you know you belong.’
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Jim Gordon was not accustomed to seeing the Batman in daylight. He was no less imposing as the shards of sunset flung over him and into the Commissioner’s eyes. Meeting on rooftops did not exactly defend Gordon’s vision, but then he trusted this man, who was more than a man, above all else. The entire police force had been working themselves to sweat and bone all day after the Joker’s News report.

‘Found out anything?’ The Batman never bothered with civilities. But he knew to keep his voice quiet. If anyone knew what the Commissioner still affiliated with a vigilante “cop Killer”, then it would compromise the only ally he now had.

‘Not much. We know what buildings he isn’t targeting. Options are still Town Hall, the Water Company, District Attorneys Office, Gotham Arts Museum....’

‘It will be three of those four. I’ve collaborated the distances, if he intends detonators of the sort he usually uses he’ll need them to be within a ten mile radius of each other. ‘

‘Well let’s hope he’s....’

Commissioner Gordon wasn’t surprised to see nothing when he looked back around. He knew that his team would have support – he just never knew when it was coming when it came from such an unexpected source. Now more than ever, when police policy dictated that Batman was an enemy, his plans were unknown by the Commissioner.

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The explosion was still ringing in her ears, a buzzing echo of the roar of burning flames, glass cracking, mortar shattering. Her skin tingled with the heat it had emitted and she felt punch-drunk, senses soaring, as she picked her way through the rubble, scorching heat touching her on each side.

‘Ahhh, good good. Survivors are useful. Hello there young man.’

She glanced back at the Joker as he wrenched a heavily bleeding prison guard upright, hooking an arm around the man’s throat and nestling the knife to his jugular with all the practised familiarity of a killer born. She was surprised there was anyone alive; the explosion had taken out most of the Guards station and a large portion of the exterior prison walls. Alarms were shrilling noisily from the nearby Prison Blocks, and she was quite sure that they would all be going in to lock down.

‘Why don’t you boys go and chase the cowardly little Warden out from beneath his office desk, hmmm?’ the Joker said, waving his masked men away, already looking elsewhere, scanning the detritus. The men took off across the prison recreation ground at a sprint, heading towards the nearest building. Sally only presumed that they had a plan of some kind. Blowing their way inside the perimeter would only get them so far. It didn’t bother her in that tingling, adrenaline-fuelled moment that she didn’t know what was happening, what the plan was, if there even was one. And she knew why, she knew that a part of her felt this made her exempt from any guilt. She was being dragged along in the undercurrent, she was amidst but not to blame.

Still making excuses for yourself. Even when there’s no one here to judge you.

Standing in the smoking remains of the symbol of rehabilitation and judgement, she clenched her new blade tightly and pondered for the millionth time what she was doing.

‘Saaaallly. Don’t get all in-tro-spective on me...’

She looked across at him, clutching tightly to the semi-conscious guard, but with his gaze locked on her. His breath was even but his eyes gleamed with excitement.

‘Here, hold this for me. Might help you, go with the flow, a little better.’ He said briskly, unceremoniously dumping the guard into her arms. She grunted as she took the weight of him, considerably more than she had been expecting and buckled slightly before shooting the Joker a glare. Huffing, she hoisted the guard higher up in her arms, and proceeded to stagger after the Joker carrying him. The guard’s head lolled, smacking into her shoulder intermittently. Mumbling several choice words with regard to the Joker’s immediate family, Sally continued to struggle forward with the full body weight of a man who weighed several stone more than her.

‘Please.... Please, I have a wife...’ His voice sounded garbled and thick, barely coherent. She gritted her teeth and kept moving.

‘Sorry to hear that buddy. Now wake up, the only reason you’re alive is you’ll make a nice human shield. I don’t want to have to drag your heavy ass everywhere.’ Shifting his dead weight on to one arm, she looped the other arm round his waist, taking his gun from its holster. Exasperated, she dropped him, sticking her sheathed knife into the back of her jeans before tentatively inspecting the gun. The alarms continued to shrill as she focused on the safety catch, flicking it off and on experimentally. Amidst the acrid stink of smoke she was beginning to catch the scent of burning flesh.

The cold metal of the gun felt good against her hand as she gripped the guard under one armpit, pulling him upright. He staggered but seemed a little more stable now, and she did not need to carry his full weight as she latched an arm around his neck.

‘Look at you. You’re barely tall enough to see over him!’ the Joker sniggered somewhere ahead of them. She stood on tiptoe and glared at him.

‘I didn’t want him. You brought him along.’

The Joker rolled his eyes and promptly snatched the groggy guard back off her. ‘You don’t appreciate any of the nice little gifts I give you.’ He murmured, synching his knife back against the man’s throat, his chest pressed neatly against his back.

‘On the contrary, I’m very happy with the knife.’ She retorted, hearing metal doors clanging open, yelling, boots thudding on concrete floors in the buildings ahead of them. She rather wished she had the human shield back in that moment. From the sound of it, the guards that had been on duty were regrouping.

Her stomach twisted as he shot her a lazy, ponderous look, working his tongue slowly around the inside of his mouth.

‘I bet you are. Told you that you and me were going to get along Sally.’ He said darkly.

She ventured a grin at him, not quite sure why she did beyond the sheer impulsive sense of HIM, a rush of pleasure at pleasing him. It repulsed her even as she felt it, the neediness that underlined it in a way she didn’t think she’d ever experienced.

Emergency exits were wrenched open and voices joined the cacophony as prison guards poured from their respective cell blocks, guns chambering as they lined up, surrounding them. Sally instinctively ducked back behind the Joker – he was the one with the human shield after all. She clenched the gun tighter in her hand, and kept low.


‘Let go of the Officer!’

‘THROW the weapon away!’

The yelled orders became an amassed roar of noise, the ebb and rise of a tide of screams. She saw six of them peeling off and running in the direction the Joker’s men had gone. She saw the Joker’s shoulders relax only briefly before another explosion rocked her to the right, sending her skidding across the floor. Her hand jerked, spasmed, lost the gun as she hit the concrete and broken debris. Her shoulder and hip glowed with raw stinging pain, and when she pulled herself up she was blinded by dense black smoke.

Coughing, she flailed out of it with eyes streaming, dropping to the ground once more as she heard spurts of gunfire echoing around her. Through her tears she could see more bodies, crumpled together with warped burnt flesh exposed.

And yet amidst all her numb shock she nonetheless crawled forward and searched the still warm torso of the nearest blood-spattered guard for a gun. Cold metal touched her palm and she ripped it clear, throwing herself upright and looking around herself in ever-widening circles.

Thick pillars of smoke rushed out sideways in the wind from the buildings the guards and henchmen had gone towards. Impulse made her run towards the building, the only thing she could see in this porous, burning smoke.

The periphery of her still streaming vision caught something in enough time for her to throw herself sideways, shooting madly. From the ground she saw a prison guard buckled at the waist, his hand coated in blood before he went down.

‘Fuck!’ she hissed. She didn’t know how many bullets these guns had but she knew shooting like that was a waste. Every inch of her ached as she dragged herself upright, but she gritted her teeth and bore it up. She knew how much worse it could be.

‘Move move MOVE!’ she snarled under her breath, tripping up and forward when her feet let her down. Her body knew what her mind wanted and followed, like it always did. Instinct hit and the muscles followed. She tried to think even as the haze of motion overtook her – there would be more guards in this obliterating smoke, as disorientated and lost as she was, probably injured and...

Even as she thought it she barrelled in to a man, instinctively swinging the gun in her hand like a club, feeling the metal impact with flesh. It did little to slow down this juggernaut of a man who knocked her crashing to the ground in a second, his huge weight bearing down on her. His eyes didn’t even focus, skittering back and forth with fear and panic as she punched at him, screaming herself in an attempt to get him off her. She hit and punched and gouged and tore but he didn’t move, he was too heavy, too big, and she felt that black immense hysteria that had hit her all those years ago when madness enjoyed her limbs for the first time.

Abruptly he lurched up in the smoke that stung even now, and her red eyes saw little whilst her ears heard a familiar voice.

‘I think I’ll take over from here, thank youuu.’

And then there was blood, gushing and raining down over her as the man was unzipped, ripped open. It was so HOT. She had cut and bled men, stabbed them viciously, but never had this much blood poured over her before. She dragged herself out from under him, gasping around the taste of his blood, the inhuman carcass he had become. A noise far too young for her, a child-like sob, managed to creep out as she span and looked up at him.
Relief, hot and dousing and perfect in that moment, came with seeing his twisted scarred face, the white paint darkened to grey in the smoke, sweat making it crease slightly. For an instant she could not even recall the fear that usually met her when she saw that strange face. He gave her an appraising look, one eye squinting in confusion ‘Beautiful, you’re very messy looking.’

She panted, too stunned to think of anything clever to say, wiping blood off her face. He simply smirked and jangled a set of keys at her.

‘Time to meet some new friends.’

He gestured forward in wide circling motions with his hands, and started walking as if he could see through this thick mess.

‘Where are the others?’ she asked, catching up quickly. He didn’t look round at her, lips twitching in amusement.

‘Why do you think we need NEW friends?’

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She hung close to the Joker as each of the Cell Blocks’ mechanised doors were opened. He didn’t seem to mind, only to give her a look of amusement that earned him a glare. Just because she felt safer having a psychopathic killer that she KNEW near her rather than felons she DIDN’T. The gun which had gone ignored as she had panicked underneath that fat fuck of a guard was now the only thing that she thought would make them safe. Not that she had given a damn about even one of the men that had been lackey to the Joker – but with 800 strong prisoners walking free, man power would have been useful if things had got ugly. Each cell rumbled with the sound of hundreds of feet pouring out of them, denim clad convicts pouring out of the tiered cells and looking up at the isolated control cage where the Joker and Sally stood. She bit back against a smirk as the Joker coyly waved down at them, turning on the intercom system.

‘Well hello, finest of Gotham city. I thought you could all do with a holiday. The walls are clear gentlemen. Oh, and, in case you haven’t been watching the news, Batman is considered a cop killer now! So you might as well expand your horizons, and enjoy the city that belongs to you.’

The general roar of accumulated voices as men began running to the exits drifted up towards them, the thrum of violent humanity. Joker leant his head down to his hand, cupping it round his ear as if savouring that sound.

‘You hear that? That’s people at their most real. Ag-GRESSIVE. Ready to do whatever their blood tells them. Aching. For the next moment.’ He enthused, waving out at the amassed bodies. She nodded, automatically, eyes looking down at the tide of murderers and thieves flowing out into the city she knew and loved, for all its degeneracy. Rapists. Men like...

‘You look terribly serious Sally. Scared about something? You only really look serious when you’re scared.’

Her eyes shot up to look at his darkly teasing ones.

‘What is it you want from me? Really?’

He rolled his eyes as if she was spinning the same tune for the millionth time. ‘What you should be wondering by noooow sweetheart, is what you want from ME. I haven’t made you do an-y-thing, that you’ve done over the last few days. My Sally-wheel.’
She felt her mouth twist in venomous anger. ‘You want me to break.’

‘No. Oh no, no no. No. Catherine wheels aren’t for breaking. Who would break something that destroys itself anyway? Of all the things in this nasty, little world Sally, you’re the last thing I want to break. I want you to keep doing what you do best.’ He intoned, tapping her lightly on the nose with one gloved finger, even as his body looming over her was enough to make her wary.

They made their way down the staircases that interlinked the prison blocks, intermittently bumping into convicts who barrelled past them at high speed. Any that got too close saw the Joker’s face, his scarred painted horror of a face, and backed away quickly. Whilst the Joker’s pace was that of a child’s enjoying a day out at the seaside Sally found herself flinching every time a new person appeared, fingers clenching around the gun she still held in her grip. She knew that her keeping low, as a woman in a prison, would not keep them safe forever.

A meaty hand reached out from behind her on the stairwell, groping in between her thighs. The other hand, stinking of sweat, clasped over her mouth as she was physically lifted up and back, her feet trailing back up the stairs as she kicked and struggled.

‘D’you know how long it’s been since I had a woman?’ a voice grated in her ear.

She did not forget the gun this time as she clicked off the safety and shot it backwards into his leg. She collapsed as he crumpled and wasted no time in spinning round to face him, striking him about the face with the gun until her arm felt numb, blood coating her hand. Savage grunts emitted from her mouth as she kept pounding through tissue and sinew, before she shoved the gun in what remained of his shattered jawline and shot his brains out.

Panting she fell back, feeling eyes on her as other convicts watched. Behind her she heard the sound of slow clapping.

‘Now THAT’S what a woman is! Time to go sweetheart, I have a feeling we’re going to have company soon.’

She knew it should have been strange that she knew his touch when he pulled her upright, but she did. She trained her look at the convicts who continued watching her, gun levelling at them, before chasing Joker down the stairs. Her heart thudded and she forgave it when the adrenaline rang strong in her blood, going faster.

The window within the next stairwell exploded, and a swathe of black encompassed all of the space, engulfing them in darkness.

‘Batmaaan. I have miss-SED you.’ Joker hissed. Sally watched his entire body clench and tremble like a live wire, and held the gun all the tighter as she saw the cloaked figure that was the Batman straighten in front of them.

‘You are FUCKING, kidding ME!’ she yelled, surprising even herself as she said it. Without turning, the Joker raised one hand to his lips in a light shushing motion, even as the dense holes where the Batman’s eyes should have been trained on her.

‘The feelings not mutual Joker.’

‘I hope you’re sure about that.’ The Joker taunted, his tone bordering on flirtatious as he stepped forward.
Batman swung with a blisteringly fast punch, sending the Joker flying to the floor. What he had not been expecting, was the convict response. Two nearby cons lurched forward to defend the man who had released them, battering the momentarily over-powered Batman to the ground. Their surprise attack had not lasted long before he cast them aside with a series of brutal punches, his strength and speed unbelievable.

Sally aimed the gun with agonising uncertainty, any target she could hope for moving too fast, a blur of black cloak and actual body, even five feet away from her. She let out a flurry of gunshots, hoping one would hit only to see that compacted motion of darkness that was the Batman flowing towards her. She staggered back before being lifted off her feet, gagging and seeing murky nothingness as he cut her windpipe off. She shot one more bullet up towards his left armpit and she heard a barely perceptible grunt, but he did not release her, merely snatching and flinging the gun aside. Her feet dangled in the air and her numb fingers came up to grip at his leather-clad hands, urgently trying to tear them away from her throat.

‘Who are you?’ he grated in his impossibly low monotone. She snapped his little finger for his trouble, her right fist gripping round the digit and sharply pulling back, her vision pooling milky white even as she did it. Her senses thrummed at his sharp snarl of pain, only to tingle all the more acutely as she felt the knife Joker had given her slowly being drawn from the back of her jeans. She allowed it as she collapsed on the stairs in a bruising heap, the Batman floundering backwards. Her eyes cleared sufficiently to see the Joker following unremittingly with his newly liberated knife flashing.

Despite the Joker’s unrepentant viciousness Batman was far more physically trained, and as they fell through the cell block doors in to the prison Sally saw briefly the image of the knife being struck from the Joker’s hands. She sprinted down the few steps and was knocked sideways by convicts that were running for their lives, and the physical contact gave her a moment of clarity: why wasn’t she running?

The thought lingered like a toxin but she was moving on automatic now, her limbs picking up momentum as she flung herself back up the stairs on light feet, picking up the gun she had lost. She prayed with all that she was that there were bullets left as she leapt down the stairs and threw herself into the swinging double doors.

Batman was just holding him up from the floor, bloodied and battered, but holding him. He was not killing him. Mind pulsed with venom and she shot all the same, following the fleeting demon that was the Batman as he ran out and away, through the cells until she could no longer see him in the shadows of the setting sun. Her fingers spasmed in cramp around the gun, they had been holding it so tight. She let out all the breath she held in her in one catastrophic whoosh.

The sun was setting? Her mind fleetingly thought of such things, at how only one day had passed during all THIS, whilst she hurried forward and crouched down next to the Joker.

‘Uhhhhh... J...’ she suddenly realised she had never said his “name” if it could be called that, in the whole time she had .... Known him. Even suggesting that level of familiarity struck her as ridiculous. This was not knowing someone. This was being wrenched in to someone.

‘Joker? Uhhhh cl.. clow, clown man? Joker? Mr...?’ she ventured, stretching forward and touching his chest, feeling burning heat through the thick material and buttons of his waistcoat. One arm swung up and caught her hand, shoving it away easily as he slowly sat up, blood pouring from his nose over his paint smeared face. He looked briefly disorientated, cocking his neck to one side before cracking it sharply, eyes glazed until they turned and focused on her. A long lazy smile graced his blood smeared face. For an instant her gaze focused in on his blood clinging to the contours of his scars. She wanted to lick it away. Knew she wanted it, knew she wanted the texture of that mangled flesh beneath her tongue.

Lust hit her so hard she almost succumbed to sheer need, ignoring the necessary fear that encased touching a psychopathic killer that had threatened her innumerable times. She bit her tongue, that desirous tongue, and tamped the want down. Even as he spoke and dragged her upright her mind felt assailed, her body warming and responding to something she had not felt in years.

‘Glad you introduced yourself so nicely Sally. I only hope you got a few shots in. Any bullets left?’

He snatched the gun away from her and deposited the magazine into one gloved hand, counting under his breath before snapping the magazine back in.

‘Good good girl, not so bad. Time to go.’

The last few sets of stairs were a blur of motion, her vision jolting with the movement of her body, never focusing even as they exploded out in to the coming night air, to freedom. Thunder rumbled above them as they ran out of a door that she was sure should have been cordoned off by police by now, had it not been facing a ten foot high wall and nothing more. She threw choice swear words at the offending wall, punching it a few times with only the reward of stinging knuckles to show for it.

He simply giggled with his hands clenched to his knees as he shook his head at her in disapproval, before he stomped his foot hard. Silver flashed and her keen eye, ever waiting for a blade, saw a length of metal shoot out from the front of his shoe. Using the blade as a grip he painfully worked his way up the wall, huffs of laughter creeping out of him that Sally constantly had to hush into silence. When he was about seven feet up, and had hooked one ankle over the wall, his smudged nightmare face turned back to hers, gloved hands reaching out.

‘I need you to burn something for me pumpkin. Made a choice yet?’

A single match danced across his fingertips, offering her life in exchange for carnage. She looked around her desperately, at the monstrosity of a building, the walls and gates that cordoned it off. Helicopters soared overhead, their thrumming noise an undercurrent to the sound of pounding feet. Police would soon be here, and they both knew it.

She twisted like a fish in a net, her fingers dragging through her wild hair. ‘You KNOW what my choice is you bastard!’ she yelled, seeing his smile grow and feeling her heart knot up.

‘Ahhh but indulge me. Show me what I like to see... ’ He gravelled, eyes not giving up against her violent stare.

She snatched the match from him, hearing singing and music and noise that had nothing to do with her as she turned the corner, ringing in her ears. She saw one of those familiar gasoline drums resting against the prison wall, dejected and broken, the charge clearly faulty. So she lit the match against the wall and threw it into the gasoline, lighting it up like a rapture. As she backed away to the wall that the Joker still clung to like a lizard her peripheral vision caught another gasoline drum.
‘Give me the gun for a second.’ She murmured, her soul not even acknowledging that these were orders she gave out as she coolly took this gun, and shot at the gasoline drum, evicting the world in a scorching realm of fire as she did so. Flinching back from the white-hot explosion, she felt a gloved hand grip her own and begin to pull her up....

She felt it begin to rain.
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Rain ran thick and fast, coating her in the cold. Sally’s limbs stung with the freezing bite of winter, and her bones clung close to her pathetic flesh as she watched him. He was laughing that ridiculous wonderful laugh of his, and she knew in her heart of complete hearts, the insides of her that knew what was good for her, that she would not get far.

And yet he said nothing and simply looked at her, hunched shoulders and silent in the sagging rain. They were sheer metres from each other, and now would be the only time to test her advantage. Did she actually have one? She had distance. She could run. That was an advantage right? Not in truth when she was mesmerised by the breaking down of his face.

Water was doing its subtle but fast work as rivulets appeared over his skin, exposing bare flesh, rivers of normality. White and black and red relented... and dripped in to his eyes...

Those eyes owned her. She was swallowed up and possessed, and she knew it as he watched her. She wondered what he saw when her eyes looked back, and she removed her coat, her skin flinching from the impact of wind and rain, never looking away from the rivulets that constituted his face in her numbed state. Her face poured and disappeared as she watched him walk forwards. The rain washed the dried blood and the ash away from her.
He was humming. He was singing a song, amidst the rain and noise she could hear his voice pervade the darkness. Of all the songs he could sing, a part of her groaned, did he have to sing this?

‘You make me smile, with my heart...’

She laughed, against her will, a guttural noise of amusement that echoed through the descending rain, and did not look away.

‘Your looks are laughable...

As he ventured closer in the sticky darkness, her frontier felt fragile.

‘ un-photo-graphable.’.

The familiar twitch of the tongue stung out, even as he sang. She was frozen to the spot, and she let him come, the nearby buildings dissolving in freezing rain as she saw his blurred visage work his way towards her. When he came in to focus, close and complete, she struggled instinctually against his hands clenching close upon her jawline, her waist as he dragged her in. A world of her, bigger than she would ever admit, had already relented. Gripping her mouth he smeared her red lipstick up and round on to her cheeks, a rough gesture. He pulled her face up to his.

‘Look, Sally. Now we match!’ he sing-songed gleefully, water trickling off his moss-green hair and dripping on to her shoulders.

And they did. Dripping black eyes and smeared red gashes for lips, they matched. In the cold night he was the only thing hot, and her wet skin melded with his clothing as she sank into his violent grip.

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Hope you enjoyed it, RnR my lovelies!