heartbeat articulate
There were alway in his head-no, not always-he remembers, barely, when things weren't funny and it was so quiet and he doesn't miss it at all.
But he fell, and they laughed, they laughed with him and at him and for him and to him. HAHahahHAHA.
Now. Now. Now there's another. It carries itself above all the laughter.
(He almost realizes it's more than the laughter.)
Now. Now. Now it swells with every heartbeat of the things around him.
But he laughs anyway, because that's what he does.
x
There's so much to drink on him over him on the walls floor shelves and he laughs and he can't hear it and
wham
x
He snarls at the bars and tried to bend them, but it isn't that bad. He drank enough that the scent of the sweet nectar (as the loudest voice calls it) pumping through Batsy's veins isn't that bad.
At first.
x
thirsty
thistythirstythirsty
He's not laughing. Nothing is laughing. There's only one voice in his head with him, and it says now. Now. Now. Drink. Now!
He sinks his claws into the ground and rips into it like it's flesh and the grey will tear and reveal blood blood blood, but even he knows it's just stone.
He's burning up, his guts are melting and empty and he can smell the Batman somewhere around but it hurts it hurts it hurts and it's so
quiet.
Sharp nails dig into his own arm and he falls onto the cold no-heartbeat ground and shakes.
I can't take it I can't take it I can't take it
I can't take it anymore!
This is beyond the worst at Arkahm, the worst of fights, way worse than a little electroshock therapy in the river.
And then.
"Have mercy on a sad clown," he implores his greatest enemy and fun and only hope.
And he sees it he smells it. Bat-blood.
The Batman asks where Dracula is, and he still can't hear laughter over now. now. now DRINK.
But even louder, loud enough to echo through his skull and tear out through his mouth-
"I am his vessel."
x
"Basty, you complete me."
It was worth the look on his face, but there's something (the stamp goes down, a pen comes up, and a file's marked "SANE" in scribbly red letters) more about it.
x
He lets the Bat give him enough to drink, but it's strange.
It's quiet. Too, too, too quiet. He isn't laughing. They aren't. He doesn't know why.
He has enough to drink. Enough.
His throat still burns for more.
(if he was sane, he would be grateful. he isn't, though. not enough.)
x
In the end:
He forgets. He doesn't know what he forgets, just that he does. It doesn't matter, in the end-just means one more breakout of the Asylum.
Jackie, though, is back in the plethora of voices again, stamping INSANE, INSANE, INSANE in a (heartbeat) rhythm.