A/N: This is a more ambiguous chapter, but then again it is coming from the POV of a drunk. I originally posted a shorter version, but then due to dissatisfaction and encouragement by my reviewers, I went back and made it longer- less of a plot-filler and more of an actual chapter. So, new and improved, here is chapter 12. Please R/R, because I listen to you people. You're like my unofficial betas :)
I walk into the bar in the early afternoon, ignoring the school kids dashing past the nearly empty bar. I can't help but feel annoyed at their antics and shouts of joy. Don't they know they should be sad? That they should stay indoors and hide from the Joker? But they continue their games and conversations, oblivious to my grief. They don't care that today just a few hours ago, the man had blown up my life. He had destroyed my research, my job, my family.
I'm one of three people in the bar, and the owner is polishing the glasses and watching the television. It is on the news channel, sound low but still audible once you get close enough. I sit down right in front of it, and wince as the video of Coleman Reese's interview is displayed. Originally I had planned on coming down to the bar and buying a beer, sitting in some dark corner and remembering what my life used to be. But the reminder of the Joker, of the man that had destroyed it all, made me more than a little reckless. I slide onto a bar stool and pull out my lunch and dinner money for today. "I want shots, as many as I can get."
He looks at me, sees my haphazard appearence, and doesn't bother asking what kind I want. Good bartenders always can tell when a person just wants to get smashed, and Gotham has good bartenders if nothing else. He lines up a few glasses and immediately I throw back three of them in a row, ignoring the burning in my throat and the stinging in my eyes. Funny, I hadn't cried this entire time, and now my eyes water up because of a few cheap shots. I salute the television with one of the empty glasses. A toast, I tell myself. To death and the poor suckers that can't follow. The first time I've actually used a sick day when I wasn't sick in over a year, and the one day that something life-changing happens. Isn't that just the definition of irony? If I had been there, maybe I wouldn't have been left alive while everyone else I know and love is blown to debris.
I take a smaller sip of my fourth shot, then swirl the rest of the amber liquid around in the small glass and stare into its depths. Maybe if I concentrate long enough, he will come back. Maybe I will wake up and realize none of it ever happened, and he's still sleeping besides me and bitching about having to get up so early to school. Maybe- I put the glass to my lips and throw it back, swallowing the other half as quickly as possible. Maybe my dreams are all just as empty as the glass and it's really happening.
I thump that one back on the bar and pick up my next, then turn my attention to the television. They're replaying the press conference, and Bruce Wayne is standing up at the podium, uncharacteristically serious. Just yesterday, we had sat at the clinic and played a faux drinking game with some of the older kids with terminal diseases. Instead of whiskey or some other shot, we had put pixie sticks into little paper Dixie cups and ate one every time someone had said Batman or Bruce Wayne. It was so nice to see the kids smile and talk and forget about their impending death.
I look at the glasses lined up on the bar in front of me, and then back and the television. He had always loved to play drinking games, but he had never liked getting drunk (and getting the accompanying hangover the next day) so we had spent a lot of time playing with other non-alcoholic drinks, grapes, or pudding. It had become a contest to see which of us could come up with the most outlandish thing to substitute. But he's not here anymore, and we could never decide who had won. In the background, the announcer is giving the camera a serious look, trying to look sorry for people he's never met. "And the Joker's unexpected attack-"
I snatch up the next glass in line, relishing the sting of alcohol. With him gone, what's the point of trying to be creative? Might as well just go back to basics. But whatever he was used at the time, One word we had never played on was when they said the Joker. We had agreed that he was too serious to make fun of, too deadly to risk angering. But really, what had we been afraid of? That he would suddenly storm into our apartment? "The Joker had threatened-" I knock back another one and settle into the seat. This is going to take a while, and I'm planning on getting spectacularly drunk.
The bartender walks by again, and I gesture at him to come over. He's hesitant, because it's obvious from the number of glasses around me and my slightly unfocused gaze that I've already had an excessive amount of drinks. But I'm still a paying customer, and he is a business after all. I reach into the inner pocket of my coat and pull out a wad of slihgtly crinkled bills, slamming it on the table. "More shots…" I slur, pushing the money towards him. I had been carrying around the money despite my fear of getting mugged because I was looking for something nice to buy him for his birthday. But things aren't very useful to a dead man.
He takes the money and replaces it with more beautiful alcohol. I wrap a hand around the first glass and slide it closer to my hunched form while the owner whisks away the empty glasses surrounding me. I think back and remember the man who had been in my life just hours ago. He was a student at Gotham Medical College, just barely scraping his way through school with the aid of a scholarship and the payment of a minimum wage part-time job. Needless to say, his life had been pretty crappy before he'd moved in with me. We'd met when I was working at the clinic attached to the school as a secretary, and he had gone to get some hands-on experience.
At first, it was just as a friend. He needed a place, and I was getting pretty isolated between a crappy job and living alone. Then we had become closer, and finally started dating. We had just celebrated our first year's anniversary a month ago. And now I was never going to see him again. He was gone, blown to smithereens by a maniac because the police wouldn't allow one unimportant man to be killed.
If not, I blow up a hospital. That's what he had said. He said he was going to blow up a hospital, not a school with a relatively unknown clinic attached to it, where graduating students occasionally volunteered before moving to a better job. But apparently the little-known clinic was known to the Joker, because that was what he had targeted.
I look up at the television behind the bar and hold back a snarl. It's the footage of the Coleman Reese interview again, and you can tell by their faces that the Joker's voice is coming out of the phone perched on the table between them. I throw back two shots before the video ends, but I can still remember whey I'm here. I pat down my pockets in a vain attempt to find just one more dollar, but all my money is already spent. I eye the remaining shots and wish I had gotten something even stronger. Maybe just purified alcohol.
My head hangs lower over the bar, and I glare at the television. Except this time it's something new. That newsman – Angler or something like that – is tied up in a chair, looking terrified out of his wits. "Bartender," I call. He ignores me, focused on chatting up a single girl at the other side of the bar. "Bart-ender!" I bellow, and then frown. That didn't sound right.... He whirls around, and even though I'm drunk I can tell he's annoyed.
I point in the general direction of the screen with a wavering hand. "Turn it up." The bar had filled up since I'd gotten here, and now everyone is paying attention to me. They watch the screen as the bartender whips out a remote from somewhere, and newsman's terrified voice (loud enough to now be heard by everybody not sitting directly in front of it) fills the silent room. "-nightfall, the city is mine, and anyone left here plays by my rules." He stutters. The people shift uneasily, but I can't claw my way through the booze and grief to be scared of whatever new terror is happening now. "If you don't want to be in the game get out now. But the bridge and tunnel crowd are in for a surprise. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…"
Angler's words are replaced by the Joker's trademark evil cackle, and the patrons start murmuring in fear, despite having already known it was the Joker the minute they looked at the screen. How many people create hostage videos and proclaim complete control of the city? There can only be one big criminal at a time. Before it was Falcone and the mob, now it's the Joker, acting again to create mass murder and chaos and general destruction of everything. One man by the door stands up. "Hell, I don't know what backwards parents raised you, but I always learned to take care of your own ass first. I'm getting outta here!"
He moves to the door, only to be followed by a mob of frightened people. I stay right where I am, continuing my drinking game. Let the Joker blow me up too. It's not like I've a lot to loose anymore, after he killed my fiancé. This time, I'm not going to play his game. I'm going to stay right where I am and drink myself into oblivion. Hopefully, my death will be quick.
