I do not own any part of the Batman franchise, just simply a fan with some sort of plan c: So Please Enjoy! 3
The entire room was pitch black with the vague exception of the flickering images spewing in a direct pattern from the twenties projector. This was where I had found myself for a fair collection of days following that ill-fated meeting with Jervis. Indeed I was elated, as much as I could be, that he had agreed to do me this simple favour, but ever since leaving through those splintered doors I had been reconsidering my decision in all aspects of its obvious desperation.
I had messaged Jack a while ago but given the current state of things I was not all that motivated to go forth into the city. It wouldn't have mattered if I was scheduled to meet the Queen, it would still take a countless amount of caffeine to hoist my broken form from the single leather chair, which sat ominously in the middle of the empty room. It was obvious that in my absence I had forgotten the dreary atmosphere of my own apartment. With its black walls and low ceilings, forcing me to lean forward, all perched precariously above an unfinished, uninspiring pine floor covered with a generous amount of dust and cobwebs. There were only two rooms in the entire space – the one I was in at the moment and then a closet, which I suppose was really meant to be a bedroom. Unfortunately I had more suits than needed hours of sleep so the latter lost out. Too bad I suppose.
The shoulders of my jacket creased forward as it took all of my strength to transition from prone to standing. My eyes were fogged and stared blankly into the greyscale segments of breaking news scandals from years past. None of them were terribly interesting, in the modern sense, but each and every scene of malnourished children with malaria and rioters being beaten to death in the streets of some far away place reminded me… of her, and all I could do was freeze, resting my head in folded arms a top the piping hot projector. Pain seemed to seep back into the subconscious at this point, and I failed to even consider the horrid holes that were burning into the sleeves of the forsaken Hugo Boss. It was just another thing that I no longer cared about directly. I knew that my suit looked a fright, but compared with the very few still left in the closet it was by far the most presentable. The first time Gordon brought his hounds into this cave for me, I suppose I should have expected, his minions had taken a few parting gifts from the hunt.
A short laugh escaped me, as my sight remained glued to images of meager children dangling by their broken necks from the remains of a downed helicopter somewhere in Africa. 'I suppose this is befitting for you,' the Marquis said to me, as he seemed to return back into my mind from a prolonged excursion, 'no man ever scared anyone to death in a perfectly tailored suit.' The entire scene was just rudely entertaining as my throat choked on fits of hilarity brought about by the disturbed look in the imagination's expression, as he toured about the shoebox-like space in his seventeenth century heels. When his askew powdered wig vanished into the mirror image of a terribly bad actor portraying him in a film-grained manner I finally became aware of the scent of searing flesh. My height fell backward a few steps and brought the curled hands up into view. It became wildly apparent that during the interstellar mind trip, that was the untimely return of the Marquis, the vibrating film canisters had cut the fabric from the reverse side of my forearms, leaving behind only the pith of viciously burnt skin.
My heart pushed itself against the back of my concave rib cage to avoid being struck by the errant somersaulting now being performed by the stomach. It was a disgusting sight, and I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if all seven layers just slipped, ever so casually, from the bone itself. But for the life of me, there was no pain. Pain would have meant that I was suffering. Suffering would have meant that I was living. And in that sense of the word I hadn't taken a clinical breath in some twenty-one years.
My body collided with the ugly pine floor, and there I remained, like a chalk outline. Just letting the dust cake onto the crying skin of my open arms, turning to mud upon mixing with the plasma now coating the fashion-less area.
I didn't even know what time it was anymore, and I found myself no longer caring.
The café where jack had suggested we meet for coffee wasn't the usual one on the corner of Mission and Woz, but another closer to where I suspected he and Evelyn were. No matter, it wasn't as though my tongue was in its proper form anyway. What was a cup of garden-variety espresso in comparison to the delectable elegance that I was used to? Given the prices on the menu that hung from the brick wall above a steaming example of classic machinery it was obvious that I would not be paying for the elegance I was used to either. The staff, however, proved most surprising when a gaunt man eerily similar to Jervis' March Hare companion set down perhaps the largest cup of espresso I had ever seen. Naturally, I was appalled at this café's break in serving customs, but I didn't harbour enough energy to complain.
My hands found the way to their respected spots on either temple as my mind fell from my eye sockets, sliding off the interior of the glasses, barricading retinas, and down into the molten black sea steaming with opaque qualities. The bridge on my face cried out for a relief, and I begrudgingly agreed, removing the thin frames and placing them beside the birdbath while I caught a full glimpse of my less than spectacular forearms. The dirt from the floor had nestled itself deep within the crevasses caused by the protruding screws from the projector, making me look no different from a Dalmatian running after a fire truck. An uncharacteristically heavy sigh escaped my lungs as I longed to just melt into the espresso upon the table. Therefore surrendering myself to evaporation and disappearing into the Gotham air, already saturated with nothing more than despair. A miscellaneous sugar cube found its way into the ebb and flow, catching my attention, as I was immediately envious of its quick vanishing. It wasn't as though this city's underworld even needed me anymore. I wasn't even sure that it ever needed me at all, that I was just spit out from the volcano of depressing childhoods into a line, which held fast to no immediate end.
Steam clouded my vision as the lighter currents in the coffee formed a waved image of the only thing I wanted most. She would blink every now and then as though there was something caught in her eye, then peer out through the surface, and smile. 'Look at me Dr. Crane,' she spoke in an even lighter voice than her own, 'I seem to be floating in a most peculiar way.' I didn't rightly understand why my mind would associate a response from her with David Bowie, of all people, but even with the hatred of the man broiling in the back of my mind the statement from her proved most endearing, if not immediately heart breaking. After what I had done to her… I wouldn't be surprised if she no longer wanted my company. That hurt more than anything else that could possibly happen, I would sooner welcome being tossed into an enormous blender. The lacerating blades would be almost as satisfying as what I assumed her touch would be, the one I would never know.
I continued to stare, hypnotized, at the simple image of circling rings, which acted as her eyes, completely foreign to anything that would have been occurring around me. In that moment nothing was of more interest, for it was the closest I had been to her in a fortnight, the closest I had been to anything that remotely resembled peace.
"CRANE!" the sudden attack on my ears would have caused me to fall from my chair had I not been encased in a booth. My hands raced to grab at a non-existent tie as my eyes rose to meet with the blurred image of who I assumed was Jack. Late as per usual. He laughed quietly, so as to not give himself away to any of these patrons of the unfamiliar café, and adjusted into a more comfortable position. Any amount of joy should have become apparent inside at the sight of my friend but it seemed that I had none left as a vice tightened inside my chest once I noticed that Eleanor's image had sunk to the bottom of my still potentially overflowing cup. It was as though these barbarians, functioning under the disguise of humble coffee shop employees, were just trying to tease me into crying – to be presented with something you covet only to have it taken back as if it had been brought to you by mistake. How rude these men were, and how sorry they would be after they found out that their names had all been scribbled down on the interior of my skull.
Jack's eyes traced over my appearance as I made a weak effort to ask him to be a little less rash, which he took as my pathetic attempt to ask him to be less frightening, which indeed there was no denying he had scared me a terrible amount just now. But that was my second point. "I had no idea the master of fear was so jumpy," he said playfully while laughing in a more quiet manner again. Rings appeared on the surface of the dark brew as his foot tapped against the base of the table in a rhythmic motion of one one two one. Obviously he desired to be here even less than I did, but he did keep company with Evelyn and if anyone in the city had talked with Eleanor it most likely would have been her. That in itself made Jack the best choice. His tone was slightly aggravated when he questioned as to why I wanted to meet with him so suddenly but changed for the lighter when he proposed the always-enjoyable event of killing random people for no apparent reason. I continued to keep my staring match with the espresso as I considered the therapeutic aspects of such an outing, but sadly there was just no interest on my behalf.
"No," I replied flatly. I wasn't exactly positive why I despised direct questions.
Air expelled itself quite rapidly from my friend's lungs as he acted, in an overly shocked way, taken aback by my lack of interest. However, my mind paid no attention as the espresso seemed to poke its head out from below the surface and beckon me to come closer so as to hear what it had to say to me. The little being peaked my interest, for I wondered if it had any hint as to where …
"Alright, what's going on with Eleanor?" Jack's voice had captured back the annoyed air from before as his foot tapped against the base of the table in a sharper pace. He had no idea what he had just unleashed inside my head. I wouldn't have been too terribly surprised if the entirety of my skull just collapsed from an extreme change in pressure. The rings clouding the surface of the espresso changed sources and drowned the tiny being inside the coffee as my only desire was to leap across the table, in a very impolite act, and shake him back and forth until he divulged to me what he knew, everything he knew that I did not. Anxiety and I couldn't stand to be so far out of the loop.
"She's spoken of me?" I only longed to convince my features that it was acceptable to smile, "You must tell me what she has said!" The urgency of my tone combated the calm of his as I explained everything that had happened, what seemed like an eternity ago, from me not allowing her to go after the two of them, to her slapping me across the face, and then finally… throwing her out of the car. Although I didn't wish to say the conclusion because I knew whichever way one looked at it I was made out to be the villain, even though that was always the case. This particular situation mattered most.
Jack just stared at me, in disbelief, and I couldn't exactly blame him either. "That probably wasn't the most chivalrous move on your part," he laughed, "and to think I always thought you had such great manners." He traced his fingers across his lips and raised them to the ceiling, signaling the waiter who didn't seem to notice him above a tray that overflowed with stray cups. His brow furrowed in a new level of annoyance as he, no doubt, turned the volume down on me going on and on about how I was going insane without having her in my life, to make everything the way it should be. She was my ticket to the good life that Plato had always rambled on about; everyone knew it… except for her.
"Don't be silly Crane," the sentence spilled from aboard an amused laugh, "you are insane." My mind reeled at such a simple answer, one I hadn't really considered until now. 'Get the man a prize,' the Marquis said to me as he massaged my shoulders, reaching out from the back of my blown open skull. I gave Jack a 'save-it-for-later' glance and then surrendered my head to the pull of the espresso, introducing my forehead to the gleam of the table below. The all too familiar migraine put its single foot through the gaping hole and kicked around in my brain as it tried to make his arrival noted. The only person who could rightly help me was seated across the scape and I failed to harbour any real courage to ask him to relay a stupid message. Dear lord, it was just as my grandmother had told me so many times, the broken record of my days as a boy.
"You. Are. Pathetic." Over and over still, screaming through the barred doors of that abandoned church, filled to the molding rafters with armies of crows. It all returned like a flood to my memory, pushing the Marquis down into the depths. Dirt floors covered in bits of damp hay, wrought iron fixtures bequeathed with barely there candles that smelt of whale oil, all brought together at the base of a diseased altar bearing the resemblance of Jesus Christ, an all seeing figure who, ironically, hosted no eyes. The light from the café broke through my fingers just as the sun had done through the holes in the roof, under the failing bell. I'm sure I must have looked ridiculous, a grown adult sitting at a table with his head flat against the grain, undeniably ill. "Please Jack," in all honesties I was speaking more to the wood than my friend, "I don't know what to do."
In that moment I understood that it was true, I really had no plan. And it was then that upon touching my face I realized that something had come over me that I didn't wholly recognize, a water-like substance from my eyes. It seemed I really was a boy again, alone in that miserable 'house of salvation.'
"Listen," his voice was the policeman that eventually found me, and let me free from that dungeon of piety, "you need to talk to her." My breath stopped short and speaking was impossible. So simple, such simple advice for a task that I knew I could not perform. His eyes fell upon my shaking shoulders and narrowed as I assumed he was aware that I wasn't paying attention to him, using the table as a mediator for my pathetic excuse for not going back and apologizing first hand. It obviously didn't entertain him as much as it comforted me, avoiding direct eye contact with someone who I knew was right. The vibrations from his hand as it knocked on the table were absorbed into my skull and only made me recall what it was like to ride up past the sixty-seventh floor of the Ryan building. Eleanor, I thought, and it was all over.
Jack stood from his chair in a rush and swooped down upon my shirt collar, hoisting my wasted skeleton into the air. I would have helped lessen my dead weight but for the life of me I couldn't focus on anything but his face, which twisted grotesquely until transforming into the disgusting face of the reagent director of Psychology at Gotham University. Only this time I wasn't being fired. "LISTEN TO ME!" He yelled, attracting the surprised eyes of the patrons near by, "you need to talk to her." I laced my dirt-coated fingers around his wrist as his eyes burrowed into my empty ones. Thoughts raced through my mind but it became suddenly apparent that none of my excuses would be sufficient for him, and no English spewed from my dry tongue. "Alright," he licked his lips in agitation as he adjusted his arms, "I'll set something up okay?" My head fell backwards as the blood drained from my ears. "It's obvious to both of us that you can't talk to the woman you love in the state you're in," the edge of my mouth twitched as it tried desperately to smile, "you need to apologize, and for god's sake stop this sulking!" He relinquished his grip on me and let my limp height fall back into the booth as he turned and signaled for the waiter, who didn't dare ignore him this time around. I suppose in a sense all I really needed was for Jack to beat the crap out of me before it finally got through to me, only he hadn't really hit me. I glanced down my chest and realized that this was probably the worst I had looked in quite sometime. What hung off my shoulders shouldn't have qualified as a jacket and the collar of my shirt was frayed. I tried my best to adjust the hideous tie about my neck, but it was beyond cure as I felt Jack's brow rise and rolled my eyes upward to meet his. "What?" I asked like an idiot as his lips curled into a smirk. He enlightened me to the fact that I might want to do a bit of shopping before I went back to Eleanor, seeing as how with her eye for matching labels there was high doubt she would even take time away to listen to me if I presented myself as some sort of heathen to style. A short laugh escaped my lips as the waiter brought Jack the two coffees he ordered with a ferociously shaking hand. It was a wonder that none of the molten caffeine spilt into my friend's lap, but no matter. I stood to leave, looking at my spotted forearms once more, then to Jack who looked at me with an interested gaze.
"Thank you," I said while picking off one of the many pieces of lint from my jacket lapel, "If you wouldn't mind, I dare not deem this as an appropriate outfit for church." I turned on my heel; there was no need for explanation for he was already well aware of what came before Eleanor in my schedule.