Sweet Hallucinations
A/N: This is my favorite :) This chapter is the only reason I've put the rest of them up. Hope you like! From Jonathan's POV. He quotes Shakespeare a lot in this one. Direct sequel to Bittersweet Revenge. Rating goes up for this chapter's use of swear words :)
Some say that I am obsessed with my work and it is true; I am both possessed by it and fanatical about it. I gallivant down the mysterious pathway of the mind with my flashlight and my notebook and my fear. Wordlessly I wander, stripping myself bare, inlaid with madness. Oh, I am mad. But I am so sane at the same time. I journey through the neuroses of the human spirit to the driving force of us all: Fear. It is fear. The survival instinct stems from fear, social habits are honed by the unpleasant sensation that we won't belong. Sexual habits, conversation topics, conformity, all stem from sheer apprehension. I look inwards to find out fear's secrets. I will conquer it, I will master it. Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. Yet it seems to me lately that I have failed in my work.
As a defense mechanism, those who are preyed upon tend to focus their thoughts on revenge as a way to strive for their own dignity. For instance, if one were…raped… one might well reflect long on his possible revenge, how he would take it with pleasure, relishing the screams of his tormentors. This I believed for a long time. In fact, I only stopped believing it at the top of this hour.
It is midnight at Arkham Asylum, my castle and my reformatory. The stone walls weep with the condensation of the wet June night, or are they weeping for the populace they contain? After all this time dwelling and toiling day after day, I find myself unsurprised by most things in life. I even stopped feeling sick when I am called on ambulance rotation, for a broken body is far easier to stomach than a broken mind.
The two men strapped to their chairs inside the room through whose door I am peering are nervous, I know. Yet I will not go to them. I have found I can't. Why? Now is the winter of our discontent. They await my judgment, for their fate is in my hands. I can master them, but will they torment me still? I tip my forehead against the glass and look into the faces I know so well. They cannot see me, but still they open my old wounds. Obberton's rat face. Cruel laughter spewing forth from his mouth as the cold concrete sands my skin down. Rain falling on the garbage cans. Deke. Mostly all I saw of him was his shoes. Now I hate blue and white trainers. They make me sick. Trainers splattered with mud, standing over me.
There is wetness on my hand, and as I blink down at the perfect small dot, more join it. Shit! This is not supposed to happen, I am strong, I am OVER THIS! I curse mindlessly and the walls heave. I almost heave. Why can't I finish what they started? I thought I would delight in it, take my vengeance, they should be my lab rats to match their feckless faces. Out, damned spot! The diamond pattern of the small window blurs in and out and behind it, Deke laughs at something Obberton says. He laughs! He does not fear me and I cannot destroy him! The realization hits me; I double up, curling my arms around my abdomen to hold me together, and a soundless scream boils up my esophagus. There is a vortex in my brain and all I can think is how much I want to hurt myself. I want to spill my blood in rivers so that the water mains of Arkham run crimson from it, to peal my skin away from my skull and hang it in bloody shards on the laundry lines of Gotham, yes, tear asunder my limbs so they mirror my mind! My fear is all that makes sense to me. And that makes sense to me.
Without my fear, who am I? Without my hallucinations, what do I have to hold on to? These are my scars, they weep and moan. The inside of my body drips and chars and waxes rhetoric on my life while I spin subconscious circles around my heart. In the center of the web, I lust for my own blood. I yearn for my own destruction; I worship this nest of madness for I know it will take me. I want to bleed and die and have them stare into my glassy eyes and know the madness within, and the worst part is they won't say anything at all.
I stumble down the parched white hallway and the walls move under my hand like horrible white whales plunging to the depths.
"Release them to the officers downstairs," I intone to my assistant, "They are fine." They are fine. They are FINE! Without waiting for him to verify that he heard me, I am already down the stairs and out into the driving rain. I lurch through the sodden gravel and thump into the door of my car, fumbling for the lock. Broken my life, and they laugh at it all. Oh villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! My eyes are nearly useless as I drive home, they are wide and white with the horror of it all. I barely make it home and a part of me wishes I had driven off the bridge and into the polluted, gorging river. It would swallow me like a shark.
The wooden walls of the apartment building's stairwell don't twist and howl like Arkham's walls. They whisper to me and I can't hear what they're saying. Are you mad, Horatio? There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy… I am quite mad, I quoth the Bard. I am beyond the veil of madness, its naked eye glares at me and maps my path with its bulging veins. Now all it can do is wash me away in a river of tears. The four flights of stairs never took so long. I am exhausted and my mind is limp and quiet. It is not an improvement. Now I can see no way out. It is rather as if I was running in circles in an arena before and now I just stand in the middle and look at the ground. Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me…
Drained beyond measure I open the door to the apartment. Suddenly, a light on my face and strong arms around me. He backs me up against the door and crushes me to him as if he wants to fold my body into his. I shudder against him. I wish the same. His scent washes over me and it breaks my traitorous cycle of thoughts. He whispers something in my ear over and over and I don't know what he's saying but it helps. As constant as the northern star… I open my eyes slowly and the warm light of the hallway lamp winks down at me over his shoulder. He cradles me in his arms and abruptly the knots in my stomach release me and I am shaking. The aftereffects of a nervous breakdown. My arms around his neck, fingers in his hair and I feel warmth again.
In his arms I endure. Though I be but a spent bullet, I have found my way home. Though I tear with fury at my veins and my eyes, he sews me together again and again. Though I walk in madness I hold hands with the light. Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know.
Fin.