Chapter fourteen

Everyone had come to the conclusion that it was best for Jack if he didn't see Madeline just yet. Madeline was still fairly self conscious about her new body and Waylon didn't want Jack's freak out to consequently freak Madeline out. While most of Pinckney Orphanage was dilapidated there were a few rooms upstairs that remained intact and didn't have crumbling floors. One of the rooms, what had been the old bedroom of whoever ran the orphanage, a nun perhaps or some other matron, had a large balcony that was still in stable condition attached to it. Madeline sat on the balcony's stone railing, since it was too low for her to lean on, with her legs hanging over the edge. It was night and the moon was particularly bright and full that evening. Not as bright as the city lights of course that covered up all the stars with a toxic polluted glow.

It had been about an hour since Madeline had woken up, an hour since she'd screamed at Waylon for ruining her life, kissed him, and then disappeared to be alone. As much as Waylon had wanted to go after her, Riddler had convinced him to leave Madeline alone for a short while so she could cool down. Waylon wasn't a patient man but he had managed a good fifty nine minutes of waiting and was determined to not wait any more. He had been without Madeline for so long the last thing he wanted was for her to ignore him or actively avoid him, especially after what had transpired. Despite what Madeline had said to him, he didn't harbour any resentment towards her for it. He understood and accepted that everything she had accused him of was true. He'd thought those things himself mere moments before Madeline had woken up. The logical thing to do would be to let Madeline go for good, and to actually let her leave him without trying to find her again some years later. But now that she had been turned into a reptilian creature like him, there was a very limit number of places she could go and even fewer people she could be around. Even if she didn't really want him around she needed him. Though, the reptilian form was only temporary of course, and once Madeline was returned to human form she could do whatever she wanted, including leave Waylon for good.

"I know you're standing over there." Madeline sighed apathetically. She didn't turn around to look at Waylon and continued to stare out across the Gotham River. Waylon scratched the back of his neck and was hesitant to move forward. What did he say? What did he do? Did Madeline even want him anywhere near her. Sure she'd kissed him after all the accusations but what did that even mean?

"So how've you been?" Madeline asked casually, as if it were mere small talk between exes who broke up on bad terms and ran into each other at a coffee shop five years later. Neither one of them over the other. In a way, it kind of was like that, only four years and in an abandoned orphanage instead of a coffee shop.

"Okay." Waylon lied. He didn't really know how he explained the way he'd been feeling for the past four years. Miserable and depressed didn't quite do it justice.

"I'm surprised you've not devolved yet?" Madeline stated flatly, and her words stung just a little bit to hear. She almost sounded disappointed. No, not disappointed. Irritated.

"Yeah. Turns out giving in to my monstrous side actually makes it happy and keeps it sedated." Waylon confessed, moving forward a little. He wanted to go and stand next to Madeline on the balcony but was hesitant to do so. Instead he leant against the doorframe of the open balcony doors.

"So you've been Killer Croc for the past... four years?" Madeline said, sounding resentful and bitter.

"On and off." Waylon answered quickly. He was more interested in why Madeline was bitter about the four years part. Had she not known how long it had been? In the secret facility or wherever they'd been keeping her.

"Madeline... I... I'm sorry."

Madeline laughed a short and cruel laugh.

"Don't tell me you're sorry. Not again." Madeline snapped, alarmingly angrily in fact. "Say a word too many times and it loses all meaning. You have to show you're sorry."

"But I am sorry. Mainly sorry for existing and being a part of your life." Waylon confessed with indifference, shrugging his shoulders and casting his eyes down at the ground. It was on odd thing to be apologising to your existence, even if he had wished his own demise so many times before.

"Don't do that. Don't apologise for existing. Self deprecation is just a way to make people feel sorry for you and right now I don't want to feel sorry for you. Right now I want to be pissed off at you." Madeline hissed, turning around and looking at Waylon as she did so. The moonlight reflected of her eyes and made them shine in the dark. Even though she wanted to be pissed off at him, Waylon couldn't be pissed off at someone who looked so beautiful and enchanting. Even if she was being kind of mean to him. Madeline sighed heavily.

"You killed me." She muttered, turning back around to look out over the river. "You killed me because we'd just found out that you had less than a year of humanity left in you. Less than a year before you devolved into a complete monster. That realisation freaked you out, and it freaked me out too. But the thing that pisses me off the most is that you freaked out, lost control and killed me."

"Yes, I am well aware of that abhorrible thing I did. You don't need to remind me." Waylon growled, starting to run thin on patience with Madeline's irritation. Even if it was all his fault that didn't mean he had to bend over and just take it.

"No! You don't get it!" Madeline snapped, sounding more upset than angry now. She swung her legs back around over the railing and stood on the balcony.

"You freaked out because you found out that in less than a year Waylon Jones the person would be dead. That is perfectly fine. It is perfectly justifiable in some weird fucked up way that your natural response to such ground shaking news would be to snap and kill me by accident."

"Again. Stop reminding me."

"I don't care that you killed me!" Madeline yelled, throwing her arms up in disbelief. It was weird to hear her say that, and it only made Waylon feel more confused. Was it obvious, was he just too dumb to understand, or was this actually complicated?

"I don't care that you killed me. I wouldn't even care about losing four years of my life, the torture at that facility and being turning into this, if I came back to Gotham and you were locked up somewhere as a savage beast incapable of self awareness. I wouldn't give a flying fuck about what happened to me because that would be minor in comparison to losing your own humanity."

Madeline bit her lip and looked away. She looked like she was going to cry but her anger was winning the emotion fight and kept the tears at bay.

"But four years later and you are still you. You still have your humanity and I died and got turned into a monster for no reason. If you hadn't lost it, if you'd just killed Cash and the other officers and we'd made it out of Gotham we could have lived together and been happy for four years, maybe more. I'm angry, Waylon, because you killed a future we could have had."

Now Waylon understood Madeline's anger. She wasn't mad at him for killing her, heck, as she'd died she'd told him she didn't blame him. She was mad because it was unjustified. She'd died for no good reason. But how could they have known Waylon would last another four years, maybe longer, without losing it completely. For all he knew he could have lost it within that year and killed her way out in the middle of nowhere. He'd managed to last for four years but how much of that was due to Madeline not being around. She was like a drug to him that made him feel more human but simultaneously made his monstrous side more potent. Perhaps his longevity was due to Madeline not being around. Then again, as she stood with him now she didn't seem to have the same effect. Maybe it was because she was mad at him? Or maybe it was because her reptilian form didn't make him feel more human.

"Madeline." Waylon said, sternly but calmly.

"What?' Madeline replied meekly, not even looking at him.

"Come here."

"Why?"

"Just come here." Waylon grumbled, getting irritated with how resistant Madeline was being. It took a second and Madeline was more reluctant than anything else but she did move forward to stand in front of him. She still wasn't looking at him though. Waylon tilted Madeline's head up and forced her to look him in the eyes.

"I'm sorry." He said. "And I know that I say that a lot and words do loose meaning the more you say them. But..." Madeline stopped resisting his gaze and looked in his eyes of her own accord. He gazed back at hers. Even in this new body her emerald green eyes were still as fiery and passionate as before. Wild eyes. The eyes he loved.

"But I rescued you from the people that turned you into this. And I did everything I could to bring you back, to restore your humanity. Even if it meant submitting you to electroshock therapy which you know I freak out about. And I didn't freak out when Riddler was doing it, not too much at least, because I wanted to save you. If that isn't showing you that I'm sorry I don't know what else I can do. Tell me?" Waylon pleaded. "What else can I do to prove to you that I'm sorry?"

Madeline looked back at him in dumbfounded silence, her brow furrowed with confliction. Then, her breathing became a little more shaky and sniffles could be faintly heard. Her beautiful eyes began to glaze over a little and a tear or two, or three, or perhaps ten escaped from the corners of her eyes.

"Madeline don't..." Waylon tried to say, but once the first tear had made it down her cheek Madeline took a big breath inwards and burst into loud sobbing. "...cry" Madeline buried her face in Waylon's chest and he held her close. It did feel weird to hold her like this, partly because it had been so long but also because she was closer to his height and the embrace was closer in feeling to how it would feel if they were both normal. It felt better though, a lot nicer to hold her like this. He wouldn't say that of course. Now was not the time to broach the subject of him finding her new body better than her old body. That would have to be saved for another time.

"You can't just cry to get out of answering the question." Waylon laughed, trying to pry Madeline from his chest but she was determined to keep her head buried. She sniffled some more and rubbed her nose from side to side.

"Don't wipe your snot on me." Waylon complained, but he was smiling.

"Can I have a mirror?" Madeline asked meekly, her voice muffled but Waylon heard her.

"You sure?" He asked, cautious of how emotionally temperamental she was. "I mean you look fine to me but I don't know if you..."

"I just want to know. I have this horrible image in my head and I want to see that I don't look like some swamp creature from an old B movie horror film." Madeline explained, finally giving herself a bit of oxygen as she retracted a little from Waylon. She rubbed her nose with her arm and sniffled a last sniff.

"Don't tell me I look like a monster from a B movie horror film?" Waylon pouted, lowering his hands to Madeline's waist. He really wanted to be more adventurous with his hands but again, now was not the time.

"No." Madeline giggled, tracing her finger in shapes and circles on Waylon's chest. "You look more like a comic book villain."

"Ooh, sounds exciting." Waylon encouraged. This was good. She was cheering up. It was best that she was happy when she finally saw her reflection again, that way she was less likely to get angry at him again.

"And then who would you be? The hero with the forbidden love for her arch nemesis?" Waylon suggested, leaning in and kissing Madeline's neck. It made Madeline giggle and squirm a little in a delightful way.

"You're stalling." Madeline giggled, trying to shrug his kisses off. "Please let me have a mirror?"

"Okay." Waylon sighed, and reached into his pocket. He didn't have a mirror but he did have a phone Riddler had wanted him to hold onto just in case something happened with Madeline such a short time after the ECT. He handed it to her and Madeline opened up the camera option on it. The camera was automatically facing downwards so Madeline had to press the flip button to see what she looked like. She didn't press it however, and hovered her finger over the button, hesitant to reveal the truth now that it was an option.

Waylon went behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his head on her shoulder and peering down at the phone that currently showed them Madeline's feet and the floor.

"You okay?" He asked after Madeline continued to hover for well over five minutes.

"Yeah. Just a little scared."

"You have no reason to be scared. You're beautiful, even with scales." Waylon encouraged, kissing Madeline's shoulder. She was more than beautiful but yet again, now was not the time to use all the arousing and somewhat pervy words he had in his head to describe how gorgeous Madeline looked and what he wanted to do to her. Madeline giggled and then took a deep breath. She pressed the button and it took a second for the phone to oblige and flip the camera over to show what was in front of it.

Waylon could feel Madeline's heartbeat speed up when her appearance was shown to her, and he felt some of her muscles tense up. Madeline reached up and touched her face as if she had to see herself touch her own face to believe that it was indeed her face.

"Oh my god." She gasped, not an upset gasp or an angry gasp, not even a terrified gasp, more of an, undecided on the emotion to feel, kind of gasp.

"You okay?" Waylon asked, a little worried at the lack of emotion. This was not what he'd expected from her.

"Yeah, it's just... I don't know how to feel. It doesn't feel like my face." Madeline pondered, sounding like she was mildly amused by her own uncertainty. "It's weird. I mean, I don't look revolting, but I was a model so I certainly don't look..." her voice was starting to sound like there was a slight warble in it, and Waylon wanted to nip any more tears in the bud before they happened. He turned her around and gentle covered the phone with his hand so Madeline couldn't stare at it anymore.

"You..." He began, not entirely sure how he was going to go about this but determined to give it his best shot. "You have the most beautiful scales."

"I have beautiful scales?" Madeline said, raising a brow? The tears were certainly nipped in the bud but now she just liked wary and confused.

"Yes. They are beautiful and exotic." Waylon stuttered, making it up as he went along but he couldn't really hide his laughter at how ridiculous these compliments sounded. "They're like the turquoise oceans of a tropical paradise. And you're nose is like that of a cute little gecko, dainty and cute, and might I add... You still have freckles."

"What?" Madeline gasped, switching the phone on again and bringing it close to stare at the bridge of her nose. There were indeed little slightly darker turquoise splodges over the bridge of her nose that did indeed resemble freckles. Waylon had only just noticed them himself but he was glad he had.

"You're eyes are like gems from a far of land belonging to the crown of a sultan, and still filled with the fiery passion of a phoenix that... Yeah I'm running low on this flowery shit."

"I was going to say. You did well but I don't think overly poetic and cheesy compliments are your thing, or mine for that matter." Madeline giggled, throwing her arms over Waylon's shoulders again with the phone in one hand, moving close. She had a grin on her face.

"Okay then, how about..." Waylon jolted Madeline close by her hips. "...I want to bang you against every piece of furniture in this building."

"That's more like it." Madeline chuckled, and gently pulled Waylon's head closer for a kiss.

Their lips connected and their tongues pressed against each other. Waylon pulled Madeline close so there was no gap in between their bodies, mashed together like two halves of the same whole. He ran his hands down her back and onto her hips, then down some more to lightly squeeze her bottom. It felt good to feel a bottom so big in his hands, not that Madeline had an astronomically big ass or anything, but that it felt the right size to hold and to squeeze now that Madeline was proportionally appropriate considering how massive Waylon was. It was almost like they were normal. No, it was better than that. It was like Madeline was suited perfectly for Waylon, tailor made just for him and nobody else. That was a good thing too. He wouldn't let anyone else have her.

Waylon kissed down Madeline's neck, down her collarbone and over her chest. He gently kissed her succulent breasts and then moved down some more, kissing over her stomach and her naval. She still felt so soft, even with scales. Why didn't he have soft scales? He went down some more and oh so gently flicked his tongue at Madeline's core. Madeline gave a slight gasp of delight and her whole body gave a little twitch as his tongue flicked on and off the sweet spot.

"Oh I forgot you could do that with your tongue." Madeline gasped, her voice all shrill and filled with ecstasy.

"Did you forget I could do this?" Waylon said suggestively, slipping his tongue inside Madeline's core that was so hot it almost burn to do so. Madeline's gasp of delight made it all worth it though. He may have been ugly as all hell and as dumb as an ox, but thank the lord for giving him a long tongue.

Waylon didn't want to leave Madeline void of pleasure for even a moment so he replaced his tongue with his fingers momentarily as he stood up again. Then he replaced his fingers with his own throbbing member as he undid his pants one-handed. Then, he hooked his hands under Madeline's bottom and scoop her up and onto him. He pressed her against the wall, using his body to hold her there as he placed his hands on the wall for a better stance, better impact. Madeline clutched onto him tightly, digging her nails... no, her claws, into Waylon's back. It pierced the flesh but it did not hurt nearly as much as it felt good. Waylon had forgotten that Madeline was no longer a dainty little human he needed to restrain himself around. She was like him. Tough. Durable. She could take what he dished out and he had been holding back all this time.

The wall cracked. The wood creaked. The sounds of euphoric gasps and moans filled the air. Grunts and gasps of pain and pleasure as claws slashed and the odd tooth pierced the skin. Their tails having a mind of their own as Madeline's more nimble tail coiled around Waylon's like a serpent constricting its prey, taking the very air from its lungs just as Madeline took Waylon's breath away time and time again until they were both lying on the floor gasping for air, unable to move. The sun was rising and the amber light just cascading through the open doors of the balcony.

"That was... incredible." Madeline gasped, hardly able to get the words out.

"Best sex you've ever had?" Waylon suggested. It was certainly the best he'd ever had.

"Totally." Madeline beamed, rolling over and resting her head on Waylon's chest. "I'm going to miss it."

"Miss it? What?" Waylon asked with confusion. What was Madeline talking about?

"When we turn me back into a human." Madeline corrected, as if the answer was obvious. She curled up and sighed with delight as she drifted off into sleep in Waylon's arms.

"Oh yeah." Waylon realised, and frowned. He stared up at the ceiling and bit his lip. What was he going to do?

I would have given you more something something but I was playing with the rating enough as it was. Like I said, more frequent updates and I hope you enjoyed this emotional rollercoaster of a chapter.