If there is a way to find you, I will find you— - More TDK fic: The Dreams of Others - Ensemble Cast

If there is a way to find you, I will find you— - More TDK fic: The Dreams of Others - Ensemble Cast - PG13

(of course i have ghosts)

[	book of hours	\|	what it is	]
[	book of years	\|	& how it is	]

More TDK fic: The Dreams of Others - Ensemble Cast - PG13

[Aug. 19th, 2008|10:42 pm]

[

Tags

the arkham sessions, the dark knight

]

Title: The Dreams of Others
Fandom: The Dark Knight (Nolanverse)/Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth/my own inevitable meddling, for which I beg pardon.
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Ensemble cast - rogues and would-be good guys alike.
Notes: Much like Escape Artist, I'm going to consider this one a stand-alone as well. However, it builds on some of the groundwork for peripheral characters that I set down in The Arkham Sessions series and its related drabbles (so, yes: it may help if you read those first). For example, Poison Ivy as you see her here is at least in part my own interpretation - whereas my interpretations of Harvey/Two-Face, Scarecrow, and the Joker remain more closely aligned with the versions of them that you see in The Dark Knight. The structure of this piece owes almost everything to my fascination with the last six pages of Arkham Asylum. My respect for Dave McKean and Grant Morrison knows no bounds; in comaparison, my faults are, doubtless, legion.
Summary: The boundary between our waking and sleeping hours is very fine indeed.

~*~

The name she signs to her tax-returns bears no resemblance to the one by which she's lately - in certain circles - become known. At work, in the bio-tech lab, she's ridiculed for her bright, fly-away copper hair and her glassy, incessant grey stare.

Her co-workers (mostly men) steal her syringes and contaminate her petri dishes with spit (and worse). They cat-call her on lunch breaks (Hey, Mousey!), plant uprooted weeds in her sneakers (three pairs lost to fertilizer-damage already), and cut the blossoms from her test-specimens as if they were the gravest of traitors.

The name that her other boss calls her - her new boss, her favorite boss - is Ivy. He says that men hate her because her eyes reflect the maddest of truths and that they need only step close, be lured close, to learn that her kiss is sweet poison. And by that, he means the cap that he suggested she have implanted where one of her back molars used to be. Ditching her glasses for contact-lenses was, she thinks, his best suggestion. Just yesterday, she winked at one of her tormentors in the lab, and the poor sod winked back. She's having lunch with him tomorrow.

In the meantime, she dresses herself in muted, tantalizing shades of green and waits.

=+=

Although Jim Gordon can't remember a time when he considered his life easy, he considers himself a happy man. Barbara is as understanding, long-suffering, and beautiful a wife as he could hope for - and once upon a time, it was a hope that had seemed foolish, self-indulgent, and ephemeral. When the children had arrived, each in their turn, he had dared to hope that all of it would last.

These days, he isn't so sure. Barbara lives in fear of losing him again, losing him in earnest, and his children hang in the delicate balance between his duty to Gotham P.D. and his longing to lay down all arms and simply love them.

If he's learned anything in the past year and a half, it's that he can afford neither these old hopes, nor the luxury of taking his happiness for granted.

His shadow's grown long and narrow, warped with the weight of another man's doubt.

+/+

In his former life, Harvey had been an insomniac. There had been no case for which he'd been unwilling to pull just one more all-nighter, no riddle in Gotham's law-books and statutes that had stood to elude him for long. Vibrant and breathless, he'd lived by sheer wits and the unfailing flip of his father's silver.

In his new life, Two-Face has learned the value of true chance. He's learned to see lies for what they are: filth, but worth tolerating if they're a means to an end. Sunk deep in Gotham's underbelly to lick his wounds, he's opened his increasingly unreliable eyes to the most brutal of sufferings and realities. He has both killed and been killed.

Until Kingdom Come: the coin will spin, and he will serve two masters.

{O}

When party guests ask him in hushed tones from behind their hands what it's like keeping house for the richest pig in Gotham City, Alfred demurs. The populace are easily charmed by platitudes, and the next glass of champagne is only a suggestive cluck of his tongue away.

When Bruce asks him what it's like keeping house for the most reckless man in Gotham City, Alfred tells the truth. The hours are miserable and the bloody electronics are infuriating, but at least the pay is good and the company is tolerable. Bruce's smile is only an indulgent wink of his eye away.

Alfred harbors no illusions about his job - namely, that it's no job at all.

}O{

Jonathan Crane had been the brightest in his graduating class. That had meant longer hours than usual observing Arkham's patients during the tenure of his internship, deeper conversations with those who had been on staff at the time, and a more...intimate knowledge of the ancient building's twists and turns. He'd learned the value of a loaded syringe or an aerosol at the ready early on. And he'd used them.

The first time someone had called him Scarecrow - such a mockery, to have his own night-terrors tossed back at him so casually - he'd tilted his head and asked them why. The only answers he'd been able to extract from the patient had been screams.

Jonathan doesn't think of himself as the Scarecrow, but he's always loved Halloween.

[O]

Lucius Fox had regretted his decision almost instantly, but Bruce knew that he was a man of his word and not likely to be swayed. Even though the God-awful contraption didn't technically exist anymore - he'd returned the day after and cleaned up the pieces, his last act as an employee of Wayne Enterprises - he had spent a good many months wondering if he'd lose face if he should ever change his mind.

Bruce is a forgiving man, and Lucius is proud that this is just one of many things that the boy has grown up to be. All wild fantasies and eccentricities aside, Lucius wouldn't ask his former employer to change for all the world. Alfred notes, dryly, that what when he owns all the world, what would be the point?

When he's not visiting the Manor, days and nights pass in much the same way: slowly.

]O[

These boys in their masks and make-up and tack are careless.

They tear through the darkness unbidden, leaving traceries of wire and trails of fire in their wake, heedless of who might be trying to sleep. They live only for the moment, have no concept that the Ancient of Days lies in every pitfall and lingers in each abyss that they clear on a wing or in mad laughter.

And the ones who think that they've unlocked the mind or the heart or sheer chance are no better. They screech and flail at the daylight, toss silver dollars into fountains, wail the names of lost loved-ones and each other in the night.

In dreams, Doctor Destiny will find them. And they will pay.

)=(

Bruce spends a fair portion of his waking hours drifting off, much to the annoyance of nearly everyone around him. He'd add himself to the list if he thought it was worth the guilt-trip, but, in the end, he tells himself firmly that he's got bigger things to worry about. For every person he pays to run his company, there are another ten people trying to tear him down.

Sometimes, the ones trying to tear him down aren't recognizably human.

As Batman, he spends a fair portion of his sleeping hours stone-cold sober, much to his own annoyance. To permit himself the guilt-trip then - and only then - is curiously liberating. Alfred tells him that it isn't healthy. Bruce tells him, in a pale imitation of the voice that has been his comfort since childhood, to sod off.

He isn't recognizably human, and he's tearing down no one but himself.

~#~

You spend a lot of your time giving that jittery redhead pointers - maybe too much time, come to think of it. You've got her where you want her, and as long as keep the false flattery coming, maybe she'll prove useful. A-ha. Like that.

She did a bang-up job on Batsy, there's no denying it. You couldn't have done it without her, but you're not going to tell her. That wouldn't be cruel enough.

You spend the rest of your time not giving a shit about what time it is, because what use is a clock unless something's set to explode by it? You're awfully glad Harvey-boy didn't end up in several places at once, because convincing him to go AWOL and elope with that little round darling of his would have been difficult.

You don't sleep, and maybe - just maybe - you'll find dreams funny when you're dead.

Link

Comments:

From:

ghostwalker
2008-08-19 10:12 pm (UTC)

(Link)

These are awesoem. ^_^