Beckett of the Mnemosyne (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bookofnope) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
snowblindrpg2016-08-12 05:05 pm
bookofnope) wrote in snowblindrpg2016-08-12 05:05 pm
Entry tags:
[log] Blood will tell [closed]
Characters: Beckett and the Joker
Location Entrance area, firestation (building
Date: Day 146
Summary: A semi-mad vampire runs into a semi-sane evil clown. Yeah.
Warnings: See above. Possible violence, blood and blood drinking, mental illness, suicidal ideation, will add more as necessary.
[The fire department building is large, and Beckett is deeply wary when he enters it. Six days; six days since he'd left Angel and Rhys behind, since the incident with Charles and Charlie, since the start of that struggling scramble for control. He's doing better, he knows as much with certainty born of long experience. Most of the time he can focus on the myriad distractions he provides himself with, whether the network, looking over his own notes, or even the pain of the concussion and broken nose the encounter with Charles left him with, thought that is fading. If he sees anyone at a distance, he's confident he'd be able to walk the other way.
If someone is in the building, though, in close quarters, within reach, that would be another thing entirely.
But he needs shelter. It isn't so late in the day yet, but the effort of concentration is draining. He isn't going to stay out in the snow no matter the danger. He has to live. The best he can do is to make plenty of noise as he enters, to alert anyone inside to his presence. If there is anyone... he might test his control, or he might leave. That would depend on who it was.
He calls out into the echoing building:] This is Beckett. Is anyone inside?
Location Entrance area, firestation (building
Date: Day 146
Summary: A semi-mad vampire runs into a semi-sane evil clown. Yeah.
Warnings: See above. Possible violence, blood and blood drinking, mental illness, suicidal ideation, will add more as necessary.
[The fire department building is large, and Beckett is deeply wary when he enters it. Six days; six days since he'd left Angel and Rhys behind, since the incident with Charles and Charlie, since the start of that struggling scramble for control. He's doing better, he knows as much with certainty born of long experience. Most of the time he can focus on the myriad distractions he provides himself with, whether the network, looking over his own notes, or even the pain of the concussion and broken nose the encounter with Charles left him with, thought that is fading. If he sees anyone at a distance, he's confident he'd be able to walk the other way.
If someone is in the building, though, in close quarters, within reach, that would be another thing entirely.
But he needs shelter. It isn't so late in the day yet, but the effort of concentration is draining. He isn't going to stay out in the snow no matter the danger. He has to live. The best he can do is to make plenty of noise as he enters, to alert anyone inside to his presence. If there is anyone... he might test his control, or he might leave. That would depend on who it was.
He calls out into the echoing building:] This is Beckett. Is anyone inside?
no subject
He's dreamed before but this time it was not the black sea, the wings of the bat, the faceless strangers and people who cast no shadows.
This time the dream was full of color.
A man and a woman walk down a woodland path, hand in hand. The air is crisp with the snap of early spring and light peeks down through the canopy of leaves, illuminating them.
They stop by a stream and the brown-eyed woman sits at the bank. "This could have been ours, Joseph."
The man strolls up to the water and kneels at its edge. He cups his hands into the stream and gazes into his reflection in his palms.
Gaunt, angular features and cat-green eyes. It's a green so intense that it seems almost unnatural. He parts his fingers and lets the water pour back into the stream.
"No," he says, watching his reflection distort. "It could never have been ours. This isn't really me."
Joker awakens, then, with a groan. The dream leaves an unfamiliar ache in his heart and he finds himself thinking, briefly, about Harley.
It takes him a moment before he realizes he is in a bag and he struggles free, dropping to the floor.
Dead. He'd died out there in the snow, hadn't he? Maybe that is why he feels so strange.
He gathers his gear, stumbles out of the morgue and looks around what must surely be a police station. Police stations are universal. He'd know one anywhere.
Once he walks outside the light of the snow is almost dizzying. The world feels wrong. It's as if it is all painted on a black canvas. There is color but beneath it is darkness. The ocean. The bat.
Somehow he feels like a single misstep could plunge him straight through this paper-thin reality into the familiar depths of madness below.
turns around and sees a closeby structure, immediately behind the police station. Well, he thinks, he'd might as well figure out where he is.
He walks in to the fire station and it's only a minute later that he hears a voice.
"This is Beckett. Is anyone inside?"
Joker freezes and weighs his options before calling out an answer.]
No, nobody is.
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It makes Beckett freeze just inside the door, glad that there is time enough before lockdown, still, to turn and exit if he must. He would have, with almost anyone else. He can feel the hunter raise its head in him at the sound, the knowledge that another living body was in here with him, in this concrete trap from which prey cannot easily escape. And he weighs down on it, demands calm, quiet. That is an achievement already, not succumbing to the red hunger at once. But if he were going to test himself...
It's barely been days since the Joker had almost killed Watson. A man Beckett called an ally, a friend. If there was one person in Norfinbury that no one could fault him for losing control at, one person whose safety he didn't need to mind...
It's risking himself too, of course. He's under no illusions that the Joker isn't as dangerous to him as to anyone. But it's better than the risk involved in making the first test of his new balance on someone he cares for.
He takes a few more steps inside, and calls out again, voice even in a tone of clear warning.]
I think you might have been too dead to get the memo. There's a considerable chance that I will attack you on sight in a hunger frenzy. Which you might enjoy, but I will not.
[He did make certain promises about giving warning, but that's them satisfied, he thinks. Whatever the Joker does next is all on him.]
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So? Go on, then. Attack me. Get a standing ovation from the town.
[His voice is dry and humorless.]
Nobody will tell you I didn't deserve it.
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Beckett would suspect a trap, but he's been keeping note of the Joker - everyone has - and that doesn't seem like his style. Has the admin done something, caught up with the man? Can she? Would she?
He stays rooted to the spot, suddenly unsure of just what kind of risk he's taking.]
If you're trying to trick me, I don't see why. Whether you want to fight me or not, your own actions will decide it.
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His eyes have a clarity they've never had before.]
It isn't a trick.
Come in and get it over with, or go away.
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What happe - ah.
[The shock of understanding snaps as his self-control. He surges forward, to grab the Joker's throat and slam him against the wall. He stops himself at the very last moment, fangs already flashing, just barely kept from the other man's neck.]
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Fear, not laughter.]
B-but, I should warn you my blood is poisonous.
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And yet, the full meaning of the situation as he grasps it draws him back from the edge, too. The grip slackens. He half withdraws. Still not giving up his pressed advantage cornering the Joker - just in case - but slowly letting the man go to brace or slide down the wall if he needs to.]
Well. Isn't this ironic. [He says it in a heavy breath.] To finally find a death price worse than mine was.
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He considers running, but he doubts he'd be able get past the other man. His usual cunning feels thin in his mind.]
I don't know how anyone else can stand it.
I keep seeing their faces....
[Joker slides to the ground and wraps his arms around his knees.]
What did they take from you? Sanity? Want to trade?
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[Beckett says it in a dry, wry voice, though it's an honestly hypocritical thing to say. He steps back from the man now at his feet. There's something viscerally unpleasant in the sight of someone feeling all the blood on their hands at once. There's a kind of reminder in it, there but for the grace of...
He half turns. Being taken by surprise by an attack would be preferable.]
It was a memory. The memory of going mad, you might say... [He subtly shakes himself out of that musing.] So, the pale man - none of that was true. You are human.
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[He pushes a hand through his hair.]
I can't remember. That was true.
[He mutters under his breath.]
I remember going mad, though.
[It was horrifying but preferable to this.]
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You'll be back in a few days, [he says simply, looking away before the feeling can sink its claws too deep.] Not a comfort, I'm sure. I'm sorry. I can't kill you.
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[He drops his cheek to his kneecap.]
I get to live knowing I've done horrible things and that I'll do horrible things again.
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[For a moment his voice is dry. Then he loses that, sighing.]
Sympathising with you is very unnerving, did you know that?
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[He grins but the grin is bitter and humorless.]
I don't want to hurt people anymore. Not right now. But I will again.
[And that is a frightening thought. Madness is inevitable. The darkness of insanity was comforting in him knowing that. The blackness and the bat was a place he could never fall farther from.
Now he can fall again and he doesn't like it.]
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[He says that abstractedly, to the high ceiling. After a moment he walks away - not far away, only to the opposite wall, where he crouches down in a pose mirroring the Joker's own. He's sure of his control now, more or less, but the distance still makes it easier.]
Madness is so much easier, isn't it? Sometimes I don't know why I fight. Though I have to say, it is a little anti-climactic. All that creative sadism down to just a psychosis.
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[Joker looks off into the shadows.]
I want to do something.
I need to make this all right, but.... How do I do that, after everything I've done?
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[Saying it again won't make the Joker feel better, he thinks. Probably it'll make him feel worse. He doesn't care very much. In his current mindset the other man probably would like to feel worse.]
You can stop it happening again, though. All you have to do it tell them your weaknesses. How to stop you when you come for them. Are you that penitent?
[He tilts his head to one side as he asks that, doubtful.]
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[Hurt someone....
His eyes widen and he jumps to his feet, suddenly surging towards Beckett and grabbing him by the jacket.]
ANGEL!
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A part of him still on the watch for an attack, Beckett starts to rise almost the instant the Joker moves, and the sudden surge catches him unsteady on his feet. His hands leap to the Joker's wrists, set to counter a chokehold. Too close. Too close His calm shatters. His control wavers, tips, snaps like a taut string. He's flashing his fangs at the other man's throat before he realises there's red flowing all across his vision.]
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[Joker curls into himself and tries to stagger away from Beckett.]
Listen to me, you have to find Angel!
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What? What have you done to her?!
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Nothing, yet.
She made me angry, after I buried Watson. She acted like I was boring so I....
I think I am going to try to hurt her. You need to find, her! Please! Protect her, let me do one good thing before I...
Before I can't anymore.
[His voice tightens in desperation.]
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Maybe he should tell him that.]
Now, there's a good joke. Begging someone to save you from yourself. [It's cruel, but Angel is being threatened here, and he is still seeing red. He fights to breathe.] How do I stop you? Everyone has a weakness.
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[He sighs and closes his eyes. Nothing is funny, really.]
If you're asking me if I have an emotional weakness the answer is no, I don't.
[That was why Batman used to break his limbs. Batman... His face twitches almost imperceptibly at the memory of his nemesis. It's a ghost of a smile but it's enough to fill his mouth with the taste of gun metal and the grin turns quickly into a grimace.]
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[This with a hissing snap. Maybe he's giving the Joker what he wants - pain, punishment, the sense that he's getting what he deserves. It doesn't matter. He has no interest in, and no leg to stand on in judging the man. He twists his grip so that his arm goes up to press on the Joker's throat - doesn't trust himself to threaten with his fangs, but he can do this. Slow, merciless choking.]
Everyone has something. A blind spot. A need - physical if not mental. I know you have something - [It struggles up in his mind past the rage.] You have the Bat.
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[He winces as the pressure increases at his throat.]
But not here. Here I have nothing.
Here we all have nothing...
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It's distressing, again, to sympathise with the Joker. The red rage is a comfort and he lets it rise.] Spare me the self-pity. You might be able to go back. To your Bat and to your madness.
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His eyes become distant as he stares at a point a few inches above Beckett's head.]
I don't want to go back.
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[He breathes hard, desperately, desperately balancing himself on that edge. Rage enough to feel but not to feel... he could slip any minute.
He shifts his arm to let Joker breathe again.]
I will not kill you. Not like this. I'm not an animal.