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black-streak · 4 years

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Waiting for the Worms - Is There Anybody Out There?

Part 3

I promise this is the last horrifically depressing part in a row. Part four will lighten up a touch (though other parts will get pretty dark again)

All warnings from previous chapters should be kept in mind. I'm not going easy on us here.

Broken Hearts Club: @northernbluetongue @thethirdwheelfriend @shizukiryuu @theatreandcomicfreak @michellemagic @karategirl119 @moonlightstar64 @my-name-is-michell @mystery-5-5 @zalladane @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @wuvpancakes @dorkus-minimus @jardimazul @allthebooksandcrannies @g-arya @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @persephonescat @mycupisbroken @luciferge @18-fandoms-unite-08 @dawnwave16 @alwaysreblogneverpost @kris-pines04 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @weird-pale-blonde-person @you-will-never-know-how-i-think @kokotaru @naclychilli @slytherinhquinn @clumsy-owl-4178 @ladybug-182 @darkthunder1589 @evil-elf16 @dast218 @lysslovsanime @emilytopaz @naoryllis @iloontjeboontje @thepeacetea @danielslilangel @finallyaniguana @i-like-fairytail-and-stuff @vixen-uchiha @yuulxd @bleeding-heart-romantic @magic-inthe-stars @st0rmy-w1th1n

~---~

When Marinette came to, she didn't.

She couldn't open her eyes or move her hand.

She couldn't move anything.

She tried to recall the last thing before this stillness. The Joker? Yes, the Joker had been beating Jason, or rather her, in Jason's body. She remembered pain and choking and fighting for control with Jason as a steel bar repeatedly slammed into her. She remembered falling asleep with Batman's rescue in mind. She remembered warmth everywhere and then nothing.

That must be it then. She was still Jason, as she had planned and probably couldn't move due to the recovery process.

With that in mind, she slipped away.

...

When she came to again, she still didn't.

Did she fall into a coma? That would explain the inability to even twitch. To open her (his) eyes after what surely had to be long enough. Now that she thought of it, she couldn't feel anything either. Not her(his?) eyelids, or fingers, or legs, or chest. Was this what a coma felt like? Or were the doses on the medication too high? Had she messed up so severely as to be paralyzed?

Fear and anxiety pricked at the edge of her mind, but she pushed it down. She needed more rest. Just to rest a while longer and it would all be fine. She'd wake up from this coma and recover and swap back to her original body, leaving Jason his healthy one. And so she slipped once more.

…

How long has she been out? Why won't she wake up? Nothing made sense anymore.

Her(...his?) body still remained unresponsive and unfeeling. The nerves were disconnected from her conscious and all was still.

She had read once that coma patients could hear things still. She heard nothing. That they could feel some things, even a brush through their hair. She felt nothing. That they could taste and smell the antiseptic in the air. She wasn't breathing.

She wasn't breathing and this body she was connected to but not had no pulse.

If there was a mental equivalent to hyperventilating, this would be it. Either way, as her distress rose, she found herself drifting back into the unknown.

…

Marinette was dead. Or at least Jason's old body that she was stuck in was. Of that, she was sure.

She couldn't help but wonder how long her spirit could live inside a hollowed out corpse. She hoped it wasn't forever. How long had it been, anyways?

Hours? Days? Weeks? More?

She couldn't say.

Maybe she should just disappear again. Was the place of drifting the afterlife? Who knew. She didn't.

…

She wanted to scream, to sob, to break down into a mess of tears and snot and gasping half breaths and she couldn't and it wasn't fair!

Jason didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve this. No one should be made to suffer like this. This endless loop of depression and loneliness and inability to express anything.

She thought she had her emotions on lock before death came for her and yet nothing would ever compare to this deep seeded, absolute need to force everything out, to express her every despair put into the open and be so utterly helpless and incapable to do so.

She wanted to rip at her own skin, to claw at her eyes, to tear into herself physically in any way she could, if just to feel again. Feel anything at all, even if it was the pain of that god forsaken crowbar in her throat again or the engulfing burn of the explosion after the fact. She'd take all the pain in the world if it meant she could feel again. Even for just a second.

Please?

Anything?

No?

Okay...

…

Was This the afterlife? When you died, did you just lay completely devoid of movement, spirit restless for the rest of time?

Maybe this was it for her. Maybe she would just stay here forever to ponder the life she lost. Forever waiting for the next slip into oblivion only to come to and stay here in this contemplative silence again. If so, she hoped Jason never died in her body. Became immortal and avoided this endless torture.

The thought hit her that she died in another's body and that the universe may lash out at her for her defiance. Jason remained living while against fate's wishes and she was to blame. So it crafted her a personal hell in the form of her soulmate's old form. The one she clung to so desperately moments before their demise.

If she was awake and alert in his dead body, what did that mean for the technically dead boy stuck in her living body? Did she condemn them both in her stubbornness?

She set her mind to determining all the possible outcomes of that possibility. She had plenty of time anyways.

…

Their funeral must have been nice. Adoptive son of billionaire, Bruce Wayne. She imagines it to be a grand affair. Everyone who's anyone, paying their respects to Bruce's kid.

Or maybe just a quiet morning; Alfred, Bruce, maybe Richard if he felt bad enough, all gathered around a grave in the family plot. Mourning together. Would the service be open or closed casket? Probably closed to hide the truth of what killed them.

Surely as Batman, Bruce had told the JL of his departure. Perhaps the heroes had given their condolences or shown up on their own to say goodbye to one of their own. Considering the encounters Jason and her had with them in the past, she doubted it, but it was a nice thought.

She imagines their coffin is beautiful. A gorgeous mahogany or cherry wood. Gold clasps and locks, the inner lining velvety soft and plush to cradle the body. She almost wants to feel the texture below their fingertips, but sends thanks to the mercy of not feeling the confinement of the enclosed space instead.

…

She was alive! She could breathe and move, if barely, but that was okay, because she's alive. Everything would be fine even if it wasn't good because she could escape this damnable hell and leave this grave finally.

She would hunt down Jason and throw her arms around him and never let go. She'd never tell him about her time down here, it didn't matter. All he needed to know was that she was alive and okay and so was he and everything would be better now. She promised, she just needed to get out of here first.

If she could sob in relief she would, because by some miracle she was alive.

…

She wasn't. She was delusional and dead.

...

Counting to a thousand doesn't take nearly as long as you think. Neither does counting down. Luckily she fades again before she can start a third time.

…

She's still sort of alive in here in her own way. And that was her living body out there. If she really tried, could she switch them back? Could she go back to living and return his dead body to him? Would he be delivered to a better afterlife once she appeased the universe?

No. No! What was wrong with her? She died for him for a reason. He deserved a better life. He had been through so damn much and deserved the reprieve away from Gotham. And no matter what, she would never choose to let him die. She would suffer in here for a millenia if it meant he was safe and happy. Even if it was without her. She felt betrayed by her own mind's musings.

That wasn't necessarily a new feeling.

…

She'd never see her parents again. Never hug them, never take in the warmth and strong scent of yeast and chocolate from her father and honeyed herbs from her mother.

Never wake up to Tikki snuggled into the pillow beside her, encouraging smiles and guiding words always at the tip of her tongue.

Never hold Chloe through her tears or fight by her side again. Finish the dress she was making her or Juleka. Help the shyer one come into her modeling career or guide her as a new miraculous holder. Guide the team.

Never become a designer or own a pet or get married or have children.

It was more than that though. She'd never train in the Batcave again or fight by his side or sit in the library window at the manor or sit in the calming aura of Alfred. Never see the one person who could always tell when they swapped. Alfred had become a second father to her. She missed helping him cook or clean up. Missed asking for his opinion and making little inside jokes about the others.

She'd never get to meet Jason.

…

She felt different. She felt wrong and confused and unsure and-

She felt…

She felt..

She felt?

Immense pain and overwhelming stiffness, but she felt!

Now. Now just to move. Please move. Let this not be another hallucination of her mind. Please? If she could move than she was alive, right?

A hand, their hand, twitched and shuddered and eventually dragged up their side. Up to their eye, the good one if she remembers correctly. She digs at the corners until eventually it squints open a touch. Pitch black.

Okay, that's not surprising. Probably another delusion, but she might as well see it through. She pushes her hand up through the dark until she meets wood. Soft wood. Barely there and slightly bowing beneath the weight of what she assumed was the earth above her. What, did they bury her in a plywood box?

Their chest shook almost in a jittery up/down dance and air wheezed between their teeth. She didn't dare believe it was real. She lifted the other hand and pushed with both, feeling it move beneath their fingers. The one arm was still broken and hurt immensely but she pushed anyway. The pain, real or not, felt amazing. She brought a leg up to push as well.

Lowering all their limbs, she took a false breath of stale air and made her decision. Attempt to escape until she came too again, if only for the entertainment of it. At least it was something new.

She brought their legs into her chest as best she could in the surprisingly roomy coffin and kicked up with all the strength she could manage. A splinter formed under foot and sparked a manic sort of determination.

She kicked and kicked at the splinter until dirt was raining down around her in the dark space and then she kicked some more. It felt amazing on her skin: the dirt pushing down, the ache in her chest, the throbbing in her throat of splintered bone, the wood pushing down against her feet, tearing at them. And then the world collapsed down onto her.

In the wonderful pressure and choking hold of Earth, she tore at the soil, dragging herself up further and further, feeling it shift across their skin in glorious relief. Please never let this delusion end.

And then, then! Light. Blinding, all encompassing light came into view and she was on ground. Not under it, but above it, laying on it, letting the wondrous light bathe her in its heated gaze. She choked out dirt and coughed and wanted to cry out in joy but no sound would come out of their bone dry body. No tears would spring from depleted eye sockets.

Eventually sight came back in a blurry daze of nonsense until the abandoned graveyard came into view. Turning, she saw a barely there grave marker and couldn't help but think her imagination cruel.

Pushing for more, she stood on wobbly, tattered feet and walked. Out of the tiny, forgotten field and into even more abandoned streets. She wasn't sure where her mind took her, but she kept walking in what looked like an early morning sunrise. She walked for what could've been hours, the sting and ache and tearing in their body spurring her on in a strangely gleeful manner.

Eventually she stopped in front of a hospital. The sun had moved and faceless people had started appearing at a distance as time moved on in her thoughts. She liked this pain but… maybe she should seek help? Maybe her brain was searching for something to make it better. Mentally shrugging and then perking at the feel of their real shoulders following suit, she wandered into the ER.

As people suddenly swarmed her, asking questions she couldn't process and grabbing her arms to drag her onto a gurney, reality kicked in harsh and fast.

She was actually alive. Everything was real and they could see and feel her and she could feel them too! Their body was alive and here. This was real.

And as relief swept into her veins and she collapsed down into the bed they provided, she felt such amazing peace that she didn't even notice as she fell asleep and straight into a coma.

...

When sounds filtered in around her and she smelt the antiseptic and felt the tubes running through their body but still couldn't move or see. She screamed and cried and sobbed in her mind for the loss, their body horrifically failing to follow suit once again. Why couldn't this torture ever end?

#WFTW #part 3 #jasonette #maribat #ml x dc

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murasakiyugata · 6 years

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John’s Perfect Family

Description: Fanfiction about John and his pet guinea pigs. Takes place between the first and second Telltale Batman games.

Warning: Contains animal abuse.

“Tell me the truth, Hazel. There’s someone else, isn’t there?” John spoke in a gruff voice, moving the guinea pig he held in his right hand to indicate it was talking. The creature was beige, dressed in a suit, and very much wanting to be put down.

“Why, I declare, Jeremy! How could y’all even think such a thang?!” The guinea pig in John’s left hand who apparently spoke in a rather unconvincing southern accent had black fur, a simple dress, and no desire to be part of any of this.

“Don’t lie to me!” continued John, switching back to the first animal. “I’ve seen the way you look at that hamster from the discount pet store. You’d rather be with him, wouldn’t you? I get it, I get it. The guy’s way furrier than I am. And he has a great set of wheels.”

“Hush, Jeremy! You’re speakin’ right nonsense! Y’all know you’re the only one for me!”

“Then why, Hazel? Why can’t we be together?”

“It’s…it’s my pa. He think you’re too old for me.”

“Too old?! Well…I was born two months before you. In guinea pig years, that’s almost a century!”

“I know. But, Jeremy…I don’t care. I love you! I plum wanna be with y’all forever!”

“Oh, Hazel!”

“Jeremy!”

John hit the creatures’ faces together while making kissing noises. Hazel closed her eyes and bowed her head, waiting for all this to be over, while Jeremy struggled to get away.

John let out a contented sigh. “Oh, you lovebirds.” He placed them back in their cage, where they proceeded to ignore each other as they usually did. “Well, I can tell the two of you want to be alone, so….” He tapped his phone which began playing 80s porn music, and set it by the cage. He gave Jeremy a wink before leaving the room and shutting the door behind him, thoughts of little, furry grandbabies scurrying through his head.

No thanks to John’s encouragements, Hazel did, in fact, become pregnant. John was overjoyed and made haste sewing the happy couple a gown and tuxedo for their shotgun wedding. It was a lovely ceremony, complete with flowers, cake, and a plush doll of Bruce Wayne serving as the minister.

In the weeks to come, John spent more time than usual doting on his pets. He made sure to steal plenty of pickles and ice cream for Hazel, and frequently imparted life lessons to Jeremy that he’d picked up back in Arkham. John had a lot on his plate outside of his home, but the guinea pigs were rarely far from his thoughts. Coming home to them, being sure to feed them regularly, cleaning the melted ice cream out of their cage – these helped provide well-needed structure to his life outside the asylum walls. He was eager for the birth of the pups to the point of frustration, which he channeled into creating several tiny outfits of various different styles.

When John finally came home to find that two new healthy, happy family members had been born, he let out an excited gasp and clasped his hands together it utter joy. He pulled out his phone, and was about to snap a picture, when he noticed something. A third pup had crawled out from behind Hazel. But this one was different than the others – white as snow, with red eyes and adorable pinkish ears. It was quite possibly the most lovely thing John had ever seen. He put away his phone and reached into the cage with an uncharacteristic tenderness.

“Come on, little buddy.” He allowed the little creature to sniff his hand, before gently coaxing it into his palm. He raised it up slowly, reassuring it. “It’s okay. I gotcha.” It was so soft, so cute, and it didn’t seem scared of John at all. Choking up a little, John held it to his cheek. “You’re perfect.” He lowered it to look at it again, and smiled. “I’m gonna call you…Bruce. You’re gonna do…great things, little buddy! I just know it.” He then carefully returned it to the cage.

“So!” John grabbed Jeremy abruptly and held him up, grinning. “You and I…we gotta talk.” He looked at Hazel. “Excuse us. This is sort of a man-to-man thing.” He took Jeremy into the next room, shutting the door behind him, then set the guinea pig down next to a set of tiny clothes. “Wow! Big day for you, huh?” John started dressing the animal in a new plaid, button-up shirt. “This changes everything! No more nights getting plastered at the bar. Might have to pick up a few extra shifts at work to make ends meet, am I right? But, hey, all part of being a good dad! And you’re definitely gonna live up to the part!” He finished buttoning the shirt and admired his handiwork. “You certainly look it.” John cupped the back of his hand to his mouth and lowered his voice a little. “And, uh…just between you and me? If any of the kids ever feel a little…um…different? Just make sure they know you love ’em. Let ’em know…they’re beautiful just the way they are. Kay?” He looked at the animal for a response and, getting none, moved it with his hand and said in a gruff voice, “Don’t worry, John! You can count on me!” John smiled and responded, “That’s what I like to hear!”

He returned Jeremy to the cage. “Your turn, missy!” he said, lifting up Hazel. The usually compliant animal squirmed and struggled, looking nervously at the cage. “Separation anxiety, huh?” asked John. “I get it. But Dr. Leland says you shouldn’t get too fixated on one thing. We’ll be back soon, I promise.” He took her into the next room, shutting the door behind them. For her he had a polka dot dress and white apron, which he fastened around her as he spoke. “So, how often do you think we should throw them birthday parties? What’s normal in guinea pig culture? Once a month? Once every couple weeks? We gotta be careful not to spoil them. Eh, who am I kidding?” He chuckled to himself. Once he’d finished dressing her, he held her up and signed happily. “Look at you. All primmed and ready to be on the front cover of Better Rodents Housekeeping.” He rubbed her head affectionately.

John opened the door and carried Hazel back toward the cage. “Alright, kiddos, time for…”

He stopped suddenly, dropping Hazel to the ground.

He looked silently at the cage. All three of the babies were dead. Bitten, scratched, bloody corpses. Jeremy was there, looking relaxed, eating Bruce’s remains.

It was over.

After a few moments of staring, John closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. “You weren’t supposed to do that.” He grabbed Jeremy and held him in front of his face, glaring. “You weren’t supposed to do that!” The guinea pig struggled to get away. “You’re not! A good! Father!” With the last word he threw Jeremy against the wall. The creature fell to the floor, injured and frightened, but still alive.

“That won’t do.” John walked over to a baseball bat he had propped up against a wall and grabbed it. “Not at all.” Jeremy tried to scurry away, but was having trouble in his crippled state. “You think you can run?” asked John approaching, eyes wide. “You can’t run from justice!”

He brought the bat down again and again. Shattering bones, splattering blood, decorating the wood with red pulp. John didn’t know why he was laughing so hard. But it didn’t matter. He kept beating the creature until its eyes bulged from its head and it’s body stopped twitching.

John was focusing on his breathing when he heard a noise behind him. He turned to see Hazel scratching desperately at the doorframe, trying to get out. John thought back to how anxious she had been when he’d taken her from the cage. And then it hit him. “You knew!” He dropped the bat and ran toward her. She tried to flee, but he caught her under his foot, then picked her up with both hands and shook her fiercely. “You knew this would happen! And you said nothing!” He looked her in the eyes, a pained expression on his face. “You were their mother! You were supposed to protect them!” Hazel struggled, terrified.

“But that’s okay,” said John, his voice quieter now as he squeezed his fingers around her as hard as he could. “You can join them.” Hazel felt herself being crushed, felt the air being squeezed out of her lungs, as she struggled desperately to free herself. But it was no use. The last thing she saw before she died was her caretaker’s hideous grin.

Once John was sure that all the life had been squeezed from her body, he relaxed his grip. He observed the animal casually before tossing it over his shoulder. Then he turned and looked at the cage with a frown.

He walked over to it slowly, then very carefully lifted Bruce’s body out. He sat on the floor and cradled the guinea pig’s corpse against his cheek.

“It’s okay, little buddy,” said John softly. “I gotcha. I gotcha.”

#batman #telltale batman #batman the enemy within #john doe #joker #fanfic #fanfiction

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