fandomtownies | The Park, By the Duck Pond, Late Friday Night

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The Park, By the Duck Pond, Late Friday Night

It could be said that Jonothon was a creature of impulse. He did, after all, have a temper on him. And a sense of get-up-and-go that had put him into some of the worst situations he'd been in, some of the worst he was ever likely to be in.

And sometimes, his impulses just told him that he wanted to feed the ducks.

Not that there were any ducks awake at this time of night. There was a chill in the air and the stars were out, though, and Jono was okay with contenting himself to sit on the bench and watch the clouds drift over the moon, instead. He'd probably be there a while. It wasn't like he was any good at actually sleeping at nights, after all.

[OOC: Open for anyone who happens to be up this late. I can't sleep, either. Good night for method RP.]

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Hayley Fitzpatrick had been a bit of a night owl ever since she'd started prowling the streets and rooftops of Gotham City wearing a red silk hood. And since she'd been a little more restless of late...

She'd been out walking, and had felt the same sort of compulsion to visit the duck pond. She stopped in her tracks when she saw realized that a certain someone was standing there, too.

Shoving her hands into her pockets, she walked forward.

"No ducks?" she said.

Jonothon was suddenly not entirely certain if the chill in the air was because it was a night in early March. His muscles tensed. His back stiffened. And for a moment he contemplated just getting up and walking away.

Eventually, the best that he managed was a terse, "No ducks." No eye contact required for that, really.

Hayley wasn't out for eye contact. She stood awkwardly near Jonothon, looking acutely at the toes of her boots.

She stood there in silence for a moment, her one hand gripping her red hood tightly in her pocket.

"...don't suppose it'd make anything up if I offered to do your laundry, would it?"

She was a little off in her thinking, yes.

A touch, yes, and a sharp look directed towards her said volumes to that effect, too.

"No, Hayley. You don't get to touch my laundry." Jonothon's gaze turned back toward the water. "I'm more than capable of handling that on my own."

He'd ended up throwing most of those clothes out. Greasepaint didn't wash out easily. And really, it felt a bit like he'd never get them clean, even if it did.

"I... look, how was... I mean, I was just curious, that's all. Curious," she said, getting a little choked up. Her cheeks felt warm against the chill of the night, and her stare didn't leave her own feet. "I didn't mean to do anything bad."

Jono closed his own eyes tightly shut.

"I woke up with somebody else's face, superimposed over my own," he ground out, shaking his head.

The face of a killer. The face of a monster. As if he didn't have to wake up to that every morning already.

"Her face. That's all you see when you look at me, isn't it? That smile? How did you expect me to take it?"

There was more to it than that, of course. Always more to it than that. But he was starting simple, for the time being. It seemed like the best option. At least for now.

Hayley found herself having to concentrate just to breathe. Her heart was pounding in her chest, filling all her senses. "It's not the same face," she said, pulling at her hair with a hand. "It's not. I don't look at you like you're her. I don't want you to think that I want you to be her."

She really, really didn't.

"No," Jono hissed, red-eyes blazing out at the water, "only close enough that you can pretend, every now and again."

He shuddered, closing his eyes again, taking a few deep breaths. Trying to calm the hell down. Losing his head wouldn't do anyone any favours, either.

"I'd sooner blow my face off again than be made into an effigy of somebody like that. Even if I'm not the one occupying it, my body was not created to dance for your amusement. You had no right, Hayley."

When he opened his eyes again, they were still red. They probably would be for a while.

Which meant it was good that Hayley wasn't looking at him. She balled her hands into little fists, her nails pressing deeply into her palms.

"You don't know what I did," she said, shaking her head. "You don't know how I felt, or why, or anything. If I'd known you woulda gotten any idea, I never would have. I didn't want you to ever know."

Jonothon's lip curled back and he was on his feet, hands balled into fists at his sides, chest heaving. She wouldn't have done it if she'd known he would have figured out what she'd done?

"Me not knowing wouldn't have changed what you did! No, I don't know how you felt. Do you have any idea how I feel? Did you even stop to think about that for one bloody moment before making a Joker out of me!?"

If the ducks had been sleeping before, they were probably awake now.

"I trusted you! I have no goddamn clue why, but I did! And I won't, now. I will not trust you in the future. I refuse to be anybody's puppet again!"

Hayley found her stomach twisting so powerfully that she dry-heaved. She almost lost her balance as her body tried to bring up her dinner like she'd been punched right in the gut.

Her mascara started to run, blank inky streaks starting to dribble from the corners of her eyes as the tears started to form.

"I just wanted a piece of her back again," she said, nearly to the point of blubbering. "That's all. I thought it would work but all it did was make me feel even more... empty."

She pulled at her hair again, just trying to take control of what she was feeling. "I didn't think."

She hadn't thought at all, really. She'd not thought one moment about what she was doing to Jono, because she'd not even thought about how it was his body.

"Well, maybe now would be a good time to fall into the habit."

Jonothon's voice had gone quiet again. Her visceral reaction to his yelling was, at least for the time being, enough to rock him back to his own senses, too. He was slipping. He was angry enough that he wasn't holding himself in check, and if that kept up, he'd do something that he'd most likely regret later.

"She's gone, Hayley. She's gone, and you sure as hell won't find her in me. You'd have far better luck holding on to that piece of her that you've got with you already. Nobody else has her inside of them in quite the same way that you do."

That was not exactly meant to be encouraging. Just blunt honesty. Jono didn't do encouragement when he was still absolutely livid, no.

"So I didn't make you dance," Hayley said, her voice still shaking. She shook her head again and again. "At least, not for my amusement. It didn't... it wasn't..."

She screamed in frustration, kicked the ground and continued to cry. "You hate me now, don't you?" she said, after a moment of silence after her scream. "Guess I can't blame you."

Jonothon frowned at that. The scream... he could handle the scream. He'd done plenty of raising his own voice. Now it was her turn. Fine.

And then he was quiet. A question like that deserved a careful answer. And so, more silence, as he thought it over and carefully pieced it together.

"... That's... that's the thing of it. I should, shouldn't I? I should loathe you. I feel violated in ways you might never understand, and I shouldn't even be standing here right now speaking with you. I said my bit. I can walk away, now."

Another brief pause, and then he shrugged.

"But I don't hate you. I spend enough time every day hating myself. I don't think I have much room left to hate the rest of the world. I guess you'll have to settle for me being upset a while longer."

She was dangerous. She was toxic. A pretty poison. That phrase had been etched into his mind for months, now, and it seemed to drift up now and again when it most suited the situation. There is no cure.

He closed his eyes again, and when they opened, they were no longer red. Just very, very tired.

"I kinda wish you just hated me," Hayley said, her throat slightly hoarse from her scream. "But I'm glad you don't. It sure would make bein' down in the pit pretty awful."

She started to laugh, a dry, breathy laugh. She finally forced herself to look up, then to look over at him. "Kinda glad you didn't just walk away, too. Everybody seems to do that to me, eventually."

And that last statement, if nothing else, managed to get a wry smile out of him.

"That isn't just a you thing, luv. That's a life thing."

Wasn't everything, in the end?

"It just stands out all the more when you're the one being left alone."

"I'm sorry," Hayley said, even if she still couldn't quite grasp the enormity of what she'd done, at least not on anything but visceral level.

She wanted to say a lot more, how she was still a little scared for him, of him. She wanted to sit him down and tell him all about Bianca, how he... well, he didn't have it all wrong, but she wanted to say her own feelings on the matter.

Instead, she just stood there, her hair frazzled from her maddened tugs, her eyes wide and watery with mascara stains drizzled under them. She gave him a little apologetic smile, one that betrayed she didn't know the enormity of what she'd done.

But it was also a genuine apology, for what was grasped, at least.

Jonothon couldn't just tell her it was okay and be done with it. It wasn't. If anything good had come from this at all, it was simply that he would be more wary about who he trusted in the future. As if he wasn't already suspicious of the motives of the entire world around him.

It would never be okay. Nothing was okay.

"I know," he settled on, finally. "I know you are, luv. And I suppose for now, that'll have to suffice."

Hayley nodded, then reached back into the pocket of her jacket to produce a pack of cigarettes. She pulled a single cigarette from the pack, placed it between her lips, then patted her pockets.

"Don't suppose you have a light?" she asked. She wasn't trying to change the subject but just... move on.

"Had you asked me that two years ago, I probably would have said yes," Jono noted, shrugging helplessly. "I haven't had much of a need to carry fire around with me these days, I'm afraid."

He just got these lungs, thanks. He was going to keep them as healthy as possible until the next time he managed to blow himself up somehow.

"I couldn't give this up if I tried," Hayley said, digging in her pockets to no avail. "It's not my old brand or nothin', but that's probably a good thing."

Given her old brand was a powerful narcotic that had a tendency to make its addicts manic and unpredictable, it was definitely a good thing she'd stopped with those. She sighed, giving up and tossing the cigarette right into the duck pond without so much as a second thought.

"...and you shouldn't believe everything you read in the papers, by the way."

She hoped he'd pick up on her insinuation.

If it was an insinuation, it was about as subtle as a brick, really. Jonothon raised an eyebrow at that. And then shook his head a little.

"I've been in enough of them myself to know better," he allowed. "Dare I ask which part I shouldn't believe?"

The murdering heroes part? Or the framing them for the deaths of strippers?

Edited 2012-03-04 11:17 (UTC)

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The Park, By the Duck Pond, Late Friday Night

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