a dream that is not understood remains a mere occurrence

[restingstitchface]

WHO: Crane and Bruce theknightshift
WHEN: The Mission
WHERE: The Dream
WHAT: Manipulation
WARNINGS: Violence

[The mind is an open door. For someone like himself it opens upon a place to explore. But some minds are more familiar than others; some are more mundane than others.

He can count on one hand how many are as amazing as this.

His curiosity leads him to open that door - and he wanders into the interior of a warehouse. He is driven by nothing but the desire to see what will happen. To observe, to learn, to change and grow. To see what he can make happen. But for now he is content to watch.

Because this mind is one he has searched for in particular. The Batman had begun encroaching on his space, and he had figured this one was his own. But the more he looks around - at the shadows both physical and immaterial - he begins to realise the differences. The Gotham outside was not his own. So this one is not his. But does that matter?]

Curious...

[He says unspoken, in his thoughts. It never entered his mind to knock.]

Comments

[theknightshift]

[ For once, Bruce Wayne sleeps.

Not all night, but longer than the few minutes he allows himself. In a bed. With a pillow. The blankets curled up tight around him. The room is dim, the house quiet save for the occasional creak of the house settling. A silence he wouldn't ordinarily trust, but here? Right now? It's soothing.

This earth isn't so different from home that it's almost comforting. Bruce isn't fooled into complacency by it. He knows they're here for a mission. But right then, he wants that quiet moment of reprieve. And maybe tonight he won't dream about Sam.

He's never been that fortunate.

The dream unfolds as it always does: Joker's hands around his throat, squeezing the life out of him. Laughing, laughing, laughing until that's all Bruce can hear. Until even his own heart beats to its maniacal rhythm.

Then, a gunshot. Deafening. The bullet strikes Joker squarely, sends him staggering. But still grinning with too many teeth. Bruce should feel grateful. Relieved. Instead there's panic. Disbelief. Rage.

Bruce turns. The shooter is a boy. His partner. His Robin. This time, he surges forward. No words. Just the roar of something inside of him breaking. Bruce strikes him and strikes him hard. Hard enough to send him crashing into the crumbling brick wall nearby. In a quiet, thin voice Sam asks him why. Why did he have to die when Bruce got to live? Why? Why? Why?

He's dead and it's all your fault, Bruce. ]

[restingstitchface]

[Fingers squeeze around his throat. Fingers squeeze his mind. They probe into every thought and prize them apart, revealing fear and disbelief in equal measure, growing in the fertile soil of anger. He knows where the secrets are buried. But he wants to see those secrets grow, rather then rip them out by the root.

For the first few nights, he is content to observe. He writes the man into his schedule. But he assigns him to the special interest file and visits him multiple times across the night. One dream arises more than others. The details change every night but the basic elements always remain the same.

Three faces. All unfamiliar but identifiable by archetype. The Joker. The Apprentice. The Hero.

Symbology. Robins. Clowns. Bats.

What would happen if he changed that symbol to another? What if he removed it entirely? Would he corrupt his own data? Or would he just watch in fascination? What if he just began a dialogue?]

It's not my fault. It's yours.

[He chooses to direct that rage externally. There are elements of invasion and violation in how he forces his words to come from the Batman's own lips. Nobody said it had to be his own voice.]

[theknightshift]

[ Sometimes, there's someone else here. He can feel it. Like a pair of eyes watching him. A nebulous presence lurking in the hazy surroundings. Every time, Bruce turns to look, to see if he can spot the source of the intrusion. Every time, there's nothing there. And it makes him wonder. Maybe the Joker isn't dead. Maybe he--

Around him the world shifts. Tilts itself sideways and makes Bruce feel like he's tumbling with it. The players on the board move, pieces rearrange and Bruce finds himself standing over Robin's body, limp. Asking him why. Telling him this is his fault.

Rage flares to life, sharp and sudden, like a blaze finding oxygen. ]

It's not my fault. It's yours.

[ He says them with such a visceral hatred it burns him. Chars his insides. Coils up inside of him like thick plumes of black smoke. On those nights, he wakes up coughing, like something has really tried to strangle him. And while he lays there staring at the ceiling, the taste of ash still in his mouth, he can feel that rage still simmering inside of him. It doesn't fade with the dream.

It lingers. It grows. ]

[restingstitchface]

[The presence is there at other times, observing while he is awake, watching as he daydreams. The taste of ash is superceded by blood once his eyes close and his mind creates another dream. In one of them he is drowning, suffocated by saltwater, trapped within an ocean without a surface. In another he is standing over that limp body, surrounded by the loneliness of an empty void. His presence dwells within that darkness one can imagine but never reach nor touch. But perhaps the presence he thinks is there is nowhere; the result of his paranoia and nothing more.

People are there to follow directions. All his business associates need to do is follow instructions. Access the asylum through this entrance during these hours; follow these directions to reach his base of operations; adhere to these instructions and never sample the product

The fact this boy and that boy had not followed directions? That was their fault.]

It's your fault, you know.

[The clown says one night after midnight. Or was it the robin? Does it really matter?]

[theknightshift]

[ It's enough to drive a man mad. That sense of someone watching, always watching never fades. Not when he sleeps. Not when he's awake. It follows him like a shadow that he can't shake. It drowns him, like something prying his mouth open to pour the water in. Like darkness that claws back, sinks its sharp teeth and nails into his neck and into his back and shakes him until he's dizzy. It makes him short with John and Mary Malone. Makes him snap at them when he doesn't mean to. He can hear the things he says, even as he says them. Cold, sharp, cruel. He doesn't always recognize his voice.

He can feel their eyes on him when his back is turned. The concern. The questions. They never ask, but he can tell they want to. Are you okay? That makes him angry too. Because of course he's okay. He's fine. He's always fine. If he could just shove this presence out. If he could just rip this dream out by the roots. He would be just fine.

Tonight, Sam is already dead. Laying side by side with the Joker like a gift just for him. Both of them grinning, mouths stretched wide until it nearly splits their faces in two. Unblinking. Like they know a joke he never will.

It's your fault. And it echoes.

Your fault. My fault. Your fault. My fault.

Shut up. Sometimes it wakes him. Cause he yells it into the empty room. It's always empty. Never anyone there. It's enough to drive a man mad.

Which one is it? Did it matter anymore? ]

[restingstitchface]

[What a fascinating sequence of events. What a fantastic subject.

Crane returns to observe night after night and lingers behind day after day. He listens to everything this man says, while contemplating all he hears. There is always something to puzzle about - some unpulled thread to tug and pull loose. People believe they will survive having their sense of reality unravel. They think they will not be changed. But they always are.

It's your fault this man tells himself. But it is his fault on occasion; for planting the thoughts in the other's mind. But though the dream he sees tonight is one he has influenced, it is not one he has caused. The dreamer awakes and falls asleep and returns to the same words.

Your fault. My fault.

He returns to the same dream, where two figures are smiling with a rictus grin; two bodies he did not insert into the dream.

Your fault.

Whether he awakes the dreamer within the dream. That's not his fault either.]

[theknightshift]

[ Bruce has survived having his reality unravel. Not unchanged, but stronger. Stronger than the eight year old staring down the barrel of a gun, ears ringing, his whole world narrowing to a muzzle flash. Stronger than the man who had to gather his dead son in his arms and carry him home through a silence so heavy he felt crushed under the weight. Stronger than the man who had to stand between a homicidal clown and the son he'd stolen from him - and make the choice that would haunt him whenever he looked into his boy's eyes.

My partner, my soldier, my fault.

Sam Kristoff was never his partner. But he could have been. How hauntingly similar had he been to Dick or Jason or Tim? Close enough that he still haunts his dreams. Close enough that whoever is watching knows how to use it against him. Knows how to twist it into a burden during his waking hours and a nightmare in his sleeping ones.

Eventually he stopped sleeping. Days on end with no rest. The presence never leaves and neither does that image of Sam - broken. Dead. Gone. It eats at Bruce, like something vital inside of him is rotting. Bruce channels that rising sense of aggression into the criminal population of Earth 2. Weapon of choice? A crowbar he found in John and Mary's garage. He is suffering. They will too. ]