Tonight, You're Gonna Break Your One Rule

All I can see is grey.

The foggy, swirling air in front of me is thick with grey. And fear. The city was in turmoil, twisting in terror as GCPD worked to rid the metropolis of Scarecrow's toxin. It'd been a day, and although the air was now far clearer than it was 24 hours ago, it was still foggy with screams. I, despite my efforts to isolate everything, was not immune to this grey mist. As soon as I'd realised, brought from my trance as the laughter faded, I'd ran back inside, shut and bolted my door behind me.

But soon, slow, weaving little tendrils of smoke flew towards me, and my head swam with the drug. And now, as I lie with my face buried into this bloody sofa, all I can hear is my worst fear.

He's dying. All around me as I gingerly lift my head from the sofa, are purple and green clowns falling to the floor. Through the silvery fog I see another form collapse the floor, with a haunting, rasping breath that shudders through me and brings another sob bubbling up into my throat. I didn’t think I could cry much more than this, but I can't escape him. I lift my head once more with a morbid curiosity, and watch, transfixed as a police officer holds a pistol to his head, and shoots. My imagination, combined with the toxin, takes a glorious delight in the details of blood spattering my carpet. All around me, dozens of clowns fall to the floor with heavy thuds.

Scarecrow takes a rope to his neck, tightens until the fire in his eyes dies. The Bat holds a taser to the small of his back until his muscles give up. Harley Quinn thrusts her gloved hand into his chest cavity, closes her dainty fingers around his heart, and tugs. All this time, he doesn't protest, doesn't make a noise, all this time, my clown simply looks at me with those hollowed, hallowed eyes. I look straight back, transfixed by the horror of the grey fog.

Then, my Jack jumps violently as a ruby glove closes in a lovers caress around his throat. He almost sighs with the relief, and he looks up, his eyes fixed in mine, in a ghostly stare of grey fog. Then a knife darts from behind him, drives into his throat and he chokes, a nasty bubbling sound that brings blood with it, instead of the sobs my throat choked up. I know exactly who the owner of that knife is, with her ruby gloves and her lover's caress, and I scream, burying my face into the sofa once more. All around me, outside of this apartment of hell, I can hear people screaming, their worst fears springing from the grey fog, but this was far worse. I bury my head further into the sofa, close my arms over my head to block out everything, but I can still hear that bubbling, rasping breath.

The hours flood by, with my hands over my ears to block out that breath, until, after my muscles have turned to lead, I once again lift my head from the sofa. The air is clearer, the terror outside is softer, the grey fog fading. I moan with the relief, and take a long look around... Nothing. No dead bodies of lost clowns, no blood, no nothing.

I swing my legs from the sofa, run my hands through my hair, and my body shakes from the exertion, from the torture. Could only a chemical do that? I gingerly lick my lips and stand, wondering if my legs could take it. They stumble beneath me, and I clutch at the sofa until they regain their use. I needed to do something, to uncurl my body from the sofa and take my mind off those images, that never-ending torture. I exhale through chapped lips and gingerly walk towards the kitchen. My body moans with the exertion, my muscles creak and my bones whine.

A scream resonates from outside, the last lingering moments of a hallucination. It makes me jump from my skin, my legs give way and once again I clutch at the nearest surface, find my nails break against the wall. I inhale sharply and force myself to stand, stumble towards the kitchen counter and look around in despair. I didn't want to eat, yet my stomach rolls and rumbles in protest, my body needed food, but my mind protested. I close my eyes as my stomach churns again, and reach for food. I don't look at what it is, only reach for the knife to get the plastic wrapping off it.

Just as I slide the knife into the plastic, there's a whisper, carried on the wind towards me, "Precious..."

I stumble, let out a moan of despair, I thought the hallucinations had gone...

"Precious? ... Cally-Rose?" His voice is more than a whisper now, a soft enquiry, and I let out a shaky breath, clenching my eyes shut.

"Go away," I moan, "You're just a hallucination, please... I've had enough..."

He clears his throat carefully, and in the reflective surface behind the cooker I see a blur of purple and green over my shoulder. A hallucination.

"I'm not a hallucination Cally..."

I inhale sharply, tighten my fist around the knife, "Yes, you are... please..." I heave a shaky breath, "Please... I've had enough..."

He sighs softly, and I feel his breath against my neck. My eyes roll back in their sockets, it felt so real... "Would your hallucinations beg for you?" He inhales, "Come back to me..."

I shake my head, tremble from top to toe, clenching my eyes shut, no, no, he couldn't be real. He could not be real, please, this hurt too much...

"Would your hallucinations cry for you?" His bare hand reaches in front of me, gently touches my cheek and turns me towards him. I yelp, God his skin burnt, it felt like electricity, like ice and crashing waves and the world falling around me. The knife in my hand leaps, slashes across his shoulder and he takes a step back. I stand there, chest heaving in the terror and the reality of the blood on his jacket.

He looks at me with those hollowed, hallowed eyes, "Would your hallucinations bleed for you Cally?"

I break then. I simply fall against the counter as the sobs rack my body with a sickening ease. The knife clatters to the floor, "No," I sob, heaving in breath to my wanting lungs as I look up at him with bleary eyes, "Please don't do this, go away, please..."

He moves forward, reaching for my cheek, but I shy away with another moan of terror, I couldn't stand this torture anymore, "Cally," He says, with a soft air of despair, "Come back to me Precious. I am real, I promise you."

I push past him, out of the confines of the kitchen towards the slightly more open lounge, tears streaming wildly down my cheeks as my sobs fill the room, "I have my life! Leave me alone!"

He lets out a soft noise that strikes my heart, "What about our life, Cally? What about my life, what about everything you left behind?"

I sob, let my head hang and wrap my arms around myself to try and calm the churning of my stomach. I bend over to try and stop myself heaving from the sobs in my throat, "I'll hurt you!"

He makes a grab for my wrists, catches the frail bones in his bare hands and I hear the sizzle of electricity. I feel the strength of his hands, of his whole body flood into me. I feel his power and his grace. I feel his pain. Fresh sobs tear through me as his gaze burns my skin, forces me to look at him, "The only way you hurt me is leaving me."

I tear my hands away, bring them to my face and stumble with the onslaught of emotion, "Stop it! Please! I don't want this!"

He grabs me then, winds his arms tight around my ribcage and drags my sobbing, hysterical form across the room. A dirty mirror sits above the dresser, and he drops me to my feet there, winding arms tight around my waist to keep me there. I sob horribly, shaking my shoulders and making a half attempt to get away from him.

Was he real? Did I want him to be? I didn't know the answer to either of these questions, they simply swirled around me like the remnants of fear toxin.

I moan beneath the sobs that crash through me and twist my lungs of all air. He reaches in front of me, with those weathered, white-tipped fingers I'd longed for, for so long I'd needed his touch, and it seemed to have let something loose within me. My emotions flooded into me like the fear gas on the rooftops, and now I simply couldn't stop crying, wracking my body with the guilt and terror and loneliness I'd pushed away for so long.

He forced my eyes up towards the mirror, and they leap to find his own fire-filled gaze. I moan with the emotional rush of his gaze, and he murmurs into my ear, "You're just like me, Precious. Look at us, monsters together."

I spin in his arms, let out a wailing sob and lodge my hands in his hair. I bring my face millimetres away from his, and look right into his fire-filled eyes. He was real. He was here, oh God, he'd come to me, he'd found me. He was here, thank God, the relief rushed through me and brought fresh tears. He was here, he was here.

He looks at me with those eyes, his face twisted with slight confusion as I sob and shudder. I inhale, and his scent floods my nostrils. My eyes roll back in their sockets once more, and the sobs rush through me faster and faster. Then suddenly, I want more, I wanted to make sure he was here. I wanted to feel his skin and his scars and the ravages of time and love on his flesh. I tear at his coat, push it from his shoulders, then at his waistcoat, deftly opening the buttons with an energy I'd lacked for so long, then his tie, then his shirt. I open the buttons and slide my hands over his chest and around his ribs, sobbing with the sight of his flesh and his scars. I stare him right in the eyes, unable to look away, and my fingers trace the heart I'd carved into his shoulder so long ago.

He stays there for a while, just holding me, until my breath worsens, and my ribcage shakes with the exertion. I didn’t think I could cry much more, and yet I carried on. He cups my cheeks and forces me to look back up at him. I sob anew at his eyes, was the fire always so doused?

"You're here, oh you're here please don't leave," I heave a shuddering breath and chew at my lips through sobs, "Where did you go?" I bring my face right to his, "Don't ever go away again, please."

His lips twist in a quick show of anger, "You left me Precious..." I let out a fresh sob and his mouth twists and his eyes downturn in an apology, "...I was in Arkham. They caught me and I just stood there... I didn't resist... I just stood there and waited for them to take me... and they did, they laughed all the way. They'd finally caught me, me! Gotham's Number One." He laughs, his mouth twisted in a bitter sneer and I sob a little harder, "They shoved me in maximum security, and I just... let them. I didn't fight... I just... let them... there was no point without you." He shudders and I search his eyes for that spark once more.

"Then Chris got a job as a security guard there, and every single day he told me they were looking for you. Everyone was always looking for you Cally, always..." He sighs and the tears threaten to douse the fire in those gorgeous irises, "We got word that you... you were here, and I'd had enough. Chris got me a gun." He sighs, "I needed you back, I had to come and get you when Joe told me where you were... So I shot my way out of there, and of course, Crane tags along, and his fear gas is everywhere, and the city is back in chaos." He sighs and runs a hand through my hair and I sob mindlessly over his words, gasping and heaving for breath so it tears my throat and I think I'm going to be sick.

"But I'm here now, we're here... we're here together," He looks down at me worriedly, almost wondering why I'm crying so hard. I felt so guilty, every single emotion I'd neglected to feel since I'd left him had flooded back, and my body couldn't take it.

"Precious... stop crying." He inhales sharply and steps forward so my body is up against his, and I arch into him, aching for his skin and his warmth and his light and his love. I bury my face in his neck, sob a little harder as the smell of petrol and oil on his skin fills my brain.

"Cally-Rose," He murmurs into my hair, "Please stop crying... C'mon, you're overreacting Precious. Stop it now." I just sob harder, unable to breath and the blood rising to my cheeks. I felt so rushed with emotion I couldn't separate one from the other, I just sobbed through the flood.

He steps away and I claw desperately at him, "Don't leave me," I cry, and he lifts his gaze up to me again. His eyes are back and bright with fire, and his mouth is twisted, the red flaking away from the skin as his voice leaps with an assertion I hadn't heard forever, "Stop crying Precious. You're being stupid. Stop it."

I look up at him, where did that come from? He sounded so hateful... My eyebrows furrow in confusion and I begin to feel the anger bubbling up in my stomach. The sobs still leap from my lips as I straighten my back and look at him curiously.

He glances down at his fist, clenches it once, tightly so his knuckles turn white, then releases the pressure. He looks back up at me, with an apologetic glance, and then mutters, "I'm sorry Precious."

I wonder what he means, for a split second, before he hits me. Right across my cheek and the anger bubbles up as I manage to move my head. It was only a glancing blow, but I feel the bile of rage in my throat and I clench my own fists, moving away from him, "Don't hit me, you psychopath!"

He laughs, a low, rough, grating thing that sends shocks through my body, ignites the fire in my lower stomach, and grabs my shoulders, pulling me tight against him and getting right in my face, "C'mon Precious, we both know you're as crazy as I am!" My eyes roll back in their sockets and my legs give way with the rush of it all, with the rush of his smoky breath and that aftershave, and I seize the lapels of his shirt and crush him to me.

Our lips finally meet in a crash of fiery red, in a rush of longing and loneliness and need. I moan into his lips and clutch at his shoulders, oh God, I'd missed him. My legs give way and I feel his chest cave with the rush. He wraps his arms around me, picks me up and I curl my legs tight around him, I'd never let him go again. He runs his hands up my back, pulling my shirt up with it and breaking our kiss for a split second to tear it over my head. I moan and arch into him as he gives a soft murmur of appreciation and apology, crushing me to him and crashing our lips again. He runs his hands up my chest, over my shoulders to memorise every curve and I claw at his chest to free his ravaged flesh from the shirt. It flutters away, ripped, as we stumble back against the sofa.

He pulls away from our kiss in a fire of passion, and his husky voice fills the air, "Bedroom."

I almost scoff, attach our lips for a second and run my nails down his shoulders. He groans, shifts me on his hips and I mutter, "Not got one. Here," He quirks his eyebrows, steps around the sofa, attaches our lips once more, and sits himself on the edge of the sofa. I shift into his lap, kiss back with every single emotion I've lost since so long ago, revelling in the thick tang of lipstick I've missed. His hands fall to those disgusting trousers, the ones I'd left open in my haste earlier, and now I did not regret it one bit. He slides his hands around my hips, pulls me against him and I grab fistfuls of his hair. The sheer force of my strength, the rush of adrenaline and my body pounding for his sends us falling to the floor.

I land hard on my back, but I don’t feel it, wrapping my legs around his hips. He chuckles, braces his weight on top of me. The sheer proximity of his body against mine sends my blood into a fever, and I moan, tearing at those gorgeous purple trousers. His body pounds in time with mine as I claw at his trousers, and they finally fall away. I lift my hips desperately and he fights back, clawing at my body as it melts into him.

In a second I'm alive again. Both of us let out a heavy moan, a guttural vocalisation of our need, our sudden release. The pleasure rushes over me and I claw desperately at his shoulders. I cry out and the tears dry on my face, "Jack!"

He yells back, something guttural in my neck with a soft scrape of his lips. I close my eyes in ecstasy, tighten my legs around him. Once again the Gods are howling, the sky is shattering, and the Death Clown comes swirling back to her rightful place, deep inside my heart, curling her poison into my brain and igniting the fire in my stomach. I cling to the Death Clown as hard as I cling to my clown, moaning into the fear-filled air as the sky howls, the Narrows just shrinks away and we don't care, we don't need anything but each other.

It doesn't take long, our need was so raw, my longing for him was so fiery and thick in the air that our climax seems dull to our own ears. The blood pounds and blocks out every sound as I stare up with fire-filled eyes and those orbs pour their fire into me. I moan with the sheer ecstasy of his skin, of his scent, of his ragged breathing above mine, and I cling to him as I've never held onto anything before. I pull myself up and wrap my arms tight around his shoulders as he hugs me to him.

"I love you, Cally-Rose Evans, more than the sun and the moon and the stars and chaos. More than anything in the world and I couldn't bare it if you aren't with me forever."

I sigh happily into his neck, my tears are long gone now, dried into a crust over my cheeks. My scarred, ravaged, red-covered cheeks and lips nuzzle into their paradise, their haven, and it takes me a second to realise I should say something back, "I love you too Jack, more than you can comprehend... I don't know why I did it... I needed... I don't... don't even know... I love you so much Jack Napier, so much."

He chuckles into my hair, "It's the past, my darling, just the past..." He heaves a sigh, kisses the top of my head tenderly and pulls us to our feet. I make a small noise of protest against us moving, feeling disgusting bare without his flesh on mine.

"Now, Precious, my Death Clown, my love, my life, my Cally-Rose, let's get you home."