Terra Firma

Ivy

I could sense his anger building with each uneven step he took into our crooked, sunken "home". I had become well aware of his mood swings by now, naturally. He was a creaky pendulum in an old grandfather clock, the waves of a deep green sea rushing in and out in static-y rhythym. Getting pulled by the continous presence of a haunting full moon, standing above in a black night. He would swing back and forth, move in and out, between many extremes--anger, sarcasm, thoughtfulness, apathy, humor.

Some emotions I don't think there are names for yet.

But whatever they were in his moments, I could tell what they were.

This one was common. Anger--pure, raw, black. I could feel it before he clambored into the vehicle, as he turned the key, muttering insanely. I could hear it in the squealing of the tires, see it set like concrete across his haunting face.

I could tell when it was coming, the bullet with butterfly wings. The blade of the guillotine, whizzing down upon unsuspecting prey. The whistle of the train on the tracks.

Sometimes, I could bring him back...

He was like a yo-yo at times, and I held the string that could snap him up when he threatened to clatter off the edge on some passerby, useless goon, or lazy cop.
(up down up down watch me do the cat's cradle around the world watch me walk the dog)

Sometimes though, I yanked too sharply and the yo-yo snapped up, hitting me.

Like that moment. Walking with impatience into our pitiful excuse for a room, slamming his fist on the dirty walls and snarling strangely, dog-like. He paused to ruffle my hair roughly with his dirty fingers after taking off his gloves, taking up a dirtied, damp rag from that lopsided bucket in the corner and rubbing at his face mercilessly. He threw it back against the wall and it made that disgusting wet sound of paint and water slapping against a stone cold wall. There was a omnious curve to his slouching shoulders as he stood, back turned to me. It reminded me of the darkness of a storm, rising over the horizon.

There was no amused, crazed smile playing around his scars. No brown in his eyes. Only black, a pair of bottomless craters. Only pale skin frozen in jagged edges on a clenced jaw...

"Help..." He spat to himself, "Help. Help. Help! Think I'll help, do they? Kick me around then ask me... EXPECT me to help... I'll show them. I'll show all of them!"

oh god oh god another one of his moods the clown's gonna hit me clown hit me

He grabbed up the old beaten bucket, flinging it ferociously in my direction. I said nothing and made no desperate attempts to dodge, merely twisted my body slightly to the side, straightening as I heard it land by the mattress behind me. He shouted primally, stabbing into random blank bits of wall around the room. I could've wrapped him up or slapped him or yelled to shut up, but I didn't want to.

They say that if forests don't have fires once in a while, the brush and decaying vegetation on the ground will soon cause an inferno ten times more devouring, thousands more dangerous.

So I let him battle it out, standing high and refusing to cower as he took off his purple coat and rolled up his sleeves, his unforgiving eyes boring into my own and bare lips curled back into something twisted as his hands snapped up and placed themselves around my neck.

After all, I still played the role of the martyr. The leaves that would be sacrificed to the starving fire. A Goddess herself, offering up her own flesh to the Angry God.

He pushed me violently to the wall, pinning me with the his weight of his body. The madness sparking deep within his eyes, despite being unpainted, paralyzed me.

"Look at me, Ivy. Look at me. Do I look like a guy who helps? Do I look like a guy who can be moved around, kicked around, on a chessboard? You see, they just want us to be pawns. Pawns in their little plan. If we bend to their will, they'll have their chance of fixing us. Drugging us up, locking us up, cutting up our brains. Let us go, send us to live in a house with a white picket fence and say our vows. But that won't happen. We'll never be fixed. They want us to be, they want to prove there's hope for us. But I won't let them! I won't. I, uh... I won't."

His rage built further, if that was possible, and he squeezed my neck slowly, like a snake. Like a vine.

hands hands hands

My throat constricted, making me think back to the time not too far off, when I sat in a chair, choking and screaming and feeling certain that my lips were on fire. I remembered feeling the desire to die so badly, vowing I would kill him if he didn't do me the favor and end my pain.

But oh, plans change.

"Jack..." I squinted at his distorted face, "Jack you're... hurting... me."

"I'm not. No I'm not. You're tougher than that. But I do know how to hurt you..."

His tone quieted, frightening me. His face turned from hard with rage to something soft as he moved in, touching my lips with his own. Relieved that I could breathe again, I kissed back, daring to run my hands across his tensed shoulders. Slowly, they hunched back into a more relaxed position.

When we seperated however, he did hurt me, slipping a phrase into my ear with his warm breath.

"I love you."

Sticks, stones, knives, and buckets could break my skinny bones.

But those horrid words. Those awful words. They were razorblades, cutting deep into my heart. I broke from him quickly, easily, slapping his dirty hands away.

"Why, Jack? Why do you insist on it?"

"I'm a man of my word..."

"Oh shut up!" I screamed, tugging at my own hair.

"I will say what I want to say." He spat back, making me remember Rachel. Another bolt of pain ripped into my mind, making it black and red. Bruised and blue.

"It's not fair..."

"Oh, Ivy," He laughed wickedly, "You... you're, uh, one to talk about fair. Do you know how it feels? Saying it and not having it said back? Hm?"

"How it feels? How it feels?" I snarled, suddenly aware of my own anger thickening and rearing up in volume, "Oh, I know how it feels, Jack. I know how it feels when someone you love refuses you, doesn't even see you. I know how it feels to get fucked and wake up cold. I know how it feels, knowing your best friend is going die because of the madness you create. I know how it feels when the only thing you can call your little girl isn't even yours by flesh in blood. And you can never have children, ever. Do you know why? Because some clown decided to poison you until you were sterile! DON'T ASK ME IF I KNOW HOW IT FEELS."

I took up the bucket now, swinging it back in his direction. He dodged it clumsily and blinked, scowling and mumbling incoherently, his face twisting strangely. He turned his back to me then, refusing to look at me while I slunk onto the mattress and cried.

Turned his back on me. Probably ashamed to see me in such a state.

Story of my life, I thought bitterly.

Joker

I couldn't look at her then. Not while a rare, bitter liquid was running angrily from my own eyes.

What's it called again? Whatever.

Ivy

It was then, lost in that strange, endless forest we call thought, that I thought about my little girl. Daisy. Jeannie. Cosette.

"Oh, he's got her..." I snapped up quickly, finally registering what her friend--the young research psychologist back at Arkham who'd talked to me about my past a few times--said just as we left the police station.

(Oh he's got her my best friend he's got Cosette your little girl COSETTE)

"I have to help."

Jack did not notice me. He was frigid and staring off at the opposite wall, back still turned. He was shaking. I thought it was rage.

"Don't you hear me you stupid boy? I have to help!"

Stubborn silence.

I growled, feeling my hair stand up once again, "Fine. Fine. You want to have your little 'fuck the cops and law' moment? Keep it. Keep your hatred. Keep your message,

(I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR MESSAGE)

Jack. That crazy bastard has something important to me. Something I created. And we're always responsible for the things we create."

He was slouching, twitching, fists clenched.

I left, not hearing the sobbing scream he made as I slammed the door shut.