this is the last one

[knights_say_nih]

I am physically going to force myself to change pairings.
Bane/Blake
NC-17
Boogie Man



The city closes. Days turn into weeks, weeks turn gradually into months, and John (John for years now, because being the queer kid in the orphanage was hard enough without adding a girl’s name to it) reluctantly comes to terms with the fact that life, to a certain extent, is going to go on.

It’s two and a half months under siege before he can get a deep enough breath in, relax his shoulders and jerk off hastily in a hot shower in the two minutes of lukewarm temperature his fucked up water heater can manage these days. Hard to get a plumber to visit when you’re living in a Gotham City in pseudo-anarchy. Even harder to get an erection.

But despite Bane having turned the island into a post-apocalyptic snowglobe, there are certain things that can be counted on. The food comes in every day, the cops under the city make crass jokes to him through the sewer grates, coughing quiet laughter, the TVs still work even when the hot water doesn’t. He sees Gordon during the day, plans and plots and chases trucks, comes home to his little one bedroom apartment, feeds the cat, turns the news on and nowadays, occasionally masturbates.

John has had a vivid imagination for most of his life; the Batman fantasy is a well-worn one. It’s always outside, always night, and he’s walking alone, originally as a kid, then as a rookie cop walking his first few patrols, now at this age, as a detective coming home from a late shift. Shortcut down a dark alley and then a man in black and a mask has him up against an alley wall, in uniform, those gloved fingers forcing their way into his mouth. The sex is silent, because a) he thinks it would be, b) that voice the bat-voice, always struck him as sort of stupid, and c) in the very last few seconds he sometimes likes to imagine him saying I know you know, John- and he never gets farther than that before his mind shorts out.

But it feels too wrong, these days, to masturbate to thoughts of Bruce Wayne. It isn’t that he’s met him in person. Well, it’s partially that, because Bruce Wayne in person had been so thoroughly heterosexual that even John with his gift for suspension of disbelief had sighed. A part of the fantasy lost its luster of uncertainty. But really, it’s mostly that he’s missing, that John is genuinely worried for him and is a good person, so jerking off to thoughts of him right now would be really damn wrong, even for him.

It reminds him of better days, but in a bad way. Like he’d be tainting something from a time before things got complicated.

So, in the spirit of what he thinks of privately as the Modern Era of Complication, he entertains a few vivid fantasies about sucking Gordon off in that hospital bed, with the heart monitor racing. He thinks about a few of the hulking, bruising older boys he’d known from the orphanage, particularly the shy one who stood at the back of the pack, and would come find him after the worst fights and whisper apologies and trade furtive hand jobs. He thinks about people who aren’t real and never were, about a hated old boss, and after one memorable occasion has a weirdly specific fantasy scenario involving Aragorn son of Arathorn, and the erotic potential of wide open forests.

Gotham City’s parks are dingy and cold, unmanicured these days, and filled with sleeping bodies. He hasn’t stood quietly surrounded by trees since this all started. He goes up top of the highest building he can find and stares out at where things are green, to the Wayne place. John comes back down feeling antsier than ever, like electricity is running under his skin. He walks home. He feeds the cat. He gets a bowl of cereal, dry, there’s no milk in the city, the supply agreements don’t cover it. He flops down onto the couch and turns on the tv.

Cable is just about the only thing in Gotham that still does work perfectly. John suspects this is because Bane likes the sound of his own voice. It’s an intrinsic part of The Plan still, the broadcast rants about the city’s decadence, the instructions to burn the trappings of the rich. The man is on the screen now, in that coat, gesturing expansively with a drawn weapon, voice echoing with purpose.

We will make them kneel- And that’s really all it takes.

Not that it’s a then and there thing. But later that night, in the silent darkness of his bedroom, when he spits in his palm and curls a hand around himself, he already knows what he’s going to be thinking about. Eyes closed, the voice summons up easily. He’s observant, has analyzed the distinctive vocoder hum the rasp of the inhale, the static stop of punctuation and sibilant hiss of the s. He knows exactly how it would sound to hear and who have you brought me today?

Would he already be kneeling? Yes, he would, they’d drag him in by his shoulders, bleeding a little, enough that he wouldn’t look up right away, not so much that he didn’t feel shocked by the pain of a kick to get his attention. He imagines lifting his head, looking up, up, and up at him and feels a punch of terror in his stomach so tangible he has to stop for a second.

When he was a kid, when they used to screw around all in good fun rather than with the loaded anticipation and violence of teenagers, some of the other kids shut him in the bathroom with the lights off. He’d waited until his eyes adjusted to the dim illumination from the crack under the door, cleared his throat, and said it deep and low for the benefit of the kids outside, for his ego;

Bloody Mary. The first one was easiest. Still plenty of time to back out. But once he’d said it, he’d realized that there wasn’t, that by starting the game he’d consigned himself to finishing it, or else being the chickenshit of floor three and never living it down, that one step was all it took.

He’s older now, with nothing to prove to anyone.

John is panting in the dark.

He rolls over onto his stomach, takes a deep breath, and slides a hand down between himself and the sheets.

Bane would be heavy. The man is two hundred pounds at a minimum, probably closer to three. John is on the smaller side of average, but he’s been a cop long enough to know he can drop someone twice his size in a pinch, if they’re drunk or slow or high or just stupid enough to underestimate him. Bane, though, he wouldn’t stand a chance against. He’d probably lose even if the man was just a lumbering giant, slow and useless, and from what John has pieced together that couldn’t be further from the truth.

If Bane held him down, he would stay down. One of those hands would probably curl most of the way around his hip, could easily hold him in place with force enough to bruise. He’s never heard him laugh, doesn’t know what the machine would do to it, but imagines it would sound like thunder and oil and death, and can imagine it right against his ear, metal mask pressing jagged against the curve of his neck and shoulder.

A man like that could crush the air right out of his lungs, if he wanted to. John thrusts hard into his hand, eyes closing tight at the thought of his fingers pressing against him. He hasn’t ever seen his fingernails (he watches for them, the cop and orphan in him both know there’s a lot you can tell from someone’s fingernails) but rather than extrapolate he leaves the gloves on, imagines the degradation of lube smeared like that, leather forcing up inside him. Outside (Batman’s alley? No, too prophetic to replace him, even just in fantasy, so he puts them somewhere darker, under a bridge) with snow coming down around them, coating the ground in a thin patina of slush. Bane forces him on his hands and knees in the grey mess of it.

Bane leaves his coat on while he-

Bloody Mary.

The second time was worse than the first, back in that bathroom mirror. He’d tried to make his voice sound stronger but there’d been a wobble all the same, and someone and crowed under the doorway Robin is chicken! Robin, Chicken-

Adult, his focus breaks, the angle is too hard on his wrist, he likes the tease of it but is ready to finish so he rolls over again, head arching back. He can hear his own breathing echoing loud in the room and the hum of electricity, the faint static of the muted television in the other room. John lifts his head, looks through the doorway, and catches just enough of a reflection in the stainless steel fridge to know that Bane is on it again, walking or orating or something.

The faint shadow of his outline is enough to send a twitching shudder of heat through him, and at the same time a strange, prickling feeling of relief. The man is miles away, isn’t here, won’t be summoned out of the shadow in the corner behind the door. Won’t be waiting behind the shower curtain. Isn't under his bed.

He drops his head back again, shudders, and spits again into his palm, and starts to jerk himself off in earnest.

It takes him a while to get as far as the idea of a cock. It isn’t usually something he bothers to articulate fully, a dick is a dick to a certain degree and he’s always been more interested in power, but his mind record-scratches on the idea when he considers Bane’s frame and the fact that he must be fucking huge. He can see him sitting back in one of the pilfered, luxurious, brocade chairs from one of the looted downtown hotels, can see himself with his arms locked behind his back in his own handcuffs, on his knees and gagging on him, jaw straining. He can imagine Bane holding him there easily, playing bored, pinching John’s nose now and again to amuse himself with suffocating him.

And taking it- no, not yet.

Handcuffed to something else, first, he likes the idea of a radiator and linoleum floor tiles, arm forced to stretch out. Bane’s hands are monstrous, big enough that one could curl almost the full span around his hip. Strong enough to leave perfect fingerprint bruises along his abdomen, up his thighs.

And (now) taking it- maybe with a cracked rib grinding, with his body folded up and held in place, and not quite enough time spent riding those gloved fingers to prepare him for how much it would be.

He likes the idea of meeting Bane’s eyes, half way through. Opening his own and looking up at him, sharp and sudden, catching his gaze and startling a sharp, laughed rasp of reluctant interest out of him. Baring his own teeth in a frightening grin, prompting Bane to move harder, fuck, fuck-

-Bloody-

In the fantasy, the scream is full-throated. In his dark little apartment, it’s just a silent rasp against gritted teeth. He’s numb for seconds afterwards, uncoordinated when he grabs tissue, cleans himself off, perfunctory and tired. It’s getting late. He lifts his head, sweeps the apartment once more, checks the corner; no monsters, no madmen, only bedtime responsibilities.

When he was little, it was going to sleep after the game in the mirror that was hardest. He remembers it takes real physical effort to swing his feet off the bed, too aware of the space underneath it. He's too old to let himself hesitate now.

The cat dish is empty, illuminated in the soft blue and white of the television set, and John is reassured at the gesturing terrorist on the screen when he steps into the living room. The terrorist forces haven’t descended yet (he’s seen what they do to cops these days, and as fun as the idea of the fuck might be, he isn’t fucking suicidal) and Bane is safely far away from John, on the city steps, lit by the bright afternoon sunlight-

Fuck. It’s afternoon in the broadcast. But it’s pitch black outside currently. This is a recording. Bane could be fucking anywhere. His hand is on the remote in a heartbeat, scrambling to get the mute button, for the latest news on the latest movements, any report of a location, maybe troops moving towards his part of town... He fumbles. He hits ‘power’ maybe, by mistake, because the screen goes dark and for a second, in the utter blackness of his apartment, all he hears is the sound of soft feedback and a brief little mechanical sound, like a laugh might sound through that mouthpiece.

John slams the living room light back on as fast as he fucking can, nearly killing himself tripping over the cat in the process and provoking an indignant yowl. The lights come on, the place is empty, the cat tears off in an indignant marmalade streak, the laughing sound is revealed to be the rattle of the fridge coming back on, humming noisily. He is not even close to okay.

Everything is bright, and normal, and safe, and he feels like a total idiot, and like he’s nine years old again. He talks his heart rate down. Feeds the cat. Brushes his teeth. Showers the come off his skin. Picks up a book. And all the same…

Robin sleeps that night with a light left on.