The Bench

The bench by the lake had always been a place of comfort for Jack. A place where he could get away from the world when his mind wanted nothing more than to drag him down into the dark abyss of insanity. It was safety for him. Where the laughter in his head would stop and where he wouldn't see him. Maybe he was insane. Joker told him he was. When he'd work as a butcher chopping up the bodies and all that blood is when he'd see him most. Always hovering over his shoulder with the eerie grin plastered on his face. Flashes of memories he hopes weren't his own. A dinner table for a special Bat king. A fight in a cave where the Bat would ask him to forgive him when all he wanted was to just get away. His body broken as he was sure he would die, next to the Bat calling him his friend. All memories that for Jack didn't feel like his own but deep down he knew that they were.

When he was here though, he could escape it all. He wouldn't hear the screams of people that would die from his past. Was it his past anyways? Joker would claim that it was. Then again when the clown was around no one but Jack could see him. That's what worried him. A feeling like life was going to go back into something he didn't want it too. Would he fade away if that course of action happened? He probably would and that terrified him to no end. He was happy at least he felt like he was. Joker would disagree with that statement but he couldn't allow himself to dwell on Joker's disproval of his life. Not here anyway.

He first came to this bench to die. To end the laughter and nightmares that haunted his dreams. Here though he had come to realize a gun could never be fired here. The one place in Gotham where that wasn't allowed. It brought him hope. Hope that he could escape his inner turmoil and avoid insanity that wanted to wrap around him. Then when he saw Bruce Wayne coming to this same bench he couldn't approach. His heart would tighten and for a reason he couldn't comprehend he'd want to embrace him. Warn him not to let things go back as they were. But what exactly was that? He didn't know and he also didn't want to know. It was an urge that plagued him every time he'd leave the man alone and the laughter in his head sounded more like broken sobs and Joker would leave him be.

After a while he did eventually approach and speak with him. Told him everything that he was feeling about their lives and yet although he was speaking about other things deep down what he said had more meaning. All he knew was even in the safety of the one place of peace in Gotham if need be he'd die to keep things from going back. Yet an explosion distracted them and as Bruce ran towards it, Joker for the first time spoke in his head and it sent a chill down his spine what he had said.

Soon, things will be right again.

That's the last time he saw Bruce at the bench and each time he went back there he waited for him to return to always be disappointed again. Gotham was calling to him and he could sense it. Casting him into a role he didn't want to return to. A role that he wasn't sure was his anymore. This place that brought his mind such peace was slipping away from him and he soon found himself no longer alone sitting on the bench. That only happened when news came that Batman was back. Gotham's hero and with it Joker would always be sitting next to him now.

"You're over thinking things, just like him." Joker wrapped an arm around his shoulder in a form of comfort that only made Jack's stomach feel sick.

"Is it wrong to just want things to stay as they are?" His voice was just a whisper of desperation but even if anyone was around they wouldn't be able to hear him, Joker though, he always could.

A sad chuckle escaped the clown as he pulled Jack closer to him. The same green eyes looked at each other and Jack could swear he saw pity in them.