JAY

           ^{He stared at her like she wasn’t real. Some apparition, ethereal and layin’ next to him like she shouldn’t have been there. Not on this plane, any way. Not in this life. But he didn’t fear her in that moment or fear for her. Just lay somewhat content as he watched her cross the room and back again. Eyes looked tired but open they stayed. Waiting for wisdom, a wisdom he didn’t have. And she stared right back at him, and with face half-hidden and buried into his pillow he almost forgot it was there.
           The bleach scar that trailed from temple to jaw and all the way along his neck. How it had splashed and boiled and stripped away layers of skin that would never be seen again. But some small shift that came from a sigh and he was quite reminded. Sensitive skin against the grain of the cotton pillowcase and it gave a dull smart. Nothing he wasn’t used to by now but something that could be done without. Only marker it was even felt was a blink. 
            “Not much’ll change. I just won’t hurt any more.” he said quietly, gaze drifting with a slithering guilt that he wasn’t sure he wanted around. Knowing that someone cared enough to say it, it didn’t suit him well at all. Stare didn’t know where to fall and so lingered at a point of movement - her mouth - just for a moment. Then she sent him thinkin’ and he closed his eyes at that. Ain’t much he does care about save her and a few memories locked away and long gone in any real capacity. He won’t admit the first. “Cheek To Cheek by Fred Astaire. S’from an old movie, I liked it when I was a kid. Think I’ll watch that one more time.”}

         _{At times it was almost like she was talking to an empty shell, as though someone had taken him and hollowed everything that ever made him a person, as if Jay never existed in the first place. And it as those times that made Harleen wonder. What had he been like? What made him laugh? What made his wife fall IN LOVE with him? What sort of husband had he been? Every little question just made it all apparent that she’d never have the answers, not to those little questions that never really mattered anyway. Whoever Jay had been was long gone now, he was someone she’d never meet, someone who had been erased from history and all that as left was the man before her, a man hellbent on revenge, even if it cost him his own life. 
         Brows raised at his words, words that meant so much more than what they said on paper, she could hear it in him, the want and need to just give up once his mission was done. As though that were the only thing he had left, as though nothing else mattered. And truth be told…that absolutely TERRIFIED her. She was aiding him, allowing him to take steps toward danger he was obviously fine putting himself in.  ❝ Not much’ll change? You really think that? Jay… you know I’ll always be honest with you, but goin’ down this path, puttin’ yourself in harm’s way… it’s not gonna help the PAIN.  ❞ Chewing on her bottom lip for a moment, her gaze lowered to the blanket once again as his words cut through the silence. 
         It was his words which drew her attention, gaze lifting as her lips curled into a smile, a genuine smile at the thought of him watching an old Fred Astaire film. Yet her smile was short lived and her brows soon knitted together into a frown as she sat herself up to look at him properly.  ❝ Why do you have to do that? Talk as if you’re on DEATH ROW about to have your last meal. You’re NOT, you know. You have the rest of your life ahead of you if you’d only open your damn eyes to see it! Why not watch the movie ten more times? Twenty if you want! You’ve got a life worth livin’, Jay… and someone who CARES enough that they wanna see you live it.  ❞}

(Source: jesterbleach, via clownbleach-archive)