Chapter Text
When I contemplate life in Gotham, its extreme nature leads me to extreme generalizations. There is nothing normal about a decomposing corpse of a city taking so much time to perish in ashes. And maybe, just maybe, I think, it’s the force of habit that keeps the citizens from finally shedding their parasites. There is no way back or forward. There is only the wheel we keep rotating, running, running from bad to worse to worst and back. Gotham’s disease is contagious, and I wonder how father had managed to keep his integrity, seeing so much of his effort nullified. How did he retain his sanity? I wish I had been in on the secret before he died. I am slowly contracting every disgusting, nauseating, humiliating illness in the world as I navigate the roofs and scaling-ladders. I slam faces into concrete and tell them they have no right for help, no rights whatsoever, and feel their fear. Sometimes the most unsightly dish is the most delicious.
Returning at daybreak to my base, I check the security screens for Pyg, who made me patient zero for something unknown. I never restrain him before a patrol so he doesn’t get bed sores, but there isn’t a day when he doesn’t warrant at least two hours of it. If I up the dosage of the medicine, I think, his instincts will become more rational. But they’ll be instincts still.
My breakthrough with the case is near, I can feel it. The dollotrons, however, come from many bases, it seems, and I’ll have to beat down several wasp nests. The copycat is leading me a dance, but I am stepping on their toes. My need in Pyg is proving itself outdated, and he feels it, I think, if there is something to be said for the way he’s become. More docile. Less giddy.
I realize he is expecting those three kinds of poison every day now, and every day I am about to use them. But instead, I follow the old menu of antipsychotics and neuroleptics that I give him regularly. And this time also, he’s quiet and non-resistant when I tell him to turn onto his stomach.
“What’s her name?” He suddenly says, conversational.
“What?”
I swipe his skin with a cotton ball doused in spirit. The needle comes through without a hitch. It’s a pity Pyg cannot appreciate how much of a skillful phlebologist I am. Another rogue would be thankful for the almost complete lack of pain. Pyg, he’s more likely to be disappointed.
“That little thing I smell on you.”
“None of your business,” I respond, and I am calm, to my great pride.
“She’s got a sweet cunt.” No, there is no intention to insult me or Anna there, now it’s obvious he’s under the impression of being good at small talk.
“Do you remember what happened last time you mentioned her?”
“Oh I do! She must be really dear to you.”
“She is human, with dignity she deserves to keep. Unlike some of us.”
He sighs as I make another injection. His head on his crossed arms, he twists his neck to see me.
“Sure. Them redhead beasts, they fuck really well.”
It takes me a titanic effort not to stop my routine and ask him how the fuck he learned about her hair color. He’s waiting for a reaction, and I react, to give him the taste of his own medicine.
“Is that why you give dollotrons red hair? Because that’s the only illusion of great sex you ever get.”
I pull the hem of his pants up, and he turns over to give me a feline look of great offense. For a split second I see something inhuman in his eyes. Then he sags to laugh, his fingers interlinked as he’s propping himself on one elbow. I am still cold with dread.
“Baby boy, do you want me to explain to you how I get my kicks?”
Baby boy.
“I could remove your vocal cords, you know. If you don’t know sign language, you’ll talk only when I give you pen and paper. Wouldn’t that be nice.”
“She’s pretty, has to be. So you do it with the lights on. You keep looking at the mirror to make sure she’s not me, wrap her hair around your fist. But she has her boundaries, whereas for you and I it’s the only way, to breach them. Try doing it in the dark, a throat is a throat.”
I put the last syringe into the box, moving it aside carefully. Pyg sits up, sidles up to me.
“She kisses better than you. I’m afraid it’s the same with blowjobs.”
Pyg somehow straightens up, and it gives him an inch of height. So this is how he accepts a challenge.
“You can’t know until you’ve tried both.”
“How many dicks have you bit off thanks to this dare?”
Suddenly his hands shoot out to claw at my face. I catch his wrists just in time to protect my eyes, but he’s still stiff from the effort to gauge them out. Elbowing him in the face is too easy. Losing some of his balance, he falls on his back.
I lean my entire weight on his chest. His face is full of derision, blatant and brazen.
“What the fuck.”
But he’s already pulling me down, reaching up to bite on my lip. It’s painful, there is the metallic taste on the tip of my tongue immediately. He is vampiric, sucking and lapping at the inside of my mouth. It is not a kiss of attraction like it was the first time, but rather hunger, the way he holds me, the way his fingers rake through my hair. Our eyes are open, and there is no expression on either face, save for the eyes. Pyg’s eyes are darker than they used to be, I notice for the seconds we part, the pale blue carrying a drop of venom. I put my forearm at his throat, slam him against the wall so I hear a dull thud as I bunch up the fabric of his T-shirt.
The insolent look he gives me afterward warrants all kinds of violence. I’m still pinning him, and his hand reaches for my chest, sliding down the stomach, down and down. I follow it with my gaze, frozen. He fits himself against me, burying his face in my neck, and I am about to toss his hand away when he strokes my cock. It’s as if I am not the one being touched. Soon, though, he reminds me.
He swipes his tongue against my throat, lets his teeth graze the skin. These are maniac’s jaws at my pulse point, I remind myself. He makes me draw a shuddering breath as he massages the shaft once, twice, gives the head a gentle touch.
Fingers slipping past my waistband, his palm lingers right above the budding erection, rubs a circle into my stomach, making me ache for the next touch. Then the middle and the ring finger find me, sliding slowly along. The tips barely ghost over the head, but my muscles are tensing up, bulging from impatience. The imminent danger of having a serial killer caress me is like leaping into the darkness without knowing the height you’ll fall from. It’s the thrill of a challenge, a risk. It’s the very edge of being alive.
His other hand is wrapped around the back of my head, fingers rubbing my scalp. I freeze a second time when he starts pressing his dry, warm lips along my neck. Cradling my cock and me, he does it like a nurse helping a patient go through a spasm of pain. I am rarely sick, but I am shocked to discover right now that my mind is way more susceptible than my body.
He nudges my legs apart to get access to the balls, the taint. Inside my sweatpants his touch comes free and unrestrained, finger drawing a line along the seam of my sack. I sag to let my hips move forward and up, towards his touch. He’s got flexible fingers, a surgeon’s knowledgeable hand.
I almost tremble when he frees my cock. Its smooth skin next to his scarred one is a striking contrast, something my body isn’t sure about, if it’s nauseating or arousing. I guess that’s the question Pyg’s every partner has to ask themself, and that’s part of the sick appeal.
For a minute he switches hands to coat his right one in saliva. When the slicked up skin is back, I have to grunt and sit up, trying not to look at his face. I cannot risk closing m eyes in his presence, so his advice to blur the line between him and Anna cannot be used. Instead I watch the way his hand slides up and down, the turn of his wrist.
It seems we both know that I won’t let him blow me. Putting my most tender part anywhere near his sharp teeth would be suicidal. So he’s back at breathing down my neck, his short stubble like a touch of sandpaper, a gentle one. This contrast in textures is somehow arousing, and I grab onto his shoulder, trying to weather this storm of insanity.
It lasts a time I am not able to put down, the squelch of my flesh being pumped, the squirming in the crook of my neck, but we somehow arrive at an end. His motion grows faster, he lets his head slide onto my collarbone so he can look at what is about to happen to me.
“Damian...”
I am positive I yelp as my seed bursts through, and he’s trying not to let it spill on the floor, putting his palm in the way of the load.
He’s quick to bring it to his mouth and lick it off clean, entirely, with slow swipes of his tongue. My senses must be coming back to me, for it turns something inside me that compels me to tuck myself back in and stand immediately. My leg muscles are shaking. I take a staggering step towards the exit.
It surprises me that I hear no quip, no sharp-edged joke, nothing from Pyg. This hint of his rationale is more disturbing than I could imagine. He lets me leave him behind without so much as looking at him, and I flee.
For a few hours, I can’t bring myself to look at the security video. Instead, I put on the TV to drown out the white noise in my head. From the screen he looks at me, reported wanted, holding up a table with his number. His eyes are laughing.