odditycollector (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
odditycollector) wrote2004-06-15 05:20 pm
odditycollector) wrote2004-06-15 05:20 pm
Entry tags:
Lo, as I return again and again to strange Sandman things.
Because if that last thing the generator gave me had to be written because is was bad and dirty and wrong, this one had to be written because it was so, so right obvious perfect.
Halfway Points
Harvey recognizes her across his whole life. She's there in the reflection of his father’s eyes, and in the goosebumps on the other side of a bottle of whiskey, when there’s nothing left but aftertaste and empty promises.
Harvey stands at the prosecutor’s table, his knuckles white as he grips a binder of notes: two months of work wasted. The accused is just another killer with a mask and a vendetta, but that’s all right because she’s insane; she’s insane, and the judge smashes the gravel down with the force of law. And Harvey’s seen the inside of Arkham, so maybe he can even believe in justice.
The murderer leaves first, and as she passes she smiles brightly at a point just to Harvey’s left and then nods to Harvey Dent in greeting, in recognition. Harvey slams his briefcase shut and stares ahead, and when he finally turns to leave there’s nothing beside him but the faint smell of snow and hot dog stands.
She touches him with the weight of the coin his father presses into his hand. It lands on heads, heads, heads, and it’ll lie to you if you don’t know its secret. Her voice is the beat of his heart when Gilda kisses him too hard and taints their lovemaking with the copper spice of blood.
Harvey walks home from the office, and he hears the echo of words in the night, whispered songs of broken things. He turns to the darkness, hands clenched, breath shallow. “I know you’re there,” he says.
The shadows move. They take shape, gather into something solid. It stares at him through moulded, hollow eyes, and it’s something real after all.
“Hello, Harvey,” says the Batman.
Harvey has a suit he wears to court. It’s also for putting the criminals away, but sometimes he thinks they have more in common than even that.
She reaches for him in the long moment after a nightmare, as he bites back the scream on his lips, unsure which world is more real. In the softness of the roses Gilda buys him for their anniversary, sweet smelling and red. He slides his hand over his wife's shoulder and all he can think of are funerals, crimson petals falling to the ground like tears.
They drag him to Arkham that first time, give him his own room and a wardrobe of white jackets and all the sedatives he can swallow. The guards close the door behind him, and they don’t lower their cudgels or stun guns until every lock is set. Arkham’s guards act in accordance with a messy sort of Darwinism, selecting for paranoia and running speed.
He steps deeper into his cell, and she skips up to meet him. And neither part of him needs introductions, because Harvey Dent has always suspected it would come to this. Delirium reaches on tiptoes and presses her lips to the remainder of his own, traces a finger down his face. She smiles like sunlight through a cracked prism.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she says.
.
.
.
I love Sandman crossovers, really. Can you tell?
Halfway Points
Harvey recognizes her across his whole life. She's there in the reflection of his father’s eyes, and in the goosebumps on the other side of a bottle of whiskey, when there’s nothing left but aftertaste and empty promises.
Harvey stands at the prosecutor’s table, his knuckles white as he grips a binder of notes: two months of work wasted. The accused is just another killer with a mask and a vendetta, but that’s all right because she’s insane; she’s insane, and the judge smashes the gravel down with the force of law. And Harvey’s seen the inside of Arkham, so maybe he can even believe in justice.
The murderer leaves first, and as she passes she smiles brightly at a point just to Harvey’s left and then nods to Harvey Dent in greeting, in recognition. Harvey slams his briefcase shut and stares ahead, and when he finally turns to leave there’s nothing beside him but the faint smell of snow and hot dog stands.
She touches him with the weight of the coin his father presses into his hand. It lands on heads, heads, heads, and it’ll lie to you if you don’t know its secret. Her voice is the beat of his heart when Gilda kisses him too hard and taints their lovemaking with the copper spice of blood.
Harvey walks home from the office, and he hears the echo of words in the night, whispered songs of broken things. He turns to the darkness, hands clenched, breath shallow. “I know you’re there,” he says.
The shadows move. They take shape, gather into something solid. It stares at him through moulded, hollow eyes, and it’s something real after all.
“Hello, Harvey,” says the Batman.
Harvey has a suit he wears to court. It’s also for putting the criminals away, but sometimes he thinks they have more in common than even that.
She reaches for him in the long moment after a nightmare, as he bites back the scream on his lips, unsure which world is more real. In the softness of the roses Gilda buys him for their anniversary, sweet smelling and red. He slides his hand over his wife's shoulder and all he can think of are funerals, crimson petals falling to the ground like tears.
They drag him to Arkham that first time, give him his own room and a wardrobe of white jackets and all the sedatives he can swallow. The guards close the door behind him, and they don’t lower their cudgels or stun guns until every lock is set. Arkham’s guards act in accordance with a messy sort of Darwinism, selecting for paranoia and running speed.
He steps deeper into his cell, and she skips up to meet him. And neither part of him needs introductions, because Harvey Dent has always suspected it would come to this. Delirium reaches on tiptoes and presses her lips to the remainder of his own, traces a finger down his face. She smiles like sunlight through a cracked prism.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she says.
.
.
.
I love Sandman crossovers, really. Can you tell?