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His head tossed, brow furrowing as he winced, his temples throbbing with enough force to blow his brains out.
The Joker reached a hand up and ran it over his naked face, opening his eyes. The room was a soothing black, dark and quiet. He turned his head, looked at the digital clock on the bedside table. It read just after three A.M.
He groaned, reaching his arm up and folding it beneath his head. Beside him, a sleeping body stirred, rolled over and nestled into his side, at the space created by his arm being raised. The Joker let his arm fall around the slumbering man, ran his hand along his arm.
Bloody migraines. He’d had one when they turned in for bed- early, because it had been so bad he’d nearly considered drugging himself for it. Nearly. And now, four hours later, it was still there- or back- with enough force to wake him up.
His temples pulsed with extra strength and he groaned, reaching up with his other hand now to rub his temples. He peeked out below his palm a moment later, felt more than saw a set of dark eyes staring at him.
“ S’wrong, Jackie?” Bruce whispered, voice slow, thick from sleep- muffled from speaking into the Joker’s side.
“Nothing, just go back to sleep,” he said, flopping his arm down and staring up at the black ceiling. It had to go away eventually- they always did.
“Head still bothering you?”
The Joker nodded, felt Bruce shifting around until he was laying partially on him. Their legs entwined and he reached up, gently rubbing the Joker’s temples. He sighed, closing his eyes- lost himself in the odd softness of Bruce’s hands, the way the tension in his skull seeped into those fingers and then dissipated into the air.
He could always do this, and the Joker had no idea how. Through the months of their rather oddball relationship, Bruce was the only thing that was a near guarantee cure for his migraines- the plague of his heightened sensory perception.
“Better?” Bruce whispered, his skin so completely perfect in how it slid against the Joker’s when his legs moved- when his hips pushed against the Joker’s and he was reminded of the fun to be had in that region.
“Yeah sugar, better.” Bruce smiled and leaned up, a quick chaste kiss pressing to the Joker’s lips, before he settled against his chest and traced a raised scar. “It’ll be completely gone soon. Sorry to wake you.”
“No big deal,” Bruce said, his thought interrupted by a yawn. “It’s not like I’m not used to sleepless nights thanks to you.”
The Joker grinned, sinking his fingers into Bruce’s hair and enjoying the silkiness.
“You love my mayhem-“
“I hated your mayhem,” Bruce said with a pout, “I’m just glad you behave yourself these days, Jackie.”
He chuckled. “You drive a hard bargain Bruce- but you as a prize for behaving is worth it.” Bruce smiled, felt that hand leave his hair, and suddenly he was being rolled over, and the Joker was resting on him, nuzzling into the crook of his neck and kissing sensitive skin- rubbing his thigh between Bruce’s legs and creating a delicious friction.
“H-hey-“
“We might as well, if we’re awake,” he teased, leaning up and kissing Bruce’s overly willing mouth- knowing he was right, that his lover didn’t disagree. Bruce didn’t pass up a chance to get even remotely intimate with his Jackie.
The Joker’s mouth didn’t stay there long- it was traveling down Bruce’s sculpted chest and stomach, just missing his manhood which had begun to ache- and then he was pushing Bruce’s thighs up, settling between them, face pressed into flesh, tongue tracing his opening, teasing it.
Bruce gasped, arching his back, hands fisting in the sheets. “Nnnhh, J-Jackie,” he stammered, felt the tongue invade him slightly, and his head was spinning, his thoughts thick and suffocating, lost in that feelings that only the Joker caused in the pit of his stomach- the hot, slick knot that tightened to bursting, that crept up into his chest and strangled his heart and made him love the man, no matter what he’d done- what he was capable of. Made him love him silently, because even with months of affection, with the man giving up his crime, his gruesome night time dances, slowly moving in to the point that he just never left- Bruce had never said it. Nor had the Joker- no, Jack. Jackie.
When he pushed into Bruce, the playboy wrapped his arms around his neck and clung for dear life, crying out and tipped his head back so his lover could nip at the flesh. He could feel Jack’s green eyes, hot as ever, boring into him- could feel his wild blonde curls as they teased him.
The green was gone. It had faded, until it all but disappeared and was covered with blonde dye to match his natural color. He seemed almost normal now, how he could greet Bruce when he came home from work in jeans and bare feet, how he struggled with chop sticks when they bought Chinese food and more often than not something ended up in his lap with Bruce laughing at him.
How he smelled like something sweet, with a hint of Bruce’s cologne from being around him so much, how he looked in Bruce’s sweaters, in his shirts, how he laughed when Bruce picked him up. How he was so completely normal that Bruce could forget the laughing madman who used to plague him-
But even then, Bruce had loved him. He realized, and he clung tighter, felt his chest tightening as Jack’s breath huffed into his ear, as the friction of their bodies drove his sex to leaking and throbbing. The blonde didn’t even need to touch him, he seemed to just know how to make him feel utterly divine.
“Brucie,” he purred, kissed his cheek almost innocently, reminded Bruce of all the times he had. How, when Bruce first brought him into the public with him- when he tried to show the world the reforming madman, how when the media had gone bizerk, Jack had taken it all, smiled, and kissed Bruce’s cheek as if it would just all be okay.
How he kissed him when Bruce left, when he came home. How those lips spoke volumes in silence with just the slightest touch.
Bruce turned his head, sought out that mouth and captured it, felt his eyes stinging. Was he crying? He realized as his body shook that he was, and prayed in the darkness that it would go unnoticed.
He should have known, should have known that it wouldn’t, that Jack would lick up a salty path and kiss the corner of his eye and ask if he was hurting him- voice concerned. Didn’t he once want to hurt Bruce?
“N-no,” Bruce whimpered, and clung tighter, burying his face in those blonde curls and breathing them in and telling himself he was alive and this man was really here and it was all okay now because he loved him.
He loved him, he loved him, he loved him he loved him he loved him.
He felt Jack’s hips move more erratically, and despite the feeling of delicious fire inside him, he just wasn’t there when Jack was, and held his lithe lover as the man quaked and attacked his neck and murmured sweet little nothings against his skin.
When he pulled out of Bruce it was like losing part of himself- like a void opened up, and dammit it ached, and he could have ignored his unachieved orgasm if Jack hadn’t slid down his body to wrap his lips around him. Ever attentive, Bruce should have known, he’d never take pleasure without giving it.
He was completely different from who he had been, God what had happened? How had this come to be- what had Bruce done?
He had no answers, just a cry into the air and it was over, he was fuzzy and floating and Jack was wrapping his arms around him and chuckling about how there was no better cure for a headache than sex. He nuzzled his neck, but Bruce trembled still, turned and wrapped his arms around Jack until they were entangled within the blankets.
“What happened to you?” he whispered, and Jack, in the pitch of the room, raised one delicate eyebrow.
“What do you mean, Brucie baby?”
“You’re so...you’re normal now. It’s like you’re a different person.” Jack shrugged a shoulder, ran his fingers along the back of Bruce’s shoulder.
“Love will, ah, do that to ya, sugar.”
Love. Love love love. Bruce felt his chest tightening again, god that was the closest- was he admitting it? Did Jack really love him? Was this beyond the hyper active obsessive attraction they had begun with, had turned into a comfort level like no other- was that feeling of spiraling down into some warm pit of jelly in his arms love? Was it that comfort in the smell of his hair and the curve of his mouth and the way he’d sneak his feet under Bruce when they sat on the couch?
Was it all really love? Bruce didn’t know- never knew, hadn’t ever felt this before. Suddenly he wished he had a dictionary to slip through, to find the actual definition, though it’d be no help. A book couldn’t tell him what the hot pit of his gut was.
“I love you,” he muttered against skin, closing his eyes and feeling relief wash over him. He felt those nimble hands dance on his skin, felt those lips in his hair and a soft chuckle escape Jack’s chest.
“Oh Bats,” he said, holding him ever so tighter, “I love you too. I always did, sugar.”
Bruce let himself go then, let himself flow into the blonde as Jack cradled him and closed his own eyes to end just another night. Just another night of the madness he felt around this man- he was sure he was crazier than ever, so insane that it trespassed into the realm of normal, and none of it mattered or ever would.
Bruce was all he wanted, in the end. And with him here, the night was calm, complete.
The ache in his temples completely gone, he gave in to sleep, so he could spend another morning waking up before Bruce, stealing his coffee mug from Alfred and bringing it to him in bed- he’d wear Bruce’s favorite shirt and smell like his cologne all day, when he missed him most.