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“I hate you.”
The other man regarded him for a moment. “I know.”
“Then why keep doing it? Why keep up the act?” Bruce looked back at the lake. “It feels like we’ve been doing this for a lifetime. I’m getting tired.”
He could just make out the shape of his breath against the darkening in front of him. The chilly mid-autumn air was a welcome distraction to Bruce, the soft rustling of leaves being the only sound breaking the park’s tranquil silence. They were the only ones there. They always were. The lake's surface was still.
John’s smile contorted into a small grimace.
He looked down at his hands, clasped together on his lap. “Is that bad? Maybe some things aren’t meant to end.” His eyes stayed on his hands. They looked strange in this light.
“Everything ends.” Bruce retorted softly. Then again more firmly, looking at John again. “It has to.”
John stared at him, then averted his eyes. He could hear the shifting under the lake from here. Louder and louder. His fingers felt alien to him. Like his hands belonged to somebody else. He wrung them nervously. “But how?” He paused for a moment, as if rethinking his wording. “What then?”
Bruce’s eyes softened. The other man looked older and younger than he had ever seen him, his eyes shifting from the lake to his hands every minute, as if making sure they were still there. His nose had a pointy look that would’ve given him a boyish look otherwise. The bags under his eyes looked darker these days, Bruce noticed. He took in every wrinkle, every hair out of place. The color of shirt he had chosen to wear that day. The worn out dress shoes that clashed terribly against mismatched socks. And as he committed every detail to memory, as he had done hundreds of times throughout the years, he was struck with the horrible thought that he was just a man.
“Do you ever sleep?”
John startled at that, looking back at him. His puzzled look turned into a bemused grin.
“I actually do pilates on my off days. How about you?”
Ignoring the jab, Bruce shrugged. “I just never pictured you sleeping.” Catching himself, he stammered. “I mean, going to bed and all. Do you own pijamas?”
John regarded him fondly. Then turned his eyes back towards the lake.
“I used to imagine you as a god, too. Well, maybe not as in divinity, but you were my god. You were supposed to be above everything else. And for a while, you were.”
He paused to watch a bat fly against the darkening sky.
“You were it. What was missing. My other half. I didn’t live until we met on that rooftop for the first time. Not that I remember anything that came before.” A chuckle. “And suddenly it was all about making you see me. I had to be the most important thing in your life, the same way you were mine.”
Bruce hesitated before speaking up. “And you were. In a twisted, cruel way, you were.” His jaw set. “You’ve hurt people, Joker.” He said, ignoring the way the other stared at him. “You’ve killed in ways I will never be able to forget. You don’t deserve to be forgiven.”
“I know.”