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The hole in him was clawing under the wrappings of his skin. Soon, its fingers would break through the cage of his ribs and rewrap his sides with the stain of its fingerprints. The slash would split the earth and his body and wash over him. He could hear it. He could hear the drumming of nails, the green river preparing to break through the dam, the white walls chipping as the pressure grew. The river was freezing and yet he was so, so hot. The fabric lining his hands was steeping with the fever of sweat. A kettle screeched whenever his fingers clawed their way around the cool metal of his weapon. Steam pushed out of his lungs. The hole burned. It burned, and it burned, and it burned.
He was laughing again. His throat crackled as the flames were rising under his skin. The sharp-shooting-wrong was little more than kindling for the heat searing through his insides. Would the green river bubble up and steam through his skin? Or would the fingers finally crack through the white walls and shatter the dam? Which would be the first to go? He was cooking up a delicious boil that was ready to blow. Boom.
Whatever it was would come and with it would be enough shrapnel to kill them both. Good. He would go, and he would go with him. Boom. God, it was so funny. When he had been pierced by the Spider, the river spilled. It spilled onto his tongue, filling and filling it with iron. More and more, it filled his throat. It chipped and chipped at the dam. It was so hot. At the time, all he felt was hot. The hole had come later, after the green. This, the burning, had never left. Steam and metal were all he could remember from the running. The bubbling. The fire. It was all he had. When he had woken up, surrounded by green, green, green, the bitterness came. The hole was clawing under him even then. All the red, the fire, was green. The green had sunken into him, clawing and wrapping and breaking and fixing and wrong. Alive but dead. Dead and dead and dead. Everyone was dead. Everyone was alive. Alive and alive and alive.
The green had been his friend, once. It was cool. Its leaves were always rocking with the wind. The thick bark had scraped his knees and spilled red on his palms, but it was cool. Its silk had always soothed the burning. The burning that wouldn’t go away, balmed by the green. His waters cooled, gently brushing against the white walls, no longer steaming. It was water to swim in, to indulge in. Green had been everything. It didn’t burn like red. It didn’t freeze like blue. It sunk into him, tearing at his skin and pushing, always pushing, but it was so cool. He had it. He had green, in all that it had been, for a moment. It flooded and pushed him down, and he wanted it. He wanted it, until he didn’t. When the fire and the hole burnt through his skin, he wanted it more than anything. Green, cool the river. Please, knock him over again, push through his ribs and his lungs and take him down. Fill it with green.
Then, it did. It spilled over him. He felt it, washing through the canals and turning the red brown. It seeped into his lungs, a cool hand pushing against his organs and letting oxygen flow. He could breathe and breathe and breathe, and the green let him. It gave him lungs, but it didn’t stop. Those frigid fingers kept pushing and pushing. They sunk into the flesh until the Boom. The Boom came and so did the hole. Under his ribs, there were no more lungs. The white walls of his skin barely caged over the hole that had spread from his chest to his abdomen. The Boom was burning. It burned and burned and burned, but it was green. The Spider made him burn red, but the hole made him burn green. The acid bubbled up beneath him. He was laughing.
He needed more time. It wouldn’t wait for him, the Boom, but he needed time; he needed seconds, even. It would have to wait. If it was going to take him, and it was, he was going to take Ra’s first.
“What are you doing, Timothy?” Well, no better time than the present.
It had been easy to explain, even with the blood boiling in his mouth. Everything he had done, every moment he had spent with this awful fire, was coming to an end. The pieces were in check, and he was just waiting for the mate. He had burned his entire life, and he knew when his flames weren’t enough. It wasn’t just red and green and burning. Like he said, he had friends.
The man that had tried to make him green, who had flushed him full of the color until it burned, stared at him. His green eyes simmered but didn't boil like his. “...Well done, Detective.”
Thanks, but it was time. The fingers beneath his skin were cracking through his walls, ready to shatter the dam. Damn, guess that answered his question. He had really thought the river was going to be the one to do it. Seems like the hole was like the man who had let it fester, all too eager to put on a show and end it. Boom. Checkmate. Green had lost and red had won. No shades of brown here.
He had expected more. A bigger Boom. All things considered, falling was nothing. There was the shrapnel, of course. He felt it scraping through the fabric on his back, spilling even more red. His skull was burning, which was no good. The sharp wrong in his stomach hadn’t gone away, even with the Boom. The fingers had torn through him, but he could still feel the hole. God, had the green poisoned him? Couldn’t be helped. He needed a Boom, and he got it. His face was cold. He thought it would feel nice, the cold. It didn’t. It burned. It wasn’t hot, but it burned.
Not a bad day.