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Bruce hesitantly pushed open the door, having to use more force than usual because of the piles of clothes and unknown objects that had amassed on the floor, blocking the door from opening.
He was't quite sure if this was on purpose or not.
Squinting into the darkened room, he managed to detect a shape flying at his head in time to duck out of the way. A bottle of nail polish thudded against the wall, anti-climactically dropping to the floor without breaking.
"Close the door."
Bruce obeyed the detached voice, easing the door shut behind him and leaving the room in almost-total darkness. The only light came from a dim laptop screen, outlining the vague lump that Bruce knew to be the Joker.
He carefully picked his way across the messy floor, trying not to step on anything that could break. Clothes were one thing, but Bruce knew for a fact that there were assorted knives, dishes, bottles, and craft supplies dotted throughout the room.
He managed to make it over to the mattress laying in the corner without incident. Joker was curled on his side, laptop sitting on the floor next to his face as an old Denzel Washington movie played. Bruce sat down at the foot of the bed silently.
Joker had dismantled the bed a long time ago, so his mattress sat on the floor with no supports around or underneath it. He had propped up the boxspring as a makeshift partition, with more clothes and things strewn on the side/top.
"What are you watching?" Bruce asked quietly, eyes drawn to the screen where a man was being choked to death while Denzel ate Ramen. Joker shrugged, not taking his eyes off the screen.
Bruce shifted to lay behind the clown, propping his head up on his hand. Joker didn't react, and Bruce took this as permission to wrap his free arm around his waist, shifting closer until he was half curled around the smaller man. He felt protective, even as he spotted a knife within reach of the green haired man, and mentally prepared himself for the possible lunge and resulting scuffle.
But Joker just laid there, watching the movie, limp and lifeless with one arm curled under his head as a makeshift pillow. Bruce realized that he had chosen to hurl a nail polish bottle instead of a knife and smiled. The clown wanted him here.
"Are you ok?" He murmured, knowing how arbitrary and stupid that question was, but unable to think of a better one.
Joker snorted, eyes rolling to the side in order to see Bruce without having to turn his head.
"No. Not in the slightest." He responded hollowly, before shifting his focus, or rather, his gaze, back to the movie.
Bruce contemplated this, then nodded and leaned in, nosing at the junction where Joker's neck met his shoulder. "Ok." He brushed his lips against the patch of exposed skin, made paler than usual by the laptop's blue light.
"Ok?" Joker repeated, almost unbelievingly.
"Yeah." Bruce affectionately squeezed Joker where his arm was curled around his waist. "You don't have to be ok all the time. You're not ok now, and that's ok. I'll just be here for you until you're ok again. Or until you want to talk or fight or fuck and need someone to do that with."
Joker laughed, not his usual screechy and rambunctious sound, but a muted and bitter one, with undercurrents of relief. "What did a boy like me ever do to deserve you?" He drawled, trying to sound sarcastic even as the truth of his words stuck heavily in the air.
"Nothing and everything." He brushed a kiss to the edge of the other's jaw, then pressed his face into Joker's hair and sighed contentedly. "I'm here when you need me. Ok?"
There was a brief pause as Joker mulled this over. Bruce meant it, every word, and he apparently detected his sincerity, because a previously unknown tension faded from his body as he relaxed into his lover's arms.
"Ok."