Devil's Playground • Gotham Fanfiction •

II - Atonement

"I'm too old to recover, too narrow to forgive myself." - Lillian Hellman, The Children's Hour

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Jim barely stirred as he rolled from his back onto his side and faced away from the sunlight pouring in through the windows.

He had a brief yet fleeting thought of how if he was going to be sleeping half the day he needed to invest in some blackout curtains, but consciousness started to fade just as suddenly as it had come.

The next thing he was aware of was the sound of water running in a sink.
His forehead lined and he cringed in pain as he popped an eye open and glanced around the already bright room.

Nothing seemed amiss and he no longer heard any water.

His limited sight landed on the bottle of alcohol on the nightstand; well, the empty bottle.
He didn't remember finishing it off before he'd fell asleep.

What did it matter anyways?
When he'd seen Bullock at the police station just the day before he'd boasted about how not working a day job allowed him get drunk whenever he wanted.

With another groan he rolled into the center of the bed on his stomach and face planted back into his pillow.

He was nearly back asleep when he was jarred again, this time by the sound of a cabinet door creaking open, then clicking shut a short time later.

Was someone in the house?

Raising back up he glanced over his shoulder to the open doorway of the room and lazily blinked as he waited for any sign of movement or another noise for proof.

But there was nothing.
Only silence again.

Deciding to just try and go back to sleep with the hope that maybe in a few hours he'd wake up without the feeling of someone trying to drill through his skull into his brain.
The headache was so bad he was having trouble focusing his vision.

Or maybe he was still a little drunk -it was getting harder to tell anymore.

Lifting his face back up from the pillows, he tried to readjust and get comfortable -but he immediately caught the scent of coffee brewing.

He didn't imagine that. He was one-hundred percent sure he was no longer dreaming, no longer fading in and out of the waking world.

As quietly as possible he slid out of bed, grabbed the gun from the nightstand and made his way towards the kitchen.
Which in the small, shabby house he'd been renting wasn't a long trek at all.

"Are you still so upset with me that you're really going to shoot me?" Bird questioned when she heard him behind her in the kitchen and saw his reflection in the door of the microwave.

Turning around to face him, her eyes fell to where he still had his gun drawn and she added with a raised brow, "Even after you took it so hard the last time I was shot?"

"Back to not taking anything seriously, I see." Jim gruffly answered with a shake of his head as he lowered the gun to his side.

He knew very well she was referring to the impact her death had had on him when everyone believed she'd been killed.

"What are you doing here, Bird?" He asked as he stepped further into the kitchen and laid his gun down on the nearest available counter space.

"I wanted to see where you were living." She answered, glancing around as if she hadn't already been there for quite some time; she politely said, "It's nice."