No Land for Men

Requiem {Ep-1}

It's going down, I'm yelling timber
You better move, you better dance
Let's make a night, you won't remember

I'll be the one, you won't forget...

His fingers dipped into the tub of Brylcreem, rubbing the cream into his palms before brushing his hands through his dark curls, slicking his hair back and grabbing a comb to help it along. He was shirtless, when wasn't he? He was moving his mouth to the words of the music playing through the speaker. She passed him his beanie, the weather had been cold for a few weeks as they passed into Autumn, he scoffed in return and turned it down, the last thing he needed was his masterpiece of a hairstyle being ruined, plus, he didn't catch colds, or so he claimed.

The lights flickered. A humming buzzing sound, almost silent. He gently picked up the straight razor, flicking out the blade and admiring it, his eyes gazing over it, the shine reflecting his dark eyes. God knows how much medication he was on, she had raided the closest chemist beforehand. "New Me... New Gotham". He muttered under his breath barely, she was watching from behind eagerly, looking at the reflection in the mirror as he began to go to work on his white wrinkled skin. The cold metal of the razor pressed to his jawline, his lips parted and slowly it sank in.

He grasped his backpack and swung it over his shoulder, she headed over and stuffed his books and iPad into it, if she didn't then he'd surely forget it. He slipped on his shoes and grabbed his baseball jacket as the ginger girl, barely shorter than him, reached up and moved a strand of hair that had fallen loose, he looked up at her, winking as a thank you. Geez, Grayson and his damn hair. It was important to him that he looked like an uptight, rich prick, and so far he had managed to keep up that persona, with help of course.

He brought the blade along the side of his face, past his ear and up towards his forehead, blood smothering his arms, the counter, the mirror opposite him, pouring from his face, his breathing was heavy and quick. She stood watching, still, her hand over her mouth. She had seen him do worse, but not to himself, the lights flickering added to the horror of what she was viewing.

Heading out of the dorm room, they went down the corridor and down the stairs to an exit, Grayson was holding her hand while knowing damn well she hated the cheesy aspect of hand-holding but she went along with it just to please his dumb ass, she'd get payback at some point.

Slowly he brought the knife to his forehead, adrenaline pumping through his body as he did so. Finally bringing it down the other side of his face, stopping for a brief moment to admire his work, end of the knife at the top of his jaw at the opposite side to which he started. He took a deep breath before finally slicing away at his chin, following it around to where he began.

The university campus was pretty large, almost the side of a small town, and it had everything of importance on it for living there, including a few cafes, a gym, dorm rooms, and of course the classrooms. There was one large building that was beside the central fountain in the middle of campus, the rest of the buildings were surrounding and slowly jetted out, leading to entrances and exits onto the grounds.

He finally finished, looping his fingers under the folds, letting out grunts as he tugged the skin, it was tough like leather, but he got it off, feeling pain despite the tons of tablets and syrups he had drunk. "H-how is i-" She began in her shaky unsure voice. He had been working on her for the past few weeks but she wasn't near what he had imagined yet. He interrupted her stutters by tearing away the layer of skin.

"Alright, I gotta dash" He said to her and licked his lips as he looked down at her, brushing her ginger locks behind her ear soothly and giving her a playful smoulder. He loved acting like a douche around her, and she liked it a bit back too.
"Listen, Grayson, if you look at me like that once more, your eyebrows are coming off." She said quite seriously before breaking a smile.
"Right right geez!" He said and held his hands up in defence, trying not to laugh at her threat.
"I will see you later." She said and kissed his cheek, knowing he obviously wanted a mouth connection, he had even leaned in first, but she dodged just to annoy him.
"Menace, a true menace to men." Gray said to her and rolled his eyes as he turned away and headed off to meet Jason.

He stared at the reflection, his twisted wrinkled body, his crooked neck and scrawny arms. He had a long way to go, a long way till the new him, till the new Gotham. He would stay underground, in the shadows till the time was right. The Bat was gone, but there were leftovers, birds for him to get at, birds for him to slaughter. The Bat's original bird was where he'd begin.

"...For some reason, she never texted me back!" He spoke mid-conversation, both brows raised as he looked at Grayson.
"Wait so let me get this straight, you actually said that she needed to shave her face... and you're wondering why she never spoke to you again?" He asked in response, trying his best not to crack into laughter.
There was a brief silence before both boys creased up, Jason running a hand through his hair as he looked at Gray "Look...listen... I don't know" He said as he found it impossible to put together a sentence. "It just sorta came out." He said as he somehow tried to justify his actions. Both boys were wearing their campus baseball jackets, with the university logo and colours on, since of course, they were massive patriots. "Don't, just don't. You're making it way waaaaay worse than it already was." Gray insisted and rolled his eyes. Jason wasn't really the type to settle down with a girl. Not a fuckboy. Okay a fuckboy, but a nice one. The two continued to converse and headed towards the gym, since that's the class they had, both boys took two courses, and they were the same as each other, mostly because Jason was dragged to the university by the 'lovebirds', he would much rather have gone straight into employment with his family. The courses were Law and Sports, Law because Grayson wanted to continue his detective research and Jason didn't know how to fill out the forms, and Sports because both boys desperately needed to keep in shape if they were to beat people up every other night.
He hated being called Dick, so he let Babs and Jason pick out Gray and Grayson for him. His instant response was that 'Jason and Grayson' sound like some sort of snake oil duo from the early 1900s, but he'd rather go by that than a penis anonym.
"Uhm Gray..." Jason said as he nodded to their 2 o' clock, there was a large circle of students, it wasn't a fight since fights were extremely rare in the University unless they took place in the ring inside the gymnasium. Teachers were attempting to keep back students, they had phones out and some were crying and panicking frantically. The two boys, of course, headed over and began to nudge their way through to see if they could catch a glimpse of what was going on.

In the centre of what was happening was a girl, blonde, shaking and sat hugging her knees. Her cries and sniffles were soft and muffled by the panicking of all other students. There was a teacher by her, trying to calm her and get her to raise her head, her fingers were drenched in blood, in fact, her arms right up to her elbows were. Slowly she finally lifted her head, looking up at the teacher, students screamed and the majority backed off, her eyes were gone. Scratched out, it looked like they had been removed by herself, but why?
"Holy shit" Jason muttered, standing behind Grayson since Gray was slightly shorter.

Grayson was about to respond but the girl parted her lips and spoke.
"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"