Prelude     /    I Know The End

Everyday had become a symphony for the orchestra lining Eir's ambition. The string section crowing sounds of cold cases, the brass a bruising ache in her mandible, woodwind the soft exhale of something hungry, and craving resolution. Again, and again, and again; she'd fallen into exhaustion.

There had been one hundred and fifty cases since Eir had stepped foot into the department, clad in Mary-Jane's, and warmly lined black stockings. Some, she found, would disappear somewhere beyond  her pale fingers and doe eyes; escaped behind mirages of justice, and fortitude. Tirelessly out of reach, and cast in the smell of defamation, these were things that she had learned to stay keen and silent about. Others seemingly fell into the hands of self-proclaimed Nightwing; some purgatorial purifying sharp tooth, and a vengeance-like liberty. His ambitions seemed lined not unruly. A vigilante.

Some Eir would get her hands, faintly smelling of vanilla and flour, on. These would be subject to a rabid incursion and a creation myth that she'd eagerly find a way to prove true, with more lingering ache. This was a constant motion; one Maelstrom and Gotham and her Heart had left her in.

Here, now, fifteen minutes had passed since it had chimed ten o'clock. Since Eir had stepped out of the warmth of her shower; hair still damp and steam from the room clinging to her skin like a hug. Sitting on her reddish couch, there was the eerie thought of some half-return to peace. There were pages of work scattered across the coffee table, and a petite stapled pile in her lap subject to scrutiny and the sound of a humming accompaniment to the radio. Her mind was, for once, somewhat silent, but her resolve took the shape of a crumbling, ancient tower. Still, here was nought touch but the warmth of a drink and her throat, and nought sound but the far distant cars, and the faint hum of soft music in the background.

Her cat Mr Tumnus, half auburn and half sandstone, stretched against the soft of the rug, taking this to be an opportune invitation to becoming company. He leaped, finding himself the snug crevice between her thigh and the sofa to circle and nudge into. She cooed softly, combing her fingers against the scruff of his neck, to which was earned an equivalent; soft animal sounds of comfort and familiarity.

At the bottom of the report, in the fine print of a footnote, it had written Sponsored by Wayne Enterprises, Inc. Eir poked her tongue up to lick away the cream and flakes of cinnamon dust against her upper lip before she put the mug down, eyes unyielding and stuck to paper.

She internally groans at this; un-revelatory, but bitter by the sound of her mouth.

His name had been everywhere.

Maelstrom was everywhere.

Eir had never been naive enough to make the assumption that it would be easy: moving forward in his wake. She'd understood the brain well enough to know that an event like that clung to you. That your memory cells would treat it like a disease. That it would be found in every string of hair, and every pore of skin; an acrid, bitter invasion. 

In a hideous way she bloated with it; the memory. Some deep longing not to forget in fear that someone would implant another rotten seed into the hollow cave of her mind. Like they'd treat her pains as phantom, or tell her it was really all her fault, or say it was Maelstrom's tendency toward drugs that had been his demise instead. That all that clawing, making wine of water, repent from rib, would be self-birthing. An ouroboros of hunger crafted from her pearl teeth and brittle bone.

When Eir had first relocated into her new job (now, however, a practise of two years) her mother had told her that it was a good choice.

It was a job that required clarity, and intensity, and no reluctance. She carried all of these like rosary beads. Soft wounds turned bleeding, there were nought but tendrils and a tapestry when Eir had been finished with something; a masterpiece; a tragedy. It had been a curse, she'd have said, to approach everything with claws protracted. An albatross. Her embalming; Eir was the altar and the flesh and the knife.

But her mother. Eir's mother would have said that it was her affection. Love and Attention, she'd say, were similar most in the way Eir wielded them. She had been weaned on this; Dipa Arora's heart, pulsing blood and ambrosia. Her unyielding belief in the philosophy of optimism and faith. The supposition that this was their biggest difference leaks through her brain.

Dew and honey.

Concentration, weighing between footnotes, tipped at the sound of a knock at the window. Tumnus skittered; ears suddenly perked, eyes widened, feet carrying him somewhere else in her apartment. If Eir had not been distracted, she'd have thought him a shooting star on which to make a wish.

Slowly, she began to sit up and turn to take a peek over the top of the couch. On sight, however, eyes just level above the block of deep fabric red, Eir blanched, and, quicker than she turned, returned back around. There was no way.

(There absolutely was a way. In future recollection, it would be noted that this was not out of character.)

She muttered something foul under her breath, pinching her nose before taking a swig of her mug. A foolhardy attempt to look tough. She put the paper down on the coffee table as she stood, and approached the window to the fire escape, eyebrow and chin both raised.

There, stood crouched on the perch like a sheepish, lone bird of sorts, hand firmly pressed against the side of his torso, was what looked in the haze of the night and the soft, faraway streetlight, like a sweaty, groggy, Detective Richard Grayson, hand rapping on the window, undecipherable glint in his eye.

For a moment, she was unmoving, eyes transfixed as he waved in the pretence that this was commonplace. Then, he gestured to the latch of her window and dismay was broken through her skin by rolling eyes. There is a glass muffled hello, an ask for help. Eir is left eyeing him in confusion.

The breeze slips through as soon as the window is pulled; yearning in wait to soak into her skin.

"Y'know, I have a door," Eir said, as he stepped out of the fire escape and into her apartment, ducking through the window in cautious movement. "Besides..." Pause. Something somewhere in her body feels icy. A sudden pulse; vibrations of cold water.

It is in the few seconds between feeling a throbbing sensation in her mandible, her mind matching frequencies with the disquiet, and trying to tell the offender setting foot in her apartment that it was her day off that Dick staggered and Eir caught sight of the blood seeping through his fingers; the way that his shirt is coated in what she thinks is water. The half-moon light had no longer been diluting every mark left by chaos's architect. Dick straightens himself before she has to catch him, in attempt, wincing as his skin stretches against ivory bone and blood. His shirt fixes against him, and the few lights on in the room carve him out of marble.

Eir resigns herself; something deep and horrible jumping in her throat is swallowed down quickly.

"I'm going to get the first-aid kit," she murmurs, like if she says it any louder her words will give him more wounds to lick, "You can sit on my bed. It'll be more comfortable."

A ship, a drowning man, he thanks her, eyes following as she walks away (and something else; some other reply that she ignores in favour of action; an apology, a sincerity) and paces to it (the light, the driftwood) before sinking into the plush blanket, and leaning into the wall, head falling back.

She took little time; to collect a bottle of liquor and uncork it (sneaking in a large sip to let burn her throat and steady her hands); to wash her hands under the sink.

He looked something like a sculpture in those moments Eir said quietly in her mind when she returned, the sort that told a story of salt tasting tears and glory in tragedy. But did not adorn the thought with much merit and pedigree, letting it exit some door in the hallways of her head.

"I need you to sit up," She said absently, sitting on the stool by her bedside, handing him the bottle of liquor she'd taken from the cabinet, and unzipping the bag beside him, that had, before, been neatly tucked under the bed. "And, can you unbutton your own shirt?"

In all two years of knowing Richard Grayson, Eir didn't think she'd ever seen him so pliant in waking. Though, perhaps that was the byproduct of a stabbing. He thanks her, says something soft and kind and apologetic.

There is some silent resilience; in not looking in the face the torn, battered fox. In tending to its wounds, and focusing on them only. Not the doe eyes, that plead to you. Not the maloseum of bruise and blood, the soft crowing of being deceived. A God and a man. Or a man and his pet.

There is some resilience in focusing on only Richard Grayson's wounds as well. Not the small stolen glances, or the dark, wintery violet gaze. Not the tight lipped frown from the pain of prodding, the loose nectar bottle, the blemished and broody, fine toned skin.

"Did you not want to go to the hospital for this?"

"Yours was closer."

She looked at him fleetingly,  "Your breathing is really shallow."

He winces a laugh, or only winces (Eir can not tell.) "Yeah?" Dick asks, feigning incredulous. It amused him, almost as much as the feeling of laughter pained his chest in moments like this, cut open and unholy, "Really?"

"Don't be an asshole. I'm holding your life's balance right now."

He looks at her under heavy eyes a moment more. The flannel sleep trouser, printed in forest colours and the loose, threadbare white shirt that had water stains on it. The darkened shade under her eyes, that had recently seemed to have gotten worse. She'd collapsed, in the last few weeks, slowly unravelling into this. She'd become absent even from her own life. Half here, and half in her mind, Dick didn't think he'd seen her fully present in a while. She'd tried. He knows that she'd tried. But he also knew that memory wasn't a ghost you could exorcise with a chant and some salt.

The sallow skin around the wound, stained rouge, felt the prick of her needle seven times; each with the gentility that Eir, scraped peach knees and anger-sore marrow, fell out of herself to aggravate. She splinters herself, trying to caress without also clawing. He stays leant on the wall, weaning the bottle like a babe straight from the womb. One twisted and bruised.

In childhood, Eir had felt the sting of injuring herself too many times to count. It had become a pain to her parents, and the blessing of her safety. Her first uncle, on her mother's side, had said that she was only unlucky, with her fire-licking passions, and her easily burned fingertips. When he'd say this, she'd scrunch her nose, and tell him it was a ridiculous notion to suggest: that anyone could be unlucky, like it was a preordained quality, and like luck, with her bright lotus flowers, and open palms, would only wilt to set her eyes on Eir. As she grew older, she juggled this more; a drought to get drunk off. All sorts of superstitions were thrown her way. Ones about curses, jealousy, and curing.

Ointment stained fingers, and the lingering smell of lime, she carefully applied a bandage unto the wound before sitting back.

"Thanks," he coughs, eyeing the soft dressing covering his side.

Eir did little to respond but nod, and mutter a quiet nothing when her eyes take a peek into his face (like he is Medusa, and seconds more would make her stone) before rescinding into putting things back in their rightful places. She ought to do it more, she thought, not bite her tongue; raw and always acrid. In the moment following, her skin stretched against the brittle bone, her fingers freely fiddling instead of soft and kept, she breathed (finally); deep and swollen-lunged.

Eir rubbed at her face with the back of her hand before moving into the kitchen to turn the sink tap on.

The sound of running water quickly fills the empty space as she washes her skin clean of his blood, scrubbing perhaps more than she needed to. How silent the apartment had been up until now had become apparent, with the onset of warm water; populated only with soft muttering, and softer touch. The radio had been faded, drunkeningly sweet for the architecture of the bloody hand and the knife wound.

A clink of glass echoes as Dick puts a now almost empty liquor bottle onto the kitchen counter before pressing his hip against it, eyes moving between the sink basin, and her face, cloaked by waves of hair and what he had thought were tear stains that she'd splashed water into to make herself appear less effected. Less like porcelain and more like steel. She had begun scrubbing at what few dishes were in the sink, soap and bubble catching against her fingertips and a loosely held sponge, eager to wash something easy away.

She didn't look at him, when he stood beside her, only handed him a wet mug; not a slight, but the feeling of sickness in her chest; the pumping rotten carcass of Maelstrom in her veins. Dick begins drying each dish Eir hands him with a small kitchen towel, printed with cats, remaining in this silent exchange until she finally speaks, thoughtful and dismayed and nonchalant, "Are you going to tell me what happened, or is there no point in asking?" He puts what plate has in his hand down, and takes the next from her hand.

"I was at a crime scene," He replied, "And someone jumped me."

A soft tingle drips down her fingertips at this, a feeling Eir pushes aside to accept his response.

"At a crime scene, after hours?"

He raises his eyebrows, and grins lopsidedly, "I know you've done that before too."

"Yeah—," Eir begins to grit, but makes a fast attempt to sound more casual, handing him the last of the plates she'd washed before turning off the tap and shaking her hands, "But I wasn't alone." She rubs them against the flannel of her pyjama, and turns around to face him, her hipbone meeting the edge of the counter as he had, and her arms crossing to meet each other, and her stomach.

"Are you worried about me?" He asks, teasing, taking a step closer.

"Be serious."

"I am being serious." Dick replies, absently drying. Eir's face must've deceived her, because he seems to pause what mulling leaves them quiet with eachother, "Okay, okay. It was a reckless thing to do."

It was unfortunate, the way she often had to control herself from saying more than she wanted to. Her eyes were a fragile thing; an easily shattered marble, and the firefly's abdomen. She hated it. She despised it. Her inner life was a sheet of black glass; if she'd stepped and stumbled, Eir would have fallen in. The enormity of her being disgusted her. It was easier to do something else; the shotgun instead of the rabbit; the rot of the apple instead of its soft rind; she'd have sooner reformed herself an image of proffering that wasn't so needy.

Eir frowns, "Why didn't you just call me?"

He goes to answer. Something. Anything. (I lied. I was breaking someone's neck. I was committing an act of provoked murder. My father is my judge, and I am my jury, but you are still my executioner.)

It was then that Mr Tumnus let an animal sound unfurl, in the seconds of pregnant pause, calling from the hunger of his belly. Eir nodded to herself, the tension tickling her throat. She swallows her words, and looks away from where her eyes had flit, between Dick and where the dried dishes sat; always vulnerable, never willing to look it in the face. Her eyes follow the plate ring's pattern; blue and flowery, before going about putting food in Tumnus' bowl.

The cat follows her every move. Hopeful and abiding. Moving to the fridge, opening the packet, emoting it into the bowl at the end of the kitchen island.

"Would you like to watch a movie?" The normality of the question, amongst everything else, should have felt stranger in taste but, crouched with fingers scratching at fur as Mr. Tumnus ate, her eyes found Richard Grayson easily.

🦇

Bludhaven, perpetually cold, became unbearable in the winter months. Eir had brought both her pillows and blanket onto the sofa after cleaning away the scattered papers; saying a solemn mourning to her evening of work and tucking it away into a drawer.

Dick picked up Mr Tumnus and slid under the blanket, cat tucked reluctantly under his arm, "What do you want to watch?"

Tumnus wriggled, squeezing through grasp to come and sit in the space between them, happily absorbing the body warmth.

"Fight Club?" She asks, "It feels... fitting."

"You mean you don't want to watch Notting Hill?"

"Well, that isn't fitting now, is it? One of us didn't experience a whirlwind romance with some rich guy because of a clumsy juice spill, did we?"

"Would you like to?"

Eir's brain absorbed the static he created. Her cheeks redden, made more evident by the way that they're puffed out, and she mutters, "Okay, Inspector Gadget, start the film."

She could hear the shit-eating grin on Dick's face by the way he spoke, the slight melody of liquor hoarse flirtation scratching at her, "I like this movie too."

There were no exchanged looks; Eir had reserved to sink further into herself, clutch her pillow tighter, and hum in acknowledgement. It was enjoyable. Watching some cheesy piece of fiction, that told her something sickeningly sweet about love and life, appealed to all the romantic sensibilities of her private, quiet mind.

When she did finally take the gander of looking, it was because Jeff King had arrived from America. Eir pokes her head over where she'd submerged herself in the blanket, covering herself wholly so that every part of her body could feel the pressure of it. Her vision was slightly blurred by the few strands of hair falling in her face, but she did not attempt to fix it in case it broke some reverie of focus.

His arms, stretched, sparrow-like and tucked behind his head, left a plane of tan skin exposed to the half-light of the moon, and the warmth of Eir's small fireplace. Eden's serpent curls around his bicep, the fine, pearl remains of a bloody, apple-biting lesion. Her mind, as it did often, wondered. What sin and skin-sloughing defication must someone fall into to end in such a way as broken on the wooden floors of a cold home and a whelp's arms? Eir would not pretend; she had seen the purple bruise of his chest and the thunder of his ambition; she'd heard his confrontation. The tight fist, the soft knuckle. But it had always been something other. People had anger. It wasn't a new creation; some god-like entity and his cruel grudge with the family name Wayne. Whatever this was, she couldn't touch it. Foreign and hungry, like a wolf and his enclosure. This was the closest she'd get. The aftermath of pouring scars, and a sponsorship from a man called his father. Even that ended the same; blood and shaky hands.

Meeting everyone had so far felt like puzzle pieces coming together. Jason. Damian. Little Lian Harper, even.

Whatever gauzy cloth Dick Grayson had been cut from, it was a shroud for all of them.

If she hadn't been buried under the blanket, Eir would have thought that he'd started smiling in the last few seconds. But post-adrenaline and an oddly shaped evening took all forms of contusion. She pressed her fingers into the muscle behind her shoulder, brittle nail biting skin, and turned back to the screen in time for Anna and Will to meet again.

note from the author hi!! i'm publishing this after four-and-a-half rewrites, with the slightest of concerns that it is in fact not in character, and will require further modification later on. (the writing feels off and i'm not a big fan of it)

eir is my sweet sweet child, who is terribly overworked and terribly wants to overwork. at this point, probably less of herself than one would expect herself, and half rescinded into her own skin like a crab of some sort.

i'd like to thank yllwjckts  for reading this through for me and providing (very helpful!) advice on how to better it.

i'd also like to thank sealines  for reading through a few bits i felt were disjointed, and also for assuring me that it was an in character decision (which made me feel much better.)