John felt strange. His whole body felt strange in a way that made him very afraid. Sure, he was in pain, but that wasn’t all. He couldn’t quite breathe, and there was this odd finality. He felt like this might be the end. Bruce on top of him could have been comforting to him, would have been a few days ago, but now it just made him hurt more. Not physically, but emotionally. It hurt in his body too, because of how sad it made him. Like a dull ache in his heart that was growing stronger. Like his chest was being crushed.

“I knew it, ya know, deep down”

John rasped, and the weakness of his voice surprised even him. He couldn’t get enough air and he began to realise that his faint paranoia might be genuine fact. He might die here, with Bruce looking down at him with that pity. John wanted Bruce’s love, but all he really got was his pity. He hated pity.

“That someone like you… could never be friends with someone like me”

John finished, and searched Bruce’s expression for his response to the words. John was beginning to feel faint, and tired, and that pain caused by his hurt feelings was beginning to blossom into something sharper that ratcheted through his whole torso. He didn’t want to go out like that, John wanted to be reassured. He needed to be reassured.

“We had some good times, huh, Bruce?”

John gasped out before letting his head fall back limply and his eyes close, falling unconscious. His breathing stopped and his heartbeat became erratic and superficial. John — or Joker, whatever he was calling himself, was going to die if medical intervention was not made. And how did Bruce feel? This killer dying under him to injuries he’d made him inflict. John- Joker was a killer, now, deranged. What feelings could his death invoke?