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Description

I love Bruce. I love him in ways I can’t even describe, the kind of love that makes your insides hurt but you just want the pain to keep on coming. I love him, but I don’t understand him. Doctor Leland told me that I have difficulty having empathy, that it’s just something that I can’t wrap my head around, and that it’s not my fault. It’s not my fault I can’t feel the things Bruce feels, that I want to feel so badly.
But I want to, I want to understand him. I want to know why he has that thousand-yard stare every time more bad news shows up on the TV, why he has those episodes where he just…vanishes. His eyes look at something I can’t see, flickering back and forth as if he’s watching some kind of fucked up snuff film, flinching to unheard noises. I never know when it’s going to happen, either. It’s maddening, how the guy with everything in the world (including me!) could just…dissolve?
It happened again today. Bruce and I like to lay low on the outskirts of Gotham once and a while, you know, just stay out of the limelight when the paparazzi run out of celebrities to smear. There where so many TVs, Bruce looked like he was having a good time just being one of the rest of us. Then it happened, Commercial breaks ended, BREAKING NEWS flashing across all the screens in big, angry letters. Bruce was hypnotized.
Hostages taken. Children orphaned by home burglars. School shootings. All of these words that don’t mean much to me seemed to drive Bruce into a state I couldn’t rouse him from. And I hated it. The lemmings of Gotham didn’t even seem to register the news, it was same-old same-old shit that just keeps happening to the point where nobody even listened anymore. But not Bruce. With every new piece of footage came a new shadow of a wrinkle on his forehead, the smiling face I love so much completely gone and out of my fucking reach to bring back.
Empathy. Something so hard for me to grasp, something Bruce has too much of. I remember putting my arm around his shoulders and trying to usher him out of the door, my heartbeat in my ears making up for the deafening silence of Bruce’s lips. “Hey, let’s blow this Popsicle stand!” I remember cheering, but my buddy was completely gone. He had that look, the arms crossed, the flickering eyes, a memory reel playing before them. I couldn’t get him out of it, not for a long time. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the sick one.
I don’t get Bruce. But there’s one thing I do know; I can’t take seeing him like this. He’s helped me so much when I didn’t deserve it, I’d give all of myself to take away whatever’s coming over him. If this horrible thing I’m feeling for him is empathy, I’m beginning to understand why he is the way he is.
(I wanted to show both sides of the relationship, how John is not the only one who is clinically ill. He’s been seeing more of Bruce suffering episodes of childhood PTSD triggered by media. Instead of being excited by the darkness in Bruce..he feels something new.)

Description

I love Bruce. I love him in ways I can’t even describe, the kind of love that makes your insides hurt but you just want the pain to keep on coming. I love him, but I don’t understand him. Doctor Leland told me that I have difficulty having empathy, that it’s just something that I can’t wrap my head around, and that it’s not my fault. It’s not my fault I can’t feel the things Bruce feels, that I want to feel so badly.
But I want to, I want to understand him. I want to know why he has that thousand-yard stare every time more bad news shows up on the TV, why he has those episodes where he just…vanishes. His eyes look at something I can’t see, flickering back and forth as if he’s watching some kind of fucked up snuff film, flinching to unheard noises. I never know when it’s going to happen, either. It’s maddening, how the guy with everything in the world (including me!) could just…dissolve?
It happened again today. Bruce and I like to lay low on the outskirts of Gotham once and a while, you know, just stay out of the limelight when the paparazzi run out of celebrities to smear. There where so many TVs, Bruce looked like he was having a good time just being one of the rest of us. Then it happened, Commercial breaks ended, BREAKING NEWS flashing across all the screens in big, angry letters. Bruce was hypnotized.
Hostages taken. Children orphaned by home burglars. School shootings. All of these words that don’t mean much to me seemed to drive Bruce into a state I couldn’t rouse him from. And I hated it. The lemmings of Gotham didn’t even seem to register the news, it was same-old same-old shit that just keeps happening to the point where nobody even listened anymore. But not Bruce. With every new piece of footage came a new shadow of a wrinkle on his forehead, the smiling face I love so much completely gone and out of my fucking reach to bring back.
Empathy. Something so hard for me to grasp, something Bruce has too much of. I remember putting my arm around his shoulders and trying to usher him out of the door, my heartbeat in my ears making up for the deafening silence of Bruce’s lips. “Hey, let’s blow this Popsicle stand!” I remember cheering, but my buddy was completely gone. He had that look, the arms crossed, the flickering eyes, a memory reel playing before them. I couldn’t get him out of it, not for a long time. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the sick one.
I don’t get Bruce. But there’s one thing I do know; I can’t take seeing him like this. He’s helped me so much when I didn’t deserve it, I’d give all of myself to take away whatever’s coming over him. If this horrible thing I’m feeling for him is empathy, I’m beginning to understand why he is the way he is.
(I wanted to show both sides of the relationship, how John is not the only one who is clinically ill. He’s been seeing more of Bruce suffering episodes of childhood PTSD triggered by media. Instead of being excited by the darkness in Bruce..he feels something new.)