[ the dream is a twisted version of one he had as a child. in it, bruce is at the bottom of a cave, looking up towards the light like a pinprick in the darkness. the distance between him and safety seems like an impossible difference, but he still reaches up desperately and meekly calls out.

"please, help me..."

the pain comes to him when he realizes the voice isn't his, and he doubles in on himself as the world around him starts to throb like a localized pain he can't identify when the dream goes black and he wakes to a flash of sunlight and soaked bedsheets. from the delirium of sleep, he doesn't immediately recognize that things are different; for all he knows, the body next to his would be selina's. as his eyes scan the room, though, there's one thing that catches his eye that makes bruce pull himself from the sticky sheets and slowly approach.

it's a picture of him, ten years old, ready to go to school. he looks happy, smiling and waving at parents who should be dead. the picture looks like bruce wayne, but it's not him. when he plucks the picture from the wall and scrutinizes it before the reverie of children laughing from outside it makes him set it down and really take in the new eerily peaceful home. bruce peels the murky pajama shirt from his back and tosses it aside when he hears the sing-song sound from downstairs, "thirty days til halloween..."

[ as the new neighbors stop by like clockwork, bruce will smile and offer friendly simplicities, 'how's the weather-esque' small talk before he summarily thanks them and closes the door on their face. he's acted his whole life, after all, as a billionaire playboy philanthropist, so fooling a bunch of breathing stepford mannequins wasn't too much of a challenge. not too far off from the gotham elite he so frequently had to mingle with, actually. once in the safety of his home-- safety being a relative term here, his dour expression will return and he'll look down at the plate of off-putting food before regarding you before bringing it to the kitchen table for all of you to inspect.

with the body bag tupperware open, you'll all inspect the cadaver that was once food together in a moment of bleak family bonding, staring down either sobersided and austere like your new father, or with abject horror. after a very long moment of inspection and without a word, bruce reseals the tupperware and tosses it straight into the goddamn trash with a loud *THUMP*, to which he turns and clearly tells all of you... ]

I think we'll cook for ourselves.

[ halloween has always been a bad month for bruce. gotham itself was often compared to a living haunted house by many who lived outside of it, so for the entire month of october, it's safe to say that he'd been ready for the other shoe to drop. when night falls on halloween, he pulls back the curtains and peers up at the moonlight, almost distantly expecting the bat signal to shine out into the night sky. instead, he's greeted by the ring of his doorbell, and a throaty "trick or treat" from the bloated, gray-skinned children outside. he meets their eyes, and disquietingly, they seem more alive and wanting than his neighbors with their emotionless smiles and empty, white-saucered stares. they remind him of the dark robins with their incessant crowing from back home, bringing back bad memories.

knock

knock

knock

it comes again, but the glowing smile of the jack o'lantern keeps them at bay until they wander off unsatisfied. earlier in the month, you might have been worried about bruce falling into the routine of normalcy trapped here in santa ana, carving the pumpkin at the kitchen table with a steady resolve and hand, but when you asked him, all he ever replied was that he "thought it might be a good idea." in his heart, bruce was a detective. one of the best, his world said, and so when he'd woken up one day to see that not one but all of their neighbors had placed jack o'lanterns outside, he decided to follow suit. call it intuition, but he had an eerie suspicion that it might be a smart idea to do as the romans do this time around.

for the wayne house, they were protected by the glowing symbol of a bat.

but he also expected and noticed that some of the others in the neighborhood might not feel the same way, and so when he hears your struggling and clattering from across the street he'll go running to help. he'll also likely tell his "family" to stay and guard their home-- whether or not you listen is another thing entirely. when he gets to you, the less cautious of the bunch, you'll find him readily assisting. bruce wayne was never gifted with superpowers or super strength, but through vigorous training and a lifetime of dedication he could still bench a thousand pounds and punch through brick walls, so coming to your defense is not entirely without merit. he yells something to you among the clamor about "lighting a jack o'lantern," which might seem ridiculous to you, given the situation, but as he firmly puts his loafer to an undead child's head with a sickening squelch, you may want to reconsider his advice.

hours later, when the commotion is done, the wayne family returns home with their hair tousled, their clothes disheveled and covered in splashes of undead muck and broken glass, skin decorated in colorful cuts and bruises when you all decide to sit down on the couch as a family and rest, staring dead-eyed at the wall. the silence lasts for a moment when the tv turns itself on again to welcome you home with another blaring "HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN!" bruce gets up and puts his foot through the goddamn tv screen as the haunted staccato of the speakers cries out as it dies and is silenced...

HALLO... EEN...

HA... O... EN...

HA...L...EE--

[ hello! if you'd like to do something else, or plan something specific, please feel free to pm me or message me on plurk at BATGUY! ]