My Headcanon Is That This Is The Moment In-ho Started Taking An Interest In Gi-hun:

Hancock my boi

So… this piece was quite big… I was planning this for a while. And many of you recommended it too.

Tip Jar - 

Guiding light

You forced my hand, Telltale.

You wanted John to end up in Arkham no matter what cause you needed a fundament for your season 3? Okay. We can’t avoid this last battle with Vigilante Joker cause you wanted to give us as much drama as you potentially could? Fine. But at least you could have given us a little bit of choice.

That’s what my fic is going to be about. The choice we could have had.

Chapter 1

How did they end up like this?

That’s the only question Bruce had in his head watching this creepy smile on his best friend’s face. It looked even bigger and wilder than his usual one. Blood of people he killed covered his face. 

This whole view…  

He was gripping two joker-rangs in the hands with such a strength his own blood was dropping from the weapons onto the floor. And now he looked truly insane. Even more like bloody-minded. 

Damn. 

If Bruce didn’t already know this man was John Doe he would have never recognized him…

They stood in front of each other heavy breathing after the fight. But it didn’t seem as it was over. No matter how bad Bruce wanted this. The only solution seemed to be was to beat up Joker until he’d faint or just weaken. That’s however what Batman was used to do with his opponents. But John…

He remembered that day in the past when he was teaching John how to throw batarang. He was so excited. He looked up to Batman and Bruce wanted him to become better version of himself. That’s why he did everything to encourage his efforts of trying to be a hero.

“You have potential, John”, he said to him the same day, “Do something good with it”. “Well, with you to look up to… How could I go wrong?”. And Bruce wanted to believe in that so bad. Because knowing John… He did have a good heart. He had seen it. But his mind was really messed up.

So maybe Alfred was right about Batman’s darkest side affecting John as well? Maybe that’s what made him believe that any problem could be resolved only by using violence? Batman did use his fists more often than he wanted… And if it was his fault he needed to fix it. He needed to show John that not all the things in this world could be solved by violence. But could he potentially do it in such conditions?

[John became completely uncontrollable. I need to stop him at any cost]

[It’s still a chance I could talk him down. I need to comfort him]

He made his decision. No more thinking.

John rushed to him madly laughing and swinging the weapons with his two hands aiming to plant them as deep into Bruce’s body as possible. Batman in his turn hasted to meet him and grabbed with the whole force. He locked his arms around John’s body. But John himself seemed not to pay attention to Bruce’s efforts to show how desperate he was about the whole situation they were in. He wasn’t sobered at all. It looked like some veil covered his mind and he lost the touch with the reality.

Leading by his emotions Joker started stabbing Batman’s back until he succeeded to reach his skin several times.

With Batman’s gasp and Joker’s laugh Bruce decided it was too much for him…

Please, stop.

Enough!

[Throw him away]

“John, please… stop it”

It didn’t work.

“I’m begging you… STOP”. On that one he squeezed John’s body even harder with that kind of hug.

John exclaimed: “Let me go!”.

“Not… until you stop this craziness”

“I HATE YOU! What you did to me!”, he planted the last wound deeper than the others.

“Argh!”, Bruce grimaced.

“By looking up to you I had only lost myself!”

For Bruce hearing those words were even more painful then all of the stab wounds.

“I’m… I’m sorry, John”, he started with the softest voice he could potentially make, “I… really tried my best. And I’m sorry if I failed you…”.

He felt John stopped his attempts to stab him again and relaxed a little bit.

“I know you angry at me but please…”, now Bruce was feeling his body started to weaken because of the blood he was losing. But he needed to tell John what he was feeling. At least this one time. “Just please… I don’t want us to fight anymore… I don’t want you to get hurt… I don’t want to lose you or anybody else! Not again!”.

John shivered.

For Bruce it became harder to speak. “I… wasn’t such a good friend to you as I wished to be. And now it doesn’t seem I’m good enough to take an example from either…”.

“Bruce…”

“So please! Let me fix it. Let me… argh… make up for it”

Bruce’s sight started to drift away but it looked like John finally came to himself. That’s all Bruce was trying to achieve for now.

John dropped his weapons and grabbed Batman’s shoulders. Bruce felt him sobbing now.

“Bruce… What are you… That’s not what I… You…”

Batman loosened his grip revealing Joker and fell to his knees.

“Bruce!”

John rushed back to him willing to swoop up Batman’s wrist but only touched the wounds.

“Argh!”

He immediately recoiled letting Bruce collapsed on the floor.

John’s face covered with blood and tears… That’s the last thing Bruce saw before falling into the darkness.

#the way crowley's understanding of love is taking shelter from the rain with someone else #and aziraphale's definition of love means ballroom dances and intimate conversations #i'm not okay they're so in love with each other

Confession: while vigilante John is my son and my canon version, I still crave more villain John content. I see so much potential in that version. And it hurts so good. 

Give me John commiting pettier and smaller crimes just to get Bruce’s attention. Give me John and Bruce slowly forgiving each other.  Give me villain John feeling guilty for what he has done. Give me Bruce promising John that he will be there for him and letting John turn himself in on his own terms when he’s ready to go back to Arkham and get better.

I headcanon that Bruce never gives up on trying to make things right with John and confesses that he’s in love with him (well more like it slips up during one of their fights). But John is still angry and hurt and doesn’t believe him (how can Bruce love him if he betrayed him? How can he love him after all that John has done? To Bruce, to Gotham …) but after he sees that Bruce keeps on trying and trying to apologise to him, and keeps stepping into John’s obvious traps (Bruce knows they are traps but he feels like he has to prove himself to John that he’s serious) John starts to feel guilty. He starts to realise that Bruce truly is sorry for what he has done and it’s hard to hold onto this grudge when Bruce is there - more open than he ever was with him before - trying to earn his forgiveness and trying to help him. 

It’s hard to hold a grudge when the person you love (no matter how much you’re angry at them) loves you back so deeply.

John also feels guilty that Bruce doesn’t seem to give up on him no matter how many horrible crimes he commits. And at some point he only continues to commit crimes because it’s easier to continue being in the shoes of a villain, he feels like he has no other choice now that he’s in so deep. He did so many horrible things already,…so he feels like he can never go back and that this is the only thing that’s left for them. He’s almost afraid to mend the broken bond with Bruce because that also means facing the reality of what he has done. How many lives he has taken and destroyed and it’s eating at him. 

So like after some time John’s crimes no longer have any real heart in them, he mostly just does them so he can face Bruce again because he misses him. One day he finally breaks down crying during the fight; just straight up drops his knife and weeps and Bruce holds him in his full on Batman getup while John sobs into his chest. “Why won’t you give up on me?! Why are you still here?!” kind of lines slip during the sobbing. After the sobbing calms down John kisses him, and they stay there for a while just kissing. Kissing all the hurt away.

After that they finally talk it out. John realises he needs to go to Arkham but he’s not ready to go yet. He’s not ready to face the reality. So Bruce lets him stay in the manor for a few days, helping him however he can to come to terms with what he has done. And when John is ready he lets Bruce drive him to Arkham. They kiss one more time and Bruce whispers a promise to help him get through this & visit him. And then they hold eye contact until the guards take John away.

back to exterminating raiders

FUCKIN 🎉 FINALLY🎉🎉🎉🎉

these stupid boys finally kiss and it only took (exactly) 200 pages. HAPPY PAGE 200!!! thank you so much for reading the update!! and the whole comic to this point!!! the fans and especially patreon supporters keep me going!! i’m so excited i could finally reach this page, i might do a giveaway on twitter to celebrate later.

but the chapter ain’t over yet!! we still got a fair amount of chaos to go…

next update coming in one or two weeks!

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Batman: The Enemy Within - Episode 5

what was truly beautiful about the whole season tho is that it was wholly motivated by love

the whole arc with gabriel was because he wanted to stop the armageddon business and be with beelzebub

crowley was helping aziraphale because he is in love with him and can't stand the thought of someone hurting him

and of course the whole deal with maggie and nina

love was EVERYWHERE

connor’s path ❖ get to know?