DCU: Split

Nolan woke up to singing.

Again.

"SOMEDAYYYY… MY PRIIINCE WILL COOOOME—" 

His eyes opened slowly, blank and bloodshot. He stared up at the cracked ceiling like it had personally betrayed him.

"SOME DAAAYYY… I'LL FIIIIIIND MY LOOOOVE—" 

"You have got to be kidding me," Nolan muttered into his pillow.

He rolled over, slammed his face against the mattress, and let out a long groan. The guy wasn't just off-key he was proudly off-key. The notes didn't even try to land in the right zip code. Nolan was almost impressed. Almost.

He threw on his shoes and shuffled toward the cell door as it buzzed open for breakfast rotation. He stepped into the stream of shuffling inmates without a word, jaw clenched.

In the mess hall, he grabbed a tray of… something resembling eggs, and slid into the usual spot across from Harvey Dent, who was already halfway through his toast.

Harvey looked up with a smirk. "Morning, sunshine. You sleep through the Disney Princess medley or did our neighbor go for the encore?"

Nolan blinked, deadpan. "I didn't sleep through it. I survived it."

Harvey chuckled and took another bite. "That guy's been in here six years and ain't missed a night he gets rotated around so everyone gets the pleasure of hearing his voice. It's Arkham's unofficial lullaby."

"Lullaby?" Nolan scoffed. "It's like being serenaded by a dying cat. With bronchitis. He should be stuck in solitary." 

Harvey raised his coffee in mock salute. "Oh no they can't do that, solitary is only for the most dangerous plus i think the orderlies like torturing us with his voice. Wait 'til your third time landing in here. I promise you, sleep will come easy." 

Nolan gave a tired laugh and picked at his food. The mess tasted like chalky regret, but it was warm, and that was enough.

"So," Harvey asked, "how's the trial going?"

Nolan shrugged with his fork halfway to his mouth. "Jury selection, I think. Hoping for a speedy trial."

Harvey squinted. "You're still in here for that? Seems like your lawyer could've pushed for you to be out until sentencing."

"In Gotham?" Nolan let out a short, bitter laugh. "That's hardly possible. This place is rigged six ways from Sunday. Either the system's corrupt, or someone made sure those lines stayed locked."

Harvey grunted, but nodded like a man who'd seen the worst of the city and kept score.

Nolan took another bite then froze mid-chew.

To his right, Kieran was sitting casually, resting an elbow on the table like he belonged there.

To the left, Quentin, legs up on the bench, was peeling an orange that Nolan could actually smell, "It's literally not even a debate. Oranges are superior. They have layers."

"Apples have versatility," Kieran shot back, not even looking at him. "You can bake them, slice them, eat them whole. What do you do with an orange? Unwrap it?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were judging fruit by their ability to survive a pastry contest," Quentin snapped.

Nolan's jaw tightened as he stared blankly at his tray. Don't react. Don't look. Don't move.

He could feel them. Feel the body heat, the subtle air shift. They were real.

They weren't supposed to be real.

Quentin paused mid-rant. "Wait. Kieran do you feel that?"

Kieran's fingers stopped drumming the table. He turned, eyes narrowing. "Holy shit."

They both looked at Nolan.

"…It's happening again," Quentin muttered.

Kieran's expression was unreadable, but his voice was low and serious. "We didn't do this. Not on purpose."

Nolan yawned, forced and exaggerated, then leaned back in his seat. "I swear," he said casually to Harvey, "I need your talent for sleeping. That guy was keeping me up all night."

Harvey chuckled. "You get used to it. Or you lose your mind trying. One of the two."

Nolan laughed quietly, but his hand trembled slightly under the table. The tray of tasteless food sat untouched now, his appetite replaced with dread.

At least today he was going to finalize the jury.

***

"SOMEDAYYYY… MYYY PRIIINCE WILLLL COOOOME—" 

Nolan's eyes shot open. He laid still in the dark, blinking up at the ceiling with a blank stare, as though waiting for the sound to stop on its own.

It didn't.

"SOOOMEDAYYYYY… I'LL FIIIND… MYYY LOOOVE—" 

He pressed the pillow over his head.

'This has got to be a joke,' Quentin hissed. 'Does he rehearse this garbage?!'

'Maybe he's lonely,' Kieran said, too calm.

'Maybe I kill him,' Vey growled.

Nolan didn't answer. He was too busy imagining himself floating above Arkham, looking down, free of noise. Free of this… wailing banshee.

Yesterday his lawyer finalized the jury selection process, it was endlessly boring but infinitely more soothing that this shit.

***

Nolan's tray trembled slightly in his hands as he took it to the mess table. Harvey wasn't there. Just his own reflection in the tin of watery grits.

"You look like hell," Crane commented in passing.

"Thanks," Nolan muttered.

 "AND THE BIRDS WILLL SIIINGGG ONCE MOOOORE—" 

The voice was still in his head, even in daylight. Even now.

***

"HAAAAAAAPPY BIRTHDAAAAY TOOOO MEEE…" 

'Nope. No. Not even the right song,' Quentin barked. 'Is it even his birthday?!'

'It's not,' Kieran said dryly. 'He sang that yesterday too.'

Nolan was curled sideways in bed, one eye bloodshot, his fingernails digging half-moons into his blanket.

'Maybe…' he thought, not seriously, 'maybe if I start sobbing, someone will put me in solitary.'

****

Harvey sat down next to him in the mess, but only stayed five minutes.

"I've got something," he said vaguely, wiping his mouth and heading out.

Nolan didn't ask what. His brain was mush. Words filtered in like static. Kieran and Quentin were arguing over chess strategy from two nights ago, and it all just buzzed around his skull.

****

"LALALA LALAAA LAAAA—"

Nolan had a hand clutched around his pillow, arm trembling.

'He doesn't even know the words,' Quentin hissed.

'We kill him,' Vey repeated.

'You always say that.'

'This time, I mean it.'

Nolan sat up, face drawn and pale in the shadows. He stared at the door with wide, tired eyes, whispering to himself, "He's not even hitting the same notes…"

***

Harvey didn't show up at rec. Didn't show up at mess. Nolan asked a guard and got a shrug. Something about a doctor.

Nolan wasn't sure if he cared. He wasn't sure if he could care.

He was standing at the lunch line when Kieran muttered, 'You need sleep or you're going to start seeing bats in daylight.'

'I'd rather fight Batman again,' Quentin added. 'At least he doesn't sing.'

****

"SOMEDAAAYYY—" 

Nolan sat bolt upright in bed, teeth clenched. He looked straight at the wall. His hands were shaking. Not from rage no, not anymore. It was fatigue. The kind that made your blood feel like sludge.

'Nolan,' Kieran said gently, but his voice echoed strangely like it was distant, dulled.

'Nolan,' Quentin said.

'Sleep,' Vey urged. 'Just sleep. Kill him later. Just sleep now.'

But the voice outside the cell kept rising, louder and louder in Nolan's ears, until it felt like it was coming from inside his skull.

"NANANA WHATEVER, LALALA…" 

Nolan dug his nails into his scalp and screamed silently into the darkness.

He rose from his cot with a breath so tight it barely escaped his throat. He crossed the room barefoot, each step slow and heavy, the concrete cold beneath his feet. He reached the metal bars, pressed his hands flat against the steel, and leaned forward.

Bloodshot eyes peered through the narrow viewing slit of his cell just enough space to see down the hall.

There. Diagonal, across from Harvey's cell, the source of this nightly torment.

The singer.

A tall, wiry man swaying in place as he hummed now off-key, tuneless, his voice grating like nails dragging glass. Head tilted back, arms occasionally outstretched like he was on some twisted stage.

And for the briefest moment… Nolan saw it.

A haze.

A shimmer in the air around the man—almost like heat rising off asphalt, but stranger. There were colors in it. Soft and pastel, like a soap bubble caught in the light.

Nolan's eyes narrowed.

The longer he stared, the more the hues began to change. The colors pulsed with the sound sickly yellows, dissonant greens.

And then… red.

Deep, violent crimson that bled out like ink in water.

Nolan's breath hitched. His stomach twisted. His hands gripped the bars tighter—not from fear, but from something else. Something primal.

He stared until his vision blurred.

Until it felt like that red wasn't around the man anymore but between them.

Nolan slowly stepped back from the bars. His fingers dragged against the metal as he turned around and shuffled back to his cot.

He laid down, curled onto his side, and stared at the wall for a long time.

"Fuck I'm seeing shit besides you guys now, shoulda went to blackgate when I had the chance"

And then, finally finally he slept.

Dreamless.