Condemned

AN: Don't worry, only the prologue is in the centre, the rest is left aligned... enjoy, all!

Part One:

Hell Descending

(prologue)

"No," I say, taking his hand in mine and fighting with the loosened tubes of his intricate mask. A cruel thicket of bullets puncture his broad chest as the life leaks from him, thick and crimson and uncontrollably fast, and I press my hands up against the wounds. Bane groans in agony and it's too late, too late...

Always too late.

Time has finally evaded us.

I'm crying now, saying his name over and over, lost and alone at the end of all things.

"Please, I... I don't know what to do, Bane, I don't know what to do-!"

His large hand shivers up against my own in the silence, pulling it gently away from the mask welded to his face. His crumpled fingers, tired and calloused in ways only the two of us know, begin to work at the clasp at the base of his skull. Realising what he's doing, I protest through my tears, but he looks at me in a way which makes me understand. He releases the mask and I cup the front of it in my hands so that it may not fall; Bane brings his hands over mine and casts the thing away from us. I cup my hands around his perfect face, beautiful and marble and far too good for the likes me; and yet he is mine. My Bane; my Bane at last with his soft, gentle lips and his eyes, those eyes full of hatred and love and every other emotion personified in the cool brown of those gentle lenses.

"You can't," I tell him, watching as he wheezes horridly from the pain of just existing. I hold him there, weeping uncontrollably as I feel his warm blood weep into the fibers of my clothes, causing the thin material to plaster our bodies together as his muscles begin to shake of their own accord.

"No..."

"Look," he whispers, calm and controlled as ever. I follow his voice and find my way back to those eyes, stung by long forgotten tears and struggling, fighting so hard against the horrors of the world. "Look," he says again as I sob, more forcefully this time. My eyes clench without my guidance as I press my forehead against his own because I'm not strong enough... I cannot do this. This shouldn't be real.

His hand moves up through the tangle of my hair and to my neck; he says my name, that precious whisper in the dark of the world that, just for a second, makes it all seem okay. For a moment the world synchronizes, as though the blood and the agony, the gunfire and the flame about to engulf us all is gone, just for that precious second as our lips press together for the final time. I hold him there, refusing to let go, long after his body has fallen limp.

Bane is gone.

My Bane is...

dead.

AN: Hi guys! Hope you enjoyed that depressing little intro.

Next chapter is where the fun really begins; thanks for dropping by!