Just another random little one-shot that popped into my head. I don't own anything except for two completely un-reviewed stories (which is a little depressing. =[).
--
Contrary to popular belief, there are things that keep the Joker up at night. Nightmares, nightmares of order and cookie-cutter cleanliness, and himself, no scars, no makeup, no self, going through life predictably just like the rest of those idiots the news calls "society."
He wakes up in cold sweats, feeling the knife under his pillow and the knife under his mattress and the knife in his hands, checking the ten or so in his pockets, before drifting off. As though his knives could fight order, as though they could make sameness bleed.
He thinks sometimes that once upon a time he was afraid of killers, of the freak he had become. But then he convinces himself that he is afraid of nothing, for he is an unstoppable force, and nothing can hold him back. Nothing can break him down. Because there is nothing to break except for chaos; it's what makes up every fiber of his being, it's what makes him so much better than the rest of the little schemers. He's an agent of chaos, he thinks, and his scarred smile stretches a little bit wider in the darkness as he drifts off to peaceful dreams of knives and blood.
--
Meanwhile,
Bruce Wayne wakes up from his own set of nightmares. In his dreams,
those horrible escapes from reality that are so unpredictable he
can't stand
it, the
Joker leers over an unmasked Batman, laughing, smiling.
Bruce doesn't know why the man in the makeup smiles, and that
drives him crazy. All he wants are answers, and all the Joker wants
is to keep everything hidden, not revealing anything about himself or
what he used to be.
Bruce feels himself so close to crossing the line between hero and vigilante, between order and chaos, between himself and people like the Joker. He's petrified that he'll look in the mirror one day and see him, that thing, that abomination that haunts every waking (and most sleeping) moments; horrified that he'll wake up with long, greenish hair, scars, war paint, and a penchant for knives and disorder. He can't stop thinking about it, and he can't stop himself from getting closer and closer to crossing that line.
(He almost did, once. He locked the Batsuit away, grabbed all of the knives he could find, and nearly slit his face open before regained control. Once, he put on makeup just like the Joker's and saw how frightening the result was. But just once. He would not let himself do it again, because if he did, there was the slightest possibility that he would like the results just a little too much. And that couldn't happen. He wouldn't let it happen.)
He used to be afraid of bats. When Crane's fear toxin poisoned his body, he saw bats, the well, and his father. But now, he thinks he's afraid of Batman. Afraid of having to live up to being an icon. Afraid of what will happen once he gets too old to keep pretending that he can fight off Gotham's scum forever. Afraid that he doesn't want to be Batman anymore, that he wants to be something that more people will remember, something that doesn't play by the rules.
He's afraid that he wants to be the Joker.
--
Alright, so now that you've read it, care to review? Please? I have cookies. =]
