The fire flickered merrily under the warm night sky. Sparks, like tiny flares, rocketed up from the blaze, swirling in the updraft as they soared up and winked out. The pretty orange flames danced in the breeze, flashing here, sparking there, and incidentally destroying quite a significant bit of Arkham Asylum as they passed. A crowd of inmates, lightly scorched, clumped together on the lawn under the watchful eyes of a group of well-armed guards.
Two burly men waited impatiently in the shadows by the far-off razor-wire fence. "You sure this was the plan?" one asked, staring at the flames as they swarmed up a long-dead ivy vine and set another windowsill alight.
"Mr. Scarface said to torch the building."
"Yeah, but he ain't comin' out like he said he would. Where is he?"
"Dunno. Lemme see those plans he drew."
The first man dug a much-folded sheet of paper out of his back pocket and held it out. The second man snatched it and unfolded it, squinting to make out the details in the fire's flickery orange light. Then, with a rapid-fire stream of profanity, he rolled the paper into a tube and swatted the first man over the head with it. "You had it backwards, you idiot! We was supposed to burn the northwest corner! Scarface is gonna kill us!"
"Oh." Sirens wailed in the distance as a fleet of fire trucks lit up the night with flashing red lights. "You think we should go?" The silence was broken only by the crackle of the distant fire. He turned, wondering why his partner wasn't answering, and saw only empty air. "Hey, wait for me!" He pushed himself through the small gap in the fence and disappeared into the woods.
There were no fire alarms in the rogues' wing. The caring and compassionate citizens on Arkham's board of directors had agreed that nothing but a five-alarm fire should get the rogues out of their cells, and if there was a five-alarm fire, they'd concentrate on saving the inmates who hadn't racked up death counts in the triple digits first. Besides, if they were in any danger, surely Batman would go in there and get them. And if he didn't...would anyone really miss them?
And so the rogues passed a peaceful, quiet night, until they were rudely awakened at four in the morning and dragged, protesting, down the hall to the rec room. They grumbled complaints as a team of antsy guards watched them with bloodshot eyes.
This was hardly the first time that they'd been unceremoniously dumped in the rec room. Over the years, nearly all of them had attempted an explosive exit from their plexiglass cages, and every time, the rest of them wound up in the rec room while the escapee's cell was hastily blocked off from further inmate access.
No one had escaped this time, though. The usual crowd of top-ranking villains were all present and accounted for. The Joker and Harley Quinn were taking advantage of this rare moment of togetherness to have a quick, cuddly escape-plan brainstorming session on the couch. Beside them, the Scarecrow focused on a book, pointedly ignoring the stream of pet names and endearments flowing from the pair of clowns. Two-Face, lounging in a chair near the window, toyed absently with his coin. The Riddler and the Mad Hatter, with nothing else to do, started up a halfhearted chess game in the corner. Across the room, Poison Ivy glared hate at the back of the Joker's head. The Ventriloquist had a furious, cringing argument with himself in the shadow of the bookshelf. A loose collection of lower-ranking villains kept to themselves in areas not claimed by Gotham's most infamous, whispering to one another and conducting furtive business under the distracted eyes of the guards.
The door creaked open. A doctor with black circles of exhaustion under her eyes stuck her head into the room. "Nygma," she called tiredly.
Eddie rose to his feet and sauntered casually over to her, ignoring Jervis' mutter of dismay at the abandoned game. "You called?"
"This way." She and an orderly took him by the arms and marched him down the hall. As they bustled along, Eddie took the opportunity to look around. No cells were reduced to rubble. No guards waited nervously in front of gaping holes in the wall. Something big had clearly happened, though. This doctor – Dr. Ossian, he thought her name was – worked the day shift, so why was she here at four-thirty in the morning? Why did she look so exhausted? And why did she reek of smoke and sweat?
"My cell's back there," he pointed out as they hurtled past it.
"We're moving you down here." They guided him into his new home with all the gentleness and kindness generally shown by Arkham's staff.
Eddie looked around, ignoring the mild ache in his back where they'd shoved him. His few personal items were tossed in a corner, jumbled with a bunch of thick textbooks. And on the far wall, a set of bunk beds -
Bunk beds?
"I'm not sharing my cell!" he snapped, stalking back up to the door.
"You are now." The doctor shoved her glasses back up her sweat-slicked nose and focused exhaustedly on her clipboard. A new pair of orderlies moved in behind her, waiting for instructions.
Eddie stood at the front of the cell, arms folded. "No, I'm not."
"You're moving. End of story."
"Why on earth do you think that I need a roommate?" he protested.
She shoved her glasses up again. "There was a fire last night," she said, with sleep-deprived hysteria slowly cranking her voice up through the octaves, "and we had to evacuate the entire low-security wing and they have to be housed somewhere because we could only find a few open spots at all the other institutions so they all have to stay here until we can find a better place for them, which means we need more room, which means that you and everyone else in the rest of the asylum are doubling up for the good of everyone. Okay?"
Before Eddie could answer in a very firm negative, he was interrupted by an urgent electronic chirping from her pocket. She peered at her beeper, swore, and shoved her clipboard at one of the orderlies. "Take over," she ordered, hurrying out of the hall as quickly as her high heels would allow.
"Right," the orderly said, reading the list. "Get Crane down here. Now." Two orderlies peeled off of the pack and hurried to the rec room.
"Crane?" Eddie scowled. "I am not having him as a roommate. Not again. Not after last time."
"Why? Scared?" taunted the orderly, grinning at what he must have considered a razor-sharp retort.
"Jonathan Crane does not scare me. He annoys me," Eddie explained, aggrieved. "Can't you put me with someone else?"
"Who would you like? The only two left without roommates are Junkyard Dog and Zsasz."
They were interrupted by the abrupt arrival of Crane, who was being dragged along the hall double-time by a pair of guards. He stopped cold at the sight of Edward Nygma standing, arms folded, in front of a set of bunk beds. It hardly took a brilliant scientific mind to figure out what was going on. "Nygma?" he said. "No. I refuse to share a cell with him."
"Me?" Eddie snapped, stung. "What's wrong with me?"
"Would you like a list?" Crane shot back.
"You're hardly perfect, you know," Eddie growled.
"At least I don't talk in my sleep!"
"Who says you don't?"
"You cannot leave me here with him. This man," Crane announced to the orderlies, "once spent an entire month singing "I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major General" without stopping."
"It was stuck in my head!" Eddie said defensively.
"And by the end of the month it was stuck in all of our heads," Crane retorted.
"So what?" Eddie snapped. "I seem to recall you chanting nursery rhymes nonstop for half a year."
"As I've explained many times, that was caused by a reaction between the medications forced on me here!" Crane growled.
"Shut up!" the orderly screamed as his patience abruptly disappeared. The two rogues, jolted out of their argument, turned to stare at him. "You. In. Now," he commanded, nearly yanking Crane's arm from its socket as he propelled him toward the open door. The two other orderlies swung into position and shoved the lanky rogue as hard as they could into the cell. Since Crane weighed approximately the same amount as a large puppy, this meant that he catapulted into the cell as if he'd been fired from a cannon and crashed directly into Eddie. They went down in a horrified tangle of limbs on the bottom bunk, each fighting to get away from the other as soon as possible.
Eddie clawed free of Crane's flailing arms and tumbled onto the floor. His door – their door – slammed shut.
Eddie picked himself up, dusting a smear of dirt off of the leg of his jumpsuit. Crane, still on the bed, curled on his side, face turned toward the wall, and went motionless.
"I'll take the top bunk then?" Eddie asked. There was no reply. Either Jonathan Crane had been taking lessons in narcolepsy from Mr. Zzz or he was stubbornly feigning unconsciousness to avoid having to acknowledge Eddie's presence.
Eddie hauled himself into the top bunk and slouched against the wall, feet dangling over the edge of the mattress. So now he was bunkmates with Crane. Perfect. Anyone who said that you shouldn't fear monsters under the bed had never tried to sleep with the Lord of Terror lurking four feet below their shoulderblades.
Not that he was scared of Crane, not when he'd been shorn of his burlap and toxin-spewing gadgetry. He was just annoying. Even right now, pretending to be asleep, the Scarecrow was annoying, because that meant that he, the Riddler, was being ignored. And that was a state of affairs that could not – no, must not – continue. Quietly, in a voice tinged with spite, he began to sing.
"I am the very model of a modern major-general, I've information vegetable, animal and mineral-"
"Nygma," Crane warned from somewhere below him.
Obligingly, he switched tunes.
"Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock-"
A pair of angry feet slammed into the springs directly underneath him. With a smirking smile on his face, Eddie settled back and watched the orderlies parading by, taking the other inmates to their new homes.
Jervis Tetch stumbled through the hallways, an orderly's hand clamped tightly on his right shoulder. The man pulled him around the corner and shoved him inside the only cell with its door still open. The orderly, and the three who had been keeping guard on the open door, hurried away to their next inmate.
Jervis tugged his jumpsuit back into place and took his first questioning look around his new room. A set of bunk beds took up most of one wall. Sprawled across the bottom bunk was Harvey Dent, scowling stony-faced past him into the corridor, idly flipping his coin in one hand.
"Dear, dear. How queer everything is today. And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've changed in the night?", he muttered to himself. He approached the end of the bed, scrubbed his palms dry on the legs of his pants, and leaped upward, trying to catch the top rail with outstretched fingers. He tumbled back to the ground and leaped again, undeterred.
Life wasn't easy for Jervis. Oh, it wasn't all bad – after all, he had an enviable mountain of intelligence crammed into his skull. On the other hand, though, who remembered his IQ when confronted with his bottom-of-the-barrel looks, his outdated fashion sense, and his overwhelming obsession with Alice in Wonderland? To put the icing on the cake, all of these less-than-sterling traits had been crammed into a body that barely cleared four foot eight with his shoes on.
"Three inches is such a wretched height to be," he mumbled, resting for a moment with one hand on the bedpost. Maybe he could climb up? He put a tentative sneakered foot on the bottom mattress and immediately removed it as Harvey glared an angry Look at him out of his scarred eye.
It would have to be jumping, then. He readied himself for another attempt, squeaking his shoes on the floor like a bull pawing the ground.
Zzzz-thwap went the coin. Harvey squinted at the small silver circle in his palm, sighed, and rolled off of the small, hard mattress. "Here," he grumbled, swinging onto the top bunk with athletic ease.
"Thank you, sir," Jervis offered meekly.
"Just shut up."
Dr. Ossian paced down the hallway, writing down names on her clipboard. Crane and Nygma, check. Dent and Tetch, check. Harley Quinn and the Joker, check. Wesker and -
She stopped so fast that her high heels skreeked on the linoleum and hurried back a cell. "Who authorized this?" she demanded, glowering at Gotham's most wanted couple.
The Joker, from his regal cross-legged seat on the head of the single bed, raised one delicate green eyebrow. "Why, you did," he said with mock surprise. Harley, curled on her side with her head on his knee, beamed at the doctor.
"I did no such thing! Howard! Howard, get over here!" A beefy, balding guard sauntered over, peering suspiciously into the cell. "Who put them in there?"
"That's what the paper said to do," Howard offered, shrugging.
"What?! Give me that!" She snatched the paper out of his hands. The Joker had originally had a line on the paper all to himself, since any potential cellmate of his would rapidly turn into a potential corpse. Someone – and she had a fair idea who – had scribbled "and Harley Quinn" after his name, with a small smiley face in a heart dotting the I.
"For the love of...You! Get out of there!" she snapped, beckoning angrily into the cell.
"Ah, parting is such sweet sorrow," the Joker said, sweeping to his feet and favoring Harley with a bow. He sashayed toward the door, leering at the doctor.
"Not you," the doctor said through gritted teeth. "Quinn. Let's go."
"But this is my cell!" Harley protested.
"Was," corrected the doctor. "Move!"
Harley folded her arms defiantly. "No."
"I don't have time for this, Harley," the doctor said, trying for stern but falling short. "You are supposed to be down the hall with..." she checked her notes. "Dahl."
"Baby Doll? That loser?" Harley griped. "You didn't even put me with Red?"
"Why on earth would we put you with the same woman that you've broken out with no less than six times?" demanded the doctor.
"'Cuz ya wanted to try for lucky seven?" Harley suggested brightly.
"Oooooo," the Joker whistled, staring at the doctor. "Look at that vein go! Ten bucks she pops an artery before the day's over!"
"Shut up," the doctor hissed. "Quinn, you're going to Dahl's cell. Get moving."
"Uh, doc?" the orderly said. "Dahl's in solitary downstairs. She attacked Chuck when we were moving her."
"So what?"
"So she bit him. In the...you know."
"Great. Uh..." the doctor consulted her sheet again and sighed at her complete lack of options. "Put her in with Isley."
"Or ya could just leave me here!" Harley suggested brightly.
"Quinn. Get out here or I will personally make your life a living hell."
"Oh yeah? I'd like to see ya try," Harley sneered.
The doctor's eyes narrowed. "Howard? Friitawa doesn't have a roommate yet, does she?" she asked, not taking her gaze from Harley's blue eyes.
"No way," Howard snorted. "You said not to put anyone in there with her cuz it's a biohazard."
"Well, I'm sure a former doctor would be able to protect herself just fine -"
"All right, all right, I'll go with Red. Geez," Harley interrupted, somersaulting off the bed. "Bye, Puddin'," she said, kissing him on the cheek.
He kissed her back. "Sayonara, pumpkin pie," he called as she flounced off in the care of the doctor and Howard. Then, with a happy sigh of contentment, he stretched himself full-length on the mattress and began to plan his imminent escape.
(to be continued)
Author's Note: Everything Jervis says is from 'Alice in Wonderland'. 'I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major General' is from Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Pirates of Penzance'. Don't forget to check out my tumblr at checker-boards dot tumblr dot com for more stories!