Jimmy's hands shook nervously as he opened the door to the apartment. Brent was already there, sitting on the couch in his underwear watching TV- he flipped through the channels aimlessly, not really watching the screen but killing time. His short blonde hair was still wet, a sign that he hadn't been awake for long- Brent liked to start his day with a shower. At the sound of the door, he looked up and his blue eyes sparkled with excitement when he saw the large paper bag in Jimmy's hand.

"Whoa!" he cried, springing from the couch "Dude, you must have half a kilo in there! How much did it cost ya?"

"Dirt cheap man" Jimmy said as he knocked the snow off his boots, pride evident in his voice. He paused in the doorway to shake the snow from his long black hair "I told ya; let me do the buyin'. The guy said he's got loads more, said somethin' about a huge shipment arriving in Gotham a couple days ago. I tell ya man, we are gonna be ass-deep in China White! None of that dirty brown shit for us! HA HA! Get the stuff and lets cook up!"

Jimmy raced to the kitchen to procure the necessary equipment- spoons, lighters, new needles and of course, the rubber tubing. They were past masters at the fine art of shooting up, and had been shooting together ever since they were in high school. They'd dropped out together, worked dead-end jobs together, lived together, and they'd even come out of the closet together. But, most importantly, they got high together and that was what they were going to do now.

Brent, meanwhile, carefully measured the stuff into doses. "Dude! There's enough here for the whole month! Where the hell did you buy this ?!"

"Off Juan, down in Robinson Park. Hey, did ya know Poison Ivy's back in town?" Jimmy said, as he walked back into the den carrying the necessary equipment. "Joker too. I bought extra on purpose; I figure with those psychos out there, we better not go out too often ya know?"

"Man, I take back half the shit I've ever called you! Now we won't have to risk getting murdered every time we wanna get off!" Brent said, a smile on his face and greed in his eyes. "C'mon man, start cooking it up!"

Sitting at the dining room table, they placed the heroin in the spoons and slowly prepared 2 doses. Brent reached for the needle and paused, the handed it to Jimmy. "You first man. It's only fair."

Jimmy was honestly touched. Neither he nor Brent had managed to score any smack in days, and Brent had to be hurting pretty bad by now. "Thanks man." He carefully selected a spot on the back of his knee- the pair had jobs and so were careful to only leave trackmarks where they weren't immediately visible. He slowly pierced his skin and pushed the plunger home. A blissful expression came onto his face, and immediately his body stopped shaking. "Oh, fuck yeah."

Brent smiled "Good shit, huh?"

"Oh yeaaaaAAAAARRGGGH!!" Jimmy's expression changed from bliss to agony. He fell to the ground, and began convulsing. "OH MY GOD IT BURNS! IT BURNS!!"

"Oh SHIT! Jimmy! JIMMY!"

Hours later, the apartment was filled with police. Detective Harvey Bullock sat at the table across from a sobbing Brent. He was taking the young man's deposition, writing down notes in his typical sloppy handwriting. If any one were to look at the scene, they would guess that the disheveled detective- with his five o'clock shadow, rumpled clothes, and food stains- was the addict, not the clean-cut young man in front of him.

"An' he said that he got the heroin from Juan in Robinson Park?"

Brent nodded, his eyes lowered. For once, they were red not from drugs but from tears. "Y-yeah. Just like I told that lady cop. His name's Juan Alvarez- little bastard with a greasy mustache and a shitty comb-over. He's the one who gave Jimmy the tainted stuff."

Bullock closed his notebook and sighed. "Listen, uh, Brent. You know that I'm gonna have to run you in for possession of heroin, right? Even if you testify, you're still goin' ta jail."

Brent looked straight into the detective's eyes "Man, I just lost my lover and best friend. I had ta watch him die screaming right in front of me. I don't care what happens to me anymore, just bring down the sonuvabitch responsible for this."

Contrary to his image, Harvey Bullock was not a cruel or hateful man. He didn't make any comments about gays or junkies, he did nothing to belittle the younger man's loss. He simply nodded his head solemnly and said "I promise ya, we'll bring the bastard down. Now, officer Lansky over there is gonna read you your rights and take you down to the station."

Numbly, Brent rose from the table and moved to where the tall police officer waited with handcuffs. Bullock turned to the female officer to his right, Becky Weinstein. She was new to the force, and in Bullock's opinion she wasn't a patch on Renee Montoya, his old partner. Still, she was his partner now.

"So, waddya think Becky?"

"I think it's a load of crap. So a junky got some bad candy, big deal. It happens."

"Yeah, it happens, but it don't happen six times in two weeks. And it usually means a tainted shipment and all the deaths usually lead back to one dealer. That ain't happened- this guy Alvarez is the sixth dealer fingered for as many deaths. Hell, they weren't even using the same drugs! Two guys were on coke, three were crackheads, this guy was shootin' up and the last one was on pot. Something's going on out there, Becky, and I wanna know what it is. Grab the smack, and let's head down to the station and let the lab boys take over."

The next day, Bullock and Weinstein met with the head of the Forensics Department to discuss the evidence.

"It was tricky" said the scientist, a tall man with thick glasses and dark hair "We ran dozens of tests on the different samples you gave us before we found the toxin. In addition to the usual ground glass and rat powder, there was an additional chemical. A specialized neurotoxin."

"Poison?" Bullock echoed "You tellin' me someone is poisoning junkies? Why?"

"I don't know, detective. All I can tell you is this is a very nasty poison we're dealing with here. It produces spasms of agony as it burns through the nervous system. Death is quick, but excruciating- I examined the bodies and their death spasms were so violent they actually broke bones. Worse, the toxin leaves no residue within the body- we've no way of knowing who's died of an overdose and who's been poisoned."

Bullock sighed "Thanks, doc. Make a report as detailed as possible, I got a feeling the Bat is gonna want it pretty soon. C'mon, Becky, let's go give the commish the good news."

That night on top of the roof of Police headquarters, the Commissioner Gordon recited Bullock's findings to Batman. "…so, that's the situation, Batman. Someone is poisoning narcotics all over town. Our men are working on it, but frankly we don't have your contacts or your latitude of action. We can't touch people or even question them until we have evidence- and evidence is proving to be mighty thin on the ground right now."

The dark vigilante was silent for a moment. "Suspects?"

Gordon snorted, and relit his pipe. "We're up to our ears in suspects. A gang might be doing it to hurt their competition. The same motive applies to the various mob families left in Gotham- they're always looking for a way to reclaim their power. Then of course, we have the Rogues. Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, the Ventriloquist and the Mad Hatter are all on the loose at the moment. Any one of them might have done it for some twisted reason."

Batman nodded "Don't forget the Joker. He escaped Arkham last night."

Gordon shivered in the bitter January winds before speaking. "You really think he could have organized this while locked up in Arkham?"

Batman nodded again. "He's done it before.- orchestrated killings while we thought him safely in Arkham. Killing people with their own drugs would probably appeal to his sense of humor. I'll let you know when I have something." And with that, he was gone, swinging away into the night.

Deep in the huge system of caverns collectively known as the Batcave, Batman sat before the computer and read through the profiles of the various gangs and 'families' which eked out an existence here in Gotham. Behind him, Tim Drake finished his cool-down routine and walked over.

"So, any idea who's been tainting the candy?"

Batman swiveled around and gave his sidekick a glare "Don't joke about this Tim. People are dead, and they died horribly. We have to find who's doing this and soon"

Tim stepped back, then lowered his head "Sorry. It's just, y'know most of the dead people were junkies- the same kind of people we bust every night trying to rob other people. It's hard to be sympathetic. I don't want to see them die, though, and I promise you I'll do everything I can to stop whoever it is."

Batman grunted, and turned back to the monitor. "The problem is that this whole city is full of suspects. Apart from the usual gangland reasons, this could be some so-called honest citizen tainting narcotics in order to 'clean up the city'."

Tim nodded as he pulled a bottle of Gatorade from the minifridge "Like that loon in Central City a few weeks back."

"Exactly. Then, we have the Rogues. All of the narcotics so far have been plant-based. Heroin comes from opium, coke and crack are distilled from coca, and marijuana is a weed. That suggests Poison Ivy- she might be out to cull the herd a bit. Then we have the Joker- it wouldn't be too hard to set this up from Arkham, not for him and it'd probably strike him as hilarious."

Tim finished his drink and picked up his mentor's chain of thought "Right. Alice in Wonderland is full of passages that can be taken as drug references, which leads us to the Hatter. Though I can't see why he'd do it, that doesn't mean he couldn't have some crazy reason. Mind you, his specialty is mind control and technology. I don't think he'd be able to come up with a new, deadly, and practically undetectable toxin on his own."

Batman nodded, pleased that his apprentice was progressing as a detective. "Scarecrow certainly has the chemical knowledge to do so, but lacks motivation. The victims aren't afraid, they're dead. I think we can tentatively rule the both of them out, barring further evidence."

"What about Scarface and the Ventriloquist?" Tim asked "The little wooden thug has always been a mobster, and narcotics are definitely a mob activity."

"I'd thought of that" Batman turned to Tim "Robin, I want you, Batgirl and Azrael to start questioning the street gangs. Focus on the leaders and their seconds-in-command. I'll ask Nightwing to come to Gotham to help with the families- we'll focus on the Falcone, Thorne, and Moretti families, they have the biggest drug ties. We'll leave the Rogues for last, since they are least likely to be involved- with one exception. I'll start searching for the Joker myself."

A/N

Wow, that was a long one, huh? I know, I know, I really should finish my other work before starting a new one, but this story was calling out to me. Wouldn't leave me alone. And, well, I AM almost done with Suburban Fun And Games, and Down on the Farm won't be a long one…