She was a hostage, just a stupid girl. Joker growled in the back of his throat, staring at said stupid girl. Why he brought her back to the hideout, he didn't even know anymore. He wished he hadn't. Now it was a pain and he was forced to make a decision about what to do with her. The guys were getting anxious as they waited to follow his directions, whenever he would give them.
"Boss?" one of the goons asked.
Joker's fingers twitched and in an instant there was a knife gripped in his hand.
"What?" he snarled, glaring from under his eyebrows at the man who now was cowering.
When he didn't say anything, Joker raised his eyebrows.
"Well?" he snapped.
The goon jumped, "The guys were just wondering what you were gonna do about the girl?"
The mad-man shook his head, faded green hair swishing around his painted face. He didn't even know what he wanted to do with her. They stood outside the door of the room she was being kept in, waiting for them to come to her and do something, anything.
Feeling frustrated, Joker approached the goon whose name he didn't feel the need to remember. He was a nothing, expendable. And with that in mind, the Clown Prince of Crime approached his henchman, blade sliding from it's hiding spot with a satisfying and familiar click.
This was the Joker he loved. The moment he'd seen the girl, he felt different. Old feelings and memories came back to the surface. Jack came to the surface. Jack didn't enjoy all the chaos like Joker did. He was capable of love and guilt. Joker had none of those feelings and could usually push Jack back without a problem. With this girl around Jack was back and pushing at him more than ever.
The anger at his goon brought the Joker to the forefront once more and he grinned wildly, licking his lips reflexively. His henchman took a terrified step back and attempted to fumble with the gun on his belt, but that just made Joker laugh harder and him shake with fear even more.
"You think, ha, you think that's going to help you?" he asked, taunting the man whose imminent death was before them. "Against me?"
The man's hand was shaking so bad that although he got the gun off his belt, it dropped to the floor before he could raise it passed his waist.
Suddenly the laughter was gone from Joker's face, as though it had never been there in the first place.
"I don't thinkso," he growled, his eyes darkening to a black that was never-ending.
At last, the man backed himself against the wall and there was no where for him to go. No one was coming to save him, all of the other goons mysteriously disappeared when things started to go south. The only people in the hallway were Joker and the goon and the Joker was armed with a fatal disposition that was more deadly than the switchblade clutched in his leather-covered palm.
Jack was nothing but a distant memory, lying dormant in the recesses of the Joker's mind. Nothing was going to keep him from this kill.
"How about you, uh, help me test out some, some ideas?" Joker suggested, nodding to himself. His lip-licking had gotten quite obsessive at this point.
The goon's eyes flickered around the room, but there was no escape. His voice was stuck in his throat.
This fact did not bother Joker, who was close enough to breathe in the man's face. Joker grabbed the man's face roughly between his thumb and pointer finger nodding his head for him.
"That does sound like a, uh, good idea!" Joker squealed.
The other man's breath came out in gasps, but Joker was too excited to pay attention.
Joker licked his lips, "Should I, uh, start with telling her how I got my scars?"
He placed the blade of his knife into the man's mouth, tugging a bit at the corner and just a bit began to bleed.
"I could tell her about my drug addiction," Joker said, his voice lowering as if he was sharing a secret. "How I got in deep with my debts." The knife slipped further into the man's cheek. "I tried to stop, but it was too late."
By now the man was crying, little sobs escaping his mouth as he tried to keep it still.
Joker moved to the other side, satisfied with the gaping hole on the right side of his victim's face. "How I couldn't pay it all back and they did this to me." He guestured to his own scarred face for a moment and licked his lips where the scar tissue ended. "But now I see the bright side of things. Now I'm always smiling!"
With that the rest of his face was cut into a mirror image of Joker's own Glasglow smile. His knees buckled, but the Joker kept him standing.
"Sould I continue to torture her?" Joker asked quickly, a light in his eyes that was scarier than the blackness. "Or maybe I'll just slit her throat."
The man slumped to the ground at last, gurgling and choking on his own blood. Red covered his face, neck, and shoulders. It seeped onto the floor and wall he was leaning against.
"That does sound fun!" Joker laughed, staring down at his former henchman as the light left his eyes. "Clean up on aisle three!"
When no one came to get the body, he made a face and shouted the phrase once more until a few men came in to clean up the mess he'd made. He chuckled to himself when his eyes came to land on the door again. Her door. The chuckling faded as he went back to wondering what he would do with her.
A little voice in the back of his mind told him that he could just keep her, but he squashed that quickly. There was no way he was keeping a girl around. That would be a weakness. People were to be expendable and the voice that whispered to him said that she simply wouldn't be that way. She hadto be.
In that moment he made the decision that he needed to kill her. He'd never deliberated over killing a person before, not since Jack was in complete control. His eyes narrowed because he would not let Jack get the best of him. There was no way around it, the girl had to be killed and she wouldn't live passed that night.
Since the murder of the nameless henchman, more goons came to stand in the hall once more. They didn't talk to him, although they did mutter amongst themselves. Without glancing at any of them, he stalked to the door and wrenched it open, letting it slam shut behind him.
Joker's eyes immediately landed on the small being huddled against the wall and his heart gave a tug that he growled at. Her brown hair hung around her face, hiding it from his view. At his entrance, she looked up.
Chocolate brown eyes met pitch black and for a moment, Joker stopped. He could see what Jack wanted to keep about the girl. She was beautiful, no hot. Her face was perfectly shaped, not a blemish to mar it. Her eyes were big and round, lips a faint pink. For a second, she seemed to relax, but her eyes flicked around his face and he grew angry quickly.
No, she was just like everybody else. She was nothing to him and in a few hours she would be nothing but a memory.
The voice that was Jack's told him that this wasn't what he wanted to do. This was love at first sight, soul mates, a second chance. He couldn't possibly give that up.
Joker labored against the old him, wanting nothing more than to get away from Jack. He knew that killing her would be the only way, but he hardly wanted to after seeing her sitting there.
"What's your, uh, name?" he asked and he couldn't be sure if it was the Joker or Jack speaking.
She stared at him for a long while before answering in a soft, melodic voice, "Jada."
"Jada," he mumbled to himself.
The girl, now known as Jada, watched him as he paced in front of the door. From her point of view, it didn't look like much. From his point of view, there was a war waging in his head. How could he kill this girl who he fell so instantly in love with.
"What's yours?" she inquired quietly.
His eyes flashed, Joker immediately thinking that she had to be like everyone else. Jack protested that she was just naive and wasn't trying to be nosey. He studied her as she stared at him with her big, chocolate eyes.
He stepped closer, contemplating giving her his name and which one to give. Joker did not want to tell her about Jack, but the urge was pressing against his will. He licked the corners of his lips and chewed the scars from the inside.
The knife was in his hand before he had time to think about it. Joker played with it, twirling it in his leather-gloved hands. Jada's eyes followed the movement, though the expression in them wasn't as afraid as he might have expected.
A part of him screamed not to do it. They could find a way to make it work. She wouldn't be a hinderance. No one needed to know about her. She could stay inside and it could work. This part of his brain he liked to call Jack, because he preferred not to think he could be so soft.
Another part of him knew that it wouldn't work out like he might plan. It couldn't work like that. The goons would see her. She wouldn't like to be cooped up all day. He wouldn't control himself. He liked to be in control too much. This part of his brain was the Joker, because it seemed more rational and normally won out all delimmas.
In this case, it was nearly a tie. Still, Joker had been in command for so long that Jack wasn't coming back so soon. Jack was weak. He could never break free of the Joker, but this seemed to get the biggest rise out of him yet.
Joker knelt so that he was eye-level with the girl - Jada - and raised a hand to touch her face. His gloves were getting in the way. He wanted to feel her skin and he wasn't sure if it was about the connection of the kill or just wanting to know if it was really as soft as it looked. He pulled the gloves off because either way it worked for him. She was as soft as she looked, maybe softer.
The knife was raised to her neck because he felt like this should be a quick kill. He didn't have to time to dilly-dally around with her for much longer.
"You're going to kill me," she stated and there was no question in her perfect, song-like voice.
"No," he whispered, but he looked seriously into her eyes and nodded.
It seemed like she understood.
"My nameis Jack," he told her.
He looked meaningfully into her eyes, Jack pushing through to show the amount of love he felt for her. But that was it. He was just in the eyes. His hand had a mind of its own as it jerked to slice the blade through her windpipe.
Jada gurgled, but her eyes held no panic. Joker could feel something breaking inside his own body. As the life left her eyes, something in him left too. With her life, the last of Jack died too, following her wherever she would go.
Joker watched it all with unfeeling, black eyes. When she was dead and he could no longer feel the overpowering defeat of Jack, he stood and wiped the blood off his blade with the girl's shirt. She wouldn't need it anymore.
Crimson covered the corner of the room, though not nearly as much as he normally created. For a moment, he was tempted to play in it and maybe write something on the walls. Instead, he shrugged and turned to walk out of the room.
"We need a garbageman over here!" Joker hollered once he stepped into the hallway.
As the men came to take care of the dead body, Joker wandered back to his office to think about his next great scheme of chaos. He was happy to feel no guilt or second-guessing.
Maybe she really was his soul mate.