Hey there! I am new to this genre but I just couldn't get these two out of my head. I started driving my best friend absolutely nuts and decided to take matters into my own hands and write what's been floating around in my head. I'd love feedback and your thoughts on the story.
The clicking sound of smart heels on stainless steel floors alerted the guards to the doctor's incoming presence and began the protocol for unlocking the multi-layered security system. After a sizeable donation from Wayne Enterprises, the Asylum had received a few much-needed upgrades. Perhaps this is why a few notorious prisoners had extended their stay as of late. Escaping was certainly not easy anymore, and it required a much more intimate view of the facility but more importantly, the staff. The weakest point of any organization would always be the people within.
A buzzer sounded as the outer lock allowed her inside, stepping in a preview chamber where she showed her badge to the guard. Even though she had known this man for months now, he still scrutinized both her face and the picture of her ID. She sighed, slightly irritated by this constant, daily charade, and then rushed through the secondary door when it finally opened. Administration was located on the ground floor, and she walked through the fluorescent lit hallways past a series of doors with name placards which held no meaning.
She stopped at the last door on the right, straightening the "Dr. Quinzel" plate as she unlocked the handle. Inside, she had very few items pertaining to herself or her personal life. Whether or not that was related to corporate paranoia or lack of a personal life, she could not decide. The space was small but comfortable with a single desk and a rolling, swivel chair. Much to her chagrin, the donation money did not go far enough to renovate the offices, so the wall paper was yellowed and the linoleum floors had worn out in places.
All in all, it was a typical psychiatrist office. No one went into this field for the money or the fame. Most of the doctors were just as crazy as the patients. Medicine tended to attract the type "A", borderline obnoxious know-it-all personality types who managed to find competition even in collaboration. Then, they split off into sub categories. The athletic types generally went into surgery. Bleeding hearts to pediatrics. Adrenaline junkies to emergency medicine. And finally, introverted geniuses to psychiatry. While the rest of the body was made up of a series of beautiful, cooperating parts each with a specific function that either could be fixed or not, the brain was a mystery.
The chemistry behind the brain was so wildly unknown. Years had past and scientists still cannot agree on the biochemical origin of alzheimer's disease. Add in abstract concepts like thought, memory and individuality and you have a multi-dimensional rubik's cube of ambiguity where solutions were variable depending on the individual. Day to day psychiatrists dealt mostly with depression, anxiety and slightly more easily diagnosed illnesses, but the truly crazy doctors handled disease which affected a minute subset of mankind.
You don't choose this field because you want to help people - not really. A good psychiatrist knows this to be true; an honest one would tell you they were crazy too. Though competing theories often bounced around, perhaps the most true of all boiled down to a fundamental precept of biology: everyone was out for themselves. Sure, you could see volunteers at the soup kitchen or a samartin tossing a dime into a beggar's cup, but all of those actions served mostly to make the giver feel good - to atone for a sin or repair an aberration of character.
Dr. Quinzel chose this field because she "wanted to help people". That was what she put on her resume anyway. Honesty in this field would only get your license suspended and a thorough review by the AMA. But in her innermost secret thoughts, she knew she was here because she sought the cure for her own instability by treating the wildest of cases. She could keep telling herself she was sane when comparing herself to infamous criminal sociopaths.
Another reason she chose this job was because dealing with the mundane cases sounded like torture. Bless your doctors when you go in and they diagnose you with a cold and give you a box of tissues. Then, do yourself a favor and pick them up yourself next time.
With a creak, she spun around in her chair and booted up the ancient computer sitting below her desk. The hard drive made a creaking noise, indicating its displeasure with living, and she waited the solid three minute it took to load into Windows something or other and open their medical and filing database program. Once it was finally working, she opened her schedule and hummed thoughtfully, grabbing patient files and spending her morning studying.
A cup of tea was her only friend at this hour, and it wasn't until many hours later that a knock on her door pulled her from the depths of a case file.
"Oh! Dr. Marshall," she said, gesturing for the him to come in. "What can I do for you?"
After years of hiding her inner city accent in medical school, she'd gotten quite good. Now, she sounded downright proper - now there's a laugh. Dr. Marshall on the other hand was a devilish climber of the social ladder. His haircut was flawless and each nail was perfectly manicured in a way that screamed money and class. He was a different type entirely. Dr. Marshall was the kind of man who put himself in the worst situations for fame and credibility. Simply being a rich white man didn't cut it anymore. For him, status was gained through his "selfless" contributions to Gotham's worst.
In other words, he was a bureaucrat boasting a medical license. Dr. Quinzel suppressed her expression of distaste.
"Harleen, you don't have to be so formal," he replied, stepping into her office and taking a seat across from her desk. The room was small enough that she would have to leap out over his head; which, she could do by the way. Also, she was Dr. Quinzel.
"Just who I am," she replied with a tight smile. That was a lie, but it was more appropriate to say that than "I have no interest in being on first name basis with you."
He smiled, seeming to get the idea but unwilling to let it waver his determination. "There is something you can do for me, actually," he said. "As you know, I have been treating this institution's most heinous criminals personally, but I will be away for a conference. It's of vital importance that their care is continued."
Could this man be more egotistical? Wait, no. He probably could.
"I would like for you to shadow my sessions for the next two weeks and then take over for me while I am away," Dr. Marshall said to the point.
This would more than double her work load. Internally she groaned, but part of her was excited to work with these characters. Honestly, she hoped she could get a publication out of them while he was away. Dr. Marshall was such a terrible doctor that he probably wasn't helping them at all.
"I would be glad to," she agreed with a smile.
"Good, then we begin in an hour. I'll meet you on the sixth floor."
The sixth floor. The one at the top. It had its own security and special access only (again, thanks Bruce Wayne). Inside were some of the worst of the worst. These criminals knew no rhyme nor reason and they were here mainly because they would destroy a normal prison system. No one actually believed they could be healed, especially not their clown prince.
The Joker.
He was the only man on file with a moniker instead of a name - because no one knew it. Even the Batman, who was responsible for his incarceration, was clueless when it came to who this prisoner actually was. Rumors followed him around like the plague in the middle ages, making it impossible to separate fact from fiction, but she figured that was exactly how he wanted it. The shroud of lies was a perfect smoke screen for him, letting his reputation precede his dealings which, for him, often resulted in an ideal outcome. Even his appearance was a lie. The white, pale skin, tattoos and face full of makeup served to hide the truth beneath.
Granted, his body was a bit of a wreck. A beautiful wreck, but a wreck nonetheless. In his rage, Batman had obliterated his teeth. The picture sitting in the Joker's file was of him grinning widely with silver caps, crudely done. Whatever dentist had performed this operation had shaky hands. Harleen mused that it made him fit in a bit more with his "crowd" and it matched the series of tattoos that he had gotten over the years. She wondered what made him choose which ones and where...
An hour had past and she made her way to the sixth floor, meeting Dr. Marshall after another set of swipe access doors. The lights here were dimmed to simulate peace and nighttime, but it was creepy. Other floors were full of noise and talking, but this hall was dead silent. Only the drip of condensation from plumbing broke the deafening silence, and she gripped her folder a little more tightly.
Exactly nineteen steps in and they arrived at his cell. The guards had prepped him ten minutes earlier with a straight jacket and restraints, so Dr. Marshall strode right in without hesitation. Harleen, on the other hand, crept into the room like a wolf out of her territory. Her keen, blue eyes scanned the room before settling on their patient.
His cherry lips were askew and his eyes stared vacantly at a wall beyond. The green color of his hair seemed dull beneath the light, and it was mussed on one side from sleep. It bothered her, and she found herself itching to tuck it back into place. Everything else about him was so flawlessly put together that his hair should be too.
His presence was dulled. The electric, magnetic and radiant aura she had experienced once before in her life (story for another time) was reduced to a faint murmur. She felt her heart sink in her chest.
"Hello Joker," Dr. Marshall began, sitting in a chair and furrowing his brows with the face, dime-store empathetic expression worn by all fake assholes who pretended to care. Harleen rolled her eyes from behind him, sitting down and crossing her long legs.
The Joker said nothing at all. He didn't even move.
For thirty solid minutes, there was no response. Harleen peeked over his shoulder and saw that he had this brilliantly insane man on enough drugs to take down a horse.
Noticing her peeking, Dr. Marshall frowned. "I started at normal, human dosages but his body burned through them faster than I expected," he explained.
Harleen nodded and then the two of them stood.
To see him reduced to this… was a crime in itself. This was like putting Stephen Hawking in a pre-school or Richard Dawkins in a church. All his brilliance was suppressed by mind numbing drugs, and she knew the first thing she would do when his case belonged to her. She couldn't learn from his silence nor could she heal him if he could not tell her his symptoms.
Dr. Marshall exited first, and she looked back at him once more.
He winked.
The motherfucker actually winked at her. Light danced behind his bright blue eyes with such intelligence and mischief that her heart actually stopped for a brief moment. Her breath caught, a slight hissing sound releasing from her lips when he pursed his lips and mouthed "ssshhhh" in her direction. All of that energy surrounding him started to spark and crack. It was only a fraction of what he was capable, but she felt it in her bones anyway. Very slowly, she nodded before feigning picking up her pen from the floor to escape Dr. Marshall's scrutiny, and then she gracefully walked out the door. Her head whipped around immediately to find him staring at the wall again.
Had she imagined it?