He was ill and alone in that God-forsaken place; his own personal cage. It wasn't gilded or damask, but it was what he called home.
Until his savior came, and he realized that maybe he didn't belong in a self-imposed cage any longer.
For the first time he could recall, he knew what it meant to sleep in a clean bed with new, crisp sheets. To not wake up cold, or go to bed hungry.
Something about it made him cry: the kindness people still managed to give so effortlessly. He wasn't kind. He knew emotions, but not a one of them was comprised of kindness or altruism.
Not like Brucy. Bruce Wayne, Gotham's golden child, the one who found him curled up in an alley, bleeding and too broken to make it back home. Bruce was everything darling Batman wasn't, but he somehow had a glint in his eyes that Joker had only ever seen in Batman. He pondered this often, feeling safe and warm and delightful in his sheets, simply passing the hours with every thought he didn't have the time for while trying to hide from Gotham PD. That was wonderful, too: only being distracted from his thoughts by Bruce, who came to nurse him. Bruce did such a better job than Harley, never annoying him with coos or crushing his half-broken bones with cuddles. Maybe, Bruce nursed better than his own mother had, but Joker couldn't remember much of his childhood.
So, this is what it felt like to have a home, a true home. If only Batsy could be here with him.
Then, life would be perfect.
