Hiiii guys. (8 Been awhile, but I got somethin' special for all the Joker AND Dr. Jonathan Crane fans. I've been itching to get this up forever, buuut also very, very picky. Especially with this first chapter. -sigh- Oh well. I couldn't keep this under wraps forever! So here it is. FIRST of all, though.. I'd like to make it clear that this IS going to be mildly.. slashy at some point. Mainly with Joker and Crane, with hints of Joker & Batman here and there because Joker & Batman paired up ARE practically cannon. YES IT IS. BUT.. I also believe that if Crane ever DID meet Joker.. there WOULD be some sparks. I think Joker is twisted enough to woo the good doctor over. Or.. at least make him act a little... fanboyish. Heh. If you don't see these characters in that way? Tough. I've put up with the big dump of OCs I've seen around here lately, so you can put up with a little GAYNESS, okay? OKAY.
Well.. with that out of the way.. please enjoy.
(And please, if you're going to review, give me more to look at, if you know what I mean, besides "PLZ UPDATE PLZ CONTINUE". Would you like it if I gave YOUR stories those kinds of reviews? I don't think so. )
These characters belong to DC. I own nothing.
8)
Jonathan Crane always knew that everyone had a worst fear. Something that just made them freeze up like mannequins, only with a heart beat that would race up to speeds beyond healthy.
Their bodies would begin to expel sweat and tremors. Well, actually, not every single person had the same exact reaction. Sure, some were obvious and average. You just knew it would happen. But there were others that had quirky little reactions that were definitely worth logging away.
Yes, Jonathan did literally log all the reactions away.
Is there a problem with that?
Anyways. So, these.. different reactions always amused him to no end.
For example, one simple fear one patient had had was cockroaches. Pretty harmless, yes? Jonathan proceeded to find one. Just one. Measly. Cockroach. When revealing said insect to said patient, the man instantly screamed in a pitch higher than Crane thought was possible for any male after puberty, pissed in his bright orange uniformed pants, bolted for the locked cell door, and proceeded to scratch at it until his nails were practically destroyed and fingers bled from the damage.
Now, if those weren't good enough reasons to log reactions away, the patient's brilliant act of fainting from overload of adrenaline and fear seemed like a good enough reason.
Yes, those rare cases were what the good doctor thrived on. And he looked forward to receiving more and more of them in the next few years.
Even if he was now working in the Narrows.
He still loved his job.
And being fired was most certainly not going to stop him from doing it.
So, with the help of the left-over men that Ra's Al Ghul left behind- since they obviously had no where else to go, and Dr. Crane and Scarecrow's unusual leadership skills had them hooked -Crane put together a little plan to sneak a few patients out of Arkham so he could work on them himself.
It was just way too easy. Those trained ninja warriors slipped through Arkham like they owned the place, and soon the good doctor was the owner of his own little make-shift asylum in an abandoned apartment complex.
The patients were, of course, easy cases to crack for the expert psychologist, and he soon became bored of their growing predictability that ended in them getting gassed to death, twitching on the floors of the small cold rooms until they stopped moving all together and Crane ordered the men to get rid of them.
He never questioned where the bodies ended up either. Why bother? After the many deaths over the past three years since Crane's evolution into a criminal became known and more and more criminals began to pop up in Gotham City, it wasn't that big a deal for bodies to be discovered in dumpsters or in people's cars, rotting away with flies circling.
Not even if the corpses were mental patients, because lately more and more of said types of individuals had gotten loose by unknown means, and the catch?
Crane and his men weren't the only one's setting these patients loose.
Over the past two years as Crane made a name for himself in the Narrows, a force began to grow..
A force that even the biggest mobsters in town discovered they did not want to mess with.
But apparently their opinions hadn't meant squat to this force. They were all taken out. One by one.
And every day that a new mob leader fell, Crane took note on it and logged it away for future purposes, too.
One day, he promised himself (and Scarecrow), these notes on this new force in Gotham would pay off more than all of the patients he'd worked on combined.
And it did too.
Early last year, Crane finally caught up with the news that this powerful force had finally been caught and brought into Arkham Asylum. Of course, Crane was slightly taken aback when he discovered the other force, known as the BAT Man, had been the one to capture this one.
But no, he couldn't have.. not after the chaotic force known only as the Joker had ripped apart the criminal underworld as if it had all just been his little playground!
He'd even taken care of that.. that bitch of a woman, Rachel Dawes!
And let's not get started on Jonathan's reaction to discovering what happened to Gotham's dashing "White Knight" and district attorney.
He'd gotten all of the warriors staring at him as he'd laughed himself to tears.
How does one even SURVIVE with half of their face barbequed, anyways?
Yes, this had indeed been the highlight of Crane's nights in his shabby make-shift madhouse, learning more and more of Gotham's downfall.. to one. Single. Person. In clown getup, no less.. It felt like finally there WAS hope for some kind of deity up there.. making life better for him despite his circumstances.
And then he learned that the madman had.. LET himself be caught by Batman and thrown into Arkham without trying to kill anyone in the courtroom as he was sentenced, nor the staff of Arkham as he was brought in.
And it was like Bat Man had kicked him square in the face.
Why?
WHY?
Why, why, why, why WHY would such a beautiful chaotic force just DO THIS?
After a whole day of doing nothing but moping and thinking of this news, Crane turned to his notes he'd been making on the clown so far.
Was there anything logical in what had happened? Was there some kind of secret plan being formed in the clown's head that he could never figure out?
Again and again he asked these questions for days, not doing much else.. Why bother? The hope and joy he'd been experiencing for so long now was slowly diminishing back into gloom.
And he had no idea where to go from here.
Back to sneaking out patients, he supposed..
Until Scarecrow suddenly snapped to the front of his brain and roared.
"HELLO? THIS IS YOUR CHANCE, JONATHAN! GET THE CLOWN!"
Jonathan sometimes was glad he was a schizophrenic for this very reason.
So, without any "buts" or "what ifs", he ran to his men- who stayed on another floor of the building and minded their own business when they weren't doing his dirty work -and explained the situation briefly and to the point.
"The Joker is our only priority now. I want him as my patient. I'm sure at this point I do not need to explain that to you gentlemen.. So, do whatever it takes to get into Arkham, get to the Joker's location, get him out, and bring him here. Likely, you'll need to sedate him as well to do all this. He is a very strong, violent… man." He almost found himself saying creature, but quickly avoided it.
"But I have no doubts that, as warriors of the late Ra's, you will come through for me without a hitch."
The men glanced at each other, but their faces were blank.
Unknown to Jonathan Crane, their work was not usually fueled by his leadership, but by the other one…
Who just happened to come out at that time, taking off Jonathan's glasses and glowering at all of them individually with those haunting cold eyes.
"I assume you do not wish to have the same fate as your master, yes?" He smiled, baring all of Jonny's teeth in a very sarcastic smile. And then suddenly made an 'oh' with his mouth in mockery of realization. "Do you even know how your leader met his demise? Oh, it's a funny story, really.. Ra's and the Bat fought in the old subway system, and as it was ready to crash, the so-called "hero" fled, leaving your beloved leader to die!"
Scarecrow giggled delightfully at the draining color in these men's faces. Men that had trained for years with Ra's to destroy cities like Gotham.
"And die he did. So, you are left with me now, whether you like it or not. And I had assumed that you did like it, because you've fulfilled all of my requests so far.. whatever could be stopping you this time?"
It seemed the men were all in agreement. Their faces hardened to emotionless masks (even more so than usual), and they darted off into the night.
Crane slowly slumped into a chair near by and rubbed his temples.
"One day they won't even believe your threats." He grumbled.
The Scarecrow didn't answer. He didn't believe he'd need to. After all, if Crane wanted that clown bad enough, he really shouldn't be complaining.
Hours later, the small group of ninja warriors appeared once again.
And Crane leapt to his feet at the sight of the clown, in an Arkham Asylum patient uniform no-less, limp as a rag doll in the arms of two of the men.
He quickly escorted them into one of the rooms he'd set up for his most dangerous patients, and urged them to strap the Joker down into the gurney there in the middle.
Jonathan kept his eyes locked on the clown, only to make sure he was truly still sedated and not waking up any second.
When the final straps were tightly in place, Crane shooed the men out. This one was going to be handled all alone. All his. No one else would steal this opportunity away from him. This patient away from him.
Dr. Jonathan Crane had the Joker. THE JOKER!
He decided to use the rest of this heavenly moment to sit down near by and just.. observe him while he was out.
The unconscious man was surprisingly tan-skinned for someone who wore not only so many layers of clothes when he was free, but layers of make up as well. But the people of Arkham had somehow managed to get rid all of that and make his face look like it'd never worn a speck of paint ever in this fellow's young adult life.
And no, that wasn't over-exaggerating. From Crane's close observations ("close" as in he kept leaning in more and more the longer he stared), the man barely looked halfway through his 20's.
And wait- What in the world were those little-
Oh. Freckles.
The Joker had freckles.
With such a tan skin tone, they were easily missed. But leaning in closer (until surely his breath was hitting the other man's face), one could see the tiny dots littering the man's nose and near his eyes.
Speaking of his eyes, Crane also observed that his skin turned even darker on and around the eyelids. And on the lower eyelids were deep wrinkles.
Ah, perhaps signs of insomnia? Jonathan could see that.
Lord only knew if this man got in even half a night's worth of sleep when he was loose on the town.
But locked away in Arkham, maybe he got a chance to catch up on some beauty sleep?
Well, that didn't matter anymore. The Joker was sleeping for the moment, but it wouldn't last very long.
Soon he'd awaken and discover he was no longer in his cell in Arkham, but he also wasn't anywhere where he would be able to just get up and go.
At least not yet.
As stated in the beginning, Jonathan just knew that EVERYONE had a worst fear. Whether due to traumatic experiences in the past, or just a basic human instinct to fear something unknown and alien to them. Something that disturbed them greatly.
And the good doctor loved finding out everyone's worst fear.
The Joker would not be an exception.
Crane didn't give a shit that all his quirky little adventures in Gotham (was the one about the pencil really true?) suggested the man was to be feared, to be considered as monstrous as the devil himself (if you believe in such a thing, that is). And that clearly he was.. "immune" to anything and everything you tried throwing his way.
Peh. All Jonathan saw was a man who was masochistic in every sense of the word. Why, if you looked up masochism in a dictionary in Gotham, you'd get a picture of the Joker!
Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea.
The man got his rocks off on being beaten to a bloody pulp. End of story.
But, that's just the thing.
What Dr. Jonathan Crane did here did not at all involve beating his patients up. Not even a little. Everything he did with his patients was mental.
Now, how was a hardcore masochist like this going to deal with being strapped down tight, stripped of his big bad ego- like he'd been stripped of his lovely costume -by the doctor simply peeling away at his layers through observations.
Oh, and also fear gassed to let all those hidden demons of the past come to life.
Oh, how Crane couldn't wait to get started.
It wouldn't be long now, so he settled into his seat next to the man in the gurney and waited with his fresh new notebook in his lap, pen poised between his fingers, and a canister of fear gas up his sleeve.
Ice cold, calculated eyes focused on those pale pink lips, only briefly, but long enough to note the darker pink scars leading away from the mouth and curling up into the cheeks were.. sort of beautiful in an abstract sort of way.
And then.. the patient stirred.
Please tell me what you THINK! And maybe I needs me a beta... Hmm...