A/N: Hi again. Now that it's summer over here, I get to be more active in writing, so hurray for me, I guess? Haha. Sorry if the last few chapters have been slow-paced, here I quickened it a bit to match what'll go on in the last half. Wink wink. There a few Arkham flashbacks to go along with it. Enjoy.
Playing Games - Chapter 4
The man in the white coat ran his bony pale fingers through the sheets on his clipboard, eye bags outlined and gray-and-brown hair lit up under the harsh lights. He clicked a pen open with his chin, and scribbled down his notes. The Joker slumped in his seat, growing increasingly bored and tapping his fingers on his own back (the straitjacket was incredibly uncomfortable). He ran his tongue over his dry, clean lips, wishing he remembered which floor tile in his room he'd hidden his makeup under. He planned to reapply it once this was done and over.
"City Hall has zero information on you," the psychiatrist rasped, barely whispered. "No age, no birthplace. We listed your surname as 'unknown', and your given name as 'unknown', too. So basically, we'll have to formally refer to you as Unknown Unknown."
Wheezing, he laughed at his own little joke, while the Joker rolled his eyes in disdain and impatience. He stopped tapping his fingers, and the psychiatrist regained his composure to return to his clipboard.
"It's hard to determine whether you suffer from an illness or not," he continued matter-of-factly, flipping through the pages. "If I could take a guess, I'd say schizophrenia, maybe borderline personality disorder, but… planning all that? Robbing a bank, kidnapping two district attorneys, escaping from a high-security prison, putting the entire city in jeopardy… it doesn't sound like a mentally unhealthy person to me. A psychopathic mastermind is more like it."
"Not too bad," said the Joker apathetically, averting his gaze to stare at the much more interesting blank wall to his left. On the other side was a wide two-way mirror for orderlies to keep cautious watch behind, though it was no high time to smile slickly at his handsome reflection, anyway. Hello, good-looking. "But hey, in the long run, everyone gets hurt." (Geez Louise, I am so bored bored bored so very bored).
"Your… chaotic tendencies seem to have followed you into Arkham, Mister Unknown," the psychiatrist said, his tone becoming graver. "In the three months you've been here, you've terrorized all the other patients on your floor into panic-induced comas, driven four nurses to quit or change shifts, consumed twenty percent of our medicine supply, and attempted to stab one orderly with a smuggled-in potato peeler. It's no laughing matter, Joker. You'll need much more than that straitjacket to restrain yourself."
The Joker's eyes slowly slipped back from the wall to the doctor, with no discernible emotion. The psychiatrist decided to take this as some sort of quiet agreement, and continued to squint down at his own shaky, illegible writing.
"Doctor Harris put you on Trifluoperazine, true? We'll add Perphenazine to the daily dose as well. I can never be too sure with you. Are you doing fine on it?"
"Oh, swell, just swell," the Joker answered, visibly squirming and wriggling in his chair. There was nothing wrong with a little white lie – while the shots were from time to time a tad painful he had no complaints about being forcibly pinned to the floor as three or four orderlies stabbed him with syringes in his fits of uncontrollable laughter. The psychiatrist noticed his moving around, and discreetly scrawled onto his paper a treatment for ADHD.
"I'm pleased you cooperated, 'Joker'. According to the many stories of my colleagues, I'm told it's not something you often do."
"Oh," the Joker flashed him one of his dashing smiles, as his bruised right hand slipped out under his straitjacket to pull a bloody, rusty potato peeler from his pocket. "Is that all they told you?"
Fear seemed to be a common thing in Gotham – besides snootiness, that is. Even in a fully secured work office on the highest floor of the most important building in the city did not stamp out her seemingly indelible paranoia. Any moment, any second, he could emerge from the sides or the corners, ready to begin his game of hide and seek. Rachel had both elbows on the desk, one scratching at sleeved skin and the other against her right ear, as she looked out the full-wall window. Background noise usually calmed her down, though Vivienne's endless babbling didn't exactly suffice.
"…weren't in your office more, so I hope you don't mind that I drank your coffee by myself. I figured you'd gone home for the night, though by the looks of it you haven't slept a wink. Are you sure you're doing alright, Miss Dawes? I know it's winter – I absolutely hate snow, too – but Christmas is coming, and that should cheer you up at least a little. In fact, I can go and make you a cup of coffee right now-"
"Vivienne," Rachel interrupted, putting a hand up. "I need you to do something for me."
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Call… call Commissioner Gordon for me. Just tell him to come here, and that I need him."
"Oh," said Vivienne, sounding unsure. "May I ask why?"
She wasn't going to stop asking till she budged. Rachel sighed. "Just go. Just try."
Vivienne nodded curtly, before turning around to walk out the office.
It was the wrong thing to do. It was the wrong thing to do! It was the choice that would get the Joker to terrorize her (right after quickly escaping from Arkham), send her up to happy Lawyer Heaven, and bring the city of Gotham into chaos, all before the year ended. It was her absurd trust in a failing police force and her desperation to get rid of the problem fast as possible that caused it all. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
With a headache forming, Rachel slowly closed her eyes, running a hand over the tiny brown strands of hair on her head.
"Suppose you and a friend were on a road trip," the Joker told the stern-faced orderly who was strapping him into a chair. "Mister… Clarkson."
The orderly shot him a silent glare as he removed his nametag from sight, and tightened the straps around him a little more for good measure. The Joker choked a bit from the pulling, but laughed out loud right after.
"Yes... so you and a friend. Now say the car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. You have no repair skills, no toolbox, whatever they use these days. All ya have with ya is a half-empty canteen – half-full if you're optimistic."
He stifled a chuckle as the orderly stuck the remarkably large needle of a syringe into a medicine bottle. It slowly filled with runny, translucent liquid.
"I hope you don't ever repeat your behavior today, Joker," Mister Clarkson finally spoke, low and severe.
"Now according to your map the nearest city is several miles away," the Joker cheerily continued his story, oblivious to the advancing of the orderly. "So you and your friend decide to walk there."
Clarkson rolled his eyes, and gave the syringe a very light press to see if anything came out of it. A thin quick fountain of an unidentified drug spurted out from the needle (the Joker loved surprises). "I can't believe they haven't already given you a death sentence. As a result of your actions, three of our cooks have each swallowed a steak knife. I don't know how to break this to you, but even your magic tricks get old."
"…the catch is, neither of you can get to civilization alive without taking a drink from the canteen," the Joker went on, short snorts and sniggers interrupting his speech every now and then. "If both of you drink from it, you both will die. If only one friend drinks from it, that person can survive to reach the city. So what's it gonna be? You gonna be the villain… or the dead guy on Route 41?" Now he was full-on guffawing. Needless to say, it was overwhelmingly irritating.
"I'm not sure if you'll get any water, but you will get all of this," Clarkson plunged the needle right into the Joker's arm, as his guttural laughter filled the Arkham hallways.
Rachel opened her eyes. The digital clock on her table had magically jumped from 5:00 to 6:00. Damn it. She proceeded to remove her head from the desk and look around for a sign that the police had arrived.
Vivienne hadn't returned or tried to wake her up, meaning she probably never even tried to call. After a short string of internal swearing, Rachel remembered she had her own phone, anyway. She picked it up; she'd made up her mind about it and she was going to ring up Gordon, no matter what.
"Miss Dawes, Miss Dawes!" Vivienne came running, panting with her hair messed and looking like she'd just run twenty flights. "The police are-"
She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes bloodshot and wide in pure, absolute, unadulterated terror.
"Not now, Viv, I have to-" Rachel noticed the absence of a dial tone with the receiver pressed against her injured ear. She pulled the entire machine closer to realize that the wire was clipped.
"Phone services. A nightmare, huh?" a familiar voice croaked behind her.
Before Vivienne could release the classic shriek, two bullets entered her forehead, sending her to collapse on the spot. Panicking, Rachel jumped out of her seat and turned around to the person behind her. There he was in all his glory, a pale white face of black eye sockets and wide red lips, the smoke from the semi-automatic Beretta 92 in his hand lingering triumphantly in the air.
Screams came from the hallway a few seconds after. Strangling would have been a more conveniently quiet course, Rachel thought. Now she was standing in her District Attorney office with an extremely wanted criminal psychopath, two bullets embedded in a secretary's skull, and through the full-wall window she could see a third of the city police force heading into the building for her.
"They… they couldn't have… with the security guard at the entrance-"
"Trust me, beautiful, I got here first – that guard is stowed away nice and safe in a dumpster."
"The guards're all coming up here," stated a scream from outside her office. Next were the sounds of a dozen leather designer shoes, pounding their way out of the floor and down the stairs.
"Come with me!" Rachel said quickly, grabbing the Joker's wrist. Swiftly as she did, the Joker tugged back and pointed the gun at her head.
"I believe we had a deal, gorgeous," he whispered roughly, pressing the end of the pistol against the inside of her ear. "I get arrested, you get killed."
No way out no way out no way out. Rachel felt the words rush through her head as she squeezed her eyes shut, and in a remarkable display of the infinite possibilities of natural human instinct she created a split-second decision.
"I'm not turning you over," Rachel answered heatedly, turning her head away from the gun. "Now come with me!"
She pulled the Joker's hand as she ran out the door (stepping over Vivienne, while the Joker treated her as part of the floor). From a coat stand, she grabbed some stranger's dark blue jacket and threw the hood over the Joker's head, heading straight for the door to the emergency exit.
"The police must be using the elevator," she hastily explained as she pushed it open. "And there are security cameras in there anyway."
The building's emergency exit was composed of flights and flights of zigzagging stairs, going through about twenty stories. Rachel took one limping step and nearly tumbled down the rest, even with holding on to the banister for support. It was going to be a long walk.
Then suddenly she felt an arm wrap around her waist and, uncomfortably carried like a wooden log, the Joker repeatedly jumped over the rails of the banister, landing on the next lower flight of stairs. Whilst stifling her horrified screams, Rachel did not enjoy being vigorously and dangerously rocked back and forth in a situation like this, she had to admit that it was much, much faster.
The Joker made one last leap and landed on the ground floor, and dropped Rachel to the tiles. That part of the emergency stairs had two doors – the one leading into the main room or the one going out to the alley. Before she could catch her breath and get up, she spotted the Joker locking the main door; the point of a gun was once against shoved into her back. She decided she had to get used to it.
"Well aren't you a piece of work, gorgeous?" he said, breathing lowly and heavily as she was. "Gee, I hate to treat a lady like this, 'specially when she looks like you, but you see, I have no idea where you're leading me right now. Maybe you're telling the truth – you could go off to the guards and tell them nothing's wrong, and I can waltz out the back door without a hitch."
"P- Please," Rachel panted, her cheek pressed against the floor. "Please, just don't shoot."
She felt the small point of applied pressure on her back waver a bit, then finally lift and vanish. Rachel clumsily got up and regained her balance, relief rushing back into her nerves and veins. It didn't take too long for it to drain back out.
Knock
Knock
Knock.
Rachel froze, though the Joker remained relaxed.
Knock
Knock.
"Wilson… Wilson, it's locked," a voice from the other side called out. "Miss Dawes? Are you in there?"
Neither of the two made the slightest noise. The sound of a group of men running towards the door increased in volume.
"Whoever is in there, please open the door," said some old hard voice that was unmistakably James Gordon.
From out of the corner of her eye, Rachel could see the Joker stepping back towards the back door ever so slowly.
"If you have Miss Dawes with you, I demand you open the door in five-"
Another step back.
"-four-"
Another.
"-three-"
Another.
"-two-"
Out of sight.
Rachel spun around, grabbing the Joker by the wrist once more and barging the back door open. The two of them fell into the thick, frigid snow, toppling over the police cones that once surrounded two outlines of bodies. Her panic replenished, Rachel pulled him up by the arm with all her remaining strength, and ran down the narrow alleyway to a car parked at the side of the road.
The police cars were empty – all of the units had gone inside the District Attorney building for support and to search more, conveniently enough. Rachel wrenched the car door of her Mercedes-Benz open (a rapid memory of Bruce haughtily comparing it to his Lamborghini passed here), practically tossing the Joker into the passenger's side and getting into the driver's seat. Without bothering for seatbelts or locking doors or fixed rear view mirrors, she sped away as fast as she could from the building.
"Where are we goin'?" the Joker asked as he pulled the jacket off.
"Home," Rachel answered almost robotically, too exhausted to show her fear. Reddened eyes focused on the road, she heard him shove the gun back into its holder in his pocket.
"You're doing a lovely job," a hiss in her ear reassured her, and in the seconds that passed Rachel wondered whether this was the worst or best thing she'd ever done in her life.