Sorry this is exceptionally late:'( Was insanely uninspired *sniff sniff* Thanks to everyone who's waited and to everyone who's reviewed, & don't worry, I'm still as obsessed with the Joker haha:') (tried a different style at the start of this chapter, bear with me)
Leila was barely awake. She looked around the room slowly, her little frame slumped over the mattress and her head on the pillow. She didn't like the fact she'd fallen asleep... Especially since her kidnapper was nowhere to be seen. The duvet was still laid on the floor, where he'd been, but there was no sign of him. Maybe he'd abandoned her there.
Leila woke again. Someone was shaking her. Not as violently as she'd been shaken before, but still shaking her. She grumbled something into the pillow, but the foreign hands persisted. Growling, she opened her eyes. He was there. He hadn't abandoned her. He said something to her, quite serious, but she didn't catch it. Hadn't he joked about that before? 'Why so serious...?'
Again, she was awake. Had she dreamt everything up? Where was she? Her body vibrated from the movement of her seat... A car? She sat in the passenger seat. Confused, she looked to her driver. Her kidnapper sat straight up, eyes on the road. She knew he could sense her looking at him, but still he wouldn't make eye contact. She frowned as she fell back into sleep, exhausted from last night's escapades.
She blinked her eyes open. They weren't alone: her eyelashes fluttered against the brittle material of a shirt. She felt the presence of the same hands that had shaken her - twice now - beneath her knees and on her upper back: holding her to him? His hands felt strong against her tender skin. She felt safe there. Almost desperately, she pressed her face against his chest reassuringly. Surely he was still shook up from the night before? The little bundle tried to whisper comforting things to him, but they were just noises to his unwilling ears.
She woke for the final time. Again, the cute little girly hostage was alone. Would he ever call her that again? He'd been so hostile towards her heartening ways. This time, she didn't lie in his arms, but in a bed. And not his. Looking at the duvet she laid upon, she recognised the red and black checks.
She was back in Harley's room.
But Harley wasn't there either. For some reason, she cried out for attention. Nobody replied. No sound echoed throughout the house... Not a creak of the staircase, nothing. She was entirely alone. She didn't like that. But she was too tired to be angry... Too tired to even be confused. There was no clock to see the time, and the curtains were drawn, but she guessed it must still be morning. Judging by his attitude towards her, the Joker wouldn't have wanted to linger in a hotel room with a girl who'd made him feel so weak.
He didn't like weakness.
Meanwhile, in that same car, Leila's two kidnappers were taking care of business of their own. But not in their usual attire. Harley wore Leila's work clothes: the pinstriped blazer, blouse, pencil skirt and translucent tights. Her puddin' wore his typical outfit, but was draped in a bin bag. He acted as if he'd forgotten the previous night's happenings.
As for Harley, she was beside herself with joy. Mister J had finally decided to let whatever ideas he'd had about their hostage go. He'd seen the light: he would stay with his little jester companion until their dying day. Harley didn't object to the exaggerated fantasies running wildly through her blonde head: they would torture Leila, they would kill her and dump her in a lake far, far away. Then she and Mister J would marry, have hundreds of kids, grow old together -
"Mister J...?" she cooed affectionately. The Joker played along. His little hostage had disappointed him... He'd disappointed himself.
He looked slyly at his partner in crime, taking one hand off the wheel and placing it on hers. Harley blushed through her pale foundation.
She giggled. "What did you do to our little friend..?"
"Ooh, a friend? We haven't had one of those in a while, Harls," the Joker chuckled darkly, remembering the side of himself he wanted Gotham to see. "Oh... you mean our little pet?"
"Yeah, our pet!" Harley laughed, toying with his fingers with her own excitedly. He had seen that little bimbo as an animal after all.
"Oh don't worry toots, she's locked up in her room." He paused. "Well. Your room."
Harley yanked her hand from his in an instant. He'd kept the brat.
"I thought you'd dumped her in a lake, puddin'!" she wailed sulkily. "I thought she was a goner!" She mumbled the rest. "That you only cared for me..."
"Aw, those little eyes are going green again, Harls," he chuckled devilishly. "Don't be getting all jealous on me..."
"Jealous?! Psh. She was a spoilt little brat anyway."
"And if that's how you feel, I promise you can do whate-ver you want to her when we get home.
"She's your problem now," he added carelessly.
That set her mind at rest. Her problem? She could live with that. She couldn't wait to unleash all her weapons on a girl that had caused her so much stress.
She smiled, relieved. "Anyways puddin', where are we going?"
"We've got another pet to discipline, doll." The Joker turned around a corner, pulling up at a small building with a low roof. Sort of like a town hall, but different in a way. "You remember our little friend Gambol, right?"
Harley grinned herself. She knew the way Mister J liked to discipline misbehaving acquaintances.
The Joker stepped out of the car first. Harley assumed he'd come to open her side, but he didn't. She huffed at how cool he could be. Part of her wanted a cute relationship still. But it was that cruelty in him that had attracted her to him back in Arkham.
As they approached the entrance to the building, Harley spotted a man at the door. "Showtime," she hissed at her puddin'. He promptly fell limp into her arms, pulling the bag over his face as he did it. She dragged him across the parking lot. His sheer height nearly made him too heavy for her frail arms.
"I'm here to see, uh, Gambol?" Harley explained to the burly man at the door. She assumed he was one of the mob boss' henchmen. He'd be easy to deal with later.
The man grunted in reply. Showing her inside, it did indeed seem like some kind of bar or town hall. Inside, there were several pool tables. None of which where occupied, except for one in the centre, where several other men watched their boss play himself at the game. They nodded respectfully occasionally.
The man at the door approached Gambol, interrupting his game. Gambol frowned. "Someone here to see you," the man clarified. "Say they've killed the Joker."
Harley smiled sweetly, curtseying in her formal outfit. It was a little tight for her because of the tiny woman who'd worn it beforehand: when she knelt her skirt almost split.
Gambol gestured to the pool table he'd been playing on, entirely disregarding his game as Harley splayed out 'the body'. The mob boss yanked the bag off his victim's face in a moment. It was definitely the Joker. 'Dead at last.'
"Dead?" he remarked, approaching Harley. "That's $500."
Suddenly, two of Gambol's henchmen hauled the Joker up from the table, who promptly grabbed Gambol by the neck and raised his knife in front of his face. "How 'bout aliiiive...?" he purred, stroking the blade over the man's mouth.
The Joker leant in, enjoying every second. He'd despised Gambol since the day they met. Never benefiting the mob, always giving the game away... If anyone was a goner, it was Gambol. "You wanna know... how I got these scars?"
Gambol's eyes grew wide. He looked first at the clown's face, so close to his own. The blade, glinting in the dim light. A poet would say it was beautiful. He glanced around fearfully: his remaining men were on the floor, the betrayers pressing pistols to their heads. Harley plainly perched herself on the pool table behind her puddin', giggling sporadically and taunting their little victim.
"My father..." the Joker began, looking to the ceiling for inspiration. When he just aimed to kill somebody, these kinds of stories didn't come naturally. He'd just have to play the 'crazy drunk' card this time. "...my father was... a drinker. And a fiend."
He giggled, loving how a story could suddenly come together in his twisted mind. The way he told it... It were almost as if it were true. The lies just slipped off his nimble tongue... A true criminal. The amount of time on the inside he'd wriggled out of thanks to his ability to lie.None of much he said was the truth. He barely even understood what he was saying sometimes. Especially when it came to the injuries on his cheeks. Not even his little jester companion knew the truth behind his scars. Sometimes, even the Joker forgot how he got them.
He looked over Gambol's shoulder, checking the men were still sufficiently restrained. They were. He continued happily, loving every second: "and one night... he goes off craaazier than usual... Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself... He doesn't like that..."
The Joker's eyes wandered to the back of the room, searching for inspiration again. But he didn't find it there. Instead, he noticed something totally unexpected.
His cute little girly hostage.
Sorry if this was awful, will bring it back to more smut in the next few chapters. Anything you wanna see more of let me know, and as per, thanks for reading:') x
