AN: Ever heard of Murphy's Law? I seem to be living it. Last night I somehow spilled water all over the keyboard of my laptop (the thing I do all my writing on) and the mouse bit stopped working, so I called tech support only to find that water damage isn't covered under my warranty, and I'd have to send it in to do a price estimate, leaving me with nothing but the one computer my entire family shares. This morning, the laptop started mysteriously working again, but now the Internet and cable are out in my house for no good reason, so I'm typing this up in the library. So if I'm slow on review replies, sorry, I'll get to them as soon as I can.

Thanks for the reviews!


Once again he found himself in the forest, but this time it was darker, the trees seeming to have spread their branches to block out as much light as they possibly could, which was essentially all of it. How Jonathan could still see, he wasn't quite sure, but it seemed better not to question it. It would be impossible to stay on the road if he couldn't see it, short of getting on his hands and knees and feeling for its smooth surface.

If things continued on like this, he'd end up having to do that anyway. The road had grown more unkempt along with the trees, roots and dirt and molded leaves snaking across the path. It hadn't gotten to the point where he had to kick the things out of his way to see yet, thank goodness, but it there was a growing concern in his mind that it might. Or that the road ahead may have fallen into such disrepair that it may as well not exist. He had no idea how he'd find Scarecrow if that was the case.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been walking before he heard the steps behind him. He stiffened when he did hear them, too apprehensive to turn his head and see the source of the noise. It occurred to him, suddenly, how completely alone he was—apart from this intruder—and that if the woods held things like crows and bats, they could hold something even worse. What could be worse than either of those creatures, he wasn't quite sure, but he wasn't in a hurry to find out either.

As it happened, he didn't have to turn his head, because the thing began to move at a speed which he could tell would soon meet or surpass him. The steps, Jonathan observed through his fear, were uneven and the creature's breathing disturbed, though whether from pain or excitement, he had no way of knowing. Occasionally there was a metallic clang of sorts, followed by a particularly sharp intake of breath. Jonathan was just starting to work out whether or not he ought to start running when the creature did catch up with him, revealing itself to be nothing worse than the Joker. Not that the Joker was a welcome development, not exactly, but he wasn't as bad as the bats or the emptiness, and at the moment, any almost any companion was better than being alone this way.

The Joker appeared to have caught himself in his own traps. That, or he'd purposefully mutilated himself. Whatever had happened, one of the contraptions was affixed to either leg, no doubt responsible for the mix of pain and ecstasy in the Joker's expression and the rivers of blood coming out of him, enough to have dyed the better part of the road behind them red. Jonathan had no idea how he hadn't bled to death yet, but knowing the Joker, he didn't need blood to run his body. Just spite.

"Where is Harley?"

"Bedlam." Despite his obvious pain, or perhaps because of it, he sounded bright as ever.

"What happened to you?"

"I caught a bat." His steps slowed as he recalled and Jonathan lessened his own speed to match him, watching his friend's eyes cloud with the memory. "Only the bat caught me as well."

"How?" Jonathan remembered the bird stuck in the trap, the way the metal had sliced through its wings as if they weren't there at all. If something as evil as a crow couldn't overcome that, how could a bat?

"He spoke," the Joker said. "At length. And in his speech, he made me lower my guard and drew me in to the point where there was no other recourse."

"You stepped into them without realizing it?"

"Don't let's be silly," said the Joker, and then took a wrong step so that one trap slammed into the other, blood visibly draining from his face, even under the makeup. The spikes of that trap slid further into his leg, and the flow of blood that spilled through the fabric of his pants grew. The clown shook his head, gave the faintest of smiles, and continued. "I stepped into them myself."

"Why?"

"I knew and the bat did not, and the course of love never did run smooth."

"Sometimes," said Jonathan, returning to his former speed, "I feel that you make no sense at all."

"At least I am not looking for myself."

"Neither am I."

The Joker said nothing in response, hand disappearing into his violet coat as his other reached out and took Jonathan's. The glove was covered in blood, either the clown's or Harley's, and Jonathan noted that the substance had an almost oily feel to it, more like the Joker's makeup than any blood he'd ever felt. For once, his mind stopped focusing on following the path and instead began to try and work out just what that signified. He was so preoccupied with puzzling it out that he had no time to react when the Joker pulled his arm forward, other hand reemerging with a knife, and sliced across his wrist.

It hurt, and it bled, even more so when the Joker shoved his hand into the wound, pushing in despite Jonathan's struggles. He could feel the Joker's fingers digging around inside of him, and just when he'd resolved to kick the clown in the legs as hard as he could, the Joker pulled back, a length of bloodied straw between his thumb and index finger. "Do you know what this is called, Jonathan?"

Transfixed, he reached out to touch it, only to have it vanish the instant his fingers made contact. The occurrence was immediately sobering. "If I cannot contact him, it makes no difference where he resides."

"In sanguis, veritas," the Joker countered. "Sanguis vita est."

"It is his straw."

"It is your blood. As mine is mine." The Joker raised the hand that had been holding Jonathan's, the one presumably coated in his own blood, and very gently ran it over his friend's face. It felt as his lipstick had, when Jonathan had last felt it.

"But you are only you."

"I am he as you are he and you are me and we are all together," the Joker said with a shrug. "This is your house."

"You make no sense." Jonathan pressed his hand against the wound to stop the bleeding. This clearly was not a house. And the house he did own never had a forest in it. The illogic of that idea somehow struck him more than the rest of the absurdity.

"In my Jonathan's house, there are many rooms. Is it worth all this because one is locked?" He took the knife, wiped the blade of the sleeve of his already-stained coat, and twirled the weapon between his fingers with no regard to safety.

Jonathan was still unable to make heads or tails of the conversation, and so continued walking as if the Joker hadn't spoken.

The Joker's response, however, was to grab the back of Jonathan's shirt and drag his feet so they were barely moving at all. "You do not listen very well."

The only thing that kept him from kicking the Joker's injuries as hard as he could was the promise of terrible pain to follow. "And what would you have me do?"

"You know," said the Joker, "it is a funny thing about this road." He stamped one foot against it as if to emphasize his point, then seemed to immediately regret it as he doubled over, wincing.

Jonathan waited for him to recover. "What about it?"

"Roads like this. They lead to shoe-tapping."

"I do not think the English language is meant to be used the way that you use it."

"If I had told you," the Joker said, "would you have believed me?" He stopped toying with the knife, and tried shining the blade of it on the cuff of the coat. He only succeeded in getting it bloodier.

"Say what you mean."

"Learn to be lonely," the Joker suggested, somehow managing to suck blood off the blade as if it were a lollipop and speak at the same time.

"I cannot survive alone."

"Communist."

"Anarchist."

"Si, señorita."

"If you haven't anything helpful to say, it would be better not to speak."

"What is a scarecrow? A miserable pile of straw. If you prick it, it does not bleed. If you tickle it, it does not laugh."

Jonathan held up his bleeding wrist to counter him. "What do you call that, Joker?"

"I thought that you were not a scarecrow."

"He lives in me."

"And yet here I am, and here you are." This time, the Joker wisely chose not to stomp on the road, but only wave a hand at it. "What, pray tell, does that say to you, my agricultural friend?"

Jonathan brushed past the Joker and quickened his pace. "That he has left."

The clown responded by flicking his fingers against the back of Jonathan's head. "There's a monster at the end of this book."

He turned around slowly, biting his lower lip to keep from shouting. "Joker, if you are not going to be helpful, you might as well leave."

The Joker took his hand. It was not an apology, because the Joker didn't know what an apology was, but Jonathan chose to think of it as one. He saw less red that way. "If you do not succeed, will you try try again?"

"With what?"

"Finding your ever-aftering so happy."

"He will return. He always does."

The Joker held his hand slightly tighter, though the intent did not seem to be to inflict pain. "Always is always until it is not."

"Then I will be alone." He did not need to add, "And perish" for it to be understood. Human contact was one of the basest levels of Maslow's hierarchy, after the things necessary for physical survival.

Pushing his tongue around in his mouth, the Joker seemed to muse that over. Then he stopped, glancing down at his bloodied legs. "This hurts."

"I would imagine so."

"It hurts very badly. But the conversation very nearly made up for it."

"I dislike your choice in conversation partners. Aside from myself," he added, before the Joker start. "No, thank you."

"You could wile away the hours, conferring with the flowers."

His eye twitched, a thousand and one biting come backs appearing in his head just after the moment for a reply had passed.

"Jonathan."

"What?" he asked, through clenched teeth.

"Jonathan, what will you do if you come to a crossroads, Jonathan?"

What kind of a question was that? The Joker was mad, but not stupid. "Find my Scarecrow, of course."

"Jonathan."

"What?"

"I can't believe it's not butter."

Of every word that had come out of the Joker's mouth from the start of this conversation, that made the least sense of them all, and that was quite an accomplishment. "Excuse me?"

"Jonathan."


Jonathan opened his eyes to find the Batman staring down at him and immediately flinched. The man wasn't right over top of him, but the foot and a half of space between them was still far too close for comfort, especially after last night. It seemed the Bat had decided to somewhat respect his desire for personal space and, rather than shaking him into consciousness this time, only said his name several thousand times until he woke up.

Jonathan got the distinct feeling that it was going to be a very long day.


AN: I think I'm addicted to dream sequences. Finding the right balance between the absurd and the symbolic is just too fun. With that said, the actual physical story is going to keep right on progressing (at least, in my odd style of progressing), don't worry.

The Bedlam House was a sadistic British mental institution that existed in the time before mental illness was humanely treated. People used to be able to pay a penny to come in and watch the inmates or poke them with sticks. Maslow's hierarchy is a psychological construct that defines what people need to achieve self-actualization.

In sanguis, veritas. Sanguis vita est. Latin for "in blood, truth. Blood is life." Or literally, "blood life is." Stuff like this is why I call Latin Yoda-speak.

"I am he as you are he and you are me and we are all together" is a lyric from The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus." "In [my father's] house there are many rooms" comes from the Bible. "What is a scarecrow? A miserable pile of straw" is a modified version of one of Dracula's lines in Castlevania, and the pricking-bleeding tickling-laughing thing comes from The Merchant of Venice. "Ever-aftering so happy" is from the Enchanted song "True Love's Kiss," and There's A Monster At the End of This Book is a Seasame Street book that focuses on Grover panicking about the reader turning pages because it brings them closer to the monster at the end of the book, which turns out to be Grover himself.

The Joker makes a number of The Wizard Of Oz references, most notably "wile away the hours, conferring with the flowers." "I can't believe it's not butter" is the catch phrase in commercials for the margarine product of the same name. Wow, I made a lot of references this time.