Oh. My. Good. Lord. Jesus.
I am so sorry.
So sorry.
I had NO inspiration since Halloween. HALLOWEEN! I'm so sorry it's taken so long. Please forgive me. Now we're past that bump in the road and things should go a lot smoother. It's just been a very long, busy month.
Anyway, listen to Hysteria by Muse and think of Joker lovins.
There's an AN at the end. Read it if you're worried about the romance factor. Sorry again. Rate and review! It's why I came out with this now rather than a month from now.
Jess slept like a log that night, the best respite she'd had since arriving in Gotham. When she woke up, she felt rested and alive… but most striking was the fact that she felt considerably less fearful than she had for the past week.
It was strange. She kept thinking, as she got up, showered and dressed, that soon that rush of mind-numbing fear would hit; that soon she would think of him and her stomach would drop and she'd feel sick for the rest of the day.
But that didn't happen.
Was she getting used to it here?
It was true: dwelling too long on the Joker got her depressed and queasy. But really, so long as she kept her mind clear, she was in a better mood than she'd been in for quite some time.
Why the sudden change over night? she kept asking herself. Had something been altered when she'd accompanied the group on their "errands"? Or had she become so accustomed to feeling isolated, depressed and scared that being in a better mood seemed unnatural? So many questions! Why couldn't she come to terms with her own brain?
Jess supposed that confusion was a logical byproduct of modification; it was a natural experience if you were forced into a situation that was nothing like anything you'd ever known. Every dawning comprehension, every recognition that she was getting used to this, every reality rush reminding her where she was, was jarring and a bit terrifying. But natural. She had to remember that.
After dressing, Jess left her room to look for Billy. By the clock in the hall—she hadn't retrieved the digital alarm clock she'd taken to the basement—it was eleven in the morning, a time at which the theater was usually buzzing with activity. Today, though, it was quiet. This didn't really startle Jess as she knew many of the men were probably out running errands or doing some job the boss assigned to them. It wasn't until she reached the rec room and found only Blake playing cards with a man named Logan that she realized just how many of them were out.
For a second she felt a little jealous. They got to go do something interesting while she sat around the base, bored.
But it wasn't like they were at a carnival. They were probably doing something illegal, dangerous. Jess felt a little better.
"Where is everyone?" she asked Blake, leaning against the couch, picking a stray thread from its arm. Blake shrugged and threw down his hand, turning to face Jess, stretching.
"Boss took about ten of them to do something with that Brian guy," he said. "Like always, he was vague about it. The others went shopping. Or they're sleeping. Or something."
"Brian's not dead, is he?" Jess asked quietly, turned towards the television. Blake glanced at Logan but didn't reply. Jess decided she didn't want to know. "When are they coming back?"
Blake shrugged again.
"They've been gone for about four hours," Logan said, glancing at the clock.
"Should be any time." Blake patted the couch cushion next to him and Jess slipped down, accidentally sitting on the remote and changing the channel.
"Hey," Logan said, and Jess squirmed to try to get the remote out from under her, but Blake grabbed her arm and held her still, suddenly fixated on the screen. Jess directed her attention toward it too.
She'd unwittingly changed the channel to GCN, where a very intense reporter was making it clear that something was rotten in Gotham. The station showed news footage of a man, dressed as Batman but much fatter and shorter, lying dead on the ground, a noose around his neck. The caption at the bottom of the screen asked "Batman Dead?"
A man's voice over the footage spoke in a cold, collected tone.
"Police released video footage connected to the body. Sensitive viewers beware: it is disturbing."
The screen went into static and suddenly there was a handheld, shaky image of a man dressed in a bat suit, tied roughly to a metal chair in what Jess thought might be a large meat-locker. It wasn't difficult to grasp what was going on as soon as the Joker's voice came in, excited and giggly, over the TV speakers, obviously the one behind the camera.
"Tell them your name," he said.
The man in the chair whimpered.
"Brian Douglas."
"Are you the real Batman?"
"No."
"No? No? Then why do you dress up like him?" the Joker asked in a cackle, the camera shaking as he laughed.
Brian looked up, a little bravery sparking his eyes.
"He's a symbol… we don't have to be afraid of scum like you."
"Yeah," the Joker said, "you do, Brian. You really do!" A gloved hand reached out to stroke the terrified man's face with faux sympathy. "Oh," the Joker cooed, "shh shh shh shh… You think Batman's made Gotham a better place?" Brian looked down, uncertainly. "Look at me," the Joker ordered. When Brian did nothing, the clown's voice ripped out in a furious snarl: "Look at me!"
Brian looked up.
The shaky camera swung around and suddenly Jess was graced with the Joker's visage, filling the screen, streaked white greasepaint staining his skin, smeared red lipstick covering his full, scarred mouth. He grinned.
"Y'see, this is how crazy Batman has made Gotham. You want order in Gotham? Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in." He licked his lips. "Oh. And every day he doesn't, people will die. Starting tonight." The camera tipped forward and he gave it a very significant look, then stated deeply, "I'm a man of my word."
His laughs echoed throughout the room as the camera spun around shakily and the image went out.
Jess sat, frozen in her seat as the news resumed on the screen, asking who and what this madman was, demanding action from Batman. After a long moment, she reached under herself and found the remote, flicking the power button, unable to watch any more. Neither of the men beside her argued. For a long while they just sat in silence, processing what they had seen and heard.
Finally, Blake spoke.
"Well," he said, "now we know where they went today."
Jess shook her head, got up and, with a horrible sinking feeling in her gut, left the room.
When Jess returned to her props closet she collapsed onto her cot, gasping, trying not to let the waterfall of tears break through. Anyone could walk in, and if she were seen crying about some news footage, everyone would go back to treating her delicately, handling her like she could break any second, as they had the first few days she'd been there.
She couldn't stand that. No. To be unafraid and confident she had to be treated as an unafraid and confident individual. If anyone, especially Billy or Blake, saw her crying, the brave front she'd been able to build over the last few days would dissolve and she would go back to being everyone's little sister.
She'd come to hate that feeling somehow. Feeling vulnerable, young or helpless would only worsen this awful situation. So, Jess sat up and stifled her tears, taking deep breaths and trying to remember that she'd never even met Brian. He was just a face in the crowd, someone the Joker felt he needed to use.
But he was innocent.
And he died!
Jess buried her face in her hands. She did not want to die. And she was coming to see, now, that the only way to survive around here was to act according to what the Joker wanted. Act as though she was not innocent.
She could do that.
She could.
And she would.
As she had promised, she would do anything the boss wanted with no arguments or fighting. She would do it to survive.
When she'd recovered, Jess left the room to find that the group who had gone with the Joker was back, all a little worn and tired. Jess didn't blame them. If she'd been the one hanging a corpse over the ledge of a roof, she would be far more melancholy than the men. They were remarkably strong people.
She spent the day as usual: playing poker with Blake, making up stories with Billy and joking around with Drew. After dinner she went to her room for some down time, relaxing on her cot and reveling in solitude.
There was a knock from outside.
Jess had been lying on the bed, just thinking, for about an hour and she jumped when the noise broke her pensive silence. She rolled out of the cot, patting down her hair, and slowly opened the door.
None other than the Joker stood there, leaning against the wooden door frame in his awful purple suit. He'd been staring thoughtfully at the floor, his green hair drooping over his eyes, but he looked up when Jess answered.
She stepped back, wary of him, and had to stifle a gasp.
He wasn't wearing any makeup.
Jess tilted her head subconsciously and tried to scrutinize him more closely, extremely interested in this new version of the boss. His skin was pale, but not as pale as she'd imagined before and, without all that greasepaint, she could actually see his eyes: dark and shifty, darting everywhere, persistently a little angry. They were sunken, surrounded by deep circles, the color of bruises. His full mouth was a strangely appealing tan and his scars, jagged raised lines extending along his cheeks, were not as long or as hideous as the makeup made them appear. Without his paint, she could see the little knicks and cuts along his jaw line and lip.
When the Joker turned his head to the side and let his hair fall over his face to avoid her gaze, Jess realized she had been openly gaping. He was so intriguing like this, interesting. New. Different.
He was…
He was really quite handsome.
…
Okay, that was weird! And so totally gross.
Jess immediately forced away that disturbing little thought, the same thought she'd had the first night she'd met him.
"Busy night tonight, Jesster," the Joker said softly, his voice cracking a little, still avoiding eye-contact.
Jess lowered her gaze as well.
"Is there something you wanted?" she asked evenly, trying to suppress the hostility towards him now bubbling in her veins.
"Come on," he ordered, and immediately turned to stalk off down the hallway.
Jess hurried after him silently.
When the Joker unlocked the door to the basement and started tromping heavily down the stairs, Jess stalled at the top step, nervous to follow him down alone. He was immediately aware of this and he halted mid step, turning to look back at her.
"Come on…" he ordered again, a warning in his tone.
Jess looked behind her, wishing that someone would come to her rescue, and tentatively followed, stepping lightly as though that would help the situation. The Joker paused when he reached the bottom of the staircase and allowed her to catch up with him. They walked, side by side, in silence past the piles of junk and paper down there.
The Joker's slightly pensive frown had turned into a little smirk and Jess regarded him wearily, wondering at how the absence of makeup made him no less frightening. Just frightening in a different way. She sort of missed the paint because, like this, he seemed more real. Part of her was still operating on the hopes that this was all a dream or hallucination and his bare face was just another facet working to chip down that defense block.
"Y'know, you're the only one who's been down here," the Joker remarked suddenly. Jess looked up at him. "Besides me…"
"Lucky me," she replied dryly.
The Joker cast her an amused look.
"Like how I decorated it?" he asked.
Jess's lip twitched as she looked around at the papers glued to the walls, but she kept herself from smiling.
"Oh yeah," she said. "Newspaper is so in right now."
"See, that's what I thought," the Joker said. "The dummies in the corner don't get it, though."
He flicked a hand to the angle of the room, where five or six mannequins lay piled on each other. Jess rolled her eyes at his awful pun and wondered fleetingly if he had actually asked them whether or not they liked the newspaper stuck to the walls. She wouldn't have put it past him.
Then she realized she was joking around with him. The Joker wasn't overtly trying to intimidate her and she wasn't glaring at him.
That was unnatural. She didn't like it.
She gave him a long glower and he returned with a malicious grin, almost as though he knew just what she was thinking.
They reached a huge old costume chest, carelessly hauled to the middle of the floor, and the Joker stopped by it, giving it a little kick.
"Do you want me to help you carry this or something?" Jess asked, wondering why the Joker hadn't gotten Blake or Drew or someone much stronger than she was to help.
"No," the Joker muttered, squatting down to open the trunk. "We're going to a party tonight. I want you to dress up."
Jess raised her eyebrows.
"What?" she asked shortly.
The Joker glanced up at her, raising the lid on a box to give her a view of all the colorful fabrics therein.
"Pick something," he told her. "Make it… funny." He stood up and backed away a step.
For the first time, Jess saw the little knife concealed in his hand. She was sure he had allowed it a flash so that she would follow his orders, but she was intimidated all the same. She knelt down by the box and started digging through the clothes, very aware of the Joker watching.
"Why do you want me to dress up?" she asked.
The Joker shrugged.
"Call it a whim," he said.
"Are the others doing it?"
"They have masks."
"But not full costumes?"
"No."
"…So… Just you and me will be actually dressing up?" The Joker exhaled noisily from his nose. Oh, right. He hated questions.
"That's the, uh, gist, Jesster."
"Why just me?" There was silence.
"Do you really wanna be like the others?" the Joker asked.
Jess turned her head to look at him, and suddenly his hand was on her shoulder. She jolted in surprise at the contact, falling backwards, and scrambled up, away from the chest. The Joker giggled a little as he watched her, evidently pleased that she was so frightened of him.
"Oh. Don't wanna pick? I will."
Humming lowly, breathily, and out of tune, he stooped down and dug through the costumes. Jess stood watching, wanting to get out of here as soon as possible. After a while, he came up with a little bundle of bright red fabric and tossed it to her.
"Try that on," he ordered.
Jess stood there for a moment, clutching the cloth, unsure of what to do. The Joker raised a critical eyebrow and slowly turned around to give her privacy. Jess snorted. Abandoning caution, she walked a ways away and hid behind a pile of boxes to strip, making sure the Joker wasn't coming any nearer. He made no sounds of opposition when he heard her retreat, so she figured it was safe.
Slowly, she pulled on the outfit, which turned out to be little more than a dress. A very tight, long sleeved dress with a wide, round, low-cut collar. A dress which was much too short for her liking; it barely covered the lower half of her thighs, resting about five inches above her knees. If she made one wrong move in this thing, everyone would see everything.
For a moment, Jess considered taking the costume off and refusing to play this game. But more than anything, she feared the clown's anger, so she stifled her pride and walked out from behind the boxes, holding her old clothes to her torso. The Joker turned around to stare at her, his face giving nothing away. His eyes swept down her body, pausing only very shortly at her legs and collar bones, and he nodded.
"Go get ready," he ordered, nodding towards the stairs.
Jess turned around, trying not to flash him her ass, and began to stalk away angrily.
"Oh, Jesster," the Joker called.
Jess hunched her shoulders and faced him again. She wanted to scream at him for making her wear this. She couldn't even imagine how the other men were going to react.
"Here." The Joker tossed her a black women's top hat. Jess caught it and looked at it, noting that it was actually pretty cool. She sighed and turned away again. He let her leave.
She was able to maneuver sneakily through the halls without meeting any men along the way, a blessing considering how she was dressed. She raced to the bathroom and, dreading what was about to happen, stepped in front of the long mirror beside the stalls.
The dress was darker than she'd originally surmised, a vivid lipstick-red. It was actually quite a pretty color—there were no orange or pink tints to it that might make the color irritating—and the way the fabric fell against her hid any part of her body she didn't consider optimal. Jess was surprised at how positive her initial reaction to the costume was. It kind of looked… really good.
The whole dress conformed perfectly to her, come to think of it. It clung in the right way to every curve and made Jess's body look… well, not flawless. But pretty damn good! She tilted her head, interested. She wasn't the kind of girl who wore dresses, not at all, but her legs looked great and she sort of wondered why she didn't more often. The neckline of the dress was low enough to show just a sexy hint of cleavage and she really liked the way she could use the long sleeves to cover her hands.
Jess struck a pose, or ten, placing the top hat on her head, twirling it around her index finger, trying to look like she knew what she was doing. She resembled a performer in a circus, almost certainly the Joker's intent.
She left the bathroom confidently, never wanting to take the dress off, and went to her room to grab the makeup she had been given. If he was making her go to a party tonight, she might as well look pretty, she told herself.
She started with her eyes, lining them in black, darker and thicker than usual, consciously wanting to stay a little disguised if they were forced to run. They certainly didn't turn into clown-eyes like the Joker usually wore (Not today, however. She kept getting flashes of his natural face in her mind.) but they were pretty heavily made up. It looked good though—it could pass as a smoky evening look if you didn't notice what she was wearing.
Jess almost started doing her lips in black—giving into the character thing—but that reminded her too forcibly of Harley Quinn from the comic books; she did not want to dress like the woman the Joker had hanging off his every syllable. Instead, she put a whimsical little spiral under her right eye in eyeliner and painted her lips a dark red, extending her smile a centimeter or two past the corners of her mouth, a shout out to the boss. It would be obvious who she was working for tonight.
She jammed the top hat on her head and took another look in the mirror. Her heart leaped and her stomach bottomed out at the same time. She looked great, honestly, but…
Oh God.
The tight dress, the top hat, the makeup…
He'd made a comic book character out of her.
Jess sighed, wondering if she should wash it all off and refuse to wear the outfit.
Then Billy popped his head in the door.
"Jess," he said, "the boss… Whoa." Jess turned towards him and gave him a blank look. "I…" Billy stammered, eyes glued on her body. "You… uh…"
Jess swallowed the desire to laugh as Blake's voice came from out in the hall.
"What's the hold up, man?" he asked. "Catch her naked in there?"
Billy glanced back dryly and Blake pushed open the door.
"I'll be damned," he said, a smile stretching his lips. "The chick's got a bod on her." Jess wrapped her arms around herself and made up her mind never to wear the outfit again. Blake laughed. "Don't be self conscious, Jess," he said. "I won't drool too much."
A hot blush flamed over her face.
"Shut up, Blake," Billy shot back protectively, making himself meet her eyes. "Nice makeup. And hat. Are you playing dress up?"
"The Joker is making me wear this," Jess replied sulkily.
"Good man," Blake laughed, and Billy elbowed him in the stomach.
"It's time to go," Billy said. "We're already late."
"For what?" Jess asked. The occasion had not been fully explained to her thus far.
"A party," Blake said, grinning.
"Bruce Wayne's party, Jess," Billy said.
Jess's heart jumped.
"Do we get to meet him?" she asked, trying to keep her voice down. But suddenly her energy was pumping and she felt absolutely jazzed.
Billy put a finger to his lips.
"Don't act like that," he cautioned. "We've decided not to tell the boss who he is. Letting him figure it out on his own is part of the game. We'd be messing with, like, space-time continuum or something."
"That's stupid," Jess said, but she grinned at the thought of keeping the Joker from Batman's true identity.
"Your mom's stupid," Blake muttered and Jess laughed as the four of them left the bathroom.
A party, huh?
A party hosted by Batman?
Maybe she'd be able to get his help!
Yeah.
That's a laugh.
Author's Note:
Long AN. I know. I'm sorry. If you have no problems with my story, skip it and go on. If, however, you are a little worried about the direction I'm taking this romantically, please read. Hopefully it'll answer your questions.
In reviews, the main thing is that people are concerned with the romance aspect, either how Jess will handle it or how the Joker will. Some people have asked me not to turn this into "that kind of story."
Here's the deal.
I wrote this story TO BE a romance. That's WHY I wrote it. I, like many of you, I'm sure, am sickly attracted to the Joker. I find him powerful and somehow beautiful… in this sort of crazy, ugly, messed up way. I am well aware he's a psycho. But I love him around that because he's flippin SMART and his vision, although skewed, is sort of perfect in its chaos. I'm not going to let him get way out of character. I PROMISE you this. If I do something you HATE, please, please, PLEASE flame me for all I'm worth. I WILL NOT get into the mold of so many other FF writers, making him lovey dovey and affectionate. He's not. I'm aware.
I do disagree with some of you, though. I think the Joker is fully capable of love. It's just that he doesn't like it. He doesn't try. He keeps himself from feeling it. But he's as capable as the rest of us TO feel it. That didn't change when he went crazy. Remember when he fell in love with Harley in the comic books? He admitted it TO her and they consummated their love. The next morning, though, he shoots her up in a rocket to outer space because he says he doesn't want his feelings for her to get in the way of his work. It's totally insane, I know. But if you've got a problem with him loving anyone, read any Harley comic or The Killing Joke. I know I'm writing Heath's Joker, but I HAVE to take some inspiration from what created him.
I'm not promising love any time soon and when it does come along it's gonna be really dark and messed up. YAY MESSED UP! But hold on to your hats, kiddies, because I think all of us can agree that if there is ONE thing Mr. J is able to feel, that's lust. There will be lust. Oh yes. There will be lust.
Okay. That's all I have to say. Comments, questions, concerns? Message or review me. ONE LOVE! Peace!
