Author's Chapter Notes:
Alright, so this one I might have to ask for your forgiveness on. I spent most of the story in either Harley's, or some other character's (i.e. ChildJoker) point of view. This is the first time I have attempted to write as the Joker himself. The original idea of a three part last chapter has changed. I'm not sure how many it will take before we get to the prologue, so just bear with me, readers. Unbetaed as usual. Forgive me!
OOO
There is a shaft of moonlight through the stairwell window as he ascends without sound to the Orthopedic Ward, and he casts a shadow as he passes through it. He smiles to himself, though he does not even have to try anymore to do that.
It is simply there, unalterable, a visceral and visual representation of how he has changed, because he has changed, oh, how he has.
There is no alarm on this door and he continues on just like a mouse to a second corner on the right to where he meets Nunez.
"I did like you said, man, I watched all the video that he had. The fucker's trying to kill you. He's talking to some guy named Hotchkiss, yelling about why he didn't finish it the first time. What the hell is going on m—what are you doing, man?"
He crosses behind him.
The Latino's voice rises then, the panic bring him up to a near falsetto set edge, edge like a knife, till he cuts and the bag of meat screams, because that's all they are now, all of them, even him, just bones and flesh and that's all that it comes down to whether he puts a bullet through their brain or makes it a little more personal. They're all just tissue and bone.
He hums along to the whir of the wheels on the tile, a nice sound. Nicely oiled wheels, he remarks to the dead man as they spin faster still, good maintenance staff here.
The expression is incredulous and stupefied and just fucking hilarious.
"This is not funny, man, what are you doing, motherfucker, stop it." He reaches for the wheel, even locks one finger in a spoke. It breaks and his associate yelps and he can't help but giggle.
"That was completely unnecessary. This doesn't have to be painful you know, and it's very easy."
They reach their final destination and the man squirms, fights, and gives it the old American try that his grandfather before him had adopted but he has reached terminal velocity and he screams with laughter as the chair takes flight.
It is momentarily weightless, until suddenly gravity takes and it tips forward. The crown of the body contacts first, the neck bends, and breaks in one swift snap. The body crumples like a rag doll, tangled up with the tilt-a-whirling wheelchair in a way that brings a great guffaw.
He claps his hands for the corpse. Unutterably a fabulous performace.
"Don't you see? You did it on the first try."
OOO
He is on the seventh floor, at the very top, and he feels very on top of things right now as he opens without knocking the door of one Christopher Smith.
The lamp is lit and casts a neat little circle around his body.
There is a book propped on his knees, and old comic and he has a thermos of water in his good hand and flipping pages with the stub of an arm, just bone and skin that stuck out, stuck out like he did and he could almost feel like regretting this one but this one was necessary, just like all the other's were necessary, though probably not as necessary as the very last two, no, not by far.
He spins a chair around and sits astride it, tilting his head. His hair barely droops to the side, and he kind of misses it, he thinks that he might grow it back, and then he remembers the man in front of him again.
"What the hell? This is not cool at all, I could have been jacking off for all you know, you asshole. What shady shit is it now? I'm getting a little antsy here. This is getting to be a lot for me, conspiracy theories, espionage, I mean, this is big time. I gave everything to Eddie, man, I'm done with all this. Where is he? Go talk to him."
"Eddie's dead, I'm afraid."
He tries not to smile, his lips do not curl, to be serious, but really, how can he?
"He's asleep?" Nunez asks.
He tilts his head in the opposite direction.
"In a manner of speaking, I suppose. Also in a manner of speaking, he is lying at the bottom of a stairwell because I pushed him down it."
"W-what? What the fuck? What kind of thing is that to joke about?"
He laughs, and heartily, enjoys it just as he enjoys the look on his face, the confusion and the rising terror and he can almost smell it now, like blood in the water but somewhere lower. He smiles, feels his skin stretch against the scars, knows his teeth flash white in the dark, so many exposed, just like a shark.
"I'm not joking. Isn't that great? I don't even have to try on that one, it was effortless. And I'm not just talking about the job but anyway, back to what we were talking about-"
"I know too much."
"I always knew you were the smart one. I'll miss your services by the way, you were very, heh, handy, but I'm having to, uh, terminate the contract."
The man throws all that he has, the book, and darts for the foot of the bed.
He bats the paper away. It is more annoying than helpful, for Smith catches one knee on the footboard of the bed and he is head first into the floor, spraying blood and moaning and he'd better make this quick or he is going to attract more attention than he wanted to.
He is on him straddling his right leg, drawing the hospital tunic into a noose and his torso into a bow. There is gauze on the nurse's cart. It finds its way into his mouth. He mumbles, gags.
"What is it with you, people? Don't any of you just give up and die? It's going to happen eventually, but I can make this painful, or not. See, right now, right now, I'm thinking you're choosing painful. You want painful?"
He stabs three times, carefully avoids lung, liver, and kidney.
"Do you feel that? Is that painful enough?" He feels the curve of his ear against his lips, presses his own against the man's mouth.
The man groans through the cotton. It is dull and muffled, and he almost wishes he could hear it in its full glory. But he will savor all he can, these last anguished screams, his work and his masterpiece, the very culmination of all his effort.
The knee he draws up hard, ramming it into his testicles.
"Do you understand? What you've done? You've brought all this on yourself. It could have been easy. It could have been quiet and clean. I admire that. Congratulations."
There is that swish that he knows so well and no pressure in his grip as he draws through and goes right to the bone. The blood in great gouts splashes out onto his hand, warm and throbbing all of its own and something he never tires of really, the way one does of everything else, like goldfish and chewing gum wrappers.
It always ends though, and that pathetic gurgle at the end, the viscous drool from the mouth, belching up blood.
He washes and changes and climbs over the bed in one long legged sprawl. He must be careful not to step in the still growing puddle. He doesn't want to leave tracks where he is going.
As he glances behind to flip the switch, there is a bland rectangle of thin fluorescent light on the tile. The blood seems dark and distant on the white, like a hole and not a solid.
Now, to phase two. He locks and shuts the door.
All is dark inside.