THROWAWAY CARD
Chapter 7
Author's Note: I haven't given an update to this in too long. Combination of writer's block and author illness, I'm afraid. I think this chapter is a little ropy, myself, but in the unlikely event that anyone's still reading this I wanted to give it to you anyhow. Review Responses for previous chapter at the end, as before. To anyone who's still out there - thankyou for your wonderful patience with an author who's almost as sick as the Joker has been, right now...
Disclaimer: Batman and related characters are the property of DC Comics.
Gotham Hospital, 4.32 a.m.
The Joker hadn't stopped laughing now for almost ten minutes. Occasionally the hacking cough would mingle with his whoops of hysteria. Dr Kelly, understandably loath to get any closer to him than absolutely necessary, snapped the catch of the sling closed with a sigh of relief and stepped back in a hurry.
"Okay," he said, his voice betraying the stresses and strains that this night had so far laid upon him. "He's good. He can go."
"What about the results of the blood test," reminded Batman, as gently as he could manage. There were times when being dark, shadowy and intimidating stood him in good stead for getting what he needed - however, Batman thought, grimly observing the lines of weariness and fear that were etching themselves deeper into the doctor's brow, this is not one of those times. This is a good man. He doesn't deserve to have this intrusion into his normal life.
"Oh! Oh, damnit. I'll go down and get them. I clean forgot. He seemed so much..uh…I mean..."
There was a soft knock at the door, and Kelly jumped like a guilty man.
"Dr Kelly?" came the voice from outside. "Are you in there? I got some results for you. Dave sent them up with some other stuff from the path lab."
The door handle began to turn. Batman's hand instantly grasped it, held it shut. He raised a single finger at Kelly, eyes warning.
No-one must know.
"Uh, hang on, Geneve," Kelly managed in a tone of such brittle brightness that Batman inwardly began to be worried for the man, "I'm just coming."
The doctor managed to insert himself effectively into the gap of the door as it opened, blocking anyone's view of the little room. Batman, who was by now by the bed with a hand muffling the Joker's continuing fit of hysteria, kept low and watched until the door closed again.
Kelly scanned the results swiftly: he looked a little perplexed.
"Well?" Batman asked, ignoring the fact that the Joker was by now struggling under his hand and attempting to bite him.
"Well, uh, it's…"
The doctor ran a finger along the paper as if trying to make sense of it. "It…apart from enough sedative to knock over a horse…nothing concrete. Looks like flu…"
The Joker started another coughing fit and Batman was forced to loosen his hold or risk him choking to death.
And much as I wish I was the kind of man who could remove him from this city for good - I'm not. I'm not in the business of killing.
"It's possible there's some kind of toxin in the sedative I'm missing," Kelly went on. "Or the virus in his body reacted badly with it. I'd need more time to be sure." His tone was rapidly becoming flatter and more weary.
Toxin. This gets better and better. Batman watched Kelly's puzzled frown deepen with a lurch of foreboding. And he thinks I'm going to leave the Joker here with him until I have an answer.
Behind the mask, Batman allowed himself a moment's sympathy with the man. No-one expected to have a loose cannon like the Joker suddenly explode into their lives and cause untold damage, whether mental or physical.
Normal people just can't cope with this. Eventually, they will snap.
I guess that means I'm not normal. Or possibly that I've already snapped.
Alfred would be proud of me for finally admitting I have a problem.
"I'm taking him with me," he said, and enjoyed the look of overwhelming relief on the doctor's face. "Keep looking into the results if you can."
"Of course," Kelly said, with the only hint of smile he'd managed all night. His shoulders were already settling back, his air of tension beginning to fade. "Y'know, it's funny? I never pictured you as the sort of guy who brought people to hospital to make them better. Put 'em IN hospital, sure, you're good at that….and specially this guy…" A jerked thumb indicated the Joker, who was recovering from his latest attack and glowering theatrically up from behind a clutched fold of bed sheet.
"Contrary to what you may believe, I don't want to hurt him, Doctor. I want to stop him hurting other people. I want to help him."
And I believe that sentiment, too…except in very dark hours when I can't sleep and all I can see are the faces of the people he's killed…then , I want to hurt him…
"You're a good man," Kelly said with genuine sincerity. "Personally? I'd say he was beyond all help. But I guess you have to try, right?"
"Right." Batman reached down and grasped the Joker's thin arm in one massive black glove, pulling the madman upright. The Joker protested loudly.
"Aw, come on. Just another five minutes. I don't have to go to school, I'm sick, see?" An outbreak of overblown coughing. "See? Feel my forehead. I'm burning up, I tell ya."
Batman kicked the pair of sooty Cuban heels that Kelly had removed when putting the Joker on the bed toward him. Kelly stepped back as the Joker sat on the edge of the mattress and sulked.
"Put your shoes on. We're going for a walk, you and I."
"Well," said the Joker, grudgingly with a scarlet pout, "all right. But you may have to help me with my shoelaces. I skipped class they day they were teaching us complicated knots…"
Batman narrowed his eyes, feeling the swell of anger begin to rise inside him.
How does he manage to do this to me? How can his idiotic, childish behaviour manage to infuriate me where threats and violence would not?
"Just do it, Joker."
"Ahh, a credit to Nike. Say, Batsy, are you going in for sponsorship this year? You know it makes sense - paint Goodyear on the Bat-car and have Stop N Save Bargains tattooed on your chin."
The Joker leant down to put his shoes on in silence after this crack, for which Batman was absurdly grateful.
"Hey."
A touch on his arm, and he turned. Doctor Kelly was regarding him with a serious expression. "Look, I said he's good to go, but he's not by any means running on a full tank. He may tire easily. Possibly experience periods of nausea. Plus, at the moment he's so hopped up on painkillers for his arm I doubt he's even noticing any of the other symptoms."
"He'll be fine," said Batman, watching the Joker suspiciously as the madman patted down his ruined suit fastidiously with his good arm and sighed over the clashing colour of the sling. He'd better be.
"All right. But I just had to give you my professional opinion, okay? I'm sure you know what you're doing."
The unspoken and I want him the hell out of here hung on Kelly's lips. Batman gave him a brief, hopefully reassuring nod, and snared the Joker's wrist again, dragging him to his feet.
"Come on," he addressed his arch-enemy, who eyeballed him with dislike and then started giggling madly for a reason Batman couldn't fathom, "you're going to do something right for a change…"
Gotham City, 4.44 a.m.
"Are we nearly there yet?"
"No."
"Are we nearly there yet?"
"No."
"Are we nearly there yet?"
"No."
Batman ground his teeth silently. High on painkillers and general bonhomie, the Joker was an impossible passenger. The decision to take him out of the relative confinement of the hospital into the city had not been taken lightly: but, Batman reasoned, trying to keep his eyes on the GPS unit and not get distracted by the cat's cradle mess the Joker was making of his sling, the havoc he could wreak if left to his own devices with people who have no idea what he is truly capable of far outweighs my minor inconvenience. And let's not be underestimating the situation here. Nobody truly knows what he's capable of apart from his victims…and me.
"Are we - "
"No!"
The Joker lolled his head back against the headrest and grinned.
"Where are we going?"
Batman was silent.
"Oooh, a magical mystery tour. I love those. Which one are you, the slack-jawed yokel with the neckerchief or the fat broad with the glasses?"
The Batmobile scythed around a corner into the Jewellery Quarter with a hum, wheels splashing in the wet.
"Zoinks," said the Joker with a gleam in his eye. "I take it back. You've gotta be the big stupid dog. Hmm, that makes me the skinny chick with the squeaky voice. I'm not liking those odds and besides, I don't have the legs for it…"
"Joker. Quiet."
"What, you think my legs are good enough? Well, aren't you just darling."
Take a deep breath. Don't let him get to you.
"Does your arm hurt much?" asked Batman, with apparent curiosity.
"Tis a mere scratch, sirrah. Not much, no."
"Do you want to keep it that way?"
"Oh," sighed the Joker, "and after your beautiful touching speech to that nice hospital doctor, too. I don't think I can trust you again, you know."
Batman rammed his foot down on the brake unnecessarily hard and the Batmobile screeched to a halt. The rain beat down ceaselessly on the car's bodywork.
"You win," the Joker said, trying to peer out of the tinted window and failing, "you can be the skinny chick with the squeaky voice. I'll be Mr Blinkley, the amusement park owner. Goshdarnit, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids…where are you going?"
Batman leaned across him to check that the extra restraint belts Alfred had put in place were still tightly holding the Joker into his seat.
"Do nothing. Touch nothing. I'll be back."
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Review Responses:
Spectral Sereda - Awww, you're too kind. :) As always. You know I suffer enough from sleep deprivation myself to be very aware of its consquences. See you on Yahoo, hun.
Robster72 - I'm glad you think they'll make a good team. They'd certainly scare the hell out of me, I'm sure. Thanks for the compliments and I hope you're still about to be reading more.
Kelly Renee - I just adore writing for the Joker and I'm glad you think I'm getting it right. And of course Batman's a little insane too. He has to be in order to cope. :)
Cheshire - Thankyou! And you'll be glad to hear that Dr Kelly's diaries are going to be over for a while as Batman takes Joker out into the city.
Meow - Hee, I'm getting good at this non-cliffhanger thingy. I hope. :)
giveGodtheglory - Well, he IS the villain. I don't imagine he cares much about profanity. I'm glad you liked the rest though. :)
Nightmare1 - of course Joker isn't going to make things easy for Our Hero. It's what he does!
Hades' Phoenix - A lovely, long, detailed and complimentary review. My favourite sort! And yes, short chapters are my Achilles heel. I always seem to write in roughly 2000 word stints, then take a break. Weird, I know...I should just keep rattling along, but I don't seem to function that way. (Also I see Clockwork Noir has had a new chapter while I've been lying in bed ill - must put that on my list of catch-ups) Hope you'll forgive the long break in updates.
Cyn Wraith - Thankyou! Dialogue is my favourite part of any story to write and it must show, I guess...only one part of your review puzzled me for a moment, cos Ari is a man:) He started out in my drafts as a woman but ended up as a rather harried black guy.
Farthingale - Well, if YOU'RE evil, then so am I...oh hang on, you knew that. :grin: I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint, although a lot of it was the fever talking...
Jedi Kacee - Thankyou very much! the dynamic is what keeps this story fun for me.
Goddess Atua - Here's more for you! I hope you can forgive me for the long break in updates.
tiger witch - here's some update for you. I hope you like it and thankyou so much for reading.
SpiderFreak - :KJ laughs: "Weird, funny and creepy." You just repeated almost word for word what most people say after meeting me in real life for the first time. It's a great compliment, thankyou!
Dark-Lady-Divinity - Thankyou very much! This story has a while to run yet, but it has a few dark paths to go down so I hope you enjoy it.
E.A.V. - Thankyou! I do hope you enjoyed this next installment.
I hope I got everyone. Until next time, thankyou all again, you're all stars.