"You're so careless.

How did you get so ungrateful?

You treat me like I'm a disease,

oh, and it's been killing me."

- Circa Survive, Imaginary Enemy

Warning: Offensive language and mature themes.

Steven Davies had always been a bit of a pussy.

With goofy brown hair, freckles, and a feminine face, he was just asking to be bullied. It didn't matter how hard Steven tried to fit in or change himself — not a year went by without him being reminded that he was an awkward nobody, undeserving and pathetic.

Faggot, they had called him. Fairy Face, loser, freak of nature.

As the years progressed, Steven figured that his pitiful identity was a result of poor parenting. His father ran out when he was just a boy, and soon after his mother turned to hard drugs. Cocaine now and then, meth on the weekends. But it was the heroin that was slowly killing her.

Didn't matter to her, though. Whatever it took to keep that constant high.

By the age of thirteen, Steven was used to his kitchen counter being covered in used needles and tourniquets. Pills in the bathroom, bottles liquor on the coffee table. Even if he did have friends, there was no way he could invite them over with his half-dead mother sprawled out on the living room floor, mindless and unresponsive.

Her behavior was what ultimately led Steven into pursuing psychology. If he could learn how the human brain worked and processed, maybe he could fix his mom. Maybe he could help her. It was worth a try, and at this point, he'd do anything.

It was two years into Colombia University that he was offered an internship at Arkham Asylum. An unanticipated honor, at first, but it only took two short weeks for Steven to start questioning his own sanity. The place was beyond deranged.

When he was assigned to monitor Confinement, Arkham had explicitly warned him about Joker. He was not to be trusted or interacted with, or even treated like a person.

The King of Manipulation, they called him. Chuckles, loser, freak of nature.

Needless to say, Steven went out of his way to meet him. Joker was just like him, after all. Bullied. Misunderstood. Alone.

He had braced himself for the worst, to be shut down or waved off by the brooding man with silver teeth.

Instead, Joker had offered him a penny for his thoughts. He listened, he gave advice, he seemed to really care. Because of him, Steven had a date next week and a few jokes in his pocket to make the girl laugh.

It was great.

In a way, Joker was the father he never had. Steven knew it was irresponsible and negligent to become emotionally attached to a homicidal clown, but…

What did he have to lose?

"Sanity, I suppose," Joker told him one evening over smuggled grape soda, "is getting people to see your way."

"Would you teach me?" Steven replied, voice hushed in admiration.

Joker raised an eyebrow, silently requesting clarification.

Steven straightened his glasses and smiled nervously. "How to see."

Harleen could scream. She could drive her car straight through Arkham, take Joker by the shirt collar, and smack him into the next century.

She knew that this had been a bad idea. Taking advice from a criminal? Crying like a baby on his shoulder? What a mess. Had she learned anything from their first encounter?

They were breaking several rules — several laws, just to cover up…

Frantically running her hands through her hair, Harleen shook her head furiously with eyes shut tight. She couldn't call it murder. She wasn't a murderer. She was a grown woman with a Doctorate who had made a mistake.

Sick to her stomach, Harleen grabbed her house phone from the coffee table and punched in her work number.

"Arkham Asylum, how may I direct your call?"

"Steven Davies," she demanded, and when she was met with silence, she corrected herself hastily, "From Confinement. Steven Davies from Confinement."

The operator paused. "Sorry, we do not allow direct calls to —"

Harleen burst into tears, which wasn't hard to do. "Ma'am, I am his mother. His grandfather is dying and—and—" An exaggerated sob. She was impressing herself. "Please let me talk to my baby. Please."

Unsettled, the operator stammered, "Yes, of course, ma'am. I apologize. Please hold."

Tears rolled down Harleen's cheeks. A part of her wanted to shrivel up and die.

Meanwhile at Arkham, Steven was having a heart attack. Why was his mother calling? They hadn't spoken in weeks. Was she in the hospital?

"…Mom?" he questioned softly, concerned.

"Let me talk to Joker, Steven. Now."

Oh. Steven rubbed at his eyes, relieved. Just Dr. Quinzel.

Knowing better than to question her, he left the office and slipped the phone into Joker's cell. Interacting with his mentor had become much easier, now that the cameras were disabled.

Taking a break from his one-armed push ups, Joker wiped at his forehead with his shirt and took the phone, calm as a cucumber.

"Big J's Whore House, you got the dough, we got the hoe." He laughed at himself. Classic.

Infuriated and not even slightly amused, Harleen sneered, "Cut the crap, clown. Where is he?"

Joker plopped down onto his cot, jaw set. "I don't appreciate your tone, Doc."

"I could have done it myself," she hissed into the phone, "What did you do with him? He has a family. They'll want to know where he is!"

Thoroughly insulted, Joker glared at the wall and daydreamed about choking that pretty little neck again. "You should be thanking me, Harleen. My men went through a lot of trouble—"

Harleen threw her hand up, exasperated and cutting him off. "Why in the hell would I thank you? You just made my life ten times harder than it already is!"

Joker was beyond pissed. Had she not seen the rose? The note?

"Turn on the news, you ungrateful brat." His tone turned deadly. "And don't call here again with that mouth. You're forgetting who you're talking to."

Click.

Harleen screamed, chucked the phone at the wall, and sank to her knees to weep.

Her body was flooded with anxiety. What did he mean, turn on the news? To distract her from reality? Vision blurred, Harleen grabbed the remote and switched the channel from ESPN — Brandon was everywhere, still — to the local newscast.

The main headline beneath the news anchor was in big, black letters, and it made Harleen's blood run cold. Her tears stopped immediatedly.

BREAKING NEWS — MAN COMMITS SUICIDE BY JUMPING OFF OF EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

According to police, an unidentified man had toppled down onto the pavement, completely nude and upon closer inspection, his genitals had been cut off.

Due to the extreme graphic nature of the scene, no footage was shown, but the man was said to have curly hair, tan skin, and a tattoo of a sun on his left shoulder blade.

Silenced by this information, Harleen stood, walked into the kitchen, and took a large swig of Brandon's whiskey as the horror continued to be documented in the other room.

Steven had never seen Joker so upset.

He was pacing in his cell, seething and incandescent, grills bared. His eyes were like fire.

"How dare she speak to me that way!" Joker bellowed, voice bouncing off of the walls. His hands itched, his blood boiled. He wanted to kill. He wanted to destroy something beautiful.

Sensing this, Steven stayed on the other side of the door and watched Joker vent with sorrowful eyes. He played with the sleeves of his sweater. "What…What did she say?"

Joker kicked over his cot, making the younger man flinch. "It doesn't matter," he shot back, bare chest heaving. "The guards were right. She is a bitch. I shouldn't have helped her at all."

Steven found himself getting angry as well. "She doesn't deserve your kindness, sir."

This soothed Joker slightly. "You're right. Should have killed her while I had the chance. I bet she would have bled perfectly in my hands. "

Not exactly what Steven was going for, but he nodded mutely in support. "I bet."

Kicking his cot over to its original position, Joker rolled his neck and laid down, grumbling to himself after a moment of deep breathing. "One day you're the best thing since sliced bread. The next, you're toast."

He laughed, slapping his knee. Good one.

Steven took this opportunity to recall something Joker had told him the week before. "If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame. Right, sir?"

This made Joker grin, and Steven could almost cry.

"Very good, kid. Very good."

Harleen wanted nothing more than to forget all about Joker. To forget about his stupid laugh, and his stupid smile, and his stupid tattoos. She had dreamt about it, even, being blissfully unaware of his existence and carrying on through life without the burden of a psychotic criminal.

It wasn't until the day after that she realized that Joker's men had found out where she lived, broke in, and had access to all of her personal belongings. She had never once mentioned to Joker where her apartment was.

It terrified her. What else was he able to dig up, within the span of ten hours? How many people worked for him, inside Arkham? Had he known this all along?

She had half the mind to burn the stupid rose Joker left her. But instead, it lay untouched on Harleen's nightstand, a quiet reminder of his disruption. Maybe she subconsciously wanted to watch it wither and die.

The phone calls she had to make after Brandon's death were dreadful. First to her mother, who didn't habitually watch the news and was completely oblivious. Still traumatized, Harleen blubbered away through her explanation. Her mother cried, too.

Brandon's parents were a trip. They drilled her, screamed at her, cursed her out. They asked Harleen why their little boy would ever consider taking his own life, let alone mutilate his own body. The blame had fallen onto her completely, and Harleen didn't know whether to apologize or be furious.

She settled for quiet remorse and offered to pay for his funeral.

When it came to the mess Harleen buried in, being contacted by the Gotham City Police Department was the cherry on top. Multiple questionings, tiring interviews. Even a spot on the evening news that featured her tearful reaction to her boyfriend's gruesome death.

"How did it feel, when you found out about Brandon?" One reporter asked brusquely. Microphones from several different stations were shoved in her face.

Trying to cry as elegantly as she could on camera, Harleen dabbed at her eyes. "I saw it being covered on the news, and… I felt like my world had stopped."

"Did you see it coming?" Another reported shouted at her, over the shuffling of equipment.

Harleen sniffled pitifully and gave them her prepared response, weakly shaking her head. "Not at all. He — He was my sunshine."

Gag. Not even close. Filthy animal.

Weirdly enough, Arkham wasn't completely heartless and allowed Harleen to take the week off. Despite all of the unwanted attention and funeral costs, the break from work helped clear her mind.

It wasn't the first time Harleen had considered leaving Arkham Asylum and moving far away. She now fully understood why every other therapist had fled after Joker toyed with their minds. And she didn't blame them one bit.

The next time Harleen saw Joker, he was visibly irate and cast-less. Instead, a make-shift brace was holding his injured arm together, and it allowed him to clench both fists when she came into sight.

He was back in his glass cell. After all, it was therapy time. Yippee.

"Hello, Mr. Joker," Harleen greeted him blandly as she sat, flipping through his file. She didn't give him the chance to speak. "We have a lot to accomplish today. I would like to start off with a brief summary of your family history."

Joker couldn't believe her audacity and regarded her bitterly. "Where have you been, Harleen? Don't tell me you miss the guy."

She wasn't in the mood to play games. "Any history of serious illnesses, mental or physical?"

Slicking back his hair, Joker shook his head in disbelief. "You are such a pain in the ass, Doc."

Harleen's grip around her pen tightened. Two minutes with this man and she already wanted to snap. She avoided looking at him all together. "I said, any history of—"

"You really need to work on your television personality," Joker jeered, stepping closer to the glass. He mimicked her voice, Brooklyn and high-pitched. It reminded Harleen of their first encounter. "I felt like my world had stopped. He was my sunshine. Yuck. What an amateur. You're lucky they didn't arrest you on the spot."

Enraged, Harleen shot a hard look at Steven who was seated not too far away. The boy cringed. Of course he had shown Joker the footage.

"Do you enjoy being his puppet?" she snapped at him.

Where did all of this anger come from? She used to be so passive.

Steven puffed out his chest, but it didn't really enhance his masculinity. "I'm not anyone's puppet, ma'am. I am my own person. So — so —! " He grunted and gave her his best glare. "Loosen up, tight ass!"

Joker abruptly lost his shit laughing and fell to the floor. Steven crossed his arms over his chest, proud of himself.

Wildly taken aback, Harleen felt her face burn and she bristled in her seat before turning to the hysterical clown. "He used to be a nice young man, asshole! You're corrupting him."

Looking up from the floor, Joker licked his grill and shook his head slowly, still cackling. "No, Doc. Can't you tell? He can see now."

The elevator beside them dinged and three sets of eyes shifted to it.

Enter Intern Douchebag, all dolled up in security gear. Harleen deflated. He flashed her a disgusting smile. "Hey there, hotness."

YDOM has officially reached over 100 favorites! I couldn't be happier. Thank you all so much for your reviews and follows. I adore each and every one of you. Will update soon (much sooner).