Cell-Mate, Room-Mate, Check-Mate
"Your move."
The voice of eloquence was laced with poisonous impatience; it had been the clown's move for the past eight minutes.
The Joker omitted a lamented sigh, leaning back his chair, as if trying to distance himself from the tedium before him.
"This game's boring."
Loki's eyes flickered to his with a devilish smirk:
"You would not state such if you were actually winning."
The clown clenched a gloved fist, narrowing his sooted eyes. Loki was infuriating when he was good at something... and - unfortunately - he was good at just about everything.
The Joker then threw the trickster another exaggerated sigh, slouching his posture and began an erratic tapping of his feet; he looked like the class clown waiting outside the principal's office: bored, apathetic and - essentially - the embodiment of ignorance.
He then plucked a bishop from the board and slammed it carelessly upon a random square. The impact of the exuberant gesture caused the miniature armies of ebony and ivory to shudder and shake.
Silence.
Loki's glassy eyes of cold calculation examined the abused bishop. His distaste was made apparent through the slight furrow of his brow and the smouldering flames which kindled within the jade of his irises. He scanned the board briefly: wheels turning, brain-cells burning.
"That can not apply: disallowed, non-applicable." He concluded with an air of superiority... or - as the Joker had come to learn - with his usual tone of voice. "That is a complete violation of the rules."
The Joker merely flashed him a sickly smirk from beneath his matted tendrils of green; they curtained his garish facade, hung there limp and ill-kempt.
It unsettled Loki.
(Needless to say, their views upon the upkeep of their tresses were somewhat opposing.)
"In case you ain't noticed..." - the clown hissed menacingly - "...I don't care much for rules."
Loki closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. His breath gave a slight quiver upon exhale, as if (beneath that facade of acidic pristine-ness) he'd envisioned himself brutally murdering three people just to calm himself down.
Of course, the Joker thought it hilarious.
He watched Loki like a hawk, with unconcealed amusement, as the God adjusted his posture - his back now as straight and rigid as an iron rod - and stared at the clown's 'faux-move' accusingly.
He then captured the rebel bishop with deft fingers and floated across the board. He gently re-placed it within its prior position - constantly trapping the clown within an icy glare - and regarded his correction with a smug cock of his head and curve of his lip.
"There. That's better." He sounded borderline pleasant but his pitch then dropped to something more ominous:
"Now, try again. Do it properly."
The clown eyed him for a moment, a manic glint in his hollowed eyes. He leaned forward in his chair, never sifting his arrogant gaze from Loki's own murderous glare. He then brought malicious fingers within close proximity to that same, battered bishop... and flicked it.
It fell like a stone, rolled across the board and collided with Loki's alabaster army. To the Joker's child-like glee, he saw the manic twitch within the God's eye, the slight curl of his slender fingers; they appeared dangerously close to talons.
The Joker leered at his near-maniacal companion, baring two martial rows of plague-painted enamel as he regarded the God's struggle to remain composed.
He waited...
"Would it honestly decease you to disregard your incessant, compulsive need to treat the obligations of the establishment with such childish disdain, and compel your insufferable self to engage in a simple game of chess with me?"
...and that's what the clown had been waiting for.
He lived for Loki's short fuse, revelled in pushing all the big, red buttons like a woodpecker at a tree.
"Well, ya wouldn't ask the Devil to play monopoly!" His retort the bite of a rapid dog... or rather a rabid dog that had just taken a shit-ton of amphetamines.
Loki gave a curt laugh; the sound low and warm within the pale column of his throat. The Joker couldn't help but enjoy the utter rarity of it; it was always him that provided the laughter.
"How do you know I have not asked him, already? Remember to whom you speak."
The Joker stared at him. The idea of Loki playing a Midgardian board-game with Lucifer... didn't actually seem very unlikely, at all.
However - despite having resided within close proximity of a Norse God for about a year - the Joker was a profound atheist.
There was no such thing as the Devil... but the Clown Prince of Crime came pretty, damn close.
"Liar. You're bullshitting me!"
Loki rolled his eyes. His put-upon expression heavily communicating the phrase, "well, obviously." He addressed the clown with a patronising lint to his usual, sullen tone:
"Yes; again, remember to whom you speak."
The Joker blinked. Oh, right; God of Lies.
"If you really are so, desperately reluctant to participate in simple 'board-game etiquette'..." - the God's voice was stoic but his cat-like grin said otherwise - "...I could always invite your former psychological healer, Miss Quinzel, to accompany me. I do so enjoy her... exuberant company."
In that very moment, the clown could've honestly killed him... if he wasn't an all-powerful, Norse God with looks, locks, wit and words to absolutely die for. Plus, he had awesome 'fire powers'.
God, damn it.
Anyway, the clown sought to throw the guy a lethal look for good measure:
"She's the reason I burnt down our cable set, last week—"
"Which is precisely why I enjoy her company."
Oh, okay. So, this black-haired bastard liked that blonde bimbo just because she had a horrid habit of awakening his tendencies of arson?
Now, that is funny.
The clown chuckled with madness and mirth, his smile of insanity teasing with his ragged scars:
"You're a sadistic son of a bitch..."
Loki blinked.
"Surely, you know the story of the pot and the kettle—"
"...and I love you for it."
The two looked at each other in silence, for a lingering moment. The Joker eyed him expectantly, awaiting the God's eventual response.
Loki appeared flummoxed. For the first time in their ridiculously dysfunctional association they dared to deem as "friendship", the porcelain prince was absolutely speechless.
The God remained silent as his piercing gaze returned to flickering across the board. Suddenly, he allowed a broad grin to dominate his features.
With deft movements of pale, slender fingers, Loki plucked a snow-white knight from the board. It levitated for a moment; as if confirming - with pedantic precision - whether its endeavour proved correct.
By the look on Loki's face, the Joker deducted that it was most, definitely correct.
Loki placed the knight upon it's assigned square, studied it and - with a quirk of his lip - concluded with:
"Check mate, Mister Joker."
Oh, for crying out loud.
"Can we not play cards, instead?"
Loki sighed but in a manner of fondness rather than annoyance. He'd beaten the clown and victory always seemed to put him in a good mood. Now, a wonderful opportunity had arisen to beat the clown at his own game.
Cards, eh?
Loki had had experience playing such a game before. He briefly remembered gambling at a tavern from to time in this younger years: skeletal fingers curved round handfuls of glistening gold, lashing smirks of triumph to agitate his components, the masks of utter bewilderment upon the Æsir as he proved himself the witty victor.
Needless, to say Loki called the best bluff the in all of the Nine Realms.
"What card game did you have in mind, clown?"
"Oh, I don't know!" The clown trilled, impassively. However - to Loki's horror - a perverse leer proceed to plaster his plagued and painted facade.
He leaned forward - too close - and gazed at the God. Loki studied the frayed stitches of his scars, the deep-set wrinkles, and the linear laugh-lines. Not to mention, the eyes: ebony, emotionless, endless.
His thoughts were scattered when the clown gave a quite hum of amusement. It sounded undoubtably menacing. His voice was a perverted purr:
"Oh, don't know..." He said it again but with much less flippancy and much more mischief. Then, he delivered the punch-line:
"Ever played strip poker, Lokes?"