AN: The doll thing in this chapter is based on what I plan to do if I ever find a pattern to make the clothes. It will be awesome, if it works out.
To answer Laura's question, the violence/death/poisoning bits are going to start right back up again in the next chapter. Sorry to draw it out like this!
Thanks for the reviews, everyone! You guys are wonderful.
He woke up in the still-sleeping Joker's arms, and for one blessed moment was content just to lie there, happy in the other's nearness. Then the memories from the previous night came flooding back and he nearly leapt from the bed, face burning as he made his way toward the bathroom. Ignoring the ache in his jaw was about as impossible as overlooking the stain he'd noticed in his pants as he stripped, but he tried his hardest to wash the memory away in one long, burning shower. It didn't take, not then, and not after brushing his teeth about seven times either.
Scarecrow would have liked nothing better than to head back into the bedroom and tear the clown's throat out. Jonathan at least had a sense of self-preservation, and luckily for both of them, he was the one in control. Not that that stopped the debate raging in his head. That son of a bitch. Who the hell thinks he can fuck with me that way and get away with it?
Funny, I thought fucking with you was exactly what you wanted.
Oh, don't act like you're above it all. You wanted it every bit as bad as I did, and worse, because at least I had a motive.
If by 'motive' you mean a pathetic excuse to get off, then yes. If you'd listened to a damn thing I'd said in the first place, you'd have known the Joker can't be toyed with that way. Sex is as much a game to him as everything else, it has no meaning.
Well, thank you, Doctor. Next time I find myself in such a situation, you might want to bring that up beforehand.
I did, idiot.
They carried on like that for some time, before Jonathan got hungry and decided to placate his alter ego with toast. He was halfway through the first piece when he felt the Joker's hands around his waist. "Hello, beautiful."
Even the taste of cinnamony-sugar goodness wasn't enough to keep Scarecrow from jerking away. Jonathan, not in the best of moods himself and sensing there may well be a fight soon, decided to intervene. "Could you not touch me right now? Or talk to me, for that matter?"
"Aw, what are you all frowny about?" Joker asked, sitting beside him.
He averted his eyes, overcome with both the urge to throw things and hide under the table. "Nothing."
"Is this about last night? 'Cause you said it was what you wanted, kitten. I guess you could argue that doesn't really count, given that you're crazy and all, but last I checked I can't really consent either, being uh, legally insane and whatnot." He paused. "Hey, does that make last night a mutual rape or something?"
"It makes you a son of a bitch."
He blinked. "Scarecrow?"
"No shit. That was a nasty little trick of yours, bastard. You almost gave Jonathan a heart attack."
Joker smirked. "Right, I'm sure it's your concern for him that's got you so pissed. What, you don't want your better half in on the action too?"
"That's not the point. And he could feel it before you did that."
"Wait, doesn't that mean you could still feel it after he took over?"
"Yes, he could." Jonathan looked away again, flushed as ever. "It's not the same for him when he's not in a position of authority, though."
"Welcome back." He reached out, stroking Jonathan's hair. If he noticed the way the other pulled away, he didn't acknowledge it. "You oughta tell him that I don't let anyone else take charge."
"I tried," he said, eyes fastened to the floor as if his life depended on staring there.
"I get why he's upset, I guess, but what's your problem? Didn't you enjoy it?"
"Yes. Just…" he trailed off. How was he supposed to explain it, that the very act of giving into his physical nature seemed wrong, somehow? Like he had cheapened himself. How could he describe that to someone so in touch with his animalistic side, someone both ruled by and yet in complete control of those impulses at once?
"Just?" Joker prompted. "What?"
"Just that he's most likely angry at how rudely you brought him out, idiot."
He frowned. "You're back? Can I talk to the one that isn't completely irrational?"
"Fuck you." Stupid Joker and his seeming inability to be affected by anything. Most people would be unnerved that their conversation partner kept changing from one persona to another, or thrown off a bit at least. But no, the clown was as unperturbed by this as he'd been by last night's events. Bastard. He was going to find a way under his skin, and when he did, revenge would be sweet.
"I'm beginning to see why Jonathan thought we wouldn't get along."
"Took you long enough."
"Hey, you seemed friendly enough last night. Really, if there was one thing I wasn't expecting, it'd be that Jonathan's alter ego is a cheap slut."
"Please don't provoke him," Jonathan muttered, hands clenched tightly on the armrests of his chair. If Scarecrow got much angrier, he doubted he could hold him back, and he did not want to see what the consequences would be at all. "He's mad enough as it is."
"You know, Jonny, you've gotta stop switching back and forth like this. It's confusing."
"I'm not doing it on purpose!" he protested, trying very hard to ignore the rather appealing part of his mind screaming that it would show Joker what happened to those that called him a slut. All right, so trying to take on the clown was asking to die, but the thing Scarecrow was suggesting they try with an electric mixer sounded very interesting indeed. "It just…happens. Especially when he's as angry as this."
"Well, let's try and make it not happen." He took Jonathan's hand in his own, refusing to let go even as the other pulled away. "Okay? I know he doesn't like being upstaged, but what's got you so unhappy?"
"I don't know." And doubted he'd be able to verbalize it if he did.
"See, normal people don't flip out and be afraid to look at their partners the morning after. I know you're not exactly normal, but still. You weren't bad, if that's what you're concerned about."
"It's not that. I'm not concerned about the quality…more the fact that it happened at all?" Oh, lovely. That didn't make him sound like a panicked virginal idiot, not in the slightest. He had the nagging idea that Joker was going to get sick of his neuroses and find a new sidekick who put out. Maybe the only thing keeping him around was that the laughing gas had yet to be perfected. Wonderful.
"That it happened at—oh, I get it," Joker said, much to Jonathan's surprise. "It's a control thing, isn't it? The fact that you did something so basic, so human. You wanted it then but looking back you're disgusted with yourself for sinking so low?"
He nodded, still afraid to look up, worried he'd see the Joker's eyes scrutinizing him, comparing him to Harley, who Jonathan was sure never panicked over something so trivial.
"Okay." His other hand was stroking Jonathan's hair again. "Look, sexual behavior isn't something inherently shameful, Jonny. Not if it has meaning. It's not like we just met and hooked up, and even if we had, that's not, uh, necessarily a bad thing either. It's an expression of affection. You like me, and I like you, and last night was a way of showing that."
"I know. But the manner in which it was shown was so—"
"Physical?" He sounded amused. "Hate to break it to you, kitten, but you are human. You're not above the desires and conflicts everyone else on the planet goes through, much as you'd like to be. If you're gonna beat yourself up for giving into desire, you should also be mad at yourself for eating and breathing."
"It's not exactly the same."
"Close enough. Try not to be so serious, all right?"
Jonathan turned to face him, smiling, albeit it slightly, nervously. "You know, for someone with no sense of shame, you're rather insightful."
He shrugged. "People aren't hard to figure out. The ribbon thing, remember?"
"Oh yes, the delightful little analogy where you said I don't matter."
"Not that you don't matter. You matter more than some bum on the street, but you don't matter as much, understand? No hard feelings about that, right?"
"No, no hard feelings at all," Scarecrow said, taking hold of his plate and smashing it over the Joker's head.
Joker blinked a few times, before turning to regard the broken pieces of china littering the table beside him.
"Oh my God," Jonathan managed, heart skipping a few beats. Hell. I'm dead. I'm so dead. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—that is—it was—"
"No, it's fine, I get it." His hand closed around the blunt end of the largest piece of the plate, holding it up, admiring the way the light glinted off the jagged edges. "Hey, can I talk to Scarecrow again? Just for a minute."
Fuck. "I-I don't think he's coming back out again. Not anytime soon."
"Figures." Joker's tongue pushed against the scars on the inside as he seemed to consider something. The seconds ticked by, slow and tense, and just when he was beginning to think he might not be brutally murdered, the Joker had hold of his hair, dragging him forward. "If I leave a message with you, he'll get it, right?"
"So this happened how, exactly?" Adrian asked, stitching the gash across Jonathan's forehead.
How was he supposed to answer that? My alter ego was idiotic enough to provoke the Joker so he cut me open. Yeah, that was sure to lead to a good conversation. "I walked into a door."
"'Door' meaning Jackie, right?" Anika asked, turning to regard the clown sitting at the other end of the table.
"Yep," he said, sounding almost smug, hands laced behind his head.
"Why on his face?" Abigail asked. "Are you trying to ruin his looks?"
"Because head wounds bleed a hell of a lot, and there's nothing like showing someone his own blood when I'm trying to make a point. Besides, scars done right add to appearance, not detract." His tongue flicked out at the corners of his mouth.
"This won't leave a scar," Adrian informed him, "as long as you leave it alone while it's healing."
"Aw. I wanted a permanent reminder."
"I'll remember it well enough anyway, thank you." Jonathan winced as the needle pushed through again, the burning from the stitches nearly as bad as the pain from the injury itself. What remained of his nails was beginning to dig into his palms when he felt something being pressed against his hand.
"Here, grab onto this," Abigail said, putting what felt like a ragdoll into his hand. "That way you're not tearing yourself up any worse."
He held it up and felt his jaw drop open. "The hell?" Just when he was beginning to think nothing could disturb him anymore, he found himself staring at a Joker doll, complete with green yarn hair. "Where did you—"
"I made it. It wasn't that hard, I just used a Raggedy Ann pattern and gave it different clothes."
"I painted the face," Anika added. "Cool, huh?"
He regarded it. The white paint spread over the cloth made an unnerving likeness, showing the skin color beneath it at points and mixing haphazardly with the black. What intrigued him the most, however, were the scars, stitched in with red thread so that they actually stood out against the rest of the face. "Amazing."
"It is one of the better likenesses of me."
He regarded the Joker over Adrian's shoulder. "I thought you hated it when people make images of you."
"Usually, yes. However, they're usually being used to profit off of me, and we have a strict, uh, agreement that this never leaves the apartment or they die."
"Why does that not surprise me?"
"We've got a Batman doll, too," Abigail said. "That one was probably the hardest, because there's so few clear pictures of him. And a Riddler, a Poison Ivy, a Mad Hatter, most of the super villains, actually."
"Is there a Scarecrow?" he asked, apprehensive. It wasn't every day one was came face to face with himself in soft, cottony form, and he wasn't sure he was feeling up to it. Maybe when he wasn't bleeding from the head, but not now.
"Not yet. We're working on one now."
"We don't like to make them if we can't do the face under the mask," Anika explained. "Batman being the exception, because no one knows who he is, and you can't have the villains without Batman. Usually, we go by mug shots, but in yours your face is all cut up and bloody, and there aren't any good pictures of you online. Now that we've seen you in person, though, we can go ahead. We've already got buttons in just the right shade of blue to do your eyes."
He was both flattered and unnerved. "You do know you're making an homage to the man who effectively caused your deafness, right?"
She shrugged. "I'm not completely deaf. Just fifty percent. Less with the hearing aids. And anyway, if it weren't for you we wouldn't have met Jackie, and if it weren't for Jackie we'd probably be on the streets by now. So it's all good."
"You've no moral compass at all, have you?"
"Life's more interesting without it," Abigail said, reentering the room. Jonathan started, not having realized she'd left in the first place.
"My sentiments exactly," said the Joker, stretching out his legs.
"Here, let me see your hand," Abigail instructed, taking Jonathan's hand and placing it on the table. He heard the sound of paper ripping and tried to look down, only to have Adrian force his head back up.
"What are you doing?"
"Putting Band-Aids on your fingers." She held one up, briefly, before lowering it again. He felt the adhesive against his skin.
"Did that have the Power Rangers on it?" he asked, feeling more and more like he'd slipped into The Twilight Zone. All that was left was for Rod Serling to show up.
"Yeah. Band-Aids with stuff on them are so much more interesting then the plain kind, don't you think?"
"We've also got ones made to look like bacon," Adrian offered, clipping the twine. Jonathan glanced down to see the first three fingertips of his left hand covered, with Abigail working on the fourth.
"May I ask why you're doing that?"
"Because you bite your nails, don't you?" she asked. "That's what it looks like, anyway. You can't bite them like this." From his end of the table, the Joker collapsed into a laughing fit.
"Beata Maria," Jonathan muttered, which only made the clown laugh harder. He couldn't decide if the period since he'd team up with the Joker had been the best time of his life or the worst. Certainly it was the most interesting.