He woke up with a chuckle. Not unusual, one might say, but he was alone so one wasn't here to judge. He opened his eyes with almost a painful effort. They had probably tried to keep him asleep but the drugs were already being attacked by his body. He kept giggling every once in a while as his eyes shifted from one spot in the room to another. This was getting better. They had moved him to another room, one as plain as his cell, but he still recognized it as the infirmary. This bed had restraints as well, but they fit tighter around his wrists and ankles and were sure to keep him down for quite a while. His hair had fallen into his face, showing him the ugly brown more closely. Oh, he hated it. He hated his hair, doctor Annoying and most of all, he hated bears. Teddy bears in particular. He had never been allowed one, no, that's not correct. John hadn't been allowed one. He and John were two different people. John was caring and loving. Joker was inattentive and aloof on the subject of love. Though he begged to differ whenever his bat was mentioned. He had a special place in his heart for him.
The door opened and doctor Annoying entered with a smile. It wasn't a smile the Joker was glad to see. Why wasn't he afraid of him? He felt like tearing him apart just so he would stop smiling and being nice to him.
"Jack." The doctor said, looking at him with a questioning expression.
"So you're finally introducing yourself?" Joker asked uninterested. He was tired of being tied down. He needed to stretch his legs every once in a while and his bladder was making its presence known as well.
"No. My name is Robert Rossdale. I was wondering if the name 'Jack' means anything to you." Doctor Annoying Rossdale said as calm as ever. Jack. Jack. Jack. Jack. Again that name, but no.
"An old henchman of mine, what's it to you?" Joker asked suspiciously. If they were looking for his hideouts, too bad for them because he felt like he could trust Jack. Not that he remembered him. He vaguely remembers brown eyes, but that's it. It goes no further than brown eyes filled with pain and a hint of despair. Not uncommon with his henchmen.
"I see, you were muttering his name for a good half hour. Something else too, but I couldn't hear." He told him. Joker snorted and looked up at the doctor with a skeptical eye. Sure. He looked for a moment longer, studying Rossdale's expression a little longer. He was hiding something.
"What's the point of all this?" Joker asked. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't laughing and he really needed a laugh now. He had to escape and kill Rossdale before the doc killed him with boredom.
"I want to help you." Doctor Annoying Rossdale stated. Joker finally laughed. He wanted to help him! So cliché. He started fidgeting ever so slightly, working on getting out of his restraints.
"That's a good one, but an old one too." Joker told him with as big a grin as he could muster. He shook the ugly brown strands out of his face and smiled up at the doctor who returned it with a smaller version of the Joker's own smile. Less taunting and frightening, but a smile was a smile. And he didn't like seeing it on Rossdale's face. It was mocking him. Doctor Rossdale took a chair and placed it next to his bed, Joker kept working his wrists this way and that though. Never halting, continuing onward until he would finally be free and kill him. Kill. Kill. Kill the bloody doctor with the very chair he was getting comfortable in. He didn't deserve the chair! He needed to kill him!
"I want to do a surgery." Doctor Rossdale started.
"That's nice. Do you have a degree? You might consider getting into plastic surgery, practice on yourself first though." He told him, scrunching up his nose while he studied the man's face more closely.
"No, I want you to get permanent colour lenses." He told him. Joker just looked at him, lost in thought. He wanted to modify him to his likening. He had already coloured his hair without his consent, why bother telling him this? If he really wanted to do it, he would have already done it! What did he think? That his mental state would 'improve' after a few surgeries and 'adjustments'? It made him laugh. So he laughed like there was no tomorrow. This, at last, got a reaction out of the doctor who seemed to be taken aback. Oh, Rossy should have known the giggling clown would laugh and laugh until his tummy hurt. The voices in his head were laughing along with him, seeing the funny side of this situation for once.
"Why so serious, doc?" Joker asked through his laughter. "Next you're going to make me bake in the sun to get a tan." He said, making himself laugh even louder at the sheer thought of it.
"I was actually thinking of a nose job." Doctor Rossdale said way too serious for the Joker's likening. The clown stopped laughing, but his smile stayed frozen upon his lips. As genuine as ever, it stayed there in an unconscious attempt to taunt the man in front of him.
"There's nothing wrong with my nose. I rather like it." He said turning his head away from the man to show him his profile. "A bit crooked, I admit, but it has character." He told him with an ear-splitting grin.
"That's exactly the problem. It has character. Your character." So he really did want to change him. Too bad he wasn't into cosmetic surgeries. He had finally gotten his hand free and started with the other one. It was positioned on the doctor's side, if he managed to free it, it wouldn't go unnoticed. The absence of syringes was a welcoming change in the presence of doctor Annoying, but he was still in Arkham. This meant that getting a sedative wasn't hard at all. Ah what was he talking about, he was the Joker! His body had probably already adjusted to the stuff they gave him earlier anyway. He started to wiggle carefully, looking for any reaction to his movements.
"There's also nothing wrong with my character." Joker protested. He pretended to try and find a more comfortable position while getting free of the strap binding him. Finally. He quickly reached up and took the doctor's head in his hands. He pulled him closer, ignoring the hands covering his. "I'm not joking around, you know." He told him before banging the doctor's head against the railing of the bed repeatedly until Rossdale's hands fell away from his. He quickly untied his feet and jumped off of the bed, stumbling as he did so. As promised, he took the abandoned chair up and started bashing it against the still figure laying on the ground. If the onslaught hadn't killed him, he wouldn't be as lucky next time.
Getting to the hall wasn't as hard as getting out of the building would be, but he knew his way around so he went to the storage room to get his clothes before setting out to get away from there. He found the box with his name on it. It stood there on the floor, abandoned, as if it had been waiting for him. He laughed quietly and rummaged through its contents. He pulled out his suit and switched his Arkham uniform for the purple costume. He looked at the window in the room and cocked his head to the side in thought. It was a small window and he hadn't tried climbing through that one yet. He created a small tower of boxes and started climbing. Oh this was so much fun! The boxes were for leverage purpose only, so he didn't really mind if they gave way under his weight. To his luck, they held on pretty well. A few dents and a cracking sound later, Joker managed to get through the window and onto the large yard surrounding the asylum. He looked down and inside the basement-like storage room. The cracking sound had come from within one of the boxes. Too bad. He shrugged and ran for the gate where his freedom lay behind. He would have to find green hair dye soon. Or at least bleach.
He ran until he reached a park at the edge of Gotham city. The voices were talking to him now so he started walking to clear his head.
He was walking, escaping from the voices telling him to ravage through the city and plunder it of its silence. He was walking, wanting to be alone just this once. He looked up at the starless night sky. A murky dark grey greeted him and he adored it. Treasured it. He imagined smoke clogging up his view and he closed his eyes, thinking of the smell of burning buildings. The silence of the night, so unusual, but there nonetheless. It was a foreign comfort as it settled deep within his bones. It made him want to take deep breaths to try and gain more out of the refreshing feeling the night was giving him, but he knew all he would inhale was the polluted air of Gotham's cars. So he kept walking.
He was walking.
"There's no escaping." A voice told him. He turned around with a cocked eyebrow, barely concealing his amusement. However, upon turning, he saw there was no one. He was all alone. But he wasn't walking.
"Sure. Though I'm the one haunting you, remember?" He told himself, since he presumed it was just one of the voices talking to him again.
"You're killing yourself by killing me." The same voice said. He chuckled and shook his head in growing amusement. He eyed the ground before shifting his eyes towards the streetlights illuminating him a path through the park.
"My, which one are you anyway? I don't think I've heard you before." He asked with a smile. The voice sounded less demanding and hadn't cursed him to hell yet. A pity. He huffed. Of course it couldn't be all fun and play, ey?
"You know me, Joker." It told him. Joker looked to his right, there was a river there. It was whispering to him, telling him come over and say hello. Which he did.
"I'll have to disappoint you, chap. But if you're about done, I wanted some peace and quiet." Joker said, approaching the river. His eyes were glued to the one spot where the moon didn't reflect. It was dark and shaded by trees. Joker kneeled down and looked at the water and into his own eyes, avoiding the sight of his hair.
"You see that?" The voice asked him. He stared into his eyes. So inhuman. "Those weren't our eyes." It said quietly. Joker tore his gaze away from the reflection and looked at the trees next to it instead. His eyes still locked on the water.
"It's just me now." Joker told the voice. His eyes caught some stray lights the moon reflected, making his eyes appear a phosphorescent green. They seemed to be glowing, so he closed them. The moment he did, he felt two hands push him forward and into the freezing water of the river. It swallowed him hungrily and pulled him down further and further until he forced his eyes open. The only thing that remained was a peaceful floating feeling, pulling him down and away into another realm.
He looked around curiously as the world around him morphed into another one. Green. Everything was green. Suddenly his skin started burning, his insides were boiling. He tried to curl in on himself, but the water was restricting him.
Above him, a looming shadow stood over him. Joker reached out, but it turned and walked away, its cape hovering over the surface for a few seconds longer. Never touching it.
He screamed. His lungs stung, but he made no move to try and get out of the green water before it drowned him.
"You see that?" The same voice from before asked again. Joker was beyond enraged now. He started thrusting upwards to get out of there as fast as possible. "It's not just you. It's me…" It told him. The voice was starting to get a determined tone now. "It's me who has come back." It said and all went quiet. Joker stopped struggling against the rapidly freezing water. The green hue lost its colour until he was surrounded by dull greys and blacks, a round white orb was the only light source. The moon.
He floated for what felt like an eternity until something seemed to pull him up. He felt his eyes closing before he could see the source of this ominous pulling sensation tugging at his shoulders, insisting he should cooperate and get himself out of the river in which he had found himself stuck in. Before slipping into the land of darkness and limbo, he tried to pull away from the assault on his shoulders and arms. He was perfectly fine. He just needed some rest and where else was he going to get it if not inside a river at the edge of Gotham city? He felt his hands refusing to work with him and once he broke surface, awareness was sucked out of him along with the water within his lungs.
John. He felt himself scowling unwillingly. Jack. Jack had come back.
Jack Doe, he would call the voice from now on.
TO BE CONTINUED