Harley climbed slowly of the chair, "Mistah J?" she whimpered. She cautiously approached him, still on the floor. On her knees beside him she looked towards the Scarecrow, "What did you do?" her eyes filled with tears as she asked.
The Scarecrow pulled his mask off, "I sprayed him with fear toxin, obviously,"
"But why is he doing this,"
"Different people have different reactions. I gotta say I expected more, but it looks like the toxin was to much for him. Does he still have a pulse?" he bent down on one knee by Harley.
She started to cry. It had been in the back of her mind but she thought surely the fear gas didn't kill him.
Scarecrow reached out his hand, the one with the toxin on it, to check the clown's pulse. He didn't expect one, a lot of his test subjects had heart attacks after experiencing the hallucinogen. Their bodies unable to take the stress their mind was putting them through. Even Jonathan had to marvel at that, the fact that one could kill themselves on their thoughts alone.
Once he had heard of a man that spent a night locked in a freezer. When he was found in the morning he was dead, his autopsy confirmed he died of hypothermia. But as it turned out the freezer was never turned on, he just believed he was freezing to death and so he did.
"Would you stop crying?" Scarecrow's attention left Joker for a moment.
In those fleeting seconds he was distracted, Joker opened his eyes. He grabbed the Scarecrow wrist and turning it to his unmasked face then sprayed him with his own toxin. With the other hand he held him by his hair, forcing him to breath it in, just as the Batman did.
Harley screamed.
"Did you honestly think your lit-tle toxin would affect meee?" he continued to spray it into his unprotected face.
Scarecrow, being a coward, disapeered shortly after being sprayed. He left Jonathan to deal with the clown.
He gasped and coughed, watching the room spin made him sick. But when it finally stilled he felt even sicker. The Joker's face filled his vision and the Joker was the last thing the former doctor wanted to see when he was hallucinating.
The clowns mouth morphed and his scars seemed to spit apart, leaving one long bleeding cut across his face, literally from ear to ear. Deep red, blood gushed, dripped and moved across his face then onto his shirt in every way possible. His eyes were equally disturbing, they did not seem to be there at all. Nothing but two black eye sockets stared down at the frighted Jonathan.
Joker appeared to lick the blood off his top lip, "If you only had a brain..." he sighed and let go.
Jonathan fell to the floor for a moment, beneath a cloud of fear gas. His heart pounded so rapidly he could clearly hear it. He struggled to his feet despite the fearful tremors shaking him. Then he darted out the door, escaping the warehouse.
Joker roughly took Harley's hand and pulled her up. He pulled her along, out of Jonathan's room.
"Puddin'? I feel kinda funny," she said as they rushed down the hall.
To Harley Quinn the walls seemed to move slightly. They throbbed, pulsating to the increasing beat of her heart. Her breath seemed to come faster and harder in her tightening chest. The hallway grew blurry and then completely dark.
Harley screamed and clung to Mr. J, "The lights are gone!" she exclaimed, "What's happening Mistah J? Mistah J?"
He didn't answer, instead he shoved her into their room and shut the door, leaving her alone inside.
Harley Quinn still could not see anything. She had breathed in a significant amount of fear toxin meant for Jonathan Crane. Not enough to do any permanent damage, but enough to cause some major panic for the next few hours.
"Where'd ya go? Mistah J, are you there?!" she felt around the room which appeared even darker than the hall, Harley had never seen anything quite that dark.
Desperately trying to calm down and gather her thoughts, Harley attempted to remember if the room had a window. She thought for sure it did. And though small, it would provide some light from the city's street lights. Hands outstretched she felt her way across the room until she felt a wall. Carefully and slowly she ran her hands across the wall in search of the window that would save her from that awful darkness.
"It's not on the first wall," she whispered to herself after coming to a corner in the room, "Not on the second wall," she felt the next corner and then the third wall, "Not here," she whimpered, "Or here," she felt along the last wall, "There's just no windows," she whispered.
That's when it occurred to her, once she had felt all four walls in the room, that she had never felt a door. Only smooth flat walls had grazed her fingertips.
"The door," she began her trip around the four walls once again, this time faster.
She stumbled in the black of darkness leaning against the wall. But after at least four times around the room she still could not find the door.
"There's no door the door's gone," Harley mumbled as she felt up and down the wall, "Mistah J?! The door there's no door!"
Joker stood outside, back up against the door. The one Harley was pounding on and insisting it was not there. He knew her sobs and screams were from the fear gas, as was believing that the door was gone.
Fear toxin caused its victim to experience their greatest fears and phobias on extreme levels. Harley Quinn's fears were obviously related to darkness and being alone.
She slammed her fists furiously against the door, pleading for Mr. J to come back. He licked his bottom lip across the small "y" shaped scar in the center. He could open the door, he could go in there, hold her tightly and make those fears go away, but he wouldn't. Never, because he did not love her. At least that's what he had been telling himself for the past week. He didn't want to make her better.
He groaned, his pants becoming uncomfortably tight. The Joker wished Harley didn't turn him on this much. The frightened sobs coming from the bedroom were to much. He wished he could control himself more, he never had this problem until Harley Quinn came along. He didn't understand it, was there something special about her.... no. There was nothing special about her, he fought with himself.
"Harley what are you doing to me," he moaned.
She could not hear his voice over her own cries.
Joker grit his teeth as he slid onto the floor, panting heavily. He hated this feeling, this desire. The Joker was a symbol of everything that was wrong with humanity. He symbolized chaos, anarchy and fear. He had convinced himself that he was more than a man, so why did he feel this way now?
Of course he had been with several women, but none of them made him want like Harley did. Symbols do not have weaknesses. The former doctor was soon becoming his weakness. He wanted to hurt her so bad at this point, slam her against the wall and slice her throat until all her pretty blood spilled out. Joker wanted to make her scream and cry, beg for mercy until she admitted she made a mistake falling for him. It was her fault he felt this way now.
The problem with not making plans is that you never know exactly how your general idea will work out. The clown never thought to far ahead. Naturally he never considered his future with Harleen Quinzel. His mind went back to that day at the asylum, on the floor, trying to be quiet, he took everything from her. Her virginity, her heart and her sanity. Joker assumed he could end it anytime. He'd end his shrink's slow decent into madness by cruelly leaving her. After she had become obsessed, right at the point when she would rather die than live without him. That much had happened by now, they were actually beyond that point of infatuation. But he found Harley becoming like a drug. And the more hits he took, the harder she became to walk away from.
They had gone to far and there was no turning back. That left him only one last thing to do; end it, end them. And he began to think of how to do it, and in more ways than one.
Nyctophobia is a fear of the dark. Phobias... yaaaaay.
I really wanted an excuse to make the Joker look scarier than he already is, hence the Scarecrow trippin' on fear gas and getting all freaked out by him. I also wanted an excuse to expose Harley's biggest fears, being apart from Mr. J.
The fear gas though, does not effect Joker. I can't remember if that was in a comic book or a cartoon that he got sprayed and was fine. Basically I think he's messed up so much without the stuff that it's no much different than real life for him.
Just a little warning: this is coming to an end soon. (Incase that last sentence didn't give you a clue) I'm hoping to end with 35 chapters, that's why this one was so short. (And I feel a little half-assed, sorry for that. But that's just my opinion and I'm to critical of my work)