Thanks ever so much for all the reviews!
Purple Ghost Sausage: Raisin. You have no idea how hard I want to kick my own ass right now. I can't believe I spelled that wrong. And as for fear toxin in boiled water, I have no idea. I might have to explore that some day.
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"So, what are we gonna do with him? We can't just leave him on the kitchen floor." Harley said.
"I don't see why not. Nobody's going into the kitchen any time soon because there's no food. It would be masochistic to keep looking at the empty fridge, anyway." The Joker replied.
Harley sighed and poked her empty stomach. It emitted a noise like wind blowing across the bare Gobi desert. "I wanna cheese sandwich." She whimpered.
"And I want Batman's head. We don't always get what we want." The Joker said.
"Are you sure you don't want my head?" Harley asked, and there was no mistaking her licentious tone.
"Oh, you naughty little minx."
"I'm a hungry little minx, too."
"Don't ruin the moment."
"Sorry, Puddin'."
Jonathan Crane, wrapped up like a fresh mummy, was forgotten. If he knew what Harley and the Joker did on his kitchen table, behind his sofa, and, when they decided to try something risky, down in his lab, he would have walked out the door, locked it behind him, and burned the whole place to the ground. Then he would have leapt in front of a train.
After contaminating nearly every aspect of Crane's house, the Joker and Harley finally ran out of energy. They set about the task of finding their clothes. Harley had the foresight to drop most of her clothing in a pile on her bedroom floor. The Joker, mainly because he liked making a mess in the general order of the Scarecrow's home, had scattered his suit in various places. His tie was hanging from the ceiling fan in the kitchen, his pants were draped over the wire cage that held Crane's lab mice, and his shirt was serving as Lou's new chew toy.
"Harley, I can't find my socks. Or my shirt. Or my left shoe. Harley, find my clothes." The Joker said.
Unbeknownst to the Joker, Harley all ready found his shirt. To be more precise, she found the scraps of it Lou hadn't managed to eat. There wasn't enough fabric left to serve as the funeral shroud of a chinchilla.
"Bad Babies! You aren't supposed to eat Mister J's stuff. He's gonna be so mad. We gotta hide the evidence." Harley said. She wrestled the rag from Lou and did the one thing that made any sense. Like a junkie desperate to hide his stash from the cops, she flushed it down the toilet.
"Harley! Did you find my clothes yet? I feel drafty." The Joker said.
"Uh, I got your socks, Puddin'. I think that shoe ended up under the couch." Harley replied. She hastily snatched the purple balled-up socks from behind the door and headed down stairs.
She found the Joker in the living room. He was reaching under the sofa, trying to fish out his missing shoe. After a minute, he snagged it and reeled it in.
"Here's your socks, Puddin'. I can't find your shirt, though. Are you sure you didn't leave it down in the lab?" Harley asked.
"I have other shirts; that isn't the problem. I want my squirting flower. I don't have any replacements for it." The Joker said.
All the color drained from Harley's face and her knees went wobbly. Of all Mister J's toys and gadgets, his squirting flower, always pinned on so proudly, was one of his favorites. Over the years, that trick flower had held everything from corrosive acid to laughing gas. Harley had no idea what chemical filled it now. All she knew is that the flower's contents weren't edible. Had Lou eaten it, or had she flushed it down the john? It was a Hobson's choice; she was toast either way.
"LOU!" Harley wailed. She threw the Joker's socks and ran up the stairs. In her mind's eye, she could see her precious hyena stretched out in the hall, stone dead.
Two hyenas met her at the top of the stairs. Lou, his tongue lolling out, didn't look sick in the least. If there had been acid in the flower, it would have eaten through him by now. The laughing gas, if it even affected hyenas, would have done something by now, too.
If Lou didn't eat the flower that meant it had gone down to the big goldfish graveyard with the scraps of the Joker's shirt. Harley collapsed to the floor, covered her head, and moaned. Puddin' was going to kill her.
"What's gotten into you, Harley? Even for you, this is weird." The Joker said.
"I didn't mean to do it, Mister J! Honest, I didn't mean to." Harley whimpered.
The Joker's quasi-immortal grin faltered. "What did you do?"
"I, I, Lou ate your shirt and I flushed it down the john!" She cried.
The Joker screamed so loudly the windows rattled, the hyenas scrambled off to hide beneath Crane's bed, and a lab mouse, all ready a twitching bundle of whiskers and white fur, suffered a fatal heart attack. Harley cringed and drew herself up into a ball.
"You and your mangy mutts cost me my flower!" The Joker snarled. He stomped up the stairs.
Harley felt the Joker grab handfuls of her T-shit. He hauled her to her feet. Even once she was standing, he refused to let her go. Instead, the Joker shook the terrified woman.
"Well, Harley, what do you propose I do now? My flower is gone! I ought to-"The Joker said.
An ominous gurgling, like a geyser on the edge of eruption, came from the bathroom down the hall. The Joker unclenched his fists. He shoved Harley in the direction of the strange, bubbling noise.
"Go and see what that is." He ordered.
"But what if it's a gator, coming out of the sewer?" Harley asked.
"Gators don't eat clowns because they taste funny." The Joker replied.
Harley crept towards the bathroom. Just before she entered, she realized her feet were wet. The toilet was over-flowing. It hadn't been able to scarf down the Joker's shirt without choking up.
"Puddin', we need a plunger ASAP!" Harley called.
The Joker appeared at her side. "I have no idea where to find one."
"But you clogged up the toilet before. How did you un-clog it?" Harley asked.
"Spooky did it, remember? He was cursing at me the whole time, and I was rolling around on the floor and pointing at him. Toilets are always funny." The Joker said.
"They are always funny, aren't they? I guess that's why there's a million potty jokes. But, Mister J, what are we gonna do? I'm not reaching into the toilet, no way, now how." Harley said.
The clowns retreated from the bathroom. Neither of them knew where the Scarecrow kept his bathroom supplies. It was probably a wise thing, hiding the extra toilet paper from the Joker. He'd only throw it all over the house, and then run outside to do the same to the trees and shrubbery.
While the Joker and Harley wondered what to do about the slowly spreading flood, the toilet water began to trickle through the floor boards. On the first floor, in the area directly below the bathroom, puddles were starting to form. Unfortunately, the cocooned Jonathan Crane was lying in the center of one of these growing puddles. He was just having one of those days.
The Scarecrow was just coming back to consciousness. He was vaguely aware of his surroundings, but lucid on one very unpleasant fact. He was in pain damn near everywhere. His head felt like it was on the verge of imploding like the Kursk. His arm bore what felt like a nearly circular wound. His chest ached, and it felt like a 500 pound gorilla had been sitting on his back and eating bananas there.
As the world grew less black, Crane noticed a few other things. He was soaking wet, but he hadn't been taking a shower or playing in the rain. He hadn't played in the rain in almost 30 years.
Similarly water-related, there was a steady drip plinking directly onto his forehead. Was he undergoing Chinese water torture? Had he ever pissed off the Asian mob? Was water torture really as effective as the myths implied? Would it really drive him insane? Didn't the Mythbusters once do a show on water torture? What had Adam and that man with the walrus moustache discovered?
Before Crane could remember what bizarre experiment the Mythbusters had done in the name of science, he realized the water was now trickling faster. It was more like an April shower than the monotonous drop associated with water torture.
Crane opened his eyes. Immediately, droplets began splashing him. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision. Before his eyeballs could flood, he took stock of his situation. He was lying on the floor of his kitchen. The table had been moved three feet from its usual position. And the ceiling was crying.
"Wait. My ceiling is crying? Huh?" Crane asked. Normally, his inquisitive mind would have been racing, eager to explore why there was water dripping from the roof. Addled as he was, the Scarecrow could only form the most basic question.
The most obvious thing to do was to get up and investigate. However, when Crane tried this, he found he was unable. He couldn't even move his hands. When he failed to move his hand, he grew irate. He automatically assumed his hand had developed free will and was acting belligerent out of spite for all the nasty jobs he had made it perform over the years.
"What's going on here? Hand, come to me. I am the Master of Fear, and of hands, as well." Crane muttered. He was still fuzzy from the shock and subsequent fall down the stairs. That fuzziness manifested in a state close to drunken stupor.
The Scarecrow yanked his hands, only to have the shoelaces bite into his wrists. He swore in Italian. He had gotten frustrated at his hands for nothing. They had not evolved into sentient beings; they were just tied up.
"Damn it." Crane said. He tried to sit up, only to find this impossible as well. For some reason he couldn't quite remember, but could feel lurking at the very edge of his brain, his entire body was tied up. That normally only happened at Arkham, when he shouted about how he was the Master of Fear and Lord of Despair during the very early hours of the morning. He was not at Arkham and, judging from the sunlight pouring through the windows, it wasn't three hours until dawn.
The Scarecrow tilted his head down as far as he could. He discerned that he wasn't in a straightjacket, the typical fare of Arkham Asylum. Instead, he was wrapped from head to foot in sheets and duct tape. What kind of a lunatic would do such a thing?
Yes, what kind of lunatic? The same kind of lunatic who found shocking people unconscious great fun. The damned Joker. The bastard had also upset his house so badly it started weeping!
No, that didn't make any kind of sense. Houses couldn't cry, no matter what despicable acts the people who inhabited them committed. What kind of asinine crap had he been thinking?
What the Scarecrow had to do was stop thinking about Discovery Channel programs and weepy houses, and start figuring out how to get out of the cocoon. He hardly had room to wriggle. There was no way he was going to be able to free his hands; pulling only tightened the knots until they dug into his wrists and cut off all circulation.
Crane growled in frustration. There was no foreseeable way to extricate himself from the sheets. That left only outside help.
"Joker! I'm going to tear your lungs out, fry them in a wok, and choke you with them! You're going to die, clown!" The Scarecrow yelled.
Upstairs, the Joker and Harley were still arguing over what the best course of action to take over the regurgitating toilet was. The Joker believed the easiest thing to do was to just blow the whole thing up. Harley wanted to look around for the plunger before the high explosives were pulled out. After all, the house would be a great deal less bearable if it was filled with toilet water.
"I guess Johnny's up. That solves our problem then, doesn't it? He can take care of the toilet, and we can laugh at him for it. Maybe he can even earn his eighth strike." The Joker said.
Without waiting for Harley to respond, the Joker dashed downstairs. Harley didn't bother to follow. She didn't want to hear what sort of words would come pouring out of Professor Crane's mouth when he discovered the Joker had wrecked havoc on the plumbing again. Instead, she went to drag Bud and Lou from the Scarecrow's room so he'd have one less thing to be angry about.
The Joker waltzed through the living room, through the little archway that separated it from the kitchen, and came upon the Scarecrow. The second Crane caught sight of the Joker, he broke into a tirade filled with more swears than a rap album.
"Easy, Johnny-boy. If you don't calm down, you'll give yourself a stroke." The Joker said.
"I will not calm down! I have no reason to calm down. I…Why in the hell aren't you wearing a shirt?" Crane asked.
"That's what I'm here to tell you. My shirt was flushed like a dead fishy. But, the toilet wasn't hungry." The Joker said.
"What in the hell are you talking about? Spit it out!" The Scarecrow demanded.
"The toilet blocked up again."
"NO!"
"Afraid so. I'm not joking, for once." The Joker said.
The stream of curses Crane shouted would have made a nun faint and a sailor whistle in admiration. Harley clamped her hands over Bud's ears. Lou, who was still wedged securely under the bed, would just have to understand that even the professor had a limit.
By the time the Scarecrow stopped shouting, he had turned a color normally reserved for fire trucks and stop signs. He was struggling gamely, even bound as he was, to get at the Joker. Crane couldn't reach any higher than the clown's ankles, but he was prepared to bite like a terrier if he got the chance.
Before the furious Scarecrow could wiggle across the kitchen, the Joker flanked him. The psychotic clown went to the same kitchen drawers Harley had searched for markers and duct tape. While he opened one, Crane tried to get himself turned around, so he could face the Joker. It was about as easy as making a U-turn with a semi-truck on a single-lane road.
"Get out of there. Stop defiling my stuff." The Scarecrow demanded.
The Joker began to toss things from the drawer. A wooden spoon clattered to the floor. An assortment of plastic measuring spoons struck the Scarecrow and bounced off. The pizza-cutter, which hadn't been used since the Joker fixed the delivery boy with a permanent grin, nearly hit Crane in the face.
"Damn it! I told you to get out of that drawer! Joker, so help me, when I get out of this ridiculous mess, you're going to wish you'd camped out in a Dumpster." The Scarecrow shouted.
Just as Crane began another empty threat, the Joker slammed the door shut. The Scarecrow opened his mouth to complain about how the maniac abused his furniture, but closed it when he caught sight of what the Joker had pulled from the drawer.
"What we're you saying, Spooky?" The Joker inquired.
"Nothing at all."
For the self-proclaimed Master of Fear, he was pretty damn easy to scare. All the Joker had to do was flash the knife he had found among the less-fatal kitchen items, and the Scarecrow turned to Jell-O. It was as pathetic as it was funny.
The Joker crouched down at Crane's level. He made no motion to suggest he was about to use the knife, but the Scarecrow acted as though he had nearly been stabbed.
"I'm sorry. Listen, I can lighten up. I swear no more whining, kvetching, complaining, nothing. Just put the damn knife down." Crane said.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Johnny." The Joker said.
"Then do it quickly."
"I was planning to." The Joker replied.
The Scarecrow closed his eyes and tensed his body. He heard fabric tear and waited for the pain he was sure was coming. More fabric ripped, but the knife never grazed him. After a few seconds, Crane opened his eyes.
"What's the matter with you? Stop cutting my damned sheets! I only have one set, and I am not sleeping on a bare mattress!"
"I thought there was going to be a little less complaining." The Joker reminded him.
"I hope you get hit by a bus." Crane muttered darkly.
Undoing the roughly three miles of duct tape would have taken far too long. The Joker didn't have the patience, and the increasingly large puddle of toilet water gathering on the floor was only hurrying him along. When the bed sheets were weighed against getting that toilet unclogged, the scale swung in one direction.
Even duct tape, the God of amateur home repair, was no match for the Joker's knife. In hardly a blink, Crane was free. Unlike most people who have just been liberated, he wanted to wrap his hands around his liberator's neck and squeeze until the Joker turned the color of a Smurf.
"Ok. Now go and fix the toilet." The Joker said.
Crane got to his feet and scowled. "I have no desire to do so. You fed your clothes to it, you can fix it. The plunger's under the sink. Good luck."
"You'll fix it, or I'll do to your guts what I did to your bed sheets." The Joker warned.
The Scarecrow winced. He wanted to be opened up like an autopsy subject even less than he wanted to play in the toilet. Wishing a thousand painful deaths on the Joker, Crane retrieved the plunger from the cabinet under the kitchen sink.
The carpet around the bathroom was soaked thoroughly. Crane ignored the squish each footstep made. He also ignored the Joker's laughter.
Water was pouring out of the toilet. The bathroom was flooded enough to serve as a habitat for sea otters. It would take days to dry out completely.
"What a mess." Crane muttered. He crossed the bathroom floor and jammed the plunger into the loo.
After a lot of squelching and plunging, the toilet coughed up the remains of the Joker's shirt. The Scarecrow grabbed the soaking rag and threw it to the clown. Luckily, the squirting flower had remained in place. If not, there was a good chance the Joker would have forced Harley and the Scarecrow to go spelunking in the sewer for it.
"I'm through with toilets. I did not graduate college in record time so I could serve as your plumber. I don't care if you have to call Mario and Luigi. I am never doing that again." Crane said. He tossed the plunger to the floor and stormed out. He was going down to his lab, and he was going to brew some napalm.
"Your college education makes you too good for the rest of us, huh, Spooky? There's strike eight." The Joker called.
In a move of utter contempt, Crane gave the Joker the finger. He didn't care that it was the symbol of the uneducated malcontents. It just felt right.
"I don't think he's too happy, Puddin'." Harley said. In confirmation, the cellar door slammed.
"You think he's mad now, just wait until he sees where I left my underwear."
Mount Saint Helens erupted in the basement. The Joker threw back his head and laughed.
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Author's Notes: Quasi-immortal: A phrase at least as foolish as 'most unique'- Stephen King The Dark Tower VII
According to the Mythbusters experiment, Chinese water torture really makes you need to pee.
The Kursk was a Russian submarine that went down to Davy Jones's locker, taking all crew with it.