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Jonathan Crane could bear having all his food eaten; he never ate all that much, anyway. He could put up with the hyenas; they weren't exactly noble creatures, but they were house trained. If he grit his teeth until his gums bled, he could even, maybe, possibly, forget about the two toilet incidents. However, finding the Joker's polka-dotted unmentionables down in his lab was blasphemy of the highest degree and totally unforgivable. It was like burning an American flag, but multiplied a few million times.
The underwear, like everything the Joker wore, was purple and green. How the clown made such clashing, uncoordinated colors work together so seamlessly, Crane had no idea. Maybe an interior decorator or a gay man from one of those fashion magazines could shed some light on it. Of course, if a professional decorator or fashion critic strolled up to the Scarecrow to explain it at that moment, the hapless person would have been swiftly reduced to hamburger and goo.
The boxers were proudly displayed in the square center of Crane's desk. They were covering his recently filled notebook. That only rubbed salt in a wound that hurt bad enough on its own. Torturing the Scarecrow was one thing, but draping gaudy underpants over his precious hand-written data was a whole different matter.
Unable to contain his anger or express it with human words, Crane howled like the Beast of Bray Road. He no longer had the ability to endure the Joker's increasingly stupid and degenerate acts. It was time to act.
For starters, the Scarecrow was going to do something about those damned pants. He certainly wasn't going to touch them; he'd rather stick his hand into a green, glowing vat of toxic waste. Grimacing with disgust, Crane grabbed a pair of tongs and removed the offending underwear.
Before Crane could decide between burning, liquidating, or melting the underwear in acid, the cellar door swung open. The Joker wasn't done filling the Scarecrow's life with misery and woe.
"Hi, Johnny. I was just wondering if you've seen my undies. Harley and I had such a good time down here I just noticed they weren't where they're supposed to be. That is, under my pants, like their name suggests." The Joker said.
Harley and I had such a good time down here. The Scarecrow knew they hadn't been playing an energetic game of leap frog. The two insane clowns had been all over each other, and his lab equipment. Crane felt his skin crawl. He was going to need gallons of bleach before he would touch any of his beakers or test tubes.
"You didn't. Please, tell me you two didn't have sex down in my lab." Crane begged.
"I could tell you we didn't, but I'd be lying. Hey, you've got my under pants. Want to hand them over, Spooky?" The Joker asked.
Crane narrowed his eyes. "No, I'm not going to give them back."
"What're you going to do? You don't have the hips to wear them. They'd just fall right off your body." The Joker said.
"I'm not going to wear them! The mere thought makes me shiver. Who knows what kind of diseases you've contracted." The Scarecrow said.
Before the Joker could make any cracks about STDs, Crane strode across the basement, the boxers in tow. He reached a table laden with scientific instruments. The Scarecrow only had eyes for one thing: the Bunsen burner. Heat was notoriously good at destroying everything from viruses to the California hillsides. Now fire would be tested against Gotham's most infamous underwear.
"Don't you dare set my pants on fire." The Joker said.
"Why not? It'll be funny. I did say I was going to lighten up." With one hand, Crane lit the burner. Before the Joker could tackle him or grab something breakable to slam against his head, the Scarecrow dropped the boxers onto the little flame.
A Bunsen burner was far from a bonfire. The little spark of flame took nest on the pants, but expanded slowly. Before the underwear could really catch, the Joker had his hands wrapped around Crane's neck and was squeezing.
Strangling the Scarecrow was quite a bit like strangling a chicken. Both had such thin necks, and both made roughly the same noise. Of course, a chicken didn't try to dig its fingers into its attacker's eye sockets.
While the Joker tightened his hands and Crane thrashed desperately to breathe, the underwear was entirely consumed by flame. All the synthetic fibers in the pants created a thick cloud of black smoke. That smoke set off the smoke detectors. An annoying alarm began to sound.
Harley, who was upstairs and mopping some of the water from the drowned bathroom, dropped her mop. She ran down into the kitchen, nearly slipping in the puddle that had formed in the middle of the floor. Luckily, she knew exactly where Crane kept his fire extinguisher. After their last hideout went up in a nuclear fireball that set half the block alight, Harley was much keener on fire safety.
"The fire woman's on the way! Stop, drop and roll!" Harley yelled.
She descended the steps two at a time, clutching the CO2 fire extinguisher to her chest the way a football player would hold a ball. The air was smoky, but not so thick with it she couldn't see. Upon catching sight of what her Puddin' was doing to Professor Crane, Harley gasped.
"Mister J! Stop it, you're killin' him!" Harley cried.
"Don't worry, Harley-Bear. The killing's almost done. Stop wiggling, Spooky." The Joker said.
The Scarecrow was quickly approaching the clearing at the end of the path. Normally pale, he was taking on a disquieting blue tinge. His hands were twitching, but not much else moved.
"Cool it, Puddin'!" Harley said. Even when saving a life, the clown couldn't avoid a little pun. She pulled the pin from the fire extinguisher, aimed it not at the smoldering ashes that had once been a pair of boxers but at the Joker, and squeezed the handle.
A jet of freezing white foam coated the Joker, turning him into a snowman. Yelping at the sudden blizzard, the Joker leapt off the Scarecrow.
"Cold! Ah, cold!" The Joker exclaimed. He ran around the basement, shedding foam as he went.
Harley directed the fire extinguisher at the Bunsen burner. She extinguished the Joker's hot pants.
With the fire out, Harley had no reason to hold onto the extinguisher. She threw it down and ran to the Scarecrow's side. She didn't bother to even check for a pulse, or consciousness for that matter, before beginning desperate CPR.
Crane's eyes went wide went Harley's lips met his. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything like a romantic Lifetime movie moment. Harley blew into his mouth as though she was trying to inflate a very large balloon with one breath. It got even worse when she interlaced her hands and began to pound on his chest.
"One, two, three, four, five." Harley said to herself. She continued to pound on the Scarecrow's narrow chest.
"Stop, I'm fine. No more CPR." The Scarecrow said. His voice came out in little more than a peep. His throat felt so raw it was as though he had been snacking on salted razor blades.
Harley stopped her chest compressions and blushed furiously. "You weren't dyin' were you? Did I just make a goon out of myself?"
"Appreciate the effort." Crane squeaked.
There were three things the Joker believed warranted the use of a fire extinguisher: fire, Shriekers, and Predators. Two of those things didn't even exist outside of movies. He wasn't on fire; he had only been teaching Spooky a lesson he wouldn't have time to forget. Harley had no right to douse him in freezing white foam. As soon as he melted, he was going to have a very loud and painful talk with Harley and her pet geek.
"Mister J isn't gonna be too happy." Harley muttered.
"Bugger him with a hot iron." The Scarecrow replied. He then raised a hand to his throat. Hell, it hurt to talk.
Harley took hold of his hand and tried to yank him to his feet. Before she could get Crane up, the Joker, still resembling a Yeti, kicked her in the back of the knees. Harley landed on the floor next to the Scarecrow. The Scarecrow fell back on his butt, bruised his tailbone, and sat there.
"Puddin'! That wasn't nice." Harley whimpered.
The Joker was wearing a scowl so cold it could have ended global warming. Crane swallowed compulsively. He had a terrible vision of the clown disassembling him piece by piece like a broken machine. The Scarecrow was vaguely aware of Harley clutching his arm for support. He wasn't going to be able to offer much comfort. He was just as scared as she was.
"I have just one thing to say to the two of you." The Joker said.
"What?" Crane rasped.
"Strike nine."
"What?" The Scarecrow asked.
"You needed Harley of all people to rescue you. Do you know how pathetic that makes you? Bobby Fischer is manlier than you." The Joker said. He then burst into laughter. "The looks on your faces! It's priceless."
"You mean you ain't gonna kill us?" Harley asked.
"Not today. Well, probably not today. It's only three o'clock, after all." The Joker said.
"Shit." Crane said.
"I know what'll cheer you up, Spooky." The Joker said.
The Scarecrow shook his head. The Joker knew what would torment him, but the clown had probably never made anyone except his selfish self, and occasionally Harley, happy. He was about as good at bringing cheer as an outbreak of small pox would be.
"Yes I do. I know what makes everyone happy." The Clown Prince said.
A little light bulb of dim wattage began to flicker in the back of Crane's head. Something about the Joker's statement, and not just the obvious absurdity of the killer clown ever making anyone happy, tickled the Scarecrow in a bad way. He couldn't claim to have a nose for danger –after all, he had allowed the Joker into his home—but he was sure this wasn't going to end well.
"You're full of it. You wouldn't know what makes me happy; I don't even know what makes me happy half the time." The Scarecrow said. If he didn't stop all this talking, he was sure his abused throat was just going to cease working entirely. Then he'd have to spend the rest of his life like Nick Andros, writing everything on a piece of paper. That would be lovely. One day, he'd be fighting Batman (all right, getting utterly annihilated by the Bat) and he'd have to scribble about 60 notes, each reading 'ouch'.
The Joker was palming something. The horrible clown's right hand was gently clenching and relaxing, like he was playing with an overly fragile stress ball he was afraid of breaking. Scientists, like cops, had superior powers of observation. Though Crane didn't know what that stupid item was, or where the Joker had gotten it from, he knew he wanted no part of it.
"Just give me one minute. I swear I can put a smile on your face." The Joker said. Whatever he concealed in his hand was suddenly constricted tighter.
Harley, no longer clutching the Scarecrow's stick-figure arm, wanted to whack Professor Crane on the back of the head. Come on, how dense was he? She wasn't exactly Albert Einstein, and she knew her Puddin' was holding his recently salvaged flower. If Crane's brain didn't link some dendrites in a hurry, he was going to be wearing the last smile he'd ever smile.
Those dendrites finally did connect. The Scarecrow was a little slow when it came to puns and the Joker's sadistic sense of humor. Once he got the joke, however, he had no intention of laughing.
Crane's middle finger, only raised once at the Joker, was itching for more exercise. However, he fought off the urge to act like some antisocial teenager. It was survival time. There would be time to act belligerently later. He hoped.
"You pull that, the experiment fails. It would be the same as forfeiting a game. I can die with my mouth stretched back in the most hideous expression imaginable, but I'll die knowing I am not a nerd. I'll die knowing I won, even on a technicality." The Scarecrow said.
Well, Professor Crane was a goner. Harley sighed. He was a nice enough guy, he wasn't a mook, like some people, but nobody talked down the Joker. Nobody beat the Joker, either. Not on technicality, recount, or with Jeb Bush's help. The Bat might cart him back to Arkham, but that was only a temporary setback. Her Puddin' was eventually going to win it all. Poor Professor Crane was going to learn that.
"Spooky, do you even know how hokey that sounds? If they chiseled that speech on your tombstone, half the mourners would laugh, the other half would gag. If you were going for Mark Twain or anything with dignity or cojones, you failed. Want to try again, or should I just, uh, put you out of your dramatic misery?" The Joker asked.
"No, I'm done." The Scarecrow said. Bloody hell, he wished he had paid more attention during his poetry classes. Dying with T.S. Eliot or Ezra Pound on your lips, that was all right. Nobody, not even the barbarian in purple pinstripes, could shoot down Dickinson.
"Good. Any more of that and I would have fallen asleep." The Joker said.
The Joker brought his bright green flower up to the Scarecrow's eyes. Crane was deeply disappointed by the vehicle of his death sentence. It was a flower, a hippie symbol, something long-haired girls who didn't shave tucked behind their ears as they pranced around Charles Manson. It wasn't like an axe, or a knife, or a gun. At least traditional murder weapons had an ominous look, instead of petals.
The Clown Prince squeezed his trick flower. Instead of the cloud of toxic gas Crane had been expecting, he was showered with wet green and purple paper balls. Most of them got stuck in his hair like weird snowflakes.
"Oh… That was supposed to be confetti, not spit balls. I guess the toilet water got in. I'm not sure if the joke is ruined, or if it's enhanced. Let's say it was enhanced, all right?" Having decided that raining flakes of toilet-soaked paper on Crane was the funniest thing ever performed by mortal hands, the Joker doubled over with laughter.
The Scarecrow blinked in confusion. What in the hell was going on here? How did this make any sense? What kind of herb was the Joker smoking?
Harley, whose sense of humor was joined at the hip with her man's, also burst out laughing. She ended up on her back, slapping the floor. Crane was left even more bewildered.
"You don't get it, do you, Johnny? Something that puts a smile on everyone's face? " The Joker asked.
Crane scowled. "I am not the Riddler."
The Joker stopped laughing and crossed his arms. "Yeesh. Are you dead inside or something?"
"Come on, Professor Crane! You don't need to be a genius to get it. It's a good joke." Harley said.
"What's a good joke?"
Harley sighed in exasperation. "The answer, duh."
The Scarecrow was now baffled. He could look at the space shuttle schematics and make more sense of those than of the current situation.
"I know something that puts a smile on everyone's face. You obviously thought it was laughing gas. That works, too. But the answer we were going for was 'a good joke'. So sorry, thanks for playing, please try again." The Joker said.
"That's sick. Honest to God, whether he exists or not, that's sick." Crane said.
"No, his dead baby jokes are sick. I don't see what's wrong with playin' a little prank. I mean, Mister J's right. A good joke should make anybody happy." Harley said.
"Anyone with a sense of humor, that is. Johnny obviously hasn't got one. Is that another strike? Do nerds have a sense of humor?" The Joker asked.
"I think so, Mister J. Nerds haven't got very good senses of humor, but they still got them." Harley said.
"I thought I was going to die. How is anything supposed to be funny then?" Crane demanded.
The Joker shrugged. "I always wanted to die laughing. "
"Of course you do. Hell, I hope you don't die quickly. I hope you get to laugh a long time." The Scarecrow said.
"Spooky, if I was you, I'd shut up."
"I'm only saying I hope you get your wish and have months to enjoy it." Crane said. Sarcasm dripped from his words like melted ice cream.
Harley, having lived with the Joker for so long, had developed a kind of ESP. Spiderman had his Spider Sense, and Harley had what she called her Puddin' Sense. She could take one look at her Clown Prince and instantly tell how close he was to a violent outburst. Harley could also predict, with high accuracy, what kind of outburst it would be. Sometimes the Joker was more prone to beating, choking, cursing, dismembering, drowning, electrocuting, exploding, flattening, kicking, poisoning, shooting, slapping, squishing, stabbing, stomping and whacking. It all depended on what muscles twitched, how much he disliked the person he was contemplating the murder of, and how much fun each option would be.
Right now, judging by way the Joker was massacring his flower, he was contemplating how it would feel to snap every bone in the Scarecrow's hands. Crane, having lived with the demented clown only a week, had not discovered the best way to read the Joker's emotions. Harley supposed the Scarecrow's obvious lack of empathy wasn't doing him any favors. After all, how could a guy be expected to gauge feelings when he thought fear was just the best, most exciting thing under the sun?
Sure enough, the Joker pounced on the Scarecrow. Crane, knocked back to the floor, was ready this time. In classic Three Stooges fashion, the Scarecrow poked the Joker in the eyes.
Before it could escalate from Moe, Larry and Curly into World War III, Harley scurried over to the fire extinguisher. This time, she hosed both the Joker and Scarecrow. They immediately stopped whaling on each other and began to cry about how cold it was.
"All right, boys. I know it's real difficult for both of you, but it's time to be civil. Let's all go up stairs and clean up, kay?" Harley asked.
Covered in freezing carbon dioxide foam, and having no body fat to serve as any insulation whatsoever, Crane was only too happy to agree. The Joker, having no shirt to act as a buffer, was forced to do the same. However, he wasn't going to be civil about it.
"I get the downstairs bathroom. Johnny can wade through the toilet water. Ha." The Joker said triumphantly.
"I'll just go outside and use the garden hose. I don't care." Crane replied.
Scowling because he had not been given the last laugh, the Joker stomped up the stairs. Harley followed at a safe distance. Once both of them were up on the ground floor, the Scarecrow climbed out of the cellar, too.
A garden hose was not the best thing to take a very long shower with; its spray was icy cold, and designed to water tomatoes, not clean people. The Scarecrow had to wash off not just the foam, but whatever hideous things the Joker had drawn on his face in permanent marker. By the time Crane was satisfied that he had at least muted the marker, he was shivering from continued exposure to such glacial water. He was soaked for the third time in three hours. It was really time to change clothes. He had been putting it off for obvious reasons. Now, the Scarecrow had two choices: develop hypothermia or take his clothes off.
He was not looking forward to getting naked in the same house with the Joker. If not for public indecency laws and spying neighbors only too happy to call the police, he would have rather changed in the middle of the street.
Yes, he honestly did hate the Joker that much.
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Author's Notes: The Beast of Bray Road is supposedly either a werewolf or a dog-man from the dark woods of Wisconsin. There's no way to make that sound scary. Anyway, I'm assuming it howls.
Shriekers and Predators are both famous for seeing heat. In the films Tremors 2 & 3, fire extinguishers are used to block the Shriekers' vision.
Bobby Fischer was a world-famous chess player.
Nick Andros was a deaf-mute from The Stand. He had to write everything down.
The Jeb Bush comment is a dig at the 2000 Election. 9 years later, it still works.