Sorry for the delay. I actually published another fanfic, so my mind was divided between two projects. Sigh. Now I know how Two-Face feels... On the bright side, if anyone likes the anime D. Gray-man, you've got something to read! If you're going 'that's what she wasted her ruddy time on?!' I cry your pardon forever.
Thanks for the reviews, and thanks for the understanding. Or, if you're angry with me over the delay, thanks for not beating me up.
Mad Scientist Sidekick: It certainly does depend on the medium. I just always see the Scarecrow as the comics show him. After all, I'm 5'8'', and I can't imagine being nearly equal in height to him.
SendMoreParamedics: No more thighs, but there's something else in this chapter for you.
111111111111111111
It felt like Borat's mentally disabled, violent brother was rattling and banging around inside his head. In the gray fugue state he was currently floating around in, that was the only appropriate simile Crane could come up with. The pain in his skull was so awful it was maddening, and nauseating. The Scarecrow didn't know if he was going to die, pass out into that beautiful oblivion, or just vomit all over his shoes. Of the three options, he was leaning towards desiring death.
"I'm going to hit him again."
"It didn't work the first time."
"I know; it was just great for my stress levels."
"That's what you say about blowin' up cop cars, settin' the chimps at the zoo free on kids, and stealin' candy from babies."
"Some people meditate, some pop pills, I make people laugh. Or destroy their personal property. Or kill a few innocent bystanders. It's a perfectly normal coping mechanism, Harley. Didn't you ever read about it in college?"
So the Joker was still hanging around, like a foot fungus that wouldn't be cured no matter what prescribed cream was rubbed on it. In that case, the Scarecrow stopped straddling the fence and cast his vote for never getting up again. Of course, just desiring to be dead didn't instantly stop a heart or short-circuit a nervous system. If it did, everyone on Earth would have been dead by their early teenage years.
"He just twitched. Maybe he's waking up!"
"Or maybe he's deep in REM sleep. Or maybe he's in a coma and he's never gonna get up again. Did you ever think about that, Mister J? What if he's bleedin' in his brain right now, and that twitch was somethin' important dying?"
The Joker shrugged his shoulders, a gesture the Scarecrow was oblivious to but which made Harley scowl. How inconsiderate could a guy get? Even if the Joker didn't really care if Crane's brain was hemorrhaging, he could at least pretend to give the tiniest damn.
"I've had enough of Sleeping Beauty's act. If he won't wake up, I'm getting the joy buzzer and frying him until he either kicks the bucket or gets his butt in gear."
Damn it all. Crane all ready felt like he'd gone 12 rounds with a T-rex, and now he was faced with either coming fully back to a conscious state or riding the lightning again. Both options were utter trash. Why couldn't he ever have one nice choice?
"No." The Scarecrow croaked. He sounded as pitiful as an old woman who'd fallen and couldn't get up.
The Clown Prince forgot all about his electrifying toy and hopped over to Crane. "Enjoy your sleep, Spooky? I hope so, because you've got a long night ahead of you."
Crane tried to raise his head to glare at the Joker, but his neck wouldn't support the weight of his head. He felt like a sunflower that had grown too large for its stalk. If he didn't even have the strength to move his head, any chance of escape was gone.
"Harley, get the toilet plunger." The Joker said.
"Stop clogging the toilet. The plumbing..." The Scarecrow's peep of a voice died and his mind went blank. What was plumbing, again? And why did the toilet keep clogging? He couldn't remember what a toilet plunger looked like, or why the Joker was got so giggly over it. Crane deduced he had the mother of all concussions. If he survived, he might have no choice but to limp to a hospital. If he could remember where any Gotham hospitals were located.
Harley handed over the toilet plunger, and the Joker grinned broadly at it. He poked Crane in the chest with it, gingerly at first and then hard enough to get annoying.
"Hey, Spooky, it's the attack of the killer toilet plunger. Are you afraid of it?"
Crane wearily looked at the plunger, which was suctioning at his shirt like the sucker of a Humboldt squid. It really was a ridiculous looking thing, made of pink rubber with a wooden handle sticking out of it like a stiff tail. Why on Earth would he be afraid of it?
Of course. When he was knocked out however long ago he was, there was nothing he wasn't afraid of. Bambi could probably have sent him into a screaming fit. While unconscious, his body must have processed the fear toxin and now he wasn't such a pitiful loon. The Joker didn't realize his victim was back to normal, so he was intent on carrying out his dastardly plan.
"Not scary." Crane said.
"Are you even looking, or are your eyes closed?" The clown asked.
"Eyes open." Crane replied. Lovely, he was able to string two words together and no more. That was all right. The most important phrases—not guilty, screw you, feed me, go die, Batman, I'm sane—were only two words long. Or was Batman a compound word?
"That is truly disappointing. Harley, find me something scarier. Where's that nerdy book you have? The one he scribbled all over." The Joker said.
Harley trotted over to the pile of randomly assorted junk the Joker hoped to scare Crane with. She grabbed the textbook, and gave it to Mister J. The clown opened it, flipped through a few pages, and finally shoved the book in the Scarecrow's face.
"Here's something scary, huh? Extensive research on, uh, that word has fifty syllables. This is starting to scare me." The Joker said.
How did the Joker survive so long being such a twit? The word he was stuck on—deionization—wasn't exactly rocket science. It was quite self-explanatory, even. The middling tenth grade chemistry dolt, hanging on to a C average, could probably define the term.
"Deionization, idiot. Taking the ions out of something, usually water." Crane said. He sounded more like someone who'd just had a portion of their larynx removed, instead of a professor amazed at his students' continued and astounding stupidity.
"This isn't scaring you, either? No, I guess it wouldn't. It's still too comforting for a nerd like you. Maybe if I burned some comic books… You keep your back issues of Wonder Woman around here somewhere?"
Crane had never been one for wishful thinking. He didn't sit around, wishing he could bring a city to its knees. He cooked up a batch of fear toxin that was dispersible by water and then he dumped it into the water supply. Right now, since he could only move his mouth, and his fingers and toes if he tried, Crane was forced to visualize like some New Age meditation nut all the truly sinister things he could be doing to the Joker. If his one imaginary plan involved a Light Saber, so be it.
"Well, are you back issues of Wonder Woman around here somewhere? Or do you have them in a safe deposit box at the First Bank of Gotham?" The Joker asked.
"I don't read Wonder Woman! I don't read comic books at all. I was reading and fully understanding The Catcher in the Rye by the time I was seven, though I had to read up in the attic so my lunatic grandmother wouldn't find out! I never had a comic book phase and the closest thing I have to a comic is the Watchmen graphic novel, so if you'd like to burn that be my guest!" The Scarecrow said.
"Touchy subject, I see. As much as I love destroying your things, I'll pass on the burning. The Comedian is very close to my heart, and I would hate to kill such a nihilistic harlequin hero." The Joker said.
Having used what sparse energy he had, Crane slumped down and was quiet. The world was spinning like a sadistic carnival ride there was no escape from. Right then, he didn't care if the Joker tried to burn him. Scarecrows had to be pretty flammable, after all, with their straw stuffing. He'd just go down like Johnny Cash, into a burning ring of fire and be rid of anymore of this 'living' crap.
"Come on, Spooky, don't pass out. I don't know why you're not crying like a little girl but there's got to be something here that scares you. Harley-pie, get that pizza cutter. If he isn't afraid of it now, he will be soon enough." The Joker said.
Harley retrieved the pizza cutter, but muttered the whole time about how Mister J was lazy and should do his own dirty work every now and then. The Joker patted her on the head as though she was a puppy that had fetched the slippers without eating one of them. Harley forgot all about her grumbling, and beamed at the contact.
Pizza cutters generally weren't sharp, right? Crane tried to remember if he had ever ran his finger over the cutting wheel, and couldn't come up with anything except the grisly fate of the last pizza delivery boy. He didn't expect the blade to be like a samurai sword; after all, kids could use them. If parents were paranoid over the dangers of heavy metal music, there was no way a deadly pizza cutter could slip through the safety net.
As though reading Crane's mind, the Joker ran one of his frighteningly pale and Voldemort-like fingers over the pizza cutter. He spun the little cutting wheel, and frowned. It was about as sharp as a stone after a river had run over it for a few millennia. The Joker could cause Crane more damage by throwing the pizza cutter at him than actually trying to slash him with it.
"Harley, this is a piece of crap."
"Mister J, I didn't make it. Someone gettin' paid ten cents an hour in China did. Tell Mao Zedong about it." Harley responded.
"Who?" The Joker asked.
"Come on, Mister J. If I know who Mao Zedong it, everybody has to." Harley said.
"I didn't know who Voldemort was, and Spooky seems to think everyone knows who he is. Stupid wizards." The Joker said.
"You'd have known too, Puddin', if you'd gone to the movies with me instead of plottin' all night. But no, killin' the Commissioner always comes first." Harley said.
"It wasn't the Commissioner, it was the Attorney General! I can take Gordon out anytime I want. I just don't want to, that's all." The Joker corrected.
"Attorney General, Commissioner, Vice President, yadda-yadda." Harley said.
Crane wished he had been born without ears. His head was all ready swirling like water going down a drain, and the last thing he needed was to hear these deranged lovers argue about Communist China, Harry Potter, and law enforcement agencies.
The Scarecrow was willing to do anything, including pierce his own eardrums, to stop the noise of bickering clowns. He didn't even know where he was seated at the moment, but he figured the floor would be further away from the voices. Maybe the sight of him sliding out of whatever chair he had been propped up in would be enough to get Harley and the Joker to shut their cavernous traps.
Forcing his hands to push against the chair, which was obviously made of wood and not the sofa, Crane managed to get to the edge of his seat. He doubted if the floor would be very welcoming, and he was too weak to brace his fall. Screw it. If knocking his head off the floor was going to be the straw that broke the camel's back and finally killed him, he wasn't going to protest.
A pair of hands, mercifully not pale spider hands, gently pushed on his shoulders. "Watch it, Professor. You were going overboard." Harley said.
"Thank you, child." The Scarecrow said. He tried to sound sarcastic. He failed.
"Yeah, the last thing you wanna do is crack your noggin again. Your brains might come leakin' out your ears or somethin' nasty like that." Harley said.
It was always sad to see a good mind go to waste. Harley, as a shrink, might have had talent. She was one of the few women who had been brave enough to try to unravel the twisted minds of Arkham Asylum's most deranged. Now she talked like the perfect New York stereotype and was the poster child of the dumb blonde. Being too close to the Joker for too long had obviously fried her brain cells, or forced them to commit suicide just to get away.
"If my brains haven't leaked out yet, I doubt if they're going to." The Scarecrow said.
Harley shrugged. "Mister J shot this guy once, and his brains leaked out his forehead. And one time he shot a donut instead of the cop that was eatin' it, and strawberry jelly splattered all over place. The cop thought he'd been shot and the jelly was his brains. Pretty fun, huh, Professor?"
"Only to a sadist, a title I don't apply to myself." Crane said.
The Joker laughed. "I remember that. Good times, good times."
Lovely. First they had been fighting over Red China and evil wizards, and now it was time for a trip down lunatic memory lane. Crane had ridden the short bus long enough; he wanted to get off.
"Where am I?" Crane asked, in an attempt to avoid having to hear about all the people the clownish twosome had slaughtered recently.
"In a chair." The Joker said.
"Where's the chair?" Crane asked.
"Under your butt." Harley said.
"I mean, where in the house is it?" the Scarecrow asked. He knew the Joker was giving him the run around, dodging the question like a veteran politician. Harley was probably just clueless.
"First floor, right underneath a light fixture, due east of a window and slightly south of a spider crawling across the floor." The Joker said.
"I'm going to kill myself." The Scarecrow moaned.
"Harley, go and get that spider! He's got to afraid of that. It's huge." The Joker said.
The spider had, up to that point in its few weeks of life, been content to sit in its web and drain the fluid out of whatever happened to become entangled there. Its web had recently been destroyed when the Joker threw one of his shoes through it. The homeless spider had been roaming around the house, searching for a new building site. One its way to a quiet little dark corner, it had the misfortune of choosing the wrong moment to cross the floor.
Harley looked over at the spider, which was unusually large for something not a tarantula or a Goliath bird-eating spider. "Mister J, it's got too many legs. I don't touch anything with more than six. It's got eight."
"But I want it." The Joker said.
"Then you get it. 'Sides, if it's poisonous and bites you, your arm won't turn black and fall off." Harley said.
The Joker approached the spider. It must have had some sort of spider sense that told it evil was heading its way. The arachnid put its eight appendages in gear and headed for the wall. Before it could escape, the clown had it trapped.
"Don't put that spider on me, you bastard." Crane snapped.
"Finally. I was beginning to think the toxin had worn off and I'd have to go find some more." The Joker said.
That nearly stopped Crane's heart dead in his chest. He could not, could not, handle another dose of fear toxin. It would kill him as surely as jumping off the highest building in Gotham straight into rush hour traffic would. He'd just have to pretend to be stupidly frightened of everything, at least until he recovered full use of his arms and legs.
"The itsy bitsy spider went on the Mop Man's head." The Joker sang in a voice that would have made dogs howl and chickens molt.
"I'm serious, keep that spider away from me!" The Scarecrow said.
"Come on, Spooky, why so serious? It's just a big, black, probably venomous spider. It's not that scary." The Joker said.
Forcing himself to reject what little pride he managed to hold on to, Crane squirmed in his chair. Of his many problems, arachnophobia was not one of them. Luckily, many of his test subjects had a mortal fear of creepy crawlies. He knew how someone with a spider phobia acted when the creatures came too near.
"I don't bloody like spiders! Get it away from me you psychotic son of a bitch!" Crane said.
"Leave my dear old Mum out of this." The Joker said.
The Clown Prince pitched his captive spider at the Scarecrow. Instead of missing him and landing on the floor, or landing his hair so he could shake it off, the universe—which now hated Crane with a burning passion—demanded the bug slide down his shirt. Eight spindly eggs scratched at his chest. The Scarecrow nearly pitched a fit.
The Scarecrow wriggled like a worm on a hook. The spider was scurrying around inside his shirt, looking desperately for either an exit or a particularly soft and vulnerable place to bite. Crane, for the first time in his life, was deathly afraid he was going to be nipped on the nipple.
"Spider in my shirt. Shit, there's a spider in my shirt!"
The universe, asides from being a sworn enemy of scarecrows, must have loved clowns. The Joker's day hit a new high the second the spider fell into Crane's shirt. This couldn't get any better.
It did get better! All the shaking and wiggling knocked the Scarecrow out of his chair. He hit the floor with a classic belly flop, and continued to squirm. The spider apparently hadn't been squashed in the fall, because Crane was still cursing at it.
Amid a violent torrent of words George Carlin loved dearly, Crane yelped. Just as he had feared, the spider had bitten him. Mercifully, it was not on the nipple.
"It bit me! Damn it, shit!"
Harley was finally kind enough to come to the rescue. She removed her sneaker and began to whack Crane with it. The first six blows struck only him. Finally, on the seventh, she squashed the spider.
The spider was reduced to a pile of green ooze. Harley stuck out her tongue in disgust. Bug guts were even grosser than human guts.
"Mister J, do you think that spider was poisonous?" Harley asked, still holding onto her shoe.
"Of course it was! All spiders are venomous; it's how they hunt! I don't what kind it was, shit, I never took entomology." Crane said.
"Me neither." Harley said.
"I don't even know if I went to school." The Joker said. Then he broke down in a laughing fit.
Crane found himself shaking like a California overpass during a quake. The tremors were partly from the pain brought on by knocking his abused body against the floor. Most of the shaking was pure rage. He had spent the entire day being tortured, and now spider venom from an unknown species was racing around his system. The Joker was laughing about. The Scarecrow was sick and tired of having his misery exploited.
"Stop laughing you bastard! I could be dying right now for all you know, and it's all your fault! I hope the Batman smashes your damn jaw into so many pieces you can never smile again. Then I hope Robin runs you over with the Batmobile! Then I hope Harley dumps you and runs off with the Hatter! I hope they have mad, passionate sex and she sends you pictures! And I hope you-"
It was quite hard to think up violent threats when your front door was kicked in by a man dressed as a bat.
11111111111111111111
Author's Notes:
That is going to be the last time I ever mention the Scarecrow's nipples, either. I seriously had to psych myself up to write that.
Borat's brother, Bilo, was kept in a cage. Watch the movie.
REM, or Rapid Eye Movement, is the sleep stage when dreaming occurs.
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, is one book everyone reads in high school. It's also one certain types of folks try year after year to ban. A certain level of maturity or worldly knowledge is necessary to get it.
Watchmen is one of the greatest graphic novels ever. I figure if Crane read one, he'd read that. The Comedian is exactly the way the Joker describes him. He's a nihilistic bastard who smokes cigars and shoots women.
The Johnny Cash song Crane refers to is Ring of Fire. Hunt down the lyrics for yourself.
Mao Zedong brought communism to China.
George Carlin is my favorite comedian, and famous for his act "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television".
PS: I don't intend to make you wait a month and some for the next chapter. Sorry, sorry, sorry again!