Hello dears
This is probably the longest I've kept you waiting so far. I'm terribly sorry! I really don't have an excuse, except it took a long time to write and I've been distracted with everything life's been throwing at me lately. Plus my laptop broke. So that was fun. Anyway, I hope I haven't lost you all. We're REALLY close to the end. This is the second-to-last chapter of You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter, and you won't have to wait as long for the finale, I promise! It's bittersweet ending this story. But I have kind of an announcement, one that I'm pretty exited about: There will be a sequel! :) It should be cool. It includes alternate dimensions, an ORIGINAL crime spree (yay!), and some, ahem, new and familiar characters ;).
So yeah. If you can put up with me being the worst author ever, read please!
I feel like I have to tell you all how much I appreciate you. Really, I look at the amount of reviews this story has, what they say, and it makes me feel so blessed. I honestly never thought I'd ever write something that this many people read and enjoy (especially mediocre Joker fanfiction!). It's wonderful and I'm really lucky to hear from you if I hear from you. Otherwise I'm just lucky you're reading and ingesting my words, because you're giving me your time and that is more amazing than I can express. Getting to know some of you, if only slightly, has been the coolest experience ever. Thank you all so much; this story is nothing without its readers.
I want to say thank you especially to a few people who have literally reviewed almost every (if not EVERY) chapter I have posted, from the beginning, and who have been so influential. They take the time out of their lives to write me notes every time they read, and I haven't even personally thanked them. Manga Girl number 6, Laurenmlbc, mischeiflover and Scipio'sgirl I'm talking to you. You four have consistently rocked my world for more than a year and a half. Thank you so, so, SOOOOOOO much! I want to buy you all ice cream. You kick ass.
IMPORTANT!:
I decided to change the end of last chapter. I reread it and hate how melodramatic it is! I mean, fainting? For realz? I know she killed someone but, God, come on! :P
So I changed it. I'm the author. I am god. It is my prerogative. I simply omitted the last sentence—"Blackness crowded her vision, and the world went away." Jess does not faint. It's not really a big deal, I just thought I'd bring your attention to it. Thanks!
"I can't tell you what it really is
I can only tell you what it feels like
And right now it's a steel knife in my windpipe
I can't breathe but I still fight while I can fight
As long as the wrong feels right it's like I'm in flight
High off of love, drunk from my hate
It's like I'm huffing paint
And I love it, the more I suffer, I suffocate...
... Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
But that's alright because I like the way it hurts
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
But that's alright because I love the way you lie."
-"Love the Way You Lie" Eminem ft. Rhianna
"Come on and get the minimum
Before you open up your eyes
This army has so many hands to analyze
Come on and get your overdose
Collected at the borderlines
They wanna get up in your head
Cuz they know and so do I
The high road is hard to find."
-"The High Road" Broken Bells
Years might have passed, but Jess wouldn't have noticed. That corpse at the end of the lot—sprawled out, twisted oddly at the angles like a frail rag doll—cried for her attention, for every speck of concentration she could muster. She stared at it, curiously underwhelmed.
Drawing closer, she scarcely heard the bursts of noise behind her as the men who'd spilled through the door reacted to the scene before them; speaking between themselves, to the boss, maybe to her (Jess didn't have a thought to spare). She did think she heard Blake's voice, but the idea of turning around to check now seemed absolutely ludicrous. That body was waiting to be examined.
Her bullet had driven a neat little hole through the ex-person's left shoulder blade, and—if the black blood seeping across the gravel was any indication, winding its sluggish way between cracks, under rocks—it had exploded out of his chest shortly thereafter. She followed the scarlet trail with her eyes, noting with a subdued, almost numb interest the way Alex's body had landed – he'd fallen heavily to his knees and clumsily toppled forward, sprawled face-down, right arm crumpled under his body like a broken marionette. His left fist still clenched the gun he'd used to threaten her Joker.
Jess stopped a foot away from the carcass, eyes wandering over the back of its greasy head, feeling… What was she feeling?
Less… upset. More… vacant.
Resigned, maybe. Calm... not quite. She'd killed someone. The words echoed blankly in her head, absolutely factual—there was no escape from fact, there was no point in trying. The whole cycle of mourning that might've consumed her—denial, guilt, all of that—simply took too long.
It felt like something had snapped inside of her at the feel of the Glock going off in her hand, had broken at the crack of bullet leaving chamber and fallen away. There was a mild, electric, oddly heady sense of renewal, invigoration, some kind of freedom, like she'd sloughed off her skin and emerged different. A gargantuan burden seemed to have lifted from her shoulders; the taboo, in its execution, was gone, and she was… huh… she was fine. Jess didn't know what she had been expecting would happen if she took a life, but it seemed, really, that nothing did.
She was… she was actually kind of relieved.
And proud, there was that. That was nice, if not somewhat unexpected. She'd stepped up to the plate, taken the situation in her own hands and succeeded. That was key; she hadn't backed down. Her commitment had helped in a real way, made a big difference in the life of her boss! She'd killed the gangster because he'd threatened her chief. She'd killed him because she'd had to, because he needed to die. Who could blame her for that?
Not even she could blame herself.
The pride… that wasn't something she was used to feeling here. She'd contributed. She'd helped. She'd succeeded.
A man's life was over, but Jess was starting to see how that was par for the course.
The Joker was still standing where he had been, his hands now shoved deep in his pockets, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet much as he had earlier, after she'd unleashed her rage on that kid. (Had that really been Jess? Was this new person still Jess?) He was pleased, she could see that—satisfied would probably be a better word—and she allowed herself to watch him for a moment; he reached up to his forehead and touched the wet spatter of blood droplets that had sprayed him when Jess's bullet tore through the gangster. Sighing through his nose at the red smears on his fingers, he dug in his pocket and withdrew a handkerchief, dabbing all the blood he could feel from his face.
There were still light clusters of scarlet on his neck and shirt collar when he put the cloth away, but Jess didn't feel it was necessary to tell him that.
He'd orchestrated this—why was she still so surprised when he did that?—and it kind of pissed her off, if only for the consequence it might have had on her, the damage it might have done. As it was, of course, she didn't feel damaged, but there had been a huge risk that she could have! She knew how a normal person would react—how she should react—and, simply because she wasn't experiencing those specific emotions at the end of the day, it didn't mean he should have asked her to do this.
God, but when he turned to look at her and smiled, she melted a little.
She thawed to warm putty when he said, "Nice work, kid."
The rarity of his compliments certainly increased their significance, and Jess found an ear to ear grin on her face before she had time to keep it from happening. Quickly masking the grin with another glance of mild interest at the corpse—so as to maintain the appearance of control, though mostly for her own pride—Jess cleared her throat.
"I thought it would mean more," she said, absolutely truthfully, though she couldn't say she'd wanted it to. "To me, I mean. I kind of thought something like this would fuck me up somehow."
Blake and Keith chose this precise moment to arrive at their shoulders, two of the men who'd come out to investigate the gunshot. The other man, Tim, stood guard by the door to prevent an unwitting Russian's inadvertent discovery of their dead guy. No one else had followed, happily; she wasn't sure what the Russians would do once they found out their surrogate leader was deceased.
Jess was a little annoyed at Blake and Keith's approach. She knew Blake was trying to run damage control, and getting a report was sort of expected protocol. But the Joker wouldn't say anything revealing if the men were around, and she really wanted his thoughts on this.
"You okay over here?" Blake was concerned. His eyes bounced rapidly from Jess to the Joker, a crease between his brows, before his gaze traveled over the corpse and, finally, rested on the gun in Jess's hand. She followed his stare, and looked down to the weapon, slightly surprised to find her hand was shaking. It wouldn't stop, as much as she tried. She just kept shaking. Jess glanced back up to watch his expression harden significantly as he began to suspect what had happened.
"Just fine, Blakey," the Joker replied, smiling. "We took care of some issues that might've complicated things… No cause for alarm…"
Blake ripped his eyes from Jess's gun hand and nodded at the clown.
"If you say so, Boss," he said, running a hand over his hair. God, he was good. Blake rolled with every punch that came at him, and he knew how to play most of the cards he was dealt in his favor.
The Joker was pleased with this response as well. He clapped a hand once on Blake's back, a sure sign of approval.
"Alex was getting a, uh…" the boss glanced at the corpse and cracked his jaw, "a little big for his britches. Said some surprisingly stupid things," he raised his eyebrows at Jess for a moment, like she could back him up on this one. "He got cocky. Y'know, Blake, I thought we were supposed to run collateral to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen."
"Alex seemed harmless to me," Blake replied, and Keith nodded his accord.
"He threaten you, Boss?"
"He pointed a gun at me," the Joker faux-whined, a waver of laughter evident in his voice. "But… Jesster took care of that."
"Jesster, you shot him?" Keith asked, finally catching on, his eyes flicking like Blake's had to the gun in her hand. Jess found herself suddenly defensive, and grasped her quivering hand in irritation, feeling the urge to explain her actions.
"I had to!" she said, an unnatural edge in her voice. "He was legitimately trying to kill J." She determinedly holstered the piece and tried to flex away the trembling.
"He did seem pretty self-righteous," the Joker mused, idly tapping the corpse's head with one scuffed leather shoe.
Blake's hand had reflexively shot up to pinch the bridge of his nose in an expression of frustration at Jess's confession, but now he dropped it to his side, swallowing whatever he felt at the idea of her killing someone. He cleared his throat. He wasn't meeting her eye, she noticed. Not once, since arriving at her side.
"Okay. You want me to tell the Russians anything?"
"Tell 'em…" the Joker thought a moment, a hand raised mid-gesticulation. His eyes flicked up and he wrinkled his nose, taking the next moment to wave away what he had been about to say. "Uh, I'm as much a fan of elaboration as the next guy but," he giggled, "this was just fun. I think we oughta tell the truth. Hm?" Blake nodded, a smirk tugging at his mouth.
"Alex threatened you, Jess shot him. Got it."
"Good… Oh. And uh…" The Joker flicked his fingers, beckoning for Blake to lean closer. "Let's keep this quiet for the most part. We don't need any more conflict."
"Right," Blake replied. "I'll get some guys to take care of the stiff. How long until we move?"
The Joker furrowed his eyebrows, pulling his sleeve back and glancing at his bare wrist as though he usually wore a watch. Then his eyes darted to the sky, searching there for an approximate hour. Jess followed his gaze. She'd more than lost track of the time. It was still mostly light out… she figured it was around four or five.
"An hour," the boss stated. "Sixty minutes and we're driving away."
Blake and Keith both nodded, glancing at their not-imaginary watches, before they turned back to the warehouse. Blake didn't even glance at her again; the ice in his eyes wasn't difficult to see. So maybe he was upset with her. If so, he was being incredibly passive aggressive about it. If not, something else was wrong.
He hadn't seemed blatantly distressed by Jess's actions—hardly surprised, in fact—but the Blake she knew would have almost certainly shown more concern for her well-being. At the least he would have met her eyes, asked if she was okay. But he didn't, hadn't, had turned and walked away. Granted, the Joker was here and eager to speak with her but Blake's airiness bothered her, and she couldn't shake this growing measure of irritation with his apathy. He hadn't even spoken to her since leaving the shipyard.
Jess watched the men retreat for a long moment, starting to feel a little confused. What did this mean? Did this change anything for them? Did this change anything for her?
How could something so monumental seem so commonplace? How was Jess alright with this?
"Take a picture," the Joker's low voice came from behind her, a touch of annoyance licking at his tone. Jess had been staring at the door to the warehouse for a long time now, contemplating, but she immediately took a deep breath and turned back to him. Just like she always would.
He flashed a vicious grin when he had her full attention, still bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, and reached out for her to approach him, waggling his fingers slowly. She stepped forward, folding her arms around his narrow waist, and he let her, allowing her a much-needed moment of calm as he petted her hair with shaky hands.
"Did I do okay?" Jess asked, knowing she'd surpassed his expectations this time.
"A regular protégé," he replied lowly, only slightly sarcastic. He smacked his lips. "Like I said: you learn quick."
Jess smiled into his chest, absolutely content with this response, especially as his hands delved deeper into her hair, twisting and pulling gently. He seemed to just be enjoying the softness of her curls.
At Jess's smug grin, he caught hold of a chunk of her hair and tugged, pulling her head back. Jess tilted up her chin, baring her neck to him. He liked this display of submission, as evidenced by the intrigued darkening of his pupils, and he slid a slow finger down her neck, tracing the path intently with his eyes. Then he rested both hands on her shoulders.
"Now," he said, distancing their bodies a little, hands jumping with every syllable, "back to the question of the hour… Does, uh… does this," he motioned behind her, and Jess knew he was indicating the body, "make you feel fucked up?"
"No," she said, "but I think that must mean I am." The Joker snorted and rolled his eyes, derision clear.
"That's just what they want you to think," he said. Jess didn't have to ask who. She knew he meant the omnipresent They—the establishment, society, the Man; any one of those radical butt-hurt terms pathetic grumblers use. But They were a fact of life, even if They weren't literal, and when J spoke of them, she knew he had a point. "Normal, abnormal… They're just words. It's all subjective; can't be otherwise." He raised his eyebrows and Jess nodded. She was following him. Reality itself was subjective, and he was referring to being labeled, something he, of all people, couldn't be. "So, Jesster," he gripped her shoulders, eye contact significant, "just because whatever's in your head isn't exactly what they want it to be, doesn't mean it's what it shouldn't be. You're starting to see that. You're just not betraying the way things are." He tilted his chin down, and the way his dark eyes bore up at her—so unwavering, so sure—deepened her certainty that she was hearing the truth. When next he spoke, his voice was softer, cracking a little. "Being yourself… you can't tell me that's fucked up."
"Is that what you do?" Jess said, wanting some common ground. She'd be able to understand more clearly. "Be yourself?"
"I do what I want to do," the Joker replied. "It's the same thing."
"And right and wrong are subjective."
"Uh huh."
"So… there's no sin in this?" Jess turned to look at the corpse, eyebrows furrowed. "I didn't do anything wrong?" The Joker regarded her silently for a moment, eyes lidded, expression flat.
"Sin?" he asked, as though he couldn't quite believe he'd heard the word come out of her mouth. He smacked his lips contemptuously. "Listen, Jesster, what did you lose by doing this?" He licked his lips and waved a hand, modifying the question, "Besides whatever purity you like to imagine you were born with." His scorn was palpable. Jess turned back to glare at him.
"I'm well past thoughts of inherent purity," she said icily, "so don't say it like that. I was just thinking…" Suddenly, his hand was around her throat—not hard, not enough to disrupt her breathing—and he pulled her towards him by it, bringing their faces close together, meeting her eyes.
"You're not answering my question," the Joker intoned, with that quiet, sing-song tenor that warned her to watch what she said very closely. Jess inhaled shakily.
"Nothing," she whispered. "I didn't lose anything."
"Right," he agreed, removing his hand, eyes flicking left and right. "And, uh, what did you gain?"
"You," Jess said, and the corner of his mouth twitched into a sneer. He didn't like that answer. "Your life, I mean. You're still alive."
"And we both know you're all… concerned about keeping me that way," he said. He leaned back and clapped his hands right in Jess's face. "So. We've weighed the pros and cons."
"Not for Alex," Jess said, wanting him to fill this hole in his logic, if only for her own peace of mind. The Joker stared at her for a long second after she said his name, then looked at the corpse and realized that was who she was referring to. As soon as comprehension dawned, he erupted into high pitched, contemptuous laughter, staring her right in the eyes—and Jess had probably never felt more foolish.
"The stiff?" the Joker howled, wheezing as his fingers gripped her shoulders tightly. His red slicked lips stretched over yellowed teeth and his body shook with hysterical convulsions, as if her thoughts of Alex's well-being were simply ridiculous. Which, perhaps, they were. "What…" he paused to crack up anew. "What exactly do Alex's options have to do with you? He doesn't have pros and cons anymore!"
Jess opened her mouth to argue, but he was talking over her before she could get a word in.
"It's a dog eat dog world," he told her, serious suddenly, pointing at her to accentuate his argument. "You oughta look out for yourself… Forget all the other little… rats in the race."
"You're mixing metaphors," Jess whispered, because it was all she could think to say. The Joker sent her a withering glance, smacked his lips and looked away, eyes darting, distracted by all the miniscule details of the parking lot Jess couldn't and wouldn't notice.
"Y'know," he turned back to her, thoughts scattered, gesturing around at the area in general, "this place would make a great execution yard. Flat stretch of ground, big brick firing wall…" He nodded. "All we need now are a couple of rifles."
"Joker," Jess said, trying to regain his attention.
"Hm?"
She looked at him for a long moment, trying to figure out what to say, what she wanted him to say. But really, he'd given his advice. There wasn't much else for him to tell her. Jess blew out her lips and put her hand to her forehead, exasperated, especially when his expression went flat.
"Jesster," he growled, "what?" Jess sighed. The best thing to do, she decided, was to put Alex out of her mind. The Joker was right. When given the choice between herself and an arrogant nobody gangster, she'd chosen herself. Well, really, she'd chosen the Joker. But the fact was, the ex-gangster no longer mattered. She couldn't start blaming anyone. It was done. What she really needed was a hug.
"I think this would make a good execution yard, too," she said, swallowing her desire to reignite the conversation. The Joker looked mildly appeased and surprised at her comment. Jess groaned and stamped her foot, not giving him a chance to reply.
"Will you just kiss me now?"
His eyebrows popped up at this, and his lips curled back—she couldn't be sure whether it was a sneer or something slightly less scathing. He looked side to side, then behind him, his fingers toying with the tie at his neck.
"Uh, that's kind of…" Jess was getting frustrated with his mocking. She stepped towards him and the corner of his mouth rose. "Kind of forward of you, Jess. Don't you girls have, like, cooties?"
Jess reached out to try to pluck his hand away from where it fiddled with his necktie, but he slapped her away, giggling his delighted closed-mouth giggle. Pursing her lips, she grabbed the front of his vest in her fist, and his laugh grew breathy as he looked down at her clenched hand. She pulled, and he took a patronizing step forward, smiling, his hips tilted toward her. He seemed intrigued, gratified. Jess had to wonder whether he liked her submissive or brazen best.
"No, no, no," he said, "don't touch me. I'll get infected."
"God, are you always this difficult or is it just me?"
His responding giggle was muffled as she pressed her mouth against his, tasting greasepaint, a swell of satisfaction rising when his arms wrapped themselves around her waist, by now so familiar it felt as if they were melded. Jess reflected that they had always clicked together—the first time he'd held her, she'd noticed it—like pieces of a puzzle. She was just the right height to tuck her head under his chin if he stood up straight (though he never did), and he was larger than her without being too large.
She didn't think she'd ever stop appreciating the feel of his solid chest, or the hard angles of his hipbones. He was so skinny, but so warm—she could feel every twitch and jump of his muscles, every shudder, every tensing. Jess buried her fingers in his stringy curls, loving the rather unpleasantly greasy texture because it was his. There was nothing revolting about him anymore; Jess didn't see why she'd ever thought there was. He was a perfectly vibrating mass of energy, divine, influential.
It was a rush, being wanted by something that powerful.
She'd been so blind. It made her cringe, thinking back to when she'd first come to Gotham. How she'd embarrassed herself…
And then, right in the middle of that thought, right as the Joker's tongue slipped between her lips and their kiss deepened, Jess felt it.
It started at the base of her spine, very soft, very mild, akin to the shiver you get when someone runs a finger along a cluster of nerves. It spread up her back, made the hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end, made her clench her fingers into the Joker's arm. The air was suddenly electric around them and—was it just her imagination?—his fervor intensified; he forced her head back and kissed her harder, hands roaming along her body. The atmosphere felt tense, on edge, almost off-balance, as though they were careening down a hill in a brakeless car, their pace growing steadily. What the hell is happening?
It made it impossible to stop kissing him, though she wanted to break away and ask what was going on. This was not normal—it was too… tangible, too unmistakably abnormal to be her imagination. Perhaps an electric storm was in the works? Thunder and lightning brewing?
The clear sky shot down that hypothesis.
His fingers dug into her back painfully—he was rocking back and forth, bouncing up and down, shifting her endlessly in his arms like he couldn't find a comfortable position. She linked her arms around his neck and closed her eyes, kind of hoping the rush of energy would end. It was frantic and violent; frightening. Jess wondered if the Twenty were feeling it too. This wasn't something born of the kiss she was engaged in; this was something bigger, far beyond that… universal, even.
She didn't know how she knew that, but she did.
The electric surge—for absolute lack of a better term—peaked, driving the Joker into frenzy. Jess was turned around suddenly and slammed into the bus—a position that was turning out to be unreasonably familiar—and she felt a stirring of fear as she wondered exactly how far this was going to go. It felt so out of control and she didn't know why. He wasn't being particularly rough or forceful. It wasn't him.
And, just like that, the rush of energy left. Jess felt it fall away as quickly as it had seized them and the Joker, though he did not relinquish her mouth, relaxed significantly. His fingers stopped pressing into her flesh and his body inched away, leaving space when before he'd pushed against her as fully as he could. His intense, biting kisses faded to lazy grazes, sucking softly on her lower lip before he pulled away. For a moment, his dark stare bore into hers, their faces half an inch apart, and he smiled slowly, eyes lidded. Jess inhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.
"What was that?" she whispered. The Joker's broad, sudden grin told her he knew exactly what she was talking about.
Instead of giving her a straight answer, however, he said, "That was kissing." She glared at him, and he shrugged, straightening and running a hand through his hair. "You asked for it." Jess opened her mouth, but his gloved hand shot forward, covering from her nose down with his broad palm and long fingers. He gave her a very significant—yet inscrutable—look for a long moment. "You talk too much," he said, then dropped his hand and turned around, heading for the building. "Come on. Inside."
Jess followed him slowly, pausing only once to look at the corpse—which, now, somehow, seemed so inconsequential—before she pushed through the warehouse door.
"…fucked by Zeus? Any way you look at it, your ass is gettin' struck by lightning."
Know, then, the words Jess was greeted with upon approaching a knot of men near the hostages. The group erupted into rowdy laughter at this, and Jess stood there a moment, bemused, unable keep an uncomprehending giggle from escaping. She reached up as she laughed to touch Blake's thick arm—he was standing with his back to her, hands on his hips, guffawing heartily. As soon as her fingers brushed his skin he turned to her, still chuckling deeply. His smile faltered for half a second when their eyes met, but he forced it back and made eye contact, acting very casual.
"Hey, princess," he said. Jess searched his gaze for a real reaction and found some kind of hidden emotion, but it could have been anything. His smile could mask so much.
So she grinned back and leaned against his shoulder, folding herself into the circle, noticing for the first time that three of the seven men were from the Chechen's gang. She wondered fleetingly if slicked hair was really fashionable here or something. These men liked their grease.
"It's good you're here, actually. I want to introduce you to some of our new colleagues." Blake motioned at the Russians, the look on his face revealing that his first impression of them was good. They looked pleasant enough, and one of them reached forward for her hand, his shake firm and warm. Jess felt a pang of guilt, secrecy—she wondered how they'd react if they knew she'd just killed Alex.
"Pleasure to meet you Jess," the gangster said. "I'm Sid." Jess noted his slick black ponytail and nicotine stained fingers, almost all of which bore thick, elaborate rings. Classic.
"You already know my name," she said. "Neat trick." She heard the sarcasm as the words were coming out of her mouth and wondered when it had become so easy to maintain control and confidence. She didn't really feel intimidated by these gun-wielding men, though she once would have. Sid's mouth twitched and he shrugged.
"Oh, yeah," he replied, his smile a little uneasy. "Your reputation precedes you." Jess grinned at that. She liked this guy already. "This is Benny," he said, motioning to the man on his left. Jess shook hands, watching the thick ropes of muscle along Benny's beefy forearms. His smile was as crooked as his nose, which looked as though it had been broken at least three times, and he wore a golden hoop through one of his ears. "And this is Marshal—we just call him Fry."
Fry was probably the best looking guy Jess had encountered in Gotham. He was tall, slender and impeccably dressed in a tailored grey suit which matched his ice-cool eyes. His dark brown hair fell in soft waves to the nape of his neck and he'd pushed it carelessly away from his brow so that a single tousled tendril framed the defined contours of his face.
Jess stared at him for a long time as she shook his hand, a little surprised; she hadn't had such a pleasantly strong reaction to a guy since meeting the Joker. But, for some reason, now it felt different. Her lack of self-consciousness was positively striking—she found herself approaching him as though she had the upper hand by default, even though he was clearly better looking than her. But she felt wanted immediately, even though his smile was nonchalant, as though he wasn't out of her league. As though he'd be lucky to have her.
"Fry," she said, nodding. "You'll have to explain that one." His chuckle was low and smooth.
"Long story," he replied. "I'll tell it to you sometime."
"Looking forward to it," she said, not wanting it to sound as flirtatious as it did. It was terrible to even entertain notions concerning this guy… Too dangerous for everyone involved. But the words had popped out in a teasing tone that wasn't exactly subtle.
Fry leaned back and smiled, giving nothing away, but Jess didn't miss the way Blake's eyebrows shot up his forehead. She leaned into him slowly, pretending nothing was the matter, and dug her fingers into his back, as silent and clear a "don't say a goddamn word" as she could give him. He coughed and shifted away from her, focusing back on Sid.
"Uh," Blake said, stiffly reaching up to put his arm around Jess and squeeze her shoulder with his fingertips, "so now you can tell the other guys you've met her, and she's chill, right?"
Sid glanced at her and Jess caught a look in his glittering black eyes—wariness, uncertainty. By the hard edge to Blake's voice—as though this was a subtly issued order—it seemed as though Sid didn't really have a choice in the matter. He clearly had not made up his mind himself that she was "chill," but Blake wanted him to say it.
"Oh," Sid said, "sure, yeah, I can do that for youse, Blake. Little thing like her's not a danger to nobody." He didn't even try to say it with conviction, though why he'd think she was a threat was beyond her… Unless… Did he know about Alex? Already?
"Right," Blake said. "Good. Thanks. Jess, I need to talk…"
"Sid!" Someone was heading towards them from the front door, fast. Jess could see the urgency in his body language from here, and when he got closer she noticed his whitened face and wide, angry eyes. Blake tensed as the man approached, pulling her into him, watching him with suspicion. "You hear about Alex?" he demanded, eyes focused solely on Sid.
Jess went cold and immediately tense, watching him closely, wondering what he was going to do. He was visibly shaken, upset; she hoped this wouldn't go badly.
Sid opened his mouth to answer, but the man read the yes in his expression before he could and put a fist—clenched tightly around a gun—to his forehead.
"What the fuck, man?" he said. "What are we gonna-"
At this point, he noticed Jess.
"You!" he exclaimed, rounding on her. Jess shrunk back as Blake puffed up, forcing her behind him, using his height to tower over the Russian, who faltered a little in his pursuit. He gestured at her with the gun, blatantly threatening. "This little bitch is-"
"Hey," Sid clapped a hand on his guy's shoulder, hard enough that the man flinched, and pulled him back. "Calm yourself, alright? The girl is chill. Don't worry about her."
"You fuckin' kidding me? She-"
"Hey," It snapped out of Sid's mouth with so much authority the man shrank under his gaze. "I said leave it, alright?" He pulled him towards him, voice lowering as he gave him an extremely significant look. "You'll get yourself killed."
The Russian relaxed slightly and broke away from Sid, turning to look at Jess for a moment with hard eyes. The threat there wasn't difficult to read. A wave of fear broke over her; maybe this whole thing had more ramifications than she thought.
He stalked away and Jess let out a shaky breath, only slightly comforted by Blake's arm around her. Sid glanced at her, apologetic, and turned to leave the awkward situation.
Blake steered her away to a set of grated metal stairs which led up to the warehouse's second level—a series of railed walkways that wound around the perimeter of the room. They were out of earshot and barely noticeable up here, and that fact made Jess a little anxious as Blake turned to her, hands on her shoulders. He didn't speak for a long moment; now he was trying to maintain eye contact, which she was the one to evade as she looked down to the people at ground level. When the silence stretched on, she gestured in Sid's direction.
"The fuck was that?" she asked mildly. Blake followed her gaze, and as he looked out over the warehouse, Jess examined him. She noticed for the first time the dark circles under his eyes, the white pallor of his face. He looked… troubled, deeply troubled. She reached up and put a hand on his.
"Are you alright?" he demanded, turning back to her quickly, as though he was rushing to get the words out. "Just… just tell me you're alright after that. I gotta know. Tell me you haven't gone back in your head or anything. I've seen guys do that, more than once, after they… when they first…"
"Blake…" Jess said, completely softened by his concern. She found his eyes, tentative to meet her gaze, and smiled gently in a way she hoped would ease her fears. "I'm fine. Totally fine. I swear." He searched her eyes for a moment.
"You sure?"
"Yeah. I swear." Blake took his hands from her, letting out a deep breath and closing his eyes in clear relief.
"Okay," he sighed. "That's all I needed to hear."
Jess was glad she'd been able to mollify him. She smiled, but when next he met her eye there was something disturbing about his expression. It was kind of a familiar look, wolfish, one she'd only seen once or twice on his face, and it made her uneasy. She tensed, regarding him for a moment, but he didn't move, didn't say anything. His facial expression didn't even flicker—he wasn't hiding the fact that there was some kind of dark thought going through his head. Jess frowned, but had no idea how to mention something like this. She was afraid to.
"Okay…" she said, still staring at him. "Let's go then." Blake nodded, looking grim. Jess stood for a moment longer, regarding him as one might watch a coiled snake; she wondered whether he could see the lack of trust in her eyes. But he made no move against her—when had this become a worry? He was being so weird!—and she turned to head down the stairs.
She almost expected it. When it happened, she could look back and immediately see it coming. The only reason she'd turned her back on him in the first place had been because he was Blake, but his behavior had been a clear warning, almost intentional. Jess had always overestimated the loyalty of those close to her; from now on, she promised herself in the instant she hit the floor, she would never do so again. You couldn't trust anyone.
The crack of the gun handle against her skull probably was not as heavy a blow as it felt, though Jess wouldn't have been surprised if her head was split in two. It hurt so badly at first that she couldn't make a noise as her legs gave out and she tumbled to the grated floor, hands gripping her hair, weak against the screaming pain. She couldn't see straight; it felt as though the pistol whip had obliterated her inner ear, and her vision was swimming worse than when it was clouded with alcohol. She probably couldn't have gotten up without falling over. Instead, Jess rolled onto her side, let out a pitiful gasp, half a moan, and started to cry despite herself.
Only a tear or two eeked out before she heard Blake hiss "shit" and his face swam in and out of her line of sight.
"Sorry about that, Jess," he whispered, a deep well of sincerity in his voice. "And this." Jess willed her limbs into motion and flailed for a second—completely disoriented and distracted by pain—before she felt him move. She didn't even see his arm go up, but a second before the goddamn handle of that fucking gun smashed into her temple she felt his shadow move over her.
And so Blake made Jessica bleed for the first time.
Jess sat in the old wooden chair, a single lamp hanging over her head, and quietly surveyed her surroundings—everything sterile white, the fluorescent glow garish and pristine. A long metal table occupied one corner, but otherwise the room was empty, boring. She was sure, though she didn't know why, that making noise would be a very bad thing, given this situation. Rising from the chair didn't occur to her for another moment, but upon trying she found she was simply unable to. That was disturbing, because whatever was coming into this room next had a lot of power over her, especially like this.
Straitjackets were rather binding, she thought. She wished she could move her arms, but the coarse fabric prevented any range of motion more strenuous than shrugging. It cut into her at odd places on her back and arms, but that was likely part of the torture—a special straitjacket that actually pained its victim. J would like that idea.
"Why are you here?" The voice was coming from behind her, low and smooth and masculine. Jess turned and noticed a tall man in the opposite corner, wearing a grey suit, too-long hair falling to his shoulders in dark ringlets. His appearance was wholly commonplace; there was nothing about him more interesting than the rest of the drab chamber.
"I signed up for this," she replied as truthfully as she could. The man nodded, coming forward.
"When was that?"
Jess thought. Timelines seemed irrelevant.
"I don't remember… I was very young." The man in the grey suit turned to look around the room with clear distaste. He approached the metal table, skimming long fingers across the cool surface, gazing into it as though it was a looking glass.
"A shitty place to spend the rest of your life," he remarked. Jess shrugged, the straitjacket somehow managing to dig into her wrists.
"I like it," she said, looking toward a window in the corner, one she hadn't noticed before. "I don't mind." Her eyes fixed on the stream of sunlight coming through, the only thing visible through the pane, and took a moment to bask in it. The illumination overwhelmed her retinas, filling them with white sunshine. She hadn't noticed the sun in a long time…
Her concentration broke after who-knows-how-long and Jess snapped back into reality, turning abruptly to look at the white chamber. It had darkened significantly since she'd been staring out the window—that light, too, had retreated the moment she took her eyes off it—and now long shadows stretched across the floor. The room was filled with uneasy foreboding, its air stagnant and stale, and there was something decidedly less sterile, less pristine about it now. A layer of dust, she saw, had crept over the metal table, and the walls were stained with mold and the grime of neglect.
A keen whine filled the air, almost quiet enough to be ignorable, almost high enough to be unbearable.
The man in the grey suit was gone.
Jess stood, finding she was free of the straitjacket. Escape had never looked so good; this place really gave her the creeps. At the door she paused and looked back at the chair in which she'd sat. A dark, oily stain coated it and the floor under it, greasy, sluggishly unfurling at its edges. Jess wondered if she had tainted the chair, or if it had been contaminated long before her. She didn't think it mattered.
The darkness of the hallway beyond was not enough to hide the damage done by years of abandonment, by the vile entities that haunted this place. Shadows saturated the very walls, and when they wrapped Jess in their obscurity she could almost hear the distant wails of tortured memories.
Images flashed through her mind, lending her unprecedented insight into the cause behind the atmosphere. She saw pale, sickly, absent faces wearing hysterical grins; a man with a burlap sack over his head jabbing rusty needles into his own arms; a padded white cell where one man chewed furiously on the head of another; a young boy bringing supper to a disturbed, delirious mother and finding she'd slit her wrists in bed…
"I see it! And it is a bat! A bat!"
She didn't know where the voice had come from, but it didn't matter very much. She had to find the clock tower. It was very important that she do so, and she knew it was somewhere in the asylum. She started down the hallway, heart pounding, noticing the ludicrous height of the magnificent arched ceiling, the way the darkness pooled around the top as though incubating, growing, evolving. The lushly papered walls on either side were peeling in long strips, black mold eating along the edges. She must have been in a visitor's corridor. Patient hallways weren't papered.
The hallway split, one fork swallowed by impenetrable darkness a few yards ahead, the other leading to a set of wide double security doors, metal, fortified windows set at eye level. Jess headed for them immediately, steered along without knowing why, and gripped the huge, rusting handle. The doors pulled open with the squealing click of a corroded latch, exposing the shadows beyond, which were accompanied by a rank smell, akin to something rotten slowly burning. It was the scent of the patient corridors, of years of grief and madness, of feces and blood and sickly sweat. Jess stepped into it, the door closing behind her, and immediately felt the immensity of the long maze of hallways and passages and cells, twisting and rambling, multistoried, highly ordered yet highly disorienting.
There were three paths ahead, two going off to the right and left, one leading straight into a rickety old lift. Without pausing to even consider her choices, Jess headed right for the dangerous elevator, the gate of which was rusted to black and red grime. She was drawn towards it, like a needle to a magnet, the promise of where it might take her too much to refuse, its menace only making it more appealing. She had to get to the clock tower, and she knew it was somewhere on the floors above.
The elevator's gears squealed to life when she prodded the call button, and a huge platform descended slowly, coming to a shuddering halt behind the gate, which jangled apart to let her through. Jess stepped inside and looked towards the control panel, which had misplaced nearly every one of its buttons. The only one still functioning, big and black on the very top row, was the button for floor nine. She jammed her finger into it and the elevator doors rattled close.
When the lift shuddered to a stop and the gate clanged open, Jess was faced with an ominous sight: a huge rectangular hole in the wall where another set of security doors had been ripped off their hinges. One of the doors lay in a crumpled heap in the threshold, the very metal torn like a sheet of paper. The other door was long gone.
There was a sign over this foreboding entrance, stained with grime and who knows what else, grandly announcing the name of this wing: High Security Ward. Somewhere down the hall, from the dark that overwhelmed everything, high-pitched, crazed laughter rang forth, disturbed and unnerving. Soon more voices joined in, talking or singing or yelling but mostly laughing; chains began to rattle; pounding started, from many different directions, as though people were beating at the walls. Chaos mounted, and over it all a new laugh rose, echoing through the space, its tone and quality instantly recognizable.
Jess sprinted towards it as soon as she realized what it was, forgetting whatever hesitancy had had her waiting before the doors. The blackness of the hall surrounded her, and when she finally came upon the cells they were so brightly lit she had to shield her eyes. She peered through the wide, grimy security windows at the patients therein, surrounded by high white walls and bare furniture.
The first held an old man strapped to a gurney, wrapped in a straitjacket, muttering to himself, his eyes wide with fear.
In the next, something huge stood with its scaly back to her, vaguely human, its skin a mottled yellow-green, over nine feet tall and built of solid muscle. It didn't turn to look at her, but she could hear it growling.
Next she came across a bony, naked form in the fetal position, deep etchings of what appeared to be tally-marks covering his body. He looked up as soon as she was level with his cell and smiled, showing his blackened gums.
"I have a spot for you, too," he croaked at her. Jess didn't know how she could hear him from behind security glass, but she could. "A special spot, all for you. Want to see it?" He stretched out his left hand and presented his palm, which was unscarred and tally-less. Jess moved on quickly. She could still hear her target giggling from somewhere up ahead.
It took five more seconds to locate him, and she halted quickly before his glass to peer inside as one might peer at a lion in the zoo. He was sitting on his bed, back hunched and feet planted wide apart, watching her as closely as she watched him. He looked thinner, too thin, and his usually curly hair hung in lank, pitiful waves. His makeup was smeared badly, but when his eyes found hers they were still full of that old fiery intensity, and his genuinely-pleased-to-see-her smile was just as gorgeous as ever.
"Hear you met Zsasz," he remarked as a greeting. Jess pressed herself against the glass as he stood and approached her leisurely, a long finger stretching out to trace a line down the window over her face.
"J," Jess said longingly, wishing she could get inside. "We have to get you out of there!" The Joker smiled.
"Wanna trade?" he asked, gesturing around. "No other way to do it." Jess nodded enthusiastically, looking around for the door and finally spotting it in a dark niche, next to the adjacent cell's entrance. She gripped the handle and pulled, meeting extreme resistance.
"It's locked!" she wailed towards J, who started giggling uselessly.
"Don't you have the key?" a voice rasped from behind her, and Jess spun to look at the cell opposite, where a skeletal face had pushed itself up against the glass. "I was told you have it." Jess nodded and started patting at her pockets, thinking perhaps that the man in grey had given it to her before he'd left. Sure enough, after a moment she pulled a heavy iron key from her jeans, examining it before shoving it into the keyhole on the Joker's cell door. The lock clicked.
The Joker sprung past her as soon as the door was pulled wide, pausing only briefly to turn and cup her chin in his hand. With a little push, he sent her stumbling back into the cell to fall against the hard cot. Hearing the door slam shut before she had time to turn around, she raced to the window, trying to glimpse him one last time in the hallway. He gazed at her solemnly for a long moment, eyes flicking around to examine the room that had once held him, the one which now kept her trapped. Jess flattened her palms against the thick glass, caught between being ecstatic to help him and irritated at his lack of reaction to this sacrifice.
"Meet me up there," he told her, his voice more muted by the glass than it had been before, and he pointed up. The clock tower, of course; that was his destination as well.
"How do I get out?" Jess queried, but he only laughed at her, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. He came towards the glass quickly, leaned forward and planted an exaggerated smooch on it, leaving a messy smear of red greasepaint that only vaguely resembled lips.
"You're the one with the key," he told her, his voice ominous, and sauntered off into the darkness.
Jess turned and regarded the cot, imagining his form still lying on it. She sank down, feeling the receding warmth from his body, curling up in it and pretending she could still smell him on the thin, starched sheets. The voices echoing from other high security cells started to fade, high pitched shrieks going distant and muffled, and the cell lights dimmed, too. Jess was suddenly in what seemed to be the only illuminated chamber on the block, and looking out the window yielded nothing but a deep, pressing black. She headed for the door, hardly pausing to consider whether or not it was locked, and pushed it open easily.
The corridor beyond spoke of the passing of a great amount of time since she'd first wandered down it; all of the cells were empty now, some of the glass panes having been shattered and the doors being flung wide or ripped away. Great cracks had appeared in the stone walls, and long black patterns of blood were smeared along the floor. A breakout, a massive one. She couldn't help feeling relieved for them.
But how long had it been since then? How long had Jess been in that cell? Weeks? Months? Years? The whole atmosphere was even more ancient and oppressive than it once had been; more tortured memories had been made, more lives destroyed. Jess started down the hall in the direction the Joker had gone, knowing she was getting very, very close.
A spiraling metal staircase melted abruptly into view, as though materializing from the very shadows, the cheap, grainy iron rusting and peeling away. Jess craned her neck as she followed it up into the rafters, its upper steps evaporating into darkness; she couldn't tell how high it was or where it led, but she knew the moment she saw it that she was going to scale it. When her foot settled on the first tread, the entire structure shuttered and creaked, threads of dust and plaster falling from somewhere high above.
The instability made her pause for a moment, but this was the only path she had anymore. Jess started to climb.
She heard the clock begin to toll about halfway up the stairs, a long while after darkness had obscured every surrounding visual. She'd been ascending in pitch dark for a long time, hands clasped on the railing, and suddenly the entire building was shaking with the shuddering boom of the timepiece's huge bronze gong. Jess started to run, understanding that the precious minutes were ticking by; she'd already wasted, what, years in that cell.
The clock tolled three times, and Jess was suddenly at the top platform of the stairs, still grasping the iron rails. J was there, partially obscured by the huge bronze clockwork mechanism in the center of the room, his tall frame silhouetted by moonlight against the gargantuan clock face. Jess started for him, lifting her foot to leave the top step, but J held up his hand to halt her.
"Don't, don't, don't," he said, his soft voice carrying over the loud mechanical ticking. Jess froze, planting both feet firmly on the iron grated stair. The Joker turned slowly, the blue moonlight casting him in surreal light, making his hair look impossibly green. "Jesster," he said, his smile vicious. "You made it."
He raised his arms, gesturing around the room, and executed a whimsical twirl. Suddenly, the clock began to toll again, and this close to its automated innards the sound was nigh-deafening, making the entire stairway shudder hideously. Jess gripped the railing, increasingly suspicious of the soundness of this structure. It felt like it could collapse any minute.
"What am I doing here, J?" Jess asked. The Joker stared at her for a long moment before, finally, shrugging.
"You tell me," he said, coming closer. "What are you doing here?"
"I followed you."
"Uh huh. And, uh… where did that get you?" Jess looked around. It had seemed like such a long, great journey.
The clock tolled. How many times now? Six? No. Seven.
But where was she, really? If this was the prize for all her trouble—this dark, rusty room bathed in moonlight, a shaky structure at one end, a madman at the other—was it really all worth it?
Another rolling toll. Eight. The structure gave a huge, quaking jerk.
"I'm here with you…" It was almost a question from Jess's lips. This experience had been so difficult, so dark, so scary. Now that it was nearly over, had love been worth chasing?
"Me," the Joker sneered. The clock struck nine and Jess nearly lost her balance. "How sweet. Let me tell you somethin', Jesster." He reached her in five long strides, reaching out to run his fingers along her cheek, and the clock boomed ten. He leaned in, his lips half an inch from hers, his nose touching hers, and Jess could feel the sweep of his breath as he whispered. "You're never gonna get what you want by chasing me."
He was right. She hadn't wanted any of this, but somehow she was addicted to it. And now it wasn't what she wanted, but what she needed. She needed him.
His lips touched hers, warm and authoritative. The clock pealed eleven, and something broke in the structure below. Jess felt the entire metal staircase give out from under her, felt J's hands fall from her face and his lips leave her mouth.
A moment before she began to fall, her head started to pound horribly.
Whew. Loooooooong one! :) I hope you liked it! I know I don't deserve it, but pleeeeeeease review! I worked really hard on that symbol-laden dream. Love you all!