Chapter Two- Pumpkin's Little Obsession
The Head Doctor and his team of Nurses surrounded him, and once again I was invisible to the room despite only being four feet away from the person who held the centre (not of the room- he was near the door- but of attention).
Cash sat by my feet at the bottom of the bed, observing the situation like a hawk to make sure the Joker didn't get too out of hand. I could've sworn there was a hospital rule about not being allowed to sit on patient's beds to stop infection, but nobody said anything to him even if they had noticed. I wouldn't mess with a man who had a metal hook for a hand either.
"I knew you liked me Doctor," the Joker started, "But- hehe! That tickles."
They were currently trying to take out the IV's he was attached to, which was proving more than difficult as it meant that they had to temporary loosen some of his bounds, and he was giving them all hell. I tried watching, though a fat Nurse kept blocking my view to hold him down. Despite the rubbish view, this had been the best form of entertainment I'd seen for my entire time here. Even better than the morphine dosages I had taken and was currently craving for more of.
"Shut up, clown." Cash grumbled in the background.
He was in a bad mood, being given an earful by the Doctors who said he should've been in the room when the Joker woke up to 'inform them of his state', rather than on his lunch break. Aaron argued that it was up to the hospital staff to constantly check up on its patient's state, but of course Doctors being Doctors (meaning-arrogant assholes), meant that they refused to take the blame.
"Say Cash! How about you give these Doctors a hand? Given you've only got one!" The Joker joked.
Cash looked away, causing the Joker to laugh in delight.
How he thrived on others weaknesses.
Nurse Johnston ripped out one of the needles aggressively, causing the laughter to become disjointed by a whelp of pain, before returning again, this time even more hysterical. Johnston's already angry glare, hardened. If looks could kill, he'd be a dead man.
My eyes flickered down to Cash's claw momentarily. He hadn't told me what had happened to it, only that there were apparently- 'worse villains than the Joker out there, one's that hide in the shadows- too evil for even Gotham to know about'. Whoever did it had Cash running terrified. Not that I blamed him, I mean, he did lose a hand. It was just strange seeing somebody as strong as Cash curl up inside whenever his missing hand was brought into conversation.
"Can't you give him a sedative or sumthin'?"
The Head Doctor replied to Cash, a bead of sweat trickling down his face as he tried to restrain the Joker's thrashes to allow them to do their work, "Afraid not. After just coming out of the induced coma it's too dangerous to risk putting him back into a forced sleep."
Cash grunted, a signal that he understood.
"Aww, c'mon Doc! I just know-uh you're just itching to make me suffer."
I was itching for more morphine. My veins felt like they were throbbing out of my skin.
The Joker continued, "Who'd I hurt? Tell me. I'm just dying to know."
A drop of sweat rolled off of the Doctor's face who shook from the tension of trying to stay silence, when every nerve and impulse was calling for him to lash out. The droplet fell onto the corner of the Joker's mouth, and he slurped it up with one revolting lick of his tongue. The whole room watched the scene play out, silent with repulsion and anticipation.
Shit was going down.
"Wait! Let me guess," he smiled up with glee, resembling a child. "I loooooovvvvvveee guessing games."
"Doctor White?" The fat Nurse warned. She moved to the other side of the bed where he stood, placing a hand reassuringly on his shoulder. Her move had unintentionally allowed me to view the entire incident.
"Shhhhhhh," The Joker hushed her aggressively. "You're ruining my focus."
The Doctor made no reply to either of the comments. All his energy was being concentrated on controlling and containing his rage, but his bodily reactions were giving the game away. An ocean of sweat had formed around his pits, being clearly visible through his dark blue scrubs. His tanned hands had also turned white, showing the tight grip he had on the Joker, a hold which would no doubt leave purple bruises on his pastel skin. Of course, the Joker paid no notice on the vice-like grip and carried on with his twisted torments.
"Wife?" He questioned.
The Doctor didn't move. His face was starting to turn purple.
"Nope." The Joker sighed, and then looked at the Doctor's hand for clarification. "Should've known- no wedding ring. Stupid, stupid!" He threw his head forward and backwards in anger with himself, causing it to violently collide with the rigid mattress (he wasn't given the luxury of having a pillow), and the room watched in bewilderment.
He stopped mid-bang, a thought occurring to him.
"Can't be a sibling. Mommy and Daddy," he mimicked a two-year old, "wanted their only child to grow up big and important- a fucking Doctor." He sneered out the last words, dropping his voice low with disgust.
The Doctor stayed stiff. The tension in the room rose to staggering new heights. And the Joker's eyes widened.
"Oh ho ho!" He chuckled. "No, I got it all wrong. You have siblings. Lots of them. You became a Doctor so Mommy and Daddy would notice you and lurvvvvve you. How path-e-tic."
The Doctor blinked.
"Gotcha," The Joker whispered under his breath, though the room was so quiet everybody heard. "What's up Doc? Don't you uh want to tell me how many of your siblings I hurt?"
Then unexpectedly, the Doctor bolted out of the room.
The Nurse's all lunged forward to keep to Joker pinned down to the bed. The poor man didn't get far enough away, and we all clearly heard the slopping sound of his insides being projected onto the floor in front of him. He was close enough that we could even taste the acid that had left his stomach in the air.
Despite the Joker having at the very least a few milliseconds to have attempted escape, when the Doctor first loosened his grip to runaway- he had made no notion to take off. Instead the Joker remained perfectly still, waiting for the sounds of the vomiting to begin howling with insane laughter. And he didn't stop cackling Nurse Johnston sedated him.
"I thought that could kill him!" Cash shouted in protest, springing up off from the bed as the laughter was gently drowned out by a thick and deep slumber.
Her face, creased with deep frown lines, remained impassive, "And I thought your job was to keep control of the Joker."
Cash sat stubbornly back down on my bed, as a child would have who had been given a good scolding. He knew that that time he had been in the wrong, allowing the Joker to go too far with distressing the Doctor.
"He'll be fine." A Nurse reassured Cash, taking pity on his sense of guilt. "The dosage administered should wear off in a few minutes. His hysterics could have torn some of his stitches, so it was probably safer for his body to be put to sleep."
Cash snorted in disbelief.
Nurse Johnston ripped out the remaining IV attached to the Joker and slapped a plaster onto the bleeding vein, "That's the last one. Tighten the restraints."
I watched them buckle him into his bed again. Nurse Johnston made sure to fasten the belts a few notches tighter than beforehand, and caused the Joker's skin to bulge out from the pressure of being constricted. Nurse Johnston hadn't done it to limit his movement completely, but to cause him pain and discomfort. Her hatred for him was growing rapidly especially now that he was awake, his conscious presence annoying her further for being active.
Just as they finished, the Joker began to stir awake.
"Ya reaaallly shouldn't have done that Nurse." His voice was slow and slurred, groggy from the medication.
Johnston didn't respond to the threat and instead pulled out a pocket flashlight. She shown its glaring bulb into the Joker's eyes, holding the lid harshly open with her free hand to check his pupil dilation reaction time. He didn't attempt to blink away the white splodges in his vision as she noted the results on her clipboard which rested on the bedside table, and they were locked in a stare off.
The atmosphere within the room had once again become tense.
Cash decided to step in this time, and broke the edgy silence.
"He needs a wash soon. Can't be taking him to Arkham smelling of his own shit and piss." The Joker made mock looks of offence directed towards Cash but didn't outright disagree. Maybe he knew his stench had gotten out of hand.
The other Nurses froze in fear, none wanting to come into close contact with the Joker again after they had left the room. None of them believed they were getting paid enough for their hard work, and they were a hundred percent right. Especially now they were tasked with a psychotic killer clown to care for.
"Quincy Sharp doesn't care for the state of his inmates." Johnston stated monotonously, still glaring daggers at the Joker who now looked up at her with an innocent smile that was designed to aggravate her. It was doing its job, Johnston had waves of heat emitting from her body.
Cash nearly burst at her reply, already furious as how the days events had gone so far.
"I do. When James Gordon personally tells me that he wants me to be the one to make sure the Joker gets to Arkham Asylum safely, by hell I'll do it. And I'll make sure it's done properly. So if I say he needs a wash," Cash's voice lowered. "Somebody better fuckin' give him one."
The Joker laughed like the madman he claimed not to be, "Cash, old man, you do crack me up! And here I was thinking you-uh didn't like me."
"Shut up, clown." Was the singular reply, and the only words Aaron Cash would ever utter to the Joker.
The Nurses retreated from the room silently, heads hung in shame of being defeated by a mere Warden.
Cash had left hours ago, after seeing that the Joker was getting fed, and not being starved to death. The Nurses mushed up his food in a blender and allowed him to drink it through a straw, to avoid hand feeding him. Cash didn't object to their strategy, and left quickly afterwards in a rush to get home. He paused however, just to make sure that the GCPD officer who covered the night shifts was posted outside the door. He wasn't required to stay in the room, neither was Cash. There wasn't any other doors and there wasn't any windows meaning there was only one exit and entrance. Cash just stayed in the room to keep me company, especially now the Joker was up and active, and to also reassure the hospital staff he was still under restraints.
It wasn't a surprise Gordon liked him so much, he really went above and beyond his duties.
Like all the other nights when my brain couldn't handle the dullness of existing in silence- I had the distinct impression the Joker wasn't in the mood for a friendly chitchat- I switched on the TV and turned it over to GCN. The box- it could hardly be classed as anything else- was old, and I guessed from the poor quality of picture- every minute it had a few milliseconds of static interference- that it hadn't been replaced since the hospital introduced televisions onto their wards. The outdated aerial only picked up two channels, GCN and Kids Korner, given the children's channel stopped broadcasting at 6.30 (according to GCN it was now 11.47) and Sesame Street somehow had the insane ability to give me nightmares, I picked GCN.
"This stupid scaremongering show?" the Joker scoffed in disgust. Apparently he was a man of taste and class now. Most (intelligent) people in Gotham despised the channel due to viewing the majority (actually-all) of reports as yellow journalism rather than factual accounts. It was Gotham's very own Fox News.
"That's what makes it so entertaining." I stated, my eyes fixed on the latest threat- this one not in the form of a bat, scarecrow, or clown, but rather a jewel thief. According to 'outside sources' somebody has been robbing Gotham's finest of their beloved diamonds. Whoever they were, I wanted to applaud them.
The News Anchors had somehow shifted the report to a debate about bringing make the Death Penalty, as obviously whoever was targeting 'the rich and venerable' deserved capital punishment. This inevitably steered the conversation to the Joker who all citizens of Gotham wanted dead. No influential person cared about Scarecrow's attack, as although he planned to destroy the whole of Gotham, his Fear Gas only was released in the Asylum and parts of The Narrows; areas none of Gotham cared for. But of course the Joker's attacks mostly affected the affluent, especially with the bank robbery, so the whole of Gotham wanted to see him burn.
"Who's she?" The Joker asked, pointing with his head to one of the main Anchor in a bright pink suit and stiletto heels. Her nasally voice and utter lack of knowledge of current affairs made it downright obvious she had only got to her position through fucking to the top. At least she's intelligent at manipulating men, that's got to count for something, I reasoned.
"Stacy Gleeson."
She was currently ranting about how the Joker's death should be public, and maybe even televised- by none other than the GCN of course, and how his death should be made a public holiday to celebrate the end of insanity with masked villains. His fall from power had also resulted in the Bat- who everyone thought was just a vigilante but actually was in liason with the Joker, according to Police Records, and killed the noble Harvey Dent- to go into retirement.
He grinned wickedly, that woman was now at the top of his hit-list if he ever escaped.
It didn't take me long to work out how much he hated to be labeled as 'crazy'; that's what made him truly mad. I'm sane enough to know I'm insane; he's mad enough to believe he's sane.
"I wouldn't mess with her though," I warned. "Rumour has it she's sleeping with Hamilton Hill."
The Joker gave a blank look, I supposed he didn't watch the News often.
"He's a firm favourite to become Mayor given Harvey's out of the running," I explained, realising he was behind on politics since his coma."Hill's under the thumb of Rupert Thorne though. Hill would take an attack on Stacy as a personal attack on his whole criminal underground network, and he wouldn't hesitate to send the whole mob out to kill you."
"Gee, you seem awful concerned for me." He paused, "Tell me, is it my good looks?"
The Joker tilted his head down towards his chest and looked up at me through fluttering eyelashes. I cringed, disgusted at the sight, which only caused him to chuckle in return.
"You happen to be the most entertaining thing that has happened to Gotham since the Bat. Sorry, if I want to see you around a little longer."
"My very own fan-club," He thought aloud, pondering the idea for a few long seconds. "Well I always dreamed about being a cult leader."
I scoffed, "You can keep dreaming. I'm interested. Not obsessed."
That was maybe a teeny-weeny lie.
He cackled. "Sure thing, pumpkin-pie."
And didn't he know it.
Character Bios
Quincy Sharp- I believe his first appearance is actually in the video game Arkham Asylum but may be wrong. He is Warden of The Asylum, and not the nicest of characters. Although has a very interesting storyline in the game, he will not feature much in the plot- only by name.
Hamilton Hill- Although portrayed as a good Mayor within the Animated Series, Hill within the comics he is corrupt and under the influence of Thorne, who helps him get into Office. For the purpose of the story it is this crooked Hill will be depicted.
Rupert Thorne- A councilman who is secretly part of Gotham's Smuggling Network. An influential politician, and skilled manipulator, Thorne wants rid of both Batman and James Gordon.