Chapter Fourteen: Sleeping Dogs

Strawberry: OK. Imagine me walking into a theater at midnight, having no idea what the Dark Knight is about. Now imagine me walking out and saying, "I have to write a story!" And out pops Fana banana in the middle of the street. Well, the first chapter goes down the day following, focusing on Harvey Dent's fundraiser. And then immediately after, I get all the character development, and the scene at the end of THIS chapter came to me. Basically, I've thought of this as a way to show that they're important to each other, but identify Fana's character more correctly and keep the Joker in character. So I'm happy it's time to share it. I hope you like it too ^_^

By the time the next hour had rolled around, he had managed to escape Fana's watch and reapply his makeup. Her first thoughts were of anger and displeasure at the fact that their encounter must not have meant much if he was willing to go straight back to the way things were. Was he just stringing her along, making her believe that she was going to change him? Had he already worked on a mental and emotional barrier that would render her efforts completely useless? She remained silent when he asked what was "getting her down." She was hoping that he would pick up the vibes and understand that it was somewhat depressing to know that he'd gone upstairs for the specific purpose of morphing into a clown again.

Fana thought about what it was that bothered her most about him painting his face again. At first, she had simply thought that it was because she had thought they had gained an understanding of one another—a bare kind of truthful understanding. But perhaps she cared for a different reason, and she could not decide whether it was because she was comfortable with the scars or she wasn't. There was nothing particularly…frightening about them, so she had to admit that they were disturbing in their own way. Not really "their own way", she corrected herself. More like…EVERY way. And she felt guilty the minute she had thought it. But even if that were the case, why was she preferring that the makeup be left off? Vaguely, she thought it to be because it made him even less human than his internal side gave off. Her goal was to turn him back into the person she believed he must have been. It was like blowing up a huge building: it's gone until all the wreckage is torn away. And at that point, another building could be built in its place.

"You look a little…uneasy…"

Fana jumped as she felt a pair of hands sliding down her arms from behind. She had been standing before the television, debating about whether or not she would sit around and watch something or try to find something more productive to do. There weren't many options. "What's a' matter, doll face?" he asked in a whisper, accentuating the final word of his sentence. The side of his face was pressed against her ear when he gave a miniscule gasp that held an air of confrontational excitement. "You don't like my face," he told her without any sort of questioning aspect to his voice. "So…alright, so, let's see here…" He clenched fists around her fingers and pulled her arms up and around so that she was hugging herself—he was hugging her. "We've established that you want me to be…human…huh?" He drew his head back, his hair tickling the nape of her neck. "And—and you think that…I'm a better human without the makeup, is that it?" He had more room to throw himself more deceitfully against her. She could feel his chest pushing and receding behind her as he took heavy, long breaths. "You're a pretty thing. You oughta know what other pretty things look like." He leaned over slightly, and she crumpled under him, her knees buckling, but he caught her with a jerk. "And these scars, girly girl…" he hissed, "are not very pretty…"

"You're judging yourself," she said breathily as he squeezed her lungs.

"'Scuse me?" he prodded, holding onto her with still more force.

"You're judging yourself," she repeated. "And you can't do that, because we judge ourselves based on the way we think…or the frame of mind we're in. And you…" She wriggled herself out of his grip enough so that she could speak without difficulty. "You hold yourself in the frame of mind that you're this…gigantic freak and horrible person and I think you think that you deserved to have the scars. I think that you would be different if you thought anyone would accept you. You think everyone hates you, right? And that's not true. People are afraid of you right now because you're a criminal. If you would just be…whoever you really are…no one will cast you out, like you think they will."

His forehead wrinkled as he considered what she had said. She had used good reason and good observation, but there was no possible way that she had been correct. He knew himself best and he always would no matter what Fana did to try to get inside of his mind. Then again, she couldn't have been completely inaccurate. Fana wasn't a stupid person. He had always considered himself to have taken much time in analyzing his own thoughts and feelings—or lack there of. But there was the possibility that he had…given up? Was that the right word?

"And what if I say you're wrong?" he teased, rocking her lightly to the right, then the left in a continuous pattern.

"Then I'll call you a liar," she replied. He laughed.

"You're a conniving little thing, aren't ya?" He stood her up properly and straightened his violet jacket that had replaced the officer uniform he had been wearing. Presumably, he had changed at the same time he had redone his makeup. He took a moment to blink in a prolonged fashion as he rested against the arm of the couch. When his eyes opened, he looked as if he were being forced into something that he was accepting mildly, but still resented. His eyes were dark and glittering, and she was certain he had never looked so serious. Neither of them spoke as he looked at her, shoulders slouched and grim expression intact. She tried to search his thoughts, but could barely come close to interpreting the look on his face. "…I didn't kill the mayor," he said at last, as if feigning pride, but his ashamed nature gave him away. "In case…you were wondering." Fana simply stared, and he wondered gravely if he had wasted his breath on something he had thought would matter. But the knot in his chest was quickly unfastened when she nodded slowly.

"But you were planning to," she confirmed, raising her eyebrows. He scowled.

"And there he is, still walkin' around just perfectly fine!" he hollered, swinging his arms to the side as a visual aid. "Now isn't that what matters?" Fana crossed her arms over her chest and sighed.

"Maybe," she said. Immediately shifting her gaze, she sat down on the couch so that he was elevated far above her. "You wanna tell me what happened?"

"Ah…hm." He considered it, thinking over what he ought to have told her about it. Then, deciding on a discreetly formulated answer, he raised his hands with uncertainty and in a shrug, said, "We missed."

"Details."

He let out a long breath. "I'm not good with details," he told her, continuing immediately at the sight of her narrowed eyes. "I'll do my best…so I had this…idea…see, I like to unsettle people. Just a little. And so…" He put the palms of his hands together. "I went for the mayor. I took some…officers' uniforms, huh? And I gave 'em to my…team-muh. So we're in disguise, at the mayor's ceremony. There's some…some, uh, gun salute, and we have a couple of rifles, right? So during that we just…" He turned, swiveling his hips in an angled direction and imitated a gunshot. "…pivoted a little, if you will…and we fired the shots, and…like I said: we missed."

"Okay," she said, sounding at ease. Though he was doing his best to convey an attitude of comfort, he was as nervous as he had ever been. "I'm glad…that he's not dead. Can I ask…" She put her hand on his forearm and he was forced to look away to ignore his human traits. "What made you want to tell me about that?" His forehead wrinkled, and the muscles in his arm tensed as he thought about whether it would injure his reputation with her too much if he gave her the truth. "Why did you want me to know that he wasn't dead?"

The truth? he thought pensively. Maybe. "See…well…" He could hardly piece his thoughts together properly enough to get the words out. "I just…I just wanted to let you know." Fana stood up much to his surprise. He couldn't read her emotions because now, she was getting smarter. It was funny, the way she was there, thinking that she was changing him, when in fact, it was the other way around entirely. Still, he felt slightly unsettled without being able to understand her emotions.

He was completely conflicted. Though she found it perplexing, she was pleased at the fact that he had shown a noticeable change just since earlier that day. Of course he wasn't going to admit it, but that wasn't what she needed. All she needed was the knowledge that she was going to be successful, and he was showing her that she would be. She grinned at him, and again he thought about the way she hadn't shown him her smile previously. It was a new side of Fana Williams. He almost liked the mellower side better. No, not almost: he definitely, fully, and completely liked it better. "I'm glad that you told me," she said, giving his shoulder a light punch skeptically. She watched for his reaction, but he only rocked silently back and forth at the movement and stared. "Gives me a few more leads."

Then he stood. "It doesn't—"

"Accept that for me, can't you?"

Of course he couldn't.

By the time the full night had taken over, he had given up the strategic pacing he had been doing around the first floor. Purposefully, and with an air of annoyance, he passed the bench where Fana lay several times. The first time he crossed the room, he determinedly kept his gaze locked frontally on the ice rink. He walked around in the food court for a series of minutes, thinking about nothing and everything at the same time. It was one of those feelings that was so seldom stumbled upon that he had forgotten that it existed. He had never allowed any confliction to plague is mind for a long period of time; he had always ruled it out by thinking of something funny, or turning his thoughts into a humorous thing. He could find the humor in anything—it was the one thing he truly did pride himself in.

The second time he passed Fana, he gave her a complimentary glance, though she was fast asleep. The flesh of her face was smashed against the wood frame and her arm dangled lazily off the surface. He looked forward again, envisioning a lengthy scene in which Fana waited until he went to sleep and took the opportunity to escape. He determined that she must have been lying; she couldn't have wanted an adventure so badly. She was a human and he wasn't. He was better, of course, because he knew how to live the right way. She deserved, if anything, only the credit of being willing to listen when she needed to. But she could be stubborn. She could be unfeeling, and that was the sort of grace she didn't deserve. Fana Williams…is not allowed to leave, he thought to himself.

The third and final time he passed her, he froze in his strides and positively gawked at her. She hadn't moved or done anything out of the ordinary. The backs of her fingers were quietly resting against the concrete floor. He turned toward her and lifted his leg to take a step, but immediately backtracked. No time for silly emotions, he reminded himself. It was about the specific situating to which he would severely punish himself for letting his mind be a war field. His mind was about the fun; it couldn't be something chaotic or estranged. Several necessary things needed to be righted as a whole in order for him to be himself, and being himself was… "What I like best," he finished aloud in a rusted whisper, succumbing to the smirk that longed to grace his twisted mouth.

Crashing the toe of his shoe against the floor, he hummed a pleased fit of vocal tension. He mentally scolded himself as he gave in to the sinking feeling in his chest that dragged him towards her until he was looking at her from a birds-eye view. Strands of her hair were dancing down her shoulder blades, her bare back for once an object of his vision. In the norm, her long, tangled red hair covered the area that her blue dress left uncovered. But not now that it was all scooped off to the side across her shoulders. He stretched his fingers as if in a muscle exercise, trying to avoid that boiling feeling of desire that he could feel pricking at his organs.

He raised his eyebrows, surprising even himself, and let himself fall into a sitting position beside the bench. His legs were propped up, enabling him to lounge restlessly against himself. He simply sat there, soaking in that central feeling that she gave him, the sort that made him recognize that he didn't know what he wanted and he didn't know himself. It was the fact that she was such a…a nuisance of a woman compared to the rest. She couldn't have just played along and gone all out of her mind for a while. She couldn't have been so easily changed into a murderous little girl; she couldn't even give him the thrill of trying to escape. It wasn't the strugglers he hated, because everyone was a struggler. Everyone except Fana Williams. "It's not the strugglers," he repeated aloud.

It was the ones who stayed. Fana was the only one who had stayed.

Almost as though he had lost mental control of his physical actions, he rocked forward slightly, shifting his weight so that he was close enough to smell Fana's hair. Before he achieved any further nearness, he sharply drew back, widening his eyes in disgust. He started to get to his feet, but stopped when her breathing increased in volume for the shortest of seconds. At that moment, he had to shake his head free of the feeling of comfort her easy breathing gave to him.

Without breaking his sight of her, he lowered himself back to the ground and lie flat on his back, his face pointed upward to parallel hers. The delicate curving of her face lay completely still, but for the seldom moments in which her eyelids quivered slightly. He lay there, wondering if she was having a dream or not. He wondered as he folded his hands across his chest pensively, the paint on his face feeling like a weight in the simple night. Fana didn't like it.

He drifted, and as he did so, he thought in a fit of rage about how he wanted her to like it.

Fana woke in the night in response to a stabbing in her back from her faulty positioning on the bench. With a low grunt of discomfort, she rubbed her eyes testily and started to shift herself but received a pang in the chest at what she saw before she had even gotten the chance to move.

There, below her lying flat on his back, was the Joker, not there to greet her or frighten her. He was fast asleep, she judged by the way his lips were slack and his mouth was gently parted. The makeup had not been removed from his scarred face, but it didn't perturb her, even unsettle her the tiniest bit. She hardly had to give it a second thought before she had stood up and stepped over his legs at his side. She thought of his reasoning for sleeping there beside her when she knew him to have a bed that was probably comfortable and spacious. Why would he have chosen to sleep on the floor? She tried her best to not feel pompous as she thought vaguely that maybe he was softening, lightly becoming something more than his monstrous self.

She slid onto the stoned floor at his side and silently thanked him.

He came to at a point when sunbeams were escaping the boards over the window. Turning his head, the first thing he saw was Fana's face angled toward him, but not from the direction he had left himself at when he made to sleep. She had, at some point, recognized his whereabouts and climbed down to join him. There was a brief moment where he felt as if warm water had been poured over his head. For perhaps the first time, he genuinely appreciated Fana Williams. Not because she was an easy subject, and not because she wasn't a struggler.

It was because she was there.