After a surprisingly short drive back from the docks and after Joker had taken a rather extensive shower, he had just emerged on the top landing when he noticed Tre through the glass, sitting outside on the patio, seemingly staring off into space. His eyebrows arched severely as he trotted down the stairs, a towel wrapped into a tight turban around his hair on the top of his head and he only glanced up in time to see Tre look over and roll his eyes after they had flickered to the towel. The glass slid open as Joker stepped out, frowning.
"What?" he asked tersely at Tre's expression, sitting down at the table across from him. His best friend grunted a laugh, shaking his head as he reached out, handing him a freshly lit blunt.
"Ya towel, bruh," he answered in that deep, black-guy voice, motioning with one lazy finger at the ridiculous method of hair-drying Joker had chosen. Across from him, he was bringing the cigar up to take a deep drag and hand it back. After a few seconds, Joker exhaled.
"Listen, Tre…" he began, leaning forward slightly, trying to be menacing with a towel turban on his head. Tre tried to widen his droopy eyes as Joker pointed a finger, but only to drop his hand to the table with a thud a moment later. "…I dunno…I was gonna make a black joke, but I'm a little outta steam." He admitted with a shrug, accepting the blunt back from Tre as he laughed.
"Yeah, I imagine," Tre replied, scrunching his nose slightly. "Next time, if you guys really did fuck in the car, just lie and say you didn't, man, ok?" Joker snorted a laugh through his nose, shaking his head with a frown as though Tre had been stupid for suggesting such a thing.
"Um, no." he answered, his eyebrows furrowed down at the blunt as he readjusted the cigar paper. A moment later, his finger pointed at Tre. "I'm not gonna do that…because it makes you and Dotcom uncomfortable…" he tilted his head to the side, smiling widely. "…And I like it." Tre tossed a hand with a heavy roll of his eyes while Joker paused. "Did everyone seem fairly competent at the dorms tonight? I mean, there aren't any unmistakable idiots, are there?" Tre shrugged, accepting the blunt back.
"Not that I saw," he answered, taking a hit. "Everyone seemed with it. James, the one guy we met with earlier called a few minutes ago and says everything is ready." He looked over, arching his eyebrows. "And the buildings go up on Monday night?" When Joker nodded, Tre shook his head, passing the blunt back across the table. "Do you feel any different today?" he asked a few moments later, waiting until Joker had taken a long drag from the cigar to continue. "…now thatcha got a little…girlfriend?" Just as he expected, Joker coughed loudly across the table, releasing all the smoke in his lungs in one large, surprised puff. He turned slowly to glare at Tre as his eyes started to water.
"Say it one more time, Tre…say it one more time…" he growled, pointing a finger threateningly, still failing miserably with the towel on top of his head. Tre laughed, leaning forward to smack Kieron's hand out of the air.
"Man, call it whatever you want, bruh. You got a girl now…I'm sure you feel different." He countered, raising one eyebrow as Joker rolled his eyes upward, squinting slightly as he contemplated. A moment later, he shrugged, a simple, undisturbed smile on his face.
"Nope, I really don't feel any different," he answered with finality, but went on to finish making his point thoroughly. "Things are pretty much the exact same…And ya know?…I'm really glad." As Tre continued to nod his head slowly, Joker's content grin dissolved rapidly before he huffed irritably, crossing his arms like a frustrated, confused child. "Just shut up, I don't even know what the hell I'm talking about." He then snapped, but now Tre was laughing audibly, patting the table.
"Do you not realize how great this feels to me?" he asked, still chuckling but continued when Joker looked up, frowning. "Ki, I was always the one confused about shit. You're always so smart with logical, rational stuff like making up plans and all that…and I'm not that good at learning, bruh, but I always been good with girls. Now you're the one looking like a dumbass about this girl and I just get to sit here…and watch." A huge, toothy smile spread over Tre when Joker's entire face relaxed simultaneously.
"…I hate you."
Tre tossed his head back slightly as he laughed at his best friend, although across the table, Joker was not finding it so funny. He had been honest; that entire day had not felt any different from the rest of them since Jayde had come to live at the house. Sure, she might end up sleeping in his bed every night but she was already doing that fairly regularly. Of course, she may just walk straight up and kiss him or vice versa, but that was already something he had let himself fall into the habit of doing. Life literally felt NO different since he and Jayde had made things 'real' and for the life of him, Joker could not figure out if it was a good or bad thing. Asking Tre for advice on that seemed a little out of the question at the time being…now that Joker knew he enjoyed it so very much…With a shrug and a glance over his shoulder into the house where Dotcom had just come downstairs, Joker stood up, pulling the towel from the top of his head to let his damp, messy green hair into his face.
"Tre, I told you," he said loudly enough for Dotcom to hear as he slid open the glass door. "I'm sorry you have feelings for me, but I like girls, mate. Maybe one day you'll find the perfect guy for you!" he exclaimed, disappearing into the house with a loud cackle as the content grin slid from Tre's face in record time.
From upstairs in her room, Jayde smirked to herself when she heard Joker's loud, obnoxious laugh on the stairs. She had just emerged from the shower and stepped into clean pajama pants when she heard his more than likely mismatched socks shuffling slightly on the carpet outside her room. A moment later, he slid into the room without hesitation, dropping the towel carelessly on his way to the bed, where he pulled back the covers and slipped between them without even pausing to acknowledge that Jayde was in the room, half-dressed. He sighed heavily in content as he turned onto his side, pulling almost every pillow Jayde had into his grasp. She stood behind him with a blank expression on her face, one hand holding a towel to her chest, the other rested on her hip. Joker seemed to sense that she was staring at him as he slowly turned his head, opening one eye to peer up over his shoulder at her.
"Ya gonna lay down or what?" he asked rather loudly after a few seconds, turning back over to hoard her pillows while she finished slipping into a thin long-sleeved shirt. She joined him only a minute later, turning off the lamp as she sat down, only to toss her hands as she looked over at him, using all four of her pillows in different areas of his body- one between his knees, one under his head and two clutched to the front of him. She sighed, reaching out to grab one roughly and pull it away from him, groaning when he tightened his grip.
"If you're going to sleep in here, you can't have all of my pillows. I need at least two of those." She pointed out, turning to face him, sitting indian-style on the bed as he buried his face into the top pillow, shrugging his shoulders.
"Go get some from my room," he suggested somewhat politely. Jayde stared at his exposed arm and the circular tattoo up at the top of it near his shoulder.
"…I'm gonna bite you." She warned quickly, watching when she noticed Joker's eyebrow arch around the edge of the pillow. He tsk-ed dismissively.
"No you're not…" he growled, chuckling as though the thought was funny but a moment later, when Jayde leaned forward to sink her teeth into his upper arm, Joker cried out dramatically, flicking her hard behind the ear with his middle finger. "OW!" he shouted, tossing two of Jayde's pillows across the room, staring down at the bright red teeth-prints on his skin while she giggled.
"I told you-…"
"Yeah, I know! Christ, Jayde, what are you? Five?"
"It worked, didn't it?"
"Yep, now you gotta get up and go all the way over there to get 'em…" he eventually supplied in a voice that suggested his criminally masterminded plan had just come to fruition.
Being that Joker had thrown the pillows behind him, Jayde decided to climb over him as heavily as she could, giggling when he groaned, his hand still clamped over the place she had bitten. She returned another second later, climbing over him again, making sure the pillow traveled over his head until she could place it at the head of the bed, laying down next to him. A moment later, he groaned, turning over to put his back to her and she sighed, rolling her eyes.
"And you call me a baby…" she murmured, turning onto her side to reach out and gently start scratching his bare back, slowly, methodically as she listened to the low sound of the tv. Joker did not respond but after only a minute of her nails lightly raking across his skin, he took a deep breath to keep from shivering noticeably. Jayde noticed the muscles in his back tighten a bit but she stayed quiet; she knew he wasn't really mad, but scratching his back never hurt.
Unfortunately, after nearly five minutes, Joker's breathing had grown fairly deep and even and it seemed as though he was not going to turn over again. Jayde sighed somewhat disappointedly, ceasing her hand's motion as she yawned, reaching down for the tv remote to turn it off and turn over to get comfortable. Facing the window now, with her back to the Joker, Jayde took a deep breath in through her nose, only to hold it when she felt movement on the bed behind her. A moment later, Joker exhaled sleepily as his arm wrapped around her side, curling around her hip to pull her across the bed toward him. He adjusted to get comfortable again before he hmm-ed contentedly.
"You are a baby…" he grumbled in her ear.
Of course, Jayde was not surprised to find herself alone in the bed the next morning but wasted no time to be annoyed before she got up and stepped into jeans and a shirt. After brushing her teeth, she stepped out onto the second story landing, smirking when she noticed all three of her roommates downstairs. Tre and Joker were seated at the table, both reading something different while Dotcom sat outside, his phone in pieces on the table before him as he peered at one part interestedly. Joker must have heard her as he glanced up, letting his gaze flicker up and down her once before he went back to his reading. Jayde was a little surprised to see he had already applied his makeup and it looked a bit more smudged than usual.
"Good morning," she greeted them cordially, walking right past the table to the kitchen for a cup of coffee as Tre grunted hello distractedly and Joker cleared his throat, shifting slightly in his chair. Jayde grinned to herself at Joker's messy morning hair; it never looked the same, always messed up in a different way. Mildly composed chaos, came to mind.
In the kitchen, Jayde opened the cabinet, looking up to find that her favorite mug, the one she used almost every day was freshly cleaned and sitting on the bottom shelf, waiting for her. Her smile expanded as she pulled it down and turned it right side up, only to pour the steaming hot, deliciously scented coffee into the mug. The sugar was next and after stirring a spoonful into it, Jayde took a sip, cringing a bit at the somewhat surprising bitterness to it that morning. Dotcom was usually really good at making the coffee somewhat flavored, so well, in fact, Jayde had stopped using crème or milk in it and had started taking it almost black. Perhaps he had used a new, bolder bag of grinds that morning.
Over at the table, Joker and Tre were still reading quietly, both with a glass of orange juice. Joker had apparently separated the news paper section by section and was now buried behind it, only the very edge of his face visible around the side. Jayde sat down at the head of the table between them, glancing at both of them somewhat awkwardly as they ignored her, silently reading, turning a page or two. Honestly, she kind of felt a little like a nerdy freshman girl that had come over to sit down at the cool, senior guys table, but Jayde wanted to make this happen. So she reached out determinedly, pulled a section of the newspaper toward her and picked it up, folding it in half to place it on the table in front of her. She leaned forward slightly, taking another deep sip of her coffee.
Of course, Jayde had accidentally chosen the 'Arts & Leisure' page and had just bored herself through the first half of the article when she blinked hard a few times down at the letters. For some reason, they were starting to blur and run together, forming long black strands across the page. Jayde sat up quickly, blinking hard several more times as her vision swam violently and her hands dropped to the table heavily. To either side of her, Tre had stopped reading and Joker was slowly lowering the newspaper, revealing just his eyes as he watched her intently. She took a deep breath, blinking slowly now as she turned her head only slightly to look at Joker, her eyes wide with lethargic panic. Her chair moved back from the table like she was about to get up and make a run for it, although Joker had a feeling she would not get very far.
"…-poisoned me?" she only managed to ask the last half of her question but Joker did not answer and instead, counted out loud to himself quietly.
"Five…four…"
"Ki," Tre said loudly, glancing from Jayde to Joker and back again as he watched her lose control closely, as if this was a part of some sick experiment. "Kieron." Tre repeated his full name as Jayde swayed dangerously and he reached out, grabbing her mug of coffee to move it out of the way quickly before she fell forward and Joker's hands moved out just in time to prevent her head from thunking hard against the table. One second went by where the two of them looked at each other before Joker burst out laughing and Tre cussed loudly.
"You poisoned her?" he shouted, catching Dotcom's attention through the glass and he immediately stood up once he looked over his shoulder to see Joker and Tre standing on either side of an unconscious Jayde. Joker shook his head, bent slightly from laughing.
"NO!" he answered, lifting Jayde's head and shoulders so she could sit up in the chair, her entire body limp. "No, I just…drugged her." He went on to explain, glancing over at the door as Dotcom walked in with a confused yet slightly angry expression on his face.
"Drugged her?" He repeated, taking off his glasses. "With what?"
Joker shrugged, glancing from Dotcom to Tre and back again. "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide…" he finally answered as though he had given her an Advil but jumped with a frown when Dotcom shouted.
"LSD?" he repeated, tossing his hands.
"-And a mild sedative, just so I could get her upstairs…" he explained, but this seemed to only make things worse as Dotcom walked over to Jayde, pulling back her eyelids to look at her pupils.
"Ya know, I'm pretty sure you don't gotta drug her if you want some-…" Tre supplied but Joker cut across him.
"No, that's not what this is. Dotcom, go get your video camera and lights. Tre, help me carry her upstairs to the office. We gotta do this fast before she wakes up, 'cause…she's not going to be very happy when she does." He gave off instructions, pausing to chuckle but Dotcom still seemed unhappy and rolled his eyes as he walked to the stairs to obey the boss.
By the time Joker and Tre had moved Jayde into the office, onto Joker's thick purple comforter that he had bunched up in the corner, Dotcom was entering the room with a set of lights and his fancy video camera. And now with Jayde crumpled in a corner on a blanket like a dog after surgery, Dotcom started setting up the lights while Joker walked over to his desk, pulling out a large notebook to rip out the first page.
"Alright, so, here's the deal…" Joker began, walking back over but all three of the conscious people in the room stopped dead when Jayde gave a small whimper in the corner, moving her arm slightly.
Jayde's entire body tingled violently as she opened her eyes slowly, blinking a few times as she tried to sit up. The room was very dark, save for a few moving lights, in different colors, changing all the time as her eyes swiveled around. This was unlike any room she had ever been in and she somehow managed to wonder if she was alone when she heard a deep voice, laced with a high-pitched, demonic whisper as it spoke in her ear.
"Jayde…"
Was that her name?
"Jayde, are you ssssssscared?" the voice of a snake asked.
Joker had knelt down and now Tre and Dotcom were watching as he inched toward her lowering his shoulders like some animal as he waited for her vision to find him. That morning, he had purposely smeared the black around his eyes upwards and the red next to his mouth downward, making the dimensions of his face more terrifying…especially to a girl on LSD.
"Jayde, do you see me?" he asked quietly, his voice lower than usual, knowing her hearing was playing tricks on her; there was no telling how he sounded inside her mind just then. Her head turned slowly to face him as she remained curled up on her side, just before she let out a raspy cry, inching away from him as her trip went from bad to nightmarish in a matter of two seconds. His lips curled into a horrific, evil grin as she struggled clumsily to move back away from him. Her hands reached out as her eyes went wide, desperate to keep this monster with spiders crawling from the black holes in its face as far from her as possible. Joker turned back to Dotcom as Jayde's chest began to heave.
"Toss me that syringe and start recording on my signal," he instructed quietly, glancing back at Jayde as her eyes traveled up the wall beside her, her back fully pressed into the corner. Another sharp cry left her when all the ha-ha-ha's on the wall began to ooze thick, dark red blood but the monster from before was reaching out to grab her wrists. She struggled as it pulled her closer.
"NO!" she screamed, shaking her head. "Please don't kill me," her voice shook and quivered so badly, she could hardly speak. Joker reached out behind him, asking for the camera from Dotcom, taking his video in a new direction. With the camera between his hands, Joker pressed record, scooting closer to her to hold it down, pointed up at her slightly while she trembled in fear from head to toe. He took a deep breath when he felt that familiar sense of malice creeping up inside of him but shook it off a moment later, trying to force himself to remember that this was Jayde, not a victim.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked, his voice clowny and raspy. Jayde shook her head back and forth slowly but answered in a strange croak, 'Joker'. He nodded, pushing the camera closer to her. "Right…Do you want me to hurt you?" he asked simply, reaching out with one hand to grab a hold of her wrist and yank her forward slightly. She cried out again, her voice breaking as giant tears began to well up along her lower lash line. Joker watched this from only a foot or so, making sure to keep the camera pointed at her. His heart had begun to race although his stomach clenched somewhat uncomfortably when he realized he was really enjoying this. It had been too long since Jayde had been terrified of him.
"I wont hurt you if you read this for me. Think ya can do that?" he asked, his voice low again as Jayde shivered, her eyes closed now. His hand reached out, grabbing her jaw roughly between his purple gloved fingers, shaking her slightly as she whimpered, those tears now sliding down her cheeks plentifully. Finally, she nodded, keeping her eyes shut as the monster in front of her pushed a piece of paper into her hands. "Open your eyes…" Joker instructed, using that soft, highly false voice of his, watching closely from behind the camera as Jayde finally lifted her eyelids slowly, locking them onto his. Through the hazy, thrilling sense of power floating through his body, Joker felt his stomach turn over at the expression in her eyes. He knew she was only having a horrible trip, but the only other time she had looked at him like this was the first time she saw him after he had taken advantage of her; her eyes had been so full of hurt and fear. He cleared his throat, lifting the piece of paper so she could look down at it.
"Read this without making a mistake and I wont kill you," he offered, his voice bouncy but low and raspy as he inched forward again, trying to ignore the way Jayde's tears dripped from the end of her nose as she looked down at the paper in her hands. The letters blurred all over the page, some of them even moving, some of them turning into spiders. "Gotta focus now," he chimed tauntingly a few seconds later, tilting his head to the side as she let out a soft sob. "Your life depends on it…" Jayde took a deep breath.
"From the book of…Exodus," she began, her voice soft, quivering badly.
"Louder." Joker barked, ignoring the way she jumped, blinking hard as she swayed.
"The Lord said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand toward the sky…" she mumbled more loudly this time, bringing the paper up closer to her face as her vision cleared slightly, momentarily. "…so that darkness spreads over Egypt-…darkness that can be felt."…she paused here again, her eyes widening when blood began to ooze from the words on the page and she whimpered, panicking as she pushed the paper away from her.
"Ah, ah, ah, read it," he growled, pushing the paper back into her hands roughly as she sobbed openly now, curling up into the corner slightly but Joker followed, pushing the camera back into her face. He noticed the faint gray trails on her face from her mascara; he ignored this.
"So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days."
"-three days…" Joker spoke the last couple of words with her, grinning evilly when she threw the paper away from her, only to sob when Joker's hand wrapped around her wrist, pulling her closer. "Good, Jayde!" he praised in a light-hearted yet sinister voice. "Now, I'm going to read something to you, ready?" he snarled, pulling her closer again to put the camera right up to her wide, dilated, panicked blue eyes. "This is what the Lord says, Jayde, 'About midnight, I will go throughout Egypt, every first born in Egypt will die, from the first born son of Jim Gordon, to the first born son of Jack and Emily Turner on fourth street. There will be a loud wailing throughout Egypt, worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. And all these officials of yours will come to me, bowing down before me and saying, 'Go, you and all the people who follow you',…And after that, I. Will. Leave."
All through his, Jayde had been crying steadily with her eyes closed, her head hanging slightly as Joker spoke but the moment he had turned off the camera, he set it down beside him, reaching out to pull her closer. Joker leaned forward, sitting next to her as he looked up and back at Dotcom and Tre, somewhat surprised that he had almost forgotten they were still in the room. He nodded at Dotcom as he struggled to make Jayde sit still and stop struggling.
"Go get two washcloths and wet 'em," he instructed before he looked at Tre. "You turn the lights off, grab that syringe and help me hold her still."
Dotcom left the room immediately, leaving Tre, Joker and Jayde alone. The lights went out, and being that Joker had already prepared the room and put heavy black drapes over the windows, the room fell dark, save for the faint light from his computer screen across the room. A moment later, Tre was handing Joker the syringe and sitting on the other side of her as she cried softly but as he reached out to gently touch her forearm, Jayde whimpered, jumping at the contact. Joker spoke up, his voice quiet.
"Reach around here and hold both of her arms. This has to go directly into her blood." He explained, moving to crouch in front of Jayde and uncap the sharp syringe. Tre obeyed his instructions, reaching around to her other side to grip both of her upper arms and hold them steady while Joker's fingers wrapped tightly yet gently around her right wrist.
"Is that gonna knock her out again?" Tre asked somewhat hopefully; apparently watching Jayde panic hadn't been all that fun for him either. Joker shook his head, letting go of her wrist to tie a rubber tube around her upper arm, below Tre's hand. He tapped the soft flesh on the inside of her forearm to raise her veins.
"No, but it'll help push the drug out faster," he explained quietly, rolling the fat vein back and forth a few times under his thumb. "Instead of six hours, she should feel pretty sober in about two." With that, the tip of the needle pushed slowly into Jayde's skin and into her vein before Joker pushed the plunger in with his finger, injecting the liquid right into her blood stream. She struggled at first but seemed to understand that she was being helped finally and relaxed against Tre, seemingly still trying to get away from the monster that kept hurting her.
By the time Tre let go of Jayde and Joker had tossed the empty syringe behind him, Dotcom had returned and was handing both of the damp washcloths to Joker as he sat next to Jayde again. Unfolding one, he brought it to his face and began to wipe as much of his greasepaint makeup off as he could, before turning to Jayde again, who, by now had started shivering slightly as her eyes traveled along the floor in front of her.
"Alright, you guys just go for now," he instructed, glancing up at Dotcom, who had seemingly frozen to the spot, a somewhat vexed expression on his face as he watched Jayde. Joker continued, nodding at the door. "She'll be fine. I'm gonna stay in here."
Finally, both Tre and Dotcom walked away to the door, opening it quietly to step outside, although the moment the door snapped shut behind them, Jayde whimpered, covering her head with her hands quickly as though the roof were about to cave in. Joker forced back a grin, remembering how he had felt during his first trip and instead, he scooted closer to her, pulling on her wrists gently to lower them from the sides of her head. At first, she resisted, whimpering again but Joker let go instantly, placing his arm around her shoulders instead, rocking her more closely to his side.
Jayde's entire body was tense against the Joker's relaxed form but once she had gotten accustomed to the sensation of being next to him, he let his hand move from her shoulder, down her back, slowly, gently before up again. This pattern repeated itself several times before she took a deep breath in through her nose, her eyes sliding shut as her muscles relaxed only slightly. Joker grinned; the medicine was starting to work already.
"What are you feeling?" he asked, keeping his voice quiet and somewhat low as he spoke, hoping to keep putting her at ease. She was still shaking but slowly licked her lips, opening her eyes.
"Cold," she answered, moving her arms to grip herself as she shivered, her eyes now trained on a spot on the floor, although next to her, Joker was moving lightly to stand up. But before rising to his full height, he placed his hand palm side up on her knee, looking up at her as she stared off, her eyes wide.
"C'mon, let's go warm up," he explained quietly, pulling gently when Jayde put her hand in his and allowed him to stand her up; another good sign. However, the moment she had locked her knees to stand, she buckled again as her face scrunched up in another bout of tears.
"No," she whimpered. "I have to stay here." With a slight plop, she dropped back down onto the blanket with a rather pathetic sniffle, curling up on her side as Joker finally allowed himself a laugh, dropping to his knees next to her. His right forearm slid under her knees while the other slid behind her back, only to lift her from the blankets gently. Surprisingly, she didn't struggle; yet another good sign…When Joker had a bad trip', way back when, Tre and their other friends couldn't get anywhere near him…since he had crawled onto the roof with a twelve-gauge shotgun to protect himself from the fire hydrants that had suddenly turned into little red angry monsters…This was a bit different.
"You don't have to stay here, Jayde," he told her consolingly as he walked to the door to open it from behind her back, stepping out onto the landing. Jayde whimpered at the drastic change in light, turning her head to cover her eyes against his shirt as he walked down to her bedroom, carrying her inside and into the bathroom. Joker set her down on the counter gently just in time; her tears were starting to soak through his shirt. At the moment, Jayde seemed alright to sit by herself on the counter for a few seconds so he could turn on the shower to a warm temperature before he turned back to her.
Luckily, her shivers had died down a bit, leaving her to sit there, her arms still clamped around herself, her eyes closed. Joker sighed with a smirk, reaching out with both hands to place them on either side of her face, tilting it up slightly.
"Open your eyes," he instructed quietly, watching closely as she obeyed him rather reluctantly. Her eyes opened as he had instructed, revealing the slightly red yet shockingly blue color there. Joker felt his stomach drop to somewhere around his ankles; even barely coherent, she was still too pretty. He smiled when her vision seemed to focus on his features. "Know who I am?" he asked, arching an eyebrow when Jayde took a deep breath in through her nose, her shoulders slumping as she exhaled heavily a moment later. She nodded slowly but her nose wrinkled again in more tears and Joker's smile expanded when she reached out one shaky hand, resting it lightly on his chest. Another shiver flowed through her, raising goosebumps along her arms that Joker immediately noticed, and pulled on her arms until she could stand on her feet.
"Come get in here and sit down," he instructed, opening the glass door to the walk-in rectangular shower so she could step past him and into the thin streams of warm water from overhead. Joker watched as she shivered more violently than ever, but then relaxed as she moved to sit down, bringing her knees up to her chest. Her jeans had grown heavy and stiff from the water so she unbuttoned them, leaning to the side slightly so she could kick them off and away from her before she noticed him still standing there. She blinked and squinted as the water splashed over her.
"Are you coming too?…" she asked, her voice hoarse and a bit raspy as she looked up at him. Finally, Joker unfolded his arms, laughing as he stepped in and sat down next to her, ignoring the water now matting down his hair and sticking his shirt to his skin. It seemed Jayde was coming back around more quickly now, probably with thanks to the water and she pushed herself closer to Joker's side as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. His cheek rested against the top of her head as he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in to exhale against her wet, coconut scented hair.
"How are you feeling?" he asked after a few long, silent moments, pulling back to look down at her when he felt her lift her head. She blinked a few times up at him, her eyes still red from her tears.
"Why did you poison me?" she asked in return, giving him an answer; she was obviously feeling well enough to remember what had happened before she woke up in a nightmare. Joker laughed, wiping water out of his eyes as it washed some of the excess greasepaint from his hairline.
"I didn't poison you, darling, I brushed the inside of your coffee cup with LSD." He explained as though it were a simple misunderstanding but the expression on Jayde's rapidly sobering face forced another grin onto his scars.
"You what?" she asked, her voice now almost back to its normal level although it still rasped slightly. A moment later, her face crumpled in more tears from the powerful drug still floating around in her system. "I thought I make you happy…" she whimpered incoherently, moving away from him by a few inches as he did not even bother to hide his laughter. He shook his head, leaning over to pull her up close to him again.
"You do, sweetie, you do, honest." He answered, pulling her all the way into his lap so she could sit between his legs as he sat indian style and her head rested against his shoulder as the warm water rained down on them, steaming the inside of the shower gradually. "I just needed your help to get my message out for Monday." He went on to explain. Jayde seemed to be fitting things together again.
"So why didn't you warn me you were going to do that?" she asked, her voice cracking as she looked up at him, watching the water dripping from the ends of his hair closely. "I could have just pretended…" her voice now sounded somewhat distant as her eyes shifted to stare off at the tile on the shower wall. Joker was shaking his head.
"It wouldn't have been real enough…" he explained, looking down so he could catch her eyes and stare right into them, hoping she would understand. "I had to drug you to make you scared of me…You obviously don't realize what a uh…big deal that is…" Joker watched Jayde's gaze travel across his face, taking in everything about him as if she hadn't seen him in years, lingering for a moment or two longer on the deep scar on his bottom lip. She took a short, quick breath in before her eyes snapped back up to his.
"You really scared me," she admitted quickly, her voice quiet as though people were standing just outside the shower, listening. Joker sighed, leaning his head back against the tile behind him as he glanced back and forth between her eyes, wondering if his elaborate plan hadn't been such a great idea after all. Maybe she would come to appreciate it more in a couple of days. His thumb moved across the narrow scar on her left cheek as his eyes followed the movement, before he looked back up to find her watching him.
"I'm sorry," he stated flatly, his gaze now bouncing all over her face as he tried to pick up a sign of any sort of emotion, good or bad. It could have been the drug, or it could have been the fact that he had just apologized to her without prompting, but Jayde did not react either way and simply stared at his dark amber brown eyes as if waiting for him to go on. Awkwardness and anxiety began to crawl its way along his skin as he waited, but after several long seconds he leaned down slightly, kissing her lightly, one time on the lips before he pulled back, smirking. "Can you ever forgive me?" he finally asked somewhat hopefully, again watching her expression.
At first, from the tiny wrinkle her eyebrows developed between them when she frowned, Joker thought that she might be sober enough to finally cuss him out and get out of the shower and he was just bracing for this when her hurt expression dissolved. Her nose wrinkled adorably as she melted into more drug-induced, emotional tears. "Just don't do that again, ok?" she asked in a whimper, her arm moving to wrap around him and hold tight, her forehead rested against the curve of his neck. Joker hmm-ed in content, squeezing her gently in return.
"I wont, I promise."
By the time he had double checked that Jayde felt sober enough to get out of the shower, almost the entire bathroom was full of steam, the huge mirror nearly completely fogged. Both of them were completely soaked to the bone but Joker waited in Jayde's room for her to change into dry pajamas and climb into the bed before he left to go change his own clothes, assuring her as he left that he would come back.
Out on the landing, after closing her door behind him, Joker spotted Tre and Dotcom outside on the patio so he walked over to the stairs and down them, crossing the house to the sliding glass door. Both guys looked up only to frown and glance over his dripping, 'wet rat'-like appearance. His eyebrows raised as he went to speak but then relaxed when Dotcom cut across him.
"Is she ok?" he asked concernedly, turning more fully to face the Joker as he sighed somewhat irritably.
"Yes, she's fine," he answered, rolling his eyes before he looked to Tre. "We gotta go meet with James and give him that tape." He informed before looking back to Dotcom. "She'll probably sleep for a while but keep an eye on her while we're gone. We shouldn't be long." With this, he turned to walk away and go change out of his freezing cold clothes as he had started to shiver slightly in the air conditioning, but Dotcom's voice stopped him.
"Don't you wanna watch it before you put it out?" he asked in reference to the tape. Joker paused mid-step, turning slowly as he honestly thought about it. Watching Jayde cry and panic had had something of a surprisingly adverse affect on him and if he were being completely honest, he didn't really want to watch the tape again…He had a feeling these two guys felt the same way. He shrugged, playing it off.
"No, I'm sure it's fine," he answered, turning to walk away again. "She was the perfect little actress..."
It had taken a while, but eventually Jayde fell asleep, after tossing and turning in her bed, first deciding the light was too bright, then deciding she didn't want to be in the dark. Finally, she had shut the blinds completely in the room, forcing herself to lay there with her eyes closed, repeating to herself that it had more or less just been a really bad dream…Then again, she had never experienced a nightmare that truly made her feel like she was about to die. Joker had been terrifying to say the least, more so than she had ever seen before and just the vague, foggy memory of how his distorted voice had sounded was enough to make her shiver.
However, when Jayde woke to a hand on her shoulder, her eyes fluttered open as she took a deep breath in through her nose. Hardly daring to believe that Joker had really come back and was now sitting behind her on the edge of her bed, she remained still for a few moments, surprised to find that she was feeling noticeably better than she had when she fell asleep…Then, the person behind her cleared his throat…Her eyes closed again when Dotcom's voice broke the hospital room-type silence.
"How are you feeling?" he asked quietly and at first, Jayde felt a little angry and like she wanted to tell him to leave her alone, but it was not his fault that Joker had drugged her then didn't bother to come back into her room. So she took a deep breath, rolling onto her back, remembering that he was a sweet guy and was being nice.
"Better," she answered once she had yawned and sat up. She glanced at Dotcom before her eyes fell back down to the fluffy white blankets over her lap. "I'm betting he's not here, huh…" Her question came out sounding a little more pathetic than she had predicted so she picked her head up, raising her eyebrows as Dotcom sighed, shaking his head. "Yeah, I'm not surprised," she then growled somewhat bitterly as she rolled to the side to get out of bed. "Just figures he would put me through that then leave…" she scoffed, rolling her eyes at her reflection in the mirror at her dresser. Behind her on the bed, Dotcom sat up, shrugging.
"He asked me to look after you while he was gone if that's any-…" he began to say but Jayde cut across him, shaking her head as she changed from her pajama pants to clean jeans.
"It's not that he left that's the issue," she started to correct herself, turning to face Dotcom with both hands on her hips. "It's that he painted the inside of my coffee mug with LSD so he could make a 'message'. That's what I'm pissed about." She finally finished, fuming, as surprisingly, Dotcom smiled, standing up to walk over and wrap his arm around her shoulders.
"I know, sweetie. I was mad at him too, trust me," he said bracingly as he walked her over to the stairs to go down. "But it's not often he does things without having more than one motive behind it. I'm sure it will make more sense in time." Jayde glanced over at Dotcom with an eyebrow arched as it became a bit clear that he knew more than he was letting on, but it seemed he was trying hard not to notice her looking at him so she sighed, shrugging her shoulders.
"Alright, but I'm still mad at him," she restated, nodding determinedly at Dotcom as he agreed, leading her out onto the back patio.
"And you should be. He deserves it."
At first, upon Dotcom offering her one, Jayde wasn't really sure if she wanted to smoke a cigarette, after all the drugs that had been in her system earlier. But she really did think it would help her relax a bit and she couldn't imagine what sort of adverse affect it would have, especially if she had been asleep a good portion of the day. So she took it from him and lit it, a little surprised to notice now that the sun had already gone down, leaving the field and trees behind the house dark and shadowed, alive with chirping crickets.
Luckily, the cigarette was doing exactly what she was hoping it would and was calming her nerves gradually. Although, half-way through it, when Jayde felt like she was marginally less mad than she had been, the sound of crunching gravel on the other side of the house floated back to her on the patio, beneath the sound of the crickets and suddenly, her blood pressure was rising steadily again. Dotcom had looked over at her as if waiting for a reaction but Jayde ignored him, listening intently to the sound of the garage door rising, then shutting again a few moments later, until the sound of the door to the house opening. A second later, she dropped her cigarette in the ashtray and stood abruptly, turning to go inside with Dotcom on her heels.
"Jayde, wait," he whispered as the glass door slid open but she had already strode inside and put her hands on her hips, her face livid as Joker came around the corner of the kitchen, setting the keys to the Escalade down. Instead of his expression diminishing at the look on her face, his smirk expanded into a small grin before he glanced over at Tre…They had just been predicting this in the car, minutes before.
"Hello there," he greeted her casually, leaning against the counter next to him, folding his arm as if getting comfortable. "Feeling better?" At first, Jayde seemed a little thrown off by his demeanor.
"You are such an asshole, you know that?" she spat, taking a step toward him as her arms dropped. "You forced me into one of the most traumatic experiences so you can make a video? " her voice cracked slightly before it raised. "Are you fucking insane? I could have died!" Jayde was so angry and bristling at this point, she failed to hear the short laugh Tre gave off behind her before it evolved rapidly into a cough. Even Joker's smirk expanded again. Not really, but go on, he thought to himself, loving every second of this. She was continuing. "Then, you tell me you're just going to change your clothes and that you'll come back, and you LEAVE!…" At this, she tossed her arms, huffing slightly in utmost frustration. She spun when Dotcom's voice broke the ringing silence.
"He did come back, Jayde, you were already asleep," he supplied quietly, glancing over at the Joker, his expression unchanging as he watched Jayde stammer awkwardly.
"Well," she started, clearly trying desperately to find something else to bring up, but Joker was now moving toward her slowly. "You still should've…I thought-…" It seemed the closer he got, the less and less formulated her stammering became until he had reached her, looking straight down at her as she folded her arms indignantly. She looked up at his eyes for only a second before they fell to the collar of his shirt.
"Ya done?" he asked in a raspy voice, leaning down slightly. Jayde blinked, snapping out of it.
"NO," she answered loudly. "Why the fuck would you think it was ok to-…"
At this, Joker silenced Jayde by closing the distance between them to kiss her firmly, his hands finding places on either side of her neck, ignoring the other two people in the room completely. He felt her stiffen at first as though she were about to shove him away from her and Joker was about to sincerely hope she wouldn't do that in front of Tre when she relaxed in his hands, tilting her head back slightly to return the kiss and respond to him gently. Only a few moments later, he pulled away, opening his eyes to stare at hers as she looked up at him, blinking rather dazedly.
"Stop it," he instructed firmly, his voice quiet as his gaze bounced back and forth between her eyes. A second later, a noise from the door pulled their attention from each other to where Dotcom was standing, his hands linked together under his chin, his eyes glazed over and wistful as though watching a romantic movie scene. He jumped when Joker barked 'Ay!' and Jayde blushed, turning away to go sit on the couch, trying hard to avoid Tre's grin as she passed him. With her back to the room and pretending to have her attention on the tv, Jayde listened as Joker announced loudly and sarcastically to 'everyone' that he was going to shower and that he was coming right back and she smirked, rolling her eyes at herself.
Who was she kidding…She could never stay mad at him.
REVIEW IF YOU WANT THE NEXT CHAPTER! WE'RE COMING DOWN THE HOME STRETCH! GET READY FOR THAT CONTEST TOO, KIDDIES. LEAVE ME SOME LOVIN! -QoM