AN - Well, I'm finally done with this story. I've posted the last three chapters of it now. Despite not being completely happy with how they turned out, this is still ultimately the end result of what I intended. I had been too much of a perfectionist anyway with this particular story for the last few years if only because I liked how the earlier chapters came out too much. Anyway, if anyone's still out there, thank you again for liking/faving this story after all this time.
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Well then...looks like someone's having a bad day. Got nothing else to brag about? Getting right to the torture, are we? More to the point? Don't burn me with your enthusiasm, Joker. I'm melting, can't you tell? I'm becoming a popsicle just as you said. I'm running down my legs. I'm scared, alright? What more could you possibly want?
Oh...I shouldn't go there. You'd follow me up, wouldn't you?
That's right. I should stay quiet. Yeah, that's what I'll do, Joker. The less you know, the more the difference. Your attention-span can't handle the strain of being drawn out. It'll break soon. You'll get bored and you'll...go somewhere else, do anything other than...
Goddamn it, who am I kidding?
Try to play it cool in spite of the obvious then. I don't buckle under pressure; I wince. Besides, that leaves plenty of options. Why, I can choose between twitching, gasping, or clenching my fists. All the while breathing through my nose.
So yeah, I do have options and choices yet. Why be either or? I can even bite through my lip or grind my enamel to dust.
And the Joker burns like murder in the third degree. That devilish flame gets me by proxy.
On a side note, he is more sadistic than usual. Still, the Joker doesn't compromise on fire. With him, it's either combustion or bust.
What's more, he's giving me blisters rather than burns with the lighter and their stinging irritation is worse than an itch. Well played.
But I soldier through the Joker's torture because I'm in a war against him even if he considers me unknown. A war on terror and he's the self-glorified terrorist who calls 'torture' by a different word. Pretentious bastard, calling it "art." As if that counts for any justification.
Still, I am getting low on energy. I can't let him get to me like this. Though I'm not complaining about the lack of inquiry. That I find refreshing. It's hard to swallow my pride when the Joker triggers my gag reflex with his own. Getting tired of that too.
Especially of a flame that only nibbles, rather than bites, my flesh and not crunch and munch to a crisp. Still, it is the soft underbelly of my arm and not my actual belly thankfully. But it doesn't help that I participate in the damage by grinding through my skin with metal, not only teeth.
If only I could squirm out of the cuffs and bar. Even the sweat out of every pore in my body does no good. Guess I'm not up to being flexible after all. That comes with being worn out the other end by someone the likes of him.
Now my blisters are swollen like a tick bite, pregnant and about to pop. Will the Joker cut them open in that case? Give his own variant of a cesarean section? Because I'm actually seeing the process of those blisters absorb more skin.
Why, they're mutating like the blob in that dumb horror film I can't remember. I'm in enough of a horror movie as it is. And in my eyes, this one's a b-flick.
"Oh, give it a rest. You are in no way thick-skinned. I can see right...through you." Cackling, the Joker prods my blister with the knife's edge. It wriggles like a worm, jumping humps under my skin. Could it be that my blister's trying to escape? Nice to know that it has the right idea.
"Nothing and no one here to impress, you silly, silly thing" he coos again, back to whispering secrets and lies. He brushes aside my hair in doing so and detaches where it has matted to my cheek. "Want to know what I did last night?"
No, I don't. I don't want to know you or your delusions, Joker. What makes you think I do? That we're on familiar terms? Keep those to yourself. I prefer to remain Joker-illiterate as best as I can and -
"I cut your city's head off. It's becoming my vision. So why don't you take off your mask and show me who you really are like everyone else, hmm?"
My, such graphic language. It's never enough for him; he has to spread violence in his words too. And that mocking tone of his, humming like a wasp with its barbed point. But of course this is one wasp that'll do more than sting.
To be more accurate though, the Joker does wear the guise of a demon well. He even created this hell for me, didn't he? His personal last judgment? What sort of human being does that?
He's even making me think that makeup is literally his skin. The top layer on the crazy cake, I'm willing to bet. Just like I'm willing to bet that when that makeup flakes, I'll see the Joker's face. Isn't he the one wearing a mask or something...?
Ah...so that's it.
There is an outlet. I can see an outlet, how the Joker's request plugs in to activate those long-neglected neurons. In seconds, my brain recharges for action:
Why does the Joker come to visit me, come back here? Why would he bother if he's already so far along? Why swim upstream against the momentum of his plan? Most of all, why would the Joker care about my reaction when he is supposedly in charge of reactions? Supposedly...
Getting an adrenaline rush from these thoughts, I finally laugh. "You didn't get him."
God, does it feel good to laugh. Somehow, it washes away the complexity of all those emotions, I've been feeling. Is this why the Joker laughs? Why he doesn't bathe perhaps?
"The Batman," I repeat as if it's my first word. "You didn't get him, did you?"
Despite this grin aching my teeth and working apart my face like taffy, it's just as sweet when it sticks. Even though a grin's probably not what the Joker wants, too bad. Laughter is not a privilege. Besides, I thought you liked laughing, Joker. Ha. Ha. Ha.
"Am I your best alternative, you cowardly shit?"
The Joker disappears from view under his hair which is closer to being a corded mop. Strange that I still can't say what color the Joker's hair is no matter how close it gets to me or how he ensnares his fingers around my own hair when he seizes the back of my head.
I jerk against the Joker's grip. Ah, he definitely means to rip at least half my hair off when he's done. Going to make me his trophy officially by scalping me? How literal of him. That would explain why his fingers are forming hooks to fish out any obvious strands.
It couldn't be more obvious that he's ready to kill me. Except I don't have last words; none to waste my breath on the Joker, that is. No, my real last words are safe inside my head where the Joker can't steal them. Harvey, Bruce...whatever you do, don't let him win.
Except...nothing happens. Not even after closing my eyes. Oh, what more could the Joker want? Does he really want the light in my eyes too?
What a surprise then that when I open my own eyes a tad, I find the Joker's staring up into them. However, nothing could prepare me for the way the Joker's eyes look. They are round and teary, shining like that silver dollar memento, Harvey keeps from his father. Would I have the ability to do so, I could trace those ill-suited eyes of his in the dark.
Know why I think the Joker's eyes are ill-suited? As an indistinguishable brown like any other, they're reminding me that he's human. His gaze might as well be begging me to sympathize with him somehow even while I suspect otherwise.
The Joker's pleading doesn't help either. "Why won't you cry? Girls...girls are supposed to cry."
Come to that, pathetic is an easy turn to sympathetic as the Joker is currently behaving. That's a three-step plan right there, three letter separation. How easy would that be to connect and forget the pain? Only I don't do easy, no matter how tempting the bribe. Right is never supposed to be easy.
The Joker soon gets distressed, amplifying his already overdone attempt at humanity. "Oh. What I should I do? What should I...do?" His eyes flashing like a broken bulb, the Joker's gaze swerves around the corners of his corneas. I could almost hear those eyes clicking into place at last before he digs deeper into his pockets.
Then he pulls out this hefty pair of pliers, the biggest set of pliers I've ever seen for a coat pocket. Dull and clunky, they are and homemade instead of store-bought like everything else about him. And how fitting they had been bent into shape as subject to his whimsy.
Soon after, the Joker looks to check nails for lint probably lost from his hair and asks "How 'bout a manicure?"
My mouth dropped, hanging loose and opening my thoughts. It took not long at all for those thoughts to desert me and transform my brain into a ghost town. There are no volunteers to round up for this last stand.
Simply put...I had been mishearing this reality from the start.
The Joker's fingers fall on me soon after, groping up my arm to fondle my fingers as though blind. And so was I despite technically having my eyes open.
"'Ten little piggies went out to dine," the Joker begins singing under his breath, gently cradling this nursery rhyme. "One drank too much and then there were -'"
In my mind, I'm strong. I can always be strong there. I don't have to let myself down. However, regardless of what I can think true, thoughts don't translate into actions.
"DON'T, PLEASE!" I beg him abruptly, shaking. This time, I do cry, cry until my eyelids are wrung stiff. Once again, I do exactly what the Joker wants. I can admit to that as long as I live.
But really, don't tell me that's my voice. That weary, inhuman voice? How could such a voice belong to anything other than fear?
And why does the room suddenly feel so cold? It's more like an icebox to preserve meat. Guess it's not too far off then. These icicle tears of mine had been cold comfort to begin with anyway, not just literally.
Not that it bothers the Joker. Why else would he lick up my face? Does he like that I lay out a trail of tears for him to follow?
"Now, that wasn't so hard."
Of course, I don't react properly. What I want is a bath. A nice warm bath to be clean for real. That's what the Joker's tongue reminds me of if I pretend harder. It's not so bad that way.
What is bad is that it doesn't last. Teeth bared, the Joker bites hard at my lips. "Another time, I won't be as patient," he growls and spits this newly drawn blood to the side.
It's someone else. I view from afar that their mouth is ajar. Yeah, I rhymed. Does it matter when I'm ajar? I'm being hypothetical. Anyway, their mouth will get infected if it receives no treatment. See? See?
What I can't bear is how the Joker just...just goes back to how he was. Back where he began to spite everything I said and did. That I'm that inconsequential. "While I'd love to stick around and make you my canvas, I have bigger plans for tonight. Bigger than Gotham, bigger than you'll ever be...little girl." And he says all this while using my arms as a literal arm rest because they're there.
As for the Joker's inevitable punch-line? He delivers it without the gloves, his own shot in the dark. "Maybe if you're lucky, you'll hear them before you die."
There go his footsteps straight after. Though they're unable to muffle the door's lament from having to shut.