Team Knight, Round 2, fic
Title: Miscellaneous Excerpt [The Nightmare Before Christmas/Batman]
Author:greedyslayer
Prompt: Crossovers
Word count:1,959
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Batman or to the Nightmare Before Christmas
Rating: PG-13 (for one word)
Warnings: er, spoilers for The Nightmare Before Christmas; oh yes, and Happy-Go-Lucky Batman! (seriously)
Summary: Bored with the same-old in Gotham, the Dark Knight discovers Metropolis, and decides he'll take Superman's place this year. While everyone in Gotham is behind their Knight, only the ragdoll clown has some reservations about it.
Notes: Direct casting--Batman=Jack Skellington, Joker (Nolanverse)=Sally, Oracle/Barbara Gordon=Dr. Finklestein, District Attorney Harvey Dent Two-Face=Mayor, all three Robins/Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake=Lock, Shock, & Barrel; other familiar faces will show up (directed to more minor TNBC characters, or not at all, but twisted to fit with the new TNBC-esque world). As the title says, this is an excerpt; there may be more installments and arranged in more chronological order later. Thanks to
overlithe
for feedback.
At the squeak of wheels, the Joker shoved out of the line and scurried behind the fountain. As usual, only the local Musician Troupe really noticed his twitchiness, and as usual, the Joker only had his eyes for Doctor Gordon.
She rolled into full view on the cobbled streets, and her hair seemed even more on fire. The ragdoll clown knelt down lower as her eyes flicked all around behind her glasses.
"Oracle!"
Her pale lithe hands froze on the wheels, and Joker dared to stretch up a little, as long as he was perfectly behind the fountain's sculpture of the water dragon, pressed against its bronze scales.
"Oracle, front of the line!"
With a roll of her eyes, Doctor Gordon sped away, and Joker waited a few seconds before standing up--only to snap back down behind the fountain when his creator took one final look over her shoulder.
This time Joker waited until she vanished behind City Hall's doors before returning to the line, and when one of the taller Musicians, Croc, nodded to him, he took back his place right behind Croc, resuming everything: arms folded and fingers tapping anxiously against them, picking up the very important task of worrying.
Joker absolutely knew that what he saw was real, what with the mini-Daily Planet burning and everything, which really was actually kinda pretty, he had never seen anything like it before, that wavy breathing liquid that shifted from red to yellow to even blue--but.
But there was something off about it, maybe it was just because he hadn't seen anything like it before, it was unknown, maybe it was bad, what did he know?
"Head filled with nothing but dead leaves," Oracle had muttered in a faraway absent-minded voice during an early Examination; and from his position on the lab table, Joker had reached with one hand for a scalpel from the tray while his Creator had been occupying herself with the reflexes of his legs; and with the scalpel, made a slit in his forehead and slipped the blade in and out, shifting out autumn leaves that crackled at the movement.
Oracle had growled then and pulled his arm away, which only dragged the scalpel all the way down the forehead to his chin, ripping open a larger gash; and she had slapped his hand away when it curiously groped at the increase of fluttering crackling leaves. She then strapped that arm down and the rest of his limbs, and stitched him back up, and did not untie him until the very next midnight and that had been horribly agonizingly boring.
Though while Oracle felt that her Creation was better off following her wishes and be content with knowing nothing, Joker was certain he could learn something, and he felt that the Dark Knight's presentation on Metropolis was very educational yesterday. And fun. Batsy had looked really truly happy then, much better than back in the graveyard, entrancing everyone with his manic enthusiasm for the City spotless in its streets and the clarity and luminosity of its atmosphere and the speeding red-and-blue bullet that was The Supper Man in their perfectly blue sky, eerily empty of any stars, and their brighter and scorching moon--or what Batman explained as 'the sun' (Joker could not imagine a sky that was not a deep bluish black dotted with stars that sometimes moved and a moon that shifted in shape).
Batsy's vision of Metropolis had looked whole and complete--not burning and withering into an inky burnt up twig. The fact that Joker definitely woke up from a certain amount of sleep and with the burnt twig in hand where the mini-Daily Planet building had been in no way amounted to him having dreamt the whole thing; he had plucked the flower bud and it had blossomed into a palm-sized Daily Planet and it had burned prettily leaving behind a pathetic little black warped thing--the proof lay in that he had a burnt up twig gripped in his hand when he woke up, rather than the flower!
Whatever; it was real and possibly a threat to the Dark Knight, and being a possibility was bad enough. It really didn't help that after waking up with the tell-tale smoking remains of the mini-Daily Planet in hand, he had stayed and waited outside the gates to Wayne Manor, mostly because of all the passing Gothamites voicing their concern over their Knight's extended stay in his mansion, effectively summed up by Baby Doll's, "Hope he hasn't died."
Well. He had to wait then. And stare through the bars like a puppy dog instead of trying to climb over the freakin' gates--but a weird little tightness in his chest accompanied by a blush across his cheeks just had him keeping a relatively ineffective vigil.
And less relief to his dead-leaf mind when Batman had finally thrown a window open and crowed with such possessiveness, "This year, Metropolis will be ours!" Joker had welcomed back that bleak sense of solitude while practically everyone around him cheered their Knight's proclamation; all he saw was the way Batman's eyes had burned hot and bright with something--a thing that burned brighter than mini-Daily Planet, burned enough where the clown ragdoll felt he had been scorched too (and he still wasn't sure how he felt about that).
Now, Joker was full out fidgeting, feet tapping when the line paused for unbearable moments, bumping into Croc in a rush when the line finally moved. Croc for his part was very nice and didn't scold or complain, just told him to mind the sax, the larger reptile man holding the huge black case closer.
"C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon, I want to talk to you, I need to talk to you…"
Joker didn't yowl, but jumped on one foot and raised it when a sudden sensation pricked up there, and Croc growled at a bunch of giggling kids in masks and capes, one waving a crowbar in the air with a yellow leaf speared on it, more leaves being waved around in his other gloved hand; the other two kids were muttering something about The Supper Man and some Hush Man while they tried to stop their laughter. The clown ragdoll poked experimentally through the hole that went straight through his boot and mismatched sock and into his convincingly fleshy--if pure white--fabric, shifting some leaves about.
"C'mere," grunted Croc, kneeling down. "On my shoulders; just 'till you stitch your foot back up."
Joker gave a very polite thank you and clambered onto the man's back, sitting around his thick neck. From the one pocket in his patchwork dress, he pulled out his thread and needle. One leg dangling freely, he bent the other leg with the ripped foot up, where the knee met his chest, and did his best to not have that foot dig into Croc's shoulder while he quickly stitched the gash shut, sewing up both foot and sock and shoe. When he was done, it was the Musician Troupe's turn, and Joker excitedly jumped down while Croc joined the rest of his band on the stage and spoke with the Dark Knight. They were far enough on the stage where the clown rag doll could not really hear much of what any of them were saying.
He hadn't learned how to read lips yet, but he could see that same manic joy in Batman, though now slammed into high gear, and instead of being gratified, Joker's concern returned with a vengeance; how to best phrase his worries to Batman?
In a chair and balancing a notebook while he wrote in it, Mr. Dent noticed Batman bidding the Music Troupe good-bye and good luck, and immediately waved the clown ragdoll over while the Knight finished with them.
Joker went up the steps, stumbled in his impatience, and despaired over that maybe Oracle was right, maybe he would never learn how to walk as if he hadn't just spent hours in the local tavern.
"Joker, you're just the man I need!" Said the Dark Knight as he strode over and helped the ragdoll up, and in Joker's chest he felt something begin to beat very rapidly, crushing the leaves, and surely Batman could hear them crackling? Mr. Dent must have, but both sides of his face had returned to trained impassiveness as he went over his most recent notes on the Music Troupe's lyrical revision; on the next page, he had already simply titled and underlined it 'Joker,' waiting to begin recording.
"I need your help--"
"No kidding; Batsy, I had this, uh, premonition, vision trip thing about your Metropolis--"
Besides recording the relevant details of today's mass assignments, Mr. Dent indulged in scribbling notations that were not so pertinent, that simply popped in his head ('Oracle using her Child for drug experiments now?')
Batman absent-mindedly hummed a dubious assent, already having whirled around and digging through a storage chest.
Joker continued on, too focused on conveying his fears to notice his less than attentive audience; "It was a disaster--there was smoke, and fire--and sure, I thought it was kinda pretty, but--"
Batman chuckled at that as he triumphantly pulled out the pictures he had been looking for.
"That's not my Metropolis; mine is full of laughter, and joy--here, look at this," and with one arm Batman took Joker by the shoulders, the other displaying the self-portrait Talia had given him some years ago, and flipped the second taped page over for the full transitional effect. Joker blinked at the second page's colorful primary colored outfit--Batsy had described it yesterday, but he still couldn't fathom someone actually wearing that.
"My Supper Man costume; I want you to make it."
Mr. Dent noted that Joker would be handling wardrobe, as well as quoting word for word his fears--imaginative as they were, they were at least in-tune with Harvey's own feeling that the whole affair was a Bad Idea, even if he never planned on explaining it to the Dark Knight--with him, it really was just best to go with the flow (not that Batman overtly threatened--he was just generally charming and shining good will out of every orifice when that excited, and it was best to just go with that excitement, since nothing could ever really stop it). And lately--well, just as Gotham generally did with Oracle, so they did with Batman: let things slide and acquiesce to their wishes given past events.
Joker blinked more, nervously licking his lips as he took the sketch taped to the portrait; even this was surreal.
The clown ragdoll flipped The Supper Man sketch away and traced the ears of the original portrait; politely, Batman flipped the sketch back over the old thing.
That seemed to snap Joker out of it, for he began again in earnest, "Batsy, this is a mistake--"
"Nonsense; who else is clever enough to make my outfit?"
"But--but--" Damn his compliment, it was tying his tongue up!
Gently, arm over his shoulder again, the Dark Knight guided Joker away, reassuring, "Now, don't be modest." Black gloved hand squeezing the thinner shoulder gently, and Joker felt an electric shock that seemed stronger than the Very First lightning bolt that brought him to life; it spread all over him and made his back go ramrod straight. "I have every confidence in you."
And then Batman was talking to Pammy the Herbalist, and Joker was mechanically walking out the door cradling the sketch and the portrait.
"But it feels wrong to me…"
But it was just that: a feeling, the Joker couldn't even properly define what 'wrong' was anyway.
Author:greedyslayer
Prompt: Crossovers
Word count:1,959
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Batman or to the Nightmare Before Christmas
Rating: PG-13 (for one word)
Warnings: er, spoilers for The Nightmare Before Christmas; oh yes, and Happy-Go-Lucky Batman! (seriously)
Summary: Bored with the same-old in Gotham, the Dark Knight discovers Metropolis, and decides he'll take Superman's place this year. While everyone in Gotham is behind their Knight, only the ragdoll clown has some reservations about it.
Notes: Direct casting--Batman=Jack Skellington, Joker (Nolanverse)=Sally, Oracle/Barbara Gordon=Dr. Finklestein, District Attorney Harvey Dent Two-Face=Mayor, all three Robins/Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake=Lock, Shock, & Barrel; other familiar faces will show up (directed to more minor TNBC characters, or not at all, but twisted to fit with the new TNBC-esque world). As the title says, this is an excerpt; there may be more installments and arranged in more chronological order later. Thanks to
overlithe
for feedback.
At the squeak of wheels, the Joker shoved out of the line and scurried behind the fountain. As usual, only the local Musician Troupe really noticed his twitchiness, and as usual, the Joker only had his eyes for Doctor Gordon.
She rolled into full view on the cobbled streets, and her hair seemed even more on fire. The ragdoll clown knelt down lower as her eyes flicked all around behind her glasses.
"Oracle!"
Her pale lithe hands froze on the wheels, and Joker dared to stretch up a little, as long as he was perfectly behind the fountain's sculpture of the water dragon, pressed against its bronze scales.
"Oracle, front of the line!"
With a roll of her eyes, Doctor Gordon sped away, and Joker waited a few seconds before standing up--only to snap back down behind the fountain when his creator took one final look over her shoulder.
This time Joker waited until she vanished behind City Hall's doors before returning to the line, and when one of the taller Musicians, Croc, nodded to him, he took back his place right behind Croc, resuming everything: arms folded and fingers tapping anxiously against them, picking up the very important task of worrying.
Joker absolutely knew that what he saw was real, what with the mini-Daily Planet burning and everything, which really was actually kinda pretty, he had never seen anything like it before, that wavy breathing liquid that shifted from red to yellow to even blue--but.
But there was something off about it, maybe it was just because he hadn't seen anything like it before, it was unknown, maybe it was bad, what did he know?
"Head filled with nothing but dead leaves," Oracle had muttered in a faraway absent-minded voice during an early Examination; and from his position on the lab table, Joker had reached with one hand for a scalpel from the tray while his Creator had been occupying herself with the reflexes of his legs; and with the scalpel, made a slit in his forehead and slipped the blade in and out, shifting out autumn leaves that crackled at the movement.
Oracle had growled then and pulled his arm away, which only dragged the scalpel all the way down the forehead to his chin, ripping open a larger gash; and she had slapped his hand away when it curiously groped at the increase of fluttering crackling leaves. She then strapped that arm down and the rest of his limbs, and stitched him back up, and did not untie him until the very next midnight and that had been horribly agonizingly boring.
Though while Oracle felt that her Creation was better off following her wishes and be content with knowing nothing, Joker was certain he could learn something, and he felt that the Dark Knight's presentation on Metropolis was very educational yesterday. And fun. Batsy had looked really truly happy then, much better than back in the graveyard, entrancing everyone with his manic enthusiasm for the City spotless in its streets and the clarity and luminosity of its atmosphere and the speeding red-and-blue bullet that was The Supper Man in their perfectly blue sky, eerily empty of any stars, and their brighter and scorching moon--or what Batman explained as 'the sun' (Joker could not imagine a sky that was not a deep bluish black dotted with stars that sometimes moved and a moon that shifted in shape).
Batsy's vision of Metropolis had looked whole and complete--not burning and withering into an inky burnt up twig. The fact that Joker definitely woke up from a certain amount of sleep and with the burnt twig in hand where the mini-Daily Planet building had been in no way amounted to him having dreamt the whole thing; he had plucked the flower bud and it had blossomed into a palm-sized Daily Planet and it had burned prettily leaving behind a pathetic little black warped thing--the proof lay in that he had a burnt up twig gripped in his hand when he woke up, rather than the flower!
Whatever; it was real and possibly a threat to the Dark Knight, and being a possibility was bad enough. It really didn't help that after waking up with the tell-tale smoking remains of the mini-Daily Planet in hand, he had stayed and waited outside the gates to Wayne Manor, mostly because of all the passing Gothamites voicing their concern over their Knight's extended stay in his mansion, effectively summed up by Baby Doll's, "Hope he hasn't died."
Well. He had to wait then. And stare through the bars like a puppy dog instead of trying to climb over the freakin' gates--but a weird little tightness in his chest accompanied by a blush across his cheeks just had him keeping a relatively ineffective vigil.
And less relief to his dead-leaf mind when Batman had finally thrown a window open and crowed with such possessiveness, "This year, Metropolis will be ours!" Joker had welcomed back that bleak sense of solitude while practically everyone around him cheered their Knight's proclamation; all he saw was the way Batman's eyes had burned hot and bright with something--a thing that burned brighter than mini-Daily Planet, burned enough where the clown ragdoll felt he had been scorched too (and he still wasn't sure how he felt about that).
Now, Joker was full out fidgeting, feet tapping when the line paused for unbearable moments, bumping into Croc in a rush when the line finally moved. Croc for his part was very nice and didn't scold or complain, just told him to mind the sax, the larger reptile man holding the huge black case closer.
"C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon, I want to talk to you, I need to talk to you…"
Joker didn't yowl, but jumped on one foot and raised it when a sudden sensation pricked up there, and Croc growled at a bunch of giggling kids in masks and capes, one waving a crowbar in the air with a yellow leaf speared on it, more leaves being waved around in his other gloved hand; the other two kids were muttering something about The Supper Man and some Hush Man while they tried to stop their laughter. The clown ragdoll poked experimentally through the hole that went straight through his boot and mismatched sock and into his convincingly fleshy--if pure white--fabric, shifting some leaves about.
"C'mere," grunted Croc, kneeling down. "On my shoulders; just 'till you stitch your foot back up."
Joker gave a very polite thank you and clambered onto the man's back, sitting around his thick neck. From the one pocket in his patchwork dress, he pulled out his thread and needle. One leg dangling freely, he bent the other leg with the ripped foot up, where the knee met his chest, and did his best to not have that foot dig into Croc's shoulder while he quickly stitched the gash shut, sewing up both foot and sock and shoe. When he was done, it was the Musician Troupe's turn, and Joker excitedly jumped down while Croc joined the rest of his band on the stage and spoke with the Dark Knight. They were far enough on the stage where the clown rag doll could not really hear much of what any of them were saying.
He hadn't learned how to read lips yet, but he could see that same manic joy in Batman, though now slammed into high gear, and instead of being gratified, Joker's concern returned with a vengeance; how to best phrase his worries to Batman?
In a chair and balancing a notebook while he wrote in it, Mr. Dent noticed Batman bidding the Music Troupe good-bye and good luck, and immediately waved the clown ragdoll over while the Knight finished with them.
Joker went up the steps, stumbled in his impatience, and despaired over that maybe Oracle was right, maybe he would never learn how to walk as if he hadn't just spent hours in the local tavern.
"Joker, you're just the man I need!" Said the Dark Knight as he strode over and helped the ragdoll up, and in Joker's chest he felt something begin to beat very rapidly, crushing the leaves, and surely Batman could hear them crackling? Mr. Dent must have, but both sides of his face had returned to trained impassiveness as he went over his most recent notes on the Music Troupe's lyrical revision; on the next page, he had already simply titled and underlined it 'Joker,' waiting to begin recording.
"I need your help--"
"No kidding; Batsy, I had this, uh, premonition, vision trip thing about your Metropolis--"
Besides recording the relevant details of today's mass assignments, Mr. Dent indulged in scribbling notations that were not so pertinent, that simply popped in his head ('Oracle using her Child for drug experiments now?')
Batman absent-mindedly hummed a dubious assent, already having whirled around and digging through a storage chest.
Joker continued on, too focused on conveying his fears to notice his less than attentive audience; "It was a disaster--there was smoke, and fire--and sure, I thought it was kinda pretty, but--"
Batman chuckled at that as he triumphantly pulled out the pictures he had been looking for.
"That's not my Metropolis; mine is full of laughter, and joy--here, look at this," and with one arm Batman took Joker by the shoulders, the other displaying the self-portrait Talia had given him some years ago, and flipped the second taped page over for the full transitional effect. Joker blinked at the second page's colorful primary colored outfit--Batsy had described it yesterday, but he still couldn't fathom someone actually wearing that.
"My Supper Man costume; I want you to make it."
Mr. Dent noted that Joker would be handling wardrobe, as well as quoting word for word his fears--imaginative as they were, they were at least in-tune with Harvey's own feeling that the whole affair was a Bad Idea, even if he never planned on explaining it to the Dark Knight--with him, it really was just best to go with the flow (not that Batman overtly threatened--he was just generally charming and shining good will out of every orifice when that excited, and it was best to just go with that excitement, since nothing could ever really stop it). And lately--well, just as Gotham generally did with Oracle, so they did with Batman: let things slide and acquiesce to their wishes given past events.
Joker blinked more, nervously licking his lips as he took the sketch taped to the portrait; even this was surreal.
The clown ragdoll flipped The Supper Man sketch away and traced the ears of the original portrait; politely, Batman flipped the sketch back over the old thing.
That seemed to snap Joker out of it, for he began again in earnest, "Batsy, this is a mistake--"
"Nonsense; who else is clever enough to make my outfit?"
"But--but--" Damn his compliment, it was tying his tongue up!
Gently, arm over his shoulder again, the Dark Knight guided Joker away, reassuring, "Now, don't be modest." Black gloved hand squeezing the thinner shoulder gently, and Joker felt an electric shock that seemed stronger than the Very First lightning bolt that brought him to life; it spread all over him and made his back go ramrod straight. "I have every confidence in you."
And then Batman was talking to Pammy the Herbalist, and Joker was mechanically walking out the door cradling the sketch and the portrait.
"But it feels wrong to me…"
But it was just that: a feeling, the Joker couldn't even properly define what 'wrong' was anyway.