Team Anarchy, Round ten, Fanfic: The Dead Man's Quickstep
Author: fairlyfelonious
Title: The Dead Man's Quick Step
Prompt: You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain. - The Dark Knight
Disclaimer: Batman, Joker, and Jeanie aren't mine.
Summary: The Joker drugs Batman and takes the opportunity to tell him about a time when he was human.
Word Count: 2760
Warnings/Rating: R for familicide
A/N: This was very last minute, to get it in for the deadline, so please forgive any errors.
“I guess you could say that we broke up because of artistic differences. He saw himself as alive and I saw him as dead.” Chicago, Cell Block Tango
“I’m sorry, friend,” the Joker spoke softly in Batman’s ear as the purple smoke enveloped them both. Batman’s eyelids started to feel heavy, and the world began to spin, but his enemy seemed perfectly alert. Must be immune to the gas, some small part of him that was still conscious enough to make deductions noted. “But I need you to listen. You never listen when I try to tell you how-how our little dance began, how I need you. I have ta admit, I feel…cheated of your company, of your full attention, but now ya have to listen, now, now you don’t have any other choice.
“I have ta warn you before I start, that my friend, the neurotoxin,” he patted the canister from which the gas was emerging lovingly, “might make you feel like you’re actually there with me, when I tell ya how I got,” and he made little slashing motions over both of his cheeks with his finger, “sliced up. It might make ya see other things, too. I’m really not sure what this’ll do to you, because, uh, pharmacology is actually more of a hobby for me than a profession.” He put a hand to his mouth and gasped, pretending to be scandalized. “But I’m sure you’ll be fine. Now where to start this, ahhahaa, lovely fairytale…oh yes.
“Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved his mother very much…”
***
The circus was silent as the ringmaster stepped onto the stage. The eccentrically dressed man had an enthralling presence, somehow beyond the theatricality typical of a mere performer. His face was painted more like a death’s head mask than a clown, and his outfit was made up of an array of garish colors that fit together like a patchwork quilt.
Suddenly, a creature that Bruce had thought only existed in Greek myths and children’s fairytales stepped into the light behind the grim-reaper of a ringmaster. Cerebus, guardian of the underworld, bared the dagger sharp yellowed teeth in each of his three mouths, growling at the audience protectively as he sat down on his haunches next to his master. The audience watched, blank-faced like dolls, completely unfazed by the sight.
The ringmaster flourished his purple cape and bowed to the audience, which Bruce now realized was him and him alone.
“Ladies and Gentle-men! We are tonight’s entertainment! And now, in an act so dangerous that no one has attempted it before now, the Joker will be performing…the Dead Man’s Quickstep!”
***
Part One: Always be prepared
Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved his mother very much…
The apartment door slammed open so hard it hit the wall, and Jack heard silver wear clatter to the floor. His father cursed and his mother whimpered. He could imagine her backing up against the wall, cringing away from his father as he towered over her.
Jack shook with rage. Ever since dad had lost his license to practice medicine, it had been like this. His mom always forgave him, though: the split lips, the fractured tibia, the black eyes. How could she love someone who hurt her so much?
Feeling as if he was watching his own actions from far away, Jack took his Boy Scout pocket knife from the top drawer of his desk, opened it and hid it up his sleeve and under the palm of his hand so he could get to it if he needed to. He smiled sardonically, hearing to sound of his scoutmaster’s advice in his head. Always be prepared 1.
Jack clenched his jaw, took a deep breath, and left his room for the living room. There was a loud smack, then another whimper, and he began sprinting towards the kitchen. When he saw his mother prostrated at his father’s feet, a hand-size purple bruise forming on her swollen cheek, saw the dazed look in her eyes, the part of him that thought had become immune to such sickening dread iced over with fear. His dad had a length of rope in his hands. Jack tried to think of where that would lead, and knew, somehow, that whatever happened tonight, it would be so much worse than usual. His world narrowed to one thought.
I can’t let him tie her up.
Before he realized what he was doing, Jack had stepped between them. His father towered over him, his grown man’s height and weight dwarfing Jack’s thirteen-year- old, whip thin body, but Jack didn’t care. This was his mother. Things like this just shouldn’t happen, and he wouldn’t let him hurt her anymore. He had never been so angry in his life, but he stil thought very carefully about which words to say in order to provoke his father. Maybe then, he would leave her alone.
“What’s the matter, you have ta beat someone you supposedly love to convince yourself you’re more than a sad excuse for a human being? Or is that what the whisky’s for, you failure?”
His father-he wouldn’t let Jack call him dad, anymore, thought it was disrespectful-turned towards him slowly, his bloodshot eyes going unnervingly blank before rage lit them like hellfire. He met his father’s enraged gaze steadily. Never show fear. Never. He can smell it.
“You think you’re a real Joker, don’t ya, Jack? You think you’re a real goddamn clown.” He moved so fast that Jack could only stumble back in shock.
Always be prepared, he thought giddily.
Before he could even begin to struggle, his father had wrenched his wrists behind his back and tightened the rope around them like a noose. Jack let out a sound somewhere between a howl and a growl, trembling with purely animalistic rage and terror as he was shoved aside.
“Let’s see how much ya laugh at me when I carve your beloved mother up like a goddamn jack-o-lantern.”
“No!”
His father only laughed, wheezing drunkenly, and grabbed his half-conscious mother’s cheeks with one hand while patting them with mocking affection with the other. He let her go, and her head lolled backwards and made a sickening crack on the kitchen counters. Walking over to the knife holder, he ran his finger down the handles of the kitchen knives until he came to a large serrated knife in the middle. Jack squirmed, and desperately began to saw at the rope binding his wrists. His knife caught his skin instead, a few times, but he didn’t care, he had to get out, had to prevent this from happening.
His father had returned to squeezing his wife’s face condescendingly, and began swiping the serrated edge of the knife up and down her cheeks while her tear-filled, brown eyes rolled in her head like a terrified animal. He ruthlessly shoved it between her lips, so that the point of the knife was digging into her tongue.
“Oh, you’re gonna cry now? No more clever…back-talk? Why so serious? Why so serious?! Let’s put a smile on that face!”
“No, Dad! Father, oh god, please, please don’t!”
He screwed his eyes up in terror and frantically continued to saw at the rope, trying to block out the gurgling sobs his mother was making while he worked to get himself free. It finally snapped after what seemed like hours, and he sprang forward to stop his father, only to see that he was seconds too late; he had already carved a wide, hideous grin into his mother’s face, and her glassy eyes stared back at him insensibly, the life already draining from her.
She was already dead. She had been dead for years. And it was all…his…fault.
His vision went black. It was as if he was floating in the middle of outer space, nothing around him but the stars, safe from everything. He could vaguely feel his body moving, struggling, but it wasn’t his body, he was safe, he had to be safe safe safe safe…
When he came to again, his father was lying next to his mother’s still form, his throat slit in a leering smile, a dozen stab wounds marring his chest. Jack fell to his knees and immediately emptied all of the contents of his stomach, clutching his cheeks in agony as he did so. After he was done, his fingers came away covered in crimson blood.
Staring at it in fascination, he traced his new smile.
Jack, the Joker. He laughed.
***
The world started to come into focus, and the first thing he saw was the Joker, his dead eyes staring down at him with fascination.
“Let me go,” he rasped.
The Joker pursed his lips.
“No, no no, I’m afraid I’m not finished yet, that’s only part of what happened,” he said in the matter-of-fact, impatient manner of a child who had gotten rudely interrupted while telling a story. Bruce just had time to contemplate how strangely guileless the mass-murderer could seem, sometimes, when he saw the purple gas creep towards him once more, and the world started to fade away, again.
***
Part Two: The Art of War
Jack shivered as the night wind hit him. He examined his bloodied knuckles with almost hysterical amusement, remembering a time when he would never have drunk so much that he didn’t even have the coordination to punch correctly. He had rarely even gone to bars as recently as a year ago, because he knew there was a chance he had inherited his father’s disease. He hadn’t wanted to die like that, but now he was alone for all intents and purposes and no longer cared how he died.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so horrible: he had never questioned the morality of his actions once until his wife had confronted him. Not even when he’d had to watch picture after picture of the bodies, not even when he’d heard the words ‘guilty’ and ‘dishonorable discharge’. Those schemers in their ivory towers had never been mired in blood, never been in charge of protecting innocents from things that should never, ever happen. It had been his job to prevent those types of things, and he sometimes had to make moral concessions to do so. It had never entered his mind that he might have crossed a line until he heard that word fall from his wife’s lips.
Murderer.
That’s when the screaming had started. It had never bothered him much before (screaming in his ears, burned into his mind) except for in his dreams, but now the screaming was there when he was awake, too. He squeezed his eyes shut and gripped his hair, threading his fingers through the greasy locks (when was the last time you took a shower, Jacky-boy?) and screaming through gritted teeth. Everybody had depended on him to protect them, he knew they had, but the Army forensic psychologist had said that it was the delusional intensity of that belief that made him too unstable for continued military service.
Suddenly, he was at his apartment building-somehow his feet had carried him home without him realizing it-and he fumbled with the key for a few minutes before he got it in the keyhole. The door gave away with a plaintive whine. He staggered up the stairs as steadily as he could, tapping the walls rhythmically along side the sound of his footsteps.
Rata-tat-tat.
Thump.
Rata-tat-tat.
Thump.
He continued to play that steady rhythm on the walls until he was standing in front of the shabby apartment he and Jeanie had been living in since they got married. So unclean. So noisy. And they were stuck there, all because of him.
As soon as he was jangling the key in the latch, he could hear Jeanie and Abby freeze on the other side of the door. He knew the looks that would be on their faces, somewhere between fear, anticipation and loathing, because he remembered that look on his mother’s face every time his father had come home. He looked down at his bloody knuckles again, and giggled somewhat hysterically. Wonderful. Now he looked the part of the abusive husband, and he hadn’t even started hitting her, tonight. Why don’t I just buy some brass knuckles and start wearing wife-beaters while I’m at it?
He stood there completely still, the nausea at the thought of seeing that horrible expression on his wife’s face paralyzing him for a moment.
She thought he was a murderer, just like everyone else.
He threw the door open, and it hit the wall with a bang.
Jeanie’s eyes were fixed on him, liquid blue flashing like lightening with terror, as much as she tried to hide it. Her blond hair fell around her shoulders in soft curls, like an angel’s. He used to think she was as beautiful as an angel. Now he thought her soft beauty made her look useless as a doll on display for the masses.
“J-Jack. What are you doing home so early?”
“So eager to see me, beautiful?”
“Y-yes-”
“Liar. Why are ya just sittin’ here waitin’ for me to come home? So you can criticize me for not takin’ care of our child when you’ve never made a dime in your life-”
“I’ve been trying, Jack, but you wanted me to stay home with Abby when she was born, and now I don’t have any job experience! You said you’d take care of us, now look where we-”
Abby started to cry, her cries crescendoing into screams within moments. He looked into her wide, terrified blue eyes, and the screams closed in on him, the children screaming, trying to escape the explosions, begging him not to do it-
“STOP! JACK, STOP! Oh pleasepleasepleaseplease I didn’t mean it, oh God, I’m so sorry, just stop hitting me! Jack please!”
“Please?” he mocked, even though he was still in a haze to the extent that he didn’t even remember hitting her. “Please?! What’s the matter, sweetness? Can’t handle the consequences of your actions? Are you really that surprised that your life turned out the way it did, when you were sharing your bed with a murderer? Isn’t that what ya think of me, Jeanie? A murderer, insane?”
“No, no, I’m sorry, please, just don’t hurt-don’t hurt Abby, don’t-”
“Well, it’s time to stop being surprised when life doesn’t work out just the way you planned.” He shoved her to the ground, and her head hit the wall with a thump. “Hell is where the heart is, after all,” he said, high on his own cleverness and cackling with delight.
He kicked her again and again, and began to giggle and cry at the same time, giddy vindication welling up in him. The screams in his head became louder as her screams slowly faded into whimpers, her whimpers became rattling, pain-filled breaths, and her breaths became silence.
He looked down, uncomprehendingly at the still body lying at his feet. No, he couldn’t have. Jack wouldn’t…Jack didn’t exist, he was dead if he could do something like…who was he? Who was the crying doll-child on the floor that was clinging to J-the woman’s body? Whoever she was, he got the feeling that it was his fault she was so sad. Maybe if he drew a smile on her face, she would be happy again. He just wanted her to be happy again.
He knelt down in front of her slowly, not wanting to spook the frightened thing, and took a Boy Scout knife from his back pocket. He just stared at it, for a moment, unsure where he ever gotten something like that, then looked kindly down at the frightened child and grabbed her cheeks so she would hold still once he started transforming her.
“Why so serious?”
***
“That’s why I’m so fascinated with you, see?” the Joker whispered, his foul breath warm against Batman’s neck. “You fly around in a Bat costume trying to fix the world, but there’s no fixing it. How can you fix the world when you can’t even fix yourself? That’s, ah, truly tilting at windmills. Jack was, Jack was a lie, and he died that day. There’s no good in people, and we’re all gonna go down in flame eventually, it’s just a matter of when.”
***
I was human once,
Then clouds of bats swooped down and
asked me out to play.
Now, we’re warring gods
Such perfect joy-HE FOUND ME.
Let’s put a smile on.
.