All In Good Fun II
Title: All In Good Fun II
Author:
regularbean
Summary: Patrick ends up exactly where he thought he didn't want to be..
Characters: The Joker, Patrick Bateman
Rating: Nothing but a little violence so far...so I guess R? I don't know. Nice and easy does it, it's working its way up ^^
Disclaimer: Not mine!
It's up the street from the gym. The Dorsia is ten blocks away from it. The American Gardens building is half way across the city from it. The Narrows is to its left. My dry-cleaner is right across from it...
Patrick Bateman felt as if all the meaningless points of his empty life were converging on that damned thrift store. Each time he'd take a trip anywhere-- be it to Xclusive to workout, or to the latest and greatest restaurant to dine and "converse" with "interested" people, he'd be calculating the distance from wherever he was to that thrift store. If I ran, how fast could I get there?
It was Wendnesday. It was 9:50. Patrick reclined in his stiff, wooden seat. He hated the harsh feel of the chair's structure against his backside. He hated whatever girl he was dating at the moment, all her stupid prattling, all her stupid efforts to get bras with better padding to make her boobs bigger. The food today, he found, was sub-par. The sky was bothering him...why is the moon so fucking green? Will it stop already? Patrick made a twitch as he attempted to shield his eyes from the beaming green moon.
"White, not green, whitwhitewhite..."
"Patrick? Patrick, are you okay?" his date asked. Patrick peered at her for a moment, glancing at her unsatisfactory bosom, and then went back to shielding his face from the leering, all-seeing emerald eye above him in the sky. Her hand tentatively reached out to rest upon his sturdy arm, but suddenly as quick as a flash Patrick tore away from her and dashed out the door, the tails of his coat flying out behind him.
"I need to return some videos!' he called back over his shoulder before he was out of his failed date's earshot.
With that all off his hands, Patrick began to hustle down the streets, skidding out of a taxi's path just in time along the way...the way to where?
"Jack..stupid...I wasn't inquisitizing you...'inquisitized' ha, Jack, that's not EVEN A WORD!" Patrick began to shout to himself as he blazed his haphazard path through the city.
"For your information, mister, it's in the Webster's English dictionary."
Patrick whirled around, suddenly finding himself at the mouth of the thrift store, faced with the very man who started this whole thing in the first place: Jack.
"It is not. It's not a word," Patrick protested, smoothing back whatever strands of his brown hair had fallen out of place during his delusional antics.
"Oh yeah? Well, why don't you come in here with me, and we can find a dictionary, and I'll prove it to you?" Jack slyly suggested, striking a coy little pose before the entranceway.
"No..."
"...but," Patrick began to add, "How does the, um, moon look to you?"
"The moon? Ah...is that a trick question? Is it one of those ditties were no mat-ter what I say I'll get some pervy little comeback in response? Or maybe ya will go 'Caution: full moon' and then turn 'round and drop your pants?"
Patrick furrowed his brow, trying to understand what Jack had said. Was he joking? Patrick couldn't tell.
"I just...the moon, it's green."
"Of course the moon is green," Jack nodded in agreement, much to Patrick's surprise. The two men glanced up at the actually yellow-white ball up above, and then looked back to each other's faces.
"No, it's not green," Patrick began to protest stubbornly, but not whining, his voice still retaining a wooden quality.
"Sure it is. Come in, and I'll show you," Jack invited persuasively, gesturing to the door with a sweeping flourish of his hand. Patrick sucked in his cheeks subtly and gave a cross look over at whatever this man was...but began to slowly step inside the store.
'Oh, I don't have to break out the gags and bonds?' thought the Joker, taking the ropes and handcuffs he had been hiding behind his back and tossing them a little ways down the sidewalk before stepping into the shop with Patrick.
"First in the order of things: the moon," Jack announced, striding over to a particular bin of junk. Patrick wrinkled his nose, taking a surveying glance about the thrift store. It was just as he remembered: stuffy, smelly and weird. While Jack searched for...whatever it was he was searching for, it was then that for the first time Patrick realized what the other man was wearing. What is he? Again Patrick felt his face scrunch up, just as it had when he had seen the apparently green moon, as he scrutinized this Jack's outfit.
It was a maroon, velvet waist coat, with an m-notch collar. Underneath it Jack had on some sort of light yellow collared shirt, and as for pants they were a forest green corduroy. It was all, Patrick noted much to his own discomfort, tightly fitted around the spry man.
Patrick sent a skeptical look concerning the color scheme of the outfit. Where did he find that jacket anyway, at a thrift store? Bateman could only glower when he realized that, currently, that was exactly where he was.
"Here, put these suckers on." Jack forced these sunglasses onto the bridge of Patrick's nose. The latter of the two blinked, startled, and then looked outside. The moon was green. Everything was because they were green-tinted sunglasses.
Jack looked boastfully proud. Patrick looked completely uncomprehending.
"Not funny," Patrick muttered as he tore the sunglasses from his face and cast them aside. When he glanced up at the moon though, without glasses now, it was back to being a light cream. Jack looked absolutely indignant, Patrick could see it in the other man's emerald eyes.
"OH! I'm not funny? Okay, fine, fine....how about I get out that dictionary, then..."
When Jack walked off to get the said dictionary, Patrick could have sworn he heard 'spoiled little son of a bitch' under the other man's breath. Patrick wasn't sure why (he wasn't sure of his reasons for many things) but he followed the colorful enigma back over to the book shelves. Jack took a dictionary that had been propped up on display, and flipped it open to a certain page, hanging it to Patrick with a wide, toothy grin.
Patrick peered at the book when it was handed it to him, eyebrows raising skeptically when he realized some sort of post-it had been inserted in there citing the definition of the contested word.
inquisitize: (v), to question and/or berate another person, or to interrupt their special-special dressing room time, and that mean you, yeah, you, the one reading this!
Patrick sneered at Jack's bizarre audacity and tossed the dictionary down, turning to begin to walk out of the store. What, had Jack known he would come here? Plan this whole thing?
"You can't go!" Patrick could hear Jack beginning to say, in a near whine. Just when he got to the door, Jack repeated this phrase, but this time in an almost frightening tone, so gruff it felt as if the words had been crunched through a mile of gravel. "No, you really aren't going to leave."
"Oh? And what's stopping me?" Patrick challenged, raising his voice. He turned to face Jack, only to be met with a gun directly in his face.
"I really, really did try to do this the, what do they call it..."nice way". But, you're making it pret-ty difficult for me, ya know?" Jack asked rhetorically, poising his pistol directly before the businessman's face. Patrick was frozen stiff, and Jack just seemed to be taking it all in as if it were just delicious.
"...Who are you?" Patrick eventually asked.
"Me? I'm everybody and everything...nah, just kidding. That did sound epic though, right? Right, right, right..." Jack's words became more self-directed mutters than actual vocalizations directed at Patrick. Still, the gun was unwavering. "I'm someone you know. Someone a lot of people know of. Heh, you know, I don't know why I tried to be..." he looked down at himself, in the velvet waist coat, "...whatever this is. Gotta stay true to my colors."
And they are? Patrick wanted to ask. As if Jack could read his very mind, the blond smirked and said,
"Purple and green."
Patrick didn't know whether to laugh or ask for clarification. I know I'm nuts. But this guy? Yeah, a complete lunatic. Cross-dressing lunatic. One who can't shut the hell up...but god his voice. Sounds like...I don't even know.
"...Are you still not getting it? Do I have to spell it out for you?" Jack began to demand harshly. The anger in his features looked entirely natural upon his face. "Oh you--...fine." Jack stepped away and went over to a marker board where some sale's prices were listed. He erased whatever writing had been there with his hand, and with a dry-erase marker drew five spaced-out lines. "Hang-man! One of my personal favorites," Jack began to snicker. I sometimes play the literal version with people, haha...
At first Patrick had been wondering how Jack expected him to keep standing there when the gun was no longer pointed in his direction. Then he realized that truly he wasn't about to go anywhere, and somehow Jack just knew that.
"I've never played hang-man."
"So, then, now is a good time to start. Ah...I'll give you a hint! What do you say when you're really surprised?"
Patrick didn't know how to answer, and when the Joker waved the gun at him he muttered an "oh" of near-fright. Patrick was the one used to being the one in control, the one with the gun...not the other way around.
"And 'o' is right! See, I know you could do it!" Jack filled an 'o' in on the second blank. "Now, what do you say when you're fine with something?"
"Okay, this has gone far enough," Patrick began to spit, becoming angry. His face turned red. My skin tone! Who did this guy think he was, playing games with him, and ruining his complexion.
"Okay! You're right again, my liiiitle genius! 'K' is one of the letters!" Jack filled the third dash in with a 'k'. "Now, here's another clue!" Jack hopped up onto a chair and began to flap his arms like a madman (Patrick was fairly sure the guy was one, now) and began to make screeching noises....like a bat.
"Um..." Patrick shuffled his feet, his heart beginning to beat fast. Suddenly this game seemed really important. Maybe he could win! The noises Jack was making, sounding like a really elongated--
"E. It's 'e'!" Pat answered, drawing closer, eyes glued to the board. His "friend" smiled and filled in the second to last dash.
"Now, now, hehee! Imagine this is a road! And, this is the crosswalk! What am I doing?" Jack demonstrated this by pretending the adjacent aisle was the road, and a folded blanket was the crosswalk. He traversed the "street" but without using the "crosswalk".
"Jaywalking! J," Patrick finally answered on his own this time. This was much better than filling out crosswords with 'meat' and 'bones', he began to figure.
Jack was beginning to tense, like some sort of charged wire coiling into an electric bundle. He looked like he was about to burst at any second into some grand show of manic hyperactivity as he wrote 'j' in the first blank.
"J-O-K-E-blank," Patrick read out loud. When he finally figured it out, he felt several emotions.
Jack observed Patrick's reaction distantly, slowly filling in 'r' to the last blank.
Patrick felt stupid, for not realizing the obvious. And he didn't like feeling stupid.
He felt surprised. After all the Joker...not somebody one chit-chats with everyday.
He felt lucky. How often did people see the Joker without makeup? As far as he knew, never! The agent of chaos's features were...strange. The make-up made the Joker appear much older than he actually was. This "Jack" had very smooth features, slightly tanned skin, button nose, curved brows and bright eyes. And that smile, the gruesome extensions to it...they looked even more devastating without the red face-paint smeared across them. He had this hair too, fluffy and blond.
And, most of all...Patrick felt excited.
"R..." Patrick muttered the final letter long after it had been last put up. He remembered all the strenuous deliberation he had been doing ever since his last visit to this thrift store, all those days he'd stare out the window of his office or whatever restaurant he happened to be at, thinking of how quickly he could find the man with the green eyes again. All he really had to do was look in the newspaper and he'd find that clown face right there on the front page, most likely.
"Told you ya weren't going to leave," the Joker oozed, throwing the marker aside and lowering his gun.
Patrick felt star-struck. Forget Tom Cruise who lived in his building, no, this was the Joker, a man who could truly incite fear, a man who could stick it to all the world, even Batman! But why me? Patrick had to wonder. Then the thought occurred to him. Does he know about my...proclivities?
"I could really, really use somebody like you..." the Joker began to say, his voice as tremulous with excitement as his footsteps, as he neared Patrick and circled behind him. "I mean, Batman had his bat-car-pod-motorcyle thingy!" the Joker began to rant like some impudent child, even stomping his foot, "And I don't get a toy too?! That thing is his sidekick. And anything Batman has I deserve to have." The Joker could smell the other man's European cologne from where he was, his nose at the side of Patrick's face. He knew, just knew, it made Patrick feel uncomfortable, which was why he did it. Like the kid who just couldn't resist pushing the big, red button.
"Do you find me...interesting too, Mr.?"
Patrick swallowed at the 'Mr'. Something about it sounded....oddly sultry. But, to tell the truth he said,
"You're different."
"I know that," the Joker sneered, "But am I interesting?"
"Yes..." said Patrick. Yes, yes, you really are, I can't...
"Well in that case, partner, you're going to further chaos right along with me!" The Joker practically slapped his hand down on Patrick's, clenching it painfully. "Not to say "I need you" because -HAHAHA- I don't. You're just along for the ride, a nice but unnecessary addition. Catch my drift?" the Joker asked. I had to ask. He doesn't seem like the drift catching type, not being able to guess who I was until there was only one letter left, ha!
"I have it but...will I be good at it?" Patrick asked, something like insecurity rising in his voice.
"Hmm. Tell me, what do you do now, Patrick?"
"I'm an investment banker."
"Really? Ah...well, you'll be better at this than you will be at investment banking. I'm sure." I can tell by the look in your eyes. Not the ordinary criminal. Not the ordinary killer. Not at all. Otherwise, I would waste my precious time on the likes of him.
Seeing someone vest confidence in him...now that was new for Patrick. His chest swelled at the thought. Maybe he could really excel at this. At Pierce and Pierce, Paul Allen got all the best accounts. He didn't deserve them, or those whores that hung on his arm, or his 350$ Gucci loafers. No. But now Patrick had this "other job" with, of all people, the Joker. This job he would excel at, just like the Joker told him.
Patrick's thin lips, usually in a bland, straight line began to twitch at the corners into an outright goofy grin. The Joker grinned back, patting the businessman's hand harshly as he whispered,
"First day of work's tomorrow~!"