A New Variable to The Equation- Part I, Down the Rabbit Hole- Chapter Two: Make the Story (II)
Authors: Paigery ( obi_luvr) and Amadeus (
regularbean)
Disclaimer: We own NOTHING.
"Ha, a drink? Oh, you mean the bottle you decided to rack me with?" Bruce shifted his position once more so he could press his forearm up into the Clown Prince's throat; strangulating him. He scrutinized the other man's face for a moment with brilliant azure. Most of the madman's make-up had been worn away at the creases of his brow and nose. Even the black paint smeared around his eyes had faded out, making his shamrock-green eyes practically glow. The Joker was a perverse, metaphorical train wreck that poor Bruce Wayne could not seem to pull himself away from. His eyes scanned over the other male's scarred visage; narrowed intently on that red-stained mouth. He watched, fascinated (for there was no other word to describe that glint in his eye), as the tip of a pert little tongue would flick out against those marred lips every sentence or so.
Batman sighed in resignation. He was ready to just throw in his cape and call it quits. He wasn't necessarily getting anywhere productive by stooping down to the masochistic clown's level--both mentally and physically. Why not just do it like old times? He could just knock the green-haired man unconscious with a well-aimed punch to the back of his skull and leave him hog-tied for the police to haul him back to Arkham? That had been his original intentions, after all.
The penis comments were obviously inappropriate and uncomfortable but with each overly-articulate word that spilled from that damn smile, he was growing more and more exasperated. Bruce leaned back, ready to use the other man's abdomen as leverage to push himself back up onto his knees and further back up on two feet. He froze mid-motion though; face immediately flush once more.
"Dammit..." He ground out under his breath. All of this physical activity and frighteningly close proximity (as well as weeks of a whole shopping list of tension) had somehow taken its toll on the masked vigilante's body. And what more fitting irony was it that in all the heat of things, poor Bruce had actually become hard. It wasn't a raging hard-on, by any means, but was still agitated enough to be felt and possibly seen when straining against the inside seam of his compression suit. If he shifted in any way, there was no doubt the Joker would feel it and--further, harass him to no end... And there had been quite enough hysterical chortles thrown in his face to last him well over a week. So here he was (what a predicament), kneeling awkwardly over the other man in a sad, makeshift attempt to hide his obvious arousal.
~*!*~
The Joker narrowed his eyes in response, muttering something like, “Good point” when the man with the hidden face remarked on the bottle…incident. When that blunt force seized down on his throat, the Joker made a small sort of grunt, although he still was probably not as uncomfortable with that as any human should be. What did make him suddenly enormously uncomfortable, believe it or not, was the way Batman was looking at him. The Joker liked to think he was some blaring enigma, but the way the crusader was staring him down…it was like he could see right inside him, see past all the make-up and the clown get-up into something entirely deeper…which was something nobody was able to do, as of yet. Especially with how he could feel the diminished smears of his making beginning to run down his face in hapless, sloppy streaks. He felt like his exterior was just melting away, the exterior of an agent of chaos fading to black and threatening to reveal the fact that, despite it all, there really was a sort of human underneath it all. ‘Disgusting….’ The clown thought, wanting to make a cringe, eyelids drooping downwards slightly when he heard the Batman heave a hopeless sigh.
The infamous Harlequin of Hate was beginning to develop a look of resignation (in the sense that he was helplessly pinned down and had little to know hope of being able to sit up anytime soon) of his own until he sensed something…a change in Batman’s demeanor. He looked up, eyes wide, curious, and scrutinizing.
“Damn…what?” he asked incredulous, his limp strands of hair swaying with the shaking motion of his head. If he didn’t know any better (did he?) the Batman was experiencing some sort of form of…embarrassment? Had a breach in that bat-eared impenetrable wall of defense actually been made?
Using this distraction (as to what it was, the sadistically intellectual jester did not yet know) to his advantage the Joker squirmed his hands free and shoved Batman’s arm off his neck. He had began to sit up-right, when his entire frame just jolted when he noticed something, as if he had been electrocuted.
“Oh no way, just ha…no fucking way….” He began to phrase in disbelief, squinting his eyes at the area between the Bat’s legs. “So you…so you /do/ have a penis after all!” he declared as if he were either Lewis or Clark discovering some marvelous secret of the West. “I know you do, because I can…haha, oh gosh, AHAHA I know because I can see it! Right there!” The Joker pointed with a shaking and wavering finger, then rolling out from under what had been a cage made from Batman’s body, only to move onto the adjacent section of flooring and roll around there some more in laughter.
“You sick fuck, you dooooo like this, hehe, I’m not the only one enjoying this after all, I knew it, I jut…okay so I didn’t know that you enjoyed it really so much maaaaaybe but…hehe, how cute, how adorable how-“ he gestured his hands like a mad eccentric in the air, eyebrows raised and then stopped once he caught his reflection on a window pane. “Hmmm…” he began thoughtfully, watching how the clown-face overlaying his own had deteriorated, “I /knew/ I should have gone with the Maybelline! And /you/ Batsy,” he glanced again at the slight, but visible, erection making a lump against that black suit of his, “Should definitely use a Magnum XXL Trojan to rein that puppy in!”
~*!*~
Bruce felt his face heat up; a cherry red blush consuming most of his stoic visage. Enough so that one could see it peeking up under the smooth, charcoal material of his cowl. As if things couldn't get any worse...
The flustered vigilante was slightly grateful to no longer have the writhing clown beneath him. Muscles strained and ached from supporting his weight in such an awkward position that the moment the Joker rolled out from underneath him, Batman slumped forward against the broken table. He stood slowly; cautiously. His billowing cape cascaded over a pair of broad shoulders and hid most of his armor-plated figure quite well. That included the uncomfortably agitated erection pressing against the confines of his protective suit. A trademark scowl contorted the masked vigilante's exposed features; lips pursed into a fine, slightly-upturned line. He watched that obnoxious excuse of merriment roll around on the floor like the dog he really was; barking laughter echoing off the close-quarters of the bar.
"Me?! The only sick fuck in this room is you, Joker." Bruce seethed, desperately trying to knit together the tattered shreds of his remaining dignity. Damn him... 'It was an accident, okay?!' Bruce wanted to scream. But his mortal half was pushed aside by the self-righteous and silent persona of the Batman. The two conflicting personalities continued to feud with one another; an internal battle of wills until the cloaked figure squared his shoulders and glanced up at the shattered remains of the bar counter.
"I need a beer..." he murmured to himself. Without further ado, the bat-impersonator overstepped the still-hysterical man sprawled out amongst the debris and shuffled back towards the bar. He leaned forward, supporting his weight with both hands about shoulders-width apart against the curled ledge of the counter with his back forming a mildly-incriminating silhouette. And, I say 'mildly' because how incriminating can a figure be if he has a hard-on? It was never a smart move to leave one's back presented to their opponent. He had no doubt that the Joker had the capacity and desire to carve the back of his skull out with a potato peeler. It was any wonder why he found himself taking that same risk so frequently with the mad-eyed jester.
~*!*~
“That is so not true, Batsy-boy! It takes one to know one! You are so- ahaha!” he made another spastic writhing on the floor, consumed by his sporadic fits of laughter, some of the already messed makeup of his smearing onto the wood floor, “-Ahaha! You are so….oooo you’re so secretively kinky underneath it all, hehe! But reallllly Batman,” the Joker began anew, trying to feign something resembling a more serious tone (which was, for him, a little hard), “To think that your wee-wee, which it turns out it does exist after all, got all perky just because your roughhousing with little old me!” The man in clown attire sat up, beginning to make applause. And all for a vigilante’s erection.
The whole entire situation was beginning to get very strange.
“And there’s no way you can pass this off as something trivial! Oh no-I simply wouldn’t let you get by with some lame excuse like that!” he declared, watching as the other man became so exasperated that he finally went to go get a drink. A pause of silence, and then cue that voice of sardonic enthusiasm. “Finally, you’re getting a drink! That was what you should have done in the first place, instead of getting so worked up you got a boner! Ha…I still can’t believe you. The /great. and /incorruptibly respectful/ Batman, whimpering because he’s suffering most likely his first erection in years. What a privilege to be a witness to the monumental moment!” Hopping to his feet with completely uncanny energy, the harlequin bounded over behind the counter. Although, he did notice how the Bat’s head was turned to him, so he couldn’t resist himself but to swat the hero on the back of the head with his hand as well as a fiendish giggle.
Once on the bartending side, the freak piped up with “One beer coming up for the man with arousal-issues!” He rummaged around the many drinks the bar had, eventually finding an ice-cold beer in a little mini-refrigerator off to the side. “I promise I won’t break this one over your crotch….heyyyy, maybe THAT is what got you all hard-as-stone. Glass fetish, much?” the criminal senselessly cheered, sliding the beer across the counter and over to the dark and hunched form.
Taking a moment to let the weight of the situation sink in, the Joker blinked a few times, and then burst out into a smile, because it actually was genuinely funny. Not to mention, he was proud of himself for being able to get Batman into that state…or at least, he hoped that it was something to do with him.
“Sooooo….” he began, stretching out this word to a ridiculous extent as he leaned against the counter. “What would happen if I touched it, HA!” Suddenly he lunged forward and with his hand gave a good push of pressure directly on the erection with crazed glee.
~*!*~
The minute the Joker's hand made contact with his groin, Batman did what every other average Joe would have done. He threw the most violent right hook he could ever remember throwing in his entire life. It was a blind act of defense; an automatic reaction to the sudden and unwelcome contact.
"Don't touch me!" he snarled to hide any doubt of shock in his mind.
What he struck, he didn't know--but whatever it was, he struck hard. There was a sickening crack as his fist collided with living human flesh and bone. But what did he care if he killed the ignorant clown? No...no, he couldn't kill him. What good would it be to break the world's most complicated Rubix cube before he even had a chance to solve it? And that would only mean that the Joker had won the game; the bigger picture. He would not grant the other man that kind of satisfaction--to break his one rule...
It was a sad sort of irony: as long as Batman lived, so would the Joker.
But, for the moment, Bruce didn't really care what state the green-haired man was in. He'd been through worse--he was sure. He could almost hear that gurgling laughter rise up from the glass-littered floor before it even happened. The dark vigilante turned his attention back towards the ice-cold beer in his other hand. He softened his death-like grip on the smooth, amber-colored glass carefully; surprised that it hadn't already shattered between his fingers. He bent the cap of, rather bewildered. He expected that the Joker had poisoned his drink at some point while he was rummaging around down there. But the seal was still fresh on the bottle; uncontaminated.
Almost hesitantly, Bruce leaned forward, trying to see over the edge of the counter at what state his maniacal little counterpart was in. All the while: confused and muddled thoughts raced through his mind about that brief instant of a little more than intimate contact.
~*!*~
As if he should have expected anything different.
The Joker’s skin compressed harshly against that hard bone of his cheek with that hard, fitfully instinctive blow from Batman. He had been slightly taken aback by the brute force of it, however, so much that he stumbled away slightly, eyes wide. Instantly a hand clamped over his mouth (the side of which where most of the physical trauma had been received) and a twisted, gnarled strand of grin hair sprung before his vision.
At first those oddly lively eyes glanced downwards, as if trying to get a view of the damage as his tongue wallowed in that all too familiar taste of blood. Then, shiftily, his gaze went to his heroic counterpart, still wide, and almost with an accusing sort of look to them. Slowly the Joker dropped his hand, as if beginning to poise himself for when the Bat would look to see what condition he was in. Without a doubt, he would. The Joker was sure of that much.
And so, when Gotham’s Dark Knight did, the Joker smiled, a trickle of crimson seeping from one corner of his mouth.
“Hmmm..” he went, merely making thoughtful vocalizations, and not words quite yet. Slowly he approached the counter once more, leaning forward upon it intently, as if about to pull something (which, as usual, he was). Tilting his head, still acting pensive, he crossed his arms against the hard surface, lurching forward again, wondering how Batman would react to that.
Because knowing things about the vigilante really was that important to the Joker.
Then, with a stifling silence overcoming, the Joker finally broke the quiet by suddenly spitting a gob of bloody saliva straight into the other man’s face. “Bitch,” he muttered in an eerily passive voice afterwards, as if he weren’t mad at all, when really he was. But being mad at Batman was far, far different than being mad at, say, a mob boss, or one of his lackeys. No, this was far different. It was oddly intense, a strangely delicate situation and…basically…it was new and foreign territory.
“I was /only/ trying to-“ his tongue darted out “-reward you for being so…” his eyes made a glanced onwards as if looking at Batman’s crotch area (erection included, of course) “…interested in our…various engagements.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, his quick tongue sliding across the front of his teeth to clean the remainder of the blood inside his mouth from there. His shoulders made an insect-like twitch and then he continued, still in that creepy tone of explaining detachment, then narrowing his eyes at the glass Batman was holding and hesitating to drink from, “I didn’t poison it, you know, sweetums. You should know me by now. I don’t really go for things like poison. Not enough emotion. Or well, at least I don’t, yet…”
~*!*~
Bruce almost felt the need to apologize. Almost. And maybe he would have felt even more inclined to guilt hadn't the snickering little bastard just spit in his face. He reached up to wipe the pink-tinted saliva away against the back of one of his gloves before gravity got a hold of it. His eyes followed the thick, clotted line of crimson that dribbled from the corners of the Joker's mouth--forming a natural sort of 'frown'.
"Bitch"
Really now? The vigilante curled his free hand into a light fist before an epiphany struck. Wait...he was angry! For once, there was something different from sadistic amusement swimming behind those emerald eyes. He could almost feel the air thickening between their locked gazes like cooling grease in a frying pan. The Batman had finally elicited a different reaction from the other man aside from that boisterous cackling (though it was not quite the reaction he would had preferred). He had witnessed, with his own eyes, as the Clown Prince of Crime shifted from shock to hurt to infuriation all in the same breath. The key to gaining control over another person is being able to manipulate their emotional state. Bruce had his control... The question was: how long would it last?
So the masked knight continued to observe any fluctuations in the green-haired man's countenance--now almost completely devoid of his 'mask', while seemingly ignoring him. Bruce tossed the aluminum bottle cap back on the bar counter before tilting the neck of the bottle against his lips. He couldn't actually recall what the alcohol tasted like as he threw his head back and guzzled as much of the beverage down in as little time possible (should the Joker decide to take advantage of his mild distraction with another little stunt like the first). Honey-colored drops of amber liquid escaped the weak seal of his mouth and trickled down over his bottom lip and chin. Half-empty, he slammed the bottle back down on the countertop and finally worked up the balls to meet that almost venomous glare.
"Obviously, I don't want any of your rewards." Batman retorted, brow knitting under the front of his cowl.
~*!*~
“Obviously? Obviously! Well obviously you do!” the Joker snapped back, “Because with the way your /dick/ is looking, that tells an entirely different story about what you /want/!” The Joker was never one with some astounding amount of self-control, surely not, but now more so than ever he was unhinged. Sure, he always thought of mean things to say, and he did make most of them vocally clear, but now with all inhibitions back everything he was thinking was spouting out of his mouth. “Nice, Gotham’s knight: horny over what…a bar tussle? Get a grip over yourself and get laid, Batsy, I fear for your psychological condition if you don’t!”
Now, why the sudden lashing out? Before, the Joker did lash out often, it was all part of his dangerously and severely moody persona. But now it was even worse. Why? Because he was doing this out of some caustic reaction. To what? He didn’t quite know. It started with that huge slam to the face he had received a few minutes before. Which was strange, considering how all the other times Batman had kicked him around he enjoyed it and made fun of the hero for it! But now it was different!
The jester returned to a stand once he had selected of bottle of who-knows-what (seeing as he didn’t really care what he was about to drink, for at the moment it was about getting out of the Batman’s oceanic gaze). It was under the said pair of eyes that he was avoiding that he became conscious of how the stuffy air of the bar felt against the bar skin of his face…bare…the make-up was deteriorating into near-nothing now. It made him feel a little bare.
But with those latest volleys of insults still lingering with a tinge of bitterness on the tip of his tongue, that helped the Joker to feel more in power and more in control than he had before, at least. So, he made a smile, wiping on his sleeve the blood trickling out of the side of his mouth.
Still, that incident earlier to was bothering him to the point where it was nearly freakish. And the Joker knew freakish quite well. Suddenly now he wanted to do more to Batman than mind games, now he wanted to crush his face in. Which was clear by how one of the thin-framed Harlequin of Hate was gripping the edge of the counter, and how he was beginning to stare down his opponent with as much venom as he could muster, which was quite a lot.
“You’re lucky Batman, very lucky…for if you were anybody else…I would have found a way to kill you by now. But you’re not anybody else. You’re Batman…so I’ll never kill you. Ever.”
~*!*~
"Get a grip over yourself and get laid, Batsy, I fear for your psychological condition if you don’t!”
Well, that was definitely not what he expected. Bruce was oh so careful not to let the obvious state of shock and awe seep through the cracks of his brooding visage. There was no need to give the other man any more verbal ammunition. But then again, it was a little...difficult not to gawk when Gotham City's Big Bad just told you to "get laid". The masked vigilante shifted his weight ever so cautiously; as if he were waiting for the floor beneath him to suddenly crumble away under his weight. Across from the bar counter, that vile green glare was seemingly trying to bore holes through his forehead. Any intelligent folk would have adverted their gaze elsewhere. But, oh no--not Batman...
The black-clad superhero stood stock-still, watching the emotional sharks circle behind those shamrock-green eyes. The Joker's indignation was so thick, he could almost see it ebbing from his very pore; much in the same fashion as the blood seeped from his wounds. Speaking of which, it seemed that the scarred man's mouth had finally stopped oozing. The tears must have finally got a chance to clot--after all, the mouth had the quickest regenerating cells in the body. He'd read that little tidbit of information from some lousy article in yesterday's paper...
"You’re Batman,so I’ll never kill you. Ever.”
"Oh, am I supposed to feel honored?" It was a slip of his tongue; a poor mistake. Maybe it was the alcohol's warmth spreading throughout his chest but suddenly he didn't feel so much like Batman--he was just a rich playboy in an armored suit. Bruce cursed himself mentally for responding to the jester's antics. The murderous psychopath thrived off of reactions. It was almost like clockwork: the Joker would say something, his victim would react, and before you knew it--you were just another player in his twisted games; a little fly trapped in his intricate web.
The Caped Crusader followed the collar of the Clown Prince's waistcoat until he boldly met the other man's heated glare. No...He would not fall victim to this man. Not again. He may not be able to reverse their psychological rolls but that didn't mean he'd let himself be pushed under the surface by a madman.
~*!*~
‘He thinks he can win this…fine, fine, he can /think/ that…but it won’t ever actually happen,’ the Joker thought as their mutually intense gazes locked into a battle of vicious staring.
“Of course you should be honored,” the Joker said back simply, “I think it’s pretty special that I haven’t ripped your head off by now…” he broke down into a bit of a mutter, impatiently tapping his fingers against the edge of the counter. Oh boy was he mad. Just absolutely furious. And with the Bat making quips of his own, that was the wood to feed the raging fire within the bizarre clown. He wanted to rip something to shreds, cut the world to pieces with one of his many daggers…oh wait, isn’t that what he always wanted to do? Just destroy and mock the shit out of everything….but now the yearning to wreak havoc was more prominent than ever within him, especially with that lingering madly rabid look in his eyes.
“But if you don’t appreciate it, perhaps I could change my mind…” he began to remark, looking like a predator now, slinking over the counter to face the heroic knight who, in secret, had this alternate identity as somebody quite different: a billionaire.
“C’mon buddy, aren’t you happy to have me as your punching bag, huh? Lets see what you think of the situation in its reversal!” the Joker growled lowly, completely ferocious, and sudden he vaulted off the counter top, shoving the Batman backwards and taking him down with him to the ground. In a flash, the Joker whipped out his knife (one of the more serrated ones) and pressed it to the other man’s exposed mouth. “I always wondered why you expose your mouth. I mean, can’t you just have your mask cover your whole face, and just have so me sort of speaker to make your voice come out? It’s just weird. And it’s a weakness.” He giggled, tilted his head, and pressed the knife harder at the edges of the knight’s mouth. He had Batman down on the counter, and was overtop of him, looking him in the eye without hesitance now, unlike before.
“Wouldn’t that be nice, if I made you smile, hmm? Then we could be matching! I think I’d like that!”
Venture onwards for more!
regularbean)
Disclaimer: We own NOTHING.
"Ha, a drink? Oh, you mean the bottle you decided to rack me with?" Bruce shifted his position once more so he could press his forearm up into the Clown Prince's throat; strangulating him. He scrutinized the other man's face for a moment with brilliant azure. Most of the madman's make-up had been worn away at the creases of his brow and nose. Even the black paint smeared around his eyes had faded out, making his shamrock-green eyes practically glow. The Joker was a perverse, metaphorical train wreck that poor Bruce Wayne could not seem to pull himself away from. His eyes scanned over the other male's scarred visage; narrowed intently on that red-stained mouth. He watched, fascinated (for there was no other word to describe that glint in his eye), as the tip of a pert little tongue would flick out against those marred lips every sentence or so.
Batman sighed in resignation. He was ready to just throw in his cape and call it quits. He wasn't necessarily getting anywhere productive by stooping down to the masochistic clown's level--both mentally and physically. Why not just do it like old times? He could just knock the green-haired man unconscious with a well-aimed punch to the back of his skull and leave him hog-tied for the police to haul him back to Arkham? That had been his original intentions, after all.
The penis comments were obviously inappropriate and uncomfortable but with each overly-articulate word that spilled from that damn smile, he was growing more and more exasperated. Bruce leaned back, ready to use the other man's abdomen as leverage to push himself back up onto his knees and further back up on two feet. He froze mid-motion though; face immediately flush once more.
"Dammit..." He ground out under his breath. All of this physical activity and frighteningly close proximity (as well as weeks of a whole shopping list of tension) had somehow taken its toll on the masked vigilante's body. And what more fitting irony was it that in all the heat of things, poor Bruce had actually become hard. It wasn't a raging hard-on, by any means, but was still agitated enough to be felt and possibly seen when straining against the inside seam of his compression suit. If he shifted in any way, there was no doubt the Joker would feel it and--further, harass him to no end... And there had been quite enough hysterical chortles thrown in his face to last him well over a week. So here he was (what a predicament), kneeling awkwardly over the other man in a sad, makeshift attempt to hide his obvious arousal.
~*!*~
The Joker narrowed his eyes in response, muttering something like, “Good point” when the man with the hidden face remarked on the bottle…incident. When that blunt force seized down on his throat, the Joker made a small sort of grunt, although he still was probably not as uncomfortable with that as any human should be. What did make him suddenly enormously uncomfortable, believe it or not, was the way Batman was looking at him. The Joker liked to think he was some blaring enigma, but the way the crusader was staring him down…it was like he could see right inside him, see past all the make-up and the clown get-up into something entirely deeper…which was something nobody was able to do, as of yet. Especially with how he could feel the diminished smears of his making beginning to run down his face in hapless, sloppy streaks. He felt like his exterior was just melting away, the exterior of an agent of chaos fading to black and threatening to reveal the fact that, despite it all, there really was a sort of human underneath it all. ‘Disgusting….’ The clown thought, wanting to make a cringe, eyelids drooping downwards slightly when he heard the Batman heave a hopeless sigh.
The infamous Harlequin of Hate was beginning to develop a look of resignation (in the sense that he was helplessly pinned down and had little to know hope of being able to sit up anytime soon) of his own until he sensed something…a change in Batman’s demeanor. He looked up, eyes wide, curious, and scrutinizing.
“Damn…what?” he asked incredulous, his limp strands of hair swaying with the shaking motion of his head. If he didn’t know any better (did he?) the Batman was experiencing some sort of form of…embarrassment? Had a breach in that bat-eared impenetrable wall of defense actually been made?
Using this distraction (as to what it was, the sadistically intellectual jester did not yet know) to his advantage the Joker squirmed his hands free and shoved Batman’s arm off his neck. He had began to sit up-right, when his entire frame just jolted when he noticed something, as if he had been electrocuted.
“Oh no way, just ha…no fucking way….” He began to phrase in disbelief, squinting his eyes at the area between the Bat’s legs. “So you…so you /do/ have a penis after all!” he declared as if he were either Lewis or Clark discovering some marvelous secret of the West. “I know you do, because I can…haha, oh gosh, AHAHA I know because I can see it! Right there!” The Joker pointed with a shaking and wavering finger, then rolling out from under what had been a cage made from Batman’s body, only to move onto the adjacent section of flooring and roll around there some more in laughter.
“You sick fuck, you dooooo like this, hehe, I’m not the only one enjoying this after all, I knew it, I jut…okay so I didn’t know that you enjoyed it really so much maaaaaybe but…hehe, how cute, how adorable how-“ he gestured his hands like a mad eccentric in the air, eyebrows raised and then stopped once he caught his reflection on a window pane. “Hmmm…” he began thoughtfully, watching how the clown-face overlaying his own had deteriorated, “I /knew/ I should have gone with the Maybelline! And /you/ Batsy,” he glanced again at the slight, but visible, erection making a lump against that black suit of his, “Should definitely use a Magnum XXL Trojan to rein that puppy in!”
~*!*~
Bruce felt his face heat up; a cherry red blush consuming most of his stoic visage. Enough so that one could see it peeking up under the smooth, charcoal material of his cowl. As if things couldn't get any worse...
The flustered vigilante was slightly grateful to no longer have the writhing clown beneath him. Muscles strained and ached from supporting his weight in such an awkward position that the moment the Joker rolled out from underneath him, Batman slumped forward against the broken table. He stood slowly; cautiously. His billowing cape cascaded over a pair of broad shoulders and hid most of his armor-plated figure quite well. That included the uncomfortably agitated erection pressing against the confines of his protective suit. A trademark scowl contorted the masked vigilante's exposed features; lips pursed into a fine, slightly-upturned line. He watched that obnoxious excuse of merriment roll around on the floor like the dog he really was; barking laughter echoing off the close-quarters of the bar.
"Me?! The only sick fuck in this room is you, Joker." Bruce seethed, desperately trying to knit together the tattered shreds of his remaining dignity. Damn him... 'It was an accident, okay?!' Bruce wanted to scream. But his mortal half was pushed aside by the self-righteous and silent persona of the Batman. The two conflicting personalities continued to feud with one another; an internal battle of wills until the cloaked figure squared his shoulders and glanced up at the shattered remains of the bar counter.
"I need a beer..." he murmured to himself. Without further ado, the bat-impersonator overstepped the still-hysterical man sprawled out amongst the debris and shuffled back towards the bar. He leaned forward, supporting his weight with both hands about shoulders-width apart against the curled ledge of the counter with his back forming a mildly-incriminating silhouette. And, I say 'mildly' because how incriminating can a figure be if he has a hard-on? It was never a smart move to leave one's back presented to their opponent. He had no doubt that the Joker had the capacity and desire to carve the back of his skull out with a potato peeler. It was any wonder why he found himself taking that same risk so frequently with the mad-eyed jester.
~*!*~
“That is so not true, Batsy-boy! It takes one to know one! You are so- ahaha!” he made another spastic writhing on the floor, consumed by his sporadic fits of laughter, some of the already messed makeup of his smearing onto the wood floor, “-Ahaha! You are so….oooo you’re so secretively kinky underneath it all, hehe! But reallllly Batman,” the Joker began anew, trying to feign something resembling a more serious tone (which was, for him, a little hard), “To think that your wee-wee, which it turns out it does exist after all, got all perky just because your roughhousing with little old me!” The man in clown attire sat up, beginning to make applause. And all for a vigilante’s erection.
The whole entire situation was beginning to get very strange.
“And there’s no way you can pass this off as something trivial! Oh no-I simply wouldn’t let you get by with some lame excuse like that!” he declared, watching as the other man became so exasperated that he finally went to go get a drink. A pause of silence, and then cue that voice of sardonic enthusiasm. “Finally, you’re getting a drink! That was what you should have done in the first place, instead of getting so worked up you got a boner! Ha…I still can’t believe you. The /great. and /incorruptibly respectful/ Batman, whimpering because he’s suffering most likely his first erection in years. What a privilege to be a witness to the monumental moment!” Hopping to his feet with completely uncanny energy, the harlequin bounded over behind the counter. Although, he did notice how the Bat’s head was turned to him, so he couldn’t resist himself but to swat the hero on the back of the head with his hand as well as a fiendish giggle.
Once on the bartending side, the freak piped up with “One beer coming up for the man with arousal-issues!” He rummaged around the many drinks the bar had, eventually finding an ice-cold beer in a little mini-refrigerator off to the side. “I promise I won’t break this one over your crotch….heyyyy, maybe THAT is what got you all hard-as-stone. Glass fetish, much?” the criminal senselessly cheered, sliding the beer across the counter and over to the dark and hunched form.
Taking a moment to let the weight of the situation sink in, the Joker blinked a few times, and then burst out into a smile, because it actually was genuinely funny. Not to mention, he was proud of himself for being able to get Batman into that state…or at least, he hoped that it was something to do with him.
“Sooooo….” he began, stretching out this word to a ridiculous extent as he leaned against the counter. “What would happen if I touched it, HA!” Suddenly he lunged forward and with his hand gave a good push of pressure directly on the erection with crazed glee.
~*!*~
The minute the Joker's hand made contact with his groin, Batman did what every other average Joe would have done. He threw the most violent right hook he could ever remember throwing in his entire life. It was a blind act of defense; an automatic reaction to the sudden and unwelcome contact.
"Don't touch me!" he snarled to hide any doubt of shock in his mind.
What he struck, he didn't know--but whatever it was, he struck hard. There was a sickening crack as his fist collided with living human flesh and bone. But what did he care if he killed the ignorant clown? No...no, he couldn't kill him. What good would it be to break the world's most complicated Rubix cube before he even had a chance to solve it? And that would only mean that the Joker had won the game; the bigger picture. He would not grant the other man that kind of satisfaction--to break his one rule...
It was a sad sort of irony: as long as Batman lived, so would the Joker.
But, for the moment, Bruce didn't really care what state the green-haired man was in. He'd been through worse--he was sure. He could almost hear that gurgling laughter rise up from the glass-littered floor before it even happened. The dark vigilante turned his attention back towards the ice-cold beer in his other hand. He softened his death-like grip on the smooth, amber-colored glass carefully; surprised that it hadn't already shattered between his fingers. He bent the cap of, rather bewildered. He expected that the Joker had poisoned his drink at some point while he was rummaging around down there. But the seal was still fresh on the bottle; uncontaminated.
Almost hesitantly, Bruce leaned forward, trying to see over the edge of the counter at what state his maniacal little counterpart was in. All the while: confused and muddled thoughts raced through his mind about that brief instant of a little more than intimate contact.
~*!*~
As if he should have expected anything different.
The Joker’s skin compressed harshly against that hard bone of his cheek with that hard, fitfully instinctive blow from Batman. He had been slightly taken aback by the brute force of it, however, so much that he stumbled away slightly, eyes wide. Instantly a hand clamped over his mouth (the side of which where most of the physical trauma had been received) and a twisted, gnarled strand of grin hair sprung before his vision.
At first those oddly lively eyes glanced downwards, as if trying to get a view of the damage as his tongue wallowed in that all too familiar taste of blood. Then, shiftily, his gaze went to his heroic counterpart, still wide, and almost with an accusing sort of look to them. Slowly the Joker dropped his hand, as if beginning to poise himself for when the Bat would look to see what condition he was in. Without a doubt, he would. The Joker was sure of that much.
And so, when Gotham’s Dark Knight did, the Joker smiled, a trickle of crimson seeping from one corner of his mouth.
“Hmmm..” he went, merely making thoughtful vocalizations, and not words quite yet. Slowly he approached the counter once more, leaning forward upon it intently, as if about to pull something (which, as usual, he was). Tilting his head, still acting pensive, he crossed his arms against the hard surface, lurching forward again, wondering how Batman would react to that.
Because knowing things about the vigilante really was that important to the Joker.
Then, with a stifling silence overcoming, the Joker finally broke the quiet by suddenly spitting a gob of bloody saliva straight into the other man’s face. “Bitch,” he muttered in an eerily passive voice afterwards, as if he weren’t mad at all, when really he was. But being mad at Batman was far, far different than being mad at, say, a mob boss, or one of his lackeys. No, this was far different. It was oddly intense, a strangely delicate situation and…basically…it was new and foreign territory.
“I was /only/ trying to-“ his tongue darted out “-reward you for being so…” his eyes made a glanced onwards as if looking at Batman’s crotch area (erection included, of course) “…interested in our…various engagements.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, his quick tongue sliding across the front of his teeth to clean the remainder of the blood inside his mouth from there. His shoulders made an insect-like twitch and then he continued, still in that creepy tone of explaining detachment, then narrowing his eyes at the glass Batman was holding and hesitating to drink from, “I didn’t poison it, you know, sweetums. You should know me by now. I don’t really go for things like poison. Not enough emotion. Or well, at least I don’t, yet…”
~*!*~
Bruce almost felt the need to apologize. Almost. And maybe he would have felt even more inclined to guilt hadn't the snickering little bastard just spit in his face. He reached up to wipe the pink-tinted saliva away against the back of one of his gloves before gravity got a hold of it. His eyes followed the thick, clotted line of crimson that dribbled from the corners of the Joker's mouth--forming a natural sort of 'frown'.
"Bitch"
Really now? The vigilante curled his free hand into a light fist before an epiphany struck. Wait...he was angry! For once, there was something different from sadistic amusement swimming behind those emerald eyes. He could almost feel the air thickening between their locked gazes like cooling grease in a frying pan. The Batman had finally elicited a different reaction from the other man aside from that boisterous cackling (though it was not quite the reaction he would had preferred). He had witnessed, with his own eyes, as the Clown Prince of Crime shifted from shock to hurt to infuriation all in the same breath. The key to gaining control over another person is being able to manipulate their emotional state. Bruce had his control... The question was: how long would it last?
So the masked knight continued to observe any fluctuations in the green-haired man's countenance--now almost completely devoid of his 'mask', while seemingly ignoring him. Bruce tossed the aluminum bottle cap back on the bar counter before tilting the neck of the bottle against his lips. He couldn't actually recall what the alcohol tasted like as he threw his head back and guzzled as much of the beverage down in as little time possible (should the Joker decide to take advantage of his mild distraction with another little stunt like the first). Honey-colored drops of amber liquid escaped the weak seal of his mouth and trickled down over his bottom lip and chin. Half-empty, he slammed the bottle back down on the countertop and finally worked up the balls to meet that almost venomous glare.
"Obviously, I don't want any of your rewards." Batman retorted, brow knitting under the front of his cowl.
~*!*~
“Obviously? Obviously! Well obviously you do!” the Joker snapped back, “Because with the way your /dick/ is looking, that tells an entirely different story about what you /want/!” The Joker was never one with some astounding amount of self-control, surely not, but now more so than ever he was unhinged. Sure, he always thought of mean things to say, and he did make most of them vocally clear, but now with all inhibitions back everything he was thinking was spouting out of his mouth. “Nice, Gotham’s knight: horny over what…a bar tussle? Get a grip over yourself and get laid, Batsy, I fear for your psychological condition if you don’t!”
Now, why the sudden lashing out? Before, the Joker did lash out often, it was all part of his dangerously and severely moody persona. But now it was even worse. Why? Because he was doing this out of some caustic reaction. To what? He didn’t quite know. It started with that huge slam to the face he had received a few minutes before. Which was strange, considering how all the other times Batman had kicked him around he enjoyed it and made fun of the hero for it! But now it was different!
The jester returned to a stand once he had selected of bottle of who-knows-what (seeing as he didn’t really care what he was about to drink, for at the moment it was about getting out of the Batman’s oceanic gaze). It was under the said pair of eyes that he was avoiding that he became conscious of how the stuffy air of the bar felt against the bar skin of his face…bare…the make-up was deteriorating into near-nothing now. It made him feel a little bare.
But with those latest volleys of insults still lingering with a tinge of bitterness on the tip of his tongue, that helped the Joker to feel more in power and more in control than he had before, at least. So, he made a smile, wiping on his sleeve the blood trickling out of the side of his mouth.
Still, that incident earlier to was bothering him to the point where it was nearly freakish. And the Joker knew freakish quite well. Suddenly now he wanted to do more to Batman than mind games, now he wanted to crush his face in. Which was clear by how one of the thin-framed Harlequin of Hate was gripping the edge of the counter, and how he was beginning to stare down his opponent with as much venom as he could muster, which was quite a lot.
“You’re lucky Batman, very lucky…for if you were anybody else…I would have found a way to kill you by now. But you’re not anybody else. You’re Batman…so I’ll never kill you. Ever.”
~*!*~
"Get a grip over yourself and get laid, Batsy, I fear for your psychological condition if you don’t!”
Well, that was definitely not what he expected. Bruce was oh so careful not to let the obvious state of shock and awe seep through the cracks of his brooding visage. There was no need to give the other man any more verbal ammunition. But then again, it was a little...difficult not to gawk when Gotham City's Big Bad just told you to "get laid". The masked vigilante shifted his weight ever so cautiously; as if he were waiting for the floor beneath him to suddenly crumble away under his weight. Across from the bar counter, that vile green glare was seemingly trying to bore holes through his forehead. Any intelligent folk would have adverted their gaze elsewhere. But, oh no--not Batman...
The black-clad superhero stood stock-still, watching the emotional sharks circle behind those shamrock-green eyes. The Joker's indignation was so thick, he could almost see it ebbing from his very pore; much in the same fashion as the blood seeped from his wounds. Speaking of which, it seemed that the scarred man's mouth had finally stopped oozing. The tears must have finally got a chance to clot--after all, the mouth had the quickest regenerating cells in the body. He'd read that little tidbit of information from some lousy article in yesterday's paper...
"You’re Batman,so I’ll never kill you. Ever.”
"Oh, am I supposed to feel honored?" It was a slip of his tongue; a poor mistake. Maybe it was the alcohol's warmth spreading throughout his chest but suddenly he didn't feel so much like Batman--he was just a rich playboy in an armored suit. Bruce cursed himself mentally for responding to the jester's antics. The murderous psychopath thrived off of reactions. It was almost like clockwork: the Joker would say something, his victim would react, and before you knew it--you were just another player in his twisted games; a little fly trapped in his intricate web.
The Caped Crusader followed the collar of the Clown Prince's waistcoat until he boldly met the other man's heated glare. No...He would not fall victim to this man. Not again. He may not be able to reverse their psychological rolls but that didn't mean he'd let himself be pushed under the surface by a madman.
~*!*~
‘He thinks he can win this…fine, fine, he can /think/ that…but it won’t ever actually happen,’ the Joker thought as their mutually intense gazes locked into a battle of vicious staring.
“Of course you should be honored,” the Joker said back simply, “I think it’s pretty special that I haven’t ripped your head off by now…” he broke down into a bit of a mutter, impatiently tapping his fingers against the edge of the counter. Oh boy was he mad. Just absolutely furious. And with the Bat making quips of his own, that was the wood to feed the raging fire within the bizarre clown. He wanted to rip something to shreds, cut the world to pieces with one of his many daggers…oh wait, isn’t that what he always wanted to do? Just destroy and mock the shit out of everything….but now the yearning to wreak havoc was more prominent than ever within him, especially with that lingering madly rabid look in his eyes.
“But if you don’t appreciate it, perhaps I could change my mind…” he began to remark, looking like a predator now, slinking over the counter to face the heroic knight who, in secret, had this alternate identity as somebody quite different: a billionaire.
“C’mon buddy, aren’t you happy to have me as your punching bag, huh? Lets see what you think of the situation in its reversal!” the Joker growled lowly, completely ferocious, and sudden he vaulted off the counter top, shoving the Batman backwards and taking him down with him to the ground. In a flash, the Joker whipped out his knife (one of the more serrated ones) and pressed it to the other man’s exposed mouth. “I always wondered why you expose your mouth. I mean, can’t you just have your mask cover your whole face, and just have so me sort of speaker to make your voice come out? It’s just weird. And it’s a weakness.” He giggled, tilted his head, and pressed the knife harder at the edges of the knight’s mouth. He had Batman down on the counter, and was overtop of him, looking him in the eye without hesitance now, unlike before.
“Wouldn’t that be nice, if I made you smile, hmm? Then we could be matching! I think I’d like that!”
Venture onwards for more!