Thread: I Started A Joke (SevenxChantho)

Gordon flipped up the collar of his suit jacket to protect the back his neck from the wind the Gotham night was hot as hell but the air was so sticky that it felt like the city was licking his skin every time a breeze brushed by - it wasn't a pleasant feeling. With his hands tucked in his pockets he stood at ground zero and stared down at the charred, blackened, and vaguely human-shaped remains in front of him he barely resisted the bizarre urge to prod them with his shoe. To his right stood the newly appointed Detective Heaney - understandably, they'd had to let Ramirez go, there had been a sort of trust issue - Heaney wasn't new to policework, but he still managed to look surprised. Guy didn't even get out of the chair. Heaney said, vaguely appalled, It's bad enough that he killed himself - but he sets himself on fire and he doesn't even get up? Christ, he should have been running around like a maniac, trying to put himself out. Gordon's moustache bristled he stared through the enormous hole that had been burnt through the side of Arkham - a doctor had just killed himself in what had to have been the most agonizing way possible. That's concrete and reinforced steel. Gordon said plainly, and Heaney could only continue to look at the dead doctor with some effort, bits of Dr. Unger's face could still be made out, but mostly it was the stretched, gaping wide hole that indicated a mouth was present, rather than actual visual cues, Fire ate it like it was cardboard - smells like a tanker in here, too. Must have used an accelerant. His eyes continued to scan the room the walls were devoid of anything significant save for a steel table, which was now warped and twisted by the heat. Eventually, the Commissioner's eyes stopped on the corner of the room where, high up, something charred hung from the pathetic strands of wire. There was a camera in here. Gordon said, I'm going to see if we can get lucky - maybe some footage survived. What would cause a doctor, of all people, to do this? Heaney asked. In a place like this? Gordon replied, knocking a bit of rubble away from himself as he headed out the door, What wouldn't? --- He'd say that things didn't work out quite the way he'd planned but the truth was that he never planned anything, not really - the world just happened around him and he went with it because - because - - well, because people were so easy to predict. All it took was finding the right wound to open, everyone had them and some were deeper than others and he just liked to get one long, dirty finger in and pry a couple of them open to see what he could do to them. What he could do with them. See how far the hurt went. Even the Bat had them but he had been dissappointed by the wounds, he had been so dissappointed that it had been something so - so - standard for the Batman. A girl. A woman. The lady of the Batman's dreams and the one who wouldn't have him - he hadn't needed to hear any details to know the truth, he'd just had to watch the Batman throw himself out a window to go after her, he'd just had to watch the hero leave a group of defenseless, innocent civilians standing around with nothing but shrimp cocktails to defend themselves against the guns that were still inside. Leave them alone with him . And it would've been so easy right then to just - just cut one of their throats. Make a real mess and leave it for the Bat to find but - but, but - there was no sport in that. There was no, uh, enjoyment in that. The moment was over once what's-her-name was saved, but the fun had just begun because Dent wanted her too - the girl was a hot commodity. They - they had been like a chess game. Opposite sides of the board. Black knight and white knight. Except they both wanted to save the - save the queen. Joker chortled to himself his skull ached, ribs were cracked, fingers were broken, bits of him were bruised and bleeding and his nostrils were filled with the smell of burnt rubble he could feel the ash coating his skin, coating his tongue and leaving his mouth filled with a thick, gritty paste from dehydration. Mm. Tastes like Gotham. He wasn't sure which way was up anymore, though, so it took several tries to get back on his feet and each fall caused a brief burst of laughter to escape the clown. Yes. Yes. He could feel it, just like the doctor had said he would, he could feel it in his veins, coursing through him, something dark and nasty and oh, what a wonderful thing the doctor had created. Imagine the chaos it would cause. Giggling uncontrollably, the Joker couldn't tell if he was having trouble walking because of the drugs or because of how funny it all was. How - how funny it was. How funny it was that he could see the Batman right now. How funny it was that he seemed like a distant, dark dream that came on wings and fury and all dark eyes and anger and open wounds that had only taken a little C4 to turn them into scars. How funny it was that he knew how the Bat had got his scars. How funny it was that suddenly everything stopped working and he was collapsing, falling, tumbling down to the ground of the alleyway and collapsing amidst rubble and chortling even while a violent seizure took hold of him. How funny it all was.