··ʜᴜʜ﹖··

the terror in her eyes was genuine.  her screams filled his ears.  “Mmmm,” every second of her discomfort was ecstasy.   harley really was perfection.  a shame a wouldn’t see her after this, their last session.  

“Sshh, sshh sshhh,” said as his minions shoved a belt into her mouth.  she was doing exactly as he’d imagined.  “Don’t lower yourself to a beggar.  You’re better than that, baby.”  his face lowered next to hers.  nostrils flared as he inhaled her fear.  his cheek ghosted against hers.  “I’ll truly miss our time together,” whispered in her ear.

a swift movement and eh was straightened back up.  throat cleared and he readied himself to fulfill his most fantasized moment since meeting the good doctor.  “Any last words?”  a cackle reverberated off the walls. his lackeys watched wide-eyed and waiting.  his heart pounded in his chest.  adrenaline surged through his veins.  lust twinged in his groin.  POWER  electrified  his skin.

the conductors pressed to either side of her head. machines sucked more electricity than ever before from the room. lights flickered.  laughter rose to a maniacal tone as she endured his torture.  seconds turned to minutes.  his promise of keeping her alive teetering on the edge of a lie the longer he held them to her temples.  joker was many unsavory things, but a liar was not one of them.  his word was his bond. no matter how much he wished to continue. 

“I always love a little buzz before work,” said as the conductors left her skin.  chest heaved as he came down from his euphoric high.  arms slack at his sides.  his tools of torture dropped to the ground.  he stood staring at her writhing body, a sense of real accomplishment spreading a smile across his face. 

It couldn’t end like this, he couldn’t just kill her, she wouldn’t let him. She had been willing to help him, she had risked her job to bring him a gun and now his grin wasn’t quite so charming yet manic as he stood above her with instruments in each hand. Protesting with a muffled scream and her teeth clamped down onto the taste of leather, all she could do was panic, get lost in the worst of her thoughts and struggle against the restraints that kept her self firmly held down and helpless to his chaos.

Breathing faster with sharp, short breaths with the closer he came, the quick touch was almost comforting, it sent chills throughout her body and before she knew it the fear had taken over again. She was terrified, and yet the feeling vanished as a white heat of searing pain shot from side to side and though the length of her limbs in a torture that left her unable to scream.

his steps carried him through the threshold of their home; almost in a skip to match his growing excitement to see harley.  “Daddy’ back!”  called out with a flourish and a smile on his face. 

CRICKETS. 

his face wiped clean of all emotion, lips turned downward.  a game was afoot.  he was sure of it.  harley never left him.  promised to LIVE for him.  a silly little dip in the water wouldn’t keep her from her king.  his smile returned.  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” a laugh resounded off the walls. 

footsteps slowly made their way through each room.  the silence buried him, thickened to an almost suffocating weight.  the smile began to fade. she was nowhere to be found.  he was losing to her.  soon only one room was left.  the bedroom. he found the door cracked open.  smile returned as fingers curled around the edge of the door and pushed.  “Nice try, baby.  But, you know how much I…hate….losing.”

jaw slacked.  hands dropped to his sides.  the air deflated form his lungs.  his body felt as if it would give way and melt into the floor.  EMPTY.  a rush forward and the sheets were ripped from the bed and tossed to the floor.  joker dropped to his knees.  no monsters underneath. a grimace took over his lips and anger engulfed him.  with a flurry the room had been torn apart. 

“Aaggghh!” chest heaved as he tried desperately to control the rising hurricane of emotions.  jaw clenched.  he shook with rage.  hands fumbled in pockets trying to grab hold of his phone.

<SMS: Pumpkin> It was only a swimming lesson.

Darkness engulfed her, empty streets and the sound of silence was almost deafening between the long gone clicks of her heels against the pavement which she had taken off and thrown to one side to keep Batsy looking around for clues once he recovered from the blown to his prize possession. Distant sirens seemed high pitch, her breathing still laboured and her pretty curls a damp mess of pink and blue that smudged in the same way as her make up. She didn’t feel like herself, she felt defeated (almost) and where was her king to save her?

She’d left the bat on the side of the road and that should have been enough to put a smile on her face, and yet all she could focus on was what if he wasn’t. What if he’d managed to catch her, what if she’d drowned and broken the one promise that she ever made, to live for the Joker. 

 Stopping for a moment to take a look around, there were no shadows on the roof tops, no sounds of something moving through the air and no signs of B-man having followed her. With her shoes no longer on her feet, her phone somewhere in the water and her pretty face pale and smudged, Harley eventually made it home. 

he sat in the darkened corner oft he room housing equipment for electroshock therapy. the muffled screams of chaos rung in his ears as he waited. a smile spread slowly across his face as euphoria washed over him. images of harley begging him to stop, to let her live, played over and over in his mind. he wouldn’t kill her of course. she’d been the single most reason he was back in CONTROL. but his heart fluttered at the thought of her screaming his name in a mix of terror and lust.

Now he had the power to kill, now he had a different sort of glint in her eyes, and now she was scared. It wasn’t anxious nerves anymore about being seated opposite him, now it was nothing but fear as her screams bounced off the grey walls of the almost empty room which had little more in it that electrical equipment which caused her stomach to churn with a sickly feeling rising upwards in her throat.  With her protesting movement and screams having down nothing, a groan left her lips as her head hit the table and her gaze found his manic one as his slowly came closer and closer. 

Sometimes he has nightmares. Nameless faces haunting his dreams, taunting him with wide smiles and empty eyes as he stares in silent terror, feeling something tugging on the strings in his mind. 

        a memory.

They’re few and far between, and truth be told, he isn’t sure they are memories. He doesn’t know. It’s just something about them, these faces, that makes him freeze, makes him realise even in his unconscious state that they’re a threat, unlike the usual encounters he has in his dreams.

Sometimes it’s a woman. Then another. Sometimes it’s men with sinister smiles. Sometimes he feels a claustrophobic darkness coming over him, suffocating him as he feels himself fall, enveloped in the womb that bore him. Sometimes he catches sight of a face that’s so intimately familiar he wants to shred it to pieces. Sometimes he can hear people booing him off an imaginary stage. Sometimes there’s a smell of chemicals unlike the ones he uses for his party tricks heavy in the air, making his stomach churn.

Sometimes he wakes up from these nightmares with nothing more than a blink of his eye, frozen in place by the threat of his past. Sometimes he just laughs himself into consciousness.

Tonight he does neither. He starts awake with an angry cry, lashing out at the dark as he jolts upright, fingers tight around the razor he keeps under his pillow. It takes him a second to realise it’s over, they’re gone. His mind is still blank. Faces swirling in his head with no name or memory to attach them to. The same it’s been as long as he can remember.

All she had ever wanted to do was help him, from the moment she saw his little photo in her asylum documents she knew she had to do something, and he’d pulled her in so well with those dark eyes and that twisted grin until she simply couldn’t say no. Except Harleen turned Harley Quinn had slowly learnt that she couldn’t help him, she wasn’t sure anyone could and the best she could do was try, or at least understand him in moments of darkness when other things took over his mind or transformed his mood into something else within a flash. 

Eyelashes fluttered and her eyes slowly opened then closed a few times, disrupted by the movement next to her which didn’t really register through her sleepy state until a glint of light caught the blade held up in the air by pale hands. Laying still, quietly breathing and saying nothing until it was safely back down beneath his pillow, Harley almost cautiously rolled over to place a hand on his chest as her fingertips carefully brushed back and forth in a soothing sort of motion. 

“That’s my girl!” he growled. 

adrenaline pumped through his veins.  he swerved in and out of the lanes in a desperate attempt to rid himself of the Bat.  the nuisance held on through all of it.  irritation caused a grimace to take over his smirk.  hands gripped the wheel.  he had one last trick up his sleeve.

joker turned down toward the pier.  “Let’s see if Batsy can swim.” laughter rang out through to car.  fingers tightened their grip and a foot pressed the gas pedal to the floor.  if he couldn’t shake him, then maybe he could wash himself clean of the rodent.  the edge of the landing was coming closer by the second.  his grin grew wider at the imminent crash.  adrenaline mixed with excitement spiked.  his heart beat loudly in his chest.  his stomach turned in flips. 

the moment of truth was upon them with a loud splash.

he pushed himself from the vehicle assuming harley was doing the same.  death challenged as he held his breath until he felt like he would black out.  lungs burned as they filled with air after he broke through to the surface of the water.  his queen was nowhere to be seen.  his joy the rush of maiming the bat was quickly being replaced with worry.  eyes darted around the coast, searching for any sign of life other than his own.  yet nothing.

the king pulled himself from the cold water.  dripping wet he continued to search the water.  she still wasn’t surfacing.  as much as he worried for her, he knew she could handle herself.  a shrug of his shoulders and he turned to head home.  his better half would be there waiting for him. 

B-man could fuck off for all Harley cared, by their standards date had been a success and there wasn’t room for him to go ruining things. So someone had died, not quite a romantic setting with a candlelit dinner but it suited them perfectly, it was fun, and roaring through the streets was even better as adrenaline pumped through her veins and her grin grew even wider towards thoughts of a bullet hitting him clean in the face and ruining his stupid mask. 

in peering through a hole in the roof to see the shadowed figure still clinging on, her ears rang with excitement while lining up for another shot just as she felt the car leave the ground which drew a scream, almost blood curling in sound from her lips with the words “Puddin! I can’t swim” muffled by the water from the blow in windshield which she tried to push herself through and follow him before the brightness of green hair turned into a murky blur. 

Scooped up before she knew it into the arms of the Bat, Harley couldn’t find it within herself to protest as he carried her while she searched for her breath and the energy to get away from him. Trying to stay calm despite a few spluttered coughs, all she could think of was pouting, red lips pursing outwards with a pretty face as she thanked him, then kissed him, a distraction simple enough to lash out with a heel between the legs which gave her enough time to scramble away with an overjoyed laugh leaving her lips. 

anxiousness immersed itself in his veins. he felt like a kid waiting to open presents on Christmas Day. he was beginning to tire of his current place of residence. the atmosphere was so stifling, depressing, and SANE.

arms shifted in his straight jacket, eyes glued on the door. waiting for the next time he’d be summoned to see her. only this time she’d be shown to a new room. one where his twisted fantasies would finally come to life.

—–::——

days flashed by. the time where it felt like an eternity between visits had vanished. all the pieces were in place. the orderlies who’d be intelligent enough to side with him were on their way to his cell. door creaked open and they undid the shackles that had confined him for years. head rolled. shoulders followed. arms stretched with a spin of his wrists. a SMILE spread its way onto his face as he waved his fingers. “Feels good to be back,” he growled.

feet moved quickly through the asylum, bare skin slapping against the concrete floors. joker had unfinished business before his finale showed up. “Miss me boys?” he said with a wide grin as he appeared outside the security desk.

the men inside were instantly terrified. firm hands grabbed hold of them and drug them around to the KING. his cackle resounded through the halls. his game was just beginning. he had a dance in his step as the first victims were led to their doom. he stopped outside the lobotomy room. “We’re going to have sooo much fun!” his laugh rising to a maniac tone, following the men inside.

—–::——

Fingers tapped against the table with more nerves that ever before, she was waiting, wondering, her mind was a mess and her heart and picked up a rate in which it threatened to explode within her ribcage. Harleen didn’t want to appear uneasy and yet every time she moved the cold metal of the gun pressed against her skin like an electric shock that sent shivers along her spine. 

Where was he? He was never late, the Asylum ran like clockwork and by now he should have been sitting opposite her, he should have been grinning from across the table and shifting in the straight jacket she so desperately wanted to free him from. Maybe something had happened? Maybe today he didn’t want to cooperate and once again her head span with a thousand different thoughts until the door opened and she sat straight, awaiting his  twisted smile to greet her, and yet it never did

hands linked, he led her outside and to his car. a smile as he held the door open for her. a bow when the door shut. joker giggled to himself, going round and getting in beside her.

they sped through gotham. pedal pushed to the ground. a thud resounded from the roof halfway to their home. the BAT. steering wheel swerved to remove the pest now clinging to the purple metal.

They were in paradise, a sick and twisted heaven in which they owned entirely. They were the king and queen of the city streets and people knew it, if not, then well their fate was perhaps to be painted across the pavements to let everyone else know who was in charge. 

Getting into the car which suited them both perfectly as the engine all but roared as they pulled away, everything was perfect, their date had been fun and games and yet the loud thud against the roof was enough to turn her ruby smile into a scowl. Pearly whites pressed together because Batsy was NOT going to ruin date night. “You’re ruining date-” she started, her speech interrupted by the sound of a bullet passing through the metal, “NIGHT.”

insecurities vanished immediately with her response. “I know, baby.” his hand released her neck. fingers barely touched her skin as they trailed up to hers. his smile widening.

of course she wouldn’t have. he’d known that. his question sparking from the slightest twinge of doubt. one they lasted as long as it’d taken to form. the king never once believed they she would. he just wanted to hear her say it.

He was the K I N G and she was his Q U E E N. They were meant to be from the moment she’d seen him sitting there in a straight jacket, Harley was devoted to him and her games were all purely games because a life without him would be a life not worth living. Smiling into his touch, his own expression eased her as her fingers came to rest against his shoulder .