Four of a Kind

A/N: I have broken yet another copyright law--- the lyrics, though sounding nothing like it in my head-- are from the song "Bedtime Story" by Madonna. Enjoy!



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Dr. Quinzel sighed and pulled her hair down throwing her glasses to the side. She couldn’t look at this case file any longer. It was hard to analyze someone’s mental history when they had no history to speak of. The only thing in this Joker’s file was a stack of mug shots. He’d said that he’d been in Arkham before, but there was no record of it. And he could be lying. She leaned forward and rested her face in her hands. The clock on the wall buzzed that it was well after 11 pm. She knew that she needed to go home, but she had been hoping to find a clue. Anything that would help her understand him. He had no past, no interest in the future. One minute he denied his crimes, the next he was boasting about them. He’d told her three more stories about his scars before they were done. At first she thought that he was just killing for pleasure, but he talked about it with indifference. Not the awe of a true psychopath serial killer.



She pinched the bridge of her nose hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. She’d never been at such a loss. From the time she was a teenager, she’d had a perception about people. It had been obvious to everyone that she would become a psychiatrist. She seemed to know what people were thinking and the secret motives behind it. But he had her totally confused. There was something lurking beneath the surface and if she could figure out what it was, she could help him. Maybe even cure him. She could write pages and pages of profiles in forensic psychology that would be published in every journal of psychiatric medicine in the world. The ‘acting’ District Attorney had all but told her that he wanted her to prove that he was fit to stand trial. At this point, she didn’t think he was fit to stand upright.



“Maybe he was telling the truth,” she mumbled to herself. “Maybe part of every story he told me was true. Or else he has multiples…” Her eyes lit up with a fire of inspiration. “Multiples! True multiples! It’s the only explanation!”



She bolted from her office and down the corridor to the elevator. She fumbled for her keys and shoved the large brass one into the keyhole on the elevator. Turning it once, the doors opened with a squeal of the latch mechanism. On the way down to the high-security ward, her skin prickled with a mix of fear and excitement. There was no one left this late at night except for her and a few security guards who were probably half asleep. But she had to talk to him again, just to prove her theory right or wrong. What else could it be? It was the only thing that would explain his sudden swings of calm and collected to charming arrogance to violent rage. All this with no recollection, or… so he said.



The ancient elevator screamed to a halt and jolted once before the doors opened. The corridors were dark, with only the flickering of a slowly dying neon light to show the way. The Joker was being kept in the last cell at the end of the hall, away from everyone else. From what she could overhear from the orderlies who’d been here all night the night before when he’d been brought in, he had already sent one lunatic to the morgue. Apparently, he’d talked his cellmate into swallowing his own tongue. Or was it a screw from the bed frame? At any rate, he’d stood over the man laughing as he choked to death. After that, they’d moved him to a solitary glass room.



She took a deep breath and stepped out into the hallway, her heels clicking heavily on the tiled floors. She looked around in the near-darkness and thought she saw the sparkling of staring eyes all around her. A shiver ran up her spine and she walked a little faster. The staccato of her heels sped up in an impossible rhythm until she was practically running down the hall. When she reached his cell, she was out of breath, sweat making her hair stick to her forehead. He lay on the small cot in the corner of the tiny room, arms folded behind his head.



“Doctor?”



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Darcy stopped at the stage door of The Shadow Lounge and inhaled deeply. It had been so long since she’d been here. It had been nearly a year since she had “killed” Darcy Sylvan and took up the mask of The Siren. She’d made good use of the time over the course of the year, honing her skills and enjoying the anonymous freedom. But the time had come. It was time to play.



She unwound the blue scarf she’d worn around her head and shook her hair out. She nudged the unkempt, bright white spikes back into place and turned to Jonathan. He stood in the shadows, only the ember of his cigarette visible in the darkness. “Well… how do I look?” She was dressed in oily blue leather from head to toe. When the light played against the color, the leather appeared to be fashioned from a thousand tiny feathers. The front dipped low, threatening to spill her breasts into view fully, but stopping just short of her areola. A spiked black belt crisscrossed over her hips, each small spike hiding another miniscule canister of fear toxin.



He took her hands and turned them over in his. She wore small poison rings on the ring finger of each hand. With a flick of her fingertip, she could release enough of the poison to take out everyone in the room. He examined them carefully and stood back, testing each valve. “Be sure not to put your hands near your face. You’ll get yourself instead.”



“I know,” she sighed. They’d been over and over this.



“They won’t start to feel the effects until you plant the suggestion.”



“What about Mya? She’ll recognize me even if no one else will.” She touched the small mask that was molded to the area around her eyes. “She knows me too well.”



“I’ll worry about Mya. She won’t interfere--”



“Don’t hurt her--”



“I will do what I must!” he snarled, dropping her hands. “She is not your friend, Darcy. How long was it before she cut off your head and hers grew in its place? Everything she ever did was just a charade of waiting in the shadows to pounce when you were weak. She would never have had the courage to step out on that stage at all without the mask of Darcy Sylvan to hide behind! She deserves to die just like any other leech!” He pulled the burlap mask over his head and started up the fire escape. “Don’t fuck up.”



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The Doctor gasped when he spoke, backing up hard into a cart full of syringes and dressings. “Oww,” she mouthed silently. Now that she was here, she wasn’t so sure if this was a good idea.



“Are you there?” he whispered. Still no response. He swung his longish legs over the side of the cot and strolled over to the glass. “Haaaarrrley…” he taunted, then laughed. His voice was like sandpaper as he pressed his body against the glass, trying to peer into the darkness. “Where aaaare yooouuu?” He began to pace back and forth, dragging his jagged fingernails across the glass, making them shriek against the smooth surface. “I know you’re there.” He laughed, a high-pitched cackle that chilled her to the marrow of her bones. “Watching me…”



“Clinical observation,” she croaked, her voice catching in her throat.



“And here I thought you missed me.”



“Does it amuse you to toy with me?” she asked, coming closer to the glass and staring into his face.



“If only you were on this side of the glass.” He smirked and jumped at the glass, making her gasp again and take a step back. He laughed again.



“And what would you do if I were, Mister J? Eat me alive?” She hoped that the muffled tone through the glass would conceal the quaver in her voice.



He beckoned her closer with a fingertip and she found herself stepping back to the glass. He went down on one knee and she followed suit until they were face to face, the glass wall the only thing separating their skin. “In a manner of speaking…” he purred. He brushed his lips over the glass where hers were waiting on the other side. The effect was so creepy that she jumped again and fell backwards, sitting down hard on the concrete.



He laughed again, the same high-pitched laugh that had haunted her nightmares since she first saw him on the news. “I should be going…”



“Weren’t you going to ask me a question? Isn’t that why you really came?” She chewed her lip nervously, wanting to answer but almost paralyzed with something that might be mistaken for awe. “To ask endless questions of the boogeymen in the darkness?” He looked around thoughtfully. “No one’s here. It’s just you and me now, Doctor. Ask away.”



“Do you hear voices?”



“Every day.”



“I don’t mean in the world. I mean--”



“In my head?” He tapped his temple with his index finger.



“Yes.”



“No. Nothing has to tell me to do the things I do. I am well beyond having to justify what I do. I just am. Just like you.”



“Like me?” It was her turn to laugh. “What makes you think a sick fuck like you is anything like me?”



“Tsk tsk tsk, Doctor Quinzel… not very nice.”



“I am nothing like you.”



“I disagree, Harley… I think you’re very much like me. You see, being a psychopath has its advantages. You get to see who people really are. Fear reactions are very… clear.”



“I’m not afraid of you.”



His smile, grotesquely exaggerated by the deep scars, widened as he approached the small holes that had been cut out of the glass. He inhaled deeply and made a sound almost like a purr. “Liar,” he rasped. “You stink of it. It’s all over you.” He paced back and forth again in front of the glass, every so often casting a glance towards her. She wanted to run out of there, but her feet seemed to be nailed to the spot where she stood. “But I think…” he paused as if to consider, lingering on the last syllable, “you like it.” She stepped back further into the shadows, trying to hide herself yet still see. He cackled again, laughing at her fear and confusion. “Haaarrrleeeeyyyyy…” he hissed. “Come on… don’t be shy.” She said nothing, hoping that maybe he would think she had gone. But still she couldn’t stop herself from watching. “The boogeyman won’t get you from here. He’s all chained up and no place to go,” he sighed. Sliding down the wall, he sat down in front of the glass. “We could roleplay, Harley. I’ll be you and you be me,” he purred. Clearing his throat, he spoke in a high-pitched clichéd mob moll voice. “So Mistah J… what seems to be the trouble? Tell the good doctor all about it and she’ll let you outta here in the morning!”



The thought of this man escaping from Arkham suddenly filled her with dread that made goosebumps stand out all over her body. “I think you’ll be here a very long time.”



“At least I won’t be alone,” he taunted. “And you are alone, aren’t you, Harley?”



“How do you know my name?”



“I read your nametag. Dr. Harleen Quinzel--” he laughed again, this time crossing his arms over his middle, his body shaking with laughter. “Harley Quin… Isn’t that coincidental?”



“Only to one who draws strange conclusions. And what makes you think I’m alone?”



“You’re a doctor in a mental hospital. And you’re here at fuck-all past midnight. Not the behavior of someone who has a family, surely not. I know you better than you think. You work here all day and most of every night. You sit in that dingy little office that you share with about ten other people just like you. Your locker is empty except for a decrepit little salad that you brought for your lunch and forgot to eat. You sit there pouring over case file after case file looking for answers. Was it Mommy or Daddy who blew their head off?”



“I’m leaving now,” she rasped, the quiver in her voice now obvious.



“Hmmm… maybe I struck a nerve…”



“You don’t know anything about me…”



His voice was so low it was nearly inaudible. “I know why you scream at night.”



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The crowd was deafening as Siren approached the stage. It was so dark, but the bright blue lights that always illuminated the stage were there. Everything was just as she remembered. She nearly started laughing with delight as she approached. Just as she started to the speakers on which she would climb up, her face hardened. This was not Belladonna’s Kiss. None of her bandmates were there. Where was Shatzi? Dax? She had seen Mya enter the club, but there must be some mistake.



There was no time to ask questions. The crowd was getting restless as the band stood around looking confused. A water bottle flew over her head and whizzed past the guitarist’s ear. He ducked out of the way and gave a panicked look at the stagehands in the wings, who just shrugged. Apparently Jonathan had waylaid Mya effectively.



With a deep breath, Siren dexterously climbed to the top of the speaker box. The guitarist looked at her questioningly until she walked up to the microphone. The crowd, noticing that someone had finally approached, began to cheer. She slowly adjusted the microphone to her height. She whispered to them to start with “Bedtime Story.” It was an old song that she had written eons ago, but it would give the proper suggestion. Not knowing what else to do, they began to play.



“Today is the last day, that I’m using words,

They’ve gone out, lost their meaning.

Don’t function anymore.”



The heavy rhythm began and the crowd started to boil with movement. They spoke every word with her. She was almost having too much fun to remember the poison that flowed from her fingertips with a simple slight of hand.



“Let’s get unconscious.”



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Harley bolted from Arkham and ran into the dark streets of The Narrows. She didn’t stop until she made it to the end of the street, leaning heavily on the streetlamp. Before she could stop herself, she leaned over into the alley and vomited violently. She fell to her knees and sobbed, pulling herself into a tight, protective knot. Her limbs shook so badly that they threatened to betray her careful pose. She knew she should get up. It wasn’t safe for her to lie here in the street. In the Narrows. At the moment, it didn’t feel if anyplace was safe. She had let that monster pry into her thoughts and it left her feeling exposed and terrified.



She looked up, hearing music coming from someplace down the street. It pulled her up off of the street and got her moving. She stumbled down the sidewalk, hearing the haunting lilt of the singer’s voice mingled with the twisted sandpapery growl of the Joker. When she reached the Shadow Lounge, there was no neon sign. No tattooed bouncer at the door. No one shoving fliers into her hands. Curiously she opened the door and disappeared inside.



She wasn’t sure what was going on here, but everyone in the cramped little bar was staring, transfixed, at the singer onstage. She seemed to hold them in her power as the driving techno beats made the walls vibrate. The crowd moved as one writhing mass faster and faster. Harley found herself moving too and she got closer to the stage. A bittersweet smell permeated the air, she could only guess it was weed. She inhaled deeply, praying for a contact high that would dull her senses just for a while. As she passed by the bar, she grabbed a random glass full of whiskey and downed it in one gulp. She felt warmer and the shaking slowed to a shudder. The closer she came to the stage, the more intense the smoky smell became. It seemed to flow into mouth as she breathed and it left a medicinal taste coating her tongue. She coughed once, trying to breathe deeply, but only succeeded in nearly choking.



The world around her seemed to float a few feet above the floor. One face blurred into another and she was sure that she could see the mad grin of the Joker around every corner. She narrowed her eyes, trying to focus and she could see that everyone around her now had hideous, jagged scars at the corners of their mouths. She closed her eyes and looked away, knowing it was only a reaction to the stress. She hoped. But when she looked again, the faces grew darker. There were more of them. All of them closing in around her, making it harder to breathe. The world around her shuddered as they reached out, grabbing at her clothes. She tried to scream, but either nothing would come out or the music was so loud that she couldn’t hear herself. She did the only thing she could think of-- she sank to the floor and curled up. She put her hands over her ears and sobbed. She had to make them stop. She had to silence the voices in her head.



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The Scarecrow kept a tight grip on Mya’s hair as he watched the ensuing mayhem from the wings. He couldn’t help but smile as he saw the ravers collapse, totally unconscious and mute, onto the floor of the dingy little club. Siren stood in the middle of the stage, staring down at what she’d done. The corners of her mouth turned up in an evil smirk as she realized that it had worked. The plan that had sounded so completely insane just days before had actually worked. The silence filled the room and it was almost deafening. She panted heavily and kicked the microphone stand over.



“Darcy!” Mya screamed. “I thought you were--- you have to stop this!” She cried out in pain as her captor twisted his fingers tighter into her hair.

“Mya…” Siren purred, walking over to them. As she approached, she could see that the entire crew of stagehands lay piled by the stage door. She slipped slightly in the blood that splattered the floor and made a disgusted noise. “So lovely to see you again. I thought you’d be dead by now.”



“Darcy… please… don’t do this…” she gasped. “I’m your best friend.”



“Wrong!” Siren screeched, rushing up to Mya and wrenching her from his hands. She threw Mya against the wall with enough force to shatter vertebrae. “You were never my friend!”



Mya whimpered and tried to crawl closer to the wall. “Yes I was… I am. Just please…Darcy!”



Siren laughed a cold laugh that echoed through the darkness. “Darcy is dead…” she purred, crawling to Mya and straddling the girl. “There’s only me now.” Leaning down, Siren kissed Mya’s mouth deeply. Her lips moved over the other girl’s softly, but insistently. Her hands roamed over Mya’s hip, across her stomach and up her chest, grazing the valley between her breasts. “I can never let you take my place,” she whispered, cupping Mya’s chin in her fingertips. “I always loved you so much…”



“Please Darcy…”



“But then I hated you too.” She closed her hand over Mya’s mouth and nose, pressing the button on the poison ring and letting the poison intoxicate her. Mya struggled, her body thrashing beneath Siren, but she held on tight. Finally, she was still and Siren stepped back.



Jonathan pulled the mask off and stared down at Darcy. “Very good.”



“Shut up,” she growled, throwing down the emptied poison ring. “Let’s hurry and grab our winnings before the police come poking around.”



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**A/N,pt. 2** If you're totally confused by my characters, go find Willing Victim. It should still be here under my previous pen name Belladonnas.Kiss***