Jack's Descent

A/N - Yes, FINALLY! I am SO sorry for taking forever and a year to update, but inspiration was not coming for this chapter at ALL. Hopefully it's worth it!

WARNING: Sexuality/sensuality/language, ahoy!

CH 7: The Dividend Between Love and Madness

When Jack finally awoke, he found himself shackled inside a dark and dingy room. Due to the claustrophobic spacing and musty demeanor, the vicinity was truly reminiscent of an 1800's dungeon, the absence of light almost acting as a panacea to his ever-present headache. Rolling over with a groan, Jack winced as his head pounded like 1,000 horses trampling the earth, his eyes squeezing tightly closed once he realized how much his body ached all over. His center was exceptionally pained, he conceded, and as he looked down at his bruised and naked form, he quickly came to the conclusion that he'd been violated...

"Oh, God..."

Shuddering violently, Jack leaned forward on his elbows and retched onto the cement floor, bile burning the back of his throat as he heard the latch lifting from the padlocked door.

"Anyone awake?"

Glaring up at the visitor through his greasy bangs, Jack spat on the floor before choking out, "Who are you, and why have you taken me here!?"

"One question at a time, if you please" the Italian mockingly urged. Now closing the door behind him, he sauntered forward while explaining, "My name is Salvatore Maroni, but the other details you're probably wondering are insignificant. You know the Joker, and through you we want him to know we mean business."

Jack laughed humorlessly. "So you think holding me hostage will bring the Joker forward? The guy cares for nothing but himself, and even that's a toss-up."

"Then what do you suggest?" Maroni snapped. "That we just continue to wait like fools for his grand reappearance? We hired your friend a while ago, and we expect him to live up to his end of the bargain."

Jack's lips curled downward in disdain. "He is not my friend -- he's hurt me more than you'll ever know."

"Not as much as we can hurt you" Maroni coldly reminded him. Now unzipping his pants, he gave his captive a filthy grin before stroking himself, his tone low and husky as he sustained, "My boys decided to teach you a lesson earlier, but it seems that you still need to learn a thing or two. Forgive me for saying so, but you look a little tense."

"Fuck you!"

"Already did, kiddo" Maroni mocked, giving a pleased chuckle as he seized Jack by the hair and pulled him to his knees. "Fortunately for me, this time around you'll be conscious."

Wincing at the acute pain, Jack's eyes watered as he pleaded, "Look, don't do this, alright? It's dangerous for the both of us, so if you could just..."

"What, so you actually think you can mess me up while you're shackled?" Maroni demanded. When Jack pitifully nodded in response, the Italian gave a roar of laughter and slapped his thigh. "Well of all the dumbest excuses, this has got to be the worst -- you're just afraid of my sexual prowess since you've heard about us Italians, right?"

Giving a sudden cry of pain, Jack groaned as his headache seemed to flare in its intensity, beads of sweat forming along his brow as he begged, "Please, for the love of God, just go! I don't want to hurt you!"

Maroni chuckled. "Trust me, kid, you should be worrying about me hurting you."

"Christ, why won't you just listen to me!?"

Promptly ignoring Jack's pitiful cries, Maroni pushed his trousers down to his knees and forced the blonde back onto the floor. Grinning because of the tears streaking down Jack's cheeks, Maroni kept a hand fisted in his captive's hair and the other on his firm arousal, his lips twisting in confusion when Jack suddenly released a high-pitched giggle.

"And just what the hell's so funny, kid? You think this is a joke?" he snarled.

Jack only giggled louder in response, his voice growing low and nasal as he purred, "You wanna know why guys like you are the way they are?"

"What is this, some sort of...?"

"It's because you're all cowards -- you're all hopelessly a-loooone. Does it de-press you to know your only purpose in life is to amuse men like me?"

"Shut up!" Maroni snapped, now taking Jack by the hair and flipping him over. "You're garbage, ya hear me? What makes you think I'd listen to a freak like you!?"

Jack grinned, but it was a manic expression of mirth. "Uhh, let's see here...I buh-lieve that you already know the answer to that, Mor-on-ee. Ya see, men like you need order -- in fact, you crave it -- so when a guy like me comes into the picture, you resort to in-ter-es-ting, uh...methods to subdue the threat of im-pen-ding chaos. When that threat doesn't go away, you start to get scared, and when you're scared, you're damn well gonna listen so you can, uh...fa-mil-i-ar-ize yourself with said threat."

Maroni shook his head in disbelief. "You're crazy..."

"Uhh, I buh-lieve it's you who's proven to be the crazy one" Jack returned, a dark grin unfurling across his lips. "After all, I've learned to never trust a guy with a Glasgow smile."

Before Maroni could even respond, Jack lunged forward and slipped his shackles around the Italian's neck, a feral glimmer coming to Jack's eyes as he began to squeeze with all his might.

Choking and clawing at the chains cutting off his circulation, Maroni's face turned a frightening shade of mauve as pinpoints of color danced across his vision. "It's you" he wheezed, his eyes bugging out as he struggled for breath, "Joker..."

"No, no, not Joker, it's the Joker -- you forgot the oh-so-important article" the clown prince cheekily reminded him, his head tossing back with a shriek of laughter at the joke only he could comprehend.

Drooling past his open lips, Maroni merely gagged in response, his eyes rolling back in his head as he slumped forward and went completely still.

"Hmph, well that was boring" the Joker muttered, his lips twisting in disappointment as he gazed down upon the dead body. Shrugging his shoulders, he then reached into Maroni's pocket and pulled out the keys to his cell, a pleased grin coming to his lips before he apologized, "Well gee, I sure hate to just run out on ya like this, Mor-on-nee, but I've got a, uh...date with a hot lit-tle as-sis-tant DA. Say hi to the wife and kids for me, will ya?"

Giggling, the Joker gave Maroni's shoulder a pat as he rose off the floor, his neck cracking as he stretched his bruised, naked body and groaned. His lithe form was covered in nicks and cuts from his rape, but the Joker found the burning pain to be quite delicious. With any luck, Rachel Dawes would give him even more wounds to lament over later on.

--

"Bruce, I'm fine -- what is with all you men and thinking I'm lying? Don't you believe me?" Rachel teased. When her friend smiled weakly in response, it was then that she realized something was wrong. "Bruce, what is it?" she asked, her brow puckering in concern.

Biting his lip, Bruce shook his head before mumbling, "I wasn't there for you when you needed me, and for that I'll never forgive myself... I know I've always promised that I'd never kill anyone, but for the Joker I just might make an exception."

"NO!" Rachel exclaimed, only to cover her mouth once she realized she'd voiced her thoughts. Feeling small beneath Bruce's questioning gaze, she bowed her head before whispering, "You can't kill him, Bruce... He's all I have."

Bruce quirked a brow. "Uhh, am I missing something here? The guy terrorized you at knife-point, brutally raped you, and now you claim he's all you have? Rachel, what the hell does that even mean!?"

"I don't know!" she sobbed, "I just...I-I just love him, ok!? Believe it or not, the man beneath the mask is as sweet and docile as the day I met him, and I'd do anything to keep him safe, Bruce...anything."

Bruce stared at her with his mouth agape, his head shaking back and forth as he demanded, "Well who in God's name is he, Rachel? Those are things you should be saying about Harvey, not some psychopathic clown..."

"Don't you call him that!" Rachel seethed. "He may be troubled in the head, but I truly believe we can help him..."

"Well who is he?"

"It's Jack" Rachel whispered, her eyes welling up with tears, "Jack Napier."

"No..." Laughing incredulously, Bruce argued, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, that can't be -- Jack's dead, remember?"

"But he's not -- he's very much alive" Rachel firmly insisted. "Didn't you notice how the Joker has a Glasgow smile? Jack's entire family received similar injuries on the night of their murder, so surely that proves-"

"It proves nothing!" Bruce heatedly interjected. "In case you didn't notice, this lunatic took advantage of you without even caring about your well-being!"

"Well that's only because the Joker is Jack's second personality -- while he's that monster, he doesn't remember me at all."

Wiping a hand over his mouth, Bruce shook his head as he allowed all of this to sink in, his gaze softening as he mumbled, "Well you were the closest to Jack, so I guess you'd be the most qualified to know... If you really don't want me to hurt the Joker, I'll do my best to protect him."

Rachel looked up from her sheets in astonishment, her eyes dancing with gratitude as she clasped her hands over her heart. "Oh, Bruce" she whispered, "thank you so much -- I-I really don't know what to say..."

"Thank God for that" Bruce teased, Rachel laughing joyfully as they embraced and gently rocked one another from side to side.

As Bruce felt Rachel's tears seep into his shoulder, it was then that he made his decision: never again would she be hurt because of him, and that was a promise.

--

Clicking on the assistance button for the umpteenth time, Rachel finally gave up and relaxed against her pillows. She was especially achy that evening, so she was hoping to get somewhat of an increase on her medication, but now that there wasn't a single nurse to be found, she realized that she'd be spending the remainder of the night in pain.

Joy.

As Rachel finally got comfortable amidst her pillows, she gave a jolt of surprise when she heard someone whistling "Secret Agent Man" in the corridor, her brows quirking as a nurse entered the room with a jaunty bounce to her step. Rachel couldn't see the woman's face since she was pulling a cart, but she seemed cheery enough due to her musical disposition.

"Thank you for coming" Rachel spoke, thus deciding to finally get to the point. "I was hoping you could up my morphine a bit, so if you need permission from the doctor, I..." She paused. "Hey, what's so funny?"

Shoulders shaking with mirth, the nurse twirled around with a kick of the leg and removed her mask, Rachel screaming once a sea of white, red and black became visible to her terror-stricken eyes. Giddily bouncing forward with a syringe in hand, the Joker removed his wig before mounting the bed and straddling his 'patient's' waist, his lips curling back into a sneer as he greeted, "Well hello again, beautiful -- still just as feis-ty as ever, I see." Now leaning in so that their faces were mere inches apart, he purred, "If you, uh...be-have yourself, I might just give you a wollipop."

Infuriated by his jesting, Rachel moved to jab him in the solar plexus, but the Joker easily caught her by the wrist and pinned her arms beneath his knees. "Ah, ah, ahhh" he cooed, "if you, uh...wanted another go, all you had to do was ask!" Shrieking with laughter at the look on her face, the Joker seized one of Rachel's medicinal tubes and yanked it out of her flesh with a fierce 'rip'.

Yelping in pain, Rachel gritted her teeth as her wound began to burn and ooze, her eyes now meeting with the maniac's as she whispered, "Oh, Jack... Jack, sweetheart, I know you can hear me in there, so please... Please, come back to me!"

The Joker cocked his head to the side at her plea, his gaze almost seeming to soften as he returned, "Oh Rachel, my darling, I do remember you......NOT!!!" Giving a gut-busting giggle, he ground his hips into hers and licked her cheek like the dog he was, his sharp nails digging into her skin as he asked, "You, uh...know why I'm here, don'tcha, lit-tle Miss As-sis-tant DA? You know why I need you, riiiight?" In accordance with his words, he hugged her hips with his thighs and began to thrust against her nub, a manic grin coming to his lips when he noticed her close her eyes and shy away from him. "Oooh, do you like that?" he mocked, harshly bucking his hips for good measure. "Does it make you a-shamed to know how wet you're get-ting?"

"Don't make me hurt you" Rachel hissed. "I-I don't want to do something I'll regret..."

The Joker gave a giddy clap of the hands at her response, all the while urging, "Do it! Do something you'll re-gret! When you just keep abiding by the rules, life becomes so bor-ing."

"Let Jack go" Rachel pleaded, a pained cry escaping her lips when he bit her neck. "Oh, please...have mercy!"

This got the Joker laughing again, his eyes burning into hers as he asked, "Uhh, do I really look like a guy with mercy?" Giggling until tears of mirth came to his eyes, the clown prince nosed her cheek before purring, "I can see that you, uh...really like this Jack guy, but I should warn you that the div-i-dend between love and madness is veeeery thin. In order for one to reach the other, all it takes is just a lit-tle push." In lieu with these words, the Joker roughly thrust his arousal against her sore womanhood, Rachel crying out as she dug her nails into his back and smothered her shouts against his shoulder. He was hurting her, but he didn't seem to care, his hips mimicking her frantic wiggling as he bit down on her throat and growled.

"Jack" Rachel weakly tried again, "Jack, please..."

Ignoring her pitiful cries, the Joker retrieved the syringe and brought it to her arm, Rachel giving a panicked shriek the moment the needle entered her flesh and sent the red fluid into her bloodstream. Yelping when the clown prince roughly removed the syringe, Rachel trained her blurry gaze upon him as she choked out, "W-what did you just give me?"

"Never you miiiind" the Joker condescendingly purred. "All that you really need to know is you'll be helping me, uh...get to good ol' White Knight."

With a gasp, Rachel moved to denounce the Joker for all she was worth, but the giggling loon crashed his mouth against hers and bit down until she tasted blood. Feeling him lick her lips and knead a breast, she found that she felt little else as she went limp and entered the frightening world of darkness.

A/N - Ok, so to answer your questions, no, the Joker isn't going to strap Rachel to a bomb. I'd like to avoid that whole scenario since I'd like to take a more..."interesting" approach. Or at least I HOPE it'll be interesting! xD lol

Anywhos, I've got a Batman/Harley fic in the works, if anyone feels like checking it out -- I plan on making it uber short, and more humorous than dark (I need a break from the darkness, hehe), so yeah...hopefully you'll like that, too!