Title: The Game We Play, Chapter 10 - So Very Cold

Author: Co-written by Jay Narra & Liana Kerzner

Rating: G

Pairing: Batman/Joker

Fandom: Think "The Killing Joke," & "Arkham Asylum." Mildly BTAS. Some point after the comic "Death In The Family."

Feedback: Definitely! Appreciated! raytheoncentaur3@yahoo.com

Archive: Yes, certainly! Just let me know it's there!

Disclaimer: Batman & Joker are (c) DC! Not mine!

Summary: All alone, Joker thinks about his relationship with the Batman. At home in his cave, the Bat makes a horrific discovery.


The Game We Play, Chapter 10 - So Very Cold
Co-written by Jay Narra & Liana Kerzner


One... one, two... three... four...

"Four days," Joker spat, counting on his fingers over and over again. He turned back to the papers on his desk, pressing them across the surface with heavily placed hands. "And I can't think of a SINGLE THING!" He snatched up a few random pages of notes, ripping them into shreds before letting them fall around his body. "Nothing is coming to me! These are all old hat! They're out of the question! They're so miserably pathetic they would be something the RIDDLER would try!" He raged, turning from his pencils, erasers and notebooks to shove his chair aside.

"And these damned headaches!" he continued, a tinge of pain in the tail-end of his words. As he stepped into the light of another dim bulb, a sheen of sweat was visible. There was nobody around to see it, but it was there all the same. "It's so... very hot in here." The miserable clown pulled at his t-shirt, stretching the neck out. He was winded, and slumped down to the ground.

After having escaped the hospital the other night, he'd managed to find a woman, and had mugged her for her clothing. The garments fit a little too snugly, but they were better than a hospital gown. At least now, nobody could see his boxers. She, of course, went raving to the cops about it. Luckily for the Joker, she wasn't with him when he'd chosen the location for his new lair. He distinctly remembered the feeling of satisfaction when he collapsed onto the floor of his new place. It had at one time been a trendy fashion store... and was now a large, multi-leveled building with no one to care for it.

The upper level had been reserved for offices, and so finding desks to sit at or paper to use had been remarkably simple. It was the food Joker was struggling with. He was injured and feeling sick... and didn't exactly feel welcomed at any corner store. He had resorted to eating next to nothing, grabbing things up when they came his way - via bums or unnattended smaller children. The only food he'd managed to eat had been the lesser half of a candy bar, a bottle of water and a few burgers from some fast-food chain. The burgers he'd saved and had lasted two days.... but they'd been cold and disgusting almost to the point of forcing him to vomit.

It seemed the stitches on his chest only became more infected as the nights passed... it must be that, if anything. It was the only way Joker could explain the strange changes in his body. He'd felt so weak and out of it, struggling with himself to stay awake. And each morning was harder to respond to. He was riddled with headaches, sore in each muscle and starved for a bite of anything he could reach. Maybe it was just the hunger getting to him. Or the pain he felt in his chest.

This pain was something mental rather than physical. Joker couldn't even begin to rationalize the things going through his brain, now. Everything was confusing, maddening him right to the brink. Batman had attacked him unprovoked. And then he had left just as quickly. It tore his insides apart to remember the chilled, hard metallic sound of the Batman's voice. He had been so devoid of any real emotion. That moment in the hospital had thrown Joker into a panic, tossing all he'd believed up into the air... and had let it settle in all the wrong places. The most frightening part of the entire encounter was the very second afterward.

The very second he felt the room go still.

He had been abandoned to lay in his hospital bed and to mourn his ill-fated decision to talk to the one man he'd obsessed over for so long. He had been laden with a sense of horror, knowing that
something had ripped the moment apart... and that the moment may never occur again. There had been a connection forming between them, and the Joker knew it. They'd finally reached the bridge between their two worlds, and were standing on the boards, shaking in fear of what they had to offer one another. Joker had been more than willing to make that crossing.

But the bridge was gone. Batman was gone. Everytime this fact was remembered, a torturous swelling of emotions rose inside the Joker's chest, crippling his thoughts entirely. Life was miserable. For years now they'd danced together, moving seamlessly through the nights, in arm's length but never engaged closely enough to really see each other. There had been an empty nothing between them... and for the Joker, it had started growing.

This nothing had consumed him. It had pushed him harder, intensifying his need to start the dance again and again... over and over. He had risen to the challenge, devining schemes of sparratic
and senseless dramatics, threatening lives and wreaking havoc as often as he could manage.

Yet everytime Batman arrived, the nothing had grown. They were being distanced. Something had to be done.

The night in Arkham had served exactly the purpose it had been designed to. There had been a few unexpected twists, but things had worked out for the best in the end. In those few moments of intimacy, Joker had been given the chance to see beyond the Dark Knight's tough exterior. He'd been allowed to brush minds and get closer... to seek warmth in the very source of his anguish.

The Joker collapsed sideways onto the ground again. After having been exposed to the heat of the flame, he felt so very cold.

He could still taste Batman's life-giving mouth...

*****

"Nothing!" Batman raged, pacing the Batcave like a caged animal. "How could he just disappear?!"

"Maybe he's dead." Nightwing offered. It was a little wishful thinking, but it was also very possible given the situation.

Batman whipped around to face him. The darkness of the glare he gave him seemed to blacken the whole cavern.

"It's a possibility, Bruce." He said nervously. That look was never good.

"I know that." Batman said gruffly. "But he's not."

"Bruce, no one knows exactly what that virus does."

"Average survival time was a month in trials." The Dark Knight went back to the computer file concerning the designer virus that had accidentally been delivered to Gotham General. The Pentagon had given him the top secret information in hopes of saving themselves a huge scandal.

"That was in monkeys."

"It's all we've got to go on."

"Then how can you be so sure. . . ?"

"Just a feeling."

Nightwing shrugged and let the subject drop. He started flipping through the research notes the scientists who designed this bio-weapon had made. Nasty stuff. The symptoms listed were: Headaches, higher fever, stiffness, disorientation, muscle weakness, convulsions... death.

"We know that he's still in the city, and that's he's holed up somewhere." Batman mused out loud.

"And that he hasn't done the usual shtick with the toy factories or comedy clubs." Nightwing added.

Batman nodded. "And he's alone."

That statement hit him surprisingly hard. It was accompanied by a great deal of guilt and anger. He didn't handle mistakes well, especially when he made them. The thought that he had been so close to reforming the Joker and blew it was driving him mad. Was it possible that the whole thing was just a plea for attention? It had to be more complicated than that. . . He'd been through all this before dozens of times in the past four days. He just couldn't accept that it was that simplistic, and he knew that the Joker never told the whole truth about anything. There was something he was missing.

And he had to find the Joker. Fast. He was concerned that if the Clown realized what was happening to him, he'd start an epidemic using his own blood.

And part of him was hoping that if he got to him soon enough, he'd be able to develop a cure. But to do that, he had to find him, and he was running out of time.

Come on Bruce, think like the Joker.

But all he could come up with was schemes involving flowers that squirted acid, exploding whoopie cushions, giant smilie faces and other assorted foolishness. . . Maybe that was it. Maybe he didn't have to find the Joker: maybe, given the right motivation, the Joker would find him. If the Joker wanted attention, he'd give him attention.

"Go home." He said to Dick. "I'll handle this."

Dick's objection was drowned out by the Batmobile's engines roaring to life.

An hour later, a giant smiley face lit up the sky in place of the Bat signal.

*****

It took all his strength, and after struggling with his limbs for what seemed like hours, the Joker managed to climb up into an old chair. He panted without knowing why, frightened that something was happening to him.

How could something happen to him? He was the Clown Prince! He was the very reason Gotham locked their doors!

But yet, Joker couldn't shrug the increasing discomfort he felt. What use was he if he couldn't stay upright long enough to do so much as to even plot?

None.

Not that it mattered.

Something caught his eyes just then... a light out the window. "What in the world...?" He rose from the chair, his legs weak and ready to collapse, and then made his way to the glass pane. Outside, straight upward in the sky, shone a giant smiling face. Two simple spots and then a line beneath it, painted onto the black that hovered above Gotham. "Unbelievable," he muttered to himself.

"Batman."

The word was said with as much affection as one could use, lacing the syllables with a world of emotion. He repeated it again, pressing his hands into the glass as he watched.

But then it vanished.

And then it returned. Lingering for a while, it flashed off and on once more. Joker narrowed his eyes and tilted his head curiously as a pattern developed. On... off on off on off... on.... off on off...

What was Batman doing? Was it a code of some sort? A communication...?

"Ah, you clever little rodent!" he gasped. "Numbers... You're trying to tell me a string of numbers!" He giggled light-headedly and pressed his skin against the cold restraining window. The pattern ended suddenly and disappeared from the sky for a long while. Joker was concerned it would stay gone, knowing he'd only picked up on the last few numbers. But when it started again, he memorized them, dedicating them to the part of his brain that had sense left in it.

Once he'd satisfied himself that he knew the code, Joker left to go lay on the floor, needing to recover from having spent so much energy. He needed to dwell for a while... to think of what
this 'code' meant...

*****

After a lot of second-thoughts, the Joker finally worked up enough courage to leave the sanctuary of his decrepit fashion store. He muttered the numbers to himself, glancing around the empty street just outside his door. Luckily, there were no people around. No one to bother him. He stepped out onto the cold pavement - barefoot - and headed for the phone booth on the corner.

*Keep going,* he whispered mentally, using the strength he'd gathered after his short rest. *You can make it. Just... a few more steps.*

He tripped and stumbled, grasping a light pole on his way down, narrowly escaping a collision with the pavement. "Smooth!" he hissed. "Real smooth."

Three failed attempts later, Joker reached the phone booth and grasped the metal edges, supporting his shivering and sweat-covered form. He snatched at the phone and peered at the numbers, recalling the ones that had been displayed in the sky. This had to be it. A phone number. He couldn't think of anything else.

*
END