Important disclaimer: Dr. Arkham is a total dick toward June in this chapter, so his narrative and inner monologue obviously matches, so of course him slandering poor Junie is inevitable as he's actually a piece of human garbage. There are no slurs though, as I genuinely would never bring myself to write that. So just know that anything he says does not reflect my views, in case it wasn't obvious. If you'd like any more stuff about these kind of disclaimers, please read the one at the beginning of this story. Thanks!!

But anyway, BOY this is a chapter. Like, probably the whole reason I started to write this story in the first place because of the concept... wow! I'm so hyped to share with you!!

Have a dorky picture of Mr. J for good luck and good vibes!! <3 I'm genuinely tempted to just include a random pic of him for every chapter... I have too much y'all his pics take up like 97% of my storage space.

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Chapter 8: Bittersweet

He was quite into bondage if he had to admit, although he usually liked it when it was him tying the knots and not the one being bound underneath them. Of course, straightjackets never hurt anybody, but on the other hand, they never helped him sleep either. The tightness around his arms and waist was just so deliciously uncomfortable that he always felt too excited to sleep and he'd stay up for hours, most times all night, the days melting into the nights and the nights melting into the days. It was Junie that helped him count the time. It was Junie who had that calendar in that little black pocket planner of hers and it was Junie that he... wanted... to kill.

Maybe it wasn't the straightjacket that made him uncomfortable at night. Maybe it was her.

Her sickly sweet smiles, her delicate hands- pill box, pill box, darling little pill box- her big rounded Bambi eyes and her hair. Her hair. Her hair, always her hair. Long curls and black and silky and still he could feel it between his fingers, even now, when they were restrained by his sides in bed. He'd contemplated her for a while now. He wanted to kill her, yes, but why? He'd never really needed a reason before, just let the hand of fate choose and shoot, but for Junie he'd make it mean something. After all, the deck of cards she'd given him were more fun than he would've expected, so he had her to thank for that. Of course, having to smuggle them back in his pants wasn't the most dignifying thing he'd been subjected to, but in the hours where he got to sit around his cell without the straightjacket was made much more blissful when he could play a game of solitaire to pass the time. Her kindness was valuable.

But the point was, Joker's death wish toward Junie wasn't a fantasy incited by karma or revenge, wasn't an imaginary plot that would lead to something greater, no. He wanted to kill her to prove that even being kind and caring and sympathetic wouldn't cease something so unstoppable and chaotic as him. Killing 'em with kindness never works, Junie. You gotta kill 'em with a knife. Or a mallet. Or burn it all down...

Then the image of his hands around her neck shone a certain light upon his imaginations and eyes closed, he silently groaned. Thumbs popping her oesophagus shut so nothing would be heard of her but the silent croaks crawling up her little throat with that betrayed look on her face, those wide eyes of hers that he'd give anything to see brim with the swelling of tears, bloodshot, face blue, she'd be looking at him the whole time. Painted lips slowly parting into an enamoured circle, he moaned at the thought, genuinely moaned and it slowly stretched into a sickening and perverse grin that hurt his face enough to have him exhale through a long and low whistle.

Fantasy material that he would finally get to realise during tomorrow's session.

***

In the doorway of Dr. Arkham's office the next morning, tremulous Juniper Stoltz stood in a stiff stick-like position, almost afraid to set foot on the crimson carpet he'd summoned her to. "Dr. Arkham? You asked to see me?"

The girl didn't even have to fully walk in to be noticed, Dr. Arkham dreadfully acknowledged, what with her ridiculous hair taking up the entire doorway (although that was quite hyperbolic). Still, he hated it. So much in fact he'd almost forgotten why he'd called her to his office in the first place.

The whiskey bottle in his drawer called to him and he had to grind his teeth to try and ignore it. Motioning to the seat before him with a bony and wrinkled hand, he falsely smiled, the sarcasm completely obvious to June, who was now finally present in his office. "Take a seat, Miss Stoltz. I have some... things I would like to discuss with you."

She froze in her steps, her thoughts spinning in her head like a fortune wheel, the arrow just ticking and waiting to land on the worst possible scenario. The art therapy results, doctor transfers, the playing cards... oh God, please don't let it be the playing cards. She'd be fired. She'd never get to see the Joker again if they found out about the playing cards.

"Miss Stoltz? I said, sit."

"Sorry, sorry," she whimsically apologised, almost tripping over as she crossed to the chair opposite his desk and sat in it, handbag on her lap. She was so sure that she was going to vomit out of pure nervousness alone. No matter how stubborn she was to get this job in the beginning, something about finally earning it and knowing that he was watching her every move terrified her. That, and he hated her for simply, y'know, existing.

"Now," Dr. Arkham began, adjusting his tiny glasses on the bridge of his obscenely large, sharp nose, "I called you in this morning to say--" He lost track of his words when he spotted the slightly reddish tint of her lips, where he swore they were usually a dull brown. "That isn't lipstick, is it?"

Gripping her bag, she blurted, "No."

There was an awkward silence, followed by the trembling of June's hands. The lipstick wasn't that obvious, was it?

His eyes had become short grey slits to which he judged her through, but he raised his brows in dismissal. "No matter. That isn't important. What is important is what I called you to talk about."

June's entire mouth turned into a sour drought as she anticipated the worst, waiting for him to just end her career right there.

"It's about your, um... patient. And the therapy it has been subjected to."

That word again. It. She'd always hated it, it had that connotation that the Joker was somehow less human and less deserving of that same respect other people had; sure, he murdered, maimed and tortured for his own entertainment, but June could never reason with the assumption that treating him badly would somehow cure him. It never added up. Still, she wouldn't question it- Dr. Arkham was a cruel figure and he revelled in nothing less than seeing her speak out against him, to try and catch her out. At least, it felt that way...

She straightened her back, "W-what- what things did you want to talk ab--"

"I won't be vague or cryptic with you, Miss Stoltz," Dr. Arkham interrupted with a spiteful grin. "I see no progress being made on this case. I have yet to see any results from your patient."

"Results? I've- I've set him up to art therapy and he's doing really well," she insisted, her frown slowly bending into a sad smile. "You should see the painting's he's done, Dr. Arkham. They're fantastic, really, he has such unexpected talent--"

"Tell me- what relevance do paintings have to its mental health?"

Deliriously, she could've laughed. "Art, Dr. Arkham. He made art! Art... y'know... frees people. His ability to paint like that, to create such order in the chaos he feels, it's a miracle. To have him even sit still while holding a paintbrush is a miracle. Really, if I could just show you his work--"

His bony fingers knotted together upon the table. "Well, Miss Stoltz, after you told me about the session, I had a... word with one of the guards. Colter, I believe." At the name, June's stomach turned. "And I asked him very kindly to dispose of the paintings. They're long gone now, Miss Stoltz."

Mouth dropping open, her words refused to come out. June was in shock. Not just surprised but horrified, afraid, she felt as though the paintings were herself- torn apart and destroyed. Like a piece of her was now missing, those oil canvases filled with triangles and shapes and that little hidden hand grenade in the bowl of fruit seemingly filled a void in her, something that had actually given her hope. If the Joker- agent of chaos, jester of genocide, clown prince of crime- if he could create something so beautiful with a brain so wicked and ugly, then surely the city still had some hope. If he could somehow, deep down, be at least the tiniest bit redeemable, then surely, so was she...

Throat tightening (was she going to cry?), June stammered and stumbled over her words, syllables that she simply couldn't lace together into coherent sounds or words. She felt so hurt, and it was over a bunch of paintings. Who cared, right? Nobody did. Nobody but her, at least. Those paintings were proof, hard and physical proof that there was some kind of rational good in him. He was curable. He was human. So why could nobody see it? Why was she the only one who was convinced?

"Dr. Arkham, those paintings--" She stopped herself when she realised her voice was shaking. Fascinated, he smiled widely and glared at her as if to dare her to keep talking. As if to get her to spill everything she felt, thought or even imagined was possible about the mad dog she was uselessly treating. Imagine that, after all that begging in his office, if he'd finally catch her admitting that what she felt for her patient wasn't contempt, but compassion...

"Miss Stoltz," He didn't hold back his smile as he leaned forward. "Those paintings stand as proof that 4479 is dangerous. If it is as free-thinking as those paintings suggest it is, then it is a force we shouldn't be meddling with. Free will is a powerful thing, Miss Stoltz, and we cannot allow 4479 to grasp its concept. Free will leads to chaos, the only thing it knows or loves." He watched in amusement as the girl before him shrank in her seat, face red and strained from embarrassment and overwhelmed emotion. "If I hear that your patient has ever produced another painting under your guise of 'therapy', then I'll feel no displeasure in taking away your position as its doctor."

With her hands gripping the chair's arms, she half jumped out of her seat in sheer panic. No. No. No. No. He couldn't do that. He couldn't take her away from him, it had been her dream to work in the position she was. Jesus, the dumb clown was the highlight of her every day. What intelligent conversations they'd had! The things she'd heard come out of his mouth, it illustrated exactly what was wrong with this screwed up system she was caught in. The paintings! Like she'd lost a child! The rec room television, never again would she see him watch it, never again would she see his eyes light up at the sight of silence coming out of an actor's moving mouth. And the apples... they'd let every single one rot before he got to taste one so sweet...

Dr. Arkham's brows raised to the ceiling and he laughed. He actually laughed for what felt like the first time in years, to see this poor and pathetic girl struggling to compose herself. He was surrounded by animals, circus freaks! And she was the main attraction! "Now, now, sit down, Miss Stoltz."

"If you're going to disrespect me in such a blatant way, at least have the damned decency to call me by my name. Don't patronise me, Jeremiah." Teeth grit and jaw tensed, her clenched knuckles trembled as she forced herself to sit back down, which almost hurt. "You can't take me off his case. No one is helping him. You think I'd be content to just sit idly by and watch him die?" She asked rhetorically, her eyes full of sympathy and empathy- both at once, all at once; he rolled his eyes with a sick smile as she persisted. "He's not treated well. Colter comes by his cell and beats him and I haven't heard you object, not once."

"These things take time, Miss S--"

"And he spent six months down in extreme isolation suffering surely no less than he does when he's in his own cell up here and you just--"

"What was that you said? About extreme isolation?"

Frustrated, but burnt out, June had to pause for breath, and then her confused eyes focused vaguely on his almost scared expression. The sudden snap of his voice, stiff and hoarse, had startled her into her own bout of abject silence. Amongst the chaotic and panicked worries in her head, she wasn't so sure she'd heard what he'd said.

Somehow, she managed to emit a coherent mutter in the form of a timid, "What?"

His tone had lost all apathy and disinterest and was instead replaced with a volatile animosity, carving words into the backs of his teeth when he spat, "Extreme isolation. What do you know about it, Miss Stoltz?"

She knew that the facility beneath Arkham was... private, to say, but she'd never heard this kind of hostility from anyone before and this was just by mentioning it. "I don't--"

"Tell me!"

She jumped in fear and tried not to swear. "Chr- not much, just that he told me it's, um... um... not what it's cracked up to be- or something- listen, I don't know, I swear, I--"

"Get out of my office."

Confused, June's mouth snapped shut and even though she went to speak, no words really felt like they were any use in coming out.

"Get out of my office," Dr. Arkham repeated, voice slow as if she were stupid. Then he screamed, "And tie that damn hair up!"

June yelped with a leap of her shoulders and as slowly as she could, she grabbed her bag and rose out of her seat, her entire figure tense as her footsteps sped up along the carpet and to the door. She turned her head back for a moment to see if he'd say anything else, but he was sweating, hands scrambling for his bottle of whiskey and glass as he placed them on the desk. She just didn't know what she'd done wrong. What had she said? Did she say something out of place?

"Dr. Ark--"

"Get out!" His voice cracked with a poisonous growl, and as his bubble angered within him, he grabbed his whiskey glass and slammed it so hard onto his desk that it smashed, glass shards piercing his hand.

June immediately dropped her bag and bolted back over, one of her shoes slipping off in the rushed process. "Oh my God," she sputtered, taking off her labcoat at the sight of his bloodied hand. "Here," she insisted as she folded her coat and reached out to take his hand. "Let me help--"

Dr. Arkham thrust his arm back and stepped out from his seat, knocking it to the floor. With fire in his eyes, he screamed, "Don't touch me, filthy brat!"

June swallowed hard; his words stung like salt in an open wound. Filthy, dirty, unclean: she had been called such things before. Yet when it was from her own boss, she felt powerless to bite back, to defend herself. She didn't feel dishonoured, or like he'd wounded her reputation, she just felt like she was witnessing him at his basest, most primitive state, and that embarrassed her. He looked stupid, ridiculous, like a child backing away when their mother had said 'bath time', and the fact that her job was to just stand there and take it was humiliating.

"I'm- I'm sorry, sir, I was just..." June looked down to the folded coat in her hands as if she didn't remember how it even got there, and realised that despite her hatred towards him, even when in danger herself, she put out a hand to help. She felt stupid for that, knowing very well that he probably didn't deserve it.

"Get out of my office, or you're fired." He finally said.

She bit her tongue in disgust- God, now she knew how the Joker could be driven to murder- and was defenceless to do anything but turn back around, collect her fallen shoe and her bag, and walk out of the door without a word.

When she was outside, there was Just Kenny waiting for her, ready to escort her to the Joker's cell per Dr. Arkham's request. He eyed June very strangely, with her silky hair dishevelled and in her eyes, her one shoe in her hand, her coat now scrunched in her arms. When Dr. Arkham had said he'd wanted a 'talk' with Dr. Stoltz, this wasn't exactly what Kenny had in mind... the thought was more than repulsive.

She let out a dreaded, practically humourless laugh at how the situation seemed. "It's... not what it looks like."

"Uh-huh..." Just Kenny nodded, waiting for Dr. Stoltz to tidy herself up before taking her to the Joker's cell, where they would then take him to the interviewing room. Oh, she did favour routine when someone as chaotic as the Joker was involved... and holding her breath, she pushed forward a smile.

Jeremiah Arkham waited. He held his bleeding hand by the wrist, standing by the closed doors until he heard nothing but silence, the sign of that brat of a girl finally gone. Extreme isolation. She knew about extreme isolation. Given, she said she only knew that it 'wasn't what it was cracked up to be', but still, that disgusting clown's mouth could run a lot when it wanted to. She would start asking questions, start poking her nose where it didn't belong. There had to be a way to get rid of her before she could find anything out, or before that clown started to talk. She seemed to be... quite close with it, now that he thought about it...

Wincing in pain, Dr. Arkham pinched out squares of glass from his hand and fell forwards toward his desk, unharmed hand snatching up the telephone. He punched in the speed-dial number for the front office and waited as patiently as a bleeding man could, each tone ringing seemingly longer than the last.

It was frail Jeanette who replied with a croaked, "Oh, Dr. Arkham! My, you've--"

"Put that girl on the phone." He impatiently demanded, referring to the one who worked with Jeanette. He couldn't quite recall the name.

"Girl? What girl?"

"The one in your office, the pale one. The one who talks to that... that stupi- that girl, June."

"June?" Jeanette whispered to herself, almost forgetting the name at her age. "Oh, you mean Dr. Stoltz, the young girl! Why, sorry, she's not at the office right now--"

His bloodied fist came slamming down on the desk. "No, I don't want her, I want--!" He took a deep breath and sighed, patience returning to him. "I want to talk to the girl in your office who knows Dr. Stoltz. Mary, or- or Margaret, whatever her name--"

"Oh!" She laughed, "You mean Mara!"

"Yes!" He cried in relief, looking up to the heavens, "Yes, her! Put her on the phone, Jeanette, and fast."

"Of course, I'll only be a minute."

There was a commotion, followed by Jeanette's weak voice calling across the office, and then the crackling of the phone as it was handed to Mara.

"Hello?" Mara's voice wasn't as sweet as he'd expected it to be, instead it had a coarse undertone to it. Like salt.

"Mara, yes, hello. You're friends with Miss Stoltz, aren't you?" He asked.

"Yes, I am, sir. Why do you ask?"

"I would like you to do a favour for me. She's been acting strangely..." He toyed with the telephone wire around his finger. "...suspicious as of late. Oddly defensive."

"Defensive, sir?"

"Of her patient."

"Oh. The Joker?"

"Yes. I would like you to see if she has anything that would suggest... how should I say... a camaraderie with her patient. If she seems to act in any way that would point toward them being friends."

"Friends, sir? I think that's quite imposs--" Mara paused, but after a couple of second's silence she spoke again, "Well... there was that day in her office. Before the art session with the Joker. She seemed quite defensive then."

A wide smile spread across Dr. Arkham's lips and he bent down to pick his chair back up, sitting in it. Legs crossed one over the other, he leaned his elbows over onto the desk. "Yes, exactly that. Please, tell me more about that. Oh, and while you're there..." He grabbed his whiskey bottle. "Ask Jeanette to send over a nurse for me."

"Yes, of course, Dr. Arkham, but about June- I don't think I could tell you- I mean, she's my friend--"

"Is she your friend if I offer to double your salary?"

The line went quiet. Dr. Arkham's bloody hand trembled and a thin bead of sweat coursed its way down his naked brow, chest scratchy with nervous breaths.

Mara sighed heavily, a sign of defeat that he recognised immediately. "So... I was in her office, before her session with the Joker..."

He smiled. Dr. Jeremiah Arkham had never felt so...

***

Happy. Despite the outburst in Dr. Arkham's office, June was happy. She sat there in her familiar chair opposite the Joker's, twiddling her pen between her fingers and watching him as he mindlessly spoke through mumbled words, lips barely moving. She'd unknowingly let him take the reigns of the conversation, how at the beginning of the hour they'd said hello, then how are you feeling, then Joker said, I miss the TV set, and now he was talking about how the film industry had cheated in making their movies non-silent, how dialogue and forced exposition had made it easy to make what he scoffed at was their idea of 'art'. It was funny, June had never realised he could be so pretentious and passionate about such a silly thing until now. She usually hated it when people complained about things that, in the grand scheme of things, didn't even matter, but somehow coming out of the Joker's mouth, he made it sound like a speech as he weighed out the pros and cons, talking about everything as though by speaking the words he delivered justice to them. How well-mannered he spoke, how honest. How civilised and intelligent! Her stomach twirled in ignorant delight.

"And, while I will admit that dialogue, to, uh, to some degree has improved the movie industry by, like, uh, a teeny tiny bit- you ever watched Pulp Fiction?"

"Uh-huh." Came a dreamy nod from June.

"Then you know how well dialogue can be put to use. Bu-t, apart from films like that- pfft--" He threw his hands up into the air as if the world around him had gone mad. "--dialogue in movies has opened the gateway for lazy storytellers to just get their point across and call it a day. Where's the fun in that, huh? You don't kill a person by talking to them! You shut your mouth and stick a knife int'a their gut! Getting straight to the poin-t. What is so hard about doing that, huh? But oh no!" He mockingly whined, pulling a funny face. "Directors like M. Night, uh, Shamrock or whatever makes one craaazy plot twist and suddenly he's allowed to make all kinds'a garbage! And as long as his name is stamped on it, then it's a masterpiece! I'm tellin' ya, Junie, the world's going nuts, lemme just- oh!" He seemed to shout in offence and June jumped a little. "And another thing! One-liners! I hate those. The hell are they anyway? I mean, 'yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker'? Uh, pardon my French. But yeah, great storytelling, idiot, well done. What a well-rounded character you've made, hurrah, hurrah." Joker sarcastically clapped and then held up a finger to count, "Okay, first of all, as cool as that guy was in that movie, I don't think that, uh, 'yippee-ki-yay' was a good way to present tha-t. I mean, just think about it, one guy..."

June laughed, a schoolgirl giggle that made her eyes tear up, and the longer she looked at him, the more distant his voice became and the more apparent and focused his appearance was. The lighting of the room never really showed his best side, starkly illuminated from above and cast grim shadows below, dragging down the bags under his eyes and making him look scarier than he already was. But despite this, it never unsettled June, only fascinated her instead. What really unsettled her was the fact that she wasn't afraid, wasn't scared at all. Swinging his hands around wildly like this, getting so heated and yet she didn't flinch nor wince nor anything. She just watched, enamoured, chin in her hands to conceal the smile on her lips.

"So a'right, granted, when he said it the first time, it was pretty cool. And the way he like, uh, like backs outt'a the door's sorta badass, but then they made a second movie. And a third. And now there's four and he said the same dumb one-liner every time. It's dumb, Junie, so dumb. Like, uh, like that Terminator guy, the--" Joker cleared his throat and made his voice monotonous to nail the impression. "--'I'll be back'. See, it was good, and then he said it like a million times. What's with that, huh?"

June was barely listening. "Crazy."

"Right? And another thing..."

His voice faded out again to the back of her vacant mind, filled instead with moving pictures of his mouth, his lips and teeth and tongue as it recited numerous one-liners he hated (but deep down, supposed he kinda liked, now that he thought about it). Each time he mumbled, his lips almost closed entirely, and a glimpse of his pale pink tongue darted out out against his bottom lip after each 'uh', 'ah', or 'um' or every time he checked her for a reaction, to which she'd always agree with a nod even though she wasn't listening. And his yellowed teeth- much cleaner than they looked on TV a year ago, with the rigorous and routined scrubbing the guards forced upon him- nibbled on the corner of his mouth every so often when he shook his head in disappointment toward the 'totally screwed film industry, can you even believe it'. How Juniper wished she could lose herself on the back of his tongue... dance around in his mouth and cling to the wet walls as he laughed, just to know what they felt like. What they'd taste like...

"Junie?"

"Yeah, I totally agree."

"Junie."

"Hm?" She blinked for what felt like the first time in hours, her eyes dry from admiring him so wide-eyed. Crap, not admiring, just--

"What're you looking at, huh? I got something on my face?" Joker consciously raised a hand to his mouth.

June sat herself upright and put her pen down, shaking her head with an inward breath. God, she felt so silly, just letting herself daydream like that. She forgot that he was her patient, for Christ's sakes, not some high-school crush. Not that she was into him like that- although he was handsome, to a sickening degree- but even her sacred audio diary didn't know about that. A subconscious thing, perhaps; after all, the human mind worked in such mysterious ways...

"Sorry, it's nothing," She apologised, "Just tired is all." She nodded her head so hard in trying to persuade him that she almost believed it herself. "Didn't sleep much."

"Again?" He smirked, figure finally relaxing after his twenty minute debate.

"Yeah." She laughed.

"Why not?"

Because I was thinking of you and your paintings and your magic tricks and what you see in the TV static.

"Watching the late night movies." She innocently lied.

Joker hummed as if to pretend he was actually interested. "Oh. Whadd'ya watch?"

She looked at his paint-plastered face and blurted out the first movie that she could think of. "Uh, It."

"It? Oh, you mean Steven King's It? The, uh, the one with the killer clown?"

Oh God, you idiot. "Uh, yeah." Yeah, totally not gonna puke my guts up right now.

"Huh," He broke out into an amused grin. "Seems to me like you've got a type, Junie."

She could've slammed her head on the desk in embarrassment of her own stupidity. Jesus, he even thought she had a type, why did she pick a goddamn clown over all things? She couldn't believe--

"Horror movies." He said in response to her flushed face.

"Huh?"

The Joker grinned. He did it. He found a way. He found a way to get under Junie's skin. Just like the playing card behind her ear, it wasn't threats that made her nervous, or even talking about murder, but playing. Toying. Flirting. The power dynamic was about to screw her over.

"Your type. Horror movies. You, uh, you said you were watching one the other night, weren't you?" He asked, brows knitted together rather pensively as he leaned on the table. "D'ya like things that scare you, Junie?"

Sheepishly, her nervous frown raised into a smile as her voice broke. "Ha, seems I do- hah..." The words spilled out non-stop as she played frantically with her hair, trying to get out of this mess only to dig herself deeper. Deeper, deeper. Digging a grave right to her own heart, tunnels he'd use to traverse so he can crush it.

But this... this he loved. He liked her squeamishness so much that it took every inch of him not to climb onto the table, cling his fingers around her throat and squeeze- squeeze her like a tiny mound of bloodied flesh!- anchor his nails into her neck until she cried, until she died, until he could press her into little stars in his hands, between his fingers, he lived for this! He lived for the chaos he could practically see oiling the rotten cogs in her head! Junie was the first person still alive who could make him feel so entertained by just the mere sound of her voice! It was hilariously laughable when rational, sane people were scared by the premise that they wanted to squash and hold and choke things that they found cute, like kittens, but now the Joker had found his own amalgamation of that concept: and it came in the form of Junie- freckled- face- and- curly- haired- Stoltz. She wasn't cute in the way average people would find, but funny, like a laughing parade on legs, and he loved the idea of her discomfort and eventual surrender so much that he wished she had nine lives so he could kill her over and over and over again, just to see if she'd smile when he tried to dig his hand down her neck to try and pull her heart out. Turn her inside out so he could see inside her head and body and lungs and ribs and heart and bones. He sure as hell didn't need to paint her portrait to see that in a disgustingly twisted way, she was, in some form, a work of art. Perhaps his finest masterpiece.

"Suppose," she filled the silence, "I just like going to bed after a horror flick and the adrenaline rush of things going bump in the night... or..." she shyly blinked. "Something... else..."

He smiled. "Bump in the night, huh?" He repeated her words, readjusting himself in his chair. "Ya like things that go bump in the night, Junie?"

She feigned laughter with a frantic nod.

"What kinda bumps, Junie?" Joker tilted his head compulsively, mimicking her curiosity. "Footsteps down the hallway? A knocking from your closet?" He slowly inched forward, arms on the table, and locked eyes with his trembling Junie as he whispered so quietly that the perpetual buzz of the light above them was louder than he was, and so terrifyingly, he said, "...headboard hitting against the wall?"

June swallowed dryly, heavy breaths swimming from slightly parted lips as she looked down to the Joker's right hand, paint covered and bruised. Following her gaze, he knew where it lead to. Where it always lead to. Mimicking the sound he'd described to her, he brought his index finger up and tapped it back down on the table in a rhythmic pattern, thump, thump, thump. Slow, soft... reminiscent of that apple falling onto the table (rolling) and with each breath that left her quivering chest the thumping of his fingertip quickened, just a tiny bit, barely enough for her to even notice until it caught up with the rapid beating of her heart. She looked up at him only to see that he was looking back, too. Black empty holes into his soul... holes... soul... his memories... she wanted to see them so badly...

June spoke through lips that almost closed, afraid of what she might say if they opened. "Usually... the bump in the night that scares me most is..." Thump, thump. "...is the fear of monsters hiding under the bed."

"Really?" The Joker softly mused, smiling as he drew his finger closer to her, gliding along the surface of the table as smoothly as it would slice through water. "And what about..." His voice was deep, low, "...the monsters... in the bed, Junie?"

If she wasn't so preoccupied by how smooth and endearing he was, she would've laughed. Gripped her stomach, doubled over, lost her mind and drowned in hysteria. But all she could do was stare, look endlessly in his eyes while she unknowingly leaned in closer, yearning for that one index finger that slithered near to touch her, even if just for a second, just a poke. Just to remind her that he was there and very much real and so was she. Lost in her own head, she wandered helplessly, searching for those stolen fragments of her own sanity. Had he stolen it? Her morality? The angel sitting on her right shoulder telling her no, had he killed it? What had he done to her? Where was Dr. Stoltz? Ring ring, ring ring. Sorry, she's not at the office right now...

Joker's finger prodded her forearm and among the silent insanity raging in June's mind, she let go of a stuttered laugh she didn't even know she was repressing until it was plucked out of her mouth, strung up in the air like mistletoe, the space between them inevitably growing smaller and smaller by the second. She looked up at him with those precious doe eyes as if there were holy scriptures written in his own. Memories. There were memories hidden just on the other side of those eyes of his. To deny wanting to see each and every single one would be a crude lie. After all this- wait, were their noses touching? He's not even sat down anymore- after all the talks of movies and paintings and his restless hands and everything else, it just wasn't enough. She wanted to know why he liked movies so much, why his hands fidgeted without his knives and when in time he seemingly met Picasso because by God he managed to paint just as well. She needed an explanation, wanted one so badly. She needed to find out what the world had done to him to make him the way he was. June craved it. She was hungry, so hungry it was overwhelming, engulfing, stomach-tossing-ly starving and his mind and memories were a bountiful banquet for her to consume. So maybe... maybe just a peek... if only back to just about a year ago... it wouldn't hurt that much, he wouldn't feel a thing...

Eventually, she rose from her seat, palms pressed against the table, and the two seemed to gravitate toward one another. There was this tension between them, hot and raw, the lion stalking circles around the curious gazelle. Too curious for her own good, as always. Junie, don't ever change. Especially not now. Now... now he could actually get a good grip on her throat, now that he thought about it...

She wanted to strip apart his memories. He wanted to murder her. And yet the two hid it all under the guise of secret sexual tension and skirting around a kiss that would never come. Neither of them knew each other's intentions. Neither of them cared. But one thing they both did agree upon was scoffing at the idea of how stupid the other was, to fall so easily under the false promise of a kiss...

Just a peek...

And his eyes were there. She didn't blink when she looked at his eyes; then, looked into them, looked inside of them, slowly trying to make apart the pupils from the irises, both as dark as each other. She wanted to pry them open, to look through them, the windows to his tar black soul.

He stayed still. He concentrated on her, thinking of when the perfect moment was to strike.

June could do it. She knew she could do it. She could look into his memories like she'd wanted for weeks and so long as he stayed exactly where he was, she could do it. Finally, she decided. Agreed upon. What good did morality do when it was so much easier to just take what she wanted? Temptation was right in front of her (the apple rolling, red and sweet and bright and its name is the Joker). She could know who he was. What he was.

So Juniper did it.

She searched through his pupils to find that invisible gateway exit at the back, and she looked into him. Most terrifying of all, she wasn't sure what was going to look back.

A silent gasp, an unfeeling struck blow, the all-too familiar feeling of piercing someone's mind.

She was there. She'd done it. She'd broken into the unbreakable psyche of the world's most broken mind. The memories were there. All that was left was the choosing.

First came the sensory part: his life in bulk, something she couldn't see, only feel. It felt chaotic, extremely chaotic and... somehow lack-luster. Like... something was missing. She wasn't quite sure what, but...

Presently, Joker flinched at a strange, momentary migraine he'd just felt. His Junie looked so mesmerised. Vulnerable. He'd strike now but... kill her, kill her, do it, do it!

His memories... a corridor of knowledge, containing the secrets of the world's biggest mystery. The forgotten library of Alexandria, where nobody could ever venture. And there she was. She toyed with it a little, to see if her powers worked as smoothly as they used to: the most recent memory that played out was of about twenty-four hours ago, and he was looking at a floor surrounded by playing cards. She recognised this, the magic trick yesterday. June had seen the world through the eyes of so many different people but it was his that stood out the most, now that she could finally see what it looked like. Everything looked so different through his eyes, so colourful. The dull walls of the interviewing room held this nuanced vibrance to them, a luminosity that didn't truly exist (who knew, maybe it was just the pills). It was strange, the memory felt so rushed, so blurred, his gaze flitting from one side of the room to the other as he collected the cards on the floor one by one... and then there was an ankle. Two small feet dressed in nylon tights and situated in black kitten heels... her kitten heels... her ankles. June was looking at herself through his eyes, and when he looked up, there she was, stood and resting over the table and collecting all the playing cards together that he'd teasingly tossed her way just minutes before. She looked so... different in his memory. Not physically, but just the overall aura of her was different than who she perceived herself to be. She could feel his thoughts- not quite read them, it didn't work like that- but she could feel them as if she were in his body, could feel his mouth twitch and eyes move... and suddenly the mood darkened. He was looking at June, or Junie, rather, and when at first it felt like admiration (she had the sense that he practically worshipped her hair) it suddenly turned into... bloodlust. He was looking at Junie's ankles and she could feel exactly what he was thinking- pull them out from under her feet and kill her. Kill her! Jaw split open on the table, teeth in skull. In that moment, when she was happily collecting cards, he was thinking about murdering her right then and there! Completely unbeknownst to her and... oh God...

Leaving the memory from sheer panic alone, present June blinked hard in shock. She didn't dare flinch. Never... never had she thought that his mind could feel so dark, could think such gruesome and awful, awful things in such a mundane situation... but inevitably came the sad realisation that despite what she thought of him being somehow rational, or well-thinking, or even man at all; he was still the Joker. The man who murdered half the mob and blew up a hospital alongside many other detestable things. No fine line he walked between whatever moral stance was ever spotless, any line between any argument was always paved with bodies and polished with blood. Yesterday, at that very second of looking at her ankles, he wanted to kill her. That was what his memories felt like- fetishistic murder. And yet, right now, with his heavy breaths on her face, her fingers just barely touching his atop the table, she couldn't find it in herself to feel scared, or to even hate him. She just felt confused. Hurt and confused.

And as human nature goes, at its very core, she wanted to pull apart what she didn't understand. Dissect it to find out why.

Staring back through his presently vacantly eyes, June forced herself through his memories of yesterday and the day before, squeezing her way through last week and pushing relentlessly until the whole month of his memories were behind her, not of any interest anymore. She didn't stop, couldn't care. No, June didn't care at all anymore. Doctor? She wasn't a doctor. She was human. The Joker? A threat. He wanted to use her, kill her, so she was going to get there before he could. Go back to the day he became the Joker and use his own precious memory as a weapon against him. Split him open. Pry apart his goddamned brain and leave a hand grenade in it.

As she rifled through memories of months that had been lost to padded cells and electrotherapy, Joker's present grip on the table suddenly slipped as he hesitantly pressed a hand against his forehead, eyes glassy as he looked at Junie with uncertainty. Migraines? They became more than just migraines.

"Junie," Joker hummed, shaking his head slowly, "While I, uh, do love the tension, we're going a li-ttle slow here, don'tcha think? What's all this staring for, huh?" His voice was hazy, trying to cover up the unexplainable pain that suddenly struck his head. June felt it too- it physically hurt to look through people's memories- but so soon? She never felt the migraines until she was at least a decade deep, and here she was hardly a year ago in his head. Something wasn't right...

Through raspy breaths, June saw nothing but a mangled scrapbook of memories, but whispered in hopes of keeping him still. "Your eyes are so dark..."

"You're one to tal--" Joker's eyes scrunched shut in pain- shit, the memories are wavering- and he stood upright, groping his head as he laughed it off. "Nice- uh, nice one, Junie. You been mixing my meds, or--" His voice was cut off as he reeled forwards, back arching as he held his head in agony, June desperately moving to keep eye contact with him. Joker grit his teeth, swearing as the violent migraines bloomed within his head, shaking his synapses to the point where memories from a year ago spilled out for her to see.

She saw the bank robberies, the school buses, unlisted murders that never made the news; she whimpered quietly in trying to contain all of the hurt as she flicked through glossy images of him sorting through hundreds of playing cards to find the sacred jokers, him planning out an idea of a suit he wanted, fitting a knife to an old pair of dress shoes, him counting every gun, blade and explosive he owned that were laid out in rows ranging from smallest to largest on a crappy motel room floor. June saw everything. The man who still had the paint, but not the name. And every single bit of it hurt.

She would've stopped were this anybody else, anybody mundane. They had nothing more interesting to offer other than what meals they ate on a Saturday night. But this was the Joker, the murderer she watched a year ago on live TV with anticipated grins and hoping she could have a go at deducing his psyche. His memories weren't something she could just pass up. She kept on going, falling forward against the table, fists clenched so hard that the pen in her hand had snapped in two. The Joker was caught in the middle, in pain and confusion. It all looked so pathetic: the two of them moaning and grunting in seething, boiling agony, throwing themselves over the table in trying to make it bearable.

Joker slammed his hands down on the table and hooked his fingers upon the surface, snarling in pain whilst somehow still smiling, such a disturbing image to see beyond the memories she rewound through. He dug his nails against the table as he twisted his neck to look at her- his palpitating monster, more like- then shook his head with a pained laugh. It was perhaps in this moment that he realised something wasn't right with Junie Stoltz. She wasn't mad, but there was something dark in her, something scarred and scorched, her head full of secrets that only she knew of. For a second he didn't even believe she was human. He had no idea what exactly she was doing to him, but he knew that every twinge of pain he felt was her. It was all her. Finally, he'd found a kindred spirit within her, someone selfish who took and took and took just because she could. For all he knew, she was killing him, bringing his brain to the brink of bursting. And they'd already dove too far down the rabbit hole to climb back out now.

June was so close to giving up, so close to surrendering to the pain, letting go to let them both breathe, but then she saw something. Multiple things, actually, glimpses of memories that occurred between... black spots of... emptiness. About... two and a half years ago... she could hear the looping tune of a merry carnival song, along with screams of pain- his screams of pain, she'd never thought she'd live to see the day- and flashes of a brown-haired, painted Joker, blood drooling from his mouth. A million black eyes and a million bloodied smiles as he stared at himself through a hundred broken shards. Too much blood for her to see anything but bulging teeth and eyes.

June's entire body tensed and convulsed- everything happened at once. A glinting blade, a hand guiding it into his mouth, his screams of death, a revolver chamber with a single bullet, a dead theme park laying around him, a lone man walking along a red lined path on an amusement park brochure map.

Juniper Stoltz had never felt so much pain in her life. Maybe once, maybe when the clairvoyance was still new to her. She could go back to the day someone was born if she really wanted to- Mama, Mama, forgive me- but three years in the Joker's head and...

Blackness.

He was twenty seven, laid motionless surrounded by glass and his own blood, and then suddenly nothing.

She couldn't go any further. Like she'd hit a wall in his head. There was nothing there, no memories to look at, no sounds, nothing. A void.

June had never encountered this kind of thing before. She'd been able to look a decade back at Colter's rotten life, twenty two years back in Aaron Cash's. Thirty five years in... Mama's. But in the Joker's head, just three years, three short years... and there was nothing. Just an empty space and a million billion neurones all dead with broken synapses.

And then it hit her like a tonne of bricks, a landslide, a great realisation that both saddened her and made her feel sick.

He didn't remember anything. He didn't remember anything. Three years ago, there was nothing in his brain that proved he was alive, or even existed at all before the face paint and the scars. No man who lived before the murderer. Twenty-seven years of nothingness. The Joker was no one. Had come from nowhere. Believed in nothing.

The Joker had amnesia.

June unplugged from his empty mind with a choked gasp, stumbling back into her seat and the Joker tipped his head to the sky with a loud moan, the pain suddenly gone.

The trembling girl had seen the way his fists were clenched and she got up from her chair, tripping back on her feet. "O-oh--" Weakly, her heels caught on the handles of her bag, spilling its contents on the floor and she fell down next to it with featherweight carelessness, only staring up at the clown in fear of what he'd do next.

Loosely, the Joker cracked his neck, and then looked down at her, panting heavily and narrow-eyed. "You..." His arm rose like air as he pointed a stiff finger at her. "What did you do?"

She couldn't answer him. She had nothing to say. What could she tell him? Explain to him that, oh, don't worry, I only quickly glimpsed through your life to try and uncover your secrets only to find that you're an amnesiac, which, by the way, are you aware of that? There was nothing she could say that would justify what she did. And what she discovered? That the identity of a man that everybody'd been searching for didn't even exist?

The Joker inched away from the table and made an advance towards her. June crawled back on her palms, breaths fast and whimpered.

"What did you do?!" He grunted, prepared to seize a hand around her skinny little neck and hold her up in the air by it.

"I-it's all empty," she whispered.

He paused in his tracks. "What?"

As he was about to demand an answer from her, a string of crimson slowly trickled down from Junie's right nostril and swam around her top lip, all while she stared up at him with those big, round, brown doe eyes. Never looked away.

"You're bleeding," he mumbled in wonderment.

June raised a hand to her nose and felt the familiar blood on her fingers, dripping down into the webs between them. She looked at her fingers as if she'd never seen them before, but then back at him, like he were the strange one in the room. He'd never seen her so vulnerable and façade-less in his life, no longer did she put on the 'doctor' act to defend herself. This was Junie. Given this chance, he'd strangle her, but he couldn't help but feel curious about her, what she'd done. He pondered about her in the exact way she had about him.

The Joker stepped over to her and crouched down to try and wipe the blood. "Here, lemme--"

"Don't touch me!" She curled up on herself, as if his touch were poison. He lurched back, not in obedience, but of how suddenly she'd burst, how all this time he'd been talking to calm and level-headed Dr. Stoltz, had perhaps just been a fever dream, and now he was face to face with a scared and shaken girl, too fragile to even stand up on her own two feet. She vigorously wiped her nose, only smudging the blood across her upper lip and mouth. And still she bled anyway.

As he looked around at the mess that had spilled from her bag, something caught his eye. Beside a compact mirror and a pack of mangled cigarettes was a small, rectangular device, looking nothing like a phone, instead bearing a small screen and tiny buttons: pause, play, record, and a tiny red light bulb that currently wasn't on. As Junie shut her eyes to steady her breathing, Joker snatched the thing and examined it. It looked like one of those voice recorders the doctors used to use during sessions. Junie, lost in her own circle of confusion and blood, didn't notice as he tucked the recorder into the waistband of his orange trousers like a holster, pulling his shirt down over it afterwards.

Then, as if fate had planned it, the door opened and Junie jolted in fear, not a sound escaping her bloodied lips as in strolled Just Kenny, holding a pair of handcuffs ready to escort the Joker back to his cell.

"Dr. Stoltz, session's up, time to--"

The duo's eyes widened at the same time, and the Joker wanted to smile at himself and Junie- they were like partners in crime. Just Kenny looked at the scene, horrified and confused. He saw the scenario much differently to how it had actually happened. What he saw was that patient 4479 had assaulted Dr. Stoltz, sending her to the floor and giving her a bloody nose.

Joker's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he only thought one thing: dammit. Dammit all to hell.

Just Kenny stuck his head out of the door and called, "Hey, Colter! Colter, get in here, man!"

At the sound of his name, June's stomach churned in dread and she desperately collected her belongings, hoping to make the situation last as short as possible. Joker offered the fallen compact mirror towards her and with a hesitant hand, she snatched it from him, holding it for a second longer than she meant to. She pressed her thumb to the back of it, as if his touch had been printed onto it forever and it was all she could feel. The only act of kindness he'd ever shown.

Colter burst into the room aggressively, looking at Joker and then June, a menacingly exciting spark in his eye. Finally, the freak had snapped. Colter didn't much consider the fact that June seemed to be hurt, only the wonderful idea that she now owed him. He could finally beat the clown until he turned black and blue and now he had a valid excuse for it. How could she ever say no?

Colter didn't even look down at June as he thrust a hand down to help her up, which she denied by trying, but failing, to get up herself. He then turned his neck towards her and grabbed her wrist, yanking her up brutishly as she clutched onto her handbag.

"Go on, Junie," Colter mused, eyes glued delightedly to the Joker. "Session's up."

There was an ominous tension lingering in the air and June didn't like it. Afraid, she whimpered, "Colter... what're you going to do to him...?"

"Nothin' you need to see," he mumbled and then nodded at Just Kenny, who pulled on her arm and took her out of the room, all while her eyes never left the Joker's. He looked at her, her dread-filled eyes, his blood covered darling, and smiled. Colter clenched his fists and Joker cracked his knuckles. Then the door slammed shut.

"Wait!" June cried, grasping Just Kenny's arm. "You can't just leave him in there with Colter! He'll--!" She stopped her mouth from running once she tasted the blood on her lips. Wiping her nose again, she pulled back to see a fresh, wet blot of blood. Just Kenny raised a brow as if to judge her for her outburst.

In all honesty, she knew exactly who she was trying to defend, but didn't dare speak it. The two were just as bad as each other. On one hand, she had to take a stand for her patient, as beating him to a pulp wouldn't do anything but worsen his condition. But on the other hand, the Joker would kill Colter. The only reason he hadn't yet was because he'd been tied up in a straightjacket.

She heard the first punch, muffled behind the door. She didn't know who landed it. Even when the Joker laughed, she wasn't sure who was beating on who. He was that mad. That much of a maniac.

So she ran. Panicked Juniper ran through the halls of the asylum with blood flowing freely from her nose and her coat trailing behind her. She didn't care who she saw, who she passed. At the end of the corridor was Aaron Cash, and that was when she stopped running, his eyes wide.

"Dr. Stoltz?" He stammered, the frightened girl looking like a victim straight out of a horror movie. "What happened?"

She panted, "Go- go to the therapy room. Patient 4479 is--" She stopped, swallowed, took a deep breath and composed herself. "Colter. He's assaulting a patient."

Despite her gory appearance, Cash didn't question her, just turned around and bolted down to the interviewing room, pulling his walkie-talkie out to contact Colter. When he left, June carried on towards the bathroom, but this time with slow strides, walking through what felt like a dream.

Slipping in through the door, June stood by the nearest sink and delicately turned the faucet, staining it a scarlet red. The water flowed, echoing around the empty bathroom. Cold fingers met boiling water, and she cradled her hands as the blood washed off, turning the water pink as it spiralled down the drain. Looking up at herself in the mirror, she realised that the blood surrounding her mouth wasn't at all dissimilar to how the Joker looked. Red and chaotic. Smudged without a care. Almost... smiling.

She had done something terrible today. This was going to be a catalyst to a million catastrophes, she could feel it. So, was it worth it? Was all the pain and blood worth knowing that her work meant nothing? That he didn't remember a thing?

She drenched her face in water, the blood running. It didn't even feel like the same face, knowing what she knew. After she was done washing away any traces of blood, June left the decaying bathroom and returned to the comforting confines of her office, where she locked the door, dropped her bag, and stood in the silence, basking in it. It felt like it was the only thing that brought her mind peace anymore. Nothingness. And yet, it was the nothingness that inhabited the Joker's mind that shook her to her core, left her head spinning and wondering: what kind of world does that to a person? Strips someone naked of their identity and leaves them empty, devoid of knowing who they are and where they came from? To live a life where nothing had any meaning was no life at all.

Stepping over to her desk, June kicked off her shoes and sat on her desk, not sure what to feel anymore. There was pain, that was something. And confusion. And sorrow. And... him. She felt as though he were the only person who really understood how things were. He knew what it was like to have the short end of the stick, knew what it was like to keep secrets that weren't his own, he knew too much about other people and not enough about himself to know what do to with the information- just like her. June had lived a hundred lives through other people's memories and sometimes she found things she wished she'd never seen- Colter's pursuance of women, the loss of Cash's hand, how Mama met June's father... and how he left her because of who she was. The skin she was born in. My family don't accept people like you, he'd said, I was just experimenting. And how Mama had never seen the bastard ever again. Oh, Mama... June tipped her head back to the sky. Mama.

The stack of papers beside her loomed. Hundreds upon hundreds of now useless documents, bullshit pieces about theories of where the Joker had come from. All meaningless, all empty. Just like his head. In a fit of frustration, June shoved the entire stack to the floor, and it rained all around the room, the carpet becoming a wonderland paved with doctor's reports.

Mess? There was no such thing. Slowly descending from her desk, June's nylon-covered toes dropped to the papered floor, and curling them, she stepped a circle around the room, a silent, dance-less waltz following the carnival theme she'd heard in his head. She stepped all over the reports describing who the Joker was- or wasn't- and she treated every one like a stepping stone, something good, words glowing. The carnival music in her head.

Then suddenly, she stopped. On the floor before her, just under her toes, was the little object she'd held for comfort, for meaning, for an excuse to call him human. June crouched down and reached for it. The joker card she'd taken from the deck. Descending not only to the floor, but to what felt like madness, she sat amidst the pile of papers and clutched onto the joker card lovingly, her crying eyes spilling over a genuine smile, and she pressed the card to her chest, holding it as if it would hold her, too.

And Juniper cried, for her misery was as bittersweet as her love.

---

June did: that. And YES, the Joker has amnesia. One of my favourite theories that I don't see enough people write about so I get to experiment with it!!

I just hoped I explained the process of the memory thing okay, after all, I've never really seen anyone write something like this so I had no point of reference, just had to make it up myself! Obviously, there is a certain method of do's and don't's to Junie's powers that I won't reveal until a little while... so urge any confusions to be patient!!

So yup, lots happened this chapter, so tell me what you think. I'm pumped! I can't wait to really get into this story and start having fun with the plot elements. I know that everyone just wants to see Joker and June bang but there's gotta be tension, y'know? There's gotta be a motive, there's gotta be character. They can't just fuck, they gotta mean it!!

Lmao I'm really tired. I hope you all enjoyed this!!

-tkj