sickle_stories

Disclaimer: The Joker and The Dark Knight belongs to DC Comics. I just like to play.
A/N: Referencing this screencap, although we'll pretend the grating doesn't go all the way down to the floor. Better-suiting titles would be awesome, and I'm sorry if the POV sounds like he's from a gazillion different places at once.
Dedication: To

capn_mactastic, for the initial image and general awesomeness.

Green and Purple Argyle, Of All Things
Or: Covetting the Joker's Socks
A freak.

That's what the cops dragged in. Some weird-ass twitching little freak.

They stuck him right in the cage - center stage - all by himself, when us all were cooped up around. Bastard even got a bench. I'd kill for a bench. But no, I get to stand around in the stink pen, gotta be all tall and muscley so these others keep to their own little bubble, if you get me.

I walk about the cage, checking the new guy out. He don't look all that. Sure, crazy, but that ain't 'cause of the lipstick: he acts all wrong. Though wrong's all relative, and seeing as this here's the criminal pit, I guess we're all wrong. Anyway, most of the guys here are fucked up some way or other.

He's been roughed up by the cops a bit - it's easy to see what with his makeup being all smudged. Kinda reminds me of Christine, that sweet bitch. You ever seen an over-mascaraed eye go all black 'n' blue? Beats the hell out of Picasso, man.

Anyway, this clown? I could take him, easy.

When they carried him in, he was all twitchin' and jerkin', and when they let him go he really started to dance around. He talked the talk - a high-pitched rollercoaster of a talk, stopping when he oughta start like a chokin' engine - and walked the walk a bit. He didn't say none too nice things to us either, walkin' around his cage as he was, till one of the guys - good old Fat Hobbs - got a hold of whatshisface's vest. That was a cheering sight for a bit.

Fat Hobbs got taken out on a stretcher, but it may've well have been a body bag. The cops never do learn how to do full searches.

The freak goes by The Joker, apparently, says one mullet-head when the cops come the second time. He went all quiet after that. One roughing-up too many, my guess, though those cops weren't really laying it on him. Chicken-shit babies, the lot of them. Only, I said he acted wrong, right? So when Mr Freak goes quiet, he don't just slouch on his (oh fuck do I want it) bench of his. Nah, he sits all straight an' proper like some circus dandy, eye-searin' green vest all fixed up right. Hands on his lap like some piano-playing girl just waiting for the say-so.

He wouldn't stand a day in the streets. (Fat Hobbs notwithstanding.)

I'm standing across from this joker - sorry, "The Joker" - and the little fucker smiles at me all half-grin psycho. Something don't look right. Something don't move right in that smile. I can't quite see 'cause of his overworked-whore lipstick smudge, but there's something messed up with his face. I take a step to my right, shove Greaser outta my way, and get the light angle on joke-face just right.

Woo-ee. Man's got some wicked scars on him. I wouldn't mind shaking hands with the author of them beaut's.

Fuck this. I'm bored and damnit, Hobbs knew where to get the good shit.

I take my time walking back around the cage. Them Christine-eyes don't follow me through the crowd - he just sits still. I wonder if he's a fright away from digging his nails into his thighs to stop 'em shaking. That's what that pose is all about, man, that calculated "I don't give a fuck" has more petrified - -fried - than my own mom's chicken.

I lean back on the wall a bit and watch the guy's back. I'm game for a fight, yeah, but I ain't no Hobbs. Gonna let him get nice and easy on his lazy-boy bench first. A man's back's his fightin' flag, y'know, let's you see if he's ready for a fight or not. This guy, for example, is still tense - and I mean pole-up-his-ass sort of tense.

I settle for a wait. The guys around me back away a bit, getting the idea. The kiddies across the cage perk up. Way to ruin things, boys. No, wait, alright, they're getting the idea.

Waiting ain't fun, and staring at a purple-and-green nancy ain't it either. Imagining busting the kidneys under that green, well, that's what we call entertainment.

Well lookie here, the Joker moves! And it's the right move, too. See that shoulder? Rolling back, right? The neck? Ditto. That back's just screaming, "Fuck me over!" Happy to oblige, dandy.

Oh, he did not just do that. He's kicked off a shoe. The colour coordination goes all the way to the socks. Green and purple argyle. I was going to aim for the kidneys, or try a rabbit punch, see if that don't knock him dead, but, man, those socks just have to go. Why he don't just press his ass up to the bar is beyond me, 'cause that there was the coup de Graceland.

I'm on the ground with one arm through the bars before the guys around me know the party's on. I grab a hold of one sweaty sock and heave, cracking his ankle up against the bench and then pulling, throwing him off balance and off his precious bench. I let his face get to know the floor a moment before dragging him back so he's trapped under the bench. Good old bench, it's almost like having a partner on the inside to keep him down. I've got his leg in all the way through the bar up to his knee.

I'm just shifting my grip to his heel - gonna smash his knee up good against the bar - when something purple whirls at my face.

That little flash of purple's the last of this green earth I see.