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devilishkurumi
Subject: Harvey Dent, the Joker
Table: A
Prompt: Cry
Log or Thread?: Log
Heads up! Thar be smut in these thar woods! AKA, you should know that this log contains sexual stuff and so you need to be careful reading it. And stuff.

It didn't really strike the Joker as surprising that most of his time inside this God-forsaken hideout was spent in the kitchen. His room was for important things; the kitchen... for not so important things. At the moment, he found himself hunched over a chopping board, stabbing a little ineffectually at various vegetables. He couldn't stop sniffling, and it was more than once that he had to rub at his face with the back of his arm, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. His arm had splotches of black and white greasepaint all over it.

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"He's a good man." Why he kept defending Bruce was beyond him. Bruce only wanted one side of Harvey- not that the Joker was any different, or anyone for that matter.

He ignored the idiot using his hands near the hot oil until the same idiot was in his space again, this time with his hand on the damaged skin of Harvey's neck. His first instinct was to shove the mad man against the fridge but that was too familiar, something the Joker would use and laugh in a way Harvey couldn't erase. He grabbed the Joker's wrist again instead, this time twisting it too the side with a touch too much force, enough to give way the nerves, near uncertainty, behind his icy look.

"How reassuring." He answered lowly. "Since you were kind enough to help me get them."

It's either the head or the hands, the Joker lamented as Harvey twisted his wrist away, making a face. "Sure, he's a good man, Harvey." He hooked his other arm around Harvey's shoulders, resting his bare forearm against the other's throat lightly - I still win. "But you're, uh... Well, good men don't shoot people, Harvey. And they don't beat up people just because they can. And I don't know if you've noticed, sweetums, but you do both of those things all the time."

He licked his lips and grinned, tightening his hold on Harvey's neck just barely. "But don't get down about it."

"What were you saying about being a moral fuckwit?" Harvey responded, glad somewhere that the conversation was steering away from Bruce. The less the clown thought about him the better.

If he were in a better mind Harvey would have been shocked, disgusted by the lingering contact but he could only read the glint in the Joker's eyes as a challenge- a game. Even before he had hated nothing more than losing. Maybe accepting their lives were nothing but a game came with time.

"Just destroy the past right?" Harvey answered, something they both knew very well he would never do. Not like the Joker and 'Chicago.'

"I just meant that you got too... Wrapped up in what was right and wrong and didn't think in the right shades. You're better now, though." He saw something in Harvey's eyes, maybe he felt a little tensing in the other's shoulders, but oh, he wasn't backing down. Well, the Joker didn't like losing any more than Harvey did, and he knew he always won when they started to get... physical. This would be easy.

"I prefer..." He leaned in and nuzzled Harvey's unburnt cheek, grinning, "Selectively editing."

All better. There was laughter but it wasn't his.

Harvey grabbed the man's hair- familiar, too familiar- and tugged him back enough so they were facing each other once more. "Like with Chicago?" he asked, ignoring the hissing sound of the pan, the fire that should make him nervous but only put him on edge.

The Joker frowned and pursed his lips at Harvey's question, ignoring the tight grip he had in his hair. "Why do you keep bringing it up, Harvey? You might as well ask about Beijing or Atlanta." He blinked and tried to twist his head to check the food, but Harvey was making it difficult. "I win, by the way."

"Win?" Somehow Harvey knew he did but that edge refused to acknowledge it. He let go, turning away in obvious sharp irritation. Fucking 'won' alright. Just a game.

"Get a few drinks in you and you'll talk all about Beijing." He spat, nearly heading to get a drink himself.

The Joker made a face - you let loose once with alcohol and nobody ever forgets it - before he realizes that there's a new game to be had. He turned off the stove and considered his options - he could play this one of two ways. Which one was more fun...?

He sauntered back and snaked a hand around to grab Harvey's tie, giving it a light tug. "Now, now. No need for drinks. Let's play a game, Harv. I'll answer any question you want."

Harvey hadn't expected that- in truth he had long since stopped trying to predict the movement of chaos but this was still far off the board. He stared at the clown, the pieces of Harvey Dent still present desperately trying to figure out why to the underlined cackling.

"What do you want in return?" He asked, letting the man hold his tie with surprising apathy.

He grinned and let go, going to the pan to check. It looked boiled and a little fried and not... that good but salt and pepper fixed everything! It'd be salt and peppery, not just bland.

"Let's go sit and have a meal. Oh... And as for what I want? It'll go like this - I'll answer any question you ask... and for every answer I give, you take off a piece of clothing." A laugh. "What I don't answer, I'll do the same. It'll be fun."

He was already dishing up the plates, so even if Harvey said no - at least they'd get food.

Harvey nearly punched him right there but turned instead, sitting down at the makeshift mess that was their table, dropping his coin on the cold surface. He didn't think, didn't dwell on either/or, just watched as it slowly twirled to reveal the thick char, the remnants of his former life. It had been over half a year. Half a fucking year.

"Why did you do this?" He asked without turning, gesturing vaguely to the window, the riots. Was it all for Batman? Boredom? Hell, what did it matter? Enough to waste a piece of clothing.

"Already starting with the obvious questions first, Harvey?" The Joker dropped a plate of meat and vegetables in front of Harvey, along with a bent fork and a knife, settling down opposite him with a set of plastic kitchenware.

"I did it because I wanted to see what would happen. If I was right, if everyone would want to let loose and just needed something to set them off. I was, incidentally. Right, that is."

He grinned and gestured, stabbing the chicken breast on his plate with vigor, "Go ahead and take something off, Harv."

He was right too often, too accurately. Harvey took off his tie, a present from his ADA Anthony and one of the last pieces of his old life. He threw it to the side.

"What did you see when Crane gassed you?" He asked, levelly enough as he picked up his fork, even though part of him was grinning like a knife cut.

He paused, about to devour a bit of chicken, and then frowned, setting his fork down long enough to undo his vest and put it aside. It wouldn't look right to wear a vest and no tie, after all, and he had forgone his normal jackets for cooking.

"Try again."

Then, he picked up his fork and resumed eating, chewing with his mouth open.

The good side of Harvey's lips curled slightly for a moment, a slip he didn't care to correct. He wondered if Crane knew the toxin had truly affected the mad man, enough to deny Harvey that answer- enough for the answer to be a weakness. He wondered what Crane would do with such information.

"Do you ever feel any remorse?" He asked as he picked up his fork- might as well have given that question away but who knew. He stopped assuming months ago.

The Joker sneered at Harvey from around a mouthful of chicken; he wasn't stupid and he wasn't going to give away something that might be a weakness. And he did promise to answer truthfully or not at all - so fuck Harvey for taking the refusal to answer to heart.

"I already told you, Harvey - I don't. I don't think long enough to have any kind of feeling like that. Look to the future, Harvey!"

"Do you do that to make sure you never let the remorse-' Harvey stopped himself, it wasn't a question he wanted to count because he was sure the answer would be somewhere along the same lines. The future, kill the past. Harvey shrugged off his suit jacket, eleven months old, bought before the Maroni trial process began.

It reminded him of his college roommate, stupid side smirks and come on Harv, take a break. Alcohol and pointless games. He glanced up at Joker, nearly snide. "How did you get those scars?" Since we're not lying.

"Tricky."

What could he say in this situation that wasn't a lie? Could he?

With a sigh, he undid his tie and tossed it aside. He hated ties but they made the outfit. "But, sorry, Harv. I can't tell you that. Eat your food."

"Why can't you tell me?" Harvey asked, stabbing some of the vegetables and complying due to his own hunger. Would be a shame to seem polite.

The food was good- better then what he or Rachel had ever been able to make. Neither had been cooks, Harvey notably worse than Rachel though hardly by much. He ate, the process of doing so with the burns becoming more and more mechanic rather than an obvious touch. The Joker was a better cook than Rachel and he almost laughed. "It's good." He said, barely hating himself for the comment under the stifling apathy. Rachel would have found it funny.

"It would ruin the mystique. Besides - it's part of the past. You know how I feel about the past." A smirk, "Unless you were too, uh... drunk to remember..."

He paused at the compliment, frowning in confusion before shrugging and looking back to his own food. It tasted bland to him but then again, what didn't? Just another little kink in his biological makeup. "Thanks."

Harvey took off his belt, his roommate's voice rather suddenly at his back, mixed with the laughter of several on their floor. Belts don't count, they're accessories. You don't get this strip poker thing do you? He tossed it to the side and enjoyed the clatter of metal drowning the quip's echo out.

The drunk comment made his fingers tighten around his fork, a pause and flare of anger at nothing in particular. He didn't want to think about it. "Why me?" He asked, about the struggle, about that night and everything he wanted to forget but didn't as some traitorous part of him held on. He asked the same question to the Bat just before the vigilante cheated death- cheated what was fair. Why her- but he knew that. Rachel Dawes was expendable. He stabbed at the chicken, just barely processing the clown's awkward reception of the compliment, just like the water after Crane's gassing. Like human kindness alluded him.

"Why you?" Oh, he always counted the belt - made the game last longer, more interesting. "Because -"

Now, how to answer. He took another bite and chewed, thoughtfully, mulling over his options. "...Because it's you, Harvey." That would do. "The Bat isn't as good as you were - you were the shining pinnacle. And now, you're another beautiful example." He gestured with his fork, "Shows just how far the pedestal you fell off of drops you."

Maybe he should have just responded that he believed in Harvey Dent, but that would have been cliche.

Harvey didn't move to his clothes, sitting back and watching the Joker closely. Why you. He couldn't articulate the question- why the clown, why did everything he said make sense, was this part of a plan, to have Harvey here? But there were no plans here because that wasn't the right word. Structure maybe, flimsy and malleable but chaos was a different breed.

"What about your 'pedestal'?" He didn't bother saying Chicago, the clown knew by now. "What did you fall from?"

He sighed and undid his shirt, gesturing at Harvey. "Not answering that - what makes you think I fell from anything? Maybe I just grew into it."

He looked Harvey over blandly before smiling wide. "I think you should take off your pants."

Harvey unbuttoned his shirt without missing a beat, an irate look as he did so. "I'd hate to see what you were before then." He tossed the shirt to the side, surprisingly still apathetic to this all. Part of him wondered where this was leading and part of him knew where it led. He didn't stop.

He paused- he needed something the Joker wouldn't answer, to prove he wasn't just a puppet on strings. He could pull back just as hard, he knew things about this man just like the mad man knew of him. The idea could make him nauseous but instead it made him focused.

He nearly smiled. "What's your name?"He asked, taking a forkful of the chicken. "Not your gimmick."