plotting to unnerve her

[self_composed]

Bella finds Milliways in the moon palace instead of one of her balconies.

"Huh," she says aloud.

Then, to Alice, Libby, Elena, and Mary, and Lazarus except he autoreplies with a busy message, [Hey folks, Moonstone Palace grew a bar that I don't remember putting in, come check it out.]

Comments

[self_composed]

Bella squirms. "I don't know if he suspects I'm reading Alice, but he should. They haven't discussed it though."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Maybe you should stop," frowns Roberta.

[manofmyword]

"Oh, honey," the Joker says softly. "You're all fucked up inside, ain'tcha. I know the feeling."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Shut up and fuck me," Alice growls. Nothing has prepared him for the Joker being sweet; it catches him off-guard every time.

[self_composed]

"Do you think so?" Bella asks, rubbing at her temple with the first two fingers of one hand. "Alice's power I mentioned - it prevents mental tampering in addition to whatever crap it's pulling right now. If Alice winds up - broken - screwed up more than he started out - more like the Joker - then - I can't fix him. Not even with magic. Native powers trump wishes."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Then maybe you can't help him," says Roberta, "but you can at least make sure the Joker doesn't get the satisfaction of messing with your head like this. I guarantee you he means to."

[manofmyword]

He laughs, and does as Alice asks him to.

Slowly.

[self_composed]

"I'm squicked, and I'm worried, but squick won't hurt me and worry would definitely not go away if I didn't even know what was going on."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Okay," Roberta says doubtfully.



Somewhere between the pain and the trauma and what anyone else might be able to identify as humiliation, Alice is achieving something weirdly like bliss. It's almost like what he felt the first time he made stars, but it doesn't take him over the same way.

[self_composed]

Bella's poking at the emotion-blob tentatively, occasionally, because while they form their own coherent visual language, she doesn't fully know how to read them yet. She puts up with it for brief flashes. She doesn't like it. It... tastes different, from when he made stars.

When she first helped him make stars, he told her - that if there were mixed feelings - and she couldn't get a good answer out of him - that she should stop. And he's arranged not to produce answers for her.

He doesn't have a setup like that with the Joker. She wouldn't trust the Joker to stick to one if he did.

If it gets any worse than it did before - if it gets even that bad, and the Joker doesn't recalibrate and back off as before - she's invoking this as her justification for teleporting Roberta upstairs.

"When this is over with," Bella says, "I might ask you to hold the door for me so I can put some amenities and a person on an asteroid."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Sure," says Roberta. "As long as you don't let the Joker—or, no offense, your boyfriend—get a good look at my face. Even if I'm never going to see either of them again, I don't want this identity involved."

The affect auras on Alice's thoughts right now are a collective mess. Most of his sensory experience gets a murky grey-white-grey with threads of black; some things, like his continued awareness of the Joker as present and causing all this, get snowy white.

He does want to be here, though. He hasn't stopped knowing that. He wants to be here, doing this, feeling like this. Even though it's awful; partly, in fact, because it's awful.

[self_composed]

As long as he continues unambiguously wanting to be there Bella is sitting tight. Even if it makes her want to cry.

"I can do that," Bella says. "Would you rather be in a bat suit right now? Or, you know, would you rather duck into the bathroom and come out in one? Does this place even have a bathroom?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"It's been known to," says Roberta. "But I think I'll sit tight for now. The suit draws attention, and I don't want any more attention than I've got."

[self_composed]

"Okay."

Bella sits. And waits.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice suffers. And wants to. And feels ten kinds of fucked up about it, but somehow, just having the Joker there makes that better.

[manofmyword]

And, eventually, he kisses the back of Alice's neck and rolls off him and wraps him up in a hug.

"I gotcha, sweetie," he murmurs. "I was there, I know. You're okay. It's okay. You're okay."

[edgeofyourseat]

He sniffles a little, but he doesn't start crying again. And he lets himself heal from the slice in his hip; it's worth a pentagon when it goes.

"How do you deal?" he mumbles into the Joker's chest.

[manofmyword]

"It took a while," he says, kissing the top of Alice's head. "And it hurt, and I felt all fucked up, and I didn't really know what was going on in my head. Sound familiar?"

[edgeofyourseat]

He snorts. "Yeah, just a little."

[manofmyword]

"Yeah." He grins. "So. You wanna know the secret?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"There is no secret," Alice says tiredly.

[self_composed]

"Now they're doing some kind of bizarre alternate-versions-of-the-same-person therapy," Bella says. "This might be weirder."

[manofmyword]

"Almost," says the Joker.

"There is one thing, though." He takes a breath, lets it out. "You have to forgive yourself for hurting," he says softly.

[edgeofyourseat]

That doesn't make any sense.

"That doesn't make any sense," says Alice.



"I am deeply worried about anyone getting therapy from the Joker," says Roberta.

[self_composed]

"I am too. So far it's looking like advice I might have given myself if I'd ever thought of it, though. Maybe I should have thought of it, or tried to. I dunno. He always seemed functional enough to me, but..."