Title: This is a joke
Author: open_summer/emptysummer
Summary: Padded cells are for crazy people. Him? He's got a mission, and a business card, a cheap suit. Does that sound crazy to you? Movie and comics.
Warnings/Rating: PG-13. Joker related insanity. Need I say more?
AN: If you haven't read Batman: the Killing Joke, go do that. This fanfic will still be here and is a lot less likely to blow you mind. Possibly a meta? I don't think I've seen a clear definition of meta yet so I'm not sure.

Two men in a cell and the first one says "I've been thinking."

He wears a mask and a cape and a symbol on his chest and yesterday he successfully drove off the last person able to put up with him at his worst.

Opposite him the man lays a card on the table and says nothing.

"We're going to kill each other."

The card. It's a joker.

oOo

The Joker says it only takes one bad day and puts a hole through Barbara's spine. The Batman pretends he has no idea what he's talking about.

oOo

Why so serious?

He lies the first time and the second and the third until he believes them. Each and every one of the stories of his past that he creates, he believes.

Pasts should be multiple choice. It makes things so much easier.

The Joker and reality have always had a tenuous relationship. These days the lines are so blurred that sometimes he slips through the cracks and resides elsewhere for days.

oOo

A truth? There's this guy. Used to be a chemist. These days he's trying to find work as a comedian. He needs the money y'see? He's not a bad guy but his wife is pregnant and he needs the money.

The job is a way for the money nothing more. So he hangs out in a bar with a couple of thugs instead of going home to his wife and a cop finds him there. Sorry buddy wifey's dead. Electrocuted in the sink.

The show must go on, the thugs tell him with guns to his chest, pulling the mask over his head.

The show must go on. What a joke right?

oOo

He's laughing.

oOo

Another truth? Father was a drinker. Drank too much. He learned young too keep out of his way when the booze was flowing. He makes through high school alright til the very end. He's headed out into the real world now.

Dad comes home drunker then he's ever been. Mom, moms scared so she gets a knife, one of those big butchers knives. Dad knocks her down and takes and he interferes. So he comes at you with the knife.

"Why so serious, son?"

oOo

He's not a monster. Just ahead of the curve, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

Padded cells are for crazy people. Him? He's got a mission, and a business card, a cheap suit. Does that sound crazy to you?

oOo

This is the truth too.

His wife, gets in over head with some sharks. Small fish with debts of their own. Maybe that's why when collection date comes and passes they come down hard. They slice up her face and hands, make her ugly.

He's just trying to make her happy. So he carves himself up like a pumpkin for Halloween and she shrieks the whole time. Leaves him at the end of it. And then he gets the joke. Sees the brighter side of things.

oOo

Why be serious?

oOo

He tells the Batman it'll be forever the two of them.

The Batman says they're going to kill each other.

There's a card on the table.

It's a Joker.

oOo

It only takes one bad day.

And when the Joker can't prove it with the commissioner, he proves it with Gotham's finest.

Gotham's White Knight. Mr. Harvey Dent. The man that's going to save them all. Heroes and villains and coins. Nobody really lives long enough.

It does after all, only take one bad day.

oOo

That's the joke.

oOo