Title: Harlequin
Author: TheMadPuppy
E-mail: themadpuppy85yahoo.ca
Permission to archive: Yes, just tell me!
Category: Drama, Romance
Genre: Hetero
Rating: T+
Summary: "Love is lived. Harlequin writes it." What a joke, indeed.
Keywords: Joker, Harley, Romance Novel
Spoilers: None. Set after Mad Love and their many adventures.
Disclaimer: I know you're surprised, but I don't own the Batman franchise (yet). It's the strict property of DC Comics until I get insanely rich.
Author Notes: So this is Christmas…and as a gift to you all for being such great members while I'm a lazy admin and author, I'm dusting my unfinished one-shots! This one is both funny and full of JHQ domestic violence fluff.

HARLEQUIN

She looked at him with love in her eyes, and he was lost. Her loving gaze warmed his cold bones, and for the first time in his life he knew what it meant to be wanted. That she didn't ask about his past struck a chord deep in his soul. In her silence was absolute trust. "Ah, Harley"—

"For Christ's sake, what's this shit?!"

If you'd have asked him, Joker wouldn't have said he was poking his nose in Harley's affairs. He wouldn't have said he desperately wanted to read a romance novel, either. After all, which man didn't rummage through his beloved's personal effects to learn her tastes better? Besides, if she didn't have anything to hide, why would she bother? Plus, everything that was hers was therefore also his, and you'd truly have to be an idiot to ask permission to check yourown things.

And he was bored.

That in mind, it's not like he was hiding. Harley was sleeping soundly not two meters from him, her chest rising in trusting little puffs of breath, her mind no doubt busy dreaming about white picket fences around nice bricked cottages, or whatever crap these books she kept reading brainwashed her to.

"Harley." The word came out in a whisper of longing. God, how he wished he could go to her right now. To comfort and be comforted, as he'd never done in his life. But he couldn't, wouldn't. If he let her touch him now, when he needed it most, he'd never own his soul again. And his soul, battered and bitter as it was, was the only thing he'd ever had.

Thoroughly disgusted by now, the Joker threw the novel away. That Harley was infatuated with him was a given—but that she still replaced the names of those Harlequin-trash romance characters withtheirs to feed her fantasy was profoundly sickening. Something told him he should be very angry at this point and hit her, and hard, andnow.

Instead, he mechanically lit a cigarette and picked another book in the pile, flipping quickly through its content; soon enough there was another page vandalized by what he came to recognize on sight: a red inked, heart adorned childish scripture, Harley's hand signature.

It was so damn terrifying for Mistah J, the thought of needing her, of not feeling whole without her. It was one thing never to have known comfort; he'd learned to live that way. It was quite another to touch the warmth and then be plunged back to the cold darkness.

This time the book was hurled through the window, disappearing into Gotham's moonlit night with a clash, and the red dot of his joint crashed unceremoniously on Harley's sleeping form behind him, successfully yanking her back to reality once again.

"Pu-Puddin'? Is anything wrong? Are you hurt? Do you need something? Do you—"

"You…are…going toeat this", Joker cut matter-of-factly, ripping pages from another Harlequin's book and waving them in Harley's face.

"This was my favourite book!" Her mournful cry was met with complete indifference by her man, who was waiting patiently for her to catch on. It wouldn't have been funny just forcing it down her throat. And his pumpkin pie had willingly eaten worst things in the name of love… He wondered for a second if any sappy romance novel ever included that. The thought made him smile a bit wider as he went on.

"All the better. Now eat it, eat it, eaaaat—iiiit, get it? Say "aaaah", honey bee, a mouthful for Daddy."

Slowly, Harley tilted her head. It was clear she was finally processing his demand, much like a despaired mother realizing she had no choice but to comply with her son's demented request in order to keep harmony. Her eyes sadly looked at the Harlequin's pages being folded into an airplane.

"Would it make you happy?" she finally asked, voice broken.

"Terribly."

Slowly, her jaw slacked down with a sigh. Her eyes erred on the airplane, how his thin, beautiful lips were kissing it almost lovingly, barely registering his gleeful voice snaking Remember the first time you kissed me? You thought my lips were as dry as paper. This is just the same, baby, just the same.

End Notes
This drabble was originally written on January 2nd, as part of a longer story, but as many pieces in my case it never found the way to completion. The Harlequin italicized parts really exist: it's from "A Handful of Heaven", by Kristin Hannah (and no, I don't want any inquiry about how I came into possession of that book! XD). Nearly a year later, it's more a Joker piece than a Harley one, but consider it an exercise about delusion, and how you feed the walls of such a distorted reality pun not intended.

It ended as something much darker, though pondering.