Free falling three stories into a vat of acid that burns like fire and feels like a million red wasps stinging you all at once, was nothing. Not in comparison to a broken jaw wired shut too tightly. Jester's never know such unrelenting pain in his life. It literally seared into his brain. It ached deep within his eardrums. Sliced his very thoughts in half. Throbbing. Pulsating. Hammering.
But it was pretty evident that nobody at Arkham Asylum gave two shits about helping the Joker. It would seem as though they outright avoided him. Jester wasn't entirely sure if that was because they simply didn't care, or if it was because they feared him so much. He knew their fears were more than warranted. He's read the Arkham files on his twin. J had killed over a hundred staff members during his thirty years of on and off treatment/incarceration there. Maybe even more.
Jester is beyond exhausted. So far beyond it that he's growing delirious. Pain has a way of severing ones sanity when it grows too intense. You see, pain triggers your body to release catecholamines. Which are chemicals that are made by nerve cells and used to send signals to other cells. The main ones are dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. And when there is an excess of these hormonal chemicals coursing through your brain... well obviously it creates an embalance. And embalance triggers mental breakdown. Which starts a domino effect that prevents proper rest, which is a strong precursor to reaching a state of delirium.
And herein is where we find out Clown The Second. Slumped on his knees in the Joker's glass Arkham cell. Rocking back and forth trying to handle the immense pain. His senses heightened and manipulated by it. Quickly losing his grip on reality. Yet struggling to hold on to the last shreds of it. Why couldn't he just pass out? It would give his brain a little rest and time to reboot. But it just doesn't come.
"Perhaps you deserve this karma brother," comes the Joker's voice, clear as day in his ear.
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Jester's head raises, expecting to see his twin smirking at his misfortune. Because that was exactly what his twin would do. Especially after what Jester was guilty of doing to him. But there's nothing there. It wasn't real. He was simply imagining it. Right?
"Or maybe as your identical twin I really am here. We're two people from one egg, remember? Forever a part of each other. Connected in a way most will never understand. Isn't that right?"
Jester's head turns and looks at his bunk. On it he sees the Joker, laying flat on his back, ankles crossed and hands folded behind his head. No. It wasn't possible. He watched J die. He examined his lifeless body. This simply couldn't be real.
"Or maybe it is real. I am you, and you are me afterall. There can't be one without the other..."
Jester doesn't want to look at him, but he couldn't force his eyes away from him. He doesn't want to hear his voice. There was no way that this could be real. Yet, he couldn't really convince himself of that.
