Title: The Truth Behind His Life
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Chapter: 22
Pairing: Dick/Xander
Word Count: 1,460
AN: Going to post this now because at the rate I’m going I’m not getting on later today. *hugs*
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Walking back into the apartment, Dick raised an eyebrow as Xander stalked back and forth around the kitchen, hair swinging in wide arcs as he growled about idiots who had no sense of privacy. “Xan…calm down,” he chuckled, getting a dark look from him.
“Calm down? The bitch invades my privacy and you expect me to calm down? Fuck that,” Xander growled, shaking his head as he pulled out the loaf of bread that he had bought from the deli. Dick came to stand just inside of the kitchen and rested a hip against the counter, arms crossed as he smiled softly at the ranting that was coming from his boyfriend.
“So tell me what happened. You came home from the asylum and the store apparently and what?” Dick asked, watching as the younger male placed the loaf onto a pan and wrapped it up to wait for the soup to finish cooking.
“Well, first the appointment went well, that I can promise you. Now that Doctor McNeilis has the needed information about Joker and Harley, he’ll be able to create a more solid treatment for them, which will help in the long run,” Xander said, waving a knife around before going back to making their dinner.
He pulled out the chicken and started to strain the broth through some cheese cloth and a cauldron. Dick watched the way he moved with a smirk on his face, enjoying the way the movements were deadly in their own right, showing just how upset and pissed off he was.
“That’s good. They both could use the help and Doctor McNeilis is one of the best, despite the fact that they don’t really like him. But he knows too many secrets so Arkham can’t exactly fire him,” Dick mused, eyes looking up at the ceiling as he thought about the reasons why.
“Like the imps that work as guards?” Xander asked teasingly, getting a low chuckle and a nod. “Yeah, one of them wanted to frisk me and I had to promise bodily pain to get them away from me,” he continued, shaking his head. “Anyways, after I dropped the information off, I saw Joker and Harley. Joker is being fed laced food right now, so he’s very mellow, which is good since that’s what he does when he’s not in Arkham.”
“Does he? I didn’t know that about him,” Dick mused, rubbing at his chin with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Yeah, he does. He does it so that he can think straight when he needs to work something out without any input with the messed up feelings and thoughts getting into his mind,” Xander said, waving a hand as he poured the strained broth back into the crock pot. Pulling on a pair of gloves, he started to very carefully pull the chicken apart. “The thing is, his history adds to the mental unbalance that he deals with as a schizophrenic. No one was really able to diagnose the problem because he never saw a doctor while he was in the underworld, so to speak.”
Dick perked up as he stood straight, going from leaning against the counter to gazing at Xander with dark eyes. “Do you mean to tell me that he…before he was Joker, he was a part of the underworld?” he asked, voice hard.
Xander just continued to pull the chicken apart with methodical movements. “Yep.”
“Who was he?” Dick asked, knowing that he might end up with the last bit of information he needed to figure out the Joker, to figure out Xander’s biological father.
“Jack. That’s all he was known as for a long, long time. Even he’s forgotten what his last name was, if he ever had one,” Xander hummed lowly, shaking his head with a frown. “He was raised by gangsters and mobsters, by low life’s and thugs. That’s all he knew for a long, long time,” he continued, sighing softly. “Then he met one Selena Kyle.”
“Selena...Catwoman,” Dick mused as his eyes softened at Xander. The cross dresser just started to put the chicken bits into the broth with movements that had softened, losing their harsher edge.
“Yeah, my biological mother. This was before she was Catwoman though, way before,” Xander said, voice sweetening, sending a sliver of lust through the man. “She was just plain old Selena Kyle, girlfriend to a high thug who was abusive in all sorts of way. She fell in love with Jack when he was Jack and they…had me. It was a surprise to say the least.”
“What happened?” Dick asked, tilting his head as Xander tossed the chicken bones away with a shy smile.
“She went to a small safe house just outside of Gotham while her asshole of a boyfriend went to jail for a year. During that time, she and Jack talked about what to do about me and they finally decided to give me up for adoption,” Xander said. “So after I was born they left Gotham, went to the next city over and gave me up for adoption. I was adopted by the Harris family, who at the time were awesome. Then we moved to Sunnydale and life went to hell from there for me.”
“So you’ve told me,” Dick said, smiling sweetly at his boyfriend as he received a promising look from Xander for later retribution.
“Anyways, Selena was able to somehow leave the asshole and disappear for a while, learning and training to become the cat burglar, Catwoman. Jack on the other hand…lost his fight against the voice and feelings that weren’t his own and became the Joker after a very nasty accident that left him without any skin color,” Xander continued, shaking his head with a heavy frown.
“So that’s how he came to be,” Dick hummed, Xander nodding. “We could never get a straight answer out of him when asked and he had this thing with talking in circles. It got to be annoying to the point where we just didn’t ask him anymore whenever we had to take him into custody.”
“Those times are when he does shit like that is when he’s lost himself to the voices, the emotions. The need to kill that was just too strong for him to control himself,” Xander said, shaking his head.
“So he’s getting the help he needs to get this time around, right?” Dick asked, getting a nod from his boyfriend. “That’s good. He could use all of the help that he gets.”
“Yeah. Hopefully they’ll find some way to help him find that mental balance he needs,” Xander sighed, shaking his head as he added the vegetables to the broth and chicken. Setting the cooking heat to a slow boil, he turned to Dick and leant back against the counter. “Anyways, to continue on the original line of thought, you pain, I come home and started putting things away to start dinner. I hit a perfume patch that not even the biggest, gayest drag queen would wear.”
“Yeah, blame me,” Dick muttered good naturedly, causing Xander to roll his eyes.
“Anyways, I grabbed my tazer gun and went through the house, working my way towards my bedroom. I found my door partially open when I usually leave it closed. You can guess who I found going through my stuff yeah?” Xander asked, Dick sending him a dry look. “Yeah, the bitch was holding my hunting journal and the rest of my room looks rifled through.”
“Damn it. I’m seriously going to have to have Bruce have a chat with her here soon,” Dick sighed, rubbing at his face with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry that she’s gone completely over the edge.”
“It’s not your fault, Dick. If she wants to know, she can do what Bruce did and have an Open Mind about it,” Xander snickered, smirking at his boyfriend before batting his lashes. “I just need to go through everything and clean things. Maybe I should buy a safe for my journals and jewelry, something with a special lock on it,” he said, shaking his head with a frown.
“You’re so cute when you’re all pissed off,” Dick chuckled, pulling Xander close and smiling down at him. The younger male smiled up at him and stroked his cheeks with his thumbs.
“Since I’m so cute, do I get something special?” he asked, Dick smirking at him.
“Well, I suppose I can give you a kiss,” he said musingly, Xander laughing lightly.
“Oh? Is that what I get?” Dick nodded with a smirk and brushed their lips together, slowly deepening the kiss until he had Xander pressed up against the counter and each of them trying to taste whatever they could, hands touching what they could.
