Straying out of Sanity

"Emma, hurry up!" Candy yelled at me a few hours later. She was literally pulling me up to the bar, Stacia close behind me. I didn't really know what was going on, I just knew that all of her pulling kept making me trip over myself and that was very funny to me.

I suddenly felt my body slam up against counter and realized Candy had been pulling me up to the bar. I let myself fall back from the bar and noticed that in doing so my butt had came in contact with a stool and I struggled to sit on it properly, which was hard to do in my severely impaired state and even harder to do when Stacia was hanging off of me, her arms draped around my shoulders for support.

"Ace, we need-"

Candy stopped suddenly, staring at Ace for a second before looking down at her stomach. I gave her a questioning look, along with Ace and Stacia, before she said, "I think I have to puke."

Ace rose his eyebrows, looking over to Stacia who had, in turn, rose only one of her eyebrows at Candy before a hand flew to her mouth and she ran off to where I supposed the bathrooms were. Stacia sighed from behind my seat on the bar stool I was on and I turned to see her better.

"I should probably go too. You commin' Emma?" Stacia asked me.

I thought a moment before enthusiastically shaking my head "no", grabbing onto the bar quickly to keep from falling off my seat, and said, "I'm not that into bulimia," with a large smile and laughed at the end of my sentence.

Stacia laughed too before saying, "Right. Sure you aren't Emma," before walking off, swaying a bit, in the direction which Candy ran off.

I turned to face forward on the stool I half fell on to look at Ace. "Anythin' fer you then?" he asked me and I smiled at him before realizing that this was the first time tonight where I'd be in control of what I was drinking. And I had no idea what I wanted.

The smile faded from my face as my mind tried to process a liquid for me to drink and after settling for the one and only I could easily think of I smiled again and said, "Water please."

"...Water?" he clarified and I nodded slowly so I wouldn't fall off the stool. "Smart choice," he said and turned to make me a glass of water. I leaned forward onto the bar top, resting my head in my hands and saw that only a few seats over from me to my right was The Joker, Croc, and a few of their thugs. Joker's purple coat was atop the bar counter in between us, along with his lavender and green vest which he must have taken off himself after I left him.

I sat up a bit, remembering the gun he gave me, mostly because it was uncomfortable in the back of my skirt with the position I was sitting in. I took it out of my skirt, setting it on the bar as far away from me as possible, which ended up being right next to The Joker's coat.

I heard Ace set my glass of water down in front of me and I looked back from the revolver to him with a smile, a very drunken smile, but a smile none the less.

"Thanks," I said and laughed at how the way I said it sounded like a snake almost, before leaning over to the glass of water and trying to slurp it up through a nonexistent straw. A moment later I saw Ace's hand move towards my glass and drop a real straw in for me. I smiled up at him and he rolled his eyes at me, turning away to wipe off some glasses. I took the straw in between my lips and sat back how I was before trying to drink my water. When my second attempt of trying to drink anything failed I stared at the end of the straw for a few seconds before realizing that it was no longer in the glass. So I leaned forward onto the bar top again and tried to stick the straw back into the glass, which was a lot harder than I felt it should've been.

"Mm-mm-mm-mm!" I tried yelling but if I opened my mouth the straw would've fallen out so it sounded like I was humming in a very angry fashion. I poked the side of the glass a few more times with the end of the straw before letting my chin fall onto the bar top in defeat as I glared at the defiant glass of water.

By now I had caught the attention of Ace again, as well as the highly dangerous criminals to my right. Ace set down the glass he was currently cleaning so he could push my glass of water closer to my face, which is something I should've thought of, before taking the straw, which was still firmly set between my lips, and stuck it into the glass for me. I looked up at him for a second before looking down at my glass of water and gasped as best as I could with the straw in my mouth.

Drinking as fast as I could through the tiny bendy straw, I soon had most of the water out of the glass, leaving the few ice cubes on the bottom. I sighed as the straw started to make a slurping noise and let it out of my mouth as I laid my head down on the bar top and stared at the men a few seats over.

The Joker glanced over at me as I did and I blinked at him before sighing out of boredom. He continued to stare at me, ignoring the conversation he was previously engrossing himself with, and I asked quietly, "Can I go home?" unsure if he had heard or not.

"Home?" he asked back.

"The mansion place thing," I yawned.

The Joker furrowed his eyebrows before turning to Croc next to him, and saying, "I need one of your cars."

"Which one?" Croc asked back, raising an eyebrow at The Joker.

"A driveable one," The Joker replied to Croc and then received a key ring from him. The Joker grabbed a random key from the ring and, with a smack of his lips, stood from his bar stool, grabbed his clothing and the revolver gun, and walked over to me.

I stood from my bar stool too and almost immediately toppled over because my legs had turned to jell-o. The Joker had easily caught me, as if expecting it, and without a word started walking me out of the bar. "What about my stuff?" I slurred, trying to turn around and go back for it.

The Joker stopped me and continued to drag me along with him, saying to a random guy as we passed, "Get her stuff from the back before you leave. Do not forget it."

A few seconds later he had led me out the door and headed down the alley that the door opened out to. "Where are we going?" I asked him.

"Home," he replied in a tone that dripped with mockery.

"This isn't home," I laughed at him, despite his tone, realizing that he had led me to a garage connected to the back of the bar. He punched a few numbers into a key pad outside one of the garage doors before it opened to let us inside out of the still poring rain. Inside the garage was an array of very expensive looking cars.

"Wow!" I yelled quite loudly at all of them, and felt The Joker's grip tighten. "Ow," I said, oblivious to the reason he had done it and half pushed myself away from him, only to collapse onto a near by, brand new black Rolls Royce, something that looked like it came straight out of a mafia movie.

The Joker walked around to the other side of the car, unlocked it and got inside. I followed his lead, having a bit of trouble opening the door but I was soon inside touching anything I could get my hands on in two seconds before the Joker forcefully said, "Don't touch anything."

"Fine," I pouted in response and slumped back in my seat, folding my arms stubbornly. He started up the car, with a satisfying growl from the engine, and we were soon on our way back to the mansion.

"You're a really good driver, has anyone ever told you that?" I asked him and laughed.

"It would be hard to explain to a cop why I have an under-aged drunk girl in the passenger's seat," He replied to me with half a smile on his scarred lips after I had stopped laughing.

"Ha, yeah right!" I said and leaned against the passenger window, realizing we were minutes away from the Palisades, seeing that we were already crossing over the what's-his-face memorial bridge.

"Or maybe it would be harder to explain why I don't have a drivers license and why I'm driving a car that belongs to one of the biggest thugs in Gotham," he continued.

I turned my head to look back at him, still leaning against the glass and said, "Literally the biggest."

The Joker burst out with a manic laughter, lasting only about three or four seconds before
composing himself again. I giggled at him before leaning all the way over so that I was resting on his shoulder instead.

"So how come you don't like drunks?" I asked him, staring at the dashboard with all the gizmo's I was forbidden to touch.

"I told you, they tend to annoy me," he said calmly.

I pouted and looked up at him, "I'm annoying?"

"Yes." he replied blandly.

"Fine," I said and returned to my previous position in my seat, pouting and arms crossed stubbornly. I remained silent for the next few minutes until we arrived at the mansion. The Joker pulled into the garage and killed the engine, leaving us in silence.

"If you wanna touch things, do it now. You'll never be in a car this fancy again," The Joker sighed after a minute, turning to me with a devilish smile before getting out of the car.

I sat alone in silence, noticing he left the accessories on so, pressing the first button closest to me, the window rolled down. I giggled and pressed the one next to it which made the doors lock. Pressing that a few more times I also had managed to get the radio going and raise my seat up high enough that my head could almost touch the roof. Being up that high made it hard to move but I had forgotten which button I had pressed so I wriggled out of my seat belt and half fell into the back seat. I maneuvered myself so that I was laying down on the back seat before opening all the compartments, turning on all the lights and realizing there was a television attached to the roof.

I was staring at the black screen for a few seconds before the radio had turned off and I saw The Joker ask, through the drivers side open window, "Are you done?" looking around the car and slowly licked his red lips.

"Mmhmm," I nodded and tried to crawl out the back window. Halfway out the door swung open due to The Joker opening it and I fell out of the open window hole. Before I hit the ground The Joker caught me. "Oh," I said then laughed, forgetting that there were doors in the back seat. The Joker helped me stand up but, my legs being even less cooperative than before, I fell into the side of the car.

Obviously being patient with me, The Joker turned me around and picked me up. For my support I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and buried my face into his neck before
he carried me into the house.