Work Text:
The gazillionaire knew something was up the moment he saw a clown with a knife humming in his office.
“Ooo-Aloysius O'Hare,” the man hummed to himself, “the man who found a way to sell air.”
“You-uh,” the little man couldn’t help sweating a bit, “you-like my commercial huh.”
“And there he is, the man of the hour. Pleasure to meet you, sir, a real pleasure.”
The clown eagerly jumped up and offered his hand.
Aloysius O'Hare took it cautiously and quickly pulled it back screaming.
“WHAT IS THAT?”
“It’s just a little gag I like to play,” he held up his hand to reveal a small taser attached to his arm.
“Good on you for noticing it. I like an observant man. One who really put in the work and made it to the top.”
“Thank-”
The man began laughing like a madman.
“OHH-oh, I’m sorry. I crack myself up sometimes.”
“Why are you in my office?”
“Because I heard you needed help to discreetly take care of a little problem of yours.”
Aloysius O'Hare dabbed the sweat from his forehead and took a seat at his desk.
“I want you to take care of a sapling for me, I want it gone before people realize they don’t need to buy air.”
The sociopath nodded slowly.
“So-to clear this up. You want to hire a professional, like myself, unfairly feared around the world as a domestic terrorist, to pull a small seed out of the ground?”
“W-well hey man, I’m not picky. I’d hire a serial killer if they were in front of me.”
The Joker just stared at him for a few seconds trying to comprehend his stupidity.
Eventually, he just broke out laughing and shook his head.
“Don’t you think calling me a serial killer is underplaying it just a little? I’ve killed more people than the Onceler, you know, the man who personally caused the climate disaster here in Thneedville.”
“Of course, I didn’t mean to devalue your-uh-resume. I was just exaggerating that-”
“All right, shut up. You're boring.”
The man turned around and walked out of the room.
“So-do-do we have a deal?” He shouted out of the room.
It was 9:30 at night when the man finally returned.
“I removed the tree and killed Zack Effron.”
“Who?”
“The kid?”
“Oh, you mean Ted.”
“Whatever, he’s dead.”
“I know he’s Ted, is he dead?”
“If that was a joke, I will kill you, I don’t like people stealing my spotlight,” Joker looked up and eyed him dangerously.
O’Hare nervously chuckled and pulled at his collar laughing.
“And what about the tree?”
“I used it as kindling to make s’mores.”
“How did you start a fire here?”
“Oh it was easy, you had oxygen sitting around everywhere. Speaking of which…” He kicked the bottle across the floor and lit a match.
“I ever tell you how I got these scars?”
“I-no…”
“I was a firefighter in New York, and one day, while putting out a fire that started from one of these air bottles you sell, something went wrong. The fire blew up. It burned my whole face at once. I had to get reconstruction surgery. Of course, I couldn’t afford the good stuff being a firefighter, and being confined to a hospital bed without a face, mouth or tongue doesn’t give you many options so I had to get the cheap reconstruction. While it was happening woke up from a drug-fumed state early and felt every second of the knife and needle under my skin. And I’ll forget this, the Doctor, he looked at my expression of pain and just smiled the biggest smile you ever saw. And then he did something very strange, he leaned in and whispered in my ear, needle still poking out of my skin...why so serious?”
He walked up to the man and ran the knife along his face.
“You could probably do with a bit of facial reconstruction surgery yourself between you and me. Well....you and I.”
HE snapped his face back to the man’s teary face.
“Well. Why so serious?” He brought the knife closer, and then dropped the match.