The guards led the former psychiatrist, without too much kindness, to the cell that would house him until his transfer to the Arkham Asylum.

The jester was smiling, trusting in his man: the Joker would never allow his creature, his magnificent creation, to remain caged in an aseptic room with the acrid and nauseating smell of disinfectant.

Harley Quinn was born to bring confusion and chaos, to kill and reign over the city of Gotham as Queen alongside his King.

«Walk!» One of the men pushed him, and the criminal glared at him from under the long lashes that surrounded his magnificent eyes with glacial shades.

«Don't you dare to touch me, filthy scum: only my Puddin' can do it» he said, implying a shiver of terror in the two at the thought of somehow opposing the dangerous clown. The lower, plump one, however, quickly recomposed itself, flaunting a boldness that it did not actually possess.

«Your pudding, however, is not here, so don't play big, you loony!»

He tried to jostle him again, this time with more energy, but his hand found the emptiness: Harley had lowered his palms resting on the dirty floor, the cuffs cuffed, giving himself the momentum with his legs and violently striking the face of the guard, performing a perfect and graceful somersault while breaking his squat nose.

The colleague tried to pull the pistol out of the holster, but the silver-haired man was already on him, blocking the flow of air thanks to the chain that prevented him from moving his arms as he pleased. The unfortunate man tried to breathe, clinging to the metal and to his life, but after assuming a reddish color due to the effort to survive, he finally yielded to the inevitability of his fate.

He fell to the ground with a thud and the jester stepped over him with an agile little jump, quiet and careless of the fact that he had just killed people who had affections or a family waiting for their return. He rummaged, not without a movement of disgust, in the pockets of their uniforms in search of the keys to get rid of that annoying constraint, finding them.

He flattened himself against the cold wall of the deserted corridor of the plant, peering over the faded corner in search of possible enemies to neutralize, his mind already facing the Ace of Spades, their home, his beloved. He found the door leading to the garage that held the police cars and, now sure he could escape, he rushed to one of the vehicles ready to leave that unfortunate set back behind him.

He fell on him, silent and sudden, stunning him with an electric discharge. Batman saw Harley collapse on the ground, unconscious, and decided that the Arkham was not properly equipped to prevent his eventual escape attempt. To keep the Joker away, in case he really came back to get him.

He lifted him, the backed-back jester's head and the silvery strands around his unnaturally pale face, charging him on the Bat-mobile to take the man to a high-security prison whose location was unknown to most, except for a few people. There, he would have been well guarded and who knows, maybe he would even have healed back to being the respectable Doctor Levi Ackerman, and not the mad Harley Quinn.

But love is a lethal and sneaky disease from which it is almost impossible to get rid of...

-

A week had already passed.

Harley continued to hope that the Joker would come back to get him, to kill anyone who stood between them, that would burn the hateful place and hold him to himself as they whizzed toward the cursed town of Gotham. Levi, on the other hand, began to have serious doubts about the fact that the criminal he had fallen in love with would actually come to their rescue.

After all, why ever bother for an individual - deliberately sacrificed to ensure his salvation - when he could safely continue with his life...? How many times had they argued, quarreled, even fought because of his ways of doing that angered him? Yet, as many had bitten, kissed, in their own way loved...?

Possible that his words were founded?

He didn't know. He could only hope that Harley was right, fighting with nails and teeth in an attempt not to be injected yet another sedative. There were too many guards in the infirmary for the tastes of their jailers.

-

A month.

30 days long an eternity. Levi was sure that their life would be consumed in that cell, a slow agony that would have worn them down hour after hour. Even the certainties of Harley had slowly turned into vain hopes.

Why hadn't his Puddin' arrived to save him? He began to fear he wouldn't see ever again his diabolical smile, to hear his chilling laugh, to touch his face disfigured by acid. He was afraid to forget his voice, the gleam of his emerald irises in carrying out yet another madness, the freezing of his fingers as he held them around his neck just to kiss him a moment later and get lost inside him.

The jester curled up in a corner, swaying and thinking about what to do. For how many times he had tried, for how many attempts he had made, he would never have managed to escape by himself. That place was a fortress, with a real army to guard him. He wasn't the only criminal locked up in there, and he certainly was not the most dangerous among the inmates, but as far as he knew nobody had ever escaped from there.

If that was his destiny, he did not accept it.

So Harley and Levi made a decision: if they couldn't live by Joker's side, they would have waited for him in hell.

-

«Leave me, son of a bitch! No!»

«Stay still, you fool!»

«No! Don't do it!» he cried, but the needle was threaded in his arm. «No...» he moaned, feeling his limbs numb and his thoughts becoming confused, clouded by sedatives.

«Even if you refuse food, you know we will not let you die, so don't make things harder and eat...»

The man, surrounded by doctors and nurses, opened his mouth and stuffed a spoon full of broth that should have been his meal. Harley, in spite of his daze, spat in his face all the substance, the others hoping that he would have swallowed it upright and good. Fools!

He received a slap so strong as to smash his lip, making him bleed. He smiled. He would never give up.

«You leave us no choice.»

His arms stopped him on his worn bed, blocking him with straps and laces, while the umpteenth needle pierced his vein and nourished him.

«Damn bastards, take it off! Take it off...!» he whimpered, trying to free himself from the drip. «Let me die, please...!»

They all went out, waiting for the contents of the drip to be emptied. Harley remained alone, bitter tears that furrowed his face following the colorful trail that disfigured his skin, desiring what he could no longer have. His biggest fear had come true.

«Where are you Puddin'...! Why have you forsaken me...? Eren...!» he sobbed, giving voice to his own despair and that of Levi.

-

He didn'tknow how much time had passed since the day Batman had arrested him. It didn't matter, anyway: every day was just one too much, for him who wanted to leave that world.

Harley was lying on the floor of his cell, dirty and untidy. His torturers had just left, leaving him devoid of strength between the dust and his own saliva. He felt his throat burning and the blood running out of his nose because of the malice with which they had removed the tubes that had been feeding him for months. It was the only way to support his physique debilitated by hunger, they said, but he saw in their eyes the fun with which they tortured him, reminding him that no one would save him.

He knew it well, Harley: his Puddin' wouldn't come to his rescue, not anymore. Perhaps he had found someone else to replace him with, or perhaps he had decided that a partner would be just a burden, just like him in his time.

Levi was basking in the most remote corners of their conscience, remembering the moments lived with the Joker - with Eren:  how he was passionate about his case, had fallen under his spell without realizing it in the least, had received their first kiss immersed in the chemical broth that had changed its appearance while the clown had instead shaped his soul.

«Puddin'...» he murmured exhausted, extending a hand upward, the dark ceiling above him.

Then a roar, and finally the light blinded his eyes as dust and debris fell all around. The noise of a helicopter bewildered him, numerous ropes were lowered into his cellf ollowed by hooded men who began shooting at the guards, arrived due the alarm.

Two arms lifted him off the ground. It had happened so many times in those months: foreign bodies that touched him, violated him because no one could do it except the Joker. Yet, for the first time, he felt safe.

«I'm here sweety, I came to get you» he heard.

Harley tried to focus on what was happening, until he saw two emerald irises watching him and two lips, lightly, resting on his own.

«Puddin'?» If that was death, it had chosen the right semblance to lead him to the underworld.

«I couldn't find you!» the other almost roared, holding him tighter and rubbing his whitish face in the man's hair, dirty and faded. «I felt like I'd lost my mind, without you...»

The jester, rehearsed in body and spirit, felt reborn at those words: he smiled faintly, brushing his beloved's face with his fingertips, tinged with red that stained him on the sides of his perfect mouth.

«You are here, for me...» he murmured, his voice broken and croaked for the pain and the tears that now filled his eyes, hardly held back. Meanwhile, bullets were flying around them and carnage was being consumed. Corpses, pools of blood and stench of death surrounded them. The perfect scenario as background to their meeting.

«Of course, sweety. You are mine, and mine alone. No one can separate us!»

«You are my King...»

«And you are my Queen» the Joker grinned before kissing him even more passionately. «Let's go, I'm going to burn this place up!» he concluded, tugging the cable to which he was anchored to be raised with his companion, leaving that cursed place.

«I'm so sleepy...» Harley murmured, curling up to his chest, careless of the chasm beneath them.

«Rest, honey: you'll find me next to you, when you wake up.»

Nothing else was needed for Harley and Levi. They lost their senses, smiling, knowing they were finally at home.