road less taken | akeshu

April 8th, 2

Joker's first thought is Jeez, this guy's not a very good shot, is he? Point blank range and he only managed to get me in the shoulder.

Joker's second thought is HOLY FUCKING SHIT I'VE BEEN SHOT IN THE SHOULDER.

Joker's seen plenty of movies. He's seen Makoto and Yusuke gracefully dance through waves and waves of bullets. He knows exactly what he should do. He should do some sort of fancy dodge-roll or spin, drawing his own pistol in the process. Shoot the detective straight in the chest and look good doing it.

Instead, Joker screams. Goro screams too.

"DUDE, YOU FUCKING SHOT ME!" Joker yells, as if the detective was somehow unaware. Goro stutters and stumbles back a few paces. "I- I'M SORRY!" He exclaims. "IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! MY FINGER SLIPPED!" Joker stares at him in disbelief. "HOW DOES YOUR FINGER SLIP ON THE TRIGGER OF A GUN?!" He asks, waving his hands around like one would in any normal argument. The movement hurts his gunshot wound, though, and oh right, he has a gunshot wound, so he yelps in pain and puts his arm down. Goro is still trembling, gun now pointed down at his own shoes instead of up at Joker.

Goro looks slightly down, into the eyes of the bleeding phantom thief. They lock eyes, and stare at each other for what feels like hours (but can really only be a minute or two, at most). Joker doesn't break the eye contact as he slowly reaches into his coat's pocket and pulls out-

A box of Band-Aids?

Joker shrugs off his coat, revealing the wound on his shoulder. Goro is stuck between staring at the man's well-toned arms or looking away from the open wound in disgust. He opts to just glance back and forth uncomfortably. Why doesn't this guy wear anything on his arms? This is why he was shot so easily.

Goro watches in bewilderment as Joker's gloved fingers struggle with the Band-Aid wrapper, and his mouth hangs open as the phantom thief finally manages to get the Band-Aid out of the wrapper and stick it onto his bullet wound. He repeats the process with another. And another. And another. Soon the masked boy has 7 or 8 bandages stuck onto the bullet wound, and he shrugs the coat back over his arms, rolling his shoulder as if it was never injured at all. Goro can only stare with his mouth agape as Joker turns back to him, a blank look on his face as if what he had just done was completely mundane. The masked man clears his throat awkwardly. "Uhm, before you ask anything, I just have a really high pain tolerance." Joker says, as if that answers any question that Goro would've had.
"How-" He starts, but Joker just puts a finger to his lips and glances aside- towards the window, Goro notes.

"Well, detective, this has certainly been fun, but i really must be on my way now." Joker says, sprinting towards the window. "Wait!" Goro yells, as he runs after the thief, but he is ultimately too late, and he can only watch from the windowsill as Joker disappears into the night, leaping on rooftops and climbing up pipes like he wasn't shot just a few minutes ago. Seriously, what were those bandages made of? Goro thinks, turning away from the window towards the producer's desk. Whatever. At least he didn't get the compu-

The laptop is missing from the desk. When did he-when did he even grab that?

Goro glares out the window, as if Joker is still anywhere near it and can see him. "Fuck you, Joker." He mutters, as he turns on his heel and storms out the producer's office.

Notes: I find it so funny how you can buy a pack of 50 bandaids and any type of damage, even stuff like getting cursed, can be healed by it. So i decided i wanted that to somehow translate into this AU. Also, to answer Goro's "Why doesn't this guy wear anything on his arms?" question: Plot Convenience.