Chapter Text
He was so happy for Timmy and JJ, he swears, but as he hugged the blanket tightly around him he stared at JJ as he played on the switch -who was sitting upside down on the couch head dangling off the edge, feet kicking in the air- as Dana read a book on a nearby chair, he felt a pit of longing open up in their stomach. They were staying the weekend with Dana at Drake manor and Tim had fallen asleep on the window seat. For some reason their brain decided it was the perfect time to have an extreme nightmare about the Joker so Joker Junior woke them up and stayed silently curled up, watching clone JJ and Dana, feeling guilty about being jealous.
He spent a while just staring at them, pouting, curled up in the blanket. He could still hear the ghost of laughter and feel the phantom pain from the memories that made up the nightmare. Logically, he knew that they weren't hurt but their brain was telling their muscles to tense and it made their entire body sore. Normally, when nightmares happened and JJ woke them up he would just do some deep breathing exercises to try to relax, then roll over and go back to sleep once he had calmed down enough. Tim would never know he had been around unless he stayed up long enough to write him a little bit in their journal. Today though, he wanted more.
After several minutes went by Junior finally decided to move. He huffed before he stood up, blanket still wrapped around their shoulders, and walked over to Dana. When she looked up at him as he hovered by her side she closed her book.
“Yeah baby?” She put her book on the side table and sat forward. Junior didn’t say anything, he just sat down at the foot of the chair beside her legs and leaned their head on her knees. Dana immediately began to run her hands through their hair -which was still shorter than clone JJ’s- and Junior melted. “Everything okay sweetheart?” She questioned, sounding slightly concerned at “Tim’s” out of character behavior.
“Nightmare.” He stated simply as he just let their body relax while she continued to run her fingers across their scalp.
“Oh, poor thing. I hate when a nice nap gets ruined,” she whispered softly. Junior just shrugged and pulled out Tim’s phone from their pocket. He tapped through the many streaming apps that Tim had downloaded until he found one that had Mary Poppins before he hit play and settled in to watch the movie.
Once the opening began to play from the phone's speaker, he heard JJ pause whatever game he had been playing. He shot a quick look over at the couch and watched as JJ sat up and intently looked at him. He decided to ignore him and just continued to watch the movie. He heard as JJ got up and walk over to them then sat down right beside them. He leaned his head on their shoulder. “Hey Pumpkin,” clone JJ -Jacob- greeted as Dana’s hand paused for just a moment in their hair before she leaned down to give their head a quick kiss and then started up again.
Junior frowned as a spike of rage shot through him and he aggressively shrugged JJ’s head off their shoulder. “Mama calls me Pumpkin. JJ is my name. Use it.” He snapped, not even looking at Jacob.
“Hey, sorry. Just thought it would be less confusing.” Jacob defended, sounding slightly irritated.
“You already have another name,” Junior finally turned to look at him with a glare, jaw tight. “Why can’t we just call you Jacob while I’m frontin’? Why is it me that has to get a different name? JJ’s been my name since you were still busy bein’ our spleen,” he snapped.
Jacob’s eyebrows met his hairline. “Okay, I don’t know what crawled up your ass but you can chill. I was just worried about ya.” He bit right back.
“You know exactly what my damn problem is. Just think about it? Aside from a small handful of times, am I ever up front for a good reason? No, I’m fuckin’ not, I’m a fuckin’ bad omen. So just back off and let me calm down until Tim comes back and you guys can get back to being the perfect happy little family without me.” Joker Junior spat.
Jacob puffed his chest up, “You’re right, I do know so I also know you can cut it the fuck out and stop takin’ your anger and jealousy out on me. I didn’t do shit but try and help.”
“You didn’t have ta do anything because it was all handed to you!” Junior stood up abruptly, breathing hard and staring down at JJ.
Jacob growled and followed suit, standing chest to chest with Junior, eyes locked on each other. “What the hell do ya mean by that?”
Dana chose this moment to stand up herself and try and put herself between the two. “Boys! Calm down. Please!” She begged as she put a hand on each of their shoulders. Both of them took a step back from each other as Dana gently pushed them apart. Neither one broke eye contact, glares at full force. “It seems like emotions are running a bit high right now so why don’t we separate and maybe each of you take a walk to calm down before we come back and talk this out.”
Junior took a big step back to get Dana’s hand off his shoulder, still maintaining eye contact with Jacob. “Good idea, I’m gonna take a ride, don’t bother waitin’ for me.” He moved to walk around the two, bumping Jacob’s shoulder as he passed.
Junior barely got another step away before Jacob turned and reached out, grabbing Junior by the arm. “You can’t just leave.” Jacob declared. Junior -chest hot with rage- swung. Junior's fist connected solidly and Jacob found himself knocked on his ass. Jacob shouldn’t have been surprised by the situation but this entire interaction had him feeling off kilter. This was his first time dealing with his ‘template’ -aside from the initial brunch when Tim had first gotten rescued from Ra’s months ago- and it was not going anything like he had imagined their next meeting to go. This was the reasoning he was going to use later when everyone asked why he didn’t dodge the fist flying at his face.
His hand came up to his jaw as he glared daggers up at Junior. Dana gasped in shock while Junior stared Jacob down. “I know you were NOT about to tell me I can’t leave, Jacob. I’m not a fuckin’ prisoner and you don’t have the right to tell me what I can and can’t do. Unlike you, I have a fucking time limit on my freedom so for once I’m gonna do somethin’ I want with my time instead of just sitting around here doin breathing exercises and hiding until our body stops hurting. So fuck allllll the way off!” Junior didn’t wait for anyone to say anything else. He just left the other two people in shocked silence as he made his way out of the living room, presumably towards the garage.
Dana and JJ just watched as Junior stomped away, JJs face aching, lip split and jaw already bruising. After they listened to Junior pound down the hall and then heard the door to the garage slam, Dana looked down at JJ. She bit her lip as she finally took notice of the blood dripping down his arm from where he was holding his hand against his face.
“Oh! He got you good didn’t he? Let’s go get that taken care of.” Dana sighed as she pulled herself together to help JJ off the floor and begin the process of helping him clean up. With Junior gone, the adrenaline of the argument was slowly leaving JJ and he let his shoulders slump. Dana led him into the closest bathroom where she pulled out a first aid kit from under the sink while JJ sat himself on the toilet seat. Once she had it opened up and had the basics pulled out, she reached over and took JJ’s hand off his face to begin cleaning up his split lip.
“I don’t think it will need stitches but you’re definitely going to need to ice that face as soon as possible. Your cheek has a little split along with your lip too, so I’ll put a bandage on that part at least.” Dana informed him as she worked to clean the blood off his face and disinfected the wounds.
JJ just stared blankly at the wall during the whole process, lost in his head, trying to get his own anger under control. He was supremely pissed at Junior for lashing out but at the same time he should have seen something like this coming. He and Tim hadn’t talked much about Junior, only mentioning how Tim should probably see a DID specialist to better communicate with his alter. It seemed like they had run out of time to start some sort of process to integrate Junior more into their lives because now he has made an appearance and has decided to go do something about it himself.
Of everyone, he specifically should be able to relate to the alter but he hadn’t realized until now how much he had gotten used to just living instead of surviving. It was true that he technically wasn’t even a year old and all his memories weren’t really his. It was something he was slowly coming to grips with with the help of their family and his therapist but no matter how much he logically knew he was Jacob that was a clone and Not JJ the alter he still saw himself as an alter that ‘escaped’. He was repressing the memories and emotions from being a part of their system that was just a protector.
He had gotten the chance to actually start living instead of scraping out what living he could in the small moments when his entire existence was just reacting to a perceived or actual threat before retreating back into dormancy. He forgot that almost all of JJ’s entire existence was a constant state of fight or flight for their survival. Even the soft moments with Momma were just times they were recovering and they still spent those times in a state of constant hyper vigilance. He got to exist in a state of safety and happiness now and he’s finally realizing that that’s not something Junior has had the luxury of experiencing, at least not yet.
“Mom, I think we fucked up.”