"She thinks he's hot, I have seen her looking at him, does that count?"

"Can't hurt," he says, laughing.

"She looks at him kind of like -" Lexi pauses. "Oh my god I think she did him."

"Wouldn't surprise me," says the Joker.

"And she didn't even tell me, God. Well, maybe she didn't, it's just she kinda looks at him like he's a slice of cake and she already had one?"

"Yeah," he says, "I noticed something similar."

"You know the other Bells well enough to notice that kinda thing or you noticed something from Brilliance?"

"I've picked up on a few things about the Bells. And Brilliance - " He grins. "Mm, kinda looks at her like he's a cake and she's already had a slice."

"I was gonna say cakes don't look at people, but he turns into cards, maybe he also turns into cake," snorts Lexi. "She didn't tell meeee, I would tell her if I slept with somebody... So either we're wrong and she's just, I dunno, vividly imagined doing him, or she was never planning for it to be more than a one-off 'cause that she would definitely tell me if she was going to have a boyfriend." Lexi considers this. "But, like, he wants to be her boyfriend, doesn't he?"

"Bet he does," the Joker agrees. "And bet that's why she was out here interrogating me about all of her who're dating ones of him."

"So what's stopping her?"

"She doesn't know if she can handle the part where we're all enormous sluts," the Joker explains.

"And I guess he can't just, you know, not be an enormous slut?"

"Nope. Comes with the package. He'd have as much luck trying to change it as Bella would trying to change how she feels about people reading her mind."

"But - okay, like, maybe this is me being stupid? But isn't he supposed to be in love with her?"

"Yep," says the Joker. "And Golden's in love with a telepath, but she still doesn't let him read her mind all the time. Some stuff's so much a part of somebody that they couldn't change it for anything, and wanting to fuck a lot of people is like that for us."

"That's a weird thing to have be that important," says Lexi.

"Mmm... try thinking about it like this," he says. "On the one hand," he lifts his left, palm-up, "we're really big on freedom, and on the other hand," he raises his right, "we're really big on fun." His aura shows a blue circle above one hand and a red one above the other, with their intersection glowing purple. "Being a great big slut is where those two come together."

"It could also manifest as, like, surfing," Lexi points out.

"If for some reason I started dating somebody who got all fucked up jealous whenever I went surfing," says the Joker, "and for some reason I felt like surfing a lot, we'd probably break up."

"Even if you really really liked them?"

"It'd break my heart every which way, but yep."

"But it's kind of more reasonable to not want to get cheated on than to not want your boyfriend to surf," Lexi points out.

"Only 'cause of cultural stuff, mostly. Which usually doesn't make much of a difference to us, and extra doesn't make a difference to Brill 'cause he's literally not from the same planet."

"I kinda can't think up a cultural thing for not letting your boyfriend surf," Lexi says.