"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.

He shrugs.

"So basically if Bella wants him at all she has to share her cake."

"That's about the size of it," the Joker agrees. "We don't always end up fucking a whole lot of people, except each other, but if we get the opportunity and the urge we're gonna either do it or feel like absolute shit for a while."

"Huh. I guess Bella will figure out if she can deal or not. Um, but if she decides she can't deal? She might try not to interact with him much because it'd give her feelings that'd make her conflicted," says Lexi. "She might decide that being just friends would be too hard and it'd be better to cut him off, you know, especially since now she can get at all kinds of magic without him helping."

"Well," says the Joker, "in that case, I'll take him to Origin to hang out with Ghosty and Queenie."

"But you can't just leave whenever you want, right? You have to wait for a door. She might decide this any minute, she might be thinking about it right now, she might tell Brilliance while we're here talking."

"If that happened," says the Joker, "we'd notice, trust me. And then you might have to clear out so I could bring him here and give him a big hug."