So this fic is going to try and see what the Joker would be like if he truly found someone...well, mad like him. It might end up as a dark end, I'm not too sure yet. Obviously, this is just the introduction and in later chapters, the Joker will find out what she's hiding. It's set about a year before The Dark Knight. I think I might drag this story out a bit.
Please review and follow if you liked :)
Trigger warnings: self harm, suicide, depression, etc...
Scars heal; it's just the reasons and memories of how we received them that bleed.
Rosalie could feel her eyes becoming heavier. They felt like weights against her flushed cheeks. All of her thoughts were swimming into an abundance of nothingness at once. She tried pressing onto her sore neck behind the green scarf she adorned, but it didn't help, the thoughts that came with that only made her more tired, just like when she ran a finger along the scars wriggled on her inner arms and wrist.
She was glad no one could see her doing it. Glad nobody else worked there, anymore. To keep herself from falling asleep, she decided to splash some water on her face in the old bathroom that was behind the counter on the left. As she locked the door, she allowed the light to flicker on and off for a few moments before looking into the mirror.
For a moment her heart stopped. On the mirror, someone had written in fake blood, 'smile'. Probably one of the kids hiring a costume the other day, she thought angrily. Couldn't their parents just teach them to be good and nice?
Sighing, she grabbed some toilet paper and dampened it, wiping it all away and chucking the paper into the toilet. She watched the red soak into the paper oddly. Cringing, she stared in the mirror at herself, gripping the edge of the sink, allowing it's coolness to radiate in her hands.
Since her time in the hospital, she had been attempting to gain weight, like her doctor had told her to. She often forgot to eat though, especially before the hospital and if was difficult to think of food with her thoughts.
Her face was hallowed in, yet it retained a small bit of her innocent face in her cheeks, which once had been plump. Her eyes also were innocent looking; well, the large eye sockets that was. Her actual eyes were green, a bright green that was uncommon in most people, yet they shone with a dullness inside of them. The only emotion she could see in them was sadness and anger. The rest was all emptiness.
Underneath her eyes, darkness filled. It was a reminder of how little she had slept. Her skin was as pale as paper and admittedly she was beginning to look like a zombie.
Her hair was passable, she supposed. Rosalie had decided to stop cutting it and let it grow out and it now reached to the middle of her back in light, blonde curls. She wondered if she should re-dye the tips a colour again.
She always applied a generous coat of purple or red lipstick to her lips to deter people away from looking at her neck or scarf. She also applied mascara to her lashes, to see if it could hide her lethargy, she doubted it did.
"Geez, you own a party shop. At least act like you're alive, for the kids." She told herself, shaking her head.
She remembered what the one of the kids smeared onto the mirror.
'Smile'
She watched herself put on one of the most fake smiles she had ever worn, it even hurt to move her lips like that. It didn't reach the eyes at all. She allowed her facial muscles to relax and go back to nothing. Rosalie splashed some water on her face, opting to let it dry itself.
Sighing, she turned the flickering switch off and went back to the counter. No customers had shown up. Shocker. In all honesty, it had been a big success when it had first opened up. She supposed word of her... Situation had reached most of the people in the neighbourhood. Still, she didn't see how her misery effected the quality of their kids costumes.
In truth, she had only had two customers come into the shop that day. One was an elderly lady looking for presents for her young grandsons. The other was a pushy mother and her son, looking for a Peter Pan costume for a party. Rosalie had suggested electric shocking pens, she had grinned when she remembered the first time she had been shocked with one of those as a joke, the elderly lady wasn't so happy about it.
Placing the edges of her elbows on the table, she made sure her long sleeves covered what was needed and put her cheeks into her open palms, allowing her head to rest. Glancing up at the clock she saw that it was 4 o,clock, only one more hour to go. One more hour and she could be home. One more hour and she could see and feed Misery. One more hour and she could crawl underneath her covers and sleep.
Sighing, she remained like that and watched the clock. With each tick and tock she found herself keeping her eyes shut for longer. Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock. Darkness embraced her eagerly and all too quickly.
"Wake-y, wake-y."
Rosalie slowly opened her eyes, ignoring the pain in her elbows and neck. Her heart hammered instantly at the unfamiliar voice she barely registered. Her vision was blurry.
She stood up, suddenly alert and then realised she was obviously still at the shop counter. She'd fallen asleep. How could she have done that?
Rubbing her eyes a little, her vision cleared. A dark mass infront of her transformed into a man and his clothes.
Rosalie's emerald eyes trailed up a black t-shirt and dark brown jacket to a slither of pale neck and chin. They lifted up a little more to reveal something...intriguing. The man had lips like any normal man had, but on and around them lay something entirely different.
Scars were etched on both sides of his face, coming from his lips, like several slashes of paint on a canvas.
On one side, the scars made their way up into one side of a Chelsea grin, the other not so. It was as if someone had begun something and not bothered to finish it.
Rosalie wondered if whatever had made them had cut all the way through or only on the outside? She wondered what it would feel like to have scars on the inside of her mouth, to run her tongue along them. She did so to her smooth mouth in curiosity.
The light highlighted all the bumps and edges of them and she studied them with detail. Of course, she, like everyone that had probably ever met him was wondering how he'd got them but she didn't reel back in disgust, like she figured most people did. If anything, she was intrigued at the grotesque look of them. After all, she had seen her fair share of scars too.
Rosalie found that she had been leaning in towards him and immediately reeled back. She studied the rest if his face though, she looked at his nose, on which she could see a light splatter of freckles. His hair was a greasy, dark blonde colour that waved in little sections messily. His jaw line was strong and his skin clear but nothing prepared her for his eyes.
His eyes were like a withering candle. They were almost dead yet still carried a little dwindling light of strange emotions. They looked almost empty, as if someone had drained the life out of them, apart from a small section, where she swore she could see an emotion inside of them. In colour they were dark. Darker than anyone's shed ever seen before, almost black. The colour of them and his pupils almost ran into eachother. Underneath those pained eyes, were dark bags, as dark as hers.
Rosalie almost gasped when she realised they had been staring into her own emerald ones since the moment she had been staring at him, she could have sworn they had had no focus a few seconds before. A pink tongue darted out to lick the corner of his lips where the scars began.
"Not exactly the, ah, most beautiful thing in the world to wake up to." The man's voice was low, husky and scratchy. It was a strange voice, belonging to a strange man.
The whole time she simply stared at him until she registered what he had said. She wanted desperately to avert her gaze from his eyes but she couldn't, as if he had frozen her there.
"Um, wha- , no. I mean no you're... fine, I'm just um, tired. Thanks for waking me up. I can't believe I fell asleep. What are you here for?" Rosalie stumbled over her words, wishing she could keep her mouth shut.
For a moment the guy's eyes widened a fraction before returning to their original, dark, empty state.
He smacked his lips together and turned abruptedly on his heel, looking at everything in the shop.
"Where, ahm, where do you keep your face-pain-t." The 't' was accentuated so prominently that it sent shivers down her spine.
Clutching at the counter for a moment she forced a smile on her lips. Walking from behind the counter, she began to squeeze her way past the man. At that moment, Rosalie realised how tall he truly was. She was lucky if her head reached his shoulders. Ducking around him, she walked to one of the shelves, seeing all of the tins with a coloured lid on each.
Turning to face him, she saw his face was mere inches away from her own. He was leaning down to her level. Taking in a breathe she ignored the way her heart beat irregularly, either from fright or something else. She could hear her own pulse in her ears.
The scars were so prominent but it was his eyes that really bothered and intrigued her. Something so strange should never be so close to somebody, so instead she focused on his scars. She looked at each crevice and nick and the new way they looked up close.
"Uh, what colours would you like? Do you want wash-off or long- lasting?" Rosalie asked, biting her lip hard to keep from saying anything that might be weird or strange.
The man stared at her for a moment, she could feel his eyes on her. Her own eyes were still focused on his scars instead. While she looked at them, she saw his cheeks move up ever so slightly and realised his tongue was probably licking the gashed scars inside of his mouth.
"I think white and...uh, red. Long-lasting, doll." As he spoke she got a good whiff of his mouth and it wasn't pleasant. A mixture scent of rotten teeth and rotten food entered her nostrils and she had to keep back from moving away.
Rosalie broke her glance with his scars and stared at the pots on the second row. The "long- lasting" ones. She grabbed both white and red lidded ones and glanced at the clock, almost crying out.
It was 9 at night. She should have left hours ago.
"Oh, I didn't realise it was that lat-"
"Excuse me, Miss, there's something for you out-oh."
A man at the door spoke as if he was disappointed. Both me and the man with scars glanced at him in the doorway. The scarred man's back was previously turned to the door and now he was directly infront of it, with his face turned towards the man.
The man was of average height, but built with muscles and one arm was covered in crappy tattoos. He wore some sort of cleaning uniform, though she could tell it was probably fake.
Her heart hammered inside of her chest. What was he doing here at 9 o'clock at night? What were his plans to do to her if the scarred man hadn't been there?
All of these thoughts seemed to click in for the scarred man as well, for he took a step forward. He truly towered over the tattooed man, casting a shadow over him. The tattooed man gasped in disgust as his eyes made contact with what was presumably the man's scars, Rosalie couldn't exactly see past the scarred man's back.
"Did my being here, ah, ruin your plans. 'Cause you sure are ruining mine. I was first in line-ah." His voice was smothered in anger and madness as he snarled it, she couldn't believe how he sounded.
Should she call 911? For what though? For who? Pursing her lips she stared at the scarred man's back and breathed in. She moved to walk around him to speak to the man at the door, she was going to say that she'd call 911 but as she started to walk an arm shout out and curled around her stomach briefly causing her to stumble back lightly. It was the scarred mans arm. It stayed there for a moment and she saw that he wore leather gloves instead of just letting his hands free.
Rosalie was aware that she was the loudest in the long silence. Her breathing was laboured and she swore everybody could hear her heart pound in her chest.
"Leave. Now. Tell your, ah, buddies that if they ever come back here, I'll be waiting." The scarred man said, she was so close to his back that she could almost hear it vibrate as he said it.
She glanced outside, to see how truly dark it was. How could she have been so stupid? As she peered out she noticed a van parked in the street with it's sliding door open, gulping, she realised that he probably just saved her life.
The tattooed man quickly retreated, muttering things under his breathe. Her body relaxed but the scarred man stayed at the door. As she heard it driving away she noticed him bring one gloved hand up to wave it goodbye.
Rosalie let out a breathe and almost collapsed to the ground. Noticing she still had the tins in her hand, without thinking, she grabbed his gloved hand and passed them into it. She felt the leather scratch her skin, the feeling alien to her.
She looked up to see him staring down at her, an almost confused look on his face. The scars almost made it look like he was smiling.
"Have them for free. Thankyou."
Abruptly he ran a hand through his hair and looked down at the tins. His dangerous eyes made contact with her own again and they both stared. They both stared for minutes at eachother, the party shop forgotten. Both were trying to piece together why their eyes were like that. The tall man tilted his head, allowing the shadows to cast a strange look on half of his face.
"I'm Jac-k. I'll be seeing ya, doll."
With that he left and his absence could be felt inside the shop. There were shivers down her spine.
She had never met anyone like that. Someone so... Mysterious and strange. Sure, Gotham had it's fair share of those but he was different. Jack. His name was Jack. It was such a normal name for someone like him. Jack. She closed her eyes and remembered his eyes, how dark they'd been.
Rosalie walked home, as she usually did, however it was later than usual. Once she was inside, she found Misery on the windowsill. His black fur blended in with the night outside.
"Hey, buddy. Sorry I'm late." She said, walking into the kitchen.
Rosalie noticed the food she'd bought herself still in the cupboard but she didn't get it out, instead she got the cat food box. As soon as the sound was made, Misery jumped from his spot, meowing and rubbing his tail around her legs. Rolling her eyes, she gave him the food in his bowl and scratched his head.
Yawning, she decided to have a shower and go to sleep. Once she was under the covers however, all she did was twist and turn, her eyelids becoming heavier and heavier. The image of Jack still in her mind caused her to stay awake. His eyes and his scars... She had a need to know the reason why they were like that. Why he was like that. She doubted she'd ever see him again.
Early in the morning, when it was still dark, she swore she heard a sound come from the corner of her room. Her heart was racing, after all, she was in Gotham. Death's like this happened all of the time. As she flicked her lamp on, she saw nothing there though. Just the two mirrored doors to her closet and her reflection. Sighing, she fell back asleep almost instantly after she turned the lamp off. Sleep had embraced her once more.
Sleep had covered her vision so much that she didn't even notice the dark eye peering out from the crack where the two mirrored doors met. She didn't even notice his tongue dart out to lick his scars.