Sorry this took me such a long time to finally get out. But I am in love with this piece, and it breaks my heart every time I read it. Enjoy, and don't forget to post a review. because I love knowing whether or not my work is worth reading.
Oh as if! He thought bitterly to himself, face screwing up into a frown. He could feel his ears beginning to burn under the stringy mess of hair atop his head. His frown deepened and he turned away from her. As if she felt anything of the sort. As if she loved him. Truly loved him, anyways. Loved him like a mother loves her child: the sort of love that requires dedication and obligatory night-time stories. The kind of love that doesn't know when to stop, when to back off of the subject. The kind of love that never abandons. His heart skipped a beat. He hadn't felt that kind of love... ever. No, not a long time. He had felt it when he was little, before his mother had been slaughtered and displayed for him to find.
Oh as if! A little tinge of panic bubbled in his throat, so he cleared it, grunting and coughing. He looked down at the floor for a moment, unsure of himself. He didn't like this feeling of powerlessness. He had always been one step ahead of everyone around him. Never had he had someone person defeat him. He had always found a way to break a single person down. One person, alone, will fold without much prompting. But he... he was more that just one person. He had never folded for another, never backed down or laid there and took it. The butterflies in his stomach fluttered momentarily and he swallowed hard to keep them down.
He was all knots and stuttering and blushing and feeling like a school girl. As if Billy had just asked her to the school dance that weekend. How silly. It didn't cross his mind that identifying with a school girl was unusual. He felt silly like she did. He felt like his cheeks were stained red from embarrassment and hesitation. He felt like his intestines would never be right again and he wouldn't be able to eat. He felt like running down the block, running from this.
He faltered, falsetto breaking for just a split second. But that's all it took for the predators who stalked to pounce and destroy a man. He didn't want that one tiny ounce of humanity to shine through his perfectly crafted painted smile.
Love? But real love? She didn't. She was silly and stupid and blond and just perfect. Perfect, lovely, girls don't love. They expect love. She didn't love him, he was sure. She was obsessed with him, infatuated and blinded by him. But it wasn't real love. It was just... He wasn't sure how to say it right.
He turned back, his frown having morphed into something nastier. "I don't believe you. You're a lying whore and everyone knows it." Such conviction, he had. Even he believed the bullshit he just said. He was tied to humanity as long as she was around. It killed him inside to think about it, tore him into little tiny pieces.
He watched as her porcelain face cracked and she frowned ever so slightly at his biting words. The tears began to well up in her eyes and she looked away from him, sniffing quietly and blinking hard. She was staring at her hands now, before she slinked away from him, uncurling herself from his limbs.
"It's true..." he continued, slurring his insults into a muddled dagger. "I know what you do when you leave me. You run to that stupid plant bitch and you two have girl time." He spat it out, as if it was disgusting to taste the words. "I know exactly what shit the two of you do. You don't fool me. You're a lying whore telling me you love me. You don't love me. You'll sleep with anyone that gives you a second look."
He raised himself up from the couch and stood tall and powerful. She had turned away from him and was curling her legs up towards her chest on the windowsill. She was crying now, he was positive, because she wasn't whining about how it all wasn't true and how it didn't mean anything between her and Ivy and blah blah blah. She was just sitting there taking it. He felt the anger boiling up inside of him. She should be defending herself! She should be defending the love she claimed to feel.
"Don't you have anything to say?" He yelled. "I'd think you'd defend that stupid feeling if you really meant it!" His piercing gaze rested on the back of her blond head. She turned her head to look at him, her mascara running down her cheeks, a huge frown curling the corners of her lips down.
"I won't feel anything you don't want me to, puddin'." She mumbled at him, smearing her makeup in an attempt to brush away her tears. Her baby blues looked him straight in the eye, and he shifted away from her. That wasn't what he wanted, but he'd never say so. He wanted that love, he was sure, somewhere deep down. But it scared him. Shook him loose from the secure wall he was behind.
"As if..." He scoffed, stomping out of the room and slamming the door behind him, "You'll do whatever you damn well please! You always do!" He could hear her wail as a response, but didn't turn back. His heart was racing and he felt like a caged animal. He was running from this. His steps faltered as he rounded the corner of the hallway. And there was that silly school girl again, always so giddy at the thought of a new crush. His stomach churned and he slumped against the wall. He'd have to deal with this sometime, but he didn't want it to be now, not when it was so new.
She came barreling out of the room, tears streaking down her face, determined and crazed. She stormed past him, powerful like a hurricane and sauntered into an adjoining room. He heard chair legs scrapping against the floor and a few mumbled greetings from his henchmen as she arrived. They stood for her, he was sure, because he had taught them to do so for fear of his wrath. But something wasn't quite right. There were shouts of argument coming from the room and he pushed himself away from the wall in time to hear wood splintering and glass shattering on the ground.
"Quit fucking squirming!" He heard her shrieking and rounded the doorway to see Harley pinning one of his smaller henchmen to the ground with her fists. She had a firm grip on his collar and was slamming his head against the now destroyed table. So that's what had broken, he thought to himself, mildly surprised by her violent outburst. The henchman was pleading and crying out for help all the while, pulling at her hands and flailing as she dragged him across the floor. She let his shirt go and swung her foot wildly at his head, kicking at him with a fierceness he had never seen in her before. She was still crying, he could tell from her makeup, and the shrillness in her voice as she screamed threats at him.
Her pigtails were swinging around her head, trying very hard to contain her wild blond curls. She looked up for just a brief moment to catch the gaze of the Joker's. She bared her teeth at him, screaming at him now, and leaving the henchman in a bruised pile on the floor.
"I'll do whatever the fuck I please!" She mocked at him, stomping across the room towards where he was leaning on the doorway. "You think I like doing this? You think I enjoy fucking living in filth?" Her voice cracked around the edges of her words and she dragged in a breath that sounded like breaking glass.
He didn't say anything to her, just glared her way, eyes flicking from the pathetic henchman he was sure would resign soon enough, back to her and her heaving chest. She was quivering with anger: anger from his distrust, from her violent outburst, and from the frustration of living in the squalor of the city.
"I have lived in this dump for a month for you! So Bats doesn't find us! I'm the reason you have money! I'm the reason half your jobs work out! You think you can strut around looking like that and get a job done discreetly?" She was gesturing with a fist towards his face, referring to the scars that had ruined his skin. His blood boiled at her accusation and he took a strong step towards her, his fist colliding with her face, which bloomed into a iridescent bruise almost instantaneously. She shrieked back at him, furious that she had been hit, and swung a blind fist towards his head, missing when he ducked, only to swing another punch. Her crying had turned hysterical and she was practically boxing with him. Her name-calling had turned to simple cursing, damning him to hell and telling him what he should do with himself. "I broke you out of Arkham and I can damn well put you back!"
It was an empty threat, but it pissed him off none the less. His muscles tensed and he tackled her to the ground, nearly hitting the henchman who had passed out cold from his own beating. His hands were clamped tightly around her throat and he was barely managing to squeeze out insults from behind his clenched teeth.
"Fuck you, bitch! No one fucking asked you to stay! You think you're so innocent that they wouldn't fucking put you in the cell next to me? HUH?" She was turning red in the face, which was screwed up into a devastating sneer. He let her throat go and stood, spitting as he went, and loomed over her threateningly. "Go crawl back to the doctors at Arkham! See if they'll take your lying, whore-ass back!"
He turned on his heel and stomped out of the room, pushing over a henchman as he went. He could scream for a year over this. He wanted to murder that stupid bitch. He wanted to rip all her stupid blond hair from her stupid skull and skin her alive. He wanted to scar and maim and destroy her for the things she said. Before he knew it, though, she had leaped onto his back, arms wrapped tightly around his throat in a choke-hold, and was swinging from his neck with the full force of her weight. Her hysteria reached a new level: primal scream. It was deafening in his ear. She was kicking at the backs of his legs, trying to get him to fall so she could strangle him with her own hands. But he wouldn't. He bent forward with such force that he flipped her from his back.
She collided with the hallway wall, knocking a huge hole into the Sheetrock. Dazed and confused, she slumped onto her head, feet comically hitting the floor last, bottom up in the air.
"AS IF YOU FUCKING LOVE ME!" He shrieked at her, kicking a hole into the wall inches from her head. He was throwing a tantrum now.
"If I didn't, do you think I'd stick around this hell-hole?" She called back to him, voice hoarse and quiet. Her vision was swirling as she righted herself, black eye glaring up at him. He screamed down at her, no words forming in his throat. It was just noise, just pent-up anger bursting from his mouth. His hands clamped tightly around her upper-arms and he pulled her up ferociously, leveling her glare with his. She didn't break eye contact with him, half out of fear and half out of anger. She was determined to make him believe her.
But true love? His stomach flipped again and she saw him falter. He frowned at her suspiciously, brows still furrowed. He set her on her feet, though he didn't let her go. He took a step back and surveyed her, gaze lingering on the black eye he left her. Keeping one hand on her arm, while the other ran a finger down her other arm, he steered her into the bedroom again, slamming the door behind the two of them.