"Hold still, babycakes. Yes, yes, yes." Her hand is sparkling, barbie pink nail polish, five bright points of light beneath the balloon she holds high above her head. She does as she is told and stays the fuck still.

J is loading his crossbow.

He is hunched like a leopard fawning over its volte-faced claws, he is folded over his weapon, tinkering and lining her up. The crossbow is armed with a bolt, his thumb pressed into his hollowed cheek as he raises the weapon, tottering the crosshairs from the crook of her neck to the baby blue balloon above.

He is acid, his voice perfume. "Tuck those digits and give daddy a big smile." Green is the color of his hair, green is the shade of his ambition. She smiles until the molars in the deep real estate of her mouth gleam, her fist tight enough to feel her heart pulse. She hears the bow string snap the very moment his left eye squeezes, the chord plucks in c-minor, the balloon bursting is a crash of lightning.

A flap of rubber, the shape of Hawaii, lands on her shoulder. It's as lifeless as her enjoyment, curled and puckered, her merriment exhausted by this point. It is the early hours of day, still dark. It's been six hours of target practice. And she has been the target board.

He spreads his arms wide, embracing the victory around him, his plated teeth bared as he sighs, "Baby, the apple of my eye. So, so, so perfect. How could I ever miss and catch that pretty skin?"

She grumbles, twisting her feet and hips. "Puddin, I don't won't to play darts anymore. I'll move and you'll nick me... My arm is tired..." His eyes pearl with faux astonishment to her disobedience, his lips puckering a near silent 'O'.

"No fun? Aw, Ah. No, no, we can't have that." He clicks his teeth, swaying his head with the motion of his tsking finger. "How about this? I make it more interesting." J keeps the crossbow at his thigh, his mouth and tongue enunciating flamboyantly. "How bout it, girly?"

She perks up, wriggling to the gold hook in his eyes; the voices ring in her head, singing love for their liege. She claps, a monkey toy banging her cymbals, her voice high with the turned up wrinkles of her eyes. It's a cube of ice tinkling on the edge of a scotch glass, she squeals- "Yes, yes, yes!" She jumps around the tarmac, playful for him.

She warms to the sight of his grin, he is pleased. His pleasure is worth breaking over a wheel of nails and having her limbs twisted into a bow.

"There's my girl. Now take another balloon." He purrs, tugging at his ear, his eyes seated low with lust. She does as she is fucking told and picks up the balloon. He is humming and snaking his gaze from her, back to the carbon fiber doohickey. She pulls back the mouth of the balloon, letting it slap home. The sound is seductive, mimicking the fleshy noises of where their bodies meet in either sex or fight.

She is eager for his new instruction.

"Put the balloon between your teeth." Her heart races, a trespassing rodent kicking within the nest between her lungs, she thinks that it must of found its way in through the hole in her face. She slips the donut-shaped tail into her mouth, suckling on the taste. She muses with her tongue the ring of entry, squeaking the rubber against the flats of her teeth. She stands straight, the balloon jutting erect from her mouth; the crossbow is already up in his arms like a child, his face cupped against it.

He gives her a toothy demand, to bend forward with her hands trussed like a chicken. She follows through, sticking out her rear and bending her knees, her hands resting on the small of her back, criss-crossed.

She seeks for his eyes, he who is breaker her chains, keeper of her heart. From one tar pit to the next, her journey was traveled in his arms and not her own, but hell, broken birds cannot fly without string.

His finger wiggles and caresses the trigger without engaging it. J teases like no other, "Do you trust me?"

She has only implicit faith for him. She squeaks the rubber in her mouth, chewing her trust, not to crumble it, but to thoroughly taste her love and savor the enduring mush, that concrete that keeps her bones from breaking beneath him, time and time again.

She pokes out her lips in response to his question.

And oh, how he smiles such a genuine smile for her, it makes her forget all about the bolt slicing through the air towards her, her body long gone foggy when she hears the bolt slap the board behind her.

Oh, and how he still smiles, as the very same bolt which had cut across her teeth and lip, has now left her bleeding like a stuck pig from her mouth. A comet tail of pain in her stretching scream, her mind searching for stars behind her eyelids.

She chokes on the blood filling her cheeks, sputtering rouge on the still inflated balloon clutched between her teeth. The stinging pain across her lips a reminder that her love is faith, his love is torture.

She pouts, wiping her hand across the wound, her pale arm red with a trail.

But his arm is tight around her waist now, his fingers attentive to the wound squirting onto his Prada.

His episcopal rings bump her nose when he pokes around the split flesh, playing with the gape as you would a puppet's hole. She tires her best not to wail into his hand, her tongue purpling in the effort. And, at last, when his investigation has ceased, he kisses her busted mouth in apology. All bitterness, all rising acrimony, all of her best cut rage leaves her with the dribbling blood painting their faces.

He breaks away, clamping her shoulders in both affection and annoyance. She tires to shrink away in her own skin, expecting a reprimand for the missed shot. But he is tender as a pussycat.

"How about we get a drink? And some sugar ice to suckle?" He hums against her hairline with her dangling in his arms. She cannot speak, her mouth swollen, and instead gurgles her approval and happiness.

She leaks bloody smiles against his shirt.

He rests a moment with her in his arms, readjusting the strings he so temperamentally severed. It is a fool's game, caring, hating like this.

The Joker with his mind splayed in all direction, with his nemesis in all shadow of thought, with his legacy and his games, his puppets and his citizens in constant trying, he finds himself thinking of that which he hates most. The small person locked in a nutshell, the warmth of his past, the seed of his doubt. The realizations of his hope and coventousness for her, this monster he molded inside his arms.

He thinks of killing her and ridding himself of the refection she brings once and for all.

Instead, he ponders a bridge where none can cross. Where the faces of the past stay the fuck away.


I might only post the preface here, the rest of the story will likely be uploaded on Archive of Our Own. Please leave a comment and let me know if this work is good...? Or if it needs some work. You can find me at thequirkyduckling. The second chapter has been posted!