Title: My Suicide, Your Homicide
Word Count: 1,573
Authorial Notes: I seem to only write a good Joker one-shot at 4AM because it's 4:08 and here I am again. This is the story about how the Joker (who, for the sake of identity retains the name Jack) received his scars; there was no fiendish father taking a blade to him, no loan shark cut wife who left him. There was nothing true to those tales at all, so how badly do we want to know how he got those scars?


Everything was muffled; the only clear sound was that of his blood rushing in his ears, urging him on. His hands were cold and clammy – from fear or adrenaline; he wasn't sure and didn't care. It seemed like only moments ago he'd locked himself inside the small bathroom but he knew it'd been longer. Dry and cracked lips pained him whenever he brushed a finger against them; the blue and sickly yellow skin around his eye was showing as well and tender to the touch. He'd been staring into the mirror for hours it seemed, so long that the shapes and lines of his face no longer made sense to him. Running fingers along the line of his cheekbone he felt the pain hit him like a blast of thunder to his temple before pulling at his lower eyelids, exposing the delicate pink flesh underneath the skin.

Nothing but a waste of space, the thought filtered though his mind as let his eyelids snap back, and pulled at his hair back tightly gawking at the newly forming bruise that marred his skin. He'd never out run any of their words spat at him. It was like clockwork, the way he received it. Everyone knew how they happened but nobody would say a word. Turn a blind eye to it, or not even make eye contact with him at all. He was straight forward about it too, nothing to hide. He wore those bruises like a badge of survival – to set himself apart from the miserable rest. He gave a grin to his reflection, sticking his tongue out as he pulled at a scab on his chin, letting the blood run down slowly as he eyed the razors on the sink edge.

Then he felt the impulse – the same he felt when he grabbed something in the store and gave himself a five finger discount. The impulse he couldn't ignore, couldn't pass up; the completely incontrollable impulse to just do. Grinning like a Cheshire he grabbed for one of the newer razors, it was dwarfed in his hand as he held it to eye level and then, almost as though he was hypnotized he brought the edge down on his cheek, slicing a path. He wrought a path from the corner of his lip, over and up without reaction, leaving a trail of blood in its path.

At an almost leisurely pace he wiped the excess blood way before gazing lovingly at his handy work. It was almost done, but it wasn't deep enough, wasn't damaging enough. He could still see himself. He brought the razor back to his cheek, carving deeper in a sawing manner with more recklessness than before. There was pain but he couldn't feel it, he'd pushed it to the back of his mind. It was less an important than destroying his face, destroying himself. Everything was muted and like annoying background noise. The wounds were much deeper than skin deep this time around.

He stood taller, rolled his shoulders and exhaled deeply as he looked as his new, uneven face and couldn't hold back a maniacal smile. He felt a tinge of pain make its way through his face, but that didn't stop the smile but pushed it on. Without pause he picked up the dirtier razor on the counter and went back to his task. He worked quicker, and was more careless in the strokes which just proceeded to make him even giddier and make his heart pump faster. The razor was still slicing away at his muscles when the pounding on the door began; the blood was running down his cheeks to his neck, onto his shirt and the pounding kept on. The razor, it felt like butterfly kisses on his skin and the quicker he worked, the less pain he felt. With another cut, another slice the pounding ceased and he dropped the razor into the stained white sink. He could only stare at his reflection and try to collect his thoughts and stop the giggles that escaped his throat every other moment.

He ripped the door open after throwing his new reflection a grin and began his way down the white hallway and wooden floors. His hand followed along the wall carelessly staining it with the blood from his earlier activities, and the blood from his chin dripped to stain the floor. He could hear them in the living room before he saw them; it was in the kitchen he grabbed the knife and held it behind his back tightly. The only way to kill Jack was to kill all of his ties. Anything that was Jack was dead, simple as that; his parents would be no exception. He'd barley passed through the living room door when he felt the fist impact his jaw and he could only grin when he found himself on the floor, looking up at his father and then could only giggle when he was pulled up by the collar of his shirt and smell the alcohol on his breath. The tight hold was gone within seconds when his father realized what he was looking at, shocking him even in his angry, drunk stupor.

"What the fuck did you do, you piece of shit?" The words came out slurred and his eyes glazed over, a flicker of fear shooting through them at the sight of his son.

"Well, mom did always say I needed smile more so now I'm all smiles. Don't you think you should…smile too?"

Then he was on him, shoving his father onto the tattered couch behind him and taking the knife to his face laughing while he did. The warm blood from the cuts lathered his hand, and the cries were like music to his ears, his father could barely struggle under the extra weight and his drunken haze. Jack could hear his mother's cries and couldn't help but note her time was coming too. As quickly as he was on him, he was off. The body sprawled out on the couch, blood leaking down the wounds and staining the fabric.

One down, one more to go.

Turning while wiping the knife clean of his father's blood onto his pant leg he spotted his next victim. His mother, she has herself back into a corner, horror in her eyes and tears streaming down her face. She'd seen better days; her pale skin was sickly, brown hair limp and greasy with clothes wrinkled and stained, she always reminded him of a beaten animal. He leered at her suddenly, his heavy foot falls bringing him closer to her but still far enough away for her to run – he wanted to enjoy it, he wanted her to take the bait and make it harder on herself. She always had before, and was rewarded when she tried to dart past him only to fail. Snatching her hair he pulled her head back making her cry out in pain, toss her into hysterics, new tears sprang from her eyes when he held the blade to her neck.

"Why, why are you doing this?"

"You always told me to smile more, mother. You never protected me from him. Not. One. Bit," he pushed the blade deeper into her throat, pulled her hair back tighter, shaking her violently with the exaggerated pronunciation, "Come on mommy dearest, you look uneasy, is it the scars?"

He shoved her into the wall, hearing the bones snap they were so fragile, and then he was on her again, pinned beneath him as he brought the blade to her face while laughing. The horror in her eyes seemed to only fuel his fire, everything was muffled again, turned down and the impulse was pounding, singing in his blood. No turning back now.

"Jack, Jack, please…please…"

His eyes turned darker, more sinister than before and the laughing, the giddy mannerism ceased as he pushed the blade deeper into her mouth, and then gave her a quick Glasgow grin to match his father's, to match his. Her cries fell on deaf ears and only stopped when her whole body tensed up as the blade moved south, to her jugular.

"No, never Jack, try again."

Then her body fell dead to the wooden floor, blood spilling and the sheer look of horror facing towards him, forced smile and all. He cleaned the blade quickly and rather sloppily before tossing it back and forth between his hands, stepping over the body. He wasn't Jack. Jack was as dead as his two parents so who was he. He could only ponder the question before his eyes caught sight of the playing cards then he grinned, picking the pack up he quickly picked out the set he was looking for, then made his way to each of the bodies, skipping as he did so, and laid a card in each of their mouths.

He washed up, changed his clothes and tended to his face before he left the house for good. He pocked the knife, now considered his chosen weapon, and tossed everything into the truck out front. Climbing in he decided it was time for a new start, the world need to meet him properly and those bodies, those deaths were just a warm up, just a practice run. They'd know his name, they all would, and they'd all come to fear the chaos he brought.

"The Joker, never ever again Jack."