A/N – This was originally going to be a one-shot, but I've decided to chop it into a few short chapters. It will probably be a two- or three-shot, but possibly a bit longer if I have ideas. This is also my first Batman fanfic, so I'm still sort of learning about the Joker's character, and I attempt to explore him a bit more in this. I apologize in advance for anything that might seem OOC. And also, I truthfully and wholeheartedly tried not to make this character a Mary-Sue.

Anyways, sorry for the long author's note. Hope you enjoy this. :)

WARNING: Mature themes. Rating may go up in later chapters.

He hasn't always been this way.

Pastel moonbeams filter down through the open window, illuminating the center of my bedroom in a soft pale glow, and casting the corners into murky shadows. The muted silver-white colour makes him look even more haggard, the lines in his face deeper and more pronounced. A slight breeze drifts through, gently rustling the lacy white curtains that adorn the window frame, along with select few strands of the limp green strings of hair that hang over his forehead. His clothes and mine lay strewn about the floor where they'd landed without consideration, no more than a few hours ago.

I sit up in bed, hugging the sheets around my knees as I scrutinize him in the chair he's fallen asleep in beside the window. After we're done in bed, he's never slept beside me, not once. And for some unfathomable reason, this irks me. It may possibly be because I've known him for so long, but it also might be because I know I'm the only one. I know I am; he's known me all his life, who else would he trust to come to with his pent-up sexual needs? Well, perhaps not trust. After what he's gone through, I don't think he can trust anyone again. And somewhere deep down, I know he doesn't really want to.

I still remember the first time I saw those scars.

We were nine, still finding ourselves in the beginning of that stage when we no longer considered ourselves children. I was an introvert and so was he; we both always had a difficult time making friends, and were just glad to have found someone to confide in. He was my closest friend, so without a doubt I had begun to wonder when he missed a week of school without a word or a phone call.

Another week passed. And another, and another, until more than a month had gone by and still he hadn't returned.

Then he came back.

You could almost hear the simultaneous intake of breath from every person in the room when he walked into our first class. A whirr of emotions buzzed through the room like an electric wave: alarm, horror, shock, dismay … But not pity, or sympathy, or compassion. Young as I was, I couldn't understand it.

He hung his head as he made his way to his desk, every pair of eyes in the room fixed on his face. No one could stop staring even after he sat down.

Two uneven, puckered cuts disfigured his round cheeks, still slightly chubby in his youth. One on each side of his face, sawed jaggedly from the corners of his mouth all the way up to his cheekbones. They were serrated and still pink, not yet completely scarred over.

After that day, everything was different. He wasn't the same person anymore.

I could tell it hurt for him to talk for the first while, but even after the cuts had healed he refused to tell me what had happened. No amount of coaxing and gentle probing from me could convince him to tell me the story. He was withdrawn, and didn't talk to me much at all. Even though I was his only friend, he was too caught up in his own mind to pay too much attention to anything else. I didn't understand him, and I didn't know how to. I tried, tried so hard, but his mind was a fortress.

One day, a few weeks after his return to school, we found an old syringe lying in a ditch near the river in the park, while we were catching frogs. Well, I was catching frogs, anyways. He was sitting under a maple near the riverbank, silent as ever. It was all I could have done to drag him outside and spend some time with me that day.

Sometimes I wish I never had.

I was resting beside him under that tree with a frog in my hand, and a pail full of the rest of my catch beside me, when I watched him pick up that needle. He held it up between us, and I could see his eyes flicker once between it and my face. A light went on in his eyes.

"Frog," he said. Not a statement, not an observation: an order. I handed the frog to him without question, semi-pleased that he was actually paying attention to what I was doing.

He held the stationary frog tightly by the legs and dangled it upside down in front of his face, examining it intently. After a moment, he lifted the syringe and injected the murky brown water slowly under the frog's skin.

"What are you doing?!" I screamed at him, horrified.

As the frog began to struggle, a macabre grin spread across his face. I tugged on his arm and begged him to stop, but he simply pushed me aside and watched its skin stretch tighter and tighter as the water formed a balloon, which began to droop under the weight.

I hid my face in my hands. However, some morbid sense of curiosity soon overcame me, and I peeked through a crack between two fingers.

The smile faded from his face as he threw the empty syringe aside and poked the bubble of water. It wobbled like jelly under his finger, but didn't burst. He sighed, and then reached into his pocket for the Swiss army knife I'd gotten him for his last birthday. Flipping it open, he took a moment to admire the blade in the sunlight – and then swiftly punctured the bubble.

Its contents splattered my arm and I gasped in revulsion. I wiped it off on the grass as quickly as I could.

When I sat back up, the syringe was back in his hand and he was leaning over me to pull the bucket over my lap, and set it on the ground in between us.

He proceeded to do the exact same thing to each and every frog in that pail.

Throughout our childhood years, he continued to torture and mutilate small animals and insects with that pocketknife. And the peculiar thing was that he seemed to enjoy it. I'd never been so glad in my entire life that I didn't own a pet.

The other children avoided us at recess. At least, more so than usual after he'd gotten those scars. At first I thought, perhaps they were merely uncomfortable around him because of his scars. But slowly I began to realize – they were frightened of him.

And even though I couldn't bring myself to abandon him, I had to admit – so was I.