Leave Me To Rot
Disclaimer: The Joker names, characters and locations belong to DC Comics. I own nothing that you recognize.
A/N: This is just a little thing I wrote at four in the morning while listening to Tool's 10,000 Days album. My mind was in a fog, but that's the perfect mental state for writing Arthur, don't you think?
He falls to the floor, striking the wall first, shattering the cartilage in his nose. There was a burst of pain, not at all like those cartoonish stars said to explode in the darkness behind your eyes, but he sees them all the same. He sees them like he sees her, like he wants to see her.
Another side effect of his medication, he tries to say. Tries, but his garbled speech will not gift him the power of communication. Instead he falls, twitching, eyes open wide and staring.
"Arthur!" she calls his name, over and over, panic rising in her voice. "Arthur! Say something!"
He is aware of her presence, unable to move, unable to speak. For once in his life the laughter has finally stopped. Now he is silent, stripped of all but the noise in his mind, and perhaps that is something worse.
"Arthur please... Please..."
He is aware of everything around him, and now he feels the warmth of blood, cascading in scarlet rivulets down his chin, spilling onto the floor. His muscles spasm and he jerks sideways, grunting, eyes bulging slightly.
"S-Sophie..." His words come bubbling out of the bloody spume in his mouth, froth and vomit coating his lips, his illness clear, something more this time.
He can't stop shaking, and yet she is there. She doesn't abandon him, not even when he lifts a hand to cover his face, his still bleeding nose, wishing for the paint to stain his features, obscuring the monstrosity he's become.
"Help me," he finally manages between labored breaths.
When he sees her, there are tears glistening in the corners of her eyes, and he knows he must be crying too. Internally he is sobbing, screaming with all his might. She helps him sit up, and he leans into her embrace, trembling and rocking back and forth, his lips pressed together in an effort to contain the laughter clawing its way up his throat.
"Let's get you into bed, Arthur," she says gently, and suddenly he is laughing.
Leaning against her, he is crying in earnest now, head down, cackling wildly until another wave of nausea strikes and he is vomiting down her back.
God, why can't he be like everyone else? Why does he even need to wear this mask? To hide his shame, his sickness, pretending to be something that he's not.
There is so much blood now, caked on his face like the paint he wears so often. His nostrils burn and he smells the acrid stench of vomit, then she lifts his ragged form and sets him on the bed.
A groan, a hand placed gently against his forehead.
"You're sick, Arthur."
"Tell me something I don't already know," he replies pitifully.
.oOo.
He watches from afar as she scrubs the blood off the floor, detached, aching, not knowing if this is real or a dream. But someone has placed a damp washcloth on his fevered brow, wet strands of hair curling, clinging to his face and neck.
Vaguely he remembers, raindrops outside the apartment complex, the gentle sound of her voice. She was smiling at him, the melodious tune of her pleasant laughter so unlike his own.
In reality he had been waiting, standing in the rain for hours, longing for her return. In his mind he heard her singing, and so he began to dance, awkwardly at first, like a marionette being pulled by the hands of an inexperienced puppeteer.
Slowly he unfolds in all his colors, shades of crimson and sapphire hues streaming down his face, running in the gutter and on into oblivion.
Blank is the canvas when she finds him, blank as his expression when she arrives on the scene. She puts her arm around him and leads him up the stairs, the hours lost now nothing but a shadow that follows him.
He is grateful for her attention, when she helps him to his room, when she lays out a fresh set of clothes and tucks him into bed. Vaguely he remembers the sound of water running, the noise fading before she enters the room and sits down on the edge of the bed.
"Can I get you anything?" she asks, and Arthur closes his eyes.
"No," he whispers, and time begins again. Before it had stopped, vanishing in the distance as storm clouds gathered overhead, forever lost, forever immortalized in the sacred dance he performed on the street corner. For each and every movement told a story, a fragment of his memories when laughter consumed his words.
His eyes roll towards her, alight with madness, burning with a desire to watch the world turn to ash. There was no need for her to be here, no reason why she had to waste her time on him.
"Why don't you leave me to rot?" he asks, not bothering to hide the bitterness in his tone. "It's what everyone seems to think that I deserve."
But instead she moves towards him, positioning herself with her arm around his shoulders. She sits with him in silence, listening to the sound of his uneven breaths. Imagined or not, she comforts him through the night, until at last sleep finds him in the wee hours of the morning.