𝙳𝙰𝙽𝙲𝙴𝙳 𝚆𝙸𝚃𝙷 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙳𝙴𝚅𝙸𝙻, 𝙱𝚄𝚃 𝙷𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳𝙽'𝚃 𝙺𝙴𝙴𝙿 𝚄𝙿.
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Even so much as the notion of some second life, in a pink house, walls ostensibly built by love alone, brick by brick, warms her from beneath her skin. The colour blooming across her cheeks glows on account of the television's illume. It reaches them from across the living room, but only so much as grazes her once it filters through those soft waves of Arthur's, now framing both of their faces. Virescent light cuts in shards across his olive skin, glancing off his eyes with such whet luminance that she finds herself quickly short of breath.
He claims that opportunity, crossing their mouths with enough force that the couch's arm pillows her crown the deeper she sinks. It isn't long before that long cosset's interrupted. Nix's shoulders roll while the bridge of her nose wrinkles and each kiss turns more and more to her teeth. Arthur lands a peck against her incisors, caring little for the clumsy, nasally giggle she gifts him with. Along with that laugh, her limbs seem to pinch inward. She locks her knee at his waist and folds her calf against his lower back.
Every rock of his hips results in the urging of her heel against his backside. Nix has rucked the loose band of his joggers just enough that she pressures bare skin when next she moans and lifts her hips to meet him. Agonisingly short strokes rend any semblance of composure she'd thought to keep for herself. A pathetic, wanting mewl stutters in her chest, and vibrates against the proscenium of his mouth. Like this, they share breath.
Arthur is first to note the change on the television's screen, with what shreds of a view he has through his own hair. By ducking his head to kiss the corner of her mouth furthest from the screen, he works to nudge her cheek with the bridge of his nose. That effectively steers her attention to the Gothic-Stick mansion, flanked by cherry blossoms. Those white-pink blooms match perfectly to the exterior walls of the grand house and white picket fence of its surrounds. Against the backdrop of a cloudless blue sky, with the ocean just beyond, it doesn't look real.
" Oh my God… " Whisper-quiet, and thick in her throat, Nix's wonderment lies between them. Overt, nigh-tangible revere holds itself in the bobbing of her chin, and the shudder of her next breath — though both are begotten by her husband's teeth, grazing her pulse point. He counts the hike while ardour tightens the muscles of her thighs. Nix's knees knock him at the waist. She threads her working fingers tight through his hair. " Baby it, " A breathy laugh she has no control over steals her voice momentarily, then she steers his face back toward her own. " It's like a fucking Dreamhouse! "
Now nose to nose, she claims his top lip. The curve of his cupid's bow lies upon her tongue as she draws him so close their chins knock and the upturn of her nose burrows alongside his own. A low hum softens her beneath, steering the feline curve of her spine that presses their chests. Her tongue strokes his own, in time with the next rut and push of their hips. Every turn sinks her deeper in the velvet cushions she should really think about replacing.
Quick, open-mouthed kisses draw her from his lips, to his cheek, to his temple, and then down to climb the line of his jaw. " I love you. " She tells him, her attention locked beneath his ear. She thieves the lobe to nibble when next she bucks her hips at an angle that seats her against his left thigh. There she finds that stiff ridge again, and blindly, with her wet outer lips hugging him close, rides his length. " I love you! You're— " Only feeble cotton dares to part them, and so when she all but seats herself on the head of his cock, she loses every word on her tongue. " Perfect… " A well-timed pinch of ribbed walls draws a gasp from him next. How she's seated herself against him, warm and slick and aching already, he could time her pulse. " It's perfect, it's… " An impish snicker betrays the heady timbre holding them both within some dreamscape. " We'll just take the kids and squat. "
Once he finishes kissing her, she can...though if he had his way, they'd never stop.
Mantled over his wife, Joker has a care not to accidentally crush Domino against the cushions or knock their shepherd-mix puppy with his heel while parting his knees a smidge wider.
A breathy keen blooms between them once his hips level with her own and roll forward. Her knee’s bony summit carves the cinch of his waist. Crossing their lips once again incenses him with buffalo sauce from the waffles he’d made her and the chili powder he sanded her glass with. That’s floating around somewhere, too. Joker pauses after a lazy, amorous kiss to incline his chin and try to peek past his damp green hair. Vermilion stains his eye from the coffee table. Should his foot jar, he shouldn’t capsize the cocktail and stain their floor…or so he hopes.
Another thready breath ends with him rocking forward again; pressing that soft, damp valley between Nix’s thighs and teasing its rosy folds through increasingly shallower ruts. Each undulation runs an electric current through her.
Nix traps his backside under her calf, hooks her heel to try and force him to grind harder, and gasps upon feeling the bulge in his joggers that already hang too low on his hips. Trim hairs peek from the crux of his root. They soak under her and collect a pearly sheen that she’d lick away had she the mobility. Instead she parts her lips to swallow his groan.
Joker’s tongue dips past her teeth and curves in a fashion that drives her nape backward. Nix squares her chest as if though her hoodie he can watch goosebumps ensconce her areolae and her nipples tighten. She returns each thrust by lifting her hips off the cushion and grinding despite the tension and stinging sensation straining her spine.
Before she tries not to wince, he cradles her lower back under one hand and pushes her close enough that they lie almost skin to skin. Nix kisses him flush on the mouth, then parts her lips wider to inhale the smoke from his last cigarette and the Altoid’s he guzzled before plopping alongside her.
Combing a few blonde strands with his free hand, Joker tilts his head and kisses the top curve of her Cupid’s arch.
He whispers, “It should be your house.” Trembling fingertips graze her forehead, “The place has been for sale since the eighties.” To prove his own uselessness, Thomas Wayne’s buried heir shows his teeth and says, “And I can’t afford it even with ten mortgages. But…” his lips tap her chin, “It should be yours. I’ve wanted to buy it for sixteen fucking years and get you the hell out of this shithole.”
Cigarette-warmed, smoky lips wrap around a soft patch under her jaw and suck. Nix tits her head back to open her throat, sighs, then grips a fistful of green hair and pinches his waist. Joker's tongue sweeps her throat’s hollow and lifts until his next kiss.
While he’s distracted, Nix pulls his phone from his pant pocket and points it at their Apple TV. Once Safari pops up, she image searches ‘Ann Starrett Mansion,’ then drops his phone on her stomach like a sea otter so they can continue kissing as the search loads. Joker draws her tongue into his mouth with an unusually deep hum, then nudges her nose and stares at her eyes until she reciprocates.
“There’s a solar calendar in the dove tower that you’ll love,” he stamps a kiss on each star tattooed below her eye, “Allegedly…” his mouth quirks, Nix kisses it; “It glows red from the stained glass — e-each painting of a virtue was made to look just like Mrs. Starrett.”
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━ :･ﾟ⧖.* 𝘔𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘏𝘢𝘶𝘯𝘵 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘋𝘢𝘺𝘴, 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘠𝘦𝘵 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘌𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘺.
#☠ nix. ⋙ 𝙞 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙞 𝙙𝙤 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪; 𝙞𝙩'𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙩.#mine*#oh mrs wayne hello#you're doing just fine#in italy with your man for your third wedding#refusing to do anything branded unless you're in his colours#looking just Fine doing it too
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The friends in question are currently guiding the boys carefully around the fairy grove at the bottom of the garden. Those little toadstool houses are nestled through roots and wildflower spurts. Sometimes Nix adds a new little hovel to the collection for the girls to discover on their next venture through. For however long both Abel and Thomas will tolerate Lilac's zealous running on the spot despite her sister's attempts to relax her, beneath the tree they're occupied.
A pink and black spotted pig snuffles conspicuously around the glass coffee table between them, hopeful for scraps. He doesn't know there's only coffee available — Applesauce follows Nix the second he spies anything in her hand, even if it's Ivaylo. The little boy's eyes mimic his father's in a manner that is particularly eerie. Wide, green as the grass Nix fights for her life to keep alive in the little haven of the garden, he stares at Wendy across from his mother, seated on her lap. It's as if he knows he's missing out on something. His father, most likely, but Arthur is two floor's up. If Nix listens carefully, she likes to think she can hear the next Grammy-winning tune flow through the air.
" What about school? None there? " She asks, in a manner so nonchalant that it surprises her. This face she finds ill-fitting: Skizm's Killer Queen discussing schooling, of all things. Somewhere, his teeth scattered amongst the gravel, Riktor's cackling.
Nix sniffs, and leans back in her seat to at least perform at ease. The boy perched on her thigh rolls back to jam his shoulder-blades against his mother's breast. " I think that shit almost broke Arthur. " A faint smile reveals teeth, then her brows lift, and she locks eyes with her company. Faint fingers of heat unfurl from her coffee to frame her face. " Apparently Gotham's not the lead in education… And no one's replaced the last board of education director since she, " A shrug. She lifts her son's arms as if too couldn't care less. " Got dead. "
hands embrace coffee cup, cradling it with open palms ; the warmth a contrast to the ever present cold which seems to cling to gotham. ( a part of her missing the california sun, though not the way it always came accompanied by violence ). too familiar with the way gunpowder residue and spilt blood coagulated in the summer heat. the city a blur of grey doused in brine-water fog. yet neither abel nor thomas seem to notice the perpetual damp, smile soft as she watches them play. “ all the shit the kids have been through, movin' here, i'm glad they found some friends. ” / @banschivs
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Louise Glück, from "Stars", Poems: 1962–2020
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If his handsome pantomime of Leo DiCaprio hadn't melted the icy despair claiming her whole body, then that sweet smile and jest works alone to dismantle it. Nix seems to melt beneath his stare. Her shoulders slung so low that the glass now in her hand meets a precarious angle. She's in danger of mussing the bedsheets beneath them before they've even begun their stay. Nervously, she rights the crystal in her working hand, all the while weaving her other through her husband's hair.
Her features pleat once again though this time it isn't for a sob wracking her chest. A giggle, thick in her throat and quiet, breaks into the modicum space now held between them. Her naturally downturned pout becomes a lopsided grin, flashing her teeth and swelling the apples of her cheeks until they tinge pink. She remains a mess of grey-coloured tracks beneath her eyes, and a wet sheen catching the light beneath her nose. She feels the state of herself as if it were a second skin now. Whatever attempt at glamour and ease she might have been able to pass off to Villa Balbiano's discreet employees she's since shed.
Arthur doesn't seem to mind. He watches as she awkwardly pads the mussed stretches of her face with the underside of her wrist. Blotting beneath her nose with the same tactic probably does little to salvage what once presented her as the picture perfect Mrs. Wayne, but she presses with obstinance and sniffs.
Still with a faint, diffident laugh, she rolls her eyes. " Please. " She's playful, jejune and fragile in her anxiety as she sets her knees against the mattress and plush bedsheet either side of him. Like this, her thighs frame him. Nix has hiked a little higher so that their chests press, and she can find comfort in the pretence of her heart against his own. A grateful sup of her cocktail clears some congestion from her throat. " ...Shit like this on me sells. "
Ere she wounds him accidentally through that self deprecation, she furls her fingers against the base of his skull. Soft green waves, combed through by the great lake's fresh breeze, filter through her fingers. She cannot feel exactly how she winds those strands around dead digits, but watches his shallow curls riffle for her touch. With sunlight crowning him, his hair almost appears to glow as brightly as his eyes. Those headlamps still cut right through her, though the allegorical wounds are warm as home.
" I love you. " So used to their walls having ears, the whisper's shaped against his parted lips. Faint threads of his last cigarette linger as she sighs into the proscenium of his mouth. " I… really fucking love you. " Again, the hapless scattering of a laugh betrays her, hikes her shoulders and makes shudder her chin. She sniffs back another heavy tide with enough force that it bruises her between the eyes. Nix battles the wince, as well as the appeal of closing her eyes to the dull ache as she admits, " I just really need you to know that. "
A kiss adorns his cupid's bow, ere she steers her focus, typically, to that hairline fracture above below his nose. The scar's barely there in truth, but draws her attention without effort. She dots a kiss to the corner of his mouth next, and then the bottom lip she's plumped with attention. Their chins knock, and so she kisses him there, too, stroking long fingers free from his hair and beneath his ear to steer his face toward her own. When their eyes lock, her touch nigh-welds to his skin.
" You're everything. Okay? " Her next intake of breath incenses her further. Now the amber notes of his skin soften her edges, draw her closer as if she were moved by a slow, stubborn tide. Her thumb sweeps the line of his jaw. Nix seats herself against him and attempts to forgo the tell-ache somewhere deep between her hips. Nausea still turns her stomach for desperation's sake. It still feels so fruitless. " I'd be nothing. I know I would; I-I wouldn't wanna be anything. I wouldn't be. You've been my... my whole life for… " Blinking doesn't free the fog from between her lashes. She shakes her head instead, yet somehow doesn't lose contact. Pathetic, and wet as her face feels, she speaks into his open mouth, " I've loved you since I was eighteen years old. And it's so fucking… big. It's so much. Nothing I do is ever gonna feel like it's enough. It's you. "
“But you do,” Joker’s slowed his cadence even more, but also dips each word in honey. His skin is warm without sunlight’s kiss and emits an earthy, amber-steeped aroma that tends to make her eyes roll back in her head. Here, it’s stolen her breath.
Nix’s fingers are cadaver-cold and stiff to the touch. For all she knows, he’ll mistake her for his dead mother. The glass that’s set over his pale eyes thickens and rims his waterlines red. He forgets to breathe. To blink will exacerbate the burn. Nix climbs what she can of his angular face to grazes his lower lash-lines with her nails and catch tears what she can before his eyes keep stinging. A few soft green locks spill over her hands when he leans forward.
His strong palm cradles the back of her head and burrows under her hair so he can soothe her scalp in lazy circles. Joker's free hand slips under her backside and lifts it from the red silk bedspread until she’s perched on his thigh. She finds balance like one of their cats, though her lower lip still trembles. She’s blinked her first wave of tears free. He kisses below her left eye first, nosing the star trio tattooed nearby before jumping to the right eye.
She tries not to giggle at the thought of him recoiling from the blend of brine and Valentino eyeliner. He kisses her plush pout instead, then tilts his head so their lips cross. Her fingers tumble from the inflamed pouches below his eyes to his endeared smile. She can’t quite tell if it’s for her or anxiety-triggered. Possibly both, knowing him.
Werewolf nudges her snout with his own and hugs her lower back as close as he can manage.
“I’m only alive…” his voice deepens even further, though it’s still light enough for the breeze to swallow it, “Because I love you. My only friend…” he smooths her crown from behind, “You carry our children — wh-what ‘more’ could you possibly ‘give,’ Phoenix? You trained our dog to help me out, the only way I can fucking read is with that purple thing, m-m-my lyrics wouldn’t see daylight without you — it’s all. You. Nixie.”
He prompts her to nod with him.
“Everything…is you. You’re learning another god damn language for me!" he insists, "You listen when I need it — don’t you god damn tell me I don’t feel the same!”
Another hard kiss stamps her top lip.
Joker sniffs back what he’s certain is rotten flesh and ash, then pinches his brow and explains, “The very least I can do is take you to fucking Italy for our third wedding. A-And I want you to enjoy every...fucking...second of it.” The bridge of his thumb catches another tear and wipes it away from her face, “It’s not a contest or…” he makes a face, then shrugs, “Some kind of scale. Don’t you ever feel guilty about enjoying yourself.”
With that, he leans back over her to snatch The Royal Wedding from their night table and offer it to her like Jay Gatsby — complete with the pseudo-suave simper and a wink. He further capitalizes with a kiss and uses his own face to nudge hers.
“God sent me one friend,” his jaw slackens; containing a tremble leaves his eyes streaked scarlet and burning as he repeats, “One. Don’t you ever...think that I take you for granted — I-I know I’m a wealthier man," his voice frays like a wire, "—than my father ever was! And it’s all because of you. Nixie. For you. I love you — please don’t cry,” he strains to smile for her, twisted teeth and all, “I don’t think Valentino has a ‘tears’ clause in your contract. I-I-I don't want to have to pay a 'fuck you' fee.”
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" He had a surprise party. " How swiftly she adjoins his sentence is likely to betray the ostensibly close eye she's been keeping on her husband's first love. In truth, she's just unable to avoid the latest update on Alex's life or the newest recipe for a cocktail he's created that she would secretly wish Arthur'd attempt for her. Once his eyes land upon hers, she spares him a shy, tense smile.
The phone in her hand still illuminates the close space between them while she ponders her next response and wastes precious seconds on a long drag of his cigarette. She wishes it remotely soothed the itching in her chest like she assumes it does his. Instead, Nix is left with the wasps' nest netting around her lungs. The sour, warm swathe upon her tongue does remain something of a comfort, however. A similar thread unfurls with his next breath. He's patient with her, given how she fights the anxious wiggle of her lower half.
Blinking, fleetingly avoiding his gaze, she passes back the cigarette and mutters, " He's, like, half-influencer. Trying. " Surprisingly reticent, her vexation flashes only momentarily across her features. Nix sucks in her cheeks with her next breath, pinching soft flesh between her molars ere releasing her grasp and tossing her hair over her shoulders with a shake of her head. " Sometimes it feels like the only thing I don't know is his fucking social security. "
Arthur breathes a laugh at that, though it is notably quiet. With her free hand, she's wound fingers through the curled ends of his hair. The night air has cooled those verdant waves, and a slight dampness clings to the very tips. She combs through intangible knots in both an attempt to slow her own heart, as well as his. From her vantage sat across his lap, she cannot gauge that gentle whoosh of his heart's murmur, but she remembers that hesitant rhythm with ease nonetheless.
Alex Day remains the open wound it was when first she felt that she pushed Arthur to reveal him to her — accident, though it was. She's not forgotten those bruised eyes, downcast and locked to his feet; that weight slung across his shoulders and the embittered gash laid allegorically open to bleed. All she ever did was poke at it. That same grief resides still, she feels it in the thinning air. Sees it in the slow hike of his shoulders as his lungs fill next with smoke. Nix lifts her hand so that she cradles the base of his skull, avoiding the floral-garlanded bat at his nape. The tips of her fingers apply light pressure to his scalp. Now she can hold his pulse in her hand, and shield it by tucking her husband's head beneath her chin.
A kiss crowns him while her heart sinks. Penny is yet another ghost who lingers perpetually beneath the vine-like string lights she'd decorated their pergola with. Nix cannot look her in the eye right now, but fears those boundless black caverns aren't far away.
" What did she think you were doing? " She asks, quiet and gentle. It's some fight to level her tone while dread heaves at the root of her tongue and a preternatural chill stills her lungs in her chest. Nix speaks into Arthur's hair. Those silken waves cradle her cheeks with gossamer fingers that pull from her pallid features a soft smile. Whether she speaks or kisses him next is beyond her. Both occur at once. " …When you'd be away with him? "
Ere he thinks her query one of accusation, she tightens the bend of her fingers through his hair, and cossets his scalp with parted lips. " I mean, he had a place, right? " Her phone again, though now it may as well be a brick in her grasp. Nix's thumb's tensed now, threatening to cramp for how she holds her screen on pause. She draws away from Arthur just enough to slip the iPhone into the little space between them. " Do you… remember this? " Gentle, girlish, she flashes him her teeth when he glances at her, and then, somewhat reluctantly, to the photograph on screen.
The modest crowd of young men offer, occasionally smarmy, smiles. Broad cheeks and broader chests, Arthur's a lean thing under Alex's arm, younger than what she knows herself. No piercing glints above his eye, and his hair is far lighter than how she'd first seen. Over a year, maybe two since they'd first sat across from one another at the checkers table, those black-blue locks turned to deep, honey-washed brunet. She sees that now on-screen, above his youthful face, and sweet smile.
" I'm guessing it's another birthday. " That drawl is half-bored, though not for the subject matter she actually wishes to discuss. It's just that, were Arthur to look, she's clicked through around thirty or so of Alex's stories to reach her relative treasure at the far end of it all. " But look, " Her cheeks round and flush. The iPhone 'dances' in her hand as if that'll draw his eye precisely where she wants it. " I found you. " As if he might be lost to as to who she means, Nix kisses the shell of his ear and whispers, " He's the handsome fucker on the right. "
Before the thorns from that name sink any deeper under his skin, Joker’s tired eyes shift to her iPhone. Their barn owl settles on the back of the loveseat alongside it. Preening, Jareth chitters and lifts his cream-colored, heart-shaped face so one of them will crook a finger and stroke below the beak. Joker transfers his cigarette to his weak hand, then does Jareth the honor.
All the while anxiety’s tightened the noose around Nix. Her throat pinches too tight. Her eyes flush pink from unshed tears and moisture gathers below her nose. Still she peppers kisses against her husband’s damp green crown. A citrusy fragrance lifts from his color-depositing shampoo and conditioner. No bleach today. It’d have struck her senses with a baseball bat before she even touched him. Bony arms fold across the backs of his bare shoulders. The edge of her mobile burrows beneath his clavicle. She’s given a blank canvas to drape over and burrow in for comfort should she need it.
Joker slips his cigarette between his teeth and bites down so her breathing might regulate once his warm fingers slide up her throat and dance behind one ear. He spools mussed blonde hair around it — and almost falls sideways when Yellowcake bulldozes between his knee and the fire pit so he can squeeze on the cushion alongside Joker.
Their foggy-eyed observer across the yard might think a bulk of shadows just joined Joker. Werewolf glances at Penny watching him from behind an old oak tree, then swats Yellowcake on the hindquarter and rolls his eyes.
Nix giggles and tucks her face alongside his. Joker coughs once a stubborn cloud singes the back of his throat. His lips then settle on the corner of his wife’s natural downturned pout. One kiss stamps the spot. Another deepens further along her full Cupid’s bow that barely bends where it should. He’ll never tire of that cheap watermelon body mist from Victoria’s Secret…or the fact that she still uses Evelyn and Lilac’s toddler shampoo to this day.
She breathes a little easier, though she knows why his eyes actually settle on the phone. Three baby monitors are synced to the device. If he listens closely enough, he might catch Lilac explaining why stars are dead to her Squishmallows collection. Through and through her mother’s daughter.
Joker slides his hand from Nix’s face, down her shoulder, to her hand. Their fingers lace and batten down. He guides her around the furniture until she swings onto one of his thighs. He’s spread his knees so far apart, they could touch the edge of the loveseat. He bounces one of his feet too and, once he’s settled Nix on his lap and tucked his head under her chin, resumes focusing on Penny behind the old oak tree. She won’t come out. She wants to hear what he hid from her for thirty-six years. Would it even surprise her?
Flashing his crooked teeth, Joker rests his free elbow on his opposite thigh and allows his cigarette to rest within it.
“Did his rich husband finally murder him?” Joker asks with acid, raking his teeth along his lower lip and pushing his left knee down to hide how it shakes.
Frowning, Nix brushes a stray lock from his eyes and thieves his cigarette for her own nerves, “I just said it wasn’t bad.”
“Who said that’d be a bad thing?!” he asks as if they’re staged in a sitcom, awaiting canned laughter from a studio audience neither can see.
Nix giggles. He won.
Joker preens himself with a little shimmy now that Nix powers through a kittenish noise and ‘smacks’ him on the chest, “You’re such a petty fucker!” How her voice deepened with each word got him snickering, too. Joker coughs into his distended shoulder, then turns and kisses his wife’s breastbone. She’s still wide-eyed and trying to process, “Ho-ly shit!” He says no more, but leans so his face burrows deeper under her chin. Pallid plumes vent from his nostrils while he loops an arm around her waist. “Wh...” Nix doesn’t know how much farther her teasing can go. He encourages it by lifting those piercing green eyes and allowing the moon to flood them. “What else did you lose in the divorce, Babe?” She wriggles a smirk out of him. “Did he take your favorite wooden cake pedestal?“
Pretending to reach his breaking point, he exhales smoke and sighs, “You fuckin’ bitch,” with warmth so she knows not to take that to heart. “You know, I never told my mother…?” he looks Penny in the eye while saying so, “Five years of my life, I never told her. She knew all about you — that went to her god damn grave, but not him. Or me,” his mouth quirks, “Probably for the best.” Joker swings a shoulder to shift gears, “His birthday’s coming up, I think. May first. He’ll be 41…going on…23.”
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Dread fills her from the bottom up. It ladens her legs first, turning her shins to steel and her the joints of her knees to cement. Her leg locks so tight in his hold that it cramps altogether. As it climbs north it hangs like bricks in the pit of her stomach, churning the organ until it sinks deeper, and deeper, and her centre of gravity is thrown.
Her mother cannot watch how colour drains from her youngest's face. Hers has already bled down to her throat in sickly, reeking rivers of red tar. Soft tissue peeled from charred black bone in wet ribbons that sway haplessly from what once was the line of her jaw as her mouth opens wide for a long, unending scream. It was left ringing in Phoenix's ears. She mimicked that death howl for weeks until her lungs was raw and she spit blood down her chin.
In the here and now, Nix would swear that she feels those same runnels of iron slink from the corners of her open mouth. Slick fingers, warm against corpse skin. She's sliced right through the inside of her cheek with her teeth in spite of her husband's earnest attempts to soothe. Smoke exists as a solid plume down her throat, pooling and whirling in the shrivelled sacks her lungs now resemble. When she tries to breath, those deflated pouches only bid her some pathetic wheeze to keep her living, and her eyes focused. What little she gleans through the black swathe choking the room holds her. Twin jade headlamps. They watch her unblinking as she feels like she's letting them down.
When she manages a reticent, broken vowel, " I… " it's begotten with the rattle of bone chimes. In time with the metallic rasp of steel under volcanic pressure, Nix sucks down a breath despite the blood lacing the air. " I don't know that. "
Speaking comes with little ease. The book in her lap weighs the same as Irene's car mid-inferno. Arthur's sweet and trying face unfurls flame and dark plumes so that it alone exists with its own gravitational pull — he'll know this as she sways endlessly forward. With such a lack of control, soon her entire weight hangs on her husband's palm, pressed just above her breast, where her heart sprints and her lungs rasp. He smile's misplaced, awkward, lopsided, as though it were painted on. As though she were just the doll she's come to be in most eyes.
Nix, however, takes the pressure as security. He won't let her drop, no matter how heavy he's become. Arthur's planted his feet in the carpet and affirmed his hold beneath her knee to attempt to balance her. In her lap, Madeline remains grasped, both the lifeline and the return to that brazen bull.
Horrified, she tells him, " I don't know… anything. " Eyes too wide, they affix upon his own. He's warmth beyond the fire, somehow a would-be comfort. If only she could reach him. " And I'm not, " Nausea swells her cheeks. She wants to peel her fingers from Madeline's edges but finds them rooted without her say. " How I'm supposed to be. "
“Sssh — ssh! Ssh, sh!” he’s careful not to break her nose while raising higher off of his knees and placing a paw over her heart. Its awkward beat sprints. Each thrum further thins her breaths until blonde hair puffs in and out of her mouth quicker than he could try fishing it out. She’s bleary-eyed, dizzy, and lightheaded. The vise her socked feet entrap his calves in refuses to budge. All the while she’s white-knuckling the book.
Joker allows her that crushing grip so she resists less once he cradles her face. The hand over her heart remains curved under her breast and battens down so he can continue counting beats. The rhythm takes a detour through his skin and knocks its way past his hand and up his arm. Joker leans against it to bump noses with Nix and pepper kisses from her worried forehead, below her eye where her lower lashes have begun shedding water, to her naturally downturned pout.
“Hey…!”
Eyes on him.
Joker postures his eyes wider than they already are so she has little choice but to surrender. The hand cradling her face slips under her jaw and into her hair. He spools those loosely tangled locks a few at a time around his fingers and tries to smile for her. It’s little more than a splash of his mangled teeth at first.
He can’t see what she does, but the quiver of her lower lip and hapless glaze that’s overtaken her is enough to paint a scene. Does Irene burn to his left, screaming as her flesh melts off her bones and the rest incinerates? Those fingers splayed across his wife’s chest begin thumping to what the pattern should be were her heart not outpacing itself to the wrong metronome in her chest.
“Киса…” that murmur snaps her focus to him.
Joker soothes any sting with a smile, then uses his own face to nudge hers. He releases her chest to sweep his fingers under her thigh and climb toward her knee’s stiff arch. He’ll draw lazy circles at the crux to try and loosen it.
“You wanna know how I know that?” Joker prompts Nix to mimic the way he nods, then touches his hairline to her own and speaks like warm honey, “I know that…” his grip at her nape strengthens, “Because...I love you. And your mom…?” He pauses drawing circles under her knee to grip that leg so she doesn’t lower it from his waist. “She bore you. Sh-she doesn’t…need to be here. In this room. To know how you feel. A-and there’s…little echoes of her in all you do.”
Now he foregoes her thigh to settle his fingers over hers. The diamonds and rubies embedded in her wedding and engagement rings leave prints in his skin as Joker squeezes one hand as best he can.
“Obviously I wouldn’t know, but from what your old man says…?” he spares her a shy smile, “You’re her daughter.”
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⧖.* 𝚂𝙸𝙼𝙾𝙽 𝚆𝙷𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙻𝙴𝚁'𝚂 𝙽𝚄𝙼𝙱𝙴𝚁 𝙾𝙽𝙴 𝙵𝙰𝙽.
Though he'd never like to admit it given how let down he was by the last man he in any way valued or admired, Arthur is a massive fan of Simon Whistler, an English media personality and content creator working within the realms of the mysterious, historical, geographical, and biographical.
A relative genius who's always looking to know more, as well as dabble in the occasional conspiracy, Arthur watches every single episode of every show Whistler has created, and rarely misses a new release. Again, he wouldn't admit it, but if you're visiting the Fleck house there's a high chance that one of Whistler's shows is on the television. He's white noise. They re-watch old content. It's a comfort, and Arthur loves learning, and so loves each show. Nix knows this. Nix knows this very well.
Due to her own experience in content creation on platforms like YouTube, she's also well aware as to how hard it is to continuously make a living doing just that. She donates. She donates generously. It's all off her own back and Arthur doesn't even know she does it. He's also unaware of the DMs and emails and 'fanmail' Nix has sent Whistler through the last few years and will likely continue to. She often details just how much her husband loves the content, how important it is to him, and focuses on how it is absolutely paramount that the content doesn't stop or slow. They're mutuals on Insta, and if a video release is late, the poor guy soon knows all about it. She also pays his numerous writers across his shows, as well, so, it's not a bad threat to have.
It might seem strange to some, but ultimately Nix is big on the whole 'pay your content creators' philosophy. Obviously being one of said creators herself has brought her to those ideals. However, her husband's love that he pretends her doesn't have for this one particular creator does rather hone her focus to one specific direction more. She's fine with that because she loves seeing her man happy and his brain expand… so that ultimately he can relay all his knowledge to her, usually naked in bed. Everybody wins.
#☠ abt. ⋙ 𝙭𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙚 𝙠𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠.#filed under arthur#who is loved very much and anything that makes him even remotely content Will be afforded the utmost priority#she'll eat people don't think she won't#or you know#send some fanmail and cash
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━ :･ﾟ⧖.* 𝘔𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘏𝘢𝘶𝘯𝘵 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘋𝘢𝘺𝘴, 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘠𝘦𝘵 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘌𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘺.
#☠ nix. ⋙ 𝙞 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙞 𝙙𝙤 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪; 𝙞𝙩'𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙩.#mine*#clown camera#something is coming she is Working and she will rep her red clown man as it happens
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Eyes on a swivel, they land on the socks. They hang from his fingertips like Spanish moss, and even sway a moment as if tempted by a breeze. No such luck, though it would ease her. Inside the Iceberg Lounge the atmosphere is eerily still, as though the perpetual tide of writhing bodies is all the air needs to circulate. Lungs to lungs. She gleans her air from Arthur, tinged with the faint remnants of his last cigarette, and whatever scant sips he'd taken of the mocktail she'd ordered for him at the start of the night. She swallows his exhales, pure muscle memory, and tries to ease the strain of her spine against the cold stone pillar.
He's trying to help her. Her tireless searching for his father's wandering body has exhausted the muscles in her legs, so stubbornly they've tensed. The realisation that he'd actually thought to bring her socks from home strikes her in the chest with all the force of a mallet reeled far back for the swing. Her lips part for a soundless cognizance that softens her features. Only the whet tips of her canines snare the next wave of purple light which sweeps across them both over Arthur's shoulder, though her lips peel back for a smile once their eyes lock again.
She's tempted, and the subtle bobbing of her chin tells her as much. Nix mimics him, though for a different cause, and rolls her shoulders back against her plinth. His jacket's lining is soft against naked skin, and already her garb feels as though it's more freeing. It took him mere seconds to mitigate her biting nerves, and he's only trying to do more of the same.
Her tongue parts her lips, effectively blunting the itch of dry skin as she lays her arms across her husband's shoulders. " I shouldn't. " She says, affirming her hold and speaking against his mouth. Her eyes hang open in spite of the proximity, netting their lashes so close that they may never untangle at all. She wouldn't mind, and neither would he. They would gladly cold weld here in a corridor of coloured glass and gelid stone. Perhaps Oswald could decorate them to match their eternal boreal environs.
" Wouldn't be very Mrs. Wayne of me. " She teases, lifting her brows and allowing her cheeks to swell for the kittenish grin he'll feel stretch across her lips. His next kiss lands on her two front teeth, prompting a giggle from her which climbs to a snort she doesn't shy away from. Nix doesn't carry shame the same way as those around them. She doesn't care that her outburst turns heads — they only swing away upon realising who's caught their eye anyway. An amalgamation of fear steeped in queer respect keeps the faceless masses from lingering around them.
She untwines her arms purely to cup his face in her good hand. She splays her fingers so that two cool pads press beneath his eye in some attempt to soothe the sleeplessness hanging there. Sclera tinged reddish draw the attention. His second face masks much, including the warmth of his olive skin, but she's mastered the art of seeing both vizard and his naked features at once. The latter is bitten by a discomfort she deigns to distract from.
" And, um, " Her lips purse, ere she cheekily says, " I don't want dad's foot up your ass. " Her other arm now drops from the shelf of his shoulder. Nix is forever careful to avoid the knoll visible through his shirt, though he'll lie and tell her it causes no discomfort. When next her feels her, it is with a swift tap to his backside. Impish, she wrinkles her nose and flashes all her teeth. " It's delicate. " Again, that prize claw applies just enough pressure to nudge him half a step forward, as if they could be closer. Her breasts do their utmost to flatten against his chest. His murmuring heart lures her own closer still.
A pause stills Nix's lungs. From her slight vantage against the pillar, and the stilettos on her feet, she has to decline her chin to rake her teeth against Arthur's bottom lip. He eases the angle by steering his face toward her, their eyes still locked and pressed close. His wife releases him with a subtle pop, never minding the now ludicrous show they perform for any wandering eyes in the Lounge's wing. A benign peck softens any graze upon his tender skin.
Knowingly, she continues, " He's in a good mood, too. Chill, you know? " The pout she presses to his mouth swells some for a flared sense of dramatics. She still has his glute pinched in her hand. " I don't wanna be the reason he's not. I'm on thin ice. "
Live! with Murray Franklin’s iconic rainbow curtain must riffle for Nix, too. They haven’t yet been given a cue from the stagehands. Deep blue ensconces them.
Nix’s features suit any illume. While doing her makeup for the occasion, Joker opted for a dewy base and dramatic tight-line so she could look 'haute' as requested. Black shadow wings down at her inner corners and lifts her hooded eyes from their slightly downturned outer corners. Journalists will compare tonight’s look to Brigitte Bardot instead of acknowledging that Nix is uniquely and wholly herself. Joker isn’t certain if she recognizes that either.
The pad of his thumb grazes her pout and draws a fine line from its low outer corner to her cheekbone’s peak. Nix’s lips part as if they’ve never been kissed, let alone by him. The lash glue remains imperceptible, especially while swamped in theatrical kohl.
One blinding shaft of light slips from the curtain’s narrow gap. Should they abandon their column and creep close enough to that billowing wall, they’d find NCB Studios’ auditorium: mired in thick black cables and a set that belongs in the late seventies. The studio audience has long been summoned to their seats. They’ve already applauded the favorite late prime time host and provide cheers and jeers when instructed.
Husband and wife’s borderline lewd scene at the bar is up for scrutiny on the monitor. Two stagehands observe the same couple waiting to be called onstage with the same indifference they had while watching Joker’s failed standup at Pogo’s nearly five years ago.
Could it be stage fright that’s gripped his wife’s eyes? Wheezing from Penny won’t allow him to think beyond it. His mother's flaky mouth huffs, dry-heaves, and sinks her yellowed claws deeper into his chest. Joker can’t shrug her off without dislodging Nix or causing her to crack her skull against the pillar. Instead he presses foreheads with Nix, bats his eyes until their lashes tangle, then scrunches his nose and spares her a crooked smile. If not for the makeup he’d likely frighten children. Soft green ringlets flow over his shoulders and half-veil his face from Murray’s stage crew.
Gene Ufland is likely losing his mind from the director’s chair. He times this show to the second for advertisers’ sake.
The aperture remains so slim Joker can’t even fit the width of his eye through that crack were curiosity to get the better of him. Nix places her spiky acrylic nails on either side of her husband’s mouth and kisses where his lower lip is thickest. Werewolf hooks an arm tight around her waist and, careful not to tear the loaned gown she’s so sewn into that her breasts form ridges hard enough to bounce a coin off of, reels Nix off the column until their lips cross.
She hums into the warmth, unaware of the goosebumps that coat her flesh from the studio’s aggressive air conditioning. Werewolf shrugs his blazer off both shoulders at once. He only releases Nix’s face to slip one arm from the garment, then the next before draping it across her shoulders. One arm at a time he helps her put it on. It isn’t nearly warm enough, but she revels in it anyway. Her hair forms a blonde pouf that he isn’t too keen to free from below his collar.
Joker pushes her torso so close to his that she giggles and places a hand on his chest, cheeks pinched pink and her tongue poking between her teeth. He kisses that slim tip, flicks it with his own, then sweeps a hand through her layered hair and extensions to tuck a lock behind her ear. Most of it falls loose again.
Nix can’t incline her chin too high or he won’t be able to reach her mouth with his own. He’d hold her stilettos if she asked him to. The way she wobbles on them sends that message.
Joker dips the hand that cradled Nix’s face into his pant pocket and produces a pair of black ankle socks. The Council would faint — Constance in particular.
Now Murray’s stagehands turn their heads and sneer like he’d tugged one of his wife’s breasts from behind its beaded veil. Thalia’s half of his face softens. He’s thinking about it.
Nix drapes an arm across the backs of her husband’s shoulders and spools her fingers around his green locks at the scalp. Her hand then becomes a prize claw and clutches what she can. Nix then squares her shoulders to broaden her chest. She's thinking the same.
Don Ellis and his Orchestra prepares to welcome Murray’s special guests back for an encore. Nix, for the first time. The moral masses would never want her to darken that stage if not for ridicule. Perhaps that’s what tonight’s episode is about. The weight on Joker’s shoulders remains even as he rolls them in alternating strokes to try and loosen up. He offers Nix the ankle socks by dangling them not far from her eyes.
“If my old man really is here…” his voice hardly lifts above a purr, “A stunt like this should send his foot up my ass like white on rice.”
Laughter from the studio audience couldn’t possibly be at that joke, though Werewolf quirks a brow and holds Nix close by the waist. He touches his chin to his shoulder and waits for their cue. Penny’s sunken skull pressures his as he does so from the temple. Her breath reminds Joker of stale flowers left out for months in a dirty vase. His eyes blow red to hold back from gagging.
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Rebecca Ross, Divine Rivals
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He'll feel how her features fold in on one another. Nix's downturned pout burgeons to such a steep bridge that he almost kisses her chin next. A pathetic mewl she'd want to combust over were she a fly on the wall fills the proscenium of Arthur's mouth when she cants her head to deepen the kiss. The tell-tale tang of her own distress paints them both now, though he never seems to mind. She, momentarily distracted by girlish embarrassment appears to wince at the notion, and they part with a subtle pop.
Without increasing the modicum space between them, she sniffs, and does her best to fill her lungs. The air in here is sweeter than she'd first assumed it would be. Instead of aged musk emanating from antique furniture and the historic wallpaper, she smells something warm, like incense amalgamated with the fresh, outside air. Cut grass and something akin to cinnamon. For a moment she hangs in that aura as if she doesn't feel herself about to shatter right in front of him. It slows her pulse and turns her heady.
A sigh drops her shoulders, and her attention to their interlocked hands. Nix flexes her working fingers about his own like she's testing he's really there with her, and not some foggy creation of her mind's eye. When he squeezes in turn, she's at least partially satisfied. Still each breath comes as a tenuous shudder, snatched still in her chest.
Pursing her lips, she now watches as the light adores her husband's face. Those long angles and steep slopes drive her to dream and for once he suits their environs. He'd never think so. He'd much rather be sat on their bed at home, the children just down the hall and the monitor on the bedside table so that he can hear them breathe. The vast sky outside and these gilded, yet ultimately barren halls bring him nothing of the comfort at home. They're here for her. He's done this for her. As he does everything.
Uncharacteristically lithe fingers frame his cheek, the pad of her thumb drawing a gentle arc from the corner of his mouth to the apple of his cheek. " I don't wanna be a leach. " She admits, and it's so thick and viscous in her throat that she could spit it. So as to avoid how ostensibly ghastly she's become, Nix pins her chin to her chest, and attempts to pad clean what she can of her face with her shoulder. It ultimately fails.
" But I think I just… fucking am. Naturally. " How she whispers deepens the bend of his brow. Every word must feel like a spike right through his face. Her hold on him affirms at the thought. The cold perpetually hugging her fingers begins to seep beneath his skin. Arthur's never winced, though she worries. " That's not how it's supposed to be. I love you. " A hollow laugh momentarily broadens the pencil-thin channel her throat's become. " I'm meant to... actually do things, out of my way, like you do. But it never lands the same. " A bird sings its song above the nearest window. The sweet treble haunts the air and it feels like mocking as she leans in to rest her brow against his. " I want it to. "
The tides within his eyes swash low, pooling around the hand that clutches ‘their’ skulls. Those conjoined charms are engraved with the couple's initials and wedding anniversary. He’d re-proposed to her with them two years ago.
The pressure’s drained her knuckles white. Salt clings to her waterline and nets between her eyelashes. Should he break that web, it’ll paint black slashes across her angelic face. They’re about as close to heaven as he can get her: the foothills of the Italian Alps. Green mountains ensconce them beyond the French-handled brass doors that will lead them out onto a private terrace.
She doesn’t notice how sunlight adores her, how the panes create a soft filter that halos her. In spite of her tears, Nix glows from within…but she’ll break skin if he doesn’t act.
Werewolf rocks onto his paw to set her St. Germain-crafted elderflower cocktail on the baroque gold night table below a mirror framed by matching majesty. They didn’t bring enough to physically fill this space. The villa's staff was visibly surprised to see how light the new generation of Mr. and Mrs. Wayne travel. Thomas and Martha had vacationed here. In this room. No one’s yet to raise that to his prodigal son. The apple truly didn’t fall far, though Thomas’ eldest is far more pleasant and easier to accommodate.
As he places her cocktail within reach, he swings back over and argues, “But you do,” without raising his voice or lacing it with venom.
If he doesn’t find a tissue soon, she’s going to keep using that cocktail napkin and then her wrist. Nix’s naturally downturned pout trembles when she sniffles again, wet with tears she’s humiliated to shed and a dejection he still can’t comprehend.
“Hey!” now that he’s regained balance, Joker cradles her cheek and strokes backward from her nose. “Phoenix…”
When he opens his eyes as wide as he can get them, they’re flooded by natural light. She almost coughs from crying as he works on freeing the necklace from her clutch.
“Bunnicula…Bones…” she needs something to burrow her fingers into so Joker allows her to entrench her spiky nails in his hand and tucks that knot against his heart so she’ll feel the murmur batter the back of her hand, “You do. You always have. Just…” he shrugs, but uses the dead man’s crooked smile as a balm, “You know…in different ways. Just because…” his eyes don’t track from hers even though his breathing’s fractured, “You can’t quantify them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I feel them. Every time I look at you,” his turn to kiss her knuckles and hold, “And it makes me happy to make you happy. Sometimes…” he deigns to ‘cringe’ for theatrical effect, “The math really is that easy, Merlin.”
Pushing their latticed hands back against his chest, Joker tilts his head and thieves another kiss. A briny film from tears blended with watery nasal discharge coats her lips.
Joker ignores the tang to nudge her nose with his own and kiss her again, “I love you,” is muffled given that they haven’t broken the lock, “Always.”
#jokethur#now we know she's actually having the time of her life#and that's why she's so upset#yes#it makes sense and isn't weird#tell her it makes sense dear god
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