plotting to unnerve her

[self_composed]

Bella finds Milliways in the moon palace instead of one of her balconies.

"Huh," she says aloud.

Then, to Alice, Libby, Elena, and Mary, and Lazarus except he autoreplies with a busy message, [Hey folks, Moonstone Palace grew a bar that I don't remember putting in, come check it out.]

Comments

[self_composed]

"My current plans don't include it," Bella says. "You have... stronger opinions on this subject than I expect random businesspeople who golf to have. Military background?" she guesses. "Maybe?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"I'm... afraid of making our conversation uncomfortably personal again," says Roberta.

[self_composed]

"I will be really impressed with you if you do anything more discomfiting than what I'm using you to distract me from," Bella says.

[edgeofyourseat]

"My parents were shot in front of me by a mugger when I was eight," Roberta says flatly.

[self_composed]

"I'm sorry," says Bella. "That's awful."

[edgeofyourseat]

"So you can see why I'd be not so keen on killing people in general."

[self_composed]

"No," Bella says. "I mean, yes, that's a possible reaction to that experience, but it's not the only one. You could have turned into some pro-death-penalty tough-on-crime reactionary."

[edgeofyourseat]

Upstairs, Alice snuggles up and kisses the scar at the corner of the Joker's mouth.

"Where'd you get 'em?" he wonders.

[manofmyword]

"Lemme show you," he suggests, producing a knife from somewhere. It is a little bit amazing how good the Joker is at coming up with knives.

[self_composed]

Well. Even in the unlikely event Alice decides to keep creepy duplicate scars by suppressing his regen, his present when they get home will get rid of them, Bella has that on good authority.

[edgeofyourseat]

"The boyfriend again?" guesses Roberta.

Alice, meanwhile, is experiencing the sudden and obvious understanding that of course the Joker gave them to himself. He laughs.

[self_composed]

"Alice asked about the..." Bella traces the scar locations on her own cheeks. "The Joker has offered to show him. The scars won't keep even if Alice lets them form to begin with, but... yeah." Pause. "Alice, who I guess would probably know, thinks the Joker gave himself said scars."

[edgeofyourseat]

Roberta frowns, more interested than disturbed. Although she is definitely also disturbed.

[manofmyword]

The Joker slides the knife into Alice's mouth and rips it out again. It bleeds quite beautifully, and even more so when he does it again.

Time for a kiss?

[edgeofyourseat]

Hell yes.

He lets himself heal somewhere in the middle of it, because he likes the tension between his cheek trying to come back together and the Joker's tongue pushing on the edges. It doesn't even hurt that much, but it's hot in a way that plain old pain can't compete with.

[self_composed]

"He's letting himself heal," Bella reports. "So that's good. And of course they haven't gotten anywhere near the edges of his actual pain tolerance, which I don't think nonmagical humans can even approach without dying..."

[edgeofyourseat]

Roberta blinks.

"...Do I... want to know how you know that?"

[self_composed]

Bella smiles wanly. "I don't know, do you?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Just tell me: consenual experimentation, or some kind of horrible... magic... thing?"

[self_composed]

"Both," says Bella. "That's definitely a both."

[edgeofyourseat]

She raises her hands. "Okay, that's enough knowledge, thank you."

[manofmyword]

The Joker shifts his grip on the knife, rests the edge against Alice's throat.

"You're gonna do me a favour," he murmurs.

[edgeofyourseat]

...Well. Alice was not expecting that flashback.

It's not even exactly the right wording, and practically everything physical about the situation is wrong, but it still works just the way he's sure the Joker meant it to. All of a sudden he's seventeen again, in a dim New York alley, every detail of the scene crystalline in a way only eidetic memory can achieve.

[self_composed]

[Are you okay?] Bella asks him, sitting bolt upright. [You can leave. You can leave without notice at any moment.]

[edgeofyourseat]

She hits a busy message midsentence.

The busy message is [Fuck off!]