Tonight, You're Gonna Break Your One Rule

God, I'd missed him.

I was so glad as my back hits in the mattress and I reach up, pulling my clown, by his beautiful, dank hair, towards me, "C'mere."

Somehow we'd migrated from the floor of the other room into the bedroom. The Joker's jacket now lay discarded on the floor, along with my boots as I haphazardly pulled them off. I shift up the bed a little more and relish his lips as his body covers mine and I pull him closer, broken nails tearing at his shirt.

"Mister J," I tug his hair a little more, so hard I'm sure a few strands come loose, but he only moans into our ruby kiss and pushes himself onto me even more. I lift my legs and wrap them round his hips, pulling him even closer.

He gasps as I scatter butterfly kisses across his neck and around his ear, smelling whatever's on his hair, and that gorgeous aftershave again.

I'm sick of clothes, right now, and my hands, shaking with anticipation, starting fumbling with the buttons of that grass green waistcoat. I wanted skin, and my hands move to the side of his face as his start roaming up and down my skin, slowly pushing my shirt up my torso and away from needing flesh. His hands are ice against me, as I struggle with his buttons, feeling one of them pop from their stitching as I gasp and murmur in his ear.

"I want you," He grunts in reply and presses red up and down my neck, before reaching my ear. His tongue darts around the cartilage and a moan forces from my lips. He tugs my hair and pulls my face level to his. He stares me right in the eyes, and I feel his chest heaving against mine. I wanted him like I'd never wanted anything more in my life, but as I poured every millimetre of myself into those dark orbs I realised I could wait a lifetime for him if necessary.

"I need you," His tongue deftly licked his lips again, as he spoke, and I smile down at him for a second, my hair reddening our world even more, and I lean down to capture him in another kiss.

I push the now loose waistcoat from his shoulders and the heavy fabric hits the floor with a thud. I breathe for a second, looking up into his eyes, before shutting mine again and feeling for the buttons of his shirt. I tug at the top one and feel it loosen, and kiss the Joker back a little harder as my fingers dance around his clavicle, tracing the skin, before moving further down, to the next button. That falls open too, as the Joker's hands clutch my ribs tighter, moving upwards the bottom of my bra.

My hands fly to the next button, aching for his flesh on mine, and they tug at the fabric, but the button stays firmly shut.

I growl into our kiss, and softly bite the Joker's bottom lip to show my annoyance, before curling my fists round handfuls of his shirt and pulling, so hard the buttons pop off, one of them hitting me in the stomach, scattering around us as I throw his shirt to one side.

The Joker laughs, partly from the pain of my teeth in his lip, and partly because of my haste. His hands stroke up and down my spine, leaving icy trails from their weathered skin that make me arch against him.

"C'mon Jack, stop being a tease," I mumble into his lips, as my hands drag over his shoulders and to his chest, where they dig in a little. He chuckles, and pecks my now ruby lips, before shifting to one side and kissing his way down my neck.

He giggles in reply and his tongue lashes out against the angle between my neck and shoulder. I gasp into the hot air and draw my nails down his back, leaving beautiful, bright red welts in their wake. My skin is itching for cool air against it, and gets it's wish as white-tipped hands pull my shirt from me. I wasn't sure if it was button up or simply a pullover, and I didn’t care, my own hands, once clutched round my clown's torso, lift to help him. My shirt flutters, now lost and uncared for, to the plum carpet, where it stays, undisturbed.

I laugh, euphoria spilling from my lips as the Joker holds me tight, as if I was the most valuable thing in the world, the most precious. I smile too, when I hear the rough, yet somehow tinkling laughter of my clown, as he pulls me close, moulds his hands to my thighs and pulls me on top of him.

I lean down and connect our lips again, and I feel the strain of the Joker's neck as he stretches to reach our kiss. I could stay this way forever, I thought, captured between ruby red skin, just kissing and reaching, needing and feeling, until I felt a throb between my legs. I break our kiss, but barely hear the grunt of disapproval from ruby lips, the blood rushing through my system like a drag race through flesh and skin. I lean back, my hands tracing the shadow of muscle down a bare, heaving chest to the top of his plum trousers, where I carefully, unbutton and unzip them.

He laughs, pure ecstasy, pretty and red, spilling from his lips, "You really are perfect."

I stop, leaning back on my ankles, currently folded beneath me, and lick my lips, my mood flicking between lust-filled and playful, "Are you just saying that 'cause I'm taking your trousers off Mister J?"

He looks up, struggles up, quick as light, resting on his elbows. His left hand reaches for me first, a blind man trying to see. It tangles in my hair, soft and slow, before the right hand meets its partner, a thumb caressing my cheekbone. He pulls me down towards him, wordless and breathy, and my heart leaps into my chest.

I was only joking, Mister J, I was only joking, I felt like saying. I felt as if I'd committed the most heinous crime known to man, up until his weathered hands pulled me a centimetre away from him, our bodies still draped across each other like silk, and he spoke.

"Not a chance. I'm a man of my word Precious,"

I laugh, relived, as I lean down again. Ruby red washes my world, violent red, but our kisses were so sweet, so simple and pure in our dirty, criminal world. I vaguely realise his legs are bear, as he kicks off those purple trousers and they fall, lifeless to the foot of the bed. I was lost, lost in ruby, ivory and ebony, lost in his eyes and their never-ending secrets.

I murmur his name, real and unhidden, "Jack, God, Jack."

It wasn't the Joker I was kissing and holding, he was the violent, hysteric, madman, the agent of chaos. My Jack was tan skin and pale lips, white tipped hands and a loose tie.

He was ruby lips, soft against mine.

My jeans fall against their pair, empty and lifeless as I finally feel flesh against mine. My hands are frantic against his skin, as his act on instinct, beyond his control, dancing across my spine to the clasp of my bra, before flinging the material away from us. The elastic of his boxers seems to elude me, my euphoric, drug-like trance making my vision swim, before I capture the black material between broken nails and slide it down flesh. It slips from my fingers, no longer my concern.

White tipped fingers and broken nails scatter droplets of ice up and down the insides of my thighs, and I tug on that green hair and gasp as he laughs.

I finally felt complete, bodies entwined as we danced above the stars, laughed so the Gods could hear us, yelled and moaned so the sky itself shattered from the sounds, and shards of nighttime rained down on the world. I never wanted it to end, as the Joker lay above and beneath me, in and around me, my world.

Breath eventually regains it's importance, once my body is my own again, and I fall onto the mattress. I take a second, throat raw, before rolling onto my side and entwining my legs with the Joker's and a hand on his chest, a beat to the left of centre.

"Will you still be you tomorrow?" I murmur onto a sheen of sweat, and he presses a kiss to the top of my head.

"Of course."

I look up, a few breaths later, and find him not staring at me, like I'd wished, but instead staring past, through the walls to the pile of pictures in the corner of the other room. I wished the door would close, or the pictures would disappear. I look up a little further, and see salt water welling under those eyes, and sit up.

"Do you still think of her?" Somehow I just knew. He had that look on his face, the one he used to have before stepping into his mystery room full of memories. He turns his head away and his yellowing teeth sink into his bottom lip, the ruby I'd longed for seconds ago smeared across his chin.

I sit up, grab the faded purple shirt he'd given me so long ago and pulled it on, sending my hair into a frenzy of static as I spun between grief and anger.

"Do you think of her when you're with me?" I demanded, swinging one leg across and straddling him, hands on his shoulders.

He looks up at me then, before his hands fly to push me away. I'm caught by surprise and fall to the side. When I look up he's sat at the edge of the bed, pulling on his boxers.

"That's not fair. I'm human you know Precious," His voice is bitter, and I know, even from behind that his lips are twisting madly, his teeth chewing the ruby lipstick into blood red.

I gasp, wondering whether I was going to cry, as I crawl forward, "Let me see that human then, let me see you, Jack."

He turns to look at me, but for once my own ice eyes don’t fly to those dark orbs, and I stand, walking straight to the bathroom. I find a cloth, from I don’t know where, my heart and mind still in the bedroom, and wet it, cleaning off the stains on my own face, before turning back to the Joker.

I stand in front of him, simple, not touching nor looking, and carefully wipe off all the makeup. I see his tan face for the first time since so long ago, where I'd walked in on him by accident, and find a tear sliding down my face.

He looks so beautiful, sad and broken beneath that smile, and he doesn't meet my eyes, staring at the pale purple pattern of my borrowed shirt. I drop the cloth, not caring, and run my hands through his hair.

"You're beautiful..."

He looks up then, and his fire filled eyes are doused, his pale lips, still clinging with the remnants of water, are twisting into a thousand sneers, "Beautiful? I'm a monster."

If I could move I would've shaken my head, but instead my hands stay frozen in dank green and my eyes on dark, dark brown, "If you are then I am."

The Joker stands, on shaky, bare legs, and his hands tangle in my hair, a perfect, criminal mirror image. We stumble backwards into the wall and he holds me there, as I feel every muscle shaking.

"Monstrous together," His voice is shaky, his face is crumbling, falling beneath me as if my hands are holding him up, and I see Jack. He scares me.

I shake my head then, but never break our eye contact, pushes us back against the post at the end of the bed, "Not monsters, what is it you say? Just ahead of the curve," I elongate the last syllable, just like him, and his face seems to soften, my words seem to save him.

I go to move away, but his hands on each cheek keep me there, and I meet his eyes again as his grip gets stronger.

"I think of her when I'm with you."

I push him away then, an angry sigh spilling into the air. He follows me, quick footfalls on deep carpet, and pushes us both down on the bed, pinning me there.

"But only because-" I struggle, tears sliding down my cheeks, but he shushes me and carries on, "Because I can't stop comparing you to her. I can't stop thinking how amazing you are compared to her. All the shit I've put you through. I've cut you, scarred you, beat you, kicked you, abused and yelled, and you're still here!"

He tangles his hands in my hair and makes me look at him, though I was sure if I didn’t I would die that second.

"Y'know," He laughs a little, a cynical, self pitying laugh, "Harley, God, she used to, used to wince, if she saw me. You know, me." He tilts his head back, showing his scars, "I used to pretend I didn’t notice. But I did."

I lie, paralysed, strewn across plum sheets, staring at the ceiling. The Joker rolls off me and lies next to me, a millimetre away but not touching.

"She left, and my heart broke, into a million pieces like glass or diamond. I thought it would never mend, real hurt it was. Then you came, and I hated you so much my hurt stopped. You were a nuisance, a nothing, a simple annoyance in the wrong place at the wrong time."

I feel my blood boil, so close to the skin laid across mine minutes ago, but then he speaks softer, and slower, and although I cant hear it I know his heartbeat is slowly returning to normal.

"Then, I found myself in the throes of what I thought was pity, and then anger, and I cut you, scarred you and made you like me, wondered if you hated them, hated me. But you didn't, you carried on, you stayed, and then, God, that night. I was so confused but I don’t think I could've wanted anything more than I did you that night. And then my heart started beating again, and for you. I got scared. This wasn't meant to happen, I was meant to wait for Harley to come back to me, but she didn't, and you were here, and this buzz in the pit of my stomach suddenly had a name."

His voice echoed like a trance, like a simple recitation, but I knew he spoke from that fist-sized muscle buried between bone and blood.

"Say it," I whisper, wondering whether my voice, so weak and straw-like, would reach the air.

"Love." He turns to me, I feel the mattress move, and I turn too, relishing in his eyes again, "What's your real name, it can't be Pixie."

Regardless of whether I wanted him to know – I did anyway – the words fell from my mouth, "Cally. Cally Rose Evans."

He smiles, and licks his lips, "Love. I love you Cally Rose Evans."

I sigh, in relief, in joy, in finally hearing those words, "You won't believe how long I've waited for you to say that."

The Joker reaches down and slips his fingers between mine, holding my hand tightly, "You wont believe how long I've waited for you to save me."