Chapter Twenty: Most Valuable Card

Strawberry: Disappointment of the day: My Dark Knight DVD now skips because I play it too much. FML.

It was the third day he had neglected his makeup. Given, not all consecutively, but either way, it made Fana feel accomplished, and he could tell by the way she had an air of vanity as she walked to meet him by the ice rink. His head swung on his shoulders, as if ashamed. Perhaps he was. He was still not sure what it all meant. He knew for certain that Miss Fana Williams was going to lose the game. Maybe, he thought to himself, this is a…a bad game. At this, he gave a chuckle, because even if it were a bad game, that would only make it all the more entertaining, wouldn't it?He was thinking of his identity far more than he ever would've imagined himself to. Even when he had kept his identity—which must have been two decades ago, when he was only six—he had never thought of it as much as he did at that moment. He thought of his age, his happiness, his material things, his physical fitness, his name…how he thought of his name.

He knew what he wanted to say to her as she approached airily. Her steps were the steps that a woman would take if she were walking on clouds. But still, even as she floated, he was going to ask, even if she was whisked away with the wind when obliged.

"If…if I took you outside…" he started quietly. He stared at his feet determinedly, clicking his heels together. He smiled at the sound they made like knives being clinked together. "Would you…run away, per chance-suh?" he finished at last, twisting his mind to try to make himself feel bigger than he was acting. She looked utterly taken aback. "Would you leave me…hah, all by my lonesome, doll?" His face fell somewhat stern, trying to hold himself back. Fana's eyes were glistening prettily; he thought with a twinge of guilt that they must have been golden in the moonlight.

She took a step towards him. Cautiously, he tried to be discreet as he adjusted his position to be sure that he was blocking the door. "No." Her voice trickled to his ears like a leaky faucet. "I don't want to leave. Not yet." Her heart was beating strangely. It was not in sync and skipped beats, then sped up and missed more. He seemed to have noticed, perhaps by some look she wore on her face, but he did not address it. Instead, he reached for her and propped the door slowly open behind him. Fana stayed where she was a moment longer to assure him that she was not ready to go anywhere. He nodded, understanding; smiling against his scars as if only to remind her that they existed.

The moment she had reached him, he turned to exit the room but she stopped him with a gentle jerk at one of his belt loops where she had wrapped her index finger. He looked back, not expectantly, but curiously. He let out something between a grunt and a sigh, shaking his head jerkily as if a fly had been buzzing around his face. "What…can I do for you?" he asked with an air of impatience.

The three topmost buttons of his oxford shirt were undone, for whatever reason. His prominent collarbone was peeking out of his shirt fabric, the skin stretched across it necessarily even. Serenely pulling at one side of the shirt, she kissed him just below the collarbone. He could almost feel himself being dowsed in steaming water, and he had to suppress the laughter it instilled within him. If he had laughed, she would've stopped. "Do you think I want to leave?" she asked him, pressing her lips to his Adam's apple. She felt him swallow. The nape of his neck, his jaw line, his earlobe…warmth.

"No," he answered, narrowing his eyes at the wall behind her.

"I don't," she repeated.

"Mmm…hm."

Her hands found his abdomen. Her fingers were dancing, crawling, itching to move… He grinned at the sight of her determination to what, seduce him? Or was it for her own pleasure? "Well," he said aloud, and perhaps Fana had gotten used to him enough to expect his thoughts to trail directly into words with no transition. "Makes…ohah…no difference to me…" he hissed into her hair. She looked up then curiously, and he made to kiss her but stopped himself to say, "Hm…huh. Wait just…a little—second." Before she moved, he had opened the door and led her outside, the sight of even the lunar lighting startling her now fluorescent-trained eyes. His fingers were entwined in hers, squeezing lightly in transgression. She tugged back, gazing at the night sky. She had been inside the icehouse for days; it must have been six, or even a full week by that point. The summer breeze and nighttime coolness mesmerized her enough that her eyes closed, smelling the crisp, freshness of the air.

"Beautiful…" she said under her breath. The word seemed to float away on the clearness of the night.

"Oh, Fana banana, you've got to stop being so…self-absorbed," he taunted. "Now listen, angel cakes, that whole conceit thing…" He shook his head. "…Even if…you know, what you say is true, it's just not…a sexy quality."

Fana was almost astonished. She raised her eyebrows and leaned back to stare at him. "Excuse me?" she said.

"You know. It doesn't make me wanna…just…climb on top-puh and do you—"

"You're sick."

"Hey, now." He started to walk around, letting his hand slide from hers as he went. "We already know that…" he whispered as he came around to her. "We, uh…aha, hey, look, kiddo, I called you beau-ti-ful. Leave me with, uh…a little dignity. Hah!" He pressed himself against her back, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her shoulder. He breathed deeply, feeling unfamiliar feelings that he found himself unable to name or even describe. His mouth was trailing lightly along her shoulder, up her neck, across her jaw, behind the curtain of waving hair stretching down her back. Fana let her head fall back, allowing him more territory and soaking in his closeness along with the moon's glow. It was as though they had not been talking at all. She felt his mouth open wider, his teeth grazing her skin.

"How long do I have…until you run?" he asked her breathily. She gasped slightly and jerked her head forward when his teeth started to sink increasingly deeper into her neck. The motion did not have any apparent affect upon his own actions. His tongue was running dangerously around with free reign, teasing her mind and stomach into a potion-like combination of discomfort and pleasure. He chose the place that tasted most like the sweetest candy and sucked at it, absorbing the flavor on his taste buds welcomingly. She could feel her blood rising to the surface of her skin.

"However long it takes to make you want to run with me," came her answer.

He let go of her skin, his heart racing for whatever reason. He had the feeling of having just run a marathon, unable to catch his breath. His brain felt empty and full at the same time, and he could not collect his thoughts or even push them away for the time being. He did know for certain one thing: every single thought that preoccupied his mind revolved entirely around Fana. It was funny, if only because he could almost taste her reaction before he said it. "Lemme let you in on…a secret…of mine," he said to her.

Fana had to bite her tongue when she felt the urge to say, "Another one?" When she had swallowed the words and had overcome the feeling of his hot breath on her skin mixed with the cool air of the moonlit night, she said instead, "What's it about?" As though she had said something shockingly more offensive, he scoffed and swung her side to side somewhat more violently than she would have preferred.

"Now is that so important?" he asked her earnestly.

"I…think so, probably," she answered. "I mean, in the past few days you've told me a good amount of 'secrets' and I think that it's better to have at least an idea of what's coming. Honestly, I would just rather—"

"Shh, shh, shh. I love you."

She suddenly determined that all the oxygen around her had been depleted and replaced with carbon dioxide. Her throat called for a breath, one little inhale of air, but she could not seem to work her mouth into it. Her stomach twisted around itself—that, or one of her lungs had fallen on top of it and was determinedly squashing it. Her heart must have still been in its place, for it was bounding against the inside of her body jerkily. She worked her brain to repeat his words though she knew exactly what he had said. "You…no, you don't," was all she could say in reply.

He did not stop his actions; did not stop kissing her neck, burying his face in her hair. He did not freeze, startled or embarrassed. He did not let go of her, hurt or angered. He simply went on as if she had not even spoken. "Don't I?" he said simply, pressing himself more resolutely against her. She couldn't answer for what could have been minutes, and during that time there was absolute silence. When any noise was made, it was not done by her. She nearly jumped out of her skin at the suddenness of his loud, hollow laughter raging in her ear. On no other occasion had she noticed how fully his succumbing laughter had overtaken him; with it came the shaking of his entire body, something so powerful that all his bones and organs might have been in motion as well.

It was plain, blissful hilarity to see how Fana reacted, to see the very power of his words when they were simply words as he thought he'd taught her. Four was just a pronunciation of a value…in every other language, the word was different, and in the end it meant the same thing. The word love meant nothing, because all it did was express something that couldn't be made sense of. It was just a feeling, and those weren't what mattered. All that needed to be done was teaching those who didn't understand, and being remembered. Love had nothing to do with it.

"How many women have you said that to?" Fana was just as surprised as he was to hear the words coming out of her mouth. As if she had lost control of herself, she felt compelled to turn and face him. His embrace unlocked and he dropped his arms slowly to his sides, squinting at her but hardly caring at the same time. He was smirking as if he had said he loathed her rather than what he had really said. He looked barely phased, barely uncomfortable, barely in love.

"Including…ah, you?" he suggested, raising his eyebrows and cocking his head to the side expectantly. Fana shook her head. "Then…" He counted several fingers lengthily, finally curling his hand into an "O" shape. "Zero." Fana put her hands on her hips, and as though Christmas had come early, his eyes followed the action closer than she had thought possible.

"You were married," she reminded him scathingly.

"Aha, I was!" he said. "I was, I was, I was…" He took a miniscule step forward: the biggest step he could have taken without walking straight into her. Fana did not avert her sharp gaze from his face, though she was tempted when she began to wonder if they were standing on a hill. He had never looked so particularly towering on any other occasion. He looked down in a looming sort of fashion, the angle making his eyes look more foreboding than they had done without the makeup. "But you asked…if I meant it."

"You…told me that you missed her, though," Fana protested.

"Missed, doll face…" he hummed darkly. "Not loved. And…you know something? The thing about little things like…love…is that…hah, it's never qu-wite as vitallll as you think it is." He watched Fana's yellowy eyes take on seventy different emotions all in quick succession. What mattered most to him was that she was thinking about what he'd said and even if she decided not to agree in the end, he had made the point, and she had only proven it further. But even as he marveled at the recovery he had made as opposed to his reaction to her snooping in his room, he could not help but feel softened by those same eyes, whatever they were saying. They made him curiously drawn in, as if they could speak on their own. He tilted his head somewhat to the right, then the left and back again, checking to see if there was some sort of force field sucking up the air between them.

"…Was that the secret?" Her voice surprised him, as the silence had been so absolute that the change was made only drastically.

"Mmm…yes," he answered, his voice pouring from his mouth like a gas. He didn't love her, and he knew that as well as anyone else. But he liked her. He liked her mouth touching him, her hands, her hair, her neck…and God only knew she was the only one whom he liked anything about. That must have counted for something, because it meant that he hadn't lost himself in any way. She was fun, and there was no blaming a person for enjoying fun. He wasn't having to compromise emotions as he had worried, and he discovered that even if he did love her, it was because they were the same, and he knew she had the potential to be nearly as intelligent as he was. She could understand laughing, fun, killing… He had the faith that he could mold her just the way he wanted until she was his spitting image but with red hair. He did not want her to choose scars or anything of the sort, simply because of his own physical preferences. But if she could be changed into what he wanted her to be—and he knew that she could be—was there any harm in falling in love with her then? Was it still a sign of weakness, or could he be allowed the feeling just because he loved her faults and evils over her good traits?

Monsters were allowed to love monsters.

Fana said something that he did not catch. It did not much matter to him because he was taking the time to analyze, and he had already known so much that it was only fitting that he discovered more.

His eyes were understanding. He still did not look human; he did not seem able to curve his mouth downward, even enough to stop smiling for a millisecond. He was not offended, she noted, that she had made no other response. It's not like he's a regular man, she reminded herself. He did not need to hear it back because he did not care about anything. Maybe he was simply lying. She considered it as she waded in his dark eyes.

She didn't love him. But she liked him. That was what frightened her. Maybe she was losing.

His eyes dipped to her mouth when she took up chewing on her already chapped lips. She licked them, hearing that disgusting sound of her own saliva swishing in her mouth as she did it. "Ah," he whispered. "Nervous?" He pecked her lips only twice, enough to awaken her desire. "For wh-at? Is it be-cause…you know…what you are?" Regardless of his attempts, Fana put her hands on his neck and guided him to her again. He did not protest but to smile against her lips and resisting slightly if only to tease through her closed eyes she could see the moonlight pouring over them. She relaxed into him, somewhat surprised to find his tongue running against her lips gently until she accepted him, darting her own into his mouth, eager mostly for the scars. She hated herself for it as she ran her tongue along the inside of his cheeks, bumpy and jagged. At one point he jumped, as if in pain, but she could not retract. She pressed forward, her hands reaching for his so that he could restrain her if she could not do it on her own.

"The scars," he whispered into her mouth. Again she could feel him grinning. He flicked the tip of his tongue against hers and stood suddenly as still as stone. "Do that again…" She obliged helplessly, feeling around his mouth, observing the pain they must have caused. When she stopped, he continued to speak into her throat. "I like that…" he said, his fingernails digging into her back. She hardly cared. "I like it, I like it. You…feel like ice."

She pulled away momentarily, not knowing where her current thoughts had come into play. "You…" She was not sure how to phrase her thoughts without it sounding like she was encouraging the past to resurface. "On the news…a while ago," she started edgily, "there was this story about a bank robbery." He made a low grumbling noise in the back of his throat. "You were a part of that, weren't you?"

He hummed distractingly. He spouted out a series of lyrics to a song she did not recognize. He was looking off now in a different direction, though his eyes looked unfocused. She ignored his noise and asked, "What did you do with the money?"

His eyes dimmed slightly and his forehead wrinkled in thought. He might have been offended, but Fana's suspicions dwindled when he finally answered. "Nothing. I did nothing…with the money."

"Did you take it just to say you had it?"

"No, hah…never just for that. I took it just in case."

"Well…" She ran the palms of her hands over his forearms. He did not seem moved. "What if…you used it to get surgery? The scars would be gone and—even if you say you don't believe in it—the past would stop haunting you. Wouldn't that make you feel better?" He shook his head immediately, not even considering her words. She had a lot to learn. However, he did appreciate the genuine intention with which she had asked the question. Still, he shook his head.

"I don't care about it," he told her, unsure within even himself if he were lying or not. "I'm not…a die-hard money-waster. I don't…I don't care about…money, and what it can do for me. It's paper, for God's sake. And paper being exchanged for…" He shrugged his shoulders as he considered the options. "…Having doctors ssssticking things in your face like…heeheh…like you're some kind of…balls-out victim. I, Fana ba-nana, have victims. And anyone who has them can't be one. I didn't do it for my darling wife, and I'm not doing it for me."

Fana was silent. Then, "You never told me that story." He knew just what he meant, with no clarification necessary. He looked at her briefly, then proceeded to lower himself messily onto the ground before her, his mind racing with thoughts of what to say or whether he ought to say anything at all, for that matter. Did anyone need to know? Of course they didn't, and Fana was no exception. And yet, he found himself speaking all the same, as if he couldn't control himself.

"I married her because…aha…she was a mess," he began. She sat along with him. "She was a danger to herself…and everyone she knew. She lived for the stakes, see…the excitement, the thrill of…'jus-t once more, it'll be okay'. And she, doll face, had that money problem: placing all that…im-por-tance on paper. Money-hungry—that's what she was. Sometimes…we were rich. Oh, but don't worry…we'd always be poor again. It was an addiction. One day…one of the days she had lost everything, she started racking up a debt. And luck…no longer wanted her around. Haha…for two weeks, debt swarmed on in until they finally came to colle-ct it. She couldn't pay so…" He whipped his hand through the air, imitating the slashing of a knife. "They carve her face. Over her eye so that she could barely open it, below her nose so that it hurt to inhale, across her mouth so that her own saliva tortured her. She didn't do anything anymore. She begged for surgery some nights—begged—until she just…broke down and lost it completely. You wanna know what she said?" He lay back on the ground, shivering once when Fana's hand journeyed down his chest to his stomach. She didn't answer. "She tells me…haha, she's got a gun to her head. And she tells me she's gonna kill herself." He sighed, remembering just as clearly as he had done a few nights ago when he had been lounging on his bed, letting his mind race freely to whatever subjects it chose to pursue. "Proves to you…that no one is immune from insanity." His voice trailed off. "I embraced that."

She sat on top of her legs, his head rested lazily in her lap. Her hands tangled in his hair, tugging lightly, making him close his eyes in peace. He could see how quickly his own chest rose and fell, knowing that he had never been so tired in his life. He didn't mind so much that Fana was wearing him thin down to the core. He chewed on the inside of his mouth, wincing every so often just as he imagined her to be doing as he tossed his saliva. "Tell me something," he said sleepily. She stroked his forehead with the backs of her fingers. His eyes dimmed against the snowy glow of the moonlight.

"What do you want to hear?" she asked in hushed tones.

"Anything you want to tell me." He looked up at her, rotating himself onto his stomach to look at her. "Tell me…mha, see if you know one of the few things I don't."

She smiled. "You tell me something first. I can't think of anything."

As if he had expected this answer, he propped himself up on his elbows and said, "Lay down with me." She obeyed. She admired the way he seemed to glow under the night sky, his face rested casually in his hand as he fiddled with the chain hung from his pocket. She was doing nothing but grinning at him, though his attention was determinedly elsewhere. "There are pretty things in the world, banana," he told her distantly. "There are Jolly Ranchers…and…and there's spinach. But it's all food, you see?" Daringly, he reached a hand up to his face and traced the scar on the left side with his finger. She watched, enthralled. He took advantage of that, feeding off of her emotions. "There's pretty people and ugly people…however you want to take that…but they're still peo-ple, hmm? See, the world is made up of—let's see—two things: the nice and the nasty. And doll face…no one's going to take out the nasty stuff for you…it'll all be left there, because if it wasn't, there'd be no point to people like me." She started to protest, but the minute her mouth had opened the slightest bit, he shot forward and distracted her with a kiss. He had been smiling moments before, but in an instant, it changed to an innocent expression of bewilderment. His eyes scanned her face as she lay on her back. For one hellacious moment, he recognized that she was the ultimate victim. He had gotten her to the point where her wild trust in him could have enabled him to do anything. His leg twitched, aware of the knife in his pocket. I could kill her… he thought darkly. I could kill her in an instant and it would be…perfect.

She flinched when he rolled over on top of her, and his mind had gone blank. Their stomachs were pressed pleasingly against each other's, and he leaned down to whisper in her ear, "I don't love you." She laughed. It made him smirk. "I wouldn't blame myself…if I did, though. In fact…I almost look forward to it." He pushed her hair away from her forehead somewhat roughly. She winced at that point, seeming to recognize her position of vulnerability. "And it'll be better than if anyone else bothered to love you…oh, and they won't…because…I have to be the best-tuh. Always the record-setter… The Joker's not in every card game, kiddo. But when he is…he's your most valuable card."

She felt safe and endangered at the same time pinned below him, his broad shoulders curled around her possessively. "Mine," he kept whispering. Sometimes he lifted her, her arms around his neck securely enough to stay with him with ease. "You belong to me…you're a toy. You don't have a say in the matter. Sorry…"

There wasn't any arguing. Fana Williams was hooked on a drug that she wondered if she would ever escape before it killed her. She was afraid then, not because of all the things he could have done to her, but because she couldn't bring herself to fear him. She knew she should have, and she knew beyond all else that the feeling of sunken organs within her had only to do with what she knew she should have felt: fear. Where was fear then, when she needed to break her addiction? She was injecting him into her veins with pleasure, even though she knew what it would do to her.

At some point in the evening, she managed a twinge of nervousness for her life.