#The strangest twist upon your lips|Joker and Beth

[brooklynislandgirl]

@nightmarefuele {{this delicious bite of petite four}}

A rush of pique comes skittering up her spine and makes her stiffen in place for a moment. Lifts her jaw, tilts her head, posing her like a mannequin full of imperious pride. It lasts all of fractions of a few seconds. There are a plethora of flaws she'd admit to, freely and without need for platitudes to soothe her, but the thing she'll not brook is a slight on her intelligence. She cannot convince him any more than she can turn the sun into a swan, no more fly without wings. She doesn't need to answer. The way her gaze pours over him says all she needs to. Particularly the moment where she lingers over the blade in hand. The pulse at her throat turns to drum beats in unceasing pace. Lips part to permit a deeper draw of air which feels caught in her lungs. Pupils dilate so that the darker streaks of amber in the spring green gets eaten away. None of these things change as she meets his own lightless depths save for maybe the flutter of butterfly wings in her belly. The effort to tear herself away uses curiosity as a pry bar but sags her shoulders. Each minced step toward him is picked with great care, placed delicately enough she could spring away like a doe caught in a hunter's cross. "…'m a painter, I draw. Photography is…an artificial eye. F' me anyway. Wha' did ya capture in film? A slivah of time? Some phantasm of beauty?" She passes behind him, close enough to catch a vagrant warmth despite his suit jacket. Sharp bites of chemistry that had never been her strong suite give way to the softer, lingering scent of hydrocarbon…gun-metal on her tongue. Reminds her of summer nights far away from Gotham where the skies were endless and the sea abounded at every turn. Her brother working on his car engine, then racing her on an empty Pali-Highway. Makes her want to rub into his creases and lines a fresh coating of Wilson Combat oil, royal purple to his liking, viscous but penetrating. Would he be a paradox under her skin? Poli'ahu dancing atop Haleakala? "Ja'like recompense den? Pound of flesh?" On his other side she flashes him a glance that is all lightning strike. There and gone with an after-image as unsettling as his deeper expressions. "Ya skippin' ovah da part dat you…intentionally come f' find me. Why? Wha' ya hope for? You gettin' it?" Just out of reach, she peers into the pan. Grows a little green at the gills over the unnatural smells. His more agreeable to her. Still, she catches that glimpse of mawkish apology. I'm not, she mouths back.

[brooklynislandgirl]

It's ink, she tells herself. There's too much tang, even drying out, to make it true. She should run. Hide. There's no use, every better angel she has in her is dancing in her gaze. Psychopath, they whisper. The same people who kill their world without a second thought, do unspeakable things in the name of greed and power and call it privilege. She's always been a sucker for a beautiful smile. "Shouldn't you be scare, den?"

@brooklynislandgirl —

— ❝❛Say there's lots-a fish in the sea, Beth-bee, but yer the only shark I see.❞