Evelyn seems to object, wrapping her arms around Nix’s throat and attempting to latch her ankles at her mother’s waist. For one so small, her grip is stubborn, and she’s clonked her head against Nix’s with enough force to briefly distract her. Now that her father’s retreated back to the sink, with Lilac tucked against his chest, Nix side-steps the rug again and makes her way around the island. Silently, she obeys, though Evelyn’s wide eyes appear to indicate that she’s not exactly happy to be tucked back in bed. In a few minutes she is, however, and the chaos doesn’t seem to reach beyond the threshold of the bedroom door. Fairy lights illuminate the stars Nix had once painted across the ceiling, and the nightlight projects the cosmos across the walls in a delicate purple haze. Gavin’s quick to silently leap behind Evelyn’s legs, resting his chin on her knee and eyeing the door as if he were a guard dog.
“ It’s fine, ” She says, wrinkling her nose for a fleeting smile while she stands. Evelyn’s tiny hand’s already pawing at the cat’s tail. He’s patient enough to allow it. “ Dad just worries. ”
Back in the living space, the air’s just as heavy and filled with static as she left it. Lilac’s enormous eyes are downcast; she watches her father’s fingers, and doesn’t seem able to let the idea of chewing on the Neosporin go. “ You know, ” She says, leaning forward to relieve Arthur of the baby’s weight. Lilac’s attention doesn’t shift, her stare’s unblinking still, fascinated by movement alone. “ At some point they’re both gonna realise this place is batshit. ” Timbre’s reticent, not meant to jab at an open wound, literally or figuratively. The baby’s pressed to her chest, though Nix has turned to one side so she won’t be craning her neck to stare. The fingers that don’t bend lay flat against the crown of her head. Attention fleetingly downcast while she affirms her hold beneath Lilac’s backside, she adds. “ Or we are. ”
Not that the baby appears to mind; she’s folded her fist and tried to shove it past her gums again. It makes Nix smile, though it’s stiff upon her face. “ Good luck with that one, Bug, you got the perfect mix. ” It doesn’t nothing to settle the anxiety. “ Or maybe that’s just me. ” Arthur’s all but flayed his face in an attempt to rid himself of the paint. Still the remnants of glass shards glitter in the sink, and despite the clotting, his knuckles might begin to bruise.
Lilac’s Sienna Orange Baby Bouncer sits beneath the terrarium so she can gaze up at the frogs instead of honing in on her father’s ripped skin. Before she can grizzle at the lack of warmth, Nix bumps it with her shin so the rocking might lull her some. “ Come here, ” Stood alongside him again, she steals Arthur’s hand the the tube. Dabbing against his knuckles, she snares him with the same eyes the baby had. Her margins are soft - the antithesis of his frantic visage - and somehow she wonders if her hands are colder than his. “ This chick walk away okay? ” That question hands in the silence. Only the occasional drip of the tap alerts her beyond their entwined hands to the rest of the room. Shadow makes an attempt to engulf them, though somehow Arthur repels shade, just as he always does. Her breathing is steadier than his, without the rattling of panic or stress in her lungs. A bleached brow peaks, and she knocks her chin to minimise the space between them. One hand’s swept the mussed green curls from his brow. “ What about the fucker who’d got her? ”
Muscle memory shoots his fist through the tempered glass once again. He clenches, stiff in spite of the impact that sent thousands of bitty shards sailing both into the face of his prey and his own arm. Crimson stains his soda cap patterned shirt, too. Under cover of night, his own blood almost appears black. Lilac’s chubby hand waving over her head catches his eye. He spares their infant a soft look that she responds to by babbling.
Blind to how the walls shift, his hand trembles, and the beat of his heart implodes on itself, Joker forces a bark-laugh to puncture the silence he’d inadvertently calved out between Nix and himself. Eyes only rivaled by their daughter’s watch him closely. Joker almost grazes her lashes with his cheek so he can shelve their faces alongside the other and remember to breathe.
The antibiotic ointment splattered across his hand catches a trick of light when he turns it. Joker ignores the sticky shine that’ll paint Nix’s skin, hair, and clothing if he isn’t careful…so his good hand moulds around her jaw, cradling her. Three fingers spider crawl behind her ear to burrow in her scalp. She’s gelid to the touch. Joker draws her closer by the back of her near till her chest pushes flush to his and the marginally steadier metronome within it coaxes his heart to relax some. His neck and chest have yet to still. Joker carves a smile onto his face anyhow, brushing her supple cheek with his thumb and wondering if a speck of glitter from that day’s makeup will wander onto his skin. Shadows bury the living area deeper behind him. Lilac remains blissfully unaware of the silhouettes taking shape. Tears seep from his eyes when Joker squeezes them shut, then rests his chin on Nix’s shoulder.
“I don’t know,” answers both of her questions. Joker lets that marinate for a moment, brow creased and smeared lips pulled into a frown. White and red dregs cling to his face. Joker has a care not to soak his sleeve, instead opting to shrug the jacket off. It’s tossed onto a chair by a shaking hand so it lands lopsided. He ignores it to suppress a shiver, then bends his wounded fingers around her hand so he can graze the pallid skin. Panic-induced fog muddies the artwork he by now can place by heart across her hand. Raw fingertips patter over chili pepper in the bay between her thumb and index finger before he kisses it. “Sh-she,” he clears his throat, “bolted.” The driver lost an eye to the impact of Joker’s glass-crusted fist blasting through it. Not all the blood on his hand is his.
Blacklight within the frogs’ terrarium adds an ethereal ambiance that he hadn’t noticed until now. It splashes Lilac’s face. He smirks at her and reels back from Nix so his attention can jump to the darkness pooling in their living area...and windows he itches to tape up so none can see inside.
Before he accidentally bleeds all over his shirt, Joker unbuttons the waistcoat as best he can and his dress shirt follows suit. The red slacks run higher up his waist than modern trousers do. Joker doesn’t fill them out the way he used to either, so he traps the waistline by clamping an elbow and drapes his clothing over his arm. “I don’t even remember the make of the fucking car…” the fact that he’s smiling should prelude a laugh, but he can’t. Joker grins till his teeth grit and heads into their bedroom to change out of his bloody clothing. “Not that it matters.” He stops himself from dipping a hand in his pocket to pull out a cigarette in their doorway. Hi-hat lights then flip on so he can disappear towards their walk-in closet. “Someone else’ll try the same god damn thing tomorrow.”
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