Frown | A Joker Leto Fanfiction | SEQUEL TO 'SMILE' | {BWWM}

T W E N T Y F I V E

~ No Time ~
~ day 56 ~
C H E Y E N N E

The fog was thick enough to swallow the edges of the world. It clung to the ground, to our cloaks, to every shallow breath like grief itself had taken a physical form. November had never felt so still. Even the wind seemed careful, brushing through the cemetery like it knew better than to disturb the dead.

The ground squelched softly under boots. The grass was cold and slick and when the earth gave beneath my heel, it sounded like the breath of something ancient exhaling. Rows of flags lined the graves of fallen assassins – faded colors and torn edges, whispering as they caught the weak wind. Each one was a name, a story, a promise broken too soon.

We stood shoulder to shoulder in rows in our burgundy cloaks, the Brotherhood's sigil stitched into the backs – a skull with fangs, silver thread dull in the gray light – and black masks covering our faces up to our eyes. The fabric hung heavy with moisture, the kind that crept into your skin until you couldn't tell where the cold ended and the ache began.

Suki stood to my left, her gloved hand trembling until it found mine. She didn't just brush it, she grabbed it, held on like it was the only thing keeping her upright. I squeezed back, once, firm and silent. No words could fit between us without breaking something. Dahlia was still as stone beside me, chin tilted high, her lips moving in a quiet prayer in Spanish. Graham was behind us, silent and grim, shoulders squared the way he always does when he's trying to protect the three of us.

Joker and Frost hadn't been allowed to come and honestly, that was for the better. The Brotherhood was barely holding together under the weight of restraint. One wrong look, one cracked breath and the whole thing would've splintered.

Damon's casket sat in front of us, polished dark wood beneath the Brotherhood flag, the colors muted under the fog. Too clean. Too final. Damon had never been clean in his life, having always been blood and whiskey and contradictions wrapped in a smirk. Seeing him packaged like this, contained, felt wrong.

When the priest finished, I stepped forward. The crowd parted without a sound. Every movement felt deliberate, rehearsed, but nothing about it was easy. The fog curled around my boots as I approached, the cold biting through the soles. I knelt beside the casket and placed a hand flat on the flag, the fabric cold and damp beneath my palm.

My throat felt raw and tears clouded my vision, but I leaned closer and whispered, "Until death reunites us."

It wasn't a vow anymore. It was a goodbye disguised as one.

That had been our phrase, from years back. Back when we were just reckless, stupid early twenty-somethings dreaming about what kind of world we could build if we ran it ourselves. Our brotherhood, he used to call it. Our empire. We'd lie awake talking about it, drunk on youth and each other, imagining a family built from loyalty instead of blood.

Then one morning, he was gone. No warning. No letter. Just silence where his heartbeat used to be. And when I found out later that he'd done it – that he'd actually built it – I thought it was his way of cutting me out. Of taking our dream and scrubbing my name off it.

Now I knew better.

This...this whole thing, this machine of loyalty and death and code, it was always mine. His apology. His last gift. The dream we built together, handed back to me on the day I buried him.

Bittersweet didn't even cover it. It was gutting. It was beautiful. It was cruel.

We were supposed to do this together.