The Tears of a Clown (an Arthur Fleck/Joker love story)

Six

"Can I kiss you, Alice?" She could feel his soft gust of breath, cool against her burning face, making her stomach flip. "I really want to. Will you....will you let me?"

Oh God.

Alice swallowed hard, letting out a deep breath she didn't know she was holding, and willed her pulse to calm down.

This was bad. How was she supposed to respond to that? Admittedly she really liked the way he had asked. It was sort of old fashioned and heartwarmingly sweet. Every nerve ending in her body had stood to attention, while a little voice inside her head was screaming at her to just say yes, and she found herself wanting to bury her hands in his hair, push him back against the door, and kiss him silly.

But she'd lost her nerve and words failed her. She wanted to know him, to become friends, maybe more than just friends, but the reality of wanting that from him terrified her. She was horribly confused and alarmed at the intensity of how these feelings had come on. If she rushed into anything now, became attached too quickly, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd be setting herself up for getting hurt in the not so distant future.

Arthur was a wanted man and he'd done terrible things.
But that didn't mean he was a terrible person. More like emotionally damaged in some way, and she longed to help fix him. To hug him until all his broken pieces stuck back together.

But she had to at least try and be sensible about all of this.

Arthur was waiting patiently with bated breath. Alice hadn't moved a muscle and she still hadn't said anything, and in that moment he knew he'd said absolutely the wrong thing. But he couldn't take it back now. It was out there, too late to back-peddle, and he could literally feel his stomach dropping. How excruciatingly embarrassing. Now he was having to face the very real possibility of his angel not feeling the same way as he did, and it was bound to crush him.

"A-Arthur, you seem like a really great guy...."

He hung his head, sensing the impending 'but' that was coming next. Thankfully, she didn't actually say the word that no one ever wanted to hear in these situations, but what she did say didn't hurt any less than if she'd said it anyway.

"....it's just, we hardly know each other yet, and--"

"It's okay, I get it." He interjected, not wanting to hear any more. "I shouldn't have asked. I'm sorry."

Alice's small brow dipped into a perplexed frown. "Wait, what do you mean, you get it?"

He took a few steps away from her, and she could feel him moving away from her emotionally as well as physically and she immediately felt a pang of regret.

His eyes were cast-down, fixed on the floor as if he suddenly found the carpet fascinating, and his voice was tinged with sadness.

"Why would you want a freak like me to kiss you? You'd have to be out of your mind too."

"You're not a freak, Arthur. Don't say that!"

"Sure I am, do I look like anything else to you? Do I sound like anything else when I laugh uncontrollably? And you know that I've killed people. But there's others too that you don't know about."

Alice was chilled to the bone by his words, and she stared at him slack-jawed.
Somehow she was still able to form words and string a sentence together. "Arthur....I stand by what I say, you are not a freak. You could tell me all of the terrible things you've done and I'd still want to know you. None of that has anything to do with my reasons for not, I mean..." Her words trailed off, searching for the right way to explain why she was hesitant about kissing him. "....I just think it's maybe not a good idea."