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

Eleven

"This should be fun! You know I can't even remember the last time I did this?" Arthur grinned as he clambered aboard one of the painted waltzer carts to join her. "Shit. Now I feel so old."

"Rubbish!" She scoffed. "You're not that old. Besides you're only as old as you feel. As long as you're young at heart that's what counts."

His brows lifted in enquiry. "So...age differences don't bother you?"

She considered his question. "Uh, no. Not really. Why do you ask?"

He didn't have time to reply, as suddenly they began to move, gaining speed at a rapid pace.

The flashing laser lights made it almost impossible to focus, but Alice managed to see him well enough, she could hardly miss him when he took up most of the cart.
In fact she was more aware than she wanted to be of his long legs stretched out inches from hers, the heat of their thighs pressing together as gravity forced them closer.
She swallowed hard, feeling hot and prickly on the inside, adding to the sensory assault as the cart whirled them around on the track.
It was partly due to him being so overwhelming, but there was something else happening too. She was feeling impulsively reckless and daring again, which couldn't be good.

She had to be careful. She didn't want to wind up falling and getting hurt all over again.

But as she tried to steal a look at Arthur as they spun around, she realised that being careful wasn't so easy where he was concerned. So instead of fretting when his fingers brushed against hers accidentally as they held onto the safety bar, she decided to just run with it and have fun.

And fun was certainly a very easy thing to have with Arthur.

After the ride was over they went to the stalls that were still functioning reasonably well, so they were able to play at darts, hoopla, and use the rifle range.

They joked around and teased each other, Arthur sweetly defending her pitiful attempts at hitting the targets, and when he impressively shot all of them down he insisted she pick out whatever prize she wanted. Instead of selecting one of the larger teddy bears, after some searching around she chose a small cuddly clown, the last one on the shelf she was able to find.

"But you don't even like clowns." Arthur pointed out.

She shrugged. "I like you, and this little guy is so cute! I'm gonna name him Artie."

"Oh yeah?" Arthur's mouth flexed in amusement. "There's nothing cute about me."

"Sure there is, otherwise I wouldn't have picked the name for him." Playfully she booped Arthur on the nose with the toy, making him chuckle.

She hadn't felt so happy in the longest time and she never wanted the night to end, in spite of the chilly weather. Arthur was thoroughly enjoying himself too and more at ease than he'd ever been, and he was wishing that every other day could be as wonderful as this one was turning out to be. It made it even better still knowing that Alice was equally as happy.

"Are you having fun yet?" He called out from behind her, as they rode the carousel next.

The wind was tearing at his words, as the carousel seemed to go unreasonably fast and her horse and his were rising at wildly different intervals, but she managed to twist around so she could see him better.