A/N: So for some reason my Wattpad is acting up and accidentally published an unfinished revision of this chapter. I've *hopefully* fixed it and republished it. So so sorry if you read the first posting because it had a synopsis in the beginning (which I use to help me plan) and was severely unfinished and unedited. I'm hoping this version stays and it doesn't post the wrong version again. Again, SO sorry for the inconvenience!!!

"You rescued me when I thought nobody would. When I thought I wasn't worth the effort. You gave me everything and asked for nothing."
–Charles Martin

THE JOKER JOLTED AWAKE, chocolate-tinted eyes wild as his right hand immediately cradled his left bandaged shoulder.

My back lay plastered against the sealed, back double doors of the van, constant shivers traveling up the length of my spine as a severely disoriented and somewhat sweaty Joker pried the side doors open.

A set of brows raised in curiosity at his abrupt actions, trembling, colorant-stained fingers curling around the circular handles of the doors as he thrust them apart. I watched, mouth agape as the man hoisted his upper body out of the vehicle and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the frozen concrete, followed by a series of cringeworthy hacks and gags.

Impulsively, my palms met the bare skin of his back, the firm muscles contracting beneath the warmth of his skin as another round of bile spewed from him, emerging in a fit of what seemed like subtle cries.

The violet, hexagon printed dress shirt clung in shards to his torso, slipping down the length of his arms and catching onto the prominent skin of his elbows. Drenched ringlets clung to the nape of his neck as he heaved, slender fingers curling around the beaten, plastic floorboards as he shuttered beneath my touch.

The bitter, Gotham breeze briskly pierced the once cozy cabin, prompting my glassy eyes to heavily water as insistent patches of prominent goosebumps arose on the clammy skin of Joker's back.

His contorted frame lay still beneath me, the vomiting eventually ceasing as he violently trembled beneath my awkward grasp, palms still pressed flatly against his flesh in a weakened attempt to calm him.

"Fuck," he deeply groaned, balancing his weight on his elbows as he pried the doors shut once more, blocking out the excessive cold air as the warmth of the cabin consumed us once more.

"It's fuck-ing freezing."

My hands slipped from his back as he rotated his weakened frame, positioning himself back onto the blood stained floorboards once more as a defeated sigh slipped through his lips.

Gaudy greasepaint lay severely smudged, several splotches of pale skin peeking through on his wrinkled forehead and above his scars as he ran the back of his palm along his face.

Words ultimately failed me as I lay stunned at his side, bottom lip tugged between rows of teeth as I anxiously chewed on the chapped skin. I wasn't necessarily looking for a "thank you", but anything would do...

"How are you feeling, boss?" I breathed, several words failing to emerge as they got caught in my throat.

"Alive." He throatily replied, catching me a bit off guard as a sneaky smile overtook my features. His left eye flickered open, squinting slightly as he met my gleeful gaze.

A fresh batch of butterflies erupted in my belly at the sight of his scars, which promptly ascended up the slopes of his cheeks, lips parting to reveal a handsome, toothy grin.

"Glad to hear that." I chuckled, delivering a hasty pat atop his palm, which rest over his bellybutton. He did not flinch nor retaliate away from my peculiar touch, which slightly warmed my heart.

"Merry Christmas, Joker." I whispered, before the man drifted off into a deep slumber once more.

"I was beginning to think that you'd forgotten all about me." Emily chuckled, lanky digits tangled deeply in her jet black locks as she parted the hair into several sections.

"I've just been a little busy." I swiftly defended, shifting my weight against the beaten sofa as a half-drank glass of scotch lay in my weak grasp.

The woman merely rolled her eyes at my pitiful reply, pacing the petite corner as she overlapped the parted sections of her hair into a neat french braid. An elegant lace bra and panty set clung to her petite frame, a light plum hue as several guests glanced in her direction.

My eyes contorted into slits when a middle-aged man let his stare linger for a bit too long, his nearly nonexistant lips parting as he gawked at Emily.

"Fuck off!" I called, dismissing the man with a simple wave of my hand as his bewildered gaze promptly met mine, brows knitting together in frustration as he stomped away like an angry toddler.

An amused grin tugged at Emily's full, painted lips, artificially whitened teeth on display as she let out a soft giggle, which was barely audible over the obscenely loud rap music.

"Y'know," she began, tossing the finished braid over her shoulder as she rapidly approached my frozen frame. "It is my job to cater to these men. He is allowed to stare."

Her slender legs straddled my waist, determined fingers ripping the glass from my grasp as she discarded it onto the nearby wooden coffee table. Lazy, cobalt orbs settled on her emerald stare, which bore deeply into mine as her steady palms met my blushing cheeks.

"I just hate when guys look at women like they're pieces of meat." I confidently spoke, the words slipping effortlessly off my tongue as the pad of her thumb traced my swollen bottom lip.

"Just part of the job, sweetie." She assured, before closing the overwhelming gap and pressing her lips to mine.

I wasn't quite sure what the fuck I was doing with Emily, or what it was that we had. Truth be told, I didn't want to put a label on it.

I'm in love with the Joker. I'd realized that lousy fact on the Eve of Christmas, when I'd somehow managed to preserve his life several blocks down the road from Ryder's obscene holiday party. The pair of us had ingested a supernumerary amount of spiked eggnog, resulting in a drunken decision to walk in the numbing cold to a donut shop that was probably closed for the night.

I could still hear Joker's odious cry of pain from the moment the keen blade pierced his skin. He wasn't in his right mind — Intoxicated beyond belief, and the madman had somehow managed to get himself fucking stabbed in a Narrows alleyway. My chest blatantly ached at the mere rumination of that execrable sound, and suddenly, I found myself never wanting to leave his side.

Subconsciously, the moment my deranged mind fell for the hunched, broad-shoulder man in purple, who wore an obscene amount of vibrant greasepaint every moment of the day, I'd taken a vow. A vow to invariably protect the violent man from harms way, regardless of the consequences.

The mere fact of this absolutely frightened me, but deep down, I actually think that I would voluntarily die for this man. He was the glue that held me together — He was the air that fed my withering lungs, the rickety boat that held me afloat.

Unquestionably, I would take the fall for this man. I would indisputably sacrifice myself solely for his health and happiness, and I didn't even know his fucking name.

Emily swiveled her hips against mine, prompting an involuntary moan to slip through my parted lips as her tongue instantaneously lapped out, swallowing the sonance with glee.

No matter how undeniably devoted I would remain to the Joker, I knew for a fact that he'd never be mine — At least not in the way I intended.

I'd never taste that magnificent flavor of greasepaint on my tongue, no matter how hard I prayed for that event to occur. I almost instantly regretted kissing Joker's desolate coffee cup on Christmas Eve, as the action had somehow managed to send me into a feverous frenzy. I'd gotten a little tease of how magnificent he tasted, and I wanted more. I needed more.

I needed him on top of me, just as Emily is in this current moment in time. I craved the overwhelming scent of gasoline and paint — I wanted to suffocate in it, fucking drown in it. I wanted to tangle my fingers in his ashy blonde curls, which sometimes went several days unwashed, but nonetheless, I'd still tug at them like there was no tomorrow...

Suddenly, my tainted mind was catapulted back to the day he nearly died beneath my hips. Although he was undeniably in an excruciating amount of pain, I immodestly loved the feeling of him writhing beneath me — And, yet again, I needed fucking more. Only this time (of course), I wanted him writhing beneath me not out of agony, but out of pleasure. I craved his touch, the electrifying feel of his fingers laced around my wrist in a pleading attempt to cease my actions, just because they felt oh-so-wonderful and the sensation was too much for him to bear.

"Chris," Emily pressed, her tone low and husky as I was forcefully catapulted from my momentary daydream. The palm of her hand currently rest on my trousers, which pitifully concealed the raging erection beneath the fabric as my cheeks instantly flushed.

She probably thought that was because of her...

"Follow me." She whispered, pressing a dainty kiss to my ear before tugging me from the safety of the sofa. The toe of my boot messily collided with the leg of the table, sending the liquid inside my glass up the sides as several droplets coated the wood.

The petite girl drug me towards the dressing rooms near the back, a place I hadn't been before as I anxiously attempted to camouflage my obnoxious boner, but to no avail. Several dancers glanced begrudgingly in our direction as we scurried across the grubby floor, littered excessively with disgarded undergarments, hair ties, and even broken combs.

I dodged the discarded items with some difficulty, Emily's hand laced firmly in mine as she tugged me along to a nearby private room in the back left corner.

A thick, painful swallow traveled through my severely dry throat as she tugged me into the dark and dingy room, which was littered with an abundance of unhealthy snacks and unopened bottles of wine.

"It's dark in here." I awkwardly observed, emitting a giggle from the black-haired girl as she shoved me onto what appeared to be a rickety foldable chair, which loudly squeaked beneath my abrupt weight.

The extreme darkness present in the room was surprisingly phenomenal, mainly because I couldn't even see my own fucking hand even if I put it up flat against my face.

This should be good.

"Relax, baby. I'm going to make you feel good." Emily assured me, threading her fingers in the grooves of my jeans as she slipped the button through the stretched hole, yanking open the flap as she released me from my constricting bonds.

My eyelids elegantly fluttered closed, lips parted as softened whimpers naturally tumbled from them. I desperately tried to ward off the conflicting thoughts that bombarded my mind — Thoughts of a very different individual's mouth wrapped around me instead of Emily's. Hastily, I attempted to shove the completely inappropriate thoughts away, but to no avail. Besides, the idea of Emily pleasuring me was painfully enough to make my dick go limp — Therefore, I submitted to my risqué thoughts, allowing them to consume me completely as a load groan slipped through my lips.

I was totally fucked.

My pointed nose sat stuffed in the yellowed pages of a deteriorating copy of Jane Eyre, gaze fixated on the print as I lay lax against the sofa.

The television played mindlessly in the background, a rerun of How I Met Your Mother consuming the screen as the front door abruptly opened, routinely slamming into the drywall.

I impulsively flinched at the sound, the book slipping through my temporarily weakened grasp as it toppled messily to the floor, crinkling and folding several of the pages as I let out an irate sigh.

"Hoooooor-ty!" Joker chanted, literally skipping into the room before planting himself directly in front of the television, chest heaving as if he'd just run a marathon.

A cardboard box sat in his leather gloved grasp, painted scars tugged up the length of his face, displaying a toothy grin as my gaze struggled to focus on the object held in his palm.

Slightly blurred vision eventually focused, revealing a box of green hair dye in his grasp as my eyebrows quizzically raised.

"You're dying your hair green?" I wondered, an amused smirk tugging at my lips as I retrieved the fallen book from the dingy carpet, instantly frowning when I'd realized that my current page had been lost.

"New year, new me." The madman simply replied, a chuckle immediately following his cliché statement as he rotated the box in his hold, blackened gaze scanning over the contents of the package.

"I-uh, need your help." He added, tossing the box in my direction. I easily caught it, scanning over the photograph of a teenage girl on the cover as I rose from my spot.

"Kitchen?" I suggested, starting in that direction before Joker eventually spoke.

"My room."

Brows immediately arched at his reply, my pulse quickening beneath my ribcage as words immediately failed me.

I've never seen the Joker's room.

The man in purple spun on his heel, an abundance of illiterate phrases slipping through the miniscule cracks of his lips as he rounded the corner and disappeared from view.

"Yah coming?" His voice suddenly boomed, jumpstarting my heart as I sped in his direction, scurrying down the hallway which held his torture room on the left and his bedroom on the right.

The vibrant purple door lay ajar, my employer already buried deeply inside the room as muffled whistles ricocheted off the walls. Instant goosebumps littered my skin at the noise, trembling fingers meeting the wood of the door as it swung widely open to reveal the place where Joker slept.

The room was surprisingly large, and was the polar opposite of the rest of the dingy home. The walls were splashed with deep green paint, accented by a series of blood red "HA"s, which littered the walls on directly on top of the paint. A black stained wooden desk sat along the wall immediately to the left, the surface completely concealed by an assortment of papers surrounding a desktop computer screen, which illuminated the otherwise dark room, due to the thick blackout curtains that hung over the single window on the opposite side. A neatly made king sized bed sat in the center of the room, clad with deep purple sheets and half a dozen fluffy pillows that lined the inky wooden, fence-like headboard, with thin poles that lined the wall. All in all, the mans room was fucking exquisite.

A bathroom hugged the left wall, the doorway immediately following the edge of the desk as I strut into the tinier room.

Every single breath instantaneously eluded my lungs the moment I'd entered the premises.

A thick, theatrical purple coat lay in a heap on the tile floor, along with a limp tie and a hexagon-printed dress shirt piled on top. A shower hugged the entirety of the far wall, tucked nicely into a little hole in the drywall and accented with a mahogany plastic curtain. A large tub (more like a jacuzzi) sat directly behind me on the left wall, the porceline surprisingly spotless and freshly cleaned.

A half-naked Joker hovered over the counter, one palm laid flatly against the surface as another claimed his painted face. I blatantly stared as he caressed the deep indents and grooves of his scars, running the pads of his fingers along the uneven surface as the flesh became slick with paint. It was then that I'd noticed the abundance of scars that littered his torso.

The knife wound from several weeks ago seemed to be healing quite nicely, as it currently remained a bright pink color, securely sealed and unbandaged.

Joker's softened gaze met mine in the reflection, fingers drooping from his painted face to meet the raised flesh of his shoulder.

"I don't think I-uh, ever properly thanked you for this." He muttered, tracing the discolored, raised flesh with his thumb.

"You're welcome." I breathed, inching forward to meet the counter. My fingernails eased below the flap, tearing it open before dumping the contents of the container onto the surface.

Joker snatched a nearby stool, tugging it across the tile to emit an obnoxious screeching noise as my nose crinkled in annoyance. I tugged the provided latex gloves onto my palms with difficulty, as my hands seemed to be too big for the stupid gloves as Joker eased comfortably into the chair, his back straightening from his usual hunched position as it obscenely cracked in several places.

"Jeez." I acknowledged, snatching the bottle of dye from the counter as Joker simply snickered.

"Let's ge-t this over with." He impatiently urged, settling back into his routine hunched position as I took my stance directly behind him and began to color his blonde ringlets.

"Y'know," I began, tugging my gloved fingers through his knotted curls as I applied the color. "I'll be really sad to see the blonde go. You look like a surfer from Hawaii or something."

Joker scoffed at my comment, tongue snaking out from the depths of his mouth as he intently traced the deep indents of his scars.

"Actually," I countered, tearing my gaze away from his hauntingly beautiful reflection. I could feel his gaze glued to me, and my stomach began to churn at the sight of it from my peripheral vision. "Not Hawaii, more like Australia. I'd peg you to be from the Down Under." I teased.

In the place of a verbal reply, Joker simply curled his arm around his backside, his palm colliding with my knee as he delivered several innocent pats to the flesh. My heart fluttered at the peculiar actions, lips curling into a grin as I continued to apply the vibrant dye to his hair.

"I've hired another guy." He suddenly stated, my grin faltering at the statement.

"Oh." I monotonely replied.

"Don't worry," Joker pressed, eyes rolling in his sockets as he thrust his arms into the air to further enunciate his speech. "I'm no-t replacing you."

"Understood, sir. Is he going to live with us?"

"No. No-t yet, at least." He said, earning a bleak nod from myself as I finished off the dye job and discarded the empty bottle into a nearby waste basket.

"All finished. Go ahead and shower." I informed him, ridding my skin of the viridescent latex gloves as they, too, joined the growing pile in the trash can.

"Scoo-t." Joker pressed, motioning for me to leave with a simple wave of his hands as he trudged over to the shower and ignited a steady stream of water.

I bid the man a farewell before scurrying from the room, somewhat disappointed that he was currently undressing and I wasn't there to see it...

I ended up in the kitchen, gaze once again glued to the pages of a classic novel as I'd managed to find exactly where I'd left off in the book. My free hand was currently buried in a bag of Dorito's, fingers coated with cheese as I licked them clean.

Joker skipped into the kitchen half an hour later, strutting a head full of vibrant green curls as my jaw instinctively dropped at the sight.

"Holy shit." I exclaimed, folding the corner of my page before tossing the book onto the granite counter.

"How do I look?" He lightly inquired, arms outstretched in either direction as a toothy grin encaptured his freshly painted scars.

"Very green." I replied, eyes widened as I took in the sight of him. Not a trace of blonde remained, which disappointed me slightly. However, I couldn't deny that the man could truly pull off the obscene hair color.

"It's sup-posed to be orange." Joker snarled, hoisting the sleeves of his sleek black dress shirt up the lengths of his arms as my lips parted, a verbal response failing me.

"Kidding." He pressed, rounding the counter as the sleeves of his shirt lay messily bunched above each elbow. I dryly laughed in reply, shifting my weight against the island stool as the clown began to prepare himself a cup of coffee.

"By the way," he confidently began, pouring fresh coffee grounds into the filter. "His names Spalding."