Come closer! The blood will never hit you from there.
Who: The Joker & Harley Quinn
Time: Night
Location: One of the large marquees complete with stage set up inside
Warnings: Violence; adult situations; CLOWNS
Inside one of the central marquees a stage was set. Curtains were drawn closed to conceal it while a raucous audience poured in from outside. The clock was due to strike midnight in roughly ten minutes. At that time the show would start.
Backstage, the Joker sat before a lit vanity mirror coating his face with a fresh layer of paints. Opened tubes of paint and brushes of different sorts lay scattered over the counter along with a dirty towel and a glass of water. Beside the mirror Patrick's camera rested with its switch set to off. By the end of the night it would be returned to the young man's pillow along with a note placed with care that bordered on perfectionism.
The Joker finished slathering his scars in paint the color of fresh blood then mashed his lips together and popped them glamorously the way a showgirl would after applying lipstick. He didn't need a mirror for any of this; he simply enjoyed watching himself do it. Once the ritual was complete, he wiped his hands on the towel, ran a comb over his hair and began to pull on his gloves.
"Do you have the time?" He wasn't asking for his own sake--he knew exactly what time it was. He asked to make sure his partner knew the time. If she screwed up their very first show tonight, by God, he'd slaughter her.