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

F O U R T E E N

~ Coup D'essai ~
~ day 18 ~
• J A M E S •

I pace, my mind replaying last night over and over again. She was right in front of me. 5 feet away, just like she said. And I didn't do anything.

She spoke first, but that wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise was the warmth of familiarity her voice gave me. With my parents dead, she was the only thing that had brought me back to the "good times" and I had only just realized that. She was all I had left.

But, then when I looked at her - I mean really looked at her - with her gun drawn, her bodyguard right behind her with her own gun drawn, and all her friends ganged up around Ash is when it really clicked. She's not the Cheyenne I remember, not completely. Not juvenile Cheyenne who smoked weed and taught me how to hot-wire anything with an engine. This was Cheyenne, the felon. The woman whose made millions upon millions of dollars capitalizing off of her psychotic nature. The woman who, even though she knew it wasn't my fault that a young girl died, left me in prison to rot.

"Lemme get this straight," Ivy hums, eyebrows furrowed as she directs Harley to carefully applied some type of clay-like mud on Ashton's broken nose. "Joker set you two up, but things turned sour and Cheyenne broke your nose with the butt of a what?"

"It was an M-60," Ashton mumbles, his voice strained as he resisted the urge to pull away at the feeling of the cold mud.

"And she did this over...money?" Ivy asks, glancing at me. I don't even answer. I was still lost in thought, so Ashton answers with an "mhm" before he hisses and pulls away from Harley.

"Oh, hush," she grumbles, pulling him back toward her to continue applying the mud.

"I thought she was a millionaire even without her family money," Ivy says, watching me pace. I bring my hand to my mouth, biting at my finger nails as I continue thinking about last night.

"She's broke," I blurt, glancing at Harley and Ivy. "Mercy told me that her mentor told her that while Cheyenne was gone, some storage unit she owns downtown got raided. It had 90% of her money in it."

"She's broke," Harley gasps quietly as I continue to pace and get lost in thought. I hated that I was still attracted to her. With her brown eyes staring up at me, wide and surprised, I was thrown back to my teenage years when I initially asked her to run away with me. Her hand was warm in mine and a little clammy, it was the first time I'd seen her so nervous. When I finally made her look at me is when I knew I loved her. Nothing had changed in the past ten years either. She was still shorter than me, but also still tougher. She was always the tough one out of the two of us. She's the one that made me step out of my shell. I wouldn't have even had the courage to pursue Mercy today if it weren't for Cheyenne over 10 years ago.

"It's the whole reason Mercy's been M.I.A lately," I mutter as I continue pacing. "Her mentor thinks Joker was in on it with some other person."

"Of course that scumbag was in on it," Ivy says, watching me.

"We could find out before Mercy and her mentor do," Harley gasps, turning to Ivy. "We could find proof and tell Cheyenne! Tear down that throne she sits on bit by bit by proving that stupid clown is just using her as another pawn in his game."

"I don't hate the idea," Ivy hums, distracted by my pacing. Eventually, she stands, blocking my path. "Can you stop pacing? You're making me nervous. What's the problem?"

I look at her, not really wanting to tell her the truth about what's on my mind. Instead, I sigh and walk away from her and towards the kitchen. "I-I was right there. Five feet away from her and I didn't do anything. I looked weak. All because you have this stupid little revenge plot that we haven't even started-"