hell fire • joker + bruce wayne ✔️

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"I see," said Stephanie. She was reminded of her time in Madamn's House, where all the other girls she knew were dancers as well. One girl, Kimberly Banks, had been something of a bigger sister to her.

I wonder where she is now.

As Bianca chattered on, Stephanie was pulled back into a memory.

"We've got a looker in booth five," drawled souther dancer "Apple Pie."

Of course, Apple Pie wasn't her real name, Kimberly Banks was, but in the dim lights of Madamn's House one could get by with an ambiguous backstory and a pretty smile much too easily.

Although the freshly tuned eighteen-year-old knew next to nothing about Kimmy's past, Stephanie liked the dancer immensely. They were close. For starters, they were not that far apart in age, which made their sense of humor go hand-in-hand. Most importantly, Stephanie admired how Kimmy had this innocuous ability to literally light up and burn people around them at any moment. Once, she had snapped at a group of rowdy men and demanded they left the premises because they were making one of the dancers uncomfortable. She had a certain fire about her that Stephanie hoped she could one day replicate.

Her remark about a handsome man in booth five was both an attempt to cheer Stephanie up from the group of college boys who had made kissing noises as Stephanie had sat behind the bar in thought, pursing her lips as she checked her phone screen for messages.

It had been six months since she first stepped foot in Madamn's House, and Stephanie couldn't say she had grown fond of the place. Big Maroni knew exactly where to send the young girl to completely dampen her spirit. It wasn't that Stephanie hated the women who worked here; on the contrary, she adored their crass words and cunning minds. It was the atmosphere and the person who ran the establishment that ground her gears. She hated seeing the gross men in the room with their hungry predator stares. She detested the way they catcalled the bartenders and the way they roughly handled the dancers. Some of the dancers, like Kimmy, didn't mind but Stephanie wondered how many of them were faking their consent for more tips. Ten minutes of three pairs of sweaty hands up your skirt for a hundred dollars, well, people would do more for a lot less.

"Describe him to me," Stephanie said, squinting at the dance floor. Booth five was all the way in the back and the man was cradling his head as he smoked, so she couldn't see his expression clearly.

Kimmy had eyes like a hawk and they zeroed in on mystery man.

"Tall. Nice broad shoulders. Looks like he does construction or some type of physical labor for work. Brown hair, though his hairline is receding," She murmured. "I guess we can't all be perfect."

Stephanie chuckled.

"Got a couple tattoos...something on his left chest. A picture, thank god, and not one of those gaudy texts."

The man looked up and beckoned to the girls.

"And some roman numerals on his knuckles," finished Stephanie. She caught a glimpse of his brown eyes. Why did they look so familiar?

He called Kimmy over.

"That's my queue, honey," said the dancer before stopping short.

"Kimmy?"

Kimmy cocked her head to the side, watching as the man gestured behind her...to Stephanie.

"Apparently, he wants you to go over there."

"But I'm not a dancer."

"Well, he wants a new drink," She said. The man held up his glass, nodding to it. "He wants you to refill it."