Title: Permafrost
Author: jordannamorgan
Fandom: Joker (2019)
Characters: Arthur Fleck.
Setting: At a certain spoilery point late in the movie.
Rating: PG for blood and references to abuse.
Length: 200 words.
Summary: Arthur encounters his first source of warmth.
Notes: Also written for the prompt of “Warm-Blooded/Cold-Blooded” at genprompt_bingo.



Randall’s blood was warm where it spattered on Arthur’s skin.

That in itself was a wonder. Arthur couldn’t recall a previous moment of his life where he had actually felt anything warm. It was as if his body was physically unable to register the sensation.

Hot coffee tasted only tepid. In winter snow or a summer heat wave, he could always be seen wearing his familiar faded jacket, yet the world still seemed cold as a meat locker. Even genuine laughs of pleasure at the jokes of comedians he idolized could never truly thaw the ice somewhere deep down.

It wasn’t normal. Some days he thought he was a reptile, capable only of absorbing the climate around him… and Gotham’s was a soul-deep cold and gray on the sunniest of days, fostering the stiff chill that lived in his very bones.

Of course, there were times when he had come into contact with things that produced heat.

Stove burners. Radiators. Cigarette butts ground into flesh.

Those could burn—but they still weren’t warm.

Yet Randall’s blood…

It was warm. Warm like liquid sunlight, sparking his nerves in a new way everywhere it touched him.

He wanted to feel it more.

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© 2021 Jordanna Morgan