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Mad March has a scar just near his right eye. It's not overly noticeable unless you know to look for it. Hatter knows to look for it.
Hatter should because he gave it to him.
A lucky hit with a rock early in their relationship, before Hatter started letting March catch him on purpose, just for the rush. Before March started pulling his punches, just so the confrontation would last longer.
Hatter stares at where he knows it nicks the very bottom of man's eyebrow. Traces the scar as it sweeps up the temple and disappears under thick black hair.
Hatter's much too high up to actually see it, of course. He's sitting in an open window stories above the little group sent to hunt him, swinging his feet back and forth and imagining the scar.
He looks away before the intensity of his stare draws March's attention up to him. Not here, not so close to the Great Library.
He's getting sloppy. Lazy in the movement of their strange dance.
Hatter slips his hat off and spins it between one hand and the other a few times, gaze once more taking in the assassin below him.
He tosses the hat back onto his head and slips into the room just as March looks up.
Hatter's already gone.
oOo
He eludes them for another day, just to prove he can. He lets March catch up to him on the fringes of the city where the only other souls around are Rats. He can't help it, though he wants to stop; March is Hatter's addiction.
This time Hatter's leaning against a building, casual as you please, looking at the murky river.
Inside his blood is singing, muscles straining with their effort to stay relaxed. March is near, he can tell.
A few seconds later the assassin comes around the corner of the building.
"No friendly little helpers today?" Hatter asks, still cool and calm. He doesn't turn to look at him.
"Just me," March says and Hatter hates how that voice makes him feel.
"Hmm. Well, that's good. I'm feelin' a bit peckish, not sure I could take on that many."
He watches March's confident stride bring him closer out the corner of his eye. He wishes he could run, wishes he wanted to. Hatter turns toward the other man.
He's close now, barely half a foot away, and there's the scar. Soft and thin and white, eclipsed by mahogany eyes, and Hatter stamps down on the desire to trace it with his fingertips. Stamps even harder on the desire to pepper it with tiny kisses.
It's March's move first, always, even through white typically moves first in chess. But no matter how much of a game this is, it's very real and, Hatter knows, very dangerous.
He does it to keep control over the only thing he has left after March catches him: his heart. Because if he's honest-and he tries to be, half of the time-once March is there and their dance begins it's final, flying finish, Hatter will have little to no control over his body.
March doesn't reply. Their cat and mouse game is enough taunting for the man. He pins Hatter to the rough brick and Hatter tells himself to kick the man in the mushrooms and run.
Instead, he arches into the warm body in front of him and lets lips kiss his with as much intensity and fervor as an all out fist swinging fight.
oOo
Sometime after March pushes Hatter's clothing out of the way and he's returning the favor, but before they back into the sparse shelter of the alley, Hatter gives into his desire and lightly kisses the scar.
He wants to hate himself for loving their twisted relationship, but when March's hands are roaming his body, and he's mapping March's with his mouth, and the brutal roughness smooths almost into sweet… he just can't.
So he settles for hating the world and what it's turned into, and the changes that brought him to this point in the first place.
Then March eases him around and into the alley and thinking becomes difficult, so Hatter lets go of the tiny scrap of self-control he managed to hang onto to and loses himself in it.
Next time… next time there won't be a next time. He won't let himself get caught again.
Hatter knows this is a lie, but he does, after all, only try to be truthful half the time.