Title: Ivy II
Author: Cold Nostalgia
Disclaimer: Don't own them. Don't sue.
Rating: R
Characters: Harley, Ivy
Prompt: 9. Insanity.
Author's Note: Set before OYL, during Batman's absence for Gotham. Probably helps a little if you've read #823 of 'Tec
Summary: If you didn't know any better you'd think that maybe Ivy didn't come back from the dead at all.
The stranger upstairs isn't Ivy. She looks like her, she sounds like her – but it isn't her. Ivy would never do this kind of stuff…. she isn't capable of it.
If you didn't know any better you'd think that maybe Ivy didn't come back from the dead at all. But you do know better, you do know that Ivy did come back from the dead, and that she's sick. Sick. Sicker than the Brady Bunch and the Jetsons' combined.
If they gave you your glasses and notepad back, then maybe you could do something about it. Something to help. You could hem and haw; mutter something about post traumatic stress disorder, maybe begin treating the patient using EMDR; prescribe some paroxetine – maybe some risperidone too.
But they won't give you your glasses back. They won't give you your notepad back. So you can't do anything at all. There's nothing you can do for her. You don't think she wants to listen to a friend – you don't even think she considers you a friend anymore.
So you sit here, your finger on the volume, trying to drown out the screams coming from the room above, trying not to think too much about long this has been going on…it isn't working.
She dreamed it up yesterday, chaining a person widespread in the centre of the room, surrounding them with lots of little flytraps with sharp teeth…it's sick and messed up. It makes you sick and messed up too.
There are other plants in room upstairs too. You don't recognise them. You don't want to recognise them or know how they feed, the screams are easier to deal with if you don't, so you won't.
You didn't ask what the camera was for when she proudly showed you the room.
Sure, there had been times in the past when she fed people to her plants, but back then you could justify it. A CEO here, a security guard there; it didn't really matter since it was always incidental to whatever she was planning at the time and it was always over so quickly. It wasn't this…it was nothing like this.
They didn't cry for their mommy – or their daddy for that matter. There wasn't time.
You didn't feel sick to your stomach either. You didn't feel like you had to rush up those stairs and put a bullet in the poor bastard's brain. You didn't feel as if you wanted to claw out of your skin, just to get the hell away. There was a time when you felt safe with her.
And you don't. You don't feel safe with her anymore. You look at her and a shark stares back. There's no warmth there, just this mask of cold callousness, and every time she speaks to you your skin crawls. Her smile is like poison crackling over ice.
You don't know why she opened the door to you in the first place. Actually you do, you just didn't want to see it at first. It's obvious what's coming – you're not stupid, despite what others think. The gotcha moment is heading right your way, probably sooner than you think. Much sooner.
So you do the only thing you can: leave.
Slowly, nonchalantly, you switch off the TV; careful not to attract the attention of the plants, you lethargically walk out of the door, out of the garden, out of Ivy's life. You ignore the bile at the back of your throat as you do so.
You head for home. The Joker. Mistah J. Puddin'
Because at home, all the begging, pleading, wailing and moaning doesn't matter. It can't matter, so it doesn't matter.
And as you wander through the streets you try not to think of Ivy. You try not to remember a time when she looked at you and not through you. You try not to remember a time when she looked at kids and saw kids – not veal.
So you don't.