A/N: Hey guys! This is my first fanfiction to this fandom so I'm a bit nervous. This is series of oneshots about how Harley and Joker's relationship evolve through changes in everyday habits around each other, set after events of the movie. PLEASE let me know what you think and any suggestion is very much welcomed!
Disclaimer: The characters belong to DC comics and WB studio.
Rated T for language
.
[ SLEEPING HABITS ]
.
It wasn't all bad being an insomniac, and as a crime lord, no harm could come from staying alert. But some nights he wished he didn't have to wake up too soon before the alarm and deal with, well...things.
Especially since sleeping had become more and more pleasant, with a warm body for a change beside him. Her body.
The Joker woke up from a series of thrilling dreams, full of explosions and pooling blood, and the Bat begging him for mercy. He smirked to himself, half-asleep brain already forming the next plan for his next encounter with Batman. He was about to drift back to sleep when a whimper caught his attention. Harley was laying on her back, far away from him at the edge of their king size bed. He frown, usually it was him who had to try to get away from her embrace to get different sleeping positions. She never stayed too far away from his reach.
Harley tossed and turned, sweating more and gasping louder with each passing second. Joker stayed still, sat up on his elbow and waited. They weren't strangers to messed up dreams, they both had their turns at kicking and hitting each other in their sleep. When it got too much for Joker, Harley would gently stroke his back and shoulder, try to calm him down, planting kisses on him and say all sweet nothings that would make him cringe and yelled at her if he was fully awake. It never stopped her, though. As for Harley, she never got much affection when she was the cause of his disturbance. Joker just elbowed her or pushed her away to snap her out of it, after that he would turn away until she decided to settle down then allow her to scoot back near him.
This time though, he watched her with a contemplating look. Unfamiliar urges tingling inside that he couldn't quite make out. He didn't feel like shutting her down or feel any irritation like he thought he would.
Harley cried out weakly, losing the fight to the enemy in her dream. The faint light made her damped skin looked ghostly, glistened with lines of tears rolling down her face. He sighed, thinking of where the nightmare tonight came from - Belle Reve, of course. He had broken her out of there more than 2 months ago and helped her got revenge on every scum who had laid a hand on her. Then, they had spent weeks just cooped up in rooms or whatever corner they could find and be all over each other. From tender honeymoon love-making to crazy animalistic fucking, desperate to make up for lost time. Weeks after, they had gone back to wrecking havoc on Gotham but this time double the fun and the damages. Banks and shops emptied, the police helpless while the people suffered, the whole underworld shaken with fear and the Batman had only managed to stop them once. But that because they hadn't been able to stop ravishing each other after stealing all the money and having the vault all to themselves.
The Joker did everything to fill the void separation had left them. He made her happy, gave her everything she asked. But he guessed the trauma from her time in prison and Midway city hadn't quite gone yet.
Then another cry from Harley made his mind go dark and his heart dropped.
"I'm sorry! Please don't hurt me...I'm sorry..." She made a choking sound "Mr. J please..."
He froze.
Then suddenly his shoulders shook slightly with small laughter, but his teeth gritted and his eyes showed no sign of humor.
Of course he was the worst devil of them all.
He should have known.
His hands clenched into fists, fingers digging so hard blood slipped out but he felt nothing.
Harley Quinn - the little monster he created - could single handedly take down any group of trained soldiers, blow up buildings and showed no sign of hesitation, and had fought against an ancient witch without fear, but crumbled under the abuse of one man.
Not that the Joker was any man.
Harley was sobbing so hard, but kept biting her lips to stifle the sounds. Like she always did at times he hit her for too long her crying turned from pleasure to annoyance to his ears and her punishments would hit harder. The Joker enjoyed pain, but he hated weakness, Harley knew that. So she endured, and then smiled and did whatever he wanted just to show him she had learned her lesson and keep him pleased.
He had thought he was incapable of guilt until now it hit him like knives cutting every inch of him up from the inside.
He should have known.
Slowly, hesitated at first, mindful of the blood on his palm, he reached down and brushed back her hair, thumb tracing circles on her forehead. She jerked away at first but he whispered softly to her, mimicking all those things she used to say to him that he used to hate. Or maybe, tried to hate.
"Sshh...It's okay. It's alright baby..."
But what is okay and what is alright to us anyway...
"Nothing can hurt you now..." He said.
Even me.
Harley sighed, finally calmed down a bit and leaned into his touch. Joker gently sneaked his arms beneath her and lift her back to the center of the bed. Careful of startling her, he watched closely as her face and body relaxed and set her down next to him. He put an arm around her to pull her close but froze when Harley gave a small whimper. He thought she would try to pull away. It surprised him when instead she turned her head to rest on his chest. Like an instinct of seeking safety, snuggled up close to him and let out a contented sigh, the corner of her mouth quirk up a bit.
Before, after hitting her, he would also sweet-talk and hold her just to keep falling further under his control. Yet she believed it every time.
Maybe he was the one being fooled, by himself. What if they weren't just to manipulate her after all. If anything their separation had taught him - was that he cared. He hated to admit it but he cared a whole lot about her safety and her happiness. He hadn't wanted her back just to have his favorite toy back. He needed her back not because of pride or points to prove. He just...cared. Simple as that, about her and her alone, nothing else mattered.
How come admitting that was so hard?
He had almost gone broken all those months feeling the emptiness she left behind and beating himself up with possibilities of what could have been. He had blindly killed, wrecked without reason anyone and anything when the thought of her getting hurt had hit him. And yet here they were.
Guess he had learned how to welcome, to surrender to these new feelings and changes.
And surrender became power. Power turned back to fuel desires.
His desire to keep her safe.
In his arms, her breaths evened.
He settled down, wrapped his arm around her sleeping form, holding her tight. His other hand came up to brush the remaining tears from her face while he planted a kiss to her forehead.
They slept soundly, surrendered to bitter-sweet blissfulness and each other.
.
Next morning, Harley woke up all giggly and refreshed. She had slept so deep last night she couldn't remember her dreams, only the fact that she opened her eyes to a feeling of over-whelming happiness and safety in the arms of Joker.
.
As Harley looked in the mirror when she got up to shower, she noticed some dried blood shaped like finger marks on her shoulder and arms where his hands had been. Instinctively, she checked the rest of her body of any sign of injuries, trying to remember if anything had happened last night, maybe she had done something that set him off...
"It's not your blood."
"Puddin'?" She jump, turned over to look at him leaning against the bathroom door. "Then whose..."
Joker turned away before she could finish her question.
"Nothing will hurt you now." He said as he walked out of the room.
"Eh? What was it you say? Puddin'?" She called after him, extremely confused but he was long gone.