Pink, blue, and white milky liquid swirls in the Harlequin capsule. Harleen Quinzel pops the tiny pill into her mouth. It's not meant to cure her insanity, of course, but to cure the sanity that creeps into her mind when she's gone too crazy for her own mind to bear. Sometimes, after watching the twentieth person die at the hands of her Puddin', she tires of seeing death. At these times, Harleen Quinzel sighs and takes another Harlequin to make it all go away.
Pink and blue clouds with soft cotton candy bodies float into her brain. They whisper sweet nothings and sigh sweet lies. They open their toothless grins and eat all the lush green grass and trees, as green as his hair, that shoot the baby rabbits and deer sitting innocently on the lip of her thoughts. The clouds tell her that it's not real. None of it's real. Her Puddin' isn't a murderer. Her Puddin' doesn't like to kill. She doesn't like to kill.
Too much sanity.
Two hours pass, and she places another Harlequin on her tongue. She does it slowly, pushing her breasts out, and emphasizing her open mouth. He freezes for a moment, watching. Just like any other person overcome with desire. He can be normal. Right?
She's afraid he can't. And if he can't, can she still be with her Puddin' if she was normal?
If she wanted to be normal.
She laughs a manic-pixie laugh, and sticks out her tongue at him. He leans close, and blows warm air onto her taste buds. A hot flush runs through her body. She swallows the pill, then kisses him, long and slow, letting the remnants of the Harlequin mixture meld them together. The bear-skin rug is nice. So's the soda. Did he buy it imported?
Sorted, warted, ha. Ha! Courted.
What was she thinking about earlier?
Her thoughts are full of emerald. There are no dying bunnies anymore. She cuddles deeper into her green-haired crazy man. His love is as intense as he is, and even more unpredictable. He sits next to her, now, rubbing agonizingly slow infinities onto her back; naked in more ways than the eye can see. He's lost in thought; melancholy. She smiles wide at him, and offers him a Harlequin, knowing he won't take it.
She just wants to get rid of the dead look that's come over him. He puts his left hand, with the tattooed maniacal smile in front of his mouth, then pinches the skin on her back. Hard. Right in the middle of the infinity symbols he traced earlier. She makes no noise of discomfort, until his eyes lock onto hers. His gaze is no longer dead, but angry, desperate, and despairing. She gasps a small breath, while he shakes his head, declining the pill.
Behind his hand, his laughter is raspy and full of wildness. Sometimes, she loves that laugh. There's passion there. Other times it scares her so much she doesn't know what to do. Roughly, he pulls her to him.
"Don't leave me," the gesture says. It also says, "You're mine. You'll always be mine."
And she will.
If only, if only…
"Will you die for me?" he'd asked, sixty feet above a bubbling vat of chemical waste. Like her and him, the discarded mixture churned together, and emitted air bubbles so it could breathe.
She'd said yes, too quickly.
He'd shook his head, staring into her face. Wanting more. All of her.
"Will you live for me?" he'd corrected himself, then begged her to commit to him.
She'd said yes. Carefully. Living was an entirely different question than dying.
But, yes.
Yes, she would die and live for him.
When the pills wear off, in the middle of her dreams, she thinks,
Harleen Quinzel dies for you every day, so Harley Quinn can live for you.
They're both happy. Believe me. They are.
In the dark, in the bed, she puts his hand with the forced smirk over her own lips, and Harleen Quinzel smiles.