And more drama. I don't know why I should want to add more fuel to the fire when it's already a pit of sixty-thousand degrees, but I do. It's like a good wine in France. Ignore my ramblings. This is, however, dedicated to Herotales for a remarkable review that made me pretty ding-dang-darn happy.


-:-
Osuritta: The Hiding One: Only really an annoyance to human males (she never pesters the females, ever, ever) she hides things in the cupboard or fridge that causes the male to be frustrated. When his wife comes to see what he's looking for, Osuritta puts it right out front.
-Brian Fraud and Ari Berk: Goblins.


Drive-by Food-:-

"Okay, this cannot be legal."

Ignoring Bartholomew's horribly obnoxious voice—not a voice obnoxious to the rest of the world, just to the people that had him as their doctor for more than a year—Harley continued to keep Bud's jaw open so she could stuff the horse-pill the vet had given for him down his throat before his paralyzed attack died down and he got up and awake enough to chase the head of the Arkham psychiatric board out of her office. Beside her, on the other doggie bed she had dragged in that morning, Lou looked at the aged man with a tilted head. The way he kept his hands on his hips made him look like the angry redhead woman their 'Mommy' used to spend time with.

"It is legal, boss-man," Harley ground out, Bud giving no resistance as she succeeded in her endeavor, fingers spread over his sharp teeth in an awkward attempt to keep his whole mouth open as her other hand massaged the animal's throat and he swallowed the pill to had lathered in pancake syrup so it went down easier, "I applied to own them the minute I left Arkham. Quite frankly, the people at the zoo who were holding them were glad to have them taken. Isn't that right Lou?"

The sedate hyena that was not in the throws of stillness gave a sound that was not quite a whine and not quite a yip but certainly enough to get the other psychiatrist to take a step away from where Harley sat, smiling at the things.

"Okay," Bartholomew answered, taking another step back and fiddling with his tie, huffy, "But they're not supposed to be here. They might make the patients uncomfortable."

"Leland and the other docs are okay with it," Harley stated, "Because Bud here has Lyme disease and, hey, guess what? The patients that you set me up with remember my babies very well from my previous existence. Hopefully they'll keep Waylon and Pamela from beating the crap out of me. At least until Bud's done with his treatment."

The elder crossed him arms, glaring at the still paralyzed hyena that glared right back as much as possible. It was little wonder that the other creature didn't attack the man, but from as much information Bartholomew could gather from this little situation and previous experiences—i.e. when Harley was still on the wrong side of the law and didn't pretend to tolerate him like she did now—he could figure that the paralyzed creature was an extroverted aggressor like the Joker and the other one was an introverted sweetheart that seemed friendly and only got mean when he was either told or when faced with danger. His logical mind figured that they would probably be as useful as pet therapy in prison but he was obstinate and had another question before he would likely walk out of the office in long strides of mild anger and severe annoyance at the newest addition to Arkham's staff rather than the criminally insane the staff treated.

It was what he came into the woman's office for in the first place, anyway.

"I need you to do something for me."

"You're kidding, I'm shocked," she sneered, sarcastic as she got up off of her knees and dusted her jeans off, giving Bud a little prod with her toe—a gentle rub that caused his tail to gently lift as much as it was able in a wagging motion—before going over to her desk to fish around for the files she had been about to do before Bud fell over like a sleeping cow in the countryside.

Bartholomew let the sarcasm slide, wringing his hands together, "Yes. Well, um, you see, I really wouldn't ask but I was hoping—maybe, that, if you're as ethical as you say, you could maybe get Joker-"

Here, at that one word, she finally focused her whole attention on him. Her terrifying blue eyes looked at him, adjusted at the full force of her extreme annoyance of his whole existence. Lou at her feet growled at the name, ears wedged backwards.

She didn't say anything, so he continued in what he would later—much later, in the evening, at home, eating dinner—realize would be his deep regret, "…He, um, he hasn't eaten in four days and well, we wanted to not have to use drugs to get him to sleep so we could put IV fluids in him. Dr. Leland and I thought, since he did eat when you were always breaking out with him that you, perhaps, would know what he would eat and make him?"

"No."

It was a flat, sharp objection and Harley hoped, silently and as she stood tall and firm, that he would leave it at that.


"Look at it this way," Leland wheedled, not exactly freaked out as Lou trailed behind Harley in front of them both, but still not wanting to touch him at all, "At least Bartholomew actually came to you for help."

"Whoop-de-fucking-doo."

The door that lead to the wing made up entirely of the Batman's Rogue Gallery—i.e. all of the patients that had a persona of a supervillain—with its electric buzz signaling down the hall that it was indeed opening thanks to the guard behind the plate glass office who'd pressed the button, widened before the two women and both Leland and Quinzel took the first step into the recently painted ward that had, since four weeks ago, taken on the visage of a house in the village of Strawberry Shortcake. Everything except for what was beyond the glass that kept the inmates inside, was Valentine Pink—Leland was in the mind of Pepto Bismol—and what the contractors had called Buttercup Yellow.

It was supposed to have a calming effect on the patients, as Doctor Arkham had explained it. Harley had snorted and, when the head of the asylum was gone, told Leland that if those colors did anything but give Professor Crane massive migraines and make Jervis even more likely to quote Carrol, she would actually start listening to the elders of the staff. Since then, Crane had made thirteen requests for strong aspirin and Mr. Tetch had been driving Joan herself up the wall quoting the verses from 'Golden Afternoon' and smiling more than usual. It really was a wonder the blonde hadn't sing-songed "I told you so" since the week before.

Ignoring the abysmal color scheme, Harley and Joan continued on, passing by all of her old friends with Harley staring straight ahead at the single door at the end of the hall that served as a sort of solitary for new arrivals. Bolton had used it last—since then he'd been moved to another ward—and nobody had taken up residence in it since, so Harley was perfectly fine with staring at the little piece of sliding glass that served to give food to the occupant. Joan took note of every person in their cell that they walked by, Lou doing so as well, except he wagged his tail and gave little yips to each as if in greeting before moving along with his owner.

Jonathan was lying on his back in bed, previously muttering dark nursery rhymes to himself, only to gently tilt his head as the two women moved along, raising a brow for only a moment before going back to, possibly, consulting dark Scarecrow. Jervis was reading, not anything to do with Carrol, but a book on anatomy, lifting his head to give Harley a mystified look, perhaps thinking 'Well, what are you doing back here?' and flinched away from the hyena as he looked at the Englishman that smelled forever and always of tea even after weeks of captivity. Eddie was busy writing down something on the flyleaf of a book he'd gotten from the library, almost dropping it when he spotted Leland, completely ignoring Harley.

Croc wasn't in his cell, seeing as he was in the activity room that served as a gym, thank god. Bane was at large in the city or some other place. Two-Face was also at large, though the staff had heard on the news that he'd been spotted in the high rent district a few hours ago by the police telling them that they might want to set up his cell in case he came in that night. Arnold Wesker sat chatting with Scarface—now decked out in a gray jumpsuit, compliments of Harley when she'd fixed him a few days before—only looking up for a moment at the flash of Harley's blonde hair. The shy man gave Leland a reluctant smile and Harley an extremely timid wave that she, just for a second returned with a little smile and nod; Scarface crossing his arms, but not doing anything outwardly negative toward the woman who'd sewed him the new scrubs.

Ivy was the last the three moved by before they had to turn down the hall and see the Joker. She, as was to be expected, looked surprised for about a blink at Harley being ten feet near any of them, but quickly moved back to tending to the rose bush she was allowed to take care of, frowning and brushing her hair to one side. The sweep of red hair was rather passive aggressive and Joan took note that Harley continued looking onward, but lost some of her sturdy momentum in the wake of the plant lover. Lou yipped at the woman twice, wagging his tail in profound joy, right up until Ivy snarled at the creature and he skittered back over to Harley.

"Mongrel," Ivy hissed under her breath and, Leland was appalled to realize, the dark skinned psychiatrist couldn't tell if Pamela meant the hyena or Harley.

Joan would make a note to take Ivy off of Harley's service until she could figure out why the woman was acting so aggressive when she'd been the one to try for so long to get the blonde out from under Joker's manipulative nature.

Passing by the second to last cell before they were to see Joker, the one Harley had been in for the better part of the last seven years, now sterile and free of any evidence she had even been there—a sort of waking dream like that described by scholars of some of the castles of Morgan Le Fay that vanished like mist—Harley stopped to look inside the cell. She had a sad look that passed along the insides of her eyes that Joan considered, but not for long. Harley took the last five steps over to the very last cell in the hall and a face of abject and complete disdain painted her like her old white paint; her hands that had been holding a paper bag full of something or other clenched just sort of harsh enough to rip the brown binding.

There Joker sat, inside his cell playing solitaire and looking not much worse for anything, save for the black eye Batman had given him before returning the clown to Arkham's walls and a little slower than usual, as was to be expected when Bartholomew said he hadn't eaten for four days. Four days, Harley had said while getting food she knew he would eat, might as well have been seven, considering he was so good at masking things. Still, he looked better than Joan expected and she had to suspend any thoughts of her own as the clown looked up at the women and gave one of his red-rimmed smiles.

"Well, well, well," he chortled, high voice grating on every nerve Leland had so she could only imagine what it was doing to Harley, "I was wondering who was going to try and feed me today. You get the short end of the stick, babe?"

"Of course I did," Harley ground out, Lou growling at the pale man as he stood up from sitting on the floor, happily stepping on his cards without a second thought to bridge his hands behind his back and lean forward to look at his ex-girlfriend/wife/wench/whatever with a scrutiny that Leland thought was even more repulsive than usual; as if he had the right to think anything bad of Harley when he'd made her life so miserable and she was still feeling her choices' ill effects on herself, "Nobody else wants to try and stick you with some nice Thorazine after the last time you stabbed one of the orderlies in the viscera."

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but then Harley opened the sliding drawer that everyone used to give the patients something to eat—an ugly grey sliding metal box with springs that Joker had tried to get out and use for a weapon, but always failed—and dumped the contents of the brown paper bag inside. Joan spotted plastic in different colors and a plastic bottle like they sold milk in at the supermarket, but not much else when she slammed the drawer shut.

Joker tilted comically sideways, one leg coming up like Charlie Chaplin to rest against the glass and looked into the drawer as Lou continued to gnash his teeth and the fur on the back of his neck rose up to make himself bigger, Harley taking all of her anger to crumble the brown bag into a ball, her fingernails digging into the paper like cat's claws.

"Ooooh, you remembered!" Joker smiled even more, this time like a high school jock upon the girl who did his homework for him, white hands digging into the drawer and bringing out all that had been deposited inside: vending machine food from the lounge which included organic milk, a fresh-wrapped tofu burger with eggs, those Chinese black pepper tasting health tarts that you needed to really work up an appetite for before putting it in your mouth, cheese and peanut butter crackers and a single white, sugar-free diabetic recommended Baby Girl Cake.

Leland knew from the varied experience of actually buying some of that food that it was all—save for the milk and maybe the cake with it—tasteless, joyless and was the equivalent of swallowing twenty-thousand carbs and calories in one go. If Joker really ate that when he got himself out of the asylum, it was a small wonder why he wouldn't eat the food that Arkham served which actually tasted BETTER.

But, she wouldn't get the chance to ask, since Harley—once Joker opened up the tofu burger and pretty much took a giant bite and swallowed it whole like a dog or a shark—grabbed her arm and started dragging her back the way they had come, Lou right behind them and still glaring at the man until they turned the corner.

"You screwed up the crackers, though!" Joker called out when the two women just got by Eddie. Laughing malice echoed with the words as Harley stopped just before Jonathan's cell and turned, calling backward and making the ginger master of fear almost jump out of bed and onto the floor.

"Shut up and eat your damn cake!"

The exit doors, when they closed, made the wing of Rogues echo with Harley stomping back to her office and Joker laughing even more.