For my safety, I better not say much. Though I suppose I had better apologize, crawl about on my belly for a bit, and then scurry back into hiding. Yeah, I think that's best for everyone.
I suppose I should also thank my reviewers, and thank them most heartily for not seeking me out with torch and pitchfork. So thanks, reviewers, thanks a lot.
Crane and Ivy were having a stimulating conversation about feminism and vampires when they heard a peculiar scratching noise. They considered, briefly, to ignore it and continue on their scintillating discussion. That option had to be discarded when the scratching became increasingly furious and was punctuated by pitiful, whining howls.
"Bud and Lou. They're probably hungry or miss Harley," Crane said.
"I'm sure they do. She spoils them rotten and if they don't get attention, they'll chew through the door. And then I'll be forced to do something drastic to them." Ivy headed for the door.
Since he wasn't crazy enough to carry on the conversation by himself, Crane decided to accompany Ivy. He followed her down the hall to Harley's room. The scratching and whining intensified the closer they came to the door.
"They want their freedom," Crane said.
At the sound of a recognized voice, Bud and Lou put all their effort into acting as desolate and desperate as possible. Their whining reached an ear-stabbing pitch, and both Crane and Ivy winced. Before any eardrums were ruptured, Crane opened the door and released the furry prisoners.
Like a tsunami of fur and saliva, Bud and Lou pounced on Crane to show their eternal gratitude. He was bowled over and the pair of hyenas took great pleasure in slobbering all over him. Crane shouted his indignation and tried to stave off the merciless—and completely adorable—assault. He managed, after some flopping, to turn over on his stomach. He then threw his hands over his head and tried to protect his face from Bud and Lou's eager tongues.
Ivy had retreated as soon as the hyenas had burst from the room with all the force of floodwaters through the South Fork Dam. She favored flora to fauna for a wide variety of reasons, and the scene taking place on her floor only strengthened her prejudices. Mel would never, despite his fearsome demeanor, ever behave like Harley's uncontrolled pests.
"Harley! Your pets are eating Jonathan! Get up here and take them outside where they belong!" Ivy shouted.
The blonde took her sweet time climbing the stairs. She knew her Babies weren't really eating the Professor—he'd be screaming if they were—and she also knew Red was going to be wearing her patented look of extreme disapproval. Harley did not like the patented look of extreme disapproval. It was Ivy's version of the cone of shame.
"Get rid of them, and if I catch them in my house once more, you're never going to see them again," Ivy threatened.
Yep, that was definitely the patented look of extreme disapproval, and it was as harsh as ever. Putting on her best sad puppy face, Harley pulled Bud and Lou off of Crane. He crawled away towards the bathroom to wash the hyena slobber from his face, neck, and hands.
"But Red, they don't like bein' in the shed. It's dark, and cold, and lonely," Harley said, making sure to flash the most pitiful expression humanly possible.
"And do you think Mel's internal anatomy is going to be any better?" Ivy snapped.
"You can't feed my Babies to Mel!" Harley cried. Then she actually did cry, falling to the floor in a dramatic, weepy heap.
"Harley, you're doing women everywhere a serious disservice. Crying is not the way to get what you want. In fact, it does nothing except feed into stereotypes that—"
"Babies!" Harley sobbed.
Ivy's patented look of extreme disapproval feel from her face. Her expression turned soft and tender—entirely against her will, mind you—and she picked Harley up off the ground. Harley continued to cry with such passion an outside observer would have assumed her entire family down to the second cousin twice removed had just been killed.
"I won't feed them to Mel. I promise, no matter how angry I get. But can you please keep them outside at least during the day?" Ivy asked.
"I guess so," Harley muttered.
"Isn't compromise wonderful? Why don't you feed Bud and Larry and then go outside and play with them?"
"It's Lou. Bud and Lou."
Ivy didn't care if the hyenas' names were Moon Unit and Moxie Crimefighter. What she did care about was hustling them outside before her temper made her break her minute-old promise.
"Fine. Bud and Lou. Feed them and then entertain them outside."
Harley wiped the tears from her eyes. She then patted her leg to get Bud and Lou's attention. Once the hyenas were focused on her, she led them downstairs by tempting them with "nummies."
Trying to ignore the sounds that signified a food massacre in her kitchen, Ivy went to check on Crane. She'd seen him dragging himself towards the bathroom, and that was where she found him. He was standing in front of the sink, vigorously scrubbing his face with a decidedly feminine-scented bar of soap.
"You're going to smell like lily of the valley," Ivy said.
"It licked inside my nose! Inside my nose!" Crane howled.
"That is disgusting."
Crane wasn't satisfied until every inch of his face was covered in floral lather. Only after he'd coated everything from the neck up did he drop the bar and wash the soap away. Ivy handed him a towel.
"Every time I show one iota of kindness to those creatures, they repay me like that. By dragging their revolting tongues all over me! I know where those tongues have been!"
"At least they'll be outside and Harley will be with them. That means no more cartoons for a while," Ivy said.
"Wonderful. I'd like to go a few hours without being French-kissed by a filthy animal."
"Did they actually…"
"Yes, one of them licked my tongue."
Ivy grimaced. There was unpleasant, there was nasty, and then there was an accidental make-out session with a scavenger that never brushed its teeth.
"I need to spit."
Crane did just that. Then he threw open the medicine cabinet door, grabbed the toothpaste and, foregoing the brush, squeezed mint paste directly into his mouth. Ivy, stuck somewhere between amazement and horror, watched as Crane chewed the toothpaste. He made the most incredible facial expressions while he went at it.
After dropping a minty atomic bomb on any hyena germs that might have gotten in his mouth, Crane spat again. Several times. It took him quite a while to clear all the mashed paste from his teeth and tongue.
"That is much better," he said, spitting one last time.
"I think you ate half of my toothpaste," Ivy said.
"I needed that much. Would you have done any different if a hyena tongue had made contact with yours?"
"I'd have taken the time to use a toothbrush."
"Everyone's got perfect hindsight."
His breath now fresh, Crane saw no reason to remain in the bathroom. He stepped past Ivy, who was glaring at the sink in disdain. The man who had splattered the basin with saliva and toothpaste had made no attempt to clean up after himself. She sure as hell wasn't going to do it.
"Jonathan, you forgot something," Ivy said.
"Did I?"
"As a matter of fact, you did. Get back in here and clean the sink."
Jonathan Crane, the Master of Fear, the almighty Scarecrow, turned straight around and reentered the bathroom. Under Ivy's watchful eyes, he cleaned the sink to her specifications. He tried not to wonder how he'd fallen from the height of villainy to the position of unpaid maid.
"Alright, that's much better. Let me do something for you now," Ivy said.
Before Crane could ask what Ivy had in mind, she had grabbed his ill-fitted shirt and yanked it off over his head. He yelped like a scalded dog and reached for the shirt. Ivy hid it behind her back. Half-naked and entirely mortified, Crane crossed his arms across his chest and glared.
"Why did you do that?" he demanded. The threatening snarl in his voice was counterbalanced by the bright red of his face.
"I told you before that you were getting new clothes. And now you are," Ivy explained.
"There are not any new clothes here. Now return my shirt at once. I…I have a low tolerance to the cold."
Ivy couldn't help but examine Crane in his shirtless state. She hadn't removed his clothes to make an assessment of his physical attributes, but since he was there sans top, it would be wasteful not to.
Crane was scrawny. Not svelte, not thin and not slender. Scrawny. A few missed meals from looking like the Allies needed to come and liberate him scrawny. He looked, Ivy decided, like an abandoned cat that had been living on the streets, pilfering just enough to hold back starvation.
"Call the circus, tell them to put me in the sideshow and market me as the Human Twig! Take pictures and send them to GCN! Do anything you want, but stop staring at me like that!" Crane shouted, startling Ivy.
"Jonathan, I…I wasn't staring because I'm horrified or I find it funny."
"Then you're the first. Congratulations. Would you like it engraved on a plaque? 'First woman not driven mad by shirtless Scarecrow.' Do you like it?"
"Of course not! Please, I don't want to offend you. And I certainly don't plan on abusing you for how you look. That's entirely anti-feminist."
Crane forced himself to tone down the anger. It was an automatic response, the snarling defensiveness, built into him from years of cruelty. It wasn't, however, something he enjoyed unleashing on Ivy. She was different from most everyone else he'd ever met and he did not want to drive her away. He didn't want to be fed to her plants, either.
"I'm sorry. Allow me to take a more civil tongue. Why did you steal my shirt, and may I have it back?"
"I took it because we really are going to get you new clothes. You can have it back if you absolutely need it, although that's going to make my job much harder," Ivy replied.
"Then keep it and let's go. I'm eager to get into something that doesn't make me look like I'm wearing an obese man's smock."
They returned to Ivy's bedroom. She threw Crane's shirt down on the bed, then went to her dresser. Crane sat on the bed and watched as Ivy opened a drawer and sorted through the few garments contained within. She selected a simple blouse and tossed it next to the shirt. Crane examined the blouse and decided he didn't have the bust to rock it properly.
"I hope you don't mind green." Ivy pulled out another shirt and showed it to Crane.
"I am entirely opposed to only a few colors, namely any shade of pink or purple. Green is acceptable."
Not counting the shirt tortured by the washing machine until its dimensions were stretched to the point it stopped being clothing and started being a comic prop, the other two garments Ivy had placed on the bed were green. Mercifully, not a screaming, neon Predator blood green, but a more subdued vegetable green. Crane worried if he did somehow fit in either of the shirts, asides from exposing his midriff, they'd also make him look like a string bean. A rather slutty, gender-confused string bean.
The last shirt Ivy pulled out was not green. It wasn't pink or purple, either. It was tawny and Crane wasn't sure how it would react to the green. He feared looking like either a dying leaf or an elf.
"We can make this work," Ivy said, putting the four shirts side by side.
"Tim Gunn wouldn't be so sure," Crane muttered.
"You watch Project Runway?"
"Not of my own free will."
"Someone tied you down and forced you to watch it?"
"I wasn't bound. The screwball completely flooded my world with it, so I could not escape."
"Who would do that to you? The Joker?"
Crane snorted. "As if the Joker could watch anything that didn't involve animation or explosions. Crazy-Quilt did it. I was left in the recreation room with him, and he lived solely to watch Project Runway. He liked it loud."
What Crane did not divulge was that he put off an escape plan for two weeks so he could see the season finale.
Tim Gunn's doubts aside, Ivy and Crane were faced with the task of making something wearable—though likely not the least bit attractive—out of four shirts that did not come close to properly fitting. Though neither of them had any ideas yet, Ivy decided to get the tools ready, should they ever be needed. While Crane picked at the collar of the tawny shirt, Ivy removed a sewing kit from her closet.
"I thought sewing degraded women everywhere," Crane said.
"Being forced into it as a career because of sexism degrades women. Being able to replace a button makes you freer."
"Ah, I see the distinction."
Outside, enjoying the sunshine and not shuttered away like an old woman with her knitting, Harley played with her adopted children. Bud and Lou belonged to a species that made its home on the African savannah and they enjoyed both the warmth and the grass beneath their paws. Harley enjoyed playing fetch with them. The stick used in the fetch game would have screamed for Ivy's help if it had a voice.
Even though watching the hyenas gnaw a stick was fun, Harley knew something was missing. Something loud and obnoxious and undeniably sexy beyond all reason. Something she could not live without, and something she was really beginning to miss, even with Bud and Lou, Red, the Professor and SpongeBob to keep her occupied.
Her Puddin', in case the clues were too abstract.
She had a Joker-shaped hole in her heart, and only man could fix it. That man, alas, was locked away in Arkham with absolutely no means of getting in contact with her. They couldn't exchange letters and conjugal visits were not gonna happen. Knowing the Joker, he had probably already spent his telephone privileges on prank-calling bars and asking for Mike Rotch and IC Wiener.
Harley sighed heavily. The more she thought about the Joker, the more she missed him. If he didn't bust himself out of the slammer pretty soon, she would have to go in and rescue him. He'd be so happy to see her, and so appreciative.
Harley drifted away into a daydream in which she, like a knight in a jester's cap instead of the more formal shining armor, liberated her poor, falsely-imprisoned Puddin' from Arkham. In the dream, the reunited pair thumbed their noses at the Arkham guards, and waltzed right out the front door of the asylum. Since it was her fantasy, Harley decided the Joker, overcome by gratitude, proposed to her once they were free. Then they eloped to Las Vegas, got married in a ceremony presided over by an Elvis impersonator, and returned to Gotham where they killed Batman and lived happily ever after.
The dream put Harley in a warm and fuzzy state. It was just so beautiful and perfect. Harley sighed again, this time out of romantic passion.
"Don't worry, Mister J. I know we'll be seein' each other real soon," Harley said. "One way or another."
The South Fork Dam broke, which resulted in the Johnstown flood, one of the deadliest disasters in US history.
The cone of shame is a plastic cone used to humiliate bad dogs in the Pixar film Up.
Moon Unit is the child of Frank Zappa. Moxie Crimefighter is the unlucky offspring of Penn Jillette.
Tim Gunn's catch-phrase on Project Runway is "make it work."
Bart Simpson prank-called Moe's bar and asked for Mike Rotch. Fry, on Futurama, was duped into delivering a pizza for IC Wiener.
