Hello, everyone! I hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving holiday. My family and I spent last week in London - AMAAAAZING city. Seriously, I'm jealous of people who get to live there. I never wanted to leave.
Anyway, here's some more for you. It's really long…actually the longest I've written yet, which is pretty neat. Almost 4,300 words or something like that. I hope you like it and read it til the end despite its length. I think it's worth it.
Oh, also, the beginning is a little off-the-wall, but the bizarre factor is intentional. I like to think of it as a foreshadowing of Harleen's psychological deterioration and her spiral down into Harley.
And, as always, please leave a review. =) Thanks!
…..
Sleep was the only thing on Harleen's mind when she finally trudged through her apartment door around midnight. Jeremiah had insisted on calling a staff meeting to go over procedure 88 - patient escape - but had scheduled it for after his final session…which was at 10 PM. Ninety minutes of listening to Jeremiah drone on about alarm codes and safe rooms was enough to put anyone in a coma, but between that and her half-hour commute, it seemed like forever before she was back inside her own apartment.
Locking the door, she tossed off her heels and let her bag slip off her shoulder and onto the floor. Dinner, showering, even changing clothes - none of it was a bigger priority than putting her head on a pillow and closing her eyes for the next eight hours. So Harleen climbed under the thick covers in white blouse and pencil skirt and promptly, gratefully fell asleep.
….
She was standing at the end of a long hallway. So long and so winding, in fact, that she could not tell where it ended. Even if it had been light enough for her to clearly see, she still doubted whether it would've been visible from where she was.
It looked uncannily like a hallway in the asylum. She'd only been down it once, but once was more than enough to commit to memory. It was the way to Maximum Security, and in her mind Harleen had already walked this path hundreds of times. She knew the way. She just wasn't sure where it led.
Harleen began to walk. The clicking of her heels on the dusty linoleum was sharp, jarring, and she winced whenever she took a step. But it didn't seem as if she was disturbing anyone; on the contrary, there was no one in this hall. She glanced at the doors that lined the corridor, hundreds of identical doors that went all the way down, but there was no telltale light that crept from the thresholds. She was alone.
She picked up her pace and stopped in front of one of the doors. Grasped the knob - locked.
Swallowing, she continued down the hall and tried another door. Locked. She tried the one beside it. Locked. Tried the one next to that. Locked. Locked, locked, locked, six doors in a row.
She started to jog and kept it up until she had passed a good twenty or so doors. Finally, she skidded to a halt in front of one, reached for the cold brass handle, gave it a hard turn -
Nothing. She tried the next. Nothing. The next. Nothing.
She was sweating. She kicked off her shoes and took off at a run down the hallway. If she could find the end, then certainly it meant a way out. There had to be a way out.
For minutes she ran - five, ten, but after that, she lost track. Door after door blazed past her. Her hair fell out of its elastic and tumbled over her back.
The end, she thought. Where is the end? There's a way out here, there's always a way out at the end…
Just as the muscles in her legs had begun to numb in silent protest, she saw it - a door at the end of the hall. But it wasn't like the other; this one had light streaming out from under it, white, rich, glorious white. Breathing hard, Harleen turned the knob, and -
It was her bedroom - but as it was twenty years ago, when she was eight. The walls were that same soft lilac; her bed had a white canopy hanging around it, the sheets on the mattress a dark plum. In the corner was her bookshelf, still stuffed with her old favorites and holding the stuffed cat she'd had on the top shelf. It was odd; she'd run what felt like miles down an Arkham hallway to find her old bedroom at the end of it?
Suddenly she felt a breeze by her ear.
"Hello, Harley," said a voice from behind her. She spun around. There, reclining lazily on her bed, was her most dangerous, most ruthless, most intoxicating…
She summoned her voice and cleared her throat. "Uh…what are you doing here?"
He peered at her. "It's noon. We always meet at noon. Remember?" He folded his hands behind his head and jutted his chin at a poster on the opposite wall, smirking. "Nice. But I didn't think David Hasselhoff was your type. Had you pegged for more of a greasepaint and gun kind myself." He winked at her.
"We…we're having session in here?" she squeaked.
"Uh, yeah. You thought I was ready to get out of those handcuffs, remember?"
She shook her head. "No."
He sat up. "Really? Huh." He licked his upper lip and was quiet for a moment. "Harley?"
She set down the jewelry box she'd been examining. "Yeah?"
"I've been waiting in here. For a long time."
She turned to him. "Well, I…can't you just, um, walk out the door? It's wide open," she said.
"No."
"Why not?"
He stood up. "I need you. You have to take me through it. They won't let me out."
Harleen stared at him. "Oh."
"Please, Harley," he said quietly. He was somehow now very close to her, so close she could feel his breath on her neck. "I need you. Get me out."
That was it. His breath on her skin, the feeling of his eyes over her, of his hand on her body… . Yes. She would lead him out. She would let him go.
"Okay," she whispered. She took his hand and led him to the door. Slowly, deliberately, she crossed over it, and slowly, he followed, out of the room, out of the chains, out into the world.
There was a bright blast of light and they were no longer in the asylum hallway - they were no longer anywhere. Their surroundings melted away, the floor dissolved from under their feet, but she didn't fall - he had her. And suddenly he was kissing her. Kissing her and wasn't stopping. The greasepaint was everywhere - her face, her lips, her neck, her breasts, a slick white trail over her flushed skin. But she made no effort to wipe it off or push him away; no, she wanted him, all of him, all over her.
When she broke away from him, breathing hard, the scene had grown into someplace new, a glossy black place where, out of the corner of her eye, she could just catch flickers of silver. She ran a hand absently through her hair, pulling it out of her face - and suddenly so did a hundred other Harleens. Mirrors, mirrors, mirrors - she was surrounded, she and the red-mouthed man who held her, their movements echoed a hundredfold by their reflections.
"Where is this? Where are we?" she muttered. Her voice jumped around the room - or whatever it was - despite its dimmed volume.
"Harley, Harley, Harley Quinn," he whispered, taking her chin in his long, cold fingers. Slowly he turned her face back to his. "Look. We're free. You got me out. You brought me here."
"I…no! I didn't!" she gasped, trying to back out of his arms. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"No?" he said, gripping her waist tighter. "You don't remember? Well, I do, sweetheart. You broke me out of Arkham last night. And now we're here."
She stared at him in horror. "I…I…"
"Yeah, you. This is allllll thanks to you, Harl," he smirked.
"It can't be. I wasn't even…I didn't have…"
He rolled his eyes. "Well, it was and you did. So - "
"No, stop it! You have no idea what you're talking about!" she cried, tearing her arm from his grip. "Just stop it, I don't have to listen to you - "
"Harley - "
"No! You're…you're crazy!"
She realized as soon as the words fell out of her mouth that that had been the wrong thing to say. His eyes suddenly turned a brilliant black, and in one quick motion he had grabbed her arm and threw her into the nearest mirror. It exploded in a shower of silver glass as her head slammed into it, the shards adorning her hair, biting into her skin, drawing beautiful ruby rivulets and finally settling into a magnificent dust all around her. Faintly she heard it crunch; he was coming for her again.
"Am I, Harley? Am I crazy to you?" he hissed. "Well, I've got news for you, darling," he said. Crouching down beside her, he giggled and whispered in her ear, "You're just as sane as I am."
And they both turned to look into the mirror.
Harleen screamed, and he vanished. Her face was no longer hers. In the cracked, splintered mirror, she was someone else. Thick white greasepaint ran down her skin, streaked with small threads of her own blood; her lips were a bright vermillion, and, horribly, worst of all, thick scars shot the length of her mouth up into her cheeks. There were scars everywhere, everywhere his lips had been just minutes prior: her collarbone, her neck, the top of her breast -
"No! No!" she yelled, tearing at her face. Suddenly she slammed her hand into the mirror, but instead of it shattering, she fell into it - and kept falling. Falling…
Harleen's head snapped up from the pillow, gasping in tight, shallow breaths. Oh my god, she thought, sitting up and throwing her hands into her hair. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my -
Suddenly she threw the covers off her body. Glass. There had been glass just seconds ago, all over…
"Where's the glass?" she said, her throat raw, as if from the effort of hundreds of screams tearing past her larynx. She ran her hands desperately down her body, over her sweat-soaked shirt to her quivering legs, but she felt nothing. Yes there is, her mind countered. You just can't feel it, Harleen. It's there, look, you're bleeding…
"Glass, glass," she whispered, stumbling out of bed. A hot pearl of sweat fell onto her hand and she jumped, clutching the wall for support.
What is this? she asked herself, the liquid colorless in the pale light. Is it blood? Is this mine?
No, she corrected herself. It's makeup, Harleen. You know. Your greasepaint. His greasepaint.
"No! No, no, no it isn't! I know it isn't!" she cried, bursting into the bathroom and fumbling for the lights. I need to see it, I need to know I'm right…I'm not him…I'm Harleen…I know who I am…
The lights flicked on with a sharp buzz, a harsh white glow enveloping the tiny room.
You're just as sane as I am.
"No, no, no, no," she whispered, reaching a quivering hand towards the faucet. Icy water shot out of the tap and she threw it desperately at her face, neck, chest, clawing at her skin to wash away the makeup. Her nails made tiny slices her in cheeks, her neck, but she couldn't tell whether the red in the sink was her blood or the greasepaint.
Exhausted, she finally let her hands fall. With monumental effort she turned the tap again, watching the water swirl down the drain. Her vision seemed to spin with the water and she closed her eyes, fighting the wave of nausea that was steadily creeping down her throat.
You're just as sane as I am. Just as sane as I am. Just as sane…
Suddenly her eyes flew open. She stared at herself in the mirror, hardly daring to believe what she saw: her eyes were their normal blue, no black paint encircling them. Her lips, though pale, were pink and smooth. She touched her fingers to her cheek to feel for the scars. None.
Gasping in relief, her whole body fell forward, her hand pressed against the mirror. Her breath fogged the glass - the smooth, wonderfully whole glass. She turned the tap again and splashed hot water onto her face, reveling in the heat that seemed to flow back into her fingers, lips, chest.
You're fine, you're fine, she told herself as the water ran wonderfully down her neck, steam pooling around her head in a thick cloud. Everything is fine. You're fine.
She turned the faucet off.
What is that?
The mirror was completely clouded except for a small dash just a few inches above her head. It was a thick, upwards streak, like the bottom half of a circle. Harleen straightened to examine it closer. When she rose to her full height, the streak fell just over the reflection of her lips in the mirror, curving garishly to her cheeks. It formed a smile - a crude, deadly little smile. His. She recoiled, opening her mouth to scream, but somehow the sound suddenly morphed into a strange, wicked giggle.
She clutched at her throat and turned to the mirror again, but her reflection was no longer that of a dark-haired woman in a white shirt. There was someone else. Someone else in her mirror.
She hastily rubbed the condensation off the glass. There, standing exactly where Harleen herself was, was another woman. Her face was painted white, her lips ruby red, and she was shaking out a beautiful coat of glossy white-blonde hair over her shoulders, smiling in a way Harleen had never smiled in her life.
Harleen gasped for air. "Who are you?"
"Me?" the reflection said, pausing in her task. Her tone lilting, amused. "Oh, you know me!"
Harleen swallowed. "I…do?"
"Of course!" shrieked her reflection. "I'm Harleen Quinzel - you know, Harley Quinn!" The reflection paused and stared at Harleen quizzically. "Who are you?"
Then, suddenly, the woman faded. The glaring lights died. Harleen felt the cold tile floor beneath her and closed her eyes, grateful for the darkness.
…
"I had a dream about you last night, Harl," he said the next day as she entered the lab, gingerly closing the door. Her head throbbed as if it were splitting in two, and little black spots kept swirling around her vision. Whatever this was, it made even her nastiest hangover seem like a mere tickle.
Harleen snorted and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Well, that makes two of us, she wanted to say. But instead she just asked, "Really?"
He nodded and licked the corner of his mouth. "Mhm. See, I don't normally have dreams, but whatever you put me on, it's making me - "
" - bat-shit crazy?"
He stared at her for a second and then rolled his eyes. "God, Harley, I don't know whether to laugh or have you committed. Of course," he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, "I wouldn't mind sharing my cell if you decided to, ah, go the asylum route. I like your hair, by the way. Looks much better down."
She rolled her eyes. "Thanks. But no thanks about the cell thing. Not gonna happen."
He shrugged. "You never know. Just trying to be, uh…polite? Is that the word?" He smacked his lips as if the word tasted strange, foreign on his tongue.
Harleen gave a reluctant smile. "Close enough. But while I'm glad you've finally grasped the concept of manners, we've got to talk about something. Something you did last night that wasn't so polite." She stared at him pointedly.
"I thought doctors weren't supposed to spy on patients at night," he said, peering at her suspiciously, though a small smile was quivering on his lips. "What I do in the privacy of my own cell - "
Harleen shook her head. "This has nothing to do with…whatever you're talking about."
"Oh, whew," he said with a smirk. "'Cause that would turn this into a different kind of relationship. Although that's not necessarily a bad thing in my book."
She ignored him. "I'm talking about something you did outside of your cell. At around approximately 2:30 AM." Harleen crossed her arms in front of her chest expectantly. He just stared at her, turning his head slowly to the side as he narrowed his eyes.
"Are you serious?" she snapped. "You're not even going to pretend to know what I'm talking about?"
"Um, no."
She sighed. "Lawrence Dunphy. Lawrence Dunphy is what I'm talking about. Security guard on the night patrol." She scanned his face for signs of recognition, but he gave away nothing. "You know," she said, "the one you killed?"
He gasped in mock indignation, his dark eyes sparkling. "Me? Kill someone? Here?"
Harleen rolled her eyes. "Yes, you."
"Where's your proof? I heard the security cameras were down last night."
"You knew they were down - you were the one who snapped the wires!"
He grinned. "That doesn't sound like me at all."
"Listen, I know it was you," she hissed, leaning forward. "And even though you made sure no one caught it on tape, you still made an amateur mistake. I knew it was you the second I heard about it."
"Amateur mistake? Which is…?" he sneered.
Harleen smiled. "You left a hair elastic at the scene," she said. "Around Lawrence's neck, to be gruesomely exact. It was my elastic - the one you took from me yesterday."
"Ah, I knew I was forgetting something," he said flippantly. "Ah, well. Still got what I set out for."
"Which was?"
"Um, let's see…none of your business."
They sat in silence for a long moment, staring at one another across the table. Finally, he giggled.
"Jeez, doc, if looks could kill…"
Harleen sighed. "You know I would've never let you keep that elastic if I knew what you were planning to do with it, right?" She fidgeted with the button on her lab coat. All morning she'd been thinking about Lawrence Dunphy. Lawrence, whose wife she had met two years ago at the staff Halloween party. Lawrence, who'd drawn her name last Christmas in the Secret Santa exchange, and who'd bought her a new bottle of her favorite perfume from Penhaligon's in the West End of Gotham. Lawrence…who was dead because of her.
Her patient just gazed at her, rocking on the back leg of his chair.
"I need to hear you say you understand that," she said. A crack of pain shot through her head suddenly and she rubbed her temple. "Please."
He snorted. "Why? So you can feel all better about yourself? So you can feel like everything's okay? You think that'll take your precious elastic off that guy's neck?" He shook his head. "Noooo way, Harley. Time for you to take your Purgatory like the rest of us."
Harleen glanced up at him. "Are you religious?"
"Uh, no," he said almost indignantly. "What did I ever do to mislead you like that?"
"Well, you just mentioned Purgatory. Usually that's only something religious people believe in."
"Harley," he said, bringing his chair down on all four legs, "listen. I'm an anarchist. I don't like government. I don't care for monarchy. So what makes you think I'd believe in a guy who calls Himself the King of Kings?" He burst into obscene laughter that pierced Harleen's head.
"I was just wondering. That probably is part of the reason why you seem to have no remorse about killing Lawrence," she said, shrugging. "Sin is generally a religious concept."
He rolled his eyes and waved an airy hand. "No. I have no remorse for killing Lawrence because it was only a matter of time anyway." He paused. "Well, that and I'm just a heartless bastard."
"You are not heartless," Harleen said. "I don't believe that for a second. But what do you mean, it was only a matter of time?"
He looked at her. "What? You mean you don't know? Ah. Well, you wouldn't. No one did, really. Anyway, Lawrence Dunphy was, ah, not in the good graces of some of the loan sharks down in the Bronx. Had a bit of a gambling habit, see, and thought his pockets were deeper than they were. So…they were planning to, ah, help him get a jump on his repayment. Offer him an interest type of thing, I think."
"What, culminating in taking his life?" Harleen said.
"Well, yes, sweetheart. That's generally what happens when you rip off a mob full of guys with big guns."
She sighed and gazed over his shoulder at the dingy paint peeling off the wall. "Well, anyway…you know I have to report you, right? For what you did?"
He smiled. "'Have to' isn't really the right phrase, I don't think. More like you 'have to but you, ah, can't.'"
"What are you talking about?" she snapped. "Of course I can! All it takes is one phone call to Arkham and - "
" - and you're out of a job, darling."
She glared at him. "Get that smirk off your fucking face," she said.
"Ooh, such language, doc, my virgin ears - "
"Tell me what you're talking about RIGHT NOW!" she yelled, standing up so quickly her chair toppled backwards. A light brown bobby pin slipped out of her hair and onto the tabletop.
He was unimpressed. "Sit down, Harley. Don't get in over your head here." He ran his tongue over his lips. "I'd figured you would be able to put it together, but I guess inferring isn't really your strong suit, huh?"
Harleen slammed her chair down and sat, casting him a murderous glance. "If you don't tell me right - "
"Let me make this easier for you," he smirked. "That elastic of yours still had a strand of your hair when you gave it - "
" - when you took it - "
"Eh, the details are a bit fuzzy," he said with a grin. "Anyway, this elastic still had a strand of your hair, Harl, and when I was, um, forced to dispose of Lawrence, I made perfectly sure that I kept that pretty little hair, in case your infuriating sense of righteousness got in the way and you tried to turn me in. So, here's the deal: you rat me out, I rat you out. I'll tell 'em you gave me that elastic and let me keep it, no problem." He leaned towards her. "D'you see now how easily this can get…complicated?"
Harleen stared at him. "So what, what do you want me to do?" she said listlessly. "Am I supposed to sneak out of my room in the dead of night and go kill a security guard too? Like my perfect role model here?"
His tongue flicked the corner of his mouth. "You're cute when you're mad, Harley. But no. No murdering for you right now. You'd just make a mess of it and I'd have to come in and sweep up the pieces - er, chunks. No, no, no, no, no. Nothing like that."
"Then what?" Harleen massaged the bridge of her nose wearily. This was not happening, this was not happening…
He grinned. "I just want these little pow-wows of ours to be moved to a different room, that's all," he said lightly. "Sitting in here day after day, being verbally abused my psychiatrist, who also was an accomplice to a murder…gets old, y'know? So let's just move to a different room and be done with it."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "That's it? You just want a…a change of scenery?"
"Well, ah, there is one more thing, now that you mention it: no more of these chains, Harley. No chains. I put up with them, I haven't tried to escape from them…I deserve a little trust, don't you think?"
"Oh, yes, of course, the man who killed one of my coworkers just eight hours ago definitely deserves to roam around the asylum on his own. Right." She gave an unnatural, shrill little laugh. Flashes of her dream - and a thoroughly chainless, red-mouthed patient - spun around her head, made her dizzy. "Right."
But he wasn't smiling. "I never said I wanted you to let me roam around," he said. "Not like I need your permission for that anyway. Nope, I just want to be in a room with you where I don't have to sit with these handcuffs cutting off my circulation for hours at a time." Cracking his neck, he gave a devilish grin. "So, have we got a deal?"
Harleen's heart battered against her ribs. He wanted a new room. He wanted to be let out of the chains. But hadn't she done that very thing in her dream last night? And look what had happened…
Still, he had a solid case against her. She didn't have much of a choice. It may as well have been her putting that elastic around Lawrence's neck for all the evidence he had.
"Fine," she said curtly, ignoring the skipping of her heart. "Location changes, you keep your mouth shut. Got it?" She stood, whipping her bag off the floor by its strap and throwing it over her shoulder. She didn't meet his eyes.
"Sounds peachy, doc. See you later."
He smiled after her as she stalked out of the room. As soon as she'd gone, he swiped her fallen bobby pin off the tabletop and slipped it into his sleeve. For later.
…
So! Kind of weird, huh? Eek. They are so messed up.
And I love it. ;)
Leave me something to read!