thecapitol | (no subject)

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Who: Harley Quinn and you
What: Harley's starting to feel the weight of those who never came back.
Where: The Tribute Center Garden.
When: Week Five.
Notes: It's Harley, anything is possible

"I don't think she's coming back Red."

Harley hung her head and sighed sitting on the ground in the dirt. Her butt was cold but she didn't care so much. The sweater she was sporting had her sultry silhouette on it with the phrase "Funny honey" on it and her trademark diamond pattern on the breast.

"I should have tried harder to make sure she got the attention of the people." she lamented in a much more stable and measured voice then she usually used. It was almost like she was a different person. A tired person on the verge of falling asleep on the ground.So now

"So now it's just down to me and Brainy...and he doesn't seem like the kind of kid to put up with my nonsense. Then again neither did Damian."

She stuck a finger in the dirt and idly drew a spiral pattern tracing it wider and wider.

"Then again I never woulda thought you'd put up with me either but you did for a long time didn't ya Red? Way longer then you probably should have. Especially after...well you know."

She brought her gaze back up to the rose bush she had been addressing. Her eyes watered and she blinked away a tear letting it run down her cheek and land in the middle of the spiral.

"Don't ever come here Ivy. I miss ya but...I don't know what I'd do if you came here and they took you away from me."

The rose bush had no response to this heartfelt request.

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He didn't mean to interrupt. He had wanted some air, nothing more, after a long morning's training. Interrupting was far, far from what he desired, especially after he heard the nature of her soliloquy, grieving after lost friends. A man (or woman) should be allowed to grieve in peace.

But by the time he made out her words he was too close to be able to pretend he had not heard them, coming to an awkward stop a few feet away. So instead, he steeled himself.

"Do you require assistance, Tribute?"

There. Not awkward at all.

Holiday never really took dying well. Even this time. When she wanted it to come. She still just... One never really got used to it.

As thirsty as she was in the arena, she still hadn't had a drink yet. Thinking about it now made her stomach turn, so she was out of the tribute center and enjoying - if that word was appropriate here - the fresh air. Every time she came back, the indoors and especially her room just felt suffocating.

That was when she found her friend sitting on the ground. Crying. No, that wouldn't do. "Harley?" She moved closer. Rebecca had so few good friends in this place. It was them she kept going for, after all.

Harley looked up sniffling like a child and smiled at the sight of her friend alive and well.

"Oh hey Doc, welcome to the land of the nearly living." She joked weakly wiping away her tears on a sleeve.

"Been breathing long?"

Harley glanced up almost casually despite the awkwardness of the situation and her blurry eyes settled on Maximus.

"O-oh hey there handsome." She greeted though there was no where near her usual energy in her voice. "I'm just catching up with an old friend...at least I hope she's still my friend. Nothin' to worry about though." She sighed rocking on her seat.

Presumably by friend she had meant the rose bush because there was clearly no one else nearby.

"Excuse me. Are you talking to that rosebush?"

Carlos had approached the scene from behind and had missed both the tear and the tone. The fact that she was addressing the plant had caught his interest: old habits died hard, and he'd had a year in Night Vale to perfect his sense for the weird. If she was just talking to a plant, that was fine. Normal, even. Plenty of people did that.

"If it's talking back to you, you should probably leave while you still can. Talking plants seem friendly and nice, but in my experience, they're never good news."

He wasn't making fun of her. Carlos was deadly serious.

Harley looked up quizzically at him and for a moment a look of recognition crossed her features. But the words he spoke made a silly smile slide over her lips and she lout a single short "Ha." Without much enthusiasm.

"You got that right Mr. Perfect hair." She sighed and flopped onto her back in the dirt.

"My Ivy was bad news to alot of people." She lamented tucking her hands behind her head "But never to me. She saved my butt more times then I can count."

And how had she returned that kindness in the end? Horribly. It was enough to make her sick with herself.

"I'd kill SO many people to get her to talk to me again." She added "Not sure how that would work but I'm crazy right? So maybe it doesn't have to make sense."

He raises an eye, glancing at the rose bush, but he'd lost enough friends in this place (and back home) to know she meant the dead. He stepped a little closer, frowning down at her.

"Rarely does an acquaintance give cause for tears, save in their parting," He said, his rough voice somehow gentle when he delivered it low.

Unsure of how to respond to that, Carlos walked around to the other side of the rosebush so he could see both it and the face of the murderous girl with the plant affinity without making her crane her head to look at him. His lab coat and glasses were in place: it would be impossible for anyone not to know he was a scientist.

He didn't know if Harley was talking about a person or the plant, and neither one was safe to assume. "When Ivy talked to you," he said, sinking into a crouch to get a closer look at the plant, "what kind of things did she say?"

The Signless didn't come up to the garden lately as much as he had when he'd first arrived, but it was still a nice place to sit and think on occasion. Unfortunately with the high number of people who used it for that purpose it was often hard not to interrupt other people's private moments.

"May I sit with you?"

He couldn't really help people here the way he wanted to help them, by dismantling the culture of violence and oppression they were being forced to exist under the heel of. That still didn't sit well with him. But he could certainly help his fellow tributes deal with the stress of living in such a situation, if nothing else, and Harley definitely looked like she might need someone to talk to.

Harley tilted her head considering the words and offered another weak dishonest smile.

"Heh...poetic. Who knew you were beefcake and creative. I thought that speech you gave at your crowning had been written for ya."

She sighed again and looked back to the flowers.

"Tell me stud, have ya ever betrayed someone who loved you?"

"Oh the usual things." Harley smiled softly as she took a trip down memory lane "Harley don't touch that. Harley be quiet. Harley don't put that in your mouth. Harley touch me here. Faster Harley faster." She sniffled as her eyes welled up with tears.

"Harley y-you're the o-only meatbag I'll ever care about." She whimpered out the last part and her body gave a shiver.

Harley glanced up slowly and found herself surprised. She hadn't had much experience with the trolls but everyone knew about them. She shrugged her shoulders "It's a free country." and after a pause she smirked bitterly.

"OK well, no it's not but yeah. Have a seat scruffy." She patted the ground near her invitingly while she turned her attention back to the rose bush.

He has absolutely no idea what 'beefcake' means, and is fairly sure he should be insulted, but instead he raises an eyebrow. He could hear pain when it was that obvious.

"Yes."

He hadn't reached them in time.

She nodded.

"It hurts right? Especially when it's like...I mean I never meant to hurt her..." She stopped and looked even more guilty.

"OK I did. In the moment I wanted to cut her right through. I wanted to hurt her for trying to come between me and Mister..." She cut herself off though feeling a rock in her stomach rising into her throat. She couldn't even say his name right now.

"She was trying to save me. But I'm crazy, and I didn't wanna be saved. So I crossed a line. A line I shoulda never crossed. And I didn't just cross that line I skipped over it with a smile! I'm the worst!" She screamed the last part out in defeat and pulled on her pig tails making her body go rigid till she casually flopped onto her side like she'd been knocked over by her own wickedness.

"I never even said I was sorry." She whimpered into the dirt.

He looked a little stunned by the display, suddenly regretting his decision to stick his nose in. Carefully, he crouched down near her. He didn't know who she was talking about, but he could get the gist of it.

"What is your name?" He asked calmly, instead.

"A few days now," she answers, moving to sit down beside Harley on the ground. "I looked for you in there, but I'm glad to see you either way... What's wrong?"

Another barely disguised sniffle and a joke "Would you like the problems listed alphabetically or in order of appearance?"

She couldn't even laugh at that joke it was so pathetic.

"I just...do you know Babs? Barbara? The little red head girl? Built like a spider she's all limbs and sad looks?" Harley wiggled her fingers to imitate a spider.

Even if Holiday didn't know Barbara it hardly mattered really.

"She's gone. Like gone gone. Like she died in the arena a looooong time ago and they still haven't brought her back so...like...gone. Just like all the others from Gotham who were brought here."

A twitch like a bug that had been knocked senseless on the ground.

"Really? Serious? You've been a mentor this long and you don't know the other tributes names?" She muttered dryly.

"I'm Harley." she grunted refusing to pick herself up just yet. The dirt felt closer to Ivy even if Harley knew it was only the finest refined dirt.

Holiday was nodding before Harley even finished. She did know Barbara pretty well, actually, and hadn't even realized the girl was gone. That's... unfortunate. What's more, Holiday didn't realize they were from the same place.

She frowned and scooted closer to her friend. "I did know her. I'm sorry, Harley. She was a good kid... If it helps, I'm alone here, too." It probably didn't, though. Never having friends show up wasn't the same as having them taken away.

She offered a weak smile and nodded.

"It helps a little."

Leaning into the woman she continued.

"So far from my world we've had Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy who I kinda had a thing for. He actually got me paroled once after having a bad day."

"Then there was his sons, Damian, Tim and this older version of Tim. Good kids. Smart enough to keep an eye on me at least. Then there was Eddie, a friend of mine who was a super smart criminal from the same Asylum I worked at and was committed to."

"And of course we can't forget Diana, Wonder Woman to most of us. Amazon Princess, worldwide hero. I once helped her Mama save the entire Island where all the Amazons live and train. One of the mightiest heroes we ever had and she just...gone. Dead and gone."

Carlos's eyes went wide and a flush crept up the back of his neck. Well, that certainly was, um, more than he needed to know about Harley's relationship with this plant. But, well, as long as both parties were consenting adults, or what passed for sexual maturity in rose bushes, then Carlos supposed there was nothing wrong with it.

He cleared his throat, awkwardly. "...I'm sorry you, uh, lost her."

"The worst part is it's my own fault." She lamented. "I had a moment or insanity, worse then my usual insanity and I said horrible things I shouldn't have said. I used her love for me to hurt her."

Throwing back her head she could hold back no more and let out a gross sob.

"I'm Sorry Ivy! I don't deserve you!"

"...there, there," the scientist said, still incredibly off-balance and unsure of what to do. He really was no good with feelings, or talking about feelings, or soothing others' feelings. He also had no idea what exactly happened between Harley and this Ivy plant, and felt it would be best not to make any conjectures.

Carlos hadn't forgotten, of course, that Harley had called herself a lunatic and sighed wistfully about killing people to get her lesbotany lover to talk to her again.

"It'll be all right. Eventually. Probably, I mean nothing is really certain, and I don't really know anything about your situation, but I think -- I think it will, given enough time, be okay. Most things are." Unless she died first, but that probably wouldn't be very comforting.

That was a lot of people. Way more than she's had here. It was still weird hearing different tidbits of Harley's past, just making whatever story she's had even more confusing to piece together, but she'll ask later.

"Dead is a far leap here. For us. They could always be back home or... maybe still in Panem somewhere. No one knows for sure what happens."

Harley watched him carefully for a minute. His words were nice but she couldn't pretend he sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

"You ever been in love there science guy?" She pressed and poked him in the arm.

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lol sorry for the one-word answer from him....

It's OK, she talks plenty for two.

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