thecapitol | It could be her head wasn't screwed on just right.

Entry tags:

It could be her head wasn't screwed on just right.

Who: Harley Quinn and You
When: Before the Space Arena
What: Harley needs a little Christmas, right this very minute
Where: moping about the tribute towers
Warnings: It's Harley so be on your guard.

Of all the little Jewish girls growing up on Gotham, Harley had often prided herself on loving Christmas more then anyone else. She was always in Holiday plays though her school years and once her criminal career had gotten started she made sure that even her crimes had a level of festivity to them.

But as the Capitol began gearing up for another flashy, flamboyant and overblown celebration of the season...she just couldn't find it in her heart to get excited. She remembered fondly the year when she and Ivy had kidnapped Bruce Wayne for Christmas. Ivy had used her pheromones to make him their slave for the night and they'd used him to go on a shopping spree. It was great until they almost accidentally killed him by knocking him in an elevator shaft. ...of course they had been planning on killing him anyway but that was when Batman arrived and ruined their fun. There was no Batman here though. And all his little birds who had shown up had been promptly killed never to be seen again.

Harley felt a longing for her home when normally she was able to squash it down with laughter. Those close to Harley might notice the girl becoming more subdued as they drew closer to December. By December first she was hardly wearing her scandalous, trashy or flamboyant clothes and was lounging around in more subdued and plain boring outfits. Even in the training hall when she showed up for her daily routine she'd exchanged her shamelessly short shorts and tanktop for a much more modest track suit. And she was drinking more, which usually had her laughing too loud, or shouting, or sobbing. If regular Harley had no problem sharing her emotions, drunken Harley was extra noisy about it.

Spending her day alternating between laying around the District Nine common area, half heartedly training, drinking at the bar or laying stretched out on a sofa in the Tribute Tower Common area, Harley was clearly doing her best impression of an angst riddled teenager in a grown woman's body. And perhaps most worrying of all was she hadn't spontaneously broken anything in a whole two weeks.

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He slid the glass under his sniffnode, watching the woman carefully in his peripherals for signs of malintent before taking a sip. The drink.... wasn't that bad. Bracing but fruitlike, with that human alcohol stuff that promised to either disinfect or boil his insides. But it wasn't as strong as that red drink had smelled. And best of all, it had honey in it. His fangs bared in a grin.

"Ok, you win. Time to break in my finanthial irrethponthibility card," he smirked. "Her nextht human elixthir ith on me," he told the bartender.

"Ith that what thith drink doeth? Do humanth actually find it dethirable to have hair growthth on their chetht?"

Harley threw her hands up in a cheer.

"Yay! Daffy Duck likes it!" She declared victoriously, then dissolved into a fit of giggles.

"No no no, it's just an expression. An old saying to mean it's something that will brace you. Make you tough!"

"I'm not a quackbeatht!" he half-heartedly protested. "But thankth for not giving me thomething to burn my tongue out, I kind of need it for variouth thingth."

Various things indeed.

"I've had plenty to make me tough, thankth. More than my fair share. I thought it'd be obviouth, thinthe I look like I've been through the thresher," he gestured vaguely at his own face, slashed with a map of lighter grey lines. His hands were no different, busted up with older scars and a more recent smattering of travel-worn callouses. He hadn't even been booked with his stylist yet, so his claws were chipped and uneven.

"But I won't tell you how I got thethe thcarth. That'th private."

His weak protest and then justification for his tongue just made Harley laugh harder. She wiped a tear away delighted by the entire situation.

"Aw but that's the best part about scars!" She whined with a warm smile. Looking thoughtful she tugged the collar of her shirt to the side twisting around till her shoulder was exposed. An indent in the skin showed where a chunk had been taken out years ago. Long healed but always marked.

"Like this one there? This is when my Puddin' strapped me to a rocket and blasted me across town. I think I lost it to a tree that I crashed through but I dunno because I was...well crashing." She chuckled.

"A rocket?? How did you not die? Thith Puddin playth it too clothe, you're not thuppothed to kill your kithmethith, jutht keep them on their toeth." Kismesis, he was going to throttle whoever made up that word. It was all S's. Couldn't linguists have done with hatemate?

"And here I thought humanth were leth pthychotic than trollth. If you die, Puddin'th out of a quadrantmate. Tell Puddin to think about that." Yes, he thought "Puddin" was a name.

Unlike humans, who usually valued their partners for emotional or monetary reasons, trolls had an added urgency to their relationships. They were required to have them on pain of death. Psii didn't have any at the moment, but he was an outlaw to begin with, and an expert at keeping himself off the grid.

"I wish I could thay mine were collected during equally, um, fun adventureth, but they weren't. Thorry to dithappoint, but there'th no thtory worth telling," he muttered cagily. He expected his past as a slave would get out eventually, but he really did not feel like talking about the worst parts of his life with a complete stranger.

She just laughed like it was all in good fun.

"Aw he's not so bad. A lot of people think he's this total monster...and well he is. But he was my Monster once." She sighed looking nostalgic.

Her eyebrow arched at his denial though and she shrugged her shoulders. "Alright, your call. But you should have a better opinion of yourself. Everyone's stories are worth telling at least once."

She could keep that monster. Psii had no interest in being strapped to rockets without his powers to protect him. He sighed. If he had his powers as a failsafe, he'd dare a lot more with a kismesis. For now, he had to settle for being without telekinesis as well as basic rights in Panem.

"I'm thure it'th worth telling, but that doethn't mean I want to. To be honetht, I don't think much of mythelf. It'th eathier to crash land when you're already low."

He sipped his drink. Not bad, not bad at all. He braved a larger swig, a lightheaded calm gently winding its way through his vessels.

"Ooo that makes sense." She nodded enthusiastically. "But then the real question becomes if you can live with a lifetime of safety and comfort. If your expectations are always low then you'll never be disappointed sure but you can't build to something better either."

Or maybe that simply wasn't what he wanted.

"Life is all about experience. You took a risk with that drink and now you have a memory you can carry with you forever or discard. And memories are precious. Especially in a place like this where they could probably take them away."

"I've taken enough rithkth for mythelf. I've racked up quite a debt, actually. I'm going to pay for it twofold."

He didn't mention that he had shifted to taking risks for others since he ran away and became an outlaw. He knew, from his future self being here before, that he would suffer a fate worse than death for following Signless's cause. He also knew that his life would be artificially prolonged, and with it, his suffering.

"Trouble uthually findth me anyway. A lifetime of thafety and comfort ith well outthide the realm of pothibility for me now. I'll retht when I'm dead."

He smiled bitterly.

"How long do humanth uthually live?"

"Well..." She tapped her chin thoughtfully "With current medical science the average human can live into their eighties. It's rare to make it to the big one double o. But if you're a crazy person like me and run around in costumes jumping from rooftop to rooftop you'd be surprised how often that results in premature death and sometimes coming back to life." She giggled that unstable giggle of hers.

She was definitely batshit up the fucking belfry, but so was he.

"Yeah, it'th hard to tell how old lowbloodth like me get, thinthe we keep getting culled," he sighed as if he was complaining about the weather instead of mass murder. It happened often enough on Alternia that it wasn't so shocking, not even to someone who had to see precognitive visions of said deaths.

"That short a lifethpan, huh? I'm thuppothed to live a little longer than that mythelf, provided paradoxth thpathe doethn't dethide to shit on me again. I alwayth thought I'd die early, but apparently having your life unnaturally exthtended thuckth major globeth, too. Dodged that bullet thith timeline."

He thoughtfully swirled his half-finished drink.

"What did you mean by memorieth being taken away?"

"See and I've never understood that." Harley grinned wryly. "If I could stay in this body at this strength and health forever I'd be on board. Sure I'd have to watch my friends and family die but I'd have enough time to experience everything I imagined and more." She mused.

Tapping her head once more she explained "There are chips in our brains right? And it's pretty clear they have no qualms about torturing and causing brain damage. So it stands to reason if they really wanted to? They could probably alter or even remove some of your memories. I dunno what kind of super science bull crap they'd have to use to make it happen but...well anything's possible at this point."

"You'd go crazy—I mean, crazier than you are already. Your mind ithn't equipped to handle a long life. Neither ith mine. It'th.... not pretty. Trutht me."

He rubbed his temples, a gesture born of habit. He'd have more headaches if his powers were restored. At the mention of chips, he stopped.

"Yeah, I.... thought that implantth might be the cathe," he murmured anxiously, downing another swig. "I read everything here jutht fine, and I can't thpeak my native language. Tho yeah, thome thort of neural interfathe...."

More complex terms put a name to it, helped him understand and feel just slightly better about having a goddamn chip in his brain. He already knew that his future self would have bioware inserted into him. This wasn't what he wanted to think about outside the comfort and (sort of) privacy of his room. He stared forward for a bit at the the bottles. Their highlights seemed to have gotten brighter.

"Crazy can be fun." She chirped to his reasoning but she let the subject go for now. If he had experience in the matters surely she should default to him.

"It's not the greatest thing to know just how deep under our skin our "Benevolent Overlords" have gotten. But what else can we do?" She waved for a refill and before the bartender came back she'd drained her drink to make room for more alcohol. "And some cookies!" She encouraged and while the bartender gave her a weary look he didn't argue vanishing into the back.

"Were you here for that fancy dream party we had? It was when that french kid won and they stuck us all with needles so we had a shared dream. That was pretty wild." And horrific if she thought about just how much tech power the Capitol had.

"T-Thank you," Psii called awkwardly after the bartender. Every once in a while, he felt intensely weird around people working specifically to serve him, even while remembering they were paid. He'd been a slave once, and old wounds still ached unexpectedly.

Still, he couldn't say no to cookies. Or interesting information about Capitol mind control.

"I wathn't. I only jutht arrived here. Tell me more--or, well, whatever you remember about how they did it."

Being shot up with a needle and waking up at a different location later might not tell much, but something was better than nothing, he hoped.

"Well..." She pursed her lips together and had a far away look in her eyes as she thought back. "I was still a tribute at the time. Can you believe I can't even remember who's party it was we were celebrating? But it was a crowning ceremony that much I remember. They sent people to our rooms with needles and IVs full of something or other. Once we got hooked up it was like sleep just came for ya. I hear a lot of tributes fought it but eventually we were all put under and when you woke up you were in this big elegant ball room wearing fancy period appropriate clothes." Then a wicked smirk danced across her features.

"And since it was a dream you could eat as much as you wanted without gaining a calorie. And some of the tributes let our inhibitions run a little wild." Yet another night of Harley making out with friends who would then promptly pretend it hadn't happened. After all it was just a dream so it's not like it really counter.

While Psii couldn't see the memories Harley was reveling in the way she licked her lips probably gave a good idea.

"Anyway so then we woke up and honestly I felt a little cotton mouthed."

He stifled a bit of laughter. He might be living the life of a fugitive back home, but he knew what it was like to wake up after several hours of partying, clothes optional.

"A shared dream. Wild. The only way I know of making that happen ith with mind control powerth. It begth the quethtion of whether the injectionth were the cauthe of the dream, or jutht there to put you all out at the thame time while thome pthychic methed with your headth.... Why a ball, though? Don't Capitoliteth get enough of that in real life?"

He wrinkled his sniff node disdainfully.Ball dancing, ugh.

"Oh it probably had to do with whichever tribute had won that arena...gosh who was it?" She tapped her chin in an exageration of thinking hard.

"FRENCHIE!" She called out face lighting up with joy at having recalled her missing memory. "It was that french kid Enjoy-la-rez. He won the arena by hiding out for the entire time till there were just like...three people left. Then when one killed the other he went crazy and killed the last guy." She gave a giddy little bounce and then added with a broad smile across her features "I always hated that guy. He'd write these long complicated letters to the public and not give two craps about if it was dangerous to the rest of us. All stuffy and self important you know?"

There were few people in Panem that Harley genuinely did not like. And that boy had been one of them. Harley could not abide someone without a sense of humor.

Psii tried not to let the casual mention of arena deaths bother him. It wasn't something he looked forward to, in fact it was something he planned on escaping entirely by running away. Such were his thoughts his second day here. He'd run away from slavery once, surely he could do it once more. Then again, he hadn't been such a high-profile slave before.

"Well, you won't have to worry about that from me. If I won, the party would probably jutht be glowthtickth everywhere...." He smirked, taking a cookie. He knew one wordy, outspoken person, though his best friend Signless had grown more cautious and quiet in his time here. And while he could be insistent and preachy, he was too humble to be outright self-important.

"Tho if you're not a Tribute any more, what do you do now?"

"Well, I'm supposed to be the district nine mentor. The last one standing too since the other two are dead and gone. I don't even know if any of the winners from District Nine before Eva are still alive." She mused idly.

"I'm supposed to train the District Nine tributes in survival, but it's a little hard getting it organized. So mostly I go to parties and try to talk people into spending money on our sponsorships. I used to be really good at it but it looks like popularity can be a fickle thing round here." She rolled her eyes.

"If you won that'd be your job too."

"....That'th the dithtrict I wath athigned." His eyebrows were in danger of escaping into his short-cropped hair now. He'd been casually chatting with his Mentor for some time now, and he hadn't even known it.

"Tho I gueth.... You're thuppothed to teach me?" asked stupidly. He didn't begrudge her for any foreseeable lack of survival training, however. His life on Alternia had done a lot of that work already. But she could give him information. "How do thponthorshipth help me exthactly?"

Harley barked out loud with amusement.

"Well what a small world. Yeah I'm that loud girl who comes into the suite late at night and plays her music loud." She introduced herself with a wink. "I also sometimes trail my clothes across the common area but I think the Avox clean that mess up."

Delighted to finally have a tribute that wanted to learn from her she spun around on her stool and ordered another drink.

"The sponsorships are the best way to get supplies sent to you in the arena. Food, water, sleeping bags, medical kits, sometimes even weapons! It all depends on what the Capitol is allowing us to send you. See the Sponsors send us money, and then I in my infinite wisdom get to decide how that money is spent on you guys in the arena! So if there's any special requests you have make sure you tell me before the arena, because once you're in there I only get to see what the Capitol lets me see."

Leaning forward conspiratorially she whispered. "They edit the footage so even if you were to start shouting at the top of your lungs for me to send you something I might not see it unless they let me."

His blood ran cold, and he nearly forgot the rest of her words. The Avoxes were simply a more extreme form of slavery; Psii's whip scars itched as he remembered the curtain of fear and pain that had nearly blotted out the rest of his free life. He had run away to follow Signless with only the hope of his words to hang onto, and he was in no hurry to sit idly by and watch his freedom dangle like a carrot.

"Try not to make a meth for the Avoxeth. They've got enough to deal with already."

He tried to remember what she'd said.

"The.... yeah. They control all the information." The statement was true of the city generally and the arena specifically. "Good idea to plan beforehand. Ill go over thome footage and figure out what I'll need."

Harley simply shrugged once more. "I can't help making messes where I go. Besides they're safer cleaning up messes in our suite then they are in...other places."

Recently she'd been getting complaints from some of her more tender hearted tributes about the amount of abuse heaped upon the Avox. As a former career criminal Harley couldn't help but feel a sort of kinship for the slaves.

...but that didn't mean she as going to behave herself. Making messes was one of her only forms of free expression left.

"That's the spirit!" She encouraged trying to lead him away from more sensitive subjects. "And if we watch the recordings together maybe we can pool our ideas. After all two minds are better then one! And I've been told I'm pretty good at thinking outside the box!" Then she laughed in an eerie and unsettling manner to hint at just why that might be.

Psii could imagine very well what abuses Avoxes endured. He'd had much of the same as a wiggler growing up, and he'd even had all his faculties. Avoxes were reduced to less than chattel.

"Two mindth are better than one...." he mused. But he didn't trust her enough to bring her into possible escape plans. She'd only offered to help him with arenas. Maybe if he didn't find a way out of here he'd play their Games and accept her help.

He leaned slightly back when she laughed. Once or twice was a fluke, but several times did indeed hint at insanity. He'd have to figure out what kind later, just in case. It wouldn't do to wake up one day to her swinging an ax at his neck.

"Jutht don't think it'll be a date or anything. (Do humanth even date?) Anyway, thankth for the drink."

It could be her head wasn't screwed on just right.

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/End. Excellent thread <3 you are lovely!