InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "stupid unreliable vampire"

Harley Quinn (i_lovemrj) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2008-12-31 18:06:00

Entry tags:

frank castle, harleen quinzel

Interloper (tag: Frank Castle)
Harley was not wearing a happy face. Because Harley was not a happy camper. This was the second time those butterfly bozos had managed to slip away before she could find out where her Puddin’ was. She was gonna tease it out of them. Or maybe exchange the skull for it, except Selina had managed to swipe it right out of her hands. But even the option of tailing them back to wherever they had their hide out was lost to her.

Because the morons snuck out while she was distracted with the kitty. What kinda henchmen were they that they just gave up in the middle of a job? They sucked. They sucked a lot. And they made Harley feel all kinds of cranky, so she’d done what she could to make herself feel better.

She stole something else.

In this case, she lifted a cut crystal candy dish from a display window. It’d look great in her warehouse. If she ever found her warehouse again. Stupid City. She went to all the trouble of stealing pillows and knick-knacks and making it a nice girly-place, and the damn City went and moved it on her. She’d stole that stuff fair and square, and she should get to enjoy it! But there was no point in stealing big things until she had a place to stash them again. So. Candy dish.

With an internal sigh, she headed back towards the botanical gardens. She hadn’t seen Pammy since the zombie attack and Harley was starting to fear that something might actually have happened to her best friend. Though Poison Ivy had managed to come through a lot worse situations. But with no idea where her own hideout was, and no better plan for finding Pammy, hanging out at the botanical gardens seemed like the best idea.

But somehow, she must’ve got turned around because the turn she’d take to get back to the large glass building didn’t take her where she wanted to go. Instead, Harley was headed towards the docks. Which was weird. So she turned around, walking in the opposite direction. Only to find herself right back on the docks. What the hell?

Then her eyes widened, accompanied by a small squeal, when she spied the very thing she’d been missing. Her warehouse! How it got to the docks, Harley had no idea, and right now, she didn’t care. She just wanted to get inside, get her things, and maybe get some rest. Then she could come up with some sorta idea of how to track the butterflies down. And torture them. Harley had very distinct visions of shoving rubber chickens in certain places that she was pretty sure would get her the answers she wanted.

She bounced through the door, feeling happier than she had in a while, only to come to a dead stop. Because there was something in her warehouse that wasn’t supposed to be in her warehouse. She was pretty sure that she hadn’t stolen it in her sleep and stashed it here or anything either, because it was really not the sort of vehicle that she would pick out. If it had been a sports car or a convertible, yeah, sure. But a beat up black delivery van? Nuh-uh.

There was a slight sneer on her face, like she was smelling something particularly bad, as she circled the thing. What was it doing here? And what was inside? Well that one, she could find the answer to pretty easy. Because the back door was not only open, it was cracked. Harley grabbed the handle, cautiously pulling it open.

The sight that met her eyes made her gasp. Guns. Hoo baby, were there guns. Every shape, size, make and model. And more. There were grenades, what looked like mines, things that looked a lot like her exploding canisters, and a bunch of stuff she couldn’t identify at first pass. But the eye-catcher was a big, black rifle that looked like it could put holes the size of soccer balls into something. Harley wanted that gun.

Well. It was in her warehouse, so it was hers, right? Right. Worked for her. One foot went onto the back bumper of the van, as she prepared to hoist herself inside what appeared to be a mobile armory. But she froze when something growled at her. Harley’d been so focused on the Barrett rifle, she completely missed that the van was occupied.

Unfazed by the growl or the bared teeth, Harley simply patted the large Rottweiler on the head. “Good puppy.”

The dog looked confused, no doubt because that was not the normal reaction it got when it growled at people. But Harley was not a normal person, and it was just a dog after all. Not like it was a hyena. She missed her babies. Well, the dog would probably do for now until she found appropriate replacements. She’d look at the animal more later. First she wanted to see the gun.

She spent a considerable amount of time sitting on the floor of the van playing with her new toy. After field stripping and reassembling it, she then explored the capacity of the magazine. The dog watched, chin on paws, as Harley all but ignored it. Its head came up as she stood, and once again, she patted its head. Then gave the ears a bit of a scratch for good measure. Holding a gun that was two-thirds as tall as she was, she exited the van. And she made sure the door was closed when she left. Nobody was just going to waltz in and take her new stuff.

As she headed for the area that she’d claimed as her “bedroom,” Harley reflected that this wasn’t even the strangest combination of things she’d ever come back with. A rifle and a crystal candy dish didn’t even crack the top five on the weirdometer. Not like that time she and her Puddin’ had come home with…

Her thoughts trailed off and she paused, head tilting to the side like a dog hearing a high pitched noise. It wasn’t that Harley had noticed anything overt, no sound or movement had alerted her. But everything in her told her that she wasn’t alone. Which sorta made sense, with the van and all. She was just surprised that nobody’d shown up while she was playing with the gun.

The big, heavy unloaded gun. That wasn’t going to do her much good unless she used it as a club. She leaned it carefully against the wall, where she could grab it if she needed it for that very purpose. Going into a crouch, she crept forward slowly until she could see into the room with the big windows that she’d marked as her own. It took a minute to locate the source of her unease, but when she did, Harley abruptly stood up straight in affronted indignation.

There was a man in her bed! A man she hadn’t invited and didn’t know, or it might be a different matter. He was laying there, in the middle of all the pillows she’d worked hard to thieve, like he belonged there. Well that was gonna change.

Silently stalking towards her bed, Harley’s hand fisted around the heavy crystal of the candy dish. Whoever this guy was, he was gonna get out of her bed. He probably drooled on her pillows! The petite blonde snagged one of the cushions as she drew close, deftly slipping the candy dish inside the pillow case. Fisting the end closed between her hands, she hefted it over her shoulder and held it at the ready. Then she kneed the guy in his side. Hard.

“Hey! Sleeping Beauty! Wakey-wakey!” Harley tightened her grip on the pillow case, ready for the big guy to react poorly. She wasn’t exactly waking him with sunshine and rainbows. “And tell me what you’re doing in my bed!”

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i_punish
2008-12-31 11:35 pm UTC (link)

It had been a long night. The Galucchi brothers had been a tough organization to crack. The chicken hawks had been meeting young runaways in Port Authority bus terminal for years. They would give them a meal, an understanding ear, and then pump them up with heroin. Within 3 days the underage child would be part of the illegal sex trade in New York's seedy underbelly.

Access to the sex "clubs" was largely by referral. It allowed a layer of protection for the Galucchis. Frank had spent considerable time getting in. Child rapists are creatures of habit, and all Frank had to do was follow one long enough. It had not ended well for the ringleaders. One brother would be found later floating in the river, minus his genitalia. Frank tied Carlo Galluchi down to a filthy mattress and let his victims tear him apart one furious clawing hand at a time. He would never be identified.

Castle drove his van home to the abandoned wire hanger factory. What it lacked in amenities, it made up for in anonymity. It was secluded, private and off the grid. The Punisher had tapped into the utilities without all the formalities of getting a monthly bill. He stowed his Kevlar in the van, fed Max, and showered off the stench of death.

Sleep did not come easy for a man that was as haunted by loss as the Punisher. Finally drifting off into a dream of long ago. A small house in Queens, 2 children playing in the yard. Frank cooked hot dogs on a grill as Maria call for him through the screen door. It was perfect, well almost. Maria’s voice sounded less refined, and lacked the sweetness of his wife’s. What was she saying, he wasn’t in bed, and why would she elbow him in the ribs…

Frank castle awoke at once, his training in situational awareness kicking in. Someone was standing at the edge of his bed, they had a club or something and they were in his space. He swept the blanket aside and stood suddenly reaching under the pillow for the 1911a1 that he velcroed to the headboard. It was not there. The pillow was too soft and smelled of perfume. There were many pillows and various other crap in the warehouse. It was not his warehouse, he was pretty sure of that.

Castle stood hands at half guard, looking at a short waif in makeup and a jesters outfit. It was not Halloween, and this chick had a look on her face hinting that she was not looking to trick or treat.

He eyed her cautiously. “Where the hell am I? Who the fuck are you?“ he demanded in a gravelly voice made harsh by sleep and time.

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i_lovemrj
2009-01-02 03:58 pm UTC (link)

“I’m the owner of the bed you’re sleeping in, pal,” Harley retorted in ungracious tones. “This is my place, that’s my bed and those are my pillows! I stole ‘em fair and square, and you better not have drooled all over ‘em!”

What stupid set of questions. Where was he, who was she. How did he not know where he was? Had he stumbled in here drunk? No, not drunk, there was the van. So he drove drunk. Nice. Harley did a lot of crazy, reckless and selfish things, but drunk driving wasn’t among them. Not so much because it was illegal and irresponsible, but more because she wouldn’t enjoy the drive quite as much. Still, it was a black mark against him.

Another one.

The first was, he was here! Whoever he was. Big guy, had a mug his mother probably loved but he wasn’t exactly a pretty boy. Her blue eyes took in the muscles and the scars and her brain put it into a context that she could recognize: he was a bad guy. The only good guys with bodies like his were cops and certain vigilantes, and those sorts didn’t break into other people’s places and mess up their pillows. But he wasn’t somebody she knew, even by description.

New guy? Old guy? Unknown guy? Didn’t seem like the sidekick sort, he had that kinda I’m-gonna-kick-your-teeth-in sort of feel to him that’d make it hard to order him around. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. If he thought he was moving in on her space, he was gonna have a rough lesson. She was faster, stronger and tougher than she looked. But he didn’t need to know that just yet. For now, she’d play the part she knew he’d probably be expecting.

For now.

Harley took two steps backwards, giving the impression that his nearness made her nervous, and she tightened her grip on the pillow case. That wasn’t feigned at all. He didn’t fall for this, she fully intended to make that her first move, bashing his head in with her new crystal candy dish. Good chance to see how well the thing was made. If it cracked, she was going to write a sternly worded letter to the company that made it. If you couldn’t rely on a product, you should get your money back. Never mind that she hadn’t paid for it.

Back to business.

She let her voice quaver slightly as she gave him back his own words, trying to look like she was trying to act tough. “Who the fuck are you? And why are you in my bed?”

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i_punish
2009-01-06 10:05 pm UTC (link)

She was batshit nuts. Frank had not expanded his vigilantism to unstable kleptomaniacs with a flair for dressing like their favorite face card in a poker deck yet. She needed a therapist and some medication, not punishment. He needed to get out of her warehouse, and it was her's after all. Crazy clown girl did not seem to be in a good mood, after all he had drooled on her precious pillows.

The van was still here: that was good. Max was probably asleep in the back. Lucky for Cocoa Puff, The dog would have torn her a new asshole. Right! So apologize to the pillow thief, get in the van, find out where he was, and kill the bastard that drugged him and brought him to casa de Whack a mole. He circled, getting a clearer path to the van, and paused for a moment. His MG82a1 Barrett was leaning against the wall. OK plan B it was: apologize to the pillow and rifle thief, recover his sniper rifle, get in the van, make sure Max was still alive, find out where he was, and kill the fucker that got him here.

"Look lady, I do know how I got here, but I don't want you or your pillows. I am just gonna grab my gear and blow out of here." He kept his
eyes on her and stepped closer to the rifle.

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i_lovemrj
2009-01-07 04:01 pm UTC (link)

“Your gear?” There was a short pause, then a giggle. “Your gear?”

This time the giggle was an outright guffaw, and Harley bent forward, putting her hands on her knees as she laughed. “Oh, yeah, right. Your gear.”

The big guy in the boxer shorts thought he had it all figured out, didn’t he? Oh, was he in for a surprise. Harley gave him a bright and friendly smile, forgetting that she’d planned to let him underestimate her. It was just too funny that he thought he could sneak into her place, crash in her bed, and then just run off without consequences. Like some retarded version of Goldilocks. Not happening.

“You mean the van and the puppy and everything? That’s what you’re thinking?” She shook her head at him. “Nope. It’s in my place, it’s mine now. Shoulda thought of that before you planted your keister in a place that didn’t belong to you, pal.”

Harley swung around abruptly, a move that was nearly a pirouette, causing the pillow case to swing outward in an arc. The weighted end with the crystal candy dish thunked hard against the wall, leaving a small dent in the metal. She didn’t take the time to appreciate the effectiveness of her make-shift weapon however. She was too intent on grabbing the actual weapon. He could have the dog back, but that gun was hers.

As her hands closed around it, she lifted it with little problem despite the size and weight. Then she danced down the hall, calling back in a sing-song, “Finders keepers, losers weepers!” Then her voice became hard and taunting. “LOSER!”

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