You’re a murderer Who: Neena, Harley What: Harley accidentally helps Neena come up with a new cocktail When: Last Monday Where: Neena's Bar, The Inferno Rating/Warnings: Lowish? There's alcohol drinking but that's about it Status: Complete
The doors burst open, and in walked a woman in booty jean-shorts, a black and red corset, and knee-high laced up boots. She had her hair pulled into twin tails, one red and one black, and her face was done up in thick makeup. Her skin was white. Not just pale, but did-she-bleach-her-skin white.
She bounced up to the bar and leaned over. “Hello, sweetcheeks!”
Neena had been stocking some glasses under the bar when the strange woman showed up, and when she rose to her feet she blinked her eyes a few times. The skin, the makeup, the outfit...
"Well, I'm in California. Is there a convention in town or something?"
“There’s the psychiatrist’s meeting, it’s an annual thing, always a good time, we lose our minds!” Harley replied. She hopped onto a stool. “Hit me! Surprise me, I like to live on the edge, dollface!”
“I used to live on the edge. Falling off of it’s a hell of a trip,” Neena mused, while pulling a glass out. She hated it when customers asked her to surprise them, and the way this woman was dressed? Neena was pretty sure not much left on the planet would surprise her.
She turned towards the back bar and pulled a few bottles at random, then started pouring. “We’ll just call this… the psyche convention. You’ll go nuts for it.”
Harley’s grin was positively manic. “I’ve fallen a few times. You gotta get back up, babyface. Get back on the horse. Or the bike. Or the cute guy in the corner.”
She actually popped a bubble of bubble gum.
"Christ no, I've had to kick that guy out of this bar before, I'm definitely not getting on him." The mixture in the glass came out an odd shade of green and smelled like a jalapeno pepper had drank 150 proof rum and then died. Neena slid it over to her odd customer on top of a napkin, and shrugged.
"Yolo, I guess. Good luck."
“Wanna get on me?” Harley asked, going for broke as it were. She didn’t tend to wear her wedding ring except for certain occasions. It was easier that way, since not everyone got the whole open marriage thing. She sniffed the drink. “Holy shit lady.”
Then she picked it up and knocked the entire thing back.
Neena's eyebrows raised up in unison, "Holy shit, me? Holy shit, you!" She half expected her customer to spontaneously combust. Her eyes squinted a bit and she regarded the other woman carefully, watching for signs of imminent death. When a few seconds passed, she shrugged her shoulder.
"OKay, well, you're not dead yet so I guess it's a hit. If you feel the urge to projectile vomit try and aim it towards the bathroom." Neena pointed in the direction of the restrooms with her thumb, and then added, "And thanks, but I don't really get my rocks off on riding the ladies. You do you, though."
Harley giggled, like she was a little unhinged, and waggled the drink to ask for more. “If it breathes and can consent, I’ll tap it. I swing around like a merry-go-round! And about as many riders.”
Okay what was in that drink because everything was spinning and she kept giggling.
"At one time or what? The most I've ever done at a time was a three way." Neena admitted, while taking the glass. She'd kept the bottles of liquor out for easy access, and poured another concoction of crazy booze together. "I thought that was pretty wild back in the day, but now I'm feeling like I'm old and boring. So thanks for that, crazy lady."
Another oddly green drink was set down in front of Harley, and Neena made a mental note to call the woman a cab later. If one glass of this was making her giggly, Neena figured another glass would put her on the floor. Either way she wasn't safe to drive.
Harley held up 4 fingers, giggling deliriously as she did so. “The wifey and I have fun with people sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time, it’s that kinda marriage.” She held her hands out in that ‘it is so big’ kind of way, “We just have hearts this big!”
She took a drink, wondering what was in it, because she usually took her alcohol well, “And libidos.”
"Heh." There was no judgement in Neena's tone, and she shrugged one shoulder in a non-committal gesture. A few years ago she might have considered marriage herself, but that was nearly a lifetime ago at this point. Many things had changed, and she doubted that hers would have been an open one, anyway.
"That actually work for the two of you?"
“It was the only way she’d marry me,” Harley admitted. “An’ the only way I’d get married to anyone. Either gotta share me, or you don’t get me at all.”
Still, she seemed happy about it all. “It was a gorgeous wedding. What’s in this stuff I feel like I’m swimming already!”
"I don't know, random crap I picked up off the back bar. Let's see..." Neena turned back towards the bottles and held them up to inspect their labels. The area was usually better organized but it had been a busy few days.
Most infamous of course was the bottle of Absinthe, which she blinked at a few times before setting it back in its proper place. "What the hell is that doing there? Anyway, looks like I cooked you up a combination of Absinthe, Everclear, Bacardi 151 and this bottle of Stoli I got with jalapenos in it. Jesus. No wonder you're dying."
“You’re a murderer,” Harley declared, point at one of the Neena’s in her vision. She managed to memorize that cocktail though, even if she wouldn’t be able to call her wife right now. “I’m Harley. Harley Quinn. The infamous Harley Quinn. Only in my dreams.”
Neena snorted, smirking in a kind of way that made her eyes a little dangerous for a moment. "I just might be."
Then the moment passed, and she laughed as she held her hand out so Harley could shake it. Assuming, of course, that her customer could even find her hand in her inebriated state. "I'm Neena, and I've never heard of you. But hey, it's great to have dreams of world domination or whatever, everyone's gotta have ambitions right?"
If Harley was a bit more sober she’d have picked up on that. After all, a killer knew another killer by sight. But she was three sheets to the wind, and loving it.
“Nah, ruling the world is the pits! Much more fun to knock over banks and shoot child molesters.”
"Is that the kind of business you're in?" Neena stole the glass out of Harley's hand while she asked, deciding to fill the next one with water. Harley has sounded just slightly unhinged before she'd started drinking, and Neena was convinced that if she poured another one she'd be dragging the woman out of the bar and into an ambulance.
Or worse, there'd be some kind of crazy shooting or crime spree? She didn't need to be a part of any of that crap, so she slid the water across the bar. "You want a lemon in this? Time to start hydrating, feed that pending hangover some water."
A crime spree was a possibility. “Naaaah. I’m a psychicatrist. Psychic.” She closed her eyes and said slowly, “A shrink. If your brain needs help, I help ya manage it!”
Both of Neena's eyebrows shot up. "When you'd mentioned the shrink convention earlier I thought you were just joking."
“I would never ever joke about my profression,” Harley assured her, only to add. “The biggest difference between the psychiatrist and the patient is that the psychiatrist has learned how to live with it.”
California was apparently a special place where people in a vaunted profession such as psychiatry dressed up like comic book or anime people and got extremely drunk on a Monday night. Neena's eyebrows were still raised, and they remained raised while she grabbed the phone.
"Okay, sure. I get that. Why don't I call you a taxi? You're kind of leaning on the barstool and I figure we've got about another thirty seconds of stimulating conversation before you fall off it and start drooling on my floor."
Harley gave Neena a thumbs up, roughly fifteen seconds before she slid down the front of the stool to the ground and made a thunking sound. Now, it must be noted, that her body didn’t actually thunk. She said “thunk” and proceeded to giggle maniacally.
Someone sitting a few seats over looked down at Harley on the floor and pointed. "I'll have whatever you served her."
Neena snorted through her nose and finished calling Harley a taxi. "I have a feeling we just came up with a new special. I think I'll call it the psyche convention. Has a nice ring to it."