InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Yes. I will marry you."

Harley Quinn (i_lovemrj) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2009-01-14 13:08:00

Entry tags:

harleen quinzel, laura kinney, snow

Strange Bedfellows [Snowed In]
(For Laura)

Snow sucked.

Well, not all the time. Sometimes, it could make the roads a lot of fun, slick enough to whip donuts in parking lots. And occasionally in the middle of intersections. That was always exciting. Harley was a good driver, even in snow. It wasn’t like Gotham didn’t get some snow now and then. Freezing rain too, which was both more irritating and more challenging. But snow? Snow was easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Except when it kept falling and falling and falling until there was no way that Harley could manage to keep the stolen Caddy going through the drifts. Even with the weight of the car and the fantastic, powerful eight cylinder engine, it just wasn’t quite enough to plow through. The rear-wheel drive didn’t help once she’d gotten stuck either. Great for playing, not so great for getting out of the snow bank.

Harley had spent a bit of time venting her frustration on the dash of the car which now sported a few fist-shaped indentations. Then she’d given in to the inevitable fact that she was going to have walk. But it had only taken five minutes of wading through the snow to come to the conclusion that she’d made a mistake. The car was stuck, but it was warm, and wherever the hell she was, there was nothing here. Nothing. She turned around to go back to the stuck Cadilac, but somehow got turned around or something, because after ten minutes, she was still trudging through the ever-falling snow.

Which was when she decided that snow sucked. And that if she didn’t get her cute little tushie out of the cold, it was going to turn blue and freeze right off. And blue was not her color. So the row of small, uniform buildings was a welcome sight. Not exactly her first choice for shelter, but she couldn’t really be picky right now.

It took several tries to find a storage shed with a roll down door that she could get open. It wasn’t like she couldn’t normally pick the locks on one of them, they were ridiculously simple. But they were also under several feet of snow, and Harley wasn’t that motivated just yet. So once she found an open locker, she immediately scurried into it and pulled the door back down. That was the moment she discovered why the door had been open. It didn’t close all the way. There was a two inch gap at the bottom.

Harley cursed at the door, then kicked it, before she figured out that the snow piled up outside the door would act as insulation so it was not that bad anyway. Still, maybe she should look for another storage locker to hole up in. Bending down, she grabbed the handle and tugged upward. But it didn’t budge. Her kick had bent the crossbar and the rollers were no longer sitting true in the track. Dammit, now she was locked in.

And she stiffened suddenly, all senses on alert, because she was locked in. But she wasn’t alone.

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i_cutyoutoo
2009-01-15 05:55 am UTC (link)

Getting lost wasn't normal for Laura. She was trained with scientific precision, which when factored in with her animal senses meant it would was near impossible for any human to get her turned around. But the City was nothing human, and from what she had seen in her short stay, it seemed to take pleasure out of creating obstacles for everyone it could.

So there she was, somewhere in the outskirts of the City (or so she thought), trying to sleep out the storm. Her body could deal with the cold with relative ease, but the fistfuls of snow pummeling their way down were impairing her vision and mobility. She trudged her way off the road towards the nearest set of buildings, and broke into a storage shed near the middle of the complex.

It was dark, warm, and dry, and it would do perfectly.

Laura had to move some boxes around to uncover the mattress from it's corner. A dark stain that a sniff confirmed was human blood had spread and seeped through the mattress on both sides. Dropping it to the floor without flinching, she worked on the battered couch next. It had a spring coming through on the left-most cushion, but it would make-do. Curling herself onto two-thirds of the couch, Laura put on her headphones and waited.

The sound of kicking and cursing came about an hour later, waking Laura from her restless nap. A rubber band snapped inside her head as every sense shifted into high alert. The possibilities of the intruder being dangerous were low, but Laura was trained to take no chances. She waited in silence as the figured hurried in (it seemed to be just trying to get out of the cold), before breaking the shed's lock.

Pheromones coming off the figure told Laura that the person was a woman, and that she was tense. The speed of her reaction indicated chances that she had some sort of experience fighting as well. They were going to be stuck together until the storm gave way, so Laura spoke up in an attempt to make things more comfortable.

"Hi. There's no light in here."

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i_lovemrj
2009-01-15 02:45 pm UTC (link)

Harley whirled toward the direction she’d heard the voice come from. Female, but that didn’t make the potential danger any less. Honestly, the most ruthless people she knew? Were of the female variety. Still, it was a pretty benign thing to say. Nothing hostile.

Okay. She could go with that. “No candles or a lighter or nothin’?”

Harley had a hard time believing that. Storage lockers like this were just chock full of the stuff people didn’t want or couldn’t find space for in their homes. Most of the time, it was nothing but junk. And she couldn’t believe that didn’t include some ugly old fat candle that Aunt Marge gave somebody for a wedding. Had to be one in here somewhere.

“What’s in the boxes?” She poked at the nearest one, then pulled the top open, sticking her hand in to fish around. “Huh. Towels. And… sheets.”

That might come in handy if they needed something to use to keep warm. Or maybe they could set it on fire. Away from the other boxes, so they didn’t send the whole place up. Though that’d make things nice and toasty. Moving to the next box, she pulled out a flashlight the size of a pack of gum. It’d help find something to keep the place lit if she had some light to see by. The irony completely escaped her notice.

“Oh yay, silverware.” She tossed the box aside, not caring where it landed, but somewhat pleased with the clatter it made when it landed. “Third floor, housewares, appliances and ladies apparel. Let’s see what’s on the fourth floor.”

Harley stepped on the box she’d dropped to reach for one that was higher up. “I’m Harley. Harley Quinn. Who are you, and how’d you get stuck in our little snow fort?”

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i_cutyoutoo
2009-01-17 01:58 pm UTC (link)

Laura dropped her headphones down to her neck as she watched the woman rummage through the boxes. "Didn't look." Laura's animal senses came with enhanced night-vision. She blinked at the woman's back as she continued to talk, not quite understanding what the blonde was going on about. Instead of asking for clarification though, Laura simply made note of where the box with the silverware landed, for future reference. The woman didn't pose a threat yet, but one could never be certain.

"Laura. I was walking to the movie store. The City moved."

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i_lovemrj
2009-01-17 03:59 pm UTC (link)

Harley swore with a rather unpleasant word not fit for polite company. She didn’t really much care. She wasn’t exactly polite company on her best days. “Damn thing does that all the time.”

She suddenly stopped rooting through the box to turn indignantly towards Laura. But her anger was not for the other girl, not in the least. “It took away my warehouse! For weeks, I couldn’t find it! I spend all that time, making it a nice hideout, stealing pillows and knick knacks, and then it was just gone! I think this place is out to get me.”

Having found nothing worth keeping in the box she’d been perusing, she tossed that one aside as well, moving on to the next. As she ripped the tape off the top, she commented, “Then I finally find it again, and you know what? There’s some guy there! Drooling on my pillows!” Muttering almost to herself she added, “Got even though. Ha.”

Then her fingers found something that made her eyes light up. Drawing out the crinkly bag, she flashed the beam of her small flashlight on it to confirm her suspicion. She crowed at her success. “Beef jerky, baby! We got us a feast! What else is in here?”

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i_cutyoutoo
2009-01-19 11:40 am UTC (link)

Laura simply nodded in agreement. The City enjoyed inconveniencing everyone. It's strange sense of humor sometimes reminded her being back at the facility, and that was a feeling she did not enjoy. She did not fight her way out of captivity to be fully controlled once again.

Harley's mutter was not lost on Laura's ears. Despite not being sure what sense of the phrase 'got even' the woman meant, Laura didn't bother for clarification. Just her guess was good enough.

"Jerky in a box?" The expression on Laura's face was skeptical, but the look was lost in the dark. "Who puts food in long-term storage?"

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i_lovemrj
2009-01-20 03:11 pm UTC (link)

Harley tossed the bag at the girl, not really caring if she actually caught it or not. As long as she didn’t lose it, where it landed wasn’t much of a concern. She needed her hands to return to digging through the box, just in case there was more food. There was. All of it was beef jerky.

She flashed her light on the box and realized why. It was a full case of the stuff. “At least we won’t starve,” she commented.

But with nothing more interesting to find in that box, she was ready to move to another. In sharp contrast to her treatment of the previoius containers, the case of jerky was moved with care. They were stuck. They needed three things. Water, warmth, and food. Pretty much in that order. And so far, she’d found one. Not good odds.

But Harley Quinn wasn’t a quitter or a loser. She was a cheater. So she was going to cheat this damn City out of its victory over her and survive just to spite it. Then she was going to go find some buildings to blow up. That’d teach it! Ha!

In the mean time, she’d found something very interesting in her next box. She was starting to feel like it was Christmas morning in a really crappy house. Sometimes you found good stuff, most of it was stuff that you shoved in the back of the closet, and once in a while there was a gem. Harley thought she’d just found the diamonds of the bunch.

Without bothering to explain what she’d located to the girl sitting on the couch, since she didn’t seem to much give a damn anyway, Harley pulled out her newest acquisitions. Was there a table under this crap somewhere? She didn’t know, but she had found a metal platform. Setting that across some boxes to create a level surface, Harley turned on the camping light, flooding the place with illumination.

Now that she could see, she could get to work. If there was a way to make fire, Harley was going to find it. Actually, that mostly applied to explosives, but it would work with the camp stove too. Once she did that, she’d use that pot there to melt some water. And maybe set a couple small things on fire just for the fun of it.

Briefly, she pondered the concept of beef jerky stew, then decided it would look too much like hyena chow to actually eat it. But with the light and the stove going, the space seemed a lot warmer, even if it really wasn’t. It was sort of… homey.

Pleased with her efforts, Harley finally addressed the girl again. “Not exactly a social butterfly, are ya, toots?”

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