InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Second to none!"

Poison Ivy (i_garden) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2011-04-14 16:50:00

Entry tags:

harleen quinzel, pamela isley

A garden in need (Harley)
The sunlight warmed Ivy's face, making her feel strong and content. She slowly opened her eyes to the new dawn, content that night was over. Something was different. She sat up and looked around. The children were nowhere to be seen. A pang of concern hit her, but before she could focus too much on the children, she realized that the plants around her felt different. They weren't the babies she'd cultivated in Robinson park. They were weaker, thirstier, more neglected.

Ivy rose to her feet and turned as she heard footsteps. A man came into view, though he didn't immediately spot Ivy. Gardening shears were in his hand and he headed straight for a rose bush. Ivy watched as he leaned in to snip a rose off the bush.

She held out her hand and communed with the roses, which grew long enough to wrap around him and dig the thorns inside. Ivy stepped into view as the man writhed against the thorns cutting into him, his blood droplets falling on the white roses, staining them.

"Savage," Ivy growled as the thorned vines dragged him downward, suffocating him.

She turned and walked away, ignoring the dying shrieks of the man. She continued through the park, encouraging plants wherever she went. Flowers began to bloom, vines began to creep up trellises, and the grass started to turn wild. Still, there was much to do.

This place was in need, and Ivy could see she had a lot of work to do.

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i_lovemrj
2011-04-18 08:25 pm UTC (link)

Harley blinked, then blinked again, mind whirling with the response she received. Okay, so she wasn’t a member of MENSA or anything, but she was no dumb blonde either. (Actually, she wasn’t even a true blonde, but bringing that up could get your arms ripped off.) So when Pammy started talking about something that Harley didn’t even remember, she had to stop and think about the possibilities here.

One, of course, was that Red was just yanking her chain. It wasn’t like her bestie didn’t have her own kinda weird sense of humor. Most of the time, if Harley didn’t get it, she just laughed at Pammy’s jokes anyway. It made her friend feel good, she was sure, and it made her feel less stupid. Because asking for an explanation of why something was funny could lead her best friend to, well, lecture her. Which would invariably turn into all the reasons why humans were bad and plants were good and why Harley should be hugging a rhododendron instead of her Puddin’. Yeeeeeaaaaah, no.

Two was that Red had gone off the deep end. Always a possibility with the sorts that ran with their crowd. Most of them danced on the knife edge of insanity anyway. So did the people that chased them. After all, normal people did not put on tights and run across rooftops at night.

Three was that she had gone off the deep end. That wasn’t too far a stretch either, because this place was clearly not home. So was it a figment of her imagination? If it was just filled with people Harley knew and places Harley was more familiar with, she’d be tempted to say maybe it was. But there was a lot more going on here than even she could come up with. Screwed up as it was, this island, this city, this place was real.

Which left the last possibility. Ivy was telling the truth.

“Oooohhhkaaaaay,” said Harley cautiously, her tone rising at the end of the word making it sound more like a question than a statement. “So. Last week, according to you, we had a heist and some girl time. Last week, according to me, I was stealing a car here and I ended up on the outskirts of this city and the place made everything turn black and white like an old movie.” She held up two fingers in a mock girl scout salute. “I swear it did! It was like one minute, I’m in Oz, the next, boom! Back in Kansas!”

She sat back on her heels and bit her lip, thinking so hard it made her head hurt. “But I saw you here before. Here here, in this city. I hotwired a great old car, we went for a drive, I took you to the botanical gardens. Then the zombies attacked.” Harley paused, a look of confusion crossing her face. “That was before the zombies, wasn’t it? Yeah. I think so. Hang on.”

Ticking items off on her fingers she listed, “Since I got here I met a singing mad scientist, met a guy with wings that gave me the heebiejeebies, gave you a ride to the botanical gardens, kept Bats from getting kidnapped by these nutjob butterfly men who knew where my man was but wouldn’t tell me, went to a ball as Cinderella, survived the zombie invasion, helped Catwoman steal something from the butterflies, got handcuffed with a bunch of people, but then we got let go, stole an awesome gun from Captain Underpants, got snowed in, met a wild child, kissed a girl then blew her up, found my Puddin’ and my babies, squished a fairy, got an apprentice who made great explosives, got in a wrestling match with a cop, got made queen of The City, got attacked and blew up my castle so nobody else could have it, played croquet with flaming leprechauns as croquet balls, blacked out, woke up all drugged up in Arkham, tried to bust my Puddin’ out, got caught, escaped, found my babies again, went to the old move black and white place ‘cause of a flat tired, and now,” she paused to take a breath before finishing, “found you.”

Looking at her best friend, she concluded, “So I been here a while, Red. Either the Harley you robbed a bank with wasn’t me, or… or we got brought here to this place in different ways or something. I dunno. Don’t care either. I’m just happy you’re here.”

And with that, there was another bone crushing hug.

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i_garden
2011-04-19 01:18 am UTC (link)

Ivy only followed a small portion of what Harley listed off. She frowned in confusion. Though Harley might be a bit delusional when it came to the Joker's supposed 'love' for her, she had never known her friend to imagine things that weren't true. Not on this scale certainly.

She returned the hug somewhat awkwardly and lightly patted Harley on the back before brushing her off so she could look Harley in the eyes. Ivy raised a copper eyebrow.

"Where exactly is this place? It's not Gotham, or anywhere else I remember."

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i_lovemrj
2011-04-20 12:00 am UTC (link)

“Everybody just calls it The City,” Harley explained. “It’s on an island or something, but I heard rumors there’s a forest out there beyond the walls too, so I dunno. Can’t get outta here, nobody does, but there’s some stuff here that’s from Gotham, some from other places. Don’t get used to things being where you think though, The City moves ‘em around when it gets bored. Which is better than the other stuff it does when it gets bored. That’s how we ended up with the leprechaun invasion, I think.”

It had become so normal to her, having lived here for a while, she didn’t even consider what it might sound like to a newcomer. But nothing Harl said was anything less than the truth, and while she had no problem at all bending facts to suit her whim, she wasn’t about to do that to Red. At least, not right at the moment.

“Hey, have you seen Bud and Lou?” she asked. As happy as she was to see her best friend, she wasn’t about to lose her babies again. “They were chasing a skateboarder, but they gotta be done chewin’ on him by now. You seen ‘em while you been doing your green thumb thing?”

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i_garden
2011-04-20 12:58 am UTC (link)

"A forest?" Ivy didn't care about things that moved around or the rest of the things that didn't make sense. No, all she cared about was the prospect of finding trees and hopefully lots of them. Perhaps even some rare breeds.

She was somewhat lost in that reverie until Harley asked about Bud and Lou. Her eyes narrowed at the mention of the hyenas.

"I haven't seen them, no. They'd better not be using my new babies as urinals though."

She considered Harley for a moment.

"Perhaps we should go look for them," she offered, with a touch more of sweetness in her tone.

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i_lovemrj
2011-04-20 07:48 pm UTC (link)

Harley smiled, dismissing the momentary sharpness in Ivy’s tone. It happened with her friend a lot. Things came out of her mouth, then she’d say something to make it better. Harl always figured it was because Red had a passionate nature when it came to her plants, so sometimes her mouth got ahead of her. It wasn’t like she wasn’t used to that. Her Puddin’ sometimes got ahead of himself too.

But Pammy knew how much her babies meant to her, just like Harley knew how much plants meant to her best friend. So as she stood, dusting off her knees, she contemplated the look that had crossed Poison Ivy’s face before she accused the hyenas of peeing on her plants. (Well, really, where else were they supposed to go? Porta-potties?) It was a look she’d seen before, but right now, it wasn’t such a great thing.

“Uh, Red? You’re not gonna get into the forest. It’s outside the wall,” she said. “Nobody gets outside the wall. I don’t want you to get your heart set on it and then not get to do it.”

It wasn’t like Harl hadn’t considered ways out herself. But there were people here with wings, and they weren’t getting out either. If they couldn’t get over the wall, and the science types couldn’t figure out how to get through the wall, Harl wasn’t sure her explosives were gonna do much to make a hole in the thing either. It wasn’t that she was giving up on the idea all together, she just wasn’t setting her hopes on it. Not until she came up with a better idea. And the last thing she wanted, now that she found Pammy, was to deal with the redhead when she was in a snit because she was denied something she set her heart on. Pammy could be a real pain when that happened.

“Let’s just find Bud and Lou and then we can check out the botanical gardens, okay?” With that, she turned and in a voice that could bend metal, she belted out, “BABIES!”

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i_garden
2011-04-21 12:44 am UTC (link)

Ivy waved off Harley's negativity about her chances of getting into the forest. If there really was a forest, then she would find her way to the trees. What was some piddly little wall, after all?

Besides, Ivy was well used to getting her way.

Still, she was content to let the subject drop for now. She would find that forest after Harley found her hyenas.

Ivy cringed at the shout, but turned and listened for any sign of rustling as the gigantic dogs bounded their way through the gardens.

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i_garden
2011-04-21 11:45 am UTC (link)

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i_lovemrj
2011-04-22 06:50 pm UTC (link)

There wasn’t a response to the first yell. Or the second. Or the third. But when she gave a sharp whistle, Harley heard crashing through the undergrowth. And she knew she ought to be worried about how Pammy was going to react to the destruction of some of the leaves and stems of her green friends, Harl was too happy that she found her hyenas again.

They barreled toward her at a full run, showing no signs of slowing at all, and Harley braced herself for impact. They did it out of love. And they were hyenas, after all, not something boring like poodles. Their wild nature was one of the things she loved most about them, and she let them indulge it when she could. In return, they treated her like one of their own. Which included getting pounced when they were happy.

There was a brief tussle as the petite blonde wiggled her way out from under the writhing mass of fur and muscle to claim her place at the top of the pile. Fortunately, Harley was a lot stronger than she looked. Thanks entirely to the best friend that was standing there watching. If not for that injection of whatever Red stuck in her, she wouldn’t be the amazing henchwench that she was.

So Poison Ivy got a huge smile, seemingly out of nowhere. As she sat on the backs of her squirming pets, Harley said, “So, whadya wanna do first? Botanical gardens? Garden supply store? Find a bank? Lunch? Ooo, lunch!”

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i_garden
2011-04-23 01:35 pm UTC (link)

Ivy's eyes narrowed as the hyenas crashed through her plants. She turned her narrowed eyes on Harley, who was showing such an exuberant display of affection for them that her annoyance melted for the moment.

Besides, all of the suggestions would get the dogs out of the park, which sounded good to Ivy.

A mischievous grin spread across her face.

"Well, I'm thinking lunch. Any places that we could rob blind and get some good food at the same time?"

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i_lovemrj
2011-04-26 04:41 am UTC (link)

Harley popped up off the squirming pile of fur with a lithe grace that had been missing moments before. The hyenas barely seemed to notice as they continued their wrestling. She stood only feet from her pets, her hand cupping her chin, one finger tapping as she thought about the question put to her.

“That depends,” she finally answered, “on how good you want the lunch to be. I think the museum has a cafeteria, but how good can it be? It’s a museum cafeteria.” Harley made a face to show her opinion on that topic.

“We could find a really big house that has nice shiny stuff and things like butlers and cooks,” she suggested. That idea appealed to her a little more; she always enjoyed making people do what she wanted, especially when they didn’t want to at all. But Red wasn’t really a people person, so that was a bit of a question mark.

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i_garden
2011-04-26 11:55 am UTC (link)

Ivy contemplated the suggestions for a minute. Harley always was full of ideas-despite what the Joker might have told her.

"Why stop at a big house? Why not the grandest hotel in town? I'm sure they could use a make-over."

She glowered at the thought of hotels. Nasty places with flowers in vases and people who didn't give a care for the plantlife that had been murdered so the hotel could be built.

But she could give her plants a chance to grow anew, to take back the land that was rightfully theirs. And in the meantime, Harley could get her lunch and her fill of tormenting the hotel staff and guests.

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