Pick Your Poison, Friday Afternoon

[joan_of_bark]

Well, Adrian was a plant, so dinner wasn't happening tonight. Pam could live with that. It gave her time to finish up the salve she'd been working on for Octavia.

Which meant spending most of the day upstairs, messing around with chemicals, but... eventually, it was done.

Done and tested, if in a limited way.

She eyed the little container, and let out a breath. Right. Time to go downstairs, make some coffee, and blow off some steam.

Maybe, she reflected, once finally downstairs, she could get Adrian some fertilizer, as a treat.

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Comments

[totalwildcard]

Harley blinked.

And then made such a face, offended and appalled. "Jesus Christ," she said. "Really?! They put ya in there? What for?"

[joan_of_bark]

"Initially? Because I threatened to release bio-toxins into Gotham if they didn't send the industrialists poisoning our earth packing," Pam said. She gave an idle shrug. "And also for killing a few cops who tried to get in my way. The Bats showed up. You know how it is..."

[totalwildcard]

"Yeah, he's treatin' Arkham like his personal pocket universe," Harley replied, still deeply offended, with the huffiness to prove it. "And always sticking his big bat nose in other people's business!"

[joan_of_bark]

"I hate him," Pam said flatly. Something like passion snuck into her voice. "So high and mighty, so full of his own moral greatness, and yet what does he do with it? Run around town, helping the cops, covering for the real bad guys."

[totalwildcard]

"Yeah!"

Granted, Harley didn't have as much of a 'moral greatness' stance on it, but it was always Hate on Batsy o'clock in her timezone!

"Stupid winged jerk, I mean, who does he think he is?"

[joan_of_bark]

"A nosy, self-involved dick with delusions of grandeur who can't leave well enough alone," Pam muttered.

It was also always Hate on Batsy o'clock in her timezone. What a surprise.

[totalwildcard]

Harley crossed her arms, clearly on a roll now. "Yanno, he's the one that got me sent to Belle Reve, that secret max security shithole in Louisiana?" she said. "Louisiana! Wouldn't even let me stay in Jersey!"

[joan_of_bark]

Pam raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I think forcing you to go to Louisiana violates the Geneva Convention," she said.

Harley was built for the city. Northeast city.

[totalwildcard]

"I mean, I coulda been in the center of the Earth for all I really knew," Harley conceded, sort of, shrugging even if it was with a scowl. "They don't want nobody findin' ya out there, that's how deep they buried us."

[joan_of_bark]

"At least you got out," Pam said. "I hope you made them pay on the way there."

... Not that anyone here had rage, or anything.

[totalwildcard]

Harley snorted.

"Oh, I put a buncha guards in the hospital while I was there."

Judging by the distinct and uncharacteristically dark, sharp lack of glee in that statement, they'd well and truly earned it.

[joan_of_bark]

"Good," Pam said grimly.

It wasn't the first time she'd heard that tone of voice come out of Harley. And her reaction would likely be the same, every time.

[totalwildcard]

Harley suspected as much.

Although it also seemed to give her pause. Some of the ire died down, only to be replaced by a frown of something. Concern, maybe? "Did that -- was that a thing that... happened to her?"

Hey, look at her remembering to separate herself from the other Harley!

[joan_of_bark]

"Yes," Pam said, with a certain level of... menace... in her voice. "Waller."

[totalwildcard]

"Yes!" Harley exclaimed, as if the excitement of recognition was enough to override the concern-or-whatever of just before. "Exactly! That evil hag and her fetish for stickin' things in people's necks, and tryin' to make backstabbers backstab each other for her gain!"

[joan_of_bark]

"And she doesn't care who she hurts in the process," Pam growled. "But that's the US government for you."

[totalwildcard]

Harley was nodding vigorously, only to... stop, abruptly, with another quizzical tilt of her head.

"Ya didn't used to be like this."

Now, that was probably not all the way true, between how long it had been, and the battering Harley's brain had taken in the meantime.

But still.

[joan_of_bark]

"I didn't," Pam agreed.

She let out a deep breath and looked at Harley. Thinking about something.

"And then I went to grad school," she said.

[totalwildcard]

It said something about how much Harley had (finally) managed to process that a mention of grad school didn't immediately kick up making faces at her own very specific memories of Pam going off to Seattle.

Even if that meant she was raising her eyebrows a lot, now. "That did it?"

[joan_of_bark]

"A specific professor did it, technically. A brilliant man called Jason Woodrue," Pam said, and lifted her mug up to her mouth for a sip. "A brilliant and very unethical man who saw my admiration for him and figured out how to use it."

She eyed the cup. "I'd say I hope your version of me didn't go through the same thing, but I doubt she's that lucky."

[totalwildcard]

Harley listened, her expression twisting and her hands curling into fists as she did, until finally: "What the fuck did that shit-sucking bastard do?"

Not that anyone here had rage, or anything.

[joan_of_bark]

"At first, all he did was talk me into working day and night to further his own research, hybridizing animals and plants," Pam said. How deep did she want to go into these weeds?

Not too deep. Not when she and this Harley had finally achieved some kind of a detente. "But eventually, it escalated. He pressured me into becoming part of his experiments." She rubbed the edge of her cup idly. "When I woke up in the hospital some time later, barely back from the brink of death, I found out he'd run away."

[totalwildcard]

"Like a coward?!" Harley... asked. Well, shrieked. Fuming, not subtle about it. "That asshole!"

[joan_of_bark]

"If it helps," Pam said, and sipped her coffee, "He's dead now. I killed him. More or less."

[totalwildcard]

"Good!" Harley replied, with way too much fire compared to how mild Pam was being about it.

Although:

"Wait, 'more or less'? What the fuck's that mean?"