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harley quinn

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First thing Mad Sweeney finds himself wondering is how she's not freezing her tits off in a getup like the one she's wearing.

It's late. Not many people are out and about this late, but Sweeney doesn't follow any particular schedule and he's been drinking heavily tonight, wanting to keep the bad luck at bay just a little with more than a few shots of whiskey, if it can be managed. Seems that it can be, at least for the moment, and he's on his way home with a cigarette tucked between his lips when he hears the cries for help.

Used to be he'd ignore shit like that. Or maybe that's not right. Used to be he'd care, but be unable to do a damn thing, bound by the laws and rules of what he is. Intervention was only his game when offerings were involved and most of the time, as the Fair Folk were lost to the land of legend, they weren't. But as beliefs have shifted, so have the rules, and for a long time now, at least a hundred years, he's been able to do more or less whatever the hell he wants.

Most of what he's wanted in the past is to be left alone. Now he's no longer sure, so at the sound of the cry, he turns in that direction only to find he might not be needed, because a woman in clown makeup and thigh-high socks has gotten there first and Mad Sweeney is mostly under the impression she's helping. There's another woman, smaller than the clown, and a group of three men and he knows the odds of that fight are still pretty fucking shitty, but he also knows not many women roam the streets at night wearing greasepaint and coming to the aid of others.

Chances are she's not just a woman.

Still, he saunters over, cigarette trailing smoke in the air behind him, the tip glowing in the dark. He moves through the shadows like he had over the rolling fields of Ireland, something only half believed when glimpsed on a starless night, though there's much less romance left in this man than the one who'd taken Essie's offerings and guided her life like a gust of wind.

Maybe he's not needed, but he's seven bloody feet tall and when he walks through the mist rolling off the ocean and comes into focus under the light of a streetlamp, all three of the men turn in his direction.

"Evenin', lads," he says, reaching up to take his cigarette from his mouth. Then he grins at the clown, a fair pinch of madness in that smile. She looks as fucking crazy as he feels some days and he likes her immediately. "Miss."

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"You're darn right it is, darlin'," Harley says cheerfully. "Hang around enough bars and sooner or later someone comes around begging for a beating." It's not like she came out looking for a fight tonight, but now the adrenaline is racing and her blood is wild and she's ready to get back in the mix. Some nights she goes out looking for trouble, searching the streets for people who need help, less because she wants to be some kind of vigilante than because it helps keep her out of her own mad head.

Alright, and to do some fucking good. They're never Nazis, exactly, but some of the assholes around Darrow come damn near close enough.

More often than not, he's the one begging for a beating at a bar, though not quite in the same way these fuckers had been and at least he has that much going for him. Sweeney just likes to fight, he's always liked to fight, and he doesn't think that's such a terrible thing most of the time.

No one else really seems to mind. More often than not, people are perfectly happy to give him what he wants.

"Right, then, love," he says, then offers his arm to her. "Lead the way and I'll be happy to follow."

Harley grins, linking her arm through his and starting out of the alley toward the street. It's a weekend night and people are out getting into all kinds of trouble, and if she fancied, she supposes she could do the same. It just doesn't seem as fun these days, going out crawling from bar to bar, meeting pretty girls and handsome lads, not when her heart is aching so for Pamela.

And she doesn't have so much as a darn picture of her sweetie to remember her by, though there's no forgetting those beautiful green eyes or that pale green skin.

"So I'm guessin' you're not from around these parts either then, love?" she asks. "Seems everyone round here's a damn Yankee." Not that she minds them, but it does make her curious about his story.

"I sound like a damn Yank t'you?" he asks with a grin, knowing full well there are times when he does. He's spent so long in the Americas that it's hard not to have picked up some of their words, some of their phrases. They're creative when it comes to their cursing in an entirely different way than the Irish ever were, but he wonders if that's still true of home.

He hasn't been in over two hundred years.

"No, born and lived in Ireland for most of my life," he says. "Then I was brought over to America for a long time, but not long enough to do away with the Irish in me." And no amount of time will ever change that. He'll always be Irish at the end of it, the only people in the world who properly believe in leprechauns, even if most of them aren't so great at it these days.

At least it's better than America, where he's lucky he has Lucky Charms keeping him alive.

Harley grins, broad as a cat with cream, bright as a mad moonlit night. She hasn't got a thing against the Americans — or whatever breed of Yank the Darrowians want to call themselves — but she's missed home, these last months. Ireland isn't home either, granted, but it's a hell of a lot closer.

And then there's him, the great, hulking madness of him. That's a bit closer to home, too.

"Never met an Irishman who could have the Irish takin' out of him," she says cheerfully. "I spent some time in the States, too, when I was a slip of a thing, before I went back to London. I don't mind it, but it ain't the same."

"No, it sure ain't," Sweeney agrees as they move through crowds. People are looking at them and why the hell not? She's made up in paint, he's seven feet tall, they're each the sort to attract a hell of a lot of attention on their own and walking together they're something else entirely.

But it does mean most people are giving them a wide berth. That's the sort of behaviour that'll make it tough for them to find others making trouble.

"Don't get me wrong, the Americas... hell, I've gotten more out of them than I have out of Ireland for a long damn time," he says. "And they can be beautiful in the right light, but nothin' much in the world compares to the cliffs and the moors."

There never is anything quite like one's home, Harley's pretty sure, and America has its share of bad memories for her, buried deep in the swampy rivers of the bayou, anyway. The way he talks makes her a little homesick, even if he's speaking of Ireland and not England. But then, she's been homesick since she got here, albeit for a person more than a place.

"Haven't been home in a while?" she guesses. "Me either. I was hoppin' my way 'cross Europe when I wound up here, and that was a few months back now."

"Been about three hundred years or so," he answers. His immortality isn't something he hides from most people, but he also doesn't tend to talk about it so freely unless there's a point. Harley, though, she's not quite the regular sort of human he's bound to run into on the street and she might not be immortal, but he doesn't know how odd she'll think it is either.

Maybe it won't be all that much of a surprise to a woman like her. He hopes not. From what he's seen so far, he kind of likes her.

"I go where the belief takes me," he says, looking down at her. Not quite looking for a reaction, but still watching. "A certain young woman brought me to the Americas a long time ago with her faith in the fair folk. Brought me over during her transportation with the offerings she kept givin' despite how little she had. Now the Irish scoff at the idea of leprechauns and General Mills keeps me goin' more than the rest."

Harley has known all kinds of beings over the years: witches and vampires and wild men, ugly in their souls, possessed and possessive. She's never met a leprechaun before, but already, she thinks she prefers them. Sweeney is wild in his own way, violent and mad, but at the same time, he doesn't feel like a threat. Dangerous, but not a threat.

"Never met a leprechaun before," she says. Amazons live for a long damn time, but even they're not immortal. She has to believe it's a lonely way to live if not in a community like Themyscira. "I didn't know they came so tall." But then, who knows anymore? Legends get all bent up and twisted around.

"Stereotype, ain't it?" he asks with a little grin for her. "Brân knows how they're made these days, but back when they made me, I were a man first. So perhaps you can blame my parents for the size of me."

Giving her a sideways glance, Sweeney studies Harley for a moment, then says, "I'd say I've never met a woman who wears her makeup like yours, but I've seen a few trends come and go."

And with a little less of the white, there are a few times she'd have fit into without much trouble at all.

"I wouldn't exactly say I was on trend for my time," Harley says, shrugging. There's a story here, a devil's brew of magic and mystery, of a small slip of a girl fighting for someone else's salvation, but it's not one she tells much. It was different with Pamela, who knew everything in such a short time. Her backstory, though, isn't for mass consumption.

He isn't asking, though, so much as gently suggesting. It makes a difference.

"Wasn't always the clown type," she adds after a moment. "I used to be a respectable psychiatrist, if you can believe it. Just wasn't me."

"You ever seen an Elizabethan lady?" he asks with an arched brow. "Shit like what you've got on now was practically the height of fashion once upon a time."

It's not exactly the same. She calls it clown makeup, after all, but it's not completely dissimilar either. The white face, the pink cheeks, it all makes him think of a time long ago. A time she wouldn't have fit in otherwise, not between her clothes and her personality, but he likes that about her.

"Yeah, I can see it," he decides. "So which part wasn't you, love? Respectable or psychiatrist?"

Funny thing is, as much as Harley doesn't want to be Harleen anymore, it's not like she hates that part of herself. She likes that aspects of it shine through. Who she was, who she is — there are so many different women bound up in that and still only one, at the end of the day.

"Respectable," she says, with a wicked grin. "I love the work, but it used to be all I did. Never took a gosh darn break. Never had fun like this." It was like she was punishing herself, she thinks now. She's a damn good psychiatrist, but she never let herself cut loose, because she did so too often as a girl.

"And now you can't be both?" he asks. "Bet it'd do some people a damn lot of good, seein' someone who knows what they're talkin' about, but don't give a shit about looking a certain, expected way."

Not that he knows a thing about psychiatry. Or whether or not she does know what she's talking about. Mad Sweeney's experience with mental healthcare is essentially nonexistent. He lives up to his name in a good many ways, but that's what being stuck as a bird for a significant period of time does to a person, he figures, and he doubts there's much psychiatry can do for him in that regard. Immortality doesn't help much either.

But what he figures is that whole suit and tie bullshit has to be intimidating for some people. Respectable doesn't always make a situation better.

Harley beams at that. "I'm glad you think so," she says warmly. "I set up shop here a couple months ago. It's been... Well, it takes time to find the right patients. Even if you're real good at what you do, y'ain't gonna fit with everybody." And she is damn good at what she does. Even in her own time, they knew that. Harleen Quinzel was highly respected in medical circles, woman or not. In those days, it didn't matter so much that she was female. Good help was needed too badly for most people to get hung up on that.

"But I don't think I could do it anymore if I weren't gonna be me to do it."

Mad Sweeney nods and is quiet for a moment as he takes his cigarette case out of his pocket. When he opens it, he offers it to her first, though he doesn't know if she smokes. It's not that he's polite or that his manners are particularly good, but when he likes a person he can be his own version of kind.

And he likes her. She's fucking weird.

"I find anyone who's lookin', I'll send 'em your way," he says. He doesn't offer himself. She can't help him or fix him or whatever the hell it is someone would want to do with a man like him.

"Thanks," Harley says, "I'm good." She doesn't really smoke these days; when she was younger, it seemed like the cool thing to do, but these days, it feels like it just slows her down. If he does, though, she doesn't mind. "And thanks for that, too. I appreciate it."

She'd ask if he needs to see anyone, but there are a few things about that. First off, she's pretty sure everyone needs to see someone. It's just a fact of life that they could all do with someone to listen to them. Second, she doubts he's interested; most people aren't. And third, she likes him too much to be his therapist. It'd be better if he found someone else.

"So what do you do? Or do you just go around beatin' people up at night and that's your job?"

As he lights the cigarette, his big shoulders rise and fall in response to her question. The way she says it makes it sound like vigilantism, which definitely isn't his area of interest and not something he wants to make himself a name for doing. If he starts up with something like that, everyone will know before long. A seven foot ginger who's drunk more often than not is going to get noticed.

"Don't do much," he admits. "Haven't had a real job in a long damn time."

What he'd done for Wednesday couldn't be considered a job, really. He hadn't been getting paid. Hadn't needed to get paid, doesn't need to get paid now. Wednesday had sent him to start a bloody war and he doesn't want to think on that. It's a good night, he's enjoying himself, and Wednesday can go fuck himself.

"Don't really need to work, though," he adds and he lifts his hand and rubs his thumb against his fingers, producing a gold coin.

"Oh, neat," Harley says, wide-eyed. "Guess that leprechaun magic comes in handy, huh?" That's gotta be what it is, some kind of leprechaun thing or, at least, magic. She's used to magic. Her earliest experiences with it weren't always good, but that isn't the fault of magic itself. It is, like all things, about who's wielding it and what for.

And maybe, sometimes, about who's asking them to use it.

But snapping up gold coins isn't anything dangerous, even if Sweeney himself easily could be. He could probably snap Mistah J clean in two if he had a mind to.

"Kept me in whiskey and cigarettes for this long," he agrees, then flicks the coin in the air. It doesn't come back down again. So many people in Darrow either write it off as an actual coin trick, like he's carrying coins up his sleeves and doing all this shit just to mess with them, but Harley barely even reacts. Like magic is just another fucking thing that comes with life.

He loves it. The lack of belief is what's been killing him back in America and Darrow has given him a healthy dose of belief, but he still appreciates when someone sees what he can do with his coins and doesn't eve blink.

"Seems t'be I'm outta luck these days, but the coins keep comin' and I suppose that's worth something."

"Worth enough for whiskey and cigarettes at least," Harley says. She has a vague memory, though, of leprechauns being supposed to be lucky, and she wonders if that's what he means or if it's just the usual out of luck most people seem to be. Heaven knows she feels that way at times. She went from being happily, madly in love to stuck here, not one single Nazi to fight, not a leaf of Pam in sight.

"Is it just being here that's unlucky?" she asks. "'cause this place is pretty weird sometimes. Not very lucky."

"Nah, it's more of losing my lucky coin that's got me right fucked," he answers and the coin finally comes down again. He catches it and flips it in his fingers to show her the back, the representation of the sun. "A long time ago someone made a mistake and gave me a bit of the sun. The kind of thing a pissant bastard like me should never be able t'lay his hands on, but there it is."

He flips the coin toward her then, because this isn't his coin. It's one of many. None of them the right one.

"But I made a mistake, too, and I gave it away and now the woman who has it won't give it back," he says. "So she has all my luck and I have jack shit."

Edited 2018-06-13 02:37 (UTC)

Harley catches the coin easily, flipping it gently between her fingers to see the sun. When he says someone gave him a bit of it, she can only imagine he means exactly what he says. Well, with the things she's seen and fought, it maybe wouldn't be the strangest for someone to get a little piece of the sun. She rubs her thumb over the design.

"I guess that's not something someone gives up easy," she says, even though her general opinion is that, if it's his, it oughta go back to him. People don't play like that, though. "Is she in Darrow? Maybe we could do a little, uh, convincing."

"No," he says, then laughs. "And even if she were, love, we couldn't. She's dead. And she's fuckin' strong."

He's not sure what sort of magic the coin has imbued her with, what powers it's given her, but she can kick his ass without even trying. It had pissed him off at first and he thinks maybe it still does, but at the same time he thinks it's impressive. She can do things he's never seen anyone do, not even the gods, and it gives him a little bit of pride to think maybe it's his coin that's done the trick.

Not that the coin was his right off.

"It's a complicated story," he says. "But it's the coin that brought her back."

"That's... a lot of luck," Harley says, surprised. She's seen some strange things in her time, but she knows better than to mess with death. It never works out the way people want it to. Death does something to a person, twists them up in new ways, on top of whatever twisting life had done.

"Or maybe not. Bad luck, maybe. I guess it depends."

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