nexus_crossings | Remembering the Dead

Remembering the Dead

Harley Quinn is seated on a large rock in the Nexus today. She seems to already to be in the Halloween spirit, as the colorful young woman is dressed as a circus ringmaster. But despite her colorful costume, her usual energetic spirit seems to be missing today.

She has a bouquet of flowers in her hand. And takes one of the flowers, then slowly removes the petals of the flower one-by-one, scattering them underneath her.

"This year is going to be the first time that I am not in Arkham, during a death-a-versary. And I am not really sure what I should do?" She bites her bottom lip for a moment. "How do you remember those who are gone, without letting the memories overwhelm you?"

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"So you can't handle it." Harley shrugs her shoulders. She really does not find his statement threatening.

"Every other year, they drugged me to keep those emotions away." She throws up her arms. "Every other year, they fear me so much, when I just wanted to..."

"Cry. Laugh. Fight. Love. Dance."

"I'm free of them this year, and no one is here who can handle it all."

He laughed then, a loud and howling sound. "Oh trust me, Pretty Thing. I can handle it. I will feed from it. The very things you seem afraid to let loose, I will thrive from," he says, chuckling at the admission. Entirely commonplace conversation after all, right?

Then she speaks, going on, and his eyes light up. Chin dipping, gaze strong and intense as he stares at her, hands gripping into fists at his side.

"Then do it. Show me. They stopped you and you can only fight back by letting it out," he says, challenging her, craving the emotions she spoke of as if she were offering a decadent chocolate buffet. "Don't let them control you now. Show them you don't need their drugs or their permission."

Martin stepped back, almost bowing towards her with a sweep of his hand. "Let them go then. Mourn them. Be yourself."

Harley closes her eyes at the howling laughter. It reminds her of Joker. And she laughs a little herself, when he calls her Pretty Thing.

"And so, a total selfish act. How generous of you." She watches him carefully again. A little suspicious of his offer. Something is not adding up, and so she better evaluate this situation carefully.

"How? The anti-violence field would negate any of the ways I channel my anger."

"No one is selfless. Anyone that tells you otherwise? Run. They're the worst of the bunch," he says, believing that. All he's known of the military and experiments, and he knows those that pretend to be looking out for only you are the biggest liars.

"But you can help others and help yourself. Been learning that," he says, nodding slowly, thinking through what he's seen recently, what he's done.

Martin pauses then, new and not really having given a lot of attention to all the means of education that have been set up. "So that's it, is it. Huh. Interesting. So the government's running this place too?"

He supposes that makes sense. He's not escaped, merely been moved to another facility then? Makes sense in his mind, but not good.

"You said other things you wanted to do. What do the memories of them make you feel? Just anger? Just violence." Suddenly he smiles. "Scream then. Scream out the pain. Scream out your loss. Come on. Do it."

"I would like to help others, while helping myself." Because she knows that it is important to look out for herself first.

"Ya' new here? Ya' never been told about this place? It's purpose?"

Harley thinks for a moment, remembering Diablo's sacrifice. "All he wanted to do was to find inner peace. I wonder if he would want me to try to do that for myself. To meditate, and reflect."

"So what's stopping you? Figure out what you need and want, and then what gets you that while helping others." He snorts, shrugging one shoulder. "We found it on accident but can't see why you can't plan it."

Shouldn't that work? He assumes it would, but then he doesn't look at the world like most people do.

"New to whatever this is," he says, gesturing. "But been in and out of the facility for years. Can't remember how long its been." All the experiments, the testing and harassment that came from creating what they were, he just assumes it's all the same.

Martin's face screws up, entirely uncertain about that. "What's meditation supposed to get you? That what you want?"

"I was never good at the whole planning thing..." Harley places her hands on her hips, tapping her foot for a moment.

She tilts her head at him again. "This ain't a facility. Ya are actually pretty far removed from that in fact."

Then she shrugs her shoulders again. "Not really sure what I want. Guess maybe that is the whole point. To figure out the starting point."

"So don't plan. just do. Do what you want. Do what you need. Why plan. Just do what you feel like you need to. Be yourself."

He falls quiet though, considering that part about the facility. "Yeah, that so? Prove it? They've played that game before. Sorry but I'm used to it." He doesn't think she's lying, just that she doesn't get it. "Prove to me it isn't them playing games again."

"Not planning is easy..." Harley reaches into her ringmaster hat, to pull out some bubblegum. She pops it into her mouth.

She thinks for a moment. Then quotes from one of her favorite parts from Alice in Wonderland. "If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?”

Harley puts up her hands, as if not sure how to answer the challenge. "Sorry. But I like games. And I am not sure how not to play one..."

"Doing should be easier, but most make it hard," he points out, taking from how much he's seen as of late in the world.

Slowly he smiles then, liking the sound of that. "So what's stopping you? Why don't you just make it happen then. Turn the world upside down. It needs it," he says, voice rising with a sharp edge. "Build it up like y'want or burn it down."

But his eyes narrow, even with that crooked smile. "So you're with them? Otherwise why play their games?" He glances to the left and then to the right. "So this could be another facility game, wanting to see what they can pull from me here all alone. Push my buttons until I snap again."

"This isn't my world..." Harley points out. "I can do that, back home."

"Nuh'huh. I am not one of them."

"And see, you tell me to go ahead and let go, but you don't want to do the same?"

"Good. Don't let anyone tighten a noose on you."

He's feeling it back home. Literally in a way. This though, this was new.

"I didn't say I wouldn't snap. Just that its what they want. As for the rest... I would. But it means turning things on, and if I did that, you would likely run." And he kind of misses having the Rowdy 3, the other three to their four, around. "Why I wanted you to let loose. Let out the pain and then I could take it. Take it from you and you feed from it," he admits, watching her curiously to see how she reacts to what he says. "Doing it now can just hurt and kill."

He could do it with Icarus, but some random girl that wasn't having a vision? He worries what he might do. Huh, that's a new experience.

Harley slips off her rock, to stand in front of him. "I won't run."

"Dotcha think that we could help each other?"

Martin drew a slow, shuddering breath. "Okay then." His tongue brushed over his lip, then his teeth catching it, dragging slowly over it.

"Think about the dead. Think about the pain and how much you miss them. Bring it all up. So I'm taking it, not... you." Because he can kill her, and would if he isn't careful. He doesn't want to kill someone else the facility might be screwing with.

"How do you take it?" Harley asks, arching an eyebrow in query.

Hell, he's gotten this far. No reason to hide it now. If he's right, they know what he does. If he's wrong, who cares then?

"I drink it down. I draw the energy from you and it... sustains me." His stare is direct and hard, watching for her reaction.

"I see..." Harley arches on her toes for a moment. Thinking over the situation for a long hard moment.

"Does it hurt?"

Martin pauses then. "Not much thought about it. Amanda doesn't think so. Helps her get rid of the crazy when it gets her. Icarus doesn't like it much." Since they never ask. "If I stop, it shouldn't."

He pauses then, inclining his head in acknowledgement. "When. When I stop."

Harley frowns slightly. "I don't want the crazy to stop. It makes me... me."

"You got pararibulitis? That's what gets her. Vision and shit. God, those things taste fucking good," he says, tossing his head back and giving a short barking howl sound thinking about it.

"I got a mixed bag of junk. Don't want any of it to be taken away."

"Why I said bring up the emotions. You bring 'em up, and that's what will lay on the surface. I got enough control not to hurtcha." At least he's pretty sure he does.

"I have heard that before..." Harley huffed, blowing a strand of her hair out of her face.

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Remembering the Dead

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