| Usin' Me as Furniture Costs Extra | |||||
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| What: Harley Quinn become Epiphany's bodyguard. Who woulda thought? | |||||
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Epiphany was holed up into her laboratory, hard at work. She was dressed in a red hazmat suit, with a pair of goggles slid over her eyes. Piffy was taking notes on this brownish green mixture. When it started to turn pink she cursed and immediately turned down the heat. She sighed, "Used too much pig's feet. FUCK."
Just then the doorbell rang, and she rolled her eyes not quite ready to visit another traveling salesman or another lovesick loser who wants a love potion.
First she peeked through the hole to see...
Click.
NOT the sound of a door turning. Instead, a gun cocked behind Epiphany's head. "Before I fire," a woman's voice says, "I just want to say one thing..."
"...APRIL FOOLS!" A peal of manic laughter as the gun is pulled away and fired into the air, producing a puff of confetti and sparkles. "You Penelope Greaves?" the woman asks, stepping around from behind Epiphany, wearing red and black leather and looking like... well, some kind of psycho clown. "Because this is exactly the kinda thing /Mister/ Greaves hired me to prevent."
Epiphany's eyes widened, "You have /got/ to be joking!"
She looked over the crazy clown...stripper? Piffy wasn't quite sure what she was looking at yet. Gotham really was a weird place and got weirder every day. Awesome, but weird.
She crossed her arms in front of her chest and raised her goggles, "My Da hired you to...be my bodyguard? Hope he didn't pay you in ones."
Harley looks from Epiphany down to her little fun-gun. "Well, yeah, actually, I kinda was. OH! You mean about the other part!"
Harley's grin is not the most reassuring sight in the world. "Nope. Y'see, Purity, your /Daaaaa/, he's kinda concerned about ya! He was all," and now Harley does a passable impression of Terry Greaves, bunching her mouth up for imaginary jowls, "'She's my only flesh and blood and I know she's going to get herself killed with the path she's on! I've given up trying to stop her, so now I just need to keep her safe' and blah blah blah blah blah. It's like, I was sitting right there and all he wanted to talk about was /you/! Rude much? But yeah. I don't like the word bodyguard. I prefer... 'Corpse Prevention Assistant.'"
Harley removes a business card from her top, offering it to Epiphant. She's taken a CPA's business card, crossed out his name, and written in 'DR. HARLEEN QUINZEL' with a marker.
Epiphany pressed her hands up against her face and sighed, her shoulders slumping. Through her hands she muffled, "This being the same man who refused to buy me furniture because I was going to the 'dirty colonies' to set up shop."
She took the card from her hand and moved towards her computer chair, plopping down on it, "A Doctor clownish bodyguard. Fuck, I love Gotham. Want a beer?"
"Usin' me as furniture costs extra," Harley notes. "Is that what you're doin' in the back there? The fumes got me all woozy, but it didn't stink like a meth lab, so I was wonderin' about that. Sure, I'll have one of your homemade microbrews or whatever. That what you came to us colonies to do?"
Harley also steps closer, holding out an expectant hand. "And I kinda need that card back. I only have the one."
At the furniture line Harley gets a quirked brow. While staying on her office chair she moves towards the small fridge in the corner. The majority of this space was the lab, and Piffy had a small shabby looking living corner for the moment. "Meth labs wish they had me. I can make that perfect stuff like on that one TV show. That stuff's easy."
She reached to grab a beer from the fridge, and herself a flask of gin sitting on top. Piffy tossed the average run of the mill beer towards Harley, "I'm an alchemist. Much more interesting than being a drug cook in the dessert."
"Oh, yeah, I saw that show!" Harley notes. "Didn't believe a word the bicycle guy said about it, but man, he sure had some crazy bicycle drugs." She catches the beer effortlessly.
"So, what, is this like one of those cash for gold things, only way more literal?" Harley pops open the beer, and has an uncritical swig. "Kinda think if you were blowin' the gold standard, you'd have a nicer place than this... kinda think if you were blowin' /Goldface/, you'd have a nicer place than this, with his crooked union job..."
There was a small smirk that spread across her lips, this one looked like she knew how to party. Probably a little /too/ hard, like wind up in the middle of a desert in mens briefs weird. Okay she finished binge watching the show last night, binge watching is easy in the US.
She took a swig out of her glass and shrugged, "You mean like the classic, turning anything into gold? Yeah I can do that, and a whole lot of other stuff. Lot of magik types in this area, so here I am."
She looked the woman over, "So tell me about yourself Dr. Quinzel, if you are apparently my...'Corpse Prevention Assistant."
"The alchemy's cool. The Magic: The Gathering? Ehhh, I'll let it slide because I like your haircut. I never had the patience for that kinda game." Harley has already finished her beer.
"Well! I'm a Virgo, my favorite color is chalky greasy white, my favorite song is pretty much anything by Justin Bieber because he's like a little tough guy angel, I like long walks through dangerous inner city streets, and I'm one of the surprisingly numerous people who've both worked at and been imprisoned within Arkham Asylum. And I promised your father one thing..." Harley sets the empty beer down.
"...I would /not/ let you fall in love with me."
Wait, her dad didn't know she was bi right? She kept pretty much everything from him regarding her sex life. Oh god his was a giant can of worms if he knew. What if he knows about Constantine? DAIMON? SATANNA?????!?!?!?
Another quick swig, and spoke in her dryer tone, "I'll try to keep my composure. But I keep no promises."
She smirked and tossed Harley another one, "If we're doing dating profiles I like the color grey, love Blur, and whatever dates that end sweaty."
Harley catches it, but doesn't open it yet. "See? You're already startin'. Lucky for you I prefer redheads. Well, or greenheads. Or green redheads. If I was red-green colorblind, I'd be /all set/."
Harley throws the still-unopened beer from hand to hand. "Also, you got a washer-dryer? I don't need to use it now, but if I'm gonna be protectin' you, I figure I might as well make use of the perks."
Piffy jerked a thumb towards the back room, "Got a washer and dryer thing in the back. And since you.../were/ a doctor I'm sure you understand the perks of a lab."
She rose and took another sip of her flask before slipping it into her pocket, "I run into some weirdos in this business, whether it's the shit my 'Da brings up, or Magik' stuff. Hopefully you won't be too bored...welcome to the team?"
"Well, I was more of the /prescribin'/ kind of doctor than the /manufacturin'/ kind. So, yeah, if you have a contract with Pfizer, I understand completely. And if you /do/ have a contract with Pfizer, let me know if you get Jake Gyllenhaal roamin' around here, like whatsherface in whatsitcalled. Even if I hear he's a little, y'know."
Harley spins the unopened beer on her finger like a basketball for a few seconds before catching it and flipping it end over end in one hand. "Weirdos, eh?" She then opens the beer, which she's been playing and shaking with for a few minutes now, and... nothing happens. No foam explosion. It's as if it wasn't shaken up at all. "Wouldn't know anything about it. Glad to meet'cha."