Midnight Manor Laundry Room; Sunday Morning

[totalwildcard]

Boy, had that gone poorly! Harley hadn't slept much, and some of the reasons why could maybe be inferred by how, come morning, her makeup looked like perhaps she'd been caught in a heavy bout of rain. Rain that also made your eyes look kinda red and puffy? It was Fandom, okay, genuinely much stranger things happened all the time! Leave her alone!

Also, thanks to the aforementioned lack of sleep, Harley wasn't actually feeling all that much better, come morning. She actually kind of felt like she needed to bite something.

Or maybe go egg the Wayne Foundation building in town.

Set something on fire?

... Or kick a dryer, apparently. Sorry about the occasional clanging noises (and the accompanying swearing), Midnightites! Midnighters? Midnightees...? People of Midnight. Sometimes you just had to laundry aggressively.

It was so much better than actually dealing with your feelings.

(open!)

Comments

[hasaknightjob]

The thing about living in a sentient home was that sometimes it had vibes. Such as when something was happening inside of it that it didn't know what to do with.

Marc, having a vested interest in his home being happy (look, this was just his life, he'd accepted it), went into the boarding house side to see why Midnight felt - off? Puzzled? Something? This then led to following the sound of banging down into the basement.

Marc wasn't sure what he expected to find. Unbalanced machine? Stray raccoon that had gotten in somehow?

Then he saw the cause and realized he should have maybe guessed.

At least the who. The what and why eluded him.

"What'd my laundry ever do to you?"

[totalwildcard]

Harley might've actually felt a little bad about the off vibes if she'd known.

As it was, she heard someone coming, and was all set to dole out some pithy quip, but then she heard Marc, and, well... "Nothin'," she muttered sullenly. "Wouldn't close properly, 's all."

Especially with how she didn't look up from the machine, the impression was not unlike that of a sullen school kid who'd got caught doing something she shouldn't have.

(But why were you there in the first place, Quinn, if not to play Marc bait?)

[hasaknightjob]

Midnight wasn't upset so much as confused. Harley clearly wasn't happy, but she didn't live there, but at least one person that was its family seemed to care about her well-being, but -

Humans were both strange and interesting to Midnight.

As for Marc, he arguably wasn't better at figuring out people than Midnight was, but even he could tell this probably wasn't about the machines. He came over to stand near Harley.

"Something up?"

[totalwildcard]

He was probably close enough now to see how artistically Harley had clearly applied her eye makeup - which was to say, how much of it had washed out onto her cheeks, and not on purpose.

"No." Still going with that sullen child thing, then. She fidgeted with her hands, along the edge of the dryer. "Just the stupid machine. Just -- stupid things."

[hasaknightjob]

Marc was noticing the makeup, yeah. He was tempted to brush a hand against her cheek but held off in case it wasn't welcome.

He leaned against the dryer next to hers instead. "Wanna talk about it?"

[totalwildcard]

Yes.

"No," Harley said.

But she made a face, all kinds of scrunched up - and then moved, abruptly, with half a sort-of spin that thumped her against his chest.

Well, her chest against his chest, really, and her face against his shoulder.

[hasaknightjob]

Marc was surprised, because he hadn't expected that. Normally he was not the guy people looked to for this kind of thing. But it seemed like she needed it and for some reason that mattered. So Marc wrapped his arms around her in a hug.

"I gotcha."

[totalwildcard]

His skills at reading humans may have been on par with the house, but he had arms, so he had Midnight beat in that regard. And judging by the way Harley slumped into them, he was using them in the right way right now.

The whine that followed wasn't really directed at him. Sounded deeply frustrated, though.

[hasaknightjob]

"Want me to give the dryer what for?" Marc asked. It was clearly not serious since he knew it wasn't the dryer that was the problem. Just trying to coax a smile out of her.

[totalwildcard]

"That's not funny," Harley complained. The whine was in the tone, this time. But her arms snuck their way around his waist in turn, so it clearly wasn't that bad.

Also, there was the thing she muttered into his shoulder. "Mighta dented it."

[hasaknightjob]

"We can fix it," Marc said.

Well, Marc might try and then need to hire someone to do it. But whatever.

Anyway, maybe the way Marc rubbed her back indicated the "it" was more than the dryer.

[totalwildcard]

This time, he got a little huff out of her. Wasn't a lot, but it was something.

And then: "Can we run my ex off the island?"

Not that Harley really still wanted to do that. Maybe? Was kinda hard to figure out what her feelings actually were after all the crying and lack of sleep.

Also, no, it did not occur to her that he might think of a whole other ex of hers.

[hasaknightjob]

Yeah there was only one ex of Harley's that Marc was aware of. So don't mind him as that hug got a lot tighter and more protective. "Where is he?"

[totalwildcard]

"I don't kn--"

Waitaminute.

Harley pulled back from his shoulder - without dislodging all the protective holding 'cause that was kinda working for her! - just enough to give him the classic confused, big eyebrow raise. "He? Wha-- ohhh."

She got it.

"Oh, no, it's not Mr. J! It's Pam."

[hasaknightjob]

Now it was Marc's turn for a confused look.

"Who?"

[totalwildcard]

"Pam!"

Yes, Harley was saying that as if he was supposed to know who that was. In her defense, she had not slept. And whether she would've acted this way regardless was irrelevant!

Luckily she was also willing to explain, even if it was largely in the tone of 'yanno, Pam': "We dated in college? She left me to go study plants somewhere else and broke my fuckin' heart so bad I nearly drowned myself in work after?"

To be fair, that damage hadn't been all Pam's doing, but also the string of relationships with unhappy endings leading up to her, but whatever, anyway. Harley wasn't feeling particularly fair right now.

[hasaknightjob]

Marc dialed down the concern for Harley's safety. Which didn't eliminate all concern. Layla showing up on the island without warning would've unsettled Marc too (Though hard for her to do that when there were still some texts, but still. Principle of the thing.)

"She come looking for you?" Marc asked. He resumed rubbing Harley's back since why not?

[totalwildcard]

Harley scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "No, or at least she said she'd been... escaping from some mushroom thing?" Close enough. "And she's not even my Pam."

Okay, now she was really making a face.

"The possessive pronouns were her idea. What I mean is, that she's not from where I'm from? That's what she says, anyway. And it sounded like the details didn't match, but she's definitely got a Harley, and she left her too!"

Sorry, she'd had no one but Bruce to vent at.

[hasaknightjob]

At least multiverse bullshit didn't throw Marc?

"That's a trip," Marc said, with sympathy. Because yeah, if a Layla showed up in a way that'd be worse. A familiar face with none of the relationship, and maybe even glimpses into what a different version of you had managed to fuck up or do right.

(Could Marc extrapolate that this might have been similar to what Layla went through when she met Steven? Ehhhhhhh...)

"So wait, she's still calling you hers?"

Marc didn't have a stake in possessive pronouns here or anything. He'd be the first to say he did not possess Harley. But he trying to understand.

[totalwildcard]

"Not me," Harley replied, "the other me. Her me. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm just making noises at this point."

[hasaknightjob]

"You ran into a version of one of your exes from another universe and it's weird," Marc said, to see if he had it right so far.

[totalwildcard]

"Yes!"

Why was there relief in Harley's voice, right there? Maybe just because she was feeling heard.

And maybe the sleep deprivation.

"See, you get it!"

[hasaknightjob]

"Island bullshit," Marc said, since yeah, he did.

[totalwildcard]

"Island bullshit," Harley echoed on a big sigh, almost visibly deflating. "And I hate it."

[hasaknightjob]

"Sucks," Marc agreed, sympathetically. "So wait - what? She lives here now?"

There hadn't been reports of people's exes showing up on the island so that did imply this wasn't a weekend event that was going to go away.