Needful Things; Friday

[totalwildcard]

Harley was late to opening her shop, but honestly? The town should have been pretty impressed she'd been keeping to any kind of a "making sure the store door is open on Fridays" schedule at all, because it wasn't entirely in her nature to be quite so consistent. About anything.

Ever.

Anyway, by Friday afternoon, she'd made it down from her apartment and Needful Things was officially open. And she was behind the counter, where she'd set up a record player, and was playing a song here, a song there from some old, mostly jazzy vinyls. Occasionally seeing if any of them played backwards would yield something she could claim sounded haunted.

You know, just normal antique shop stuff.

(open!)

Comments

[pocketpretzels]

It was late in the day when Watts stopped in, on his way home from the station.

“Dr. Quinn?” he inquired, stepping inside the shop.

[totalwildcard]

Somewhere, someone continued to lament not being able to make Medicine Woman jokes.

"Yeah?" Harley called back, from the counter. Quickly followed by, "Oh, Detective Fancy Hat! Still not here to arrest me, right?"

[pocketpretzels]

Watts’s hand went up to touch his hat as Harley spoke.

“Not unless you’ve done anything for which I ought to,” he said. And then clarified: “Here on the island.”

And then the hat came off, deposited on… some piece of taxidermy or the like.

[totalwildcard]

There was never a shortage of taxidermy or mannequins or furniture with funky sticky-out bits at the store.

Harley offered him an absolutely wicked grin. "None that I'm gonna tell ya about."

[pocketpretzels]

“You say things like that and it makes me inclined to investigate,” Watts pointed out. “For the record, so long as whatever illegal activity you indulge in does not cause harm to the people of this island, it’s of no interest to me.”

[totalwildcard]

"I won't be confirmin' or denyin' nothing," Harley chirped brightly. What, she had to sometimes be at least a little bit of a pain in the ass for the cops in this town: she was Harley fucking Quinn, after all! "Detective."

[pocketpretzels]

"Which only serves to continue to make me suspicious," Watts pointed out. "But have it your way. Regardless, I genuinely did not come here in an effort to gain information about any less than legal activity you are involved in. I'm looking for something."

[totalwildcard]

He was only narrowly saved from Harley pointing out he kept stating the obvious, by her shifting focus skipping over to the last thing he'd said.

(It wouldn't have been news to him, anyway.)

"Any particular kind of somethin'?"

[pocketpretzels]

"A piano."

Yes, there was a perfectly good music store in town. But he wasn't looking for something new.

[totalwildcard]

He'd definitely mentioned looking for a piano before, and Harley also definitely did not remember that he had.

So she was going to look and sound thoughtful now.

"Hmm."

Yeah, like that.

"I think I've seen one in the back."

[pocketpretzels]

"Well," Watts said. "Then do you think we could go take a look and see if one is indeed there?"

[totalwildcard]

Oh, Harley was already going.

She didn't look to see if he was following, because it seemed like kind of a given. (And also the store wasn't that big.)

[pocketpretzels]

"Right," And Watts was following along in his own way, at one point squeezing between two pieces of furniture instead of taking what was clearly meant to be the simplest path.

[knightinshinarmor]

Remy didn't notice if she was late or not. He was busy with other things. The sorts of things that had kept him off the island most of the week.

It wasn't easy to steal a fifteen foot pink poodle kinetic sculpture from a museum without getting caught, after all.

(Sure, he could have gone for something smaller, but he'd spotted that dog and, well. Did anything scream 'the weird antique shop lady' more than a 15 foot pink poodle sculpture on wheels? He didn't think so.)

"Well done, mes amis. You handled the stairs with aplomb." Remy tipped the handful of rickshaw drivers he'd convinced to help him get Fifi to the store, then leaned in the shop's doorway. "Mademoiselle Proprietrix, are you in?"

[totalwildcard]

"If that means me," Harley called back, over the lovely sound of a Duke Ellington record playing backwards, "then yes!"

[knightinshinarmor]

That was . . . a Choice for music. Remy was just pretending he couldn't hear it just now.

"It does. Bonjour. I have something to show you, if you'd like to peek outside."

[totalwildcard]

"Oh, it's you, Frenchie!"

Harley had absolutely forgotten he'd ever come by, but she remembered it now, and that was all that counted.

It wasn't all that she remembered, either. "Wait, didn't I tell you to bring something good?" she wondered, as she was getting out from behind the counter. (Leaving that record playing horribly in the background, sorry.) "Or was that someone else?"

[knightinshinarmor]

"I brought you something. If it's good or not . . . I leave that up to you. I think you'll enjoy it, though."

He swung back out the door and leaned against the jam, waiting for her to come out and see Fifi.

[totalwildcard]

Harley made a suspicious face in his general direction, because he was being real sketchy about not just bringing the damn thing into the store, and maybe this was a weird set-up of some kind?

But then she got to the door, and at first she really only saw what she thought was a giant pink tutu, so she looked up, and up, while her eyebrows also climbed higher and higher above her widening eyes.

"What the -- Who is this?"

[knightinshinarmor]

"Fifi," Remy said, pleased at her reaction. "Resident of the American Visionary Art Museum. Well. Formerly resident. She seemed your style, non?"

[totalwildcard]

"She's... not gonna fit in the store," Harley said, still just a little too much on the stunned side to say something more intelligent than that. "That's for sure."

[knightinshinarmor]

"Mmm," Remy hummed, by way of agreement. "You did say something good, not something small. And Gambit. . . ." He spread his hands. ". . . He's a man who likes to make an impression."

[totalwildcard]

Harley was probably supposed to be listening to him.

But Harley was not, because Harley had already launched herself at the giant pink... thing, in an attempt to hug it because it seemed huggable, and she wanted to see if that was the case.

Mostly it got her a faceful of tulle.

[knightinshinarmor]

"I see I was right," Remy mused with a chuckle.

It was fine, Harley. Remy could be patient while you tried to embrace the giant pup.

[totalwildcard]

"Nuh uh!" Harley protested, muffled considerably by all the aforementioned tulle. "This doesn't prove shit, how'm I supposed sell some five-year-old's best nightmare to anyone for a profit?"

Notice how she was yet to let go.

"Also you had a week, you could made this yourself!"