fandomtownies | On the Steps of Pick Your Poison, Saturday Morning

Four months. More or less. Four months of hiding. Four months of researching. Four months of... healing? Pam wasn't sure if... that's what you could call it. There was a peace in her that hadn't been there before, but it was hard to tell it apart from resignation, stagnation, settling.

Or maybe it was just... winter.

She carried the little rhododendron sapling outside, a whisp of a thing in a large pot that would, hopefully, with time grow into something bigger and more beautiful. She set it down next to the Christmas ferns, not far from the witch hazel. Native plants. Winter-hardy plants.

Time for things to grow again. (Trite metaphor, or truth? Maybe both.)

It was cold out, but the chill and the overcast sky fit Pam's mood perfectly. With the plants settled, she went back inside to pick up a mug of coffee, and on return let Pick Your Poison's door close neatly behind her. She sat down, legs outstretched, and stared out into the street, at the cold rocks and their ever-abiding moss that lined the northern side of Loon Drive.

Winter. But also, soon, spring again.

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Harley threw a quizzical glance over her shoulder towards... the general direction of back where the park was. "Hunh. Maybe that's why they act so goddamn salty all the time."

Or maybe that was the hyena effect.

She opened the door. Stepped inside, and held it. "They expel the salt through their noses," Pam said, with some amusement.

Harley chuckled. "Birds don't have noses, silly," she said, ushering Bruce in through the doorway, "they got beaks!"

She said it with such confidence, too.

"They have nostrils," Pam said, amused, "Comparable to our noses."

She glanced back at Harley and the hyena. "Feel free to take a seat on the couch," she said. "I'll be right back with coffee."

"Okay!" Harley said. Should she have been more awkward about it? Maybe, but the whole thing had taken her by surprise, and she did have kind of a limited capacity for awkward in general, anyway.

So she sort of dumped the winter coat onto one arm of the couch, and then herself next to it, in her galaxy-themed fuzzy onesie that was probably meant for at-home-wear.

Bruce also made himself at home in the store.

Maybe a little too much.

"Brucie, nope, that's not for eatin'! ... I think."

Pam stuck her head back out after a moment. "Don't let him chew on the plants," she said. "Some of them are toxic to mammals."

"What about those bath -- thingamajigs, I dunno what that is?"

It might not even have been a bath thing. Harley just really only cared about the bath stuff.

"I also wouldn't recommend it."

She vanished back into the back, rummaging around to get some coffee. And meat.

Harley raised her eyebrows a bit, then saw it best to call Bruce over to her, where he could settle down at her feet in front of the couch and get scritches.

"Sorry, baby," she told him, "Pammy's just lookin' out for ya."

"I hope he likes turkey," Pam said, when she finally reappeared, a bowl with some meat in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other. "Here."

She held the former out for Harley to take, first.

With Bruce already lifting his head for the scent, Harley reached out to take the bowl with a little 'oo!' noise.

"See!" she said, as she went to hold it where he could get to it. "See how much nicer it is without the feathers?"

"And less hazardous to his health," Pam said, holding on to Harley's coffee until she was done. "You named him 'Bruce'. Funny."

"Well, ain't the resemblance obvious?" Harley... joked? Probably? "He's hunky like that Wayne guy!"

Pam let out a soft huff. "'Hunky' isn't the word I would use," she said. "For Wayne, that is."

... Harley looked so flabbergasted that it bordered on downright offended.

"Why not?"

"Because he's a stuck-up rich asshole living in an ivory tower," Pam said.

She held out the coffee. "I can't think of anything more unattractive."

"Oh, please!" Harley scoffed, setting the now-empty bowl down where Bruce could lick it clean, so she could take the coffee instead. "That just makes it more okay to objectify the hell outta him! Plus I can daydream about stealin' all his money while I'm at it."

"No thanks for me," Pam said.

She sat down on the sofa, not too close to Harley. "He's not a great kisser, either."

Still close enough that there was nothing protecting her from the absolute shrillness of Harley's response.

"You've kissed Bruce Wayne?!"

Oh and it was loud, too.

"Unfortunately," Pam muttered, reaching up on the shelf for where she'd left her own, now largely cool, coffee.

"Why?! When?!"

Tiny pause.

"Didya steal from him? Tell me everything!"

"I may have used a number of compounds in my lipstick that made it easy to get to his creditcard, yes," Pam said.

That sip of coffee was expertly timed.

Harley looked smitten.

... With the crime aspect. (At least mostly?)

"Oh that is so cool," she sighed. Like a totally normal person. "I woulda loved to see that!"

Pam let out a soft huff.

"You did," she said. "Well. She did."

Harley gave a wistful sigh. "Well, good," she said. "Somebody's gotta get to appreciate the brilliance."

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