Title: Heart-Rot
Pairings: Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy
Summary: Harley is the parasite, Ivy is the host.
Rating: NC-17
Type: Angst, Slash
Warnings: Contains homosex.

- - - -

Pamela had a vision of this world- one she had returned to in moments of misery or pain. The landscape is quiet. The buildings of Gotham are empty shells, slowing being dragged down by the vines creeping up them. What was once pavement is a soft bed of moss, but any human feet that would appreciate it are long since buried, consumed and absorbed by the plants around them. One plant oversees them all, calm and content. A queen of this quiet world.

Pamela felt cracks appearing in her mind, and new desires worked their way inside, clouding the perfection of her vision.

She noticed somewhere along the way, that when Harley came up behind her and ran an arm around her waist and rested a chin on her shoulder, she pushed away from habit rather then desire. She noticed her hatred for the clown grew hotter, into something more than a generalized disgust for man above all else.

The vision faded a bit every time Harley showed up at the door Pamela's latest hideout with bruises already appearing under each eye and tear tracks smeared into her make-up. Each time, Pamela wrapped up Harley's wounds with increasing tenderness. "This is what you get!" became "I was worried about you", and Pamela knew the time was coming when the vision would fail her completely.

Pamela had strived for so long and so hard to be the desired, rather then the desirer, to be the seducer so completely out of range of seduction. She strove for purity, to avoid the messy humanity inherent in the tangle of limbs, the feel of flesh on flesh and the wet, horrible vulnerability of losing control. There was a reason Pamela kissed with her eyes open.

Temptation, though, blindsided her from this bafflingly unlikely direction. Harley was beautiful, of course, with her long pink limbs and her soft hips and her lithe, gymnast's grace. But her mind was completely consumed by layer upon layer of obsession, childish affectation and complete insanity that often Pamela herself could not believe she had not yet slammed the door in Harley's face, declaring that her and the Joker deserved each other.

Pamela never did, and she could never be sure if this was because of those lithe limbs or those tiny flashes of the woman behind the mask or, worst of all, because what she really wants is to save Harley from the fate she had made for herself.

Whenever they were together for any significant period of time, Harley made passes at Pamela with disturbing frequency. Disturbing, because each time she had crawled into bed next to Ivy only to get a swift, literal kick out of the bed, she always tried again. Disturbing, because it was clear that Harley was used to that reaction and that she refused to respond in any normal fashion to it. She just kept going, through the rejection, because she had no other choice. Harley was a parasite, who wrapped herself around the nearest host, and she had to succeed, or she would die.

Not in her wildest dreams had Pamela ever imagined wanting to be anything's host. But that was the only explanation she could find for turning, for giving in.

* * * *

It was the early morning hours after a night of success. Harley, giggling, flush with joy, was jumping around the apartment in her underwear, her mask still on and her stray blonde hairs sticking to the makeup still caked on her face. With an effortless cartwheel, she was jumping on the bed, ankle deep in the hundreds they broke out of First Gotham Bank hours ago. She just laughed louder when Pamela hissed at her to shut up. Harley tumbled off the bed, and before Pamela had time to react, Harley smacked into her, tackling her.

Pamela landed flat on her back, pinned to the ground by Harley's thighs. For a moment, Pamela's laid still, the feigned annoyance frozen on her face, as Harley smiled down on her, one hand propped up on either side of Pamela's head.

"I win!" Harley said and she bent down to kiss her. And Pamela knew she was expected to turn away, roll Harley off of her and walk out of the door. But she didn't.

Pamela shut her eyes and met Harley's lips with her own, stifling Harley's surprised "Oh!" The kiss deepened and Pamela ran her hand into Harley's hair, dry from years of dye. Harley smelled of greasepaint and the inevitable sweat that came from spandex costume, with a slight, faint undertone of flowers, leaves, plants. Pamela suspected this was residual affects of the shots she gave Harley, her own person mark on Harley's physiology. Harley kissed with enthusiasm, fast and excited, as if overjoyed and unable to contain herself. The way she was in all things, after all.

Harley's hands moved the same way, across the rough fabric of Pamela's bodice, cradling her half-covered breast. Pamela stiffened and pushed the hand away, breaking their kiss.

"Don't touch me," Pamela said.

"Oh," Harley said, her voice wavering anxiously, "okay."

Pamela sat up, and pushed Harley back, gently, against the bed, leaning in and kissing her. Pamela reached her hands up under Harley's bra, pressing upward, rubbing her thumbs along Harley's nipples. Harley relaxed and giggled into Pamela's mouth. Pamela slid one hand into the waistband of Harley's underwear, and she could not believe how easy it is to fall into all this, Harley's breath quickening in her ear, and Harley's hips pushing up around her fingers, Harley's legs wrapped around her waist, and how, of course, Harley laughs when she comes.

She could not believe how normal this was, and how quick.

* * * *

Pamela consoled herself with the fact that she was an instrument and not a recipient of this act of humanity, but it was a cold comfort. In times when Harley left her, and she lay alone in her hideout or her latest Arkham cell, she tried to call up the vision, to remind herself who she was, what she was. But it was dull, washed out, a mockery of what it had been. Just as she was mockery of what Poison Ivy was. Her overcompensation with the greening of her skin and poisoning of her blood would seem desperate if anyone knew her well enough to pay attention. Her body became less and less human, but nothing, it seemed, could cure her head.

When Harley left, Pamela thought about her constantly. All of her solo plans were epic failures, distracted as she was by a dull horrible ache she couldn't ignore.

When they were together, Pamela still thought about her constantly, but their plans worked so much more often and they landed in Arkham so much less...

The answer seemed fairly clear. The vision was no longer what Pamela needed anymore. It was over. She needed Harley with her. She could hate that for all time, but she could never, ever change it.

* * * *

Pamela finally let Harley touch her in the back of a stolen car on an isolated stretch of Gotham waterfront.

Pamela's legs were spread, her back arched tense against the seat, her eyes closed, as Harley, crouched in the seat well in front of her, pushed aside the crotch of her suit, and pressed her lips hard against Pamela's clit. Pamela opened her eyes and looked down at Harley's head, moving in a slow rhythm between her legs, and her own hands wrapped around Harley's tassels. Tension built in her hips, spreading down to her curling toes and up to her clenched teeth. Harley's mouth wass a vacuum wrapped around the core of her being. The softness of her lips, the hard push of her tongue.....

Harley thrust her fingers inside her, and Pamela felt that wave of heat, every atom in every molecule shaking and there wass no thought, there was just the feeling and her voice ringing out into the night, one long and impossibly beautiful "Oooooh-"

And then she collapsed back into herself. Harley gazed up at her, removing her soiled gloves and waited for a response.

Pamela caught her breath. She felt suddenly ill, exposed and raw, but she smiled at Harley just the same.

"You're amazing."

Harley smiled, widely, and leapt up, wrapping her arms around Pamela. She rested her head against Pamela's shoulder and sighed happily.

"I love you, Pamie," she said.

Pamela smiled. "I know."

* * * *

As soon as Pamela was awake, she knew she was alone. The bed next to her was empty, and there was no singing in the shower, no slamming of kitchen cabinets, so sound of cartoons from the TV. Harley's street clothes still littered the floor, but Pamela walked slowly to the closet, and opened it. Harley's costume, and all her spares, were gone.

Pamela walked to the blinds and opened them, gazing out over the abandoned botanical garden. The car was gone, too. She wondered if it still smelled like last night.

She wandered to the living room, blankly, and turned on the TV. There it was, WGBS news, live from Arkham. Pamela didn't even have to wait for Summer Gleeson's dramatic pronouncement to know what happened.

"Once again, the Joker has escaped from Arkham Asylum. The people of Gotham are to remain on high alert as he is considered armed and extremely dangerous..."

Pamela clicked the TV off and curled up on the couch. She shut her eyes and tried in vain to think of it, the streets of Gotham, empty, the buildings dragged down by vines, and her, at the center...

She resolved not to cry. Long ago she had decided that for each failed plan, she would think up ten more. She would keep her eyes open, and wait.