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She was sitting in the dark, at the feet of her bed, waiting to disappear. Breathing was hard, so fucking hard, it was barely worth it. She was cold and hot all at once and she felt on the verge of fainting. Maybe she had already. Maybe she was dying. It felt like dying. Why was it so hard to breath? She raised a trembling hand to her chest to feel her heart beating. It was wild underneath her palm, wild and scared. She was so fucking scared. And cold, so fucking cold, as if trapped in a freezer. Maybe that was why it was so hard to breath. She pressed her hand harder against her chest, to calm her heart or to stop it, she couldn’t tell. But none happened. And she was hot, so fucking hot. Maybe she was in hell. Why was it so hard to breath? She was suffocating, the air around her too thick, too hot, too cold, too thin. Her mouth opened up itself in a silent cry and she felt water on her face. She would drown, she was drowning, that was why she couldn’t breathe. Her whole body trembled, struggling against the shackles of her fear to free itself, to gain back whatever control it could grasp. In vain. The darkness was unforgiving. She managed to bring her knees against herself and hugged them. It was cold again. Her skin tingled, it was itchy, burning hot. She closed her eyes, her face still drowning. Everything was so uncomfortable, she only wished to be free of it all. She started to scratch.
***
Harley woke up in a jump, a silent cry on her lips as she reached blindly for her bat. Her heartbeat was loud in her ears and she was breathless. She looked around her room, trying to see whatever threat might be lurking in the dark, but she saw nothing. Slowly, she released her weapon and dropped back on the bed with a sigh. Did she have a nightmare? It didn’t seem so, but it wouldn’t be the first time that invisible demons robbed her from her sleep. She waited for her heart to settle before standing up and leaving her room. Maybe a glass of water will help her. Or, better, a hot chocolate! Careful to be light on her feet not to wake up Ivy, Harley walked to the kitchen. Did they have any marshmallows? Ivy hated them, but they were Harley’s not-so-guilty pleasure and she found a new bag of them each month in the pantry. She turned on one of the kitchen lights and went in search of the necessary ingredients. Ivy's cupboards were always impeccably tidy, as was her entire flat, in fact. It had taken them a while to find a balance between Ivy's almost compulsive need to tidy up and the natural chaos in which Harley thrived. But they had managed just well and Harley would never stop being grateful for her friend. She was about to take the first sip of her drink when she heard it again. A moan -no, a groan? - coming from Ivy’s room. Worry settling in her stomach, she put down her mug -Ivy’s Go green, humans make great fertilizer- and slowly walked toward her friend’s bedroom. No light filtered under the door but she could hear movements.
“Ives?” she called tentatively. No answer came. She knocked lightly and pressed her ear against the wood. This time Ivy was louder, and her cry was unmistakable. Harley didn’t hesitate. She opened the door and slipped inside. She usually loved Ivy’s room, with all its plants and bright colors, it felt as is life had exploded in there, in a very vibrant and warm way. But now, in the dark, everything seemed more threatening. The plants danced a macabre choreography to an unknown rhythm and Harley had to be extra vigilant to avoid their wavy leaves and branches. The bed, pushed on the left corner of the room, was empty. Scanning the shadows anxiously, Harley eventually made out the trembling figure of Ivy, prostrated on the ground.
“Ives?” she called again, walking to her, careful not to step on any troubled plants. “Ivy, can ya hear me?”
Her friend didn’t answer, she didn’t even seem to know she wasn’t alone anymore. She was mumbling incoherently to herself between her whines, her breathing heavy and frantic. Her hands were moving frenetically on her body, from her arms and her legs to her face and neck. Harley could barely see what she was doing and didn’t dare touch her in that state. She reached for her bedside lamp, and switched it on. When her eyes were finally able to make out the young woman's condition clearly, a gasp escaped her lips and she fell to her knees facing her.
“Holly shit, Ivy!”
Her friend’s skin was an irritated dark green all over her body, thin trails of blood everywhere her nails had scratched furiously. She was currently attacking her throat as fat tears were running on her face. Without thinking, Harley grabbed both of her hands in hers and trapped them against her body.
“Ivy, stop! You have to stop!”
The redhead struggled against her friend’s grip, but she was too weak to oppose any real resistance, too weak and too far gone in whatever hell she was stuck.
“Ives, babe, do you hear me? Please, calm down, I’m here now.” She came closer to her and pinned both of Ivy's wrists under her arm before grabbing her shoulders. “It’s just us, Ives, come back to me, please baby.” Her voice broke as tears of her own made their way on her face. She cupped her cheek with her right hand and Ivy’s eyes finally opened up, starring straight into hers.
“Harls?”
Never had Harley heard such a broken voice. She could swear her heart stopped working for a second.
“Yeah, Pammy, I’m here” she replied, using her thumb to wipe the tears of her friend’s face. “I’m here, Ives, ‘s alright.” She couldn’t tell who she was trying to comfort, but it was clear that it wasn't working for either of them.
Ivy started to cry harder, her entire body trembling under the strength of her sobs.
“It hurts, Harls” she whispered, sounding breathless. “Please, please, make it stop!” She tried again to free her arms but Harley hold on.
“What hurts, Ives? Where does it hurt?” Harley was getting desperate, and the panic was threatening to make her lose all sanity. And she was hardly the type to panic, nor was Ivy the type to beg.
“Everywhere” Ivy cried helplessly, her legs aggressively rubbing against each other. “It hurts so much, please, I can’t…” The rest of her sentence was lost in her panic and she began to hyperventilate. Her green eyes widened in fear and continued to silently implore her through the thick veil of her tears.
Something flicked inside Harley and she made a choice. Panicking wasn’t helping her friend and asking questions were leading her nowhere useful, she had to act. She took Ivy into her arms and carried her to the bathroom, trying her best to avoid her plants, still rendered wild by their master’s panic. Against her chest, the young woman was still crying, her sobs muffled in her neck. She flicked on the light with her shoulder and sat Ivy on the toilet’s lid. The ferns in the room immediately began to move, repeating the same creepy dance as the plants in the bedroom. As soon as Ivy was released, she began scratching frantically at her body, pulling at her t-shirt as if it was trying to suffocate her. Knowing that the priority was to be quick and efficient, Harley fiddled with the tap to fill the bathtub with lukewarm water before turning back to her friend. One hand was scratching her throat, the other her tight, but it was more than scratching, she seemed to try to tear her skin open.
“You have to stop, Ives, please” she pleaded in vain. “Lemme help ya, baby, ’s gonna be alright.” Ivy didn’t show any sign of hearing her and Harley clenched her teeth, hoping she was making the right choice.
She removed Ivy’s pajamas as gently as she could, adverting her eyes from her naked body while trying to prevent her from hurting herself any further. Taking her in her arms, she placed her in the bathtub, causing her to yelp in pain as her raw skin came into contact with the warm water.
“’m sorry, baby, I’m real sorry” she cried as she watched the green blood from her thin injuries stained the water.
Slowly, Ivy’s struggle eased and her breathing calmed down. She closed her eyes and reached blindly for Harley’s hand. The plants around them finally stilled.
“You made it stop” she sighed. “You made it stop, you made it stop…”
Harley held her hand tightly, feeling like she could truly breath for the first time since entering Ivy’s room. She studied her, taking note of every detail, every sign of pain, but it was obvious that she was beginning to relax. Her body was no longer shaking and her tears had dried up. Although she was still whispering to herself, her words were a soothing mantra, not a cry for help. Harley added a couple of drops of lavender oil, knowing her friend loved the smell and grabbed a washing cloth nearby. She immerged it into the water and ran it softly on Ivy’s arms and shoulders. The redhead moaned in relief and let her head tilt back, offering her neck to Harley's tender touch. So, she kept going, careful not to linger too long where her skin was too raw. With each stroke of her hand, Ivy seemed to relax a bit more and Harley gained back her sanity. She had never seen her friend in so much distress and the sight would probably haunt her forever. She couldn’t make sense of what had happened. Did someone attack her? Was it some sort of allergic reaction? Was she drugged? The questions in her mind were too numerous, it was overwhelming. Forcing herself to take a deep breath, she willed whatever bits of Harleen remained in her brain to front. She had to think properly. Frantic breathing, incoherent, obviously confused, strong spasm, uncontrollable scratching… Something had obviously triggered a panic attack that pushed her into this episode. No obvious threat had been present nor any sign of exterior stimuli that could have trigger her. She had been sleeping, the trigger had most certainly been unconscious, probably a nightmare. Trauma response. Whatever she had saw, her body reacted to it, felt attacked, but no visible try to protect herself nor fight back. The main issue had seemed to be with her body, her skin, something that was hurting her.
“Harls?” she asked, her voice weak and hoarse.
Harley focused back on her friend’s face, noticing the obvious confusion in the way she blinked several times before her eyes seemed to truly see her.
“Yeah, Pammy, I’m here. We’re in the bathroom.” She answered softly, afraid to startle her by speaking too loudly.
Ivy frowned and looked down at her naked body, as if only now realizing that she had one. She raised one of her hands and moved her fingers, watching them closely. Her confusion only increased when she saw Harley’s hand passing the washing cloth on her tight. She promptly removed her hand but Ivy grabbed it with her trembling fingers.
“What… Why, I…” Words eluded her and she was growing frustrated.
“Don’tcha remember? I think ya were having some sort of panic attack”, she offered, hoping Ivy would filled the both of them on what happened.
Ivy ran her other hand through her hair and sighed heavily. “I had a nightmare, I think.” She closed her eyes as a shiver passed through her. “Yeah, it was just a bad dream.” She nodded to herself once, twice before saying it again. “It was just a bad dream.”
“About what?” She didn’t mean to insist, but she wanted to understand what had happened, what had triggered such a reaction. Ivy’s fingers tightened on her hand and she could see her other hand do the same thing in her hair.
“Harls…” Ivy pleaded, staring back into her blue eyes.
“I’ve never seen ya like this before. It was… I was real scared, Ives” she confessed in a whisper, feeling fresh tears on her face.
“Harls, hon, I’m sorry, don’t cry, please.” She linked their fingers tenderly and brought her other hand to her face, wiping her cheeks with care.
“Don’t be, babe, I just wanna understand.” She leaned into her touch and sighed. “What happened?”
Ivy took a deep breath as if to steel herself and sat a bit straighter in the bath. She opened her mouth a couple times but the words seemed to die on the tip of her tongue. She groaned in frustration at herself and dropped Harley’s hand to hug her knees to her bare chest, her eyes closed. The blonde clenched her fists to fight the urge to take her hand back. Ivy needed space, no need for her PhD to read that in her body language. So, she focused on every tiny details of her face, from her thin eyelashes to the straight line of her nose and the plumpness of her quivering lips.
“I dreamt of him”, she whispered at last. She took a small breath and added in an even smaller voice: “The first injections he made me.”
Rage burst into Harley and she had to bite hard on her tongue not to explode. Ivy didn’t have to tell his name for her to know who she was talking about. Fucking Woodrue, the fucking piece of shit that thought it was okay to treat young and innocent Pamela as his guinea pig. This fucking asshole was lucky to be dead, or she would have taken great pleasure to disembowel him slowly before smashing his useless face until his brain matter repainted his fucking lab.
“It felt like my body was trying to kill me and I couldn’t escape” Ivy continued, forcing Harley to let go of her anger to focus on her words. “Everything was so… intense. Like I could feel my blood in my veins and I just… it wouldn’t stop and it burnt so much and yet… I was so cold and I couldn’t breathe… I was… It didn’t… dying would have been easier, but it just kept going for so long.” Her voice held a terrifying resignation that made Harley as angry as desperate. “I don’t want to hurt again, Harls. I wouldn’t… I can’t.” She wasn’t crying, but the anguish in her words was more than enough.
Without thinking, Harley bend over the bath and took her in her arms, holding her tight as her own tears ran free.
“I won’t let anyone touch ya ever again, Ives” she said, a promise to her, a threat to anyone who would dare try to hurt her.
Ivy nodded briefly before tucking her head in Harley’s neck, losing herself in her warmth. After a moment, she kissed her collarbone and sighed.
“I’m getting kinda cold in here” she said lightly, sounding closer to herself for the first time.
“Lemme get your towel” Harley said, moving quickly to grab it.
She held it for her, adverting her eyes as Ivy got out of the bath and wrapped herself. She took a step back, suddenly very aware of the nakedness of her friend who was awkwardly fixing her feet.
“I’ll grab ya fresh jammies” she mumbled, leaving promptly the room to fetch her clothes.
She let her the privacy to change in the bathroom while she paced her bedroom anxiously, trying to get a grip on her own emotions. It was so easy to forget all the atrocities Pamela had to get through before becoming Poison Ivy, it was so easy to forget that a part of her, a bigger part than most people thought, was still haunted by her past. Harley stopped herself at the window and hugged herself. She loved Ivy, she was her best friend and the mere idea of not having her in her life was terrifying. But in order to have Poison Ivy by her side, Pamela had had to die. She felt tears on her cheeks and decided to busy herself by changing the sheets dampened by sweat. Was she selfish for loving Ivy over Pamela? She wished she could kill that motherfucker, she wished she could protect her friend from every pain that life inflected her, but it meant losing Ivy as she knew her. She wasn’t strong enough to live her life without her. But it wasn’t about her, she reminded herself. It wasn’t about her feeling or her fears. Ivy was the one in pain, Ivy was the one that needed her, now. Not her past self, not whatever she could have become without this fucking dick. Ivy needed her now.
“Harls?” Ivy’s soft whisper sounded loud in the thick silence of the room and Harley startled, quickly wiping her tears before facing her friend.
She looked so small, smaller than she ever saw her. Instinctively, Harley walked to her but she kept herself from touching her, not knowing whether it would be comforting or overwhelming.
“Yes, Ives?” she replied, trying to read her face barely lit by the bedside lamp. She watched her green eyes, ready to offer her whatever she might need, ready to slay whatever dragon she might need slaying.
“Would you… could you stay? With me?”
Harley smiled softly.
“Of course, Pammy.”
She offered her hand to the redhead, patiently waiting for her slim fingers to tangle with her before leading her to her bed. Ivy crawled into it and turned her back to the room, facing the wall and making herself as small as her body possibly could. Harley settled beside her, careful not to overcrowd her, hyper-aware of her body and the space that separated them.
“Shoulda turn off the light?” she asked tentatively.
“No, please, let it on.”
“Alright.”
Silence settled between them, heavier than Harley could bear but she fixed the ceiling and counted Ivy’s breaths. When she reached a hundred and seventy-nine, the redhead spoke.
“Could you… hold me? Please?” She wasn’t begging, not really, but the raw vulnerability in her voice made Harley’s body shiver. “Just for tonight, I swear.” Ivy added quickly.
Harley rolled on her side and embrace Ivy’s body from behind, molding her limbs on hers, willing her being to lose itself with hers.
“I’ll hold ya as long as ya want it, babe.”