Title: Not a Story

Author: Cold Nostalgia

Disclaimer: Don't own them. Don't sue.

Characters/Paring: Harley/Ivy Slash

Rating: R ( Slash)

Summary: Someone can't sleep.

--

There were few things worse than sleeping with Harley Quinn – not the sex of course, oh no, there was a reason she kept allowing Harley back into her life. If anything the sex part of their relationship was the only area where Ivy had absolutely no cause for complaint or grievance. No, the sex wasn't issue at all…it was the actual sleeping together part that was the problem.

Even when she was asleep, Harleen Quinzel was still the most energetic being Poison Ivy had ever encountered. If Harley wasn't kicking, then she was hitting; if she wasn't hitting, then she was punching; and if she wasn't doing any of the aforementioned, then she was doing something else. And so it went.

There was the sleep-talking and the sleepwalking to take into consideration too…

Granted, there were occasions when the sleep-talking could be both humorous and informative; why, only last week, Ivy had learnt a few new jokes, a recipe for matzah ball soup, and what terms such as: lateral hypothalamic syndrome and anaclitic object choice, actually meant. It was a different matter, however, when Harley started doing colour commentary for some basketball match that was taking place in her dreams. Sometimes she even did the actions as well.

As bad as the sleep-talking could be, the sleepwalking was infinitely worse. Ivy had lost count the amount of times she had gone to bed one night and woken up the next morning to discover the all the furniture in the house had been re-arranged. Sometimes Ivy would get up in the middle of the night and catch Harley trying to redecorate the kitchen.

She never left the house, though. Ivy had caught on to Harley's nightly jaunts early on in their relationship and had since then made it a point to make sure every window and door was locked before retiring for the evening.

Ivy didn't think was she capable of handing the humiliation if Batman ever discovered the location of their hideout because of Harley's midnight escapades. It made her ill just imagining the smirk on his face if such a thing ever occurred – and that was before the reason for their hypothetical capture reached the ears of her peers.

Not all of Harley's wanderings had resulted in frustration, rage or general confusion on Ivy's part though. There had been one occasion when Ivy had gotten up in middle of the night to investigate the noise coming from the kitchen and she'd discovered Harley standing by the refrigerator, making shushing noises to a Geranium Tomcat gently cradled in one arm, while she clutched a bottle of soda pop in her other hand.

Ivy had almost melted on the spot seeing Harley like that; her hair all mussed, one sock dangling of her foot, a spot of drool at the corner of her mouth…It still brought a smile to Ivy's face remembering it.

Of course, the picturesque scene had been ruined half a second later, when Harley had upended the entire bottle of soda all over the poor defenceless plant and there had been a great deal of screaming on Ivy's part…but nevertheless the significance of Harley's actions hadn't gone unnoticed …after some time and distance, at least.

However, Harley's nightly conversations and jaunts had nothing on what she was doing right now…

Snoring.

It never ceased to amaze Ivy how much range Harley was capable of. As far as Ivy was concerned, if Harley ever got it into her head that she wanted to attempt to go on the straight and narrow, then she had a glittering career in voice acting ahead of her.

On occasion, Harley could successfully mimic, a train, a garbage disposal unit, and Frankenstein's Monster. It was uncanny. Amazingly uncanny. Though, this evening Harley wasn't treating Ivy to any of the above, or her famous impersonation of a foghorn, which actually caused the bed to shake.

No. On this night – or morning, Ivy had been ever so suddenly roused from slumber by her most favourite sound in the entire world…

A chainsaw. Three thirty in the morning and Ivy was being serenaded by a chainsaw. The longer Ivy had to listen to it, the more nauseous she felt. The very sound of death itself in her ear; it was as if someone was reaching into her head and raking their fingers across her brain. There was nothing, in Ivy's opinion, more abhorrent, more grating than the sound of a chainsaw. And it was originating just a few inches to her left.

Now ordinarily, as annoying as Harley's restive sleeping habits could be, they were also very easily fixed. A quick slap across face or a cool glass of water to Harley's face usually did the trick quite nicely. The key word here, however, was ordinarily.

As Ivy stared down at her partner's feverish brow and let her eyes linger on the now bandaged bullet wound that had been caused by a police officer who had turned out to have more intelligence than he should have; she found that she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

So she did the only option available to her. She got out of bed and stomped to the spare bedroom, grumbling all the way.