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femslashficlets2022-01-04 12:54 pm
glinda) wrote in femslashficlets2022-01-04 12:54 pm
[Florence Lyrics #7] | Birds of Prey | Harley Quinn/Cassie Cain
Title: Like the Arms of the Ocean
Fandom: Birds of Prey (2020)
Pairing: unrequited Cassie Cain/Harley Quinn
Rating: PG
Prompt: And all this devotion was rushing over me
Word Count: 750
Summary: Harley Quinn doesn't seem like a safe person to have a crush on, but for Cassie she's the safest option imaginable.
Harley is safe.
As as statement even Cassie has to admit that it makes no literal sense. Harley is dangerous in almost every single imaginable way. A danger to herself, a danger to everyone around her, to the whole damn city of Gotham some days, who will always put herself between Cassie an explosion, even if she’s the only reason that Cassie was anywhere near said explosion.
Since taking up with Harley, Cassie is weirdly in school more than she used to be. She and Harley go through her timetable and figure out which days are worth going in for and which are a waste of time, and schedule their apprentice work. Harley even files paperwork with the school, both as her guardian and for a work-study placement that she claims they’re doing on the days Cassie isn’t in class. (Neither of them have any legal standing, nor does the school sign off on them, but in practical terms her teachers accept them as the status quo, adjusting Cassie’s assignment dates around her attendance, and calling Harley’s cell phone if Cassie needs to go home sick. Cassie suspects they do it less out of fear of Harley but because they know as well as she does that no one else has cared enough to answer. Harley remembers what that was like from the other side, and Cassie’s number is the only one she knows by heart, that she will always answer, and Cassie knows that if Harley doesn’t answer then it’s because she needs rescued herself.) Cassie avoids, as much as possible the churn of high school interpersonal carnage. She watches the casual cruelty and petty jealousies of her peer and wants none of them. Before Harley she was never around enough to need to and now she can see all too clearly the predators and their enablers moving through the tides of the corridors and classrooms and she wants none of it.
It was probably inevitable that she would develop a crush on Harley. Cassie has found herself attracted to boys, girls, folks who are neither, and folks who haven’t figured out where on the spectrum they fall. She is however, self-aware enough to know that she absolutely doesn’t want to do anything about those attractions right now. She wants to get through high school and complete her apprenticeship, whatever the attractions of having a crush she might be expected to act upon are, the potential pitfalls, both personally and professional put her off. What she needs is a safe object that she can project her messy complicated feelings onto without fear they’ll ask anything from her in return. Perhaps it would have been more sensible to have picked one of the Birds of Prey to have a crush on, but the practical part of her knows there would inevitably be a ‘very earnest conversation’ with whichever one it was, about age appropriate crushes and respecting her as a person. There’s none of that with Harley, if Harley is aware of Cassie’s crush she ignores it blithely, maintaining the casual platonic physicality of their friendship regardless. And then Cassie will pull off something particularly daring or clever and Harley will look at her with that joyful mixture of affection, pride and delight, and Cassie will be utterly certain that it could never have been anyone else.
Harley doesn’t want her, not like that. Wants her company. Wants to teach Cassie to be her best self, her best criminal. Wants to protect her from all the assholes in this city who will see her potential and decide to twist it to their own ends. Instead she needs Cassie. Needs those cynical judging eyes to expect the worst but hope for the best from her. Harley needs that devotion like she used to need a drink. It keeps her from falling off the wagon, back into the bottle, or worse, off the line of trickster into supervillain. Harley doesn’t fear prison - or torture or most other punishments short of death - but she does fear seeing that look of hurt and betrayal in Cassie’s eyes again. She needs to be a good mentor to Cassie, to be worthy of her silent teenage crush, to be better than everyone in the system that failed her apprentice, better than every asshole that took her own desperate need for love and used it against her.
So, for Cassie, in all the ways that matter, Harley is safe. More than that, she is safety.
Fandom: Birds of Prey (2020)
Pairing: unrequited Cassie Cain/Harley Quinn
Rating: PG
Prompt: And all this devotion was rushing over me
Word Count: 750
Summary: Harley Quinn doesn't seem like a safe person to have a crush on, but for Cassie she's the safest option imaginable.
Harley is safe.
As as statement even Cassie has to admit that it makes no literal sense. Harley is dangerous in almost every single imaginable way. A danger to herself, a danger to everyone around her, to the whole damn city of Gotham some days, who will always put herself between Cassie an explosion, even if she’s the only reason that Cassie was anywhere near said explosion.
Since taking up with Harley, Cassie is weirdly in school more than she used to be. She and Harley go through her timetable and figure out which days are worth going in for and which are a waste of time, and schedule their apprentice work. Harley even files paperwork with the school, both as her guardian and for a work-study placement that she claims they’re doing on the days Cassie isn’t in class. (Neither of them have any legal standing, nor does the school sign off on them, but in practical terms her teachers accept them as the status quo, adjusting Cassie’s assignment dates around her attendance, and calling Harley’s cell phone if Cassie needs to go home sick. Cassie suspects they do it less out of fear of Harley but because they know as well as she does that no one else has cared enough to answer. Harley remembers what that was like from the other side, and Cassie’s number is the only one she knows by heart, that she will always answer, and Cassie knows that if Harley doesn’t answer then it’s because she needs rescued herself.) Cassie avoids, as much as possible the churn of high school interpersonal carnage. She watches the casual cruelty and petty jealousies of her peer and wants none of them. Before Harley she was never around enough to need to and now she can see all too clearly the predators and their enablers moving through the tides of the corridors and classrooms and she wants none of it.
It was probably inevitable that she would develop a crush on Harley. Cassie has found herself attracted to boys, girls, folks who are neither, and folks who haven’t figured out where on the spectrum they fall. She is however, self-aware enough to know that she absolutely doesn’t want to do anything about those attractions right now. She wants to get through high school and complete her apprenticeship, whatever the attractions of having a crush she might be expected to act upon are, the potential pitfalls, both personally and professional put her off. What she needs is a safe object that she can project her messy complicated feelings onto without fear they’ll ask anything from her in return. Perhaps it would have been more sensible to have picked one of the Birds of Prey to have a crush on, but the practical part of her knows there would inevitably be a ‘very earnest conversation’ with whichever one it was, about age appropriate crushes and respecting her as a person. There’s none of that with Harley, if Harley is aware of Cassie’s crush she ignores it blithely, maintaining the casual platonic physicality of their friendship regardless. And then Cassie will pull off something particularly daring or clever and Harley will look at her with that joyful mixture of affection, pride and delight, and Cassie will be utterly certain that it could never have been anyone else.
Harley doesn’t want her, not like that. Wants her company. Wants to teach Cassie to be her best self, her best criminal. Wants to protect her from all the assholes in this city who will see her potential and decide to twist it to their own ends. Instead she needs Cassie. Needs those cynical judging eyes to expect the worst but hope for the best from her. Harley needs that devotion like she used to need a drink. It keeps her from falling off the wagon, back into the bottle, or worse, off the line of trickster into supervillain. Harley doesn’t fear prison - or torture or most other punishments short of death - but she does fear seeing that look of hurt and betrayal in Cassie’s eyes again. She needs to be a good mentor to Cassie, to be worthy of her silent teenage crush, to be better than everyone in the system that failed her apprentice, better than every asshole that took her own desperate need for love and used it against her.
So, for Cassie, in all the ways that matter, Harley is safe. More than that, she is safety.