All Things Nice (Theme 79)
Title: All Things Nice
Universe: DCAU
Genre: General
Characters: OC and Harley
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,190
Summary: Life is tough for newbie security guards at Arkham
***
All Things Nice
His new blue uniform was scratchy and uncomfortable, and they’d given him a badge that read “D Waters - Probationer”, which made him sound like a complete tool. But Darren Waters was now the proud owner of a swipe card that opened every door at Arkham Asylum and, more importantly, both a collapsible baton and a can of concentrated strength pepper spray. Morning one of his new job and they’d already armed him! This was so much better than all those years at Burgers R Us.
Darren stared in the staff room mirror and tried in vain to make his dorky new hat sit right on his freshly waxed and tousled hair. Apparently they wouldn’t issue tasers to new security staff until they finished their three month probationary period - something to do with a nasty sounding accident involving some dumb kid getting himself stunned with his own taser and then being half-drowned in one of the bathrooms. Darren was sure that had been totally made up to scare the more gullible newbies, and he scoffed as he warmed up for his shift by repeatedly extending and collapsing his new baton, giving a few good swipes to an invisible opponent’s head and groin. He threw in a few kick-ass Jet Li moves for good measure and grinned in satisfaction at what he saw - he was ready for action.
If Darren had been the sort of young man who thought things through properly, he might have spent more time considering why Arkham Asylum was willing to pay its unskilled and unqualified security staff applicants significantly above minimum wage for what sounded like cushy work. But Darren was, in his own eyes, an ambitious young go-getter who didn’t need to tread the same dull path as everyone else. Long ago he had decided: screw community college, and screw burger-flipping or monkey-wrenching in Dullsvile, Montana, the same small town his parents grew up in. He was better than that - he was going places. The bright lights of Gotham were calling.
Reporting to the main security office, Darren looked pityingly at the balding, middle-aged supervisor sat behind his desk. That poor lump was here for good, while he was just passing through on his way to bigger things. This security gig was only to tide him over while he figured out The Plan. Maybe acting, or stunt work, or even setting up his own nightclub - something that paid big bucks and that would have chicks falling over themselves to do whatever he wanted. Soon he was going to be a big fish in this town.
“D Waters?” Baldy read from a clipboard of shift schedules while simultaneously filling in a boring looking pile of forms. “You’re on Level 4; High Security Female Wing. Report to Johnson - he’ll be your team leader.”
“Female Wing?” Darren asked, disbelievingly. “Like… girls?”
“I wouldn’t refer to them as that in front of some of the more… touchy inmates. Not unless you want to be fed to a giant Venus Flytrap next time Isley gets released for ‘good behaviour’ by the equally delusional staff headshrinkers.” Baldy said in a deadpan tone, without raising his eyes from the piles of paperwork. “Just run along and try not to get yourself hurt on the first day; we like to try to keep our probationers alive until at least their two week evaluation.”
Darren shook his head in wonder at the fruit loops they seemed to hire in this place, and made his way slowly across the asylum site to Level 4 of the Female Wing by following the crudely-drawn paper map he’d been issued along with the more cool equipment that morning. Working in a building full of crazy chicks wasn’t exactly what he’d been expecting - he guessed he wouldn’t be called on to leap into action with his new baton as much as he’d been hoping. Though maybe there could be action of another kind… he’d seen enough internet porn and pay-per-view on the adult channels to know what went on in female prisons. Okay this was a nut-house but there were still bars on the windows - same difference. Maybe this would be a lucky assignment afte rall.
Johnson, it turned out, was your archetypal security guard: overweight, slow of expression and seemingly welded to his security station chair. If he’d been munching on a donut the picture would be complete.
“New guy, right? Good stuff - it’s nice to have some young blood around here. I’m sure you’re raring to go so let’s start you off in the deep end; throw you in, sink-or-swim, y’know?”
Darren wondered if he had a choice, given this guy looked like he only left the comfort of his reclining chair when he was forced to take a leak. Since it was his first day he decided to keep his mouth shut on that opinion.
“Sounds great, man,” he said with a broad false grin. “I’m all for swimming rather than drowning.”
“Excellent! You can just get started and learn the ropes as you go - I’ll always be available on the radio if you need me, just press 9-1-2. The daily schedule is listed in the book here - mostly escorting the ladies to their shrink appointments, apart from lunchtime and I’ll be around to give you a hand then.”
Ahh, so the prospect of access to food might motivate lardy to leave his chair - Darren made a mental note of that.
“Sure thing. I’ll holler if I need you, but I’m sure I can handle it.” He said, patting his new baton and can of pepper spray affectionately. Johnson seemed to have returned to the sports section of his newspaper, so Darren collected the daily schedule book and went for an orienting walk down the hall.
Disappointingly the first few cells were empty - the book said something about group therapy, so he figured they must all be off sharing their feelings or maybe chanting something about charkas - most of his psychological knowledge had been gained from TV shopping channel adverts and the odd episode of Oprah, so he wasn’t too clear on what they would do to ‘cure’ criminally insane people. Didn’t they used to zap people’s brains with electricity? That would have been awesome to watch, but they probably didn’t do that anymore.
Darren was wandering almost aimlessly down the corridor, lost in these thoughts, and didn’t realise that he had reached a section of occupied cells.
“Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo…” he heard someone calling, and looked up to see one of the inmates - patients - whatever - standing on the other side of the Perspex cell frontage a few feet in front of him, knocking and waving to try to get his attention. She was blonde, and kind of hot even in the shapeless orange jumpsuits they obviously issued as uniforms, and she looked normal enough. The pigtails were a little weird, but she reminded him of one of the sluttier members of the cheerleading team he’d had a crush on in highschool. Things were looking up again.
“Hey, new security guy, what time is it?” the blonde woman asked chirpily.
“Uhh…” he looked down at his watch. “Almost ten?”
“I thought so - I’ve got an appointment with Dr Barclay in less than five minutes, and you’re probably supposedly to be escortin’ me right about now. It won’t be on your printout,” she added, as he looked confusedly at his list, “cuz they only rescheduled it this morning. It was supposedly to be this afternoon but then Croc had one of his funny turns yesterday and all those ambulances got called and loads of us had appointments bumped, and the word is Bats apparently brought Harvey back last night and ol’ Jeremiah had a tizzy about having him ready for one of the capacity hearings by Monday, and everythin’s even more doolally than normal around here. Helluva first day for you, right?”
Darren let this jumble of words stream over him, barely following half of it. He wondered if he should call Johnson back at the desk and ask what to do, but then he thought again. It was his first day and he wanted to show some initiative - some backbone. He didn’t want to run and ask permission for every little thing. His job was escort patients to appointments, and that was all he had to do here - the whole building had security cameras, high-tech locks, barbed wire fences, so even if there was trouble, blondie wasn’t going to get very far. Plus he had to have nearly 100 pounds on her, as well as his new toys. It was embarrassing that he’d almost called for help in the first place.
“Okay, sure,” he said in what he hoped was an appropriately authoritative tone. “Let’s get you down to wherever you’re supposed to be.”
He waved his ID card over the scanner and the cell door swung open. The woman obediently held her hands up unprompted as he struggled to unclip his new handcuffs from his belt.
“Sorry,” he said as he finally unclipped them and attached them to her wrists. “That’s not too tight, right?”
“You could probably make them a little tighter unless you want them to fall off half-way down the corridor,” she offered, in an apologetically critical assessment of his handcuff-application skills. He adjusted them and she nodded. “Much better. I’m Harley by the way.”
“Oh, er, hi. I’m Darren.” Were you supposed to do polite introductions before you handcuffed someone? This was all a steep learning curve. “Shall we get going?”
He led her out of the cell, unsure whether he should keep a tight hold of her elbow or follow just behind or in front of her, and settled for slightly to one side and just resting his hand on her. He swiped his card again and the door closed behind them as he reached for his map.
“Dr Barclay’s office is…”
“Level 2 - we generally take the elevator at the other end of the hallway,” she chipped in helpfully.
“Thanks.” They set off and Darren found himself strangely self-conscious, wondering if he should try to make conversation with her. What did you talk about with someone in an institution for the criminally insane? ‘Did you catch the game last night?’ ‘Do you come here often?’ ‘Have you actually killed anybody?’
“I know it’s hard when you start out here,” the blonde woman said, interrupting his swirling thoughts. He looked over and saw her giving him a sad smile. “I actually used to work here myself, once.”
“Seriously?” What did you say to that? He knew half the staff had to be nuts - the security supervisor for definite. He’d probably be admitted next.
“Yeah. Don’t worry - not everyone who works here ends up comin’ back as a patient. Just a kooky few.” She nodded her head in the direction of the lift panel. “Second floor.” He pressed it dumbly.
“So, uh, what did you happened to get you stuck in here? If it’s okay to ask, I mean.”
“Oh, y’know how it is,” she shrugged. “You fall in love with a handsome psychopathic clown and one day it just makes sense to steal a whole bunch of stuff from a costume shop and break him out of the joint, then go on the run in a hilariously murderous crime spree all across town.”
Even topical-affairs-avoiding Montana-dwelling dropouts like Darren knew that ‘psychopathic clown’ and the adjectives ‘hilariously murderous’ could only refer to one, very bad, topic. He wavered uncertainly, wondering if it was too late to call his supervisor.
His decision was made for him. As the elevator doors opened Harley gave him a sweet smile and a hard shove, while retaining a handcuffed hold of the pepper spray cannister on his belt. Darren collided with the back of the elevator and stumbled to the floor, only to be met with a face-full of burning spray that made him choke and cough, blinded by instantly formed floods of tears. He felt rather than saw Harley help herself to his handcuff keys, baton and ID badge.
“Y’know, ‘D Waters - Probationer’, it’s a real shame they took you newbies’ tasers away after Mistah J tried drowning that runty ginger kid in the bathroom. Back then we could just zap you a little and you stayed down, but now we’ve got to do it the old-fashioned way.” Through his coughs he heard the distinctive sound of the collapsible baton being extended, and he tried but failed to edge further away in the confines of the tiny elevator. “No hard feelin’s though sweetie - you baby security guards are just so easy to play, it’s too hard to resist!”
Darren woke up several hours later in the infirmary with a head full of stitches and one angry security supervisor waiting to interview him about a patient escaping barely ten minutes into his first shift. As soon as he could focus his eyes, he asked one of the nurses to find him whatever forms he needed to sign to resign from his morning of employment at Arkham. He was heading back to Dullsville on the next available train.
Fin
***
End note: Since I made him quite a jerk, I'm not so bothered that he ended up clubbed unconcious in an elevator. Harley was being pretty nice. Frankly if the Joker had appeared he would have had a much more unpleasant end; he got away lightly.
This is another late one, and it was only supposed to be 500-1000 words. I have no idea what happened or why I am still awake and finishing it!
Universe: DCAU
Genre: General
Characters: OC and Harley
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,190
Summary: Life is tough for newbie security guards at Arkham
***
All Things Nice
His new blue uniform was scratchy and uncomfortable, and they’d given him a badge that read “D Waters - Probationer”, which made him sound like a complete tool. But Darren Waters was now the proud owner of a swipe card that opened every door at Arkham Asylum and, more importantly, both a collapsible baton and a can of concentrated strength pepper spray. Morning one of his new job and they’d already armed him! This was so much better than all those years at Burgers R Us.
Darren stared in the staff room mirror and tried in vain to make his dorky new hat sit right on his freshly waxed and tousled hair. Apparently they wouldn’t issue tasers to new security staff until they finished their three month probationary period - something to do with a nasty sounding accident involving some dumb kid getting himself stunned with his own taser and then being half-drowned in one of the bathrooms. Darren was sure that had been totally made up to scare the more gullible newbies, and he scoffed as he warmed up for his shift by repeatedly extending and collapsing his new baton, giving a few good swipes to an invisible opponent’s head and groin. He threw in a few kick-ass Jet Li moves for good measure and grinned in satisfaction at what he saw - he was ready for action.
If Darren had been the sort of young man who thought things through properly, he might have spent more time considering why Arkham Asylum was willing to pay its unskilled and unqualified security staff applicants significantly above minimum wage for what sounded like cushy work. But Darren was, in his own eyes, an ambitious young go-getter who didn’t need to tread the same dull path as everyone else. Long ago he had decided: screw community college, and screw burger-flipping or monkey-wrenching in Dullsvile, Montana, the same small town his parents grew up in. He was better than that - he was going places. The bright lights of Gotham were calling.
Reporting to the main security office, Darren looked pityingly at the balding, middle-aged supervisor sat behind his desk. That poor lump was here for good, while he was just passing through on his way to bigger things. This security gig was only to tide him over while he figured out The Plan. Maybe acting, or stunt work, or even setting up his own nightclub - something that paid big bucks and that would have chicks falling over themselves to do whatever he wanted. Soon he was going to be a big fish in this town.
“D Waters?” Baldy read from a clipboard of shift schedules while simultaneously filling in a boring looking pile of forms. “You’re on Level 4; High Security Female Wing. Report to Johnson - he’ll be your team leader.”
“Female Wing?” Darren asked, disbelievingly. “Like… girls?”
“I wouldn’t refer to them as that in front of some of the more… touchy inmates. Not unless you want to be fed to a giant Venus Flytrap next time Isley gets released for ‘good behaviour’ by the equally delusional staff headshrinkers.” Baldy said in a deadpan tone, without raising his eyes from the piles of paperwork. “Just run along and try not to get yourself hurt on the first day; we like to try to keep our probationers alive until at least their two week evaluation.”
Darren shook his head in wonder at the fruit loops they seemed to hire in this place, and made his way slowly across the asylum site to Level 4 of the Female Wing by following the crudely-drawn paper map he’d been issued along with the more cool equipment that morning. Working in a building full of crazy chicks wasn’t exactly what he’d been expecting - he guessed he wouldn’t be called on to leap into action with his new baton as much as he’d been hoping. Though maybe there could be action of another kind… he’d seen enough internet porn and pay-per-view on the adult channels to know what went on in female prisons. Okay this was a nut-house but there were still bars on the windows - same difference. Maybe this would be a lucky assignment afte rall.
Johnson, it turned out, was your archetypal security guard: overweight, slow of expression and seemingly welded to his security station chair. If he’d been munching on a donut the picture would be complete.
“New guy, right? Good stuff - it’s nice to have some young blood around here. I’m sure you’re raring to go so let’s start you off in the deep end; throw you in, sink-or-swim, y’know?”
Darren wondered if he had a choice, given this guy looked like he only left the comfort of his reclining chair when he was forced to take a leak. Since it was his first day he decided to keep his mouth shut on that opinion.
“Sounds great, man,” he said with a broad false grin. “I’m all for swimming rather than drowning.”
“Excellent! You can just get started and learn the ropes as you go - I’ll always be available on the radio if you need me, just press 9-1-2. The daily schedule is listed in the book here - mostly escorting the ladies to their shrink appointments, apart from lunchtime and I’ll be around to give you a hand then.”
Ahh, so the prospect of access to food might motivate lardy to leave his chair - Darren made a mental note of that.
“Sure thing. I’ll holler if I need you, but I’m sure I can handle it.” He said, patting his new baton and can of pepper spray affectionately. Johnson seemed to have returned to the sports section of his newspaper, so Darren collected the daily schedule book and went for an orienting walk down the hall.
Disappointingly the first few cells were empty - the book said something about group therapy, so he figured they must all be off sharing their feelings or maybe chanting something about charkas - most of his psychological knowledge had been gained from TV shopping channel adverts and the odd episode of Oprah, so he wasn’t too clear on what they would do to ‘cure’ criminally insane people. Didn’t they used to zap people’s brains with electricity? That would have been awesome to watch, but they probably didn’t do that anymore.
Darren was wandering almost aimlessly down the corridor, lost in these thoughts, and didn’t realise that he had reached a section of occupied cells.
“Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo…” he heard someone calling, and looked up to see one of the inmates - patients - whatever - standing on the other side of the Perspex cell frontage a few feet in front of him, knocking and waving to try to get his attention. She was blonde, and kind of hot even in the shapeless orange jumpsuits they obviously issued as uniforms, and she looked normal enough. The pigtails were a little weird, but she reminded him of one of the sluttier members of the cheerleading team he’d had a crush on in highschool. Things were looking up again.
“Hey, new security guy, what time is it?” the blonde woman asked chirpily.
“Uhh…” he looked down at his watch. “Almost ten?”
“I thought so - I’ve got an appointment with Dr Barclay in less than five minutes, and you’re probably supposedly to be escortin’ me right about now. It won’t be on your printout,” she added, as he looked confusedly at his list, “cuz they only rescheduled it this morning. It was supposedly to be this afternoon but then Croc had one of his funny turns yesterday and all those ambulances got called and loads of us had appointments bumped, and the word is Bats apparently brought Harvey back last night and ol’ Jeremiah had a tizzy about having him ready for one of the capacity hearings by Monday, and everythin’s even more doolally than normal around here. Helluva first day for you, right?”
Darren let this jumble of words stream over him, barely following half of it. He wondered if he should call Johnson back at the desk and ask what to do, but then he thought again. It was his first day and he wanted to show some initiative - some backbone. He didn’t want to run and ask permission for every little thing. His job was escort patients to appointments, and that was all he had to do here - the whole building had security cameras, high-tech locks, barbed wire fences, so even if there was trouble, blondie wasn’t going to get very far. Plus he had to have nearly 100 pounds on her, as well as his new toys. It was embarrassing that he’d almost called for help in the first place.
“Okay, sure,” he said in what he hoped was an appropriately authoritative tone. “Let’s get you down to wherever you’re supposed to be.”
He waved his ID card over the scanner and the cell door swung open. The woman obediently held her hands up unprompted as he struggled to unclip his new handcuffs from his belt.
“Sorry,” he said as he finally unclipped them and attached them to her wrists. “That’s not too tight, right?”
“You could probably make them a little tighter unless you want them to fall off half-way down the corridor,” she offered, in an apologetically critical assessment of his handcuff-application skills. He adjusted them and she nodded. “Much better. I’m Harley by the way.”
“Oh, er, hi. I’m Darren.” Were you supposed to do polite introductions before you handcuffed someone? This was all a steep learning curve. “Shall we get going?”
He led her out of the cell, unsure whether he should keep a tight hold of her elbow or follow just behind or in front of her, and settled for slightly to one side and just resting his hand on her. He swiped his card again and the door closed behind them as he reached for his map.
“Dr Barclay’s office is…”
“Level 2 - we generally take the elevator at the other end of the hallway,” she chipped in helpfully.
“Thanks.” They set off and Darren found himself strangely self-conscious, wondering if he should try to make conversation with her. What did you talk about with someone in an institution for the criminally insane? ‘Did you catch the game last night?’ ‘Do you come here often?’ ‘Have you actually killed anybody?’
“I know it’s hard when you start out here,” the blonde woman said, interrupting his swirling thoughts. He looked over and saw her giving him a sad smile. “I actually used to work here myself, once.”
“Seriously?” What did you say to that? He knew half the staff had to be nuts - the security supervisor for definite. He’d probably be admitted next.
“Yeah. Don’t worry - not everyone who works here ends up comin’ back as a patient. Just a kooky few.” She nodded her head in the direction of the lift panel. “Second floor.” He pressed it dumbly.
“So, uh, what did you happened to get you stuck in here? If it’s okay to ask, I mean.”
“Oh, y’know how it is,” she shrugged. “You fall in love with a handsome psychopathic clown and one day it just makes sense to steal a whole bunch of stuff from a costume shop and break him out of the joint, then go on the run in a hilariously murderous crime spree all across town.”
Even topical-affairs-avoiding Montana-dwelling dropouts like Darren knew that ‘psychopathic clown’ and the adjectives ‘hilariously murderous’ could only refer to one, very bad, topic. He wavered uncertainly, wondering if it was too late to call his supervisor.
His decision was made for him. As the elevator doors opened Harley gave him a sweet smile and a hard shove, while retaining a handcuffed hold of the pepper spray cannister on his belt. Darren collided with the back of the elevator and stumbled to the floor, only to be met with a face-full of burning spray that made him choke and cough, blinded by instantly formed floods of tears. He felt rather than saw Harley help herself to his handcuff keys, baton and ID badge.
“Y’know, ‘D Waters - Probationer’, it’s a real shame they took you newbies’ tasers away after Mistah J tried drowning that runty ginger kid in the bathroom. Back then we could just zap you a little and you stayed down, but now we’ve got to do it the old-fashioned way.” Through his coughs he heard the distinctive sound of the collapsible baton being extended, and he tried but failed to edge further away in the confines of the tiny elevator. “No hard feelin’s though sweetie - you baby security guards are just so easy to play, it’s too hard to resist!”
Darren woke up several hours later in the infirmary with a head full of stitches and one angry security supervisor waiting to interview him about a patient escaping barely ten minutes into his first shift. As soon as he could focus his eyes, he asked one of the nurses to find him whatever forms he needed to sign to resign from his morning of employment at Arkham. He was heading back to Dullsville on the next available train.
Fin
***
End note: Since I made him quite a jerk, I'm not so bothered that he ended up clubbed unconcious in an elevator. Harley was being pretty nice. Frankly if the Joker had appeared he would have had a much more unpleasant end; he got away lightly.
This is another late one, and it was only supposed to be 500-1000 words. I have no idea what happened or why I am still awake and finishing it!