ersatzdivinity | It must have been the mistletoe

She nods at the words, silent for a moment as she watches him. There's sympathy on her face, in her voice; not the professional kind, but the personal. After all, they're friends, aren't they? They're friends, and she knows what grief sounds like when she hears it. After a moment, she lays her hand on the table between them, palm up.

"Hey. You know, you ever wanna talk about it--you know, just, whatever--I'm a pretty good listener. Not as a shrink, you know, just--a friend." She offers a smile with the words, something small but warm.

It's not often that he won't meet her eyes. Here, he's having trouble with it.

"Not much to talk about. Fifty years in the dark. Trapped in a body I couldn't move. I mean... it wasn't great. But it could have been worse."

He puts his fork down and looks over at her, finally.

"It's the past."

It's not hard to read between the words. Hell, there's stuff that she doesn't talk about. Won't, can't. Things that haunt her dreams, and not always in the way you might expect. But that just means she doesn't push. Instead, just looks at him for a moment, unblinking, then nods.

"You're right. And we're in the present. Future's gettin' closer every day." She won't think about how the idea of him being alone in the dark for fifty years makes her feel, makes her want to pull him in close and not let go. So instead: "So--what do you say? Some drinks, maybe a fire, listen to some carols? 'Tis the season, right?"

"After you teach me how the dreidel works," he says as he starts cleaning up their dishes.

"I know what the symbols on the sides mean, since I had to learn Hebrew a few years back, but I don't know what they mean in this context."

He takes care of the dishes, she cleans the trash from the table. It's the least she can do. "You're already one step ahead of me," she says, following him into the kitchen. "I knew a little--enough to get me through my bat mitzvah, but barely. I don't really got a knack for other languages. But I can teach you how to play the dreidel game, sure. We used to play with chocolate coins, when I was a kid. You can play with whatever. Pennies, pieces of paper--hell, there's drinking games for dreidel, too. I played my share in college."

He reaches up to a cabinet in the kitchen to pull out a little treasure chest. He walks over and presents it to her with a flourish and a grin.

"I didn't want to put it out until we'd had dinner, but-"

There's a 'treasure' of chocolate coins inside.

"Can't play without betting money."

She's curious as she looks first at him, then at the chest, before finally reaching out and opening it. Surprise morphs into sheer childlike joy with no restraint. Harley's never been one to hold back emotionally, and there's definitely no reason to start now. Beaming, she looks up at him again, and takes both his arm and the chest with a laugh.

"Well, look at you! Aren't you practically a boy scout here, all prepared. How long have you been planning this?"

"Since Thanksgiving," which they hadn't actually spent together. But he'd decided, as he carved the turkey over at the Brownstone, that he'd want to do something special for the rest of the winter holidays.

"And I wasn't about to give you a dreidel without some gelt. Even I know better than to do that."

"Huh. Well, aren't you full of surprises," she muses, looking up at him as she takes the chest in her arms, cradling it. "Like every time I turn around, there you are, doing something sweet again. God." A shake of her head.

"Alright, let's go get settled in. Hey, why'd you have to learn Hebrew in the first place? A work thing, or...?"

He pulls the the chair he usually sits in over towards her little alcove with a shrug before settling in to play with her. He shrugs again in answer to the question about Hebrew.

"I was under Wes at the time, and he always wanted to have a full understanding of a subject. And the only real texts were in Hebrew so... I learned.

"It's a little rusty but I remember a decent amount of it."

"Well, let's see what I remember," she says, sliding into her chair and drawing her legs up to fold them under her. It's one of the reasons she's partial to this chair. Why sit uncomfortably when you can curl up, or sit cross-legged, or drape your legs over an arm, or just hang upside down, honestly. Picking up the dreidel, she turns it in her fingers. "My mother wasn't real big on cultural heritage, as it were. Did the bat mitzvah mostly because Granny wanted it. I just never really kept up after."

Spinning the stem between her fingers, she shows him each of four sides in turn. "Nun, Gimel, He, Shin," she recites, the Brooklyn in her voice accenting the words more than ever. "Stands for "Nes Gadol Hayah Sham. A great miracle happened there." Her pronounciation isn't the best, the words a little stilted, but that's to be expected when she hasn't said them in at least a decade. "First things first. We each take coins. Can't play without something to bet, right?" Reaching into the chest, she starts divvying a pile for each of them.

"So, you do a lot of that? Research, learning other languages?"

He carefully stacks his coins into similarly sized tiny towers before nodding.

"Yeah, it was part of being his sidekick. He wanted me to be worldly. To be aware of the world around me and how complex and fascinating it was. He never wanted me to go out and do something about it just because it was fun and exciting."

He holds up a coin thoughtfully.

"When we traveled, I sucked up whatever I could get for languages, culture. When I was home, I attacked his library like an invading army. Part of that was Wes, but part of it was me. I wanted to be the best out there. I never wanted to let him down."

He glances over at her.

"Had a bit of an ego as a kid, I won't lie. But I got over it."

"Eh, little bit of an ego's not a bad thing to have," she answers, building her own stack of coins. "But it sounds like you had a pretty good life. Like Wes was a pretty great friend." She doesn't say dad, because for some people those words are more difficult. Parents are difficult. But it's important to have somebody in your life. Otherwise...well, she's seen how they turn out. She's lived it.

"You did a lot of traveling? I've never been outside the country. Always wanted to go to Paris. Cliche, maybe, but I always thought it was beautiful." She clears a space in the middle of the table, setting the dreidel point-down. "Ready?"

Well, now I know what to get you for your birthday. Two tickets to Paris, so she could bring Pamela with her if she liked. He'd have to make sure that they weren't on some sort of no-fly list, considering Pamela's extreme political positions.

"Wes did a lot of traveling, and we did a lot of traveling for the mission," he says with a shrug as he tips his chin towards the dreidel. Go ahead.

He'll talk while it spins.

"Then, after I got out of the cage, I did some traveling with him, some on my own."

"Where's your favorite place you've been?"

It's the kind of gift she'd refuse, if she knew. She isn't friends with him because he's got lots of money and a fancy house. She's friends with him because he's never once talked about her like he knows her, never mentioned who she was for those endless years of her life. Because he does things like this for her, Hanukkah even though they've only been friends for a short time. Because he didn't turn her away that first night, even though he could have. He's a good guy, Sandy.

Although he'd probably be a good tour guide if one did decide to do some traveling.

"First, we each put one coin in the pot. Beginning of every turn. Then..." Placing a coin from her stack in the center of the table, her fingers spin the dreidel, watching as it whirls. Eventually, it lands on Nun. "And that means I don't put any more in, but I don't take any out, either." Palm up, she offers the dreidel in her hand to him.

It's the kind of gift he'd give her because she said she wanted it, and she asked for so little. And if he can make her happy, he'd really like to.

He nods as he takes the dreidel, puts the stem between his fingers, and puts it to the table. Then it's spinning.

"Favorite place?" He shrugs. "I'm a hometown boy. The brownstone is probably my favorite place in the world. Even if they did have to rebuild it after everything."

Brightest day, blackest night, biggest construction costs. Ugh.

"Really? Huh. Woulda thought somewhere far-off and exotic. But, yanno, no place like home. That where ya spent Thanksgiving?"

Her elbows propped on the table, she watches him as much as she does the dreidel. It's weird, doing this kind of thing with someone. Someone who actually looks like they're enjoying themselves. It's not much to some people, maybe, but to her, it's everything.

"Yeah, we do Thanksgiving every year, with the JL when they can swing it too," he explains easily enough as the dreidel drops onto shin.

"That's the one where I put the coin in?"

He'd looked it up but he'd been arranging a few things at the time. It hadn't quite stuck.

"You got it. 'Shin, shin, put one in.' Some places it's three instead, but that's better for more players, I think. Or else the game's over too fast." And what's the fun in that? She's enjoying this. Another coin goes in the middle, she spins her next turn.

"It's nice you guys got a tradition. It's good, spending holidays with friends and family." Good for him, too, getting out of the house, being around people. He could do with more of that, and she makes a note to invite him out again, maybe next week. The dreidel topples, lands on Shin for her, too. She makes a face at it, wrinkling her nose as she drops another coin in. "My luck ain't much today, I guess. You spending Christmas up there, too?"

"I was invited but I'll have to see how I'm feeling," he admits with a shrug. "Unfortunately, Christmas tends to... well, it's a busy season for me. Sometimes I'm feeling up to it, sometimes I'm not."

And sometimes it hurt too much seeing everyone together for a second time in as many months. There's a lot of reasons he stays away. Some of them are selfish.

"And maybe your luck is just building up the pot. Wouldn't do to hit it big with only a single coin in there."

"Busy as in League kinda busy?" She could see that. Holidays make everyone a little crazy. She remembers that first Christmas, during everything. It's still vivid, even if sometimes she maybe wishes it weren't. But then, she's always been a sucker for the holidays. Even if they aren't always how you remember them being.

"Let's hope. But I think you might be more optimistic about my luck than me, these days." There's at least a smile that goes along with the words. She isn't bitter. Things just are what they are.

"More like murder busy," he says with a sigh and a rub to one temple. "Pressures are high, more people are out unexpectedly...

"It's not a huge uptick, but it's enough that I have to work faster."

He takes the little dreidel, spins it, and frowns as he get to do nothing. Then it's passed back.

"Work faster--to stop them?" It's a dumb question, maybe, but she hasn't yet connected the dots. But then, he did mention nightmares, that first night, she thinks, even if the recollection is a little hazy and colored by the strangeness of the situation and the lateness of that hour. Her fingers pick up the dreidel, turn it briefly between them before she sets it to spinning. "Because of your dreams. You know--I don't think you ever said what you do. 'Sides being made of sand." Which she's still not exactly sure about--after all, he hadn't felt like sand when she kissed him, earlier.

The dreidel lands on He, and she perks up a touch, collecting half of the twelve coins in the center pot so far. "Hey, there we go! Dreidel lands on He, you take half the pot. Not shabby."

"You mean for a job? Or the thing with the dreams?"

He watches her collect her winnings, bows his head in acknowledgement of her success, and spins the dreidel for himself.

"Job-wise, technically I'm the main bankroller for the JSA, I maintain the assets Wesley left me, and I curate and maintain the JSA museum in the lower levels of the brownstone. I'm also a legally licensed private detective. Most of my real 'work' is in that area."

His eyes stay on the dreidel. It's easier.

"The dreams are given to me by the Lord of the Dreamlands. Wes used to talk about it when I was younger, when he had them. Honestly, I never expected to get them myself. I thought they were just his thing. But I started getting them after he died."

He looks up then.

"When I'm unconscious, my mind connects with all sorts of deviants, psychopaths, sadists. See what they see, feel what they feel, think their thoughts." There's a brittleness to his expression as he talks about it, because it's... it's not pleasant. "When I wake up, I get to try and piece those things together, find out where they are, what they're doing. When I'm lucky, I get to try and prevent terrible things from happening. Stop them. When I'm not, I get justice for the dead."

Okay, so he's an accountant, and a librarian, sort of, for the JSA. That's--fine. Respectable. And so is being a PI, really. Lost things found, cheatin' husbands caught. No shame in that, and no harm, either. Hell, you'd make a killing in Gotham, long as you keep an eye on the local crime and stay on your toes. She isn't worried about any of that. That's not why she's frozen, eyes fixed on him as he talks. That's not why there's surprise on her face, shock as she assembles all the words, lets them process.

The idea of connecting with deviants and psychopaths isn't a shocking one. After all, she is a trained and educated psychiatrist, when all is said and done. In order to help patients, you have to connect with patients, and that means a certain amount of empathy, of understanding if not condoning, no matter how horrible the actions. But that same empathy is what had gotten her in so much trouble in the first place. She'd connected too well, understood too much. She'd let her emotions get in the way of what was reasonable, what was right, what was safe, sane, and consensual. You'd think that would mean she keeps her walls higher, now, that it makes her more guarded and less likely to let herself make those connections again--but you'd be wrong. Despite everything, she still feels everything strongly, and that's why when the tears well in her eyes, she doesn't try and stop them. The dreidel is forgotten.

"Every night? Every time you're unconscious?"

It's just so--unfair. Here he is, such a nice guy, so kind and considerate and well-intentioned, just a real good guy all around, and every night--every night he has to have that in his mind? God. He doesn't deserve that. He doesn't deserve any of that. And despite it, despite having that in his head, he's still like this? She knows better than most that life isn't fair, that it'll kick you in the ass while you're down just as easy as blinkin, but this--this isn't fair. Her heart breaks a little more the more she thinks about it.

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