SUICIDE SQUAD HARLEY QUINN AND JOKER IMAGINES

Abandon

He was having the dream again.

Not the sweet dream, this dream was different. Haunting. This was the dream that kept him awake at night, too afraid to close his eyes because just the thought of ur happening again would break him.
But here he lay, in his bed, with the dream slowly beginning to unfold.

The dream that he had had for weeks.

Harley stood in front of him, and she was smiling, he wanted to smile back, he felt the corners of his lips fold upwards. He felt the heaviness of his sadness left from his chest. And for a moment he was happy. Staring at her. Smiling. And she was smiling back.

By he knew what was coming. And as soon as his memory caught up with him the smile melted from her lips. And she opened her mouth and spoke the words that he was dreading. The words that were killing him.

"I'm afraid of you."

Coldness filled him, settled in his chest like the heaviest tar, suffocating him. Her smile had fallen, as had his own, and he watched as her eyes slowly filled with tears. He took a step toward her, and watched as she flinched away, just as she always did. The movement cut him, made him bleed. All he could do was stare, he couldn't even lift his palms to his ears, and even if he did he knew he would still hear the words. Harley opened her mouth again, and all that he wanted was to wake up.

"I love you, but sometimes I look at you and all that I can see is a monster."
His lungs collapsed within the cavity of his chest, he could see it in her eyes, the truth of the statement and the fear that accompanied it. As if she was afraid to speak those words to him. As if she was afraid that he would hurt her for speaking the truth.

"You-" she had to stop speaking because she choked on her tears, "I'm sorry, but you hurt people, you hurt people so easily, and I- and I don't want it to be me."
He couldn't speak, but God he wanted to, he wanted to pull her close, he wanted to hold her and tell her that he'd never hurt her, that he'd end his own life before ever harming her, but how could he? How could he when he knew that he could so easily break his word?

"It would only take a second, a single moment of anger, and it'll be me dead."
He closed his eyes, because it was true, more than anything her words were true. All that it would take would be a split second of clouded judgement and she'd be gone.

"And I love you, I'll always love you, but-" she paused to wipe her eyes, he realised that his cheeks were wet too, when had he started crying? "-but I don't want to live in a place where my safety is not guaranteed. I don't want to live with a man that will one day kill me." A sob ripped itself from her throat, and she stared at him with a pain that burned him. He wanted to speak but his voice box failed him.

"Which is why you have to let me go."

His eyes opened into darkness, he was awake now, even more tired than before. He hit the table beside him and turned on the lamp, then he stared at the other side of the bed. His throat clenched and he found that his face was wet. He fisted the sheets and glared at the other side of the bed.

The other side of the bed where she wasn't.

Because it hadn't been a dream, it was reality repeating itself over and over again, haunting him in the most painful of ways. She had said those words to him, weeks ago, words that cut so deeply that they etched themselves into his being, and every night they would show themselves to him. And every night he woke with wet cheeks and an aching chest. More tired than the night before. More tired than ever.

He couldn't tell her to stay, how could he when it was true that he couldn't promise her safety? When it was true that he could hurt her in seconds. Even though he loved her. Even though he didn't want to hurt her. It could happen, it already had happened many times before, and it would happen again.

And that was why he let her go. Because he didn't want to hurt her and the only way for him not to was if she wasn't there.

He stared at the other side of the bed. At the indent that she had created by lying there next to him every night for years. The last reminder that she had been there. That she had existed.

She had taken most of what was hers when she left, and out of anger he had burnt everything else on day eight of her gone. And now he was left with nothing but the indent on her side of the bed, and the fading scent of her on his sheets.

That was all that Harley left.