A Fistful of Fears [Jonathan Crane, Heather]

[Jeremiah Arkham - Black Mask]

Behind Jeremiah the raucous thrum of the bar and its music faded. He stepped out onto the sidewalk, setting his cane aside as he leaned against the brick wall. The night was cool on his face and his breath colored the air with every exhalation. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. His fingers fidgeted at his side moving in some rhythm as he inhaled and then slowly let it out. The street was quiet, but noise of rushing cars on the highway reached his ears; he could hear the bustle of a train not far from his place either. The night seemed to soothe him for a just a moment, but soon enough he startled.

His heart was in his throat as he scrambled to pull his phone from his pocket.

“Hello?”

“Where are you,” Melina’s voice was thick as she spoke into the phone.

“I can’t sleep.” Jeremiah could picture her as he swallowed audibly after his own tired reply. She was probably sitting at the kitchen table, robe around her, still so lithe even after having given birth. She’d awoken to him having disappeared into the night again for the countless time. He knew what must have brought back to her, him gone and not knowing where he was. She’d been in that hell for over a month during his disappearance where he’d changed—everything had changed.

She sighed and he let his head fall back. “Don’t,” he begged her, but he knew she would and could hear it the moment she scoffed. “Don’t? I hardly see you anymore. You come home, you’re distant, and even if I do see the light in your eyes again it disappears and then you leave in the middle of the night. Are you going to someday decide not to come back? Am I going to have make excuses for you to Isaiah? I won’t do it! I won’t—”

“Stop!” He yelled and pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes. “Just…stop, Melina. I can’t…I’m trying…God, Melina…I am, but I don’t remember anything and then I sleep and I…I wake up terrified and shaking and…I just need to get out. I need air. Everything crowds around on me and I just…I have get out.”

He knew Melina was just as exhausted. Her anger was quick and gone and he didn’t deserve her. He wasn’t the man who had left her. He did have nightmares that had him waking in cold sweats and the need to escape, but he was also something darker and little by little the terrors were fading. They were replaced by something else, but tonight he wasn’t lying.

“You have to trust me, Jeremiah…You don’t have to run away every time you wake up in a night sweat. All you have to do is wake me. I’m here for you Jeremiah.”

Jeremiah didn’t trust anyone, not anymore. He could trust himself; he could love Isaiah, but trust anyone else? What a notion that was. He’d not even told her what had happened. Not completely. He’d told her about Ivy, but not Jonathan, and not his suicide attempt.

“Jere…”

“You don’t know what I went through.”

“And how can I? You don’t tell me anything. You hardly talk when you come home! And when you do it’s…it’s not you. It’s not the Jeremiah I married!”

His response was bitter. His laugh was cold and broken. He felt in that moment like he was tearing at the seams.

“The Jeremiah you married is…gone,” he whispered to her and closed his phone. The Jeremiah she married had been buried alive and even though someone had pulled him out of the grave, that mad had stayed there.

He leaned his head back and he laughed again. It started soft and then it grew louder and louder. It was him shattering. He knew it. How much more could he do this? Was he trying to push her away.

Yes, a voice whispered. Yes, you are.

His laughter broke and he inhaled trying not to cry. He didn’t hear anyone approach him until it was just too late.

[Jonathan Crane - Scarecrow]

It was yet another night that Dr. Crane had taken Miss Glass out for a simple walk. They had been doing it together more and more often lately. These times were different than the others. Before he would have went out with purpose to bring someone back to his lab or acquire something he needed, but tonight was just a walk with her. He really didn’t have a reason to be doing so other than it was a way to get her out of the lab she lingered in so often. They walked around in East Gotham, it would be the safest and easiest for both of them. Dr. Crane wouldn’t attract too much attention and no one would bother Miss Glass while she was with him.

A shout brought his eyes up from the ground as they were walking. Miss Glass had been talking about something, but she was rambling on about her day or something she had done. He was listening, but just not completely listening to her. It was more idle conversation as they walked, things that came to mind. But this shout had caught his attention. In the distance there was a man at a payphone, he couldn’t see him well under the streetlight. It was probably a drunkard that barely stumbled his way from the bar to the telephone to call for a taxi, but as his voice rose and they came closer it was apparently different.

The man came in to view just as his conversation got softer. He only caught part of the conversation, but it didn’t matter. He was probably a drunk husband trying to call his wife to come pick him up and she was upset and refusing to do so. It was a waste of time, he was better off walking to the court house and getting a divorce. There was no point in a relationship like that, or one at all for that matter. His eyes cast to Miss Glass for a moment.

That was different.

Dr. Crane was about to walk by the man without another thought until he saw him turn and hang up the phone. The doctor stopped in his tracks. It was like re living a moment that had already passed as he stared this ghost in the face. He stared at a shell of what used to be a man. Someone that he had brought back to life that had decided to waste away in front of him. What was he doing out here? Drinking himself to death? He eyed the cane leaning against the booth. His injuries had pushed the man far passed physical torture but the cane served as a potent reminder.

“Dr. Arkham.” He greeted him cold and emotionless. It had been some time since he’d seen him last. What took place at the asylum took a long time to clean up and afterward he needed to lay low for a while. The police would always be looking for him and even now he knew it was a possibility they were working on appealing the decision in his case, but he didn’t care. Let them talk and bicker about it all they want, it wont change the real reason why they were buried. It was something that none of them would ever understand. He imagined that Dr. Arkham wouldn’t even understand his purpose in all of that.

He took in the sight of the man that he had buried alive just to resurrect again. It had forever changed the both of them. But all the hate inside him that he would deny even to himself had gone from him. He harbored nothing ill for him anymore. What was done was done and it had been finished. Now all that was left was a shell of a man.

Somehow he didn’t think he was far from being run over again.

“Having trouble with the living since you’ve come back to life?” He asked him softly. He placed his hand on Miss Glass stomach to make her stay back as he walked in front of the booth to meet him beyond its glass. He leaned into the frame and ran his finger down the condensation of one of the windows. At the very least the only thing he could manage was a drunken swing, much better than a moving vehicle.

[Heather Glass - VerMillion]

The first time that Jon had taken her out on a walk just to take a walk, it had really weirded Heather out. She is, after all, used to him doing something every time they leave their place, whether or not he chose to tell her what his true purpose was beforehand. Now that she's more used to the idea, she finds them quite enjoyable - it's a way to spend some time with Jon when he's not being distracted by his work, and a chance to stretch her legs after too much time sitting on a lab stool. Not that Jon is the best conversationalist, but she's actually just as happy to walk with him quietly as she is to ramble on about nothing while he listens.

Today she's been in the mood for the latter, and was just explaining what she'd picked up at the grocery store when she'd been out earlier in the day when something catches Jon's attention. And, seeing that, she instantly goes silent and attempts to figure out what it was. There are, after all, a number of things that proverbially go bump in the night in east Gotham - things she can more or less safely ignore when she's with Jon, and usually too routine in this part of the city to pay too much attention to. Someone yelling into a phone is on that list, and so she expects to walk right on by as well.

In fact she's about to continue on explaining what she'd gotten when Jon stops and thus alerts her to the fact that something really is up. She halts in her tracks as well, taking a moment longer than Jon does to recognize who it is, and when she does she automatically takes a half-step back. Which would instantly signal to Dr. Arkham which personality is 'out' at the moment - VerMillion would never back away from him, even slightly, while Heather is a completely different story. She doesn't need any coaxing at all to let Jon take the lead - in fact she's very quick to decide that she'd rather not be here.

She's never liked Dr. Arkham, and after all the recent events, she's sure that she probably likes him even less. Though she can't be completely sure of that, because her feelings about him are so totally mixed now that it's really hard to quantify it. But whatever they are, she's happy to keep quiet and stay back. And flat out ignore VerMillion, who has suddenly gone from hiding wherever it is that she goes when Heather isn't doing anything she thinks is interesting to excitedly rambling on about this unexpected turn of events.

[Jeremiah Arkham - Black Mask]

Jeremiah might have come from a bar, but he wasn’t drunk. That had been a habit he’d never truly picked up. He could get drunk, and he’d had a drink, but he wasn’t even tipsy here and now. He leaned against the glass of the phone booth and listened to the air around him. It was like a night long ago as he heard the distant traffic, horns close by. He could hear muffled yelling, and he could hear a conversation, but his eyes were closed and he was listening to something no one else could here. He might have run away from home, but what man from his neighborhood would run to East Gotham?

A man comfortable on those streets.

Jeremiah Arkham director of Arkham Asylum would not have come here. The streets stank with crime and greed. He could smell the cheap cigarettes on his coat. He reached into his pockets again, this time with steadier hands and pulled out his own pack. Methanols and not cheap. He’d just lit it within the phone booth when that voice cut across every single noise and the whole street seemed to go quiet. A chill entered the air, but Jeremiah didn’t shudder not like he would have before. He wasn’t even inwardly shaken. He had no nothing to hide from the man he lifted his head to see.

“Dr. Crane,” he greeted, the burning cigarette now between his fingers and yet to touch his lips. There was a time when any utterance of that title would have been with filled with bitter acid, but now it was spoken with the same tone Jonathan said met him with him, none. The name was what it was. Their last encounter flew across his mind, but if it caused him any trauma he did not show it. He lifted the cigarette to his mouth.

He was changed. Jonathan was changed, but Jonathan was wrong. Jeremiah was not a shell of any man. He was more alive and pulsing with blood than he’d ever been before. He straightened and moved to the glass.

His eyes fell first on Heather. And he knew it to be Heather because of her reaction, but it was cursory because then he was once again meeting Jonathan’s gaze. He took up his cane and with ease directed himself to Jonathan’s side.

“That man sounds more like you,” he gave him a small smile. His breath smelled of only his cigarette and not of alcohol and it was easy to see in his stride that he was not intoxicated in the least. He didn’t move to punch Jonathan, only to pass him. “In fact, it seems easier to be alive now.”

He looked at Heather. “Miss Glass,” he greeted and then moved to be on his way.