Acrophobia [Dr. Arkham]

[Jonathan Crane - Scarecrow]

There were many theories on obsession. He had read most of them in his time, disagreed with most of them in his time. Other doctors were always worth noting but believing was another story. Dr. Crane knew the truth and it was plain to see. Obsession….it was like an orbit constantly pulling in. It was rooted in the fear of loss. If one couldn’t have it then where would it be? Even so, obsession went even deeper than that. It was the sense that without it there would be a certain emptiness in one’s self. With this comparison obsession was a balance to keep ones sanity. There always had to be another to tip the scale.

Absolute foolishness. He didn’t need anyone to balance him. Dr. Crane already knew the truth and that is why he was sitting in this café in the middle of the day dressed like a regular person. He’d worn the street clothes Miss Glass had given him on one of their outings that just happened to end up with a mistake dead on the floor and an eventual raid of their house. The doctor only took the medicines he wanted and a few miscellaneous items that would have been of use to him. Miss Glass went for more of her needs and even brought him some things that he didn’t think he needed. All the clothes she had brought him were oversized but the winter months were quickly approaching and he didn’t have many warmer clothes. She must have thought it would come in handy.

In this case, she was right. It wasn’t bare cold outside but there was a morning chill in the air. He had his fingers wrapped around a coffee sleeve that warmed his fingers. The lip of the lid lifted steam ever so often to show that the liquid was near the top and still piping hot. He had ordered a black coffee when he came in, but he hadn’t drank it and had no intention to. He didn’t pay for it either but the teenager behind the counter either didn’t care or didn’t know what to do when he just took it from him without paying and sat down. Perhaps he thought he was going to pay when he left….Or perhaps he wasn’t paid enough for it to matter to him.

His hood was conveniently left over his head to shadow most of his face. He didn’t often wear blue jeans and they scratched against his legs. On top of that, they were several sizes too big for him. He had to wear a belt just to keep them up and it was on the very last loop. He would have much rather sworn slacks but he would have stood out too much wearing a large hoody over it.

So if the scales didn’t exist and there was no balancing point in the self with obsession…..Why was he here?

His eyes lifted to the man in the corner of the room. He was tall and thin, yet well built on the top. It seemed he had lost some weight since the last time he’d spoken with him. Perhaps he had been working later. He was standing by the condiment stand, finishing his coffee and talking on his cellphone as he always seemed to be. He was dressed semi casual, slacks, a white collared shirt with a tie and no coat. He looked like he had just come to enjoy his morning. But why he had come didn’t matter to him.

Dr. Arkham took another sip of his drink, satisfied that it now tasted right and turned to walk out the side door of the café. Slowly, Dr. Crane got up, leaving his untouched coffee where it was. The teenager that had given it to him didn’t even offer a passing glance as he walked passed at a slow pace. The door had completely closed before he left out of it and followed after him a good distance behind. It wasn’t odd for anyone to walk in this city….In fact owning a car was almost more of a burden than anything. But with the construction of the wall he imagined thing were about to change. Dr. Arkham had a vehicle but this morning he had chosen to walk and Dr. Crane had been following him long before they reached the café.

It was only now that the following had turned to stalking. He stayed well behind him, his head turned down just enough to keep his eyes on him and his pocket tucked into the pockets of the hoody. He looked like any regular shady person on this side of town. Dr. Crane was about a block back from him but he made sure that the man remained in sight. It wasn’t until he watched him turn down an alley that he picked up the pace. He must have been taking a short cut. He quickly turned down it, now closing the distance between them quickly. By the time Dr. Arkham was halfway down the alley he was only three arm lengths away. If he would have looked over his shoulder, surely it would have seemed hostile.

Was it? The thought made him lick his lips, almost predatory. Dr. Crane wasn’t one to immediately go into violence but there was an ache that had been pulling at him for some time…..Pulling at him….Balance. His pace quickened and he reached out to catch him by the shoulder. With one swift motion, pulling back he twisted himself around to his side and roughly shoved him against the wall.

Balance…

Fear…

He held him claustrophobically tight in that position against the wall. His hood was still over him but there was barely enough distance away from Dr. Arkham’s nose to speak. “Good morning Doctor.”

[Jeremiah Arkham - Black Mask]

Obsessions, fears, neurotic tendencies; if the problems of the mind could be turned into bricks and their comorbidities into mortar Arkham Asylum could have been built on them. It may as well have been. The place was built on the neurosis of Gotham and her people. Jeremiah had read study and theory; hypothesis after hypothesis that tried to explain the higher than average crime rate, psychosis rate, and terrors that existed in Gotham. Interesting reads, if by interesting one might bland and foolish. Every journal and experiment was trial after trial of failure to even place a finger on the eccentricies of Gotham City. Jeremiah Arkham whose family had built its name from the criminally ill of the city wouldn’t even touch the subject with a long-line let alone his cane. Obsessions only bred mania and he had enough of those already. He’d been through the fear of losing so much and finally had let it most of it slip through his fingers. Jeremiah Arkham had given into the emptiness he’d felt without his own counter-balance. He’d let himself fall from the ledge of sanity and upon the shore where he’d come to lie crumpled, the sand and rocks had crunched beneath a set of feet.

In that darkness Jeremiah had lifted his eyes and…

He was so much more now.

It was mid-morning going by the position of the sun and the time that had displayed on his phone when the face had lit up for the call he’d received as he’d made his way to the nook where the café kept their sugar. He’d left his blazer and cane at home that morning. The cool, Autumnal air didn’t bother him and a brisk walk had been just what he needed; as for the cane, he now walked with a slight limp—psychosomatic his colleagues had said. The cane was actually rather unnecessary and unless you really watched, his gait wasn’t even that pronounced. The caller who’d interrupted his morning wasn’t pronounced either. He’d not call her unnecessary, though. She was only doing her job, reminding him of appointments he had, people who’d called and left messages for him, meetings he was expected to go to, even the occasional court appearance. It was all par of the course being Head of Arkham Asylum and soon-to-be Administrator of Arkham City. His workload had gotten heavier, but that didn’t bother him.

He’d held the phone against his shoulder as his secretary spoke as he pulled off the lid of his thermos and put one packet, two, three into his coffee before stealing one of the stirring sticks to mix the granules into the dark mix. He didn’t sit down, however, when he was finished. He popped the stirring stick into his mouth after giving a noncommittal noise. He slid his tongue over it, humming in delight at the bittersweet mixture. He’d needed the coffee this morning—to be honest he’d not been sleeping much lately. He hung up the phone, replaced the lid on his coffee, and then took a sip. Jeremiah wondered if the man sitting on the opposite side of the room knew how late he’d gotten home last night.

He wondered if he knew why he’d been so agitated, too agitated to sleep. Oh, but that wasn’t bad. The agitation had been wonderful. He closed his eyes as he swallowed the hot coffee, relishing the memory that slithered back to me and not the actual drink.

Jonathan could wear baggy clothes and cover his face with that ridiculous hoodie, but Jeremiah had been aware of his presence since he’d begun his hunting. He known it was him because their acquaintance had bled over a decade and while clothes could disguise you from the unaware, those who didn’t pay attention, they didn’t from those who were. His gait, the way he held himself, everything little and imperceptible to most lessened and lessened the field of suspects who would be prowling after him. He grinned, slipped his phone back into his slacks, and passed right through the door. If he wasn’t pretending to not notice the prowler known as Dr. Crane, he’d have complimented him on his casual execution of following him. He knew no one from his home to the café had noticed and no one noticed as he’d now walked out of the coffee shop to slide into step behind him. Jeremiah was watching him, everyone on the sidewalk, and his pace never faltered. Maybe he’d comment on ignorance when Jonathan made his move. Jonathan’s clothes screamed threat and if nothing else, no one looked to see his face. They just gave him the room to walk and if they knew Jeremiah was his target they didn’t warn him. Good, that would just ruin the fun. Let the wolf think the prey was blissful and unaware.

Jeremiah finished his coffee and threw into a trashcan outside a salon before he turned down the next alley he came to. Taking a short-cut? Yes. A short-cut, knowing that Jonathan wouldn’t be able to resist. He licked his lips as he held Jonathan speed up. His heart rate picked-up and he swallowed. He didn’t look back, though the temptation made his fingers twitch. The anticipation made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

The rush of fear…

He let himself stumble when Jonathan’s thin fingers wrapped around his shoulder. Let him direct him, his head was buzzing by the time he was pressed against the wall, but not from the impact.

He stared into the shade of the hood, felt the breath that expelled the words against his face. His chest was heaving as he grinned. “Morning,” he said. He tilted his head, wet the enseam of his lip, and then leaned into the darkness of the hood. His nose brushed against Jonathan’s. “I see you still love being the cat…I loved the build-up. So many just don’t appreciate setting the mood. Instant gratification is just so overrated.”

[Jonathan Crane - Scarecrow]

The look in his eyes once he caught him was almost indescribable. It was obvious by his look alone once he was pinned against the wall that he’d known that he’d been following him. What had given him away? Dr. Crane wasn’t wearing what he normally did, if anything he was completely out of character, with the exception that he often hid his face during the day. But that was to draw attention away from him. After being plastered all over the news and in a roster of what the common ignorant man considered a “villain” category, he had become famous. It was difficult to go out and not be spotted unless he was wearing something that covered or shadowed his face like a hood or large sunglasses. He didn’t care if people saw him or not, he would just rather not be slowed down.

As the doctor moved further into his hood their skin touched on the bridge of his nose. The place where they connected twitched and crunched, almost as if his body itself was rejecting the unwarranted touch. If Dr. Arkham wanted to be caught in an alley alone, they could have settled this a long time ago. For Dr. Crane the build up had been going on far beyond that point. It had gotten to the point to where the thought of Dr. Arkham combined with what was going on was driving him to become clumsy with his research.

A broken test tube, a spilled chemical, a burner left on too long – Just a few things that had gotten to him this week in his new environment. He couldn’t seem to get his mind off of it. He didn’t “care” about what was going to happen to Dr. Arkham, but he obviously needed to know exactly what was going to happen to him. Dr. Crane wanted to know where he was going to be when the wall came up.

He stared at him for a few moments, trying to find the right way to ask that without it looking like anything else but the question itself. He rolled his lip under and let his top teeth scrape over the little bumps and cracks on his lips from the blisters of winter. It wasn’t uncommon for Dr. Crane to neglect to take care of himself when he was deep into his research. “Clever, I wasn’t aware that you wanted to be followed.” He replied in response to his comment. “I could ask you why you didn’t call the police, but I won’t waste my time on the answer.” He cut that short. If it was anything like the same reason his didn’t stab him in the back they both knew why there wasn’t anyone else involved. It was always them, cycled around and left alone, together.

“So, that’s it then?” He whispered, still trying to find the right words. “I imagine you’ve already got something arranged outside of the wall.” He began to answer his own questions before he even started asking them. “You’re only going to be here for circumstance, business.” He followed up and nodded, removing the weight from his shoulder. He let himself step back slightly, removing the tension before it got much tighter.

He rubbed his hand over his face and pulled the hood back from his head, letting it fall behind his neck and exposed him to the light. It was obvious that the doctor had been working many many hours without sleep, not that it was strange for him to do that. He would be the first to claim that he didn’t need sleep to function. The dark circles under his eyes and his paler than usual skin was more than enough evidence that he was being driven to do more work than he was used to, a slaves pace. “What do you think you’re going to accomplish?” The tired doctor finally asked, a hint of aggravation in his voice. Only Dr. Arkham was able to bring that side out of him and it was a side he would deny. He was the exception to the rule and Dr. Arkham was doing something he was going to regret. “There isn’t enough walls that can be put up to prevent it.”

[Jeremiah Arkham - Black Mask]

Of course Jeremiah had known he was being followed. Jonathan had given himself away when the whole ordeal started. The much too large clothing, the hood over the face, and the mere fact that he was being followed all pointed to Jonathan. Honestly not many would have followed him. Besides where Jeremiah was concerned Jonathan was often—if not always—acting out of character. He always had reacted in such a way and if that knowledge wasn’t power than Jeremiah didn’t know what to label it. It was enjoyable.

Jeremiah stared long and deep into Jonathan’s eyes. He never averted his gaze. He rested his shoulders against the wall of the alley and he waited. He waited for the inevitable; for what he’d always just waited for. The truth was this would have been easier from the beginning, but if there was anyone whose knowledge was failing to comprehend the other, it was Jonathan. He’d always wanted to be captured, but there you had it. Jonathan—who despite his denial could be just as ignorant as everyone else. And if the tension had arisen so badly for Jonathan? Jeremiah couldn’t find a single cell in his body that gave a damn any longer. Jonathan had never been patient, though. Jeremiah, though? Oh Jeremiah could plan years and years in advance. Could plan on the fly and he could wait like a spider in a parlor for the perfect insect to come in.

Let them think they had all the power. Let them fester in their own anxieties. He could read it in Jonathan’s gaze. The silence between them was deafening, but Jeremiah didn’t twitch. He didn’t even smirk. He waited like the doctor he was for the patient to speak and noted every little gesture in the spaces between: Jonathan’s lips rolling, the tug of his teeth on the already frayed skin. And when Jonathan did finally speak, his ice breaker was unimpressive. Jeremiah gave an amused sigh and rolled his eyes. “And I won’t waste my time explaining the obvious.”

He wanted to be caught. He wanted to speak to Jonathan and yes, it was between them as it always had been. Alone, together, no third wheels. And no sway of eye contact.

The moment he was no longer pinned, he stepped and once more closed the gap between the other and himself. Jeremiah didn’t comment on the lack of sleep or what it had done to his complexion. What did do, was make his eyes gleam and pierce like a diamond-edged knife. He casually placed his hands in his pockets and didn’t rise to the agitation when it came.

“Prevention? Accomplishment? I don’t know what I find more humorous, the fact that you think I want any of this, or the fact that you I’m the mastermind here. You want to be angry with someone? You want someone to question? You question the City Council? The State Council, our mayor and every single politician whose made this their election bid. Arkham City is not and will not be my accomplishment.” And this time it was his voice whose edge was cold. “The citizens? The councils who elected me? They’re running scared and Lex Luthor thinks he’s going to accomplish something by placing his hands in the pot. By getting me elected administrator of this, let’s be completely honest, laughable project.”

He laughed. “There aren’t enough walls to prevent anything. Like every measure before it to stop the chaos, it will only hinder it for a period and then it’ll all crash down. I don’t want to prevent anything, Dr. Crane. I want to watch it fail. And I will take great glee in it. Everyone’s just so desperate to control an uncontrollable force. My accomplishments have no place in those detestable Berlin Walls. In fact, they’ll only slow down my ends.” And that was regrettable. Patient he was, but not for ridiculousness.

[Jonathan Crane - Scarecrow]

There was a certain edge that returned the moment the doctor stepped back up to him. His body language tightened but he didn’t back down to the rival doctor in front of him. He let the wire of tension tighten once more and strain the small space between them. There was always this small space between them. It was a cord that wrapped so tightly around itself, ever threatening to snap at the right moment. For as tightly as it wound there was an ocean between them in areas beyond what could be seen.

He had always been there, pacing with him throughout his work, during his work. He was there to give his approvals and his opinions on his work…however “positive” he later found they were. The turned Earth revealed many things to him that he realized he didn’t fully comprehend before. But not everything was unwarranted. There was still that piece missing, that ocean between them. Dr. Arkham always walked on the opposite side of the glass. That was the problem. He had everything that HE deserved.

The city council had appointed or the people or whoever through they were in power, whether it was his new employer or the citizens of Gotham, it didn’t matter. It belonged to someone it shouldn’t have belonged to. He had thought that he had buried everything that night and the echoes of the past were lifted to light as Dr. Arkham crawled out of his own grave. There was a rebirth for many things that night, but something was still wrong. The glass between them…It was always the problem.

Dr. Arkham wasn’t like him and that was no longer good enough. He swallowed in the tight position, the bob of his throat slowly going down and back up. His tongue felt parched, he was dry and tired didn’t even begin to describe how this matter had exhausted him. Now he was faced with a new reality….Dr. Arkham and this ocean was about to vastly expand. For as many anxieties as he could use to describe why Dr. Arkham was allowing these things not one of them was enough…It wasn’t enough anymore.

Only this man was able to bring him to this. It was what he could only describe as one that didn’t understand fear as being infuriating. He was the only man that could bring him to physical outward anger. This secondary emotion that could never exist without its primary, in use it was nothing at all, it was an anxiety response….But it wasn’t the same for him. No, the rules didn’t apply to him. He was different and Dr. Arkham knew it. Dr. Arkham must have known it, he must have seen something after he had shot a student and still hired him months later to continue his practice. He must know the truth….But he can’t understand it.

Their roles were reversed….It was the anxiety of the situation. They belonged on opposite sides of the glass. His eyes locked deeper within Dr. Arkham as the realization came to his eyes.

He was going to lose him.

The thought was almost as unbearable as being with him in the same asylum. Can’t live with him, can’t live without him, and can’t wait until he dies to bury him. No, he had to be alive….He had to be here, without the glass….Without the wall.

Without any room for anymore thought the doctor’s hand came up swiftly and grabbed him by the back of the head. He pulled them closer, breaking the barrier down and collapsed his cracked lips into Dr. Arkham’s. The sensation immediately lit him on fire. His skin crawled and his mind burned. He was burning alive, it was like a vortex inside of him was screaming to let go and the other telling him there wasn’t any other way.

The stab was sudden and smoothed easily into Dr. Arkham’s lower abdomen. He jerked the knife upward and to the right, his lips never leaving the mans. His hands felt like they hand been sitting in ice and were suddenly put in a furnace. He didn’t even notice the blood that was rushing over his hand.

This was what he needed. It was more than diminishing the space between. It was more than control…It was more than the situation threatened.

It was beautiful.

[Jeremiah Arkham - Black Mask]

Jonathan’s mouth converged onto Jeremiah’s without warning. Of all the reactions Jeremiah could have predicted to happen, the coarse texture of the other’s mouth against his had been his lowest odd. Infinitesimal. Impossible. Well obviously not the latter. Jonathan was always a master of enacting and creating possibility with the impossible.

It was as if endorphins coursed from the point of their contact all through his body. They were released in bounds with every single beat of his heart which was audible to him. Excitement and surprise at such a kiss, at feeling the desperation of another human being through the collision of lips made his heart speed. It galloped like a horse in the final seconds of a race when the jockey pushed it to its limits. It felt like a vice around his heart. Painful, euphoric. All these feelings within seconds of initiation. His mind was like a fuse box. The breakers were surged with power, everything shut down. One, two, seconds before it flickered back on. The generator was loud, but the sudden light again in the darkness was powerful.

Jeremiah’s hands clawed into the fabric of the hood on Jonathan’s head and yanked it down. He pulled his hair, not caring if it came out by the roots as he smashed his mouth with equal force against Jonathan’s and snagged his teeth into his dry lip. He acted before he even realized, but the way it felt…

Everything burned. He’d been cast into the sun, but he loved it. The singe of his skin and the way it seemed to ignite. How could Jonathan think he was losing him? How did he ever concoct such a thought? They’d never been closer than they had been since his hand had reached from the soil of the grave Jonathan had built. Never as close as when Jonathan had taken it.

Never as close as they were now. Jonathan had no idea that the glass had broken long ago. There was no glass between them, only a frame that once held it. Glass littered the floor like thousands of prisms but there were no rainbows. Only the truth. The undeniable truth.

No walls.

Jeremiah choked. The sound was wet, painful. Was it surprised though? His eyes which had closed opened and he stared at Jonathan. He gasped against those lips still burning against his own as cold steel ripped into the fire.

He laughed as the pain came, so definite and intense. Hot blood began to drench his shirt and he grunted as it the blade all the more into his abdomen. He never stopped staring at Jonathan. He grinned and his hands clasped his cheeks.

He stared into his eyes. Into the vortex. Into the reflection of him in them. He stared into the windows of Jonathan and he didn’t run. He dropped his hands to Jonathan’s elbows and with a sharp twist he threw him to the ground. The knife jerked from him. He covered the wound with his hand.

Jeremiah tackled Jonathan. He dug his knee into the side of his stomach and braced himself with his free hand beside Jonathan’s head. He lifted his bloody hand from his stomach and ran it through Jonathan’s hair before he wrenched Jonathan’s head back.

He fell on his mouth with a snarl, teeth meeting teeth.

The knife had fallen beside them. It was in Jeremiah’s hand. He thrust it into Jonathan’s stomach. Right where Jonathan had speared him, he speared Jonathan. Up and the right he jerked the blade.

He clasped the knife and let the fiery blood of the other coat his fingers before he yanked the knife out and threw it to the side.

How could Jonathan ever think he’d lose Jeremiah?

They were interwoven so tightly.

It truly was beautiful.

[Jonathan Crane - Scarecrow]

This sinking, impossibility was actually happening. Dr. Crane had stepped so much out of himself to actually try and consume him he couldn’t stop himself before he’d come forward to finish it. It was if he was in attempt to suck out his soul. If he could he would remove it and give it to himself. He would keep it inside himself, ownership, it was his, it was always his. The moment that Dr. Arkham started this game with him it had become his and now there was nothing he could so to stop the chain of events to come. How was he doing this? How did this even happen? Once it started he couldn’t stop himself and stopping now as Dr. Arkham tore down his hood and grasped into his hair was impossible. There was no going back from this.

There was a part of him that wanted to envelope and destroy this doctor so much that even putting him in and ripping him from the grave wasn’t enough. He needed more, just what exactly he wasn’t sure of. He couldn’t think about that right now and in the moment he could hardly think of anything at all except what satisfaction and pulsing hunger he was getting from this.

It was the sweet sound of gasps for air, the perfect breath into Dr. Arkham’s blood that caused the raspy sound. It was that feeling that he’d wanted for so long, to own the doctor’s life and to be able to control it. Above all he wanted to prove to Dr. Arkham that he did control it and he always did and there was nothing he could do about that. It was set in motion before he’d even had a chance to think about the consequences of what he did or didn’t do. All of that seemed to be so far in the past now.

Dr. Arkham’s hands clasped his cheeks but his eyes were already fixated on him. He watched his eyes dilate and beg for life out of pure instinct. The fear of death, his body poured it from his eyes like a message sent straight to the universe. Lost in his eyes he couldn’t prevent the fluidity of what happened next. The doctor felt his shoulder hit the ground hard and as his gaze broke finally he was able to struggle back against him. It was the same dance that was always done. The fight for dominance over one another. Dr. Arkham had always been this obstacle in his way, this force that prevented him from doing what he needed, this massive distraction that clouded and poisoned his mind. It had become an obsession.

The knife had come away from his hand and his teeth clamped, sucking a hiss of air through his teeth at the pull of his hair. Without warning their lips collided again in a rough and merciless glide together. He felt himself trap in it again, lost until the same wet choke hit the top of his throat. The blades cold metal had easily glided into his skin, reopening old wounds and immediately spilling blood onto the concrete below them. Locked together, his skin became even more ghostly pale that it normally was. He began to get light headed and dizzy. He needed to do something. The doctor could feel his heart in his throat, for which reason he wasn’t sure.

He couldn’t die, that wasn’t the problem, but he didn’t want to let them both bleed out here. This wasn’t a part of his original plan, but he didn’t exactly have a complete plan, so this was just another part of what was going on. The doctor tried to keep a level head as he ripped his lips from Jeremiah’s and used his knee to try and push him up, pry him off or push him over. With one hand he grabbed and covered his own, reopened wounds and with a shaken hand reached into his pocket for his cellphone.

His fingers smeared blood across the screen immediately as he made an important emergency call. It wasn’t a move of desperation, he just needed to get somewhere sterile. He needed to get them both somewhere where he could refocus and close up the wound. The doctor didn’t like anyone else working on him, despite what Luthor was probably going to insist.

[Jeremiah Arkham - Black Mask]

He felt like he was choking on his heart and every breath was a rasp. Adrenaline? The gush of blood leaving his body? He wasn’t quite sure, but what he was sure of was the warmth. Jonathan’s blood was hot and sticky, the smell of copper—or was it his own blood? Jeremiah could almost taste it as the other source of warmth scratched his conscious: Jonathan’s mouth.

Despite the strength, he felt slowly leaving him, despite the way his heart hammered in his ears and he almost felt sick, he was addicted and helpless to the violent heat of Jonathan’s mouth. He wasn’t cold, but he was. He was freezing and he needed the heat, needed to imprint himself into Jonathan even more than he already had. Jonathan thought he owned Jeremiah’s soul and perhaps he did—no Jonathan did—but just as Jonathan was determined to own his every breath and bone, so did Jeremiah. He tore his into Jonathan’s soul and he would tear, yank, claim. Jonathan could not and would not ever escape him. He was lost in revenge, anger, need, obsession.

Around every corner in his mind Jonathan lingered. His touch, his voice, his anger and rage. Pain, madness, gnawing hunger for the good doctor. Jonathan’s knee pressed into his diaphragm. Air was lost to Jeremiah until he found himself on his back, staring into the blue sky of morning, light dappling the very top of the buildings. The ground was cold beneath him, his coffee was spilled against the brick wall where Jonathan had attacked him.

Attack?

He stared into the sky, he shut his eyes, and he laughed. He took deep breaths and laughter rattled from him as Jonathan pulled out his phone. Jeremiah turned his head and watched him, his eyes were soft. He grasped onto Jonathan’s arm with a bloody hand and squeezed.

“You’re not,” he smiled. “You’re not losing me. Who do you take…me for? Dr. Crane…you can’t rid of me even….even…if you tried.” He chuckled even as pain paused his words and reached up to Jonathan’s cheek. “Mmm, no…You will…always…be stuck with me.”