Chapter Text
I watched him stagger into the room, hands bound at the wrists and hanging limply in front of him. The man really didn’t look half as dangerous as he’d proven himself to be…
Jonathan Crane was far too tall and gangly to ever appear normal, his frame barely appearing to be anything but that of a too-large corpse, reanimated and stalking through Gotham for purposes most terrifying.
Some of my colleagues don’t believe the man is mad. I’ve yet to find out for myself, however. Yes, his mind is brilliant –frighteningly so, if you’ll pardon the pun– but even the most intelligent can slip from the firmness of reality. In my past talks with him, following his efforts to turn his previous psychiatrist’s mind on its head, he’s been pleasant enough, I suppose. A little cold, true, but the records of his childhood that we have access to paint a clear picture as to why that might be the case.
Today, however, the eyes that stared at me from the other side of the table… they weren’t the eyes of the man I’d been getting to know. A crooked smile spread across Jonathan’s face, and he cocked his head to one side with a sudden jerk, his deep blue eyes never leaving my face all the while.
“Good afternoon, Jonathan. I hope the day has been treating you well?” I offered, deciding to get the session started on a pleasant enough note. I was expecting his face to twist –it was amazingly expressive at times, I’d noticed– but he instead widened his smile and let his eyes slide partially closed.
“Early to bed, early to rise,” he replied easily, his voice holding a bit more levity than usual. I assumed that meant he was in a fairly good mood and nodded, wearing a smile of my own. “Sometimes nine, sometimes ten.” Jonathan continued with a shrug made awkward by the cuffs.
I paused, feeling a sense of familiarity tickle at the edges of my mind. Had I heard those phrases before? The sensation passed quickly, though, and I was able to get back to business. “I’m glad to hear it; the last thing anyone wants is to be lacking in adequate sleep. Have you thought about what we discussed, last time, before your brief departure?”
“Yes, sir…” now, he paused for a moment, tilting his head even further and directing his gaze at the ceiling instead of at me. He hadn’t blinked yet, either. “No, sir.”
That was strange. Ever since he had been working at Arkham –at the very least– no-one had ever heard the man use the word ‘sir’ when addressing anyone, not even the head of the entire asylum. I jotted a note down about this oddity in his file; perhaps there was some progress actually being made in changing his views. “That’s a shame. Would you mind terribly if we do that today?”
That blue stare snapped back to me and his head righted its angle to a more vertical position. It was intense, far more so than I’d expected, and he held the stare for what felt like a full minute, remaining silent the whole time… then, finally, his face cracked open further with that smile, which was rapidly morphing into a full-blown grin. “There was a crooked man, who walked a crooked mile…”
“Jonathan, what do you–…” I began, frowning slightly.
He continued undaunted. “He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile. Knick-knack, paddy whack… this old man came rolling home.”
Alarm bells started to ring in my head. This wasn’t going in a good direction at all… Granted, speaking in verse was something that had been documented as happening occasionally, but there were several notes in his patient file that such behaviours usually accompanied episodes of being particularly difficult to work with, as an inmate. I had to turn this back around to ‘conventional’ conversation before the session got out of hand. “Please, Jonathan, take this seriously.”
His bony shoulders started to shake, and his grin broadened. “See saw, marjory daw, Jonny’s got a master. Jonny will earn but a dollar a day, ‘cos he can’t work any faster…”
I had very little idea as to what I was facing. Jonathan, on good days at least, was mild-mannered when addressed with some degree of respect. On bad days, this could give way to his more violently-inclined behaviours or even sullen stubbornness. This, however, was not something I’d ever seen from him. An idea struck me. “I don’t suppose that you were subjected to your own toxin again, before being returned to us?”
The question broke through his almost-silent snickering; he went stock-still, his eyes wide and his expression falling into a more subdued one. “Curds and whey?” he breathed, staring at the table.
Wracking my brain for the cypher to Jonathan’s strange turn of phrase, I could do nothing to properly reply. So, I did my best to continue. “It’s been well-noted that your state is somewhat less… predictable, after such things.”
“The less he spoke, the more he heard!” Jonathan snapped, making me jump at the volume and sheer suddenness of it. After a few moments of silence, the former psychiatrist sitting opposite me sat back in his chair, almost sinking into the rigid thing as if his body was completely boneless. “Twinkle… twinkle, little bat… how I wonder…” he groaned, letting his head fall to rest over the back of his chair.
I recognised that one as being from Alice in Wonderland, having started to read the fantastical tale to my daughter just last week, and made a hasty note to keep Jonathan from any form of concentrated exposure to another inmate well-known for speaking in rhymes. On the off-chance that interactions between Jonathan Crane and Jervis Tetch were detrimental, then it had to be done. Once the pair had been rehabilitated, they’d probably even thank me for it. However, for now, I decided to satiate a small sliver of my curiosity. “Little bat?”
The change that came over the tall brunet was astonishing. Instead of remaining slumped and boneless, he snapped upright and to attention, with his eyes –far too bright and unnervingly-wide– pinning me to my own chair with an expression of barely contained… eagerness? Surely he wasn’t referring to the man who any Gothamite would associate with the term, then… right? I pushed my sudden nervousness to one side, meeting his stare with a steady gaze that he might have been grudgingly-proud of, when he worked at Arkham.
My lack of visible reaction did nothing to dampen Jonathan’s reaction, however.
“Little Robin Redbreast flew away… got in the way… didn’t even sway… done without delay.” Jonathan drawled –his Gothamite accent slipped a bit, as well, hinting at a distinct twang underneath– as another wider smile tore its way onto his face. I had the definite impression that he was telling me something to do with his most recent brush with the Batman, but the meandering phraseology threw me for more than a couple of loops.
“Got in the way of what, Jonathan?” I asked, feigning more confidence than I truly felt. The air in the interview room had grown icy and strangely-heavy, and when a low noise that could just as easily have been a growl as it could a groan issued from my patient, I forced myself to remember the security presence just outside the room.
He didn’t answer me at first, choosing to stare at the two-way mirror on one wall instead. After almost a full minute of seemingly regarding his reflection, he started to chuckle. It was a quiet and rasping sound, so unlike the cool smoothness Jonathan’s voice typically held, and I actually found myself wondering for a moment if it was even coming from a human’s larynx. “Three bags full. Three bags…! Pat a cake, baker’s man…”
I couldn’t really help what came out of my mouth, next, bewilderment painfully clear. “You were baking a cake?”
I suppose that it was a good thing that, following the initial incredulous look, he apparently found it amusing, that same crooked grin leering at me across the table; something written in his file screamed for my attention, earning a quick glance and making the slight knot in my stomach tighten –‘cannot abide foolishness aside from his own’.
“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.” He leaned forward, his eyes falling half-lidded and his grin smoothing out into just a small smirk. “Your house is on fire, your daughter will burn…”
Shuddering, I pressed a button on the wall behind me. “Guards,” I started, trying to mask the quiver in my voice. From Jonathan’s growing smirk and tuneless hum, he noticed it… I tried not to let that sink in, though. “We’re done in here for now, please escort Jonathan back to his room.”