Chapter Text
The powerful air filters had almost eliminated the scent of burnt flesh when Craig came on duty. His fancy, new not-kevlar body armor rested uncomfortably on his shoulders and from the wry look the guard he was replacing gave him it was a pretty universal experience. The new protocols left no one happy. Least of all that poor kid recovering in the hospital. He fingered the pin that now rested against his neck, hidden from a world that didn’t much approve, and gave a sigh. He hefted the prod in his left hand as he accepted the report from the duty guard.
“He hasn’t moved much,” the other said with an uneasy glance at the figure chained to the wall. “He shifts around a lot. Like maybe he’s uncomfortable. I offered him some tarps but…”
“Scarecrow doesn’t seem to have the same notions of comfort that we do,” Craig replied with a nod of understanding. “Always seems to prefer a hard surface.”
“Do you want me to do an hour overlap?” the other guard asked. “I could stand a hand or two of Texas Hold ‘em…”
Craig shook he head as he examined the figure curled up in the corner.
“Get home to your wife and kids, son,” Craig said as he signed off on the report. “You’ll be leaving orbit as soon as Adler’s out of recovery.”
“But what about,” the other glanced over at Scarecrow with genuine concern on his face and Craig felt a warm glow of pride mixed with relief.
“I don’t think he needs that kind of mental stimulation tonight,” Craig said.
“Sir.” The other guard nodded, and left.
Craig walked over to Scarecrow’s holding area, the full range of his cables marked out in red tape on the floor and, and stared down at the trembling figure. The man sighed and his face seemed to age several years. He slowly lowered himself to a sitting position just on the safe side of the red tape and reached up to unbuckle his safety helmet. He ran a hand through his thinning salt and pepper hair and stared at the damaged form with compassion in his eyes.
“You gonna be like this all night kid?” he asked.
Scarecrow slowly uncurled from where he had been hiding his display and looked over at Craig. His display was swirling with blue and white lights and Craig gave an encouraging smile.
“Want to talk about it kid?” he asked, leaning forward and letting his elbows rest on his knees.
Scarecrow shifted himself painfully and Craig winced in sympathy. The damaged form crawled to the other side of the red line and propped itself up there. Craig reached down and patted the ground beside him encouragingly, and after a long moment of consideration Scarecrow mimicked the gesture. Craig scooted forward until he was beside Scarecrow and waited. After far too long he felt the weight of the injured prisoner slump against his shoulder and Craig braced himself against the weight and the pain that began to cry out from each of his joints. There was another long pause that was finally broken by a strange whine.
“Ben,” Scarecrow said.
Craig sighed and leaned into the prisoner’s mass despite the discomfort it caused him.
“I stopped by the medical ward on my way in,” Craig said. “Got a chance to have a few words with him. He says he’s fine and to tell you not to worry."
Scarecrow turned to look at him, his face dancing with the white light of hope and relief. Craig tried to smile but just as he had learned to interpret this alien’s body language to a degree, he knew Scarecrow could read him far better. The prisoner slumped down soon after.
“Ben,” Scarecrow said again.
“You hurt him bad this time kid,” Craig admitted, reaching out to stroke the smooth back of the prisoner’s head. “Got an electrical charge through him. Did a number on his heart in addition to the burns on the skin.”
Scarecrow trembled under his hands and gave a muffled sound that Craig couldn’t recognize as a word.
“Honestly the brass are pushing for more security on you,” Craig went on. “They don’t think this is enough.”
He glared at the harness and cables that restrained the prisoner and let out a low curse. Scarecrow flicked his faceplates orange at him and gave a weak attempt at a playful headbutt aimed at Craig’s shoulder. Craig chuckled to hide his wince.
“I still say it’s your own fault if a navy man like you couldn’t recognize profanity when he heard it,” Craig said. “And it proved to those big wigs that you did know some English…or is that one German?”
Scarecrow turned his face back to the floor and spoke again.
“Ben.”
Craig sighed and fumbled in a pocket. He pulled out a piece of note paper and began to slowly read through the list of injuries and complications Ben Adler was experiencing in the hospital. At each sentence Scarecrow flinched and drooped further. Craig came to the end and crumpled the piece of paper in his hand.
“Hey kid,” he said softly as Scarecrow slumped away from his shoulder, lifting the weight off of the old guard. “Adler might not understand now, but he’s a clever guy. He knows you wouldn’t hurt him on purpose.”
“No…” Scarecrow said, but his face flashed red and orange.
Craig tilted his head thoughtfully to the side.
“It wasn’t on purpose was it kid?” he asked with a frown.
Scarecrow turned to stare in his face and there was a long pause before the prisoner responded.
“Yes,” Scarecrow said carefully, then after another pause, “no.”
Silence filled the room and Craig let out another curse.
“Adler ever tell you about his wife and kids?” Craig asked.
Scarecrow looked at him curiously, tilting his face sideways, and then nodded.
“See a guy like Adler,” Craig said carefully. “He might not understand about yes no.”
Scarecrow’s face flickered and he tilted his head the other direction.
“A guy like Adler,” Craig said. “He brain does exactly what he tells it to. All the time. He tells it to be a good husband and he is. He tells it to be a good father and his brain does. Now a guy like me-“
Craig’s face twisted and he gave a bark of bitter laughter.
“I had it all like he did once,” Craig went on. “A loving wife, a nice boy, but me-”
Craig looked searchingly into Scarecrow’s face.
“A guy like me understands yes no,” Craig said softly. “See I’d tell my brain to be a good husband. But then I’d start drinking. And my brain-“ He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Nah, accountability man. Not my brain. Me. Point is I never wanted to hurt her. That was always a no. A big no. But then I did. Over and over again I did a yes, the whole time my brain was yelling no.”
Scarecrow was staring at him intently with nearly still blue lights. The prisoner reached out a single clawed hand and laid it on his knee. Craig smiled at him weakly and reached up to finger the pin under his collar.
“Well I got clean, obviously,” Craig said with a grunt. “They wouldn’t have hired me for this gig if I’d not. But I’d broke her trust long before that and I lost it all. Well. Almost all. I was able to get this gig, and then do right by my boy, his wife and my little grandbaby.”
A warm smile spread over his face and he chuckled as Scarecrow’s face lit with sudden interest.
“Did I tell you?” Craig asked. “I got the boy hired. Ten voyages and the whole family will be going to the new world. That baby girl, I finally learned her name. Samantha. She’s going to have every advantage. A proper dad, a family. Everything I failed to give the boy.”
“Samantha,” Scarecrow said carefully.
He seemed to be feeling out the new name as his face danced with happy light.
“She’s never known a real summer,” Craig said softly. “But you, you are going to take her to the new world and she’ll get to go swimming, and run under blue skies, all because of you kid.”
“You!” Scarecrow insisted, giving him another headbutt.
Craig laughed to hide his grimace and let it trail off into a sigh as he stared up at the massive bars of the steering controls of the massive ship.
“Point is,” he said slowly, “guys like you and me. Navy men, we know what it’s like to have yes and no fighting it out, and having yes win, and hating ourselves for it every waking moment. I’ve seen it in your face right before you snap. I know that demon. I met him at the bottom of a bottle. I know you can’t drink so that isn’t it. Something is eating at you from the inside though. The docs say that the dents in the skull kind of aggravate it.”
Craig reached up to stroke Scarecrow’s damaged head again and gave a sigh. Scarecrow’s face was swirling with words now. Complex concepts Craig would never live to understand. There was anger in there, frustration, and such a desire to tell them what was wrong. They just couldn’t understand yet.
“But men like Adler.” Craig went on. “They love you, and they want to help, they do, but they don’t understand, they can’t, that when the yes and the no start fighting, when that demon flares up, even clever people can stop acting like people sometimes.”
“Craig,” Scarecrow said, giving his hand a light squeeze.
“See, yeah,” Craig glanced away uneasily as the light compression sent shooting pain though his joints. “About that. You won’t have me anymore. I just got confirmation that this is my last shift.”
Scarecrow started and his face swirled with distress. Craig gave him a weak grin.
“Nothing against you kid,” He assured Scarecrow, “I was only ever on for long enough to get my boy hired, and I got some other priorities in the fire right now. Got to get down to Earth. Get some, loose ends tied up. Get my affairs in order.”
Scarecrow nodded slowly but gave his hand another gentle squeeze and Craig almost couldn’t hide the pained reaction this time.
“Hey,” Craig said slowly, reaching up and pulling the pin, smaller than a dime out of his collar. “I’d like to give you something before I go.”
He made as if to stretch and used the motion to hide his hand from the security cameras as he held out the circular metal to the prisoner. Scarecrow caught it and stared in fascination at the symbol. For a moment the lights on his face mimicked the image. A two-handled white jug, with an orange flame burning in the neck against a blue background. Craig grinned and nodded.
“You know your face reminded me of it the first time I saw you,” he said.
Scarecrow tilted his head and looked at him curiously.
“It’s the,” Craig hesitated fumbling for a word. “The religious order, I guess, that I belong to. Our mission is to take care of prisoners and the like. Make sure they are being treated square. I think I’m the only one of the guards who’s one at the moment. But if Adler ever gets it in his head that you aren’t-“
“No!” Scarecrow interjected.
“Well,” Craig smiled gently at him. “If you see this mark on any of the guards. You’ll know they’re likely to take up your cause.”
Scarecrow nodded slowly, but by now his face was starting to flicker orange at the edges and Craig felt a spasm of unease. When he’d first started this gig Scarecrow would go for hours like this before having to rest. Of course when he’d first started this gig he’d been a mere formality to keep away curious interns and Scarecrow would have never harmed that Adler kid. Things changed, fell apart. His own body was telling him that more every day. He just hoped the next shift commander they hired would understand.
“What do you say to a few rounds of solitaire?” Craig asked.
Scarecrow nodded slowly and tucked the pin under one of his plates, then carefully eased down onto his chest, in a position where the harness and cables didn’t interfere with his arms. Craig scooted back outside of the red tape lines and carefully pulled a worn deck of cards out of his breast pocket. It got harder each day to hide the trembling in his hands from Scarecrow when he shuffled, but Craig thought he had it in him for one more night. He laid out the first row and showed Scarecrow his hand.
“Red nine on the black ten to start off eh?” Craig asked with a grin.