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“That’s it!” Edward shouted suddenly, standing up from his chair so quickly that it toppled to the floor. “That’s it! I’m officially announcing my descent into madness!”
Jonathan looked up from his workbench to see that Edward had destroyed the circuit board he’d been painstakingly engineering all week, copper wire and fiber glass littering the table in its place. Had… had he taken a hammer to it? Jonathan frowned slightly at the fact that he hadn’t broken his concentration sooner, often getting so wrapped up in his own work that his other senses ceased being useful. He liked seeing the man in fear, sure, but seeing Edward in distress was another beast entirely. One he hadn’t quite yet conquered.
He intended to move straight into attempting to placate the man when his words finally sunk in. “What exactly do you mean by descent?”
His tone must’ve been easy to discern as clinical because Edward defensively crossed his arms. “I’m not one of your little patients, Doctor,” he spat. This was untrue, but Jonathan waited for him to go on. “Descent, a noun, two syllables. The act or process of moving from a higher position to a lower one indicating a steady decrease in status, quality and condition. A degeneration or deterioration. Does that answer your question?”
Jonathan propped his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers together in a way that made Edward roll his eyes. He did nothing to conceal his movements which were, indeed, spurred by his sudden clinical fascination. “Thank you for that definition, Edward.” Placating his distressed lover was one thing—placating a distressed patient was another. “Let me rephrase. What do you mean by your descent into madness?”
“What I mean,” he said in a voice one might use to address a child, “is that this circuit board is driving me absolutely insane. It’s refusal to cooperate has cost me not just a week’s worth of work on this trap but also the other traps I’ve already constructed and placed on a timed scheduled. Now I’m going to have to reprogram those as well and that might just be more trouble than it’s worth.” He picked up his chair and sunk down on it with a huff, facing his partner.
Jonathan made a mental note to circle back to the source of his distress, but right now he had more pressing interests with Edward’s state of mind. “Edward,” he purred. That caused the man to look up from the place on the floor his eyes were boring holes into. “Edward, you are insane.”
“Ha!” Edward shook his shoulders and slapped his knee in mock hysterics. “Good one. As much as I’m sure you’d enjoy my presence even more if that were the case, I hate to disappoint you. I’m sane.” He tapped a finger to his temple. “You don’t achieve this level of intellect by being the type of hairbrained lunatic who can’t tell up from down or the fact that they’re in Gotham City and not Wonderland.”
“Edward,” Jonathan started again. Repeating a patient’s name during treatment appealed to their individuality as well as their humanity, allowing them to better see you as someone they could trust. “I believe there are several stays at Arkham that beg to differ.”
“Well, it’s not as though I was wrongly convicted for my crimes but my insanity was certainly incorrectly deduced. I mean, I can hardly blame them. They took one look at a costumed criminal with plots more nuanced than a common mugger and blindly decided to throw me in with you lot. Everyone knows the doctors there are quacks looking to put us on any random concoction of meds that will induce a stupor powerful enough to quench our murderous impulses. I’d say the fact that none of them has achieved their goal is more evidence to back up my theory.”
Jonathan’s eyes lit up at his use of the word theory. If it was a theory, then he could conduct further tests on his hypothesis. “One might argue that they didn’t work simply because you stopped taking them. But do you think murderous impulses are sane?”
“Of course,” Edward returned easily. “Everyone has them. It’s biology. Like every apex predator that has dominated the earth before us, humans are expertly designed for one purpose—to kill. Who kills whom at the end of the day is simply a matter of survival of the fittest.”
“Hmm,” Jonathan tapped his chin as though considering his point. Edward’s features prematurely settled on smug satisfaction. “Although,” he said after a minute, watching as Edward’s face fell ever so slightly. “One could say that we’ve evolved to a point of attaining morals and ethics that separate us from any common beast. Good and evil, right and wrong. Do those rules not apply to you? Of the many indications of insanity, believing one is above the law and such rules don’t apply to them is a significant one.” Keeping his points general, focusing on what applies to others or what others might say, would allow the genius to agree to such points more readily without feeling as though he were describing himself. Until Jonathan could draw the comparison, that is.
“If the rules are nonsensical, I don’t see why I should comply. Lawmakers aren’t infallible, they’re simply the ones with enough power to ensure the rest of us bend to their will.” It was cute how he thought he was refuting Jonathan even as he proved his point so eloquently, walking straight into his web. “It’s not as if I’m on par with the likes of the Joker. That clown kills for the fun of it with complete disregard for any rules, not an ounce of rhyme or reason. It’s like humanity is a joke to him and he intends to extinguish any sign of it.” He shuddered slightly. Jonathan hated the clown as much as the next rogue, but Edward despised him. He wondered how much of it was because the two were compared regularly enough that Edward had a speech at the ready to explain the difference between a riddle and a joke. “At least I believe some people are worth saving.”
“So you have your own rules then.”
“Yes, thank you. The next step of evolution is surely evolving to the point of no longer relying on others to tell you how to think or conduct yourself.”
“Surely. Now these compulsions—I’m sorry, these rules,” Jonathan continued, delighting in the way Edward’s eyes narrowed. “Do you believe others should follow them as well?”
Despite his glaring suspicion, Edward’s answer was confident. “Should? Yes. Would or could? No. Most civilians are nothing more than idiotic lemmings with no willpower to look beyond their own useless lives at the way existence should be. It’s not their fault, really. Like children they’ve been trained to rely on those more knowledgeable than them so they lack the capacity to think logically and act rationally. Instead they follow whatever fodder they’re told is right, not what actually is.”
“I see,” Jonathan said with calculated warmth. “Yes, it’s hard for many to follow rules of such a… complex nature. Especially rules that only one man seems to possess.” He saw a flash of defiance in Edward’s eyes and continued quickly, not allowing time for his response. “Plus, not everyone is as effective a rule breaker as you and I. Tell me, could you break your own rules as flagrantly?”
This time, Edward faltered in his response. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“Well, breaking the law is one thing. One thing you’re very good at, I would add.” No sense in not laying it on thick at this point, and he saw Edward heat subtly at the praise. “Breaking your own rules is another. So could you do it? Say, build a circuit board to near perfection rather than exact precision? Or perhaps, refuse to leave a clue behind for Batman after one of your heists?”
Jonathan eyes held a glint of victory. The answer was no, and they both knew it. Edward had been ridiculed for it both in and out of Arkham, by costumed rogues and costumed foes, by the media on late-night talk shows and on the covers of the Gotham Gazette. His schemes were grand, smarter than most cared to admit, and if he could just get over the need to leave behind clues and scavenger hunts leading the Bat directly to his safe house or control room, he could very well be a contender for one of the leading minds amongst Gotham’s finest. But he couldn’t. He was ruled by his compulsions, as is the nature of them. He was victim to his mind just as Joker was victim to his maniacal disregard for human life, just as Jonathan was victim to his psychological obsession with fear that drove him to commit untold acts of terror.
“What exactly are you getting at?” he asked flatly, not admitting defeat but not denying it either.
Jonathan stood from his desk and walked towards Edward like a predator stalking its prey. There he stood over his partner, the man craning his neck to look up at him, and he held in a wistful sigh. This was exactly how Jonathan liked him. His mind working in overdrive as it teetered off its track, his eyes widened like a deer in headlights as he returned the gaze—frozen in place, unable to look away. He wasn’t afraid of Jonathan in the traditional sense, at least not right now, but he was certainly afraid of the implications behind what Jonathan was about to say.
“My dear,” he said, using a finger to guide Edward’s chin upwards still, “I’m saying that you are insane in every sense of the word.”
“But I—”
“Edward, you are insane. I’ve seen it. I enjoy it. And you’re right, my pet.” He gripped Edward’s chin in his hand forcefully this time—nowhere for him to run, nowhere to hide—and bent down, bringing his face so close to Edward’s that their noses were practically touching. His breath hitched deliciously. “It makes me crave you more desperately than I already do.”
Then he leaned in and kissed Edward with a bruising force, pushing his tongue into Edward’s mouth who opened to receive it. At first he felt Edward stiffen, likely planning to defend his sanity further, but when Jonathan’s other hand tangled in the hair just beneath the base of his skull and yanked, he melted into the kiss like putty.
The two quickly became breathless but when Edward made to pull away so they could come up for air, Jonathan growled into his mouth and pushed his chair up against the desk behind him so he could pin him there more effectively. He felt Edward shiver and didn’t need to glance down to know he was hard—Jonathan was too. For him, the entire conversation had been the most effective form of foreplay. Nothing turned him on more than dissecting the minds of his patients.
Edward began to moan into the kiss, his hands making their way to Jonathan’s hips and pulling him between his now spread legs. That’s when Jonathan smirked and pulled away, both of them gasping for air. He loved the sound it drew from Edward, like he could hardly bear the loss. He looked up at Jonathan once again, eyes pleading for more. Jonathan didn’t hold back his sigh this time. He could watch Edward peer at him through the lashes of his half-lidded eyes, pupils blown and begging for him, all day. But he needed to make his point first.
“Your weakness is not in your insanity itself—it’s in viewing your insanity as your weakness,” Jonathan said once his breathing slowed and his voice returned to him. “You’ve achieved such brilliance because of it. You’ve turned your insanity into a weapon against others instead of falling at its feet.” He brought a hand to Edward’s flushed cheek and ran his thumb across the expanse of freckles lovingly. “It’s a gift. That you’re able to use it to your advantage so beautifully makes you a force to reckon with. It makes you strong. You don’t need to run from it like a creature with your tail tucked between your legs when you can embrace it and make others run from it instead.”
Edward’s face would be hard to read for anyone else, but Jonathan had studied it in just about every state of being. His features were overcome with an almost overwhelming defiance—at being told who he was, at being forced to confront what he wanted to avoid, at being unable to resist the accusation. There was an anger burning in his eyes with such fire that his gaze was almost scalding. But there was a coldness to the look as well, distancing himself from Jonathan and his words. Behind his indignation, being protected by it, Jonathan could see his fractured ego—and a strong desire to retreat and lick his wounds.
Even though Jonathan was sure Edward knew his words to be true deep down, he had spent a lifetime telling himself otherwise. A lifetime attempting to deny what everyone told him was true. But everyone who had told Edward he was crazy before had done it as a hateful insult or derogatory remark, as a diagnosis to lock him up and justify medical malpractice and experimental torture. Jonathan hoped he could see the difference.
“If it helps,” he said, placing a kiss on his partner’s forehead, “you’re in good company. The way that beautiful mind works is the reason I’m here. Because it’s twisted just like mine.” Misery might make good company, but Jonathan would argue that insanity made much better company—whether the genius agreed with his assessment or not. “But that’s just my professional opinion,” he added.
At that, the cool detachment in Edward’s eyes seemed to thaw and a small smile tugged at his lips. “I’m still not entirely convinced you didn’t forge your license, you know,” he muttered haughtily.
Jonathan hummed with satisfaction at the attempted insult, knowing he’d ultimately succeeded in his goal. “Then allow me to express my unprofessional opinion as well,” he murmured as he leaned down to capture Edward’s lips once more.