Work Text:
Jonathan Crane hates Fridays at the Asylum.
It’s idiotic. Under new leadership, staff were allowed to wear casual wear every Friday. Everyone still had to be covered up, of course, but starched shirts and pressed blouses were exchanged for looser shirts. Slacks were exchanged for jeans.
Jonathan finds the whole thing ridiculous. What is this, the back of a skate shop? He’s not going to be swapping out his neat blazers and carefully ironed shirts for any of the atrocities his idiotic colleagues manage to wear into work every Friday. It’s earned him quite a bit of teasing from his colleagues.
Like, from you. And right now.
“Still refusing to wear casuals, Jonathan?” You laugh as you push open the break room and eye his attire. He’s wearing a neat brown suit today, tie done up in Windsor knot. Given his classes hadn’t started yet, he had had extra time in the morning to press out the creases in his clothes. It was routine. Clean, efficient. He looked poised and polished, not like some third rate ruffian.
“Dr. Crane.” Jonathan corrects the use of his name, stiff, eyeing you over the rim of his mug. The coffee wafting from the inky pit just below his mouth does little to soothe his irritation at your presence. “And no, I will not be…indulging.”
The use of that particular word seems to be drawing another laugh from you. “Indulge? It’s like you’re talking about a vice and not about wearing comfortable clothes. The cardinal sins: drinking, smoking, and wearing Levis to work.” You cackle to yourself. Jonathan’s eye twitches. Out of all his colleagues, he wasn’t sure he’d ever come to stomach your…effusiveness.
“I don’t care what the rest of you might choose to do.” He says. “I simply won’t be partaking.”
“Suit yourself.” You shrug, and turn your back to him, leaning over a file cabinet to pull out information for your next patient. Jonathan takes the time to finally look up and study you, free from your gaze that always seems to see too much. You’re wearing a loose gray sweater, one of those ones that hang off one shoulder just a bit if you tilt over to one side. He can see a strip of flesh, a neat slope curling from the elegant stripe of your throat. There’s something written on your sweater–he can’t see it though, the fabric covered by the file cabinet. His eyes drop down, catching sight of those damnable jeans, and drifting down to your regulation boots–
Wait.
His eyes shift back up to your jeans (the classic blue, he notes) and focuses on the back pockets. Coincidentally, your ass. He’s not looking at your ass. Definitely not, given how the material seems to grip every inch of your skin–
No, he’s looking at the decorations on your back pockets. A flash of black fabric, stitched meticulously into the denim…in the shape of bats.
Particularly, Batman’s logo.
A flurry of complex emotions well up inside him. At the forefront is irritation. Even here, within the sanctity of his work place, that idiot manages to permeate. Like an awful fungus. But somewhere internally, he’s feeling some type of way of seeing fucking Batman’s symbol stretched across each globe of your ass, and he’s internally cursing whoever decided to make jeans. Did they have to be so damnably tight? He can catch the glint of silver hardware at the corners of the pockets, catching the light from the fluorescents dangling above. He has a sudden, irrational desire to rub his fingers against the metal piece.
He takes a long sip from his coffee, eyes fixated. The warm liquid pools in his mouth, the familiar taste offering some normalcy in the midst of confusing feelings. He’s about to swallow, and promptly chokes when his view of you bent over is replaced with you turning around and raising a brow.
“Were you looking at my ass?” You ask.
“No!” Jonathan sputters, using his hands to wipe away the dribble of coffee that’s traced down his chin. He must look like a mess, hurriedly taking the handkerchief (brown plaid, to match his suit) in one of his pockets to wipe himself clean. “I mean, I wasn’t–”
“You were!” You say, a smile stretching across those lips, a note of delight on your features. He’s not quite sure if he wants to shake you or growl at you, why on earth would you be delighted with a man staring at your ass.
“I wasn’t.” He hisses back, a defensive flush creeping along his neck and up to his cheeks. “Your back pockets, you have–” He makes a vague motion.
“Ohh.” You say, as though that makes it better. “Yeah, I customized them. Neat, right? A little tribute to the Dark Knight.” You turn, pulling up the hem of your sweater, and do a little wiggle to show off the delicate embroidery, stark black against a smooth blue canvas.
Jonathan tries really hard not to think about the fact that he’s looking at your rear very intently once again.
He’s not sure he likes fucking Batman having a tribute on your ass, but he doesn’t voice that aloud. He’s already embarrassed himself for the day.
“I didn’t take you to be a fan of the Batman, Dr. Crane.” You say, finally turning back to face him, those awful back pockets finally out of view. He finds that he can think again.
“I’m not.” He says, wry. Of all the things, he would not be a fan of some idiot running around in a mask trying to save Gotham.
You raise a brow, amused. The question seems to be on the tip of your tongue, and based on the way he scowls, he knows what you’re going to ask.
If he wasn’t a fan of the Batman, why was he staring at your jeans, then?
“Hmm.” You say, instead. There’s a slight curl to one of the edges of your lips that makes him tense–he’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not. “Well, I should get back to work. Have a good day, Dr. Crane.”
He’s relieved by your departure, eager to shove this whole interaction into a crevice of his brain and never think about it again. But as you reach the doorway, you turn, face crinkling into a Cheshire smirk over the file you hold in sweater-clad hands. “Let me know when you clock off, Jonathan. I’ll even let you feel them.”
The door clicks shut behind you, your triumphant face the last thing he sees. He doesn’t even realize he didn’t scold you for not using his proper title.
Jonathan groans, head looking up at the ceiling, and tries very hard not to think about how he hates casual Fridays.
Fucking jeans.