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“I gotta admit, Jonathan,” Edward chuckles, looking at a tray with two teacups beside the couch. “If you are about to drug me, you really have gotten old and way too confident in your abilities to deceive me.”
“For the last time, Ed,” Crane audibly gasps in irritation, pinching the bridge on his nose. His glasses moved up to his forehead at the gesture, adding the dramatic touch to his look. They were talking about the contents of these teacups for the past ten minutes. And all this was instead of proceeding with the therapy session they are supposed to have. “This is just tea, plain and simple. No sugar.”
“No Fear Toxin either?”
“No Feat Toxin either.”
“Then why does it smell so weird?”
Edward carefully picks one of the teacups to move it closer to his face. He carefully sniffs the mysterious brew inside, before putting everything back to the tray. To him, this has no resemblance with any tea he drank before. The content of a cup was looking dull in comparison to something like English breakfast tea. Or, at the very least, it was looking extremely diluted.
Edward may have a lot of thoughts on Jonathan’s personal qualities, but this man never left the impression of the one to brew a tea bag multiple times to save some money.
“It’s chamomile, Ed. It's supposed to look like that.” Jonathan adjusts his glasses before straightening his body up to take a look around his cabinet, like he’s looking for something to help him with this disaster of a therapy session. And why did he even think this was a good idea? “You know what? Forget it. Let’s just get back to where we started, alright? You were talking about how a guard insulted you during lunch time at the cafeteria.”
“Ah-ah-ah, doctor,” Edward shakes his head. “We still have the matter of this ‘tea’ at hand. You sure this is nothing but some herbs to calm me down a little? That you haven’t tampered with it in any way?”
“Yes, Edward. I’m sure.”
“Oh, full name,” he scoffs. “Why?”
“Why use your full name?” Jonathan grins a bit, “Maybe I want to beat you up and this is a warning.”
“No, Jon. Why chamomile?”
“It tastes good,” he shrugs. “And I got a fresh batch. Thought you might like it.”
“The Master of Fear himself is drinking chamomile tea?”
Edward bursts out laughing. Somehow the picture of Jonathan in his full Scarecrow costume, a scythe in one hand and a cup of chamomile tea in the other appears in his mind. By the time he calms himself down, his cheeks are slightly pink and swelling, and his breath is still a bit noisy.
“You know, Jonathan,” he says, still trying to regain composure. “Just for this wonderful imagery, I am willing to taste whatever witchery brew you brought to this lovely therapy session. From now on, whatever happens to my body or my mind is fully on your blood covered hands. Oh, and I hope the security camera works, or else you might just get away with killing me.”
“Now I regret that I didn't put anything in these cups.”
Edward chuckles, getting a teacup back to his hand. He takes a careful sip, freezing for a moment before swallowing it.
“This is… surprisingly pleasant.”
Instead of answering, Jonathan gets up from his chair, taking a couple of steps to close the distance with his annoying, distrustful patient. He covers Edward’s hand with his own, moving a teacup closer to his own lips, before tasting a tea himself.
“Yeah, that one is clearly full of Fear Toxin.”
“You bastard!” Edward gasps dramatically, “How could you do this to your friend?”
“And even that won’t shut you up. There are sugar packets on that tray if you need to make it sweet.”
Jonathan takes another cup from the tray before going back to his chair. Maybe now they will finally be able to continue their session.