I promised this for crowscrow, for their continued and brilliant work on 'Black & White' a while back but due to illness didn't get around to it until now.

This fic is just going to be a place for unconnected oneshots of Jonathan/Jervis that I write. There is a second longer, and in my opinion much better, story coming in a day or two if you're reading this when it first goes up. If you have any ideas for further Jonathan/Jervis stories, just leave them in a review. Due to circumstances, I might not be able to do them, but if a prompt particularly grabs me, I'll write it for you. I don't find writing stories for publishing here particularly easy, but I like to share what I can.

"No." Jonathan firmly refused.

Jervis' grinning enthusiasm was dented slightly, but he lackadaisically continued, ""Did you say, "What a pity?"" No? Well, no croquet for you then. I suppose I misjudged the value of salvaging your chemicals." And he seemed ready to drop the whole thing.

Such a weak ploy. "Of course I want the chemicals – what else would you do with them? – but not at that price." Jonathan gruffly refused, arms folded and his gaze turned away to the incessant rain driving itself down into the ground outside as if it had a death wish.

Glumly, the Mad Hatter turned his attention to the long, hare-eared aliceband he held in his hands, perfectly sized for Jonathan's head. His hope was dwindling, and frankly he didn't have another use for the half-full crates of chemicals Jonathan had previously been synthesising that were currently stored in the garage of his hideout. No use except extracting favours from his beloved March Hare.

But Jonathan did want the crates; he'd paid practically all he had at the time for those supplies, and without any resources to pull off a heist for more money, he was stuck in Catch 22 unless he could somehow get these from Jervis. He didn't want to cheat his lover, the one person left in this life he could actually trust, either. "...Can't we just..." The Master of Fear awkwardly offered, "you know... share a bed, for a bit?" He could sometimes be such a prude talking about sex that it made Jervis grin again.

"As delightful as you offering to whore yourself out to me is, Jonathan darling," The blonde paused to savour Jonathan's sour scowl, because he hadn't meant it like that; it wasn't like that, just physical, between them, "what I desire is company, conversation, and not just in bed. "I do wish they WOULD put their heads down! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!"" Once again, he brandished the March Hare ears, the proposition of a full tea party together. It practically always ended up in sex anyway, so Jonathan had been hoping to simply jump directly to that.

"If you want conversation, you should turn yourself in to Arkham. The doctors there always want to talk." Jonathan remarked snidely.

Jervis scowled darkly, his temper currently quite volatile, but then went on in careless irritation, "Oh, very well then! I'll keep the chemicals, and I'll experiment with them myself. Can't be that hard," He said airily, walking through to the lounge of this very nice house he'd taken from a mind-controlled social recluse; "I'm a good cook after all. And I did get an A for A2 Chemistry."

This sounded dangerous, and Jonathan didn't have a clue if that was a good qualification in England or not. He didn't trust Jervis with all those acids and alkali in a less lucid mood, the kinds of tea he might try to make from them, or some kind of growing potion. "Not that he couldn't do with a, 'DRINK ME' potion..." And he would do it, make something dangerous that is, deliberately. Jervis would get himself nearly killed to guilt Jonathan for not going along with this simple, innocent little request of his. With a sigh, and another glance at the lashing rain outside he didn't fancy trudging through, the Scarecrow went after his small partner's socken heels. "...Fine." He hissed out. "Fine. Give me the ears, no photos; I'll stay until the rain stops."

Jervis beamed like the sun, proffering the aliceband gracefully as a little tremor of frabjous joy shook his system. He had been so very alone for such a long time hiding away here, experimenting and tinkering.

The brunette snatched the stupid ears, disdainfully trying not to acknowledge the fact he was placing such a juvenile thing on his head. "God of Fear crossed with some damn playboy bunny..." Still, considering how most people responded to his physical appearance, perhaps there was some worth of creepiness in-

The ears moved.

"The ears move." Jonathan enunciated each word in a clear hiss.

The Mad Hatter clapped his hands with glee, seeing Marchie's ears flatten out to the sides at first when he slipped them on, then rise up straight and out of sight when he tried to look up at them with distasteful curiosity. "They do! They work! Callooh! Callay!" He giggled madly with ecstasy. "They work like hay for feeling faint!"

Again the ears flattened out as Jonathan scowled – he guessed they were responding to his mood somehow – before he wrenched the things off to glare as they held their bird-like position even when removed. "New adjustment?" He asked the little inventor, knowing this was well within Jervis' intellectual remit – and more sadly his interests – and also noting there appeared to be a second band of thin scarlet plastic attached to the outer layer of reddy-brown aliceband meant to match his hair colour.

Jervis chuckled. ""I'm a great hand at inventing things."" His hands gently pushed Jonathan's larger, spindly ones back towards his face, encouragingly. "They track nerve impulses that go to the muscles controlling your eyebrows – given how expressive such a feature is on the human face. The ears ought to mirror your expression, although," He wagged a finger playfully, "if you practice with them, you'll be able to control the ears alone, without needing to move your eyebrows."

"Wonderful." Jonathan flatly said, donning the ears once more and feeling them rise as his eyebrows did out of curiosity for the design. He couldn't deny the technical theory was impressive, even if the application was lacking in his opinion.

"And if you master that," The Mad Hatter went on, "you'd be able to use my proper mind control band on humans, without the mimicking problem you had before."

Once before, bored and trapped for the night together, Jonathan had been allowed to try Jervis' technology out on a stray dog they'd found inhabiting the disused restaurant they set up residence in. With a 10/6 card for high-intelligence animals – the Mad Hatter had many varieties – Jonathan had found he could only get the dog to mimic what he did, be that moving about or barking when he tried to speak. To control a being separately was a more complicated, mental equivalent of rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. Every time he learnt more about the lucid genius Jervis Tetch, Dr. Crane was astounded. Jervis ought to be helped into constant sanity for his work, but it too would be refused on the ethical grounds of controlling other human beings now. If the world wouldn't give him a use to be sane, he might as well be mad.

Still, these ears... "Training band, huh?"

"I ought to market them," Jervis shrugged; "'My first mind control' hm?" Being with Jonathan tended to induce a surprising degree of lucidity in him, enough for his wry, little quips.

The inventor watched as Jonathan tried to move them independently, only succeeding in making them twitch and jerk before they frowned with his face.

"Six o'clock, time for tea!" The blonde grabbed his beloved's hand and jerked, leading off towards the kitchen. With the March Hare pushed into a seat to wait, Jervis went about gathering this and that, preparing what one needed to for a tea party. He'd obviously thought he wouldn't have much luck in securing his guest or else everything would probably be set on the table already.

So Jonathan sat and watched his best friend busying about in a beamish mood. It was a rare sight, but with all things going the way that Jervis wanted and someone here he actually shared love with, there wasn't the usual fear that propelled him into Wonderland or to acting out like an angry, terrified child. Pragmatophobia... Jervis didn't need to fear reality being all there was to life when his reality was actually pleasant enough.

Everyone had it to a degree, in the way humans delude themselves a little, close their eyes to the things of the world they can't face. People don't want to believe their life can go badly, that the world – or God – would let them suffer.

The reason Jervis' had developed into a full-blown phobia of having to live only in the real world without imagination and stories – things he has control over – remained always a half-solved fascination to Jonathan.

And an irritation.

Acknowledging his fascination in the fear of the one human being he could and did love was the one time that Jonathan Crane did perhaps feel that his interest in fear might be a little unhealthily obsessive. That he couldn't stop studying Jervis' fears, when it seemed the done thing not to gain control over a lover by analysis of their fears, signalled compulsion. With every other being he encountered, to find their fear, their controls therefore, was an unthought first move. Rule one. Step one: You learnt about your opponent before confrontation, and everyone was against you until they proved otherwise. But Jervis had proven otherwise, and still Jonathan pried into his past, the roots, mulled the fear over in his mind those times he woke at 2am because The Joker had blown something up five streets away.

"But!" Scarecrow was cooing in a hiss. "But it's such a rare fear! Such a beautiful fear!"

And Jervis didn't ever raise objections to being questioned upon it, in his lucid times when he knew full well the potential price of doing so. The times they lay awake, bare but for a sheet or perhaps Jervis' peacoat, half of a night, trading intimacies and feelings they wouldn't even admit to themselves. Those nights were... strange times. Delusion, pleasure and uncertainty, a heady mix of love.

But that was one of the many reasons he could feel love for Jervis; the troubled blonde understood the incredible importance of his research, aided him in it. And Jonathan was happy to return the favour.

In principle.

When it didn't involve goddamn hare ears. Or losing all control of his body physically, while his mind remained trapped and awake inside. It was genius, somehow using the mind's natural movement inhibitor that activates for most during sleep to prevent the carded person moving their own body while Jervis could still direct them. It was also highly unpleasant, but in Gotham the two tended to go together.

"How are the ears?" Jervis asked conversationally, setting the milk jug on the table. "Now, be careful not to upset that, Marchie; Alice won't be very pleased when she has to move down one if you upset it AGAIN." He gave this instruction in all sincerity, or was a very good actor. Jervis had once told of his brief fling of interest with acting during secondary school. Just one of those normal things lurking beneath them now.

Jonathan rolled his eyes, glad there was no Alice at this party, especially not him. "Distracting. They might be very quiet, but their weight causes me the need to keep adjusting my head for comfort." Even now, he kept wanting to touch them, adjust them manually but trying to do so would cause his expression to change slightly into annoyance and the furry appendages would slip out of his hands as he grasped at them.

The inventor in Jervis considered them seriously with his sharp, cornflower blue eyes, before his usual dreamy, mad sparkle returned, "But you do look so awfully good in them, Jonathan darling! You simply must keep them on!" He wandered off, for whatever else was going to populate this tea party table. "And I insist upon seeing them whilst we make love; I'll have to top you know, keep a clearer head for the studying."

"Since when do you ever have a clear head?" Jonathan muttered to himself.

"Oh, and we must take them to our safer place, you know?" The blonde went on, busying about, wagging a finger with a teasing grin. "Wouldn't do to lose them when they make you so cute as a... as a very cute thing."

The ears flattened out in deep, loathing displeasure before perking up very – rather adorably – straight at the sudden whistle of the kettle. The Mad Hatter had an old-fashioned one on the stove, and now could prepare the teapot.

Before bringing it over, Jervis got out a smartphone from a pocket of his – Lord knows where and whom it was originally from – checking something. Considering he was English, it wasn't that surprising it was the weather. "It's meant to rain until the next morning, Jonathan."

"I know." Jonathan smirked, and his ears folded slightly in a rather smug way.

Though initially surprised, Jervis began to smirk as well, bringing the tea over.