Disclaimer: I do not own Batman or Jonathan Crane. No copyright infringement intended, all rights go to their respected owners!
Times like these made Jonathan wish Scarecrow hadn't gone into hiding. Lightning flashed, lighting the sky with a natural firework effect imprinted on Jonathan's brain. Electricity splayed across the horizon like a monster coming into the light from beyond the shadows.
Sweat began to bead on his forehead and his heart pulsed, thumping and pumping erratically with a deafening ring that reached his ears. Cold fingers rested on his temples, desperately massaging despite the ongoing storm around the old house. He was utterly trapped within his small room with the peeling wallpaper and the ratty old wood. It was cramped and small, filled with only a bed and a dresser. His personal hell.
Thunder boomed overhead, accompanying the lightning like a husband following his wife, two partners in a deadly dance of deadly scientific porportion. They stole away Jonathan's senses and replaced them with pure, fixated fear. The eight year old dove under the covers in retaliation, desperately pulling the flimsy shts around him and praying that the moth-eaten material would protect him.
"Stop it!" Jonathan pleaded pathetically in a whisper yell that made him feel weaker than he already did.
As he continued to plead and bargain with the storm, he was sorely reminded of the bullies in school who would always shove him into the old broom closet. To be honest, it wouldn't have been so bad if the place didn't have the suspicious smell that was far too similar to a dead body for his liking. The flashes of lightning sent him into a spiral of memories in which the flickering light inside the closet doomed him to unforgiving darkness for whole minutes at a time before someone had unwillingly felt the need to acknowledge his absence and let him out.
Another clap of thunder roared like a lion taking his kingdom. It reminded him of the horrid sound of Granny's cane against anything as she used it to struggle her frail, dying body around (and when she used it to strike him at the side of his head). She could be quite strong when she saw it fit to be.
Long story short, Jonathan hated thunder and lightning.
BOOM!
Yet another horrifying display of power by Mother Nature gave way in the form of light and sound. Jonathan was convinced Mother Nature was a worse force than even his own mother had been (and even Granny).
He let out a yelp of fear that delivered a much louder sound than he had originally anticipated. Jonathan's body went rigid as he strained his ears trying to ignore everything that was happening outside. Within a few moments, his ears caught the awful knocking of her cane against the creaking, rotting wood of the house. They were well on their way to nothing, wasting away even as they inhabited the place. Within less than thirty ticks of the clock (he counted, it was precisely twenty-three), she and her cane had made it to his door.
He had been hoping for a convenient heart attack.
A crack louder than thunder erupted in his eardrums as she used to cane to burst open his rickety door. It swung open and revealed her in a nightdress and "God's holy glory," a dark mass of power that he would attribute more to the likes of a devil than an angel.
"Granny, I-I'm... I'm sorry..." he sputters out, feeling the stinging of salty tears against the cut on his cheek that he aquired the day before.
She descended upon him like the crows in the dilapidated church had, talon-like claws that only knew how to harm, not help. The lightning and thunder only added to his horror as she quickly drew closer with her cane out. Like he had been reminded earlier, she reached out and struck him, the end of the cane connecting to his skull with a sickening crack! The accuracy of her knowing hand was surprising, especially in the dark.
Jonathan knew better than to keep his eyes open by now and settled for falling back onto his bed and lying completely still. His acting skills were better than he anticipated as he waited for her to just go away.
Even as the rainstorm raged, he willed hiself to stay still. Flashes of lightning were prominent behind his eyelids and thunder made him retreat into himself but physically,he didn not move a muscle. He was well aware that she stood and watched him with her hawk eyes, too much like a bird (so much that he thought she was related to them).
Satisfied, he heard her begin to retreat, poking Jonathan hard in the ribs before she was out of reach, for good measure of course. Jonathan fought the urge to roll over and favor the offended area (he had tears welling up behind his eyes in pain) but didn't, and bit the inside of his cheek instead. Scarecrow had taught him that. He did this until he could no longer hear the heavy footsteps on the old wood.
However, he found that even long after she had gone back to bed, he was no longer able to move his body willingly. Jonathan was paralyzed against the bed, cursed to stone by the terror that wracked mercilessly at his young brain, barely able to wrap his brain around the experience in its entirety.
The sheets were drenched in sweat and then all of a sudden, another event occurred that made his cheeks flare up in a bright red. He would have to hurry and wash the sheets or hide them before Granny saw. She always scolded him, telling him that he was far too old to wet the bed. This confused him because she punished him for it when he was younger, too. It was unacceptable and entirely embarrassing, but he couldn't hide from himself. At least Scarecrow wasn't here to know, he couldn't handle to commentary.
The shame ate at him like a knawed hole being eaten around the edges by flesh-eating maggots. He was a shameful boy, a fearful boy, and a disgraceful one. Even a silly little rainstorm had gotten the best of him.
There was nothing he could do except wait out the storm, horrified and terrorized by the natural events that plagued him even after the rain had stopped. Hi other choice was to fall asleep, but this was a lot less likely to happen. Nightmares might make Granny come back in again. Whichever came first though.
The soiled sheets and tear stained pillow did nothing to help his circumstances. His shaking in fear made him uncomfortable as thoughts raced across his mind too quickly to comprehend. He hated this. He hated this. He really really wished Scarecrow were here.
But Scarecrow didn't like thunder and lightning either.