'Don't Let Go'
Characters: Riddler, Scarecrow [not Scriddler]
Synopsis: hermannco told me, upon hearing I had never written a fic where Scarecrow dies, that I should write one where Riddler and Scarecrow die together.
That had not gone well.
Upon receiving news that one of the more unstable inhabitants of the Asylum had escaped and, somewhere during a lot of delusional ranting, had declared the institution haunted and cursed and a whole lot of other things that quite honestly made no sense, Edward had declared it was time to go and promptly unlocked the cell door. These were two of a considerable handful of reasons Jonathan put up with living with him: he always knew what was going on at any given time and he could pick locks. Jonathan could also pick locks, if he had a lot of spare picks and about ten minutes. He usually had neither.
"What did she tell you," Jonathan had hissed, though he was not really arguing about an excuse to get out of there. Jonathan had seen him conversing with an aide in the hallway and wanted to know what she'd tipped him off about. Edward had glanced down the hallway.
"Said there was a bomb threat."
"We get one of those every damn day."
Edward had raised an eyebrow. "True. But we don't evacuate the upper floors every day."
"So all of the main thoroughfares are accounted for."
"That's right."
Jonathan had taken a long-suffering breath. He hated basement escapes.
"I don't like them either. But it's either that or we sit nicely in our cells until someone comes around to give us time off for good behaviour."
Jonathan had then snorted. "When does that ever actually happen?"
Edward had shrugged and started walking. "I'm well-behaved all the time and I never get my sentence reduced."
Jonathan had had to concede the point there, because as annoying and incendiary as Edward could be, he was not a man who started fights or caused inordinate amounts of trouble. Some, it was true, but far less than most.
They had then made their way down to the basement via a scarcely lit emergency stairwell, Edward chattering on nonstop with Jonathan listening with feigned disinterest. If he let on that he was paying attention Edward would never let him hear the end of it, but the man had what seemed to be an infinite font of knowledge and despite himself Jonathan was impressed by this every time he got going. He had actually been considering asking after something Edward had said when there was some quantity of thunder and shaking above them, and Edward had stopped with one scarred hand wrapped around the peeling railing and looked above them.
"This time it was real," he had said, in an almost reverent way.
"It's the time for haste, I think," Jonathan had advised, and Edward had nodded and set down the stairs faster than before.
Jonathan wasn't quite able to piece together the next part. All he knew was that it was very dark, and he was pinned under a cavalcade of plaster and concrete. He didn't think he was otherwise too badly off, except that he had avoided death by skull cave-in only to probably suffocate alone in the basement stairwell. The Asylum was big enough that there would be several floors of aboveground rubble to sort through before anyone had the chance to get to the basement levels. He tried to move experimentally, but there was no feeling below his waist and when he reached into the darkness his hand came up against a rough, hard surface no farther down than his thighs. His upper legs had been crushed but something had given in his spine, which was really rather lucky. His left arm was lightly jammed underneath something and he decided to leave it for now. The part of his back he could feel was very painful and he didn't need to add an arm to the mix. He would wait that one out.
He didn't know if Edward was still alive. He hoped not. Edward was prone to extreme overreaction and it would be a mercy to the both of them if he hadn't made it.
His thoughts were interrupted when Edward cried out suddenly, and Jonathan was not so impersonal this didn't jar him. He sighed in disappointment and immediately had to struggle not to choke on the dust he inhaled in the process.
"What is it," he asked, if only as a distraction. They were stuck down here, but they didn't have to dwell on it.
It took Edward a moment to answer. "A lot," he said through strained breaths. "Something went through my leg."
Edward was going to bleed out, then. Jonathan honestly wasn't sure who had gotten the better end of the deal. Suffocation hadn't been on Jonathan's list of ways to go out, but Edward was going to be in excruciating pain right up until the end. Jonathan couldn't move his legs, but he couldn't feel them either. And that was just one wound Edward had incurred; he may well have multiple injuries that were vastly overshadowed by his impalement. Perhaps, though, that was a mercy in itself. One point of suffering was easier to manage than multiple ones.
"I'm sorry," Edward whispered.
Jonathan shook his head, instantly aware of what he was apologising for and not needing to hear it. Jonathan had made the decision to follow him, after all. "We would hardly have been better off in the cell block. Now is the last of times for what-ifs."
"That's... nice of you to say."
Jonathan closed his eyes. He didn't know why he'd been keeping them open in the first place. He didn't know where his glasses were and it was far too dark to see even if he had them. "Did you expect me to amplify and expound upon your pre-death anxiety until you ultimately lost consciousness, arguably scared to death?"
"Kind of," Edward said after a moment. "The average mortal wound takes… ah… twenty minutes to cause traumatic blood loss, and I'm sure you could… mmnh… more than do your thing by then."
"I could do that," Jonathan said in answer, "but I'm not so petty. Towards someone who I really don't like, perhaps. All things considered, you're not that bad a person to die beside."
"Thanks… ?"
It wasn't quite silent, of course; the air was filled with the settling of crumbling concrete and the faint wail of sirens and Edward's laboured breaths. He was actually keeping himself controlled enough that Jonathan was impressed. He had expected to bear witness – somewhat – to one of the man's legendary breakdowns, but Jonathan supposed imminent death could severely influence someone's usual reaction to trauma. That, and he knew Edward held a great deal of respect towards him he probably hoped was mutual. It was. But Jonathan would never tell him that.
"Will you do one favour for me, Jonathan?" Edward asked, his voice very quiet. Jonathan wondered how much of that twenty minutes he had left. And what favour he could possibly do the man in that time.
"Circumstances permitting."
"Will you hold my hand?"
Jonathan was so confused that he opened his eyes again. He blinked into the dark momentarily.
"If… you can find it, I suppose that would be all right."
"I can – " His words were cut off by pained whimpering. Jonathan let him have a minute, then said as casually as possible,
"Edward? You can what."
"I… I can see it," Edward managed. "My glasses didn't break."
And they had infrared capabilities in them. At least Edward didn't have to suffer in the dark. "Well, go ahead, then."
It took him a moment to even realise that Edward had; the hand that now grasped his was far colder than even Jonathan's. Edward had always had a sort of… vibrant liveliness that was not at all belied by his touch now. Jonathan knew, of course, why it was cold – blood loss led to lack of flow in the extremities – but knowing and experiencing were two entirely different things. The hand, Jonathan noted with detached attention, was wet. Edward's blood now marked his skin up to his wrist. The first time Jonathan had had blood on his hands by request.
"But why," Jonathan had to ask after a moment. It was a somewhat odd thing to ask for. They weren't such close acquaintances that hand-holding had been in the cards for the future. Not that he'd known of, anyway. Edward's hand pressed a little more firmly, but he didn't answer.
Ah, but he already knew what it was. Edward just did not want to admit it. Jonathan considered the darkness. He could play the gentle psychiatrist one last time, why not. There was nothing to be gained from wanton cruelty nor from wilful ignorance here.
"Are you afraid?" Jonathan asked, as kindly as he remembered how. Edward's breath shuddered, leading his hand to twitch. His silence was the most unnerving thing about this situation, and when it continued Jonathan decided a little prodding was in order. "You can tell me. It's all right. No one will know."
"Yes," Edward whispered. Jonathan nodded, more out of habit than anything else.
"It's very dark, isn't it."
"It is."
"And it's getting very cold, isn't it."
"Yes."
Jonathan's thumb meandered over the bones of Edward's dusty hand. "Thinking is no doubt becoming difficult as well. And all of those things scare you. Don't they."
"Yes."
"The fear is not your fault, nor is it really anything you can combat," Jonathan said, as soothingly as he could. "It's a chemical reaction urging you to remove yourself from mortal peril. It's mechanical, uninfluenced by your conscious self. Your body doesn't know it can't run away, to put it bluntly."
"That's kind of… reassuring," Edward whispered.
"Good."
Edward was clumsily trying to put something into Jonathan's hand without letting go of it, and Jonathan managed to pull his free arm out of the rubble in order to grasp it. Edward's glasses. They were unfolded and warm, both from Edward's usage of them and from yet more drying blood. It was fuzzy, but he could see the spots on the glowing lenses where the redness marred them.
"Thank you," Jonathan said graciously. Edward no doubt believed they would be helpful to him in some way, and far be it from Jonathan to refute a dying man's beliefs. He folded them against his chest with his free hand and kept them there, fingers wrapped around the heavy frames.
"You know I… I always respected…" Edward's coughing was weak. Jonathan hoped to whoever was listening he did not have a punctured lung and that Edward just had dust in his throat. Drowning in one's own blood had to be among the worst ways to die.
"I do." He took a long breath in hesitation, then decides to break his earlier thought. "And it's mutual."
"Really …?"
"Yes."
"Jon, don't… don't let… don't…" Jonathan wasn't sure where he was getting the breath to speak. He was no doubt well into the shutdown process caused by extreme blood loss. His increasing inability to think, to reason, must have been terrifying. Jonathan didn't blame him at all. He didn't believe Edward still had feeling in his hand but he firmed his own around it anyway. It was the thought that counted.
"I won't let go."
Jonathan searched the darkness for something to latch onto as he listened to Edward's straining breaths, which were steadily spacing farther apart. He had no idea if Edward was still conscious, but in case he was Jonathan said, softly, "It's all right, Edward."
He'd never expected nor planned to be in the position of having to decide whether or not he wanted to comfort a dying man, but here he was. And he was glad of it, somehow; it was good to know he was still capable of such things. He had long since been content with his position in life, no matter how heartless other people saw him as being. But on rare occasions he had had to ask if he had lost himself in that creation he had conjured to save his life all those years ago, and he hadn't had an answer until now. Late, but not too late. And it seemed Edward had seen that, somehow; no matter how upset or scared he had been, he would not have asked Jonathan to take his hand had he not been sure of the answer.
Edward's fingers in one hand and his glasses in the other. He supposed he could put the glasses on, but he doubted there was anything to see in here, other than his own trapped legs and Edward's lifeless fingers. Besides, he was beginning to feel a bit tired. He'd keep his eyes closed and rest. No one was coming and he wasn't going to be able to go anywhere.
Someone would come, eventually. Dig the two of them out of the rubble and exclaim over how they had been found. People would make inferences about this, ask questions and overanalyse every interaction and conversation Jonathan and Edward had ever had. Search them for proof of something that really wasn't there. Jonathan considered, vaguely, letting go and sliding the glasses into the limp fingers to hide the evidence. Oh, but what did that matter. Why did he care about erroneous conjecture postulated after he was dead? He knew and Edward had known this was a friend doing a friend a favour, known that Edward had just wanted irrefutable reassurance that he was not alone as he died. And it brought him an odd comfort, somehow, this hand in his. The mind had left the body, so to speak, but it still felt nice in some intangible way.
It was harder for him to breathe, now; he too was beginning to feel the pressure to breathe too fast and too shallow, but he merely told himself what he'd told Edward – biological reactions such as this were extremely difficult to waylay – and kept as much control as he could. He wasn't afraid, not in the slightest. He knew his higher brain function would very soon begin to cease, and the ability to worry about all of this – not that he was worried – would be impossible. He thought he was shivering a little, but couldn't tell because of the numbness from below his waist. Logic dictated he was. He had to press his elbow into the ground now and again to make sure he hadn't moved his hand. It was important that he not do that, though he had no recollection as to why. He was falling asleep despite some awful pain in his chest, and it was a relief. It was peaceful. He didn't mind it, any of it.
It really was all right after all.
Author's note
I don't even know what this is.