It hurts sometimes when you're wrong, when you decide to do the wrong thing at the absolutely wrong time. Applying to work as an intern at Arkham: wrong career choice. Getting accepted to work at Arkham in spite of the fact you have literally zero experience in the field of psychology with your bachelor's degree being in biology: absolutely negligent. Having a friend pretend to be a previous boss when the asylum checks your forged references: illegal. But honestly, she didn't get officially stupid until after she agreed to temporarily take Dr. Comb's appointment with Crane. The serial killer's first attempt on Dr. Comb's life had left the man a babbling shell of his former self and the Asylum was unwilling to lose anymore of its able staff.
Why she agreed was simple. Her boss gave her no other options being short staffed on able psychologists and he felt that it would be a "learning experience." She would have altogether preferred it be someone else's experience. Crane was better known for teaching his doctor's on the "all powerful" ways of fear, often times either murdering the doctor or permanently damaging their mental capacities. An experience with Crane was a draw between a death sentence and a permanent nervous breakdown.
But temporary was temporary. Two weeks. That was it. Just two weeks, no more, no less. She would have to suck it up and get through ten weekday hour-too-long sessions of Mr. Scaryface; she'd get her paycheck and go back to treating level one wackos. Back to her gorgeously beautiful monotony.
So, instead of moping she reviewed Comb's notes. She reviewed until her eyelids drooped and her back ached from the strain of bending into the tiny scrawl. Comb's handwriting was neatly claustrophobic. She listened to half of Comb's tapes twice and went to bed. The entire load was a commitment too great to attempt.
When she woke she put on her usual white lab coat over a red turtleneck and black knee length business skirt. She wanted to at least give off the impression of professionalism or the impression of a really boring person that was not worth the mental effort of focusing on. She put her dark brown hair up in a tight bun that was leagues closer to boring when compared to her usual messy buns. To Meg's eyes she looked absolutely forgettable.
She almost considered not doing her usual makeup, but decided against it. She was overly paranoid that there might be some freaky psychology Crane would read into it if she did. According to Comb nothing escaped his notice. He noticed if your coat was wrinkled because you were late, he noticed if you were tense because of a fight, and he was deftly able to discern who the fight was with. He somehow knew what to say to make you do crazy things that ten seconds prior had seemed implausible. He was a psychotic psychic button pusher.
She decided to do a plain version of her usual makeup. Eyeliner was kept thin, usual smokey eye was regulated to a muted light tope, and lips were allowed to stay her usual professional shade of light pink. She really only had one shade of lipstick and it wasn't like her appointment with Crane was important enough to buy something even more demure.
She drank two cups of coffee black, too nervous to go further into the Arkham break-room and grab cream and sugar. It was six A.M. and it would be an hour and a half until the guards haled Jonathan Crane's ass from the morning shower rooms into a session cell.
When the first hour passed by Meg decided to head with a guard escorting her into a session room a half hour early to set up her protocol recorder and sit in her pre-practiced pose. Legs were crossed and arms were relaxed, one arm on the table and the other glued to her side. Her heart would not stop beating. She really hoped that whole "God of Fear" nonsense was bull crap otherwise he was going to know she was scared shitless. She took deep breaths. They were difficult to make. She wished she could erect a giant glass wall and turn her desk into a protective fort.
When the door finally opened Crane was escorted in by three guards and successfully chained by his feet to the table. He had angled features, a pointy nose, a pointed chin, and long lanky limbs. His hair was poorly combed and a dingy russet color. He looked up to rove his beady blue flashlight eyes all over her, absorbing everything in a quick second. He was likely the living embodiment of creepy. She nearly forgot the first line of her script with the emotional goring.
"Hello patient #14223, before we begin this session is there any particular namesake you would prefer me to refer to you as? Keep in mind as a mental health facility your options are limited to the legal realm." There was no way in hell she was going to spend the next two weeks addressing him as Scarecrow. She was not going to indulge his lunacy.
His unruly eyebrows rose. "I prefer being addressed as Dr. Crane. Although, I do not see the point in stating a preference when I know full well you will just ignore it."
His voice was calm, higher pitched than she expected. It sounded how she pictured bugs burrowing into your skull felt. When you finally noticed the extent of the damage, you were dead. She paused, trying not to make eye contact for too long. His eyes made her feel like an alien was dissecting her. She tried to think of a reason why she wouldn't call him doctor. She didn't watch much news and knew only what was in the chart on the rogue. She could only come up with one reason. "You did earn your doctorate at a real college, didn't you? This isn't another alias you go by, correct?" She nearly pulled open the chart to reread his legal name and additional titles. But to do so would undermine her credibility.
His mouth opened and then shut. His evil blue eyes never left her brown eyes. He was trying to calculate whether or not to weigh her statement as sarcastic or honest. But his irritation rose above his hesitation. "Of course I am a real doctor who earned my very real doctorate at Gotham University." He pioneered the molecular mechanisms of the psychological responses of fear in his first thesis. In his following research papers he forefronted the neurological basis of fear and fostered a chemical means of inducing gene transcription in several mammalian model systems. He had invented a means of increasing the overall fear response through the chemical activation of modulatory synapses. His chosen alias would have never paid immediate homage to his doctorate as such a title would likely lead authorities immediately to his doorsteps. He was a well credited academic not some half-witted illiterate. "Why on earth would I choose such an obvious alias." He was no Joe Kerr. He had been far more inventive. The Scarecrow was a moniker linked to his past childhood grievances and held no ties to his career choice. It had taken the authorities years to link his crimes back to him. There were still cases in the system that had yet to be correctly attributed to his body of work.
She tried to not hyperventilate when his voice rose. "Dr. Crane it is." If she spoke small sentences the panic wouldn't show. Apparently the quick, short verbal spit-out did the trick because "Dr. Crane" straightened his shoulders and seemed to lose steam. Then he pushed his glasses up his pointy nose and focused on her in a way much different from his previous alien dissection. It was a look that screamed, I-see-the-move-you-are-trying-to-make-on-your-little-chessboard-and-it-is-not-going-to-work. She wanted to scream that she was not playing on a chessboard just a calendar.
"You are aware that conceding to call me Dr. Crane over Mr. Crane will win you no extra points with me." He was mildly surprised that she was the first doctor to ever attempt flattery with him. Most doctors treating him went straight into the category of annoyance or understated antagonization. He wondered if this new tact made her any more clever than the rest.
It was her turn to blink. She was almost flattered that he thought she was capable of that level of foresight. She really did not understand why psychologists got so wound tight over doctorates. It was a piece of paper that would one day disintegrate. It meant nothing. "To be clear Dr. Crane, for the next two weeks I am filling in for Dr. Comb. So, earning bonus points is not a priority." Bonus points with a homicidal maniac were not worth much when a person was dead. She just wanted to survive; anything else was insignificant.
Crane listened to her sentence with careful examination. He listened for fluctuations in voice. He watched for falters in body language, eyebrows lifting too high, or mouth quirking too far to one side. She was nervous, but not because she had been caught in a lie. She was clearly under qualified to deal with his caliber of inmate. He almost pitied her for falling victim to the failures of Arkham's understaffing. He would have felt pity had he not been so egocentric and eager to turn the situation to his favor.
"I am only continuing where your previous doctor left off and where he will once again resume." She crossed her arms against her chest before mentally forcing her body into a leisurely pose. Crane did not need to know he had her on the defensive. He was the only person in the world who fed off fear like a vampire. She wondered if sunlight and happy thoughts made him combust.
"Ah, so you will be my babysitter until then I suppose?" Downgrading another's position was the quickest route to use in order to garner quick emotional responses. It was the best method of evaluation. He knew she was already uncomfortable due to his momentary spike in temper, shifting her off the script would not be too difficult. Crane knew well how to work a person's cogs into the tick-tock of emotional impulse.
She could tell he was trying to crawl under her skin with his snarky quip. She was not going to bother arguing with him, not when he was in all technicality correct in terminology. "Exactly."
He didn't know how best to respond to such idiotic candor. He was willing to allow her to continue speaking since it would allow him to decipher the best means of her destruction.
She couldn't explain the surge of joy she felt when she realized, after a few breaths, that Dr. Crane was going to shut up. She hoped he stayed silent for the remainder of their sessions. "Now, I, unlike your previous doctors believe in keeping these sessions free flowing. So, we can talk about whatever you'd like or we can not speak at all." She offered the latter in hopes he felt taciturn during their sessions and would prefer silence. Her plans for dealing with this dangerous serial killer were simple. She was not going to make an impression, and she was not going to piss him off.
"I see you subscribe to client centered therapy. Are you hoping that by pretending to empathize with me I will suddenly change my socially unacceptable ways. Or were you hoping something more involved than a heart-to-heart." He smirked feeling the muscles in his face pull upward. He let the implication lie in the air without directly adding the intended context. He knew women were usually sensitive to insinuation of impropriety and perversion. He wanted to make her uncomfortable.
She had no clue what client centered therapy was, but she knew she had no intention to indulge his banter. She was too poorly equipped to deal with the skinny villain so she answered his scorn honestly. "No. I have no intention to empathize with you. I am merely choosing this form of therapy for its greater flexibility."
He seemed unsold. His body sat relaxed, stance wide, and arms resting lazily along his thighs. She swallowed warily, noticing for the first time how long those limbs were and becoming shocked at the realization there was more to them than flesh and bone. Dr. Crane may not have had bulk but his thin limbs were far from innocuous; there was wiry, deadly, camouflaged muscle that could easily reach across the desk to strangle her. "No one gets uncomfortable and we all go at a comfortably therapeutic pace." Lord, she hoped he bought that bull shit.
It seemed he did because he withdrew once again to his quiet recluse, no longer engaged. Crane was beautiful when he shut up and stopped poking. It was like he was purposely throwing stones to see which one hit her the hardest.
Then he threw a boulder.
"You've neglected to introduce yourself. I'll begin this session only after a proper and professional introduction." His voice rose once again, falling hollowly in the air like grey mist. He was not pleased that it had taken this long in their session to find that one little hole he could push his finger through and mangle her head into pieces.
She naively had been hoping she wouldn't ever be forced to link a name to a face during their limited sessions. She knew that it had been a childish hope but she was saddened just the same to see it crushed.
"Are you afraid the high level criminal might use such basic information to your harm?" He was pushing harder. He wanted to see some emotion. He did not like seeing this woman so calm, dealing with him like a harmless boy. He was the almighty Scarecrow, harbinger of terror, and destroyer of sanity. He was a god to be revered.
She was ninety-five percent sure that was a threat. "My name is Megaera Ryans and I prefer to go by Meg." She was hoping that by going on a first name basis she could avoid him discovering immediately that she had the bare minimum credentials to treat him and was absolutely lacking a doctorate.
"Very well, Megaera." He stated her name like the punchline of a joke. He kept the cold chuckle inside his chest and allowed the mirth to fester beneath his grin. "I shall refer to you by your legal first name. After all legal parameters exclude nicknames and other aliases you may choose to go by." He reveled in the way his words cornered her. If she did not want to say his criminal name, then he did not want to stoop to common nicknames.
Whoopdee-doo. He wasn't going to call her Meg. She could have cared less. "I see your point. Yes, that will be a permissible reference." She sat neutral to his ridicule and mockery. She held no stakes in his treatment.
They sat in rigid silence until he spoke. "So, are you planning on asking me any questions or shall we continue in silence?" He was growing bored with his new doctor's lazy style. It lacked form and talent. The only admirable qualities in the woman's favor were the unpredictable nuances her therapeutic form guaranteed as the ingenuity was clearly not the result of her own cleverness.
"Dr. Crane, it is as I told you, 'whatever you want to talk about we can talk about.'" She tried not to sound condescending or clipped. She tried.
"How about my previous counts of manslaughter?" He did not like her tone. He came back with an equally aggressive tone. He allowed his cold eyes to narrow and his limbs to stretch menacingly towards her.
"If you wish to yes. Although, I will of course condemn those acts in a responsive lecture." She forced her face to remain unimpressed, impassive. Inside she was grimacing at his tone and fighting her desire to flee.
"But of course." He did not like the looks of her too calm face; he wanted to scar her features in a way that would make it impossible to form such a bored look. Everyone had a deep secret horror that repulsed them. He would find hers.
"What about my research on fear and my experiments?" He knew that one always was a fire starter.
"Yes. But it will tailor the same response." She unwittingly doused the flames before they spread.
"What about talking about you?" He grinned purposely stretching his long torso closer to his new doctor. He let the chains bite into his ankles and wrists as he bent over the girl. He examined her tight bun, light makeup and wide brown eyes, knowing that the surprise was a result of his awkward shape and irregular height. He really had no love for women, so false, so superficial, so cruel. He stopped grinning and let his face rest back into its worn scowl. He hated women more for being female than men for being male. When women hurt they used unmeant promises of romance and care to snare their prey. Most men just used their fists.
"Me?" She could feel her heart beating in several places at once. He was incredibly tall despite being so thin.
He seated himself, satisfied by her reaction, unwilling to push further into the realm of hastily pressed panic buttons. He was not yet interested in visiting the infirmary. "Yes, you. It seems only fair. If you are to treat me I will treat you. I am a doctor in both pharmacology and psychology. I can help lessen your anxieties, ease your fears." He would drag her into oblivion.
Her face went blank and white. She was not being treated by a man who trapezes the night wearing a potato sack over his face. But two weeks was a short span of time and as long as it was just talking they did there was no immediate danger. "Then I will respond honestly and maintain the same liberties you have to refuse to answer certain questions. Any questions I deem unfit or unprofessional or none of your business I will choose to ignore. And for clarification you are not treating me." She was fine with mutual discussion. She was in control of how much she shared, not him.
"Do you enjoy working at Arkham?" He was never unprofessional. Even in his experiments he never let those urges express themselves in an unprofessional manner. He kept his mind completely objective, excluding his more leisurely excursions for past tormentors. He didn't exclude individuals from his trials on the basis of sex, income, or race and he always tried to keep the death toll low. He unsuccessfully tried. Contrary to popular belief, his first goal was not to scare his patients to death but rather to force them to face their fears. Albeit, he was quick to kill a patient that resembled the mean qualities of a bully and typically he allowed a bit more abuse for women reminiscent of sordid pretty, little sorority-princesses. His past incidents with Sherry Squires, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, granny, and his own mother did not make him feminine friendly to even the most innocuous faction of female.
"Yes." She was definitely going to keep her answers short. He was not getting a free ride into her head.
"Yes is an answer, but it is not one that will not make me entirely eager to continue this game with you. If you want real responses from me then I suggest you give me responses longer than a single syllable." He dropped his voice low, and stared her down, annoyed and bored.
"Where did you work as a doctor?" She was not going to play his weird passive-aggressive game. She just needed to pretend a little longer and then she could go back to her housing area on the island and read her book, relax, and eat popcorn.
"Gotham University and later here at Arkham." He made sure his voice was mocking. He wanted his point to register loud and clear. Crane's current session was beginning to remind him of the sparse times he was forced to work with children in order to get his mental health licensing. Those times were spent miserably due to the meddling fondness he had for children and his unwillingness to experiment on the little brats. It was a pathetic memory.
"Fine. I enjoy my job purely because it pays well and because, until recently, I have been only authorized to work solely with lower level inmates." She was not going to admit to a level ten inmate that she only dealt with level one inmates. He would kill her.
"Much better." His eyes practically glowed with excitement. He was pleased she was complying. It made his job easier. Concession on his part would further cement a promising rapport.
"I was fired at Gotham University for firing a gun in my classroom instructing my students in the power of fear. They fired me in spite of the fact my students got nearly straight A's that semester." He tried to keep his voice bland. He could not help the leaks of anger that flowed like ice. He was a slow moving glacier of slights, all that people saw was the tip. Awkward mad gangly doctor turned serial killer. They didn't see the layers of anger that were burrowed miles deep, the pieces that flattened ships and hollowed out land as he followed his course.
She noticed the hard edge to his words and the way his knuckles went white.
"Later on I applied for a job at Arkham. I was of course hired. My credentials in spite of that one incident were impeccable." He was amused, his smile errant, everything lighter. He quickly swallowed the fury and carried on as though everything he did and said was normal.
Meg noted the way he could flip between a short burst of angry super rogue to repressed social worker was eerie. The more emotions that escaped his control the more severely he looped back into a phony "everything I do is super normal" attitude.
"I worked my way up to the top rung of the ladder at Arkham and began experimenting in earnest on my new, more compliant patients." He looked at his nails unconcerned over the unveiled arrogance behind his statement. He looked up, surprised, because she was not considering seizing upon any of the offered bait. There was his vanity and his vulnerability, all prepared for discussion like a Thanksgiving turkey. "See how much easier things go when you share without holding back Megaera?" The query was a small prod he used to try and force Megaera's focus back to him.
"Sure do." She did not want to keep talking with crazy Crane. He was a self-centered cretin, who probably acted the way he did because he enjoyed the pain. He was not made a tragic figure because of one lousy firing. He was just another costume wearing crazy that pretended he had an excuse to live in a permanent evil Halloween-town fairytale.
"Are you afraid that given your lack of experience in treating higher level inmates you will be unable to treat me?" He was not pleased with her held back approach. He was irritated at her lack of interest. Her unresponsiveness irked him.
Ok the lack of experience cover was blown, and now hung open wide for the scary doctor to see. But she certainly was not afraid that she would be unable to treat him. She was perfectly comfortable never treating him. She was in fact terrified of Jonathan Crane deciding to gas or kill her. Sure she worked at Arkham, and yes, it was almost guaranteed that the job gave your life expectancy the shelf life of warm month old hamburger; but she had high hopes that once she saved her cash up she could move out of Gotham to live out the rest of her days on a beach.
Arkham paid a whopping yearly salary of 600,000 to working therapists. Unfortunately most people only lived or worked long enough to collect the first six months, which due to worker laws, restricted the salaries to 200,000. Megaera Ryans had worked one full year at Arkham, and in the next six months she would make it to the holy two year anniversary date. If she made it to three years she would have enough money saved to quit her job and move far from Gotham.
"Not at all. I'm Dr. Comb's place holder. I don't have any grandiose expectations to cure you in two weeks." He was way too messed up for anyone to even hope for that. He was like a car, sure it still drove, but it also had a nasty habit of exploding, and it usually took out the driver and a city block.
"Is that because of a lack in confidence in your capabilities as a professional?" He wondered briefly if her disinterest was in fact insecurity.
"Nope." She looked longingly towards the exit and noted that Crane immediately followed her line of sight.
Crane agreed. Not insecurity. His eyebrows rose and she misinterpreted.
"To be fair sometimes a short answer is the most honest." She frowned. "So, when did you first start putting on the mask?"
"A few years after I was fired at Gotham University. It does not bother my conscience to say I killed the board that incorrectly voted to remove me from the my university position." He wondered vaguely if being this close to a murderer bothered Megaera.
"So you killed the members of your university's faculty while working at Arkham?" Where did the guy find the free time to complete his complicated revenge hobbies.
Oh yes, she indeed was not comfortable around murderers. "Yes."
It was annoying how easily Crane mirrored her responses. He was keeping track of the length of her responses and obnoxiously mimicking her words like a six year old. Their session was almost over, five minutes were left. She was gladly calling it quits.
"Well it appears our session is nearly over. Do you have any questions or comments in regards to your treatment? I will make additional notes in your chart, so your concerns can be effectively dealt with by Dr. Comb." Because she sure as hell was not dealing with any of his issues.
He let out a cold piercing, shrill laugh. "The level of treatment I gave Danny Comb likely means he will try to make you my permanent doctor."
Megaera Ryans closed her eyes for three long seconds before a sharp drumming of fingers interrupted her worried thoughts.
He tapped the desk between them absently jotting his own scattered chart notes on his new experimental doctor. "I find your forum is clumsy and far too open, but I will say it has merit in the fact it is different enough to be unexpected. In short, I look forward to our next session." He stretched both hands forward, despite his being tightly bound by chains, for a handshake. His chains clinked together like a herald of twilight and Meg found out that Dr. crane, could in fact, extend his arms across the table to wrap his long fingers around her neck.
Megaera shook Jonathan Crane's hand for no other reason than for the fact he had thoroughly worn her mind to fatigue and she failed to think of the circumstance and consequence. He was surprised she did not call the guards. For Jonathan Crane, Megaera's handshake felt like a challenge.
