Warning: Some ideologically sensitive material such as self-harm, general cruelty, hallucinations, PTSD, and stuff happens in this fic!
Jonathan Crane still saw it sometimes. The scarecrow.
He knew he wasn't supposed to be able to see it. The hospital had said very clearly that all traces of the toxin had been flushed out of his system. So that meant the scarecrow he was seeing was all just a figment of his imagination. His own mind working against him. A standard case of paranoia.
So whenever he saw a tall, burlap figure staring at him out of the corner of his eye or swore he felt something rough brush against the back of his neck or the skin of his arm, he simply repeated to himself that it was all in his would recall the lesson back in his Psychology class that explained post-traumatic stress disorder, and simply remind himself that was what he was experiencing and that he would pull through it.
However, no matter how much his mind told him that the scarecrow he was seeing was not real, his heart would still begin to pick up in pace whenever he thought he saw the thing. His first logical explanation was that he was simply frightened of the thing, like anyone would be had they been in his situation. However, after a while, he realized that simply wasn't right. He had spent five whole months of his life in a state of perpetual terror, so he knew what fear felt like. What he felt towards the scarecrow now was not fear.
No, what Jonathan felt was excitement.
When the staff at the hospital had informed him of the fact that his father had been shot and killed by the officers who'd shown up, Jonathan had not felt a single thing. This fact was strange to him. When his mother had died, he had cried and cried and cried nonstop. He had cried when he had heard the news. He had cried at the funeral service. He had cried alone in his bedroom days afterwards. It was like a constant loop. But with his dad, he couldn't even squeeze out a single tear. Hell, he couldn't even find himself feeling the tiniest bit sad.
That fact kind of scared him a bit. He had just been told his dad was dead, as in, gone forever. The man he had spent sixteen years of his life with. Surely, he should find himself feeling something? Even if it was just anger or resentment towards his dad for leaving him in such a state, surely even that would be better than nothing, right?
The doctors had noticed his seeming lack of feeling towards the news and had assured him that he just needed time for the news to sink in. After all, for months he had felt nothing but extreme terror, despair, paranoia, and dread. Anyone would be feeling emotionally exhausted after that. He just needed more time to recover. Jonathan had nodded at what they told him, hoping that would be the case.
However, one day had passed which then morphed into one week which soon doubled into two… but Jonathan still had found himself feeling nothing but indifference towards the news.
He was quickly reassured he wasn't completely emotionally dead though near the end of his hospital term. After all, he certainly felt a good deal of sickening dread when the hospital staff informed him that the next legal guardian he would be forced to live with would be his Great Grandma Keeny down in Georgia.
Jonathan hated Great Grandma Keeny. Always had.
Even when he was a little kid he had held nothing but resentment towards the awful woman and dreaded the days his parent's would force him to spend time with her whenever they visited Georgia for family gatherings. The woman was nothing but bitter and hateful towards everyone and everything… but she had always held a certain sadistic hatred towards Jonathan. She had made it very vocal to him that she had never liked his father for tainting her granddaughter and therefore, didn't like him as a result. Constantly when she was over, he had to endure her beratements. Nothing seemed to satisfy her. Sometimes it would be petty insults about his appearance or about the way he did things… and other times, she would full out take away stuff from him, saying he was too old for it or that it was a "devil's item" or something like that. He had quickly learned not to cry when she did things like that. That just encouraged her to be even crueler the next time. He could only sit there and hope that his parents would come over, manage to overhear something, and put a stop to it all. Now, with both of his parent's dead, there was no one here to protect him from her wrath.
When he arrived at the front of her big manor house and knocked on the old wooden door tentatively, he couldn't help but think he was a foolish little mouse walking into a snake hole.
There were many rules and regulations in Great Grandma Keeny's house, however, one in particular stood above them all: Great Grandmother's word was law and there would be no arguments under her house.
Thankfully, he hadn't managed to break that rule yet, despite how much he wanted to. He did the chores she told him to do without complaint (even when he swore he was going to pass out from heatstroke working in the fields when it was well over a hundred degrees outside). He behaved with perfect etiquette at all times. He didn't speak unless spoken to. He didn't read his "devil" books (which was any book besides the Bible or a textbook to Great Grandma Keeny) anymore. He went to school, did his homework, did his chores, and went to bed at ten o'clock every day like a robot. He found that there was no such thing as "play" time in the Keeny Manor. Something always seemed needed to be done and it had to meet Great Grandma's unusually high standards.
Jonathan managed to follow this strict regimen without speaking out once, despite how much he wanted to. However, he knew one day though, he would slip up. Every person has their breaking point after all. One day, he knew he would get too cocky for his own good and say no out of reflex to one of the things she ordered him to do. He had a feeling that Great Grandma was waiting for that moment, like a snake poising to strike.
Jonathan already felt himself fearing the consequences he would face that day.
He never told Great Grandmother Keeny about the scarecrow he still saw sometimes. The chances of her believing what he said were slim to none after all. The chances of her getting angry and calling him a delusional "devil's child" was far more likely. Great Grandmother Keeny hated stuff that broke the norm after all. She wanted him to be the perfect Southern boy… not one of those looney's she heard about in the newspaper.
Part of him had actually thought about going to his teacher's about the scarecrow. His Psychology professor especially. Perhaps he would know what was going on and why the thing had not left his sight. However, whenever he was about to approach one of the teachers about the scarecrow… he froze up. Normal people after all didn't see scarecrows like he did. His classmates already treated him like he was a freak and an outcast already. He had done nothing but exist and they hounded him everyday like a pack of hyenas… stealing his lunch, beating him up, tripping him in the halls, ruining his library books. The idea of the teachers, who were the only people he could solidly assumed liked him, thinking he was some sort of freak was hard to bear.
Then what if somehow it got leaked that freaky Jonathan Crane was delusional and seeing stuff? He was pretty sure the bullying wouldn't stop and the rest of the staff would probably be eyeing him wearily, as if he would snap at any moment.
Or maybe they would simply ship him off to another hospital. A mental hospital full of looney tunes. Great Grandmother would probably disown him then… and even if that woman was the epitome of evil… who did he have left? He would be nothing but an orphan without anywhere to go.
Jonathan didn't think he was that abnormal. Sure seeing the scarecrow wasn't a thing everyone else was going through but it wasn't like the scarecrow did anything. It didn't tell him to do bad things or haunt his dreams or made him any different. All it did was sit there silently. It was so unanimated in its movements that his heart didn't even race when he saw it anymore. It was comforting if anything. Surely that couldn't be that bad? Surely that didn't mean he should be locked away or treated even more like an outcast right?
Jonathan Crane was not crazy.
So Jonathan kept silent about the scarecrow. It would just remain his little secret.
Besides, he didn't necessarily want to get rid of it anyway. It was probably the closest thing he had to a friend here in Arlen, Georgia.
All of this over some hair.
Well, it finally happened. Jonathan had crossed the line and spoke out against Great Grandmother.
Looking back in retrospect, he should've known that Great Grandma would try to do something about his hair at some point. She had been complaining about it more than usual and berating him harder about it than usual. So he shouldn't have been surprised when she said that she would be cutting it off soon.
The thing is, Jonathan liked his hair. Sure, having longer, shaggier hair like his was inconvenient in the Georgia heat when he was working outside and sure, it gave bullies like his great grandmother and the kids at school plenty of material to work with… but he still held a certain fondness for it. It had taken a while for it to grow out the way it had and he honestly liked the result. This was quite the statement as there was little that Jonathan admired about his appearance. He was too tall, too skinny, too weak, too scrawny, too effeminate-looking, and many other things. His body image had never been the best. So the idea of taking the one thing he truly liked about himself was too much to bear.
Panic to keep what was his was what caused him to say, "No."
The minute he had said it and saw the icy look Great Grandmother gave him, he knew he had made a crucial mistake. However, he had actually had an opportunity to back out. Great Grandmother Keeny had drawled out, "Would you like to repeat what you just said, Jonathan?"
She'd given him a chance to back out. To take back what he said. To apologize and just give in. It was the one show of mercy she had ever given him ever. Like an idiot though, he didn't take it. Instead, he had said, "I said 'no', ma'am. I really like my hair and don't want it cut off."
Great Grandmother Keeny had sat in icy cold silence for a while longer before she had said, "Go upstairs, Jonathan, and don't come down until I tell you to come down."
What was sad was for an actual moment, he thought that he had won. After all, Great Grandma was very into corporal punishment. If she was displeased with you, she would make it clear via slaps in the face or burning something of yours or making you do work. She never sent him to his room like he was a little kid before. That seemed rather... passive of her. A part of Jonathan wondered if maybe him showing a little backbone had actually made her back off and she was just a little angry.
But no… he knew it couldn't be that simple with her. Great Grandmother Keeny did not lose. Great Grandma Keeny got her way, no matter what the cost.
So instead of going upstairs and into his room, he stayed on the middle of them and watched the kitchen where Great Grandma had sauntered off to… curious to see what sort of torture she would create for him.
He had to admit, when he saw her walk into the kitchen with a dead rat and the suit she made him wear to church every Sunday… he was confused. When he saw her begin to boil water in a pot and then proceed to put the dead rat into the water, his heart was pounding. Surely she wouldn't make him eat that? His stomach wrenched at the thought. She hadn't even taken the fur off of it. But if it meant keeping his hair and beating the old bat at her game, he figured he could choke it down. He had survived off of hospital food for a while after all.
Granted, hospital food hadn't smelled this nauseatingly bad but he could live…
But when Great Grandma Keeny fished the rat out of the boiling water with cooking tongs and let it cool down a bit, she didn't slap it on a plate like he thought she would. Instead, she did something that had him somewhat horrorstruck. She grabbed the rat's corpse in her gnarled hands and began twisting it around, breaking apart its body until it began crumbling apart in her hands and all of the blood and guts fell on his suit. He shuddered at the sight. What was this old hag's plan? Was she going to make him wear that to church?
Once she was satisfied with her work, Jonathan saw her begin cleaning up the kitchen dutifully… meaning he had to retreat upstairs. He did so… wondering if she would really make him go to church smelling like rat guts. She accompanied him to church every Sunday. Surely him smelling horrible would embarrass her too?
He heard her call his name and sucked in a breath despite himself.
He wished the scarecrow was there for him to look at. It might of helped calm his nerves. But alas, his friend was not here today for him and he had no choice but to face his fear alone.
When he went downstairs, she told him to put the suit on. He did so without question, wrinkling his nose at the stench and trying not to gag at the sight of guts. Then, once he had the suit fitted on, she grabbed his wrist in a grip so tight that he nearly cried out. Great Grandma Keeny might be frail… but when she had a mission on hand, the woman was sturdier than iron. Her long nails were as sharp as cat claws he found out too, judging by the way they were digging unforgivingly into his flesh.
She had dragged him outside in the darkness, the moon making the congealed blood on his suit shine a little more. She marched him towards the abandoned belfry near the manor. Now he was really curious.
Opening the rusty old door with a horrible screech, she let go of his wrist. Part of Jonathan considered running. She would never be able to catch him. But where would he go? He had no choice but to go along with her plan… whatever it was.
She pointed inside the belfry and said, "Go in, Jonathan."
He nodded and tentatively approached the door, his steps dragging a bit. He didn't know what was in the belfry but something told him it wasn't good. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on in and his heartbeat was going erratic again. Apparently though, he was taking too long as his great grandmother impatiently snapped, "Go!" and pushed him in. He toppled into the belfry gracelessly. As he was picking himself off the floor, he heard the belfry door swing close with a harsh clang and then the distinct sound of a lock clicking.
He whirled around to try and open the door immediately. Locked. Pressing his ear to the door, he heard the fading sound of Great Grandma Keeny singing a church hymn as she walked back to the house. He snarled. So she intended to keep him here for the rest of the night. The suit was probably to make him debate whether or not to keep it on. After all, it was probably the only source of warmth he would have here in the chilly night air… but it stank to high heaven and would probably attract a raccoon or something.
Suddenly, he heard the flapping of wings. Looking around, he saw a rather intimidatingly large crow staring at him on one of the old light fixtures of the belfry. It regarded him curiously… it's body looking shadowy against the night sky. Jonathan glanced at it distrustfully, feeling awfully off-put by it.
Then suddenly, he realized that crow wasn't alone. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw that there wasn't just one crow. There were several. All of them eyeing him with beady little eyes, like he was a piece of roadkill. There was a cruelty to them he had never seen in an animal before, and he couldn't help but feel frightened. He found himself pounding harder at the door, trying to see if he could actually break it open. Surely it had rusted over enough that he could escape right? Nope. It wasn't budging.
Suddenly, several flapping wings came rushing towards him and before Jonathan knew it, he was surrounded by the flock.
Jonathan was pretty sure he screamed. That would explain why when he woke up his voice was practically gone and his voice was raw. But if he had, he didn't remember. All he could remember was the mocking caws of the crows and the flapping of their wings. He could only remember the feeling of beaks snapping at his exposed skin and the claws of the crows trying to rip away his flesh. He could only remember curling in on himself, silently begging for it to stop and it never happening. The crows just kept attacking and swooping and biting. If he lunged out… he would only swipe at empty air. They were too fast. All he could do was curl in a ball, protect his eyes from being pecked out, and just pray and pray and pray that it would end… but it never did.
The neverending torment, the state of panic he was in, the hopelessness… it felt just like he was in the hospital again. However, the scarecrow had never hurt him like these crows were doing right now. He had never felt his skin tearing open like he did now. He never felt as much pain as this.
He had to have blacked out at some point. He was awaken to the feeling of Great Grandma Keeny tapping him in the ribs with her foot. His body ached all over… he had scratches and dirt all over his body. His suit was in tatters yet it still stank to high heaven, making him want to vomit on the ground. His throat felt like it was on fire, his head hurt, his ribs ached from laying on the cold ground all night, and he was cold. All in all, Jonathan felt miserable… which was how Grandma Keeny probably wanted it.
He swore he saw the witch smile when he flinched at the sound of a crow cawing nearby.
In the end, she won. Right afterwards, she made him walk into the house, take a shower, and then, once he was dressed, she got some scissors and clippers and began cutting away at his hair. He didn't protest or say anything. He was too exhausted. Too miserable.
He could only watch as his hair fell to the ground, lock by lock in silence… an icy coldness creeping across his body. When she was done, his hair was short. Incredibly short. Jonathan never realized how long his face actually looked until now. The sight of that bothered him a bit.
After she was done, Grandma Keeny actually let him go to bed. He did so without complaint… collapsing onto his bed feeling more numb and tired than he ever felt in his life.
He was terrorized by dreams of crows and their cruel, cruel beaks that night.
Jonathan had gotten a lot of scars as of recently. He remembered there was a time where his skin was completely pale and unblemished. Now he could barely find a spot on his body that didn't have a faded scar on it somewhere. Some were self-inflicted from the hospital, when he was trying to escape from his own hospital bed, even if it meant ripping out any thing holding him there such as IVs and such. A large one from his hand was when he accidently cut himself with the scythe Great Grandma Keeny made him use. The countless tinier marks were were a result of the crows. Some of the bigger ones were the aftermath of him getting pushed around from the kids at school. He had gathered quite a collection of scars over his time… and nothing to show for it.
That was a bitter thought for him to swallow.
One night, as if he were on autopilot, Jonathan had crept into his bathroom in the middle of the night, footsteps light. He noticed that he wasn't feeling anything as he walked in. He just felt completely cold and numb, just like he had in the hospital when he heard his dad had died. He'd been feeling that way a lot lately. The numbness never took hold forever. He would go back to being old Jonathan soon enough… but they were always an ordeal to him when they came. He used to be afraid of the emptiness. When he got like that, it was like he was stuck in a complete state of utter apathy and that used to disturb him. But now, he somewhat relished it… enjoyed it. Things didn't hurt or scare you when you forced yourself not to care. It gave you a certain… power over things.
So maybe his own self-conscious was taking control as he grabbed his shaving razor and placed it on the flesh of his arm. He dug it in on the top of his arm experimentally, just to see if he could do it. He winced a bit at the pain, watching as his own blood beaded to the surface, but ultimately, didn't feel anything still. Good. That would make this task so much easier.
He placed the razor on his right wrist, but he didn't press down. The numbness was still there, but something was making him hesitate.
Looking up, he wasn't surprised to once again see the scarecrow, staring at him like always. But there was something different in the thing's stare this time. A certain disapproval in its hollow eyes. This was the first time Jonathan had seen anything resembling an emotion from the thing since the hospital… and it didn't take a genius to see what the thing was so disapproving of.
"You don't think I should do it, huh?" Jonathan heard himself speak out loud. This was stupid. The scarecrow wasn't real. He was talking to himself in an empty bathroom. No matter how real the scarecrow looked, it wasn't there. It wasn't real. It had no control over anything.
Still, he found himself looking into its eyes for a bit longer before a certain wave of tiredness hit him. Muscles sagging like a deflated balloon, he carefully placed the razor on the sink and grabbed a band-aid to place on the small cut he had made on his arm. The whole time, he refused to look at the scarecrow, but he knew it was still there… watching him.
Once he was done with his handiwork, he looked down at the floor and said, "Thank you…" and padded back to his bedroom, curling exhaustedly on his bed.
Three more months and he would be in college, he reminded himself. Great Grandmother couldn't even hold anything over his head. He'd gotten a full-ride scholarship. He didn't owe her a thing. He could pay for it all and finally get a moment to breathe… to be himself.
He just had to keep going.
Church was always a boring time for Jonathan. Ever since his belief in God had died away when he turned twelve, everything the preachers and other church members spouted just sounded like a bunch of hopeful nonsense to him. But Great Grandmother Keeny insisted that he go every Sunday and Jonathan spent a majority of the time simply tuning them out, only singing and speaking when everyone else did.
However, today, he found himself actually listening to the lesson for once. He listened as the preacher talked about forgiveness and how it was a very hard thing to do, especially to those who'd wronged you. This would've all been very standard to Jonathan and even boring, if his mind didn't jump the place he thought it would go. For the first time in a while, he thought of his father's face again.
Why? Was he mad at his father? He didn't think so. Ever since he left the hospital, he had felt anger towards people like Great Grandma Keeny or the bullies at his school… but he hadn't remembered ever feeling that way towards his father. So why had his mind jumped there when the preacher mentioned anger?
He knew he had reason to be angry with his father. His father had been willing to send him in a state of absolute terror to satisfy his own selfish desires. His dad had been willing to murder innocent people to satisfy his own selfish desires. Even if his father had meant well for him and humanity, that didn't make it alright. But even with that in mind, Jonathan couldn't find himself feeling too angry.
After all, if he got angry at his father for what he had did, he would be nothing more than a hypocrite.
His father hadn't been a good person, but then again, neither was Jonathan.
Jonathan was not a good kid. He knew this for a fact.
A good kid wouldn't help his father collect victims just so their fathers could experiment on them.
A good kid wouldn't watch as people cried and pleaded for help and do nothing but watch.
Jonathan hadn't wanted any of them to die… but that didn't mean he cared all that much when they did.
Good kids didn't find themselves just as strangely fascinated as their fathers at the sight of others being in extreme terror.
He hadn't thought of the looks of fear he had seen on the victim's faces in a long time. He had almost forgotten about them completely. However, now the memories came flooding back in vivid detail… and Jonathan found himself recounting details that he hadn't noticed before. Like the fact that no one had reacted exactly the same to the toxin. The fact that some people had fought and writhed while others had just curled up and cried. How some had sworn vengeance and others had simply quietly accepted their fate.
Just how diverse some people's fears were too! There was the standards of course. The fear of heights (acrophobia), the fear of spiders (arachnophobia), etc. However, some people had more specific fears stemming from childhood. The last victim had had a fear of swimming pools that according to his father had happened due to a trauma in her past. It was strange to see her calm one moment and then in a panicked screaming mess the next. One moment she was confident… and the next she was pathetic. That's how powerful fear was.
Soon, as all these memories came flooding back into his head, he found for the next few weeks fear being his big obsession. Any tiny shred of reading time he got in school was spent looking up the different types of fears and studying the basic psychology of it all.
As he was looking all of this up, he couldn't help but wonder… what was Great Grandma Keeny afraid of? The woman was tough as iron and seemingly unstoppable, but everyone was afraid of something. He wondered what it was that would make her scream.
As he was contemplating this for probably the twelfth time that day, silently making hypotheses of what exactly frightened the old hag, he couldn't help but notice the scarecrow had once again showed up.
It was appearing more and more often as of late. He wondered why.
Oh well, that was a query for another day.
He found the book stored up in the attic. He was honestly surprised it was still there and that Great Grandmother Keeny hadn't burned it or any of the other contents in his backpack. The backpack still held all of the possessions he had put in it: old pictures, his switchblade, some of his favorite books, etc. Small little trinkets. However, out of the books, one in particular stood out to him. Pulling out Ulysses, he admired the cover of the book and smiled fondly. It had been a while since he had read it. The book was one of his favorites… part of him wanted to reread it again just by looking at it. However, he did not come here to read. He came here on a mission.
He didn't just bring the book along because he liked it. No… this book held another level of importance to him. Holding it by the spine, he shook it a little and watched as a bunch of folded pieces of paper tumbled out of the volume. Scrambling to pick them up, he was glad to see all of his copies of his dad's research notes were still in there.
Having gotten what he wanted, he gently placed all of the stuff from his past back into the backpack with a certain sense of reluctance. Part of him wanted to take the stuff and put it in his room. He had brought it here with him for a reason. He knew Great Grandma Keeny would never allow it though.
But soon, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time, he would be in college and have his own dorm, and she couldn't tell him what he could or couldn't read or have.
He'd gotten what he wanted for now.
Stuffing the research notes in his pocket, he carefully walked out of the attic and raised it up, thanking whatever deity may be out there that his great grandmother had gone shopping. As he walked back to his room to stuff the notes in a safe location for later reading, he couldn't help but feel a sense of giddy excitement.
The experiment had worked out far better than Jonathan could've hoped for.
He didn't think it would work. The notes his father had left had said that human adrenal glands would be needed. However, Jonathan didn't exactly have those on standby. So he compromised. Great Grandma Keeny had found a rat in the barn the other day and had wanted him to kill it and get rid of it. Getting the thing to panic had been easy. All he had to do was close the door of the barn and make sure the stray cat who sometimes visited was in there with them.
The sight of a predator would be enough to get any creatures adrenals up. Instinctual, primal fear right there. Once had found it and killed it by grabbit it and snapping its neck, he expertly dissected the thing and ripped out the adrenal glands quickly, as the instructions said. Once he obtained them, he had immediately pulled a beaker he had managed to sneak out of his biology class and got to work.
His process in it had been slow (he was a newcomer after all) but Jonathan was satisfied that he had managed to make the concoction just right.
His hypothesis was that if this was made correctly, then it would have the same effects as his dad's, it would just affect the victim for a lesser amount of time and wouldn't cause the adrenals to rush as high.
There was only one way to find out he supposed.
Bo Briggs was the definition of a textbook, stereotypical bully. Big muscles, no intelligence, unfairly attractive from an aesthetics standpoint, popular, and a jock. If he were a book character, he would be as generic as it got. If anything, Jonathan should roll his eyes at how unoriginal Bo was, not fear him as much as he did. However, Jonathan really was scared of the kid.
Bo and his girlfriend, Sherry, always seemed to go out of their way to make his life a living Hell. He had plenty of bullies at school. Plenty of enemies. But Bo topped them all. Every single day, as if he were fulfilling some kind of secret quota he had established in his mind, he would torture Jonathan somehow. The mockery would go from simply getting wet willies or his lunch money stolen to throwing heavy objects on him or beating him up after class for supposedly "looking at his girl." It had gotten to the point where every time Jonathan saw Bo, his stomach would immediately clench with worry and he had to hold down the urge to vomit.
However, not today.
Today, Jonathan would be getting revenge… supposedly.
God, he hoped this worked.
Needle in hand, he had left home early to go to school and meet Bo before any of his friends could arrive. If Bo was anything, it was punctual. He practically cheered when he saw Bo was currently stooped over a bench, hurriedly scrawling down last minute equations on the homework he probably didn't do. This meant if he approached carefully enough, Bo wouldn't hear him… and therefore wouldn't be moving around so Jonathan could stick the needle in a vein.
Slowly, like a cat hunting a mouse, he approached the big jock. He half wondered if the sound of his own elevated heartbeat would alert the boy of his presence. Sweat was beginning to form on his body and his knees were feeling weak and for a solid moment… Jonathan considered running and hiding. Just to give up on this silly experiment.
No. He couldn't. He couldn't let fear control him.
Using the bravery he managed to dredge up, he swiftly stuck the needle in Bo's neck and injected the substance. Bo immediately shot up at the sensation with a bellow, and whirled around to Jonathan, who in his panic to scramble away had fallen to the ground. Seeing the seething anger in Bo's eyes, Jonathan actually questioned if he was going to die for a few fleeting moments before suddenly… it took effect.
Bo one moment was opening his mouth, no doubt to yell about what he was about to do to Jon's face… when suddenly, his eyes went wide, his mouth went slack for a moment, and there was a moment of tense silence. Bo was looking like he was a deer in the headlights and Jon would've normally found it funny if he wasn't currently fearing for his safety.
Then all of a sudden, Bo began screeching, "Wasps? Why are there so many wasps out here? What the hell?!"
Immediately, Bo began swiping at imaginary wasps that weren't there, looking like an utter crazy man. His eyes were wide with panic and he was full out screaming, catching the attention of a few students who happened to be there. Then, with a scream of panic, Bo began running away. Jonathan was even sure he was crying although he couldn't be sure.
So Bo had spheksophobia… interesting. He certainly hadn't expected that out of a big kid like Bo. Of course insect-related fears were quite common… but those were usually held by spiders and beetles. Wasps were a little more unique. He had to give Bo credit for surpassing his expectations.
Jonathan stood on the ground for a moment in abject terror, before finally he picked himself up off the ground, heart slowing a little. Once he had collected himself, he smiled a little to himself. His concoction had worked. He was admittedly pleased with himself.
He didn't fear of being told on. Bo, after all, had no evidence that Jonathan had done anything to him. No one had been paying attention when it all went down until Bo started screaming about wasps. No one would truly believe that a set of wasps that weren't around had suddenly attacked…
Those were all factors, but Jonathan knew the ultimate reason why he wouldn't have to fear discovery was because Bo would never admit to it. To say Jonathan did something of that nature would be admitting that scrawny little Jonathan Crane had defeated him somehow. It would force him to admit his little fear… and no one liked to do that… especially people as prideful as Bo.
Hell, if Jonathan was lucky, Bo would never mess with him again because of this.
Pulling out his notebook, he recorded his data.
Part of him wondered if his Dad was smiling right now.
Despite his success with Bo, Jonathan couldn't help but find the victory tainted a bit as he remembered how he had almost let the victory slip through his fingers. How he had almost chickened out. How he had almost backed out of the single greatest moment of his life.
His father was right. Fear was the ultimate hindrance… fear was what stopped you from moving forward. Fear was what stopped you from being happy. Jonathan knew this from experience. His whole life for the past two years had been ran by fear. Cruel people like Great Grandmother Keeny and Bo Briggs used fear like a weapon every day to control the weak.
Well, he wasn't going to be weak anymore.
Grabbing the second syringe he had of the concoction, he looked at it for a solid moment… placed it in the vein in his arm and injected it.
It wasn't the scarecrow who haunted him this time.
No… it was birds.
Thousands and thousands of crows flew across him, surrounding him, swooping and cawing and screeching. Immediately upon the sight of them, Jonathan panicked and tried to scramble away, swiping at the air and ducking his head… but no… no… he couldn't allow that to happen.
Forcing himself to lift his head, he forced himself to remain still as the crows swooped along him. Their feathers… he swore he could feel them. He swore he could feel the pinch of beaks…. But no… this wasn't real. It was an illusion, he told himself. Just like the scarecrow.
They weren't real.
They couldn't hurt him.
Eventually, once he found his mind taking control, the crows stopped being scary to him. He simply watched them go by. When one pecked at him, he didn't feel it.
And soon, they just faded away. Jonathan couldn't help but feel uplifted.
For the next few weeks, every day, Jonathan had found himself finding refuge whenever his Grandmother left to go into the barn and inject himself. Sometimes it was the crows again. Sometimes it was Bo and the other kids in school. Sometimes it was Great Grandmother Keeny. Sometimes it was his Dad coming at him with a syringe. Whatever he saw, no matter how much it daunted him… he forced his way through it. He reminded himself that it wasn't real. They couldn't hurt him. And every single time, he managed to slowly lose his fear of all of them… until he was feeling nothing at all towards them.
Even in real life, they seemed to hold no affect on him anymore. Of course, he had to worry about his safety when the kid's tried to come after him and still made sure to be careful to avoid Great Grandmother's wrath… but overall, he didn't feel that sense of dread anymore when he saw them. He was more confident. He wondered if they noticed that. He was pretty sure they did. There always seemed to be an annoyance in their eyes when they saw he wasn't shrinking away in terror like had normally done.
In three more days he was going to graduate high school.
In two more months, summer will have ended and he would be taking a plane trip that will take him to college back in Gotham. Great Grandmother Keeny had of course gotten angry by the idea, but Jonathan was eighteen now. He was not hers anymore. He was his own.
Going back to Gotham was going to be an interesting experience. Gotham was a lot different from Georgia.
In Georgia, everything was hot and sunny. Gotham always seemed dark, dismal, and cold.
In Georgia, crime happened in big cities, but certainly not a shocking amount. In Gotham, crime was seen as the norm,
In Georgia, people could afford to be nice and sweet and innocent. In Gotham, those kind of traits were usually beaten out of people after the Waynes had died.
It was a different world. It was a world that was inhabited full of a lot of terrible people. A lot of terrible people like him. But now, he was better prepared. Now, he knew a way to fight back. Now, he was more confident. Now he didn't hold much fear.
Yes, he couldn't wait to go back to Gotham.
But before he left… he knew there was one more piece of business for him to do before he said sayonara to Georgia.
He hadn't meant for the old woman to die. He really hadn't.
He guess he should've expected it. Great Grandma Keeny's health had been failing her as of late. However, he hadn't factored that fact in when he decided to do what he did. He hadn't factored in what would happen when she recovered afterwards and the consequences he would face.
It had been a moment of pure recklessness on his part.
All he had wanted was some Grade A revenge before he took the plane to go to college. To get back on the woman for all she had done to him. To finally find out what made her scream. To make her feel like he had felt when she left him for the crows.
It had been so easy too. She hadn't even suspected a thing. She just turned her back for one moment and boom, Jonathan had injected her.
The old lady had immediately fell to the floor, clutching her head and screamed. She screamed and screamed and writhed on the ground, and Jonathan just sat and watched, eagerly waiting for her to say what it was that scared her. To get an answer to the question he had been wondering what Great Grandma was scared of.
However, that didn't happen. Great Grandma just kept screaming and screaming and writhing on the floor before suddenly, her gnarled hand clutched her heart and she began gasping like a landed fish. Jonathan had actually stood up at that point, panic immediately setting in when he realized what was happening. He had actually knelt down by the old woman and had tried his best to save her. But… no matter what he did, Great Grandma Keeny still winded up dead on the ground, her face forever stuck in a mask of horror.
At first he had been stuck with a feeling of horror. He had just murdered his Great Grandmother. He may have aided in the murder of all of those people with his dad, but he was never directly responsible. However, now, he actually had blood on his hands. He was responsible for her demise.
Then a feeling of unexplainable anger hit him. Of course she had died. She had to be an inconvenience to him. She had to make things difficult for him. She had died as she lived… an annoyance. He hadn't even gotten to learn what it was that she feared. He resisted the urge to spat on the ground.
The next feeling he had was nothing. The numbness took over again. Part of him wondered if he should just leave the corpse here. Any normal person would just assume she had died sometime after he left for college. It wasn't like Great Grandma Keeny had any friends or family who visited her every day. It could be perfectly plausible.
That would be the rational thing to do.
But Jonathan didn't want to be rational with Great Grandma Keeny. As immature and as reckless and as petty as it was, he still wanted the last laugh. The last revenge.
Maybe he had taken after Great Grandma Keeny more than he thought.
He sat in a chair, thinking about what to do for a moment, before finally, it came to him. He smiled. It would be absolutely perfect.
The crows he learned weren't that bad or scary up in person.
In the end, they were just hungry creatures who had wanted a bite to eat. They hadn't attacked him out of maliciousness towards him. They just wanted what was on him. He thought about this as he tossed Great Grandma Keeny's body into the belfry and watched as a large swarm of crows surrounded her corpse, immediately going at it. He even swore that one particularly large crow had actually blinked at him gratefully. For some reason, that alone made him feel a certain fondness towards the crow. Even though he knew he would never see the creature again, he donned it with the name 'Nightmare'.
He left the crows to their meal for a while, choosing to pack up any stuff he found somewhat interesting in the old manor. He had discovered a whole lot of things by exploring the rooms he was never allowed in. Like the fact that Great Grandma Keeny had a whole library with a plethora of books in it. Of course she would never allow him in this room. It would've brought him some level of happiness… and that was not her ultimate plan.
Once he was done packing anything he found valuable and fetched his backpack full of trinkets from the attic, he sat and regarded Keeny Manor. Part of him wondered if this would be his last time seeing the place. He didn't know. He didn't really want too… but only time could tell. It did seem like a waste to just throw an old house like this away…
Eh. He would worry about a matter like this at some other time.
He stuffed all of his luggage away in his car before walking to the belfry again, a shovel now in hand. He was glad to see that the crows were gone and had made fast work of Great Grandma's body. She was hardly more than a bunch of bones, pieces of flesh, and clothing.
He buried Great Grandma Keeny's remains, covered the spot up with various wild grasses and weeds before walking to his car and driving away, ready to head to the airport and head to Gotham to start his new life.
For once in his life, Jonathan Crane was feeling optimistic.
Jonathan Crane had to say, he had missed Gotham. The minute he had stepped foot in the city, he saw a slew of homeless people glaring at him and a couple of obvious drug dealers trying to get people interested in their wares, with practically no shame or finesse at all.
Ah, home sweet home.
Jonathan didn't know why he had decided to go visit the GCPD. If anything, he should be avoiding the place like it had the plague. But something in him just had to see… just had to see the men who had killed his father and took him to the hospital. He had actually remembered their names. He didn't even know he had logged them into his memory, but apparently he had as the minute he walked into the building, he requested to the nice lady at the desk that he was here to see Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock.
She had pointed them out and he had walked over. He wasn't all that surprised when they didn't recognize him right away. He had changed quite a lot in appearance since that day. Shorter hair, glasses (apparently he was nearsighted, that explained a lot), taller body, scars all over him, gaunt face, more professional look.
However, once he said who he was, recognition and shock immediately went over their features. In fact, the Bullock character looked like he was three seconds away from punching him and claiming self-defense, which was a little disconcerting. It seemed the Crane name had left a bad taste in both of these detectives mouths even after all these years. Part of him wondered if his dad would be proud of that fact.
He quickly reassured them that he wasn't out for revenge and had actually moved on with his life. He lamented that he missed his father, but had understood that what his dad had done was wrong and he wished he could've changed their mind. He saw the Jim Gordon character relax, though the Bullock guy still looked like he wanted to punch him in the face. Oh well, he guess that couldn't be helped.
He explained that he was working to become a college professor, wanting to explore the fields of Chemistry, Psychology, and English mainly, and thanked them personally for having taken to the hospital all those years ago. The two men had nodded and Jim Gordon had even commented how he was glad that Jonathan had matured so much since then.
Once he was satisfied of having met the man who had actually murdered his father, he had shook their hands, but had made it a point to shake Jim Gordon's hand a little longer and firmer. He had heard quite a lot about Jim Gordon since he had returned to Gotham. Seems like the man was single-handedly trying to fix the corrupt system of Gotham and getting in loads of trouble for it. However, no matter how much trouble he had gotten himself in, he always managed to pull through. Always managed to come out on top.
Jonathan wondered what a man like that was afraid of.
He must've had a strange look on his face, as Jim Gordon had thrown him a look of concern. Jonathan quickly shook himself out of his thoughts and had given Jim a friendly smile, hoping that would fix things. He was going to have to learn how to mask his thoughts a little better.
Jim had thrown him a weary smile back, but as Jonathan turned and walked back to the exit, he could practically feel Jim Gordon's eyes on him.
For some reason, he felt like his time with Jim Gordon wasn't over yet. They would cross paths again one day he was sure.
Ever since Jonathan Crane had returned to Gotham, the scarecrow hadn't shown up. Even though he never saw it as much anymore, that didn't stop him from thinking about it all the time. At first he had found his sudden obsession with it a bit odd, but as he progressed through his college life, he realized the reason why. It was a simple answer really. It was all a matter of closure.
He had purposely avoided the barn since he had returned, but now, here he was, leaving the bustle of the city to the barn where he had been sent down in that spiral of terror. He had thought the sight of the place would make him upset, but he felt nothing but indifferent towards it. He found this oddly fitting seeing as he had felt a similar lack of feeling when he visited his father's grave. Oh well… the barn wasn't the reason he had came here.
Walking over, he crunched through until he saw the scarecrow sitting there. It had not aged well over the two years. It was practically in tatters and smelled mildewy, no doubt a result of countless rains wearing it down. The thing didn't look all that scary anymore. In fact, it looked pathetic.
Jonathan stood for a while, staring at the scarecrow, hands in his pocket, thinking back on everything in life. Life had really improved for him ever since he had left Georgia. He was doing well in school. He could read whatever he wanted. His teachers expected big things in his future. He had a part-time job, was able to manage himself quite well alone. He still didn't have any friends, but he was used to that. He found companionship in his books and the people of the city.
He still made concoctions in his apartment, continuing to seeks out rats in the alleyways. He never used any of it, but he liked knowing it was there. He wondered if he would ever move on from the rats and onto something bigger. He didn't know. So far, he just kept the concoction around, just so he know he had it. Knowing he had something so powerful made him feel slightly empowered.
He didn't know where his future was going, but he wasn't allowing himself to worry about it.
He wasn't afraid anymore. Not of scarecrows. Not of people. Not of Gotham. Not of this barn. Not of this scarecrow. And it felt good. It felt… relieving.
He stared at the pathetic scarecrow that had once terrorized his dreams… before finally, he swung his fist and managed to lop it's head right off. The wood that held it was so weak and flimsy it basically snapped off instantly on the impact, but Jonathan's fist still satisfyingly ached at the sensation. Nothing could beat him now. He had moved on.
After he had finally pulled off that little move, he knew he could've just left.
He had had his closure. There was nothing left for him to do here. But something kept beckoning him over. Something kept telling him that if he left now, he would be incomplete with his mission.
Chewing his lip, Jonathan debated before finally, he turned around, ripped the burlap skin off of the scarecrow's head (so now it was nothing more than a wearable piece of cloth) and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.
It was just a souvenir he told himself. Nothing more. A testament to all he had went through.
However, Jonathan had the feeling that this thing was just the start of something entirely bigger than himself. Something he never could've dreamed. What that was though, he didn't know.
Oh well, he would just have to find out.
A/N: Hoo boy. It's finally done. My first Batman fic, and I am actually kind of proud of it! This has probably been the fastest I've ever finished such a large project too, because I kept wanting to continue writing this.
This story went through a lot of changes as it went on though. Originally, I was inspired by the song, "I'm Not Angry Anymore" by Paramore to write a fic simply about Jonathan Crane coming to terms with his father and kind of moving on with his life. However, then it kind of just morphed into this whole thing.
Personally, I hate the New 52 backstory they gave Jon. I also hate how New 52 and Gotham kind of just threw his character away (I mean, he's my favorite character so of course when he gets shoved back I am upset lol)... so I decided to do a kind of combination to incorporate his Year One backstory (my favorite) with hints to his Masters of Fear backstory.
Seeing as Gotham!Jon is such a blank slate, I totally thought that he would wind up being sort of like my headcanon Jon... but as I was typing he kind of morphed into his own character and while I kind of dig it! Haha.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and thanks for sticking around until the end.
Critique as always is wanted!