AN: All right, so I lied. This was originally intended as a one shot, since it was so long, with a sequel fic coming afterwards, but I decided that since the sequel would cover the events from immediately after the first chapter onwards, I might as well just keep on in the same fic. So now it's just an ordinary fic with an obscenely long first chapter.
Thanks for all the reviews!
Edward Nigma hated elastic. He would never understand how Pamela Isley or Harley Quinn managed to move covered in skintight material, let alone run about the city and take part in fights. The stuff was so damn restricting, and way too close to the skin for comfort. When he went out to commit crimes, he wore a suit, and despite the lecture Pam had given him on how his attire was actually more inhibiting than hers, he wasn't about to change his style. Spandex, nylon, elastic…all completely idiotic and worthless fabrics, as far as he was concerned.
Unfortunately, most of his upper body and arms were now covered in the stuff, as pressure garments to reduce scarring. An unfortunate side effect of having his latest Batman death trap fail; as the trap had involved fire and Batman had that lovely little habit of turning attacks back around on his opponents, he'd suffered a fair few burn wounds. The wounds themselves, he could deal with. Super villains in Gotham got used to pain, fast, or they weren't super villains for long. The damn elastic, though, that was almost enough to make him rethink his career choices.
Still, he reflected, turning on his side as he resisted the urge to pull the pressure garments off, he was better off than Jonathan Crane.
Jonathan had been in for a week now, in the bed beside his own, and he was an absolute mess. His physical condition would have been horrifying enough—so severely underweight that he looked like an anorexia patient—without the scars, which were the final touch to the nightmare. From the neck down, his skin didn't resemble skin anymore so much as a patchwork of raised, reddened areas slashing haphazardly through the white, smooth spots. A few of them had gotten infected, despite the fact that Jonathan seemed to have kept himself as clean as possible while on the run—how like him, Edward had reflected, to care more about his hygiene than his health—and his first two days had been spent knocked out while the doctors pumped what remained of his body full of antibiotics.
And then there was his hand, without a doubt the worst of all the injuries, made even more terrifying by the knowledge that it was self-inflicted. The bones where he'd shot the nail in were completely shattered, from what Edward had overheard from the doctors, and had to be reset by implanting metal rods to hold things in place. More than likely there was nerve damage, and it was a given that physical therapy would be required once he healed enough to do it.
Jonathan shifted, leaning back against his pillow as his eyes opened. He blinked a few times against the cold noon light coming in through the infirmary windows, pulling slightly at the restraints fasted around his wrists and ankles to keep him from escape, or more self harm.
"Hello, Jonathan." Edward sat up, taking the bottle of Ensure from Jonathan's bedside table and unscrewing the lid. He was supposed to be restrained as well, but it hadn't taken. The straps were after all, just another riddle, only they involved twisting the body rather than the mind. Once the staff had seen that he made no attempts at escape, they'd given up trying to hold him, though the guards around the doors were doubled. Honestly, he'd felt well enough to go back to his own cell days ago, but that would mean leaving Jonathan alone.
And in his current mental state, isolation was the last thing he needed.
"'Lo," Jonathan managed, his eyes somehow managing to look so dark despite their light shade, focusing on Edward only briefly before starting to wander. His body was twitching slightly, from the assault of imaginary birds. He winced, closing his eyes. "Please don't yell at me."
"Joker again?" Edward asked, taking his friend's injured hand in his own. Jonathan was still hallucinating, as the antipsychotics could take up to three weeks to work effectively, build back up in the system. In the meantime, it was unnerving as hell to see his usually stoic friend having all the self control of a frightened child. "He's not really here, remember Jonathan? We talked about how he isn't real yesterday, do you remember?" And the day before that, and the day before that. It never took, not for more than a few minutes.
Jonathan shook his head, hand tightening around Edward's. Whatever he was seeing, it couldn't be pleasant. "Not him. Scarecrow's not happy."
Great. It was one thing to say the Joker wasn't there. That, Jonathan would at least listen to, if only to forget it moments later. Scarecrow, on the other hand, he refused to hear a word against. Edward hadn't even tried to suggest that there was no Scarecrow, knowing well enough it was just Jonathan's name for a part of himself, but he had tried speculating aloud that Scarecrow didn't always give the best advice. To be met with 'he's my best friend and he cares about me more than anyone else in the world and he just wants to help me,' ad nauseum. "What's Scarecrow upset about?"
"He doesn't like the dream I had, I think," Jonathan muttered, eyes darting back and forth. "I thought it was a good dream."
"What was it?"
"I was stuck in a dark place, a very dark, watery place underground, and I couldn't find my way out. I kept running and running and never getting anywhere, and there was…a bad, bad person after me." His voice remained flat as he spoke, but his eyes had closed tightly and his grip even tighter. "And I couldn't get away. Then Scarecrow came and took me by the hand," he relaxed visibly, "and told me everything would be okay and took me outside where it was safe and bright and not scary. Only once we got outside I realized it hadn't been Scarecrow. It was the Batman."
Ah. No wonder Scarecrow hadn't liked that. Hell, it even disturbed him. How far gone did his friend have to be, to see Batman in a positive light? "Did you tell him you can't help what you dream?"
"Yes. He said he's not angry about the dream anyway. Just that he wants to leave."
"You can't leave," Edward said, as patiently as he could considering they'd had this conversation roughly eight million times in the last week. "You're too sick to go anywhere. You would only get worse, remember?"
"Uh-huh." He nodded, hair falling into his face. Edward brushed it back. "I told him that. He said I'm not that sick and he didn't care."
"Well, if he's not being rational, you shouldn't talk to him for a little bit until he calms down, okay?"
"Um." He winced again. "I tried that, but he's being kind of loud."
Some best friend. "Hey, Jonathan?"
"Yes?"
If he couldn't make him stop hallucinating, he could at least distract him from the voices. "Say I have a valuable item I need to send to you, and a box to send it in that can be fitted with multiple locks. The problem is, I need to lock the box, but you don't have the key to any of my locks, and I can't send you a key because it could be intercepted and copied. You live too far away for me to deliver it in person, and I can't trust anyone else to bring it to you. How do I get the item to you?"
"Er…" his eyes cleared slightly as he considered it. Edward had no doubt that had he been in his right mind—or, as right as his mind got—he would have gotten it at once. He was the only one on the intellectual level to get most of what Edward said, though in terms of genius, he was still below him. Most everyone was. "You put a lock on it and send it to me, and I put my own lock on it when I get it and send it back. Then you take your lock off and send it back to me, and I unlock my lock with my key. Right?" He sounded unsure, which disturbed Edward more than it should have. He wasn't exactly operating at full capacity, but he was always such a narcissist, so self-assured. Hearing doubt from him was like hearing a heavy metal band play polka. It just didn't fit.
"Yes. Good job. Want another one?"
"Uh-huh."
"Okay. The beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end, and the end of every place?"
"Um. The letter e?"
"Right." His friend was almost entirely focused on him at this point, so he thought it safe to stop the questions for a few minutes. Letting go of Jonathan's hand, he picked the Ensure back up. "Here, you need to drink this."
"I hate that stuff," he protested, sounding so sulky it was almost comical. At least, until Edward remembered how starved he was.
"No, this is the vanilla flavor. You like vanilla, remember?" Actually, vanilla was his least favorite, but he saw no point in reminding him of that fact. Besides, readjusting to the medicine was scrambling Jonathan's brain more than ever, to the point where he sometimes lost his train of thought in the middle of a sentence, so he might have forgotten how much he hated it.
"I'm not hungry."
"I know, but you need to eat if you want to get better." Jonathan remained unconvinced and he sighed. "I know it's hard, but if you don't get something in your system, they'll try to feed you again. You don't want that, do you?"
The mere mention of the idea made Jonathan go pale. Edward had never been tube fed, so he had no idea of the sensation, but from his friend's reactions it was hell on Earth. They'd put the tube back in while he was unconscious from infection, and when he woke up he'd thrown such a fit that it took Leland nearly an hour to calm him down enough to let the doctors remove it safely.
"No." He was shaking. "No no no, I don't want that, I'd starve before I let them do that again, it's mean and it's awful and I hate it. It hurts and it doesn't fit and once it's in they shove air in your stomach and it hurts and then they make you eat and it hurts even more."
Edward put his free hand on Jonathan's shoulder. "All right, all right. Calm down, it's okay. No one's going to do that again, not if you try eating on your own. Relax, Jonathan." He raised the bottle to Jonathan's mouth, which remained closed.
"I can't," he said, through clenched teeth, turning his head.
Edward sighed. "Why not? I'm not going to pour the whole thing down your throat at once, you know. We can take this slowly."
Jonathan shook his head. "It'll make me sick."
"Look, I know it doesn't feel good, but you have to try it or—"
"No, I mean really sick." His eyes had gone wide and searching again, body shivering. "If I drink that, I'll die."
"You will not," Edward said, as patiently as he could manage. "It's helping you. You've been drinking it all week. Why on Earth do you think it'll make you sick?"
"Because he said so," Jonathan muttered, head drooping.
"Scarecrow?"
"No. The Joker." He tilted his head in the direction of the empty bed to his right. "He said it'll kill me if I drink it. And I don't want to die, no matter how big an adventure it would be. I don't want to. I'm scared."
"The Joker's not really here, remember?" There was no response. Oh, this was going to be a long day. "Jonathan? You're only seeing things, okay? It's just in your imagination. Focus on what's real."
"I wish people wouldn't say that," he moaned, closing his eyes. "I can't focus; I don't know what's real anymore and what isn't. If he's not real, what makes you real, or the nurses? Or me? I wish people wouldn't say that…I wish I could know for sure." He pulled on the straps again, opened his eyes. "I want to hurt again."
"So you'll know?"
Jonathan nodded.
"You can't do that, Jonathan. It's not good for you."
"I know that. But it helps. It makes everything go the way it should be, it puts all the colors back inside the lines, and I know what's going on. I wish I could do it, so bad. I miss it."
He managed to hold the sigh in this time, but only just. "All right, here's how you know if someone is real or not. If they want to hurt you, they're not, okay? But if they're trying to help you, they are. Anyone who tells you that food you need is going to make you sick is not being your friend. So ignore him." He brought the bottle to Jonathan's lips again, and while he didn't open his mouth, he didn't turn away either. "Do you want me to ask you riddles again? Would that help you feel better?"
He nodded, almost imperceptibly.
"Okay. But you have to drink, understand? I'll ask you the questions while you're drinking and you can answer between sips. All right?"
He didn't respond, just glanced down to the Ensure, considering.
"Don't be afraid. It won't make you sick, I promise."
Another nod, and he opened his mouth and drank, wincing at the taste.
"What gets wetter as it dries?" Easy, far below Jonathan's intelligence, but he didn't feel like putting a strain on him in such a state.
Jonathan swallowed. "Towel."
"Good," he said, as his friend began to drink again. "What can you catch but not throw?"
"Cold."
"Yes. What's full of holes, but still holds water?"
"Sponge."
"Good job. What goes around the world but stays in a corner?"
"Stamp."
"Yes. What do you call it when an elephant sits on a fence?"
"Time to get a new fence."
"Good. What can't you see, but you can show?"
He swallowed and paused, considering. "A face?"
"Nope." Before Jonathan could ask, he made him drink again.
"Eyes?"
"No."
"A mirror?"
"You can see a mirror, Jonathan." The bottle was over half empty now, and Jonathan was drinking more. He assumed confusion distracted him from his dislike of the stuff, and paranoia over illness.
"What, then?"
"Here, finish this and I'll tell you."
Jonathan looked down at it, wrinkled his nose. "But I don't like that stuff."
"Well, do you want to know the answer or don't you?"
He sighed. "Fine." Edward let him drink again, hiding a smile. Even when completely out of touch, his need for knowledge still took control over everything else. "What is it?" he asked, when he'd finished, managing to look curious as a cat even while making faces from the taste.
"Friendship, of course."
The bit about dying being an adventure comes from a line in Peter Pan. The elephant on the fence riddle comes from the graphic novel Hush when Riddler calls it a worthless riddle as everyone knows the answer.
The actual plot will come back in the next chapter, but after being so horrible to Jonathan in the first, I wanted him to have some time just to have a friend be nice to him in a time of need, with no nail guns or knives or anything.
