Madness

I do not own Jonathan Crane (aka The Scarecrow) or Jervis Tetch (aka The Mad Hatter). They belong to DC Comics. Quotes belong to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. This was written purely for fun. I am going to apologize in advance if I offend anyone. It is not intentional.

Also, I am setting this story as if Gotham City is Chicago. That is important. And the quotes are italicized. Enjoy!


The trees that lined the back roads thinned out before they disappeared altogether. Up above, the sky had become completely clouded over, hiding the stars behind the cover of murk. The blanket of mist overhead was soon tinted in a strange orange color. The horizon glowed ominously, growing brighter with each passing minute in their travels toward Gotham City.

The stolen car sped past the sign welcoming drivers or the people crazy enough to visit this ghastly place. Even at this ungodly hour, there were still a few vehicles on the road.

In the time that had passed since their run-in with the Jeep, not a word had been spoken between the two villains. Jonathan had kept his eyes on the road but his mind on what lay ahead for them both. He glanced over at the blond man in the passenger seat only occasionally. Jervis had finally uncurled himself and sat semi-upright in his seat. He now sat slouched against the door, his forehead resting against the cool glass of the window. He wasn't dozing anymore; he simply stared out the window, a gloomy look in his unfocused eyes.

The Hatter looked up when he realized the car was pulling into a parking lot. He blinked when the neon sign of the store flashed across his face, assaulting his eyes. A convenience store…? His exhausted blue orbs left the sign that proudly proclaimed its low prices and its 24-hour pharmacy to look around the parking lot. It was completely empty save for one car: the employee's, no doubt.

As the stolen vehicle came to a rest in one of spaces, Jervis sat himself upright in his seat. He glanced over at Jonathan, who was rummaging through his bag.

Crane pulled a small canister of his fear toxin out from one of the pockets and began readying it on his wrist. As he pulled his sleeve down over his weapon, he looked over at Jervis. "If anyone pulls into the parking lot, honk the horn. I'll be right back."

He waited for the blond Englishman to make some sort of acknowledgment to his request. When he only received a blank stare for several seconds, the Scarecrow opened the driver-side door. He hopped out of the still-running vehicle and shut the door with a slam.

Jervis's eyes followed his lanky friend into the building, looking particularly bored. When he lost sight of him, Jervis's focus and mind began to wander. He looked like he could have fallen back asleep, but he was terrified of what sleep would bring. His mind went back to the horrific images that had haunted his slumber thus far. A slight shiver ran through him and he tried to clear his head.

When his attempts proved unsuccessful, he sighed in defeat. He rubbed his eyes before he looked around the parking lot. Still empty…

A scream emitted from the building, bringing the Hatter's eyes back to the store. The shriek was quickly stifled and the silence of the night was restored. Jervis continued to stare at the building.

A minute passed before Jonathan walked out of the store in a confident and hurried stride. He threw open the door and tossed a paper bag and what looked like a packaged tarp into the back seat before hopping in himself. He didn't say a word to Jervis, who looked at him questioningly, as he put the car in gear.

The car pulled away from the convenience store and back onto the road.


Twenty minutes later, once they were into one of the really bad parts of the city, Jonathan pulled the car over and killed the engine. Jonathan shoved the paper bag from the store into his bag and grabbed the tarp. He exchanged a brief look with Jervis before they both exited the vehicle. The two swiftly covered the stolen vehicle with the tarp and were quickly on their way to Jonathan's lair.

In a matter of minutes, they came upon the run down pharmacy serving as the Scarecrow's hideout. The moment they stepped into the abandoned building, the rustling of newspaper sounded from underfoot.

The crackling of the paper snapped Jervis from his lethargic daze for only a moment. He came to a standstill and listened with vague awareness to the Scarecrow, who closed the door and walked deeper into the lair.

The lights came on, making the blond man flinch immediately. The slight motion went unnoticed by Crane; he moved deeper still through the area, leaving Jervis alone in the paper cluttered lobby-of-sorts.

When he returned to the room with a glass of water in hand, he found Jervis nudging the papers on the ground with a foot, balancing unsteadily on the other.

The Englishman cocked his head to the side. "'…and Alice was a good deal worse off, as the March Hare had just upset the milk jug into his plate,'" he commented in a weary voice before he gazed up at his host.

When Jonathan didn't react to the quote and a silence had passed, the Hatter began readjusting the bag over his shoulder. "Well," he began slowly, "I'm sure you've had your fill of me. Thank you for everything you've done, and I am sorry." He began turning toward the door. "I'll be seeing you—"

"Actually," Jonathan interjected, making the blond man pause. As his blue eyes focused on him, Jonathan suddenly felt uncomfortable. He pushed the feeling down and continued. "…I don't think it's such a good idea for you to be alone right now."

Jervis's eyebrows twitched minutely and his eyes narrowed a fraction.

Jonathan couldn't decipher the look he was being given, which made him anxious. When Jervis kept his mouth resolutely shut, Crane pressed on. "You're welcome to stay here until you are able to function on your own again. It's for the best, I assure you."

The Englishman didn't say anything. He remained glued to where he was standing, simply staring the auburn-haired man down. After a long tense moment had passed, he finally removed the bag from his shoulder and let it drop to the paper-cluttered floorboards.

Jonathan felt a small wave of relief wash over him at this; Jervis didn't put up a fight. The feeling was short lived, however. He was positive the Hatter would object vehemently to what was coming next.

Jervis watched his host with observant eyes, much like a hawk eyes its prey, as Crane removed the paper bag from the inside of his pouch. His eyebrows shot upward and his wide eyes locked on the two pill bottles Jonathan produced from the bag. "I do not need medication, Jonathan," he hissed angrily.

"I'm not trying to cure you, Jervis," Jonathan shot back, just as harshly. He held up one of the bottles. "This will just get rid of your hallucinations; it won't do anything to your delusional and Wonderland-obsessed state of mind. That requires therapy, and I don't want to put up with you for that long."

Jervis's enraged eyes narrowed, but he didn't comment on Jonathan's remarks. "And the other?" he growled, crossing his arms.

Jonathan looked at the plastic bottle and back at Jervis. "These are just sleeping pills." When Jervis's expression darkened, he sighed. "Jervis, your lack of sleep is only adding to your psychosis. I know you're afraid to sleep right now, but you need to get a substantial amount of it if you wish to go back to what you call normal."

"I can't sleep, Jonathan, not with all these things swarming around in my mind." The Englishman's voice had lost its angry edge; he sounded openly terrified now. His crossed arms tightened about his chest and his shoulders rose slightly. His eyes lowered to the cluttered ground and a tremble ran over him. "The things I've seen I mostly see in sleep…I wish not to see them more than I do now."

Crane immediately picked up on the note of fear in his voice. Had he been trying to mask his fear with anger? Jonathan's dark eyes went to the bottle containing the sleeping pills for a moment. "This is a really powerful sleeping medication; it ought to knock you out cold. You shouldn't even dream."

Jervis's eyes slowly returned to Scarecrow, a look of suspended hope and slight suspicion written upon his face. He eyed the bottle cautiously. "…you're not just saying that, are you?" he asked in a tiny voice that bordered on pitiful.

Jonathan managed to resist rolling his eyes. "When have you known me to say things for the sake of being comforting?" Jervis looked off, obviously thinking back over the events from their day of travels. Jonathan quickly continued. "The sleeping pills are potent enough. The other medication cements it."

The air between the two was silent for a solid minute. The taller man continued to stare at the smaller one, who was still looking off at something. The Hatter twitched from time to time in response to some unseen stimuli.

A small sigh escape from the Englishman. "Fine."

The weight on Jonathan's shoulders lifted immediately. He finally allowed his eyes to leave his blond friend and return to the pill bottles. As he retrieved the medication from the containers, his mind began to fast-forward to the future. He truly hoped that the medication would at least quell the hallucinations. Delusions were harder to deal with, but Jervis was delusional nearly all of the time. He just hoped that this little escapade would not repeat itself any time soon.

Jonathan approached the small man slowly to keep from startling him. Jervis looked like he had slipped into another daze, his unfocused eyes still lowered. He waited psudo-patiently, making sure that the glass of water and the pills in his hands were in Jervis's peripheral.

Sure enough, Jervis's eyes shifted to the liquid and medication for a lingering moment before they lifted to Jonathan's face.

Jonathan took note of the worried look on the Hatter's face. "You'll be fine, Jervis," he said as reassuringly as he could. "Nothing is going to attack you."

A short duration of time went by before the Englishman's shoulders slumped. It was obvious that he didn't want to take the pills. Did he doubt that they would actually be effective? Jonathan knew that the sleeping pills would knock Jervis out; what he wasn't entirely sure of was if the hallucinations would be put at bay with one dose. If this didn't work, Jervis would doubt that medication would help at all, and things would then have the potential to spiral even more out of control.

Still, Jervis lifted a shaky hand and took the little capsules from Crane's outstretched palm. As Jonathan handed over the glass of water, he felt that discomfort return from before. Jervis really did trust him with this. He had been trying to deal with his madness alone, unknowingly.

Concern flowed through Jonathan anew, mixing with that discomfort and turning the feeling into something he wasn't familiar with. Jervis trusted him with this…he was trusting that Jonathan knew how to help. If this didn't work—

He immediately shot down that train of thought. This was going to work.

It had to.

In the time it took Jervis to swallow the pills, those emotions created an exhaustion that ran rampant through Jonathan. He didn't like feeling this worried or concerned for anyone.

Jervis moved by his host, unaware of the conflicts raging in the Professor's mind. He set the glass of water down on the lab table and turned cautiously to Jonathan. "…are you sure about this?" he asked hesitantly.

The dialogue from outside of his head snapped Jonathan back to the present. He turned and looked at the Hatter, putting on a neutral expression. "Yes," he answered.

The blond man's eyes lingered on Crane as he took a deep breath and exhaled in a sigh. He seemed reluctant to believe it for himself, but if Jonathan was so confident about it… Well, he was the expert in these sorts of things, he supposed.

Jonathan broke his stare from Jervis and looked to the sofa on the other side of the room. "You'd better lie down; those sleeping pills work pretty quickly."

Jervis gazed at the piece of furniture in question. "How quickly?" he heard himself ask quietly.

"Very quickly," Jonathan replied, approaching his guest. He laid a cautious hand on the smaller man's shoulder and led him to the sofa. "With your current state of exhaustion, it should take only a few minutes."

Jonathan waited until Jervis had hesitantly sat down on the sofa before he left the room momentarily. He returned with a blanket, which he placed on the cushion next to Jervis's trembling form. "A good night's sleep will really help you, Jervis," Jonathan reassured him when he saw the ever-present worry in Jervis's downturned gaze.

"'You might just as well say that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'" Jervis replied in a mumble.

Crane didn't react to the quote. He walked out of Jervis's peripheral.

Jervis flinched when the room went dark before he felt his form go rigid. His trembling intensified and he swallowed with some difficulty. The sound of rustling newspapers filled the darkened air, giving Jervis an idea where Jonathan was moving to. The crinkling stopped.

"Good night, Jervis," Jonathan's voice came from the darkness.

Jervis could already feel the sleeping pills taking effect, increasing his exhaustion tenfold. He ran a shaky hand down his face. "…g-good night," he finally replied.

The rustling of the fallen newspapers continued and Jonathan's footsteps disappeared into silence.

Beyond the darkened main room, Jonathan stood motionless in the darkness. He listened intently for any sound to disturb the quiet that had engulfed his hideout. He didn't think that Jervis would try to escape from him, but he didn't want him wandering around aimlessly through his work area in the darkness.

He finally heard Jervis kick off his shoes and the quiet noises of his friend trying to get comfortable on the sofa.

Jonathan remained where he was, completely stationary, for several more minutes. His own exhaustion was growing as a result of the darkness. Still, he waited and listened.

When an unknown amount of time had passed, Jonathan carefully moved as quietly as he could to the doorway leading to the main room. He listened attentively through the darkness. A swell of relief went through him when he heard Jervis's even breathing, signifying sleep.

A soft sigh escaped from Jonathan as he moved silently deeper into his hideout. He didn't know how long Jervis was going to be out. He was sure, however, that he would be awake before Jervis was. He'd have time to prepare for whatever might happen then.

Right now, though, he needed to get some sleep of his own.


A/N: I know it's been a while since I've updated this piece. I'm sorry. School started back up in January, and it has been keeping me insanely busy.

I think there is going to be one more chapter before I call this piece done. Hopefully it won't take two months to write.

Feedback is always welcome. Thank you for reading!