AN: As those of you who've read Shadow Selves have probably guessed, I love James Joyce. The man is a genius. I don't, however, enjoy analyzing him. And I especially don't enjoy analyzing him when that fire alarm from the other night has given me something that's either a cold or an ear infection and either way feels like someone's rammed an ice pick into my throat. Hence why I'm writing another chapter tonight instead of writing an essay.
Note: This chapter deals with rape rather a lot, so be warned.
Thanks for the reviews!
"It's a brand new day and the sun is high.
All the birds are singing that you're gonna die."
—"Brand New Day," Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Lotter had gone to the broom closet.
He was out of sight by the time Jonathan stepped into the hallway. It couldn't be avoided. There was an art in moving to avoid detection; the eye perceived objects in motions more readily than objects at rest. Beyond the speed, there was an art to the movement. It had to look purposeful—the orderlies and the nurses were trained to deal with the disoriented and would gravitate toward anyone wandering aimlessly, consciously or not—but not too driven. Storming around or running from the room would also draw unwanted attention. Jonathan wasn't sure how Lotter had escaped that. The orderly's uniform, perhaps, or the chaos the Joker had caused from flooding his ward.
A rush of thoughts flooded Jonathan's mind as he moved; his steps quickening now that he was out of sight from the rec room. Where was the Joker going to sleep while they were repairing the water damage? Where would any of the high security patients go? Some of them had been his test subjects, some of them would remember what the sessions had been like. He didn't relish the prospect of sharing his ward with any of them. What would the flooding do to an asylum already damaged by water, or rather, steam from the night the Ra's Al Ghul had activated his toxin? Did tigers only attack when their prey wasn't facing them, or did that depend on how hungry they were?
For once he was able to block the worries without the aid of hypnosis. It was little more than white noise in the background now, and irrelevant to the task at hand. When the Batman had poisoned him, the damage to his sanity had been akin to cracking a mirror. The pieces were all there, but the connections between them were jagged and gapped. Then he'd been brought back to Arkham, and the sufferings here had been like shaking the mirror. The pieces began to slide.
But just now, seeing Lotter, seeing the fear he had caused with only an assortment of chemicals and a few whispered words; that had pushed all the glass out of the frame. But the backing remained behind the shards, and the backing wasn't afraid of birds or the smell of nicotine or orderlies that got off on torturing the inmates. It was a part of him that he hadn't seen since the Bat had swooped down into his operation and ruined everything, a part of him that he hadn't realized he'd missed so much until it was back, and burning with the desire for revenge.
Lotter was in the broom closet, and he knew it even without seeing what hall the man had staggered down. It was basic psychology; common sense, really. People clung to the familiar when they terrified. It was why battered women clung to abusive partners, or why alcoholics clung to the bottle even when they realized the damage they were doing to themselves and those around them. Part of it was a dependency, either physical or emotional, and part of it was a lack of self-worth, but it was also the fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, and the fears paralyzed them, leaving them broken and clinging to the only things they knew. So Lotter would be in the broom closet.
Besides, he should still be latching to the cigarettes like an infant to its mother's milk, so if Lotter had retained any self-awareness or control, he'd either be in the broom closet or as close as he got to it before he collapsed.
It had been so easy.
Jonathan hadn't even had a plan the first time he'd stolen the cigarettes.
Lotter was forgetful, and that was what had allowed things to work. Jonathan had found the cigarettes before the meds he was on now had taken effect, and just what he'd been thinking, he wasn't sure. His memories of that time were, again, like a mirror, fogged up and murky, and Jonathan had the feeling that that was for the best, because what he could remember of the time wasn't at all pleasant. But he did know that the orderlies had been making their visits in that time, so maybe the theft had been out of spite. It wasn't until later, after that, that Jonathan had rediscovered the cigarettes, hidden between his books and the wall, that he'd come up with the plan.
His stay in the infirmary had sparked the idea. Between the drugs and the hallucinations, his memories of the time were little more than vignettes, split-seconds of interaction that he could remember—a nurse standing over him with a needle, someone with greenish-blond hair who had seemed familiar, Joan's visits—but he remembered the morphine and the antibiotics, and he remembered thinking of Arkham's pharmacy and all the drugs it contained. It would be crude compared to his usual methods, like attempting to recreate the Sistine Chapel with finger paints, but he'd wondered if it could be done whenever he could focus well enough to think about it. The right drugs could cause hallucinations, or produce them as side effects.
Jonathan had never focused on the side effects of his compound before incarceration, but a week of vomiting up everything he even thought about eating when they'd started the medications had taught him to examine all aspects of a drug.
Thomas Schiff had been the obvious choice to transfer the drugs. The nurses viewed him as harmless, he already had a tendency to wander away from escorts, anything he said was dismissed as a product of his schizophrenia, he considered himself Jonathan's friend, for some inexplicable reason, and, most importantly, unlike Lucy or Joan, he had no issue with breaking the law or torturing the deserving. Jonathan had been concerned with whether or not he'd receive the drugs he'd asked for, but save for a few slips at the start of the process, Thomas had done exactly as instructed, whenever he managed to escape supervision long enough.
Jonathan had first tested to see which drug would give Lotter a reaction. The process was simple: crush the pills and mix with water, introduce to the cigarettes. Let dry overnight. Thomas steals a pack in the morning, which is written off as Lotter's usual forgetfulness. Take drugged pack to rec room, where Lotter will discover and smoke it. Take other pack to room. Repeat process. A different drug each day, in the largest quantity he could manage, to test the reactions. On the third day, he'd struck gold. Shaking, wide eyes, irritability. Nothing major—after all, it hadn't had the time to amass in Lotter's system—but enough for him to confirm what drug would work.
And enough observation to know that Lotter became violent when frightened.
Some people screamed when terrified. Others giggled. Some were silent, some were uncharacteristically talkative. There were people who cried and people who became stoic, people who became withdrawn, and people who became violent. Those were the most dangerous. Jonathan had earned more than his fair share of bruises by underestimating the lengths his patients could go to when suffering from his toxin. Had the body armor not restricted his movements, the Batman would have done everything in his power to overpower his tormenter—in this case, Jonathan—and if he were to use the drug alone on Lotter, he'd be even more damaged than he was after his last encounter with the monster. Even under a mild influence, Lotter had struck an incompliant patient in the middle of the rec room. Jonathan had experienced sheer terror in that moment, fearing that the orderly would be fired before he could make him suffer.
But, this being Arkham, Lotter was only reprimanded, and Jonathan was able to proceed.
He'd requested other drugs from Thomas, and continued. He could have built up the dose and simply introduced a sedative with it, but that would ruin it. Sedatives would disorient Lotter, remove him from the experience. Jonathan wanted him aware, wanted him to suffer every last horrible minute and know that he was suffering. So he'd built up the drug that would provide the fear in miniscule doses over weeks, all the while adding other drugs in increasing increments, to make the orderly addicted. It had taken weeks, but when things got to the point where Lotter was coming in showing signs of withdrawal, having finished the pack at home and gone through the night without the drugs, Jonathan had cut out the addictive chemicals and upped the fear. That had been yesterday.
Now Lotter was in withdrawal—weakened, shaking, sickly—and terrified. And Scarecrow couldn't be happier.
Strange, given how jumbled the rest of the world was after the toxin, that he'd never struggled to remember what he was doing when he drugged the cigarettes. It gave him badly needed focus, and though it didn't ground his mind entirely, it gave him something of an anchoring point. He would miss it, if revenge didn't already taste so sweet.
Lotter hadn't even managed to close the door completely. Never did take pride in his job. Scarecrow felt a smirk growing across his face, such a wide smile that it would have been more befitting the Clown Prince of Crime or the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. He wrapped his fingers around the door's handle, tried to think of the perfect thing to say upon stepping inside, then decided he didn't have the patience for it and threw the door open with such force that it slammed against the wall.
Lotter's cigarette slipped from his fingers and fell to the tile between his legs. His mouth moved, but without sound, save for the air he was gasping in and out like a fish pulled from water.
"What big eyes you have." All right, so that was as bad of a line as "You need to lighten up" but, as he'd been then, Scarecrow was too elated to care. He was shaking as badly as Lotter, from adrenaline and joy and fear, but the fear one had before skydiving or bungee-jumping or another high risk activity, the rush of doing something both terrifying and wonderful and loving every second.
Scarecrow was going to love this. Hell, he loved it already.
"Y—you—"
He leaned in the doorway casually, almost seductively, regarding the orderly with half-lidded eyes as he reached one arm back to the door handle. "You don't look happy to see me."
Lotter kicked, but his condition gave him all the subtlety of a meteorite and all the speed of a tortoise, and Scarecrow barely had to step back to avoid the blow.
"Well, that wasn't nice."
"You..." The lighter had fallen from his other hand. It made the hairs on the back of Scarecrow's neck rise to see it. An innocuous enough item at first glance, little more than a small piece of red plastic, but when it had been held up to his skin and flickered on and off, held near his eye as a threat, it had an entirely different connotation. He wanted to shove it in Lotter's eyes, or down his throat. "Y-you s-shouldn't be—"
"Here?" He couldn't seem to stop grinning; almost felt compelled to reach up and make sure he wasn't sporting his own Glasgow smile. "But everybody else goes where they shouldn't be." He stepped into the room, slowly pulling the door shut behind him. Scarecrow wanted to slam it, wanted to make the man jump, but he'd banged it open and to do so again would be begging for unwanted company. "Say, to wards that aren't a part of their shift detail, or patients' cells, or even inside of the—"
Pain exploded in his shin and radiated through his leg. Lotter had kicked again, and he hadn't seen it coming. There wasn't a great deal of force behind it, but it was right on the bone, and he hadn't been prepared. Scarecrow heard the door click behind him as he stumbled, let himself fall forward as an idea occurred to him. He managed to angle himself before lost balance completely, and collapsed right on top of Lotter, legs going to either side of the man's torso as his hands hit the orderly's shoulders, forcing him back down against the wall.
His knees hit against the tiled floor with an audible crack, but he couldn't bring himself to care about the reverberations it sent through the lower half of his body. This couldn't have worked better if Scarecrow had planned it in advance, and now that he'd fallen, he could have smacked himself for not coming up with it on his own.
After all, it was obvious what Lotter was afraid of.
There were certain people that Jonathan had never bothered to test his compound on, simply because it was obvious what their fears were. That wasn't to say that what a person experienced was the only factor in his research—there was also the duration, the effectiveness, the physical and emotional reactions, and so on—but finding out what frightened people and why played a large part in his understanding of fear itself. Thus it would make no sense to test the compound on someone with an obvious fear, such as Lucy. It would be a waste of several very expensive, very rare chemicals, and it wasn't worth it when he could deduce it after a moment's glance.
As Scarecrow could do with Lotter.
Clearly, he'd gone into his position at Arkham for the same reason serial killers wanted jobs that put them in a position of authority. Control. Power. Lording over the weaker person. Jonathan had encountered that type throughout his life, only in school they had been pushing him down on the playground and pissing on his clothes while he was showering in gym instead of raping him in his cell. Lotter was an overgrown schoolyard bully, and they didn't like it when someone made them eat dirt for a change. He feared the loss of power, the removal of control. Just like what Lotter had done to Jonathan. It was only fair to return the favor.
And even if rape wasn't the loss of power he feared, terror made one more suggestible. Jonathan had been able to manipulate the vague fear of harm into specifics such as blood, rabbits, and guns just by introducing an object or an idea, and Scarecrow fully intended to do the latter now.
He met the orderly's eyes, shifting his legs so that he was practically straddling the bastard. Would have been, if Lotter hadn't pushed himself straight up against the wall. "This," Scarecrow said, positively giddy and only half-succeeding in suppressing his giggles, "would be over faster if you'd just shut your fucking mouth and take it. Isn't that what you told me?"
"L-let go." Lotter was begging. Begging. His hands clawed at Scarecrow's arms and back, too weak to do anything more than slap weakly, and the scratches were little more than amusing. Scarecrow found himself enjoying the pain, faint stings that only served to remind him who had the upper hand, and who could inflict the real harm. "Get off."
Scarecrow blinked rapidly and deliberately, in a way that could be viewed as either bewildered or coy. He wasn't sure if Lotter was grounded enough to even notice his expression, but it was the little details that made the final picture so remarkable. "But that's what I'm trying to do." He wound a hand through what little hair the man had and tugged hard, jerking Lotter's head to the side as he pressed against the man with his hips.
Lotter had done the same to him, only his head had been pulled straight back, and he'd been pushed against from the back. Scarecrow might be able to flip him and recreate it, but he wanted to watch the bastard's face as he fell apart. "Scream. Scream all you want. Nobody's going to hear it."
But Lotter didn't scream. Maybe it was the withdrawal, or paralysis by fear. Maybe it was the result on all the smoking of his lungs. Whatever it was, Scarecrow wasn't amused. He wanted Lotter to suffer. To feel every bit of terror he'd inflicted, and then some. Cry until he was out of tears and scream until he was out of voice, and then keep going. Scarecrow slapped him across the face, hard.
A yelp. It was a start. "Don't." He was twisting under Scarecrow, still trying to get away, but pulling his legs up, trying to draw in on himself. All it did was bring Scarecrow closer. It was disgusting. "Don't—stop—"
He was begging. Scarecrow's stomach twisted and he ground against Lotter again, watched the sheer panic flash across his features, but it didn't relieve the nausea. "What's the matter? I thought you felt the same. Don't you like me? Didn't you say you liked my eyes?"
Lotter didn't answer, writhing and kicking at whatever was in reach. His fists came down hard on Scarecrow's back, and the pain brought him back to the moment, almost quelled his disgust. "Don't—"
Scarecrow, still holding the man's head to one side by the hair, knelt down and licked from Lotter's cheek to his collarbone, as he let the other hand walk its way up the orderly's chest from under his shirt. His heart was beating fast. Far too fast. Good. He let his lips linger against the man's skin before biting down as hard as he could.
Retribution. He still had bite scars on his own body.
And finally, Lotter screamed.
You deserve worse. Another slap. If not for his awkward position, he'd be punching.
Lotter had punched. Lotter had thrown him against walls, dragged him across the floor by the hair. He'd been kicked in the stomach so that he couldn't stand, straddled against the floor with his arms twisted behind his back. He'd felt Lotter's teeth on his skin, his tongue, his filthy, horrible hands roaming over Jonathan's body, scratching and restraining, and not even having the decency to cover his mouth, so he had to shame himself, screaming and screaming until he was hoarse for help that never arrived. He'd heard himself tear, felt his entire body burn and didn't even have the luck to black out until it was over, held down in agony and remaining tortured and bleeding until morning when they'd found him on the floor, bruised and broken. Violated.
Lotter deserved it and worse.
He bit again, this time on the throat, and yanked his head back as he did. Flesh came away, clenched between his teeth. Not a great deal, nothing life threatening, but warm blood dripped down his chin and he'd heard the skin tear and Scarecrow was unable to keep from shrieking himself, in some sort of demented, unplanned mirth, and Lotter screamed and struggled, fists flailing and hitting, but he couldn't even feel it with this sudden endorphin rush.
"STOP IT!"
"You didn't stop!" Lotter tried to pull away, hands clutched over his chest, but Scarecrow slapped him again, hard enough for the impact to travel through his hand and up past the shoulder, hard enough for blood to trickle from the ear on that side of Lotter's head. "You didn't stop! Why should I?"
"P-please." Lotter's face was turning a pallid, ghastly white, clutching at his chest as he struggled weakly. "C-Crane. I—please—I'm s—"
Please. Jonathan had never said please, never begged for mercy. His stomach was churning now, and he couldn't bring himself to wipe the blood from his lips in the hopes or alleviating the nausea, couldn't do anything but stare at Lotter, disgusted. Sickened. "You—you're pathetic."
Lotter didn't answer. His breaths were coming in weak and shallow, face chalky.
One of Scarecrow's hands fell to the floor, nerveless, and hit against something other than tile. The lighter. He turned his hand, grasped it. Brought it up and the flame flickered into life. "You're pathetic!" Scarecrow held the fire against Lotter's skin, and the subsequent scream and sizzle did nothing to alleviate his anger, not even the second time he did it, or the third, or the fifth, or the seventeenth.
He abandoned the lighter then, screaming and hitting and making the blood pour from Lotter's nose and mouth and anywhere else he could break the skin, screaming, sometimes at Lotter for being spineless, and sometimes wordless, animalistic wails, until Lotter's hands fell away from his chest and he lay back on the floor, still and silent, even when Scarecrow shook him.
"GET UP!" Scarecrow had to keep shaking, punching, breaking, had to keep going because that couldn't be it. Lotter couldn't lie there and take it. It was obscene. Disgusting. Pathetic. He should have fought back. He should have fought back. And he hadn't, and he was lying there broken, like a human being instead of a monster or a demon or anything else that made the thought of him more manageable, and he was ruined and humiliated and frightened and gone forever, and it didn't do the least to improve Jonathan's mood, so it couldn't be over, couldn't be, because this was supposed to fix everything and it hadn't at all.
Jonathan had been standing one minute, and kicking. In the next, he was on the floor of the closet, vomiting up what little he'd eaten onto the tiles, onto the pants of Lotter's uniform. The laundry attendants would have to bleach it. Standard for bodily fluids, and besides the vomit, there was Lotter's blood. He couldn't remember when he'd ended up on the floor.
Jonathan was starting to worry that he was losing his mind.
The door behind him opened at some point. He couldn't say how much later it had been. Jonathan couldn't bring himself to turn, or even sit up probably. His lungs didn't seem to be taking in air properly and he couldn't stop gasping. There was a gasp from behind him; a woman, judging from the pitch.
A moment of silence. Then, so lightly he had to look to confirm it, a hand on his shoulder.
"Jonathan, let's go to the infirmary."
And for reasons Jonathan wouldn't be able to explain even to himself, if he had the insight at the present to analyze his decisions, he took Joan's hand and allowed himself to be led away from the broom closet, though the blood and the singe marks still remained on his own uniform.
AN: This is "Brand New Day" (www. youtube. com/ watch?v=ILObfEzX92k&feature=related) and if you haven't seen Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in its entirety (which is only about forty-five minutes), I highly recommend it. For Americans, it's all on Hulu, and for others, it's on DVD (complete with two commentaries, one of them being Commentary The Musical) and probably on Youtube. I think Dr. Horrible and Dr. Crane would get along if they ever met.
Disclaimer: I know little about chemistry and even less about pharmacology, so I've probably described something scientifically impossible in the part of the chapter about the pills. If I have, just keep in mind that in the Bat-universe, it's possible to take a fingerprint from a shattered bullet (which is entirely impossible in real life) and that Harvey can run around that badly burned and still think coherently (incidentally, his burns were supposedly more realistic at one point, but it made test audiences sick, so they had to go more over the top; I'd love to see what he would have looked like originally).
Anyway, the fear toxin cigarettes were inspired by the Batman comic Dark Victory, in which Scarecrow does something similar with Alberto Falcone's cigarettes, although those take effect immediately and don't induce all out panic, just unease.
I mentioned at the beginning of this fic that it would deal with sexual, emotional, and physical abuse, which it has throughout, but I think each will have its own chapter that heavily deals with that abuse. Obviously, this was the sexual one, and the emotional and physical train wrecks are yet to come.
And in case you were wondering, no, Jonathan wasn't planning to seriously rape the man. He just wanted to suggest it to make Lotter panic.
