AN: I don't recall if I've mentioned it, but Dr. Crane's bitchface in Begins is a thing of beauty and I aspire to that. He literally spends most of the movie looking vaguely resentful people dare to be in the room with him…which is me whenever I have to leave the house.
Forbidden Moons-A lost voice is a lost voice, no matter how it happens. Preposterous. Seek help, if you are grasping at so few straws. I might be able to pencil you in...
Christineoftheopera-In fairness to Jim, Gotham is weird. Murderous, mobile plants live in it.
Kitty. Give me some sort of motivation not to murder this idiot.
Which idiot?
Flake.
His mum's in Blackgate for murdering people for Penguin?
Eh.
You just got new office carpet?
Good enough.
He closes his phone and mentally counts to ten. Or tries to, anyway.
You can Google how to get bloodstains out of the carpet, right?
No.
YES YOU CAN. You Google shit all the time!
That's just asking to be put on a watchlist.
…you're writing a book?
No.
Why couldn't you have gotten tile?
Too cold.
"-why we need new uniforms."
Breathe deeply. Be calm. He needs the security guards to avoid mass mayhem should the worst happen. Causing them to go on strike is not a good idea.
But if he hears one more complaint about those goddamn uniforms, he's killing the one doing it and hiring someone else.
He takes his glasses off and cleans them, making a conscious effort not to blink. It unsettles people, he finds. As do long silences.
So, of course, once his glasses are cleaned, he pulls out his notebook, jots down a reminder to find an excuse to get rid of this one as soon as possible, and finally returns his attention to Flake.
"Mister Flake," he says drily, "do you have any idea how much it costs to run a hospital of this size?"
Confusion flickers across the idiot's face.
"No."
Mannerless little…breathe. This is nice new carpet, and it would be a shame to have to rip it up.
"Of course you don't." The pitying 'that's why I'm the director' hangs in the air between them. "And I'm sure you have no idea how little assistance we receive from the city. After all, your paycheck is signed."
"Uh, yeah, I guess-I mean yes. Doctor."
Better.
He folds his hands atop his desk and entertains a mental image of Flake hurling himself from the window in terror.
"Unfortunately, Mister Flake, our budget is stretched thinly enough as it is. Short of the uniforms becoming a safety hazard," And maybe not even then, you ungrateful swine. "we simply do not have the money for new ones. Unless, of course, you'd be willing to downgrade the security measures to what they were a few years ago. Granted, the escape rate was higher then, but…"
"I get it." 'Get rid of' is steadily translating itself to 'experiment on'. "Thanks anyway, Doctor Crane."
"Perhaps next quarter." Not that you'd be around to appreciate it if that were true. "Now that you've brought it to my attention…"
A daddy-long-legs skitters up the leg of his desk and he frowns, holds out a hand for it to crawl into his palm. Technically it shouldn't be here, but he likes to keep a resident spider. Partly for insect control, partly because there are more than a few arachnophobes in this building.
Including, apparently, the man sitting across from him-Flake's eyes are fixed on the little creature sitting frozen in Jonathan's hand.
Good to know.
"Was there anything else, Mister Flake?"
"N-no, that was all. Thanks for seeing me."
"Not at all."
Throw it at him.
Absolutely not.
Pretend to throw it at him.
Imagine what mature adults do.
Oh, no…
Can you? Of course not. THEY DON'T PRETEND TO THROW SPIDERS AT PEOPLE.
Fine, Doctor Stick-Up-The-Ass.
He chooses to continue being a mature adult and doesn't respond to that.
Flake leaves the room a little faster than most people would and he ferries the spider to the wall behind his desk and coaxes it off his hand. It scurries up to the corner and he returns to his chair, phone in hand.
I resisted temptation.
I'm so proud.
I'm going to kill him later. Or at least severely maim him.
-.-
THE END