AN: Massive apologies for the delay on this one. It's been a hectic past few days. My sister came to visit before moving into her apartment, and I had to help her move and dismantle furniture to take there. Yesterday was quite possibly the strangest day I've ever had (involving counterfeit bills and meth addicts; for full details see here: s15. zetaboards. com/ carrotstick/ topic/ 6714808/ 1) and today I got dragged out of my house to go buy a washing machine for no good reason whatsoever.

Anyway, thanks for all of the reviews!

In the name of all that is good and pure in this world, please let me do the speaking to others from now on.

Jonathan could tell, even before Scarecrow responded, that the plea had fallen on deaf ears. That was the problem with having another half. Scarecrow was everything he could want in a companion, dominant in situations where Jonathan would be timid, street smart and cunning in places where Jonathan would be clueless. However, being an embodiment of everything Jonathan was not had the unfortunate side effects of power struggles and constant bickering.

And neither of them seemed to be particularly gifted in common sense.

So, not only do you have default control of the body, but now you want sole contact with the outside world?

Jonathan felt his teeth grind involuntary. That happened so often during their disagreements that he was honestly surprised to have any tooth enamel left. If it keeps suspicion away from us? Absolutely.

Jonathan, I hate to break it to you—his tone implied that he didn't hate it at all—but the way you converse is hardly inconspicuous.

It was a bad sign when his other half—a part of himself—was on the verge of giving him migraines. All right, so the thing from the previous night when he'd accidentally spoken his responses to Scarecrow out loud hadn't exactly been his shining moment, but that was entirely Scarecrow's fault for yelling at him to begin with. Besides, he hadn't been the one to keep randomly taking control and attracting the butler's attention. And now that he wasn't suffering from the "can't shut up" medication side effect, he was able to hold perfectly normal conversations.

Well, not perfectly normal, as he'd always been awkward around others, but that was only because everyone else was an idiot.

And he didn't have the habit of making every other statement inflammatory or offensive. I could say the same to you.

I'm blunt, not stupid.

Damn Scarecrow and his habit of making his retorts as nonchalant as possible. No matter what the argument was, unless it was deadly serious, his other half always made it seem like casual conversation that couldn't mean less to him. It was the sort of insouciance he both loved and detested. What are you trying to imply?

That while you're the most book smart person I've ever shared a body with—

Oh, what an accomplishment that is.

Are you going to let me finish? Brilliant as you are, you still have no sense of when to shut up.

Neither do you. And he didn't. While anything either of them said was likely to earn a beating from Arkham's guards or other inmates, it was Scarecrow's comments that got them sedated or put in solitary. Scarecrow was the one who'd lost his temper when Harley first broke the Joker out of Arkham, and his comments to Leland then—along with the entire trying to overturn the desk on top her issue—had earned them a week of sedation unto a vegetative state.

Correction. I bait people. They get angry, and I might get hit, but piss them off enough and they forget what they were thinking about in the first place. Whereas you end up giving out more and more information that only sends the gears in their heads spinning.

I'd rather have suspicious people than a broken jaw.

Would you? Scarecrow's casual manner disappeared instantaneously, his emotions suddenly cold.

I—

Because if other people knew about me, they would think you're insane. Even more insane than they already do. Even the Joker thinks I'm some sort of hallucination. They would try to get rid of me. Is that what you want?

Of course not. The change in mood was abrupt enough to make him dizzy. It wasn't anger in Scarecrow's voice. At least, not entirely. There was also fear. He couldn't recall ever hearing that from Scarecrow before, not without a threat to Jonathan's own wellbeing to act as the catalyst. I—how can you even ask that?

And just as rapidly, that cold feeling, as if he'd jumped into ice water, was gone. At least, for the most part. Breathe, Jonathan. It was a rhetorical question.

It didn't feel rhetorical.

Scarecrow didn't respond to that. My point is, that's what they'd try to do. If they found out. That, or drug me into silence.

He was right, unfortunately. Even in Arkham, hearing voices was never a good sign and the relationship they shared would be torn to shreds in the name of healing. And without Scarecrow, as this period of captivity had proved, he simply could not function. Be that as it may, Batman has dealt with me enough to know that I'm not always irreverent. If I act that way on a permanent basis, he'll know something's wrong and he'll dig deeper regardless. It's his nature.

A sigh. It belonged to both of them.

Well then, what do you propose we do?

He wrapped an overlong strand of hair around his finger, thinking. Let who ever speaks first hold the entire conversation? "Mood swings" are easier to overlook when they don't happen midsentence. And only one of us talks to the butler, so he disregards what he saw before as frustration or something.

A long pause as Scarecrow deliberated. Fine. But if you start jeopardizing us, I reserve the right to cut you off.

And I reserve that same right if you put us in danger.

Fine.

Jonathan stopped winding his hair and considered just how long this arrangement was likely to last. Optimistically, at least two conversations. Realistically, half a second.

Scarecrow?

Yes?

Lack of communication between them had led to desertion, the last time, so it was only logical to assume that they needed to be completely open with each other now. However, what was logical in theory was often outright suicidal in practice, and admitting that he felt some strange longing for Batman's company was certainly no exception. So he shook his head, stayed silent.

The Bat chose that moment to return home.

Jonathan Crane had poisoned him. He'd set him on fire, provided the drug that tore the Narrows apart, and tried poisoning him again. He'd slammed Batman into the column of a parking garage, which could have been deadly, if not for the body armor. In their various encounters, he'd been poisoned, bitten, kicked, hit, slapped, bludgeoned, and a thousand other things Bruce had probably forgotten.

So why was it, out of all the transgression to hold against him, it was Jonathan following him around like an attention-starved housecat that had the biggest impact? The toxin hadn't managed to drive him fully mad, but if he came home one more time to the sight of his enemy waiting on the nearest piece of furniture with the air of an anxious child, that might well be enough to push him over the edge.

It was like Chinese water torture. Not painful, or even particularly frightening if one didn't think too hard about it, but persistent and grating enough to cause irreparable damage. If he let it go that far. He wasn't about to. "Jonathan."

Jonathan looked up. Brows knit and eyes darting ever so slightly, he looked on the verge of speaking. Much to Bruce's displeasure, however, he remained silent.

The elective mutism was another thing slowly but surely pushing him into the mouth of madness. Jonathan was intelligent, to say the least, and articulate when he wasn't ranting in a panic or speaking to things that didn't exist. He didn't converse well with Bruce, true, but given Bruce's alter ego, that was to be expected. And if he'd functioned as Arkham's administrator, he had to be able to communicate well, unless the staff there was so used to unresponsiveness in their patients that they didn't notice it in their employees. Regardless of how he'd gotten by, someone so brilliant ought to realize that refusing to speak only served to draw out problems which could have otherwise been solved immediately, and added even more tension to their living arrangements.

There was madness to be taken into account, of course, but that didn't make it any less frustrating.

Bruce forced himself to keep on smiling, as if he didn't have the desire to grab the man and shake him until he started acting like the genius he was. It wasn't Jonathan's fault that he was completely insane, but knowing that didn't make him any easier to interact with. "We need to talk."

Jonathan made a small, noncommittal sound that could have meant anything from "I agree" to "Go to hell." He still wasn't entirely focused on Bruce, eyes darting around as his expression shifted. If this was a sign that the medication had stopped working, then secret be damned, Bruce would be taking him back to Arkham. He couldn't handle that again, no matter how many sedatives or teddy bears he could have at his disposal.

"I know that you hate being asked if you need anything. But that's honestly the only thing I can think of to say at times like this. I'm not trying to annoy you by asking. Really."

"Times like what?" There were the faintest of stammers to his words when he began, but he was finally returning the eye contact. Whether that was good or bad, Bruce couldn't tell, but he chose to view it as a positive development, if only to give himself incentive against giving up at once.

"When you follow me around like a hungry stray." Not the most tactful way of phrasing it, but true.

Jonathan's expression darkened, and his mouth opened slightly before he closed it again, hard. Presumably, he was literally biting his tongue. Wonderful. He was already infuriated.

"I know that this is a horrible situation for you. But the way you deal with things isn't helping. You obviously want something, but you won't say what that something is, and I can't figure it out without something to work with. And since you don't hate me, I think it would be easier on everyone involved if we could just talk."

Jonathan didn't answer, eyes tracking from side to side again. He didn't look as if he were in thought. He looked distracted, as though focused on something besides Bruce's words. It was vaguely reminiscent of the look he wore when interacting with hallucinations, and that realization made Bruce's blood run cold. "Jonathan?"

Nothing.

He took hold of the other's shoulders, carefully. "Jonathan? What's wrong?"

"Get of—" The tension was suddenly gone from the man, as quickly as it appeared. "Stop it. Please."

"Stop what? Touching you?" His hands faltered, but he didn't let go, not yet. He couldn't ascertain where the man was, mentally, and he wasn't about to give him the chance to run.

"Being…being considerate."

That, he hadn't been expecting. What was it with criminals and their inability to accept kindness? "No. What do you need?"

"I…that—I—" Jonathan cut off abruptly, looking every bit as stunned as Bruce felt when he jolted forward, arms winding around his captor in a painfully tight hug. "This?"