AN: So my roommate, who is studying Japanese, decided to write my name in kanji today. The Japanese version of my name is "Rouren," as there's not really an "l" sound in Japanese, and the kanji she chose to make up my name were "bright" for rou, and "scythe" for ren. Scythe. I swear, even when I'm not trying, there is so much in my life that can be linked to scarecrows and/or harvest. Such as my being a Virgo, the Zodiac constellation which marks the start of the harvest season. It would be eerie if it wasn't so awesome.

And by way of explanation for yesterday, I was stuck in an incredibly long and boring residence hall council meeting for quite some time.

Thanks for the reviews!


"Scarecrow." The pause before he said it was a fraction of a second too long, delayed by the time it took his mind to process the implications of his captive's statement. It would have been almost imperceptible to a detached observer, but he was sure Jonathan had picked up on it, along with the unease he was trying to conceal.

He smirked, not bothering to sit up or even turn toward Bruce. "Obviously."

The way he held himself had changed as well, though he hadn't moved, lying, arms to his sides, on the ground. It was something about his posture, though it remained casual. Before, his look had been one of pure, human relief and understated joy. Now, he looked more like a hungry cat, content to be lying down at the moment, but nonetheless watching for unsuspecting prey.

Now that he noticed the difference, he was at a loss to explain why he hadn't seen it before. Like one of those "hidden image" pictures, it was impossible to un-see and glaringly obvious after the fact. Everything about the man had changed, subtle though the changes were.

And to think that he was called the world's greatest detective.

"Are you planning on saying something, Batman, or are you content to keep sitting there, mouth agape?"

Bruce registered, between his self-criticism and confusion, that his mouth was hardly agape, or even open. Though his confusion was probably playing out very well over the rest of his features. "Well, are you?"

"Unhappy to be outside? Hardly." Even his voice had changed, not in pitch or timbre, but cadence. Jonathan put an odd emphasis on words to begin with—his pronunciation of Batman springing readily to mind—but this "other half" made the stress much more noticeable. It wasn't something noticeable unless one was looking for it, but Bruce was, and now it was obvious as a slap across the face.

"Your presence, on the other hand," he continued, drawing Bruce's attention back, "does dampen the experience. But then, I could say that for any situation. I've adjusted."

He'd allowed himself to become lax when it came to Jonathan Crane, that was the problem. For all his thoughts about how little he understood the man's condition and how ill-equipped he was to be responsible for him, he'd stopped viewing him the way a detective would at some point during the captivity, and started assuming that the motivation between any and all of his bizarre behaviors was simply insanity.

Which it was, but in a very different way than he'd envisioned. If he'd noticed the alternate personality, or hallucination, or whatever was wrong sooner, so much struggling and suffering could have been averted. At the very least, he might not have gone through the kiss and all the confusing aftermath he was still struggling to work out.

"If you don't have something else to say, it's rude to just stare. Don't you have a business to…wait, you don't actually do anything there, do you?"

Whatever this was, hallucination, alter ego, or otherwise, he didn't like it. The "screaming at Jonathan in his own mind" thing had been a warning sign, but the actual conversation confirmed it. Jonathan, lately at least, was willing to be speak with him, even if he was hesitant. Scarecrow seemed interested only in insulting him—seem to delight in it, given his ever-increasing smirk.

"I'm taking the day off."

"As usual. You know, Jonathan never missed a day as Arkham's administrator? You can object to his practices, but you can't deny that he put all his heart into it. Unlike some."

Bruce didn't point out that the objective Jonathan had devoted himself to was hardly part of his job description. He'd allowed himself to slip too much already, far too much, considering that Jonathan Crane was a dangerous psychopath, despite how helpless recent events had made him seem. Especially considering that some part of his mind appeared to be made up of nothing but vitriol and sarcasm, and that part was apparently capable of overriding the rest of him.

Assuming that Scarecrow did override. For all he knew, this could be closer to an elaborate role play on Jonathan's part. Which was why he wasn't going to let himself be drawn into a petty argument with a mental patient, as opposed to using this opportunity to figure out what he was dealing with. He was a detective, home or abroad, and it was time to start living up to that.

"I take it you're the one that wanted to end the friendship?"

"I'd hardly call a prisoner's interaction with his jailer a friendship, Bat. It doesn't matter how civilly you treat a caged animal. At the end of the day, it's still in a cage. Unless you're one of those idiots who believes that locking something up is the humane thing to do."

"You'd have preferred me to throw you out on the street when you were mad?"

"Jonathan," he corrected, features twisting into a scowl. "And I'd have preferred you to leave me the hell alone. I still would."

There wasn't the slightest falter in his casual position, or a hint of apprehension in his voice. Jonathan, even after they'd come to calmer terms, would still flinch after criticizing him. He was still operating under the assumption that Scarecrow was not an alternate personality, because everything he knew about dissociative identities countered that, but nor did it seem like a name Jonathan hid behind. Everything about him was markedly different, and if it was an act, Jonathan had far more self-control than Bruce had ever seen him display. "Shouldn't you be angry at the Joker for this?"

Oddly enough, the mention of the Joker appeared to calm him, the scowl settling back into a malicious grin. A friendship, if it could be called that, had reformed between the clown and the ex-doctor, but given their past, the last thing Bruce would have expected was a smile at the Joker's name.

If this was a hallucination, it was a powerful one.

"He exists because of you, therefore you are the reason we're here. Besides, you were the one behind the poisoning."

We're. He viewed them as separate as well. "What are you?" Too blunt, he knew, but moving in circles was getting nowhere. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

"That's none of your business, is it?"

"You're—"

"Living in your home, which makes it your concern, and blah, blah, blah. I didn't ask to be here, and you can't guilt me into telling you whatever you want to know."

"I'm not trying to guilt you. I'm trying to understand."

He laughed, an ugly, barking sound. Bruce had only heard Jonathan's laugh once, months ago, and he couldn't recall if it had sounded like that. "As if you're trying to gain insight for any purpose beyond your own convenience. All your little speeches about helping people? They don't fool me."

This was like talking to the Joker. If the Joker was more restrained, and less lewd in his remarks. The same circular conversations and biting retorts, digging into Bruce's own motives. He'd let it affect him when the Joker had done it, and that wasn't a mistake he'd make again. "I let you outside."

"How very humane of you. And how long had I been here before you gave me that privilege? Even Arkham let me out after two weeks. In a straitjacket, but outside."

He kept his features impassive, trying to not show the scrutiny with which he was regarding the man. "Funny. Jonathan panicked at the thought of going back there."

He scowled again, mouth managing to convey enough disdain to compensate for his concealed eyes. "That was a moment of duress."

"That you caused."

"Shut up." He looked feral in that moment. Not just different, but wild. "Hard as this is for you to grasp, you don't understand him. Either of us. And your attempts to act otherwise get old fast."

Scarecrow looked on the verge of shouting, so Bruce refrained from comment. Provoking him into rage wouldn't accomplish anything. He'd seen the screaming fits before, and he had neither the energy nor the desire to experience it again. Not unless it was absolutely necessary, and he was fully rested. And come to think of it, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been fully rested, so the odds of that were low.

After another minute's worth of glaring—Bruce assumed he was glaring based on the direction he'd turned his head and his visible expression—Scarecrow looked away, exhaling loudly. He lay back down fully, pointedly facing away from Bruce.

It was then that Bruce noticed how much Scarecrow was enjoying being out of the house.

His happiness didn't manifest the way Jonathan's had, that giddy, blissful behavior that was oddly endearing, despite the man's past. He hadn't even fully relaxed, posture still tense and ready to strike. But the smile on his face was genuine, if different than Jonathan's, and while his fingers were clenched through the grass, it didn't look as if his grip were out of anger. It looked as if he was attempting to reassure himself of his surroundings, or keep from being removed.

That should have been reassuring, but the effect was similar to the time he'd seen the Joker without his makeup. Revealing a being's humanity wasn't always comforting. Sometimes, it was almost worse, because it was a reminder that anyone could become so twisted, so removed from normalcy or human decency. Seeing a villain's humanity reminded him of how close he'd veered toward that path, and just how slippery the slope was.

And seeing humanity from something he couldn't even define, as with the Scarecrow, was more unsettling than anything else.

"Scarecrow."

"Hmmm?" Just one syllable, but the malice was gone, the man distracted by whatever had caught his eye. The wind blowing through the trees, possibly. He sounded like Jonathan in that moment—and as they shared vocal cords, that wasn't surprising—and only his posture kept Bruce from thinking they had switched control. His hands twitched, entire body looking somehow energetic, as if coiled and ready to spring.

"We need to go back inside." It pained him to say, as it was the happiest he'd seen Jonathan since the library, but he was self-aware enough to realize that the curiosity of the "other half" had his attention divided, and that was the last thing he needed when dealing with some sort of alter ego gone wrong, who looked prepared to make a break for it at any moment.

"No." The hard edge was back in his tone immediately, pulling himself as far away from Bruce as he could without actually rolling or standing up.

"I'll let you back out." He extended a hand in invitation, and Scarecrow did flinch, as if slapped.

"Why should I believe you?"

He held in a sigh, standing. He didn't cross the space between them, deciding not to make any movement that could be deemed aggressive unless it proved completely necessary. He didn't know what the results of startling him would be, and he didn't want to know. "Because if you don't get up now, I'll consider taking you out to be too much of a risk, and never do it again."

It was amazing, how much he could vary the tension in his body language. From waiting for an opportunity to anger, and now to fear, without visibly moving at all. "I think you're bluffing."

He opened his mouth and chose to let the words Care to test it? die on his lips. Scarecrow was far more confrontational than Jonathan, challenging him was akin to waving a red flag. "Get up."

There was a sigh, longer and louder than Bruce would have thought humanly possible, but he did stand as he did it, even if it was as slowly as he could. He strode back to the door without so much as a glance in Bruce's direction, or even a smart remark, as his captor trailed behind, wondering, as he did so often these days, how he was going to get around the latest wrench in the works.