jacksparrowlovesme - You enjoyed their carping, well get ready because this chapter is chock full. Also, enjoy a big ol' helping of Firefly.
CarpalTunnelLove - Tsk, flattery will get you everywhere with me. ^_^
The Fortune Teller - Ah, you're on to me, huh? Yes, trying to build a bridge between the two. But since Jon only knows how to pick fights, he's taking the long way to get to friendship, I'd imagine.
bleedy - You got so excited it got me all excited! XD I'm hoping to get back to this story for good now, though I may not update as quickly as I used to.
lokisdashiz - Well thank you. First time reviews are always welcome. ^_^
I edited this chapter late, late at night (or perhaps it's more accurate to say early in the morning) so any errors are completely my fault, but don't be a jerk and point them out rudely. Let me know with style and a little kindness, hm? Or better yet, don't let me know at all. It's just fanfiction after all.
Chapter Six: City On Fire
**Firefly**
Visions of smoke and hellfire flashed across his mind's eye, before a tap on his boots caused Lynns to sit up with a soft snort.
He had fallen asleep again while waiting for Tetch to brew the 'perfect' batch of tea.
The short little fellow was haphazard about everything in his life but his tea. It took two goddamned hours for the 'perfect brew'.
Leaning over Lynns, the fellow blinked his wide, mad eyes and sniffed. "Time for tea."
Dragging the back of his hand across his mouth, he ignored the rasp of his stubble as he reclaimed his dignity by wiping away a small trickle of drool that had escaped his mouth during his nap and moved to sit at the table with the Mad Hatter.
"Would you prefer the India International or the English Breakfast?" Jervis asked. "I also made a pot of Pekoe, some Earl Grey in a boot, a kettle of Darjeeling and half a pickle jar of Chai. I'm so pleased to have company!" He suddenly exclaimed clapping his hands together. "So very pleased!"
No one had really told him to keep an eye on Jervis who had wandered around Gotham after the others split up for a good two days before settling in an old garden shed of some abandoned shack in the middle of a swampy patch on the outskirts, but Lynns needed a place to doze and he found Jervis asked less questions then Nygma or Crane.
If there was one thing he had come to loathe it was questions. Everyone seemed to need answers lately and he had none.
Setting his hands down on the shaky table, Jervis leaned over it, beaming madly at Lynns. "Or if you'd prefer, I made my own blend. It's finely crafted with twigs and dead leaves from the land outside this dwelling."
"Swamp tea, hm?" Narrowing his eyes at the mad man, Lynns patted his person for his pack of cigarettes and lighter. "Do you have coffee available?" He grunted, finding his pack in his pants pocket. Shaking one out, he tucked it in between his lips, before noticing the dark look of pure fury that had come over the Mad Hatter.
"Coffee?" He sputtered. "How perfectly imaginary your world must be."
Calmly lighting his cigarette, Lynns eyed the poor, crazy bastard quietly, blowing a stream of smoke into the air out of the side of his mouth.
"Coffee, how utterly bizarre," Jervis went on, the quiet rage that was building in his voice coming out as pure poison. "Coffee."
Dashing all the pots and jars and cups and saucers the mad man had arranged onto the floor, Jervis stood panting over the mess he created, eyes wild. "There is no place in heaven or on earth for such a sludge as coffee!" He shrieked. "You are mad! Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad," the man stomped around the room throwing an epic fit, grasping his hair and tugging.
Placing his boots up on the now clear table, Lynns blew out a puff of smoke. "So, no coffee then?"
Falling silent quite suddenly, Jervis smoothed down his hair and replaced his top hat with a small smile. "Well, how about a cup of Darjeeling?"
"Make it strong."
"First they drug us," he muttered to himself later that night, long after Jervis passed out on his small raggedy cot from too much sugary sweets with his tea. "Then they destroy us."
Flicking his lighter open and closed, Lynns traced the grooves of the tabletop with the hand that cradled a lit cigarette, eyeing the smoke that drifted upwards, towards God's face.
"First they drug us," he murmured, clicking the lighter open and watching the dancing little blue and orange flame. "Then they destroy us," he whispered, snapping the lid of his Zippo closed, extinguishing the fire.
Taking a drag of his cigarette he allowed the smoke to furl out of his slightly open mouth, before sucking it back in a ghost inhale.
The silver Zippo clicked open again.
"First they drug us."
Click.
"Then they destroy us."
Click.
"And if any man will hurt them," he muttered, "fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed."
Stamping out his smoke, Firefly dropped his boots from the tabletop and stood up, stooping quickly to scoop up his gear from the floor, before making for the door.
On the cot Jervis snorted gently and squeezed the squeaky dog toy rabbit he had found in a dumpster tighter to his chest.
Firefly paused long enough to eye the strange little man, before turning to head towards the cot.
Pulling a incendiary grenade from his belt, he placed it on the floor by the cot within reaching distance for the Mad Hatter to use in the event of an emergency. It wasn't that he cared about the odd little duck, Lynns just wanted to leave a reminder to the mad man that he would be back and he figured he might as well make it useful.
The rabbit squeaked again and Jervis opened sleepy blue eyes. "Are you on an adventure, Mock Turtle?" He murmured.
Firefly tilted his chin down to study the little nut bar. "What?"
"Curiouser and curiouser," Jervis mumbled, before turning over in the cot, snuggling under the worn, rough blanket. "To…grin…without a…"
Jerking his chin to his chest in a gesture of confusion, Firefly set a few more grenades at the cot's side and wandered off, out the door and into the night.
He followed the scent of smoke, deep into the heart of the wilds surrounding Gotham's outskirts, something somewhere nearby was burning.
Wandering almost aimlessly, he moved through the darkness of Gotham's industrial areas back alleys and side streets.
The police scanner he had installed in his helmet lead him directly to the source of the fire, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself by just strolling by, so he took to the shadows and darkness, creeping upon the blaze like a sneak-thief in the night.
As he drew nearer to the old Chinese gardens, his heart began beating erratically, like a man left out of something big.
He could see the orange glow in the distance like daybreak bursting over the horizon and his lungs began to pant for air.
Firefly wanted in on the bonfire. He wanted to be the one soaring on the updrafts of the flames, relishing in the heat and the roar of the combustion.
Crouching in a shadowy area by a wall, he watched the fire touch the starlit night sky and beamed inside his helmet. He firmly believed that God's countenance would shine upon him if he focused hard enough.
It was a wolfish, greedy grin that touched his lips, one that wanted to devour everything and nothing at all.
Pressing a button to expand his wings, he took a step out of his shadowy protection, in time to be stopped by the sound of feet dragging over gravel.
"Stop pulling me, you gigantic ass!" Someone snarled in a hushed whisper.
Fire trucks wailed somewhere on the other side of the blaze, but it wasn't enough to drown out the voices in the darkness near him.
The fire soaked up all the light, throwing everything around it into a deeper darkness. Of course it was just an optical illusion, the night was no darker, but with light blazing in one eye, the shadows in the other seemed eternal.
Firefly pressed himself into the shadows as a couple passed near him, the tall, bony man gripping the woman's wrist tightly and half dragging her away from the fire.
"You're welcome to sit your ass back down and go to Arkham, Pam." The man snarled.
Lynns angled his head and giving the fire one last, doleful look, followed the couple, moving to trail them by only a foot of space. They didn't even notice him in their haste to escape.
"You Humans are all alike," Poison Ivy accused. "You don't care if you chop down a hundred year old tree or eat a carrot fresh from it's nurturing earth, as long as it pleases you."
"We are selfish creatures driven by our instincts, Pamela. You know, instincts like survival? I'm sure that rings a bell in that thick skull of yours."
"You know, one of these days I'm going to cram a vine in all your orifices just to shut you up." Ivy growled.
Eyeing the way she limped heavily, relying on Crane's arm for support (which was hilarious to Lynns as the Scarecrow himself needed to rely on his scythe for mobility), he decided that she must have injured herself and from the green blood on her shoulder that glistened in the light of the blaze behind them, he figured there must have been some kind of scrap.
"All my orifices, Pammie? Or just the ones that speak the truth?"
"Ha! If you spoke the truth even once I'd drop dead of ergot poisoning." She replied sharply.
"Who started the fire?" Lynns broke in, growing tired of listening to them bitch and snap at each other like an old, married couple.
Both of them spun on him, Ivy nearly falling on her ass in her unbalanced state and Crane teetering as he raised his scythe.
"Figures," Crane muttered, leaning on his scythe once more, "you'd be the one man I would expect to find buzzing around a fire."
"Anyone die?" Firefly inquired, ignoring the snark.
All three of them paused as a police cruiser sailed by the opening to the alley they were in, watching it pass cautiously.
"If we're lucky," Crane went on, "all of them."
"I don't think you breakout kings just splitting into pairs is enough to keep you all safe," Ivy was the one to say what was beginning to become apparent to everyone else.
"I agree with Pam," Crane broke in. "It'd be much wiser if we fortified ourselves as a group. Gather the remaining addicts from Arkham and find a place secure enough to prevent attacks. It seems like they're finding us wherever we go."
"Maraquaquidich," Firefly muttered.
"If I were Edward, I'm sure I'd have a joke about a sneeze here," Crane pointed out.
Ivy, who had caught on quicker, straightened her spine. "The abandoned lighthouse at Maraquaquidich Bay. It's got a steep cliff on one side and an ideal patch of green grass all around the rest of it that I could fortify it with."
"How many does it sleep?" Crane inquired.
"What do you care how many it sleeps?"
"Well, I don't really. The last bedmate I had was Selina Kyle, which was more than fine, but if I have to share a cot with someone like Jervis…"
"Jervis isn't so bad. Could be worse." Ivy pointed out.
"He has night terrors." Firefly stated.
"Everyone on the cellblock has heard him wake up screaming." Crane added.
"One would think that'd be up your alley."
"Not when it's right in your ear as you sleep. The man is harmless enough, but his scream is loud and shrill like a woman's." Crane scowled at Ivy's own heavily furrowed brow. "What? It's not sexist, women have a higher pitch than men."
"I still don't much care for the way you said it." She replied.
"Well, I don't much care for the faint stench of fertilizer that clings to you, but you never hear me complain."
"I've never once used fertilizer on my plants!" Ivy protested. "That's just slanderous!"
Sighing, Firefly moved off from the two and their bitching, heading in the general direction of Jervis' swampy shack.
Hugging his squeaky March Hare to his chest, Jervis gawped at the lighthouse, his hooked nose stuck high in the air.
Ivy was already there, urging her babies to grow, creating not only a high wall of vines and plants, but a security fence for the lighthouse.
Despite the fact that it was unnecessary for him to loiter near her, Crane stood just behind Ivy, bitching about what she was planting and generally picking small fights with her.
Firefly wondered if picking fights was the Scarecrow's way of flirting and briefly considered doing Poison Ivy a favour and knocking the good Doctor Crane out for a few hours, but he quashed the urge, ducking into the towering building.
"Curvaceous," Jervis muttered eyeing the stairs that corkscrewed upwards, hugging the round walls. "Onwards and always."
The March Hare squeaked.
"We'll set down places for tea, for surely they'll want tea," Jervis exclaimed, running off to see what he could gather for cups and pots.
Lynns took to the stairs, moving upwards, heading for the upstairs area.
Beneath his heavy boots the aged wood groaned unable to handle being stepped on for the first time in years, but he ignored it, gloved hand securely on the railing as a precautionary measure.
At the top there was a wide open floor, before a straight set of stairs lead up to a small hatch which he presumed lead into the glassed in area with the light.
Kicking aside crap from squatting teenagers and transients, he surveyed the place.
It was a tinderbox, dry as a mummified moth in the desert and ready to combust.
Gripping his helmet, Lynns pulled it off.
The withdrawals had been few and far between, and with each episode they became weaker and less of a bother, but every now and then, like an aching tooth, the pain would flare and be gone in an instant. Like whatever they poisoned them with at Arkham was just trying to remind them that they had indeed been used as guinea pigs.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed.
Later that evening, as all four of them settled into the lighthouse, they held an impromptu meeting about their state.
"So, what? You expect us to just sit around while Eddie may or may not solve this?" Ivy demanded.
Crane, who seemed to go out of his way to oppose her, sat with his arms crossed on a shaky, unreliable chair they had found somewhere in the place. "Ivy, what you want right now isn't to get to the bottom of this, it's blood. Plain and simple."
"Don't we all want a little blood, Jon?"
Sighing heavily, the Scarecrow touched a winter tree hand to his forehead. "What I'd like right now, is a warm meal and a soft bed. What we have, however, is Jervis and his old, rusty tin pail of leaf and twig tea. Edward will get this figured out and then we can make our move."
"Huh," Ivy huffed. "I always assumed you were your own criminal, now I see you're just Eddie's anorexic sidekick."
"Pamela, I swear I will take my scythe-"
"And what, Jonny? You can't hobble very far without help and I'm not scared of you at all."
Looking over in the direction of the Mad Hatter, Lynns found the meek fellow touching the tips of his pointer fingers together idly.
"I don't know why I let Ed drag me into this mess in the first place," Ivy went on.
"Could be the mild crush you harbour for him." Crane remarked.
"I harbour a crush for him? You're his little butt-boy half the time, always following him around like a homeless mutt looking for scraps!"
"Keep it up," Crane growled. "And I'll-"
As the two engaged in all out verbal battle, Firefly folded his arms and leaned back against the dark shadowy wall where he had taken up residence.
It was apparent to him that someone should be in charge. They needed structure while under siege, but Jervis was too out of his goddamned gourd and the pair of lovers wouldn't shut up long enough to rationalize.
Firefly wasn't the take-charge kind. He wasn't submissive in any manner, either, but he just didn't like being the one to lead.
Still, he felt someone should do something.
Calmly he removed an incendiary grenade from his belt and moved out of his shadows, heading for where the others congregated.
Grabbing hold of Crane first with a strong arm wrapped around his thin neck, he crammed a grenade into his mouth and gripped the pin tightly.
"Don't move." Firefly whispered. "Just stay silent. If you jerk, this pin'll drop right out of the grenade."
"What are you doing?" Ivy demanded.
Crane, wisely remained perfectly still.
"I want to say something and I'd prefer not to have to yell."
"I'm sure there's better ways to go about it."
"Mfmm mmft," Crane agreed.
"We need to organize better than a dusty craphole filled with whiny bitching." Firefly said. "The fact is, that while the Riddler may or may not be away solving our problems, we still have problems that won't wait for his return. My suggestion to you is to stop arguing and gel as a unit. Or I swear to God I'll kill you myself."
Ivy puffed out her chest and settled her hand on her hip firmly. "Obviously, but I can't get along with a man who makes it his duty to piss me off at every turn."
"Mfft mmhm mm," Crane replied.
Removing the grenade, Firefly fastened it back on his belt and released Crane.
"Of course, if we're picking a leader, I vote for myself since I'm the one with the most mature attitude towards this situation," Ivy added. "Everyone knows women make the better leaders since we don't let pissing contests get in our way."
"Oh, you can bite the boniest part of my ass, Pam." Crane remarked. "Everyone knows women make terrible soldiers, it's instinctive in them to nurture not destroy."
Hellfire in her eyes, Pam turned on the Scarecrow. "Oh, you can bite my well toned ass, Jonny! You're so sexist sometimes! If you ever thought of women with as equals you might not be so lonely and bitter."
"Go fuck yourself, Pammie." Crane snarled. "I'm not sexist, it's common knowledge that stretches all the way back to the stone age when women took care of the community while the men would go out and hunt and gather and protect the cave from attacks."
"The stone age? Jon, it's 2012, get with the times."
Sighing, Firefly glanced over at Jervis who was dunking the March Hare in the pail of tea, before turning his back on the fight. He really hated the human race.