"Oh you cannot be serious." Edward sounded so unbelievably appalled. "Just because we've had a bit of a chat and you've now manhandled me into some stupid person's house you think you can tell me what to do?"
The Joker patted the aforementioned stupid person's head as the hostage screamed incessantly.
"You are taking issue with the fact that we're telling you what to do, not that we're telling you to kill him?" Jonathan sounded almost as disbelieving as Edward. "Really? How interesting…"
"Oh my god, you people are so annoying." Edward huffed, as he rubbed a hand across his eyes (but hissed when he touched his broken nose). "Of course I'm not going to complain about killing him; if I don't then you will anyway! At least if I kill him it will be quick and relatively painless. You'd just fuck him over multiple times and the Joker would - god I don't even want to think about what he'd do to him!" Edward's voice got louder and louder to be heard over the screams of the man.
"You just gotta shoot him." The Joker reminded Edward in such an upbeat tone Edward almost agreed. The Joker pulled the gun from the unresisting Crane and dangled it in front of Edward. "Shoot him. It'll make you feel better."
"The hell it will!" Edward batted away the gun to little effect.
The man in question still hadn't stopped screaming (he had started when the Joker had unceremoniously burst through his front door) and that, combined with the headache and the broken nose and the tremors and the stress and the annoyance and the pain drove Edward over the edge.
Before anyone quite realised what was going on, Edward had grabbed the gun and shot the screaming man in the face. In the startlingly loud silence that was left after the gun shot, Edward stared at the bloody mess that was once the poor-bugger's face and then at the blood staining the floor.
The Joker happily clapped Edward on the back. "Don't cha feel so much better now?"
"Shut up." Edward muttered, his tone completely defeated. "Just please shut up."
Jonathan bent down and prodded the body slightly. "You could have made that a lot cleaner. Still, you've gotten good with a gun."
"Thanks." Was Edward's absent minded reply as he made it over to a chair, just in time for his legs to give out. "I just killed him because he was being too loud, didn't I?"
"That would be a valid conclusion, yes." Jonathan answered, straightening up.
"I don't think I'm meant to kill people for being too loud." Edward still sounded faint and not all there.
"Generally speaking, civilians, or lawful people do not kill others for being too loud." Jonathan agreed.
"I think I need a drink."
The Joker cackled manically before pirouetting off into the depths of the apartment.
"You certainly are quick to kill people Edward. That was the second person tonight. Are you sure that this…civilian life suits you?" Jonathan cajoled as he sat down opposite the slightly traumatised man. "I know that your previous attempts at being criminal did not end the way you had envisioned, but you have changed a lot since then. Just imagine, you could reintroduce yourself with one hell of a riddle for Gotham if you worked with us."
Edward continued to stare at the kitchen table, but under his breath he muttered "A Joker, a Scarecrow and a Riddler walked into a bank…"
"You see Edward? You really should give up this farce of a life you're currently living." Crane stood suddenly and started to open the cabinet doors in the kitchen area. "And you're bleeding everywhere."
Edward laughed almost hysterically. "There's a man with no face on the floor surrounded in a litre of his own blood and you're worried about a few drops of mine on the table? Really?"
"Your nose is still broken." Crane simply replied, finding a basic first aid kit under the kitchen sink. "I assume you would want that to be fixed."
Edward sighed, but made no move to stop Crane from tilting his head back to get a better look at the damage he had caused earlier on. "I don't know why you seem so set on me joining you two."
"Like I've said, you've changed a lot Edward. I find this new you so much more appealing." Jonathan completely ignored the muttered "Pervert" from his patient. "If the two of us worked together we could terrorise Gotham City, but only once a few things were sorted out."
"Wait what? Now there have to terms and conditions? What happened to just being partners in crime?"
"And run the risk of being stabbed in the back? Honestly Edward I thought you were smarter than this."
Edward frowned, but tried not to move too much; he was in a pretty vulnerable position. "Just us two in partnership? What about - "
"Edward you already know the answer to that. Make no mistake in thinking that just because you are on…civil terms with the Joker that he will not suddenly turn on you." Jonathan almost sounded disappointed that he even had to explain it to Edward as he cleaned most of the blood off Edward's face.
"So what are these 'few things' you need to sort out?" Edward tried not to flinch away from the fingers that were probing at the broken nose.
Crane laughed. "Insurance Edward. What do you fear the most?" He ruthlessly snapped the bones back into place and grinned at the muffled gasp it drew from Edward.
"I wouldn't call that fair." The apparently-reformed detective hissed through gritted teeth. "You know my…worst fears but I don't know yours."
"So what do you want from me?"
"The means to find out of course. If I have…say two vials of your fear toxin…" Edward trailed off, wincing as Crane stuck the adhesive bandage over his nose to hold the bone in place.
Crane smiled again. "Then I think we have our agreement Edward."
Jonathan stepped back from the chair and offered a hand to Edward.
That was when it really hit Edward. The moment he took the hand a one Dr. Jonathan Crane (aka The Scarecrow) was offering, he would be turning his back on the civilian life he had been leading. His detective work, his office, his apartment, the progress made with his psychiatrist at curing his obsessions and compulsions, all of it, gone.
Edward almost laughed. There wasn't any question to be honest. Not even the tiny part of his mind that screamed against the horror he was willing to inflict on the innocent public could stop him. That part of his mind had only been brought to the surface by the medications and now that he was free of those drugs Edward could ignore it like before.
'No' Edward thought, as he grasped Jonathan's hand. 'The civilian life really didn't suit me.'
Whoooo! And there's Part 2, written in the space of the day, simply because Black391 reviewed and reminded me that I was in fact, in the middle of writing this!
So a big thank you to Black391!
And this concludes The Civilian Life of Edward Nigma, however I do have ideas for a possible sequel (The Not-So Civilian Life of Edward Nigma), but I think I may just go back to random drabbles for a while~~~
Anyway, thank you for reading, and thank you to
Spacemin Spiff
Guardian-Nightshade
Diddle-Diddle
and of course Black391
for reviewing!
Enough of my prattle, I'm off to bed!