Chapter Eight: Johan of Providence

Drowning. She was drowning. Cool water bubbled slightly in through her nose and she could feel her lungs burning. Her body struggled out of an automatic sense of survival. However, the hand holding her head under had a fistful of hair, and a foot applying just enough pressure to the back of her ribs kept the rest of her body on the ground.

Crane was not above exposure therapy in the brutalist of fashions, Holly found this out the hard way as she refused to answer him anymore. He'd lured her calmly outside to 'get some fresh air.' Ideally chatting a one-sided conversation as she'd clammed up and he walked them to the creek at the edge of her home's tree line. The glittering clear waters were about two to three feet deep – and she'd let him know at some point while under the influence she feared drowning.

He pulled her head out of the water and listened to her sputter then haphazardly draw breath, "And now?"

"Fuck! I don-" Her head went right back under for the swear regardless of what she was going to say.

He counted to different intervals each time, nothing more than twenty seconds. Her injury was going to simply get worse if he kept abusing her in this manner. Which was not his goal nor intention, "Refrain from foul language." He'd pulled her up again.

Holly would kill him, she'd never wanted to murder someone so badly before. The anger felt like it was welling from someplace more than just him toying with her. She tried to use her cuffed hands against the creek's bank to keep her from being shoved in but they were failing to find a good spot that did not slope down in the mud, "I don't know; did you think maybe I was just delirious?" How she kept her voice level was beyond her.

"I had considered it at first." He affirmed, "Let's try another. What does a stag mean to you?"

Her brows furrowed, "A stag?" He pushed on her head, "I- I don't know uh," he was holding her close enough to the water that it splashed on her nose. As she stared wide-eyed at it she felt the answer boil up past the dread, "… death. A black elk is the symbol of death and rebirth." She knew he meant the creature from her visions under that drug.

It fell in line with a Jungian archetype of the collective unconscious. All humans (and sentient things) feared death, it was the only constant universal fear. For it was the greatest unknown to never have an answer. If what she saw was death itself as her fear under the influence of his toxin why did she confess her love to it? The woman was not suicidal…

"Have you ever attempted to take your life?" Her nod came after a pensive pause. He felt his lips turn down into a small frown of disappointment, "Suicide is never the correct answer Holly. When was this?"

"Some years ago," Holly wanted to cry but no tears came. There was already enough water on her streaking down from her hairline that dripped back into the creek below her face, "the wind pushed me before I convinced myself to let go," she added after a moment, "I got scared." What was he going to do, push her off a building to cure her? Mentally she huffed. It would be less of a cure than just an exit to all of life. He may have been many terrible things, but a downright murder did not seem like one of them.

"Thank you for sharing." He made a mental note to explore acrophobia in her, "It was not so hard now was it? Shall we try another? What is wood-smoked candy?" He knew she'd not answer as her body tensed under his grip. He hardly gave her any time to before pushing her head back under the water. Unfortunately, Holly used terms that were not normalized across the states – when under the influence of his toxin she alluded to the fact that she was not native to the city let alone the state. Her answer during brunch had not shed much light on the subject but nevertheless confirmed it.

Her head was pulled back up, "Moss! It's the smell of burning aromatic moss when you throw it onto a fire." Jonathan had honestly assumed it was some kind of drug euphemism from the Western states given what he knew of her background.

'Burn the witch.' Holly was sure he'd just said that, but it did not sound like Jonathan. She did not respond, and her head went under again. She'd not been ready at all this time; a large gulp of water went into her mouth. And she could hear it again, a voice, 'Confess and let the water cleanse your sins.' Her head was pulled up and she coughed out of unconscious reflex.

"Who is Johan?" Crane asked, he did not feel her resisting anymore. He was not going to torture her for torturing sake. Why not? Scarecrow had been enjoying as she was pulled from the waters and listening to her yell at the good doctor. It was amusing. Yet, there were no results to have from it. He lowered her head to the water again to see if she'd fight him.

Holly stared at the creek waters; what she saw was a lakeside and the smell of trout water. That dread in her was at the pinnacle, it made every sense of hers feel like it was frying in hot oil. Yet, all her anger was no longer directed at Jonathan. She calmly said, "Fuck you." Her head went in again and this time she just let it. When he pulled her head out of the water, he let her go, removing his foot from her back. He was growing irritated at the slowness of progress and her attempts at pissing him off were starting to get under his skin.

As she looked up at his silhouette looming over her, she saw a young blonde teen haloed by the sunlight until she blinked the water away. He went back to being a slightly fuzzy Jonathan, "Johan is dead." Unlike the answer of a stag, this came more solemnly to her and she had no idea if she was lying.

Jonathan crouched down on the balls of his feet with his hands loosely clasped between his legs, "Thanatophobia," He understood now, "Fear of the dead." She had lost a loved one or someone deeply dear to her. How tragic, he thought mockingly. Perhaps it had been a horrific event and all her fears complied around it. It may explain more why she feared some things that seemed wholly unrelated to one another.

"Thank you, Jonathan," Holly was smiling up at him, still trying every few moments to find her ground against the muddy bank, "I'm not sure why I'd forgotten that." The man had literally just tormented her both psychologically and physically, and she was honestly thanking him. Well. Fuck. If his goal was to scramble her brains he did it well – she was feeling something other than panic and rising dread. Confusion and repose. And air, lots of well-needed air.

"Who was he to you?" There was still something Crane did not quite understand, and her sudden sincerity for another.

"I don't know," Her voice truly did hint at sounding not only grateful but overcome with solace, "would you like to hold my head under some more and see if I remember anything else?" Her hands gestured out to the running creek waters.

That was not how phobias went, they were not cured so easily as one treatment, especially if the treatment was just causing the thing she feared to happen. Aquaphobia often came from trauma of previous experiences – or perhaps in her case this Johan had drowned - and those versus more irrational fears were difficult to overcome in general. She's bluffing, he thought. Jonathan stood and shoved her head under the water again. She was not struggling. Scarecrow was the one in his mind to suggest, that she was not scared of her death, just the pain before it. Jonathan immediately pulled her out. This must have been the reason she was trying to make him mad; he was sure of it. He was not going to be aiding and abetting in suicide so she could escape her fears.