Within Arkham's Walls: Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow x OC Fanfiction

VII. Fear

My mouth went dry as I stared at the familiar, yet strange face kneeling before Crane. I hadn't seen Eric, my ex, in over a year, and I couldn't believe that I was seeing him here and now. I was grateful he couldn't see me though. He looked awful. Not just from the cuts and bruises inflicted on him by the thugs, but he was scrawny now, his hair stringy and grown out.

I took me a moment of analyzing the situation before could fully comprehend what was happening. Crane, that bastard...he must've gone through the records of my therapy sessions and learned of Eric—and what he did to me. But why would he go out of his way to find him and have him brought here? How did he even find him?

I didn't want to know.

I held my breath as Jonathan crouched, coming to eye level with Eric. His sultry voice oozed with icy bitterness as he spoke. "I heard you like to hurt people, and cause them pain," he looked Eric up and down, "Well, we have that in common." My heart pinged with terror at his words. I could tell Eric's did too, as his eyes went wide and glossed over. "That's why," Dr. Crane continued, "you'll be a great contribution to our...project." He stared at Eric silently for a moment, blue eyes ripping away and whatever was left of that poor fool's soul.

"Masks on gentlemen," Crane said suddenly. The gangsters all put on breathing masks while the doctor stalked over to a lab table, picking up one of the aerosol cans and something else I couldn't quite make out...a burlap sack? He slid it over his face and clicked something on the inside before turning back my direction.

I almost screamed. His beautiful and cruel face had been replaced by a disgusting, sewn...what even was that...scarecrow mask? I had no idea what was going on and I felt like I might pass out at any second, but I watched on.

Jonathan...now a hideous scarecrow, made his way back over to his victim. "Now, Eric, you will understand what true fear is." Suddenly, the doctor sprayed whatever substance was in the aerosol can into Eric's face. The thugs took a step back and watched intently as he began to scream and writhe. Eric's eyes became bloodshot and his pathetic face dripped with sweat. Whatever the doctor had in that can...it did this to him.

A sick feeling crept over me as I realized that I was pleased by what I saw. Eric, the man who had caused me so much pain, suffering. He cried and choked and rolled on the floor, as if in a drunken rage—which he usually was in...especially during our relationship. I looked to the doctor, and though his face was hidden by his horrendous scarecrow mask, I could see glee in his eyes.

"I hope you gentlemen are satisfied," he cut in between Eric's screams. The mobsters looked to one another and nodded in agreement. One of them reached into their pocket and pulled out something dark and shiny that I couldn't make out.

Then he shot Eric in the back of the head.

Silence fell and everything around me went dark.

✣

I woke up in a daze, but it only took me a few moments of consciousness before images everything that had happened flooded back into my mind. I must've passed out. But not soon enough, as pictures of Eric's dead body, face down on the tile floor tacked themselves to the walls of my brain. I sat up in a panic, breathing heavy, trying to grasp whatever ropes of sanity that I had left.

But as I climbed back into reality, I realized I wasn't in the locker I passed out in. I was in a bed.

A bed that was not mine.

Cool, dark blue sheets covered my shaking body. Large, paned windows adorned exposed-brick walls. Rain lashed at the weathered glass and flashes of lighting highlighted the rest of my surroundings. I was in a loft.

Where was I? Who brought me here? I sat silently only for a moment before using whatever energy I had left in my body to spring from the bed and try to find an exit as soon as possible.

I felt my way around the dark space, trying not to disturb whomever it was that brought me here, when I saw warm light peeking from under a large door. I had every hope of escaping until a pair of large, ice cold hands grasped my body, one over my mouth and the other around my arm, chilling me to the bone.

I knew these hands. Their roughness, size. I recognized the pitch of the breath that hovered behind my right ear. I knew the body of whom I was being held against, the stature of the chest and shoulders my back was pressed to.

"Not so fast, Ms. Thatcher."