Author's note: Do I really have to say it? I don't own any of this! (You don't have to rub it in...)
My New Year's resolution for 2007: I must write at least one completely nice Scarecrow fic, with no severe physical or emotional pain.
This, my friends, is not that story.
But I did hurt him a lot less than I intended to. Because, of all my handful of odd phobias, the one I tried to deal with here is quite possibly the most intense. (Want to see me vomit on command? Just ask me about good old Steven and his...bones. -twitch-)
Crane woke up some time in the afternoon, wishing he didn't have to. For a little while, he just stayed in bed, eyes shut, doing his best to imagine that there was no such thing as Batman.
He had taken a beating the night before, and no surprise. Getting up was going to be agony. And, this time, he couldn't even say that his enemy had gotten the worst of it. He had put up a fight, and a good one, too, but he was no match for Batman in a battle of brawn. And he hadn't been able to use his fear toxin this time. His pair of henchmen was gone, and he had been lucky to escape.
Still, escape was better than he had done on more than one unfortunate occasion in the past. Maybe he should just be thankful for what he had.
But none of these thoughts were doing anything to solve his twin problems.
Problem one: the sun. Even with his eyes still firmly shut, he could feel a lance of pure sunlight trying to stab its way into his brain. This usually wasn't a problem; he tended to be an early riser, and he was almost never still in bed by the time the sun reached this point in the sky. But he had come home late, exhausted and in pain, and once assured that he was safe, he had proceeded to pass out on the first relatively comfortable piece of furniture he had found, not to be moved by anything short of Armageddon until his body decided it was damn good and ready. It was just a good thing he had made it to the cot shoved into the corner of this borrowed office. If he had fallen asleep on the rug again, he would be too stiff to move. But, on the other hand, he wouldn't have sunlight bursting through a crack in the wall and doing its cheerful best to pry his eyes open.
With a groan, he turned his face to the wall, and immediately wished that he hadn't, as the movement woke all the aches he had feared, and more.
Still, he would have tried to stay in bed if the other little problem were not becoming more insistent with every moment he clung to blissful unconsciousness with his fingernails and teeth.
Teeth? The thought of biting something brought him into full alertness, as his body reminded him, with that particular clenching, hollow, full body headache that he was hungry. More than hungry, in fact. Starved. His first thought on waking was that he could cheerfully eat Batman, raw, cape and all.
He hauled himself up off the cot, wincing as he stretched muscles that screamed in protest.
Too fast. Take it slowly, now.
He made it to the door, somehow. He had to move like a crippled old man to do it, moving as little of his body as possible as he slid his feet along the floor without actually lifting them. There wasn't anything broken, thank goodness—although his ribs felt badly bruised at the very least; he might have cracked one that last time he fell.
But it was nothing serious enough to cause any permanent damage, nothing bad enough to send him to the hospital, so he would just have to tough it out and take a few days off work. Which might not be as easy as it sounded. He had no minions, very little cash, and probably not enough food to last him until he felt quite up to a major scheme.
Well, damn Batman for always showing up at the worst possible moment.
He fumbled a bit unlocking the door. He could always secure himself, no matter what condition he was in, but sometimes getting back out was another matter.
This time, it only took him two tries to get past the locks. (Some might have called him paranoid…to them he would have replied, "It's not paranoia if they're really after you.")
Before this building had been abandoned to the encroaching slums, it had been a medical clinic much like the Thompkins clinic over on Park Row. The previous tenants had been rather aggressively run out of business, and had left a good amount of useable equipment behind, downstairs.
But up here, it was nothing but offices, bathrooms, and the break room that was his ultimate destination.
The bathroom was his first stop, though. On his way out, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and decided he was not going to look presentable today and it would be too much effort to try. He would just have to make do with whatever food he had on hand, and go grocery shopping later.
It was actually something of a relief to think that his only responsibilities for the rest of the day would be to eat, take some painkillers, change clothes, and go back to sleep. He would have been even happier if he could have trimmed the list down to painkillers and sleep, but, no, he was already being lazy enough. He was going to be very unhappy with himself if he fell asleep with a belt buckle pressing into his stomach, or if he managed to tear out the seams of his last recognizable Scarecrow outfit because he was prone to thrashing in his sleep.
And as for eating, even though the idea didn't appeal to him (he was at that stage of weariness in which picking something up, biting it, and chewing was too much effort for not enough reward) he knew that it needed to be done. His stomach wouldn't stop demanding to be filled until he gave in, and there was no way it would let him get back to sleep without being satisfied. And since he didn't want to add nausea to his lengthy list of annoyances, he wasn't going to take his pills on an empty stomach.
How long had it been since he had actually eaten? Too long, he realized as he stumbled into the miniaturized kitchen, leaning heavily on the wall for support. He had started to make a sandwich last night, but then he had gotten distracted and ended up scooping out some peanut butter with two fingers and eating that on the way out the door. Before that, there had been something crunchy. A granola bar, maybe? Or some crackers?
Only now did he realize that he had been living off little more than coffee and determination for the past few days. He was really going to have to learn to take better care of himself. It was easy enough to block out everything extraneous when he was working, but the moment he stopped, his own neglected health caught up to him with a vengeance.
Hmm. He glanced at the coffee pot, and decided caffeine would be a bad idea. There should be some tea in one of the cabinets, though…he put a cup of water in the microwave and went looking for it.
He would be willing to bet that no one else ever found themselves in this situation, hobbling around their lairs, completely alone, scrounging around for something to keep body and soul together for just a few more minutes. If there had been anyone in the world he thought he might be able to come close to trusting, Crane would have seriously considered getting himself a girl like Harley Quinn, or maybe a pair like the ones the Riddler kept. But, even if he could have inspired obsessive love the way the Joker had, or done whatever it was the Riddler did to keep his girls loyal, the Scarecrow would not have been able to trust any minions absolutely, and if he couldn't give his complete trust, what was the point of keeping an assistant that close?
He started to drop a tea bag in the hot water, and then froze, sniffing it carefully. The box said French Vanilla, so why did it smell like butter?
He dropped it in, anyway. What was the worst that could happen? He wasn't expecting to taste it, anyway. He wasn't completely sure he would stay awake long enough to let it brew properly.
All he wanted now was to eat something simple. Simple, as in the least amount of work he could possibly do and still digest it. Simple as in maybe a piece of bread.
No, not bread, he decided when he actually got a look at it. The few pieces left in the bag were beginning to show spots of mold. Something else, then.
Not the box of granola bars; it was empty except for a few crumpled wrappers. (He made a mental note to do something unspeakable to those two henchmen, who, if they were too lazy to convey their garbage to the appropriate receptacles, didn't deserve to be working for a real criminal, anyway.) There were some saltines left in the box, but not enough to make the kind of meal his insides were demanding, and (he quickly discovered) they were going stale. There was a bag of potato chips lying open on the counter; he bypassed it entirely. There was nothing else out but a box of children's cereal, and no matter how much he knew he needed to eat, he was not stuffing himself with cardboard marshmallows.
So, the counter was a bust. He decided to try the refrigerator instead.
Wrenching the door open sent a shock of pain through his ribs. It froze him in place for just a moment, shaking, not quite breathing, with the cool air spilling out over his bare feet.
Yes, that had to be a cracked rib. Well, that put an end to any thoughts of strenuous physical activity he might have been entertaining, didn't it?
Don't acknowledge it. It's only a little pain.
So, in the fridge…there was cheese, expired milk, a bottle of water, enough beer to have kept the two henchmen satisfied for a week, a bruised apple with a single bite taken out of it, and a shoe. Wonderful. Maybe there was something in the cabinets. Surely there must be.
There must be. He wasn't going to be standing much longer, and he absolutely had to get something solid inside him, or else the situation would very shortly turn from "unpleasant" to "torture."
He opened the cabinet door and squinted at the boxes and cans, wishing now that he had stopped to put on his glasses. Being able to read the labels would have made this a good bit easier.
He reached up, wincing as pain shot through his side, and quickly decided that whatever was on the top shelf was not worth having. The second shelf held mostly canned goods, and the bottom shelf was packed with ramen noodles.
"No," he said out loud. "I hate ramen noodles." In the years between his granny's last chicken pot pie (cooked just before he killed the old woman, and eaten just after) and the double cheeseburger bought just after his first success as the Scarecrow (an odd way to celebrate suddenly coming into a large sum of money, but exactly what he'd wanted at the time) he had eaten almost nothing but ramen noodles. Cheap, quick, microwaveable ramen noodles. And he never wanted to taste them again.
That left the cans. Soup would have been nice, vegetable, or chicken noodle, but there didn't seem to be any. There were only cans of vegetables. Why were there cans of vegetables? Neither he nor his minions ever actually cooked anything, and the idea of microwaving a can of green beans was…less than appetizing.
He realized then that he was just trying to find an excuse to go back so sleep without eating anything.
If you don't choke something down, you're going to be worse off than you are already, he reminded himself.
If nothing else, he could dump some of the vegetables in a pot, add some water, and call it soup. It might take a little while, but he could keep the leftovers in the refrigerator, and save himself that much work later.
Yes, that was a brilliant idea. Granted, he didn't know how to cook anything that didn't come in a pouch labeled, "Warning: bowl and contents will be hot!" But what could possibly go wrong? If he could make fear toxin, he could make soup.
In the process of taking down the cans of vegetables, he discovered a small glass container of some kind of red-colored seasoning, a jar of peanuts, and a cardboard box, all labeled in what he had to assume was Japanese. Had someone been shopping at the oriental market?
Curious, he tore open the box to discover…noodles. Great. Well, at least they looked more substantial than ramen noodles, and inside the box was a packet of what proved to be sauce. With a shrug, he dumped the noodles in a pot and put it on the stove.
Now…what vegetables to add…
Peas…carrots…tomatoes and corn? No. Well, maybe the peas and carrots would be enough. He reminded himself that all he needed was food; it didn't matter if it tasted like anything. He opened the two cans and added their contents to the pot, followed by a handful of peanuts and the sauce. And then, because the unidentified red spice was the same color as the sauce, and smelled about the same, he added some of that, as well.
This was either going to be very good, or very bad.
Either way, it didn't really matter. The sooner he got this done, the sooner he could go lie down.
With that in mind, he turned the heat up as high as it would go. Why would anyone want to cook at less than the maximum temperature, anyway? That would only make the food take longer to cook. And this was taking far too long, as it was.
He took a sip of his tea, and grimaced, realizing that not only had it gone cold while he was dillydallying, but it tasted exactly the way it smelled—like butter.
How very strange. He put it back in the microwave, just barely remembering to take the spoon out, and turned his attention back to the pot.
Yes, the liquids were bubbling, and the food was steaming—
Uh—make that smoking.
He turned off the stove and moved the pot away from the heat source, nearly dropping it as he did so. His ribs screamed a protest at being forced to deal with a load far heavier than what he had expected, and then his hands reminded him that metal conducts heat…
He looked around for a dishrag or an oven mitt, found nothing, and decided to leave the pot where it was in the middle of the stove. He poked at its insides with his teaspoon. The bottom might be burned, but the top still looked edible…and by now, he was beyond caring about such trivial matters. He retrieved his tea, scooped some of the less ruined bits of the mess into a bowl, and sat down.
Fell into the chair was more like it; a controlled fall that managed not to seriously jar anything, but reminded him that he was currently capable of all the grace and subtlety of a sack of bricks. He seriously considered putting his head down and going to sleep right there…
But then he picked up his spoon and, with the air of someone undertaking a solemn duty, snagged some noodles and put them in his mouth.
Oh. Oh!
SPICY!
For a second, he sat there, panting hard and trying to take it like a man. Then he gave in and reached for his tea.
Scalding!
Damn it!
He flung open the refrigerator door, forgetting all weariness and pain. Beer—expired milk—why wasn't there ever anything useful on hand?
He grabbed the water—realized that water did not come in glass bottles that said "Absolut"—realized that he didn't care. It was cold, it was wet, and—
It was flammable. He had a brief mental image of flames shooting out of his mouth the way they did from cartoon characters' when they ate anything too spicy. That didn't happen, of course, but the vodka did burn going down.
But this particular burning sensation was by far the most pleasurable thing he had felt in days.
He glared at the offending spicy noodles. He wanted to eat them even less, now, but…but…damn it, he was not going to let himself be beaten by noodles.
He eyed the mostly-full bottle of vodka. Yes, there was enough, and more than enough.
And by the time you're done, you won't need those painkillers.
--
If there was one thing Batman had expected when he finally traced the Scarecrow to his hideout, it was most assuredly not to be met at the door by a cheerfully shitfaced Jonathan Crane, whose only concern seemed to be that he was not quite coordinated enough to eat his Lucky Charms straight from the box.
The moment they had seen each other, Crane had flung a handful of cereal at him and…and…well, to make a long story short, he had escaped. Made a clean getaway. Disappeared off the face of the earth, in fact.
It was bad enough that a man too badly injured to run, too drunk to know his own name, and armed only with a box of cereal had managed to give him the slip.
But the fact that Batman, the great detective, could not track him down again, though he tried for the rest of the night and into the morning…that was humiliating.
And his pride was saved only by the fact that he knew Crane wouldn't remember this in the morning.