Notes: This is not going to be a first person narrative. Only the prologue is.

Prologue:

In which Crane has a reoccurring nightmare.

The first time he looked at me, I looked away.

The second time, I looked away.

The third time was the last time I dared to look away.

He has a way of knowing what hurts me the most, and he is not reserved in the slightest to hurt me where it hurts the most.

And he hurt me the third time, and he will hurt me again if I look away, but sometimes I wonder if there is anything left in the world capable of hurting me, but I do not look away, because It's not that I'm afraid of being hurt again: Nothing again can either hurt or heal; It's his eyes; it's in the way he looks at me that renders me incapable of looking away. He meets my eyes across a field of boiling blood and frothing flesh, he grabs me by the hair and drags me facedown along a road littered with jarred pieces of misunderstood desire and half-choked insanity that rip my skin open and sink into my eyeballs. He takes me apart like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, day after day, night after night, and sometimes forgets to put me back, or just doesn't care enough. He looks me in the eyes and I do not dare to look away, the way he looks at me renders me incapable of looking away; and he pushes his way into my head as if I am resisting him but I'm not, and he rips the memories off my mind in a way only he knows how, and for that I love him. And I love him because I do not look away because I love him and he loves me because I do not look away because I love him, he loves me.

Scarecrow would have called it cosmic irony if he were here. But he is not here; hasn't been here for such a long time sometimes I forget he has ever been here, but he must have been at some point in time because I am here, and I still carry the scars he had left on my mind, and I once told him that the scars would outlive us both, and he laughed as if I was but a mortal fool but I was not, because I am here and he is not.

He has not been here for such a long time sometimes I wonder if he has ever been here, but he must have been because...

"It only hurts the first time; it only hurts; the first time only hurts; it hurts, and it will never stop hurting."

...the residue of memories at the back of your throat where you once shoved a finger and forced yourself to throw up (If you can't heal them, kill them.) But the aftertaste lingers still, and it makes you want to be sick all over again.

How does it ever go away?

Scarecrow would have called it self-pity and despised me for it if he were here (a genius, a survivor, my lover, a curse); but he is not here and for that I love him; and I love him because he is not here, and he would have never loved me if he were here now, but he is not here and I refuse to miss, I refuse to love, I refuse to hate him. I refuse to waste any emotion on him, when he is not here to care; when he does not care to be here.

But does it ever go away?

The world whirls in sweet madness and comes undone beneath the delusional gentleness of the Batman's touch as he grabs my throat every night and pushes me against the wall; his eyes like little circles of déjà vu expanding on the watery surface of my mind, as if I am halting the time when he tears into my skull for one last time just moments before I wake up and I press the rewind button to bring myself back to hear those cursed words from his cruel mouth time and time again...

Taste of your own medicine, Doctor?

...so that I could remember why it hurt so much. So that I could remember those eyes, that jawline, and that voice rasping into my ears as the gloved hand tightened around my neck and squeezed hard, my breath caught and my precious sanity fleeting by...

I would know who you are. I would know. The moment I see you, I would know. There is nothing greater than a crow's revenge; even if I am only the 'scare' for now, I will take back my other half and then I will come for you.

Notes:

"It's not that I'm afraid of being hurt again: nothing again can either hurt or heal...and if that is all meaningless, I want to be cured of a craving for something I cannot find and of the shame of never finding it. Can you cure me?" - The Cocktail Party, T. S. Eliot