Timebomb
I'm writing this for my own damn enjoyment.
Title: Timebomb
Chapter: 1/We got a warning light
Rating: R-NC17
Fandom: Batman Begins/Dark Knight/Nolan-verse
Pairing: Joker/Scarecrow (J. Crane)
Summary: The craziest man is the one who seems sanest but shouldn't be. Jonathan Crane is that maniac.
“D’you knoooow what you remind me of, Jonny-cake?”
Jon concentrates on the curls of his dark bangs brushing his scratch-pad in the thinning light from his camping lantern. The notched surface of his pen looks like the barrel of a gun as he glances down its length at his freshly-scrawled notes, his hand frozen in the writing of an ‘x.’
“No, Jo, what’s that?”
The Joker snorts, the scuffing of his leg against the inside of his polyester pants ceasing for a moment as the twitching man shifts positions in Crane’s favorite chair. At least he’s stopped pacing; the haphazard, restless strides shook the floorboards and made it impossible to focus the waning light from the D-battery-powered bulb. Any more light than that would attract attention, the Joker insisted, and he’d become maddeningly possessive of Jon since his work entered its final stages.
“You remind meeeee…of the Rabbi Bezalel, d’you know that, Jonny?”
“I’m sorry, who?”
He sets down his pen and glances up from his work, the Joker snorting with laughter at the look on his fellow’s face. He’d become increasingly philosophical and erratic in the past week, coming and going at odd hours, leaving notes between the pages of Jon’s books and trinkets by his glasses or under his tea cup, places Jon wouldn’t expect to find them or things that he couldn’t quite identify to begin with.
These tangents were his newest thing, and as the Joker licks his lips and shakes his head, Jon can tell he’s about to get his ear chewed off, and just when he was really getting into the swing of his writing.
“The Rabbi Bezalel, Jonny, the good-God-li-est-man in Germany, before Hitler himself.”
“I really have no idea who you’re talking about,” Jon sighs, rubbing the tired lines beneath his eyes and reaching for his glasses, “But I can assure you this will do nothing but distract me, so please, entertain yourself at our…cumulative expense.”
“Expense?” the Joker repeats, rising from his seat and beginning his maddening pacing again, this time in half-circles around Jon, cross-legged on the floor, “IIIIII can assure you, Jonny, that this ffffuckery is anything but expensive. “
Jon rolls his eyes internally; what does the Joker think he’s playing at, bursting in and taking up all his time? He’s trapped here in the first place, by all senses and purposes, but he never imagined he’d have to serve as both mad scientist and psychologist to this most maddening of men.
“The Rabbi was a scientist, doc, like you,” the Joker says, crouching suddenly in front of Crane, taking Jon by surprise. He recoils slightly, his hands on the floor behind his thighs, aware that the Joker is leaning over him, but doesn’t dare push him back or point it out.
“Not quite-“ Jon begins, but it’s tangent-time at the O-K-Corral, and all he can do in lieu of the Joker’s oppression is lay there and take it.
“Y’see, the Rabbi dabbled in creating, creating things that were…shall we say, unsssssavory, things that could walk, and talk, and take the very life of a man away from him…He LIVED for the evil of it, ‘I’ think, but more than that….More than the sin of a religious man, I think he did it for the power.”
He reaches out and pushes a few strands of wayward hair back from his face, his favored blade tucked tightly in his palm, a frequent reminder of menace that they both knew to be as much for show as it was for play.
“I think, NO, I know, little sparrow, that you do your work for the saaaaame reasons. You’re such a cute little fuck, you know that?”
Without thinking, Jon curls his lip and bunches his muscles, as unimpressive as they are, and slams his palms against the Joker’s shoulders, knocking him flat on his ass. The knife skitters away across the floor, and the dull thudding echo of the floorboards rattling hangs in the air of the otherwise silent flat, both men as flabbergasted with the other as they are with themselves.
“….J-…Jesus, I’m sor-…”
Jon can’t bring himself to apologize. Even if he wasn’t stuttering incoherently from abject terror, he wouldn’t want to apologize, anyway. Let the Joker think he’s got Crane fooled, let him think he has an unsuspecting victim on his hands, let him think whatever he God-damn-well pleases, but there’s no way Jon’s going to sit idly by and let himself be objectified and brutalized in the name of villainy and chaos.
He’d rather choke on a dick than be made to look like one.
Title: Timebomb
Chapter: 1/We got a warning light
Rating: R-NC17
Fandom: Batman Begins/Dark Knight/Nolan-verse
Pairing: Joker/Scarecrow (J. Crane)
Summary: The craziest man is the one who seems sanest but shouldn't be. Jonathan Crane is that maniac.
“D’you knoooow what you remind me of, Jonny-cake?”
Jon concentrates on the curls of his dark bangs brushing his scratch-pad in the thinning light from his camping lantern. The notched surface of his pen looks like the barrel of a gun as he glances down its length at his freshly-scrawled notes, his hand frozen in the writing of an ‘x.’
“No, Jo, what’s that?”
The Joker snorts, the scuffing of his leg against the inside of his polyester pants ceasing for a moment as the twitching man shifts positions in Crane’s favorite chair. At least he’s stopped pacing; the haphazard, restless strides shook the floorboards and made it impossible to focus the waning light from the D-battery-powered bulb. Any more light than that would attract attention, the Joker insisted, and he’d become maddeningly possessive of Jon since his work entered its final stages.
“You remind meeeee…of the Rabbi Bezalel, d’you know that, Jonny?”
“I’m sorry, who?”
He sets down his pen and glances up from his work, the Joker snorting with laughter at the look on his fellow’s face. He’d become increasingly philosophical and erratic in the past week, coming and going at odd hours, leaving notes between the pages of Jon’s books and trinkets by his glasses or under his tea cup, places Jon wouldn’t expect to find them or things that he couldn’t quite identify to begin with.
These tangents were his newest thing, and as the Joker licks his lips and shakes his head, Jon can tell he’s about to get his ear chewed off, and just when he was really getting into the swing of his writing.
“The Rabbi Bezalel, Jonny, the good-God-li-est-man in Germany, before Hitler himself.”
“I really have no idea who you’re talking about,” Jon sighs, rubbing the tired lines beneath his eyes and reaching for his glasses, “But I can assure you this will do nothing but distract me, so please, entertain yourself at our…cumulative expense.”
“Expense?” the Joker repeats, rising from his seat and beginning his maddening pacing again, this time in half-circles around Jon, cross-legged on the floor, “IIIIII can assure you, Jonny, that this ffffuckery is anything but expensive. “
Jon rolls his eyes internally; what does the Joker think he’s playing at, bursting in and taking up all his time? He’s trapped here in the first place, by all senses and purposes, but he never imagined he’d have to serve as both mad scientist and psychologist to this most maddening of men.
“The Rabbi was a scientist, doc, like you,” the Joker says, crouching suddenly in front of Crane, taking Jon by surprise. He recoils slightly, his hands on the floor behind his thighs, aware that the Joker is leaning over him, but doesn’t dare push him back or point it out.
“Not quite-“ Jon begins, but it’s tangent-time at the O-K-Corral, and all he can do in lieu of the Joker’s oppression is lay there and take it.
“Y’see, the Rabbi dabbled in creating, creating things that were…shall we say, unsssssavory, things that could walk, and talk, and take the very life of a man away from him…He LIVED for the evil of it, ‘I’ think, but more than that….More than the sin of a religious man, I think he did it for the power.”
He reaches out and pushes a few strands of wayward hair back from his face, his favored blade tucked tightly in his palm, a frequent reminder of menace that they both knew to be as much for show as it was for play.
“I think, NO, I know, little sparrow, that you do your work for the saaaaame reasons. You’re such a cute little fuck, you know that?”
Without thinking, Jon curls his lip and bunches his muscles, as unimpressive as they are, and slams his palms against the Joker’s shoulders, knocking him flat on his ass. The knife skitters away across the floor, and the dull thudding echo of the floorboards rattling hangs in the air of the otherwise silent flat, both men as flabbergasted with the other as they are with themselves.
“….J-…Jesus, I’m sor-…”
Jon can’t bring himself to apologize. Even if he wasn’t stuttering incoherently from abject terror, he wouldn’t want to apologize, anyway. Let the Joker think he’s got Crane fooled, let him think he has an unsuspecting victim on his hands, let him think whatever he God-damn-well pleases, but there’s no way Jon’s going to sit idly by and let himself be objectified and brutalized in the name of villainy and chaos.
He’d rather choke on a dick than be made to look like one.