whatdoyoufear (whatdoyoufear) wrote in arkham_city_rpg, @ 2013-07-06 19:21:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | johnathan crane | scarescrow, margaret reaves | baby doll |
Miss Reaves, let's talk about your fears
Who: Jonathan Crane, Baby Doll, ??
What: Talking with a new patient
When: January 3rd, 2012
Where: Hospital in Arkham City
Rating: TBD
Status: Open, Incomplete
Dr. Jonathan Crane smiled at his ungainly reflection in a full length mirror as, capped and gowned, he went by away from surgery. In shadows he slipped in and out of the front of your vision, and even in broad daylight he was difficult to keep your eyes on. Dr. Crane preferred it that way; he got infinitely better responses out of patients who couldn't stare him down. Fear, that was the magic spell that kept this heap together, wasn't it? If you showed yourself to be timid, revealed the slightest bit of cowardice, then human monsters like the Joker would devour you whole. He had found his old home in the Asylum as conducive to the atmosphere of intimidation as this place, that had not been a particularly stressful changeover. Same faces really, they just were a bit less obligated to stay locked up. The TYGER team squads kept up with the worst of the insanity in the City and threw into containment the ones that were causing serious disruption. But the City itself was the prison, so once they were deemed rehabilitated Crane felt professionally, if not legally, obligated to throw them back out on the streets again. No such thing as life in the hospital... It was life in the entire City; the hospital was just a respite from the much larger amount of insanity outside its walls. Anybody who deserved more than a life sentence the TYGER teams handled with extreme prejudice. This made for different company though than back in the old Asylum walls. He never knew who when he came in fresh and eager to lend his unique council, he would be treating. There was no long walk down Batman's rogue gallery of villains any longer; most of them roamed free and ruled their own little sections of turf, unless the TYGER forces deemed it necessary that one of them cool off. There had been an intimacy to his conversations with the likes the Penguin, and Two-Face. He knew them, probably better than they knew themselves. He never showed his fear... But apart from true lunatics like the Joker, most all of them had revealed theirs a long time ago. His mind was a book of whispered secrets in the dark, raw pain and crazed, manic sadness. And of guilt too, of anger, to the extreme. Humphry Dumpler, so obsessed with making things whole... Arnold Wesker, so consumed with separation anxiety... They had been close as lovers sharing hushed whispers in the calm, confident dark. Let them play king of the castle outside; he could reduce most any of them into shivering, whimpering babes within the walls he claimed his own.
He had been working, this morning, as he did most mornings, playing the butcher and the mender both. It didn't suit him. They needed more hands. When an esteemed psychiatrist had to work in the surgical chop shop mending bullet wounds it was insulting. What Crane needed, as he shook beads of sweat off a long nose and snapped off rubber gloves, was to talk. And maybe even to learn. He had new patients now, whom for one reason or another the TYGERs had left in confinement, or whom had simply never left from the start when the Asylum doors were opened and it was converted to a hospital. He had the promise of new conversations ahead of him, new hushed intimacies, and it as always never failed to refresh his weary spirit. Arms, legs, even the heart and lungs, they could all be repaired with relative ease by somebody decently competent. But when you could tear the brain down to its roots and built it back up, you were composing a symphony, something beautiful and new. The secret was exploiting fear; it always had been. And of course, with the modifications he had personally seen to, any one of his patients could have their fear levels pushed through the roof in no time. Gas outlets in every cell, it was wonderful. Cannisters of the fear gas just piled up in the basement and at any time he could start. Load a cannister, pick a room, reap the rewards. Once you hear the howls of a deranged mind being faced with what it fears most you see the purest truth of that person. Hands slap at sides, flinging away imagined bugs and spiders. Lips move soundlessly as hallucinated walls begin to compress. Once you knew the fears you could tear the mind apart. And then you had control. There had been a gangster once that he had treated, who had been fond of saying how many men feared his very name. Crane found that amusing, especially as they hauled the mobster off to Arkham deranged and howling. Fear a man and you fear something that your mind can rationally handle... It doesn't fully work. No, you must become something so primal, so central, to the most primitive parts of the mind, that nothing rational can be applied.
That's why, as Crane reached the psychiatric level of the hospital and stopped at the first room to study the name on the door, it worked for him. This one would start like all the others, with kind and helpful Dr. Jonathan Crane encouraging the opening of the mind, the laying bare of troubles. But it wasn't Crane's name that the mobster had been howling when they took him away in ropes and chains. The feel of rough burlap was a reassuring presence hanging out just a tiny bit of the inside pocket of his brown tweed jacket, unnoticeable to the passing glance unless you really looked for it. He pushed open the glass door and gave a warm smile, pushing up his glasses in a disarming manner. "Miss Reaves," Dr. Crane said, walking fully into the room. "I wonder if we could talk for a bit, anything at all. I'm here to help." He smiled and sat in the chair opposite to her. Eventually, like the mobster, like all of them, she would be introduced to the Scarecrow as well. For now though... "I know... Let's talk about your fears."