milliways_bar | (no subject)

"Oh, I have been," he replies. "But you get quite to the heart of things: our sweet Bar is indeed governed by her own caprices."

Not like he'd know anything about that.

"In this case, much though I hate to admit it, I may owe her thanks."

He picked his glass of cold water up from the bar and set it against his forehead to deflate his headache. "Oh?"

"Oh, yes," Puck says, lowering his voice so as not to further aggravate the headache. ~~Took him long enough.~~ "As it happens, it's not so unbearable as I'd believed. A friend of mine called it 'social conditioning.'"

He knew that term well. "I'm glad it's tolerable, as I don't think the Bar takes no for an answer," Jonathon noted. He removed the glass and wiped stray water droplets from his forehead.

He puts cool fingertips to Jonathon's temple.

"You did have a bad day, didn't you?"

He eyed Puck's hand lazily. "Two patients today. One of them thinks she's queen of the plants. The other one thinks his wooden dummy is a seperate person." Jonathon shrugged lightly. "All part of the job."

Puck, to his credit, doesn't laugh.

"So why not let them go on with it?"

"Well, Ms. 'Ivy' tends to kill people who do ill to the enviorment, and 'Scarface' is a mob boss." He smirks just a little bit; he couldn't care less if they were out on the streets causing terror. "Gotham tends to dislike that."

"How lovely of her to care for the growing things," Puck says, withdrawing his hand.

He smirks back.

"Gotham dislikes it?"

"I don't know why. They've got half a dozen worse members of society scurrying around under their ratty noses. But they seem to like... giving me things to do." He wrinkles his nose a bit. Jonathon had too many things to do.

"It's a shame."

He smiles. "Lucky you to end up here again."

"Mm, yes, lucky me," he agreed, a bit innocently, rubbing his index finger against his forehead. The dull roaring of his headache was down to a soft tapping on his skull.

Puck raises an eyebrow.

Crane is still smirking, though it's more of a lip-quirk now. "There's a board meeting tomorrow," he said by way of explanation. Maybe. "Pity I can't miss it."

He smiles.

"Send Mistress Ivy in your place?"

"Oh, she'd love that. Hold them all for ransom and cover them in vines..." Jonathon wouldn't have minded terribly. In fact, he might have been proud.

Puck laughs softly, sharp like shattering glass.

"Wouldn't that be a pretty sight."

He glanced at Puck, eyes narrowing for just a fraction of a second at that laugh before he smiled compliantly. "And pathetic," he said, thinking of all the shouted bribes.

Puck smiles, appearing not to notice Jonathon's narrowed eyes.

"But think of the greenery," he says. "It'd make the most fascinating table arrangement. Centerpiece at dinner parties, if you like."

"Point," he chuckled. "And since the vines would eat their captives... no need to water."

Puck tilts his head to the side.

"Your world is a very strange one, Jonathon Crane," he says thoughtfully.

Crane smiled, just a tad darkly. "Strange and populated by too many brilliant criminals," he agreed. They were threatening to fill Arkham, and would already if they didn't keep finding ways of breaking out.

"But... I suspect your world isn't the definition of normality, either," he added. What was normal, anyway? As man and psychiatrist, he shied from that word.

"No, that it isn't," Puck agrees with a grin. "But not so far removed from what you know as you might think. Most mortals tell tales of my kind."

Jonathon tilted his head. He'd thought, but... "I suspect coming from abnormal ards must help newcomers here. It certainly did with myself."

He wondered if newcomers ever had nervous breakdowns.

He smiles.

"It takes a certain type to come to the end of all things without being destroyed. I think, perhaps, that is why the path is only open to some."