milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

[OOM: Things are, slowly, getting worse. Millitimed to yesterday.]

Closet doors usually lead to closets.

"Jonathon, I don't really--"

Except, of course, when they don't. Scarecrow rubs at his -- their -- forehead and blinks, before looking downright sulky.

"Oh, lovely, this place again. Well..."

To even his own surprise, he walks in and closes the door, looking around curiously. There were some odd things happening last time. He's curious to see if they still are.

And, no dress. This he is definitely grateful for.

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Mary Anne is at a table, nursing the last of her Sweet Heart. She glances up reflexively when the door opens.

It's hard to tell with the general level of bar noise, but she's fairly certain she heard him say "Jonathon."

She doesn't think Jonathon talks to himself in third person.

But Jonathon might not be talking now.

"Sinh đôi."

There is a vague recollection of Last time we spoke, I was in a pink dress, and Scarecrow's gaze is knife-sharp as he takes her in.

It isn't a very long glance that's sharp, before his eyes, strangely, seem to dull over. The lack of glasses helps in seeing them.

"Luana," he returns.

Her lips curve, but it's not quite a smile.
And I could be so sorry
"Take it coming back here was an accident? Not that we don't want you here, mind."
for the way it had to go,
She wonders at the dullness of his eyes.
But now I feel your presence in a way I could not know.

Scarecrow raises an eyebrow, a little.

"I've managed to come here twice, in the past two days, by accident. It's not really happened much before."

He paws a hand through his hair, which is lacking in its usual amount of hairgel.

Then again, the last time she saw him, he was wearing a wig.

She kind of misses the wig. It meant he was Jonathon.

"Shame Halloween's over--you looked rather fetching."

She sets a tin on the table, pushing it across with one finger. It's battered, and that may be dried mud on the side, but it is unmistakably a tin of chocolate biscuits.

"For the next time I say something clever. Or just for you, if you don't feel like sharing."

Because a promise is a promise, no matter who you make it to.

He eyes it curiously before picking it up with his long fingers, turning it over. There are some things that don't change no matter what personality is there.

"I'll remember, then," he says, perhaps a tad dryly. Scarecrow sets the tin back on the table after a moment. "They've been through the mill, looks like."

Devoid of the way the dress had hidden it, his health looks on the decline.

"They weren't exactly easy to get a hold of." She snuck into a camp one night and stole them out of someone's care package, along with some magazines for her M-16.

"That, and they spent a few days with ammunition and grenades stacked on top of them."

He looks worse. She can't tell if the bandage is still there or not. "How're you feeling?"

Scarecrow shrugs. Health isn't a paramount issue, to either of them. Which is exactly why it was spiraling. Certain other things were more important.

The bandage had been ripped off.

"As usual. Better without the dress," he adds, a little snidely. "Less draft."

He's lying about his health--or ignorant of it, which is worse. She won't press the issue for now.

"And here I thought you'd like a little fresh air."

Doesn't mean she won't press other issues.

She receives a thin smile.

"I get a lot of fresh air," he remarks, lightly enough. He knows what she means.

Scarecrow flexes his hands.

She drums her fingers lightly on the table.

"Might as well enjoy it, then." She has a fistfull of (slightly bloodstained) Vietnamese đồng in her pocket--enough to clear her tab and then some--and she's feeling generous. "Want a drink? I'm buying."

The other hand is beneath the table, resting on her hip (knife).

There is a moment of consideration -- don't have to play another role here, don't have to contract for the part -- before Scarecrow shrugs.

"Why not?"

Nevermind that he seems to be developing another of Jonathon's migraines, another more common appearance since (Puck) he freed (him)self.

And not a terribly pleasant one.

"You pick the drink, then."

She snags a passing waitrat to give him their order.

"An Insane Asylum for the gentleman...and a Cranewoman for me."

When the rat returns with their drinks, she lifts her glass, eyes glittering. "To fresh air?"

Scarecrow smirks at the names, head tilting to the side a little. He lifts his glass back to her.

"To fresh air," he agrees, before taking a long sip. Longer than Jonathon would have -- but this is definitely not the psychiatrist, though they have things in common.

She drinks, lips pursing slightly at the hint of lime.

"What's your name?" she asks. "I could call you sinh đôi forever, if you like, but I bet there's something else."

He taps his fingernails, idly, against the drink.

"Jonathon's always called me Scarecrow."

"Huh."

She sips at her drink, vaugely disappointed. She'd expected something more threatening.

But, then, maybe it is threatening to Jonathon.
"A boy's fear. A boy's stupid, weak fear."
"Interesting choice...Do I want to know the story behind that?"

Scarecrow takes a drink, slowly, then shrugs.

"You'd probably find it boring."

He thinks back to Antigone. Or laugh. Still vaguely amazed he let her get away with that.

"I doubt that. But it's your story to tell, if you want."

When she says "your," she may mean both of them. It's hard to tell.

He considers the drink, watching the light filter through the glass.

"Have you ever read Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?"

"A long time ago..."

The question seems random at first, but something starts to click.

"Crane." The word is the barest exhale.

Scarecrow nods, an odd smile playing about his mouth.

"Exactly. Well, unfortunately for Jonathon, the... larger but less intelligent children in his school had also read it."

She's got that sinking feeling she can guess how this ends, but she has to know.

"...go on."

"Children are extremely competitive with each other, but males in particular."

He speaks of it like one of the nature specials. Something he's never experienced, but has read about.

"Every day, walking home from school, he was targeted. Easy prey. Doesn't have much muscle, you see, now or then."

"Especially males."

The way he talks is as unsettling as what he's saying. She tries to avoid falling into his speech patterns, but it's easier to be clinical with him.Because then I don't have to associate it with a person--this person--someone I know--Jonathon--
"They always target what they perceive as weak."

He nods again, slower.

"He learned not to talk about it. Discipline in the Crane family was administered with a... sharp hand. Or whatever his father could find."

Scarecrow drinks. What he was speaking of was the prologue, the beginning of him, the years he was little more than a few angry flashes. It was only moderately interesting, even appreciating it from a psychiatric perspective.

She winces.

"How long did it go on?"

The kids. His father. Any of it. Too long. Oh, God.

"Until university. Until he could physically move himself away from it."

He doesn't say, Until I taught two of those children a lesson, but it's heavily implied by his sneering tone.

It didn't take care of his father, at any rate.

His tone makes her skin crawl. She doesn't want to know what happened to those children.

"But where do you fit in?"

Scarecrow smiles at the question. It's not a very nice one, but from him, one wouldn't expect less.

"Jonathon couldn't save himself alone. So, I helped him. He created me... they created me."

She takes a drink, a long one. She doesn't want to ask, but she will anyway.

"What kind of help are we talking about?"

"Help to keep them away."

They knew who had done it, the students -- but no one had ever suspected. There's a difference in there somewhere.

No adult would have looked at Jonathon Crane and thought him to be capable.

"I scared them."

"I bet you did."

Mary Anne's tone isn't mocking--she's dead serious. He's coming perilously close to scaring her...but he's not there yet.

She pauses a moment, thinking.

"So you took care of the kids. What happened with his father?"

Scarecrow's shrug is light.

For this extreme a personality, normal is difficult to fake. He doesn't feel like purposefully scaring her, as he's felt with some of the others -- she's better company than the bright-eyed crowd Jonathon seems to attract.

"He went away."

There's no sneer in his tone. It's much darker, and yet lighter, than that.

Guys went away in Vietnam, too. They called it 'fragging.'

"Did you kill him?"

She draws a long, slow breath.

"Because I would have."

That is, possibly, why he likes her.

Except, he can't remember the answer to her question. Preceisely. The time is foggy in his mind -- midterms, an academic argument, killing the 'old man.' Chaotic moments in a man's life.

But, for all intents and purposes --

"Yes."

Scarecrow doesn't see why he shouldn't tell her. It was so long ago, and no one, upon hearing what Alex Crane did with his life, would care very much for it personally.

"Good."

Just when she thinks she's out of questions, there's something she hadn't considered before.
The things we do to the people that we love
"His mother...Where was she during all of this?"

"Discipline wasn't administered to only Jonathon," is all he says.

"Ah."

It figures, and yet...

"Where is she now?"

[ooc: mun really doesn't want to leave, but has to sleep; slowtime?]

He considers.

Another blurry blank, shame and anger this time, but the blood --

"Deceased."

"I'm sorry."

She's quiet, then flicks the lime wedge on the rim of her glass as though it offended her; it lands in the drink with a miniscule splash.

"And so now you're stuck. No more big bad for you to scare off and you're just...trapped."

"Basically."

Scarecrow takes a long drink from the glass.

"We've had a lot of arguments about it, really."

"I'm sure."
Got to get you out of my mind...
She plucks the lime wedge from the glass and nibbles on it, remembering the bandage.
...without you, what's left to believe in?
"Be careful, though. Argue too much and you'll only tear yourselves apart. Not much fresh air when you're dead."

"It wouldn't go quite that far."

He crunches on a piece of ice, for a moment, as if contemplating.

Then --

"Neither of us would let it. That would be illogical."

"Good to hear."

She drops the remains of the lime wedge back into the glass and takes a drink.

"What happened to his arm?"

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