Fear Revisited [Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow]

016

Just a short, fluffy filler for your feels. ;)

At first, Jane's absence was almost a certain type of satisfying - tangible proof that he had been right, all along, about her and all the rest.

He told himself that she was as incapable of handling the truth as anyone else in his life, frightened by the genius of his work. She was unprepared to face human nature, not equipped to appreciate the magnitude of what he was creating.

Her disappearance was concrete evidence of that, so far as he was concerned. That made it quite easy to rationalize that her absence was for the best.

And so, for a time, he continued on with life as normal, as he considered it. Work, research, experiments - day in and day out, the same thing, as though there was nothing missing from his routine.

In the three weeks and change since he had seen or spoken to Jane, he had finished approximately a dozen and a half novels.

He was making headway on a particularly potent strain of the toxin with all of his newfound free time, reducing the fatality rate of those he chose for experiments with the new batch by eighty percent.

His apartment and office were less organized than ever they had been before, no frivolous distractions of company to clean for to take up his time, but more work was getting done.

Indeed, by all accounts, things were going well in Jane's absence, if only he could shake that nagging, persistent feeling of emptiness in his gut.

It was a feeling he could not pin down entirely. The sensation was foriegn and unpleasant, centered in the very pit of his stomach and came creeping in only when he allowed himself a moment to bask in calm silence.

You miss her, Jonny, the familiar voice in his head supplied helpfully on more than one occasion, a suggestion which he scoffed at.

Missing Jane would have implied there was some intrinsic value to her company, that it was something he needed. That was an implication he couldn't allow himself to consider.

He had never needed anyone but Scarecrow; he had no intentions of suddenly changing the pattern.

Besides, he had come very close to allowing hinlmself to trust Jane. He opened up his world and allowed her into it. It had been met with the same reaction of fear and disgust that always it had been in his experience.

He tried telling himself that he was sure that whatever pitiful human emotion he was feeling, it would soon subside.

And if it did not?

He didn't even want to allow himself to ponder what he might to do to cure himself of it.

---

Though she had again expected it to grind to a screeching halt, life moved forward inch by inch in Jane's world.

She worked, she read, she ate, she slept.

Sometimes, she even managed to make it out for an occasional drink with the girls from her office.

She did all these things with an utter lack of melodrama, while pretending to be completely unaware that she was always within a ten to twenty minute drive of Jonathan.

It was easier to pretend in the beginning, her walls built up high and strong by her fear and some unjustified anger she'd managed muster up towards him. Her resolve, for a brief time, was impenetrable steel.

She even accepted an invitation to dinner once in the tinespan - never even mustering the gall to call it a date with the handsome-enough man who worked a few cubicles down from her each day.

It may have bolstered her enthusiasm about cutting ties with Jonathan, had she been able to stop comparing her dinner partner's conversation skills to his for even a moment during the evening.

He spoke with unbridled enthusiasm about the most trivial of subject matter, recklessly agreeable and invested in any topical conversation she happened to bring to the table.

Jonathan would never have expected an entire dinner conversation to be centered around the defense of the New England Patriots. She found herself wondering whether or not he was even aware organized sports existed, which lent her a permanent smirk that her date likely thought he inspired.

Needless to say, she paid for her portion of the check and returned home alone that evening.

From that night on, it was impossible not to think about him in some capacity, more and more frequently.

It was completely deranged, she was well aware - thinking so often about the man who had revealed himself to be completely infatuated with causing terror - but she couldn't help it.

She wondered often in this time if she was doomed to measure every man who showed interest in her against the impossible standard Jonathan had set. There were few, if any, who were going to make the cut, if that was the case.

But that was before, she tried to convince herself.

The fact remained that no matter what she had seen, Jonathan was still the single most intelligent, most memorable person she had ever met. Though her mind resolved to cut all ties with him, her heart was not as easily swayed.

Not that it made any difference.

Her phone hadn't rang, nor could she bring herself to call him. Every time the thought crossed her mind, she managed to talk herself out of it with either rational self talk on how dangerous he was or blinding guilt over the promises she had broken.

And so, whatever she felt, it was in vain; she was going to have to learn to fully and truly live without Jonathan Crane.