Without Sybil Silverlock to inhabit and torment within the stone walls, you couldn't fault a phantom for getting restless or curious. This particular patient had caught her interest for far too many reasons. Aside from an odd appearance, it's mainly the apparatus they so often had on their face she couldn't help but wonder about. Materializing into something more visible and corporeal would have to be necessary to get answers. Floating gently, Amity lingered closely, her head cocked curiously.

“Have you missed me, Constantine?” || @king-crane

continued from x.

Usually itching for control over every corner of her world, Mary for once lets him lead, feeling the bone-deep exhaustion clinging still. She inhales and feels dust and dirt rattle in her throat, the acrid taste in her mouth.

It had been a long night. Too long. And stretching before that, the agonizing, decaying time in Arkham, several months of it — with the lights never lower than dim, the temperature never higher than 60, and always the screams in the night, the moans, the sobbing swallowed up by the off-white walls.

With the escape had come an explosion of sound, as if all those smothered emotions had been released with the C4 into the open air.

Mary doesn't acknowledge the dog more than a sideways stare — she never does, committed to an imagined, hard-won truce — and takes a moment before she speaks again, fingertips brushing at a faint graze, the ghost of snarling barbed wire, left on the curve of her cheek.

“ I am the fool. Yet you tempt the Ire of the Wrathful Reaper himself.”

"Excuse me?"

Scarecrow was unused to this kind of animosity from Croc. Usually they got along just fine, but for the past two weeks, Croc had been eyeing Scarecrow warily, as if he was bad for Croc's health. Could he smell the change, perhaps? Knew that he had buried Crane somewhere deep and dark?

Crane was too weak to do what needed to be done. To get results. To make Gotham the crucible they needed it to be. Crane was inconsequential, broken, useless. So, he was discarded. Scarecrow remained, with Jonny hiding deep below the surface and Brother Bones locked away behind cranial trauma.

There was a constant, though, between Scarecrow and Crane. Croc was in their blind spot. Not literally, no. Even with one failing eye, it was hard to miss a ten foot tall crocodile man. No, rather, Croc sapped his strength. His desire. Maybe it was more accurate to say his ambitions and desires for the state of Gotham seemed to pale when he thought of what he wanted for Croc. With Croc.

"And just where is this coming from, Croc?" His tone was clinical, but not entirely cold, just as Crane's was casual but not entirely warm.

It had been too long.

Croc couldn't necessarily smell the change, but he could pick out the little differences, the shifts in demeanor and reaction. And it had been too long since he'd felt the comparative warmth of one of Crane's reactions versus the controlled coolness of interacting with Scarecrow.

It wasn't that he wasn't used to dealing with Scarecrow. Sometimes he'd make an appearance, work would get done, and Crane would resurface in a few days. But this time… the longer Scarecrow was prevalent, the more Croc's promise to Crane would come to the front of his mind: to kill him if it ever seemed like Scarecrow was permanently in control.

That was the promise he'd made, but even now he hesitated. If Scarecrow was alive, that had to mean Crane was still in there somewhere… and Croc wasn't in the habit of giving up on those close to him. 

"Hush up, you fucking moron!"

He knew it was a sore topic for Eddie, but he didn't have enough time for that. Since his last stint, they had begun to lock Crane up far tighter than usual, and he couldn't physically reach out to grab Eddie's arm. His face was covered in a loose burlap hood thanks to a recent psychotic episode (falsely diagnosed, of course, the fucking doctor was a hack and Crane WAS NOT INSANE), and the chains over his hands had been replaced by some sort of trap that kept his arms linked together.

He remembered getting his fingers stuck in a finger trap as a kid, but this was ten times more frustrating, and no matter how hard he wiggled his arms, he couldn't escape - it was why Eddie's plan was so appealing.

Why he needed him to stay.

"Damn it, Eddie, you didn't even let me finish." He hadn't been expecting to be jumped with a plan like this, anyway. Nygma was obviously smart (to a certain extent), but his chatterbox tendencies and his consistent inability to even beat Jon at chess did not leave the best impression on his strategical skills.

"The plan is good. It's good, alright? I just said there were a few holes in it. God." He shook his head, burlap sack wiggling with each movement. "But it's good. And I want fucking in. Get me out of this god damn nuthouse."

Edward hears it. Edward whips around.

"Says you." Nygma drawing himself up, jaw squared, the words grating against his throat. Then, suddenly, a smile. No one can see it. "What do you call an inmate who needs my help?” he jabs, bright and syrupy. “A Scarecrow?”

Edward has always been petty. But there’s no time.

The alarms aren’t blaring yet and no one knows his cell’s empty. Edward has already fallen on one knee, jimmying something into the restraints—a pick he'd whittled down from a chess piece, maybe; something they'd given him for good behavior. He complains while he does it, too. He gloats, goading.

“I’d like to see you do better." The binds rustle. He works on another one. "Or maybe you'll say you have your hands tied.”

There's a double meaning in there.

Query and Echo will be waiting to pick them up. There's a truck due for Arkham, something about HVAC repairs—he'd overheard it from the orderlies—the girls, hijacking then disguised as its crew. He'd spent months writing down code in a prehistoric phone. They'll execute it at graveyard shift and fry Arkham's main systems. That gives him five minutes before power's restored. He knows where to run.

Restraints rustle. Metal clacking. Edward, ripping off Jonathan's bag with an obnoxious, worming smile.

"I didn't hear you say thank you," he croons.

Despite constantly being surrounded by it, Eddie didn't think about death often. All he knew how to do is live; if he dies, then he'll die. But throughout the years, even when faced with the certainty of death... it never catches him. Are his wits to thank for that, or is it mere luck ? Either way, Eddie didn't suspect his light will go out anytime soon.

The blood rushing to his cheeks is obscured by the blood of his enemies mixed with his own. However, his lips curled upward - displaying teeth, & a noticeable gap in the middle. The compliment didn't go unheard, & it certainly made him giddy.