#thislittlefinch

It’s actually infuriating.

Jonathan Crane started seeking another rung on the ladder of the Scarecrow dynasty long before he met Megan Walker. First, it was little Tommy Elliot -- and look how he turned out. Despite his repeated experimentation and multiple subjects, Crane just can’t seem to figure out how to produce a viable heir to his body of work as the Scarecrow. Enter Megan Walker, pretty, intelligent, and ambitious. First, he wanted to fuck her. Then, he wanted to kill her. Now? Well, now’s a matter up for debate, hence the fury.

Finch was supposed to be the next Scarecrow, if he could whip her into shape enough to suit the role. When Megan’s fragile mind split and created Finch from the loamy soil of toxin-induced trauma, she had fashioned herself into the perfect student for him. She would vie for his approval and attention while simultaneously never letting him have the upper hand or feel as though he were the one in control. She would have made a formidable Scarecrow one day.

And now that she knows she won’t be one, there’s some damage control that needs doing, isn’t there? If anyone can soothe Finch’s wounded ego, it may be Megan, though, much to Jonathan’s chagrin.

This unfortunate circumstance pins him in a corner. He has to be genuine about something he’d really rather not be. In fact, he’s been avoiding being genuine about it even to himself. Maybe that’s why he seeks out Finch instead of Megan. He’s a coward.

“Sit down. We have to talk seriously about this Lindsay business.” He’s corralled her into his lab and closed the door behind the both of them. In the middle of the central formation of tables and workspaces, he’s set aside two barstools so they can sit opposite each other. He, however, chooses to pace, arms folded over his chest. “And keep the snide remarks to a minimum. I need to keep my shit together to tell you some of this and I don’t need you taking shots at my focus.”

A shaky hand provides him with a fresh cigarette. A pause in his pacing, and he offers her one too.

“This is the men’s room, Finch. Let a guy urinate in peace.”

“You’re going to wear that? ...Okay. Your choice, I guess.”

Finch is the very worst person ever, and that’s an empirical fact that has withstood the scrutiny of science time and time again. In fact, Jonathan regularly seeks out those he suspects may be worse people just to comfort himself in the idea that somewhere out there, someone is more annoyed with their accomplice than he is. Of course, to no avail.

But she’s sleeping now: the only instant of respite Jonathan gets from her constant nagging, clinging, criticism, and fawning. All curled up in a little ball in her mound of blankets and pillows in the corner she calls a nest. Poking out of her vibrant red hair is some shiny object she hid amongst her belongings there like a magpie, and it’s this that gets Jonathan away from his worktable and over to her side. He’s not doing anything lecherous – so don’t give him that look. He’s just going to watch her for a little while. Just going to lean down and pull the bright, shiny gold letter opener from her hair and examine it. It used to be his, once, before she stole it in spite of him and her fingerprints are all over the smooth surface as if she rubs her thumbs against it in times of stress.

Idiot.

          His first month was detoxification. Upon medical inspection, it was revealed that he had been abusing heroin for close to a year. In the same toxicology exam, it was revealed his blood toxicity was enough to be causing him significant health problems in the respiratory system and served to exacerbate his hallucinations and delusions. He remained under constant medical supervision as he quaked and convulsed and screamed, begging for something to take the pain away. The medical staff deplored him because he could never make it to the bedpan due to the fever. He lost ten pounds, plunging him into severe malnutrition and was placed on a saline drip, a comatose state induced to ease the detoxification process for all parties involved.

          Coming to, he watched in a dull haze as people in white scrubs moved him from the infirmary bed and into a gurney. He’d awaken hours later in full, sitting up in full disorientation in a cell. This was his crude awakening. He was a prisoner.

          As time passed on, he gained weight, being forced to eat three times a day by medical staff, but remained tall, slender, and lanky, despite the aforementioned efforts. He learned to keep his head down, and as the hype about his crimes died down, the staff and patients learned to simply leave the quiet professor alone. After all, he would only speak to one person.

          Sitting sleepless and looking like it, the PhD reclined in a swivel chair, regaining a comfortable posture after looming over a patient strapped into something of a Ludovico Treatment apparatus. Metallic hooks were harmless around curved edges and fit snugly under eyelids to force them to remain open, suction cups were glued to temples and sternums to measure electrical activity in the brain and heart rate. Straight jackets all around -- for there were more than just the one, poor patient at the mercy of his scientific curiosity. Here, in the abandoned hydrotherapy chamber accessible only through the old subterranean tunnel system intended for asylum staff, a windowless room forgotten and unkempt, Professor Crane could explore his perverse appetite without need for shame under the gaze of another. A row of twelve people bound to examination chairs and hooked up to stolen medical equipment. Machines whirred quietly, recording jagged lines indicating varied measurements as their muffled pleas for freedom were smothered with impending terror.

          Twelve television sets were pushed close enough to bump the knees of the twelve subjects, and twelve sets of over-the-ear headphones adorned them. Attached to the television via RCA connectors and various other cables, a control box commanded the images and audio on the screens, and as he played the test reel, the doctor hummed It’s Raining, It’s Pouring, The Old Man is Snoring while pulling out a tray of pre-filled hypodermic needles.