Viper
One Thousand Club
From Jonathan's perspective, he did not reveal anything telling of himself or telling of the grand scheme of things. He was simply stating a fact about the behaviors of the neurodivergent in comparison to the typical counterparts. Perhaps his ignorance about the revelation he was causing was due to the simple fact that Jonathan did not consider himself fully divergent. He was different, yes. His chemicals worked differently, sometimes never being produced in the first place, and his relationship to other people had always been a bit strained due to his stability as well as complete inability to relate to the average person's emotional shifts and tendency to cling to people and things around them. But despite all of these oddities, when Jonathan spoke of neurodivergent specimens, it was always the extreme cases that came to mind for they were the most interesting ones. Joker, Batman, Jervis, Edward, Harley, Ivy, all of these people were fascinating and possessed minds Jonathan could not compare himself to besides some shallow, barely skimming the surface similarities.
Difference, to Jonathan, was not the same as divergent. Although, in the name of fairness, he knew that most doctors who examined him did tend to place him in the divergent category and on the sociopathic spectrum. He could accept some similarities in this category as well, yet he hardly thought of himself out of control or unaware. His largest claim to divergency was the extremes he took his passion which, at times, was an obsession but one he felt in complete control of, making the obsessive definition a bit inaccurate.
Never mind the grand ability to adapt to the chaos of Gotham or in his own non-typical studies. Did this say something about him? Yes, he supposed. Yet when the divergence was purely chemical and not truly mental, placing himself fully within the lines of neurodivergent seemed to over simply his physical and mental condition.
The verbal “never mind” caused Jonathan to snap his gaze to Matthias, confused about the sudden expression but not sure what prompted it. He managed to keep his face neutral though, not showing any shift in response to Matthias’ odd, sudden phrase. He did not believe he said anything that would warrant such a response, which implied that this was a response to some mental dialogue Matthias was engaging it.
How curious.
Jonathan wished he could simply ask and get an answer, but such a venture seemed fruitless. However, witnessing such a slip up was interesting and, most likely, implied some sort of mental conversation important or intense enough to override basic social customs, like not speaking out loud when you were not speaking to the only person in the room.
----------
Jonathan was unsure if his blatant, unusual comment would cause the proper reaction, but when Matthias let out an Oh, Jonathan immediately got a rush of satisfaction. A filler word, something Matthias did not use during their average conversations, It was a good sign that he had been pushed at least a toe out of his comfort zone and into something far more unstable. Suspicion? Concern? Confusion? All worked in Jonathan’s favor and could produce the proper result.
The follow-up question the younger doctor posed only solidified Jonathan’s suspicions that he had done his job well. “I’m sorry, Doctor Mayflower,” Jonathan stated, “I’m afraid I don’t know who you know, so I can’t answer that question.” This was a dodge, not a hostile one, but a little sidestep. After all, his answer was fair, but normally people would have responded with a name in order to figure out if they both knew the same person. But Jonathan kept it vague on purpose.
To hammer in the final nail of the coffin, Jonathan also twisted one of his favorite words into the sentence, afraid. Now, Jonathan saying words following this theme did not mean that anything nefarious was going down, but it did not mean that Jonathan was innocent either. It simply meant that fear was not only on his mind, which was a default expectation, but it meant that it was at the forefront of his mind. Even this did not prove anything, but that was the point. Jonathan’s intention was not to make Matthias think that something was going to happen tonight or soon, his intention was to make him think that something could happen. Paranoia, enough to get him to the rec room later, was the goal.
And Jonathan felt fairly certain that he was hours away from accomplishing his goal.
----------
Three days before Jonathan and Matthias had their discussion on Batman and the difference between the neurodivergent and the neurotypical, a criminal by the name of Sebastian Hawke, simply called Hawke due to his extreme hate of his first name, was following the instructions left to him by his boss, Gareth Reck. The sod, as always, was locked up in Arkham. He had been there for over a year now and, as frustrating as it was, their business was actually better when he was locked up than when he was not.
Reck was the leader of a crew, not even a gang or company. They were small in number, in popularity, and their jobs although well done never got them into the papers or got the attention of anyone powerful. After all, Reck had no interest in stepping on the toes of the Penguin who was also in the smuggling business. For that reason, Gareth Reck worked almost exclusively in Arkham and never touched weapon smuggling. Penguin had no interest in the crazies, so it was free market for this small-time crew.
Unfortunately, even in Arkham they sometimes got involved with high-stakes customers. RIddler was a common one, although it was becoming less common as the kid figured out his own ways of getting things in and out of the asylum using his own goons and supply networks. Today though, it was the Scarecrow. The tall, skeletal freak that Hawke never saw in person and never wanted to. Unfortunately, though, this was a two-man job; one to be the lookout and one to actually get the goods. Hawke lost the rock-paper-scissors match, which meant he was the one walking into the potentially boobytrapped villain’s lair. It wasn't like he was just risking his life here, he was risking his sanity.
“I’ll give you fifty bucks if you go in there,” Hawke suggested to the driver who simply responded with a middle finger and rolled up the car window. “Yeah, didn’t think so, asshole,” he muttered, walking to the warehouse that really did not look like much.
It was uncared for like all warehouses were in this neighborhood, but this one had no car tracks leading to it and the windows were all dark even though there was nothing covering them.
Hawke tried to open the front door, locked of course. He then went around the building trying every single drop-off point or shutter. No luck, which meant one thing, “I gotta break into a super villains warehouse. Great. Just my fucking luck.” Hawke had the stomach for smuggling, but not for dying, which was why he was not in the killings or gang business!
It took quite a while to get the hinges removed from the door, and the moment that the door started to fall from place towards the ground, Hawke regretted even opening up. Like a skunk spray, a blast of revolting, muggy air hit Hawke in the face with so much force that he had to take several steps back and gag for a solid minute before composure was even possible.
That was the worst smell he had ever encountered, and he had robbed several graves before… but this? This smell was those graves times ten. Was he about to find ten bodies then? The very thought kept Hawke from moving from his spot outside of the warehouse, bent over out of the way of the building’s air flow. “No fucking way man. I did not sign up for dead bodies,” not like this at least.
The man may have stood there gagging all day if not for the voice that suddenly called out to him, “Get your ass in there man! We don’t have all day!”
“I’m not going in there! It smells fucking disgusting! I think there are bodies in there!”
“So? Would not be the first time! Do you really wanna tell the boss or, you know, the customer that you didn't get the shit because of a bad smell?”
“It’s not the smell I’m worried about,” muttered Hawke as he was already turning towards the entrance. He could not go back empty-handed, and there was no way the asshole in there would take his place. There was no option, as was the case for a criminal in Gotham who got unlucky. “Okay, I can do this.”
Standing in place, Hawke just breathed for a bit. Big gasps that moved his whole body in an unstable manner. His breath was uneven as he tried to calm down, but it wasn't happening. All Hawke wanted was to go in there and see no one. Maybe the smell was old and the bodies long disposed of? Maybe?
Or maybe not. Taking a deep breath and holding it in, Hawke walked through the door to a horror movie idea of a hospital. The smell was worse in here, which was to be expected. The harsh, wet, rotting smell had now combined with the scent of experiments and mold. There was another smell in here too, something manufactured and burning, but it was impossible to discern over the smell of everything else.
It was dark in here too, the only light coming from those small, high windows by the ceiling that only served to cast cryptic lines of light down on the scene before Hawke. He was almost grateful for this mercy, but he had to walk further in, and the idea of running into something by accident was worse than the smell.
Pulling out his cell, Hawke started into the room with steps abysmally slow despite his breath already running out. Based on his instructions, he was supposed to be looking for a cabinet at the far end of this place labeled “SST” whatever that meant. He was also looking for a syringe labeled “262-34.”
Unfortunately, Hawke could see the row of cabinets at the other end of the building, and there was a horror scene waiting to happen in between him and his goal. This horror was rows of cots, probably totaling up to about 24 cots in rows of four, some with the curtains pulled for privacy and others with the curtains pulled back to reveal the many lumpy forms on the blanket-less cots. Beside each cot was a machine that likely once lit up the room but now was silent and dark, and from those machines were tubes. Tubes which connected empty bags to the forms on the cots, perhaps dried out IVs, and tubes which were uncomfortably larger that lead to a place much lower on each cot.
Hawke knew what he was seeing even from a distance, but when he approached just to pass by, he got a better look than he ever wanted to. There were bodies on almost every cot, boney and rotting; their skin carved into itself and their bodies crusting to their beds due to the feces and piss that the tubes stopped being able to take care of after the power went out. They were all chained there too, strapped to their beds using the same bondage that Arkham likely did. A few of these people had an arm out of the straps, having lost so much weight that they could slip right out. Most of the bodies belonged to adults, men and women of various ages, but there were two bodies far smaller than the rest.
Hawke looked away from those bodies as quickly as possible.
Whether it was the smell or the sights, Hawke could not handle it anymore. Half the way to his goal, Hawke had to stop and vomit on the ground right between two corpses. “Oh shit,” he muttered, wiping his mouth. If cops ever came here, that pile of half-digested breakfast was a lot of evidence against him. Even worse than the threat of arrest, though, was that now all of his saved air was gone and he had to breathe the death soaked air. It was like he could taste their decay on his tongue.
Hawke could not hold his breath and put his shirt over his mouth fast enough.
Anxious to leave even more now, Hawke’s feet finally started moving at their real speed, no longer sluggish from fear. Instead, fear and disgust combined made him move fast.
When he reached the cabinets, it was all Hawke could do to stop from falling into one of them and knocking it over. Surely that would have caused a domino effect with all the other identical cabinets, but that would have caused his mission to shatter probably… or worse, all of the chemicals in here could open and the smell rotting flesh would be the least of his worries. The things Scarecrow had in here? A single gasp could kill him or break his mind.
Suddenly he was extra glad that he did not want to breathe anyway.
Thankfully, the murderous freak that ordered this pickup was organized. One could say too organized because it took him longer to get to the cabinets than it did to find the right cabinet and the right vial even though he was working with mostly just a flashlight. It'd be impressive if it did not imply how much time he spent here making chemical weapons. To think, right now he had in his hand a highly sought after chemical that military forces and criminal forces would pay a fortune for.
Shame that doing that would get him killed several times over. Gareth Reck may not be a murderer by trade, but he knew plenty of them that would get their hands dirty in his name.
Packing the syringe in a pencil-case like container that would make for an easy, safe handoff, Hawke was just about to leave when he noticed something at the other side of the room. It was a blocked off area that seemed, at first glance, to be a large dip in the floor. Morbid curiosity moved Hawke’s feet towards them, and surely enough, regret was all he could feel for sating his curiosity.
It turned out that there were multiple shallow dips in the floor, no deeper than three feet, each dedicated to something terrible. One was filled with water, and although it was hard to see inside, Hawke knew for a fact that someone was in there. After all, right beside the concrete hole was an air canister with a dial to control the amount of air released and a tube leading down there. The second hole had a glass cover, letting him look inside and see the remains of another. It was a woman based on the clothing and the red nails that Hawke hoped she painted with product and was not caused by the bloody scratches on the inside of the lid. And the final concrete hole was filled with corpses and skeletons, and from a quick glance, Hawke could see rat bones and fur by the dozens. He could also see that they covered a corpse that was missing a fair bit of skin and flesh that she should have had no matter how starved she got.
Yeah, he would not take any more jobs for supervillains after this.
"Time to go..." back down the rows of cots first though. No way around it.
It took a lot of effort to keep his eyes forward, not to glance at the figures who lost their lives in the slowest way possible… if they were sane enough to even know that they were dying. But looking up and around this time led Hawke to other discoveries, mainly that every cot had a camera facing it. The holes likely had cameras set up too. He did see a few monitors in the distance, but he didn't see the point in checking them out. Power was out, and that was far from his reason to be here.
This was supposed to be a get in and get out job, and it was only the fact that this place was like a car crash on the side of the road that kept his attention and made him move slower.
Walking past the rows of cots, Hawke was just about to pass the final bodies when he saw something move. Hawke was no screamer, but within a second he had his gun pulled and was pointing it at the source.
Nothing but shadows.
Walking closer to the source of the movement, or at least where he thought he saw movement, there was still nothing...until he looked down. The body in this bed was of a man, adult age, and he looked just as starved as everyone else here. He had died with his eyes and mouth open, making it seem like he did not die from starvation despite his appearance.
He moved.
Hawke had just been glancing at the man and the shadows around him when his cheek clearly moved. Hawke could not back away fast enough. “Holy fuck,” he said, raising his gun up fully prepared to shoot this man if he was still alive or a zombie or whatever the hell was happening here. “Since when was he into resurrection?”
Scarecrow was supposed to be all about fear, so why was this body moving? There was no way the man was alive still. The villain had been locked away for over a month now at least, and it wasn't like the freak had someone come by and care for these guys. Clearly.
Just as Hawke was considering whether he should shoot anyway just in case as a form of double-tapping, the cheek moved again to reveal a white worm crawling out of the man’s mouth for a moment before returning to the safety of the drying caress.
“Maggots,” Hawke said, almost laughing as he was overcome with relief. Right. Stupid. He should have considered that these decomposing bodies would have maggots by now. This place was getting to him, and now that he had the syringe and was pass the cots, there was nothing stopping him from running.
So he did. Without hesitation Hawke turned on his heels and booked it out of the warehouse and to the car, throwing open the door and jumping in with so much speed that his driver jumped in shock.
“Shit dude, chill. Fuck's wrong with you?”
“I got the syringe,” Hawke responded, raising the case with hands he suddenly realized were still holding the gun and shaking like a rattle. “I’m done. You go put the door back on.”
Whatever complaints the driver normally would have given about doing more work than he had to died on his tongue as he saw his companion shaking, his face as pale as death in the morning sun. “Fine. Wait here. Don’t piss yourself in my car.”
Yeah, as if. He was more likely to vomit again. He could still smell the inside of the warehouse. It clung to his skin like a hundred hands gripping him, refusing to let him leave or forget those he just saw in there. But he was done. He would never have to go back in there as long as he lived. He’d quit this gig before that happened.
Let them kill him. At least then he would not die strapped to a bed with tubes coming in and out of every orifice as who knew what was pumped into him by long needles just like the syringe he was about to have handed over to its creator.
----------
When Jonathan placed his order, he requested a 24-hour notice before the syringe was handed over. He did not get that. Whether Gareth forgot about the request, forgot to tell him, or ignored the request entirely was unimportant, for all of them were unappealing and unwanted. It was unprofessional. It made Jonathan feel less unjust about pursuing his plans. Now it was no longer being in the wrong place at the wrong time; he could at least pretend to have a motive should he desire such a thing.
Gareth was in the rec hall before Jonathan, and as usual, he was around his crew. Some worked outside of this place, some purposefully got arrested and placed here just to support the interior team.
Jonathan did not approach, he simply sat down at the chess table of his choosing and waited. This table was the furthest from the entrance, meaning that if Matthias wanted to get a good view of the game or of Jonathan, he would have to come fairly deep into the room. Matthias would, most likely, not come to any harm by doing this, but it was making sure that he could not simply turn around and leave if something unpleasant started. This deep into the room? He would be compelled to glance over his shoulders a few times, if not simply stay and watch the show.
Eventually, Gareth got up from his crew and walked over, sitting down without a word. The chess tables were by the windows, and placed directly underneath those were heat vents that never blasted out enough actual warm air to keep this place the proper temperature. Even though this surely resulted in practically air conditioning being blown right up his pants, Gareth kept one foot on the ground and lifted the other so that his one leg was stretched on top of the vents in a position that screamed casual even if it would most likely play a large role in the passing of the syringe.
“So my boy apparently had a rough time in your place,” he started, arms crossed. He was not the type to protect his men from all bad things, but apparently there was some sort of line, and it had been crossed. “A warning would have been nice, I’m sure.”
“I did not see why I needed to warn you about a little mess. There were no traps, so I assumed your men could handle it. After all, being squeamish is hardly a trait suitable for a criminal at any level in this city." A pause. " Was it truly so horrible for you men?” Jonathan asked, his curiosity piqued.
“Described it as a horror scene. What kind of experiments are you doing in there?”
A fair description of it before they all died, so now it must be truly a nightmare. Shame he could not see it himself, at least not anytime soon. “Nothing going on there is abnormal for my process. Now, do you have what I asked for?” Jonathan was not here to speak to a thief about his experiments. He was here for business and to make a point to someone who could comprehend the details of his plot far more.
“Of course I do. I’ll pass it over in a few once the guards are not looking.”
Annoying, but fine. Matthias was not here yet, so they had plenty of time to pass it over and then get in position. “Very well then, shall we play a game while we wait?” This question was expected and was part of the way Gareth tried to make this look like a casual encounter, not a planned one.
There was no reason to play this like a real game, yet Jonathan did intend to sell his role perfectly, so he would play.
Chess was a family game in his youth along with cribbage and poker, although for poker they merely used M&Ms instead of money since Jonathan was rather young at the time. Since then, his experiences with chess have been reduced to only those rare occasions where his fellow professors or psychologists would be at a gathering that just so happened to have a board. And since his crimes were revealed and he started pursuing his passions full-time, he has never played it. He was out of practice for certain, yet he trusted his intelligence as well as that this man would not try hard to win.
He was also a frustratingly patient man in all things. He took his time at work, and he took his time in chess. Although many people came out of the gates hard, trying to destroy the enemy before they could stop you, Jonathan actually went on the defensive, and his defense was tight.
A chess game with Jonathan involved keeping as many pieces between the king and the rest of the board, meaning that most of the pawns and pieces surrounding the king stayed in place, and if the queen needed to move to go on the offensive, it was never long until a rook or a knight retook the spot. The king’s defense was strong, albeit a bit stagnant.
The offense on the other hand was performed by only a small number of highly mobile pieces, ideally knights or bishops and the queen, using the pawns as barriers in order to restrict his enemies or cause them to be shuffled into a trap he has laid for them. And these mobile pieces went backward just as much as they went forwards. It was sometimes illogical what Jonathan had his pieces do. He would move it forward and back as if he made a mistake, but he made these so-called mistakes too often to be such. The purpose was to draw the enemy close, let them get in real close, and take it out without moving his defensive unit.
Of course, this strategy was dreadfully slow and relied on a few key factors. The enemy not paying attention, the enemy being brash and making quick choices, or the enemy being distracted by a line of conversation. Even in chess, Jonathan was using the mind to his advantage, his own and the faults of his opponent. Today, the foe simply did not care, so was not thinking, which made this game a simple victory if Jonathan played long enough. This strategy also relied on luck, since his plots could be ruined if his opponent was too attentive.
Thankfully, Jonathan was willing to abandon his normal strategy and go on full offensive should he find that more successful or deserved. And even if he lost, he seemed to never care too much and instead would often suggest another game where he would play a similar game, just one slightly to the left. This shift would often make round two far more successful.
“Ready?” Gareth asked has his hand started to reach for one of his pieces.
“I am,” Jonathan responded, keeping his body still as it was before the conversation started.
“Where is the rest of my money?”
Jonathan allowed himself to smile slightly. “In the warehouse, of course. Specifically, in the cabinet to the right of where the syringe was.” Gareth raised a brow when hearing this information, so Jonathan explained further, although he knew it was wasted breath. “I keep a portion of my funding in each of my locations in case I should need it. Keeping it in a cabinet identical to a dozen others where I store my chemicals keeps the occasional hired hand from snooping.”
Apparently satisfied, Gareth shifted his weight in his seat and more importantly, placed the small case under his foot on the grate. With practiced movements, by the time Gareth was back in a comfortable position, the case was sitting right next to Jonathan. With ease, Jonathan slipped the case under his own leg where it was invisible to anyone not sitting inside of the wall right now.
“Thank you, Gareth, this will be very helpful.” A small, uh-huh, was all Jonathan got in response, but it was enough.
In order to appear innocent even still, the pair kept playing and planned on doing so until ten minutes before Jonathan had to leave. And the entire time Jonathan had been sitting with Gareth, he had been keeping a side-eye on the door. Every time someone entered, his eye would twitch just a bit in that direction. It had only been a false alarm a handful of times until the familiar small, brown-haired figure entered.
“Gareth, do not react, but my doctor is headed this way currently. Continue playing as we have been.” The goods have been handed over a while ago now, they were simply continuing to play to make it seem like nothing was afoot between them.
Unknown to Gareth though, Jonathan had been keeping one hand off of the table the entire game for one very simple reason. While he played with one hand, the other was working the syringe out of the case and into his palm. Silently, he even tested to make sure that it was ready to use at any moment by causing a few drops to seep out that were quickly absorbed into his pants. It was a bit of a shame that it was not the contact variety of toxins, but perhaps that was best. A few drops would do little to him, but he still wanted to keep a clear mind for this.
Jonathan waited until Matthias was within a few feet of them to truly acknowledge him. “What a surprise, Dr. Mayflower. Care to tell me what brings you here so late after our session? Certainly, you do not care for the outcome of my game.” This could be called warming the waters for what was to come, an act of casual questioning before the true act.
The sudden shift from normal to horror made the horror all the more intense, after all.
Gareth seemed a bit put out too, his face still neutral but his finger antsy as it tapped on one of his dead pieces. “Do you two need to talk, or should I stay?” He asked with hesitance that implied nothing about his crimes but did imply that he did not want to be here. For good reason though.
Perhaps his instincts were rightfully telling him to run considering what was coming.
“Please, Gareth, stay,” Jonathan said, keeping his eyes locked on Mayflower. He sounded normal, or at least as normal as the formal and vaguely monotone doctor tended to. “There is no point in playing a game like this if no one is where to bear witness to the outcome.”
Without even flinching his eyes away from Matthias, Jonathan’s hand suddenly shifted from the spot near his waist and dug the needle completely into Gareth’s leg that was still comfortably relaxing on the heating vents right beside Jonathan. Gareth’s eyes widened as his mind registered the stinging pinch, but that was all he could do before Jonathan had injected the entire syringe contents into the man's legs.
Gareth without a moments more thought threw himself over the chess table, sending the entire table to the ground towards Matthias and scattering the pieces everywhere. Quickly, Gareth found his hands clenching Jonathan’s shirt as if physical force could make the toxin in his blood go away. “What the hell did you just do? I thought you said--”
“--I told you this was meant for a single person. I never said that you were not that person,” Jonathan informed even as the grip around his shirt tightened. He was now looking down at Gareth so that he could bear witness to the change that he knew was coming any second.
The first sign of the change was the man’s eyes contrasting. A likely sign that his world was becoming darker for reasons he could not identify, and in seconds, the edges of his vision would become hazy. This created tunnel vision for most victims, leading the edges of their vision open to hallucinations exclusively or just darkness.
The second sign was his face changing from simple horror because he knew his fate, to real horror as that fate became real; eyes widened, mouth became agape, and his hands clenched even tighter as his entire body stiffened in shock.
The third was always amusing. It was when his hallucinations sunk in, when his fear was decided, and when he realized what he was seeing. A loud scream expelled from the man as he shoved Jonathan far away from him with enough force that the fear doctor fell into the chess table behind him, sending that one to the ground too.
Surprisingly though, Jonathan stayed standing although unsteadily and now was flicking his gaze between the two men. “You had such an interest in my toxin, Mayflower, I thought you should see it up close and personal,” Jonathan said, smiling openly now. “Really, bravo for taking advantage of a heavily dosed man! You truly are an Arkham doctor now!”
This was not a compliment. Jonathan had made it clear how much he disapproved of the doctors here, and he had also made it clear that it was Mayflower’s morality that kept him separate from the bunch. To be compared to them now was to declare that Matthias had lost a piece of his moral compass. And although these words held the spiteful sarcasm he tended to possess in times of annoyance, Jonathan seemed to possess some level of joy too. Whether because of the fear he was witnessing or because of Matthias’ betrayal, it was unclear.
These words were expressed in mere seconds, and Gareth had progressed greatly in that time. He was crying now on top of his occasional shouts. With all of the strength his body could likely produce, he was smacking himself like he was covered in mosquitoes. He hit his arms, his legs, his back, and even his face and nose specifically. His lip started to bleed as his own nail nicked him. However, when this smacking method proved to be fruitless. He started scratching at his skin with so much force that immediate red lines formed. When that failed, Gareth, ignorant of anyone else in the room, ran to the television and shattered the screen. He quickly grabbed a shard and plunged it into his skin.
He was like a human can, and the shard was a knife he was using to try and pry it open. He dug the point vertically in and turned his hand sideways until the shard was horizontal, the skin and all the flesh connected to it peeling up in rough chunks. “Oh god, oh god, please. Get them out of me. They won’t get out. Please get them out,” Gareth wept as he kept stabbing himself. “They're eating me!” He shouted loudly suddenly, the increase in volume reflective of the deepest stab into his skin so far. Such force he stabbed with that the glass cracked inside of him.
This prompted a laugh from the heavily bleeding man, “Can’t eat me now, can you bastards!”
The guards had taken notice by now and were rushing the scene. A pair of guards went to stop Garth from hurting himself more while three went after Jonathan who still had the now empty syringe in his hand.
Gareth saw them coming, although what he saw was unclear because he was screaming again. He managed to get one more large shard into himself, this time directly into the center of his right thigh. He was tackled onto the very television shards he was using to cut himself. Without a doubt, his back was heavily cut now too, but all Gareth seemed to care about was getting his hands on another shard. And he did, easily too. With frantic panic, he was slashing at the guards who were struggling to hold him down in a position where he would not get cut up more. One of these slashes ended up being across the guard's throat. This man immediately fell to the side, gripping his neck with as much force as a bleeding man could.
While the blood gushed from the new wound, Gareth’s only response was, “They’re in you too! Oh god, I don’t wanna be--” these words became scrambled as the still active guard raised a fist and slammed it into the crazed man with enough force that Gareth was dizzy. Seeing this as progress, the guard did it again and again until Gareth was knocked out. There were no doctors around, and based on how this was being handled, none of the guards carried around medication that could knock someone out peacefully.
Even while unconscious though, Gareth was twitching and moaning. He begged some unseen and unnamed thing to stop in his sleep, his mutterings almost non-stop even unconscious. His hands clawed at the floor beneath him, still trying to grab whatever it was inching away inside of his veins.
Meanwhile, the moment the other three guards noticed what was happening, they charged at Jonathan with the force of football players. They shoved him against the wall, Jonathan’s head hitting the stone with audible force. One guard took each arm, and the third one concerned himself with the discipline. He raised Jonathan’s wrist and slammed it against the wall four times with great force until Jonathan let go of the syringe and it clambered on the ground.
Jonathan showed no resistance even as he was battered.
“What do you suppose Gareth is seeing over there?” Jonathan asked above the chaos on both sides of the room. “Maggots in his skin? Beetles? Perhaps something supernatural or otherworldly in nature? A man like him, I can only imagine what he would find more terrifying than losing himself to something else. Kleptomania is such a personal, self-centered condition after all. I imagine he is very happy to have figured out that they cannot eat through glass!”
“Shut up!” One of the guards ordered, slamming not a fist but his baton into Jonathan’s stomach, knocking the air out of the criminal's lungs. “How in the hell did he get his toxin in here?” The man shouted to no one in particular.
“Enjoy your….. reward... doctor…. for stooping... to my level,” Jonathan said in a hoarse voice as he tried to speak loudly despite gasping in between his words even as he continued to look happy about how everything was occurring. His eyes were watering heavily due to the lack of oxygen, giving him the look that he was crying. He fought to keep them open though, to keep them watching Gareth and Matthias.
The guard swung his baton into Jonathan’s gut again, causing what little air Jonathan had regained to leave again. This time though, vomit escaped from Jonathan's mouth. Considering how little he ate, mostly liquid and bile came up. It stuck to his chin, dripping down in off-colored drops onto the ground and his shirt. It was highly undignified, but nothing in Jonathan’s eyes or expression showed a single second of regret. His pride, his passion, and the standards he holds to those around him were unchanged as they were a month ago.
These were the eyes Batman looked into every time he foiled Jonathan's plans. Eyes that were unbudging, eyes that did not even regret getting caught, and eyes that implied only that he would do this again if he wanted to and he would refrain from doing this again if he did not want to; nothing you did physically to him could make him falter. Even in death, Jonathan would pursue true fear.
He knew what the consequences of his actions would be, and he walked in here accepting them completely. No resistance, no protest, he’d take the beating and take the loss of privileges.
Difference, to Jonathan, was not the same as divergent. Although, in the name of fairness, he knew that most doctors who examined him did tend to place him in the divergent category and on the sociopathic spectrum. He could accept some similarities in this category as well, yet he hardly thought of himself out of control or unaware. His largest claim to divergency was the extremes he took his passion which, at times, was an obsession but one he felt in complete control of, making the obsessive definition a bit inaccurate.
Never mind the grand ability to adapt to the chaos of Gotham or in his own non-typical studies. Did this say something about him? Yes, he supposed. Yet when the divergence was purely chemical and not truly mental, placing himself fully within the lines of neurodivergent seemed to over simply his physical and mental condition.
The verbal “never mind” caused Jonathan to snap his gaze to Matthias, confused about the sudden expression but not sure what prompted it. He managed to keep his face neutral though, not showing any shift in response to Matthias’ odd, sudden phrase. He did not believe he said anything that would warrant such a response, which implied that this was a response to some mental dialogue Matthias was engaging it.
How curious.
Jonathan wished he could simply ask and get an answer, but such a venture seemed fruitless. However, witnessing such a slip up was interesting and, most likely, implied some sort of mental conversation important or intense enough to override basic social customs, like not speaking out loud when you were not speaking to the only person in the room.
----------
Jonathan was unsure if his blatant, unusual comment would cause the proper reaction, but when Matthias let out an Oh, Jonathan immediately got a rush of satisfaction. A filler word, something Matthias did not use during their average conversations, It was a good sign that he had been pushed at least a toe out of his comfort zone and into something far more unstable. Suspicion? Concern? Confusion? All worked in Jonathan’s favor and could produce the proper result.
The follow-up question the younger doctor posed only solidified Jonathan’s suspicions that he had done his job well. “I’m sorry, Doctor Mayflower,” Jonathan stated, “I’m afraid I don’t know who you know, so I can’t answer that question.” This was a dodge, not a hostile one, but a little sidestep. After all, his answer was fair, but normally people would have responded with a name in order to figure out if they both knew the same person. But Jonathan kept it vague on purpose.
To hammer in the final nail of the coffin, Jonathan also twisted one of his favorite words into the sentence, afraid. Now, Jonathan saying words following this theme did not mean that anything nefarious was going down, but it did not mean that Jonathan was innocent either. It simply meant that fear was not only on his mind, which was a default expectation, but it meant that it was at the forefront of his mind. Even this did not prove anything, but that was the point. Jonathan’s intention was not to make Matthias think that something was going to happen tonight or soon, his intention was to make him think that something could happen. Paranoia, enough to get him to the rec room later, was the goal.
And Jonathan felt fairly certain that he was hours away from accomplishing his goal.
----------
Three days before Jonathan and Matthias had their discussion on Batman and the difference between the neurodivergent and the neurotypical, a criminal by the name of Sebastian Hawke, simply called Hawke due to his extreme hate of his first name, was following the instructions left to him by his boss, Gareth Reck. The sod, as always, was locked up in Arkham. He had been there for over a year now and, as frustrating as it was, their business was actually better when he was locked up than when he was not.
Reck was the leader of a crew, not even a gang or company. They were small in number, in popularity, and their jobs although well done never got them into the papers or got the attention of anyone powerful. After all, Reck had no interest in stepping on the toes of the Penguin who was also in the smuggling business. For that reason, Gareth Reck worked almost exclusively in Arkham and never touched weapon smuggling. Penguin had no interest in the crazies, so it was free market for this small-time crew.
Unfortunately, even in Arkham they sometimes got involved with high-stakes customers. RIddler was a common one, although it was becoming less common as the kid figured out his own ways of getting things in and out of the asylum using his own goons and supply networks. Today though, it was the Scarecrow. The tall, skeletal freak that Hawke never saw in person and never wanted to. Unfortunately, though, this was a two-man job; one to be the lookout and one to actually get the goods. Hawke lost the rock-paper-scissors match, which meant he was the one walking into the potentially boobytrapped villain’s lair. It wasn't like he was just risking his life here, he was risking his sanity.
“I’ll give you fifty bucks if you go in there,” Hawke suggested to the driver who simply responded with a middle finger and rolled up the car window. “Yeah, didn’t think so, asshole,” he muttered, walking to the warehouse that really did not look like much.
It was uncared for like all warehouses were in this neighborhood, but this one had no car tracks leading to it and the windows were all dark even though there was nothing covering them.
Hawke tried to open the front door, locked of course. He then went around the building trying every single drop-off point or shutter. No luck, which meant one thing, “I gotta break into a super villains warehouse. Great. Just my fucking luck.” Hawke had the stomach for smuggling, but not for dying, which was why he was not in the killings or gang business!
It took quite a while to get the hinges removed from the door, and the moment that the door started to fall from place towards the ground, Hawke regretted even opening up. Like a skunk spray, a blast of revolting, muggy air hit Hawke in the face with so much force that he had to take several steps back and gag for a solid minute before composure was even possible.
That was the worst smell he had ever encountered, and he had robbed several graves before… but this? This smell was those graves times ten. Was he about to find ten bodies then? The very thought kept Hawke from moving from his spot outside of the warehouse, bent over out of the way of the building’s air flow. “No fucking way man. I did not sign up for dead bodies,” not like this at least.
The man may have stood there gagging all day if not for the voice that suddenly called out to him, “Get your ass in there man! We don’t have all day!”
“I’m not going in there! It smells fucking disgusting! I think there are bodies in there!”
“So? Would not be the first time! Do you really wanna tell the boss or, you know, the customer that you didn't get the shit because of a bad smell?”
“It’s not the smell I’m worried about,” muttered Hawke as he was already turning towards the entrance. He could not go back empty-handed, and there was no way the asshole in there would take his place. There was no option, as was the case for a criminal in Gotham who got unlucky. “Okay, I can do this.”
Standing in place, Hawke just breathed for a bit. Big gasps that moved his whole body in an unstable manner. His breath was uneven as he tried to calm down, but it wasn't happening. All Hawke wanted was to go in there and see no one. Maybe the smell was old and the bodies long disposed of? Maybe?
Or maybe not. Taking a deep breath and holding it in, Hawke walked through the door to a horror movie idea of a hospital. The smell was worse in here, which was to be expected. The harsh, wet, rotting smell had now combined with the scent of experiments and mold. There was another smell in here too, something manufactured and burning, but it was impossible to discern over the smell of everything else.
It was dark in here too, the only light coming from those small, high windows by the ceiling that only served to cast cryptic lines of light down on the scene before Hawke. He was almost grateful for this mercy, but he had to walk further in, and the idea of running into something by accident was worse than the smell.
Pulling out his cell, Hawke started into the room with steps abysmally slow despite his breath already running out. Based on his instructions, he was supposed to be looking for a cabinet at the far end of this place labeled “SST” whatever that meant. He was also looking for a syringe labeled “262-34.”
Unfortunately, Hawke could see the row of cabinets at the other end of the building, and there was a horror scene waiting to happen in between him and his goal. This horror was rows of cots, probably totaling up to about 24 cots in rows of four, some with the curtains pulled for privacy and others with the curtains pulled back to reveal the many lumpy forms on the blanket-less cots. Beside each cot was a machine that likely once lit up the room but now was silent and dark, and from those machines were tubes. Tubes which connected empty bags to the forms on the cots, perhaps dried out IVs, and tubes which were uncomfortably larger that lead to a place much lower on each cot.
Hawke knew what he was seeing even from a distance, but when he approached just to pass by, he got a better look than he ever wanted to. There were bodies on almost every cot, boney and rotting; their skin carved into itself and their bodies crusting to their beds due to the feces and piss that the tubes stopped being able to take care of after the power went out. They were all chained there too, strapped to their beds using the same bondage that Arkham likely did. A few of these people had an arm out of the straps, having lost so much weight that they could slip right out. Most of the bodies belonged to adults, men and women of various ages, but there were two bodies far smaller than the rest.
Hawke looked away from those bodies as quickly as possible.
Whether it was the smell or the sights, Hawke could not handle it anymore. Half the way to his goal, Hawke had to stop and vomit on the ground right between two corpses. “Oh shit,” he muttered, wiping his mouth. If cops ever came here, that pile of half-digested breakfast was a lot of evidence against him. Even worse than the threat of arrest, though, was that now all of his saved air was gone and he had to breathe the death soaked air. It was like he could taste their decay on his tongue.
Hawke could not hold his breath and put his shirt over his mouth fast enough.
Anxious to leave even more now, Hawke’s feet finally started moving at their real speed, no longer sluggish from fear. Instead, fear and disgust combined made him move fast.
When he reached the cabinets, it was all Hawke could do to stop from falling into one of them and knocking it over. Surely that would have caused a domino effect with all the other identical cabinets, but that would have caused his mission to shatter probably… or worse, all of the chemicals in here could open and the smell rotting flesh would be the least of his worries. The things Scarecrow had in here? A single gasp could kill him or break his mind.
Suddenly he was extra glad that he did not want to breathe anyway.
Thankfully, the murderous freak that ordered this pickup was organized. One could say too organized because it took him longer to get to the cabinets than it did to find the right cabinet and the right vial even though he was working with mostly just a flashlight. It'd be impressive if it did not imply how much time he spent here making chemical weapons. To think, right now he had in his hand a highly sought after chemical that military forces and criminal forces would pay a fortune for.
Shame that doing that would get him killed several times over. Gareth Reck may not be a murderer by trade, but he knew plenty of them that would get their hands dirty in his name.
Packing the syringe in a pencil-case like container that would make for an easy, safe handoff, Hawke was just about to leave when he noticed something at the other side of the room. It was a blocked off area that seemed, at first glance, to be a large dip in the floor. Morbid curiosity moved Hawke’s feet towards them, and surely enough, regret was all he could feel for sating his curiosity.
It turned out that there were multiple shallow dips in the floor, no deeper than three feet, each dedicated to something terrible. One was filled with water, and although it was hard to see inside, Hawke knew for a fact that someone was in there. After all, right beside the concrete hole was an air canister with a dial to control the amount of air released and a tube leading down there. The second hole had a glass cover, letting him look inside and see the remains of another. It was a woman based on the clothing and the red nails that Hawke hoped she painted with product and was not caused by the bloody scratches on the inside of the lid. And the final concrete hole was filled with corpses and skeletons, and from a quick glance, Hawke could see rat bones and fur by the dozens. He could also see that they covered a corpse that was missing a fair bit of skin and flesh that she should have had no matter how starved she got.
Yeah, he would not take any more jobs for supervillains after this.
"Time to go..." back down the rows of cots first though. No way around it.
It took a lot of effort to keep his eyes forward, not to glance at the figures who lost their lives in the slowest way possible… if they were sane enough to even know that they were dying. But looking up and around this time led Hawke to other discoveries, mainly that every cot had a camera facing it. The holes likely had cameras set up too. He did see a few monitors in the distance, but he didn't see the point in checking them out. Power was out, and that was far from his reason to be here.
This was supposed to be a get in and get out job, and it was only the fact that this place was like a car crash on the side of the road that kept his attention and made him move slower.
Walking past the rows of cots, Hawke was just about to pass the final bodies when he saw something move. Hawke was no screamer, but within a second he had his gun pulled and was pointing it at the source.
Nothing but shadows.
Walking closer to the source of the movement, or at least where he thought he saw movement, there was still nothing...until he looked down. The body in this bed was of a man, adult age, and he looked just as starved as everyone else here. He had died with his eyes and mouth open, making it seem like he did not die from starvation despite his appearance.
He moved.
Hawke had just been glancing at the man and the shadows around him when his cheek clearly moved. Hawke could not back away fast enough. “Holy fuck,” he said, raising his gun up fully prepared to shoot this man if he was still alive or a zombie or whatever the hell was happening here. “Since when was he into resurrection?”
Scarecrow was supposed to be all about fear, so why was this body moving? There was no way the man was alive still. The villain had been locked away for over a month now at least, and it wasn't like the freak had someone come by and care for these guys. Clearly.
Just as Hawke was considering whether he should shoot anyway just in case as a form of double-tapping, the cheek moved again to reveal a white worm crawling out of the man’s mouth for a moment before returning to the safety of the drying caress.
“Maggots,” Hawke said, almost laughing as he was overcome with relief. Right. Stupid. He should have considered that these decomposing bodies would have maggots by now. This place was getting to him, and now that he had the syringe and was pass the cots, there was nothing stopping him from running.
So he did. Without hesitation Hawke turned on his heels and booked it out of the warehouse and to the car, throwing open the door and jumping in with so much speed that his driver jumped in shock.
“Shit dude, chill. Fuck's wrong with you?”
“I got the syringe,” Hawke responded, raising the case with hands he suddenly realized were still holding the gun and shaking like a rattle. “I’m done. You go put the door back on.”
Whatever complaints the driver normally would have given about doing more work than he had to died on his tongue as he saw his companion shaking, his face as pale as death in the morning sun. “Fine. Wait here. Don’t piss yourself in my car.”
Yeah, as if. He was more likely to vomit again. He could still smell the inside of the warehouse. It clung to his skin like a hundred hands gripping him, refusing to let him leave or forget those he just saw in there. But he was done. He would never have to go back in there as long as he lived. He’d quit this gig before that happened.
Let them kill him. At least then he would not die strapped to a bed with tubes coming in and out of every orifice as who knew what was pumped into him by long needles just like the syringe he was about to have handed over to its creator.
----------
When Jonathan placed his order, he requested a 24-hour notice before the syringe was handed over. He did not get that. Whether Gareth forgot about the request, forgot to tell him, or ignored the request entirely was unimportant, for all of them were unappealing and unwanted. It was unprofessional. It made Jonathan feel less unjust about pursuing his plans. Now it was no longer being in the wrong place at the wrong time; he could at least pretend to have a motive should he desire such a thing.
Gareth was in the rec hall before Jonathan, and as usual, he was around his crew. Some worked outside of this place, some purposefully got arrested and placed here just to support the interior team.
Jonathan did not approach, he simply sat down at the chess table of his choosing and waited. This table was the furthest from the entrance, meaning that if Matthias wanted to get a good view of the game or of Jonathan, he would have to come fairly deep into the room. Matthias would, most likely, not come to any harm by doing this, but it was making sure that he could not simply turn around and leave if something unpleasant started. This deep into the room? He would be compelled to glance over his shoulders a few times, if not simply stay and watch the show.
Eventually, Gareth got up from his crew and walked over, sitting down without a word. The chess tables were by the windows, and placed directly underneath those were heat vents that never blasted out enough actual warm air to keep this place the proper temperature. Even though this surely resulted in practically air conditioning being blown right up his pants, Gareth kept one foot on the ground and lifted the other so that his one leg was stretched on top of the vents in a position that screamed casual even if it would most likely play a large role in the passing of the syringe.
“So my boy apparently had a rough time in your place,” he started, arms crossed. He was not the type to protect his men from all bad things, but apparently there was some sort of line, and it had been crossed. “A warning would have been nice, I’m sure.”
“I did not see why I needed to warn you about a little mess. There were no traps, so I assumed your men could handle it. After all, being squeamish is hardly a trait suitable for a criminal at any level in this city." A pause. " Was it truly so horrible for you men?” Jonathan asked, his curiosity piqued.
“Described it as a horror scene. What kind of experiments are you doing in there?”
A fair description of it before they all died, so now it must be truly a nightmare. Shame he could not see it himself, at least not anytime soon. “Nothing going on there is abnormal for my process. Now, do you have what I asked for?” Jonathan was not here to speak to a thief about his experiments. He was here for business and to make a point to someone who could comprehend the details of his plot far more.
“Of course I do. I’ll pass it over in a few once the guards are not looking.”
Annoying, but fine. Matthias was not here yet, so they had plenty of time to pass it over and then get in position. “Very well then, shall we play a game while we wait?” This question was expected and was part of the way Gareth tried to make this look like a casual encounter, not a planned one.
There was no reason to play this like a real game, yet Jonathan did intend to sell his role perfectly, so he would play.
Chess was a family game in his youth along with cribbage and poker, although for poker they merely used M&Ms instead of money since Jonathan was rather young at the time. Since then, his experiences with chess have been reduced to only those rare occasions where his fellow professors or psychologists would be at a gathering that just so happened to have a board. And since his crimes were revealed and he started pursuing his passions full-time, he has never played it. He was out of practice for certain, yet he trusted his intelligence as well as that this man would not try hard to win.
He was also a frustratingly patient man in all things. He took his time at work, and he took his time in chess. Although many people came out of the gates hard, trying to destroy the enemy before they could stop you, Jonathan actually went on the defensive, and his defense was tight.
A chess game with Jonathan involved keeping as many pieces between the king and the rest of the board, meaning that most of the pawns and pieces surrounding the king stayed in place, and if the queen needed to move to go on the offensive, it was never long until a rook or a knight retook the spot. The king’s defense was strong, albeit a bit stagnant.
The offense on the other hand was performed by only a small number of highly mobile pieces, ideally knights or bishops and the queen, using the pawns as barriers in order to restrict his enemies or cause them to be shuffled into a trap he has laid for them. And these mobile pieces went backward just as much as they went forwards. It was sometimes illogical what Jonathan had his pieces do. He would move it forward and back as if he made a mistake, but he made these so-called mistakes too often to be such. The purpose was to draw the enemy close, let them get in real close, and take it out without moving his defensive unit.
Of course, this strategy was dreadfully slow and relied on a few key factors. The enemy not paying attention, the enemy being brash and making quick choices, or the enemy being distracted by a line of conversation. Even in chess, Jonathan was using the mind to his advantage, his own and the faults of his opponent. Today, the foe simply did not care, so was not thinking, which made this game a simple victory if Jonathan played long enough. This strategy also relied on luck, since his plots could be ruined if his opponent was too attentive.
Thankfully, Jonathan was willing to abandon his normal strategy and go on full offensive should he find that more successful or deserved. And even if he lost, he seemed to never care too much and instead would often suggest another game where he would play a similar game, just one slightly to the left. This shift would often make round two far more successful.
“Ready?” Gareth asked has his hand started to reach for one of his pieces.
“I am,” Jonathan responded, keeping his body still as it was before the conversation started.
“Where is the rest of my money?”
Jonathan allowed himself to smile slightly. “In the warehouse, of course. Specifically, in the cabinet to the right of where the syringe was.” Gareth raised a brow when hearing this information, so Jonathan explained further, although he knew it was wasted breath. “I keep a portion of my funding in each of my locations in case I should need it. Keeping it in a cabinet identical to a dozen others where I store my chemicals keeps the occasional hired hand from snooping.”
Apparently satisfied, Gareth shifted his weight in his seat and more importantly, placed the small case under his foot on the grate. With practiced movements, by the time Gareth was back in a comfortable position, the case was sitting right next to Jonathan. With ease, Jonathan slipped the case under his own leg where it was invisible to anyone not sitting inside of the wall right now.
“Thank you, Gareth, this will be very helpful.” A small, uh-huh, was all Jonathan got in response, but it was enough.
In order to appear innocent even still, the pair kept playing and planned on doing so until ten minutes before Jonathan had to leave. And the entire time Jonathan had been sitting with Gareth, he had been keeping a side-eye on the door. Every time someone entered, his eye would twitch just a bit in that direction. It had only been a false alarm a handful of times until the familiar small, brown-haired figure entered.
“Gareth, do not react, but my doctor is headed this way currently. Continue playing as we have been.” The goods have been handed over a while ago now, they were simply continuing to play to make it seem like nothing was afoot between them.
Unknown to Gareth though, Jonathan had been keeping one hand off of the table the entire game for one very simple reason. While he played with one hand, the other was working the syringe out of the case and into his palm. Silently, he even tested to make sure that it was ready to use at any moment by causing a few drops to seep out that were quickly absorbed into his pants. It was a bit of a shame that it was not the contact variety of toxins, but perhaps that was best. A few drops would do little to him, but he still wanted to keep a clear mind for this.
Jonathan waited until Matthias was within a few feet of them to truly acknowledge him. “What a surprise, Dr. Mayflower. Care to tell me what brings you here so late after our session? Certainly, you do not care for the outcome of my game.” This could be called warming the waters for what was to come, an act of casual questioning before the true act.
The sudden shift from normal to horror made the horror all the more intense, after all.
Gareth seemed a bit put out too, his face still neutral but his finger antsy as it tapped on one of his dead pieces. “Do you two need to talk, or should I stay?” He asked with hesitance that implied nothing about his crimes but did imply that he did not want to be here. For good reason though.
Perhaps his instincts were rightfully telling him to run considering what was coming.
“Please, Gareth, stay,” Jonathan said, keeping his eyes locked on Mayflower. He sounded normal, or at least as normal as the formal and vaguely monotone doctor tended to. “There is no point in playing a game like this if no one is where to bear witness to the outcome.”
Without even flinching his eyes away from Matthias, Jonathan’s hand suddenly shifted from the spot near his waist and dug the needle completely into Gareth’s leg that was still comfortably relaxing on the heating vents right beside Jonathan. Gareth’s eyes widened as his mind registered the stinging pinch, but that was all he could do before Jonathan had injected the entire syringe contents into the man's legs.
Gareth without a moments more thought threw himself over the chess table, sending the entire table to the ground towards Matthias and scattering the pieces everywhere. Quickly, Gareth found his hands clenching Jonathan’s shirt as if physical force could make the toxin in his blood go away. “What the hell did you just do? I thought you said--”
“--I told you this was meant for a single person. I never said that you were not that person,” Jonathan informed even as the grip around his shirt tightened. He was now looking down at Gareth so that he could bear witness to the change that he knew was coming any second.
The first sign of the change was the man’s eyes contrasting. A likely sign that his world was becoming darker for reasons he could not identify, and in seconds, the edges of his vision would become hazy. This created tunnel vision for most victims, leading the edges of their vision open to hallucinations exclusively or just darkness.
The second sign was his face changing from simple horror because he knew his fate, to real horror as that fate became real; eyes widened, mouth became agape, and his hands clenched even tighter as his entire body stiffened in shock.
The third was always amusing. It was when his hallucinations sunk in, when his fear was decided, and when he realized what he was seeing. A loud scream expelled from the man as he shoved Jonathan far away from him with enough force that the fear doctor fell into the chess table behind him, sending that one to the ground too.
Surprisingly though, Jonathan stayed standing although unsteadily and now was flicking his gaze between the two men. “You had such an interest in my toxin, Mayflower, I thought you should see it up close and personal,” Jonathan said, smiling openly now. “Really, bravo for taking advantage of a heavily dosed man! You truly are an Arkham doctor now!”
This was not a compliment. Jonathan had made it clear how much he disapproved of the doctors here, and he had also made it clear that it was Mayflower’s morality that kept him separate from the bunch. To be compared to them now was to declare that Matthias had lost a piece of his moral compass. And although these words held the spiteful sarcasm he tended to possess in times of annoyance, Jonathan seemed to possess some level of joy too. Whether because of the fear he was witnessing or because of Matthias’ betrayal, it was unclear.
These words were expressed in mere seconds, and Gareth had progressed greatly in that time. He was crying now on top of his occasional shouts. With all of the strength his body could likely produce, he was smacking himself like he was covered in mosquitoes. He hit his arms, his legs, his back, and even his face and nose specifically. His lip started to bleed as his own nail nicked him. However, when this smacking method proved to be fruitless. He started scratching at his skin with so much force that immediate red lines formed. When that failed, Gareth, ignorant of anyone else in the room, ran to the television and shattered the screen. He quickly grabbed a shard and plunged it into his skin.
He was like a human can, and the shard was a knife he was using to try and pry it open. He dug the point vertically in and turned his hand sideways until the shard was horizontal, the skin and all the flesh connected to it peeling up in rough chunks. “Oh god, oh god, please. Get them out of me. They won’t get out. Please get them out,” Gareth wept as he kept stabbing himself. “They're eating me!” He shouted loudly suddenly, the increase in volume reflective of the deepest stab into his skin so far. Such force he stabbed with that the glass cracked inside of him.
This prompted a laugh from the heavily bleeding man, “Can’t eat me now, can you bastards!”
The guards had taken notice by now and were rushing the scene. A pair of guards went to stop Garth from hurting himself more while three went after Jonathan who still had the now empty syringe in his hand.
Gareth saw them coming, although what he saw was unclear because he was screaming again. He managed to get one more large shard into himself, this time directly into the center of his right thigh. He was tackled onto the very television shards he was using to cut himself. Without a doubt, his back was heavily cut now too, but all Gareth seemed to care about was getting his hands on another shard. And he did, easily too. With frantic panic, he was slashing at the guards who were struggling to hold him down in a position where he would not get cut up more. One of these slashes ended up being across the guard's throat. This man immediately fell to the side, gripping his neck with as much force as a bleeding man could.
While the blood gushed from the new wound, Gareth’s only response was, “They’re in you too! Oh god, I don’t wanna be--” these words became scrambled as the still active guard raised a fist and slammed it into the crazed man with enough force that Gareth was dizzy. Seeing this as progress, the guard did it again and again until Gareth was knocked out. There were no doctors around, and based on how this was being handled, none of the guards carried around medication that could knock someone out peacefully.
Even while unconscious though, Gareth was twitching and moaning. He begged some unseen and unnamed thing to stop in his sleep, his mutterings almost non-stop even unconscious. His hands clawed at the floor beneath him, still trying to grab whatever it was inching away inside of his veins.
Meanwhile, the moment the other three guards noticed what was happening, they charged at Jonathan with the force of football players. They shoved him against the wall, Jonathan’s head hitting the stone with audible force. One guard took each arm, and the third one concerned himself with the discipline. He raised Jonathan’s wrist and slammed it against the wall four times with great force until Jonathan let go of the syringe and it clambered on the ground.
Jonathan showed no resistance even as he was battered.
“What do you suppose Gareth is seeing over there?” Jonathan asked above the chaos on both sides of the room. “Maggots in his skin? Beetles? Perhaps something supernatural or otherworldly in nature? A man like him, I can only imagine what he would find more terrifying than losing himself to something else. Kleptomania is such a personal, self-centered condition after all. I imagine he is very happy to have figured out that they cannot eat through glass!”
“Shut up!” One of the guards ordered, slamming not a fist but his baton into Jonathan’s stomach, knocking the air out of the criminal's lungs. “How in the hell did he get his toxin in here?” The man shouted to no one in particular.
“Enjoy your….. reward... doctor…. for stooping... to my level,” Jonathan said in a hoarse voice as he tried to speak loudly despite gasping in between his words even as he continued to look happy about how everything was occurring. His eyes were watering heavily due to the lack of oxygen, giving him the look that he was crying. He fought to keep them open though, to keep them watching Gareth and Matthias.
The guard swung his baton into Jonathan’s gut again, causing what little air Jonathan had regained to leave again. This time though, vomit escaped from Jonathan's mouth. Considering how little he ate, mostly liquid and bile came up. It stuck to his chin, dripping down in off-colored drops onto the ground and his shirt. It was highly undignified, but nothing in Jonathan’s eyes or expression showed a single second of regret. His pride, his passion, and the standards he holds to those around him were unchanged as they were a month ago.
These were the eyes Batman looked into every time he foiled Jonathan's plans. Eyes that were unbudging, eyes that did not even regret getting caught, and eyes that implied only that he would do this again if he wanted to and he would refrain from doing this again if he did not want to; nothing you did physically to him could make him falter. Even in death, Jonathan would pursue true fear.
He knew what the consequences of his actions would be, and he walked in here accepting them completely. No resistance, no protest, he’d take the beating and take the loss of privileges.
