notmydiagnosis | (no subject)

Tillman did not say much on the ride over. His headache was gone and he had rested quite a bit in preparation of the day ahead. He scanned the streets, the people on them, watched in the passenger side mirror for tails. He was alert and certainly suspicious of the man seated next to him, but was more intent on the job at hand. Admittedly, it was also nice to see the outside world again.

"I'm used to it," Tillman grunted as he surveyed the room. His posture was military, his movements calculated as he sized the space up. "What supplies do I get?"

It was a simple one-story, surprisingly small but normal on the outside. There were no personal items whatsoever, and no decorations. No colour save for the drab white and what seemed to be nicotine stains on the walls despite Crane not smoking--at the very least, he never smelled like it.

He slipped in, taking his shoes off and waiting for Tillman. Once the other was insane he made a point to lock everything back up, pausing to take in the security.

"Follow me." The words were simple and to the point as he descended to the basement. There was a bare bulb hanging and the moment Crane hit it the place illuminated to a clutter of various things. It ranged from proper science equipment to cut out, 10 gallon bottles, cluttered with barely any room to move. And yet all of it was organized succinctly and in such a matter that was in tune with the fact that Crane was a man of order.

Shirking just shy of knocking over a Bunsen burner, the psychiatrist made his way over to a closet and opened it, revealing a rather large reserve of weapons, the majority coming from arkham asylum's defense team.

"You can take your pick but I strongly advise you not to touch anything here, Tillman. The results could be...less than ideal. But I've already anticipated your arrival, as you can clearly see."

He paused, adjusting his glasses.

"And it should go without saying it would be unwise to tell anyone about this place, either."

Drugs. He should have figured it would be drugs. Tillman had no personal experience with the business and could not identify what was being made or indeed anything about the setup, but he ran an analytical eye over it all anyway. He noted where the flammables were stored, where the sources of heat were, potential impediments to escape.

When he had gleaned what he could, he made his way to the weapon locker and looked over its contents with a practiced eye. Incarceration had not prevented him from keeping up with weaponry, and indeed, Slayers had proved to be the perfect platform for field testing several models that the locker contained.

The first thing that he grabbed was an M1911. Single-action, semi-automatic, .45 caliber, trusted by the army for over a hundred years. It was a sturdy, reliable service pistol and reliability was absolutely vital. Colt still managed to be at the top of the game in that regard. Tillman's training was drilled into him. He tested the spring, loaded and unloaded it, felt for unnecessary play in the moving mechanisms, sighted it a few times. When he was satisfied, he strapped it onto his hip and turned his attention back to the cabinet.

Tillman selected a derivative of the M4 carbine next, one that had proved itself to be versatile, hard-hitting, and surprisingly easy to aim throughout his campaign in Slayers. It was missing the chamber for explosive and self-detonating rounds, but as his goal was non-lethal force, it did not much matter. He gave his second selection the same treatment as the first.

As he tested the blade of a hunting knife on his thumb, he finally broke the silence that had settled between them. "If we leave this building, I'm going to need different clothes to conceal these with. A jacket, for one. Jeans if we are moving with discretion, cargo pants if it's not an issue." His gaze was as steady as his voice. He cradled his SMG in the crook of one arm and picked his way to a position that he could watch the door and not knock into anything if he had to draw the weapon suddenly.

There was something powerful about the way Tillman held the gun. Like a familiar friend, a faithful, trusted companion. Crane took observed in an odd fashion, tilting his head down, watching how he caressed it as if a lover. In an odd way, Crane found it beautiful.

But he was never one for aesthetics. He was more into the mind. What made someone tick. He was working out what Tillman knew, what Tillman wanted--and Crane wanted to delay it. Revel in it. Because nothing was sweeter than the discovery, the long awaited wait.

He wanted to know John Tillman.

"Clothes are provided for you. I suggest you shower as well, you have..." he checked his watch. "20 minutes before I need to leave."

Tillman watched Crane watch him for a moment before giving a sharp nod and disappearing to do as he was told.

It took him less than ten minutes to get ready. He emerged, still unshaven, in comfortable street clothes: jeans and a t-shirt with a less than flattering green jacket thrown over the lot. It was the only thing thick enough to fully conceal the pistol at his hip and it had enough inside pockets to store extra ammo. The collapsed SMG was stowed in an athletics bag slung over his shoulder.

Tillman was moving differently than before, having made the decision to stow his military precision while they changed locations. With the exception of his eyes, he looked like an average schmuck on his way to nowhere in particular.

"Are you going to brief me on what I'm up against?" he asked dryly.

Crane turned around, expression shifting entirely. He looked different, briefly--there was a flash of something in his gaze, his glasses perched delicately on his nose. He looked mildly annoyed, though he as quite good at hiding it--and just as quick as the emotion showed he busied himself with neatening his tie.

"I told you. Thugs--they're no threat. Possibly The Batman. Gotham has an odd criminal of sorts--calls himself a vigilante. Enjoys running around in a bat mask and fighting crime, Tillman. It's precisely as absurd as he sounds, unfortunately, his tricks of the trade far exceed mine. See, I'm not looking for a fight."

He slides himself into a car, en route to an empty parking lot. Not so much as glancing at Tillman until, suddenly, he decides to continue the conversation the moment they're in the back of a van.

"I'm interested in the mind, and how the mind works, Mr. Tillman. An army of thugs is none of my concern, nor is it the concern of any of my employers."

Tillman raised an eyebrow at the shift in demeanor as he drank the new information in. A man who dressed up like a bat and fought crime. Absurd was one way to put it.

"How does peddling drugs coincide with your interest in the mind," he inquired, partially out of curiosity and partially to see how Crane reacted to having his cage rattled.

"Cute, Mr. Tillman." Crane's face showed it was anything but, and after the rather catty remark (coming from him, anyway), he removed his glasses, folding them neatly into his suit's breast pocket and pulling out a familiar semi-stitched burlap mask.

"Meconopsis. Papaveraceae meconopsis, to be precise." there was a twinge of a smile, a certain joy to his words. "A blue poppy. Rare. Himalayan. Medicine men used to use it to it's full potential, chewing it and having visions--hallucinations. It could very from panphobia to tricking them into seeing what they are terrorized with most. Facing their fears in the most real of senses. Alarming, that no one's yet used it to distill a compound gas out of it. Fear toxin--not even the military. Doesn't that strike you as odd?"

Tillman's eyes narrowed warily at the mask, his smile growing thin. He knew that he wasn't like to get dosed while he was armed and on his way to a job, but he couldn't shake the aversion he had to the ugly stitched affair.

"A poppy," he repeated, buying himself time to mull it over. The compound he had inhaled had rendered him entirely helpless. The damage it could do in times of war would have been astonishing. The thought turned his stomach a bit. "That is odd," he agreed.

"How did..." He trailed off as he made the connection between the information given and the little meth house they had come from. Crane was the one making the fear gas and somehow, the government wasn't aware of it.

Out of the hands of one made genius, and into another. He watched Crane expectantly, hoping that he would go on despite the interruption.

"I highly suspect they don't have the brain power, as it were, to figure this out." A slightly amused smirk, putting the mask on and fitting it tightly. Literally tying a noose he'd made, much like his tie, and rolling up his sleeve.

"They don't realize that fear is what drives us. It's what drives every human being. There's nothing to fear but fear itself and I, Tillman, am helping. It's fascinating--how someone so large, so great can be reduced to a small child. How people can tumble like dominoes, turn their backs on each other, all because of one moment of blinding panic, one small seed of doubt, one little, beautiful chilling thought."

There was a beat and, even despite the muffled sound due to the mask--breathing through a gas mask, causing it to nearly echo, Crane's disdain was very evident:

"You don't have to like or dislike what I'm doing. You have to point a gun in the Batman's direction because he will find me."

Tillman's hand twitched toward his hip as the mask went on. He thought of Angie and Delia and forced himself to lean forward and thread his fingers through each other, eliminating the possibility of a quick draw just in case Crane did decide to gas him. If he killed him, reuniting with his family would be that much harder.

Crane's speech was oddly compelling, for all that it was manic. He obviously felt very strongly on the subject. Tillman couldn't see how he was helping, though.

"I already said I'd do what you want. What I like doesn't factor into it," he stated in a low growl. He didn't like having his dedication questioned.

That growl.

It sent shivers down Crane's spine and the other could only smile behind his mask, his sleeve still rolled up. Crane decided he enjoyed that growl--that annoyed, animalistic grunt that was so characteristic of soldiers. Of those trained to resist him.

Tillman would crumble, he decided, strapping a small device around his wrist.

"Then be a good soldier and point your gun at anything that threatens me. We're here, and I need to make a deal with the Chechens."

An empty parking lot with barking dogs seemed to be the meeting place, and Crane rolled down his sleeves, nodding for Tillman to open his door.

Tillman snorted and clicked the stock of the submachine gun back into place. Apparently, discretion wouldn't be an issue. His boots hit the pavement and he scanned the lot, picking out logical places to hide back-up or snipers or cops. He kept his gun aimed neutrally at the ground, a threatening presence for the time being.

"Thank you." It was genuine, and almost immediately the greasy hard mobster murmured something in another language, and Cillian hopped out of the van with ease, mask still on.

"Ah, the Scarecrow."

"I believe you had a problem with something?" He asked. "I don't like my time to be wasted."

"Your drug."

In a matter of seconds, someone was pulled out of a van--a quivering, terrifying mess of fear and the moment he looked at Crane's mask he began to scream.

"I gave you exactly what you wanted."

"NO! I need repeat customers."

"Then find someone else that will deal under Batman."

"I heard he can fly."

"I heard he can disappear."

"The Bat is just a human," Crane stated, moving away from Tillman, noose swinging around his neck. The frightened boy began screaming. "And he fears just as much as any other person. Do you know what the man next to me fears the most?" He gestured to Tillman, smirk behind the burlap mask.

"Disappointing me. So I'd lower those guns."

The Chechen leader began yelling--something about the toxin, something about the gas, and Crane started to chuckle.

"See your problem is that you're letting the Batman strike the fear of God into you. It shouldn't be some masked vigilante.. It should be me."

Tillman watched the scene unfold unflinchingly, his mouth drawn into a grim line. He regretted not forcing Crane into some body armor before the rendezvous. It was a stupid oversight on his part.

When Crane gestured to him, he raised the gun to his shoulder and came up on the doctor's left side like a well trained dog. He settled his sights on the leader of the little operation and waited for an order to proceed.

They were undoubtedly at a tactical disadvantage. Tillman was good, but Crane's confidence in his skill was borderline irrational. Perhaps Crane wasn't as smart as Tillman had first thought.

Despite the odds, his aim was steady, his posture confident, his eyes cold and murderous. Impossible odds pushed him to perform that much harder. Making a group second-guess themselves was generally a matter of not looking intimidated and behaving as if striking them down would take no more effort than brushing dust from a shelf.

Tillman could only pray that Crane would stop antagonizing them before things got bloody.

"He's like a trained dog."

"This isn't about my guard, Androvitch. This is about our deal. Do you--"

A rustle in the distance. A gunshot.

"It's the Bat!" There was screaming. Chechen being spoke and then another one. The police had arrived, it seemed--and one had gotten close to Crane in the combat.

He dispensed the fear toxin with ease due to the chamber he had slipped on his wrist, immediately causing the thug to howl in terror. Behind his mask, despite his odds, Crane was laughing.

"That's not the Batman," He assured, pressing his back into the van next to Tillman, looking more than amused. There was a laugh, there--an oddly displaced, oddly crowing laugh.

"That's NOT THE BATMAN," He shouted. More gunshots--the police had found them, it seemed. Sliding down the van, Crane continued to laugh as the spray hit the van. His laughter was cut short by a sharp pain in his shoulder, and Crane wound up coughing, clasping the suddenly wounded area and letting out a low grunt.

"Shit," Tillman hissed. He wasn't supposed to be out of prison or the asylum, a bunch of lowlife, drug peddling gangsters had seen his face and could easily run his description through a database and he couldn't have that.

It was like being at war again. The people before him became obstacles. His gun became a means of overcoming them. In the chaos and panic, it wasn't hard to pick off the retreating thugs in quick, mechanical succession.

He knew that he only had seconds before the police would catch up, but he leaned in close to the unfortunate drug user who had, by then, curled himself into a ball and hidden mostly under a nearby car. "Stay off the blow, kid. And if anyone asks you about tonight, assure them that the next person that messes with the Scarecrow is going to die screaming, got it?" The Scarecrow. He felt ridiculous saying it, but there was something about Gotham that warranted a touch of drama.

"Why aren't you in the fucking van already?" He spat at Crane, and only then did he notice the blood. Stupid, goddamn oversight. And he couldn't do anything about it for the moment, not with the police closing in. "Keep pressure on that," he ordered gruffly as he picked Crane up bodily and threw him into the back of the van.

It was a good thing for them that corruption in Gotham had infiltrated the police. They weren't known for their organization or timeliness and this allowed Tillman to slip out of an unguarded back entrance.

"Don't you fucking bleed out on me," he growled distractedly, intent on watching for signs that they had been seen leaving the building. If he noticed anyone following them, they'd have to ditch the tail, ditch the van, and hijack a new car, all the while not getting spotted for being suspicious men covered in blood by some nosy housewife watching through the blinds.

"Safe house. Directions. Now." Keeping himself alive and free in this situation would be simple. With Crane, it was a little more complicated. To make it worse, he didn't know Gotham at all, which meant that he was relying on someone who could go into shock at any moment. Already, he was formulating just what to do if that happened.

Crane was still laughing.

This was it--the adrenaline, the hair on the back of his neck. He was frightened. He was frightened and he was delighted about it, even though the pain in his chest was more than enough to sent a normal person spiraling into shock. It was sheer will, really, and he brought a hand up to take off his mask, smile wide. He had a feeling this was what the Joker felt, too.

"They thought it was Batman. He doesn't use guns, no--I have it on good authority he dislikes them." And still, he rattled off an address of a rather dilapidated building, laughter choked with a cough. Blood.

"Excellent. Excellent--do you feel that, Mr. Tillman? Your hair raising? Your breath quickening? It's fear. I'm scared."

Crane's continued laughter was disconcerting, but as long as he was laughing, he was breathing and Tillman took the joviality as the mixed blessing that it was. He tuned out the majority of what was being said. More ranting about the Batman. Babbled nonsense.

Tillman pulled the van into the indicated building and gave it a quick once-over before climbing into the back with Crane. The doctor's pupils were slightly dilated, but his eyes were bright and clear. Tillman pulled his knife out and knocked one of Crane's hands away so that he could slice through the material of his shirt to better examine the wound.

"You're going to be fine," Tillman stated calmly. "Ricochet. Do you have contacts in your operation that can treat it for you?" Tillman was a soldier and he had dealt with many of his own wounds over the years, but his brand of medicine lacked the niceties of a legitimate doctor's.

"I'm the wrong kind of Doctor," Crane murmured, and his gaze was unfocused but still staring at Tillman. The soldier was precise and knew how to act under pressure, and Crane's glasses safely in the breast pocket of his shirt.

"But I can make an assessment and my assessment is--yes. I appear to be bleeding." He blinked, long and hard, and then proceeded to look down at his own pale, scrawny chest. Immediately comparing it to Tillman's.

He'd watched.

Long before he'd even considered picking Tillman. When he just knew him as Kable. When word had got out to Gotham about Castle, when he curiously reviewed Slayers footage. It was Tillman's gaze that got him--the unflinching, determined glare he was currently giving Crane himself. No trace of terror, no glimpse of the inner psyche. And that blue, that gorgeous hue of his eyes that Crane had seen in more than just video view...

"You've passed."

Tillman folded a piece of Crane's shirt and pressed it into the wound. He grabbed Crane by the wrist and forced him to hold the compress in place.

"I meant your illegal operation. Someone that can stitch a bullet wound that won't report it to the police," Tillman amended, not phased by the sarcasm in the least.

Implication that he had passed some kind of test intensified his glare for a moment. If that little rendezvous had been a test and this was passing, he didn't want to see failure.

"We need to get somewhere with clean water and a first aid kit," was all Tillman said. He started the van and eased it back onto the street.

"There's a mosque run by Ra's al Ghul and his group. We're welcome there."

Crane gave the other directions, his free hand fumbling with his suit pocket to grab his glasses. It took him a little longer than usual, but he'd been preoccupied--far, far preoccupied with thoughts of Tillman, thoughts of pain, thoughts of fear...

"They're the ones responsible for your wife and daughter," he stated softly. "I wouldn't dare attempt to extract someone from Castle's clutches, I'm not that stupid."

Tillman glared out the window. He had feared that Castle might do something to them after he got locked away. The man had the resources to make Angie's life hell. He owed Crane for getting them out.

"Castle had them? What do you mean by that?" He invited the doctor to keep talking so that he would know if he passed out or fell into shock in transit.

"Your wife played another one of his silly little games and your little girl was adopted by him." And Crane, despite the pain in his chest (he was no super soldier, on the contrary, he was and always would be a tall and scrawny mess of a man), was interested in his reaction.

He enjoyed Tillman. They had only met briefly but Crane was not above researching his potentials. Watching him. Rewinding it, constantly. Waving off interns and saying he was studying Castle's work.

"It is of my.. professional opinion, that Castle is quite mad. I could throw a number of illnesses in his direction and have it fit properly. That's the beauty of psychology. So easily manipulated."

Tillman's jaw tightened until his teeth ground together. Castle had adopted his daughter. The madman. The animal. How satisfying it would be to gut him slowly...

He caught himself speeding and slowed. In the span of a breath, he readjusted his focus, funneled that intensity into the task at hand.

"Is that the beauty of it," he inquired, tone more aggressive than he had intended.

Their destination loomed ahead, dark and foreboding. "This is it? Are you okay to walk?"

"I think you'll find I'm hardly a fragile being," Crane stated softly, holding his shoulder. His pale hand was stained with red and his blue eyes were growing more and more unfocused--not too dangerous. Not yet. But he was getting there.

"It's a good thing to make friends with the League of Shadows," he murmured, and the moment the girl at the door saw who Crane was she immediately let him into the Arabic holy place.

"Keep your enemies..quite close." It was mumbled, now, and Crane's free hand grabbed on to Tillman's own shoulder, narrowing his eyes.

"I do believe I have to tell them about the Chechen's treachery."

The League of Shadows. Could this city get any more dramatic?

Tillman looked at the hand on his shoulder, at Crane's dulling eyes and pale lips, and fixed the doctor with a frown that dared him to protest. "You can tell them after this is dealt with."

Not five minutes later, Tillman and Crane were fitted with a first aid kit in a room that offered enough privacy to conceal any screaming.

"Move your hand. Let me see it," Tillman growled as he ran a lighter under a pair of tweezers.

Crane's grip was white, pale, a stark contrast against the maddening red. He grunted, looking over at him. There was no medic, apparently, within the League of Shadows that wished to aid him.

Funny, that--but then he wasn't technically a member, he supposed. Rather a hired thug. A glorified hired thug, but one who was rather powerful nonetheless. And now? Now his shirt was being ripped off by nothing more than a hired hand.

He couldn't help but grunt as the other forced his hand away, though his lips parted as he was grinning.

"There's nothing to fear but fear itself," He murmured, choking back laughter. He wasn't The Joker, but this... this was exciting. Fearful, even.

"Keep telling yourself that," Tillman growled back. There was no warning or preamble to him pressing the tweezers into the wound. Somewhere inside was a piece of a bullet, rather than the whole thing. Crane was fortunate that it was a ricochet wound rather than a straight gunshot, or it would have been deeper and more traumatic and beyond Tillman's narrow scope of medical knowledge.

Crane wasn't expecting it--the surprised, pained yell as his back arched, eyes closed shut. It tapered off into a whimper and then a low growl, body trying to jerk up despite the pain. Crane had never really been physically wounded like this. Beaten up, broken arms, and a rather harrowing experience with nearly drowning by a creek thanks to his great-grandmother, yes. But never a bullet wound.

After all, the Batman didn't use bullets.

He did, however, snap out of his rather odd state, pain blinding him more than anything. His bloodied hand grabbed on to Tillman's shoulder, grunting and expelling a snake-like hiss as he tried to push the other away.

Tillman felt metal scrape metal, but Crane's movements prevented him from getting a grip on the shard. He didn't waste his breath or concentration by attempting to reassure Crane. He seized the offending wrist, twisted it sharply to force the hand to release, and pinned it against the wall.

The tweezers nudged deeper as he sought a place to grab the blood-slicked fragment.

No matter how hard he jerked his wrist, choking out a yell despite the fact that, when all was said and done, he wanted Tillman to do this.

Blue eyes met the other blue ones, gaze sharp and unfocused, and he pulled full lips tight, pressing them thinly in an attempt to stop screaming.

"Just... get it out, Tillman."

"Good idea. I'll try that next," Tillman muttered. He stepped closer and pressed his body into Crane's, stilling a good portion of the pained squirming. He withdrew the tweezers and examined the extricated piece briefly.

Crane didn't look good: pale, shaky, with a fine sheen of pain induced perspiration. It was a wonder he hadn't passed out already. The next bit was going to be worse. Their current position would not be optimal, especially if the doctor did go limp.

"You're going to have to lay down," he instructed calmly as he threaded a needle.

"Cute," Crane remarked, but it was a weak retort as Tillman shifted their weight, causing him to nearly lie on top of him.

Crane was not a strong individual--he enjoyed the power of the mind simply because he would never be strong, he would never be what Tillman was the perfect, prime example of.

"Clinophobia. Clinophobia is the fear of laying down; of sleeping. Dikephobia..."