04 ⚜ Video

[restingstitchface]

[Pristine is how Crane appears when he flicks on the video feed; it's a lovely display of smoke and mirrors that he's pulling off, after the events of the last three days. He has a clean, elegant, ascetic appearance - and enough calm professionalism to mask his excitement.]

You're all handling this outbreak remarkably well. It seems you're all keeping to the boundaries of the law, as the Major-General expects you to. That's a good thing, mind. It would be terrible news to hear people have been shot for breaking quarantine.

Anyway, I am here to help if this event has caused you psychological distress. I am a doctor, after all.

[A pause, and he tucks in his chin and folds his hands in his lap. He half-closes his eyes.]

Fears and phobias are my specialty, and there is much to fear in this situation.

[His head comes back up. He's staring at the lens.]

Be that as it may, fear is something everybody needs. It keeps you safe and keeps you on your toes. It will do you all well to remember that. That it's good to know we must always feel a little scared. It's good to see that most of you haven't submitted to bravado and dagger-tongued bragging.

[The corners of his lips lift in a boyish smile. He tilts his head slightly. His voice is disarmingly gentle. His soft inflection on 'most of you' is meant for one person in particular.]

And I wouldn't like to think that those with guts would put everyone in danger. I trust everyone to make the best decisions for each other in combating this disease.

It would be terrifying to think we couldn't trust each other. Wouldn't it?

[He crosses his right leg and rests his hands over his knee. His graceful fingers smooth his trousers, and he waits for his audience to speak.]

Comments

[restingstitchface]

Well. It's in a frightful state. The same as everywhere else, really.

[He considers the question again; how's Nonah holding up? How're you holding up, Dr. Crane? He would so eloquently make use of that, later.]

[hoboagogo]

Guess that's what happens with hyper-rabies or whatever the hell it is... [He's still not clear on the details. Something highly infectious, likely lethal, and that seemed to make people crazed and violent from what he understands so far.]

Do we know where this all came from? [Another Hornet's plot, he wonders. Or something else entirely?]

[restingstitchface]

Excuse me a while...

[A good amount of time passes, before Crane sends a simple message to Shinjiro's mail. He sends an e-mail that contains only a link to a recent network post.]

My suggestion is you read this. I would try not to blame those involved, mind.

[hoboagogo]

[There's a few minutes as he reads this- and really, blaming them isn't his first reaction. (After all, even when some imPorts had admitted to getting a third of the population of their world killed, he'd taken it in stride. Weird moral shades of gray, and every one of them sucks.)]

...Shit. Guess I didn't think 'bout how we could be bringing diseases in, too.

[A shake of the head.] Now I'm kinda surprised it ain't happened before this-- or that some've the people here ain't gotten sick when they showed up.

[restingstitchface]

I wouldn't know. I haven't been here long enough to know, compared to yourself.

[Which makes this disease a high-pressure wake-up call. But he's discovered beauty amidst the chaos. So many people were afraid of the illness and what it could do.]

I suppose that makes me fortunate.

[hoboagogo]

[There's a hollow, forced-amusement noise at that.] Yeah. This week'd be a year, I think. Or it would be, if I hadn't been kicked out for a bit. Not as bad as the four or five years I've heard about, though.

[restingstitchface]

[That makes Crane go silent. His eyes flicker off-screen and his head tilts the same way. His lips open slightly, more in response to himself than Shinjiro.]

That much... [Crane's voice trails a moment.] Can you provide names to the faces, perhaps?

[hoboagogo]

[A pause- and he shakes his head.]

Nah. It was sometime last year a couple people were talking 'bout it on the network. I didn't keep up with 'em.

[restingstitchface]

I see.

[Adapt, Crane. Go with the flow. It just means another door opens as that one closes.]

Either way, I suppose it's good you're home. I really don't know you enough to comment, but I imagine your friends are in good spirits.

[hoboagogo]

[An amused noise.]

-Yeah, actually. [Which is... weird to him. But whatever.] I figure it'd be easier for them to go back first and not have to think about what might've happened to me.

Forgot this was text, whoops! Anyway important s-link question time.

[restingstitchface]

[Crane keeps mum.

Silence is a poisonous tool he's prepared to use, when a situation creates an opening for it. Here, it's what he uses to clear the way before he asks, in a gentle enquiry.]

... Yes. I suppose that would be the easier choice. And sometimes it would be the easier to just have all choices taken from our hands, wouldn't it?

S'cool! :3c

[hoboagogo]

[His brows crease- actually considering that for a moment. While he finds it kind of works out like that a lot of the time anyway, that may just be because of his own unconscious, rigid beliefs, rather than hands actually being forced one way or the other.]

...Depends on who it'd be easier for, I guess. [His nose wrinkles. He's still not that great with abstract generalizations like this.]

Easier in that no one have to pick anything, I guess. Kind of takes any sort of 'fault' away. But it'd suck in other ways too, I guess.

[restingstitchface]

[People are always making choices, Crane thinks. He hates people who apologize to him for their decisions; he hates people who think in black and white and say their decisions are the same. If there's a choice to be made, then you take it and don't complain.

He hates people in general, but some he tolerates more than others. Some he finds even understand him a little. Not that he's interested in any relationship - unless there's something he can get out of it. Just like anyone else, really. But at least he's honest enough to wear his mask on the outside.]

Well then. You prefer neither the hard or soft option?

[hoboagogo]

[Sorry, Crane- he knows this is kinda meant to be serious. But the text lacks tone, and it's evident that he's a stupid teenager in how he reads that by the way his lips quirk and brows raise.]

-Hey, careful. Say it like that and I might get the wrong idea.

[Good thing you're not a Freudian, Crane.]

But it's more like- things are more complicated than that. I dunno which one'd be better, 'cause it all depends on what's getting decided.

[restingstitchface]

[Freudian puns are more Chilton's deal.

The remark passes through his mind quickly enough. He gleans anything of detail and discards the rest.]

You worry too much about what's getting decided, perhaps. Have you considered thinking more about the nature of what's getting decided? Are you making your choices out of apathy? Frustration? ... Or fear?

[hoboagogo]

[Another confused pause- Eyes scanning, then re-scanning the text, as though trying to really understand what's being asked. As always, intensely personal questions like that are hard to really examine for him. What choices was he having to examine and question? Every day ones, like what to have for breakfast? Or only larger, more meaningful decisions?

In the end, he brushes it off with a shrug.]

I dunno. Depends on what's getting decided. [Which is frustratingly circular, sure... but also the easiest way for him to try and deflect the question.]

[restingstitchface]

[Crane's reply comes immediately. There's no deflection happening today. He was almost insulted by how obvious it was.]

Quite so. But you cannot avoid taking larger, important decisions forever, Shinjiro. You may just find someone takes that choice out of your hands and forces you to choose, right there and then.

[hoboagogo]

I know. It's happened.

[And last time it did, he ended up bleeding out on the asphalt with two .50 cal slugs in his chest and gut. A choice he still doesn't regret, but one that he hadn't exactly anticipated.]

But that doesn't change my point. People are gonna decide things for different reasons all the time. Just 'cause you're scared and do one thing, doesn't mean later that day you don't do something else for another reason.

[restingstitchface]

[Crane thinks of his old life as Arkham's administrator. That time he had chosen to travel somewhere else - to be someone else - his reason had been constant and unchanging. Unyielding even in the fact of Batman. Perhaps stronger because of him, in fact.

One could say Jonathan Crane, as they knew him, was dead. He injects his thoughts into his answer, which seems to be referencing Shinjiro's history.]

Another reason. Like dying?

[A simple answer, but one with layers of depth.]

[hoboagogo]

[A pause- confused, as though not quite following the train of thought. When he questions, it's a bit slower, more distanced and reserved... because hello, personal issue.]

You mean, dying as a reason, or as a result and you wanna know the reason behind it?

[restingstitchface]

The latter. I want to know the reason why people run so far that committing suicide seems the only option left on the table.

[It says something of how much Crane favors Shinjiro, as a test subject, that there's little condescension in his voice.]

[hoboagogo]

[So polite and good to him. Which is really the only reason he doesn't curse an hang up. He knows Crane's a psychologist, clearly angling to get him in his office as a patient or something... and so that provocative and personal comment has to be absolutely intentional, he decides. His expression keeps neutral, though he does look out past the feed, as though exasperated.]

Yeah, I guess that's real fascinating for you.

[A sarcastic huff of breath, and he shakes his head.]

Probably tons of reasons out there for that one. I kicked it 'cause I had to. That's all there was to it.

[restingstitchface]

[Crane does find it fascinating, because he's been in every situation where one would expect to feel fear. The smell of blood; the concoction granny had brewed had never made him feel nauseous. Being alone didn't terrify him. He welcomed solitude, and it was why solitary confinement didn't scare him.

His failure had been mounting to frustration and he hadn't been afraid even when he'd been caught, stripped bare and forced into a cell. He had felt no fear in casting off his old mantle for a new one made of straw. He had grown to learn he couldn't feel anything.

Even at the end of that life as Arkham's administrator, he hadn't been afraid to stare down the barrel of a mental gun. That fearlessness was why he found this subject incredibly fascinating.]

I see. Sometimes there isn't a choice in the matter, for any of us. We can only control our response and struggle by.

[hoboagogo]

[An unconscious exhale- slightly relieved that Crane hadn't pressed the question more. It's still not something he's terribly comfortable talking about- especially in public, and especially with the slowly drawing doubts that it might not have been his best and only option.]

Guess that comes back to your 'which is easier' question, then.

[restingstitchface]

[Crane looks around his clinic's office, where he's sitting behind his desk. It's one place where he does his research, but it's also one place where people believe their secrets stay safe. They understand the expectation to talk, there - it's why they all come through that door.]

Absolutely. I suppose my line of questioning isn't secure over this public channel, however. A more private offer is open, should you wish it.