#and then u sit there crying on the phone quietly bc u cant express that u hate how ur face looks in a pic

[waspalisades]

i thought i looked so pretty and did so good being a person at the big party i went to last night and one unflattering picture of me drunk and unconscious on the floor has shattered the illusion lmao nevermind

[the-scarecrxw]

for the first time in awhile I had a Gotham fic idea!

4x1/2 au where Jonathan doesn't become his fear when trapped in the closet, and instead succumbs to it, his condition backpedaling. He's stuck there until Jim and Harvey came investigating after the thugs attacked Penguin and he pieced all the shit together. Jim hears his crying and opens up the door and Jonathan immediately bolts all the way outside and Jim has to chase him down but pauses bc Jonathan stopped on the porch and collapsed on the ground, just crying and mumbling incomprehensibly. Jim has to gently calm him down and once Jonathan recognizes Jim and Harvey as the cops that shot and killed his dad he almost freaks out again but Jim just reassures him "you're safe, youre okay, everything is going to be okay" etc etc and Jonathan just quietly sniffles and goes "y-you're going t-to se-end me ba-ack to A-Arkham, a-aren't you?" and before Jim can even respond he speaks up again "I can't go back, I ca-ant! Th-they-- it's horrible, p-please, I cant d-do it anymore. The iso-solation, the shocks, the ice, i cant," he just mumbles off as he starts crying again and Jim sighs and grabs his shoulders, lightly shaking him. "After all that's happened, how they sold you off, lied to me. I don't think Arkhams the right place for you."

more under the cut bc it gotten long

Jonathan calms down and Jim turns back to Harvey like okay fuck shit well we should bring him back to the department, have him write up something on the guys who basically kidnapped him, and maybe write up some shit about Arkham too because that warden has GOT to go, for human trafficking at the very least. They drive back to GCPD and Jim holes up in his office making many phone calls and shuffling through paperwork to try and work out Jonathan being released from Arkham (he's not a criminal, he should not be in Arkham, and he's 18 so he's not a ward of the city anymore-- a city that placed him in Arkham because it was inconvenient to care for him long term in a proper hospital or mental health facility) Meanwhile, Jonathan sits with Harvey at his desk and Jim's old desk while he slowly fills out statements and such and Harvey just. really doesn't want to be here "babysitting some schizo kid" (as he complained loudly to Jim about.) Jonathan opts to hide under the desk to fill out paperwork.

In comes mister Pengy to complain about there still being one thug left (in this he never returned back to the Crane house for more toxin, he just left the fuckin city like a baby) and he of course crows about Jim not catching the mastermind behind the toxin either and Harvey just goes "oh we did, we got him. he's a traumatized teenager, wanna see?" *points at desk he's hiding under* cue penguin puff up, his metaphorical feathers all ruffled and he snaps something about how useless the gcpd is and storms out.

It takes awhile but Jim manages to secure Jonathan's freedom and when he goes to tell him the news (and collect the statements he's been writing) he's surprised to see Jonathan had snagged his father's old notebook from the house and had been flipping through it, and was scribbling away formulas on papers. Jim asks what he's doing and Jonathan says "Well... I-- I uh, was thinking... What if i-instead of in-inocculat-ting oneself to fear t-to cure it -- f-feeling it over a-and over to become u-used to it... What if y-you could b-block f-fear rec-ceptors. Even te-temporarily, to c-cure fear." (yes I'm giving Jonny a bad stutter with his condition having down spiraled) "A-Add some u-uppers inste-ead of de-depress-ssants. I d-don't know. Just a th-theory. M-My dad was b-better at this."

Jim does not know how to respond to this. He just shrugs and is like "Well I suppose it sounds possible, but why do you still want to cure fear, you saw what happened to your father after he felt no fear." Jonathan's expression hardens and his hand shakes around the pencil clenched in it and he's like "I kn-know but I w-want to cure my-myself. I'm s-so fuck-king messed up I can't fun-function. I'm better off in A-Arkham, no one would want to put up with me," etc etc. "Th-thats why I ha-ave to c-cure myself."

and Jim just feels bad. He sighs and sits on the ground across from Jon (he'd been kneeling this whole time) and sorta holds his hands out placatingly. "You don't have to cure yourself, kid. You can get better on your own if you work at it. And you'll have real opportunity to get better, because you're not going back to Arkham. The city agreed you didn't belong there. Because you're eighteen I'm sure you expect you'll have to fend for yourself but I'm not going to let that happen. You can stay with me. I'll help take care of you." Jim. did not plan to say that. just as he finished saying that he realized what a horrible idea it is. he works full time as a police chief he cannot stay home and make sure Jonathan doesn't freak out every five minutes. But he can't rescind that offer, not when Jonathan looks so hopeful, a hesitant smile beginning to twitch at the corner of his lips and eyes shining with tears unshed.

There's TWO different directions this story could go.

1: Jon settles in with Jim well in his tiny apartment. he sleeps on the couch but that's okay he likes to keep a light on anyways. Perhaps some dad Jim developing with Jon crawling into bed with him after nightmares, calling him mid-shift begging for him to come home because he can't stop seeing the scarecrow. accidentally calling him dad. Jon coming to work with him sometimes because he doesn't want to be home alone. nsft brainrot says take it further and make it Jim/Jon which.... I'll elaborate on in an rb cause nsft

2: Jon DOESNT settle well with Jim and Jim reaches out to the one person he knows that could juggle a difficult teenager. Alfred Pennyworth. Alfred is hesitant but it wouldn't be the first time they took a teenager off Jim's hands, and they get him set up well in the manor. This ends up being blatant Bruce/Jon tho. I shall elaborate in rb for this as well