Disclaimer: Batman and all related characters belong to DC/WB. I don't own DC or WB. You do the maths.

EDIT: THIS IS NO LONGER A ONE-SHOT. I decided to make a multi-chapter fanfic out of it, for I had too many ideas to just ignore them. Let's see where it gets.

Warning: the story is most definitely not suitable for children, for it deals with "light-hearted" subjects such as rape and torture. It's not described in detail, but it's heavily implied implied. Consider yourselves warned.

If you're still here: enjoy.

Silence is a luxury you rarely can enjoy in Arkham.

Night and day, the air is always filled with scrams, curses, mad laughters, cries, prayers. They seem to chase you, getting inside your brain until you think that they will never stop, that you will still ear them for the rest of your life. The first days in are almost unbearable: those screams and curses and cries can drive you crazy – well, even crazier than usual, for you cannot be an Arkham inmate and be totally sane after all, can you?

Oh, you get used to it after a while – if you make it through the first week, of course. You learn to just ignore them, to keep them out of your mind.

Still, you begin to yearn silence more than anything else, besides freedom. Even more than revenge on the Bat. Just a few minutes of silence would be enough to make you feel like a free man…well, almost: but you can still close your eyes and pretend you are somewhere else.

That night was one of those nights – when most of the inmates had been sedated after a fight that had happened in the cafeteria that morning. One of the few nights when you can just lie back in your bed, close your eyes and enjoy the silence.

That was exactly what Professor Jonathan Crane, otherwise known as the Scarecrow, was doing right now.

He frowned as silence was broken by the sound of footsteps approaching, but as he recognized those footsteps – the same footsteps that had been plaguing his dreams for a few months now – he bolted upright in the bed, his annoyance quickly replaced with some other emotion: fear.

Ironically enough the Scarecrow, the Master of Fear himself, was currently scared to death, his bony frame shaking pitifully in the darkness of his cell, his eyes wide with utter terror as he listened the footsteps approaching.

Not him. Not him. Oh please, please, don't let it be him…

He gave a silent sigh of relief as he heard something else – the sound of something being dragged on the floor, and the sound of broken sobs. It seemed that Lyle Bolton, Chief of Security of Arkham Asylum, had already given vent to his sadism for that night.

He heard the door of the nearby cell being slammed open, and the sound of something – someone, in this case – being carelessly thrown on the floor. The door was slammed closed again, and those dreadful steps receded down the hallway. Crane could even hear Bolton humming as he left – that sick bastard.

As Bolton's steps finally faded away, everything was silent again – except for the broken, shaking sobs that came from Jervis Tetch's cell.

Careful to not make a sound – he didn't want to be caught doing anything irregular under Bolton's management, thank you so much – Crane slowly removed a certain loosened brick from the wall between his cell and Tetch's. He put it down on the mattress and turned to the hole communicating with the Mad Hatter's cell.

"Jervis?" he called, keeping his voice barely above a whisper "are you alright?"

The only answer he got were a few more sobs and whimpers. Well, it was a stupid question anyway – of course he wasn't alright: nocturnal 'close encounters' with Lyle Bolton were often quite painful and always terribly humiliating. He could tell.

Squinting in the dim light that came from the small window, high enough that he couldn't even look outside, he could see the trembling form of Jervis Tetch curled up in a fetal position on the cold floor. He wasn't actually crying, for he didn't seem to have tears to cry anymore, but those dry sobs and pitiful whimpers that kept leaving his lips were heart wrenching to hear.

"I…it hurt" Tetch finally whimpered, "it hurt so much…"

"I know" Crane simply said, already knowing what Tetch was talking about. He wasn't sure he could do anything to soothe the poor man's pain. Man, he wasn't even sure he wanted to – it was none of his business, after all. Still he shifted to sit more comfortably on the hard mattress, getting ready to listen whatever Tetch wanted to say about his dreadful experience. He was…he had been a psychologist, after all. Old habits die hard.

Besides, he couldn't help but feel some sympathy for him. He knew what it felt like – he had been through it several times, and he knew that the first one was always the worst. It was no wonder he was so shaken – the Ventriloquist still hadn't recovered yet, and it had been quite some time after his last 'encounter' with Bolton now.

"I guess it was his way to welcome you back in Arkham – he's the new Chief of Security. I suggest you to get used to it, it's most likely going to happen again."

Tetch sobbed louder at his statement. "W…why?" he whimpered.

"Good question. There could be a number of answers; if you want my opinion, he's not much different from most of us. He likes to control everyone within his reach, to cause people suffering just for fun, to prove himself as superior…"

The Mad Hatter whined remembering the way he had laughed while he cried, unable to bear the searing pain, begging him to stop. "I'm n…nothing l…like him," he sobbed.

Crane thought for a moment, then he shook his head. No, not Jervis: he had brainwashed people in order to get what he wanted – something involving a girl named Alice, if he recalled correctly – but he didn't seem the kind of guy who would hurt anyone just for his own amusement.

"No" he said slowly "you're not like him."

I am, he mentally added.

Tetch sniffled. His sobs were slowly ceasing, but he was still curled on the ground, shivering, his blond hair sticking to his face in his sweat. It was a pitiful sight, indeed.

"J…Jonathan? Are you still there?"

"No, I got out walking through the wall" Crane said a bit sarcastically – still a small smirk formed on his lips as he thought back at the ghost tales he used to read as a child, the ones with ghosts walking through the walls to frighten people. His smirk widened at the thought of a frightening ghost floating inside Bolton's office, scaring him out of his wits…

"I though you went down the White Rabbit's hole," Tetch simply said, this time without sobbing.

Crane sighed and rolled his eyes. He should have expected him to say something related to 'Alice in Wonderland' sooner or later. "Jervis, you should lie down on your bed now. Sleeping on the floor won't make you any good."

"I can't move. It hurts too much." Tetch whimpered, refusing to move. He suddenly looked much like a little boy refusing to go to school.

Crane frowned. "He didn't use lube?"

"He…he did, I guess" Jervis sniffled again, feeling terribly humiliated "but it hurts anyway."

"You've been lucky, then: he isn't always that considerate," Crane said bitterly "now get up from the floor and on lay your bed. Tomorrow it will be worse if you don't – trust me, I know."

"W…what if he comes back for me again?" Tetch was shivering again.

"He got what he wanted. He won't bother you for the next few weeks…not this way, at least."

There was a brief silence, then slowly, ignoring the fact every inch of his bruised body was screaming in agony, Jervis Tetch stood up. He walked to the bed, wincing in pain all the way, and leaned on the mattress with a weary sigh, wrapping the rough blanket around himself. He closed his eyes, his breath slowly growing steadier.

"It's silent tonight," he finally mumbled.

"I know" Crane leaned down on his mattress as well, staring at the ceiling "it's one of those nights. If you close your eyes you can almost pretend you're somewhere else, can't you?"

"Oh, yes…" the Mad Hatter said softly, his eyes tightly shut "I can pretend I'm in Wonderland, having some tea with the March Hare…and Alice, too…do you think she would join the dance now?"

"If you want her to, she will. Your mind is your own Wonderland – you told this to me, Jervis, remember? You can make anything happen in your mind, and Bolton cannot take this away from you. No one can."

"That's true. My own Wonderland…" Tetch whispered moments before drifting off to sleep "we're all mad here. We're all mad…"

Jonathan Crane stayed awake for a while longer, listening to the silence. However, he wasn't pretending to be somewhere else now – he was trying to figure out a way to escape. He wasn't going to just wait his turn to be tortured by that sick bastard. He had to find a way out: Bolton was most likely going to make him pay dearly if he was caught, but he was willing to take the risk at this point.

Still, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate about the necessity to escape, the only thing he could think of was Tetch's quote from 'Alice in Wonderland'.

We're all mad here.

Well, maybe the escape plan could wait until tomorrow – Bolton would have waited some time before striking again. Now everything he needed was some worry free sleep, the kind of sleep he could nobody could get in Arkham – but he could get it now.

Because, he thought as sleep finally swept him away, it was one of those nights.