Despite everything, Jonathan still prays.

There’s a false comfort he feels when his fingers intertwine. He speaks in hushed whispers underneath his breath, squeezing his eyes shut to pray to a God he hardly believes in. It’s an act considered irrational, illogical, and even ill-suited for someone like him. But sometimes, he can still hear the scoldings of his Great Granny — We don’t pray in this house. We wait for a sign from the Lord — And a familiar sense of guilt settles deep in his bones.

The greatest powers on this Earth are fear and control. Yet for someone so knowledgeable on the human psyche, something as idiotic as love had allowed irrationality to swallow him whole. Long gone was the comfort he felt from quiet prayer, and not for the first time in his life, he experienced the too-familiar tremors of his anxiety taking hold.

“What’s that you’re holding, dear?” he crooned at the keeper of his heart. The clinical smile he reserved only for his patients stretched against his lips in a defense mechanism.

His arrogant hubris had made him careless, and allowed for an unknown nightmare to come to life before his very eyes — Scarecrow’s mask was held in between the clasped palms of his darling, hurt written all over their face.

He should’ve noticed the signs of vague suspicion. The subtle questions about him being at work too often, or how he was missed during time spent apart from each other. Instead, he had brushed these comments off. And chose to lie instead, spurred by a newfound fear of losing someone he had come to think of so dearly.

Love, he tells himself, was just a rush of oxytocin sent to the brain. Anyone can get addicted to the high. But unfortunately, there seemed to be a likely chance he might have to quit cold turkey.

His thoughts were already beginning to spiral from the lack of control he now had, dropping all pretenses, Jonathan grabbed a syringe from his desk. Just as a precaution. Silently praying that he wouldn’t need to use it.

“I suppose an explanation is in order.”