Diabolical | T. Drake ✔

[22] Dissociative Identities

Stephanie pushed open the door to Tim's lab and found him focused on his laptop, an apple in hand that he was surprisingly eating without any qualms. Either he was very hungry and couldn't find anything else or Alfred's lectures of consuming more fruits had finally rubbed off on him.

He did not notice her step in which again was a rarity. Ever since he had gotten that package in the courier that afternoon, he had been quite preoccupied.

"What's up, Timbers?" She asked, watching him get startled as he looked up at her.

"The ceiling?"

"That joke has gotten old, y'know," she remarked, taking the seat beside him although she knew he had quickly clicked out of the tab he had been viewing earlier.

"Still works for me," he replied, giving her a smile, "what are you doing here?"

"Came to check up on you. And I did not expect to find you here actually eating an apple."

He paused, looking at the fruit in his hand in surprise, "was I really eating? Wow."

"You, my friend, eat only when you are stressed and then forget all about what you were consuming," she pointed out, "just like it happened now. Where did you even get the apple from?"

"I... I don't remember...? Jason came by to say hi and maybe he brought these," he looked at the tray which had only one apple left where there had been three earlier.

"What are you stressed about?" She asked, slightly concerned for him.

"Nothing, really," he tried to brush it off but he knew it was nowhere near as easy to persuade Steph as it was convincing Richard or Jason. "I have some work to do and then you know the dates for our exams are coming up. Just normal pressure, nothing serious."

"What were you looking at before I came here?"

He sighed, shaking his head in amusement, "and I was just waiting for how long it would take for you to ask."

"Come on, I don't like it when you keep things from me."

"I am not. I was just studying..." She raised an eyebrow skeptically as if asking him to elaborate so he had to add, "about Dissociative Identity Disorder."

"How come?"

"I am just interested. So I was looking up everything I can find about it like the symptoms, the behavioral patterns, how to tell when the switch occurs, you get the gist. It seemed quite fascinating to me so I was studying all I could about it," he remarked, knowing that he didn't have to lie to her about it if only he told her part of the truth.

The actual reason he was researching the disorder was that he had studied Crane's file and found out that the man had almost gotten diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

For some reason, there wasn't a very specific evaluation of Crane as he also read multiple accounts of how the psychiatrists were afraid of working with him. But out of all the information he could gather on Crane through his file, he too suspected that the man might have two separate personalities.

He also recalled how Crane had been extremely aggressive the day Connor and Tim had found him in the basement, it was almost as if it wasn't him in his body but some other terrifying entity had taken hold of him. But after getting knocked out by Connor, Crane woke up as his usual self, not recalling the events prior.

Bruce too suspected that Scarecrow wasn't just an alter ego but in fact, an alter; a personality taking hold of him when he was angry or vulnerable. But Tim couldn't discuss that with Bruce in detail or else the man would get suspicious and find out that Crane was in fact hiding in the Drake Manor's basement.