[arkham asylum]

[thisiswhatyoulivefor]

Caroline ducks into the tunnels leading to the Penitentiary, stack of papers tucked under an arm. She's got a folder of stuff for one of the... patients? to fill out. Are people enjoying a stay in Arkham patients or inmates? It should be the former, but given that she's going to the "penitentiary" building... Well.

Anyway. Whatever the case, she's been directed to take these forms to a uh, resident and help them fill them out. Whoever this is apparently isn't allowed to use pens or pencils, but that's just Caroline guessing from her instructions. The higher ups sure as hell don't tell her things like that. Things that might be uhh, important. And you know? Caroline's pretty sure they don't ban Benny with the bad depression from having pens (though you can never really tell with Arkham). So this'll be a fun trip.

It's kind of a hike to get there from the Mansion, but the tunnels help a little. She really doesn't understand why she so rarely sees anybody else down here. They're convenient. And lowkey kind of creepy when no one else is in them. ...Huh. Maybe that's why. Up some stairs and here she is. And... no map. Goddammit. She'll actually have to flag somebody down and ask them, and that's always a crapshoot.

Fortunately, her first try pays off. A decently nice guard gives her directions and no bullshit, and he even threw in a tip about the back hallways so she doesn't have to awkwardly walk through the cell blocks. Thank god. Caroline had not been looking forward to that.

Here it is. Interview room two. It's got one of those one-way mirrors like a police department interrogation room, so she can see she's the first to arrive. That's fine. She steps in and takes the seat closest to the door. Some instincts are hard to break, even if that means whoever she's helping has to be led past her. Hopefully that'll be soon. Caroline's not really into drawn out suspense.

Comments

[two_face]

It always takes so goddamn long to get one of these paperwork assistance appointments setup. Harvey's pretty sure most of that is some combination of equal parts spitefulness and incompetence - and he's not sure which annoys him more. Still, he's actually kind of glad when guards finally roll up on his cell to tell him it's time to go do some fucking paperwork. He even mostly cooperates with getting chained and strapped into that stupid upright gurney thing.

He puts a little effort into smalltalk while the guards wheel him around like old luggage. They don't take too well to it. Harv spends the rest of the trip in grudging silence. If he pushes it, he may just get smacked around and shoved back into administrative segregation. And then he'll have to wait several more months before he gets the chance to do this shit again.

The procedures to get him into the interview are as long and as arduous as ever; Harvey puts up with them fairly patiently.

He hesitates as he's shuffled into the interview room, flanked by armed guards. Whatever helper he's stuck with is already in there and waiting. A woman. A tiny, redhaired woman.

...Wait. Wait. That's Crane's secretary. It's gotta be.

Harv gets some sharp encouragement by way of billy club jabbed into his back. He grunts, stumbles forward, and whirls to give the asshole guard a sharp glare. He'll regret that, sometime. For now, Harv settles in to his seat across from the secretary. One of the guards swiftly locks him securely in place.

"Mornin'," Harv growls, twisting the cuffs on his wrists until they're slightly more tolerable. They'll never be comfortable, but what in this hell-hole is?

Crane failed to mention the secretary is pretty.

[thisiswhatyoulivefor]

Caroline very deliberately doesn't turn around when the door opens, so it takes a moment for fucking Two-Face to shuffle into view. Of course. In interview room two and everything. He's got a lot of restraints, unsurprisingly, and has to be locked and bolted into even more apparently. "Good morning, Mister Dent," she says fairly pleasantly as one of the guards secures him to both the chair and the floor. He's uh, really not going anywhere. Geez.

And yet. "Now miss," the guard says, turning to Caroline, "don't you let him have anything. No pens, no paperclips, nothin'."

"Of course," she says agreeably. That's the whole point of her filling the forms out for him, right? So he doesn't stockpile office supplies.

"Don't give him any personal information." Is he actually ticking these off on his fingers? He is. There's a whole list.

Caroline blinks. "Of course not." Well darn. There goes her plans to give him her social security number and all her social media passwords. Whatever will they talk about now?

"Don't answer any questions that ain't about the paperwork, and don't get any closer than ya are now." The guard taps his fingers for emphasis.

"No sir," she replies evenly. Really? Really? It's hard not to roll her eyes or make some kind of face at that. Honestly.

Apparently having been duly convinced of Caroline's sincerity, the guard nods and says, "All right then. We'll be right outside the whole time." Caroline doubts that very much. "And you," he adds, pointing at Dent, "better behave yourself."

And with that, the guard finally shuffles out after his long gone buddy and shuts the door. Probably to make a beeline for the break room down the hall. After a long moment Caroline turns back to Dent and raises an eyebrow. "Well, that was... something. I was half expecting to hear about a curfew or not feeding you after midnight."

[two_face]

Harvey rolls his eyes while the guard starts going over protocol like she's some kind of an idiot. And he just... keeps going. And going. And going. Harvey glances back and forth between the guard and the secretary, repeatedly. He feels a series of small expressions cross his face. The guard keeps going. The secretary's handling it in a sort of bland, cheerful agreeable way. Harvey bops around in his seat impatiently, as much as his chains let him, and fidgets with his shackles.

He blinks up at the guard after the 'behave yourself' comment, as wide-eyed as he can manage. He knows he's not ever gonna quite manage 'innocent'. He's lucky the guard doesn't smack him on his way out.

"Eh, he's feelin' pissy today," Harvey says in a very 'what are you gonna do?' tone of voice - he has that effect on people. "What, you mean you're not gonna give us a stapler? No letter opener? Box cutter?" He pauses a beat. "...Bank statements?"

[thisiswhatyoulivefor]

Caroline lets her eyes go wide in a very concerned way. She can pull off innocent a little better than Dent can. (Not much if you know her, though.) "Well," she says thoughtfully, in an upbeat tone of voice, "I was going to give you some scissors, my credit card number, and a hug." She pauses to frown. "But apparently that's against the rules."

Well, maybe not Doctor Bradley's rules. He'd probably allow hugs. Not scissors though, unless they were the dopey crafting kind. Nice little zigzag, curlicue scissors nobody needs. Anyway.

Caroline finally takes the opportunity to open the folder of forms they're going to be filling out and holy shit that's a lot. That's a lot of forms. "Sheesh, are we doing Bruce Wayne's taxes or something?" They'll be at this a while.

[two_face]

"We wouldn't say no to any of that," Harv says with a thoughtful sort of crooked frown. He considers for a short moment, then laughs very quietly. "And we ain't exactly the rule-abidin' type." That probably goes without saying, though.

"Bruce Wayne's rich, he don't pay taxes." Still. He eyes the amount of paperwork shoved into his folder - there's... a lot. He hopes it's in anything resembling order but there's always the strong possibility it's just been shoved in carelessly. "Yeeeaah," He says slowly, exhaling. "I know." He's pretty sure that's all the paperwork since his arrest and intake. "We could'a done it ages ago but..." Harvey trails off, rattling the restraints on his arms for emphasis. He opens his hands and gestures vaguely, palms up. "And y'know, the whole no-pens-or-pencils thing."

[thisiswhatyoulivefor]

Caroline laughs. "Nah, you don't want my credit card number. I'm broke enough to work here." She waves a hand idly at the room.

Even if she hasn't filled out these forms with or for anyone yet, Caroline's definitely seen plenty of these. And filed them. And filed them and filed them. There seem to be rooms and rooms full of the damn things. She starts reshuffling them into the proper order on autopilot. "Yeah, and people get mad if you fill out forms with anything else." Is that... no. Not the one they need first. Damn.

"Really digging this shove everything in at random system someone had going on here," she grumbles while she works. "Oh my god, this one isn't even yours." She squints at it in a mixture of annoyance and disbelief. Who does this shit. "Unless you're leading a secret double life as the Riddler." Caroline snorts. Double life. That's awful.

[two_face]

"Eh... fair enough," Harv says and laughs again. "Not like there's anything in here for us to use it on." No commissary, and all.

"Welcome to Arkham, home of doing everything with the least amount of effort possible." That's more or less on the brochures, at least he's pretty sure. Right under the 'scenic solitary confinement' tagline. He cocks his head to one side at the next bit. Of course there's other people's shit in his file. Of course there is. "Oh no, you caught us," He says with the straightest face he can manage. "The Two-Face thing has been a clever ruse all along. Next thing you'll say you know where we hid the red wig and green suit."

[thisiswhatyoulivefor]

"Yeah, I don't think Mister Rules is gonna let you out to use the vending machine with your ill gotten pocket change any time soon." Okay working at Arkham isn't quite that bad. They have to give some incentive to work here, after all. But you know. It's mostly doctors and security folks who get the alleged big bucks, not paperwork goblin number seventy-three.

Caroline laughs again. "Uh-oh, I broke the code. Do I get one of those light up trophies?" Those things are everywhere. There was one on the roof of the building across the street from hers for a while, even. "Oh thank god, here," she says suddenly. "I found page one finally."

[two_face]

"Nah, unfortunately. No stale candy bars for us." Harvey sounds a little vaguely disappointed at that. It's not entirely faked. After long enough in Arkham, even stale vending machine food sounds appealing.

He impatiently bounces his feet on the bottom bar of his chair while she hunts through paperwork; his stupid prison-issue flip-flops make a very small flap flap flap. "Sure, we probably left one of those fuckin' things in a corner or under a table around here somewhere." That's probably even true. They're everywhere. If Nygma tripped, fifty of them would just roll out of his pockets.

"I'm amazed that's is even in there," Harvey says, eye the now much-neater paperwork hell. "We'll be lucky if the important shit isn't missing entirely."

[thisiswhatyoulivefor]

"All right," Caroline says a thousand forms later, "I'm guessing this is about all we can get done this time." She sets her pen down and shakes her hand out. "Mister Rules has probably had all the coffee he can stand."

They're not done. They're not even close. Caroline guesses there's another two sessions' worth at least, if nothing else accumulates in the meantime. "How long does you usually have to wait for a turn in paperwork hell?"

[two_face]

She handles the actual paperwork doing well enough. There's a lot of it. A lot a lot. That they get through as much as they do is kind of amazing, on a couple different levels. He also learns her name is allegedly Caroline. It may be a fake name, and he wouldn't really blame her for that. She's been friendly with him but he has no illusions about that. She's got plenty reasons to be afraid of him, friendly or no.

"It varies. Weeks, at least," Harvey frowns thoughtfully, half-shrugging. "Usually months."

[thisiswhatyoulivefor]

Caroline makes a face and a disgruntled ech noise. "Of course it does. Why wouldn't it take weeks and weeks to do necessary paperwork." Paperwork that she then gets to file at lightning speed, of course.

She shuffles the papers back into some kind of order so she can put them back in the folder. Distantly, Caroline hears some shuffling around that's probably the guards reluctantly getting ready to do their jobs again.

"Well, I think all the noise out there is my cue," she says, standing and stretching. "I don't really want Mister Rules interrogating me like I brought you home past curfew." He's a very overprotective father, Mister Rules.

Instead of heading out the door though, Caroline makes a uh, slight detour first. If anyone ever asks, she'll claim it was a last minute impulse, but it's really more like a several hundred forms ago impulse. So sue her. She scoots around the table to the No Crayon Zone. "All right, before I leave, as promised--" she leans down into Dent's personal space and wraps one arm around his shoulders in a hug. Not a very long one, and it's not a great angle for it, but you know. A hug.

"Anyway," she says as she straightens up and moves back toward the door, "good luck with lunch." She picks up the folder full of papers. "I hear they're doing meatloaf again already." And with that, she's out the door.

Whew good, the guards are only just heading this way with the... upright gurney thing they're apparently going to strap Dent into. Fun.