Professor Fear (Jonathan Crane x OC)

Chapter one

Daria Morrison sat on the edge of her bed. Cupping her face in her hands, staring into space. Her thoughts were like millions of floating tendrils around her. Escaping in and out of her conscious mind. The stress of her unfinished essays gnawed at her. She could have been concluding her philosophy essay right there and then yet instead she stared aimlessly at the Star Wars poster on the wall of her dorm room. It was half an hour until she had to get to class.

After a long while of staying in the same position she finally stood up and went to the shared bathroom. Her friend who shared the dorm was already in her morning classes. Daria looked in the mirror and tugged gently at her skin before she began to apply makeup over the slightly dark circles under her eyes. Lately slept had been becoming hard, instead she'd been staring into nothing in a slightly subconscious state. Slowly she combed out her knotted chestnut hair and wandered back into the bedroom to find some clothes for the day. She pulled on the dark green shirt that was at the top of her clothing pile and a pair of slightly torn blue jeans. From the view outside of the window it looked cold outside and so she grabbed a baggy grey hoodie from her shelf before heading out of the door.
She'd gotten halfway down the stairs before she realised she was only wearing socks and had forgotten her bag. She returned to the calm and quiet room and grabbed the red converses that had been carelessly chucked off the night before and grabbed her heavy green shoulder bag.
She could hear the voices of the other students around her, some whispering about how tired and pissed Daria looked, others were being smart and refraining from talking about the strange girl who walked with good pace to her class which she'd be six minutes early for.

"I can't believe you did that!" Ethan's voice was dramatically loud and Daria winced at how close he was to her ear. They'd just left the building and were going to get lunch in the sandwich store, as they did every Friday.
"What happened?" April skipped in between the two, showing off her model-like figure in a checkered pencil skirt and white blouse. The other two were almost the opposite. Ethan had stuffed himself in a slightly tight red hoodie, branded Hollister – to Daria's dismay – and worn jeans. Daria mimicked his outfit except her grey hoodie was quite big for her and her circles under her eyes were much more defined than her taller friend. Ethan was a six foot softie. April on the other hand was quite small for her age but had a venomous mouth when someone annoyed her.  
"The Prof asked Daria if she'd participate in the lesson since she was staring off and she replied that it was hard to not sleep when a 'lullaby of boredom is being played'," Ethan couldn't help but smile and then let out a giggle.
"It's not too exciting Ethan, just because 89% of the time I'm quiet." Daria dismissed while she grabbed the sandwich of the top shelf that caught her fancy. "I was saying what everyone was thinking anyway,"

"Well we have psychology next and if you say that to Dr. Crane he will keep you behind to do extra work," He reminded her. "He's come back from his temporary leave, Mrs Dalton won't be covering anymore."

Ethan and Daria took the same Psychology class. Daria wanted to take psychology further whereas Ethan took it for extra credit. For the majority of the year so far, the actual psychology teacher Dr. Crane had been caught up with his primary job of running Arkham Asylum in the downtown part of Gotham. During his abscence for undisclosed reasons, the class had been led by the enthusiastic but not highly esteemed Mrs Dalton. A woman in her late sixties who had had the luck of being able to study the original Behavioural Science stuff back in the 20th century when the controversial studies took place in America.  

"Yes, I've heard the doctor has a slight temper," A smile began to curl onto Daria's lips. Probably the first positive expression that morning. "Then again I can do as well," They went to join the queue to pay for lunch.

"I didn't see you in the room this morning," April looked to Daria buying her sandwich and a black coffee which the woman behind the counter had swivelled around to go make. 
"I was probably in the bathroom," Daria dismissed, her eyes didn't move from the coffee machine behind the counter.
"It was three in the morning and you weren't because I went to the bathroom," she spun Daria around to face her and looked at her closely.
"I was on the roof," she admitted, then smiled at their expressions. Ethan raised an eyebrow to her confession. "What? I like time alone sometimes, and the bathroom window has a wide ledge you can climb up," 
April starred for longer than deemed comfortable into her friend's eyes to search for signs of lying. After she couldn't, the conversation ended and she was satisfied. Ethan bought his two sandwiches for himself and got April a cappuccino with vanilla syrup.