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Summary: The boy wanted the cat to stay at the hospital with him. She made the scarecrows go away. But she never stayed, did she? And the scarecrows kept coming back.
Kingdom of Fear: The Cat and the Scarecrow.
The boy writhed and thrashed against the restraints against the ashen sheet wreathed hospital bed. He let out moans of distress, head lolling back and forth. "Please," He deplored as his eyes squeezed shut, trying to block out the sight of that straw carved baleful face with three glowing crimson holes for eyes and mouth staring down at him, towering over his bedside.
The ghastly mass of pallid yellow-tan straw stitched together lumbered forward, floating on air, slithering through it towards his squirming form. He hated them. Oh, how he hated them. They made him scream, they terrorized him, they stared and did nothing as they tormented him. But more than anyone else, he hated him, the man that had done this to him. His father.
His eyes shifted past the abominable beast of pure horror that only he could see and looked out at the entrance to his room. She wasn't here. Dammit, she wasn't here. Where was his cat?
The cat…..the orderlies and nurses thought that the cat was just another figment of his imagination, like the scarecrows were, but John knew better. The cat was not part of his imagination. The poisonous excrement that his father had injected him with was supposed to create a constant sense and hallucinations of fear, not relief, not of safety, and certainly not of desire or love.
The cat was not part of his hallucinations. She was real. Dear god she was real. She was the most real thing in this building, in this world, and he wanted her. But where was she?
Sometimes she came by, scavenging food from other patients. She claimed she brought them to her friend "Ivy." John didn't care who she took the food for. He just wanted her to stay. She was never able to stay though. She would stay by his side every now and then, those intense sparkling eyes like a predator's watching him, a glimmer of sympathy for the deranged young man in the bed showing every now and then, but only for a moment.
He first saw her at least two weeks after he had first been imprisoned here. She had snuck in with a packaged sandwich under her arm, hiding behind corridors and gurneys so that the staff didn't see her.
He never knew her name. She only went by Cat. Finally, after so long, John smiled, letting out a laugh that to anyone else would probably sound like an inhuman cackle. Yes, "Cat" was so fitting of her, wasn't it? Calculating, wild, beautiful, dangerous, agile, sneaky, pragmatic. It fit her perfectly. He recalled her once near his bedside only three or four days ago, telling him calmly that the scarecrows weren't really there and he was stronger than the scarecrows. He wanted to believe that. She had pushed her grey hood, crowned with a pair of black goggles off her head, showing her wild, curly bright copper hair shining in the light as she observed him carefully.
God, he missed her. It was a week before that last meeting when John realized why she wasn't visiting him as frequently. He saw her outside of the room once, talking to someone else. A boy. A small pale boy with short well-kept black hair. It was then that joining the terror and agony, had been the fiery burn of hate and jealousy.
He was the reason she wasn't coming by as much. He was the reason why the cat hadn't come to him to make the scarecrows go away as much anymore. When she was here, the scarecrows didn't touch him, but now…..that boy….no, not even a boy, that little pup had taken the cat from him.
John bended his neck back, eyes shutting and turning his head away from the gaping rouge colored hole hovering by his ear, ignoring the floating being's constant groaning and torturous howls. His petrified, feverish mind focused on that beautiful, cocky, smirking face, those glinting green-gold eyes and that gleaming copper hair. Cat. He needed to see her again. One day, when he broke out of here, he would find her again. He would make the pup as afraid as he was and then kill the pup and would take his cat away. Yes, he'd keep her away from the stupid little pup who had no idea what fear really was.
He heard talking and his eyes snapped open, risking a chance look at the scarecrow getting in his face again, as his heart thundered against the cage of his chest, he looked past the beast at the door and saw two orderlies staring at him and talking. They were making fun of him. John was sure of it. They had nothing better to do so they mocked him. John's teeth clenched together, staring coldly at them as the rest of his body shook.
Yes, one day he would break out of here, he'd kill the pup and take the cat, and he would make everyone else in Gotham-in the world as terrified as he was. Always.
He lay back against the pillow, shuddering at the howling breath by his ear as he mumbled determinedly, "Cat, I'll find you. And we'll rule our kingdom of fear together forever."