"I just want to know why."Crane massaged his temples staring at the man sitting on his usual couch, facing the psychologist. "Why you are the way you are. What you used to be and how you came here."
"Doesn't every one? Isn't that the most asked question? Why? We as humans spend our hole lives trying desperately to answer that question."Jack mumbled.
"It's just a few test how bad can it be? A few samples of blood, a little here and there."
"It's up to you doc. I've got no say in this but just know what ever happens is on you."
What prompts a man to torture and kill three innocent strangers? That's what Crane was here to find out. The unassuming young man that sat, perfectly calm, in front of him held the answer.
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"Jack I can't really help you if you won't let me."
"What if I don't want your help?"
"I think you do."
"Yes I need help okay...but just not from you!"
"Why?"
"Look..."Jack sighed and rubbed at his forehead. He still hadn't figured out what his feelings were for this doctor.
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"Look I'm trying to help you. I want to know...I need to know why...Why...Jack will you look at me for a second!" Jonathan hated falling for his patients it made him so aggravated.
"Fine!"Jack crossed the distance between then in one swift stirred and pined Crane to the couch. "See I get these urges when I'm around you...It's all I can do to fight them." Jack pressed their lips together roughly.
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"You've got my blood all worked out, now what?"
"Well I have this idea, it's not entirely worked out yet but it's better than nothing."
"Great when do we start?"
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"Does it hurt?"The needle pierced Jack's skin.
"Not like you would think." Jack smiled weakly.
"Just tell me if you want to stop."
"Nah we've come this far what's the harm in a little more?" Crane injected the rest of the formula.
"What's it going to do?" Jack asked.
"Well it's supposed to bring out what ever you've been keeping locked up inside."
"So I'll find out my past?"
"Perhaps."
"Okay keep going."
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"Let me stay here tonight?" Jack asked standing in the door way of Jonathan's apartment.
"Okay." Jonathan smiled warmly.
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Their lips met in a passionate kiss as Jack pushed Crane in to the bed. Jonathan ran his hands through the mass of brown curls.
"I can't hold back doc."
"It's okay." Crane managed to choke out. He gasped as Jack quickly shredded his cloths and spread his hands all over Crane's fragile body.
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"More injections?"
"Yes I believe that if we can isolate what is inside you I can better understand your condition and then figure out a cure."
"I need a cure?"
"Your memory loss, your strange fixation on death, among other thing points to a well concealed problem that is just going to get worse."
"Okay doc whatever you say."
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"Doc this is doing weird things to me. I get more urges now. I hear strange things in the night."
"We're getting there. It's working!"
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"Not here!" Crane whispered through gritted teeth.
"Come one I know you want it." Jack leaned in close and squeezed Jonathan's growing erection. He pressed the small man closer to the wall.
"It's the middle of the day and we are in my office."
"That's never stopped me before."
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"It's okay just a little more." Crane stuck another needed in him. This time Jack couldn't hold back the scream. His body began to writhe and the table shook. The restraints were the only thing holding his back from grabbing a sharp object and piercing Crane with it. He wanted to kill!
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"What are you doing to me!"
"I'm curing you!"
"No. I can feel the monster growing in me it's not going away."
"I have to first understand it before I can cure you!"
"Do you really have to?"
"Don't you want to be cure?"
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"Do you even love me anymore?" Jonathan laid his hand lightly on Jack's arm.
"Stop it." Jack pushed him away.
"What's happening to you?"
"You should know you're the doctor!"
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Crane's cheek stung where Jack had hit him. He cowered on the floor in front of the monster Jack was becoming. Jack got on top of him and started to shred his cloths. "Stop it!"
"Isn't this what you want?" Jack smiled. He trapped Jonathan's hands above his head and pressed them hard in to the hard floor. Crane gasped from the pain.
"No, this isn't what I wanted." He choked out. Jack only laughed.
"Well you should have said no a long time ago. You know that once I've started I can't stop." Crane looked up in to the madman's eyes with fear.
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"I'm sorry I don't know what came over me." Jack put his head in his hands.
"It's my fault. We should stop these experiments."
"You said so yourself we need to keep going or we would never find a cure."
"But look at what you're becoming!"
"You said I had to become if fully for you to understand! You better start understanding 'cause there isn't much of me left!"
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Jack's screams echoed off the walls of the lab. His face was becoming whiter and whiter as more and more of the green fluid was pumped in to him. Crane stood watching his lover writhe and scream. He needed to figure the man out. He had to know what made him tick, why he was what he was. That's why he was doing this.
But what if he did more damage then good? What if he had it all wrong? It killed Jonathan to watch Jack be tormented like this. But wasn't seeing the man he loved consumed by a monster before his eyes even worse?With that thought in his mind he added more of the toxin in.
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"Some days I question whether you know what you're doing or not." Jack growled.
"I'm almost there just a few more tests."
"You really want to know my past that much?"
"I want to know why!"
"Ha! That's the question isn't it! The one everyone asks! These pathetic humans all running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to find the answer! It's like a bad joke!"
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"You're not yourself anymore." Crane commented.
"I thought that was what you wanted doc."Jack sneered.
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"You'll go and go and go till you get to the bottom of me. You'll drive me insane if you have to! All just to know the answer! Don't you see how pathetic it is?! You'll tear apart the one you love just to know that one little answer!" Jack turned away. Then he started laughing. "You don't see do you? It's all just one big joke." He laughed harder and harder. "Yes doctor! Poor more of your liquids in to me! I know the answer but you'll never be satisfied with life till you can laugh in its face!"
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"I love you." Jonathan whispered to Jack on the other side of the bed. The bad they had shared for many a passionate nights, but that was before...before Jack had become what he was becoming.
"It's too late." Jack rolled over ignoring Crane.
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"See what a monster I've become?" Jack stepped in to the light and Jonathan gasped. Blood poured from the corners of the Jack's mouth which where violently cut open.
"What have you done?"
"I'll have such pretty scars now! Ha ha ha!" Crane fled, he didn't know what else to do.
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"I won't do it anymore!"
"But doc. you said you would see this out the very end you're not going back on your promise now are you." Jack sneered.
"Jack..."
"I'm not Jack! Don't call me that!"
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Crane watched as green took over Jack's eyes. No he was no longer Jack. He was a monster! A monster Jonathan had created.
"More doctor!"
"There's no more left!"
"So I am complete?"
"I don't know!"
"Have you figured me out yet?"
"No...I..."
"Don't lie to me doctor I know when you are lying. So there is no cure?"
"I told you i don't know!"
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"You kept it from me?" The monster that was once Jack shook the hidden bag of toxin at Carne.
"I don't know what it will do to you!"
"It will complete me doctor. This is what I need."
"Please don't..."
"Oh? Are you afraid doctor? Afraid I won't love you anymore? Afraid I won't fuck you anymore?" It smiled. "You humans really are pathetic."
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"More!" The monster insisted.
"I can't." Carne choked out through his sobs. Then the monster reached over and twisted the knife in his hand Crane scream and stumbled backwards.
"Now doctor!" Crane whimpered in pain and cradled his injured hand. "I can promise you if you don't do as I ask I know how to keep a man alive and in pain for a very long time and nothing would please me more then to do so to you! Ha ha ha! But I'm a forgiving man so if you finish what you started I'll let you live, somewhat unharmed." Jonathan hated pain more than anything in the world. He grabbed the last batch of concentrated fluid and injected it in to the monster.
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Jack lay still on the table. The last of the green draining from his eyes, his skin retuning to the normal color and the grin disappearing from his face. But the scars still held his cheeks in a permanent smirk. "You've figured it out Doc. You know what makes me tick. What makes me me. Why I am. You have your answer. Now I can rest."
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Jonathan sat with Jack as he slipped away. The monster was gone and so was Jack. The empty carcass laid life less on the lab table.
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"You cut up a thing that's alive and beautiful to find out how it's alive and why it's beautiful, and before you know it, it's neither of those things, and you're standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it."
-Clive Barker