Super short chapter this time, but we're getting close to the good stuff now! Thanks to everyone who's reading, I love you all!


We're All Mad Here

Chapter 4

"How are we doing today?" the Doctor asked, taking the clipboard from the wall above Batter's bed and flicking through it.

"Fine," said Batter, without thinking. The Doctor glanced at him, a small crease appearing between his neat brows, as though he wasn't sure of what he had just heard. Then, he smiled.

"Finally talking, I see. What changed?"

Batter glared at him, realised that his hand was still plastered stupidly to his face, and lowered it self-consciously. The Doctor chuckled.

"Alright then, don't tell me. I'm glad anyway. Maybe now you can start making progress with Enoch and we can finally get you out of here."

Batter supressed a groan as the Doctor replaced the clipboard and swept out of the room, looking revoltingly pleased with himself. As if the end to Batter's silent protest had been entirely his doing, and not because of some freak in a mask. Now he would have to talk to Enoch, and it was all Zacharie's fault, goddammit…

Not knowing what else to do, Batter rolled onto his stomach, seized his pillow, and screamed into it in frustration.

When he had finished screaming he rolled over again, keeping the pillow pressed against his face. "Stupid Zacharie," he growled. "Stupid Zacharie with his stupid mask and his stupid jumper and his stupid, freakish cat…" How had he known that, anyway? About the Doctor. Zacharie, that is, not the cat. Cats didn't know things. And yet, Batter couldn't help but feel that there was something not quite right about it; not just the way it smiled (though that was creepy enough on its own), but the way it had looked at Batter with far more intelligence than any animal had any right to have. As if it had seen things that Batter could not possibly imagine, things that were so incredibly real that humans seemed mere shadows in comparison, not solid beings at all…

Batter laughed. Maybe he was as mad as Zacharie after all. Judge was just a cat. Just a skinny, mangy, freakish cat, and Zacharie nothing more than a weirdo in a homemade mask.

Yeah.

Right.

But that didn't stop Batter from glancing at the door every few seconds for the next three hours, jumping each time it opened, only to be disappointed when it spat out a bustling Magnolia and not a boy in a frog-faced mask. And when the lights in the corridor outside clicked off one by one, Batter climbed into bed and lay facing the bony grey shape of Enoch's chair – still back to front from when Zacharie had sat in it earlier. It was the last thing he saw before he fell asleep, and the first when he awoke, and both times it was as empty as a broken birdcage… but looking at it from the cupboard sized bathroom as he brushed his teeth, Batter could have sworn it was a few inches closer to his bed now than it had been the night before.


So, Zacharie watches Batter sleep. Creepy. Buuuut still a better love story than Twilight amiright? Ahuhuhu. Keep reviewing, babes ;)