Kay sat down on the stool Crane had offered to her. "Your jaw looks like the most serious, I should take care of that first." Crane said as he pushed up his glasses.
Glaring at him Kay said coldly, "I thought you wanted that to scar?"
Crane rolled his eyes as he prepared an antiseptic. "No, Kay, that was Scarecrow. I don't care one way or another; it's just bleeding the most. Now, lift your head." He tilted her head back so her jaw was prominently positioned.
Kay hissed as the antiseptic stung her wound. "Jesus, Crane! That hurts! Watch it!"
Crane stopped. "Do you want me to clean it before I stitch it up or not?" He said, irritated.
Defeated and bone tired, Kay sighed and mumbled, "Clean it first."
When he was done cleaning the gash, he turned to thread a needle. "Hold still. Don't flinch or it'll hurt more." Kay's knuckles turned white as they gripped the seat of the stool. As Crane concentrated on her jaw, she let her eyes wander around the room.
All the other times she had been down here she hadn't been concentrating on what the room actually looked like. The concrete walls were completely bare save for a few suspicious stains and two cabinets. In the back left corner stood the chair Kay had broken. In the middle of the room was the wooden table on which Crane performed all of his experiments and stored most of his equipment. Beakers and empty canisters lay strewn across one side, while burners and chemicals lay on the other.
Crane knotted the thread. "Alright, what next?"
Silently, Kay held up her right arm as she continued to look at his equipment. "What do you use the ecstasy for? I mean, I know it's a hallucinogen, but I thought it made everything more enjoyable? I've never used it so I wouldn't know…"
She trailed off as Crane stared at her. "You know the chemical formula for ecstasy?" He looked at the beaker labeled only with: C11 H15 N O2
Kay nodded. "Yup."
"Why the hell do you know that?" He asked curiously.
Kay sighed and then yawned. "My mom's a bitch. She beat me if I didn't get good grades, so I paid attention in science. It's interesting stuff, if you understand it."
Crane just looked at her and nodded slightly. Then he said sarcastically, "Useful in making bioweapons."
Kay chuckled, and then stopped, instantly realizing what she had done.
Did I really just laugh with him? I better not be starting to like him. He's still a psychopath and that was one sick joke...
Once Crane was done patching up Kay's arm, he looked down at her stomach. "Your shirt is disgusting." He commented.
"No duh. I've been wearing it for three days and now it's covered in blood." Kay looked down to where his gaze was trained.
She winced a little. "Oh. I forgot about that one." She said quietly. "Damn..." There was a large gash moving diagonal across her stomach.
After deliberating for a moment, Crane swept some things on the table into a pile and made a person-sized hole in the clutter.
"Lie down." He ordered. Kay's eyes never leaving the man, she climbed slowly onto the table and lay down. His fingers flitted across her shirt hem before lifting it up to expose her stomach.
"Whoa!" Kay exclaimed. "Violation much! What are you doing?!"
Crane put his hands down on the table and sighed, exasperated, "I have to stitch that up. It's too big to ignore." He explained, flatly.
"Can't you… like… stitch it up through the hole in my shirt or something?"
Crane laughed softly at her naivety. "Not unless you want me to accidentally sew your shirt into your stomach."
Kay rolled her eyes and stopped her protests. She wasn't to keen on that, actually... When he was done, she sat up stiffly and winced. She sat on the table with her hands on her lap while he cleaned up his supplies.
"Thanks." She mumbled, staring at her lap.
He looked at her, his eyes widened in surprise. It had been a while since anyone had thanked him. "…You're welcome." Looking over her scrawny, blood-covered, form, he experienced a brief moment of sympathy.
Scarecrow, of course, balked at the thought.
"Well… I suppose we should find you another shirt. If you keep that one on, your wounds will become infect. I don't want to have to continue cleaning them." He offered.
Kay pushed herself off the table, irritated, "Well if you had kept your 'little friend' under wraps then you wouldn't have had to treat anything to begin with." She glowered at him.
He ignored her, wincing slightly at Scarecrow's sudden aggression and desire for control. After shutting the cabinet he said, "Come on. We need to find you something to change into." He didn't wait for her as he went up the stairs, flicking the lights off as he went.
"Dammit Crane! Why'd you do that?!" Kay yelled as she dashed up the stairs after him, ignoring the pain in her stomach. He led her upstairs, further down the hallway than she had ever been before. They entered a room almost as Spartan as her own, except the bed had a frame and sheets, there was a dresser, and the mirror was actually clean enough to be of some use. Crane crossed over to the dresser and yanked a drawer open. He dug around the bottom until he pulled out a light blue button-down shirt from the bottom.
"It might be too big, but it's clean." He tossed it to her, expecting her to take it and leave. She remained where she was, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair unconsciously.
"What is it?" She blushed and looked down before asking, "Do you have a shower I could use? I feel disgusting." He chuckled at her obvious embarrassment and gestured to the bathroom. "Feel free to use it. I value hygiene, and you are..." he grimaced, "Well, you should feel disgusting."
Kay just rolled her eyes and crossed towards the bathroom. She stopped in the doorway and turned around. "Um… do you have a towel I could borrow? And maybe a toothbrush and toothpaste? And deodorant?" Might as well go for it as long as he's being nice.
"We'll see. If I can find them, then yes. Or maybe I'll send Schuster out to get them. We still need more food anyways…." He trailed off, making a mental to do list for Schuster.
"Er… Doctor Crane?"
He took note of her use of his title. "Hmm?" He looked at her, his blue eyes not as cold as usual.
"The towel? I can go get it, if you'll tell me where it is."
Crane walked past her into the bathroom and pulled open the doors on the bottom of the sink. "Here." He said, tossing a white towel back at her. "Don't take too long. We've tapped into the neighbor's water tank and they'll notice if their bill goes up too high."
After showering, Kay felt infinitely better. Shaking out her hair, she put her clothes back on and took a look at the shirt. Its blue color had faded and there was a hole in the bottom right, but overall it wasn't in bad condition. She found that if she tucked it in and rolled up the sleeves the effect was pretty cute. After running her fingers through her hair and inspecting her soon-to-be scars, she went downstairs to find food.
She was rummaging through the kitchen cabinets when Kealy rounded the corner. He stopped as soon as he saw her, making a small, 'mmpff' noise. Kay turned her head to look at him.
"Hey. It's Kealy, right?" She asked as she pulled a jar of peanut butter out. "Do you know where the spoons are?" Kealy gestured to a drawer. "Thanks." When the man still didn't respond, Kay leaned against the counter and eyed him.
He was a slender man, almost as scrawny as herself. He had light brown, spiky hair and an unkempt five o'clock shadow. His face was pale, and he had dark circles under his eyes. His pale gray eyes darted around. They would land on an object and then shoot immediately back to Kay.
This continued until Kay took the spoon of peanut butter out of her mouth and asked, "So what's your deal? How'd you end up with Crane?" Kealy folded his hands in front of him and looked at the floor. Kay noticed exactly how pale his face was, and how his hands were never quite still.
"S-sorry about bruising your face." His voice was soft, uncertain.
Kay raised an eyebrow, surprised by his sudden apology."Eh. I've had worse. It's no big deal. "
Kealy looked up, his eyes wide and the beginnings of a smile on his face. "Really? You too?"
Kay barked out a surprised laugh. "You get beat up often then?" She asked, digging another spoonful of peanut butter out of the jar.
Kealy nodded and scratched his head. "I'm kind of small so it's easy for bigger guys to beat me up. Um... may I have some peanut butter?"
Kay held out the jar to him. "Grab a spoon, amigo, and join in." Kealy grinned and got a spoon out of the drawer and leaned on the counter next to Kay.
Taking a spoonful, he said, "I really am sorry about hurting you. I didn't know you got hurt a lot of I would or I wouldn'ta hit you. I probably would've just dragged you back insteada hitting you. Getting hit's not fun."
Kay took note of his relatively simple speech, "So Kealy. What's your deal? Where are you from?"
The man tucked his lower lip into his mouth. "Well… Doctor Crane used to know me at Arkham. He was my doctor. He may not always be the nicest, but he got me outta there. I didn't like Arkham." He stuck his spoon into his mouth abruptly, as if to stop himself from talking.
Kay figured that Crane and his toxin were probably most of the reason Arkham had been so awful, but she also remembered the horrible white walls.
"Ah. So you are from Arkham. I thought it might be something like that. Why didn't you like it there?"
Kealy's face fell and his subdued voice became dark, "They didn't like me much. All the other inmates would yell things at me. And the guards would, ya know, shove me around and stuff. They liked to trick me into thinking it was all a hallucination. But it wasn't. They couldn't trick me." He whispered this confidentially.
"Doctor Crane gave me some of the stuff he gave you. It wasn't good." Kay winced at the thought of this mild mannered man being subjected to the toxin's awful influence.
Kealy continued, "Everything was dark, and it smelled like death. All these slimy hands were on me, But he broke me out, ya know, after Batman caught him and everything. He still remembered me." He smiled happily, looking out the door to the main hallway.
"Sounds like you're pretty loyal to him, huh?" Kay said after a second.
He nodded, and then paused, studying her.
She eyed him back uneasily. "What?"
He leaned forward a bit and asked quietly, "You're not a hallucination, are you? People that aren't hallucinations aren't usually nice to me." Kay laughed cheerfully and patted his arm. "I'm not a hallucination. Promise." He smiled back at her.
They sat for a moment, eating their peanut butter. Crane found them like this when he rounded the corner. With a cold glance his analyzed the scene and quickly came to a conclusion:"You two become friends all of a sudden? Kealy, go find Schuster and do something useful. Kay, you come with me." He turned on his heel and stalked away towards the basement.
"See you later, bud. " Kay patted Kealy's arm again and started after Crane.
"Bye! You're nice for talking to me!" Kay smiled over her shoulder. "Any time. You're not too bad yourself." Kealy grinned happily.
The light was already on when Kay entered the basement. "What's up? And if you want to test something on me, I'm not coming down there." She called down into the basement from midway down the stairs.
"You said you were good at science, right? I need help mixing chemicals. Come down here."
Hurray for adorable Kealy! XD Please please please review! --Archaiclover
