Attempting to shake his black hair dry, Crane rounded the corner to find the table as set as possible given his scantily clad house, and pancakes cooking on the stove.
Kay glanced at him before looking back to the pancakes and saying, "I hope you like pancakes and peanut butter. We don't have anything else. I'll grab some food while I'm out tomorrow."
She plunked a plate down in front of him before yelling, "Kealy, food!"
"Out tomorrow?" Crane asked as he looked down at the meal, which consisted of peanut butter and honey spread on top of a pancake and some not-so-fresh fruit.
"Yeah. I thought we had discussed this. I need to go out to get a toothbrush and what not. I don't think you should be walking around in broad daylight."
Confused by her sudden concern for his freedom, he retorted, "What? You don't think they'll be looking for you too?"
Kay snorted, "Hell no. My mother probably didn't even tell the police that I was kidnapped. At school they'll just figure I dropped out. Trust me, no one's gonna be looking for me."
As she clunked two more plates down on the table, a certain resigned sadness sunk into Kay's face. When she saw Crane looking at her, she shook the look off of her face as if she didn't want him to see it. Instead, she flopped into her chair and dug into her pancakes.
"Mmph. I love food. I never eat much, but I love food." Kay declared, shoveling pineapple into her mouth. "Where the hell is Kealy?" She muttered before yelling again, "Kealy! Food's ready!"
The twitchy man practically bounded around the corner, his grin splitting from ear to ear. He had shaved and changed his clothes to a relatively clean, unwrinkled button down and jeans.
"Damn! Looking mighty sharp there, Keals!" Kay praised.
He flushed at the new nickname and nervously pressed his jeans down with his hands to further smooth them out. The rest of the meal was spent with Kay and Kealy chatting away about various aspects of life they found amusing, with a few wry comments from Crane thrown in every so often. Schuster was nowhere to be seen.
"Bastard's probably sulking in his room. He has all the well-developed maturity of a five-year-old." Crane stated dryly, earning a chuckle from Kay.
A pained groan followed by a terrified whimper woke Kay from her light sleep. Drowsily she decided it was nothing and again closed her eyes. But they were reluctantly pulled open again when the pathetic whimpering continued.
Stumbling out into the hall while attempting to readjust the baggy shirt and shorts Crane had thrown at her to sleep in, Kay realized that the source of the noise was inside a room just down the hall.
Crane's room.
She opened the door slowly, afraid of making to much noise. As relatively kind as Crane had been to her as of late, Kay was sure that the repercussions of going into his room needlessly while Crane was asleep would be high.
As she let her eyes readjust to the moon light in his room, she observed that he was drenched in sweat and his sheets were bunched up in a death grip in his fists.
"No… Granny, no... hurts…" he muttered, tossing his head from side to side.
The crows flew overhead, growing in numbers by the second. Some, the braver ones, had already swooped down to take a quick peck before swooping back up.
Whimpering, Jonathan scrambled up off the ground in search of a place to hide. But, as usual, there were only empty, backless shelves and broken flowerpots. The crows flew down now, more and more with each strike. Grandmother's delighted laughter provided a mad soundtrack to his terrifying ordeal. As they pecked and pulled at his skin, tearing and shredding, Jonathan thought desperately,
"I wish I really were a scarecrow. Crows are scared of them. I wish I really were a scarecrow."
"Not a chance, Jonny-boy!" Grandmother screamed ecstatically through the broken door of the green house.
"Jonny-boy! Jonny-boy!" She screamed over and over again.
"JONATHAN CRANE!"
As he started to thrash around, his moaning becoming sleep-strangled shrieks of terror, Kay forgot about what he might do to her for this later and ran to his bed.
"Dr. Crane!" she cried, shaking his thin shoulders. His hair stuck to his forehead and he was trembling slightly.
"Crane, wake up. You're dreaming, so please wake up." she said into his ear.
"Mmnn…tha' hurts…" He moaned, breathing hard. Tossing his head again to the other side, his eyes snapped open and he jumped, sitting half way up in bed.
When his sleep-induced haze faded and allowed him to realize he was in his own bed, away from Grandmother, he relaxed and pulled himself fully upright. He shook slightly, clearly still being affected by the remnants of his dream as he wrapped his arms around his knees. He lay his head down and tried to slow his breathing.
Kay let him sit there for a bit, pretty sure that he didn't know she was there and worried to make a sound. Eventually, when he appeared to have calmed down, she cleared her throat quietly.
He jumped again and looked up, alarmed. His face fell when he realized what had happened.
"How long have you been here?" he asked in a low voice.
Shifting on the bed, Kay replied, "Not long. Only about a minute. I heard noises and I came to see what was happening…" she trailed off, not sure how to finish.
Crane sighed. "I see."
Kay waited to see if he was going to say anything else, still shifting nervously. "So… were you having a nightmare?"
Crane laughed sharply. "Something like that, yeah."
Kay practically wiggled as she tried to contain her curiosity. "What do you mean?"
Aaaand I'm going to get myself killed because I like asking nosy questions, dammit. You can't keep me from being me! Even at the cost of my sanity and possibly my life! Kay mentally smacked herself with sarcasm for her stupidity.
Crane's electric eyes looked directly into hers before shifting away. "It was more of a memory than anything else." He muttered.
Kay sat for a moment more, fully expecting him to send her away any second. But, to her utmost surprise, he almost seemed like he wanted her to ask the questions she was dying to know the answers to.
"What was the memory?" She asked hesitantly, but scooted a little closer on the bed.
Crane's face twisted in displeasure, but not at her question.
"Grandmother used to make me wear this special suit when she was angry with me. She'd put me in the suit and then lock me in the greenhouse in the back yard. Crows would gather around, and fly down at me. They'd claw and bite me until I was bleeding all over. I've still got scars."
His voice became shaky, the images of words he was reciting all too fresh in his mind. "It turns out…" He paused a second to take control of his emotions. "It turns out Granny dearest had been pressing rat blood onto the suit so the crows would want to attack it." He spat, his voice quavering.
Looking up from his knees, he noted with some astonishment that Kay looked positively heartbroken.
"What?" he asked curtly.
"It's not that I can't imagine someone being that cruel… it's that I know all too well that people can be exactly that cruel." She curled her legs crisscross underneath herself and folded her hands on her lap. "So that's what your nightmare was about? How your grandmother used to torture you?"
He nodded, staring dead ahead.
"Are you trying not to cry?" Kay whispered so softly she barely heard herself.
But somehow, he heard… and nodded.
"It's okay." Kay said softly.
The moonlight reflected off of the one tear that fell from his eyes. He made no move to wipe it off; he just let it run down his face and land on his pajama pants.
She reached out one hand and let it rest lightly on his shoulder. It eventually became annoying to have her arm fully extended, so she scooted a little closer.
"Do you get the nightmare often?" She asked.
"Every night." He answered tiredly. His back shook with silently repressed sobs.
"Cr-" Kay began, but decided that Crane sounded too harsh for the moment. Since she was taking some major chances already…
"Jonathan?" she asked gently.
"What?" He choked out.
"You can cry if you want to. I'm certainly not going to judge you for it."
And with that, the floodgates opened. Tears ran down his face in little shiny streaks in the moonlight as he tried to cleanse himself of the memory of the crows. Kay impulsively moved to sit directly beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
What do you know; I do have a motherly instinct! Who knew? Kay thought. This night simply could not get any stranger. First, Crane has a nightmare. Second, Crane actually talks to me. Third, Crane fucking starts crying! What the hell could possibly happen next?
Her ever-so-rhetorical question was answered when Crane leaned his head against her shoulder, the top of his head just grazing her neck.
…The fuck?! Kay thought, but didn't move it. She couldn't.
Damn it. I can't just make the crying man get off me. But what the fuck do I do? I've never exactly been cared for… Damn you Mother. You're not even here and you continue to ruin my life.
"Shh…" Kay crooned, unsure of what else to do.
I mean, how much is there to do when your twenty-two year old kidnapper is sobbing on your shoulder?
"I... I'm sorry." Crane stuttered out through his slowly alleviating tears.
"It's fine, Jonathan. I'm not completely heartless, you know."
He sniffed and sat up, wiping the tears stains off of his face. New red, besides the flush that comes from crying, crept into his face.
"Er… is it all right if we don't talk about this after tonight? I don't usually- I mean, I've never- fuck." He groaned.
"You've never had to explain the nightmare to someone before." Kay interpreted.
He nodded. "Exactly. And I certainly haven't cried in front of anyone since I was thirteen." He said in a tone that suggested a certain disgust in his self-perceived weakness. "This has been entirely inappropriate and I suggest you go back to bed." His usual chill had crept back into his voice as he ordered Kay out of the room.
"No." Kay snapped, bewildering herself almost as much as it confused Crane. "No, because this has not been inappropriate. You had a nightmare and it upset you. That's only natural. Comforting someone is not inappropriate; it's kind. Just because you're not used to people being nice to you doesn't mean that it's improper."
During her heated speech, Kay had pulled herself off the bed and was standing with her arms crossed indignantly.
"Crying isn't weak, like you clearly think it is, and you don't need to be such an asshole all the time. And now I'm going to bed because I'm tired and I want to, not because you're ordering me to."
Kay left a perplexed Crane staring after her.
"Er… Thanks. For what you did last night."
Kay's head shot up off the table as she heard the voice from behind her.
"Shit, Crane, you really shouldn't sneak up on people like that. Especially not twitchy people like me. But you're welcome."
He glared at her as he crossed the kitchen and yanked the refrigerator open.
"So you're going out today?" He asked as he studied the sparse contents of the fridge.
Kay made a noise of agreement.
"You know I can't just let you walk out of here, right?" He glanced at her.
She was staring at the table, an expression of loneliness and pain branded on her face.
He hesitated before saying, "You look upset. What's wrong?"
Her usual mask slipped immediately into place as she looked up at him. "What? Oh, nothing. I'm fine. And I know I can't just walk out. I'll take Kealy with me."
Crane shook his head. "No, you're not fine. And take Schuster. You and Kealy are too close for me to be comfortable with that."
Kay pursed her lips. "Okay, fine. I'll take Mr. Asshole. And let's say, for argument's sake, that I'm not fine. How would you know?"
Crane sat down across from her with a cold pancake left over from the night before. "The expression on your face, Kay. Something's wrong."
Kay narrowed her eyes and studied him suspiciously. "This is because you feel like you need to repay me for last night, isn't it?" She asked finally.
Crane sighed and shook his head. "No, it's not. We certainly don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to. I was just trying not be an asshole for once."
Kay smirked. "So you did listen last night. Good."
She sat back in her chair, a thoughtful expression replacing her usual cynical one. As she thought, the expression became sad, and then resigned. She studied at her intertwined hands as she said, "It's just something that I said last night before dinner. No one is looking for me. My mother doesn't care about me, and my school is shitty. I have no friends, or anyone who would notice I was gone."
Her voice shrank until it was nearly inaudible.
"It's like I never existed."
She looked up from her hands and directly into Crane's so very blue eyes, her deep brown ones bleeding loneliness. A small, sad smile crept onto her face, "Well, at least I know that you and Kealy would care if I were kidnapped, even if your reasons would be very different."
Crane was at a loss for words.
Kay continued to look into his eyes for a moment before standing up and saying, "I guess I'll go now. Do you know where Schuster is?"
Crane shook his head silently.
"Schuster! We're going shopping!" She called down the hallway. "Oh, and I'll need some money."
He handed her two twenties. "What, no five finger discount for you?"
Kay chuckled. "No, I'm a good girl, remember?" She shook her head, amused.
"I-" He stopped; unsure of what he was about to say.
"Hmm?" Kay looked at him, all traces of her earlier pain gone.
He sighed and shrugged. "Nothing. Make sure to bring back some decent food."
"Will do."
Schuster was clomping down the hallway, jacket in hand. "Let's go." He said gruffly and went out the door without waiting for Kay.
Kay rolled her eyes and followed him, waving a hand over her shoulder as a goodbye.
"Let's see… more peanut butter, eggs, milk, pancake mix, taco meat…" Kay muttered to herself as she browsed the food section at Target.
After she had picked up all the food they'd need, she handed the basket to an extremely antisocial Schuster.
"Lighten up, Schuster. People are actually avoiding us because of your face." She teased, earning herself a death glare.
"You go look at movies or something, I'm going to go buy some clothing." Kay said.
As he started to follow her, she turned and said, "I'm going to be buying underwear. Still want to come?"
He flushed and turned towards the movies.
When Kay was done, she dying to change into a clean shirt.
"Schuster. Let's go check out so I can change."
As soon as she had paid, she ran into the bathroom with her pack of white t-shirts.
Ah. That feels so much better. She decided. Grinning at herself in the mirror, Kay turned and waltzed out of the bathroom, right into the welcoming arms of two leather jacket-wearing men.
"You're coming with us." The taller one growled.
"Oh, ya, that's not cliché at all." Kay said spitefully.
His grip around her forearm tightened considerably.
Kay looked around wildly for Schuster. He was leaning against the wall, observing the situation coolly. His expression was so different from her mother's had been in the same situation, but had the same meaning.
Well, would you look at that? Little Kay is getting kidnapped. Isn't that the weirdest thing?
((OMFG This chapter was so difficult to write. You don't even know how hard it was. Crazy chapter, neh? Poor lil Kay, gettin' kidnapped... again... so she's been re-re-rekidnapped? She's like a kidnap magnet. Poor thing. XD Please review the crazy chapter! Tell me what you liked, tell me what you didn't like, and tell me your favorite color. :D Also, I haven't been able to get ahold of my beta-r... VA WHERE ARE YOU?! XP So this chapter hasn't been beta'd yet. I'll tell you when it has been. ^_^ Love to all --Archaic))