I had no business thinking this would be some easy breezy project where I just cleaned up the grammar and made a few tweaks. This chapter opened up with some "weeks passed" bullshit. That's the tool you whip out when you want to gloss over a long training sequence, or an uneventful summer break - not directly after your main character is blackmailed into living with a pathological wierdo/evil villain, the fuck?

Crane came up with a unusual, petty sort of torture for his new ward, very befitting of their bargain. Taking snippets of personal information gleaned from files and blog posts, he passed them for shared memories or even inside jokes. On the outside looking in, this probably sounded pretty pathetic - definitely nothing to get bent out of shape over - but with the weight of loss bearing down on her, it hurt so much more than one could ever guess. Evie took the rape and the threats because she figured anyone could be capable of those things. Doing them didn't have to make Crane strong or special if she didn't want it to be, and that humanized him in a way she considered almost "beatable". Evie began preparing herself mentally to trade insults and fight, but instead of the anticipated abuse she was met with his pseudo-disturbing illusion of a mutual friendship. She wasn't prepared for when he reached out to stroke her hair and called her "Goldilocks". Hearing it formed what felt like a burning hunk of dry ice in the pit of her stomach, searing away inside her.

Emma, her mother, called her that. Only her mother had ever been lame enough to think it was cute, no matter how old Evie got for it. It had only ever been their exchange - Goldilocks and Mama Bear - something that she had never put in a blog. Something too personal for some school file. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but if there was one thing he had proved to her, it was that the odds of a truthful sentence containing "Jonathan Crane" and "coincidence" were very slim.

Evie saw red all the way up the stairs, all the way to the bathroom, to the scissors in the medicine cabinet.

It was a pretty hack-and-slash job; she emerged from the bathroom with a sweater full of hairs and a something resembling a bob cut.

Crane hardly reacted to her stunt. "It's your hair." He said, shrugging. "You're still very pretty with less of it." While showered, he performed a second sweep for sharp objects. While he may not have found her to be a bright opponent, but even she would realize at some point how easy he could be to kill, should she ever summon the nerve. Which, with enough pressure, she undoubtedly could.

Overall he would hardly call her behavior more than difficult - she was testing her boundaries as a toddler with newfound voice and agency does, lashing out the way a cornered cat will - but noise is just noise. Children and cats are easily subdued.

Perhaps he didn't find her intellectually stimulating, but at the very least she was entertaining. Enough to keep around. Jonathan considered himself a man who had never wanted for steady companionship. Relationships require time, emotional energy, money - all things better spent on his projects - but he enjoyed Evie despite the efforts. She could test his patience all she liked, but her body was warm and soft next to his (though he had yet to take advantage or it again). Anger and spite are exhausting attitudes to maintain. It wouldn't long before the rage began to weaken, leaving fear and doubt and it's wake. Between the sleepless nights and blood-soaked days, Evie was already beginning to feel herself unravel - Crane noticed it all. Always watching, listening, always aware.

By the weeks end, he figured she had seen enough of court. No need to over-exploit his brief political power when the point he wanted to prove wasn't that he could kill her at any time, so he gave her break, telling her she could remain in his "chambers" after lunch until the day wrapped up. Although a relief at first, within a couple hours Evie couldn't help but feel this was more of a psych-out tactic than the graciously granted favor he claimed it to be.

She pulled a random book off the shelf and sat cross-legged on top of the desk. Evie used to love to read, before, well, everything. Lately, she couldn't seem to muster the attention. Hours were wasted on toying with the pages, reading the same four sentence paragraph over and over again without absorbing a single word. Sometimes, the words appeared jumbled, as it stitched together at random by someone who didn't understand the language. The best reason for it she could guess was the effects of a lack of sleep. Unfortunate, annoying, but there were worse inconveniences, even though she needed the escapism of a good book more than ever.

In the blink of an eye, the day was over, and Crane stood in the doorway. He silently observed her for a time, watching her return his impolite stare, attempting to gauge his plans for her now.

The door clicked behind him, the soft thud of his footsteps coming toward her came next. She felt his hand on her cheek. For a moment it felt comforting, and for a moment she nearly forgot who she was with and leaned into his palm, but she didn't forget for long. Evie yanked his hand away and glared up at him, the fire burning bright again behind her amber eyes. Not today. Crane like that look very much. Initially, he hadn't given a whole lot of care into how Evie looked, but he was surprisingly pleased to find she was sort of pretty in the traditionalist sense, what with regular meals and showers catching up to her. Now he could appreciated how very sweet and soft she looked when she was contemplative and sad, how stunning she became when she got angry. He leaned forward, placing his hands on the desk. It looked like she wanted to slap him away. It felt wicked to hope that she would.

Evie hated those pale eyes so much. Hated the way they followed her everywhere, invading even her thoughts. She especially hated the way they looked at her now, full of hunger and unbearable smugness. Crane leaned in closer, like he might kiss her, and she fought the urge to lean away. Like hell was she about to let him trick her onto her back.

"You can't play games forever."

Boy, did she know it, but that didn't mean she had to believe it. Crane put his hand on her shoulder, thumb subtly jabbing into her neck to feel her pulse. Slow, but hard under the pressure to keep it that way. Quickening when he moved forward just that extra bit more, until his lips just barely touched hers. Evie kept her expression the same, but the frantic thudding of her pulse pushing against his finger gave everything away. His hand slid up to the base of her skull, sinking into her hair and keeping her in place when he finally did kiss her. It was blessedly short, but one unpleasant sensation turned to another, and she was now trying to ignore the scratch of his stubble now against her cheek.

Crane gently pressed his lips against her temple. "Will you lie to me this time?" Her hair bristled at the sensation of his warm breath in her ear, his fingertips grazing the sliver of skin between the hem of her shirt and the waistband of her jeans.

His hands had brushed against her in a variety of uncomfortable ways in the few days since he had blackmailed her into staying under his roof, but he had yet to try and fuck her again. While Evie had known its re-occurrence was inevitable since their deal was struck - a unrelenting, ticking time bomb always making itself known in the back of her thoughts - she wasn't ready to give in again. There was time left on that bomb. She would make time.

"Get off me." Her voice fell flat of the commanding tone she had built up in mind, but there was opportunity for momentum yet. For the second time, she yanked his hand away.

He reached out for her again, and this time she slapped it. For once, Crane looked more stunned than amused. Evie took advantage of it and slipped off the desk, under his other arm. He recovered before she reached the door.

"You know what I'll do if you leave." His voice called after her, loud but unsure.

"The more you say it, the dumber it sounds. You're not going to kill a couple poor working stiffs and a middle-schooler to prove a point to some nobody girl you picked up on the sidewalk."

Even though Evie had spent a lot of mental effort mentally practicing for some scathing back-and-forth with Crane, the thing about telling someone off in the heat of a moment is that you're almost never thinking things one-hundred percent through. For that moment, Evie felt big and bad calling out his bluff. Seconds later, she realized what she had actually accomplished was telling him he should make up a worse threat and prove he meant it. In the silence that followed, Evie watched his face very carefully, thinking about the remaining steps to the door, and trying to remember whether he had locked it behind him. Of all the times for her to space out.

So far, he didn't look particularly angry. More thoughtful than seething. Crane reached into his pocket, pulling out his half-crushed box of cigarettes and giving it a few rough taps into his palm. Evie winced at the sound.

"I think it's a shame how you think your're nobody." The flick of the lighter wasn't nearly as jarring a noise, but watching him carry out these small actions with such slow deliberation was filling her with the most uncomfortable tension. Evie was beginning to wish she had quit while she was ahead with that slap. "I've never seen any person as nothing - least of all, you. Everybody has a potential someplace inside them."

Was that one word or two he said? Everybody, or every body? Because that would make quite a lot of difference in how she felt about his statement. He took a long, slow drag from the cigarette, expression still vague as he blew out the smoke. The ashes dropped to the floor.

Straitening himself out, Crane walked past to the door, unlocking it. "Let's go home."

It felt blasphemous to respond so compliantly, but that fiery piece of herself Evie let snap off earlier was now feeling quite extinguished. Turns out all the imaginary practice-fighting in the world doesn't prepare you for how emotionally draining it is in real life, especially when you aren't the arguing type to begin with.

Once again, he waited in the doorway while she put on her coat, smoking in continued silence, waiting until she was out in the hallway to move. His eyes looked a million miles away.

Crane had spent years feeling desperate for a sense of control, or purpose, or just something half-worthwhile to take his mind off things. This Judge business for Bane offered some control, but at the root it was all showmanship. It didn't require much true effort, and it certainly didn't provide the sort of...creative outlet he had been craving. And now with Evie...it was all good fun, but still just lacking that certain something. She was right - he had been wasting his talents on a common man's cheap scare tactics, and there was no need for that.

He was Jonathan Crane, and there was a whole other world to him he had been keeping locked away.