Thank you very much for the reviews – JokersOnlyFear – a review is coming, I promise!
Ithurial, thank you very much – I don't know about impressive, but I certainly like writing fanfiction a lot more than I expected to!
WARNING: rape is the dominant theme of this chapter, so if this could potentially upset you, please don't read it.
In case it is unclear, lines that are in italics are Crane's thoughts.
Chapter Three: My Courage Chooses To Sell Out Now
Every finger in the room is pointing at me
I wanna spit in their faces
Then I get afraid what that could bring
I got a bowling ball in my stomach
I got a desert in my mouth
Figures that my courage would choose to sell out now
I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets
Looking for a savior underneath these dirty sheets
Tori Amos, Crucify
No no no no nononononono NONONONO
Crane bit down on his lip, hard.
NOT. THIS. PLEASE.
(Please? I don't say please. I never say please.)
Not one of the few tortures that had not been inflicted upon him during his still relatively-short life. He thought they were over. What a fool he was.
His teeth sank in further, blood began to make its way down his chin and onto his tongue, and if this hadn't been a nervous tic so old it was almost reflex Crane probably would have gagged.
The orderly, who had always been so disgustingly lecherously verbose before, was now silent. He advanced on Crane slowly, sliding his belt out as he moved.
Crane's urge to analyse everything, everyone, was still present even as his body became paralysed with fear.
He's going to break me, because, today, someone tried to break him.
He's going to choke me and beat me and tear off my clothes and make me bleed in places I have no business to be bleeding –
And I will never be in control again. Not really.
Lights out. Sudden blackness.
Oh joy.
A brief glimpse of the look in the orderly's eyes.
He's going to make this hurt even more than is necessary.
Crane drew his legs up under his chin. He could already feel his body starting to shake, in a few seconds it would tense up briefly and then totally relax, as years of beatings had taught it to, it would hurt less that way –
A crackin the darkness. It was only a few seconds later that Crane realised that the sound had been the orderly's belt whipping across his face.
A few seconds more and the stinging grew, and something liquid and hot was running down his face a fraction from the scar that bitch ADA Dawes had given him –
That was when he realised that the orderly had hit him full in the face with the buckle end of the belt. It could have taken out his eye. He had assumed that although the orderly badly wanted to hurt him, he was at least going to get out of this alive.
Now he wasn't so sure.
Crane did something he rarely did, even if it was locked inside the silence of his own head.
He swore.
Oh, shit. I'm really, really in trouble now.
His gasp was barely audible, so determined was he to give this man as little of a reaction as possible. How desperately he clung to any control he could retain. How futile it all was.
Things did not begin to blur after that, regardless of how much Crane wished they would. They became isolated, horrifying moments in time, a fetid clash of too many sensations, his mind swimming with fear.
He fought, briefly. He was too small to put up any real sort of fight. This was probably why he was chosen in the first place.
The orderly's hands, pulling back his head by the hair. It felt like he had yanked it out by the roots. So like the Batman, so awfully familiar.
Hands, ripping off his orange jumpsuit, pulling it down to the waist. Stopping –
The man biting savagely down on his neck, blood welling against his teeth.
Crane broke his own promise to himself, then, and let out a soft moan of pain.
In an instant, knees either side of his slim waist, two hands around his neck, and the edges of his vision began to dim, and what he wouldn't give to have his toxin now, to make this man scream while he urinated like an animal –
But he could feel he was about to black out, and welcomed it, at least he wouldn't remember all the filthy things this man was about to defile him with –
Hands released him. The man knew. And wanted Crane to suffer.
And then and then and then –
His hands reached down, began to strip him further, and Crane bit down on his tongue until scarlet seeped from the corners of his mouth, would rather choke on his own blood than let this man hear him sob –
Hands were reaching, one pinning his wrists down, the other forcing his legs open, and it's been years since Crane felt like the gangly teenager he once was, he had forgotten the curse of being small and light and inappropriately pretty –
Tried to force himself to relax –
It'll be over soon it'll be over soon it'll be over soon
(like it always was)
And it was coming and he knew it, tried to go limp –
A crash. Another. A confused chuckle.
"Ta-da!", said a voice as grating as nails on a blackboard. As if the voice expected applause.
A light clicked on.
"Well, what do we have here?"
Tori Amos is a very eccentric singer-songwriter, and "Crucify" is a very beautiful if slightly disturbing song.
I have to say, unhealthy though this is, I based a lot of Jonathan's reactions in this chapter on what I imagine would be my own – they are entirely THEORETICAL, let me absolutely clarify. Being not even five foot one and weighing less than a hundred pounds, I can very much sympathise with Jonathan's almost total inability to fight back – but I am also quite sure that if this sort of thing ever happened to me, I would want to prevent my attacker from getting as little enjoyment as possible out of it. Hence the making no noise. Yes, I am quite strange.
Of course Jonathan never says please – or at least, says it and really means it. And of course saying it, even in his own head, is quite landmark, even if it is in his own head.