Thank you so much for those of you keeping up so far, please let me know if I've maintained this story well enough, a few more chapters to go and I'll be done, please comment, it helps me know you're enjoying reading it as much as I enjoy writing it and remember I love ya all!
Here's one of my favorite chapters so far, please enjoy!
Chapter 8: Abandoning Humanity
"You know, you gotta stop waking me up in the middle of the night with this shit," Croc said rubbing one of his small yellow eyes. "What're you doin' over there Doc?" I was at the camera system typing on the computer. I held a folder over my shoulder and turned my head to smile. "What's that?"
"Camera system codes," I said with a sly smile. "I swiped them from Rex's office before I got here." Croc stared at me without a word.
"What for?" He asked in his usually gravely voice.
"Last time I loafered with an inmate I was caught doing so on camera. Gotta learn from my mistakes ya know?" I finished putting the camera on a loop of before I entered the room and the sound was turned off so nobody could hear us. I turned around and smiled at Jones. "There we go, all alone." Jones said nothing, only stared.
"What do you want, Doc?"
"I want to talk to you."
"About what?" He crossed his arms.
I opened my mouth to speak but said nothing. I hadn't thought about that. What did I want to talk about? I couldn't just start small talk with Jones he'd probably find it offensive. "I've been thinking of our last session," I said. "About what you said. How I'm on my way and all?" I was trying to tell what Croc was thinking from the look on his face but I could get nothing out of it.
"What about it?" He finally asked.
"What did you mean?" I inquired sliding a chair in front of the glass between us and sitting down.
"I ain't got the fuckin' patience to play wiseman with you-"
"Oh would you cut the bullshit," I interrupted bluntly, catching Croc by surprise. "You can play the big bad crocodile all you want Jones but you and I both know we made a connection during our last session, I am probably one of the only people that's seen you genuinally laugh." I thought for a moment. "Well in harmless amusement instead of morbid." I laughed, he merely glared at me. "Don't be so freakin ornery dude." I jumped when he slammed a hand against the glass in front of him. "Dude you scared the shit out of me!" I said grabbing my chest.
"At least you're honest," Croc mumbled turning around and heading toward the pool to the back of his cell.
"You just won't sit and talk to me willyou?" Croc stopped and turned towards me, for the first time I didn't falter I stood my ground, only because he couldn't get through that glass. He stepped back up to the glass and glared at me, his already narrow eyes narrowed even further.
"You like doing this? You like making fun of me? You come in here and make all the jokes and talk down to me all you want because this large piece of glass is between us." I glared at him and stood up. I walked over to the door to his cell, punched in the keycode, and opened the door. As I stepped inside I closed the door and locked it. I stared at him without a flinch, standing right in front of him, ready for anything.
"I'm not afraid to die Jones," I assured him. "Not anymore." He leaned down and stared into my eyes. I didn't move, I wasn't afraid, though I was a little jumpy, unsure of what he was going to do.
"You feel it inside you?" Croc asked me in a hushed tone. "You feel that burning in your blood?" His breath smelled of rancid meat and dirty water, I tried not to gag though my eyes did water, he was so close I could almost feel the roughness of the medical anomaly that was his skin. "It's the animocity that ever being is born with, you must bring it to the surface and embrace the beast within you." I was a bit confused at this point.
"Why embrace it?" I asked still staring into his ferocious yellow eyes.
"Because it gets rid of the pain of being a man," he said quoting one of my personal favorites.
"Doctor Samuel Johnson," I murmered with a smile. "A good quote."
"Not many know what it really means," Croc said turning his back on me, which allowed me to exhale unnoticed. "Do you know what it means Doctor?" He turned to look at me.
"It means if you become an animal you won't have to feel the anguish of humanity." He nodded witout a word. "Where is this going Jones?" I asked looking around the cell. The first time I entered Croc's cell I couldn't get a good look at it because I had Croc's enormous hand around my throat squeezing the life out of me.
"What are you doing here Doc?" Jones said with more agitaion in his voice.
"I want you to talk to me!" I screamed losing my patience. "We keep going around in a fucking circle and all I want you to do is trust me! You heard what I said to my brothers right? I just want you to have someone to talk to, to trust, to relate to and god-fucking-dammit I can fucking relate! I was tortured my whole fucking life for being different, for being who I am, and you know what I did? I fucking took it and blamed myself! If anyone would fucking understand that it would be you! You know what I went through just as much as I know what you went through! Fuck Jones why won't you just fucking talk to me?" I didn't notice the streams of tears falling from my eyes. "Shit! My family is too busy to talk to me! My best friend who, by the way, use to beat the shit out of me within an inch of my life, doesn't even trust me, and all the fucking staff in this fucking asylum hate me because the warden's my sister." I was breathing hard and the tears continued to fall down my face.
"And now you," I continued finally noticing the tears, wiping them away aggressively. "Someone who knows torment, who's witnessed the brutality of humans, and has been the victim of neglect and abuse. You can't see what we share! What the fuck we have in common!" My breath left me in gasps and dry heaves, it caught in my chest and throat and the tears kept falling.
"What we share?" Croc said with a mocking tone. "What we have in common?" I heard it before it even started, the laughter, the mocking laughter that rang in my ears all my life. He began with a dark, raspy chuckle before it exploded into a fit of maniacal hysteria. His immensly broad shoulders bobbed up and down as the snarling chortle exploded from his gnarly maw. He gathered enough breath as he pushed his face up to mine. "Shut the fuck up you fuckin queer! You and your gay fuckin' thoughts about me have to fuckin' stop!" He laughed again turning to walk away. "Get the fuck outta my fuckin' cell you pathetic bitch."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing, the very convict I'd come to respect, the one I'd come to feel sympathy for was treating me exactly how the others did! The way all of the bullies did back in high school, the way Rex did before, the way Jeff Newly did in college, and the way my brothers do behind my back! The tears fell harder than before and my I could feel my knuckles pop as my hands balled into fists, my vision blurred and I suddenly saw red. In a roar of furocious desperation I threw myself at Croc.
Croc lifted his hand and grabbed my fist and pulled it down, launching his other fist into my stomach knocking all of the air out of my lungs. I could feel the blood traveling up my throat as I coughed it up onto the floor. But I maintained myself, in a roar of desperate fury I launched my knee into his gut. He coughed breifly which was all I needed to wrench my hand from his iron grip. I shot another fist into his face which did nothing but push his face to the left momentarily, which I took as a chance to throw another punch, again doing nothing against his battle-hardened body. Croc laughed as he grabbed me by the throat and kneed me in the gut, forcing more blood from my throat. He continued his howl of laughter as he forced another fist against my cheek and slammed me against the wall by my throat. I felt my feet leave the ground as my back slid up the wall.
He brought his face up to mine as I struggled to get free. He laughed in my face, his breath stank horribly but he didn't care, he had me where he wanted me. My struggles proved useless as his hand was able to grasp both my neck and part of my shoulders. He only chuckled mockingly he did nothing more than hold me against the wall, I wanted to scream but knew it would do no good. I made sure to come visit him when his guards were off duty, and they would be for the next hour. I gave him sixty whole minutes to do whatever he wanted to me.
"Slippery little fuck aren't ya?" He asked with another gurgling chuckle. I growled and spat blood in his face. His head whipped back in an impulsive movement, he glared at me snarling, saliva dripping from his beastly maw. He laughed, knocking me one more time in the gut.
"Fuck you!" I screamed, practically gurgling through blood, snot, and saliva. "Fuck you, you're no better...you're no fucking better than them! Than the ones who beat you and tormented you when you were a child!" I could tell it hit him cause his face twisted into a rage. "I may be weak, easily beat, but at least I'm not alone! I don't need superhuman strength to make myself feel better! You use it to try and make amends for the fact that you're alone! You've got nobody to relate to, nobdy to talk to, you're alone!" I coughed, blood dribbled down my chin as I spoke. "You could've had me. I would've been your friend, your only friend!" I was passing out from lack of oxygen. "But you didn't want a friend...did you? You just want to be alone...feeling sorry for...yourself...for the reast of your...life..." My vision was getting blurry. "I knew...knew what...you...you were...you were going through..." Just as I was about to pass out I felt my body drop, I thought I was dying at first but I felt my body hit the ground.
I breathed heavily as oxygen returned to my lungs, spitting blood each time I exhaled. I looked at Croc who stared down at me. I tried to stand up but my legs would lift my body, nor would my shaking arms. Croc grunted as he grabbed my collar and hauled me to my feet. "I don't...get it..." I asked holding my throat. As I spoke I could actually feel the developing bruises. Croc turned his back on me.
"You embraced it," he said, I almost couldn't hear him but I knew what he said, though I wasn't sure what he meant. He turned to me. "That moment when you attacked me I could see in it your eyes. You abandoned all humanity, all I saw was an animal in those eyes. You're shit at fighting," he added with a bit of morbid amusement. "But you weren't afraid to die and that's what matters in this fucked up world we live in." I couldn't read an expression on his face, I was confused about the entire situation and my head was still throbbing.
"You never inteded to kill me?" I asked.
"Yes, I was planning on ripping you in half," he said bluntly walking up to me. "But then I saw myself in you, when I had you against the wall, I could see myself. You're right, I live my life in solitude, alone, because nobody understands my physical and mental pain." He snorted and spat on the floor. "'Cept you it looks like." He walked over to the bed they put in here for him and pulled a pack of cigarettes from underneath the mattress. He put one between his teeth and lit it with a match he took from a box he also hid under there. He offered me one and I looked at it.
"I don't smoke," I told him but thought about it, I could've died, he was going to kill me, but I was alive, I had no reason not to. I was just happy to be alive. I took one from him and lit it off the same match. "So what now?" I asked stupidly.
"I ain't gonna kill ya, do whatever the fuck you want," he said inhaling smoke and exhaling it slowly. "I don't give two shits."
"I don't get it Jones," I said coughing as the first initial cloud of smoke entered my lungs. I practically hacked up a lung and Croc just laughed.
"Pussy," was all he said.
"Sorry," I replied getting all of the coughs out of my system. "I don't get something Croc, and I never had time to ponder on it since it never came up in your Dossier." He turned to me and stared at me, I was afraid I'd offend him but I said it anyway. "You give off this disguise that you're just a bloodthirsty animal. That you have no shred of humanity left, and yet, here you are, giving me life lessons. Giving me wisdom I've only heard from my sister. Why make it out that you're just a brute with no sense of intellectual signifigance?"
Croc only took hits from his cigarette, silent, but he finally broke the silence by saying. "Intellegence got me nowhere in life Damian." I noticed he called me by my name instead of just "Doc" but said nothing to let him continue. "When I was growing up it wasn't my intellect that saved me from those bullies, it wasn't intellect that got me that job in the mafia, and it sure as hell wasn't intellgence that got me famous, fuck no." He turned to me and crushed his cigarette in his hand, not even flinching when the cherry rubbed against his bare flesh. "It was power!" He flexed showing every rippling green muscle on his body and laughed. "It was my brute strength alone that got me through my life, that helped me take revenge on those fucking pussies at school, that got my checks signed and cashed, and that helps me to deal with the Bat. I am a man of pure strength, no strategy, no thought, just advanced animal instinct." He balled a fist and put it to my face. "It was strength that won my fight against you."
"Barely a fight," I said taking another hit from the cigarette, which went down much smoother this time. I sighed but looked up suprised when I heard Croc chuckle, then laugh. He laughed loudly and slapped me on the back sending my flying foward. "Jesus Croc!" I said standing up and brushing myself off.
Through his fit of laughter Croc managed to say. "My...god...you're such...a fuckin...pussy!" He just kept laughing and, after a moment or two, I joined him. We both laughed at both of our expense, though mostly mine, and I could tell, we both were enjoying it greatly.