Kenny and Craig aren't really that different; see, Kenny is a simple guy, too. He's only ever wanted one thing, and that's for somebody to believe him.

It was a little dangerous, though, because he knew he'd owe this person forever and debt was a strange thing. He'd love this person; he'd protect them with all he had, because this person would have cared enough to venture to Hell and fight demons he'd faced all his life. Maybe not literally, maybe so. He wasn't quite sure himself how it worked or if it was even possible. And, of course, he'd never wish it on anyone – but he so desperately wanted someone to understand, even if meant being in debt, even if it meant owing his life, or lives, to them.

Kenny tried not to get his hopes up, but he couldn't help but scope out potential in every living person he met.

Craig was smart; not in a textbook-all-A's-valedictorian kind of way, no: he was much more than that. Craig had a kind of intelligence that he only applied to certain things, things he found worthy – like film and Red Racer and guinea pigs, probably. That was the most brilliant kind of person, Kenny thought: the kind of person that didn't waste themselves on things they didn't care about.

All Kenny ever wanted was for somebody to believe him, for somebody to want to believe him and he knew that Craig could figure it out. What he didn't know was if he was worthy in Craig's eyes. It was a lot to ask of a boy who didn't care about anything.

They saw a lot of each other that week (or, the part of the week that Kenny was alive) and it became almost routine. Everything that Craig did seemed to be routine; it either happened every day or it didn't happen at all. Kenny couldn't complain.

That Saturday morning, Craig brought him along to Walgreens to pick up his film. Kenny had been under the impression that film photography was and had been dead, but Craig assured him that it was well on its way to revival.

They didn't open the paper envelope of developed photos until they got back to Craig's house. They were sitting on his bedroom floor when he tugged off the plastic wrapping and began to shuffle through the photos, grey eyes cold and scrutinizing, scanning over each picture, mouth twitching into a scowl or a half-grin depending on whether he approved of the exposure or not.

Kenny had a faint feeling that he was seeing something that was normally private and personal. He felt like he was peering through a bedroom window, watching someone at their most venerable, at their most alone.

The silence didn't bother Kenny – the not knowing did. He was in a few of those pictures and he was feeling overwhelmed with a sense of unworthiness. When Craig seemed caught off guard by a certain photo, he froze; then he moved his stare up to look at Kenny like he was trying to match a picture to his memory and – oh. Kenny was certain he'd done something wrong.

"Did they turn out bad?" he asked, growing uneasy under the spotlight of his eyes.

"Bad," Craig repeated, neither validating nor denying.

Craig almost seemed shocked at the question, like he hadn't expected Kenny to realize what he was doing.

"No," he settled, "they're not bad."

"Then what's wrong?" Kenny was relentless.

"Nothing," Craig murmured, but it was unsure. "They're perfect." It killed them both that he was lying like this.

That answer was insufficient for Kenny, who snatched the photo right from Craig's hands and looked through them himself.

Craig's face didn't say much, but Kenny was willing to be by the way that he sighed when the pictures were taken that he was debating whether or not to tackle Kenny right now.

"I don't see anything wrong with them," Kenny said, feeling some kind of inherent and irrational need to defend himself.

"Because there's nothing wrong with them," Craig's voice was hard, but it was obvious that he regretted it with how soft his next words were. "Sometimes what you actually see and…how it comes out on film are completely different. Not bad. Just different."

So Craig had answered him, but in the vaguest way possible, and knowing him, he wasn't going t budge any further, so Kenny passed back the photos and went silent.

"Sorry," Craig muttered, and this was sincere. "I haven't been sleeping well at all. Well, I never do, but you know, it's worse."

"Oh really, why?"

"Nightmares," he said. "I don't want to talk about it." So they didn't. It wasn't in his face, but you could hear it in his voice that he was terrified. Something had been haunting Craig Tucker.

This didn't rest well with Kenny, who had something of a hero complex. It was quite literal when he was younger and dressed up as a cheap Batman knock-off to make his sister feel better, but even at sixteen it was quite apparent, even when he'd grown out of that costume years ago. Something in him wanted to defeat these nightmares; but he wasn't nine anymore, Mysterion was just an old friend, and there were some villains you couldn't touch, some people you couldn't save.

"You can always tell me, if you want to." He knew immediately that he shouldn't have pushed it, but he wanted Craig to know.

Craig stopped what he was doing and looked up from the photos, but he didn't respond.

"It helps to talk about it sometimes."

Craig pursed his lips, resentment peering through his eyes. (Resentment? Why that? Kenny was sure that's what it was.)

"But not if you don't want to…"

He thought, Shit, now I'm just rambling. I'm an idiot.

When Craig finally spoke, he was low but trembling, almost weak – there was a weakness in his voice that Kenny had never heard before.

"Do you have something to tell me?"

Eerie. That's what it was.

Kenny saw blood on the pavement, a bright light and gates that were always locked, an arrow always pointing down. He felt snapping bones and strained gasps of air and collapsing lungs. He smelled blood. His heart was pounding.

He thought of all the mornings he woke up in his bed alone with aching, newly mended bones and how badly he wanted to believed. He thought of every one of his scars and how they covered his body like words to a story he'd had to read too many times, so many times he had it memorized upside down and backwards. That was his nightmare, and he'd long ago given up trying to tell people about it.

He thought of all of this, and how badly he wanted to kiss Craig again, and he swallowed the words he wanted to say and he said, "No."

And without hesitating, without looking back up from the stack of photos in his hands, Craig said, "Then me neither."