The Skin That Crawls From You [A Jonathan Crane Fan-fiction]

Answers.

I think the night will never end. I sit in Jonathan's blood until my backside goes numb. It soaks through my jumpsuit as I rock back and forth hugging my knees. My body won't stop trembling. I can't sleep, and I can't bring myself to help him.

He lays face up, his eye lids fluttering from time to time. I know he's alive but I'm not sure I want him to be.

Im not entirely sure why I can't bring myself to help him. If it's the fact that I had just watched my bare hands drain every ounce of life from another human, (and could very well do it again) or if it's something more complex. I want answers, more than anything in the world. But Im livid. I feel it in my bones. Im livid at him for keeping secrets, for using me; and livid at myself for trusting the first man who offered me solace in the cold cruel world of Arkham.

I was easy prey and he was a skilled predator. Some sort of mad scientist. I had meant nothing to him, he saved me from Arkham for my power. He saved me as he would save an expensive firearm from a burning building, a weapon.

He had known about this since the beginning. He had known everything. When I had come in he had known about-

My brother.

Back in our apartment, just a month before, I had put some Kraft mac n' cheese on the stove to boil. Ryan was hungry; and god knows that my mother wasn't going to make dinner. I was just trying to take care of him. But then it happened. I blacked out. I woke up, and he was gone. He was dead and I was a murderer.

"Well half of Arkham believes that you killed your brother."
Crane had said in the very beginning.

They had all been right. Crane had been right. Something triggered me, I must've done it. There were no knife wounds, no sign of struggle. There was only death looming in that god forsaken apartment. There was only me.

Crane mutters something vaguely. His lips part.
"Please- make it stop."
He begs, his voice deep.

My heart drops.

He opens his eyes but stares directly behind me.

My breath catches in my throat.
"Kill me."
He whispers. His tone sends a shiver through me. Tears sting my eyes but soak into Crane's mask.

Tempting, my anger says.

But as I stare at him, this broken shell of a man leaking out just in front of me, I feel nothing but pain.

"I can't stop seeing it."
He says. His eyes still elsewhere. He shuts them, they open again in a panic.

"He's always here."

"Who's always here?"
I venture. Genuinely curious. Who haunts this maven of fear?

"The scarecrow."
He says. Refusing to make eye contact with me.

"It's just me in your mask I-"

"Raven, it's not you."
He says, his eyes filling with tears.

"I can't see you."

"Well I'm in your mask,"
He must be confused.

"No. Raven. I can't see."

The hit must've blinded him.