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

November 1st | Arkham Asylum

When I wake up, it's almost as if it were all a dream. A nightmare rather. I try to uncoil last night's events in my migraine ravaged head; but it all seems unreal. Like it wasn't me running through a colony of bats to save the psychotic doctor who haunts my fantasies. Honestly, the entire five days which I've been captive in Arkham seem unreal. I'm going to need a psychiatrist to help me unpack all of this.

Of everything, Dr. Crane feels the most like a mirage. Like a nightmare and a dream wrapped together as one intimidatingly beautiful, severely perplexing man; and despite everything, I did truly try to save him.

When I finally got to him last night, I promised him I would get him out, without a clue as to how. Without a clue of what had happened in that basement. He sat dazed, staring at me. Then he said my name, and smiled. Smiled. What happened after was a naseau inducing blur. I had just started dragging him to the stairs when I heard a stampede of boots pounding just above me. The police were coming.

In that moment, I made a judgment call. I hauled Dr. Crane beneath the stairs and I hoped. I hoped they wouldn't come, I hoped they wouldn't find us. He had looked up at me, a haze in his eyes and said;
"I knew you would help me-"
His voice quiet and broken.

But as the swat jogged down the stairs, a sea of black uniforms flooding the site, i knew it was hopeless. There was no where to hide.

"He's over here!"
A deep voice yelled, as he stepped over a dead body and approached us.

From then, I was shot with a tranquilizer dart, as if I were some rabid animal. As the room faded to black, I grabbed onto Dr. Crane's hand- and he grabbed onto mine.

"I knew you would."
He said again.
His mannerisms so soft in that fleeting moment before I fell into yet another medical slumber.

If it weren't for his absence today- I would almost believe it all to be false; chemically induced even. But as I lay, tied down to this godforsaken cot once more, Dr. Crane is no where to be found. I have failed him, I have failed myself. He was my one and only chance out of here; and only god knows where he is now. If he's even alive.

The thought sends a nauseous bubble up to my throat. I'm stranded here to rot; I made a pointless promise to a man who haunts my every moment and now I'm utterly lost. Alone.

The worst part is; I find myself missing his warmth, his smirks, his condescending tone, more than his promise to me. His promise to get me out, and that terrifies me. I'm not begging for answers (anymore), I'm simply begging for him.

"Are you afraid Miss Alcott?"
His words echo in my aching skull.

"Fucking terrified Dr. Crane."
I respond into the empty air.

I'm losing my mind. I decide.

"Did you say something?"
A female voice questions.

I whip my head around to see a bleach-blonde haired nurse smiling, something so rare, so out of place in such a dark institution. She's sitting in a white lab coat beside my bed, holding a clipboard in her tight grip, her pen is shaking. Vintage eye glasses resting on the bridge of her pixie nose.

"Were you asking for Dr. Crane?"
She asks, tilting her head. She's so bright, so clean, so good. She doesn't belong here. She needs to go, she needs to leave-

"Get out-"
I tell her, panic rushing through me. My breath catching.

"Go!"
I try to sit up. The restraints pull me back onto the bed with a thump.

"You don't belong here- go!"
I scream, my voice ragged. I must've been crying. My cheeks burn from salty tears that I didn't know were falling.

Arkham is going to ruin her. Like it ruined me.

Her eyebrows knit together and she looks like she's about to cry. I see her lip quiver.

"You have too,"
I whisper, pleading.

"You don't belong here."
I repeat, my voice still, but soaked in ache.
I want to say more, but that's all I can manage. All that I can explain it's all that I have been able to understand. Arkham ruined Crane, it ruined me, and it will ruin her.

"He- he was a bad doctor, I know."
She says, her forehead scrunched.

"You didn't deserve what he did to you."
Her accent is thick New England.

A heavy rock sinks into my stomach.

"I'm going to help you forget,"
She stands up, wheeling a familiar gurney into the room. She mumbles something into a radio strapped to her lab coat lapel; and two guards step into my room.

Help me forget? Forget him? Forget...

Fear dives into my stomach. Where is she taking me? Who is she?

"Where's Dr. Crane?"
I ask, my voice breaking mid sentence.

"Don't worry sweetheart, he's gone, he can't hurt you now."
She reassures me.

"I'm going to help you forget,"
She repeats. Two guards unstrap my limbs from the bed. I squirm like a bird in a net, kicking and screaming at the top of my lungs.
I don't want to forget.