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CHARACTERS: Tate & Crane
LOCATION: Crane's room
WARNINGS: creepyness.
SUMMARY: Crane gets slapped, Tate is too fucking curious for his own good
NOTES:

It wasn't precisely the response he was expecting to get, but it had been hilarious never the less. Guys like that, arrogant and thinking they knew everything; the bigger they were the harder they fell, and it made Tate's mind tick. With what he and Crane had spoken about before, he couldn't help but wonder what it would take to get a guy like that to scream.

He'd had the feeling Crane was too smart for shit like that, to let that kind of public display happen.

Almost immediately after getting the text, Tate left, slipped into the shadow of the halls to appear outside Crane's room. He doesn't bother knocking this time, instead stepping forward and letting the door welcome him once more into this private space. "Doctor?"

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"It's the little things," Crane states softly. He's sitting down again, and while his cheek still smarts from how heavy the blow had been--and surprising enough to knock him down, enough silver to scrape at his cheeks--he's not a crying baby. On the contrary, it sends him a nice reminder of his place. In a way, what Viserys wanted--but his place was to garner paranoia, to cultivate fear.

"The tiny details you have to pay the most attention to. Sowing seeds of distrust is only the beginning--he was an easy target and he won't be missed." The words have a finite sound to them, and Crane's lips fall into a small smile.

"We'll use him for the experiment. A controlled subject, if you want to call it that."

Crane speaks as soon as he's entered the room and the door has offered them privacy, sliding closed behind him with a click of expression finality. Tate doesn't move from where he stands, regulation shoes and slacks dressing him head-to-toe in black. His eyes are as dark as his outfit when his gaze falls on the gash that colours the doctor's cheek.

He moves after a moment, pulling out the bottom drawer of the desk that offers a small first aid kit. He places it on the counter and the sound of it opening is the only response Crane gets from him at first.

"I don't think he did anything but look like an arrogant dick," Tate says blandly, which is the truth. It was pretty funny. He couldn't, off the top of his head, think of anyone better to use.

"You haven't told me how we're doing it," He says, though there's no accusation in his voice, when he turns, antiseptic cradled in the palm of his right hand.

Edited 2012-03-17 22:53 (UTC)

"I'm waiting," Crane says simply, and his gaze shifts only briefly to the other's hand. Otherwise his gaze is back at the blonde, and a brow quirks as he reaches his hand up to touch the stinging sensation on his cheek. Ah--Viserys' rings.

Odd, how Crane could be beaten down time and time again by the Batman, and it was a simple sting that was bothering him the most. Fascinating, almost--but before Crane let himself delve in to the psychological aspects of pain, he forces himself out of it.

"Wouldn't want any plans to fall through on your first try, Tate."

Tate's mouth hitches just a little, but he crosses the space between them easily. There's no rush in his steps, but no tentativeness in his gesture when he approaches. It's an odd sense, the familiarity with which he moves to stand next to where Crane sits.

He's been careful to keep it a secret. It was always a secret, what went on in his head. What he was capable of. Most people didn't understand him, not in the slightest. They didn't get that he did these things for a reason. Chad and Patrick had to die; and She had needed a baby. Scaring that cheerleader was as much pleasure as it was to get her off of Violet's back because she's was a slutty bitch.

The cap pops off the antiseptic, and Tate spreads it on his fingers. His eyes are too dark under the shadow of pale lashes, and he presses the pads of his fingertips over the shallow slice created by that lord's rings. If Crane had a problem with this invasion of personal space, Tate didn't seem to notice, or care, but his voice is low when he speaks between them. "Who says it's my first time?"

Crane winces. It's the first sign of weakness, he knows, but he's not used to people touching him. Oh, he's used to being pushed up against walls, punched, kicked. He's used to lockers an wedgies and gum in his hair, he's used to rougher punches and gunshots and angry dogs and the Batman.

He's not used to a gentle touch, even if it's something as simple as antiseptic for a little scratch. He keeps his gaze level, however, and focuses on Tate's too-old eyes and haunting tone.

"Not like this," He explains. "Not like this." It's a repeat of his previous words, but the grin is there. The delighted smile of one Jonathan Crane as his voice softens and, in his excitement, places his own hands on the side of Tate's face, gently shaking his head.

"Not like this."

Crane was so beautifully easy, and it's a slow blink, a dusting of lashes over his cheeks before Tate's eyes lift from the injury to the glee washing over him from the doctor's own gaze. Tate was more experienced with what a touch could do, why people did it. Why he, himself, did it. The comfort one could find in another human being, and how dangerous it could be.

He doesn't pull away from those artist's hands on his jaw. This was about what Crane was sharing with him, this was a glimmer of his mask, stitched and patched and ugly. Tate feels his insides lean toward it, greedy and predatory, though he doesn't physically move.

Instead, he smiles, and it's a soft thing that gently curves his mouth into a bow. Where he'd paused, his thumb smears blood and antiseptic across the older man's cheek. "I've got some experience with self entitled jerks," He says, teasing, as he restrains the urge to push down on the injury, watch the blood well to the surface. His fingers brush Crane's jaw when they fall away, like crushed butterfly wings. "I get it." He adds, just in case the guy was so socially inept he didn't understand. Tate got the impression he wasn't all that great with social interaction, despite how smart he was.

"Yes."

It's a hiss--a brief hiss from an uncontrolled emotion, something Crane's so very careful and delicate about and he just met Tate but Tate is right.

He releases a breathe he doesn't notice he was holding, reminds himself to come to his senses before he realizes that around Tate, this is not a weakness. This is a link to be shared; to be treasured. This is something between them and just them and Crane is very well aware of the fact that no one else would understand.

This ship, the Tranquility, is more than what it seems, he realizes. Crane doesn't believe in fate and destiny but he believes in fear. He believes in fear and the fact that the emotion can literally kill people. It's an exiting feeling, a rush that he knows Tate has experienced before, he can sense it, and it's knowledge the two of them share that absolutely no one can explain.

He swallows, lips parting before he moves closer to Tate, hands still on the other's face, lowering his head so their forehead touched. A bond not in love, but in hate. Not in acceptance, but in the twisted sense of being alone. His eyes close, quiet, still, and then when he speaks, it's barely above a whisper:

"I know you do."

It's intimate, and for a moment, Tate isn't sure what to do with it. Flounders, however briefly, in this show of emotion, something he'd been trying to pull out of him like strings of sinew, and is still startled by how raw it turns out to be.

Crane, he knows, has deduced, does not ascribe to this kind of physical intimacy. He's a scientist, a doctor, clinical and precise. But he wants, because everybody wants, and Tate knows (knows) there's something soft under there. A frailty that Tate doesn't think he has in himself, and so seeks out in others, pressing his fingers into those fractured places. That's how it had started. That he accidentally found something deep and dark and terrifying was like finding gold.

He closes his eyes, just for a moment, and revels in the feeling. Of something like understanding, that doesn't ask Tate to be anything but this twisted, filthy thing.

And then he glances up. Time to come back, doctor, he doesn't say, before he slips out of Crane's grasp. Tate couldn't give him too much, after all. Give him too much, and he'd slip away too soon.

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HEY THIS TAG TOTALLY DIDN'T TAKE FOREVER NOPE

GOD KAT

/quietly boomerangs

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