The Fear principle (Accepting)

"I've seen worse too, and I've been worse, but just because you're not lying twitching in a pool of your own blood doesn't make you any less injured," Jaguar remarked as she took a few steps closer to look at him more carefully. She stopped at a distance of ten feet, not wanting then to invade Crane's space, as he was the more unpredictable of the two. It looked to her like a bruise, as though someone had hit or choked him, and she had no doubts of the cause, but asked anyway. "How did this happen?"


She doubted that List would tell her the truth but gave him opportunity to do so anyway before continuing.


"Crane, where are your thoughts this morning?" she asked him specifically. "Today may be challenging for you both, and so I would like to check in with you and see what each of you are experiencing in your thoughts and body before we proceed. Any fear? Nervousness? Anger?"
 
"Yeah well...what can ya do right?" Jack chuckled nervously, feeling a tiny tug in her stomach at the idea of Rinji actually wanting to spend some time with her...outside from the cafeteria that is. "You're not missing much anyways..." She looked behind her at her cell and shrugged. "-it aint exactly the Ritz..."


Smiling again, Jack brushed a strand of hair behind her her and chewed on her lower lip for a moment before letting out a tiny sigh. "Hey, ah...listen..." Shifting her weight a bit, she leaned against the door with her other arm and looked into the blonde's eyes. "You know that Mason guy...the one we were, well you were talking to at lunch? Well...I kinda heard he was bad news and all...I mean that's a given in this place...but um...this guy, he's really bad Rinj...could you just...will you please promise me that you won't go near him?" The empath's eyes were narrowed slightly, her smile long since faded.


"Please." She repeated. "For me..."
 
List just looked at Jaguar as she spoke, never liking their 'sessions' with her. Lying twitching in a pool of this own blood? Honestly, she acted like they had formed a shiv somehow and Crane had stabbed him with it. It was just bruises. His voice was even back to normal already, and he wasnt having any trouble breathing anymore, so there was no permanent damage. He raised an eyebrow at her when she asked him how it had happened, as if he would ever actually tell her the truth.


"Would you believe it's a very long trail of hickeys?" He suggested, because people seemed to like the thought of it around here, then frowned fractionally when she finally got to her point. "Apprehensive." He said, watching closely for her facial expressions, minor though they were, and her body language. "What are you suggesting?"


But she gave him a look that clearly said she was talking to Crane and List shut his mouth, lips pressing into a thin line. Crane, for his part, was still in a mostly oblivious state after his latest episode, which List had hoped meant there wouldn't be another one any time soon, but now he had his doubts. Crane's eyes wandered about until List's fingers curled protectively around his hand and he was finally drawn back into the conversation.


"What?" Crane blinked, realizing what she'd said, and tilted his head a bit to the side, humming softly in thought. ". . . My head hurts." It always did, after an episode, whether it was physical or psychological - List never really knew. "Can we go outside? I don't want to be inside anymore." Oh, great. They'd circled back to that again. List had already convinced Crane that they were going to be stuck inside for a long time, more than once, and Crane was happy so long as he had List at his side, but sometimes he just got this way.
 
"No, you're right, I don't think they have crackers around this place except for saltines," Rinji agreed, totally missing what Jack meant by "the Ritz." "I think they mostly give you guys white bread. Not even any bagels. I'll have to bring you Ritz and bagels some time if you want."


Rinji stopped her musing to listen to Jack's request, frowning slightly and tilting her head to the side. Stay away from another prisoner? On purpose? But that meant she couldn't be friends with him!


"But Jack, he seemed nice when I met him," she said. "You act like you're bad news but I know you're sweet, and I'm sure he is too. If I stay away he won't have friends and then he'll really be bad. Trust me, Jackie, I can get him to be nice as you are!"


**


Hickeys, huh. Jaguar wouldn't be surprised if they did have a sexual relationship, but she knew a bruise versus a hickey when she saw one, and that wasn't the latter, for sure.


Eyebrow raised, she commented, "I had no idea that the two of you had such a libido," but otherwise let it be for then. Waiting for Crane's response, scanning his surface tension and feelings, she gentled her tone as she spoke to him.


"If you are to keep yourself more open to me, Crane, then that won't be a problem. I can even help your headache to ease. Would you be willing to let me try that today?'
 
List was glad she wasnt going to press the issue of his bruises, didn't want her digging into his head or Crane's and finding out for herself what had gone on even though List himself had his defenses against empaths and Crane's mind was a maze filled with dead end after dead end after hurricane. Still, what List did not like was Jaguar's next line of questioning.


Crane gave his brother a worried look, wanting to agree but scared anyway. List gave him a nod, though he himself didn't like it, and Crane turned around to put his feet on the ground and actually face her. ". . . You'll make it stop hurting?" He asked, meek and timid for now but with the potential for fear enough to explode. "I . . . I don't like it when you come inside."


List reached his free hand around and leaved his fingers through Crane's hair, pulling the empath's head onto his shoulder and leaning his cheek against Crane's hair even as his eyes narrowed at Jaguar. "I'll help." He said, mostly to Crane but to Jaguar as well. If she could help Crane, good. But if she made things worse, empath or not - instructor or not - if she hurt Crane, List would snap her femur in two before she could say a word in her defense.
 
"I'm serious Rinji!" jack's voice shook and she had to fight the sudden urge to slam her palm against the heavy door. "Stay away from him...he'll hurt you...at least he'll try...I know his kind...I can see..." Jack paused and shook her head, not wanting to admit her slipping into his mind, and then Jaguar letting her in on her own.


Forcing a smile onto her face, Jack took in a deep breath and shrugged. "Guy is probably a big fake, acts all bad just to get into the pants of cuties like yourself...just...watch yourself around him if you have to get near him for some reason...make sure that there's guards around, empath ones if you can..."


Jack couldn't do much protecting from inside her cell, but she knew some of the guards, knew what they were capable of. They wouldn't let this guy touch Rinji. Everyone loved her here.
 
"You don't like to feel so bad all the time either, though, do you?" Jaguar asked gently, taking one step closer to Crane and monitoring his response. For the moment she remained where she was, holding her body in as unthreatening a manner as she could convey, her posture open. He wasn't yet reacting with intensity, and this was an improvement she was pleased with.


Her eyes shift to List as he offers his help, and she observes his hands on Crane, the look in his eyes as he speaks. He does not say so, but she can even without entering his thoughts tell that he still feels hostile towards her, overly protective of Crane. It would be better for them both if they were separated, as List likely will hurt more than help Crane's potential. But she doesn't want to push Crane's fragile possible acceptance away at this point, so she simply nods.


"If you are simply present with Crane, that may help." Still watching Crane, she asks him again, "Are you willing to let me try, Crane? It is your choice."


But if she succeeds, he might begin to trust her that much more.


**


"Oh, Jack, I don't think he'll hurt me...there's guards and he has a cell and I can't get in, just like I can't with you," Rinji explained to her, as though Jack simply didn't understand this. She tapped her fingers against the window again, giving her a reassuring smile. "But I'll be careful anyway. Don't worry about me!"


As Jack tries to back down a little, Rinji nods, agreeing. "He's pretending, Jack. And he won't get in my pants. That's against the rules if you're a prisoner, at least for most people. Not for Jaguar, I don't think. And anyway, we'll be okay, both of us. It's so sweet of you to worry about me though! I wish I could hug you. I will at dinner, okay?"


She blew a kiss and pressed it against the glass, giggling. "Maybe even that. Or I can get Jaguar to...I bet you'd like that too!"
 
Crane was nodding - slowly, unsurely, but giving permission anyway, and his fingers had twined through List's squeezing tight. List took his acceptance and nodded once as well, turning to press a reassuring kiss into Crane's hair and let out a faint breath. They were doing this, weren't they? List didn't like it.


"Close your eyes." List said, quietly but firmly, and Crane obeyed. "You have walls, don't you?" He asked softly, though he didn't expect an answer. "And the only way to get through walls without knocking them down is to put in doors. All you have to do is just make a door, one that will only admit her, and nothing else can hurt you." Crane wasn't stable enough to figure out empathic things on his own. List had always helped him, even though they'd never had much time to practice, or anyone to practice with.


Crane shifted, brow furrowing a bit in concentration though his eyes didn't open, and after a long minute or so, he nodded. "'Kay. . . I see a door. . ." He smiled faintly. "It's green."


"Good." List said, nodding and ignoring the color. He already knew Crane liked green, he didn't need to be reminded. "Only let her open it."
 
Jaguar nodded with approval at List's explanation, giving Crane another smile to reassure him. "Your brother is exactly right, that's exactly what you do. Think of the door and your large, strong walls, and the door opening just wide enough to let me in. It will recognize me, Crane. And it will shut again behind me to keep you safe."


She paused, watching him shut his eyes, List supporting him, and spoke softly, moving one step closer. "Your door is green. You are safe, and no one will enter but me. The pain will ease, because you'll let me behind that door."


When she judged that his expression was just calm enough to try, she subtly prodded at the outer limits of his thoughts, testing the waters, before entering his mind. Seeing the door and walls he was picturing, she knocked gently, then eased it open to step inside.


"I am here, Crane. Tell me what you're feeling."
 
List didn't like not knowing what was going on, didn't like being the only non-empathy in the room, if only because he had to just wait and hope nothing was actually going wrong. Crane tensed up when Jaguar's presence slipped through his door into his mind, even though he'd made it just for her, and his grip shifted, fingers squeezing tight enough around his brother's hand that List thought he might feel his bones start grinding together soon enough. List ignored it and let Crane continue silently on.


. . . I feel strange. Crane said, mentally because he was too lost in it to respond with real words, and with Jaguar right there in his head he knew instinctively that he didn't have to. I'm afraid. He could still feel List's hand in his, his brother's shoulder under his head, but it still felt scary, enough that his own mental image of himself was curled up in a 'corner', blindfolded with his own hands over his ears. I don't like it. . . Sometimes, bad things happen, and I forget, and the black spots are scary but I don't want to look closer.


Any time something happened, whether it be List getting hurt or a body left dead behind them for survival or the horrible criminals' minds seeping into his consciousness - he took the moment and blocked it away from himself so that he couldn't remember. Kept it hidden away from his own thoughts so it wouldn't hurt him. If he didn't he would surely go mad. He had already gone mad.
 
Jaguar could see himself exactly as Crane pictured, a darkened room where he lay blindfolded and crumpled in the corner, blocking out even what in the darkness could not be seen. Jaguar spoke to him softly as she came forward, letting him hear her approach so he could estimate her proximity.


"I am here. I am here, and List is with you outside of this world. Nothing will harm you, you are safe. You are only within your thoughts, and they can't hurt you. You are safe."


She let her eyes rove the "room," taking in each of the blackspots and catching glimpses of memories he wanted to keep hidden from himself, and as she slowly squatted beside him, she spoke again.


"Step one, Crane. I want you to take off your blindfold, but keep your eyes shut. Can you do that?"
 
The internal version of Crane was shaking, while his physical body was much too still. List kept an ear out for his brother's breathing even as he listened to Jaguar's end of the conversation, thankful at least for that tiny glimpse of what was going on. He still didn't understand what blindfold she was talking about, but thought it had something to do with what was going on in their little empath world and so stayed quiet.


Inside his own head, Crane shuddered, for a moment the whole room blurring, but then it was solid again - as solid as it had ever been - and he was moving a hand cautiously up enough to grasp the blindfold with just his fingertips, not wanting to uncover his ears long enough. He pulled it carefully off that way, until it fell around his neck instead, and his eyes were squeezed shut tight to let nothing in.


It's too bright. . . His 'voice' was quiet and shaky. I don't want to see. . .
 
Jack bit down on the inside of her cheek, wanting to tell Rinji what Jaguar had shown her, what she had seen in his own mind, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. Instead, she just shook her head and forced herself to laugh. "The hug sounds good cutie...just don't get me in trouble with any of the other inmates, you know they all like you...if they see you hugging me and not them, they might start thinking something's going on..." She winked, keeping the smile plastered onto her face.


The kiss threw her off, and the smile faltered for a second. Jack could feel her heartbeat pick up and had to remind herself to breath when she realized that she was holding in a breath. "Yeah well..." It was all she could get out, and she felt her cheeks burning, realizing that she must be blushing, Jack coughed and quickly looked away.
 
He had actually taken off the blindfold, which is very encouraging to Jaguar; she had expected him to flatly refuse and require more persuasion. Another step and she is close enough to slowly, lightly brush her fingers over his, cinching the blindfold more firmly in his fist.


"If you keep your eyes closed, you won't have to. Yet. Now listen to me, Crane. You don't have to open your eyes. But can you tell me one of the things that you think might be in the dark spots? I will be the one to explore them for you, and you will see and hear nothing. I'm doing this to help you bring them into light, where nothing can hide again. Can you help me, Crane?"


**


"Oh, but there is something going on," Rinji assured Jack, giggling. "You're one of my best friends, that's a LOT going on! Friends are just as good as girlfriends or boyfriends, you know. Even better because sometimes they have benefits. If you're friends with everyone then it's so much easier and more interesting. Dpn't worry, I would hug you even if they did get worried or jealous because you're my friend and you deserve hugs. I think you need them, actually."


When Jack coughs, seeming thrown by her kiss, Rinji frowns, looking at her with concern. "Do you have a cold? I should get you medicine for it. I don't mind hugging you if you're sick though, I don't mind colds all that much, so don't worry."
 
Crane's grip suddenly tightened much too hard, and List could've sworn he heard something in his own hand pop, but he ignored it, just gritting his teeth and letting it continue. If it got any worse, he was going to have to put a stop to this. He didn't want this woman damaging Crane even further.


No! Crane's voice shouted suddenly inside his head, the mental image of him biting down onto his lip hard enough to make it bleed, his fingers curling tighter against the blindfold and his ears and his hair. Don't want to see. . . Don't want to see. . . The black spots were black for a reason, the darkness hiding away the things he wasn't supposed to see. He didn't want to touch them, didn't want to bring them to light. He knew that if he did they would hurt too much, and he wouldn't be able to take it. He would only shatter under the weight of it bearing down atop him.
 
"You won't hear....you won't see," Jaguar continued to assure Crane quietly, crouching down in front of him and lightly touching his hands against the blindfold. "Listen to me, Crane. They will not touch you. They will not hurt you. Tell me what they are, and they will be drawn out to me and me alone. I will lead them away from you. I will take them and bind them where they can't come to you. You won't see or hear a thing, and your headaches will stop. That doesn't mean that we'll be through, but for today, you'll feel better. Trust me, Crane. Just tell me what is there, and then let me do everything I can to keep them away."


Of course, eventually Crane would have to face them; that was the point of this. But for now she needed to gain his trust, to let him feel temporary relief, before she pushed him further.
 
Crane's self image was shaking his head again, fingers held tight against his head as he tried not to listen and couldn't help but hear. There were things he didn't want to think about, and she was asking him to think them anyway.


. . . List. . . He said finally, after a long, long pause, and his voice was quiet and afraid. Bruises. . . He . . . He's hurt. . . But Crane had never liked to see when List was hurt, and he knew that they had been alone, that the door had never opened and he'd been sleeping and then he was suddenly awake and List was struggling to breathe with slowly darkening red marks in his throat. He knew that they were the only two and the room and it was the size of hands and -


His own defense mechanisms cut off that train of thought, left another 'black spot' behind he couldn't touch. He couldn't accept the thought that he might have been the one to hurt the person he cared about so much. He was hardly able to recognize List was hurt at all. I only brought back bad thoughts of their father, spots in the black where there were loud noises and List ended up bleeding and bruised with fist- and foot-sized marks on him. Marks big enough only an adult male could have made them. But he couldn't think that either. It was too hard.
 
As Crane spoke Jaguar could begin to make out the shadowy shapes taking place in the darker regions of his thoughts, to see them become more distinct in form. She saw List, looking to her slightly smaller and younger than he currently was, in the injured state that Crane had described, but she couldn't be sure of what had caused his injuries. Drawing closer, she saw the marks on the figure's throat and frowned, unsure if this was a fear of Crane's, that he would continue to hurt List, or if Crane hurt List because he was suppressing memories of another person hurting List.


It was not Crane she spoke to now, but the projection of List in his head as she continued towards it, beckoning her hand and gesturing it to follow her into a corner of his mind well away from List's bound form. "Tell me what has happened to you," she asked it quietly. "Tell me what it is about you that has Crane so afraid."
 
The projection of List wasn't much more than a child, a time before he'd killed their father and they'd run away. He was bleeding from many different places, injuries from one time and another and another overlapping. When she stopped 'moving' he sat and settled with his arms folded loosely atop his knees, bare of anything but a pair of shorts, vulnerable and small. Part of his face was swollen and purple, bleeding down the side of his head, but his expression was blank as if there were no pain, as if the colors on his skin didn't stand out so much against the white of Crane's mind-image. He'd always kept his expression that way, to keep Crane from worrying about his hurts. Even in the projection, he didn't change his expression as she approached or spoke - he only smiled for Crane, only ever for Crane.


When they were still, List's eyes lifted, empty and lost, to look at her. "He hits me." He said, as frank and even as ever, but with the barely deepened voice of a child. "Dad does." Even in just a projection, the word was foreign on his lips. His parents had never felt like parents. "All the time. But it's okay. It kept Crane safe. I always kept him safe. . ."
 
Jaguar regarded the child version of List, taking in his bruised and bleeding body with some sadness coming into her eyes. She listened to him speak, remaining still, and then reached out to him, very lightly touching his arm.


"You may have served that purpose for Crane once, but you are a memory now. The living List is outside of him and you must leave him too. By staying here in his thoughts, you're hurting him. You want to protect List, then you have to heal yourself. You have to leave him."


She took another step forward and very gently wiped some of the blood off his face. "Are you inside List as well?"
 
The child List didn't move when she touched him, only watched her and twitched slightly when her hand touched the bruises. He didn't pull away because his pain didn't matter; it had never mattered. Slowly, he shook his head. "'s different. . ." He said quieter. "It was different after I killed him. . . After we left home. . ." Everything had changed all at once. List wasn't hurt by their father anymore, but he got hurt keeping them alive, had to resort to thieving and killing those that tried to kill them.


He looked away from her, and where his eyes landed another projection of List appeared, this one older, in his late teens. The teenager was leaning back against a door, keeping it closed though there was blood that wasn't his dripping down his hands onto the floor, and shadow tried to push it open, leaking slowly past him through the cracks. His expression was softer, less distant than the child's, but the moment he looked away from where Crane's far off corner was, it grew hard again. "It was different, with other people around." The teenager said, his voice more similar to the real List's. "He started to feel them more. He always knew when they wanted to kill us."
 
Jaguar wasn't sure, listening to the projections of List talk, if he meant himself or Crane. It didnt' matter. His presence in Crane's head was clearly not healthy for him, and she shook her head, reaching out to take hold of the figure's arm as she spoke with him firmly.


"You have your own healing in your own head, and you no longer belong in Crane's. You are hurting him. You must let me give you a window to leave out from and return to List alone. You are not Crane's. He is capable now of protecting himself, and I will help him be able to. It's time for you to leave."


She doubts he's going to go without a fight, and so she quickly adds, "If you struggle you will only hurt Crane more, and he will be more afraid and hurt List's body or his own. So I wouldn't advice it, if you love him."
 
The teenager looked at her hand when she touched him, looked past her towards where Crane's inner projection still was, and finally focused on Jaguar again. "You don't understand. . . Not even you can fix a disability he was born with. You can't grant him the ability to process like a normal person. His empathy only made things worse - if it's strong enough, he becomes what he feels. And then he blocks it away after, because he can't take it. . . 'S why I'm here. This place is filled with too many disturbed minds. . ."


He looked conflicted, for a long pause, and finally took hold of the hand holding on to him. He pulled her forward as he shifted out of the way, until her hand was on the door and she could hold it closed in his place. "I've always been here, to keep it at bay when he can't do it himself, and to keep him safe when I fail. . ." He moved over to where the child still sat, and picked the injured form up into his arms. "We're going to leave now. . . Let him hurt, and Ill kill you myself." They faded after that, as did the door with its inky black trying to seep through. They were only projections, after all, and the real dangers lay outside Crane's mind.


Crane's mental image had its eyes still closed but they were leaking trails of tears, and though one hand still tried to cover one of his ears, the other grasped at the empty space in front of him. Where did he go? Where did he go? Come back. . . I don't want to be alone - bring him back!


Outside, List was holding him tight and trying to shush and soothe him, his voice leaking through into Crane's mind space. "It's okay, it's okay, I'm here. Don't cry, Crane, I'm here. It's all right." His tone shifted, aimed no longer at his brother, and his fear and anger and worry leaked through the walls, familiar enough that Crane picked his head up to 'look' for it but didn't open his eyes. "What did you do!?"


"WHAT DID YOU DO!?"
 
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Jaguar took in what the projection of List was telling her with outside appearance of calm, but inside her mind her gears are spinning as she attempts to spin off into a new track of action to cope with this latest curveball. She had been certain that List stood in the way of Crane's mental health, for they were certainly extremely codependent. Take away List, and Crane would be forced to stand alone and face up to the darkest pieces of himself, to strengthen as a result. But even within his mind she can feel Crane's panic, beginning to affect her own feelings as she fights against it, fumbling in her pocket for a lighter she imagines into being to hold out for him to see.


"There is light, Crane. If you would look, you would see."


When the lighter does not seem adequate, she mentally conjures a torch, blazing brightly, and holds it in front of her, continuing to speak to him aloud.


"There is light, Crane, and you are not alone."


What she should do now is take the objects hiding in the blackness and to at least gather them into one area, to declutter his brain...but how exactly will she round them up with a subject so unwilling to help?
 
"Stop!" List's voice was still filtering through into Crane's mind, almost panicked in its ferocity. "Let him go!"


It was, at first, a miracle that Crane opened his eyes at all. The projection inside his head was shaking and sobbing still, quietly but visibly, and only very, very slowly did he squint his eyes open. Finally, he opened them enough to look at her, but his eyes flickered to the torch in her hand and the image of flickering flame brought to mind the only real home they'd ever had, falling slowly to pieces as it burned bright orange in the twilight. But there was no hand holding his, no person standing next to him, he was alone and -


Crane screamed. Inside and out, a terrified, mournful sound, and squeezed his eyes shut tight again.


List couldn't sit by anymore. He took the moment of distraction to launch off the bed and into Jaguar, throwing them both hard to the ground. He knew that it was possibly just taking advantage of the distraction that he was able to get her down but it didn't matter. He pushed himself up and pulled back a fist, his expression breaking from its usual mask into reckless fury. Even though he had no way of knowing what the projection of himself had said inside Crane's head, List would fulfill his previous threat. He would have no qualms killing her with his own bare hands if she kept hurting the only precious person he'd ever had.


"Let him go!"


***************************


Jeremiah had, as he scrolled through footage of the hours he'd been asleep to find interesting or important points that might not be in the progress reports he was given, had left a light monitor on Jaguar, specifically. He was worried about her, still, but hadn't been paying too much attention to her until the spikes of fear and rage filtered through her senses into his. He toppled his chair when he stood and left the room without righting it.


This time, Jeremiah did not take his time getting to her. He ran full tilt down the halls, used an override key code to get the elevators to bypass any other requests, and even increased their speed for the time it took to get to the right floor. As soon as the doors were open, he was running again. He knew of the young men Jaguar had been working with, knew their files by heart as he knew every inmate's, and had touched both of their minds himself before - and he knew that List would do absolutely anything for his brother.


Even cave her skull in against the floor.
 
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