A/N:  Dedicated to everyone at Cherry Doom, and especially to Crow, Mango, and ladyyatexel, who I still can’t figure out where to cap. LOVE YOU ALL NO FIGHTING LOL

***Unappreciated***

//Here’s a toast to the unappreciated

Down and down and out of our heads...\\

-Abby Travis, “Toast To The Unappreciated”

(THANKS ZARLA)

            He was eating Chinese food, running on automatic.  Each noodle, each piece of chicken, even his soda all exploded with flavor.  It had been so long since he’d eaten anything that this was a shock to his system.

            The question, really, was why.  Why was he eating at all?  Shouldn’t he be in heaven, in his little wooden chair, blissing?  Why had he been spat back out onto Earth only to find himself eating Kung Pow Chicken and chow mein?  He felt suddenly, violently sick, and pushed the food away, pushing his chair back and standing up shakily.

            Something was very, very wrong here.  Had he been hallucinating?  No, couldn’t be.  He didn’t remember anything after being ripped into strips by... by...

            He stepped outside and moved to the side, stepping to the mouth of an alley, out of the way.  No one stopped or looked at him.  Shouldn’t he be dead?  He had been.  He had been in heaven, for God’s sake!

            He put his forehead against the wall, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths.  He felt sick, still, but it was milder and less intrusive than before.  It felt much better than the sudden crack of wood against the back of his skull, sending his face into the wall.  He slumped to the ground, and only distantly registered the sound of growling.

***

HE WAS ALIVE.

            There was no way!  No possible way!  He had seen Nny drag the man now slumped at his feet all the way back to his house!  He had seen him get dragged into his idol’s house.

            This meant only one thing – Nny had let him go.  Nny never let people go once he had a hold of them.  Then why was this scrawny little motherfucker sitting across the Eat Or Die with chopsticks in his hand?

            He was staring, he realized blankly, staring at the One Who Got Away.  The One Who Got Away, just like the Girl Who Got Away.  But she had only gotten away because Nny had-

            Had-

OH.

            Thoughts careened to the forefront of his mind, slamming against each other and creating a huge pileup.  They fell apart and merged together, forming new thoughts as quickly as they were registered.  He must have been killed but no he’s sitting there so Nny kidnapped him and then kidnap him and then and then Nny must have cared about him to let him go kidnap him and then Nny cared so Nny will care about me because I could have kidnapped him if he were-

            Kidnap him and make Nny notice.

            And there it was.  The scrawny, older male had stumbled out into the street, and he leapt up to follow.

            He found him leaning his head against the wall of the restaurant, and found a piece of wood from a crate.  Lifting it up, he gave it one good swing, and growled at the crack.  He was someone Nny cared about.

            He grabbed his hostage and hefted him up, slipping down the alleyway, unnoticed as usual.

***^^***

            Edgar took his time coming back into consciousness.  He didn’t want to, not really, but something was making him.  His first thought when he could fully open his eyes was, Of course, I come back to earth to get clocked on the head.

            This was followed by, Oh, look.  I’m bound and gagged to a chair.  Original.  He wondered, briefly, where he had gotten so sarcastic, and then began looking around the murky black room.

            The walls were painted a particularly gruesome shade of gray, and were peeling in contempt of the color.  He noticed that the windows were all covered with paper, letting in only the most dismal of light.  The floor was littered with pizza boxes, old bottles of alcohol long emptied, and there – knives were lined up on the wall to his right, hanging on a pegboard. 

            His eyes widened slightly, and he looked back in front of him – and there he was.

            Edgar could only see his silhouette, but there was no mistaking it.  Scraggly, pointy hair, long legs and long arms, too thin to be healthy – and that wide, shining grin that made Edgar want to cover his neck.  He let out a yelp through the gag and almost fell backwards.

“That’s right,” a voice completely unlike Johnny’s, “You should be afraid. Fear Darkness!”

            Edgar raised an eyebrow.

            Okay, maybe it wasn’t Johnny, after all.  He wanted to say something, but didn’t know what, and it wouldn’t matter since he was gagged, so he just waited for more information to present itself.

            “Yes, you should be petrified, for I am your doom!”  The figure stalked forward, and the light that seeped through the paper showed him to be a pimply faced teenager, thin but not dangerously so like Johnny, with a hooked nose and a longer face than the other crazy person Edgar had met.  His hair was greasier than Johnny’s had been, and was slicked to the side slightly.  “Though, I should thank you.  It is your sudden reappearance in this dismal shithole that inspired this whole grand plan.”

            Grand plan, huh?  Well, it couldn’t be so grand that he wouldn’t tell Edgar.

            “You see, I realized that since you are one of the two people I’ve seen survive Nny, you must be special to him.  And if I have something special to Nny, I will be special to him too.”

            Oh, God.  This was not good.  He tried to say that he hadn’t been let go – maybe he could lie and say he escaped – but all that came out was, “Mgph!”

            “And I’m glad you woke up.  I thought you were dead, or something.  That comes later.”  The kid laughed in what was probably supposed to be a menacing manner, but it came out dry and hoarse, and sounded rather pathetic.  Still, the idea of being killed again before he knew why he was alive was rather depressing.  “I don’t get why he’d let you go, though.  I mean, he let that chick go because he liked her and so he showed weaknesses to her...  But you...  He was going to kill you.  Why’d he let you go?”

“Mmghph!”

“Hmm, oh, the gag.  Oh well.  I don’t care how much he likes you, it won’t matter in the end.”  The kid turned and began pacing.  “I’ll bet he’ll appreciate the genius of the plan.  Appreciate me, even!”

            This kid did a lot of assuming.  Edgar wondered if he knew what, exactly, Johnny was like to people like him.  He had a feeling he did, which made the idolization even stranger.

            “When should I call?  Would he notice you missing by now?” the kid turned to look at Edgar, who shook his head.  Nny wouldn’t notice him missing at all, you idiot – he was dead.  The kid didn’t know this, and to make it worse, he looked like he thought Edgar was lying.  “Really?  Or are you just trying to get me to hold it off so he has time to look for you?”

“Mmph!”  Edgar shook his head again, eyes widening, and then nodded.  No, he was not lying, really Nny wouldn’t notice him missing.

            “I don’t believe you.”  He leaned down, and Edgar could smell pizza and alcohol on his breath.  “I don’t believe you at all.”  The kid grinned in his face, and it looked a little more like Johnny than Edgar cared for.

            And then he jumped away, skipping across the room to a phone beside a sofa.  It was dirty and the wires were bare.  How had the boy even found Johnny’s number?  Or was it listed just like everyone else?  The boy picked up the receiver and giddily started dialing.  The ringing echoed in the room.

            There was a click.  “......Hello?”

            The boy looked shocked, and stuttered out, “I have him,” before hunching over to continue.  “And if y-you ever want to see him again-”

            “Your spooky kidnapper’s voice is horrible,” Johnny’s voice cut in, drawling in the bare room, “And besides, you have the wrong number – there’s no one I care enough about to pay any sort of ransom on.”  There was a moment of contemplation, and then Johnny spoke in a sort of passively apologetic tone.  “Sorry.”  Another click, and the boy was staring at a buzzing phone.

            “...”

Oh no, Edgar thought, seeing the boy drop the phone and turn to face him.  This didn’t look to be anything good.

            “Why did... did that not work?  Am I wrong?”  The boy growled and was suddenly hovering over Edgar, hanging close to him and glaring at him viciously, “Didn’t you go to his house and come out alive?”

            Edgar wanted to shake his head, but knew that would be a potentially fatal move, and so he nodded, slowly.  The boy grabbed him by the neck and squeezed, and he gasped.

“Then why?! Why doesn’t he care that I have you?!”

            Edgar mumbled through his gag, and the boy stared at him, before throwing him back.  The chair toppled over, and he knocked his head hard against the wood floor, seeing stars.

            “Keep it down up there!” someone shouted from below.

            The boy, frustrated, screamed back, “Fuck you!”  He then turned and stalked to a bookcase covered in old beer bottles and some unopened alcohol.  He grabbed a large bottle of vodka, sat on the floor, and began to drink.

            This was bound to be a long night.

***

            Edgar didn’t know when he drifted off, but he figured it was between the second bottle of beer and the second small bottle of vodka.  He probably would have slept through the entire binge if he hadn’t felt hands against his mouth.  He opened his eyes slightly, and saw the boy staring at him, too close.  “...just don’t get it,” he muttered, before going around behind him.  Edgar gulped, worried as to what the intoxicated boy was going to do, but he soon felt the ropes around his wrists fall away, and moved his arms slowly.  The boy paid him no attention and came around front, untying his legs, and then moved back to the window, which he had pushed open some time ago to reveal a grungy cityscape.

            Edgar untied the gag and let it drop to the floor, rubbing his wrists idly.

            “You can go,” the boy intoned dully, “I guess you really were telling the truth.”

            “Um...”  Edgar felt rather silly, standing in the middle of the room, trying to say something to his kidnapper, “Are... Are you okay?”  Yes, he felt very silly right about then.

            The boy let out a barking laugh, and took a long gulp from a bottle of Jack Daniels laying on the window sill, “Oh, I’m just peachy.”

            Edgar backed towards the door.  “Okay.  I just... I don’t... I’ll just go now.  Sorry.”  He turned to fumble with the door, when suddenly he heard the faint sound of glass shattering.  He whirled, and saw the boy leaning far out the window, half sitting and half falling.

            “...Hey... Jack, you fell.”  The boy giggled a little, and suddenly lost his balance, tipping over into the sky.

            Edgar dashed to the window and grabbed the boy by his arm.  With a sharp tug, he pulled the other back into the room, falling onto his back with a dull thump, the boy falling onto him haphazardly, laughing.

            The boy rolled off and looked at the ceiling, laughing.  “I wonder what that would feel like.”

            “What?” Edgar exclaimed in surprise.

            “Falling, it’s gotta feel really neat.  But the splat at the end really negates the feeling, I guess.”

            Edgar stared at the boy, bewildered.  Was he just really drunk, or was he genuinely crazy?

            “My dad did that.  Fell right outta the window.”  The boy laughed loudly, “Right into the rose bushes, it was fucking hilarious.  No splat, though.  Kinda disappointing.”  He looked to Edgar, grinning in a drunkenly wistful, nostalgic way.  “I mean, seeing your dad fall through a window into a bush has some value in your life, unless you were, at the time, the one who pushed him out of it.  Then you get your ass beat, and it’s not really funny.”

            “I don’t think I should leave you alone right now,” Edgar decided out loud, solemnly.  The boy sat up slowly and then glared.

            “I don’t need you looking out for me, you cocksucker.  I’m not gonna fall out the window or anything.  I just lost balance.  Besides, what’s it matter?”  He frowned, looking at the wall, and then past it.  “No one’ll care.  If he doesn’t care, why should anyone?”

            “Why are you so obsessed with J...Johnny?” Edgar asked, truly interested in the motives behind this kid.  Said kid glared at him, and he suddenly found himself on the ground, pinned by two hands on his arms.

            “I’m not fucking obsessed!  Don’t you dare give me fucking labels, you shitty little human!”  He was growling, “I’m not fucking obsessed, just because I want to be him!  I just want to be like him!  There are kids who want to be like Babe fucking Ruth!  I want to be like Johnny fucking C.!”

            “But they don’t model themselves after him,” Edgar spoke, softly and soothingly.  “It’s different when you kidnap people to get close to someone.”

            “I kidnapped you so he would notice me, not because I wanted to get close to him!  I wanted to be appreciated, for once in this God-fucking-damned life and you ruined it!”  The hands tightened, but Edgar refused to get flustered, even with the alcoholic breath hot on his face and the imminent threat of decapitation.

            “Are you sure?  It was to be noticed, I can see that, but you must realize that when you spend time doing these things for someone, it’s an obsession.  It’s not healthy, either.  Soon, you’ll start walking by his house every day and leaving dead flowers on his doorstep, and, I don’t know, leaving creepy messages on his answering machine.”

            “People only do that when they want to fuck somebody,” the boy growled lowly, looking less sane and more Johnny.

            “Well...”

            “I don’t want to fuck him!” he screeched, “If I wanted to fuck him I’d have killed myself by now, he’s so untouchable!”

            Edgar gently moved his arms, slowly wresting them from the other’s grip, and put them softly against the other’s shoulders.  “Okay, I believe you,” he spoke in a low, steady tone, trying to pacify the crazed boy.

            “No you don’t,” he growled, but obliged Edgar and moved away, standing up and stumbling to a dirty mattress that had been, previously, unnoticed.  “I... go away.  You’re useless.  Goodnight.”  He fell down into the patched and stained mattress and was out almost instantly.

            Edgar sat up slowly, and took a breath.  The large part of him wanted to leave and just forget about this, but a smaller part insisted that he stay, just to make sure the kid didn’t drown in his own vomit or something equally as bad.

            The larger part slowly agreed, and Edgar looked around, finally settling on the old, worn sofa and laying down on it.  He checked his watch – two in the morning.  Well, it was as good a time as any...

            He closed his eyes, and allowed himself to drift off.

***^^***