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WHO: Katurian Katurian and Edward Nygma
WHERE: Coffee shop!
WHEN: 1/17
WARNINGS: None that I can think of.
SUMMARY: Edward confronts Katurian about his feelings.
FORMAT: Starting with paragraph!

In the months and months since Sylph's death, in the weeks and weeks since Desire tore itself right out of his head, Katurian has drawn inward. He's avoided the Network. He hasn't left his house much, though he still emerges from his bedroom to speak with Andy. In a rare burst of sociability, he spends time exploring the city with Cassie, laughing and smiling, and then he returns home to stare at his typewriter. Consumed.

How does this go? He remembers how it goes. The first word goes--

Once

--the second word goes--

upon

--and he thinks the third word goes--

a

He holds his head, his fingers digging into his scalp until it bleeds. He thinks about Michal, and then he thinks about the knife he keeps in his alternative apartment. The pillow mask. And then he writes.

The phone call catches him in one of these sessions, and he almost ignores it, but the ribbon on his typewriter is dry that day and the letters are fading, fading, fading, and he's so frustrated that his writing is interrupted that he picks up the phone without thinking. What?! he spits into it, his hands shaking.

A day later, and he's at a coffee shop with Edward Nygma.

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"You've been avoiding me," he said. He spoke in a soft drawl, one disaffected and distant. His coffee was cooling and he leaned one elbow over the back of his chair, puffing out his chest as he crossed his legs. There was an easy eloquence in his body language, something fluid and theatrical.

"I think I know why, as well." Edward offered a sly grin, a joke between two men. "And that's more or less what we're going to discuss. Right now."

He had chosen a table in the farthest corner from the exit and the bathrooms. Katurian would have no easy escape.

"I don't know why I came."

He leaned back in his seat as though he were stretching, his hands folded across his chest. It was a display of dominance - or at least an attempt at it. He tried to make his voice sound strong, too, but it wavered with Edward's hidden promises, with their distance from the exit.

He barked a laugh.

"I mean, I told you I wasn't going to talk about it, and I knew-- I knew that you were going to try something like this anyway. I just fucking knew it." He lifted his coffee, recognized that he wouldn't be casual enough to do anything less than guzzle it, and placed it back on the table. "And if you'd like to know, I've been working. This month."

Edward eyed the display with a critical look. The corners of his mouth sharpened.

"You knew it, and yet here you are. You're drawn to me, even when you try at every turn to ignore me. Me. The man who saved you." He reached over for his coffee cup, bringing it to his lips. His eyes flickered over it as he spoke.

"It's a damn shame, Katurian, it really is," he said before sipping. Careful, restrained sips. Perfect control.

Perfect poise.

"Do you think about me? At night?"

He wasn't prepared. He tried to inhale and exhale at the same time, and then choked, naturally, on what air he had managed to swallow.

He was immensely glad that he hadn't taken a sip of his coffee.

"I think about how you saved my life, yes. If that's what you're asking." Katurian knew what he was asking. "I think about how you saved my life."

"You ought to be honest about it, Katurian." Edward indulged in another sip. He licked the excess from his lip, tongue darting out. "Honest about what you feel, because if you're not then you can damn well bet Desire will take an interest in your personal emotions."

Edward leaned closer at that, his body language suddenly tense.

"You would have said no, had you not. You understood what I asked, didn't you?"

Edited 2012-01-19 06:22 (UTC)

Katurain stared at Edward for a long moment (he was hoping he would call it off, it was in vain, but he was hoping) and then his eyes went down to his coffee, darting as they picked up every detail of the cup.

"I was working, I said." His voice cracked in its usual way. "I've been indulging in my work. I've been expressing desire for my work. That's the one thing that makes me happy."

Happy. It was like a mockery when he used that word, and Katurian caught it too, that sour taste as it left his lips. He coughed.

That won a laugh. A harsh, bubbling chortle, a sound that echoed into his coffee cup. Happy. Edward shook his head lightly, making no attempt to smother his smile.

"Be honest with me, Katurian. I'm not going to cringe." He paused to rub a finger over the rim of his cup, looking down at it. "I've prepared myself for the worst."

It was important, he thought, essential that he know what Desire could exploit, between Katurian's heartbeats. He knew that if he used the Threshold to discover it for himself, Desire would take him to penalty. This was safer, more sensible -- for him.

"Are you afraid of your own emotions?"

He mouthed the word. No. But it was a lie that he even he recognized. He was afraid of his own rolling rage, of the nights he spent consumed with that blistering anger interwoven with fear. He was afraid of Edward, that sharp light that could destroy and save him all at once. He was also afraid of what that one particular fear did to his body. The craving. Like a moth to a--

Somewhere in the coffee shop, someone pushed their chair in. It squeaked against the linoleum floor.

"W-What?" Katurian put his hand flat on the table, craning forward to look around the room. "Did you hear something strange, just then? I-- I could have sworn I heard something a little bit strange."

Edited 2012-01-20 04:29 (UTC)

"Don't think you can elude me, Katurian." Eddie hissed the words, leaning forward. "Don't think you can twitch out of this discussion, you understand me?"

People were beginning to stare. They recognized Eddie's face, the Deputy Mayor, they recognized that he was speaking in rushed hushed tones to the published author Katurian Katurian. Edward felt their stares, but his composure gave no cracks. He stared at Katurian, his eyes narrowed.

"Focus. Answer my question."

He put his hand flat over Katurian's, pinning it. Anchoring him.

Katurian's hand sweated underneath Edward's. He was aware of the eyes, too, and he did care, he did care that he was pinned down in public surrounded by all those people who might know who he was, who might murmur about his instability or dangerous reputation. There was a time when he would not have cared, when he would have laughed at or even relished the mistakes in their judgment, but that time was long over. That time ended three hours before he received a (not-quite) final bullet to the brain.

He pulled his attention back to Edward, his eyes wide.

"Sometimes." He swallowed. "Sometimes, all right?"

Edited 2012-01-21 01:55 (UTC)

"There. That wasn't so hard, was it?" Edward kept his hands over Katurian's own, a symbolic fortress, a stronghold. "You're going to have to bear with me, on this, all right? I must understand the nature of the situation if I'm to protect both our interests and welfare from Desire's interference."

He didn't blink, when speaking to Katurian. His smile retained its easy air, but at this point it seemed a touch synthetic. A role to be acted out.

"Now," Eddie said with a clinical tone. "What's the substance of your, ah, nightly inclinations? Romantic or sexual?"

He looked down at his coffee again, and then he shifted his focus to their hands, those folds and groves. A puzzle.

"I don't believe in romance."

He mumbled the sentence, enunciating the words as though his mouth were filled with marbles. An answer given in the negative. His cheeks were hot and he thought about getting up and leaving, right now, right this instant, and he almost didn't care how that would influence Edward's opinion about his reliability. But he did care.

And he did stay.

"Oh."

The surprise was very clearly written on his face. The true statement, the warm flush on Katurian's cheeks, the edging shame and subdued words. He took a deep, steadying breath.

"Well, I suppose it's expected." Another beat enclosed their silence. He wouldn't ask details, he told himself. No matter how tempting. There was a point to all this, a very poignant point, and he had to control himself and Katurian.

"Do you think it has pulled at that, at all? Do you think it has used it against you, in any way?"

He didn't remove his hands.

"I wouldn't know that, would I?" There was a bite behind his words, now, frustration for his defeat wrapped up amongst the syllables. "Desire is internal as much as it is external, and so-- and so all of my thoughts, all of my desires, belong to it. It uses everything against me."

It wasn't necessarily a complaint. It was realization. Recognition. Awe, almost. He moved to slide his hand out from under Edward's.

"But if it's done anything special, it hasn't told me."

Edited 2012-01-21 20:15 (UTC)

Edward chewed on his lower lip, drumming his fingers on that table that Katurian had evacuated.

"Sexual desire is low on the totem pole. It's easy, accessible. Desire doesn't cherish things that come easy, that isn't of its nature," he said. His tone brightened. "Desire would push obsession. Possession. Craving. Need. Not only of the physical sort, but the mental and emotional. It prefers to use what already exists, what was made unique to the individual already -- what fun is there in creating obsession for a particular game when the challenge is in teasing it to grow?"

He held his palms up, his fingers flourished in victory.

"And you don't feel obsession for me, right?"

He stared at Katurian. His smile began to fade.

"Right?"

Edited 2012-01-21 21:04 (UTC)

Katurian knew that the illumination of truth hinged on his answer. Was he obsessed? He wasn't sure. Once, he had believed that Edward was his only link to salvation (or destruction), but now he could imagine himself separate from the other man, crossing paths now and again but never quite intertwining. And that was all right. Writing was something he was obsessed with, something he could never see himself living without.

Edward was an infatuation. A distraction.

"Right." He searched Edward's eyes for confirmation. "I don't feel obsession for you."

"See? There you are." Eddie clasped his hands, leaning forward. "Less ammunition for Desire. You're not obsessive -- which indicates that you're not possessive, which is good because that's rather irritating. You're not a romantic, equally irritating. It's just purely sexual lust, the thing you feel for me --" he smirked. "And my very attractive self."

He leaned back, smug and satisfied.

"I doubt it's enough to tempt Desire. Not when it has Sherlock and his overbearing repression to screw with."

Katurian had spoken with Sherlock before -- had argued with him, even -- and yet he never learned the man's name nor made any reasonable connection with the great detective Sherlock Holmes. Katurian was frequently disoriented when it came to modern day fiction, but he maintained a grip on most of the classics. He was fond of those stories, in fact. Perhaps it was the ever present element of murder.

"What?" Edward could have spoken Greek and received the same reception. Then, with a greater element of understanding, yet still convinced it must be a nickname: "Who?"

Edward stared at Katurian.

"Sherlock Holmes," he said, in a manner that enunciated every duh unspoken. "Anyway, I think that we're strategically in safe standing. As long as you don't advertise your vulnerability by trying to repress it. Just, I don't know." Eddie waved his hand dismissively. "Work it into submission."

He took his coffee cup, drinking the remainder of his cooled drink triumphantly.

"That's what I'm doing." He was stunned, spitting out those words because they were the easiest to say. Sherlock Holmes. "I'm working."

Tap tap tap. He fidgeted with the table and then he grabbed his cup, finally, taking a healthy swing of his coffee. His mind leaped and built pathways and manufactured questions and answers, questions and answers. Sherlock Holmes. More characters in this world. More fiction breathing life. He laughed before he finished sipping and received an elegant, sophisticated shot of coffee up his nose.

He scrambled for a napkin to cover his face.

"I don't mean 'work' in a literal context, I mean -- " His sentence was choked. Katurian attempted to use his coffee as one would cocaine. Eddie rolled his eyes and shielded his face from any onlookers, muttering rude things under his breath. Sometimes it was embarrassing, to think this was his most obvious awed and besotted individual. A long, long time ago it would have been useful information to know, something to coax and manipulate. But now? Now it was an obligation. Something he had to plan for.

"Are you quite done?"

He nodded into his napkin, coughing out laughs. His body thrummed with a mixture of shame and invigoration, embarrassment and the reminder that he was living in a land where fiction was reality and how beautiful and ironic that all was. How maddening. How perfect.

"I'm sorry."

His words were muddled in the paper.

Edward pushed his cup away from him, almost childish in action.

"He isn't fond of fans, you know." Edward cocked his head to the side, his eyes flickering over Katurian's expression. Those twitches of the mouth, the dilation of pupils. All evidence of joy and wonder.

"I don't recommend discussing the obvious literary connection with him. He isn't an exact replica, his era is contemporary to mine."

"One of those alternative universe things," he said easily. "An adaptation."

It didn't dull his excitement. The City was a mixture of heaven and hell for the nervous man, and it so rarely bent towards the former. He folded his napkin as he composed himself, a hint of a smile still dancing on his lips.

"Are you certain it's him, then?" And then, his smile fading, his anxiety returning: "And Desire holds an interest?"

"We're all fictional in some world, Katurian. Why would you have difficulty believing his case?" Edward shrugged, shifting his crossed leg. "A modernized alternative universe of Sherlock Holmes, how revolutionary."

The sarcasm was laced with irritation.

"Yes, Desire holds interest. In the same way it holds for Eridan and yourself; you all straddle Despair."

We're all fictional in some world. It was promise enough to regain his smile. Katurian dreamed about people in other universes reading stories about his stories, his memory encapsulated for the ages. His brother's, too. This was the only thing that kept him going, some days, when he thought about how his stories (and identity) were wiped so cleanly from his own world.

His brow knitted at the mention of Eridan. He thought better than to ask.

"Why Despair? What makes that special?"

"Despair is its twin. Desire and Despair. It really rather makes sense, if you think about it," he said while idly watching the cashier counter. His thoughts were on another cup. "She is, I daresay, the being most important to Desire. They sort of feed into each other, you know. When a want goes unfulfilled, what is it you feel?"

He checked his watch. There was still time.

"It's different, with me. It isn't Despair that I straddle."

Katurian knew what Edward straddled. He could still see him, clear as day, wiping his blood over the walls of his hospital room, spitting out riddles as readily as another man might consume oxygen.

Despair and Delirium. They were not all together pleasant labels.

"I prefer Death," he muttered, dragging his fingernails down his coffee cup. "I miss Death."

Edward wrinkled his nose at the name. Death. Despite the concept's overall genial behavior, he was not a friend. The implication, the fear, the end. Desire was so full of life, such a driving, burning sense of meaning. Death was dark oblivion, a final release.

Edward was not familiar with Despair, and so he was not a friend of Death's.

"Because sometimes you long for her," he whispered. It was a touch venomous, his voice. "Because you have enacted her, and you will enact her. All murderers long for Death, in some manner of way. Even if they regret it."

Katurian's hand drew back from the coffee cup as it tensed into an not-quite fist, his fingers caught at rigid angles, his muscles rippling with misplaced energy. His eyes shot up, wide and frantic. He was afraid of the people who might hear. He was afraid of the sound of that word.

Murderers.

"Stop." He choked it out in a whisper.

"Just saying," purred Edward. "There are two types of people who love Death. And you're no longer suicidal, are you?" Eddie flashed a broad grin, the kind that dazzled with a deeper sense of the predatory.

"Another reason why you need to buckle your fanboy inclinations over Sherlock -- I doubt he's above a cold case. If you get too cozy, he may realize what you've done. And what you will do."

Edward doubted his own words, but it was indecipherable from the way he smiled.

The realization hit him like a bed of nails. He straightened his back, watching Edward with frozen eyes, thoughts churning at that possibility. His life, unraveled. Again.

In an instant, he was raking his fingers through his bangs, feeling the healing cuts in his forehead. It was as though through digging into his skull, he might erase the things he had done-- like so many other things he could erase.

He didn't say a word. His silence was his own answer. His own defeat.

He shrugged, his smile twisted and smug. It was a quiet victory, but nevertheless one he savored incredibly.

"You're quite lucky I'm on your side," he said. "Pointing out all this potential devastation for you." Edward watched Katurian's movements, the finger rubbing and quickening of breath. The silent panic.

"If you are fictional, somewhere, too -- and you must be, just like the rest of us -- then someone, somewhere already knows of your sins. They already know about your parents." Edward tented his fingers. "Just as Desire already knows."

"That's all right," he managed, his fingers still entangled in his hair. His palms and wrists shielded his eyes from the other man. His sleeves shielded his mouth. "It's-- It's better them knowing that than nothing about me at all. S-Somewhere. It's better that they have the full picture."

He swallowed the beginning of his tears, wetting his lips instead.

"Because I'm not proud of some of the things that I've done, but it would be far worse if they were all meaningless in the end. It would be far worse."

"I suggest that you don't become too enamored with the idea." He leaned back again, rubbing a hand over his face. "Not enamored, really, that isn't fair is it? I should say dependent."

He gave a significant look to his company.

"We don't know what kind of world you're fictional in, after all. What if its sun is about to explode? What if plague wiped out all literate or viewing audiences?"

With time, he moved his hands away from his face. Muscle by muscle. Joint by joint.

"Believe me, Edward," His voice was still weak, raspy, but he recovered it in gradual degrees. "The only thing I depend on is my writing."

It was a lie, but he didn't realize it. Katurian had spent most of his life clinging to what he was certain were his two most valuable things - his brother and his stories - only to lose them both in less than an hour through his own denial and selfishness. With his brother gone and a new world at his fingertips, Katurain had managed to convince himself through his old matras that only the one thing mattered. He was going to rewrite his stories, shaping his narratives with a pen carved from his personal demons. From his suffering. (Because it would be far worse if it were meaningless in the end.)

But Katurian depended on many more things, these days.

He retook his coffee mug.

"I'll keep an arm's distance from Sherlock," he said. He brushed his hair from his eyes. "I appreciate you looking out for me."

Edward kept his eyes on Katurian, keeping his breath in measured paces. A steady, intense stare.

"Of course," he said. "But of course." He leaned back, creating distance between himself an Katurian. For the first time during their conversation, he created a very willful distance.

"You still don't know when you ring false, do you?"

At first, Katurian thought Edward doubted his gratefulness. He wasn't lying when he said he appreciated his help. Was he? Katurian struggled to interpret his thoughts, to determine whether bitterness at his own mistakes colored his words.

(Sherlock Holmes. He needed to keep his distance from Sherlock Holmes because the things he had done made him the fucking villain in this story.)

--But that wasn't it. The realization sprang upon him, those first words. The only thing he depended on.

He dropped his eyes.

Edited 2012-01-26 00:19 (UTC)

"You don't then," deduced Edward. That distance between them was maintained. "You think you know yourself, Katurian, you really do. But sometimes the reality is lacking, isn't it?"

He wasn't wearing a smile, not anymore.

"Sometimes you don't want to know the truth."

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