capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

Current Music: Yᴏᴜ ᴀɴᴅ Mᴇ ᴀᴛ Sɪx - "Tʜᴇ Dɪʟᴇᴍᴍᴀ"

Entry tags:

(no subject)

WHO: Katurian/

goryteller & Terrance/

demonspawn.
WHERE: A busy little café.
WHEN: A few days after Katurian's revival, afternoon.
WARNINGS: Awkward young lads.
SUMMARY: So, you've failed to kill a villain, have you?
FORMAT: Quicklog.

[ There are a million thoughts running through his head -- most of them involving death, Angelica Einstürzen, how stubborn girls can be, or the fact that he wishes in hindsight he'd asked to meet Katurian later in the day, because he swears he can feel his pale skin starting tingle under the sunlight, threatening to burn. He doesn't know what he'll say yet. He's sorry, he knows that. Not sorry that they tried to kill that psychopath calling herself a doctor -- sorry because he's the immortal, the black ops agent, the kid with superhero training. And Terry can't shake the feeling that he should have done something. Something to prevent what happened to Katurian that night.

Maybe he'll be relieved, he thinks, to see Katurian in the flesh again. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[And Katurian is relieved to be in the flesh -- or he thinks so, anyway, judging that pleasant buzzing inside his head as something like relief, something like joy in being alive. The mania death gives him is incredible beyond measure. He can lift his feet off the ground and walk on air. He is so happy.

He compares this to the first time he came back from the dead, the day he first arrived in the City. Shaking and crying and feeling the back of his head, the place where he knew the bullet went. Not bad, he thinks.

The bell on the coffee shop door clink clinks as he opens it. He wears a nice shirt, a tie. He looks for Terry's face.]

[ He's thinking about moving away from the window when the sound of the bell on the door makes him glance up. It's almost surreal, to see Katurian there, clean and whole. His last memories of him are so vividly brutal, so bloody.

At length he thinks to raise a hand and wave Katurian over. Tries not to think about how he's going to greet him. Hey, you're looking better? Less dead? How's it going, now that you've recovered from being stabbed in the throat? ]

[Katurian catches his eye, throwing on a nervous smile and striding up to that empty chair. He slides into it as though he's sorry to disturb, polite and small and hardly anything like a murderer. Angelica's words hum through his mind.

Slowly, she said.

That's a decision you're going to come to regret, he said.

He doesn't say anything immediately. He puts his hands flat on the table, tapping his finger against the wood.]

Chapter two.

[A lopsided grin.]

[ That lopsided grin chips away at the tension. Terry's shoulders relax just slightly, and even though he doesn't smile back, the noise he makes is wry amusement. Chapter two. Alright. He can go with that. ]

In which the demon and the writer don't die gruesome deaths. [ He responds dryly. ] Unless, 'course, you really want to.

[ God knows Terrance Ward has been tallying up his deaths and the various ways he's died, and he isn't sure he's eager for the cause to be "Angelica Einsturzen" again so soon. ]

I don't fear death.

[His smile hardly fades. His shoulders relax, too, as he leans forward, letting that comradery glow between them.]

That being said, I'd rather not give that fucking monster an ounce more satisfaction. You know what I mean?

[ Yes. He knows exactly. He can imagine right now the smug, satisfied look on Angelica's face. Maybe it says something, that he knew her enough to know exactly that expression from memory, but he's had his forays into dark places -- he'll probably have a few more in the eternity of his life. ]

We need more time. More practice.

[ Terry pauses, exhales. ]

We thought we knew her, but we gotta know her better.

Not yet, for me. [He cringes with the words, his eyes drawing downwards towards the table. His smile flickers.] I mean, with the-- with the knowing her better. I can't do that just yet.

[He feels half-blind. When he died the first time, he loved this, he relished the emptiness, but now that he learned to use these abilities to his sweet, sweet advantage, he's naked.]

Not in my usual way, anyway.

[ Terry's eyebrows furrow just a moment -- it takes him a second, to understand what Katurian means. ]

What, like -- you can't use your powers?

[ He remembers how it felt, to be cut off from the dark magic surging through his blood. Even now, there's a constant low whisper of fears in the back of his head, reaching him from the mind of every stranger around them. It had been so silent in his head, that day at Angelica's lab. He'd felt so weak.

Maybe it's the demon in him that makes him bare his teeth in annoyance at the memory. ]

What if she comes for you?

I'm fucked.

[He laughs at it like it might be a joke, ducking his head, sucking in air between his teeth. He fixates on the wood table and thinks about what Edward will say, once he confronts him. Once he admits that, once more, he's powerless and weak.]

But-- But they're going to come back, and when they do, I'll be ready. I want to be ready.

[ Once upon a time, Terry had wanted to be powerless. Not now.

He's not gonna let this happen again. He's let so many teammates down in the past. He let his family down, he let MVP down, he let Abby down. He's not going to let Katurian down. If it means embracing the demon, he's willing. ]

I won't let you die again. [ Determination pulls down at the corners of his mouth. ] We'll be ready. We'll break her-- and anybody else we have to.

[ The more he says it, the more he believes it. ]

[Katurian is a man so wrapped up in himself that this is first time he really notices it, that danger in Terry's eyes, and it's the first time that he realizes that he is in part responsible. Angelica said something of the like, asked him how easy it was to manipulate Terry into becoming a murderer.

He has a flicker of doubt. (But only a flicker.)]

I'm sorry you had to see that.

[His brows are knitted, the pain is clear in his voice.]

I'm really sorry. And I'm sorry you-- I'm sorry that she hurt you, too, I'm sorry that I couldn't prevent that. She won't get away with it, that's right. [He forms a fist on the table.] She won't get away with it.

[ Maybe the balance in him -- that precarious scale, teetering between his human and demon natures -- has been tipped just a little. He's always had the potential to do good or do harm, to heal or to hurt, but there's nothing he wants more now than to shut the good doctor down. For good. And it matters less now, what the motive was at first, whether it's justice or vengeance or both.

His stare is steady, hard. ]

Don't apologize to me. You're only human.

Have you seen someone die before?

[The question slips from his lips as easy as breathing. Terry's hardened gaze doesn't erase his curiosity marred with pity, his pursed lips and the tight muscles in his hands.]

[ He pauses. Remembers it. Vividly.

At length: ]

His name was Michael Van Patrick.

[Michael. Katurian's lip wavers. He tightens the muscles in his hands.]

Yeah?

[ he looks like maybe he'll say more. he's never really talked about it. hasn't wanted to-- it's something he might be ashamed of, or at least feels guilty about, especially when he remembers abby's face.

at length though all he does is give a frustrated exhale, lifting a hand to irritably brush wild hair away from his eyes. ]

Yeah.

[ and that's it. ]

[But it isn't it for Katurain. He stays put, watching Terry. Every little exhale. Every flinch.]

What happened to him?

[ there's something aggressively defensive in his eyes when he glances up, like he doesn't like being pushed, and once upon a time, he would have lashed out without thinking about it. but after a moment, he just looks away again, tension in his shoulders and the shape of his mouth.

as much as he's willing to complain about the surface issues associate with his powers -- how annoying it is to telepathically hear how afraid people are of spiders and snakes and ghosts and in-laws -- he doesn't talk about the darker things.

still, maybe he owes katurian this. so, at length, with a roughness to his voice that might be unwillingness or guilt: ]

He got half of his head shot clean off when I made one of our teammates to panic in a training drill. It was robots, I needed to borrow someone's fears to fight -- but Armory freaked out. She started firing at random. MVP was trying to rescue Abby, 'cause she froze up. [ lower: ] I still remember what she looked like, when his head exploded inches from her face.

[It wasn't that long ago that Katurian inhaled the poisonous gas from the Scarecrow's mouth. He knows that kind of fear, the kind where the only rational response is uncontrolled violence. He pictures it perfectly, he thinks, or as well as he can picture it only knowing the faces of the two of the actors. He sees widened eyes and white knuckles. He sees blood, more blood than could ever leave a person.

He sees Terry, an unwitting murderer.]

I bet she remembers what you looked like.

Edited 2012-04-15 21:52 (UTC)

Ha. [ the breathed laugh is humorless, like the faint smile tugging at his mouth. unconsciously, he covers his eyes with a hand for a moment. ] Yeah.

[ he knows she remembers. because even after they became friends, it was always there in the back of her head. her fear of him. ]

She couldn't even be in the room with me after that. Just seeing me scared her. Made her cry.

[He watches Terry cover his eyes, and his heart twists like a towel. Even without his abilities, even without his innate ability to recognize the emotions of the past, he feels that suffering as acutely as anything.]

You're learning to control it.

[ it lasts maybe another second or two, then terry lets his hand fall, exhales. lets a tinge of annoyance slip into his voice because that's easier than whatever it is he's feeling now. ]

Yeah, a lot of good it'll do me. No matter how good I get at it, there's always gonna be the risk. It's like starving yourself. Eventually you cave and you eat.

[ his eyebrows furrow. ]

But whatever. That's not even the point. I shouldn't complain -- it's not like I'm the one that just got stabbed to death here.

I like death. [He says it simply, easily. The honest truth.] I've accepted it a long time ago.

[He shrugs the tension out of his shoulders.]

I like fear, too.

[It's an unspoken promise. You will not drive me away. Katurian, the man who grew up with fear wrapped tight around his throat.]

Edited 2012-04-16 21:48 (UTC)

[ the demon sitting across the table from katurian eyes him for a long moment, taking in that unspoken promise. it's a little dangerous, really, to tell the boy that it's alright to be the demon, because there will always be at least one person there. it lessens one of the only fears he has -- the one that keeps him trying to hard to be human, to force the demon quiet. the fear of being alone.

at length, he looks away. outside, where unwitting strangers walk by. with a touch of cynical wryness: ]

I think a part of me does too. [ a beat. ] It felt natural. What we did to Dr. Einstürzen that first time.

[It frightened him at first. That power. It frightened him and so he regressed, back to weak little Katurian, back to being that frail boy in the body of a man. But he has lost so much since. He has lost so much and seen so many bodies that driving a woman crazy, oh, that became a beautiful chapter in his life. That became a victory.

He grins his same lopsided grin, but he is not entirely the Katurian that Terry knew before.]

We made a great team.

[ the incident with the good doctor had grown them both in a certain way. terry, who had spent most of his time wishing to be ordinary, had found that powerlessness no longer suited him. that, maybe, he enjoyed vengeance. the look of fear in the eyes of an enemy. like that first time, back in high school, with that stupid jock, whatever his name was, had tried to push terry around and the demon had consumed him.

he doesn't smile back. but there's an understanding in his face, a little breath of wry amusement. ]

We could be better. A little practice never hurt.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only