capeandcowllogs | (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. ]

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[ 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.