capeandcowllogs

At the moment, two people were following Ruka. One was a man with well-built shoulders and alcohol on his breath. He carried himself in a shuffle. His hands were balled up in fists.

The other was Katurian.

The notes he received from his future self never lied. He knew that Ruka was set to be attacked by this angry man. He knew the time. He knew the location. He knew that this man had strong anti-import sentiments, which weren't his fault, not really, because imports were fucked up and caused more trouble than they were worth, but not Ruka, not the girl with the sad smile and carved-out eye.

He wore his costume for the occasion. He also brought a knife.

It was six blocks the long way to the subway station, or three blocks the short way. Obviously she would be taking the short way, as she had innumerable times before. Taking the longer, circuitous routes every time simply made her more exhausted, and they weren't any safer regardless.

The plastic bag rustled, hanging from her wrist; it twisted one way, then the other, hitting her leg every few steps. It was that, and her footsteps, and the ever-present heartbeat of the City that filled the air, music spilling out from the back entrances to restaurant kitchens, heavier and more crude than what the diners would consume with their meals. One door swung open for a chef to toss away some garbage into a dumpster, but he disappeared as quickly as he came. The alley was empty, aside from the pigeons.

And Ruka. And the man she had ignored, dragging his feet too loudly across the asphalt. Her hand twisted, taking a more firm hold of the plastic bag, and she turned her head, bad eye towards her pursuer. Her voice, when she spoke, was without fear. She sounded exasperated. Annoyed. More on par with the discovery of a road detour than being followed into an empty alleyway.

"Really?"

The man had a switchblade. Katurian knew this, it was written, and the man took out that switchblade when Ruka turned around, his face marred with a sneer. He didn't need to say anything -- his threat was more than clear in his body language, in the way he clutched the knife -- but he moved those drunken lips anyway, the sounds rolling off his tongue.

"Let's get you on your way home, eh?"

And then he lunged for her.

Katurian wasn't far behind, all dressed up in his costume, his blade exposed, but he wasn't as early as he would have liked either. He had visions of himself swooping in, woosh woosh, look at our hero, right in the nick of time, bam bam, isn't he incredible? but as it stood, his entrance onto the scene was more of a rushed stumble. He wanted to get to the man before he lunged. Now it's too late. Now it's too risky.

In a well of panic, Katurian threw his knife. It flung through the air, spinning spinning spinning, and then it planted itself in the attacker's shoulder.

She bodily turned there, her bag swinging, and it took her by surprise. She was so obviously an imPort, she knew; why would an ordinary human assume that something like this would actually work? Ruka was more bewildered than afraid, and her sideways dodge was delayed, no adrenaline rushing through her to speed up her feet.

The man made an inarticulate noise when the knife punctured clothing and flesh, digging into the muscle of his arm. Perhaps it was the alcohol, or the adrenaline in his veins, but aside from that initial sound, he had no further reaction to the pain. He turned to his attacker then, reaching back to pull the knife from his body, and gave Katurian a smile. "You're next."

Ruka continued her retreat backwards, left arm and its cargo twisted behind her back, her eye darting between her attacker and--

And him? Her step faltered. What was he doing here? Now?

Katurian had lost the element of surprise -- he loved working with the element of surprise -- but he wasn't completely unprepared now that the knife was out of his grip and in the hands of the enemy. His all too recent murder taught him to have that extra level of preparation, that extra edge should the situation slip out of his control. His sleeves were bulky, pillow-like, and that was because they had large pockets to hold all those extra weapons.

As the attacker pulled the knife, Katurian pulled out a tennis ball spiked with razor blades.

He tore off the protective covering and gripped the ball in his fist, those tiny razors slipping out between his fingers like spiked knuckles. With all his strength, he beamed it at the attacker's now turned face. It connected, oh it connected, blood spurting from the wound and into his eyes as he screamed and screamed.

Katurian took the opportunity to lunge forward, his hand primed to recover the knife from his now blinded enemy. He underestimated his strength though, and as Katurian reached for the knife, the man reached for his neck. Startled, Katurian stabbed upwards into his gut.

The man missed Katurian's neck and tore off his mask.

Compared to the sound of the scuffle, Ruka's footsteps were silent, moving to the side of the wide alleyway to avoid getting caught up in the fight. Logically, she could flee. She was probably meant to run away, to call for the police or for help or do something, but some part of her refused that path.

Later on she might say it was because she wanted to be there if anything happened to her rescuer -- to protect him in case of failure, to reward him in success. But the truth, hidden in the deep black recesses of her heart, was simple morbid curiosity. She wanted to see this to the end.

The screams had her flinching, and the injury to her attacker's eyes made hers throb in sympathetic pain, remembering all too clearly the agony she suffered when hers was torn from her. She could stop this. With her power, she could separate them, or she could disable the instigating attacker -- suffocation, heart attack, pressure on the brain -- but her arm remained idle at her side, unlit. Ruka wanted to protect her friend... but also to see what would happen.

Perhaps she should have run. She wouldn't have ever known the face of her rescuer.

The man, trying to struggle through agony and through blindness, threw the downy mask to the ground and tried once more for Katurian's neck, but his strength was no match. His legs failed beneath him, and his hands grasped at Katurian's costume for leverage. The blade cut through more of his body, more of his tissue and flesh. Blood seemed too dark as it spilled from his body like an accident.

Katurian's entire front was soaked with that deep red blood, but it was the least of his concerns. The unintentional killing (yes, it was unintentional, he wasn't supposed to go that far) paled in comparison to his exposure, to the city lights on his panic-stricken face.

He pulled the knife out off the man's abdomen, surprised by how easy the flesh gave under the metal.

"It's all right," he said, grabbing at the still breathing man's chin to hold him steady. He supported him with his other arm, the knife still clutched between his fingers. "It's all right. Shh."

And then, with all the strength he could manage, he drew the knife across the man's throat.

His hands tightened, briefly, in the fabric of Katurian's cloth, fear finally coming to his face as the wet blade pressed against his neck. It stayed there, in the twist of his mouth and the curve of his bloodied cheeks, as the final cut sent that last little cascade of blood down his throat and chest. His grip loosened; it was only Katurian's gentle support that kept him from tumbling to the ground in that exposed alleyway.

Music seemed to quiet, and the city pace slowed. There was the rustle of weighed down plastic bumping against Ruka's leg, her arms still slack at her sides. The bag thumped against her, thump, thump, as she approached.

Katurian's hands were trembling as he lay the man down onto the ground. Ruka, he thought, as his stomach wrestled inside of him. Oh, Ruka. He pictured her loathing him now. He pictured her calling him a freak, a horrible murdering freak for invading her timeline and whistling words of comfort through secretive lips.

He heard the bag. The approach.

He cringed his shoulders in anticipation.

She untwisted the plastic from her wrist, and with care Ruka set the bag on the ground, far enough away from Katurian and the stranger that the blood wouldn't stain the plastic. Her gloves were pulled off in gentle movements; she dropped them into the bag, her fingers flexing for sudden freedom. Ruka didn't say anything as she made the last few steps of her approach, lowering herself with a bent knee. Once there, however, her voice was quiet.

"I wasn't expecting it to be you," she said, picking up his mask. One hand was careful to brush the dirt off its face, while the other slipped inside. It was still warm, and the dampness of sweat stained her fingertips. "Katurian."

He didn't look up at her. Instead, he ran his gloved fingers through the dead man's hair, thinking about Michal, thinking about Sylvia. This was something he did. This was something he should have been able to prevent.

"I know," he said, his voice a trembling murmur. "Because I look so weak."

He pulled his fingers down the man's face, closing those unseeing eyes. Only then could he will himself to look up at the girl sitting next to him, the sad girl that grew up just a little too quickly. Like him.

"I'm sorry."

"That's not why."

There was something new in her voice, like hardness and sadness, but caught somewhere in between. Her attention was not on Katurian or his quiet rites; all focus was on the mask, its fabric beneath her fingers. The sensations were faint across its outer face. Lost lives, splattered in bloodstains too faded and too carefully cleaned to see. Fear, and sorrow, and guilt. Faint impressions. They felt almost insignificant for what little residue of life remained on the surface.

It was the inner face that held Katurian's heart. Where the fabric soaked the sweat of his brow and the crinkling of his nose, where his mouth whispered threats and told stories. At the temples, where the throbbing pulse of a frantic heart was closest to the surface. Along the jaw, clenched tight, and the cheeks, drawn thin.

Her fingers traced thin lines framing its nose, where tears were soaked away, the deep trembling of sorrow. It crawled across her fingertips. It clung to her touch, to her clean knuckles and her trim nails, and it saturated her senses. It was not like merely feeling something cold, it was being cold; instead of swimming, it was swallowing that heavy ocean water. Sensation that pushed past flesh and veins to nest in the dark marrow of her limbs.

But Katurian's hidden face was not consumed with remorse and grief. Beyond sorrow was terror, throbbing at his eyes and across the brow and where the chin might tremble. At his own actions? At what consequences may come? In wake of success, or failure? It wasn't easy to pin down... even more familiar to her as these emotions were. The others, heavier and thicker and far, far more powerful, were hard to ignore. Where the others seeped into her like ink into tissue, these scratched at her skin, a thousand tiny cuts across her palms. Sharp enough to etch words into her bones, carving deep enough and wide enough for more than simple letters to fit.

Even the tender motive of her examination could not stave the full flood; anger washed over her, through her, anger building on anger building on anger, a fury so palpable it tasted like bile on her tongue. Her arms trembled. Her dark emotions were not so pitch as this -- she'd borrowed hatred and death, but nothing so visceral as this. It raced through her veins, burning and manic, filling and spilling over the empty chalice of her heart.

She was angry, at more things than she could name. At more people than she knew, at hypocrisy and suffering, at, at everyone who had ever wronged her, or her friends, or her family, or anyone, and with her power, with her own hands and the one granted to her, she wanted to--

Ruka swallowed, smoothing her hands against the fabric of the mask. In her head and her heart, it seemed like hours had passed, drowning in Katurian's heart, but in truth it was seconds, minutes at the most. It was the heavy throb of his heart and his feelings building pressure behind her eye, the ache in her mind. The cut of his anger was the sharpness in her voice.

"You are not weak."

Katurian could not recognize the anger -- at least on any conscious level -- but when he watched Ruka's face shift into it, he could feel it in his bones. He could feel it resonating along his tissue and muscle and sinew. It was an anger that reverberated, that kicked the ground out from under him.

He stood up and began to take off his costume.

Under the layers, he wore a black-collared shirt and dark pants. He left the gloves for last, removing each and every item without his exposed fingertips touching the fabric. They didn't have much time. His eyes caught the tennis ball, its bloodied form resting on the ground not far away.

"We can't stay here. I have a place where we can wait, w-where-- where I can explain, if you're willing to listen. Come with me."

It sounded too much like a demand, and that's because it was. He paused. Winced.

"Please."

It was dizzying; she'd never tried reading an object carrying just this much of anything. Blood stains and murder weapons carried powerful emotions, and she knew that well, but this wasn't one moment of hatred, or a single degradation. This was possibly dozens of moments, all crammed together and stacking, multiplying in the threads of fabric. The pounding in her skull was getting worse.

The air was cold against her teeth, whistling in the inhale.

"Okay," she said, struggling and unable to find her own voice beneath everything she felt. On the ground not far from where she crouched was the second knife -- her attacker's, first used to threaten her. He must have dropped it in the beginnings of the struggle, for its exposure to blood was minimal. Without thinking she reached for it, lifting it up with pinched fingers on the blade. It was a simple folding knife, somewhat dulled along the edge, the logo on its side faded from wear.

Careful not to touch anything else lest she leave fingerprints, Ruka stood up once more, and glanced at the body. She should probably feel grief, or a choking back of tears to lodge in her throat, but it was hard to feel anything of her own while her heart struggled under the weight of the mask. A step, a turn, and her gait was almost casual as she went to retrieve her neglected bag. To spare the plastic, the blade punctured through styrofoam and into what was probably chicken, judging by that texture of resistance. She pushed it with her palm against the pointed end of the handle. Her hands were shaking. With effort, she took the mask into her other hand, shoving that into the bag beside her gloves.

Dusk dragged into twilight, the shadows growing tall through the alleyway. Everything was hued in purples and oranges, painting the dead man's face with a warmth and liveliness he would never feel again. White earbuds snaked out of the collar of his jacket, tinny with music too quiet for Ruka to hear. She wondered how long it would take for the music to bleed out and the battery to die, as well.

The bag came up with ease, only a little bit of pavement grime sticking to its base; Ruka's bare knees were dirty with dirt and small specks of gravel. "Which way?"

Katurian raised his hand -- a quiet wait -- before kneeling down to scoop up the bloodied tennis ball, his fingers slipping between the razor blades. (And they contained razor blades, and he died in agony.) He took the ball and his costume over to the side alley where he had planted his bag hours before the crime. In went the tennis ball. In went the bundle of clothing. In went the knife.

At the bottom of the bag was a small, plush lion.

Later, Katurian would discover that his blood-soaked clothing had rubbed off on the soft fabric, bestowing the lion with its first stains, its slow shift from pristine to worn.

He took the duffle bag up on his shoulder and stepped back into the main alley. He watched Ruka carefully. He watched for signs of psychological shock (those seemed obvious enough, just listen to how she breathed) but he also watched for signs of betrayal, a knife planted in his own shoulder blade.

"I know this is difficult." His gaze shifted from Ruka to the dead man. "But you're going to be all right."

He glanced over his shoulder.

"This way. Five blocks." A pause. "Do you need my hand?"

She shook her head, but from the way it wobbled in the wake, her lie was obvious. Ruka had never been any good at accepting help offered to her so plainly. A blink, a swallow, and a tightening of the muscles in her legs and shoulders followed. She was trying to seem rigid, unyielding, to belie the eddying turmoil trapped within her now. More of her true self was breaking back to the surface, but the rest hadn't gone away.

"Let's go."

He hesitated at her denial. He could see it, the almost mechanical tightening of her muscles, the buzzing energy under her eyes. This was a girl he had tried to save and perhaps betrayed, and this was also a girl who had seen too much death and was now seeing even more of it.

"Right."

--And it was his fault.

"Right," he said with a measure more strength, throwing on a quick smile. He turned, the bag snug under his arm, and led.

It said many things about the City, that a man could scream in such miserable agony so near to dozens of others, and not one Samaritan or rubberneck would intrude upon the scene. If there had been witnesses, they were long gone; when they exited the alley, the passersby seemed oblivious of the crime. Nobody halted them; nobody followed.

They were watched, of course -- or rather, Ruka was. for all his faults and dangers, Katurian still passed as an ordinary Cityzen, clothes and features mundane and unremarkable. Her colorful, damaged appearance earned a number of long looks and distant stares.

For Ruka, that was just the way of things; it wasn't any different than the looks she'd gotten earlier that same afternoon, or in the week before, or the week before that. A part of her would have been more concerned about her situation. Would, if nothing else, demand that she halt where she stood and call the police; whatever Katurian was going to tell her could be saved for after a sentencing or pardon.

Would have, had she the strength for it. Between the tumult of feeling and her already sapped energy, she was too weary for private thoughts. Splitting focus between putting one foot in front of the other and not losing sight of Katurian was strenuous enough.

Katurian was unused to the looks. With his everyman features, he had grown accustomed to slipping away in the crowd. He had the ability to lie about being a natural citizen -- and he had, multiple times, when he needed to bridge the gap into their mundane world. When he needed to be trusted. The crowd's reaction was so startling, so unfamiliar, that Katurian couldn't help but wonder if he was sprinkled with the tell-tale copper of the dead man's blood.

And then it clicked. The bright green hair. The eye-patch. A universal danger danger to all those poor normals.

He sent a worried glance back to Ruka. A silent probe. Are you all right with this?

Edited 2012-06-11 20:22 (UTC)

The scene of death was moving farther and farther away; the blocks were long, and the crocoite of the sky was fading, swallowed up by the deep purples and blacks. The streets were no emptier than they had been, and so the attention no lessened.

Ruka didn't notice Katurian's unease until she caught his gaze, his expression pulling at the corners of his eyes. She shook her head -- once again showing signs of dizziness. "It's fine," she said, quiet. "Don't worry about me."

The dizziness did not go unnoticed. Katurian pursed his lips, the words on the tip of his tongue, but rather than make some great plea, he merely stopped where he was and extended a hand backwards towards Ruka.

An offer.

He did not care about what the passerbys would think.

Her steps staggered and halted, in the moment following his gesture. She wasn't so exhausted that she was going to collapse, she thought. It wasn't that bad at all. But she was so tired, and her heart was so heavy in her chest that it caused her feet to drag. She closed her eye, tilting her head away, as though not seeing the offer was enough to negate its existence. Ruka didn't want to be anybody's burden. She was tired, and tired of holding people back. But if this were true, she thought, then...

Whatever happens, I want you to know that I'm on your side.

Her hand wrapped around his without strength, as though nothing more than a weight left in his palm. She was cold, and clammy, her skin soft from its constant shelter; between that and its weakness, he may well have been bestowed a mollusk, freshly torn from its shell. Her fingers trembled where they fell against the back of his hand.

He was going to make her tea once they arrived at the apartment, he told himself. Something calming, something with mint or ginger to ease her nerves or ease her stomach. He had nurtured boxes of tea himself, curled up in that empty place, scraps of pillow and fabric littering the floor around him. He had steadied himself a hundred times.

Katurian was, by his nature, a quick walker, the nervous energy carrying him from building to building in a blink of an eye, but he made sure to adjust his pace for Ruka. He did not slow dramatically. His steps were not in slow motion. His joints did not bend like a door easing open in a draught. But he slowed, moving easily through the streets like a gentle dancer. With the death in the air, with this person to protect, he was in his element. This was how it should be.

This was why he found Ruka in the first place.

His hand gripped back, reassuring.

One step in front of the other, the other in front of the one, and repeating; it was as much focus as she gave her surroundings. Holding onto Katurian's hand meant she wouldn't lose him at an intersection, and that she needn't take a great deal of care to the rest. Gray sidewalk shifted in dull colors beneath her feet, tinted with the oranges of street lights and the neon reds and fluorescent pale blues of storefront windows. In his dark clothes, the colors didn't seem to touch Katurian.

The pain behind her sockets was as regular a throb as her heartbeat; perhaps its symbolic and literal functions had combined, and the blood her heart struggled so much to move through her body was tinctured with his.

How many lives had ended, looking at that face? How destruction had he wrought, with his heart that flooded? How much more blood would be spilled before she would be satisfied?

The streets stretched on, vibrancy fading into quiet distance, and gave no answer.

The apartment complex he led her to was a brick building, four stories tall and with a haphazard garden in the front yard. A tulip, here and there. One sunflower. Grass that would skewer you if you tried to sit down on it. This was his old home and now it was his new home, a secret place where he retreated during the day to make his costumes and plan his missions. He takes her up one, two, three stories, careful to move at an easy speed, careful to never let her hand go.

The apartment itself was sparsely furnished. The living room had wooden chairs in place of a sofa.

He took her to the chairs.

"I'll make some tea," he breathed, speaking quietly as though afraid of interrupt the silence.

If nothing else, she was grateful for the short height of the building; ascending even ten flights worth of stairs would have been far too much for her today. Some small part of her realized there probably was not an elevator, if they were taking the stairs in the first place. At least it meant she didn't have to explain that she wasn't allowed in elevators.

Once inside the apartment proper, Ruka set the bag on the floor near to the chairs, glancing around the room. The room was small, and so thinly furnished. It mirrored the lonely flowers outside. Now released of its burden, her free arm twisted itself behind her back as though it needed to hide from the light.

Her voice matched the quiet. "Which way is the bathroom?"

Katurian gestured with his left hand, a tired, half-hearted flick of his wrist. He eased the duffle bag down to the ground. It would smell soon, from the blood. He'd need to clean it.

"Over there," he added, though he didn't need to. His head ached. The sound of the man gasping, gurgling, drowning in his own blood began to fill his ears once more, and it was dizzying, all-encompassing, too much.

He swallowed, hard, before turning into the kitchen. He did not check to see if Ruka made it to the bathroom.

Her steps were unsteady on floor, the footfalls of her shoes quiet. Though there was temptation, she did not brace her weight against the walls as she went; to open the door, she covered the heel of her palm to the ends of her fingers with the edge of her sleeve. Stretching the fabric to protect her skin.

Inside, the door closed and locked behind her quietly. She exhaled. She inhaled. She took a quick inventory of the small room, and walked those few steps. With as much dignity as she could muster, she dropped to her knees with illness, residual gravel once more digging into her skin.

Idly, between the spasms and the roil of emotions still pounding through her veins, she wondered how long it would take her to get home from here.

In the kitchen, Katurian made tea.

The familiar motions -- sliding the teacup out of the cupboard, filling it up with water, bringing that water to a boil -- helped ground him while his ears screamed with tortures and death rattles. Now and again, he paused, struggling to hear Ruka over the thunderous soundtrack of his own thoughts. If it were another moment, another time, Katurian would have worried he was losing his mind.

When he finished, he brought the two cups into the living room, his index and middle fingers curled gingerly around the handles.

Edited 2012-06-20 22:01 (UTC)

She operated the faucet handles with the edge of her sleeve, but she hesitated with the soap. Well, she thought, if there was some other death lingered there, it wasn't going to be any lessened for waiting. She washed her hands quickly, but it could not kill the feelings contaminating her body. Infection, as it were, had already taken root.

Rinse, spit, repeat; the cold water numbed her hands and made her teeth feel like icicles. A weak attempt to wash the taste of bile from her mouth, but it was better than nothing.

Why had she grabbed the mask like that? What had she been expecting? She was no longer certain; it seemed like it could not have contained anything other than what now rattled down her arms and legs, but surely she must have thought it would be something different. It was hard to focus.

Drying her hands on the sides of her skirt, Ruka finally wobbled back into the living room, where Katurian was already armed with tea. Two cups. "Thanks," she murmured, and took seat and cup both with a forced rigidity. She really needed to put her gloves back on; even the handle carried traces of Katurian's heart.

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