your self-inflicted pain is getting too routine

[afeatherpillow]

WHO: Katurian Katurian and Wanda Maximoff
WHERE: City streets
WHEN: June 9th, after dark
WARNINGS: Description of past injury.
SUMMARY: Wanda encounters a depressed Katurian by the side of the road about a week after his latest failure.
FORMAT: Starting with paragraph, feel free to chose either!

Comments

[stillawitch]

Wanda liked to catch Starbucks right before nine; the floppy-haired teenager on the night shift would usually give her a free frappachino after his manager ditched him to close for the night. She was congratulating herself on a Vanilla Bean well-earned when she heard the sob and abruptly stilled on the sidewalk, belatedly noticing the curled-up figure not ten yards directly ahead of her.

Bewildered and concerned, she promptly dismissed all sense of self-preservation, padding quietly up to the crying man in the dark.

"Excuse me," she murmured, voice soft and gentle as she crouched down beside him, still far enough away to not be impolite. "What's wrong?"

[afeatherpillow]

He gave a start at the voice, the sound of footsteps, the presence of a body sitting nearby. The woman sounded familiar, but not in a way he could immediately identify. Was she one of his former patients? A neighbor? That she was someone from the Network fit best, although he was too tired, too weary to page through all those memories. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand cast. The tears still came.

"Fine," he slurred. "Thank you."

Then he recognized her voice, as though filtered through a delay. He chanced a look at her. The night shadows could almost disguise the slight burns on his face, the bruise on his neck. He was otherwise the same Katurian. Small. Skinny. Well-dressed, but disheveled. Wanda was someone who had been friendly to him, who thought his stories were well written, who put up with his neuroses when they first met. He felt his face grow hot with shame.

"O-Oh," he breathed.

[stillawitch]

There was a brief jolt of recognition when he looked up at her, and Wanda let out a slow breath, concern doubling in her eyes. Even without visible marks, it was clear enough in his face that he had been through something awful.

"Oh, you poor boy," she whispered, somehow managing to sound sympathetic rather than condescending as she tentatively reached out in an attempt to push his hair back from his face. "What happened to you?"

[afeatherpillow]

He tensed as she moved her hand to touch him, but didn't move away. Sympathy. It was something he wasn't used to at all in his old world, where people minded their own business, where people were certain he was strange or off or sometimes even dangerous. The imports were kinder to him. Maybe it was because everyone was a little strange, a little off in this place. It offended his cynicism. (But did it matter?)

"I'm not usually like this," he said a little too quickly, his good hand fidgeting with the typewriter. "I'm usually-- very well-composed, and to see me like this, I mean-- I'm-- I'm very well-composed."

[stillawitch]

Wanda smiled gently, nodding as if he was making perfect sense. "I know you are," she agreed, shifting a little to settle beside him. Around them, the night was oddly still; it seemed like no one wanted to drive near the streets surrounding the MAC if they could help it, these days. In the distance, though, the city thrived on, an unremarkable Wednesday night.

She was quiet for a moment, and then spoke again, softly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

[afeatherpillow]

Katurian didn't think he should tell a near stranger about how he tried to kidnap a mass-murderer. He didn't think he should tell her about Desire's punishment, either, or the extreme circumstances in his home world that had driven him to extreme circumstances in this one. It was all very messy, very ugly. He remembered Nigel's words from all those months ago, something about being free through freeing guilt. He had an inexplicable urge to tell her everything, to let his life fall down around him and live outside of his secrets.

He winced an inhale, feeling the pressure on his rib.

"Can you just tell me about your day?" he asked, his voice small and wavering.

[stillawitch]

"Of course," she replied, reaching out to wrap his unbandaged hand in hers, warm and comforting.

"I just got back from LA, actually. I've been working at the refugee camps, handing out blankets and band-aids to the HIVE escapees. I'll probably go back tomorrow, but.. I needed a break. It had been three days since I'd been home, and.. well, I wasn't sure I could go any longer without washing my hair." Despite the subject matter, her tone was light, almost inane. Calm.

[afeatherpillow]

Katurian nodded, hearing the tone more than the words. He did hear them, too, though, the incalculable destruction miles and miles away, the people who lost their homes for better, more appropriate reasons.

"You like helping people," he said. He didn't look up.

[stillawitch]

She nodded too, slowly, her gaze drifting down to the deserted street.

"It -- I've always found more comfort in.. in helping other people with their problems, than.. facing my own."

sorry, I totally forgot this tag!! /leaves this here :>

[afeatherpillow]

He chanced another look. If he concentrated just right, her could see her past extending from her like spokes, experiences jutting out as tears and laughter and pain. There was something odd about her life, something layered and not quite true (suppressed?), something that reminded him, terrifyingly, of Alpha. His hand tensed in hers.

"I--" He swallowed, nodding. "Yes. I understand." He let his hand relax. "I mean, I'm n-no--"

His eyes fell on the street in front of them, on dim signs and lights he hadn't been supposed to see since his real death almost nine months ago. He sucked in a breath.

"I'm not a hero."

[stillawitch]

When his hand tensed, she glanced at him, eyebrows furrowing minutely in concern. Katurian seemed to fragile, in spirit as much as form, that she felt wary of speaking too loudly, let alone forcefully, for fear of breaking him -- that is, more than he seemed to have already been broken.

"So few of us are," Wanda murmured, looking down at her half-forgotten frappachino.

[afeatherpillow]

"I thought that's why we were here once," he said, fast enough to slur his words. He drew his attention to his knees. "I thought all of us had great destinies to be heroes or that we already were h-heroes, but that isn't true and it never was."