WHO: EDWARD NYGMA and POSSIBLY YOU.
WHERE: NOHoPE.
WHEN: August 8th - August 14th.
WARNINGS: Sweep you all up on a corner and pay for my bread.
SUMMARY: You know that I cannot believe my own truth.
FORMAT: To show what a truth, it's got nothing to lose.
(
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. )
He brought Edward a gift. Not a book, because he knew how many he had in his house, but a collection of logic puzzles and word games. Unscramble words and then place them in a crossword puzzle. Scramble faces, learn which nose belonged to which person. And so on. He came in after his usual Thursday meeting with his psychiatrist, where for the first time, he refused to answer her questions. How did you get those stitches, just above your temple? she had asked. What is the bruise? Have you stopped sleeping again? He tried to steer the conversation away from himself and then, after a time, he told her that she may as well lock him up again if she was expecting him to talk, because he had nothing to say.
In many ways, Katurian was done playing games, too.
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"Their Latin name, of course, is manus." Eddie spoke to the footsteps he heard, refusing to turn around. "Man -- us. This curious mutation, this very unnatural shape, the hand. A name in one language, broken and morphed by another to obtain an entirely new insight. Man. Us."
He turns at that, pulling away from his riddles and greeting his guest with open hands. And lacerated, bleeding palms.
"Are we defined by our mutation, Katurian?"
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Then he started looking for sharp objects.
"What did you do?" It was practically a whisper. His body was tight all over, and while he was sure that Edward wanted him to answer the question, to continue despite this turn, even in his lowest of lows, Katuiran could not unwind himself completely
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"They took away my pens. I had to improvise."
Eddie's eyes followed Katurian's in the latter's search for sharp objects. He was amused by the effort, curious to see what Katurian might unearth. Carefully, he edged his way towards his company, his cleaner hand idly scratching pink marks around his neck.
"Now you're here, with me."
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His eyes trailed to Edward's neck. Nails. Teeth?
"That's cruel of them." He meant it. Katurian couldn't always understand Edward, but he understood that. Even his second time institutionalized, he would have gone mad without something to write with. He would have cut open his own hands. He would have bled for it. "What else would they have you do?"
He chanced a glance at the walls, the riddles that had yet to be cleared away.
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"What else? What else? Any controlled scenario is likely pleasant to their minds. Anything quiet and stagnate, pleasant to their thoughts. But not to mine." Throwing his hands up again, watching them in some semi-hypnotic stance, he turned abruptly and circled around Katurian. There was something both fluid and unhinged in his movements -- they were expressive, but disconnected. Loud but shouted in the opposing direction.
"Was it unholy, returning to here? Unnatural? Or did something ring with familiarity?" He asked this casually, as if speaking about variant flavors of tea. There was nothing particularly menacing in his tone -- just unrestrained curiosity.
Eddie walked to another riddle, staring at it with a posture innate to viewers of art galleries.
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Or if he were in prison again.
It had to be about Edward. That feeling. Worry and panic and fear, illness at watching him suffer like this. He had imagined Edward as indestructible, more of an idea than a person, a volatile mass of promises and barely restrained violence that pressed from under his skin like spikes. Under Katurian's skin. And this was--
He didn't know how he really felt about Edward. Maybe like Sylph, he was just in love with the idea of someone saving him.
"Familiar," he said, honestly. He tightened his grip on the plastic bag in his hand, the one that contained the book of word games. He still had a bandage on the side of his head, just above his left temple. "Like I never left. Almost."
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"Well then. How unpleasant," he said. And then chuckled, after watching Katurian for half a minute. The giggling pitched, until he finally broke it with words.
"Really now, you look like you've just stepped out of a war zone. I hope that's not the case, but I haven't seen bandages used as accessories for quite some time." Eddie stepped closer to Katurian, ice crumbling away between them, warmly greeting. "And yet, what else could it be? Unless you -- "
Widening eyes shattered the sentence. He froze his step towards Katurian. Something was written on his face, something like mistrust and cautious suspicion.
"Noo. You really went, didn't you?"
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(Like a pillow.)
"I went."
He didn't cast his eyes downward. He maintained contact, breathing in that mistrust and suspicion, showing himself unwavering in that admission. He had gone, it had happened, and that wasn't going to change. He wouldn't insult Edward by trying to lie. He wouldn't insult himself, either.
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Blood smeared over his skin.
"Heroism has its personal price, Katurian. I think we both figured that out recently."
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"Since I was a boy."
He paused, then rubbed at his calf with his foot, feeling at the bruises. He was losing his momentum.
"I tried to forget. I tried to forget, because one of the things about the therapy is that they're trying to make me more optimistic. One of the symptoms, they told me--" (Bolder because Edward was here, because Edward felt it too, because they suffered together) "--is believing that your future is limited. That everything you do will somehow end up rotten."
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As Katurian spoke and fidgeted, Eddie quietly examined him. How he revealed his physical damage unknowingly, how his exhaustion seeped into his tone. His actions. His expression. Eddie watched this silently, waiting for his cue. Waiting for his chance to guide Katurian once more.
And then it came.
"But that just isn't true, that line of reasoning. I know you have to believe that -- Our futures are limitless, Katurian. Yours and mine. And our glory is within reach -- do you think I haven't been using my time, even now? Does he think, does he honestly think I'll be here for long?" Trapped in his own theatrics, Eddie's voice doubled in volume, each syllable stained with a growing fury.
"We, you and I, we were never meant to just take it. Whoever hurt you is going to regret it. And that's the best part, forcing remorse. That's the inevitable."
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In the hall of the children's hospital where he worked, he wondered if he should be providing exits.
(The he, he chose to file away for later.)
He glanced over Edward towards the sink. His voice, still tired, softened just slightly. "We should wash your hands."
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Eddie turned heel out of Katurian's immediate presence, keeping a few feet away, as if out-stepping the threat of being mothered. He looked over his shoulder, offering a grin meant to charm.
"You don't want to talk about what happened? When you went, I mean. To Greenland." He kept his voice soft, even.
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And then Edward was asking about Greenland, and he touched a hand to his bandage. Automatic.
"Someone tried to take my head off." It wasn't the main thing by any means, and he was sure Edward could glean that. Still, he couldn't help but say it, a brief, sickened smile flashing across his lips. "It would've been the third time."
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"Most of us fear death. You, however, halfheartedly embrace it." Eddie took a long look at his wall, slamming his palm against OBLIGATION and smearing red across it. The black ink wasn't quite obscured. "So let's not waltz around the reality, agreed? What really fractured you?"
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