you think you know the end
WHO: Katurian and Ruka
WHERE: Technically the MAC, but--
WHEN: February 2009.
WARNINGS: Katurian's occasionally morbid thoughts. Time paradox.
SUMMARY: Katurian has begun experimenting with his time-traveling powers in earnest. Ruka first arrived in the City in 2009, and so he decides to say hello. Today. I'm not even sure if this counts as backtagging. I'm not even sure.
FORMAT: Paragraph
FRIDAY AUGUST 5TH, 2011
When Katurian packs up to leave his apartment and crowd into a hotel room with Andy, he comes across the keys to his first apartment in a box of old junk and receipts. He keeps them in his nightstand until he returns from Greenland, and then he navigates the riots and finds the old place. It was the apartment Nigel and Cameron helped him pay for in his very first months, when he was so emotionally frayed that he couldn't find a job. It was the place where he first felt Desire pulling at the edge of his thoughts, but it was also the place where he learned he was having his first book published, where he sat in bed and thought about having friends, finally, real friends. It was where he cooked pancakes for Margaret Marks-- only he didn't, because that experience unraveled and disappeared with her past when Katurian helped her die twenty years too early. He hasn't been there in a year.
He means to return the keys to the new tenant, but when he approaches the front door, a young man with tight blond curls bursts out with cuts on his face and a suitcase shoved under his arm. He says that he's had it with this fucking city godfucking dammit, and then he pushes past Katurian and storms down the stairs with heavy footprints, clump, clump, clump.
Katurian calls over the stairwell as he goes. "Does this mean you're breaking your lease?"
The tenant tells Katurian to fuck himself.
SATURDAY AUGUST 13TH, 2011
Katurian is a quiet neighbor.
He continues to live with Andy in the hotel room, but makes frequent visits to his old apartment. He keeps the trips a secret. He lingers around the place where he once had his desk, now replaced with a half empty portable cabinet, disheveled from the man's quick exit. He sits on the bed. He looks out the window.
One day, he opens the nightstand and finds a small knife, clean and unused. Protection is important in this city, he figures, especially for the people without superpowers. For the people who never asked for any of this.
He takes the pillow from the bed and cuts into it.
TUESDAY AUGUST 16TH, 2011
He made a promise to Sylph in the minute before she was shot. He promised to do better.
Katurian has resigned himself to his inevitable destruction. Months of therapy have nothing on his latest kidnapping, on finding himself covered with shards of bone and brain after doing everything he thought was right. He decided he was doomed for failure again, and that's all right. Fine. Acceptable. But Katurian does not lie down, and if his life is the cosmic joke he thinks it is, he will at least have control of that joke. He will write his own ending, and it will be fucking brilliant.
He will do better.
He spends several hours in the apartment every day. He stitches and sews and purchases foam and feather. He makes a mask out of the pillowcase with small, almost hidden holes for the eyes and ears and mouth. He fills in the cheek bones and the chin and forehead with the foam. When he wears it, his skin suffocates, but he can still breathe.
Fugue is his reassurance. Katurian convinces himself that no matter how much he travels through time, at least he won't start slaughtering people and obliterating the very foundation of the present. At least he won't lose his mind. But there's something inexplicably enticing about the power she displays, how she makes people quake and hiss her name like a curse. Katurian is less far away from this power than he realized. He understands what Edward meant, and he understands why Desire was supposedly afraid of him. If he uses it for something good, though, something worthwhile--
He will, at least, make sure no one knows that it's him.
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 17TH, 2011
Katurian carries a backpack through the crowded subway station. He doesn't expect to recognize anyone, but he does.
_______________________ _________ ___
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 12TH, 2009
He's in an elevator in the MAC, alone, and his heart is beating like a drum. He digs into his backpack and throws on the mask before slinging the strap over his shoulder. It is over two years in the past, and the world feels terribly, terribly real. Normally, when he visits an import, there's a tangible distance, the understanding that he is observing, but not participating. Not now. Oh, he is here. He exists.
In truth, Katurian has long suspected that his power works on anyone with a childhood in this world.
WHERE: Technically the MAC, but--
WHEN: February 2009.
WARNINGS: Katurian's occasionally morbid thoughts. Time paradox.
SUMMARY: Katurian has begun experimenting with his time-traveling powers in earnest. Ruka first arrived in the City in 2009, and so he decides to say hello. Today. I'm not even sure if this counts as backtagging. I'm not even sure.
FORMAT: Paragraph
FRIDAY AUGUST 5TH, 2011
When Katurian packs up to leave his apartment and crowd into a hotel room with Andy, he comes across the keys to his first apartment in a box of old junk and receipts. He keeps them in his nightstand until he returns from Greenland, and then he navigates the riots and finds the old place. It was the apartment Nigel and Cameron helped him pay for in his very first months, when he was so emotionally frayed that he couldn't find a job. It was the place where he first felt Desire pulling at the edge of his thoughts, but it was also the place where he learned he was having his first book published, where he sat in bed and thought about having friends, finally, real friends. It was where he cooked pancakes for Margaret Marks-- only he didn't, because that experience unraveled and disappeared with her past when Katurian helped her die twenty years too early. He hasn't been there in a year.
He means to return the keys to the new tenant, but when he approaches the front door, a young man with tight blond curls bursts out with cuts on his face and a suitcase shoved under his arm. He says that he's had it with this fucking city godfucking dammit, and then he pushes past Katurian and storms down the stairs with heavy footprints, clump, clump, clump.
Katurian calls over the stairwell as he goes. "Does this mean you're breaking your lease?"
The tenant tells Katurian to fuck himself.
SATURDAY AUGUST 13TH, 2011
Katurian is a quiet neighbor.
He continues to live with Andy in the hotel room, but makes frequent visits to his old apartment. He keeps the trips a secret. He lingers around the place where he once had his desk, now replaced with a half empty portable cabinet, disheveled from the man's quick exit. He sits on the bed. He looks out the window.
One day, he opens the nightstand and finds a small knife, clean and unused. Protection is important in this city, he figures, especially for the people without superpowers. For the people who never asked for any of this.
He takes the pillow from the bed and cuts into it.
TUESDAY AUGUST 16TH, 2011
He made a promise to Sylph in the minute before she was shot. He promised to do better.
Katurian has resigned himself to his inevitable destruction. Months of therapy have nothing on his latest kidnapping, on finding himself covered with shards of bone and brain after doing everything he thought was right. He decided he was doomed for failure again, and that's all right. Fine. Acceptable. But Katurian does not lie down, and if his life is the cosmic joke he thinks it is, he will at least have control of that joke. He will write his own ending, and it will be fucking brilliant.
He will do better.
He spends several hours in the apartment every day. He stitches and sews and purchases foam and feather. He makes a mask out of the pillowcase with small, almost hidden holes for the eyes and ears and mouth. He fills in the cheek bones and the chin and forehead with the foam. When he wears it, his skin suffocates, but he can still breathe.
Fugue is his reassurance. Katurian convinces himself that no matter how much he travels through time, at least he won't start slaughtering people and obliterating the very foundation of the present. At least he won't lose his mind. But there's something inexplicably enticing about the power she displays, how she makes people quake and hiss her name like a curse. Katurian is less far away from this power than he realized. He understands what Edward meant, and he understands why Desire was supposedly afraid of him. If he uses it for something good, though, something worthwhile--
He will, at least, make sure no one knows that it's him.
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 17TH, 2011
Katurian carries a backpack through the crowded subway station. He doesn't expect to recognize anyone, but he does.
_______________________ _________ ___
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 12TH, 2009
He's in an elevator in the MAC, alone, and his heart is beating like a drum. He digs into his backpack and throws on the mask before slinging the strap over his shoulder. It is over two years in the past, and the world feels terribly, terribly real. Normally, when he visits an import, there's a tangible distance, the understanding that he is observing, but not participating. Not now. Oh, he is here. He exists.
In truth, Katurian has long suspected that his power works on anyone with a childhood in this world.