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."