A story high above the low, recorded by few, disputed by later.

[enigmaestro]

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.

Comments

[afeatherpillow]

The last month had broken something inside Katurian. Small cuts and tears grew inside of him, flourished, built. It happened the day he returned to the City, bruised and scraped, whittling out memories that no one close to him seemed to remember. It happened the moment he realized he had been tortured and abused, and then the moment DeConnick told him I hope you're not squeamish. It happened when he met Fugue, when his idyllic home (the most comfortable place he had been in months, years maybe) was torn apart by anonymous bones and flesh. It happened when the woman he didn't really love who had given him trust he didn't really deserve died against him

[enigmaestro]

"I don't require a pen for those, it's child's play," said Eddie breezily. And then pursed his lips, watching Katurian with widening eyes. Perhaps fearing another display of extremely subtle tears. "But something to amuse myself with nonetheless, thank you Katurian. This will only make it more amusing, won't it?"

Edward was not particularly good at showing gratitude, especially when showing gratitude for unexpected reasons. He had been joking, when he inquired over gifts to Katurian, hardly actually believing himself a recipient on his company's mind.

He coughed, then glanced around the room.

"As you can see, I've had a hand in amusing myself quite a lot."

A pause -- and then, recognizing the perhaps mischievous ambiguity, hastily added: "The riddles I mean. Obviously."

[afeatherpillow]

Katurian's eyes scanned over the riddles. Words and words and words. They made him feel uncomfortably small in that room. Alpha, he had remembered, had covered the walls of his apartment with Katurian's stories. Katurian had sat there, drugged, shuddering so hard his legs clicked against their bounds.

"There are a lot of them," he said, grasping for stability in the obvious, in its simplicity. His eyes snagged on one in particular. BIRTHED INTO ONESELF. It sounded like as much nonsense as the dead birds.

"How long have you been at it?"

[enigmaestro]

"Do you mean riddling, or this set?" Eddie's hand drifted lazily in the air, swatting at nonexistent bugs. "Because the former has roots in years. Over a decade. I was reborn as the Riddler when I came to Gotham, it was a renaissance of my own design."

He sat up suddenly, his mouth a thin hard line.

"I don't think I ever really stopped. Being the Riddler. That was his point all along, wasn't it? That your past is your person, and to deny that is to deny yourself." He simmered on the words, staring at Katurian, scouring his company with the intensity. But of course, he was only looking past Katurian. Looking through this moment and reliving some other time, dark and sharp and lonely as it was.

[afeatherpillow]

He couldn't think about this. He couldn't think about being dragged down by his past because that was the only thing he saw. He suffered dreams of laying breadcrumbs through forests, littering chunks of his own foreshadowing and doom to be torn into at some later date. He didn't want to belong to his past. It dug into his skull and made him that way anyway.

He stared at the riddles instead. AN OPERATING SYSTEM ANTICIPATING. He felt Edward's eyes. OR THE SCENT OF SULFUR AND OXYGEN COMBINED. He wanted to dodge this conversation like nothing more in the world.

And then the 'he' again.

The jolt was immediate. Like electricity. He swallowed and stared at the wall, at that riddle, his lips moving soundlessly before finding his voice.

"The first line is 'born.'"

From the way he said it, it was obvious he didn't need the others.

[enigmaestro]

Of course, Eddie mused. Of course he would be the one. Katurian, of all people, knew how to play with language like Eddie did. That was the art to it, the crux where logic and language married, that was the point. That's what Eddie had been trying to make Katurian understand, all those months ago.

He didn't say a thing. He simply watched Katurian's dawning.

Silent. Breathless.

Wondering.

[afeatherpillow]

"Oxygen and sulfur," he continued, bolder. Once he uncovered the first piece (and then the only possible answer), the puzzle unfolded magnificently in his arms. It was a matter of clawing into it to find the rest.

His voice was trembling.

"Operating and system." (Katurian was never very good at computer terms.) "Anticipating like beginning, like the first letters. Or the first part of a word."

He finally looked to Edward. There was something like pride in his eyes, something like invigoration. He had broken into Edward's thoughts. For one moment, he had broken into Edward's thoughts.

"Did he do this?"

[enigmaestro]

It brought a small smile to his face, he couldn't help it. Watching his once would-be protege unravel the twists and gnarls of truth. Observing the perfection of decoding, having Katurian weave through ideas he had woven. The flawless execution of creation and then equal deconstruction. He couldn't help that relief. The unspoken horror was muted in comparison, the slow terror that Katurian could know how he thought, and perhaps would know how he'd think. Katurian could speak his secret, solitude language. Katurian was growing dangerous.

Eddie would dwell on the consequence in time, but now? It was just nice to be understood, even in some small little way, even if Eddie had to believe that he hated it. It was nice to be this part of him.

Eddie stared at Katurian, his eyes round and unblinking, glowing with intrigue.

"Yes."

[afeatherpillow]

The thrill melted away, but he didn't panic. With Edward's eyes locked on his face, with that smile (and oh, how thankful he was for that smile), he wasn't ready to explode in his usual blind fear. Instead, he closed his eyes and swallowed. He should have known. Edward protected Osborn the same way Osborn protected Edward after the opera house. Osborn must have known that Edward was craving his blood, it was impossible not to have known, and yet he was still silent about it. Casual. He might have even known that Edward was the one who placed him in the hospital.

What went on between the two of them was not made for police eyes. It was not made for voyeurs.

"What now?"

[enigmaestro]

That smile withered. Careful, calculating, cautious awareness replaced his slight emotion. This was a problem, he measured in his mind. A potential issue that would need to be eliminated, if undesired. But Eddie wasn't one to jump his guns. He would need to know, first.

He always liked knowing, first.

"What do you want to do now?"

[afeatherpillow]

"I think," he started carefully, measuring Edward's expression, "that the longer he runs free, the more people risk being hurt by him."

In other words, he wanted to tell the police.

Even before he said it, he knew it wasn't the answer Eddie wanted. That was why he kept it vague, why he softened it with thoughts over actions, with gaps carved out for the unsaid. Katurian had spent his first year fearing the police - and he still did, to an extent - but the fact was that Osborn had broken the law, had killed people, and was still moving around. And if what happened to Edward was any of indication, he was still very, very dangerous.

[enigmaestro]

"I had suspected as much," he spoke in quiet, clipped words. A quick smile followed. A tense moment.

And then he was on Katurian, hands seeking wrists, fingers vicious and squeezing. Legs spread to pin around hips, and pressing against muscle. He used the bed as a surface of resistance, keeping Katurian locked in place as he leaned over, whispering is savaged and hushed tones. Barely restrained rage, unrepentant madness.

"Do not take action. Do not tell anyone. I will burn anything that gets in my way, I will incinerate anyone, do you understand? He is mine, because of this, he has promised himself to me. Do you understand?" Lips sneered, nearly touching Katurian's ear. "Save the hypothetical thousands."

[afeatherpillow]

Katurian didn't have time to yell. The back of his head slammed into the mattress, and he kicked out, automatic, but then Edward was pinning him completely and any struggle he could manage with his weak bones was haphazard at best. Useless. He was trapped on that bed, with Edward's bloody, sticky hands grounding into his wrists.

Katurian always worked better when he was trapped. He was learning.

"You're so much more than these walls, Edward." His skin was pale and his voice was wavering, choking, rough, but there was a calmness to him, too, a tone that hadn't quite given in. "You're better than this cage."

An echo from older times.

[enigmaestro]

"Shh." Eddie smirked against his ear, before slowly pulling away. His hands still gripped those wrists, blood staining skin and sheets. "You don't think I remember my own words, Katurian? That I don't recognize that voice? I'm intimately aware."

Eyes flickered over Katurian's face, watching that strangely calm expression. Calmer than expected, anyway. Any other time, and Eddie would have been proud.

"Do you know what he did? He dressed me in my own costume, to remind me. To humiliate me in my own creation, do you know what he did?" Eddie's fingers gripped tighter, his mouth twisted in the unsubtle spasms of mania.

"Nothing was left sacred."

[afeatherpillow]

An involuntary shudder tore through his body, exiting through his teeth in another choke. He could feel it. The days Edward spent under Norman, the madness building into something concrete and whole and horrifying, the tendrils of it escaping into the air right now, right this instant. Katurian didn't need to know the costume to understand what that meant for Edward. His powers guaranteed that he knew what a life looked like while it was crumbling.

"Norman knows you, Edward." He grimaced, afraid of the words, but he knew he needed to go on. "Doesn't that prove it? Psychological torture. H-He-- He'll know that you won't involve anyone else, and if you wait until you get out of here, he will be prepared for you. Don't you see that?" Another hard swallow. "C-Can't you see?"

[enigmaestro]

"Of course he knows," Eddie whispered. Fingertips stroked against Katurian's cheek, leaving sticky faded red marks. "Of course he's plotting. I am counting on him doing so."

Those fingers hooked into Katurian's cheek.

"He expects me to balk. To resent. To unwillingly, slowly, accept. But I'm much quicker than that, Katurian, I've already accepted." He exhaled, savoring his words. Hearing them outside his mind for the first time. "And I need to know you won't make me hurt you. I really don't want that, you know, I like you."

He dragged his nails downwards. His eyes, watching.

"Don't make me hurt you, Katurian."