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

[afeatherpillow]

He wanted to say no. He wanted to disobey Edward and go straight to the police, in part out of his own stubbornness, and in part because Edward frightened him with the way he spoke and clawed at his face and crooned acceptance. He had been caught up in something dangerous again. He wanted it to stop.

But his self-preservation existed. His desire to live was clocked in.

He was afraid of unexpected falsehoods, how his future actions might unwittingly betray whatever promises he made that night. The words he spoke were the most genuine he knew. "Let me help you." A whisper. He didn't know if the blood he felt on his face belonged to him or Edward. He raised his voice. "Please, let me help you."

[enigmaestro]

Eddie tilted his head, his connection held to Katurian going numb. Distant. Something about those words froze his snarl, his hands, his legs. Something about the sincere insistence unnerved him, throwing him into casual darkness.

Because it was easier than appreciating the gravity of Katurian's feeling.

"Do you. Really want. To help me, Katurian?" It was less a whisper and more a slithered hiss, cornered from the back of his tongue.

[afeatherpillow]

He was aware of terror in his system, of his hands sweating into the covers. He remembered the younger Edward speaking to him, telling him I know what mortal fear looks like.

"Yes," he said. He wanted to smudge that madness out of Edward's eyes. He wanted to protect him from rash decisions, from pikes and fire and people who were too prepared. Most importantly, he wanted to topple Osborn. For what he had done to Edward. For the people he had slaughtered because Katurian had protected him at the cost of his own freedom.

"I want to help you."

[enigmaestro]

He stretched over Katurian, breathing in a careful, measured pace. The sight might have looked absurd, to any onlooker, but their discourse was one unseen by invasive eye. Eddie needed to impose himself, to ensure he had control on both a mental and physical level. He wasn't about to let Katurian leave until he knew he possessed this control. He had to, it was carved into his obsession. He had to, for Norman.

"Then do exactly as I say. Promise me, and I'll in turn let you keep me," he paused. "Keep me in check. Is that not agreeable?" Eddie's pupils dilated, the intensity of the moment overwhelming his expression. "Is that fair?"

[afeatherpillow]

He wasn't about to point out the contradiction in terms, but he wasn't really in a position to, either. Edward was right. Physically, he was drowning, his heart pounding like a drum, his pulse tangible in his fingertips. It was just as he thought when he first entered the room. He was an insect in his final, paralyzed moments of life.

Edward was the spider.

"That's fair," he breathed. His voice was thin. "Yes."

[enigmaestro]

"Good."

Eddie pressed down harder, lower, just for emphasis before evacuating completely. He pulled off Katurian, assuming a seat next to his body, and immediately began sorting his own slightly mussed hair.

"Then it's a deal. You keep Norman a secret, and I'll keep you privy to certain delicate matters. That's what you want, correct? You'll know exactly what's going on." He glanced over at his company, smirking somewhat coyly. "Come now, you don't need to look so torn over the matter. It's not like I've kneed you some place unpleasant."

The grinning, jovial mood was a complete contrast to Eddie's demeanor a few seconds previous. He didn't seem to take notice.

[afeatherpillow]

Katurian didn't get up immediately. He continued to stay where he was, flat against the bed, his arms spread and his palms open. He could feel the sticky remnants of Edward's blood on his face, his wrists. Stray specks were drying on his neck. At Edward's jibe, he forced a laugh and then rolled over, easing himself back up again. He was still shaking. It wasn't very much, granted, but as he arranged himself on the bed, it tripped him up. It made him unsteady.

"That month wasn't made up of my finest moments." His voice was rougher than he expected, and so he cleared his throat, dropping his eyes. Here he was, apologizing for his irrationality. Right after all that. Katurian wasn't blind to the irony. "B-But speaking of all that, we need to do something about the anklet. So I don't end up your roommate."

[enigmaestro]

"You don't want to be my roommate, Katurian?" Eddie slid in close, serpentine and fluid, scrapping his fingernails lightly against his company's face before moving past him. It was a blink of a movement. Brief.

Eddie was on his feet, stretching. He took a few steps, consumed by thought, before turning to Katurian with a finger raised.

"If you need it still, it's back at the house. Should be in my study, unless Felicia moved it. She's always moving my things."

[afeatherpillow]

Katurian shrunk in his seat. Even after Edward was standing, he could still feel the touch of his fingernail. Lingering. Humming.

"The problem is that they already know I have it off." He forced himself to look at Edward, to keep his voice clear and even. "They sent someone to find me after you weren't there, and they know."

It had practically been an interrogation. Katurian's bruises were still fresh then, and the stitches stood unexplained in his medical records. The replacement had yelled at him, had demanded to know where Edward was keeping his anklet records, and Katurian had extended his empty ankle and said look, look, he wouldn't have any!

He leaned forward on the bed. "We're both in very serious trouble."

[enigmaestro]

"Really." Eddie whipped around, his eyebrows raised. "I'm in very serious trouble?" He raised his hands dramatically, spreading them apart and looking around his white walled room in mock shock. "Why didn't anyone inform me? I'm in very serious trouble!"

He didn't wait for a response from his audience.

"You shouldn't have a worry, if you play your cards right," Eddie spoke with a degree more gravity, even while still wearing his highly amused smirk. "Your life was threatened by some psychotic lady with time traveling powers. You thought she could track you -- or that the anklet posed threat to your location. Make something up, I don't care. You've been excused for the whole 'oooh someone is leaving body parts at my place let me do something needlessly reckless' show before, haven't you?"

[afeatherpillow]

"To be fair," he said, raising his eyebrows, "that was what put me in the anklet in the first place."

But he paused. Fugue. Fugue was a good excuse. Katurian hated the idea of blaming an omniscient being for his own ills for fear of angering them even further (it was carryover from Desire, no question), but she was in part to blame, wasn't she? He had been afraid of Vulcanus nabbing his location. When he had it taken off, he wasn't planning on going to Greenland. It was entirely innocent.

"Would you be willing to--" He struggled for the words. "--not lie, but could you maybe bend the truth, just bend it, so that it sounds like we have the same story. Could you do that for me?"

[enigmaestro]

"Actually," he said. "I argued for that. The council was far more sympathetic to your faceless plight, but I convinced them you were an unpredictable risk prone to over-reaction at the slightest provocation. Of course, my credibility has since been... Compromised. So I doubt my previous argument would hold mention." He walked around, picking up one of Eridan's novels and paging idly. "To be fair."

He paused, looking surprised at himself. As if momentarily regretting the words. Eddie had been rather liberal with his intentions here, a new and likely entirely brief tendency born from over-medication, trauma and unprecedented boredom. Beneath all that, of course, was a realization that he had lost so much, so quickly, that pretense held very little importance nowadays.

It was a dark thought.

"Collaboration is hardly stressful, if you understand the nuances. You have to speak with them first, you see. So they'll be expecting me to follow your lead, your tale will be in their minds already. I can suggest, and they will assume my story

[afeatherpillow]

Katurian was determined not to lose his temper.

He raised himself up from the bed, extending his arms, feeling that tension, and then let himself down again, the mattress squeaking underneath. He had been afraid, at times, that Edward was deliberately keeping him chained. Holding him back. Drawing him close. Nothing tonight settled that fear.

"Why did you tell them that? Edward."

His voice was flat. He was trying for diplomatic.

[enigmaestro]

"Because you were an irritating little twat, that's why. Katurian." Lurking on the opposite end of the diplomatic spectrum was Edward, callous and open with his words. He didn't seem unnerved by his own bizarre behavior, and perhaps he wasn't cognizant of the contrast to his more typical demeanor.

"But you're not now, are you? Behold! Something worked adequately," he said with a grin. His teasing was almost affectionate, a tone far more telling in this moment than his crippling words were.

[afeatherpillow]

He flinched, rubbing a hand against his bandaged forehead. A part of him wanted to believe that Edward didn't mean it, that he was frustrated and ill and unaware of what he was saying, but he knew that wasn't the case. He kept his eyes averted.

"Maybe I should blame Fugue for my injuries, too."

It was some day, when he'd rather talk about Fugue.