Katurian K. Katurian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pillowmania) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2014-02-28 11:22 am
pillowmania) wrote in thecapitol2014-02-28 11:22 am
Entry tags:
you got a way with words
Who| Katurian and OPEN
What| One of the Capitol's torturers is chilling around the city.
Where| The Capitol streets
When| Week Six
Warnings/Notes| Possible mentions of: ptsd, child abuse, torture.
In the back of his mind, Katurian heard chainsaws.
(Vroom vroom vROom.)
It was ticklish, almost, like a feather on his scalp or a lover whispering into his ear. (Katurian never had lovers, but he knew how to write stories about them, stories of exhilaration and control and, yes, chainsaws.) It was too cacophonous to be pleasant, too uneven to be soothing. The sound stood somewhere between an imagining and a hallucination. It was unusual. Normally he only heard screams.
In public, Katurian had taken to dark hoods and opaque goggles. It did not conceal his identity, not entirely, but it made him feel more protected, more invisible. The chainsaws growled in his mind as he completed his errands, traveling from store to store, street to street.
At the end of the day, he always found himself outside the same place. The radio station. He was a wandering ghost and this, perhaps, this was his grave. His salvation.
This was the only place where the chainsaws sounded like music.
What| One of the Capitol's torturers is chilling around the city.
Where| The Capitol streets
When| Week Six
Warnings/Notes| Possible mentions of: ptsd, child abuse, torture.
In the back of his mind, Katurian heard chainsaws.
(Vroom vroom vROom.)
It was ticklish, almost, like a feather on his scalp or a lover whispering into his ear. (Katurian never had lovers, but he knew how to write stories about them, stories of exhilaration and control and, yes, chainsaws.) It was too cacophonous to be pleasant, too uneven to be soothing. The sound stood somewhere between an imagining and a hallucination. It was unusual. Normally he only heard screams.
In public, Katurian had taken to dark hoods and opaque goggles. It did not conceal his identity, not entirely, but it made him feel more protected, more invisible. The chainsaws growled in his mind as he completed his errands, traveling from store to store, street to street.
At the end of the day, he always found himself outside the same place. The radio station. He was a wandering ghost and this, perhaps, this was his grave. His salvation.
This was the only place where the chainsaws sounded like music.
no subject
Of course they were everywhere, and even outside you were never far from the sound of them. He saw the figure in the hood and glasses and went to move out of their way. He found it was easier just to work around Capitolites than expect them to see you. Unless they wanted to see you, and then Shion usually wished they hadn't.
Which was perhaps unfair, because there were people he had met who had been nice, kind even. But their complete lack of concern for the atrocities their city was committing was enough for him to fear them.
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Most importantly, Penny was not here. Calling her a ball and chain would be an understatement. She was the monster under his bed that would grab his feet if he let his toes touch the ground.
"Shion," he said, hushed. He didn't make the decision to speak -- he simply did.
He also made the decision to grab Shion's shoulders and back him into the nearest wall.
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The first time they had met Shion had thought he was nice, the second time not so much and he was friends with Penny, Penny terrified Shion. Even more so now after their meeting in the park.
Shion had met many people since Rat had saved him but Penny was the first to so openly enjoy cruelty.
He didn't really have that much time to react before he was grabbed and the wall was behind him. Panic flooded him along with shame, because he should be better at this by now. Rat had tried to teach him. He had been in three Arenas now. Yet he still could get grabbed so easily.
If Rat had been near he would have been disappointed. "Katurian?"
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He removed his goggles with trembling hands.
"I'm sorry," he said, like the words had been torn from his lips. He stepped backwards, giving Shion space. "I didn't mean-- I didn't mean to startle you. I've been looking for you, is all. I wanted to see you."
It was all so clandestine, the way this was playing out. Katurian realized he was still whispering.
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He mostly didn't try to understand it. He forced his features under control, a smile touching his lips because he had to smile even when he didn't want to. That was the difference he though, between being free and not being free.
"It's okay, it's nice to see you as well, I haven't seen you in a long while."
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Not an entirely social person. It was an understatement, but at the very least, it wasn't a lie. Katurian spent the time he wasn't at work holed up in his apartment writing, writing, writing, and when his eyes caught the sunlight, he would wince backwards like a vampire. Still, it was only half the answer -- he had been avoiding Shion, that boy who didn't know art but wanted to learn about it, that boy he let down when he lead Penny to him like a bloodhound to a fox.
He forced his own smile. It was the mechanical, practiced small-talk kind.
"How are you?"
He fought a grimace. What an idiotic fucking question.
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And he liked people, he really did. But not people who stared at him and reached out to touch his hair and whispered about him when they thought he wasn't listening. Or maybe they knew and didn't care. He didn't like people bringing up his deaths, or asking about Rat.
"I'm alright." More smiles, "I'm enjoying being back in the Capitol, my escort took me to all the museums."
He was getting better, at saying what he knew he was supposed to say.
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"I'm glad," he said, a quick and cursory response. He folded his arms across his chest. "But that's not-- that's not why I've been wanting to talk to you, I've been meaning to talk to you for an entirely separate reason, because I --"
His thoughts were tangled. He shook his head.
"I treated you very poorly, the last time we met."
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"Oh." Shion blinked trying to sort out his thoughts. It had been... frightening, but Shion was used to fear. He had not known that Katurian was friends with Penny, but it hadn't surprised him all that much. Even the fact he had been different than the first time they had met, different than now.
"It's alright, I didn't mind..." He blinked, dark purple eyes seeking Katurian's under the hood.
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The curse was subdued. He was bitter -- not angry.
"You seem like a good kid," he said. He knotted his fingers, avoiding eye contract, ducking his head. "And I like good kids, I feel sorry for the good kids, because most of you aren't old enough to have fucked anything up yet. Most of you are still innocent. So I want to help. Even though I shouldn't help, I want to help."
He finally chanced eye contact.
"Help matters less to my partner."
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He blinked when eye contact was made, "Yes Penny is..." Words got stuck, he couldn't really say what he thought about Penny, at least not outloud. Her smile had haunted his nightmares since the day in the park.
"I'm glad you want to help though." Wanting to help was good, it was a feeling that didn't so much exist in the Capitol, or No. 6.
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When Shion met his eyes, they were wide and anxious.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, I --"
He shook his head, then lifted his shoulders in an attempt to loosen his muscles.
"What's the worst thing you've ever done?" He wanted this to sound casual, but it didn't. It couldn't. "What was it?"
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"No... I'm sorry... I..."
He paled at the question, purple eyes looking everywhere but Katurian. He knew he should walk away, telling Katurian this was the same as telling everyone. Everyone important anyways and he did not need another reason to be controlled.
But... it was Katurian and even though Shion didn't know him well he wondered about him a lot. Wondered how the man in the art gallery differed so much from the man in the mask.
"I killed someone..." His voice was barely a whisper, "They hurt Rat... so I killed them."
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"Did you say that you killed someone?" he asked, wondering if he had misheard the whisper. He had planned a speech, something about how Shion was surely better than most of the monsters here, but that was all lost in the confusion (and horror) of the moment.
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Panic rose in him as he realised he shouldn't have spoken because now Katurian would hate him and he would be right to, because of what he had done.
"Yes... a year ago... maybe more... When I was... before I was here... they hurt Rat..." He was physically trembling now, he still remembered pulling the trigger, the cold anger running through him. Rat's tears...
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"Shh," he said. Once upon a time, Katurian had used this as a comforting sound, but now he mostly hummed it like a song to his prisoners. He meant it sincerely now, although it felt jarring to him. He flinched, then breathed.
"I know what it's like to protect someone that you care about very much."
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When Katurian told him he knew... it helped a bit and Shion blinked at him. "I don't like hurting people..."