[closed]

[scornful]

Date & Time: forward dated to 07/31, night
Location: unit 201
Characters: Catsovi e Viciro (scornful), the Nightcap (theparasite)
Summary: THE MURDEROUS WORKING DYNAMIC SUDDENLY GOES DOWN THE DRAIN
Warnings: fingernail trauma



Catsovi had been plagued by sleeplessness ever since the bombings, and he wasn't entirely certain why. It vexed him. There was no reason for this to be happening. He hadn't been afraid of the bombs then, he hadn't been afraid of the attacks, he hadn't been afraid of anything then and he certainly wasn't afraid of them now. But insomnia plagued him all the same and he was spending too many nights now pacing the room, staring at the walls, thinking to himself: this is where Bariyan was... and realizing that this was not his place. He did not belong. He never would, he never would have.

He wanted to tear it to the ground. When he did sleep, he dreamed of fire. Of the bombings. Of the plague.

But he was not sleeping now and so when the door to the apartment creaked open, Cat ventured out into the main hall to look at it. It could only be one of two people, he knew, and at the moment he was not in the mood to confront either of them.

Comments

[scornful]

"You," Catsovi replied, through an equally tight jaw, fighting with all his might to maintain what little control he had -- fighting to turn the Nightcap away from him. "get out!"

But he released control as soon as he bit the last word off. Perhaps release wasn't quite the right word -- the Nightcap was fighting back too much for him to hold on any longer, its will too strong, too foreign, too alien. But release was the way Catsovi would like to think it. He would like to think that he'd chosen to let it go, of his own free will.

And immediately he cast his sight about in search of a weapon. There was a chair, but that wouldn't serve him long. Damn it. What he wanted was a sword.

[theparasite]

Release or breakthrough, whatever the word happened to be didn't change how almost comically the Nightcap was flung, staggering with its own built-up force to be free of Catsovi's hold. It tripped over its own feet and fell, rolling and scrambling back upright without any thought or thought of a thought on the ordeal; it only wanted out and away as fast as possible.

It was frustrated in its disorientation, trying to find open air and windows and just seeing walls and furniture and all manner of things that ought to have been familiar enough, but...quite valueless in the face of its peril. Fortune let it feel its back press against the doorknob, give it cause to send hands fumbling around for it, to yelp and then shout an almost joyful note as the door opened at last – not very easy doing all of that facing the wrong way, but it'd be nuts to turn its back on Catsovi.

Giggling frantically, it backed out of the room, mouth twitching with the barest notion of a final word...but wit was one more useless thing in the moment.

It ran instead, hating the whole circumstance, hoping half the pain and offense it felt was but a quarter of Catsovi's. The nails weren't enough. It needed to...to hurt something else. Something more.

It was going to have to think hard about it. But now was no time for a good think.

[scornful]

Catsovi hissed a string of curses at the Nightcap's retreat, stepping towards it as if he meant to chase it out -- but as soon as it ran off, he went to his knees instead, biting his bottom lip against the pain. This wasn't right. This wasn't fair. This -- was not -- all right.

This needed to be amended.

The injury was, at least, easy enough to hide away. He grabbed his coat off the rack and flung it over his shoulders, pulling it over his injured hand. There was blood on his face, but he was only dimly aware of it, and in the dim light of evening surely no one would notice. And Adrasteius' room wasn't far from here.

And after that... after that he'd see about revenge.