Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-07-25 12:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman |
Who: Wren
What: Reactions narrative
Where: Turnberry Place
When: Memories Plot
Warnings/Rating: All the things, including copious amounts of stream of consciousness and (likely) unexpected tense changes, dammit.
Wren sat heavily on the bed, and she had no hope that this was anything but something new the city was going to pummel them all with. The last time she'd been lucky; she hadn't been there. She'd been quietly slumbering in another mind, entirely unaware of the passage of time or the horrors that accompanied that passage of time. She didn't think she would be so lucky this time. And, in truth, she was right. She'd never made it to the bar, and there was no soothing glass sweating beneath her fingertips as the first memory hit.
Gus. And she realized, just like that, what this was. It felt like something that had happened, and not like a dream at all, and it was nice to see the little boy smile for once, to see him out from under the bed, in the daylight. She hadn't seen him outside since those days at the park and, too, she knew whose memory it was. She had a moment of guilt, because maybe Gus was happier then. Maybe. But she didn't get to think about it very long, because another wave of dizziness was overtaking her.
She didn't recognize the woman in the ice and, as always, she couldn't hear Selina to know if Selina knew her. But she was beautiful, the woman, and Wren could feel that dangerously obsessive love coursing through her veins, but it was nothing new, that kind of love. She woke up with that feeling every morning, and she went to bed with it every evening.
She breathed deeply, and she thought (foolishly) that this might be okay.
The people in the car were completely unfamiliar, but she watched with a dreamy smile on her face. Until, that was, the man began to die. She was sure she screamed, but there was no stopping what was going on. The vines made her think Gotham, made her think of Selina's world, and she wondered if the other woman could see this. "Barcelona," she repeated, breathing hard and hoping that was the worst of it.
The next one was bittersweet. To love someone that much, to want to be with them like that, and to actually be able to was something she craved and long for, and loss keeping something like that from happening? She knew that feeling. It was like every bad thing that buffeted a good thing lately, and it was like a familiar blanket. Somehow, that didn't make it any better, especially since she recognized the woman on the bed.
And she knew, then, these belonged to people like her. People in Las Vegas. And she had one fleeting moment of sheer panic about the memories people might be getting from her. The horrible stinking air dragged away all thought, though, and she felt like she should know who it was, but she didn't. She slid off the bed, a sob on her lips, and she reached for a sheet without thinking and dragged it down with her. Death, death, death, and the feeling of betrayal, and oh, God, this needed to end.
Miss, are you alright?. She tried to reply. Tried to say no, I am definitely not okay, but that wasn't the way the memory went, and it didn't matter what she wanted. She felt the pain, and the horror, and the splintering of her mind. She couldn't even weep, and she wanted to, oh, she wanted to. The blankets wound closer around her, and she began to rock as the bounce house replaced the horror in her head, but it couldn't soothe away what she had just felt. She didn't think anything could.
The cracked mirror gave her something else to focus on a second later, because trying to make out the face beyond the distortion was impossible. The distant bark of the dog made her shiver, even as she settled into this mind, and it was the myriad of scars when she (he) looked down that made her realize where she was. "No, no, no," she tried. No, because she knew, even before he reached for that curved knife, she knew that she didn't want to see this, didn't want to feel it. No, but it didn't stop, and the desire for numbness was so familiar, so familiar, and the first cut she could handle, she was weeping, the blanket against her mouth and soaked through with tears, but she could handle that pain, it wasn't the pain just then that made her cry. But then it got worse, it got deeper, and then it was so deep that she doubled over in pain, unable to breathe. The knife being pulled out slowly made her nauseous, and she tried to crawl to the bathroom, but she didn't make it. Her stomach heaved, and the hysteria inside her head took over everything, and then she was laughing. Laughing and crying, and curled up on the floor of her bedroom.
She barely managed a whispered, "no," when it began again, and the smooth mirror revealed what she had already known. She tried to brace herself for more blood, for more horrible things that she had wrought, but they didn't come, and she managed to sit up during the still. She recognized the woman in the bed right away, and she closed her eyes and expected the worst. The truth. She expected the truth they'd been keeping from her. She clapped her hands over her ears, a maddened attempt to keep the truth out, out, out, but it didn't work. And then she realized how much numbness there was, how much nothing, really, and it surprised her enough that she watched the rest in quiet, hands sliding back down to clutch at the blanket once more.
When the nearly mirror image began she wondered if it was like a record skipping a beat. Same motel, same carpet, same bed, same couple. The feelings were stronger here, hers not his, and the thought that someone had hurt the man on the bed managed to ache even through the other woman's thoughts. "That was me," she whispered, even if her eyes closed on the memory of those photographs. He was smiling. He was. Maybe he could have found that with someone else, someone who hadn't hurt him. Maybe not the woman in the bed, but someone, but the thought was fleeting, the memory of the numbness from earlier devouring it whole.
The fear in the next one was manageable, and the one that followed was sweet, but she could still see that curved blade cutting into skin while they were playing in her mind. She tried to remember if there were scars there, on his body, but she couldn't, she couldn't remember.
She should know. She should remember.
Somehow, the ones from Gotham weren't as bad, and she managed to crawl to the bar and pour herself a shaky drink as she realized that must be Selina's Damian. Cute, she decided, even as she downed an entire glass of amber liquid. It made her stomach roil, but it stayed down, thanks to the exceptionally soothing memory that followed. She tried to breathe like that, all calm and steady, as the next memory took over. "Oh, Jack," she managed, and she was pretty sure that woman wasn't happy, wherever she was. He was right about that.
The gas wasn't fear gas, but it still changed the tone, and she downed another glass and grabbed the bottle before trying to find safety in the corner, all mad eyes and wildness, and even Silver's soothing face couldn't fix what was cracking inside her.
"NO!" It was a loud scream this time, one last desperate grasp at control, at sanity, but it did nothing, and the next scene continued to unfold. She knew how it felt to be in this mind now, and she didn't even need the clues to know who it was. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. She could hear her voice, but it was far away, something in the distance telling the boy in the memory to fight, to fight, even though he obviously had. The hatred she feels for the older man is exquisite. Worse than Alexander. Worse than Briggs. Worse than Jude. And that was all her. It wasn't the memory at all, wasn't anything the boy felt. No, she hated him. Just then, she hated him. "What the fuck did you want him to do?" she screamed as the memory ended? "DIE?" He'd never understood. Thomas had never, ever understood. And she hated him for it.
She barely noticed the opening of the next memory, the ashamed boy, and if she didn't know better she would have thought it was Selina that roused her, the other woman's presence acutely felt for a split second. But she must have imagined it, because she could never sense Selina at all. But it made her pay closer attention, through the shame and the fear and the loss. She was pretty sure it wasn't her own reaction that was causing her fingers to tremble just then, and it wasn't the small boy in the memory either. She listened while it was done, trying to figure out if she imagined the spike of concern in her mind, but there was nothing; she was alone again.
The next two finished her.
The funeral, and MK tied to the bed. She'd failed her. It started with that thought. She'd failed her, and the loss of losing the boy she'd loved, and Wren had always known she wouldn't have been able to live through that, to survive, and she was right, oh, God, that ache, and she hadn't been there. She couldn't even remember where she was when it happened, but she hadn't been there, and that was all that mattered.
Then.
Then.
The bed, Alexander, and no, no, no.
Nothing else. She couldn't even process anything else. It was her greatest fear, that man, and her greatest guilt, and she didn't want to live this, she didn't want to know. "Stop! Stop! Stop," and then pleading, begging, "pleasepleaseplease," and that was her, not MK. Her. She curled up in a ball, tucked back in the corner, the blanket enveloping her, but there was no getting away from him, no getting away from what MK had felt.
Rock. Rock. Rock.
Rock.
She remembered the curved blade, and she remembered what it felt like to be tied to that bed, and she remembered guilt.
And that was all.