capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

Edward indulged in smiling -- authentic smiling, not lips cut with smirks, not an upwards sneer -- for the major minutes of their hours. Lunch had been a delight, and perhaps that should have been evidence enough, perhaps Eddie ought to have kept a keen nose to the ground. Perhaps his guard fell because of familiarity, because of the whimsy inherent to like-minds.

Perhaps, after years of reformation and civil society, he had mistakenly learned how to trust.

"Certainly," he said, taking to rise. "But -- if I may? And this isn't personal, mind, it's always been a question with regards to the annihilation types. What's the point of a doomsday if you aren't around to enjoy it?"

Candid, open questions.

"See, doomsday is kind of a misnomer. I'd really classify my efforts as attempted partial genocide, if we're gettin' classy and all."

He gestured lightly at that, a little wave of his unringed hand as he shrugged on his coat. Lunch had actually been fantastic, and Eridan still couldn't entirely decide if he was delighted by Eddie's blatant unawareness for what was coming, or a little disappointed in knowing that it would never happen again. A comfortable lunch like this, it probably wouldn't be possible after today; a comfortable anything would take at least a few months, even if it was comfortable hatred, and another torture session would be impossible to coordinate, not with him on guard. This one had taken nearly a year of simpering obedience, after all.

For a moment, Eridan reconsidered the evening.

And then, putting his debit card back in what looked suspiciously like a seal skin wallet, he stopped. Next would be the trip home, a few hours alone with Eddie and that new set of surgical instruments he'd found at an auction ("Used in a real lobotomy," the auctioneer had touted, just before emphasizing their essential place at any respectable Halloween party), and then it'd either all be over, or the focus of their ongoing tête-à-tête would shift.

"You sure you're ready?" Eridan tossed out lightly, heading for the door.

"Partial genocide? How charitable of you," he said. He moved fluidly, not even momentarily balking at Eridan's turn of phrase. Aside from the fact that Edward was a man deeply used to this sort of rhetoric from the younger fellow, there was also the question of his easy morals: the Riddler wasn't about to clutch at oyster waste just to take a high showhorse. The hypocrisy would be too much.

Eridan deserved better than a shallow understanding, Eddie had concluded. He deserved authenticity.

"Ready and willing," he said -- a halfway smile delivered the sentence. The irony in his words, upon later reflection, would be unbearable.

"But if we could?" His tone took on a more solemn gravel, thoughtful pebbles rumbling along his vocal chords. They were out the door, down the street, headed to Eddie's car -- soon to be speeding to Eridan's place.

"We ought to discuss your future options again. Perhaps for the sake of artful editing."

"Yeah, a course. I was just thinkin' about that the other night."

Eridan was, as always, the perfect image of good manners - stay at Eddie's side, just barely behind and to the right, almost constant (comfortable, never scrutinizing) attention to Eddie's person, nothing uncouth, nothing possibly out of line. Calculated, but natural. Practiced.

"What'd you hawe in mind?" he said, once comfortably seated in Eddie's car.

The drive was a brief one -- benefits of having spent years in the City, one soon learned how the calculate which lights ran on what schedules, the durations, when to speed and when to avoid skulking cops, when to gauge the traffic flux. Edward performed with ease, confident that his effort would communicate how much he valued both of their time together; no one enjoyed New York traffic.

"Well, I really do hazard you from medicine. Even surgical precision involves -- there's a deep hazard to the profession," he said. He didn't clarify who might play victim to that hazard, whether it was Eridan himself or his hypothetical patients. "I always rather enjoyed law, as a performance art."

It was a vulnerable admission. Eridan knew Eddie despised lawyers (so often placed on the losing side of a prosecution). The suggestion stemmed from his own worn fantasy, no matter how whimsical he would have considered it.

"You're a bit salty for court, granted, but you've proven that you refine your most jagged qualities," he said, as he pulled to park.

"That's kinda funny," Eridan replied, casually draped in his seat. If there was any thread of tension in him - and there was, it was unavoidable - it didn't show in his body language, glancing over to Eddie with his head propped against his hand. "I been considerin' law myself. Performance, like you said - it ain't superwillainy, but it's somethin'. And I hear law school's real cutthroat, y'know."

Here he gave Eddie a light, playful nudge with his elbow, as if to say, cutthroat, just like we like it, huh? It might've been dangerous to admit a preemptive interest in something he knew Eddie had had so much animosity towards, but they were already so close. He was willing to take a risk or two.

"I'm thinkin' prosecutor, yeah?" He waited until they came to a full stop to get out, already digging around for his keys.

"Prosecutor." Eddie repeated the word, hefting a dryness to his voice. He watched Eridan fish for the keys. Immediate insults were restrained. "I suppose it's a fine way to create a lot of enemies, sure. Why not?"

He followed Eridan inside, his hands politely in his pockets. Conversation wove from his mouth, a tapestry of ease and confidence; he was a man with nothing to fear. He was a mentor in the glowing presence of his most ardent pupil. He thought, at least in this moment, that his skin was invincible.

The door shut behind him, and he barely took note.

"I suppose it could be worse," he said, his voice golden with generosity. "You could be a sitting judge."

Edward had his spine showing to Eridan.

On first glance, the apartment seemed as impeccable as ever - recently vacuumed, smelling pleasantly of cinnamon, with the blinds leveled just enough to let the afternoon sunlight spill in. It was picturesque - cinematic, even. It almost looked a little staged. There was that, and the black tarps spread across the whole living room, just across the threshold. Heavy duty, bloodproof. And when he spoke, Eridan's voice had slunk from the airy, cajoling tone of their lunchtime rendezvous into something cool and slithering.

"You know, I kinda think I already am."

The taser had been out since the door shut, only just clacking to life, and now it found its way to the center of Eddie's back, Eridan pushing into it with the intent to topple him. After that came the chloroform stashed underneath the couch cushions - a career favorite of Eddie's - which he knew would be necessary once the taser stopped, gleaned from tasering himself a few times in preparation to this event.

Nobody would be dying tonight, although Eddie would probably like to, but the thrill of a stalking kill was still as perfect as he'd remembered.

The set scene. The black tarps. A moment sunk. His eyes widened.

"What--"

Eridan didn't give him the moment to make deeper utterances -- the taser was in his back, the electricity swarming through his clothing, into his spine. Edward toppled forward, his yells reduced to gasps, his jerking, abrupt limbs shaking without his permission. Eridan was overwhelming, over-prepared. Overpowering.

And the question haunting his lips transformed from what to why before the chloroform flushed his veins. Darkness descended as consciousness was muffled.

When he awoke, it was gradually, possibly an hour or two or three later. Eddie attempted to focus his eyes, needed to wiggle his fingers and toes.

Eddie would find himself stationed not on any of those black tarps, but on a green one in the kitchen, more of a repurposed pool cover than a tarp in and of itself. (You had to work with what was on hand.) He was tied, with several expertly done clove hitch knots at the joints and throat, to a distastefully expensive looking dining chair; his shoes had been removed, as well as his tie and any other accessories, and he had been stripped down to his undershirt. The blinds had been adjusted to let in skinny rays of light, just enough for a dramatic setting of the scene, and the temperature in the condo hung somewhere in the mid-fifties. The table (visible at Eddie's current position) was set with no less than two notably large bottles of tequila, a large black leatherbound case, Eridan's apparent dinner, and a separate, more svelte green case.

It was all vvery dramatic.

At the first signs of digit wiggling, almost as if he'd been waiting for probably about an hour, Eridan was speaking directly into his ear, measured centimeters between them.

"You'll notice you been gagged," he began, hands out of even peripheral sight. "This isn't 'cos I'm afraid of anybody hearin' you. See, my neighbors downstairs ended up shippin' out 'cos of some kinda fish smell that wouldn't wash out. In a nice apartment buildin' like this, can you fuckin' imagine? Too bad they didn't check the curtain rod. Maybe they'll figure it out later." One hand settled on the chair beside Eddie's head. "So nobody's down there to hear you. I just wanted some time to lay down the law before you start babblin'. Ed, you start howlin' when I pull this gag out, I'm gonna smash your fuckin' nose in, and we're gonna try it again when I'm feelin' kinder towards you."

The gag, as he was sure Eddie would recognize, was a ball gag. After a moment to let the above sink in, Eridan hooked a finger in and pulled it under Eddie's chin.

He gasped in air the moment he could, the second that rubber left his tongue. Quick, shallow gasps. He couldn't repress the few shivers that ran from crown to toes; a reaction from the cold, perhaps, he could rationalize. Stripped down to the bare minimum, with Norman's carvings scarred into the back base of his neck. The exposure, the sharp vulnerability, the heated furor gaining traction behind his forehead. Saliva smeared down his chin, trailing the moved ball gag.

He didn't say anything, at first. Edward focused on quick calculations, on running realizations: the detail, the planning, the neighbors. Might have taken months, the manifestation of Eridan's hate into action. Entire months. He wasn't about to beg, not in the first act. He wasn't going to plead why.

"This whole time?"

His voice was pitched to a normal tone, a defiance against their leering setting. Those thin streams of sunlight backlit Eridan's body, casting a difference of light and dark.

"Nothing that you had -- had proven to me was sincere?"

"Wouldn't say that."

He dragged his hand across Eddie's front, wiping off any traces of drool. Eridan's rings had been absent the entire evening - gettin' 'em polished is how he'd waved off any concerns, a little flick of his hand for emphasis. A pause, a momentary one, as he seemed to slip into thought.

"You really had me goin' at the beginnin' there, you know? Carrot and stick style. You coulda told me to chop a finger off and I would of done it, just for you." A little wave of his fingers in Eddie's face, for emphasis, for fun, just because he could now. "I had nightmares about you, and considerin' I hawe nightmares a blood and horror ewery fuckin' night a my life, that's really sayin' somethin'. You oughta be goddamn well proud a yourself."

He sank out of view to Eddie's left, breath on the nape of his neck. Blatant intimidation tactics, so blatant as to border on tacky.

"I think, maybe - four or fiwe months, I been clean? Not worried about you poppin' outta my fuckin' closet?" A sharp, indescribably bitter bark of laughter. "And I thought about forgiwin' you a couple a times. Thought maybe it was my fault. But when I sat back on my fins and really thought about it, basically nothins ewer my fault. So that couldn't be right. Still, all a that and what's gonna come aside, don't be misunderstandin' this whole... thing, what we're doin' here," he continued, wide gestures almost audible. "'Cos it ain't like I don't got any lowe for you left. If I didn't, well, I would of hacked your limbs off and tossed you in a cellar out in the country. You ain't gonna be worm chow on my watch, Nygma."

A brief beat, barely enough time to cycle trains of thought, and his finger was on Norman's scarring.

"What's this?"

The most perplexing, most daunting fact of the whole exchange: Eridan wasn't lying. Not once did Eddie register a lie. And it wasn't due to some chemical compounding variable, it wasn't because his power was numbed; while that could easily be done, his entire set of bodily nerves would have to be anesthetized to disconnect his falsehood detection manifesting.

And he felt that cold finger down his lower neck. He felt flesh against flesh.

"It's a reminder," he said, referring to the scarring. The precisely cut N, a tribute to Norman's ability with a scalpel. There was little reason to deflect, or lie -- no matter how mildly humiliating such a confession might be. Edward didn't want to lend Eridan any reason to advance onto what he suspected would be a torturous evening. If he could stall, if Eridan would listen to his stories...

"A reminder from Norman." Eddie bent down his head as much as he could, given the knotting. Just so Eridan could get a better look. Artful compliance. "The man can get so possessive."

Eddie closed his eyes, thinking back to the moment that must have happened when he wasn't looking, that second he dropped his attention on his protege -- that day when Eridan's fear bubbled back to loathing. The process between, the psychological healing. Where was he? Where had he been? Was this, the way his heart beat with panic in his chest, the burn of his joints around rope, was this all avoidable?

Four of five months had Eridan been clean. As if his obedience to Eddie was a disease, an addiction.

"That's impressiwe. He tie you down before he did that?" Eridan cajoled, tracing a claw along the N's first sharp angle. Like all those months ago, Eddie swirling the design on the back of his homemade costume, he had thought that far back. He'd remembered, all this time. Everything. "Or did he just pin you?"

Taunting, deceptively light. Eridan flicked Eddie's ear with the edge of one razory claw in passing, heading over to the table. Both cases sat side by side, the green one smaller, the black one more professional in design. Eridan drew them both to the forefront, a splayed hand over each.

"Which one first?" He queried, giving their lids a theatrical rap of knuckles. Eddie's compliance and stalling seemed to be working so far; Eridan was more engrossed in the fear and drama than he was getting started, at least for now. "Black or green?"

A dilemma proposition. Eddie recoiled at the sight, his skin crawling under those tightly done knots. The psychological impact was noted, and Eridan's use of Eddie's own weaponry forced that extra salt in the blood. The older man swallowed, hesitating, analyzing the two.

Black. More sinister, more professional, more akin to Eridan's self-perception.

Green. Smaller. Less assuming. A reflection of Eddie, likely, so -- agonizing, meticulous.

"The black one."

He drew a sharp breath, his mouth dry.

"You're not going to kill me, Eridan. You've admitted as much. So what do you hope to accomplish, hmm? What's worth committing to something you're sure to regret?"

Eridan visibly cringed at Eddie's choice, bodily, though his expression morphed into a sort of unabashed, gleeful malice out of place among his usual rage and haughtiness. Neither choice was the right one, of course, and as he flipped the lid, he expected Eddie would grasp the real intended torment of the evening - physical pain was no stranger, after all, not even torture, and the black case full of scalpels and bone saws exemplified that. The green case, on the other hand, held a lovely revolver, a custom job, silvers and greens and curving question marks put together by Handsome Jack months and months ago. The trigger was tied up in a festive ribbon, singling it out as Eddie's Christmas present.

Nothing was going to follow Eddie's chosen paths of logic tonight.

"Rough choice." Eridan slapped the green case closed again, now looming over the black case, perusing its contents. "But probably the better one, all things considered. If you woulda picked green, I was just goin' to pistol whip you a little and pick the black one anyway. Can't win for losin', right?"

Seemingly settling on a scalpel, Eridan raised it high enough for Eddie to see.

"And Ed, ex-moirail a mine, I think you're missin' the point of torture," he finished, examining the blade. "Escalation is what we do. If I don't get my wery own personal deathtrap when you pick yourself up six-odd months from now, I'm gonna be real goddamn glubbin' disappointed in you."

"We don't have to," he said. Eddie used a monotone, the best way to keep any quivers of fear from his voice in this moment. The man, being predatory himself, understood predators quite well -- any flinch, any jitter, and Eridan would scent out the blood in seconds. So his voice was careful, measured, artificial.

"We don't have to let this fester, Eridan, listen. There is so, so much potential between the two of us -- I was just saying, wasn't I, I was just telling you how far you've come. How much you've achieved. Do you really think you can expound that triumph if we continue to spiral down vengeance?" His fingers clenched, his wrists unmoved as they were bound to their captive hold. The scalpel caught a glint of slimming sunlight, and the light blinded Eddie's eyes.

He blinked.

Eridan, although possessing of sapience, even higher cognitive function on his better days, still came from a murkier corner of the gene pool than Eddie did. His hindbrain resembled that of larger sharks, eels, barracuda. Eddie held him momentarily with his reasoning, and certainly, he rethought his entire plan. Just for a second.

And then Eddie had to go and blink, and the shift in Eridan's demeanor was almost instantaneous. He stepped in, scalpel rolled between two fingers, expression caught between placid and determined.

"That's what I'm thinkin', yeah," he replied, moving in; the scalpel's edge hovered momentarily near Eddie's eye, then his cheek, his throat, eventually digging in just behind his clavicle. A quick dig, an upwards swipe, just enough to put some blood in the water.

Blood sprayed upward, arcing. Some splattered against his chin on its gravity defying route. He reacted with a yelp, his head moving in direction with the blade swipe. His chest rose and fell quickly, his teeth dry against his gasps for air.

"No," he said. A simple syllable.

Blood stained his undershirt, the crimson seeping into white cotton.

"No, don't -- don't do this to yourself, Eridan. You need to. Release yourself from this -- from what we do to each other." This was his time to talk, right now, while he still could. While he wasn't screaming, while he wasn't gagged.

"You torture me, and you've declared your future already."

"Puttin' an awful lot a this on me, ain't you?" came as he stepped to Eddie's other side, making another mark. He wasn't going to go carving his sign in, however tempting the idea might've been - the fuck, Osborn, didn't the guy have a dozen other nemeses he could carve up - but settled instead on making things look nice and symmetrical. Sort of like his sign, but with less unfortunate kismesal implications. "Who started this torture-off, if I may so fuckin' ask? If we'd started the other way around, I'd be globes deep in a fuckin' army ant hiwe tryin' to unriddle a straightjacket by now. Or somethin'."

He leaned back here, gesturing with his scalpel hand.

"This makes us ewen. If you want to let this one slide so we don't end up hackin' parts off each other fuckin' wholesale, be my guest. I'm gettin' my pound a flesh."

The problem with Eridan's torturing anything was that he was impatient, as well as generally used to just straight up killing someone after causing massive amounts of pain. Since flaying anything was out of the question, he made a few more shallow marks (all in places that were frequently used or stressed in day-to-day life) and then drifted off towards the case, peering inside.

"You think I should beat you and crack some ribs or pull teeth next?" came afterwards, hand cocked on his hip. "What would you do in my situation?"

Which wasn't just a dilemma, it was an invitation to lie. Or not to.

"None of the above," he said. The words came slowly and calculated -- and every syllable was stained with truth. Edward, while he appreciated the value of physical torment, preferred to torture the mind above all else. He understood Eridan's taste to lie elsewhere, perhaps baser compared to his own. Such is what his philosophy declared, anyway.

But perhaps that was exactly Eridan's intention.

He shifted, and winced. Blood dripped from those razor thin cuts lining his body, the sting shrieks burning into his breathing flesh. Moving would prove an ordeal, now, as Eridan's chosen targets were crucial to daily living.

"You're going to have to wait it out, Eridan, if you want to play it like that." Eddie licked at his lips, his chest rising and falling with speed. Talking helped. Talking distracted him from the pain. "Psychology was never your strongest suit, was it?"

Eridan's nose rankled, now turning away from the case entirely. That wince was good, the knowledge that the next few weeks for Eddie would be mildly torturous even if he stopped now (he wouldn't), but that sass - that clever verbal sidestep, that had him walking back over, thoughtfully rolling his tongue over the edge of his teeth. Nothing he hadn't weathered before, really; as far as verbal cuts go, this one wasn't the first, and it wasn't nearly the deepest. He could deal.

But in this exact window of time, he didn't have to.

"Yeah, not really," Eridan agreed, leaning back on his heels. A beat, maybe two, and then he was hooking the toe of his shoe between Eddie's knees, under the chair's seat, and neatly toppling it onto its back. This chair being metal, and Eddie's bonds being so tight, this would undoubtedly be at least moderately painful, but probably not quite as much as the heel digging into the dip of his throat.

"You remember you had your chance, and you had to fuckin' get clewer on me." Punctuated by removing his shoe from Eddie's throat, laying a hard kick into his side instead. A couple after that too, actually, and then a good stomp in the diaphragm that he visibly enjoyed far, far too much. "You did all this to yourself. Can't ewen brainwash somebody right. You really think a half hour an' a little ginger's gonna break me?"

Finally, he stepped back. Leering still, but giving them both a momentary breather.

"I set aside a whole night for you."

He hissed for air, on his back, vulnerable. Edward felt his body writhe with instinct, and that impulse billed him for screaming nerve endings. The heel in his throat -- a cold horror. The potential chilled. The kicks and stomps to his sides, his diaphragm, his split skin -- burning agony, blistering.

Aching.

It was always a game of hot and cold with Eridan Ampora.

When the onslaught subsided to vague buzzing agony, he rolled upwards his eyes. The positioning and the light nearly whitewashed away the visual scene before him, but it wasn't the balm he sought. Edward hissed out again, working his throat muscles, curling his tongue.

"Won't change what I did to you," he said. "Won't erase a damn thing -- you'll still remember."

His eyes flickered downcast, shooting Eridan a look while Eddie lay strapped on his back.

"Did I not brainwash you correctly, Eridan? Isn't this behavior the sort of thing I wanted from you? Calculating, scheming, patient. You've fought your natural, self-destructive emotions to get this far, to get to this night. You're using your talents."

Albeit, talents directed at the wrong target.

"Shut the fuck up."

He wasn't wrong, and Eridan, visibly distracted, ruminated on that as he righted Eddie's chair. Was he wrong? Sure, he hadn't wanted Eridan to turn on him, but was he really wrong? Was this really the revenge he'd wanted, the shucking off of the yoke, or was it always going to be like this? Lashing out, but playing by Eddie's rules anyway?

"You didn't do this." He had his back to Eddie now, stalking over to his case again. He'd had hours planned, had drawn up a schedule, a carefully ordered sequence of events - some terrorizing, then shallow injuries, then a beating, pulled teeth, more terrorizing, cracked bones, a near-death experience - and, unconscious to the meaning, Eddie already had him breaking it. He dug out a series of tubes, needles - a bag of blood from the fridge, Eddie's type. "I fuckin' did this. I did this to myself, I chose it, me."

The transfusion set, the tarps. Even incensed, Eridan wanted to see the look on his face when it all clicked. He needed to.

Eddie blanched, his fingers clenched as his eyes cut wildly around the materials in the room. He saw what Eridan wanted him to see, he caught the connotations that Eridan wanted him to catch. Blood had such symbolic, agonizing meaning between the two of them. The pain it promised. The secrets it kept.

Edward remembered what he had done to Eridan's blood, all those months ago.

A short, broken laugh crawled out between his teeth.

"Falsehood," said Edward. "You didn't do this to yourself. You've never had full autonomy of your own life, Eridan, you've reactive."

He grinned up from the ground, his limbs tied and helpless.

Eridan stared for a long moment, the corner of his mouth twisting slowly. His teeth clicked into place.

The next few minutes would likely be a blur to them both, if not just Eridan; he would later remember dropping the transfusion set at some point, vaguely. His foot on the bottom of the chair's seat, giving it as hard a shove as he could towards the wall, a few hard steps forward - stomping on one of the wooden legs twice, snapping it off, and then dragging Eddie's chair upright and against the wall, a white-knuckled grip an inch from his mentor's face.

The earlier beating had been brief, and for Eridan Ampora, relatively light. Fun. This next one wasn't.

Dimly, arduously, he came back to himself some time later - pulled out of it by the splinter digging into his palm, of all things, and the stark contrast of blood slicked across his knuckles. In some distant regard for Eddie's well-being, he'd used his fists most of the time; the chair leg had only come into play when Eridan set at Eddie's knees. Now, breathing hard, he tossed it somewhere off into the mess of tarp.

"You," he huffed, pointing at Eddie, "need to stop doin' that. Next time it happens I'm liable to snap your fuckin' jaw off and beat you to death with it, and piecin' your corpse up in my bathtub ain't how I want to spend the night."

He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth to wipe away traces of foam, leaving a raw streak of red across his face.

"Fuck."

Edward kept one cheek to the floor, protective of what he had left. His knees were floods, the green slacks torn at whatever angle Eridan had purged his wooden sledgehammer. The sound that rasped out between broken, split lips was more a relief than a whimper; his formal reply took a rain check.

Perhaps Eridan had a point. It was dangerous to work under such plasma-slick construction, and the Alternian's wrecking ball hands were far from sheathed. Edward closed his good eye, the one still capable of working through the swell.

"Enough?"

The fact that he was beaten and bloody was testament to Eridan's appetite. The fact he was still breathing -- monument to Eridan's restraint.

"Not yet."

Eridan's movements felt strangely light as he found the tubes and needles again, setting Eddie upright with something that verged on care. He daubed the split lip a royal purple handkerchief, monogrammed in the corner; ruffled Eddie's hair back into its general place, careful to use his non-bloody hand in doing so, and for what was careful in Eridan terms, pulling his undershirt up and over the binds, letting it rumple around his neck.

He just needed some good rib space, which the ties accommodated.

"Now, listen, I'm just doin' this for your own good. Establishin' boundaries." The transfusion set, needles bags, and all other accoutrements were set up quickly, in a way that suggested he'd practiced quite a bit for this moment. Sure, the night hadn't gone exactly according to schedule - so he couldn't follow a plan like Eddie could, whatever - but this was the only really necessary part. "Resettin' the quo. With us. You're gonna thank me for it later, you newer did like anybody who didn't hawe some chutzpah. Y'know, resilience in the face a brainwashin' and all that shit."

The needle went in, was taped down to Eddie's arm. Eridan wandered off for a drink, coming back with the bottle in one hand and a scalpel in the other. He hovered the lip just within reach of Eddie's mouth.

"You're gonna want this. Takes the edge off, kinda, and you're gonna want the fuckin' edge off."

After all, the suffering and pain wasn't really the point. (A boon, but not the point.) It was what would hang around long after.

"That's going to affect my blood coagulation," he said while eying the proffered bottle. The shape, that hollowed O, drew his eyesight downwards, eyes momentarily darting along his nose to his own bleeding flesh. The movement proved brief -- his swollen eye ached. His more acute pupil caught Eridan's face.

"So this is all for my benefit, is that it?" Laughter sounded croaked over split lips. Humorless, rattling, like the shutter of glassless window panes. "Because I certainly. Needed. Respect for you? Because I needed the discipline?"

The words felt cold in his mouth, each syllable an epitaph to any given tombstone. The truth of his speech shone through the mockery of his bloody smile; it was harsh and relentless. It was final.

"I'm not taking it willingly. No," he whispered. Whether Edward meant the drink or the knife, he didn't clarify.

Eridan gave Eddie a lingering look, the bridge of his nose beginning to pinch, before shrugging and finishing off the bottle. It went the same way the chair leg cum bludgeon had, tossed carelessly somewhere into his jungle of tarp.

"Suit yourself." His mouth opened, paused midway through forming some snotty remark; scalpel in hand, bloodflecked sleeves rolled to the elbow, shirt untucked and hair lying halfway in his face, Eridan marvelled over his work. Edward Nygma, adroit and untouchable, now bitter and bleeding all over these nice tarps. Furious. The better part of a year's worth of agonizing, degrading work culminating in a few hours, and then he'd never get to experience this again - like all really good things, this exact sight and the feeling it held for him would never happen again, not in a thousand years of life. Never.

Which was good. That meant it was probably the same for Eddie, too.

"You know, Ed. Once-moirail a mine, lukewarm swell a brine in my chest. I'm real glad I newer got around to krillin' you."

Preamble done, Eridan stepped back in and crouched at Eddie's right, examining his workspace. The marks would have to be clean, precise, and account for the man himself; thrashing could be minimized by appropriate bonds, and had been to the best of Eridan's ability, but there was only so much rope could do. The breathing and screaming would be a problem. But all that had long since been (obsessed over) accounted for, and as he swept a thumb over the curve of a rib, Eridan figured a little imperfection would suit a mark left on a perfectionist like Edward. Not Osborn's cold, clean lines, but something personal.

The gills themselves were less biologically accurate slits and more neat, long strips of skin flayed off. Little half-moons between the ribs, shaving off skin and fat but not deep enough to penetrate muscle, stretching from mid-latissimus to mid-serratus, respectively, and about a half inch wide each. As soon as one was finished, Eridan pressed and taped a rag to each, always vigilant for any signs that his canvas was doing worse than he was supposed to.

"Look at that, you're fuckin' halfway there already," Eridan noted aloud, four bloody rags taped to Eddie's right side. His upwards grin was nothing short of absolutely, heart-meltingly genuine. "Doin' great."

Edward squeezed shut his eyes. The refrain didn't do anything to mute Eridan's voice, and the sound reverberated through his cerebral cortex. Haunting. Viral. Memetic to memory. Words that felt like fingerprint violations.

"This needs to be it," he rasped. His throat was a tissue Sahara, stricken with cracks from all his screaming. It ached to breath -- without eyes he could tell the shape and sneer that Eridan's fabricated gills made into Gothamite flesh. The symbolic horror raged against his nerves sharper than any knife could.

"-- Are you? Are you going to--?"

Eddie choked back the plea. Are you going to stop? wasn't much of a riddle. The caressing care in Eridan's voice had been enough to unhinged the jaded ex-felon, but his pride wasn't about to peel away in curls. The indignation, the burnt orange anger he felt welling around the split cells of his torso -- that's what played compass to his focus. That proved his true north.

Swell of brine in his chest. Every little mocking barb lodged into his brain.

Doin' great.

"What degree of greatness was this ever?"

"Sounds like somebody wants the salt."

The shaker of sea salt Eridan used on his food, left strategically within reach. (A mostly empty threat.) This needs to be it was mimicked with a wink and a nudge in his tone, a laugh afterwards, the soft clattering of bloodslicked scalpels and forceps as Eridan shifted from one side to the other.

"Are you going to what? Stop? Not when it's halfway fuckin' finished, Ed. You think I'm gonna half-ass this?"

But that didn't mean he wouldn't have to make the rest quick, he reflected a shade morosely. Extra blood only bought so much time. Eridan half-rose to check Eddie's pulse, fingers pressed to the side of his neck - and, apparently satisfied with the results, kneeled back down and dug the scalpel in, just that abruptly.

"What are we gonna do after this? You want I should dump you off with your precious human sawbones? Nah, probably too... y'know, public. I know you like lickin' your wounds in priwate when it comes to shit like this." A click of his tongue. "Or should I call somebody?"

Edward shuddered, gasping with the brief convulsion. "Eridan," he said. He lifted his chin upwards, his peripheral vision still catching the sight of the blood infusion gear. The very life source that mocked him, the contraption that kept him dangling at his protege's fingers -- it scalded him to require it so deeply, so fundamentally.

Eddie figured that was the point.

"Eridan, what do you want from me?" His voice cracked the plea. Negotiation. He didn't want someone observing him like this, much less someone he could trust -- much less Mitchell, much less Felicia. Much less -- well. The very fact that his third alternative would be none other than his declared nemesis caused a bone-aching shudder.

He couldn't have Eridan call somebody.

Eddie briefly imagined Lil's furor over this lapse, a second time. Of course, it was Eddie who dismissed her, Eddie who kept her in the dark.

He knew what culprit held the blame.

Eddie's fingers curled.

"I can't," he whispered. "I can't just do that."

The plea went ignored for the moment, as Eridan paused to watch the gears click in Eddie's head. It wasn't that cavalry couldn't come later - a hospital stay, reconstructive surgery, Eridan Ampora seething behind bars. It was that maybe Eddie didn't want it to. Eridan had gambled on the man's sense of image, the cost of publicity and lost face too terrible to pay, and for the moment, it seemed like it had paid off.

The last person Eddie had called for when in such a heavily compromised state had ended with Eridan getting bitten. He supposed it made sense, in a full circle kind of way, that he had no one to lean on here and now.

"Then how I see it, you got two options. One," Eridan began, pausing in his ministrations to slap his scalpel down in his palm, for emphasis, "I dump you out somewhere and you hope for the best. You die, probably. Or two, you text Felicia you're gonna be out tonight, and we hawe ourselwes a fuckin' slumber jam. Maybe I patch you up myself and you riddle up some crazy fuckin' reasonin' away a these new battle scars a yours. I dunno. Thing is, that second one has a kinda cost to it, if you get me. Nothin' big. You don't ewen hawe to get up out of your chair."

Here Eridan stood again, drifting off to a point in the kitchen just adjacent to Eddie's seat. Something glinted back behind his set of obnoxiously fancy Swedish knives.

A video camera.

"All you gotta do is smile."

He tapped his cheek, smiling a rictus.

Edward followed the angle, his eyes magnetized to Eridan's motion. The lens glint grinned back at him, malicious and silent in its unstated voyeurism. His mouth dropped, the split lip shivering just enough to eke out more blood, the look of distress etched into his expression. It was a ruin predated: Doctor Frankenstein sitting, bound, before his creation -- except this new prodigal incarnation had a taste for memory. And memory could be so unsavory.

The sulking heat along the back of his neck, the iron humiliation, the indignity. The film reeling before his eyes.

Ampora wanted these hours. He wanted these hours forever.

"What have I done," he whispered. He spoke of Eridan. He spoke of this horror unfolding, of these heavy implications. He spoke of his ideal project, his favorite sculpture, suddenly acquiring an ambush of sentience. This clay could cut.

"I'll text her," he urged. "I'll do whatever necessary to deflect suspicion, Eridan, I'll protect you. But don't -- just don't --"

He couldn't finish the sentence, his eyes still on the camera.

"Don't giwe me that look," Eridan chided in lieu of an answer, finishing Eddie's sentence to suit himself. Stalking back, scratching at his cheek with a claw - the manicure ruined sometime between tying the ropes, the clubbing, and nicks from the scalpel - he looked down imperiously, surveying his work. After a moment, he made an exaggerated show of glancing back at the camera, and then stepping just to the left, out of its line of sight. "All lookin' like a kicked fuckin' pupa. What's up - ain't got any fire left, Nygma? Or maybe I'm just borin' a seasoned weteran a torture like yourself."

There was a threat in there, although Eridan didn't make a point of it. Instead he brought his hand up to his face, rubbing his chin with the side of a finger. Torment or not, Eddie would need to be taken care of tonight, by him or anyone else; handing him over to Felicia or Mitchell (or Norman) would be fun in the moment, but would almost guarantee some whiplash. Possibly some very severe whiplash.

"Yeah, okay. You can text her when we're through." A definite statement, no argument to be broached. He kneeled down again, digging in the scalpel. Just two more to go. "I don't imagine we're gonna hawe any more dainty lunches together after this, but let's be keepin' it all between us, alright? Our secret."

Curving the scalpel had become muscle memory at this point. Eridan poised his tongue on the edge of his teeth, thinking.

"What hawe you done? Is that like a, I'we created a monster kinda thing, or I can't beliewe I let this happen, or what? Inquirin' minds."

"How about --" he hissed out the words, reluctant syllables like lead. It would take some severe alchemy to forge any gold from those sounds, but Edward was very little if not determined. He drew his chin upwards, groaning as the most relevant wave of agony flushed over his flesh.

At the very least, it was a goldmine for someone, and Eridan had always possessed such a princely fee.

Eddie kept his eyes skyward, as if unwilling to watch any more blood loss.

"How. About. What have I done to. Deserve this, from you?" His lips pried away the words, the emotions embedded in those vowels. Despite the efficiency of Eridan's brief medical support (after all, Eddie wasn't bleeding to death), he could still feel the sticky sickness of oxygen-exposed blood against his own skin. His nerves ached and the corners of his mouth quivered with little groans.

Nevertheless. Eddie would have been loathed to drop the theatrics now.

"I've made you so much better," he insisted.