amoray: (pic#5793430)
♒ ([personal profile] amoray) wrote in [community profile] capeandcowllogs2013-11-29 07:54 pm

(no subject)

WHO: Eridan Ampora ([personal profile] amoray) and Edward Nygma ([personal profile] enigmaestro).
WHERE: Eridan's penthouse.
WHEN: 11/23
WARNINGS: Torture, violence, language, the usual.
SUMMARY: PAYBACK'S A BITCH: the log.
FORMAT: never

Eridan insists on getting the lunch tab. He isn't sorry for what's about to happen to Edward Nygma, not really, but he figures it's the sort of quirky thing Eddie will look back on with vague, strained amusement. Or as a horrible insult, considering what's to come. Either one is good.

"Like I said, the doomsday dewice thing? I consider myself kind of a journeyman, yeah," he says while finishing off the rest of his soda, posture lazy. The cues weren't subtle, but they didn't have to be. He was confident Eddie wouldn't duck out early on him, but sweetening the pot couldn't hurt - doomsday device, what ex-supervillain didn't love a good old-fashioned doomsday device? "I'd say the only reason none of 'em worked out was 'cos a Wris. Meddlin' fuckin' dirthag stealin' my thunder. Don't know what I was thinkin', goin' to her. It's not like she got what I was about."

"So, you ready to go?"
enigmaestro: (A conundrum!)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-01 03:46 am (UTC)(link)
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.
enigmaestro: (And futhurmore.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-03 09:12 am (UTC)(link)
"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."
enigmaestro: (Smarter.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-06 01:59 am (UTC)(link)
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.
enigmaestro: (Bewitched.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-08 07:07 am (UTC)(link)
"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.
enigmaestro: (Stroll.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-10 05:30 pm (UTC)(link)
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.
enigmaestro: (Bewildered.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-12 07:54 pm (UTC)(link)
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?"
enigmaestro: (Dilemma.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-12 08:49 pm (UTC)(link)
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.
enigmaestro: This is my design. (Design.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-12 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
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?"
enigmaestro: (Oh really now?)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-12 10:19 pm (UTC)(link)
"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.
enigmaestro: (Card.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-13 04:53 am (UTC)(link)
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."
enigmaestro: (Weh.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-14 05:09 am (UTC)(link)
"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?"
enigmaestro: (Bewildered.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-14 07:09 am (UTC)(link)
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.
enigmaestro: (Suave.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-16 05:37 am (UTC)(link)
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.
enigmaestro: (Card.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-22 08:40 am (UTC)(link)
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.
enigmaestro: (Dilemma.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-23 09:28 am (UTC)(link)
"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.
enigmaestro: (Dilemma.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-25 08:41 pm (UTC)(link)
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?"
enigmaestro: (UGHGHGHFFF.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-28 05:35 pm (UTC)(link)
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."
enigmaestro: This is my design. (Design.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-29 07:58 am (UTC)(link)
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.
enigmaestro: (Bewildered.)

[personal profile] enigmaestro 2013-12-31 07:19 am (UTC)(link)
"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.