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?"