"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.