capeandcowl2020 | Open Post 002

"Nothin' important."

Was that a lie? Eridan had no idea, honestly. He'd closed that entire section of himself down just as he closed back down now, the hand not bearing his rumpled cigarette once again pulling taught in Eddie's hair. Pulling, as he began his efforts to escape once again. He turned his head to the side and stared at the far wall.

"Nothin' I feel like bondin' over, either."

Eddie chuckled. It was a rasping, broken sound.

"You think you have that choice?"

He dropped his head against Eridan's other shoulder, senseless to the hair pulling. It wasn't a battle worth his interest, he said without words. There were greater goals at fingertips. They had a greater purpose.

But the bickering was familiar. Maybe Eridan needed something familiar.

So Eddie drew back his hand to slap the other man.

To Eddie's credit, the move caught Eridan completely surprised.

The hand at Eddie's hair paused, as the sting across his cheek fully soaked in. And then it raked hard down his neck, seeking purchase at the collar of his shirt.

"Stop that." Blandly chiding, like scolding a child. Like his blunt nails weren't seeking blood at Eddie's neck. "You really want to get into a feelins jam about gettin' tortured? 'Cos I don't do that until I've got a couple bourbons in me."

Edward shook his head, a nuanced movement that Eridan would wholly feel what with Eddie's head right against his shoulder. At this angle, Eridan couldn't see Eddie roll up his blue eyes. He had returned to his prior pinning position, post-slap.

"It isn't so literal, Eridan."

He knew the Alternian would use every innuendo, every word slide, to dodge the meat of his meaning. It was expected. What Eddie proposed only promised an inferno from a candle, a status quo upheaval. But in that chaos breathed organized opportunity.

"You require my perspective once more. You realize this, don't you?"

Eridan didn't quite groan in frustration, not nearly, but let his skull thump audibly back against the tile. He breathed, and felt Eddie's weight fight the expansion of his lungs. Thinner than he remembered. But maybe that's because Eddie had seemed so much bigger when the sea prince had been small.

"Yeah." Bone dry. He turned his head slightly, cheek pressed to Eddie's temple, to suck another drag off his cigarette. It wasn't easy, with the positioning of their bodies. "Yeah."

A thin exhale. The hand at Eddie's neck had stopped its fruitless clawing, now content to lay idle across the span of his shoulders.

"Did you do that on purpose?" An incline of his head, towards nothing in particular. "Earlier. Just for this, just to get my foot in the trap. Or did you just do it to fuck up what I had with them?"

"I'm never not a manipulator, Eridan," Eddie clarified. He was exhausted, his spirit stripped of his prior confidence and glamor. He was exhausted, his body worn and broken and splintered, new skin still cracking over old wounds. Despite his self-aware enigma, despite his casual and static smirk, he felt depleted. It was easier to rest, a moment, to understand the once-protege in his company. To remember what times had been.

The clawing down his neck begin to sting. Red welts, he estimated, would soon form. Blood he felt already.

"That's what I have to offer either side. That's what I've always given to myself, alone." Vaguer wording. He was slipping into memories, and wasn't that good at dodging the bad ones. "Always."

"It's fine."

Eridan's tone was opaque; didn't imply either truth or falsehood in that statement, just simply was. And in the end, it didn't really matter if he was sincere or not, because he'd learn to be. The same way he'd learned to love his shitty apartment, his thankless job, and his disfiguring gill scars.

"It's fine, Eddie," he muttered lowly, in that subsonic rumble, and soothed that free hand down Eddie's neck; settled on the back of his skull, and held that head down against his shoulder. He could recognize that airy, indistinct tone; could tell when a sentimental spell was coming on, and knew that in Eddie's case, those probably came with requisite amounts of violence and delusional spells.

Not really something he wanted to weather when trapped underneath the other man.

"Don't start slippin' off on me now, Nygma. I need you here, so sooner or later you can decide to get the fuck off my chest."

"Nn."

His widened eyes winced. His fingers took to a chunk of Eridan's chest, gripping as if it were an anchor to be minded. His breath was shallow, quick, panicked. It wasn't fine, nothing was fine, and his falsehood told him so.

But then came the dilemma: could it be trusted?

The question bubbled into his brain, along with the resounding phantom burns down his back, his thighs. No, they said, when they had reeducated him. It lies. You can only trust me.

It lies.

"I wasn't --" about to believe it, his speech melded into his mind. I wasn't, I really, wasn't, please.

Short breath. Dark, cold rooms. Eddie dragged his clawed hand down Eridan's front.

And squeezed his eyes shut.

Nope, probably not getting off his chest any time soon. His rolling eyes gratefully invisible (sympathy was, after all, quite hard for him still), Eridan settled his other hand at Eddie's back, mindlessly smearing ash across the material of his shirt; turned head, lips pressed to temple.

"Shhhh."

Far too intimate for Eridan's tastes, this. More intimate than the gunmetal on his molars had been. He didn't like being the soothing party in any arrangement, quickly removed himself from the encounter when someone came to him for a sympathetic ear — I don't let people cry on Gucci, he had sneered more than a few times — and this? This reeked of pale overtones. Not an exact match, but it fit well enough.

How completely fucked was that?

Eddie raked down his chest, and Eridan swallowed a wince. Began to hum the bars to some obscure hipster coffeehouse drivel, low and soft in his throat.

A dry sob cultivated into the crook of Eridan's neck. Shadows stuck to his skin, even as he heard Eridan's humming. He knew, some part of him understood, that Eridan was just trying to calm him. To soothe him. He swallowed the second squirm of sounds coming from his mouth.

Eridan was here. That was communicated sharply enough.

Shivering now, Eddie fought to keep his composure. He heard his own screams from months past, haunting his ears. His lips quivered.

"They never had to do that," he said. Quietly. "There were other ways, but they -- he -- they delighted in it. Because of what I was to them."

Edward, it was clear spoke more about an individual than a collective. The tiles of his floor were like blank windows as he stared at them, watching a void and a universe unfold.

Eridan had never actually felt pale before, not in all his miserable salt-soaked years. Not during either of his petty, halfhearted attempts at moirallegiance, not hardly, and he'd never thought he would. Moirallegiance is a leash, he'd spat the few times it had been suggested in his youth, and princes don't wear leashes. A soft shoosh and cordial pap to numb the sharp edges that composed greatness, that's all it ever was. The societal construct of scared and shivering whelks. He'd never needed that, and he'd never cared enough to offer it to anyone else.

By his third shhhh into the dark fight-mussed span of Eddie's hair, he'd broken it near the end with a lightly hysterical half-giggle at the ridiculousness of it all. More of a rattle, actually. The chain smoking hadn't done his human body much good.

"Oh, Eddie," mumbled against his scalp; leg wrapped around the other man's and rolling them just slightly off kilter, onto their sides. He pillowed Eddie's head with the span of his arm and ignored the bite of the cold tile. "You're a fuckin' mess if I ever saw one. God, I'm so sorry."

What exactly he was sorry for — not being at Eddie's side to protect him back then, not being the right hand, not intervening when he was caught, not stepping in during the torture, not following him afterwards, there was actually quite a variety of failings to choose from here — he didn't know, didn't care to look into very deeply. Examining his numerous failings had never been an effort Eridan had made willingly. But he was undeniably sorry, and that was actually remarkably upsetting.

Was this genuine paleness? He wasn't sure. Still, Edward Nygma was just about the only creature that needed him in all those soft, tenderly platonic ways right here, right now. The only person that seemed to need or want him at all. Eridan flicked the dying sputter of his cigarette across the linoleum and closed his eyes, breathing in panic sweat and the smoke from his own clothing.

"You can tell me about him later." The riptide tug of his own curiosity couldn't keep him from that. He wasn't a saint, after all. "I don't want you gettin' too deep and frothin' into my Gucci, now."

Eddie shuddered, the feeling of flesh against his awakening unspoken spells.

"Eridan --" he began. "Eridan, no." He pressed the side of his head against Eridan's offered arm, feeling that cushion with a hunger. "No, don't think of me like -- like this."

His ego licked at his own teeth, forcing the words. The motivation was kept to his mouth, however, his body didn't even twitch away from Eridan's comforting attention. His body stayed on its side, captivated by the tender moment of comradery shared. Eridan understood those sharp knives and burning brands like he did, symbols of persuasion under the Establishment.

He exhaled, the release of breath like a change in season. Winter held to spring released.

"I always thought we were meant for something better," he said. Incoherent strings of thought vibrating in the darkness, the coldness of the floor. He held those truths so close to his self-serving heart, the reality nearly cleaved the damn thing. "Always thought we were the world changers."

Potential snuffed. A cruel fate.

He kept his head on Eridan's arm, his breath easing.

"Yeah, well." A long breath out, a shaky phantom laugh. "I always thought I was gonna take over Australia. Start a clothin' line. Hack you open and play in your blood. Shit doesn't like to work out the way we want it to."

One murky brown eye and one purple eye (a contact had been lost, in the tussle) examined the lines of dirt across Eddie's stove. He could relate to the feeling of this wasn't how it was supposed to be. It was the sort of familiar concept that dogged every step of every day, haunted him. This wasn't how things were supposed to happen. He had charted out his history in the stars and then watched it all slip right between his fingers. Fluid, fleeting, untouchable.

Like seawater.

Eddie's breath eased, and the tense lines of Eridan's body eased as well.

"You hungry?" he murmured, gently beginning the process of extricating his limbs from Eddie's. It wasn't easy work. "I can cook, sort of. If you even bother keepin' food in this godawful hole in the wall."

"Going to cook for me?" It was spoken with an ironic twist of his lips. "How charming."

Edward looked over, to steal a peek at Eridan's facial expression. The other man was worn, he could see, exhausted and nearing the breaking point. They all were, but Eridan was one of those few who slipped between the cracks -- immortal and dead at once. Broken legs and still walking. It could disturb even the most veteran of their circumstance.

"I have things, in the freezer," he said. A vague offering. Fish, mostly, frozen past its natural due date but nevertheless edible. Frying pans in the humble cupboard nearby. Maybe there was oil around, for the ease of cooking. "You're welcome to help yourself."

Edward wasn't in the habit of eating, not regularly. It was still difficult to identify hunger sometimes, he was so used to the status quo of infrequent energy.

He removed himself from Eridan, voluntarily, but remained on the floor. Staring above, up at the ceiling.

"Do you have people, Eridan? Romantically, I mean."

Normally either marble stoic or twisted in anger (rarely anything in between), Eridan's expression now read as nothing short of exhausted. Not obviously — the dark circles of his youth had been, for the most part, banished, his skin was clear, his pallor was no different from its very vaguely purple-tinged usual — but the set of his mouth was a grim one, his eyes themselves dull and distant behind the trendy frames.

He was so tired these days. And he wanted another smoke. He always wanted another smoke.

"Alright." Eridan pulled himself into a stiff sitting position, briefly covered his eyes with his palm. Ran it up along through his hair. He'd have to dye it all a different color, probably. The purple was too noticeable, the blond too familiar, and black was too... Alternian. Entirely out of the question. "Fuck you, but alright. Don't get used to the domestic treatment."

A lazy roll of his mismatched eyes over, to examine the lines of Eddie's face. (To carefully roll that question around in his mouth, carefully, to hold those potential answers hard in his lungs until he was certain of his answer.) Considering.

Brunet. He should go brunet, this time.

"Nah."

Went to stand up, hesitated — dug his last cigarette out, lit it off the white glow of his fingers (burning half of it off in the process, as it had long since been established that nothing in Eridan Ampora's life could be simple or efficient), and settled back down at Eddie's side, arms behind his head. The food could wait, probably. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to be. Or like anybody else in this godawful burgh would even consider opening their door to him, now. To be fair, neither would Eridan.

"Ever since Ruka and everybody else split, and then you — " Silence. " — yeah. Did the sleepin' around thing for a while, but that gets dull."

A long drag. He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling with practiced precision, and then a steady stream of smoke straight through it.

"You?" Rolled his head over to examine the nuances of Eddie's expression, cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth. Lazy wisps of grey smoke curled, grew invisible, dissipated. "Felicia?"

Edited 2013-03-07 09:51 (UTC)

"We're married." Edward pulled himself upright, leaning his back against the bare cupboards that hid his ammunition under the sink. Hardly the most secure of hidey holes, but he was lacking greater options. Anything adulterated in the studio would look suspicious. He cleared his throat, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes with the thick of his palms -- a man awakening from a nightmare.

"Felicia and me, I mean. We're married. So yes, yes, I have someone." Someone he hadn't seen in nearly a year. She went into hiding shortly after he was captured, he had deduced. And given how good she was at covering her tracks, it could take another year yet to find her; last time he had known her coordinates, she was in Paris. Hiding in plain sight, the like. International travel was impossible for imPorts, but Felicia was different. Felicia always had luck on her side.

And Eddie, it seemed, never did nowadays.

"I don't wear my ring," he confessed. To do so was to put a bullet to Felicia's head. Even when Edward was a criminal (a supervillain), the death toll wrought by rings was staggering, undeniable in its heart-wrenching opportunity. Whenever a vigilante's glove ripped and there exposed was that gleaming metal -- it was just another nail in a coffin. A wife's coffin, a husband's coffin. Edward knew how symbols were abused for information.

Edward had lived like that.

"You're lucky I disabled it," he said, his eyes flecking upwards at the smoke detector above them. Such a small, compact kitchen, such a wary detector. "I had to. They had cameras in there, you know."

"Well ain't that just sweet."

Not overtly caustic — he had grown too nuanced in expressing himself, for that — but there was a gentle, tremulous quality to his tone that pointed towards resentment. Jealousy. The aching loneliness he hadn't professed to in childhood and continued to ignore in adulthood, a window boarded up and forgotten.

His eyes drifted up to the smoke detector at Eddie's direction, tongue flat against the filter of his cigarette. Cameras. They'd had cameras, here.

"Meanin' they know about this place." Spoken thickly. "You said it was safe here."

Edward gave a quiet glance over.

"It isn't the Establishment who watches me," he said. Not Big Brother, but his brethren. Edward had long ago figured out where surveillance was kept, the unspoken leash taut. He couldn't be trusted. Not even the Resistance could trust him.

His own brain cells rebelled against him.

"Taking a rather long time cooking, aren't you?" The comment was wry, speckled by a quirk of his lips. Eridan, it seemed, was more captivated with conversation that culinary endeavors. The observation was born from humor, but its pragmatism had legs: Eddie wanted to distract his company.

"Or do you find the delay therapeutic?"

A raise of his eyebrows, silently questioning; just as soon, though, Eddie set him on an entirely different train of thought. He scoffed between his teeth, standing and then drifting across the kitchen to gather his materials. He stepped over Eddie here and there, apparently unbothered by the obstruction.

"Piss off." Setting the fish out, finding the pans. Just a few drops of oil in the pantry, but it'd be enough. "Or at least piss off and figure out where I'm gonna sleep tonight. Hint," he added over his shoulder, "it's not gonna be the floor."

One slightly freezerburnt piece of tilapia clattering into the pan.

"What are you, a cat? Get the fuck outta my workspace."

Abrasive tone aside, Eridan regularly tossed glances over his shoulder as he went. Not paranoid, or mistrustful, but apparently mildly transfixed by Eddie's presence.

As Eridan made the motions preempting sauce and searing fish, Eddie watched. He felt no impulse to move, his knees drawn up to his chest, still sitting on the floor -- especially after Eridan's command floated downward, Edward kept himself all the more anchored.

"I don't see much working in this alleged workspace," chided Eddie. His eyes followed Eridan's movements, from the turn of the stove top to the flick of meager spices.

"I only have one bed," Eddie continued to say. "But I suppose you can have --" a beat. A suspenseful beat, a treasure map of a breath. "The bathtub. Warm water in lieu of a blanket, how's that sound?"

He didn't even attempt to mask the smirk.

Eridan, cigarette still dangling from his lips, did an admittedly admirable job with his sparse materials; gradual heat to thaw, a light dusting of whatever spices he could dig out of the cupboards, and the attentiveness to his preparations that betrayed a muted passion in it. He was so lacking in all these other areas — but cooking, at least, he could do.

Until that last line. Eridan tossed a caustic look backwards, and very casually set his foot a little further back, grinding the heel.

Onto Eddie's fingers.

"Cute." His tone was gravel and glass. "I'll take the bed. You can sleep at the foot, if you're good."

A jab at canine obedience for a man who, Eridan had gotten the impression, had been trained by this mysterious tormentor for complete and utter submission. Apt, suitably cruel. Maybe a little traumatizing. All good in Eridan's book.

Water themes made him so touchy these days.

Edited (CASUALLY EDITS FOREVER) 2013-03-08 09:28 (UTC)

When Eridan two-stepped over Eddie's hand, he didn't stiffen. He didn't flinch, so familiar with physical pain was he. But then the other man pushed those words, those insinuations so intentional with venom, and he jerked electrical.

"I'd rather not," he said, his eyes wide. Muted rage and vocal fear sung from his pupils. "It's my bed, after all. My room. Who's to say you're even staying?"

Threatening to abandon Eridan, when they only just reunited properly. No harsh run-ins down dankstrewn brick alleyways, but an authentic bonding. A meeting of minds. A collapsing of hearts behind callous smiles.

"I didn't mean that," he murmured after a pause. Eddie was no less a cruel man than he had been, years ago, but now his cruelty discriminated. Eridan, who had suffered like he did. Eridan, who had made the wrong decisions and knew it. Eridan Ampora didn't deserve such cruelty.

Eddie's anger flooded back into its mental reserve. He would save it for a worthier recipient.

"And don't step on me," he added. He had meant to say that earlier.

Eridan tossed another look back at that threat, mismatched eyes slightly widened as he listened for the get out. Waited, visibly, and when it didn't come, shrugged back to his work just as he had been before. The movement of his hands had slowed a little, maybe. That was all.

"Bathtub's fine." An opaque tone. Ash collected at the end of his cigarette, unminded. "Sheet and a pillow and it's fine."

When he had been young, masking and downplaying his emotions had been unthinkable. Who was everyone else, to be spared the holy wwrath of His Imperiousness? Now the signals to his testiness were minute, muted. He slid the fish around the pan a little too hard, no longer glanced back.

"Yours is done," he finished, dumping the seared fish on one of the few plates he'd scavenged earlier. "Don' buy trash fish next time."

Eddie rose, a fume of smoke, a snaking cobra ascending full height. He rose to claim his meal.

"Thanks," he said, his eyes on the fish. "This doesn't even look poisoned." Quite the compliment. Idly, he fingered the silverware salvaged, waiting for Eridan's own meal to mature. He cleared his throat a few times, cautious in his staring.

Eridan had grown. It was even now a disconcerting concept.

"Are you tracked?" He asked this without preemption. "Collared, I mean, with a tracker. I had to cut mine out. Spinal scar."

Eridan paused, taking a moment to stare flatly down into the pan.

"...Fffuck."

Obviously something he hadn't taken into account yet. Whoops. He briefly pressed a hand over his eyes, sighing, before reaching down to pull one of the drawers open and slip his hand inside.

"Now I know you probably got some kind of aversion to stickin' shit into people, no pun intended," he continued, retrieving a slim filet knife. "But you're gonna have to suck it up. Should be in the same place as yours."

A meaningful look backwards. He turned the stove on simmer.

Open Post 002

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