Open Post 002

[2020mod]

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[enigmaestro]

"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."

[amoray]

"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."

[enigmaestro]

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?"

[amoray]

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.

[enigmaestro]

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.

[amoray]

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.

[enigmaestro]

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.

[amoray]

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."

[enigmaestro]

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."

[amoray]

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.