The wine finding Oswald's approval still had him smile, even if he took note - again - of the man's oddness. The delay in responses, looking without saying anything. Decidedly odd and he didn't know what the explanation for it could be, which made him curious. He placed the bottle on the table, turning his head to the side to look over the spread Oswald assembled here. "Here I thought you'd set out to feed your entire army, not just little old me."
It was a joke, even if Oswald arguably actually had an army, but Edward knew they were expecting no one else. "I'm not overly finicky." He was a perfectionist in his own cooking, but he was a perfectionist in everything he did. "I'd hardly have survived Arkham if I was. Not exactly known for its gourmet kitchen, you'll recall."
Still, he reached over to help myself, since all this food had been prepared for him. Which, again, was odd. He halted his movement, fixing Oswald with his eyes and smiling at him, wondering if there was anywhere he had gone wrong. Any reason Oswald would have to turn on him. He knew he had poisoned people before, after all. "You wanted to talk to me about something."
A muscle flexes in his jaw. He smiles wryly. Oh, Arkham.
He remembers the humiliation at Strange's hands more keenly than the greyish gruel and bits of half-frozen vegetables slopped onto his tray. Remembers tightening straps and the headset and the pain jacked into his body in powerful waves until snot and drool and tears dribbled down his face. Pissing himself on more than one occasion before they had gotten the dosage just right for him, helpless to fight the orderlies dragging him off and maneuvering him, trembling and kitten-weak, into a new jumpsuit.
Ed's commentary pulls him out of his own head and he looks up, blinking, his gaze sharpening.
"Ah -- yes. Indeed." Wetting his lips with a nervous flick of his tongue. "But it can wait. I mean, it is a bit of a later dinner than anticipated, so what's a few more minutes, right? " Another smile, a bob of his shoulder.
Oswald is only distantly hungry, his belly hiving with nerves as all the words he rehearsed in the past hour slip like smoke through his fingers. He makes a grab for the wine before long and uncorks it with a wet pop, needing something to do. He reaches to fill Ed's glass first, hardly giving his own wine the chance to breathe before draining half of it in a single swallow.
As he watched Oswald's face, Edward frowned, seeing the unrest and - given he'd been the one to bring up Arkham - it wasn't too hard to guess the force. He put a hand on Oswald's arm, just a brief touch, hoping that it would help bring him back into the moment. They were here now, not in Arkham. Oswald had gotten him out of that hellhole and as far as Edward was concerned, he intended to make sure neither of them would ever end up back there.
That route his thoughts had taken convinced him, he didn't actually believe that Oswald intended to harm him in any way, in spite of his strange and erratic behaviour. So he finally reached out to fill his plate, but paused before he actually started to eat, raising an eyebrow at Oswald. "You must have been thirsty."
What could have the man so on edge? Edward's curiosity was gaining momentum, because usually he could predict him fairly well. Right now, he was coming up empty. "Cheers."
He lifted his own glass with a wry smile, taking a much smaller sip. Finally he was actually eating, even though his own nerves were kicking in by now as well. "...do you want to go over your schedule for tomorrow?"
He giggles off the remark, raising his glass in a salute before polishing it off. Of course, he could empty the whole bottle on his own just on an anxious impulse. But he wills himself to sit still and focus, trying to feign an interest in schedule-talk.
"Sure..." He says with a sigh, lacing his fingers. His thumbs twiddle away. "No class visits for a while, I hope?"
He'd have to build up his tolerance for being around kids who took more interest in mining for gold in their noses or staring at walls than soaking in his inspirational speeches. What was it with them and sticky fingers and their burning need to touch the tails of his morningcoat with them? His lip curls.
"Spending another day with those screeching little monsters almost makes Arkham seem preferable. I fear I might've lost my mind had you not been there at my side." Snorting softly. "Pain shared is pain divided, as they say."
He pauses a moment and looks to Ed's plate, expectant. Concerned.
Since Oswald's glass was empty, Edward reached for the bottle and poured him another drink. "A man dies of thirst in his own house. How does that happen?" A riddle, of course, but he hardly expected Oswald to answer it.
Instead he leaned back again, revising the schedule for the next few days in his mind. "No worries. Nothing with children coming up. Although I am impressed with how you almost managed to conceal your disgust. I'm glad I could support you through that tough time." It wasn't as if he was overly fond of children either. Mostly it wasn't as if he was overly fond of people ever which age, they all tended to be idiots.
"Tomorrow you have a meeting with the district attorney, then something that I assume will end in an execution, I'll run some numbers by you - both legal and illegal - and we should probably set some time aside so you can decide what to wear to the dinner party with Gotham's elite."
He looked at Oswald at his question, narrowing his eyes for just a moment before smiling. "The food is delicious. Aren't you going to eat or did you already, since I was so tardy?"
The riddle gets no answer - but Oswald offers a grateful flicker of a smile in thanks as wine gurgles into his glass, only half-listening as Ed goes on about his mayoral and crime boss obligations. He watches him, mesmerized by the play of shadow and firelight on Ed's face.
"I agree. Only le crème de la crème of Gotham are invited... which is why I would greatly appreciate your opinion, seeing as you have quite the eye for style, yourself."
Of equal importance to the dinner party, of course, is Ed's opinion of the feast, and he feels a swell of triumph in his chest when he gets the answer he was hoping for.
"Oh." He dismisses Ed's question with a careless flap of his hand. "I sampled a little here and there, for quality assurance, of course." His stomach was - and is - too unsettled to handle more than a few bites. Too much at stake to have much of an appetite. "I was worried Olga might have kept the veal and vegetables in too long. But I guess I got all worked up for nothing, huh?"
He tries for a laugh, a weak little thing, realizing his mouth's gone dry.
"...Only the best for my lovely chief of staff, yes?"
Edited (sorry, you should know I'm an edit fiend) 2017-10-11 02:28 (UTC)
Between Oswald's obvious tells of being unnerved, not eating anything and barely paying attention to what he's been saying - Edward has been ignored often enough in his life to know when it's happening - he is back to doubting again. There is no reason Oswald should have turned on him, but reason isn't always at play with a man like Oswald. Too emotional by half. Perhaps someone has been spreading false rumours. Edward smiled at Oswald, making sure he has his attention this time around while moving one of the knives next to his plate up his sleeve, just in case.
He has no plans of hurting Oswald, but should Oswald attack him, he at least won't allow him to get the drop on him. Once he has him subdued, he can probably talk sense into him.
"You've only ever shown me the best since I joined you," Edward agrees, while ensuring that the knife is hidden, "Lovely indeed."
What is going on? He needs to know, but he can't press. Either way, he is prepared now. "You did get all worked up for nothing." Since the knife is securely hidden up his sleeve, only the tip against his palm so he can pull it out quickly if need be, Edward uses that hand to grip Oswald's shoulder. "Relax, Oswald, will you?"
Going for another sip of wine, he easily misses Ed's sleight of hand trick, misses that a knife's gone missing from a table he's been staring at for the past hour, tensing slightly at Ed's touch. A gesture that he recognizes, after a moment too long, was meant to reassure him. He offers it a pained, flickery smile and looks to his hands, watching them clench and unclench and not understanding how he could have an entire city all but eating out of his palm but feel so small, so weak at the middle, in the presence of just one man. But the only man who had done what he could to fix him, to patch up the hole his sick little soul was leaking out of when he had been on the verge of giving up on himself, on his dreams. On a life in or outside of Gotham.
"Ed--" He sucks in a breath through a creeping tightness in his chest. "There is... something you should know."
Of course the hand on Oswald's shoulder is there to reassure him. It is also there so he could have the knife at his throat as quickly as possible, should Oswald attack him. Which at this point seems to be the foregone conclusion to draw, given his overall behaviour. Edward is already thinking past that, who was it that poisoned Oswald against him? What goal do they have in mind and what lies did they use? He isn't planning on killing Oswald, so he'll just have to convince him right after subduing him.
For now he smiles a tight smile, ready for whatever Oswald might attack him with. Hopefully. "Is there? Here I know so much already." He pauses for a moment, lips pressing together before he smiles again. "What is it?"
He meets Ed's gaze, eyes big and blue and helpless as he feels his chest begin to cave in on itself. His breath comes shorter, faster, mouth falling open, and it takes a few bobs of his throat - a few false starts - before he can get something out.
"In these few short weeks we have spent together, working harmoniously towards a common purpose, our friendship has deepened in a way I could have never foreseen. In a way I confess I have never known, before you. You were there when in my time of need, and you are, still, sharing in my triumphs and in my sorrows. You... you are the only one who cares about me..."
The thought puts a furrow between his brows like it doesn't make sense, like none of it does.
"...and, and I'm certain, moving forward, that it is through our respect and our unstinting loyalty to each other that we will continue to accomplish great things."
He pauses to swallow with a little click of muscles in his throat, suddenly straddling the narrow edge between fainting and throwing up. He grips the table's edge, managing to go a little pale.
"I suppose what I'm trying to tell you is that, I..."
A beat. Another fragile quirk of a smile, an apology.
"...I love you." He says, into the darkness.
It's no declaration owned with all the fierce pride and flourish people have come to expect from Oswald Cobblepot, a man so sure about everything else he had ever wanted. He barely hears himself over the roar of blood in his ears, searching Ed's face like a man desperate to cure a fever-sickness running down to the bones, the terrible ache of pure want, a wanting like he's never wanted anything in his life.
It is unmistakably obvious by now that Oswald isn't just a little nervous. He looks like he is about to pass out and while it is flattering to think that the thought of having to attack him has Oswald this distraught, Edward once more finds that things don't quite add up.
Oswald is a ruthless man, this whole demeanour doesn't fit the scenario that he has come up with, so it has to be something else. Anything else. He tries to brace himself for whatever is coming and when the final words leave Oswald's mouth, he immediately looked around, dropping his hand to let the knife slide into it, checking the room for any signs of an assailant and then settling back on Oswald when he doesn't register any movement.
It's only now that the words properly register, that he sees the desperate, no, hungry look on Oswald's face and it's entirely different from anything he has been expecting.
"What?" A dumb question for clarification's sake, because that certainly doesn't add up either. He raises his hand to put the knife back on the table, since whatever is going down here, it evidently isn't what he thought. "Why?"
Even unprepared for all this, having no frame of reference to guide him along, this isn't the way it was supposed to go, supposed to be. The idea of needing to justify himself and the strong, terrifying force pulling him open from the inside never figured into his rehearsal and all he can do is stare back, stricken, feeling a sharp swooping in his belly. Then he looks away from Ed to the spread of food over the table, to the food going to waste.
The thundering of his heart fills the room.
"Forgive me, I..." Oswald tries, a pained knit to his brow. He shakes his head as if to clear it, even laughs, a mirthless little hitch of air. But it's too late to pass it all off as nothing. "Clearly I've made a mistake. I don't know what has gotten into me."
It doesn't cross his mind that Ed's confusion could be rooted in a place of pain and unworthiness, the same demons he wrestled with and who beat him down, more often than not. But it doesn't matter, none of it matters, as he slowly pushes to his feet, the ache in his leg a distant thing, faraway. He feels for his cane and finds it.
For obvious reasons, it's not as if Edward is either prepared for something like this nor has any frame of reference himself. When he pursued Ms Kringle, it has been over months and with careful planning and awkward fumbling at times, until he finally found the right way to present himself to her. This is different. Very different. He can't even try to figure out how he feels about it - awareness of his own emotions not being a strong point in the first place - so instead all he does is reach out to grasp Oswald's wrist, to keep him from leaving.
"Stay." He knows enough to not want him to walk out like this. It's not often that Edward needs time to process something, the way his mind works everyone else seems almost painfully slow by comparison, but these are special circumstances. "I'm the one who should apologise. This wasn't what I was expecting."
He supposes telling Oswald that he was more braced for an assassination attempt wouldn't do anything to improve the mood at this junction. "What is it you want from me?"
A muscle flexes in his cheek, jaw working in silence.
"Nothing," He answers, finally, staring dully ahead. His vision blurs and he blinks and blinks and sucks in a sharp breath, straightening up even as he feels what's left of his strength - the strength to bury his confession under hundreds of excuses and to try to sweep the whole mess under the rug - bleeding out of him. The walls are pressing in around them; he needs air, needs out. "Nothing at all."
His arm tenses, like he might snap his hand out of Ed's grip at any moment.
"I don't forget things," Edward pointed out, since that was sure to be incredibly relevant right now, "Eidetic memory. Everything's locked in." He touched the side of his head for a moment to underline what he meant, distinctly aware that this was not what he should be going on about right now.
What he noticed was Oswald trying to escape his grip and it made him tug on his arm, mostly just because he wasn't any more mature than Oswald when it came right down to it. "Was your entire plan here really just to drop the bomb, give me half a second and then duck for cover?"
Because that was an intensely stupid plan, in his professional opinion, and it didn't currently occur to him that criticising the way someone chose to confess their love to him wasn't exactly the best way to go about things.
now go to your room and think about what you did, young man
It stings more than it has any right to sting after this long, after learning how to press down all the hurt and disappointment crowding inside him to make room for more, and he hates it. Hates that Ed won't let him go quietly, ashamed; hates that Ed's carelessly cut him and refuses to be sorry for it, letting him bleed like everyone else.
"My plan," he spits the word at him, "was to tell you and to leave it at that, because when I made the choice to confide in something of a deeply personal nature, I assumed the great Ed Nygma wasn't so brainlessly obtuse --" --stabbing a finger at his own temple - -"as to demand an explanation!"
It hangs in the air like a threat, his eyes bright and fierce and wet.
"But obviously I misjudged you. So. Here we are. And here's what's going to happen."
He leans in, then, his voice low, seething cold.
"You are going to let go of me, and then you're going to walk away, because this conversation is over. Whatever you're just dying to tell me, I don't want to hear it. You've done enough."
Being called brainlessly obtuse has him grinding his teeth together, as does the entire rest of this conversation that somehow turned into a thinly veiled threat. Maybe he would have been better off with the assassination attempt. Edward does let go of Oswald, suddenly much less inclined to say anything that dives into his own emotional state. Largely since his own emotional state at the moment consists of hurt feelings buried under anger.
"Thanks for a lovely dinner." There isn't even a need for his voice to sound sarcastic, the situation does that for him. He rises to his feet and walks past Oswald without looking back, heading for his room. Of course he slams the door, it isn't as if he has any scruples about behaving like a petulant child when the situation calls for it.
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no subject
It was a joke, even if Oswald arguably actually had an army, but Edward knew they were expecting no one else. "I'm not overly finicky." He was a perfectionist in his own cooking, but he was a perfectionist in everything he did. "I'd hardly have survived Arkham if I was. Not exactly known for its gourmet kitchen, you'll recall."
Still, he reached over to help myself, since all this food had been prepared for him. Which, again, was odd. He halted his movement, fixing Oswald with his eyes and smiling at him, wondering if there was anywhere he had gone wrong. Any reason Oswald would have to turn on him. He knew he had poisoned people before, after all. "You wanted to talk to me about something."
no subject
He remembers the humiliation at Strange's hands more keenly than the greyish gruel and bits of half-frozen vegetables slopped onto his tray. Remembers tightening straps and the headset and the pain jacked into his body in powerful waves until snot and drool and tears dribbled down his face. Pissing himself on more than one occasion before they had gotten the dosage just right for him, helpless to fight the orderlies dragging him off and maneuvering him, trembling and kitten-weak, into a new jumpsuit.
Ed's commentary pulls him out of his own head and he looks up, blinking, his gaze sharpening.
"Ah -- yes. Indeed." Wetting his lips with a nervous flick of his tongue. "But it can wait. I mean, it is a bit of a later dinner than anticipated, so what's a few more minutes, right? " Another smile, a bob of his shoulder.
Oswald is only distantly hungry, his belly hiving with nerves as all the words he rehearsed in the past hour slip like smoke through his fingers. He makes a grab for the wine before long and uncorks it with a wet pop, needing something to do. He reaches to fill Ed's glass first, hardly giving his own wine the chance to breathe before draining half of it in a single swallow.
no subject
That route his thoughts had taken convinced him, he didn't actually believe that Oswald intended to harm him in any way, in spite of his strange and erratic behaviour. So he finally reached out to fill his plate, but paused before he actually started to eat, raising an eyebrow at Oswald. "You must have been thirsty."
What could have the man so on edge? Edward's curiosity was gaining momentum, because usually he could predict him fairly well. Right now, he was coming up empty. "Cheers."
He lifted his own glass with a wry smile, taking a much smaller sip. Finally he was actually eating, even though his own nerves were kicking in by now as well. "...do you want to go over your schedule for tomorrow?"
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"Sure..." He says with a sigh, lacing his fingers. His thumbs twiddle away. "No class visits for a while, I hope?"
He'd have to build up his tolerance for being around kids who took more interest in mining for gold in their noses or staring at walls than soaking in his inspirational speeches. What was it with them and sticky fingers and their burning need to touch the tails of his morningcoat with them? His lip curls.
"Spending another day with those screeching little monsters almost makes Arkham seem preferable. I fear I might've lost my mind had you not been there at my side." Snorting softly. "Pain shared is pain divided, as they say."
He pauses a moment and looks to Ed's plate, expectant. Concerned.
"How is it?"
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Instead he leaned back again, revising the schedule for the next few days in his mind. "No worries. Nothing with children coming up. Although I am impressed with how you almost managed to conceal your disgust. I'm glad I could support you through that tough time." It wasn't as if he was overly fond of children either. Mostly it wasn't as if he was overly fond of people ever which age, they all tended to be idiots.
"Tomorrow you have a meeting with the district attorney, then something that I assume will end in an execution, I'll run some numbers by you - both legal and illegal - and we should probably set some time aside so you can decide what to wear to the dinner party with Gotham's elite."
He looked at Oswald at his question, narrowing his eyes for just a moment before smiling. "The food is delicious. Aren't you going to eat or did you already, since I was so tardy?"
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"I agree. Only le crème de la crème of Gotham are invited... which is why I would greatly appreciate your opinion, seeing as you have quite the eye for style, yourself."
Of equal importance to the dinner party, of course, is Ed's opinion of the feast, and he feels a swell of triumph in his chest when he gets the answer he was hoping for.
"Oh." He dismisses Ed's question with a careless flap of his hand. "I sampled a little here and there, for quality assurance, of course." His stomach was - and is - too unsettled to handle more than a few bites. Too much at stake to have much of an appetite. "I was worried Olga might have kept the veal and vegetables in too long. But I guess I got all worked up for nothing, huh?"
He tries for a laugh, a weak little thing, realizing his mouth's gone dry.
"...Only the best for my lovely chief of staff, yes?"
no subject
He has no plans of hurting Oswald, but should Oswald attack him, he at least won't allow him to get the drop on him. Once he has him subdued, he can probably talk sense into him.
"You've only ever shown me the best since I joined you," Edward agrees, while ensuring that the knife is hidden, "Lovely indeed."
What is going on? He needs to know, but he can't press. Either way, he is prepared now. "You did get all worked up for nothing." Since the knife is securely hidden up his sleeve, only the tip against his palm so he can pull it out quickly if need be, Edward uses that hand to grip Oswald's shoulder. "Relax, Oswald, will you?"
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"Ed--" He sucks in a breath through a creeping tightness in his chest. "There is... something you should know."
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For now he smiles a tight smile, ready for whatever Oswald might attack him with. Hopefully. "Is there? Here I know so much already." He pauses for a moment, lips pressing together before he smiles again. "What is it?"
no subject
"In these few short weeks we have spent together, working harmoniously towards a common purpose, our friendship has deepened in a way I could have never foreseen. In a way I confess I have never known, before you. You were there when in my time of need, and you are, still, sharing in my triumphs and in my sorrows. You... you are the only one who cares about me..."
The thought puts a furrow between his brows like it doesn't make sense, like none of it does.
"...and, and I'm certain, moving forward, that it is through our respect and our unstinting loyalty to each other that we will continue to accomplish great things."
He pauses to swallow with a little click of muscles in his throat, suddenly straddling the narrow edge between fainting and throwing up. He grips the table's edge, managing to go a little pale.
"I suppose what I'm trying to tell you is that, I..."
A beat. Another fragile quirk of a smile, an apology.
"...I love you." He says, into the darkness.
It's no declaration owned with all the fierce pride and flourish people have come to expect from Oswald Cobblepot, a man so sure about everything else he had ever wanted. He barely hears himself over the roar of blood in his ears, searching Ed's face like a man desperate to cure a fever-sickness running down to the bones, the terrible ache of pure want, a wanting like he's never wanted anything in his life.
no subject
Oswald is a ruthless man, this whole demeanour doesn't fit the scenario that he has come up with, so it has to be something else. Anything else. He tries to brace himself for whatever is coming and when the final words leave Oswald's mouth, he immediately looked around, dropping his hand to let the knife slide into it, checking the room for any signs of an assailant and then settling back on Oswald when he doesn't register any movement.
It's only now that the words properly register, that he sees the desperate, no, hungry look on Oswald's face and it's entirely different from anything he has been expecting.
"What?" A dumb question for clarification's sake, because that certainly doesn't add up either. He raises his hand to put the knife back on the table, since whatever is going down here, it evidently isn't what he thought. "Why?"
no subject
"What?" It's barely louder than a whisper.
Even unprepared for all this, having no frame of reference to guide him along, this isn't the way it was supposed to go, supposed to be. The idea of needing to justify himself and the strong, terrifying force pulling him open from the inside never figured into his rehearsal and all he can do is stare back, stricken, feeling a sharp swooping in his belly. Then he looks away from Ed to the spread of food over the table, to the food going to waste.
The thundering of his heart fills the room.
"Forgive me, I..." Oswald tries, a pained knit to his brow. He shakes his head as if to clear it, even laughs, a mirthless little hitch of air. But it's too late to pass it all off as nothing. "Clearly I've made a mistake. I don't know what has gotten into me."
It doesn't cross his mind that Ed's confusion could be rooted in a place of pain and unworthiness, the same demons he wrestled with and who beat him down, more often than not. But it doesn't matter, none of it matters, as he slowly pushes to his feet, the ache in his leg a distant thing, faraway. He feels for his cane and finds it.
"Excuse me."
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"Stay." He knows enough to not want him to walk out like this. It's not often that Edward needs time to process something, the way his mind works everyone else seems almost painfully slow by comparison, but these are special circumstances. "I'm the one who should apologise. This wasn't what I was expecting."
He supposes telling Oswald that he was more braced for an assassination attempt wouldn't do anything to improve the mood at this junction. "What is it you want from me?"
Perhaps that was a good place to start.
no subject
"Nothing," He answers, finally, staring dully ahead. His vision blurs and he blinks and blinks and sucks in a sharp breath, straightening up even as he feels what's left of his strength - the strength to bury his confession under hundreds of excuses and to try to sweep the whole mess under the rug - bleeding out of him. The walls are pressing in around them; he needs air, needs out. "Nothing at all."
His arm tenses, like he might snap his hand out of Ed's grip at any moment.
"Forget it - okay?"
no subject
What he noticed was Oswald trying to escape his grip and it made him tug on his arm, mostly just because he wasn't any more mature than Oswald when it came right down to it. "Was your entire plan here really just to drop the bomb, give me half a second and then duck for cover?"
Because that was an intensely stupid plan, in his professional opinion, and it didn't currently occur to him that criticising the way someone chose to confess their love to him wasn't exactly the best way to go about things.
now go to your room and think about what you did, young man
It stings more than it has any right to sting after this long, after learning how to press down all the hurt and disappointment crowding inside him to make room for more, and he hates it. Hates that Ed won't let him go quietly, ashamed; hates that Ed's carelessly cut him and refuses to be sorry for it, letting him bleed like everyone else.
"My plan," he spits the word at him, "was to tell you and to leave it at that, because when I made the choice to confide in something of a deeply personal nature, I assumed the great Ed Nygma wasn't so brainlessly obtuse --" --stabbing a finger at his own temple - -"as to demand an explanation!"
It hangs in the air like a threat, his eyes bright and fierce and wet.
"But obviously I misjudged you. So. Here we are. And here's what's going to happen."
He leans in, then, his voice low, seething cold.
"You are going to let go of me, and then you're going to walk away, because this conversation is over. Whatever you're just dying to tell me, I don't want to hear it. You've done enough."
no subject
Being called brainlessly obtuse has him grinding his teeth together, as does the entire rest of this conversation that somehow turned into a thinly veiled threat. Maybe he would have been better off with the assassination attempt. Edward does let go of Oswald, suddenly much less inclined to say anything that dives into his own emotional state. Largely since his own emotional state at the moment consists of hurt feelings buried under anger.
"Thanks for a lovely dinner." There isn't even a need for his voice to sound sarcastic, the situation does that for him. He rises to his feet and walks past Oswald without looking back, heading for his room. Of course he slams the door, it isn't as if he has any scruples about behaving like a petulant child when the situation calls for it.