Now, I haven't written anything in a long time and so I am really out of practice. This isn't my best work, but I hope to really improve on the writing and the story in future chapters. So enjoy.
He could feel himself slipping away each time that he took control. When he was him, it was elating. Confidence dripped off of him like a waterfall. No more nervousness, no more insecurity, finally free. But as much fun as it was retaliating when an insult was thrown at him, it soon started becoming a problem. He was ambitious, he was hungry for more than just proving his intelligence and confidence to those GCPD apes, he wanted a mate. So what better person for him to fall for than the confident, beautiful, and well put together Dr. Thompkins.
Honestly, she was everything that Kristen was not. Leslie had self respect, something that Kringle was missing in huge amounts. She also stood up for what she believed, something that Kristen did not. For someone like him, she was perfect. But within there lay a problem. He couldn't love Leslie, he loved Kristen. But he loved Leslie, not Kristen. This is what made him really hate having another him in his head. The conflicting emotions.
The other Ed, or Edward, as he liked to go, was confident. He didn't focus on how a situation could go wrong, he focused on how it could go in his favor. He didn't stutter because he didn't have his head running several thoughts at the same time. He was calm and collected. Analyzing everything at its own pace. He indulged in his darker impulses that Ed would rarely ever think about. He was everything that Ed wasn't, and each day Ed could feel himself slipping away. His own personality was being chipped away into the abyss. His love for Kristen is what kept Ed in control and alive for most of the time. But when Ed was next to Leslie, he would lose control and become Edward. And what he hated more was that he was somewhat starting to enjoy it. Starting to enjoy her. Her company and her quirkiness. He didn't know what to do.
"Honestly," said Edward, peering through his closet, "what terrible dress sense you have. I think we need more suits, black and green would be nice, maybe a little blue."
"My closet is perfectly fine. I have all the clothes that I like to wear." Ed said from the mirror. He slipped on his lab coat and reached over for his I.D.
"Hey, how's everything with Kristen?" Asked Edward, now leaning against the wall. Ed looked at him.
"Everything is going fine." Edward shook his head.
"No it isn't. You haven't talked to her in a really long time now. Honestly, I'd say I'm impressed because you're moving on, but its not that, is it? You just can't bring yourself to talk to her."
"Of course I can! I choose not to. She needs her space. After Flass and now Doughrety, she's not ready for a relationship."
Edward scoffed. He looked Ed up and down and shrugged.
"Honestly, I don't know what you're still doing loving her. If I were you, and again, I am. I'd fall for someone much better. Say, Leslie." Ed shifted uncomfortably.
"No, I won't fall for her. She's not ."
"Oh please, you'd never let yourself love someone normal? Someone better? You know that Leslie is way better than Kristen ever will be. You can feel it when we are near Leslie. Deep down, you want to be like me. Confident, assertive, dominant. You need to realize who you are and let go of what is holding you back! That invertebrate won't do you any favors."
The floor suddenly seemed very interesting to Ed. Was that tile always broken?
"See? You know it. Accept yourself, don't deny your own nature. You don't love Kristen, you can't love her."
"Yes I can! And damn you to the deepest pits of hell if you believe that I am going to be anything like you! You are a bad person, immoral, you don't even deserve to have Dr. Thompkins. Besides, she's with Detective Gordon, so you should be the one who shouldn't be loving Dr. Thompkins."
Edward smirked and put his hands in mock surrender. "Alright. But did you feel that?" He moved closer, his brown eyes became darker. "The anger? When you unleashed it, did it feel good? Huh?" A smile found its way onto his face. He nodded "It felt good. You know it did. Finally letting yourself lose that control. That's me. You just proved to me that you can be like me. You can be great. You can have anything that you want, including Leslie." Ed moved to retort but was interrupted.
"Don't speak. Think it through. Go over that feeling of freedom you got when you let your anger out. Think about the person that you could be." He clenched his fists and looked at him directly in his eyes. "You could be confident, brilliant, assertive. We could be unstoppable." Ed's eyes were glued to his. "Think about it." And he disappeared.
Click clickity cloo, enjoy this line break, it's just for you!
He let out a breath and turned the knob. His other hand clenched the paper that he was supposed to give to Ms. Kringle. Once the door concluded its opening trip, Ed took careful and unintentional note of how her lips tugged downward when her eyes found themselves on him. He noted how her brows furrowed a tiny bit and how her body shifted away from him. He felt a sharp pain in his heart, and then anger.
He felt every fiber in his body light up. His fingertips were buzzing. His head cleared. He was in control, Ed, not Edward. He was finally in control.
"Kristen, I'm going to require you to give me the files on Dr. Calvin's murder. It's urgent and I'm going to need it on my desk by twelve." He walked towards her and gave her the paper he had. "Please make sure that everything is included in there, thank you."
And he strode away, leaving behind a dumbfounded Kristen.
"What in the world was that?!" He whispered to himself. He closed the door to the M.E room and started pacing.
"I just walked in there and told her what I needed. Oh dear, I told her to leave it at my desk. I even called her by her first name! What's gotten into me?!"
Edward appeared next to Ed, sitting on the autopsy table. "What is happening to you, is that you are finally taking charge of your life. You enjoyed that, didn't you? You enjoyed telling her what to do. You enjoyed being in charge. That's who you are."
A knock at the door drew all of Ed's attention. "Hello? Ed?"
"D-Dr. Thompkins?" Ed asked, his hands started shaking. His stomach felt weird.
The door swung open to reveal Dr. Thompkins. Upon seeing him, Ed again unintentionally noted that her eyebrows shifted upwards. The corners of her lips tugged into a small smile and how her body posture was relaxed and inviting.
And all of a sudden, he felt something else course through his body. Whatever it was, he liked it. His limbs tingled with it. He noticed how his hands had stopped shaking. He felt his shoulders come down, and his expression melt into a comfortable one. He was back. Confident Ed. Not Edward, was back.
She stepped into the room and laid her stuff on the table next to where he was. He noticed that there was something else to her. Something was off.
"Are you ok?" Ed asked. She smiled at him and shook her head.
"I'm fine, just a rough start to the day."
"Oh, in that case maybe this will cheer you up." He reached into his nap sack that he had left there from when he arrived earlier that day. He pulled out a box of cookies.
"Cookies, home made. Want some?" She smiled and took one. Once she took a bite, she moaned.
His eyes shot up. Something stirred deep within him. A primitive urge. That was hot and cute. She had no business being so damn hot and cute.
"These are phenomenal, you baked them?" He nodded, proud of his handiwork. He held out the box and she gladly took another.
He thought back to what she said about having a rough start to the day, but there was something else, he knew it. He just couldn't place his finger on it.
Whatever it was, it will come to him eventually. So for right now he grabbed a cookie and they both ate in silence with the occasional happy noise from Leslie.
Line broke
Later that evening, Ed threw his lab coat on to a chair. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and looked into his closet.
"Ok, maybe I do need some suits." He conceded.
"See? I told you, and by the way, the answer is yes. There is something more going on with Leslie than what she told you." Edward appeared on the chair that rested the lab coat.
Ed closed the door to the closet and made his way to the kitchen. "So what is she hiding?" He grabbed the kettle. Edward yawned from his place.
"I know what it is. And you have the information in your head, except you don't have the thought pattern to get the answer." Ed poured some water into the kettle.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"What it means," said Edward as he got up from his chair, "is that you don't think the same way I do, which is why you don't know what is bothering her."
Ed put the kettle on the stove. He struggled turning it on, but when he did, he turned to Edward. "So what thought pattern do you have that I lack?"
Edward smiled. "I thought you would never ask. Well, I have a much more loose moral compass than you do. Question, would you break up James Gordon and Leslie Thompkins so that you could end up with her?"
Ed walked towards his other personality. "I never said I liked her. I like Ms. Kringle, not Dr. Thompkins-"
"Which is why you felt angry at Kristen? Which is why you felt something different with Leslie? May I remind you that you felt great when you were eating those cookies with her. You loved hearing that sweat voice moan with pleasure. And don't tell me that you didn't imagine that moan in another scenario that didn't involve cookies."
"Stop saying that! I wouldn't imagine Dr. Thompkins in any other situation other than professional." Edward laughed.
"Oh, so you're interested in taking her at work? Kinky, I like that."
Ed's eyes widened. "What? N-no! That is not what I meant and you know it!"
"Calm down, I'm just messing with you. But we have to get serious. You are changing. Can't you feel it? It's in there you are becoming like me." Ed shifted uncomfortably.
"When you talked to Kristen, you felt the confidence, you felt like you could talk without fumbling over your words. When you were with Leslie, you felt the same way. You felt confident, and all of that came from within. That came because you have these deep urges within you that you finally let out today. Now imagine if you were to accept them and embrace them, you could be unstoppable."
Ed shook his head and walked to the kettle. "That is very nice and all, but I'm not interested in indulging in my deeper urges. I'm perfectly content with who I am."
"Oh please. No you are not. You are not content with who you are. You know that the person that you were before today was a total undeniable loser." Ed took off the kettle, he turned to him.
"What are you talking about, I'm still the same me from before today. Nothing's changed." Edward clapped his hands together, walked towards him and leaned in.
"No, you are no longer Ed Nygma. But at the same time you are no me. You are in a state of flux. Can't you feel it? Even now you still retain some of that confidence that you got from earlier today. You can feel the power coursing through your veins. The urges are there, held back only by a thin layer of wall that if you choose, you can let them out. Or you could wait for them to build up and they end up manifesting when you kill someone else."
This was not good. Ed didn't like this at all. He was still himself. But was he? Edward was right on one account. He did feel more confident. He could feel it underneath. Buzzing at the back of his head, dormant, and waiting for an opportunity to get out. This was bad. It was these impulses in the first place that led him to kill officer Dougherty, if he let them out again, who knows what could happen next? He could kill Dr. Thompkins. Wait, why did he think of Dr. Thompkins first? He should be thinking of Ms. Kringle first.
"It's because you're falling for her." Edward offered.
"No," said Ed, moving to grab a mug. He didn't have feelings for Leslie. She was with Detective Gordon so there's no way he can have feelings for her.
"That is a logical fallacy and you know it." Edward replied.
"But it doesn't matter," he continued. "Because very soon," he made a circle with his fingertip, "all of this," he stared Ed in the eye, "will change, and you and I will be one and the same..."
Leighn breighk
Shoulders dropped, brows furrowed, chewing of the bottom lip, and a downcast look, this was the first thing he noticed about Leslie Thompkins the second she entered the M.E room. Something wasn't right about her. She wasn't like this usually, at least not when she first started here.
He moved aside the microscope he was using. "Good morning Doctor Thompkins." He greeted.
"Good morning Crime Scene Investigator Nygma." She replied, a smile on her face. A similar grin made its way onto his face.
"Oh, no one's called me that in a long time, Medical Examiner Thompkins." Ed said. She laughed. Her shoulders elevated themselves slightly again, her eyes became filled with a troublemaking look once more. That's good, he liked that look on her. Happy.
"Ed, we're friends, you can call me Leslie. The formalities make me feel old." Ed smiled and bowed his head.
She smiled and sat herself on the autopsy table. "Any new cases?"
He clapped his hands together.
"Well, we have a new body, a John Doe, there seems to be some type of chemical in his body that can be viewed from the outside, preliminary analysis also suggests he might be missing an organ, which one? I don't know, and since I know you like the ones with missing organs, I left you that one. There is this other one, a Sarah James, she had her left eye punctured, similar to the hired hitman from a year ago but different, he actually exploded the eye from the inside. The lab, me, concluded that it is an explosive chemical that was injected into the eye via a needle. That one is ready for criminal investigation, all that is left is the signature from you. And the last one is the same one from yesterday, Dr. Calvin, his preliminary analysis suggests he is missing quite a few organs. I don't know which organs he is missing. He also seems to have an incision made on his side. I made sure to check that it wasn't a bomb but I don't know what it is. I left that one to you since you have the more steady hands."
She nodded. "Alright then, let's get to work." She hopped off of the autopsy table and made her way to the changing room.
Line Broke
Once she left the room to go into the changing room, Ed looked at his hands. They weren't shaking. He hadn't been nervous at all this morning before arriving. They were about to do some dissection into corpses all by themselves and it didn't make him at all nervous, in fact, it made him excited. The fact that he was going to spend time alone with her made him excited when it used to be that he used to get excited when he was in the same room as Kristen Kringle. And the fact that he wasn't even a bit nervous during their joking also worried him. He was becoming more like Edward.
"Maybe that's not such a bad thing." Edward said, sitting on the autopsy table where she sat a few seconds ago.
"You know, you could have her if you were to just accept me as a part of you."
"No," he whispered.
"Those urges and emotions will eventually burst out of you, and you know it. Right now they are unrefined, chaotic, but imagine what you could do if you just accepted it and embraced it. You can have anything that you want."
"Oh please, I don't even know what I want." Ed said.
"What?" Asked Leslie.
Oh dear.
"Nothing I was just talking to myself. Great way to sort through your thoughts and feelings." Ed offered.
Leslie emerged from the changing room in full M.E attire. Ed couldn't but admire the way she looked. The lab coat hugged her body perfectly, too perfect in his opinion. That primal urge came back.
"Oh, she looks so hot. Don't you think?" Said Edward from behind her. Edward eyed her up and down, his eyes were focused and his head lowered. He looked predatory, and Ed was feeling the same way. He wanted to take her right then and there.
"Excuse me, I need to use the restroom. Be back in a bit." Ed said. Leslie nodded and he power walked away.
The old door to the restroom, although it looked bad, was a pretty good insulator of sound. If anyone wanted, they could yell, cry, and do pretty much anything that involved sound without actually attracting any attention from the outside, which luckily, was what Ed needed.
"What in the damn world was that!?" He yelled. He turned on the sink, his fingers slipping away from the handles the first two times. Shaking hands reached into the cold water cusped.
"Honestly, I think you'd need a cold shower instead of a cold splash of water." Edward said from the bench.
"Oh shut up! Just shut up. You've done nothing but drag me down. What do you want?"
Edward got up to move next to Ed. He leaned in. "I want you to realize the person that you are. Who you were always meant to be. Stop fighting these feelings. You can't win. And not because it's impossible, because it isn't, but because deep down you don't want to win. Deep down in that nerdy heart of yours, you want to be free. You want to stop caring about the world. Deep down you want to dominate. Deep down, you want to be me."
Ed stared ahead into the mirror. Could this be true? Those feelings were undeniable. He was falling for Leslie Thompkins. The core of his very being burned with hunger for her. Each time that he saw her, it seemed to only grow. Edward was right, Ed wanted to be confident. He wanted to have the ability to get what and who he wanted without fear of consequences.
"So just accept it. Be the person that you were always meant to be."
Ed could feel it. Something was happening, and he was enjoying it.
"Feel it. Feel the confidence coursing through your veins. How did it feel having the guts to talk to Leslie. How did it feel having those urges for her?" Edward started to flicker from his place to where Ed was standing.
"Feel the absolute pleasure that it would be to do anything that you wanted."
They flickered together for a second.
"How did it feel being able to defend yourself against those rancid donut eaters?"
And they flickered again.
"Standing at the cusp of a new you, a confident, smart, powerful you, and seeing him. Now tell me. How. Did. It. Feel!"
…
And then there was one.
…
"Beautiful".