"Mr Cobblepot, you have a visitor." The words echoed through Oswald's mind like a distant cry, something bright at the end of the tunnelling abyss calling him to awaken from sleep.
"Sorry?" He prompted, not sure he'd heard correctly. Not daring to hope.
"You have a visitor," The guard repeated, rolling his eyes a little. "Come with me."
Letting out a brief laugh, Oswald got to his feet at once, hobbling along behind the guard.
A visitor, a visitor, you have a visitor, the words repeated themselves like a chorus, morphing and reshaping in his mind, pitch rising and falling.
His heart beat out a staccato in his chest, his fingertips tingling with a mix of dread and anticipation as he waited to answer whomever his visitor might be.
He didn't dare believe it was him. But Oswald could dream.
"Here we are," The guard half-heartedly gestured to the door as if he didn't really care whether or not Oswald went inside before turning as if to go.
"Wait, you're leaving?" Oswald asked, sure that it wasn't protocol to abandon your post during visits, especially one involving a criminal of such high calibre, not to mention importance.
"Dough is dough," The man shrugged, patting his breast-pocket in reference to what Oswald supposed was a large wad of cash. "I'm to leave you alone for at least fifteen minutes. I get extra if I let you stay longer."
Someone had paid to be alone with him? Surely not.
Oswald could only think of one man who would, but he couldn't possibly-
"He's all yours, Mr Nygma!" The guard called, shoving Oswald inside before turning tail. Mr Ngma. It pricked like a taunting thorn on a rose, cruel in all its captivating beauty, a siren call to Oswald's soul. Knowing he shouldn't touch, yet touch was all he craved.
"Ed?" He asked cautiously, shuffling farther into the room. He looked up and around at the high ceiling and steel bars, wrapping his arms around himself. The guard hadn't restrained him, not even bothering with cuffs. It made Oswald uneasy to be allowed the luxury of some semblance of freedom when he knew it would all be torn away in a matter of minutes.
Something in the corner of Oswald's eye shifted and Oswald took a gasping breath. "Ed? Is that you?"
"Hello, Oswald," Came Ed's purring voice, the tenors of his speech curling like the end of a cat's tail. "Did you miss me?" The man finally came into view, dressed to the nines in a bright green shimmering suit, bowler hat in place as he chuckled at Oswald's expression.
He looked more like a neon-coloured fever dream than the man that had once stood by his side and vowed to do him anything. Oswald's heart panged in his chest. He'd lost that man a long time ago, there was no use getting upset about it now.
"Is… Is this real?" Oswald breathed, hesitant to admit his tenuous grasp on reality, but he needed to know. The days in Arkham had blurred together, memories mixed and jumbled like a fitful nightmare. And that was just when he was awake. Who was he to question the presence of angelic light in a hellhole overrun with demons?
"Well, that depends," Ed chuckled, before breaking out into full-bellied laughter at whatever bewildered look had passed over Oswald's face.
"Ed, I don't underst-"
"I'm not Ed!" Edward snapped, eyes suddenly dark as his laughter abruptly stopped. "Not Ed, or Edward or Eddie. So, don't call me that."
"You're him, aren't you?" Oswald gasped, instinctively stepping back, letting his confidence slip in such an openly vulnerable way that he may as well have bared his neck and asked for a bite. "The other one."
"Yes!" Ed hissed in delight, a grin stretching his mouth as he waved his arms theatrically. "I'm The Riddler."
"W-where's Ed?" He asked hurriedly, urging himself not to retreat further.
"Oh, you know," Edward waved his hands around ambiguously. "Don't worry, though. I'm sure he's just sleeping." Ed pressed his palms together, resting his head against them in a mimicry of the act. "It's rather boring actually."
"So, why are you here?" Oswald demanded, stepping forward in an attempt to gain some ground. It was important that he held all the power he could possibly carry, he couldn't get beaten down by Ed. Not again.
Never again.
"As I said before, Ozzie, I'm bored," Ed moaned the last word, digging his fingers into his eyes behind his glasses like he wanted to claw them out, laughing delightedly when Oswald winced.
"So what?" Oswald spat. He needed control in this situation, he couldn't keep slipping up like that. Ed had shot him, he deserved every ounce of hatred ever possessed in Oswald's body and more.
"So… I wanted to come have a little fun!" Edward sang, waving his index fingers like he was conducting an orchestra.
"And, what exactly does this fun entail, Ed?" Oswald snapped. Ed ignored him.
"I can be cracked or broken but never fixed. Brute force can't touch me, but wit and intelligence is the way to beat me. What am I?" Ed rattled off, looking at Oswald with an almost lascivious smile.
Shit, he needed to get his head in the game.
Oswald studied the blank walls around him, looking for clues. There was nothing but concrete and bars, and the equally stony silence slinking coldly between them.
"I don't kn-" Oswald began, but cut himself off as his mind alighted on something. Perhaps it was the conversation itself, or something pertaining to that-
Oh. Oh!
"I knew you'd get it!" Ed exclaimed with a delighted giggle, clapping his hands together.
Cracked, not fixed, wit and intelligence: code. Ed wanted them to speak in code.
"Uhm. How should we proceed?"Oswald asked, looking around nervously as he cleared his throat. There had to be a valid reason if Ed needed them to talk in code, and Oswald wasn't about to give the game away without express permission to do so.
"You can see me in water, but I never get wet. What am I?" Edward posed the question, smiling and watching Oswald avidly from behind his glasses.
"A moment,' Oswald held up a finger, preemptively scolding Ed in anticipation should he get impatient. He repeated the riddle in his head.
You can see me in water, but I never get wet. What am I?
Oh! A reflection!
Oswald turned back to Ed, pleased to have solved the riddle but otherwise confused at what he was getting at.
"Could you elaborate?" He asked, trying not to sneer. It would be best not to piss Ed off now he was somewhat his old self again.
"The answer doesn't show you what others see, rather, it shows you the…" Ed trailed off, indicating that Oswald should finish the sentence himself.
Reflections. Mirror images. Turned around. Flipped images. Opposites. Opposite!
"Oh," Oswald conceded to give Edward a smile. "That could work."
"Of course it will work, I came up with it myself!" Ed preened, placing his hand on his chest.
"Wow, someone has certainly forgotten to take their narcissism pills." Oswald snarked.
Ed's back tensed, his eyes flashing darkly for a moment before he seemed to come back to himself and relax slightly. "I see we've already begun."
Oswald merely shrugged, neither confirming nor denying.
"Well, then," Edward walked to the table at the centre of the room, scraping his chair noisily as he pulled it out and settled into it. Tilting his head, Oswald shuffled over and followed suit.
"How's the treatment been?" Ed asked, eyes searching Oswald's face with disturbing fascination. Oswald had a strange feeling of empathy for the dead bodies Ed had examined on the slab back at the GCPD.
"It's been great. Really. The other inmates love me. It's like I'm at home here," Oswald rolled his eyes
"Yeah, new rule; no sarcasm. It's too complicated to decipher what meaning you wish to convey," Ed told him irritably.
"Too complicated?" Oswald asked mockingly. "Or too difficult?" Ed's glare said enough.
"Moving along," Edward continued, snapping from furious back to animatedly cheerful too quick for Oswald to keep up. "Let's get down to more important things, like you telling me how I can ensure your continued incarceration here as long as possible."
Fury jolted down Oswald's spine, his hands clenching around the edge of the table as he seethed in a breath, preparing himself for a scorching monologue that would tear Ed to the ground.
But then Ed raised his eyebrows, and Oswald was brought back to himself.
Opposites. He meant the opposite. Which could only mean…
"Wait, you want me to stay here?" Oswald asked astonishedly, knowing Ed understood as the corner of his mouth lifted. You want me to escape?
"Of course!" Edward said, seeming to think it was obvious. "Why else would I come here?"
To kill me, Oswald instantly thought, but didn't let the words fall from his lips.
"When?" He asked instead, the need to escape itching in his bones like the many scrabbling legs of a thousand lice.
"Until I am measured, I am not known. Yet how you miss me, When I have flown. What am I?" Ed asked. Time.
"What about it?" Oswald prompted.
"I need some," Ed admitted, wrinkling his nose in distaste at such an admission.
"Why?"
"Ed's going to be very upset when he finds out I've gone walkabout again." Edward sneered. "He gets so defensive. Just because I used the opportunity last time to try and kill his girl, doesn't mean going to do it again."
"Wait, who?" Oswald asked, waving dismissively through the end of Ed's sentence as something molten and dangerous leached into his stomach.
"Oh, you have nothing to worry about, I can assure you," Ed answered adamantly, placating Oswald with an outstretched hand. "Another mindless infatuation. Pathetic, really. But I have reason to believe I can use it to my advantage, and that's all that really matters now.'
"...Okay," Oswald accepted slowly, allowing himself to simmer down.
"Anyway, it means that when I next see you, it will be on his terms," Ed sighed.
"How soon can you get here?" Oswald asked, already impatient to see him again.
"When the day after tomorrow is yesterday, today will be as far from Wednesday as today was from Wednesday when the day before yesterday was tomorrow. What is the day after this day?" Edward asked.
"What?" Oswald asked, not even attempting to decipher that nonsense.
"When the day after tomorrow is yesterday, today will be-" Ed began to repeat.
"No, I just- no. I won't get it no matter how many times you say it," Oswald told him.
"Fine," Ed conceded with a shrug, seemingly unbothered by Oswald's lack of enthusiasm. "Thursday. By the latest." Ed glanced at his watch. "Now, I really should be going. He's bound to wake up soon and whilst I'd love to tease him about missing out on this little meeting, I'm afraid it wouldn't be very conducive to our situation."
Oswald swallowed. He wasn't ready to leave, to go back to the nightmarish smiles and the high strung screams that pierced his ears a broke his mind every moment within these walls, awake or asleep, always near, encroaching upon him.
"Ed," The man stopped and turned, meeting Oswald's eye calmly. "Why all of this," Oswald waved a hand to indicate all the obscurity and extra measures Edward had taken to disguise their conversation.
Not saying a word, Ed simply beckoned him to kneel down, both of them doing so and looking under the table. Ed pointed to a small microphone hidden in the shadows of the table, recognisable only once he'd noticed it. Nodding his understanding, Oswald struggled back up to his feet, ignoring the jolt of pained protest his leg gave him.
"Oh, and Oswald," Ed prompted, Oswald nodding at him to continue. "Don't let Ed know I was here. He's suspicious enough as it is."
"Right," Oswald replied, throat dry. Back to the shadows, he would go. They called to him like Hellhounds, reminding him that even now he wasn't safe from them. Their teeth were still waiting for his flesh, patient and quiet, but there.
Stall, stall, stall, his mind insisted, a treacherous slope but one Oswald couldn't help climbing down.
"H-how do I know this is real. You could just be playing me, waiting for an opportunity to kill me while having little to no defences," He argued, not unreasonably.
Ed tilted his head as if conceding the point. He slowly made his way toward Oswald, moving around the table to stand closer than he had before.
"How about," Ed searched his eyes, a hint of caution hiding behind his glasses. "A little incentive?" Ed moved further into Oswald's space.
Oswald scrutinized him, not sure what Ed was getting at until the last moment when Edward pressed their lips together. Torn between recoiling in shock and melting into the touch, Oswald stood stock still, grounded by fear and indecision.
Ed finally pulled back, only to remove his glasses and say: "With a touch of reassurance,"
Ed's hand moved to Oswald's shoulder, pulling him in with a hidden strength as he moulded their lips together. And Oswald let him. He couldn't help it. There was something sweet and familiar about burning himself twice on the same flickering flame, especially when this flame burnt so bright.
"And, lastly," Ed gasped as he pulled back, his hand sliding up to Oswald's nape, thumb ghosting along his Adam's apple as he swallowed. "A sprinkle of trust,"
Ed pulled him in with the force of an avalanche, lips and tongue hungry as they melded to Oswald's. Ed tasted like jasmine tea and fresh ginger, sharp and sweet. A stark contrast to the shadows lurking behind Oswald's shoulders, relentlessly seeping from the walls and creeping in.
Ed eventually let go, a hand brushing through Oswald's prison-filthy hair once, before stepping away.
"It'll be okay," Ed told him earnestly, meeting Oswald's gaze. "I promise." Ed checked his watch. "Oh dear, I really have to go." He looked up at Oswald hurriedly. "Please be safe, Oswald." Then he turned and all but fled, his long legs carrying him away like he was never there.
Oswald wrapped his arms around himself as he shivered. The way Edward had kissed him, the howling laughter and blood-curdling screams of the asylum sinking through the walls all the while, niggled at something in his mind, an incessant, burrowing worm he couldn't pin down. And soon he'd have to venture back into the shadow with it at play, another torment in this endless freaking sideshow.
Oh, but of course, the solution came to Oswald like a thrill, his heart swelling as he remembered.
An old saying he'd used to lure a man into the darkness. But it hadn't worked, because he wasn't the right one.
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
Oswald had finally found his friend.
"Thursday," He whispered to himself reassuringly. "Thursday."
And it couldn't come soon enough.
