Archive of Our Own

Dead.

Hugo Strange was dead.

This time there would be no torture, no bargaining, no mercy. The next time Oswald sees him he's going to wring that mad scientist's scrawny neck and use his own science to bring him back so he can do it again and again.

Not only had that charlatan taken ten times longer to fix Ed than he had Lee, now that he finally had revived the man he'd somehow managed to lose him only a few hours after Ed's return to consciousness.

Some nonsense about Ed panicking on waking, stabbing Strange's orderlies with the jagged edge of a broken test tube and running out into the street.

A pathetic excuse!

That Ed's self-preservation instincts would kick in on revival was obvious. Strange should have accounted for such a possibility.

Perhaps he won't strangle the man. He'll stab him with that same test tube. Jam the already bloody edge into his neck, his eyes, his face, over and over and over.

As soon as he's found Ed again, that's what he'll do.

Unless Ed is dead. Again.

Gotham streets are more dangerous than ever these days and even with all of Oswald's men and allies given strict instructions to leave Ed alive the chances of survival for a lone, weak, unarmed man are slim. Especially if he's left the borders of Oswald's territory.

No. Can't think about that. Can't think about discovering Ed's pale, lifeless body. Again.

The state he's in - body weak, mind fragile - made a second attempt at resurrection all but untenable Strange said. These next twenty four hours were crucial for his physical and cognitive restoration. If anything happens to him within that time he could end up damaged beyond repair.

If that's happened, if Ed really is... gone.

Oswald swallows at the thought and quickens his pace beside his protective entourage, hissing at the extra spike of pain down his leg this prompts but pushing on regardless. If Ed is lost to him, for good this time, then violent death will be too good for dear Hugo. He'll tear the man apart. Slowly. Keep him alive just long enough for Oswald to watch the growing terror on Hugo's face as he feeds the man his own still beating heart.

He's so full of fear and fury Oswald almost misses the entrance to the latest building his informants assure him a man matching Edward Nygma's description has been seen entering.

"This is the place, boss." The man on his left - a beefy, no nonsense ex-con called Boris - stops beside a cracked wooden door hanging from its hinges.

Oswald stares at the entrance dispassionately. It's the third such place they've tried and the sky is growing dark with the arrival of early evening. He's spent nearly all day on this so far fruitless endeavour. If Ed isn't here Oswald will have no choice but to leave his people to search on alone - any more time spent neglecting his duties will be seen as weakness and he has enough trouble keeping the lawless contenders for his throne off his back as it is.

"How sure are we of the information this time?" Oswald asks, eyes on Boris but addressing his protective detail at large. "Because if this is another homeless vagrant someone mistakenly thought was wearing green -"

"I'm sure," a voice pipes up from the right.

All of Oswald's men immediately draw their weapons, aiming as one in the direction of the voice.

As Oswald looks, a small shadow emerges from the rusted shell of a burnt out car abandoned a few paces down the street.

It's a child. Dressed in rags, skin caked in dirt, long hair matted. Might be a girl. Might not.

"Easy!" the kid cries, throwing up their hands. "I'm the one called in the tip. Saw him myself, didn't I? Muttering to nobody as he walked in. Seemed pretty out of it."

Oswald gestures for his men to lower their guns.

"And how can you be certain the man you saw is the gentleman I'm looking for?" he asks, leaning heavily on his cane as he glowers down at the kid.

"Used to work for him, back in the Narrows." The child stuffs their hands in some hidden folds of their outfit and shrugs. "Looked a little different. Skinnier. Longer hair. But it was definitely The Riddler. He's not someone you forget, you know?"

This twists a wry smile about Oswald's lips.

"No," he concedes. "He isn't."

He turns back to the building with renewed interest and a touch of trepidation. After months waiting for Ed's return Oswald realises he has absolutely no idea what to do or say to the man now their reunion is finally at hand.

"Is there anyone else inside?" he asks.

"Nah," the kid answers, shuffling closer. "A bunch of us use the place to sleep sometimes when it's cold, but it's clear now, I checked. No one else has much use for it. It's just books and stuff."

While the child talks Oswald's eyes drift upwards to the chipped facade above the door.

"Of course," he mutters as he recognises the sign.

Gotham Public Library.

It's exactly the place a lost and confused Edward Nygma would seek refuge. A depository of knowledge. Full of structured facts and figures to calm his wondering mind.

"So. Gave you what you wanted right?" the kid goes on. "How much is it worth?"

Oswald's impatience at the kid's presumption melts as he turns back. The child's hopeful, upturned face reminds him, with a pang, of the absent Martin.

Absent but safe, Oswald reminds himself, as the boy was mercifully secure outside the city limits when Gotham fell. But still - Oswald misses him. A low but constant ache. As immutable as the chronic pain in his leg.

With a tut, at his own sentiment as much as the child, Oswald draws a note from his pocket and slaps it into the kid's outstretched palm.

The child frowns at his prize in distaste.

"That's it?"

"Consider it a lesson," Oswald snaps, impatience returning. "Next time make sure to negotiate a price before revealing your information."

With that he turns his back on the child and marches, painfully, leg still smarting from his lengthy walk, up to the library entrance.

"Guard the perimeter," he instructs Boris. "No one gets inside this building without my express permission, understand?"

"Yes, boss."

Boris isn’t the sharpest tool in Oswald's newly accrued arsenal, but his lack of initiative comes with the advantage of unquestioning obedience, so overall Oswald has been more than pleased with his decision to promote the man to head of security.

As Boris begins instructing his men on how best to follow their employer's orders Oswald takes a breath, swings back the damaged door and steps though.

It's dark inside.

Unsurprising. Most buildings lost power as result of Jeremiah's attack and even now only a select few have been sourced with electricity. Evidently this was not one of them.

Oswald has to stop and blink for several moments while his eyes adjust.

Gradually he becomes aware of a soft glow to his left and begins to follow the flickering yellow light.

He limps passed the neglected, dust covered main desk where he'd first confronted the wretched Isabel, or whatever her name was.

Was that another reason Ed had been drawn to this place? Driven by the siren song of lost love?

Oswald scowls at the thought. A part of him had hoped Hugo's tinkering might induce a touch of amnesia, wiping any lingering infatuations for the librarian and Lee Tompkins both. Although given how easily Ed's affections seem to transfer from woman to woman, with the unfortunate 'love of his life' Miss Kringle apparently no longer holding even fraction of his heart, Oswald had been confident any feelings Ed may have harboured for Lee would dissipate soon enough, particularly as all signs indicated it was she who dealt him the fatal blow that night in the Narrows.

As he moves deeper into the library, now flanked by a veritable maze of dark wooden shelves covered top to bottom in books - dusty but otherwise undisturbed, supporting the child's claim that the place has been dismissed by the looters and petty criminal elements skittering like vermin throughout the rest of the city - Oswald discovers the source of his guiding light. At regular intervals along his path are lit candles, handful after handful of books cleared away to make room for them.

Keeping so much naked flame beside all this paper seems foolhardy to Oswald. But from the pools of dripping wax around them it would appear the candles have been burning for several hours without issue and Oswald is grateful for the light, so he leaves them as they are and pushes on.

The further in he goes the more candles he starts to find, occasionally coming across whole shelves filled with them, placed in tidy lines, equidistant from each other from largest to smallest. Or sometimes the largest in the centre while the rest fan out either side, each progressively smaller, in perfect symmetry.

Until finally the shelves open up to a central room. Meant for study, Oswald assumes, with a dark cherry oak table as a centre piece, matching wooden chairs lining the edges and a few smaller tables against the shuttered windows for individual students.

An impressive collection of books are piled up across the table surface, those not in stacks cracked open on specific pages. Almost like a study session in progress, neglected but a moment while the students seek out further volumes for their research.

Almost. Save for the torn and crumpled pages littering the underside of the table and chairs, one of which has been tossed to its side.

That and the figure hunched down on the floor on the far side of the room, their exposed back garish white in the candlelight.

"Ed?"

The cluster of candles on the far wall, a veritable inferno compared to the miniature displays dotted among the shelves, combined with the quiet give the place an almost religious aura and Oswald's voice sounds like blasphemy, loud and intrusive.

Regardless, the figure doesn't so much as flinch. Their only movement is a slight rocking back and forth. Rhythmic and relentless.

"Ed?" Oswald tries again, softer this time, and as he moves closer he finds himself creeping, each step careful and slow to ensure he makes as little noise as possible. Whether this is from caution against potential danger or out of a sudden, inexplicable reverence he can't say.

More rocking. More muttering.

Even when Oswald shuffles round and looms over the man there’s no reaction, save his own inadvertent gasp.

If Oswald wasn’t painfully, intimately familiar with each sharp line and curve of Ed’s face and physique he might not have recognised him in the utter wreck of the figure kneeing at his feet.

Ed’s hair, like the child said, is much longer and hangs limp across his eyes and down his cheeks, drifting occasionally into his mouth as he continues his unintelligible babble. His arms are wrapped tight about his body, knuckles flashing white with every rock.

He’s also naked. Head to toe. Not a stitch on him, not even his glasses.

Which is –

Oswald lifts his eyes from where they’d fallen, with magnetic attraction, to the space between Ed’s bent legs and tries to focus on the other man’s face.

“Ed, it's me. It’s Oswald,” he says.

Nothing.

And as Oswald fights to stop his gaze dropping lower he notices strange marks across Ed’s forearms. Then more on his stomach.

They look almost like –

Words.

Yes.

You struggle to regain me, Oswald reads down Ed’s left shoulder. There’s a green smudge beneath that he can’t make out followed by – you struggle to obtain me, what am I?

Once he’s identified the final phrase he catches it all over – what am I? what am I? what am I?

Riddles. Every scrawl is a riddle. Ed has covered himself in them.

Oswald swallows. Perhaps he’s too late. Perhaps this is the cognitive degeneration Strange warned him about.

“Ed, do you remember who I am?” he asks and with no one else here he doesn’t bother to curb the tremble of desperation in his voice. “Do you – do you remember who you are?”

Nothing.

Then Ed’s muttering grows louder, merging into language Oswald understands.

“What's black and white, black and white, black and white, black and white, black and white…?” Ed trails into laughter, staring into nothing until it peters out. “A penguin rolling down a hill.” His head snaps up, eyes finding Oswald through tendrils of hair and Oswald holds his breath. “I know who you are,” Ed tells him. “The less you have the more they’re worth.”

His eyes drop down again.

“The less you have,” he repeats. “The less you have – the more –”

In a flash of movement his arms break apart and Oswald realises Ed’s right hand is clasped around a pen. He realises this the exact second Ed jabs the ballpoint tip into his wrist.

“The less you have,” Ed mutters again, smearing ink across his skin as he tries to shape the words there. “The more… they’re…”

The way he writes is a far cry from the swift, collected notes he used to make as Oswald’s Chief of Staff. Each drag of the pen is violent. Vicious. If paper were his medium there is no doubt it would tear and Oswald is unsure Edward’s skin won’t also, which is not a welcome thought considering how close each potential slice is to a vein.

The thought of all that blood, Ed’s life draining away in front of him, again, has Oswald on his knees beside the man before he’s even aware of moving, cane discarded at his side, any pain in his leg negated by the fearful, adrenaline fuelled need to make Ed stop.

But as soon as he touches a dark gloved hand to Ed’s right arm Ed is jerking away.

“No no no!” he barks, waving the pen in Oswald’s face. Unpleasant, but since it’s keeping the thing from slitting Ed’s wrist Oswald considers it an improvement. “I have to write it down. I have to. Before I forget. I –” He shakes his head – small, fast turns from side to side. “I keep – I keep changing, keep – keep losing...”

This last stretches out with no follow through, only a growing hysteria in Ed’s eyes.

“Losing what?” Oswald prompts.

Ed stares at him.

“Myself.”

His face crumples like wet paper and he fixes back to the pen in his hand, holding it before him like a trophy. Or a lifeline.

“This is the only way to be sure,” he nods, gripping tighter. “This way I’ll always remember. Who I am. What I am.”

There’s a vacant gleam in Ed’s eye when he looks up again that makes Oswald’s stomach drop.

He’d been prepared for disorientation. He’d even been ready for death. But this - this is something else. Something worse.

Yes Ed’s always been manic. Always veered just shy of unstable. He’d even toppled over into mentally unsound, perhaps, after defrosting from Victor Fries’ icy prison. But that element of uncertainty, of danger, was not without its charm. If Oswald is honest with himself he knows that Ed’s ability to snap into violent psychosis at the drop of a hat is a key part of what attracted him to the man in the first place.

And even after being frozen Ed had still been Ed. Not Ed at his prime, true, as Oswald had taken delightful pains to point out, but still recognisably Ed nonetheless.

Now –

Now there’s just a gaping chasm of insanity between Oswald and the man Ed used to be.

An insanity driving Ed to seek answers by coating himself in questions. A quixotic endeavour that serves only to make him a literal embodiment of the very thing he’s trying so desperately not to become. 

No longer The Riddler. Just a riddle.

“Now what – what was it?” Ed goes on, returning the pen to his wrist. “The more, no, the less you –” The ink seeps into an ugly green blotch. “No, no! This is no good. I need… I need something more, something deeper for this one…”

He twists his head this way and that, scanning the floor. When it fails to offer up whatever he’s looking for he wrinkles his nose and tuts, scowling down at the pen.

As he stares his head tilts and his eyes grow thoughtful.

“Maybe…” He brings his other hand to the plastic and holds it horizontal. “Yes. Yes, this will do.”

With a fierce twist he cracks the pen in two, discarding the side with the tip and the trailing inner tube of ink and holding up the second half to inspect the jagged point now jutting from one end.

“Yes.”

In the next instant the sharp end is angled towards his skin, a bubble of red forming around it as he presses down, which is the last straw for Oswald.

“For god’s sake, Ed, enough!” Oswald yells, grabbing both Ed’s wrists and yanking them apart. There’s a moment of grace before Ed starts to resist – shock, presumably – and Oswald takes advantage of the hesitation to relinquish Ed’s empty hand and snatch the broken half of the pen away. “I did not go to the trouble of bringing you back from the dead so you could hide in some dark corner and bleed yourself dry!” he shouts, throwing the splintered plastic behind him and far from Ed’s reach.

Ed bears his teeth and wrenches free from Oswald’s hold, his once distant gaze now flashing with anger, one hand lifting to strike. But Oswald doesn’t back down. He’s suffered beatings before. Let the man try, he’ll give as good as he gets.

Only Ed doesn’t strike him. Instead his hand moves upward and his fingers clutch the air at his temple. Reaching for glasses that aren’t there. After a few seconds of this Ed slaps his hand to his thigh with a growl of frustration.

“Then why did you?” he asks, voice rising in pitch. Almost a whine. “Why did you bring me back?”

His eyes find Oswald’s and fix there with more focus, more awareness, than he’s shown since Oswald got here and Oswald can’t tell if it’s this change or the question itself that holds him in breathless silence.

“Why?” Ed asks again and when Oswald still doesn’t answer he claws his hands into Oswald’s jacket and pulls himself closer, hot flecks of saliva spotting Oswald’s cheek as Ed continues. “Why? Why, why, why, why?” He’s begging now, lips trembling, voice raw and broken. But his words are also structured at least, as opposed to the frenzied meandering of before, which is a positive development. Perhaps.  “To mock me, is that it? Punish me? Make me relive my failures over and over again? Because that’s all I do. I fail and fail and fail and oh god, Oswald, I can’t – I can’t do it anymore!” With a choking sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob Ed drops his head against Oswald’s chest. “You should have just left me as I was,” he moans into Oswald’s shirt. “I'm better off dead. My dad was right. Better if I was never born. You should’ve – you should’ve just left me –”

He cuts off, shoulders shaking as weak, wet sounds begin to escape him at irregular intervals and it takes several of these for Oswald to realise with a jolt that Ed is crying.

Oswald stills, paralysed with shock.

Because this is unprecedented.

Ed has witnessed Oswald cry many times, but not once has he displayed similar vulnerability in Oswald’s presence. Even after defrosting, when he was forced to accept the humiliating truth of his mental deterioration, even in the deepest throes of grief over Isabel – Isabella? – Oswald hadn’t seen Ed shed so much as a single tear.

Oswald had, in fact, begun to suspect Ed didn’t experience emotion enough to allow for tears.

He had most certainly never foreseen Ed breaking down in such spectacular fashion.

And it should be a victory, shouldn’t it? Isn’t this what he’s dreamed of for years now? Ed prostrate before him – quite literally laid bare.

Instead it feels awkward. And embarrassing. And wet.

He lifts a hand to the back of Ed’s head and offers a tentative pat.

“Hush, Ed,” he murmurs. “It – it’ll be alright.”

“No, no it won’t,” Ed sniffs back. “It’ll never be right. I’ll never be right. Every time I think I have my life in order it all just falls apart. I’m just – I’m cursed.”

A hint of petulance creeps into his tone that makes Oswald purse his lips against the slow build of sympathy Ed’s plight was starting to foster in him.

“Oh please.” Oswald’s voice grows a little sharper. “Cursed? That’s – that’s hardly logical now, is it?”

Still clinging to Oswald’s lapels, Ed inhales brusquely and lifts his head, blinking through his tears in an effort to compose himself.

“Isn’t it?” he counters. “Just look at the facts.” He draws a hand away to raise a shaking finger. “I was happy with Kristen. Everything was perfect. Then I lost her.” A curious turn of phrase, Oswald thinks, as Ed lifts a second finger, but he can hardly judge. He’s been known to mask his own crimes many a time by describing them in more sanitary terms. “I was happy again with Isabel,” Ed goes on, tears drying, eyes growing bright as he loses himself in the analysis.

Oswald frowns.

“Don’t you mean –?” he interjects, but Ed continues over him before the word ‘Isabella’ can reach his lips, seemingly unaware of the interruption. Or his mistake.

“I really thought we had a future together. Until she was taken from me.” Another interesting editorial. But if Ed wants to skip over Oswald’s part in Isa-whatever’s demise then Oswald is more than happy to let the revision stand. “And then Lee…” Ed lifts a third finger then stops. His face twitches and his eyes press shut, hand moving down his stomach and holding there.

The scar left by his fatal stabbing is minimal – healing that had been one of the first things Strange accomplished and he’d done it with remarkable skill. Still, small as it was it was a scar Ed would bear for the remainder of his new life and Oswald can’t deny the pleasure he’d felt when Strange showed him the mark. A constant, visual reminder of trauma inflicted by a loved one to match the angry pink welt marring the same spot on Oswald’s abdomen.

He wonders if the scar hurts now, like his own had those first few days after the docks. Perhaps that’s part of the reason for Ed’s current grimace.

Oswald hopes so.

“I thought we had something,” Ed mutters, opening his eyes. “But it was never me she wanted.”

It’s only with considerable effort that Oswald manages to bite back an ‘I told you so.’

“So you see? Three times, that’s a pattern!” Ed tugs at Oswald’s jacket for emphasis. “It’s undeniable. So there’s no point, to any of it! Why go on when I’m destined to be nothing but a miserable, pathetic failure? It’s useless, hopeless, fruitless, stupid, pointless –”

This last string of pouting self-pity tips Oswald’s growing irritation past impatience and into a sudden crimson rush of fury.

“Oh for the –”

He doesn’t bother finishing the sentence, just swings his arm in a fast backhand blow to Ed’s cheek.

This shuts Ed up with gratifying immediacy, his eyes and mouth popping open in almost cartoonish astonishment as he lets go of Oswald to place a trembling palm to his reddened skin.

“Pull yourself together!” Oswald tells him. “So you lost a few lovers. Boo hoo. I’ve lost my mother and my father, my throne, my men, my dignity, my mind. I lost my seat in office. I lost Fish. I lost Butch.” He sweeps a hand up and down Ed’s body with a bark of laughter, too furious to be disturbed by the other man’s exposure any longer.  “I even lost you. I have lost everything. Again and again. But do you see me crying in some dark corner wishing my life away? No. I’m still here. And no matter what life throws at me I will still be here –” He points a finger several times at the ground, unsure if he means here alive or here in Gotham. Perhaps there’s no difference. “– fighting to take back what’s mine!” With a ragged breath Oswald straightens up and sets his shoulders. “So don’t talk to me about loss and how life isn’t worth living, don’t you dare. You think you’ve known pain? You think your life is miserable? You’ve no idea!”

More tears well up in Ed’s eyes but he blinks them away, revealing a keen, entranced expression.  It’s something like the way he used to look at Oswald before, in those early days at his apartment, listening to Oswald’s accounts of murder and extortion with breathless wonder. It had in turn unnerved and excited Oswald back then, the way Ed gawped at him like he hung the moon. Then, with little to no validation from other sources, particularly after the death of his father, it’s no surprise Oswald had come to crave such admiration again. If he’s honest with himself he’d spent as much time as Mayor seeking out those looks as he had on his official duties, if not more.

These days the thought of Ed looking up to him lives only in the misty realms of nostalgia.

And yet –

“You’re still here,” Ed whispers, hand sliding from his cheek, eyes growing warmer as they roam Oswald ‘s face. “No matter what happens…” He nods. “No matter who I lose. You –” His hand once again crosses the distance between them but slow this time, hesitant, until his fingertips are brushing Oswald’s collar and stroking round the curve of his neck. Like he’s seeing Oswald for the first time. “You’re still here,” Ed continues under his breath and it reminds Oswald of their reunion as prisoners of the Court. This time is softer, but the principle is the same – Ed in shock, seeking tangible proof Oswald is real. “You’re always – it’s always you, in the end.” Ed’s gaze grows distant. “Has it always been you?” Then his eyes blink back into focus, bright and urgent. “Are you the answer?”

And now they’re back to nonsense.

Oswald sighs, anger dissipating. Because what use is it? Ed is only half here and maybe not even that. He supposes it wasn’t fair of him lashing out at the man like he had, but damn it he’s no psychologist, how’s he to know when Ed is and isn’t compos mentis?

He needs to get Ed back to Strange, have him finish whatever process Ed’s flight had interrupted. Then, when Ed is back to normal, they can try this again.

“Ed, you’re not making any sense. We need to – hmmfph!”

Oswald has as many fantasies of kissing Ed as he does of killing him. More if you include the occasional daydream of what having a lover might entail that predate Ed’s intrusion on his once happy singular life – daydreams in which visions of Ed are now retrospectively slotted in place of his former, faceless partner, despite Oswald’s efforts to the contrary.

But never – not even in his wildest, darkest, borderline nightmarish dreams – did Oswald imagine his first kiss would be foisted on him unawares by a naked, unwashed, ink-stained madman.

The assault isn’t unbearable – Ed’s mouth is insistent, but strangely gentle. Still, the shock of it is enough to deny Oswald any enjoyment from the experience and his only instinct is a familiar fight or flight. He chooses a combination of the two, shoving Ed away from him and jerking back.

He’s barely taken a breath, much less managed a protest, when Ed is reaching for him again.

“No, don’t – don’t leave –” Ed gasps. More begging. It’s absurd how much of this is what Oswald’s always wanted from him. And nothing like it at all. “Please.” Ed crawls forward, stopping once he’s close enough to cup Oswald’s face in both hands and Oswald finds himself rooted in place. “Please,” Ed breathes across his lips and Oswald braces himself for another kiss, trapped in a bizarre limbo of wanting and not wanting, waiting with horrified fascination to see what Ed does next. But Ed doesn’t kiss him, he just presses their foreheads together. “I just… I need… I need someone to make it stop. Can you –” Their noses brush as Ed lifts his head, eyes burning into Oswald’s like Ed hopes to find the key to the universe there. “Can you make it stop?”

“Make –” Oswald’s throat is like sandpaper, scratching his words. He has to pause to swallow. “Make what stop?”

Then Ed’s hands and face are gone, snatched away as he drops back on his haunches, and while Oswald is still unsure if he appreciated the intimacy or the touch the absence leaves him feeling bereft regardless.

“The noise,” Ed answers, one hand scraping through his hair and twisting a handful into his fist. “In my head.” His graze drifts away. “There’s just – there’s too much! Too many facts, too many ideas, too many voices, I can’t – I can’t think! If I could just think maybe I could figure a way out. Change the future. I just – I need –” He draws his hand away, fingers biting into his palm. “Speak my name I disappear, what am I?” A hiss of breath through clenched teeth. “No, no. The more there is of me the less you see, what am I?” A shake of his head. “No. No! I weaken all men for hours each day, show you strange visions when you are away, what am I? What am I? What –?” With a high, reedy whine Ed presses his eyes tight together. “No. Focus.” He thumps his fist to the side of his head and holds it there, words bursting out of him faster and faster, building into the same stream of senseless babble he’d been trapped in when Oswald found him. “Newton’s First Law states – an object will remain at rest unless acted upon by an external force. Newton’s Second Law – the acceleration of an object is dependent on the mass of and the net force acting on the object. Newton’s third law – every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Every action – every – the – the circumference – the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter is represented by the figure pi – the – the average human body has between one point two to one point five gallons of blood and – and – the Fibonacci sequence is an integer sequence where every number is the sum of the two proceeding ones id est zero, one, one, two, three, five…”

What possesses Oswald next he honestly couldn’t say. Is he trying to answer Ed’s plea and make his confusion stop? Or is he just trying to give himself some peace and quiet? And either way – why like this? Some primal force at play? A natural progression from Ed’s kiss perhaps?

But regardless of the reasoning, be it to help Ed or help himself, Oswald reaches down between the jabbering man’s legs and wraps his gloved hand firmly round the shaft of Ed’s cock.

The response is electric.

Ed cuts out of his endless chatter with a loud, lingering gasp. His eyes open wide, hand dropping to the ground and he stares and stares at Oswald.

Yes. This is more like it, Oswald thinks, lips curving.

“Better?” he asks, squeezing his fingers, confidence returning now the balance of power between them has shifted in his favour.

Save for a sharp inhale at the increase in pressure Ed makes no sound in response. He only nods, rapidly, eyes shining with a relief so intense it borders on awe.

“Good.”

Oswald lifts his other hand and leans forward, brushing the long, damp bangs from Ed’s eyes before tracing the curve of Ed’s right cheekbone with his thumb and pressing the tip to the corner of Ed’s parted lips. When his eyes drift up again Ed’s are waiting for him. Questioning.

Alright. If the answer Ed seeks lies in him then so be it. Oswald will give it to him.

“Kiss me again,” he commands and Ed doesn’t hesitate. He surges forward and captures Oswald’s lips once more, hands splayed across each of Oswald’s cheeks.

But this time there’s no fear in the embrace. This time, despite the enveloping hold of Ed’s long fingers, Oswald doesn’t feel cornered or caged because this time he has precisely what was lacking before – control.

So this time he savours every fierce press of Ed’s lips and answers with gusto, eyes closing as his own mouth cracks open so Ed can move deeper, free hand clawing up and about Ed’s neck to urge him on. Ed’s lips are cold and chapped and scratch, their teeth clash. It’s wild and animal. And perfect.

And all the while Oswald rubs and rubs with his other hand until he feels Ed start to swell against his palm. As he does Ed starts to hum into the kiss in a way that is raw and needy and delicious and all at once Oswald is ravenous.

He’s done this plenty of times on his climb up the criminal ladder, of course, in ways as diverse as they were depraved, but no one’s tried to kiss him through it before. Why would they? He was just a convenient reciprocal for pleasure. An object to use and discard, or so they’d thought. A freak to blot out of sight and mind until it was over. What use had they of the intimacy of a kiss?

So he had no idea. What a difference it makes.

Who knew that sounds of pleasure could be so enjoyable. Could be something you taste. Something you crave.

“Oswald…” Ed breaks away to speak and the interruption is exceedingly unwelcome. “I – I need –”

Oswald lifts his hand from Ed’s cock and holds his fingers over Ed’s lips instead, ignoring Ed’s mewl of protest.

“I didn’t say you could stop. Or that you could speak,” Oswald hisses. Ed curls his hands from Oswald’s face but doesn’t move away. He shivers, but holds still under Oswald’s touch, blinking down at him. Waiting. Perfectly – almost unnaturally – silent. Oswald’s heart skips a beat at the sight, wondering just how far Ed’s obedience can be stretched. “I’ll give you what you want,” he promises. “But you don’t speak unless I tell you to. And you do exactly what I say, when I say it. Understand?”

It’s not until Ed nods, slow and sombre, that Oswald truly comprehends the gift he’s stumbled upon.

Up until now he’s been simply, well, fooling around in response to the amorous direction Ed had decided to take things. But seeing Ed so utterly, impeccably submissive makes Oswald realise there’s a real opportunity here.

The next twenty four hours were crucial, Strange had said, for Ed’s physical and cognitive restoration.

So – if Oswald were to cultivate certain psychological dependences in Ed within those hours, would said dependences then be hardwired into the other man for all time?

Even not – it seems a waste not to try.

And if nothing else it might at least cure Ed of his current malady. Oswald had brought Ed back to himself before in Arkham, freeing him of his lingering post-ice confusion with a single word. Why couldn’t he do it again? Yes, the damage here is obviously much greater. But that’s all the more reason why he needs to use more than words this time.

“Alright. Now –”

Oswald draws his hand back and leans forward, ready to resume their former activities. But as he does a white hot flash of pain lances up his leg and he grits his teeth against the accompanying groan. He’s been kneeling too long. Curse his weak and wretched body.

Very well, he thinks, as he drops his hand to the offending ankle and starts to knead the flesh through the tailored fabric of his pants. Change of plan.

“Lie down.”

He spits out the instruction while still massaging his aching leg and admits it lacks the gravitas of his previous directives. Which is probably why Ed hesitates, the beginnings of a frown etching across his face as he glances behind him at the dusty floor.

“I said lie down,” Oswald repeats, halting his ministrations to scowl.

This does the trick and with a contrite glance and nod Ed twists his legs out from under him and spreads himself out across the library’s cold, black tiles. He flattens his palms either side of himself and stares up at the ceiling, breath sharp and shallow with anticipation.

After several huffs and hisses Oswald manages to coax his aching muscles into moving again and sprawls alongside the other man, easing his bad leg into a more bearable, if not entirely comfortable, stretched out position.

Once done he turns his attention back to Ed and finds he hasn’t moved. Save his cock, which has swollen enough to bob up against his stomach. The dampness at the tip smearing across Ed’s navel is the icing on the cake.

It’s all just –

“Perfect…” Oswald whispers.

He reaches out. Stops. Shuffles closer and quickly tugs his right hand free of his glove.

Then he’s trailing his fingers up the inside of Ed’s leg, stroking through the hair further up and wrapping his hand around the warm, hard flesh above.

Ed whimpers, rocking up to try and thrust deeper into Oswald’s embrace and Oswald smiles.

“Good boy.”

He offers the praise without thinking and feels himself blush as the words leave him. It’s not that he objects to the dominating role they establish – placing Ed under his control is the purpose of this endeavour – it’s just that the turn of phrase is so very… maternal.

Fortunately Ed himself has no qualms. On the contrary, his eyes drift shut at the words, lips curving.

Interesting.

Despite the positive reaction Oswald doesn’t want to push his luck and risk his tenuous hold on Ed by saying too much, so he forgoes further speech for the moment and focuses on squeezing and pulling. It’s surprising how easily the old technique returns when it’s been years since he’s needed to coerce another man this way. And without the necessity of personal advancement to prompt him he’s never gone looking for other opportunities. Acts of this nature simply aren’t the kind of thing he feels any particular desire for.

Seeing Ed grow wanton beneath his touch, however – that’s making his heart race for certain.

Perhaps this is lust.

But if it is, Oswald suspects it’s not the typical kind. Because he has no craving for any of the physical exertions he’s heard lovers most commonly engage in.

He doesn’t want to fuck or be fucked by Ed.

He wants to own him.

To own him in a way both possessive and tender, he discovers, when Ed’s hums turn to anxious, high pitched keening that Oswald’s first instinct is to soothe.

“Shhhh.” He shifts his weight back to his weak leg, freeing his left hand to stroke across Ed’s brow. “Shhhh.” While his left hand grows softer, thumb rubbing gentle circles into Ed’s skin, he quickens the pace of his other. Not too much. Just enough for Ed to relax into the new rhythm, hips rocking in time with each pull, whimpers easing into smooth, breathless moans. “It’s alright,” Oswald tells him. “I’ve got you now.”

He waits a moment before continuing, until he’s sure Ed is completely immersed in sensation.

“My dear… Enigma,” he says. Soft, like a lullaby. Ed arches his back at the endearment. Good. This might be easier than expected. “You know all these riddles…” Oswald moves his gloved hand from Ed’s face and starts to trace the letters etched across his chest.  “But you’re the biggest one of all, aren’t you?” Ed’s lips part in a gasp, loud and deep, brow creasing, and Oswald can’t tell if the reaction is pleasure or pain. Or both. It doesn’t really matter either way. “No one knows who you really are. Not even yourself.” With his right hand still moving back and forth, steady as a heartbeat, Oswald slides his other over Ed’s shoulder and pulls himself down. “Except me,” he adds, low, into the shell of Ed’s ear. “I know exactly who and what you are.”

Ed quakes and Oswald grins. They’re in his element now. Whispers and implication, the right word at the right time, nudging people’s thoughts and emotions in a direction better suited to his ambitions.

It’s not a tactic Oswald typically employs mid-coitus, but then, nothing with Ed has ever been typical.

“You’re Edward Nygma,” he goes on. “And when you’re not being an idiot –” Surprising how fondly he’s able to recall Ed’s past idiotic behaviour in this moment. “– you’re the smartest man I know.”

This turns Ed’s rocking fast and erratic but Oswald doesn’t match the pace, he keeps on with his own, steady rhythm until Ed is calm again.

“So don’t listen to anyone else,” Oswald presses, sweeping his left hand over Ed’s jaw and gripping his cheek. “Not even yourself.” He leans closer, mixing Ed’s hot, heavy breath with his own. “Listen to me.” A short pause, to keep Ed attentive. “Because the Ed I know, my Ed, he wouldn’t give up after a few minor setbacks. He’s too clever, you’re too clever, for that. You’re going to be a great man, Ed. I know it. And you and me? We’re going to own this city.”

The picture he’s painting gets away from him then and the thought of it leaves Oswald hot and flustered, panting almost as hard as Ed.

He imagines it like the literal portrait he’d commissioned as Major. Only this time Ed isn’t lurking in the shadows. This time Ed is bold and bright and at his side.

That had been his mistake back then, perhaps – trying to keep Ed to himself by hiding him away. Ed had still been so demure at the time, Oswald assumed a role behind the scenes was his preference. He’d yet to uncover the part of Ed that craved the spotlight. But then, to be fair, Ed hadn’t discovered it either he thinks. Or had yet to name that side of him at least. In any case, it’s clear now that to stand any chance of keeping Ed on side ensuring he’s front and centre stage is non-negotiable.

And why not? He looks nicely becoming there in his shining green which, against all sense of fashion and decorum, somehow suits him beautifully. And he needn’t be a threat. Not now Oswald understands it is just the spotlight Ed wants, not the power.

“You and me,” he repeats, a little out of breath now. “My Ed…” He runs his hand, gloved fingers spread wide, down Ed’s neck, his collarbone, his chest and stops over his heart, fingers digging into the skin like he’s planning to rip the organ free. He catches snippets of words there – bought… stolen… priceless. The riddles aren’t always infuriating, he thinks. “My Riddler.”

Ed’s lips part in a silent scream while his hips snap up, painfully sharp, again and again and again.

“That’s it,” Oswald murmurs, meeting Ed’s thrusts this time. “That’s it.”

Eventually the silence breaks and a long, thin whine rises from Ed’s throat, his cock pulsing in Oswald’s hand.

He’s close. Agonisingly so. But from the way he keeps whining and thrusting it seems he can’t quite push himself over the edge.

“Look at me,” Oswald tells him and Ed’s eyes burst open at once, darting about the ceiling, up and down, before finding Oswald and locking on. “Good.” Oswald’s breath catches with the word, evidence of his power sending a giddy rush of blood to his head. “Now, tell me –” A quick swallow. “Tell me what you are.”

A small crease forms at the centre of Ed’s brow.

Confusion?

Or resistance?

If it’s the latter Oswald can’t allow it, so he slows his right hand and quirks an eyebrow. An obvious threat of what awaits Ed should he disobey.

Whatever it was keeping Ed from responding, this is more than enough to loosen his tongue.

“I – I –” he stutters. “I’m… good?”

Oswald speeds up again and Ed’s eyelids flutter. He fights the urge to close them, however, and keeps his eyes on Oswald as instructed.

Impressed, Oswald gives a congratulatory nod before adding –

“And?”

“I’m – I’m clever.”

One corner of Ed’s mouth flickers upward and Oswald nods again.

“And?”

"I'm Edward. Edward Nygma."

"And?" 

“And I’m The Riddler!” Ed gasps, open mouth curling round a triumphant smile, back arching and holding there.

But Oswald grips the base of Ed’s cock and squeezes. Lightly. Also holding. Keeping the climax back.

“And?” he prompts once more.

Ed’s smile dips and he blinks up at Oswald as his hips fall, pained and desperate.

“I’m…” he starts, trailing into uncertain silence.

The crease in Ed’s brow returns and Oswald moves his left hand to gentle it away, smoothing the skin with his gloved fingers and running them up into the damp mess of Ed’s hair.

“Yes?” he prompts.

Ed scans his face a moment then –

“I’m yours,” he breathes and his eyes fill with wonder. “I’m yours.” He repeats it over and over like a cry of eureka, each time with greater conviction. “I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours I’m yours I’m –”

Oswald leans down.

“Shhh.” He presses a hard, bruising kiss to Ed’s temple and Ed cuts off. “Yes you are,” Oswald murmurs into Ed’s skin, before pulling back to face him. “Yes you are,” he says again, firmer, punctuating the statement with a fresh squeeze of Ed’s cock.

Though he gasps at the sensation, though his cock throbs against Oswald’s fingers, Ed doesn’t push for more.

The surrender in Ed’s eyes is absolute and it strikes Oswald that for this one moment he could ask almost anything and Ed would comply. He could stop this right now and leave Ed unsatisfied and Ed would suffer it without complaint. He could tell Ed to suck him off and he’d be on his knees unbuttoning Oswald’s fly in an instant. He could tell Ed to slit his own throat and Ed’s only hesitation would be from finding a weapon.

Oswald does none of those things.

Because right now there’s only one thing he wants Ed to do.

“Now come for me,” he says.

Ed obeys with a strangled cry after just one stroke, eyes forced shut by the strength of his climax as it explodes across his chest and splashes as far as his neck. He thrusts upward a couple more times after it’s over then drops back with a shudder and lays still, panting like a wounded animal.

For a moment all Oswald can do is pant alongside him, similarly drained.

Then he’s grinning, wide enough to make his cheeks ache, and biting back laughter. Because here is Ed finally broken by his hand – literally his hand, not Victor’s Freeze Ray, not Firefly’s flamethrower. Ed is broken and bent to his will and it needed no third party, no special weapon, no elaborate plot – just himself. Just his words and his wits and his touch.

Who knew Edward Nygma could be so damn easy?

Oswald allows himself the indulgence of one last smile. Then he takes a breath through his nose to clear his head and begins to clean up the results of his achievement.

He tugs a pressed, white handkerchief from his jacket pocket with his gloved hand and delicately wraps the material round the wet one still tangled about Ed’s shrinking cock, wiping both dry together. Once done he folds the fabric, restores his discarded glove to his now empty hand and mops up the rest of Ed’s pleasure in slow, tidy strokes, mixing the liquid and ink so Ed’s riddles swirl together in a green blur.

It takes several minutes and a second handkerchief to clean Ed completely. Or sufficiently at least. But through it all Ed doesn’t move or make a sound, save the slowing rise and fall of his chest as his breathing calms.

If he’s sleeping that serves Oswald’s purpose fine. He’ll be much easier to transport back to Strange while unconscious. Boris can carry him. Though carrying him naked through the cold city streets won’t be good for Ed, not to mention the unwanted attention and whispered rumours about Oswald such a display is likely to create.

With this in mind Oswald glances round for any sign of Ed’s clothes, or his glasses come to that. He’d walked in here wearing them so they must be somewhere, but a full look about the room reveals nothing. Wherever Ed’s unstable mind thought to stash them is nowhere close apparently.

When Oswald turns back Ed is starting to shiver. Can’t have that.

With a tut – irrationally fond – Oswald removes his own jacket and spreads it out over Ed’s shaking body. It’s not long enough to cover him – how could it be? – but it provides cover for his chest and waist, offering a modicum of warmth and dignity at least. Oswald can strip more layers off his goons outside if needs be.

He turns to reach for his cane, preparing to lever himself up and go issue new instructions, when a tug on his cuff draws him back.

Ed’s eyes are still closed, but he’s freed a hand from under Oswald’s jacket to grab at him. The grip is soft though, beseeching not demanding.

“Stay… stay…” Ed murmurs.

“I’ll be right back,” Oswald answers, taking Ed’s hand in his own and pressing the back of it to his lips.

But Ed is not pacified and grips tighter round Oswald’s fingers when he tries to lower Ed’s hand back down.

“No. No, please,” Ed insists, eyes blinking open. “I still have one more riddle.”

“Ed.” Oswald brushes errant locks of hair back from Ed’s forehead. He’s definitely getting the man a haircut once they get back. “Go to sleep.”

It’s not defiance that keeps Ed from obeying, his face is too pained.

“But – but I don’t know the answer.”

Oswald sighs.

“If you don’t know, what makes you think I’ll be able to provide one?”

“Because,” Ed starts, childlike hope in his eyes. A kid at bedtime, pleading for a story. “You’re the only one who can.”

That is a little curious.

“Oh, alright,” Oswald concedes, adding when Ed fails to elaborate – “Well?”

“Here, here.”

Ed walks his hand up Oswald’s sleeve and tugs, pulling Oswald closer and closer until he’s lying down as well, the two of them face to face. It’s – nice. The two of them huddled close, almost cuddling.

“Oswald.” Ed breathes his name hot and heavy across Oswald’s face and Oswald smells the sharpness of Ed’s sweat and the lingering, musky taste of sex. “Do you still love me?”

A handful of bemused seconds tick by as Oswald tries to understand how the question relates to whatever riddle Ed has in store for him, before he realises the question is itself the riddle.

There’s an anxious yearning in Ed’s eyes now that feels like a mirror. Oswald reaches out and tucks Ed’s absurdly long hair behind his ear to get a better look and puffs out a breath of laughter.

“No,” he answers, deliberately misleading, and his heart swells at the way Ed’s face falls. “No, that’s not the riddle you should be asking,” he goes on, running his thumb across Ed’s cheek. “The real riddle is –” He pinches Ed’s skin, because there should be an inescapable pain to this truth for both of them. “When am I ever going to stop?”

Though Oswald pinches hard enough to mark Ed’s skin burning red Ed doesn’t pull away or try to stop him. Instead, just when Oswald’s hand is starting to ache, he breaks into a serpentine smile, long and thin.

“I know the answer to that one,” Ed tells him.

“Do you now?” Oswald slides his thumb down to Ed’s chin and curls a finger below, tilting his head to better meet Ed’s eye.

“Never,” Ed says and for a second his eyes are dark, flashing with a familiar, predatory gleam. And when he closes the distance between them and presses another kiss to Oswald’s lips Oswald can’t tell if he’s the possessor or the possessed. Then it’s over and Ed is snuggling into him, head slotting beneath Oswald’s chin as he mutters in sleepy, childish slurs – “never, ever, ever…”

After taking a moment to calm himself Oswald brings a hand to the back of Ed’s head and holds him close.

“Correct,” he whispers.

It’s hours later when Oswald wakes up, cold and stiff. He can tell because weak glimmers of morning light are starting to push their way through the windows, casting odd, stripy patterns across the floor and the back of his jacket.

The awakening is unexpected for two reasons –

Firstly, he doesn’t remember falling asleep.

He certainly hadn’t intended to spend the night on a hard, unwashed library floor – not only was it unsanitary, the unyielding surface and unforgiving temperature have played havoc with his bad leg, which is already cocooned in pain that Oswald knows from bitter experience will last him the day, if not longer. The last thing he recalls is Ed’s embrace, sweet and soft and irresistible. He hadn’t wanted it to end, so he’d decided to wait, just a few minutes, before heading back to his men. Exhaustion must have overtaken him in the interim. It had been a long and trying day.

Secondly, his waking is unusual is because, as he discovers when he attempts to shift himself with a huff and a grunt into a position slightly less agonising, he is alone beneath the meagre covering offered by his jacket.

This discovery jolts him upright regardless of his protesting leg and he whips his head around the room.

Empty.

Goddamn it!

He grabs his cane – that’s still where he’d left it at least – and after several failed attempts manages to scramble to his feet. His cursed leg is getting worse he swears. He needs to do something about it and soon. With Gotham a literal war zone he can’t afford this kind of weakness. Strange had mentioned something in passing about designs for a leg brace the other day which Oswald dismissed in favour of more pressing concerns. Perhaps it was time to revisit the concept.

But first things first.

He’s just about to start calling for Ed, in the hope he’s only wondered off absentminded down the shelves or something, when he notices the folded paper on the tabletop, fashioned into the now all too familiar shape of a penguin.

The scattered books from last night have all been cleared away so the paper animal, adorned with a scratchy green question mark on the chest, is hard to miss. The ink seems faintly luminous in the shadowy combination of early dawn and fading candlelight.

Where is Ed getting these pens? Oswald wonders, before dismissing the thought with an impatient shake of his head and limping over to snatch at the paper.

My dearest Oswald he reads, once he’s untangled enough of the intricate folds, and the sentiment is surprising enough to both pique his interest and calm his frustration. He hobbles to the nearest chair and settles down on it to smooth the page out fully and read the rest.

My dearest Oswald,

You can break me, change me, touch me and steal me.
But try to hold me and you lose me forever.

What am I?

I trust you know. You always know.

The truth is I have precious little left of mine. Indeed, I fear I never had much of one to begin with and what remains has become something of a burden to me now. So I am leaving the last few bruised and broken pieces with you, to do with as you see fit. I think, perhaps, you will take better care of them than I have.  

Meanwhile, I promise to do my best to mend the torn remnants I so carelessly ripped from you. After all your efforts to fix me it seems the least I can do.

But first I must, as you so succinctly put it, pull myself together. This may take some time as I confess I am quite scattered at present.

Once I have united all my disparate parts I’m sure I will find my way back to you somehow.

Until then I remain

Yours,

Edward Nygma,
The Riddler

Oswald reads through the whole thing twice and only stops himself from a third reading because a wet mist across his eyes blurs the words. He blinks his vision clear enough to make out Ed’s final ‘yours’ and traces it with one finger to make absolutely certain he’s read it correctly. When the word remains a stubborn reality unblemished by his touch Oswald can’t help pressing the paper to the very organ Ed’s message waxes philosophic on.

You’re meant to feel disappointed, he supposes, waking to a love letter instead of a lover. But since this is his first experience of either Oswald finds himself more than satisfied.

Enough that he decides to forgo any punishment of Boris and his men for allowing Ed to leave the premises and leaving him inside all night. They had, after all, followed his order to the letter. He’d told them only to keep others out. To their simple minds venturing inside themselves would no doubt have violated that instruction, while letting Ed go would not.

No matter.

What would taking Ed back to Strange have accomplished really, beyond giving the quack the chance to botch Ed’s revival further?

No, the truth is that, for once in his miserable life, things have turned out better than Oswald hoped.

The pure, delightful poetry of Ed’s note proves he’s intellectually capable again, so Oswald need no longer fear his demise out in the city streets. He is no longer required to devote time and resources to Ed’s care. And if Ed isn’t by his side like Oswald envisioned in the throes of what he understands in retrospect had been their mutual passion, well, that’s alright too, because he has Ed’s promise to return.

Assuming his words are true. But Oswald has no reason to doubt them. He wasn’t lying when he’d told Ed he knew him. Ed is meticulous, pedantic and fixed in his ways – once he sets his mind on something he is compelled to see it through, no matter what. And, with only minimal prodding, he has set his mind on belonging to Oswald, wholly and without reservation.

Ed is his now, well and truly, just like he wanted.

Ed is his. And nothing, not time or distance or even death, can change that.

Oh yes there will be other obsessions, no doubt. Other people that catch Ed’s fickle eye. But as Oswald draws the paper from his heart and looks again at each neat, perfectly formed letter across it he’s struck with almost prophetic certainty that whatever, or whoever, the future might hold for either of them, he and Ed will always circle back to each other in the end.

It doesn’t feel like fate, exactly. Oswald has never been much of a believer in that. But there’s a sense of inevitability. A destiny laid out for them. Built from their own mistakes and machinations and the constant, corrupting force of the city, all twisting together to bring them to this moment, to break them and make them and bind them together.

It’s been a long, arduous road of pain and suffering, love and loss, and it isn’t over yet, not by a long shot.

But in that moment Oswald knows he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He can’t restore the paper to its former glory. But he still has the original penguin Ed gifted him in Arkham all those lifetimes ago and he’s sure if he wanted this one refolded Ed would be happy to oblige. So instead of trying Oswald folds the paper twice and tucks it safe inside his shirt pocket, ready to be transferred somewhere more secure once he gets home.

No longer in any hurry he takes his time getting back to his feet, retrieves his jacket and does the best he can to smarten himself up. This would be easier with a mirror, but libraries have little use for them of course, being places of study as opposed to living quarters. He could have one brought in. Should he plan to return here for any reason.

Something to consider.

But not now. Now he has a criminal empire to attend to.

So with one last glance at the dying candles and cold floor Oswald turns and heads out into his city.

No rest for the wicked and all that.