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Edward Nygma rarely considered any of his actions "mistakes", but admittedly it was entirely possible that his drug habit had gotten....slightly out of hand.
At first, his hallucination of Oswald Cobblepot did attempt to give him advice when he asked for it, which was why he kept taking the pills after they started making him hallucinate. But the more he took them, the less helpful the hallucination bothered to be.
And now here was the end result of his (maybe poor) decision-making. His hallucination of Oswald sitting on his lap and humming an Amy Winehouse song while Ed attempted to work.
He no longer had control over its actions. Or, at least, not as much control as he wished he had. Even if he willed it to stop it would simply do or say something else equally...irritating.
"Pour myself over him, moon spilling in...."
He was about to tell it to shut up (not that that did anything by itself) when he heard the sound of heels clacking from out in the hallway.
He didn't even need to think about who it was. There was only one person he knew of who wore heels and would actively seek him out.
His suspicion was confirmed when Barbara Kean opened the door to his office and strode in.
"Nygma. I almost thought you got yourself killed. Tabby will be thrilled to hear that you're alive and well," she told him, grinning.
He glanced at Oswald, who was still there and just as much on his lap as he was before. For some reason he had expected it to cease when Barbara came in. He attempted to exert all of his mental energy into making it disappear, but it was entirely unsuccessful.
"That reminds me, Edward," he felt himself stiffen as it began to speak, "you should hope that you're correct when you say ghosts aren't real. Because if they are, not allowing me to live long enough to take my revenge on Tabitha Galavan would be one more reason on an already impressive list of reasons why I would spend my afterlife trying to destroy you."
He had to remind himself that Barbara could not hear it. He was simply experiencing an auditory hallucination.
"Um, hello? Earth to Nygma," Barbara said, snapping her fingers in front of his face.
He was not zoned out, but her doing that helped him to focus. As long as he acted normal she would have no reason to suspect anything about this situation.
"Did you need something?" he asked her. He liked to believe he managed to keep the frustration out of his tone, but deep down he knew that that was wishful thinking.
Instead of answering that question, however, Barbara squinted at him for a few moments, most likely attempting to figure out why he was acting differently.
"Wait," an amused glint in her eye, "you're hallucinating right now, aren't you?"
Ed stared up at her, wide-eyed. What? How could she possibly know?
He attempted to recover from this setback. But before he could, she went on.
"Why am I even asking? It's obvious to anyone with a working brain. Tell me, Eddie, what is that twisted psyche of yours conjuring up? Did I interrupt you imagining Iris or whatever her name was giving you a lap dance?"
Ed blinked multiple times, unable to fully process the words that were just spoken to him. For the first time in a very long time, he was rendered almost entirely speechless.
This state only lasted for a few seconds, thankfully. Oswald laughed, the sound reverberating in his brain. It didn't help the fact that for the first time in a long time, Ed didn't know what to say.
It only lasted for a few seconds, thankfully. He did his best to ignore his hallucination of Oswald cackling as he formulated his response.
"Her name was Isabella!"
There were bigger issues to pay attention to, but that was by far the easiest to correct. It took him a moment to even realize she was talking about her. At least Oswald's insistence on calling her Isabelle was at least close to what her name actually was!
"Isabella, Isasmella," Barbara said, rolling her eyes, "I was close enough. Why do men insist on focusing on the one thing you got wrong when you're making a good point? Jim used to do it all the time when we were engaged..."
Ed glared at her, "Good point? If you actually think you made a good point, Barbara, you're even dimmer than I thought. I am not hallucinating Isabella, or anyone else for that matter, giving me a lap dance."
Just because he was having a hallucination of a man on his lap did not have to mean.....well, anything that being a grown adult and sitting on someone else's lap usually implies!
To his frustration she only appeared more amused at this, however, even going as far as to smirk.
"So, you're not hallucinating that someone is on your lap?"
He felt as if he was about to fall right into her trap, but he also had no clue what the trap was.
"My hallucinations don't work like that, even with the pills you gave me."
It was the truth. Or at least it was the truth until very recently.
Barbara began grinning again, practically confirming his suspicion.
"Hm. Well, maybe I'd have an easier time believing you if your arms weren't telling me the exact opposite!" she gestured to said arms.
His.....
If he were a more poetic man, he would say that his heart stopped when he realized what she was referring to. Somehow, he had not noticed that one of his arms was wrapped around the hallucination's waist, and the hand on his other arm was resting on his knee despite the fact that it was noncorporeal. Or, at least that was what it looked like to him. In Barbara's point of view he had his arm encircled around nothing and one of his hands was hovering a few inches above his knee.
He immediately dropped both of his arms in mortification, but not before Barbara and his hallucination both broke out in a fit of obnoxious, grating laughter.
Never in his life did he wish for a bomb to be unceremoniously dropped on him and another person as much as he did in that moment.