when and what and why and--

[unriddling]

When was the last time he ate? Two days ago? No, yesterday, he choked down a granola bar he'd found buried beneath some paperwork. Stale, perhaps, but enough to keep him going. He hasn't slept in more than that, but the science building has copious amounts of coffee even for Gotham University standards.

The demonstration is in four days. 

Edward's done all he can. Julie too, though she's spent more time in the wheres and whens over the whys and hows. That's entirely his job. And he's done well, as always.

Nonetheless, he hasn't gone back to his room except to shower, double- and triple-checking his bio-harddrives.

That's what he's doing now, hunched over the lab table and going over the circuitry in front of him, then shutting his eyes to do it again, in his head.

They're fine. (He's fine.)



Of course they are. He's done something everyone called beyond impossible. His work is perfect, and it's performed perfectly for months. This is only the confirmation. 

It's fine. It's perfect. All of it. From function to design to size.

...He keeps telling himself this, over and over, until the litany turns into disconnected noises inside his brain. The coffee's gone cold on the counter beside him. His bio-harddrive slides to the cool table below. 

And Edward Nygma isn't awake to notice the world shifting around him.







Now there's a man in a labcoat with his face resting among the ballroom's cakes. Maybe someone should wake him before he moves his head and gets frosting in his hair?

Comments

an unceremonious return because SOMEbody needs to pester this dork

[buttercup_eater]

Chara wakes up groggy and hungry and generally feeling awful, but this isn't unusual enough to really bother them. But it does mean they need to get breakfast, so like any unsupervised kid would they drag themselves out of their blankets and creep to the room full of free cake.

They almost don't notice Edward at first, not with his face to the table like that. It's enough to make them pause partway through a brownie and consider leaving but... they're really hungry and he doesn't seem to have noticed them yet, and curiosity is currently a stronger force than caution. Enough so that, after a few minutes they go from lingering at the other end of the table to poking his face with the side of a book from their inventory, thoughtfully chewing a cupcake while they examine his reaction.

[dunwhale]

The ballroom reminds Daud unpleasantly of the Boyle's lavish parties, and reminded even more unpleasantly of Corvo's solution for Waverly. He only comes to snatch food from the tables, but most of it is sickeningly sweet to someone used to eating tins of fish and jellied eels. Those are found in the kitchen, so he spends most of his food-finding time there.

He's glad that he's decided to come up here, though! There seems to be a new arrival to the castle. For once, he's not the one out of the loop in this place. It's a good feeling.
The difference between a Tether and a Pull is much slighter in intention than it is in action. Pulling something is easier to master, and even some of his Master assassins plateaued at nicking keys and money pouches from someone's belt. Daud has mastered both. It's the work of a moment to snatch a piece of cake from the table. He doesn't like the cake. He's convinced himself of that, but for some reason he keeps eating it.

He meanders around the table and finishes eating before he decides to wake the stranger. There are many ways of waking a person. Daud would much rather let his targets wake up on their own, if they're abductees, so they don't panic. This man is not a target and Daud doesn't have anything against him so he taps his shoulder.

“Don't try to escape,” he says. There are much better openings than that but at the moment he can't think of any. “But I doubt that many of the people here want to.”

[seditixn]

Orrrrrr.

Or!

Sed could just let him sleep. Dude looks like he needs it. Sed pulls up a chair opposite (quietly) and begins to arrange some of the pastries in front of him by color (also quietly); he's willing to play the waiting game, if for nothing else than because he kind of wants to know the fuck this guy's deal is. Who just falls asleep in the middle of a bunch of cakes?

Well. Maybe someone who knows how to party. Maybe this sweet-infested ballroom is one of this dude's memories. (Fuckin' strange mishmash of a dreambubble this place has been so far.)