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

[unriddling]

"I'm sure you do," Edward says. "Judging and whatnot." He doesn't often have fictional things in his dreams--it tends to go for broken memories on repeat, or being chased by something definitely human--but it's an easy enough conclusion to make, that he's sitting across from a demon. There might be something symbolic, here.



Edward leans back and stretches. "I am. I should. I have things to do...but there's nothing really left I can do right now." He would never admit this if he was conscious.

[seditixn]

"Well, there is one thing you can do." Sed glances around at the cakes laden on the tables, a sea of pastel neon fondant and such. "Relax...? Have some cake? Might be the only thing you can do for now, actually."

The over-sweet smell fermenting in the room is starting to get to him, but the undertone of nausea is nothing he hasn't swallowed down before, for worse reasons than mildly interesting conversation. He thumbs a brownie off of a plate in front of him and starts nudging it around the table, before pointing a finger up and raising an eyebrow at the human. "This place yours?"

[unriddling]

Edward is staring at the cavernous ceiling, waiting for circuit-lines to draw themselves across the surface. It doesn't happen. "Hmm."

Languid, he reaches without looking for where he expects a cupcake to be. It's pure luck that there, in fact, is one. (Or rather, Sed's color organization.) It's purple.

"Well, it is my dream, isn't it?" He shifts until he's almost sitting correctly, only he seems to overdo it until he's hunched over his prize like it's a keyboard at a too-low desk. "I've been dreaming about old classrooms and projects more often than not. This place is new," he answers, taking a bite that consumes half at once. His body hasn't forgotten it's hungry.

[seditixn]

Purple. Good choice. Or maybe some sort of symbolism that Sed isn't clued in enough to pick up on, though he tucks the probably irrelevant information into the back of his mind in case it comes up again later.

Which is like, totally normal.

"Ah...Hm. Then maybe it's not yours after all." Sed's own gaze wanders. His foot taps subtle patterns under the table in groups of three, half purposeful and half not. "You don't happen to remember what you were doing just before you ended up here, do you?"

[unriddling]

Nothing wrong with data acquisition. Though Edward would be suspicious if he knew. (And thought Sed wasn't a part of his own brain.)

"I was in the university lab, working out details that have been worked out for days," he says dryly. He notices sound on the edge of his awareness, starting to drum a matching beat with his fingers against his chair's side. "This isn't the first time my mind's made a new location, or people--it's only been a while."

[seditixn]

And, okay. Sed's kind of been operating on the assumption that they're both aware this is a dream bubble, but if this dude genuinely thinks this is a dream --

Tricky. Tricky tricky.

The pause as Sed tries to figure out what he should say is noticeable. Should he prod more to confirm that this human thinks he's only dreaming? Should he jump right into exposition? But after what amounts to pretty much stringing him along, Sed isn't sure he wants to deal with the possibility of Edward reacting in shock, or anger.

It'd be mean to purposefully play this like it's a normal dream though. Hfhghfrhg.

Sed's body language has been pretty nonchalant and relaxed so far. He's sitting up now, the same brownie as before beginning to crumble as he picks at it with a claw. "I'm - uh, sorry, I thought you knew. You've never been in a dream bubble before?"

(This is not a dream bubble. Not in the slightest. But Sed doesn't know that yet.)

[unriddling]

Edward waits with the patience of the dreaming; alternatively, with the patience of someone who's so exhausted that nothing has meaning anymore.

Though what the devil-person says next sends a shard of irritation through his head. I thought you knew, implying he doesn't know something in his own dream--or in general, and his placid stare hardens into half a glare. "It sounds like a quaint term for a trip," he answers flatly, fingers digging into the edge of his sweet. "And not the kind I'd willingly go on."

If he has been drugged, heads are going to roll. Or at least grades. He absolutely wouldn't hesitate to ruin the marks of some idiot stoner via hacking for anything like that, but the timing of it couldn't be more horrible. (Or terrifying. He's so close, he can't, he won't lose it all at the last second.)

[seditixn]

Ah, oh, yep, looks like the emotions are coming. (':B

Sed's just gonna...lean...back, a little.

"I...suppose you could call it a trip?" Sed says it hesitantly, completely misinterpreting which sort of trip Edward means. "Like a...uh, collective dream of sorts, a host of subconsciousness held together in one place. Uh...like a bubble. Dream bubble. Ha." He laughs lightly, shrugs the same. This all makes total sense.

"You should wake up normally, though!" Added hastily. "It's not dangerous."

For all that this isn't the first time he's explained this sort of thing, he's always been too cowardly to be the bearer of bad news. No one ever takes the idea well, that they might actually be dead.