Breaking into this place seemed beneath him for a number of reasons, but mostly Edward just minded the dirt. The dirt and that vague feeling of coming home, in only the worst meaning of that phrase. The Narrows hadn't changed and he guessed the Cluemaster never saw fit to put what little intellect he possessed to good use and upgrade his living situation.
It was pretty laughable that the man thought he could even compare to him when he couldn't even afford to dress the part, much less something like a decent place to live.
However, all those complaints aside, it did make his job easier. He had made his way up the fire escape and then through the window in no time. Dusting himself off, he looked around. He was dressed casually. Well. He was dressed in a suit, but it was relatively subtle, black rather than green, and only now did he dig into his pocket for a purple domino mask and put it on. Obviously that was just to get himself into the right headspace, not as if it was ever good for actually protecting his identity. He didn't actually expect to run into someone here, after all. Edward looked around the room, seemed to be a living room area. If he was a complete imbecile, then where would he be keeping his computer?
That was a harder mindset to get into.
"Get a clue indeed..." He chuckled to himself, then turned around, scanning the room. Ugh. Hygiene also wasn't the man's strength. Or any basic sense of order.
There was a strange noise and the window was making sound, causing Stephanie to wake up and sit there, in her bed, sleepily processing what was happening. She wasn't really scared of noise and people were in and out of the apartment a lot. Especially mom. She was always making noise and moving around, in and out all hours. She would have just gone back to bed but she did want to make sure that her mom wasn't all bloody or sick again. She slid off the bed and yawned, padding along through her bedroom and pushing the door open.
"Mom? Mom? ... Dad?"
Usually dad didn't come home this late and when he did, he was in a bad mood so she slowed her movements when her mom didn't answer, just in case. As she came into the living room, she tilted his head back and stared at Edward, more baffled than anything. "... Hi."
"...oh." Edward tried a smile, since that seemed like the best response. Why was there a child? Well, he could figure that one out. Ugh, why did people that were this awful have to have children? Just seemed like an awful, awful idea. But he wasn't here to retroactively sterilise idiots, although there was an idea for a scheme.
He crouched down to be closer to level with the child, since putting her at ease was clearly the best thing to do in this situation. "Nice to meet you." Maybe he could just act as if everything was all right and she'd believe him. "I'm just here to surprise your dad. It's a secret."
"My dad doesn't love surprises. You better go. He gets mad." And then he might throw the strange looking man out of the window or something. He looked Edward up and down before pointed at his mask curiously. "Is that so dad doesn't know who you are? Cause it's not very good." It was only covering his eyes! It wasn't going to surprise anyone. Looking away from Edward, she peered around to see if either her mom and dad were about before settling back on Edward.
"Can you get me a glass of water? Before you leave." It was hard to reach the taps and this was safer. "Please."
"...sure." As good a reason to get further into the apartment as any, he supposed. He knew the parents weren't coming home any time soon, he had made sure of that, but having the little child there still put him on edge more. "It's all right. I know what I'm doing, your dad won't get mad at me."
Edward stood up and headed in the direction of what he presumed was the kitchen. "The mask just brings out my eyes. Looks good, don't you think so? What's your name, sweetheart?" He took one look around the filthy place and then started washing a glass. Ugh. Everything about this man and his entire way of living was repulsive. "Remind me to surprise your dad with the concept of hygiene some time."
The test result didn't surprise him, yet Edward repeated it twice, just to be as certain as he could be and maybe a little to give himself some more time to think. He didn't have a long-term plan, no end goal, but the short-term was fairly obvious. She couldn't just stay with her parents. Her supposed father was a brutal imbecile and her mother... Well, she had a lot of issues. Stephanie was not properly taken care of.
Edward had moved relatively recently, his new place was already furnished, but there were rooms he hadn't entirely dedicated to any purpose yet. He was living alone currently, so that left him with a lot of extra space. How fortuitous.
There were some preparations needed, but ultimately it was not even yet a week after his first visit that he entered through the window again, glanced around and then simply called out. "Stephanie? It's me."
Stephanie didn't waste any time, she stumbled out of bed and shot through the room, attaching herself to Edward and hugging his legs tight. She was crying and she knew how ridiculous that was but her father had punished her today for doing nothing and she was feeling quite hurt, she just wanted someone tell her she was good and give her a hug. And then Edward came. Like a miracle! Her special fairy man.
Sobbing against Edward, she said something but it was lost against Edward's pant leg as she gripped onto him desperately. She wanted Edward to do magic and make dad disappear.
That was not what he'd expected, but it also didn't entirely surprise him. Edward could only imagine how he would have felt at her age in any comparable situation and, yes, this made a lot of sense. He crouched down and wrapped his arms around her, stroking her hair and pulling her close, so he could rock her a little and hopefully calm her down. Should he ask her what was wrong? As if he couldn't guess. "Stephanie... If you don’t keep me, I’ll break. What am I?"
"Keep me where?" Stephanie asked with hitched breath, not getting that it was a riddle as she held onto Edward and clung to him, trying to make sense of it all. "Just me? Inside? I don't know. I keep a lot of stuff. I guess my bones?" She pulled back and wiped his eyes with the back of her hand, sniffling slightly. "If I don't take care of them inside of me, they'll break." Like dad always said he'd do, break her bones if she didn't get out of the way.
"Why?" She didn't get why he asked but it did calm her crying.
Jonathan remembered he was a therapist as he lay there, post orgasm, his brain a little slow but he was here, by Edward, trying to keep the session on topic and failing horribly. It was hard, Edward was a tempter and he was a horny idiot - it was a bad combo.
He put his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, trying to find strength to get up and grab his cigarettes. "She home alone tonight or what?"
"Because I'd leave the tiny girl alone at home. Nah, Echo and Query are there. They are doing girl's night. Though she ought to be asleep by now." He was currently too far away from his phone to check, so that would remain something to take care of later. Right now he rested his head on Jonathan's chest, chasing idle thoughts while drawing idle patterns on his skin.
"She's doing all right. She thinks I'm great, because I have a fancy car, fancy digs, don't smell and am handsome. Also, I don't hit or yell." So, honestly, low threshold there. As was to be expected.
"Father of the year." As he kissed along his therapist's bare collarbone, but whatever.
"Doesn't take much, does it? Just don't actively try to ruin her and you'll be father of the year in Gotham." Not that bad fathers were exclusive to Gotham but they sure had a lot of them. Jonathan smiled to himself as he looked up at his ceiling, it had been painted not that long ago so it looked all nice and white. He didn't paint it, Edward hired someone - he was always whining about his apartment so he let Edward handle it.
Edward always did shit around his apartment, it was kind of funny but he didn't mind it. It did look nice to have cleaner stuff and whiter walls.
"You don't regret what you did?" He was curious if Edward had regrets yet or if it would all explode later on when things got harder.
"I mean, I regretted... You know, the thing that led to her, right after that happened. Once the high of that ended, anyway. Not a wise move, for a number of reasons." If deeply satisfying in other ways. "But I'd feel like a dick regretting any of it now. She's alive, she's real. I just gotta not fuck it up."
Whether taking her in would fuck things up, he couldn't really know. "It's fine. I've got a plan in place." More or less, anyway. "Just gotta stay out of Arkham for a while at least."
He sighed, shifting so he could kiss Jonathan's chest. "Mh. You smell nice, showering's good for you."
"So, we're going to have a guest today," Edward told his daughter, while they were sitting around the table working on a puzzle, some music playing in the background. Stephanie was full of energy almost always, but sometimes it was important to do something calm with her as well. Luckily, she seemed to enjoy puzzles, especially when they had a cute motive and weren't too difficult. He had already taught her some tips for how to do a puzzle well. Of course, he was deliberately handicapping himself, not looking at the pieces and just feeling them, picturing it all in his head, so he'd not discourage her by working too fast.
"For dinner and then maybe for a movie as well. It's a dear friend of mine. His name is Jonathan."
"Look, it's part of Winnie the Pooh!" They were doing a disney puzzle and Stephanie always got excited when she recognised who was who. She grinned and showed Edward the puzzle piece proudly. Then she put it into the yellow pile that her dad had taught her to make so she could connect the pieces better.
"Jonathan..." She repeated the name as she fitted two yellow pieces together and then looked at Edward, frowning. "Is he your friend or your best friend?"
"Huh." That was an intriguing question. Edward absently patted Stephanie's head to reward her for recognising the puzzle piece, then traced the outline of another puzzle piece, thinking it over. "If I had to name someone as my best friend then, yes. I guess it'd have to be him."
Whatever that said about them. He wasn't even sure what to think about it, in all honesty. "But, more importantly... You know, I'd also like for him to be my boyfriend. Not just a friend, but someone who is in love with me and thinks I'm very pretty."
Perhaps it said a lot about him that this was how he described a boyfriend, but whatever. Jonathan wasn't here to analyse him.
"Is he very pretty? He has to be pretty too or you're getting a bad deal. You're a prince so you should have a princess or another prince." Eddie liked boys and girls, it was pretty cool. She didn't know people could do that. Now she wanted to marry a princess instead of a prince because boys were so smelly. It would be smarter to just marry girls. "And nice. He has to be nice. Is he nice? When you're not nice and happy then you get mad and hit."
And she didn't want anyone coming into her new cool life who could be mean. She didn't want to meet any hitters or yellers.
Jon was late. Unfortunately, yeah, not a little late but like twenty minutes late.
He hadn't intended to be but he got so nervous about this whole thing that he chain-smoked like crazy, realised he reeked of smoke and had to shower and change. Five minutes before he was supposed to leave. So yeah. Well. He smelled good. Fuck. He didn't want to meet a kid, he wasn't good with kids and he didn't care about them neither but Edward was insistent.
And they were ... friends/fuckbuddies/whatever else so he supposed he sort of owed him this. Meeting his kid. Engaging. All that shit. And he was trying. He was.
"Sorry I'm late. I, uh, I-- yeah." Once Edward had let him in, Jonathan kicked off his shoes and lurking in the hallway was Stephanie, watching him with wide, curious eyes. And Jonathan had no idea what to do. "Hello, sweetheart."
"Hi." Stephanie stayed where she was, suddenly shy, watching Edward more than Jonathan, just to make sure it was all fine. He sounded all nice and he was soooo big. "You're so tall."
"Rudely tall," Edward agreed, ruffling Stephanie's hair, "It's unfairly attractive," he informed her, before closing the distance to Jonathan and helping him out of his jacket, as he seemed intent on just hovering weirdly, like the creeper he was.
"I told Stephanie so much about you, Jonathan. She thinks you are like the prince in Cinderella, so she might have gotten a little confused by my explanation." Because he didn't really think of Jonathan as a prince. Bit too much of a country boy for that. "Hope you're hungry. Well. I guess you always are. Stephanie, Jonathan can eat soooo much, you'll be astonished."
Jon didn't think he could eat today, he was so fucking nervous. And when he was nervous, he started reading into thinks. Did he look freakish? What was unfair about his attractiveness? Was Stephanie going to be cruel? Cause kids were! They pointed out every flaw with a smile and he wasn't damn eager for it but he didn't have time to stick on any of that cause Edward was taking his coat and pushing him forward. "A prince? I ain't no prince. I'm ... yeah. Dunno. Creepy villain that lives in the woods or somethin'."
Stephanie looked at Jonathan longer and then came up to him and held out her picture. "It's pumpkins cause you like Halloween. Dad told me."
Dad. Woah. The Riddle was a dad - it sounded so weird. Jonathan took the picture and looked at it. Looked like a bunch of basketballs but damn, it was sweet. Kids never gave him shit. "Damn, ain't you a little artist? Real good work. Thank you."
"Your eyes are sooooo blue." Stephanie added suddenly and then turned to Edward, grinning. "He's pretty enough, daddy. I checked. You can marry him."
"He does have the most beautiful eyes, doesn't he? I told you." Edward grabbed her around the middle to pick her up and spin her once, glad that he had had the chance to brace himself for that. "What did we say about marriage talk, you lil monster?"
He twirled her around once, then tickled her sides before setting her down again, smirking at Jonathan. "She's very eager to have me shackled, apparently. I think it's mostly because she wants to be a flower girl."
Well, that clearly had to be the incentive here. "She also decided there will be chocolate cake for dessert today, so I think your tastes align. Jonathan loves candy, Stephanie. Especially Halloween candy."
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icebergloungers2021-02-11 02:52 pm
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It was pretty laughable that the man thought he could even compare to him when he couldn't even afford to dress the part, much less something like a decent place to live.
However, all those complaints aside, it did make his job easier. He had made his way up the fire escape and then through the window in no time. Dusting himself off, he looked around. He was dressed casually. Well. He was dressed in a suit, but it was relatively subtle, black rather than green, and only now did he dig into his pocket for a purple domino mask and put it on. Obviously that was just to get himself into the right headspace, not as if it was ever good for actually protecting his identity. He didn't actually expect to run into someone here, after all. Edward looked around the room, seemed to be a living room area. If he was a complete imbecile, then where would he be keeping his computer?
That was a harder mindset to get into.
"Get a clue indeed..." He chuckled to himself, then turned around, scanning the room. Ugh. Hygiene also wasn't the man's strength. Or any basic sense of order.
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"Mom? Mom? ... Dad?"
Usually dad didn't come home this late and when he did, he was in a bad mood so she slowed her movements when her mom didn't answer, just in case. As she came into the living room, she tilted his head back and stared at Edward, more baffled than anything. "... Hi."
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He crouched down to be closer to level with the child, since putting her at ease was clearly the best thing to do in this situation. "Nice to meet you." Maybe he could just act as if everything was all right and she'd believe him. "I'm just here to surprise your dad. It's a secret."
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"Can you get me a glass of water? Before you leave." It was hard to reach the taps and this was safer. "Please."
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Edward stood up and headed in the direction of what he presumed was the kitchen. "The mask just brings out my eyes. Looks good, don't you think so? What's your name, sweetheart?" He took one look around the filthy place and then started washing a glass. Ugh. Everything about this man and his entire way of living was repulsive. "Remind me to surprise your dad with the concept of hygiene some time."
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Edward had moved relatively recently, his new place was already furnished, but there were rooms he hadn't entirely dedicated to any purpose yet. He was living alone currently, so that left him with a lot of extra space. How fortuitous.
There were some preparations needed, but ultimately it was not even yet a week after his first visit that he entered through the window again, glanced around and then simply called out. "Stephanie? It's me."
This time, he didn't bother with a mask.
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Sobbing against Edward, she said something but it was lost against Edward's pant leg as she gripped onto him desperately. She wanted Edward to do magic and make dad disappear.
Or make her disappear somewhere really fun.
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Maybe a riddle would help.
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"Why?" She didn't get why he asked but it did calm her crying.
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to Jonathan Crane
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Yeeeeeeeeeeep
why?
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as you know, the Cluemaster is super annoying
so I had sex with his wife
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As always, great move.
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1/3
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3/3
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Jonathan remembered he was a therapist as he lay there, post orgasm, his brain a little slow but he was here, by Edward, trying to keep the session on topic and failing horribly. It was hard, Edward was a tempter and he was a horny idiot - it was a bad combo.
He put his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, trying to find strength to get up and grab his cigarettes. "She home alone tonight or what?"
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"She's doing all right. She thinks I'm great, because I have a fancy car, fancy digs, don't smell and am handsome. Also, I don't hit or yell." So, honestly, low threshold there. As was to be expected.
"Father of the year." As he kissed along his therapist's bare collarbone, but whatever.
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Edward always did shit around his apartment, it was kind of funny but he didn't mind it. It did look nice to have cleaner stuff and whiter walls.
"You don't regret what you did?" He was curious if Edward had regrets yet or if it would all explode later on when things got harder.
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Whether taking her in would fuck things up, he couldn't really know. "It's fine. I've got a plan in place." More or less, anyway. "Just gotta stay out of Arkham for a while at least."
He sighed, shifting so he could kiss Jonathan's chest. "Mh. You smell nice, showering's good for you."
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"For dinner and then maybe for a movie as well. It's a dear friend of mine. His name is Jonathan."
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"Jonathan..." She repeated the name as she fitted two yellow pieces together and then looked at Edward, frowning. "Is he your friend or your best friend?"
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Whatever that said about them. He wasn't even sure what to think about it, in all honesty. "But, more importantly... You know, I'd also like for him to be my boyfriend. Not just a friend, but someone who is in love with me and thinks I'm very pretty."
Perhaps it said a lot about him that this was how he described a boyfriend, but whatever. Jonathan wasn't here to analyse him.
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And she didn't want anyone coming into her new cool life who could be mean. She didn't want to meet any hitters or yellers.
"Why do you want him to be a boyfriend?"
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He hadn't intended to be but he got so nervous about this whole thing that he chain-smoked like crazy, realised he reeked of smoke and had to shower and change. Five minutes before he was supposed to leave. So yeah. Well. He smelled good. Fuck. He didn't want to meet a kid, he wasn't good with kids and he didn't care about them neither but Edward was insistent.
And they were ... friends/fuckbuddies/whatever else so he supposed he sort of owed him this. Meeting his kid. Engaging. All that shit. And he was trying. He was.
"Sorry I'm late. I, uh, I-- yeah." Once Edward had let him in, Jonathan kicked off his shoes and lurking in the hallway was Stephanie, watching him with wide, curious eyes. And Jonathan had no idea what to do. "Hello, sweetheart."
"Hi." Stephanie stayed where she was, suddenly shy, watching Edward more than Jonathan, just to make sure it was all fine. He sounded all nice and he was soooo big. "You're so tall."
"... Thank you."
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"I told Stephanie so much about you, Jonathan. She thinks you are like the prince in Cinderella, so she might have gotten a little confused by my explanation." Because he didn't really think of Jonathan as a prince. Bit too much of a country boy for that. "Hope you're hungry. Well. I guess you always are. Stephanie, Jonathan can eat soooo much, you'll be astonished."
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Stephanie looked at Jonathan longer and then came up to him and held out her picture. "It's pumpkins cause you like Halloween. Dad told me."
Dad. Woah. The Riddle was a dad - it sounded so weird. Jonathan took the picture and looked at it. Looked like a bunch of basketballs but damn, it was sweet. Kids never gave him shit. "Damn, ain't you a little artist? Real good work. Thank you."
"Your eyes are sooooo blue." Stephanie added suddenly and then turned to Edward, grinning. "He's pretty enough, daddy. I checked. You can marry him."
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He twirled her around once, then tickled her sides before setting her down again, smirking at Jonathan. "She's very eager to have me shackled, apparently. I think it's mostly because she wants to be a flower girl."
Well, that clearly had to be the incentive here. "She also decided there will be chocolate cake for dessert today, so I think your tastes align. Jonathan loves candy, Stephanie. Especially Halloween candy."
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