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RP With Oswald Cobblepot | Strange Monster Verse
No one knew why Hugo Strange had such a fascination with creating monsters, no one really knew much of the man in general. He was something of a mystery, the only man who truly knew him was dead and Hugo was certainly not one to share details of his life or past.
But one thing people did know was that he was ruthless in his pursuits, which is why it was probably not going to shock anyone to know that while Gotham slowly got back on her feet he seized the opportunity to start back up his own ventures. Backed by someone who had seen how much potential the manipulation of Eduardo Dorrance had, Hugo Strange suddenly found himself with the three best things for his next phase of work.
Opportunity.
Money.
Easy Test Subjects.
Because Gotham was still slowly being put back together now was the best time for Hugo to gather as many subjects as possible, after all it was going to take a long time to sort through who had made it and who had not during the black out and war.
"No no no." Hugo says evenly to the men who are hauling in the huge crates, each one holding a new subject. "These ones I want put in the Dark wing."
"You sure?"
A faint smile tugs at the corners of Hugo's mouth and he nods, "Oh yes.....I asked for these ones....specifically."
But one thing people did know was that he was ruthless in his pursuits, which is why it was probably not going to shock anyone to know that while Gotham slowly got back on her feet he seized the opportunity to start back up his own ventures. Backed by someone who had seen how much potential the manipulation of Eduardo Dorrance had, Hugo Strange suddenly found himself with the three best things for his next phase of work.
Opportunity.
Money.
Easy Test Subjects.
Because Gotham was still slowly being put back together now was the best time for Hugo to gather as many subjects as possible, after all it was going to take a long time to sort through who had made it and who had not during the black out and war.
"No no no." Hugo says evenly to the men who are hauling in the huge crates, each one holding a new subject. "These ones I want put in the Dark wing."
"You sure?"
A faint smile tugs at the corners of Hugo's mouth and he nods, "Oh yes.....I asked for these ones....specifically."
no subject
He can hear Ed’s voice, muffled and distant, as though they’re both underwater. Cries no less frantic than his own. But he can’t see Ed. Can’t see anything as he's rocked around the inside of his crate for what feels like hours, bruises upon bruises forming on his knees and elbows and hips. When the lid finally unlatches, freeing him, he isn’t ready. Not for the fluorescent light flooding in, burning into his retina, or the hand seizing him by the back of the neck. Still. Even in his nauseous daze, he has the presence of mind to realize he’s just been moved from one suffocating box to another. A tiny concrete cell encloses him, like the one that still haunts his dreams. And it's like nothing has changed at all.
Oswald thrashes, screaming.
A stun baton jabs his side. His mind whites out, teeth all but clamping down on his own tongue. For the longest, most excruciating second of his life, he locks up completely, choking on a scream. Then collapses, twitching, in a pool of his own foamy drool.
He’s stripped down, unmoving, barely conscious. This time, there’s no assembly line of shivering, naked inmates out in the hallway, each waiting for their number and uniform. He doesn’t get a uniform. Doesn’t get shoes or a yellowed shirt or a standard issue button-down top, frayed at the sleeves. A pair of striped pants is thrown to the floor and the door groans shut. Deadbolts slamming into place.
He wakes in the dark, stiff, sore, and with a heavy metal collar around his neck. His eye widens as he touches his fingers to it, scrabbling frantically for a seam, for anything. The shock of his ordeal finally catches up to him, and he finds himself sucking down shaky, rasping breaths, struggling to breathe.]
Let me out this instant! [He shouts at the door, gripped by that gut-deep, animal fear that after everything he’s endured, everything he survived in just the last year - starvation, sickness, gang struggles, firefights - he’d die here, alone and forgotten. His legacy, lost with him.] You can't do this!!
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[A dry, cracked voice says across the way. It's a voice Oswald will probably recognize instantly although it is certainly sounding a little worse for wear than when he heard it last. But that's to be as expected when Ed has spent the last hour screaming in pain as he was savagely beaten for trying to escape.
Ed is no fighter, everyone knows this, but what a lot of people tend to forget is that Ed is a master of puzzles and what is a lock but not a puzzle? So as soon as he had figured out that he had been captured he had made himself stop panicking and go through his pockets for something useful. There wasn't much but thank goodness for his sharp sense of style because whoever had captured him hadn't been smart enough to take away the tie pin he wore and after a lot of struggling he had finally popped the lock on his crate and exploded into a dark hallway.
He didn't recognize it, not fully, but there was something about the echo of water dripping and the smell that made a memory almost rise to the surface of his mind.
HEY! GET HIM!
No time to think he had run blindly down the hall, hoping that he could outrun his captures long enough to find somewhere to hide but alas he instead wound up running straight into a huge, muscled goon who had knocked him out with a single hard punch.
Later when he woke up in his cell the same goon had punished him for trying to escape, his entire body ached from the ordeal but most of all his head was pounding and Oswald's screams was not making it any better.]
Hello, Oswald.
no subject
Less than twelve hours ago, he had shown up on Ed’s doorstep with a scant few possessions from City Hall, seething with outrage. Riddler had been the first to greet him. Not without a smirk and the requisite snarky jab between old friends, of course. But it had been a small price to pay for a chance to mentally regroup. A chance, more importantly, to spend the night someplace that wasn’t one of the encampments established in the former Green Zone.
The sofa had made for a surprisingly cozy bed with a spare pillow and blanket tossed onto it. And lying there in the candlelight, breathing in the musty scent of yellowing books, Oswald had felt a rare sense of peace settle over him - his mind willing to set aside his plans for tomorrow in favour of enjoying the stillness. But tomorrow never came. Not the tomorrow he was expecting.
That evening they spent together - sitting around the fireplace, commiserating over mugs of spiked tea - seems like nothing more than a distant dream now. A warm, soft moment in time so far removed from the here and now that it feels like it never really existed.
Goosebumps sweep across his back and he shivers.]
Ed...
[He stares at Ed through his messy hair, eyeliner smeared around his eye. He can just make out Ed’s silhouette, the blinking of the collar around his neck.
That they’re in this hell together is less a comfort than it should be.]
no subject
A black eye is already starting to form on his left eye but miraculously his glasses are unbroken from the hit to his head, there's a small cut on his upper lip but most his injuries are below the neck. He can already feel the pattern of bruises that will form across his chest and sides.]
Normally I'd say it's good to see you but considering where we are I'll refrain.
[But honestly there is a part of him that is relieved to see him all the same, to know for sure that Oswald is okay. Even if it does mean his one ally isn't out there thinking of a way to storm in and free him.]
Are you badly hurt?
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They can't just lock us in here and expect to get away with it! [He seethes, a muscle flickering in his jaw.] I know for a fact that we are not the only ones trapped in this hellhole...!
[Sooner or later, he wishes so badly he could say, with conviction, someone’s going to investigate. Someone like Lee - who notices, who cares. Unlike the rest, in this thankless city, who would meet their absences with indifference or relief. But Oswald knows deep down, with a plunging feeling in his gut, that her greatest strength is also her greatest weakness. She cares too much; the Reunification efforts and the slew of sick and injured would keep her occupied, leaving her blind to the goings-on beyond the Green Zone.]
no subject
We're not, I managed to count at least six other cells when I briefly escaped from my crate before they threw me in here.
[The faint smile drops away to a frustrated scowl.]
Unfortunately I wasn't able to identify anyone, let alone the person behind this. But I have my suspicions....
Oh do you?
[A cultured, smooth voice speaks up and Ed fights down the panic that suddenly rises up in his chest.]
Am I getting to be so...predictable?
[Hugo Strange asks as he steps forth from the shadows.]
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Predictable is an understatement... [He huffs mirthlessly.] It figures that you would come scuttling out from whatever slimy rock you were hiding under at the first chance to indulge in some degeneracy! Tell me, who are you toiling under this time?
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You know what they say about assuming things.
[Ed snorts at Strange's little tease and leans against the bars in what he hopes to be an indifferent stance, crossing his arms so he can hide the way his hands are shaking.]
Who is to say this isn't a personal project?
Because you never work alone. [Ed points out.] First it was the Court of Owls, then those fake government goons that invaded Gotham. So unless you somehow won the lottery I doubt you have the funds to finance whatever THIS is.
[Strange makes a low humming noise in the back of his throat and nods.]
It is true, I have had a certain amount of funding provided but the idea, gentlemen. Is all my own.
[A beat as he looks at Ed and then Oswald.]
As was the selection of test subjects.
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Test subjects.
Strange could call him whatever he wanted. Oswald knows who he is - and being stripped of his wools and silks, his eye patch, leg brace and shoes, didn’t make him any less human, any less than Oswald Cobblepot: visionary, entrepreneur, a hero in Gotham’s darkest hours.
He scoffs through the cold fear settling around his heart.]
Been here, done that!
[Then, pressing his face to the bars, wild-eyed, he adds:]
I should have turned up the dial and fried your sick, twisted brain to scrambled egg when I had the chance! But I look forward to rectifying that mistake! And, I promise you, [he rasps, sucking in a breath through clenched teeth] right up until the moment you get to spend the rest of your life as a drooling waste of oxygen, you’re not just gonna wish the GCPD got to you first - you are going to beg for it!!
no subject
Oh don't worry, Mister Cobblepot. You've never experienced anything like this before....
[For the first few days it would seem that this is a lie, things seem rather similar to both their previous times in Arkham although wherever this facility is it is certainly more damp than Arkham ever was. In fact the more time they spend here the more certain Ed becomes that they are actually deep under the city, perhaps even connected to the same underground tunnels Grundy hide in for a while. This means that this facility is much more off radar than any of Strange's other ventures and that makes Ed worry, because not only is there less of a chance of rescue but it also means Strange has more freedom to do whatever it is he wants.
What he wants, it would seem, is to painstakingly catalogue their vitals. It starts on their second day, being dragged from their cells and brought down the hall to a grimy room where they are stripped fully down, weighed, measured, and examined. After that, blood is drawn, fluids are collected and they are sent back to their cells.
It's like that every day until day seven, when something different happens.
This time after the daily tests are done Ed is forced into a chair, the cold metal stinging his bare ass and making his testicles shrink up painfully as his arms are tied down and his head strapped against the back of the chair. It hurts but the worst part is the shame he feels at being so naked.
So vulnerable.
Strange enters the room and after glancing at some papers on a clipboard he selects a few vials from a mini fridge on the other side of the room.]
What are those?!
[Ed demands even though he won't get an answer and when Strange approaches him with a syringe filled with a mix of those vials Ed begins to thrash in his chair, well as much as he can.]
What's in there?! WHAT IS IT?? TELL ME!
Now now, Mr. Nygma. Calm yourself. It's just a little...boost.
I SWEAR I WILL KILL YOU FOR-
[One of the guards grabs his head and pushes it hard against the back of the chair, exposing his neck and Ed screams as Strange jams the needle in. It hurts, not just the sting of the needle pushing in and breaking the skin but whatever horrible substance was in there feels like ice flooding his veins and Ed finds he can no longer make threats, he can only scream as his whole body freezes.
Eventually, and thankfully, he passes out from the pain.]
no subject
‘Monsters! Animals!’
[Oswald swings upright, blinking hard in the dark. His temples throb viciously.]
'Oh god! Oh god, someone help me!!'
[There's a sudden, frantic squealing of skin or rubber over the tiles. Curses and grunts.]
‘They're killing us!!' [The man shouts, over and over, his voice carrying down the hall. Already fading into the distance.] 'They’re going to kill us ALL!!’
[Finally, a door closes.
What follows is the closest thing to silence Oswald has known since Day 2. For the longest minute of his life, it's as if the ward itself is holding its breath. The absence of sound worse, so much worse, somehow, than what came before it.
Then, another door squeals open. And it begins.
Softly, at first. An idle whistling drifting down the corridor. Then the clunk, clunk, clunk of a baton dragged along the bars of every cell it passes, the sound growing louder, closer. Heavy footsteps. The jingle of keys. Then it all stops just outside Oswald’s cell. A face leans in, smirking at him: lantern-jawed and clean shaven, with a busted, crooked nose. A face that could almost be considered handsome anywhere other than here.]
‘Rise and shine - Dr. Strange wants you.’
[A flashlight clicks on, blinding Oswald with its harsh beam. He winces, squinting up at the latest recruit assigned to the ward on Day 3. Daly - a forty-something year old, like most of the security Strange has hired. Blond hair kept short and neat, his ex-military build starting to go to seed under his tactical vest. Funny enough, despite the two-guard-minimum per fifteen inmates, it’s this one Oswald seems to see most often.
Oswald staggers to his feet, swiping his tongue across cracked, sticky-dry lips. Every joint in his body protests the effort it takes to force himself upright.]
Tell him... I want my leg brace. [Oswald says, his voice raw and scraping. Daly barks a laugh.]
‘Want your bottle too?’ [He jeers.] ‘You’re not the one giving orders anymore, Princess. Haven’t you figured that out yet? Or do you need that beaten into your skull?’
[Blood roars behind Oswald’s eye, his vision pulsing at the edges. He lurches forward, hands clenching and unclenching --
And then Daly's baton comes alive with a buzzy-crackle. Oswald freezes, his insides coiling tight.]
‘Oh-ho, just give me one reason, ONE reason to shut that mouth of yours again, you little fucker! Give me one good reason!!'
[The baton crashes over the bars of Oswald's cell - metal on metal – the violence of it driving Oswald backwards. He stumbles into a corner, wide-eyed, his spine flush to the wall.
A long beat passes.]
‘...heh.' [Daly lowers his arm.] 'That's right.’
[A key grates into the lock. Slowly, the barred door groans open just enough to let Oswald out.]
‘Hands where I can see 'em. Let’s go!’
[Breath rattling, Oswald glares up at the man from under his brows, his mouth screwing into a tight line.
Soon, he vows to himself.
Soon.]
* * *
[In the medical bay, Strange greets him with a politician’s politeness and a smile that shows too many teeth.]
‘Ahhhh, Mr. Cobblepot. Welcome. Today marks a significant milestone for us both. A pivotal turning point... not only in your personal development, but in the advancement of human understanding. Even the very evolution of our species.’
[Strange stands with his arms folded behind his back, surrounded by a small throng of nameless, masked faces in lab coats and latex gloves. Oswald’s stomach swoops. His thoughts jump to the electrocautery pen again. The threat of touch-ups looming over his head ever since he was held down, wailing as numbers were etched deep into his trembling flesh. The acrid-sweet stink of singed meat doesn’t hang in the air today. He breathes in a cocktail of bleach and antiseptic instead. It sticks to the back of his throat all the same.
Still smiling, Strange gestures to The Chair.]
‘Please undress and have a seat. It might be a little... cold.’
[Machines hum and blip softly in the background. Oswald stares Strange down, chest rising and falling. The tension in the room is electric.]
...I will submit to your little experiment - [he bites out] - grudgingly. But I demand that my brace is returned to me when you’re done playing mad scientist.
[Over Oswald’s head, Daly shoots a stern look to Strange. But the good doctor only chuckles.]
‘Oswald, Ooooswald...’ [He drawls, with all the patronizing patience of an adult explaining a simple concept to a child. That smile of his lingers just a touch too long before he school his expression into something resembling sympathy or hurt.] ‘I understand your concern.’
[Strange furrows his brow.]
‘Truly, I do. But, very soon, I promise you... you’ll no longer need to rely on such... primitive assistive devices. Now... strip.’
[Oswald’s ears begin to ring. He hates them - all of them - with a black, bubbling hate. Them and their gawking cattle-eyes as he slides his pants down the cut of his hips, cupping himself with a hand. His knees are the first to betray him, quivering. His face burns.]
Happy now? [He spits the question at Strange like a mouthful of venom.
The meaty paw at the back of his neck clamps down, giving him an angry shake.]
‘Watch it,’ [Daly growls into his ear.]
‘Gentlemen, pleeease...’ [Strange lifts a hand, willing peace.] ‘Oswald, this is simply protocol - you know this. And there is nothing to be ashamed of. We’re all adults here, [he casts a glance around at his team] and, I remind you, you have nothing we haven’t already seen. Come. Sit.’
[Fury trembles on the tip of Oswald’s tongue. He chokes it down, stumbling as he's marched to The Chair.
He’s seen it before - always there during the routine humiliations and microaggressions masquerading as medical tests. Another looming threat clenching up his bladder while he strained to squeeze out what little he could manage with an audience. Its presence planting something dangerous in the more desperate parts of their brains: the fragile hope that if they just played along - yes sir, no sir, took their brandings, shut their mouths, spread their legs, and thanked Strange for it - they might avoid The Chair.
But that, like having any kind of choice down here, real choice, was never anything more than an illusion.
The Chair still comes with no name, no explanation. Its solid, Brutalist design - all angles and edges - is a departure from the electrotherapy chair. But the straps explain themselves.
Oswald is pushed into it, skin sticking to the icy metal. He yelps, panicking, as hands, so many hands, swarm him. They wrench his arms apart and buckle them in place, others removing his collar, smoothing electrodes over his chest. A damp cotton ball swipes across his neck.]
‘Five millilitres, sir?’
‘...Yeees. That will do, for now.’
[It isn't until his head is yanked back and pinned - until the needle enters Oswald's view, glinting as it catches the harsh florescent light – that it hits him: a balls-sucking-into-the-abdomen kind of terror. He lets out a high, anxious wheeze, tugging frantically at his wrists.
Strange shushes him gently.]
‘Don't worry, this will all be over soon.’
[Oswald’s lashes flutter, his eye darting from Strange to stranger and back again, desperately searching for an alternative. For anything else.]
‘You will feel... just a little prick.’
[The needle pierces his skin like wet tissue paper. The plunger depresses.
And then it’s Oswald’s turn to scream.]
* * *
[The spasms come first.
Wrenching, full-body chills that make him piss himself. Then comes a nausea so heavy that the whole world swims.
That he doesn’t have to walk back - that he buckles at his first attempt - is a small mercy.
While Daly is sent to drag in the next victim, someone else takes over. Clements: a mustachioed giant with a close-cropped afro and the kind of silence that leaves no room for negotiation. It falls to him to dress Oswald and haul him out - which he does, uncomplaining. A few brisk, efficient movements, and Oswald’s drooling, shivering body is slung over his shoulder, bouncing limply with every step.
They reach the cell. Clements dumps him without word and locks up. The jangling of his keys follows him back down the hallway.
The concrete is cool against Oswald’s fevered, aching skin. He doesn’t move. Just lies there, curled in on himself, fighting the urge to vomit with no strength left to claw his way over to the toilet. Ed's not helping. Not with the sounds he’s making: all the gasping and spluttering, and thick, guttural-wet hacking of a man heaving his guts out.]
...gonna k-kill them...
[Oswald forces the words through his chattering teeth, tasting bile. He doesn’t even know if Ed can hear him - or if all he’s doing is muttering fiercely to himself. The ramblings of a man halfway to madness.
...I'm gonna kill them all...
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It starts as a deep ache, low in his belly and intestines, a low level pain that is coiled up like a sleeping serpent but slowly it starts to unravel and with it comes agony. Sharp, horrible stabbing pain that makes his abdominal muscles clench so hard he finds it hard to breathe and when they finally loosen he gasps and pants. Trying to draw in as much air as he can before the next cramp comes.
Dimly he is aware that this is going to end badly one way or another, his stomach is heaving and feels as if it is literally folding in on itself. That can only go on for so long before the small meal he was given earlier comes out.
The only question is which route it's going to take.
Thankfully the answer to that is the upwards trajectory and Ed manages to roll enough onto his side so that when he starts to vomit it isn't all over himself or back down to choke him. It's violent and his mind goes blank as his body heaves and shudders, over and over until he thinks he will die from not being able to stop and breathe. Finally it eases and he pulls in a shuddering painful gasp only to half cough the air back out as his lungs constrict painfully in his chest.
He dry heaves twice more and by the time those pass as well he is sweating, shaking and making a loan pathetic keening noise in the back of his throat. His mouth tastes like bile and fear and he rolls away from the mess he's made, curling in on himself as he prays that the stomach pain has ended for at least a while.]
...help.
[He whispers, his voice that almost of a child's. Lost, hurt and scared and seeking some kind of reassurance that he'll be okay.]
no subject
[More air, more breath than voice.
A fresh wave of nausea swells in his throat at the thought of the runny, grey slop that passes for food around here. But he’s so hungry, suddenly, that he thinks he’d still guzzle it down and lick the plastic, crusted bowl clean. So hungry and thirsty and so cold, shivering down to his bones - and the sheer futility of his situation threatens to put tears in his eye. His face screws up. He’s supposed to have a plan, even just the beginnings of one taking shape, something his fury can help thrust into motion – but his brain has locked up. Grey, quivering jelly. As useless as the rest of him. Even if he could squeeze his way out now, it'd be a wasted effort; this network of cells and hallways is largely uncharted territory, and patrolling them are guards he has no hope of outmaneuvering. Not without a massive diversion.
Oswald cracks his eye open, staring across the grimy floor at Ed’s hunched, shuddering back.]
I can’t.
[He grits out, clutching his middle.]
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...one another.
[He croaks and reaches an arm out towards his friend. Extending his hand and long, graceful fingers as far as he can.]
We can....help...one another.
[It takes forever for him to get it out, his heart beating hard in his chest from exhaustion and he lifts his head slightly to try and see Oswald's face.]
no subject
Ed's hand is empty. No bobby pin or bent paper clip reveals itself. No clever escape plan tucked in his palm. This is all there is.
One day, they'd look back on this nightmare of Strange’s making with grim smiles, knowing nothing could destroy them - nothing. Not after surviving the worst Strange has put them through, and the ugliest of ways they have hurt each other in the name of revenge. But the misery in Ed's haggard, sweaty face tells him: not today. Not in three days, or a week.
They're small and scared, becoming shells of the names they’ve made for themselves. With every passing hour, Oswald feels his sense of what life beyond these walls had been like slipping further away from him. This is his world now - and what matters most is what’s in front of him, what little is still familiar and safe: Ed's hand straining for his. Ed needing him more than Oswald has ever been needed in his life.
Sinking his teeth into his lip, he fights every sluggish muscle in his own body to drag himself over to the bars, the concrete rasping the skin of his forearm, his hip. He stretches his arm past the iron, slowly. Reaching for his best friend. The last man alive he can count on.
Their fingers never touch.
But he tries anyway.
As if the love swelling inside him really can conquer all.]
Some time later....
[He has no idea what time it is, let alone what DAY it is at this point. He was able to keep count before but now, with all the injections and black outs he's lost track and that irritates him.]
...making love was just for fun...those days are gone...
[Although not as much as that song is irritating him right now and Ed groans and rolls over onto his other side, yanking his dirty, sweat stained shirt up and over his head in an attempt to block out the sad wailing that is coming from the cell next to Oswald's. The man in that cell arrived a few days after them and at first he just cried quietly, much like all of them have, but now he seems to have resorted to singing in order to work through his pain and fear which wouldn't be so bad IF the man could carry a tune and IF Ed's hearing hadn't gotten so sensitive.
It's strangely fascinating how much MORE he can hear these days; the steady drip drip of water hitting the hallway floors, the hum of distant machinery, the soft murmur of guards and nurses talking to one another, the wet slapping of one of the other prisoners jerking off.
He hears all of it now.]
ENOUGH!! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!!!
[Ed roars and the man falls silent, Ed sighs in relief as stillness falls over the dark halls once more.]
All byyyyyyyyyyyyy myyyyyyyyyseeeeeelf......don't wanna be.....All byyyyyyyy myseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelf....
[The man warbles at top volume and Ed snaps to his feet, grabbing the bars to his cell and shaking them roughly.]
SHUT YOUR MOUTH OR I'LL TEAR IT OFF!!
[He growls savagely at the man who is sitting cross-legged in the middle of his cell, swaying back and forth as he sings.]
Don't wanna be Aaaaaaaall byyyyyyyy myseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelf....Anymooooooooorrr-ghghlkghhggggggg!!
[The man's singing suddenly cuts off as his head jerks violently up, his eyes bulging out from his sockets and his jaw slamming shut with a hard clunk. He strains his head back even further and Ed can see his neck cords standing out like hard wires through his skin, pulsing as blood and spit start to seep out from the corner of his mouth.]
....oh...oh dear...
[Ed breathes softly, watching as the man starts to shake. Ed has had his fair share of tremors while he's been here thanks to whatever drug Strange has been pumping into him but this is something more, something so much more violent and when he hears the man's bones begin to break he gasps.]
Grgaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!
[The man screams through clenched teeth, blood dribbling through the gaps as his body goes from shaking to snapping back and forth in place. Limbs shooting and flailing out wildly as if he were being controlled by some malicious puppeteer. Urine flows down the man's leg and pools onto the floor only a moment before he collapses into it, face first. Blood, piss and spit all mixing together and still the man screams.
And that's when Ed hears something else.
It's soft at first, especially compared to the screams and breaking bones, almost a whispering, purring sound and Ed tries not to throw up when he realizes it's the sound of the man literally tearing out of his own skin.]