[There's something very unique about being threatened with a sharp object compared to something like a gun. Sure, a gun can go off at any moment and then it's night-night for good, but a knife has a particular brand of terror through intimacy. Oswald knows it, and he's sure this stranger knows it too with how he's able to position the angle of Oswald's head with minimal effort and more from suggestion of the blade's presence alone.
When he rejects Oswald's answer outright, his expression crumples with utter confusion initially then slowly shifts toward a brand of realisation. This is someone from a version of Gotham that Oswald doesn't know, someone from a time he either hasn't yet reached himself or a version he will never encounter at all, just like Ed had warned him.
He opens his mouth to protest, to explain, but then everything in Oswald's mind shorts out like a fuse blowing as he feels the trail of the stranger's tongue against his throat. It's a wild rush of white hot terror that entirely blinds him for a moment as Riddler's chilling words from a few days ago echo loudly in Oswald's head: You will be forced into public housing, that you will have to share with others. You will be denied the ability to buy anything, or to go most places, and you will face terrible, humiliating public sexual assault if you transgress any number of rules that you don't know yet.
And look how right he was. The very first night spent in the public housing and this happens.
Then, after what feels like a sickening eternity, the other man backs off like nothing has happened, leaving Oswald wide-eyed and prone, waiting for his mental processing to reboot itself and for the rage that fuels him to flood back into his system because how dare someone do that to him! But the rage is delayed, probably will be for some time and in its place there's this kind of utterly appalled disbelief at the question he's being asked.]
Am I his--? Is this a joke? [It's sure seeming like it, a very twisted one at that. In fact, he can't help but laugh, breathy, mirthless, rimmed with fearful nervous energy edging toward mild madness. Still more than a little shaky.]
No. No, I am most certainly not his kid. But since you have clearly been following me, it must be because I bare some striking resemblance to someone you know, to The Penguin. But he has a couple decades on me, you said?
[He with deliberate slowness, someone used to how this game goes--no sudden movements--with his palms pressed against the bed and sliding back and beneath the pillow, steadily bringing himself to a sit.]
Had you considered that is because those couple decades are ones I have yet to reach, hm? Because I can promise you that I clawed my way to the top and earned that reputation, claimed Gotham's throne, and that name. Now, you can either believe me or not, friend, but I am, most assuredly, Oswald Cobblepot.
[He clicks his teeth, trying to put on his best thoroughly unimpressed mask in spite of his jitters. As far as he's concerned, that matter is closed. Though the strange with the knife might have other ideas.]
So. The real question now is, who are you, exactly?
Casually dropping small novels pls forgive
When he rejects Oswald's answer outright, his expression crumples with utter confusion initially then slowly shifts toward a brand of realisation. This is someone from a version of Gotham that Oswald doesn't know, someone from a time he either hasn't yet reached himself or a version he will never encounter at all, just like Ed had warned him.
He opens his mouth to protest, to explain, but then everything in Oswald's mind shorts out like a fuse blowing as he feels the trail of the stranger's tongue against his throat. It's a wild rush of white hot terror that entirely blinds him for a moment as Riddler's chilling words from a few days ago echo loudly in Oswald's head: You will be forced into public housing, that you will have to share with others. You will be denied the ability to buy anything, or to go most places, and you will face terrible, humiliating public sexual assault if you transgress any number of rules that you don't know yet.
And look how right he was. The very first night spent in the public housing and this happens.
Then, after what feels like a sickening eternity, the other man backs off like nothing has happened, leaving Oswald wide-eyed and prone, waiting for his mental processing to reboot itself and for the rage that fuels him to flood back into his system because how dare someone do that to him! But the rage is delayed, probably will be for some time and in its place there's this kind of utterly appalled disbelief at the question he's being asked.]
Am I his--? Is this a joke? [It's sure seeming like it, a very twisted one at that. In fact, he can't help but laugh, breathy, mirthless, rimmed with fearful nervous energy edging toward mild madness. Still more than a little shaky.]
No. No, I am most certainly not his kid. But since you have clearly been following me, it must be because I bare some striking resemblance to someone you know, to The Penguin. But he has a couple decades on me, you said?
[He with deliberate slowness, someone used to how this game goes--no sudden movements--with his palms pressed against the bed and sliding back and beneath the pillow, steadily bringing himself to a sit.]
Had you considered that is because those couple decades are ones I have yet to reach, hm? Because I can promise you that I clawed my way to the top and earned that reputation, claimed Gotham's throne, and that name. Now, you can either believe me or not, friend, but I am, most assuredly, Oswald Cobblepot.
[He clicks his teeth, trying to put on his best thoroughly unimpressed mask in spite of his jitters. As far as he's concerned, that matter is closed. Though the strange with the knife might have other ideas.]
So. The real question now is, who are you, exactly?