Alfred Pennyworth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
flippin_peachy) wrote2024-07-24 08:11 pm
flippin_peachy) wrote2024-07-24 08:11 pm
RP With Oswald Cobblepot
He was cold.
It was the type of cold that seeps into you, past your flesh and straight down to your bones to make them ache, ache in a way that makes you feel as if you were slowly being turned to stone.
And maybe he was.
It certainly felt like he had been here in this spot for centuries, motionless and cold.
And alone.
He was alone now, his one true north taken from him and when that happened he had fallen into this cold, dark place where his bones ached and his head throbbed and his hands were wet and sticky with blood. He can still hear the soft exhale of breath as Bruce died in his arms, his body slowly going limp and heavy.
And then....
nothing.
Just a cold, black feeling that had swarmed up inside him. It was a feeling he had spent a long time keeping locked away, ever since the day he had left the Army, since the day he found Esme dead in their flat. It was familiar and cold.
So bloody cold.
Just as he is now, cold and empty now that he had found the wretched bitch who had murdered his boy and made her pay. Knocking her away from the poor sod she had been busy torturing and onto the ground, straddling her and wrapping his callused hands around her head and bashing it.
Over and over.
And over.
Until....
Nothing.
Just silence and the feeling of being cold.
As if his heart had turned to stone.
It was the type of cold that seeps into you, past your flesh and straight down to your bones to make them ache, ache in a way that makes you feel as if you were slowly being turned to stone.
And maybe he was.
It certainly felt like he had been here in this spot for centuries, motionless and cold.
And alone.
He was alone now, his one true north taken from him and when that happened he had fallen into this cold, dark place where his bones ached and his head throbbed and his hands were wet and sticky with blood. He can still hear the soft exhale of breath as Bruce died in his arms, his body slowly going limp and heavy.
And then....
nothing.
Just a cold, black feeling that had swarmed up inside him. It was a feeling he had spent a long time keeping locked away, ever since the day he had left the Army, since the day he found Esme dead in their flat. It was familiar and cold.
So bloody cold.
Just as he is now, cold and empty now that he had found the wretched bitch who had murdered his boy and made her pay. Knocking her away from the poor sod she had been busy torturing and onto the ground, straddling her and wrapping his callused hands around her head and bashing it.
Over and over.
And over.
Until....
Nothing.
Just silence and the feeling of being cold.
As if his heart had turned to stone.
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That all feels like a fading dream, now. A childish dream, when he looks across the room and wonders how the entirety of one man’s life could fit in a single cardboard box. It has been days since Alfred hauled that box in from the GCPD evidence locker, a collection of Ed's personal effects from City Hall and the Gotham Library, the warehouse Ed had repurposed for work and sleep. Oswald still can’t bring himself to rip away the packing tape and confront what’s left of his best friend. To touch the things Edward Nygma touched, that he cared about while he was still alive.
Oswald is sitting on the bedside, in his shower robe, when the door clicks open. Still slowly turning Ed’s glasses in his hands like a Rubik's cube, restlessly searching for a message, for something he must have missed. From the corner of his eye he sees Alfred advancing, suit in hand. It's what inevitability looks like. And the dread crowding his heart grows teeth, clamping down.
His fingers go still.]
I, I never told him...
[Oswald stares at those blood-flecked lenses, seeing and unseeing. Tears webbing his lashes faster than he can blink them away.]
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[He gently prompts, standing exactly where he is. Still and motionless, black mourning suit in one hand as he watches Oswald's jaw clench and his small frame quiver with grief.]
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I was a coward--
[He chokes it out like a confession – urgently, despairing. It's the first time he has talked about Ed, about the pain trying it's very hardest to close his throat, and it already feels like a mistake. He sucks down a watery breath.]
I was... so afraid I would lose him again, after him and his librarian, that I -- [his eyebrows pinch together] -- I couldn’t.
[He closes his eye, wanting to escape himself, to claw out of his skin. And in that darkness, he conjures Ed's face. Not that vacant stare, the one that has burned itself into the inside of Oswald’s eyelids, but his sunny smile. Big and broad, all those teeth showing. What had he said to make Ed so happy? He fumbles to place it, to pin down the memory before it can slip away from him like smoke through his fingers, struggling with the idea that he might have only just imagined it. That the smile was never meant for him. He can’t say for sure, and shakes his head again, unable to speak. His heart hurts, ballooning against his ribs.]
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That you loved him.
[He supplies and gently hangs the suit on the back of the door and moves forward to kneel down at Oswald's feet so they are on the same level.]
I don't know everything that transpired between you two but I can say this, I believe he knew. After all, you took a grenade for him back when we all stood together and you don't do that for someone you don't love.
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Oswald traces a fine, spidering crack at the corner of one of the lenses.
He nearly died for Ed, Alfred points out. But all he did was delay the inevitable. Death would come for them all – but taking Ed just as a new Gotham was dawning, just when they had found their way back to each other again, was most cruel. Even if Ed knew, even if he accepted it, the knowing and the acceptance could change nothing now. Worthless to one but priceless to two, the riddle echoes in his mind, over and over. Like a curse.
Worthless, worthless, worthless.
Oswald bites down on a strangled, angry sort of sound, his throat jerking, fighting back. He wipes his cheeks with the back of a hand.]
...Ed was the only person who still cared about me, [his voice cracks around the words] and now he’s gone!
[Gotham takes and takes. And every time it has, he made a promise to himself that he’d take the pain roiling inside him and make something useful of it. Weaponize it. Give it purpose. The night he staggered into the Wayne mansion, wrung-out and bloodied, the bitter smell of burnt flesh sticking to the back of his throat, there had been the hope that he’d feel a little better in the morning. That, somehow, after washing himself clean and collapsing into bed, he’d rest easier thinking Ed could, too. But all he had done was force himself to confront the reality that killing those men had not made him whole. And that he still can’t understand how he’s supposed to exist without Ed.
His face wrenches up.]
...I don’t know what to do. [It squeaks out of him, so rattly and thin and small.]
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[Alfred says, glancing down at his own hands. Remembering how long the dirt from Bruce's grave stayed packed under his nails, a bitter, horrible reminder that seems to have permanently stained them. These deaths, they've stained both him and Oswald forever and he reaches out to place a hand on Oswald's shoulder. His touch is gentle but firm and he looks into the other man's face.]
You give the man you loved a proper farewell.
Because he deserves it.
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Ed deserved the revenge you took from me!! [He spits the words at him, viciously shrugging Alfred off. Pain splits his side and he winces, angrier for it.]
Did you really think that by [he brusquely waves a hand around the bedroom] dragging me here and playing doctor, you would be making amends? That I would thank you for the tea and sympathy and call it even?!
[A harsh, broken laugh punches out of him. He's so sick with grief, with futile rage. So sick of feeling sick. Fresh tears well up in his eye, his chin wobbling helplessly.]
Did it ever occur to you that, perhaps, I might have been better off back at City Hall? ...That, perhaps, dying there or in some dingy concrete cell at Arkham or in Blackgate might have come as a welcome relief??
[And that he believed that, once, with his whole heart, should scare him. But there's nothing left in him to shake. No surprises. Just resignation weighing heavy on him like a stone, a bigger stone than the one he has been rolling up that hill for most of his life. The slope is impossibly sharp and he's losing ground, just tired of pushing, so damn tired he could sob.
He's still breathing. He's still here. And deep down he knows that if Alfred's right about anything at all, it's that Ed does need him one last time. Needs him to grit his teeth and shove at that stone with everything he has until his spirit gives out and it crushes him entirely.]
...But I guess it doesn’t matter, [--Oswald seethes--] ‘cause I'm here now, and you get to pat yourself on the back for being such a gracious host.
[He sniffs and nods to himself.]
Well, I am so glad I could keep you busy and help ease your guilty conscience.
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But Oswald is not a child, even if he is throwing a tantrum like one and Alfred finds that after weeks of loyal service and care his patience is now gone and once Oswald has finished spitting out as much hurt as he can Alfred takes a breath and then slaps Oswald smartly across the face. Just once, but the sound is a hard crack that echoes in the empty halls of Wayne Manor.]
Now, you listen here.
You are not the only one who lost someone to that bitch, she took my boy from me and I don't give a rat's ass if I stole away your 'revenge', which by the way you weren't going to be able to do considering you were trussed up like a turkey when I arrived.
There is no even because I am NOT in your debt.
[He pauses to slowly stand up, looking down at Oswald.]
But nor are you in mine.
I brought you here because you were hurt but if you'd rather I just let you deal with all of this alone then fine, jog off.
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He throws Alfred a stricken look. Blood pounds in his ears, in his cheek. A bruise in the shape of Alfred’s fingers already staining his skin. But that wounded-child expression on his face lasts only a moment before it warps into something feral, his whole body surging with the desire to make Alfred hurt. His mind whites out – and he lunges from the bed, wild-eyed. Forgetting he can’t bear his own weight. His foot gushes blood under his bandages, loose and floppy and useless. The pain is breathtaking; he buckles instantly, the ground hurtling towards him. He catches himself, just barely, hands and wrists and knees taking the brunt of his fall. One of the crutches leaned up against the bedpost tips over, narrowly missing him.]
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It's good to see you have some fight left in you.
[He says after a long moment in which the only sounds in the room are Oswald's angry breathing but then he kneels back down, moving the fallen crutch away and offering Oswald a hand.]
Someone once told me, 'each has to bury their own'.
Now I don't want to have to drag you there, mate. But I will. Not because I want to hurt you, not because I want to, but it's what has to be done and because you are the only man who can do this for Nygma.
[A pause as his grey blueish eyes grow stormy and emotional.]
Just as I was the only one who could bury Bruce.
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He would’ve never won a fight against Alfred; probably couldn’t even have hurt him. But he can grope around for the bedpost and struggle his way back into bed. He can make it to the church on his own, falling back on the resourcefulness and spite he has in spades. But he doesn’t have to take the difficult route – even if his screeching lizard brain tells him otherwise while he's down on his hands and knees, feeling so small at Alfred’ feet. So starkly helpless.
Panting, he blinks through the blinding fractals of light in his vision up at Alfred’s outstretched hand; the stubborn set to his jaw almost guarantees that he’d bat it away if he could.]
...You barely know me, much less Ed... [he rasps, his brows pulling together] ...you have no personal stake in any of this. Why does this matter to you?
[In the face of Gotham’s eternal indifference, it’s something he just can’t figure out.]
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Because much like you I've lost the most important thing in my life.
[His voice a low husk, the sound of fallen leaves scraping across the cold ground moments before the rain starts.]
Bruce was everything to me and as much as I want to just give up and follow him.....[His jaw trembles on the last few words and he swallows a lump in his throat.]
I can't.
I can't because I know it's not what he would have wanted, which means I have to find something to live for, something that will inspire me to get out of bed in the morning, something that will give me the strength to keep going.
And that's you.
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The almost-funny part isn’t that he got it right about Alfred, that his existence does serve to keep him occupied on some level; that was always going to be true. It’s that Alfred has turned his focus onto him, devoted to helping someone who is struggling to picture a future outside these four walls. Someone whose reason to live seems to be pulling further and further away with every shaky step forward. Someone who can’t bring himself to thank the man who took him in unasked, can’t even look him in the eyes without feeling some primal twist of anger in his gut, but who needs him on a practical level.
But what is this if not just another temporary alliance in Gotham?]
...That is a lot to pin on one person.
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[Slowly he goes over to fetch the funeral suit he had made for Oswald, laying it carefully on the bed before leaving him to get dressed but on his way out he pauses in the doorway, his brows knitted together and before he thinks better of it he adds.]
I voted for you.
[His tone is soft and without waiting for a comment from Oswald he leaves to go get changed and bring the car around.
The funeral is quiet but honorable, there is no priest to spew out a bunch of false hopes and lies, just a casket surrounded by green roses and a tasteful photo of Ed. Not a lot of people show up, Ed might have been well known in Gotham but he didn't have a lot of close friends. But that isn't to say there weren't a few who cared or respected him.
Lucius Fox is one of these, he approaches Ed's casket and after a moment of silent prayer or contemplation he lays Ed's old GCPD forensic badge on the top and then leaves, nodding at Oswald and Alfred but not staying to speak.
Lee is next, she comes alone and dressed in a black dress and veil, looking beautiful in a fragile, sorrowful way. She stands at the casket for much longer, tears tracking down her cheeks and after she has said her own silent goodbyes she takes out a small envelope, kisses it and places it inside.
Slowly she walks over to where Oswald is, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue before speaking.]
I know this is going to sound strange, considering what I did to him but I'm sorry he's gone. He had a lot of problems but he was a good man.
I switched to quotes for NPCery just 'cause
It’s drizzling when they pull into a near-vacant parking lot, loose gravel crunching under the tires. The church stands tall and solemn under an overcast sky. He hasn’t stepped into it since Don Falcone’s funeral, but the incense perfuming the air takes him right back, back to a time when Ed was more than a memory, an ache clutching his throat, a eulogy tucked in his pocket. The old floorboards squeal as he moves past the holy water stoup at the entrance, and heads turn. There are a few people scattered across rows and rows of pews. Faces he doesn’t recognize.
That first step up the aisle is the hardest, he tells himself, because it’s the first. But each one that follows brings him closer to Ed’s casket, to seeing Ed for the first time since Nyssa blew a hole through his skull, and Oswald can feel dread gathering around his heart. His legs grow heavy and weak and he’s struck by a very real fear that he’ll fall and lose all will to pick himself up. Yet, somehow, he makes it to a pew up at the front and slumps into it. Nerves hiving, heart pounding in his throat. The priest’s opening remarks ring in his ears, and at some point he’s back on his feet again, approaching the altar and the casket laid before it. He tucks a sweaty hand into his breast pocket and unfolds a piece of paper. There’s some muffled coughing among attendees, a restless shifting in place. All eyes on him as he stares at that trembling page, stares at all the places where the ink bled as he tries to remember how easily words used to come to him. How he could talk his way into and out of anything.
But there is no escaping this.
He sucks in a breath, like a diver about the disappear into the depths of the sea, not knowing when he’ll come up again. And he begins.]
////
[The mortician has done good work – so he has heard.
When he finally dredges up the courage to see for himself, he’s so relieved he could cry. There’s no swollen mass of maggots pulsing under Ed’s skin. No thick, red gash circling his neck like a garish necklace. Something unclenches inside him when he realizes he can’t even tell where Ed’s head has been reattached.
Ed is wearing an uncommonly gentle expression, a touch of colour in his cheeks and lips.
He’s just sleeping, it looks like.
Oswald's heart surges.
Watching Ed, he's seized by the sudden, wild hope, a sick hope, that he got this all wrong. That this is all an elaborate hoax. Because basking in praise and surprising them all with a broad, cheeky grin and a slow clap is one of the most Riddler things he can think of. And, if nothing else, because this is Gotham, and nothing is impossible, not anymore. For a moment, he can almost picture Riddler swinging up from the casket. Can almost hear his disappointment.
Well this is a buzzkill. I would’ve gone with a celebration of life, honestly.
Oswald waits for Ed to draw a breath for him, just one more time. Not realizing he’s holding his own until his lungs burn for air. Ed’s chest never rises. That heart of his, long chased after, lies quiet and still. Lost to Oswald for the very last time.
////
Time passes; people come and go.
Women dab at their eyes and noses, men doffing their hats. Even the ones sticking around only long enough to confirm that Edward Nygma is truly dead.
Oswald looks on, a muscle flickering in his jaw. He feels like he’s between worlds, watching someone else’s life unfold, until something brushes his arm. He flinches like he touched fire.
“...such a handsome young man...”
An old woman stands before him, built like a stiff breeze could tip her over. A beret with a lace veil is perched on her head at an angle and a purse dangles from her elbow, just above a long, silk glove.
His brow furrows. He understands she can’t be referring to him. Enough time has passed that his face is no longer held together by bandages. But a few dark sutures zipper across his nose and jaw and forehead. Without makeup, the healing cuts seaming his skin are on full display.
“...what?”
“Your chief of staff.” She answers with a rueful smile.
He can’t help but notice the red lipstick smeared over her upper lip. Something close to disgust curls in his gut at the thought of being touched again.
“He was full of pep, that boy.” Then, with a knowing, almost conspiratorial look, she adds, “Had a bit of the devil in him, too.”
Don’t we all, Oswald thinks he would’ve said, once. But nothing comes out. His gaze falls on her long, drooping necklace. He absently counts the pearls.
“Beautiful eulogy, very beautiful.” She says, sobering, pressing a hand to her heart. “You have a gift, young man, I am telling you. I know these things. I voted for you, you know – and I would again. Passionate young blood is just what this city needs. Now more than ever! No more of that lousy Aubrey James robbing me of my pension that I worked all my life for. Forty years of employment at that no-good laundromat! That’s what I think. And now--”
“Madam--” Oswald interjects hotly, a fat vein throbbing at his temple. “I do not care! Not about you or your stupid pension! In fact, the only way I could possibly care any less was if I was six feet in the ground, myself, which, frankly, would come as a relief!”
Huffing, he glances past her shoulder just as Lee, of all people, is making her way to the altar. His stomach swoops sharply. It takes him by surprise, nearly as much as Lucius’ appearance had. He catches her slipping something into the casket and frowns.
“...Oh, oh, there there, honey,” the woman croons, patting his sleeve. “I know you cared about him very much. I’m sure he knew that too.”
Oswald stares at her in stunned disbelief.
“Oh, but listen to me, nattering away.” She babbles on. “You have a long day ahead of you, don’t you?" With one last pat, she turns away. “You take good care.”
The woman looks to Alfred, then Lee, seeking a conversation no one is offering before she totters off.
Oswald’s eye glassily holds Lee’s. A throbbing tightness forms behind his Adam’s Apple as he watches her wipe her tears.
He was a good man.
The past tense comes like a twist of the knife.]
Ed was a hero. [He insists, fiercely, daring her to argue otherwise.] That man gave up his best chance at survival to fight for this city when it was burning -- and for what? Only to face ridicule and dismissal at every turn, regarded as little more than a madman or garden-variety criminal.
[His chest heaves.]
He deserved better than this! Ed deserved better than to be surrounded by these made-up performers blowing their noses on cue as if they were there at Ed's side when he needed them most!
Works for me ;)
You're right, it's not fair.
[She says softly and after a long pause she turns her head to look at Alfred, who is standing off to one side of the service. Calm and stoic.]
At least you don't have to grieve alone.
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Once upon a time, Ed had been a stranger to him – too needy, too fixated, too much. And still, even as a stranger, he had managed to save Oswald when he had all but given up on Gotham, on his dreams, on himself. But the two of them had been alike in ways beyond their mutual resentment for Jim Gordon: they were hungry for validation and respect. They understood what it meant to feel othered, to feel like the answer to a question no one asked.]
He didn’t know Ed! [Oswald doesn't care that Alfred is in earshot; he stopped caring a long time ago.] How does that help me? How??
[He demands, wide-eyed, rigid and shaking.]
Nearly everyone I have ever loved is dead, with the exception of a child whom I sent away from this godforsaken cesspool for his own good, for a chance not just to survive but to thrive! I am sick and tired of fighting for some semblance of happiness, for what little I am allowed to have, only for it to be ripped away from me, time and again, because nothing ever changes!
[His voice rings out through the church; strangers glance his way, startled and uneasy.
Another sob swells inside him and he struggles to breathe around it, needing air, needing out. He looks away, sharply, up at the window, throat lurching. Quietly cracking under the weight of all the things he left unsaid and that Ed will never hear. His fury collapses.
There’s a familiar image of Jesus on the stained glass, his arms outstretched with the false promise of eternal life. Oswald stares and stares until it blurs over.]
...There is nothing left for me here. [He says thickly. His twitching lips press together.] I will see Edward laid to rest... and then I will leave Gotham, forever.
[He takes up his crutches and clicks past her, making for the exit.]
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Oswald. [Her tone is soft and her eyes lock onto his, holding him on the spot.] Listen, I understand wanting to leave Gotham. I did it myself after I lost the baby so I get it and I won't be the one to tell you not to go if that's what you want.
But you can't run away from grief. You know this as much as I do. If you leave you will still be hurting, still miserable but you'll be alone. At least here you have someone who has already shown you loyalty and compassion.
Those are very rare things in Gotham.
[She lets go of his arm so she can wipe away a few tears that are tracking down her cheeks.]
Which I guess is another reason to leave....I just.... [She sighs heavily.] He's hurting too, as much as you are. Maybe you two could help one another through that pain.
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...if you care that much about him, then you are very welcome to help. [He answers coolly.] You are the one with the bleeding heart; I’m the ‘degenerate sociopath’, remember?
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I’m sorry - I must have missed the part where that's my problem!
[There’s a stone-cold finality to his answer. But he takes just one lurching step toward the church doors and the grey light of day beyond before turning right back, prickled by the fact that two people, now, are burdening him with their expectations.]
I do not know when you started letting Jim Gordon get in the way of something important to you, [he says, a mirthless smile cutting across his face] but this drama between the three of you has nothing to do with me. Let me make something abundantly clear: it is not my job to play therapist and make friends with Pennyworth! He could go and throw himself off the broken bridge tomorrow and all I would feel, at the very most, is the slightest pang of envy!
[His pulse roars in his ears. Grief has made a stranger of her; everything they have been through no longer matters. Nothing matters.]
You want my help? [A beat.] Fine! I can stage an intervention and call up a couple of my men to have him dragged, kicking and screaming, to the nearest support group for the next twelve weeks. How’s that sound?
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Do whatever you'd like, but just know that you're pushing away the last person in Gotham who might actually give a rat's ass about you.
[She says and then strolls past him and out the doors with an ease and grace that almost seems deliberately insulting compared to how hard he finds moving these days.
The entire time Alfred stays in position, his eyes facing forward on Nygma's casket in order to make sure no one desecrates it. He has noticed Lee and Oswald's interaction but only in an off hand way, once upon a time he would have accepted Lee's help and comfort but these days he wants nothing to do with her because of her connection to Gordon.
Gordon.
The sanctimonious, hypocritical ass that caused all of this to happen. The man who kept pushing and promising he could keep everyone safe when in reality he just loused it up.
He can feel a dull throb in his temple and he forces himself to exhale slowly, his jaw muscles flexing in anger at the thought of all of Gordon's lies. He would see Oswald through his grief, he would help him become strong again and then maybe they could take care of Gordon.
Together.]
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---
At one-forty seven in the afternoon, Edward Nygma is lowered into a wet hole in the earth.
The rain has picked up again, pattering against the umbrellas of the few who quietly decided to join Oswald and Alfred. The few who just as quietly trade glances and nods and drift apart after a time, going their separate ways. A heaviness in their hearts would follow them to their cars and into their homes, their bedrooms. Some of them would even lie awake at night gazing at their sleeping partners, the easy heaving of their sides, and wonder about a future not yet written. But when they’d wake up in the morning to taxes and mortgages, to the desperate struggle to get ahead, they’d forget all about the ephemerality of life. About the two men they had left standing on the hill, nothing to go home to.
---
The wipers squeal back and forth, slicing through the downpour, through the silence between them. Cars pass, streaking lights across the slick, shimmering pavement ahead. Oswald leans his head against the window. They catch another string of green lights. But for a reason he can’t explain, the return trip feels twice as long.
At the mansion, he lasts just long enough to shuck off his suit before he drops into bed, blacking out.
---
He wakes in darkness to a slow-dawning realization that he has brought the faint smell of incense home with him. It clings to his pillow, his sheets. To his rumpled shirt. Groaning, he rolls over sluggishly, rubbing at his face. The funeral seems like it happened years ago, a distant memory from another life. But his eye still feels so puffy and raw, his mouth all dried up.
He gives himself a moment for his vision to adjust and for the outlines of objects to emerge. He takes longer to sit up, to carefully gather his crutches leaned up between the wall and the bedpost, and work up the will to stand. It never gets easier. Jaw clenched, he hobbles out his room and into another, flicking the switch with an elbow. Light floods the bathroom. Harsh and cold and white, like back in Arkham. He ducks his head against it, watching his feet as he makes his way forward a step at a time.
Click, click.
He’s nearly at the sink when his legs buckle.
It happens so fast: his head clipping the edge of the counter, his body flopping and crutches clattering, the impact driving a gasp from his lungs. Pain roars through him. He blinks against the ringing in his ears, lost. Blood crawls through his hair. The world – this place that was never home, that never would be home – has snapped into focus around him, so clear and painfully sharp around the edges. He looks around and up at the walls, hit with a sudden, balls-sucking-up-into-abdomen sort of terror.
Ed is never coming back.
No more riddles, no more games. No more bickering, throwing words at each other like dinner plates over the things that never really mattered as much as they had thought.
His lungs jerk, wheezing, as the enormity of that realization bears down on him with its full and terrible weight, pressing his shuddering body into the floor. He throws up until he can’t anymore. And he begins to cry, with the same violence as he does everything else.]
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So instead of sleep, he reads, just like he did when he was young and plagued with nightmares after the war and had Oswald cared and not been wrapped up in his own grief he would notice the dark circles under Alfred's eyes growing deeper and the way he's lost about seven pounds already.
He is half way through Count of Monte Cristo when he hears the commotion coming from Oswald's chambers and is up in a flash, rushing out of his quarters and down the hall, dressed in nothing more than his flannel pajama bottoms.]
Master Cobblepot? [He calls out as he enters the room, already noting that the bathroom light is on and heads inside. He is greeted to the stench of bile, vomit, blood and pain and for a moment he swears he is back home. Back in Whitechapel when he was at his lowest and would come home drunk, bloody from a fight, and feeling like death had a permanent grip on his shoulder.]
Oswald!
[The mess doesn't matter, he's seen and been in worse and he drops to his knees to scoop the smaller man up into his arms.]
It's okay, I've got you.
[He murmurs and lifts Oswald up, holding him against his chest as he turns and carries him out of the bathroom. He moves quickly, efficiently, and in a matter of seconds he is back in his own room. It's soft and cozy in here, the bedside lamp casts the entire room in a warm glow and carefully he sits down on his bed, still holding Oswald in his arms.]
I'm so sorry, I should have put down a mat so you wouldn't slip.
[He scolds himself and shifts slightly to grab a handkerchief to gently dab at the blood on Oswald's forehead.]
Are you okay?
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Shaking and shaking, Oswald blinks up at him like he’s speaking an alien language.
Maybe it’s that he doesn’t remember the last time someone asked. Maybe it's because if anyone would have, it’d have been Ed. Or that he can sense a hint of something almost real behind the words, behind the look knotting Alfred’s face, and doesn't know what to do with it. The truth lies somewhere in between all these things when he tries to answer. Tries, and chokes before he can get a single word out because, no, nothing is okay, nothing will ever be okay. Not when everything from the last two weeks he spent barely moving, barely living, has finally caught with him, burying him alive. The what ifs and if onlys and what could have beens. The reminders, too, of the lesson learned that day by the river, and on every return to the pier afterwards: that love can't be summoned or willed but that it comes and goes as it pleases. That it never comes at all, sometimes. And worse, maybe, that it can long outlive the person it was meant for.
Worthless to one, but priceless to two.
A squeak of a noise escapes him. And when his face crumples, all he can do is shake his head before he folds in on himself, breaking down.]
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ooc: bring on the booooze!
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