RP With Oswald Cobblepot

[flippin_peachy]

It's always amusing, in a dark ironic sort of way, how easily a simple plan can turn to absolute shit.

The plan had been to take a day trip up to Oswald's manor and find a few items that might help improve Oswald's mood as well as give him some motivation as Alfred was finding it harder and harder to get him out of bed these days. He still did it, sometimes literally hauling the smaller man out so he could stretch and strengthen his leg but it was taxing and he didn't like how set Oswald seemed to be on wallowing deeper into his despair. But if he could bring him a few items or even better, repair some of the damage and move him back to his actual home, then maybe Oswald would take some steps towards life again.

So after making sure his new Master was set up for the day, which meant leaving a tray of breakfast by the door and a note explaining his absence, Alfred makes the slow trek to the Van Dahl manor. Most of the roads are still bad, damaged by explosions and gang wars, but gradually the city is piecing itself back together and he is pleased to find he reaches his destination just before noon. He is also pleased to see that the outside of the Manor isn't too bad, many of the windows on the lower level are broken but the upper stories seem intact and it isn't falling down around itself so he moves inside to take a further look, already feeling hopeful.

That hope dies however when he enters Oswald's main study and finds himself face to face with group of looters.

There are five of them and while it's obvious that a great deal of things from the manor were taken long ago when Gotham first went dark it somehow greatly offends Alfred to see that these men are trying to pick the place to the bone. They are taking things that are close to useless, things that hold no meaning except for the man who lived here and when Alfred sees that one of them is not just stealing but wearing a gold silken bedroom cap he becomes enraged.

"I would highly suggest," He says as he pulls his pistol and trains it on the group, "You all put those down and get out of here."

The men seemed surprised that he is not only making such a demand but seems intent on backing it up and one of them laughs, pulling out a large hunting knife.

"Yeah? And you gonna make us, Grandpa?"

Alfred's shot rings out like a crack of thunder, the bullet hitting the spot right in front of the man's feet.

"Indeed I will."

The knife holder suddenly looks doubtful, as do his friends and just when Alfred thinks his simple plan might work out after all he is struck upside the head with a metal pipe and falls unconscious to the floor.

Comments

[hobblepot]

[The last two, three weeks have marked the start of a ritual Oswald has come to hate. If all it was was just Alfred sweeping through the room and throwing open the drapes, letting the sun in, he could turn over or burrow under his blanket like a stubborn child. But he’s not allowed to fritter away the morning hours; Alfred won’t let him. Every morning, Alfred marshals his groaning, wounded body upright as if there’s somewhere to go, somewhere to be. Somewhere he’s still wanted. And it’s hard, so hard, Oswald could cry: every movement, every step, every breath weighed down by an exhaustion that is all-encompassing, so heavy it hurts. The forced march down to the garden never gets any easier, even when Alfred hooks an arm around him and takes as much of his weight as he can. It’s never worth the bitter relief when he finally slumps down onto the bench outside, swaddled in his housecoat, and Alfred sets his breakfast down over the iron-wrought table in front of him. That’s when Alfred relays news of the outside world, as if it still matters. He talks about the roads, the supplies trickling in, the volunteers and peacekeepers overseeing Gotham’s recovery. And surely enough, the one-way conversation always circles back to the idea that there’s more to life than wasting away in the prison his bedroom has become.

There was, once, Oswald can agree.

Then, one day, Oswald rouses at noon to a breakfast tray and a note on top of the dresser. No struggle to get him up on his feet. No agonizing slog to and from the garden. He won. But this doesn’t feel like a victory, either. Leaned up against the dresser, Oswald reads over the note, crunching into a cold, buttered triangle of toast and chasing it down with a few gulps of orange juice. Nothing tastes like it used to; there’s no pleasure in it. Chew, swallow, shit, flush. Life has become a relentless cycle.

When the bed beckons him back, he doesn't resist.

---

Time slips away from him.

The shadows in the room stretch and deepen, and when he cracks open his eye hours later, night has settled over the manor. He blinks at the flickery smear of numbers on the digital clock. His stomach clenches. It’s around now when Alfred prepares dinner. In bed, he listens, hazily, for the distant clinking and clattering of pots and saucepans. The sounds of a man going through the motions of a normal life — because someone between them had to. Oswald listens for a long time. The mansion shifts gently, creaking and groaning. No clinking. No clattering.

He stretches for the nightstand and flicks on the lamp after a while, rubbing the sleep-grit from his eye. His breakfast is still on the dresser, where he left it. Frowning, he musters the will to sit up and fumbles for his crutch, feeling the sharp need to piss. On the way back, he eyes the tray, waving off a fruit fly skittering up the side of the glass. The apple slices have browned. He finishes the toast in a few bites, feeling hollow and strange.

He pokes his head out of his room and peers down the hallway, left and right. No lights on. The grand foyer beyond is swallowed by darkness too, the kind that makes the mansion feel alien and threatening. Twice as vast. Blood roars in his ears. He limps out, wide-eyed.]

Alfred? [He calls into the silence. His voice cracks, hoarse.

At the end of the hall, opposite the stairs, a window gapes wide; Alfred hasn't drawn the drapes shut. Oswald feels naked standing in front of it. Clicking over on his crutch, he looks out into the empty driveway below. In the distance lies the cold, flickering skyline of the city that raised him. A city he had loved so fiercely, once — and that had left him behind.

Like his mother and father. Like Fish. Like Ed.

Like Alfred, comes a dark whisper from the back of his mind.

His stomach swoops.

He looks around, his grip on reality, on sense, beginning to slip. He feels his body numbing, going cold. And he forgets all about the note on the tray, and what it means, struck by the fear that Alfred has left him for good. Finally gave up on him, tired of trying. Of giving and giving, and all his effort disappearing into the black hole of Oswald’s grief.

He stumbles into Alfred’s room and flips on the light, bracing for pain he isn’t ready for, that he could never be ready for. But nothing has been packed away. The bed is set, night clothes neatly folded over the covers. A book rests on the desk, gathering dust, a bookmark slotted halfway in.

He stares, uncomprehending. The relief that should have flooded him never comes.

Panting, he doubles back to his room, snatching his phone from the nightstand. The screen casts a soft glow: 6:23 PM. No new messages. With trembling fingers, he scrolls through the sparse exchanges between him and Alfred for something, anything he missed. The last text is a day old.

Dinner is ready, sir.

A wave of dizziness sweeps over him. He drops back into bed, his crutch slipping and clattering to the floor. The silence closes in on him. He shakes his phone, willing it to jingle. Waiting for the sound of Alfred coming in through the front door, hugging a crinkling paper bag of groceries to his chest, and for everything to be the way it was before. To feel alone, but not be truly alone knowing that there was still some semblance of life somewhere in the mansion. A sliver of light under a door.]

Where are you?
Call me!

[The minutes drag on — one, five, ten. Then, suddenly, half an hour has passed, and he’s still sitting on the edge of the bed, phone clenched in his hands, feeling ill. He scrolls through his contacts, his thumb hovering over Lee’s name for the briefest moment. She had no reason to care about him. But Alfred was different.]

I need your help.
I fear Alfred is in danger.