The River - OfSpideRs_aNdRiddLes - Gotham (TV) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1: This Oblivion

Chapter Text

It's the kind of feeling that makes you think in shades of soft purples and blue greys.

The kind of serene stillness that comes from wind softly blowing your sheer curtains, the white material ghosting silently into the room on a breeze you can't quite feel.

The numbness of your first moments out of sleep, the clarity from your mind in the early hours of morning when everyone around you is asleep or distracted.

The sense of longing without quite knowing what you're longing for. The feeling that something is missing and your mind is killing you because you don't know what you need.

The hive-like flurry of activity in your brain when it it supposed to be concentrating.

And just like that it's quiet.

The world ceases to exist.

The curtains ghosting silently from their cage above your windows.

A spiderweb covered with soft beads of dew from a foggy morning, glinting in soft grey light from cloudy skies of steel.

And it's all him.

The piercing blue eyes that shift colour just enough for you to not be able to just call them blue.
Because they're not blue.

They're gentle and murderous.

They're kind and unforgiving.

They're full of love and filled with pain.

He wears his heart on his sleeve but it doesn't bring him shame.

At a first glance a frustrated child who can't seem to win the approval of all those who shunned him and ignored his gestures of kindness in the hopes of a friend.

At a second glance he is a calculating boy. A boy who sees his way out and does not give it up. A boy who desperately climbs his way up in the hope of success and out of a promise to himself to never be in the slums of yesterday.

But he's just a man.

Not a child. Not even a good man in the abstract sense of the word where "good" means the ability for one to fit a mould of what one is supposed to be.

Because he's not a good man.

Just a broken man.

A man who lost his mother.
The mother who seemed to be the only one to show him love in a language he understood.
Being neglected by the world the way he was, it's not a surprise that he fought for love to be shown to him in a way that he can see.

The mother who loved white lilies and frilly dresses and floral wallpaper and loved her son.
The mother who gave up everything so her son could have a better life.

She was taken from him.

The man he seemed to love manipulated him and only sought him out when it was of his convenience.
He left in time, shoved him away because he didn't fit his golden boy obsessions.

And he was, again, alone.

Escaping the clutches of a mastermind at psychological tortures with conflicting motives he found his father.

His father, who looked past his history of impure deeds, his father who took him in and gave him a second chance.

He, too, was taken from him.

Maybe it was the outright cruelty of his fathers wife that made him relapse into old ways.

He's back to normal, now.

I do what I can to make him feel loved.
I'm not good at loving, though.

I do my best.

But love is foreign to me, too.

Maybe that's why we're here right now.

The sky it's usual grey.

We're not good with words when it matters.

It will be our downfall.

He took from me the one woman who may have loved me, given time.

I might have been able to love her too.
I think I love her. But now saying that I do seems to be more of a reflection of my grief and an instinct, rather than a confession.

But now I don't have a choice, do I?

I cannot be bought but I can be stolen in a glance.

She seemed to be the only one who looked my way.

Funny enough, that's why she's in the ground now.

And her being there is why I'm here now.
Why we're here now.

He says he loves me, this broken man.

I am so convinced that what I am doing is the right thing that I don't even realise I am wrong until it's too late.

"I don't love you."

As ironic as it is, as soon as I say those words I know I'm not telling the truth.

At least, the whole truth.

I don't think I love him.
But I do think I could.

The halves of my brain are fighting a war with no chance of survival.

But as soon as my hand tightened on this gun my mind screamed out in utter agony.

This is chaos.

I'm reading through every move I've made.
A million things that I could have done to avoid coming here.
Wondering if I have enough time to stop.
To save.
Everything around me has stopped, ceased to exist.
But within me, I am on fire.
Nothing matters right now.

Everything matters right now.

What have done?

What have I done.

The blood drains out of my face, my head swoons.

Desperate for calm but loathing to do what needs to be done for me to find it.

Hating myself more than I have in a while, I find his eyes.

He's not angry.

His eyes have taken on the colour of the river behind him, the sky around us.

The colour of my brain as my mind screams at what I have already lost, as it grieves for a being that I have not yet known. Grieves for a sense of time that I have just given up.
Grieves for a chance I could have taken to be happy.

His eyes are sad.

Is this what I have done?

This is wrong.

Part of me knows he wouldn't have gone without a fight, so in a sense I was sparing him from further hurt later on.

But all of me knows that I have ruined the stillness of a grey blue I sought refuge in during a storm.

He sheds a tear as he numbly reaches for his stomach, I can hear his ragged breathing loudly in this era of silence I have ushered in.

«is this... are you asking me a riddle?»

Blue grey green that last time.
His skin healthier looking then.
His eyes crinkle with forced amusem*nt as he pushes me away.

«look, friend--»

«the poor have it, the rich need it, and if you eat it, you die.»

Nothing.

The answer is nothing.

I think nothing.

My brain has withered within a millisecond.
Words fail me.

He presses his stomach, a gasp of pain tearing its way out of his throat, his skin paling.

I stare dumbfounded as I see the consequences of my inadequacy slip from between his shaking fingers in a shade of red that haunts my eyelids.

I raise my arm, reaching out to him.

«where's the spicy mayo?»

His eyes meet mine again after we stare at his hands.

«I believe in you»

He draws in a ragged breath, his eyes whispering a million questions and they all start with why.

My mind blanks itself of all the answers I had to those questions, none of them matter now.

I push him away from me.

His body falls backwards into the river below us.

His eyes stay open, seeming to take on the colour of the river now between us.

His hands reach out to me.

Crimson tendrils reach out to me, tracing his decent from the surface.

«is this... are you asking me a riddle?»

He's drifting away from me now.

«can I help you?»

This was what it all was about, right?
I help him, he helps me.
I outgrow him, student sheds master.

What have I done.

How alone he must feel.

How cold.

Mother. Father. Friend.
Love?

He's lost them all. And here I am victorious but without victory.

I watch him, lost.

He's slipping away from me now, the mark of this city's filth obscuring him from my vision.

What have I done.

I took from him because he took from me.

I conducted this orchestra of a game to ruin him.

Why am I not happy?

He's gone.

The river is calm but relentless.
It gently pulls him closer to the layer of debris under the water.

I feel odd.

This was not what I had planned on.

I'm not supposed to feel this way.

Regret? Remorse.

What have I done.

Cold.
Now I'm cold too.

The river is relentless, as if it senses my guilt and serves to punish me for my deeds.

It tears into my eyes now naked without my glasses.

My suit jacket had been shed on the dock next to carelessly thrown glasses.

That's not what matters now.

Everything simultaneously screams in agony and is breathtakingly numb as I fight my way lower, nowhere as graceful as his decent into darkness and the murk below.

My muscles are on fire as my lungs start to give out but through the biting cold of the river my fingers snake around a tie that comes loose from a suit vest.

Oswald.

My vision grows spotty and my legs start to give out as I try to kick my way upwards, grabbing onto his tie like any rational man would to life.

I had never really entertained the thought of suicide.
Before it all, I wanted the picket fence.
2.5 kids.

That pales in comparison to the desperation I've felt of late.

I'm dying already.

Might as well make my life worth it now.

What little is left of it.

Cold all over again.
Different cold now.

A flowing, dry cold that tastes like city air.

I find my way over to the docks, he's in my arms, not responsive.

I can barely breathe.

«Mr. Penguin-»
«Oswald.»

Oswald.

He's more important than breathing right now.

He's not breathing.

He's bleeding heavily, blood from the dock to the river and back again.

I do my best to start chest compressions but my efforts push my bullet deeper into his stomach.

Our bullet.

The one he worked his way into getting. The one I gave him, blown from my trigger with pain and confusion and grief.

I leave it there. To stop the bleeding.

The irony, the very thing that serves to killing him is the only thing besides my frantic wrists saving him.

He splutters, water seeping out of his mouth.

I drive us home.

«hello sleepyhead»

This takes me back.

He's in my bed, wrapped in layers of blankets and two of my sweaters that drown him.

Drown him like I almost let myself drown him.

What could have happened if I didn't jump in.

He would have died twice at once -- both by my hand, by bullet, by lung.

It's been thirteen hours.

He is breathing now, a small ease to my conscience.

Sometimes he whimpers in his sleep, it's fitful and his breathing grows ragged. I add a blanket and play piano for him until his breathing eases. Last time we were here I would stroke his forehead, like my mother would when I was feverish or bruised from the boys at school.

I don't want to overstep my bounds.

It was I, after all, who shot him, hurt him, both mentally and emotionally, leaving us in this precarious dance.

From my piano bench, I turn around slowly, noting the change in breathing pattern, shifting my gaze away from him, guilt's iron fist clenching my heart and throat.

My fingers ghost across the keys, slowly beginning another round of Spiegel im Spiegel, the song beautifully conveying emotions I find myself unable to express in a logical fashion.

He's waking up.

I'm terrified.

He's coughing now, I can hear the scratching on his throat from the water, and I wince when I know he's strained the feeble stitches my shaking hands frantically applied to his wound.

I kept the bullet.

An old thing we used to do at work, present those shot in the line of duty with the bullets their bodies snagged.

I hadn't noticed that I stopped breathing until after his coughing fit.

"f*ck" he wheezed.

The song faltered, but I resumed and tried to pretend I didn't hear the pain behind the word.

His voice, hurts.
Hearing it.

It sounded different before, and now he sounds hurt.

Instincts tell me to turn around and ask him if he's okay, but logic tells me that he is not.

I betrayed him. I shot him. I dumped his body in the river.

I'm a monster.

One of the few people who saw me when I was invisible, one of the few that called me a friend, not out of pity, but out of genuine caring and desire for my company.

The man that said he loved me up to the end. The man who made me.

I tried to kill him.

I wanted to kill him.

I planned his death, even worse, his destruction, for weeks.

And now here we are back at square one, and at the same time, not.

At square one, we were acquaintances.
I found him intriguing and was desperate for friends, no matter how odd the situation I found them in.

At square one, he grudgingly trusted me.
He called me when I was at work.
We ate takeout at my odd table set with science equipment and drank white wine from beakers.
We watched sh*tty television shows and complained about minor inconveniences and bitched at each other for leaving the toilet seat up.
I would hide his spicy mayo to piss him off and he would sneak into my office and draw all over my sticky notes.
We would sing together and cry together about loves lost.

And here we are.

That's all gone.
That part of us died when I shot him.

My other self has been quiet. It seems like neither of us are here right now. Or we both are. Neither of us know what to do.

I'm scared.

I hate myself more than he could ever hate me.

The song finished.

I could start over.

We can't start over, but I can start this song over and carry on as if we were back in the rhythm we started with.

It was a small kindness that I found myself hesitating.

"Hello sleepyhead" I whispered softly.

A tear rolled down my left cheek.

I don't move closer to him.

He doesn't say anything, but his breathing quiets. He's thinking.

I start the song over.

A minute passes.

The piano, bittersweet and pensive, is deafening in the gaping silence between us.

Another tear falls.

This one hits the keys.

Spidery hands still, my breathing hitches.

Shaking hands try to carry on.

My body wracks with sobs.

My vision is blurred with tears, shapes shifting out of focus just like in the river.

I'm cold again.

I try to keep quiet because it's not fair. He's the one hurting. I'm the one in the wrong. We serve to destroy.

What have I done?

"Where are my clothes?" He sniffles quietly, a soft laugh at the repeat of phrase.

My hands slide from the piano, drawing my elbows inwards and covering my face as I continue the struggle of trying to cry quietly.

"Edward..." He says softly. I can't muster a response.

"Edward." This time a command.

I try to wipe my eyes and take a shaky breath in, inwardly cringing as I hiccup on the out breath. I never was a pretty crier.

"Oswald" I curse my breaking voice.

He rises, a spectacularly bad idea, as he makes it two steps before hissing with pain and sinking back on the bed.
I rush to him, tripping over the piano bench and hitting my elbow on the floor, before fighting myself and tentatively crossing to perch on the opposite corner of the bed, back to him.

"Oswald." I try again, not a question this time, but whispered, acknowledging his presence while trying to convey my sorrow for hurting him.

"Edward" I see him from the corner of my eye, he is looking at me. Sitting so that one of his legs, the non injured one, is bent in front of him on the bed, the other relaxed over the edge of it. The sweater he is wearing, a deep green one I bought a while ago, is very large on him, so it dips, exposing too-prominent collarbones, and the slight red purple bruising on his neck due to his ascent from the riverbed via his tie.
He looks down and pulls the sweater out a bit so he can view my sh*t stitching job, and the bandaging over it.

"Did you do this?" He asks, less quietly. More conversationally.

I have no idea what he's asking.
I shot him.
And here he is, carrying on conversation as if it never happened.

"What?" I ask, confused, voice raw.

"Bandaging. It's horrendous." He adds, distaste tinging his tone.

"Bandaging. Did I do the ban-yes." I stammer out, again cringing as my words tumble ungraciously from my mouth, brain ceasing to function properly.
I am not looking at him. I look at my hands.

The hands of a killer.

My fingernails trapped blood there.
His.

I don't deserve this.

I don't deserve to be alive right now.

I shouldn't be alive I should—
"Well then" Oswald sighed. "If you really feel that way, the docks are always open."

My mind froze.
I was thinking out loud.
Oh dear.
I'm supposed to be smart. I'm supposed to be clever.
Now I'm a self pitying shell of a man who ponders suicide out of that self pity.

"I'm sorry."
The words ghost unbidden from my mouth as a whisper, softly enough that I'm not sure I actually said them.

He doesn't answer.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I repeat, louder, unsure if he heard me the first time.

"I heard you. I was just thinking about to which instance you were apologising." He continued, same conversational tone, this time with a hint of questioning.

"I guess I also have to apologise. I have been selfish. I took from you because I loved you and wanted you to love me." He said, sighing a bit at the end.

Loved.
Past tense. To have loved. To have once felt a deep attachment or affection to a particular object or person. Indicating that the present situation doesn't apply to that affection.
I loved you.

Here I am to reap the consequences of my blindness. Not in the fiery way I had anticipated, but in a quiet, polite, manner. Like a slight disagreement upper class people have at their fancy brunches wearing their floral dresses with their frilly hats.

All was for nothing.
I could have joined him in the deep, and together we could have slipped into the silent oblivion.

In this precarious dance we both win battles without victory and in the end the silence and lies break us more than bullets or words said.

If this is victory, I do not want it.

Chapter 2: scars too afraid to fade

Chapter Text

I move about my own house like a ghost.
It’s a foreign feeling -- one typically would suspect it would be the guest haunting the rooms and speaking as quietly as he could, while only doing so after being directly spoken to, not wanting to be the one to break the eggshell of silence.

I do not know what to do.

I find myself acting completely contrary to what I normally would have. Normally, my flare for the dramatic would take over, my other half, to leave me time to grieve while letting this vessel function properly. I am so very lost.

Oswald doesn’t speak to me when he does not need to.
I have ruined the both of us for that.
We are strangers to ourselves.

I worry the end of my sleeve, pinching the folded fabric between my left forefinger and thumb as I try to focus on my breathing, the muffled sounds of Oswald making calls in the main room seeping through the door of the closet in the hall, wanting to give him privacy although it wasn’t asked of me.

I close my eyes, moving my glasses off of my face in order to rub a wrist across the bridge of my nose and put pressure on my furrowed brows. Feeling the telltale prick of warm pain behind very tight eyelids and a scratch in my throat and behind my nose, the pangs of a headache beginning to return for the umpteenth time today.
I don’t want him to see me like this.
I’ve never been one who seeks pity.
Least of all from him.

Drawing my knees closer to my chest in an attempt to make myself as small as possible, I draw my arms around the backs them and squeeze tightly, pressing the bottoms of my cheekbones to the bony ridge of too-pronounced kneecaps and pulling my green sweater tight across my back.
It helps with the panic at times, to feel safely wound up in my own personal space.
Even if it’s not real.

My ragged breathing that I desperately try to quiet has prevented me noticing that Oswald has ceased to speak aloud, an accompanying snap of a mobile phone announcing to me that he has finished his conversations.

“Edward?” his voice softly filters through the door, “Edward, I know you’re in there.” he taps unobtrusively on the wood, frantic hands begin to wipe my eyes as I subconsciously prepare to speak to him, my mind screaming against it.

He can’t see me like this.
My rational thoughts override the selfish instinct, I forfeit the right to privacy from him when I put a bullet through his chest.

“Yes,” I wince, my voice comes out raspy and laden with emotions I do not wish to convey.
Clearing my throat, I try again.
“Yes?” stronger, but not much better.

“Do you want to open the door?”
I do not respond to him, not knowing what to do.

“Should I open the door?” his voice is gentle, more so than I ever remember him speaking, to anyone. What makes me so special when I so clearly deserve the worst of the wrath the mighty Penguin has to offer for me.

My brain activity ceases to function, everything falling silent, my breathing stops as the door opens slowly, Oswald ducking under the doorframe, hand on his bandaged chest.
He sits next to me, shifting so his back is to the wall, shoulder mere centimetres from my own as he grunts softly in pain from the decent putting pressure on his stitches.

We sit together, seconds that feel like eternities in themselves pass and I can no longer hold my breath in attempts to remain still, wishing I was anywhere but here, and nowhere but here at the same time.

My lugs protest and I let out a shaky breath that serves to draw a hitch in the exhale confined by restrained tears. I tighten in on myself even more, although it feels like it, I have not actually accomplished the feat of making myself smaller. My shoulders shake. I have not felt this way since Miss Kringle.

Through the dark of the closet, and the small lighting offered only by the neon green of the sign outside my window to cast a faint glow through the house, I can feel his gaze on me.

“Edward,” please, I have no right for you to be talking to me, leave me be. Leave me to rot, leave me to shrivel upon myself and let the seasons pass me by. “I am sorry.”

Confused, thoroughly, my eyebrows knit closer together as I attempt to unravel what he is saying. We have done this dance before, why has he come to bring it up again when it should stay marking my self-made tomb, and out of his mind.

“It,” my voice comes out in a rasp, I clear my throat and try again, “it, Oswald, you,” breathe, Edward, “you have nothing to apologise for, we have been over this I am the one who--”
“Shut up. Please.” I close my mouth, trying to steady my heart.
“I have called in. I am to be taking a week off from my duties as mayor, under the premise of recovering from the flu,” he laughs at that, which causes him to cough. He curls in on himself to relieve some of the pain of his diaphragm contracting against his wound, bringing the inside of his thumb and curled fist to under his nose, which he is trying to direct the coughs from.

Unthinking, or rather instincts taking over at the sight of him hurting, I look up, and shift closer to him, pressing my shoulder to his and raising my opposite hand to his shoulder,squeezing it lightly as a silent way to offer comfort. Realising that I am overstepping my bounds, I try to take my hand away.
In that same moment, his coughs stop and he takes my hastily retreating hand in his own and holds the both of them to his chest, over the bandage, the back of mine pressing lightly over his heart, I can feel it beating, the rhythm picking up slightly as the contact does not end.

“And,” he continues his prior train of thought, as if nothing between us has changed after his coughing fit, “I have also cleared you for the day, and days before. You are supposedly checking up on some old matters of business that I did not disclose.”

I nod, not knowing what else to say. A momentary silence lapses, it is unclear to me if it is uncomfortable or not, because while the pause in our one-sided conversation is pregnant with unspoken words, the contact between us, the arms resting together, our joined hands that have lowered to rest in Oswald’s lap, his knee slightly curled into mine, it is nice. I find myself missing the hugs he has given me. All save two, he initiated. The two exceptions, one was in grief, the other in malice. Otherwise, they were the highlights of my day at the time, even if I did not notice it.

I feel safe, in this. The quiet, the soft rain that has started within the recent minutes combined with the slight warmth of the points of contact between us, and the sound of Oswald breathing dampens the winded panic of my brain.

÷÷÷

Edward is crying, again.
Seventh time today actually. I haven’t mentioned it, not wanting to break the fragile truce between us. We had not spoken aloud save thrice since last night, before I fell back asleep, before I woke up briefly when the four Advil wore off and I saw him move from his curled up position on the couch to prepare himself a mug of tea, then retreat to the hall closet, which he remained in for a while. In that time, I called a few associates, including Zsasz, who gets more worried about me than is in his pay grade. Not to flatter myself, but I think he cares a bit about me. Maybe it’s just the welfare of my wallet. Even so, being slightly important to someone on a personal level feels nice. A bit alien to me since my mother died, and Edward began leaning away from me.

Edward. What the hell am I going to do about him?
I’m not good with people crying.
I decide to do nothing. I feel bad about it, but the time makes it seem the only appropriate form of action to take now.

An hour later, his quiet sobs, which he had been attempting to stifle, if for his or my own benefit I am not certain, begin to fade. Minutes later, he curls closer to me, my breath catching at the sudden closeness, his head still between the safety of his knees and chest, but his spidery legs slightly leaning towards me. His hand, still tangled in mine, slides closer to him.

As my mouth opens slightly to form a question, I risk a glance in his direction to find that he is asleep.

I don’t notice I am beginning to drift off to the sight of his hair -- slightly curled from unwash -- softly illuminated in a complimentary shade of green, and his shoulders shuddering slightly with each inbreath, until his brow creases slightly as his mind torments him in sleep. Not wanting to rudely wake him, I shift just enough for him to fall slightly, restoring the space between us and putting up a mask of not noticing his vulnerability as I quickly busy myself with picking up the abandoned mug of tea he had made much earlier and laughing slightly as to not compromise the temporary absence of pain in my chest upon finding that it is still mostly full, and very much cold.

“Sorry,” Edward mumbles. I frown slightly, he obviously needed the rest, and even though part of me is still stricken at what he did to me, all of me still cares deeply for the man regardless of his prior ulterior motives for my destruction.

I play it off. “For what? The very cold tea left abandoned in the closet with you? Or the drool you got on my arm?” he sits up at that, suddenly very concerned with the present as he straightens his back and fumbles with his glasses before locating them and pushing them up the bridge of his nose with a finger, already stammering out apologies.

I raise a hand to silence him, “I was merely teasing. My arm remains intact, unlike the rest of me, but I am afraid I have quite the crick in my neck thanks to your odd habits of taking care of yourself.”

He pulls the inside of his mouth between his teeth slightly in thought. The puffiness of his eyes are slightly magnified by his glasses in the dark, his skin slightly darker around them in redness, and his eyes themselves shining a bit from exertion. He looks broken.

“Would some nice room temperature tea make you feel better?” I say with a smirk.
He cracks a sideways smile at that. I like seeing him smile, no matter how small the smile may be. Or for whom, however my favourites will always be the ones he reserved for me.

Seeing him with Isabelle hurt. Isabella, my mind supplied, sounding an awful lot like Edward when he would lightly remind me of a small detail I forgot when we would discuss itineraries before meetings. It hurt most because I was so close to having him, but my cowardice got in the way, and maybe, had I spoken up, we would not be here now. It’s hard to guess where exactly “not here” would be, maybe I would have been able to remain close to him, maybe he would have left me out of disgust. He seems to have had romantic entanglements only with women from what he has told me, and only few at that. Could he have loved me in return, or even been moderately interested in me had I been different? Maybe it was a personality issue -- I know I’m not pretty on the outside, let alone on the inside. I’ve done things that others would view as immoral, hell, he had too. At this point, I’m glad at what we have, whatever it may be.

I long for things I will never have the privilege of having. After catching Edward embracing Isabella when I had returned from the dreadful run-in with Tetch at the dinner, seeing him kiss her, the pain it caused me, I met with Zsasz and got incredibly intoxicated with him at my mother’s old apartment. I remember crying a lot, and after being told to call him Victor, receiving a gaze full of pain that seemed so out of place in the man's eyes. He knew where I was coming from, telling me a story of him losing his chances with the one he loved because they were deeply in love with someone else. We fell asleep on the couch together, each of us clutching his own cushion, Zsasz gone by morning and I waking to a blanket draped over my frame, returning to an empty manor, Edward having left with Isabella, feeling more broken than I had in awhile.

All the pain in my life could not have prepared me for the crushing wave of emotion that crashed into me in the wake of the bullet to my heart. Both literal, and figurative. Some scars never fade.

_

The day after Edward had gone back to work, and I remained at his apartment, Zsasz came to visit, his telltale drawl of my name through the door announcing his presence before I opened it.
The door slid open to reveal Victor alone, but on a second glance accompanied by a bottle of wine I know he snagged from the manor, and a half baguette.

“What’s this?” I queried, thoroughly confused to his sudden appearance with food.

“Well, I figured, I was in the neighbourhood, and Nygma finally decided to leave, so you could use the company.” taken aback, I smiled slightly and stepped back to let him in.

He takes off his jacket, throwing it down on the back of the couch before sitting himself on the arm of it, gesturing at me to join him.

I sat down at the other end, making a grabbing motion at the bottle of wine as he busied himself with ripping off and eating a chunk of the bread.

“I swear it’s a gift,” I said laughing, Victor pausing and tilting his head a bit as he raised an absent eyebrow. “You can show up anywhere, and strut about it as if you own the place.”
Victor makes a “well, duh” motion with his head as he spreads his hands in a theatrical gesture.
“Where his guns go, he can call home.” he says in a mock-wise tone, before giggling around another bit of baguette, taking the wine bottle back before taking a swig himself.

I roll my eyes. It’s nice to have company that talks to you, instead of shying around you like a frightful house cat intent on avoiding you.

“Where did I go wrong?” I said, sobering from the fleeting happy feeling. Tears pricking at my eyes, sniffing slightly at the sensation.

“Well...maybe murdering the girlfriend wasn’t the best of ideas you’ve had, boss.” Victor retorted. I raised an eyebrow.
“That’s rich coming from you, Zsasz.”
“Victor. But seriously, I’m all for murder, but there could have been other ways of dealing with it maybe? But then again, shoulda, woulda, coulda… the holy trinity of regret, according to the Great Mister Iglesias. Nothin’ can be done now, but if you need, you can always crash with me.” the last part was a bit quieter, but it warmed my heart nonetheless.

“Thank you, very much, for the offer, Zsa--Victor. But, I need to try to fix this.”

“He shot you.” Victor deadpanned.
“With due cause I’m afraid.” I said with a sigh.

“You almost f*ckin’ died. You think that’s “with due cause”?” He said, defensively.
“I killed the woman he loved.”
“Potato, potato, and all that bullsh*t. Still doesn’t justify it.” Zsasz went out of the way to pronounce both "potatoes" the same.

I frowned at his sudden anger, but didn’t acknowledge it, instead looking away, not wanting to try to argue. Even if I had wanted to, I lacked the energy for it.

The sudden sound of eighties disco music sounded from his jacket pocket, the article lying next to my head. Victor leaned across me to grab it, his arm almost whacking me in the face. I still didn’t make eye contact with him.

He stood up with a sigh and crossed to the corner of the room, back to me before facing away from me and flipping his mobile device open and replying with a bored “yeahuh”.

Lost in self-deprecating thought, I didn’t notice he had already hung up on whoever’s wallet was on the other end of the phone until he picked up his jacket from next to me on the couch and walked behind me towards the door. I drew my knees up to my chest on the couch, and let out a soft sigh of pain, both emotional and physical.

Footsteps returned towards me, and a jacket was half-tossed, half-placed gently on top of my head and shoulders like I was a young child as Victor came back around to the back of the couch. I didn’t move, and for a minute he didn’t either, just staring at the pathetic lump of my figure curled up under his jacket. I felt a quick pressure on the top of my head from the other side of the fabric, and it wasn’t until after the door slid shut again that I realised the contact was from his lips. I smiled a little bit, still breathtakingly numb on the inside, but a little happier at the idea of having a friend through this.

÷÷÷

I came back home early from my desk duties as Mayoral Chief of Staff to find the house dark, and a lump of black cloth on my couch. On further inspection, I found that the alien lump was Oswald, and he was curled up in the corner of said couch under an unfamiliar black jacket.

Feeling slightly odd that the jacket on Oswald’s shoulders belonged to who I now realised was Victor Zsasz, I slowly removed it from over him, and frowned to see that Oswald had been clutching softly at the jacket. The strange feeling in my stomach was slightly abated when I replaced the jacket with the comforter from the bed, but it let me puzzled nonetheless as to what the feeling was.

Resolving that I would leave the jacket folded on the table until a later time for questioning when we got over the eggshells we waltz so precariously on, I made to move back to the safety of my hiding spot when Oswald sniffled a bit. Listening closely, his breathing pattern had changed to a slightly faster one, indicating that he was awake and I was out of time to make myself scarce.

I shuffled awkwardly as a fluffy, almost feathered-looking, raven black head emerged from under the comforter facing away from me.

“What time is it?” Oswald inquired groggily, voice slightly hoarse.

Glancing at my watch, “forty seven minutes past five,” I stated, wincing at the sudden loudness of my voice in the once quiet apartment.

Oswald yawned, a small thing, quietly emerging from his chest, and finishing with a wince at the strain it put on his stitches.
Stitches.

“If you do excuse the intrusion, Oswald, I need to take a look at you stitches and swap your bandaging…” I trailed off, worrying that I had brought up a delicate matter for him, knowing very well it was a sore topic for myself, let alone him. He nodded, and made to sit up, swinging his legs over the side of the couch, gathering the blanket to his small frame, before hobbling over to the bed, where he perched at the edge, looking anywhere but at me.

I put down my things, and took off my dark green suit jacket, folding it carefully and placing it intentionally over that of Zsasz on the table in a slightly territorial manner before carefully rolling up my sleeves and making sure they would not slide down. Moving over towards Oswald, I picked up my first aid kit from the bathroom counter, and setting it down on the bed next to where he was sitting. It was then I realised the inevitable removal of his layers in order for me to reach his bandaging.

“Um,” I started, unsure of how to phrase this, “I need to reach your bandages, is it alright if I…” I trailed off.
He nodded a bit, then again more pronouncedly, as if thinking harder about the matter, before slowly shifting the comforter from his shoulders so that it went to around his waist. It was slightly cool in the apartment, as the heaters were dodgy at best, and the insulation was appalling. Oswald made to start removing his dress shirt, but I stopped him by lightly touching his hand, which immediately stilled on the top button.

“May I?” wincing again, as it has become evident to me that I have relinquished my ability to hold normal conversations with this man. “Not to be… odd, but removing it from over your head would put strain on your chest and I wouldn’t want to cause you further pain, even though in the past I haven’t been the best to you and I would like to do something nicer for you, as an apology, and... I’m sorry I’m rambling… may I?”
Both of us have been skirting eye contact with each other as of late, so instead I find myself starting at his shoulder instead of his face, seeing out of my peripheral that he was also shying away from looking at me, his cheeks dusted slightly pink as he looked past me to the floor, nodding again.

As I kneeled in front of him, and reached shaking hands up to his shirt collar to undo the button, I realised that this would be the first time I would have had to change his bandages when he was awake, complicating the situation on my end because I could no longer openly examine his slightly furrowed brows in his sleep, or the way his eyelashes would flutter at certain intervals of his sleep.
When I heard a polite clearing of the throat from directly in front of me, it became apparent that I was zoning out with my hands frozen on Oswald’s shirt collar, not saying a thing. I felt a heat rise to my cheeks and my pulse slightly quicken as I began to slide the top button of his shirt out from its prior positioning. Continuing at a pace slightly slower than necessary, I reveled in the procedure, each button moving the shirt to reveal pale, lightly freckled skin adorning pronounced collarbones and stopping momentarily as it was interrupted by a white gauze bandage that had a splattering of a sickening red-brown stain that I would not have bat an eye at had it been anywhere but on Oswald.

Faint goosebumps appeared on his skin as cold hands slid the shirt from his shoulders, exposing prominent ribs, a smattering of scars, and a faint dusting of a pink flush across his shoulders that traveled upwards. Glancing up, I met his entrancing eyes, an apprehensive shade of grey that met mine for the first time in days.

My breath was stolen from me.
The faint pink from earlier rested delicately on his cheekbones, his pupils slightly enlarged. I looked away briefly, taking in the other places the flush had spread to - his cheeks, throat, the tips of his ears, and his nose. I flicked my eyes back up to his, losing myself in them.

He blinked, and with it brought me crashing back down to reality from the eye of the storm. My hands, cold from the outside wind that sought refuge in the absence of my gloves, were ghosting over his arms, ribs, hips, as I was lost in everything that he is -- unable to breathe but never more alive.

Euphoric.

This man has brought a light into my dull existence, and I was drawn to it on the wings of a moth from the dull greys of my reclusive habits.

Shaking my head slightly, as if to dispel the trance, I blinked a few times before resuming the original task of fixing his bandaging.
The wound looks slightly better, but that may just be the endorphins.
I felt a sense of loss as I finished up, knowing that I would have to replace the fabric covering his torso. I almost didn’t want to.

I stood up briefly, under the pretense of admiring my handiwork, knowing full well it was awful as I was preoccupied taking Oswald in, and looked at him again. He shifted a bit under my gaze, eyes once again meeting mine in a quiet sort of bravery that spoke volumes he could not vocalise. I remembered the chill in the air as his arms wrapped around his waist in attempts to keep himself warm.

I loathed to look away from him, but I had to do so when turning around and fishing out of my dresser the green sweater I had worn the other day when we sat together, knowing it smelled of my cologne, the wisps of it clinging to the material, hoping it would serve to comfort and not agitate, and kneeled in front of Oswald again, sweater in hand.

After helping him into it, I met his eyes again, looking away from how the v-neck exposed his collarbones due to the slight size difference, and saw to my quiet delight the pleasing blush on his cheeks had intensified to a more stark colour change from his otherwise pale skin.

Before I could stop myself, I found my hand gently hovering near his cheek, the warmth from it radiating softly to meet my skin.

He leaned into the almost-touch, connecting us in that small way, an invisible tension being slightly alleviated as his eyes fluttered shut and he nuzzled slightly into my palm.
Seconds passed, and although I did not want to move from this quiet source of peaceful infinity, I moved my hand away slowly, him staying where he was, leaning slightly away to not fall over from where he was leaning.
I went back to the couch, and wrapped myself up in a spare blanket, hoping sleep would claim me quickly, so that I may see his eyes once more.

Chapter 3: eggshells

Chapter Text

I have concluded, through a series of encounters with said man, that Edward Nygma is a very odd man. Not in a bad way, but unexpectedly so. He is acting strangely of late, looking at me when he believes I cannot see him, being almost kind to me in small acts of simple favours, such as bringing over some of my soaps from the manor for the bathroom here.

Is it odd that I do not currently wish to return to the manor? My father's house seems to be the last thing on my mind as of late. Normally, I would have insisted being left to my own devices in that old house, would have threatened anyone who opposed my return to it. But not now, strangely enough.

Edward and I have developed a barrier between us. Not a spoken thing of course, but a manifestation of our mutual hesitation to break through and do something, anything. He is sleeping on the couch frequently, and while I feel bad about making him camp on the sitting furniture in his own house, he sort of owes me. For now, I get the bed.

It has been two days since he attempted to change my bandaging, the incident very awkward, yet enticing all the same. Being so exposed before him felt… not the best. I do not take pride in my appearance beyond my face, let alone anywhere else not covered by expensive fabrics. But he didn’t look at me like he was scrutinising my weight or having degrading thoughts about my appearance, more of a look like he would give one of his experiments. Concentrating, observing. Calculating. I can’t quite determine if I liked it or not, but I would not be adverse to having it happen again. I am certain of one thing, and that being that I have absolutely no idea what is going on around me. I dare not hope it means anything more than pity.

Speaking of the devil, the door slides open, as quiet footsteps pat their way into the house. I am looking out the window, relaxed, cupping a mug of tea between my hands as to keep them warm in the face of the Gotham rains against the main window. The house is quiet save for my thoughts, and Edward moving silently about the kitchen, preparing himself some tea as well. He joins me on the couch, the position vaguely reminiscent of that from when Victor came to visit, but less comfortable. As routine, we both say nothing, and make no move to do anything of the sort.

That is, until several minutes later when Edward shifts, and the mug of tea balanced on his knee while his hands were occupied with a copy of some medical textbook one is expected to know the name of, decides to topple over and empty its contents over the couch space between us. He lets out a string of curses as we both hop ungracefully off of the couch to avoid being scalded by the absurd temperature of tea he seems to fancy so much.

My hasty escape is thwarted by the comforter I again took from the bed in order to cocoon myself in on the couch tangling with my bad leg and with a hard exhale I fall to the floor shoulder first, the sharp sting of my chest the last thing I feel before I pass out from the blinding pain in my heart.

_

Groaning, it isn’t until an indeterminate amount of time passes that I am awake again, head foggy with pain from both the fall and my chest. I’m on the bed, propped up on every pillow in the apartment and Edward stops his frantic pacing across the main room to look at me with his brown eyes laden with concern. I do my best to appear as though I am taking him seriously, however, frankly, the situation is a bit ridiculous.

“Oswald I am so sorry I was careless, I should have paid better attention to what I was doing and I didn’t mean to cause you further h-- why are you laughing?” he finishes incredulously.

I didn’t mean it, but I find myself giggling at his antics as well at just how obscene the whole thing is. Here he was trying to act like a house cat skittering about, desperately trying not to be noticed, and then a simple accident leads to me blacking out, and yes, I did hear his yelp of surprise as I went under.

“Edward, really it’s fine,” I start laughing again, “in all honesty, you should have seen your face. Sometimes I wish I carried a camera.”

The previously scandalised look bleeds away to an exasperated eyeroll.

“Be careful with your eyes, they may get stuck like that.” God, I sound like my mother.

“Useful, as it would be the only expression I need around you.” Edward quickly retorted. We shared a brief smile before looking away from each other. Momentarily, the tension eased, and I could almost pretend it was all okay again until my chest panged and I was dragged forcefully back to the present, back to the eggshells. As much as I wished it didn’t, my smile faded from my face as the floodgates of pent up emotions let loose into my mind. The truth, ugly as ever, reared its venomous head as it looked me in my soul. Every fibre of my being hated it. I cursed myself for being this fragile as my eyes grow hot behind clenched lids.

Graciously remembering that I won’t put up with his apologies at the time being, Edward says nothing but decides to sit at the corner of the bed near my feet, tentatively placing a hand on my leg on top of the blankets in a comforting way, misunderstanding the source of the unshed tears. I do mean not to be greedy for his silent affections in these times, but I can’t help but revel in the small comfort that right now it’s just us here, without the burdens of ulterior motives between us. Even though I know the chances of him loving me are very slim, I would waste all my time in this world reliving this moment, just so I could pretend he does.

I make a mental note to see if I can get a refund on my eyes as the tears fall. I hold my breath as to not start crying harder again as Edward and I seem to be doing so often of late.

“Very useful, yes.” I shrink back into myself, turning away from his seeking eyes. He only cares because he feels guilty about what he did. I’m a minor inconvenience to him on better days. Nothing more, nothing less.

_

My first day back at my office, Zsasz is waiting for me on my desk. The man will be the death of me if Edward isn’t first.

“Heya boss, how’s the nest?” He drawls.

“If you are referring to my current residence at Mr. Nygma’s apartment, then it is fine, although my host seems intent on playing house cat.”

Victor barks a laugh at that. “Really? That loudass drama queen? I find it hard to believe.” Just as if he was called, Edward comes into the room, paperwork in his arms. He looks between us, confusion painting his face, it suddenly softer and less closed-off than at the apartment.

÷÷÷

“Ah, Mr. Nygma,” Oswald says, professional mask on, “Victor and I were just catching up.”

“Edward.” I correct. He always called me Edward, even at work. Why would now, when we are both sweeping events under the rug, would he decide to change? Was it because of Zsasz? Couldn’t be, he would not have changed before.

Sweeping the intrusive thoughts away for the time being, I ready myself before rattling off to Oswald the business affairs of the day, give him his itinerary for the afternoon of meetings then quickly excuse myself from the room, seeking solitude in order to probe at my recollection of the last few minutes before facing Oswald again.

Reaching my desk, I pull out a file of paperwork that I had already completed yesterday, twice, out of my anxiousness about my current predicament. Three days ago, before I had switched and cleaned his bandaging, Oswald had met with the infamous hitman known as Victor Zsasz. Before that meeting, I had only ever heard Oswald referring to Zsasz by his last name, rather than the very intimate usage of the first name. An interesting turn of events, as Zsasz has only referred to Oswald by his last name, or simply “boss”, and continues to do so. There is also that maddening habit of Zsasz’s where he makes himself at home anywhere, but, never have I seen him actually perch himself on the desk belonging to his current source of income. And I have never heard of him being so careless to leave his belongings anywhere not on him, let alone his jacket draped over his f*cking boss.

Snap!

Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes for a brief second, composing myself, and quickly sweep the broken pencil into the trash beside my desk, already containing fragments of no less than four green pencils in various states of distress. Reordering the papers in my file, I take a second to reconfirm that I am indeed alone. The man in my mirror hasn’t even made an attempt to talk to me, fat load of good he is.

Back to business. Victor Zsasz had been in my apartment in my absence, confided in Oswald some level of information that warranted a first-name basis, and left, not before Oswald himself had gone to sleep on the couch again. Why would he be sleeping on the couch if he had the bed to himself? Does he miss my company?

Probably not. I did shoot him, and he is seeming to be a lot closer to Victor than Mr. Nygma as of late. God.

Why am I even thinking about this? I do not own him. I do not get to dictate when and where Oswald Cobblepot lives his life and with whom.

I just thought that maybe after the other day, something had changed. I tried to be nice, did I not? How naive of me to think that just because I cried with and over my friend that it would mean he would do the same for me, and maybe feel the way I do. Hard to determine if he could reciprocate what it is that I am feeling, as I myself am not sure to what that entails.

Resolving that something needs to change, I pick up the paperwork I had been disguising my internal conflicts with, and head out of my office. Walking more confidently out of the room than I had walked in, I headed towards the Mayor’s office.

Just as I am about to knock to open the door, I hear voices on the other side of it. Not wanting to disturb, I move to walk away when I hear the other voice more clearly. It isn’t Oswald.

Who then?

Oh my. Had I not known that Zsasz was inside the office prior I would not have believed it to be him. The tone of voice was so soft, so sincere. So juxtaposing the normal bored drawl Zsasz is known for. I ducked into the shadows outside of the door, intent on hearing what Zsasz could be so delicate about.

Pressing my back into the cool wood paneling of the walls, I focused on steadying and slowing my breathing in an effort to hear small noises better.

“it’s all right boss, it’s alright.” that was Zsasz.

“Is it Victor? How can you even begin to--” Oswald cut off as the telltale hiccuping choke of another emotional fit he was so known for began to wrack his body. There’s a brief pause, and words I can’t make out.

“Ozzie. C’mere.” Ozzie? Does this imbecile of a man even know who he is talking to? What right does he have to call Oswald that, when even I can’t.

I blinked, stepping away from the wall, walking to the bathroom, away from the conversation. Why does my head hurt? Locking the door, I look into the mirror for guidance. No answer.

Come on please I need you.

No response.

Please. For Oswald.

I look up again.

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” I almost jump.

“Help me please I am so lost.”

“Been there. Done that. Don’t care” a sh*t-eating grin.

“I’m losing him you idiot!”

“Sounds like a you problem, pal.” He shrugs at me, making a pleading face one would typically call ‘puppy eyes’, the prick. Just as he turns away to disappear and leave me to my own devices once again, I speak up.

“I know how much he means to you.”

A beat of silence passes. His back is still towards me.

Seconds feel like hours, my pulse is pounding in my ears.

He sighs, a very long, drawn-out, thing that would put most teenagers to shame. Turning around, as if I am a small child who is lost at the grocery store and he needs to get out quickly, he bends over towards my face, as I am crouched on the floor.

With his hands on his knees, and an impressive pouty lip full of mock-sympathy, he speaks for the last time before leaving me. Again.

“Well, then I guess you better f*cking do something about it, then.”

÷÷÷

After Edw--Nygma. After Nygma left from delivering a stack of manilla file folders I had so little desire to open, Zsasz looked at me with one hell of a “see what I mean?” face. I looked away, putting both of my palms up to my face and groaned.

“God, what am I going to do?” My face started to heat up in shame at my sudden vulnerability in the budding space of openness with Victor.

“Well, for one, you could either kill him. I could kill him if it would make ya feel better I know you ain’t feelin so good lat--”

“No!” That came out louder than expected. “No, no. Thank you Zsasz but for one, I’m not sure I actually want him dead anymore, and two, I couldn’t pay you enough to do it.”

He laughed softly at that, the sound out of place with the wolfish grin and the sad eyes looking somewhere near my feet.

“Iss Victor, boss, I told ya that. And even if you decide you do wanna see him six under, I’d do it for free.”

Caught off guard, I laugh incredulously.

“You? Do something you love to do for free? Likely story.”

He moves a bit closer to me.

“Nah I‘m bein’ dead serious. I’d do it.” He meets my eyes, I have to look up slightly to look back at him, but the distance isn’t extreme.

He looks at me like he cares. Like I deserve to be cared about. It’s foreign, but I find myself enthralled with the feeling of being respected out of friendship. A gloved hand reaches out to my upper arm, thumb working circles into the fabric of my suit as my own hand comes up to my mouth to cover suddenly uneven breathing.

I look up into his brown eyes, seeking out answers to every problem I have had to face in the span of weeks.

“What am I going to do, Victor?” the words come out in a whisper.

He looks at me sadly, the same sadness as when he told me of his lost love. He slowly shakes his head, mouth twisted in a truly apologetic smile.

Tears spring unbidden from my eyes, first right, then left. I make no sound. I don’t even breathe. He reaches out with his other arm, to hold me from him with both arms extended.

“It’s all right, boss. It’s alright.”

God, not that lie. Why is it always that lie everybody thinks is alright to spread?

“Is it, Victor?” I say angrily. “How can you even begin to know--” my chest hiccups.

“How can you even know what losing someone who’s alive feels like?” I finish in a hushed tone. I can’t look at him right now.

“Ozzie,” I meet his eyes reluctantly. “C’mere.” he wraps me into an embrace, pulling my chest against his, my head ducked so that I can hear his heartbeat, the rhythm of it soothing me.

“Just cuz it don’t always look like it, doesn’t mean not all of us have suffered, doll. Doesn’t mean that we aren’t still suffering now.” I lean into him, crying harder. Loving the company but wishing against reality that he were someone else.

We remained like that for a few minutes, my sobs dying down, and all the while Victor rubbed circles into my back, his cheekbone resting on the top of my head. He smelled like gunpowder and faintly of cologne. He shifted so that he was once again holding me at arms length from him, his hands dwarfing my upper arms.

“Now, whaddya say we re-apply some of that battle armour of yours, little bird.” I laughed at the turn of phrase. Realising that my eyeliner and hair were probably a mess, I allowed the hairless man the liberty of straightening my hair to an acceptable variation of its prior state, I don’t get into the habit of mirrors, then tried not to giggle at his very serious face when he bit his tongue just outside of his lips in concentration. Holding my chin upwards to him with one hand, and gripping the stick of eyeliner with the other, he cut quite the comical figure from his normal, borderline terrifying, self.

“Alright doll, you look as good as new. Go out there and kick some ass, or whatever the hell it is that you do as mayor. I know that I for one am deeply confused by the lack of details I’m getting. I’ve gotta head out for the day.”

I laughed, it didn’t feel so great against my chest, but it felt worth it all the same.

“I guess I will be seeing you around then. I left some food for you in the fridge of the manor.”

“Awe f*ck yeah better be pop tarts.”

“In the fridge? Sure hope not.”

I don’t want to be alone. This is nice. But I don’t deserve it.

_

After a long day of debate with myself, I decide that I do not want to return anywhere. The manor is cold and too-large for me by myself, the apartment is not much better. While I wouldn’t physically be alone, I know that Ed- Nygma. would make no attempt to make me feel better.

Jesus Christ on a bicycle does that man have a tracker on my thoughts? Here the man of the hour comes again. I am so not in the mood for this.

“Mr. Cobblepot,” I raise an eyebrow at the formality. “Oswald.” he amended. He stood in the doorframe, fidgeting with the cuffs of his sleeves, wearing his gloves again, his hair still in its pristine condition. I waved him in, not sure what to do with my hands, so opting to place one on my cane to the side of my chair, and the other on the arm of my chair, supporting my head. As he continued to say nothing, and just look at me, unmoving, I looked imploringly at him for him to speak.

He cleared his throat. “Oswald. If I am not overstepping any bounds, I would wish to know where it is you will be staying at night.”

I blinked.

“I am afraid I do not know what it is that you are asking, Edward.”

“I…” he again cleared his throat, I wonder if he has had any water today. “I was attempting to ask if, if you would not be opposed of course,” throat cleared again, good lord. “If you would not outright detest, if of course--”

“Edward.”

“Yes,” he said, looking up at me hopefully. “Oswald.”

“Edward, spit it out.”

“Iwaswonderingifyouwouldwanttostaywithmeforanothernightorso”

“Edward.”

“Oswald, would you, if unopposed, wish to come home with me.”

Caught completely off guard, I feel a flush slap me in the face, colouring my cheeks, and I forgot how to breathe.

“Um, I’m sorry, are you sure you mean that?”

“Oh no! No no, not like that, of course not.” my heart sank. Of course not like that. I’m a fool for thinking otherwise.

“I’m sorry, words are supposed to be my strong point. What I mean is, I need to change your, um, bandaging again and make sure things are okay, and it would be more practical and logical for you to remain residing in our apartment for the time being.”

“Our?” I blinked.

“Er, mine. Yours when you wish to stay there, so, ours by definition, I mean.”

A tense minute of silence passed between us, both of us red in the face, neither of us quite understanding what was going on, neither of us wanting to look away from each other.

“Alright.” I half-whispered. To my great surprise, Edward seemed relieved.

I suddenly found my throat quite dry, sympathising a bit with Edward earlier. “What time did you want to be off?”

The taller man glanced at his watch. “Now?” he said, looking a bit sheepish.

Chapter 4: lilies and malice

Chapter Text

Less than an hour later, I found myself back at my apartment with Oswald hovering in the corner by the table, looking out to the afternoon fog beyond the window. Funny thing is, now that I have Oswald alone, I have no idea how to proceed. My instincts are not the best, so I’m hoping for it to be Oswald who breaks the silence. My newfound connections to the man concern me. I seek out his face when he is in the room, I look towards the sounds of his voice, I want him to look at me. I pushed him away for so long and I am now reaping the consequences. I was such a fool then. Not much has changed. I can’t even bring myself to confess to anyone, let alone to my own eyes.

I am unsure what to do to put Oswald at ease, so I head over to my kitchen and put the kettle on to prepare water for tea. Opening the cupboard, I pull out two boxes of tea, one, English Breakfast, my preference, the other being ginger, Oswald’s favourite, of I am remembering correctly, as he did mention that his mother used to make him ginger tea with honey to make him feel better. The kettle beeped three high pitched chirps to signal that the water was at Oswald’s temperature, approximately one hundred and seventy degrees fahrenheit, and put the remaining water back on to heat to my preferred one hundred and ninety degrees fahrenheit. Fishing out a black mug from my cupboard above the sink, I added Oswald’s tea bag along with the water and set it aside to steep, doing the same in about half a minute later with a green mug as my water came to temperature. Stirring honey into the ginger tea, I picked up both warm mugs, and walked over to where Oswald was standing, giving him his as a silent peace offering.

He looked at the cup in my hand, briefly puzzled before accepting the mug silently. The tips of his fingers, slightly warm, brushed mine as he took the mug. Logically I knew that my skin was not actually tingling from the contact, but all the same tiny bolts of electricity zipped through the edges of my fingers that his brushed against. Staring at my hand, still slightly outstretched like an idiot, I saw out of my peripheral that Oswald had taken his mug and held it close to his face, looking back into the fog outside the window. He had stepped away from me, leaving a modest half a metre between us. I felt my brows knit together softly. First calling me by my last name, and now physical separation? This is odd. Very odd.

I come to the conclusion that I do not like it one bit.

÷÷÷

Edward brought me tea.

Staring into the dense fog outside the chilly window, I am trying to unpack what is going on.

With no success.

Cupping the mug to my face, I breathe in the smell of ginger. Creasing my brow slightly, I try to recall why this is important.

Mother.

Mother would make me ginger tea after days at school when I would come home sniffling because the boys at school had been harassing me again. She would rub my cheek with her thumb as she told me not to pay attention to their harsh words, that I was worthy of being alive. That she loved me.

My eyes prickled at the memories, but I have already cried more this week than I have in a very long time. I have no tears left, and no strength to shed any if there were. I feel hollowed out and strangely content. As if I were to cease breathing at this moment, I would be fine slipping away into nothing. Maybe mother would be waiting for me there, among the white lillies.

After a few beats later, my right side felt slightly warmed by the close presence of another in my close proximity. Looking up briefly, I saw that Edward had moved so that very little space remained between us, in a quiet intimacy shared by few. He wasn’t looking at me, but he stood with his arm across his chest, supporting the other elbow as he sipped at his tea with one hand, gazing pensively out the window. I looked away.

“What are you doing, Mr. Nygma?” I said tiredly, resigned to never knowing what was going on in the man’s head.

“Edward.” he said in a whisper, sounding almost hurt. I still would not look at him.

“Edward.” I affirmed, voice also hushed. If he wasn’t going to continue the conversation after that, I would not be the one to attempt to initiate it myself.

Worried that if I were to leave my tea too long to cool off it would be the temperature of tap water, I took a sip, savouring the way the ginger burned on its way down my throat.

“Why?” He asked.

“Hmm?” I queried, still not looking at him. He could be asking a number of things, and I know him well enough that he is trying to gauge what I am thinking about based on my response. So I do not give him that foothold in the conversation.

“Why are you shutting me out?” He continued. I sighed, not quite knowing what to say to that.

“You shot me.” I responded immediately, trying to sound bored with the topic at hand, a defense mechanism I picked up from Victor.

“Yes, and before I take a look at that I need to know what is going on.” I can tell he is looking at me now, still not moving back from when he invaded my space a few minutes earlier.

“Why do you care?” I say, realising that I sound angry. Rounding on him, I glare up into his eyes as I place my cup on the window ledge. He has no right to be asking me these sort of things as if he wants a response he would enjoy hearing.

His brown eyes flash hurt, then harden into a feeling I cannot name.

“Why are you shutting me out, Oswald.”

“Why do you care, Nygma?” Knowing fully well that the use of his surname would serve to get a rise out of him.

His mouth thins predictably, he places his cup next to mine on the ledge, not even looking away from me to do so. His arm, instead of moving to rest by his side like the other one, moves so that his hand is on the side of my face. A pang of longing shoots through me, shaking me to my core. But I will not let him have the pleasure of knowing his effect on me.

“Because this is different, Oswald. I know you. You don’t do this to your friends. Even then, you didn’t do it to me.”

“Well, newsflash Nygma, you do not care about me. You made that quite clear,” Driving my point home, I put my hand over my wounded chest, “on the docks. When you shot me in the heart, and dumped me in the river.”

He doesn’t respond verbally. He instead stares at me, chest heaving. Positively furious, I notice. I would want to be smug about this, but at this point, I am very upset as well. He shot me. He doesn’t love me. I should not care.

His other hand comes up to grip the side of my face, and my two hands grip at his wrists, leveling his cold stare with one as venomous as I could muster.

He says nothing, so I press on in my verbal onslaught.

“What, are you going to kill me now? Didn’t work much last time, did it? Or would you prefer to have me dead in your apartment right here, like Miss Kristen, without even taking me to bed first.” I laugh bitterly. It was low, but god, did it feel good.

His eyes shimmer. Deep browns obscured by liquid mist reflecting the fog outside. His hands shake slightly where they hold my face to look at him.

“Still crying for her I see. Or is it yourself, because it sure as hell isn’t me you cry for.” My voice had returned to a normal volume, anger fading to poorly restrained resentment and self-loathing.

Edward’s lip quivered, tears falling from his eyes in earnest now. I expect him to slap me. Stab me, anything. He won’t even move to acknowledge that what I said was true.

I stare into his eyes unblinking. Challenging him to confirm what I know. In this moment, I hate him almost as much as I hate myself.

He just looks at me. Close to sobbing, his face red. Eyes blazing with pain.

Catching me off guard, as is his penchant for doing so, he pulls me to his chest. My arms are trapped so that I am holding his shoulders, forearms flattened between us. Any attempts I could have made to escape the embrace are thwarted by my heart beating like a sledgehammer behind my ribs, hurting like a bitch, and I am frozen in place as he buries his face behind my neck, his torso wrecked with emotion. My face is on fire. I don’t move. I don’t say a thing.

The back of my suit jacket is damp with his tears, and I find I don’t care about that. Knowing fully well that I am the reason he is upset, I still feel as though I should try to comfort him. My fingers tighten on the shoulders of the green silk suit, and the change of pace from the heated conversation leaves my head reeling at the suddenness of it ending.

Edward’s sobs lessen, but his grip tightens, and I gasp for air. Any other time, I would have been glad for the contact, but I cannot breathe. I tap on his shoulders with both hands frantically, the pain in my chest coupled with the constricting grip of his arms around my waist leave little room for inhales. Getting the message, he pulls away, and holds me lightly by the hips as I cough, struggling to regain my breath. He rubs circles into my side, trying to comfort me as I took a few deep breaths to steady myself.

Wiping his face with the back of his unoccupied hand, he then takes a shuddering inhale as he prepares to speak. Subconsciously, I note that it’s nice to not be the emotional wreck for a change.

“Should I, um, clean that?” the words make it out of his mouth unevenly. I nod somewhat certainly, mostly not.

I step away from him, removing my jacket then nonverbally offering to help him with his, but he shook his head and did it himself, taking mine from me and placing both of them over the back of one of the dining chairs. I try to make quick work of my suit vest and tie but Edward got there first, shooing my hands away with his, and slowly going about undoing the rest. By this point, I have no idea what to do with myself so I stare over my shoulder at the window, where the two cups grow cold together, the black and green complimenting each other. About a minute too long later, my vest has found its way, pristinely folded, along with my tie and our two jackets.

Either it is less cold in the apartment today, or the blush on face is working as a heater for the rest of my body as he loops a forefinger between the overlap of my dress shirt and carefully, and why are you so slow releases the button. Rolling my eyes, I cover his hands with my own, stopping their progress, and raise an eyebrow at him. He stares at me like a deer caught in the headlights. I remove his hands from my shirt and undo it myself, eyes not leaving his. Our hands disagree again on the process as his pianist fingers come to my collar and ease it off of my shoulders. As soon as the article is off, a good five minutes later, what is his issue, I pull my arms around my waist, trying my best to curl up on myself in an effort to spare his eyes. I look back at him from the floor, he doesn’t look appalled.

÷÷÷

Why does he do that? He tries to hide all of him but we are beyond that, aren’t we? I know he loved me, hell I still hope he may, but I’m pretty convinced that I have lost him. Trying not to, but the sentiment remains.

His arms are wound around his fragile waist, and I notice faint white lines running up and down his forearms that I had not noticed before. I want to touch them, try to assure myself they aren’t there, but the moment is still, like a reflective pond before the rain spoils it, so I don’t. He is looking away from me now, gazing intently at the floor, dark lashes juxtaposing pale skin and flushed cheeks. The blood rushing to his face makes his freckles more prominent. A startling thought crosses my mind that I actually enjoy looking at Oswald. Stronger than that, I relish looking at him. He’s borderline pretty.

“Told ya”

f*ck off.

Oswald looks back up at me, his eyes searching my face for something I don’t know. Irises soft blue in the white light of the fog. Heart pounding, I shift my gaze from his face to start the labour of unrolling his gauze over the bullet wound. The cause of it stashed safely in a velvet box under the floorboards of the kitchen, near the sink. Once the gauze is gone, I double check the stitching, to make sure it has not loosened or frayed, and then dab more antibiotics over the area, cursing my limited medical knowledge. Bundling up the old gauze, I rewrap his torso with a fresh layer. Content that I have fixed at least what I can, I pack up my first aid kit.

After returning it to the bathroom, I walk back over to Oswald and tilt his chin up with a curled forefinger so that I can meet his eyes again, searching his face to confirm my prior suspicions. His lash line under his eyes has been filled in darker than it was in the morning, his hair having been styled differently when I asked him to stay than when he left for work. His left eye being uniformly darkened with his right, I concluded that someone else must have done it for him. Now that I think of it, he has only ever done it himself. Odd.

Oh god, don’t let it be Zsasz.

“Oswald?” I whisper, scared at the reaction to what I am about to ask of him. Terrified to be right. Please don’t let me be right, just this once.

He blinks at me. I take it as an incentive to continue.

“What… Who is Zsasz to you?”

÷÷÷

I blink in surprise. My mouth goes dry.

“What?” I splutter, thoroughly taken aback.

He looks down, face closing off, an indicator that he isn’t alright.

“Oswald, is Victor Zsasz important to you?” What in the hell.

“Y-yes? Why has this come up?” I am completely lost at this point.

“What do you mean, yes?” He sounds like a child forgotten on his own birthday.

“I mean that he is my closest friend, Edward, why is this relevant?”

He takes a breath.

“Your eyes,” He begins, “they look different than they did this morning, more done up. The way they are so suggests that someone had assisted you with them, and in noticing the way you are reluctant to use my first name, you seem to have no qualms calling Zsasz by his.” I roll my eyes.

“Seriously? You’re all bent out of shape because I have been feeling the need to distance myself from you?”

“So you are pushing me out.”

“We have been over this before, Edward, you have made it quite clear that you want nothing to do with me. The only reason I am here is to satisfy your need to take care of me out of your own self pity.”

÷÷÷

How could he say that? He thinks I only pretend to care for him because of guilt? Sure, guilt has something to do with it but I do, actually, care. For f*cks sake, I spent the last weeks shredding his psyche, tormenting him so cruelly, climaxing when I shot him, and he expects me to just leave him.

“Well, would you blame him? You had fun with that. I did not. He aligns us more than we have been in a while. I find it quite nice to not have to be fighting you for a while.”

“You are right.” Oswald’s eyes positively blow open in shock and indignation.

sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t not talking to you. Oh dear. Backtrack backtrack backtrack.

“At first I did not know what to do. I felt horrible. I took the one chance at feeling alright and shot it down. But I’m trying. Trying to make you not hate me so much. I even,” this is harder than I thought to admit. “I, the night after you woke up, and you were asleep, I went out.”

He rolled his eyes at me.

“How exactly is this relevant right now?” he sounds exasperated, and very upset.

“Listen, please. When you were asleep, and I thought that it was safer to leave you without having something truly awful happen in your sleep, I went over to that Chinese restaurant we used to get takeout from. I had been trying to poison every happy memory we shared, so I dug up your father from under the garbage bin,” He flinched at that. “And, and I reburried him. Next to your mother.”

About four emotions I rarely see on him crossed his face in such quick succession that I couldn’t name them.

“Why would you do that?” He breathed, anger on the tip of his tongue.

“Because I think--” nope, not going there now. Let’s backpedal this.

I shook my head as if to clear my thoughts. “Not right now. Tell me about Zsasz.”

Oswald steps away from me, surprise tinted with disappointment evident in his face.

“Are you kidding me right now? Why is this so important to you when there is nothing to tell.”

I shook my head, he has got it wrong, this is so very important right now.

“Because clearly there is, Oswald. You never used to discuss him and now I’m seeing him everywhere you go! And apparently now, you let him touch your face and fix your hair and let him tell you things that I used to, and should be telling you!” Hurt was everywhere. My heart constricted.

“Are you f*cking serious, Nygma? What the hell is that supposed to mean ‘things that I used to and should be’?”

“I do not sound like that.”

“Oh, bullsh*t!” he no longer felt the need to keep his arms wrapped around his exposed midriff as they began frantically motioning with his words. “You think that because you saved me, after you shot me, that I should be nowhere, go nowhere, away from you? That I should talk to nobody but you? You need to grow up, Nygma.”

“Oswald--”

“No! Don’t even try. I’m leaving.” he grabbed his shirt, throwing it around his shoulders, buttoning maybe every other one. Not even bothering with his vest, he quickly slid into his jacket before sparing me one last glare before quickly exiting the house, slamming the door on his way out.

I can’t move. All I can do is listen to his distinctive gait as he walks down the hall, away from me. My head reeling, I stumble backwards, unable to control myself as I begin my ungraceful descent, arms flailing behind me as with me I take down the table, and mugs of tea, that spill barely warm liquid onto me. I lie on the floor, head ringing from the impact, tea seeping into my shirt. What have I done?

÷÷÷

Thirty minutes later, I’m back at the manor and sitting in front of the fire, drinking tea while Olga fusses over my eating habits tending towards starvation, in her eyes. Times like this, I’m glad for the woman’s company, but I need someone I can actually talk to. As if summoned by my thoughts, I heard Olga yelp from the kitchen and start cursing in a foreign language as Zsasz’s laughter echoes through the house. Smiling to myself, I didn’t make to move to greet him or reassure Olga. i stare into the fire as if it holds the answers to everything. It doesn’t. All it does is crackle in its hearth, content to keep living where it is, no outside worries. Sometimes I wish I could just do that, exist, give others warmth they need.

“What’s good boss? You ain’t lookin so hot.”

“What an interesting observation, Victor, so intuitive.” he shoots a shark toothed grin my way. Perching on the arm of my chair, and kicking his feet up on my table, the man starts to dig into something from my cabinets.

“What is that man’s problem?” I sigh.

“Who? Eddie?” He asked, fake confusion evident in his voice.

“Yes, Edward.” exasperated by the man thoroughly. “Apparently, nothing that I do is right, and he doesn't like me talking to you, says we’re too close.” I smile ruefully.

“Huh.” Victor says, all traces of humour gone, him staring at me oddly. I sense his discomfort, so I instead stay quiet and stare into the fire.

What the hell am I gonna do?

Chapter 5: this is the longest kiss goodnight

Chapter Text

I am done.

I am so, so , done.

Like one of my favourite quotes from J.R.R. Tolkien, I feel like too much butter, spread over too little bread. Except in this life, I am not over a hundred years old, hell I don’t expect to make it to seventy, let alone sixty. In this life, I do not serve a greater good when going through darker places. I am alone in the dark with naught but my mind to torment me with impossibilities.

It’s early, maybe three or four in the morning. I’m up, walking outside, aimlessly through the city trying to figure out what I am going to do when everybody else wakes up.

But for now, the solitude is nice.

The streets of Gotham are quieter right now, less people yelling at each other on the streets, less telltale whines of police cars driving by. The yellow glow of streetlights drowns out the colours, the usual greys warmer now and darker. My face is cold, I can feel the outer layer of skin chilled compared to the rest of the layers, my body heat retreating into my skeleton and I try not to shiver. My throat tight from the effort of keeping warm without letting on to the empty streets that I am cold. Inwardly cursing myself for not wearing my warmer gloves, I trudge on.

The only thing I see is the view of my feet as they walk forwards on the concrete sidewalks. My breath comes out in a mist now, as I feel the temperature dip closer to forty.

Several minutes later, I am on the docks.

Standing where I was when my life flipped upside down.

Was that really barely over a week ago?

I’ve been pretending to be okay, keeping a strong face on for those around me.

On the inside, I am nothing but plaster held together by spiderwebs. I am a vacant house left to collect dust because nobody could call it home.

Although I try to, I can’t cry to alleviate the crushing numbness that I feel. Maybe they’ll miss me.

Probably not.

I stand on the edge of the dock. Staring into murky grey oblivion below.

I’m glad I ripped out my stitches. That would speed things up. My shirt is dry from the blood that started up from the brusque action. I don’t care that I’ve made a right mess of one of my favourites. Let this be how they find me. I hope Zsasz doesn’t care. I hope Edward doesn’t cry.

They won’t anyway.

A small smile adorns my face, too small for anyone to notice, too small for me to believe.

I breathe out through my nose, and I fall into the river.

÷÷÷

“Where. Is. He.” I snarl through gritted teeth. It has been eighty six hours since the mayor was supposed to turn up for work. Nobody seems to know.

The man in my grasp whimpered out a pathetic sound as I held his shaking form by his shirt over the roof of the apartment building I found him squatting in, blood seeping out of his mouth from where I knocked out his teeth with a crowbar. Not the best idea, as I needed information that he wasn’t letting up, and he was already drunk enough on cheap-ass whiskey to be slurring all over the place.

“hmmmffHHHFh” He spluttered. The idiot.

“I’m sorry,” I said, bringing on my best preschool-teacher voice, “I can’t understand you when you talk like that.” Smiling at the man, the smirk turning into something more sinister on the high of a potential kill, I let the man go, raising my hands into a what else was I supposed to do? look. Comically raising a hand to my ear, I traced the sounds of him screaming down to the satisfyingly disgusting splat of his bones going crunch on the pavement. Gaze hardening, I turn around and stalk off the roof to go to the manor, searching once again for clues to a sign of struggle.

Picking the lock to the front door, the little f*ck having changed the locks so my keys don’t match, I open it to find Olga frowning at me, tears down her face with a shotgun in her hands, pointing at me. While very emotional, the woman had a sense of resolve about her, I respect that.

“Well, that’s no way to treat a guest. Where’s Oswald.”

Sniffling, she lowered the gun, daintily wiping her eyes with two fingers.

“I do not know vwhere meester Cobblepot eez. Eet has been zsome time since he vas home. Meester Zsasz has been looking for him since zhree days past.” the woman sniffled again, voice now slightly angry. “I vwould haff been expecting you to be looking since earlier since meester Cobblepot loffes you. Seems you aren’t as good in zhat department, since you do not care.”

“Well excuse me for trying since he has made it very clear he does not wish to be burdened with my company at the present moment. However, is it worth nothing that I am here now? Now, you lousy creature, let me in so that I may check the place over.” Venom seeping into my voice as her words struck home deep.

She glowered at me, but stepped aside to let me past. As I sped down the hallways, turning to go upstairs to his bedroom, I heard her menacingly co*ck the shotgun before muttering mutinously to herself in a Slavic dialect. Making my way to his bedroom door, I push it open forcefully, suddenly finding myself slammed to the back of it with a gun to my chin, back pressed into the dark wood. Compensating for the height difference, Victor Zsasz is leaning into me, a knee between mine as he presses his free hand to my wrist next to my head, thoroughly trapping me within a split second. I am slightly in awe as his cold and unusually aggressive eyes bore into mine, his mouth pressed in a thin line as the gun is slowly pushed farther into the soft skin just beyond my jaw. Smirking at him, I attempt to gain the upper hand through my patented fashion of making the other person so uncomfortable that they yield.

“You going to kiss me, Mister Zsasz?” I ask, raising my eyebrows and pouting slightly to strengthen the effect.

“Oh please, I do have standards.” He drawls, but as I predicted, draws back slightly from me in surprise. Seizing my opportunity, I flip us so that it is him with his back to the wall, my forearm to his throat, my height to my advantage as he is encaged within my lanky frame, his back to the wall rather than the door.

“Well, this has been exciting, but now to business.” He locks eyes with me, face emotionless.

Click.

Oh that clever son of a bitch.

The cool metal of a gun finds its way to my temple. Undeterred, I press on.

“Where is Oswald.”

“I don’t know. Funny that you’re asking, sweetheart, ‘cuz I figured you had somethin’ to do with it cuzza this,” Zsasz raised his other hand, uncurling his gloved palm to reveal a bunch of shredded, bloody, thread. I frowned at him, then stepped away from him before lightly holding the back of his palm, adjusting my glasses to closer inspect the thread. Walking backwards, I drag both of us closer to the light coming in through the partially opened curtains, the thread was illuminated in the soft light from outside.

The blood left my face.

No. No no no no no no no nononono.

“Zsasz… where did you find this?” my voice is shaking, my heart pounding, lungs not being able to breathe deep enough, fast enough.

“In his sheets,” he says reproachfully and suspiciously. “Enlighten me, riddle man, as to why you all of the sudden can’t breathe .” He accentuated the last word by slamming me against the wall again, dropping the thread on the floor, my eyes glued to it as the back of my head hits the wood with force.

“Those, those,” breathe “Those were the stitches that closed up Oswald’s wound. From when I, oh god.” my brain has entered full on panic mode now, I can barely think properly around the high pitched ringing through my ears that emanated from nowhere.

Zsasz seems to have noticed that I’ve entered a panic attack, as he sits me down next to him on the bed and swings an arm around me, squeezing my shoulder into his ribs, which couldn’t be comfortable.

“In and out c’mon,” He murmurs. If I had any control over rational thought, I would be very intrigued as to why this side of Zsasz existed. Mentally bookmarking the event for later scrutiny, I focus on the expanding and contracting of my lungs, fighting my anxiety for control. A minute later, I can function somewhat normally, and take in a shuddering breath as I bring my hands up to my face, covering my mouth.

“Let’s go find ourselves a Penguin.” Zsasz says, standing up and offering me a hand before carefully picking up the shredded stitches, wrapping them gently in what looked like a cloth for cleaning glasses. I didn’t question it as he slipped the fabric into his shirt pocket, over his heart.

-

“And why, exactly, do you need my help?” Came the slightly annoyed tone of one James Gordon, sitting at his desk in the GCPD, looking none too happy to see either Zsasz or myself.

I smiled tightly.

“Because the mayor, your friend , has gone missing. It has been more than two days since anyone has seen or heard from him, and those who care about him, notice his abrupt absence.” It is taking no small extent of self control from just reaching across the table and slamming his head into it by pulling sharply on his navy blue, frankly boring , tie.

“Don’t mind me asking, Nygma, but why would I do this for you when you have been nothing but trouble for me?” Gordon asks, already over the conversation. Smiling ruefully, I feel Zsasz lean over the back of my chair, his hands on the edge of it behind my shoulders.

“Because, golden boy, if ya don’t find the time to help, I can definitely find the time to poke some holes in that nice new shirt of yours, no matter how skimpy you are about buying clothes from quality salespeople.”

“Now,” I said, leaning forwards and lacing my fingers together on top of his desk, “Do we have a deal?”

Gordon sighed, leaning back into his chair before propping his legs up inches from my hands, the prick. He looked at us skeptically.

“If you told me a month, hell even a day, ago that you two would be cooperating, I would have thought you had been hitting the booze a little too hard.”

“What about booze?” Just great , Harvey Bullock walks around to lean on the desk behind Gordon, hotdog in hand, hair as unkempt as ever.

“Detective, I was just informing our dear Jimbo here that unless he cooperates with the search for our mayor, his shirt would look like a pepperoni pizza.” I am so very close to losing my patience.

“Also, as they have neglected to remember, Penguin and I aren’t friends.” both Zsasz’ and I’s heads turned in unison to stare at Jim, unconvinced.

“Sorry fellas, don’t seem like we got the time or legs to pull this kinda stunt. Although, someone may be able to help.” Harvey said pensively.

“Who.”

“One Selena Kyle.”

-

Forty five minutes later, Zsasz and I were holed up in a restaurant frequented by the cat girl and snobbish lower-middle class biker types. As I leaned across the bar to flirt my way into a bottle of less-sh*t beer from the bartender, the ones on tap being incorrigible, I felt a hand in my pocket. Quick as lightning, Zsasz held the article out of reach of the short girl’s hands, having plucked it from her unsuspecting grasp.

“Hey!” came the undignified response.

“Hey yourself, little cat. Can you help us out for twenty?”

“Skimp, try higher.”

I regarded the exchange mildly intrigued. Zsasz seemed to be holding his own against the irritated sixteen year old, but she wasn’t intimidated by him, clearly already knowing him.

“As this is a more… delicate matter, should we take this somewhere safer?” I suggested, eyeing the onlookers who were craning to see what this kid was going to do.

Fifteen minutes later saw us all at my apartment, Zsasz and I deciding that breaking the news near Olga, the woman having a habit of eavesdropping, was not in her best interest. Selina was sitting cross legged on the table near the window, Zsasz and I on the couch looking to her.

“So, I’m guessing this is about Penguin.” she says.

“How did yo--”

“Yes.” Zsasz cut me off, shooting me a look that warned of her tendencies to take as little time as possible for as much cash as she can get.

“Well, it’s been a few days but I did see him walking around near maybe, I dunno, three forty in the morning?”

“Where was he going?”

“Was he alone?” I received an elbow in the side, so I decided that, while difficult, it would be best to leave the talking to Zsasz.

“Yeah, he looked kinda lost. He told me a while ago to leave him be, so I left before he accused me of sneaking,” she said, answering my question first, to Zsasz’s chagrin. “But he seemed to be heading near the docks? Looked like it but again, left pretty quick.” She held out a partially gloved hand. I handed her two fifties, Victor gave her three twenties. Grabbing a muffin from the table, she rolled out the window and the apartment was silent save for the buzz of the city around us.

Rushing to the docks in a car I highly suspect Zsasz doesn’t actually own, I clamber outside and begin to search the ground for clues. Now that I know Oswald came supposedly of his own accord, it narrows down why he would be here. Either, he would be meeting someone, unlikely, or he would be by himself, completely.

The thing that throws me for a loop is the ripped out stitches. It could have been an unwise personal choice, unlikely, done out of spite, unclear due to scarring that appeared self-inflicted when I was changing his bandaging, or something else, that I can’t quite put a name to, but I don’t like it.

“Nygma,” came Zsasz’s voice, sounding smaller than I would have expected him to be using with me. I looked over at him, he was crouching by the edge of the dock, the hand holding one of his guns in his lap, the other picking something small up from between the cracked concrete.

Cloudy grey skies seem to frequent Gotham more than ever now. As I head into work for the day, I catch sight of none other than the infamous Penguin, who frequents the GCPD, often hanging around Gordon hoping to be noticed. Seizing my chance to be of his acquaintance, I trail him from across the room, glancing at him every few steps. Once I stand directly next to him near the front desk, he rounds on me.

“Can I help you?”

In the woods, adrenaline coursing through my veins, approaching the vehicle, ready to kill for a fourth time.

“Help me.” he collapses.

“Ed. I love you, I know you believe that now.”

“I’ve killed before, Oswald.”

“Not like this.” He’s so very pale now, blending in to the sky behind me.

“This will be the cold-blooded murder of someone you love.”

“I. Don’t. Love. You.” he reaches for me. I slap his hands away.

“You killed her. So you die.”

“I am the only one in the world who sees you as you are. Who you can still become.”

If anyone were to ask, the dampness in my eyes was from the rain.

“You can’t do this.” He really is crying now.

“Edward are you listening to me?”

“I am listening.”

“Say something.”

“I loved her Oswald. And you killed her.” bang.

He looks down, red on his hands, bullet in his heart. He says nothing.

I’m sobbing in my closet like a child. The gravity of what I have done hitting me all at once. I’m sinking as he was, drowning in the weight of what I had done.

Frantically running through the city in my sweater, locating the Chinese place we loved eating from. In the back, a small blessing that the trash collector had come late, the body bag with his father.

Rushing to the cemetery where his mother lies, I bury his father in the bag I left him in. Apologetically tossing lilies on the hastily made double-grave.

“I am sorry, Gertrude.”

I run back to my apartment through the cold.

It’s one of Oswald’s cufflinks. A small black umbrella outlined with gold.

“I would do anything for you, Oswald.”

I just died twice.

And so did he.

Zsasz lifts a shaking hand to his mouth, rolling back so he is seated on the dock. Knees to his chest.

Oswald was the first light after a torrential night. He brought a sense of life to me that I was unprepared to deal with at the time.

He may have been one of the few people to actually love me. Not just infatuation mistaken for love, or a rebound one sought warmth from.

He cared for me when I treated him like he was less than dirt.

Did I do this?

Zsasz cries silently into his hands next to me. I wrap a hand around his that holds the last piece of Oswald we have. I am undone. We lie there for hours, throats raw from salted tears, hands beyond numb through discarded gloves. It’s dark over Gotham, the city lighting up in that beautiful way Oswald adored.

Somewhere in the time, it started raining. Fitting, as there didn’t seem to be a reason for the rain to not be there. A light passes over us, the sounds of wheels on the wet concrete, slight crunch as they pass over rubble. A door slams open, someone walks towards us.

Neither of us care. We don’t look up.

I vaguely recall being bundled in a blanket, and the two of us being led into a car, feeling safe but also not caring if we weren’t. How could one care about himself when his world had stopped turning?

-

I wake up on a couch, still in my suit. Sitting up, I glance around myself, eyes sore and puffy from exertion. I’m at the manor. Olga is in the kitchen, I can hear her from here. Zsasz is seated in the windowsill, face blank, hands turning one of his guns over as he is lost in thought.

I dreamt of Oswald. We’re sitting in my apartment, Chinese takeout between us. He laughed at something I said, smile making his eyes sparkle.

“Oswald?” I say, unsure if he will hear me, I know this isn’t real.

“Yes?” He says, sitting up a bit, mischievous glint in his eyes.

“How, how are you?” I breathe.

“Well, not the best. Cold, soaked, the usual. Why do you ask, Ed?” Now I know this is a dream.

“I miss you.”

“Well silly, it hasn’t been that long has it? You’ve gone for weeks and not said anything of the sort, what’s different now?” He leans forwards, setting his chopsticks down, a slight crease in his brows maring an otherwise unblemished face. He looks rested. Happy.

“It’s been a while since I’ve dreamed this, but even now when asleep I’ll tread with care.”

His eyes smiled.

“I love that line.”

“I love --”

I’m awake.

Zsasz looked up briefly as I sat down near him, pulling my knees to my chest, resting my chin there. A silent truce between us.

Within five minutes, a curly head peeks around the corner, Selina’s presence explaining why Olga came for us. The woman herself sniffling back more tears. Tea is served and I have no motivation to eat. To drink.

I want to sleep, to get back to him.

I have too much left to say.

÷÷÷

Something smells like jasmine. Roses. A flagrancy of a garden.

Why am I awake?

Chapter 6: echoes of ghosts

Chapter Text

Ivy has looked over me while I grieved.

She is a rather sweet girl, apparently still a child of around sixteen.

I don’t move from the couch for days, the rotating of potted plants around me the only indication that time has passed.

I rather like Ivy, she is a sister I would have cherished.

I don’t want to be here, on this side, feeling.

I’m terrified of the silence. Of the empty.

I was too much of a coward to just go quietly alone.

÷÷÷

Oswald’s funeral is a small affair.

Held in the gardens of the manor, no body to bury, but a small black stone slab engraved with silver letters, and white lilies decorating the ground around it.

Not many of those invited did actually show up.

Gordon was there, Bullock too. Miss Kean, not even to gloat, came to give her respects before returning to cleaning up the underworld. Butch sent his condolences over the phone. Aubrey James, mayor once again, showed up only to bring a garish pink rose, the contrast of the putrid perfumed flower against the delicate white ones near it showing just how little he knew the man. Zsasz stands near me, not having spoken more than simple answers at a time for days. Olga is near the back, sniffling into a handkerchief, mascara a mess. A portrait of his mother and father decorate two vacant seats near the front. A stranger reads template eulogies that could have corresponded to anyone. Alfred Pennyworth sits near the middle of the second row, face blank.

I have taken on the role of grieving widow, those in attendance nodding their respects and condolences to me. A man who I believe to be Falcone himself shows up, ushering Zsasz to the side, talking closely with him before embracing the man, cleaning a tear from the bald man’s eye.

The ceremony goes on for too long, and not long enough.

I sit by the fire in the manor, Zsasz not here, Olga off with her sister for a while. I am the only one here for at least a week. I can’t bring myself to do the simplest of things. I sit here, my only concern the fire not dying down too much. I barely sleep. When I do, it is not kind.

Hello again.

Oswald sits near me, face concerned for me, hands holding mine in my lap. The tip offs to the situation being a figment of my mind are his hands, cold as marble and cold coffin doors, and his robe being the exact same as the one I am wearing now.

“Sorry I’m probably not much help keeping you warm, hands, you know?” He jokes softly. Eyes still sad, I suspect they will remain that way until the moment of my final breath.

“You’re fine, Oswald.” I whisper. He smiles a tiny smile at me. My heart, at least, is warmed.

Even if it’s fleeting.

“Do you need to talk?” He says, voice lighter.

“I think I’m fine for now, can we just sit?” I can’t look in to his eyes, scared of what I could find there. Even asleep, bracing for being cast aside as usual.

He nods, pulling me slightly to him, my head in his lap, back to his stomach, curled up like a small child. I find I don’t hate it. It’s nice to be cared for when all the world has done for you is take and take and expect you to lend a shoulder to cry on.

It’s dreams like these that allow me some sense of relief when sleeping.

The house is gathering dust. I stay on this floor. Near the fire. Chasing the last wisps of his cologne that are tangled still in the fabric of his favourite chair. Later, it is gone. I am once again lost.

I wander up the stairs one day, feet guiding me to his door.

It has been vacant for weeks, but I still knock, hoping against hope for an answer, for something. I stand against the door for a while, forehead pressed to the wood, heat transference responsible for the cool wood to become the same temperature as my skin, and the calming effect is lost.

I curl up under his sheets, cold and gathering dust, and wish that the situation for my location was one that could have made me feel something besides numb.

÷÷÷

“C’mon, Ozzie, wake up.” Ivy is leaning over me, tea in hand, eyes sparkling from the faint smile on her mouth. I can taste blood in my throat, without a source I can identify, and it feels as though my skeleton is slowly being pulled through the floor, skin and muscle unmoving. I feel heavy.

I sit up slowly, or try to, but the ache in my chest, now a dull one thanks to whatever source of medicine came from Ivy’s plants, keeps me tethered to the cushions. Eventually I sit up, and nod a small ‘thanks’ for the tea. She answered simple questions, yes I know who you are, no nobody knows you are here, here is Gotham, and just keeping me informed as to what was currently going on. I didn’t care much about the news, but was mildly intrigued to learn that I am currently ‘dead’ again. I had a funeral and everything. Wouldn’t be surprised if nobody came. Probably not a damp eye to be found among those that did.

That’s alright, I will return to my throne when I am ready. For now, I sit here. Hollowed out and left to decay among strains of roses and potted ferns.

Weeks later, I get up. For good, not just a shower or for a small walk around the garden. Ivy’s concoctions lessen the pain in my leg but the distinctive gait remains. I help her tend to the lillies and vines among the building, and in return she talks to me. Random things really, how her day was, what jewel she apprehended from another horny rich guy, how the bakeries downtown are. I start to eat more than tea and soups. I had a sandwich for the first time in a while the other day. Recovery is slow, both from heartbreak and bouts of depressions coupled with my chest, but it is not non existent.

I wonder at times how those I left are doing. Jim has probably already moved on to the next girl on the line, Edward hopefully hasn’t killed anyone he dated, and Zsasz has probably found and cozied up to the next big wallet on his list. I haven’t visited mother and father in a while. Hope they are alright, now united. Thank you, Edward, for this small act of selfish kindness.

“Ivy?” My voice is hoarse most of the times now from being unused.

“Yeah Pengy?” she has her back to me, hands deep inside a plant I have not the slightest inkling of a name for.

“I think I want to go say hello to someone.” my voice, already rough, coming out in a distorted whisper. She stops, and turns around, hands still buried in the plant, but now her upper arms are free.

“What?” I look to the floor, shrugging minutely, the idea suddenly foreign.

“But Ozzie, it’s been months. I like having you here.” She pouts a bit.

“I think maybe I just want to go home, to my father’s manor, would you like to come?”

“I’m probably alright for now, but my door is always open. And yours is too. You don’t get a vote here.” her eyes mischievous, smile lovely. I am in her debt, and I don’t think I mind.

“Thank you, Ivy. I’ll call when I get home. Say goodbye to your plants for me? For now, of course.”

“Will do, Mister Penguin.”

÷÷÷

One eye lifts open, lid heavy against my protesting brain. Afternoon light was filtering through the room, dust particles like floating embers in the golden orange light of the retreating sun. the house seems to creak. I brush it off as the house is very old, and I have grown accustomed to them in my stays here.

Floating in and out of consciousness, I hear a tapping from the kitchen downstairs. A sound out of place with the ambience I have found routine in the house. Not wanting to move, but resolved to investigate, I quietly pad out of Oswald’s room and into the hall.

Someone is making tea in the kitchen. I grab a fire poker on my way down, feet muffled by experience on the hardwood floors. Gripping the poker like a bat, I raise it behind my head preparing to strike the intruder, when I get a look inside the kitchen.

The blood drains from my face faster than flipping off a light switch. The iron poker falls from my hands and clatters on the floor, sound echoing through the vast recesses of the house, metallic sound reverberating against the dark wood.

Oswald looks at me, eyes wide with shock, teacup in hand clattering the few centimetres back to the counter, unscathed by the proximity. Eyes not daring to leave his and break the illusion, I take him in with my peripheral. He is wearing a deep purple suit vest over a black shirt, black velvet jacket with twin coattails and a purple interior lining. Same shoes, black pants. I don’t think I will be able to move. I fear that if I do I will wake up and he will be gone again. It’s he that breaks the tense silence.

“Hello, Edward.” his voice slightly rougher than usual, whispering the two simple words. He looks away from me, taking a kitchen towel and silently mopping up the tea his cup spilled. As if it had been only one week. As if he wasn't dead. As if he didn’t fall into the river of his own accord.

“Are you real?” the words ghosting from my subconscious, slipping from my lips.

“I do think so. What are you doing, Edward?” he says my name as if he has little time left to say it. As if he was making amends.

“I, I thought you were, dead, and just now, someone trying to, to break in…” the words tumble from my mouth. He is real. Not just the pills. Not just dreams.

He quirked an eyebrow at that.

“Breaking in to my own house, check.” he says, dropping the towel on the counter near the sink.

“Have you been here long?” he says, seeming to make casual conversation.

“The whole time,” I breathe, wanting nothing more than to confess, to step near him, ask him to stay with me, to hold him. To step forwards, to say everything I’ve meant to since that dreadful day.

“Oswald,” I started. He looked up at me, back to the counter now.

“I, I just wanted to,” my words stumble over themselves. “I want-- are you okay?” he stares at me, eyes fractionally wider.

“What happened?”

He stares to my side for a while, then breathes. Inhales, exhales through his nose.

“I was done Edward. I wanted out.”

“You could have said something.”

“I didn’t want to burden anyone.”

“You could never do such a thing.” He looks up at me. Nods slightly.

I think we can be okay. I’ll tell him when it’s right, when he isn’t hurting.

÷÷÷

My reunion with Olga mostly consists of the woman crying hysterically and patting my head while mumbling in Russian. Edward is asleep upstairs, in my room for reasons unbeknownst to me, when Victor comes around to check on the house when he sees me.

He freezes. Just inside the door, hand haven’t yet left the handle. Eyes wide, staring at me. Through me. Without saying a thing, he takes long strides through the hall before pausing briefly before me, his eyes searching mine. Gloved hands hover near me, as if to test that I am not a ghost, and he embraces me strongly, not letting go for minutes. His arms around my neck and back, clutching me to him as my arms are around his lower back, not being tall enough for them to reach his shoulders from this angle. My eyes are closed, having missed this form of contact with another.

Ivy comes to visit every thursday and tuesday evenings, bringing more small plants, and by the end of a month I have my own small indoor garden. I find it strangely comforting. Victor gets along with her, and Edward will brave being in the room with others when she is around. We fall into a routine.

-

Months later, I am once again in charge of Gotham’s underworld. Sometimes Edward leaves the house to busy himself with small tasks, collecting taxes and the such, slipping back into his position at my side. It’s nice to have him there. My nightclub is open again, under the name The Iceberg Lounge, its crowning centrepiece a gift, well more of a paid project, from Victor Fries, an ice block containing one of my signature umbrellas. It looks quite fetching with the open interior of what used to be The Sirens.

-

One day, as I am lurking in the corners of my living room, a whiskey in hand, Zsasz standing across from me, sleeves rolled slightly, something on his skin, not the usual tallies, catches my eye. Raising a hand to his skin, I turn his arm over to see a small outline in purple permanent ink of an umbrella.

“We thought you were a goner, little birdie.” Victor said quietly, firelight dancing in his eyes, the brown reflecting the orange.

“Why this?” I say, voice hushed, heart beating a bit faster. My head reeling from the notion that somebody could care that much for me that they would immortalise my memory on their skin.

“Because a wholeass penguin woulda been a bit too obvious, dear.” he says laughing, shark grin on his face.

I smile up at him as he rubs a thumb over my cheek, my months touch-starved skin flushing at the contact.

“Thank you, Zsasz.”

He smiles again, smaller, then leans forwards. “I told you, darling, it’s Victor.”

My eyes flutter shut as he kisses my forehead, between my eyebrows, smile soft on my face. We go back to drinking together, neither of us needing to say anything more, neither of us uncomfortable at the silence.

÷÷÷

I seek out Zsasz after seeing Oswald much happier after drinking late with him the other night. Finding him in the kitchen, sitting on the counter, I awkwardly lean against it next to him, stomach housing a colony of butterflies.

“Zsasz?” I start, lamely.

“Hmm?” He says, or rather, hums around a bite of one of Olga’s apple pies.

“About Oswald,” I start, unsure, “Do you, care for him.”

He made an expression that conveyed a vague “well, yeah, of course.”

“Er, not what I mean, exactly, what I am trying to ask is--”

“You do have my blessing, riddle man.”

“What? No I am afraid you don’t understand-”

He raises an invisible eyebrow. “Are you trying to ask my blessing for asking him to dinner?”

My face goes beat red within seconds.

“No not what I was, what? Wait, what do you mean?” I splutter.

“I mean, Nygma, that I can tell you desperately want to get him to yourself, and seeing as I am his best friend, I give you my permission to court him. That is, if he isn’t the one courting you.” he deadpans.

“Thank you but--”

“It’s no trouble.”

“Zsasz I am trying to ask if you love him.” I look intently at him, trying to find the most minute of details in his expression. He stiffens, but that’s it. Letting out a long exhale through his nose, he sets the half empty pie plate to the side of his crossed legs away from me.

“Look, riddle man. I have loved Oswald for a very long time. How could I not? To not would be inhuman. And that’s not what I’m about, the whole ‘inhuman-y’ thing.”

My heart sinks. He continues.

“I think he knows that I do, but that’s fine, s'alright. I know he doesn’t feel the same, and that’s a-okay with me.”

Judging by the tears in his eyes, no it was not.

“But, the fact is, he don’t love me like that. I love him enough to stay right where I am, at his side, for as long as he lets me. It’s less romantic now and more platonic or whatever that is. I know he loves someone else, and I’m okay with that.” the tears fall from his eyes, his shoulders shaking, is voice failing on his statement that it was alright.

“The someone else is you by the way, but ya already know that. Hell that’s why you shot the little bird is it not? Anyhow, take care of him, yeah? Because if you hurt him again, it wouldn’t even take a twenty to give me an excuse to rack you full of bullets.” I nod.

“One last thing,” I look over at him, he smiles his signature sh*t-eating grin. “It’s Victor. Stop with the formalities we’ve been through enough to warrant that at least.”

I smile back.

“Call me Edward then.”

-

Zsa--Victor now seems to share his more touchy nature with me as he slings arms around my shoulders, hugs me, and annoyingly, ruffles my hair on occasion. To get back at him for doing that to me in front of Butch, I made sure to kiss the man on the cheek and throw a ‘bye, muffin’ over my shoulder as he was cornering a target in a crowd, and had they not been previously about to piss themselves, they would have been less inclined to giggle like schoolchildren. He glared at me for a whole week whenever we were in the same room, much to Oswald’s bemusem*nt. It feels good to have a friend like Victor. Even if he does keep sliding me notecards covered with very trashy and outright obscene pick up lines, usually accompanied by a very large and not subtle wink.

I feel happy, even if the feeling is fleeting it was worth it all the same. The tension between Victor and I dissipating over weeks.

÷÷÷

The two of them are scaring me more than usual.

I could barely deal with them as rivals, but now best friends? Do excuse me if I check my room before retiring to it, having kicked Edward out of it for the third time this week, the man like a giant, lanky house cat.

I stand in front of my bathroom mirror, staring my reflection into submission as I tore into my imperfections with my eyes. They found the scar in my chest, the tissue still sensitive, a bright pink against sickly pale skin. My ribs are less prominent than they were, but still very noticeable. My scars from countless hard nights ghosting over my chest and arms. Sighing, I put my shirt and vest back on before going down to dinner before Victor has to leave for an extended contract in the Narrows. The meal ends quickly, and Victor hugs Edward and I goodbye before heading out to the car I called for him, not to be back for two weeks.

Making our way back inside the manor, Edward lingers by the door, not advancing to the kitchen with me, but hovering just outside it. I look to him, confused, him looking down at the ground, frowning slightly, before shaking his head, and walking towards me, eyes on mine. His arms come in front of him to circle my back, his neck craning to fit my head beneath his chin.

Unexpected, but nice. I find that I would not mind more unannounced, unprompted hugs from him in the future.

I think we’ll be okay, my heart lurching in my chest at the contact.

Chapter 7: white violets

Chapter Text

The house is noticeably quieter without Victor around, but thankfully less quiet than months ago when the tension between Edward and I was deafening and looming over the house. It’s less like having a housecat now, and more like having a quieter roommate, even a friend. Again, not something I am used to, as the events that transpired between us not that long ago are like a crevice in the very earth we stand on, so much still needs to be said and neither of us are willing to break the bridge on which we seek refuge on in order to make amends that last.

Times like this I miss Victor, the casual and small forms of intimacy we shared, hugs when we saw each other, him screwing with my hair in an attempts to be friendly that I secretly didn’t mind. I long for physical contact now, barely receiving more than the occasional hug and besides that maybe a brush of hands. I feel like a lovesick teenager in admitting that I want contact to myself, but I am aware that I seem touch-starved. To cope with this, I wear warmer coats, I take hotter showers, I leave the fire on and spend a lot of time by it. I’m not surprised Edward either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that I seem cold all of the time. I’m very used to indifference at this point.

Looking at my calendar this morning, Sunday so I don’t have to go to my office, an old religious tradition but one I am willing to embrace because it gets me out of leaving the house. Noting the date, I am going to leave today after all. It’s mother’s birthday, so I’m going to pay her, and apparently now father, a visit. I bring lilies.

-

When I get home, it has been two hours, and I’m even colder because of the ever-present fog, and biting air. Moving into the sitting room after not bothering to take off my coat due to the cold settling in to my bones, I notice with a start that the fire is already on.

There are lilies on the table, and more along the hallway in vases. White lilies, like the ones I brought to my mother. Walking through to the kitchen, I see Edward leaning over the counter, his back to me, scissors in hands. He doesn’t hear me, so I stay quiet, observing him. He puts the scissors down beside him on the counter, and lifts more flowers into a scotch glass next to him that has water in it. He smiles slightly, the movement lighting up his eyes. Holding the glass, he turns to walk out of the kitchen when I am noticed. He blinks furiously in surprise, almost dropping the glass, I notice a petal near my hand on the counter. Picking it up, I stroke it gently with my other gloved hand.

“Edward, what are you doing?” I say, not looking away from the relatively unblemished petal.

“Um, well I was,” clearing his throat, “I remembered that today was your mother’s birthday, we once celebrated it together back at ou--my apartment, and I knew that you would be missing her, so I, well, I thought it would be nice if she were here, sort of. I didn’t dig her up to throw her a party,” he started laughing awkwardly, my eyes widened at the ill-timed joke.

“Oh god no I didn’t even think, I’m so sorry Oswald, I didn’t mean to offend you and -- oh.” I tried not to laugh at his frantic back peddling. It was actually quite amusing.

“Thank you, Edward, the house looks lovely. Mother always tried to keep flowers around.” He met my eyes and smiled sheepishly.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something off about one of the vases of lilies. Walking over to it for closer inspection, I placed the petal I had been holding gently on the table as I leaned over the vase of flowers, frowning slightly. Extracting the outsider, I held it up to my eyes. While the other lilies, the ones my mother adored were the ones inside most of the vases around the house, this one was a white calla lily. Turning slowly and walking the few steps back to Edward, I looked up at him from the flower.

“Edward what’s this doing here?” My tone was more confused than anything, he got the other lilies correct in type and colour, so this one must have been deliberate. He smiled at me, this one genuine.

“It’s a puzzle!” he said, beaming.

“Edward--” I sighed.

“No no, please, will you solve it?” His face now concerned and looking as if I was about to cast him out. I sighed again, this one more drawn out.

“Edward, I don’t have time to solve another puzzle where I have to prance around the city in search of clues.”

He fidgeted in his place, running his thumbnails along the underside of those on his forefingers.

“No, the pieces are all here.”

“In the manor?”

“Yes, I can assist you if you want?”

Shaking my head while rolling my eyes playfully, I motioned him to stay where he was while I went to inspect more of the vases for outsiders.

÷÷÷

As Oswald went about inspecting all of the vases, I found myself holding my breath. I thought he would be much slower on the uptake, again realising I had underestimated him. Anxiety began to creep up into my chest and make its home between my lungs, its claws digging like needles into my heart and diaphragm. Every breath I took would push the needles into my muscles deeper, every beat of my heart a tiny roar in my ears. As I had hoped, and now dreaded, he found them in the right order. I’m desperately now hoping that he was unfamiliar with the code behind the flowers. Laid out in a line on the table, the calla lily, for beauty, the purple hyacinth, for sorrow and begging forgiveness, the red carnation for heartache and admiration. The dark crimson rose for mourning, the primrose admitting my loss without him, the sweet pea, a goodbye to the way we had been living before, and finally the tea rose, remembrance of him forever seared into my history like a wax seal on a fine bottle of liquor.

Oswald stayed on his side of the table, looking at them, hands resting on the edge of the table, not touching any of the flowers, examining them from a distance. His face betrayed none of what was going on inside his head to an outsider, but I know him. It was in how his eyes flicked over the flowers that I could tell he was thinking, reading almost what they meant as if they were a book.

“As you know Edward, I make it my business to learn as much as I can about as many useful things as I can find,” Oswald says, voice slightly hushed, my blood roaring in my ears, straining to hear him over the sound. I stare petrified at him as he continued to gaze down on the table.

“I cannot pretend to not know what it is you are trying to say, and I am flattered, but I doubt that you mean what it is you are communicating.” He almost mutters the last part.

“No, no please Oswald, listen to me-” he doesn’t look up but he doesn’t walk away either. My hands tremble as I pulled a parcel from my jacket pocket. Setting the brown paper box in front of Oswald, I pulled my hands back to my chest and started fidgeting with my sleeve cuffs and fingernails, a bad habit I picked up in Arkham. Oswald continued to gaze silently at the box for several seconds before pulling it to him with the tip of one finger, then picked it up, slowly rotating it in his hands to examine the wrapping job, slipping a fingernail, hands now without gloves for several minutes of scavenging the flowers, under the fold of paper, removing it carefully. Opening the box, the final piece of the puzzle was revealed. A white violet. A silent question begging an answer.

“Take a chance on me?” I whisper, fearful of his reaction, but more afraid of staying silent. He still doesn’t meet my eyes, but places the flower carefully in line with the others. He then picks up the tea rose, and walks around the table to me, eyes not leaving the flower, mine never leaving his face, breath held captive by his silence. His hands reach up to tuck the flower into the flap of my jacket, then he looks up at me. His ice blue and grey eyes are unreadable, serene like a sea just after a storm, where the wind is cold and the water colder. His hands find their way to my shoulders, resting on them, palms to my chest, thumbs over my collarbones. My hands in return journey to the sides of his upper arms, not gripping them, but resting as well, terrified to break the moment, to disturb even the slightest of this. Moving to stand on his toes, Oswald puts his forehead to mine, our breaths mixing, I am intoxicated by the scent of his aftershave and cologne, the faintest smell from the rose on my lapel perfuming the air. My eyes flutter shut after his. Every exhale warm against my skin. My breaths go deeper as my heart aches for this, for him. The tugging in my chest as if my heart wants nothing but to lie with his, breaking through ribs and tissue and lungs to get to one another. I wonder if he feels it too.

Feeling his gaze on me, my cheeks flushed with emotions, I open my eyes to meet his, the proximity making them seem to be much closer together, the colour drowning me. The colour shimmers, sparkles on water, and I trace a tear down his cheek with my gaze.

“Oswald?” I whisper, voice full of concern.

“Shut up, Ed.” he responds, voice hushed. A cool hand meets my cheek. I close my eyes as he closes the distance between us, his lips finding mine, mine finding his in return. A tear escapes my eye as well.

I’ve waited so long for this.

Where our skin meets, I feel gentle ripples of electricity, like tamed lightning, warm and cold at the same time, as if my nerves with my heart want to be as close as possible to him. My arms move from his to circle his lower back, to weave into his hair, fingers tangling into it to bring him closer to me. His hand on my cheek hooks the back of my jaw, pulling me down to him so he is no longer on his toes, and I am leaning down slightly. His other hand bunches my jacket, holding on as if he is going to lose me if he lets go for even a second. Our lips move together in a dance, his around my lower lip, mine around his upper lip, fitting like a puzzle piece. Moments that felt like hours passed before our shortness of breath severed our kiss. He looked up at me, lips swollen, cheeks flushed, freckles prominent. His eyes sought out mine, slightly worried, as if I would change my mind and leave. I ghost my thumb over his lower lip, over his cheeks, down the bridge of his nose. Mapping every feature on his face that I had not the privilege or permission to do earlier.

“You are exquisite,” I whisper. His cheeks go a shade more red. He looks down to the floor next to our feet.

“No, I’m not,” he mumbles. I shake my head at him.

“I don’t know who, or what situation, taught you to believe that lie, but I know that it’s not true, even if you can’t see it.” he looks back to me, eyes sparkling, faint smile on his lips, more to one side than the other, dark lashes framing icy blues.

Loathing to leave this moment, but wanting to take this newfound closeness slowly to preserve it, I smile at him, standing up to my original height.

“Tea?”

“Please.”

-

We enjoy a quiet evening together, making pasta in the kitchen, eating while sitting on the counter. After that, watching the news while drinking whiskey, then chess in the sitting room by the fire. Around midnight, we embrace each other briefly before separating to go to our own rooms. I go to sleep hopeful for the first time in a long one.

Chapter 8: safety

Chapter Text

I can’t sleep.

I couldn’t sleep.

Based on the time displayed on my bedside clock, it’s somewhere around three in the morning.

I’m terrified to go to sleep.

What if I wake up and find that everything, all the progress Edward and I have made would be gone?

What if this was just a dream, a trick of an inebriated mind.

I stare at my ceiling for answers.

The seamless paint offers none.

I’m very cold. The fire crackling in the hearth meer metres from where I lay does nothing to warm the cold terror gripping its icy claws into my heart, snagging and twisting as they went. The merciless onslaught of paranoia prohibited my body from functioning. Is this how corpses feel? Seeing, but unable to move, to blink.

I miss Victor.

He’d know what to say.

He always does.

My heart rate picks up, the beat quick and furious against the underside of my skin near the hollow of my throat. My skin shivered down the sides of my arms, tightness in my shoulders, stomach clenching.

I looked at my forehead without moving my face and concentrated on my breathing. In, out. One, two. Three minutes of this and prohibiting my brain from wandering brought me out of my panic.

What if he’s lying?

What if he hates me, and this is all part of his plan to destroy me?

The logical side of my brain argued that it couldn’t be, but the part of my brain that I trained with razor instincts and suspicions has its doubts.

Why did I kiss him? I should have not. I don’t want to take it back but I’m terrified that I’m being used, like a puppet on his emerald green strings. I turn the knife that resides beneath my pillows over in my hand. My brain feels swollen, congested as if it was full of cotton, stuffed too much. It was not just a headache but a numbing of the senses that drove my mental state further deeper into depths of unwell.

Hating myself even as I did it, a single tear crept silently from the corner of my eye as my arms, stinging, slid into my jacket. Throwing the first tie I found around my neck, I wiped the blade on my pocket square before discarding it onto my pillowcase. I glanced towards the bedside table, seeing that my cane was there, and shaking my head to myself as I decided against it. Creeping out of my room silently, I leave the door slightly ajar as to not alert anyone to my excursion as I leave, fearing the echo of it closing would wake up anyone. I tread lightly in socked feet out of the side door, shoes in hand until the distance between the manor and I is at a satisfactory distance, then I slip them on, resolving to meet Victor at his warehouse down a few streets, noting he would return today, or yesterday, if my math is correct. It usually is.

Trudging down the road, minding the gravel which would further agitate my leg, I pull my coats sleeves down further, wincing slightly at the way the sliding fabric agitated newly raw skin, the wind, as unobtrusive as it was, still chilling me to my bones, my skin becoming numb, my fingers graceless. By the lone presence of Victor’s motorbike, and the lack of others, the Girls must not be home. Mentally chiding myself for being relieved that they were not present, as I do enjoy their company every now and again, it was a small ease on my conscience that it was only Victor home at this hour. Pulling out a spare key, I fumbled with the lock for an embarrassing minute before finally being put out of my misery by a smiling Victor opening the door, no doubt a sassy remark hovering on his lips before he looked down to my face, and the joyous expression melted into one of concern.

“What brings a nice lil birdie like you to a scary lookin’ place like this?” he half whispers, black sweater he usually reserved for sleeping instead replaced with a tight black v-neck tee shirt.

“I, I, can I come in?” I manage to get out, panic already reaching back up my throat to pull me under once again. He pulls me in with his left arm around my shoulders, right one closing the door behind us. To my hidden delight, the room is much warmer than the biting temperatures outside, his heater on full blast to compensate for the spacious room.

Forgoing my tarnished jacket for one of the blankets offered to me, I hissed at the unwelcome friction before tightly wrapping myself in the cloth, sliding down the wall next to one of the vents, resting in a hunched position, eyebrows knit together thoroughly.

“So, wanna talk about it? Somethin’ seems to have really got your panties in a twist.” Victor drawled, raising hands apologetically at the glare thrown in his direction at the crude turn of phrase.

“I, well,” sensing that what I was about to say was not the lightest of matters, he sunk down to sit across from me, legs crossed, elbows on his knees, resting his chin on his fists, eyes earnest.

“Edward, well I guess, I kissed him.” his eyebrows shot up.

“Well, Ozzie, that’s great, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you wanted?” his voice quiet. I felt the telltale prick of tears behind my eyes, my vision swimming, Victor’s form shifting and blurring before me.

“I-I don’t know.”

“Don’t you still love him?” A warm hand rests on my knee over the blanket.

I shook my head, then nodded, before exasperatedly sighing, the sound catching as it exited my throat, shaky with emotion. Leaning my head back to thump against the wall, chin up, throat stretched from the position.

The hand left my knee, but I didn’t look. My face warm with imminent tears, and abstaining from the conversation, knowing that if I spoke my facade would shatter. I wouldn’t be able to pick myself back up from this one. I wouldn’t have any way to mop myself back up off of the floor, nothing left to assemble.

My head was moved forwards off of the wall, and I was bundled to Victor’s chest. The cologne he wore intertwining with his aftershave and the scent of his cleaning fluid for his guns. Undertones of copper and coffee clinging to the cotton of his shirt. His chin rested on my temple as my ear was pressed to his heart, the steady beat louder than mine. Soon enough my heart matched his tempo, and I felt slightly better, but the hollow numbness of my chest cavity persisted with every ragged inbreath.

“What do I do, Victor?” I manage to say, voice hushed and rough.

“I don’t know babydoll.” the for now, I’m here, went unsaid.

“Thank you, dear friend.” my eyes squeezed tightly together did nothing to prevent my feeling his arms tighten slightly, stalling their rubbing circles into my shoulder and back, as his heart rate changed. Our hearts went out of sync, and I had to steady my breathing once again to fix the broken duet.

“‘S why I’m here.”

I huffed a laugh at that.

“So the attraction goes beyond my wallet, then?” I said, sniffing, but attempting humor.

“Oh yeah Pengy. Much farther.” my eyes lessened their tense contractions, and before I slipped off into sleep I could have sworn the rumble from his chest was accompanied by a “You have no Idea.” or maybe, that was wishful thinking.

Chapter 9: these risks worth taking

Chapter Text

As I woke up, I immediately felt that something was off.

Not able to put a name to it, I slowly slid my legs off of the side of the bed, silken sheets trapping my body heat from a restful night. Warm feet were met with a cold hardwood floor. The sudden cold going straight to my cheeks and making my head feel foggy as my eyes watered at the unwelcome temperature. Yawning in an attempt to dispel the grogginess, I grabbed my glasses from the bedside table before quickly getting dressed and heading downstairs.

The house was quiet. Well, besides the sounds of Olga banging around the kitchen with who knows how many pots and pans preparing breakfast. And Oswald… Oswald wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Frowning to myself, I crossed the room in four strides to talk to Olga.

“Has Oswald come down yet?” she looked around at me from where she was busy at the counter, back to me.

“No, meester Cobblepot haz not come down yet, I suspect he eez still in bed.”

I nodded at her in thanks before turning on my heel and heading up the stairs to go check on him.

Coming to his room, two steps from the door, I hesitated.

What if he doesn’t want to see me?

What if he does?

What would someone good at this whole romance thing do?

Biting the inside of my lip in thought, I quickly retreated and headed outside, faint smile adorning my lips as a light spring in my step manifested with a surge of pride in myself for thinking of it.

Ten ish minutes later, I was once again outside Oswald’s door, this time more sure of myself and holding a bouquet of irises, a flower meaning hope in most circ*mstances. Bringing my hand to knock on the door, I stopped. The door was a few centimetres open, odd for Oswald as he usually slept with the door closed due to a long time paranoia about threats to his position, be it at Fish Mooney’s or working for Falcone, as he ascended to his position as King of Gotham.

A small kind of happiness rose up in my chest. Maybe the door was open because he actually feels safer with me around. Elated from the thought, I slowly pushed the door open.

As someone who was previously in Arkham, as someone who used to inspect crime scenes for a living, one tends to be able to pick up small details quite quickly. Be it in terms of survival or in terms of getting a job done and solving puzzles. The first thing that was wrong: temperature. Oswald prefered sleeping in rooms around sixty five degrees fahrenheit. Currently, due to an open window, the room was closer to forty five. Second: his cane was propped up to his bedside table, as usual, but his gloves were missing from next to it, and the bed was vacant. Third: sounds. No breathing, no water running from the connected bathroom. Fourth: shoes. His favourite shoes were missing from the closet.

Conclusion: Oswald was missing from the house, but of his own accord. Otherwise there would have been a sign of a struggle. Furthermore, he left in the middle of the night, likely before six when Olga usually started to prepare things for the day.

But… where did he go?

I thought we were okay?

Did that actually happen?

...Did I do something?

I better call Victor and see if he knows anyone.

Pacing across the floor, probably wearing a path into the very nice, undoubtedly expensive carpet, I waited for Victor to pick up the phone. My gloves were gone, leaving me to gnaw at my ragged nails as I tried to quell my stomach’s hastening rebellion. The top layer of my face felt insufferably hot and cold at the same time. Just the thought of Oswald relapsing, trying to drown himself at god knows what hour in the morning.

My heart skipped a beat when the phone line connected. A coughing fit on the other line let me know Victor was there.

“Victor oh god this is important please--”

“Ozzie’s fine, sugar, he’s with me.”

The sigh of relief escaping my lips quickly turned into a post-panic sob as I clutched my face, hand over my mouth.

Swallowing twice to catch my breath, “Can I see him?”

A beat of silence.

“I’m not sure he’s ready for that just yet, but he is okay, and you should not go off and do anythin’ stupid, you hear me?” He drawled.

Not that he could hear it, but I smiled at his motherly scolding.

“Thank you Victor.” He coughed again before clearing his throat.

“Kisses.” Call ended.

÷÷÷

I heard the telltale click of Zsasz flipping his phone shut from the other room. Looking up at him expectantly from where I was seated on his couch I raised my eyebrows for an explanation. As he walked over towards me, he shook his head and shrugged.

“Your riddleman called,” He slid, really more of a ‘wedged’, his way between me and the couch arm, rearranging the duvet over us so that he was covered as well. Cold feet brushing against my ankle, resulting in him receiving a prod to the ribs. He gasped in mock-hurt, and held a hand up to his chest in theatrical offense. I rolled my eyes at him humorously, but did not resist being pulled to his chest as we watched the news on his small television.

“Tell me what to do.” the rumble of his chest resonated through my heart, and something there ached.

“Make it stop.” I hushed.

“I’m not sure I can, and I’m sorry, but I’m here for you.” I looked up at him, warm brown eyes displaying so many emotions I cannot begin to name. They fluttered shut as I brought a cool hand up to slide against his face, Victor leaning into the touch. I smiled to myself at how innocent he looked in this moment, I pecked his lips briefly to transfer the smile to him. Moving away, his eyes remained shut, smile adorning his mouth oh so faintly.

“Thank you.”

Four hours later, I bade my goodbye to Victor and headed home. Edward, however, needed to explain things to me further.

Coming back to the manor, I found myself hesitating before I opened the door.

Do I want to start this?

If I go back to Victor now, I can avoid the heartache.

But isn’t the heartache from something special?

I could hurt now and never forgive myself for not trying, or I could go in there and try, hurt later, if necessary.

I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing.

In, out. One, two.

I opened the door.

Two things: I was not expecting to find Edward in the foyer waiting for me, and I certainly was not expecting him to be passed out on the floor, curled in on himself.

I couldn’t help myself but laugh at the sight. He stirred a bit, and thinking it over I probably couldn’t carry him up to somewhere more comfortable, so I grabbed a blanket from a hall closet and sat down next to him, pulling the blanket over us. I pressed a light kiss to his temple before removing his glasses and folding them, setting them next to our shoes. He looked very peaceful asleep, not that he wasn’t attractive awake-- but he was blissfully so in sleep. I curled into him and soon drifted off with him.

I think we’ll be okay.

Chapter 10: Epilogue

Chapter Text

The first thing I noticed upon waking up was the cold, hardwood floor beneath my cheek and pressing unforgivingly into my side. The second was a heavy blanket on my shoulders, and third was the small man curled up next to me. Unruly black hair stuck above the edge of the blanket, and a warm pointy nose touched my chest. I closed my eyes, smile ghosting my face as I pulled him closer, wrapping my arm around his slim waist. Oswald hummed in his sleep and nestled further into my side. I had to bite my lip to keep from audibly reacting to the shift in his position, finding the action rather endearing.

He came back to me.

“Mm, g’morning.” Oswald murmured, his chest rumbling with his speech.

“Not quite the circ*mstances I had hoped to first wake up with you, but good morning, Oswald.” as I spoke, I realised that I had actually verbalised the first part of that thought. My face burned, and I felt Oswald stiffen at my side, his breath hitching.

“Oh god, sorry, that was abrupt I--”

“It’s, it’s alright, Ed,” he huffed a laugh. “That was just… abrupt, is all.”

Laughing awkwardly, I sought to change the conversation at hand as quickly as possible.

“Should we move this, well, us, somewhere more comfortable?” I suggested meekly, and to avoid seeing his reaction, buried my face into the crook of his neck, the skin there warm against my nose. From behind clenched eyelids I could practically see his nervous smile as he laughed breathily, before nodding quickly.

Groaning as we sat upwards, I became very suddenly acutely aware of how numb my back was from the position on the floor, the cricks significant in their discomfort and putting a damper on my mood. Previously, the day had started with a warm tone to it, a colder tinge to the air from the chilly night creeping its way in on silent fingertips through an open window somewhere on the ground floor. The atmosphere around us was permeated with the colour of honey, the emotion swirling its way around Oswald, curling into his hair, seeping into his cheeks, marking his eyes like starlight. I had never even noticed how his icy eyes had been able to seem so bright and warm in accordance to his surroundings, his smile.

Breathtaking.

It took me a few moments to realise that Oswald was softly calling my name, shaking me from my mental wanderings. Sheepishly looking away, I swiftly rose to my feet and extended a hand to aid Oswald up, his hands chilly from exposure to the air juxtaposing my hands warmed from holding him.

“What time is it?” He yawned, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his unoccupied hand. I glanced at a clock hanging on a nearby wall, blinking a few times to assure that it was actually three in the morning.

“We, uh, we have time.” I stammered, guiding Oswald up the stairs in front of me, hand on the small of his back. Glancing to my right, the Other Me shot me a wink and a finger gun before fading out of sight. Face burning red, I continued up the stairs, following this strange man who managed to weasel his way into every crevice of my being, expertly snaring all of the strings in my heart and mind.

This is home.

He is my home.

I think we’ll be okay.