#xarxes-break

To: Xarxes-break

Happy holidays! This fic got kinda’ angsty somewhere along the way…I hope you don’t mind! It’s a canon-y au wherein the gang go on the lam after chapter 88–and have to deal with their feelings. Oh no!

From: Cushfuddled 

┅

It’s early May. There’s on the run, and Break kisses Reim. As the story goes, he grasped Reim by the lapels and dragged him down to his height. Gilbert spits out his drink when he hears.

“Where did this happen?” he splutters. From across the room, Reim hides a blush behind his papers. The remnants of the Pandora Organization have congregated beneath Lutwidge, and Reim has taken up residence in what used to be a storage closet. “Upstairs,” Reim says. “We were arguing.”

“About?”

“Something trivial.”

“And he just–?”

Reim blushes harder. 

“Jesus,” Gilbert says. He sets his glass on a nearby table.

“Anyway, I’ve got these sorted.” Reim shuffles his reports. “If the organization survives, we won’t have to worry about paperwork.”

It’s busywork, and they both know it. If any of them survive the next few weeks, paperwork will be the least of their concerns. Gilbert watches as Reim stuffs his papers through the mouth of a dusty folder. They’ve managed to scrounge up some office supplies, though they all smell like must and disappointment. Gilbert hovers a little on the edge of Reim’s vision, then sits beside Reim’s adopted desk. His chair creaks. Reim looks up. 

“You’re the same as me,” Reim says.

Gilbert keeps his posture relaxed. “How do you mean?”

“You’re–a deviant. An invert.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“It’s what I’ve been called.”

“Oh.” Gilbert blinks. He leans back in his chair. Reim stands to leave, thinks better of it, and sits back down again. The folder makes a “clack” as it collides with the tabletop. 

Reim puts his head in his hands.

There’s a moment of silence.

“I don’t regret it,” Reim says, through his fingers. “My god, I love him too much to care–about anything. My job. My reputation. To be honest, I wish I’d acted sooner.”

Gilbert’s brow furrows. Slowly, he reaches out across the table and clasps Reim’s shoulder. He has to lean forward a bit to bridge the gap. 

Reim takes a deep breath. His shoulders droop under Gilbert’s hand. Gilbert nudges him, the way young boys push each other when they’re too proud to hug. 

“I’m glad you two are together,” he says. He lets his hand drop. 

Reim pretends to scoff, but there’s a tiny smile behind his hands. “If Break was trouble before, he’ll be downright apocalyptic now.”

“Probably.”

Reim sighs. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you and Oz…?”

It’s Gilbert’s turn to blush. He’s changed since the first Baskerville attack, but his face still goes beet red when he’s embarrassed. “What? Oh, god–no. Of course not.”

“I thought so,” Reim says. “Right. I apologize.”

“No, that’s–Christ.” Gilbert runs his hand over his forehead. “I couldn’t, Reim.” Reim lowers his own hands to his lap. “But you want to?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want. He’s grieving. Hell, I’m grieving. He doesn’t feel that way for me. He’s fifteen.”

“To us.”

“What?”

“He looks fifteen to us,” Reim clarifies. “He’s occupied another vessel before–for years.”

“That’s–” Gilbert makes a flustered gesture, then collapses back against his chair. “He told you?“ 

"Yes." 

"When?”

“A couple nights after we first got back. He wanted to keep me up to date.” Reim flits Gilbert a concerned look out of the corner of his eye. Gilbert turns to stare at the floor. 

Reim clears his throat.  

“I’m sorry I–”

“It’s fine,” Gilbert says. “I can’t ruin this, though. Not after we’ve worked so hard to–not even go back to normal. We’re better than normal.”

“That’s why I asked, actually. The dynamic between you two has changed.”

“You can tell?”

“You’re much more relaxed,” Reim says. His eyes find his reports, papers now slightly askew where they poke out the sides of the folder. “It’s–nice. There’s been so much fear lately, and stress. It’s a good change of pace.”

Gilbert lets out a deep breath. He resists the urge to pick at a notch in the wood of his chair. Reim looks equally likely to straighten his documents or set them on fire.  

“Two weeks,” Reim says. “At the most. We have two weeks before we run out of safe houses.” He drums his fingers on the desk. “I should get out of this hovel.”

“Yeah,” Gilbert says. “That’s–that sounds like a good plan.”

Reim nods, stiffly. He stands and collects his coat from the back of his chair. “I heard Turner managed to smuggle us some tea. We could gather the others.”

Gilbert abandons his own chair. “You haven’t told them yet, have you?”

“Not officially.” Reim gives his paperwork one last glance, then starts out of the room. Gilbert grabs his glass from the side table and follows him out. “I hope Break hasn’t beaten me to it. He’s so overdramatic about everything; he’ll want to embellish the story…" 

Gilbert snorts at the thought. He closes the door behind him as they leave. 

The paperwork stays on the table. 

┅

It’s the third safe house–a clump of rooms underneath an antiques shop. There are no windows. Reim, Break and Sharon are across town at a friend of a friend’s. The rest of the rebels are peppered across the city–at hotels, bars, barns.  

Gilbert’s host loans him a small mountain range of blankets to compensate for the lack of beds and windows. She’s a lovely woman with calloused hands and a big laugh; "stay as long as you need,” she says, when they mention the Baskervilles. “I’ve dealt with worse." 

Gilbert rolled out the blankets hours ago. Alice was out the moment she hit the floor, of course. Oz fell asleep soon after. Gilbert lay on the floor for what felt like an eon, then gave up on rest, wobbled up off the ground, and started for the stairs. 

The shop’s drapes are tightly shut, but a little stripe of nighttime light filters through the very bottom of the window. Old clocks, pans, toys, and trinkets adorn every surface of the shop; cat dolls with saucer-wide eyes; exotic feather quills; odd-colored flasks and bottles that glow a rustic blue where the light hits them. Gilbert busies himself with a finely-carved bowl so he doesn’t have to look at the window. He misses the outdoors. These days, Gilbert and the others are only ever outside for a few seconds at a time–to enter and exit carriages, mostly. Gilbert stands there, poised at the front of the store next to a statue of a squirrel, and studies his bowl. 

There’s a "toot” sound. Gilbert shoots up like a missile; he nearly knocks over a table. Oz laughs from across the room. “Sorry,” he says. “I couldn’t resist." 

Gilbert makes a ruffled noise. Oz moves away from the stairwell. He looks older; tired. A little fuzzy around the edges. Gilbert keeps his eyes on the table he disrupted. "I thought you were asleep,” Gilbert says, once he’s righted a stand of thimbles. 

Oz sets a deer-antler flute back on a display case–that was the source of the “toot,” then–and smiles his best “I’m fine” smile. “I was.”

“Did I wake you?”

“No.” Oz doesn’t elaborate. He walks towards Gilbert–stops beside him, and leans against his side so that his head touches Gilbert’s shoulder. Gilbert pauses, then brings his right arm around Oz’s back. It’s a sort of sleepy half-hug. Oz exhales slowly, and his toes curl into the carpet. They’re both in their nightclothes, though Gilbert had the mind to bring his coat upstairs with him. 

“You cold?” Gilbert murmurs. 

“Not really,” Oz says. “It was hot downstairs under all those blankets.” He shifts against Gilbert’s hold to peer at the windows. “How long do you think we have?”

Gilbert doesn’t reply right away. He keeps his arm around Oz’s shoulders and follows his gaze to the windows. Three antique clocks tick down the seconds. The tallest–a grandfather clock–boasts a hearty pendulum. It lazes back and forth, back and forth, out of time like a drunken trapeze artist. There’s a snore from downstairs; Oz snorts. Gilbert cracks a smile. 

“Sounds like someone’s gonna’ get a good night’s sleep, anyway,” Oz says. The clocks tick on.

Gilbert shakes his head. “That rabbit could sleep through an earthquake.”

“Mm." 

Oz closes his eyes. Gilbert swallows.

"Oz,” Gilbert says. Slowly, with all the precision of a surgeon.

Oz peels open one eye at him, curious. When he sees Gilbert’s face, he starts.

“Jeez, Gil,” Oz says. He tenses under Gilbert’s arm. “What’s wrong?”

Gilbert opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He must look like a broken toy: Oz stares at Gilbert for a while like he expects him to splinter down the middle. Finally, Gilbert says, “can we sit down?" 

Oz nods. Gilbert removes his arm from Oz’s shoulders. The two make their way to a largely-unoccupied couch (there’s an old chess set on one cushion, which Gilbert relocates to the floor). 

"What’s up?” Oz asks, once they’re seated. They’re farther away from the windows now, and the shadows are so heavy Gilbert can almost feel them on his shoulders. He can barely make out Oz’s face through the darkness, but Gilbert finds his eyes and holds his gaze. Oz sits, and waits. 

Gilbert leans back against a couch cushion. He counts to ten.  

“I wasn’t–” He swallows. “I wasn’t going to do this. But." 

Oz raises an eyebrow. It makes Gilbert giggle for some reason: "Sorry,” he says. He drums his fingers against his knee. “Anyway. When you first met me, I could barely remember my own name. You were–my first friend, and you became my life, somewhere along the way. I defined myself by you. That was why I was so lost when you went away.” Gilbert fights hard to keep his eyes on Oz and not the carpet. “But now–that I’ve remembered my past, and how I got here, I’ve realized how stupid I’ve been. I thought I wanted to be around you to protect you; that’s all. A part of me knew I needed you to give my life direction, but I could never acknowledge how I actually felt about you.”

“Gilbert,” Oz says. But Gilbert plunges on: “You make me happy, Oz. In the most selfish way. You make me want to find myself. You make me want to move forward, even when the future seems hopeless. We’ve been through–too much together.” Gilbert remembers the gun under his pillow and clenches his fingers. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you. I’m so sorry that I relied on you to guide me through life–when I should have taken responsibility for my own choices. And I don’t want this to change things between us–I mean, unless you want them to, of course, but–I had to…I wanted to say. Since we don’t have a lot of time left. That…I do love you.” He feels his heart drum a hole through his ribcage. “And–I’m so glad I get to spend the end of the world with you." 

Oz stares at him. 

Gilbert feels a bit like a deflated balloon. He leans back against his part of the couch and crosses his legs. "Again: Sorry. I would’ve waited to tell you. If there’d been more time.”

“Gilbert. I don’t–”

“I know. It’s fine." 

"No, Gil, I–” Oz pauses. Gilbert watches as Oz’s hands find his. Gilbert’s too stunned to pull away; Oz slides closer, hands wrapped firmly around Gilbert’s, and says, “I don’t know how to do this." 

Gilbert finds himself unable to speak. His Adam’s apple bobs. Oz’s warm fingers trace the back of Gilbert’s hands. 

"You’re shaking,” Oz says. 

Gilbert croaks out an affirmative. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” he says. 

“Why would I be afraid of you?”

“Because I’m–” Gilbert wills himself to continue: “Because I care about you like I do.”

Oz, damn him, actually laughs at that. “Oh, Gil,” he says. He leans up, turns his head, and kisses Gilbert on the mouth. 

Gilbert’s brain short-circuits. Some unnamable emotion, warm and heady like wine or fireworks, swells up through his person until his whole body sings, and he reaches up to cup the back of Oz’s neck. Oz breaks the kiss, his face obscured by Gilbert’s shadow, then plunges forward; Gilbert kisses back this time, eyes closed and chest light, and flexes his fingers along the back of Oz’s head. Oz makes a relieved sound. There’s pressure behind Gilbert’s eyes. Gilbert pulls back; his hand finds the side of Oz’s face. He rests his forehead against Oz’s. 

Oz chuckles, wetly. Gilbert blinks. Oz pulls back enough to scrub a hand across his face.

There’s a moment’s pause. Outside, a late carriage rolls by. 

“You have morning breath,” Oz says at last. 

Gilbert looks alarmed. Oz only snorts. “I’m kidding,” he says. “Yeesh, Gil–you’re so easy to tease." 

Gilbert grouches at him. He ruffles Oz’s hair.

"Are you all right?” Gilbert asks. 

Oz peers at him. “Yeah, I’m–of course." 

"You look–”

“So do you,” Oz points out. And he’s right; Gilbert’s eyes are wet. Gilbert shakes his head, and there’s a smile on his face. Oz huffs at him. All at once, he falls forward onto Gilbert’s chest. Gilbert braces himself against the crux of the couch’s side and back cushion; he uses his right arm to catch Oz against his torso. Oz snuggles up to Gilbert’s front like a cat on a down comforter. They’re sprawled out along the couch now, and Gilbert has to wiggle around to stay on the cushions. Oz rests his temple on Gilbert’s collarbone, hands curled around his coat. Gilbert stills. Oz’s head lifts and falls as he breathes.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” Oz murmurs at him. “I thought it would make everything harder.”

Gilbert places a nervous hand on Oz’s back. When Oz melts into the touch, he flattens his palm. 

Another loud snore drifts up from downstairs. Oz closes his eyes. Gilbert lets his head fall back against the couch arm. 

“You think we’re gonna’ survive this?” Oz asks. 

Gilbert feels Oz’s warm weight on his sternum, and clenches his hand a bit tighter around the fabric of Oz’s shirt. 

To: @csylia/@mashmallowpumpkin 

It was quite clear in the brief that Sharon is one of your favourite characters (if not your most favourite) so I painted her like those old WW2 posters (a badass poster for a badass woman!) I know it’s kinda rough (and i don’t have the the skills/tools for digital drawing) but I hope I did her justice for you! I hope you have a merry Christmas and get many wonderful things! ( ˘ ³˘)❤

Theorising about endings is dangerous because every once in a while you think of something you really like and the more I thought of that image of Oz with the Core and the pocket watch and song all coming full circle after 100 years THE MORE I WANTED TO SEE IT :’D