Chapter Text
It was late afternoon, heading into evening. The band of companions calling themselves the London and Other London Outstanding Mercenary Group had found a sheltered place to settle down and wait for full darkness before continuing on to their objective under the blessed concealment of night.
There wasn’t a lot of settling in to do, since they were there temporarily, but what little there was, they immediately set about accomplishing. The group’s dynamic was effortless, and Wilde admired it. Azu immediately set about gathering an armful of dry-fallen deadwood for the small fire Grizzop was kindling; Hamid had already disappeared up to his waist into a bag of holding, rummaging for the makings of an evening meal. Sasha was keeping watch, warily observing their surroundings for the first hint of threat - and woe betide that hint, he thought wryly, if she saw it.
Having nothing to contribute, Wilde stood aside for a few minutes watching, and finally left them to their good-natured bickering. His wandering found him a tree, small but with a good spread of branches still within sight and earshot of the little temporary camp, and Wilde sat down beneath it.
There were missives to be reviewed, after all, and replies to be composed, and events to log in the journal he kept for that purpose. That much, at least, Wilde was skilled enough to do, even if that contribution was not widely recognized. That was deliberate, he reminded himself. His work was of necessity clandestine, to be kept out of sight and out of mind as much as possible, even from this small group of allies.
“Hey, uh. Wilde.”
Wilde turned his head. Sasha was standing nearby, having apparently materialized there out of thin air. He was growing accustomed to the fact that if the young woman didn’t want to be noticed she just wouldn’t be noticed . It was unnerving, and also a pleasant affirmation of his choice of field agents. Sasha was, above all else, very good at what she did.
“You look awful,” she said. She didn’t come any closer, but there was a hint of something approaching camaraderie in her tone, for all that the words were brusque. Wilde shook himself, snapped his fingers, and grinned brightly at Sasha with a face suddenly not a whit haggard or lined with stress.
Clearly unimpressed, Sasha only looked at him with an expression reminiscent of one of his old governesses. “You know you’re not foolin’ anyone, right?”
“Perhaps, but illusion is the first of all pleasures,” Wilde replied cheerfully. He beamed at her and returned his attention to the small, leatherbound journal in which he was writing. Sasha was quiet a moment, and then to his surprise and secret pleasure dropped to sit close by.
Watching Sasha sit was fascinating. She folded up like an ungainly deckchair, but managed somehow to land with a kind of easy grace. Wilde supposed it came of the rigid, wary control with which she moved at all times. It was easy to be graceful when you knew precisely what your body could do, right down to tendon and marrow.
She leaned just a little bit to glance at the page where ink was still drying. Wilde lofted an imperious brow at her and tilted the book away, just a little, and Sasha leaned back again. “All right, all right, I was just lookin’ ,” she said.
Wilde considered what he had been writing. In truth, there was nothing there that she didn’t already know. There was no risk in letting her see. He blew gently across the page and then, satisfied the ink was dry, offered the journal over to her, brow still haughtily arched. “Be my guest,” he said, and Sasha, now looking slightly suspicious, reached to take the book gingerly from his hand.
Their fingers brushed as she did, and Sasha withdrew swiftly, a bit of color rising to her cheeks. She peered down at the page, scowling. “How do you read this?” she muttered. “It’s all… twisty and curlicued and fancy. What is that, a Q? It looks like a number , Wilde. Where did you learn how to write ?”
Wilde laughed - he couldn’t help it, her annoyance was refreshingly honest - and he took the book back from her, careful this time not to touch her hand. He tucked the little journal into his pocket and leaned back against the tree behind them, shifting position to loosely drape his arms over his updrawn knees.
“No-one takes you seriously if you don’t write like you’re dodging ants on the paper,” Wilde told her, slightly surprised to find himself being less guarded in his answer than he might otherwise have been. “Not in the circles I move in.”
Sasha nodded. “Yeah, makes sense, I guess. Prob’ly think you’re like, some commoner, if you write so anybody else can read it.” She looked into the middle distance, and her expression brightened. “Yeah! ‘Slike… ‘slike thieves’ cant, kind of! Like a secret code, ‘n you can only get in th’government or whatnot if you can read ‘n write all flow-y.”
“Exactly so,” Wilde replied smoothly, and carefully schooled the wounded tone out of his voice. “It would never do, for anyone to think I was some commoner.” How, he wondered, did Sasha manage to unintentionally but unerringly land on old, carefully-hidden bruises each and every time they talked? It was uncanny.
She was perceptive, though.
“But… you are, aren’t you?” Sasha’s question was a quiet one, nearly a whisper. She peered at him, searching his face for confirmation, and must have somehow found it there, despite the practiced mask of bland insolence he’d instantly snapped into place. “You are . People like- like Hamid, and Bertie- ” Sasha’s voice was harsher there, a certain chill creeping into her tone. “-they were born into all that. They belong to it just because they exist . But like- I’ll never even get to peek in the window, and even you gotta work at it.”
Wilde looked away, unable to conceal that this particular arrow - however unintentional - had hit home, and unwilling to let her see the mask crack, to watch him try to hurriedly patch it back together.
A soft rustle betrayed Sasha’s movement. Distractedly, it occurred to him that this must have been deliberate. Sasha was silent unless she wanted to be. That detached part of Wilde appreciated the gesture for what it was. The rest of him was curled around the hurt: old, habitual defensiveness that he’d long since thought abandoned.
“-Wilde…?”
Sasha’s voice was quiet, and not far from his ear. She’d moved closer than he’d realized.
“Wilde, are you-” She muttered a word he shouldn’t have been shocked to learn she knew, and Wilde sat up straighter. He dragged his hands over his face and turned his head to give her a brilliant smile, the mask back in place. Mostly.
“I’m- sorry, Wilde, I should’ve- I mean, I didn’t know but I should’ve guessed, that was dumb and I just-”
“No, Sasha; stop. Stop. It’s… fine. It’s fine.” Wilde looked away, faced forward again, watching nothing in particular; he tugged his knees up tighter, hugging them with his arms. He took a breath, let it out slowly. “It’s fine.”
Sasha didn’t answer. The awkward silence stretched itself between them, each passing second rendering it more difficult to break. After a while, when he hadn’t heard Sasha speak or move or even breathe , Wilde decided she must have - as she so often did - snuck away unnoticed. He didn’t get up yet. The sun was setting, sending long shadows reaching over the landscape and casting the world in a warm, rosy glow. Leaning forward a touch, Wilde rested his chin on his knees and sighed. The sunset was appealing, the kind of vista that was just as easily enjoyed alone as with company.
He was growing resignedly accustomed to that balance tipping more and more frequently to alone, these days.
Wilde jumped as he felt the unexpected warmth of fingertips just barely touching the back of his hand. Sasha, still sitting beside him after all, swiftly drew back her hand as though burned, and Wilde couldn’t catch the tiny, soft noise of distress before it left his lips.
“I thought-” Sasha bit her lip, splotchy color riding high on her cheeks as she fumbled for words. “I just, it- the hand thing, it - helped. That night, you know? On the roof. It… helped. And I thought maybe- maybe it would help you . A little. Cos I mean, ‘s my fault you’re upset. And.”
Wilde just stared at her, for once unable to summon a single quip or clever turn of phrase to answer this. From Sasha of all people, it was altogether unexpected.
No, he thought. No. From Sasha of all people… it made sense.
“Please,” Wilde whispered. He didn’t bother trying to hide from her the weariness in his voice, or its undercurrent of aching loneliness. “You’re perfectly correct. It- helps.”
Sasha hesitated, then scooted sideways closer to him until their shoulders touched, and drew her knees up to her chest, copying his posture. Wilde watched out of the corner of his eye, astonished and not daring to breathe lest she change her mind and bolt.
She turned her head to look up at him. With all the solemnity of some sacred ceremony, Sasha offered her hand to him, palm up.
Mirroring her solemnity, Wilde cautiously and gently covered her hand with his own, resting palm to palm, fingertip to fingertip.
Her hand seemed like such a fragile thing: smaller than his, narrower, bone and tendon clearly defined beneath scarred skin. Wilde knew how deceptive that impression was. There was nothing fragile about Sasha Racket.
Sasha paused for a moment and then, with the air of an experiment, shifted just a touch, just enough to let her curl her fingers upward through Wilde’s. Her grip was tentative, as though she was afraid of hurting him.
Cautiously, Wilde closed his hand around hers. It was such a simple thing. Just a hand, holding his. Uncomplicated. It demanded nothing, gave only warmth and touch.
And like every other interaction with Sasha, somehow, somehow it arrowed straight through the chinks in his defenses and buried itself in the exposed sliver of his too-soft, too-vulnerable heart.
Wilde lowered his head until his brow rested on his knees, and tried not to make a sound as he wept. The world was an enormous, hostile place. The unassailable foundations of civilization were crumbling, whether or not any but a select few were aware. The number of people he could genuinely trust was a miniscule one and dwindling rapidly-
But here was one of them, unanticipated but stubbornly real.
The unlikeliest of friends, Sasha sat beside Wilde and said nothing while his shoulders shook, while his grip tightened on hers as though he was clutching a cliff’s edge a finger’s-breadth away from freefall. She held his hand and, when he finally drew in a breath that didn’t lead immediately into another stifled sob, leaned to peer at his face.
“Better?” she asked.
Wilde, acutely aware of the dampness smudging his face, of how dreadful he must genuinely look, found himself unmotivated to bother casting a glamour.
It wouldn’t have done any good anyway. Sasha saw right through him.
His smile was small and shaky, but sincere in its gratitude, as was his whispered answer. Wilde gently squeezed her hand. “Better.”