Chapter Text
It was late evening by the time they’d finished planning - it was a long shot, going to the island, one that they simply hadn’t had the manpower for before now, but Oscar was confident, with Cel and Sasha and Grizzop on the team with Zolf, that they’d be able to deal with Shoin and his minions and find whatever information he had hidden in the depths of the island.
He’d retreated to the back porch of the inn, the one that faced the sea. Rain continued to fall, less heavy than it had been for the past day or so. Oscar had a deep and sudden yearning to see the stars, the moon, the clarity of a night sky without clouds, and swallowed against the mess of feelings that wanted to escape out through his throat.
He fished his cigarette case out and lit one - there were very few left, supplies were so erratic, and he had been rationing them, as well as the good brandy, but tonight he felt a little indulgence was warranted.
He blew out a mouthful of smoke, watching it billow into the damp air, feeling the slight buzz of it in his veins.
A weight he’d been carrying for months didn’t lift exactly, but resettled around him, and with it a new set of worries, more urgent than the dull, pressing panic of a world in chaos. Now he was worried for individuals. For people he cared about. For the more immediate and visceral griefs that accompanied sending agents into the field.
“You right, Wilde?” Zolf’s voice from behind him wasn’t a surprise. They’d stood here more nights than Oscar cared to count, in quiet contemplation, in resentful silence, in comfortable familiarity.
“As all right as can be expected,” Oscar said, offering his cigarette case to Zolf, who raised an eyebrow, but took one, sparking it alight and blowing smoke out to mingle with the lingering traces of Oscar’s last exhale.
“You weren’t kidding about Grizzop,” Zolf said, after a moment. “That goblin has more energy than anyone I’ve ever seen. I get tired just lookin’ at him.”
Oscar chuckled softly. “Do you think you’ll be able to work with him?”
Zolf shrugged. “Easier than working with Bertie,” he said, and Oscar felt a pang of… not grief exactly. He didn’t miss Bertie as such, but he did long for the time when the most pressing of his problems was how to get a pompous aristocrat to reveal his secrets.
Those particular methods, that particular skillset, had been left rusting and unused for so long now that Oscar wondered, briefly, if he’d even be able to pull such a thing off any more.
One finger reached up to trace the line of his scar, and he sucked in another lungful of smoke.
Probably best that he didn’t have to test them.
“You’re brooding. That’s my job.”
Oscar looked down at Zolf again, other feelings crowding out the memories clattering through his brain like tin soldiers. He would have to go with them, to Shoin’s island. Carter and Barnes would be back up, guarding the tunnel, ensuring they had an escape route.
Oscar was going to be left here, alone.
Again.
“I don’t have to tell you to be careful over there,” he said.
Zolf’s eyes twinkled in the lamplight. Oscar realised he was standing far closer than his wont - obviously in order to reach the cigarette that had been offered. There could be no other reason. “No. You don’t.”
Oscar swallowed. Reached down until his fingers found Zolf’s. Looked back out towards the sea.
Zolf’s hand pressed into his, thumb running back and forth across Oscar’s knuckles, and Oscar’s head felt light as air.
It had been too long since he’d smoked. Obviously.
“Be careful, Zolf,” he said.
“Of course.”