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It’s almost funny, to Oswald, that they’re here again. The precinct is the same as it’s always been, dark, holding cells facing the desks of people who grow to hate their jobs more and more as each day passes, filing cabinets, hanging lights. Same icky feeling that runs down your spine, no matter the reason you’re there. The building has been through a lot, the people within it even more, and Oswald can’t begin to count the number of times he’s been here-- for better or for worse.
This time, though, it’s different.
Ed is beside him, sure. Ed is always with him, even when he’s not. There’s always a constant lingering, the ghost-feeling of Ed’s presence hovering beside Oswald, and even if that isn’t there, the thought of him is. And even now, they sit in a holding cell together, the same one both of them have spent countless hours in, knee to knee, waiting for the inevitable.
And as awful as it is, Oswald can’t seem to find himself bothered much by it. He’s done this many times too, but now, it’s different. He’s older. He’s used to it. He doesn’t have people who can help him, he doesn’t have the leverage to pull anything off by himself, and besides, the only person who could possibly get him out of where he’s going is sat right next to him, going the same damn place. There’s nothing they can do but sit and wait.
At least, Oswald thinks, this time, they’re in it together.
He and Ed were never destined for a happy ending, but this, as sick and twisted as they are, is probably as close as they can possibly get, and for Oswald, that’s enough. He doesn’t need anything else, he doesn’t want anything else. Sure, he’s going to Arkham, sure, it won’t be enjoyable at all, but Ed’s going to be there. Oswald thinks it’ll be much easier having Ed with him. As a friend. As something else.
Oswald taps a steel-toed Oxford against the dark linoleum floor, watching, waiting. He glances at the clock by Gordon’s old office. They’ve been here for three hours.
Ed nudges him. “That’s us,” he says. Oswald then takes notice of the burly officer coming their way. He listens in halfheartedly to his conversation with the officer guarding their cell, something about the truck being ready, something else he doesn’t care to listen to.
“Well. It was a good run,” Oswald tells him.
“A good run indeed,” Ed agrees. There’s a grin on his face, but not maniacal, not forced: genuine. Oswald smiles back, just the same. “Until next time.”
“To be quite honest with you, Ed,” Oswald begins, “I don’t think there’ll be a ‘next time’.”
And then the cell door opens.
The big burly officer stands there, unimpressed, and they both just stare at him for a moment. “On your feet, Nygma,” he grunts. So Ed stands, no use in fighting it. The officer cuffs him, holds him by his wrists. Oswald begins to follow suit, holding out his own wrists, but the officer doesn’t do anything to him. “Don’t know where you think you’re going,” he says.
“Arkham,” Oswald retorts instantly. Where else would he go? Has he not proven himself criminally insane?
The officer laughs, the dry kind with no humour behind it, and closes the cell door in his face. “You’re going to Blackgate. Nygma is going to Arkham.”
No.
No, they can’t possibly do this to him. Of all the cruel things they could do, this is positively the worst. This is absolutely the worst thing that could be happening to him. Oswald can’t believe this. They just got better. They just figured things out for themselves. Now all of that is gone. Ten years. Oswald is going to have to spend ten years in a prison with a bunch of lowlifes who’ll just eat him alive. Ten years that Edward will have to spend with a bunch of Gotham’s criminally insane, who he knows for a fact will want to tear him to shreds. Ten years apart.
“No!” Oswald yells after him. His voice cracks. His eyes burn. His fingers grip the bars, his warm face pressed flush to cold metal, attempting to get closer to Ed, who’s being dragged away. “You can’t do this! You can’t! I won’t let you!” Nothing. “Ed!”
“Oswald.” Ed looks back over his shoulder, and Oswald can see that his eyes are brimmed with tears of his own.
They can’t do this. They can’t.
But they are doing it, because no matter what, Oswald Cobblepot and Edward Nygma will never get a happy ending.
Oswald watches all the way until Ed disappears beyond the front entrance, and he lets himself cry openly for the first time in a while. Because as much as Oswald has denied it for months on end, as much as he’s repressed and told himself and others differently, led Ed to believe otherwise, every fibre of Oswald’s being is still overwhelmingly in love with Edward Nygma.
He sobs because it hurts It hurts so deep in his chest that he can’t do anything but sob at the unrelenting truth of what’s coming for them.
Nothing.
He sobs and snots and goes red in the face until another equally burly officer comes to collect him, too. “Give it a rest, Cobblepot,” is the only comfort he’s offered.
Ed doesn’t want to admit it, but he cries, silently, in the back of the truck. The officer either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, but even he doesn’t realize how much he’s actually crying until he wipes his cheeks and the emerald of his jacket turns corbeau. His eyes sting more than he remembers they do the last time he cried like this, which was maybe after Kristen, maybe after Isabella. He doesn’t quite recall. He’s actively tried not to do this for as long as he can remember.
It had come to Edward’s attention, perhaps much too long after the fact, perhaps too late, even, that he is absolutely, completely, and utterly in love with Oswald. Perhaps he’s known all along. Like most things, he’d bottled it up, kept it away. Oswald couldn’t ever love him again, not after all he’s done. After betraying him over and over again. For being so intelligent, Ed has missed some of the most crucial evidence to prove otherwise.
Or perhaps, echoes the little voice in his head, he’s just chosen not to see it. Because for Ed, love has never worked out for him. It ends in death and betrayal and an amount of pain that seems to outweigh the better qualities. Love is about sacrifice, he’d told Oswald, once, now seemingly light years ago, it’s about putting someone else’s needs before your own.
But Oswald has done that, hasn’t he?
He’d given up his revenge on Sofia Falcone to prevent Edward’s death. Oswald has saved him countless times, hasn’t he? All the times he’d been battered and beaten and chose not to give Ed up, even though Edward had been cruel to him. And if that is not love, if that is not sacrifice, Edward has been wrong the whole time. And he has been wrong. Because now, after seeing him, red-faced and crying, gripping cell bars so hard his knuckles turned white, desperately calling out, he knows that they will never ever get what they think they deserve.
Each other.
And maybe this is it. This is what they deserve. Perhaps this is just the world telling him that he’d done one too many things wrong, that he’d committed crime after crime with no remorse and now it’s time to pay. Maybe they don’t deserve each other no matter how much they click, no matter how much they think they deserve one another. Perhaps this is the fate that Ed had asked him if he believed in; maybe fate did have different plans for them.
But if Edward Nygma knows one thing, it’s that all in all, he and Oswald Cobblepot will never get even the slightest semblance of a happy ending, no matter how much they yearn for it.