Work Text:
Wilde waits. It feels like waiting is all he does these days. He sits, tea rapidly cooling in its cup, papers scattered on his desk, the bodies of his friends waiting in the cellar below. They died the day they left for Shoin’s and he killed them in his mind, buried them in his heart, just as he always does. Mission protocol. Graves dug.
This is his first time burying Cel, the possibilities of a friendship still to be explored. Does that make it easier or harder? The chances missed, opportunities lost, a friendship wilted and decayed before it could truly blossom?
Hamid and Azu, he buried them once before, so very long ago. They were the first...well, no...not the first that he buried. There were others from before but he thought he’d learned his lesson, learned to keep his heart apart from his work, learned to kill friendships before they started, learned not to mourn disposable assets, acceptable losses, collateral damage. And yet...he mourned them. They came back. They came back, and now he’s killed them again. Sent them off to fight his battles, waiting for their corpses to return. Waiting. Always waiting.
Carter and Barnes, he’s trying, trying to keep them out of his heart. Old lessons still not learned, he buries them again and again, never knowing if this time will be the last. How long can they continue to come back? How long before they’re just another pair of faces to haunt his dreams with accusing eyes and sharp words?
And Zolf...Zolf he buried a hundred times, a hundred missions a hundred departures, a hundred reunions. This luck can’t hold forever. But still...he hopes. It’s the faint hope of a fool who knows better, and yet each time Zolf returns, with a quiet nod, knowing eyes, a smile filled with warmth strong enough to melt cold stone. How long can this go on? How long until the smile warps and twists, the knowledge in those eyes mocking instead of comforting? How long until Zolf stays in his grave, and something else crawls out of the dirt to stand in his place?
Wilde reaches for his desk drawer, opening it to see the adamantine dagger and anti-magic shackles tucked within. There are two that remain buried, two that he may never revive. How long until the others join them as cold mementos in a drawer? How long until there’s nothing left but the memory of his failures? He closes the drawer, sets aside the tea, and turns to his stack of paperwork to quiet his mind.
Seven days. Just seven days until the funeral. He digs the graves in his heart again, and he waits.