Work Text:
Oscar's foot taps along the floor in sharp tones. He carefully flips through document after document, signing and noting through the different pages. The chink of chains almost inaudible over the tapping. With a quick glance at the chest high stack of papers set aside his desk Oscar lets out a deep sigh.
The sky outside his office window is stormy and black. The same as it's been for days, and weeks, and months. Someday’s it's easier to think that the sky has always been this way. The inn is quiet, the remaining staff having left for their homes for the night, leaving Oscar to wait in his office.
A deep dread pools in Oscar's stomach that he quickly shoves down, his hands quietly shaking. There will be time to feel weak later, for now he must wait. People are counting on him, the world is counting on him, he is-
No. Push that back into its tiny box, and deal with it later, if later even comes. He has to trust that they will succeed, fight off the tyranny, the infection, the lies, and make their way back to him. Oscar will sit and he will study and he will plan and he will wait because that's all he's good for.
But it's been harder and harder to trust every time. It should be impossible to trust in a world built on lies, yet here he is.
Waiting
Useless
Oscar stands, grabs a stack of letters off the table and walks over to the window, sitting down along the edge. The sky is a swirl of black and gray clouds, broken up by the occasional spark of lightning. His fingers trace the condensation along the window as he gazes out at the gray landscape. The trees are dead, the grass is dead, the flowers never got the chance to live and Oscar feels the same. His hand looks gray in the window outline. He wants to feel nothing, it would be better to feel nothing. So he crams his emotions and struggles into a box and waits. So much work to do. Oscar takes a moment to orient himself, then starts to flip through the letters. Decoded letters from the harlequins, contradicting letters from the meritocrats, letters of complaints from patrons and-
Sasha's letter.
Oscar clutches Sasha's letter tight. He's already read it, over and over again. The words swirl through his mind in confusing patterns until one line sticks out. 'Little Wild'. Little Wild? He and Sasha were never very close but for her to name one of her kids after him. Maybe…
But no. Another confused mix of emotion to shove in the box. It's not time to feel, he cant feel, he can't afford it. No one can afford for him to feel. Heavy rain pelts the window as Oscar peers out into the distant storm.
If Zolf were here Oscar would be bundled up in bed, a steaming mug of hot tea in his hands, not these letters. Her letter.
He knows he has to tell them. He will tell them. Once they come back any day now. If they come back.
Stop! Try again. When the LOLMG party returns and a week of quarantine finishes up, then he'll show them the letter. That's it. Once the proper procedures are finished then they will find out, then they can grieve. Oscar won't have the same opportunity but that's fine. It's what the box is for.
If only Zolf were here, then he wouldn't be so tense. Then again that would mean the box would be open and Oscar knows that if the box truly opened up, it would never close again. So he keeps it tight, padlocked and sealed. Away from prying eyes and poisonous words and the only one with a key is... Zolf.
Zolf has a key to unlock the padlock and acid to destroy the seal and a crank that shoves into the side of the box and twists and twists and twists until everything pops out and Oscar is everywhere. On every wall and ceiling, every book and letter and person yet, there will be no more Oscar. He knows if he bursts that everything that makes Oscar Wild will disappear. Forever.
Maybe he'll join Sasha and Grizzop on the other side in a spectral paradise. A place to rest, feel, sleep. Now's not the time though. So he does what he always will and shoves all those feelings into a tight little box with only one key.
Oscar looks up from his letters to stare out the window and finds himself taken aback.
When did the sun come out?