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He knows he’s stuttering, barely able to finish a sentence. His hurried, distracted speech isn’t endearing like Cel’s, it irritates him, he wishes he could just keep his mouth shut but there’s so much hiding right there on his tongue that he feels the need to put voice to—
Wake up, wake up please just wake up
—and he can’t, not really, because he doesn’t know if Wilde even remembers at this point.
Gods.
What if he doesn’t remember?
He can’t tell anyone what happened in Wilde’s spiritual limbo, not until he sees the man’s eyes alight with life once more. Not that anyone around him really gives a damn, justifiably wrapped up in their own experiences, their own wins and losses. It’s not that important.
(It is to him.)
Knowing that doesn’t stop his mouth running in fits and starts as he tries not to blurt out the feelings he’s been forcing down for months and months. He focuses instead on trying to help Skraak, trying to help Carter. Trying to protect Wilde, even now (he’s being obvious, he’s being too obvious, he’s—).
It is more important in the hours that follow to just let Wilde and Sassraa rest, to make sure Carter isn’t experiencing any strange side effects, and to help the kobolds mourn their loss. He checks on Wilde regularly, but the man is sleeping soundly, brow free of lines and scar missing from his face.
He’d almost grown used to it.
Wilde had too, he thinks. Especially given how much he fought with righteous indignation when Zolf tried to heal it properly.
It’ll be strange not to see it on his face, not to see it stymie his smile. Not to see the sly little smirk that he’s taken to wearing when flirting with looking at Zolf...
No.
No.
It doesn’t matter. He’s alive.
He’s alive.
He helps build the pyre, when the kobolds ask, but mostly takes a step back, chewing on his lip and helping it get ridiculously chapped in the cold air. He watches Azu with Carter and pretends that he’s not envious of them getting to explore their shared experience. He watches Cel with Skraak and regrets his earlier attempts at consoling them.
He watches Wilde…
He watches Wilde.
Their friends are still sleeping when the little ceremony concludes, Hamid conversing with the kobolds in quiet draconic. Everyone else melts away, apart from Cel, who walks with him to where Sassraa and Wilde are resting.
He puts a hand over Wilde’s forehead, feeling his temperature, sensing that he’s at least slightly cooled down from earlier. Sassraa stirs and Cel greets them with such absolute joy that he can’t help but watch, a desperate, aching want in his chest.
“Come here often?”
It’s so quiet, coming from such a still body, that it almost doesn’t register at first.
He turns his head, finding Wilde already watching him. Some version of that little smirk is playing at his unmarked lips.
“Hey.” He croaks out, because now is apparently the time for hesitation, for avoiding putting voice to all the half-formed questions in his mind.
Do you remember what…
Where are we going to…
Do you regret…
“Thank you for coming to get me.” Wilde says, extending a hand to grip Zolf’s wrist.
His fingers are warm, so warm but it makes Zolf shudder, skin on skin contact after so long. Zolf reaches up with his other hand, swiping at the snow-white length of Wilde’s hair and cupping the back of his head.
“'Course, Oscar. ” He says, watching a lovely flush spread over the man’s cheeks. “Any time.”