Chapter Text
November 25th
The café has been in his family for so long that nobody can remember exactly who the ‘Hope’ in ‘Hope & Smith’ originally was; Zolf believes, privately, that there never was a person at all, that whoever had founded the place had simply needed as much hope as they could get. He sympathises with that.
He had fought it at first. The shop had gone to him after his parents had passed, and he had run away, of course, shoved it off to his brother and joined the navy, craving a little bit more of the world and not knowing, yet, that he didn’t actually want that. He’d fought it again after going home, and Feryn had tried to take care of him, and they’d argued like they always had, willful and prideful, feeding off each other’s bullheadedness until it turned into shouting and threats and then-
But Hope & Smith is his, now, has been for years, and he can’t deny it’s been good for him. He’s always expecting it to go under; somehow it never does. Like a ship that refuses to sink, no matter how many holes life knocks into its hull.
A feeling he understands. The shop is stubborn, just like he is.
Zolf has already begun closing up for the night, having cleaned out the display case and started on disassembling the espresso machine. His back is to the door as he hears it swing open, the bell tinging cheerfully. He sighs. “We’re closed,” he calls- not strictly true, but there’s only six minutes left before they are, and he’s the owner, after all- and turns around to see Wilde trip over the door jam and nearly go sprawling onto the tile. “Wilde?”
“Zolf!” Wilde catches himself on a nearby chair and grins hugely. “He-llo there, fancy meeting you here, eh? Come here often?”
Zolf stares at his waggling eyebrows. “You are soused,” he says, already on high alert. “What happened?”
“Now why do you assume anything would have happened, darling?” Wilde waves an admonishing and unsteady finger, his gaze sliding around like he can’t choose which image of Zolf to focus on. “Perhaps I have simply decided to sup of the sweet fruits of life.”
“Tell me what’s wrong with you or get out of my shop,” Zolf says flatly, worried.
“Have a drink with me.”
“Absolutely not.”
Wilde pushes himself into what could generously be called a standing position, swaying. “I have come here,” he announces haughtily, “to celebrate.”
“I ain’t havin’ a drink with you unless the drink is water, Wilde, what’s goin’ on?”
“Zolf, my friend,” Wilde slurs, making his stumbling way over to the counter and all but collapsing into it, trying to play it off as though he’s lounging. “Tonight, we open a riveting new chapter in the life of Oscar Wilde.”
Wilde only rolls his ‘r’s like that when he’s compensating for something. Whatever’s gone wrong, it’s gone very wrong. “What did you do?” Zolf asks, and Wilde waggles his finger at him again.
“Ah-ah,” he teases in a sing-song voice, grinning. “Jumping the gun. The key to any good story is pacing, Mr. Smith, pacing.”
“I could not give less of a shit,” Zolf says, wrinkling his nose at the smell of wine. How long has he been drinking?
Wilde sweeps a hand out. “We begin,” he stage-whispers dramatically, “at the beginning.”
“Wilde.”
“The brightest bard of his year, just a month away from his graduation, receives a letter in the mail from a well-known newspaper. He opens it with trembling hands, hoping against hope that it is what he so often dreamed it would be-“
“Skip to the important bit, Wilde, or you’re gonna lose your audience.”
“I quit my job!” Wilde announces defiantly.
“What?”
“That’s right, you heard correctly,” Wilde gives a little flourish and a bow, reeling dizzily as he comes back up, and Zolf starts to reach over the counter to steady him, but Wilde staggers back upright before he can help. He slams his hand down on the counter and continues in desperate triumph, getting progressively louder and angrier as he goes. “Gone, are the days of writing idiotically factual nothings! Gone, the days of standing in the pouring rain to ask leading questions to people who view you as a visualisation of every invasion of privacy in the modern age! Gone, the days of having to pretend for the sake of your own sanity that everything you write isn’t actually only being written to push some sort of agenda! Gone, the days of getting stuck at your desk while everyone stares at you as they pack up and go home, because your boss is losing her grip on reality and needed to tell you right then and there that there is somehow too much opinion in your fucking opinion piece, gone-“ Wilde swings his arm wide and throws himself completely off his fragile balance, tripping over his own feet and almost slamming his head into the counter as he goes down hard; Zolf swears loudly and drops the steamer lid, skirting the counter to try and catch him.
Wilde just barely manages to stop himself from falling and ends up hanging from the edge of the counter, his legs sliding uselessly out from beneath him, all the alcohol seemingly hitting him at once. Zolf takes him under the arms and tries to gently manouevers him into a chair, but as soon as someone else is supporting his weight Wilde simply sags, and they end up on the floor.
Wilde’s head drops. “Gone,” he says hoarsely, and makes a noise halfway between laughing and being strangled to death. “Fuck, Zolf, that’s the only real job I’ve had since I got done with graduate school, what the fuck have I done, what am I supposed to do now?” He puts his head in his hands.
Zolf shifts himself into a more comfortable position and does a rapid calculation, then eventually decides that it’s fine to wrap an arm around Wilde’s shoulders, half in an attempt to comfort and half just to keep him upright. “You didn’t seem to like it,” he tries hesitantly, and Wilde laughs again, a bitter, painful sound.
“I used to,” he says into his hands. “I really, really used to. Or I thought I did.” He raises his head and looks at Zolf with shining, bloodshot eyes. “I don’t know what happened,” he says hopelessly, all traces of his earlier anger disappeared. “I never do shit like this, Zolf, I’m a planner, I plan, that’s what I do. I’m not an impulsive person.”
Zolf squeezes his shoulder, unsettled. He’s never, ever seen Wilde like this. “Do you wanna talk about what happened?”
Wilde nods emphatically, and seems to instantly regret it. “Oh- gods-“ he swallows hard and buries his head in his hands again. “I am so, so drunk, Zolf, I am so fucking drunk, bloody hell…”
“I noticed,” Zolf says drily, and then, softer: “Want some water?”
“Yes please,” Wilde mumbles into his hands.
Zolf stands and dips back around the counter, grabbing one of the mugs he’d just cleaned and filling it from the sink. He places it in Wilde’s hands. Wilde takes a cautious, weary sip.
“Okay,” Zolf says, sitting again. Wilde leans in, either seeking comfort or falling over, and Zolf puts his arm back around him to steady him before he can think. “You’ve got your audience. Take a breath. What happened?”
“Guivres called me into her office today,” Wilde says, placing the cup down on the floor with shaking hands. He laughs. “Into her office, Zolf. If she wants to insult you, she does it where everyone can see. I thought I was getting a bloody promotion. But no, no, of course not. She wanted to talk about my latest story.” He grimaces, and says with exaggerated delicacy: “Apparently, the Macguffingham estate did not appreciate it.”
“Who?”
“Exactly,” Wilde says, sodden with disdain. “Some middle-tier, wannabe-governmental, pseudo-dynastic Tory nonsense. They didn’t appreciate the Monthly running a story about their lovely, lion-hearted prodigal son actually being a raging bigot with a penchant for smashing furniture when he doesn’t get his way.”
“Bloody hell.”
“And she told me,” Wilde laughs again, anger creeping its way back into his words, “that I would have to print a retraction. A retraction, Zolf. This man is running for local government! And, if I may say so myself, it was a very good story. But no. His family didn’t appreciate the bad press, and so I needed to get down on my knees and beg for their forgiveness for slandering the lovely Sir Bertrand so. And I got mad, Zolf.” He scowls at the ground. “I got very, very mad, and said something along the lines of ‘this whole paper is corrupt, you’re corrupt, you’re taking bribes, I don’t enjoy working here and neither does anyone else’. You know,” he says bitterly, resting his head on Zolf’s shoulder. “The usual. And she told me to pack my things and leave, and I said thank you, actually, you cannot fire me, I am quitting.”
He spits the word at the ground with pure vitriol, for a moment gone cold with anger, and then abruptly runs out of steam. His eyes close, and he slumps heavily into Zolf in defeat.
“And then you got drunk.”
“An’ then I got drunk.” His words are suddenly far more slurred, now that the story is told. “I got… so very, very drunk, Zolf.”
“When was this?”
He hiccups. “5:45? Maybe six.”
Zolf angles himself down to try and get a look at his face. “Wilde. It’s nearly eleven.”
“I packed my desk up first,” Wilde mumbles petulantly. “Took my stuff home. ‘N then I called up Saleh.”
“Fuckin’ hell, Wilde, you couldn’t have chosen anyone with slightly better coping skills?”
“Nope. Wanted t’get drunk.”
“Well, good job.”
Wilde hiccups again, his head sinking towards Zolf’s lap. “Gotta start… start looking for jobs.”
Zolf tries to sit him up properly, and gives up as Wilde simply slides back down, accepting his position as a pillow. He’s drunk. “I know some places in the area that are hiring,” he says, “if you want some help.”
Wilde laughs again, softer this time, and it sounds like he might be crying. “Knew I could count on you,” he slurs. “Knew I could come here.”
Something stalls painfully in Zolf’s chest. “Hey,” he says softly, and pulls Wilde’s arms up and tries to adjust him into something resembling a hug. The moment Wilde realises what’s happening, he scrabbles up and clings to Zolf like Zolf is the only constant thing left in his world. He reeks of alcohol, listing gently to the side even in Zolf’s arms. Zolf does his best to hold him steady.
“Next time,” Zolf says quietly, “call me. Okay? Don’t just… run right out into self-destruction.” He sighs. “Believe me, I know it feels good in the moment. You’re smarter than that.”
“I can never resist temptation, Zolf,” Wilde mumbles sleepily.
“And this is new information?” Wilde shakes with silent laughter, which Zolf counts as a win.
“You’re so good.”
“Entirely not true, but I’ll take the compliment.”
“But it is,” Wilde protests fuzzily, “you are. You’re- you-“
“Shh, shut up. You’re drunk.”
“I’m aware.”
“Congratulations.”
Wilde’s arms are slowly becoming deadweight around him as he starts to pass out. “Love you,” he slurs softly.
Zolf freezes.
Okay. Wilde’s been drinking since six, maybe seven. There is no way he means that. There is no way he’s going to remember any of this come morning, he’s definitely blacked out, and he’s falling asleep in Zolf’s lap and Zolf needs to get him home, and Zolf needs to go home too, and- and-
They’ve been friends for just over a year now. It’s always felt like they’ve known each other longer. He attributed that at first to the fact that time in Wilde’s infuriating presence passes painfully slowly, but… the man had grown on him.
He’d grown on him a lot.
Nope. Wilde is too drunk and Zolf is too exhausted to process this tonight.
He pats Wilde on the back and carefully extricates himself, to much protest from Wilde. The sooner he gets him back to his flat, the better. “Drink that water, right? I’m gonna finish locking up.”
“M’kay.”
He does a half-arsed version of the usual closing routine, rinsing the dishes and leaving them in the sink- he’ll do them in the morning, unless Sasha beats him to it- and returns to find Wilde almost asleep sitting up, the glass of water still untouched beside him. He kneels down and lifts Wilde’s arm around his shoulders. Wilde gives a little groan of surprise and protest, but allows himself to be manhandled up to his feet. “Let’s get you home,” Zolf says, and Wilde nods sadly. Zolf doesn’t comment on the tears on his face.
Zolf takes the bus back to his own flat after depositing Wilde safely with his. He’d never spoken much with them, but they seemed a good lot, and they’d certainly reacted strongly upon opening the door to find one of their flatmates blackout drunk and this close to unconsciousness, being fully supported by Zolf. Wilde had struggled a little at being removed from Zolf’s shoulders, but one soothing word from Zolf and he’d gone as limp as a rag doll, and allowed Cel and Carter to all but carry him to his room. Zolf had given Barnes, who he knew best of the three, a shortened version of the story, and Barnes had looked serious and nodded and promised they’d look after him.
Zolf had said he’d be around at some point tomorrow to check up on him, which he’s regretting now. But it’s fine. It didn’t mean anything. Wilde had been in a bad way, and he had come to Zolf, and so Zolf is going to check up on him later because that’s what friends do for friends, especially friends who know what the beginning of a downward spiral looks like from personal experience.
He needs Wilde to be okay. That’s all it is. Wilde’s not going to remember anything from tonight, anyway.
It doesn’t mean anything.
It’s nearly midnight by the time Zolf unlocks the door to his own flat, which is much farther away from the café than Wilde’s is. He locks the door behind him and goes straight to his bedroom, sitting on the end of his bed to take off his boots and prosthetic. As he always does, he pauses to stare down the dark stain spreading across the ceiling, his heart sinking a little more as he notices how it’s grown since the morning. He narrows his eyes at it, as if he could somehow intimidate the plumbing back into functionality.
As he watches, a drop of water grows and falls, plopping neatly into the bowl he’d put on his bedside table that morning. The sides spill over, sloshing and dripping down into the wood.
“Piss off,” he says to it, and wonders- as he always does- if there’s still someone listening.