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The day had finally come.
Wilardo sighs, crossing his arms as he glances at Claire’s still form next to him. Not a bad death; a peaceful one, in fact. Just had a bit of some kind of physical health attack, he’s not sure whether it’s a heart attack or not-- but Wilardo’s certain it was a natural way to go. Everyone was destined to die before they grew old, he knows, after Noel explained the time loop to them, that the 10000 retries had taken an unknowing toll on all of their physical health and life spans-- excluding his, for obvious reasons.
He supposes they had a good… how many years was it? Ten? Fifteen? years all knowing each other.
He’s surprised that they were all able to make it out of the Witch’s Mansion alive. Knowing the truth about Noel, Wilardo was surprised for sure on how he managed to escape, but Claire and the tall boy never seemed to tell him, so he didn’t ask.
Ashe went his separate ways from the group, and Wilardo can understand why. After Noel gave him the witch’s heart once belonging to Dorothy and explained that it could only grant a negative wish, from at least what Wilardo was told, he went crazy and couldn’t believe that it was all for nothing. After being presented evidence that it really was the witch’s heart, and Noel allowing him to wish on the Witch’s heart as much as he wanted, he finally conceded. After that, Wilardo never figured out what happened. He didn’t care much (pretends he didn’t, or maybe it’s just so repressed that he believes it), but Noel came back with several near fatal stab wounds, saying he’d just let Ashe ‘take it out on him.’ Ashe took the witch’s heart with him too, Wilardo figures, as it was never seen or found again.
After the mansion had collapsed in upon itself and become impossible to live in, Sirius was crushed, to say the least. Not to mention having the truth of, from Wilardo’s understanding, his relatives? death being thrown upon him, too. But deep down, Sirius was emotionally stunted at heart, and he didn’t need a place to stay and preserve as much as he needed people to stay. Some might say to come to this conclusion was ‘impressive’ of Wilardo, but it was pretty obvious judging from his behaviour. Wilardo’s seen plenty of tormented souls in his long, dragging existence, and it wasn’t even intentional to psychoanalyze them anymore, just subconscious.
And so, with that in mind, with only a bit of struggle, Claire convinced him to stay. Stay with her and Noel, just like in their supposed ‘childhood’ that Wilardo never quite caught onto what happened during.
Noel didn’t believe any of it was real, at first-- that they’d finally escaped safely-- Wilardo can’t blame him, with how many times he supposedly repeated those five days. With Claire confessing to everyone the truth that she knew about the time loop-- bold risk, for the girl, he’s gotta say. To be fair, most of them didn’t believe it at first, but from the way Noel reacted Wilardo can assume that they talked together about everything they knew afterwards. With Claire telling the truth, Noel reached out to Wilardo, informing him of the timeline but nothing about the witch’s heart.
But Claire was there for Noel, and he was able to understand that it was real after around a year. There are still days where he wakes up, convinced he’s back in the mansion, convinced that everything’s his fault, but he can wake up to people who know otherwise. Noel’s getting there, Wilardo himself knows that because he’s seen so many recoveries in his existence.
Wilardo stayed with Noel, with Claire, with Sirius, because he figures there’s no better place to go. Because they offered. Even with the knowledge that he’d murdered Claire thousands of times in the past, they offered.
Wilardo stayed because…
“Wilardo.” Claire declares, firm in her stance, Noel and Sirius standing defensively behind her. “Do you have a wish you’d be willing to kill for?”
He freezes in place, caught off guard by the sudden question. He plays it cool and honest as he always does though, simply shrugging and nodding in his place in the red room. “Yeah, you could say so. If there were a way to avoid straight up murder then I guess, but in my case, I doubt there is.” He pulls out his gun, defensively, wary of these strangers he’s just told more than necessary to. “This is about the witch’s heart, isn’t it? Figured. I expected Noel or Sirius to be hiding knowledge, but not Claire. Guess you three were all in it together, huh. Tell me what you know.”
Noel nods. “On the condition that you give us that gun, we’ll tell you everything, and we’ll tell you where it is, and we’ll let you use it.” Wilardo only raises the pistol higher, aiming at Noel’s chest. “Wilardo, please. Don’t even think about it. Sirius burned all the information to do with finding the Witch’s Heart, and if you kill me I’ll just loop time again. You know I can. I just… I want everyone to make it out this time. Please...”
(Wilardo finds out much later that this was a lie, that this was the final time that Noel would be able to loop. The ten thousandth repeat.)
He lowers his gun anyways. Surprising that he doesn’t have the guts to kill someone regardless of intention after all these years. He drops it on the ground, and Claire shakily smiles at him as Sirius peeps out from behind the both of them and crouches down to pick it up.
“Wilardo… your wish is… to die, is it not?” Noel nervously begins, and Wilardo stiffens. “I’m not entirely sure, every time loop I tend to forget about the violent parts but I can’t remember a single one where you have died in front of me. Are you perhaps immortal?”
Wilardo doesn’t nod, doesn’t affirm, but Claire looks into his eyes with a determined expression and smiles. “Live.” Wilardo stares at her, dead and confused, and she suddenly waves her hands nervously. “Sorry, that probably came out super wrong! I don’t mean… like… live forever, just, live with us. Me, Noel, and Sirius. And when we die, you can die too. I promise. Just… stay with us for a few decades and no one will have to die in this mansion. It’ll all be okay. You’ll be able to die, and you won’t have to kill me to do it.”
“...what do you mean, kill you to do it?” Wilardo narrows his eyes, and Noel glances towards Claire in worry.
Claire nods at Noel in affirmation. “My heart is the witch’s heart. That’s the truth. That’s why Noel’s had to loop so many times. To stop me from dying. But if you can wait a little--” Wilardo raises an eyebrow. “And escape this mansion with us, when I die, of natural causes, you can have my heart, and you can use it to die with me. The wish belongs to you, Wilardo. I want you to be happy, but I want everyone else to be happy, too.”
So Wilardo agreed. They waited it out together on a couch until morning of the fifth day, and all walked through the light of the mansion door.
They had a good life together. A few decades wasn’t much to Wilardo. He was willing to wait.
(A few decades was so much to Wilardo. Everyday he’d wake up in the same damn body, still alive and breathing, knowing that it couldn’t all end. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he’d approach Claire, gun in hand, desperate to carve her heart right out of her ribcage and end it all. Sometimes, Noel found him on the way and they stayed up in the living room, Noel assuring with soft words that Wilardo was a good person, that it was going to be okay. Sometimes, he’d leave Claire’s room, to hear muffled sobbing coming from Sirius’s room, and the two of them, reluctantly, would sit in silence as Sirius trembled through scars of the past, and Wilardo pondered fear of the future. Sometimes, Wilardo looked at Claire’s face, so peaceful, and decided on his own that he wanted to preserve the flower for a bit longer.)
It was scary, constantly feeling like these people would inevitably die, and he’d have to remain immortal. But this time, he wouldn’t. He’d be able to die with them. Wilardo relaxes at the thought of it. It’s hard to get used to such a domestic life, when Wilardo almost always had been on the move for as long as he’d been alive.
It gets better for the four of them. Not all of them, not Ashe as far as Wilardo knows, but the four of them. For fuck’s sake it takes so long to get better for Wilardo, but it does.
A few decades, huh.
He only has to wait about one decade and a half, really.
Noel leaves the earth only three years after they escape. The time loop had done the most damage to him, and he knows it. He doesn’t mention it to Claire, doesn’t want to worry her as he always does, doesn’t mention it to Sirius, who he doesn’t want to have to leave, to be another person that Sirius will have to lose, because Noel is too empathetic for his own good, Wilardo thinks.
But when it’s just him and Wilardo, Noel cries, worries and frets about his death. Not the concept of dying, but the concept of causing others pain when he dies. Noel talks about how he’s so grateful to be able to live with Claire and Sirius and Wilardo himself for even a minute, how it’s more than he could ever want and more than he could ever deserve. Sometimes, he even tells Wilardo the truth, of how he’d like to keep living for centuries longer, and how it feels so selfish of him to even think so.
Because Wilardo’s a good listener, and Wilardo has seen death enough that Noel’s death won’t phase him as much as it would Sirius and Claire.
He dies in a coughing fit, on one of their stargazing nights. He’s smiling when he dies, Sirius notes, whispering a faint ‘thank you’ to all of them as his eyes drift closed. Claire strokes his cheek and smiles through her tears while muttering something about seeing the starry sky before he died, Sirius clutches at Noel’s dead body, sobbing angry tears into his shirt as he keeps repeating something about ‘dying too early.’
They both thank Wilardo for helping them through the after effects of it, but Wilardo is practiced at recovering from loss, and he’s seen other people lose their loved ones time and time again. He knows how to handle grief, both the grief of himself and others. Claire’s way of grieving is to repress it. She smiles through the pain more than she should, so Wilardo only makes sure to be there during the times of night where she stops pretending everything is fine. Sirius has heightened emotions for a year or so after Noel dies, having outbursts and acting out, and Wilardo just accepts it and patiently waits through it every time, knowing that there’s a reason behind his behavior.
Wilardo misses Noel for a moment after he dies, himself, but has already prepared himself for the loss. He misses the little things that he and Noel shared together, but he’s so used to repressing feelings like this that he can’t bring himself to feel much of anything past that at all. Sometimes he wishes he were able to grieve properly.
Sirius dies next seven or eight years after Noel, from a natural cause, but from what kind of natural cause Wilardo and Claire never quite figured out. He just crawls sobbing into Wilardo’s room one day, telling him to get Claire and that he felt like he was dying. Claire ran in soon after, cradling Sirius in her arms as he whined hoarsely, terrified, emotional walls now torn down, saying that he didn’t want to didn’t want to die, that he didn’t want to go. He’s terrified, and Wilardo knows that no matter how many times Sirius may have died in the time loop, he’ll probably always be the type to be scared of it. Wilardo understands, though, he’s seen a lot of death in his time, and if he fears others dying, it’d probably be the same for himself, as well.
Claire takes the death in a healthier way this time, letting herself feel emotions instead of being happy. She goes to Wilardo, for comfort, crying into her knees that she’s all alone again, that Sirius and Noel are gone, trembling as she squeezes Wilardo’s hand. Wilardo nods, and tends to fall asleep during these late sessions. Claire says she doesn’t mind, constantly expresses her gratitude, and always offers to help Wilardo in his times of need too.
Wilardo doesn’t have a time of need. He can never bring himself to surface the emotions buried in the back of his mind, can’t bring himself to care much about death when he longs for it so much himself. He wishes he could get comfort, but how could he when he has no reason or will to be comforted?
Wilardo misses the small things about Sirius, how he’d always wake up to Sirius complaining about some minor thing. He misses how nice and clean the house would be after Sirius cleaned it. How Sirius would get embarrassed and complain when Claire complimented on his cleaning abilities and Sirius would nod along. He missed the lighthearted energy and conflict that Sirius brought with him. Missed reading books with Sirius together in pure silence, comforted by the fact that someone was there, a silent presence.
He misses Sirius, but never quite feels sad that Sirius is gone.
---
Life only gets a lot quieter after Sirius leaves, but Wilardo is forced to become a bit more talkative, being the only one Claire can talk to all the time. He grows to enjoy her company, a bit, to relax in the life that feels like it belongs to an old married couple. Him and Claire aren’t married, nor are they in love, but they’re close friends, and she makes him crave death a little less.
Claire’s matured quite a lot from the dumb naive girl he thought she was, at first. They get along a lot better now, Wilardo having grown out of his thick shell quite a bit too.
In the later days of life, they visit the flower field near what used to be the mansion quite a lot, and talk about random things. Just when it feels like Claire’s exhausted every subject, she comes up with a new one, a new thing to talk about, a new thing to ask Wilardo an opinion of. Some nights they even fall asleep in the flower field, gazing at the stars. And when Wilardo wakes up, he doesn’t think about how much he hates that he’s still alive today, he wonders what he’s going to do when he’s alive today instead.
Maybe things did get better, without him knowing.
Claire dies only two years after Sirius, when they’re laying in the flower field. She grasps his hand as she passes silently, and glances at him with teary eyes. Wilardo smiles at her, knowing she’d enjoy that, and she smiles back.
“It’s so nice to be dying in a field of cute and pretty things…” She giggles hoarsely, and Wilardo just looks up at the sky. “This is it, huh, Wilardo.” He nods, silently.
“Claire?” He asks, surprised with the genuine and nervous tone the name came out with. “Is…” he begins, thinking back to all those years ago.
“The wish belongs to you, Wilardo. I want you to be happy, but I want everyone else to be happy, too.”
“The wish is still mine, right? I’ll be able to die with you.” And he feels himself tearing up. Shit. He wants the witch’s heart, he doesn’t want to keep living after this. Not without Noel, or Sirius, or Claire.
Claire squeezes his hand weakly. “Of course, you idiot.” She giggles so quietly. “I’ll see ya soon.”
She goes still, then. Wilardo makes a flower crown and adorns it on her head. He uses the leftover stems and a few more flowers to make a heart made of flowers, too.
He doesn’t feel any regret cutting the red jewel out of Claire’s chest, not when she’s allowed him to, when it’s his way to die. He gently sets the heart made of blue flowers inside as a sentimental replacement for the red gem, and raises it to the morning sun as it gleams in his hand.
Wilardo decided that he wanted to die seeing the sunset. He spends the day roaming the flower field, admiring the witch’s heart, gazing at the soft feel of nature as he knows today will be the last few moments he has left on this Earth.
It’s weird. He thought his last few moments he’d leave scorning the earth, hating it, and relishing in the fact that he’s finally free from this hell. He spends his last few moments, instead, wondering at the world and the fact that he’s dying soon. He still wants to die, of course, but now death feels more peaceful, less like a reward and more like an end to a story.
As the sun begins to set, Wilardo knows it’s time. He holds up the gleaming red jewel so that the sunlight reflects off of it, making it shimmer and gleam. He smiles.
Just as Wilardo opens his mouth to make his wish to die a reality, he sees a familiar turquoise braid in the distance.
His heart stops.
Ashe Bradley.
Sighing, he figures having a talk with Ashe is only a proper conclusion to this supposed story. It’s been years, thirteen in fact, so he can only hope that Ashe has managed to recover if he’s still alive. Hoisting himself up from his place in the flower field, Wilardo heads in the direction that the mansion used to be, approaching the slouching figure whose braid flows in the wind. Approaching silently, he notices the man is spacing out, staring with a dead look into the distance. He places a firm yet careful hand on Ashe’s shoulder, successfully shaking him out of his trance.
Ashe stares in shock, familiar yellow eyes widening.
“Yo.” Wilardo starts, casual yet awkward.
“Wilardo.” Ashe trembles, looking him over like he’s a ghost. “You haven’t changed… a bit.”
Ashe has changed. He’s forty years old now, isn’t he? He’s older, more tired, slouched, and looks as if he’s seen hell. Not the bright and chipper man that introduced himself to Wilardo all those years ago.
Wilardo focuses to see Ashe staring down at the gem clutched in Wilardo’s hand. “You have Claire’s heart, then.” He chuckles dryly, fishing through his own brown handbag to pull out a matching gem of his own. “I guess we both got what we wanted. Let me guess, your wish couldn’t be granted either, Wilardo?” He starts laughing to himself, sad and bittersweet.
Wilardo shakes his head. “It can. I’m wishing to die, sounds negative to you, doesn’t it?” Ashe’s eyes widened, and Wilardo looks him in the eyes. “Well, I might as well get the explanation over with. I’m cursed with immortality. That’s why I ‘haven’t changed a bit’, y’know?” He lazily admits, and Ashe doesn’t seem too surprised with the information, just nods like he had figured it out since he first saw him approach.
“Whatever happened after I left that damned mansion, anyway?” His voice is shaky, and Wilardo takes initiative to grab his hand, stabilizing him.
“I’ll tell you. Come on, you old bastard, let’s stop standing here, staring at where it used to be. I’d like to get back to the flower field, anyways.” Wilardo concedes, and Ashe rolls his eyes and chuckles, almost soullessly.
“I missed you, I think, for a while after I left.” Ashe mutters on their walk over to the flower field. “You were the only one who suspected at least a bit of my true intentions, so I guess when we interacted and talked I felt like I had an actual relationship with you, unlike the others. It was nice knowing another who was willing to kill for the witch’s heart, too. But you changed, didn’t you? You were always too soft to really have the guts to kill her without regret.” He snickers, intending to offend, but Wilardo isn’t offended. He’s merely complacent.
They sit at the front of the flower field, Wilardo listening and nodding along to Ashe. When the yellow-eyed man finally ends his rambling, Wilardo starts rambling on his own, too. He tells Ashe everything, what happened after he’d left, how everyone had died. The promise Claire had made to him about the witch’s heart. He shows Ashe Claire’s still body, adorned with flowers, and Ashe smiles. Whether the smile is bittersweet, or fake, or maybe even genuinely sad, Wilardo can’t tell, but he smiles. He smiles, unties the yellow ribbon he’d worn all those years ago from his hair, ties it in a bow and places it next to the blue bow she always wears too.
“She was kind to me. It never made me sympathize for her, or want to kill her any less, but I guess I owe at least some form of kindness in return after so long. Perhaps it's the last bit of gratitude I’ll ever be able to tear from this wretched heart of mine, hm?” He laughs, mostly to himself, and Wilardo just shoves his hands in his pockets and nods.
They end up leaving to go see the graves of Sirius and Noel. Ashe suggests that they pick flowers from the field to leave in front of the graves before Wilardo dies. Wilardo refuses, but with enough of his usual annoying pestering, manages to get him to comply.
They pick asters for Noel. Ashe happens to be carrying a flower meaning book with him-- he acts surprised that it was there, but Wilardo recognizes that very book as being one that he once owned-- it had gone mysteriously missing from his things when they left the mansion; guess now he knew why. The meaning of asters were stars, love, and faith. Pretty fitting for Noel, he thinks. Ashe jokes about how love and faith were Noel’s weakness with a sad look in his eyes behind the smile. Wilardo doesn’t fight against Ashe’s insults, as he did with Claire and Sirius, he understands how people grieve. He understands Ashe is grieving too. Not for Noel, or Sirius, or Claire, but for someone else, perhaps multiple others.
They pick sunflowers for Sirius, Ashe’s reasoning being that they mean adoration, faithfulness, and loyalty. Ashe comments something about how Sirius was always ‘stupidly faithful to that Dorothy or whatever’ and Wilardo pays no mind. Ashe wasn’t wrong; Sirius had always been a loyal friend, son, brother. He was faithful to the things that he believed in. And so Wilardo helps pick the sunflowers, tie them into a bouquet. He hands the flowers to Ashe, who giggles forcibly as he holds them, and then scoops up Claire’s dead body in his arms, gently. If they’re going to be visiting the graveyard behind the cottage, he may as well bury her there, too.
“What was your wish, anyway?” Wilardo asks, out of nowhere, after shoveling the last bit of dirt over Claire’s body. Ashe shakes his head, but Wilardo presses on. “Hey. Not like I’m gonna judge you for it. You’d be telling it to a dying man, anyway.” He smirks, twisting the red gem in his fingers as a display.
Ashe sighs, pulling out a wrinkled photo and pressing it into Wilardo’s hands. It’s a photo of what seems to be his family, his mother, father, and a sister. “I wanted to bring them back. That’s not a negative wish, of course.” He chuckles for what feels like the thousandth time of the day. “I kept searching, after the mansion, you know. I felt so angry that nothing would work, so fucking determined. It was ten years after I left that I suddenly just… gave up.” He confesses voice teary at the end.
Wilardo stares, eyes softening in the slightest. “For three years I’ve wanted to die, but I just can’t bring myself to be the cause of my own death. Not when those three died far too early, when they treasured life so much. For me to throw it away like that seems sick, you know?” His voice is hoarse, but the teary sound to it has long faded.
“In reality, I think I really died on that day I left the mansion. Haven’t felt alive since” Ashe admits through strangled giggles.
Wilardo thinks about that day, thinks about what happens afterwards.
“We always seem to be opposites, then.” He replies. “I think the day we left the mansion, I was born. Alive, for the first time in centuries.”
“What do you think would’ve happened? If I would’ve stayed with the rest of them?” Ashe squeaks out, so suddenly Wilardo doesn’t know how to reply.
There’s only silence for a few minutes as Wilardo thinks of a response, as Ashe stares at the inscriptions on the graves.
Noel’s says “may the stars guide you.”
Sirius’s says “smiling with Lady Dorothy again”
“I think you would’ve been welcomed. Welcomed hesitantly, but welcomed nonetheless. You’d be treated with caution and suspicion at first, just like I was, but as long as you didn’t pull anything on Claire or the others, I’m sure the wariness would fade away after a year or so. Wilardo starts, confidence gaining as he continues.
“If you actually ended up killing someone, I would’ve put a bullet through your head, I wouldn’t have asked for a damn explanation.” Wilardo says dryly, and he and Ashe stare into each other’s eyes for a moment.
Ashe starts violently laughing, clutching at his stomach. Wilardo lets himself go and chuckles silently himself, in remembrance of the old days, where Ashe would’ve been willing to stab him hundreds of times, where he would’ve been willing to shoot Ashe where he stood if needed.
The laughter dies down, and they end up sitting on the ground next to each other, staring at the graves.
“Claire would’ve tried her best to be nice to you. So would Noel, but he’s not as great at hiding his true feelings as Claire is.” Ashe nods, looking off into the distance, emotionless. “Sirius would’ve started a shit ton of scuffles, but he comes along with everyone, eventually.”
“What about you?” Ashe nudges him playfully. “Don’t be shy, Wilardo, talk about yourself sometimes.”
“We were in the same boat of having a wish we’d kill for, so I don’t think I would’ve minded your company all that much. We could’ve been close.” He admits.
“My my, close?” Ashe laughs. “What are you implying, Wilardo?” He teases, and Wilardo just gives him a good shove. Not a friendly shove, not a shove with bad intentions, just a shove.
“Shut up. You’re as chipperly annoying as ever.” Wilardo says, but he knows Ashe isn’t. Ashe is tired now, barely keeping up that same bright facade. “Plus, me and you both know that we’re far too fucked now and in the past to ever have a stable relationship like that.”
“I know, I know, just messing with you.” Ashe sighs, staring down at his shoes. “Say, Wilardo…”
Wilardo looks at him, pulling out his witch’s heart, the dead expression on his face, and realizes that Ashe has thrown down his usual cheerfulness in place of how he actually feels. “May I die with you?” He says, voice soft, quiet, void of emotion.
And Wilardo knows that pain, that voice that says nothing more than I wish to die, I am so exhausted of living on this earth. Free me. He can recognize just how exhausted of living the man next to him is. Most people would comfort Ashe, hold him by the shoulders, tell him that it’s worth living. But Wilardo honestly isn’t sure he has energy nor reason to convince Ashe otherwise anymore. And he thinks it’d be a little nice to die by someone’s side, to have company in his coveted final moments.
So Wilardo nods.
They walk back to the flower field, everything being settled. The walk is in silence, and while Wilardo is relaxed at the thought of death, Ashe just seems tired and impatient.
They lay down next to each other as twilight begins to seep over the sky.
Wilardo stares up at the drifting clouds, mild anticipation building. He holds the witch’s heart in his hand, spins it for a moment before turning to Ashe. “You ready?” He’s sure that the other isn’t, though, from the worried expression on his face.
Ashe has tears streaming down his cheeks, but his expression remains empty. “I can’t… what would my family think if I was the cause of my own death. I can’t possibly wish for myself to die, I…”
Wilardo sighs, grabs Ashe’s hand. “Alright, I gotcha.”
Ashe’s gaze becomes confused as Wilardo presses the witch’s heart to Ashe’s chest.
(In this moment, even if Wilardo wasn’t aware, he was entrusting his death to Ashe. Trusting Ashe to fulfill the wish that he’d been longing for for thousands of years. If Ashe refused to return the favor, then he’d be stuck, immortal, everyone dead without him. It was a bold act, indeed.)
“I, Wilardo Adler, wish for Ashe Bradley to die.”
Tears fell from Ashe’s eyes as he began to fade into dust.
“I, Ashe Bradley, wish for Wilardo Adler to die.”
Wilardo smiled, crying for the first time in years as he finally felt his body coming to a final rest.
The ashes of two tormented souls blew across the flower field.