Work Text:
When Gilbert Baskerville was around sixteen years old, he realized quite suddenly that Jack Vessalius was the worst person to ever exist, and that he hated him more than anyone else in the world.
If asked, Gilbert could have given no real reason for this epiphany. Water was wet, he was going to be the next Glen Baskerville, Jack Vessalius was human garbage and Gilbert desperately wanted him dead. A fact of the world.
Gilbert spent three days wandering around the Baskerville manor, asking people their opinions on Jack and getting nothing but glowing reviews, before Vincent complained about the girl in the tower to him again—because apparently Vincent was completely unable to go even a day without getting into a fight with the white-clad Alyss—and Gilbert remembered, suddenly, the existence of Alice Baskerville, and the possibility of her hating Jack as he hated Jack, with the same reckless abandon, the same invisible reason.
So the next day he went to the garden and plucked a bouquet of daffodils, took himself down to the kitchen and made a meatloaf wrapped in bacon, and put it all on a platter, wrapping a bow around the flowers and keeping them away from the food, and then walked up the winding spiral staircase to Alice Baskerville’s tower.
Alice, who was a few years older than him and who he’d threatened to murder on no less than fifty two separate occasions, was, luckily, in the body, sitting on the windowsill in her black silk dress and speaking, very seriously and very quietly, to the stuffed rabbit on her lap. She looked up when Gilbert came in, her purple eyes widening, and angled the rabbit so that it would face him.
“What are you doing here?” she said. “I thought you've been too busy to come see me.”
It was the voice of a young lady; angrier than she should be, perhaps, but someone well-read—someone who had little to do other than read—someone who had stopped imitating her uncle in favor of Lottie some years prior, someone who carefully controlled what she said and how she said it, because she couldn’t really control anything else. Gilbert felt a deep pang of loss at the voice, and tried and failed not to think about a young girl with no memories, loud and brash and so impulsive she came off as the village idiot, a girl that Gilbert had never known.
“...I made meatloaf,” he said. “Peace offering.”
Alice stood up far too quickly for a civilized 20 year old, eyeing the platter with no small amount of desire.
“Why?” she asked, her hands tightening on her rabbit—black plush fur in a red coat, a floppy bow hanging down its chest. An extraordinarily ordinary toy rabbit—just a toy. Nothing more. Not a Chain.
“I heard you hate Jack Vessalius,” Gilbert said. “I do too.”
Alice’s eyes flashed at that, and the rabbit was hugged against her chest. “I do,” she said. “Why do you ? I thought you and your brother worshipped the ground he walked on.”
“Vince does,” Gilbert told her. “I don’t. I can’t really say why—I just woke up a few days ago and realized he’s the worst.”
“He is the worst,” Alice conceded, and she took the platter of meatloaf off of his hands and deposited her stuffed rabbit in its place. “Entertain Oz while I eat.”
“How…how do I entertain a stuffed toy ?” Gilbert asked, and was rewarded with a glare.
“Talk to him,” Alice suggested. “Tell him why you hate Jack. He hates Jack too. Or—I don’t know, give him the flowers. I don’t have any use for them, but they’re pretty. He…I think he likes pretty things.”
Gilbert nodded, and took the flowers from the meatloaf platter. Alice went over to her table and sat down, beginning to eat, and Gilbert carefully started pressing flowers into the rabbit’s arms and coat.
“I hate Jack Vessalius,” he murmured to the rabbit, “because he killed and used everyone I ever loved. Because he tried to end the world. Because…he hurt my master, both of them, in another universe.”
The rabbit, of course, said nothing, because it was a toy, and hadn’t yet—would never—gain sentience. It was very soft, and a little bit warm, and the daffodils stood out nicely against its black fabric. He hated to think of it as Oz. Oz was—was human, or at least human-shaped, with a brilliant smile and great sense of humor. This rabbit was just—a toy. A thing. It wasn’t real.
Not like the Oz Gilbert had dreamt of had been.
“I’m going to kill Jack,” Gilbert said, looking at the rabbit but speaking loud enough for Alice to hear. “Will you join me?”
“If Oz does,” said Alice, “then I will.”
“Your toy rabbit ?” Gilbert asked. “Are you insane? It’s—it’s a stuffed animal! It isn’t real!”
“Of course he is!” Alice shouted, standing and slamming her hands on the table. “He’s been real longer than I’ve been alive in two separate timelines, he is real and he loves me and he’s my best friend, you complete and utter jackass! You—you’re nothing like Raven! Get out!”
Gilbert froze. “What…what did you just say?” he said weakly.
Alice stormed over and snatched the rabbit out of his hands, flowers dropping to the ground like rain. “I said get out. I don’t want to work together with you. I don’t want to see you!”
“You said—Raven—”
“The Chain? What about it?”
Gilbert’s heart dropped. “Nothing. It’s just…Raven’s my Chain, and I was wondering why you brought it up.”
“Because you suck. Get out. I don’t want to see you again until you’re willing to be nice to Oz.” Alice glared at him, taking a step forward and shoving him back, a daffodil squishing under her foot. “Kill Jack or don’t, I don’t care. But I don’t want to see you again until you apologize to him for saying he’s not real!”
“If you can prove he’s real, then I’ll get down on my hands and knees and grovel. I’ll burn off my left arm. I’ll do whatever either of you please,” Gilbert said wildly. “But—a stuffed rabbit isn’t a real person, so I won’t say anything of the sort.”
“Screw you and get out!”
“Fine!”
Gilbert stormed past Alice and down the long, spiralling stairwell. That rabbit—it was just a toy. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t Oz.
None of this was fair.
Gilbert had no idea how he’d regained his memories of that other future. He didn’t know what had happened, or why. He’d dreamt it all, and woken up with his arms still grasping for that other Oz and Alice, and the loneliness burned at him like nothing else in the world ever could.
Gilbert had two universes, two lifetimes bouncing around in his head, and he couldn’t think of anything in the world more lonely.