Work Text:
Gilbert sighed, slumping over his desk.
This was difficult.
He was tired, his eyes were heavy with bags under them. There was tons of crumpled paper on the desk and on the floor.
Perhaps Vincent would come check on him soon. He's changed like that. He's starting to get better at...being normal, Gilbert supposes. Vincent doesn't visit often, but he brings along some gifts when he does. And he talks and talks about how Gilbert should take care of himself. The raven was ashamed to admit, but he was still made uncomfortable by Vincent. He wishes he'd go and bother Leo instead.
...He got lost in thought again. He sat up and looked down at the paper he previosly laid his head on.
Not many words were written. Truth be told, he didn't know how to go about this at all.
How does one go about writing about lives? About stories that happened along with yours?
He didn't have to do this. It was unneccessary. All of those sentiments said by those around him. After all, why bother writing a whole book of letters for people who aren't even born yet?
Still, Gilbert felt the need to do so. He felt the compulse to write out every single detail, every day and night, that he experienced with those two.
It has been seven years since Oz and Alice died. Baskervilles live long, so Gilbert has set out to live for at least a hundred more years, to be able to see those two again.
His dear companions, the people he would do anything for.
It was so cold and gray without them.
Sharon said he would move on, eventually. That he'd create more happy memories and learn to not let grief consume him.
Even so, Gilbert felt like the wound would always stay fresh and bleeding, aching.
He was most afraid of forgetting. The feel of Oz's hand in his own, his bright smile, Alice's grating voice and her stupid face stuffed with food. Their laughs. Their tears. The thought of forgetting it all terrified him.
He thinks of his memories, his first encounters with such people.
Oz was a dazzling presence. He was a bright-eyed kid proudly holding his hand out. Confidently writing down a conract which included eating his vegetables, helping him dress and doing what he said, back when neither of them understood the formal words written in adult contracts.
He grew up, soon. Despite his cheerful exterior, Oz had a festering wound on his heart, just as Gilbert had, and Gilbert was there for him on days he felt worse than usually.
In spite of this, it was much too late when Gilbert had stopped painting an idealised picture of the boy in his head.
He wishes he could change a lot of things.
Alice. Alice was a loud, grating presence, one he often thought of getting rid of. She could have killed Oz, she could have starting hurting humans at any point. He coukd never fully trust her, back then.
He won't deny he's acted less than favourable to her at that time.
He doesn't know how it happened, it irks him so, but she grew on him. He'd wipe her tears and cook her meals, he'd braid her hair when she asked. He taught her to read simple stories.
He found himself doing nice things for her, complaining all the way, without expecting anything from it.
It had come naturally. She'd yell and shout, he'd scream about how annoying she is, he'd do what she wanted for her.
He shoukd have treated her more gently, perhaps.
There was so much he wished to fix.
But there's nothing to fix. There's nothing to change. Oz and Alice are dead. They won't hear his grief. Not yet.
It's eating him, the guilt. The fleeting, yet ever-present thought that he could have done something differently. To prevent their deaths. Or maybe, to just make it less painful.
This is his therapy, in a way. A reminder that he'll see them again, he hopes
. So much as it angeres him, so much as pains him, so much as he wishes to tear the papers out, he keeps writing. It is something that calms his soul. It is something he must do.
So he picks up the pen, focuses a bit more, and starts writing.