Title: waiting game
Prompt: Prompt 16
A/N: So paraphrasing the farewell chunk. Pretend this is how it was said.
Summary: A hundred years is nothing. He can wait.
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Even as he holds them, Gil can feel them slipping though his fingers. As intangible as ghosts. As intangible as a memory, a dream, a nightmare.
(And it's a little easier now, to remember Oswald, to remember the times they had together. To remember and to mourn, for that man was never returning, for that man never had a chance.
They never had a chance and for that, he will grieve.)
"We have to go," Oz says, a sad smile on his face. It's nothing like the sad faces he used to make, all a front hiding his real feelings. This time it is real and Gil clutches onto him tighter.
"No, don't."
"We can't stay," Alice snaps, and for all her harshness, he can hear the tears in her voice. Oz is right, she truly is a crybaby sometimes.
And this Alice, this girl, she is nothing like his memories of a hundred years ago. She isn't cruel, isn't mean, her words are truths and not lies.
(And maybe he should have tried harder back then, maybe he should have done many things. Then this would never have happened.
But then, he wouldn't have met Oz.)
"I know." Gil bites his lip. "But…"
His fingers start to slip through their bodies—whatever power Alyss and the Abyss gave them, it's no longer worker. Gil's throat is clogged with words, with apologies, with all the things he never got a chance to say.
"I'll wait," he manages.
"What?" Oz stares at him, confused, and Gil feels braver now.
More confidently, he repeats, "I'll wait. Baskervilles can live a long time. A hundred years is nothing."
"Gil, it's a 100 years." Oz snorts and Alice shakes her head.
It's a stupid promise, he knows. A stupid wish. A hundred years is a long time and things change, people change.
Everything changes.
But this won't. Gil clutches the two as much as he can, as much as is possible. This is Oz and this is the stupid Rabbit, and he can hold them in his heart as tightly as he is holding onto them now.
Some things don't have to change.
"I know. I waited ten years, what's a hundred more?"Gil repeats.
"You will wait a hundred years?"
Gil nods. "I will wait. I'm used to it by now."
Oz rolls his eyes, Alice shaking her head, but they're both smiling. Despite the tears, despite the pain, they are smiling.
"Alright, then this isn't goodbye. We'll see you later, Gil," they say as they walk away. Their bodies fade into light, into a million stars, and there is no Alice, no Oz no more.
There is just Gil. There is just Gil and this time, he can live with that.
(There is Vincent and Leo and a million things to do and a thousand people to meet. A hundred years is nothing, can be nothing.)
This time, he can greet them back with an open smile.