Future State (Riddlebird Week, day 7)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
A little late but here's my last entry for @riddlebirdweek : legacy!
Thank you everyone for reading along during this week; I know the quality of my writing is nowhere near as good as it used to be but writer's block and work exhaustion are really taking a toll on me.
It wasn't the first time they had posed for a painting and it wouldn't be the last but Oswald had never felt the passage of time as much as he was feeling in that moment. True, Martin had been figuring taller than him on the canvas for decades; true, Edward had started dying his hair to hide the white for years; true, his bad leg and bad eye had been worsening steadily. And still, somehow, Martin had never seemed taller than as he was right there and then, standing behind his chair, fingers brushing his shoulder; and Edward's hair dye had never seemed too stark in contrast to his older features as it did as he looked down at him to fix his lapel, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose; and his own body had never seemed to hurt as much, despite having been well-acquainted with chronic pain ever since a young age.
Or maybe he was just being sentimental - he'd only become worse on that front as the years passed and even Edward had stopped teasing him about it, his own hard edges softened by time.
If anyone would have told him that one day he'd be posing for a portrait with his adult son, who had been taking on more and more responsibilities of his empire, and with his husband, who still was the same man he'd gone and fallen in love with when he'd been a nobody still, Oswald would have politely pointed them to Arkham.
Some things never changed and Arkham hadn't - it was comforting, in a sick and twisted way that only in Gotham could be understood.
Oswald smiled up at Edward “Please”
