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normal-thoughts-official · 1 year

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Bleeding Canvas

If asked later, Joe wouldn't be able to recall how it happened. It was a day like any other; they were having lunch, all six of them, in the tense silence that could only come from trying to navigate the absolute minefield that was their situation - Booker’s betrayal, Quỳnh’s trauma, Andy’s newfound mortality, Nile’s recently lost family, all lurking in every corner, inevitably making themselves known in every guarded, silent drag of forks against plates.

Joe couldn’t really remember who stepped out of their blurrily sketched lines, or how, or why. All he knew was that suddenly, the girls were gone, and he was screaming at Booker. And he couldn’t stop.

“What would I know of the weight of these years alone? What would you know of the weight of my years alone??” He yells, shoving Booker, who stumbles, but otherwise barely moves. Always stuck in the same place, that one. “What would you know of a whole millennium of loneliness?”

“It’s not the same,” Booker says, exhaustion in his tone, like they've had this argument a million times (they haven't, there was no time). As if he didn't expect Joe to understand. Joe feels himself fall deeper into the red strokes of his anger. “You didn’t lose them the way I did.”

“No, I didn’t. I lost them suddenly, after joining a war I had no business participating in, letting them believe I was dead, and I don't even know when exactly they passed. I bet you are really jealous of that.”

Booker shakes his head, like a parent would when trying to talk to a naive teenager, and Joe sees splashes of crimson. “You had someone with you from the start.”

“We found you within months!” He yells, throwing his hands up, as if with it he could guide the frustration that had settled in his muscles out of his body. “You barely had to be alone, either. And by the time your family was gone, you had already had us for decades. Nicolò and I nursed our pain on our own for years before we started to trust each other enough to share it! And even when we did,” he gestures towards Nicolò, who has that steely look in his eyes that he always gets when they get too deep into this time of their lives, “how could I really talk to him about it? First, I hated him for being part of what made me lose my family. Then, I hated myself, because I didn’t hate him at all, and that in itself felt like a bigger betrayal than abandoning them. And then, I couldn’t burden him with it, because I knew the guilt was tearing him apart! We were alone, too! We struggled for longer than you could ever understand, and that’s not even considering how many decades it took for us to find Quỳnh and Andromache, and start to at least get some answers as to what had happened to us, and what we could do with it!"

The outburst seems to take Booker aback, and Joe feels himself torn between satisfaction and anger. He really has no idea, Joe realizes, and eventually, the anger that Booker never stopped to even consider what it had been like puts a bite back into his words. He doesn't understand? Joe will show him who it is that can't understand.

“Did you know that it’s haram to try to emulate Allah's creation?” He asks, knowing full well what the answer is. Booker doesn’t know anything about his faith, because he’s never asked, and his world was always as deep as the nearest whisky bottle. “I never drew a single portrait of my family, and neither did anyone. By the time I stopped practicing, it had already been long enough that I had completely forgotten what any of them looked like. I don’t have anything to remember them by, because when you leave for a war that’s all the way across the sea, you don’t take anything you wouldn’t like to lose. Centuries ago, I decided to write all their names down, so I wouldn’t forget." He feels his voice break, as the heaviness of the lack of memories settles in his lungs and stabs at his eyes, "I couldn’t remember my youngest sister’s, and I still can’t," he admits. "She was just a baby when I left. Did you know that, Booker?” He spits, and he would expect himself to enjoy the way Booker recoils, if he didn’t know himself so well. It just makes him angrier, the quiet wince, the way he takes it. “I still need to check sometimes. Every time I get a new sketchbook, the first thing I do is copy the names again. Did you ever notice, Book? Have you ever seen me doing that?”

“I…”

Yusuf is not interested in giving time for his excuses. “You didn’t, didn’t you? And you never wondered, either. You are the only one with a family, are you not? The only one who had to leave something behind.”

“It’s not-”

“Don’t you dare tell me it’s not the same!” He shouts, and Booker clamps his mouth shut. “I loved my little siblings. They looked up to me. I promised them that I would come back, and I didn’t. When the old lady across the street who would read to me as a kid, the one who taught me how to draw, who made me so much of what I am today," his voice breaks, "when she was dying, I promised her that I would never forget her, and now I can’t remember her name!” His throat is starting to get hoarse, and he’s aware of the tears welling in his eyes, but he can’t stop. “You think your family was the only one that mattered, Booker? Why are your loved ones worth more than mine? Because I had Nicky? You think that because I got to keep one love, that the others suddenly didn’t matter? That I didn’t feel the weight? Do you have any idea how many families I have lost?”

“Joe...” Nicky begins, not for the first time since the screaming started.

“Don’t, Nicolò,” he says, finally acknowledging his pleas. He knows he means well, but Yusuf needs to say this. He turns back to Booker, who won’t meet his eyes, and he feels himself burn. Orange and yellow and red in fast flashes, intertwined and smoky and so bright he can't see. “Where I grew up, everyone was family. Everyone took care of each other. I grew up with countless aunties, uncles, cousins, elders. That’s what home meant to me, and I could never have that again, because I could never stay anywhere,” he spits. “And with the life we’ve chosen? The only times I ever got to return home, it was to watch it be taken all over again.

"Have you already forgotten the '50s, Booker? You, Nicolò and Andromache were all together infiltrating the French armies, and I was with the resistance watching my people die. Do you have any idea what that’s like? Watching everyone who could share the most intrinsic, deep parts of yourself, the parts that were you before you were yourself, be massacred, again and again? Watching them be enslaved, and tortured, and murdered, and watch everything that you held dear, everything that made you and them the same, every part of your culture, become repressed, hated, something to destroy? See everything that was sacred to you be burned down? Watch as your culture is murdered, your last tether to the world slashed at and frayed and pulled, until it is forever scarred by the pain of loss, until it is so deeply twisted that it is barely recognizable? Do you know what it was like to watch my own culture turn against me and the man I love? To know that I can never be fully myself in Mahdia again, because it is a crime to exist as I am there? Do you know what it’s like to have no safe haven left, no matter where I go? To have no place where I can be free of violence, be it for the culture I was born into, or who I became later? Do you know what it was like to not only give up my name, the most sacred thing I had, the last thing that tied me to my family, that made me theirs, in order to choose something that doesn’t even sound the same, not because I wanted to, but because it made it just a little less likely that I would face violence because of it?”

He actually waits. Not to see if Booker responds, but to make it obvious that he won’t. “No," he concludes, an icy resolve settling into his words. "You could never know. None of you could ever know, not after Quỳnh was gone,” he gestures towards the two pairs of green eyes that avoid his gaze. “How is that for loneliness, Booker? You know what it’s like to have something you can never share with anyone outside of this group. Tell me, do you know what it’s like to have pains that no one, even in this group, understands? Can you even begin to understand how many times I’ve watched my people suffer genocide, and was unable to stop it? How many families is that, Booker? How could you even measure that pain?” His eyes are watering again, and he presses his fingers against them to try and compose himself.

“Joe…” Nicolò tries again.

But at the same time, Booker says, I didn't... and Joe explodes all over again, prickling in his eyes forgotten. “You didn’t what? Think about it? No, I don’t suppose you would. Tell me one thing, Sébastien. Has it ever occurred to you that Nicolò and I lost Quỳnh, too?” He gestures broadly to Nicolò, who tries to hide the deep breath he takes at the reopened wound. “You bond with Andromache and compare your pain to hers, and I won’t pretend that what we feel is the same, but has it ever occurred to you that we also loved her? Loved her, and lost her, and drowned ourselves over and over for decades trying to find her? Did it ever cross your mind that when we lost Quỳnh, we also lost the Andromache we knew? None of us was ever the same, Sébastien. Nicolò and I lost our entire family in one day, and many times over, to the same grief. And then,” he jabs a finger into his chest, “and then we found you, and you became a part of our family too, and not a full century later, we watched the same thing happen again!” He yells, only barely resisting the urge to grab Booker by the lapels and shake him. “What do you think that was like, Sébastien? We loved you, and we lost you, and we’ve spent so long dragging you from alley after alley, cutting rope after rope, washing you and getting you to sleep and watching you die and drown in your grief every single day! How is that for losing a family? How is that for being alone?”

“You never said anything,” Booker says, finally meeting his eyes. Yusuf sees his own tears reflected in them. “You never asked me.”

“Of course we never said anything!” He throws his hands up, again, silently begging for strength, for resolve, for anything that could make this conversation bearable. Booker nearly stumbles, but catches himself again. “You could barely bear to think about it without drowning yourself in booze all over again! If we so much as said his name,” he watches as Booker winces, the way he always does, when there's nothing Yusuf can ever do but watch, “you walked out of the room, and if we didn’t follow you then, we’d be searching for you in every dirty alleyway and shady bar for days! All we could do was take care of you, and try to be there for you, and try to take your mind off it! We thought it was what you needed! It’s what you had been saying you needed! Nicolò and I have been trying so fucking hard to give you and Andromache what you needed, and we’ve been stretching ourselves thin with it, because it’s impossible, but what could we do but try? You think that wasn’t lonely? You think it didn’t break us either? You think we spent all these centuries living in our happy little bubble, oblivious to your suffering, not even trying? Is that what you think of us?”

Booker has the decency to look ashamed. “Of course not,” he says, shifting his feet, and Yusuf feels himself deflate. He sighs and looks up, not really seeing the ceiling but rather the unattainable peace of the sky. In his mind, it slowly is enveloped by broad, fast strokes of black.

“You are right in that Nicolò and I had each other,” he says, his voice suddenly empty, and weak, and oh, how he hates feeling like this, “I wouldn’t dare pretend that it isn’t a gift beyond imagination. I wouldn’t dare pretend I’m not aware of how lucky we are to have found each other, and to have been able to keep each other. There is no greater joy in the world,” he says, and watches as Nicolò’s concerned face softens, just for a moment, before turning to Booker again. “But we were all supposed to have each other, Sébastien. Don’t you see that? We all had each other. Through everything, we weren't meant to be alone, we were meant to ease each other's pain. We were meant to be there for you. So why? Why?”

Booker barely breathes, and it’s all Yusuf can do to grab onto his shirt for dear life, yank him forward as hard as he can, and cry against his chest.

“Why?” he asks again, the tears falling freely now. “Don’t you realize that we lost you all over again, too? Do you think that wasn’t us losing our family, so soon after we gained our latest bit of j-joy?” He sobs, and it wrecks him, and he doesn’t need to look or feel to know that it wrecks Booker, too.

“I’m sorry,” Booker says, but Yusuf can only shake his head, letting the tears fall, and let go of his shirt. He doesn’t have anything much in him anymore. Finally, he’s emptied himself out.

“Yusuf,” the voice he loves more than any says, with the gentleness only it could possess. “I think that’s enough.”

He nods, blindly tucking himself into his chest, instead, knowing that Nicolò is probably giving Booker the glare of his life. He was always much better at holding grudges than Yusuf. “We are going, now,” he hears Nicolò say, his tone icy.

Booker doesn’t say anything, so he knows all he did was nod, and turn back into his world of guilt.

It almost makes him angry again.

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing both of them say to each other when they get into their room, and Yusuf allows himself a little chuckle, watery as it is. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” they both add, and Yusuf tucks his head in Nicolò’s neck, enjoying the familiarity of the exchange. Strong arms wrap around him, gently; holding him together, but not trying to force his shards into place before they're ready to. Yusuf sighs, an appreciation and a release.

“If anything, I should be thanking you,” Yusuf says, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Nicolò’s scent is so calming. Faint, because he always prefers neutral scents when he has a choice, and the simplicity and honesty of it quiets Yusuf’s ever-screaming world. “If you hadn’t gotten the girls out of there, I wouldn’t have been able to say everything I needed to.”

Nicolò presses a kiss to the top of his head. “I think we should sit, my love,” is his reply, and it’s only then that Yusuf realizes he’s shaking. He breathes, and Nicolò understands, maneuvering them slowly so he can sit on the bed, Yusuf in his lap, still taking refuge from the world in Nicolò’s shoulder. Once he’s sufficiently stable, Nicolò replies, "It was nothing. Even if I hadn't said anything, I'm sure they would have gone. Andromache and Quỳnh know you well enough, and Nile is too perceptive for her own good," he adds, the shadow of a proud smile on his lips, too faint to own itself in their situation, but too strong not to make an appearance despite it all. Then he sighs, and it’s gone. "Still, I should not have tried to stop you afterwards. I had to when we were in the lab, because it wasn’t the time, but- now it was. I’m sorry. I know you needed it. It’s just…” He bites his lip, looking almost ashamed, “I hate seeing you in pain," he finishes, his voice quiet like he can stop the words from being true.

Yusuf sighs, painfully squeezing his eyes, and Nicolò’s hand starts caressing his curls. It’s like cutting the tight strings that held him together; all at once, Yusuf relaxes.

Nicolò isn’t wrong, Yusuf knows. His inner world is loud and bright; if he tries to contain it, he gets overwhelmed. It’s why he has book after book after book filled with sketches and poetry, calluses in his hands that even their fast healing can’t quite get rid of, and more tears shed than the rest of their group combined.

Sometimes, he feels as if he carries the pain for all of them. He’s happy to do it as long as it can bring his family some relief, but…

It’s so much pain.

Tears well up in his eyes again, and he’s convinced something about their immortality keeps them from running out, but somehow the others don’t believe him. God, he hates being angry. He hates it even more when he knows that, deep down, what he’s feeling isn’t anger at all.

He misses that French bastard so much, even when he’s right there, because he’ll never be the same in his eyes.

How much grief can one person carry? When will the weight grow so much that even their immortality can’t heal their broken bones?

Yusuf cries, and Nicolò doesn’t shush him, or try to placate him, even when Yusuf knows that if anyone has the words he needs to hear, it’s Nicolò. He simply continues stroking his hair, careful not to tangle in his curls, and holds him through it. Sometimes, all Yusuf can do is let the feelings wash out of him, and all Nicolò can do is make sure he’s not alone through it.

Once he feels the swirling colors of his world settle again, both words and tears released, he finally opens his eyes. Light yellow walls are the first thing he sees beyond the world of himself-and-Nicolò that he was tucked in. Yusuf takes it in, thankful that they decided to go to Port’ Inglêz after Quỳnh’s return. This is where he needs to be. Not a safehouse, but a home; where safety actually lies.

He feels himself deflate, sliding down and to the side until his head is resting on Nicolò’s chest and he is looking up at his face. Nicolò looks back, a small smile on his lips.

“There you are,” he says, softly, his voice easing Yusuf back into reality just like the calming colors and familiar setup of their room. He finds himself smiling back, even as his eyes still hurt a little.

“Mhm,” he agrees, putting his hand on Nicolò’s nape to gesture for him to hold him tighter. He’s ready to be put back together, now.

Nicolò, as always, complies.

Slowly, Nicolò’s arms coax the yellows in Yusuf’s vision into dulling, no longer burning his vision, and the desperate, crying blues in his vision soften, calming and familiar like the Cape Verdean sea they find so much comfort in. He breathes in, letting the colors wash over him one last time, relaxing in the arms that make him safe.

Slowly, sensations fill in; the press of Nicolò’s lips against his temple; the careful way his hands caress Yusuf’s hair, careful not to get tangled in his curls; the always steady rhythm of his heartbeat close to Yusuf, reminding him that he’s not alone. The softness of his voice as he says, “I’ve got you, rohi.”

He sighs. For all his faults, Sébastian was right about one thing.

Yusuf really is lucky to have him.

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