Chapter Text
“Musician, are you okay?” Miss Robin called out, attempting to rouse the body that lay crumpled on the desk before her.
Brook had been difficult to find for once, which in itself should have been a red flag instantly. From any side of the ship, you should have been able to hear him, like a rooster crowing over a farm field, his boisterous call was a calling card for the return of the warmer months. But, nothing had been said today. Mr Chanticleer had fallen silent since yesterday night, and it was a wonder that she and the others had not slept in longer without their walking, talking, joking alarm.
This archaic alarm was on snooze now, flopped over one of the desks in the library with his arms outstretched over a scatter of papers. These papers were yellowing and varied in their textures, from soft worn things to practically tatters, held together by some divine threading. His cold coffee still sits unmoving in his mug beside his head, and the paper carries a spattering of this as his jaw lay open. He must have really needed this break, or- is he breathing?
With a soft wave of her hand, a sputter of petals erupts momentarily outward, blooming and dying in rapid succession as a newly budded limb takes its place beside the musician's skull. Carefully placing the back of her hand to his mouth, the soft suggestion of cold air pumping out still comes as an intriguing shock. The underworld really is a cold, lonesome thing, isn't it? Questions aside, relief comes alongside it; thankfully, he's okay, just very tired.
Carefully, Robin makes her way to his slumped over side, raising an eyebrow at the interesting reading material that now clearly lay under his outstretched arms. Brook had never struck her as the type to read anything culinary related, however, anything could go with the eccentric rockstar. He was not someone who fancied cooking usually, however, often sticking to just begging Sanji for scraps after eating his own meal. He was like a feral cat in that regard, mewling and crying late into the night, and keeping the others up sometimes with his nightly etchings and wanderings. But, the paperwork underneath him seemed odd, even with these strange behaviors in mind.
The typed print speaks about some kind of meat, well-done and how to sear it, but the rest is obscured by the other miscellaneous papers. The paper above it is muddled with multicolored markings, notes and tips in a hand writing she can recognize as the musician's own. It's sloppy and long, a bit like its owner, and curves in different paragraphs with different pens and ink being used. It's clear he's been at this for a while now, for only a black inkwell sits on the desk before him now.
Leaning in however, something is also different about the lettering of the script, not just its color alone. It’s faded, attached to the paper with faint pressure when compared to the bold fresh ink that now riddles the paper.
As well as this, there is another piece of paper beside this one, one even more dated. Robin has to strain to even view what is going on in the piece, for that is all she can call it. Odd colors of what appear to be pencil have been scribbled all over the tattered, rotting parchment. Drawings and words she cannot quite make out, and details that now are only known by the pressure they left behind.
Suddenly, the chair beside her squeaks, and a soft exhale makes her heart skip a beat. Brook stirs gingerly, hands moving first to come to rub his skull with an audible glassy scrape. His slack jaw closes, mandible sliding upward to slot back into place. Robin does not move, she knows how the musician responds to sudden movement, she had seen it before.
His 'eyes' must be adjusting, for without warning, a loud yelp spills from his jaw and his arms come to clutch his chest, drawing him away from the woman with a start.
”O-OH- M-MISS ROBIN, you almost gave me a heart attack!“ The voice that spills out is shaky and queerly raw, his jaw yammering and clanking against itself like a wind up toy might.
'No joke about his undead appearance.. how odd indeed.'
”I came to check on you when you didn't come in for breakfast, it’s odd for you to ever miss a meal... seems you've been quite busy. Might I ask what you've been up to?” Robin muses, leaning her head into her hand as her elbow rests in the other.
Brook sits up aphonically, looking to the papers and quill and back to her with a strange expression. The candlelight above plays on his now exposed skull like wax, shining and glittering in certain areas. Moisture pooled at his sockets and stained his teeth and the side of his face. It has even stained some of the papers, odd patches now exposed to the light from where he once laid.
”I.. “ He pauses, as if he cannot understand what he was doing, or perhaps does not know how to even express himself properly. ”I was.. working on revising some old documents. Just appears to have taken a lot out of me that I did not expect!”
He cannot even fake a laugh, but the corners of his jaw tilt to expose the curved slit he uses as a makeshift smile. It falls as fast as he expressed it, and his hands clutch his lap as if he was a child trying to convince a parent about an accidental broken window. The sorrow exudes from every ivory reflection across his skull, and he cannot help but look pitiful in her eyes.
“Musician.. What is wrong?” is all she can say, not wishing to intrude on his sanctity.
It was normal for him to be a bit secretive at times, but never with this much emotion behind it. He was good at hiding himself before people, an entertainer through and through. This job he placed upon himself was his goal alone, and nobody expected inhuman quiet from the man but here he was, alone, hidden away to work. Brook held himself up on steady legs until the chiffon curtain fell, then he crumpled alone, like a marionette.
“Miss Robin, I realized today's date yesterday, and it has distressed me greatly.” He finally musters up, it bubbling like a spring well coming to the surface of broken clay.
“Does it mark something that I should know of, Brook..?”
Whatever the cause could be, it was not her knowledge to know unless the skeleton desired to express himself fully, for he should not suffer alone. Whatever it was, all that mattered was making sure the musician knew that he was able to be heard, if he wished to speak. Looking upward, he’s met with those eyes. Beautiful, blue, just as his once were; that comforting tide draws a quivering sigh from his jaw.
She was too kind to him, much too kind.
Because of the candles above the pair, the flames dancing softly on their thin wicks, shadows breathe and flicker. These umber shades are what Brook relies on most to show his normally absent emotions, making the most of the differing angles to convey new facial expressions, like a jar of face paint for a lonely clown. Cast now, these dark hues, they create the illusion of darker sockets, pooling deeper underneath than above, light sticking to his narrow cheekbones.
Robin is almost taken aback at how expressive his face now appears, the display so upsettingly human that his death could have passed her entirely. Such sorrow, such tired, worn, defeated sorrow lines every shadow that now paints his face.
“It.. is Yorki's birthday today, Miss Robin.” He squawks, the word choked out and strangled in his throat, dying as if a noose hangs around the long-gone title.
Brook had never looked so young to her. Clutching his lap so tight that if he had skin, it would have been just as pale as his bones, his angular and vertebral neck cranes outward as if the weight of his skull is too much. The corners of his sockets have begun to fill with tears again, and the deluge trails the once dry markings that had been made earlier like a riverbed. His slender jaw quivers and his body does the same, shuttering in his own, seemingly smaller, outfit. Brook has never looked so small.