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"Je n'ai pas peur de mourir,
Seulement de mourir triste."
Mrs Yéyé & Léman, Damoclès (x)
It takes very little to crumble what Brook had thought would be permanent.
(But no, that's a lie. It takes an enormous amount of strength, it takes his captain's anguished screams and his crewmates' terrified eyes, it takes three days flying through the air, being impossibly lonely; it takes Brook's heart being ripped out of his ribcage and his breath evading him and his eyes closing through sheer desperation.
It takes a newspaper, it takes a war, it takes broken promises. It takes the end of an era and an infinite amount of grief.
It takes the chime of red beads hitting the floor, it takes the cacophony of a scream, it takes the steady beep of a monitor, takes the absolute silence of defeat.)
oOo
It's not that being lonely is a new thing to him.
Actually, not being lonely is what's new. Having friends, people to listen to his songs; that's unexpected, because the only people he was used to seeing were the ghosts of his former crewmates, and those did not stick around to listen to his songs; just faded away despite his pleas.
He spent fifty years all alone. That's more than half of his life. (That's more than the entirety of his crewmates' lives.)
Loneliness is not a new feeling.
(Why does it hurt so much, then?)
oOo
It's not that he's not busy, because he is. There are a thousand songs to write and a thousand melodies to invent, (and if some of those are heart-wrenchingly sad, well, it doesn't have to mean anything, does it?)
He has so many things to do, and it's a waste of energy to spend some of his time being so achingly lonely, and desperate, (and wondering- was it ever real? What proof does he have that it wasn't all an illusion?
The sunlight he feels in his bones could be an invention of his mind, though he's not quite sure he still remembered- remembers- remembered what sunlight felt like after fifty years stuck in the mist.)
There are only two years to do everything, only two years of waiting, and two years is (so long) a very short time when you have to make sure you're worthy of the crew of a King.
He doesn't have time to linger on what he misses. It's only two years.
(It's two years. It took him exactly that amount of time to forget some of his crewmates' faces.
But he doesn't need to remember, because they're still alive, aren't they?
Aren't they?)
oOo
He spent about two months with the Strawhats.
In a way, it's a blessing. He didn't know them, not yet, not in the way he did with his first crewmates. It must be harder, for the oldest members (though he's not sure who that is, had not thought he needed to ask those questions so early.) They all seemed to be so used to each other; they must not have gotten separated much- if ever.
(He doesn't need to talk about them in the past tense.)
(He doesn't.)
He doesn't think not knowing them is better, though; maybe it's crueler, in fact. He got- a glimpse of what he could have had, (of what he'll still get to have- but how will they have changed, after such a long time? Will they be the same people he had at his side, or has he lost the chance to get to know this version of them forever?), and the world, or maybe something harsher than that, the fates or some kind of justice, made it vanish before his eyes.
(And there wasn't even a song to soften the goodbyes, this time.
He's not a great musician, is he?)
oOo
He considers catching up with the world, seeing what he missed.
He doesn't do it.
Just looking around, so many things changed. He visits places he had already docked at, and nothing seems to be the same. It's both been a relief (no unwanted reminders-) and a stab to what is left of his heart (how long have they waited? What is left of what I know?).
It's a terrible thing, to see that the world has moved without him; or, that the world has moved, and that he has too, only in a completely different direction.
(Is moving backward still moving?)
It's not that things radically changed; he hasn't been gone long enough for it to be completely foreign and unfamiliar.
It's like- like the world evolved, and he didn't. Which is true, in a sense. A whole era happened without him realizing, and he's not the same person he was when he arrived in the Florian Triangle, but he's not that far from it. He should have- should have changed, should have grown, should have lived.
He didn't.
It's an odd thing to be sad about.
oOo
He visits islands he hadn't seen before, and is careful to pay no mind to the people flinching away from him in the streets; he avoids children's scared and fascinated stares alike, and wishes he wasn't alone, and wishes he wasn't here.
He wishes he hadn't died; wishes he was by his former crewmates' sides, wishes he wasn't the only one to remember songs and royals and books that have long been forgotten. He wishes he didn't feel so out of place all the time, wishes he could fit in like he had not missed 50 years of his not-life.
Brook wishes that he could remember what warmth feels like; wishes he could remember what food tastes like; wishes his memories weren't as painful as they are.
Brook wishes he could have saved everyone, and wishes he had given up a long time ago, and scolds himself for getting lost in his thoughts while knowing no one noticed it.
His captain asked him for two years, and Seas, Brook wishes he hadn't pledged his soul and all that he still holds dear to this man, because then maybe-
(Brook plays the violin. Brook plays the guitar. Brook resolutely does not play the piano, for fear of awakening too-recent too-painful memories.
Brook wishes and wishes and wishes, and doesn't mean all of his wishes.
Brook reminisces and plays hide-and-seek with his regrets, and gives himself just a little longer to recover before facing them.)
oOo
He misses the Strawhats, and thinks that he can't miss what he doesn't know, and misses them still.
He wonders how they are; wonders how they were; wonders if they will be, and remembers his captain's unflinching determination, and doesn't wonder anymore.
(Remembers the boy who gave him a home and hope again, wrapped in bandages and grief on the front page of a newspaper, and wonders again.)
He calls himself a fool, and clings to the knowledge that he has a home to return to.
(He misses home while knowing Sunny hadn't been his quite yet, and wonders if the ache of homesickness will stay with him forever.
It's quite probable, but there are worse things to live with.)
oOo
He thinks about his former crew, and tells himself not to think about it, and does it still.
He makes lists, of all that he remembers. He makes a list of everything that mattered, the names and jokes and instruments. He makes a list of everyone's hopes and dreams; (his fingers shake all the way, and the ink stains the paper and covers some of his words.
It's fine. It's not meant to be perfect.)
He buries some of them, burns other, throws one or two to the wind.
He keeps the rest of it until he feels ready to let go.
oOo
He visits his former captain's home. He visits his former doctor's home island, his cook's, his navigator's, his-
It's bittersweet.
(Everyone forgot them.
It's what he expected. It's the choice they made, when they threw away normalcy and replaced the wind's howl with melodies.
Maybe they expected to come back. Maybe they had something, someone to come back to, and it faded and slipped through their fingers like mist or someone's last breath.
He'll never know.)
He leaves flowers on an unnamed grave and hopes the tears he sheds are mending the hole inside of him and not tearing it open.
(He very pointedly does not visit his own home island.)
oOo
(It's not first-day grief, devastating grief, that screams at him things he'd rather deny and doesn't let him think about anything else.
But it's not forever-grief either, gentle grief, just-breathe-through-it-and-you'll-feel-better-grief.
It's a mix of that, and it's been a mix of that for years, for decades; it has stagnated, has carved a place for itself in the side of his head, ever-present and unbearable. It's they would have liked this shop and if you turn your head there they'll be. It's gentle one day and unbelievably harsh the other.
It takes up less room in his head, those days, though. It's a little more predictable, a little more subdued.
Brook can live with that.
He can live.)
oOo
He plays songs for their birthdays.
(He doesn't play anything the day of their (his) death the first year, and the second, he hums Bink's sake.
He doesn't talk to them, like he used to, or about them, like he'd both like and hate to do; when his manager asks why he's so damn quiet he laughs chillingly and doesn't care for the man's unsettlement.)
He forgets his, remembers belatedly one or two weeks after, thinks about buying himself a cake and realizes he won't be able to taste it.
(He still buys an enormous one, and grins fiercely when he blows the single candle.)
He makes a note to learn the Strawhats' birthdays.
oOo
He watches sunrises, and enjoys it less than he thought he would; then realizes he missed the company more than the colors, and laughs at himself for being obtuse, and breathes through a spike of loneliness.
He avoids books, and sometimes he avoids instruments, and he sits awake for hours during the nights, longing for the easy companionship the Strawhats had never failed to provide.
(He would have thought his years in the Florian Triangle would have made hate silence, but it hadn't.
A week with his new crew had made him hate it. Sunny was never silent, in the inevitable way a small ship on which nine people lived was never silent. Even in the dead of the night, or in the minutes before dawn, it was difficult to be alone; and though it had proved a little overwhelming the first days, Brook had gotten used to it quickly.
And, ironically enough, he never got used to being the only one awake again.)
He doesn't want to get attached to this life, to these people; so he makes an effort to stay distant. It's only two years.
(He left enough people behind already. One more might break him, and Brook doesn't want to test that.
He's been healing, ever so slowly, and he doesn't need to invite another regret to haunt him.)
oOo
He writes songs, and purposefully makes them cheerful; it's some sort of lie, probably, but he takes care to not think about it.
He drowns, and the fiftieth time is less scary than the third; he loses his body, and the second time is just as paralyzing as the first, so he does it again.
He trains, and lets days pass him by, and tries desperately not keep count of them but still does it.
He naps in the sunlight, and has nightmares less and less, until the Triangle's mists and his friends' bodies haunt him no longer.
Time goes on.
So does he.
oOo
Two years of waiting and improving and wondering comes to an end, and Brook finds himself setting foot on Saobady for the second time ever.
It feels like seeing the sun for the first time after a lifetime's worth of shadows; feels like clear water rushing through his mind and clearing away his worries; feels like fate and destiny and all those things he doesn't quite believe in.
It feels like coming home and setting out at sea for the first time; feels like being on top of the Red Line and seeing, for the briefest moment, all that's awaiting you.
It feels like nervousness before a performance and aching loneliness, feels like anticipation and sheer terror, feels like he's reaching towards something and isn't quite sure if it's really here.
But no matter. Brook has a promise to keep, and this one didn't take fifty years of waiting.
(On his way to Sunny, that isn't his home yet but will be; on his way to his crewmates, to adventures, to extraordinary and defiance and delight; on his way to the Strawhats, to all the names he hasn't let himself think about-
On his way, he lets the last list slips through his fingers, and hums a goodbye.)