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Behrad told Zari to run.
She ran, and he was relieved because for a moment he was afraid that she wouldn’t and then there would be nothing left.
They shot.
And that’s pretty much it.
+
Long story short: the others have memories of years without Behrad.
Behrad has the memory of dying. It replays in his head, high-def.
+
He died. He says it’s fine, tells Sara that yeah, it’s kind of disturbing, she gets it, but overall it’s fine and he’s fine.
It’s not and he’s not.
He is a tangled web.
+
The other Behrad, the braver Behrad, died when he was only twenty-two years old. His life was cut short. Just like Behrad’s should’ve been, literally. But instead it just goes on and on.
He thinks about that a lot.
+
He asks Gideon if she can replicate him a gun. She asks why.
Behrad has no idea.
He tells her never mind.
+
Behrad looks Atropos in the eye and tells her, You ruined me. Behrad stands shoulder-to-shoulder with his other self, leaning against a concrete wall, and says, I kind of wish you’d never existed. Behrad touches his own chest and thinks, This is not how it’s supposed to feel.
+
He smokes with Nate and feels far away and also like there’s somewhere he should be getting to, but he doesn’t know where it is he’s supposed to be going.
The pot helps him relax. Enough. Behrad tells himself it’s enough because he doesn’t like the idea that it’s not, because it used to be.
He doesn’t like that he still feels the itching panic that’s been crawling on him since they got back from Charlie’s world, that he still wants to look over his shoulder to make sure Atropos isn’t there, all blonde hair and cold eyes and severe movements, that the way smoking opens his mind makes him muse about some things he’d rather not, because it wasn’t like that before. Pot was just good before. Just calming.
Behrad wants things that were good before to stay good, and doesn’t think it’s too much to ask.
He dreams about Atropos, which is disturbing. Behrad didn’t not have bad dreams before, but they usually weren’t recurring or so clear, just his string getting cut over and over and over again.
Of course, in reality it only got cut once.
Sometimes, a lot of the time, once is enough. (And twice is too much.)
Behrad takes a drag of his joint and thinks it’s really dumb, the idea that a thing that’s over isn’t over, and then he remembers that he’s a time traveler, and now he’s laughing.
Nate starts laughing too, even though Behrad didn’t explain what was funny, and then they’re just laughing and Behrad feels like he’s floating above all the death and then he forgets he was worried about death at all, laughing, laughing.
+
Zari wrinkles her nose and says he smells when she sees him after he leaves the lab, and he gives her a big smile and wraps her in a hug, and she doesn’t push him away even though he reeks of the good stuff.
Her embrace makes his heart ache in a way that surprises him, and he is moved to say the first thing that comes to his mind, because it must be important, and what he says is, “I miss you. Like, really.”
+
He’s talking about the other Zari, and he does miss her.
The thing is that he doesn’t miss her as much as he should, considering how she gave everything up for him and he gave everything up for her, once upon a timeline.
But he doesn’t remember growing up with her, even though he knows, from the little he’s learned from the piece of the timeline that was restored to the Legends (how was it that just the Zari-time came back to them? Don’t ask, the explanations are always a lot more difficult to parse than going with the flow), that they were closer than he and his Zari were growing up, when half the time he was just forcing a smile for Z Nation, Zari Tarazi’s brother Behrad, collecting crumbs of attention as he ran after her until he stopped. Until he got a little bitter about and a lot tired of her whole game.
But their relationship is healing, ongoing, and most of what he remembers of the other Zari are those last few moments of his life and the time they had together before she had to go back into the Air Totem.
Before she decided to go back into the Air Totem, because, when Behrad thinks of it, she didn’t have to go back into the Air Totem. It was just because of him, because they had to cheat time, because he should be dead and the other Zari should be here, and Behrad misses her because he’s supposed to and because he knows how much she missed him and because he knows that his teammates miss her.
Behrad thinks, a lot of the time, that she deserves to be here. With people who knew her. He bets she and his Zari would be friends too, once they got over him. The only problem would be dealing with the names, but it wouldn’t be that big a problem. They’d figure something out, and no one would have to miss her.
No one would have to miss who she was, not just who she could’ve been, what she was supposed to be.
Once upon another timeline.
+
Behrad tightens his grip on Zari as she tightens her grip on him, and again he says, “I miss you.”
He gives her one last squeeze, and, oh, he’s gonna replicate some Miracle Whip and eat it straight from the can and it’ll be awesome because it’s the little things, right? Sometimes Behrad feels like all he has are little things.
Behrad drifts away towards the galley, and doesn’t notice how Zari, who hates flannel, who rarely eats donuts, who is good at but doesn’t have much interest in video games, stays glued to the floor as he goes, and he’s already gone when she starts to cry.
+
Behrad looks Atropos in the eye and tells her, You told me the truth, but I didn’t want to know. Behrad stands shoulder-to-shoulder with his other self, leaning against a concrete wall, and says, I don’t know which one of us is supposed to be here. Behrad touches his own chest and thinks, I wonder how long I have until it comes back.
+
They’re in Washington D.C. and everything blows up.
Literally—it’s the Fourth of July, 1957, and the mission is over but they stop to watch the fireworks.
Unfun fact: the movies Behrad’s watched with traumatized veterans are right.
Fireworks do sound like gunfire, gunfire that just keeps going and going, no bullets for Behrad to stop, and someday the gunfire is gonna catch up to him.
Behrad feels his knees buckle and the memories that aren’t his slam through his brain and leave a concrete room shaped hole like that giant jug of red drink in that ancient commercial, and he covers his ears and his knees finally give out and hit the concrete like he’s a traumatized veteran in a movie. He shakes and flinches with every new gunshot-sorry-firework-actually and the other Zari said it was her turn to save him and Behrad feels sick and he wonders if fireworks scared the other Zari and thinks nah, the other Zari probably would be able to shrug this off. He thinks she’d be better at living in this world than he is, because that’s how it was supposed to be.
There are so many ways his chest has been opened up. It might be time to add an autopsy.
Because Behrad died, he remembers (it’s all he can remember now that he’s on his knees on a sidewalk eighty-seven years ago it’s all he can remember when he’s lying alone in bed it’s all he can remember when he’s getting briefed and struggling to concentrate right next to the place where he fell with his string cut sometimes too often it’s just all he can remember), and since he died and she didn’t it means he was supposed to die and she was supposed to not die and she’s not dead exactly but he can’t see her and she can’t see the people she loves and he doesn’t miss her enough but he knows the others do and he knows they had a whole timeline where they didn’t miss him and this is all his fault and he should really stop thinking about it because if he thinks about it too hard he starts to scare himself and—too late.
He’s so terrified right now that the only thoughts that feel safe are the dark ones that are supposed to scare him, so here they are.
The other Zari said it was her turn to save him, but now Behrad’s not just thinking of how that screwed her over, he’s thinking of himself, selfish and petty and ungrateful, because in this moment he feels awful and angry, and he’s been feeling awful a lot, and the truth, the absolute truth he wants to do anything but tell, is that he's not happy.
Behrad isn’t sure he likes the idea of living if he’s going to have to share his life with so much empty space and suffocating guilt and fear and thin memories of a sister who was willing to leave him and everything important behind so that he could be the one to run from death this time, but running took up so much energy and when Behrad stepped into the easy flow he’s always lived in he got himself caught in a riptide and he doesn’t want any of this.
But his sister, both of her, sacrificed so much for him, so Behrad’s stuck here with the gunfire even though, right now, as Zari says Behrad jaan Behrad jaan what’s wrong are you sick and Sara says hey B deep breaths it’s okay and Nate says oh it might be the fireworks let’s get him back on the ship and John says step through the portal lad and Mick just grabs him and hauls him to his feet and shoves him into the parlour, Behrad can’t help but let himself fall into the thoughts that he’s desperately been trying to avoid, rolling around in them like a cat in dirt, and here they are:
He doesn’t know if he wants to be alive.
And he’d be okay with being dead.
He’d be okay, because it’s been like two months and he can feel himself falling apart and he’s scared and he hates everything and this isn’t who he is and it’s definitely not who he wants to be.
The gunfire-sorry-fireworks still rings in his ears, and Behrad used to be okay with fireworks and even gunfire and sometimes on missions he’s still okay with gunfire except for the panic later but nothing makes sense and things have changed, he’s changed, he was dead and he was also dead and basically Behrad’s a dead person.
“Oh, no,” he gasps, “no, no, Zari made a mistake. She should’ve stayed. I’m dead, I’m dead.”
He’s making no sense, he’s making absolutely zero sense right now, he’s making the most sense he has in months, he should’ve made sense at the other Zari before she left, but maybe he was too scared. He regrets it now. He’s been regretting it for a while.
He needs to smoke. He needs to breathe. He just needs to calm down and when he does he’ll be fine, and he’s in the parlour and he was like right here, he was basically like almost right here, when he died, when he was told he was a mistake and snip, thread cut.
Snip, that’s what you do with a thread you don’t need. Bang, that’s what you do with a person you want gone.
Behrad’s going crazy and he's over it.
“I’m supposed to be dead,” he says, and that part is unquestionably true.
+
They worried that he was too young to join the Legends, but then Jax pointed out that they were right around the same age.
Plus Behrad was old enough to get shot to death by a government organization that decided he was the enemy because he was bonded to a rock and because his family was the wrong religion.
To be fair, no one knew that then.
All Behrad knew was that he hated guns.
+
Behrad looks Atropos in the eye and tells her, I guess you hurt me because you had to. Behrad stands shoulder-to-shoulder with his other self, leaning against a concrete wall, and says, I wish we could leave this room. Behrad touches his own chest and thinks, Hurry up before I do it for you.
+
“I should be dead,” Behrad says again and possibly again. He never had panic attacks before and he hates them and he doesn’t want it to be like this, other people have panic attacks, his teammates have panic attacks, not him, not Behrad, that’s not his thing.
“I used to be chill,” Behrad gasps, “but I’m not anymore.” He lets out a weird giggle through his landed-fish impression. “I guess dead people aren’t chill when they’re alive again. Maybe if I’d just stayed dead, right? If I’d stayed dead, everything would be fine. I wish—” and he shouldn’t say this, he absolutely shouldn’t say this, he shouldn’t spit out this bitterness that’s been pooling in his mouth for months, because it’s not fair and because it’ll make everyone worry about him when he’s not the person they worry about and because he doesn’t want to believe how deeply he believes it sometimes “—you’d just let me die.” There, he said it, he said it anyway because he wanted to and he says it again, uncontrollably, like a mantra. “I wish you’d just let me die, I wish you’d just let me die, I wish you’d just let me die.”
Zari says, “Please don’t say that, please.”
She’s not the kind of person who begs.
Behrad shuts up, because it’s the right thing to do, and feels sick with guilt at the way Nate’s voice shakes as he encourages him to breathe.
+
Behrad falls asleep on the leather couch in the parlour, and it’s a mistake. Falling asleep is always a mistake, even though being awake is also always a mistake so it’s all kind of just a mess, but the problem is that he dreams. He dreams of Atropos in a concrete room surrounded by A.R.G.U.S. agents, and she gives him that eagle-eyed, unearthly look that made him realize that she knew something he didn’t and it was really important.
She’s always giving him that look. Whenever he closes his eyes, she’s giving him that look.
Wait, he tries to say, wait, you don’t understand, this is my life, I still want it. I don’t care about what’s supposed to be, I care about what is, and I am. Don’t do this, don’t change me.
But he doesn’t say anything, because he’s confused and he has no idea what’s going to happen or how many things inside him are about to get cut up.
He’s not confused anymore.
He wasn’t confused when the A.R.G.U.S. agents came for him either, just another grim reality in a grim reality, and he can’t remember if he was relieved that it was over and he isn’t sure if he would be relieved if this was over after all.
Behrad used to know what he was about, but now all he knows is that when he said I wish you’d just let me die he meant that he wants to keep the good things he used to have and lose the bad things he gained, the new parts of himself he doesn’t want.
Behrad is awake and he’s been awake for a little while now, he just couldn’t really tell because he jolted awake from his nightmare into another one and now he’s here on the couch with his eyes shut tight and he doesn’t know how to explain everything to his teammates, to his sister.
He knows he should be grateful to be alive, and sometimes he is, but he can't stop asking himself why he has to be alive like this.
+
Behrad looks Atropos in the eye and tells her, I’m sick of trying to understand you. Behrad stands shoulder-to-shoulder with his other self, leaning against a concrete wall, and says, I want to go home. Behrad touches his own chest and thinks, Why isn’t there any blood?
Behrad exists, and it isn’t that it’s not enough.
It’s too much.