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There was something about coming home to a silent, empty house every day that never got any easier no matter how many times Brassius had stepped through the gnarled oak wood door and into the smell of dust and rot. There’s no place like home afterall.
Although the way whenever Hassel is around it seems like the house can never be completely silent does help. The way he always announces whenever he’s returned home, never expecting any sort of response back like the paintings on the walls are a “welcome home” in their own right. The way the walls buzz and thrive with music whenever he’s around, soft melodies hanging in the air. Or the way he’s always humming or dancing as he works, not caring who might see or what they might think because he’s so full of love for life and no one can ever put a damper on that.
This living arrangement wasn’t something Brassius had planned for—a spur of the moment decision that looking back on it, he wasn’t quite sure what in the world he was thinking. But it’s hard for him to be too mad at himself for the hasty judgment when he looks so at home in their private garden like it’s where he was always meant to end up and his mud-caked boots (because he swears this man couldn’t stay on the beaten path for the life of him) fit perfectly next to his own on the shoe rack.
And in time, the empty house begins to fill with small pieces of happiness—haphazardly scribbled sheet music in the margins of the daily newspaper next to half-full pill bottles, a music stand that wobbles and tilts when used next to his IVs, and new flowers every day because if he didn’t know better he’d say Hassel had a vendetta against plant life minding its own business next to all of his old medical books (for all of the good they ever did him). Mementos and proof that something other than ghosts reside there.
Though, the clumps of blonde hair he has to fish out of the shower drain aren’t something he initially anticipated.
But he supposes he can deal with that if it means he doesn’t have to be alone anymore.
—
“They’re taking submissions for an art installation in town,” Hassel announces one early morning, holding up a newspaper clipping for Brassius to read. “That’d be perfect for you, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never submitted my art to any sort of competition before. I don’t even know what I would make for it.”
Hassel sets the newspaper back down on the table and gives him a careful look like he’s afraid that even looking at him too hard might cause him to shatter, like he’s some priceless piece of art.
“I’m going to tell you something embarrassing.”
“Okay,” Brassius says, trying his hardest to pretend he’s not the littlest bit interested in whatever this story is. He hides his expression behind a sip of his morning tea.
“When I was in school, there was this music competition. I was still pretty new at it, inexperienced but thought I knew everything there was to know about music.”
“Well, did you win?”
“Nope, I totally bombed it! Came in dead last!” Hassel says, voice sounding as chipper as ever.
And Brassius almost chokes on his tea. “T-That bad?”
Hassel nods with a smile, totally unbothered by his confession. “I didn’t even get to play a single note. I got up on the stage and my fingers just wouldn’t move. Practicing alone in your bedroom is a totally different beast from performing in front of an audience. I froze up and choked under pressure!”
It’s almost hard to imagine a version of Hassel who isn’t so completely comfortable around people, even people he doesn’t know. Afterall, if he wasn’t so outgoing and willing to take chances on people, they wouldn’t be here living together right now. He plays music so freely, like baring his heart for all to see no matter who might be listening.
“Is… Is this supposed to make me feel better? I appreciate the effort, Hass, but-”
“Hold on a moment before you give up hope. I wasn’t finished yet! I was so embarrassed that I wanted to give up music forever, but well, obviously that didn’t happen. Because I realized that not every piece of art has to be a masterpiece and if you put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect, you’ll just collapse under it. But even when you flub up a piece and it doesn’t turn out how you wanted it to, you’ll still be better off for having made it.”
“Now you really sound like a teacher,” Brassius says, though he worries that his traitorous heart beating two-time in his chest gives him away.
“Maybe I’ll apply for a position at the academy someday,” Hassel says and laughs, a noise that sounds just like music in its own right. “Although, they don’t have much of a music department, do they…? Maybe I’ll just have to take over the art department then, and you can be my teacher’s assistant.”
“I’d be a lousy teacher.”
“Nonsense!” Hassel crosses his arms so resolutely like he’s never been so sure of something before. “I’ve learned a lot from you already! Before I came to Artazon… I never really gave painting or sculpting much mind. I figured I knew what I was good at already so why bother branching out? Anyone can regurgitate the same material to a class, but it takes a special type of person to really make their students invested in learning, you know?”
Suddenly Brassius’s living room feels so much smaller than it actually is and his breath hitches in his throat. He looks anywhere but at Hassel, at those eyes that stare at him like they’re seeing a masterful work of art. “I… Well, thank you. I’m glad I could pass on a thing or two. But I still don't know about the competition.”
Hassel nods, so understanding that it makes him want to curl up in on himself. It would be easier, he thinks, if he wasn’t always so understanding, so accepting of him and all of his flaws. “Well, there’s still another two months before the deadline. A lot could happen in that time you never know.”
—
The family garden, what used to be the pride and joy of the household, is only a shadow of what it once used to be. Weeds have sprouted up from every crevice, threatening to choke the life of whatever dares to still grow there. The trellises have been knocked over and flung across the yard, victims of many months of harsh wind and rain storms. It’s been forever since Brassius can remember harvesting anything from the wilted mess.
And so the garden—so closed off and protected from the outside world like a terrible, beautiful thing—quickly becomes Hassel’s side project whenever he’s not working on his music or trying to find inspiration in the tiniest details. With strong and steady hands, he pulls the invasive weeds from the muck one by one, already finding it a much needed improvement even after just a couple hours of work.
Brassius helps too, of course, because he’s always known it’s a two person job. That’s what had made the upkeep of it so overwhelming in the first place, a painful reminder of the woman who had poured so much love into keeping it alive and her two children who let it get this bad after her passing.
As they go on the truth becomes clear, there’s very little left to salvage in the decrepit remains of the side yard. The best they can do is to clear away all of the withered and dead plants to make room for new ones—to get rid of the roots of the past and make this garden their own thing.
It’s a dreadfully physical process with lots of bruised knees from kneeling in the dirt for hours and sore backs from being hunched over a flower bed, but slowly it starts to feel like home again, a place where they can bury their secrets six feet underneath. It’s messy and really neither of them know the first thing about gardening, but it’s something they can call their own, something that the two of them created together. A collaborative piece of art.
“I think it’s coming along nicely,” Hassel says, leaning on a pair of gardening shears at his side.
His face is smudged with dirt and there’s soil caked so far underneath his nail beds that he’ll be scrubbing under them for days. Brassius just sits down in the grass, leans against the creaky backyard fence, and smiles.
“I think so too.”
—
The letters start arriving again within the week. Hassel, to his credit, really tries to just toss the first letter into the trash and forget about it. He gets about an hour of pretending that he doesn’t care about whatever’s in that letter. And, really, he knows what it’s going to be. More of the same “please come home” sprinkled in with “you’re too old to keep acting out like this” just to rub salt in the wound. He’s heard it all before, thought it all before himself too. That’s what makes it dig so deep.
About 30 minutes in he starts to wonder if they’re right, if he should just suck it up and go home. Afterall, he was living with someone else now, and it wouldn’t be right to drag Brassius down with him and his indecisiveness. Even if the thought of leaving now when this place has started to feel more like home than his old house ever did makes his heart feel like a guitar string wound up far too tight.
Eventually, he cracks under the pressure and opens the letter and spends the next couple hours trying his best to drown out his racing thoughts with his guitar. His fingers glide over the frets with ease after years of muscle memory and the cutting pressure of the strings over his fingertips welcomes him back like an old friend. It starts out like a whisper, the drawn out whimper of a creature ready to give up before his fingers quicken, rising to a fierce, wailing crescendo like a dragon’s roar.
His fingers burn under the metal strings and his heart beats like a drum. His music cries for him, cries with him in perfect sync. And all at once, it stops.
“Ow!”
A harsh, abrasive noise cuts through the song, bringing it to a screeching halt as the E string snaps. It’s like nails on a chalkboard, the noise ringing in his ears. Pain blossoms across his palm and ruby red drops of blood bead from his index finger. He mourns more for the sudden silence than for the cut on his finger.
Brassius sits down on the floor next to him, first aid kit already in hand before Hassel can tell him that he’s fine. He takes Hassel’s hand in his one, robbing him of his words before they can leave his lips, and holds his thumb over the cut until it stops bleeding.
“Looks like it hurt.” There’s a worried undercurrent to his calm, practiced tone, like a root trying its hardest to break through concrete.
Hassel just shrugs as Brassius carefully wraps a bandage around his finger. “It was more startling than anything. I’ll be fine. I don’t think I have any more spare strings on hand though…”
“There’s a music store in town. They might have what you need to fix it.”
The music store is much smaller than the one back home. It’s barely big enough to breathe in with the two of them standing in by the front counter with all of the instruments and accessories lining the walls. Rows of guitars hang from the walls, all different types of wood and finishes along with other string instruments. For a moment, Hassel gets lost in marveling at all of the different instruments on display before Brassius gently reminds him of why they’re there in the first place before they spend the entire afternoon loitering.
Nestled in between a display of music stands and books of sheet music are the guitar strings.
“You know, the first time I broke a string, I thought I’d broken it forever. I came to my mother crying, thinking I’d destroyed my guitar and I’d have to get a new one.”
Once the strings are paid for, they stop by at the town square to change the busted string. It’s a simple enough process, something Hassel’s had to do a great many times before.
“When I got admitted to the hospital for the first time, my mother bought me this paint set. I thought I’d ruined them when I left them out overnight by accident and they dried out, but she showed me it was a simple fix to rehydrate them.”
“That makes me feel a bit less silly then,” Hassel says and laughs, wheezy and melodic. He needed to get out of the house, he thinks, to clear his head and get away from that stupid letter sitting ripped in half in the kitchen trash can.
He pulls out the bridge pin and hands it to Brassius with a “Can you hold this real quick?” before tugging what was left of the broken string from the bridge. “Did you ever think about learning more guitar? I’d love to teach you what I know if you’re interested.”
Brassius rolls the pin underneath his thumb and palm, trying to find the right words. “I… I just don’t think I’m any good at it is all.”
Hassel holds his hand out for the pin and then pushes the string into the bridge again. “No one starts out being good at it. I was awful when I first started, but that’s how you learn. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“It just doesn’t come as easily to me as painting or sculpting does,” he says, feeling the words fall pathetically flat before he’s even done speaking them.
“Well, that’s the gift of having done something for years, you forget what it’s like to be a beginner again.” Hassel stares at him from behind the neck of the guitar, smiling warm and bright as if he doesn’t see right through him. Leave it to Hassel to always smooth over the rough edges and broken pieces Brassius didn’t even realize he’d left exposed.
Once the new string has been wound up tight enough to pull taut against the fretboard, he turns his attention towards the tuning pegs. He’s been at it for so long he barely even needs a tuner anymore. He gives the guitar a careful strum, hearing all 6 strings ring out beautifully in tandem, whole again.
“Good as new! Thank you, Brassie.”
“Oh no, they’ve got you calling me that now too?” And suddenly Brassius is thankful for the bench beneath them because if it wasn’t there, he’s worried he might actually be swept onto his knees by some embarrassingly obvious wave of happiness. It’s just a stupid nickname given to him by his neighbors in town who always found his name too difficult to pronounce or too long to bother with, one he’s never been particularly fond of, but Hassel makes it sound like the highest of compliments.
“Would you rather I not?”
“No, it’s only fair, afterall I call you Hass.”
It’s all so new to them both and yet so familiar at the same time like they’ve been old friends forever. Brassie and Hass side by side, art and music together.
“Ready to head back then, Brassie?”
Brassius nods, putting his hand out which Hassel takes in his. His fingertips are ice cold against Hassel’s palm, but it’s never felt less out of place than right now.
“I’ve never heard you play before like how you did earlier,” Brassius says, as they stand in front of his porch. “So fierce, so consumed by the music.”
Hassel runs his free hand over the back of his head, face flushing an embarrassing shade of pink. “Ah, well… It happens on occasion, I suppose. Could have done without the broken string though.”
He wonders, for a moment, if it’s even right to call out how embarrassingly transparent he is when something’s bothering him. Hassel’s been nothing but supportive of him, never pressuring him to open up about his own issues if he wasn’t ready, always treading so lightly around him, but he’s not the only one good at reading people. There’s something painful and raw lurking beneath the surface, he can tell, afterall he knows a thing or too about that.
“It’s your family again, isn’t it?” he asks, carefully neutral, not betraying the quiet anger brewing in him at his family for making Hassel so upset.
Hassel blinks at him and then in a moment closes the space between them. Sturdy arms wrap around him, pulling Brassius off the ground and into a hug. Before he can even get a word in edgewise, Hassel’s already apologizing.
“I’m sorry!” There’s tears running down his face already, soaking into Brassius’s shoulder. “I was going to tell you about the letter, but I didn’t want to worry you! You have enough on your mind as it is! I don’t even know how they figured out I was living with you anyway and I’m an adult now so I can make my own decisions and now I’m just rambling again. Sor-!”
“Hass, it’s alright. I’m not upset. Breathe, okay?”
He mutters something Brassius can’t quite make out, the sound muffled from where his face is buried into the fabric of his jacket. It’s another few seconds before the grip around him loosens and his feet plant back on the ground.
“How did you know? That it was about my family, I mean.”
Leaning back against the porch railing, he wonders how he can put this as delicately as possible. “This is… probably presumptuous of me, but in the time I’ve known you I’ve never seen anything else upset you like that other than your family.”
Not entirely true, he admits only to himself. That night in his bedroom with Hassel sitting beside him, cast in harsh shadows with his hair all messed up and eyes red and puffy from crying—crying over him—had to come close. The way Hassel waited for him, holding onto his hand in the stuffy, dim room like he was afraid Brassius might slip away then and there if he let go… It wasn’t anything he’d soon forget.
“I can move out,” Hassel says, sniffling and wiping his eyes hastily with his sleeve, “I don’t want to drag you into the middle of this. You have enough to worry about and-”
It’s a split second in which Brassius makes the decision to reach up, grab his wrist with one hand, and wipe away his stray tears under his thumb with the other in what he hopes is a comforting gesture. He’s never been good at comforting people. Or convincing them to stay. “You don’t need to worry about dragging me down. You’ve been helping me this entire time. You’re… You’re so selfless and kind and… bright. So, please, let me help you as well.”
—
A few weeks in, the garden starts to feel like a part of the home again, like a hidden sanctuary just for them. It’s far from its former glory, dead in some parts and barely thriving in others, but it’s always changing, always growing in spite of everything. The daily trips to the garden center and plant nursery in town become a part of their routine, comfortable like greeting a longtime friend.
It’s a sweltering afternoon in Artazon with the sun beating down hard overhead when they’re sitting in the garden again. Brassius wipes the beads of sweat rolling down his forehead away with his gloved hands and catches movement out of the corner of his eye. He blinks and then blinks again, wondering if he’s simply been outside for too long and is finally succumbing to heatstroke. Summers in Artazon have always been intense, almost brutal.
But Hassel seems to be looking for the flash of yellow and green darting across the flowerbeds, too, so he figures he didn’t imagine it. There’s a silent moment where neither of them move before a Sunflora pushes itself up from between the flowerbeds and stares at the two of them. New life has made its home here in their little garden it seems.
“Hello, little guy,” Brassius says, low and moving slowly so as to not scare the beautiful creature, “How did you get in here?”
Hassel moves quickly, without thinking, to grab the Sunflora. It scurries away back towards the fence before Hassel can intercept it, leaving him to face plant straight into the soil they’d potted a few days earlier. When he raises his head again, his cheek is streaked with dirt and he’s got a fiery look in his eye, refusing to be bested by a plant. He goes for a grab again, but the Sunflora burrows beneath the backyard fence and is gone before either of them can do anything to stop it.
The sight of Hassel, from a long line of esteemed Pokemon trainers, covered in dirt and bested by an invading Sunflora is too much at once. And Brassius laughs. He laughs harder than he has in years, hard enough to make the marrow in his ribs ache.
“What? What’s so funny?” Hassel tilts his head and asks innocently, like he’s not the person single handedly responsible for stealing the breath straight from Brassius’ lungs.
“You!” he gets out in between his breathlessness, “You, trying to catch a Pokemon with your bare hands instead of in a Pokeball!”
Hassel runs a hand through his hair sheepishly and shrugs. “Well… you know, I thought you might like to have it. I wanted to catch it for you.”
“That is very sweet of you, Hass,” Brassius says, when he finally manages to stop laughing and his whole chest burns from it, “but you don’t need to do that for me. I think you scared the poor thing half to death.”
—
Brassius swears the newspaper clipping Hassel had torn out for him is taunting him from across the room, an ever present reminder of something he couldn’t forget even if he tried. Which, really, he did. It wasn’t like he had an obligation to enter the contest and he was sure Hassel had already forgotten all about it as well, but he just couldn’t stop thinking about it. He wants to enter, to prove that he has what it takes to make something important, something that lasts.
He’s been staring at the blank page of his sketchpad for twenty painfully long minutes, as still and as silent as a ghost, willing for something to happen. Like all of the excess energy from a lifetime of resting and waiting and waiting and waiting for things to get better will finally be able to be let out and dance across the blank page until something beautiful remains.
Eventually he forces his hand to move, for his pencil to glide across the paper, because he’ll be here forever if he never starts. But it’s all wrong, the lines are too shaky, the anatomy is all off, every single detail is thrown under harsh scrutiny. How could he ever enter the competition with something like this?
He tears the page out of the sketchbook, something he’d promised himself he’d stop doing after realizing a few of his sketchbooks were only a third of their original volume by the time he’d filled them, and starts over. It’s another five minutes and another crumpled page tossed haphazardly into the trashcan before he’s struck with the distinct feeling he’s done this before and he’s stuck retracing his steps.
The blank page in front of him mocks him because for all of the things he’s created over the years, all of the time and effort poured into his craft, he can’t come up with a single piece for a competition. And he wants to, really wants to more than he’s wanted anything else in the past few months, but it won’t come.
If he thinks about it rationally, looking down at himself, pulling himself apart to analyze like a bug under a microscope, he knows he can still paint and sculpt just as well as he used to, if not better. But it’s different now, he’s different. Like a well that’s siphoned from everyday until there’s nothing left but the expectation of something being there.
The door opens behind him and rays of sunshine spill through the entryway, casting a gentle glow through the dim room.
“Hello again! I brought lunch!” Hassel places a plastic bag full of takeout boxes on the coffee table before taking the seat opposite of Brassius. “Create anything new today?”
Brassius flips the sketchpad closed, leaving the blank page to gnaw at the back of his mind like a stubborn parasite, and tucks it away. “Yeah… How about you? Write any new songs?”
“Oh, yes! Just as I was waiting in line for the food, actually, I started to think of a song idea. It was hard not to hum and tap my foot to it.”
“A song about waiting in line?”
“Mhm! My mind always tends to wander when I’m waiting. You can make almost anything into art, really. Although, now that I’m home and can actually write my idea down, I can’t quite remember most of it. Such is the life of an artist.” He laughs in between bites of his lunch.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about the contest you mentioned. The art installation one.”
“Ah! Are you thinking about entering?” Hassel’s face lights up in a way that just seals his fate further. Well, now he has to create something for the competition. He’d be letting Hassel down otherwise, wouldn’t he?
“I think so, yeah…. Actually, Hass, can I ask you something?”
Hassel’s lips dip into a slight frown and he leans forward. “Yeah, of course, anytime. Is everything alright, Brassie?”
Brassius nods, bracing his hands against the armrests of his chair and tries to ignore the tremor that runs through his hands.“You always seem so inspired. How do you do it? How do you come up with new ideas all the time?”
The plastic fork hangs loosely from his lips as Hassel pauses to think about it. “That’s kinda a difficult question… I guess whenever I need inspiration I try to do new things or visit new places. A change of scenery usually helps. If you stay as you were and try to force inspiration, it doesn’t really work that well.”
“So stagnation is the death of progress…”
There’s a split second where Hassel moves to reach his hand out but falls just short of it. His frown deepens. “Hey, are you sure that you’re okay? You don’t have to enter the competition if you don’t want to.”
“I do want to,” Brassius insists, a terrible, traitorous feeling building in his throat that burns. “I do want to and that’s the problem. It’s just… not as easy as it used to be.”
“Well, what’s changed then? Maybe we can fix it,” Hassel suggests, always the first to try and help. (Brassius wonders, distantly, if he’s just beyond help.)
“I have, I guess. It used to come so easily for me. I didn’t even have to think about creating art to do it. It would just flow out, like a raging storm leaving an imprint on everything in its path… but now it’s dried up.”
“Every artist has slumps and dry spells. It’s all a part of the process, it doesn't mean there’s anything wrong with you, Brassie.”
“I’m not getting any healthier,” Brassius admits, staring intently at his thin fingertips, “I always sort of knew I wasn’t going to get better, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I don’t have time to waste, but I don’t know what else to do.” He cradles his head in his hands, bony fingers pressing hard against his temples.
“You don’t have to figure it all out in one afternoon, Brassie. As amazing as you are, that’s a lot for just one person to work through so quickly,” Hassel offers him a reassuring smile, “I think you should start by eating lunch.”
Hassel pushes the takeout container across the coffee table towards Brassius with a gentle, but firm smile. It smells delicious even if the thought of forcing anything solid down at the moment makes his stomach flip inside out.
Brassius nods. “Okay… I can do that.”
—
There’s something about teaching each other that just comes naturally. They each have a lifetime of knowledge and experience about their crafts to share and when they come together it feels like something that’s been missing has finally been filled.
“You’re getting a lot better at that,” Hassel says, beaming at him with a toothy smile, “You’ll be a natural at it soon.”
“You’ve been getting a lot better at drawing as well,” Brassius returns the compliment, staring back at Hassel from behind the neck of his guitar. He’s no longer scared to hold it like he had been the first time, fearful he might break something so important to his dear friend. Now it feels like an extension of his body, like it’s always been there but he’s never known it.
“Thank you, Brassie! Though, there is actually something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Go for it.”
“I’ve been wanting to ask if I can draw you?”
Whatever Brassius had been expecting Hassel to ask—and his mind had been running a mile a minute trying to figure out if he’d done something wrong to invoke that question—it had certainly not been that.
“Draw me?”
Hassel’s face flushes bright red to the tips of his ears and he immediately starts stammering a backpedal. “Well- It was just- Just an idea. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“I’ve never really modeled for a picture before,” Brassius admits. He’s not entirely opposed to the idea, but it’s something new, unfamiliar.
(Though, he’s become shockingly comfortable with the unfamiliar ever since Hassel came into his life. Not that he would ever admit that out loud.)
“You don’t have to pose or anything. What you’re doing now is perfect!”
“Okay, sure.” Brassius shifts slightly, trying to get into a more comfortable position with Hassel’s guitar sitting in his lap.
Hassel twirls his pencil between his fingers, only looking up at Brassius for brief moments in between his hurried scribbling. His gaze is intense, half hidden behind the pages of his sketchpad. It makes Brassius feel like a butterfly with its wings tacked onto someone’s wall to be gawked at and admired, like his worst, most vulnerable self has been dragged out for all to see.
The pencil in Hassel’s hand becomes an instrument in its own sort of way, rhythmic in its strokes against the paper. It creates a song that belongs to both of them and them alone.
Hassel sticks his tongue out whenever he’s concentrating really hard on something, Brassius notices. Just one of his many endearing qualities.
“Do you need to take a break?” Hassel asks about half an hour in when Brassius’ legs have started to feel like pins and needles whenever he moves the slightest bit.
“No, no I’m fine,” Brassius insists, ignoring the static feeling that buzzes through his legs. In truth, he’s not sure he wants this moment to end even if his legs have fallen asleep on him and have started to go numb.
Hassel looks unconvinced and sets his art supplies down on the table nonetheless. “Well, let me at least get you something to drink. It’s the least I can do.”
Before Brassius can tell him that it’s wholly unnecessary, Hassel’s already up and halfway into the kitchen, rummaging through the cabinets to find his favorite tea blend. And so he sits back further into the couch until the cushions threaten to swallow him whole, listening to the sound of the kettle whistling and wishing that they could stay like this forever. It’s a silly thought, he knows that much, nothing lasts forever especially when it comes to him.
He doesn’t even know how much time he has left or what state he’ll be in if things get worse, but just for a moment he allows himself to hold onto hope. If he truly does have such little time left, he can’t think of a better way to spend it than filling it with afternoon tea and iced lemonade on a hot day outside on a picnic and lazy guitar strumming that feels like a hook between his ribcage in all the best ways.
“Sorry that took so long,” Hassel says, returning with tea cups in hand. Once they’re all settled, he picks up the sketchpad again and continues working away at it fervently.
“It’s no problem. Thank you, Hass.” He takes a long sip of the tea, warm and comforting.
Hassel smiles at him, gentle and full of the love for life that Brassius has come to admire about him so much. “Of course. I’m almost done.”
It’s another few minutes of scribbling followed by erasing before Hassel practically springs up all at once, eager to show him his masterpiece. His fingers are stained with graphite, but it doesn’t dampen his spirits whatsoever.
“What do you think?”
There’s a great amount of care and detail that went into every line and eraser marks and crinkled paper from where Hassel had tried several times to get a section just right. I see you—it says—I understand you.
“It’s… It’s amazing,” Brassius says, a bit breathlessly. He takes the sketchpad into his hand, careful not to smudge any of the pencil. “Can I keep it?”
“I’m glad you like it,” Hassel says, sounding a bit too relieved. Perhaps Brassius isn’t the only one feeling like his most vulnerable self has been exposed for all to see. “Yes, of course. I’d be honored.”
—
It’s another sunny afternoon in Artazon and the two of them are walking through the town square when Hassel stops walking abruptly, the last words of his sentence dying in his throat. His eyes widen and he pulls Brassius into the alleyway between two of the shops.
“Okay, don’t panic,” Hassel says before Brassius can even get a word in to ask what’s going on and why they’re hiding in the alleyway outside a sandwich shop.
“What are we doing?”
Hassel’s gaze keeps flicking back to the mouth of the alleyway and then back to Brassius, making sure they haven’t been spotted. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. I just… Well, I believe I saw one of my relatives back there. I didn’t want them to see me.”
“And I don’t suppose they’re just here to sightsee,” Brassius suggests. It’s too hopeful of a thought knowing what he does about Hassel’s family.
Hassel shakes his head, looking the most grim that Brassius has ever seen him before. “I’m afraid not…” He looks back towards the town plaza one more time, eyes dark like the sun in them has been totally eclipsed. “Maybe I should… just go back with them. This shouldn’t be your problem.”
Brassius grabs a hold of Hassel’s hand and starts to pull him towards the back exit of the alleyway. “Here, I know a good place to hide.”
Hassel blinks at him for a moment before complying. Together, the two of them half-run, half-power walk hand-in-hand to the hedge maze in the middle of town. The maze twists and turns all around dizzyingly, but Brassius presses on, leading Hassel behind him.
“Are you sure we aren’t gonna get lost in here?” Hassel asks, feeling a bit disoriented just looking at the towering walls of the maze.
“I know this place like the back of my hand. Don’t worry, Hass.”
After a minute, they reach a dead end where they can finally breathe. With his hands on his knees, bending forward to catch his breath, Brassius laughs, wheezy and lungs aching in a way that he can’t say he hates fully.
“That was— That was fun,” he says in between panting breaths, “I can’t say I’ve ever run like that from someone before.”
Hassel places a hand on Brassius' shoulder, lips dipping into a frown and eyes full of thinly veiled worry. “Be careful, Brassie. Remember your heart.”
“I’ll be okay. You worry too much.” He playfully bats Hassel’s hand away, though his heart is beating like a warning drum in his chest.
“Still, you should sit down,” Hassel insists, guiding the both of them down into a sitting position in the grass, “Don’t overexert yourself please.”
There’s a moment of uneasy silence between them as Hassel looks over his shoulder at the sound of any passersby elsewhere in the maze.
“Don’t worry,” Brassius reassures him, “Almost no one comes to this part of the maze. This is where I would always come to hide away as a kid.”
“Thank you for what you did back there.” Hassel closes the gap between them, so close that he can feel the pulse in his neck beating furiously. And despite his best efforts to hold them back, there’s tears pooling in his eyes again. “I’b...I’b just so sorry! I neber wanted to drag you ibto this!”
“Hey, hey, it’s alright. It’s like I said back then, as long as you want to stay here in Artazon, you’ll always have a place with me. No matter what your family thinks about it. Your life is your own, Hass.”
—
It had started as a simple grocery run, something that shouldn’t have taken more than half an hour to complete, but… Hassel, being himself, had gotten distracted by talking to the nice shopkeeper who seemed all too interested in his family and then by the violinist playing by the fountain. And by then it had gotten so late that he figured he might as well pick up dinner for the two of them as well. The last time he’d tried cooking at home had been disastrous and Brassius hadn’t fared much better at it, so it was back to takeout for the two of them.
In total, the half an hour trip has turned into a 3 hour long excursion by the time Hassel finally arrives home.
“Brassie, I’m home! I brought dinner back.”
The house is dim and eerily silent as Hassel enters. A sense of foreboding dread settles in his gut as he sets the groceries and the takeout on the living room coffee table. It’s a bit too early for him to be asleep and normally he comes out to greet Hassel whenever he returns.
He feels a bit silly as he sneaks towards Brassius’ studio. He doesn’t quite know why he’s sneaking around like he’s afraid of getting caught, but there’s a feeling in his gut that won’t let him rest until he makes sure. He knocks first on the door and then knocks again after there’s no answer.
“Brassius?” Hassel calls out as the door to the studio creaks open. He takes a step forward and immediately steps in something sticky.
Paint is his first thought until he looks to see the shiny green wine bottle that it’s spilling out from and soaking into the cracks in the floor. And then there’s Brassius, sitting hunched over in his chair facing a blank canvas and surrounded by balled up pieces of paper and scattered art supplies strewn about.
“Have you been drinking? You shouldn’t mix alcohol with your medications. That’s dangerous.”
There’s a long inhale from the other side of the room followed by a moment where neither of them move.
“Brassie… Are you alright?” It feels like a ridiculous question as soon as it leaves his mouth—like trying to put a bandaid over Pandora's box.
“I’m tired.” It’s such a small concession but something in the way that his voice wavers like a rope stretched too far and fraying at the edges makes Hassel’s heart sink.
He’s always been too impulsive for his own good as his family was so eager to remind him and it doesn’t change now. It almost comes as second nature to wrap his arms around him, grip too tight, too intense just like always. He feels the fever radiating from him, rolling off of his skin like an electric stove and the racing pulse in his neck.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” he continues, “I thought I was doing everything right. If I just— If I just went through the motions for long enough… then it would all be worth it in the end. But there’s nothing. This isn’t fun for me anymore.”
“Maybe… Maybe you should try taking a break. You can always come back to your art later when you have the energy for it again. If you burn both ends of the candle for long enough, there won’t be anything left.”
A watery laugh bubbles up from Brassius and his chest heaves. “That’s the thing. I don’t know who I would even be without it. I don’t want to lose all that I’ve worked so hard on, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up either.”
“What you’re feeling is totally valid, but I cannot agree!” Hassel pulls away, nails digging into his hands almost painfully tight. “You’re a wonderful person, even if you gave up on art entirely, that would not change. You are so much more than what you can give to others.”
“I’m afraid your effort is just wasted on me.” His head dips lower into his hands, completely obscuring his expression. “I think… Maybe you should go. I’ll only drag you down.”
“If… If you want me to leave… then I will,” Hassel says and it feels like the hardest thing he’s done. He’s spent a lifetime running away from things that are too hard or too unpleasant for him to bear and for once he’s found something that he wants to hold onto and he sees it slipping through his fingers. Because he loves the life they’ve made in Artazon. He loves the early mornings spent in the garden and the afternoons spent in the meadows outside of town sipping lemonade and making music. And even the quiet nights that they spent inside watching movies and just being together.
But most importantly, he loves him.
“If it will reduce even a fraction of the pain you’re feeling then I’ll do it. But… just know that I’m not here out of any sense of misplaced obligation. I’m here because I want to be and because I care about you. And I will always be here for you, if you need me to.”
“You really are stubborn, but I guess that’s what I like about you,” Brassius says after a moment that feels far too long.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I’m really tired. I just want to sleep, I think.”
Hassel nods and loops one arm underneath his knees and another around his back as he lifts him into his arms. He holds him gingerly like a piece of artwork that needs to be preserved as they walk.
“We have to stop making a habit of this.”
“I don’t mind it.”
As they reach the stairs, Brassius buries his face into the crook of Hassel’s neck. “Thank you, Hass, for everything.”
Hassel lowers him carefully down onto the bed and for a peaceful moment, they let themselves sit in silence.
“Brassius? Whenever you’re feeling better… Would you take a trip with me? It would only be for a day, but there’s somewhere I want to show you.”
“Of course I would.”
—
It takes three days for Brassius’ fever to finally break.
And when it does, they take a flying taxi to the Secluded Beach, one of the great sights of Paldea. It’s a lonely little alcove that hardly houses any visitors, but the view of the oceanfront is breathtaking.
It might be nearing the end of the summer but it refuses to go down without a fight. Boiling heat fights with the salty ocean breeze. The waves rise and fall, lapping at the shoreline and everything is okay. The calm after the storm.
“This is where I came to when I ran away from home for the first time,” Hassel admits, something he’s never told anyone else before. He’s always been the problem child, the one that’s too rowdy and too rebellious for his own good so who else could he tell? “Well, they found me eventually. I was just a child so it’s not like I could refuse to come home like I can now. But still, I always come back here when I need to think.”
Brassius sits down, sinking into the warm sand all too comfortably. It’s nice to have a change of scenery for once. He drags his finger through the grains of sand, drawing… something. He’s not sure what yet, but it’s the process. “I can see why. It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, it is… Listen, Brassie, I just wanted… to say that I’m sorry.”
There’s a moment where Brassius just stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “Sorry? For what? You’ve been wonderful… Nothing but helpful since you came into my life.”
“I’m sorry for bringing up the competition. I never meant to put that sort of pressure on you.”
“Oh, Hass. I didn’t want to let you down because you seemed so happy when I said I would try to enter the competition, yes, but you never put any pressure on me to enter, unintentionally or otherwise. I was the one putting pressure on myself. Like always. I just didn’t want to disappoint you after all you’ve done for me.”
“Even if you never touched art again, I could never bring myself to think any less of you for it. No matter what you choose to do, I’ll be here. If it’s really what you want, I’ll be happy for you.”
“I don’t want to give up,” Brassius says, resolute and stronger than he’s felt in years, “I’m going to give it another shot.”
—
It’s one of the few times that Brassius is in the garden by himself that he spots the Sunflora again. With Hassel being a rather late riser compared to Brassius who struggled to get a full night’s sleep on the best of days, he decides to do a bit of early morning gardening as well as try to get some sketches down in the meantime. Being surrounded by nature always gave him peace of mind and inspiration when he needed it most.
Brassius spots the bright yellow petals first as the Pokemon quickly ducks behind one of the planter boxes, covering its face with its leaves.
“Hello, friend.” Brassius waves to the Pokemon, but doesn’t make any move. The poor thing is scared enough without him making any sudden movements like Hassel had in his excitement to catch it. “Would you like some water?”
Tilting the watercan at his side forward, Brassius waits patiently as the Sunflora regards him with cautious curiosity. It waits a few seconds before slinking closer and tipping one of its leaves into the watering can.
“I should apologize for my friend the other day. He can be a little over-enthusiastic but he means well.”
The Sunflora chirps happily at his side, retracting its leaves once it's absorbed most of the water in the can. Once it’s done, it sits by his side peacefully basking in the early morning sunlight filtering over the fence.
“Have you decided to make our garden your new home, little guy? Well, that’s fine by me. Stay for as long as you wish.”
If Brassius had come out here looking for inspiration, then he’s certainly found it.
(“Did something happen? You seem more smiley than usual,” Hassel asks later, still groggy and rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“Oh, nothing. Just met a friend is all.”)
—
It’s not easy and it doesn’t come all at once as a divine burst of inspiration, but slowly and surely Brassius is making progress on the entry for the competition. There’s still rough patches where all he can do is stare blankly at the half-finished sculpture before him, but he knows that it will only be temporary. He can always try again tomorrow.
—
The day of the art exhibition is the most crowded that Brassius has ever seen the town square get. So many visitors from near and far had piled into the quiet, little town to see all of the wonderful art pieces on display. Truthfully, the crowds and the loud chatter from all of the guests was almost too overwhelming but Hassel’s hand in his own, always by his side, made it bearable.
“A lot of people are looking at your entry,” Hassel notes, with his same thousand-volt smile, “You should go talk to them. I’m sure they’d love to ask you some questions about it, if you want to.”
“I don’t know… What if they don’t like it?”
“Brassie, you’ve worked so hard for this and everyone can see that. You’ll do great. And we can get celebratory gelato afterwards. My treat.
“You’re right.” Brassius nods and lets go of Hassel’s hand. “I’ll hold you to that promise later.”
“Of course. Have fun!”
There’s something that’s just right about seeing Brassius up there with all of those people, smiling and answering questions about his artwork. Like a puzzle fitting into place after an eternity of trying to piece it together.
“Excuse me,” a voice comes from behind him and a hand taps Hassel on the shoulder. “Are you… Hassel?”
He turns around to see a young woman with short, dark green hair. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe we’ve met before?”
She shakes her head, holding a letter clutched tightly in her hands. “No, we haven’t.”
“Wait— You’re Brassius’ sister, aren’t you?”
She looks at him, but doesn’t meet his gaze. “Yes… He sent me a letter telling me about all of the things that have happened while I’ve been gone and invited me to come see his art installation. He mentioned you in his letter so… I just wanted to thank you for taking care of my brother in my stead. He’s lucky to have you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. We take care of each other.”
“Yes, but it’s just that I’ve never seen him look so happy before.”
“He worked really hard to get here,” Hassel says, fondness bleeding from his words, “Aren’t you going to go talk to him?”
She shifts uncomfortably, chewing on her lip. “I don’t know. He looks so happy and I don’t want to ruin this day for him.”
“You came all this way to see him. I think you both owe it to yourselves to at least talk.”
“You make it sound so easy, but okay. I’ll do it.”