Work Text:
Nominal Graves didn't know what he was doing on the train.
Okay, in theory, he did. He was on his way to visit a museum, one that displayed a favorite painting of Nom's. He was going to see the sights with his band, all of the members of which were slumped over each other and him, asleep.
But, sometimes, he just felt lost.
He did something he loved—making and playing music, he'd always been a creative—but even still, it was so hard to just get out of his head. The band made him happy, absurdly so, but it could never erase what happened to him sometimes.
Nom and Katie grew up okay for the first few years, nurtured by their mother, but after a while, their father's neglectful ways came to the forefront. The minute he realized that Nom was capable of cooking meals for the two of them, it became Nom's job. The only silver lining of the system was that it meant Katie would always remember to remind him to eat.
And then their mom finally divorced him, gave Katie and Nom the option to stay or go with her. Katie left, Nom stayed. He had been angry, he had been hurt—she hadn't told him until she was actually leaving. To him, the house was familiar and therefore safe. He knew how to survive it, he knew the routine, he knew which floorboards creaked.
For Katie, leaving was safety. She couldn't stay there. He understood, later, but it didn't help. He kept forgetting to eat. He buried himself in hobbies, taught himself to sing and play guitar just because a teacher told him he couldn't do it—started on acoustic, then learned bass after saving up for a year.
He used to be religious, clinging to the beliefs that their mother followed as a kind of support. If there was a good, perfect, merciful God out there, he had reasoned, surely they might forgive him for whatever unseen blemishes he had somehow accumulated like a knight breaking an oath and not a scared, sad teenage boy who just wanted things to be okay again.
And he was healing, yes. He had realized that what had happened to him and Katie at the hands of their father was abuse long ago, even if it was 'just neglect', and learned to stop praying to cope—there might be a God up there, but Nom wasn't ready to think about it yet. He had an awesome support system and had long since made up with Katie. Therapy was a not-so-distant dream.
But the bad days always came, and his body was trying to remind him as hard as it possibly could that this might end up being a bad day.
His bandmates, however unconsciously they were doing it, were giving him every hope to the contrary. And he loved them for it, of course he did.
The museum was lovely, but he didn't find the piece he was looking for for a while—the place was practically a maze. At long last, crowded lovingly by his bandmates, they discovered it tucked into a semi-solitary corner, not a soul looking at it.
The painting depicted a scene Nom had always connected to oddly—it showed a tall, willowy tree with deep gray peeling bark and pale white leaves swaying down. The artist's brushwork was masterful—you could see the impression of wind everywhere in the art. Nom wasn't much of a painter, but Katie's best friend Kitty was, and their style reminded him heavily of this anonymous artist's.
Beneath the tree was a grave, tall and proud, marked in the middle by what appeared to be wooden block accented by various working tools. But what struck him truly about the piece was the people within it: two gingers on either side, both leaning on it as if to sleep. On the woman on the right's lap was a head of blond hair, belonging to a sweet-looking man with peridot eyes.
Leaning his head on the shoulder of the woman on the left, who appeared to be in some kind of knight's gear, red, black, and gold, was a man with blue skin and blue hair that had an odd texture.
It reminded him of his band. Mae, the woman on the right, Katie, the one on the left. 4C, the man with blue skin and Scott the unassuming blue-cloaked figure. But Nom had no equivalent in the painting.
He supposed that must make him the grave.
As if somehow sensing his terrible vibes, Mae wrinkled her nose and wrapped her arm around Nom's back, pulling him closer to her. "You're thinking too loudly," She scolded him astutely, booping him on the nose.
"My mistake," Nom attempted to deadpan. It didn't come out right—he was smiling too hard. "I should stop stewing now."
"Exactly," The group chorused as one.
It was a mystery what happened to those in the frame, whether they were real or not, but some would say that you could find them in the group of five laughing at a joke they hadn’t even made.