Unfinished Smurfs

Chapter 13: I Smurf My Heart On My Sleeve

Brainy wasn't a trusting Smurf, and he freely admitted this. Others were just too stupid to trust, with the exception of Mama and Papa, after all. Even his very best friends weren't free from his suspicions.

So when Hefty came back from a trip to a human village, only to begin acting strangely, one could hardly blame Brainy for getting worried. The strongsmurf was unusually quiet and thoughtful, carrying a little jar around with him, distracted for days on end – something had to have happened.

Brainy tried to ask him about it, but he dodged the question. He tried to tell others, but they thought he was being ridiculous. Finally, Brainy decided he would just have to investigate it on his own.

It was late at night, and Brainy was planning to peek in through Hefty's window and see if anything strange was in his house using Snappybugs's eyelights, only to find that Hefty still had his lanterns lit.

Hefty was big on getting enough sleep, always bugging Brainy about his habit of staying awake studying, because of the effects it had on health. Him staying up this late was the final straw, and Brainy pushed through his door, mouth open to confront him–

Only to find Hefty sitting on his bed, the mysterious jar open on the floor next to him, holding a small knife against his upper arm.

"What the smurf do you think you're smurfing?!" Brainy yelped, running forward to grab Hefty's wrist. He didn't actually have a chance of restraining the strongsmurf, but he still had to try.

Eyes wide, Hefty slowly put down the knife, flipping his hand so that he was the one holding Brainy's wrist. His voice, when he spoke, was as calm and confident as he ever was. "It isn't what it looks like."

"It looks like you're about to smurf your arm open!" Brainy hissed, his own voice high and hysterical. What in the world was happening?! Did Hefty go crazy? Was he going to turn on somesmurf else next? Was Brainy in danger? Was his friend under a spell or something? He needed to yell for help, but there was no guarantee anysmurf would hear him and even if they did, nosmurf could get there faster than Hefty could grab the knife and–

"Hey, hey! Brainman, calm down." Hefty gently moved both his hands to Brainy's shoulders, still keeping him from fleeing in a grip too strong for him to break, but simultaneously grounding him even as he kept him in place. "Breath, bro, breath..."

He was breathing, he... was just breathing really smurfing fast, and when did that start? Oh Smurf, this was a horrible time for a panic attack. Hefty was the one that needed help, he had to remember that and push through, but he couldn't, he–

"Breath," Hefty repeated, more insistently this time, shaking Brainy in a way that was surprisingly careful. Or, not so surprisingly, he supposed – Hefty was always gentle with Smurfs who needed it. "Remember what Mental taught you? In, one two three, out. Slowly, deeply. Come on bro, just copy me, alright?"

Brainy nodded shakily, trying to match how Hefty breathed, following his count. He focused all of his mind on breathing properly, just like he focused when studying, though he was sure he didn't quite manage to do it exactly right. Still, it helped.

A few minutes passed like that, Brainy slowly calming down until he could think clearly again. He sat down on Hefty's table, since the other had no chairs, and looked up at him warily.

"You alright now?" Hefty asked. Brainy nodded once, still staring warily at the other. Hefty shifted, uncharacteristically nervous, and sank back into his bed with a sigh. He buried his head in his hands. "It's not what it smurfs like."

"You smurfed that already," Brainy replied dully, trying to twist his useless concern into useful anger. "Smurfs, Hefty, I'm not even sure what it smurfs like! Were you trying to perform amateur surgery? Cutting out a dangerous bug that Doctor's too scared of to help with? Just happened to be smurfing the knife weirdly?"

"It's a long story..." Hefty looked up, sounding smaller than he ever did even as a Smurfling.

"I've got all night," Brainy answered firmly. It was true – he'd already planned to stay up late investigating anyways, so he had completely cleared his schedule. Hefty was worth that. Hefty was worth a lot of things.

Including being heard out before Brainy told Papa about this.

"I don't know where to start." Hefty laughed, but it was a weak, almost bitter sound. It wasn't like Hefty in the slightest. He got up to pace, waving his arms around as he started and stopped speaking several times.

Hefty had always been open with his emotions, and Brainy had had decades to learn how to read the expressions that would flash across the other's face. He was strong in everything he did, including feeling things, never a Smurf to go only halfway.

Right now, Brainy could see nervousness, fear, anger, sadness, and worry, emotions he had almost never seen Hefty have. He also saw excitement, anticipation, and hope. Just what the Smurf was going on to make his friend, his brother in spirit, act like this?

Brainy waited patiently, though he didn't feel very patient, while the other gathered his words. Finally, Hefty started speaking, not looking at Brainy.

"I guess it all started when I smurfed a name." Hefty ran a hand over his hat, still pacing. "I'm Hefty Smurf, I'm big and strong. I lift things and punch things."

He gestured to the exercise equipment around his Mushroom, most of which were various sorts of dumbbells. "Of course I do, that's just who I am. It fits me, I love it, it's a great name!"

"I agree, it suits you..." Brainy said after a few moments of silence, wondering where this was going. Hefty's name trait had always been obvious, his main issue had been which word for 'strong' to use, in Brainy's opinion.

"And, I mean," Hefty growled, frustrated, "I'm not smart like you, and I'm not good at knowing how others are smurfing like Smurfette, and I guess I'm a little good at battle strategy but– my point is, it makes sense that nosmurf really expects more of me than showing off and dealing with Gargamel and carrying things!"

"...I expect more of you," Brainy said quietly, after another lull in the other's speech, Hefty apparently caught up in his thoughts. He remembered the boy that teased him growing up. The idiot with every thought or feeling painted on his face. The kid that once beat up another Smurfling for stealing Brainy's glasses.

Hefty was a strongsmurf, that had always been true. But, somehow, Brainy really did expect a lot more from him. He was confident and popular, somesmurf you could trust and listen to easily. He was destined for great things, almost as great as Brainy himself was. And maybe Brainy would tell him that someday, but for now he'd hope that the other understood without him actually saying all of it.

Hefty paused in his pacing, finally looking at Brainy. His face softened, a small smile appearing. "I know you do, Brains. But nosmurf else really does. And that's fine, really. I'm fine with being the strongsmurf!"

He started pacing again, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself than Brainy. "Still, it gets... Nosmurf... I mean, I'm more than that! I..."

He growled, frustrated with his own inability to put his thoughts into words. Without warning, he reached under his bed, dragging out a wooden chest that he quickly upturned, spilling its contents onto the floor. "Here. It's not like I want to be another Painter, but..."

Brainy stared at the notebooks, kneeling on the ground to look through them. He remembered watching Hefty from a distance when they were young, sitting by himself and sketching, wondering what he might've been filling all those pages with. He'd never asked, Hefty had never told, and that had been that.

Now he knew. He flipped through the books in awe, looking at hearts. Hearts with spikes, with flames, with arrows. Hearts with faces, hearts made out of twisting vines, hearts dripping with rainbows. Anatomically correct hearts, lopsided hearts, ridiculously simple hearts. They were relatively well done, creative, and absolutely-

"Beautiful," Brainy breathed, unbelieving. Sure, Painter could do any one of them better, but still...

"You really smurf so?" Hefty asked, smiling. He looked away sheepishly. "I don't want to be Sketching Smurf or anything, but I think I'm pretty good. I've just always smurfed the shape, y'know? And it sorta became its own thing, after the first few doodles I did in the dirt."

He picked up one of the oldest notebooks, flipping it open to the very first page. He held it out, revealing a simple red heart. "It's dumb, I know, but this is a part of me. Who would believe that Hefty could smurf things like this, right?"

He chuckled, sounding less bitter and more genuinely amused now. "Smurfs, I'm insane, aren't I? It's not even like it's that big a deal, but it is. I could just show Smurfs my art books, show them that I'm more than just lifting things. But then they'd probably start calling me 'heart sketching Smurf' or Painter would get mad or... Still, it might be a better idea than this."

"You still haven't smurfed what 'this' is," Brainy complained, gesturing to the knife. The fact that Hefty apparently liked to draw one single thing over and over was interesting (and a tiny bit worrying), but it still didn't explain anything.

"You're right, I haven't." Hefty sighed. Leaning against the wall and staring down at the heart drawn in his sketchbook. "I smurfed a guy, on that trip into the human town. He was massive, bigger than Gargamel, with all these drawings all over him."

"Drawings?" Brainy asked, incredulous. Humans were so weird, sometimes.

"Yeah!" Hefty said quietly, smiling softly, looking completely awed at his own memory. "Names and animals and leaves – they were all over him! I smurfed him about it, and he had so many stories. Each picture represented someone he knew or something he did or something that happened to him – good and bad, it seemed like his entire life was smurfed on his skin."

Hefty laughed, jumping a little as he resumed his pacing. "It was incredible, Brainy! There were things I would never have guessed about him that were smurfed clear by those silly little doodles, once I knew how to look. I thought that it must be a pain to redraw them all the time, though, and I smurfed him that."

He turned back to Brainy, eyes wide in wonder. "You know what he said?"

"What?" Brainy asked, some memory or other pulling at the back of his mind. He didn't like the look on Hefty's face, and he didn't like where this was going. He stayed kneeling on the floor, looking up at his grinning friend, and wondered whether Papa would've done the same in his place.

"He didn't have to redraw them. He told me how they do it, it's this human thing where they permanently smurf you with special ink." Hefty looked away for a second, excitement and nervousness dueling on his face as his gaze flicked back to Brainy. "I don't really smurf how to explain it, but they call it–"

"Tattoos," Brainy interrupted flatly, dread faintly pooling in his stomach, as that vague memory sharpened.

Well, at least he wasn't trying to do amateur surgery..?

"You've heard of it?" Hefty asked, then waved it away. "No, what am I saying? Of course you've heard of it, you've probably smurfed fifteen books on it!"

Actually, he'd read one book about it. And, technically, only one chapter was really about how they were done – the rest was about history and culture and other stuff that made humans so strange.

"I know it's not a very Smurfy thing–" Hefty began, picking up the small jar from beside his bed, which Brainy could now see was full of red ink.

"You can say that again," Brainy muttered, standing up to face the other, hands on his hips. "In fact, it might be the single most unsmurfy thing I've ever heard you say!"

"I know that!" Hefty yelled back. He frowned, breathing deeply for a minute. He stared at the jar, not meeting Brainy's eyes, his voice quiet. "I know. Putting ink inside my skin, marking myself permanently... Smurfs, even humans will be able to tell me apart from everysmurf else! I know it's stupid, I know this shouldn't even be a big deal, I know I should've asked somesmurf for help or something."

Brainy watched as a certain sort of determined look came over the other, one he recognized. It was the look he got before fighting Gargamel, before he cleared large branches for a new path all by himself, before he shouted at somesmurf bigger than he was. It was the look that meant he knew he was more confident than he should be, and he was doing the dumb thing anyways, so woe to anysmurf that stood in his way.

"I want the world to always know there's something more in here." Hefty smirked, eyes hardening, tapping his chest. "I want people to smurf my mark, my tattoo, and wonder why a strongsmurf is smurfing around with a stupid little heart on his arm. And I know it'll hurt, maybe a lot, but I wouldn't be Hefty if I couldn't handle a little pain."

He twisted the jar in his hands, staring at Brainy while the silence hung heavily between them. Brainy felt frozen to the spot, processing everything.

Smurfs didn't have tattoos. Tattoos were an insane human thing that were basically just colorful scars. Tattoos marked you as different, made it impossible to hide among your fellow Smurfs, and that wasn't something you did on purpose. He needed to take the knife, go tell Mama and Papa about this, let the town decide what to do...

It was what Papa would've done. Papa would have told his Redcap about something like this, when he was younger. Brainy needed to do the same, he knew that, so what was stopping him?

Hefty looked so hopeful. And it was stupid, Brainy thought, very stupid to get this obsessed with something like hearts. He just couldn't understand it. But it mattered so much to Hefty, so maybe the fact that Brainy didn't understand didn't matter, just this once.

Hefty was worth a lot. Brainy sighed, admitting to himself that maybe Hefty was even worth his silence, just this once. He looked around, noticing something important, and smiled playfully.

"You're smurfing it wrong~" Brainy declared in a smug sing-song, pulling a quill and some paper out of his backpack, and started to write a list. "You've got ink, and you've got a knife – which I doubt you properly smurfed – but you still need lotion, and something to cover it with afterwards, and when was the last time you ate?"

Brainy talked as he gathered what they needed, Hefty listening for once as he outlined proper aftercare. Brainy didn't know near enough about this, and there were no records on how Smurfs differed from humans in tattoo recovery, so a good deal of what he said was guesswork – but he knew more than Hefty, and no other Smurf had a tattoo as far as they knew, so it was better than nothing.

There came a point where everything was ready – Brainy had repeated everything he knew or had figured out about the subject, all the materials were gathered, Hefty's arm was properly cleaned – and there was nothing left but the act itself.

Brainy sat on the table and Hefty reclaimed his spot on the bed, watching in nervous anticipation as the knife was raised to skin. They both winced when Hefty started carefully tapping the ink-covered blade into his own arm.

It was slow-going, and Brainy wished it was over from the moment it began, but it did eventually get finished. It was crude, and looked purple in places due to the blood, yet it didn't look too bad. It was a simple red heart, nothing really special about it.

Hefty flexed, breathing deeply because of the pain, and looked at Brainy. "Well? What do you smurf?"

"...it suits you," Brainy decided after a moment, watching the other's muscles move behind the new mark. Something about it felt right, felt like it belonged there, felt like Hefty.

"You really think so?" Hefty asked. He chuckled, a sound of utter disbelief, and closed his eyes. He propped his head against his hand, elbow resting on his leg. "I can't believe I smurfed this. I'm going to be in so much trouble."

"Yeah," Brainy agreed, sliding off the table walking over to sit next to Hefty, putting a comforting hand on his back. He waited until the other opened his eyes to look at him. "We are."

They both started laughing at that, both tired, shocked, caught between regret and joy. Tomorrow would be a new challenge, as there would be no hiding this, but for now it didn't matter.

For now, all that mattered was that they were both sitting together, laughing over what might still prove to be a dumb decision. What mattered was that Hefty hadn't had to face this alone. What mattered was that Brainy's friend was safe.

Hefty was worth a lot of things. Brainy's ear, his silence, his words. He was worth his worry, his help, his friendship. He was worth getting in trouble for.