Title comes from the song Raising Cain by Gregory Alan Isakov. If ever there was a song written for Booker DeWitt, it would be this one. I should probably mention that it is a head canon of mine that Booker's wife's name was Anna as well, so that reflects here.
i.
His face is splashed with blood. Thick, hot red blood that his pores absorb, that leaches into his bones, dyeing them a bright red, he is certain. It poisons his mind and crashes against his every sense, filling his world with a thick boil. His fingers are coated with the stuff, the same as his uniform when he tries to wipe his palms clean. It is a futile action, trying to clean hands awash in blood, as the substance only thickens and smears when his fingers press to the hole clear through his stomach.
His face is splashed with blood, and not all of it is his.
A moan, unnerving and involuntary, falls from his lips. Pockets of light flash when his eyes slip closed, and he does not think of screaming children, covered in red just as he. He doesn't think of the children, he doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't.
He focuses his mind to a small drab apartment, where his pretty little bride waits for him, smiles bright and daisies pressed to her brown locks. He thinks of that small apartment, saturated by his pretty bride's presence, and his pretty little children that he is certain will follow his victorious return home.
Was certain.
His mind betrays him, imagining children with his smile and her brown hair splattered with blood. He groans. His mind betrays him, remembering the crying children clinging to the skirts of their dead mothers. His mind betrays him, as does his broken and bruised body.
Someone is calling his name. Urgently, with one hand shaking at his shoulder and the other inside the hole in his body, searching for the murderous bits of metal. He groans once more, and the hand increases its search.
Booker cannot open his eyes now, even if he wished to, and for that he is grateful. He does not have to see the man working feverishly over him, the one ignoring the soft gurgles of someone drowning off to his right. He does not have to see the blanket of snow stained with mismatched splatters of red, or the butt of his rifle, dropped in the initial shock of his wound.
The hand stills suddenly, then sticky fingers to his neck and a murmur of words he is sure is a prayer. His side is left empty, his arms folded neatly, and his lungs are unmoving. The world grows sluggish and unsure around him, and his heart in no longer pounding loudly in his ears.
His mind betrays him. He imagines sun pressed daisies and bloody children, and he repeats the soundless prayer.
...
ii.
"Anna... Anna?" He knocks over a bottle of whiskey in the path of his drunken reach. It falls to ground and smashes with a loud crash, causing him to wince. The sound reverberates in his brain, distorted and unapologetic, catching the empty corners of his mind. "Anna?"
"I'm here," she says, suddenly and softly, fingers fluttering against the damp hair across his forehead. "Shh, I'm here."
He melts into the couch and smiles up at her pointed, angelic face. It is drawn tight in his vision now, from concern or anger he cannot be sure. A sigh slips from him and his fingers tangle in her brown locks at the base of her skull. He presses his thumb to the warmth of her neck, where her heart pulses against her skin and her throat moves when she swallows. "Anna," he whispers, her name a prayer to the ceiling above.
"It's alright, I'm here." I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. Booker smiles. She is still here, and her books are still here, and her drawings, and her dresses. She's here, and so is he.
Her cold fingers press at the worn patch of his palm and she gently pulls his hand from her frame. She rises, joints cracking in protest, and moves to the base of the couch. The tails of her hair tickle the skin of his leg when she pushes up the hem of his pants, face intent with the task of removing his shoes.
"My Anna," he sighs, and her gaze flickers to his face. He watches the way her jaw tightens, fingers insistent against the knot of his boot. She does not smile reassuringly, telling him yes, she is here and she is his. She does not chastise him, the time for such endearments has long since passed.
She remains silent, following the routine engraved into their bones.
He counts the nearly silent ticks of the grandfather clock her mother had brought from home when this apartment was still filled with smiles and kisses and excited kicks of his baby's foot against his wife's belly. One. Two. Three. She had smiled so wide and assured him it was going to be a boy. Just as handsome and charming as you, she had said, lips pressed against the well-worn stubble of his cheek.
Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Anna releases a frustrated sigh, fingers pulling insistently at the knot of his left boot. Did he lace it too tight? He doesn't remember. He doesn't remember much, really.
When it wasn't a boy, the baby that is, his wife had smiled all the same. An assurance of happiness slipping through her sighs. She had looked so beautiful, so pale, so sick. She had only the time to press the tips of her fingers to the baby's forehead before the spasms overtook her. He wishes his Anna, his first real Anna, could have had the chance to hold their baby (The baby that killed her - but, no, no, no, he doesn't think that.)
Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine.
Anna finally gets his left boot off. She rises, intent on returning to the room that she has reserved herself to, the place where her books and dresses and canvases are her only company. His fingers catch the curve of her boney wrist.
"I..." he swallows, tongue wetting his lips, and she stills, "I'm sorry."
For what exactly, he isn't sure. The traitorous thoughts to pass his mind moments before, maybe. Or the lack of parenting over the last two decades. Maybe the fact that she can rely on a bottle of booze on his desk more than she can for his appearance in this hole he calls home.
She blinks.
He counts the ticks of time, one, two, three, watching as the words fresh from his lips sink into her consciousness. He watches, and he listens to the awful sound of air rattling between his teeth.
She does not remark on his disregard for their usual silence during this time, but her eyes find his. She levels him a small smile that takes the breath from him, and says, "I know."
...
iii.
It rains their fourth day there. It rains and rains, and never stops. Booker can almost imagine the sea swallowing up this monstrous city and burying them all under its waves. Elizabeth can't stop looking up from her book (the one he bought in that tiny book shop, close to the heart of London) with every rumble of thunder that rattles the windowpane. Her eyes are red from lack of sleep and he tries not to notice the nervous twitch that has developed in her fingers with each pass of feet thundering outside the door to their dark and dank hotel room.
Booker looks away, hand coming up to work the kinks in the back of his neck. His head throbs, but it is a pain he has grown familiar with these past few days. Their room alights suddenly, the crack of lighting overwhelming his senses, and he sees Elizabeth jump wildly. Her book falls to the floor with a soft thump, and they both stare at it, hearts skipping too quickly. He expects the sound of flesh against wood to fill his ears as Comstock's men tear down the door, Elizabeth screaming when they rip her from his grasp.
The image of tubes sprouting from the back of her neck comes to mind, white coats sprayed with red with every incision and scream, and Booker shudders.
He leans to the window, eyeing the gray wall of cloud, expecting the sight of a city to sink from above and the sound of cannon soon after. He barely registers Elizabeth's aggravated sigh. He glances to his right, greeted by the sight of an annoyed frown, and she says, "Booker, I can't live like this."
"What?"
She leans to grab her book sprawled across the floor, fingers twitching with every splatter of rain against the windowpane. "I can't live in this constant state of fear. I - I keep expecting Comstock's men to come bursting in, and I...I'm tired of imagining, Booker. I want to go home."
"You don't have a home," he says, and blinks at the hurt expression across her features, soon followed by anger. He stops. "What I mean is that place where they locked you up, that wasn't a home. It was a prison."
She closes her book with a loud snap that causes him to flinch. He nearly thinks she is going to throw the book at him. Again. "You don't think I know that? I may have been held there against my will, but it was familiar and easy and not nearly as dangerous as five minutes with you, Booker."
He winces when the sound of the bathroom door slamming behind her all but echoes in the tiny room. The walls are thin enough that he can hear her angrily rustling for something, and his stomach sinks. He thought they were done with this back-and-forth of spiteful words. They've already declared war on one entity; they don't need to on each other too.
Sighing, he stumbles to the door. His knuckles fall hard against the wood and he says, "Elizabeth, I didn't - look, I didn't mean it, alright?"
She is silent. The pain in his head increases to a dull roar, causing his sight to go slightly fuzzy and a quiet grunt of pain to leave him. The image of a blood soaked Elizabeth fleeing from him dancing across his eyelids, and he swears he is back in Columbia. It passes, though, nearly as quickly as it came, and he shakes it off. She remains silent.
"Elizabeth." His voice is pleading now and his palm rests against the cool wood. AD shines up at him and he nearly grows sick at the sight of it. Anna was stubborn like this too. "Let's just forget I said anything, okay? Let's forget Columbia for a little while and explore. You've wanted to come here your whole life, right? Let's get out."
Her response is so faint he nearly misses it, but his ears tick ever so slightly and he catches it, "But you said we couldn't - "
"I know what I said."
The door opens, ever so slightly, and he sees her peeking out at him curiously. "Could we really?" she asks, and he is startled by how quietly innocent she sounds, almost the same girl who pressed her palm to his face and whispered in wonder. Are you real? He wonders where that girl went.
He probably killed her too.
"Sure," he says, and twists his face into something akin to a comforting smile, "I hope you know French."
...
iv.
Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt. Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt.
His head is pounding, blood on his tongue, and the world around him is shifting radically. Bile rises up in his throat and he swallows it down thickly. Fingers clench around the cold handle of his pistol, metal scratched and worn from its previous owner. His vision clears, and he manages to fire off one, two, three rounds. Each man drops with a sickening thump, and Booker is hunched over, hands on his knees, air rattling between his teeth with each gasp.
He coughs and blood dribbles from the edge of his lip to the hard of the ground below. Bring us the girl. He pounds his head with a fist. Wipe away the debt. He can see a woman; fiery hair pined up elegantly as she meticulously studies a series of equations squiggled across a chalkboard.
Bring us the girl. The girl. He straightens. The girl. He sways, hand reaching out blindly until it strikes the metallic frame of a bench. His debts. The girl.
He steps forward, and his shoes make a soft squelch against a soft mass underneath him. He does not dare look down. He has to find the girl, the seed of the Prophet. Wipe away the debt. He takes another step forward, fingers wiping the blood from his face, and he sees a baby swaddled in blankets and thrashing wildly, crying out.
"He's here!" someone shouts from his right. He squints at them and the whine in his head lessens. "The False Shepard! He's here!"
He focuses on the man coming towards him. He focuses on the thick, black mustache across his face, the bowlers hat that flutters from his head in his haste, and way his hands are balled into tight fists. He focuses on the man, and the whine becomes a low hum in his ears.
The sky-hook lands against the man's temple soundly, and he easily crumples to the ground in a motionless heap. The man's initial yelp of surprise bounces off buildings, echoing in the brisk air, and pulling the attention of a woman firing off a round into a prone officer. He watches as her head cocks a little and stands straight, her feet moving towards him.
Booker's eyes flitter from the man towards the other figure coming towards him. He raises his gun but does not fire. The woman, with a rifle across her shoulders and blood splatter upon her skin, eyes him curiously. "You him?" she asks, and her gaze flickers to the bodies sprawled around him.
He licks his lips and inhales deeply. His mouth tastes of iron. "What?"
"You that False Shepard, I seen so much about?"
"I don't," He shakes his head and his hand falls mutely to his side, "I don't know what that is."
Her lips purse and she nods her head, receiving her answer. The girl, the girl, the back of his mind whispers, and he raises his gun again. "I've got somewhere to be, so you best be on your way," he says and his hand twitches towards the location of the raffle.
"I don't take orders from likes of you no more," she says, annoyed, and her hand clenches around her gun. His eyes narrow. "'Sides there's someone you oughta meet."
"I already told you - "
"You don't got time, I know. But if you lookin' for the Lamb," she interrupts, "you gonna need the Vox's help. And the Vox don't do nothin' without Ms. Daisy's approval."
Bring us the girl. He can see a woman sweeping the kitchens, the woman fleeing from the back door, the woman colored in red, offering a palm and a chance at freedom. Her name is seared across his buildings, and he studies it, hand scratching idly at hair above his lip. Booker ignores the pounding in his skull, the images across the back of his eyelids, and focuses on the woman before him. "The Vox?" he asks.
The woman laughs and chucks a thumb over her shoulder, pointing to the blood red banners fluttering in the wind. "The uprisin'. The freedom fighters. The revolution."
The girl! The girl! his mind screams, and he has to shake his head again. "And you say it's the only way to get the girl?"
"Only way that won't end with you dead."
He has to resist yelling out in frustration. His finger trembles on the trigger of his pistol, fingerprint against the slick curve of it, but he finds himself unable to follow through. Bring us the girl. "I can't get the girl if I'm dead," he finally says with a sigh, and his gun drops mutely to his side.
(But he doesn't get the girl and he ends up dead anyways.)
...
v.
Eyes intent on the task before him, he scratches at the corner of his lip, fingers coming back bloodied on the tips. The muscles pull in his face and he frowns. He touches the tip of his nose, and a grunt of surprise leaves him at sudden flush of warmth on his skin. His nose is bleeding.
"Lutece." He looks to his left, where the woman studies a rough sketch scratched on her desk, charcoal across her fingertips and smeared at her cheek. He presses the sleeve of his jacket to his bloodied nose and repeats her name.
Her gaze drifts to him slowly, her expression half that of annoyance as the rest of her mind continues its previous critical thought process. "What?" she says slowly, eyebrows furrowing at the sight of his blood. He watches her fingers tighten their hold around the corner of her desk, and he watches the way the muscles in her face twitch, previous train of thought abandoned for something new that he is certain he would not understand.
"You know what is happening to me, don't you?" he asks, after a beat of silence, and his eyes flicker to the slight swell he knows rests beneath his clothes, to the right of his heart. Tumor, the doctors had said to him, an abnormal growth of body tissue. The glasses had slid down the doctor's nose as he explained the lumps across the structure of his body. Deadly, they said, and he had laughed. A Prophet who had not foreseen his own death.
"When it comes to science, one can never truly know. We can only theorize and calculate to the best of our limited knowledge."
Her hand slides down the front of her blouse, smoothing out the wrinkles, and his free hand catches the joint of her elbow. His thumb presses to the delicate skin there, pulling a pained wince from the woman before she smooths over her features, the same as she had her blouse.
"Do not patronize me," he says, voice gruff as he tugs her arm slightly. The joint cracks from the strain and Rosalind shifts uncomfortably.
"I assure you," she says, teeth clenched as she rips herself from his grasp, "I would do no such thing. As I said before, one cannot be fully certain but I do have an idea."
He smiles. Gently pulling the sleeve from his nose, he grows annoyed at the large red stain, but pleased at the lack of fresh blood. He motions for her to continue and slowly walks to the small sink in the corner of the woman's laboratory. "I believe the metastasis in your body is due in part to your continuous exposure to the Lutece Field," she explains, fingers folding over each other across her front. "As to why the Field would cause such growths, I do not yet have a proper theory."
"Ah," he says softly, hands working at the red on his skin with a small bar of soap. He pretends not to notice the trembling in his joints. Rosalind clears her throat and looks as awkward as one with such knowledge can. It is not much, and causes him to frown.
"Why do you question the cause of your illness now, and not when you were diagnosed?" she asks. Her head is cocked slightly, eyebrows furrowed, and he is another illogical puzzle to be solved.
He watches as pink bubbles pop at the edge of the sinks drain, trying to find God's answer to his prayers in the bloodied suds. He shakes his head, a sigh slipping from between his teeth, as he dries his hands and ruined sleeve, then, "It is not the tumors I question, but God. Is he to take me from this Eden before His will is done? The seed of the Prophet shall one day sit the throne of our fair Columbia and rain justice upon the Sodom below, and yet my wife still produces no heir."
"There are other means to achieve the same results."
"Such as?" he asks, fingers focused on the blotch across his clothing. He frowns once more, mind racing with possible solutions to the ruined cloth. His wife would know. If only he focuses on the linen, the knowledge of his death will not cause the shaking of his limbs, and his loss of control.
"My brother," she slowly starts, hesitant to his reaction, "informs me that he has found a Mr. Booker DeWitt. He has a child."
His eyes snap to her own, stained clothing forgotten. "How do you know that name?"
"I make it my business to know the proverbial skeletons in the closets of my investors. That includes previous lives you have long since abandoned." She makes a tut of disapproval in the back of her throat, but continues, "Mr. DeWitt of this universe has a young daughter. Her mother died during childbirth, and your counterpart does not seem to be handling it well."
His mouth is agape. He is speechless for the first time in many years. How could he not have seen this prophecy? He has spent the past several months eagerly awaiting the blessed heir, growing increasingly concerned as he became aware of his imminent demise. His wife continues to tearfully pray for a child every time during mass, wondering how she has smited God so as to incur his wrath. The image of his sweet, clueless wife apologizing insistently fills his mind, and his jaw snaps shut, lips easily pulling into a frown. How is it that a woman of science, a woman of logic, was the first to discover this miracle? Why hadn't God led his hand to the girl? Why had God ignored him so? He is silent, and Rosalind smirks.
"My brother and I have figured a way to maintain a stable tear. He could bring the girl over and w - you could be together. You could have an heir, as you have so predicted," she says, a smile teasing the edge of her lips. She is gloating, pleased with his disbelief. Comstock forces his surprise down his throat and purses his lips. He has predicted a fair amount of prophecies, and yet he has been blind to this possible child Lutece speaks of. His finger scratch idly at the hair on his chin, his mind lost in a tangle of thought.
He imagines a swaddle of blankets cradled in the arms of his wife, and an angel watching from above, smiling from her place among the clouds. Thy will be done, he thinks, eyes slipping closed, on earth, as it is in heaven. But his mind betrays him, remembering the screams of babes ripped from their parents during a time when all he knew was the feel of warm metal, the smell of gun powder, and the sound of his heart pounding in his ears as he watched the life drain out of the eyes of others. He winces.
He can no longer see the image of his wife and the angel, instead only that of a child, a soaked, red child crying out as the devil embraces them. Columbia burns behind her, fiery rain falling from the sky, and ashes drown him to the sound of screams. Rosalind is watching him expectantly, and all he can see is the devil in the color of her red hair.
Lead us not into temptation, he thinks, and remembers the Indian children, remembering their young screams as they sat hunched in the snow, hands clasped to their ears tightly. But deliver us from evil. He thinks of his tumor ridden body. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. He sees the child reach for him with a bloodied palm, the image of a young man he is too familiar with standing behind her, scarred hand pressed to the child's shoulder with an encouraging smile. Comstock lies dead behind the pair. For ever and ever. He remembers the feeling of water across his skin as his sins sank to the bottom of the river, and he finally says no.
Amen.
...
One.
He was never a good man, a righteous man. He was never the man who picked the road of morality, that was left to others as his road was littered with bodies discarded in his wake. He was never a man out for power; hungry for it, lusting after it. He wasn't the man who declared war on his foes - no, he was fighting in the trenches with the boot of guilt heavy upon his back.
No, he was not a good man. He was a man forged in the fires of blood and pain and regret. A man to selfishly claim the little that was his with the knowledge it would soon be lost to him. He holds and tugs on that what is rightfully his, but ultimately his fingers slip, his hands unclench, and he lets go. He lets go, because he doesn't know how to hang on. He has never known how to hold on indefinitely, but god he wishes he did.
Elizabeth (Anna, Anna, Anna - oh God, Anna.) looks at him, stares into him, and Booker wishes he did.
She knows. They both know that she knows. She can see now, she can see how deep the roots grow in him. She can see how little honest-to-God good he has left in him, somewhere between the memories of his blood-soaked sleeves and her name branded on the back of his hand. She can see how easily he placed her in the stranger's arms, how easy it was for his fingers to unclench. She can see, and they both know.
He was never a good man but now she knows.
"I sold you," he says, because she knows and he is so tired of trying to hold on. He says it and lets go, because this is all he knows.
Rosalind tries to placate him, but he cannot hear it because Elizabeth (annaannaannaannaanna) is still staring at him. She said he has lived with his regret, yes, but never a mention of guilt. He is sorry, he is but she looks at him and knows regret and guilt are not enough, if they ever were in the first place.
He wishes he could take it all away, take his baby back, forget the floating city in the sky, the one that has taken his life from time and time again, and love his Anna. He wishes he had the chance to try being a good man. But he can't because Comstock, because Comstock, because Comstock took that from him. The man takes and takes and never once gives back.
"This is all Comstock's fault." He's a liar. He's a liar. Comstock didn't give up that baby, only took. He is a liar, but one who doesn't know what else to do. "What if I went back...killed him before he did any of this."
He thinks of Daisy Fitzroy, then, you gotta pull it up from the root, and - and there are worse things he has done (But only just.). He'll smoother the son-of-bitch (not baby, he can't think baby) and he will get his Anna back and he won't have to spend a lifetime suffocated by regret - drowning in it, thrashing in it, draining bottle after bottle if only to escape it.
Elizabeth stares and he can only wonder if the innocent young girl he met is still in there. If she is still good underneath all the grime and blood and anger, if she still can't stomach the thought of killing an innocent child, even if it is Comstock. If he has corrupted her to the fullest extent, thrusting his sins on her small shoulders.
She's silent.
(He's sorry. He is so sorry.)