Work Text:
Today was the day!
Thomas Reeve hurtled up Farrier Hill with a spring in his step and a song on his lips. The ring-box was an unbearable weight in his pocket but his heart had grown wings. He knew, as surely as any man could know anything, that Sally would say yes. All he had to do was ask and finally, after months of scrimping and saving, he was ready to do just that.
There was a butchers' window on the corner of Chapel Row and he stopped for a moment to inspect his reflection. His best suit, brushed until it practically shone, almost managed to make him look like a proper grown-up. He had spent hours combing his hair, fighting its attempts to escape in every direction. Even now, a few stray strands fell across his forehead and it was impossible to get them to stay anywhere else.
But if Sally could overlook that throughout all the time he had courted her, then he was sure she would not mind it now. He mustered himself into something approximating the confident stance of the gentlemen who sometimes sauntered past the works, gave his reflection a cheery grin and stepped on to the road that would carry him to his destiny.
“Excuse me, young man?”
The hand on his shoulder was leathery, almost claw-like with age, yet still possessed of enough strength to pull him to a standstill. Thomas turned, blinking, to find himself facing the most ancient person he had ever seen. Thin white hair straggled around a face almost caved in on itself, so near it t was to becoming a skull. The decayed wisp of a beard caressed a throat as shrivelled as a turkey's, poking from the collar of a coat draped over the man's spindly frame like rags on a scarecrow. It seemed astounding he still stood and had not crumbled to dust at the slightest movement.
“Oh. Hello,” Thomas said, manners returning at a rush, “Can I help you?”
The old man's mouth crinkled into the ruin of a smile as he let the hand that had arrested Thomas fall to his side and raised the other, fingers curled around something. “You dropped this,” he rasped, voice as cadaverous as the rest of him.
Thomas did not see what it was the old man pressed into his palm but he took it automatically, terrified he might perhaps have let the ring fall from his pocket. All at once, liquid fire was rushing along his arm, flooding into his head, blotting his vision. Everything went red. He fell, spiralling into some great chasm. The red turned to gold, to white and then –
Pain. Pain in every muscle and tendon and bone. Pain in his chest, in his heart, his lungs. He could not breathe. He could not stand. Through a grey haze, he saw the pavement rush towards him.
Someone caught him. Lowered him tenderly to the ground. He lay there, trying to suck down air, staring at –
Himself. His face, brought close as his body knelt down before him. He was gripping on to his own hand and –
And he saw the liver-spotted talons that he – the he who still thought of himself as Thomas Reeve – now strained to pull away from young, strong fingers.
They let go and whoever it was now looked out of Thomas' eyes examined a tiny red gem. It twinkled merrily in the sunlight. “Some left after all.”
The voice was so strange. It was his mouth moving and yet – was that really what he sounded like?
“Just a drop. To save for a rainy day.” Thomas' body stood and stretched, arms clasping behind the head to arch the back. “Oh, that's better. So . . . young! I always forget what it feels like.”
From his prone position, Thomas watched helplessly as his hands – the hands up there – caressed his suit, exploring the lines of his body. One of them found the bulge in his pocket and darted inside to draw out the ring case. It took only a second to open. Thomas' face stared at the contents for much longer than that.
The case, ring and all, clattered to the pavement next to him. His body crouched, brushing hair – course, broken – from the face behind which he struggled to understand what was happening.
“I know it won't seem this way, but I am sorry to do this to you.”
Thomas tried to answer, to scream and curse. But his lungs would not fill. His throat would not produce sound. It hurt to try.
“You just get so used to living,” his real mouth was saying distantly, “after a while, ending seems so much more terrible than it did to begin with. If it's any consolation, you won't suffer long. I waited as long as I dared, watching you gallop past my window every day.”
Darkness crowded the edges of Thomas' vision. The weight of it dragged him down, crushing him against the stones.
“Don't worry,” he heard from a long way off, “I'll live for both of us.”
The ring box was right there. He could see it as the shoes he'd taken so much care to polish moved away. He tried to reach for it. Sally.
He was going to ask her . . .
Offer her the ring . . .
Today . . . was . . . the day –
The song had that quality, that all the best ones did, of being for whoever heard it. It came soft and intimate into the ear, offering a promise beyond the words with an insistence beyond the beat. The crowd pulsed to the rhythm, enraptured captives of the siren on the stage.
She was no longer a person to those watching. Her voice transfigured her from mere humanity. She was at once a goddess, unreachable by mere mortals, and the canvas on which they could write their fantasies. They swayed as she did, their hearts hitching to the ministrations of her voice, their minds subsumed by visions of what could and might yet be. And for a few, brief minutes, there was magic in a dim, smokey room under Central's teeming streets.
And for a few brief minutes, Christine could catch her breath and plan her next move.
She drank with her back to the bar, as if she too was a hostage of the woman on the stage. But her eyes were elsewhere, assessing the shapes that populated the club. Here a mark, there a danger, pieces on the puzzle-board to be moved or moved around as she reached for that ever-elusive endgame. She was someone different to each of them. A few of them realised that. The rest, she kept oblivious. Sometimes she liked to fancy that was in the interests of making everyone happy.
Most of the time, she was self-aware enough to know it was in the interests of keeping her alive.
There was courage in her glass, a fire she needed in her belly if she was to make it through another night. Some days all she needed was a spark. Some days, the whole inferno had to go down.
She was trying to decide which it was tonight when she felt the air move. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed the tall figure imposing itself beside her, and tensed, ready to drift or jump as the presence demanded. A glint of gold, the fall of the hair, the blaze of an eye. She relaxed.
“She really does have the most beautiful voice,” murmured the man Christine had privately nicknamed Sunshine. He watched the stage through hooded eyes, expression languid and appreciative.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Christine recommended, angling her body slightly towards him.
“Oh? Is our lovely songbird moving on to pastures new?”
“I don't see how she's our anything, not when it's Madame Defrus paying her wages. But take a gander over there.” She pointed a manicured nail in the direction of the front seats, the tables in kissing distance of the footlights. “See the gent with the funny scarf?”
Even through the smoke, it was hard to miss him, a great brute of a fellow, grey-haired in the prime of his youth, dark hands propping up his chin as he stared longingly at the singer.
“One of Ishvala's children, going by the neckwear you find so hilarious.”
“So I figured when I caught him under proper daylight.”
“What's he doing here? I wouldn't expect one of that creed to visit a place like this.”
“A scholarship whatsit, educating the savages or some such. Least, that's why he's not coughing dust in Ishbal. As for why he's here, isn't it obvious?”
Sunshine smiled and gave her a look that told her it was. “Though I'm not sure I see why one love-struck young man should deprive us of such wonderful company.”
Young man . As if Sunshine weren't barely twenty himself.
“Because,” and Christine made sure to drag the word out for all it was worth, “that wonderful company is more than half love-struck herself.”
“Ah. Madame Defrus will not be happy with this development.”
“I dare say the songbird will not be either, when she's caged by desert gods.”
“You have such a way with words.”
“Look who's talking, Mr Flowery Tonsils.”
He sketched the outline of a bow in the space between them. On the stage, one song ended and thundering applause marked the space before the next began. The Ishbalan's hands blurred as he tried to show the strength of his ardour with clapping alone. Was a blush creeping through the songbird's makeup as she looked down upon him?
“So what will it be for you this evening?” Christine asked as the band struck up a fresh tune and the crowd was captured again. “I can't imagine there's much left we can offer you.”
“Oh, don't say that,” Sunshine implored her. “I'd be devastated to have to leave you.”
“Well, I know for a fact that you've walked out of here with every girl going and quite a few of the boys besides.”
“Is it wrong to want to try everything there is to try?”
“Not if you can pay for it.” A sip from her glass burned pleasantly along Christine's throat. “Which somehow you always can.”
“What can I say? I am one of fortune's children.”
“You're certainly one of the most energetic kids I've ever met.”
This time, Sunshine's smile was electric. “Why thank you. Dare I hope that means I might finally get to walk out of here with you, Miss Christine?”
“Not a prayer, bucko. I do not bet on losing horses.”
He cocked his head to the side and regarded her curiously. “And what race is it I am losing?”
She took another sip and then leant back to give him an appraising, up-and-down look him. He was certainly handsome enough, all sharp edges and shoulders, carried with the supreme confidence of one who did not need to try to look good. Young yet, of course, with the faint whiff of gawky teen still hanging about his frame. But if he made it a few more years . . .
“I know two kinds of people who go through as many highs and bodies as you do. Those who think they have nothing to fear and those who think they have nothing to lose. The one usually works out they're wrong and shies away 'cause they get afraid of the grave. The other keeps rushing headlong until they meet it. Either way, it's not a ride I care to get on.”
He chuckled and glanced away, finding some corner of the room to be fascinated by. “How wise you are. But has it occurred to you I might simply not want to waste my youth while I have it?”
“There are lots of different ways to waste your life. Believe me, I've seen enough of them to know. The rate you've been going . . . you telling me you're still enjoying it? Still finding the time to savour one moment before you rush on to the next?”
She could see the answer to her question on his face. “Perhaps not,” he said slowly, “Though I am intrigued as to why someone in your position should care. Haven't I donated enough to Madame Defrus' coffers to earn my welcome?”
“Oh, don't get me wrong. It makes no odds to me what you do with yourself, saving that I've grown used to having you around. I'm just telling you why I won't be the one passing your money on to Madame Defrus.”
“That is fair. I won't begrudge the discernment of someone who has snared so many notable figures in her web.”
Christine blinked at him. Sunshine blinked right back.
“I don't know what you are talking about,” she told him.
“Of course not.” There was an abrupt shift in his expression, one of those transformations she had observed before where he seemed to age in front of her eyes. The effect was never less than startling. “You should be careful. Things are in motion around here to blow away everyone's cobwebs.”
“Oh yes? And what would you know about that?”
The youthfulness snapped back into place as suddenly as it had been shed. “Oh, I never claim to know anything. Knowledge is a burden for the old. Let me enjoy freedom from it a little while longer, I beg you.”
“Well, plenty of ways to turn yourself stupid around here.” Raising her drink in salute, Christine downed a significantly longer draft. “Though like I said, I think you've already tried most of them.”
“Yes . . .” He looked to the singer again, or at least pointed his face that way. His voice was far away in some other direction. “I fear you may be right. I shan't know what to do with myself.” He turned and put his hands on the bar. “I don't suppose you've any suggestions?”
She turned with him, risking her back to the room for a second of something like friendship. Her fingernails clinked on her glass as she put it down. “Is there anything you want? Really, I mean. Not just the fun stuff or the things that take the edge off living.”
He frowned, considering. “Do people ever want something that isn't just to take the edge off living?”
“Some do. Or they invent 'em. Set themselves goals. Doesn't have to be big. My brother, now he just wants a nice family. Carry on the line and all that.”
“How is it working out for him?”
“None too badly. Got himself a wife and a brat on the way.”
“I'm happy for him.”
“I'm indifferent, so that's probably good on you.” She dared a nudge, pressing her elbow into Sunshine's ribs. “So? You ever thought about having a goal?”
Even from the side, she could see him gaining years in a heartbeat again. “I did have. Once upon a time. Something big and grand and all-consuming.”
“And?”
“And I achieved it. There were a lot of set-backs and false-starts along the way, but I got there.”
“And?”
He lifted those beautiful shoulders of his and let out a long, whispering sigh. “And then it was over. Just like that. Just . . . over.”
“So you decided to hit the town instead?”
“I thought I'd have some fun. It'd been so long. I thought, I'll have a little holiday before I have to start all over again. Only . . . it's not been such a little holiday and now the thought of starting again becomes more unbearable every day.”
“You considered that's because it isn't what you want any more?”
“Yes, actually. And that feels so strange. Like some part of me has just gone away. I don't know what should go in its place.”
“Then maybe that's your goal right there. Work out what fits where whatever it was once did.”
“That sounds rather simplistic.” He propped his chin up with a fist and traced idle patterns in the beer stains. “Or at least, simple in theory.”
“Probably. If you really want my advice, you'll go find someone who looks at you like Funny Scarf is looking at our Julie.” Christine jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Or find someone to look at like he's looking at her.”
“True love? I didn't think that was your style.”
“Oh, it ain't. But I'm not stupid enough to believe the things I want will end in happiness.”
“So I should be looking for something to make me happy?”
“Have you ever tried?”
The crowd applauded once more. In the tumult, Sunshine was very still and very silent.
“Hm,” he said when things were a normal volume again.
“Well there you are then.”
“So it would seem.” He pushed himself upright. “You've given me something to think about.”
“Then there's the last new sensation you'll get from this place.”
“Hah. Yes. Thank you.”
Christine signalled for the barman to top up her drink. Julie was into the last number in her set and soon everyone would be clamouring for refills. Soon she would be back in the thick of it.
“I don't think I'll be spending any more nights here,” Sunshine said, hands now in his pockets, “A change of scene seems like the logical next step.”
“Can't argue with that. Any idea which scene you'll be heading for?”
“No. But it's been a long while since I travelled. Perhaps I should get reacquainted with the road.”
How long could it have been, for a face that free of lines? Christine supposed she would not be getting the answer to those kinds of question. Where it came to Sunshine, this was not much of a surprise.
“Well, don't be stranger. If the wandering itch ever brings you this way again, look us up.”
“Of course. And who knows.” He gave her a conspiratorial wink. “By then, this might be Madame Mustang's establishment.”
She snorted and picked up her freshly filled glass. “Still don't know what you're talking about.”
His grin was all teeth. “Then goodnight, Miss Christine. And good luck.”
Trisha never quite worked out when the alchemist became a fixture in her life. There should have a point, somewhere between him not being there and his being there all the time, marking the momentousness of the shift. But if such a thing existed, it eluded her grasp. All she knew was one day she woke up and realised, many months after it had become true, that a corner of her existence revolved around him.
It was a gentle, unobtrusive thing, having him there. Like noticing the sky or the hills. Something mundane, the absence of which was impossible to imagine. Every day, she walked past his little shack on the way into Risenbool, eyes peeled for a light in the window or smoke from the chimney. And every day the door was open when she returned, she would look in on him. Sometimes they shared tea. Sometimes an evening meal. But always they would talk: her relating the latest gossip and trying not to laugh at how perplexing he always found the local scandals; him describing the turns his research was taking and breaking off into embarrassed coughs when he realised how far outside her understanding he was going.
She never minded, any more than he seemed to grow bored with the trivia of her daily life. After a while, she'd simple concluded they simply liked hearing each other speak.
That day, there was no sign of life when she passed the shack. It was a funny old building, half a ruin with a wild garden. He'd bought it for a pittance from Mr Madderson, who was astonished anyone should offer any sum for a wreck he'd simply not gotten around to demolishing yet. But of course alchemy could work miracles if you were skilled enough and the result was really quite cosy. Though Trisha never could work out how Hohenheim wasn't perpetually tripping over the equipment and curios with which he'd filled his home.
Hohenheim. An odd name for an odd man. And with the same pleasant quality to it. Trisha caught herself repeating it under her breath as she crested the next rise, grinning at the sound of it on her tongue. When she saw him coming towards her along the road, it sent a jolt up her spine. As if she'd conjured him with the sound of his name.
Ridiculous, of course. He wasn't even looking at her. All his concentration was on the wheelbarrow in front of him, which fought him ever step of the way. It was piled high with something lumpy covered in a rough tarpaulin, though the problem seemed to be more with the wheel than the load. At least, that was the bit Hohenheim kicked when the whole thing came to a grinding halt.
The kick had no real force behind it. She'd never known someone so gentle, not even the kindest of her neighbours.
He noticed her she drew close and broke into a beaming smile. “Is it that late in the morning already?”
“Ten o'clock, or thereabouts. You've not pushed this thing all the way from the station, surely?”
“I didn't want to put anyone out on a market day, so I asked Gillis if I could borrow a cart. He said I could have it for good and I'm starting to see why.”
Trisha lifted a corner of the the tarp. Of all things, a knight's helmet stared back at her from atop a pile of metal plates. It was like something out of a fairy tale, with a great spike on the front and a trailing white plume.
“A gift from a grateful client,” Hohenheim explained, “If I have clients. I take payment in antiques more often than I do in money, so I'm not sure it counts as an actual job.”
“I'm sure its more interesting that way. But . . . where on earth are you going to put it? It must be huge when it's all put together!”
“A problem I intend to solve after the more immediate one of getting it home.” He sighed and knelt to examine the wheel up close. “I don't suppose you've taken after the Rockbell brood and started carrying machine oil with you everywhere?”
“Can't you just fix it with alchemy?” Trisha asked, crouching beside him.
“I could, but as ridiculous as this is going to sound, I've never transmuted anything like this before. I'm honestly afraid I'd just make it worse.”
She covered her mouth, though she was sure it did little to smoother the giggle. “Well,” she said, standing and rolling up her sleeves, “we'll just have to put our backs into it, shan't we?”
“We? Oh, I can't possibly – you've got to get to market –”
“I was just going for a couple of odds and ends that'll keep even if I don't get down there later. Come on.”
It took them the best part of half an hour to wrestle the barrow to Hohenheim's shack. There was one unnerving moment when the wheel suddenly started to turn freely, which very nearly pitched the whole lot into a ditch. But between them, they got it under control and managed the rest of the journey without incident.
Hohenheim let go of the handles and rubbed his back. “That's my exercise done for the day, I think.” He dragged the tarp away and regarded the pile of armour thoughtfully. “You're right, I have absolutely no idea where I'm going to put this.”
Trisha looked from him to the armour to the shack and then along the road, towards the next hill. “You know,” she said slowly, “it wouldn't be so much more work to get this up to my house. There's plenty of room there.”
She did not look at Hohenheim as she spoke. She could feel his eyes on her in the silence that followed. There was no doubt in her mind he understood what she meant by the offer. He had been studious in avoiding the house while her father was still among the living and even afterwards, his rare appearances there were marked by a clear fear he was intruding. Her visits to his home became a compromise, of sorts, when all her reassurances did not ease his worries.
Which was a shame, because the more she thought about it, the more she wanted him to be at ease in her home. She wanted them to fill the echoing rooms with those comfortable conversations for as long as they wanted, whenever they wanted, and see where their words took them.
And, despite his reluctance, she rather thought he wanted that too.
“I . . .” he began, “I don't . . .” His coat rustled as he inhaled deeply. She risked a glance his way and saw he was staring at the hill as well. He looked infinitely sad. “I'm not a good person, Trisha.”
Not the response she expected. Certainly not the one for which she'd hoped. “What do you mean?”
“Simply what I said. I am not a good person. I doubt you'd look at me the way you do if you knew how much that was the case.”
She waited for him to go on and, when he didn't, turned to face him properly. “All the time I've known you, you've done nothing but help people. It seems like every other week you're off to go consult for someone. And all those letters! The postman complains when he gets to me, you know. Says you get and send far too much for someone who lives in a hut.”
Hohenheim rubbed the back of his neck. “I . . . don't do it for its own sake. All those people – I want to share their knowledge. That's why I do anything. To learn.”
“And is that so bad? There are people who'd be happy never learning anything at all if they could avoid it. The people who are curious are always the more interesting ones. Like Pinako and her sons. Or you. Doing something because you love it isn't selfish.”
“I know, I . . . it's not that. It's . . . there are things I've done that, looking back, I can't . . . that I'm . . . you're so . . . and I just don't think I'm worth . . .” He trailed off again and screwed his eyes shut. “I –”
“I think by the end I wanted Dad to die.”
His eyes flew open. “You – what?”
Trisha fiddled with the top button of her jacket. “He grew so distant after mom died and it only got worse when he got sick. Most of the time he didn't remember who I was and he was so lost without Mom. Some days I'd sit downstairs and think, if I didn't move or speak or hear anything, maybe he'd just slip away. And that would OK because he was already gone. Because what was left was just a shell.”
Hohenheim lifted his hand, not quite reaching towards her. He was frowning intensely, like she was a puzzle he couldn't work out how to solve. “That's understandable, surely?”
“But it's not right. It's not good. The right thing to do was hard. And I didn't feel like a good person afterwards. I just remembered what I'd felt. All the ways I could have been kinder.”
“I . . . I can imagine. It's not the same, but I lost someone too.” His voice caught and he let his arm fall to his side. “A long time ago. He didn't know me at the end either. The regrets are . . . they're all you remember because they're the things you're never going to be able to fix.”
“Yes. Exactly.” And she reached out to him, brushing his sleeve with her fingertips. “But you have to keep living. You have to keep doing your best. That's what matters. Otherwise you get lost in what you were and you can never be better than that.”
He started to say something, a protest of some sort, but she cut him off. “You don't have to tell me. Not now at least. Not if it's hard for you. Just don't think . . . look, I've lived all my life in a country village. That's not the same as being stupid. I'm not silly enough to think a rich, clever man from Central comes to live all the way out here just because he likes the smell of farmland.”
“I would never even consider calling you stupid,” he told her, earnest and plainly worried by the very idea. She couldn't help but smile.
“I know. My point is, I'm not some perfectly good person. And it doesn't surprise me you aren't either. But I've spent enough time around you to know that you're someone I like spending time with. I want to spend more time with you. Do you?”
His shoulders slumped in something like defeat. “Yes,” he whispered.
“Then perhaps, for now, that's all we need to worry about?”
She wasn't sure how long they stood there, watching for the slightest shift in each other's faces. When he finally moved, the air of surrender hung heavy about him. He reached inside his coat and for a second, something glinted between his fingers. Then he brought his hands together and there was a blaze of red light.
Trisha gasped as a ring of flowers sprung into existence. He offered it to her, tentative, uncertain. She took it without hesitation. They were beautiful, satin petals and tender green stems, woven with expert care into a perfect circlet.
Only . . .
“Oh,” he stammered as she placed the ring over her head and it fell down over her eyes, “I was going for a crown, obviously, but . . . ah – clearly misjudged the size –”
She laughed as she took it off. “It's beautiful. Thank you. Here. He can wear it.” She dropped the flower-crown neatly on top of the helmet, where it sat perfectly.
Hohenheim cleared his throat. “So . . . ah . . .”
“Yes?”
“I suppose now we have to push this blasted thing up another hill, don't we?”
“Yes,” Trisha agreed, smiling, heart feeling like it had opened wings, “I'm afraid we do.”