Categories > Anime/Manga > Full Metal Alchemist
The boy had waited... he had waited for so long, and yet nothing . He hadn't believed it when the letters came, hadn't even let himself consider that it might be true. So he sat there, by that window where he had watched a blue clothed back depart, and waited for a ashen face and gold eyes top come back. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and his mother decayed in her bed behind him, calling out to him every so often to come sit beside her on the rusty coverlet.
Then a day came, and he was pulled from his placid home, taken to the great house his Grandparents lived in, along with his sickly mother. He was given his own room, and forbidden to go into his mother's, with vague warnings of illness, and whispers to the servants that he would 'steal the breath from her very body.'
And so he chose a new window... and he remembered everything he could, from when He was here and his mother was healthy and alive.
xoxoxox
Warm water tumbled into the bath, and the boy laughed and tried to splash him. He purred and wiggled and pulled at a long horse tail that somehow managed to slip over His thin shoulder. Invariably, He got wet, and usually soapy too, since the boy wasn't very precise with the sudsy washcloth he was given, so he could wash himself 'like a big boy'. He looked up above him, into gold eyes the same as his, and tugged at his sparse black curls, wondering if they would turn straight and grow long... like His hair did. He giggled and splashed again, as a warm hand rubbed green apple scented soap onto his bony, child back. Later in life, he would hide the bottle that once held this soap, concealing it in the bottom of his closet, and take it out when he thought he was losing his mind to draw in the memory it contained.
The boy laughed and watched the face above him spread into a slight grin, that later he would hear described as sarcastic and malicious, but it had been just another part of Him... and nothing could ever be bad about Him. He had continued to laugh as he was dried off, and dressed in his pajamas, which, maybe an hour later, would be tossed on the stairs, abandoned in favor of an old undershirt if His, that despite repeated washings always smelled a little like sulfur and night time air... this was another of the treasures hidden in the box at the bottom of the closet.
But then, then came that soft kiss placed on his eyelids, and the pet on his back. "Goodnight." "Goodnight."
And it was just another night, full of innocent, unsuspecting dreams.
xoxoxox
The boy was growing... a few more months and he would be a teenager, his mother long gone, and his life seeming to decay as her body did beneath the ground. His Grandmother... always with her strange looks of bewilderment and hatred towards him, had one day caught him staring at the pale birthmarks on his lined palms, and had sent for a man from the town... less than a week later, the boy's hands were encased in cold metal, thin screws passing through his wrists and between the bones of his hands, just the very tips of his fingers free. He had screamed for so long, feeling his voice go, but had still dragged himself to the window everyday, hoping, somewhere, that He would be looking for him... and he continued to remember.
xoxoxox
The boy climbed into His lap while he was trying to read some book full of odd symbols, and had looked at the pages for a long time, trying to make sense of the odd pictures, until a connection was made in his two and a half year old brain.
"Story?" He inquired, looking up at the face, with its slow smile that someday would be just the same on his own face. Already thin shoulders had raised and dropped and one word.
"Sure."
And so the boy heard a story... one about some strange god called 'equivalent exchange' who punished you and rewarded you, sometimes together. And the boy had listened, his finger twirled idly in His long hair. Then he had a question.
"Is it always that way?" he asked. He shook his head, and the hair fluttered around the boy like a veil against something beyond this moment.
"Not if you find the red stone." he said softly, and turned his palms up towards the boy. He traced the patterns, and turned his palms up towards Him. Identical marks covered both, the older hands' outlined in black, the younger just soft pinkish birthmarks.
"These find the stones?" The boy whispered and slowly His head shook no.
"Not exactly... its time for bed."
xoxoxox
Finally came the year he was fifteen, and the boy got his hands on a newspaper left by one of the maids. He had flipped through it, desperate for anything that related to Him. Finally he saw a glimmer of light, and found, in the obituary section, where once as a small child he had found something unbelievable, one more small article and picture. There, in black and white, where the eyes he saw every time he looked into the mirror, there was that smile, that hair... everything he saw day after day, in his dreams and in his reflection...
And this time, he believed them. His father was finally gone.
Rage, sorrow, pain, disbelief... everything started to push its way to his surface, and he began to beat his metal encased hands on the hearth, screaming. There was a sick noise as two screw heads gave way, and suddenly his left hand was nearly free. Methodically, he pulled and bit at the pieces of metal, until it was bloody but unhampered... then he started turned the screws to free his right.
Hours later, he stood, and for the first time in years, saw his own two hands. Suddenly... he knew what to do.
He slowly walked out the door, closing it carefully behind him, only one word on his lips.
"Grandmother...?"
Then a day came, and he was pulled from his placid home, taken to the great house his Grandparents lived in, along with his sickly mother. He was given his own room, and forbidden to go into his mother's, with vague warnings of illness, and whispers to the servants that he would 'steal the breath from her very body.'
And so he chose a new window... and he remembered everything he could, from when He was here and his mother was healthy and alive.
xoxoxox
Warm water tumbled into the bath, and the boy laughed and tried to splash him. He purred and wiggled and pulled at a long horse tail that somehow managed to slip over His thin shoulder. Invariably, He got wet, and usually soapy too, since the boy wasn't very precise with the sudsy washcloth he was given, so he could wash himself 'like a big boy'. He looked up above him, into gold eyes the same as his, and tugged at his sparse black curls, wondering if they would turn straight and grow long... like His hair did. He giggled and splashed again, as a warm hand rubbed green apple scented soap onto his bony, child back. Later in life, he would hide the bottle that once held this soap, concealing it in the bottom of his closet, and take it out when he thought he was losing his mind to draw in the memory it contained.
The boy laughed and watched the face above him spread into a slight grin, that later he would hear described as sarcastic and malicious, but it had been just another part of Him... and nothing could ever be bad about Him. He had continued to laugh as he was dried off, and dressed in his pajamas, which, maybe an hour later, would be tossed on the stairs, abandoned in favor of an old undershirt if His, that despite repeated washings always smelled a little like sulfur and night time air... this was another of the treasures hidden in the box at the bottom of the closet.
But then, then came that soft kiss placed on his eyelids, and the pet on his back. "Goodnight." "Goodnight."
And it was just another night, full of innocent, unsuspecting dreams.
xoxoxox
The boy was growing... a few more months and he would be a teenager, his mother long gone, and his life seeming to decay as her body did beneath the ground. His Grandmother... always with her strange looks of bewilderment and hatred towards him, had one day caught him staring at the pale birthmarks on his lined palms, and had sent for a man from the town... less than a week later, the boy's hands were encased in cold metal, thin screws passing through his wrists and between the bones of his hands, just the very tips of his fingers free. He had screamed for so long, feeling his voice go, but had still dragged himself to the window everyday, hoping, somewhere, that He would be looking for him... and he continued to remember.
xoxoxox
The boy climbed into His lap while he was trying to read some book full of odd symbols, and had looked at the pages for a long time, trying to make sense of the odd pictures, until a connection was made in his two and a half year old brain.
"Story?" He inquired, looking up at the face, with its slow smile that someday would be just the same on his own face. Already thin shoulders had raised and dropped and one word.
"Sure."
And so the boy heard a story... one about some strange god called 'equivalent exchange' who punished you and rewarded you, sometimes together. And the boy had listened, his finger twirled idly in His long hair. Then he had a question.
"Is it always that way?" he asked. He shook his head, and the hair fluttered around the boy like a veil against something beyond this moment.
"Not if you find the red stone." he said softly, and turned his palms up towards the boy. He traced the patterns, and turned his palms up towards Him. Identical marks covered both, the older hands' outlined in black, the younger just soft pinkish birthmarks.
"These find the stones?" The boy whispered and slowly His head shook no.
"Not exactly... its time for bed."
xoxoxox
Finally came the year he was fifteen, and the boy got his hands on a newspaper left by one of the maids. He had flipped through it, desperate for anything that related to Him. Finally he saw a glimmer of light, and found, in the obituary section, where once as a small child he had found something unbelievable, one more small article and picture. There, in black and white, where the eyes he saw every time he looked into the mirror, there was that smile, that hair... everything he saw day after day, in his dreams and in his reflection...
And this time, he believed them. His father was finally gone.
Rage, sorrow, pain, disbelief... everything started to push its way to his surface, and he began to beat his metal encased hands on the hearth, screaming. There was a sick noise as two screw heads gave way, and suddenly his left hand was nearly free. Methodically, he pulled and bit at the pieces of metal, until it was bloody but unhampered... then he started turned the screws to free his right.
Hours later, he stood, and for the first time in years, saw his own two hands. Suddenly... he knew what to do.
He slowly walked out the door, closing it carefully behind him, only one word on his lips.
"Grandmother...?"
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