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#but I wish I was able to at least kee a smile on my face around them considering they’ll be around for the rest of my life

boringauntie · 1 year

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I hate that I feel so internally disturbed by being around my family. I love the kids so much and they’re pretty much the only people I feel fine around. but being around the rest of them just bothers me. at first I thought it was because they treated me like a child, but then they treated me like an adult and it still doesn’t feel good. I thought it was because I lived away from them, and then I lived near them and still didn’t feel good. maybe I just don’t like them

#I know it’s because of all the trauma and their general mindset and behavior #but I wish I was able to at least kee a smile on my face around them considering they’ll be around for the rest of my life

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avionvadion · 4 years

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Forest Deep: a fanfic mixing Secret of the Cursed Mask and the actual Inuyasha anime itself. https://archiveofourown.org/works/24115702/chapters/58056064

Summary: Naraku had one goal- to destroy Inuyasha. Now with his new companion he has an idea how to make that happen. Brought to the Feudal Era by an unwanted Summoning, Irene's in search of her older sister and the one who brought them there. With the help of her new friends she might just find them, but it's hard getting through battles- nonetheless the day- with her lung problems. Why is this Naraku so cruel? What does he gain from hurting people? Who is his new friend- and what's underneath that mask she wears? Irene doesn't know. But she'll find out- one way or another. She just wished she had her sister beside her as she did it.

The first drawing is basically the story cover. I drew it back before Irene’s hair had a consistency and I had a better grasp of the art style XD The second image is from the end of chapter 20 and the last one is for chapter 15.

Story:

"I-It's…" Oh gods. "It's a saying where I'm from. Just- Just ignore it. I speak nonsense. Um. Look. You don't want to stay here, right? I don't want to stay here either. I have a sister I gotta make sure ain't dead, some friends to get back- granted… they probably don't want anything to do with me anymore, and an evil half-demon to stop, so~!" I huffed and stood, brushing some dirt off my pale blue jeans. I walked over, holding a shaky hand out to her with a grin. "You can come with or you can stay here and go crazy! Your choice."

Her eyebrows knit together. "For what reason did you desire the Magatama fruit? Most here are… filled with greed. They want its power for themselves. I, too, was selfish and… it brought me here."

"It…" I hesitated. Memories of the villagers falling came to mind. "I… I need the fruit to break a barrier. If the barrier doesn't break then… more people are gonna die. And… I don't want to see that happen."

"That's sounds awful…" Shizuno said, bringing a hand up to her mouth. "A-Are you certain that it's not another lie someone told? You could have fallen into a trap."

"I mean, probably?" I made a face, moving my head to the side and shaking it, shrugging my shoulders. "Buuut I have no reason to distrust him, you know? I-It's weird. Like, yeah he can be pretty shady when he wants to be, but he's helped me out this far and it's because of him I can talk to Shikigami spirits and heal people. So! I think he's nice. He did mention that this would be really dangerous and I was a firm believer I wouldn't survive. Was that a lie? Nope. Here we are! In a magical space surrounded by a bunch of crazy people."

"You are…" She frowned. "...strange. You speak of dire circumstances, yet you smile so brightly. Why do you behave so casually?"

"I just do." I was still so tired. "Life just sucks. That's how it works. No use mopin' about."

Unless of course several people had died. Damn it. I can still hear their screams, the children calling out for their parents as they ran for their lives. The blood splattering onto the ground… and staining Kohaku's kusarigama.

"Anyway! You never answered my question. You comin' with me?" I stretched out my fingers and wiggled them at her, staring at her expectantly. "You know you waaaant tooooo~! Far over the misty mountains cold~ to dungeons deep and caverns old!" My voice cracked and I coughed, hacking into my sleeve. My voice really could not go low. It was so distressing. The woman gave me such a strange look, but she reached out and took my hand. I felt so lightheaded. "Oh? Yay!"

She shook her head at me, folding her hands close to her chest. "We could be trapped here in eternal suffering," Shizuno told me, "yet you sing? Why?"

"Because if we're gonna be suffering eternally," I declared, holding an index finger up wisely, "we might as well have fun with it. Sadly I don't remember all the lyrics, but! It's a good song." I approached the mountain wall, staring up and squinting my eyes as I tried to gauge how far up we would have to climb before we reached the next ledge. My hands were all scraped up. "Okay… calm down. We can do this. You up for the climb?"

"Y-Yes, I suppose… what about you?" She stared at me, frowning. "Your skin is quite pale…"

"I'll be fine." I had to be. "My… My friends are waiting for me."

If they even still thought of me as one.

"And… your sister?"

I didn't answer. I wasn't even sure she was alive. "If I don't get that Magatama fruit… more people are gonna die. I… I don't want her to be one of them." I looked back at Shizuno, forcing another closed-eye grin, ignoring the lump forming in my throat. I had to be strong- for her. She was in pain as well. Her entire village was destroyed. "So we gotta keep going. Up and at 'em!"

I cracked my knuckles and reached up, grabbing onto a root sticking out from one of the rocks. This part of the wall was covered with vines, but there was no telling if they could all hold. Shizuno followed behind me uncertainly, grabbing onto a rock and climbing. "Th-This is very dangerous!"

Well, obviously. But I was convinced that we couldn't quite… die here? I've seen so many people wandering around and not one skeleton. At least there weren't any demons nearby in this spirit realm that could eat us. I don't think I'd taste very good. Ick. My mind flashed back to the mansion and I cringed, temporarily halting in my climb. Don't freak out. I had to stay calm. This is fine.

I'm fine. Always. Always fine.

I may be slowly breaking apart, but I'm fine. It's how I am.

This is just life.

It's my fault those villagers are dead, so I have to avenge them. Don't I?

Suddenly the vines I was climbing broke and I let out a small shriek, falling back towards the ledge below. The wind around me picked up pace and suddenly my descent slowed, causing me to blink. Then once I was close enough to the ground it stopped and I hit my head, crashing hard onto my back. "O-Ow! Frick!" I cringed and curled onto my side, bringing my hands up to the back of my aching skull. It was being put through so much abuse today. "Dude, that hurt!"

"A-Are you alright!?" Shizuno called down. She was at least thirty feet above me, clinging tight to some vines. "The wind just- how on earth-!?"

"Spirits." I hissed, wincing at the bump that was definitely going to be there for a while. The wind helped enough for me not to die, but wasn't completely forgiving to leave me free of injury. "Eugh…" That seriously hurt, but at least it wasn't fatal. This proved that one of my theories were right. Kazumi would have us wander forever in insanity, but she would not have us kill ourselves. "Frick."

I stumbled, wobbling over to the wall and leaning against it for a moment until my vision cleared. The world was trying to spin on me.

"Need to… keep going." I wheezed. This air spirit guardian person was such a sadist. "Have to… save them…"

My fingers gripped weakly at the roots. I wouldn't be able to climb in this state.

"Naraku… must be… stopped…"

I'm so dizzy. My forehead pressed against the rocky mountain side, eyes closing as I waited to catch my breath. That scared the crap out of me- falling like that. I hated it. After a few long minutes I grabbed at the vines again, fingers feeling numb and tingly, and I kicked at the wall with my bare feet. Being weak is one thing, but being stubborn was another. I was determined.

"I will… defeat him…" I wheezed, reaching up and grasping tiredly at a rock jutting out. It crumbled and I had to go for one higher up, stretching my arm painfully. "Barrier… it will break…"

Naraku sent Kohaku and Kanna after me, and why? Because Anastasia wanted my soul for some god awful reason that still wasn't explained. He made them attack the villagers that were helping me, and if Kagome didn't crack the mirror and force the souls to be freed so many more would already be dead. They tried to help me and Naraku forced Kohaku to kill them because of that. He was awful.

He was more of a madman than anyone else in this place.

The air around me seemed to grow gentler, my body becoming lighter and moving a bit faster. It was almost as if it was giving me a boost, but I knew that couldn't be the case. It was so aggressive earlier. After what surely must have been an hour I reached the ledge I fell from, reuniting with Shizuno who watched as I fell onto my front, eyes closed and breath heavy. "You are not the most healthy person, are you?" She asked.

"I wonder what… gave you that idea?" I wheezed, the sarcasm dripping off my tongue. "I told you… sickly human… didn't I?"

She gave a small smile, almost amused by my weird ways. "You did. Will you be able to make it to the top? There is still quite a ways to go."

"Yeah, just… need to… rest a bit first. Is that okay… with you?"

Shizuno nodded. "Yes… we have all of eternity, after all. Time does not seem to pass in this place. I have seen many arrive here, yet… they never aged. It is rather concerning, but there is nothing we can do. I fear many years have already passed since I was first brought here."

Wait, what? Oh no. My eyes widened and I sat up, looking at her in alarm and ignoring the rapid pounding of my heart. "N-No way… no, no, no! We… We have to hurry! I-I can't-!" I can't be trapped here forever. I have to get that fruit as fast as possible. If Maria was still alive then I can't be left behind. "The mountain! W-We have to… to climb…!"

I stumbled over, dazed and desperate, grabbing at the roots and struggling to climb. Shizuno dashed over and caught me when I fell, startled when she felt the heat radiating from my body. "I-Irene! You are feverish!"

"M'fine." I mumbled. "Have to get… to Sango…"

She, Miroku, Shippō, and Kirara are all up there dealing with the air spirit alone.

"Don't wanna see 'em hurt…"

I'm so sleepy. I want to take a nap.

"Gotta beat Naraku… and his dumb barrier thing…"

"Rest first. We have time." She said softly, voice so soothing. Shizuno carefully moved me away from the wall, keeping her arms around my waist, setting me down on the ground beside her. My head fell against her chest and my eyes closed, giving in to the comfort she gave. A hug felt so nice right now… yet her body was so cold. Her fingers ran gently along my hair, fiddling with the short strands. "You are fighting so strongly right now, are you not? It must be hard…"

"S'not… just… hurts."

"Why do you want to fight this Naraku so bad?"

"He hurts… people." I told her quietly, finding myself being lulled to sleep by her gentle touch. "They… helped me a-and he… killed them."

"He did?"

I nodded, making a small noise of confirmation. "He had… Sango's younger brother… attack. H-He's controlled by him, so he can't… fight back. She's always crying when she… has to face him. I don't like it. She's so much better… when she's happy…"

"I see. So Naraku is the one to blame."

Yes. He made Kohaku hurt them. It was all that evil half-demon's fault that the villagers are dead. "Naraku… killed them…"

"If that is so… then you should be able to climb the mountain now."

"...What?" My eyes slowly opened and I blinked, turning my head to look tiredly at Shizuno.

Her features seemed to change as the wind around us blew stronger, her long black hair shifting into something shorter and more white in color. I yanked myself off of her lap, watching as her colorful kimono become a pale blue, a white cloth draped over her shoulders and wrapped around her arms. As I stumbled into an upright stance, standing and backing away slowly, her dark eyes became an icy blue, lips dark and almost purple in color. I hadn't seen her entire appearance before, but I was certain now as to why Shizuno looked so familiar.

"K-Kazumi?"

…

"Where did she go!?" Sango demanded, whirling around to try and locate where the air spirit disappeared to. They were just talking when the mist became stronger, the entire area around them being covered in fog. The demon slayer couldn't see five feet in front of her. "Miroku! Shippō!"

"Here!" The fox demon informed, about ten feet back.

"I'm over here!" The monk shouted somewhere from her left side, sweeping at the area around him with his staff. "I'd use my Wind Tunnel to suck in this mess, but I might anger the spirits further if I did and cost Irene her life! Sango, what should we do!?"

"I-I don't know!" For once the demon slayer was at a loss. There was no enemy to fight, no goddess to appease. Only a spirit set on challenging their friend to a test of truth. "I… never realized she felt so guilty for what had happened…" Sango said after a moment, looking down at the hiraikotsu in her hand, closing her eyes with a pained expression. "I was only focused on myself. Miroku, I…" She rested a hand over her face, ashamed. "I'm a terrible friend."

"No, Sango, don't blame yourself." The monk shook his head. "I, too, did not notice. I was believing us to finally be able to close the gap and become proper allies, and yet…"

"She's always blaming herself!" Shippō stated, frowning deeply. He appeared greatly bothered. "Irene has such a guilt-complex for some reason! I don't get it! She's always apologizing for every little thing, no matter how small it is! Inuyasha was always yelling at her for it!"

"I-I thought she was just shy." Sango admitted. "But… I guess there's more to it. What do you think, Miroku?"

"Anything could have caused it." He informed them, something unsettling forming in his stomach. The monk always had been unable to refuse helping a young woman in need and the one in trouble now was a friend. Yet how could they protect her if they didn't even know what was wrong? If they couldn't even reach her where she was now? Why did Irene feel the need to place the blame on herself? "I'm afraid we'll just have to ask and pray she will tell us when she returns."

"I hope so…"

…

"H-How did you-!?" I pointed at her, dumbfounded, then gestured to where the brunette used to be. "Sh-She was just- hah? Gah! Shapeshifter!"

I took several more steps back. The woman's expression became blank once more, resembling more of the air spirit I had met earlier. "She was nothing more than an illusion. I created her as a guide, just as I have done time-and-again for those who come up this mountain. A rare few have ever been able to accept their truth and continue forth up the mountain. They were always too trapped in their greed, their selfishness… and would never think twice about abandoning someone else if it meant reaching their own goal."

What is she saying? I don't understand. My head hurts so much from this; I was still so dazed.

Kazumi closed her eyes, opening them only when her purple lips tilted upwards into a smile. "You have passed my test, Irene. You have accepted that Naraku was the one to blame for the villagers deaths. The children did not die because of you. I have seen into your mind… I know what you saw. I know how you felt. With this test I was able to attune your heart and I have come to the decision that you are indeed worthy… of a Magatama fruit."

"But… I literally didn't do anything?" I don't get it. I'm too dizzy for all this. "I just climbed a mountain…"

The air spirit looked amused by this and went on to explain. "Though they scared you, you tried to approach those wandering souls and save them. When you saw the apparition I created… you tried to give her the courage to go on. Though… unorthodox in the way it was done… you remained strong for her for as long as you could. But you are only human- and one who is prone to illness cannot keep on for long." She glanced up at the mountain, icy eyes following the path up. "The wind will help you on your climb up the rest of the mountain. You need not fear falling; now that your mind is clear of guilt… the roots and rocks along the cliff will not break."

I'm still so confused, but alright. "Um, thank you…?"

"Do not thank me just yet." She warned. "If you so much as waver in your thoughts you will fall once more down to the bottom, and your soul will wander here for all eternity like the rest." Kazumi waved her arm and then she was gone, replaced by nothing but more fog.

My eyebrows raised and I shook my head incredulously, unable to believe the audacity some spirits could have. Like, seriously? Jeez. Crazy lady. She was so much nicer as Shizuno. At least she was giving me some advice… kind of. Was this all because I blamed myself for what happened with Kohaku?

That's what I'm getting from that conversation anyway. Ugh, I have such a migraine. I want to go home.

I need another hug.

I walked over and grabbed at the roots, hands shaking. They didn't feel as weak and numb as before, but they were bleeding. I had scraped them up quite badly during my climb. That strange feeling appeared again as I tried to move up the mountain, like the wind was giving me a boost. I supposed it actually was doing that, as it was helping me move a lot faster than before. I reached the next ledge in record time.

I tried not to think too much, focusing on the task at hand, determined not to fall below.

My heart wanted to waver, to believe that the children's deaths were my fault, that everyone who died should have blamed me, but… Shizuno's words stuck. They may have been protecting me, but it was by Naraku ordering Kohaku that they were killed. I had no control over the boy's actions. It was not my fault.

It was his.

The fog slowly cleared away the closer I got to the top and the people wandering around had vanished. I huffed and trembled, feet and hands scratched up and blistered, legs and arms sore. If not for the wind pushing me up- as if trying to say hurry up, stupid human like an irritable spirit- I would have collapsed long ago. I dragged myself up to the top ledge where I had been thrown off when I first met the guardian spirit Kazumi, struggling to push myself forward, and wound up clawing at the ground.

My poor fingertips were all bloody.

"I-Irene!?" I recognized that voice. I fell on the ground and rolled onto my back, wheezing and letting out a few coughs. I was so exhausted. "Oh, thank god! Miroku, Shippō, look!"

"Irene is back!"

"She passed the test!"

I could see the group dash over to me, Sango quickly kneeling by my side and helping me sit up. I began to tear up at the sight of her. Wasn't she mad at me? "Irene, you're burning up again! How badly did you stress yourself out!?" She asked, voice almost going into a sisterly scolding tone before relief crossed her face. "I'm so glad you're back…"

She surprised me by leaning down, wrapping her arms around me tightly."I should have paid more attention to your feelings. I'm so sorry."

"I-It's okay." I choked out, awkwardly hugging her with my arms so not to get blood on her armor. I'm such an idiot. They didn't hate me after all. "I-I'm fine. You're the one who was upset, so…"

"But so were you!" She pulled away, gripping my shoulders tightly with her hands. "All this time you've been festering hate and guilt inside of you- and for yourself no less! Ever since I've met you you've been apologizing left-and-right for things you had no control over! Irene, it's okay to be selfish! Not everything is your fault!"

I couldn't speak, too stunned by what was happening. This day was so dizzying. "I-I just… want to help." I finally got out, stuttering on my words. Her eyes were so intense; it felt like they were boring into my soul. "I-I can't do anything useful, so…"

"What do you mean by that?" Miroku demanded, stepping up. Kazumi was still nowhere in sight. "You've helped us countless times; we've told you before. Just who told you that you were useless? That made you believe you could guilt yourself for everything?"

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chrysaint · 3 years

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FFXIV Shadowbringer Flavor Text from background NPC’s

Main Story Quest: Word from On High Location: The Crystarium, The Bridges, Fort Jobb, Radisca’s Round, The Ostall Imperative Excluding NPC’s locked behind side Quests

Just scripts from NPC’s that say something different during certain points of MSQ. Notable amount of non-interactive NPC’s are gone, some NPC’s who said nothing different before are now say something different after previous quest. https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Word_from_On_High

The Crystarium Katliss: We're mustering up all the resources we can to provide relief to our citizens. If there's something you need, just let me know.

Cassard: I saw you, Naonori─saw you fighting the eaters on the front lines. That was impressive stuff.

Irill: I have not been able to stop second-guessing myself since the battle. If only we had been quicker to send supplies, how many more lives could have been saved? I suppose I should take solace that we were able to do anything at all, but that is easier said than done...

Thickeman: You are safe!? Thank the gods! If you are injured, make for Spagyrics at once! The chirurgeons there will see to your wounds.

Rosard: All of our vaunted weaponry, and still we suffered the casualties we did. The sin eaters are a frightening foe indeed...

Valthewyl: I've never seen a sin eater attack of this scale! Medicine, bandages...we are running out of anything and everything at an alarming rate! Gods have mercy...

Emythia: Those who were wounded battling the sin eaters always beg for us to put them out of their misery before they hurt anyone. You can see it in their eyes that they don't want to die, and yet─ Damn it all! If only there was more I could do for them...

Fae-Hann: There are so many wounded that it will be a miracle if we manage to treat them all with so few staff...but it's a miracle we'll need to make happen.

Chessamile: Oh dear, we've never seen so many sin eaters before... We must make ready to receive the wounded.

Wounded Guard: I-I'm all right, I think. My injuries have been tended to.

Lesthil: I am heartened to see you return, friend. Thanks to the bravery and resilience of my comrades, we, too, live to fight another day.

Bethard: I do hope that the wounded make a swift recovery. There were so many... But fretting over it will avail us naught. What might I do for you?

Bragi: Medical supplies are selling as soon as we stock them, but the shelves are still heavy with foodstuffs and clothing. So many who won't be coming home...

Julstan: Lakeland suffered great casualties in the battle. I may be a merchant, but profit is the last thing on my mind at a time like this. I only want to do everything in my power to get the suffering the supplies they need.

Sylgham: Nothing weighs quite so heavy on the heart as cleaning the rooms of those we lost. I see their smiling faces in my mind's eye, and it is all I can do to hold back the tears...

Armilla: Whatever will become of us? My poor little girl...

Heggie: The sin eaters scare me to the depths of my soul. They show no capacity for reason, for mercy... They come, and they take everything from us. Oh, whatever can we do?

Lobarth: My father is big and strong! He fights for the guard! Or at least...he did. They told me he got hurt in the battle, and now he's resting at some place whose name I can't pronounce. They won't even let me visit him. I hope he comes back soon...

Dawkes: The immediate danger has passed, but I fear the future may only hold worse. We have lost too many good men and women today, and there is no telling what action Eulmore will take next.

Glynard: Things seem to have calmed down with the eaters, so the Stairs is back to business as usual. Why don't you stay and have a pint, if you're not too busy?

Leweralth: It was you and your companions who led the defense of the city, yes? I cannot begin to express my gratitude!

Gracine: This is no time for small talk! I must prepare the emergency foodstuffs for shipment at once!

Astrille: I saw you assist the Exarch in erecting the barrier that warded off the sin eaters. I cannot thank you enough for saving our lives.

Szem Djenmai: We witnessed your bravery, Naonori. Full many citizens are alive now thanks to your swift actions. You have our gratitude.

Melboth: Reading these records, one can see the sheer scope of the casualties and damage we have suffered. It is demoralizing, to say the least.

Ilsgor: These are grim times we're living in. And of all the days not to be able to find my what-do-you-call-it! Have you seen it anywhere? You know what I mean!

Leinneil: Improving cultivars for more efficient healing is a time-consuming task. I only wish there was more I could do to be of assistance at times like these...

Evelie: We have already mixed one batch of medicine to deliver to Spagyrics, and are currently in the process of making another. Leave it to us!

Mao-Ladd: I'm working to improve the strains of fruit we grow. There's nothing like a sweet and succulent morsel to lift the people's spirits.

Uilmet: How kind of you to come and check on our safety. We are fine, thanks to the brave men and women who protected us. As a show of gratitude, we're growing a veritable feast of fresh veggies!

Yalard: It is good to see you safe, traveler. When you stopped showing up for a while, I had feared the sin eaters got you.

Moren: We are fortunate that those who came before us had the foresight to record not only their triumphs, but their failures as well. Will you take advantage of their woeful experience...?

The Bridges Philard: Though we survived the battle, our supply shortage has reached a critical level. I have put in an order to the Crystarium, but with all of our outposts reeling, I fear that there is not much they will be able to do for us...

Shira-Kee: We escaped serious casualties in the sin eater onslaught, and suffer only from a shortage of supplies. From what I hear, the other outposts were not nearly so lucky.

Nanard: Much as expected, few sin eaters so much as attempted to breach the Bridges, and we suffered no real casualties. This is small solace, however, knowing what happened to so many of our brothers- and sisters-in-arms.

Fort Jobb Ilthri: The last sin eater attack was more costly than we could have ever imagined, and we now face a dangerous shortage of both manpower and supplies. We must restock and rebuild our numbers, and we must do it with all speed.

Bjorn: We lost a lot of men back there. Too many. But it would have been far more if you hadn't been there.

Grimcogg: Oh, it's─ It's you! I-I'm fine, thank you! Well, not fine, really, seeing as practically everyone's wounded and we barely have any medical supplies left, but...er, how are you?

Chathwick: We are living in turbulent times, but the men under my command bravely soldier on. I have my own anxieties and doubts, but I dare not show them. No, I must remain a pillar of strength for all those I lead.

Fernwren: You, too, fought in the battle against the sin eater horde, did you not? We are fortunate to be alive today, my friend.

Rae-Satt: I was fortunate to survive the sin eater onslaught, but many of the wounded I carried through these doors haven't been so lucky...

Lamlyn: I fear we suffered great casualties in the battle with the sin eaters. Countless wounded have been carried here...many of them on amaro. Oh, how I adore those glorious and heroic beasts!

Radisca’s Round Roi-Tatch: Since the recent sin eater attack, all of our outposts are suffering from shortages of supplies. We have the goods here, but with the roads as perilous as they are, delivering them is another story.

Kristinn: Heh...got pretty scratched up out there, but I'm still standing! I can't very well die now─not with the return of the night, and history being made right before our eyes!

Lewto-Sai: Lost one of my men to the sin eaters. They never even found the body. The hardest part is not even being able to say a proper good-bye...

Varlier: I lost more than a few of my longtime friends and companions in the battle. Yet all I can do is pray that their souls find peace, and fight on so that their sacrifice will not be in vain...

Menther: We suffered great losses in the battle against the sin eater horde, in manpower and supplies both. It will not be easy to rebuild and restock our resources, but we must do what we can. Anyhow, what might I do for you?

Mynes: If we had better anticipated the sin eater onslaught, we might have escaped with fewer casualties. We must be ever more vigilant...and yet, we find ourselves more undermanned than ever.

Bjarni: I've never seen anyone fight the way you did, traveler. It was fortunate for us that you came along when you did. Otherwise, I'm not sure I'd be standing here right now.

The Ostall Imperative Chadine: The sin eater onslaught claimed more than a few of my companions. Sometimes it is hard for me to accept that I am still here, and they are not. But I must soldier on and serve as best I can.

Szeli Vantheu: Those wretched sin eaters... Not even the amaro were spared their cruelty.

Atli: I've lost count of how many good men and women I've lost to the sin eaters. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but it never gets easier...

Mosanilde: I hear that while our forces were occupied with staving off the sin eaters, a friend of the Exarch's helped to shepherd the civilians to safety. Whoever it was, I only wish I could meet them face-to-face to express my gratitude.

Seanric: Oh gods, what are we going to do!? We've fought sin eaters before, but never this many!

Tao-Tistt: We've fought back no end of sin eater attacks, but each one leaves us more depleted than the last. If they keep coming at us with such force, I fear we will not be able to hold out much longer...

Seanard: We opened the castle to house the first wave of civilian refugees during the sin eater attack. As they have many times before, the doors stood strong against even the most vicious foe. Those who fled here later we were forced to shelter at Wolves of Shadow. We could not risk opening these doors in the clear view of the enemy.

Teanna: The recent battle thinned our numbers considerably. While we are in no danger of a food and supply shortage, needless to say, I can take little comfort in this...

Cassfort: When the sin eaters attacked, I was tasked with protecting the lookouts atop the castle. As it turns out, few of them paid us any mind. I reckon my halberd would have better served us down below.

Merlath: We were able to spot the sin eaters approaching, but even then... Well, you know how things went. Updating Side Quest Completed NPC’s Pitrig: To think that all of Lakeland would be the target of an attack of that scale... And yet, the barrier will keep us safe. We must do what we can to ensure that our residents stay calm in this time of crisis.

-- After Completing, the Quest NPC’s dialogue changed

Anguished Guard: Mother... I don't want to die... Trembling Guard: I can't... I can't... Dying Guard: <wheeze>

#FFXIV #Shadowbringers Spoiler #FFXIV Flavor Text

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rosaline-kei · 4 years

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Under My Wing - Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Boruto/Naruto nor the characters.

Fandom: Boruto: Naruto Next Generation.

Parts: 「1」 ,「2」 ,「 3 」

Chapter 1′s Title: Out of Retirement

Synopsis: After her father had taken up Boruto as his student, Sarada began to feel a little... at a loss. Sure, Sasuke still teaches her some things, like how he taught her that Fireball Jutsu. But unlike to Boruto, he isn't her fulltime mentor. And now, she doesn't know who to turn for guidance in mastering her Sharingan. That is, until the Sixth Hokage came along. (Might contain Manga Spoilers)

Rated: T

Pairings (To note: Romance isn’t the main focus, though. But there will be pairing moments, just not a huge lot): Boruto Uzumaki/Sarada Uchiha , Sakura Haruno/Sasuke Uchiha , Naruto Uzumaki/Hinata Hyuga

Read it also on / Leave a Review at:

Ao3 or FF net

Author’s Note (READ AFTER READING CHAPTER): Okay so, this is my first time writing a Boruto fanfiction. I really love Sarada as a character, and I like the idea where Kakashi trains Sarada. Thus, I wrote this haha. However, the thing is I watched Boruto before actually watching Naruto (I mean, aside from the few episodes I watched on Tv when I was a kid, but I didn't really watch it chronologically lol). For a long time, I did want to watch Naruto, but never got around to it because of the many, many episodes. But I did so woohoo.

So, I just want to say my Naruto knowledge about its lore and world-building may be weak. Thus, if I make any mistakes writing about the Jutsus or even personalities about the characters, please tell me! To be honest, I've been afraid of actually writing anything Boruto or Naruto related because I'm pretty much scared for getting bashed by people if I get anything mistakenly wrong. So, haha GG to me.

Please leave a review (here or on websites linked above^^) ! I'd love to hear your thoughts and constructive criticism too!

It had almost been two years since Boruto Uzumaki started his training with Sasuke Uchiha.

In that time, it was irrefutable to say that the young Uzumaki had improved his abilities to a far extent, more than what most people would expect. Even Mitsuki, who would visit his parent’s hideout every now and then for a ‘simple’ round of training, had been improving, his Senjutsu, especially.

As for Sarada Uchiha, she had been making progress too. Except, she didn’t think she was making enough progress to be on par with Boruto and Mitsuki. Though, she’d never admit that much to them. She would prefer to keep these sort of thoughts and insecurities to herself as of now.

After these two years, Sarada who was now at the age of thirteen, was dissatisfied with her current ability level. Because even after the two years of missions and strenuous trainings she had with Konohamaru and the rest of Team 7, and even with her father sometimes, she still had one tomoe in both of her Sharingan eyes. She was dissatisfied with herself.

Sarada found herself walking around the training grounds, wanting to find a vacant spot to do some shuriken-related training. Supposedly, Konohamaru had been tasked to take her and her teammates off to another assigned mission today. However, he had unfortunately caught a bad case of flu. And the Seventh Hokage, being the kind man he is, gave him a break and reassigned the mission to another team.

Maybe I should go visit him later, with Boruto and Mitsuki. Sarada thought.

Just then, she heard a familiar loud idiot-like yelp erupt. Finding herself growing worried bit by bit, she rushed towards the direction where that noise echoes, to only see that that idiot was just training with her father.

Hiding behind a bush that was quite a distance away, she disguised her presence as much as she could as she decided to stay and watch a little. She wondered if her father had noticed her presence, considering he had eyes that were much sharper than hers. And most of all, he had all three tomoes in his eyes. As for Boruto, she wasn’t that concerned about him discovering her presence.

“Gahhhh! This is so hard!” He complained, sounding quite exhausted. From afar, it looked like they were practicing Shuriken-Jutsu. And it seemed like Boruto was having a hard time with his aim.

“You were able to properly aim all six shurikens at all six targets. No difference with eight of them. Weren’t you able to do all eight accurately last time anyway? This isn’t anything new.” Sasuke replied, with a stoic tone that Sarada was anything but unfamiliar with it.

“Yeah, but we did do an extremely intense Ninjutsu training earlier! And I am feeling a little tired…” Boruto reasoned with a sigh, he hadn’t had a break throughout this entire training session. Sarada knew her father was strict when it came to training with Boruto, so she could understand his exhaustion. But she also knew that even if he sounded as childish as he was two years ago, she knew that he had matured… at least, in some aspects. Unlike last time when he ran off, thinking his Rasengan had failed, she knew if he failed again now, he wouldn’t run away like last time. He would try again. He would not give up. So what he said next didn’t surprise her.

“So you want to stop?” Sasuke scoffed.

Determination suddenly gleamed in his eyes as he quickly shook his head, taking out eight Shurikens. “Hell no!” He exclaimed.

As much as Sarada wanted to stay and even join them, she decided not to, even if she was planning to do some Shuriken training too. She didn’t want to interrupt them. Besides, she was sure her father already had enough on his hands with Boruto already.

As she continued her walk to find another suitable spot, the conversation she had with her mother a few days ago began to flash in her mind.

“Why the sad face, Sarada? He’s coming back after another mission very soon for dinner today.” Sakura beamed, before sitting next to her daughter on the couch. She had just finished making dinner. When Sarada didn’t answer, she gave her a small nudge to snap her out of whatever deep thoughts she was having. “Did something happen with Boruto and Mitsuki or…?”

“No, Mama, nothing happened.” Sarada offered a small smile. She was telling a half-truth, though. It was true that nothing serious happened between them at all, like arguments, fights and whatnot. But at the same time, it was also true that those two were a part of the reason why she seemed a little troubled.

She wondered if it was normal for someone of the Uchiha Clan to not have at least two tomoes in their eyes by now. She had wanted to ask her father about this for quite a while now, but she had been hesitant. After all, he always seemed hesitant when it came to sharing anything about the Uchiha history.

All Sarada knew about her heritage was pretty much limited to the book she had read about it before, and even that book’s full content about Sharingan and their users was restricted. And she wished she knew why. But at the same time, a part of her was afraid to know why.

“You know, you can tell me anything.” Her mother’s tone softened into something warm and gentle, it was a tone that never failed to soothe her. To say the bond between her and Sarada was strong, was a huge understatement. Sarada loved and cared for her mother dearly. The same went with her father, of course. Although for the most part, if she had any problems regarding her emotions, she seemed to turn to Sakura more often.

However this time, she decided to only tell her a little bit of her troubles, considering her father was more or less a factor for it. She didn’t want to worry her, or her other parent. “I feel like I’m falling behind Boruto and Mitsuki.” She admitted, “I mean, it’s been more or less two years… and my Sharingan’s still…” She began to trail off, but Sakura already heard enough to understand.

“You’re still young.” Sakura spoke softly, “You still have time to improve on your strengths. And Sarada, trust me, you aren’t falling behind. Konohamaru told me the other day that you’re improving, he even said you’re getting much better at chakra control and ensuring you won’t—”

“Yeah, but still...” Sarada had cut her off, “It’s just… the Sharingan, I… I don’t know.”

Sakura’s eyes softened. She could undeniably empathise with her daughter. She once felt left behind, too. But, Sarada was anything but weak now—she was much stronger than she ever was at her age. “You can always have Konohamaru to train you personally on your Sharingan.”

“I did. But… I mean, he’s not a Sharingan user. There’s a limit on how much I can learn from him.” Sarada reasoned. If she had the courage, she would’ve told her mother about how she envied Boruto ever since he became Sasuke’s disciple. And then, she’d have told her why she never pestered her father too much on training her despite the fact he was the only present Sharingan user known to her—it was because she didn’t want to use up their family time for the sake of her training. It was because she wanted her Mama and Papa to spend more time together, too. But she didn’t. She didn’t tell her.

The thing was, she told her father that she was okay with him training with Boruto. She told him that she didn’t mind. And despite her current emotions and thoughts, and as contradictory it might sound, she still stood by what she said. Maybe it was because of the glimmering enthusiasm in her childhood friend’s blue eyes that made her unable to say that she didn’t want him to train with him.

Besides, it’d do Boruto good to train with Sasuke. He was definitely improving vastly as a Ninja now. Admittedly, he still had that rash attitude of his, but ever since he trained under him, he was… well, less of an idiot. That was the best way Sarada could put it.

Plus, it wasn’t as if her father didn’t take some time to train her. He did teach her that Fireball Jutsu. It was just, unlike Boruto, she wasn’t his fulltime disciple. She just wished…

“Sa-ra-da.” Sakura spoke, “You—”

Sakura’s sentence was cut off by the ring of the doorbell. Not wanting to keep whoever was waiting behind the door, she paused in her conversation with Sarada and went to open the door, revealing Sasuke.

After that, their conversation wasn’t continued. And Sarada would now never know what Sakura was about to say to her, but she could guess that her mother who had her sharp motherly senses, had probably figured out the full reason of what had been troubling her.

Yet, she didn’t continued their conversation. Instead, they spent what was left of that remaining day having dinner and doing some family bonding. To say the least, that family bonding did make her feel a little happier, and it had been enough to shoo off her concerns temporarily.

This is a perfect spot. Sarada thought, as she began to take out some of her shurikens.

Honestly, there was a part of her who did want to ask the Seventh Hokage—Naruto Uzumaki, to be her permanent mentor, considering she knew he was an extremely close friend of her father’s. So surely, he must know more about it than Konohamaru, right?

But she knew The Seventh was busy enough with his duties as Hokage. Not to mention, Sarada wasn’t so selfish that she’d steal any remaining free time from Naruto. She rather have him spend that time with Boruto and the rest of his family. She didn’t have the heart to steal away their family time. She knew how much Boruto wanted to spend more time with his father, even if he never said it out loud.

She could’ve asked her mother, too. Sakura was his wife after all. But she already seemed busy with her job at the hospital. Moreover, by the time she came home from work, she still had to do some household chores and make dinner. Sure, Sarada assisted her as much as she could, but there were days where she couldn’t due to her trainings and missions. She’d come home to a tired Sakura most of the time. And she didn’t want to exhaust her any further.

Although, maybe if one day Sakura was free and not tired, she might ask her if she could teach her some Medical Jutsu. Sarada had been growing a little interested in it recently. But, her main focus for now was her Sharingan, so it seemed.

I don’t know who else to ask. Sarada thought as she sighed quietly before throwing her shurikens at the target boards that were on the trees. And all of them had hit the target. Maybe I should try it with the kunai. She thought silently before taking out a pair.

However, just as she was about to throw, she sensed someone nearby. She then noticed she was being watched.

How long had she been watched?

Before she could turn around, she felt that someone approaching her from behind, getting closer. Not having the time to determine if the new presence was malicious or not, she quickly activated her Sharingan. Clenching onto her kunais tightly, she turned around swiftly, only to loosen her grip on her kunais as she realised who it had been watching her.

“Calm down.” She hadn’t seen him for quite a while. “It’s just me.”

Her red-coloured Sharingan eyes faded back to black as she watched the Sixth Hokage—Kakashi Hatake—approach her.

“T-The Sixth?!” She exclaimed, wondering what he was doing here, or rather, why he was watching her.

“Hello, Sarada. It’s been a while since we last chatted like this.” Although Sarada was unable to tell since he wore that mask, he was smiling a little.

It was just a nice feeling to see the daughter of two of the people he had once guided in Team 7, growing up well. He remembered seeing Sarada as a new-born child when Sasuke and Sakura had returned from a mission. He was glad that they returned safely, and was glad Sakura had been able to deliver her safely despite the fact she was on a mission.

It was just a touching feeling to see the old Team 7 he had guided, to have grown so much. The only bad thing that came out of them starting families and whatnot, was that he was referred as an Uncle by Boruto. Am I really that old? He had wondered at that time.

Well, unlike Boruto, Sarada never really called him Uncle. She often referred to him as The Sixth Hokage—Rokudaime, if anything.

“What are you doing here all alone?” He queried.

“I was… practicing Shuriken-Jutsu… what about you? What are you doing here?” She questioned back, curious.

“Hm? Oh, I was searching for you.” He answered, and before Sarada could ask another question he quickly continued. “I saw Sasuke not too far from here training with Boruto on Shuriken-Jutsu too. You could join them.”

And that’s when he saw the young Uchiha’s eyes and even expression, soften into something along the line of sad. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt them.” She gave a weak smile.

It was just as Sakura said. He thought, as he remembered the day she had approached him.

"I haven't seen you in a while Kakashi-sensei." Sakura had chuckled lightly.

Kakashi sighed lightly, "You know, I'm technically not your sensei anymore."

"Don't say that." Sakura said, "To me, you'll always be Kakashi-sensei. Besides, you don't complain so much whenever Naruto and I call you that." She smirked a little.

"Yeah, yeah..." He rolled his eyes a little, thankful for the mask that hid the smile that had just formed on his lips. He didn't need anymore teasing. Although he had to admit, he was indeed quite happy that most of his students still referred to him as 'sensei', even after when he had become the Sixth Hokage. "What did you call me out for, anyway?"

Kakashi was definitely caught off guard by what she had said. Although, before he could say anything, she continued. “Aside from Sasuke-kun, you’re the only one who had the Sharingan after all.”

Had. He was a Sharingan user, albeit not anymore.

“Of course, I know you’re still the Sixth Hokage, who still has responsibilities, so you don’t have to. It’s just… even though Sarada has trained her hardest, she feels a little dissatisfied with herself, especially with the fact that she still only has one tomoe each in her eyes even after two years. And even though she doesn’t say it out loud, I know she wants to at least train with someone who has experience with the Sharingan. But she doesn’t want to bother her father more than she already does, since he already has Boruto to teach. She’s… a considerate girl.” Sakura sighed. It seemed like she really could read her daughter like an open book. Because what she said was true, even if Sarada never told her about it. “Of course, Sasuke-kun still teaches her new Jutsus every now and then, like that Fireball Jutsu. But he hadn’t done so much recently with her, since he still has that mission and not to mention, his Boruto’s mentor now.”

Kakashi heaved a heavy sigh as he scratched the back of his head, “But why ask me? Aside from the Sharingan part, I’m sure Konohamaru is doing a great job, no?”

“That’s true.” Sakura sighed, “But it seems like she really wants to focus on that Sharingan of hers. Plus, you already know her dream, she wants to be the Hokage. No one else is better suited than you.”

Kakashi thought about it for a while. As of now, he didn’t have that much responsibilities as compared to Naruto who was probably still working at the Hokage’s office. Granted, he still had some duties as the Sixth Hokage, especially since there was still that ongoing Otsutsuki issue. But, he wasn’t so busy that he couldn’t take in a student.

Plus, he knew Sarada had an immense amount of potential. She had inherited Sakura’s strength and Sasuke’s Sharingan. It would definitely be a waste if she didn’t maximise her potential to its fullest. And to some extent, he could see what Sakura meant. The best way to master the Sharingan, was to have someone who had more experience with it, to teach the less experienced one.

It wouldn’t hurt becoming a sensei again, would it?

Shrugging his shoulders as he heaved another heavy sigh, he groaned quietly, “I can’t believe you’re making me come out from my retirement as a sensei, Sakura.”

“Rokudaime?” Sarada called out when she noticed Kakashi had been spacing out. “Why were you looking for me? Did I do something wrong?” She asked, sounding a little worried.

Kakashi quickly shook his head, “No.” He answered simply. “But you don’t have to call me Rokudaime anymore. Starting from today, you’ll be calling me Kakashi-sensei.”

Eh? Sarada had always been intelligent, but still, it took her brain quite a while to process what he had just said. And when it did, only one word left her lips.

“EHHHHH?”

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anthropwashere · 4 years

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i’m still, still dreaming magnificent things (part 4)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

(Alternate site locations, plus a handy dandy GSheet of all the Resembool folk, plus a Spotify playlist to come. Head’s up, this chapter’s 19k words.)

It can't be.

Dad ran off. Dad left them. Dad died penniless and alone, with neither identification or cenz on him, and so was buried in a pauper's grave in some far-off corner of the world. Once upon a time—when Alphonse had still been alive—Ed had declared this to be the only acceptable reason for Dad's continued absence. It's a sad scenario to be sure, but it's one Alphonse reluctantly agreed with, then and now, if for no other reason than that it's the only one that makes sense.

More recently—and more hardened by the world and all its indifferent indignities—Ed considers Dad—"That bastard"—the type of creep to leave a string of broken-hearted single mothers behind him. Granny had all but boxed his ears the one time he'd said as such near her, and Ed had fled back to East City in a huff that same day. He didn't come back until his automail was practically a dead weight dangling from his stump, and then it'd been Winry's turn to berate him senseless.

(Ever since then Alphonse has tried not to linger on the bitter thought. He likes to think Mom had been a better judge of character than that, and even if she hadn't been there's no way the Rockbells would have ever opened their arms to a sleaze like that. Better he be dead, taken by the same illness that took Mom, taken by a terrible accident, taken by a petty thief with an itchy trigger finger. Better orphaned than abandoned.)

Dad is dead and gone. He has to be.

But there's no mistaking him.

Alphonse has seen this same face smiling sheepishly out of aged photographs a hundred times if he's seen it once. He knows this is the same face found in the family portrait pinned to the corkboard in the Rockbell's house. Ed had wanted to get rid of that picture but Granny wouldn't hear of it, so he'd compromised by covering the half of it with him and Dad entirely with pictures of Alphonse. That photograph is what, thirteen years old now?

And Dad still hasn't changed at all.

Without warning the little flock of birds all scatter in a burst of shed feathers and furious wittering. Alphonse shields his face out a habit not yet broken, only lowering his arm once the sound of flapping fades. The man—Dad, it can't be, it can't be, it is—watches them fly off with an absent-minded furrow to his brow. Alphonse is too far away to see what color his eyes might be behind his glasses, but he knows they'll be the same rare yellow as Ed's are and his were and something about that stings.

"You can't be here," he whispers aloud.

The man—Dad—moves on, heading up the dirt road out of town. It's baffling to see him in motion. There've been too many years with only photographs to know him by, too many years speaking of him in only the past tense. This—

This doesn't feel real.

He follows, half-expecting the broad-shouldered man to be a figment of his imagination, half-hoping he'll wink out of sight at any moment and things can go back to normal. He's almost—offended by the appearance of this absurd apparition, this inane interruption to his perpetually dull purgatory. He no longer expects surprises from any corner but Ed's, and even Ed can be fairly predictable in his own off-kilter way. In the years since Mom died, the only family he's had is Ed and Winry and Granny. Everyone else has gone away, taken away too soon, Dad in that number. But here—impossibly—he is again.

"You can't be here," he repeats, more adamantly this time. "This isn't—it can't actually be you. There's no way you're really Dad—"

The man stops, frown deepening as he turns back to regard the town proper laid out behind him. Alphonse follows the line of his gaze on reflex. It's a nice view from here, sure, but he's seen it a thousand times before and he'll see it a thousand times again. He looks back at the man in time to see him startle like he's just remembered something urgent. Whatever it might be doesn't matter a whit to Alphonse, of course, so he shelves that instinctive curiosity and glares up at him.

"No," he says, churlish and childish and damn near pissed. "This is stupid. This is bullshit. Why'd you come back now?"

The man says, "Alphonse."

The man—Dad. Dad isn't looking at the town proper. He isn't. His gaze is lower, focused on something far closer. But this is an empty stretch of dirt road, no houses nearby, nothing interesting to catch the eye at all.

There's nothing here except him. And Dad just said his name.

He shakes his head like a dog. No. No way. He—he heard wrong. He imagined it. There's no way Dad could possibly know he's standing here. Dad's alive; the fresh footprints in the road are proof of that. Only another ghost could see him, so there's no way Dad said his name—

Dad breathes shakily. Dad has the audacity to say, "It is you. Oh, Alphonse. What happened to you?"

He can't speak. He can't even move. If he does either thing he's sure this impossible dream—nightmare?—will fall apart. Dreamstuff and wishes, all of it useless to a dead thing like him.

This can't be happening.

Can it?

(Oh god, please. Please let this be real.)

"You—" His throat isn't real enough to choke, but he feels the need to clear it and start again anyway. "You can see me?”

"Of course I can," Dad says.

"He shivers. That—that was a reply. A real reply, not happy coincidence. A real reply from a living person. "Y—you can hear me too?"

"Yes. Yes, of course I can. Alphonse—"

"Stop."

Dad stops. His hand has twitched from his side, reaching out, reaching like he means to touch Alphonse. A hug, or to ruffle his hair, or whatever small gesture fathers do to sons they haven't seen in ten years. Dad doesn't know. Dad hasn't realized.

"I'm dead," Alphonse chokes out. "I died. Years ago. You shouldn't be able to see me. No one can."

Dad's hand hovers a breath longer, then falls. His overcoat hisses against itself. Hush, it says. Hush. "What happened?"

Everything. Too much. Too many years. Too many moments Dad should've been here, should've helped them, should've taught them to know better, should've stopped them—

"You left," he musters. "You left."

"I...." Dad seems to straighten. To harden. He recovers from his shock, and becomes so still he could pass for a statue. "I had to. I was always going to come back."

The laughter that bubbles out of him is nothing short of arsenic, bitter and foaming. He's as surprised by it as Dad seems to be. "Back to what? There's nothing left!"

Dad looks away from him, out across the rolling hills and the silver ribbon of the river bifurcating Resembool proper and Resembool rural. He looks to where their house once stood, to where there's only a tree half-blackened and a shrug of weedy ruins. Dad looks, and looks, and after a heavy moment he asks, "Where is my house?"

Not "our." His.

For a moment Alphonse hates this man just as much as Ed seems to. He hates him for his arrogance and his ignorance, his narcissism and his dismissal of the only living family he has left. Alphonse would be sick with fury if he were still capable of feeling anything, and so he sees no reason to be kind when he snarls, "Ed burned it down after he became a State Alchemist. You left. Mom died—" He clenches his fists raising his voice to be heard over Dad's sharp inhale, "—I died. Ed's gone. There's nothing left for you here, so why'd you come back?!"

"I—I didn't...." Dad steps back from him, shaking his head. He wavers; unmoored, floundering. "I didn't know. I don't—I'm sorry. Alphonse, I'm sorry, I don't...."

Alphonse knows he should do better than sling accusation and demand answers. He should be better.

But it's too much.

He can't. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Anger, black and stormy, fit to rival Ed at his most unhinged and spiteful, all but overwhelms him then. For all that he has no throat he still finds himself choking on bitter grief for what should have been.

(If only Dad hadn't left. If only Dad hadn't left when he did. If only he'd been here when Mom got sick. If only he'd been here when Mom died. If only he'd been here when Ed first voiced the idea of human transmutation. If only, if only, if only—)

He jabs a finger up the road. "Go talk to Granny. You owe your old drinking buddy a visit, at least. She'll be happy to fill you in on everything you missed."

"Alphonse—"

But he kicks off of the ground before Dad can finish, uninterested, unable, darting away. He doesn't care where, so long as it's somewhere he can be alone, away from living and dead both. He needs to be alone. He needs time to calm down. He needs time to breathe for all that he can't breathe, to find his center the way Teacher taught them to. He needs to find some distance so he no longer feels like the stupid little boy asking Mom when Dad will come back. Mom's gone, dead twice over—

(And guilt gnaws at him, as cutting as it had been the day he watched Granny bury the thing they'd made.)

—and Dad is—

Dad is—

Dad's alive.

Dad's come back.

None of this makes any sense. None of this fits the tidy little afterlife Alphonse has resigned himself to; watching the rest of his family live out their lives and pass away without ever knowing some shade of him was still here, crying out and going unheard.

From the moment he realized even Ed couldn't sense him he's known he'll have to watch the three of them die. He's been dreading the inevitable report of Ed's messy death in the news for—for too long, really. Granny's only getting older. Already there have been a few occasions where he found her napping and thought the worst before some small twitch or snore relieved him. Winry's the only one he expects to see 1920, and beyond that besides. She'll finish her apprenticeship in Rush Valley and no doubt follow a similar path as Granny did at her age. She'll travel for a few years, or many years, but eventually she'll come back to Resembool to keep Rockbell Automail going strong where it's needed most. Maybe she'll marry one day. Maybe she'll have a child of her own, or even children. She and Granny have talked about that possibility once or twice, and Alphonse had laughed at the way she'd wrinkled her nose. But it's a nice thing to imagine on her behalf. A lineage that will last beyond her own small lifespan, the Rockbell name carrying on.

(Winry doesn't really strike him as the type to take her husband's name. Not with the weight Rockbell carries in the world of bioengineering.)

He's seen how the other ghosts all keep wistful vigil over the generations that have survived them and come after them. Watching them watch the living is the closest thing to a mirror he's got, and it's a sobering reflection. Sobering, lonesome, and yes, more than a little creepy, but it's all he's had to look forward to. He'd resigned himself to a state of uninterrupted observation, of decades and eventual centuries of quiet obsession.

But now here's Dad again, come back from the metaphorical rather than the literal dead to throw an enormous fucking wrench in everything!

He's had to watch Mom die twice already. He's going to have to stand over Ed's grave one day soon. He doesn't want to have to do the same for Dad too.

In hindsight, he realizes he ought to have gone to Rockbell Automail too. He could've heard word for word what Granny's spitting in Dad's face right now, found some petty gratification in whatever justified vitriol she's slinging. But it's....

It's too much.

All of it is too much. Dad here, alive, seeing him. If he were so inclined he could ask Dad any old question that comes to mind and be answered. He could tell Dad all the nasty, cruel things Ed might snarl if he were here in his stead. He could fill Dad in on every nasty, cruel detail Granny might be so inclined to gloss over out of kindness toward her old drinking buddy. He could do more today than he's been able to since that nasty, cruel night, and it's—

It's too much.

He's retreated to the cemetery for now. Not many people come out here to visit their dearly departed in the middle of the day, nor are there any ghosts perched on their headstones either. There's only him and the encompassing, comforting silence of a summer morning not yet overwhelmed by buzzing insects or birdsong. There's a breeze, heard rather than felt as it hisses through grass in need of a trim. There's the crinkling of the paper wrapper on a bouquet of flowers on a nearby grave (infant son of Filip and Katerina Danchey, born September 18, 1913). The sun is high. The sky is clear. It's probably warm out, not that he can feel it. He can't feel any of it; not the sun or the wind or the grass or the fabric of the clothes he died in. He can't feel anything, numb in a way the vocabulary of even the most precocious of ten year olds can't express.

(It still manages to surprise him, sometimes. How much dying has hollowed him.)

Dad didn't know.

All these years since Mom died, all these years since they tried and failed so terribly to bring her back, and Dad didn't know.

What kind of world can allow that? There must have been a thousand opportunities that Dad could have saved them from years of grief and pain and loneliness, a thousand days he could have picked up the pieces of their broken home before they could cut themselves to ribbons on the terrible hope of what if. A thousand chances at salvation, but Dad hadn't known he was needed here. All these years, Dad thought a happy home waited for his return. He'd thought Mom perfectly fine, taking care of their too-clever-for-their-own-good sons, living in a home Ed hadn't burned down just so he could keep treading water all on his own.

It's too much.

Better Dad dead than ignorant.

He sits at the foot of Mom's first grave, curled up with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. Granny's been by recently; the headstone looks freshly scrubbed of moss, the nearby grass pruned of weeds, a small bouquet of white gladioli only just beginning to wilt beneath Beloved Mother. He sits, tightly wound, listening to the wind. His thoughts are a perfect match to the rushing, senseless noise.

He's overwhelmed. Overstimulated even, if such a word can be applied to someone who only has sight and hearing left of his senses. Either way, this tight knot of mute panic is a sensation he'd nearly forgotten the feeling of; the sticky way it clings, the choking way it squeezes. Funny, how quickly things fade without new stimuli.

Fucking hilarious.

He doesn't know what to do. How to react. How to act in the first place. There's someone new and alive to interact with, and it's Dad. Can Dad see other ghosts, or just him? If it's only him is it a matter of blood that lets him? If that's the case, then why can't Ed? If Dad can see ghosts, period—why? How? Is it something that can be taught? Would he be willing to teach Ed? Could Ed be restrained from punching Dad long enough to learn?

(Mm, that last one probably not. Granny though, she's impressively patient. She'd been putting up with Ed and Winry's constant fighting for years now. She deserves a sainthood for that alone, honestly.)

Time passes. Hours, probably. The shadows of the headstones are beginning to stretch thin and dark when he hears footsteps on the dirt road skirting the cemetery. He doesn't look when the footsteps soften on the grass, coming closer. He doesn't look when a man's broad shadow spills through him, darkening his own edges so that, for a moment at least, he almost looks solid in the burnt afternoon light. He doesn't have to look to know who's there. Funny, how he already knows—remembers?—the sound of Dad's footsteps.

Nothing is said for a long time.

Alphonse chooses to break the silence first, lifting his gaze to Mom's headstone. Her name, her birth, her death. The pretty but meaningless words carved beneath those facts to sum up her few years. 26 had once seemed like such a mature and far-off age. Funny too, how perceptions can still change even when you can't get any older.

He asks, "Why can you see me?"

Silence.

Then—

A soft, stifled sob.

He twists around to look up at the man, expecting....

He doesn't know what to expect anymore. All of his expectations have been wrung out and frayed to meaningless scraps in the wake of Dad's return. But tears? Dad's face contorting as he sinks to his knees? Dad tearing his glasses off to scrub his eyes? Dad, overcome with grief?

Shame is a salve and a salt both. Alphonse finds it easy then, a relief even, to let his anger and resentment bleed away. He was cruel to think so poorly of Dad, and an idiot too.

By the time Dad quiets his face has become a splotchy mess, eyes red-rimmed and a few strands of his hair clinging to his damp cheeks. Hair and eyes the same color as Ed's. The same color Alphonse's were too. He looks nothing like the man in Granny's old photographs, nor like the closed-off paper cutout Alphonse had built in his head out of secondhand stories and fuzzy memories. Dad looks miserable and wrung out. He looks like anybody would when they'd been told their whole world had crumbled when they hadn't been there to do anything.

Dad paws his eyes dry, slipping his glasses on again. "I didn't know," he says hoarsely. "I didn't. I thought she'd be.... I didn't realize I'd been away so long. If I'd known—" He takes a shuddering breath. "I would have come back. I swear to you—"

"I believe you," Alphonse says.

"I'm sorry. Truly I am. Trisha—" Dad's whole face crumples.

Alphonse considers him for a moment. "You never got any of our letters, did you?"

"...No."

Well. That's alright then, isn't it?

"Why can you see me?" He asks again.

Silence.

Then—

One large hand reaches out to cup the empty air where Alphonse's shoulder hunches. He grimaces, pulling away. "Stop that. I can't feel it."

"I...." Dad lets his hand fall back to his lap. "I've been able to see the dead for a long time. A very long time."

All those old photographs. Decades passing Dad by without touching him. "How?"

Dad breathes.

"I'm a monster."

It's dusk by the time Dad finishes his story. His impossible history. Lost Xerxes and the Philosopher's Stone. The Dwarf in the Flask. Unwanted immortality at the cost of so many dead. Centuries spent hiding away in Xing, learning the breadth of his curse. Learning too, everything he could about every single soul caught inside him. The sheepish admittance when pressed for details that the Xingese think rather highly of the man that came to be called the Western Sage. Friends come and gone, come and gone, come and gone. Growing weary of a reverence he'd never asked for nor sought to keep once given it. Going west, and farther west still. Decades spent wandering until Pinako strong-armed him into a friendship that led him following her hangdog to Resembool. Building a house, meeting Mom, falling in love.

On and on, and every word as impossible as the story all told is absurd. But it's true. It has to be. What reason would Dad have to lie to him? He's hardly even real.

"Are you alright?"

Alphonse blinks. Dad's moved to lean against Mom's headstone, slouched like it's become too much to support himself. Like he'd be leaning against her, shoulder to shoulder, if she were still here to be part of this. Dad seems thinner for the telling, scoured and sore, but relieved all the same.

Alphonse musters up a smile. "Yeah. It's just.... It's a lot to take in."

Dad's own smile is the one from the old photographs, small and sheepish, like he knows he's the butt of a joke he can't take offense at. "I'd understand if you didn't believe me."

"I didn't say that." He leans back on his hands, lets his elbows fail. He stares up at the sky, painted deep purple and burnt orange, too early still for the first dusting of stars. "It'd be pretty crazy to believe you," he says. "But I mean, I'm a ghost. It's... it's just a lot. That's all."

He falls quiet, turning everything over in his mind. Dad stays quiet too. Giving him space and time to reconcile. It's an unexpected kindness, and he feels a pang of shame for assuming it should be unexpected. Granny never shied from telling stories about Mom and Dad. He should have kept listening even when Ed turned tail and ran.

The sky deepens. By now the wind has calmed. No one else has come by, nor are their any houses within shouting distance. He tucks his chin to look at Dad discreetly. To drink in the realness of him through his eyelashes. Dad sits so still, carved from stone again. He's powerfully built, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested. He'd look like any older farmhand if he weren't dressed like a scholar, his clothes well-tailored and well-cared for. Under a patina of dust his shoes look hardly broken in. His beard is neatly trimmed, though both its styling and his long hair are, from what Alphonse has gleaned reading magazines over any number of shoulders, out of fashion. There's a touch of crow's feet to his eyes, laugh lines bracketing his mouth, a roughness to his large hands that are at odds with how eloquently he speaks. He sits with one wrist perched on one knee, his other leg stretched out before him.

He sprawls the same way Ed does.

"So," Alphonse begins slowly. "You can see me because you're a Philosopher's Stone?"

"That's right."

"Do you know about the other ghosts here?"

"I do."

"Private Shriver? Mister Teller? Nurse Nichols?"

Dad nods. "And the rest, yes."

"Mister Sauter died after you left," Alphonse points out doubtfully, sitting up. "Mister Cuttler too."

"Sauter," Dad says, turning the name over in his mouth. "I know that name."

"Steffie Sauter's one of the other ghosts you'd know. She died in a house fire in 1870. Owen was her husband. He remarried eventually and took over his family's—"

"Boutique," Dad finishes. "Yes, I recall now."

"Did you see him when you got off the train? He died when a group of Ishvalans came here and bombed the station. That was near the end of the Civil War."

"I think I must have. I didn't realize he'd died."

Which begs the question, "What do ghosts look like to you?"

"Like anyone else, more or less."

When the Sauters get upset, they burn. Mr. Teller falls apart in a terrible streak of gore. Mrs. Morgenstern and Mr. Cuttler pale and bloat, spilling a poor shadow of foamy water. Private Shriver's face goes to ruin, and Ada gets flushed and waxen as her fingernails and lips turn blue and her voice goes hoarse and wrecked by the cough that tore her lungs apart. Uschi, Mr. Tafano, and the scritch-scratch ghosts are all too far gone to really show how they'd died, so that just leaves Mr. Beckenbauer as the only one of them unscathed by the heart attack that took him too soon.

Well, maybe. Alphonse only ever looks the way he did the night he died, at least to his own eyes. He's seen the others' gazes drift when he gets in a snit about something (usually Ed), tracing the edges of something he can't see. He's never had the courage to ask what they might be seeing.

Dad sighs, slipping thumb and ring finger under his glasses to rub his eyes. "And Cuttler?"

"Gil," Alphonse offers. "He was a soldier. Granny outfitted him with below-the-knee automail a long time ago. He drowned in a flood in the year the Civil War ended."

"Ah," Dad says. And that's apparently all he has to say.

Alphonse narrows his eyes at him, scrutinizing, calculating. He's tempted to ask—of course, it doesn't matter what he wants anymore.

But—

But it could, at least with Dad. He could ask questions, and be answered. Who's to say he'll ever get an opportunity to talk to another living person again? Why is he hesitating? He ought to just ask—

"What—" He winces anyway, and the wince turns into an irritable grimace at his own hesitation.

Dad's smile is gentle. Reassuring without words, the glint of his eyes nearly a tangible weight. Something about being looked at with so much—intent, forgiveness, love—leaves Alphonse almost dizzy. "It's alright. Ask whatever you like."

Alphonse looks away, out across the rolling hills of Resembool. His home and his purgatory both. The shadows have all been gently smothered by nightfall now. In distant fields lightning bugs are beginning to blink, blink, blink. Calling out to each other in a language he can't understand. "What's it like not being able to die?"

Dad hums. Thoughtful rather than offended as Alphonse had half-feared he'd be. He seems like the type of man to always turn the other cheek no matter how hard he's pushed. Patient. Well, with how old he must be—as old as the scritch-scratch shadows? Older?—patience is something that he must have had to learn or break otherwise.

"Well," Dad says softly. "It's.... I'm not going to lie and say it doesn't come in handy. But it's not worth watching everyone I love die before me."

"Like Mom. And me."

Dad's face threatens to crumple again, but his voice remains even. "Yes."

Sympathy pangs in the place Alphonse's heart once beat. He thought he'd become accustomed to being dead. The emptiness, the loneliness, the boredom. The threat of inches shaved off his reach every year until one day he's as trapped in as narrow a space as the rest.

Resembool is a little town with little worries and even smaller aspirations. It's unlikely this will change no matter how many decades pass. Only the faces, the fashions, and the brikabrak inside each home are sure to change as generations come and go. He's realized this, rejected the finality of it for as long as he could, but ultimately he's resigned himself to joining the others in their quiet madness. Mr. Tafano, snarling at anyone who comes too near his tree. Ada feverishly taking inventory in the clinic's supply room. Mr. Beckenbauer stood in the corner watching his great-grandson, tapping out a noiseless pattern on his thigh from a time before the radio and the gramophone, a song from when he still lived and breathed and laughed, tapping and tapping and—

Clinging to their coping mechanisms for lack of anything else to hang onto. Breaking under the weight of their own inanity all the same.

His own inhuman existence has only lasted four years, and some days he feels driven half-insane by it. He does everything he can to stave off imagining the centuries that await him still, obsessively follows the townspeople so as not to think of his own inexorable winding down, tolerates even the dullest conversations and radio broadcasts so he doesn't think of the inevitable day Ed will go where he can't one last time, for good.

He wrenches himself out of that dark turn. There are better things to focus on right now. "I don't remember," he admits. "Dying, I mean. All I can remember is our transmutation circle going... wrong."

In the failing light he can just make out Dad's frown. "How do you mean?"

"The color," he says, and describes the event as best he remembers. It's a truncated summary, all the blood and terror wiped carefully away because Dad doesn't need to hear those details. Not when his frown deepens after hearing only the barest outline. "Like I said, I don't remember what happened to me. Everything went dark, and the next thing I was alone in the basement, apart from—from what we made."

"I'm sorry," Dad says after a moment. "I should have been here. To stop you from trying, if nothing else."

Alphonse nods. He'd thought the same a hundred times if he'd thought it once since that night, and now he knows for sure that Dad would have stopped them, if only he'd known he needed to. "Mom used to tell us you were coming back," he says. It's petty to say so, even cruel, but someone's got to. It might as well be him.

Dad does the right thing by flinching. "I... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Alphonse, I—I thought you'd all be fine without me here."

They'd thought so too, even after Mom died. So much for that.

He floats easily to his feet, slipping his hands into his pockets as he nods toward Rockbell Automail. "You should head back. Granny'll be expecting you for dinner."

It's strange, watching Dad and Granny have dinner together. How they so easily share new stories and reminisce over old ones. They've been friends for decades and it shows in how easily they fall back into finishing each other's sentences, in how naturally they move around each other, in how Dad knows where the cutlery drawer is and which cupboard Granny keeps her shot glasses. It's strange, because for the first time since he died a living person knows he's there. He feels almost—guilty whenever Dad's eyes flicker in his direction. He feels like he's intruding on something especially private, like he's eavesdropping on the adults when he ought to be in bed. It makes him feel more like a kid than he has in—years.

(Granny certainly wouldn't have recounted that particular story about the man she'd bested in a drinking contest when she was 22 if she'd known he was there, listening in. At least not without a significant amount of censoring.)

He sits in a corner out of the way beside Den, who remains a coiled, growling knot all evening. The usually even-tempered dog doesn't so much as flick an ear at the sound of his cajoling. "What's the matter with you?" He asks in a huff, running his hands down and through Den's raised hackles. "Easy boy, easy."

Dad's eyes meet his again; when Granny's not looking he twitches his shoulders in a mute apology that baffles Alphonse for a moment until he puts two and two together. Half a million souls squeezed into one man's body, and dogs are sensitive enough to hear ghosts... well. Alphonse might not be able to hear so much as a whisper out of whatever might be in Dad, but clearly Den doesn't want any part of it.

"And I suppose you'll be needing a place to stay while you're in town?" Granny asks with a sly look over the rim of her glasses. Dad in turn smiles wanly.

"Oh, I wouldn't want to impose. The inn will be—"

"Don't even think of finishing that sentence." She grins at him, sharp despite the whiskey she's put away. "The nice guest room belongs to Ed these days, so you'll be in the new one. You've got good timing, you know; I freshened it up just the other day."

The new guest room is Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy's old bedroom. Granny, pragmatic as always, had boxed up their things while he and Ed had been in Dublith, selling or freely giving away anything that would do better in someone else's possession. She'd bought new linens, hung up a few paintings bought from a couple local artists, but to Alphonse's eye all that hard work carved something intrinsic out of the Rockbell's home. The room is too ascetic now, too barren. It's nice enough, but there's nothing homey about it at all.

Dad leans back, dismayed. "I couldn't possibly—"

"Oh, look at the time, you daft old man. Do you really want to drag Reuben and Starla out of bed now?"

"You might as well give it up," Alphonse says over Den's surly growling. "There's no winning an argument with her about anything."

This time when Dad's eyes flicker in his direction there's a faint smile to his mouth. "...Thank you."

In the morning Dad goes for a walk after breakfast, nodding discreetly when Alphonse asks him if it would be alright if he came along.

(How strange, to feel the need to ask permission for anything. How gratifying, to be answered.)

It looks like it's going to be a clear day, presumably still chilly out as Dad takes his coat from the stand as he leaves. A strong breeze comes and goes like it can't make up its mind, sheeting through the fields along the road. There's a riot of birdsong that breaks apart to angry chattering as Dad passes beneath them. Alphonse watches a particularly furious male scold Dad from the safety of a fence post, all its iridescent feathers puffed up and gleaming in the morning sun. As scared of Dad as Den is, who'd spent breakfast backed into the corner with his teeth bared and his tail between his legs.

"That must get old," he says, nodding at the bird when Dad only looks at him curiously. Had he really not noticed?

"Oh." Dad chuckles. "It can make things awkward, sometimes. There's nothing I can do about it though."

"Can all animals sense you? What you—are, I suppose?"

"Just about, yes."

"Can people? Granny didn't seem to notice anything weird."

"It's not common, but it's possible." Dad's gaze travels east, his eyes heavy with memory. "In Xing some are naturally attuned to the Dragon's Pulse, while others dedicate their lives to learning the flow of it. Alkahestrists, warriors, monks; any who wish to know the body's strengths and weaknesses see this understanding. These individuals are able to sense the presence of people and even animals around them by the energy flowing through their bodies. So too, they can sense things that go against that natural flow."

Alkahestry had been one of many topics Dad had spoken of yesterday, embarrassed as he'd glossed over the Western Sage's influence on the Xingese practice. Until yesterday Alphonse hadn't even known alchemy of any kind was practiced east of the Great Desert. Then again, what he knows of Xing could fit on an index card with room to spare. Here in Resembool there's been virtually no influence from any quarter but its own. Sure, there are a few odds and ends to be found in a number of homes, purchased by traders from before the Civil War or brought home from larger cities. Some tapestries and small statues, a handful of silk scarves and embroidered slippers. Little things easily fit inside a suitcase. A touch of the exotic in otherwise firmly rural Amestrian homes.

Their home hadn't been different in that regard either. For one, Mom had owned at least one Xingese-styled dress. And for another—

"You had books written in Xingese," he says, faltering as he tries to drum up details from the hazy memories of their home. He can only reach back so far before it becomes so much dreamstuff and hearsay.

"Yes," Dad replies softly. "I did."

"What? Oh! Oh, no no, Granny saved those. There's a crate full of your things in her basement."

It was the only other time Alphonse knows for sure she went to their house after she'd buried Mom again. He knows she'd done it while Ed had been off in Central earning his pocket watch and Alphonse had been clawing uselessly at the invisible barrier all around Resembool. He hadn't learned she'd taken anything until months after, when he'd found her one evening paging through one of Dad's strange old books. As far as he knows Ed still has no idea Granny salvaged anything from their house. Ed had never asked Winry to collect anything he couldn't make use of.

Dad's expression softens. "Did she? I'll have to thank her for that."

"After you figure out a way to explain how you know she did it," Alphonse points out wryly.

Or maybe she'd write it off as one more of Dad's harmless oddities. God knows she puts up with some odd habits from him, and accepts him for the whole of it with hardly a question or wary side-eye. But then, she's known him for so long; either she already knows all about him or trusts him enough to leave well enough alone. That's just how Granny is, honestly; whenever she sees someone hurting she'll offer them a good meal and her dry humor, and a bed to sleep in too if they need it. She helps others because she can't bear to sit idle, never mind a person's personality or history. No wonder she and Dad get on so well.

It's only as they crest the hill to where their home once stood that Alphonse realizes Dad wasn't walking for the sake of some fresh air. He slows, stops, hangs back as Dad presses on to the soot-blackened fence. Shame curdles within him, visceral enough he very nearly feels it twist a memory of his stomach and winch his throat tightly shut. He tangles his hands together as if he might wring out some fitting justification for everything that's happened these last ten years. He wants to say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we both are, we just wanted to see Mom smile again, I'm so fucking sorry—

But what good would that do?

So he stays silent, choking on guilt he doesn't know how to express to a man he barely knows.

In the end, Dad doesn't ask any questions. He doesn't hurl accusations or fall to pieces again either. In the end, Dad wipes his eyes and turns away from the ruins of their home without saying anything at all.

"So," Granny says after lunch, and the way she glowers as she cleans her glasses on the hem of her apron makes Alphonse flinch clear across the kitchen. "Do you plan on sticking around?"

Dad doesn't even bat an eyelid at the ice in her voice. He must be hell in a poker game. "No. I have unfinished business elsewhere. I'll be leaving in a few days. Sooner, if you prefer."

She harrumphs. "Is this business of yours going to take another ten years to sort out?"

"No."

Unimpressed, she puts her glasses on and seems to leave it at that, right up until they've settled on the porch with fresh cups of coffee. Then, in true Granny fashion, she goes in for the kill. "I expect Ed to turn up soon, if you can afford to stay a few more days."

Dad tenses. It's subtle, but Alphonse had caught the grimace with which he'd looked at the few pictures of Ed up on the corkboard. He gets it. There's something off about Ed's smile these days, something that sets a set of teeth on edge, and that's not even taking the new scarring into account. One look's enough to know Ed's been through too much for somebody who's only fifteen.

Granny, shrewd as she is, doesn't miss it either. "That's right. I heard from Jeannie Mandelbaum that Ed and a few other odd characters went out East recently. Practically bought all their horses, and cleared out the general store too."

Dad looks nervous for a moment, then his face smooths back into the familiar mask of passivity. "East? Not to Ishval, I trust."

"Ha! As I hear it there's not enough left of Ishval to still call it that." Granny sneers. She's spent plenty of evenings down at the tavern exchanging vaguely treasonous opinions with the other old timers. Almost no family in Resembool escaped the War unscathed. Far too many headstones were planted in the cemetery during that time.

"No one's sure where they went," she continues, "Only that it was likely they'd be sleeping rough and bringing along quite a lot of water besides. There's nothing beyond the mountains but desert, of course, and all that sand's going to be hell on Ed's automail without proper protection. Makes you wonder why he tore off without visiting me first, doesn't it?"

Dad hums, giving away nothing, and Granny barks laughter again. There's a game happening here Alphonse knows neither the rules nor the score of, but he's pretty sure Granny just took the lead.

"That was some time ago," she adds. "He ought to be back any day. So long as he intends to come back, anyway. I'm sure there's quite a few things he'd like to talk to you about."

Alphonse can't help but snort. "That's one way of putting it."

Dad's eyes flicker between him and Granny dubiously. She grins.

"Ah, like you deserve anything less and you know it. He deserves some answers out of you, don't you think?"

Dad sighs, and nods.

There's a comfortable lull the three of them fall into. Routine settles in with its usual mute and mule-headed determination. Having Dad around again, however temporarily, becomes normal.

Turns out, Dad and Granny don't need to say much out loud to understand one another just fine. Alphonse has seen the same familiarity among a lot of the older folks in town; in long-time spouses that hold hands after dinner and have whole conversations without saying a word, and old friends that developed elaborate bartering systems built on decades of inside jokes and IOUs. Dad and Granny know each other inside and out so well that a decade apart has done nothing to diminish their laughter and harmless ribbing.

It makes Alphonse wonder, the second night after Dad's return long after he and Granny had gone to bed, how time might touch him as it spools by. If he'll fall apart like Ada, or if he'll still be able to muster up a joke for Mrs. Morgenstern when loneliness drags her down to the bottom of the river. What was Mr. Tafano like when he first died? What other ghosts huddled in the hills of Resembool long before a town was ever built here?

He wonders what things will be like fifty years from now, and a hundred, and on. The stories he'll tell Uschi and Mrs. Morgenstern and Mr. Cuttler of the going-ons in town. What other unlucky dead will wake to find themselves mute and invisible but to a handful of people who'd died long before. He thinks of the jokes that lose all humor when explained to someone who hadn't been laughing along from the start. The petty slights that no number of years can soothe, the bickering that will continue out of habit long after the first argument's been forgotten. The private things kept between two people; not out of a need for secrecy, but out of a soft desire to keep something good going a little longer.

Well. He's already doing all of that, isn't he?

Fifty years, a hundred, and on. How will Resembool change in that time? Cars, certainly. Plumbing and telephones and electricity in every home too. Paved roads, at least in the town proper. What else might come and go or turn the town on its head?

He's not sure he'd admit it out loud, least of all to Dad, but he's... kind of excited to see what the far-flung future might bring, for all that he'll never get to do more than observe it.

"Pinako," Dad murmurs, drawing Alphonse out of his musing. He and Granny are sat at the dining table, going through a new shipment of approximately eight thousand sizes of screws. She hums absently, so Dad waits until she marks down a number down on the notepad next to her coffee before asking, "Why isn't there a headstone for Alphonse?"

Alphonse flinches.

There's no way Dad doesn't notice.

"...It was Ed's decision," Granny says. Her tone is neutral, her narrowed gaze anything but. "He's convinced he can bring Al back one day, you see."

Dad says nothing, though his eyes narrow in turn.

Granny nods like he's confirmed something anyway. "Yes. He's gone—mm. A bit strange, after everything. Joining the military didn't help that any, but I think in some ways it might have been the best thing for him. Lord knows he's never minded anything I've tried to tell him. Of course, for all that I might think he sounds half-cracked whenever he gets going on all that—" Another nod, this one at the corkboard where all the pictures of Alphonse are prominently on display, "—I never could make heads or tails of alchemy. Maybe he really is onto something. Or maybe not. Maybe he's just dead set on killing himself."

Alphonse flinches again, unable to stifle the miserable sound that escapes him, hating to hear his own morbid fear said aloud by someone so steadfast and reassuring as Granny. If she's thinking the same thing, then there really is no doubt about it. Ed's going to die trying, and there's not one thing any of them can do to stop him.

The seconds stretch. Dad remains silent, passive, counting out screws as if he hadn't heard her.

Granny's measured look deepens to a glower that could curdle milk. "The way I see it," she says archly, "Ed needs someone else he can blame before he runs himself aground. And the way I see it, you're the best candidate for the job. Being his father and all."

"Blaming me won't change what happened," Dad replies coolly.

"He's fifteen, you idiot," she retorts. "Do you think he cares? All blaming himself for Al's death has gotten him is a short leash and a trail of gossip rags hounding his every step. No boy his age should go through half of what he's endured, and all without more than me left to try and talk sense into him whenever he manages to limp all the way out here for maintenance." She takes a swig of coffee like she wishes it were something stronger, then sighs out her anger until she's just—tired. Old and tired and afraid of standing over another grave of someone she loved. "I've known you for a long time, Hohenheim. I know you're a coward and a bastard to the core, but you don't get to run from this. I'll tie you to the goddamn bed frame if I have to."

Dad's eyes flicker to Alphonse as the silence rings. Then he looks away, hunching a little, grimacing at his own coffee mug squeezed in his two large hands. "I know," he says. "I... I know. I'll talk to him."

On the one hand, Alphonse is glad to hear Dad's willing—more or less—to at least stay long enough for one conversation with Ed. On the other hand, oh, but that won't go well.

"He won't appreciate a thing you have to say," Granny warns. God, but Alphonse loves her.

"I wouldn't expect him to," Dad replies, and Granny nods like he's passed another test, and that's the end of that.

One of Granny's out-of-towner customers arrives the next day. Krista Lusk's service dog Charlie likes having Dad around even less than Den does, so Granny gives Dad a wad of bills, a grocery list, and a stern order not to come back until suppertime. She locks the front door after she's shoved him through it for good measure, and Alphonse smothers his grin behind one hand as Dad's left blinking in the mid-morning glare without even his overcoat.

"You better hop to it," he says. "She hates it when people don't do as she says."

"I know," Dad says, but he's smiling too. It seems to come more naturally to him with every passing day. Granny's a good influence on him. He ought to stick around for that alone, though Alphonse is beginning to suspect the man's as bad as Ed is at taking care of his own needs before anybody else's. Exhibit A: Dad remains standing on the porch like he doesn't have a lengthy honey-do list burning a hole in his pocket, staring down the dirt road with another one of his impossible to read expressions. His eyes flicker behind his glasses; left, up, then down in a grimace. Chasing after ghosts again.

Alphonse waits. A couple of days of—acclimating, is perhaps the best word—to Dad's myriad eccentricities has been long enough to learn that waiting is better than hounding Dad when he gets distracted like this. It must be terribly noisy in Dad's head with half a million souls clamoring around in there. He's only one more ghost vying for attention.

Eventually Dad blinks, looking down at Alphonse with a shrug of his broad shoulders in a gesture that'd look like nervousness on anybody else.

(Will Ed's shoulders ever be so broad? Will Ed live long enough to find out?)

"So," Dad says bracingly, "You seem to be adjusting well."

Alphonse stares.

Dad stares back.

The unspoken part of this observation—that he's adjusting well to being dead—sits between them like overripe roadkill that Dad doesn't appear to notice at all. Alphonse does his best not to laugh out of sheer disbelief. "You—you're not very good at talking to people, are you?"

Dad shrugs again, slipping his hands into his pockets as he goes down the porch steps. "Not really, no."

Oh boy. Well. Dad's trying, which has to count for something, right? He ought to at least try to meet him halfway.

He steps lightly into the air, staying a few feet off the ground to be at Dad's eye level. It'll be a little less awkward if they happen across anybody on the walk into town this way. Dad looks at him as he floats an easy half-circle around him, eyebrows raised but otherwise perfectly content to give him all the time he needs to sort his thoughts out. "It's not what I expected—" he begins, then corrects himself. "Well, I don't suppose I ever expected anything, really."

Organized religion and all its trappings is a concept he's never put much stock in, too much of a scientist even as a little kid to find comfort in the plans of some abstractly benign celestial being. Especially not any thing that had the audacity to try and justify orphans. He never chafed as brazenly as Ed did when well-meaning people told them God took Mom for a reason, but he'd bitten his tongue every time he'd held Ed back to avoid causing a scene.

"Ed and I, we never talked much about what we thought might come after death. We wanted there to be something, and it made sense to us that there would be more to a person than their physical composition, something more fundamental than a series of chemical reactions. But we never believed in all that, you know—" He waves his hands vaguely to encompass all the fluffy clouds and harps horseshit, as Ed would absolutely call it if he were here for this conversation. He's a little tempted to say the same, but he doesn't want to put his foot in it if it turns out Dad can still somehow muster faith in a higher power after everything he's endured.

"I mean, what Pastor Darbinian talks about sounds nice, sure, but it never sat right with me, and Ed—" He can't help but laugh a little, and is gratified that the corners of Dad's mouth curl upwards rather than down. "Well, if God's real, I don't think Ed would be happy with anything less than a chance to take Him in a bare-knuckle brawl."

Dad's mouth twitches outright, but he doesn't say anything yet.

"We believed there had to be some spark, divine or otherwise, something we could reach and subsequently bind to the body we designed. I guess that's a long way of saying we liked a good ghost story as much as anybody else, but we never believed they were real. Not really. So to wake up like this after we tried bringing Mom back...."

He shrugs off the old horror, the old terror, the bleak realization that he'd died—

Well. It happened, and there's nothing left for him now but the after party.

"It took some adjusting," he adds slyly, and grins when Dad has the decency to look chastised. "But the others all helped me understand what had happened."

Dad hums, almost starts saying something, then notices the cart coming up the adjacent road as they approach an intersection. He purses his lips into another bland smile that doesn't really seem to mean anything at all. Omar Springer gawks openly at Dad, barely reacting to his polite greeting. His son Rick, turned fifteen not even three weeks back, shows off the gap in his grin where Ed knocked out his tooth years ago as he waves. It's only after the dust of their wagon's passing has nearly settled that Dad speaks.

"There's a girl," he says. "A little younger than you. There used to be a gristmill out on the edge of the western woods—"

He's surprised enough to drop out of the sky. "You don't mean Uschi, do you?"

Dad stares. "You know about her?"

"I know her," he corrects, momentarily baffled when Dad only stares harder. "Wh—oh. Right. You wouldn't—I mean. I've got a much wider range of movement than the others."

"Really," Dad says.

"Yeah. I can reach just about anywhere within Resembool's borders. I"m not sure why, but I think it's because of how I died—" Oops, maybe he shouldn't be quite so glib about that. "—uh. I'm the only ghost here who, uh. Was in an alchemical accident?"

That's a stretch by every definition, but for all that he's certain it wasn't a rebound that killed him he still doesn't have a clue what really happened. It's likely he never will. If he's honest with himself he's still grappling with that. Not just not knowing, but being completely incapable of taking any steps towards knowing eventually. He's intangible, invisible, mute, useless, pointless—

Well. He'll get over himself one day.

"I see," Dad says, looking more uncomfortable than ever.

Desperate to pave over that particular gaffe Alphonse offers, "I had no idea anybody used to live out there until I met her. I don't think anyone else does either."

Dad is quiet, again, as he so often insists on being. Then he surprises by offering more than his usual wry noncommittal replies. His tone turns wistful as he speaks, in the same manner as Granny and other older folk in town whenever they reminisce about the days when they were young and the world's hardships still seemed worthwhile. "Pinako and I first came across the gristmill not long after I bought my house here. She was livid that I discovered something she'd never known about so quickly. Of course, I only knew something was there because I saw Uschi flying above the treeline."

Alphonse bites back the urge to ask what year that was because—

Because Uschi can't go that high anymore. Sometimes, not often, he finds her floating on her back, pressed flush to the invisible ceiling that keeps her trapped beneath a clear view of the countryside. She cries if he tries to distract her; this terrible keening that guts him straight through. When she gets like that... well. He's learned the hard way that it's best to let her grieve alone.

"Do you—?" He falters. "I mean, I've never asked outright what happened to her. She gets upset whenever I bring up anything about—that—for either of us. Do you know?"

"It was before I came to Resembool," Dad replies, instead of It was before my time, which is what any normal person would have said. Of course, he's older than the entire country. Talk about putting things into perspective. "I did some digging after I'd spoken with her a few times. The first settlement was located on the western end of the valley. It was all but destroyed in a fire. The Žitnik's gristmill was the first to burn down." Dad hesitates, mouth thinning, eyes flickering. "From what I gathered, her family was targeted by the other villagers."

"What? Why?"

The bland mask Dad's proven to be so keen on wearing slips; for a moment his eyes blaze. "For being different. Why else?"

Alphonse—

—stills.

He knows how isolated he is. How isolated his childhood was. As he is now, he hears and sees all the things the adults do their best to keep from children, yes, but Resembool is only a village, and not a very large one at that. More than that, it's thrived the way it has for generations. It's comfortable with itself, all its people familiar and familial and wary of upset. It's a place founded on traditions and expectations. Worse, it's insular. He knows there had been two Ishvalan families who had lived here before the Civil War that are gone now. The why and how behind their absence is a mystery he's never heard spoken of since his own death, which in some ways is a red flag all on its own. There are a handful of other races and ethnicities besides pure Amestrian here still; there are mixed families, and families that don't attend church the same day as everyone else, and plenty more who’d spit in God’s Eye if they believed there was an Eye worth spitting at. He knows those people are looked at askance, but he's never sensed any malice.

But that isn't the same thing as acceptance, is it?

Broadly speaking, Resembool is as uniform as the minuscule military unit on the northernmost edge of town. The same families have lived here since its founding, the population bolstered by farmhands and soldiers and the rare handful of those who wanted and could afford a fresh start away from the hustle and bustle of city life. He's heard stories of what the Civil War cost so many other places in Amestris, Ishval most of all. He knows, perhaps better than most, that a human life is worth more than the sum of what can be measured and weighed.

Still. Still, it's disheartening to be told that the cruelty and ugliness of the world at large festers here too. That people, long gone now, but people just like those he's gotten to know so well since his death, could look at another person and think something positive could come from murder.

"That's awful," he says.

What else is there to say?

The townsfolk all circle Dad like a flock of vultures as soon as he steps foot onto Main Street. Word of his return has clearly been making the rounds, and from the toothsome expressions flashed at him it's not likely all opinions are positive. Not that Alphonse can blame any of them; he and Ed were hardly the only ones to assume Dad had died, and most of the adults are appalled that their parents never married to this day. Scandals, however small, get their mileage here.

Mrs. Cartwright hails Dad from the newsstand with an artificial smile and a lot of arm waving. Alphonse doesn't even bother to stifle his laughter as Dad visibly steels himself before approaching. It'd be nothing short of delightful to watch her put the metaphorical thumbscrews to Dad, but she'll be at it for roughly forever. He can happily spend that time better elsewhere, so he leaves Dad to suffer on his own and hangs a left onto Miron Street.

He goes past the smithy, a rush of clanging and billowing black smoke as always, heading for the poorest part of town. Cris Street, all its houses settling crookedly into their foundations, are some of Resembool's oldest homes. Few of them are kept up half as well as those just a street over. No part of Resembool is impoverished, not really, or at least not to Alphonse's limited experience. Whole swaths of Dublith had been run to ruin by the on-and-off troubles with Creta and the terrible toll the Civil War had wrecked. He knows that for all that Resembool had been targeted directly once, it survived almost entirely unscathed.

That's not to say there aren't those hurting here. Alphonse has gotten to know everyone in town intimately in the years since he died; some better than they know themselves. He's learned that even in sleepy little villages there are people that hurt in ways there might be no way to ever fix.

A prime example of that—and the reason he's gone onto Cris Street—is George Petrescu. Mr. Petrescu only left the Eastern region once in all his 64 years, and that excursion left all but five of his company dead and his leg and shoulder riddled with shrapnel. All he'd gotten out of continuing the family tradition of military service was a few shiny medals, a lifetime of chronic pain and debilitating nightmares, a failed marriage, and a disability paycheck that just about covered the cost of whatever booze might pickle his liver fastest. Once upon a time he'd been a happy husband and loving father; Alphonse only knows he'd had twin girls once upon a time because he's seen the photographs Mr. Petrescu fishes out when he gets too deep into his cups. He's watched the man's face soften to a spongy mess of grief over what he'd had and thrown away more times than he cares to think, and every time he steps inside this ramshackle house he walks away sick with shame and second-hand embarrassment for all that this good man had once been.

He comes back anyway, because no one else bothers to intervene anymore.

Once upon a time, Mrs. Petrescu—Claudia, and Alphonse only learned her name through tutting gossip one night when Mr. Petrescu had embarrassed himself once again two years ago at a wedding he hadn't been invited to—had grown sick of her husband's unpredictable rages and called it quits after he'd hurt one of their girls. Molly or Holly, Alphonse has never heard which, only that Granny had needed to get involved, and that things had grown grim enough that Mrs. Petrescu had decided that the shame of raising her girls on her own elsewhere didn't outweigh whatever love she still harbored for the good man her husband had once been before the military had torn him to pieces. She'd left long ago, before Ed had been before, before even Aunt Sara had come to Resembool to apprentice under Granny. Mrs. Petrescu had left with her girls and all their belongings and gone north, and no one's heard anything from them but hearsay and supposition since.

There are a number of people in town with long, lonesome histories and no one living left to lean on. God knows Granny's three-quarters of the way to joining that number, for all that she'd deny it if Alphonse were capable of pointing it out to her. He worries after her, but at least she still has Winry calling two or three times a week. There are too many unlucky few who don't receive so much as a letter from those who might feel some obligation to keep in contact, but don't for their own reasons. Alphonse has come to know too well since his own death that there are worse things in this world than being invisible, things worse even than being dead. He could still be alive, still be heard and seen and everything living entails, but instead be purposefully shunned by his fellows. He could be shameful. An embarrassment. Someone the whole town pretends its hardest to never notice, never mind he could be stood right in the center of things screaming his head off.

Mr. Petrescu is one of those unlucky few, but it's not his fault. Not really. Not in any way that counts.

Alphonse passes through the front door of Mr. Petrescu's ramshackle home, all peeling green paint and sloughing apart roof. He squints into the darkness until his eyes recall he doesn't need to falter in the half-light. Old habits, still unbroken. Inside is the usual heap of detritus; stacks of broken, useless things that inch higher toward the cobwebbed ceilings with every passing year. Deeper inside the house is a bedroom, and buried in that dim room is a bed—that must surely reek to high heavens if the scrunched-nose expressions everyone makes around Mr. Petrescu when he fumbles his way out of his house is anything concrete to go by—and in that bed is the man of the house himself.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake," Alphonse tuts to himself. "I leave you alone for three days and this is what you do with yourself?"

There's no reply, of course, not that Alphonse expects one. Besides, from what he's gleaned Mr. Petrescu isn't a chatty man even with people who are willing and able to have a conversation with him. He doesn't even spare more than a few grunts for Mr. McElligott or the gaggle of teenagers that run the register at the General Store, and they're the ones he interacts with most not that the Pugh family won't let him patron the tavern anymore.

"Come on now, rise and shine!" Alphonse says, hopping over a pile of something-or-other to kneel on the bed, wiggling his fingers menacingly for his own small amusement.

It's the same thing he does for Granny, and for a number of others besides. Those lonely living souls who sink too deeply into maudlin rituals that hide them away from friends and neighbors alike, clinging to the outskirts of their own lives out of something adjacent to stubbornness and second cousin to habit. He's invisible and essentially mute, sure, but a cold spot like him can be a right tenacious little shit when he's so inclined. He grins as he sticks his hands through the blankets and wriggles them around until the lump on the bed grunts, grunts louder, swears even louder than that, and finally sits up.

Mr. Petrescu might have been handsome, once. Now he's a gray and pallid thing, gaunt in some places and flabby in others, covered all over in bristly gray hair that looks as coarse as steel wool. He snuffles and hawks up something thick into the trashcan by his nightstand. He reaches for the bottle by the full ashtray, scowling when it turns out to be empty.

"Good," Alphonse says. "You ought to get some sun, you know. It's a lovely morning out. A bit chilly, I think, but you'd be the better judge of that. Why don't you go and find out?"

The man looks around his dirty bedroom blearily, grumbling something that's more vowels than consonants and completely unintelligible for it. Then finally he fumbles for his cane and hoists himself to his unsteady feet. It always worries Alphonse terribly, those first few hobbled steps that seem to cost Mr. Petrescu more than he can afford. Sometimes he yelps like a wounded dog and sinks defeated to the floor, and those are days that are better left smoothed over and forgotten. Today is a better day. Not good, no. It would be unkind and inaccurate to ever say Mr. Petrescu has good days anymore. But he gets to the bathroom and sorts out that business and gets dressed in clothes with no obvious stains, and none of it with more than a few yawns and sleepy grumbles.

Alphonse leaves the man to all that personal stuff, more interested to see what the rest of the house looks like. He hasn't been by since Dad turned up and he's curious to glean what he can about what Mr. Petrescu's been up to. Hopefully more than dulling his senses with drink, and if he's not in much pain today that might not even be a fruitless hope.

The curtains are all drawn tightly shut so only thin outlines of gray light spot the living room and kitchen. Spots of reflected light glitter damningly throughout every room he peers, bottles left to gather dust where they'd been dropped. It looks like the house is dry, though there perhaps something was squirreled away in the bathroom because Mr. Petrescu starts to whistle as he gets dressed. That's alright. Alphonse can understand needing a little help to get a hard thing done.

Mr. Petrescu totters out of the bathroom, snuffling some as he paws his wet hair out of his eyes. Alphonse steps close to wriggle his cold hands up and down the man's spine until he jerks absentmindedly toward the couch to fetch an oversized knit sweater. It might have fit him well once, but that would have been years ago. Still, it's another layer to warm him, a bit of armor against the cutting gazes of his neighbors. It's better than nothing.

All told it must take twenty minutes of nagging before Mr. Petrescu gimps outside, but that's the hard part handled. From here Alphonse can trust the man to make his way onto Main Street. There the usual gossips will cluck their tongues to see him buying booze so early in the day, but there will likely be food bought besides and if it's Mr. McElligott or Ilya Jarrett running the register at the general store they might coax him into getting a few other necessities besides. If Alphonse hadn't been by today it's likely Mr. Petrescu would have gone without anything until nightfall, if he'd decided to leave his house at all.

It's the little things that matter. The little things are all that are left to him, and to Mr. Petrescu, and to who-knows-how many people out in the world. He has to appreciate the good he can still do, no matter how small it might be.

The truth of the matter is that there's a kernel of unlovely familiarity he sees in Mr. Petrescu. There are times the man barks insults at his fellows, scowling thunderously when no one has the spine to give him the fight he's angling for. There are times the man can't leave his bed for the pain he's in, bitterly cursing as he kneads the knotted muscles of his thigh. There are times when he stares unblinking at old photographs of what he'd had once upon a time, and his eyes become two nickel coins in his lined face. There are times the man rouses from another terrible nightmare sobbing apologies to the dead, and the rest of those nights are spent huddled near a lantern or sat on the rickety chair in his backyard watching the stars wheel overhead.

How can he see the rut Mr. Petrescu has slowly but doggedly dug himself into and not see a funhouse mirror reflection of what Ed might become one day? If Ed hangs on half as long as Mr. Petrescu, will he retreat into a bottle for comfort? Will his myriad hurts twist him hunchbacked and limping even on his good days? Will he become too bitter and sharp of edge for anyone to consider him worth befriending?

It is so, so easy to see the worst of what Ed might sink to in what Mr. Petrescu's life has quietly fallen apart to. He hopes things will improve for the man one day, that one of the living will take pity on him, that they'll take the time to help him when the scrap of pride and stubbornness he buoys himself with won't let him. Alphonse doesn't want to be the only one who cares. Not when he can do so little to help. He wants there to be others for Mr. Petrescu to lean on, and Ed too, and all the lonely hurting souls beyond his reach.

He catches up with Dad in the general store—it is Ilya running the register, that's a welcome relief—and perches on the counter to watch as the pair haggle through Granny's list. Then it's to the café for a coffee and sandwich to go that Dad takes to the station. There's a terrible moment where Alphonse briefly thinks Dad intended to leave now, but then he recalls the long-since memorized train schedule. There's no train due until tomorrow, and it won't leave until the day after that. He watches Dad give Mr. McCahan and Ms. Seelin a bland smile as he passes them at the ticket station, then settles himself on one of the white benches on the platform.

"Well, there's the talk of the town himself!" Mr. Teller calls out cheerfully, floating up off the tracks to land beside Alphonse. He hovers his hand over Alphonse's head, as close as he can get to ruffling his hair.

"Is it as bad as that?" Dad asks.

"If I know the hens are all a-flutter, then you know it's worse."

Dad grimaces. "What seems to be the common thread?"

"Oh, they're all right scandalized, of course. Aston had to break up an argument before it came to blows. I heard it secondhand, of course, but I think it had something to do with your imaginary fortune again."

Dad tuts, though it might be because he spilled coffee on his fingers. "I thought Pinako had taken care of that nonsense."

"Yes, well, you've not been here to remind folks of the facts stood right in front of them. Welcome back, by the way. Missed your arrival with all that hubbub with the hogs."

"Aston, you said?"

"Aston Clark. That'd be the painter. Or, well, I don't know if he'd picked that up yet before you left."

"What the fuck," Alphonse says loudly. Both men blink at him like they'd forgotten he was there.

"Oh," Mr. Teller says, looking guilty.

"Mm," Dad agrees, making a face like he thinks he should be unhappy his youngest has figured out foul language in his absence, but also knows he doesn't have any right to chastise. Good thing he realized that, because at this current moment Alphonse is discovering heretofore unrealized depths of outrage that might rival Ed and Winry both at their most rancorous.

He turns the full force of it on Mr. Teller. "You knew he could see us?!"

"I thought you knew," Mr. Teller says defensively.

"I think I would have mentioned it if I did!"

So it turns out every ghost that was around when Dad left Resembool knew he could see and hear them, and none of them thought this an important enough fact worth mentioning to Alphonse in the years since his death. Alphonse spends several minutes telling Mr. Teller—and Mr. Sauter too, when he decides to turn up with an altogether too cheerful wave greeting for Dad like there's nothing absurd about greeting a living person—exactly what he thinks of this slip-up, raising his voice every time the man ineffectively hides his grin until he's shouting. Dad, as ever, appears unaffected. He eats his sandwich. licks his fingers clean, and only then bothers to intervene.

"I don't think it's something that would come up too often."

Alphonse whips around to give him a distinctly unimpressed glare. "I'm pretty sure it should have." It's not like there's a wealth of gossip for the dead in Resembool to busy themselves with! It would make sense for one of them to mention to Alphonse that his own father would be able to see him if he weren't dead and did end up coming home one day, as turned out to be the case. Torn between keeping the glare on Dad—who's proven thus far to be wholly harmless, and apologetic to the point of second-hand embarrassment—and Mr. Teller—who won't stop grinning like the Winter Solstice has come early, the bastard—Alphonse opts for the middle ground of glaring at Mr. Sauter.

"Hey," Mr. Sauter protests, holding up his hands defensively. "I died after he left. How was I supposed to know?"

Alphonse goes back to glaring at Mr. Teller. "You didn't tell him either?"

"Nope," Mr. Teller says, entirely too giddily.

He throws his hands up. "What's the point of you!"

Mr. Teller pretends grave offense, clutching his chest like Alphonse has put a knife through him and making a whole laundry list of ludicrous faces. "Ah! D'you hear that, Hohenheim? No respect! No respect at all. What did that ol' Pantheress teach him for manners without you there to mind her, eh?"

Dad hides his amusement behind his paper cup. "Pinako's always known better than to listen to my advice."

"Shut up," Alphonse says, stamping on the urge to strangle—nobody, yes, but that’s only on a technicality he hasn’t figured a loophole around. "Stop. For—god, seriously? Don't make jokes. I've been dead almost four years and nobody thought to mention my own father happens to be an—an immortal medium? What the fuck!"

"Well hang on now, scale it back, lad," Mr. Teller says, turning his delighted grin on Dad. "What's this about being immortal now?"

"He's immortal, he's ridiculously old, we can talk about that later," Alphonse snarls. "The subject at hand right now is that you knew he was weird from the start and never said!"

Mr. Teller continues to be an absolute bastard and waves his hands dismissively at Alphonse without taking eyes off Dad. "Hush it, you. You might be able to talk to any ol' stiff you please, but shy of a funeral you and Owen are the only ones I get to talk to, especially after this one took off without so much as a warning! I never mentioned his, whatever, ability I suppose, because I figured the same as you; that the ol' bastard was dead."

"Hey," Alphonse says feebly, and only when it becomes apparent Dad's not going to speak up in his own defense. Being untroubled by some persnickety dead guy insulting him suggests he won't mind Ed calling him the same in a few days, which is good, though time will tell how well being a Philosopher's Stone will protect Dad's teeth.

"I don't make a habit of announcing what I am," Dad says, neutral enough that Alphonse can't tell if he'd like it if Alphonse stopped going on about it or doesn't care if he starts shouting it from the rooftops. Whatever, it's not like more than four people'd be able to hear him if he did that.

"What are you, anyway?" Mr. Sauter asks curiously. "It's been—what, a decade since you left? And you haven't aged a day!"

"Looks the same as when I was still alive too," Mr. Teller adds pointedly.

"It's a long story," Dad admits. "I'm sure Alphonse would be happy to share it on my behalf another time. I'm afraid I need to g—"

"Granny's stuff can wait," Alphonse says. Dad raises his eyebrows doubtfully. "It can. She only tossed you out because the dogs don't like you—"

"Oh, I remember that!" Mr. Sauter says. "My Lalea just about strangled herself on her chain whenever you came near. Course, she didn't like most folk, but she hated you. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Oh my god," Alphonse says loudly. "Never mind all that. Can we please, for thirty seconds, stay on topic? Mister Teller, you knew! Not just that he can see us but also that he's—weird! The kind of weird that made it liable he wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere!"

Dad blinks. "A ditch?"

"We had to assume something. It was that or go with Ed's idea."

"Oh, don't," Mr. Sauter interrupts, distressed, while Mr. Teller—bastard—giggles outright. They'd both been at the station for that cheerful conversation between Ed and Winry. Mr. Sauter steps up, hovers his hands over Alphonse's shoulders like he'd try to settle him if only they could touch. "Al, come now, that's enough. You know Walt only meant well—didn't you, Walt?"

Mr. Teller bobs his head, as sincere as he ever gets. "I can't say what the rest were thinking, but you always look so torn up whenever the topic of your parents came up. I didn't want to be the one to bring your dad up when the chance of him coming back seemed slim to none."

Dad's mouth thins. Alphonse ducks his head to hide his scowl, embarrassed of all things. It's Mr. Sauter who speaks into the empty space couched between them, smiling genially. "It is good to see you again, Van."

Ms. Lusk won't be leaving until the train wends its unhurried way back down to Resembool in three days time. Granny, usually happy to let her out-of-towners stay under her roof free of charge—seeing as how they're already paying out the nose for the limbs she's built them—surprises Alphonse when she phones Mrs. Forney to arrange for a room at the inn instead.

"I'd have you here as long as you needed any other time," Granny tells her as she finishes writing up the bill, nodding toward the back porch where Dad stepped out to put some distance between him and the dogs, "But that one's a dear friend of mine and he won't be in town long."

"It's no trouble," Ms. Lusk assures her, and even goes out of her way to stick her head out the back door to wish Dad a good day. Then she gathers her things and her usually even-tempered guide dog Pepene and strides off down the road. She'd come up with an obvious gimp in her ankle but today she strides off whistling. Alphonse likes when Ms. Lusk has to stay a few days. She's always good for a few fun stories. Maybe he'll stop by the inn around suppertime to listen in.

Granny waits until Ms. Lusk is all but a speck in the distance before she goes to stick her head out back. "You can stop hiding now."

"I was admiring your garden," Dad corrects woodenly.

"Get in here, freeloader," Granny says, grinning. "I've got a lot of work to get through today. You can do me a favor and make dinner."

Dad smiles as he comes up the steps, holding the door so both Granny and Alphonse can walk "Any requests?"

"A fellow so well-traveled as you has surely picked up a few novel recipes along the way," Granny replies dryly. "Surprise me."

Turns out Dad expected Granny to put him to the test at least once while he's here, because along with everything else she had him but he'd added a few purchases of his own, paid for from his own pocket.

(How do wandering alchemists slash itinerant scholars earn money, anyway?)

"What are you making?" Alphonse asks, perching up on the corner counter out of the way to better watch him work.

Dad hums. "She's always liked it when I make something she won't find elsewhere. I… hmm. Yes, I think so." He offers a smile in Alphonse's direction. "Do you like eggs?"

"Not anymore," Alphonse replies archly.

"Before, then," he corrects, completely unruffled.

"I did, yeah."

"Would you like to learn how to make a Xerxesian dish?"

There's a note of hesitation in his voice, so soft that Alphonse nearly misses it. But for all that Dad tries to go around like he's carved from stone, he looks away from people he's wary of hurting the same way Ed does. For that alone Alphonse has no trouble hopping down to join him by the sink, grinning up excitedly. Dad falters, then returns it as honestly as whenever Granny startles laughter out of him.

"Well, then. It's a bit like an omelette, or perhaps a frittata is a better comparison…."

Dad doesn't share the same sure grace as Granny or Teacher have in the kitchen. He pauses at odd moments, chops and measures everything as if being even a hair's breadth off would mean having to scrap the whole dish and start fresh, and for all his caution he nearly burns it anyway. Dad's panic is charming in its own way; in how another rough edge in Alphonse's impression of him is smoothed away by watching this impossibly complicated almost-stranger nearly spill his hard work on the floor no less than three times. Still, he lays out a charming spread for two before going downstairs to fetch Granny.

Kuku sabzi, he'd called the dish. Alphonse turns the foreign words over in his mind, regarding it like a clear piece of polished quartz found among river stones. Unexpected and almost alien, but beautiful in a way that demanded curious hands to pick it up and take it home to display.

Of course Xerxes had its own language. He wonders if anyone else survived the country's destruction, merchants or soldiers or a handful of lucky farmhands working just beyond the array. Are there any descendants of those few? Are there any others who still know Xerxesian?

(Has Dad had even one opportunity to speak his native language with anyone outside his own head in four centuries?)

Dad comes back up after a few minutes and, after another of his pauses, moves the pan to the sink to soak before attending to the fresh-brewed coffee. "She'll be up shortly," he murmurs.

Alphonse hums, still half-lost in thought, imagining how Xerxes might have been once upon a time. The faces, the fashions, the brikabrak inside each home. So many dead. So many ghosts caught up in an even smaller space than the scritch-scratch ghosts huddle and weep, an even smaller space than the buried basement he'll huddle in one day too.

"You must miss it," he says. "All of you, I mean."

Dad does not flinch, nor freeze. There's no hunch of his broad shoulders as he stirs in milk and sugar, no tremble to his hands as he picks both mugs up. When he turns, however, his smile is brittle. His eyes are as flat as two bronze coins. "Yes,” he says. “Very much."

The following morning Dad goes for another meandering walk. When he meets other people he dips his head and bids them good day and always seems completely immune to the gobsmacked looks he gets as he hops over a property fence or through somebody's garden. Alphonse can't decide if Dad's just that distracted by so many conversations in his head or if he's a fan of petty vengeance. Granny had been thorough on filling Dad in on all the unkind things said about Mom and Ed, and who had said them.

Honestly, Alphonse prefers meandering the countryside with him instead of following behind in town. There, as yesterday had proven, any number of toothsome so-and-so's were eager to know just what Dad's been up to, and where he's been, if he's heard Ed joined the military, has he heard a fraction of the madcap adventures Ed gets into, and isn't it a fright, the military taking him at such a young age? What's the world even coming to, child soldiers and the threat of war on three borders, it'll be Ishval all over again if Bradley's not careful—not that Ed would be shipped to the frontlines at his age, surely things aren't so dire as that! But he must worry, mustn't he? And oh, how terribly sad it is, Trisha and Alphonse, what tragedies, so young when they passed, and he and she never did get around to tying the knot, properly, did they? The poor dear, it was so hard on her after he left, raising two boys on her own, such a strain on her frail nerves, it's no surprise what happened—

On and on they'd gone, killing Dad with kindness until he managed enough feeble excuses and pleasantries to satiate them for the time being.

Yeah, Alphonse is nothing short of relieved that Dad opts to avoid town altogether today.

Dad had told Granny that he didn't want to be in the way while she worked through a small backlog of paperwork, and she'd told him about the box of his things she'd kept without prompting, clearly keen to keep him around. She's coerced a number of people in town to keep an eye out for Ed and bribed a few more to strongarm Ed up to Rockbell Automail if need be. Dad had given her a look like he knew exactly what she was up to, but thanked her anyway.

(Alphonse loves watching them snipe at each other.)

Of course, Dad's real reason to leave the house is so he can talk freely with him. Alphonse didn't even need to ask; Dad had smiled at him first thing this morning, then told Granny he was going to get out of her hair for a couple of hours.

So they walk, and they talk, and every time Dad meets his eye and replies to something he’s said it’s a thrill that nearly electrifies him, leaves him almost-warm and almost-shaky, giddy and tripping over his words.

But.

But there’s only so long he can skirt the edges of what matters, however uneager he is to breach an unhappy topic. He wants to know why Dad left. He’s desperate to know, but terrified all the same. What if Ed was right? What if, despite or because of what he is, Dad fled from the responsibility of being their Dad and into the arms of another woman? Women? What if Dad really has left a string of brokenhearted single mothers behind him, going back farther than even Ed’s cynicism could ever imagine?

What if, what if, what if?

The memory of physical pain is a slippery thing he’s lost his grip on, but grief and fear wound him daily. For all that he yearns for answers, for information and truth and knowledge, this is something he finds himself shying from. He fills the morning, as he has the previous days, with inanity. How did Dad meet Granny? What other countries has he been to? What was the tastiest thing he ate in Hermetica? Did he ever learn to play a musical instrument? Has he ever seen the ocean?

These are safe questions with answers that almost always require lengthy anecdotes to explain the answers. Alphonse exults in the new information, in tales of far off places and wonders that make Dad light up with fondness and nostalgia for people who’ve long-since passed away.

But.

But something akin to guilt gnaws at him the longer he puts off asking the obvious. His time with Dad won’t last forever, this he already knows. Soon, in a handful of days at most, Dad will face whatever cruel—and justified—vitriol Ed will sling at him, then be on his way to….

To what?

He doesn’t know. This is what he’s been too afraid to ask. He’s been too cowardly to ask.

It’s far, far from Rockbell Automail that he finds his spine. He wheels a tight circle in the air to meet Dad face-to-face and asks, “Why’d you leave?”

And Dad tells him. More than that, he tells him why he has to leave again. He doesn’t soften it; the danger, the stakes, the truth of what’s coming. He pays no lip service to the age Alphonse was when he died, speaks as plainly as he would to Pinako or any other adult he trusted. He tells him that nothing short of the fate of the world hangs on the outcome of next spring’s solar eclipse. All of Amestris will die in a handful of moments if the Homunculus isn’t stopped, killed the same way Dad’s people were. He tells him about the array he’s spent the last ten years designing and implementing. How even if he’s incapacitated it will remain a viable—and the only sure—counterattack. Dad tells him he left to save the country and who-knows how many millions of innocents.

It all sounds so absurd, so impossible. The same as every other story Dad’s told him, really. Van Hohenheim: the impossible man. A liar, many would call him. But even as small a town as Resembool has more than its fair share of liars, and Alphonse has seen them all caught in the act time and time again. Dad’s no liar, of this much he’s sure. He’s just a man caught up in a very long and very strange tale.

But a word settles like a bruise he can't ignore. “Incapacitated?”

Dad’s eyes crinkle like he knows exactly where the conversation is going, like he’d much rather not have the conversation at all, but knows better than to try and change the subject. “I’ve never been one for fighting. If it came to that alone, he’d have the upper hand.”

“He’ll kill you,” Alphonse realizes, horrified.

“I’m sturdier than I look—”

“So you’re going to let him keep killing you, or maiming you, or whatever, as a distraction until your counter-array can un-kill the entire populace?”

Dad hesitates, which says enough.

“What about after? It’ll still be you versus him. If all you do is stand there, he’ll just kill you again and again until you stay dead, and he’ll still be there afterward to do whatever he likes!”

“I won’t be facing him alone. My friends—”

Alphonse barks unkind laughter right in Dad’s face. “What use are any of them? They’re dead!”

For a moment Dad towers over him, broad and burly and strong despite the scholarly way he dresses. For a moment his face clouds with anger. For a moment it seems he might shout. For a moment it seems as if he would do more than shout if Alphonse were as real enough to punish as any other child that’s spoken out of turn.

The moment passes.

Dad sighs, his eyes shuttering. Whatever strange anger that filled him gutters to so much smoke. “Are you upset you don’t have a headstone?”

“Wh—? What?”

“I said—”

“I heard you.” He shakes his head, blinking like that’ll bring some sense to this conversation. “Who cares? You’re going to die next year if you don’t—”

“I do.”

“What?”

Dad starts walking again, charging ahead with his long-legged stride through grass tall enough to tickle his knees. Alphonse keeps up for as far as he can. “I care. About you, and Edward. Would you feel more at ease if there were a headstone for you beside—beside your mother’s? Do you think it would help put Ed’s mind at ease?”

“I don’t see how that—”

“Was there anything left of your body? Have you looked?”

“Wh—no?”

“No, there wasn’t? Or no, you haven’t looked?”

“No! I—what does it matter? You should be worried about yourself!”

Dad turns abruptly, fast enough that his ponytail whips over his shoulder. “I’m not,” he bites out. “I’m nothing but a cage for the dead inside me. I wanted to be more with your mother, but I squandered that too. If I’d been here, I could have—” He sucks in a breath, forces it out slowly before speaking again. “I owe you so much, Alphonse. More than I have time to give now. Please, answer the question.”

This—

This means a lot to Dad.

And they’re running out of time. Ed will be here any day, and after that inevitable fallout Dad will leave for….

Maybe for good, depending on how this apocalyptic eclipse turns out. Alphonse is still reeling, still trying to make sense of the scale of such a thing, of the chance that all of Amestris could be gone in the blink of an eye on the whim of a false-faced monster from a fairytale. How absurd. How terrifying.

“I….” He takes an unnecessary breath, watching the wind play with the loose ends of Dad’s hair, ruffle the grass in waves. The edge of the forest is a song of whispers, leaves rustling and boughs creaking. They’re far from any house out here, on the very edge of Resembool’s border. "Whatever happened that night, it wasn’t a rebound. There was nothing left of my body before Ed burned our house down.”

“Was there any blood? Any sign of injury at all?”

“I followed Granny back to our house when she went to bury the thing we made. All that was left of me were my clothes. Not a drop of blood or anything on them. I just….” He makes a popping gesture with his hands. “Pfft. Atomized, or something. I don’t know. What does it matter?”

Dad—

—turns away without a word. He walks off, the tension sloughing off his broad shoulders. “If I’m remembering correctly, there are a few others like you out in these woods. Their Aerugan is a bit older than what I picked up, but last I was out to see them we could get on well enough.”

“They’re back the way we came,” Alphonse calls after him. “South of here.”

“Three of them, yes, but there’s another half dozen just beyond that ridge. All killed in a skirmish around the founding of Amestris. Signore Rovigatti was an alchemist, incidentally, and he—”

“Dad.”

“—has the most fascinating opinions regarding the applications of geothermal energy in large-scale transmutations—”

“Dad.”

He turns back, the picture of surprise to see that Alphonse hasn’t moved from where he’d towered and demanded details and ditched the original topic of conversation entirely. “What’s the matter?”

Alphonse musters up a smile he hopes is more apologetic than grimacing. “I can’t go any farther.”

Between them is an invisible wall that may as well be a yawning chasm. Here they stand; the restless dead, and the wandering immortal.

“...oh.” Dad’s voice is very small. Very quiet. “Well. I…. Pinako probably finished that paperwork by now. Would you like to head back?”

Why is he trying so hard for so little? Isn’t he afraid of the Homunculus? Of the risk of dying? Of what might happen if he’ll fail? Does he even have a plan B? These and a hundred other questions squeeze the empty space where Alphonse’s heart once beat; he’s almost breathless, dizzy with worry for a man he’d thought dead until a few days ago.

But Dad doesn’t want to worry him. Dad’s treating him like a child, like he’s too young for the hard truths of the world. He wants to pretend, and make amends, and be as much of a father as he can be to a ghost.

A part of Alphonse is insulted.

A far greater part of him is grateful for the attempt.

While they were gone Granny dragged the crate full of Dad’s things up from the basement. The two of them go through it after lunch, Alphonse overseeing with a grin hidden behind his hands. It isn’t much, in the scheme of things. A shelf’s worth of old books and handwritten journals, a few photographs, an inkwell Granny had made him decades back, a few other odds and ends. Alphonse is really only interested in the books; there are pictures a-plenty of Mom strewn around Rockbell Automail, and plenty more of Mom and Dad in the same photograph book that’s got the pictures of Dad going back fifty years.

The enormous book of mythology that Ed had read obsessively during his rehabilitation is a beautiful thing, richly illustrated and covering a number of cultures. Dad lingers overlong on the scant chapter on Xerxes for Alphonse's benefit; the thinnest by a suspicious margin now that Alphonse knows the truth. It praises the Philosopher for hiding away the Stone that destroyed Xerxes in its hubris. Even the woodcut of the Philosopher is a mockery, broad-shouldered and square of face, lording over a sea of grateful followers. Dad-adjacent in a way that’d make Alphonse's skin crawl if he still had any.

In addition to that there are several other books written in Amestrian, none of them less than seventy years old. History and alchemy, chemistry and philosophy, medical and theological; a traveling scholar's primer on a foreign country's state of mind. There are a few slim volumes in unmistakable Xingese; intricate characters printed vertically in faint red columns, with the odd page filled with illustrations done in sweeping black ink. Alphonse recognizes the art style from a few houses around town, though those wall scrolls are all on wall scrolls all done in far greater detail and by hands of obviously better skill.

There are notes scribbled in the margins of all of them, indecipherable cursive that he and Ed had never been able to make heads or tails of. They'd concluded it was either a foreign language they'd never seen before, or a cipher, or perhaps even both. It's only after going from the medical text straight to the last book Granny saved from the fire that Alphonse puts it together. He doesn't think he makes any noise when he realizes he's been futilely attempting to read Xerxesian since he was five years old, but Dad does give him an appraising eyebrow when Granny isn't looking.

"I remember this old thing," she says, tugging it carefully from Dad's loose fingers and the soft cloth it had been wrapped in. She tuts when the spine cracks loudly. "Lord. How old is this anyway? It looks like it ought to be on display in a museum."

"A little older than you," Dad teases.

"Ha, so half as old as you?"

Dad hums noncommittally, and Alphonse can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Granny leans closer to get a better look at the fully-colored illustration she'd opened to; a beautiful picture of two men in embroidered robes on a hillside. The younger man has been drawn with a beard the exact color of Dad's, and both have unmistakable yellow eyes. "You had this with you when we met. You clucked at me if I so much as breathed on it funny."

"That's because you kept breathing pipe smoke on it," he reminds her. She only cackles again.

"What language is this anyway? Ishvalan?"

Dad glances at Alphonse, clearing expecting—something. What though, Alphonse has no idea. "Xerxesian, actually."

Granny sits up abruptly, all the better to turn astonished eyes on Dad. "You're joking. It's not an original, is it?"

"I came across it in a museum in Almaliq just before I left Xing. Beautiful, isn't it?"

"You stole it."

"I did not."

"So you were more than a drunken scoundrel back in your prime, eh?" She's grinning now, wider the more Dad flusters. "Had to get your kicks with a little art theft, is that it? What other priceless artifacts did you ferret away? Should I have been prying up the floorboards for your secret stash? Are you the one who ran off with the crown jewels of Oirialla?"

“Pinako….” Dad practically whines. It’s incredible.

"That doesn't sound like a 'no' to me!"

"I didn't steal this." He plucks the books out of her reach, giving her a reproachful look over his glasses as he settles it back onto its protective cloth. "It was a gift."

Granny laughs herself straight into a fit of smoker's cough, deep and wracking in a way that always worries Alphonse a little to hear such a loud noise boom out of someone hardly taller than him. "From who? The Emperor?"

"A friend," Dad replies simply, but when Granny looks away to wipe her eyes, still chuckling, he looks over at Alphonse and nods.

"Of course you were friends with the Emperor," Alphonse sighs. "No, wait, I bet it was more than one. How many Emperors have you known?"

Dad thinks about it as he turns to another illustration in the book, this one of another blond and yellow-eyed man on horseback. Overhead, a bird with crimson plumage soars through a faded blue sky. After a moment of consideration Dad taps two fingers on the table, then taps again.

"Four?" A slight shake of his head. "Twenty-two?" A nod.

Alphonse doesn't even know why he's surprised.

Granny, recovered from her mirth, settles her spectacles back on her face and picks up her mug. "Why in the hell would a 'friend' give you something like this?"

Dad's mouth curls in a sly little smile. "He had a thing for blonds."

Granny toys with him like a cat that's caught a bird it hasn't decided if it'll eat or not, and he pretends to be cowed as anything right up until he sees an opportunity to make her choke on her coffee. No wonder she liked him enough to drag him back to Resembool.

There's a cold front coming in. The radio promises rain all through the southeastern regions, warning of flooding likely in some areas and reminding of the proper measures that ought to be taken for those who live near bodies of water. It's not likely to rain much here in Resembool, not this close to the cusp of summer, but Alphonse feels a twinge of anxiety all the same. He knows all the parents down in the town proper will be corralling their younger children inside until after the storm dissipates, barring windows and guarding doors from any of the more adventurous breakout schemes that might get drummed up as boredom sets in. He knows that tongues will wag, as tongues do, telling again the cautionary tale of the poor Elric brothers to any who need a sharp reminder of how dangerous the river can be.

Edward: lost a leg, lost his family, lost his mind, likely to lose his life off in the military.

And Alphonse: lost.

It's a shame, really. He loves rainy days otherwise. The smell (such as he remembers), the cool wind (such as he remembers), the peace (such as he remembers). He still has his sight and hearing at least, and he can still appreciate the cool gray skies, the pitter-patter tapping of strange music on rooftops and tree boughs, the flush of new green staining the countryside, all the little mushrooms that spring up like a magic trick. He tries to not let the story the town cobbled together to explain what Ed and the Rockbells won't sour his mood, but sometimes....

Sometimes the silence before a storm is the loneliest place to be.

But he's not alone now, is he?

He glances over at Dad, who appears as lost in thought as he's been. More, probably. Neck-deep in five hundred conversations at any given moment. Alphonse has no idea how he manages to get out of bed every day and pretend that nothing's wrong. Probably the same way so many others out there manage the same thing; knowing that the less attention drawn to oneself the better, no matter the personal cost. It's one thing to be weird or sick or broken; it's something infinitely worse to be caught in the act.

Alphonse looks back the way they came, where the sun's well along its westward arc. Sunset isn't far off. Most of Resembool is bathed in a warm afternoon glow, all its rough edges softened, made distant and easy to forgive. He and Dad had come up from the town proper before this; Dad carefully carries a modest bouquet in both hands. Mrs. Caddeo had made her usual attempts at simpering conversation, but it had run off Dad's cool passivity like water off a duck; she'd left him to browse in an uneasy silence.

Dad only went to the flower shop after Alphonse mentioned Ed's habit of making wreaths. Would it have occurred to him to bring flowers to Mom's grave otherwise?

He supposes it doesn't matter. It's not like Mom's ghost is hanging around to take offense.

There's someone else visiting the cemetery when they arrive. Mitch Corcoran nods politely as Dad passes, murmurs something too low for Alphonse to hear. Dad nods back without replying but doesn't stop. Alphonse is relieved when Mr. Corcoran takes the hint and goes farther down the row where he buried his wife in 1882.

They come to Mom's grave.

They stand there quietly.

Nothing needs to be said. Nothing needs to be forced. This grave doesn't hold Mom. There's a body quietly decomposing under their feet, but her soul's no longer bound to it. Mom's not here. She hasn't been here for ten years. Mom is a few pictures in Granny's collection, a few knickknacks saved from the fire, a few stories, a few memories. That's all.

Mom's gone. This grave is simply someplace for the living to come to grieve now and then, some place tidy to bury what she left behind. Alphonse hopes it's nice, wherever she is. He hopes she's happy. He hopes she's not angry with him and Ed for trying to bring her back. He hopes she's not disappointed they failed.

"I don't remember what she sounded like," he admits quietly.

Dad stirs slowly, swimming up out of whatever mental labyrinth he'd been caught up in. He kneels to place the bouquet before the grave. Alphonse expects him to transmute it into a wreath too, but he doesn't. The paper wrapping crinkles under his rough fingers as he adjusts the ribbon; purple, to match the flowers. Mom's favorite color.

"She never raised her voice," Dad says, standing again. "She never needed to, to get her point across. She had this way of looking at someone she was angry with that would make anyone feel two inches tall."

How many times had she given him and Ed the gimlet eye for making another mess? "I definitely remember that."

Dad glances down at him with a look like he knows exactly what he's not saying, though the knowing twinkling in his eyes is softened by memories. "She loved to sing. She had a real gift for it too, for all that she never had any formal training. She only needed to hear a song once to memorize it perfectly, and when she got tired of whatever the radio had on she'd come up with her own songs, just like that."

Alphonse remembers that too. Not the songs themselves, but the way she sang them. Swaying her hips as she washed the dishes. Spinning circles in the living room with him or Ed stood on her feet. A hum that vibrated down her arm, through her warm hand on his back, and settled deeply in his chest as he fell asleep.

"You met Mom when she was, what, eighteen? Nineteen?"

Dad hums noncommittally, like he's hoping Alphonse won't press for details so he won't have to say something like, Younger than that, but I'd prefer it if the ghost of my dead son didn't think I was a dirty old man.

Which, pfft. It's a bit late for that, not that Alphonse would ever say as such. A 400-something year old man showing interest in anybody can't really help but look like a dirty old man. There comes a point where what matters most is the intent behind the interest. If it turned out Dad really was the type to leave a string of broken-hearted young mothers behind him then sure, Alphonse would have happily shouted himself cross-eyed until Dad displayed appropriate contriteness. But he'd have to be blind to not see the way Dad loved—loves—Mom. He'd have to be cruel to ignore the waver in Dad's voice whenever he says her name.

He doesn't care that Mom had probably only been a handful of years older than Winry and Ed when she met Dad and decided this weirdo was the one for her. He just wants to know more about Mom.

So they talk. Alphonse asks the questions that he never thought to when he was still alive. Little things, little details that aren't—important. Not on any grand scale, not compared to the grand and tragic end of Xerxes, the rich history and political minefield of Xing, the far more literal minefield of Amestris' endless border skirmishes. He asks how they met, and where, and what their first date was like. He asks every single variation of "What was Mom's favorite..." he can think of. He asks if she ever wore her hair short, if she ever saw East City, if she'd ever gotten drunk and done something stupid for the sheer fun of it. Dad seems happy for the excuse to go on about her in detail, perking up even more once Mr. Corcoran leaves and it's just the two of them in the cemetery.

A question occurs to him that he mentally flinches from, but that only means it's too important not to ask. "Did she—want to be a mother? Or was Ed an accident?"

"He was," Dad confirms after one of his usual pauses. "You were too, though we'd settled here by the time she realized she was pregnant again. Ed, however...." Dad chuckles.

"What? What is it?"

"I'm a bit embarrassed now, but—well. Before, when I was still human, I always liked the idea of starting a family of my own. I was a freedman, with a title and more wealth than I'd ever dreamed of having, but it didn't feel right to keep it to myself. I wanted to share—everything with someone. There just wasn't time, not when I worked in the King's court, not so close to.... Well. It was only ever an idle wish. One the Homunculus never did understand. He only saw families as a handy unit of measurement for how humans breed for the continuation of the species—"

"Charming," Alphonse remarks dryly.

"Yes, well. What I mean to say is...."

Dad sighs deeply, considering his words with great care. "When she told me we were going to have a baby, I panicked. The idea of being a father terrified me. Of being responsible for something so fragile and temporary. Or what if turned out as monstrous as me? What if, what if. A baby isn't a choice to be made on a whim one day. Children are—important. Incredibly so. And there I'd gone, all but forcing Trisha into shelving every other potential thing she might be considering to do. Her whole life ahead of her, and she was so young...."

Another sigh, this one a quieter thing. A letting go of what was. Acknowledging that for all that the past can still wound, it can't be changed. "Well, she tracked me down in short order. Scolded me soundly for making her run around in her condition, then asked me what I was so afraid of and tore my every last worry into shreds in no time at all. She told me everything would be fine, better than fine, and of course I believed her. But I was still—nervous. Even after Edward proved to be perfectly human, and you as well, I was still so scared of hurting you boys. She never saw the sense in that. Loving you both was the easiest thing in the world for her."

Dad looks at him, direct and matter-of-fact. No room for argument at all in his eyes. "She loved you boys. Don't ever think for one moment that she didn't."

Alphonse smiles up at him, wishing he could do more than say, "Thank you. Really. I—"

"HOHENHEIM!"

They both twitch, though it's Alphonse who recognizes the furious snarl and the figure in black practically sprinting up the road. "Oh no."

"Is that...?"

"Yup. Sorry, in advance. Or maybe not." He shrugs, flustered. "Just—he's definitely going to keep shouting at you."

Dad visibly steels himself as he turns around. "I suppose that's the least I deserve."

===

((Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and stick with me to the end.))

#fma #fullmetal alchemist #fmab #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #alphonse elric #my writing #magnificent things #mobile users i am. SO sorry if the read-more breaks

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iwriteficsandtragedies · 5 years

Text

Unconventional

Warnings: pregnancy, language

Request: I combined two - can i request dani carvajal asking his girlfriend to marry him? - AND - a deleted ask (STUPID FAT FINGERS!!) but I know it was about Dani knocking up a Barcelona fan. I hope you both are happy with it!

____________________________________________

She’s wrapped around the toilet again, and Dani can’t understand how her body or mind or whatever it is that’s making her heave could possibly think anything would come up this time. There’s nothing left in her stomach. He’s never felt more worthless than he does when he’s just rubbing her back while she cries on the cold tile of the bathroom floor. She’s miserable, and he’s helpless to make her better.

Finally she sits back and takes a deep inhale through her nose. “I think it’s done. For now.” Dani reaches for the damp cloth, dabbing gently at her forehead.

“Are you sure this is normal?” He’s asked her this at least fifty times this week. She’s so sick. He can’t believe she just has to deal with it.

She smiles weakly. “Yes. They trick you, see. That pregnancy ‘glow’ they go on about is really just cold sweat from all the vomiting.” He frowns, and she pats his knee. “Help me up.”

They get to their feet, and when she sways slightly he lifts her into his arms, ignoring her protests. He may not be able to do anything about the unrelenting morning sickness, but he can keep her from falling down in between the bathroom and the bed. “Why do they call it morning sickness anyway? It’s the middle of the night.”

She exhales with relief as she settles into bed, on her left side as usual. “I don’t know. A man probably named it.” She smiles again, almost laughs. She’s so weak. “Stop looking at me like that, Dani.” Her eyes are closed, but he supposes after five years she knows him well.

“I can’t help it. You look awful.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“Honey.”

“Dani.” She reaches for his hand. “Make yourself useful and bring me a Gatorade?”

He digs in the back of the cupboard for the last light blue Gatorade, checking to make sure he’s added it to the shopping list for the morning. It has to be the light blue, every other flavor makes her puke. He struggles to think of what doesn’t make her puke at this point, and spots a box of soda crackers. Surely that will be safe. He grabs one of the many “puke buckets” from the counter just in case, though.

She’s sitting up and typing furiously on her phone when he returns. He sets the bottle and the crackers on her nightstand, snorting when she mutters about “these fucking idiots.” She works remotely for Barcelona, and he never tries to hide his disdain for her employer.

“You’re too smart to work there.” He sits at her feet, leaning on one arm.

“I’m too smart to work for any of you clowns.” She cracks open the Gatorade, taking small sip. “If I ever come into a large enough sum of money, I’m going to start my own football club. I’ll be the owner, president, director of football, and assistant coach.”

“And who will be your head coach?”

“Guardiola.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “I thought you might say me.”

“No, you’ll be my arm candy at all the fundraising events.”

“Oh, I’m just a pretty face?”

“Mmm hmm.” She reaches for a cracker and take a tiny bite. He watches her swallow, holding his breath, but she seems to be keeping it down. “Every club owner needs a trophy spouse.”

Dani keeps watching her as she slowly eats that one cracker and takes small sips from the bottle of Gatorade. It’s not much, but it’s more than she’s been able to eat all day, and he’ll take whatever victory they can get. “I’d be the best trophy spouse.”

“You sure would be.” She pinches his cheek with a little jiggle. “Handsome and quiet, just the way I like ‘em.” She’s taking larger swallows now, some color coming back to her face. “I’m hungrier for so much more than crackers. I wish I could have a steak. Just a small one. And a baked potato. Some shrimp. Oh, I would kill for some garlic shrimp.”

“I’d get it all for you now if you could keep it down.” He would, too. Her favorite garlic shrimp comes from a restaurant in Lisbon and he’d drive all the way there and back tonight if she could eat it and not immediately throw it back up. “This was supposed to go away after the first trimester.”

“It was.” She takes another cracker, sips some more of her drink. “The doctor said something about a medication pump if I lose any more weight, it sounded horrible.” She shudders. “Come, lay down. I know you’re exhausted.”

He is exhausted, and it’s no better the next day. Training is hot and long, made all the worse by his serious lack of sleep. He can’t imagine how he’ll function when the baby actually gets here. He’s the last to enter the dressing room once they’re done, and he’s greeted by the enthusiastic voices of his teammates as they shout their congratulations. He shouldn’t be surprised they’ve put together a little celebration for him, they do it for every new baby.

Nacho ceremoniously hands him a wrapped box, which Dani rips into. The tiny little white kit, complete with tiny white socks, makes him swell with pride, and he’s not the only one who has to brush away a few tears. They share a few beers, make a few toasts, and the fathers in the room share a few stories just to laugh at the horrified looks on everyone’s faces. Isco claps him on the back. “You’ll be fine. Change ALL the diapers, do a night feeding or two every night, tell her she’s pretty. The rest you’ll learn as you go.”

He’s feeling good when he gets home that evening. He feels even better when he walks in the door and smells food, real food, cooking. She’s in the kitchen, music playing and hips swaying and stirring something that smells like heaven. Dani feels like he might cry again when she tastes the sauce without retching. “Feeling better?”

She jumps a little, startled, but she smiles when she sees him. “Feeling fantastic.” She turns back to the stove. “The doctor squeezed me in this morning and gave me some pills. I can eat again!”

“Why couldn’t she just give you those from the start?” Dani is a little angry that she’s suffered for weeks when she could have just taken medicine.

“There’s always a risk with taking medication, honey. She and I had to weigh the risks to the baby against the benefits to me.” She holds out a spoon of sauce for Dani to taste. “Does this need more garlic?” He nods. Always more garlic.

He can’t even eat, he’s so happy to see her enjoying a real meal for the first time in months. She’s smiling as she slurps her noodles, sauce smeared across one cheek. He hands her a napkin, and the white fabric reminds him. “I have something to show you after dinner. The guys got me a baby kit.”

She rolls her eyes. “I cannot believe I’ll be dressing my child in white. It’s wrong.”

Dani smiles. “I can’t believe you’re not putting up a fight about it.” She bleeds blue and maroon. She’s never even worn his jersey in public. It used to bother him, early in the relationship, but he’s matured. Besides, when she does wear it, he knows he’s about to get lucky.

“It’s not the baby’s fault I let a Blanco knock me up.” Dani wheezes with laughter, his hand on his chest.

“Let me knock you up? This was your idea!”

“I plead insanity.”

Later that night she’s holding her stomach and rocking back and forth on her yoga ball. “Oh, I ate too much. Ow. Ow. Shiiiittt, what have I done.” She belches, smiling with relief. “Oh, that’s better.”

Dani watches her sway on the ball, stretching her hips and talking to the baby. He hasn’t felt it move yet, but she’s been feeling the kicks and squirms from the inside for awhile now. Watching her move her hands over her stomach, her head down as she speaks softly to her little bump and the setting sun bathing her in golden light through the window, he has to blink away tears for the second time that day.

“Hey,” he says quietly, and she looks up at him. “What if I asked you to marry me?”

She arches an eyebrow at him. “Are you asking?”

“Thinking about it.”

“Well I’m not saying yes, not in my yoga pants after I’ve just burped like a pig. But if you were to ask, say, at a nice dinner or something when I’m dressed for pictures. I might.”

He lies awake in bed that night, looking at the website for the jeweler his captain had used for his own proposal last year. Engagement rings aren’t really a tradition in Spain, but he thinks he might get her one anyway. A big, white diamond, he says to himself with a smirk. She stretches out in her sleep and her hand closes over his bicep. “Fucking idiots,” she mumbles in her sleep, her face scrunched in a frown, and at that moment Dani comes across the perfect ring.

She’s suspicious when he sends her to the salon the next day, but he doesn’t care. He’s got a plan. By a miraculous stroke of luck, the jeweler had it available in the right size. The large center diamond is framed by a row each of sapphires and more diamonds, with tiny sapphires and diamonds adorning the band. He thinks it’s the perfect metaphor for their relationship - blue and white, coming together to make something beautiful. He hopes she doesn’t think it’s stupid.

“Are you really going to do this tonight?” They’re walking to the car, and she looks beautiful. She’s always beautiful.

“Maybe. Maybe I just want to take you to dinner.” The ring is in his pocket, in a simple velvet box. When he opens the car door for her, she turns to him.

“Dani, seriously, tell me.”

“I told you, maybe!”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m going to say no, just for that.” But on the drive to the restaurant she keeps glancing at him, her fingers tapping nervously. Dani feels surprisingly calm. When the waiter seats them at their reserved table he asks her if she’s enjoying the view, and laughs when she huffs at him.

Dinner is delicious. He’s able to coax conversation from her, taking both their minds off the looming question. As a rule, they talk very little about goings on with La Liga, but other leagues are fair game. She grew up watching the Premier League and has loved watching the battle for the title this year.

They talk all the way through dessert, and it seems she’s forgotten all about whether or not he’s going to ask her. Good. He pays the bill, takes her for an easy stroll through a nearby park, and they return to the car for the drive home.

“You really did just take me dinner,” she says, buckling in.

“Are you disappointed?”

“No. Maybe.”

He tries not to laugh at her. The ring is still in his pocket. He had hoped she would notice the outline, but oh well. “There’s always tomorrow.”

She takes her time getting ready for bed, which is fine with him. He’s suddenly nervous again. What if she really does say no? What if she hates the ring? What if he’s done it all wrong? But he’s out of time to worry about it, because she’s crawling into bed. He takes a deep breath.

“Hey.”

“Hmm?”

He pulls his hand out from beneath the sheets and pops the little box open.

“Oh, you ass. Are you serious?” She covers her mouth, laughing through tears.

“I am.” He reaches for her hand, slipping the ring onto her finger. “I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. I want you legally bound to me,” he laughs, “Even if it means I sometimes have to dress my baby in blue and maroon.” She’s crying more than laughing now, clutching his hand and staring at the ring. “Marry me?”

“Yes,” she says, looking up at him. “Yes!” She cups her hand to his cheek to pull him to her, kissing him fiercely. “You had me all dressed up for that dinner and you propose in our pajamas.”

He smiles. “And I can’t wait to tell our child how you called me an ass when I asked you to marry me. Do you like it?” He laces his fingers through hers to look at the ring on her finger.

“I love it. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect.” She gives him another kiss. “It’s perfect,” she repeats.

“I thought it suited us.”

“Blue and white,” she whispers, fresh tears brimming in her eyes. “Perfect.” She slides it off to twirl it between her fingers before placing it back in the box and setting it on the nightstand. She turns off the light and he snuggles around her, listening to her quiet little hums of contentment as sleep overtakes her. One hand is on her stomach, and as his eyes get heavy and close, he feels a tiny nudge against his palm.

#dani carvjal #dani carvajal imagine #dani carvajal fic #dani carvajal fluff #dani carvajal one shot #dani carvajal fanfiction #real madrid fic #spain nt fic #footballer one shot #football one shot #football imagine #footballer fic #football fic #fluff #request

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min-drop · 6 years

Note

Could you write something about Taekook where they both think of each other as super cool (and having a crush) but neither knows that they appear as such. Until something happens where they do find out ^^ (Like one of them overhearing the other talking with a third person and gushing ^^)

how cutee! thank you for the prompt! :)

i hope you like it!

Once again, Taehyungfound himself spacing out in his art lesson. He’s always ahead ofthe lessons anyway so he doesn’t consider it a problem, howeverwhen you’ve decided to get a degree in a subject, it might help topay at least a little attention. Though, he liked to think the reasonwhy he wasn’t focusing was a valid one. There was a certainbrunette boy walking across campus outside the window, bag slung overhis shoulder and his pierced ear on show. Taehyung just couldn’thelp but rest his head in his hands and sigh, silently swooning overwhat he wish he had but knew better than to hope for anything morethan those brief little conversations they shared in the corridor. Tohim, Jungkook looked like a model straight out of some fashionmagazine – or someone who could pass of as being the lead singer ina rock band… He just had that vibe about him, that look, andTaehyung had never been so attracted to someone before in his entirelife. Not that he didn’t like his personality either because hedefinitely did, he only had their conversations and what he’d seenaround campus to go off but Jungkook was kind and funny, he caredabout other people and never hesitated to help when he could but henever expected anything in return for it. In fact, he kept to himselfmore often than not. He had his circle of friends and he tended tostay within it but he’d talk to anyone that started a conversationwith him and Taehyung just thought he was amazing. Sure, herecognises that Jungkook has flaws – after all, everyone does –but he didn’t care about them. If anything, he wanted to learn whatthey were, he wanted to learn more about the other, all the good andall the bad. He’s never liked someone this much before...

Eventually Jungkookwas out of sight and the teacher was dismissing the class, leavingTaehyung to frantically pack up and stumble out of his chair when henoticed that everyone had already left. Even the teacher. God damn,why did Jeon Jungkook have to be so distracting?

Taehyung made hisway over to his locker, his dyed dark blonde hair getting in his eyes alittle and making him flick it out of the way with a swish of hishead. He worried his bottom lip, clutching his bag in his arms thathad his art book sticking out of it because it was too big and hekept forgetting to go and buy a bigger bag. With a rather awkwardstance, he reached into the pocket of his trousers, having to pushhis oversized sweater up and out of the way, to pull his keys out.However, he’d forgotten that he wasn’t very organised. As soon ashe opened his locker, three textbooks and an obscene amount of papertumbled out onto him and the floor and he let out a shout of regret,banging his forehead against the metal and cursing himself.

“Needany help?” Taehyung recognised that voice anywhere and jumpedbackwards to see Jungkook staring at him with a smile. “That’s alot of paper.” “The life of a struggling artstudent.” Taehyung groaned, pouting and throwing his bag on theground so he could crouch and begin collecting everything up in hisarms, Jungkook naturally coming down to help him. “They should give you guys bigger lockers.” Jungkook said,picking up one of the textbooks so that he had something to put thepaper on so that it wouldn’t bend in his hands. “That would be logical but it would also be expensive.” Taehyungsighed, trying not to stutter and blush when he reached for the samepieces of paper that Jungkook did, their hands brushing over eachother like a teenage romance movie. “Thanks… By the way.” Hesaid, clearing his throat and pulling his hand back. “No worries.” Jungkook grinned and Taehyung couldn’t help butsmile back, finding the younger man’s bunny esque grin contagiouslyadorable. “I’m not in a rush or anything.” “Isn’t there a massive essay due in for you biology majors?”Taehyung said, raising an eyebrow as he knew Jungkook wasn’t thetype to prepare for anything. “Yeah but I’ll getit done when I get it done.” Jungkook shrugged, proving Taehyung’ssentiment correct and making him chuckle in the process. “You know,maybe you should get a massive binder or folder.” “That would also be logical...” Taehyung hummed, picking up thelast of the paper and standing up, Jungkook following suit with anequal amount of Taehyung’s work in his arms. “I’mheading to the library, I could pick you one up from the little shopif you want?” Jungkook offered, shrugging. “No,it’s okay.” Taehyung stuttered a little, coughing a little yetagain to steady himself. “You don’t have to do that...” “It’ll hardly put a dent in my wallet. It’s just afolder.” Jungkook said, handing Taehyung the paper and textbookafter he’d put his share in his locker. “I’llget one tomorrow. Promise.” “You’ll have to showme it so I know you haven’t put it off.” Jungkook smiled, pickinghis bag back up and over his shoulder. “Hmm, it’sa date.” Taehyung said before he could even think about it,instantly flushing and nervously chuckling when he realised what he’dsaid. He continued to stare at his locker, a little too embarrassed tolook at Jungkook but if he had he would have seen that the youngerman was sharing his expression. “Yeah...” “Anyway! Thanks!” Taehyung exclaimed, putting art book inhis locker and closing it, now able to shut his bag. “No problem.” Jungkook nodded his head, fingers drumming on thestrap that was slightly digging into his skin. “Thanks...” Taehyung whispered with a smile, picking up his bag and bowing his head a little to Jungkook before waving goodbye andbounding off, leaving Jungkook to lean against the lockers with asigh...

~~~

Jungkook groaned andruffled his hair up, a frown on his face as he picked up histextbooks and stuffed them in his bag. He wasn’t normally one tostay late in the library but one too many nights spent staring at theTV with a playstation controller in his hand had gotten him a bit toofar behind on his work. He hoisted his bag over his shoulder andturned to leave, trying not to dwell on the fact that it was startingto get dark and the alley shortcut to the dorm wasn’t very welllit. He waved goodbye to the librarian sat behind her desk and thenasked himself why he did that when she wasn’t even looking in hisdirection so really he just waved to the air or the books behind her.So, he was glad that there wasn’t anyone else here to see hissocial failings.

He left the libraryand made his way down the long corridor, taking a right at the end towalk down yet another long corridor. There were too many longcorridors. At least he could peek inside the empty classrooms and allof the artwork hanging up on the walls as he was in the artdepartments block now. He smiled to himself when he saw some ofTaehyung’s art hung up, stopping in his tracks to admire it for amoment even though he’d already seen it plenty of times before. Hecarried on walking when he heard the sound of chatter at the end ofhallway, his curiosity making him slow down when passing the room sothat he could take a quick glance inside to see who was in there andonce he did he halted his foot steps because he had an inkling as towhose voice he was hearing but he hadn’t expected to be right.Inside the room and sat on a table was Taehyung and his best friend,Park Jimin which Jungkook only knew as Taehyung brought him up a fairbit in the conversations they shared. The door was slightly ajarwhich is why he could hear them and he didn’t plan oneavesdropping, really he didn’t, he was going to carry on walking…

“So,made any progress on loverboy?” However, Jimin’s words had himcrouching underneath the window of the door and listening in. Who wasthis ‘loverboy’? Did Taehyung have a crush on someone? If so,were they better than Jungkook? Were they more handsome, more funny,more… Everything? Were they even good enough for Taehyung? Jungkookcouldn’t help but listen in on the conversation now, his thoughtshad spiralled off on a tangent and he was in too deep to walk away. “Let’s not call him that.” Taehyung sighed, swinginghis legs from up on the table, his hands resting in between histhighs on the surface and Jungkook thought it was so cute. “And no…He helped me pick my things up after they all fell on me, andI got so flustered all I could say was ‘thanks’.” Taehyungshrugged, mocking himself with his tone of voice. Jungkook began towonder if Taehyung was talking about him? After all, he had helpedhim pick up his textbooks earlier so maybe it was him? “Aren’t you supposed to say thanks?” Jimin cocked abrow, a confused expression on his face. “Yeah butI could have been like, heh… Thanks.” Taehyung leaned back andpulled a nonchalant expression, deepening his voice and Jungkook hadto suppress a chuckle just hearing it, already imagining whatTaehyung was doing. “You know?” “It’s good youdidn’t do that.” Jimin pursed his lips and pressed a mockinglysupportive hand to Taehyung’s shoulder, to which the younger rolledhis eyes with a huff. “It’s just he’s sohandsome and cool and I’m so… So the person who trips over air.” Taehyung explained (referencing an earlier incident where he had been walking and talking with Jimin and just randomly fallen over), slouching a little, unaware thatbehind the door was a very flabbergasted Jungkook who was thinking tohimself that it was insane for Taehyung to think he was anything lessthan amazing and beautiful and funny and kind and all around one ofthe best people Jungkook had ever met. Not that he was biased. “Have you tried just telling him?” A logical statement fromJimin, however if the person wasn’t Jungkook then Jungkook wouldrather Jimin keep his mouth shut because he wasn’t sure just howwell he dealt with jealously. He imagined he wouldn’t deal with itwell, considering last week some guy picked an eyelash off ofTaehyung’s cheek and got him to blow it off and Jungkook almostsnapped the pencil he was holding. “Are you insane?”Taehyung exclaimed, eyes wide. “A gazelle knows not to dance with alion.” This time it was Jimin’s turn to roll his eyes. “Well, for one neither of them really ‘dance’ and two,you’re not that graceful.” “Thank you for yoursupport.” “Just tell him, Taehyung.” Jiminsmiled sympathetically, fully understanding the other man’spredicament. “No offence but Jungkook is really not as ‘cool’as you’re making him out to be. I saw him get his jacket caught ona door handle and instead of just taking the jacket off and trying toget it off like a normal human being, he decided to keep it on andliterally run in place to try and yank it off.” Jungkook almostfell over after hearing his name, as it was confirmation that theywere in fact talking about him, which meant that Taehyung did in facthave a crush on him. Which meant that his own feelings were returned. “Really?” Taehyung chuckled at the image ofJungkook struggling against himself and the sound made Jungkook snapout of his elated trance and replace that excitement withembarrassment because the jacket incident hadn’t exacty been one ofhis finest moments and he didn’t really want Taehyung to know aboutit either. “Just talk to him.” Jimin shrugged,standing up, and the shuffling of his feet on the floor startledJungkook as he thought they were going to leave and catch him satoutside but that was hardly the problem when his sudden movement hadhim losing his balance and falling through the door anyway. “Oh hiJungkook.” Jimin said, both he and Taehyung now staring down at himas he laid flat down on the floor. “Um...”Jungkook started, raising his head to look at the pair with a red andmortified flush on his cheeks. “Hi. I fell.” “Overnothing?” Jimin quipped with a little smirk, referencing Taehyung’s earlier plight with the air before he picked up his coat and bag.“Well, I’m going to go and meet Yoongi. He’s waiting in the carpark.” He said, reaching out to pat Taehyung’s shoulder andwhisper in his ear. “Good luck.” He stepped over Jungkook’sbody which was apparently frozen in place, a quiet and breathy laughtumbling out of his lips as he shook his head and left. “Er, hey Jungkook.” Taehyung started, his heartbeat beginning topulse faster just being in the same room as the other. “Hey.” “You can get up, you know.” He laughed,hopping off of the table and walking over to where Jungkook waspatting the floor. “Yeah but my dignity is here onthe floor…” Taehyung rolled his eyes with a smile, crouching downand offering Jungkook his hand, helping the younger man up and tryingnot to dwell on how warm his hands were and how nice they felt inhis. “So… How much of that did you hear?” Whenthey were both stood up, Taehyung was yet again reminded of how muchmore muscular Jungkook was than him and that he was just that tinybit taller too but the broadness of his shoulders almost madeTaehyung swoon when he imagined being enveloped by them. “Enough to know that you think I’m handsome and cool.”Jungkook grinned nervously, trying not to rock back and forth on hisfeet but failing miserably. “Though, I may have just ruined thecool part.” “No, I still think you’re prettycool.” Taehyung hummed, looking down at the floor and where he hadhis fingers clasped together, tapping his knuckles. “If it helps, I think you’re cool yourself.” The brunettereplied, ruffling the hair at the base of his neck. “We sound like kids.” Taehyung said with a scoff, and Jungkookseconded that. “Yes we do.” For a moment theystood in silence, unsure of what to say next but knowing what theywanted to say. “So, um… What do you think of.”Taehyung was surprised he found the courage to get the words out, asjambled and stuttered those words were. “Well, what I’m trying tosay is...” “Yes.” Jungkook cut him off, eyeshopeful and and relieved. “I haven’t saidanything.” Taehyung breathed, a nervous chuckle following. “I’m assuming you were going to ask me out on a date orsomething so I’m saying yes.” “Yeah?”Taehyung was surprised but he couldn’t complain because that wasexactly what he was trying to ask. “Okay, cool.” “Cool.” “Sorry, I’m a little… Flustered.”Taehyung said, trying to explain why he was feeling so awkward andsubsequently acting so awkward. The distance between them wasn’thelping either as he could feel Jungkook’s breath against hisforehead and he only had to reach his hand out a little bit to touchhis shirt. He doesn’t know when they got so close but he didn’tmind it really. “Me too, it’s okay.” Jungkooksmiled, also seemingly noticing the lack of space between from theway he looked down at Taehyung and then tried to bite an even widergrin down. “Are you heading home now?” “Yeah,you?” It was a stupid question. Of course Jungkook was headinghome, why else would he have his bag with him (that, granted, wasstill on the floor where he had previously been) and why else wouldhe ask? “We live in the same dorm, right? I’m theon the first floor.” Jungkook said but Taehyung already knew thatfrom the times he’d seen him when he was leaving or entering thebuilding himself. “Second.” Jungkook nodded hishead, not saying it out loud but he also already knew that for thesame reasons that Taehyung did. “Shall we walk eachother home?” Jungkook suggested, putting his hands in his pocketsand trying to push down the heat threatening to colour his face as areaction to the soft smile that blossomed on Taehyung face. “I’d like that.” Taehyung said quietly, going to reach forhis bag that was on the table behind him but being interrupted byJungkook who picked it up instead. “Oh, thanks.” Jungkook noddedhis head with a ‘don’t worry about it’ air about him as hegrabbed his own bag to sling over his shoulder. “So, any ideas ofwhere we can go for our first date?” The (only slightly) older manasked, walking out of the room as Jungkook held the door open forhim. “Erm. One second.” However when he turnedaround he saw Jungkook smiling nervously at him and he raised aneyebrow in confusion, tilting his head and peeking around to see whathad happened. “I should probably get a new jacket.” A loosethread on the back of Jungkook’s jacket had gotten caught on thedoor handle and he was currently pulling against it to try and freeit, hands awkwardly holding up the bags that had fallen down to hiselbows. “Do you want to give me the bags?”Taehyung laughed, hiding his grin behind his hand, his other handreaching out and waiting for Jungkook to pass the bags over, which hedid with no hesitation. “Yeah, that’s a good idea,thanks...”

When Jungkook hadfinally freed himself from the clutches of the door for the secondtime that week, the two headed back to their dorm and talked abouteverything, anything and nothing all at the same time. There was amoment of silent understanding when they reached the entrance, onlyneeding to give each other one look and one smile before they madetheir way to Jungkook’s room instead of parting ways, eager tocarry on the conversation over a movie and some junk food...

jungkook looks so cute here omg

i hope you liked it!

#taekook #taehyung #jungkook #prompt #fluff #college au #i like clumsy jungkook

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mylittledragonhoard · 6 years

Note

Drabble Challenge! From that thing you reblogged earlier. Either "You're not interested, are you?" OR "I'm not wearing a dress/tie." Go as angsty or as silly as you like.

Thank you for the request. I decided to do both! I’ll post the other one tomorrow! And remember you were the one who said go angsty or as silly as I like~ * innocent angel face*

Character death ahead.

“I’m not wearing a dress/tie.”

“I’m notwearing a tie.” Ten-year-old Kili Oakley insisted stubbornly as hisalready frazzled band director held out the solid red material.

“It’s part ofthe uniform, Killian. Everyone has to wear one tonight. You can take it offonce you’re done playing.” She insisted as she shook her hand a bit sohe’d take it.

He didn’t. And eventhe use of his full name wasn’t enough to persuade him. “They chokeme.” He glowered at the offending article of clothing. “I’m notwearing it!”

The director made afrustrated noise and looked as though shewas going to be the one that choked him, but before that happened a voicestopped her.

“Ties are coolman. You should wear it.”

Both Kili and hisband director looked over to find Fili Durin standing there, blond hair slickedback so not a strand was out of place and his own tie neatly in place aroundhis neck.

While the banddirector let out a relieved sigh, Kili stared wide eyed at the coolest kid inthe band. Fili was a year older than Kili and could pretty much play anyinstrument, but he was mainly their only First Clarinet. He was better thananyone else in the band, and Kili had heard rumours that he even played for ahigh school band sometimes. This, of course, made him the coolest person ever.

“Fili, if you canget him to wear his tie, I’ll consider letting you skip practice for the restof the week.” The director handed the material off to the other student beforemoving along to the next crisis that was beginning to happen in the trumpetsection.

Kili fidgeted, facered as Fili looked at him and grinned. They’d never actually had a conversationbefore. Kili was the opposite of cool and could barely play Third Flute letalong First.

“What do you haveagainst ties?” Fili asked even as he stepped closer, straightening the materialin his hands.

Kili wrinkled hisnose, focusing on the tie instead of Fili so that hopefully he’d stop blushing.“They choke me…and they make me look like a dork.” He admitted, but Fili waswearing a tie so they couldn’t be so bad, right?

The blond laughedeven as he held both ends of the tie and threw the loop over Kili’s head, handsimmediately folding it into a proper knot. “The tie isn’t what makes you looklike a dork, you dork.” Fili’s grin softened the insult, and the sight ofdimples on the other boy’s cheeks was enough to make Kili return the grin.“There. If it starts to choke you, just tug down like this.” He explained as hedemonstrated just how to tug the knot.

To Kili’s surprise,the tie didn’t feel too tight at all, and he was able to slide the knot quiteeasily without it coming apart on him. “Thanks.” He could actually wear it now.

“No problem.” Filipromised even as he ruffled Kili’s messy brown hair, making the younger boysqueak and bring his hands up to try to fix what had already been a mess. “Seeyou on stage dork!” Laughing, Fili made his way back to where he’d been settingup his own instrument.

***

“Fili! Help me!”Kili whined from somewhere deep in his closet, clothing getting tossed out andonto the floor. “I don’t know what to wear!” He stumbled out, a t-shirt wrappedaround his neck and a pair of shoes tangled around one ankle.

The blond stretchedout across his bed looked up from his science textbook with an amused grin.“Clothing is always a good choice. That shirt really brings out your eyes.” Heteased, motioning to the shirt around Kili’s neck.

The brunet groanedas he unwrapped it and flung it to the floor. “I’m serious. This is my firstdate and I want to make a good impression! Help me!” Kili literally got down onhis knees and walked to the bed, holding his clasped hands up as hedramatically pleaded to his best friend.

Fili rolled his eyesat Kili’s dramatics – they were teenagers. Dramatics were an everyday thing.“You’re taking Tauriel to the school dance, right?”

“Duh.” Kili rolledhis eyes because that was obvious. “I wish you were going too.” He muttered,allowing his arms to flop along the bed and Fili’s legs.

“Can’t. Gotta study.You know how my dad is.” It had been Fili’s excuse since the dance wasannounced, but Kili knew better. Fili’s father might have been a little bit ofa hardass when it came to his son’s grades, but he still would have let Fili goto a dance.

Deciding not to pushthe subject lest he upset his friend, Kili sighed. “You’re such a nerd.” Hebreathed out, “So help me then. I don’t want to look like a dork when I show upto meet Tauriel.” He mumbled into the mattress as he looked up at the otherboy.

“Well, too late forthat. You’re already a dork.” Fili smirked and reached over to ruffle Kili’shair, laughing when the reaction was a pitiful whine and a lazy swipe of one ofKili’s arms. “But I guess I can help you look less like one.” He decided as heclimbed off the end of the bed and moved over to the closet to look. “Oh god…doyou expect me to work miracles with this stuff?” He huffed even as he reachedinto the space and pulled a few hangers aside.

“Fili.” Kili flopped onto the bed,blankets still warm and still lingering with the scent of the blond. “You’re somean to me.” He complained petulantly.

“You make it soeasy.” Fili stepped away, an outfit held up so Kili could see. “Wear this.”

Kili looked at theoutfit and then looked at Fili. “You can’t be serious. That’s a suit.”

“Thank you CaptainObvious. You’re going to a formal youidiot. Nice suits and fancy dresses. You know Tauriel’s putting a lot of effortinto this.” Fili moved over to the bed where Kili lay, holding out the hanger.“I heard Eowyn say they’re getting their hair done and everything. You don’twant to look like a loser in jeans and a grubby t-shirt when she’s dressed likea princess, do you?”

Kili chewed his lip.Fili had a very good point and he reallywanted to impress Tauriel. He’d been crushing on her for two years and hadfinally gotten the courage to ask her out thanks to Fili’s encouragements.“You’re going to make me wear a tie with this aren’t you.” Brown eyes narrowedat the innocent smile on the blond’s face.

“Yep!” Fili chirpedhappily as he laid the suit out on the bed so Kili could change. He knewexactly where Kili kept the one tie he’d received from his grandmother oneChristmas before high school and moved over to the dresser to dig it out.

Kili groaned butrelented, getting up and changing into the suit. He was surprised it fit sincehe hadn’t worn it in forever. He looked up to find Fili staring at him, and whenthe blond realized it, he smiled and brought the tie over.

“You look good.”Fili promised as he looped the tie around Kili’s neck because Kili had neverlearned how to tie one, and besides, he kind of liked Fili doing it for himanyway. It was how they’d met and became friends after all. It was tradition.“You still look like a dork, but at least you’re a better dressed dork.”

“Thanks!” Kililaughed even as he punched Fili’s shoulder.

“You’d be lostwithout me.” Fili smirked as he pulled the knot up to Kili’s neck, wiggling thematerial until it sat in the right place. “There.” He insisted, “Dressed toimpressed.” And then Fili did somethingthat neither expected; he kissed the end of Kili’s nose.

They both paused fora moment and stared at each other with wide eyes, blushes slowly beginning tocreep across their cheeks.

It was Fili whoshook himself out of it first and he rolled his eyes at himself, “Oh fuck it.Just have fun, alright? Do you have Tauriel’s corsage?”

“Fun. Yeah.” Kili wasmore focused on the fact that his nose was tingling than what Fili was saying.Until terror struck him hard, “Oh shit! The corsage!”

“Whoa!” Fili’s handson Kili’s shoulders were the only thing grounding the brunet. “Pretty sure yourmom stuck it in the fridge downstairs. Don’t panic, Kee. Things will work out.”He promised, and Kili hoped he was right.

***

Things with Taurieldidn’t end up working out, but things with Fili, on the other hand, did. Kilieventually learned the real reason why Fili hadn’t wanted to go to the dance,and it had pretty much changed their lives.

***

“You’re making mewear a bloody tie?” Kili looked at his boyfriend, stricken to the core as Filithreateningly held the tie in his hands. He wasn’t sure how exactly holding a tie was threateningly, but he feltthreatened.

“I let you get awaywith it at my graduation, but you’re not getting away with it for your own.”Fili insisted. Fili had always been a year ahead of Kili and had graduated theyear before. It had been lonely finishing the last year of high school withoutbeing able to see his best friend in the halls at school or being able to sitwith him at lunch or during band practices and concerts. “Your grandmother willwant pictures and you know she’ll be ecstatic if she sees you all dressed up.”

“Really?” The brunetlaughed as he surrendered and allowed Fili to loop the tie around his neck.“You’re using my grandmother as anexcuse?” He teased as he leaned forward, stealing a few kisses as Fili tried toconcentrate on tying the stupid tie. “Fee~” He sang triumphantly as he noticedthe tips of Fili’s ears turning red. “Fili.” He said more calmly, but the largeshit eating grin that had blossomed on his face wouldn’t go away. He grabbedFili’s hips even as the tie was tied.

“I find you hot in asuit okay?” Fili finally admitted, glancing up at Kili once as he slid the knotto rest just right around Kili’s neck.

This was news toKili, but pleasant news all the same. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? You candress me up any time you want as long as you promise to undress me later.” Heeven wiggled his eyebrows for effect, and he got the reaction he was lookingfor.

Fili laughed, “JesusChrist you dork. But at least you’re my dork.” He shook his head beforegrabbing the tie and pulling Kili to him. A kiss was bestowed upon the tip ofKili’s nose, because along with Fili always being the one to tie Kili’s tie,the kiss had become tradition too. Another kiss was pressed to his mouth anddeepened rather quickly. When they pulled apart, they were both a littleflushed and out of breath. “Proud of you.” Fili murmured against his lips evenas their noses rubbed together.

“Thanks.” Kiligrinned, proud of himself too, and happy that things were moving along. The twoplanned on finding a place and moving out together, and who wouldn’t be excitedabout that? “Love you, you know?”

“I love you too.”

***

“Oh my god, Filino!” Kili cried as he let his shoulders slump in defeat as the blond grabbedhim and dragged him closer so that he could swing a tie around Kili’s neck.

Fierce blue eyesglared at him, daring him to put up a fight. Kili wasn’t that brave. “You are wearing a tie to my wedding, Kili,or else you’re no longer invited.” Fili’s voice was firm and all business.

The brunet grinnedeven as he straightened enough to make Fili’s job easier. “Fee, if I don’t showup to the wedding, you won’t be marrying anyone.” He pointed out cheekily,rocking back on his heals just a little because he couldn’t make it that easy, especially not when he wasalready filled to the brim with excitement.

They were getting married.

“Oh, I’m sure Icould find someone who wants to marry me.” Fili mused as he finally finishedwith the tie, straightening it more than it had to be because he was nervousand wanted things to be perfect. “I get along with your cousin. Maybe he’d beinterested.”

Kili reached up andtook a hold of Fili’s hands before his ‘fixing’ ended up untying the materialand starting all over again. “As if I could let you marry Gimli, oh my god no. I’ll wear the tie.” He promised before hebrought his fiancé’s hands up so he could kiss them both. “I’d wear a dress ifit meant marrying you.”

Fili snickered, butKili could tell he was pleased. “The tie will do.” He leaned forward and Kiliclosed his eyes, grinning at the soft press of lips to the tip of his nose. “Readyto spend the rest of our lives together?”

“So ready.”

The door to the roomthey were getting dressed in burst open and a rather frazzled redheaded maid ofhonour stood in the doorway. “Come on you two, are you getting married orwhat?” Tauriel demanded.

And the weddingbegan.

***

Kili was choking.The tie around his neck was way too tight and he couldn’t breathe. It felt likehe was suffocating around the large lump in his throat that wouldn’t go awaynot matter what he tried.

He hooked a fingerin the material and pulled, attempting to loosen it. His mother had tied it andit was uncomfortable and too tight.

“I can’t breathe.”He managed to gasp before all but collapsing on the floor where he stood; theworld beginning to dim as air refused to pass through his lungs.

“Kili. Kili, you’repanicking.” A voice said from far away but it wasn’t the right voice, it wasn’tFili. “It’s okay, just let it happen.” There was the vague sensation of a handrubbing along his back. “I think he just needs a moment. Can everybody give ussome privacy, please?”

A moment? No. Heneeded a lifetime. He couldn’t do this. This wasn’t happening. He was trappedin a nightmare and couldn’t get out. Theywere supposed to spend the rest of their lives together.

“Oh baby.” Hismother was beside him, hands too warm within his own. He felt so cold now.“Just let it happen.” She repeated, used to these panic attacks that had onlyrecently started.

Started since…

“Mom.” He finallymanaged to croak out. “I can’t do this.” He forced the words passed the lumpstill sitting in his throat. “I can’t do this. Please don’t make me do this.”He begged, his voice trembling and breaking into a sob.

“Oh honey.” Shewrapped him up in a hug, rocking him a bit in an attempt to soothe. “I wish itworked that way, baby. I hate seeing you suffer so much.” She kissed the top ofhis head and squeezed him a little tighter. “But you don’t have a choice,sweetie. You have to be strong. Fili would have wanted you to be strong.”

It was hearing thename that finally pushed the lump out of his throat, and Kili burst into messyheart shattering sobs.

How was he supposedto be strong when the only person he’d ever loved lay in the next room in afucking coffin?

He clung to hismother helplessly as his body was racked with grief. “H-how does a-anyoneexpect m-me to go on w-without him?” He whimpered into his mother’s shoulder,soaking her black dress with his tears.

Her fingers combedthrough his hair, her own voice wet with tears. “Nobody expects you to doanything right away, baby.” She promised, “You mourn him for as long as youneed, but then you take it one day at a time. Fili wouldn’t want you to be sadforever.”

“Then he shouldn’thave fucking died!” Kili almost shouted but his voice was muffled in hismother’s shoulder. “He shouldn’t have died…” He repeated brokenly, wishing hecould wake up and have Fili sleeping beside him.

But he’d never havethat again. Kili’s nightmare had just begun.

on AO3

#epiphanyofstupidity #asks #my writing #I sooo wanted to rewrite the ending to be better but

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