urn:lj:insanejournal.com:atom1:chaotic_libraryChaotic LibraryFanworks by YuuoChaotic Library2012-01-06T00:58:51Zurn:lj:insanejournal.com:atom1:chaotic_library:53610[Hohenheim, Dante, pre-Envy; PG] A Dish Best Served Warm2012-01-06T00:58:51Z2012-01-06T00:58:51Z<b>Character/Series:</b> Hohenheim, Dane, pre-Envy<br /><b>Rating:</b> PG<br /><b>Notes:</b> Written two years after <a href="http://asylums.insanejournal.com/chaotic_library/4487.html">Cradle to Coffin</a><br /><b>Title:</b> A Dish Best Served Warm<br /><b>Author:</b> <span class='ljuser' lj:user='yuuo' style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/profile'><img src='https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif' alt='[info]' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: bottom; border: 0;' /></a><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/'><b>yuuo</b></a></span> <br /><b>Word Count:</b> 860<br /><b>Summary:</b> <i>"Master William, we'll get in trouble for this!" Dirk whispered, even as he held the bag for William.</i><br /><br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a>"Master William, we'll get in trouble for this!" Dirk whispered, even as he held the bag for William.<br /><br />William paused with the shovel, pulled down his mask, crinkled his nose in disgust at the smell of fresh horse manure, then shook his head. "Come on, Dirk, you know I'll take full credit. I just need someone to hold the bag for me."<br /><br />"Rosa will have your hide for ruining her bread pudding," Dirk hissed.<br /><br />William lifted his mask back over to his nose and began scooping up a generous portion of horse shit into the bag. "She'll do nothing of the sort when the right people get a taste of this," the willful eleven-year-old said.<br /><br />Dirk cringed, then tied off the sack after William had scooped enough manure into it. He handed the filthy thing over. "Here. I want no further part of this, Master William. You'll have to get Master Hohenheim to order me to do more, and he'd scold you for this."<br /><br />William grinned as only an adolescent up to no good could behind his mask. "I daresay my father will laugh at Mother's expense," he said, then handed over the shovel and ran off.<br /><br />He slipped into the back entrance into the kitchen, watched for Rosa's careful gaze, then slipped over to the bread pudding and upended his sack into it. Grabbing the serving spoon in the pudding, he mixed it together as well as he could, praying the strong smell of chocolate and cinnamon would overpower the even stronger smell of horseshit, then scampered out of the kitchen and back around to the entrance where the boys his age loitered.<br /><br />Eventually, they trooped inside for further festivities, enjoying the party William's spoiled mother was throwing. Hohenheim stood with a small gathering of men and women who wanted little to do with Dante, his own allies amongst the nobility of Amestris, and William departed from the boys his age, most of whom he had little in common with anyway, and over to where his father and Jakoby and the others stood.<br /><br />Hohenheim looked down at his son with a smile. "Hello, Brian. Where have you been?"<br /><br />"With the other boys, Father," he lied, looking up innocently at his father, then snapped to attention when more food was brought out. Among the dishes brought out was the bread pudding.<br /><br />William fought back a smile, watching the table intently as people filtered over from Dante's little group.<br /><br />"What's so interesting over there, boy?" Jakoby asked him, noticing his staring.<br /><br />William startled, then glanced back at the table as Dante helped herself to some bread pudding. "You'll find out," he muttered, smothering a smirk.<br /><br />"Hohenheim, I believe your boy is up to no good," Jakoby said, looking at his friend.<br /><br />Hohenheim looked down at his son, then over at his wife. He took off his glasses. "Brian? What did you-"<br /><br />Dante's shriek and subsequent vomiting interrupted him. William started to laugh. Hohenheim sighed. "What did you do to the pudding, Brian?"<br /><br />William beamed. "Just ask her," he suggested. "And if she touches a hair on Rosa's head for it, I'll kill her." His casual declaration brought an uncomfortable look to his father's face.<br /><br />Hohenheim put his glasses back on, then walked over to where his wife was. "Problems, dear?" he asked blandly. From where he was, he could already smell exactly what William had done to the pudding, and he was torn between revulsion and amusement at Dante's expense.<br /><br />Dante snapped her head up, giving him a vicious glare. "One of those miserable servants of yours did something to the bread pudding! I'll have their hides!"<br /><br />Hohenheim crossed his arms. "You'll not touch Rosa nor any of the others that have served my family for years," he told her. "You can thank your son for the special ingredient that brought such a lovely green shade to your face."<br /><br />William trotted over and grinned triumphantly at his scowling mother. "That's for sending that hideous girl after me and my inheritance," he said, sticking his tongue out.<br /><br />Dante hauled back, aiming a strike square for William's face when Hohenheim caught her arm. "Touch him and you answer to me," he warned her. "I've told you about your meddling where William is concerned. You are to have nothing to do with him. I will deal with his future courtship, and you'll have no say in the matter. Now. Go clean up, you're making an embarassment of yourself."<br /><br />Dante yanked her hand free, glaring pure hatred at both Elric men, then stalked off, still gagging on the aftertaste of fresh horseshit.<br /><br />Thinking he'd entirely gotten away with it, William stood behind his father, proudly smiling. Until Hohenheim looked down at him. "Brian?"<br /><br />William wilted in his clothing. "She deserved it, Father," he protested lamely.<br /><br />Hohenheim squeezed his shoulder, perhaps a bit too hard. "In the future, you are not allowed free run at these parties. You're to stay by me."<br /><br />Feeling like he'd been kicked in the stomach, William nodded obsequiously. "Yes, Father." Well, at least he'd avoid those bubbleheaded, spoiled, vain, brats that Dante tried to make him make friends with.urn:lj:insanejournal.com:atom1:chaotic_library:49137[Dante, Hohenheim; PG] In The Image Of Man2011-05-02T06:26:23Z2011-05-02T06:26:23Z<b>Character/Series:</b> Dante, Hohenheim; Fullmetal Alchemist<br /><b>Rating:</b> PG<br /><b>Notes:</b> Written for <span class='ljuser' lj:user='firebird308' style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://firebird308.insanejournal.com/profile'><img src='https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif' alt='[info]' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: bottom; border: 0;' /></a><a href='https://firebird308.insanejournal.com/'><b>firebird308</b></a></span>, prompt "Science Genius Girl". Set way pre-series, before the first Stone's creation.<br /><b>Title:</b> In The Image Of Man<br /><b>Author:</b> <span class='ljuser' lj:user='yuuo' style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/profile'><img src='https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif' alt='[info]' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: bottom; border: 0;' /></a><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/'><b>yuuo</b></a></span> <br /><b>Word Count:</b> 2639<br /><b>Summary:</b> <i>Deborah's heart pounded loudly in her ears as she fled.</i><br /><br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a>Deborah's heart pounded loudly in her ears as she fled. Behind her, the mob from her hometown crashed through the fields, chasing after her. "Witch!" they yelled after her. "Demon child!"<br /><br />There was a river up ahead, she knew in a flash of premonition, and it may be her only hope for survival, if she can make them believe she drowned. She had no time to wonder where she would go from there, banished from her hometown and probably to be driven out of anywhere else she might go for her supernatural visions; at that moment, survival was the only thing going through her head.<br /><br />She crested the bank and took a leap of faith into the icy blackness below.<br /><br /><div align="center">***</div><br /><br />She had no idea where she was when she came to. She could tell she was on a bed, and it was a decent one, better than one she'd ever had in her life. She opened her eyes and looked around. Tables of all sorts were around the room, holding various glass containers that were oddly shaped and she couldn't even begin to guess what they were for. The walls were covered in elaborate circles and drawings, symbols that smacked more of witchcraft than anything she'd ever done.<br /><br />Deborah sat up quickly, holding the sheet to herself when she realized she was wearing only a thin gown. "Hello?" she called, looking around again, trying to adjust her eyes to the dim oil lamp light.<br /><br />"Ah, you're awake. Good." A man's voice. Deborah's head snapped around, locating the source. He was a tall man, blonde, with eyes that looked gold in the light. It might've been an illusion though; she'd never heard of a man with gold eyes. Gold was an unnatural eye color.<br /><br />"Who's there? What have you done with me? Where am I? Where are my clothes?" The questions poured from her mouth, demanding answers more anxiously than imperiously, although heaven help her, she tried to sound not quite so afraid.<br /><br />"You're in my lab," the man told her. "Forgive me, your clothes were wet. I had my maid fetch you a nightgown."<br /><br />The heat that had risen in her cheeks died down a little. "This maid. I'm sorry, is she the one that dressed me?" She desperately hoped so. She may have been accused of witchcraft, but she was a good girl, really! She wasn't a whore like her mother.<br /><br />The man smiled, and it seemed more amused than reassuring. "Yes, she did. You've nothing I've not already seen anyway," he said, turning back to the table he stood at. He marked on the wall, more symbols that Deborah couldn't decipher, then looked back at her. "Now, it is my turn to ask you a question. What were you doing in my family's river?"<br /><br />Wait. A maid. His family's river. Oh God, have mercy, she was talking to a nobleman. She scrambled for her manners and wits. "Beggin' your pardon, milord," she said quickly. "I was- I was running from someone and jumped in the river. I don't know how far away I was when I did that. I didn't mean to trespass."<br /><br />The man turned again, and walked over to her. "What is your name? Who were you running from and why?"<br /><br />Deborah shrank back as she realized just how large this man was. She'd never seen anyone so tall! "I- my name's Deborah. I was running from my townspeople, I." She hesitated. "They think I'm a witch. But I'm not, I swear I'm not!"<br /><br />He snorted in disgust. "Another witch hunt. Well, I'll have use for you, at least."<br /><br />Something about his tone when he said that made her skin tingle with the urge to run as fast as she could. "I'm nobody's whore!" she protested. "I'm not my mother! And I'm not a witch, either. I-" Another hesitation. Maybe this man would take pity on her instead. "I see things, sometimes, and they're accurate, but that doesn't make me a witch. Even the disciples saw visions, didn't they?"<br /><br />That had the man's interest. "You see visions? Of the future?"<br /><br />He didn't seem disgusted or reviled by her for it, so she reluctantly nodded. "I do. And they're always accurate. I don't know why, I've had them since I was a babe."<br /><br />A smile crept along the man's face, thoroughly unpleasant, and Deborah wasn't sure how safe she felt, suddenly. "Interesting. Well, Deborah, I have a task for you. Would you be my assistant in a few experiments? Oh, forgive me. I should explain. I'm an alchemist. My name is Hohenheim. I'm most interested in your abilities. I believe there's a scientific reason for them, not some hocus pocus witchcraft nonsense. If I can prove it, and understand the source of your powers, perhaps I can replicate it, and remove the stigma about it."<br /><br />Some of those words didn't make sense to her, but she understood that he was not interested in hurting her, and it sounded like it might even help her. Given that she had nowhere else to go, she didn't have much choice but to accept. "I'll help however I can, milord."<br /><br />"Please, just Hohenheim," he said. "I don't care much about my family's status, except the education it bought me."<br /><br />Deborah smiled, a bit tentatively as she warmed to the man. "All right, then, Hohenheim. I like that name."<br /><br />"It's a name," he said somewhat off-handedly. Deborah felt her smile slipping. Hohenheim wasn't terribly friendly, it seemed, but he offered her a job, one that seemed honorable enough. Certainly, it was better than turning tricks like her mother, or who knows what her father did. "You'll stay in the servants quarters. Rosa will assist you. Tomorrow, I want you here, in my lab, at sun up. Is that clear?"<br /><br />She nodded. "Yes, Hohenheim. I'll be here."<br /><br /><div align="center">***</div><br /><br />Hohenheim spent the next several weeks working with the gutter trash known as Deborah. She was uncanny. Her abilities were incredible. She was almost never wrong when he held up a card to her and asked her what was the symbol on the other side, and she'd more than once saved him from an accident with her premonitions.<br /><br />He must replicate those abilities for himself.<br /><br />"Tell me, Deborah. Can you read minds, as well?" he asked her one day as she arrived in the lab, a few minutes late, he noticed.<br /><br />She blinked, red faced and stammering, then shook her head. "I don't know, Hohenheim. I've never been asked to. I've been accused of it, though."<br /><br />He nodded thoughtfully. He hated the way she turned red, as if she were an attractive young lady flirting with an equal. She wasn't bad, but she was gutter trash. His only interest in her was purely academic. "Come, we'll try it." He held out a piece of chalk to her, and motioned to a clean portion of the brick wall. "I will think of something, and I want you to write or draw what you think I'm thinking."<br /><br />Deborah took the chalk, shaking with nerves. "I don't know how to write or read," she said, to his utter lack of surprise.<br /><br />"Just copy what you see," he told her with more patience than he felt. He sincerely hoped he wouldn't have to teach this woman to read to do further experiments. He didn't care about her station in regard to her education, but he didn't care to spend that much more time with her. He was getting anxious to look into her brain, to see what was so different about her.<br /><br />He stepped back as she approached the wall, and focused in on a simple equation, the Pythagorean theorem. Something easy. Something she couldn't mess up, if indeed she could read minds.<br /><br />After a few heartbeats, Deborah began to write, making a clumsy lower case 'a', followed by a two, then a 'b' that looked more like an abstract duck, another two, then an equal sign and an 'o' followed by one last two. It wasn't quite right, but it was close enough for someone who had no idea how to write trying to copy what they saw. And who knew how clearly she saw that.<br /><br />Still, it was amazing. She had utterly no education, and she'd written roughly the Pythagorean theorem just from reading his mind.<br /><br />"I have one last test," he said, not commenting on how she'd done. She looked at him with a nervous-looking smile. "Come here, look on the floor in the middle of the room.<br /><br />She did as she was instructing, staring in awe at the detailed transmutation circle he'd drawn across the whole of the floor. "What's it for?"<br /><br />"I'm hoping it will let me replicate what is different about your brain that gives you these abilities so I can study what causes them," he explained. That wasn't entirely true; replication would come later. For now, it would deconstruct her brain for him to base elements so he could see what caused these abilities. But she didn't need to know that.<br /><br />She wrung her hands. "How does it work?"<br /><br />He looked at her over his glasses. "Do you really want a scientific explanation?" he asked. After a moment, she shook her head. "Now, I need you to lie down in the center of the circle. Don't worry, this won't hurt."<br /><br />Deborah looked at him one last time, then did as she was told, stepping into the center and lying down. Once she was positioned correctly to his satisfaction, he stepped out of the circle, and knelt beside it. He repressed his excitement as he touched the edges of the array, activating it.<br /><br />The transmutation glowed brilliantly gold, alchemical energy arching off the lines he'd drawn so perfectly. Deborah looked over at him with a positively wretched look, then her eyes went wide as the light turned to an ugly violet. A loud staticky noise filled the room as beakers broke and papers flew everywhere.<br /><br />Deborah's body contorted, then stretched, ballooned up impossibly, then Hohenheim's world turned to an ugly shade of yellow. Sensing something behind him, he turned to come face to face with a giant door. "What is this?" he shouted, looking around for any sign of his laboratory.<br /><br />There was nothing to see anywhere but stretches of palest gold.<br /><br />Deborah, or what was left of her, lay in front of him, between himself and the doors, and he watched in horrified fascination as the doors creaked open and silk-black hands slid out, caressing the body, then disappeared, taking the body with them. Eyes from within the inky blackness within the doors stared out at him.<br /><br />Then everything went dark.<br /><br /><div align="center">***</div><br /><br />"Hohenheim?"<br /><br />The sound of a woman's voice- pleasing to his ears- roused him from his stupor. He cracked open one eye to find Deborah kneeling over him. She teared up. "Oh thank God, you're alive," she said, reaching across him to grasp his shoulder. "Can you sit?"<br /><br />Reluctantly, painfully, he sat up. Something inside was missing, he could tell, could feel the ache and the blood. That door had taken something. It hadn't just been a hallucination. His laboratory was a wreck around them, and once he was sitting, he felt the urge to vomit.<br /><br />"Let me get you some water," she said, getting up and walking away. How she could move, he couldn't be certain. He felt weak, and something was missing. How was she even still alive? That door had taken her in, and there hadn't been much left of her at the time. What had it done to her?<br /><br />For that matter, what <i>was</i> it? Some sort of truth, something he couldn't quite put into words, but he knew, nonetheless. That thing was God somehow. The god of alchemy. The source, the All.<br /><br />But none of that explained that thing. Or what it'd taken from him.<br /><br />Deborah came back, putting some broken glass on the ground. She pressed her hands together, then touched the glass. He watched in bleary-eyed amazement as alchemical energy sparked from her unmarked hands, with no circle to start the transmutation, and the broken glass formed a drinking glass. The air shimmered, then he sensed as the humidity in the air condensed and filled the glass with water.<br /><br />"Here," she said, holding up the glass to his lips.<br /><br />He took a drink, coughed, spat blood, then stared at her again. "How did you do that?"<br /><br />She forced him to take another drink, the used the sleeves of her dress to wipe away the blood. "It's alchemy, how else?" she demanded, voice and tone more aggressive and decisive and everything she hadn't been up to that point than he'd ever heard from her. "Can't you do it? You saw that door too, didn't you? I thought I saw you."<br /><br />But how? She'd been dead, gnarled remains of a human being! This was impossible. "What's going on?" He gave her a stern look. "You never told me you could do alchemy."<br /><br />Deborah stared at him. "When would I have?" she asked. "I haven't even seen you before you approached the door and pulled me out. Don't be mistaking me for any other woman," she said. "I'm what you asked for, and you got me. Now, drink your water, let's go see a doctor, and then you can tell me who I'm supposed to be to you and why I know your name."<br /><br />His head spun. This was impossible! She looked exactly like Deborah, but she was whole and well, and talking about the doors as if she'd been there her whole life! And doing alchemy without an array, no less! Although, the more he thought about it, the more he realized, so could he now. His mind felt crowded with information, information he struggled to make sense of.<br /><br />It was impossible. He'd performed a human transmutation on her. She should be dead, with the secrets of her psychic abilities in his hands. Not well and alive and performing alchemy without a circle as if she'd been studying her whole life.<br /><br />"A doctor, yes, but first, tell me. Do you know what I'm thinking?" He had to test. If she now where both a psychic and an alchemist, he'd kill her himself. Nothing would surpass him, certainly not some little gutter trash girl.<br /><br />She gave him a stern look. "No, why would I? Stop playing around, Hohenheim, let's get you to a doctor. The doors took something from you, and you should be treated. Do you know what's missing?"<br /><br />He didn't. How did she know that, though, that something was gone? It was like she'd traded her gifts for alchemical ones. And she was acting like someone new, someone who felt she belonged to him instead of a mousey girl indebted to him, like she'd been acting.<br /><br />"Do you know who you are?" he finally asked. He had to know. She claimed she'd been waiting in the doors, perhaps he'd somehow recreated her entirely, from the ground up, creating a new person, maybe one that might finally be his intellectual equal, if her ability to transmute without a circle proved anything.<br /><br />She started to answer, that stubborn scowl on her face, but it faded. "I- no. No, I don't." She looked at him. "Then I suppose you'd better name me, hm?"<br /><br />A new person, a new alchemist who could do what nobody else could. Knew what nobody else knew. Pulled from the gates of Hell. He nodded, carefully getting to his feet with her help. "Then I'll call you Dante," he said. "Now, let's get me to a doctor, so we can get back to work, Dante."<br /><br />Dante smiled. "That's more like it. We have much to learn together."urn:lj:insanejournal.com:atom1:chaotic_library:40290[Hohenheim/Trisha; G] Flowers For Milady2010-01-06T18:56:45Z2010-01-06T18:56:45Z<b>Character/Series:</b> Hohenheim/Trisha; Fullmetal Alchemist<br /><b>Rating:</b> G<br /><b>Notes:</b> Written for <span class='ljuser' lj:user='31_days' style='white-space: nowrap; text-decoration: line-through;'><a href='https://feeds.insanejournal.com/31_days/profile'><img src='https://www.insanejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif' alt='[info]' width='16' height='16' style='vertical-align: bottom; border: 0;' /></a><a href='https://feeds.insanejournal.com/31_days/'><b>31_days</b></a></span> Jan 6th theme; absolutely necessary to a gentleman<br /><b>Title:</b> Flowers For Milady<br /><b>Author:</b> <span class='ljuser' lj:user='yuuo' style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/profile'><img src='https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif' alt='[info]' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: bottom; border: 0;' /></a><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/'><b>yuuo</b></a></span> <br /><b>Word Count:</b> 1187<br /><b>Summary:</b> <i>It had been quite sometime since Hohenheim had last courted a lady for more than a night or two of mutual enjoyment.</i><br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><font size="2"><i>Oh, she's my dear, my darlin' one,<br />Her eyes so sparklin' full of fun.<br />No other, no other<br />Can match the likes of her.<br /><br />She's my dear, my darlin' one,<br />My smilin' and beguilin' one.<br />I love the ground she walks upon,<br />My pretty Irish girl.</i><br />-Darby O'Gill And The Little People</font><br /><br />It had been quite sometime since Hohenheim had last courted a lady for more than a night or two of mutual enjoyment. He was afraid he'd nearly forgotten everything important, which caused him some measure of consternation.<br /><br />For this woman, he wanted to do things perfectly. He wanted to do things <i>right</i>. Trisha was like no other woman he'd met, with her combination of sweet and innocent, and precocious and daring. She'd approached him first, all but laid claim to him without giving him much say in the matter and he found he didn't mind that at all.<br /><br />Thankfully, he did remember one thing a gentleman courting must always do. Find out the lady's favorite kind of flower.<br /><br />Pinako gave him a shrewd look across the table of her clinic, not fooled by his nonchalance in bringing up the young Trisha. "I knew you'd be a lost cause as soon as she walked over to you," Pinako said.<br /><br />Hohenheim tried to look indignant. "I am far from a lost cause," he lied. "You can't act as if you've never seen me display interest in a woman before, Pinako."<br /><br />The woman laughed. "Yeah, but I know Trisha. She wraps everyone she wants around her little finger. That includes you now."<br /><br />"As you care to believe," Hohenheim said dismissively. "But very well. Yes, I have an interest in her. Now will you tell me what kind of flowers she likes, or do I have to transmute you to your chair?"<br /><br />Pinako gave him a warning look at that. "Don't think it, you old coot. But, since you asked, she likes daisies. The colored kind, not the white."<br /><br />A daisy. Such a common weed, it hardly seemed appropriate for a woman like Trisha. But as the lady wished, he would deliver.<br /><br />He spent a bit more time in Pinako's company, trying to buy himself some dignity before he bid her farewell and headed down to the lake. Trisha was usually down there, and Hohenheim hoped to see her.<br /><br />She wasn't there when he got to the lakeside, but he took advantage of the time to try to figure out how to go about giving Trisha colored daisies. The obvious answer of alchemy presented itself, but he wanted something more creative than a simple bouquet that would die in a few days.<br /><br />It took awhile before inspiration hit him, and he gathered up some sand and dust from the shore, gathering it together in a little pile. He clapped his hands, transmuting the dust and sand into a hard, glassy substance that slowly took the shape of a hair comb with a purple daisy on it.<br /><br />There. Far more fitting than a bunch of weeds that would die on her.<br /><br />Hiding the hair comb in his coat pocket, he made his way to her home, finding her under the tree in her front yard, an apple in one hand and a romance book in the other. She didn't look up until he'd cleared his throat nervously, but she smiled when she saw him, dog-earing the page she was on in her book and setting it aside. "Why, Mister Hohenheim, this is a surprise."<br /><br />Hohenheim smiled. "Not a bad one, I hope."<br /><br />Trisha shook her head. "Not at all." She smiled, and Hohenheim knew exactly what Pinako meant when she said Trisha tied people around her little finger. He would've done anything to keep that smile there.<br /><br />"Would you care to accompany me to the lake?" he asked, nervously playing with the hair comb in his pocket.<br /><br />Trisha's face lit up at the idea. "I would love to. Give me just a moment," she said, then grabbed up her book and hurried inside. She came back out a few minutes later, a small parasol for keeping the sun off the face in hand. "So what were your plans for this outing?" she asked, and Hohenheim couldn't tell if her tone was simply innocent, or entirely <i>too</i> innocent.<br /><br />His head spun at the inadvertent implications and he coughed, trying to kill the faint flush he could feel building. "I had noticed a rowboat tied to the pier," he said, "I thought we might go boating." Never mind that Hohenheim didn't know who that boat belonged to. Whoever it was would just be missing out on their boat for awhile.<br /><br />Trisha's smile was bright enough to put the sun to shame. "I would love that," she said, walking over to him and taking his arm without invitation.<br /><br />Neither spoke as they walked back down to the lake, nor as Hohenheim gently helped lower Trisha into the boat, nor even once they were slowly rowing across the glassy surface of the lake.<br /><br />Trisha leaned over the edge just enough to trail her fingers in the water, that same bright smile fixed on her face, and what a crime it would be if anything caused it to go out.<br /><br />After a time of the companionable silence, Hohenheim cleared his throat again. "Miss Trisha, if I may, I've made something for you."<br /><br />She looked up at him, smiling as if she'd known all along. If she did, she had the grace and aplomb not to say so. "Oh? You do?" She sat forward eagerly.<br /><br />Hohenheim dug around in his pocket. "I do hope you like it," he said, realizing how nervous and young he sounded even as he said it. He pulled out the comb, presenting it to her and feeling like the entire world hinged on her reaction to his gift.<br /><br />If her smile had put the sun to shame before, now it could light up the world for the rest of time as she put her hand to her mouth, then gingerly reached out for the comb. "Oh, Mister Hohenheim, it's <i>lovely</i>," she said, watery-eyed from the gift.<br /><br />"Please, just Hohenheim," he said, watching her, every second of silly, boyish nervousness worth it for that look on her face.<br /><br />She folded up her parasol, setting it down in the boat and carefully twisting her hair up, sticking the comb in to secure it. "Well, then, Hohenheim, please just call me Trisha." She smiled, touching her fingers to the comb. "How does it look?"<br /><br />"It looks beautiful, Trisha," he said quietly, reaching out and touching his fingers to hers lightly. "It looks even more beautiful on you."<br /><br />She blushed, which he thought was terribly adorable, and looked away shyly, something he knew she was not in the slightest. "I've been wondering when you would say something like that, Hohenheim," she said, looking vaguely amused as she looked back to him.<br /><br />"Were you hoping I would?" he asked.<br /><br />That earned him another smile. "I've been getting impatient for it," she admitted. "So can this mean what I hope it means?"<br /><br />Innocent she may be, but she was just as precocious if not more so.<br /><br />It was his turn to smile. "If you'd have an old stray mutt like myself," he said.<br /><br />Trisha reached across the boat and took his hand, entwining her fingers with his. "I do," she whispered.urn:lj:insanejournal.com:atom1:chaotic_library:11685[Edward Elric; PG] Dies Irae2007-06-13T00:33:51Z2008-01-13T05:32:29Z<b>Character/Series:</b> Edward Elric; Hohenheim Elric; Fullmetal Alchemist<br /><b>Rating:</b> PG<br /><b>Notes:</b> Post-series spoilers.<br /><b>Music:</b> <a href="http://www.megaupload.com/?d=949IGXKL">Mozart's Requiem - Sequence: Dies Irae</a> Hopelessly pompous and churchy and zomgdoom-sounding. But this is me, not caring. It's neat to listen to. And short.<br /><b>Title:</b> Dies Irae<br /><b>Author:</b> <span class='ljuser' lj:user='yuuo' style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/profile'><img src='https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif' alt='[info]' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: bottom; border: 0;' /></a><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/'><b>yuuo</b></a></span> <br /><b>Word Count:</b> 990<br /><b>Summary:</b> <i>There were no mirrors in Edward's room.</i><br /><b>Original LJ Post Date:</b> Aug 17, 2006 @ Chaotic_Library<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><font size="1"><i>Mors stupebit et natura,<br />cum resurget creatura,<br />judicanti responsura.</i><br />-Dies Irae, from the Order of Mass for the Dead</font><br /><br />There were no mirrors in Edward's room. There had been one, on the dresser on the far side of the room from his bed, but even just one night of watching it, seeing his reflection staring back at him, seeing the broken condition his passing to this world had left him in, had been one too many, and he'd demanded his father remove it from the room, loudly and angrily, flinging whatever he could reach at the glass to illustrate his vehement stance on the subject.<br /><br />Hohenheim had taken it out without argument.<br /><br />Edward hadn't noticed when the damn thing found its way back into his room again, probably sometime after he was no longer bedridden, fitted with prosthetics that amounted to little more than sticks attempting to look like an arm and leg. They weren't terribly functional, but they were something to fill his shirt sleeve and something he could walk with, if extremely carefully and with the aid of a cane, and they were the best this miserable world could offer him, so he didn't complain where he could be heard about them.<br /><br />He would've thought he'd have noticed the mirror, honestly. The days following his arrival were spent in his room, rarely straying from there. The only places he could go were the other rooms of the upstairs apartment; he almost never went outside, where pitying eyes could be turned on him, his limp and the cane and the way his arm hung limply at his side telling more than he wanted anyone from this foreign world to know.<br /><br /><i>Poor little cripple boy. Too young for such tragedy.</i><br /><br />Edward hated pity. He was certain he couldn't take it, even less so than he could've when he was younger, when his automail made him stand out.<br /><br />So he hid. He locked himself in his room, thumbing through volumes of textbooks his father provided him, trying to acquaint himself with the science of this world, more out of a desperate desire to <i>hide</i> in something he could grasp and understand than any real hope of finding answers to the millions of questions that ran through his head, blurring together until it was just a constant heaviness, an oppressive, strangling <i>numbness</i> that haunted his dreams and weighed down on him.<br /><br />There was nothing to go back to, after all. He couldn't feel Alphonse, and even trying to focus, to make himself think of ways to get back to Amestris without alchemy just brought that inescapable pain crashing down on him.<br /><br />He honestly thought he would've noticed the mirror back in his room.<br /><br />His morning routine was monotonous, never varying. He got up, he brushed out the tangles in his hair and pulled it back into a sloppy ponytail, and he got dressed. His nightly routine was just the reverse of that; he brushed out his hair, he changed for bed, he slept. The light on the table by his bed burned low as he tossed the rubber band onto the nightstand, picking up his brush and pulling it through his hair without much thought.<br /><br />Silently, he limped over to the dresser, working open the buttons of his shirt as he went, glancing at the clock. He was turning in early, far earlier than he had the last few days; the clock still read half past seven. Idly, he wondered if his father would come upstairs to check on him, or to offer him dinner.<br /><br />Edward didn't feel like eating.<br /><br />Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he froze, glancing over. Gold eyes stared back at him, and his breath caught and congealed in his throat- <i>you understand, right?</i> -and then released shakily as he realized that it was merely his own reflection, nothing else. Mentally berating himself for being so skittish, he stepped over to the mirror, looking at his reflection a moment before reaching up to flip the mirror over.<br /><br />The action pulled on his shirt, and he paused, frowning and lowering his arm. He studied his reflection, leaning in closer to the mirror, fingers brushing against the glass. Straps across his chest held the wooden limb to his body- they were temporaries, he remembered the doctor mentioning the possibility of aluminum prosthetics -almost making him look like a prisoner in his own body.<br /><br />That wasn't what caught his attention though.<br /><br />Edward was used to scars; the entire area of his right shoulder was nothing but scar tissue, a few thin lines straying down to his chest from the automail surgery. He knew them all by heart, had seen them enough times over the years that he knew what marks his sins had written onto his body.<br /><br />There was a new scar he'd never seen before.<br /><br />It stretched out across the center of his chest, an angry red, twisting his flesh and spiralling outward, like the flesh had been stretched and pulled inward.<br /><br /><i>You must understand, right?</i><br /><br />"Edward?"<br /><br />Edward didn't answer, didn't react to the sound of his father's voice on the other side of the door, didn't look up when the doorknob clicked and the hinges creaked as his father stepped into the room. They were distant, muffled, inconsequential past the staticky numbness that settled over his mind, freezing his thoughts.<br /><br /><i>You must understand, right?</i><br /><br />"Edward, what-"<br /><br />Swallowing tightly, Edward turned his head to look at his father, wide-eyed and pale. <i>(There's a scar there, it was real, he really killed me, Al brought me back, and now I'm </i>here<i> and my alchemy won't work and I was </i>dead<i>-)</i><br /><br />Hohenheim looked taken aback by his son's expression, and frowned. "Edward, what is it? What's wrong?"<br /><br />The smile that tugged at one corner of Edward's lips was disbelieving, borderline crazed. If he was dead, if he'd been brought <i>back</i>, if he couldn't transmute anything anymore... "Father?"<br /><br />His hand dropped from the glass as he turned to face the older man. "Am I dead?"urn:lj:insanejournal.com:atom1:chaotic_library:10688[Edward Elric; PG] Landing in London2007-06-13T00:22:45Z2007-06-13T00:25:41Z<b>Character/Series:</b> Edward Elric; Hohenheim Elric; Fullmetal Alchemist<br /><b>Rating:</b> PG<br /><b>Notes:</b> Written as an accompaniment to <a href="http://asylums.insanejournal.com/chaotic_library/11000.html">When The Night Falls In</a>. Full-series spoilers. Written for <span class='ljuser' lj:user='52_flavours' style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://www.insanejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=52_flavours'><img src='https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif' alt='[info]' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: bottom; border: 0;' /></a><a href='https://www.insanejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=52_flavours'><b>52_flavours</b></a></span>, theme #41- Every act of love is separateness<br /><b>Title:</b> Landing in London<br /><b>Author:</b> <span class='ljuser' lj:user='yuuo' style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/profile'><img src='https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif' alt='[info]' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: bottom; border: 0;' /></a><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/'><b>yuuo</b></a></span> <br /><b>Word Count:</b> 698<br /><b>Summary:</b> <i>They think he's still in shock, Edward figures, lying still and staring at the ceiling as his father and the doctor speak on the other side of the room.</i><br /><b>Original LJ Post Date:</b> June 15, 2006 @ Chaotic_Library<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><font size="1"><i>I woke up today in London<br />As the plane was touching down<br />And all I could think about was Monday<br />And maybe I'll be back around</i><br />-"Landing in London"; Three Doors Down</font><br /><br /><b>Landing in London</b><br /><br /><br />They think he's still in shock, Edward figures, lying still and staring at the ceiling as his father and the doctor speak on the other side of the room. Maybe he is, he can't tell; is that what the numb feeling that was settling over him was? It's blocking out his awareness, reducing his world down to a single thought, a single focus.<br /><br />He can't feel Al anymore.<br /><br />The words of his father and the doctor are muffled against his tunnel-vision perception, and he vaguely processes that the doctor is asking his father about a cult, and an attack, and what are they talking about?<br /><br />Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hohenheim shake his head. "It's possible, I suppose. I've not heard of any other such attacks though."<br /><br />It dawns on Edward, past the suffocating feeling of a broken contact with his brother, a connection that he'd never been without, not when the Gate took Alphonse's body as toll, not when his brother used the last of the Stone and disappeared, and Edward had woken up to an empty stage with Rosè and Wrath as the only audience members, that the two men must be talking about his injuries.<br /><br />A cult attack? Hardly. He put the arrays there himself, carved them into his own skin; they're not signs of magical garbage, they're alchemy, science, sacrifice written in a language Edward knows better than the one he speaks.<br /><br />He can't say that, of course, not here, now can he?<br /><br />Here. London. God, what is he doing here again? How? The Gate should've taken him, returned Al to the land of the living in his place. He should be waiting in some sort of limbo for Al to be able to do what he didn't know how to do on his own, to fix the mess he'd made.<br /><br />He shouldn't be here.<br /><br />Dimly, he hopes, despite the dead feeling in his soul where Al should be, that maybe, maybe he'd inadvertently pulled Al through with him, and that his baby brother is sitting out in the hall, waiting while their father and the doctor talk, worried about him.<br /><br />"Al?" he croaks weakly, hopefully, and there's the sound of footsteps, and then his father is leaning over him. He finally turns his gaze from the fixed point on the ceiling he'd been staring at to look at the man, waiting, silently begging him to tell him something he wanted to hear, to tell him the pain in his chest is just leftover from his own death.<br /><br />"Rest, Edward," Hohenheim tells him, reaching out a hand and brushing back his hair, and Edward wants to cry, tears up and struggles to breathe at the unspoken answer in his father's expression.<br /><br />He whimpers his brother's name again, voice cracking and breaking over the sound. He can't feel his heartbeat anymore. Somehow, he thinks that dying the first time hurt less.<br /><br />"I'll return tomorrow," the doctor says, somewhere far away, and Hohenheim nods, says his thanks and bids him goodbye. 'Tomorrow'? There's actually a tomorrow, another day, a future at <i>all</i> when Al is no longer there, no longer there with him, is <i>gone</i>?<br /><br />The shock must've worn off, he realizes with some detached interest, as his breath curdles in his throat, a keening <i>wail</i> working out from his heart and he's not even fully sure that he actually made the sound, or if it's just the deafening silence of his soul dying that he can't hear past.<br /><br />Hohenheim's weight settles on the bed and the older man gathers him up into his arms; it's the first time Edward's been there, held by his father like a little boy, in years. His arm wraps around the older man, clinging desperately for solid ground, and he sobs in frustration at the lack of response from his missing arm, at his inability to even hold on for dear life fully.<br /><br />His father says something, something surely meant to be comforting; he ignores it, and whatever it was, the words are lost and fall on deaf ears. There is no comfort, nothing could make this better or even just okay.<br /><br />Al is gone.<br /><br /><font size="1"><i>And when the night falls in around me<br />I don't think I'll make it through<br />I'll use your light to guide the way<br />'Cause all I think about is you</i></font>urn:lj:insanejournal.com:atom1:chaotic_library:4487[Hohenheim; Envy; Dante; PG] Cradle to Coffin2007-06-11T22:53:48Z2007-06-11T22:53:48Z<b>Characters/Series:</b> Hohenheim and Envy; Fullmetal Alchemist<br /><b>Rating:</b> PG<br /><b>Notes:</b> Part one in a series of short ficlets centering primarily on Hohenheim, even if not all the parts will be from his perspective. For the purposes of this series and drawing the parallels with later parts that I wanted to, I went with a name for Envy that paralleled Ed's in meaning- William. The middle name came from RP sessions and I kept it 'cause I could and I was too lazy to go with anything else. :D Fullmetal Alchemist is copyright Square Enix and Hiromu Arakawa and used without permission.<br /><b>Title:</b> Cradle to Coffin; Part 1/? <br /><b>Author:</b> <span class='ljuser' lj:user='yuuo' style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/profile'><img src='https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif' alt='[info]' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: bottom; border: 0;' /></a><a href='https://yuuo.insanejournal.com/'><b>yuuo</b></a></span><br /><b>Word Count:</b> 2050<br /><b>Summary:</b> <i>That woman did not deserve this.</i><br /><b>Original LJ Post Date:</b> Feb 11, 2006 @ Chaotic_Library<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><font size="1"><i>"What a mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin."</i><br />-Henry Ward Beecher</font><br /><br /><b>Cradle to Coffin</b><br /><br /><br />That woman did not deserve this.<br /><br />It was tragic, really, that that was his first thought upon hearing his son's idea, but it crossed his mind all the same and stayed there, repeating itself on a loop as his son excitedly explained his idea for a gift for his mother.<br /><br />That woman did not deserve this sort of devotion or love.<br /><br />It had not taken long to see that Dante resented their son to the point of cold and thinly-veiled hostility, and the boy never understood her actions, the way she spoke to him, when she even bothered to acknowledge him at all. Hohenheim, on the other hand, adored the boy, his golden smile and that keen brilliance that he recognized from his own youth. <br /><br />Perhaps it was purely egoism for how much the boy was a reflection of himself that caused his adoration, but he highly doubted it. For as logical as that answer seemed, it simply did not <i>feel</i> right. He was a scientist, certainly, but he'd learned over the last three-quarters century that even though everything, even emotions, could be very logical in nature, there always was and always would be a bit of chaos threaded through it, something wholly <i>il</i>logical and impossible to predict.<br /><br />Dante's emotions, unfortunately, were not so illogical to guess at the reason for. She was jealous, bitterly envious of the attention that Hohenheim gave their son that she'd once had a sort of totaltarian dominance over, and it was eating her alive. It hurt him to see it; part of him very much missed the woman he'd loved that had seemed to completely disappear since she gave birth-<br /><br /><i>(she was never that, really, it's me that's changed; I'm getting a glimpse of life outside of my experiments and that woman)</i> <br /><br />-and she never failed, however subtly and wordlessly, to remind him that it was his fault for continuing to make an effort to be a father to the boy.<br /><br />She always managed to push it down to a 'him or me' choice, and in the end Hohenheim always favored his son, put off by Dante's emulous pettiness and completely enamoured with watching his son grow and learn and become his own person. Slighted, Dante always made the boy suffer for Hohenheim's choices, and Hohenheim in turn would make every effort to make it up to the boy and shield him from his wife's insecurities as much as he could, creating a vicious cycle, with his golden child caught in the middle of it all.<br /><br />That woman <i>really</i> did not deserve this.<br /><br />He'd wanted to tell his son no, to try to talk him out of the idea, but it was clear from his expression that he would not be deterred; he was determined to follow through with this, with or without his father's help.<br /><br />"It's for Mother's birthday!" the all-together too willful eight year old insisted stubbornly, arms crossed and jaw set tightly as he waited for his father to give him the answer he clearly <i>wanted</i> to hear, rather than the one he'd been hearing.<br /><br />Hohenheim studied him over the edge of his book for a moment, then sighed and marked his place before setting the book aside. "All right," he relented, the thought that Dante did not deserve such devotion from her son echoing louder against the inside of his skull as the boy's face lit up triumphantly.<br /><br />"Great! Come on, I've got everything all set up in the laboratory already," he said quickly, practically leaping forward and grabbing his father's hand, trying to tug him to his feet.<br /><br />Hohenheim frowned as he let himself be dragged out of his chair. "<i>What</i> all do you have set up?"<br /><br />The boy paused and looked at him. "Hm? Oh, the silver and the copper ores and I got the flask with the mercury out-"<br /><br />"William," Hohenheim interrupted him, tone stern as he pulled his hand back from his son's to take his glasses off his face and clean them on the edge of his shirt. William shrank back a bit in front of him at his name and Hohenheim had to bite his tongue to keep a spiteful and decidedly 'not for children's ears' word from slipping out at the way he recoiled. Dante had made the sound of his own name fearful to hear for him, with the way she used it as an insult whenever she addressed him.<br /><br />Kneeling down to his level, he put his hands on the boy's shoulders gently. "Brian," he said with a gentler tone, using William's middle name to address him to leech a bit more of the sting out of his statement, "I know very well you're a capable boy in the laboratory, but you know that I don't want you handling the dangerous chemicals until-"<br /><br />"But <i>Father</i>-"<br /><br />"-<i>until</i>," he cut off his son's protests, "your hands have outgrown that clumsiness that every child goes through." William seemed moderately, if begrudgingly, pacified by that statement. He rose back to his feet. "Now, let's go make this present of yours, shall we?"<br /><br /><hr width="50%"><br /><br />He certainly had to give his son credit. The boy knew his way around a laboratory and knew exactly what chemicals he'd need for this project. They were carefully laid out with a meticulous precision, arranged by elemental weight with slips of paper with the required alchemical circles on the counters next to them. Hohenheim almost wanted to laugh at how very controlled and utterly <i>perfect</i> it was.<br /><br />William beamed proudly up at him. "See? Everything's ready."<br /><br />He chuckled, patting his son's head affectionately. "It looks like you're well-prepared. We'll see if there's anything you've forgotten."<br /><br />His son didn't seem all that pleased at the suggestion that he might've forgotten anything. "Everything's here and ready. I just need to show you what I want it to look like," he replied with a comically haughty tone for an eight year old. With that, he moved over to the counter nearest the door and flipped through a few papers before finally pulling out a single slip and handing it over to his father.<br /><br />At first Hohenheim thought it was another alchemy circle, one far too familiar with its pheonix-like arrays swirling out from the center like wings of flame, then he realized it was actually a drawing of a locket with that circle merely inscribed on its cover.<br /><br />William had certainly put a lot of thought into this present.<br /><br />"Where did you get this array, Son?" he asked William over the top of the paper, raising an eyebrow and pushing his glasses up on his nose a bit. <br /><br />The boy ducked his head a bit guiltily. "In your books," he admitted.<br /><br />Hohenheim sighed heavily. "What have I told you about thos-"<br /><br />"Oh, I know, Father, I know, I'm sorry, but I've read all the books you'll allow me to read already!" he protested.<br /><br />Hohenheim studied him silently a moment, then crossed his arms, mindful of the drawing. Quietly, he looked over the materials his son had set out, mentally calculating everything there, looking for any missing pieces. "Why don't you go get what you want to put into this, and I'll make the crystal in the meantime?" he said gently, looking back at his son.<br /><br />Seeing that he wasn't in trouble for going through his father's more forbidden tomes, at least for the moment, William agreed readily with a bob of his head and a quick exit from the room. Once he'd stepped out, Hohenheim pulled out a few more chemicals, setting them down and pulling the mercury over to him. His son had been close, he'd give him that, but he'd forgotten to account for a sealing chemical on the mercury sulfide to prevent poisoning.<br /><br />He nearly smacked himself for entertaining the thought of not bothering with it.<br /><br />Pushing the thought away, he quietly set to work.<br /><br /><hr width="50%"><br /><br />That woman did not deserve her son.<br /><br />The thought echoed louder and more insistantly in his head as he stood back in the study, watching William present the locket proudly to Dante. It was a beautiful locket, to be certain, silver with inlaid cinnabar, the red stone forming the shape of an alchemical array that Dante had been trying to make work correctly for most of a century.<br /><br />He watched his wife sharply over the top of his glasses, eyes slitted dangerously in warning. Dante didn't pay him any mind, looking at the locket in her hand with a coldly detached expression of disinterest, and opened it, a frown creasing her brow as she pulled the tiny object from within.<br /><br />"What is this, William?" she demanded with a tightly controlled measure of faux gentleness.<br /><br />Hohenheim's eyes narrowed further.<br /><br />"It's ... it's the first tooth I lost," their son stammered nervously, half shrinking into his clothing under his mother's apparent displeasure at the gift. "That's traditional, I mean, for a mother's gift, right? And it's your birthday..." He frowned, biting his lip. It wasn't doing any good, he could obviously see that, and Hohenheim's heart ached for his son.<br /><br />Dante gave the tooth another moment of scrutination, then set it back in the locket and closed the lid to the piece of jewelry. "Thank you, William," she said with a drawn smile that never came within a kilometer of her eyes, her tone carrying a lace of frost around its edges. "It's quite lovely."<br /><br />That woman did not deserve that sort of devotion. If anything, she deserved a proper kick to her ass.<br /><br />William seemed marginally encouraged by her words, ignoring the tone and he smiled weakly at her. "Thank you. I tried really hard to-"<br /><br />"I'm going to go lay down for a bit, I think," she interrupted as if he had not spoken at all, giving a brief nod to Hohenheim before turning and leaving the room.<br /><br />William was silent, watching her go, then glanced down at the ground as if she were standing there scolding him rather than leaving. After a moment, he lifted his head and looked at his father, and gave him a smile that looked more pained on his face than geniune. "I'll go finish cleaning up in the laboratory," he announced with a cheerful tone that masked the truth, if flimsily.<br /><br />Hohenheim nodded in acknowledgement, watching him as he turned and left the room. He was trying far too hard to not let this apparent failure to earn his mother's love get to him, leaving something cold and bitter in the wake of his smile in his father's heart to watch it. With all the quiet danger of a predator stalking towards its prey, Hohenheim turned and followed after Dante to the bedroom she'd claimed for herself, isolated from everyone else in the household.<br /><br />She was not readying to lay down, as he knew she wouldn't be. He stood in the doorway, blocking her path as she started for the door to leave. She paused and looked at him curiously, silently making a point of pretending to not know why he looked upset. He glanced to the dresser; the necklace was there, abandoned and already forgotten.<br /><br />"Yes, dear?"<br /><br />At her voice, saccrine with oversweetened bitterness, he looked back at her, expression as cold as any she'd ever worn since William was born. "I don't suppose you'll deign to wear that for even a day to humor your son?"<br /><br />A smile slipped across her face, twisted and all together loathesome under the pristine perfection of it. "Of course not!" she practically <i>cooed</i>, and he had to fight a sneer off his face. "You know silver doesn't look good on me." <br /><br />She tried to brush by him and he caught her arm with his hand. "He is your son, Dante. One day, you will regret treating him this way."<br /><br />An almost girlish laugh, and she looked up at him, eyes twinkling with a dark parody of girlish amusement. "He is not my son," she corrected, "he is yours." Pulling her arm away from him, she slipped past him and left.<br /><br />Once he could no longer hear her footsteps, he stepped into her room and moved over to the dresser purposefully, snatching the locket off of it and tucking it safely into his pocket.<br /><br />That woman did not deserve it.