The Knight in Slightly Tarnished Armor (yuuo) wrote in chaotic_library, @ 2007-06-12 18:52:00 |
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Current music: | Within temptation - Jillian |
[Envy x Edward; PG] Mark of Cain 3/3
Character/Series: Edward Elric; Envy; Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: PG
Notes: Part three of a trilogy. Full series spoilers
Title: Mark of Cain: Part 3: Fall of Enoch
Author:
Word Count: 890
Summary: When Edward shows up at the castle that rests hidden away from the world outside of Munich, Envy does not greet him.
Original LJ Post Date: Feb 12, 2006 @ Chaotic_Library
"Blessed is the servant who loves his brother as much when he is sick and useless as when he is well and an be of service to him."
-Saint Francis of Assisi
Fall Of Enoch
When Edward shows up at the castle that rests hidden away from the world outside of Munich, Envy does not greet him.
Edward stands in the doorway, holding his breath as he listens to the air whistle hollowly through the drafty castle, listening for signs of the homonculus. Only the wind answers him.
He'd always warned Edward that playing with such a deadly poison was dangerous, that it got everyone in the end.
This is not a dismissal, he knows that much. The sin's absence worries him; he knows that changing to his more human form burns red stones much faster than it did in their own world, though he'd tried to tell Envy not to do it once he'd figured it out. Those same red stones are what keep Envy alive, and it flits through Edward's head-
(Impossible)
-as he closes the door behind him, shutting out the early spring breezes, to wonder if perhaps the sin-
(Impossible)
-has finally died after so many centuries of being trapped in a half-life he'd never asked for.
I wonder again how much longer he'll be able to do that before even that is taken from the wicked.
Edward walks the familiar path into the sitting room that they frequent; the fire in the fireplace has long since gone out, and even the bricks of the hearth are cool to the touch.
Following a familiar routine, Edward nurses a fire to life, occasionally glancing around, watching for Envy to enter the room and take up his role in everything, their banter, the sparse conversation, the warmth and fighting and desparate kisses and touches. Even just the sight of him would be comforting.
Envy does not enter the room; Edward remains alone.
Satisfied that the fire will not die, and will burn steadily while he searches, Edward gets to his feet, leaving his coat on the couch as he makes his way through the less-familiar back rooms and hallways of the castle. Silence lingers at every corner, only broken by the dim wheezing of the drafts and the occasional skittering of an animal that has taken shelter from the bitter cold within the castle walls.
-it got everyone in the end.
Edward almost desperately wishes that he knew the layout of the castle better; he might be able to guess where the sin would've hidden himself so he could find him faster- however he might find him.
Even the dead need some measure of comfort.
For a moment, Edward dismisses the sound from one of many hallways as the drafts, but it's a deeper sound, like a dragon's sigh, and the hallway is different than the others, longer with no other doors along the sides, just an elegant but simple set of double doors at the far end.
Quietly, he walks to the doors and opens them; the room inside is dark, the light from the sun outside flitered through colored stained glass. It's a chapel, he quickly realizes, the cross on the alter broken and the benches rotted and tossed aside by weather, animals, and age.
To his left he hears the sound again, a low, breathy sort of rumble, and he turns to look. Against the far wall, Envy is huddled, his long, serpentine body curled and coiled around itself as a buffer against the cool air. He faces the alter like a man at worship, his eyes heavy-lidded as if he hovers somewhere between prayer and irreverence.
We're already damned, the two fallen sons, cast out of Heaven, the perfect sin and the perfect sinner...
Envy does not look over to him as Edward picks his way past the benches and a few scattered candles and bits of rock and dirty and wood that nature has brought into the unused chapel. It's not until Edward puts his hand on the cool scales of his companion, his mate, that the homonculus turns its gaze to him.
It's almost painful; words were never really necessary with Al, either.
Envy does not offer an explanation to his absence at Edward's arrival, nor as to why he is hidden in the chapel, nor why he does not change shapes. He watches Edward with a tiredly wary expression, watching, waiting for something that Edward will not say or do. Edward is silent, his mind sketching a path along the array lines his thoughts follow, finding its way around to what the silence from Envy is saying.
He is out of red stones. Shifting would be a death sentence.
Edward knows that Envy expects him to leave now- Envy has been afraid to not expect it, Edward could feel that. Experience was a harsh mistress.
Without a word, Edward steps in front of him and rubs his snout lightly. "The front room is warmer," he says quietly. "I've got a fire going already."
If he were killing himself, so be it.
Envy's eyes close heavily at the words, and Edward for a moment wonders if it was a safe decision to step so close to the homonculus' jaws, but slowly, Envy begins to uncurl himself to follow Edward. "You gonna move so I can get out, Shorty?" the homonculus snaps, the traces of their comfortable and familiar banter in his tone.
Edward steps aside. "What, you can't go around?"
He'd picked his poison.
Mark of Cain: Part 1: Temptation Waits
Mark of Cain: Part 2: East of Eden
Mark of Cain: Part 3: Fall of Enoch