Who: Scarlett Bernard and Alphonse Elric What: The Chemistry of Chocolate and Care Where: Scarlett's apartment When: Sometime last week (backdated) Warnings: Nope Status: Closed/completed gdoc
Alphonse was bouncy as he headed for Scarlett’s place. He had decided he would bring her some brownies and check in on her, make sure she was doing better. She had left before she was fully better and he knew how that was,. Adults were so silly sometimes, just like his brother Ed. Scarlett reminded him of Ed sometimes in ways that were almost painful.
But he had decided, so he made an extra large pan of brownies and left half at the house, before heading out to take some to Scarlett. When he got there, he straightened himself up, knocked hard, and then bounced, waiting, grinning.
***
Ugh, people and knocking on doors. Scarlett had gone home as soon as she could make Sara let her go so she didn’t feel as much like she was in the way and she could rest better. There was no way Sara was letting her stand all night at the bar yet but she wasn’t all that unhappy being stuck in the house right now.
Except when people knocked on the door and she had to get up to answer it. There was nothing that would make her leave her door unlocked so she took the cane Jefferson had brought and managed to get on her feet and to the door to open it. She was frowning when she opened the door but she saw it was Al it turned into more of a grudging smile.
“What are you doing here? Oh wait you have food, come in.” She waved him to come inside.
***
Al chuckled. “I figured you might miss my brownies, so I brought you more. Also, water.” he stepped in and surveyed the area, then her.
“Have you been being good?” His eyes narrowed as he looked up at her from his very short height.
***
“Well I’ve been sitting on the couch with my leg up watching marathons of shows on Netflix, does that count as being good?” The amount of judging her for watching several episodes in a row that Netflix was doing was kind of alarming actually. She was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to ask you a dozen times a day if you really were still watching.
“I’ve also used my cane for more than reaching something I didn’t want to get up and get.” She tapped it on the floor with a grin.
***
“Yes, good. Did you walk around a little? Other than answering the door with me?” He still looked up at her and smiled. “I can make you hot chocolate, too. “ he nodded.
Netflix is sometimes a bully. I recommend Hulu.”
He smiled again. “Good!” he eyed it and hmmmed. “Want me to put a grasping hand on it? No wait, make a second one with a grasping hand on it, so you can still use that one as a cane?”
***
“Yes I walked around a little mom.” She needed snacks and bathroom breaks after all. “It’s sort of okay as long as I don’t take the brace off. Or stand in one place. Or accidentally sleep on it funny.” That hadn’t been a fun way to wake up that morning. It had taken a hot shower and a lot of swearing to get things moving again.
“Let’s not make this one a grabby hand, I kind of like it the way it is.”
***
“Good.” he listened and nodded, taking mental notes as she spoke. He was concerned about her but she seemed to be being have. “Yeah that makes sense.” he eyed her leg. And her face and nodded. “You’re being a lot better about this than i thought you would be.” Yes, even Al thought you would be more stubborn.
He opened the brownies and held them up to her. “Have some! They are fresh!”
And he nodded again. “I can make one before coming back tomorrow.”
***
Yeah she’d behave until she had something she wanted or needed to do then she’d do it anyway. It was just how she was. Luckily Netflix binges were something she wanted to do so it was keeping her down to heal for a little bit. “Hey if I was still working back home you’d probably be chasing after me with tranquilizers trying to keep me off of the leg but Sara won’t let me in the door to the club yet.” And Dashiel would be making her do her job whether she was hurt or not. Sometimes working for vampires who didn’t get it that it takes time to heal wasn’t great.
The brownies were immediately raided when he held them up. “Thanks. Chocolate is always a good thing.” They were going to make her gain weight with all this feeding while she was immobile but it was kind of hard to care because it tasted really good.
***
Al smiled sweetly up at her. “I would just chase you around with alchemy instead.” He tended to use it when people were being silly.
Alphonse smiled, and nodded to her. “Where do you want them? “ he could get them close to her for easy nomming or farther away and make her work for them. Whatever she wanted.
***
“I wonder if that works around me.” He wasn’t completely familiar with the concept of alchemy so she had no idea. “And kitchen please. If you stick it by the couch I’ll just eat them all and I’d rather save them.”
She had to restrain the urge to ruffle his hair for the smile he gave her.
***
“Dunno. It should. It’s science, not magic.” Al nodded to ehr words and he moved to the kitchen to place the brownies on a counter, standing on tippy-toe. Good. They would be safe there. He smiled and moved back to Scarlett, scrutinizing her resting area and plumping pillows gently before nodding at her.
“Looks like you’re set up pretty well.”
***
“Did you just fluff my pillows nurse Nightingale?” Scarlett couldn’t help laughing at the way he was scoping out her nest. And she was glad she hadn’t been watching anything really bad on Netflix since all she’d done was pause it to answer the door.
“I don’t know a lot about alchemy. It doesn’t really work where I’m from except in stories so it could be magic as far as I know.”
***
“I did, I did. Its a thing I can do.” Alphonse chuckled as he looked at her, curious. “Are you comfortable on the couch?” He was pondering making it more fluffy but people got upset if he did that without asking.
“Makes sense. It might be, in some worlds. In mine, its the directed and focused use of equations and mental electrical currents to harness the natural laws and tweak them just so.”
*** “It’s pretty comfy.” Scarlett had a variety of blankets and things around her nest to keep her comfortable and to let her prop her leg up in various ways to take the strain off the knee. She was so used to magic not working on her it hadn’t occurred to her yet that maybe some of the healers worked with something not magic and since her head was better she didn’t give it another thought.
“Interesting. Mostly back home we have what are called trades witches which means they do a little bit of everything and don’t have a really strong specialty. It all tends to rely on changing the nature of things but not the same way. They’re making them work outside of the natural laws and into the supernatural.”
***
Al grinned at her, watching her talk and move. He liked listening to people. And Scarlett was interesting! She always had something fun to say. Which made it even more fun to talk to her.
“Ah, some alchemists are like that. Not very strong at it, and so they do other things, too. My brother and I are a little stronger than most.” He nodded, not bragging, just telling the truth.
“Ah, yeah. Not Alchemy. It's all about using what is already extent to make it different, by manipulating the laws of physics, not breaking them. Its a very precise science, though if you want to be very good, you have to have a sense of art and of instinctual understanding.”
***
It was weird to have someone like to listen to her. Jesse always hated the old world talks...maybe because they made him feel like he was out of control and the world was conspiring against him...and everyone else she was already knew all this stuff.
“We do have some that have a family focus and can do specific things. Thaumaturgy, healing, dowsing, but there’s something about magic that tends to keep from specializing.” She used the cane to get to her spot on the couch and sit down so she could put her leg up again. “You want to stay and watch a little Netflix?”
***
She was interesting and his eyes lit up as she talked. “That sounds amazing!I’d love to learn more.” He loved learning. He smiled as she sat again and maybe fluffed her pillows again. Purely to see if she would laugh, mind you.
“Can I, really? I’ll need to let Sara know, but yeah, I would love that!” he bounced on his toes, grinning at her. ***
“Yes, you can. And you can have some of the brownies too if you want.” did laugh at the pillow fluffing and lightly swatted his hands away. “Go fluff your own pillows and call Sara to get permission.” She didn’t think that Sara would have any issue with him staying to watch TV with her. In fact she’d probably feel better knowing someone was checking in on Scarlett.