Before Red knows it, spring has rolled by once again. Red has never really liked spring, because the flowers and trees always made him sneeze and it always rained harder than usual, which made it harder for him to do his work.
But this spring is… different than the others. First of all, he's not at that no good circus anymore, getting beaten half to death just for kicks. Secondly, he's on a caravan out of London, Mana Walker chattering excitedly by his side.
Mana is strange. After two and a half months of traveling with the clown, Red wants to say that he's beginning to trust Mana more, but he can't.
Sure, he likes Mana a whole lot more than any other adult. He hasn't hit him – yet - and doesn't treat him like he's disgusting or something to be ordered around because of his ghastly arm. In fact, he doesn't seem to care about Red's arm at all and understands that Red can't even move it. But then again, Mana also thinks that Red was Allen – the poor, sweet dog that he had buried the day he had met Red – who had turned into a human child, with a bum arm, a nasty attitude, and the ability to speak and hold the occasional conversation, which seemed perfectly plausible to him. Which leads Red to the solid fact that Mana is extremely unpredictable.
Mana is usually so cheerful and vibrant, but Red isn't stupid – he can see the inexplicably sad look in the clown's eyes every now and then. He hears the way Mana whimpers apologies in his sleep some nights.
Red doesn't ask why. Mana never brings it up. He never even seems to remember that he had dreams in the first place.
Red can't trust him. Even though Mana is so kind and there is something so, so familiar about him – something impossible clawing inside him, just on the tip of his tongue, waiting to get out – Red can't do that to himself. He isn't sure he could handle it if Mana actually does start hurting him like the others.
He likes to pretend that he wouldn't care if Mana started lashing out at him – that he wouldn't be surprised, because all of the other adults in his life did it – but deep, deep down, Red hopes that he won't. No one had ever treated Red so kindly in his life, had never touched him in a way that wasn't with intent to hurt or out of dire necessity. He had also bought Red new clothes and understood that he really did not want people to see his bright red arm and he fed Red every day. This was probably the strangest thing Red had experienced in his short life, but he doesn't want to even dare let himself dwell on how it… kind of reminds him of the families that he would see at the circus or walking in town.
'He thinks you're a dog, stupid.' Red tells himself, desperately trying to quench the warm feeling in his chest.
"It feels like it's going to be a cold night, Allen." Mana hums light and airily, his strange gold eyes looking up at the cloudy sky. "It'll probably be rain, but we should be able to find shelter in the next town over."
Red huffs and pulls his legs closer to his chest, hiding his covered left arm in the leftover space on instinct. Going into a new town always makes him nervous, just in case the glove on his left hand gets ripped off. "Tha' rain's no big deal. S'just water."
"Ah, sorry, I didn't know I was dealing with an old man! You know, you're probably the first child I've met that doesn't like playing in the rain. I could have sworn that you used to love it."
Red grits his teeth and shuffles in his spot; it's not that he didn't like it or never wanted to, it was that he never got to. He had always been so envious of the children who left the circus with their families, beaming and twirling around – sometimes in the rain, stomping delightfully in the puddles. It was so simple and made Red embarrassed, but he figured playing around in the rain would just be another thing he wouldn't be able to do.
"Doesn't seem interestin'." Red lies, resting his chin on his knee.
"Ah, so does that mean you've never tried before?" Mana questions, his face so open and warm as he meets Red's eyes. "I could have sworn that we have, but I suppose we'll just have to next time it rains! Would you like that, Allen?"
"It'll jus' look strange." Red mumbles, but Mana is so close that he hears it easily.
"Nonsense! It'll be fun, I promise." Mana says with such confidence that Red can't find it within himself to argue.
Red doesn't answer, but Mana doesn't mind in the slightest.
A few minutes after their caravan lets them off within the borders of the closest town, a spring breeze rolls by and knocks Mana's overly large top hat askew. The clown chuckles and takes it off, letting the breeze roll through his slicked back hair. With a mischievous look, Mana places the top hat on Red's head, but it doesn't stay. The brim sinks down past Red's eyes to his nose, leaving him seeing nothing but black.
Spluttering, Red shoves the hat from over his eyes and glares up at Mana, his freckled cheeks burning. "What was tha' for?! I don' wan' yer dumb hat!"
"Keep that safe for me, won't you?" Mana asks, the corners of his warm eyes wrinkling as he smiles down at Red. "I haven't felt a breeze like this in ages. For some reason, I feel like there's something really special about the wind, but I can never remember why."
Red puffs his flushed cheeks out and huffs through his nose. He bends down to pick up Mana's hat from the dirt and places it back on his own head, balancing it so it won't fall off or sink down again as they continue walking.
"Yer weird."
Notes: so, I'm trying something new here ayeee...
this is going to be four chapters long and possibly lead into a bigger series, which I'm honestly really excited for if we're being real here. i'm really proud of this tbh...
and I just wanna point out something about Red's characterization here while I have the chance to. it might be a little off in comparison to canon, because he's referring to himself as 'Red' while Mana calls him 'Allen,' but I figure that he wouldn't see himself as 'Allen' right away, like the narrative in Lost Fragment of Snow does as soon as Mana starts calling him so. I always thought that was kind of weird, so I'm not doing that. to be frank, I don't think Red could be comfortable calling himself 'Allen' until after Mana dies and he starts wearing Mana's 'mask' but that should be something that I elaborate on in a future chapter :^).
chapter two should be up sometime next friday!