A Thing of Beauty
a FMA fic. by Suzume.
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
from "Endymion" by John Keats (1818)
The compass was a tool in much demand at their place. It actually belonged to Lon, but with all the transmutation circles being drawn in their apartment, both for theoretical purposes and for immediate use, it changed hands on a daily, or even hourly, basis. Both of the men who lived in the third floor apartment were interested in achieving precision.
A string of chords issued from the piano. Lon played out what he had so far; then stopped, leaning his head against the sheet music. "I'm stuck." He needed some inspiration. He looked over at his older brother, scribbling manically away at his drafting table. Solf never seemed to lack that inner spark. It was what made him the better alchemist of the two of them. Lon watched casually at the crisp twisting and sliding of Solf's hand as he drew and turned the compass. His mind began to drift away to more distantly related thoughts, then suddenly snapped back to the here and now as Solf jumped up, clutching a sheet of paper.
"Lon, look at this!" He eagerly presented the last draft of his most important research thus far, propping it up on the piano over Lon's musical jottings.
They always took one another's work with the utmost seriousness. Lon gave his full attention to the simple pair of arrays. The portable arrays he had been talking about. With the sun represented on one and the moon on the other, and the six-pointed star of the elements divided into two opposite-facing triangles, it was clear that the two arrays had to be put together somehow. Lon had a couple of guesses, but he figured it would be better to just allow Solf to explain it himself (he would undoubtedly be happy to babble on about his pet project- weren't all artists that way?). All in all, Lon judged the arrays to be well designed. They were streamlined, with anything useless stripped away. They matched Solf's personality perfectly. The words around the circles were the same way. Solf and his philosophy. Lon smiled. "They're beautiful, Solf."
"I'm so glad you think so. Now," he produced a paintbrush and a bottle of black ink and held them out to his brother, "I want you to paint them onto my palms for me. I can't make them match properly on my own."
"So, that's it. Your hands..." Lon absently took the things Solf offered him. "Umm, right. But let's move a bit further from the piano."
Solf nodded and brought his drawing back to the drafting table. He laid his hands down, palms up, and let Lon sit down in the chair. The younger man dipped the brush and carefully wiped it against the inside of the bottle to get off any excess ink. He would try and do this job as precisely as possible. With a steady hand, he set brush to skin.
"Ha ha, that tickles a bit." Although he said this, Solf's hands didn't so much as twitch. He happily took in the sight of his finished arrays being applied across his palms. Compared to his own attempts, Lon's markings had a painterly touch. The ink ran slightly, like black blood, bleeding into the lines and cracks of his hands.
"There you are." Lon held a hand under the brush as he carried it to the sink to be washed out. He didn't want to drip any ink on the wooden floor.
"Thank you." Solf kept his hands steady, waiting to make sure the ink had dried before he moved them. "I'm going out after this."
"You're going to test them out?" Lon's mild voice carried softly out of the bathroom. He seemed curious but only idly so. He wouldn't press to come along. For all that they studied and practiced together, Lon didn't quite like every aspect of Solf's area of expertise. It was interesting, considered objectively, how much you could love someone and yet how frightening they could be.
"I have to be sure everything is right before I finalize things." Solf, satisfied his hands were good to go, folded up his blueprints and stuck them in his pocket, put on his hat, and left the apartment before Lon could express any further thoughts on the matter.
Their mother didn't approve of tattoos. They were for thugs and gangsters she said. And, usually, Solf would have agreed with her. But these weren't meant as a form of identification or adornment. A gangster's tattoos meant he belonged. Solf's tattoos would mean he was his own man. This was for science. For art. For alchemy.
Alchemical tattoos. They weren't an idea he had concocted on his own, but he had studied all he could about other uses of tattooed arrays to develop his own variation on the idea. He always tried to impart a bit of personal style to his projects.
When he was certain that everything was as he wanted it (he had already made his only real revisions before getting to this point), he took the drastic step. Mr. Shephard did the work for him. He was an alchemist and an electrician and tattoo artist on the side (or was it some other way around?), the closest to a teacher Solf ever had. Though they had an understanding, Shephard would not deny that the fiery passion conjured up in Solf's face as he worked made him suppress a shiver. The lines on Shephard's own palms were faded and worn to uselessness long ago. The convenience they brought him wasn't worth the pain of re-inking them. Hands were a sensitive area to tattoo.
Solf (or "Kimblee" as they tended to call him around the shop, except when there was need to differentiate him from his brother), was steady, even feeling the pain. Shephard could see that he was in some amount of pain. It was visible in every tense muscle, revealed by his rolled back sleeves, in the firm set of his jaw even as he kept up his usual facade by lapsing in and out of polite conversation, and in the feverish intensity of his yellow amber eyes.
This was, perhaps, the first time Shephard regarded Solf as not simply different, but a little creepy.
"I'm going to take the test to become a State Alchemist," Solf said.
It bothered Lon when his brother was out so late without any forewarning. He could at least call. What kind of things did Solf do when they were apart? He was almost afraid to know. With the aid of an oil lamp, he sat up awaiting his brother's return. There was no need to waste electricity. The compass was back in the hands of its rightful owner. There was only one disadvantage to working on arrays at the drafting table at a time like this- he was facing away from the door.
Click. Lon turned. The lamplight caressed his cheek as he gaze into the darkness. "Solf?" It was him. Solf leaned back against the door he had just passed through. He looked worn down. Lon left the compass on the desk and approached his enigmatic sibling. "Where have you been? It's late." He paused. "I waited up for you." Of course, it wasn't as if Solf couldn't see that.
His chin hung down, almost touching his chest. The shadows were darkest just under the brim of his hat. They left his narrow eyes, always iffy to read, a complete mystery. "Sorry," Solf spoke at last, "I just had to get that finished all at once." His hands were throbbing beneath the bandages, and a drop of sweat ran down his forehead to his chin, but what was this pain when he thought of being complete?
"Finish what?" Lon asked, curious, but tentative. He leaned forward, trying to see under that white helm of a fedora, as if a clearer view of his brother's eyes would solve all his questions. Solf didn't say anything, but gazed back at him impassively. Maybe that was all Lon needed after all. He weakened under so harsh a stare and let his eyes drift elsewhere. Down to Solf's hand, hanging open and bandaged at his sides. In the dim light they hadn't immediately stood out so much.
The sun rose over the city into his window. The pain had diminished from the day before, but even lying still he could feel the thrum of each new line carved into his flesh. He didn't so much as glance at his hands. It wasn't time to touch the bandages yet. He could tell it was later now than he usually slept. The window was partially open and a gentle breeze rustled the curtains and stroked back the stray hairs that refused to be tamed into his ponytail. It was the touch of the outside air that made him realize how hot he felt. He was burning- but with the fever of infection or the fever of artistic ardor? He sat up a little and in doing so moved his hands. He winced.
Coming through the open door just then, Lon winced too, in sympathetic pain.
Solf realized he barely remembered making it home the night before, let alone crawling into bed.
"Good morning." Lon's hands were filled with a tray, so he hooked the stepstool by the bookshelf with his foot and pulled it over to his brother's bedside. "I made you some breakfast." Now Solf could see that was it- a bowl of oatmeal and a spoon along with a cup of coffee. There was plenty of steam rising from them both. "I hope the coffee's okay." It was usually Solf who managed that. It had never been definitively established if it was because Solf was pickier about the taste or if he simply did a better job.
Good or not, he appreciated the effort. "Thanks." He reached for the coffee mug, wrapping his fingers gingerly around the handle. His fingers, un-inked, could handle this, but his tender palm stung where it was touched and his hand trembled. He had barely begun to lift the cup, but already he dropped it. It hit the tray with a clank and a tiny splash of coffee. Lon's hand darted out to see to it that no worse spill occurred.
Solf looked mutely at his offending hand. Equivalent Exchange. Everything had a price. To be strong later, he would have to suffer weakness for a time. He had been so caught up in the positive aspects of the process that he had never so much as guessed at the temporary troubles he might face. Of course, he was far from down for the count. The tattoos were on his hands. They were beautiful. What he was going to do with them would be beautiful too.
Lon lifted the cup to his lips and helped him take a sip. He didn't say anything. "Thank you" and "you're welcome" were expressed with their eyes.
This was the path Lon had chosen, Solf supposed. To be hard or to be soft. He was gentle, and it served him well enough, somehow. At least he was committed to it. That was what was important in life. Knowing how you wanted to live and doing so wholeheartedly. "You're lucky to have a brother like that," people told him ("Are you really Kimblee's brother?" Shephard had asked when they were introduced). People probably said the opposite to Lon.
The entire meal the younger brother turned his kind hands in assistance. Gradually, his silent disapproval gave way to a contented smile. He liked to be a help. As different as they were, the Kimblee brothers were quite a pair: country folk, alchemists, dandies.
When Lon actually saw the tattoos, he would change his stance. Solf looked at his bandages and imagined he could see straight through them to the beautiful tools beneath. Some soldiers loved their guns. Some musicians loved their instruments. Solf loved the tools he had created for himself. Tattoos! What did his mother know anyway? He would spend more time in Shephard's shop from now on. He would look on Shephard's old tattoos with new interest.
"Solf- I brought you a newspaper." Lon always came in quietly like this.
Solf looked again at his bandaged hands. It was as good a time as any to bring up his new plans. Lon wouldn't like this whenever he mentioned it. They had skirted around the issue before and brother's reaction had always been negative. "Lon...I was thinking... What if I took the exam to become a State Alchemist?" He didn't see the need to say anymore. He was unapologetic about his goals. He waited, watching as neutrally as he could manage, letting his short words do all the communicating for him.
What was Lon thinking as they stared into one another's eyes? The newspaper crinkled slightly in his hands. He didn't speak. At last, he looked away.
Solf frowned. Once again it seemed they could not be of one mind. Lon passed him the newspaper and left him alone. Lon, Solf told himself, wasn't really cut out for a military life anyway. He consoled himself by thinking of the future. They would both conduct symphonies one day. He was sure of it.
The bandages came off with a rush of anticipation. He didn't allow it to make him work on unrolling them overly fast. Each un-looped section revealed another fragment of the joyous whole. First, the right hand. Ah, the sun blazing forth! Then the left hand. Oh, the mysterious moon! The discarded bandages fell from his hands onto the bedspread, lying across his knees. Was this now how man adapted himself to grasp and attack every situation? He was refining his soul, like lead into gold, through the practice of his art.
They were the most glorious tattoos he had ever seen. He held out his hands. For a moment it almost felt as if they were no longer his. Two meager appendages had been born anew. They trembled and he realized that every part of him was shaking along with them.
As radiant as the sun. As glimmering as the moon. His face contorted into a smile of refulgent pleasure, the power and elegance of his new hands reflected onto his awestruck face.
"Beautiful! Beautiful!" he cried.