centeriIf I could, I would
put poisonous honey
on the burning lips
of all the desperate young
who are searching long for love./i
-Yosano Akiko/center
There was a man who sang to him. That softly susurrating voice had soothed him on many a dark night when the shadows closed in and threatened to suffocate him. His shadows were different- they were safe, arms that would hold him and protect him from a vaguely threatening world. The other shadows frightened him. "Be a good boy now, don't wake your mother," the man would say and gently begin his lullaby.
In those days of his earliest memories, Selim thought the singing man was his father, but the photographs his mother kept corrected that image. His father had a mustache, an eye patch, and a stern appearance. In the family photo albums there was no record of the one who serenaded him. Unable to find words to express the mystery of the golden-eyed man, Selim accepted him as akin to his shadows- a private matter that outsiders would not understand. There was, after all, nothing troubling about him. He spoke rarely unless Selim was troubled, and only then to comfort him. He never said his name.
Tacitly, he seemed to approve of Selim and the things he did. And, perhaps because his father had died long before he was of an age to be able to remember him, his elusive watcher seemed to the young Selim to do his best at filling a distant version of this role.
...But that was when he was a child. It seemed that as he aged, life only grew more difficult. Perhaps it was that way for everyone- that was what Führer Mustang, General Hawkeye, and most of the other adults around him seemed to indicate after all- but Selim couldn't help but think that the things they were referring to weren't really the same as the troubles that had begun to beset him.
He had long known there was something inside of him that strangers would fear. His mother had taught him good manners; to keep his shadows to himself, yet he felt that wasn't all there was to this apprehension. There was more to him than he was aware of himself, just like there was more to most things than a casual observer felt comfortable admitting.
He lay awake in bed long with the lights out. He was too big now to be soothed by lullabies. His extra eyes flitted anxiously up and down the walls. What was it that he was not seeing? Who was he that would be kept so quietly and securely tucked away behind the manse's walls? It didn't make sense.
"You know who I am," he said, the slightest shred of hope breathing lightness into his dark words. ...If only his phantasmal guardian would answer.
"Don't you know yourself, Selim? A man is very much who he makes himself to be."
"So you'll answer."
"I tend to err in favor of letting you mind yourself and make your own decisions." There was no physical trace of the man, but still Selim received the impression of his guardian spreading wide his hands. That same sealed off part of his mind that knew dark things (the origins of his shadows, for instance, the strange individuals below the capital who haunted his dreams) imagined in the physicality of this man. How it did so, Selim couldn't say. He had never regarded himself as particularly imaginative. He took this as an indicator this odd sort of personification came from somewhere deeper, more subconscious.
"How magnanimous of you." (Not.) Selim sent several pairs of eyes rolling.
"Don't be ungrateful, Selim."
"If you really care for me, talk to me. Tell me who you are- who iI/i am," the young man insisted, focusing his gaze across the room, willing his companion to appear. He took shape, coming uncloaked out of the shadows. His suit and hat were eerily white, their hue less altered by the lighting of the night than an ordinary individual's would be. He had seemingly composed himself out of Selim's shadows, but was he actually solid? Unless Selim tried to touch him, he probably would never know. The man doffed his hat and, considering that he was indoors, moved to set it aside. It banished in a swirl of blackness that served to further convince Selim that somehow his dapper guardian and his shadows came from the same source.
"I wouldn't dream of telling you if I wasn't aware already that you were suffering so, but allow me to warn you one last time that once you learn these things you will never be able to go back and recapture what you were before hearing them."
"I'm eighteen years old. I'm not going to just get over this. I need to know."
"First off then, I'll start with something easy. My name is Solf J. Kimblee, though I suspect that has no meaning to you. I was more famously known as the Red Lotus Alchemist. I distinguished myself in Ishval and was in the employ of your father around the time I died. Everything beyond that," Kimblee grinned, "Is considerably more complicated."
Perhaps because they were of one soul, if not one mind, as unbelievable as many aspects of Kimblee's tale were, Selim knew them for the truth. The Selim his mother had loved before him was not just a look-alike older brother- they were the very same person.
"When you were nearly destroyed, Selim, and became like an infant, you were reduced to just two souls- yours and mine." Kimblee could tell he was shaken by all that he had heard as his shadowy arms retracted to encircle their master. Having leaned the full extent of his power, Selim found himself suddenly at his most vulnerable. Kimblee leaned over and wrapped his arms around him. "I've been keeping watch over you ever since."
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His grasp felt faintly warm. Selim leaned forward into his welcoming arms. His ear pressed to Kimblee's chest detected no heartbeat, but somewhere within his layers a watch ticked away. "Why did you do that? If you could maintain some sort of shape like this, speak to me, all that, why did you never try to wrest control or assert yourself over me?"
"In your tiny, childish body what could I have done? Where could I have gone? And I suppose you don't yet remember me well enough to recall what a patient man I can be. Though you had disappointed me in the past that part of you was no longer dominant in the whimpering little thing Edward Elric presented to your mother. You had only latent power. I was just as weak as you, if more adult in my mind set..." Kimblee gently stroked Selim's hair. "I wanted to see what would become of you."
"But why be kind to me?" Selim mumbled into Kimblee's chest, "You could've watched without interfering. You've alerted me to trouble before. I remember when you sang to me."
"You remember that? Oh."
"Are you embarrassed?" Selim smiled.
"No. I can still sing to you if you like. You might be an adult, but it's still four in the morning and you could use some rest." Kimblee's manner continued to strike Selim as sort of paternal as he laid him down and tucked him in. He began to hum a waltzing tune.
"You look after me because you love me, don't you?" Selim mused, his shadows sliding away and his eyelids drooping toward sleep.
"Perhaps I do..." Kimblee answered thoughtfully. He waited until Selim closed his eyes before beginning to sing.
"Mother, do you remember a man named 'Solf Kimblee?'" Selim had resisted the urge to bring up the subject immediately that morning, finally breaking his self-imposed silence as he cleared away the dishes from breakfast.
"Yes, vaguely..." Teresa Bradley replied with some trepidation, "...Why do you ask?" As much as she racked her brain she could think of only one explanation- someone had brought up some dead matter out of Selim's classified past. Several possible suspects sprang to mind, but it would be rude to make empty accusations, so Teresa held her tongue.
"I," he reconsidered what he was about to blurt out. It was strange enough for him to handle. How could he think of burdening his beloved mother with all the knowledge he had been gifted with? In that case, what to say? "I remembered a few things," he settled on, "Things from...before."
"All on your own?" She tried hard to stay neutral.
"I'd been thinking a lot lately. Some of it just kind of cohered for me last night."
"Yes, I know you'd been a little depressed." Teresa didn't exactly see how this could make him feel better, but that didn't stop the shimmer of a splinter of a hope in her heart. What mother could bear to see her child in pain?
"I guess- it's kind of awkward to say," Selim looked straight into her eyes, "It not only answered many of my questions, it made me realize how strong you are and how much you've done for me."
"Oh, Selim." That wasn't what she had been expecting at all. "You were worth every moment."
"Mother," he smiled. It was interesting. Even with everything they had known about him (based on what Kimblee said regarding his murky age and origins, Selim assumed there was no human who knew it all), these two humans had managed to love him (though a nagging white shadow, that Kimblee voice, petulantly insisted that he had not always loved him and, in any case, he had never admitted to such a feeling).
At various hours of the day he might hear Kimblee, but it was only at night that he saw or touched the alchemist he had absorbed. It seemed his insecurities could all be soothed away by that ephemeral touch. But inevitably any fix that did not emanate from within was a temporary solution at best. The idle work Selim did to help his mother was unfulfilling. He had never mixed freely with people his own "age." He had few friends. He found himself drawing the shades and retiring to his bedroom earlier to spend time with Kimblee.
"I can never live in this world as an ordinary human," Selim despaired. His mother and former Führer Grumman and the current Führer, Mustang... All of them had known that from the time he was small. No matter how unremarkable his behavior, no matter how good or polite he was, he was a homunculus. He could be accepted only within a select circle.
"What pleasure is there in being ordinary?" Kimblee challenged him. "You're privileged to be something more than human. You should savor it."
"How?" Selim mumbled, rolling over to face away from the wall and look into the piercing eyes of his friend.
"Make use of your unique abilities. Don't focus so much on playing the role of an anonymous human- live as you desire, as a homunculus. Recover your overflowing pride."
"My pride," Selim repeated. That was his essence, wasn't it? That was who he had been: Pride. "You said you were disappointed in me for that before... For abandoning my pride as a homunculus. How do you know it's something I can even try to recover?"
"I think you underestimate yourself," Kimblee shook one index finer and made a comical tsking noise. "You may think of yourself as Selim first and Pride second, but your homunculus identity remains at your core. There is no fall so great that a man cannot pick himself up and recover from it."
"Stop treating me like a little boy then," Selim answered. He paused a moment, sucking in a nervous breath, unsure of what he'd just said. The words had just rushed out of their own accord. Did he mean them? Did some part of him mean something in particular by them? He was holding his breath. He hadn't retreated them.
As for Kimblee's response, his eyebrows lifted slightly. As well as he thought he had come to know Selim over the years, those words had not been the answer he expected. "And how is it," Selim listened as Kimblee perfectly enunciated every syllable, "That you would like me to treat you, man to man?"
Perhaps, Selim thought, he had stepped unprepared into dangerous territory. Kimblee's yellow eyes were eerily bright and lupine, lit from within against the gathering dark. They were...sort of beautiful. Selim lifted one surprisingly steady flesh hand, reaching out to Kimblee and half a dozen bunches of shadowy fingers echoed the gesture. After an agonizing pause, wondering if Kimblee would suddenly begin to laugh and rebuff him, the alchemist clasped his questing hand, then pressed it to his lips. "Are you really so lonely, Selim?"
"Have you considered that I just love you?" Kimblee's hand felt as cold as death compared to the rush of blood warming his young body. Selim was small for his eighteen years. His growth had, if not stopped entirely, as least slowed years ago. Was it something of a deterrent, his boyish face?
"I haven't come exactly prepared," Kimblee chuckled, "Can you blame me? But that doesn't mean I'm about to turn you down. I will make you a man. And I'll get you out into the world too. I can talk to your mother. Please," his fingers fluttered over, quickening Selim's pulse, "Leave everything to me."
For the first few days, Teresa Bradley was merely pleased. Selim was spending less time alone, expressing some interest in applying to a university, and generally regaining his childhood cheer. She was too happy to see him open and optimistic again to question what might have provoked this change.
He sent in his application and was accepted. How would he feel, she worried, around all those people?
"Mother, it's fine," he tried to calm her, "I want to do this. I can manage. If I'm lucky, I'll even get to study under Professor Elric." The look in his eyes was so earnest. What could she do but trust in him and hope for the best?
When classes started, he joined in without hesitation. He had chosen to focus on alchemy. Teresa was at once proud of his sudden independence and lonely in his absence. But was it just her little Selim growing up or had some larger, stronger change taken place with him? Could remembering his past truly have made him better? At times she looked into his eyes and felt like she gazed on a stranger.
He was happy though. For far from the first time in her life, Teresa Bradley noticed something odd and solemnly convinced herself to keep her mouth shut. She had always encouraged Selim to speak to her about anything. If he needed her, he would speak up.
If Selim demanded control back, Kimblee doubted he could keep the homunculus from taking it, but for now at least he savored taking the lead in their partnership. He still sang to himself sometimes to soothe Selim, but from the insulated safety of the soul he needed less coddling. Kimblee looked into the bathroom mirror and straightened his- Selim's- tie. All it had taken for Kimblee to assume the reins was for him to be asked (after all, a gentleman avoided forcing his way). "Make me a man," "hold me," "protect me," Selim had pleaded and he had answered.
They spoke mainly at night, but occasionally during the day Selim would talk to him: "That's Elysia Hughes over on the corner," "There's a bee on your shoulder," "Go back, you skipped a question further up the page."
As long as Selim was weak, wavering on the boundary between hope and despair, he would need Kimblee. As long as the world intimidated him to the point of thoughts of death, Kimblee would maintain control over his body. As long as the homunculus lived, they would stay connected. And as the country changed, struggling to maintain a peace that might not hold, Kimblee would do what he needed to placate Selim so he could continue to live on. In the day he cherished Mrs. Bradley, in the night he sang and took Selim to bed.