Insanity Breaking Point: Roy just has to exist to annoy Ed XD. It's the way they make things work.
Sonar: Scar doing random things is fun. I once had a daydream of him latin dancing, like on an exercise program... I dunno what I ate, but it was some powerful shit apparently.
MandaxPanda: If Scar does do something stupid, chances are Al will come and clobber him for it.
elemental heiress: Well, I can only hope that all your questions will be answered as we go. If I miss answering one by the stories end I'll feel very sad indeed.
Cheru-chan: You too lazy to log in? Well, at least you review anyway XD. And ooo... theories. Let's see if you're right. Just know that until Scar and Al figure things out together, everything has room for possibly needing reevaluation. And yay for Holly! I'm glad you like her.
GreedxEd: Another Holly fan! By the way, I was watching Envy whirl Greed around today and laughing my butt off... -runs-
gali-o: A pillow Al would be adorable. And if you're having trouble sleeping, I can't recommend anything that fast acting because I'd be worried it'd kill you, but try lavendar tea, and try taking calcium about an hour before bed. Calcium is a muscle relaxer, and your brain is a muscle.
GWings: He's being Scar... which in Al's book might mean Scar is about to get hit.
Now this is certainly a more productive way to spend my time. Instead of watching swamp soccer on mute while having caramelldansen on repeat for the audio. It's more amusing to me than it should be.
I hope you enjoy! ...and watch some swamp soccer with me!
Chapter Ten
Ten minutes after being yanked inside Holly's house, Alphonse found himself shoved into one of the velvety soft leather couches of the den, a cup of very strong green tea being pushed into his hands. And he could only smile at her eager manhandling of him.
"Start from the beginning." Holly ushered as she sat on the opposite end of the couch, pulling her feet up onto the cushion as she stared across at Alphonse. Her own cup of green tea dangled a bit forgotten in her right hand.
Alphonse took a moment to gather his thoughts, knowing he would be interrogated for details. And then he would be subjected to her gloating… either way he was in for a potentially painful, yet needed experience. Because he did need her to hear him out on his questions. "I started off looking for familiar surroundings, things I would have seen through Scar's eyes…"
And so Alphonse began to carefully tell her everything pertinent in order. From how he'd focused on only following the magnetic pull he felt connecting the two pieces of Scar's soul, up until he'd finally been able to get a few hours of undisturbed, true sleep on the train back home.
He had expected, at first, that Holly would have interrupted him frequently. Yet through the entire story, Holly stayed silent. Letting Alphonse get the story out in his own time. Only her facial expressions gave anything away that she might have wanted to say something, but she didn't. Only raised her cup of tea to her lips and sipped on it.
"So… you were right. Your theory." Alphonse told her, his tone verging between grateful and hesitant.
The smile Holly gave him after that comment could only be described as prideful happiness. It was nice to get recognition for her theories; it hadn't been as if she'd had any real concrete information to reference! And she'd been right! "Thank you." She grinned at him, "now don't you wish you'd come to me sooner, instead of taking sleeping pills?"
Alphonse partially stifled a groan, he'd known that would be coming sooner or later. He took a sip of his tea in a declaration of no comment.
Holly smirked at him, and decided she'd rescue the young man from his agony. "You said you had questions?" And she glanced towards one of the crystal lamps with thoughtful gray eyes. "I think I can guess about what… but tell me."
"I guess mostly I want to know if you have any idea why I started seeing visions again before Scar was in pain." Alphonse decided, knowing he'd get all his questions presented to her eventually, but this one was the one foremost on his mind.
Holly tapped a finger to her cup of tea a few times before she slid around to get off of the couch. She didn't answer right away, instead going over to the small writing desk to draw from it some paper and a pen which she brought back over. Her tea was set on the floor, and she sat down to curl into the arm of the couch, balancing the paper on the leather surface. "One moment." She requested, and quickly began to write.
Alphonse let her, peering over at the paper, but unable to make out the words. And he waited until she seemed to have finished writing, only to begin on what looked like a complex diagram.
Holly stared at the paper, tapping it a few times with her pen before looking over at Alphonse. "That's the wrong question to start with."
The look Alphonse gave her was entirely perplexed. "How can there be a right or a wrong question? They either have theoretical answers or they don't."
Holly smacked him over the head with the paper.
"Hey!" Alphonse protested, ducking in on himself as he tried not to spill his tea all over his pants.
"Have I not yet earned just a little bit of blind faith here, Alphonse? Start at the beginning." Holly demanded of him, settling back in with her paper and pen. She couldn't bypass the opportunity to get some documentation down. But it wasn't her notes thus far telling her that Alphonse had asked the wrong question. It was the same exact thing that had led her to theorize about Alphonse harboring a piece of Scar's soul.
"I guess first, although relating to that, that magnetic pull I felt? It came back after Scar got that tattoo." Alphonse had already told her all of this, but he hadn't exactly phrased it in questions yet. Wanting to get the details told first as demanded. But now he was under a different set of demands. "He's been taking care of it properly, I know he has, so why hasn't the pull let up again?"
Holly couldn't help but feel that Alphonse was overlooking information he already knew that would give him his answers, but she sat silent. She'd wait, until he was through, and he'd asked all his questions. Because sometimes the answers to the questions just happened to be right there in front of you, you just needed someone else to tell you to look again.
"And why when I was with him did I have no visions? The times I slept while with him were the only times I'd slept peacefully since the start of it all. Even if he was awake, I didn't see anything. Even when he was still not fully healed and awake." Alphonse continued on, and then took a long sip of his tea.
"And?" Holly prompted, sensing there was something else by his fascination with the tea… and judging by the way Alphonse now folded his legs up in on himself like a barrier before his chest, it was something more personal.
"I asked him something while I was there… asked him what I meant to him. Why he treated treats me the way he does." Alphonse stared ahead at the dormant fireplace, letting his words piece themselves together in their own thoughtful time. "Some of it was pity, why he saved me. And when I asked, it was evidence enough by his expression that he wouldn't have done for anyone else what he did for me. It kind of explained for me, in a way, how his soul might have split and fused part of it to me."
"And what answer did he give to why he treats you the way he does?" Holly pressed gently, her gray eyes growing calculatingly thoughtful as she watched Alphonse's posture and expression carefully.
"He said he didn't know. But that I was never like the others… that I was the one person he'd bend the rules for, even if he never would consider me a friend." Alphonse answered, his forehead leaning down to rest against his knees. "And I was. I was the only unnatural thing he didn't try to kill every time we met. He fucking saved my life. When all his past creeds dictated he should have let me die."
"There's always an exception to the rule." Holly replied as she watched her friend closely still. "You are his exception. He may not consider you a friend, but he sees something in you worth letting live."
Alphonse gave a dry laugh, raising his head with a tired breath. "For which I've been grateful more than once. My brother said if he ever goes nuts again, all they have to do is toss me in front of him."
Holly smiled, "well we might dress you up a little first. Make you a pretty sacrificial lamb."
Alphonse shot her a withering look that caused her to crack a wider smile.
"You did ask the right question, though." Holly attempted to pacify her guest. "Why you could not see the visions while you were with him. Going on some facts we're assuming to be true based on the outcome of your trip to find and heal Scar, we can assume that proximity has another factor on the two pieces of Scar's soul. Although he was awake while you were asleep, and possibly not fully healed, the two pieces of his soul were still close enough that they could function as one."
"So the part he held, that had been calling out to the part I held for help, wasn't feeling the need to call any longer with visions?" Alphonse put together, then frowned. "But how does that explain why I could feel that magnetic pull between the two parts whenever Scar was a certain distance away from me?"
Holly tilted her head to one side in consideration. "That only happens while you're awake, yes?"
"Yeah."
"Potentially the two parts of his soul did not see a need to be as aggressive with the healing process already going, despite distance. That it instead defaulted to just the pull between the two pieces, because you both were within a certain proximity of each other. Now there's really no way to know what that distance is, or even whether or not that theory is right, not unless you go back there and experiment with him. But from what I've heard, he doesn't seem the type." Holly finished wryly.
"Not really, no." Alphonse chuckled softly. "He'd probably toss me out his front door again."
"And you said that now the magnetic pull is back?" Holly switched topics quickly, jotting down something more to her paper about her one of a kind case study.
"Yes." Alphonse agreed with a bit of a grimace. He could feel it, a faint subconscious pull in his mind. If he focused on it, it would feel in more prominence to him, and feel stronger. "It started after my first vision after leaving him. But on the train back I was able to sleep without any visions, and without drugging myself on that tea. So either he was asleep at the same time, or he was in close enough range of me. Which I just don't see possible, he'd never follow me back here."
Holly pursed her lips, pushing an errant bundle of messy red hair back behind her ear where it belonged. "For simplicities sake, we'll assume for right now that he was asleep. Because going on the one past experience, you realized a lack of that pull when you left, when Scar was healed. So based on that we can only assume his new tattoo is still not completely healed."
"It does take a while for one to heal on its own, especially one that size." Alphonse muttered, figuring that he must have gotten lucky and fallen asleep at the same time Scar had been.
"Now this first vision you had, it wasn't one of Scar in pain. It didn't start with him in pain? Or was there a time lapse in which you woke up, cursed about having to see him wandering through a desert, and then fell back asleep?"
"There was no time lapse." Alphonse answered through a partial smile he couldn't help. "At least, I didn't wake up. It's like I'm being sent the visions in bits and pieces, but all at once. You know, kind of how like dreams only last a few seconds compared to the hours they feel?"
Holly nodded, but jotted that information down as well, just to have written record of it. "So he was in pain by the end of it?"
"Yes, damn him. He could at least have had the decency to wait until morning." Alphonse sighed, shaking his head in an annoyed fashion. "I told him he was disrupting my sleep with the things. He didn't think I'd be sleeping that night?"
"From what I understand of the Ishbalan culture," Holly began, "and help me out here if I need it, but anything relating to alchemy is forbidden. Seems to me the acquiring of such a tattoo would be as well. Things like that usually, unfortunately, have to be conducted in secret times."
Alphonse nodded slowly, looking off towards the floor to his left and away from her. "The man who did it to him, I recognized him. He'd been exiled for straying from the Great Arcanum and towards an interest in alchemy. They mark the people who do, to keep them in exile and keep purer Ishbalans away from their purported evil. Why they never marked Scar… well," he gave a small, actually very much amused laugh, "they were probably too scared to try and touch him, even while he was hurt like he was. He sure lifted me around like a rag doll."
"Plus I imagine he was a bit of a hero to them." Holly suggested, not knowing the full details that Alphonse surely did about that time period and its events. There were just things the public had not been told… and some things she'd not pressed Alphonse for, for various reasons.
"It's possible." Alphonse shrugged. "No one in that village seemed to outwardly hate him. I could tell though that they feared what he could do. Especially after he caught me in our little chase before I actually left. A lot of the expressions I saw made me believe they couldn't believe how I'd gotten away without being throttled. And then minutes later he punched someone so hard I expect they're still unconscious, just because the guy was harassing me. He doesn't need alchemy, he's dangerous enough without it."
"Except for you." Holly pointed out.
"He strangled me!" Alphonse whipped around to stare at her with wide eyes, as if she'd forgotten this crucial part. "He kept petting my hair and…" he broke off abruptly with a shiver of lingering fear brought on by the memory. "I couldn't let him touch me for a long time afterwards… and I still can't let him touch anywhere near my head. He really frightened me."
Holly had heard long before she even met Alphonse, what the man called Scar could do. What he did do. All the murder victims having had their brain blown to bits inside their skull. She could imagine, that Alphonse, having been attacked before by Scar, and having seen firsthand what he could do, would have been all the more terrified as opposed to someone who'd only heard about it.
"But yes," Alphonse curled in on himself, "getting that alchemy tattoo is against the Ishbalan way. But he doesn't care… he goes about his cultures religion in his own way."
Holly didn't have to be intelligent to recognize the clear sign Alphonse wanted to move on, away from the subject of Scar tormenting him. "He probably had no choice then, but to get the tattoo at night."
"So why do you think I started out having the vision during a time he wasn't in pain?" Alphonse asked.
Holly turned her focus towards the fireplace, watching the empty grate as she thought about it. "The part of Scar's soul that Scar still keeps wanted you to… perhaps to give you forewarning of what was about to happen. Or maybe he just had a rock in his shoe. It had a reason… and being that you're the one who probably knows Scar the best, you're the only one who can ever really figure out the true reasons for whatever vision you see."
"I think I'm probably the only one who wanted to know him." Alphonse divulged softly to her, "and I wanted him to see me as I was, for who I was. I wanted to know if he could see me, feel that I was human, even if I didn't have a human body at the time. I felt like, if he, who had vowed to rid the world of unnatural creations, could see that I was human despite my appearance, that maybe I was. I… I was having a major moment of doubt at the time."
"And were you human to him?" Holly asked gently.
Alphonse smiled then, his eyes a bit wet looking. "I was."
Holly smiled as she watched her friend, and setting her pen aside, she scooted across the couch to wrap her arms around the caramel-blond and hug him tightly. "And he claims he doesn't think of you as a friend."
Alphonse chuckled, rubbing at his eyes a bit before hugging her back. "I know, right? The idiot."
"Yeah, he's an idiot." Holly smiled as she hugged him a bit longer, pulling away at last just to ruffle his hair affectionately. "Come on, Alphonse, you're taking me out to dinner to celebrate my being right."
Alphonse laughed, but groaned all the same. "I suppose you earned it."
"Damn right I did. And it's not like I can afford a nice dinner on a teacher's salary. So up, blondie, up." Holly clapped her hands smartly as she hopped up off the couch.
Which was how Alphonse ended up seated across from his friend at an outdoor patio table of one of the nicer restaurants in town. In fact, a place that normally required a reservation, six months in advance. But Alphonse was on the VIP list thanks to a certain Roy Mustang who had brought he and Edward there once. Now if he showed up, a table was found for him.
"You could have told me we were coming here." Holly hissed at him after the waiter who had so helpfully put her fine linen napkin in her lap for her had vanished.
Alphonse smirked at her, knowing why she was so irked. She was still in her teaching attire, while every other female around on the patio was in a fancy dress and pearls. It wasn't like he was dressed any better, but he didn't mind as much. He hadn't pre-planned this, and the only reason he'd decided, very evilly, to bring her here, was to get back at her for her bragging rights. "You look lovely." He reassured her.
Holly glowered at him, causing her friend to break out into sniggers of laughter. "You're evil, Alphonse Elric. Pure evil."
Alphonse smirked, "if I am, blame Ed." Was all he said to it before accepting the wine list that was handed to him by the waiter now at his side. "I somehow doubt that's going to stop you anyway, Holly."
Holly watched as Alphonse seamlessly gave their wine order, as well as a selection for the first course. Something she wasn't opposed to him choosing… she recognized nothing on the menu anyway. "How exactly did you get on their VIP list anyway?"
"Roy." Alphonse replied simply.
That explained it all, and Holly smiled, suddenly drawing herself up into her element. "Well, since you are so nice as to indulge me in a place like this, I want to try at least three desserts."
Alphonse laughed openly, grinning at her. "Be my guest, this is your reward."
Holly smirked at him as she fiddled her menu open again. "I do believe I earned it. I still can't quite get over the fact that I was right! Well," she paused, "not exactly that I was right, more than I am excited that I was right that such a thing is possible! You do realize how unique this is, don't you?"
Alphonse smiled at her, everything considered, he was glad she was happy with her success. "Believe me, I do. Thank you. You probably saved me a lot of grief."
"And sleeping pills." Holly snorted, unimpressed yet amused all at once.
"I only ask that if you ever publish your findings, that you leave out the real names." Alphonse told her, just in case. "I have enough of a reputation already without bringing more attention to my name."
"Don't worry." Holly chuckled as she tried to make sense out of the entrées, "I doubt Scar would appreciate that, and you're the one he bends rules for, not me."
Alphonse knew how true that was… Scar didn't seem the type to take kindly to his name being printed alongside what had happened. Mostly Alphonse's concern though, no matter what he told Holly, was to keep Scar safe.
The waiter returned with their wine, and after Alphonse approved of it, the bottle was left on the table as the waiter took their orders before rushing off to the kitchen to place them.
"You seem surprisingly accustomed to this sort of environment." Holly remarked after the waiter had left.
Alphonse shrugged a bit, swirling his wine in its fine crystal glass in an absent manner. "Roy told me one day that he was going to educate me, just in case, he said. Just in case I ever had to be in an environment like this because of his position, I'd not feel like I had six feet and four arms."
"The things I learn about you, even after this long." Holly shook her head. "You're one surprise after another, just when I think I've got you finally figured out."
"Probably why I could never keep a relationship going." Alphonse smiled at his wine, and took a sip of it before looking across the table at her. "My boyfriends never knew who exactly they were dating."
Their entrées arrived after a while, and the two of them fell away from conversation to fall into the indulgent act of eating their overly-priced meals. And once that had been accomplished, Holly gleefully ordered three desserts as forewarned, and made Alphonse order his own.
All four desserts were polished off quickly.
Alphonse paid their bill, and not long later they left the restaurant as the extra table was put back into storage until the next time it would be needed. By now, Holly was so full of food that her glee that had been rampant during the desserts, was a bit more muted.
"Are you still coming to the fall festival at the school?" Holly asked as they walked home. "The kids are really wanting to see you again. They keep asking."
"Me and part of Scar." Alphonse joked. "I can't imagine why they'd want to see me again so much."
Holly snorted, "surely not because those who had you as their chaperone for the zoo field trip got to sneak off with you to go ride around in a cart you piled with hay and hitched a team of Oryx to in order to drive them around past all the other kids. They keep hoping you'll show up with something like that again and they'll all get to do it."
"I can't help it that the zoo director owes brother a favor for getting him the opportunity to have those Oryx." Alphonse grinned. "And you're the one who begged me to be a chaperone because the parents weren't volunteering like you expected."
"I'm also the one begging you to come to the fall festival." Holly grimaced. "Just make sure that you don't bring anything potentially deadly with you."
Alphonse rolled his eyes, "don't worry. I plan to just bring myself and a wallet so I can buy those healthy snacks you offer out for the kids… what was it last year you said? Cotton candy and such?"
"Cotton candy and caramel apples." Holly sighed. "Sometimes I don't understand the rest of the faculty."
"You can always give the kids on a sugar high what you gave me to knock Scar out." Alphonse suggested. "Should only take about a second for it to work on them, I was out in about ten." He grumped, not at all impressed with that.
Holly snickered at the admission, though she could have guessed. "You are a bit of a lightweight."
"Shut up." Alphonse grumbled as she continued to snicker.
When they reached Holly's house, Alphonse parted ways from her with a hug. Once he made sure she got inside safely he turned with a tired exhale for home. He was looking forward to curling up in a real bed with a book and waiting for that to lure him into sleep.
He was fairly happy to reach home a while later, and he let himself in through his front door, locking himself in before heading to his bedroom. There he shucked off his clothes, grabbed his pajama bottoms from the foot of his bed to tug those up and on before he headed into the bathroom to take care of a few matters before he crawled into bed.
And his bed had never felt so soft and inviting before. With an indulgent, happy purr of a noise he slipped under the covers while grabbing his latest reading venture from the bedside table.
"Where was I…" he murmured to himself as he flipped through to find his bookmark.
After finding it he began to read until as reading before bed always did to him, his eyes began to cross trying to read the words. He finished the paragraph he was on before marking the book once more and setting it aside. Flipping off the lamp he scooted down in his bed to curl up properly on it, almost completely covered by his comforter.
"I sure hope you're sleeping, Scar." Alphonse muttered into the darkness, releasing a weary mix of a yawn and a sigh. "But I hope you're doing okay."
If Scar wasn't asleep, he figured he'd soon know anyway just how Scar was doing.
He lay awake for a while longer, his thoughts having found a focus on the man whose soul he held a part of. It was strange… going from having believed for so long that Scar was dead, to know he was alive. To be able to feel it in the evidence of the magnetic pull that tugged towards the east. And he wondered, for a brief moment before he fell into sleep, what it would feel like inside him when Scar died. When that piece of Scar's soul inside him died as well.
He dared not think about what would happen if he were to die first.