Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.
Warnings: This story is focused on the pairing of Hohenheim/Edward, which is yaoi (malexmale) and incest (family memberxfamily member). If this offends you in any way, you do not have to read this.
Hair so blonde and slicked with sweat that it could melt like butter in the hot sun. Two small, watchful eyes that are the same hue of gold as his hair, glimmering with the dawn's light and as much a part of the scenery as the hills he walks on.
And somehow, he has become a man. His wavering shadow is thin and elongated, his face calm and no longer bursting with pent-up energy and anger. He wears an open brown coat not unlike Hohenheim's own jacket, and his footsteps are light and resigned.
Edward no longer believes in miracles.
It doesn't seem to startle him when Hohenheim approaches; though he looks up, his expression never changes. There are unreachable clouds reflected in his eyes.
"Edward," Hohenheim says, finally, in a voice that disrupts the calm and echoes through the open space. A lonesome bird somewhere behind him replies with two answering caws.
They are near the graveyard; Edward points to it subtly and Hohenheim hears the soft shifting of fabric as his arm moves.
"There's no one there that I know." Edward says, with a slight frown, and as soon as he has finished speaking the silence overwhelms him again, ringing and pounding in his ears.
"No one?" Hohenheim answers, surprised. "Alexander Seton was buried here. Surely you've heard of him."
And for half a second, Hohenheim thinks he sees a new light in Edward's eyes, but the expression has transformed to a grimace before he can be absolutely sure.
"I don't care about this world's alchemists -- they were grasping for something they could never reach. The ribbon was wide and red in front of their eyes, and they chased after it like fools, not seeing that it was an impossible dream." He gazes over at Hohenheim, almost challenging him, who doesn't look away.
The sun is becoming brighter above their heads and the calls of the birds are less distant and empty. But the sun here never shines with its full capacity, always leaving the world dim and his limbs heavy. Even now, when dawn is sifting slowly into day, he can still see the moon illuminated in the sky, can still feel it sending him shaking waves of cool, tangible, air. It is something he will never escape, like the ever-constant tingle of decaying flesh creeping down his arm and slowly strangling away his life.
"This isn't where I belong either," Hohenheim says softly, and Edward turns and sends him a grim smile.
"You're all I have, you know that?" his son says in response. "You're all that's left of my world."
Hohenheim looks down; he can feel the distaste in those words. He waits to hear something more -- Ironic, isn't it? That it would be you, you who I've never really liked? -- but his ears are only greeted with the distant rumble of an automobile, quietly penetrating the silence.
And Edward takes his hand -- not impulsively, the boy has learned to stop and think -- and looks up at him with a smile untainted with the nothingness of this world, filled only with raw emotion, emotion that blots out the darkness that still lingers in the air like dust. "I'm glad."
Hohenheim is glad, too -- glad that he is no longer alone.