Disclaimer: I make no claim to -Man, its characters or setting and other affiliated things; this is a work of fanfiction for non-profit
And No Man Shall Touch Her…
Feneris
Chapter 2: The Pianist
Allen walker peered over his cards at his opponent. "Very well," he proclaimed, spreading his hand out. "Straight flush of spades! Beat that Timcampy!"
The gold golem seemed to peer up from its own hand, before loosing its hold on the cards. A royal flush splayed out across on the table.
Allen gaped at the cards. "What!? That's the fifth time in a row. Are you cheating or something?"
The golem apologetically coughed up an ace of hearts.
"Thought so," Allen muttered, as he began gathering up the cards. "If you're going to cheat, you have to at least try and be subtle about it." There was a low screech of steel as the train began breaking. "Looks like we're almost there." He picked up his suitcase and opened it up. Timcampy obediently fluttered inside and made himself comfortable. The whistle blew and the compartment lurched slightly as the train came to a complete stop. "Wonder what the Lees are going to be like?" he said to himself as he headed for the door.
xXx
"You sure this piano teacher will be on the train?" Lenalee asked, glancing at the crowd of people exiting the train.
"Reever said he caught the first one from Liverpool yesterday," Komui reassured her. "Unless something happened he should be on this one. So, keep your eye out for a young man with white hair."
"I think I see him," Lenalee stated, peering over the heads of the crowd. "Right there by the baggage car."
"Ah! That looks like him," Komui agreed. He began to push his way through the crowd, carefully making sure no one got near enough to accidently bump into his sister. "Hello," he greeted the boy. "Are you perhaps Allen Walker?"
"Yes I am," Allen replied, holding out his hand for Komui to shake. "And I assume you are Mr. Lee?"
"That's correct. I have heard great things about you Mr. Walker," Komui replied. "If I may introduce you to my sister Lenalee, she's the one you will be teaching."
"A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Lee," Allen answered, tipping his head in acknowledgment. "I look forward to teaching you."
"It pleasure to meet you as well," Lenalee replied.
"If you have your things, than I have a carriage waiting for us," Komui added. "I'm sure you're interested in knowing where you'll be staying."
xXx
"A nice house," Allen remarked, as he climbed out of the carriage. "Do you need a hand Miss. Lee?"
"No thank you," Lenalee replied as she hoped down. "Would you like me to show you your room?"
"Ah yes, of course, thank you." Allen picked up his trunk and followed Lenalee through the house. "It was very considerate of your brother to offer room and board." He remarked.
"Well, we have more than enough space here, and I am pretty sure Komui wants someone around in case one of his alchemy experiments goes wrong again."
"Alchemy?" Allen remarked. "I assume he has yet to turn lead into gold?"
Lenalee nodded grimly. "Mostly he just sets things on fire, but he did turn gold into lead once."
"That is certainly more than most alchemists can boast."
Lenalee giggled. "He claims it wasn't an accident, but he still hasn't been able to do it again." They came to a stop in front of a small unused room. "This is where you'll be staying. The bathroom is down the hall and if you're hungry, the kitchen is across the hall from the dinning room."
"Thank you," Allen bowed, dragging his trunk to the center of the room. "Say, where's your piano anyway? Might as well see what you've got."
"Of course, it's in the upstairs lounge." She waved him up a flight of stairs into a brightly windowed room overlooking a field. The piano was tucked away in the corner, the sunlight gleaming off the black keys.
"An odd choice for key colour," he remarked, as he sat down on the bench. He placed his bag on the floor and tried a few keys. "But it's obviously of superior make."
"It was a gift from a friend," Lenalee explained. "She runs an antique store here in town."
"She clearly knew value when she saw it," Allen agreed. He reached over and opened his bag. Timcampy flew out and began fluttering about the room, before settling down on the sheet stand.
Lenalee jumped in alarm. "What the!?"
"That's Timcampy," Allen explained. "He's my golem. I don't like carrying around sheet music, so he stores all the notes in his memory."
"Wha… how?" she mumbled.
"I'll show you. Bring up Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Tim."
The golem opened its mouth, projecting the image of a music sheet in the air.
"That's amazing," Lenalee breathed, leaning in to get a better look, all the while being careful not to touch Allen. "I've never seen anything like him before."
"Yeah, you rarely see them, but they can do amazing things. I've got an entire book of sheet music stored inside him. Cats seem to like trying to eat him though." Allen remarked. He placed his fingers on the keys, and soon the music of the piano began drifting through the house.
Lenalee seated herself in a chair, and politely listened as Allen's hands glided across the keys. "That was beautiful," she remarked as Allen finished up.
"Thank you," Allen answered. "It's a lovely type of music for sure."
A muffled bang suddenly sounded from somewhere in the house, followed almost immediately by the eye-watering smell of rotting eggs. "What the hell?" Allen gasped. "What just happened?"
Lenalee lurched to her feet, a look of terror on her face. "KOMUI!" She sprinted out of the room and down the stairs. Allen quickly followed her, holding a handkerchief to his mouth to guard against the smell. Foul smoke was billowing out of an open door. Lenalee swung through the door, and froze at what she saw.
Komui was lying on the floor in front of the bookcase, a trickle of blood was running down his face, and smoke was pouring from a broken beaker on the desk.
"Don't touch him!" she mental screamed to herself. "You'll only make things worse!" Every instinct in her body was yelling at her to rush in and see if her brother was alright. "If you touch him, he will burn, and then he'll be even worse off."
Allen brushed by her and ran over to the prone man. "Miss. Lee! Get a doctor! He might have a concussion!"
Lenalee nodded quickly and ran out of the room. "Get a doctor, get a doctor," she repeated in her head. She tore the phone off the hook and began dialing a number. "Please let Komui be alright."
xXx
"Your brother is fine," the doctor declared, as he shut the door to Komui's room. "He was simply knocked out from a bump on the head. Considering the last time I was called here, I honestly expected something worse."
Lenalee let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you for coming doctor, it's good to know Komui is going to be okay."
"Not a problem. Just try and convince your brother not to try anything too dangerous in the future, though I doubt he will listen." The doctor waved goodbye as he left the house.
"So your brother is alright?" Allen asked the moment the doctor was out of sight.
"Yes," she sighed. "I always feel so useless whenever he gets hurt from one of his experiments. Last time he nearly burnt the house down."
"That bad?"
Lenalee laughed to herself. "He always seems to think that nothing can go wrong, no matter what it is he is trying to do. He's a real fool sometimes, but he is family after all."
"Yeah. Family is a treasure to be sure," Allen agreed.
"What is your family like?" Lenalee inquired.
"Foster family actually," the boy replied. "My foster father was an entertainer; he liked to do acrobatics and such. My foster uncle was the one who taught me how to play piano; he also gave me Timcampy as well."
"Oh, what are they doing now?"
"They're dead now," he replied.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't worry, they've been dead for a while," Allen remarked. "It's funny, before my father died, he told me to always keep walking and never stop until the day you died. I've taken it to heart. I keep going forward without dwelling in the past."
"That is certainly wise advice," Lenalee agreed.
"Admittedly, it is sometimes hard to follow that advice. But it has served me well. I have not ended up like a certain no good, womanizing, alcoholic, sleazy two bit con-man, whose claim to fame is having once desecrated the tomb of a saint!"A black aura had sprung up around Allen with those words, and Lenalee was almost certain a pair of spiral horns had sprouted from his head.
"Would I know this person?" Lenalee asked in alarm.
"You would know who I am referring to if you had. If I ever see that son-of-a-bitch again…"
"You did not part on good terms I assume?"
"The bastard ran off in the middle of the night and left me with nothing but Timcampy and his 20,000 pound bill from the local whorehouse. I barely escaped with my life."
"Change the subject, quick!" she mentally screamed. "Would you like something to eat? Jerry, our cook won't be here for a few hours, but I'm sure we could scrounge up something."
The black aura vanished instantly, and Allen turned to her with joyous eyes. "That would be wonderful!"
"You were right Jerry," she mentally thought. "Food can defuse nearly any situation."
xXx
Komui awoke sometime before dinner, and after fretting over the destroyed state of his lab, made an interesting discovery.
"You turned lead into gold!?" Lenalee exclaimed in disbelief.
"Err… not exactly…" Komui fished a piece of golden rock out of his pocket and put it on the table. Allen carefully examined it, before bursting out laughing.
"You turned lead into fools gold!" he choked out between laughs. "Someone up there definitely has a sense of humor!"
"So what did you do this time?" Lenalee asked, ignoring the cackling pianist.
"I'm not entirely sure," her brother admitted. "I was going to mix sulfur with horse's bile, and then heat the mixture while adding crushed quartz mixed with lead. But the beaker cracked, spilling sulfur into the fire. It surprised me so much I bumped into the bookshelf, causing the 'I' volume of the encyclopedia fall, hitting me on the head and knocking me out."
Lenalee cast him and incredulous look. "You truly are an idiot, brother."
"Lenalee! I'm hurt!" Komui wailed. "Do you not appreciate the advances I have made to the world?"
"If you are referring to the homunculi you made, I'd hardly call that an advance, more like a disaster."
"Nonsense!" Komui protested. "Komurin was a perfectly viable and orderly creation. A rampage here and there never hurt anything. People merely call me mad, because they cannot appreciate my genius."
"You mean you're the Mad Alchemist!" Allen gasped out, now nearly doubled over with laughter. "The one responsible for the zombie vitamin scare, and the hair growth potion that made people bald?"
"There was nothing wrong with ether of those things," Komui insisted. "The zombie vitamin wore off in a couple of days, and everyones' hair grew back eventually."
Lenalee cast him an irritated glare, but anyone could see that she only half meant it.
Allen couldn't keep back a residual snicker. "I think I'm going to like it here," he thought.
xXx
Lenalee was honestly surprised that Allen had not found out about her curse. It had been a week, and nothing had happened. There had been several times when she was sure he had accidently bumped into her in the hallway, but he had not reacted with anything more than a polite 'pardon.'
Now she was starting to worry. He was going to find out eventually. The only question was when and how. As much as she wished, she could not gather the strength to actually tell him herself. As fleeting as she knew it was, she wanted another person in her life that was not afraid of her and what could happen if they happened to touch her.
Komui and Miranda had not told him anything, feeling that if Lenalee hadn't told him anything, she didn't want him to know.
She knew of course that if she didn't tell him, he'd likely find out the hard way. The thought of Allen suffering from severely burnt hands never ceased to tug at her conscience. She had been working up the courage to tell him all week.
If only she hadn't used that footstool.
xXx
Lenalee sighed as she pushed the rickety footstool up to the cupboard. "How on earth did Komui manage to break the mortar and pestle he had in his room?" She fumbled about in the dark cupboards looking for the spare that should have been up there.
"Err… Miss. Lee, are you okay up there? That stool looks rather unsafe," she head Allen call out.
"I'm fine!" she answered. "Where is it?" The piece of equipment she was searching for was not there, nor were several others that should normally share the space. "Don't tell me he already broke it!" she hissed to herself. The stool shook as she looked deeper in the cupboards, searching for something she knew she would not find.
The sudden snap of the breaking stool leg might as well have been a cannon shot.
"MISS. LEE!"
She was falling backwards; everything seemed to be going in slow motion. She saw Allen rushing forward to help her and the warm feeling of his hands stopping her fall. "He's going to scream," was her first coherent thought.
"Miss. Lee, are you alright!?"
"He didn't scream?" Lenalee's mind seemed to freeze at the revelation. "He's touching me, he doesn't know about the curse, and he's not screaming?"
"Miss. Lee?" Allen repeated, becoming worried at her lack of response.
Lenalee's head snapped over to look at him. His face showed only alarm and concern; nothing about his body language suggested he was in pain. "Show me your hands!" she blurted out.
"What!?"
"Show me your hands," she repeated. Her mind was racing at the implication of what was happening. A man was touching her, and he was not burning.
"Okay…" Allen hesitantly held out his gloved hands for her to see.
"Take off your gloves," she breathed.
Allen sighed and stripped off both gloves. He held out his hands so Lenalee could get a good look at them. The right hand was smooth and pale, the left the colour of spilt blood.
Both were unburnt.
Lenalee stared at his hands in disbelief, before doing something she had never done in her life.
She fainted.
Authors Note:
Well this is the second chapter in this little project of mine… I wanted to write down some interactions between Allen, Lenalee, and Komui as well as explore some of the less-obvious side-effects of Lenalee's curse, and get to the first main plot twist of course.
Again… I ask my readers… did I do okay, did the characters yak too much, was the chapter layout confusing, and all those questions a paranoid author has.
*Revision: Made it Miss. Lee instead of Mrs. Lee... I always get those two mixed up
