"So….," Jean Havoc hung awkwardly in the doorway of his tiny apartment kitchen eyeing the teen currently occupying his equally tiny couch. He was not used to entertaining and it didn't help that the kid made it more awkward than it needed to be. It was clear that Edward didn't really want to be here but for reasons Havoc could only imagine, here was the Fullmetal Alchemist, sitting on his threadbare old couch eyeing the room with open concern.
"Can I get you anything? A beer?" asked the older man.
Edward's eyes snapped from his sad excuse of a bookshelf to him in disbelief. His brows drew together and he looked around surreptitiously to make sure Havoc was really asking him. "I'm thirteen," he said petulantly, as if this should have been obvious.
Havoc thought about this for a short second before shrugging. "So? There's a first time for everything. Want a smoke?" he asked with a crooked grin.
The teen just rolled his eyes and shook his head. "No, thanks," he said, his eyes scanning the crowded space and lingering with distaste on the overflowing ashtray balanced on the couch's armrest.
Havoc shrugged and retreated into the kitchen to get himself something to drink. He pulled a beer from his refrigerator, looked at it for a moment then changed his mind, putting it back, and made a pot of coffee instead. He knew Ed drank coffee, even though that was just as unusual for a thirteen year old to drink.
He had just shown up on his doorstep after dinner, alone. Havoc was so surprised to see him there that he had just stared at the teen until Ed asked, sardonically, if he was going to teach the man how to play right there on the doorstep. Al wasn't with him, which was odd in itself because the two seemed inseparable sometimes. He had, apparently, caught the night train to Central instead of leaving in the morning since he didn't need to sleep.
Havoc somehow suspected that, with Al gone, Ed was either worried about his little brother, too fidgety to stay in his hotel room by himself, lonely or all of the above.
After Ed had shouted at him in the office, Havoc had been hopeful. But then the more he thought about it, the more he had convinced himself that the kid would probably never actually get around to teaching him once his anger at the Colonel had abated.
As it was, he was still getting over the fact that the Fullmetal Alchemist had talents other than alchemy and pissing off authority figures. He just couldn't picture it, no matter how hard he tried. But the memory of the teen holding the instrument in the office that day spoke volumes.
A whine from the living room interrupted his thoughts. "What are you doing in there? Where's your music?"
Havoc returned to the living room with two steaming mugs of coffee and set one down on the uneven table in front of Ed. The teen eyed the mug but said nothing as he scooped it up and Havoc settled into his favorite armchair.
"My what?" he asked blankly, a cigarette halfway to his mouth.
Ed raised an eyebrow at him. "Your music? You know, your sheets?" he repeated with expectation.
At Havoc's continued blank expression, the teen sighed. "The thing you're supposed to be learning written out on paper. Your music sheets!" he said impatiently.
Oh! He shuffled over to his book case and pulled out a battered binder with papers sticking out haphazardly from it in all directions. He was aware of Ed watching him and didn't miss the teen's shudder at the condition of the book.
He wasn't normally this bad with his things, but the last time he'd tried to make sense of the lines and symbols he'd gotten so frustrated with it that he'd crammed the lot back onto the shelf without giving a damn about it.
Ed's expression was priceless as Havoc laid the mess of battered papers in front of him. As if it was a sin to treat books this badly.
The loose cover was sticky with something Havoc couldn't remember eating and Ed flipped it open while simultaneously trying not to touch it.
"Is this it?" asked the blond teen scooping up a pile of crumpled and stained pages. Havoc nodded a little hopelessly and Ed started shuffling through the papers, which were not in any sort of order, straightening them as he went. He leaned over the pages, focused on the lines and symbols.
After a moment, Ed's amber eyes slid slowly up to consider the man sitting in the armchair across from him critically. "This is Sarkhoff," he stated flatly.
Havoc recognized the name as the composer from the papers but he shrugged because it honestly didn't mean much to him.
"This is what you're supposed to play?" asked Ed incredulously, riffling through the papers. He snorted and raised an eyebrow at Havoc's half-hearted shrug. "Can you even read music?" continued the teen, studying the man skeptically.
"No."
"Do you know what this piece is supposed to sound like?" the quiz continued.
"Uh, I heard it one time, I think."
Ed sighed in exasperation. "Do you have any experience playing?" he asked impatiently.
Again Havoc shrugged and shook his head. He started though, as a memory occurred to him. "Well, sort of. My grandfather used to play. It's his violin, actually. I got it after he died. He used to let me saw away at it but it never did sound like he made it sound." His eyes wandered to the window as he lost himself for a moment in the memory of his grandpa; the smell of his pipe, his scratchy beard and always a tune on his breath.
"Do you have it here?" asked Ed.
Havoc jumped up from his seat and went to fetch it. The case was old and worn but still strong. He set it on the low table in front of Ed and undid the worn latches. The inside of the case was lined with faded blue velvet with the initials R.P.H still stamped in the inside of the lid, his grandfather's initials.
The instrument itself lay there innocently and Havoc couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt, thinking of his Grandpa who had loved it so much and knowing that it had been somewhat neglected since the old man's death.
Ed picked it up carefully, feeling its weight and examining the strings. He had a thoughtful expression on his face before it soured into a grimace. He looked Havoc in the eye and the older man inwardly flinched under the scrutiny of those amber eyes.
"Let me get this straight," he started, resting the instrument on his knees, "you expect to learn a piece by Sarkoff in what, when's the concert?"
"Two weeks," supplied Havoc humbly. Ed's eyebrows shot up in astonishment but he continued.
"In two weeks, when you don't know how to play, can't read the music, and don't even know what it's supposed to sound like?" The teen raised an eyebrow at him, unimpressed.
"It didn't sound all that hard…," Havoc trailed off.
Ed laid the instrument back in its case and dropped the sheets on top. "I think you might as well tell this Jane girl the truth now because if she's an actual musician, you won't be able to fake it, trust me."
"Her name's Jenny. She's a goddess," he mused, a goofy smile creeping onto his face, his cigarette dangling at the corner of his mouth.
Ed picked up the pamphlet for the show, which had been mixed in with the papers and examined it with distaste. "Yeah well, goddess or not, she'll know you're a fraud the minute you show up to a classical string concerto with a beat up old fiddle," he said sardonically, tossing the colourful paper on top of the pile.
The older man sighed in defeat. "You really don't think I can do this?"
Ed raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you want me to be honest or nice?" he countered evenly.
Havoc knew the alchemist was being nice, if he offered a choice which is more than what he gave most people. There was a long moment of awkward silence before Ed sighed.
"Even I couldn't play Sarkoff properly, he's notoriously difficult," offered the teen as a sort of consolation.
"Yeah, Al mentioned you had lessons?" asked Havoc thinking that if someone who could play thought this piece was difficult, then there was no way in hell he could do it.
Ed huffed, crossing his arms and silently cursing Al for the betrayal. "Yeah, and I hated it. My teacher was a tyrant. Everything had to be perfect, she never let me just," he threw his hands out in front of him, the gesture meant to replace words, "-play. She was a stuck up old hag," he finished moodily and with quite a bit of repressed bitterness.
Havoc was surprised; it was unlike Ed to be so open.
The teen looked at him seriously. "You really want to do this?" he asked, like a last chance to back out.
Havoc was determined. "Yes," he said with certainty.
Ed shrugged muttering "your funeral" as he closed the lid on the instrument, setting it down on the floor, and spread the papers over the table.
"So this here," he said, pointing to a squiggly symbol at the top of the page, "is called the treble clef…."
For four hours, Ed explained to Havoc how to read the music. It was a lot to take in and the man was impressed that even after so long, the teen was still so focused. He, on the other hand, despite his third cup of coffee and almost a whole pack of cigarettes, was starting to feel his brain melt. Most of the terminology was new to him, and although he thought he had the gist of it, he had seriously underestimated how intricate it all was.
But he did start to see how well something like music suited the young alchemist. As Ed had explained to him, music was essentially mathematics. Behind the time, rhythm and form were rules, equations and laws and his music lesson was suddenly starting to sound a lot more like alchemy.
And Havoc was not an alchemist.
He had stopped paying attention ten minutes ago, and realized that he was staring at the young man in a small amount of awe and amusement at how easily Ed managed fit alchemy into anything.
The teen looked up at him, frowning. "What are you smirking about?" he said suspiciously, probably wondering what Havoc found so amusing about a Sull'arco, whatever that was.
Havoc shook himself and glanced at the clock in the corner. It was twenty minutes to midnight and he let out a groan. He still had to work in the morning.
"Let's call it a night Chief," he said around a yawn, rubbing a hand over his tired face.
Ed looked around at the clock too, genuinely surprised that so much time had passed. He was wide awake and Havoc wondered if the kid actually slept at night. If he didn't, it certainly would explain why he was often found, much to the Colonel's annoyance, sprawled on the couch in Mustang's office, dead to the world.
"C'mon, I'll walk you back to the hotel," offered the older man. Edward gave him a look that said he didn't need an escort.
This was probably true.
But Havoc went anyway. There was just something that didn't sit well with him about letting the young man walk through the streets of East City alone in the middle of the night, State Alchemist or not. Havoc's passive forcefulness on the issue proved difficult for Ed to refuse.
It was a fifteen minute walk and the cool air was refreshing.
"So when am I going to actually play anything?" he asked the teen as they rounded the corner of Douglas and Fourth streets and the hotel came into view.
Ed shrugged impassively. "It's your fiddle. You can practice any time you want. But I'm going to teach you the theory first," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Havoc rather thought he didn't have time to learn all the theory behind the music and just wished Ed would show him where to put his fingers when and how to make the strings and bow sound like something other than a dying animal. But something told him he should count his luck that the young alchemist was willing to teach him anything at all. He frowned though, at Ed's comment.
"Why do you keep calling it a fiddle?" he asked curiously.
The teen looked up to the hotel which was directly across the street from where they now stood. He shrugged again. "It's just what we called it back home," he said simply.
Havoc's brows drew together in confusion. "Is there a difference? I told Jenny I played the violin," he said, a sudden panic swelling up inside him that he would show up with the wrong instrument.
Edward laughed.
It was a rare sound, Havoc had to admit. But the effect suited the young man much better than the scowl he always wore. And better still than the sorrow that plagued him far too often for someone his age.
The teen grinned at him then. "Those musicians you're going to play with are all probably professionally trained. They'll come with their shiny, expensive violins and lord it up on stage in front of a quiet audience, following some master composer's work exactly as it's written, down to the last note.
But a man walks up to a rag-tag band in someone's backyard and plays his old, loved fiddle for his friends and neighbors while they dance and sing late into the night, probably making it up as he goes. No one cares if he makes a mistake or joins in the dance with them while he plays." Ed shrugged a little turning his amber eyes on the older man, hands in his pockets looking to all the world like a humble teenaged boy for once, instead of a human weapon.
"You see, it's the style of the music that makes the difference; the instrument itself is the same."
Havoc stared at the young man. "Huh," was all he managed to say. His brain was too tired to respond more intelligently to that insightful answer. But he understood completely. He had fond memories of falling asleep beside his brother and sister atop hay bales while their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends danced and sang through the clear summer evenings on his grandpa's farm. His Grandpa had been a fiddler.
"So which are you?" he asked, amused. "A violinist or a fiddler?"
The teen grinned at him in such a familiar Elric way, letting the question hang unanswered. Havoc knew he wasn't going to get an answer.
That grin said I'm not telling.
"Good night," he said enigmatically instead, waving lazily as he left the older man standing on the sidewalk and crossed the street.
Havoc turned and started walking back to his apartment. He knew Edward had been trained professionally. But he rather suspected, judging by the boy's dislike for following rules and his sometimes alarming creativity, that he preferred the improvised and more liberating style of a fiddler.
A/N: Thank you for all the reviews and favs! I never expected this to be so well liked. ^_^