Fanfic: Moonlight (Fullmetal Alchemist)

[nebroadwe]

Title: Moonlight
Fandom: FMA (compatible with both the manga and the anime versions)
Character(s): Sig Curtis
Pairing: Sig/Izumi
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
A/N: I almost held this for entry in the Green Lion 2006, but lost my nerve. It's too slight -- and this is the first approach I've made to depicting a romantic relationship from the inside; I wobble back and forth between satisfaction and the conviction that it's tripe. Critique welcomed even more than usual: romance fans of the world, please tell me if I've hit the nail on the head or crushed my own thumb! Now revised in accordance with helpful critique. Crossposted from nebroadwe to Höllenbeck (i.e. hagaren_manga, fm_alchemist, fullservicefma, fma_het, fma_writers, and fma_fiction).
Dedication: For cornerofmadness. Did you guess right?

---

By the moon, the hour is late, but he waits for the opinion of the eight-day clock in the parlor. He sleeps lightly without her beside him, waking often. Insomnia is a cold bedfellow, its grip on his mind as unpleasant as damp sheets against his body. Izumi never forgets to air the bed and coddles his cold feet with knitted bedsocks and the skillful use of a warming pan. He wonders where she learned to take as much pride in housewifery as in alchemy. She has told him more about her training than her upbringing -- has hinted that they're one and the same, which he doubts. But she and he are still newly married and he, at least, is patient. They have years to learn each other.

And she rewards patience, which might surprise those who find her temperamental and overwhelming. With weakness, she is gentle: every child in Dublith knows who to ask about luring a puppy out of a drain or setting a bird's broken wing. Strength she meets with strength, demanding no less of others than she does of herself. Injustice she remedies with the fury of an archangel and the manners of a fishwife. But silence, his silence, she relaxes into as if it were a warm bath, and in those charmed moments she tells him -- by look or touch as often as by speech -- the secrets of her self.

He's tried to make a proper return, but what does he know? The quirks of every military base in the south, courtesy of his father. (He wonders what the old bastard will do when he finally retires -- he has too much brawn to fade away.) And meat, courtesy of the uncle who sheltered him when he bolted rather than enlist. (He doesn't love his trade as she does hers, but it's profitable enough to keep a wife and, someday, a family.) That's all. She must be overlooking the imbalance, for she pounces like a starving cat on inequities less grave, less close to home.

Perhaps she thinks he makes good the lack in other ways. He brings her an umbrella when she works in the rain. He forces purple and golden crocuses in the basement for her birthday in midwinter. And he tells her jokes. He is not a whimsical man, but he cannot forget the breathless chortle he startled out of her by drawing a cartoon cow on the sign announcing the next meat day. He's stalked her sense of humor ever since, carefully rationing his witticisms -- one in three months, then two in a week, then none for half a season. She laughs readily, but no one else, he's sure, has ever seen the double-takes with which she greets his successful deadpan strikes. He has another honed for her return; he rehearses it for a while, as the wind chatters in the trees behind the house next door and the moon ducks in and out of the hurrying clouds.

For this, above all else, he does for her: he lets her leave him.

He never heard her sound so muddled as she did the first time she tried to explain where she was going (nowhere special, visiting colleagues) and why (to test herself, to help others, to refine her skills, to prove her worth) and for how long (a few weeks ... maybe just a month ... no longer than he'd miss her ...). He agreed with all of it to quiet her and then held her so she could breathe. Departing, she doesn't kiss him -- only when she returns. He doesn't offer to travel with her. He has the shop to mind, after all.

Lying awake, he tries not to ask himself which side of the scales hangs lower now.

Instead, he admits the truth. He doesn't want her to be away on a training journey. He wants her here, in their bed, her breasts and belly as white as milk in the moonlight. He wants to give her the children she longs for -- six, they've promised each other, three boys and three girls. She is full of plans for them, sees them by turns scholars or shopkeepers, athletes and alchemists.

He only knows that he will never raise a hand to any of them in anger.

The clock strikes three as the tallest poplar's branches catch the moon. It was full when she left; it is nearly full again. He can begin to anticipate her return. He rises from bed and goes in search of the dust mop. It rained last week; he thought he scraped the mud off his shoes, but they're still shedding dirt everywhere he walks. Izumi will have words for him if he doesn't clean up after himself. What is this, a house or a pigsty? Can't I trust you to manage on your own?

He hesitates no longer than it takes the clock to mark six seconds, then shoulders the mop and steps into the hall.

[Disclaimers: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and is serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix); the anime of the same title was directed by Mizushima Seiji and story-edited by Aikawa Sho. Copyright for these properties is held by Arakawa Hiromu, Square Enix, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Aniplex, Bones, and dentsu. All rights reserved.]

Comments

[eaglesspirit.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is lovely. It's not often you see a Sig/Izumi fic and this one was well done. A very delightful read.

I almost laughed when you talked about them wanting three girls and three boys. Why? Cause that's how my family is - three girls (I'm the oldest) then three boys.

Wonderfully done!

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is lovely. It's not often you see a Sig/Izumi fic and this one was well done. A very delightful read.

[exhales] Thanks. I hope everyone else thinks so, too (or, if they don't, that they can help me revise this thing and make it better. There's one sentence I've tweaked word by word about eighty zillion times already that still makes my inner editor perk up alertly every time I read it. And by now I'm not sure why anymore.)

I almost laughed when you talked about them wanting three girls and three boys. Why? Cause that's how my family is - three girls (I'm the oldest) then three boys.

[grin] Truth: see Fiction, Stranger Than.

Peace!

[hieronymousb.livejournal.com]

Aww, that's so sweet. XD

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

So much for my grand proclamations about being a gen-fic writer, eh? :-)

[hieronymousb.livejournal.com]

Eh, I think of "rare pairings authors" as being as valuable as genficcers. XD Sad that Shigu/Izumi is a "rare pair", but it truly seems to be. I actually claimed this pairing for the 1sentence challenge comm a while back, but I still haven't finished my 50 sentences. Embarrassingly, I kept feeling like I was making Shigu too sappy, but well, I guess he could be, ne? Like a big teddy bear. XD

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Sad that Shigu/Izumi is a "rare pair", but it truly seems to be.

That puzzles me, too. Maybe it's because they're so happily married -- you run into the double whammy of the trope that narrative ends with marriage and the difficulty of conceiving a plot problem when the usual romantic conflicts are associated either with courtship or with a relationship running into difficulties. (I admit to taking one of the classic outs by depicting Sig and Izumi early in their marriage. Peter and Harriet Wimsey are fascinating to watch in Busman's Honeymoon, but by the time they've had three children Dorothy Sayers had to bring in an outside agitator to play hob with the domestic harmony -- I forget the name of the story, but it's the one with the stolen peaches and the justifiably deployed snake.)

Embarrassingly, I kept feeling like I was making Shigu too sappy, but well, I guess he could be, ne? Like a big teddy bear. XD

You're looking at a woman who has him forcing crocuses. Who am I to disagree? But then the trick becomes writing him sappy without writing sappily. I wish I could remember who it is that points out the true genius of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories is that Bertie Wooster is self-evidently an amiable nitwit and a clueless simp, yet we never stop to wonder how such an amiable nitwit and clueless simp can be narrating these stories so effectively. :-) It's a wonderful observation.

Peace!

[mystrial.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and dripping with sweetness. There really should be more Sig/Izumi stories out there.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

"Dripping"? Oh, dear ... :-)

Seriously, though, one of the neat things about having an audience that talks back is that I hear things about my writing that I don't necessarily think. "Sweet" was not what I was aiming for as I wrote -- in fact, I was trying pretty hard to diminish the sugar content throughout. Or, better, I was trying to make it taste like apples rather than Cocoa Puffs. But that's something I see only in retrospect. At the time, I was looking for things for Sig and Izumi to think and do that sounded real to me and that didn't always involve the usual language of romance. (Wearing socks in bed is supposed to be conducive to a healthy sex life, according to some surveys that came out last year or the year before, but it hasn't yet become a romantic cliche, AFAIK. Although crackedbunny_1 is working on it. :-) The places where I did use romance conventions got beat on a lot to make sure that they were saying exactly what I needed them to say and no more. I was so nervous about taking the thing over the top that I walked away wondering whether I'd gone too far in the other direction and made it unacceptably low-key. This is one sketch I'm going to be very interested to look at in about a month when my investment in it has diminished to the point that I can view it more objectively.

Peace.

[c-b-syndrome.livejournal.com]

The thing with Sig though, is he is very low-key anyway. The man's expression almost never changes and he says very little, but his devotion to Izumi is so strong that it just bounces off the page and the screen and shouts in your face.

I always loved that particular couple, and one day I might brave writing them, but it will take great skill and a gentle hand to do it right, otherwise they'll turn into cardboard characatures and that would be an injustice, IMO.

My hat's off to you because you handled that relationship so well. This was a beautiful moment in time that spoke eloquently of their relationship as a whole.

And I doubt fuzzy yellow sock will ever be cliche... Just a running joke. ^^;;

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

The thing with Sig, though, is he is very low-key anyway. The man's expression almost never changes and he says very little, but his devotion to Izumi is so strong that it just bounces off the page and the screen and shouts in your face.

That's what's so tricky to render in words without going over the top (or under the table). Arakawa can do it with images: body language, relative position, gesture ... all the tricks of the trade. I was trying to get inside the man's head, of all the hubris; it's hard to keep the low-key thing going properly without boring everyone to death. I mean, the man has to have an interesting interior life or else he'd hardly have ended up with Izumi, but he's also just very ... there. I'm glad everybody so far seems to think that I've managed to pull the balancing act off. I may start being proud of myself after another six comments. :-)

And I doubt fuzzy yellow socks will ever be cliche... Just a running joke. ^^;;

Aim high! Doesn't every writer long to produce a cliche? Don't you think William Goldman gets up every morning, looks in the mirror, and says to himself, "I own the word 'inconceivable'"? :-)

Peace.

Kind of sweetness

[(Anonymous)]

I think you largely succeeded, perhaps warm apple cider on a crisp fall afternoon but nothing that would cause one to worry about a diabetic coma. :-) A well told story about a spouse who understands part of any good marriage is allowing your spouse space to be who they are.

peace, joy

Re: Kind of sweetness

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I think you largely succeeded, perhaps warm apple cider on a crisp fall afternoon but nothing that would cause one to worry about a diabetic coma. :-)

And few people could say that with more authority than you, o nurse/New Englander! :-) Sue emailed me to say that she wasn't sure the "milk" simile was working: she thought it might be too cold and make Izumi look more like an object on display than a human being. I'm not sure I agree, but that could be because I like milk and tend to think of it as friendly and homely. I've also read too much lit theory about the male gaze in erotic contexts to be anything other than intrigued by the idea that it's turning up here. But perhaps I'm not being sufficiently feminist in my presentation? (Can you tell this piece is making me more nervous than most of the others I've written?)

A well told story about a spouse who understands part of any good marriage is allowing your spouse space to be who they are.

It helps to have good real-world models to observe ...

Peace!

[chrstphrl.livejournal.com]

This is a beautiful look into the mind of one of FMA's least appreciated characters. Beautiful.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I don't know what everyone is going to think when I finally get back to writing stories that feature someone in the FMAverse who isn't underappreciated or terminally obscure. I am, by golly, going to finish "Winry and Paninya go to the movies" one of these days -- I've come too far to give up! [stalks off militantly] :-)

[onsoullessfeet.livejournal.com]

This is v. well written! You re-created the dynamic between the two through words wonderfully. Sig's thoughts flow smoothly and make sense. I don't see anything out of order.
An enjoyable read.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Thanks! One thing I am confident I know how to do is arrange things in aesthetically-pleasing order -- the only art-related trait I seem to have inherited from my painter-grandfather. (One of my siblings got the "drawing things that look like things" gene; I got the layout gene.)

[(Anonymous)]

You have -- hooray for Joy, she got the analogy right -- avoided hyperglycemic catatonia. Sweet instead of treacly. :)

This I love: "He's stalked her sense of humor ever since, carefully rationing his witticisms -- one in three months, then two in a week, then none for half a season." Given how minimally expressive Sig is to the observer, it's important to include bits in his internal monologue that remind us of that. Otherwise there's too big a disjoint between this lengthy, word-filled glimpse inside his head and the terse, laconic Sig we know and love.

I admit I might be with Sue on the milk analogy.

This -- "He never heard her sound so muddled as she did the first time she tried to explain where she was going (nowhere special, to visit colleagues and take in the lay of the land) and why (to test herself, to help others, to refine her skills, to prove her worth) and for how long (a few weeks ... maybe just a month ... no longer than he'd miss her ...). " -- is also really good Izumi characterization. Rang true. Kudos. :)

This, though -- "Haven't I told you that it's easier to keep things in order if you don't let them get out of hand? Can't I trust you to manage on your own?" -- may be a bit too delicate. An Izumi rant would involve more implied ... volume.

Here's my only prose comment -- I find "He hesitates no longer than it takes the clock to mark six seconds" unwieldy. It's a phrase that's *just slightly* too convoluted to convey a six-second pause. How about any permutation on "He hestitates while the clock marks ..." or "He hesitates. The clock marks no more than ... before he ... " or something of the sort?

All together lovely, though -- now you needn't fret about your ability to handle romance any more! :)

Katie

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

You have -- hooray for Joy, she got the analogy right -- avoided hyperglycemic catatonia. Sweet instead of treacly. :)

Phew. Mission accomplished!

Given how minimally expressive Sig is to the observer, it's important to include bits in his internal monologue that remind us of that. Otherwise there's too big a disjoint between this lengthy, word-filled glimpse inside his head and the terse, laconic Sig we know and love.

That's where tight-third person narration is a godsend. You're in tight, so you can get down inside the head of your POV character, but you're also in third, so you can use words to describe your character's state of mind in a way that s/he might not necessarily do.

I admit I might be with Sue on the milk analogy.

Bother. Doesn't anybody but me like milk? I keep staring at that line, trying to see where the problem might be, but I just don't get it. I think I may have to claim author's privilege on that one. (Nervously. Because I know you're good at this. But I like milk! Augh!)

This, though -- "Haven't I told you that it's easier to keep things in order if you don't let them get out of hand? Can't I trust you to manage on your own?" -- may be a bit too delicate. An Izumi rant would involve more implied ... volume.

Or at least pith. You're right; I'll work on that before the thing goes to archive.

Here's my only prose comment -- I find "He hesitates no longer than it takes the clock to mark six seconds" unwieldy. It's a phrase that's *just slightly* too convoluted to convey a six-second pause.

Hmm. I'm prone to convoluted prose (maybe I should run this sentence past LCB -- if he thinks it's fine, I'm in trouble :-) so I'll take your comment under advisement. I did time myself reading the sentence aloud, though -- no, really! -- and it took me six seconds to deliver it. But it may read longer than it speaks.

Peace!

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

Well, you should have, dammit, that contest isn't getting enough entries. >(

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I'm working on an entry, honest! I just finished stuffing Ed full of German food and am getting ready to take him to church. Heh, heh, heh ...

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

finally finally finally getting to comment. I just loved this look inside Sig's head and seeing Izumi through his eyes

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Delayed comments are sweet, too. Glad you enjoyed the story. All the feedback I got about it improved it a bit, I think (even though I didn't take everybody's advice. Author's hubris -- er, I mean, privilege. :-)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

well sometimes you get advice in two opposite directions (or maybe that's just my writers' group) so you take what you think works

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Nah, I think that's everywhere. It's an offshoot of the fact that there's no one right way to tell a story (although there can be better and worse ways). The world would be a lot poorer if we didn't have sixty different versions of "Cinderella", frex.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

ever so true. That's kind of a fun thing sometimes to see different takes. There was someone in my writers group that used to throw out a phrase and we had to write a short story based on it and none of them would look the same.

I guess I do something similar with my original fiction prompt community