Fanfiction: The Sweet Theft

[nebroadwe]

Title: Drabble: The Sweet Theft
Fandom: FMA (manga version)
Character(s): Hohenheim, "Father"
Pairing(s): Hohenheim/Mechthild
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 140 (I cheated a bit, but the original part of this drabble is exactly 100 words; the remaining 40 -- the framing dialogue -- are paraphrased from the manga.)
Warnings: None, really, but if you haven't read chapter 75, the context will elude you.
A/N: It occurred to me to wonder what those people whose names Hohenheim remembers meant to him before they were nothing but names. Here's one supposition, long-meditated but written at speed (where is the twenty-six-hour day I ordered?). Concrit welcomed with Chilean grapes. Crossposted from nebroadwe to Höllenbeck (i.e. hagaren_manga, fm_alchemist, fullservicefma, fma_het, fma_writers, and fma_fiction).
Dedication: For artemisrae, who is also considering Hohenheim's backstory.

---

‘Tis no sin love’s fruit to steal; / But the sweet theft to reveal,
To be taken, to be seen, / These have crimes accounted been.
--Ben Jonson, "Come, My Celia"
      "It must be inconvenient, being human," mused the homunculus. "Your kind is forced to gather in communities and breed in order to survive."

      "Don't call it breeding," Hohenheim retorted, his face sunset-reddened.

      -- for he and Mechthild did nothing so profitable ("My masters, this lad's worth his weight in copper for the blood in him, out of a weaver by a stonemason, and all unformed yet: you may mold him as you like ... "), nothing so calculated ("She brings a fine dowry and court connections, but if she cannot bear sons, like her sister, then she's a poor bargain!") when they met on errands in the market and lay together behind Mayo's stall, skin chafing skin, transmuting time into pleasure, each moment forced to ripeness like an unseasonal hothouse fruit: hurried, surprising, and sweet --

      "If you say so," replied the homunculus.

---

[Acknowledgments: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and is serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix). Copyright for this property is held by Arakawa Hiromu and Square Enix. All rights reserved.]

Comments

[fractured-chaos.livejournal.com]

Beautiful piece. I had to read it a couple of times, myself. Partly because I was pleasantly surprised to see you poke a toe outside your comfort zone there ;)

Have I mentioned just how much I enjoy your use of language? *envies* ^_^

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Beautiful piece. I had to read it a couple of times, myself. Partly because I was pleasantly surprised to see you poke a toe outside your comfort zone there ;)

Just a toe -- no other, um, body parts. :-)

(I will leave a comment on your story, I promise -- this has been a harrying week. Being assaulted by a story, even a drabble, in the middle of it, did not help my time management, either.)