Fic - Bad Dreams

[cornerofmadness]

Title -- Bad Dreams
Author-- cornerofmadness
Disclaimer -- Arakawa owns it
Rating -- teen
Characters/Pairing -- Hohenheim/Trisha
Word Count - 582
Warning -- none
Summary -- Hohenheim is plagued with nightmares.
Author’s Note -- Happy holidays, 2014. Written for the fandom_stocking community.

XXX

Hohenheim awoke with a start. It was rare he slept all night, his altered body requiring little sleep. He stole out of bed so he wouldn’t wake Trisha up. She needed her sleep. He had just started staying over, wondering if that would cause talk. In a town as small as Resembool, of course it would give the gossips all the fuel they could use.

Maybe this was a mistake. A monster like him didn’t deserve to be happy. Of course, he didn’t really see himself as a monster, though he knew others would. Hohenheim moved on every decade or so. Settling here would be a mistake. Surely Pinako had already noticed he hadn’t aged at all.

But as far as he ran, Hohenheim couldn’t escape his mind. When he slept, he heard the whispers and screams of Xerxes, still bound into him. The individual voices had died out for the most part centuries ago. He barely noticed any more - maybe that was the definition of being a monster, not hearing the hundreds of souls that had been stitched into his own, being a living Philosopher’s Stone.

Tonight’s nightmare hadn’t been of that day when his body had been torn asunder and remade as a ‘gift’ from the Homunculus. No, it was an older nightmare from when he was just a boy. Slave Twenty-Three never had any options, subjected to every whim of his master. Hohenheim remembered those days as if they were yesterday and not centuries ago.

He could smell sweat on him as he turned on a light in his library and settled in for a read. The tang of fear was still in his mouth. His skin shivered as if his master was still touching him. Hohenheim shut his eyes against the ancient memory of being forcibly held down and bled.

He had thought he would die that night. Maybe it would have been better if he had. Not that it would have changed things in the end. Surely the Homunculus would had gotten what it wanted without him. Hohenheim would never know the answer to that.

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Poor Hohenheim. He deserves some joy in his life.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes he does. Thanks

btw love the Gatchaman icon. Ken's face is chubby

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Ken and Jun both have chubby baby faces. :D

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Ken more than Jun

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

That's the angle you see now.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

true