Sensibilities of Romance - Hohenheim/Trisha - PG-13

[said_scarlett]

littleduchess gave me the prompt of: "Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherised upon a table..." 18 to go!

Title: Sensibilities of Romance
Author: theladyfeylene
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Character: Trisha Elric
Prompt: 091, open
Pairing: Hohenheim/Trisha
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Trisha had always been a sensible girl. The life that had been planned for her had been good and sensible and the proper life for a girl like her. But even the most sensible of girls can be swept off their feet on a moonlit night...




Small towns were prone to gossip. At the general store, the men gathered about on the porch and smoked and talked of weather and crops and soil. The women huddled together amongst the shelves and whispered about children and husbands who drank more than they should, and unwedded women who stayed out far too late.

Trisha wasn’t a fool. She knew was the subject of the women with their lowered heads and accusing eyes. She knew what they were saying. Young Trisha had her head turned by a no-good wandering alchemist, one with pretty words and eyes that looked to the horizon. Young Trisha had had her filled with stories and romance and poems. If young Trisha were a sensible girl, she’d kick this mountebank alchemist to the curb and settle down with a nice boy from town. There was Finn Camden, the butcher’s son. He was a good reliable lad!

Trisha ignore them. She was a sensible girl. But she held firmly to the belief that even the most sensible of girls could be allowed a moment to be complete un-sensible. And besides that, she thought she was being very sensible indeed.

Well, perhaps not at the moment. It was difficult for even her to see anything sensible about sneaking out passed midnight and strolling through the woods unattended with a man who had declared himself to her.

So this was an un-sensible moment. But the moon was filtering through the trees and the grass was soft under her bare feet and the wind was warm and smelled of flowers. It was a nice night. It was the sort of night that poets sought to capture in words. It wasn’t perfect, but Trisha found she could ignore the imperfections.

“You know,” Trisha teased, stepping lightly over a tree root that sprawled across the path, “you know these woods pretty well for a man who’s never been to Resembool before.”

“I’ve a knack for direction,” Hohenheim told her, offering her his hand. She took it and she felt that singular thrill run through her, that certain tingle that could only be called young love. Finn Camden might have been a good and reliable boy, but he didn’t make her feel the way that Hohenheim Elric did.

“And where is your knack for direction taking us tonight?”

“You’ll see.” Hohenheim’s eyes twinkled in the moonlight. He had such amazing eyes. They were warm and wise and old, and Trisha felt silly and young sometimes when he looked at her.

The moonlight led the way, and Hohenhiem led her deeper and deeper into the forest until she could hear rushing water. It drowned out the sounds of the night birds. The forest closed in around them, and Trisha knew she was doing what good and sensible girls didn’t do. She was alone with a handsome man in the middle of the night, and her heart was racing and her cheeks were flushed and all he’d done was take her hand.

“Here,” Hohenheim said, brushing aside a tapestry of hanging leaves and branches. Under the moonlight, surrounded by the dark forest, there was a pool and a waterfall. It gleamed silver and white, the stones surrounding the water grey and shimmering. She’d never seen this place before, it was too deep in the woods and no one went this far from the tree line. But Hohenheim had gone this far.

Trisha clapped her hands and laughed, eyes wide. No, this wasn’t what sensible girls did. She darted out into the glade, her skirt billowing and her bare legs pale in the moonlight. Hohenheim followed.

“We probably shouldn’t be out here,” Trisha said, but she was smiling as she said it.

“Well, I’m sure it’s perfectly safe.” Hohenheim’s eyes were beautiful by moonlight. “You have me to protect you, after all.”

Trisha smiled. She felt alive and she felt full of something she couldn’t put her finger on. She closed the distance between herself and Hohenheim, and she slipped her arms around his waste. He was tall and lean and towered over her.

“It’s a warm night….” she said, impishly. He brought something out in her, something she’d never known was there. She’d grown up in Risembool, daughter of two farmers. She knew nothing but farm life and the furthest she’d ever traveled was the next town over. Hohenheim had seen the world. He was a scholar, an adventurer, a man unlike any man Trisha had ever met. And he was holding her in the moonlight.

“It is quite warm,” Hohenheim agreed. Trisha kissed him then, tired of waiting for him to make the first move. She’d kissed boys before, but they had been awkward and clumsy kisses stolen behind the barn or down by the fields or once in the attic of Sarah’s house when they’d all gotten together with a bottle of stolen wine. They had been nothing like this. Hohenheim’s kiss made her come alive. His hands were in her hair and he was flush against her and his lips moved against hers in ways she’d never known lips could move.

Even now, even clasped together in the moonlight, Hohenheim was a gentleman. His hands buried themselves in her hair and made no move to touch elsewhere. His lips never left hers. Trisha burned and ran her hands over his back, nineteen years old and feeling alive for the first time in her life.

She pulled away. Hohenheim looked flushed and Trisha only smiled. She turned her back to him and faced the water. The embrace had warmed the night even more. Smiling, though he couldn’t see, Trisha grasped the hem of her dress and pulled it over her head and off, tossing it aside. She heard a startled gasp behind her and she looked over her shoulder. She felt a brief moment of shame - her hips were too small, her legs were too skinny, she had no rump of which to speak - but it passed quickly. Hohenheim was looking at her as though she were a goddess. She flushed and moved to the edge of the water, the waterfall roaring in her ears. She dipped in one foot, and she heard Hohenheim moving behind her. She slipped into the water with a small splash, her under things clinging to her skin as they took on water. It was cool and good and the moonlight was bright and the night stretched out before them full of glorious possibility.

“I, ahem, hadn’t exactly planned this,” Hohenheim said, joining her in the water. Trisha shrugged and wrapped her arms around him, wet skin pressing to wet skin.

“Neither had I.”

She kissed him again, and his hands roamed over her skin, and she knew the women would talk come morning and she didn’t care. And maybe Hohenheim would leave, and maybe she would end up marrying Finn and being a butcher’s wife, but at the moment she didn’t care. She was here now, and there were stars in their eyes and each kiss spoke of a world that Trisha longed to see and feel. And in the glade that was bathed in moonlight, her head thrown back as Hohenheim kissed the smooth column of her neck, Trisha knew that this was all she wanted, sensible or not.

Love had never claimed to be sensible.