CAUSE I CAN FEEL THE RAIN
WASH AWAY MY SINS. AND I CAN FEEL THE PAIN
SEEPING OFF MY SKIN
cause every single time i'm searching for a way i'm always lost and never found
Up until his passing, Mr. Johannes Duval was ever the professional. While trivial, the most mundane of exchanges were still upheld within a modicum of formality befitting one of London's exalted business tycoons - though that was a title he did not earn himself but through his parentage, a responsibility placed at birth by a bloodline ruled by their influence on the railroad industry - 'It's this family's curse, my boy.", repeated father dearest, his hushed voice lulling the somber nights when it was but ten year-old Oz and the head of the company in a child's room, rearing the hours with storybooks and soulful reminders that, beyond what the family demands of him, Oswald deserved all the liberty to do what he desires, practice the wills and whimsies of life just as any free man would.
His father's hand was a willowy one as it rolled over his hair, then and now, still pale white. 'Not every Duval is entitled to inherit a company...' he'd whisper, 'And if you so wish it, Ozzie, then I'll give you a world wider than any railroad could possible cover.'
And for years this man would placate Oz's boyhood self with a smile that lingered, wavering only barely until he straightened the slump in his figure. But when you were at the mercy of being an incomplete incarnation, people became far more transparent than they let themselves be. Johanness Duval wore his heart on his sleeves in unsuccessful attempts to keep them hidden behind the gold in his cuff-links, and it was the boy with the sunlit eyes that saw through the facade and knew, knew so well that father dear was grieving - for his heart, for his days numbered by an ailing body, for the wife he visits every other day with gardenias in his left and unwritten sorrows in his right.
The thought of Johannes being so much himself and yet not gave him nightmares of blood on his hands; a new phantom to add to those who already haunt him from seven lifetimes of trying to undo what we normally cannot. At this, he realized that Mr. Duval scared him, but in a way that meant death was his only repose - a truly terrifying thought.
Oswald is familiar with his fears until they sneer at him eye to eye, and he remembers the vivid sensation of cowering as his father's casket lowered inch by painful inch.
At the funeral, the alchemist could not deny the weight of his tears that slid past his chin, though they were not for a child's father, but Oz mourned for a friend who suffered tribulations he did not deserve, a man afflicted with the same cruelty as he and that he'd still manage, with undying kindness, to entrust then fourteen year old Oswald to Roxanna Croll, a confidante of the Duval name until his father's will entitled them to a freedom of their own and a fortune to make it possible.
"...A world wider than any railroad could reach."
Time stills, just a tad.
"Master?"
And then it continues, always in a hurry.
The alchemist stirred in his place from beyond the tiny workshop table as his assistant surveyed him from the other end, where an acute sensation of worry hung around them like a cold, wintry coat. Antarcticite says nothing after, but the light reflecting off their synthetic eyes offered him all their concern in that single moment of pause.
He breaks away to stare at the solutions bubbling beneath him - the color clear like fresh water.
"...Sorry." he said, "I seem to have gone on for far longer than intended...how improper of me."
Hastily, he drops another two milliliters of the blood-red solute that he kept in a glass beaker, the reaction immediately clouding the liquid in the cauldron with a velvety hue. He nods, satisfied that he could no longer see his own hallowing expression staring back at him.
"Did you remember something awful?" his assistant asked, deftly reducing the burner's heat with a single gloved hand.
His lips curved with fondness at the thought, "Heavens no. Perhaps it was, back then." he raises his free hand to ruffle the pale white that made up Antarc's hair, the material cold to the touch, yet oddly relieving. "Nothing but good things have became of it."
The gemstone returns the gesture with a conservative grin, preparing to serve the solution into a glass cylinder. "If that's what master thinks...but the potion needs to be funneled in now."
"Impeccable timing as always."
Recollection was a bittersweet affair in his regards, but one he'd indulge in on the days where their stories were most relevant - or, perhaps, simply out of pure necessity. And while the alchemist gently handles an ample amount of the nostalgia potion into its container, he only hopes the shopkeep would love it as much as he did when he first brewed a batch of dreams in his basement.
His father's hand was a willowy one as it rolled over his hair, then and now, still pale white. 'Not every Duval is entitled to inherit a company...' he'd whisper, 'And if you so wish it, Ozzie, then I'll give you a world wider than any railroad could possible cover.'
And for years this man would placate Oz's boyhood self with a smile that lingered, wavering only barely until he straightened the slump in his figure. But when you were at the mercy of being an incomplete incarnation, people became far more transparent than they let themselves be. Johanness Duval wore his heart on his sleeves in unsuccessful attempts to keep them hidden behind the gold in his cuff-links, and it was the boy with the sunlit eyes that saw through the facade and knew, knew so well that father dear was grieving - for his heart, for his days numbered by an ailing body, for the wife he visits every other day with gardenias in his left and unwritten sorrows in his right.
The thought of Johannes being so much himself and yet not gave him nightmares of blood on his hands; a new phantom to add to those who already haunt him from seven lifetimes of trying to undo what we normally cannot. At this, he realized that Mr. Duval scared him, but in a way that meant death was his only repose - a truly terrifying thought.
Oswald is familiar with his fears until they sneer at him eye to eye, and he remembers the vivid sensation of cowering as his father's casket lowered inch by painful inch.
At the funeral, the alchemist could not deny the weight of his tears that slid past his chin, though they were not for a child's father, but Oz mourned for a friend who suffered tribulations he did not deserve, a man afflicted with the same cruelty as he and that he'd still manage, with undying kindness, to entrust then fourteen year old Oswald to Roxanna Croll, a confidante of the Duval name until his father's will entitled them to a freedom of their own and a fortune to make it possible.
"...A world wider than any railroad could reach."
Time stills, just a tad.
"Master?"
And then it continues, always in a hurry.
The alchemist stirred in his place from beyond the tiny workshop table as his assistant surveyed him from the other end, where an acute sensation of worry hung around them like a cold, wintry coat. Antarcticite says nothing after, but the light reflecting off their synthetic eyes offered him all their concern in that single moment of pause.
He breaks away to stare at the solutions bubbling beneath him - the color clear like fresh water.
"...Sorry." he said, "I seem to have gone on for far longer than intended...how improper of me."
Hastily, he drops another two milliliters of the blood-red solute that he kept in a glass beaker, the reaction immediately clouding the liquid in the cauldron with a velvety hue. He nods, satisfied that he could no longer see his own hallowing expression staring back at him.
"Did you remember something awful?" his assistant asked, deftly reducing the burner's heat with a single gloved hand.
His lips curved with fondness at the thought, "Heavens no. Perhaps it was, back then." he raises his free hand to ruffle the pale white that made up Antarc's hair, the material cold to the touch, yet oddly relieving. "Nothing but good things have became of it."
The gemstone returns the gesture with a conservative grin, preparing to serve the solution into a glass cylinder. "If that's what master thinks...but the potion needs to be funneled in now."
"Impeccable timing as always."
Recollection was a bittersweet affair in his regards, but one he'd indulge in on the days where their stories were most relevant - or, perhaps, simply out of pure necessity. And while the alchemist gently handles an ample amount of the nostalgia potion into its container, he only hopes the shopkeep would love it as much as he did when he first brewed a batch of dreams in his basement.
