#slothfulbear

    Panda’s body language was quiet and cut off. He could tell that this wasn’t a good time. If he were stronger, he’d smile and just wander off until Panda could talk to him, but he can’t stand to be alone anymore. He’s being pushed to his absolute edges and he doesn’t want to get dunked under for the next few months because he was too prideful to ask for a little help.

     He just feels even worse that it’s at the expense of Panda, who looks like he wants to be alone. It should be fine, though, he doesn’t want to talk, he just wants to hear someone breathing and feel the warmth coming off of their skin. He sits down next to the bear, leaning toward the edge of the couch.

      “Uh, important relationship question, if a bug is in the house, do you want it taken out or do you prefer to have it squished?”

    He knows that they live a quiet life together, after what happened. The transmutation. They’ve settled down, content to live together despite their frequent bouts of melancholy. Both of them seemed quite prone to just going to bed and sleeping when they got too sad... Though in some ways, Hohenheim found that very comforting. At least he didn’t have to be the only depressed one.

     But the quiet life did have some drawbacks... Maybe that’s why he hesitated so long before bringing it up, unsure if Panda would even be interested...

     It’s occurred to him lately how... Boring his life is now. Wake up, go to work, flip burgers com home, chat with Panda, go to bed. Maybe visit Panda at the zoo. It’s getting monotonous, but there’s no doubt that it is a comfortable life. One he definitely doesn’t deserve. Still, he’s never been good at sitting around when things turned out for the better, and he is still a stranger here.

    He’s been hanging around Panda a lot after the event happened, though he has been going to work still. Some of his interactions with Panda have been nothing more than lazing around Panda, watching him quietly. He’s been showing up to Panda’s work as well, sitting by his exposition, not really moving around from it until Panda got off of work.

    He knows that he shouldn't be so clingy like this, but with nothing else to do or move forward too, all he wants to do is hang around Panda all day. He doesn’t just want to drift off now that he doesn’t have anything else to hang onto.

    He’s doing his best. He’s doing his best not to remember that there’s nothing for him anymore. That everything he’s don, every action he’s taken up until now is pointless. That it didn’t matter. That everything decays.

     Today isn’t any different, honestly. He’s gotten one of those fidget toys from the shop he had been buying his food for the week at, and he’s playing with it as he approaches Panda, quietly giving him a wave.

   He had wanted to tell Panda before he left, to say something that would comfort him when he was gone, but when it came time to do it, he had no words. What do you say to someone when you’re abandoning them? There’s nothing to make it better or make it hurt less. He knows Panda is going to be devastated when he realizes what happened, but he can’t justify taking a soft, kind bear into the middle of a war.

    Panda’s seen his small apartment, he saw where he keeps the key under the mat. He’s sure that thee bear will come here first, or at least he hopes he does. He sets a letter for him, filled with the earnings he didn’t spend from his job, and sets about clearing a space for the transmutation that’s going to take place. In all truth, he should probably be doing this outside or somewhere with more space, but he can’t been seen. He can’t be allowed to be stopped.

    It’s not a question of it will work. It would, and he would go home and carry out what he needed to do. His math is perfect and his calculation flawless. He would travel through the gate and that would be it.

    The circle set in place, he puts his hands to his chest, letting the ruby light of his alchemy fill the room, the eye of truth emerging from the ground, the gate opening, hands pulling through it, bringing him to his truth. The void with his silhouette is grinning at him, but it isn’t him that catches his eyes, it’s the golden hair and the other gates that he’s seeing. As he’s watching, he sees one fade away, and he shoves truth out of the way, his hands crackling and burning as he does so. Edward-- Alphonse-- The skeletal boy is being help up by his brother.

    Desperation flows through him and he yells, the boys looking up at him. He’s trying to reach them but black hands from his gate have shot out and grabbed him, slowly pulling him back. He’s fighting against them, trying to reach out to his boys, but he can’t get to them. He’s struggling against the grip, and Alphonse is reaching out to him. An unfeelable wind is blowing through his hair, somehow it’s blowing, and though he can’t reach his hand to Alphonse’s, he manages to get a lock of his hair.

    It’s not enough to keep him there, however, and the strands are thin, and they break easily. The grip the gate has on him brings him to his knees, and soon is dragging him backwards on his face, despite his best efforts to claw the ground and stay. His head is craned back to an unpleasant degree, looking at his sons, Edward holding Alphonse’s shoulders, both of them looking at him sadly. The gate closes.

   He’s back in his shitty little apartment, the floor covered in his own blood, though some of it’s pulling back into his body as it’s part of his stone. The damage dealt to him by the gate is healing slowly, slower than his usual wounds, the front of his chest having been cracked open, as if it wasn’t enough to tear out his spiritual heart but his physical one needed to go as well.

   Tears are streaming down his face, his breaths labored and uneasy. While one hand is gripping at his wound, the other is holding the strands of hair to his face, trying to hold on to the last remnants he’s going to get of his sons.

   He’s been seeing books around the condo, and while it’s true that he does have some difficulty reading, he’s gotten pretty good at mapping out words to Xerxean over the years, a rough translation that’s necessary if he wants to have any recollection of what he read. He’s been going through the books Panda has, a pad of paper close by. When he finally has enough to read through the context of the pages, he can’t help but smile a little.

   Alchestry. The little bear has been trying to learn it, or so it seems. While his first instinct was to go and ask him about how it’s going, he also remembers the bear saying something about wanting to learn on his own. Still, he wants to now how Panda is doing, wondering what had sparked his interest in it. He’s given it a few days, and as they’re drinking tea together, he decides to gently bring it up.

    It had been a very, very rough shift. It had started out well, but during the course of the night, not one costumer walked through the door. When finally a group of girls did walk in, they had pause in the entryway, chattering to themselves before leaving, the only words he catches being “Panda Palace’. 

      He had been forced to come to the conclusion that it’s because of him that no one is coming in, but right as he felt about to break down from the feeling of being universally avoided, the sound of someone coming in had stopped it. It had been Lion’s nephew, tail twitching as he looks around the place, before having dashed back out. The young lion usually ate here, so the unusual action caused him to go to the window, wondering where he was bounding of to--

      The group of girls. What on earth-- He saw one of the girls getting grabbed, so of course he rushed after the young lion, but to his surprise as he got closer he had heard the teen trying to defend him, saying that it wasn’t right to call someone creepy just because they didn’t look happy. He had pulled the young lion off them still, bowing and forcing the lion to bow as well in apology even though the girls had just stared for a moment and walk off.

      Still, he’s not quite sure how exactly how it got from there to here, sitting in Panda’s apartment on the couch with a stack of burgers next to him, and a scraggly half maned lion lounged across his lap clearly high out of his mind quite literally asking for a back scratch.