Turning Tides

Turning Tides: Chapter 4

So, I meant to post this yesterday, but I had an extremely bad time the past two days because I had to spend time with my father, who left my family, his wife, and his side of the family due to America's Thanksgiving and the family's traditional after day breakfast. So I didn't get to editing until pretty late last night when I stopped feeling emotionally drained. I was watching the AOC stream which made me feel better. I hope you folks in America had a good thanksgiving day, though.

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Resembool was cute and quaint, even when the group had traveled through the night to get to the Rockbell family house.

As of now, they had been hiding out in the basement for several days— only going upstairs in the early hours of the morning to make coffee (Kimblee) or simple meals during the day (also Kimblee, but Edward helped).

Edward usually vanished to the upper floor to stake a lookout, but the rest of them remained in the basement.

The four of them had gotten proficient in card games as of late, seemed, as the only thing to keep them from causing trouble happened to be a deck of cards.

And by 'them' Heinkel meant Darius and Greed. Heinkel was perfectly content sitting around if he needed to. Because if he was still and not engaging in activity that required a lot of movement, he was more likely to get Kimblee either in his lap or just pressed against him.

Kimblee was like a cat, which he found hilarious because he was quite literally a lion. The Alchemist was prickly and peculiar, with actions that few could understand on the surface. He didn't like to be touched by strangers but was fine with certain contact from others— Heinkel had seen how he had recoiled when they were traveling through a small town and an older woman pat his arm.

He had his own set of quirks, rules, and mentality— one that was highly complex and flipped around at random depending on how he was feeling, but his core values stayed firm and solid. Kimblee was a mystery, but Heinkel didn't mind taking time to figure him out the best he could in the time they had together.

But at the current moment, Heinkel found himself playing cards with Greed and Darius while Kimblee dozed against his back. Despite how he held himself at Briggs and while they were on the run, it was painfully obvious that the man wasn't used to being up and about so much.

Even if it had been close to six months.

Prison, Heinkel knew, wasn't a walk in the park and it didn't help that Kimblee wasn't one to eat a lot at all. He had known that the man was thin, the five of them had been together for a few months— he, Darius, Edward, and Kimblee for even longer— after all. He had seen the man with his shirt off more than once, but it didn't seem as if he gained or lost weight.

And he understood why Kimblee had admitted to having dysphoric moments— by god he was jarringly thin.

What muscle he had from before prison was practically gone, and the Chimera could easily count each rib. His stomach was concave and Kimblee admitted that he wasn't used to seeing himself as such, though he had always been pretty wrecked in terms of healthy body mass. He had scars decorating his body from battle and, Heinkel had realized with a pang, from his childhood— and not how children would get scars from running around and playing outside.

Small nicks from flying shrapnel from the war in Ishval had been pointed out to him, dotting his sides, and some against his back were scattered between the ones gained from the fall in Briggs and between bruises and bites from him— Kimblee had complained lightly about how the bite mark on his shoulder was bound to scar, Heinkel had told him that his teeth weren't that sharp.