The world always ended the exact same way, no matter how many times Ash tried to stop it. Gresham Hain always found the Book of Source. Ash would always tear the energy from his body and rip a hole in the fabric of reality above Kensington. The dark unreality of the void between universes always leaked through, culminating in an entire moon's worth of matter crashing through the tear. He had tried telling Ramsay that the Book was under House Lune, but she was always slow to trust, allowing Marlowe time to track them and alert Hain. And on the rare occasions he was able to convince Ramsay to leave for House Lune early, they were never able to succeed without Callum. He had even considered venturing through the tear itself, bathing in the heretical energy to gain enough alchemic power to close it, but there were no Thorne inventions nor alchemic powers capable of carrying him high enough. There were times he considered letting the threads of Source stay unraveled, never risking his reality and eventually returning to Source where he would be able to experience being with his partners, but he knew it wouldn't be enough. He had never tried finding Marlowe first, however. He had always told himself it would be a fool's errand, the woman's devotion to Hain only wavering after he had already read the Book. But perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps he could convince her to rebel ahead of time and save both the universe and his relationships.
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A preview of a fic I'll be writing at some point in time because there are a total of 16 Infinity Alchemist fics on ao3 and none of them have my favorite character
I wrote this while I was on the clock
