Endless Questions
Chapter mention: Chapter Nine: Dublith
Timeline: Pre-LAS (six months before chapter one)
Rating: K+
"I think you should take more cases, brother."
Ed looked to the side, seeing Alphonse shift his hands to his lap, looking down at them from his place on the train station's bench.
"What're you talkin' about, Al?" he returned, looking away. "I can't."
He heard Al's head shift a bit lower. "Maybe... Maybe I'm just not meant to get my body back."
That comment came as more than a shock. Ed could only listen, his brother's words hitting him continually—first, when they reached his ears, and then when his mind registered them, those vibrations and meanings ripping into his chest like his body was a popcorn bag full of knives.
"I..." Al sighed. "Maybe I'm just supposed to be an example." Ed could hear the sound of an actual, self-pitying smile in his voice. He focused on breathing, doing everything he could not to kick his brother's head off. "Maybe I'm just supposed to be stuck in here."
Ed only let the anger out a little bit; he clenched the hand draped over the back of the bench, the one closest to Al. He heard the slightest of gasps from his brother, surprised, and then finally Ed let himself speak.
"You really think... After everything we've gone through..." He turned to face Al, whipping himself around, fighting back the tears in his eyes. "THAT I WOULD JUST GIVE UP ON YOU?!"
Al stayed quiet, eyes small. He didn't look away, their gazes locking. Both incredibly fearful of one another. And then finally Al pulled his sight down and away. His hand clenched the fabric of his loincloth, bunching it up, and once again the realization of what his brother had become dawned on Edward. He felt his chest begin to collapse, and with a quick breath, he strengthen his lungs enough to not break down completely.
Why were they still like this?
What went wrong?
He didn't have an answer. It was... The one damn question he could never answer...
Everything just seemed so endless.
A/N: Very excited about finally getting to post these! This is more or less my actual style of writing; the main character of Leave A Scar tends to bog down the description, but I let her talk 'cause that's my main purpose in writing the fic. Sharpening character voices and all that; really getting inside their heads. Anyway, this series of basically drabbles definitely adds more depth to the main work. With this, I'll be filling in little details, little events, conversations, thoughts, etc as the story progresses. In some ways, this is LAS told from Edward's third person point-of-view.
You probably noticed the header; that second tid-bit of information is basically what inspired the prompt. For example, our main character asks Ed about the military paying well, to which he replies, "I've been taking a lot of cases lately, so that's where the influx of cash is coming from."
The timeline, on the other hand, tells where exactly this drabble takes place. In this case, six months before the main story begins.
Make sense? Lemme know if it doesn't and I'll explain it another way. Just thought I'd clear it up in case someone got confused!