Won second place during week 98: "Alphonse Elric" over at lj's fma_fic_contest. Set post-CoS, when Al is about 29 here, and Ed is 34-ish. I'm going by the timeline set in CoS, so I could be totally wrong—and beware of possible anachronisms!
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Al settled into his seat, grinning like a five year old let lose in a candy store. He'd been looking forward to going to the pictures all week, and between research and dealing with the finicky dean of the college he taught at, he damn well deserved the break.
Next to him, Ed stared at the large screen with his lower lip jutting out and his arms crossed over his chest. "This looks stupid," he muttered.
"You look stupid," Al responded cheerfully.
"Now look just a—"
"Shh!" The theater lights flickered off and the noise from the crowd began to fade. "It's starting!"
Ed huffed and bit back whatever curse had been hanging off the edge of his tongue. Al couldn't believe his brother sometimes. They were at the pictures! They never got to do anything, and Ed was going to sulk the whole time?
Honestly, Al thought as he stared up at the screen, it was as if Ed was still twelve, rather than thirty-four!
On screen, the movie began. Al and the rest of the audience watched as Dorothy and Toto appeared on a dirt road and proceeded to have a terrible day, which climaxed in a rather frightening and implausible scene with a tornado. And then there was color! And tiny people! Ed started fidgeting as soon the word munchkin was mentioned, and Al made a mental note to bring it up with him later—loudly, and at great length.
The Wizard of Oz was really fascinating, actually. Al didn't understand what Ed's problem was—until the Tin Man appeared on screen.
He was rusted. He was rusted? Al scoffed, leaning forward in his seat to get a better look. The Tin Man didn't even look like a proper suit of armor! He should be quite a bit bigger, actually, and—and why did they call him tin, anyway? Tin was awfully flimsy. Al cringed at the thought of what he would have ended up like if his armor had been just plain tin.
Of course, Al didn't expect the people of this world to understand what it was really like to be trapped in a suit of armor. How could they know? He would have been able to let it go had it not been for that song.
"Why is he saying that?" Al muttered to Ed.
Ed blinked sleepily before rousing. "Say what?"
"He keeps going on about not having a heart!" Al hissed. "Like he's—well, on the one hand, he is disembodied, so he doesn't actually have a heart—"
"Er, Al—"
"—but they make it sound like he has no feelings! Emotions aren't directly connected to the presence of certain organs!"
Ed let out a resigned sigh. "Except maybe the brain?"
"We are not discussing the brain!"
Someone in the row behind them gave Al's seat a sharp kick. "Be quiet!"
"This is extremely offensive," Al said. "I think we should leave."
"We paid twenty cents for these tickets, and you want to leave?"
"I thought you were bored," Al said defensively. The people behind them were growing increasingly agitated at the noise he and Ed were making, if the number of kicks his chair was receiving was any indication.
"I am," Ed muttered. "But—aw, fuck it, fine, let's get the hell out of here."
The row behind them cheered when they stood to leave. Al, in a fit of self-righteousness, grabbed the popcorn from a woman on the end of the row and chucked it at the man who had been sitting directly behind him.
Ed grabbed Al's arm just as a security guard popped into the theater and pointed at them from the door on the opposite side. "Running now," his brother urged. As Al took off after him, the guard shouting something incoherent in their wake, he decided that maybe taking the day off had been a bad idea after all.