In The Moments They Are Lost.
(Fullmetal Alchemist.)
Author's note: I do not own.
…
…
There is a moment to make a choice.
As an alchemist, he is aware that time does not stop. It cannot slow and it never speeds forward. Individuals simply perceive time in different ways, their memory holding tightly to the details of one instance more so than the details in another. In memory time stands still.
…
The eldest Elric brother stands, black clothing marred with red and dirt still on his boots. He looks like hell, battered and completely off balance, though Alphonse has never seen him more calm than he is now. The alchemist is out of place and the dust that falls from his hair and the hem of his pants seems to vanish as soon as it sloughs off of him.
The thing that had been sitting by the gate is gone, having disappeared sometime when Alphonse did not notice it's going. The skeletal boy fixes bright eyes on the only thing that had ever mattered to him, a smirk pulling up one corner of his mouth.
Between them there are not words, but rather the images of every moment and quiet word and white hot failure. Between them there is an oath. They are still for a long period of time, Alphonse looking over the frame of his brother. It is out of habit that he checks Edward for signs of injury, the eldest Elric's body has taken so much abuse over the course of their mutual penance.
…
Alphonse wonders what his brother gave. The laws of alchemy have been their binding code, their only truth and they both understand explicitly that to obtain something of equal value must be lost. He wonders, for a panicked second that maybe Edward has not yet made the trade. Maybe this moment is their final goodbye.
He hates himself for that thought.
…
Edward extends a hand and the beaming smile that flickers across the eldest Elric's face is godlike. It vanishes, fades into something more like awestruck humility and thankful grace. Alphonse almost misses the words that cement a promise made a lifetime ago. There is a slight reverence when his older brother tells him he has come for him.
They clasp hands, bone and flesh and shared blood once more.
…
It is less than an hour later, their shared sense of time distorted but kept tethered down by the pocket watch that weighs heavy in Edward's jacket pocket. Alphonse is wrapped in the garment, which has been belted so as not to gape open. The sleeves are a bit too long and the jacket feels like a second skin and smells of dust, mechanic's oil and the sharpened tang of alchemical reactions. Alphonse can smell soap too, the neat bleach clean of military issued soap and wonders if it is from the officers around them or his brother's jacket.
Edward is keeping a warm palm pressed over Alphonse's jutting hipbone, cutting a path across the ravaged battle ground to Mustang. He is wrapped up in the details of the military, giving orders and seeing off allies and tending to the logistics of moving the wounded to the nearest medical facilities. Hawkeye is on his hip, still lethally efficient and standing guard, one hand at her gun.
She sees them coming, murmuring their arrival in Mustang's ear before Edward is close enough to announce his own presence. The world shrinks down to the four of them and for a minute the youngest Elric can see the similarity between his brother and Mustang. Just as he sees the similarities between himself and Hawkeye.
Mustang is quiet for a moment, blank stare fixed on Edward Elric. Alphonse feels his brother's gaze shift to the ground for a moment. Edward moves, a hand gently plunging into the pocket of the jacket Alphonse wears, hand grasping the metal of a watch.
Hawkeye is silent as the eldest Elric places the watch in Mustang's outstretched hand. It is no longer the new polished metal it was when first given to the eldest Elric. This watch is battered, tarnished and in some places, coated with a fine layer of ash.
Alphonse looks from Edward to Mustang, first with confusion and then with understanding. Hawkeye bites her lip hard for a moment, worrying it between her teeth as Mustang puts a hand on Edward's shoulder.
The oldest Elric brother murmurs 'bastard' at this gesture, just loud enough that Mustang can hear him. There is a sense of finality in the air around them and Roy Mustang smirks as he leans a few inches closer to the younger blonde.
"So it ends."
The reverence and balanced calm in Mustang's voice is undeniable.
Edward laughs a little too bitterly and turns away, his hand falling back around Alphonse as he makes to leave Hawkeye and Mustang to their duties.
…
It is on the train home that Alphonse Elric finally brings himself to speak the words aloud.
"You gave up alchemy."
The eldest brother nods.
"That was your price?"
Silence comes between them, the train rumbles and bounces a little along the tracks.
Another nod.
There is a look of complete confusion on the younger Elric's face. Alchemy had become their life, the set of rules they followed and the religion they practiced, the sky they sought to tear down and the ground they stood upon. It was their everything.
Alphonse cannot imagine any higher price for his brother to pay.
Gold eyes are boring into the compartment's window. New flesh hand resting on the seat cushion.
"I told you I would get your body back."
The eldest brother does not say what it would have cost him to break that oath.
…
Author note: My first Full Metal Alchemist piece. This was a really hard thing to write, getting into the mindsets of both the brothers was no easy thing to do. Nor was picking out a favorite page in the ending manga chapters to center this work around.