A/N: Standard stuff here. We obviously don't own FMA, or we'd be over the moon happy and probably not writing fanfiction. Oh, and there's be another season of anime and a lot less Noah in the movie. And Hughes would be alive. But we don't own the show. Just this story.
"Those Elric brothers….they only live for each other." Scar
"Brother?"
Edward rolled over in his sleep, pushing Al's quiet voice out of his head. He knew that the younger boy didn't have to sleep, that sleep had eluded Al for almost four years, but he needed rest. Impatiently, he mumbled, "What, Al?"
"Brother!"
"Wha ---woah! Al, be careful! What's going on?" Ed found himself suddenly in Al's arms and they were running. Still disoriented from the sudden awakening, Ed could only get vague pictures of what was going on.
The inn was on fire. People ran from the growing inferno, which stood between the brothers and the door. Burning beams crashed down, so close Ed could smell the hair burning on his arms. Through the haze in his mind, he heard Al's quiet voice laced with fear. "Brother, get in my armor!"
"No, I can put this out." Ed struggled to get out of Al's grip, instead finding himself being pushed irresistibly inside Al's body.
God, the metal was hot. "Al, I'll transmute you if you don't let me out!" The empty threat meant nothing to Alphonse, who was hastily drawing a circle in the ash, cringing every time a piece of burning debris landed too near. Of course, his body would stand the heat, as long as it didn't start warping the metal, but Ed couldn't stay there for long.
A path in the fire opened and Al hurried through it, his hands already taking the metal head off its perch, digging inside the empty shell for Ed. "Sorry brother!" Alphonse lamented, gently placing a none-too-happy Edward on the ground. The boy quickly checked the older one for burns before turning back to the inn. "There's someone in there!"
"Well, let's go!" Ed stood up, about to rush back into the building when a hacking cough he had been suppressing came out. Rolling his eyes, he said, "Fine. From outside then." Al had already drawn the circle on the ground by the time Ed brought his hands together.
A flash of light, then…nothing. The fire was gone.
Edward worried about Al sometimes.
Usually it was stupid stuff, stuff he didn't even have to worry about anymore, like whether his brother was hungry or cold or tired. Sometimes he forgot that Al was no longer small and soft and huggable. Sometimes he forgot that Al weighed more than him, was taller, quicker, stronger. At those times, Al was just a baby that Edward had to protect, just his little brother, his perfect, beautiful, doting brother.
He knew that the military, Teacher, Winry…heck, everyone they'd met, had pegged him as the over-protective big brother he was.
They didn't know the half of it.
There were twenty times in Ed's life that his heart had stopped beating. Twenty times that, watching his brother, he thought for a moment that Alphonse would die. For a second, his heart would literally die in his chest and he would wonder, vaguely, how he could go one without his brother.
When Ed was about ten, he realized that he wouldn't be able to live without Al. His brother was his whole world. He knew that death for one of them meant death for the other. And he wouldn't have it any other way.
Just a little teaser chapter, but it would be wicked awesome if you reviewed anyway.