Sometimes, Alphonse thinks. Well, perhaps that's phrasing things wrong, he is still human after all. (Even if he is no longer of flesh and blood he's human he's human he's human-)
No, he thinks about, well, who he is. Alphonse Elric. A soul bonded to a suit of armour. (Human human human)
Supposedly, he's not anyone important. Not necessarily. Not in the way that matters, not like Ed. He won't change the world. Ed will. (Even if he's too short he'll grab life by its collar and drag it down to meet him eye to eye.)
He knows this as an absolute fact. Not in the way that a parent would look at their child and have that as a fond thought, but as fact. Cold, hard, fact. Unchangeable, immovable fact.
A single human soul is priceless. Their mothers soul took so much out of them, and even then it wasn't truly their mother. (even if Al never really saw it because Ed looked so small in a growing pool of blood)
A single human soul is priceless, this Ed had preached. Al would preach it too, but he knew otherwise.
Because a single human soul only cost an arm.
Alphonse Elric was only equal to the arm of Edward Elric.
Everything that made Alphonse Alphonse was next to nothing compared to Edward. (His likes, his dislikes, his fears and personality and experience— nothing.)
It's the kind of thought that would get Ed to yell at him, Winry to hit him with her wrench, Mustang to look at him with serious sincerity in his eyes.
It's the kind of thought that won't leave.
(It fuels his thoughts when he thinks he might only be a fabrication of Eds mind and he hates that he hates that so much)
(He's real he's real he's real)
(Human human human)
(Human)
A single human soul is nothing to Edward Elric, but it's everything at the same time.
The years of sleepless nights are tiring.