So I wrote this like four years ago and never posted it for some reason… Maybe I wasn't happy with it, but now I don't even care, haha. Please enjoy.
The title is from T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men." For some reason, I like giving my FMA stories really obscure titles. I don't even know.
Supplication of a Dead Man's Hand
The last thing Ed can think before the darkness can drag him down is that it worked. It finally worked and now Al has his body back and they can be happy together again…
When Ed wakes, he does not know where he is or what has happened or how long he has been asleep—though, judging by the stiffness in his body, it must have been a very long time indeed.
He rises slowly off the hard bed and the stiffness in his limbs eases away. His head feels lighter than he deems it should feel, though that is all right, because his memory is coming back to him now, and he feels that he should be happy to have a head at all. Performing human transmutation without a witness in case things went wrong had perhaps not been his best idea, but Mustang had been late and he had been eager to put his perfect theory into practice.
And it had been worth it, too. Everything had gone just the way he had planned. Al's soul had found his body on the other side of the gate and reattached himself to it. Then Ed had pulled the newly completed Al back through the gate into this side. He remembers the sight of Al excitedly examining his new old limbs, before the darkness rose up to claim him. That at least had not been part of his plans, but he should have known it could happen. Human transmutation is a complex practice, after all, and takes a lot out of a person.
Slowly, he rises on unsteady feet to go find his little brother. He imagines that Al must be running around outside, enjoying the sensations on his reclaimed body of everything he had been missing.
Ed is very surprised, then, when he passes one of the bedroom doors and glimpses an emaciated form lying on the bed inside. Well, he supposes he should have expected this, too. Al's body is in awful shape from the years of neglect inside the gate. He silently slips through the crack in the door and eases toward Al's side. He is even more surprised to find dried and new tears on Al's sleeping face, and cannot come up with a reason to account for this.
"Al?" he asks worriedly, and Al's new face crinkles in his sleep. So expressive now. Ed gently touches a hand to Al's thin shoulder, but he only whimpers and does not awake.
"Brother…"
Ed wants to wake him and ask him what is wrong, but he grudgingly decides that perhaps rest is the best thing for Al, now. So he slips back out of the room and goes to see if somebody else is in the house. Surely Mustang would be here. He would not have left the brothers alone after he found them—if, of course, the lazy colonel had ever shown up in the first place.
He peeks around the corner into the kitchen of what he now realizes must be Mustang's house. The colonel, sure enough, is there in the kitchen, with his back to Ed, as he talks softly into the phone. Ed cannot hear what he is saying, until the man sighs heavily.
"Alright, Mrs. Pinako. I'll see you soon."
Granny Pinako? Ed is confused for a moment before he realizes that Mustang must have taken the liberty to call their old guardian and friend to inform her of their victory in getting Al's body back. Ed is only a bit miffed—after their long journey, he had been looking forward to telling everybody himself. But he supposes he can't be too angry at Mustang for getting overly excited.
Before Ed can ask him if Pinako and Winry are coming, Mustang slams the phone back into its cradle and then sits heavily at the table with a hand over his eyes.
"Mustang?" No reply. "Colonel? You all right?" But Mustang only mutters something that Ed cannot hear. It does not sound very happy. Ed rolls his eyes at the dramatics and decides that he will go back to his brother. The boy looks as emaciated as he did when Ed first saw him inside the gate, but other than that (and the tears on his face) Ed decides that he looks perfectly healthy. A few home cooked meals, and soon Al will be back to the state he was in before their first failed transmutation so many years ago.
He watches his brother all night, never getting tired, wondering at the source of the continuous tears.
When morning comes, a tired-looking Mustang enters the room and gently shakes Al's shoulder. Alphonse opens his eyes at the touch, as if he had not been sleeping at all, and dries his eyes on the backs of his hands. "Is it today?" he asks, and his new voice is hoarse from disuse. He doesn't look at Ed.
"It is. Pinako and Winry will be here soon."
Al drags himself from bed and follows Mustang into the kitchen, Ed tagging along behind. Mustang sets a bowl of oatmeal in front of Al, but he does not eat. Ed himself is not hungry, and apparently neither is Al.
"You should eat," he tells his little brother, but Alphonse only grunts and pushes the bowl away. Mustang gives a disapproving look, but does not press the matter.
After "breakfast," Mustang puts on his dress uniform, and Al puts on a suit too big for his bony frame, and they sit silently in the kitchen. Ed sits with them for a long while, unwilling to break the silence.
Finally, there is a sharp rap at the door and Mustang answers it. Winry barges in before Pinako, and Ed jumps to his feet. "Winry! Look!" He points to Al unnecessarily, because Winry has already seen, and she rushes right past Ed to throw her arms around Al. Ed is happy to realize that the next time she cried has indeed been out of joy, though the silly girl's happy tears look much the same as her sad ones.
"Sorry we're late," Pinako is telling Mustang. "Our train was delayed."
"That's all right. You're still in time. Shall we go now?"
They all pile into Mustang's car (which is much more spacious now that Al's body is not four times the size it should be) and drive in tense, unbroken silence. Winry still has an arm around Al and refuses to let go. Al does not seem to mind, Ed notes with a sly grin.
"We're here," Mustang announces and Ed notices their destination, his amusement fading.
"A cemetery? Why?" he asks in bewilderment, but nobody else says anything, and so he follows them without further question. He sees a small gathering of dark-clothed people and notices that their own small party is heading to join them. "A funeral? Who is it for?"
Al's eyes are getting watery again, and Winry's tears have not yet stopped. They arrive at the open grave and the adults give the children pitying looks as the service begins.
Ed does not know why the tombstone at the head of the hole has his name on it, and nobody will answer him when he asks.