Title: Where You Left Off
Rating: G – PG
Characters/Pairings: Alphonse, with bits of other characters
Genre: Angst-ish, General.
Warnings: Ahh… I suppose end of the (anime) series spoilers? Not really, though, because it's just… Ahh… Nevermind. You decide if you want to read it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Full Metal Alchemist.
Summary: "It was the subtle changes that bothered him the most"
Notes: Well, I was inspired one day, randomly. I have a whole mess of other ideas. I might consider writing a prequel and a sequel, if I ever get enough ideas to formulate something longer than three sentences. I thought it might be cool to deviate from my usual straightforward writing and do the parentheses thing.
Alphonse had decided to go back to his old Teacher's home. It didn't seem that long ago when he'd last been there, training with his brother, learning real alchemy for the first time… But when he stepped off the train to Dublith, he knew that it had been much longer (more than four years, even). It gave him a sort of empty feeling inside, the same way seeing Winry and the familiar people of Risenpool and the charred remains of their old home did (Winry said she didn't really know why they'd burned it down).
It was the subtle changes that bothered him the most. Though seeing Winry's sixteen-year-old face was startling, he didn't find it nearly as disturbing as the little things (things like his brother's constant companionship suddenly missing). It made him wonder if they'd always been there and he'd never noticed, or if they'd just appeared recently. It made him scared to not remember, and it made him terrified that what few memories he had were becoming muddled (like the faces of his old friends from school).
It seemed that everything about Dublith was different. The extra lines in Izumi's face that weren't there before. The softer and less powerful chop of Sig's butcher knife. The large cracks in the ground. The old, run-down bar called with a broken sign that barely read "Th- Dev-l'- -es-" (Izumi would later tell him the half-story of it and why it was sectioned off in old police tape that had been worn down, though he never got to hear about Greed or Roa or Dorochet or Martel, who were forgotten).
Even the sky seemed paler. When it came to Izumi's old home… Well, that was different, too (like when Mother had decided to change the curtains). The door had been repainted, hardly surprising, since it'd begun peeling a few months ago, but Alphonse didn't remember that anymore, so the bright fresh coat was startling. Especially in contrast to the much more worn frame. There was a window that looked like it'd been replaced recently (he wondered if they had broken it). The floor creaked in places he didn't remember it creaking (he and Ed had memorized all the places so they could sneak around silently after bedtime).
It was a little nostalgic to stay in their old room. Alphonse felt the utter emptiness of the bed across from him (but he'd taken to sleeping on the opposite side he usually did, so he wouldn't have to see). He'd tried sleeping in Ed's bed once, to see if some sort of trace of his brother, perhaps his smell, was left. Of course there wasn't (Izumi was too good a house wife to let dirty sheets lie around). It smelled fresh of soap and cotton.
He didn't remember the exact night he'd started, but he remembered it raining (it had been raining so hard, just like the night they'd first met their Teacher. Was it raining in Risenpool?). He'd crept downstairs as quietly as he could (he knew Teacher was awake, he could hear her, she'd been coughing harder than usual). He'd grabbed some pillows off the couch and crept as silently as he could back to his (their) room. Then he'd carefully arranged them so they looked like the lumpy body of Edward Elric.
He'd done it every night since (there'd been no talk of it the next day, though he knew they'd noted the missing couch pillows. Izumi casually mentioned at a later date that there were spare pillows in the linen closet). Sometimes in that halfway place between awake and asleep, he'd see the blankets rising and falling with his brother's breath and he'd whisper to the empty room, "Goodnight, brother." Sometimes it answered back.
Goodnight, Al.