Title: Embodied
Rating: M
Warnings: Angst, mutilation, hints of NCS.
Summary: Ed and Al struggle to cope with life after Al's body is restored, and Ed's body pays the price.
Author's Notes: This is the PARTIAL version of the fic 'Embodied.' The full version can be found at my profile under scimitarsmile dot com.
It's morning, and mornings start as they always do now: with Alphonse taking his brother out into the garden.
They walk slowly, Al on Ed's right side, with one hand under Edward's elbow and the other on his shoulder above the automail port. The one hand to guide and steer him, although Ed steps with more confidence now; walking this route every day for weeks, he's learning it for himself. The other hand to support him, if some obstacle catches Edward's feet and he stumbles. Not that it matters too much, if he stubs his toes on anything; he can't feel them anyway.
Watching them, Winry wishes that he could. She's always been proud of her skills as an automail engineer; she'd always been convinced, on some level, that automail was even better than the real thing. It doesn't tire, it can't feel pain, not even if it's damaged. Automail is strong and solid, not like fragile flesh; what could be better?
Now, watching them, Winry has never felt more inadequate. No matter how hard she works, no matter how much she invests in the latest automail techniques and the best materials, she can't give Ed what he needs. What he lost, what he gave up to get Al back his human body; what Al was fighting to get back for him still.
At the door, Al signals the change of direction with a squeeze on his brother's shoulder, and a tug to his arm. Obediently, Ed turns, and a few steps bring them outside. He tilts his face upwards as the sunlight washes over him, like always, and smiles.
Al doesn't smile in return; his brother can't see it. He doesn't laugh in shared delight; his brother can't hear it. He just squeezes Ed's shoulder, again, and leads him over to the chairs and tables set up in a sunny corner of the garden.
A cool, gentle breeze steals into the house, bringing with it the scents from the garden. The three of them -- Pinako, Winry, and Al -- work in the garden now in any moment of their spare time, and the results are beginning to show. The sun and the shade, the breezes cool under the trees, the smells of the flowers and plants; these are all things they can give to Edward.
Edward settles now onto the bench by the table, one hand groping for the blanket that has been placed there for him. Finding an edge, he tugs on the blanket until it wraps around his legs, insulating the metal from the cooler air of the garden, and up over his lap. His hand then pats carefully across the surface of the table, searching for the pen and paper that are always laid out there for him; his fingertips tap the pen and stop, and he picks it up, holding the implement carefully in his metal fingers.
He can still write, with his automail hand; the fingers have enough fine motor control for that. Not as well as he could have with a flesh hand, perhaps, but well enough. What makes it hard is that he cannot see the paper he writes on, nor the words he wrote, to judge their accuracy. Winry always has trouble deciphering the notes Edward writes, unless he is painstakingly careful with the crafting and placing of each letter. The only one who can read his writing with any speed and ease is Alphonse.
Al now pulls up the lawn chair behind his brother on the bench, slightly to one side, so that he can watch the paper over Ed's shoulder. He takes Edward's sleep-mussed braid of hair and pushes it to the side, letting it fall forward over his shoulder, then opens the buttons of the shirt that lead down Edward's back. The sides of the shirt fall softly forward, exposing Edward's long, lean, scarred back to the air, and Ed turns his head a little, as if to see what his brother is doing. Alphonse reaches into his pocket for his stylus -- no ink or lead in this, just a smoothly rounded nub -- and begins to write the words on his brother's back.
Winry lets the curtains fall, and turns away from the window. She always feels as though she's intruding on something private, these strange conversations between the brothers. It isn't like she's eavesdropping on them; she couldn't have understood what they were saying even if she tried. And she has tried -- sometimes urgently -- to duplicate Alphonse's way of talking, just to let Edward know that she was there, that he wasn't alone. It's usually futile, and always frustrating.
She could try to write on Edward's back as Alphonse did, but he has trouble understanding her, and the forced intimacy makes both of them unhappy and nervous. She tries to read his notes, or listen to him when he speaks, but she can never get more than one word out of three, and explaining just which parts she needs repeated is prohibitively frustrating for both of them. Only Alphonse can manage anything beyond the most basic of communications, beyond yes and no and I don't understand and What do you need? Tell us, Edward. How can we help you?
She can't help him.
Taking a deep breath, Winry rubs the heel of her palm against her forehead, and tries to get her brain working properly, out of the too-often rehearsed complaints. There are still things she can, and will do! Even if it's only something as simple as making breakfast, she can do that.
Winry's footsteps fade back into the house, leaving the tray with the steam gently rising into the air. Edward's head cocks to the side, a slight frown on his face, and Al leans over his shoulder to see what his brother wants to say.
Is Winry ok? Ed writes. She didn't say hi.
She's just tired, Al writes back. She stayed up all night again. Again? That's three nights in a row. She'll get sick if she keeps this up. She gets plenty of sleep,
Ed nods, and Al shifts around to pull the tray closer to both of them. Ed's metal hand moves carefully over the contents of the tray, closing around an orange. Picking it up and bringing it to his face, he lowers his head to smell it carefully, then brushes his lips over the smooth peel. This is the only way he can identify things now, Alphonse thinks; through scent, and a touch on his face, since his automail arm isn't sensitive enough to tell him things through his hands.
He rests one hand on Ed's shoulder as the two of them make their way through breakfast; Ed can feed himself with only a minimum of help, as long as the tray is arranged the same way every morning. He watches his brother's face as he eats, the changes of expression that come over him as he tastes a food he particularly likes, or doesn't care for, and tells himself again that this wasn't so bad.
Touch, scent, taste... a body of flesh and bone, heartbeat, breath. All of these things he had missed, so desperately missed, in the years he'd spent as an armor. At times he'd thought that these things were what made you truly human, the memories of your skin and your own body and what you did with it. He'd wanted them back, with all his heart and soul, and he and his brother had fought and struggled and searched for years for a way to get them back.
It was Edward who'd managed it in the end, of course. Alphonse had been useless to do anything, unable to help him or stop him, even assuming he'd been brave enough to try. Edward gave him his body back, his touch and taste and scent and breath, and the sacrifice he'd made in exchange... everything else, Alphonse thinks bitterly. No, not everything. But too much. Too much to give up for his sake. Whatever it is in the Gate that decides the price for human lives, Al thinks, they put far too high a value on his.
It could be worse, Al reminds himself again, sharply pulling his thoughts away from the furious, helpless anger against the world, against the Gate. What they have now, even if it isn't perfect, is better. Anything is better than that terrible night, the first night after he'd gotten his body back, woken up weak and dizzy in Pinako's bed to the sound of his brother in the next room screaming.
Edward's left arm, his right leg -- everything that had been left to him after the first disaster, taken away. What had remained of his left leg was eaten up to the thigh -- the automail port had disappeared along with everything else. His sight, his hearing, both of those gone too, and there was no way for him to even know that they were there, no way to let him know that he was safe now, that he had to calm down or he would start the bleeding again, that he was with friends and not horrors.
He'd screamed, unable to even hear his own raw voice, thrashing with terror at any touch of hands on him until Al, dizzy and shaking and desperate, crawled onto the bloodstained sheets with him and wrapped both arms tightly around his chest, burying his face in his brother's neck. Somehow that was enough to get through to Ed; Al's body pressed against him, his hair tickling Edward's jaw, his lips pressing whispered words of reassurance against his skin. Ed had spoken almost incoherently, voice too loud and too scraped and slurred for comprehension, but Al knew what his brother needed, what he wanted to know, and had fed the answers into his skin until Ed finally stopped shaking, and fell into an exhausted sleep.
Ed can stand, now, and walk on two metal legs. At least the port in his right shoulder wasn't taken away, so it was only a matter of making him a new arm, even if he can feel very little through it. He can hold a pen, write down what he can't trust his voice to say, and he can talk with Al and laugh sometimes and enjoy simple things, like the warmth of the sun and the smell of the garden. He can touch, and he does -- he's never fully happy unless some part of him is in contact with Al, holding onto him like his lifeline to the world, or his shield from it.
Sometimes Al is afraid -- afraid that something else happened to his brother in the gate, something terrible even aside from the losses he suffered, but he's never been sure because there was so much blood, so very much blood, and Ed never speaks of what had happened to him there. Never, no matter how many times Al asks him.
Breakfast is finished, he realizes with a start, and Ed is tapping his pen on the table to get his attention. He looks at what his brother has written.
You were up pretty late last night too.
Al blushes, remembering just why that was, and Ed must have done that on purpose, because he grins as he taps the next sentence he'd written. Did you finish reading the Diwali? Was there anything good?
"Oh," Al says aloud. "Yeah, there was." Then he remembers himself, and picks up the stylus to inscribe the message on his brother's skin. I did, and I'm excited about some of the things he said about regrowing tissue in mice. I think we might really be on to something there.
Al hesitates, resting the stylus lightly against Ed's spine for a moment, and then continues. There are some things in his references that I think I need to check out, though, so I have to go back to Central sometime soon. He doesn't like to write, or even think about leaving his brother, but there's no helping it; Ed won't get better if Al just hides here.
Ed smiles, giving a rusty chuckle, and then bends forward to write something on his pad. Al looks over to read it.
Sick of taking care of me already?
Now that's just not funny. Al scowls, and punches his brother in the ribs. Ed yelps, reaching to grab his injured side, and Al digs the point of the stylus hard enough into Ed's back that he knows the words must sting.
I WILL NEVER get sick of taking care of you. Don't say that, idiot.
Ed shrugs irritably, pushing Alphonse's hands away. He half-turns on the bench, and gropes with his automail arm until he can put it around Alphonse's shoulders, pulling him forward. "I was joking," he says aloud, words only a little bit garbled.
Al shuts his eyes tight, imagining for a moment that he can see like his brother does, and writes on Ed's skin without looking. You never gave up on me. I won't ever give up on you. I'll get back what you lost, I swear.
Ed smiles, rubbing his cheek against Alphonse's hair, and hugs him tight. "I know," he said.
Do you know? Alphonse wonders. Do you really believe what I say? Do you really understand that there is nothing in my universe, nothing, that is more important than you? Do you really think that I would leave you to face this alone?
He doesn't ask, though. And he doesn't let go.