Summary: What if Alphonse had not adapted to life in the armor so quickly?
AN: Well, here is a one shot. It's sad, sorry! I needed to test how this uploading and stuff worked, and I got this plot bunny while reading FMA tragedies, so... Here we are. It's almost midnight where I am, please forgive any poor writing! I actually didn't see this exact type of story, which is weird. Ed dies in like every other way... Oops spoiled it. My first fanfic on here and I kill Ed. He's gonna be mad. See for yourself! :)
Everything was dark. Had there been light, an observer would have seen a horrific setup.
Blood spattered the floor in seemingly random swirls, and the twisted, tortured body of some failed creature lay in the center of a huge transmutation circle. Its ribs poked out, its skin was thin and torn, and one would be able to see its still, dried-out heart.
That was not it.
A large, intimidating suit of armor lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. Some unseen, un-sensable force was holding the pieces together in a human shape.
Suddenly two two pinpoints of light flared into being. The armor had gained eyes. Two pink-rimmed orbs that glowed white hot and betrayed no emotion floated eerily in place, sputtering at odd moments.
"Huh?" a childish voice breathed. The armor turned its head, but not in reaction to the voice. The armor was the voice.
"B-brother?" One of the metal-and-leather hands reached out, twitching and trembling, unable to fully be controlled by the soul that now inhabited it. Those burning soul-fire eyes took in the blood on the floor; one stain led off into a darkened corner, like skid marks from an automobile accident.
"Brother what happened?" the boy confined to the metal suit cried piteously. He tried to force his weak steel arms and legs to move him in that direction, and slowly, dragging himself with unearthly metal scraping clangs, he crawled in the proper direction.
How had he not heard the gasping breaths first? They seemed so loud now! How had he missed them before?
"Ed? Brother? Brother!"
By the sight of his own glowing eyes, he finally found his brother. Propped up in the corner, Edward Elric had seen better days. His left hand was weakly clamped over his right shoulder in the spot where an arm should have been. Instead, hot blood was flowing and running down his side and good arm. His left leg below mid thigh was gone too, like it had been cleanly sliced by the sharpest knife in the world. The boy in the armor, Al, could see the end of his brother's bone and all his sliced muscles and nerves... And so much blood. It was in his brother's long golden hair, on his face, and coating his hand and foot.
In an instant Al recalled the black hands and the white Gate, ripping him into oblivion as he begged for his brother to save him. Apparently Ed had succeeded, but at a terrible price.
"Ed..."
"Al?" A tiny, scared voice replied to him. Al's metaphorical heart leapt and he pulled himself the last few feet forward and collapsed against a wall next to his older brother.
"Al I'm sorry..." Ed choked out, face twisted up in pain. He didn't want to admit to the tears falling down his face. "I had to bind your soul to the armor, or else you would have died... Al I'm so s-sorry..." He stuttered on his last word and his breath came faster.
"It's okay Ed, everyone will be okay." Al could see he needed to stop his brother's blood from splashing out onto the ground or he would die... Ed had tied a rough tourniquet around the stump of his leg but he must have been in a hurry because it wasn't tight enough... Al surmised his brother had lost the leg first. How else would he have been able to tie even a poor knot?
His shoulder was bleeding freely. Even if Ed had had two good hands, there was nothing left to tie a tourniquet around. Ed's feeble had was getting weaker as he lost more blood, and so the pressure on his shoulder lessened and even more of the child's blood was spilled.
Al had to break the cycle. He did not want to touch his brother's wounds. Aside from the paint would cause Ed, it felt so wrong for him to be touching the inside of where his brother's arm and muscles and blood should be. But he had to anyways or else his brother would be dead very soon.
Al's new body wouldn't cooperate. As he cupped his metal hand, and, much to his brother's displeasure, pressed it to the other's bloody shoulder, his hand kept trembling and he could barely apply more pressure than Ed had been doing in the first place. It was the same story when he tried to staunch the bleeding from his leg.
"Ed I'm sorry I'm sorry please stop I'm trying!" It all came out in a rush as Ed squirmed and whimpered in pain. He didn't have the blood left in him to scream.
"Make it stop, brother," whispered Ed, agonized golden eyes looking up at Al's luminous ones. The boy had fallen onto his back in front of Alphonse, and he clutched at the armor's metal fingers, the ones that lay over the hole in his shoulder. He could feel blood leaking through them, just like he had when, in utter desperation, he had touched two fingers to the wound on his leg, feeling the blood pulse out with his elevated heart rate, to draw the blood seal in the armor.
But now even he felt that pulsing slowing. Al couldn't, how could he? He was metal now.
"Al I... I don't wanna die," mumbled Ed, trying to force himself to stay awake.
"You're not dying Ed! No, you're not," Al repeated, more to himself than to Ed.
"Al don't let me go." The whisper had turned to terrified pleading. "If you let go I'll be alone! I've gotta make up for what I did here, for what I did to you and Mom. I can't die now, I'll end up paying for my sins for eternity! I'll never see Mom or anyone! I'll be alone please help I need to redeem myself oh Al don't let go!"
It was in this precise moment that Alphonse Elric discovered that armor bodies cannot cry. He knew. Somehow he knew his brother was dying. Maybe he saw the blood pulse slower, maybe he could sense it. But he couldn't do anything.
So he clumsily drew he older brother into his lap and whispered, "I'm sure that won't happen, Brother."
"Don't... Let... M-me..."
Ed was still. His eyes were still open and an intense, pleading look was still etched onto his face.
Maybe armor couldn't cry, but Al could surely make the noises of sorrow.
"Brother!" he shrieked, even if he had known his brother was dying. As the minutes dragged on, his soul stabilized and he could move better and better. Hugging his brother to his chest, he clutched him close.
"Thank you for giving up your arm for me. I won't let you go. I promise. My big brother."
And that, hours later, was how the two of them, one alive, one dead, were found.
AN: Please R&R! Criticism welcome but no flaming, that's not very nice (even if killing Ed wasn't nice of me either.)