Überkompensation—"Overcompensation"
Title: "Überkompensation—Overcompensation"
Genre: Gen/Angst/Kinda-romancey
Rating: PG-13 for content.
Warnings: Past self-mutilation…in a sense.
Prompt: Prompt 9: Cleaning
Pairing: Edward Elric x Alfons Heiderich
Words: 740
Evil may only be able to be cleansed through fire, but suffering can only be healed with love.
Jennifer Pastor
Alfons would always take too long in the shower; soap on skin and scrubbing hard, scrubbing to where white skin would turn red under the bathroom light. It was a ritual—something to make him feel better as the pain burned his chest and he could feel the blood start to choke up and out of his mouth, only to be washed away by the water swirling at his feet and into the drain.
Was it soothing?
No. Not at all. It hurt, and it burned him—scorched him.
Did he enjoy it?
…No.
Why?
…He didn't know.
Tonight's shower was no different—Alfons, desperate, scrabbled at his skin, grabbing the washcloth and nearly attacked it; he winced at the feeling of the burn, the sting, against the hot water coming down from the jets, nearly covering him whole, but he didn't stop.
He could hear Winry and Alphonse talking faintly nearby outside the door; it was quiet, and it was hard for him to hear exact words, but it wasn't exactly like he was listening. The language of this world was strange, akin to yet completely different from the German that he knew. It was closest to English, and that in itself was Germanic, but there was another strange sound to Edward's tongue, something that Alfons himself couldn't understand, even through the lessons he received and his own growing understanding of the language.
Like everything else in this world, it was inconceivable.
Like the soap here; back home it was a small bar, thick and hard and impossible to maneuver even when wet…but…this soap was a much larger bar, and it seemed as if it had a strange grip on it, allowing him to hold onto it easier with his large hands. Or the milk, which was sweeter and more like sugar than milk…Edward hated sweet things, so it was no surprise that he hated the stuff…but…
Alfons sighed, and his scrubbing slowed, down to a light lather.
He wasn't bleeding.
He wasn't coughing.
He didn't have a pain to overcompensate for the burns on his skin from the cloth, or the clawmarks that he would give himself from overzealous cleaning. One said that if one hurt themselves in another spot while already being in pain, the new pain would overshadow the old pain, making the subject forget the old in place of the new. Would forget the chest pain, forget the coughing…in place of burning.
Hot, hot burning…
But that wasn't necessary now.
He didn't even have a pain that he needed to overcompensate. No chest pain that he needed to forget, no blood he needed to try to erase from his mind—
Right about now he might have thought spoke too soon as the blood came up, coming out of his mouth and down onto the floor of the shower stall, leaving Alfons on his knees as he kept coughing and coughing and coughing, and Edward would keep banging and banging on the door in worry until he all but broke it down, lifting Alfons roughly by the shoulders and carrying him out, putting him down in bed and sitting by his side until he fell asleep, growling at him if he ever tried to make an attempt at conversation.
He waited for it…
Waited for it…
Closed his eyes tight until they hurt, clenching his fists, not caring if he broke the soap bar under his fingers (Edward could repair it later with Alchemy if he broke it—he wasn't too worried about that)…
…Nothing happened.
He opened them up…slowly…staring in front of him.
Moldy green tile turned to clear blue, and a rusty showerhead changed to a clean silvery one, shining in the light that shone above him and illuminated the entire bathroom. The ugly yellow shower curtain now was blue, with an orange kitten print dancing across it…
And there was a hand on his shoulder, in place of the lonely gust of air that would have embraced him from behind, sucking him dry and leaving him cold and shivering.
Warm.
Soothing.
Real.
Alive.
Alfons smiled to himself at that moment, running a hand through soaked wheat locks and turned, slowly, behind him.
"Hey," the voice whispered, and the hand clamped down a bit. "You okay?"
"Yeah, Edward..." Alfons whispered back, "I am now."
