I don't know where this came from. I was standing there in my room, and suddenly the story just built itself in my mind. (it actually managed to go through a few permutations, very quickly. I've never had a story put itself together so quickly.) Of course, that might mean this is a piece of junk and should be scrapped; I don't know, I couldn't get ahold of my beta.
So I am looking for constructive feedback on this one- for good or bad.
Warning: No anime spoilers, but it's loosely based on the manga, and as such has major references to the Doors. If that doesn't mean anything to you, you might want to watch out.
Night at the Pound
It was a dead night. The air was hot and heavy, hugged the ground possessively, doing its best to stifle the lone figure plodding up the path.
His steps were labored, exhaustion fairly radiating from him as he made his way up the hill. His knock was forestalled by the door being flung open, a blond woman framed by the light.
"Al...?" Hope died in her voice just as quickly as it had arisen.
No answer was necessary; the fact that he was still alone said enough, but Al shook his head anyway.
He looked away from the pain in her eyes as he entered the house.
"Nobody knows," Al said dully. "It's the same thing everywhere. 'He was here last month', 'I think he may have passed through'," his fists clenched, "the same shit."
Winry answered his unspoken question. "He hasn't called." A pause, then as an afterthought- "Are you hungry?"
"No, I had something earlier." Distracted, he paced around the living room restlessly, aware of her eyes on him, her accusing eyes, then finally collapsed onto a sofa.
"Al," she said, in the determined voice he had become familiar with over the last two months, "tell me what happened."
A thousand ways he had found to push her off, already, but he was running out of ideas. His self-pity, the attempt to hide his sheer stupidity, was wearing thin; already he could feel it cracking under the pressure of the 'she deserves to know'.
She came closer to him, trying to keep her voice gentle. "Maybe if I know what-"
"You'll what?" Al snapped at her furiously. "You think you can change it? You think it'll make him come back?" She was angry at him now, and it hurt, because he knew he deserved it.
A whimper tore out of him, and he buried his face in his hands. "Oh God, it was just a stupid fight. I didn't know he would do...this..."
Now that he had started, he knew he had to finish; thankfully, Winry didn't press. She just stood there quietly, contriving to make her presence somehow comforting.
"It was...ugh. The usual stuff. He was being, well himself, you know? He always thought I couldn't get along without him...I couldn't live with him like that. We've got different lives, I told him. The 'older brother' shtick was getting old...he, pissed me off. I just wanted some time alone, to think things through." Al looked up at her pleadingly, begging for understanding. Everybody's yelled at someone they love, at least once. It wasn't fair that it should end like this.
"I just told him to...get out of my hair for a while."
The words hung in the air, the understatement obvious.
Winry's silence dragged the words out of him better than any remark of hers could have. It hurt, feeling so guilty. He wondered if his brother had felt like this over him, and that just made him feel worse.
"...It wasn't in quite such nice words as that," he finally whispered.
Winry sighed, but didn't look surprised. "I figured it was something like that." Her voice was chilly, though not icy, which was comforting. "You know what I think happened to him...?"
Al jerked his head up, staring in shock. She thought she knew? She hadn't told him?
"I think he killed himself."
Shock swept over him, like a wave of icy water. "He didn't."
Her voice was coldly matter of fact, and she refused to look at him. "He lived for you, Al. If you told him to bugger off? Well, I guess he would take you seriously."
"HE DIDN'T!" Al hardly realized he was shouting. Of course some part of his mind had considered that possibility, plying him with guilt at every opportunity, but he had squelched it furiously.
"You're never going to find him," Winry said, and now there was an obvious catch to her voice.
"I will," Al swore, "I will."
His mind hazy with rage, he stormed off to his room, hardly aware of Winry's tear-ridden sound of skepticism.
There was a way.
He clapped his hands together, swore, and paced around the room for several minutes. Calm, he thought. He needed to be calm to get it to work. It was dangerous at the best of times.
Ed had done the same for him, though. Ed had risked everything for him. Twice.
The Doors were doors to knowledge...to Truth. Whatever toll it took to get the information to find Ed, he would be willing to pay.
Any toll, he firmly told himself. Anything, just to have him back.
He clapped his hands together, and the world turned white.
The Doors were there. They struck a chord deep inside his soul, a chord of terror and longing, of joy and unendurable pain.
And there, right there...
"Brother?" His voice echoed strangely in the nothingness. His brother was sitting there, curled up with his knees to his chest. Edward almost looked like he was sleeping, but there was something...
"Ed!" Al shouted, and made to move towards his brother, but something held him back.
Instinctively, he turned around, ready to wrench away, but was stopped in his tracks by a patch of...nothing. Not to be confused with the rest of the Nothing around him, this nothing reminded him vaguely of a human...a hint of a disturbing grin, a silhouette against the Nothing.
Are you sure that's the one you want?
"Wha..?" Al tried to wrench away. "Of course he's the one I want, he's my brother!"
Then who...is that?
He wasn't aware of moving, but suddenly he was looking in another direction, at...another Ed?
It was impossible, his mind screamed at him. It made absolutely no sense, and furthermore, it was bordering on ridiculous. Or something.
"How...?" he stuttered, looking back and forth between the two. They were both undeniably his brother, though there were subtle differences between them...his mind couldn't focus on what they were, but they were there.
Wrenching away from the nothing, he ran towards one of them. "Brother!"
Edward stirred slightly, and looked up blearily. His eyes widened as he saw Al, and he scrambled to his feet, mouth moving, though Al couldn't hear anything.
There was panic in his brother's movement, as he made to run towards him, only to be held back by some invisible barrier around him.
Al stood frozen, watching his brother struggle vainly, despair in his tortured eyes. He didn't have to hear in order to know what the word Edward was crying in a helpless mantra- Al...Al!
Unable to stand any more, Al reached toward his brother, but the nothing stopped him once again.
Are you quite sure that's the right one?
"Of...of course he is..." Al lowered his arm, slightly. Edward's shoulders slumped, he ducked his head to the side, trying to hide his face, the slight shaking of his body.
It tore at Al to see his brother like that, but he couldn't stop himself from looking back towards the other Ed, still sitting there silently. He stepped back, then another step.
With the loss of proximity, Edward collapsed back into his original curled up position.
Al fled, rushed towards the other Edward- surely he would know which one was the right one. Nobody knew his brother better than he did.
This time, Edward didn't jump up. He looked up slowly, only raising his head slightly, to meet Al's eyes with his own empty ones. An expression of pain flickered across his face, a look of utter, raw longing. Ed shook his head slightly, as if to clear it, then looked again. This time, it was a muted hope that lit his eyes- he reached forward with one hand, only to be stopped by the barrier. Swiftly, savagely, he clenched his eyes shut and covered his ears, mouth moving silently, it's another dream, just another dream.
Horrified, Al backed away, and this Edward relaxed into sleep once again.
"What is this?" he shouted, whirling around, only to see...more. More images of his brother, each one sitting in their own circle, each one bearing subtle differences, and some not-so-subtle.
"Quit playing with me!" He whirled on the nothing, furious. "Which one is the real one? I want my brother out of here! What are you doing to him?"
They're all real. They're all your brother. Come, look at them.
Queasy, Al looked around, his stomach sinking. "I don't want to look at them. They're not all real - they can't be! I want mine back!"
He wasn't good enough for you, though, was he? That's the story of every Edward here. They're all real. They're all equally unreal. These are the Edwards you – and all the other 'you' - have outgrown. Alphonse Elric, you make a harsh creator.
It was definitely a nightmare, Al tried to convince himself. It wasn't even a good nightmare. It made no sense at all. He laughed nervously. "I must be dreaming this," he said aloud. "This is just stupid. Create my brother? That's practically stupider than when I thought he had created me out of nothing."
Truth cannot lie. Let me tell you of a child...a child born of alchemy, only half-human. A lonely child, with a father he never saw. He dreamed of a brother, an older brother to guide him, to protect him. An older brother to look up to, yet look down on. A brother to be proud of, yet embarrassed of. A perfect brother.
"He wasn't perfect!" Al retorted triumphantly. "If he had been, this whole mess would never have..."
Edward Elric was the perfect brother for a young boy. A young boy, unaware of his own alchemic ability, a boy who unknowingly risked his life to bring his 'brother' from potential to existence. But that boy grew up, and what happened to Edward? Again, the hint of teeth in the nothing.
"I'm not listening. I'm not."
Let me sell you a brother. He's strong, and smart. He loves you more than anything else, he will always put your well-being above his own. He'll protect you to the best of his abilities, yet rely only on you for support. You're his first, last, and only priority. Do you want a brother like that?
"No, I-"
Of course not, you rejected him. Again and again...poor Edward, to have his existence rely on such a fickle thing as your whim, to live only until you grow too old for him. He doesn't even know what he's doing wrong, he can't help but be the way you created him to be.
"But...Granny Pinako, Winry, the General, all those people who know him...some of them knew him since he was a kid!" Al grinned triumphantly. The sweep of his hand encompassed his surroundings. "This isn't real, you're just messing with my mind. That's all."
Powerful alchemy indeed...the dream of him existed in your mind for many years, like a ghost of him with you. You convinced people he existed, though they saw nothing, their minds told them he was there.
Despite himself, his resolve was wavering. The words struck something inside him, some inner truth...could it be true? Was his brother, the brother he idolized, he loved, he hurt, nothing but the figment of his imagination? Not a figment, though, a figment given reality, and feelings...
Yet, the 'tone' was different, pulled Al's attention away from the spiraling guilt. You came this far, searching for him. No other Alphonse has come here to retrieve him.
Nothing held out an arm. Come, choose one. You didn't like yours; was he too forward? Too confident? Maybe you'll like this Edward. He was tortured by the military – he's much more docile.
No? How about this one. He lost part of his mind, trying to bring you back your body. Never mind, I agree, it would be a waste to bring him out, he's hardly aware of his surroundings anyway.
Something less tragic, I suppose. This one quietly vanished after you married Winry – you didn't have time for him anymore, and he didn't know what to do with himself.
"Stop!" Al shrieked, tearing away. "He's not...he's not a thing. I didn't do all those things to him. I wouldn't. I-" somehow, he wasn't surprised to find tears on his cheeks. "Just...show me mine. Please."
Very well.
Al was moved past more of them. They blurred in his vision, all those unhappy brothers of his, some of them heartbreakingly young, others older and unfamiliar.
Finally, he saw one, who looked right. He wasn't more his brother than the others, but the familiarity was there, born of years spent together.
"I'm taking him back with me," Al said firmly, moving to step close enough to 'activate' him. He didn't dare look to the sides, lest he see-
And the others? They need you no less, maybe more than this one. Why don't you take home one of the abused ones? Or maybe one of the young ones; you can raise him.
Wavering, Al bit his lip. How could he choose? How could he pick one, leaving all the others to suffer? So many of them...would they stay here forever? Would they fade away in time?
He shook his head to clear it, and firmed his resolve. "No...I want this one. He's my mistake. The others are mine too, but I don't remember making them. I can't take responsibility for all my selves, or fix those mistakes. But I'm going to fix this one."
Al stepped closer, and Edward looked up with the familiar unhappy, fearful, despairing expression they all seemed to have.
When Al held out his arms, Ed's face transformed to pure joy. The barrier dissolved, and Ed flung himself against his brother, clinging to him like a lifeline.
"I knew you'd come, I knew you would-"
Laughing, crying, Al held onto him tightly. How selfish of him, how terrible, to mistreat Edward who couldn't help but love him.
Take him...
Nothing smiled again, a laugh of cruel irony echoing around. Yes, take him for now. Soon enough he will find his way back, when you tire of him again. It's the story of his life.
"Shut up!" Ed shouted, forestalling the startled Al's answer. "Al would never do that to me. You don't know what you're talking about."
He tossed Al a confident grin, though there was a hint of tears at the edge. "C'mon, Al, let's get out of here."
A wind was blowing in through the window, the promise of rain to break the heat wave. Al held on to Ed tightly, as if he would vanish into nothing.
"Brother...you came back, I was so worried...I'm so sorry...!"
"Sssh, Al, it's ok, I'm sorry too. I'll try not to be so overbearing...just hang with me, ok? I'm not used to you being so grown up..."
Ed's arms were around him, his voice in Al's ear, and the memory was slipping away like a dream.
"Promise...promise you won't ever vanish again?"
"Of course I won't...where the hell would I go?"
Al opened his mouth to answer, to tell about some place in the middle of nothing full of Edwards who had left, 'gone somewhere', but found he couldn't. It couldn't be real...something bizarre about his brother being created from alchemy...
A vivid memory, of a summer day, playing in the stream all by himself. Suddenly, someone there- someone who looked like him, like his mother, like his vanished father-
"Come on, I'll show you how to skip stones."
"Who are you?"
"Stoopid," he stuck out his tongue. "I'm your older brother, of course."
"Oh..." a smile, "of course! Please show me, Brother?"