Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, if I did, I would be a genius.
A/N: This is just a moment in Edward's post-promised-day life, told in nine parts. :)
1.
Edward had been scared to say it, something, that is, and Al could tell. The words had got all caught up in his throat and were making everything all obscured and unclear.
It worried him – because they had their bodies back now, and everything was supposed to be good, perfect.
Al wondered later if it had been wrong of him to be so presumptuous.
"Ed, are you okay?" Winry asked worriedly over dinner one evening.
Ed flinched so hard you'd have thought a bus had hit him, "What? Why wouldn't I be okay?"
Winry's visage only grew more concerned, and Al's face pulled together in worry as well, "Ed, you're acting all weird, that's why!"
Winry's usual approach to things, anger.
"Weird? What are you talking about?" Ed rolled his eyes, but Al couldn't miss how interested he actually sounded.
"Look at you, all jumpy," she wasted no time in telling him the reasons, "and you've hardly touched your food –"
It was as if some strange, otherworldly transformation had occurred. Edward's face twisted in rage, in shock, in all-defenses-up, fight-or-flight mode. It had been a long time since Al had seen Ed's emotional barricades rise up, it was morbidly impressive.
The words ripped from his throat before he stormed out into the night, "Maybe I'm not fucking hungry!"
2.
"Your happy, right brother?"
There was a tall grass all around them, dancing and swaying beneath the gentle caress of the breeze. It was as if they were in there own little world, just brothers beside one another with the sky up above. Blue. Gold. Green. This was home.
They were home.
Didn't he know that?
"Are you kidding me Al?" Ed looked completely astonished, he tossed back his head with abandon and a pleasant laugh that rumbled through them both, "Why wouldn't I be? We're home, you're home," he knocked lightly on Al's head with his knuckles, "and everything's perfect."
Al sighed with relief, but, still... There was something, he knew there was, and it was bothering him.
Before he had an opportunity to ask, however, Ed had turned on him. The oddest expression of guilt and concern and panic was on his face now, and Al had to resist the urge to look over his shoulder.
"Al!" Ed's voice was so sad, Al's eyebrows pulled together in confusion, "Al – you, I mean, no – Al, you're happy. Right?"
Oh.
"Oh," Al grunted, "of course, Ed!"
Ed visibly relaxed, shoulders falling lax and leaning back into the grass once more, "Whoa Al, you had me really worried for a second. What even made you ask?"
Al swallowed, averting his eyes, "It's just, you've been acting really strange lately. You're not sleeping that much, and you haven't really been eati –"
"I sleep just as much as any other normal human being Al," Edward joked, though there was a bitter edge to his words and he was suddenly tense, folding in on himself, shoulders raised.
"Yeah, but –"
"I'm fine, Al. Let it go." There was a silent command in his voice, and Al immediately did so.
3.
"I made dinner," Winry called loudly from the front porch. Edward was chopping wood, and Alphonse was stacking the piles. She tapped her foot on the boards of the porch and fiddled idly with the wooden spoon in her hand, growing impatient, "boys! Come inside!"
Ed wiped his brow and scowled up at her, "Win, I –"
"I made stew," Winry argued, "it's your favorite, and I'm not going to cook for you two free-loaders forever, so you'd better get in here and savor it."
Al smiled and laughed at her words, patting her on the shoulder as he passed her by, "Try to tone it down a little Win, at least we're earning our keep."
Winry rolled her eyes and pointed to the young man that had found himself at the foot of the stairs, "His keep is something you'll never be able to keep up with."
Ed frowned, but his eyes were smiling, "Freak," he mumbled, "you're a slave driver anyway."
"What?"
"You heard me! It isn't anywhere near winter!"
"What if I want a fire at night?"
"Cut your own damn wood!"
"Make your own damn dinner!"
Both were quiet after this, and Al fled inside of the house, leaving only a low whistle in his wake. The two glowered at one another for a very long time, until it became clear that one would have to give up.
She had, after all, made dinner, and she would have liked to eat it before it got too cold. So, with a sigh, Winry caved, "Are you coming in or not?" She moved toward the door and held it ajar, waiting for him to accompany her.
Ed didn't move. His eyes darted from Winry to the half-open door and back, "I'm not hungry." his words were quick and curt.
"What?"
But he'd already walked away.
4.
Edward's eyes a lit with joy at the food that was placed before him, and Al wished that he had a face with which he could offer the waitress and other patrons of the restaurant some sort of premeditative apologetic look. In moments they would all bear witness to what a human vacuum looked like when it was set in motion. One with no "off" switch and no "manners" switch either. A brief moment settled between them, in which Ed was no doubt planning his battle strategy thoroughly, before he smacked his lips and tucked himself in.
Al wondered how many middle-class suburban mothers were visibly disgusted by his brother. He was sure at least three of them would usher their families out as quickly as possible before Ed ordered thirds.
Although, at the rate Ed was going, thirds might occur in a few minutes. Al almost couldn't watch.
"Brother, please," he scolded, "you're worse than usual!"
Ed took a good thirty seconds to swallow all the food in his mouth, his expression stern, "Oh, come off it Al," he chided when his speech was clear of all obstacles, "you can't lecture me about my eating habits anymore, remember?"
"What are you talking about?" Al asked, watching as Edward shoved his fork through so many pieces of bow-tie pasta at once that the metal might break.
"Al," Ed sighed in mock exasperation, shoving the entire forkful into his mouth and decidedly forgoing swallowing, "I'm not just eating for me," he reminded around the crushed grains and marinara sauce coating his tongue.
Of course he remembered. The thought made him feel guilty over all the times he had nagged Ed about the way he acted with such things, the way he ate or the way he slept. It also made him super mad at everyone who had every called Ed short. It wasn't Ed's fault that he had to keep two teenage adolescents growing and healthy all in one busy body.
"Oh. Yeah," Al muttered, feeling a bit put down.
That was alright. Ed wasn't done talking anyway. He also wasn't done chewing.
The waitress made a round to check on her tables and avoided theirs all together.
"I've got to eat even more than usual now that I know," Ed reasoned, "I don't want you to ever get hungry. Now I can try extra hard to keep up both our healths, huh?"
"Yeah brother," Al agreed, feeling proud of him as he spoke so nobly, though he felt ashamed of him a moment later when he chose to continue speaking despite the bread stick he had been attempting to shove down his throat.
Ed swallowed hard after a few incoherent phrases, and gave Al a wink, "You'd better put all your height to good use when you get your body back Al, or I'll be mad at you for stealing it away from me."
5.
Ed moved his fork slowly and with deliberate precision, the scowl set on his face a countenance of firm concentration.
"Look," he finally cooed, and Al peeked into the kitchen from the living room adjacent to it. Ed had confined himself in there earlier, as he had decided half-way through their evening meal that he had a goal he intended to accomplish.
Winry had wanted to know why he was playing with his food.
"I'm done," he sang out, gaining Winry's attention as well. She had been focused carefully on a rather small and intricate piece of automail, screw driver held steadily in her grasp. Her sullen irritation did not go unnoticed by either of the brothers, if the great exhale of anger that turned into a strange groaning shout had anything to do with it.
"Edward Elric," her vehemence was awe-inspiring, "I'm trying to work!"
"But look!" he whined, unsatisfied with the lack of reaction. No one had even so much as asked what it was he had been doing all this time.
Al gave in, making his way into the kitchen and mourning the loss of the rare quiet moment he had just say reading in only minutes ago. His book lay open on the couch.
On the kitchen table was some sort of twisted, abstract sculpture of a tower. It was structurally sound and impeccably architectured, as Al was quite sure he even saw the presence of flying buttresses to distribute the weight of the mass. A remarkably designed pillar of carrots, tooth picks, broccoli, asparagus, one whole flank of sirloin, a bit of mashed potatoes, a few napkins and silverware, one salt shaker, and a mix of other odd foods and items, "You did this all in an hour?"
Ed looked very proud of himself, "Yep, sure did."
Al looked on at his creation and felt guilty. Ed took such pride in even a trivial creation like this. Without his alchemy, he had been trying so hard to build and make and construct things, he craved it, but he never quite knew how. His fingers itched for it and so did his mind. Lately he was always fiddling or doodling or stacking or balancing, anything to try to placate his overactive mind.
Winry took one look at it and her eyes shot to the heavens, "Maybe you shouldn't play with your food like a child," she shot, still annoyed that he had interrupted her as well as slightly over tired, "and maybe you should try being a big boy and eating it."
Edward's shoulders shot up and he took a step back, his eyes got steely and he grimaced, "I wasn't hungry." he snapped, so forcefully that Winry was shocked, and without another word he plucked a single carrot from his structure, placing it in the cavern of his mouth as he shouldered past them.
The tower shuddered, and then fell apart.
6.
"Brother, Winry, I'm going into town to get stuff to make dinner tonight!" Al called into the house as he pulled his thin black gloves over the long fingers of his left hand. He thought back to the sad state of their ice box currently and frowned, but his face lit up with humor only a second later, "Is there anything you guys want me to get? Brother? Want me to buy the place out?"
"What are you making?"
Al jumped up right out of the boots he had half on his feet and clutched at his chest, "Brother! You scared me," Edward had placed himself in the archway between the kitchen and the room beside it, and Al hadn't even seen him come. Ed smiled pleasantly and laughed at his expense, though it was clear he was still waiting for an answer.
Al straightened out his face with a purposeful cough and resumed dressing himself for the heavy snow outside, "Chicken, and maybe some semi-fresh vegetables if Central remembered we exist and shipped them out."
Ed grinned, "That bastard had better get us our veggies, how else are we gonna survive all this snow?"
"Roy's been better at remembering the small things as of late anyway," Al commented with a shrug, missing his insinuation completely.
Ed scowled, his eyes glinting in quick irritation, "Did you just say... small?" he hissed.
Al's eyes widened and he sighed, "I meant Resembool, not you."
"Hey, how about you just stay? The weather's pretty bad and I don't think I want you going alone." Ed looked genuinely concerned. When wasn't he?
"What will we have for dinner? We've practically emptied out the entire house!"
Al thought on this, well, he and Winry had. Mostly him really. Ever since he got his body back he'd been constantly hungry, he figured it was because he had a lot to make up for. Where as Ed... Well, that was the glaring suspicion lately. Al was worried about him.
"I'm not very hungry anyway," Ed offered.
There it was, right on cue.
He continued, "but there's enough left to make sandwiches for the two of you, my treat, and I'll just eat something small."
Al's eyes narrowed, "Like what?"
"Like some of the leftover stew from the other night, I never actually ended up eating any of it, you know?"
Al shucked his boots.
7.
Al watched as Havoc smirked at the young man before him. A full member of the military, higher rank and all, just got back from his mission, and he was eating with all the maturity of a toddler.
"How did your mission go Chief?"
Al felt a heavy sigh coming on, bent on flying straight into excuse mode, but Ed had jumped the gun first. His words tumbled away from his mouth with no real intentions, and in moments he was rambling mouth full.
"Everyone there was completely ridiculous. We got there and they all were giving us the cold shoulder. I don't even understand why! Plus, Roy's all pissy for no reason. We did what we were supposed to do. He sent us there to inspect the operation they were running, the operation they were running was shit, so we fixed it. That's it."
Roy's voice wafted in from somewhere above them, and Ed jumped practically ten feet in the air, "Well, if by fix you mean 'inspired a full-scale rebellion' then, yes, that's what you did."
The dark-haired man sat down beside them and Ed's mood immediately fouled. He shoved the entirety of the roll he had been chewing on into his mouth and folded his arms across his chest with an angry 'huff'. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"How something so... small could cause so much trouble is beyond me, I'm running out of places that I can send you. Although nowhere is looking to be a pretty good choice. At least if I send you there you might manage not to end up with a mob of angry villagers on your tail." Roy grinned his most cocky grin and turned himself away, preparing for the inevitable.
"SMALL! SMALL! Who are you calling SMALL! And for your information, there was no angry mob involved! That's such a dumb thing to say anyway, bastard!"
Havoc laughed aloud, taking a sip of his milk when his giggles calmed, "Settle down Chief, it's okay, we all hate Roy."
"Do we now?" Roy asked with a smile, trying his best to keep his face passive and failing horribly when he noticed Edward's obvious irritation, "That's a good thing to know, Lieutenant."
Havoc rolled his eyes, "Oh please, like you didn't know that before."
Al chuckled, "I'm sure not everyone hates Roy."
Edward choked on his juice, "Al! Of course everyone hates Roy. Look at him."
"Sure, sure," Roy shook his head, "but maybe you should focus more on chewing before you swallow and less on talking," Edward was still choking, and it was starting to get a worse and worse, Al patted him hard on the back, and Ed jerked in surprise.
Havoc's eyebrows raised, "Chief? Slow down eating? That's a good one."
"Right," Al commented, rubbing his brother's back as he gasped for air, "that's just Ed."
8.
"Al?"
Al looked up from the notes he was writing, eyes glinting in the lamplight. He sat at the desk in their room, placed perfectly against the window and between their beds. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky, and the stars were twice as bright as usual. It had always been the one thing he had missed most when he was in Central, the brilliance of the stars.
There was something so meek and unsure in Ed's voice that it reminded him of another time, a time when Ed had humored the thought – a thought so incredulous that it terrified Al to even think he may have believed it to be true – that his brother might hate him, might blame him for everything that had happened to them. So he instantly swiveled where he sat, giving Ed his full attention. Whatever he had to say next, Al thought it probably had something to do with whatever it was that had been bothering him lately. He knew there was something wrong.
"Yes Ed?" he almost didn't even dare to ask, afraid that Ed would block him out again. Mutter a simple, 'I'm fine' and turn away, curl up and never speak of it again. If he wasn't careful it could happen, at any moment, so he laid out the words so softly that it was like a tangible whisper, that just barely brushed against Ed's insecurities.
"Al, do you sometimes feel like, like you're a totally different person than you were before? Like we're completely different now?"
Al blanched, it wasn't what he was expecting, "I suppose so Ed,"
"How so?"
"Well, I can't be the best one to say. It is completely different for me, because I can feel now. Thanks to you," and it was all thanks to him, and Al was so, so grateful, "I can feel and eat and smell and everything's like a miracle,"
Ed smiled, but his expression twisted again, until it was unreadable, "Al, I've... I just want..." he paused, and groaned, shoving his fists into the pillows at the head of his bed and fisting the material in frustration.
"Brother, you can tell me anything, you know that," Al reminded him, shifting forward in his chair so that their knees were almost touching, so close.
"I haven't been eating as much."
"I know," Al responded, that's what he had been so worried about lately.
"...but, listen, because, it's not the way you guys think it is. I have been eating. Just, I haven't been hungry anymore. I haven't been that tired lately either. And, just... It wouldn't be that big of a deal, and I didn't think it was going to be..." Ed swallowed again, as if something was stuck in his throat, and it was much too big to talk around. He clenched his eyes shut and scowled.
The words that came next were shaky and quiet, "Just... I don't want to feel like... Like I'm a different person now, like I've changed, because if I have, then what does any of this mean? Everything that I've done, it would... It scares me."
Al frowned, shocked by his brother's confession. Then, suddenly, it hit him.
He wondered if he had been wrong to always assume that Ed had been the hungry one.
"Ed, what if I've just always been the hungry one?"
"What do you mean?" clearly this wasn't the answer Ed had been expecting.
"I mean, you always ate for the two of us, and slept for both of us too. But we always just assumed you were the hungry one," he patted his stomach and smiled lightly in an attempt to cheer up his conflicted brother, "but I guess all along it was just me."
Ed took a moment to think this through, and the corner of his mouth turned up ever-so-slightly, "So you're saying, that all those times you made fun of me for the way I ate, and it was your fault I was so hungry in the first place?"
Al laughed, "Guess so,"
Edward relaxed, throwing himself backward onto the bed with a heavy sigh of relief, "Thanks Al."
Al couldn't believe Ed had been that worried over such a small thing.
He couldn't believe he had been that worried over it too.
9.
"Brother?"
"Yeah Al?"
"You know that it doesn't matter what you do, right, you'll always be Ed, you'll always be my brother."
"No matter what."
"Yeah, no matter what."
A/N: This came to happen because I was just pondering the way Ed had to eat and sleep and take care of two teenage boys during the series, and then I was thinking about Ed's horrible eating habits, and then I was like, "What if Al was the hungry one?". I figure that if he didn't eat like that, everyone wouldn't know how to react, because they would overreact, or worry too much about it because it's such a strong character trait. Which lead me to Ed worrying that they might view him differently, because he's a worrier. :) Hope you liked it...