A/N: I am addicted to the song Satisfied from Hamilton. It's just SO good and so heartbreaking. I watched a genderbent animatic and the girl version of Hamilton looked like a female Ed. My mind went 'IT'S PERFECT'. So here's this little fic written at 2am, lol.
"Now give it up for the maid of honor, Eden Elric!"
The clapping and cheering stifles her. Yet on she plows, raising her glass with the mockery of a joyous smile. All for Alice…
"A toast to the groom!" Wenry flashes that smile she'd always adored and ducks his head into her sister's hair.
"To the bride, from your sister!" Alice blushes wine red and waves to her sister.
Eden smiles and continues her toast, laughing and cheering for the newlyweds along with the other guests.
Not a single one notices how she slips away during the congratulations. Had anyone cared to look, she could be found out in the hall, weeping silent tears of heartbreak and memory and in her mind's eye, she is in the past. When, for a brief moment, she had been happy.
He approaches her first, perhaps drawn by the way her hair shone in the candlelight or the way she held herself slightly apart from the rest. She is speechless when he greets her and asks for a dance. He's so beautiful, she's struck dumb. Within moments, they are gliding across the floor in rhythmic union.
"You strike me as a woman who's never been satisfied."
She pulls back, stung by his insight. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean." His eyes meet hers with a slight, knowing smile. He speaks easily as they glide around the ballroom.
"You're like me, I'm never satisfied."
"Is that right?"
"I've never been satisfied."
"My name is Eden Elric."
"Wenry Rockbell." He bows over her hand, placing a kiss on the back of the soft skin. He releases her as the song ends and with another alluring smile, vanishes into the crowd. Eden returns to her place, dazed, confused, and halfway to love and back again. Hastening to her sister, she opens her mouth to spill her excitement.
Eden stops cold at the sight of Alice, however.
Alice's eyes were wide as she gazed at Wenry moving around the ballroom. Red rushes to her cheeks, staining them the color of Eden's gown. She stares at Wenry as if seeing the sun for the first time. Her face is one of a woman besotted with no turning back.
For the first time in my life, I am choked by unreasonable jealousy and crushing despair. I know I cannot compete with my sister. I can't do that to her.
"Where are you taking me?"
"I'm about to change your whole life."
"Then by all means, lead the way."
For a moment, she allows herself to pretend that his husky whisper is one of a lover, of her lover. Not the voice of the man who is going to become her brother-in-law.
If I had told Alice I had fallen for Wenry, how I longed to see him every day, how much I adored him, she would've stepped aside for me. I know my own sister like I know my own mind. She is the kindest and most loving woman, a woman who would give up her happiness for mine. She would allow me to have Wenry while her heart shattered beyond repair. I cannot do that to my sister. I am the oldest, I am the one to make the sacrifice.
I give Wenry up to ensure my sister's happiness.
Despite burning cheeks, her sister smiles and curtsies just as she had been taught as a child. "Alice Elric, it's a pleasure to meet you."
"Elric?" He sends a questioning blue-eyed glance toward the shorter sister, who simply smiles proudly.
"My sister."
Heaven help me, even my smile is a lie, a lie, a lie.
He bows over Al's hand, just as he had over Eden's moments ago. She struggles not to hate her innocent, blushing sister.
"If it takes fighting a war to meet you, it would be worth it." His charm is turned up as he graces the younger Elric with his glowing presence.
"Well, I'll leave you to it!" Eden waves with a broad smile that is so fake, it physically pains her.
Alice will have won him over within minutes, Eden knew. No one with a pair of working eyes could resist her remarkably beautiful sister. When Wenry goes, a week later, to ask their father for permission to marry Alice, Eden locks herself in her room and allows herself tears. Just this once…
If Eden were an unkind woman, she would hate Alice for being so happy, for the way she clings to Wenry's arm and looks up at him with eyes filled to the brim with love. But who could dictate how hearts were steered? How fate would roll the dice? Who would be the lucky sister to win this man's heart?
She steps aside. And in the process, loses.
On she smiles, however. Eden smiles as her heart bursts into a glistening rain of sharded glass.
I will never be satisfied.