Title: Speras.

Warnings: elricest, angst.

Disclaimer: fma isn't mine, sadly.


You're the one who knows.

You're the one who sees.

You're the one always there to witness and sympathize -but sympathizing isn't understanding, and understanding isn't feeling- and you take great pleasure in that (yes, Alphonse Elric, smug, who'd have thought? but you can't lie to yourself).

You're the one he opens up to -oh, so faintly, so modestly-, though only on rare occasion, but that doesn't matter (it seems that you can lie to yourself after all), not really, since you're also the only one who knows him good enough (you think) to be able to see the meanings behind all the small moves -tugging at his hair- and stances -huddling his shoulders-, the facial expressions -wrinkles his nose this way when annoyed and that way when embarrassed-, the brash words.

(Read his eyes, immeasurable pools of struggling emotions.)

Yet these days, you cannot tell -aren't sure- whether he's going ahead ever strong, or broken beyond repair.

Perhaps (that's what you think sometimes, when Darkness and Cold Lonely Night stand between you and his sleeping face, and Hope is a ghost less consistent even than the hint of sun in his hair) he is nothing but a dysfunctional machine -conditioned by himself only, that's the irony- whose cogs and gearwheels will jam and get stuck and crack when the purpose of his being -the one he gave to his being- is completed.

Maybe he'll be shattered in so many pieces there'll be no way to fix him back.

You hope, though, -yes, you remember Hope, clearly, vividly, once the sun rises and casts a breathtaking light on his haireyesfacebody (if only you had breath to hold)- you hope that he'll realize when -if? no. when. can't let those doubts show at daylight- the time comes to be whole again, that you need him then -oh! how you need and want to need- more than ever, whole but brittle, human at last.

You hope his strength is infinite and won't be drained out at the end (in which case it would really be the very end, for you as well), because you hope more than anything -more than you can feel- that the end will be a beginning; the beginning maybe of that life you dream of some nights, awake and lonely when he sleeps with you but not -but you know, he makes sounds and gasps your name-, and you depend on him yet again, for that sweetest life you dream of -it's almost as if you were really dreaming- is possible (and possible is a significant word indeed) only if he has enough strength left in him to love you, love you unconditionally, like you worship him.


AN: comments and criticism are highly appreciated!!