Author's Note: This story began with a lovely little fanart my friend NewMoonFlicker drew for me of the Elric brothers, which can be seen here: arithewarrior (dot) deviantart (dot) com / art / FMA-Friends-To-The-End-165245925 (see if you can figure out the exact moment in this story where the picture takes place!)
It made me want to figure out what the story behind it was, what they were saying to each other, what the circumstances were for that little moment. It was just an isolated moment in time for so long, but gradually this story began to form itself in my head. I've drawn on many things to come up with this – my own experiences, David Hodges's beautiful singing voice, things my friend mentioned, thoughts, fears, dreams, and even a lovely little Brotherly fic that ended with the author calling their relationship an "unhealthy obsession." I hadn't expected it to be more than five pages at the longest, but in the writing the story simply grew and grew and expanded into this whopper that I suspect only a few will see the point to. This follows several other bits and pieces I've written about the brothers after getting Al's body back, but you needn't have read those to understand this one. Enjoy!
A perfect day is every day I'm spending my life here with you
I can't explain how I fall in love with everything that you do
...
'Cause I'm lost in the grace of your smile
To fall in your love is a place I could spend my life
Know we could take on the world
Just you and me...
With nothing but love
- "Nothing But Love" by Trading Yesterday
For NewMoonFlicker, nee-san of my soul –
So are you to me.
Edward Elric woke slowly that morning, slipping between the blanketing folds of sleep and slowly rising to the surface of consciousness. Vaguely, something in him fought against it, fought against the pressure of his eyelid muscles to flex and slide open. He didn't want to wake up. Not after such a wonderful dream. Somewhere deep inside of him, he knew that the dream was over and now he was waking up and he could never get back to that dreamworld. But he didn't want to admit that was true enough to open his eyes.
Yet gradually, consciousness crested up and washed over him, pushing him towards the shore of wakefulness, and soon the tide ceased to tug at him at all and he was just lying there, eyes closed for no reason other than sheer stubbornness. And then, at last, he gave in and grudgingly opened his eyes to find himself staring up at the ceiling. He felt his heart sinking as the last tendrils of the dream dripped away. It was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream...
But what a wonderful dream it had been. Alphonse had come back home, and they'd spent a whole day just having fun with Winry, like old times. But it was just a dream. He had to keep telling himself that, or he'd end up rushing around the house expecting to see Alphonse, and not finding him anywhere. It had happened a few times before, and he didn't think he could bear the letdown again. So with a sigh, he threw his covers off and rolled to the side.
And froze.
Edward had to slowly sit up and meticulously rub the sleep out of his eyes before he would allow himself to believe what he was seeing. Across the room, in the bed that had been neatly made for months upon months upon months, there was a lump that could only be a sleeping person. Gripping the edge of the bed, Edward listened to the pounding of his heart as the glorious, golden realization crashed over him: It hadn't been a dream.
Tiptoeing across the room as quietly as his automail toes would allow, Edward bent over the form of his sleeping brother and drank in the sight of him. Alphonse was just the same as ever, lying on his stomach with one hand curled around the corner of his pillow, drool dripping out of his slightly-open mouth and dribbling over the light stubble on his chin, his soft breathing making the blankets rise and fall steadily. Edward watched him in fascination as though this was that first night in the hospital, where he sat up all night just because he couldn't believe that the boy who'd sat up in loneliness for so many years could actually close his eyes and drift off like that.
But at last Edward dragged himself away, and with a fond smile left Alphonse to his slumber. He hummed in the shower, whistled intermittently while shaving, and skipped down the stairs, catching the doorframe of the kitchen and breezing in at full speed, spotting Winry at the counter and planting a loud kiss on her cheek before she could turn around.
"Somebody's chipper today," Winry laughed, returning to the eggs she was beating in a large bowl.
"Mmm, bacon!" Edward cried, reaching out toward a steaming plate.
Winry slapped his hand with a greasy spatula. "Hey, no touching! I'm going to cut them up and put them in the omelets. If you're so hungry, go wake up Al. They should be ready in a few minutes."
"Right!" Edward bounded back out of the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time, unable to keep an enormous grin off his face. Alphonse was home. Before he could stop to think better of it, Edward slammed open the door to their room and sang out, "It's mor-ning!" Leaping onto the foot of the bed, he began to bounce on it, cheerfully serenading his little brother with a constant stream of, "It's morning and it's time to get up and it's time for breakfast and you gotta get up 'cause Winry said and she's making omelets and they've got bacon in them and you'll love 'em and we're gonna do all sorts of things and-"
"Okay, Brother, I get the picture," Alphonse said blearily, yawning as he sat up and curled his legs up under him so Edward wouldn't land on them accidentally. "And you probably shouldn't jump on the-"
CRACK.
Before Edward could register what he'd said, he found his cheerful bouncing brought to an abrupt halt as the wooden slats beneath the mattress snapped and the bed collapsed. Edward lost his balance and with a cry fell against Alphonse, who caught him and helped him scramble off onto the floor, laughingly reminding him that precisely the same thing had happened yesterday.
But Edward barely noticed that Alphonse was gently admonishing him for breaking the bed and then transmuting it with skulls on the posts and spikes on the headboard, and didn't even protest when Alphonse got rid of his cool ornaments. Because Alphonse had touched him. And that meant he was here.
Edward closed the door slowly behind him and leaned against it with a long sigh. Normally he would be relieved to get home after half a day spent at the train station, with hard wooden benches and the deafening sounds of crowds and steam engines bouncing around and pounding against his skull. But for once in his life, he would have given anything to still be there, if only that meant that somehow he could stop Alphonse from leaving.
And now he stood in their empty apartment, completely alone. The morning had been filled with hustle and bustle, as they rushed around to pack the last few things, wolf down some breakfast, and hurry off to the station. There had been little time to dwell on what was happening, not even in the short car ride, and then they'd been in the station and there were only minutes until the train for Dublith would leave. And suddenly it had hit them with all the force of a locomotive that they wouldn't see each other for a whole year, and then they had clung to each other so tightly that Edward could feel his back pop. But soon the train had dragged his little brother away, and then there was only half an hour to buy Winry a ticket to Risenpool, grab a sandwich, and see her off as well.
And now, he was alone.
There was no sound in the whole apartment. Nothing but the steady drip of the leaking tap in the kitchen. No sounds of someone moving around in the next room. No distant humming. No faint, hastily-stifled meowing from yet another stray. The silence of his isolation seemed to crush down on him, and he bent underneath its weight until he crouched on the floor, his back against the door and his arms over his head. He was falling, falling, and there was no one there to catch him.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to feel so horrible about what they'd both agreed long ago was the best course of action. He should be proud that his brother was going to take the State Alchemist exam. He should be laughing as he imagined their master's reception of her erstwhile pupil, whom she had disowned to no apparent effect. He should at least be reassuring himself by thinking that it would only be a year, after all, and then they'd be back together again. Just twelve months. Not such a huge deal, right?
Wrong. He didn't know what was the matter with him, didn't know why he couldn't cope, didn't know what made him such a horrible older brother that he couldn't even be happy that Alphonse was moving ahead with his life instead of being fettered by a clingy brother. But he couldn't change himself, no matter how hard he struggled or what foul names he called himself. He couldn't even make himself straighten up and go about his business. Because without Alphonse there, he just didn't care anymore.
Somehow, he finally managed to drag himself off the floor, and he numbly went through the motions of his normal day, stumbling along until at last he could collapse into bed, seeking oblivion. It was a little better the next day – he pushed himself forward by telling himself that Alphonse was moving forward, so he should too, move forward to the day when he'd come back. He knew that the men in the office noticed his low spirits, but no one said anything, and he pretended everything was normal even when he moved more slowly and his mind drifted away from the job at hand every few minutes.
The days drew on, and gradually the sharp pain that was the absence of Alphonse faded into a dull ache that he could push aside when it grew too hard to think about. He wasn't his old self, and he knew it, and everyone else knew it, but he could cope. It was enough. Barely.
About a month after Alphonse had left, Edward was about to open the door to Fuhrer Mustang's office for a de-briefing on the delicate border situation with Aerugo, when he heard his name being spoken. He paused to listen to the two voices, muffled through the door but perfectly audible.
"...Edward lately? He's not himself."
"I can't pretend I haven't. I've noticed he's spoken to you civilly four days in a row. I believe that's a new record."
"All jokes aside, he's losing his effectiveness. He isn't as on top of things as I know he can be; he hardly ever volunteers his opinion unless asked, even though he knows his astute observations on the Aerugan ambassador could prove more valuable than anything."
"I believe it began when Alphonse left to study with their master."
"Yeah, that's what it always comes down to. His unhealthy obsession with his brother."
Edward didn't stay to hear any more, but quickly returned to his office, complained of a headache, and escaped from headquarters. He began to walk home, but soon he was running, and by the time he burst into the apartment he was out of breath. He staggered into the bedroom, looked at Alphonse's bed, and slowly sank onto his own. His gasps for breath slowly morphed into sobs that shook his whole body, and he sat with his head in his hands, feeling wretched.
Unhealthy obsession? Was that what it was? Was that why this was so hard? Was this, once again, his fault? Alphonse was his best friend, and more. For years, they had been together and depended on each other for everything. He always thought that the times they were separated were so hard because he loved Alphonse so much. But was this love unhealthy when it meant he couldn't live without his little brother?
He didn't know. He didn't know anything anymore. All he knew was that his heart was slowly dying every day they weren't together.
Edward pretended he was reading the obscure Stanihurst text he'd received the day before, but really he was gazing over the top of the book at his little brother. Alphonse moved about their room, unpacking now because there hadn't been a chance the day before. He walked back and forth through the room, carting wads of dirty clothes to the hamper down the hall, carefully placing his neatly-folded clean clothes in their proper drawers, returning his possessions to their proper places, precisely remembered even after all this time.
Like the day he'd brought Alphonse's body back, Edward couldn't tear his eyes away for more than a moment. Every move Alphonse made was inexplicably, undeniably him, and Edward couldn't get enough of it. The way his face shifted as his mind moved from one thought to another. The way he scratched idly at one ear. The way he dropped a sock and bent over to pick it up, his long ponytail slipping over his shoulder and brushing the floor. Edward would never have been able to explain to someone how these simple actions told him without a doubt that this was really his brother, but it was true. When Alphonse had looked nothing like his old self, when he'd been seven feet tall and made of clanking, hollow metal, these were the things he cherished because they stayed the same no matter what.
How strange it was to know that for a year he'd been longing with every fiber of his being to just watch Alphonse rub his nose.
And as he gazed at his brother, something began to ache inside of him. Not the wretched ache he'd had to live with when they were apart, but just as his foot would hurt after it had gone numb from the blood flow being cut off, the sudden realization of what Alphonse meant to him swelled inside him until he thought he would spontaneously combust. This affection delved deeper and deeper into his heart, resounding sweeter than ever, like a thousand angels all singing in harmony with the sun shining and the clouds parting and the music swelled stronger stronger stronger and he knew in that moment, he knew because that was what every atom in his body was singing with exultation, that all he wanted was to love Alphonse with everything he had.
Suddenly Edward felt an irrepressible urge to just touch Alphonse, to be near enough that he could feel his warmth, hear his breath, know beyond a doubt that he was there and wasn't going anywhere. For so long, the closest they'd been able to come to each other had been over a crackly phone line that distorted their voices and cost five hundred cenz a minute. He hadn't realized how much he missed being able to feel Alphonse. So he got up from the cozy chair in the corner and pulled off his reading glasses, tossing them carelessly onto his desk. He crossed over to where Alphonse was calmly lining up his socks in the drawer, oblivious. As a pretense for coming as close as he could, Edward reached over to put his book back on the shelf.
Alphonse glanced up with a little smile, and Edward's heart leapt to his throat, though he tried not to show it. With difficulty, he turned his head away and pretended to be contemplating the bookcase. Alphonse would just laugh at him if he knew all the sappy thoughts running through his head right now. After a moment or two of silence, Alphonse pushed his drawer closed and said thoughtfully, "There's something different about the way you look, but I can't put my finger on it."
Edward looked back in surprise, running a hand over his chin. "What, did I miss a spot?"
"No, that's not it." Alphonse tilted his head to one side in thought, looking him up and down, then grinned. "Oh, I know what it is!" He slung an arm amiably over Edward's shoulders, and Edward automatically followed suit. "You're shorter now."
Edward's eyes widened as he realized he was looking up at Alphonse. When they'd parted, they'd been exactly the same height, and since he'd stopped growing, he'd assumed it had been the same for his brother. But Alphonse had hit one last little growth spurt while he'd been gone, and now he stood a full two inches taller. "Hey!" he complained with a vicious smile. "Don't look down on your older brother!"
Alphonse, who had been grinning all this time, positively smirked. "What are you talking about? I've always looked down on you."
"You'll pay for that!" Edward tightened his grip on Alphonse's shoulders and tackled him to the floor with a deafening THUMP. Alphonse hadn't been expecting that, but he recovered quickly and they tussled back and forth on the floor, gasping in each other's faces and grinning madly as they each struggled to get the upper hand. And while he was trying to twist Alphonse's arm around behind him while being pummeled by his heels, Edward realized faintly that he'd gotten his wish. Here was Alphonse, in all of his warm, sweaty presence, alive and real. As he desperately tried to wrap his arms around Alphonse's chest and roll on top of him, he could feel that precious heart beating fast and strong.
"What's the matter, Al?" Edward taunted playfully as they struggled against each other. "You fight like a girl."
"I do not!" Alphonse aimed a sharp kick at him, but Edward dodged to the side.
He laughed. "Ooh, Mrs. Al's getting angry! You better stop fighting, Mrs. Al, or you'll have to do your hair again!" He pulled the tie off Alphonse's ponytail in a swift yank, and Alphonse's golden hair swished all over the place.
But Alphonse was still grinning fiercely. "Oh yeah? Well maybe I should wait until Rapunzel lets down her hair!" With that, he reached back and tried to undo Edward's ponytail as well, but Edward managed to shake him off when the tie had slipped most of the way down. Finally he managed to roll on top of Alphonse and pinned him down with his knees.
Edward cackled down at him. "Surrender or die!" He whipped his hair around and tickled Alphonse's face with the end of his ponytail. Alphonse spluttered and tried to turn his face away, but all of a sudden his hand jabbed upward. One finger found the single place where Edward was ticklish – right below the last rib on his right side. Edward leapt back, clamping his arms down against his side and letting out a loud yelp that was somewhere between a laugh and a shriek.
Alphonse pushed himself up and advanced with an evil grin, fingers extended and wiggling towards him. Edward shuffled away, not taking his arms away from his sides for a moment. "N-No, don't Al, don't-"
Then, with a laugh, Alphonse jumped on him, wrapped his arms around him, and slipped his fingers under his protective elbows. Edward laughed helplessly, trying to shake him off, but every time he tried to push him away, Alphonse only jabbed him more mercilessly than ever.
Suddenly the door banged against the wall. "WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"
Immediately, the brothers sprang away from each other and leapt to their feet, watching apprehensively as Winry stalked into the room, a wrench clutched ominously in her hand.
"I can't even hear myself think with all this racket you're making!" She planted herself in front of them and gestured with her wrench, which Edward warily followed with his eyes. "You're acting like a couple of kids! Can't you even go one day without getting into a fight? If you want to be useful, why don't you go to the store? I've got a list as long as my arm, and while you're goofing around up here I don't have the time with everything else I've got to do."
"Sorry, Winry," Edward said hastily. "We'll go right away."
She tapped him on the head with her wrench, but though he flinched under its touch, the blow wasn't hard enough to draw blood or even make a bruise. She looked at him with affectionate exasperation, shook her head, and said, "Well, fix your hair first; you look like you've been sleeping in a haystack."
As soon as she left, they let out a relieved breath, then looked at each other and burst into giggles. "Rapunzel?" Edward chuckled, crossing over to his hairbrush sitting on his bedside table.
"Mrs. Al?" Alphonse snorted, nudging him directly in his ticklish spot and then taking the brush out of his hand. "Here, let me help you braid your hair."
Alphonse slowly sank back into his seat as the Central train station faded away into the distance. He stared out at the green fields rushing past, the farms at the edges of the city, the cows that flitted past in black-and-white blurs. He willed himself not to cry, not to think about who he was leaving behind him, but that was impossible because Edward was everywhere. The telephone poles made him think about how Edward hated talking on the phone; would he ever call when Alphonse was in Dublith? The cows made him think about how Edward got sick at even the thought of milk, and now who would make him drink it anyway? Even the sky made him think of Edward, how Edward would reach up towards it with his automail hand and tell him about all his dreams, all his plans for the future, everything he would tell no one else. And now he wouldn't be able to tell anyone that, because no one would listen, no one would understand. And then Alphonse realized that it was the same for him. Their master loved them like a mother, and Sig and Mason were like uncles...but there was no one in Dublith, no one in the whole wide world, who would listen to Alphonse the way Edward did, listening to everything he said whether it was stupid or not, and better yet, listening to everything that never managed to come out in words. There was no one he could tell everything that popped into his mind, no one who would know what he was going to say as soon as he opened his mouth, no one who would look at him and though he wore no expression, silently comfort him when he needed it.
Alphonse sniffed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve, but the tears wouldn't stop. Then he realized that there was a middle-aged woman sitting across from him, wearing a flowered hat and a kind expression. "Leave someone behind?" she asked gently.
Alphonse nodded, more tears welling up. "My brother," he managed to choke out.
She murmured something sympathetic. "How long will it be until you can see him again?"
"A year." Alphonse could tell, even through his tears, that she looked surprised to hear this. Surprised that he was falling to pieces when they would see each other again after such a short time. Ha. That was a good one. Twelve months had never seemed so long.
Hastily excusing himself, Alphonse escaped through the door at the end of the car. He'd gotten on the last car, and now he slid down to the floor of the little platform on the end, clutching the railing and watching the scenery speed away from him. The wind ripped at his clothes and hair, but he didn't go back inside. He couldn't bear the thought of sitting in there with all those people who would never understand how hard it was to leave his brother for any extended period of time at all. They didn't have a brother. They didn't have an Edward who was their whole life.
He sobbed, but there was no one to see his tears, and the whistling of the train drowned out his crying.
When he got to Dublith, he could put aside his depression and loneliness for a while, in his happiness to be with people he hadn't seen for four years and the excitement to once again study alchemy under his old master's instruction. She pushed him as hard as ever, reminding him daily not to call her 'master' anymore, sparring with him until he ached all over, and drilling him on complex computations while she sharpened her husband's butcher knives. Most days, he had no leisure to miss his brother, and he pushed himself just as hard as Izumi did, even when she left him to himself, because he realized that as long as he could pour all of his concentration into the work at hand, it didn't hurt so much.
But then there were the nights when he couldn't sleep, when he lay staring up at the ceiling, when circles and angles and equations weren't enough, when he would have traded anything just to have someone with him, though he knew that nothing in the whole wide world would be equivalent to that. And those nights, he cried. He cried into his pillow so the others wouldn't hear, so they wouldn't know how weak he was, because he was just a child even though he was almost nineteen. A man didn't need a brother like he needed the very air he breathed...right?
Alphonse tried telling himself all the benefits of his position. He tried telling himself that on his own, one-on-one with his master, he was learning more than ever before and developing his own style independent of his brother's. He tried explaining all the things he already knew, all the long discussions they'd had before about why this was what they should do. He tried urging himself to think about how much better it was for Edward this way, without a clingy little brother dragging him down. He'd always held his brother back, kept him from reaching the full potential of his greatness, because Edward always had to look out for a little brother who needed to get his body back, who could only have his armor repaired by him, who worried and fretted over everything, who finally got his body back only to be as weak as a baby and needed help with everything. Surely, Edward would be relieved to have some time away from the brother who would grab his hand whenever they were going anywhere, who couldn't stop touching him even though it had been four years.
Whenever Alphonse managed to get through one of these nights, he would wake up exhausted as though he hadn't slept at all, and then Izumi would notice. He wondered if she guessed at the reason, or whether she thought it was because of what she was putting him through. But she only sent him through warm-up exercises to wake him up and carried on as though there was nothing out of the ordinary.
But the others couldn't help noticing other signs of how much he missed his brother. The mail train from Central only came once a week, so every Wednesday Alphonse would be up at the crack of dawn, sitting on the front steps and waiting for the mailman to come. Each time, he would eagerly flip through the letters, and then his shoulders would slump when he saw that there were none for him. And the few times that Edward had sent him a letter, he immediately rushed to his room and read it through, devoured it, three times before anyone could get him to stir. Izumi left him alone for the most part on those days, giving him time to memorize the letter and write pages of his own in reply.
And then there were a few precious times when Edward called on the phone. Alphonse never called him, because Edward was always rushing off from one end of Amestris to the other, saving the world and being the famous hero as usual. Izumi would come to Alphonse, beaming, and say, "The phone's for you."
Then Alphonse would leap to his feet, rush to the phone, and clutch it as though it was his brother's hand. "Brother," he would breathe into the receiver, and it almost made him choke when he felt how unfamiliar that word was on his tongue, after not using it for such a long time.
"Hey, Al," Edward would reply, and even though it was distant and distorted through the phone line, Alphonse could still hear the soft fondness that said better than words how much he wished they could be together again. And it broke his heart, realizing that his brother missed this sorry excuse for a little brother. And for a moment, everything was okay, they were together, and it was just like it had always been. They lingered as long as they could, but of course they would have to hang up eventually, and then Alphonse was plunged into the cold again with only the memory of warmth.
Edward didn't call often. He called on Alphonse's birthday, and one day he called to tell him in a voice that said he was flushing bright red that he'd asked Winry to marry him, and she'd accepted. Then there was the time he called out of the blue, and his voice was weary and worn, and he said that an extremist had made an attempt on his life when he went to assess the Ishbal situation, and he said that it had almost worked, and he said that now he was in a hospital and if he died then his will was in his desk back home. But just when Alphonse was ready to hang up and rush off to East City himself, there were the sounds of a scuffle, and then Colonel Havoc was on the line drawling that the Chief is just tired, the doctors say he'll make a full recovery, no sweat, so you just sit tight li'l Chief and we'll take care of things here until you get back.
So Alphonse sat tight, but something inside him was dying every time he realized that Edward's life was going on without him, and he wasn't there for any of it.
Alphonse hummed as he and his brother trudged up the hill through the snow. Most of the snow had been packed down on the road by feet and wagon wheels, but the snow still rose in puffy drifts to either side. The sky was a clear, cold blue without a single cloud to be seen, and though it was so cold that the snow wasn't melting, Alphonse was too happy to care. They'd spent a good two hours in the village, taking their time to chat with the various people they knew who passed them on the street or saw them in the shops.
This was a true homecoming. Strolling slowly through the familiar countryside, greeting and laughing with people he'd known from childhood, and spending long, luxurious hours with the people who meant the most to him in the world. Even just walking up the hill with his arms laden with paper bags, when the person by his side was his brother, was pure bliss.
Alphonse looked over at his brother, who walked beside him and a little ahead, focusing on the yellow house at the top of the hill and, judging from his growling stomach, on the lunch that Winry hopefully would have waiting for them. The song faded from his lips as Alphonse took him in – the long golden braid, the distinctive gait, the broad, muscular shoulders. Edward seemed to have become stockier in the year they'd been apart – not because he was getting fat, but because his trim, muscular teenage body had steadily become honed into that of a firm, strong man. Alphonse had always seen his brother as strong, even when they were kids and all they had to be strong for were schoolyard bullies. Edward was always the one who stuck up for him, who protected him, who encouraged and inspired him with every move he made.
Alphonse had no words that could possibly say exactly how Edward had impacted his life. It wasn't just the big things like pulling him along into transmuting their mother, or bringing his soul back and binding it to a suit of armor, or giving him a body again after five long years. There were the little things too. The way he talked, his love of alchemy...everything. Edward had been there from the very beginning of his life, influencing him as he grew and developed, unknowingly shaping him into who he was now. He was confronted with his brother in even the silliest of things, like a tin can lying half-submerged in the snow at the side of the road, because at least half of him, if not more, was his brother. That was to be expected, because Edward was one of the few cherished constants in his life, like a ray of sunlight in darkest night, and just like the sun, life could not go on without him.
What on earth did people do if they didn't have a brother? There were pieces of who Alphonse was that he would never have discovered if Edward hadn't gently peeled back the layers by simply being there, being himself. Alphonse didn't know who he would be if Edward hadn't existed, but he knew he would be a much smaller, weaker person. He knew it, because every bit of Edward in him was strength, warmth, power, greatness. Having Edward for an older brother had expanded his heart in ways he couldn't even begin to describe, because he didn't know what it was like to have a heart any smaller. And for that, he loved him.
Yet as he watched Edward walking in front of him, starting to lean forward and breathe harder in the exertion of climbing the hill, his braid swinging back and forth with every step...I love you was nowhere near a strong enough statement. It said everything, and yet it said nothing, and how on earth could those short words convey all that he'd thought and felt through the past year? They said nothing of the nights he'd cried himself to sleep. They didn't mention the way his heart soared when he heard his brother's voice on the phone. They couldn't explain the way his whole being had come alive the instant he'd seen his brother running towards him in the train station, arms outstretched and a huge grin on his face. They couldn't convey how he felt ready to cross a field of mines just to see his brother smile.
And so, he said the only thing he could say: "Race you home!"
After lunch, the brothers made their way to the basement, discussing Alphonse's practical demonstration in the State Alchemist exam. Edward hadn't been present, because he'd been away on yet another trip. But the day before, Alphonse had promised to show him what he'd developed over the past year.
After Alphonse had regained his body, they'd kept the old suit of armor just as a memento of those years, storing it in the Rockbells' basement since their apartment in Central had no room to spare. Alphonse had expected the armor to haunt his dreams after he'd escaped it at last, but to his surprise he only felt a vague fondness for it, like a favorite pair of shoes that he'd finally outgrown. When he'd had to transmute a suit of armor in Dublith to try out his new theory, he'd unconsciously made a replica of this one, and it had been the same at the exam, but no one had commented.
Alphonse had explained his theory to Edward in bits and pieces throughout the day, and detailed how he'd developed a circle to transfer bits of his soul into inanimate objects, and by that means control those objects. Now he drew the circle for Edward, who examined it thoughtfully. "You have to draw an anchoring seal on yourself," Alphonse continued, grabbing a pen from Winry's workbench and quickly drawing the basic circle on the back of his hand. "It doesn't matter where. But that keeps the main part of your soul attached to your body, so it won't just all flow into the container. And I added in that extra part to put a limit on how long your soul can remain fragmented." He pointed at the section of text he was referring to on the edge of the circle. "I'm not sure if something would go wrong if your soul remained split for an extended period of time."
"Don't try to find out!" Edward said fervently.
Alphonse grinned. "Don't worry. I wasn't planning to." Holding the circle carefully in his mind, Alphonse clapped his hands together and then placed them on the breastplate of the armor, slowly siphoning off a carefully-measured slice of his soul and letting it expand like a gas inside its temporary metal container. He watched as the eyeholes in the helmet slowly began to glow with a red light, and experimentally directed the armor to flex its arms and move about. "Something like this could be useful for the military. I can put small portions of my soul into multiple containers, while retaining consciousness in my own body. One person can do as much work as several put together, and you could make different kinds of containers for different purposes."
He turned to see what his brother thought of this, and saw that Edward was gazing up at the suit of armor with an odd expression on his face. Alphonse waited for him to say something, but when he didn't, went on to say, "And you can increase the amount of soul that goes into the container, so you can transfer your consciousness to it if you need to. The anchoring seal keeps enough in your body to keep it alive." While he spoke, he lay down on the floor so he wouldn't fall and hurt himself, then widened the connection between him and the suit of armor. His view of the room from the floor melded into the view from seven feet above it.
"See?" His voice echoed around him in the armor, and he glanced down at his body lying flat on the floor, eyes closed and chest slowly rising and falling, the back of his left hand glowing.
"That is seriously freaky," Edward said bluntly, staring up at his brother. "I never thought I'd see you in that armor again."
"Sorry," Alphonse said hastily. "I'll go back now." He'd practiced going back and forth many times under their master's supervision, so it only took a few moments before he opened his real eyes and the armor settled back against the wall, lifeless once more. After he'd clambered to his feet again, Edward resolutely put the paper back down on the workbench.
"I'm going to try it," he announced, then carefully traced the circle onto the back of his hand as Alphonse had done. He studied the sketch for a few more minutes to make sure he understood it completely, then clapped and placed his hands on the armor. Suddenly the red light of his soul flicked on in the empty helmet like lightbulbs, and Edward's body toppled over.
Alphonse grabbed the body before it could fall face-down on the concrete floor, and gently maneuvered it to a comfortable position, looking up expectantly at the suit of armor.
"Did I go too far?" Edward's voice echoed in the helmet, sounding tinny and garbled. Alphonse wondered if that was how his voice had sounded.
"Yeah, you went all the way," Alphonse said apologetically, straightening Edward's automail leg. "I did that too, the first time I tried. It takes some practice to get it right."
Edward was staring at the huge gauntlets, flexing the fingers slowly. Then he turned and made clumsy, clomping strides up and down the room. Alphonse watched him silently; it felt odd to see that suit of armor moving when he wasn't controlling it in some way. So this was what Edward had experienced all those years – hearing that voice distorted out of all recognition, seeing that familiar gait so altered by the heavy limbs, being unable to discern any facial expressions...
Then Edward clanked back to Alphonse's side and slowly reached out a clumsy gauntlet towards him. The cold leather pressed against the side of Alphonse's face, and Edward stood there like that for a full minute. Alphonse had never realized it could be so frustrating to be unable to see his brother's expression when he was right there. Was he wearing a thoughtful frown? A gleeful grin?
But then when he spoke, the expression that formed itself in Alphonse's mind was one of deep sadness. "This is what it's like? You can't feel anything. It's like your whole body's made of automail. How could you ever stand to go back in here?"
Alphonse shrugged and stood up, brushing off his knees. "You get used to it after a while. Really, it was easy as long as I knew I could come back. Speaking of which, you want to come back where you belong?"
Alphonse talked his brother through the process, and soon Edward opened his eyes and took Alphonse's hand to get back on his feet. Picking up the sketch of the circle again, Edward shook his head and said, "Al, this...this is amazing. No wonder they made you a State Alchemist! I mean, I could never...like, not in a million years..." He waved the paper mutely, unable to find the right words.
"Oh, you're just saying that." Alphonse punched him on the arm, and together they made for the stairs that led out of the basement.
"No, really!" Edward cut in enthusiastically, jabbing a finger at one of the right angles in the middle of the circle. "See this part? I would have done it like this, but the way you did it-"
As Alphonse listened to him gush over the circle, what he'd been wanting to say since they'd entered the basement came blurting out. "I'm thinking about getting the anchoring seal tattooed somewhere. You know, so I can transmute immediately and so it can't be broken as easily."
Edward came to a stop at the top of the stairs, but he didn't turn around or say anything, so Alphonse rushed on. "I was thinking about putting it on my back somewhere, 'cause it's flat and it'd be easily hidden. But obviously I can't see back there myself, so...I was going to ask you to do it."
At this, Edward turned around in surprise. "Me? But I don't know how to tattoo!"
"You could learn," Alphonse said quietly, steeling himself for the refusal he'd been dreading ever since he'd first come up with the idea. "If you did it, then you would be the only one who knew my weakness."
Edward looked at him, seeming to struggle with himself, then said in a tight voice. "It'll hurt."
There was more to those words than simply the physical pain of damaging Alphonse's skin till the ink would not fade away. In Edward's eyes was a vision of him standing over his brother, who lay stretched out on his stomach while Edward traced the circle over and over and over, and Alphonse winced and bit back the pain...and yet there was greater pain on Edward's face, because he was hurting the person he swore he would never harm again.
"Brother," Alphonse murmured, so softly it was almost a whisper, "you're the only person I'd ever want to hurt me for this."
Edward's lips pressed together, then he turned away with a sigh and opened the door at the top of the stairs. "Okay, I'll do it," he said heavily, stepping through. "Better to have someone carve it into you who actually cares."
Dear Alphonse,
Happy birthday! Hope this gets to you on time; I forget when the mail train gets to Dublith. And you better like that book in the package; I had to search high and low for it, and only after scouring every last store on the face of the earth did someone tell me you had to get it mail-ordered because it's out of print. Out of print, of all things! So savor every page, buster.
But really, I wish I could give it to you in person. I'd love more than anything in the world to just zip down there for the cake and ice cream, but Mustang's got me racing everywhere except south, it seems. The world's really a rotten place when you can't even see your own brother on his birthday. And nineteen, too. One more year and you'll be an old geezer like me, so you should at least be allowed to go out with a bang.
I guess I don't need to tell you that it's been hard the past few months. When I think about how long we've still got to go, I don't know how I'm ever going to make it. You probably don't think it's that bad; you're probably too busy to even think about it, but if nothing else, I want you to understand this much. There's a piece of you that's in me, that I keep even though you're not here, and it's the one thing I won't let get torn every which-way as I try to get through this life that sucks without you. It's a place inside of me that belongs just to you, and I'm just waiting for you to come back home.
I miss you more every day that I don't talk to you, and I love you more for everything that you are and will become. I wouldn't take you away from this chance to chase your dreams, not in a million years, but it's hard for me.
Al, it's really hard right now.
This is a horrible way to end off a birthday letter, and I don't know why I don't just trash this and start over again, but there you go. It's not going to be okay until you're back here with me, so I don't really see that there's any use pretending. I'm counting the days, even though there's so many it doesn't seem like time is passing at all, and I can't wait to see you again.
Love,
Ed
P.S. That was the understatement of the year.
The day came peacefully, happily, to a close, just as it had begun. Edward and Alphonse lingered by the fire long after Winry had gone yawning up to bed, watching the flames slowly burn down lower and lower into the glowing embers as they consumed the last log. The brothers were still talking, even though they'd been talking a great deal in the past couple of days. It seemed that every time they'd caught up with one thing, it opened up two more topics, and there was no end to what they had to say to each other.
Edward liked it that way.
Yet as time drew on, they gradually fell into the companionable silence that Edward realized he'd missed even more than Alphonse's voice. Somehow, their silences could say just as much as, if not more than, their words. There was something of absolute tranquility born from implicit trust in this silence.
Then Edward became aware of what Alphonse was doing, and realized why this silence seemed particularly peaceful. He was absently running his forefinger up and down Edward's left hand, just feeling the knuckles and veins from fingertip to wrist. This was a habit that stemmed from those early days when the sense of touch had been new and wonderful to Alphonse, and he'd had to reach out and touch everything – especially people, and especially Edward.
At times Edward had been embarrassed by this quirk of his little brother's, but when it was just them, when there was no one around to misunderstand, no one who didn't know how important it was to feel warm flesh that meant you were close to someone... He didn't mind when Alphonse's finger trailed up his arm and found its way to his jaw.
There was no need to pretend he didn't notice, so Edward just watched Alphonse. Most of the extra height came from longer legs, so as they sat side-by-side on the sofa, they were nearly the same height for once. Edward could hardly believe this was the same pathetically emaciated boy he'd brought back, so small and light he could carry him easily in his arms. In the years since then, Alphonse had put on weight, so now his elbows didn't stick out and his ribs didn't show through his shirt, but he was still thin and gangly, strong from a year spent with Izumi Curtis who was sure to offer nourishing food and strenuous exercise daily. His little brother.
Edward was content to just look at all those wonderfully familiar features, half-forgotten in their long absence yet brought back into vivid focus all in a moment. But of course looking wasn't enough for Alphonse. He reached out with both hands and began to run his long, slender fingers over Edward's face – smoothing out the faint creases in his forehead, running along his eyebrows, tracing his cheekbone. Edward silently submitted to this inspection, strongly reminded of when Alphonse had done this the night before he'd left.
"What are you doing?" he'd asked, trying and failing to smile. "Trying to learn me by heart?"
"I already know you by heart."
After several long, silent minutes, Alphonse let his hands drop back down, but he didn't take his eyes away from Edward's. Edward looked into those grey eyes so full of trust and contentment and love that they seemed to glow like lights in a helmet. And he felt a slow tightening of his heart, a longing ache, as he thought back over how hard the last year had been, and what that meant. "Al," he began slowly, "I overheard someone talking about us a while back. Said...that it wasn't good we were so close that we could barely get by without each other. Called it an unhealthy obsession."
Edward watched the pain slowly grow in those eyes that had been so happy a moment before, and he hated himself. But he couldn't keep quiet about it any longer. It had been weighing on his heart for so many months. He clenched his fists on his knees, but he couldn't look away. "I don't want to hurt you anymore."
Alphonse turned towards the fire, and for a long time he said nothing. When finally he began to speak, it was in a murmur as low as the crackling of the flames. "It hurts. Hurts when you're not there. I guess most people wouldn't make such a big deal about not being around their brother for a while. But...you're my best friend. What's unhealthy about missing your best friend? Because I missed you that much, it means you're that important to me, you're that much worth missing. If I didn't miss you that much, wouldn't it mean I didn't love you as much?"
Suddenly Alphonse looked around at him, his expression defiant. "What were you planning to do about this so-called 'obsession' anyway?"
"Dunno," Edward mumbled defensively with a shrug. "Back off a bit? Find something else to...fill my life?" Even as the words left his mouth, he felt his heart sink at the prospect he proposed.
Alphonse looked at him, the intensity of his gaze unabating. "Brother. I don't want to love you with anything less than everything I have."
Edward saw in that face that bore so much resemblance to himself, a boy bleeding out onto the floor and screaming, a boy dipping his hand in his own blood and offering up everything he had to get his only brother back, a boy suffering through automail rehabilitation in a third of the usual time, a boy fighting and striving with every last breath for the goal he finally achieved. He saw himself in those grey eyes, in that resolute face, and yet he saw so much more than himself. Alphonse was greater than he was, even if that greatness went largely unrecognized because of how quietly it was shown. Alphonse didn't scream and rage, didn't push forward and become a State Alchemist at the tender age of twelve, didn't tear off his own limbs in desperation. But all the staunch resolve that had led Edward through his life shone from Alphonse's eyes, magnified tenfold and focused completely on one person: him.
Then Edward did something he'd been longing to do for the whole day, and hugged his little brother as tightly as he could. They remained that way for long moments that stretched into meaningless time, holding each other so tightly it felt as though they were trying to crush each other into their chests so their hearts really could touch. It was a mirror image of when they'd made their final goodbye, just before Alphonse had stepped on the train to Dublith. They'd held each other as tightly as possible then, too, but then Edward's heart had been slowly cracking, splitting in two, and falling to the ground where it shattered into a million pieces. Now it seemed to swell larger and larger, till it could encircle the whole world as his arms now encircled his brother.
A sudden tremor in Alphonse's body said that he'd begun to cry. "I'm glad to be home," he choked out.
Edward buried his face in his little brother's shoulder. "So am I."