Sixteen-year-old Edward examined his right arm. Said arm was stretched upwards, whether reaching for the sky, some unreachable goal, dream, or simply nothing at all he didn't know.

His dull, half lidded, golden eyes scanned up and down his arm, catching every black and blue mark that marred his slightly creamy skin. Edward also took notice of the various sizes of the bruises. Most ranged from the size of thumb prints to an entire hand, both of which were a little larger than his own. He added them up to a grand total of seven, but he knew there were most likely more on his other arm.

Those were just the limbs, which he used to try to prevent the ten, foot-sized bruises that now mar his abdominal area. As you can tell, he failed.

They hurt like a bitch but Ed gladly took that over one of his ribs being broken, which thankfully none were. Pain and discomfort were easier to hide than a broken bone or an entire limb.

Edward's golden locks of hair, once pulled back into a neat braid, which ended at the middle of his back, now lay in a tangled mess on his red covered pillow. The only thing that held the chaotic clumps of hair together was the brown hair tie at the end of it all.

How had this happened? He asked himself. When had it all tumbled down to this? Why had he let this happen without his noticing it before it was far too late?

"It's not fair," Edward mumbled to himself aloud.

Suddenly he was dragged from his thoughts by a timid knock on his door, a knock, which could only come from his younger brother, Alphonse.

Said brother opened the door slowly, and peeked his head of, short, sandy blonde hair inside the door.

He smiled softly as his gray eyes found Ed lying on his bed, and said, "Brother, you're home. If I'd known you were back I would've come in sooner, but mom and I didn't hear you come in."

Edward sat up and smiled, what he hoped to be convincingly at his brother.

"No problem Al," he said, " I should have said something."

He then silently patted an empty spot right next to him on his bed. Alphonse's smile grew wider and he all but ran to sit by his older brother.

Sitting side-by-side like this with his brother reminded Edward of how tall Al was. Yes, he would admit (to himself and himself only) that he was almost a full head shorter than his brother whom he was a year older than, but because it was Alphonse, he supposed he'd be okay with it.

They sat in silence for a little while, when Al decided to break it.

"So, how'd the date go?" he asked.

Edward's peaceful smile shattered right before his brother's eyes, and a look of sadness and fear replaced it.

Or, at least, that's what Al thought he saw. Ed recovered too quickly for him to be one hundred percent sure. One thing was for sure though. Whatever expression was on his face just now wasn't a good one, Edward's now noticeably fake smile was proof enough for that.

"Yeah, I had fun. Of course I had fun! Why'd you ask?" Edward responded all too quickly.

"I didn't," Al replied, "I only asked how it went."

Shit.

"Umm…"

"Was it Envy? Is he-"

"No!" Ed interrupted suddenly, " I mean, he's gotten much better. You have nothing to worry about."

Edward was lying. Alphonse could see that. Then again, his brother was never a very good liar. It went against Ed's morals to lie, so he only did so in emergencies. Whenever he did lie about something it showed all over his face, so he did it as little as possible.

That's why Al didn't say anything about it. He knew that even if he did mention it Ed would just deny it. Besides, based off of his older brother's behavior, he knew enough.

"Okay," Alphonse said, "but you know you can tell me if something's bothering you right? Just because I'm younger than you doesn't mean I won't know how to help."

At this, Ed smiled (genuinely this time) softly at him. His younger brother was so sweet, so kind, so innocent. He'd always been that way. Edward promised himself long ago that he'd protect that innocence as long as he possibly could.

That's why I can't tell you.

"I know Al," Ed said quietly, "don't worry so much. I'm fine alright."

Alphonse eyed his brother worriedly for a moment. As mentioned before, he knew his brother wasn't telling him everything. However he knew that he wouldn't be able to get anything out of him now… but he knew someone who could.

Alphonse smiled to himself due to the sudden epiphany. He knew better than to let Edward see it, though, he may get suspicious, but god was it killing him not to smile openly right then!

"Okay brother," he said, maintaining his concerned-younger-brother voice perfectly, "I'll just go tell mom you're home." With that, he all but ran out the door of his brother's bedroom.

It wasn't a total lie. Alphonse planned on letting their mother know that his brother had returned home, right after the very important phone call he was about to make anyway.

Immediately after exiting Ed's room, Alphonse sped off to his, grabbed his old flip phone (Why text when you could just talk to the person on the other line and hold twice the conversation?) and rapidly dialed a number.

After a grand total of two rings, he'd counted, the other line was picked up and deep, male, voice said, "Hello?"

"Hey," Al replied, " It's me, I think something's wrong with Edward…"

Edward watched as his brother walked out of the room. Had he been his usual self, he would've seen that Alphonse was clearly hiding something. He'd have stopped his younger brother at the door and demanded he told him what he was thinking.

However, none of this happened. He just watched as Al walked out his bedroom door, and closed it behind him. There was no order for the younger of the two to stop, nor was there an interrogation of his thoughts, he didn't even cross his mind that Al might be hiding something. Ed just watched with silent eyes left the room, still on his bed.

Even he doesn't know how long he stayed on that bed, laying down and staring at nothing, until finally he stopped staring and saw nothing but the back of his eyelids.

Hello peoples, so this's my second attempt at my first multi-chap fic. Thanks to everyone who backed up the decision, and to anyone who's reading this for the first time, don't worry you didn't miss anything really. just "setting the story strait" as you might say ;3