With the end of TYD looming on the horizon, and a whole summer ahead of me, I've decided to undertake the "64 Damn Prompts" challenge from livejournal. I conducted a poll on tumblr; the fandom of choice over the past 24 hours was, as you can see, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. This is my first foray into FMA fanfic, so I'm really excited! The fics will cover a wide range of characters, but will probably focus on the relationships between Ed, Al, Riza, Roy, and Winry most often, with the occasional Maes Hughes (Nobody Dies AU, anybody?), Ling/Greed, Lan Fan, May, Homunculi, etc. making their appearances.

We're gonna start out with some nice Alphonse angst, because who doesn't need more of that in their life? (ME! Except apparently I DO, because, ya know, I wrote it.) The prompt (I'll be using them as my chapter titles) is 2 AM. Betcha can't guess where that's going.

I don't own FMA. Enjoy!

"Alphonse, you should be sleeping."

The boy looked up from where he sat, knees curled to his chest, only to realize that, even in this position, he still had to look down to see Grandma Pinako. Her hand rested kindly on his massive metal shin, but he couldn't feel a thing. He looked away.

"I can't."

Pinako folded her hands again, her expression inscrutable behind the thick lenses of her glasses. The thin line of her mouth could have been surprise or concern or any number of reactions, but Alphonse somehow got the feeling that she had been expecting this.

She asked anyway. "Can't how?"

. . .

The first night, he had attributed it to sheer trauma and residual adrenaline.

. . .

The second night, he told himself he wanted to be there if his brother woke up.

. . .

The third night, he rationalized that he must have fallen asleep at some point and not noticed.

. . .

The fourth night, he watched every movement of the clock until the sun rose, and he knew.

. . .

Al hugged himself tightly. Or at least he thought he did-he couldn't feel anything. He should have known the minute he understood what Ed had done to save him. Scientifically, logically, it was obvious, the only possibly outcome. Teacher would be ashamed that it took him so long to realize.

"I think-" he finally managed to say-"I mean, I guess-I think, you know, without my body..."

"There's no need to sleep," Pinako finished gravely, placing her hand against his leg once more. "I wondered."

Al gazed out the window. "It took me four days to figure it out."

"You had more important things on your mind," Pinako reminded him-more gruffly than she meant to-dropping her hand so that Al wouldn't notice how it curled into a fist.

Al turned wistfully-not that anyone could tell-toward the lopsided silhouette of his brother in the bed at the other end of the room. "I still do." He looked suddenly back at Pinako. "Does he know, do you think?"

His words came out tremulous and small, the voice of a boy echoing through the hollow form of a man, and it broke Pinako's heart.

"I don't think he knows much of anything right now," she replied. "He's still quite heavily sedated. Helps with the nightmares, I think. That must be one good thing about not sleeping, eh?"

Al stayed silent, not wanting to tell her that the nightmares came anyway, twice as intensely to a waking mind with nothing physical to ground or distract it, and that he couldn't turn them off. Couldn't escape. Couldn't forget the screams, the all-encompassing whiteness that stole his memories from the moment they put their hands on the circle until he found himself, too large and strangely senseless, on the ground in a pool of Edward's blood. Every minute was a reliving, and a tortured question: could he have done something to prevent all this?

Pinako looked at him, eyes glittering briefly beneath her spectacles, and Al knew he didn't have to explain himself. She knew. And she also knew that he had to bear it somehow. So they told themselves that at least, without sleep, there could be no nightmares-only memories. No need to admit that those were worse.

"What do you do all night, then?"

Alphonse nodded once more towards the bed. "Watch over Brother." Rehearse transmutations in my head. Try to remember Mom's face. Wish that I were dead.

Pinako hummed in understanding, though exactly how much she had understood, Alphonse was not quite sure. "He's recovering quite well, you know. He's strong. We might be able to start fitting him with automail in less than a year if we're lucky."

"And then we'll match!" The optimism in Al's voice was forced, but not entirely devoid of the child-like whimsy his words suggested. Perhaps he was only trying to make the best of a bad situation, but he had to find his comfort where he could. And if he could remember, if only for a moment, that he was still a child...then that had to be enough for now.

"Gran'mama?"

Winry, small, half-awake, complete with bedhead, stood in the doorway, clutching a teddy bear by one leg and rubbing her eyes.

"Goodness," Pinako exclaimed, "What are you doing awake, Winry? It's past two!"

Winry pursed her lips and tried to scowl, but ended up yawning. "What're you doing awake?"

"Talking to Alphonse. He can't sleep."

The double meaning of the phrase was lost on Winry, and she blinked at Al a few times before walking over to him and handing him her teddy bear. "Here," she said gravely. "He always helps me sleep."

Pinako chuckled-there was really nothing to do but laugh or cry at this hour, and she preferred not to cry-before taking Winry's hand and guiding her gently to the doorway. "Say goodnight to Alphonse."

"'night," Winry mumbled, leaning against her grandmother, already mostly asleep.

"Goodnight Winry," Al called softly after her. "Thank you!"

After Pinako had put Winry to bed again, she returned to stand at the door of the boys' bedroom. Al was holding the teddy bear out in front of him and telling it stories about his mother's apple pie.

"It's the best thing I've ever tasted," he was saying. "Brother would try and fit a whole piece in his mouth at once and Mom would scold him, 'don't be greedy, Edward,' but she would be laughing.

"That's why we tried to bring her back," he continued. "Not because of the apple pie. Because she was so kind and so good and-" Pinako watched his enormous fists tighten around the bear's arms- "Because she loved us. And we're just kids. We need her."

His voice shook with the tears Pinako knew he could not shed.

So she shed them for him.

Now that wasn't too painful was it? (Yes, Vic, it was, please stop this at once.) Good :D

As always, please read and review. I'm hoping to update either daily or every other day (presuming I stick with one-shots, which is by no means certain). The next prompt is "metaphor."

-Vic