Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist.
Pairings: Elricest, Archer/Mustang, Lust/Scar
Warnings: Spoilers for episode 42 and 43. In fact, this basically is episodes 42-43, only different.
Notes: For 15minuteficlets word #116. Okay, I'm probably sure this happened in the afternoon on some day like Wednesday, maybe spreading out over a few days, but for the sake of this fic it was 11:21am on Monday. So there. Call it an AU if you want, because my timeline is really messed up. The times in here were the actual times that it was when I wrote this, in case anyone was wondering.
At 11:21 am on a Monday morning in Lior, a man dies, and the city rages red with energy, with life and death, fuming, angry redness, writhing, moving. The city is still as it explodes.
At 11:22 am on a Monday morning, another man covers himself in blood, shaking, and they operate on him without painkiller, and he is only numbed by their indifference. He isn't human to them, anymore. Archer thinks about another man, maybe out by the city, maybe safe in his office, and wonders if he would think of him as human, now that he is only half alive.
At 11:24 am on a Monday morning, Alphonse Elric awakens to find himself dead, his vision black and his body light, and he wonders if here in heaven he will get his first kiss. His brother never believed in heaven, though, so it isn't likely that they will ever meet. He doesn't want anyone else to kiss him instead, so he waits. If he is still alive, he is going to blow up, and he waits for that too, here in the middle.
At 11:26 am, a teenage boy walks through the sand, slowly, not fully aware of his surroundings. He is compelled, and so he digs in the sand to find his brother, and when his brother speaks he doesn't comprehend the words. His brother is alive, so he can die.
At 11:28 am, the Fuhrer calls Colonel Mustang away, and the bleeding man reaches, reaches, but loses grip. Colonel Mustang turns away from him, and he screams.
At 11:29 am, a woman walks through the same sand, calling herself human now that he has died, now that there is no reason for her to be human. Now that it has all been taken away, she can kill the Elric brothers, kill the homunculi, kill anybody that she wants to.
At 11:31 am, Alphonse Elric kisses his brother, and the redness reaches towards Edward, pulling him away, stifling him, suffocating him, tearing him away in a crimson flash, and they both realize too late that it's the Gate calling them.
Edward turns away. You shouldn't touch me.
The world echoes his words.
Now that everyone has been taken away, nobody is left to care.
Once we begin to chase you, it will all fall into place, Lust says, taking them both by surprise.
