Iridescence
10.3.11
His Heart Burned in Florid Flame
"A-Al..."
If he could see his face, it could be camoflauged in the banks of snow.
If he had anything else to say, he'd end up choking - on tears without question.
If he hadn't stowed the watch atop that goddamned wobbly bookshelf - overstuffed with the dustiest and neglected books, where no one but him evaded to - asking his brother to just move out the way for a second, and bump into the thing, the silver disk wouldn't have rolled before the armoured boy's feet - and when he good-naturedly reached down to pick it up, it had bloomed open before him...
And Ed wouldn't have admit to his brother that he still envisaged the memories of that day like a reopening scar each year.
It's October 3rd.
Don't forget.
Why was it so fucking hard to hold out his palm and spit out to his own flesh and blood of armour, "This day is branded on me so thickly that I'm burning"?
To cry out, "I still have nightmares...that we let ourselves burn alive while sitting on the couch, watching the wooden coffee table get devoured by the slobbery mouth of the inferno, the photos with us and Mom becoming singed hair and ceramic skull, and we sit there, not saying a word, and cough and choke to die as the air around us succumbs to congested black clouds!"?
To scream, "Each year on that damn day, I don't feel like your older brother! I feel so small, I'm so scared, Al. I think I will die! I think back of what I put you through, and how you got in that body, and how half-ass I felt, pitying you like the bastard I am, trying to describe your pain and all I could tell myself was 'it was ten times worse than mine!' I...I think of more than just the day we burned our house down, I relive it time after fucking time again and-!"
He would bite his tongue, sigh - drag out a jagged breath that quakes his tongue dryly - and stop.
Because to say that would require some letting go. Some resitance of pride.
So the words came forth from the boy that was shrunken, broken, and shuttered inside a bottle of agony.
"Al, you wanna know why I didn't cry that day? Why I let Winry do that for me and I asked her why? I...knew we'd move on, and overcome our fears but...they come back...and even that fragile second is enough where I will just break."
Before Ed knows it, a pair of arms are embracing him. Often chilled due to autumn's winrty bite, and seldom an uncomfortable press of his forehead against Al's chestplate, Ed feels a billow of empressment coursing hotly through his brother, who released the most broken, child-like sonancy of cries his body would allow. He would make sure his big brother's pride would fall back enough to let his emotions slip through the million pores of his heart, like a cooling remedy for a burned wound, and let Ed cry...
"That's why we're brothers, Ed. We share pains like this," whispered angrily the younger Elric. "You shouldn't have made this day such a burden. You shoudn't have bottled up your pain for this long...!"
"I'm sorry, Al..." the older, but smaller still, brother proclaimed. The apologies adding up to this day four years ago were plenty, so he started slowly. "I'm sorry..."
And Al, providing the tenderness eqivalent to both absent parents, sheltered Ed with his bulky body as he cradled his sobbing form.
I had to make this. It is October 3rd Year 11, which won't happen for like 1000 years. This had to be done!
This has some reference to "Argent Engravement," where Ed promised himself he'd pour out his feelings about the watch, but never did he expect to express them like that. His sentences and tears spoke the volumes of the paragraphs I wrote that he wanted to say, but couldn't.
So Happy (Sad, Broken, Healing) October 3rd, Year 11, FMA remembrance of that day.
Aren'tcha glad I updated? :)