It's a songfic! Coldplay's 'The Scientist'.
I think records were the way they played their music then, right?
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"Brother! Turn that music down! All of Amestrist can hear it!" Al was exasperated. Ed hadn't yet answered his shouts or turned down the music screaming from his bedroom. When Ed had gone up to his room earlier, he'd asked Alphonse not to disturb him, but the younger brother was no longer in a compliant mood. He didn't know why Ed couldn't listen to his record at a normal volume, like a normal, considerate person who was aware that it was almost midnight.
Al stomped to Ed's room and shoved the door open, breaking the lock.
'Come out to meet you, Tell you I'm sorry, You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, Tell you I need you, Tell you I'll set you apart
Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start
Runnin' in circles, combin' tails, Heads on a science apart'
Ed jumped when Al barged into his room, then froze, too shameful to even try to hide the pictures scattered around his knees, or the blade in his hand. Al froze too, for a moment, and then advanced on his brother. He didn't bother asking questions, knowing he would get no answers from his brother. Not when he'd fallen this low. The pictures scattered on the floor around his kneeling brother were from their childhood. Most of them were of Alphonse.
"Oh, Ed."
'Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start'
Ed's arm, shoulder to wrist, was covered in hairline cuts, each almost invisible, but outlined in running red blood.
'I was just guessin', At numbers and figures, Pullin' the puzzles apart
Questions of science, Science and progress, Do not speak as loud as my heart
Don't tell me you love me, Come back and haunt me, Oh what a rush to the start
Runnin' in circles, Chasing our tails, Comin' back as we are'
"Brother, you're not allowed to do this anymore. You can't fall like this when I need you to be strong, to help me keep searching for the stone," Al's straining voice suddenly broke as he began to yell at his wayward sibling. "We can't go back to the past! We can't undo this by going backward! We have to go forward! Stand up and WALK!"
'Nobody said it was easy
Oh, it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard...
I'm going back to the start.'
Alphonse wrenched the tiny blad from Ed's hand, grabbed up all the pictures off the floor and stopped the record-player.
"There's a meeting on wartime strategy analysis at Central HQ. Major Armstrong and Fuhrer Bradley will both be speaking about alchemic strategy analysis and how to tell whether an enemy army's alchemists are using Red Stones. It starts in twenty minutes. You have ten minutes to get ready." Alphonse slammed Ed's door as he walked out, his anger building from having Ed's meek, lost expression follow him wherever he moved in Ed's room.
Usually when Ed fell into these fits of self-abusive depression, a good slap to the face and a fight would bring him back around. But in this last year, their fifth year spent searching for the stone, the fits had started coming more frequently. And without their Teacher or Winry or Pinako around, and Colonel Mustang busier than ever, Ed seemed to fall farther each time. Down, down, down...
Every time, Al became less sure that Ed would revive.
'Oh, take me back to the start...'
'No one ever said it would be so hard...'