Hey y'all. Back with another angsty fic! :D *Is shot*

Well, at least my author's block is clearing up. :3

(I wrote this one on a memo on my phone during school a few weeks ago... I kept forgetting to type it up. xD)

Prompt: Broken
Genre: Angst, angst, ANGST
Rating: T
Warnings: Language, OOCness

b . r . o . k . e . n

"See? Good as new."

"Just... Just like me?"

"Just like you."

"Fuck!"

The vase gave way to the shiny cream tiles below, the force of the impact strong enough to shatter it.

"Fuck!" Ed repeated. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

Ed had thought tackling the intimidating task of 'the big clean-up' would have been relatively easy in comparison to Ed's usual hobbies - namely fighting immortal super-humans to the death. Unfortunately for the decorative vase currently far from whole, that had been one assumption too far.

Ed was in a panic as he fumbled with shaking hands for the glittering pieces of glass scattered over the clean tile. It had been Mum's vase - one of the few items Winry had managed to salvage from their house before the brothers threw the fatal match. Ed, though he would never admit to it aloud, cherished the vase as a close memory of his mother and it was the only object he'd accepted from Winry.

So, as you can imagine, Ed was almost hysterical as he attempted to pick up the countless pieces of rose-tinted glass with hands shaking like an earthquake at nine-point-oh.

"Nii-san?"

The familiar voice did little to comfort the teen, and the arms gently closing around his petite figure were hardly even registered.

"Nii-san?" Al repeated. "Did you... Did the vase get knocked over?"

Ed could feel his rusty tear ducts quickly whirring back into unfamiliar motion, and he buried his face in his brother's shirt to hide the impending tears. He nodded slowly into the white material, sniffing quietly.

Ed could feel a light breath on his head as Al sighed softly. "There's no need to cry about it, Nii-san. It was just a vase. We can get a new one, okay?"

Ed found himself shaking his head so violently he became dizzy, and Al had to hold the blonde head between his palms to prevent Ed from throwing up.

"Okay, okay, Nii-san..." Al murmured gently as he stroked his brother's golden hair. "We'll fix it. Can you find all the pieces? We can mend it with alchemy."

Ed sniffed again, nodding. When he spoke, his voice was wispy and scratchy, and he could barely raise the volume above a shaky whisper. "The pieces... didn't go very far. They should all be around here somewhere."

Al nodded, despite the fact that Ed couldn't see. "If we can gather them all up into one place, I should be able to fix the vase."

Ed shifted out of his brother's grasp and proceeded to crawl across the kitchen tiles, gathering up every shard of glass until there was a pile about three inches high in the middle of the room.

He dropped back into a sitting position as he watched Al softly bring his smooth palms together and touch the coloured heap glistening in front of him. As he watched, Ed noticed absently how pretty the glass shards were, reflecting the daylight in a million directions all at once and creating countless miniscule rainbows that danced all over Ed's vision.

There was a flash of warm blue light, and by the time Ed's vision cleared, the vase was whole and complete again, every embossed flower perfectly aligned, just as it had been before.

"See? Good as new."

Ed wondered just how much better the world would be if everything could be fixed like that, and before he knew it, crystal tears were slipping down his cheeks. He silently whispered, as if to himself, "Just... Just like me?"

Al blinked in mild surprise at the unexpected statement, before the corners of his lips turned up in a small, sad smile. "Just like you."