Hello every people. Another drabble time. This one ended up being longer than I had originally thought it would be, but I guess that isn't a bad thing per say, or at least, I hope it's not. Well, as always, hope you like, not much else to say about that.

Theme: Dreams
Characters: Alfons Hiedrich, Ed
Summary: He wasn't sure if they were just stories, or dreams, or what, but at the very least, they were interesting.
Verse: Anime
Word Count: 570

Other Worldly

"And then the four of us ran out of there. Turns out those impostors actually had some kind of talent, since they managed to get rid of the red water using the trees, which was the little brother's idea," Alfons nodded as Ed went on about another one of the adventures he'd apparently taken part in when he was in another world. It'd actually taken quite a while for the blonde boy to start talking about them, but once he managed to get up the nerve, it was quite obvious he enjoyed it.

Perhaps a little bit too much. At first, there was something just a little off about the stories, but after a while they ran into a full on fantasy realm. That would have been fine, if Ed didn't insist that they were all still completely true.

He didn't like to think that his friend was mentally unhinged, but it was hard to think of any other explanation for the magical alchemy and colorful characters Ed painted with his words. He'd asked his father about it, but hadn't gotten a straight answer out of the man. He was probably ashamed, which Alfons chalked up as one of the reasons their relationship was so strained.

It was obvious though that none of this was really dangerous, at least not for anyone besides Ed, so the blue eyed teen wasn't worried about living with him or anything like that. In fact, it was probably safer to live with him due to all the connections he drew between Alfons and his mysterious brother who he was so protective of.

Alfons had deducted that the start of this had probably been Edward's brother's death and the related loss of his limbs, and he just hadn't been able to accept it. So he made a fanciful world where he was on a mission to set things right again. It was hard to not feel sympathy for him, but he knew it wasn't something that he would want.

"And then what happened? After the trees exploded?" the blonde asked, wondering about just where all this originated from. Did he go around actually seeing all of this instead of reality, and only recently came out of his illusion? Or maybe they were all just dreams that he clung onto in a desperate attempt at fighting fate.

"Well they didn't just explode, they turned bright red, and then this blue, darker than the sky, almost like sapphires. Brighter than any of the colors here though, you know the colors here are never as bright," Ed said matter-of-factly, and Alfons smiled and nodded again. If he'd wrote down his stories, they would be a best seller for sure. The imagery he projected when he wanted to was stunning, as if he'd actually seen it in real life, ironically.

Really, he wasn't sure if these were just stories he made up, or saw in some sort of cloudy illusions, or dreams. They did manage to captivate him though, and maybe that was why his insistence on the older boy that they weren't actually real had lessened over time. He seemed to need them so badly, he didn't really want to see what Ed would look like if his dreams shattered around him. So he just smiled and listened instead. It wouldn't hurt anyone, it was really helping Ed cope in the long run, and they sure were interesting.