Edward never used to sleep so deeply, as though nothing in the world could wake him. He had always awoke at the first sound of birds in the morning or the tell-tale drips of rain during the night. When Alphonse had woken up every night for a month with nightmares after a thunderstorm it had been to the sight of Ed's face. The small almost unnoticeable whimpers had woken him.
Later he had woken to the sound of their mother's soft moans when she was in the throes of her sickness, to lost and weak to smother them for her scared children.
And then it had been Edward having the nightmares, because Alphonse couldn't, couldn't even dream anymore. It became Alphonse's turn to be there as his brother woke from the grip of a nightmare, only his were real, tangible. And now the one thing that Alphonse could feel as clear as ever was the bright spike of pain that should have lanced through his body as he saw his brother realize it's reality. Every morning as he saw the hope get crushed under the guilt, the sorrow, the pain that he shouldn't have had to carry.
Even after the nightmares stopped and he slept deeper and fuller making the bags under his eyes recede, he still woke with that haunting look of hope buried deep in his eyes. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and the hope of a little boy was still there. And each time he woke up Alphonse was there to see it crumble.
Because as much as Alphonse hated it, hated what the site of his pathetic excuse for a face did to his brother, he loved that it made him feel.