Author: Alphonse Heiderich
Pairings: None, but brotherly love
Genre: AU, General. One-shot.
Rating: G
Word count: 1367.
Warnings: This fic is very AU. Alchemy never existed, Al is over five years younger than Ed (Al is starting high school and Ed is in post graduation?), there is bad explaining of chemistry terms. The fic is in third person, but tell Al's POV. The grammar is horrible. There is a very light mention of Elricest also.
Disclaimer: Hiromu Arakawa owns everything.
Author Notes: I don't have a vocabulary as big as I would want, and I'm aware this fic sounds too much repetitive, and I'm very sorry for it. x.o
This fic isn't beta-ed as well, and probably will never be... x.x
Nii-san means older brother.
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Chemical Bonds
Al was reading one book on basic chemistry his older brother had given to him not long ago, laying down on their couch with his book propped on his chest. He tried to stifle a yawn, not quite succeeding, and blinked the sleep away from his eyes for the fifth time for the past half hour. Finally giving up his reading for the night, he closed his book and sat up, looking around in the living room.
His brother, as always, sat on the ground surrounded by books, writing on parchments strew over a big book that sat upon his lap. Al had aways told him it was bad for his back studying that way, but Ed never payed any heed, he was aways too stubborn for his own good.
Al smiled at the concentration all written over his brother's face as he studied, almost feeling bad that he would be breaking all of it. But he couldn't let his brother sleep over his books for the third night in a row...
"Nii-san?" he asked gently, not really expecting Ed would hear him at all. He looked delighted when the older boy replied with an "hm?".
"I have a question..." he talked slowly, testing just how much attention his brother was paying to him.
"Hm-hm..." Ed answered with a bit of a frown at something he had written down, striking some lines of equations on the parchment he was working in. His younger brother sighed in exasperation.
"Nii-san! Are you even listening?" he asked with a higher voice, trying to get his brother's attention. When his attempt failed again, he just got one of the many paper balls that were thrown around in the floor and threw it on Ed's face. He got an instantaneous reply, when his brother looked up with an annoyed glare.
"What's it, Al? I'm trying to study here!" Ed huffed, looking up to Al with unfocused eyes, blinking hard to try and adjust them to the new distance he was supposed to look into after so much time reading his books.
"I have a question about chemistry..." he started again, stopping to see if Ed was listening this time.
"Then ask already! I'm busy here, be quick," Al smiled. He was listening ok, and seemed very annoyed. That was good, it meant it would take longer until his attention slipped off to his equations again.
"Well, you see, I didn't quite understand what are covalent bonds..." Ed blinked, looking at Al as if he was stupid. Al just smiled, he was used to this reaction from his brother when he asked easy questions right after taking his mind away from his over advanced studies on sciences. Ed finally processed his brother's question after a while, moaning and rubbing his temple as he closed his eyes, feeling as if he was just waking up from a dream.
"Covalent bond...? However should I explain this to you, Al?" he sat there for a while, just looking at his younger brother and thinking, forcing his brain away from the higher concepts and the more complicated explanations.
After some minutes he finally put the load of books off of his lap and stood up, wincing as his legs complained about the position he had spent the most part of his day into and the books that were thoughtlessly thrown onto them. Flexing them slightly, he finally opted to ignore them for the time, getting from the floor some of the paper balls he had thrown away previously.
Al stood there looking curiously to his older brother, almost jumping in surprise when one of the paper balls was thrown at him. He held it in his hand looking in confusion at Ed, who was walking towards him with other three balls on his own hand.
"Ok... Let's think like that..." he started, playing with the paper balls on his hands, as if trying to improvise an explanation of something about which he had never had to explain to others before. "I'm an atom. You're another atom like me, and these paper balls are electrons," he looked up at Al again, and Al just nodded his head, waiting anxiously for another of Ed's explanations of science he liked so much.
"Let's say that for us both to become stable, we need to have one of those balls, and only one, on each of our hands," he raised up his left hand to illustrate, and Al nodded again. "Buut... I have two of them in my right hand, and you have none of them in your left one, right?"
"Right..."
"Then, as I'm a caring atom and I like you, I'll give out this electron that's annoying me, and then you will just feel alright with a new electron to make you stable!" Ed threw the paper ball at him and Al held it on his left hand, smiling at his brother to pass out his understanding. Ed smiled and started to talk again.
"This is called an ionic bond. I gave out an electron to you so both of us could become stable and happy. It's a weak bond, as this electron is now yours and I have no intention at all of claiming it back, and we just keep together because we like each other. If we find anything else more interesting to us, though, we could easily break apart and go on with our own lives," Al nodded his understanding again when his brother stopped. Ionic bonds he understood just fine, but he didn't felt like pointing it out. Ed then got one of the balls off his hand and threw it on the ground along with other of his own, so they both had only one of them left.
"Now... Let's say we're both unhappy atoms missing one electron. Even though I like you, I can't give away one electron to you, or I would miss out two of them, and it wouldn't be good for me... But I could share my electron with you!" Ed put his right hand inside Al's own, holding the paper ball between them. "You would then have two, and I wouldn't loose my precious electron, right?" Al nodded, starting to understand the concept. Sharing, hm? That was what it was about?
"But I still have only one electron, and you have two. As you are a good person too, you would share yours as well, and we both would be happy and stable," Al smiled and happily nodded, following his brother's move and putting his right hand inside his brother's as well.
"When two atoms share two electrons with each other, it's called a covalent bond. It's much more stronger than the ionic bond, because both atoms are a bit too dependent on each other to feel stable. But they can break apart as well, even more if they are put in presence of a solvent. Understood?" at his brother's happy nod, Ed smiled, saying a brief "Good" and kissing Al on his forehead and letting his hands go. Al blushed, but said nothing, just throwing the balls to the floor again.
"Now I can go back to my studies-..."
"No, you can't!" Al cut his words, his voice gentle but determined. "You're not going to sleep over your books again, nii-san. You have a more comfortable bed to sleep in, do you remember?" Ed opened his mouth and started to complain something about nothing wanting to sleep, but an yawn cut it short. Al smiled at the blush that covered his brother's face, along with an annoyed frown. "If you don't remember, let me refresh you memory..." the younger boy finished with a smile, holding his brother's hand firmly and carrying him to their room. The older one hesitated.
"My books, Al..." he started, but his brother cut his words short again.
"They'll be on the same place by tomorrow, when you wake up. It's not like they will develop legs and run away at night," he heard his brother chuckle, and then his hand relax into his, confirming his victory for this time. He just hoped to be that successful the next night...