Heavy Arms (A Study Of Edward Elric)
Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist.
Ed, son of Trisha Elric.
Ed, Alphonse's older brother.
Edward is small but his heart is so big that it pushes other people back, so full and heavy that the smallest prick would threaten to release all the hate and guilt and self-loathing that he hoards inside himself like poisonous little jewels.
It's not that he's wrong, inside. It's just that he doesn't like shouting at Alphonse for real, doesn't like the hurt expression that his conscience conjures for him even if the suit of armor can brook no change in expression. And already he knows that he's let Al down too many times, from the time he told Al Mom will be all right to the time he watched his brother drawn shrieking into the array that had gone so horribly wrong, and time again after that, through towns and cities and villages when Al would pick up a kitten and say Ne, niisan, can I keep it and Edward would say no because he hated kittens.
No explanation for it.
Edward Elric does not like things he cannot understand.
I'm a scientist. Scientists aren't allowed to believe in inexplicable things like God.
But, underneath the determined atheist, if there is no God then what is there left to believe? That Mom died for nothing? That Al's a walking suit of armor because I screwed up? But I didn't screw up, and... And he never does say that out loud. He knows that it's too easy to spill some secrets in front of Al and yet when the crunch comes, Ed can't bring himself to say anything but sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry.
There are too many things to say.
Sometimes he feels that he's not only carrying the weight of the aching automail alone.
Maybe, with the Philosopher's Stone, he might be able to make it disappear...
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Oh yeaaah. Two fics in as many days. And before you ask, no it will not all be angst because I'm thinking of a drabble for a few of the more remarkable, shall we say, animals in the series. Like Alexander, Nina's dog... wait, that part was a tragedy too...