Well, here is the end of this Arc. Then we just to exams. I is excited. Lulz...and hungry. I'm going to lunch.

Episode 24 - Last Few Days

Al did his best to be quiet when entering the front door. He told his parents that he was staying out late and not to wait up for him. So long as he was back by midnight, there would be no argunment. Even though Al was a fan of fibbing, he was good to follow cerfew. Turning the knob as he closed the door, he did his best not to make a sound.

"You're home." Ed said, looking at him from the other side of the living room over the book he was writing in. "Good, now I don't have to play the bad guy."

Al was beyond confused. "What?" Was all he could muster.

"Oh." Edward began. "Mom and Dad wanted to go to bed, so they got me to stay up and if you weren't home by midnight, I was to wake them up and they were going to meet you at the door. Lucky you, huh? You're home and off the hook."

"...what?" Still confused, it seemed that words were lost to him.

Peering across the room to his brother, Ed squinted. "You alright...you're acting weird."

"What? No, I'm ok." 'What' seemed to be the word of choice. "I'm goin' to bed." He approached the stairs, they seemed to be taking on an interesting array of movement. The bright wood contrasted with the dark carpet and for Al, at the time, was very intruging. He paused to admire it.

"Alright...then why do you smell like smoke?" Ed proded. He wasn't planning on telling the folks, he just saw fun to torment him. "Kind of like pot actually."

Al froze, dead in his tracks, it seemed like he was found out. "...maybe." He hesitated. "Come on, you can't tell dad, he'll be pissed. What do you want?" He was slightly frantic.

Cashing in on Al's lowered state of reasoning, he smirked. "Want?" Truth be told, Ed wasn't looking for anything beyond conversation. "Well..." He began. "Tell me one thing. It wasn't just a bladder infection, was it?"

Nodding to his brother, he ran his fingers through his own hair. "They don't know until my test results come in. But they gave me the pills as a 'just in case'."

Taking in the information, Edward nodded. "Alright. Goodnight." Ed went back to what he was doing, a simple sudoku puzzle in a book he bought at Coles.

"Cool." Carefully, he headed up the stairs to his bedroom, Ed followed close behind.

"So tell me, where'd you get it from?" Ed leaned against the door of his own room Al was halfway through his.

"Your buddy with the green hair was out back of the mall. I ran into him when I was going for the bus at like, nine." It was nearly eleven at that point. "So I had to wait and get the ten o'clock bus. He's actually a pretty nice guy, told me all about Roy too. Way to PWN him." Al absent-mindedly used internet slang.

"Yeah, it was pretty crazy. So, what are you going to for the rest of the night?"

Al shook his head. "What I have to do is to go to bed and stop thinking about ducks. Goodnight." That being said, Al turned around and shut his door.

Ed stood by his room, confused beyon all means. He turned around jarringly, pausing every few inches, hesitating as if he wanted to go to bed, but he also wanted to talk to Al about what he meant.

Just then Al's head poked out his door. "Wait...why the fuck was I talking about ducks?" He eyes were shut in concentration.

Ed shrugged. "I have no idea Al."

"Oh, never mind then. Goodnight." He watched his brother enter his own room.

"Goodnight, Al"

Alphonse entered his room and immedatly, he crashed on the bed. Clumsily, he tugged the blankets over himself for warmth. It was then that it was the first time in days that he actually felt like he could rest.

Morning rolled around and Ed got up early for the sole fact he needed to see if Al was functional today. "Get up...come on." He did his best to shake him awake.

"Potatoe salad?" Al said in his sleep.

Ed became frustrated. "Get up!" He gave him a shot in the shoulder.

"Ow! Dammit. What do you want." Al rolled over and placed his back to his sibling.

"I want to know how you're feeling."

"Pissed off cause you hit me the fucking arm. Why?" He said with teeth.

Thinking it would be obvious, Ed huffed. "You were really out of it last night. Remember what happened at Clause's party? You could barely move the next day." He reasoned with him.

"...ehh...I'm fine...let me wake up first." Al shuffled his feet beneath the covers. "Can we go to Do'flickies for breakfast?" He said with a smirk.

"Do'flickies?" Ed said with confusion.

"Yeah, Do'flickies. You know when you're trying to say a word, but it just doesn't come out? Yeah, well Russell was trying to suggest that we go to Tim Hortons, but the word just wouldn't come out. So we just ended up calling it Do'flickies."

Ed laughed. "That sounds like Russ. So you're good to go?"

"Yeah...thanks." He said, still curled up in his balnkets.

Finally the last week was drawing close to an end. Al was detereorating further and further. Infection upon infection was poping up from all angles. His ear for one, the cut her got on his leg from the bleachers for another, the bladder infection that wasn't clearing up. Al swore if he managed to get rid of whatever it was that he had, he would never party that hard ever again.

He stood in the kitchen, standing above the kitchen sink, allowing the water to get cold for a drink. He had been feeling dizzy for the last several days and was dehydrated from the fever he had been sporting that didn't want to break. It was nothing short of a miricle that his parents didn't notice the poor condition he was in for the week, they were schedueled for another preformance at the end of the month, so they were praticing and ordering take out for the last while, so contact with the kids was minimal.

Alphonse looked in the reflective glass on the front of the cupboard, his eyes were sunken from lack of sleep and his skin was a ghostly pale from the lack of nutrition. He was a mess. It was confirmed at school as well, Carlo and his girlfriend both tested positive for Aids, so it looked like it was the only answer he was going to get today was the same they were given.

His appointment wasn't till six, so he decided to head home to eat first and then, get a cab back to the school later. He knew full well that when the results came back, there was no hiding from the rest of his family. Ed didn't seem too worried about him. Al recalled telling his brother that it was only a bladder infection, as to not worry him, so it appeared to be working.

Finally, the water reached the right temperature for drinking. Al reached into the cupboard for a glass. Taking one of the tall ones form the said, he removed it from it's resting place. In lieu of carefully placing it on the counter, it slipped form his hand. In a quick attempt to save the glass, he grabbed at it with his left hand. The glass hit the counter and shattered, Al's hand only close enough to get hit with the sharp edges as it broke.

"Dammit!" He said as he watched the blood from his hand spill on to the counter. Quickly, he moved over the sink and allowed the infected red liquid to flow helplessly down the drain.

"You ok Al?" Ed yelled from the other room.

"...yeah, I'll be ok?" He said with uncertainty.

"You'll be ok?" He quickly entered the kitchen to see red soaking his brother's arm and on the light green counter top. "Shit, Al! You're cut pretty bad." He grabbed a drying rag from the back of one of the kitchen chairs. "Here, I'll put some pressure on it."

"No! Don't touch me!" He yelled.

Ed was taken quite aback. "Alright. What's your problem?" He said, rather hurt. He was only trying to help him out.

Al averted his vision. "I don't want you to catch anything."

Giving it a second to sink in, Ed took a step back. "...you're kidding."

"No." He said, taking the dry rag from his brother with his clean hand. "I know all about what happened at the party. Clause was with Carlo, Carlo has aids, then she was with me...so that means..."

"Al..." He was at a loss for words. "You have to go to a doctor." Edward said with sencerity.

"I know. I actually have an appointment with the school clinic at six today, my test results are in." Al shakily wrapped the cloth around his cut. It was deep, not deep eough to call for stitches, but needed a serious bandage.

"I'll take you if you didn't have other arrangments." He did his best to sound sympathetic.

Al nodded. "Thanks, Ed..."

Quickly realizing that there was blood on the counter, he reached under the sink and pulled out the bleach. "Do you have the bleeding under control?" He noticed Al confirm with a nodd. "Good. You go sit down. I'll clean this up, I'll wear gloves and then I'll dress that wound. Then we'll head out."

"Sure."

"Thanks again Ed." Al said, his newly bandaged hand resting on his lap, gingerly folded with the other hand.

"It's ok...so...how are you going to tell Mom and Dad?" He asked, hoping Al was holding it together and not about to break down crying. In an off thought, he actually never recalled an instance when he remembered Al ever crying.

"Don't know...this sucks..."

Ed tried to come up with some comforting words, but nothing seemed to come to mind. Comforting words he felt were left for someone who might have another option if things worked out, but if this was what it looked like, there really were no words for Al.

"Alphonse Hohenheim?" The clinic worker said from his office.

"Hmm?" Al stood up alongside his brother.

"Want me to go in with you?" Ed asked.

"Yeah..."

Sitting down in the two of the three chairs provided, they watched the doctor go through a few files. "Alphonse H....here you are." The doctor placed a bottle of pills at the head of his desk in front of Al. "Take them right to the end, be very careful not to mis one dose. You don't want to relapse, then you'll be right back to where you are now."

"Right." Al said as he reached out to the little orange bottle.

"Wait." Ed interrupted. "Aids is a virus." He pulled the bottle form his twin's hand. "Ciprofloxacin? This is an antibiotic, it doesn't cure virsus...wait, that means."

"Al, you don't have Aids, you have Ghonnorea." The doctor corrected him.

"You are shitting me!!!" Al said as he stood up from his chair. "Holy shit. I had myself convinced that I had Aids, thank god!" Al raised his hands in the air. "Thank you so much. I think I'm the only person happy to find out they have Ghonnrea."

"Probably." Ed took the pamphlet the doctor was holding out, he skimmed it briefly. "But...you had way more symptoms than this."

The doctor scribbled some things down. "Well, if he thought thathe had it, the chances of psycho-symatic ailments would be common."

"Come again." Al said, coming down off his cloud.

"In a nut shell, you thought you had it so much, that you started to exibit the symptoms. No doubt you were doing some reading up on the virus." He closed Alphonse's file.

"...huh?" Al was still confused.

"Eh. Basically, you tricked yourself into having it, is what I think he's trying to say." Ed did his best to clairify.

"Essentially." He smiled.

"But wait...Now...I'm not sure...I didn't sleep with anyone to get this...per-say." Al tried to not say it outright.

The older man leaned back in his chair. "Though it is rare, it can be passed oraly."

"Ah, makes sence." Ed stood up from his chair and they both exited the clinic. "Now that that's over and done with, wanna go to Do'flickies."

Al nodded. "I would love to go to Do'flickies."

There you have it. Al doesn't have aids. Ya' happy. :)

Just so you guys know, the 'Do'flickies' incident was actually based on a true story...not a word a lie. Also, so was the duck thing...sadly, that one just happened last night. DX