Hi everyone! I'm back!
So I know some of you were annoyed with the shortness of last chapter so I hope this one is better. (over 2,000 words) Without further adieu, I now present a lovely, brother-love filled chapter.
Enjoy!
"Who was that?"
Ed looked up and saw that Al had returned, in his arms was the pizza's they had ordered and balanced on top of it were several soft drinks. Ed slid his phone back into his pocket before he answered.
"Winry-my friend."
"Uh, huh. Sounded more to me like your girlfriend by the way your face got this big sappy expression on your face."
"What? I did not get a sappy expression on my face!"
"How would you know? Did you happen to have a mirror in front of you?"
"Ugh! I just know that I didn't do that!"
"Hey Ed, you know that by overreacting like this, it's only confirming what I said before," Al said with a broad smile.
Edward opened his mouth to retort but found him once again unable to find the right words to articulate what he wanted to say. Instead, he let his back fall against the bed frame, crossed his arms firmly against his chest, and tried his best to stop the heat from creping up into his cheeks. This, like any respectable brother, laughed whole-heartily at.
"Oh shut up Al!" Ed yelled, his resolve shattering.
"You like her!"
"Shut up!" Ed yelled, his voice cracking into a high octave, before he grabbed onto the nearest thing within reach, a pillow, and chucked it at Al's face.
"Hey!"
Before they knew what was happening, the two brother's were having one of the most intense pillow fights ever known to man and Ed couldn't help but get an intense déjà vu feeling as he laughed and joked and threw pillows at his little brother.
SLAM!
"What's going on in here?"
Ed and Al both looked up and saw that in the doorway stood Izumi. In Ed's opinion, she didn't look sick at all. Not with her dark eyes stern and suspicious and the loss of fatigue in her body stance.
"We, we were just fooling around Izumi!" Al answered earnestly.
"…Well keep it down!" she barked.
"Yes ma'am," Ed and Al said together.
"Good. Because even if I am feeling better-."
…blood. Ed stared in alarm as Izumi suddenly began coughing up a great deal of blood. Panicking, Ed sprung up and helped the women onto Al's bed to sit.
"We have to get you to a doctor!" Ed yelled.
"…'m fine…" Izumi coughed.
"Fine? Coughing up blood is not fine!"
"Brother, relax," Al said, standing behind Ed and placing a hand on his shoulder.
"How am I supposed to-?"
"She's fine. Really!" Al said earnestly when Ed looked skeptical. "Izumi's been sick like this for some time now. She takes medication for it and it's usually kept under pretty good control. But every now and again-when she gets just a bit too busy-she'll get sick."
"Oh…"Ed said, quit relived but intrigued; what kind of sickness did she have?
"Look at the mess we made," Al muttered as he attempted to straighten the piles of blankets and pillows that were now strewn across the room.
"So, what movie do you want to watch?" Ed asked while he perused Al's rather impressive movie collection.
He seemed to have all of the movies that he and his own friends watched over: The Hangover, Blades of Glory, Star Trek, Stay Alive, Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, House of Wax, Inglorious Basterds, Pineapple Express, Zombie Land… (1)
After staring at the many different movies and weighing them in both of his hands, Ed picked one. He couldn't help but feel a little weird when he stared down at the plastic covering when he thought of what had happened that night-a night that felt to be years old now-and had watched this particular movie.
"Let's watch this one."
"Star Trek? I love that movie. It's so sick!"
Al bent over his DVD player, opened the disk and put it in the player, and then hit play…
"So Brother…" Al began several hours later.
They had watched a few more movies after Star Trek and goofed around plenty. Now, as the sun was just about to rise of the hills, the two brothers collapsed onto the floor and began falling into sleep when Al spoke up.
"Yeah Al?"
"What's it like? You know, where you live? Who takes care of you?"
It felt as if a large stone had just dropped into his stomach. What should he do? Should he lie to his brother? No…he'd just bend the truth-just for now. He wouldn't be keeping Al in the dark forever.
"Well…I live in a small foster home. I actually have three younger kids there with me."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Terry's 13, Sammy's 12, and Kyle's only seven. You want to see a picture of them?"
"Sure."
Ed dug for his bag for a moment before he pulled out his cell phone and opened up his photo collection. He then selected a picture he had taken of all four of them looking happy and content on the front porch as they ate ice cream last summer.
"They're all like my little siblings and I'm just like their big brother."
Al stared at the phone in his hands for a minute; a small frown was playing on his lips that Ed couldn't quite understand. What was with the odd emotions that Ed could see in Al's eyes? Was he…jealous?
"Then they must be some pretty lucky little kids," Al mumbled, it appeared to be more to himself. Ed couldn't help but smile sadly at how unlucky those kids actually were. "Who takes care off you and the other kids then?"
"Uh, um…this guy named Kimblee. He, well, isn't all that nice of a person actually. We end up having to take care of each other."
"Oh. I'm sorry," Al said quietly.
"But, um, how's it here? Do you go to the ocean a lot?"
"I've only gone to the Atlantic a few times. We go to the Gulf about once a summer though. It's really warm and nice there."
"That's good," Ed muttered while he struggled for something more to talk about. "I've never been to the ocean before-at least, I don't remember me ever going to one."
Al turned and gave him another strange look.
"Why don't you remember things? You mentioned that…that you didn't remember things. And why don't you have an arm and a leg?"
"…I don't know why I don't remember things. I guess everything has to do with the accident. Do you remember anything about the accident Al?"
"Not really," Al answered, causing a small bit of Ed to be let down. "All I remember is that it was a fire. I was sent to a local hospital for minor injuries and then sent into the foster care system. I was originally meant to be placed into the adoption agency but I kept saying that I had a brother and I didn't want to be adopted, so in the end they placed me into this foster home. I think they felt sorry for me because well, they never found any record of you. Not for years that is."
"They probably couldn't find any record of me because for about a month I was laying in a hospital bed with no clue as to whom I was," Ed answered quietly. "I started to slowly remember my name. I remember the nursing staff thought I had made up the name when I told them all that was my name. But once I had recovered, I was placed into a foster system straight away."
"And where did you get your arm and leg?" Al asked as he slowly brushed his fingers up and down the metal plate on Ed's right arm.
"My neighbor. Winry," Ed added with a smile. "Her and her family comes from a long line of mechanics and Doctors and so they created this type of prosthetics that they thought I should use."
"It looks like it hurt," Al said as he eyed a nasty scar on his shoulder.
Ed was about to lie and say that no; it wasn't that bad but decided against it when he said, "that's an understatement."
"Do you have a picture of Winry?" Al asked suddenly, making Ed blush slightly.
"Yeah, I'll show you one."
Ed skipped through his photos until he landed on an expectable picture of her. It was of her from the homecoming football game this past school year. She had a school bandana tied around her forehead, on her cheeks were paint smears of their school colors, and she wore the old football jersey that Ed had stolen from the middle school after his one month stint of Junior Varsity Football. She looked beautiful to Ed, but he was defiantly not going to tell Al his opinion.
"She's pretty," Al said with a sincere smile. "I can see why you like her."
"I don't-!"
"Enough bull Ed," Al cut Ed off, surprising Ed. "Any idiot can tell that you like her! I've only seen you for a few hours and I can totally tell you have feelings for her, and she most likely does for you too."
Ed remained silent. What was he supposed to say? That Al was seeing things? That he did not in-fact hold any sort of romantic feelings towards Winry? No, Ed knew it would be useless to tried and say a blatant lie like that, but that didn't mean that he was going to admit this to Al right now.
"So what are your friends like?" Al asked after a rather long and awkward pause.
"…weird."
"How many did you bring with you?"
"I brought my six best friends."
"You have six best friends?" Al asked in awe. "I only have two, but then I have a bunch of 'just friend' friends."
"Hmm, I don't think I have any friends like that."
"What are all of their names? What are they like?"
"Well there's Winry, she can get pretty scary when she's pissed but she's usually nice. And then there's Roy, he can be a huge, arrogant asshole most of the time but he's been known to actually show some compassion." This made Al laugh. "Jean isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the pack most of the time but I know he has some intelligence…somewhere."
As Ed went through each of his friends, he brought up a picture of them on his cell phone to show Al. Once Ed had finished describing each of his best and only friends, Al asked if he could meet them later today. Ed said probably, since they most likely didn't have any plans for the rest of their trip here.
"What about you Al?" Ed asked. "What about your friends? What are they like?"
"There's Russell and Fletcher Tringham. They're brothers, both a year in difference. Russ is your age and Fletcher is mine. Here I'll show you a picture!"
Al quickly thrust his phone under Ed's nose after a second of scrambling. In front of his eyes was a picture of two blond-haired boys with sharp light blue eyes. One had the same gentle air about him that Al had and the other seemed to radiate cockiness, even in picture form.
"That ones Russ," Al said point to the cocky looking one. "Oh! I almost forgot. There's also Rose."
"Rose?" Ed asked with a playful smirk on his face. "As in a girl?"
"Yes a girl but no to what you're thinking. She's totally into other guys."
"Yeah but that doesn't mean you don't like her."
"As if! Not to be mean but she's…" Al paused as he struggled to find a way to phrase it politely but when he couldn't he ended up finishing with, "a bit of a slut really. I haven't seen her hold a relationship that lasted more than a week."
Ed couldn't help but let out a laugh as he thought of Roy a while ago and how he had insisted that his record relationship had been a month long, as if that was a good lengthed relationship.
"What is it?"
"That just reminded me of my friend Roy."
"I can't wait to meet him!" Al exclaimed as he flopped back down onto his back.
"And I'm sure he can't wait until he's met you too."
"Then once I meet your friends, I can call up Russ and Fletch and Rose and we can all hang out! It'll be so much fun!"
"Heh, I'm sure it will be Al."
Izumi listened from the floor below to the two boys carry on as if it was not five in the morning. But she wouldn't complain because she was happy none-the-less that Alphonse had finally reunited with his brother Edward. He seemed just as nice as Al described but she still hoped to learn more about the boy. But that, of course, could and would wait until a later time because right now, she had more important things to do. Izumi walked over to the living room, sat down on the couch, and picked up the near-by house phone before she dialed a number. Izumi hoped that the person would pick up even though the hour of the day indicated otherwise.
Ring…ring…ring…ring…
"Hello?"
"Hello, it's Izumi," she said with a small smile before she continued. "I would just like you to know that he's here and I think you should stop by soon before he's gone."
Before the person on the other line could say anymore, Izumi hung up the phone with a bust of satisfaction; she just hoped her plan would work out.
(1) *copy and paste favorite movie list from profile*
Sneaky Izumi...
So, next chapter we shall be introduced to Russel, Fletcher, and Rose. And sorry in advance to people who like Rose because, well...I'll basically be portraying her as a slut in this story. Nothing against her but I already used the other female characters.
Please send a review my way!
-FSK