Hi! It's been a while! This is just something I wrote during Art History after I was too late to take my test... Ergh.

Alien

.

Photograph

He had expected it to be much harder to convince his strange friend to pose in a photograph with him, but it had been a surprisingly easy compromise.

Alfons wanted an image of their friendship. They may have been two fractured, crazy, reclusive people and he might be on the fast track to a miserable death, but he wanted to be remembered. Most of all, he wanted Edward to remember.

Hopefully, he would have a rocket to remind everyone else, but Edward would need something more emotionally substantial, he was sure. And he didn't want him to forget, for both of them. He was so, so worried. Worried that if Edward were to lose another "brother", he would lose what was left of his sanity. He was Edward's only true friend right now, for all he knew ever, and Edward couldn't be alone.

But he had no choice but to leave him.

Edward had been staring at the picture for the past five minutes, squinting his eyes like it had offended him. He was looking at the image as if it was broken, needed to be fixed, and Alfons was just happy that they had taken one at all. He still had to try not to care too much.

The photograph and what it represented to him was important though, at least to him, and the look Edward was giving it was making him a little upset. Goodness, could he look at it any longer? He obviously hated it! Why didn't he say anything?

Alfons watched him for another moment, sitting alone at the kitchen table while Edward leaned his back against the counter. He called his name, and because he had plenty of experience with Edward, made sure to say it a second time twice as loud, and then a third. If there was anything Alfons knew about a focused Edward it was that he was hard to get ahold of, wherever he went when he was thinking was very far away.

"Maybe as far away as Amestris," he thought, snorting at his own joke. Immediately afterward, he felt bad, even if he hadn't said it out loud.

Edward's delusions seemed so real, and from what he knew of mental illness, to Edward, they were real, very much so. He shouldn't make fun of something that his friend can't help, can't control, because of something that happened to him to make him that way. For all he knew it was something horrible. Maybe his brother really had died, he knew Edward's father was still alive and somewhere, or else he had been. Edward didn't really talk to or about his father ever so he could have kicked the bucket in the time since he'd first seen the man. And...

"Alfons… hey! Alfons!" He looked up to see Edward sitting down in the chair in front of him, pulling the wooden piece of furniture out roughly and causing a commotion, even just in the act of sitting. He clearly could never be expected to behave rationally.

"Yo, Rocket Boy, you were saying my name…" Edward drawled, and Alfons realized that he had been lost in his own thoughts just as his friend had been. He blushed. They were more alike than he liked to admit.

"Yeah, I just-"

"Alfons this picture SUCKS!"

He hadn't even broached the subject and Edward was already passionately saying the worst things possible. What was so bad about it?

"Edward! There's nothing wrong with-"

"I just think that maybe I'm in the wrong branch of research here,"

Oh no, if he would just stop interrupting him, they could talk about this. Did for some reason this picture clue Edward in on the futility of what they were doing? They needed Edward, what could have possibly made him decide from that picture that he wanted to change his goals and leave their project? He had the most amazing grasp of formulas and concepts that had never even been attempted, he was going to turn this around, to make it all work. They could do it, build their rocket, but not without him. Why would he even say that? It was just a picture, what the hell?
"...the color was awesome, you don't even know."

"What?" He must have drifted off again. Good God he was almost as bad as Edward!

"I said maybe I should have worked on cameras instead, started some sort of fantastic business and got color photography up and running. This picture is horrible, it's so plain. In Amestris we had color photography years ago! I don't understand how you guys could have invented such neat things and still be lacking so much. I mean, flying machines! That is awesome. But would it kill a guy to make prettier pictures and some automail?"

Alfons stared at him.

He was so weird.

He had him all stressed out for nothing.

Obviously he needed to get a grip on himself, he must be under a little too much stress.

Or maybe this picture was more for him than he realized.

Edward was still mumbling about his apparent confusion over the pick-and-choose advancements of this world in comparison to his own when Alfons grabbed the picture out of his hand. He turned it around, pointing at the two of them, their apartment front serving as a backdrop. He blushed profusely, and then set his mouth in a firm line.

"It looks plenty pretty to me!" He practically yelped, his eyebrows slanting in some sort of accusation, "we look great!"

Edward was quiet for a beat, and then burst out laughing.

"Yeah but who's the prettiest?" he teased, "You for sure. Especially after standing next to that big ball of many toughness!"

"Shut up! I am not pretty!"

"Are too, a pretty, pretty princess!"

"Well you're not a big ball of anything!"

…

"Did you just call me short?"

The kitchen chair squeaked hard against the floor as Edward rose, and Alfons almost knocked his over in his attempt to run to his bedroom and lock himself inside.