Title: Dreams

Characters: Edward, Alphonse, Van Hohenheim

Genre: Brother love/ Friendship/

Type: AU or AR

Words: 1,203 (Without AN and Introduction)

Dreams:

(noun) a succession of images, thoughts, or emotions passing through the mind during sleep

(noun) an aspiration; goal; aim

(noun) something of an unreal beauty, charm, or excellence

He didn't believe in the word simple. People had a knack for throwing simple solvable problems together with other simple solvable problems (like one plus one ) and creating one unsolvable complex problem (equaling two) that tested their morals, faith, love or one of the many other insecurities that had plagued humanity for centuries.

A person's life is like an onion, built on layers upon layers of events, coincidences and complicated situations. Each layer was different from the last, revealing personalities, fears, hopes, expectations, loved ones, people they despised and so on and so forth. There was always one consistent layer, however, that never changed even though on the surface it seemed vastly different. Dreams.

Dreams are a person's aspirations, a goal that gives them courage to keep on running to their metaphorical finish line of their metaphorical race. It gave them a feeling of accomplishment as if they had done something with importance; because it was a common fact the humans had an incredibly short life.

He found that all dreams tended to be similar; despite if the desired was to be the president or a famous rock star. Both occupations, while being drastically different, required the same amount of will power and sacrifices and a large amount of money.

Every person's dreams hold some sort of opaque or golden veil, creating a gentle shimmer in their eyes as they spoke of them, passion bringing life to their trodden and worn down voices. It left a sweet taste on their tongue as they replayed what they thought would be their greatest moment, their hands reaching out in the adrenaline of greed and excitement as they caressed the wind for an invisible image.

If someone who regarded themselves as normal saw this sight, they would come to the conclusion that the person was rather eccentric and if not a little off his rocker. However, he knew better and knew it was just one of human's weird quirks built into the complicated design.

Based on society's standards and his age and talent, many of his acquaintances that he knew through his travels had found his dream to be rather unexpected. For those who knew him very well and whom he had considered trustworthy, his dream was nowhere out of place and sometimes they had the thought that it maybe wasn't ambitious enough.

His father was the most well known criminal of the current century, bringing chaos, fear, pain and death to every city that he visited. Whether he did it out of genuine malicious intent or pure coincidence fueled by terrible luck, he would never know. Nor did he care, for the record, because his love for his father had disappeared years ago, to be precise it was the day that his father had left his mother and broke her heart.

Despite the many incidents of court issued restraints, terrible names, statements from his younger brother to court saying he had no desire to have any relation to his father whatsoever, (he didn't need to make a statement because he was rather famous for his feelings toward the man) his father still continued to pursue the delusion of them being a family.

He had figured it was his dream, his vision in the golden veil that continued to shimmer even though reality had suggested that he had already crushed his chances. His father had showed no signs of backing down, and he refused to be caught in the man's delusion, eluding the man by changing his name and address constantly, never staying in one place for more than a year, avoiding particularly public jobs, and even dying his hair on several occasions.

Whenever he was given a rare peaceful moment, his brother could find him spread out in his favorite chair placed by the window. His brother would sit with him, watching him as his pensive face changed with his thoughts, the mix of soft and loud music playing hypnotizing in the background.

Most of the time he thought about if his father hadn't left his mother, if he hadn't fallen to the temptation of drugs and had murdered someone, if his mother hadn't killed herself and left them alone, where would they be?

He had this odd inclination now that he would be moving out of the house, his mother filled with joy and sadness as she watched her precious oldest child leave this house. He would be going to college, trying everything he could get from beer to sleeping with all types of women, making mistakes left and right. Then he would find a woman that he thought was maybe the one. He would ask her out, have a particularly long relationship with her, and dump her because they realized they didn't fit quite as perfectly as he thought.

He would probably go through several more girlfriends, before he had found "her". They would get married; his father and mother beaming at him with pride and his little brother teasing him relentlessly. They would go through the whole struggle of buying a home, she would pop out a few kids and he would be spending the rest of his days, raising his beautiful children and wondering why the hell he wanted them again.

It was rather a stereotypical life, one many people lived in but secretly preferred something a little more exciting. However, for him, even though it was rather simple and predictable, it was farther out of his reach than anything else in the world.

His dream, in all reality, couldn't have been more different. He struggled as he tried his best efforts to protect his brother from his delusional father and the vicious cycle that had already swallowed his life.

Instead of feeling as if life was short and worth every moment, life felt like a prolonged pain and he had guiltily thought that if he had died that maybe it would have been better. He wanted, so desperately wanted, his little brother to have the life he should have had.

His life had meant nothing to him, he had no concern if he had died or lived, as long as he saved his brother, then maybe it would be all worth it. '

Despite that his dream had changed drastically, when he had closed his eyes, it still had its inviting shimmer of gold as his brother grinned happily at a rather beautiful woman who held a small child held gently in her arms. His brother was leaning down toward the tiny face, his nose only a few inches away as he cooed to the baby, little fingers happily searching for the much larger finger in front of his face.

A grin broke over his face and he felt his little brother tilt his head, for he was sitting at the side of the long chair, confusion plaguing his thoughts. He ruffled his little brother's hair, by the frown on his face he really didn't like. He was happy and knew deep down everything would work out in the end.

For additional information you might be wondering in the back of your mind, Edward is around his early twenties and Alphonse is around his late teens, specifically the ages of 16 or 17. I apologize for the long wait, though you probably deserve way better, and please continue to read my drabbles as I promise their is more to come. Have a good weekend and please review.