Chapter Text
Of all the changes his brother had gone through throughout their lives, these seemed the most benign. Had Al found out on his own, he might have thought differently. As it was, Pitt’s warnings had helped.
Ed shifted, a sort of tremor moving through his coat. “We’re heading to Central, right?” spoken as if it were a sentencing.
“Yes.” Al said, causing Ed to hunch away. “We’ve put it off for long enough.”
“No such thing.” Ed grumbled.
“Brother.”
“Y’know, while on our way back from Leore, we’ve found two whole leads.” He crossed his arms, not looking at Al. Another tremor. The twist of his head let show the red ring encircling his neck.
“The red water was a dead end, and Clara didn’t know anything we hadn’t already found in books.” Al reasoned.
An irritated groan, “Not a single one of the Colonel’s ‘leads’ have gotten us any closer!” He hissed, head snapping up to glower at the ceiling. A huff, long and drawn out, before he dropped his head again. Al couldn’t see the ring anymore. “And I still say Psiren wasn’t telling us everything.”
Something fluttered in Al’s chest, “Should we find her? If she didn’t tell us everything then, maybe she will next time?”
Ed snickered unexpectedly, irritation giving way to disbelief. “You’re still into her?” He asked, stuffing in his laughter but unable to keep it from his face. The sun glinted on his irises in an almost… fluorescent way; sharp green cutting through warm amber. Metallic, almost. Golden.
“...Al?” Ed asked, lips pressed thin and brow creasing. He reached out, waving a hand to grasp for his brother’s attention. “You still with me?”
“Yeah.” Al said finally. “Sorry.”
“It’s all good.” he leaned back, turning to the window again and resting against Al. “But, uh, for clarification, didja zone out or did I upset you?” his fingers twitched, half clasping. “Just to check.”
“I was thinking about how you look.” Al admitted.
A snort. “Like trash, right?”
“Hey, you stop that.” he flicked Ed’s braid. “If I’m not allowed to talk like that, then neither can you.”
He shrugged, “I’m not wrong.”
“Brother.” Al aggrieved.
A pause, his hands clasped and unclasped. “Yeah, sorry. I shouldn’t say stuff like that; it’s not healthy for me nor fair for you.”
“It’s alright.”
“So, how do I look?” He straightened his collar and smoothed his bangs, the frize relenting some.
“I meant the other stuff. Like your eyes.”
“Ah.”
“We still need to talk about what all happened.”
“...Yeah.” Ed sighed. “And… I’ll go first. I- uh–” his face scrunched, as if memory were a pile of shattered glass in need of piecing back into a whole. “I ran. Got– got on the train. He said you’d be on it?” he glanced up, swallowing, “I think?”
“Can’t you remember?”
“It’s, uh, murky.” Ed’s fingers were twitching, coat trembling. Al was no longer convinced the latter was normal. “I was pretty— really sick.”
“Oh.”
“What about you, though?” He asked quickly. “D’ya know? What happened, I mean? Probably.” He nodded to himself. “Yeah, probably.” his knees were jittering now, arms tucked close.
Al placed a hesitant hand on his brother’s shoulder, and Ed stilled. “After we got separated, the guards chased me out. I had to get the state involved, since the police thought I was the one stealing someone’s identity. When we finally got inside the manor, you were gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“You shouldn’t have had to do all that.”
A sound came from Al, as if armor could sigh. Another sound, as if the hitch of breath, and then Ed was in his arms. This time, it was Al who’d surged forward. “I-” Al trembled. “Please, just– I was so scared.”
No response.
“I thought I’d lost you.” Al whimpered, clutching tighter.
No response. Al realized that he was holding too tight, that Ed couldn’t breath.
Al gasped, releasing his hold and withdrawing. Ed didn’t swallow up air, didn’t choke or cough or cry. A stiffness left his shoulders, an almost inaudible inhalation. Al wished Ed would just say something.
Ed leaned into him again, having to go farther back because of how far Al had drawn away. He didn’t speak for a long minute. He probably didn’t want Al to hear his wheezing. “That must have been hard.” His voice was soft, apologetic. “I’m proud of you, Al,-- for finding me?” Pause “ And making it on your own.” He decided, piecing together his words. “It wasn’t fair to you. No matter the circumstance, I’m your big brother. You shouldn’t be left like that.”
“And I need to take care of you.” He kept his hands well away, but let Ed turn to his side and curl into a respectable imitation of a shrimp.
“Just let me worry about that.” Ed muttered.
“No.” there was steel in Al’s voice. “We’re brothers, and that means we help each other. I want to help you.”
“I should be able to do that myself.” Ed grumbled, frustration touching his voice.
“Please,” he leaned forward, trying for Ed’s altered eyes. All he saw was the night sky, the moon hiding off in a corner. “Let me help you.”
“Sure.” It wasn’t convincing. “D’ya know when we’ll be there by?”
“Sometime in the evening, I think.” Al said, following the new topic.
Ed tilted his head, smirking. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”
“You’re never satisfied.” Al said with an exaggerated sigh.
“Hmm.” He glanced to the window, to Al, to his lap. “Right. That reminds me. Next on the docket.”
“Oh?”
Ed fidgeted again, but made no move to get up. “I might have made an executive decision so as to better collect empirical data on a subject otherwise underrepresented.” Spoken as if planned.
Al contemplated the abandoned journal. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“Right, just, let me—“ he squirmed, tugging at his hood and pulling back the collar before stilling, expectant. “D’ya see it?”
“It’s nice…?” He guessed, seeing some fancy stitch work where a tag should be. It looked like an artist’s rendition of Ed’s nonsense-scrawlings. It made about as much sense, too.
“Hm.” Ed released the cloth and stretched his arms out towards the opposite seat, which made him look like a grumpy lapcat fresh from a nap. Something moved in Al’s peripheral, rising up and flattening out in one diagonal expanse.
“Brother?” Al asked, uncertain. Misdirections and fanciful displays weren’t too unusual from Edward (who, certainly, was not a scheming conman at every given opportunity, nor on opportunities he spun himself). But there certainly didn’t seem to be something holding up his coattails. Mindful that he was still the world’s least comfortable pillow, he leaned to try and see what was keeping the coat’s hem in such an erect position. It waved, like a flag in the wind. “Brother…?”
Ed drew his arms in again, nesting far too comfortably. “For empirical purposes, we need an appropriate- dispensable— subject. I saw fit to procure one.”
“Okay?” He didn’t get it. “An alchemical experiment? Are you combining cloth with alchemy?”
Ed shrugged.
“The Colonel might be able to give you some pointers, since his gloves seem involved with his arrays. This is for your State Alchemist exam, right?”
Ed raised his head, eyes bleary but alarmed, “That’s coming up?”
“That’s what the Colonel said.”
Ed grumbled and rested back down.
“He’s helped us a lot, Brother.”
“To answer your question, no; this is for our personal endeavors.” Pause. “And no, I wasn’t planning on showin’ this to the colonel.”
“But wouldn’t you hate it if I kept things from you?”
“I am not owed a play-by-play of your life.” Ed pointed out. “And those are two very different circumstances.”
“He's done so much for us.”
“He’s my boss, not my friend.”
“He got us to Central.”
“He set us up on a train of hostiles.”
“He convinced the higher ups to let you take the test.”
“He tricked us into coming and lied by omission.”
“He gave us a teacher and home before the exam.”
“Yeah, and that went great.”
“Brother.”
“D’ya really want to keep at this?” He gave up on glaring and slid his eyes shut. “‘Cause I can go all the way. We’ve got nothin, but time.”
“I wish you were more grateful.” Al said. “He gave you a job.”
“I got it myself.”
“He's given us leads.”
“He’s given us wild goose chase after wild goose chase. He’s yet to do a single thing that wasn’t for his gain.”
“He found us.” Al said weakly.
“He wanted Hohenheim.” Ed rebutted. “He wanted a raise.”
The tracks were a soft rumble as the minutes ticked by. Al pretended to watch the world outside, Ed didn’t bother and just stared ahead.
“This is their world.” Al muttered.
“…Yeah.” Ed agreed.
“And we can’t live in it unless we play along.”
Ed huffed. “I’m already a dog hunting for his ‘master’s’ quarry, what else should I give.”
“You just need…” he hovered a hand above Ed’s head, but thought better of it. “People like being considered.” He said instead.
“I consider ‘em plenty.” Too much, actually.
“Like with Pitt, would it have killed you to try his tea?”
“You know damn well he doesn’t know what he's doing. Remember the time he tried to treat Den?”
Al flinched. “That was a long time ago.” He defended. “He’s studied a lot since then.”
“And by ‘considered’, d’ya mean bowed down to?”
“Please don’t say that.”
“It’s what it sounds like you’re saying.”
“I just mean that— people are nicer when you play along.”
Ed curled in a bit, volume dropping. “Then there’s no end. Give ‘em an inch, they take a mile.”
“Brother,”
“I ‘played along’ in Xenotime. I ‘played along’ with Tucker. And the Colonel. And Majehal. And when Teacher brought us to that island.”
“This is their world.”
“We live our own lives.”
“We owe them.”
“This’ll always be their world.” Ed hissed. “And maybe we do have to go along a lot. But watch the board, and the players; don’t let yourself be a chess piece someone else can toss out on a whim.”
Al worried his hands. “I wish you didn’t think that.”
“Yeah?” He glanced up, smiling half heartedly. “I wish I didn’t have to.”