Chapter Text
He’s three years old when it happens. He’s lying in the scratchy late summer grass carpeting the hills of Resembool like a green ocean, his big brother lying beside him. He doesn’t know he’s a boy yet, and his dress leaves the backs of his legs exposed to the grass beneath. It pokes at his skin and sends a strange buzzing feeling through his body in waves. Still, he remains silent, eyes fixated on the sluggish clouds inching past above.
“Hey, Estelle…” Ed turns to glance at his younger brother, bits of grass and leaves intertwined with his long golden hair. Al knows their mother’s going to scold him when they return home, but she’ll spend thankless hours combing all the bits of plant matter from her oldest son’s hair.
“Hm?”
Ed’s glance returns to the vast blue expanse above them. “Do you think love exists?”
“Love…?”
Ed laughs, loud and hearty and raucous. It tumbles over the hillside and makes the inside of his ears feel funny. Ed talks loud, Al thinks. He always has. It’s as if his very existence commands the attention of others.
“I don’t know...maybe…?”
Ed shakes his head, combing a dirt-stained hand through his hair. “I don’t know either,” he sighs.
Al knows he wants to say something, but the words don’t come, instead remaining locked in his throat like they do all too often.
Still, Ed continues without fail, and the uneasiness rising in Al’s stomach like a creeping poison ebbs away into nothing.
“I mean, if love’s real...why did our old man leave us? Doesn’t loving someone mean staying with them no matter what?” Ed questions, his small hand clenching into a white-knuckled fist. He turns to look at Al, his golden eyes shimmering with sadness.
He sighs, propping himself up on his elbows and shaking some stray blades of grass from his shoulder-length hair. A mischievous breeze tousles both of their hair, combing its fingers through the waves of uncut grass. A faint trace of autumn clings to it, sending a chill through Al’s body.
“Are you cold?”
Al nods. His throat feels too scratchy to speak, and Ed reaches for his hand before pulling back.
“Sorry. I forgot. No touching, right?”
He nods again. That’s all he can do right now.
Something in Ed’s voice trembles, and a dull pain throbs in Al’s chest. “We should go inside before the sun sets,” Ed suggests, rising to his feet and dusting off his shorts.
Al knows it isn’t a suggestion, and as he sits up the ground beneath him warps and twists with all the rage of an ocean in a storm. Blackness claws at the edges of his blurred vision and bile burns the back of his throat.
“Moira…” Al breathes, his own sharp, warm breaths betraying him as they burn his lungs and squeeze his chest.
Ed chews his bottom lip and shrugs off his thin jacket, draping it over Al’s trembling body. He looks so small and frail that Ed wonders if his tiny heart might give out.
“Let’s get you inside. You can lean against me if you need to.” Ed grabs his brother’s shoulder and holds him close, keeping his grip tight.
“How’s the pressure?”
“G-good.”
Al’s breathing is labored, and his chest strains with every agonizing, rattling breath that feels as though he’s breathing fire. Behind his ribcage, his heart pounds like a trapped bird, feet moving mindlessly beneath him as his mind races in a thousand directions.
As the front door of their rural home creeps into view, Ed calls for their mother. The wind carries his voice somewhere far away, and a high-pitched ring rattles Al’s eardrums.
His brain reduces the next half-hour or so to a scrambled, blurry, painful memory. His mother seats him at the table, flitting about the kitchen as she prepares him a warm glass of what he can only assume is milk, and a warm plate of whatever they’d eaten for dinner the night prior. She holds the glass for him, muscle tension keeping tiny hands balled into tight fists. Some of the milk dribbles down his chin, and Ed stands frozen like a statue beside their mother, clutching the fabric of her shirt and staring at his younger brother.
She smells nice, and concern dances in her green eyes. Green like the color of the grass outside, the color of the very earth that breathed life into their bodies. She brushes a lock of hair from his face, sending a trail of sparks blazing across his skin.
“Mom? Is she gonna be okay?” Ed asks, his voice and knees shaking in tandem as if the very depths of his soul are shaking before the sight of his brother reduced to such a state.
Their mother clicks her tongue and presses a kiss to Ed’s forehead. “Yes.” She pauses as she pulls away, eyebrows arched. “Moira! What’s all this in your hair?”
Ed laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well...Estelle and I were playing in the grass outside.”
Their mother sighs, shaking her head. Still, forgiveness spills forth from her chest like a fountain, a smile gracing her lips. “Go draw some bath water, honey. You’ve got grass and dirt everywhere.”
Ed nods, flashing a wide, toothy grin as he scampers out of the dining room and disappears up the old, creaky wooden steps that lead to the second floor of the home. His footsteps cross the floor upstairs, and the bathroom door squeals open.
Al’s mother returns her attention to him, dabbing at his milk-stained chin with a napkin. She shakes her head as she fusses over him, wiping the milk from his neck. She lowers herself to meet Al’s eyes, and he glances away, cheeks burning with shame. It hurts.
It hurts.
He doesn’t want to look.
And she doesn’t make him, but he hears a soft sigh exit his mother’s lips as she wipes at the spots on his dress. He wants to apologize, but the words get lodged in his throat, and nothing comes out save for a disgusting, garbled whine.
“You’re okay, it’s okay.”
He wishes for another body. A body that can move how he wants, that can say what he wants, just how and when he wants. A body that isn’t irritated by the simplest of sensations like scratchy grass or fluffy coat linings. A body with a mouth that can enjoy all the tastes the world has to offer, with eyes that don’t burn and squint in bright light. A body that can keep pace with Ed’s.
But more than any of that, he wants a body that doesn’t feel like a prison. A body that isn’t a cage, with bones that don’t ache and lungs that don’t burn.
What bitter irony.