Work Text:
The train to Dublith should, by all rights, be a bit less boring than normal, now that Ed and Al have Winry making the journey with them. But all she seems to want to do is gaze at the scenery outside the window, a vacant smile on her face.
Whatever. Ed can occupy himself. It can be hard, though, when all his thoughts seem to eventually circle back to their upcoming meeting with their old alchemy master, and boy is that gonna be a hell of a scene. How long does he have to wait until then? A day? Two? Winry’s making them stop in Rush Valley, which is just going to prolong his anxiety—and they won’t be there that long, right? They didn’t exactly pack—
“Shit!!” yells Ed, entirely too loudly, to both the alarm and the embarrassment of his companions.
“What??” cry Al and Winry at the exact same time.
Ed shrinks back into his seat, suddenly self-conscious. “Um… I just realized. I forgot to bring my hormones.”
“Again?” says Al, admittedly relieved at the fact his brother’s outburst isn’t about anything more pressing.
Winry groans. “You always forget your hormones!”
“What! When have I ever forgotten before!”
“You don’t remember who had to remind you every single week back in Resembool?”
“Yeah, yeah. That doesn’t count. I’m good at remembering to take them with me.”
“You would think they really shouldn’t be easy to misplace,” adds Al with a smile in his voice, and Ed is reminded of the time he had to frantically explain to Colonel Mustang that no, he wasn’t taking drugs, this is medical, actually, go mind your own business, man! To his credit, the Colonel hadn’t brought it up after that, but had let Ed know that accidentally leaving a syringe and a bottle of testosterone in a public bathroom was perhaps a bad idea.
“Shut up! Okay, fine, I forget sometimes. Big deal. I guess I’ll just have to go make some more myself, then.” Ed crosses his arms and smirks and does not mention that the last time he tried to alchemize testosterone he got the chemical structure wrong and had to go to the hospital. Because he’s good at chemistry, and that particular memory isn’t important.
Winry is having none of it. “You are not putting chemicals in your body that you just made yourself!! You aren’t a medical alchemist!”
“Hey, I know plenty about the human body! Do you know how many books I’ve read?”
“How many of those were on endocrinology, hmm?”
“Fine, fine!” He waves his arms in the air, rolling his eyes. “Maybe there’s a pharmacy in Rush Valley we can go to.”
“Um, brother,” interjects Al. “You only need an injection once a week.”
Ed turns on him. “And who knows how long we’re going to be gone!! Winry’s going to go fawn over the automails for at least a day, and then our master’s gonna hand us our asses and we’ll be out of commission for who knows how long after that—”
“It’s okay! Nothing will happen if you’re a couple days late!”
He makes a hmph noise. “Sure, but it’s good to be on schedule to maintain even hormone levels in your blood. Plus. I need my testosterone so I can get taller.”
“Hormones will not make you taller!!” explodes Winry. “That’s a misconception and you know it!”
“Of course they will?? Hormones make you go through a second puberty, so—”
“You already had your growth spurt, Ed!”
“Well I might have a second one! I’m still a teen! My bones haven’t fused!”
“You’re not going to grow any more!” yells Winry. She sticks an accusatory finger into Ed’s chest. “Do you know what turns cartilage into bone? Calcium. Do you know what has calcium in it, mister I’m-so-good-at-chemistry??”
Ed lets out a strangled moan and sinks deeper into his seat. “You are not making this about the milk thing.”
“As a medical professional! I can tell you with complete certainty that your height has nothing to do with your testosterone levels and everything to do with the fact that you never drank milk as a kid.”
“Fuck you!” screams Ed. “This is transphobia!!”
“Milk doesn’t care about your gender! Milk is good for you! Look, Alphonse drank milk!”
“We’re on a train,” says Al very quietly.
Instead of shutting up, Ed gestures wildly to his brother. “Alphonse was taller because his body naturally produced testosterone! He didn’t even drink that much milk!”
“Well, my body doesn’t naturally produce testosterone either, and look at me!” Winry stands and puts her hands on her hips, then hurriedly sits back down as the train momentarily jostles from side to side. “And I love milk.”
Ed pouts. “It’s no fair. I think the hormone blockers stunted my growth or something. Just you wait; I’m gonna have a huge growth spurt and I’m gonna be taller than all of you!!”
“Even me?” asks Al.
“Yeah! Even you. Because at that point, we’ll definitely have gotten our bodies back.”
“What if my body’s had an even bigger growth spurt than yours?”
As they bicker, Winry sits smugly in her seat, thinking about how many times in this conversation she’s gotten Ed to admit that he’s short.
The next few days are a whirlwind of activity, what with the twists and turns of the Rush Valley visit and the emotional turmoil of meeting their master again. But, finally, with the promise that she’ll help Al regain his memories of the Gate of Truth, Izumi sends the brothers off to bed. The guest bedroom is small and cramped, but at least there’s only one of them that actually needs to get rest.
As is probably to be expected, Ed can’t sleep. The confrontation with Izumi has brought back a whole host of memories, which—seems to be something of a common theme these days, doesn’t it? The past informs the present informs the future and all that, and sometimes Ed feels like every day he spins a wheel to see which particular childhood trauma will get dredged up from the depths of his subconscious. Fun. Well, what with their quest and all, it’s not something that can easily be avoided, is it?
Not to mention that he’s still a bit annoyed at himself for forgetting to bring his testosterone. Whether or not he would have remembered to take it at all over the course of this rollicking journey—well, that’s an entirely different question. But still, it brings him comfort to know that there’s something, however small, that he can be doing to shape his body in the way he wants it.
“Al,” he begins, knowing full well that his brain will not shut up until he vocalizes his thoughts.
Al raises his head from across the room. “Mmm?”
“Do you remember when I first told you I was trans?”
“Not really. I was pretty young.”
“You don’t?”
“I mean… it was never really a big deal to me? I was just excited to have a brother.”
“Huh,” says Ed. It’s nothing he doesn’t know. It never really had been a big deal, not within the family.
“It’s okay if you don’t take your hormones until we get back,” Al continues, reading his mind and getting halfway there.
“I know; I’m not really worried about that. I’m just thinking. I’m…” He considers how much he wants to share, then figures that it’s late enough at night and his emotional floodgates are open wide enough to keep following this train of thought. “...Wondering how I knew I was.”
Al sits up slightly, scratching the back of his head. “Um… don’t you just feel like a boy?”
“Well, yeah, but how do you know you’re a boy?”
“If you’re not a girl?” He pauses, realizes that that isn’t quite how it works, and tries again. “I don’t know! I think it’s just a feeling. Like, I know I’m a boy—I think I’m a boy—even though I don’t have a boy’s body. Er… does armor have a gender?”
That would probably make Ed chuckle if he weren’t in such a contemplative mood. Instead he props himself up on his pillow and looks down at his brother. “Hey, Al. Do you ever feel bad that you don’t have a boy’s body?”
“Yes!” Al cries, and Ed realizes his mistake. “Of course I do! I—”
“No no no! I mean, do you miss the specific… hmm… do you ever miss your body specifically for gender reasons?”
“Oh.” He considers this. “Um… everyone sees an armor and automatically thinks I’m a guy, so… no? Maybe if my armor was more girly, then it would be really annoying, but… that isn’t something I’ve ever thought about!”
For a split second, Ed allows his mind to wander into the perverse realm of what-ifs: what if he’d been the one taken, and Al had affixed his soul to a piece of armor? Would it have been… better, in some ways? To fully shed a body that so many had always conceptualized as female? To be bound to a physical form with no anatomy to loathe, no anatomy at all, one that would push him squarely into the male corner of others’ perceptions?
Obviously the thought is bullshit, and he feels a little sick even entertaining the idea that some part of him would want the horrible existence his brother is stuck with. (And because of him, too.) No, Ed has never hated his body. He’s wanted to change it, sure—and after losing an arm and a leg he just has even more changes to wish for—but discard it entirely? Not on his life. Everyone he’s met since he was a child knows him as a boy. Everyone’s accepted it. He’s accepted it. He’s already got a “boy’s body,” goddammit; it’s every bit as male as Al’s metal shell because both have a boy living inside of them.
Neither of them really comes out on top here, gender-wise, do they. Just same old, same old body troubles.
At least Ed can do something to alleviate his dysphoria.
Al cocks his head at Ed’s light gasp. He doesn’t have to hear his brother’s internal monologue to know something is wrong.
“It’s not fair,” Ed whispers. He pulls his legs up to his chest, face a wide-eyed mess of realization and the familiar hopelessness that has characterized too many of their interactions of this nature. “If I can take hormones to make my body feel more like my own… I wish I could do the same for you. I wish there was some chemical that—”
“There is!” yells Al, effectively shutting Ed up. “And it’s called the Philosopher’s Stone. We aren’t giving up! I’m patient! We’re gonna get our bodies back—our proper ones, the ones that feel like ours in all the ways we want them to.”
Ed blinks, biting back a remark about how maybe taking hormones makes him impatient, selfish even—not waiting for his brother so they can make their transformation together. No, no, what a silly, horrid thought. Instead, he nods. “Right. We are!”
“We made a promise. It’s going to be okay.”
“Even if I skip a week of testosterone?”
“Yes! It’s not like it’s going to make you shorter!”
“Hey!!” Ed explodes, then realizes he’s technically supposed to be sleeping, and sinks down under the covers, glaring at his chuckling brother.
“It’s going to be okay,” murmurs Al again. “Promise.”