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For Edward and Alphonse Elric, birthdays were never ignored.
Not that they had parties, or got cards in the post - they had no postbox to collect them in - there weren’t heaps of presents, or a cake with candles for every year they’d spent on this earth.
But they never went ignored.
When they were young, Trisha had always made a big deal of their special days.
Ed, whose birthday was in the winter, would spend the day playing in the little snow that Resembool would get, being so far to the East, or warming his belly with his favourite stew, their mother used to say it was snowing just for Ed, as a birthday present from the sky, he used to always shout his thanks to the clouds when he was done playing, face chilled and ruddy..
Al, whose birthday sat in the days where Spring became Summer, would often spend the day swimming in the river, or having a picnic.
Trisha Elric didn’t have a lot, but she would always bake a cake for her boys, scrape together what little the small family had in the war trodden village and made it her mission to make a big deal of them getting a year older.
They never let that tradition die,
Sure, it was often a subdued, low-key affair, and sure, they were constantly on the road between here and there - but they never let it stop them. Whether it was giving gifts at the last inn before they hit desert, or Al smuggling armfuls of snacks and brightly coloured sweets into Ed’s hospital room in his armour - they never let birthdays go by uncelebrated.
Even when Ed turned twelve; fresh out of automail surgery, metal ports drilled into his small body but still too weak to actually attach any limbs to them; Al found him sat by the window in his wheelchair, heavily medicated with a cocktail of slow release painkillers and antibiotics to fight any possible infection, watching the snow settle on the frozen garden bed, eyes watery,
“You feelin’ okay, brother?” His voice echoed from within the armour
Ed nodded quickly, scrubbing his eyes with his hand.
That was all Al needed, zipping out of the room as quickly as his giant metal frame would carry him, and returning to a confused Ed with armfuls of clothes, ignoring the squawks and protests of his brother as he dressed him in just about every bit of winter cladding he could find. No sooner had he pulled the beanie over Ed’s shaggy head, that Al wheeled him out into the winter day -
“Al, what are you doing?” His one hand gripping the arm of the chair tightly
“It’s your birthday brother, and it’s snowing - just for you!”
Al watched as Ed’s pale face split into the most dazzling smile he’d seen since before the transmutation, and felt joy and pride and love surround his soul as he sped the wheelchair through the snow, listened to Ed’s shrieks and laughs. They made a snowman - or, Al did, Ed just offered one of the scarves Al had wrapped him in to the lumpy figure. Ed closed his eyes to feel the snow hit his face, Al ran him down hills in the chair, the rickety wheels spinning faster than they’d ever gone around the Rockbell house.
It felt like a perfect little oasis, suddenly they weren’t their trauma - they were two little boys playing in the snow. Of course, this came to a close when Al noticed Ed shivering, despite the layers, and took him in under the excuse of facing Granny’s wrath. His brother didn’t seem to mind, he just tipped his head back, looking tired but deeply contented, looked at the sky;
“Thank you.”
The first Elric birthday after Ed became a state alchemist was when Al turned eleven.
The boys found themselves in Central exploring the town, things had been awkward with unaired insecurities, Ed’s concerns that Al hated him for putting him in his metal body, and Al’s much more grounded concerns that Ed’s automail was too new for the amount of walking, running and fighting the boy did. The pair were also making a concerted effort to have a nice time, which wasn’t as easy as flipping a switch and neither of them were city people.
And yet, the Elric brothers found themselves in Central City.
Ed felt an extra layer of pressure, given that it’s the first birthday of Al’s he’d actually been with it enough to celebrate since the last one landed smack bang in the middle of his amputation, and he wasn’t lucid enough for anything, and once he was coherent, Al’s birthday had come and gone.
The sun was going down, and Ed was limping badly, Central was having a humid day, and Winry had warned him that the barometric pressure shifts did some funny things to automail users, he’d shrugged it off all day, but now it was hurting and he was ruining Al’s special day and who knows how many birthdays his brother would have to be in that body and -
“Brother, you’re limping”
“M’fine Al” he said, much too quickly, cheeks burning.
“You’re not fine!” Al snapped, “You’ve been hobbling all day on that leg, but did you stop? Nooo you’d rather power through and hurt yourself!” He was yelling now, Ed felt about two foot tall. his brother, despite his rough voice used completely gentle hands to pick him up, and softly placed him on his shoulders.
“You can stay up there and watch the sunset” Al finished softly.
Ed wrapped his arms around Al’s helmet, hugging the metal frame holding his brother,
“Thanks Al.”
No one else got this soft side of Ed, the quiet voice that stayed up talking to him at night. The impossibly gentle hands on cold armour, the kindness in his eyes.
“I don’t need you to be anything but my brother, that’s enough.”
And that’s what he did, as the night wore on Ed stayed up with his brother, forgoing sleep in favour of talking until the sun crested the horizon, that became a tradition in itself, Ed wouldn’t leave his brother alone the night of Al’s birthdays, even the following year - despite Al insisting that his brother needed to sleep off a particularly nasty head wound, Ed stayed up all night.
A little loopy and a lot high from whatever they’d given him in the hospital, he’d been discharged on the proviso that he get plenty of rest, he spent the night slumped against Al’s armour, talking or listening to his brother read.
Ed’s fourteenth birthday was meticulously planned, Al even made him stew - mostly from memory and held together by frantic phonecalls to granny to check on the finer points. Ed had, once again, pushed himself to the limits of his small frame and was curled up on the couch of the small apartment they had rented for the week in East City.
It rained the whole train ride there, and Ed had still gone to check in with Mustang who, to his credit, took one look at the Fullmetal Alchemist and sent him straight home, even going so far as to phone the library Al was occupying so the younger boy would come and get his brother. Havoc gave them both a lift home - the wildest part was that Ed hadn’t complained nor play down his state once. His automail ports always hurt in the rain, and the icy winter sleet was doing him no favours.
As soon as they got back, Al lit the small gas heater and practically force fed his brothers one of the good painkillers Winry forced on him, she insisted that when it got bad he’d need it - and that it would drop Ed for a few hours and hopefully take down the swelling.
That was yesterday, and it had given Al just enough time to go to the market and get what he needed, Ed slept all the way through, only stirring long enough to nibble on some toast and take what must have been an obscenely hot bath judging by the redness in his pale face, and set up camp on the couch. Curled up in a ball and weighed down in just about every blanket Al could find. He hated seeing Ed like this, his spirited spitfire of a brother didn’t suit the quiet, withdrawn way he dealt with pain. He didn’t even question what Al was doing in the kitchenette of their apartment, or how one suit of armour could make that much noise, he just refused to go back to the bedroom on his own, saying he was fine on the couch, thank you very much.
After a bit of skirting around the delicate subject, Al jumped right in.
“Do you think you should take them off for a bit, brother?”
Ed peeled open his eyes to regard Al with a raised brow
“I mean, Winry said that sometimes that’s the best thing to do, and the Colonel said he didn’t need you while the weather was bad, maybe just have a break?”
He was expecting an argument, maybe a meltdown with the way Ed’s eyes swam, but the older brother just pushed himself up with a wince, sighed, and nodded his head.
“You’re probably right.”
Al didn’t need help getting the limbs off, he’d been walked through the process again and again by Winry and Granny before they let Ed out on the road one year post-op, Al knew what to do if the limbs malfunctioned, how to do maintenance and troubleshoot issues - not that he got much occasion, Ed was pretty self sufficient with the whole thing - but, the same way Al sometimes needed to braid his hair, he knew what he needed to do, and when. He knew how hard to push his brother on things and when to leave him be - he hated that he didn’t know how hard to twist or pull the limbs, without a sense of touch he had to rely on Ed, but taking automail off wasn’t as painful as attaching them, and he’d cross that bridge when he got to it.
Ed instantly sighed and sagged when the limbs were off, took another painkiller and crashed out. Leaving Al to finish whatever he was calling his “stew” in peace.
Nighttime rolled around, and it only took four frantic phonecalls home and a second, more hurried, trip to the market - but Al made stew that at least looked like their mother’s did. It obviously smelt the part because when Ed stirred and pushed himself up one handed, his sleep dazed eyes searched around the small apartment, it broke Al’s heart to know that he’d never find who he was looking for.
“You’re up!” Al hurried over to his brother, steadying his shoulders as he wobbled - obviously still out of it from the painkillers, eyes foggy and emotional. Not wanting to get hit by whatever train of thought Ed was currently on, Al hefted him up, blankets and all and deposited him at the kitchen table - quickly serving up a bowl of stew and pushing a spoon into Ed’s remaining limb.
“Happy birthday! I know it’s not much of a celebration, but I thought it might make you feel better and Granny helped a lot but I don’t have a mouth in this body so I don’t know how it tastes - but don’t eat it if it’s bad! I’ll go and get you something else!”
“Al” Ed’s voice was hoarse, he licked his lips and pressed on, wiping how damp his eyes suddenly were, “Thank you.”
Ed ate every scrap of his two bowls of stew, and went back to bed, this time with Al in tow. The next day, when his brother’s pain was more manageable they played cards and spent the day doing whatever they wanted - within reason, Ed needed help getting around without his automail to support him, but he didn’t seem to mind too much. The Elric brothers and their little sanctuary were exactly what the other needed.
Al’s thirteenth birthday didn’t exactly go as planned,
They were going to feed some birds, not rescue the Colonel and Havoc from a caved in mineshaft on a “routine inspection” of some no-name town’s ore. But, here we are. Ed transmuted a pretty slick escape tunnel, and the whole thing was chugging along quite nicely until Havoc tripped and fell, taking Ed with him on his plummet down one of the mine’s many twists and turns, Al and Mustang managed to find them, but not before the landing snapped Havoc’s wrist and gave Ed the concussion to end all concussions. His eyes were blown, and he threw up twice on the way back up. The group spent the afternoon in the local clinic before whatever passed for a doctor there told them to get lost.
“Damn state alchemists poking their noses in where they don’t belong” he’d mumbled, “the kid isn’t in any danger, just get out of town before we run you out.”
And so, one car ride and three puke stops later, they found themselves booked into an inn the next town over with one room left housing two beds. Ed wasn’t much good for anything, and curled himself into a little ball about as soon as Al set him down on one of the beds, he sat on the bed next to Ed, and let his brother hold onto his metal leg, face scrunched up, mumbling about how the room was spinning.
Havoc took the other bed and Mustang took the floor, the glum mood eventually gave way to a late night run to the diner across the street from the colonel, Al braiding Ed’s hair after he helped his brother shower - Ed would say he was hovering but he was too busy trying to stay on his feet to have much of an opinion - and endless games of cards.
Al even got his brother to keep food down, which was a pretty Stirling achievement according to havoc whose uniform was still decorated with some of Ed’s breakfast
Eventually, somewhere between rebraiding Ed’s freshly washed hair and Mustang coming back with food, Al had managed to let it slip that today was his birthday. A point Havoc didn’t let go of in a hurry, whipping the group up into a tizzy with “you’re officially a teenager! We need to celebrate!” And demands that Al take his armour off.
Despite his uneven pupils and pale face, Ed managed to fabricate a narrative of Al’s alchemy training, head leaning back for is brother to thread his golden hair together.
“Buh-but he always… he always stays up all night for his birthday” Ed’s eyelids were heavy, and Al was still pretty unsettled by the way his brother was slurring and stumbling over his words.
“Looks like that’s not gonna happen this year Ed, you’re barely awake now and it’s only seven!”
“I’ll be… fine” Ed’s head tipped back into Al’s armour while his brother quickly tied the braid and supported the smaller boy’s limp frame down onto the bed, and covered him with the quilt.
“We’ll stay up with you” Mustang chimed in, polishing off his dinner, shooting Al a knowing look. The youngest Elric brother would have cried if he could, touched and thankful for the Colonel.
Ed’s fifteenth birthday came and went without much fanfare, thanks to a flu that took the young alchemist down, save for Hawkeye dropping off a meat pie and pound cake to their motel, and Al gifting Ed a new pair of boots.
Al’s fourteenth birthday was spent on the train to Liore, with a renewed hope spurring the boys on, and Ed gave Al a new set of alchemic gear - including chalk that he’d use to repair a radio the next day.
Ed’s sixteenth birthday was hard,
Al hadn’t seen his brother since he’d left Baschool, and hadn’t heard from him at all - the only news he had received was from Envy. A collapsed mine shaft, missing, the military was still looking - of course they were, the military and the homunculi were one in the same and as much as Al wished, and hoped and prayed that someone would find his brother, he also knew that there was a chance Ed was hiding for a reason.
That was what Al held onto, that brother was fine and to trust him.
But as the night wore on, the night that he hadn’t let pass without fanfare ever, he felt doubt slip in through a backdoor, he felt his mind wander to images of Ed, crumpled at the bottom of a collapsed mineshaft, wounded or dying. He wondered if maybe his body called him back because it felt Ed dying, it somehow knew that it wasn’t going to get any nutrients from a corpse at the bottom of an abandoned town.
“You okay?”
Al whipped around, snapped from his reverie to see Winry, eyes huge and imploring, cutting through the darkness of the cottage.
“I miss Ed” Al felt small, for the first time in a while, he felt really, really small.
“Me too” she sat down next to him, knees to her chest.
That was how they spent the night, Winry keeping a steadfast place by his side, doing her best to fill in for Ed,
“Happy Birthday, Ed.”
“Happy Birthday, Brother.”
Al’s fifteenth birthday was hard,
Winry was busy working on Ed’s leg, which needed more care than his arm, given how tall he’d suddenly gotten, and Ed - for the first time ever - felt like a visitor in the Rockbell’s home,
“Al went East, will you follow him?”
Before her eyes, Winry saw the broad shouldered man before her turn into the little boy she built limbs for once upon a time, “I can’t, I want to - but I can’t Winry, it’ll just put him in danger - and I - I miss him but I have to - I have to believe that he knows what he’s doing.”
“He said the same thing about you.”
Ed and his motley crew stole away in the darkness of night, mindful of the military, the fresh scar on his stomach pulled as he walked, and he couldn’t help but wonder if his brother was looking up at the same star smattered sky he was.
He hoped so.