→ quietly tied all my guts into knots
fullmetal alchemist. edward/alfons. g. 335 words.
You catch yourself studying this strange boy as if he's a book, memorizing all the minuscule marks on his hands (tiny blisters from holding the same pen every day for a year; scars, barely visible - he attributed them to experiments gone wrong when you asked), collarbones under pale skin that had seen too many laboratories and not enough sunlight, the way the left side of his mouth curves into an unknowing smile when he's reading. So many meaningless details, and so much time, you think, to memorize them; he's the most interesting thing in this dull gray excuse for a world, and the only one that feels like home. Or, at any rate, the closest thing to it.
So some days you sit across the table from him, papers and hastily scribbled notes and unfinished cheaply-bound books a good enough wall between the two of you, and as the clock ticks closer to 3.OCT you could almost imagine that you're not in this cramped, tiny apartment filled with awkward silences and invisible walls, and if you close your eyes and think of the home you had years ago, spending hours and hours just like these working towards a near-impossible goal. Ironic- that time, you'd (nearly) lost Al, and now you pin your hopes on a crazy idea again trying to find a way back to him.
And some days you can't bring yourself to even glance in his direction. There are differences, in the way he walks and the color of his hair (just a few shades lighter...) and the name he calls you (always Edward, never just Ed) and it- it's not like alchemy, where you can always find the proper words to describe it. You're not sure what this feeling is, the sensation of your insides being tied into a thousand miniature knots, and only pulled tighter every day. Less than pain.
Guilt, maybe, that you're beginning to let yourself care about this- no longer really just a replacement.