Living Room Space: Atlas Man -- Alphonse Elric (Part 1)
Title: Living Room Space
Author: Terracotta Bones
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: EdWinry
Spoilers: end of the series, end of the movie
Disclaimer: FANfiction.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1: Machine Language
Summary: Sometimes we dream of the people we love. Al still dreams, though he can look Ed in the eye. Edward has nightmares.
Author's Note: Go here to hear the song that inspired the story (and watch the hereby disclaimed anime video).
Chapter 2: Atlas Man
Part 1
______________________________________________________________________________
And you don't wanna be here in the future
So you say the present's just a pleasant interruption to the past
And you don't wanna look much closer
______________________________________________________________________________
Al swirled his lemonade with his straw, and stared at his hands. When he was little, he’d cut his finger, and the scar was still there, a little white line on rosy skin. He’d been cutting the wood Ed had squirmed his way out of chopping.
The clink of the ice cubes against his glass was soothing, comparatively.
He wasn’t quite listening to the argument anymore.
Ed roared, or Russell roared, or they roared at each other, and Ed’s fist flew to almost an inch away from Russell’s face before Russell bolted out of his seat.
“Call me short one more time!” Ed yelled against Russell’s screeched, “What the hell, Ed?”
They glared at each other, Russell stiff as an iron bar and Ed curling into a snarl. He was rooted to a rickety bar stool and sinking onto the counter, drunk enough to topple. His fist swung heavily at his side.
Their pitch and moan, Russell and Ed’s, squealed through the bar, broiling and stewing with the raucous gamblers at the pool tables and the lurching, rumbling regulars in the back. In their corner at the front of the bar, the light was dim, and patchy. Ed narrowed his eyes.
“I think you’ve had too much,” Russell muttered, red in the face. He flexed his hands.
“You’ve got another thing coming, bro.”
Russell grabbed Ed by the collar and heaved him out of his seat, up into the air. “Yeah, and here it is-”
“Brother!” Fletcher yelled, catching his brother’s arm. “Don’t!”
Al blinked, and tried to pull his brother off. “Ed, really, this is too much-”
“Get off me, Al!”
Al stopped, his arms half-bent to draw his brother away. He exchanged glances with Russell and Fletcher; Fletcher looked apprehensive. Russell shook his brother off. He spared Ed a scowl, and then shifted his gaze to Al, accusing, if only for a second. Al stared back, startled.
“I’m outta here,” Russell snapped. He threw a few coins on the counter. When he stormed through the door, one of the beaded chandeliers nearby quivered.
Ed sneered and sat down, and threw back the rest of his drink. The bartender cut them all warnings with his eyes.
Fletcher sighed, and walked over to his chair for his belongings. They were the same age now, he and Al, with almost the same brother. Al massaged his knotted neck.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s not your fault,” Fletcher murmured. He fingered his glass. “Why don’t we let our brothers cool off for a while? We can meet up again in a day or two.”
Al gestured to the bartender for a bill. “I don’t think so. We’ve got to leave tomorrow.”
Maybe his brother would shape up in Central.
“Oh-” Fletcher took a drink, “-I’ve been waiting to hear that,” he said, softer, into his glass.
“What?”
Fletcher looked apologetic. Al waited without expression. “C’mere,” Fletcher said, motioning him over. “I just mean that - I think you should take your brother home.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Al replied sharply. He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and rubbed his face. Red marks striped already flushed skin. “Sorry.”
Fletcher shook his head. “No, I mean you should take him home. Like - Resembol, was it?” He flicked his blue eyes to the trench-coated drunk with his golden hair falling into his glass. “Something’s wrong.”
Alphonse paused, and looked at the floor - worn wooden planks with gum mashed into the grain, and leather scuffs layered over vomit stains and boot mud. He kicked at the floor; his whole body ached from only three hours in a bar. “What do you mean?”
“Well he’s - not the way he used to be. Maybe this is like when my brother and I tried to make the Philosopher’s Stone out of red water.”
Black paint was chipping off of the bar counter. Al’s glass - sweet sweet lemonade - looked far away on the other side of Ed. “I don’t remember that,” he said quietly. “Remember?”
“Right.” Al watched Fletcher’s eyes scatter around the room. “Well, you know the story I guess.” Al nodded, and Fletcher continued, “My brother kept going because he thought he was fulfilling our father’s dreams, but I knew we were just poisoning the whole town. You were the one who told me to stand up to him.”
Al didn’t respond, but flicked at the peeling paint. This was another story Ed did not want to tell him; he’d only learned it when it spilled out from the Tringhams in the first days of their visit.
“We were under the delusion that everything was fine.”
“I’m not delusional,” Al said. He stared at his hands - fleshy and pink. “Are you saying that we’re doing something wrong?”
“No.” Fletcher finished his drink, then laid out a few coins. “But your exact words to me were, ‘If your brother’s doing something you know is wrong, then just be brave and stop him.’ Don’t you think this situation kind of resonates?”
I thought I was imagining things.
Al managed a half-smile.
How close did you have to look?
“You remember that, after - what - four years? I don’t even remember that.”
“Someone has to.” Fletcher smiled and slid into his jacket, and Al listened to his footfalls as he pushed through the door. A wave of heat swept in as the door swung.
Al stared at his hands - fleshy and pink, scarred white in childhood. He wondered what had happened to them in the five years he couldn’t remember.
When Ed returned all those months ago and the two of them climbed out of the rubble beneath Central, Al could have died from happiness. After three years, he was free to imagine life as it should’ve been - he could go be a real alchemist, not just a boy looking for his brother. They could both go back to Resembol and be happy again, proud to stand next to each other. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever done, his simple wishing. Ed had been ecstatic to see his younger brother in the flesh. He’d ruffled his hair, socked him in the arm, stared at him like he was a fish out of water. Maybe a boy out of armor wasn’t so different.
Now Al could only see the fuzz on his brother’s jaw, the automail, and the thick, callused skin on his hand. Ed was almost a full head taller than him, and his hair was so long, right down to the middle of his back - he didn’t braid it anymore, like in all the pictures. He wore gloves and long-sleeves and pants all the time, even in summer. He looked like the fifteen-year-old pictures of their father, with his ponytail. He’d had gained four years on Al, and turned into a man.
Al’s simplest of wishes now was to remember his years in the suit of armor, so that he would recognize his brother. They had eight years missing between them, and nothing to say. All the stories he should’ve been privy to, horror and fairytale, he’d lost, and Ed wouldn’t tell him anything.
Curiosity killed the cat, Al, he’d say. Then his gold eyes would darken, and he’d add, You can’t even imagine it. The truth behind all truths.
The truth behind all truths. Teacher mentioned something about that.
Al didn’t remember anything else.
Curiosity killed the cat. So what? Heart disease killed Trisha Elric. They still tried to bring her back.
He didn’t even remember. All he could think of was being pulled into the vortex of their rebound, then waking up in a giant ruined ballroom. What happened in between? Ed said their transmutation failed, and Mom never came back - but what about the rest of his life? What did he do for five years? He qualified, didn’t he, for that responsibility? For his own life?
Ed thought he was protecting his little brother. Something about becoming a State Alchemist, the murder of a man named Maes Hughes, and the rebound; Al was the fly in the web, caught in the dark, and Ed trotted down any line he wanted. The alchemy that once brought them together fogged, and whatever his brother had done kept them on either side, shadowed.
What do you look at when you’re not looking at me? When you look at me?
On Ed’s curved back was a heavy, heady science; on his automail limbs was a sin; in his chest was a heart, Al was sure. Scar-sore and red. He’d read the book time enough to know that, but in his absence whole chapters had been written, and deleted.
Al walked over to Ed and sat next to him. “You got something you want to say to me?”
Ed didn’t look at him, didn’t even move. “Nope.”
Nothing, Brother?
Al tapped his fingers on the counter, three times, four. A ceiling fan above him spun the air with its blades. Sleep and drink hung in the bar like fat honeybees on petals, buzzing. “We’ve gotta go, Brother.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Al paid the bill in front of him. “C’mon, Brother, we have to pack for the train tomorrow.” He pulled the glass out of Ed’s hand. “We’re going to Central, remember?”
Ed crossed his arms on the counter and laid his forehead on their cushion. “I don’t want to go Central anymore.”
Al looked at the liquors lining the wall behind the bar, saw red, gold, brown, clear, green; glasses displayed like collector’s trophies. He thought of a nine-year-old Ed squirming out of chopping firewood, sticking his tongue out. The warmth this place was supposed to provide didn’t reach him. “You can’t drown your woes in alcohol, Brother.”
“Who says I have woes?”
Al rolled his eyes and shoved him in the arm. “Get up. You look pathetic.”
Perhaps Russell was right to accuse him of wrongdoing. Ed was his brother. Take care of each other. Her simplest, her only wish.
Ed grumbled incoherently. Hair stuck up from his head.
“Yeah, you do look pathetic,” Al said. He tried to help his brother into his jacket, but Ed shook him off.
“I can do it myself,” he snarked.
Al glanced at the bartender as they left, and guessed that they wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon. He pushed the door open before his brother walked into it, and when he stepped out, the door whooshed back and forth behind him. Opening, and closing.
Outside, oily street lamps broke the night, and late August heat threatened to suffocate its trespassers. Ed’s broad shoulders stooped.
Who makes the world that you carry?
There was a place in Resembol, and in Rush Valley, that was hospital to its returning children.
You should take my brother home.
______________________________________________________________________________
‘Cause you’re afraid to find out all this hope
You had sent into the sky by now had crashed
And it did
Because of me
______________________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER 2: PART 2
CHAPTER 2: PART 3
Author: Terracotta Bones
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: EdWinry
Spoilers: end of the series, end of the movie
Disclaimer: FANfiction.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1: Machine Language
Summary: Sometimes we dream of the people we love. Al still dreams, though he can look Ed in the eye. Edward has nightmares.
Author's Note: Go here to hear the song that inspired the story (and watch the hereby disclaimed anime video).
Chapter 2: Atlas Man
Part 1
______________________________________________________________________________
And you don't wanna be here in the future
So you say the present's just a pleasant interruption to the past
And you don't wanna look much closer
______________________________________________________________________________
Al swirled his lemonade with his straw, and stared at his hands. When he was little, he’d cut his finger, and the scar was still there, a little white line on rosy skin. He’d been cutting the wood Ed had squirmed his way out of chopping.
The clink of the ice cubes against his glass was soothing, comparatively.
He wasn’t quite listening to the argument anymore.
Ed roared, or Russell roared, or they roared at each other, and Ed’s fist flew to almost an inch away from Russell’s face before Russell bolted out of his seat.
“Call me short one more time!” Ed yelled against Russell’s screeched, “What the hell, Ed?”
They glared at each other, Russell stiff as an iron bar and Ed curling into a snarl. He was rooted to a rickety bar stool and sinking onto the counter, drunk enough to topple. His fist swung heavily at his side.
Their pitch and moan, Russell and Ed’s, squealed through the bar, broiling and stewing with the raucous gamblers at the pool tables and the lurching, rumbling regulars in the back. In their corner at the front of the bar, the light was dim, and patchy. Ed narrowed his eyes.
“I think you’ve had too much,” Russell muttered, red in the face. He flexed his hands.
“You’ve got another thing coming, bro.”
Russell grabbed Ed by the collar and heaved him out of his seat, up into the air. “Yeah, and here it is-”
“Brother!” Fletcher yelled, catching his brother’s arm. “Don’t!”
Al blinked, and tried to pull his brother off. “Ed, really, this is too much-”
“Get off me, Al!”
Al stopped, his arms half-bent to draw his brother away. He exchanged glances with Russell and Fletcher; Fletcher looked apprehensive. Russell shook his brother off. He spared Ed a scowl, and then shifted his gaze to Al, accusing, if only for a second. Al stared back, startled.
“I’m outta here,” Russell snapped. He threw a few coins on the counter. When he stormed through the door, one of the beaded chandeliers nearby quivered.
Ed sneered and sat down, and threw back the rest of his drink. The bartender cut them all warnings with his eyes.
Fletcher sighed, and walked over to his chair for his belongings. They were the same age now, he and Al, with almost the same brother. Al massaged his knotted neck.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s not your fault,” Fletcher murmured. He fingered his glass. “Why don’t we let our brothers cool off for a while? We can meet up again in a day or two.”
Al gestured to the bartender for a bill. “I don’t think so. We’ve got to leave tomorrow.”
Maybe his brother would shape up in Central.
“Oh-” Fletcher took a drink, “-I’ve been waiting to hear that,” he said, softer, into his glass.
“What?”
Fletcher looked apologetic. Al waited without expression. “C’mere,” Fletcher said, motioning him over. “I just mean that - I think you should take your brother home.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Al replied sharply. He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and rubbed his face. Red marks striped already flushed skin. “Sorry.”
Fletcher shook his head. “No, I mean you should take him home. Like - Resembol, was it?” He flicked his blue eyes to the trench-coated drunk with his golden hair falling into his glass. “Something’s wrong.”
Alphonse paused, and looked at the floor - worn wooden planks with gum mashed into the grain, and leather scuffs layered over vomit stains and boot mud. He kicked at the floor; his whole body ached from only three hours in a bar. “What do you mean?”
“Well he’s - not the way he used to be. Maybe this is like when my brother and I tried to make the Philosopher’s Stone out of red water.”
Black paint was chipping off of the bar counter. Al’s glass - sweet sweet lemonade - looked far away on the other side of Ed. “I don’t remember that,” he said quietly. “Remember?”
“Right.” Al watched Fletcher’s eyes scatter around the room. “Well, you know the story I guess.” Al nodded, and Fletcher continued, “My brother kept going because he thought he was fulfilling our father’s dreams, but I knew we were just poisoning the whole town. You were the one who told me to stand up to him.”
Al didn’t respond, but flicked at the peeling paint. This was another story Ed did not want to tell him; he’d only learned it when it spilled out from the Tringhams in the first days of their visit.
“We were under the delusion that everything was fine.”
“I’m not delusional,” Al said. He stared at his hands - fleshy and pink. “Are you saying that we’re doing something wrong?”
“No.” Fletcher finished his drink, then laid out a few coins. “But your exact words to me were, ‘If your brother’s doing something you know is wrong, then just be brave and stop him.’ Don’t you think this situation kind of resonates?”
I thought I was imagining things.
Al managed a half-smile.
How close did you have to look?
“You remember that, after - what - four years? I don’t even remember that.”
“Someone has to.” Fletcher smiled and slid into his jacket, and Al listened to his footfalls as he pushed through the door. A wave of heat swept in as the door swung.
Al stared at his hands - fleshy and pink, scarred white in childhood. He wondered what had happened to them in the five years he couldn’t remember.
When Ed returned all those months ago and the two of them climbed out of the rubble beneath Central, Al could have died from happiness. After three years, he was free to imagine life as it should’ve been - he could go be a real alchemist, not just a boy looking for his brother. They could both go back to Resembol and be happy again, proud to stand next to each other. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever done, his simple wishing. Ed had been ecstatic to see his younger brother in the flesh. He’d ruffled his hair, socked him in the arm, stared at him like he was a fish out of water. Maybe a boy out of armor wasn’t so different.
Now Al could only see the fuzz on his brother’s jaw, the automail, and the thick, callused skin on his hand. Ed was almost a full head taller than him, and his hair was so long, right down to the middle of his back - he didn’t braid it anymore, like in all the pictures. He wore gloves and long-sleeves and pants all the time, even in summer. He looked like the fifteen-year-old pictures of their father, with his ponytail. He’d had gained four years on Al, and turned into a man.
Al’s simplest of wishes now was to remember his years in the suit of armor, so that he would recognize his brother. They had eight years missing between them, and nothing to say. All the stories he should’ve been privy to, horror and fairytale, he’d lost, and Ed wouldn’t tell him anything.
Curiosity killed the cat, Al, he’d say. Then his gold eyes would darken, and he’d add, You can’t even imagine it. The truth behind all truths.
The truth behind all truths. Teacher mentioned something about that.
Al didn’t remember anything else.
Curiosity killed the cat. So what? Heart disease killed Trisha Elric. They still tried to bring her back.
He didn’t even remember. All he could think of was being pulled into the vortex of their rebound, then waking up in a giant ruined ballroom. What happened in between? Ed said their transmutation failed, and Mom never came back - but what about the rest of his life? What did he do for five years? He qualified, didn’t he, for that responsibility? For his own life?
Ed thought he was protecting his little brother. Something about becoming a State Alchemist, the murder of a man named Maes Hughes, and the rebound; Al was the fly in the web, caught in the dark, and Ed trotted down any line he wanted. The alchemy that once brought them together fogged, and whatever his brother had done kept them on either side, shadowed.
What do you look at when you’re not looking at me? When you look at me?
On Ed’s curved back was a heavy, heady science; on his automail limbs was a sin; in his chest was a heart, Al was sure. Scar-sore and red. He’d read the book time enough to know that, but in his absence whole chapters had been written, and deleted.
Al walked over to Ed and sat next to him. “You got something you want to say to me?”
Ed didn’t look at him, didn’t even move. “Nope.”
Nothing, Brother?
Al tapped his fingers on the counter, three times, four. A ceiling fan above him spun the air with its blades. Sleep and drink hung in the bar like fat honeybees on petals, buzzing. “We’ve gotta go, Brother.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Al paid the bill in front of him. “C’mon, Brother, we have to pack for the train tomorrow.” He pulled the glass out of Ed’s hand. “We’re going to Central, remember?”
Ed crossed his arms on the counter and laid his forehead on their cushion. “I don’t want to go Central anymore.”
Al looked at the liquors lining the wall behind the bar, saw red, gold, brown, clear, green; glasses displayed like collector’s trophies. He thought of a nine-year-old Ed squirming out of chopping firewood, sticking his tongue out. The warmth this place was supposed to provide didn’t reach him. “You can’t drown your woes in alcohol, Brother.”
“Who says I have woes?”
Al rolled his eyes and shoved him in the arm. “Get up. You look pathetic.”
Perhaps Russell was right to accuse him of wrongdoing. Ed was his brother. Take care of each other. Her simplest, her only wish.
Ed grumbled incoherently. Hair stuck up from his head.
“Yeah, you do look pathetic,” Al said. He tried to help his brother into his jacket, but Ed shook him off.
“I can do it myself,” he snarked.
Al glanced at the bartender as they left, and guessed that they wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon. He pushed the door open before his brother walked into it, and when he stepped out, the door whooshed back and forth behind him. Opening, and closing.
Outside, oily street lamps broke the night, and late August heat threatened to suffocate its trespassers. Ed’s broad shoulders stooped.
Who makes the world that you carry?
There was a place in Resembol, and in Rush Valley, that was hospital to its returning children.
You should take my brother home.
______________________________________________________________________________
‘Cause you’re afraid to find out all this hope
You had sent into the sky by now had crashed
And it did
Because of me
______________________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER 2: PART 2
CHAPTER 2: PART 3