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daily writing (FMA movie) or, How I Wasted My Evening
I totally freaking stalled on the ficathon fic and decided to take a break and write something else. This prompt came out of #churchofelric... sort of... They wanted Hei/Al or something and I went *eyesquinch* but when Al gets there he's *dead.*
Er,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
keelieinblack? I don't know why I didn't take your advice on the light and fluffy, but maybe I've got the angst out of my system and can write the ficathon fic the way it's supposed to be, withOUT the pain and angst (deliberate word choices there, heh).
1689 words. Written live in chat!
They danced on his grave, or at his grave, or Noa did, anyway, and Al felt himself swaying to the music at least, even though he could also feel Ed stock-still beside him. It wasn't meant to be a vindictive thing, it was meant to be some kind of remembrance--not that Al had any memories of Alfons Heiderich. So Al didn't really feel he had a right to dance with the others, especially not with the Heiderich family there, trying not to stare at him in bafflement. But Ed *did* have the right, had known him, and wasn't--and that scared Al, because the last time that he seen Ed stand stock-still at a funeral, for hours on end, was their mother's.
Al didn't think Ed was foolish enough to try that again, but he didn't know for sure. They'd been weirdly blessed by whatever god looked down on alchemists. He had his own body back, after all. And Ed had travelled to this world, and home, and back again. And he didn't know what Alfons Heiderich had meant to Ed, other than having his face. Ed had barely talked about it at all--had gotten Al to relay news of everyone from home, had tested Al's barely recovered memories with reminiscence about their journeys, had done anything to steer the last few days' conversation away from his own life.
Al caught Ed by the arm (the pale, white, not-quite-automail one Father had made him, that he wore now because the automail got too much attention here) when Noa's dance ended, and dragged him away. He wasn't going to let Ed stay and stare at the headstone until he decided to fight death again--and maybe it didn't matter, maybe Ed would decide it no matter where he was, but Al thought it couldn't help, just standing there with the reminder right in his face.
Ed didn't say anything right away, and Al didn't push him, just kept his pace up to make sure Ed kept walking, kept following him farther from the cemetary. Ed stared at the ground, kicked stones along the road, kept his hands in his pockets like he didn't want Al to grab his arm again. When they'd walked far enough away that the swell of a hill blocked the funeral procession from view--Al had seen it every time he looked over his shoulder to make sure Ed was still with him--he asked, "Will you tell me about him? I don't know anything about him. I don't know who he was to you."
Ed said, his throat sounding too raw, "I think he died because of me."
Al stopped walking. Ed came up even with him and stopped, too. Al said, "It's not your fault they shot him." He shifted uneasily. It was Alfons's rocket Ed had made it back to Amestris with--Al knew enough to put together a few of the pieces there. But even so. It *wasn't* Ed's fault.
"I didn't--" Ed took one hand out of his pocket to make half a gesture in the air. "I didn't even realize he'd been shot, when I first saw him. He was dying anyway. Something was wrong with his lungs. I saw all that blood and I thought he'd just--I don't know."
"Why would that have been your fault?" Al asked. Ed's jaw tightened, and he looked away, back at the hillside with the gate to the cemetary. "Brother--how could him being sick have been your fault?"
Ed bowed his head. "Because I offered myself up to get you back, and then I didn't die. I lost my arm and my leg again and I thought maybe that was it, that was enough, but it doesn't work like that--it never does. A life for a life is equivalent exchange. I was buying your life with his and I didn't even know."
Al might have argued, but--"I remembered everything when he died. That's when it happened, isn't it? That's when I got my memories back." It wasn't Ed's fault. It was *his.* Al took a deep breath. "If we brought him back--"
Ed looked at him sharply, looked at him for the first time since the casket had come into view.
"--what do you think would happen to me?" Al forged on.
Ed looked angry, which meant he was scared, because he didn't do angry standing still, frozen in place. "It wouldn't work," he said. "Alchemy doesn't work here." He yanked his other hand out of his pocket to clap, to demonstrate. "See? Nothing."
"You opened the gate," said Al.
"Not me," Ed breathed. "Not me."
"Maybe it wouldn't be so bad," said Al. "Maybe even though he was sick, he wasn't going to die right away. Maybe I wouldn't either. Teacher lived for thirteen years after--"
"Lived?" Ed demanded. "Al--lived?"
Al looked away. "She died last spring."
"Fuck," said Ed. "Thirteen years is not long enough. I am not losing you after thirteen years, or thirty years, or--" He threw his hands up.
"She didn't die because she was sick," Al said quietly. "She killed herself."
"She *what*?" Ed yelled.
"She drowned," said Al. "They told me she must have just lost track and swam out too far, that she didn't mean to, but that was because they looked at me and saw a little kid they needed to protect. She was a good swimmer, she could swim to the island and back, and she was--she wanted to be Wrath's mother and he would never stay and when he got angry he'd say he hated her, and she was fighting with Mr. Curtis about it, too. I don't know what it was exactly that made her--but I know she--it wasn't an accident. I'm not stupid."
Ed was staring at him and breathing hard like he'd been running, and some bizarre honesty compelled Al to confess, "Maybe it was because she was sick, too, because every time she fought with Wrath, it got worse. I don't know. I thought she was--she taught us to fight, to bear pain, but she--it was really terrible. I don't know," he repeated.
"And you want that?" Ed shouted. "You'd--you'd--for some guy you've never even met you'd--*why*?"
"For you," Al said. "You met him, you knew him, you--" blamed himself, and Al couldn't even begin to explain how it was *his* fault, not Ed's, not in a way Ed would ever accept. Ed was always like that, shouldering enough guilt for both of them like it did anything to lessen Al's own burden.
Ed grabbed him--hugged him, Al realized, feeling his brother's arms around him. "He was you," Ed said, whispered fiercely in his hair. "He was you and you're him and that's true and it isn't, but I didn't mean to trade him for you and I don't want to trade you for him and please. Please don't."
"I was going to say that to you," Al said softly. "'Don't.' I thought. At the grave, I thought you were going to, that you wanted to, and then when you said it was your fault I was sure--"
"No," said Ed. He eased back enough to look at Al's face, his hands on Al's arms instead of quite so tight around him. "It is my fault, but that's not something I can *fix.* There is no way to fix it. There's nothing we can do that wouldn't just make it worse."
"I'm sorry," said Al, caught between relief and regret. "I just. I won't. It's just--you know, I was going to. Everyone thought you were dead and there wasn't a body but I didn't know where you went, and I thought I--I was ready. Teacher lived with it, bore it, and I thought I could too, even after she--"
"Al," Ed said, hugging him again, and Al hunched his shoulders to press his eyes to Ed's chest, because he was crying, because he'd never told anyone that, before, not even Izumi. He'd always, always said Ed was alive somewhere, that he could feel it, that he was going to bring Ed home. Colonel Mustang had said it, too, that Ed was alive somewhere, had burned with vindication at Ed's return, but Al had been lying to himself, trying to make himself believe he was going to do something *possible,* not like raising Mom. It had been the last thing he remembered, when he woke up in this body Ed had made for him. He knew it didn't work, hadn't worked for them, had ruined Izumi--that's why he'd had to say it was something else, how he was going to get Ed back. But deep down, he'd thought Ed was dead. And he'd thought that bringing Ed back would mean his own death, maybe fast or maybe slow like Teacher's, but certain, all the same.
And then it turned out Ed wasn't dead at all. He was here, he was--not whole, but even so, lucky in his damage in a way they hadn't realized when they were young. Ed's losses were extreme and external. He didn't have internal wounds bleeding away inside him, insidious. They'd scarred and healed and nothing else was going to happen to him.
No, it was Alfons Heiderich who'd died for him instead. Alfons Heiderich, who wasn't an alchemist, who'd never had the hubris to try to raise the dead, who'd been a friend to Ed and even if Al didn't know anything else about him, that was enough. He hadn't deserved what had happened to him, and they weren't going to do anything for him. They couldn't. Ed said.
"I'm sorry," said Al. They were stupid, inadequate words, and his voice sounded all wrong, and he said it again, like repetition would make it mean anything more. "I'm sorry."
"We have each other," Ed said. "It's like you said--if we have each other, nothing else matters. We can journey, and see the world, and be together, and nothing else matters. We have each other. It's enough."
It wasn't, Al thought, and it never would be, but he was good at lying to himself by now. He dried his eyes on the back of his hand and straightened. "I'm so glad I found you," he said. "I missed you so much."
Hiding lies of omission was easiest when you could say something true.
Er,
keelieinblack? I don't know why I didn't take your advice on the light and fluffy, but maybe I've got the angst out of my system and can write the ficathon fic the way it's supposed to be, withOUT the pain and angst (deliberate word choices there, heh).1689 words. Written live in chat!
They danced on his grave, or at his grave, or Noa did, anyway, and Al felt himself swaying to the music at least, even though he could also feel Ed stock-still beside him. It wasn't meant to be a vindictive thing, it was meant to be some kind of remembrance--not that Al had any memories of Alfons Heiderich. So Al didn't really feel he had a right to dance with the others, especially not with the Heiderich family there, trying not to stare at him in bafflement. But Ed *did* have the right, had known him, and wasn't--and that scared Al, because the last time that he seen Ed stand stock-still at a funeral, for hours on end, was their mother's.
Al didn't think Ed was foolish enough to try that again, but he didn't know for sure. They'd been weirdly blessed by whatever god looked down on alchemists. He had his own body back, after all. And Ed had travelled to this world, and home, and back again. And he didn't know what Alfons Heiderich had meant to Ed, other than having his face. Ed had barely talked about it at all--had gotten Al to relay news of everyone from home, had tested Al's barely recovered memories with reminiscence about their journeys, had done anything to steer the last few days' conversation away from his own life.
Al caught Ed by the arm (the pale, white, not-quite-automail one Father had made him, that he wore now because the automail got too much attention here) when Noa's dance ended, and dragged him away. He wasn't going to let Ed stay and stare at the headstone until he decided to fight death again--and maybe it didn't matter, maybe Ed would decide it no matter where he was, but Al thought it couldn't help, just standing there with the reminder right in his face.
Ed didn't say anything right away, and Al didn't push him, just kept his pace up to make sure Ed kept walking, kept following him farther from the cemetary. Ed stared at the ground, kicked stones along the road, kept his hands in his pockets like he didn't want Al to grab his arm again. When they'd walked far enough away that the swell of a hill blocked the funeral procession from view--Al had seen it every time he looked over his shoulder to make sure Ed was still with him--he asked, "Will you tell me about him? I don't know anything about him. I don't know who he was to you."
Ed said, his throat sounding too raw, "I think he died because of me."
Al stopped walking. Ed came up even with him and stopped, too. Al said, "It's not your fault they shot him." He shifted uneasily. It was Alfons's rocket Ed had made it back to Amestris with--Al knew enough to put together a few of the pieces there. But even so. It *wasn't* Ed's fault.
"I didn't--" Ed took one hand out of his pocket to make half a gesture in the air. "I didn't even realize he'd been shot, when I first saw him. He was dying anyway. Something was wrong with his lungs. I saw all that blood and I thought he'd just--I don't know."
"Why would that have been your fault?" Al asked. Ed's jaw tightened, and he looked away, back at the hillside with the gate to the cemetary. "Brother--how could him being sick have been your fault?"
Ed bowed his head. "Because I offered myself up to get you back, and then I didn't die. I lost my arm and my leg again and I thought maybe that was it, that was enough, but it doesn't work like that--it never does. A life for a life is equivalent exchange. I was buying your life with his and I didn't even know."
Al might have argued, but--"I remembered everything when he died. That's when it happened, isn't it? That's when I got my memories back." It wasn't Ed's fault. It was *his.* Al took a deep breath. "If we brought him back--"
Ed looked at him sharply, looked at him for the first time since the casket had come into view.
"--what do you think would happen to me?" Al forged on.
Ed looked angry, which meant he was scared, because he didn't do angry standing still, frozen in place. "It wouldn't work," he said. "Alchemy doesn't work here." He yanked his other hand out of his pocket to clap, to demonstrate. "See? Nothing."
"You opened the gate," said Al.
"Not me," Ed breathed. "Not me."
"Maybe it wouldn't be so bad," said Al. "Maybe even though he was sick, he wasn't going to die right away. Maybe I wouldn't either. Teacher lived for thirteen years after--"
"Lived?" Ed demanded. "Al--lived?"
Al looked away. "She died last spring."
"Fuck," said Ed. "Thirteen years is not long enough. I am not losing you after thirteen years, or thirty years, or--" He threw his hands up.
"She didn't die because she was sick," Al said quietly. "She killed herself."
"She *what*?" Ed yelled.
"She drowned," said Al. "They told me she must have just lost track and swam out too far, that she didn't mean to, but that was because they looked at me and saw a little kid they needed to protect. She was a good swimmer, she could swim to the island and back, and she was--she wanted to be Wrath's mother and he would never stay and when he got angry he'd say he hated her, and she was fighting with Mr. Curtis about it, too. I don't know what it was exactly that made her--but I know she--it wasn't an accident. I'm not stupid."
Ed was staring at him and breathing hard like he'd been running, and some bizarre honesty compelled Al to confess, "Maybe it was because she was sick, too, because every time she fought with Wrath, it got worse. I don't know. I thought she was--she taught us to fight, to bear pain, but she--it was really terrible. I don't know," he repeated.
"And you want that?" Ed shouted. "You'd--you'd--for some guy you've never even met you'd--*why*?"
"For you," Al said. "You met him, you knew him, you--" blamed himself, and Al couldn't even begin to explain how it was *his* fault, not Ed's, not in a way Ed would ever accept. Ed was always like that, shouldering enough guilt for both of them like it did anything to lessen Al's own burden.
Ed grabbed him--hugged him, Al realized, feeling his brother's arms around him. "He was you," Ed said, whispered fiercely in his hair. "He was you and you're him and that's true and it isn't, but I didn't mean to trade him for you and I don't want to trade you for him and please. Please don't."
"I was going to say that to you," Al said softly. "'Don't.' I thought. At the grave, I thought you were going to, that you wanted to, and then when you said it was your fault I was sure--"
"No," said Ed. He eased back enough to look at Al's face, his hands on Al's arms instead of quite so tight around him. "It is my fault, but that's not something I can *fix.* There is no way to fix it. There's nothing we can do that wouldn't just make it worse."
"I'm sorry," said Al, caught between relief and regret. "I just. I won't. It's just--you know, I was going to. Everyone thought you were dead and there wasn't a body but I didn't know where you went, and I thought I--I was ready. Teacher lived with it, bore it, and I thought I could too, even after she--"
"Al," Ed said, hugging him again, and Al hunched his shoulders to press his eyes to Ed's chest, because he was crying, because he'd never told anyone that, before, not even Izumi. He'd always, always said Ed was alive somewhere, that he could feel it, that he was going to bring Ed home. Colonel Mustang had said it, too, that Ed was alive somewhere, had burned with vindication at Ed's return, but Al had been lying to himself, trying to make himself believe he was going to do something *possible,* not like raising Mom. It had been the last thing he remembered, when he woke up in this body Ed had made for him. He knew it didn't work, hadn't worked for them, had ruined Izumi--that's why he'd had to say it was something else, how he was going to get Ed back. But deep down, he'd thought Ed was dead. And he'd thought that bringing Ed back would mean his own death, maybe fast or maybe slow like Teacher's, but certain, all the same.
And then it turned out Ed wasn't dead at all. He was here, he was--not whole, but even so, lucky in his damage in a way they hadn't realized when they were young. Ed's losses were extreme and external. He didn't have internal wounds bleeding away inside him, insidious. They'd scarred and healed and nothing else was going to happen to him.
No, it was Alfons Heiderich who'd died for him instead. Alfons Heiderich, who wasn't an alchemist, who'd never had the hubris to try to raise the dead, who'd been a friend to Ed and even if Al didn't know anything else about him, that was enough. He hadn't deserved what had happened to him, and they weren't going to do anything for him. They couldn't. Ed said.
"I'm sorry," said Al. They were stupid, inadequate words, and his voice sounded all wrong, and he said it again, like repetition would make it mean anything more. "I'm sorry."
"We have each other," Ed said. "It's like you said--if we have each other, nothing else matters. We can journey, and see the world, and be together, and nothing else matters. We have each other. It's enough."
It wasn't, Al thought, and it never would be, but he was good at lying to himself by now. He dried his eyes on the back of his hand and straightened. "I'm so glad I found you," he said. "I missed you so much."
Hiding lies of omission was easiest when you could say something true.
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This is the second fic I've read by you, the first was a Roy/Hughes (the one where he was actually Envy) I forgot the name, but i absolutely adored the concept. Yay Envy!!!
I'll be looking back through your works and looking forward to more from you...because i love looking two directions at once.
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Izumi boobies!*sniffle* Wrath going home to his mommy. I love Izumi and am always sad she's dead in the movie, and I wanted to know how and why so I made something up. Heh.I forgot the name,
Because I'm *really* bad at titling things. All my fic has the header "daily writing" in journal entries Hardly any of it's titled at all. Whoops.
Thanks! I hope you enjoy my other stuff.
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therefore, BOOBS=AUTHORITY.
And though my little brother hates Wrath because he's a "whiny bitch" im still forcing him to cosplay so our Homonculi troupe can be complete. YAYI'MENVY!
Oh, and i haven't seen the movie...did Al really get his memories back the moment Hei died? Oh, and i just noticed how awesome the opening line of this fic is...i kinda had to rush through on the first read, being at work. "They Danced On His Grave" would be a cool band name....
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did Al really get his memories back the moment Hei died?
He, er, got them back... and Hei died. Within a couple of hours of each other at most, the time frame on both is a little wacky.
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From what I hear, there are alot of unexplained things in the movie, and everyone says it's not worth seeing, but I disagree. I'm completely into this fandom, so I'm going to see it no matter what. I've already seen the first 26 minutes subbed on youtube. And I hear it's supposed to be theatrically realsed in America.
But anyhoo, enough of my ranting. I appreciate the fact that you're carrying on this conversation with me, and I notice you've friended me, and it makes me all happysplooge. May the Gate open and spew all kinds of goodies on you. I'll chuck in an arm or a kidney as payment.
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Well... there are a couple of big question marks, and some things that just come down to serendipity, but I actually really like the movie a lot. (I wish there was more Roy but I always wish there was more Roy...)
I've seen the taped-in-the-theater fansub of the movie, and someone sent me a cleaner fansub and a raw which my computer won't read and it makes me sad, and I'm trying to bash it into working. I'm interested in seeing this other fansub because there's a couple of things that even I, whose Japanese covers "baka" and a handful of honorifics, know weren't translated quite right.
I appreciate the fact that you're carrying on this conversation with me, and I notice you've friended me, and it makes me all happysplooge.
Hee, I don't think I've ever been thanked for a conversation before. You're welcome? As to the friending, yeah, my journal is default-flocked with various exceptions mostly to keep family from seeing entries with identifying markings, but not to keep fannish folk out.
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When i read your profile, i noticed it said that you defriended people who didn't update regularly, not out of malice or anything, and i understand cause i don't keep dead journals on very long either. So i decided to try and update since i have daily access to a comp now (be it at my new job), because i like staying in touch with interesting people.
Anyhoo, need to get back to work on my oneshots if they're ever going to see the light of day...TO THE BATMOBILE!
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That was LOVELY, and it was GEN, Cannon Gen even.
*adores on this fic* I cant tell you how happy I am to wake up to this.
btw, your link to this on
-Shobu
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btw, your link to this on
Fixed, thanks. *rubs eyes* Posting on three hours sleep = teh stupid.
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and dont worry, sleep gets to us all x.x;
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*reminds self to give you more advice not to follow in the future*
Yes, pain and angst, begone! (The other permutation of that phrase we want to stay around, though, right?)
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Because you
have no staminakeep me sane, or at least cracked but functional, and this kind of thing comes out of bad insanity?(The other permutation of that phrase we want to stay around, though, right?)
Oh, of course. Hee.
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I'd maybe throw very small pebbles at you or something, but it's not like you sat around deliberately not writing, so I say no worries.
...And besides, there's more variety when not all the fics are posted on the same day, right? :P
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*humming Dylan. Everybody must get stoned.*
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*bows to you*
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There was actually some talk of Heidmunculus but I totally got into the angst, and the angstmobile rolled better without it. *G*
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So you're gonna be in the
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On the other hand--now that I 'have to' write Elricest, bunnies for Ed/Al and Roy/Al are cropping up, yay! Just not on the theme that I have. @_@; Here's hoping that a week away from the computer will get the muses talking.
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