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Alphonse spins around the corner and sees red.
Someone in a black mask has his big brother by the hair with a knife to his throat, forcing his limp figure off the asphalt with his legs folded underneath him.
When they were little, Ed and Alphonse built Winry a doll together—with alchemy. It was a gift but it scared her, and Alphonse felt awful in hindsight for not considering the process of transmutation. The doll writhed and twisted, its limbs bizarrely warped and its face half-melted as it was broken down.
Edward reminds him of that doll, if only the doll had been covered in blood. If only Mom had been covered in blood.
Alphonse’s fist slams into the masked man’s face. Something gives under the metal—blood flies from the guy’s nose as he shouts—but Alphonse’s knee is slamming into his gut next. The force sends violent vibrations through his armor. It’s the most he’s felt since he had a body.
Edward crumpled and covered in blood. Edward crumpled and covered in blood.
Crumpled like Mom and not moving like Mom and covered in blood like the basement like Mom in the basement dead and then not-dead like Mom in the basement and dead again and dead dead dead dead
Alphonse moves like a machine. There's no reason to restrain himself, mind the armor—not if Ed is dead, not when he’s lying like Mom was lying. Alphonse’s steel knee meets something snappable. His knuckles hammer something soft. It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Nothing will ever matter again and Ed is—
Mom
Movement, blood, metallic racket and cries that don’t sound like they belong to a person.
Ragged breathing, ragged—breathing—
Ed
“Al!”
Alphonse’s fist drops. The world stops spinning.
He looks over his shoulder. Edward has staggered into his bad knee—no, his good knee, the fake knee because his real knee is too… out-of-place to be good. His face is white and his coat is red and there's blood smattered across his face and clumping up his hair but he’s—he’s alive—
“Brother?”
“Alphonse.” Edward’s eyes are glassy. He looks rattled. “Al, you…”
Alphonse shakes. “I thought they killed you,” he whispers. “I—I thought—”
“It’s okay,” Ed says. He starts to bring his hand forward, but can’t follow through with it, teetering toward the alley wall as he struggles to stay on his feet. It’s surreal. Alphonse can’t believe he’s moving, when just a minute ago he was like a broken doll and like Mom and like the thing-that-might-have-been-Mom.
Edward swallows, grimaces like he’s in pain, and then worse than that he smiles. “Let’s just get back to the inn, alright?”
Alphonse can’t reach him in time before he collapses.
At the beginning of the week, Edward and Alphonse came to the small village of Tarren. It was all typical stuff: the townsfolk were enamored with alchemy, then mad about the military, and they almost kicked Alphonse and his brother out until something inexplicable changed in them. Ed said something stupid, Alphonse tried to mitigate it, and the townspeople sized them up with… pity? Ed would call it pity; Alphonse just finds it kind, or maybe sad. Ed forgets that they’re supposed to be children doing things that children do, and that other people don’t understand that they lost the right to be children a year ago.
But the townspeople are nice. They were mad at the military and mad at Edward for being a part of it, but they still gave him and Alphonse a room and didn’t talk exhaustively about Alphonse’s armor and how strange it was that an eleven year old had to wear it for “alchemy training.” One of them even made a joke to Ed about how them “older siblings” always get the short end of the height-stick, literally, and Edward hated it enough to blow up, which only made the guy laugh. So it’s okay. They’re good people. Safe people.
Alphonse has no way to gauge whether Ed is alive. He runs with him pressed between his arms and his chest, and he can only hope against hope he isn’t hurting him. He doesn’t know how hard he’s squeezing. He can’t feel Ed’s pulse or feel if his chest is moving or if he’s warm or if he’s cold or if he’s shaking, and he can’t angle his stupid—stupid helmet far down enough to look at him. Ed has always carried him, when Alphonse sprained his ankle while they were out playing or when Alphonse fell asleep in their tree forts or sometimes just when Alphonse didn’t feel like walking. He’s never carried Edward before.
(Well—he did, once, that night, and it was a very similar situation to now except back then Edward was at least crying.)
When the inn is in sight, Alphonse doubles his pace. Ed hasn’t said anything in a long while. Alphonse’s soul thrashes up against the armor. Lashes. He has no heart to skip beats and no breath to catch but something—something about him is wrong and it doesn’t hurt but it hurts and Edward still hasn’t moved—
The door snaps off a hinge when Alphonse kicks it. Dozens of eyes snap toward him in the doorway. Snap to Edward.
“Are any of you a doctor?” The words shake out of his armor. Unnerving. He clutches at Edward. “Please, please, help him—”
A chair hits the floor as a man leaps out of it, and the racket breaks the trance in the room.
With one swipe of his arm, everything that was on the table in front of the man is now on the floor, and he’s gesturing for Alphonse. “Bring him here, bring him here, quickly.” Alphonse moves, and the man takes his brother from him and settles him on the table with the help of two others who moved in. Brother’s head lolls on the tabletop and Alphonse’s soul frosts over. The man who stood first presses a finger to Edward’s neck and makes a face at what he finds. “Florence! Towels!”
“Already got ‘em!” The one called Florence runs in, her arms filled. Someone pulls Edward’s coat off and the person Alphonse assumes is a doctor starts packing towels to Edward’s side and leg where the blood is coming from. There's no color in Edward’s face.
“What else do you need, Jin?”
“Gauze, needle and thread—something to disinfect the wounds.”
“Alphonse,” the innkeeper’s wife comes alongside him, her eyes hard and urgent but kind. “Who did this?”
She reminds him of Mom instantly. “I-I don’t know,” Alphonse says, “they all had masks on, I didn’t see their faces but they, they attacked Ed in the alley near—near the baker’s house, I, I think.”
“Shit, that’s Marge’s place.”
“Guess we’re goin’ down to take a look.”
“We’ll take care of it, Al,” one of the coal miners tells him, with a hearty pat on the arm that Alphonse only hears and desperately wishes he could feel. “Stay with your brother.”
“But, but they—”
The same guy knocks his same fist on Alphonse’s same shoulder again. “Kid, we’ve been protectin’ this village longer than you’ve been alive. People who think they can mess with our people have to pay the price.”
Alphonse starts to insist he can help, but then Edward coughs and Alphonse’s entire metal body and soul lurch toward the noise. Edward’s lips have blood on them and he’s trying to push Jin away.
Alphonse takes Edward’s real hand, carefully. He’s gotten so used to holding the automail but Edward needs to feel this. “It’s okay, Brother,” Alphonse says, “we’re back at the inn, Jin is a doctor.”
Ed’s eyes flutter toward Alphonse, and even with just a half-open look Alphonse can tell Edward isn’t all there. “A’Al?”
Alphonse scrunches closer, as close as his awkward and immaliable body will let him. “I-I’m here, Ed. You’re going to be okay.”
“Hey, son.” Jin leans forward into Edward’s line of sight. “I’m gonna give you a little something to take the edge off and then I’m gonna stitch these wounds up, alright? You’re losin’ blood too quick.”
Edward doesn’t really react until the innkeeper brings Jin a shot of honey-colored something. Alphonse knows it’s alcohol without having to smell it.
“Lean up a little, son—there you go. Careful.”
Edward chokes on the whiskey a little. Alphonse doesn’t know how he feels about it but Jin doesn’t seem too upset so it might be okay. He moves one of the towels away from Edward’s leg and hisses.
“You’re losin’ most your blood here, kid.” Jin threads a needle and then pours something clear and thin over it. “Do you want someone to hold you down?”
Edward blinks out into space. His gaze finds Al again and the vacancy in his eyes is terrifying. “A’Al…”
It’s doubtful Ed heard Jin. Alphonse puts his hand over his brother’s head. “I—”
“I’ve got him, Alphonse,” somebody says, coming forward out of the anxious audience. “You just hold his hand, now, alright?”
She’s anxious but composed and speaks with authority, like Teacher, and Alphonse trusts her implicitly even though he maybe shouldn’t. He scoots just enough to let her through. She wraps her arm across Edward’s shoulders. “I’ve got him, Jin.”
Jin moves in with the needle.
Edward gets his first real flash of awareness, and bucks with his entire body when Jin presses against the wound. The woman holds. Alphonse squeezes Ed’s hand as hard as he dares without knowing how much pressure he’s using.
“H-He doesn’t like needles,” Alphonse tells Jin, “or—or doctors.”
“I don’t blame him,” says Jin, “automail surgery’s one hell of a thing to go through, ‘specially at his age. You’re alright, kid,” he tells Edward, “I’m gonna make this as quick as I can, got it? Hold still for me until it’s over. Squeeze your brother’s hand.”
Edward’s hard breaths whistle hollowly through the small gaps in Alphonse’s armor, but he doesn’t fight for long. The woman adjusts her position and Jin takes up the needle again and Alphonse just, stays. Edward flinches whenever the needle meets his skin. Jin works silently.
By the time the village doctor has finished with Ed, Ed is swaddled in bandages and blankets and moved into his and Alphonse’s room upstairs, and he’s slipped into a ragged sleep with his lungs croaking as he breathes.
At first Alphonse can’t decide if the state those attackers left him in is worse than the automail surgery, but it must be, because Alphonse was scared while Edward was under surgery but Pinako and Winry were there to help him and make sure he was okay, and so he was never really afraid for Edward’s life or his safety.
“I’m going to speak with the innkeeper about getting some ice,” Jin tells Alphonse after he’s tucked Edward into bed and checked his temperature, “that swelling around his ribs is only going to get worse and he’s already struggling to breathe. I’ll be back in a pinch, son.”
Then Alphonse is alone with his big brother.
Alphonse fusses with the blankets over Ed’s shoulders some more before finding the lobby phone. He memorized the number to Colonel Mustang’s office even though Edward told him it wasn’t necessary; “What’s the point in you knowing that bastard’s phone?”; and he memorized his brother’s military code, too, because Ed is stupid sometimes and Alphonse refused to be helpless.
The moment the operator patches him through and Mustang’s voice comes over the receiver, Alphonse is talking.
“Ed’s hurt,” Alphonse says, “he was attacked while we were trying to help the villagers, he got the guys tied up and the villagers are watching them now making sure they won’t go anywhere but Ed’s hurt and the village physician said he needs a hospital.”
“Edward’s hurt?” It’s kind of hard to hear Mustang, Alphonse isn’t used to listening through the armor, but it’s just clear enough. “Is his life in danger?”
“N, Not yet, I don’t think, but he’s really hurt and the physician said he doesn’t have all the supplies he needs, if the wounds start getting infected—”
“Wounds? He has open wounds?”
“He was stabbed,” Alphonse says.
“What? Where?”
“His side. And his leg.”
Mustang is quiet. Alphonse checks to make sure the receiver is close enough, pressing it hard against his head. “I’ve just dispatched a team into that region,” says Mustang, “they’ll take care of the felons. The earliest they can arrive is tomorrow morning, but I’m on my way now.”
“You’re coming?” He assumed Mustang would just send somebody.
“Might take a few hours, but I’m headed down to the station now. The military train is still running.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
“Just looking after my subordinate.”
“Sure.” He didn’t mean to say it out-loud, necessarily, but he’s so relieved. “I’ll take care of Ed.”
“I’ll see you before dawn.”
Alphonse hangs the phone.
By the time he’s made it back to the room, Ed is struggling to pull himself onto his side.
“Ed!” Alphonse reaches his side in three long strides. “Don’t move, don’t move—the physician said it’d be bad if you tore out your stitches, Ed, you already lost a lot of blood.”
Edward lets Alphonse settle him back into bed, which should probably be more concerning and would be if Alphonse weren’t so relieved to see him awake. “Blood?” Edward croaks.
Alphonse nods. “He said one of the knives—he said it nicked an artery? I think? He went out to get ice and he doesn’t want you to move.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Hurt? Oh. No, Ed, I’m okay.”
“You were upset,” says Ed.
Alphonse nods some more. “I was. I am, but only because those people tried to trap you. You came here to help them.”
“S’ just how it is.”
Alphonse sinks back. He wasn’t going to tell Ed this, because Ed’s gonna be stupid about it and insist on paying the physician anyway, but Ed’s being stupid now so what’s the point of saving it? “The physician isn’t charging either of us to take care of you,” says Alphonse. “After what you did.”
Edward tries to sit up again. “What? What, no, we—we’ve gotta—”
“He said no,” says Alphonse, carefully pushing him down again, “and it’s going to be really upsetting for you if you open your wounds up again and he has to do even more work. Please, Ed.”
His brother doesn’t argue anymore. Ed rarely argues when Alphonse uses that tone with him. Edward curls up on the side that isn’t hurt and lets Alphonse fiddle with the blankets over him.
When Jin returns, Ed is asleep. Alphonse tells him that he was awake for a while and coherent enough to know where he was. Jin seems comforted by this, so Alphonse is comforted too.
“Sounds like the worst is over for now,” Jin says, gingerly tucking wrapped packs of ice against Edward’s ribs while he sleeps. “But I meant what I said about a hospital. He’s gonna need some strong antibiotics if you’re gonna beat the infection.”
“What happens if he gets an infection?” Alphonse asks.
Jin looks at him for a long moment. “Truthfully, I don’t know. He’s tough, but these wounds are nothing to sneeze at.”
“But he’ll be okay if he gets to a hospital soon?”
“I’m hoping so. I’m not gonna promise you anything when I don’t know for sure, but he should be alright once he’s gotten some proper help. You called his CO already?”
“Y, Yeah, he said he’ll be here in a couple hours.”
“Good. Stay with your brother; we’ll make sure he knows where to go once he arrives. Call for me if you have any reason to think Ed’s not doing well, alright?”
“Thank you,” Alphonse says, “for everything. I, I know you have your own reservations against the military, but…”
“The system is stacked against the people who join thinking they’re doing something good for their country,” says Jin. “And you two are clearly in whatever this is for each other. Don’t think anything of it.”
“Still, I—… thank you.”
Jin gives Alphonse’s shoulder a gentle pat. It isn’t hard enough to ring hollow and Alphonse is crushingly grateful.
Ed sleeps okay in the hours that follow. His fever puts color back in his face in the worst possible way, and Alphonse can tell he’s in pain even when he’s dozing, but it’s nightmare-free and keeps him from feeling the worst of it. Ed only seems to feel the worst of it when he’s fully awake, and he hasn’t been fully awake since Alphonse found him covered in blood.
The hours pass slowly, but the hours do pass.
Alphonse is attempting to make Edward more comfortable with his blankets when Jin’s voice floats down the hall to the room.
“—I’ve mitigated the damage best I can for now, but he needs to be taken to a hospital urgently. I don’t know what will become of him if those wounds get infected and those cuts are not clean.”
“I understand.” Mustang? Mustang. “I’ll see to it he’s taken care of. Thank you for everything you’ve done for him. I’d take those fiends off your hands if I could, but with Edward like this—”
“He comes first, unquestionably. We can handle those vandals for a night; wouldn’t be the first time. Just take care of Edward and his brother, please? They’re good kids.”
“Of course. Thank you, Jin.”
“Take care.”
Alphonse hears one set of footsteps walk away, and then Mustang opens the door.
Alphonse jumps up. “Colonel!”
The carefully-laid-out military professionalism on Mustang’s face cracks down the middle. He powerwalks forward. “Are you alright?”
“I-I’m fine, it’s Ed.” Alphonse steps out of the way. “The fever started recently,” Alphonse says, “the doctor said it could be because of stress but I don’t know.”
Mustang has two fingers under Ed’s jaw, his other hand spread across his forehead. “I have a car,” Mustang says, “we’re going. There's an under-cover military checkpoint not far from here; they have an ambulance.”
“Okay.”
Mustang shifts to hold Edward’s shoulder, shaking him. “Hey, Fullmetal. We’re leaving, kid, come on.”
Edward doesn’t budge. Alphonse starts to react but Mustang beats him to whatever punch it was, carefully slipping his arms beneath his brother and scooping him up into his chest. Edward’s head falls against his shoulder and Mustang hikes him close. “I’ve got him.”
“Are you sure? I can carry him, Colonel, his automail is so heavy—”
“I have him, Alphonse,” Mustang says, shifting to support Edward’s head a little better, “just get the door.”
Oh. Maybe Alphonse isn’t alone in caring for his brother in their every-day lives, either.
Edward stirs, whining hoarsely.
“Easy, kid. Hang tight, alright? I’ll hand you off to your brother soon.”
“B’Bastard.”
“In the flesh. Now don’t speak, there’ll be time for that later.”
“Al…”
“I’m here, Ed.”
Once they’re at the car, Alphonse crams into the backseat and Mustang passes Ed to him, careful not to hit his head on the lip of the frame. Edward snuggles into the blanket as Alphonse wraps his arms around him. Mustang climbs around to the front behind the wheel.
“Ready?”
Alphonse affirms it and the car starts to move.
Ed is still breathing when they reach the outpost, but the only color in his face is the color of his fever, and Mustang sounds stressed as he parks the car.
“I called ahead,” Mustang says, one foot out the door, “they know we’re coming. I’ll take him.”
Alphonse passes his brother over when Mustang opens the side door. Edward doesn’t make any kind of sound this time, and Alphonse’s spirit drops when Edward’s head lolls limply into the side of Mustang’s neck. Mustang looks just as unsettled, but schools it as he adjusts his hold. Alphonse doesn’t have a choice as to whether or not he shows emotion.
The ambulance meets them less than a minute after that. Someone must’ve seen them pull in. Mustang passes Edward onto a stretcher that the medics roll out, gives them a description of what happened. Ed looks minuscule compared to the stretcher. He doesn’t move even when unfamiliar hands check his vitals or put in an IV and it’s not like him.
“—You can come with us in the ambulance,” the EMT is saying to Mustang, like Alphonse isn’t there (he isn’t here), “but we can’t allow minors. I’m sorry.”
Oh.
That’s—That’s fine. At least it’s not about the armor.
“I-I’d rather you go with Ed,” Alphonse says when Mustang turns to him, “I’ll take the train alone, it’s okay. Honest.”
It wouldn’t be, but it’s better than Ed being alone in a hospital when he doesn’t have to be. Ed pretends not to like Mustang but Alphonse knows him better than that.
Mustang looks between him and the EMT. Whether he’s unconvinced or genuinely considering, Alphonse can’t tell. “How much information do you need from me to be able to transport and treat Edward?” Mustang asks the medic. He’s put up some of the mask again; flimsy, but thicker than Alphonse can read. It’s frustrating.
“Authorization of care,” the medic answers, “but that’s all. The military already has his medical history.”
“Then I give you permission as a medical professional to use it,” says Mustang, “and take care of Edward as a first priority. If he wakes up, please inform him that I’ve gone with his brother and that he and I both will be at the hospital come daybreak.”
The military medic salutes. “Yes sir.”
“But, wait,” Alphonse struggles, “Colonel—”
Mustang raps on Alphonse’s forearm with the back of his hand. “I’m going to call Hawkeye and ask her to meet Edward in Central,” Mustang says. “She’ll make it there before the ambulance and we won’t be too far behind.”
“But Ed—”
“Is my subordinate, yes, and he would strangle me if he knew I left you on your own.”
“But I’d be okay,” Alphonse says.
Mustang signs something for the EMT and hands the clipboard back. “Come on. Let’s catch our train.”
Alphonse wants to cry. Wants to, desperately—he was always the first to cry between him and Ed and even Winry sometimes, because it helps, and when he was frustrated it made him less frustrated, and when it sad it made him… not less sad, but less hollow, especially after Mom— and when he was angry it made him less angry, and Ed would always ruffle his hair or hug him or both and he’d tell him it’d be okay.
But he can’t cry anymore. Ed can’t hug him or ruffle his hair anymore, and when Ed tells Alphonse it’ll be okay it’s like he’s struggling to believe it himself, and he always looks like he’s about to cry but doesn’t. It’s lonely, and he knows Ed is lonely too.
After using the checkpoint’s phone to get ahold of Hawkeye, the ambulance shunts off, and Alphonse climbs into the backseat of Mustang’s car.
Mustang drives them to the station and pulls rank to get Alphonse on the military train with him. Mustang picks an empty compartment for them. The lights are dull and the world beyond the windows is dark.
“Are you alright?” Mustang’s voice pulls him out of his stewing.
Ed thinks Mustang is impossible to read, and he’s not always wrong about it, but the guy isn’t unreadable when he’s not playing up military grandiose. Right now, Mustang looks concerned, maybe tired, and Alphonse isn’t his brother: there's no I’m fine and everything is okay game to play and he wishes Ed would stop pretending there was.
“… I thought Ed was dead,” Alphonse says. If he had a real body, he’d be trying not to let his voice shake, but now that the armor does that for him automatically he’d do anything to sound real. “I heard him yelling and when I turned the corner they’d already attacked him, and he wasn’t… moving, Colonel. And there was blood everywhere, and—…”
It was like every worst moment he’s lived; like scaring Winry when they were small, like bursting through the door to see Mom crumpled on the floor, like waking up dazed and unfeeling in a dark basement surrounded by metal and blood and Ed was down two limbs and covered in blood.
“He’s going to be alright, Alphonse,” Mustang says.
“But what if he wasn’t? What if he bled out before I got there? Or what if they’d stabbed him in the chest instead of the ribs, and, and what if Jin wasn’t a doctor? What if the village didn’t have a doctor? What if I didn’t move fast enough and he was already gone by the time I got to the inn? I can’t—… lose him, Colonel, he’s—”
My big brother.
Alphonse can’t bring himself to finish the thought. Whatever kind of heart he has left won’t let him. He hates that he’s made of metal. He hates that he couldn’t be gentler with Ed. He hates that he couldn’t have cried for him if Ed didn’t make it.
“You two are everything to each other,” says Mustang solemnly. “I’m sorry. If I’d had any reason to believe your brother would be ambushed, I never would have sent him here. I take full responsibility for what happened.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Mustang nods dismissively. “It wasn’t a fluke that your brother survived, Alphonse. You were looking for him. Edward was likely able to deflect enough that the wounds were not fatal. The townspeople equipped themselves best they could to be able to survive, and Jin is an accomplished physician. You and Edward built rapport with them that made them trust you, and you trusted them enough to go to them for help. The only lucky instance was the timing, but luck does nothing when you’re unprepared. You were all prepared.”
“I don’t want Ed to get hurt anymore,” Alphonse says. “I’m so—I’m so sick of seeing him get hurt like this.”
Mustang nods, and this nod isn’t dismissive. “You’re a good brother.”
“I wish I were better.”
“How much do you expect of yourself?”
“I don’t know,” Alphonse says. “More.”
“You’re everything you need to be right now,” says Mustang. “Your brother expects nothing more.”
“But Ed expects everything from himself,” Alphonse stresses. “How am I supposed to be okay with— this when he’s trying to do that?”
“Edward’s lack of self-preservation has nothing to do with you.”
“But he says it’s for me. He doesn’t even act like he wants to get his own arm and leg back, all he’s focused on is me and it isn’t fair.”
“Why don’t you tell him?”
“He’ll get sad.”
“Maybe that isn’t a bad thing,” Mustang says, “if it’s affecting you like this. Tell him; he can take it.”
Alphonse isn’t sure.
Mustang leans back, crosses his arms over his chest. “He’s only doing this in the first place because he cares for you. It’s counterproductive if he’s hurting you in the meantime.”
“I guess…”
The train rattles on.
“Colonel?”
“Mm.”
“Do you really care about my brother?”
Mustang lifts his head.
“And don’t lie,” Alphonse blurts. “I need to know for sure, and—and I won’t be able to tell whether or not you’re lying.”
Mustang watches him carefully.
“… Yes,” Mustang says eventually. “I do care about Ed.”
“Beyond your own ambitions?”
“Indefinitely.”
Alphonse remembers what it felt like to sigh in relief. This body can’t do that, but still, he feels better in the parts of himself that still can feel. Less upset; less alone.
“And I’m hardly alone in that,” Mustang goes on when Alphonse thought he was finished. “You’ve seen it for yourself by now, haven’t you? The whole team cares about you and your brother, and they’d have my head if I didn’t.”
That last part was a joke. Maybe Alphonse would have known if Mustang lied; military-Mustang is made of stone and Mustang-Mustang is made of… the same stuff Ed and Al are made of. Stuff that’s real and stuff that bleeds when someone cuts it.
(Alphonse doesn’t miss bleeding, but he misses bleeding.)
“… Okay,” Alphonse says. “Thank you. I believe you. Um—if Ed yells at you for coming here, it’s just because he’s scared of admitting when he needs help. Please don’t be upset with him.”
Mustang chuffs. “I am aware of that. I won’t be upset with him until he’s properly earned it.”
Alphonse nods.
There's nothing more to say after that. Mustang starts writing a mission report in his notebook, and after the first half an hour tears out an empty piece of paper and an extra pen for Alphonse to occupy himself with. He doesn’t have much to write about and the thoughts that do come to mind aren’t ones he wants to immortalize on paper, so he doodles on his armor instead. Shapes, patterns, birds.
Maybe Ed wouldn’t be so angry all the time if he’d just let Alphonse help. Ed isn’t actually angry, not like people who don’t know him think he’s angry. Ed’s just… sad. And lonely. And maybe he wouldn’t feel as lonely if he didn’t push everyone away the second they get close enough to know.
“You can sleep if you want, Colonel,” Alphonse says. “You don’t have to stay up for me.”
Mustang stretches and then slumps, shaking his head as his arms cross. “I’ve pulled later nights for less important reasons.”
“But you don’t have to.” Ed tried to do that, too. It was another war fought in futility: Edward has a physical body that couldn’t take that sort of sleepless strain. Alphonse hates having to convince him over and over that he’s worth being taken care of.
(Maybe he doesn’t hate, though, like Edward maybe isn’t angry. Maybe it was one more consequence of their transgression—something stolen that neither of them could put a finger on, something they couldn’t touch and might never be able to recover.)
“You’re both going to be alright,” Mustang says. “I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t believe it.”
Alphonse doesn’t know what to say. “Thank you.”
It’s good. Alphonse does so much believing for Ed—his brother, his best friend, who doesn’t believe anything good could possibly happen to him and fights every waking moment to make sure something good can at least happen to Alphonse— and Alphonse doesn’t mind, but it’s another kind of loneliness when all the dreaming is left to him. It’s nice to have someone else dream for them for a change; to have someone else believe in them who isn’t Winry or Granny; to have someone believe in them who isn’t predisposed to it.
“And talk to him,” says Mustang. “He’d want you to.”
“I will. Thank you, Colonel, for everything.”
Mustang sits back. “I’ve merely done what any decent person would do.”
“Sure.”
The world beyond the train no longer feels so dark.
(Alphonse does talk to Ed, later, in the hospital after Ed has a blood transfusion and pain medications and is no longer in danger. Edward is crushed when Alphonse tells him, naturally, but he takes it better than Alphonse gave him credit for. He’s upset because of course he’s upset, and so upset that Alphonse is terrified he may actually cry, but then his brother surprises him: Ed says he’s sorry, that Alphonse is right, and that he’s going to try and do things differently from here on. That he’s going to do better for both their sakes.
It’s not a habit Alphonse expects Ed to kick at the drop of a hat, but it’s better than stewing in loneliness. If Ed can’t kick it on his own right away, that’s fine; Alphonse has legs too, and metal hits hard.
There are ways he can keep his brother safe that no one else can, and he’ll focus on that until their journey’s over and he and his brother can laugh and smile and live again and nothing else will matter.)