[fic] June 19th
*waves* Hello all! I know I haven't shown my face around here--like--at all, but here...I offer you ficcage! With more to come, no less. :3
Title: June 19th
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst-o-rama
Word Count: 861
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of the game (Pride!Ending). Also for potential crappiness; written when I was supposed to be sleeping.
Notes: This is actually a teaser for a very loooong series of BBI-based fics I'm planning on writing (and have already written many of) that I've dubbed the Power of Choice series. It follows Pride as the main character, watching his growth and development from a mindless doll into an actual person. Sadly, the part this is from (Part IV: Homecoming) won't come along for quite some time. Un-sadly, I'm only going to post Part I: Dreams, Part II: Awakening and Part IV: Homecoming in this community. All chapters of Part III: Travelling (the longest part) will be posted elsewhere, as they will actually not take place in the BBI universe.
Summary: Two years after Edward's death, Alphonse gets a call from Mustang.
Tomorrow is June 19th.
It’s this time of year that my mind always wanders around the ‘what ifs.’ What if things had been different? What if something small, something unforeseen and uncontrolled, had changed? How different would things be? How different could they really be?
Then I tell myself, ‘Alphonse, cut it out. Thinking like that isn’t going to get you anywhere. Regret? No. That’s not what Brother would have wanted.’
He wanted me to be happy. I know that. He wanted me to live on, to be whole, and to be happy. He wanted me to be able to taste Mrs. Hughes’s pies. He wanted me to be able to hug Winry and Auntie and Teacher and feel how warm and safe I can be. He wanted me to feel emotions like a person with a mortal shell does; to feel fear of death, to feel joy for life.
And I have been. For Brother’s sake. I’ve baked so many pies since that day.
The house was too empty after that first June 19th. I moved back in with Auntie and Winry. They asked me to stay. They said it wasn’t a burden. Even though I know it is, I’m glad they invited me. I don’t know what I would have done. I don’t want to think about eating those pies alone.
I haven’t seen the General since last June the 19th. He’s been very busy, I know, especially after everything that’s happened.
But I find myself wanting to speak with him more and more these days. To try to fill in the holes. I know he’s trying to fill them in, too.
Neither of us remembers what happened that day. We both remember going into the storm drain together, looking for Brother. My memory stops when the daylight in the tunnel disappeared. That was all we knew, the last time we talked.
What if he remembers something I don’t, and isn’t telling me? Would he really keep something like that from me? Was Brother right about him all along?
No; no of course not. The General knows how important this is. I’m sure that the reason why he hasn’t called or visited Risembool in a year is because he can’t remember, and he doesn’t want to burden me with that.
I still want to speak with him, though. Even if neither of us can fill in the holes any better than we could a year ago. He knows a side of Brother that I didn’t.
It seems like everyone does. Everyone who knew Brother knew a slightly different side of him. Brother gave everyone a different face. I saw them all, all those faces, but the face he gave me was his real one.
But even knowing that…I still want to hear what the others have to say…
Two weeks ago, I couldn’t remember what Brother sounded like when he laughed. Not his more recent laugh, but the laugh I should have remembered from when we were younger. Before Mom died. When neither of us had any reason to hide anything with laughter. When we didn’t have a care in the world.
I talked with Winry for hours that night. We talked about Brother and when we were kids. We talked about the years Brother and I spent on our journey; for some reason, little patches of that time are fuzzy in my memory. We talked until the sun came up.
I nearly cried when I realized I couldn’t remember that laugh. I haven’t done that in over a year.
I cried a lot at the funeral. That was okay. I needed to do that. Everyone needs to cry at funerals, because that’s what they’re for. I cried a lot after that, too, for a few months anyway. Until I remembered that Brother wanted me to be happy. That crying all the time would make his sacrifice in vain.
And I couldn’t do that. Everything that Ed wanted…all that he wanted…was for me to be happy. So I haven’t cried since then. I’d rather die than dishonor my brother’s memory.
All the same…I have to wonder…I try not to, but I always do around June 19th. How could he ever expect me to be happy without him being with me?
I never saw his body. For weeks I wouldn’t believe that he was dead, refused to believe it. But I knew I was lying to myself; I don’t know how. Even though there was no body, I knew. Maybe it was some kind of mystical bond we shared (even though Brother would laugh at me for believing in something like that).
Maybe it was when the blue flowers in front of our little house started to whither and die. Maybe that’s when I knew.
My brother is dead.
Maybe that’s why this morning, when I finally got a call from the General after all this time, I wanted to hate him for making me hope again.
‘Alphonse…you’re not going to believe this, but…I found a person who looks like your brother. I think…I think it might really be Ed.’
But I ran out the front door without looking back.
Title: June 19th
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst-o-rama
Word Count: 861
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of the game (Pride!Ending). Also for potential crappiness; written when I was supposed to be sleeping.
Notes: This is actually a teaser for a very loooong series of BBI-based fics I'm planning on writing (and have already written many of) that I've dubbed the Power of Choice series. It follows Pride as the main character, watching his growth and development from a mindless doll into an actual person. Sadly, the part this is from (Part IV: Homecoming) won't come along for quite some time. Un-sadly, I'm only going to post Part I: Dreams, Part II: Awakening and Part IV: Homecoming in this community. All chapters of Part III: Travelling (the longest part) will be posted elsewhere, as they will actually not take place in the BBI universe.
Summary: Two years after Edward's death, Alphonse gets a call from Mustang.
Tomorrow is June 19th.
It’s this time of year that my mind always wanders around the ‘what ifs.’ What if things had been different? What if something small, something unforeseen and uncontrolled, had changed? How different would things be? How different could they really be?
Then I tell myself, ‘Alphonse, cut it out. Thinking like that isn’t going to get you anywhere. Regret? No. That’s not what Brother would have wanted.’
He wanted me to be happy. I know that. He wanted me to live on, to be whole, and to be happy. He wanted me to be able to taste Mrs. Hughes’s pies. He wanted me to be able to hug Winry and Auntie and Teacher and feel how warm and safe I can be. He wanted me to feel emotions like a person with a mortal shell does; to feel fear of death, to feel joy for life.
And I have been. For Brother’s sake. I’ve baked so many pies since that day.
The house was too empty after that first June 19th. I moved back in with Auntie and Winry. They asked me to stay. They said it wasn’t a burden. Even though I know it is, I’m glad they invited me. I don’t know what I would have done. I don’t want to think about eating those pies alone.
I haven’t seen the General since last June the 19th. He’s been very busy, I know, especially after everything that’s happened.
But I find myself wanting to speak with him more and more these days. To try to fill in the holes. I know he’s trying to fill them in, too.
Neither of us remembers what happened that day. We both remember going into the storm drain together, looking for Brother. My memory stops when the daylight in the tunnel disappeared. That was all we knew, the last time we talked.
What if he remembers something I don’t, and isn’t telling me? Would he really keep something like that from me? Was Brother right about him all along?
No; no of course not. The General knows how important this is. I’m sure that the reason why he hasn’t called or visited Risembool in a year is because he can’t remember, and he doesn’t want to burden me with that.
I still want to speak with him, though. Even if neither of us can fill in the holes any better than we could a year ago. He knows a side of Brother that I didn’t.
It seems like everyone does. Everyone who knew Brother knew a slightly different side of him. Brother gave everyone a different face. I saw them all, all those faces, but the face he gave me was his real one.
But even knowing that…I still want to hear what the others have to say…
Two weeks ago, I couldn’t remember what Brother sounded like when he laughed. Not his more recent laugh, but the laugh I should have remembered from when we were younger. Before Mom died. When neither of us had any reason to hide anything with laughter. When we didn’t have a care in the world.
I talked with Winry for hours that night. We talked about Brother and when we were kids. We talked about the years Brother and I spent on our journey; for some reason, little patches of that time are fuzzy in my memory. We talked until the sun came up.
I nearly cried when I realized I couldn’t remember that laugh. I haven’t done that in over a year.
I cried a lot at the funeral. That was okay. I needed to do that. Everyone needs to cry at funerals, because that’s what they’re for. I cried a lot after that, too, for a few months anyway. Until I remembered that Brother wanted me to be happy. That crying all the time would make his sacrifice in vain.
And I couldn’t do that. Everything that Ed wanted…all that he wanted…was for me to be happy. So I haven’t cried since then. I’d rather die than dishonor my brother’s memory.
All the same…I have to wonder…I try not to, but I always do around June 19th. How could he ever expect me to be happy without him being with me?
I never saw his body. For weeks I wouldn’t believe that he was dead, refused to believe it. But I knew I was lying to myself; I don’t know how. Even though there was no body, I knew. Maybe it was some kind of mystical bond we shared (even though Brother would laugh at me for believing in something like that).
Maybe it was when the blue flowers in front of our little house started to whither and die. Maybe that’s when I knew.
My brother is dead.
Maybe that’s why this morning, when I finally got a call from the General after all this time, I wanted to hate him for making me hope again.
‘Alphonse…you’re not going to believe this, but…I found a person who looks like your brother. I think…I think it might really be Ed.’
But I ran out the front door without looking back.