Not the One You Know [Ed]
Title: Not the One You Know
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist (AU; no attempted human transmutation by the Elrics, plus a couple other weird little changes)
Character(s): young!Ed (sort of), Al, Winry, Roy; implied Roy/Ed
Rating: PG
Warning(s): controversial mental illness (dissociative identity disorder)
Words: 1722
Summary: "Fixated at the time of trauma. Dissociation. --a blank slate."
Author's Note: Written for the fma_fic_contest prompt "Tabula Rasa". Written in one sitting, while I was sick-- so of course I found that opportune time to try a new writing style! ^^U It's a little wonky, yes. Apologies!
Yet I won third place! That comm is far too kind to me! Lovely lovely banner by bay115 <3
-0-
When Edward awoke from his deep slumber, his first instinct was to wipe his eyes-he had been crying the night before, and he certainly did not want anyone to know that. The moment his fingers touched his face, however, his body gave a violent, involuntary shiver. They were cold, so cold…
Something was wrong.
--but his fingers looked normal, at least. Surely everything was fine? But no-he felt as if he had been asleep for a thousand years, or at least through too much of the night. It was true, he had been up later than Granny would have liked, but hardly late enough to warrant sleeping well into the afternoon. He had been crying the night before; he wiped his eyes again, listless, just to make sure. Oh, he felt heavy, terribly relaxed, but not in a way that would lull him back into sleep. Just heavy enough to be completely comfortable. As if he could float away at any moment. How strange!
Something else was wrong- as he shifted in his bed, there was the distinctly odd sensation of hair resting against his shoulderblades, but that didn’t make sense: his hair was nowhere near that long. And then it felt as if his feet could touch the end of the bed if he stretched-but his bed had always been too big for one kid! Perhaps he hadn’t noticed his own growth (practically a grown-up) or else he was still halfway in a dream.
The things that didn’t make sense, he merely dismissed- if they even made it far enough to rouse conscious perception.
He propped himself up on his elbows, but instead of reading the sunshine through the windows to determine the lateness of his repose as he intended, he was startled to attention by the sight of a stranger seated in a chair in the corner of his room. Not a stranger, though-the doctor, it was the doctor from town. Why was she there? Did she think he was sick?
“Hello-oh please, don’t be frightened. It’s alright. Are you Edward?”
Edward was still heavy, too terribly heavy to be alarmed. He was sinking again, this time into a sudden and frightful trust that things were happening as they were supposed to be. Of course, he must be sick. Of course, that’s why he felt so strange… “That’s me,” he replied. A feeling of morbid disorientation was rapidly rising within him. Where were Al and Winry? He couldn’t hear their voices, nor Granny’s scolding them for playing too loudly or rambunctiously. They could hurt themselves, didn’t they know.
“I just wanted to make sure it was you,” the doctor replied, smiling in a detached manner. A few papers sat in her lap, but she was otherwise unarmed. Unarmed? What an odd thought!
“Do you know who Ed is?” she then asked; there was the most minute change in her tone. Fear? Her eyes were on his arm instead of his face. Edward wondered why.
Ed was a nickname he didn’t like very much, though he tolerated it from his family, sometimes. Was that what she meant? He told the doctor this, and she nodded, laughing softly.
“That’s fine. I’ll call you Edward.
A few people are here to visit you, I hope that’s alright. Is that alright, Edward?” Oh, the way she pronounced his name. With a significance that made no sense, so he dismissed that, too.
He felt heavy, so very heavy, and relaxed…
-1-
His first visitor was handsome, a golden-haired man possessing an openly warm disposition. Wide eyes boldly proclaimed innocence, but a particular gleam in them whispered hintings of the opposite. Wordlessly, his bearing and appearance seemed to betray his every secret-and yet, in the end, nothing was revealed at all.
Yes, he was definitely handsome-Edward fancied it was because the visitor looked more than a little like himself. He liked that.
The visitor seated himself beside Edward’s bed; he was feeling sick now, or at least he felt sick enough to be able to play the part convincingly. The doctor coming to see him! More noteworthy, important strangers coming to see him! Something must really be wrong with him, then.
“Hey, Ed-Edward,” the man greeted him, swiftly catching himself upon detecting something in Edward’s expression that let him know what was proper. He chuckled gently, nervously. Outside the bedroom door, Edward could see at least two other people and the doctor, talking in lowered voices. His visitor glanced in that direction as well, seeing his attention there, but said nothing on the matter.
Instead, he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Edward replied without thinking. He was supposedly sick, or something, but he wouldn’t lie outright. “Do you know where my brother is? He’s short, and looks sort of like-” He stopped himself. Sort of like you. But that thought was stupid, that wasn’t it? This visitor reminded him of someone else, too…
The man started, and his voice died audibly in his throat. Masking his obvious discomfort with a forced facsimile of a smile, the man asked, “So how did it feel to get hypnotized?”
Edward blinked. He leaned toward the man slightly, and spoke slowly: “I was sleeping,” as if this would be a difficult concept for his guest to grasp.
“Oh-oh, of course,” he responded quickly, with a flippant wave of his hand. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to… you don’t. Um. Sorry…”
But his words did not register: Edward’s golden eyes were narrow, scrutinizing his face. There was something familiar about it, surely; there was a resemblance to someone he knew well. It was in his eyes, the warm color and shape, and the smile that was always teasing at the corners of his mouth. Rather like Edward’s mother, that’s who it was…
Mother.
The thought froze him-he was slipping, falling, and then he was gone. Edward couldn’t say anything, couldn’t think. He lost grip on the passage of time. He never noticed his visitor’s leaving.
-2-
His second visitor was a young woman, definitely young, fresh-looking. Comparing her to the man he had just seen, it made him look rather tired. With round blue eyes and blonde hair the color of filtered sunshine, he supposed she was sort of pretty, for a girl. She was frowning, though, as she sat at his bedside, and her eyes rest upon his face for only a moment. Then, she turned to the doctor.
“He doesn’t know who I am?” The woman refused to address him directly, as if something about him was repulsive, or frightening. Outside, the voices had quieted. She had been the talker of the group before, evidently.
“I don’t know you,” he said pointedly, not without a touch of spite. He said it largely just to be nasty, not only to assert the autonomy she was so keen to ignore.
This made the woman stiffen. Her two impossibly-large blue eyes turned to swallow him up, to record every detail, as if he was to be the last thing she would ever see. She blinked once, and they were filled with tears.
“He sounds-you sound like-” Her voice choked, strangling itself to prevent the vocalization of any other words. Drenched in the silence, she stood and promptly excused herself. Their visit of minutes, if that, made Edward wonder what these people wanted, visiting him when they were mere strangers-strange.
“He probably doesn’t recognize you because you’re much older than he expects you to be. As far as he knows, Winry is a child. He wouldn’t even think of you looking like this.”
“He’s young-oh yes, you could tell in the voice. That’s very normal for one of his condition.”
“Did you call him Edward when he was that age?”
“fixated at the time of trauma”
“dissociation”
“-a blank slate”
“He’s not Ed.”
They were talking about Winry! Edward wished one of his visitors had been Winry… she would probably make fun of him, but at least it would be someone he knew.
-3-
His third visitor didn’t look like the others, but that made him more interesting. He was tall, broad in the shoulders and broader in presence, and his dark eyes seemed to smolder in a way that, rather incongruously, made Edward shiver.
They had a gleam to them, too. Something a little different from the eyes of the other two, something like-pain? Something not so well-hidden…
As the man sat beside him, Edward felt fingers briefly close around his own, and then quickly-too quickly-disappear. Neither of them said anything, though his visitor averted his eyes with a sharp intake of breath. There was certainly something different about him. He sat closer than the others. He was far, far less eager to talk.
The type who was used to things passing unsaid between people, perhaps. But that didn’t really make sense, so Edward dismissed it.
In the other room, the others’ efforts to hide their conversation from Edward were becoming increasingly futile. They continued to throw glances his way through the open door, more thinly-veiled as time went on. It was obvious that they were afraid of him, as if he had done something bad, as if it was such a novel something that they were still determining how to react. In their conversation now, one particular word was being tossed about with increasing fervor-it was even enough to snatch away his visitor’s attention for a terribly brief moment.
Right away, of course, he turned back-smiling. Edward wanted to see that smile, he somehow knew that he would like it very much, but when he did look, it only hurt. It wasn’t real in the slightest.
“Do you know any alchemy?” The man asked, and the way he pronounced the word was warm. It made Edward want to taste it, too, but he knew it wouldn’t sound the same on his own tongue.
“Not a lick,” Edward replied, sheepishly.
He expected disappointment, at least, or some word of reproach. The voices in the other room had quieted themselves abruptly, and he expected at least one of them to come back in and tell him this was what he had done wrong. He didn't expect to hear weeping, instead.
-x-
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist (AU; no attempted human transmutation by the Elrics, plus a couple other weird little changes)
Character(s): young!Ed (sort of), Al, Winry, Roy; implied Roy/Ed
Rating: PG
Warning(s): controversial mental illness (dissociative identity disorder)
Words: 1722
Summary: "Fixated at the time of trauma. Dissociation. --a blank slate."
Author's Note: Written for the fma_fic_contest prompt "Tabula Rasa". Written in one sitting, while I was sick-- so of course I found that opportune time to try a new writing style! ^^U It's a little wonky, yes. Apologies!
Yet I won third place! That comm is far too kind to me! Lovely lovely banner by bay115 <3
-0-
When Edward awoke from his deep slumber, his first instinct was to wipe his eyes-he had been crying the night before, and he certainly did not want anyone to know that. The moment his fingers touched his face, however, his body gave a violent, involuntary shiver. They were cold, so cold…
Something was wrong.
--but his fingers looked normal, at least. Surely everything was fine? But no-he felt as if he had been asleep for a thousand years, or at least through too much of the night. It was true, he had been up later than Granny would have liked, but hardly late enough to warrant sleeping well into the afternoon. He had been crying the night before; he wiped his eyes again, listless, just to make sure. Oh, he felt heavy, terribly relaxed, but not in a way that would lull him back into sleep. Just heavy enough to be completely comfortable. As if he could float away at any moment. How strange!
Something else was wrong- as he shifted in his bed, there was the distinctly odd sensation of hair resting against his shoulderblades, but that didn’t make sense: his hair was nowhere near that long. And then it felt as if his feet could touch the end of the bed if he stretched-but his bed had always been too big for one kid! Perhaps he hadn’t noticed his own growth (practically a grown-up) or else he was still halfway in a dream.
The things that didn’t make sense, he merely dismissed- if they even made it far enough to rouse conscious perception.
He propped himself up on his elbows, but instead of reading the sunshine through the windows to determine the lateness of his repose as he intended, he was startled to attention by the sight of a stranger seated in a chair in the corner of his room. Not a stranger, though-the doctor, it was the doctor from town. Why was she there? Did she think he was sick?
“Hello-oh please, don’t be frightened. It’s alright. Are you Edward?”
Edward was still heavy, too terribly heavy to be alarmed. He was sinking again, this time into a sudden and frightful trust that things were happening as they were supposed to be. Of course, he must be sick. Of course, that’s why he felt so strange… “That’s me,” he replied. A feeling of morbid disorientation was rapidly rising within him. Where were Al and Winry? He couldn’t hear their voices, nor Granny’s scolding them for playing too loudly or rambunctiously. They could hurt themselves, didn’t they know.
“I just wanted to make sure it was you,” the doctor replied, smiling in a detached manner. A few papers sat in her lap, but she was otherwise unarmed. Unarmed? What an odd thought!
“Do you know who Ed is?” she then asked; there was the most minute change in her tone. Fear? Her eyes were on his arm instead of his face. Edward wondered why.
Ed was a nickname he didn’t like very much, though he tolerated it from his family, sometimes. Was that what she meant? He told the doctor this, and she nodded, laughing softly.
“That’s fine. I’ll call you Edward.
A few people are here to visit you, I hope that’s alright. Is that alright, Edward?” Oh, the way she pronounced his name. With a significance that made no sense, so he dismissed that, too.
He felt heavy, so very heavy, and relaxed…
-1-
His first visitor was handsome, a golden-haired man possessing an openly warm disposition. Wide eyes boldly proclaimed innocence, but a particular gleam in them whispered hintings of the opposite. Wordlessly, his bearing and appearance seemed to betray his every secret-and yet, in the end, nothing was revealed at all.
Yes, he was definitely handsome-Edward fancied it was because the visitor looked more than a little like himself. He liked that.
The visitor seated himself beside Edward’s bed; he was feeling sick now, or at least he felt sick enough to be able to play the part convincingly. The doctor coming to see him! More noteworthy, important strangers coming to see him! Something must really be wrong with him, then.
“Hey, Ed-Edward,” the man greeted him, swiftly catching himself upon detecting something in Edward’s expression that let him know what was proper. He chuckled gently, nervously. Outside the bedroom door, Edward could see at least two other people and the doctor, talking in lowered voices. His visitor glanced in that direction as well, seeing his attention there, but said nothing on the matter.
Instead, he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Edward replied without thinking. He was supposedly sick, or something, but he wouldn’t lie outright. “Do you know where my brother is? He’s short, and looks sort of like-” He stopped himself. Sort of like you. But that thought was stupid, that wasn’t it? This visitor reminded him of someone else, too…
The man started, and his voice died audibly in his throat. Masking his obvious discomfort with a forced facsimile of a smile, the man asked, “So how did it feel to get hypnotized?”
Edward blinked. He leaned toward the man slightly, and spoke slowly: “I was sleeping,” as if this would be a difficult concept for his guest to grasp.
“Oh-oh, of course,” he responded quickly, with a flippant wave of his hand. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to… you don’t. Um. Sorry…”
But his words did not register: Edward’s golden eyes were narrow, scrutinizing his face. There was something familiar about it, surely; there was a resemblance to someone he knew well. It was in his eyes, the warm color and shape, and the smile that was always teasing at the corners of his mouth. Rather like Edward’s mother, that’s who it was…
Mother.
The thought froze him-he was slipping, falling, and then he was gone. Edward couldn’t say anything, couldn’t think. He lost grip on the passage of time. He never noticed his visitor’s leaving.
-2-
His second visitor was a young woman, definitely young, fresh-looking. Comparing her to the man he had just seen, it made him look rather tired. With round blue eyes and blonde hair the color of filtered sunshine, he supposed she was sort of pretty, for a girl. She was frowning, though, as she sat at his bedside, and her eyes rest upon his face for only a moment. Then, she turned to the doctor.
“He doesn’t know who I am?” The woman refused to address him directly, as if something about him was repulsive, or frightening. Outside, the voices had quieted. She had been the talker of the group before, evidently.
“I don’t know you,” he said pointedly, not without a touch of spite. He said it largely just to be nasty, not only to assert the autonomy she was so keen to ignore.
This made the woman stiffen. Her two impossibly-large blue eyes turned to swallow him up, to record every detail, as if he was to be the last thing she would ever see. She blinked once, and they were filled with tears.
“He sounds-you sound like-” Her voice choked, strangling itself to prevent the vocalization of any other words. Drenched in the silence, she stood and promptly excused herself. Their visit of minutes, if that, made Edward wonder what these people wanted, visiting him when they were mere strangers-strange.
“He probably doesn’t recognize you because you’re much older than he expects you to be. As far as he knows, Winry is a child. He wouldn’t even think of you looking like this.”
“He’s young-oh yes, you could tell in the voice. That’s very normal for one of his condition.”
“Did you call him Edward when he was that age?”
“fixated at the time of trauma”
“dissociation”
“-a blank slate”
“He’s not Ed.”
They were talking about Winry! Edward wished one of his visitors had been Winry… she would probably make fun of him, but at least it would be someone he knew.
-3-
His third visitor didn’t look like the others, but that made him more interesting. He was tall, broad in the shoulders and broader in presence, and his dark eyes seemed to smolder in a way that, rather incongruously, made Edward shiver.
They had a gleam to them, too. Something a little different from the eyes of the other two, something like-pain? Something not so well-hidden…
As the man sat beside him, Edward felt fingers briefly close around his own, and then quickly-too quickly-disappear. Neither of them said anything, though his visitor averted his eyes with a sharp intake of breath. There was certainly something different about him. He sat closer than the others. He was far, far less eager to talk.
The type who was used to things passing unsaid between people, perhaps. But that didn’t really make sense, so Edward dismissed it.
In the other room, the others’ efforts to hide their conversation from Edward were becoming increasingly futile. They continued to throw glances his way through the open door, more thinly-veiled as time went on. It was obvious that they were afraid of him, as if he had done something bad, as if it was such a novel something that they were still determining how to react. In their conversation now, one particular word was being tossed about with increasing fervor-it was even enough to snatch away his visitor’s attention for a terribly brief moment.
Right away, of course, he turned back-smiling. Edward wanted to see that smile, he somehow knew that he would like it very much, but when he did look, it only hurt. It wasn’t real in the slightest.
“Do you know any alchemy?” The man asked, and the way he pronounced the word was warm. It made Edward want to taste it, too, but he knew it wouldn’t sound the same on his own tongue.
“Not a lick,” Edward replied, sheepishly.
He expected disappointment, at least, or some word of reproach. The voices in the other room had quieted themselves abruptly, and he expected at least one of them to come back in and tell him this was what he had done wrong. He didn't expect to hear weeping, instead.
-x-