The Truth Is... [The End of the World is Also the Beginning] --- Parts 4-7
Title: The Truth Is... [The End of the World is Also the Beginning]
Authors: al_x_kitty, Michi
Rating: ?PG? (not sure yet)
Genre: ?Romance/Angst? (not sure yet)
Pairing: Elricest
Warning: WIP, everything subject to change, or not get finished.
Earlier: 1, 2-3
Edward took in the boy standing before him. He looked like his brother, but Edward knew there was many differences since they were younger. Both of them had been forced to grow up before they should have had to, neither got to experience the full joys of childhood before fate and circumstance ripped them from their innocence.
Alphonse looked fidgety and just as nervous as he did. How could two brothers as close as they had been act like almost perfect strangers meeting for the first time. It almost seemed like a cruel joke someone had played on the boys. Almost like someone set them up, told them 'here you are, be together…then we’re going to mess with you and make it so no matter what things will always be awkward…UNLESS you find out a way, some reason or trick to fixing it.' It was almost funny if you thought about it.
Edward smelled the air slightly, his nose picking up an unfamiliar smell from the almost unfamiliar boy in front of him. It was almost as if Alphonse was wearing Havoc’s clothing. Or…maybe…no it couldn’t be. He noted the almost vacant look behind his brother’s seemingly innocent gaze, wishing that somehow he could replace the innocence fate took prematurely.
Almost holding his breath he waited for some sort of response, something to tell him that it really was Alphonse standing in front of him and not just some apparition pretending to be his brother. He silently urged his brother to say something, do something, anything that would bring the familiarity he sought back to him.
“Niisan..” came an almost too faint to hear statement.
Edward let out the breath he held wondering for a brief moment if his brother was even standing there and it wasn’t just his sleep deprived mind playing tricks on him. Shaking it off mentally, he smiled a bit and opened the door wider.
“Excuse the clutter…You can come in if you want.” Edward said, but silently screamed, ‘Please come in….’
Edward resigned himself to allowing the hopeful delusion, or maybe, by someone's grace, reality to take over and give him a chance to speak with his brother. He just prayed that this was not a dream or an insomnia induced delusion, and that his brother was really there. Because sleep deprivation and the many blows to the head he’d received from an enraged Winry with her wrench could very well be the cause of this.
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His own words had been so quiet, quieter than he'd intended them. Wondering to himself exactly how it was possible for his vochal chords to fail so miserably, he frowned inwardly at himself. Then, he heard it again. A voice he's heard so often in the past, so recently in the present but from another's lips, a voice that had always equated warmth, life, happiness to him. A voice that now, for a reason he didn't dare think of until the time came to voice it, made him unbelievably uncomfortable. More and more, he was a stranger to himself. It had been so long..... So long since anything had been right that he wasn't sure what right was, whether it even existed, or if he'd twisted things too far in his mind.
"You can come in if you want."
Though he'd been waiting for an invitation, one that he wouldn't have needed in the past, these words now seemed akin to a threat to him. Yes. Come inside. Let the world break apart.
It was hard to keep control of himself, hard not to just throw himself at his brother and cry. Cry for what? He wasn't sure, yet he was. So many reasons, some dating back longer than he could fathom. Yes he managed somehow to keep himself in check, to smile that sweet smile at his brother, to step over the threshold.
The room was a bit messy, thankfully. A previous Alphonse would have scolded his brother for it and wished that his sibling could learn to be more tidy, but now he welcomed the sight as it gave him something else to focus on. This was his brother's room. This was his brother, laying all over the floor, embodied in discarded laundry and books and miscellaneous objects. It was all familiar things, yet they bore an almost ominous feel. It's the same. Nothing's the same. We're the Elric Brothers. Forever and always. Brothers.
He felt a twinge of repressed guilt over that last thought, reminding himself of why he was here, and, closing his eyes, he sighed.
"'Niisan...."
Still the only word he could say. One of the fist words he'd ever learned, and definately the one most used in his vocabulary. It had been said happily, sadly, angrily.... But now, coming out of this body that almost felt more hollow than the previous one, it just sounded tired, pained, not how he wanted to hear himself, and not how he wanted to feel. Things should be normal, but they weren't.
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The state of his room was embarrassing to say the least. He waited for the words of scolding he normally received in regards to things like this, but they would not come. It almost hurt, the familiar scolding was almost something that was looked forward to, but now it was lost in the void of unspoken words. Guilt washed over him for the mess and he coughed slightly out of embarrassment as he closed the door behind them.
Placing one hand sheepishly behind his head he managed, “You can sit on the bed if you want, I don’t really have anywhere else you can sit…”
The silence inbetween statements filled his mind with more doubts and fears than he wanted to acknowledge, let alone face. Why was it so hard just to talk to his own brother? His own flesh and blood?
One word: awkwardness.
It seemed almost like a fog that hung in the air, surrounding the brothers, being inhaled with every breath, absorbed into their skin like a virus or plague. Nothing seemed to penetrate the thick, almost choking essence that hung between the two. The smile on Alphonse’s face almost seemed to bring the reality of their plight into view. It seemed forced, unreal, painted on Alphonse’s doll-like face. It was almost if that’s what they were -- dolls, someone's play things to pick up and discard whenever they were bored. Like some sick and twisted author who was writing the biography of their lives could no longer think of what to write, like they wanted so see how much pain, hurt, anger, guilt, anguish, and torture he could put the young boys through before they would crack.
That limit was approaching quickly, but what was to come of all of it? Edward’s own mind could not fathom what was next for them. Where would they go, would it be as brothers or strangers, friends or enemies, lovers or…? None of the questions could be answered by Edward alone, or even between the two of them. They might never be answered.
“Niisan…”again pierced the silence.
“Yeah Al?” was his hesitant reply.
Was that all his brother could say? ‘Niisan…’ it was almost like a curse, an evil word damning him to the forgotten realms of time and space. Like a bad record stuck on repeat, never to go forward, never to finish the song and dance that was set to repeat for eternity, constantly subjecting it’s dancers to the miseries that came with that song and section of music.
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He had intended to just sit on the bed as had been offered, he really had, but as he stepped over random objects to reach his destination he found himself instead just flopping down on it with no will left to right himself.
"Brother, I..." he paused, staring up at the ceiling, at first trying to pick his words carefully, then giving up when no thought process seemed to work, ".....I can't do this."
He closed his eyes, throwing an arm across his face in the vain hope that maybe darkness could help to clear his mind. This was too much. It wasn't right for him to be so nervous, so closed off, not around the one who mattered most. He had to speak, he knew, but what it was that he was going to say... That was a mystery. So instead, he just spoke, hoping that eventually the words coming out would make sense.
"Brother, we need to talk... I'm sorry. I didn't want this to happen. I didn't think.... I wasn't going to say anything, and then you did, and I have no idea......"
He was talking so fast, so desperately, and he had no idea what it was he was really saying. He felt tired, sick, short of breath. He was doing something wrong, saying something wrong. Maybe even being here was wrong, but it didn't matter, because he couldn't leave now. He felt like crying, like screaming, like hitting something, like.... His mind wandered for a moment, and he colored a bit behind his arm, cringing slightly and biting his lip.
This was all too unreal. Too many things had happened in the course of a few months, and he was confused beyond belief. Even without the torrent of emotional and mental havoc, there was still the problem of getting used to everything else. He wasn't even sure of how he felt, he just knew that everything was wrong.