Definition of Soul: Like Humans Do
Title: Like Humans Do
Genre: drabble
Rating: PG
Pairing: Al/Wrath
Warnings: series spoilers!
Previous: 1, 2, 3
Like Humans Do
“Wrath, aren’t you cold?” he asks me, and before I can protest he’s bundling an extra scarf around my neck and pulling a wool hat over my hair. He picks up my hands in his mittened ones, and exclaims, “Your automail, it’s freezing!”
I pull the hat off my head and shake my hair out, grumbling as I rub at my shoulder. “Hurts like a bitch, too,” I tell him, and he looks at me strangely. “What?” I say, puzzled. “She said it would hurt in the cold. It’s cold, and it hurts.”
“My brother,” he says softly, “Must have been in a lot of pain all the time, even after he recovered from the installation.”
I rub my hands together and realize he’s right, I am very cold. “Your brother was probably in more pain than I am,” I tell him reluctantly. I don’t like to see his face fall like that, not anymore, it’s lost its thrill for me, but I’ve promised not to withhold any information about his brother, not like the others do. “His human body didn’t regenerate like mine does, he didn’t have a stomach full of red stones keeping him together,” like you do, I add in my mind, but I don’t want to make him angry and I know he won’t believe me.
“Here,” he’s saying, grabbing my flesh hand again and pulling his own mitten over it. He holds my steel hand for a few moments between his own, trying to warm it I suppose, and then does the same. Outwardly, my hands match now. Have I never worn gloves before?
Well, gloves are a human invention. If it weren’t for the chill in the ports of my automail, I wouldn’t care if I were cold. I don’t think I would even have known. Wanting to please him, I put the hat back on, pulling it down over my eyebrows and feeling its uncomfortable scratchiness on my forehead, but Al doesn’t notice. Al is catching snowflakes on his tongue; sorrow for his brother set aside for now, his face enraptured at the frozen pieces of precipitation.
Wanting to try it out, this once, wanting to try yet something else only humans do, I tilt my own head up and stick out my tongue, but no flakes seem to land there, and I move my head from side to side determined to catch at least one.
Al is laughing at me. “Stay still!” he instructs, his voice shaking with his laughter. “Let them come to you!”
“They aren’t coming to me!” I protest impatiently, startling myself when I lose my balance from swaying back and forth on the slanted roof while looking up. I stumble into him and we collapse on top of each other, slamming hard onto the tiles of the roof, and I wonder if the old woman heard the thump on her ceiling and will come up to investigate.
He’s staring at me, and although I am getting better at it I can’t read his expression, not this time. “What?” I ask, and watch my words exit my mouth as little puffs of frozen breath.
“I like you in the snow,” he says, and he makes his eyes big, like I do mine when I want things, and I wonder what it is he wants.
“You like me in the snow?” I repeat, confused yet again. “What does that mean?”
“You have your own beauty, you know,” he tells me, and his arms are around my waist. Maybe we fell this way, or maybe he put them there when I wasn’t paying attention. But I’m paying attention now. “You’re so pale; you look amazing in the snow, especially with your dark hair.”
I tilt my head. His skin is pink with the cold; mine is marble-white, like it always will be, deathly compared to his, and he thinks this is amazing? He’s leaning towards me, and I don’t know why until his lips are right in front of mine, and it’s over as soon as it begins: Alphonse kisses me.
Just once, and his lips are soft and warm, and now there is something that I can call amazing. This is what humans do with each other, a voice in my head tells me. We’re staring at one another, but my eyes wander over his shoulder to the old woman, who has come up to the roof to investigate after all.
“You boys should come inside,” she says sternly, and Al jerks with a start, standing up, letting go of me, and turning to face her.
“We were just, I mean, Wrath and I were only-“ he stammers, and I stand up too.
“We were catching snowflakes,” I say, and my voice is innocent in a way that his is not, not this time.
She nods sagely, not believing either of us, and turns to go back inside.
As I follow Al inside, I can’t help but wonder: how is it that I am so sure he is not human, when I feel that I am learning what human means by being around him?
Next: In Shadows of Night
Genre: drabble
Rating: PG
Pairing: Al/Wrath
Warnings: series spoilers!
Previous: 1, 2, 3
Like Humans Do
“Wrath, aren’t you cold?” he asks me, and before I can protest he’s bundling an extra scarf around my neck and pulling a wool hat over my hair. He picks up my hands in his mittened ones, and exclaims, “Your automail, it’s freezing!”
I pull the hat off my head and shake my hair out, grumbling as I rub at my shoulder. “Hurts like a bitch, too,” I tell him, and he looks at me strangely. “What?” I say, puzzled. “She said it would hurt in the cold. It’s cold, and it hurts.”
“My brother,” he says softly, “Must have been in a lot of pain all the time, even after he recovered from the installation.”
I rub my hands together and realize he’s right, I am very cold. “Your brother was probably in more pain than I am,” I tell him reluctantly. I don’t like to see his face fall like that, not anymore, it’s lost its thrill for me, but I’ve promised not to withhold any information about his brother, not like the others do. “His human body didn’t regenerate like mine does, he didn’t have a stomach full of red stones keeping him together,” like you do, I add in my mind, but I don’t want to make him angry and I know he won’t believe me.
“Here,” he’s saying, grabbing my flesh hand again and pulling his own mitten over it. He holds my steel hand for a few moments between his own, trying to warm it I suppose, and then does the same. Outwardly, my hands match now. Have I never worn gloves before?
Well, gloves are a human invention. If it weren’t for the chill in the ports of my automail, I wouldn’t care if I were cold. I don’t think I would even have known. Wanting to please him, I put the hat back on, pulling it down over my eyebrows and feeling its uncomfortable scratchiness on my forehead, but Al doesn’t notice. Al is catching snowflakes on his tongue; sorrow for his brother set aside for now, his face enraptured at the frozen pieces of precipitation.
Wanting to try it out, this once, wanting to try yet something else only humans do, I tilt my own head up and stick out my tongue, but no flakes seem to land there, and I move my head from side to side determined to catch at least one.
Al is laughing at me. “Stay still!” he instructs, his voice shaking with his laughter. “Let them come to you!”
“They aren’t coming to me!” I protest impatiently, startling myself when I lose my balance from swaying back and forth on the slanted roof while looking up. I stumble into him and we collapse on top of each other, slamming hard onto the tiles of the roof, and I wonder if the old woman heard the thump on her ceiling and will come up to investigate.
He’s staring at me, and although I am getting better at it I can’t read his expression, not this time. “What?” I ask, and watch my words exit my mouth as little puffs of frozen breath.
“I like you in the snow,” he says, and he makes his eyes big, like I do mine when I want things, and I wonder what it is he wants.
“You like me in the snow?” I repeat, confused yet again. “What does that mean?”
“You have your own beauty, you know,” he tells me, and his arms are around my waist. Maybe we fell this way, or maybe he put them there when I wasn’t paying attention. But I’m paying attention now. “You’re so pale; you look amazing in the snow, especially with your dark hair.”
I tilt my head. His skin is pink with the cold; mine is marble-white, like it always will be, deathly compared to his, and he thinks this is amazing? He’s leaning towards me, and I don’t know why until his lips are right in front of mine, and it’s over as soon as it begins: Alphonse kisses me.
Just once, and his lips are soft and warm, and now there is something that I can call amazing. This is what humans do with each other, a voice in my head tells me. We’re staring at one another, but my eyes wander over his shoulder to the old woman, who has come up to the roof to investigate after all.
“You boys should come inside,” she says sternly, and Al jerks with a start, standing up, letting go of me, and turning to face her.
“We were just, I mean, Wrath and I were only-“ he stammers, and I stand up too.
“We were catching snowflakes,” I say, and my voice is innocent in a way that his is not, not this time.
She nods sagely, not believing either of us, and turns to go back inside.
As I follow Al inside, I can’t help but wonder: how is it that I am so sure he is not human, when I feel that I am learning what human means by being around him?
Next: In Shadows of Night