Prompt #64, Touching/Touched "Price We Pay"
Title: Price We Pay
Author: gretchen8642
Series: manga
Word Count: 724
Rating: pg-13 (language)
Characters: Ed, others
Summary: It wasn't supposed to happen this way!
Warning: spoilers for 107
The skinny flesh arm is somehow more foreign to Edward, less a part of his body, and strangely a greater embodiment of everything he'd given up than his metal limb had ever been. Unsure of its movements, it's weak, it's small, it stole his brother away from him and he hates it with all his heart and all his soul. Damn that stupid fucking idiot brother of his, damn him and his stupid fucking idiot self sacrificing nature! He seethes, a wry smile crossing his face as he realizes, 'fuck, if this was an automail arm I could just take it off.'
He hates it, he hates it already because it wasn't supposed to happen this way! They were supposed to be whole together; he wanted his arm back, but not at the cost of his brother...
It hits him, suddenly, as he struggles to bring his two hands together, that the automail arm was better than this one. Reliable, powerful, disposable, his trademark limb that saw him through more repairs and adventures than he can even count. This journey was about getting their bodies back... it always had been.. hadn't it? No. He realizes it in an instant as his good arm crushes the nose of their enemy. It was always, always about him. Always about that first taste of apple pie, the breeze on his skinny face, holding hands with a girl who he can really feel.. it's always been Alphonse.
"Let's get our bodies back, brother! Let's you and me become whole again!"
Ed could have lived like this, with two false limbs. No problem, easy as pie, he's the Fullmetal Fucking Alchemist. But it was always "our" bodies, not "his" body. Alphonse would probably have been happy helping his brother heal, living with the sin they'd created.. I need my limbs back, my leg, my arm, my atonement... these sweet lies he wrapped around his brother, to alleviate some of the guilt that young boy (trapped in his metal shell) must have felt in forcing Ed on this endless, painful, deadly journey. The friends who had perished, the lives they'd destroyed, Alphonse bore this heavy weight as well as any teenager could.. to know it had always only been for him.. Ed pressed his hands to the ground and screamed as he brought mounds of stone into the skull of his brother's killer.
There's no obvious person to blame for Alphonse and his ultimate sacrifice, and that just makes the Fullmetal Alchemist even madder. It's his fault for doing the fucking human transmutation in the first place, it's Hohenheim's fault for leaving, it's that fucking Father's fault for wounding Alphonse, and it's fucking Al's fault for being a fucking idiot! He claps his hands together over and over, (and he hates it when they touch, this foreign, damp hand that isn't even his own anymore) and pummels the only enemy he has the heart to destroy at the moment. 'You murderer.. you murderer... you killed him and you'll pay until I can't stand up anymore.'
Father falls and Ed is surprised to find that he's the only one in the room who doesn't give a shit about it. His brother is gone, and amidst the joy of that impossible victory there is this sickening bitter taste in his mouth. Your impatience, stupidity, and your fucking careless pride killed your brother. He is gone, and you have your precious arm back. How does that feel?
He hears the Colonel's voice in the background, it fades to a dull buzz as over and over his mind screams at him for letting Alphonse be taken away a second time. You got your fucking arm back, Fullmetal. Was it worth it? He lifts his head and stares at the men and women around him, those who sacrificed everything to help him.. to help Alphonse... Some are smiling, some crying... and he turns away, he needs a space away from them, he can't be in the spotlight now.
As soon as they're not looking, he'll clap his hands (that damnable fake hand, with its stupid crooked fingernails and pathetic atrophied muscle... and he hates it because took everything from him, because it represents everything he hates), press them to his chest, and bring his brother back... no matter what it costs him this time.
Author: gretchen8642
Series: manga
Word Count: 724
Rating: pg-13 (language)
Characters: Ed, others
Summary: It wasn't supposed to happen this way!
Warning: spoilers for 107
The skinny flesh arm is somehow more foreign to Edward, less a part of his body, and strangely a greater embodiment of everything he'd given up than his metal limb had ever been. Unsure of its movements, it's weak, it's small, it stole his brother away from him and he hates it with all his heart and all his soul. Damn that stupid fucking idiot brother of his, damn him and his stupid fucking idiot self sacrificing nature! He seethes, a wry smile crossing his face as he realizes, 'fuck, if this was an automail arm I could just take it off.'
He hates it, he hates it already because it wasn't supposed to happen this way! They were supposed to be whole together; he wanted his arm back, but not at the cost of his brother...
It hits him, suddenly, as he struggles to bring his two hands together, that the automail arm was better than this one. Reliable, powerful, disposable, his trademark limb that saw him through more repairs and adventures than he can even count. This journey was about getting their bodies back... it always had been.. hadn't it? No. He realizes it in an instant as his good arm crushes the nose of their enemy. It was always, always about him. Always about that first taste of apple pie, the breeze on his skinny face, holding hands with a girl who he can really feel.. it's always been Alphonse.
"Let's get our bodies back, brother! Let's you and me become whole again!"
Ed could have lived like this, with two false limbs. No problem, easy as pie, he's the Fullmetal Fucking Alchemist. But it was always "our" bodies, not "his" body. Alphonse would probably have been happy helping his brother heal, living with the sin they'd created.. I need my limbs back, my leg, my arm, my atonement... these sweet lies he wrapped around his brother, to alleviate some of the guilt that young boy (trapped in his metal shell) must have felt in forcing Ed on this endless, painful, deadly journey. The friends who had perished, the lives they'd destroyed, Alphonse bore this heavy weight as well as any teenager could.. to know it had always only been for him.. Ed pressed his hands to the ground and screamed as he brought mounds of stone into the skull of his brother's killer.
There's no obvious person to blame for Alphonse and his ultimate sacrifice, and that just makes the Fullmetal Alchemist even madder. It's his fault for doing the fucking human transmutation in the first place, it's Hohenheim's fault for leaving, it's that fucking Father's fault for wounding Alphonse, and it's fucking Al's fault for being a fucking idiot! He claps his hands together over and over, (and he hates it when they touch, this foreign, damp hand that isn't even his own anymore) and pummels the only enemy he has the heart to destroy at the moment. 'You murderer.. you murderer... you killed him and you'll pay until I can't stand up anymore.'
Father falls and Ed is surprised to find that he's the only one in the room who doesn't give a shit about it. His brother is gone, and amidst the joy of that impossible victory there is this sickening bitter taste in his mouth. Your impatience, stupidity, and your fucking careless pride killed your brother. He is gone, and you have your precious arm back. How does that feel?
He hears the Colonel's voice in the background, it fades to a dull buzz as over and over his mind screams at him for letting Alphonse be taken away a second time. You got your fucking arm back, Fullmetal. Was it worth it? He lifts his head and stares at the men and women around him, those who sacrificed everything to help him.. to help Alphonse... Some are smiling, some crying... and he turns away, he needs a space away from them, he can't be in the spotlight now.
As soon as they're not looking, he'll clap his hands (that damnable fake hand, with its stupid crooked fingernails and pathetic atrophied muscle... and he hates it because took everything from him, because it represents everything he hates), press them to his chest, and bring his brother back... no matter what it costs him this time.