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SERIES: Full Metal Alchemist
RATED: G
SPOILERS: None to speak of
SUMMARY:
Rhetorical
by Trismegistus
Sometimes, on the rare occasions when he slows down long enough to have time to sit and think about it, he's overwhelmed by how lucky he was. Not just that the desperation kept him thinking, acting, through pain and horror and blood loss, but that the act of binding a soul works the way it does.
That somehow Al has a voice, although how it originates from an empty metal shell is anyone's guess. And that that voice, though it echoes and rings of steel, is nonetheless unmistakably Al's. Al, who was never as good as Ed at concealing his emotions, has learned to make it even more expressive to compensate for his lack of facial features.
And his eyes. Ed is fascinated by the eyes, because they must be the key. Eyes are the windows to the soul, it's said, but Al's eyes might actually be a manifestation of his soul, at least in his current state. Witchlights floating deep in the cavern of Al's helmet, they're more expressive than Al's disembodied voice, once one has learned to read them, and by reading them Ed can follow Al's moods effortlessly. Changeable as the weather, burning bluish white or cold fiery red, white shot through with crimson when Al's angry or frightened or interested in something. They even dilate and contract like real human irises.
Al says he doesn't sleep, but Ed's watched him do it, the glow of his eyes fading to thin pinpricks in the darkness and then going out entirely. When Ed tries speaking to him after the lights disappear, there's a moment's pause before they flare to life again in the visor, as if Al's nonexistent eyelids are flickering open. Al says he doesn't sleep, but Ed knows he does, and that what Al doesn't do is dream. How could he, when dreams are nothing more than the firing of random electrical impulses in a brain Al no longer possesses? (Ed knows this because he read about it in one of the intermediate medical texts in Winry's house, back when he was preparing the transmutation that robbed Al of his body in the first place.)
He thinks about fixing Al's soul in that armor, and he's horrified that he ever attempted it, when so much could have gone wrong. He should have realised that, thanks to the spectacular failure that was his first experimentation with alchemy and the human soul. What if the binding had been incomplete and only part of Al had come back? Or what if it had gone perfectly, but the very process of ensouling an object did only that and nothing more - ensouled an object, leaving the soul trapped in its new prison without speech or the ability to move? Ed likes to think he's perceptive enough to have sensed that Al was in that armor, had that been the case, that the bonds of love between them really are that strong. In reality he knows that this is not very likely, and that if that's how soulbinding worked, he would have thought it a failed attempt abandoned Al to an eternity in that suit of cold metal while he either lived the rest of his life elsewhere or, more probably, bled to death on the floor.
But that's not how ensouling works, and he is extremely grateful for it, although he could never say so to Al - I'm glad you're just like this in this armor - because then he would have to explain what he meant, and that would violate the rule that they do not explain anything to one another, ever. Likewise he could never say that he looks forward to getting Al his body back so that they can fight each other. After all, they'd fought constantly when they still possessed their original bodies, and Ed never won a single fight. And though they still train together, Ed certainly stands no chance now, not when Al's a hundred centimeters taller and several tons heavier than he is. But the important thing is that Ed's come close a few times, even against all those odds, and Al is not the sort of person who lets anyone win. So although Ed says nothing, he knows he stands a damn good chance of trouncing Al once Al's back in his original body, and he's really looking forward to it.
What's better is that he's almost certain this has never occurred to Al.
He's looking forward to finally beating Al for a change, but even more than that he's looking forward to the feel of it, Al's dirty, sticky skin rubbing against his grip, the stink of two sweaty boys fighting, the sound Al's breathing, harsh and rasping and how it will accelerate in disbelief when Ed forces him to the ground and keeps him there.
And that is why, when Ed allows himself the time to sit and think about these things - like he has tonight, lying on this anonymous dormitory cot with Al on cot next to him, lantern-eyes slowly fading to nothingness, that Ed acknowledges that there might be a god after all. Because, when he slows down enough, and he's tired enough that he can't stop himself from thinking about it, he admits that they might never get their bodies back, and then he'll never feel what it's like to beat Al, or feel Al's real human skin again. And Ed thinks it's far more likely that an angry punishing god would arrange for that than any cold, impersonal universe.
これで以上です。
