raj

Title: When Most I Play the Devil
Author:

raja815
Word Count: 847
Rating: PG
Characters: Alphonse-centric
Summary: Sometimes Al can't handle it.
Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist is © Hiromu Arakawa. I will make no capitol benefit from this.
Notes: I wrote this for

fma_fic_contest for the prompt "Angst." Just now getting around to reposting it here. Set after episode 24 in the first anime, the night after these lines were spoken:

Edward: Do you hate me? {...} Do you? I wouldn't blame you if you did, Al, but I gotta know. Do you hate me for all that's happened?
Alphonse: That's what you've been trying to ask me? {...} Brother, I could never... I could never hate you!

I lied to you, Brother.

I do hate you sometimes.

Not for the reasons you think I do; it isn’t your fault I’m like this, stuck in this body that isn’t a body at all. Or, if it is, it’s my fault too and just as much. I wanted her back, same as you did.

Please don’t misunderstand me, Brother. I don’t hate you very much, for very long. It’s just flashes really, that come and go as quickly as the summer storms did when we were children. It hits me so fast, and I don’t know what to do. If I could I’d scream, or cry, or close my eyes, or even just leave you alone and go be by myself, but I can’t. If I left, if I just stormed off, you’d know. And how could I do that to you?

It's always so sudden. We’ll be sitting in a café. I’ll be reading, you’ll be cleaning both our plates, and I’ll see you take a bite of cream cake and it just happens. I hate you so much just then, because it was always my favorite and now you can eat and I can’t. I’d ask you not to eat the cream cake, but how is that fair? And what would it change? Even if you don’t eat it, it doesn’t mean I can.

Or we’ll be on the train, and I’ll see you brush a strand of your hair to the side. For a second I’m so angry, brother, so, so angry that your hair is still so soft and blond and mine is gone. I hate that you're so oblivious to how lucky you are to have your hair that you can be annoyed by flyaway strands.

And sometimes it happens like it did just now, while I’m watching you sleep. You’re so still when you sleep, Brother. So still you're just like me when I’m not moving, immobile and perfectly silent. When I’m still like that, no one can even tell I’m alive at all. But when you sleep, Brother, even when you’re at your most motionless, everyone still knows you’re there, that you’re alive, that you’re a person.

And I hated you so much for that, Brother.

I don’t know if you can imagine what it feels like, to hate without a body. My heart can’t beat faster, because I don’t have one anymore. My breath can’t get short. My palms don’t sweat, my eyes don’t narrow, my stomach doesn’t churn. What happens is like a blanket coming down around my mind, covering it completely, the way the tent we built in the backyard out of Mom’s quilt came down over us when the stick we’d propped it on collapsed. It’s so sudden, so complete, so dark and smothering, and all I can do is sit there and hate you so much.

And then, just as suddenly, it’s gone. Like the quilt was when Mom came to rescue us. It goes up all at once and vanishes and leaves me. Suddenly, I don’t hate you anymore. I love you. I love you so terribly it makes me shake and my joints start creaking, and I can’t believe I ever had such a horrible thought.

Oh, brother. I’m so sorry.

I’m not a good person, Brother. Everyone thinks I am, but they’re wrong. You tell everyone how kind I am, the Colonel says I’m the better Elric by far, and Mr. and Mrs. Hughes say I’m a very smart and very sweet boy, but they’re all wrong, and you are too.

You’re so good to me, Brother. You’ve given up everything to try to help me; your body, your mind, your life. You sold your soul to the State so you could find a way to fix me.

How can I be so cruel to you?

If I was as kind as you think, Brother, I’d never hate you. Not for one second. If I were as smart as everyone says, I’d realize how much you gave up and I’d never complain, not even inside, where I keep all my complaining. And if I really, really loved you, they way you really, really love me, I wouldn’t be so scared and so selfish and I’d wake you up right now and tell you all this, because that’s only fair. You’d never keep anything this big from me.

I wish I could cry, Brother. I might feel better if I could cry.

But no. Even if I could cry, I’d only wake you. And you’d sit with me and put your cheek on me and say you’re sorry and it’s all your fault, and I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve you.

Oh, Brother. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

I love you so much. I’m sorry.