Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Headstrong ❯ Chapter 1

“Headstrong”
By Viridian5
4/6/05

RATING: PG.
SPOILERS: The Elric brothers’ backstory.
SUMMARY: They keep moving for several reasons.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com
DISCLAIMERS: All things Fullmetal Alchemist belong to Hiromu Arakawa, FUNimation Productions, Ltd., and Aniplex. No infringement intended.
NOTES: I blame Confidentsoba for encouraging me to write this.

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“Headstrong”
By Viridian5
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Nights always gave me too much time to think since I don’t sleep the way regular people do anymore. At least tonight I could walk, which gave me something to do. Brother liked to get things done, and me walking and carrying him meant that he could sleep while getting something done.

It was a pretty night, but it looked like it might rain. Sometimes I thought of putting him inside my armor like one of the kittens I tried to adopt. It would keep him dry and safe. The Brother voice in my head immediately started to flail its arms--yes, it had arms--and shout, “Are you saying that I’m so small and weak I could be bruised by a little rain?! That I’m just a little thing smaller than a bean that could be washed away!?” I spent a lot of time cooling him down around other people, but I kind of enjoyed his fits. He was so alive.

But he’d be uncomfortable if I put him inside me. His legs weren’t long enough to fit mine, not that I would tell him that unless I wanted to tease him. He’d have to fold himself up inside my torso.

And then people could mistake me for the Fullmetal Alchemist as usual and be kind of correct.

I wished I could feel him. I mean, really feel him. I carried him piggyback right now but I wouldn’t know he was there if I couldn’t hear the brush of his body and suitcase against my metal shell, his auto-mail limbs making a different sound than the rest of him. He held the suitcase in his left hand because I’d told him that his right side drooped more so must be heavier, maybe because his auto-mail right arm was more intricate and had more moving parts than his auto-mail left leg. He transmuted his arm so often that I wondered if maybe when it transmuted back some of the dust, dirt, and sand that got caught in the moving parts might be more embedded, more a part of his arm, and add a little more weight. I’d have to bring it up to him.

I was lucky I could see and hear, being a suit of armor. At least I wasn’t completely deprived.

I could hear my brother shift a little, like he wanted to snuggle. Snuggling against metal couldn’t be comfortable, but at least I must have warmed up from his body heat by now.

He remembered me when I was soft and human. I didn’t remember that as well as I used to. Would the array he drew inside me slowly fade with time and take bits and pieces of me with it? I could fade without knowing it until it became too late.

I didn’t tell him my fears. He worried about me enough. He felt guilty enough.

People complained about his recklessness and stubbornness but didn’t understand that he had to be that way, at least to some extent. Finding the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone was such a huge and difficult task that if he slowed down and took more time to plan it might start to seem too big, too much. If we kept moving, kept searching, we maintained momentum.

He might have more energy than anyone else I knew, but he was flesh, and flesh tired. We were driven to fix each other, and that kept us going, but I worried about him. He focused completely on me and on fixing what I’d become when he’d saved my life by making me this, but he should have more than that in his life, and he should be able to take a rest once in a while.

“Where are we?” he murmured, sounding sleepy and warm.

“We’re on a road.”

“Like that’s different.”

“There are hills and sheep. It might rain.”

I could hear his arms tighten around my neck as he said, “Okay. I trust you, Al.”

I worried that he’d burn out. I didn’t think I could keep going if he did.

I knew I wouldn’t want to.

  ***********************THE END**********************