MORNING
When he had proudly proclaimed, all those years ago, "I'll get past every obstacle that lies in front of getting Al's body back!" he really hadn't meant it like this.
He hadn't meant that a train wreck could take more than just the remains of his legs away in one foul, agonizing swoop.
He sighed softly as he sat, confined to a black-colored wheelchair just inside the beginning of the living-space that he shared with his younger brother. The walls around him were white, cracked and water-stained near the top; they spread around the length of the room, which broke into a small section of carpet flooring, and then a separate tiled bathroom not far off.
Beneath him sat a sea of white, partially-cleaned kitchen tile which was mostly covered by wooden counters, a stray refrigerator, and a small hard-plastic white dining table with one chair. There were two windows in total with ragged curtains firmly spread to allow as much natural light as possible to spill into the space.
The front door was in the farthest corner of the shapeless room, and it was elevated a bit from the carpeted floor, making it hard to get out, when he actually felt motivated to do something besides sit near Alphonse for some sort of constantly-needed emotional support; but going to the bookstore was nice, sometimes, so he conquered the challenge every now and then.
There was also a couch, a mattress on cinderblocks, and a small, cracked t.v that was supposed to be a living-room; it was literally the thought that counted, here, because he always had to imagine there was more to the space than met the eye. Alphonse was trying; and he was doing better than Edward could ever pull off, in the present days, as they slowly slid past.
Edward used his metal hand- his flesh one was horridly burn-scarred and disfigured- to adjust the way his pale-yellow blanket fell across what was technically his lap and what remained of his legs, which wasn't much. He could barely see his stubs when his shirt fell over his waist, though he silently blamed it on the fact that eating and keeping a decent weight was harder than it had once been, so his clothes were just that much larger.
His face was round; his complexion was pale- and his sunflower-colored irises seemed to glow with a dimming sense of life. His freshly-washed sun-colored hair was pulled behind his head in loose braid; overall, there was nothing about him that didn't scream faded determination.
Edward's chair wasn't far off from Alphonse, who was grappling with a cheap metal frying pan so that he wouldn't burn the scrambled eggs that he was cooking.
Alphonse was easily seven-feet-tall with a spiked metal helmet, spiked shoulders, and glowing disembodied cherry-colored eyes in the front of his hollow helmet. He was a suit of armor; and as a whole, there was nobody inside- just the soul of a young boy bound to the scratched steel in a desperate attempt to keep him among the living. "It's almost done, brother!" he assured distractedly, using one of his oversized leather gauntlets to turn down the burner that he was using with a dial attached to the back of the stove.
Edward nodded, chuckling a bit as his stomach growled in audible anticipation. The tang of breakfast- which, much to his enthusiasm, was going to be complete with bacon and toast- was almost suffocating in the small space they were confined to; but in its own way, that wasn't exactly bad.
He felt bad making Alphonse cook. Of course, he wasn't forcing his younger brother to do anything- it was all by choice on the spoken notion that, "we're brothers, Ed- I don't mind taking care of you! You took care of me, when we were kids- I need to return the favor!"
The train wreck had been devastating; Edward was one of the three or so passengers that had lived through the crash, despite the fact that there had been around a hundred on board. His injuries- which had been caused, he could easily recount, by a blazing fire that had exploded and spread rapidly from the engine room- could've been a whole lot worse. He had lost two legs, hurt his head, and gotten some pretty bad burns in various places- but nearly all of the other people had died, so he counted himself- regretfully- as one of the lucky ones.
"I was thinking," Alphonse continued, tilting his pan and scraping the scrambled eggs onto a hard-plastic plate, "that we should get you more blankets, brother. It'll be winter soon; you're going to be freezing!"
Edward nodded, though it wasn't seen as Alphonse moved to the fridge to grab an almost-empty bottle of orange juice. He didn't respond, for a moment. "If that's what you want to spend our money on," Edward finally supposed aloud, flashing a slight smile. "But don't blame me when we're dirt broke and can't pay our bills!"
"Our bills aren't that high," Alphonse dismissed easily, opening the oven, now, to get out the bread he had thrown on a cooking sheet. They didn't have enough counter space for a real toaster. "Besides," he added, "there are plenty of odd jobs that people will pay me for doing; as long as I do better than they were expecting, I'll be fine."
Edward fell silent again, for a moment; Alphonse didn't have to turn around to figure out that his attention had turned away from the conversation. He had a brain injury; focusing on something for more than a minute was hard- and remembering things was even worse for him, now; he was always going from one thing to the next, depending on what had caught his eye. "Brother," Alphonse called curiously, "do I have your attention?"
"Yes!" Edward yelled back instantly. "What were we talking about, Al?"
"Do you remember?" Alphonse tried; but he was met with silence, again. There was no winning with Edward; not when his attention span had been reduced to a state of near-nonexistence. Alphonse sighed, turning off the burner he was using with a dial before he spun around to see Edward gazing at the wall with a scary amount of fascination. "Brother," Alphonse tried, noting the small bug crawling near the window, "do I have your-?"
"Yes!" Edward shouted, hastily glancing at Alphonse. "I'm listening, Al!" His sunflower-colored eyes quickly began to wander back towards the wall; and then he was looking at the curtains as they were ruffled gently by the chilled breeze coming through the space where the window was set ajar. "Bird..," he breathed softly. "There's a bird in the yard."
"Brother," Alphonse sighed again, "attention on me, please- c'mon-"
"I'm listening!" Edward promised, sounding almost angry. He got angry about everything, now, if he was able to remember what had happened to get him to that easily-reachable point. "I remember what we were talking about, Al," he added, "so don't get angry with me- I don't like it when you're angry with me!"
Alphonse took the hard-plastic plate with Edward's food, as well as the glass of orange juice, and he stepped forward towards the table, commenting, "I'm not angry, brother; you need to breathe," while keeping himself purposefully distant. Edward would forget about his fury in a minute or two; it was never worth picking his brain about. "Here; it's time to eat breakfast," he continued, not mentioning that Edward couldn't exactly eat on his own, since that was a sore spot, "I promise that it's going to taste better than it looks-"
"There's a bird in the yard," Edward interrupted again, gesturing with his metal hand towards the small amount of grass that was supposed to be their front lawn. "It looks like a crow."
Alphonse put the food and drink down. "I need your attention," he informed, not moving from where he stood as he used one of his oversized gauntlets to pull the blinds down. "It's time to-"
"Why did you do that?!" Edward hollered, clenching his metal hand into a fist. He moved to wheel himself away- despite the fact that it was next to impossible with one hand- but Alphonse had been smart enough to use the break to prevent him from trying to get around on his own. "I hate it when you do this, Al!" he screamed furiously, "you always do this- I hate it-! I hate it when you do this-!"
"Brother!" Alphonse cut off, raising his hands in surrender as he began to inch forward. Edward was almost- quite literally- a steamed vegetable as his metal hand began to tug mindlessly at stray strands of his sunny hair; something he did when he couldn't find any way to express the extent of his rage or general distress. "Hey," Alphonse called gently, taking a couple of steps towards him, "hey- you're okay, Ed; breathe-"
"I can't!" Edward screamed through clenched teeth. He couldn't regulate his emotions properly; everything he felt was always amplified to the extreme. "I can't-! I'm pissed off, Al! I can't breathe-!"
"It's alright," Alphonse promised gently, keeping his voice low, as he placed large gauntlet on Edward's shoulder; the muscles tight and strained beneath his unfeeling leather hand, "I'm here; what do you need me to do, Ed-?"
"Open the blinds!" Edward screeched, slamming his head forward so that it hit the hard plastic material of the table. He still didn't remove his metal hand from his hair. "I hate it when you do this, Al-!"
"I'm sorry," Alphonse apologized earnestly, using his free hand to open the blinds, again. He hated seeing Edward making himself so upset that he began trying to pull his hair out; it was heart-breaking to watch for someone who knew that that wasn't how things were supposed to be. "Look," he urged, "the crow is still in the yard, brother!"
Edward sat up instantly, wide-eyed with anticipation before his gaze settled on the large black bird sitting in the grass not far beyond a driveway they shared with their neighbors. His hands fell from his hair; and then his face relaxed- like seeing the bird was all he needed to find mental stability, again. Alphonse sighed inwardly with relief while outwardly undoing the breaks on Edward's wheelchair. "Do you want to eat breakfast outside?" Alphonse asked softly; and he received a wordless nod in return.
There was a metal table outside on pavement that connected to the driveway. Their apartment had no porch; no stairs- which was why Alphonse had chosen it, combined with the fact that it was cheap and not far away from easy places to go with Edward when he was finally fed up with watching squirrels and various birds rummaging through the trash bins. His life was a whole lot different than it had once been; but in some ways, that change was for the better, no matter how it had arrived.
AFTERNOON
Later, in the afternoon, Alphonse found himself watching Edward struggle to converse with the therapist who came to see him once a week as per what was supposed to be required for someone who had been through a traumatic event. Boarding, talking about, hearing, and seeing trains made him upset; as did the sensation of heat against his skin- so that was what the woman sitting on their thrift-store couch was currently probing about, holding up a picture of the train that Edward had been on as she asked, "how does this make you feel, Edward?"
She was a round-faced older woman with kind pale-blue eyes and a wrinkled visage. Her height was poor; but she made up for it by going out of her way to do home visits. "It makes me.. angry..," Edward murmured. He glanced over to Alphonse, who sitting at the hard-plastic kitchen table with sunlight spilling over his armor, making the polished metal glisten and sparkle. "Al, is your armor warm, because you're in the sun?" Edward wondered aloud in genuine curiosity, his eyebrows raised.
"Brother," Alphonse urged, "Mrs. Day needs your attention; can you try and focus on what she's asking you, please?"
"I am focusing!" Edward snapped, looking at the therapist- Mrs. Day- now. He looked at the picture, for a moment; and then at the wall, where the beetle from before was still sitting- and then out the window, where someone on a bike was gliding past with a neon-pink helmet. There were so many things to look at; even if they had blindfolded him, he'd never be able to nail his thoughts in one place. This was one of the consequences of having a pretty bad brain injury.
Edward sighed, trying to keep his eyes fixed on the picture that was being presented to him. Nobody really tried to sympathize with him, when it came to this; even Alphonse was impatient and unwilling to open his mind to the fact that everything was distracting, once you realized there was just too much to focus on at once. He could never really remember anything, either; he wasn't sure if Mrs. Day had asked him for how he felt about the picture, or if she wanted him to describe it- just that she wanted an opinion in one way or another, judging by her slightly-impatient frown. "Do you remember what I asked you?" she tried- but Edward didn't respond at all.
"Edward," she called, "do you remember what I asked you?"
Edward swallowed roughly, shaking his head. "How does this picture make you feel?" she repeated slowly; like he was some little kid who couldn't comprehend her words; and she was completely right- they didn't make much sense.
He took a moment to look at the picture, and he shrugged, confused. "I don't know what you're asking me," he admitted. "I.. I don't get it."
Mrs. Day raised an eyebrow, blinking in surprise. She glanced to Alphonse, now, for some sort of input- but he didn't have an answer for that. This was new. "What do you mean," Mrs. Day attempted to pry, "that you don't get it, Edward?"
"I don't get it," he repeated simply, looking bemused. "What more do you want?"
"Brother," Alphonse tried, standing from his plastic chair, "what don't you get?"
Edward narrowed his eyes for a moment in further confusion. "I.. I lost you," he informed, "can you repeat that, Al?"
Alphonse came over, his ruby-colored eyes glowing with worry. He got down on his knees beside Edward's chair, so that they were pretty much the same height, and he asked, softly, "did you forget what we were talking about?" while clearly trying to be open to the common, obvious problem.
Edward nodded sheepishly, and Alphonse looked away, for a moment. "You said you were confused about the picture," he finally told. "It's a picture of the train you were riding in, before it crashed. How does that make you feel?"
"Angry," Edward hissed right away. "It makes me angry, Al."
Alphonse began to say more, but Edward interrupted him. "That train wreck ruined my life!" he hollered, slamming his metal fist down on the arm of his chair; his flesh hand was too badly disfigured and burned to use. "I lost my state alchemist title, my friends, and.. and.. just everything! Everything is gone-!"
"I'm here," Alphonse cut in gently; and Edward froze in surprise- like that hadn't really occurred to him, before he'd started ranting. "I'll always be here," he continued, "you don't have to worry about losing me ever, brother; no matter what happens-"
"I don't deserve you," Edward interrupted tearfully, looking like he could start sobbing right then and there for more unspoken reasons than one. Alphonse gently pulled him into a hug, knowing he had burn-scars beneath his shirt that were always going to be sore; and then Edward completely lost it.
They stayed like that until Mrs. Day took her leave, taking with her the remains of the afternoon, before day was gone- down the street, literally- and night was in it's place.