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FMA fic - "Automail and Armor"
Dude, check it out. I actually wrote fic. :D I think FMA has beaten all records for "shortest time it takes a series to wring fic out of me". XD
Set post-series; therefore, ending spoilers. XD
It was too cruel.
Winry hated herself for the thought. It had come, unbidden, after the flood of happier thoughts; the rush of joy as she squinted into the sunset at Rose, behind Rose, at the bewildered little boy she was dragging by the hand, the realization that Ed had somehow, impossibly, succeeded.
Laughter and embraces, and he was too small but it didn't matter because he was here and he was Al and for a small, shining moment, the world had been a perfect place.
The coldness had come when she saw the confusion in his eyes, when he started asking questions that he shouldn't have had to ask, and when they found out just how far his memory went.
It had settled into a small glacier in her heart when, as the delirious first days went by, Al was the only one to appear in Rizenbul.
It was too cruel. She should have been happy. She should have been downright ecstatic that the Elric brothers had not journeyed and suffered and endured for nothing; that, after all of it, Al could be here, a bright-eyed smiling human child, able to swim and touch and skin his knees. But there was only one where there should have been two. It was cruel, Winry thought, for Al to have come back like this and be parted from his brother, the very last of his family... for him not even to remember everything they had fought for, not to appreciate how precious his own body was.
Of course, it wasn't as though he didn't try. Not satisfied with the greatly truncated version of events Winry had been able to give him, he had continued to ask questions of anyone who would sit still long enough. First Winry and Rose, then Pinako, and then, in utter defiance of his respectful terror of the woman, Izumi when she arrived. What happened then? and But why did Brother do that? and Was I really in that old suit of armor?
Nobody could give answers in great enough quantity or detail to satisfy him. His need for explanation was in no way unreasonable - Winry could only imagine she would want the same thing if she had found that the world had moved four years around her in a day - but his persistence, his hunger for knowledge, was startling coming from him. That attitude had always suited his brother far better...
(Winry clamped down on that thought and forced it away.)
Regardless of how well or how often it was explained to him, however, Al continued to fumble in his mind over the issue of the armor, more than virtually anything else.
"Brother... really attached my soul to that dusty old armor?" he murmured quietly, after a week had passed and he had had this explained to him at least twice already.
"Yeah," Winry said, small clinking noises underscoring her voice as she assembled an automail arm. (A right arm, as it happened - she tried desperately to pretend she wasn't, somewhere inside, making it for him.) "It was amazing... but a little sad."
Al made a small noise and hugged his knees a little closer to his chest, looking absurdly miniature. "Did I ever talk about what it was like?"
The question seemed so absurd that Winry fumbled with the screwdriver for a second. "... Not really. Not around me, anyway."
"Mmm." Al looked strangely disappointed. "I guess I wouldn't have wanted to make Brother feel worse."
"No," Winry said softly. "Probably not."
Al didn't answer, watching as she placed delicate components with loving precision, burying them away under smooth steel.
"Why d'you ask, anyway?" she said, glancing up as she set the screwdriver aside and reached for the pliers.
"...I can't imagine what it felt like." His tone was slightly guarded, even embarrassed. "It seems too weird. I wish I could remember."
And - though she hated herself for this too - Winry wished for the same thing. If nothing else, it would make just talking to him a little bit easier.
"It probably felt a little like Ed's automail," Winry said carefully. "Only... maybe in some ways you had an easier time of it. You didn't get hurt... or feel pain. That armor was really well-made."
And, God, had it ever been. She had seen the small, shallow dents in Al's chestplate, increasing in number whenever she saw the Elrics; so faint as to be invisible to anyone who didn't spend their time working with metal and machines. The brothers had never explicitly mentioned it, but Winry's mind found its way quickly to the realization that Al acted as a bullet shield on a regular basis. The armor was very well-made indeed.
"I'd have missed swimming, though," Al said, as though thinking aloud. "And eating..."
Winry smiled fondly to herself and bent down to place the mechanisms in the hand.
"...if I didn't feel pain, I couldn't have felt anything, right?"
She paused. "... That's true."
Al shook his head quietly and got to his feet. "It's just too weird," he said definitively. Before Winry really had a chance to answer, he was at the door, smiling and waving a cheerful goodbye before running outside. Winry smiled warmly after him, and returned to the arm.
Automail and armor... now that she thought about it, it really wasn't a very good comparison at all. Even cheap automail gave you the rudiments of feeling; more expensive models provided much better nerve cording, some of the really top-of-the-line stuff even providing for a slight perception of texture. Winry grinned to herself in delight at the thought. Texture. Score one for the tireless mechanics of the world. Every automail limb represented a loss, and it was the responsibility of people like her to ease that loss, to make a hurt person better in the best way they knew how--
Her hand stopped. A nerve casing shattered under the sudden pressure from the pliers as her mind dragged itself back across the conversation and comprehended something, maybe for the first time.
Al was in the front yard with Den and Rose, the baby's laughter rising against the sunset as Al entertained him with a somewhat lopsided doll he'd transmuted with a clap of his hands. Winry couldn't get there fast enough, falling to her knees in the grass and flinging her arms around Al, burying her face into his tiny shoulder.
"Winry? What's wrong?"
She'd had it wrong, all this time. Those four years were no loss to Al; the universal injustice was only in the fact that a little boy had lived for all that time as empty metal, with no automail nerve cording and no choice--
"Winry?"
--there hadn't been some transmutation mistake or some last spite of God against the boys who had triumphed in the face of all obstacles, Ed had done his job perfectly, Al hadn't been denied anything, Ed had given him everything back--
"Winryyy..."
--and she didn't dare let go of this boy now, as if he might be dragged back across the Gate the moment she let go, and all she could think of as consolation was that Ed would come back, he had to come back, damn the stubborn little brat--
"Hey... Winry, please don't cry!"
--because it would just be too cruel if he didn't.
Set post-series; therefore, ending spoilers. XD
It was too cruel.
Winry hated herself for the thought. It had come, unbidden, after the flood of happier thoughts; the rush of joy as she squinted into the sunset at Rose, behind Rose, at the bewildered little boy she was dragging by the hand, the realization that Ed had somehow, impossibly, succeeded.
Laughter and embraces, and he was too small but it didn't matter because he was here and he was Al and for a small, shining moment, the world had been a perfect place.
The coldness had come when she saw the confusion in his eyes, when he started asking questions that he shouldn't have had to ask, and when they found out just how far his memory went.
It had settled into a small glacier in her heart when, as the delirious first days went by, Al was the only one to appear in Rizenbul.
It was too cruel. She should have been happy. She should have been downright ecstatic that the Elric brothers had not journeyed and suffered and endured for nothing; that, after all of it, Al could be here, a bright-eyed smiling human child, able to swim and touch and skin his knees. But there was only one where there should have been two. It was cruel, Winry thought, for Al to have come back like this and be parted from his brother, the very last of his family... for him not even to remember everything they had fought for, not to appreciate how precious his own body was.
Of course, it wasn't as though he didn't try. Not satisfied with the greatly truncated version of events Winry had been able to give him, he had continued to ask questions of anyone who would sit still long enough. First Winry and Rose, then Pinako, and then, in utter defiance of his respectful terror of the woman, Izumi when she arrived. What happened then? and But why did Brother do that? and Was I really in that old suit of armor?
Nobody could give answers in great enough quantity or detail to satisfy him. His need for explanation was in no way unreasonable - Winry could only imagine she would want the same thing if she had found that the world had moved four years around her in a day - but his persistence, his hunger for knowledge, was startling coming from him. That attitude had always suited his brother far better...
(Winry clamped down on that thought and forced it away.)
Regardless of how well or how often it was explained to him, however, Al continued to fumble in his mind over the issue of the armor, more than virtually anything else.
"Brother... really attached my soul to that dusty old armor?" he murmured quietly, after a week had passed and he had had this explained to him at least twice already.
"Yeah," Winry said, small clinking noises underscoring her voice as she assembled an automail arm. (A right arm, as it happened - she tried desperately to pretend she wasn't, somewhere inside, making it for him.) "It was amazing... but a little sad."
Al made a small noise and hugged his knees a little closer to his chest, looking absurdly miniature. "Did I ever talk about what it was like?"
The question seemed so absurd that Winry fumbled with the screwdriver for a second. "... Not really. Not around me, anyway."
"Mmm." Al looked strangely disappointed. "I guess I wouldn't have wanted to make Brother feel worse."
"No," Winry said softly. "Probably not."
Al didn't answer, watching as she placed delicate components with loving precision, burying them away under smooth steel.
"Why d'you ask, anyway?" she said, glancing up as she set the screwdriver aside and reached for the pliers.
"...I can't imagine what it felt like." His tone was slightly guarded, even embarrassed. "It seems too weird. I wish I could remember."
And - though she hated herself for this too - Winry wished for the same thing. If nothing else, it would make just talking to him a little bit easier.
"It probably felt a little like Ed's automail," Winry said carefully. "Only... maybe in some ways you had an easier time of it. You didn't get hurt... or feel pain. That armor was really well-made."
And, God, had it ever been. She had seen the small, shallow dents in Al's chestplate, increasing in number whenever she saw the Elrics; so faint as to be invisible to anyone who didn't spend their time working with metal and machines. The brothers had never explicitly mentioned it, but Winry's mind found its way quickly to the realization that Al acted as a bullet shield on a regular basis. The armor was very well-made indeed.
"I'd have missed swimming, though," Al said, as though thinking aloud. "And eating..."
Winry smiled fondly to herself and bent down to place the mechanisms in the hand.
"...if I didn't feel pain, I couldn't have felt anything, right?"
She paused. "... That's true."
Al shook his head quietly and got to his feet. "It's just too weird," he said definitively. Before Winry really had a chance to answer, he was at the door, smiling and waving a cheerful goodbye before running outside. Winry smiled warmly after him, and returned to the arm.
Automail and armor... now that she thought about it, it really wasn't a very good comparison at all. Even cheap automail gave you the rudiments of feeling; more expensive models provided much better nerve cording, some of the really top-of-the-line stuff even providing for a slight perception of texture. Winry grinned to herself in delight at the thought. Texture. Score one for the tireless mechanics of the world. Every automail limb represented a loss, and it was the responsibility of people like her to ease that loss, to make a hurt person better in the best way they knew how--
Her hand stopped. A nerve casing shattered under the sudden pressure from the pliers as her mind dragged itself back across the conversation and comprehended something, maybe for the first time.
Al was in the front yard with Den and Rose, the baby's laughter rising against the sunset as Al entertained him with a somewhat lopsided doll he'd transmuted with a clap of his hands. Winry couldn't get there fast enough, falling to her knees in the grass and flinging her arms around Al, burying her face into his tiny shoulder.
"Winry? What's wrong?"
She'd had it wrong, all this time. Those four years were no loss to Al; the universal injustice was only in the fact that a little boy had lived for all that time as empty metal, with no automail nerve cording and no choice--
"Winry?"
--there hadn't been some transmutation mistake or some last spite of God against the boys who had triumphed in the face of all obstacles, Ed had done his job perfectly, Al hadn't been denied anything, Ed had given him everything back--
"Winryyy..."
--and she didn't dare let go of this boy now, as if he might be dragged back across the Gate the moment she let go, and all she could think of as consolation was that Ed would come back, he had to come back, damn the stubborn little brat--
"Hey... Winry, please don't cry!"
--because it would just be too cruel if he didn't.
no subject
I confess a HUGE soft spot for fics that have Winry + Al, and this was just adorable♥ Especially Winry's observations and epiphany at the end -- I think you've got her voice down well. Much love♥
no subject
Good to hear I did Winry well. :D :D :D I was worried about the idea of the fic getting lost under my ramblings~ XD