FMA Fanfic: Composition – Part I
Composition – Part I (Prologue) [all parts]
by arcanewinter. PG13 1545 Al, Ed. Fullmetal Alchemist. Chimera!fic, AU, post-series
In which Al tries to keep his promise to Ed, but may have just wasted Ed’s promise to him.
Covered by his brother’s red jacket, Al collected himself in the corner of the small, dim room, listening to the sound of his own frantically beating heart though he tried his best to breathe more slowly. He wrapped his arms around his knees and brought them against his chest, trying not to panic and wishing for all the world that his brother would just wake up and fix this.
The first thing he had done was check on his brother. Finding him untouched, he had turned his attention to himself, and in a matter of seconds he discovered the result of the interrupted transmutation.
He should have taken more care to board up the bottom of the creaking wooden door, its lower portions eaten away by the elements. He had taken such care with the bizarre and intricate array, one he hadn’t seen himself in years, and yet he hadn’t seen to that door. If he could only step back in time one hour, or even one half hour, he could avoid all this. He could see now the grievous error in his expectations. He could see now what a tremendous risk it had been. If he could only have seen it then . . .
He began to cry softly in his fright. He’d only been given a small sample of the incomplete stone, a favour from a friend made in a town far away. Would there be enough left to undo what had gone wrong? How long would he have to stay like this before the error was reversed?
“Brother . . .” he whined, softly. The reason his brother wasn’t awake right now to help him was his fault, too. Al knew his brother would never agree to what he had intended to do. While Ed had kept his promise to restore Al’s body, Al had not been able to do the same for Ed. Al didn’t need to have a perfect body to be happy. To have a body again at all was more than enough; the excess, he would give to Edward. That had been his intention.
And having pulled his brother’s drugged body onto the sprawling, perfect array, he sought to fulfil his promise to make his brother whole again. Al would take the burden on himself. It was only fair.
But this . . . wasn’t fair at all. This wasn’t right.
Venturing out of the corner, Al crawled with defeat towards his brother. He was terrified of facing him, but his brother was the only one who would be able to help him now. Reaching him, he shook him gently, still sniffling in between his hiccuping breaths. Another sob rose up in his chest as Ed remained unconscious, the metal of his arm scraping against the floor as Al tried a little harder to wake him.
In frustration, he buried his face in his brother’s chest and wept again, trying not to feel like the abomination he was.
* * * * *
Al’s head lifted just as Ed’s breathing began to change. Cowering under the hood of the jacket, he watched his face as the brow came down, as the mouth winced. Finally, the gold eyes blinked open. Al began to move away.
“Al?” murmured Ed, his voice hoarse. “Al, where are we? I can’t see a damn thing.”
Al watched as his brother sat up, rubbing his head. “We’re in the workroom out back,” he offered quietly. He wanted to run, to disappear, at the very least to stay silent, but he knew Ed would only worry if his brother gave no response.
Ed tried to make him out in the darkness, but it was impossible. The pounding in his head was almost audible. “What are we doing here?” he asked, groggily. “I can’t remember a thing . . .”
“I . . .”
“Hold on, we need a light.” Straightening up, Ed shuffled towards any one of the desks in the room, cursing quietly as his flesh knee slammed into one of them. His hand closed around one of the lamps, which he switched on, wincing in the sudden brightness while turning to look at his brother. He realised he was wearing nothing but his underwear.
Al held his breath as his brother studied him, but he knew the coat shielded him from view.
“Al,” Ed murmured, eyes still almost blinded from the light, “why are you wearing . . .” But there was something else. He squinted and came forward a step. “What’s wrong with your eyes?” He took another step, then noticed the dark curve under his foot. His eyes followed it only until he recognized it, and he looked back to the red jacket his brother wore, hood up as Ed had never worn it.
Beginning to retreat from him, Al nearly whimpered in fear as Ed came towards him, yanked down the hood, and stopped. Al’s heart was fluttering in his chest so badly he could barely speak. “It was an accident!” he whispered suddenly, but it didn’t seem like Ed heard him at all.
Ed’s hands moved down to push away the rest of the red fabric, frantically revealing more of his brother’s body, wearing just as little as he was.
“I was trying to make you whole,” Al was saying, the voice trembling almost unintelligibly. “I promised you, and I tried, but she got in–I promised . . . I wanted to give you mine instead–”
“You idiot,” Ed whispered. “You idiot! Why would you do that!” His eyes darted over his brother’s body, the body he had worked so hard to bring back, the body now marred by the attributes of what Ed could only guess had been a cat.
Al had begun to cry again under his brother’s scathing anger, turning away and into the floor, covering his face. “It was an accident . . . . I promised you . . .”
“This was enough for me! You should have let it be!” This was impossible, unreal, a nightmare born of his fear that what he had worked so hard to accomplish would be taken away. “Al . . . Al!” Ed knelt beside his brother, his hand moving to grip Al’s jaw, wanting to force him to look at him. But when Al flinched away in fear, Ed immediately softened, and despite the hysteria in his heart, his fingers curled to wipe away a few of his brother’s tears. “It was enough for me, Al,” he whispered.
“You’d have done the same for me,” Al murmured back, his breath coming in spasms. “Only you wouldn’t have let this happen.” He closed his eyes and plead quietly. “Please undo this. Please make this go away, and I’ll never try again, I swear it.”
Ed’s face grew slack. He suspected something, but it was too soon to say. He slowly got up, then moved to the other lamps in the room, turning them on one by one. Returning to the form curled tightly on the floor, he gently nudged its warmth. “Let me see, Al. I have to look.”
Al’s shame refused to open, and although he knew he needed to let his brother look at him, he could not find the courage to lay out his error plainly in the light.
The exasperation in Ed’s voice was familiar. “Al, just show me, I have to look at it!” It reminded Al of the many times Ed had tried to treat his cuts and scrapes when they were little, taking up his role as older brother all too seriously.
As Al slowly relaxed, Ed was finally able to spread him out on his back, the jacket pushed further aside as he studied him. His ears were larger, feline, tapering into a narrow curve and covered in a soft fur that blended well with his tawny hair. The same fur appeared elsewhere, gradually accumulating on his forearms and progressing to his fingertips. He lifted the hands and studied them: the fingers were a little shorter, a little thicker, and the last joint of which was graced with a large, retractable claw.
The fur continued down the sides of his body and over his stomach, though not quite as densely, its thickness only resuming on his thighs. It travelled down his legs and all the way across his feet, which seemed as affected as his hands. These, at least, resembled paws more, and when he reached down to feel them, his fingertips met with soft pads under the toes and the ball of his foot. The heel still extended human-like from this. Against his inner thigh rested a tail fringed with longer, thicker fur of the same colour, emerging from one leg of his underwear.
And finally, the pupils of his eyes had lengthened vertically just barely enough to be noticed. He studied these eyes carefully, these eyes that rested heavily on him, trusting him, depending on him.
“How long will it take to undo?” asked Al, his gold-coloured gaze unwavering.
Ed said nothing for a moment as he considered this, as he calculated the degree of completeness, as he gauged the level of continuity in his brother’s current form.
“It’s too bad,” he began, finally, “that you’re such a good alchemist, Al.”
Al frowned gently. “Why, brother?”
Ed paused as he scanned his brother’s new face one more time.
“Because I don’t think we can undo this.”
