so easily enabled w h y...........

[rocketry]

You know, your German isn't nearly good enough for this. If you insist, though, I suppose I can help you study. It's important to know more than how to order a beer or a pastry, you know. You're even living there, I mean.. really, no excuse.

.. I'm not avoiding the subject. I simply don't think it's important right now. You have until October to consider it, which means I have that long to talk you out of it. After all, I-- I died, right? And it's not as if dying makes me magically well.

I can't.. do that to Ed. Besides, I was just-- I don't.. have a place there. It's okay, though. I mean, I'm happy. So don't look at me like that, please. I really, ah, don't know how to handle a crying girl.

Comments

[rocketry]

Oh-- no. No, it's-- [ a shaky laugh that trails off as he swallows down the cough that threatens (more often, now, interrupting everything-- his constant reminder that he's not meant to be here), hands spasming against his trousers, balling in the fabric. ] Don't-- thank me for something like that. Anyone would have done it.

[ it's not really fair. he was dead, beyond caring about-- any of this. beyond hurting, beyond being sick, beyond these.. thoughts. maybe this is meant to be his punishment for his feelings. but that's.. unfair, too, right? to look at alphonse and think that. there's something wrong with him that he could, maybe, because alphonse has never done anything to deserve this, and he's been nothing but gracious and polite so far. he can see why ed had missed him so much. ]

Ed-- [ he forces his fingers to loosen, flattening against his outer thighs. in, out. ] Ed missed you so much, I couldn't.. It would have been cruel not to help him when I could.

[ he lifts both hands to flatten against the center of his chest, lashes lowering briefly over his eyes as he counts heartbeats. ]

--Besides, it was selfish, too, you know? I was lonely at first, and then I wanted him to go, so I made him.

[alkahestry]

Are you kidding?

[He laughs. He's surprised at how easy it comes out, but maybe that's because of the one that is coming from Alfons. Not to mention when it comes to Edward they both know the truth.]

Brother's lost without someone like us around. He's no good at taking care of himself.

[And just like he does with Edward he can't help but notice the way those hands clench and wrench against fabric. Unable to help wondering just how much it hurts and knowing that it must he reaches out. He would have done the same for a complete stranger, which is why despite his uncertainty he steps forward to take Alfons by his hands. He's not sure what he can do, but he's there.]

You'll never hear him saying the things he should say...

[He starts to explain as his fingers shift to turn hands that appear so similar to his own over so Alfon's palms are faced upward. There his fingers linger in the hallowed out space, a space he knows all to well have been filled with blood time and time again.]

... and he's always the worst at realizing the things he has staring him in the face, but you know it's okay to be selfish once in a while too.

[He speaks more quietly now as his fingers slip from the other boy's palm to his wrists. Talking about Edward is easy, but it's the next part that he knows he has to tell Alfons - if anything the other boy deserves to know.]

You might have made him go, but in the end he choose to go back to you.

[Edward might have claimed his reasons were based on the need to close to the gate, but Al knew better. Ed was still running away... he was still punishing himself... and yet at the same time he was always picking one of them over the other.]