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Map of Stars	By : Brainrat Category: Fullmetal Alchemist > Yaoi - Male/Male > Ed/Al Views: 872 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Full Metal Alchemist, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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It could have been romantic. Tents half-opened to the stars, a bonfire, people laughing, music. A lamplight that flickered, seemingly, to the nine-step beat.

Noa worked during the day at a little booth in the carnival�s main grounds, with a scarf over her hair, her eyes, dressed like a Roma woman. Like an Ishbalan. The Gypsy Fortune Teller. She worked in a dark tent, where men and women went in, grinning, laughing, perhaps mocking. They expected to meet a hag; they expected old fingernails and a scratchy, reedy voice. They always came out mystified.

Al wasn�t allowed to see her work, though. He understood � a kid amidst mystique, a boy who looked German, spoke German, would have killed the ambiance. Still, she made enough to buy all three of them a proper, warm dinner. He was grateful for it, had grown used to the Romani language. A woman�s voice trilled a long, high note. The guitar sang, the drums sang, zils and tambourines and the whole encampment alive behind the grandiose circus tents, they all sang.

Inside the big top, the fair-skinned audience cheered. An elephant trumpeted. It all sounded far away. Around the bonfire, the women danced. The men danced, the children, the old women with their grey-streaked hair patiently teaching the steps to the youngest even if their bones and joints protested.

Where were Al�s family gatherings? He had none. Where were the dances and songs from Rizenbool, from Amestris? He could remember none. He could rattle off a list of elements, sigils, molecular structures, processes within a circle � the perfect formula to bring a human to life. It never worked.

Al was fair-skinned and far from home. He was rooted and grown in science. It was in his lineage, his blood, his childhood, every single cell in his body. He had many stories to tell, and adventures to speak of. He could probably find within himself that shrill desperation of vagabonds, of outcasts, that painted the music fire. But he had no songs.

So he was, in a way, content to sit on the cot. His legs curled under him and his father�s coat tossed around his shoulders. The Roma showed him kindness - smiled and laughed and the women spoke over his head, laughed when Noa translated and he blushed, thanked him in easy German when he helped with unpacking and setting up the tents. But, to them, he was still German, an outsider, and they were content to leave him outside their circle of music and dance as much as he was content to watch from afar. His father�s journals remained unopened in his lap.

Edward sat at the table half-in-half-out of the open tent. The stools were old, wooden and multi-purpose. They were sat upon for car repairs, laundry, re-shoeing the horses. They were streaked with motor oil and horse manure clotted the ends of the legs. There were three stools. There were three blond, fair men at the table. If not for Noa�s vote of confidence, if not for Al�s childlikeness, they would have been denied the valuable secrecy in the Roma camp. The circus� ghetto. Few, if any, Germans cared to visit. That conversation would be safe from prying eyes, from eavesdroppers

One of them looked like Dorchett. Another looked like Loa. Al almost told them what happened to Martel, and how she lived on and her voice became a bitter hiss, revenge, revenge, always revenge. Eventually, Martel got her revenge. Through him. Through Colonel Mustang. They were avenged.

�Elric, you insane little bastard.� �Dorchette� said with no small amount of amusement. �You�re right out of fuckin� Journey to the Centre of the Earth� with the stunts you pull.�

Edward only managed a halfhearted scowl at the word �little�.

�Loa� shuddered, produced a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Al knew he shouldn�t have been staring, but he couldn�t help it. He�d seen them at the funeral, but he was too busy staring at the memorial pictures of himself but not himself to remember much of anything.

�Freaky how your brother looks just like Heiderich.� He mumbled around the filter. Unsmoked tobacco smelled sickly-sweet to Al. Dad�s coat.

Edward shrugged the comment off. Silence settled. A moment of silence. Reverence for the dead. Al listened intently to the Roma music, and let it chase away the god-damned silence in his head.

�So why the secret meeting?� The words were spoken lowly. Smoke rose with them.

�You saw what happened.� Edward�s voice was even, without infliction. Al knew it was best to be wary of that particular tone.

More silence. �Dorchett� studied the smoldering end of his cigarette. It was bright, bright red against the shadows of the tent. Law nodded.

�A man with your fucking sponsors killed him.� Edward practically ripped a cigarette from the offered pack. He was vicious with the lighter. It was a plain, gunmetal lighter. It reminded Al of Lieutenant Havoc, of Colonel Mustang, of soldiers who had the exact same lighter and smoked their cares away, guns propped against their knees.

�Bullet right in the back.� �Dorchette� leaned on the back leg of his stool and hissed viciously. �We didn�t sign up for any of that.� A beat. Rockets �blood, sweat, tears- through the gate. �None of it.�

They were blond, with blue eyes, and lacked the grace and pain of chimera. His last memory of Dorchett was a man with his sword drawn and grinning in the face of death. Dorchett wasn�t a coward. But he was loyal to his comrades. Al relaxed, just a little.

�They never told us we were soldiers. Lost a lot of good men that night.� Loa ashed on the swept ground. A breeze blew it away, grey and white scattering over well-trodden ground. Lost faith in science. �What makes you think you could trust us?�

�Let�s see how proud you are next time you visit him.� Edward snapped. Smoke curled his words. Dorchett unstacked the nicked scotch glasses. Amber liquid smelled sour, and shimmered in the lamplight.

�Touch�.�

�Fucking French.� Dorchett snarled. Loa shrugged. Al saw Edward try desperately not to roll his eyes.

Edward took a drag of his cigarette. Ed smoked. Ed drank. Ed was eighteen, and Al was unsettled by it. He wanted to smoke, too. He wanted to taste the scotch. He wanted to put the cigarette out in the scotch, and then realized it wouldn�t have been the best idea in the world.

Noa looked tired as she approached, but she was positively glowing. It was like the firelight was trapped in the sweat of her brow. But the men hadn�t left yet, and Lust-who-was-not-Lust took her by the elbow and ushered her to another tent. Even though Al knew �Lust� held no ill will towards him, his heart sank at the coldness in her eyes. She was, after all, Lust.

�Isn�t that-�

�Eckhart�s gypsy, Elric?� Dorchett seemed disgusted, and full of pity. Ed just dragged on the cigarette. �She�ll take your wallet, your heart, and your little brother�s virginity too.� He waved the glowing red end of the cigarette in Edward�s face. �Just you watch.�

Al was flabbergasted. He was blushing, but from embarrassment or outright indignant rage on his part and Noa�s, he wasn�t sure.

Ed smacked Dorchett�s hand away from his face. �Jackass, it�s not like that.�

�For now, anyway.� Loa muttered. Ashed on the dirt floor again. �What do you want, you fucking eccentric?�

Edward grinned, self-assured, a tom-cat with sharp teeth and sharper claws and the wit to match. He sipped his scotch. �You lot familiar with new military weaponry?�

He was Al�s big brother. He was heartbreakingly handsome.

The lamp oil was almost gone, yet Al couldn�t be bothered to feel sheepish about it. Edward slept through anything. Noa slept in another tent. Al�s eyes were red and puffy, his mouth slick and tasting of bitter salt. He ran out of tears sometime when the carnival had closed for the night. He was careful to keep them off his father�s journals, although the crinkled spots of the pages, the gentle blur of ink told him the journals were no stranger to tears.

The strange thing was, there was nothing particularly remarkable about the first half of the journal. There were arrays, though. Al touched them, lovingly. They were old, fading, scratched in pencil. Hasty, as if his father was so desperate to just not forget.

They didn�t glow. He waited, but they remained dull lead and nothing more, and his heart sank.

His father was not someone who put down his feelings on paper. He was a factual man, despite the oddness about him.

June, 1906

It�s strange how similar Europe is to Amestris. His father wrote in his tilted-cursive-print penmanship. Sometimes, it�s easy to forget the difference between the two. They use technology in this world. It takes ten men a month to build what a single alchemist could do in a day. My coworkers are proud of their accomplishments, but I have yet to see a car that doesn�t give off that disgusting exhaust. I have yet to find a decent pub here, in London. Mostly for the sake of being...how was it put? Navigationally handicapped. Beer over work in the cafeteria with co-workers is starting to get very old.

Beer, cars, locations, interrupted by a frantic scribble of what Al easily identified as an equation. To what, he didn�t know. Like everyone else, his father talked in circles.

They had to share a cot, but Al was awake all night again and Edward slept like the dead. Edward didn�t move. He didn�t make a sound aside the gentle wheeze of his nose as he breathed. Edward slept in his brown and white and plain clothes, an old habit.

In Al�s memories, Ed was small when he slept, standing out amidst the sheets in his red coat. In his ridiculous, black leather pants. Al towered over him, watched him breathe, watched him dream. For hours, and did not tire. The coat would twist around Ed�s shoulders, tangle in his legs. Ed was never loud when he slept, but he said things Al would rather forget. Of course, how could Al forget when his brother begged him in a sleep-slurred voice � �Give him back. He�s my only brother � my arm, my leg, my heart, take whatever you want. Just give him back, he�s my brother!�

Something in him never quite forgot it. The journals had lost their magic sometime in the night, and Al thought of arrays, of white arrays in their basement, of arrays etched to the palms of his gloves, of the array he could and could not see drawn in blood.

Something in him never quite forgot it, and he clamped a hand to the back of his neck beneath his shirt. Something in him never quite forgot it, but Edward, so still and quiet seemed to not remember.

Fingernails left vicious, red welts in their wake. Al didn�t mind, Al was afraid of that dark part of his mind that cooed its adoration of the sting, the tender skin. Fingernails dug deeper, he wished Edward would wake up � speak, dream. He wished he wasn�t so selfish. He wished it wasn�t so quiet. He wished there was more light; he wished the early-morning sun wasn�t so bright. He had wished for nightmare memories. He told himself he wished for that dead-still peace for his brother. He wished his dad�s coat didn�t smell like a rotting corpse. He wished his dad mentioned him or Edward or their mother in his journals. At least his journals. He wished he threw away the old, red coat. He wished he could wear it wherever the hell he wanted. He wished he hadn�t cut his hair.

His fingers shook against the tender skin of the back of his neck. There was no array there. There was no real array anywhere. He wanted, desperately.

He was uncomfortable between his legs. He was hard. Needy. Wanting. For nothing he could identify. The thought of masturbating in the hole-in-the-ground bathrooms disgusted him, but did not quell the wanting. He refused to be aroused by simple, non-biological wanting.

He was too tired to bother with a half-hard stir anyway. It was cold inside the tent. It was cold outside the tent. His brother�s first circle-less transmutation had been to heat water.

Edward stirred. Al quickly slouched over, his sweater folding over the somewhat noticeable bulge in his pants. Edward rubbed sleep from his eyes, yawned, and stretched � strong arms, strong neck, tense jaw, strong shoulders, the cat-like arch of his back. All in marionette-like order.

�Didjeslee?� Edward stared at him through sleep-hazed eyes that actually saw very little. Al hadn�t felt more self-conscious in his life.

�Sorry?�

He cleared his throat, a gentle, rasping sound. Edward�s adam�s apple bobbed, almost comically. Al remembered, again, that his brother was eighteen. He wondered if he�d ever be quite as handsome when he turned eighteen, because he�d regained five years but still felt like a child.

�Did you sleep?�

�No.� Al hunched his shoulders. The half-stir had turned into a full erection. Why wouldn�t it just go away? It felt inappropriate, he felt too young � the hair between his legs was still very soft. He was too young.

�That�s two nights in a row now, Al.�

�Sorry brother.�

�Yeah, you will be when we hit the road and you�re half-asleep.� Edward rolled over. His ponytail had come undone sometime during the night. Ed was fucking gorgeous, and Al was too young. �Find anything?�

�Dad never wrote about us.� Al blurted before he could stop himself. He was hard, in a cot with his brother, and talking about their father. He was too young. He needed sleep.

�I meant, did you find anything about The Thule Society? Uranium Bomb? Remember?�

�Oh.� I spent the night trying to activate the stupid circles and crying over it. �No. I don�t remember.�

�You don�t remember. Huh.� Edward�s shirt was rumpled. His vest was rumpled. His hair. He lay on his stomach with his chin propped into the palm of his hand, his eyes closed as he talked. Trying to cling to his last few moments of sleep. �You used to be really good at research.�

�I still am! I just didn�t know I would be researching something.�

�Why bring the damn things anyway, then?�

�Because they�re Dad�s. Don�t you remember?�

Edward had nothing to say to that. He just closed his eyes, his lips returned to that tense line that wasn�t a pout, wasn�t a frown, miles away from grins and shouting.

Edward hadn�t shouted or screamed once since Al came back. Reunited, at least. Peace, at last.

Goddamn, he was still hard, and it hurt.

The horses outside whinnied their demands for food. Elephants shifted uneasily on their toothpick stakes and worn tethers. Men woke with hangovers. Gypsies woke with aching feet. Al had watched the bonfire�s glow fade through the tent flap sometime during the night. There were cigarette butts on the floor of their tent.

�Might as well get up, then.� Ed grumbled.

�Where are we going?�

�Find Noa. Breakfast.� Ed hopped off the cot. Al remained stooped over, humiliated. �Then, France.�

Noa noticed his state the second she laid eyes on him.

�Al, what happened!?� She was upset. Genuinely upset. Winry was used to him coming by with lingering bruises and welts and scrapes half-healed. He hadn�t seen anyone turn so much as a sad face to him; always bottling the pity behind heavy faith (that Ed would restore him. That he would find Ed.)

Al pressed the cool mug of water to one eye, than another. It wasn�t cold enough to ease the redness, but it was a comfort. �Nothing.�

��Nothing� doesn�t make you look like the living dead.� Lust-who-wasn�t-Lust spoke wryly, in perfect German. She had seen their packed luggage. She knew they were leaving.

Al felt the back of his collar pulled away. He really wished he hadn�t cut his hair. �Did someone hurt you?� Noa was scared.

Ed snorted into his porridge. �Not likely.�

�Lust� was not impressed. �If I showed up with scratches all along my back, my brothers and Father would begin a manhunt.�

�I-it�s just my neck�� Al shivered. Noa was dabbing at the welts with a dingy, but clean, cloth. The water was cold; the early-morning air was cold. Droplets trickled down his back.

No one seemed to hear him. �Al trained with the best. Believe me, nothing can touch him.� Edward said it with such conviction it scared those seated at the table, friend and stranger alike. �Either way, he was with me the entire night.�

�Al, where did you get these?� Noa asked, gently. �Lust� tried to look sympathetic as both women waited for an answer, but Al couldn�t comprehend the sympathy. �Lust� was cold and calculating and tragic. Lust wasn�t human. Lust had no family.

�It�s nothing, really.� Al whispered as he stirred the clotted porridge. �I read my father�s journals last night. I suppose I was just being silly.�

Edward was listening. He seemed bigger, somehow. His legs spread over the bench, his shoulders squared, his hand a fist, his automail hand a fist. He seemed to overwhelm Al, in his own strange way of bristling like a wolf or a cat. Maybe it was supposed to be comforting. Al was just intimidated. He stared at his breakfast and let his voice die down.

�You did this to yourself?�

Al finally found it within himself to shy away from Noa�s care. �It�s not really that bad ��

�Al, they�re bleeding.� She held the grey rag out to him. The water made the blood pink. �Not a lot, thankfully.�

�Some people from the war used to do that.� �Lust� nodded to the pink rag. �Caught up in their own memories, they were. Never noticed a damn thing until it started to hurt. Us Roma, we sing, we dance. Gaje cut themselves all up. I don�t pretend to understand it.�

Noa frowned at her.

Al frowned at Noa. �What does �gaje� mean?�

�It means�� Noa struggled. All the words that came forth were vulgar to her. Roma could be cruel too, selling each other for money that was both gold and shit in a place where apples cost twelve marks a piece. She was a Roma girl who wore German clothes, unclean clothes, and knew Edward, Alfons Heiderich, Gracia, Alphonse Elric.

�Germans and white-skinned like you.� �Lust� grinned as she said the words that made Edward bristle and tower even more over his scratched, little brother.

�It�s a word for �a foreigner who is unclean�. Superstitions, Al, pay them no mind.� Said the fortune-teller who broke a dead boy�s coffee mug in an attempt to stop bad luck.

�Oh.� Al fiddled with the spoon in his bowl. He wasn�t hungry. He didn�t belong there. �What does �gypsy� mean?�

Al cowered at the various glares cast their way. Ed groaned and slapped a hand over his face. �Scar� glowered at him, his big arms unmarked and crossed over his chest. Beside him, �Lust� laughed. It was an incredulous laugh, bordering on cruel.

�What does �Gypsy� mean? Was that a joke?� She cried.

�I -�I�m sorry! I didn�t mean to offend�brother�s friends said it last night and I just�� He let his spoon drop into his porridge. �I didn�t mean to be rude.�

�Our father was German, but we were raised in America. He wouldn�t know what it means.� Edward lied smoothly. Al recalled America, as a patch of land labeled on a cheap map. On the worn globe in his father�s study.

The lie appeased most. Noa looked uncomfortable about it, but it worked, and she said nothing.

�That explains the strangeness of your accents, I suppose.� �Lust� said, amused at their American ignorance. �The Germans and white people call us �Gypsies� because they think we are all thieves and vagabonds.�

Someone they didn�t know who sat at their table spat his disgust.

�The Ishbalans never had a word like that.� Al whispered up to his brother, his voice low and sad. Edward shook his head and said nothing of it. To �Lust�, Al said � �I used to steal stuff too, and I�m German. I think it�s silly.�

Al seemed so innocent and prim when he said it. Lust reached over the table and pinched his cheek again, and Al had grown comfortable enough to playfully shy away.

It took Edward a few seconds to register the words spoken.

�When did you steal anything!?� He hissed.

Al shied away from him and into Noa�s side. �When I was looking for you! Roze and Armstrong tried to send money but they weren�t letting any packages from Amestris across the border into Drachma!� Al�s fear died into sheepishness. He fussed with the collar of his father�s coat. �There�s nothing but snow and ice in Drachma. I was hungry.�

That took the wind out of Ed�s sails. The glare turned to Al softened and Al recognized that haunted look. Or imagined it. It was just a flicker, and Ed turned back to his breakfast, mumbling � �What the hell were you doing looking for me in Drachma?�

�Alaska?� An eavesdropper, a curious bystander, asked.

�Yeah. That.� Ed grumped into his food.

Al remembered being alone and cold and hungry in Drachma, where no one would give a fair-skinned alchemist from Amestris any work for something as simple as a couple apples or a loaf of bread. He remembered the small loaf of bread he pocketed tasting bitter and salty as he tried not to cry while he ate it in a back alley amongst frozen trash and snow. He was too ashamed of himself to be brazen about his theft.

He turned to his breakfast with resolution, and forced himself to finish the food he hadn�t touched.

August 1914

When I left Amestris, the newspapers always had news about Ishbal. It really wasn�t news, just rumors and very few facts. I don�t know how many times someone can rewrite the same things into different stories, but the reporters managed. Somehow.

Al could hear the dry, low purr of his father�s cynicism. It scared him, how his father�s cold, factual tone began to morph into opinions and wistfulness. He read on.

I�m not too worried. We have a dependable military.

Amestris has a dependable military. Rizenbool is far away from Ishbal, and Ishbalans refuse to use Alchemy. I suppose it�s not my place to judge �

Al knew, very well, the sound of a train approaching. It set a nostalgic bend in his heart, as he tucked a piece of scrap paper between the pages of his Father�s journals and set the volume back into his knapsack. He remembered waiting for hours, unable to feel weariness, the heat, the cold, unable to feel Ed resting against him as his brother napped. He provided shade from the sun. He provided shelter from the gusty winds.

Some of the more dilapidated train platforms across Amestris hadn�t changed, now that he could compare memories that lived side-by-side at ages eleven, twelve, and thirteen. That time around, he sought comfort on uncomfortable, wooden benches and tucked every inch of himself that he could under the red coat. Usually he hummed to himself while he reviewed maps, books and notes. Sometimes he closed his eyes and pretended it was Ed he was snuggled up to, just to keep warm.

Munich was cold. Not as cold as Drachma, but the ill-fitting coat did nothing to keep much of his body heat in. Noa was skittish and couldn�t sit out the half-hour wait for the train. Ed decided to spend his wait looking over their father�s notes, on the opposite end of the bench. A tired-looking man with a heavy mustache and a briefcase sat between them. It didn�t matter one way or another, they were engrossed in their own studies, and didn�t talk.

The conductor put a hand on Al�s shoulder as he boarded the train, and Edward�s, as he did with every passenger. But not Noa. It really didn�t bother any of them, as they sat and all breathed heavy sighs of relief. The brothers shared a grin, and Noa smiled at that. They were going to Paris. Noa was coming with them. For a moment, everything seemed to be smooth as silk. The snags of dirty looks could be ignored. Ed was just a little smug, Noa praised God�s blessings under her breath, and Al took advantage of his brother�s good humor.

�Tell me about this world, brother.� He said. His smile felt awkward, but it was genuine.

The train whistled. Lurched. Ed smiled. It was timid, and it never quite reached his eyes, but Edward was in his element. Al could see him cataloguing all the little details � As if the truth had been implanted into my brain.

�Well. What do you want to know?� The narrow train booth forced them to sit close together. Edward�s right leg against his warm, and his smile was real. Edward smelled like machine oil. Al refused to let the nostalgia break his heart.

Instead, he waved a hand vaguely to the window. The train was picking up speed, Munich would be left behind.

�Anything. Like�how is it our language and German are almost exactly the same?� Al often wondered about it. It seemed like a good starting point.

Ed stared out the window, watched as the tucked-away neighborhoods and alleys and backs of buildings parted for the narrow train tracks. �We�re going to France.� He said. �Specifically, Paris. It won�t be long before you�ll have to let me do all the talking, and my French is shoddy.�

It was hardly an answer. Al was overwhelmed.

�So is�it�in France?�

�No, no. We�re catching a ship from the western coast of France. Apparently, what we�re looking for is in the United States. Or so Law says Biddo says �� They shared a smirk. Absurd, wasn�t it? �And Biddo�s the most well-traveled of us. His parents have contacts all over the world. Or, well, had. Before the war.�

Al made a mental note to ask about this war he kept hearing about. He�d seen the signs, the ruined streets, the mismatched plaster on buildings, the crumbling economy. He figured it would be a good starting point to learn from. As good as any offered.

�Anyway, here.� Ed reached into the small briefcase with him, right alongside Al�s knapsack.

Al was presented with a map criss-crossed with folded lines. It was dull, and numerous paths marked with tiny notes in the margins in handwriting Al couldn�t identify. Germany. London. Transylvania. It was still legible, as Edward folded against the grain of the initial fold and made it smaller, omitting the eastern half of Europe, entirely omitting Africa, Australia, Asia and Antarctica.

�See, that�s France. There�s Paris.� Edward had to lean close to point out the tiny print. Edward smelled like machine oil � his right arm was cold, but his right leg was warm. �Around here is Rouen, and that�s where we�ll cross the Atlantic, and arrive about here. New York.�

Noa leaned forward over the table and was studying the map with them. Her eyes lit, her voice carried a waver of thrill. �We�re going to Paris? And New York?�

�Rush Valley�s on the way there, you two HAVE to take me!�

Edward�s mouth worked around an excuse to refuse what he knew was coming, but Al remembered the way Winry cooed and squealed over the automail shops in Rush Valley. The way she stepped off the train, thrilled with the gleaming fake arms and fake legs and cliffs of red.

�Oh, come on, brother. I�m sure we can afford to make a couple minor stops along the way.�

�But��

�I�ve heard that the Eiffel Tower is beautiful at night.� Noa was timid, but in love with the idea.

�But�� Edward tried again.

�I�m sorry.� Noa suddenly said, and the glint in her eye had died to disappointment. �I didn�t mean to be an inconvenience ��

�Brother could probably use a break after all that traveling too. I know I would.� Al didn�t feel comfortable making such calls in a world where he couldn�t tell north from south. He hadn�t the first clue what the Eiffel Tower was, but the familiarity of a train to somewhere that would eventually come and go was nostalgic. It was something that hadn�t changed, even if the outside scenery was far from what he could remember. It made him foolishly confident, and he sincerely believed he was leaving Munich, and the grieving, still apartments and the barrier between brown and white and the familiar faces pasted onto people he didn�t know behind.

I suppose it isn�t my place to judge, but reason tells me the skirmish will not get out of control. Or perhaps my thinking has become wishful? I have no way to verify it for myself. I have no way to know. Sometimes �

Words were crossed out with furious scribbles. Al couldn�t make heads or tails of the next line. Resigned, he continued, the book covers parted just enough that he could see and nothing more, his nose close to the pages. He needed to protect his father�s secrets.

Passing through the Gate seems to have weighed heavily on me. The rot is unbearable at times, but I manage. Age is not a pleasant thing. I�ve taken up using a cane to get around on the worse days, when the cold is horrendous. The cold is brutal with the rot. But I manage.

A war has started. Germany is on everyone�s tongues, they are calling it a �World War�. It looks to be little more than a civil war to me, but either way, I am only grateful that I have lived as long as I have in London. I have a respectable job at the University of London, teaching scientific theory. A terribly vague and structure-less class at times, but much of science in this world isn�t so different from alchemy, if one were to think in vague and structure-less ways.

One of my students looks like Edward. He has the same overconfi

His father had stopped writing there. Three blank pages ahead and Hohenheim Elric was outlining another equation. He wasn�t drawing parallels between alchemy and technology, and Al was still haunted by the sudden end of it all. He closed the journal and set it on the table in front of him. Noa slept, her cheek pressed against the window. Edward slept, his head titled back, his mouth open, snoring softly.

Al ran nervous fingers over the spine of his father�s journals, and watched his brother sleep.

It was night and Al could make out the silhouettes of passing trees and buildings against the star-less sky, but not much else. Dim lights flickered overhead, lending an eerie feel of stagnancy and, again, that damn graveyard stillness to the train. He shivered. The lights cast vicious shadows over the people, all still, all asleep, all barely moving. He hated the way dead bodies looked.

He couldn�t take it anymore. He reached for his brother, and Edward�s shoulder was unforgiving steel and hardened muscle beneath his clothes and Al�s hand. He remembered automail patients coming and going from the Rockbell house, but feeling the shift between metal and flesh, feeling it on his brother, it made his skin crawl and he pushed guilt far, far back into his mind.

�Brother.� He shook. Edward snorted. �Brother!�

Another unattractive snort, a gurgle, and Ed cracked an eye open. �Wha?�

�Can we talk?�

Ed just stared at him, half-asleep. Incredulously, he repeated �Can we talk?�

�Uh. Yeah.� Al was a little resentful of his self-consciousness.

�What the fuck about?�

�Something I read in Dad�s journals.�

�Oh, god.� Ed groaned and slouched lower in his seat. �What�s with you and the damn journals?�

That slipped nice and sharp under Al�s skin. �He�s my Dad too, and he�s about as communicative as you are.�

While Edward muttered something peppered with obscenities about not being anything like their father, Al continued. �I have all these questions, and I�m trying not to bother you with them �� Edward flinched. Al tried not to feel guilty. �- but when I try to find things out on my own, I just end up with more questions! I can read about France and Germany and this �World War� in books, brother, but this�this thing about Dad, and how he had a student that looked like you, and he was sick but I didn�t know and no one told me, and Gracia, and Loa, and Dorchett, and-and me-�

�Whoa, Al! Calm down. You�re gonna wake the other passengers.�

It was only when Al took a deep breath and stopped talking that he realized his voice had taken a slightly hysterical edge to it.

�I guess�� He continued in a small voice, and spoke to his hands nervously fidgeting in his lap. �I guess I hate not understanding where I�m at.�

He looked to his brother for some kind of reassurance. Ed had to know what it felt like. Ed had to know. Ed wasn�t looking at him, but nodded � yes, he did know what it felt like.

�Dad drew arrays in his journal, and they�they don�t activate.�

�They tend to not do that, here.� Edward was wry in his tone. It bellied his own bitterness.

�I-I know. But the first thing I saw when I came here, it was the Gate, and the array, and all these people who believed in alchemy. Like a religion. But after that-�

�It�s probably best you forget about it. It won�t work. Period.�

�But that doesn�t make sense! How-�

�Al, your voice.�

Al fell silent, and hated being so confused, confused to the point of desperate, confused to the point of pathetically clingy, like the red coat at the bottom of their shared luggage.

Confused and needy to the point of lust. Ohgod, not now. He tried to be discreet as he scooted his bottom further under the tabletop, and blushed when his knee brushed Noa�s. Noa didn�t stir. Nothing was moved, except him, in the most inappropriate ways. The train roared down its tracks, ignorant of his plight. Had he left Munich behind yet?

�Okay. Look.� Edward scratched his sleep-rumpled hair, and how come Edward always looked absurdly older and more mature when Al was hard over nothing? �I�m sure either you�ve read this in Dad�s journals, or you�ve figured it out by now, but here, alchemy doesn�t work. That�s about all there is to it.� It was clear that wasn�t all there was to it, but Edward was talking and Al was so relieved. His groin throbbed. He slid lower. Ed just quirked an eyebrow down at him and continued. �The equivalent to alchemy is technology. I studied physics, space, time, �mathematics applied to the universe�. Needed to know it to work with rocketry. We use physics in alchemy all the time, although we don�t apply or utilize most of it in the same way-�

�Why did you study rocketry?� Al asked, before Edward could go on a tangent. Ed oversimplified, Ed complicated. Al was usually willing to listen, and give his input, but he knew nothing by which to give his input and he didn�t want a physicist, he wanted an alchemist, he wanted his brother, he wanted answers to questions he couldn�t quite pinpoint just yet.

�At first, I thought if I could get into the cosmos on a rocket, I could get back h�back to Amestris. That�s what we were working on, a rocket that man could fly.�

Edward was so bland when he said it, in expression, in tone. He might as well have been asleep, with unforgiving shadows cast on his face by the flickering lights overhead. Like all the other passengers.

�You did, for a while.�

Welcome home, brother.

Edward said nothing, just pulled a reference book and a few of their father�s notes from his briefcase and set them in front of him with little of the care he used to show books.

�Tell me if you have any questions. I�m gonna catch some more sleep.�

He turned his back to Al. He left Al with one of their father�s lesson plans, brilliant and clear. Their father was a scientist, a factual writer, to the point when it came to concrete things. Al hid a sad smile behind the ledger. Al thought in vague and structure-less ways. He didn�t sleep, and wished he did have some questions. Ones his brother would have been willing to answer, anyway.

�You didn�t sleep again?�

�Huh?� Al looked up, a pen tucked behind his ear and one in his hand. His notes were frantic but neat. �Oh, no, I didn�t.� And it weighed heavily in his bones.

�You and Edward look very similar when you�re studying.� Noa smiled, tired, and tried to stretch a kink out of her neck.

�We used to study together all the time.� Al didn�t see how their looks had one thing or another to do with protons. �Atomic� had caught his eye. The finding was dated 1911. Al�s study was patchwork, and it was clear his father was a man with many connections to the scientific intellectual community. He couldn�t help but be proud of it.

�You really don�t waste time, do you?� Ed practically yawned into his ear, sleepy and too close. The studying had grounded Al, some. As long as he kept reading, and taking notes, that strange lust for nothing wouldn�t make itself known.

�I told you I was still good at research.� Al replied, somehow still modest about it.

�Apparently so.� Ed yawned again. �Need any help? I want a cigarette.�

Al frowned, and it was very difficult for him to say nothing about it. He managed. �I think I�m going to take a break.�

�Still want a cigarette. Damn long train ride.�

Al slammed his pen onto the paper. It garnered a few looks, but Al didn�t care. �Why do you smoke? You know what Master Izumi said about that!�

�Master Izumi isn�t here to throw me into a wall about it.� Ed said impishly, and stuck out his tongue.

Al grit his teeth and went back to his notes. He said he would take a break. He opened his Father�s journal instead. He bit his lip, Ed sighed and rolled his eyes. Al bit hard, to quell against the hysterical laughter that threatened to bubble up from the stone in his gut that may have once been his courage. Then, right then, he would�ve given anything to be �thrown into a wall�. And it was ridiculous.

Al spent the rest of the journey in a state of self-made seclusion. He built a lie around himself, in that little train booth, seated at the very edge. If he were to be honest with himself, he could still feel Edward�s warmth. If he were to be honest with himself, he might very well have fallen apart right there on the train. He built a lie where he was content with reading his father�s journals and the notes he took from his brother�s suitcase without so much as looking at him, or asking. Where Noa wasn�t hurt by his coldness and refusal to talk.

If Edward wanted to keep him in the frustrating dark, that was fine. It wouldn�t have been the first time.

He built a lie around himself where he didn�t feel remorseful about thinking something so bitter.

There were constellation maps in Edward�s notes, and he was feeling particularly moody and masochistic, so he took them to see if even the stars were different in this world. Were the same, if they were reflected backwards from how they appeared in the sky in Rizenbool, reflected backwards like the faces and names he remembered at the eleventh hour, but didn�t remember him in return. Like a mirror. A picture propped up against a coffin, surrounded by white flowers where he smiled at himself. He didn�t care if Edward might have been right; reason told him the gate between worlds had been destroyed. It had been destroyed, and he wasn�t harboring any false hopes. He honestly wasn�t, in his little world of lies.

He spent the morning with Hydra, who crawled from somewhere in the cosmos between February and May to scowl and breathe fire from the clouds. Hydra had many scowls on many faces on many heads, and never died by the sword. The hero of the myth had tried, and eventually succeeded, but heads can grow back, he thought wryly. He remembered Greed�s shattered skull and the way he fell but stopped and righted himself. Monsters can grow back.

December 1918 - I don�t know how I feel about it. His father wrote. His hand had been shaking, the loops and curves of letters completely out of control. I made the foolish mistake of expressing an interest in alchemy with deeper fondness than a novelty. I think I may be getting old.

The war has barely ended, and the old man in me asks �Can�t we all just get along�? I feel foolish for being so complacent, but it wasn�t very long ago when I had my sons redundant job at the University. I am foolish for expecting bitterness to die away. Humans cannot take defeat without some form of fury or another. Through all the years, I have seen it.

The Thule Society makes many grandiose claims regarding honor, innovation, pride in German Antiquity. It isn�t a far stretch to see how cruel this pride can be. I am not oblivious. They are close to the Party, the Party seeks the perfect Aryan race. The perfect land for the perfect Aryan race. There is no such thing as a perfect race. We still have the Ishbalans, and the Drachmans. There is no such thing as a perfect human.

Five blank pages later, the entry continued with a more coherent scrawl. His father skipped pages at the strangest moments. Obscure and nonsensical. It was all obscure and nonsensical. Al didn�t think too closely on Envy�s fair hair and strong jaw and sharp eyes.

The Party likes to point fingers. At the Jews, specifically. The Thule Society is an esoteric group, with its fair share of eccentrics. My hair is blond and I believe in alchemy, perhaps above anything else. I suppose it fits in its own disturbing way.

So far, the average German doesn�t regard this message too seriously, from my observations at the least. My students continue to love science, and the common man continues to work, and the economy continues to crumble. Who has time to blame the Jews for what the Germans, Austrians, and Italians did? Or the French, Russians, Serbians, and British?

The common German man doesn�t seem to find it within himself to hate any other than the later. I am wary with that desperation, though. The Thule Society, despite their fanaticism, is disturbingly concrete with their alchemic knowledge. For this world, at least. I feel as if I am getting closer to something, and for now, wary is all I�ll be.

�Wary� wasn�t what Alphonse would have called it. �Wary� was, clearly, not enough. His skin crawled as he read, and his mind reeled in disbelief at the casual way the events that lead to the upending of Central were addressed. His father was only �wary�, how could he have known until he died? People were calling it the �Beer Hall Putsch�, up and down along the benches of the train the events were discussed. No one knew about the Thule Society�s sheer insanity, or the Gate opened in the very city they had left, or that the world could have been upended in that single span of time.

Still, monster heads with mouths full of razor teeth and faces with brutal scowls could grow back. Al snuggled back into his father�s coat. It smelled more like him and less like a sweet-scented, rotting corpse.
[End Chapter Two of Four]
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Map of Stars