Leave A Scar

It was cold, stepping off the train, my breath as transparent as the rest of me.

I pulled the coat Edward had made closer to myself; a warm, violet version of his own.

We walked, boots crunching snow, and soon Edward noticed my distraught expression.

He panicked, arm shielding near his face. "Y-you don't like the color I picked out?"

"N-no!" I put a gloved hand out, sure that I looked like some mirrored version of him. And then, with this thought, I realized the implication of my words. "I-I mean, it's fine! The color and all."

Ed relaxed, hair still a little frazzled. Lips slightly pinched, eyes slightly narrowed and wide at the same time.

"Fine," he said quietly, and both hands returned to the pocket of his furry coat.

We walked in the snow for a few minutes, the sound of our feet crunching the only sound we heard.

And then Al spoke.

"It's been a while since we were in Briggs, hasn't it, Brother?"

"Hm?" Ed looked up to his younger sibling, then with a one-shouldered shrug, continued speak. "Ah. Yeah, guess it has, hasn't it?"

I stayed quiet, noting how we'd been in light snow before, when we traveled to the cusp of the northern territory. But nothing quiet as white as this...

"Where are we going, again?" I asked, sure my nervousness was showing.

"Xaver," Ed answered, and we left it at that. "They're an alchemist in Northern Briggs. We should be able to slip in and slip out without 'rousing Major Armstrong."

True to his word, we were able to slip in fairly quietly; with a flash of his pocketwatch, we were mousying down secrete hallways and small pathways. Nothing out of the ordinary...

"ELRIC BROTHERS!"

Ed tensed up, completely in fear, as I looked in the direction of the voice. As booming as it was... it was familia—

"Major Armstrong!" Alphonse replied, and the large muscled man appeared.

"Oh how wonderful it is to see you two again! And your childhood friend!" I was pulled into a bone-crushing hug, tears streaking my blouse. "She is still with you after all this time! The loyalty, the kinship!"

Ed grinned, and then yelped as he too was pulled into a single hug. I breathed again, and caught sight of long blonde hair slipping away, into another hallway.

We spent a few more moments with Major Armstrong, and then we were finally led to the alchemic expert. Major Xaver, an Ishvalen man that was bent over flasks and beakers.

He looked up, as Edward approached.

"You must be the Fullmetal Alchemist," he said, and I was surprised he got the identification right. "I've... heard you were much shorter."

Ed grinned, passing a hand along the bottom of his nose. "Stories take time to get updated," he said, and Xaver gave a small nod.

"Please," he put a hand out to whatever what he was working on. "If there's anything I can do..."

"Do you know anything about changes in transmutation light?" Ed asked, voice solemn. "We're looking for red light, specifically?"

"Red light?" One hand came to a goteed chin. "No, I'm not sure I've ever heard of red light in a transmutation before..."

"Sorry," Xaver concluded, and our stay was limited after that.

I thought about the meeting, what the alchemist had told us just before we left his presence.

"Give me some time, and I might be able to cook something up. Red light, was it?"

I blinked, flashing away the memory with the shutters of my eyes, my attention going to Ed. Specifically, to the black, long-sleeve shirt I had never seen him wear before. Sleeves bunched up near the bend of his arm, exposing his automail, too. He looked up at me, straightening away from his suitcase.

"What?" he asked.

I couldn't admit it, the thought somewhere deep in my consciousness. I pulled it out carefully, unsure of the weed birthing from the dirt.

He was... well... Handsome.

I blinked, then shook my head. Fighting back a blush, too. "N-nothing," I said.

He scratched the side of his face with one finger, quizzically staring at me. And then he shrugged, tossing a shirt in my direction. I reached up, catching it with both hands before it had time to land on my face.

"Here," he was saying, and I noticed it was a shirt like his. Long sleeve, definitely too big for me. "It'll be a bit colder tonight, and I don't think this place has a working heater 'cause it sucks."

I frowned a little, staring down at the shirt. Moving my fingers from underneath the fabric, watching the hills roll away from each other against waves of darkness.

"I don't think they'd be happy to hear you say that," I told him, only teasing a little.

He shrugged, shutting his suitcase before lifting it back to the floor. "Maybe they should just fix the heater, then."

I stifled a sigh, bowing my head forward before raising it upon hearing some footsteps. I watched him walk towards me, brows raising as he glanced to the shirt I still held.

"Use it if you want to," he said. "Al's a little big to wear it."

I couldn't help but smile at that, watching him return the expression in a full on grin as he put his back to the door, pushing it wide open.

"G'night."

"Night," I replied, and he ducked away, out into the next room. I swear I caught sight of a pink blur across his cheeks, but decided I was just fooling myself again, taking solace in the way the door closed behind him. Shutting me inside four walls, where I belonged.

Ed suddenly appeared again, quickly opening the door and half-hiding behind it. A small smile on his face, one I forced myself to not examine. I held myself away from noticing the heat rising to his face, the warmth wanting to raise to mine.

"Um... What'dyou want for breakfast?"

I repeated his fopaux, saying something about how eggs and toast was fine. Something he'd like.

"Okay," he grinned, beaming. "Night, and everything."

I smiled, enough as I could without breaking anything. "Night." And everything.

He just nodded a few times, like he was responding to a question I didn't ask. And with his lips picking up into another grin, he disappeared, closing the door behind him. Leaving me alone in a room, four walls almost feeling as if they were a part of me already.

I padded to the room's only bed, quietly sitting as I kept looking around the lines where the ceiling met the wall. Searching for what, I didn't know. Maybe it was a comfort, seeing everything closed off. Unable to see the sky, that darkness spotted with light. Signals from an entity unable to prove its existence.

I laid back, reaching one hand to the ceiling. Moving my wrist, waving my fingertips as my hand rotated. I kept it there, feeling the blood drain from my fingertips, my palm. My wrist, dropping and falling out of my arm, bundling together at my shoulder. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine the numbness as permanent. I wondered if this was how Al felt all the time. Unable to feel anything; unable to warrant enough emotion, enough spark to start a fire.

I wondered until my brain grew tired, and eventually sleep found me in its arms.

"Here," He pushed a mug towards me, and I looked down at it, seeing the coffee rock for a moment. Swirl of cream staring back at me. "Hope it's made okay."

I looked up, immediately seeing his eyes flick down and stay at the table. At the very base of my mug, actually.

"It's fine, Ed," I told him, beaming a smile. He looked up, seeing it, and I felt some distant part of me scream when his face grew even pinker. I picked up the coffee, toasting with both hands. "I'm sure it tastes great; thank you."

He looked down, some part of his mouth murmuring how I hadn't even tried it yet. But his words were muffled, buzzing against the rim of his cup. I grinned, a demolished laugh wanting to surface against my hand. But I didn't raise my fingers to my lips, instead looking down again. Keeping the smile on my face, raising the mug a bit more and feeling the skin of my cheeks grow warm. Glowing the chill away.

The coffee tasted wonderful.

It had been a few hours on the train, when Ed touched me.

My heart lept at the contact, jolting me from my own sleep, but that head didn't move away. I looked over, bleary vision drifting over to suddenly be covered in gold. My attention snapped back completely, something of a snort muffled against the very back of my nose. I didn't move though, not wanting to wake Ed from his place at my shoulder. But my shock was enough to jump my hands up a bit, wrists hanging limply and catching Al's focus. Bringing him away from whatever book he was studying.

"H-how long has he been like this?" I asked in a whisper.

Ed moved, curling his body a bit, rolling a little away from me as his legs slowly swam outward. But his head stayed at my shoulder, temple rolling for the crown of his hair to press against my shoulder.

"Few more minutes, mom..." he murmured, voice a drawl.

Al laughed a little, eyes curving in an amusement that really wasn't doing anything to help the situation.

"Oh, he's been like that for a while," the younger Elric said.

I felt my face burn just a bit. "You could've moved him off..."

Al simply shook his head, still not wiping the smile off his eyes as he looked back down to the book.

"You two looked really comfortable," he said. "I wouldn't want to ruin the moment."

He was teasing, and I quickly looked away, speaking through gritted teeth.

"You're just as bad as he is..."

Al laughed again, the sound nothing but playful joviality.

Now slipped down for the back of his head to rest against the start of my upper arm, Ed nodded a little in his sleep, still speaking with his voice bȧrėly audible. Muttering something about eggplant crops smelling.

"But I don't wanna pull it up from the roots..."

I put my other hand, the one that wasn't stuck against the armrest, to my face, bowing towards my palm as much as possible.

"How long does he usually sleep, again...?" I asked, but I knew the answer before Al had even spoken it.

"Oh, it could be hours," the younger Elric replied. "Days, even. You should get comfortable!"

I suċkėd one cheek into my mouth, staring up at the ceiling of the train.

I stayed like this, trying to get comfortable, before an employee came to save me.

"Can I interest you in—"

"FOOD CART!" Ed's voice was enough to nearly make me jump out of my own skin; it certainly made me fly a few feet in the air. My heart was still thumping away inside my ċhėst as he finished flopping over onto his stomach, head near my brėȧsts. Wide-eyed stare on the cart directly in front of him.

He grinned, looking up at the employee and not appearing to see exactly where he was.

"How's your Moet Chandon?"

I would've sighed, if his head wasn't so close to me. The employee just blinked, probably just as embarrassed at the awakening as I was. Ed's smile fled, eyes shifting around, and then he noticed. He instantly flung himself away, one hand holding the armrest and keeping himself at arm's distance.

"I—I WASN'T—I DIDN'T MEAN TO—"

I shook my head in defeat, right hand fanning out to the concessionest. Palm open as I politely asked for a drink. She answered happily, and a moment later a glass of wine was being perched in between my fingers, the palm of my hand.

Ed shifted his stare in between the drink and the employee, and before he could finish scrambling for the wallet in his pocket, I had already transferred the money from my hand to the employee's. I guess it paid to have walls, sometimes.

"T... That's..." Ed breathed, still seeming flustered as he put one hand to his hair, pushing his bangs out a bit. Distressed, and I instantly felt incredibly stupid for everything I had just done. He continued on, saying how it was totally unfair.

I didn't say anything, simply extending my glass to him, shaking the wine a bit without moving enough to spill over.

"Take it, then," I told him, but Ed shook his head.

"You won that one, fair and square," he said, and for a moment I was back on a playground.

I smiled through, and gently sipped at the drink until night found us an inn.