Disclaimer- I don't own FMA.
Phantom Limb
By A Guy Named Goo
phantom limb
n.
The sensation that an amputated limb is still attached, often associated with painful paresthesia. Also called pseudesthesia.
Houghton Mifflin Medical Dictionary
Sometimes, Edward could feel his right arm.
It happened more often than he would care to admit. Sometimes he would be in the middle of researching or fighting or even just sleeping, and he would find himself resisting the urge to roll up his sleeve and see if the metal had miraculous reformed itself into flesh and bone. He could feel the warmth of his glove, or the pressure on his hand as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. When his automail took a hit, he sometimes could swear he felt pain at the point of impact.
"It's called 'phantom limb'," Pinako had explained when Edward had asked about it shortly after he got his automail. She'd then poked his upper arm, and he'd flinched, but it had been more out of unconscious habit than him actually feeling her finger on the metal. "It happens often in people who lose their limbs or are paralyzed, even ones that don't get automail. People are certain they can still feel their missing parts. Some even claim to have pain in their lost limbs. People who get automail seem to experience it more than those that don't, probably because automail is designed to move and feel like a real limb and the nerves are grafted right into the port."
Edward always found himself thinking about this whenever he "felt" his arm. It seemed so wrong to explain it away like it was an affliction common to people in his situation. It seemed wrong to think that there could be other people in the same situation at all, people who committed no grave sin and yet lived with the ghosts of missing limbs. He knew it wasn't the same for them. At least, not when he thought about the one time he could always feel his arm just as surely as if it were real...
Edward worked off the last of the straps, which allowed him to pull off Alphonse's chest plate. He set it down nearby carefully, as if he believed his brother could feel it if he were anything but. "You've got sand in here..." he muttered accusingly, reaching upwards to unfasten the cloth that draped over the torso portion of the armor. He set this inside the chest plate as well.
"I'm sorry, Brother," Alphonse said, his voice filled with genuine remorse. He was seated in front of the bed, next to a bucket of soapy water, Edward on his knees in front of him wearing only his boxers and tank top. This was the first time they had been able to bed down since their long trek through the desert.
Edward bit his lip, reaching up to the bedside table and pulling the lit oil lamp down onto the floor so that he could see through the darkness inside Alphonse's hollow torso, the blood seal coming into focus. Neither one liked the chore of cleaning out the armor, but it was necessary to prevent it from wearing down and getting weak over time. Besides, Alphonse deserved to be clean just as much as Edward did.
"I'm going to have to take off your legs when I'm done in here and empty them out outside," Edward warned him. He took the washcloth out of the bucket and wrung it out.
"If you really have to," Alphonse consented. He didn't like having the armor dismantled, even if it posed no threat to him or his blood seal, but he also knew that it was part of his regular maintenance.
Edward moved on his knees over beside Alphonse, keeping the seal in sight as he began to scrub inside of him. "I don't like this any more than you do," he told him, immediately feeling bad about it. His cheeks reddened slightly. "I mean, I still have to oil and tune up my automail when I'm done with you..." But it hardly seemed to compare to his brother's situation. In fact, comparing it to his own seemed to trivialize Alphonse's ordeal.
"It's all right, Brother. I understand," Alphonse said. That was what made it so hard sometimes: the fact that he could be so understanding. So forgiving. Did he really forgive him?
Edward continued to wash the interior of the armor in silence, leaning over onto his legs to reach some of the more difficult places. He finally dropped the washcloth in the bucket for the last time. It was now time for the part both of them hated the most. He reached over to the bedside table and picked up the pin he had put there.
"I'm...going to finish up in here," Edward said softly. He moved so that he was actually sitting inside of Alphonse, ducking his head so that he didn't hit it on his shoulder. His left arm was pressed against the back of the armor, the cold metal sending chills through his body.
"You don't have to climb inside, Brother..." Alphonse said softly.
Edward shook his head, taking the pin into his right hand. He moved his left up, feeling the metal with his fingertips as he did, closing his eyes and sighing. He turned his hand palm outward and before he could think too much about it, he brought his right hand over and stuck the pin into the soft flesh at the end of his fingertip. He flinched, pulling the pin out as quickly as he had jabbed it in. He had stuck it in quite deep, and blood welled up to the surface.
His right hand fell back outside of the armor, and the pin slipped from between his fingers, lost between the floorboards, but he didn't care. There would always be more pins. He turned his head and looked at his finger in the lamplight. A bead of blood rested precariously on the skin, the surface tension holding it in a teardrop shape. He watched it, waiting for it to slide down his finger, but it didn't.
"Ready?" he asked softly.
"As I'll ever be," was the response that seemed to resonate from everywhere within the cavern that Edward had nestled himself into.
Edward turned his hand back toward the metal and reached upward, his hand hovering over the seal. He swallowed, then gently lowered his fingertip onto the seal. Alphonse cried out in alarm, and Edward hesitated before he began tracing the pattern.
Memories of the first time they had done this still haunted Edward. They had been traveling in the rain, and he had been terrified when he took off his chest plate to clean inside and seen the seal fading to a rusty stain. But still he had been hesitant to retrace it. Terrified that his left arm would be taken as the payment for keeping his brother's soul rooted to the armor. Terrified that if he disturbed the seal he would lose his soul completely. He'd stared at the fading seal, bleeding fingertip hovering over it shakily, tears running down his cheeks. He couldn't lose his brother again, no matter what.
When he'd brought his fingertip to the seal, Alphonse had cried out, as he always did when someone touched it. But Edward hadn't known that yet, and he'd screamed his brother's name, the sound echoing inside the empty armor that he was sure was now devoid of a soul.
"It's okay, Brother. It's just...weird, that's all. It surprised me," Alphonse had assured him quickly. It almost sounded like his voice was cracking, although he couldn't actually cry.
Edward had begun to sob inside of him, his entire body aching from the possibility of having lost him. He cried inside Alphonse for a long time after he had finished retracing the seal, and his brother had let him. Perhaps because he knew that some of those tears were for him, as he couldn't cry himself.
There were tears stinging Edward's eyes as he finished this time. Although he now knew that this didn't actually hurt Alphonse and wouldn't cause him to lose his soul, it still brought back memories of the uncertainty of that night, of the painful thought of losing him.
He felt something in his right hand. Warm and solid, yet as much a phantom as the sensation in the limb itself. He didn't look to see what it was, knowing it would chase away the ghostly sensations if he did. Instead he squeezed his eyes shut tighter and took his left hand away, drawing it close to him as he raised his right hand and touched just beside the seal.
He should have felt nothing as metal touched metal, yet he felt like he was reaching past the metal barrier. He could feel his fingers sliding through soft hair, sliding down an innocent round face that was wet with tears.
The tighter he squeezed his eyes shut, the more the tears wanted to fall. A pained sob escaped from him as he felt small, gentle hands move to grasp his, and hold it against the cheek. He could feel the soft, smooth skin of the cheek as it nuzzled his hand, and the warm trail of tears falling over the tops of his fingers.
"Brother..." Alphonse whispered, and for just a moment he thought he heard it coming from just one place, a point near his hand. Suddenly his hand had no feeling again, and he kept his eyes closed for a moment longer, but he knew that the feeling he'd had there was gone for now.
"Al..." he choked. He collapsed into sobs, resting his head against the back of the armor. His fingers scraped; metal against metal as he ran them down the back, before letting his hand fall to the floor outside the armor again.
He heard a movement, and opening his eyes he turned to look where he'd put his hand. A big gauntlet had wrapped itself around his own fake hand, and for some reason the sight of it made him want to cry harder. Cry for both of them.
Edward never asked Alphonse if he felt what he did. It would be too cruel for both of them if the answer was no. But as he looked at their hands, he found himself wondering if his brother sometimes felt phantom limbs...
The End