My Brother

By: BornofStarlight

Words: 671

Summary: Alphonse tries to define all the things his brother is to him.

My brother has never been the kind of person to ask for help. Not ever. When we were little it was never an option, asking mom to get the books off the top shelf—Edward always found a chair or a stool to stand on. Once, he climbed the shelves as if they were a ladder...and we both got concussions when the whole lot of them came down on our heads, but in the end he had reached the book he'd wanted. He considered the pain worth the reward.

My brother is the sort of person who will tell you he's fine, he doesn't need a lift thanks, it's only a little rain. He'll tell you to keep your umbrella, if he really wanted one he'd have transmuted one already. And then he'll leave you watching as he stomps off down the sidewalk, making it a point to step in all the puddles, to never put his hood up. When his automail begins to rust because he hasn't been taking care of it, and shatters at the worst possible moment, he'll shrug it off and let Winry hit him over the head with a wrench because—hey, at least he walked away alive, right? The pain is worth it.

My brother thinks too much, and sometimes doesn't think at all. He'll come to a conclusion, jump straight into a problem, and forget that I need him to take care of himself, not just take care of me. Because he always takes care of me, and I can't do the same for him. I can't help him tie his boot laces when his automail seizes up, or rebraid his hair when it starts to loosen, because I'm still bound in an armor prison...I lack the needed dexterity. Edward wants the world to think he's self-sufficient, an adult in every way. He doesn't want the world to see the way the baby fat lingers in his face, or to hear the way his voice still sometimes cracks. He wants them to notice—notice, but never comment on—the way he no longer has to stretch to reach into the top of the filing cabinet, that he's almost as tall as Mustang, now.

My brother is a genius. He understands the universe more inherently than I think mortals are supposed to, and his knowledge torments him, makes him seek out solutions even when there appears to be none. He has dared damnation and tempted temptation itself, dancing ever just out of reach. He is the sort of person to whom everything comes so easily he has trouble understanding that things don't come so easily to everyone, and he gets impatient because of this. This doesn't mean that he doesn't help others. My brother tries to help everyone, won't accept failure. Even when a solution is obviously beyond his abilities, Edward tries to fix every mistake—especially his own. Because Edward is a genius, he doesn't understand the meaning of the word "impossible," and so far his belief has always brought him out the other side alive, if a bit damaged. He is a hero, always charging in where angels fear to tread, and always putting them to shame with his own goodness.

And sometimes my brother is an idiot. There are times when all I want to do is shake my brother until he gets it. Until he understands that his life might be worth something, that if he comes to understand what "impossible" means, it means I'll be left here all alone. Sometimes my brother is to heroic for his own good, he forgets that I care about him, too. He forgets that Winry worries when he shows up on her doorstep, missing his limbs all over again. He forgets that even Mustang has sheltered us, protected him, especially, because Edward won't shelter himself, and there's only so much I can do to help.

He's a hero, an alchemist, a genius, but sometimes, when he is all of these things, he ceases to be my brother.

-End-