Disclaimer in previous chapter. Please see Author's Notes at the end.

Content Warning: While this chapter is significantly more mild than the previous installment, some slightly disturbing imagery and action follows, mainly incest. Sensitive readers beware, but most will probably be able to handle it.

Author Diatribe: I threatened to make this a series of one-shots, and it looks like I'm going to. Aino Hikaru and Anon-i-mouse requested I take a look at Elricest. It doesn't bug me as much as EdxRoy, but it's just as unlikely. I considered trying to fix the 'Ed crawls into Al's armor and jacks off' scenario, but that was simply too ridiculous even for me, so I went with the suggestion of post-Shamballa Al and Ed.

As before, in order to make any of these work, only one character is OOC, and only slightly.

Thanks to inkydoo for the beta!

- x -

It was a long time before he figured out why there was blood on the pillowcase.

He'd heard the sound three or four times before he put it together. Always in the earliest hours of the morning, long after he'd fallen asleep. It wasn't until he was woken by a slight shaking of the bed that he realized the nightmares always preceded it.

But once he'd made that connection, it made sense.

It was a very rhythmic sound, slow and purposeful and soft. Too precise to be ocean waves, though that was what it most reminded him of; a constant, fabric-shifting sound that wasn't jarring enough to wake him unless he was already sleepless.

They had many of those nights, when they'd first returned. Back to the mansion, to Eckhart's minions. To the gate Hohenheim had transmuted in a foreign place called Europe. At first he'd thought Al was adjusting well; he'd always been relatively optimistic even as a child, and it seemed a part of his personality rather than his upbringing. He'd grown up twice, after all, once as iron and once as a little boy, but he didn't seem to have difficulties reconciling the two sets of memories.

Until he fell asleep.

Ed was only able to let it go twice after he figured it out. He thought it would be better to give Al room to get used to having those memories, and that it was just his adjusting phase. Al never spoke of the nightmares, never indicated that anything was the matter. He stifled his yawns and when he got caught, he laughed it off as being spoiled by his life before his brother had returned. He blamed it on lumpy mattresses and his brother's cold elbow on the tiny beds they shared in squalid hostels.

The one thing they didn't have much of, at first, was money. Ed refused to risk hitting Hohenheim's stash, afraid the Thules were still watching. They lived on currency and items they stole from the house when they left, and some nights were spent beneath a ceiling of stars rather than mortar and stone.

Those were the nights he couldn't sleep himself. He'd lay awake and stare at the unfamiliar sky and wonder how it was the world could be so parallel but have such an alien night. Not a single constellation was recognizable.

It had probably started then. With the gentle evening wind, it would have been easy for Al to hide the sound. He could imagine those fingers brushing the blades of grass, feeling each texture and sharp edge of each leaf, over and over again.

Reassuring himself that he could feel. That his hand was not empty leather, tied to empty metal. That it was still his flesh and blood fingers.

He knew if he'd lost the automail he'd have probably done the same thing.

Even when Ed finally braved the bank and got them more money, they tried to spend it modestly. There were often no rooms with double beds, and winter was well on its way to the terrified continent. There had been no reason to separate.

And so Al had had to work harder to hide it from him. Al knew he was a light sleeper, so there could be no getting out of bed without drawing attention. Anything rough would have made noise. So he took the edge of the sheet or the pillowcase between his fingers, whiling away the hours after his nightmares by finding each stitch in the darkness, over and over again.

Ed wasn't sure when he first really noticed it, but he knew that it had been increasing in frequency; both the nightmares and the amount of time it took Al to calm back down. It must have been happening almost nightly before he found the blood; they wore gloves when they worked odd jobs or traveled, and Al usually was able to fall asleep by the false dawn, giving the torn and bloodied pads of his fingertips more than long enough to crust over.

It had been an accident, really, when he'd been taking their used linens down to the laundry girl. They'd been an off-white set, so the smears had stood out far more brightly than they might otherwise have.

And after that, he'd listened for it.

The first time he'd confronted Al, he hadn't even spoken. He had taken to sleeping on his right side, since leaving the automail exposed to air made him chilly. It usually meant he took the right side of the bed, so that he was facing outwards, giving his brother more room on their crowded mattress. It meant he was always showing his brother his back.

So he'd turned, opening his eyes and settling on his left side, and gazed thoughtfully at his brother.

Al had looked . . . almost frightened. As if he thought Ed was more upset to have been awoken than because he was having nightmares. Ed hadn't said anything, just pulled his left hand – his real hand - up and wrapped Al's fingers in it.

Then he'd closed his eyes and gone back to sleep. When he'd woken a few hours later, it had been to see Al's peacefully sleeping face, his fingers relaxed and still in his grasp.

The second time, only a few nights later, he'd turned onto his back, staring at the ceiling rather than his brother.

"You're going to wear them down to the bone if you keep that up," he'd noted softly, and the sound had stopped almost immediately. Ed was pretty sure he'd fallen asleep briefly before Al answered.

"Sometimes they go so numb I can't feel at all."

"They wouldn't if you'd stop rubbing them raw." It was too easy to slip into their previous roles; Al was possibly more deferential now than he had been when they'd been boys, but at the same time he was more mature. Quieter. In many ways less outgoing, but still so innocent.

They didn't discuss it further, but it was obvious it wasn't just the memories of the armor that were bothering Al. He blamed himself for a lot of things. For the automail. For the deaths in Central caused by Eckhart's invading forces. For the deaths of Wrath and Gluttony. He'd just received six years' worth of memories, all the horrible things they'd seen in their search for the Stone. It wasn't surprising that he'd been a little subdued.

And it wasn't surprising that a gentle rebuke from his brother, no matter how he respected him, didn't magically end the dreams. Al simply found something softer. Something less damaging.

The first time he was aware of it was because he'd actually taken down his braid before they'd lain down for the night. That was several weeks after their first and last conversation on the topic of Al's nightmares, which meant it had probably happened several times before. That night, Al had accidentally caught a shorter hair, and the subtle tug had been enough to make him tangentially aware.

There was never any blood in his hair, so he figured it was an acceptable substitute. It seemed to calm Al down a lot faster, and he'd always been fascinated with his hair anyway, as armor – he'd never dared to do anything with his own horsehair ponytail, but on occasion he used to beg his older brother to let him braid his hair. He'd claimed it helped with his dexterity, and while Ed always felt guilty about having hair to play with at all, he felt worse not letting Al braid it for him.

He felt the same flavor of guilt now, only the reason wasn't quite as simple as all that.

Despite having had the automail for years and years, and finer and finer models, the touches were so slight that he couldn't feel them. He couldn't even hear them; if not for the fact that the scarred flesh around the port still had some feeling, he never would have known he was being touched at all.

It had to be around three am. They were staying in a bed and breakfast in northern France, in a reasonably sized room for once, and Al had been up late, working on their equations. He'd been right to question Einstein's theory, and they'd been debating it on the ferry pretty much the entire way there. He'd fallen asleep on his stomach, facing away from the lamp, and it meant that he was all but presenting the automail to Al.

And it was obvious his brother thought he was asleep.

Ed remained quite still, feeling that doing anything, giving it away, would just make Al feel worse. Yes, Al was whole and he wasn't. He didn't really care. Sure, the automail hurt, and he had no mechanic to assist if it broke. He still had the spare limbs Hohenheim had created for him, and even if not –

It was such a small price to pay, to know that it had worked. He'd gotten Al's body back to him.

He hadn't gotten something for nothing, but he hadn't given something and gotten nothing in return either.

Only he was sure Al didn't see it that way.

Now that he was awake, it was harder to ignore the slight tickles of Al's fingertips on his actual skin. The scarring was partly from the arm being ripped off, and partly from the fox bite he'd gotten on the island. Neither was Al's fault, though he could probably find a reason to blame himself for either or both. He felt Al exploring it ever so hesitantly, and had nearly drifted off before a slight tug on his scalp attracted his attention.

Had Al drifted off over the books and had another dream?

Edward wanted to turn over, talk to him. Maybe if Al just explained what he was feeling, he wouldn't be so trapped by it. Ed knew he couldn't hope to understand what it had to be like, reconciling the same years together in two different bodies, two different lives . . . his relationships with Pinako, Winry, Mustang, how they must have been different, or the same . . . all the comments people had made to his human ears that he hadn't understood until he'd recovered the memories of hearing them through vibrations in the iron rather than as voices . . .

Al's breathing was audible, which was unusual. He was normally pretty good at remaining silent. Even if he hadn't had a nightmare, staring at the automail like that . . . how many times as armor had Al watched him sleep, blamed himself for that shining metal arm and leg?

And now, in this world without alchemy, all the math in the world wasn't going to return his limbs.

Was that why Al was so upset?

Al had picked up his hair, and the sound of his fingers being pulled between the strands was kind of soothing. His brother was very careful not to snag any of it, for fear of waking him, probably, and he wondered, how many times had Al wondered what it felt like, when he'd braided it?

He had his own now, obviously, so Ed would have thought the appeal had worn off. After all, in half his memories he didn't know what it was like to be without hair.

And in those memories, he'd grown it out so it matched his brother's. The famous Edward Elric.

Ed kept his eyes closed, and tried not to sigh.

Al wasn't the only one walking around with guilt.

How could Roy have let him go? If the bastard were there he would wring his condescending, arrogant neck. Eyepatch or no. Al would have been better off in Amestris, helping the people, using alchemy. He didn't need to be schlepping around this foreign world trying to find a uranium bomb.

He didn't need two sets of memories and a brother that was both a total stranger and his best friend.

Al's breathing hitched, and Ed very nearly moved. While Al had never been able to weep for what he had lost as a soul, he was certain the human Al had shed tears since their mother's death. It would only make Al uncomfortable if he responded now, and maybe that was just what he needed.

To mourn for what they had lost. To accept it and move forward, because they couldn't go back.

Not ever, according to Einstein.

Was that what Al had discovered?

Al's fingers brushed the nape of his neck, and Ed suppressed a reflexive flinch. His brother seemed to be more daring now, as if he was certain his older brother was really asleep, and his breathing was still quick and shallow. As though they couldn't touch in the light of day. As though he couldn't look at the automail, couldn't ask.

There was this distance between them, and Ed didn't know how to bridge it. Was it his approval Al wanted? Was it to be treated the same? He wasn't . . . wasn't the same Al, somehow. He was still Al, and in many ways he was better, but there was something a little disconcerting about how much Al had tried to be . . .

Tried to be him.

As if the Edward Elric that everyone had told him about wasn't the same Edward he'd known before.

Maybe Al was having the same problem he was. They just didn't know how to relate anymore.

They didn't know how to be brothers anymore.

It was only after the warmth left that Ed realized it hadn't been Al's fingers touching him.

The sensation repeated.

And again.

Edward remained still, feigning slumber, and it was a long time before he was able to fall asleep again.

- x -

Author's Notes: Well, there you have it. And frankly, as far as incest goes, it's not nearly as creepy as it is just sad. I can't think of any other rationalization that would combine these two brothers intimately; they're brothers. Any perceived sexual desire on either of their parts is purely the work of bored fans with that particular kink, and has no justification whatsoever in either the anime or the manga.

Even if Al gets touch-happy after getting a real body, Ed would never reciprocate those actions; it's the job of the big brother to protect the younger brother, not molest him. If Scar couldn't beat that into the audience I know I can't, and as before, I know people can write whatever the hell they want, but Elricest is even further out of the scope of justifiable stretching than EdxRoy.

The next will either deal with WinryxEd, or RizaxRoy per request. Reactions welcome. Well-written flames will be posted to a public website and mocked.