Just some of Al being cute in Germany...Slight Elricest if you stand on your head, spit nickels and squint. Well...alright, I admit, maybe it's a little more implied than that, but I really didn't mean to. Take it as you will, children.
Jobs in this world were really a bother. Or at least that's what Alphonse thought.
Sure, his genius older brother could get a job without a problem, but Alphonse had no such luck.
Being a very bright young alchemist meant nothing in this world, and being thirteen years old merely meant that you were there to be used and abused by your older coworkers.
While Ed got to bounce around offices, writing reports and looking up information (practically what he used to do at home, come to think of it, but with less explosions) Alphonse was left to work as a messenger boy.
At least he wasn't a paperboy...but still...He did have to wear a cap.
That cap though, at the moment, was off. Alphonse was safe and warm indoors, not running from building to building and street to street, but inside the building where his brother worked, waiting for Edward to finish his shift for the day.
Alphonse was starving, quite frankly, and couldn't wait to go get something to eat with his big brother.
He was made to wait an extra five minutes or so in the small lobby of the building, his stomach growling at him in complaint.
Sheesh... What was keeping Edward...?
Alphonse and his stomach both nearly rejoiced when he saw his brother walking alongside a slightly pudgy young man with chestnut hair and a sideways smile.
Al didn't think he knew this man, even if he did look a little familiar, but that didn't really matter right now. What was important was food.
Oh...and his brother, of course, but there was time for focusing on him after the food.
Al began walking towards the hallway his brother was walking out of, smiling a little out of natural cheerfulness.
Ed seemed to spot him, then, because he looked ahead in Alphonse's direction and smiled back.
Al could hear him, as he got nearer, saying to the man walking beside him, "Ah, sorry Bernt, but I gotta get going."
Alphonse stopped at the end of the hallway and waited for his brother to get there.
The slightly pudgy man frowned a little in disappointment, "Aw...you mean you're not going drinking with us after all?"
Alphonse blinked in surprise.
His brother...drinking...?
Edward rolled his eyes, saying, "You know I don't even like to drink...And besides, I have other things to do."
This man, Bernt, must have followed Ed's eyes and spotted Alphonse, because he asked, "Ah...is that the kid brother you're always on about? He looks like you..."
Ed and Al blushed a little simultaneously, though only Ed's was noticeable.
"Yeah, that's Al. We're going to get dinner together tonight." He glanced at the older man, quirking an eyebrow, "You understand, right?"
Bernt looked at Edward, a little confused.
"Can't you just give the kid the money to go eat? He looks old enough to go by himself."
Alphonse was a little insulted at that. Stupid coworkers...just talking about him like he wasn't even there...
Edward, apparently, was also a little insulted.
"So? He could go by himself, but I want to go with him." he muttered something under his breath and Bernt laughed.
"Man...I knew you cared a lot about the kid and all, but I didn't realize you had dinner dates with him."
Ed's cheeks went red with a combination of embarrassment and annoyance and Alphonse found himself wishing he had never come here to get Ed after work.
"He's my brother!" Ed snapped defensively, "Nothing wrong with wanting to spend time with him, especially after I haven't seen him in a long time!"
Bernt must have noticed the serious tone in Ed's voice because his laughter died away pretty quickly, "Alright, alright...I was just kidding, Ed."
The blonde shrugged his shoulders indifferently, walking over to finally stand beside his younger brother.
"See you tomorrow." Bernt said with a similar shrug, turning around to head back to wherever he'd come from.
As he left, Alphonse heard him mutter something along the lines of, "More like a damn wife than a brother if you ask me..."
Alphonse wanted to let his mind run with that, to wonder who this person was and why he wanted to take Ed drinking and exactly what kind of comment he had just made, but Ed was tugging on his jacket sleeve and telling him to get going.
So he ignored his thoughts for the moment and happily left with his brother to go get something to eat.
oOo
Finally his stomach was at peace.
The hungry revolt going on in his own body had come to a close and, since Ed was still inhaling his own food, Alphonse was able to take some time out of their cheap meal to think.
His thoughts wound up straying to what that man at Ed's job had said earlier.
A wife...? He was a wife?
That was a stupid thing to say...
Though...
He did act as a bit of a wife for his brother, he supposed. Picking up after him, cooking for him, having long conversations and short little fights with him. They went practically everywhere together and worked perfectly with each other. There was no one else in the world Alphonse loved more than his brother and he knew for a fact that the feeling was mutual.
They were always there for each other, always helping and healing. For better of for worse, more or less.
For richer or poorer, too.
Heh.
Whether back in Amestris when Ed had been wandering around Central city with his pockets full to burst with his paycheck from the military, or here, when he had first arrived and it seemed that Ed's entire home away from home had fallen apart and taken his wallet with it.
And now that he thought about it...
In sickness and health...
Ed was always getting colds from running around in the rain and cold, even now that they weren't children anymore, he still made the silly mistake of staying out and catching chills And every time he shuffled back to whatever apartment or hotel they were staying at, sniffling and shivering already, Al was prepared to tuck him into bed and pet his head just like their mother used to do, even if it did seem silly for an eighteen year old, nearly a man already, to be babied in such a way by someone who was practically considered a little boy.
And...well...while he was already on a roll...
Till death do them part.
The two of them were completely devoted to each other. They had shown it on numerous occasions, each willing to sacrifice everything to help, to save the other.
Hell, they'd gone past "till death do us part," now that Al thought about it and could remember things properly. He'd brought his brother back from the dead! His brother had brought him back from...from nothing!
Al felt more than a little silly for thinking of it like this, sure, but it all seemed to fit!
He was married to his brother in just about every sense of the word other than the legal one.
What they shared was good enough to be a sacred union of two souls, or in fact, better! He and Ed were absolutely, positively together forever. Willingly, happily chained to one another without any chance of separation. Unlike some actually married couple, they would never, ever divorce.
So lost was Alphonse in his thoughts that, at the moment, he didn't even hear his brother speaking to him until the third or fourth time Edward said his name.
On that time, though, he snapped out of his pondering and looked up at Ed with a smile.
"Hm?"
The older Elric eyed him curiously, with a little concern, and set down the half-eaten sausage still dangling on the edge of his fork.
"Are...you okay, Al?"
And Alphonse, still not entirely sure of what was going on in the real world, having just come back from the world inside his mind, answered with a prim, "I do."
Then he blinked, blushed, and corrected himself before Ed could even speak.
"I-I mean-- I am! Of course I am!"
He'd be just fine as long as he was with his brother.
And if he could just keep his thoughts to himself...