Note: For Kyon, wonderful friend and inspiration. In thanks for the help, and for 11 years of friendship.
Beta-reader: None.
Summary: They're broken, but they make it work.

金継ぎ
(kintsugi)

They made it work. Somehow, they made it work, the two of them together. Behind the taunts and the harsh words was hidden camaraderie and reliance. He'd never thought that someday, he would have managed to gain this young man's trust. The first time that he had seen the Fullmetal, the boy was young, painfully young, eyes full of challenge and loss. His youth contrasted with the haunted look he sometime caught in the depth of those golden eyes, with the resolve that hardened his gaze. The brash words felt like a wall the kid had built around himself, to protect himself from the outside world.

Life hadn't been kind to him. Life hadn't been kind to either of them.

Maybe this was why it worked so well. Maybe they connected because of those cracks and snags in their souls, maybe this was why they clung to each other so tightly, their broken parts melding together until they were almost one being with two minds. So much had happened. So many years had gone by, with them fighting together, arguing with each other, learning trust, learning respect.

One night, everything had changed. One night, they sat together with coffee, talking of things lost, or things hoped, listening to the comfortable silence when there was nothing to be said. The boy was grown then. A young man, someone proud and fierce that he felt he could believe in, he could depend on. Fullmetal had set his mug down, had sat back into the couch, arms akimbo, slung on the back of it. "Old man, what do you want?" he'd asked.

He had blinked then, and set his own coffee down. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what do you want?" the younger man had insisted.

It felt stronger somehow, more important than any of their chatter so far. And he'd answered, "I don't know, or at least I'm not sure."

"Sure you know," the young man had pressed on. He'd gotten up then, and walked over to him.

That night, Fullmetal had become Edward ("Just Ed – Edward makes me sound so distinguished," he'd protested with a grimace). The sum of their broken parts was greater than one, but it wasn't quite two.