armoured | IC Inbox Subnautica

[ Some dreams are violent, some are enough to make him fight outwardly even when he is asleep. This one, however, is a quiet one. He doesn't move, and in his dream he feels like he is trapped. It's reminiscent of the portal, the moment just before he meets the gates, like time is somehow caught up around him and there's nothing but blinding, searing light.

But from the light emerges a monster, crying out his name, long hair and sad eyes somewhere in the disfigured thing. Worse, it's carried by a boy, a bloodied boy with fair hair and too-warm eyes. They laugh, the boy and the bloody monster, his mother. And when Ed opens his eyes, he doesn't realize he's cried out so loudly. He sits up in bed and stares across the room into the dark. ]

Al? [ His voice is shallow, rough. He's not sure if his brother is here, or off working somewhere. Ed isn't sure what he'd do if he couldn't sleep. ]

[He doesn't often go out at night here.

The base is too small, his footsteps too loud, and he's worried about people finding out his secret. He doesn't want the awkward questions that might be asked if people find him wandering around at all hours of the night on a regular basis. Sometimes he lets himself go, sometimes when the sorrow and the ache and the loneliness get too much.

Not tonight.

He's just sitting, as he does most nights, watching over his brother and thinking. He's lost in thought about how to possibly use alchemy to help out with the infection problem, when he's snapped to attention so suddenly by a cracked yell.]

Brother!

[He's on his feet at once, moving over in the gloom to look down on Ed in concern.]

I'm here, it's okay... it was just a dream.

[He hates that Ed has to bear the burden of those dreams alone. This isn't the first nightmare he's witnessed.]

Hey.

[ It's a pretty puny sound, but he's trying to sound stronger than he is. He runs a hand over his face before he presses one hand to Al's arm. ] I'm okay, just... just startled myself awake. Must have heard something, this place is pretty creepy sometimes, huh?

[ He doesn't want to worry his brother, and he's still trying to process what he had dreamt. ]

Ed.

[The way he says his brother's name is a soft warning not to lie to him. The bed sinks under his considerable weight as he takes a seat on the end, near his brother's feet.]

People have been saying something is wrong with the dreams here at the moment, that people are having nightmares and getting into trouble.

[ Ed wouldn't even call it a lie. He carefully filters his words, his thoughts, when they're all a jumble like this. Nightmares always make him feel a little disoriented, off-kilter. ]

Yeah, I had a nightmare. I've been having them, but that one... sorry, Al. Didn't mean to scare you.

It's okay, it must have been scarier for you.

[He wouldn't call a single shout more than momentarily startling.]

Maybe you should talk about it, Brother?

Yeah, I don't know.

[ How can he begin to tell Al what he saw? He knows it's some construct of the base, and whatever it is that's causing all of these, but it'd been so real. ]

I just saw... saw you and mom. It was so real. [ He scrubs his hands over his face, and he swears he might even taste blood at the back of his throat. He must have bit his tongue. ]

[He doesn't need to elaborate much further, Al knows exactly what that means. He was dreaming of the night they tried to bring Mom back again. It's understandable, it's one of the worst nights of both of their lives, but he hates seeing Ed weighed down by it. It's not fair that he should bear the burden of the nightmares alone, when they both committed the sins that night.

His head lowers a little, the little pinpricks of light in his eyes dimming sadly, before he just pulls Ed into a loose embrace.]

...I think-- I think Mom would be proud of what we were doing now. Even if we did some bad things before and made mistakes, I think she'd be proud now.

Yeah, I think she would, too.

[ He leans into his brother's embrace, closing his eyes a minute and trying to imagine the warmth there of a human body. He's used to the metal, though, and it's just as much his brother as the blond haired boy would be. ]

We're so close, Al. When we get home, we'll just have to work harder.

[Hugging his brother is always a bittersweet affair. It soothes him to be able to offer even some comfort, and it always gives him just the smallest comfort himself to see how readily Ed accepts his embrace without hesitation for this body. But it also aches, reminding him keenly of everything he doesn't have, of not being able to feel anything.]

Mm.

[His arms tighten around Ed, drawing him in close.]

Don't look so far into the future that you can't appreciate the present. We'll get home and help everyone, I promise, but... look at what we have here, Ed. We're somewhere that nobody else on Amestris has ever been, with the opportunity to meet people and learn about things that should be impossible. Try to enjoy the time we have here before we go back.

[ Ed lets out a sigh and rubs the back of his head. ]

You're right, Al.

[ He smiles up at his brother finally, looking a little tired and weary. ] I guess it's hard to forget about home sometimes, that's all. I'm learning a lot here, too, so I guess I should just stick to that, huh?

[ It's hard not to think about the next step, to think about their future. Ed's been looking forward for so long now, always trying to anticipate where they could go for information. The fight to get his brother's body back will never fade, no matter how much he tries to seize the moment. That will always be there, distant and quiet sometimes, but present. ] I'l try a little bit harder, okay?

[He's not about to let go of Ed any time soon. Even if he can't feel the embrace himself, it's so rare that he gets to sit like this, tall and stooped over as if he were the armour to surround Ed and keep him from the pain of all that's happened.]

We'll get there one day, Brother, I know it.

[Soft, but sure.]

And maybe some of the things we learn here will help us in the end too, right? There are so many different worlds, maybe there's some kind of alchemy that we don't know of that can get our original bodies back?

[Always ours, not mine.]

[ On the morning of December 25th, Al will find a small, brightly wrapped package in his room. Inside it will be a drawing of him and URSULA in her robot form, both exploring an island. The picture is also framed. Besides that, there are also cookies that she managed to bake herself! As she cannot taste test, they might not be perfect, but they are cutely decorated with “Happy Holidays, Alphonse!” and other holiday themed items, like snowmen and reindeer.

A note attached simply says, “From URSULA!” ]

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