Elricest contest entry - category#2 - long, non-smut

Title: Orange Peel
Category: Nonsmut (long)
Theme(s): Food, Faith, Leaving (with a bit of Animals for garnish)
Warnings: Angst, Swearing!Ed, One-sided Elricest (sort of). No spoilers.
Word count: 2,681
(Author's note: "Negative capability" and the poet's bower are ideas from the letters and poetry of John Keats. I only wish I came up with it.)




He looks so small when he curves his back like that. Yes, just so. Head cocked to the side, smile askance. His shoulders slope forward to make a cup for his chin. You notice his fingers before the rest of his hands. His palms disappear in knuckle-bends and red folds. He reminds you of a daffodil just after a summer storm: head and stem bent, but root taut. With purpose. Your brother didn't always curve like that, but he does now.

"Is that all you have to say, Colonel?" Ed says, rocking his shoulders back. He rolls against and away from the wall, mouth flattening with his expression. No smile now, just a straightness of intention.

"Fullmetal!" You think perhaps Colonel Mustang is forcing more anger into his voice than he actually feels; he doesn't look upset. "Do you have any idea how many regulations you've br—"

"I'm not on your choke chain, you know," the daffodil-boy snaps. "So don't bitch to me about regulations and procedures. I'm not in the mood."

The colonel smiles and waves a hand. "If you were a well-behaved dog, you wouldn't need a leash. Dismissed." You wonder if the air grinding around his gloves sparks red at night. Sunset red. Brother's coat. Blood.

Your brother nods once, turns, and kicks the door open. Petty officers dash away. Probably spying, you think. More bets. You wonder what the odds were this time. Eight to one on Edward Elric, or maybe four to three on Roy Mustang? They were always changing, like bills between fingers. Money changing hands, changing odds.

Did you always think like this?

"Geez, what's his fucking problem?" Ed says to no one in particular. "You'd think someone spit in his coffee."

"Brother," you say, "why do you always have to argue with him?"

"He just pisses me off."

"Can't you ignore it for a little while?" Same questions.

"No." If you could, you'd smile at the rigidity of his answer. Also the same.

"Besides if you'd turned in those papers—"

"Shit. Who's side are you on, anyway?"

"Yours, of course." Always his side. Even when you fought as children, your ghost was by his side. Now, is. Is. Haunting him. Making him think, My warmth is not here. And I miss it. I want it back. Now.

Now. Then. Were your thoughts always this jumbled? No. You have a theory; it has to do with being anchored to metal. You conduct. Information runs through your mind-soul like electricity along a wire. It vibrates your joints. You remember having focus once, but you've lost that. Now you are an antenna.

You hear Ed say, "Doesn't seem like it half the fucking time." Perhaps, if you were in your old body, you wouldn't have heard it. So quiet. But now you do. Metal picks up even the slightest vibrations.

He doesn't mean it, but you don't pull your punch.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Stupid brother. You know better than that."

You expect a fight. Instead, he smiles and gets up from the ground. That curve again. Vertebra by vertebra. Head last, lingering down. Guilty; locked in blame. Will he always look down at you, always taking the weight of blame onto his shoulders? No wonder he bends. When he finally lifts his head, he turns. Smiles. Gives you that reassuring tilt of neck and shoulder. "Yeah, I guess I do. Sorry 'bout that, Al. Hey, let's go grab something to eat."

For now, that is enough.

*

Ed insists on buying lunch at the bazaar, and you can't find a reason to argue. It's an opportunity to sense vicariously. To experience through your brother's eyes and nose, tongue and skin. You watch Ed point to waxy cheeses, fatty hams. He gestures to loaves wrapped in brown paper. Merchants slice vegetables, stacking them onto the sides of the bread.

"Mmm, looks good." Your brother's practically drooling now.

"Are you sure you're going to eat all that, Brother? That's a really big sandwich."

"Who are you calling so small that he can't fit anything bigger than a pea into his super-tiny mouth?"

You should have expected that reaction, but still manage to be surprised. "That's not what I said!" you say, raising your hands.

Out of the corner of his eye, your brother notices the sandwich-man dip his knife into a small jar. "Oy, no mustard! Leave that yellow crap off my sandwich! Didn't I tell you—"

You leave your distracted brother to his sandwich and wander a few stalls down. Fishscales flick sunlight against your armor, which bounces it back. Everything glows with lunchtime light, all pale yellow and shimmering like a raw egg.

When orange jumps into your vision—another strange thing to you, since you're not using eyes so much as energy—you feel yourself drawn toward it. A flower turning to the noonday sun.

"Interested in some blood oranges, sir? They're extra sweet this year," the woman says.

You remember blood oranges. Smaller than regular oranges, with flesh tinted berry in taste and color. They were a treat, of course; too expensive for everyday, Mother had only gotten them for you and your brother on special occasions. The first time you two did alchemy together, she gave you three each. Unprecedented treats.

You glance at the price. The oranges are cheaper here in Central, since they don't have as far to travel. Still pricier than regular fruit.

"How much for a bag?" you ask.

*

Before your brother goes to bed, you place the sack in his hands.

"What's this?"

"Open it, but don't look inside."

"Al, what are you—"

"Just stick your nose in," you say.

"Whatever." He opens the top of the bag, sniffs. Stops. Looks confused. Sniffs again. Sticks his face in the opening at the top, inhales. Chest expanding, like a fruit growing ripe with juice. When he lifts his head and opens his eyes, the ghost of his ten-year-old self—the boy before the taboo—shines behind his eyes.

"Oh, Al." Rapturous. You'd love for him to speak like that to you all the time. "Where did you find these?"

"In the bazaar while you were getting your sandwich. So, you like them?"

"God, I remember these." He clutches the bag of fruits against his chest. "Remember, Al? Mother used to give us them as treats! We'd stay up watching the stars—"

"—and you'd always get the red stuff stuck in your teeth," you chime in, voice quick with excitement. "You always made jokes that you were going to eat me up, and Mother would never know because she'd think you were eating blood oranges."

"Yeah," he sighs, "and you always sucked on the wedges until they were pink, and then you chewed the pulp until it disappeared. You had to extract everything from them. Even when you were little, you were very methodical." The ghost retreats. "Just like your alchemy."

"Brother..."

He takes an orange from the bag, carefully peels it. "This was easier when I was a kid. When I didn't have automail." His metal fingers fumble the sunset-kissed rind.

"Do you ever wonder where your mind goes when you sleep?"

You don't sleep anymore, but you can retreat (inward) to a place where you can focus on your inner thoughts. Not here, but there. (That-place, not this-place.) You're not sure if it's is a dreamscape, or that place poets go to write (didn't you read about that once?), or just elsewhere—focus is clearer there, and you find your thoughts take on tangible forms—but you are safe.

(There.) Your brother is whole. Beautiful, but in a different way. With automail, you see him as like a relic dug from the earth. Each scar: a story of how he (you) survived and came into your possession. The metal gives him edges and points you want to smooth. Polish. But that requires sanding. Grinding. You don't want to harm him.

Before you (here; this-place), your brother separates a pink-red wedge from the orange and places it into his mouth. "I think it's like when you meditate. Remember? Your mind abandons surface problems to focus on larger, more abstract problems."

Before you (there; that-place), he stands in front of you, and he is whole (flesh). Restored. He reaches out for you and holds you close. You can feel heated skin folding around you. You whistle coolness across his neck, and the skin prickles. Blood orange skin.

(Here.) "But don't you think we're always working on those larger problems? Didn't our teacher say something about the 'bower of the mind,' the place where we're always working on problems? I mean, isn't that where inspiration comes from?"

Ed (—there—) smells like oranges and copper. His limbs are whole (flesh), not automail. You wonder if you're smelling the blood rushing inside him.

"Brother." Your mouth and tongue curl around the syllables. (Velvet rind. Soil rubbed into dimpled flesh.) He tastes like a rind. Bitter yet soft. You can taste soil. This was borne from the earth.

(God, I remember these. Remember, Al? Mother used to give us them as treats! We'd stay up watching the stars—)

He (—here again—) snorts, pops another reddish slice into his mouth. "That's sentimental bullshit. Sounds like something a poet would say. Hey, didn't a poet say that? Something about building a space in your mind to invite inspiration in." He thinks for a second. "Yeah, I remember. She did make us read that. The poet's bower."

(There,) (you'd always get the red stuff stuck in your teeth. You always made jokes that you were going to eat me up, and Mother would never know because she'd think you were eating blood oranges.)

You wonder if (when) your brother is whole, if he will make good on his taunts. If he will eat you up. Swallow you whole. You feel like that already—swept up in his energy, tuned into his movements. Would he touch you, hold you? (Like an orange.) Peel you down to your flesh, press you into his mouth to coax sweetness from your pulp.

(Here.) "She wanted us," you venture, "to see how other people—not just alchemists—dealt with complexity. I think he said something about capability, too."

"Negative capability," your brother says. "The idea that the poet—or rather, as I suspect she was thinking, all humans—are capable of eliminating his personality in order to assume other qualities and personalities. Thus allowing him to write from a place he could not be, and write as he would not write."

(In that-place,) (you always sucked on the wedges until they were pink, and then you chewed the pulp until it disappeared.)

"I thought you hated those lessons."

"I did. Still do. That's why they won't fucking leave my brain." He presses his thumb into the dimpled top of another orange, pulls the flesh apart. No worrying, this time, about the skin, you notice. He just wants flesh. Juice. Something sweet to run down his throat, texture between his teeth and on his tongue.

(You had to extract everything from them. Even when you were little, you were very methodical.)

"I don't believe that shit for a second. You can't separate ego from alchemy. It's why we're damned." He squishes half an orange against his face. Lips sticky. What you wouldn't give to taste it as he does. Off his mouth.

"Do you really believe we're damned, Brother? You don't really think that." Certainly not (there, in that-place—?). Sin has no meaning, you think, when love is involved. Right? When there become here, when you and him are together. Is it a sin that you think this way?

You wonder where you are again.

"Gah, it's too late to be philosophical." He stretches, pulls the tie from his hair. The braid unravels in waves. Golden wheat. Seeds. Pale inner flesh of the fading sunset-orange. No. That makes no sense. Your images blur together; you make no(n) sense.

(Just like your alchemy.)

(Where is this) where Ed comes to you, holds you against him, whispers, "Let's just go to bed. Together." (?) Is it the place you built inside, the bower where you have all the negative capability in the world? The place where you can peel your brother's vest and pants away. Smell the earth in his mouth. See the sun in his eyes. Touch the root of his being, pull it up and away, to you. From the earth. Reclaiming what is yours. Flesh. And yet giving it back to him.

"Al, are you okay?"

"Mmm." You nod. "Just thinking."

"Yeah, well, try not to think like that when we're going to bed. You'll worry me, and then I'll spend all night thinking about what it could possibly be. And then I'll never sleep, I'll be cranky, and I'll bitch at the world."

Saving the world from your brother. You chuckle a little. "Okay."

"Let's just go to bed. Together."

"Together?"

"Yeah, I expect those oranges cost a small fortune. Sharing a bed will offset some of the cost."

"No, it's okay, Brother. I don't really sleep, so I can sit on the floor."

Ed frowns, puts his hands on his hips. "Bullshit. No brother of mine is getting kicked out of bed. Get in, or else."

You climb in, wonder if you've even left the bower.

If he knew where you really went, where you slept, he would laugh. Or pretend it wasn't true. Perhaps the alchemist can't, you think, separate ego from the act of alchemy. But if that's true, then where do you go when you've been separated from yourself in an act of alchemy? Were you ever separated at all?

"Hey, Al."

"Hmm?"

"What do you do when you, umm...you know. 'Sleep.' Is that why you asked?"

"Yeah, I guess. When I sleep, I think mostly. And meditate. I think about lots of things, like how to get your body back."

"Heh. That's why you like that poet's-bower-negative-capability stuff so much. Don't worry about it, Al. I'll figure it out. That's my job."

"Mmm." You have no other answer, except silence.

"...and thank you for the oranges."

"You're welcome."

As he drifts off to sleep, you notice a sliver of white rind in his hair. Brother is a messy eater. You reach and brush it away; he grabs your hand and presses his lips to the web between thumb and forefinger on your gauntlet. You know that he is dreaming of oranges. You. Sunlight dying, fireflies. The past. The future. Your flesh. His flesh. He mumbles in his sleep (—a broken sound—), and you realize that he's trying to pull you into and onto himself. Support your weight, the weight of everyone's sin.

Bend, like an orange branch under the weight of heavy fruit. Outside, the stars fade into dew. Inside (you) the sun glows autumn, like gold in your brother's veiled eyes.

Your brother is the most pious person you know. Even in his sleep, he curls. Like he is praying. Now like wilting petals. He supports so much. Red, the color of his sin. Cold metal in the shape of a boy.

The bumps of his spine remind you of oranges; you wonder if he dreams in blood orange. Without speaking, you press your other hand there, feel the rough-smooth texture of both skins. (Here, and there.) As he sleeps, voice quieting to a content sigh under your synthetic touch, you realize he is right. You can never separate your ego from his alchemy, and you don't want to. You just want elsewhere to be here—this-place—so you can press Ed's orange-blossom mouth to yours and breathe (childhood summers) alchemy into him again. So you never have to leave.


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