For Ed

[armoured]

Al didn't know how it happened.

One moment the fight was going as usual - sad, when they fought so often that there was a 'usual' way for a fight to go - when all of a sudden everything went south. Al had been distracted fighting Gluttony, the huge homunculus was extremely fast on his feet for someone so large, and he hadn't seen exactly what happened. Only that when the dust cleared, Ed was unconscious and a large pool of blood had been spreading from his head outwards to turn the soil a murky red.

He barely even remembered finishing the fight in a burst of frantic alchemy, Ed scooped up into his arms and borne away as fast as he could carry him. The hours that passed were blurred, confused, terrifying. The doctors got Ed stable, said he would live, but there had been damage to his brain. They wouldn't know the extent of what long term effects there would be, if any, until he woke up.

Three days, three long days in an agony of silence and endless waiting.

In all his fear, though, he never would be prepared for Ed opening his eyes and looking at him without even a flicker of recognition.

Comments

[forfeits]

The first thing Ed sees is the bright lights above his bed, the light sending a searing pain into his head. He closes his eyes tightly again against the pain. His head feels as though it's been dropped into a vice grip, tender and sore as he begins to stir, the bandages around his temples tight and itchy. He's disoriented -- doesn't recognize the walls, the bed, the voices around him. He grips at the sheets tightly, pulls at them to sit up, his stomach twisting nauseously when he does.

Ed can't remember how he got here -- why he's in so much pain, and when he finally opens his eyes again, he lets out a cry of surprise when he sees Alphonse. The suit of armour is unfamiliar -- it's terrifying and he doesn't know why a man in armour would be sitting at his bedside anyway.

"Who... who are you? What the hell did you do to me?!" Ed's voice is ragged from days without use, and although he shouldn't get up (and by all rights shouldn't even be able to), he drags himself into a sitting position, his face going a touch pale with the effort.

"W-what... what is going on here? Where the hell am I?!" He just hope this strange person can't see his hands shaking, can't see the sweat stippled at his brow from the exertion of his movements.