[heid/ed; elricest; r] Confession Title: Confession Pairing: Implied HeidxEd, hinted Elricest Author:emilie_burns Rating: R Wordcount: 844 Warnings: Implied yaoi, implied incest, mild sexual references, mild, allegorical usage of biblical context, movie spoilers. Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) is copyrighted by Hiromu Arakawa/Square Enix. This is a work of fanfiction for personal entertainment only. Written for Kaltia. Summary:Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned. It has been too long since my last confession. Original LJ Post Date: February 09, 2006 @ Chaotic_Library
Confession
Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned. It has been too long since my last confession.
Edward Elric simultaneously hated and loved the German countryside. The green rolling hills and the sky a shade of blue so deep and clear it almost hurt to look at it, standing in stark contrast to the white puffs of clouds high above were almost close enough that if he looked at it just so, it was Rizenbul again.
He couldn't look upon it fully. It was like staring into the sun, or the aftermath, a direct gaze showing the tarnish, the dirt, the distorted reminders that no, it was Germany. But out of the corner of his eye, staring down at the grass, he could almost see it. It was so clear, so vivid, so real, that sometimes the wind whistling through the mountains and grass and hills and trees seemed to capture a name. His name. Their voices.
How could something so vivid be false?
Edward closed his eyes and knelt, trying to ignore the obvious lack of feeling in his leg and arm. Trying to ignore what should not have been missing, and he could picture her standing not far away, hanging white sheets in the warm breeze. He could almost hear her humming.
Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned.
It was foolish. There was nothing to accomplish. Hell was not a place of fire and brimstone like so many in that strange new world believed. Hell? This was hell. A home that wasn't home. Old faces, familiar faces, but not the ones he knew. Hell was waking up each morning to his brother's face. His brother's, until those eyes opened. Hell was going through the motions of being alive, of slowly going mad and questioning his own memory.
And what sort of absolution could ever be granted to one cast into hell? Hell was a place beyond the reach of forgiveness, outside the realm of peace. He thought he knew hell before, when he would have traded anything just to return there. How foolish he had been, foolish and proud.
How thou art fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
Bringing back his mother, or bringing back some warped, darkened parody of her, had been his original sin. Every sin which followed compounded it, time after time, again and again.
What was one more sin, really, in the face of everything else? He was already in hell. There was no form of existence which he could comprehend that could possibly be worse.
Sleeping with his brother's face, touching him, kissing him.
He was the worst kind of sinner, he knew.
He cared about Alfons, he did. But... he wasn't Al. He wasn't his brother. Could anyone blame him, if they knew? If they could crawl inside his mind and soul and feel the empty rawness left behind? After everything, all they gave up, all they paid, it came down to this?
Give him back, he's my little brother! I'll give you my legs, my arms, my heart, so give him back! He's the only little brother I have!
And he didn't even know if he succeeded.
Ed stared into the wind, letting it dry his eyes before they could get wet enough for anything to fall. He'd asked him why Ed preferred it when they didn't face one another. Why he kept his eyes shut when they did. Ed had mumbled off some sort of excuse which he couldn't even remember now, and brushed aside the question.
Alfons let it drop, looking at him with those eyes, that expression, everything that was so much like Al that it hurt, and Ed hated himself all the more even as he pulled the other man close, the other one, the one who would help him get home to his Al.
And he still couldn't keep his eyes open. Not unless Alfons was facing away, his head turned just enough that Ed could see that face, that beautiful face, his brother's face and oh god, he was fucking his brother. Touching and feeling him, one in flesh because he missed it too much, missed being one in soul, that he couldn't breathe.
His brother.
What would Al say if he knew? What would their mother say?
Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned.
And the worst part of all was in the knowing, the certainty that the condemnation would not come from the actions of his heart, but instead in the actions of the flesh. It wasn't fair to Alfons. He knew that. He knew. And he knew that would be the source of their disappointment more than anything.
Anger, he could always take.
Disappointment was a million shades worse.
And even in the knowing, he felt angry. Who was anyone to judge him, when they couldn't understand the special level of pure hell where he'd fallen? If this was hell, then the natives of the world were there to ensure his torment.
They were doing a damn fine job of it, even as he let them soothe the very wounds they made.
He was already a sinner. Fallen and cast aside, tattered and tarnished.