Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Please, Observe ❯ Please, Observe ( One-Shot )

Please, observe

It's wet

And they are

Not yet cold

It's wet

And the red water

Is still awfully warm

Please, observe

These are my friends

And this is what

Happens to my friends

These are my friends

And you are not

So you are alive

Please, observe

Look here

And see -

Don't forget

Look here

And remember:

Don't be my friend.

Please, observe

-

He had gotten up at the call and come out to work, but he wasn't there. Oh, yes, his body was there, but his mind had left him and wandered off to wherever it was minds went at times like this. She wasn't sure if he knew what he was talking about, even knew what he was doing. Oh, sure, his hands were as deft as always and the words he spoke were his, but his eyes - those handsome, dark eyes - were opaque and dull. They stared through everything, not seeing what was really there and refusing to register what was happening, even though he acted as if he knew what was going on.

She didn't like that. She didn't like that sort of detachment, the way that he handled himself in this situation. It wasn't right, she thought, for him to distance himself from the goings-on. He needed to come to terms with what had happened, and he needed to do so quickly. There was a lot that was happening that could benefit him and push him closer to his goal.

But, for the first time, he didn't seem to be thinking about his goal, wasn't even trying to push forward. In fact, he had retreated into himself, and his body had become his first line of defence against the outside world. She wanted to reach inside of him, pull him out and make him face the grief that the world contained, but there was something stopping her that she couldn't quite place.

She watched as he nudged the body with the toe of his boot, watched the way his eyes flickered momentarily with a painful light. It was unusually quiet for an investigation scene, and the silence hung over the small party just as a storm cloud about to drop its rain would. Again she watched as he nudged his friend's body only to see his eyes fall to the wound and the drying blood. Acute dismay flashed across his face for a moment, and she noticed his hands twitch slightly.

There was, in this new gaze that the colonel gave his friend's body, a certain amount of horrified familiarity. He had seen this before somewhere, but she was unsure if he knew that this was a different scene. The colonel shook his head, shoved his hands deep within his pockets, and then turned away from the telephone booth; his eyes were confused, as if he couldn't quite understand, didn't quite know why he was seeing what he was. He walked off a few paces and stared into space, at some point that only he could see.

The investigation of the scene moved on without him; the world rushing by around him, and he did not see. For him, for the colonel, the world had stopped, had been thrown from the road just like a fledgling falling from its high perch in its tree. Dark, dull eyes gazed out into the rising sun and did not see. Finally, after hours, he spoke, as if he was speaking to spectres come to play in the hazy morning sun, in a quiet, heavy voice.

"Please, observe," he whispered, motioning to Maes Hughes' body, "what happens to my friends…"

His head then had dropped down to his chest, and she had thought for an instant that he had fallen asleep. She knew he needed to sleep. He hadn't slept that night, had stayed up at headquarters, waiting to be allowed out of the building while a safety platoon had been deployed to make sure the scene and city were safe, waiting for news. She soon realized that he wasn't asleep, but was staring out into the distance at that point that only he could see.

After a few, tense moments, the colonel turned his eyes to the side, flicked his gloved fingers, and lit a bush on fire. They all stared at it, wondering why the colonel had done that, some wondering if they should have questioned his sanity then. He gazed into the crackling flame, made it roar in life until the greedy fire ate away at its wooden fuel. A thin, mournful smile graced over his lips.

As the fire died, he whispered, "These are my friends."