Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist.

A/N: A drabble that doesn't quite fit the criteria of Blood Brothers or I Wouldn't Know. Mhmm, tell me anything you want to tell me. :)

I'm Fine

The funny thing about lying was that if you told a lie enough, people didn't even care if it was a lie or not. You could be the worst liar in the entire world, eventually everyone would just recognize that the truth wasn't worth the effort. They'd give up, they would tell themselves they hadn't, but they really had.

The words "I'm fine." were permanently ground into the slate of his soul.

Edward wasn't an idiot. (In fact, he was quite the opposite.) He knew that they didn't believe him, that they took the words in and then thought to themselves "No, no he's not." while they shook their heads. They didn't tell him though. Didn't call him out on it. So how could he ever learn, really? They never once corrected him, never once opted to prove him wrong.

He wasn't lying to them anyway.

If no one could prove him wrong, than who's to say he wasn't right.

They didn't understand. It was like they didn't want him to be fine. If they would just believe him when he said he was (and he was, he believed it, so he was) then it would be so much easier to be fine. And he needed to be fine. No. He had to be. (He was.) It was absolutely imperative that he be fine.

There was no time not to be.

(There was no time.)

He could feel every minute as it passed by. Each more tortuously slow than the last, and yet, at the same time, it seemed like everything was going too fast. (His life was flashing before his eyes.)

I'm fine.

How many hours are there in a day?

Exactly.

Now imagine how many minutes there are in an hour, and how many seconds there are in a minute, and how many centiseconds there are in a second, milliseconds in a centisecond, microseconds in a millisecond, nanoseconds, picoseconds, femtoseconds, attoseconds, zeptoseconds, yoctoseconds –

Eighty-six-trillion-four-billion. That's eleven zeroes, eleven, all after an eight-six-four.

He could feel the time passing, wasting away. He could feel his body dying around him, crumbling, changing, shedding, always. (He'd probably never grow old and die.) He hated himself for it. How would you do it?

Explain in words to someone who cannot feel, how it feels? (To die?)

Metaphors and similes, they were jokes. A soft breeze like a baby's touch. That was spiteful – wasn't it? To describe something you touch with something you touch? (To describe something so big with something so small?) Is there another way? How do you describe a feeling with a sound, a physical feeling – with a scent, taste, sight – with a sound?

Can't you feel the vibrations pulse through your skin? Sense the audible connection all around you?

I'm fine.

He's not. (And he won't be, not until Al is.)

So stop asking.

They don't actually care if he's fine anyway. If they cared they would stop him (wouldn't they?), talk to him (wouldn't they?), listen to him (wouldn't they?). They just accepted.

Lies, all of it. There was, after all, only one real truth.

No, not that one.

This one, he would get Al's body back.

Everything would be fine again.

(He wouldn't have to lie, they wouldn't have to pretend not to care – because didn't they?)

He would make everything fine.

(He'd make Al fine.)

I'm fine.

"No, you're not."

Edward froze, and his golden eyes gazed up at Alphonse with the tiniest bit of happiness he could allow himself forced into those bright hues. He looked at Alphonse as if he was the greatest thing in the world.

He was though, to Ed, wasn't he?

"Thanks, Al."