Summary: Alphonse is reading "Romeo and Juliet", and Edward, being the kind, caring big brother he is, spoils the ending. Alphonse is less than thrilled. One-shot.

"Ugh, I'm telling you, Colonel Jerk really has it in for me," Edward muttered furiously, flopping onto the couch, hands behind his head, a half-written report left on the coffee table. "Dangit. I nearly finish one report and he's already throwing two more at me. I mean, seriously...it's like that guy lives just to torture us."

Alphonse was seated on another couch across from his brother. He nodded and said "hmm" in agreement, but really, he wasn't paying attention to his fuming older brother. Instead, his armored face was staring down at the book in his metal hands, scanning every word.

"Hey, Al, are you even listening to me?" Edward said, sitting up, attention now solely on the only other person in the room. "Hey, Alphonse!" He waved his hands back and forth over his head. "Earth to Alphonse!"

"Huh?" said Alphonse, finally looking up. "Did you say something?"

Edward groaned loudly and flopped back on the couch. "I might have," he grumbled through his teeth.

"Oh." And Alphonse went straight back to reading, like he no longer acknowledged Edward's presence at all. Edward groaned again, sat up, and swung his legs over the side of the couch.

"What are you reading, anyways?" said Edward, standing and making his way over to his brother. He leaned over the back of the couch, looking over Alphonse's shoulder. "It's gotta be interesting if you're ignoring me for it."

"Oh...it's nothing," said Alphonse, finally acknowledging Ed behind him. "Just something I borrowed from Lieutenant Hawkeye. She said it was a good read, so I decided to see for myself."

Alphonse returned to the words on the pages, and Ed leaned over further, trying to catch a glimpse of them.

"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."

"Ah, so you're reading Shakespeare," said Edward.

"Have you read it, brother?" said Alphonse, holding up the book so Edward could see its title: Romeo and Juliet.

"You bet I have!" said Edward. "Along with everything else that guy wrote. He was a genius."

Alphonse suddenly seemed very interested, even though in the suit of armor it was hard to tell what he was feeling, without facial expressions. "I don't remember you ever reading Shakespeare!" said Alphonse.

"Pfft, of course you don't," said Edward. "I breezed by it all in about a day. I was bored, and we were out of alchemy stuff to study, so…" He frowned, realizing that, once again, Alphonse was no longer listening to him.

"Aaaand never mind," said Edward. He crossed his arms over his chest, furious for more reasons than his report. He sulked for a moment or two, turned away from his brother.

And then, a thought struck him, and he barred his teeth in a villainous, feral grin.

"Hey, Alphonse," he said, leaning back over the couch, "can I tell you a secret?"

Alphonse turned away from the book again, and even though Edward couldn't see his frown, he knew if Al had a body, his frown would be the most prominent part of his face. "What is it, brother?" said Alphonse.

Edward smirked fiendishly. "You know Juliet and Romeo?" he said.

"Yeah?"

"They both die in the end."

Alphonse let out a gasp of horror. "No...no, you're lying!" he said. "They can't die, they're the lead characters!"

"That never stopped Shakespeare before," said Edward. "See for yourself, Alphonse! Go read the ending!"

"I'm not listening!" said Alphonse, cuffing his armor hands around his ears. "La la la la la, I'm not listening! I'm not listening because my big brother has a crazy, twisted mind-"

"Deny it all you want!" sang Edward cheerily, skipping out from behind the couch, hands folded behind his back. "It won't change a thing!"

Alphonse gasped again, picked up his book, and began flipping through it frantically, making his way towards the end. All the while, Edward smirked smugly, watching, waiting for…

"NO!"

...There! That! Triumph!

"HOW COULD YOU, BROTHER!?" Alphonse shouted.

"Payback!" said Edward. "For ignoring me earlier! I doubt you'll be doing that aga - GAH!" He ducked, and Alphonse's book whizzed over his head, missing him by mere inches. "Hey! What was that for!? You could kill me, throwing stuff around like that, and I'd be as dead as Romeo and Juli - HEY!"

Alphonse had gotten up from his seat, and now, he grabbed the book off the ground and swung it at Ed's head. "Take it back!" demanded Alphonse. "Take, it, back!"

Edward laughed, ducking against his brother's blow. "NEVER!" And cackling madly, he sped from the room, tearing down the long hallway, pursued by his furious little brother.

"I said to take it back!"

"Hahahahahaha! Make me!"

Unfortunately, Alphonse seemed to have every intention of doing just that, and he caught up with his brother in almost record time. He raised the thick, heavy book threateningly, and then...

THUMP!

"Oww!" Edward shouted, reaching up to rub his bruised head after tumbling to the floor. "Ow, ow, ow! Why would you-"

THUMP!

"Oy! Give it a rest! Stop whacking me, you idiot! I'm still your older brother!"

"You're evil! You're pure evil!"

"No! I'm hilarious! And you know it!"

THUMP!

"HEY! THAT REALLY HURT!"

Unbeknownst to the Elric brothers, they had an audience. Roy Mustang, Hawkeye, Havoc, and Hughes had arrived at the scene, and now they watched with somewhat shock and somewhat amusement as Alphonse smacked Edward repeatedly upside the head with a hardback copy of the famous Shakespeare play.

"Um...should we help them?" Havoc asked no one in particular.

"OUCH! OKAY, OKAY, YOU GOT ME, AL, NOW CUT IT - ACK!"

"No," said Roy, chuckling. "They're just fine."

"JERK!"

Author's Notes:

I suppose in a way this has to be seen in an AU sort of thing, because I doubt Shakespeare exists in the FMA universe, but I still had the idea and I still wanted to use it somewhere, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. :) And besides, I hate getting spoiled on movies/books/mangas/TV shows, so I feel Alphonse's pain. Sorry, Al. XD

Anyways, I really don't have much to say besides that; only that I had a whole lot of fun writing this, and that I hope you all enjoyed it, too! XD Thank you all for reading! Leave me a review if you want! :D

Cheers! ("Oh snap, snap! Spark, spark! It's time to light up the diggy-diggy dark!" XD)

-BeyondTheClouds777