#anyway ao3 says both this and the previous cos fic are both 1110 words

[presumenothing]

observer effect (it’s not rocket science)

yet more cos fic, this time caused specifically by @anthropwashere twice over: firstly because my brain looked at “ed and alfons having a nice day OR a story about the man in the tan jacket” and decided it’d take 2/3 of that, and secondly for egging me on this trainwreck.

(no wtnv knowledge required, but this is otherwise cos canon compliant so like. you know what happens to alfons)

AO3

i.

“I told you they wouldn’t remember me. What, did you think I was lying about that?” Edward asks, bemused, like curiosity is really the only weight in those words.

If there’s a sensible or even sane way to answer that, Alfons doesn’t know it, and anyway that’s beside the point. “But people shouldn’t be able to just… forget you completely, the second you’re not standing in front of them. That’s just impossible.”

“As impossible as a world with alchemy?” The retort is even more offhand than before but any lightness is gone now.

It always comes back to this, and for once Alfons doesn’t have a blithely cheerful rejoinder about how alchemy is unscientific and Edward should know better.

It’s all impossible. Edward is impossible.

“Look, I don’t know why you’re so concerned about this, but I already said I’d split the rent and you know I don’t go back on my word.” Edward pushes his chair back and grabs his coat before Alfons can say anything about how he really doesn’t know that, no matter how baselessly certain Edward seems convinced of the opposite. “I’m going out for some fresh air, don’t wait up.”

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ii.

The man in the brown overcoat.

That’s all anyone ever seems able to recall of Edward, from Miss Gracia to their colleagues in the research group to everyone else – except, apparently, Alfons himself.

Alfons had chalked it up to everything circumstantial at first, had assumed that people simply didn’t remember Edward well enough because of how he steers clear of most conversation like he’s allergic to it, but eventually even he’d had to accept that as inaccurate.

It’s not that people don’t remember Edward; it’s that they can’t.

He’d verified it himself on multiple occasions, disparate enough that it couldn’t possibly be a practical joke Edward was pulling on him (not that he’d seemed likely to bother), and no one had been able to give more than the vaguest description even if they did know who Alfons was talking about.

Almost as if Edward is some forgettable bit part in a twelve-act performance, but the thing is that’s wrong. Edward is memorable, has been ever since they first met in that lab in Romania (and in retrospect it makes sense now why Dr. Oberth had been so uncharacteristically unspecific in describing who he was bringing Alfons to meet until they were already there).

So he always comes back to the same two questions – why can’t anyone else remember Edward, and why is he the only exception?

(And a third question, but Alfons already knows the answer to that one: it’s a bane about as often as it is a boon, to look away from Edward and still remember him.)

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iii.

Noah is the first person he hears mentioning Edward by name when he’s nowhere around, and it doesn’t strike Alfons how completely strange it is until then, his attention snapping up and away from the newspaper he’d been idly glancing through.

“You look surprised.” Noah’s words run contrary to the knowing in her expression.

Alfons rewinds the last minute of conversation in his head – and there, yes, she’d definitely mentioned Edward in far less vague terms than he’s ever heard from anyone besides himself. “No one else remembers him. I mean, they remember someone, sure, but…”

“Just not Ed,” Noah concludes over Alfons’ floundering, and he nods.

“You’re the only one I’ve ever heard mentioning him specifically when he’s out of sight.”

Noah takes her time with answering, returning the folded linens to the cupboard. “I wondered. I saw some of it, you see, when Miss Gracia was lending me her clothes.”

Saw–? Ah, Alfons realises before he can ask. The clairvoyance thing.

Is that why she can properly perceive Edward? Perhaps it takes one unscientific thing to undo another, but Alfons isn’t ready to discard logic just yet. “What did you see?” he asks, as neutrally as he can.

“As you said. There’s an outline of a person there, it’s just… not occupied.” Noah sits back down at the table, folding her hands together. “What does Ed think about this?”

Alfons can’t help the bitter twist to his words. “Oh, believe me, he’s not even bothered about it.”

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iv.

Here’s the other thing: anyone else, even Alfons himself, might’ve done mischief with the knowledge that they’d be invisible to anyone trying to remember them.

The person Edward speaks of in his stories – the person he is in his stories – would surely have.

But here and now?

Alfons looks at the way Edward just grins and waves it off when one of the others forgets to buy his share for lunch again, the way his eyes only ever light up these days when talking about his damned world, the way his attention just skims over them all, and thinks to himself have you ever considered that maybe the world – my world, this world that could be yours – is only returning in full measure your utter disinterest in it?

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v.

Even Eckhart, for all her obsession with Shamballa, doesn’t seem immune to the effect of Edward’s existence because she forgets him the moment he falls out of her sight, shot and sending Alfons’ pulse racing despite himself until he sees the bullet lodged in the prosthetic arm.

And that… that just says it all, doesn’t it? If the Thule Society can’t remember Edward even after opening a door to the other world, to Edward’s world, then why can Alfons?

It’s an answer he suspects Edward has – possibly has always had, but he’d never asked before and he doesn’t ask now either, only says don’t forget and means both that and I will remember you if only because I have to.

Then the bullet hits, because the rocket had still gone up even if no one but Noah will be able to remember who was in it.

But there’s more confusion than there would’ve been, otherwise, long enough that in between one breath and the next Alfons knows when Edward must’ve arrived back in his world because every memory of him suddenly flashes from faded to full colour, like lifting away a smog he hadn’t known was there before.

He wonders if this means everyone else will be able to remember Edward now, too. Hopes the answer is yes because it’s all impossible anyway but at least there can be this, because it hadn’t been Edward’s choice to leave after all but Alfons won’t be around to remember him much longer.

You keep your word, don’t you? Then don’t forget, Alfons thinks, sharp as the newly-seen catch of sunlight on Edward’s hair, and dies remembering.