Damaged People.
OR
Each Occupation has its Hazards, and You Happen to Be Mine.
We're damaged people.
Drawn together,
By subtleties that we are not aware of.
Disturbed souls,
Playing out forever,
These games that we once thought we would be scared of.
Prologue. Initial Exchange.
He paces back and forth, the utter epitome of anxiety. Central Headquarters' military hospital waiting room is around him, but he is in his own world. The room is fairly empty. The only other occupants of this room are a family of three. The smallest of that family, a young girl around three or four with curly blonde hair, is staring at him, or rather his arm. He realizes on a higher level of consciousness that he never reverted it back from its blade form, but does nothing about it. There is nothing he is physically capable of doing, besides pacing. He wonders vaguely why this has to happen him; hadn't he lost enough already? He frowns and pushes the thought away of what he'll do if everything turns out for the worst in there, behind the mysterious doors that led to the emergency rooms.
A doctor emerges from the realm beyond those double doors. Edward pauses in his despondent movements to cast a hopeful eye on the medic. The medic glances at the boy, looking him up and down, but averts his eyes quickly as he continues to the family. Edward sighs, and continues trekking about the waiting room. He hears rather than sees the doctor utter a few low words to the family, and the woman, a blonde lady with a nose identical to the little girl's, bursts into tears. He turns to face them, retracing his steps, and can tell, however, from the relieved grin on the man's face that they are happy sobs. The doctor motions his thumb towards the doors, and the woman nods eagerly. The doctor smiles faintly and crosses back through the gateway that Edward longs to breach. The family follows shortly, the woman reciting the room number of their loved one over and over aloud. He nods at the tall, thickish man as they pass.
These people, he knows, are exceptions to the rule of this waiting room. The unwritten rule that says those who enter shall not leave happy. In the past hours, he'd seen women break into pieces, children have to ask if their parents are better and then see the confused look on their face at the negative, and boys around his age lash out at messengers of bad news. He wonders if he would react like this. He shakes away the thought again, and turns to claim the family's vacated chairs. His brother does not know about the assassination attempt yet, but Edward can't stand the thought of missing news while he is calling the boy at their friend's Risembool home. So he waits eagerly in his too-bright blue plastic seat. The pristine atmosphere of the waiting area holds o distraction for him, so he watches the young man behind the desk for a while. The boy is around seventeen or eighteen, just older than himself. He has dark red hair and flawless skin. He is reading a science fiction novel, completely unaware to the depressing nature of the room around him. Under different circumstances (circumstances, he reminds himself sternly, in which I wasn't taken), he might have been attracted to the boy. It was a fact little known that the FullMetal Alchemist, "Hero of the People", preferred men. (Or rather, he again tells himself, one man in particular.) At the moment, however, this boy was not of any extreme interest. Getting information out of the doctor that had just came into the waiting room, however, was.
The doctor makes quick, determined steps towards the boy he could only assume was Major Edward Elric's direction. This was the part of the job the doctor had never cared for. Edward stood up as the doctor neared.
"Any news, doctor?" Edward asks hopefully. He looks expectantly at the older man, who in turn adjusts his glasses.
"Well, yes." The doctor finally responds, avoiding the subject. He coughs, and then says in a calm, yet not exactly kind voice "We, or, well, er, I regret to inform you, Mr. Elric, that your, ehm, commanding officer didn't make it."
Edward stares. He realizes that though he had seen the doctor's lips moving, he hadn't quite computed the noise that had come from his mouth. "How's that, doctor?"
The doctor sighs, and takes off his glasses entirely, and rubs them against his sleeve. Upon replacing him, he looks Edward square in the eye.
"You are the party accompanying Colonel Roy Mustang, are you not?" Edward nods his affirmation.
"We did the very best that we could, but with the pierce wounds directly through his heart like that, you know, there wasn't much that we could do."
Edward blinks once, twice. Does that mean...? It was all over? There was no hope left? He would never see the Colonel again?
"Oh." Edward says numbly. He shakes his head. He hadn't allowed himself to imagine the possibility that the colonel wouldn't make it, simply because it was too painful. Now he wasn't quite sure what reaction to have.
"Yes," the doctor replies, looking at him strangely. "Listen son, are you sure you're alright? Do we need to get someone to take you home?"
"No, I'm fine." Edward lies. He knows perfectly well that he isn't alright, because no one who was even halfway sane acted like this in the middle of a crisis. The doctor looks at him uncertainly, adjusting his glasses again.
"There are very many fine individuals in the military, son. Your new commanding officer will, I'm sure, be just as fair." The doctor says awkwardly. He hadn't gone into this profession because of his people skills, that was certain. Edward fights back a snort at the man's ignorance. Roy had been more than a commanding officer, after all.
"Right. Okay." Edward nods instead. "I guess I'll go home now."
"Ah, well, ah, alright then, I suppose." The doctor says. He adjusts his glasses once again. Frowning, Edward reaches over and plucks the glasses from the man's face. He silently drops them to the ground and steps on them as he exits out the main entrance to the hospital's emergency care center. The doctor stares after him in disbelief.
The journey back to his place of residence was either very short, or very very long. Home it could no longer be called; his home had just died for the second time in his life with the existence of an older loved one. His thoughts consumed him, but more flashes than gave him solid moments to make opinions from them. He was in shock, to say in the least. He reached their military housing, a rather nice, if not original town house located on base. It was one of the nicer buildings because of Mustang's rank; Edward would only have earned himself a shabby apartment in the military dorms. The front door was locked, but Edward didn't bothering going around the house to grab the spare key. He used his arm, still transformed into a blade, and sliced the hinges in half. The door fell forward, and Edward stepped on it as he entered the peculiarly silent home. He hadn't been here in over three weeks, but the familiar setting brought him no solace. Without transmuting the door back to it's proper state, he could feel the night air sweep around him in the foyer. It registered in his mind among the thousands of pixel-like thoughts in his head that it was dark. He went into to living room and started a fire in the fireplace, painstakingly slow. His handiwork finished, Edward retreated to a blue sofa that sat opposite the fireplace, where he and Roy had spent several nights after a hard day's work, talking, bantering, or just enjoying not being alone. Pictures littered the walls, a very small few of Al, Ed, and Winry as children- those he'd gotten from Pinako. A rather more few were of Roy looking solemn in various smile-less portraits of himself and an obviously well-off immediate family. The majority were of Roy and himself, laughing, at functions with friends, and in some cases just staring at at each other, or even kissing. Edward had said that those pictures, on top of being a danger to the safe-keeping of their secret relationship that only a handful of loyal friends could know about, were tacky and tasteless displays of affection. Really, he had just been shy. Roy had merely smiled and shook his head, hanging up an additional photo.
Roy, who was lost to him.
Roy, who had been murdered today.
Roy, who no longer existed.
He is suddenly plunged head-first into reality, and that reality was this: there was no such thing as Equivalent Exchange. He had lost his mother. He had lost his brother's body. He had lost his limbs. And at one time, he may have been able to tell himself that at least he had met Roy from this. But now even he was gone. And he had gained nothing.
Oh god, Roy.
He sinks to the ground, his arms wrapped around his waist. He stares hopelessly at the wall in front of him, and the picture that meets his eyes projects a full-size Roy, posing as the picture holds him. He grins and then disappears. Each picture his eyes fall upon repeat the trickery, and then the images begin replaying, like a song on repeat, or a broken video. There are Roy Mustangs everywhere, in all directions ion the room, standing and grinning at him. He knows that it's just imagination, that these are hallucinations, so he does not chase after them. But they will not go away. They stay there, laughing, grinning, pointing, smirking. There is no sound, though. Edward stares at the ceiling, hoping to escape these eerie dreams. But they begin to close in on him, and his eyes begin to fill with tears. He blinks, and the tears fall, and suddenly there are no more Roys. They are all gone. The room is as it should be, dimly lit by the flickering flame.
But Roy is still gone.
This time, he can't stop himself, and he begins sobbing quietly.
It's all my fault. If I hadn't insisted on going to Lior, he wouldn't have gone to protect me, and he wouldn't have been assassinated.
If those homunculi had only not lured me back there, so they could get Roy out in the open.
If alchemy didn't exist, the homunculi wouldn't be here in the first place. And Al's body wouldn't be gone, and I wouldn't have to wear this g'damned automail!
He began pounding the ground. The world hated him. It had taken everything from him.
If there wasn't any alchemy, none of this could have happened.
And a funny thing happened, then. Edward Elric's hands hit the ground, fingers splayed, and a light emerged from them. Suddenly, Edward Elric had the power to mold the world with his passion, though he didn't know it. Because, curiously enough, the only way Equivalent Exchange applies is if the alchemist believed in it. And though he'd been taught of it's existence all his life, Equivalent Exchange was now as dead to him as love was. The world underwent an abrupt transformation. Alchemy was non-existent. Wars were stopped. The military no longer ran the world. And Edward Elric... was a junior in high school?
---
A/N: Angsty, ne? I blame it on Conor Oberst. Bright Eyes music was my muse. Actually, not really. This is the second version of this chapter I've written, though the dialog between Edo and the doctor is pretty much word for word what was in the other one. This is a lot better, I must say. Anyway, I sincerely doubt that the rest of this fan fiction is gonna be quite so... waaah. Pity me and pretend that that made sense. And, ehm, if you love me, reviews? I add new chapter when I get reviews! 3
So uhm, yah, in conclusiiiiion!
Reading is good yes, but conversing is better, so click "submit review", or e-mail me a letter!
