FMA belongs to Hiromu Arakawa. I make no money by writing fanfiction.
A/N: This one is mangaverse, pholks. I don't want anime fans yelling "Gary Stu" at me. Ling is valid and the manga is better than the anime anyway.
Of Sick Days and Soup
Ed always knew when he had a head cold coming on. Being a scientist, he'd made a list of indicators. The first thing that happened was always that he'd get a particular buzzing in his right ear. Next came a general un-sharpening of his reflexes. After that was slight sinus pressure and finally the feeling that something was trying to suck his eyeballs out with a huge soda straw. At this point he knew that if he was getting cold easily it was time to find some place to hole up for the duration. As annoying as it was to be stuck in bed with a cold, his automail made it harder for his body to regulate its temperature, as Winry had literally pounded into his brain. The one time he'd tried to ignore this, he'd ended up in a hospital with a dangerously high fever.
Ed groaned and shivered, every last symptom, and no sign that it was just going to blow over. Rather annoyed by this, Ed showed no mercy to the hotel manager who decided to make a passing comment on his height.
"WHO'S SO INFINITESIMALLY SMALL THAT A LITTLE MICROBE COULD TAKE HIM DOWN WITH ONE HAND TIED BEHIND ITS BACK?"
Al, forcibly restraining his flailing sibling, sighed and pointed out, "Brother, I really don't think that germs have hands."
After getting a room in an un-traumatized hotel – you really should learn to control yourself, Brother – Ed piled every blanket in the room onto his bed and snuggled down, hoping to stop the shivering. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could sleep this off now and not have to deal with bed rest.
The next morning – afternoon, actually, as he'd slept right into the P.M. – Ed woke to a pounding headache. It felt like his sinuses had been filled with cotton and someone had replaced his brain with a raging chimera. When he tried to breathe through his nose, he couldn't even make an annoying snerky sound, no airway through his sinuses at all. Fuck. That meant four days in bed at the very least.
At this point, Ed's stomach pointed out that, having slept until afternoon, Ed had missed breakfast and was probably late on lunch, too. Ed's head pointed out that moving was a bad idea. When Ed tried to yell to Al to find him something to eat, his throat decided that a little raspy noise was all it wanted to make.
Needless to say, Ed was rather less than ecstatic to see Ling, of all people, come into the room. His opinion of Ling was somewhat improved by the steaming bowl in the Xingan's hands, but not enough to help.
"Whassat?" He croaked, a delicate, neuron-killing combination of muzzy and groggy keeping him from coming up with anything more intelligent.
"Hot and sour soup," Ling said, sitting on the edge of Ed's bed like he belonged there, "It's very good for colds." He added, offering the bowl to Ed.
"You can cook?" Ed asked, sitting up a little and glaring dubiously at the proffered food, "Why the hell am I always buying you food if you can cook?"
"I didn't cook it," Ling smiled, offering the blond a spoon.
"If you have money to buy soup then why do I have to pay for your meals?" Ed huffed, ignoring the spoon.
"I didn't buy it either. I told Al the recipe." Ling put the spoon into the bowl and offered the soup to Ed again.
"Goddamned mooch." And then, over his stomach's loud protests, "I'm not eating that Xing shit."
Ling's smile didn't falter. "If you are too weak to hold the bowl, I can feed it to you." His magnanimous look was almost as infuriating as the spoonful of hot soup being pressed to Ed's lips. Ed kept his mouth firmly shut.
"Ah, perhaps you need to be fed mouth to mouth," Ling acknowledged with an understanding and gracious air.
"Gimme that, goddamned lecherous mooch." Ed said, grabbing the bowl from Ling's hands. "What's this shit?" He asked, poking the spoon at some spongy, stringy, yellow-white substance.
"Eggs, they look like that when they're boiled." Ling said patiently.
"And this crap?"
"Tofu: soy bean curd."
"Is that a stick?"
"It's bamboo shoots."
"What's this slimy black thing, then, diced leech?"
"Shitake mushroom. None of this is poison; I can eat some if you're scared."
"I'm not scared of some shit-mushroom." Ed growled, taking a violent taste of the soup. The blond boy paused, blinked, and then ate a more subdued spoonful, chewing a bamboo shoot thoughtfully, "Huh, this stuff is actually okay." And then he lit into the meal with gusto, finishing the bowl off in two minutes and sending Ling, who gave a rather put-upon sigh, for more.
Four bowls of hot and sour soup later and Ed decided that, now that he was full, he'd take a nap, and there had damned well better be more of that Xing soup ready when he woke up for dinner.
Two days later, a pretty much fully restored Edward denied that the 'shit-mushroom soup' had made him feel any better than, say, a ham and cheese sandwich would have, but Al memorized the recipe anyway.