This was done for the FMA_Fic_Contest. I actually won (well, tied for) third place! It took me 2 entries, but I finally placed! I was so happy!
Title: No Way Out
Author: Seaweed_FMA
Word Count: 250
Rating: PG to be safe
Characters: Jean Havoc
Summary: The pain was the only thing that he had left.
Note: Spoilers for chapter 38 in the manga.
All he could think about when he awoke was the pain. It scorched through his body, every excruciatingly agonizing nerve throbbed with the smallest movement. He was acutely aware that the pain stopped below his belly, but he was so heavily drugged that his mind couldn't process why.
When the nurse came in, he'd been drifting in and out of sleep for what seemed like an eternity. He had no concept of time, only moments of when it hurt a little less. She tenderly pressed her cool hand on his clammy, feverish brow, the human contact giving him a brief respite from his loneliness.
What had been unbearable pain fell to a dull ache by the time he stopped swimming in and out of consciousness a few days later. He was now crystal clear about why he only had pain in the upper half of his body.
In the long hours when he stared at the ceiling and tried not to let the Colonel's snoring annoy him to the point of throwing something to either smother or wake him, he had time to think about what his life was, and what it had become.
Weeks later, he still wasn't sure if he'd come to terms with his injury. He was stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, relegated to working in his parent's shop.
As Jean stared out the window, he wondered if it'd been better if he had bled out in the bowels of Laboratory Five.