Once upon a time, I joked around with a friend of mine that I kept shoving Ed and Roy off of angst cliffs, and maybe I should actually shove them off a physical cliff for once to see if they could survive! ...two years later, I ask that you ignore this endless nonsense of mine. Enjoy! :D

"Would someone like to explain exactly how this ended up happening?"

Ed scowled.

"Any explanation? Any explanation at all?"

He scowled again. And this time, at that familiar pretentious irritation, a vein pulsed in his forehead.

"You talking to me?"

"Oh, not in particular," Mustang sighed, with a woe-is-me sort of expression. "Anyone in the general vicinity. The world in general. Truth. God. Anyone. Just wondering if there's an explanation for how this kind of ridiculous nonsense always seems to happen whenever I end up working with you."

"Ah." Ed waited several moments, glaring awkwardly down at the bastard. "...How's that working out for you, then."

Mustang sighed again. "Not so well."

"Yeah. Now do you believe me when I say that shit just happens around me, and it's not in any way my fault, so quit fucking yelling at me for things I couldn't control?"

"Not in the slightest."

Ed groaned, shutting his eyes for a moment and controlling the urge to hit something, before he forced himself to focus and looked around again. "Well," he mused aloud, tugging a little at his automail arm and trying to see what it was stuck on. Nothing really hurt, so, at least that was something. "Looks like some of those stretchy vines up above got tangled up in the gears inbetween my hand and wrist. I can't really see but it looks like a mess. But I think it's not going to break, at least. They look really strong."

Finally deciding to take this seriously as well, Mustang leaned a little, straining his head to try and see. "Can you move your hand?"

Ed shook his head after a moment, grimacing. "Don't think so... and I really don't think you want me to try forcing it, do you?"

"Ah. No."

"Yeah, I thought so."

After another few careful tugs, ensuring his arm wasn't going anywhere any time soon, Ed sighed and reversed his attentions, looking down instead of up. "And as for you..." He tilted his head, squinting to try and see from the awkward angle. "Looks like there's something caught in my... shit, is that your pocket watch?!"

"Well, I don't know, Fullmetal. Let me just get these detachable eyes out here so I can take a look and tell you."

"Can you at least try to be helpful here?! Just try?! For once in your stupid bastard life?!"

Mustang groaned at him, like he was a stack of paperwork or something else equally distasteful and stupid, but then gave a resigned sigh, seeming to accept their situation of mutual misery, for now. "It feels like it could be," he grunted. "There's something caught on my waist, anyway, and that's where I keep it."

"Oh..." Ed cursed, straining to see. "Well, whatever it is, the chain's caught up in my ankle. I can't... hey! Hey! Get your shit out of my leg!"

"Oh, yes, Fullmetal, because it has always been my dream to be chained to your automail. You caught me. I've been just waiting for the day, ever since I met you, for this situation. You know what the first thing I thought when I met you? Oh, what a lovely young midget child. I must immediately commence plans post-haste to stick my belongings in his leg in order to trap myself in-"

"Shut up! Shut up! Oh my god you're stupid and annoying shut up shut up shut up and shut! UUUUUUP!"

"Well," Mustang fired back, "then why don't you shut up asking me to do the impossible?!"

After several seconds of painfully awkward glaring contest, the colonel caved first, leaning his head back with an uncomfortable sounding groan. Ed still glared at his neck for a couple moments, then, satisfied, fumbled for his own piece of chalk. It didn't get much use, nowadays, was more of a just incase- but, well, if there was any situation that called for that, it was this one. "Look, neither of us want to fucking be here," he called, starting to carefully draw an array into the rockface, "so just shut your face and let me work. Be free in a second."

"Um. Fullmetal?"

"What part of shut your face is problematic for you, bastard?"

"Fullmetal, what are you doing?"

Ed groaned through clenched teeth, refusing to look away from his work. "Micromanaging asshole, what do you want? I'm just gonna get rid of your pocket watch! It's silver, my automail's steel, so I-"

"Fullmetal. Fullmetal, um, wait. Fullmetal-"

"Will you quit your whining?!" he cried, exasperated already. "It's like a three foot drop! You'll be fine! Just-"

"Ed!"

"What?!" he shouted, finally stopping the process in sheer irritation. He jerked his hand away from the wall before the panic- not annoyance, panic- in Mustang's voice registered, and when he glanced back down, it was to find the colonel, red-faced, looking up at him again, black eyes shocked wide with alarm. "Um, what?" he repeated uncertainly, more than thrown.

Mustang stared at him. "Ed. If you cut the pocket watch, I fall."

Ed stared back. "Yeah. That's, uh, rather the point, genius."

"And I'm upside down."

"Yeah, so?"

"So. If I fall, I fall three feet, land on my head, break my neck, and you have to tell Hawkeye that you killed me and then spend the rest of your life running from my sniper bodyguard, so."

...

"Oh. Yeah."

Mustang glared. "Yeah." And, so saying, he stopped straining and leaned his head back against the wall, continuing to dangle in one of the most ridiculous positions Ed had seen ever, caught up with his pocket watch ensnarled in his metal ankle, arms folded stubbornly, and completely upside down.

Ed sighed, glancing awkwardly from Mustang hanging from his leg up to his arm, realizing in bewilderment those thin vines wrapped around his wrist were the only thing keeping the both of them from tumbling the rest of the way down the cliff, and surmised that this had to be one of the most serendipitous and ridiculous endings to a mission ever.

Al was going to laugh. Al was going to find them, and he was going to laugh, and take pictures, and tell him this was what he got for being overconfident and charging into a situation headfirst, and Ed would never live this down ever and was going to have to deal with jokes that if he liked Mustang so much to be chained to him why didn't he just marry him for the rest of his life.

Ed moaned.

"How did this even happen?" he cried aloud, thumping his head back against the rockface in despair. "How the actual hell did this happen?!"

"Well," Mustang grunted, a little bit of strain evident in his voice now as he started to shift around, "I believe it was when you took the initiative to tumble off the cliff and drag me over."

"Wha- me?! No, Colonel Bastard, you are the one who walked right in front of the enemy like an idiot! Why are you even here anyway?! I could've kicked their asses without you, but noooo, you insisted on following along, and then you get in the goddamn way, and I had to go and push you before you got shot, and oops, there's the fucking cliff!"

"I wouldn't have gotten shot! I had a plan! You ever heard of that one, Fullmetal, you know, a plan. It's what us civilized human beings do, we don't just rush headlong wailing and throwing fists about, we plan things. But my plans didn't include you bowling in like a bull in a china shop and charging straight off a cliff!"

"I was trying to get you out of the way!"

"Yes, and I was trying to stop you from falling to your death, but, I must say, Fullmetal, for your stature I was quite unprepared for how god damn heavy you would be-"

"Why don't you fucking try having two metal limbs, see how you- who are you calling so short he looks like he weighs less than an ounce?!"

"YOU!" Mustang screamed back, patience finally breaking as he kicked his heel violently at the rockface, looking just this side of strangling him. "You, Fullmetal, you, I am calling you short! God knows why it comes as such a surprise every time! For fuck's sake, you're only four foot negative one, you'd think you'd get used to being mistaken for a toddler after a while-"

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll beat you with your own legs, I'll choke you with your own intestines, I will suffocate you with your own stupid fucking gloves you bastard YOU GOD DAMN USELESS BASTARD!"

Ed ended the proclamation with a frustrated scream that tore at his throat and echoed miserably around the one hundred percent deserted cliffside and forest they'd found themselves in. From the trees, he saw a little flock of startled birds lift up, flapping away from the noise. Nothing else even so much as moved- except for stupid Mustang, swaying gently back and forth from the long pocket watch chain like some dumb oversized pendulum.

Ed groaned, slumping as much as he could with his two automail limbs being yanked in opposite directions, and shut his eyes as the full reality of this ridiculous situation hit him head on.

"We're going to be here for a while, aren't we."

When he answered, his voice seemed just as resigned and disgusted with their current situation as Ed was. "It would appear so, yes."

Ed groaned again, and briefly considered knocking himself out against the wall.

It was approximately four minutes, twenty seven seconds after this declaration that Roy decided this whole waiting in silence thing wasn't for him.

Later, he would consider this decision a result of probable brain trauma, because why on earth would he want to make conversation with Fullmetal like this- but, well, at the moment, that appeared to be neither here nor there, since his mouth was already opening and running.

"I believe I can hear my heart beating in my head."

Above him, he was rather sure Ed was glaring at him.

"What a nice tidbit, bastard," he groused. "Any reason you thought I'd be interested to know that?"

He shrugged a little, which was a decidedly strange experience, upside down. "Just thought you might like to commiserate with me. It's the polite thing to do."

Yes, Ed was definitely glaring at him, all right. "Wouldn't the polite thing to do be to not complain about in the first place?"

Roy frowned. "Are you trying to say that you know more about being polite than I do? Fullmetal, I'm hurt. Here I am, as your elder, trying to impart societal advice and cultural niceties unto your virgin ears, and you just- just ignore me." He blinked for a moment, trying to think over the pounding in his skull. "No wonder the youth of today is so rude..."

"...I think that was the most bullshit I have ever heard come out of your stupid mouth."

"There you go again. Calling me stupid. Rude."

Ed moaned aloud, and he was pretty sure he caught a mournful prayer for Al to hurry up and find them. Roy smirked.

"You sure you can't transmute anything?" he called back after several seconds, because, well, this was extraordinarily uncomfortable and if there was any chance Ed could transmute their way out of this... "You have chalk, right?"

"Of course I have chalk," Ed grumbled. "But it won't do us any good. You're the one who complained when I tried to get rid of the pocket watch, and besides that there's nothing else I can do... I don't know how stable this cliff is, I don't want to start transmuting out of it and end up bring an avalanche down on my head."

"Our heads."

"My head."

Roy scowled, rolling his eyes again. "Remind me to apologize to Alphonse, when he shows up and finds me attached to your charred corpse. It was only self-defense, you understand; you seem dreadfully unconcerned with my plight here."

"Yeah, whatever, remind me to apologize when the military shows up and finds a decapitated bastard corpse hanging from my leg because he wouldn't shut up." Ed paused for a second, drumming his fingers against the wall. "The military... will be looking for us, right?"

Roy sighed, once again trying to simultaneously think back over his day and not think about the way this was getting increasingly uncomfortable by the second. "My staff knows where I am. Worst case scenario, when I don't show up tomorrow they'll head out here, but I doubt we'll have to wait that long. Hawkeye has a sixth sense for whenever I've screwed- ah... for whenever you have screwed me over... and even if she doesn't find me, Hughes somehow will, if only to gush over whatever cute thing his daughter has done now. It's only a matter of time."

Ed snorted. "Al'll find us way before all that shit. I told him I'd be back by nine. And it's like, um... afternoonish, now."

"Afternoonish."

"My point is, bastard, he'll find us way before Hawkeye, so quit dreaming up ways to lie to her and make this my fault, because Al will find us, and if you're lucky and play nice until then, I'll tell him to let you down, too, so you just shut it."

Roy laughed uncomfortably, then swallowed, chest tight and wincing at the difficulty of breathing against gravity. He wanted to point out Alphonse was not a barbarian like his brother, and would never simply leave him like this, but at the moment talking was a struggle, and he found himself increasingly short of breath; just short enough to not feel bothered enough to waste it on an insult.

"Well, whoever it is," he grunted at last, "they'd better hurry up. This is... uncomfortable."

He figured that should've been an appropriate comment, at least- but nope, not with Edward Elric. "Uncomfortable?" the kid above him nearly screeched- and oh, wonderful; now his ears were hurting, too. "Oh, I'm so sorry, your majesty, I didn't know you were uncomfortable, lemme roll out the red carpet for you. Meanwhile I've got a cliff and a bastard playing tug of war with my limbs over here, but no worries- if you're uncomfortable-"

"Little less sarcastic bullshit would be nice," he grunted, glaring.

Ed laughed. At him. He laughed.

"Says Colonel Sarcastic Bullshit."

...Well, he did have a point there.

"All I was saying," Roy snapped after several moments, "was that this isn't fun for me. Or you, I imagine. So I don't care who finds us, I just hope they do it soon."

Above him, Ed gave a miserable sigh and shifted a little again, complete with a round of wincing and grimacing. Roy bit his tongue about how Ed shifting around resulted in him starting to sway all over again, since it sounded like Ed felt even worse than he did at the moment- also, he wasn't in the mood to be yelled at again.

"Can you imagine how much they're gonna laugh at us, though?" Ed moaned. "This'll be horrible. Al's going to be furious with me. Your stupid team will never leave it alone. Damn it... why'd I have to get trapped in this with you, of all people..."

Roy gasped out another quiet laugh, because, once again, he did have quite a fair point. If Hughes found them, there would be blackmail pictures of this up the ass, and so many puns he wanted to kill himself. If Hawkeye found them... well, she wouldn't laugh, that wasn't her style- but she'd used that Look. The one that said, all in one second, I'm not even surprised anymore, sir, and I'm very disappointed in you, Colonel, and you are three years old and would have died without me years ago and I should never let you out alone unsupervised, sir.

She didn't even need guns to kill people, he thought miserably. Just mentally eviscerate them with that Look.

But... Al wouldn't laugh at him. Him, specifically. He would berate Ed and laugh at Ed and yell at Ed, but the boy was far too polite to do it to him. He smiled weakly, opening his mouth to point that out- then found himself, again, too short of breath to manage.

"Maybe- maybe can fix it, so we don't look so stupid when Al finds us-" Ed was still ranting, "I bet if I could move you around somewhere, get the weight off my leg, then maybe I- hmm..."

Roy flinched, because Ed moving him around somewhere wasn't something that sounded appealing in the slightest. He struggled to clear his throat, opening his mouth to order him to stay still, for god's sake- then, his head swam, his vision blurred nauseatingly, and with that-

He fainted.

When consciousness slipped back into his pounding head, black still encroaching greedily on the edges of his vision and brain as heavy as rocks, it was to, surprise surprise: more of Ed yelling at him.

"-such a wuss such a useless bastard can not believe oh my god wake up you loser you are such a pathetic useless loser I can't believe how useless you are-"

Well.

This was nice.

"Ed," he coughed. He squeezed his eyes shut, shuddering through the pounding in his head. "Edward. Stop."

Above him, Ed paused in his yelling.

Only to immediately start up again.

"You awake now, useless bastard?"

Yeah, this was not helping to improve his mood.

"...wha... h-happened...? I d-don't... I..." He moaned again, swaying gently back and forth. "Dizzy..."

He could nearly feel Ed glare at him, and left his eyes shut. His stomach contents also did not seem content to stay where they were meant to, opting to follow gravity rather than the status quo, and he moaned quietly, mentally imposing his willpower on it in an order to stay put. Vomiting while hanging upside down tied to Edward Elric was not the way to go.

"Well, course you are," Ed informed him- matter of factly was probably his intent, but Roy caught the undercurrent of worry in his voice even in his current state. "Blood's deoxygenated. It's all in your head and it's too hard to fight gravity and get back to your heart. When you passed out and quit yelling you were able to get some of blood reoxygenated and back to your worthless brain- think it was five minutes, maybe? So, you know... probably shouldn't talk that much. If you can handle all that sarcasm and bullshit building up inside of you, anyway."

He rolled his eyes habitually. Then, something stuck with him, and he tried to lift his head up enough to look at him before groaning with the effort and lying still again. "Five minutes? You... yelled at me... for five m-minutes straight?"

"Huh?"

"You were yelling... at me..."

"Oh." Ed shifted a little bit, jiggling Roy's position. "I- no. I didn't."

Roy stared, blinking at his boring upside-down view at the line of trees. "Then why were you yelling-?"

Ed's scowl was again so annoyed he could feel it without even being able to see it. "This doesn't count as not talking. You wanna pass out again, is that it? I think you need a word quota. Which you passed already. Sometime last year."

"Ed."

"...Well, it took me a minute to figure out what happened." Ed huffed for a moment, sounding almost defensive. "I didn't start yelling at you until I figured it out. So it wasn't five minutes. So shut up."

Still swaying, Roy frowned. It sounded perfectly plausible. So why did Ed sound like that? Damn it, it was such a pain trying to read him like this, not able to see his expression and head swimming... in the same circumstances, it probably taken Ed more than a minute or two to figure out why he'd suddenly stopped talking or responding-

Ahhh.

He smirked.

"You were f-freaking out... weren't you?"

Ed stiffened, so severely that Roy, in his precarious position, was jostled again.

"What?!"

"You were freaking out. About me. You were worried."

Ed laughed at him again, but the sound was short and strained. "About you? Careful, Mustang, don't get a swelled head. I know that's hard for you to do, but-"

"I bet you thought I was dead, didn't you? You thought I was dead."

Once again, Ed laughed, even more strained than before. "Fat chance! You wouldn't die like this... you're like a cockroach. Nothing can kill that much bastardness. Besides, science, Mustang. I'm not dumb; you wouldn't just drop dead at random! I'm not stupid!"

"You worried I had, though. You were worried. About me."

...

Above him, Ed silently seethed.

Roy beamed.

"...God damn it, fine! I was worried. Happy now, you dick? Yeah, when you up and passed out out of the blue and I couldn't reach over to make sure you were still breathing or whatever- yeah, fucking sue me. I felt concern for my fellow human being. It's normal, for us normal people, I get that maybe you wouldn't understand..."

He beamed still.

"...'s not like I was worried about you! Hawkeye would kill me if something happened to you when I was there! And- and- and I guess- Hughes would be sad, he likes you for some reason, I- I was worried, you know, for them..."

He beamed in sheer joy.

"...oh, just go to hell, you bastard."

"The sentiments are returned, dear Edward. I care about you, too."

"Shut up. Shut up! You're past your word quota! Shut up!"

He beamed again.

Now, all things considered?

This really was fun.

...And he was still quite dizzy, so maybe Ed was right about this whole word quota thing.

Observation number one:

Mustang was an unbelievable, annoying asshole so irritating he deserved to be murdered.

No, really, he was. Murdered in ways involving fire, humiliation, and being rained on, just for the hell of it.

Observation number two:

Upside-down Mustang, while, somehow, even more of a bastard than rightside up, couldn't talk as much as usual. So, upside-down Mustang was more preferable to the usual bastard. Slightly.

Observation number three:

This really sucked.

All in all, Ed determined, it was actually pretty fucking simple. He felt like a worn out and abused dishrag. His face and neck and even the tips of his ears still burned with the lingering embarrassment of their predicament in the first place. There was a Mustang-bastard tethered to him, big head and running mouth and all. He was doomed to eternal laughter no matter who it was that found him.

His automail was also really starting to kill him.

Like... really badly.

His shoulder ached with a bone-deep fire, the pain settled under his skin and crawling deeper with each passing moment. It felt like the same vines that had entangled in his wrist to catch him against the cliff were now trying to rip the arm straight out of him, the bolts grinding into him in protest but there was nothing Ed could do to take the strain off his arm whatsoever. Then on the other side of him was two hundred pounds of bastard on his leg, not heavy enough to actually damage Winry's automail but way more than heavy enough for him to feel like he was trying. Every gentle sway of the colonel beneath him was magnified ten-fold in the waves of hot pain in his thigh that were escalating past the threshold that he could ignore.

It felt like he was being stretched apart like a noodle.

Except he wasn't a noodle.

So, in summation: it really fucking hurt.

A groan dragged itself past gritted teeth. Then that wasn't enough to sate the frustration and discomfort building inside of him and he groaned a second time, louder, thrumming with the desire to smack his own head right back against the wall.

The heavy weight on his leg tugged a little, a new pressure that just added to the pulls dragging him in two opposite directions. Beneath him he could just glimpse Mustang starting to move again, this time struggling to lift his head enough to look at him.

Ed tensed, averting his eyes to glare away at the horizon, just anywhere other than him. He could already feel his own face warming in embarrassment, damn it. "What's up, bastard?"

"..currently, at the moment? You."

A few moments passed in a tense silence. For a splitsecond, Ed sincerely wanted to scream.

Then, with a faint cough, Mustang let himself fall back against the wall, this time letting his arms drop with it to dangle overhead. "I was merely... c-concerned. Listening to you grunt around up... up t-th- th-"

"Word quota, Mustang, remember?" Ed snapped, this time to cover up some concern of his own. That one glimpse of his face just a few seconds before had revealed him to be purple as a grape, and listening to him trying to speak now he was panting to just get the words out. Who knew hanging around upside down wasn't healthy?

When the colonel did, indeed, lapse back into silence at his rebuke, Ed allowed himself to sag back against the cliffside as much as he could as well, shutting his eyes. "It's nothing," he grumbled, only letting the words out when he could filter the strain away from them, no matter the pain that still screamed in his thigh and shoulder and clenched his jaw shut. No good would come of the colonel getting concerned about him.

But then he felt that same tugging back down on his leg, Mustang back to shifting around, trying to look at him, and abruptly had no choice but to lean back forwards just to shut him up. "It's just my joints, all right?! Chill out, I'm fine! My joints just hurt! I'm fine! Leave it alone before you break your neck, would you?!" God, of all people he had to get stuck out here with it was Mustang, unbelievable, of everyone in the world it was this maniac...

Mustang swayed away quietly beneath him.

Then:

"Don't you need to have grown past three feet to be able to complain about your joints, Fullmetal?"

Something fizzled in his brain.

Then it broke.

That... god dammed bastard-!

I'm gonna fucking kill him- god why him, why him, WHY?!

It took such a back-breakingly huge effort for him to reign in his scream that time that Ed deserved a dammed medal for it. Biting his lip and gritting his teeth and clenching his jaw to hold his breath because flailing while in his current position sounded like one of the worst ideas on the planet but- but god would Mustang deserve it. He'd deserve it so much, and the only reason Ed didn't do it was because he knew it'd hurt him, too. It sounded like the idiot had actually had to seriously try to manage to get that sentence out without interruption, too, given the harsh panting Ed could now hear from above, and he definitely felt no shame in the reflexive satisfaction he got at that. Good. Let him suffer.

"It's called automail, genius," he groaned when he'd finally found something close to calm again, letting his eyes flicker shut again as he fought back yet another wave of pain. He didn't know what was worse, the metal bolted into him or the bastard chained to it. "And it's meant to support me, and me alone! Not this fucking cliff, and really not a bag of sarcasm and smugness and pretentiousness and assholeness so heavy it feels like it's trying to pull my fucking leg off."

"...Are you calling my ass fat?"

Ed rolled his eyes skyward, and wished for death.

Worst day of his life, worst day of his life, worst day ever in the history of lives, worst day in all of existence of all of the world--

"No, Colonel Bastard, sir," he drawled out monotonously, dead inside and out. "I did not, because I actually called you an asshole, sir. Nobody's looking at your ass, so please stop thinking that they are before you get a swelled head. Because I really think if it gets any bigger, it might just explode."

Beneath him, the colonel let out a somewhat choked, strained sigh again, arms still dangling limply as if he had no more life left in him than a corpse. "As if it's m... my fault... all the blood's in my head right now..." he panted again, and this time Ed decided to just take pleasure from the ridiculous look on his face because it was the only pleasure that he had. "I can barely t-think..."

"Yeah, but, that's an improvement, though."

Mustang stiffened. Mustang stared.

Ed smirked.

Then, a moment later, his smirk dissolved into another tiny, locked back in his throat sort of moan, because his arm and leg really really hurt, and he thumped his head back to the cliff in silence.

It'd have been really great if his brother could show up now.

Ed shut his eyes again, gritting his teeth past the hot pain burrowing deeper and clawing harsher with every passing minute. It was going to be fine. Al was going to find them, and worst case, he'd maybe have to go back home for a touch up, but he knew Winry's automail could take it. Yeah, he was going to be hurting for days after this, but he was going to come out okay...

He'd never be able to admit it aloud, but the bullet Mustang had saved him from taking would've hurt worse. Now that he'd had the chance to cool off a little he could admit that much. He actually was lucky Mustang had come along... the group of rebels had been bigger than he'd been ready for by himself. Somehow multiplying from one to fucking ten, and he hadn't realized until it was too late to retreat... then somehow a gun had ended up pointed at his chest.

Next thing he'd known, Mustang had barreled into him like a truck, and then they'd both been flying.

Never thought it'd be a tumble over a cliff that saved both our lives.

He... wasn't grateful for Mustang. He wasn't.

Just-

...

Just a little bit grateful...

Or, he corrected himself sulkily, he would be, as soon as the bastard stopped trying to rip his leg off.

As long as-

What the hell was the bastard doing down there?

"Mustang?" Ed asked, tilting his head forward just enough to glimpse the colonel fidgeting again, working against the cliff face and too far down for him to see what it was, but all he did know was that the tugging on his leg was back and it HURT. "H-hey- hey, Colonel, stop, what- what are you doing?! Quit that, t-that- OW! Stop it! Colonel-"

"Patience, Fullmetal..."

"Patience?! You're trying to kill me down there! I told you, that hurts, I-"

"Just another moment, please-"

"Please?! I'm gonna punch you in your stupid-"

"There!" the colonel exclaimed at last, tilting his still brilliantly red, sweat-sticky face up towards him to try for a weak, wavering attempt at a somehow still smug smile. "Does that help?"

"Help? Help?!" he cried. What?! He jerked, unable to bear the forced stillness and uselessness anymore and just threw a fist down as if he could somehow grab the stupid bastard from up here, not strong enough to kick him but god he wanted to. "What is wrong with-"

"Does- that- help?"

Ed blinked furiously, staring on down at the colonel in abject, aghast disbelief. What the hell was wrong with him?! Had all the blood just pooled into his head into it broke his brain, turning all the bastard into stupid? What about him pulling on the chain binding him to his screaming leg would make any of this feel better?! What about that would help?! How could that-

He blinked again. His eyes widened.

It... had helped?

It-

Oh?

Not much, at least. He still hurt like hell, shoulder screaming deep into the joint, his whole torso sore as a beaten, abused pillow, then down to his leg to burn desperately all over again- but his leg wasn't quite as bad as before. It felt like a little bit of the weight had been taken off it, and with that, the tension dragging down his automail like a lead weight had eased, too.

It still hurt like hell, yeah, but... a less fiery one than before.

After the hours spent hanging here in every escalating agony, that slightest bit of respite was all that he needed to feel like he'd ascended up to heaven..

Beneath him, Mustang's smile softened into a smirk, and he said, "Thought so." Then he laid his red, sweating face right back against the wall.

It took a little bit more of careful maneuvering for Ed to manage to get a better look down at the colonel, because he had absolutely no earthly idea what he had done. Finally, though, squinting in the fading light, he saw that Mustang had tried to work his booted feet against the rocks, at last managing to find something close enough to footholds for him to support himself with. It wasn't very much... without the pocket watch he'd still be headed for a broken neck, and Ed didn't doubt the strain of the exertion when he could already barely breathe probably hurt a ton- but it was still enough for him to be able to feel it.

It was still enough to take just enough weight off his leg for him to be able to breathe again.

Ed blinked in open, endlessly relieved surprise.

"Figured I... ought to be nice to y-your- automail," the colonel grunted on, his voice rougher than before despite it being obvious he was trying to fight to appear easygoing. "After all, I do- o-owe my life t-to it..." He took in another stuttered, straining gasp. "My deepest gratitude... to Edward's automail."

There was another short stretch of silence.

It felt a bit like, with those words, the colonel had somehow just reached right into Ed's chest, found his hard, prickly ball of growing anger, and poked it to collapse. Because that was what he was, he was a poker, and Ed could already feel his hot annoyance at the bastard's shenanigans melting away to only leave his face flushed and warm- he wasn't touched, he was just- just tired, that was it, tired- and also Mustang was stupid- but...

Damn it.

He leaned his head back again, trying to relax as best he could against the rough cliff face. The setting sun no longer burned in his eyes, perhaps because it had finally now completely set, and left them both shivering in the dimming light of dusk. "Yeah, well," he sighed at last, and this time, he couldn't help a tiny, weak smile of his own. "It really couldn't just let you die. You may suck, but you're still not so bad... at least with you around life stays interesting." He paused for a moment, shifting uncomfortably again. "Al also likes you, for some reason. You know I can't let Al down..."

Mustang coughed out another rough sort of chuckle, shivering at the end of his pocket watch. "Of c-course not." There was another short pause, this time with some more uncomfortable fidgeting at the end of his leg as the colonel tried- and evidently failed- to make his own position less intolerable. "Maybe, if h-he likes, I could treat y-you two, once we're... out of here... god knows you w-won't eat healthy otherwise. And after this, we'll both need it..."

Hell, now this was just going too far. Mustang couldn't go soft on him now, or else he was going to actually start suspecting all that blood going to his head had broken him. Offering to get him and his brother dinner, now, trying to take care of them after a mission? Who did he think he was, Hughes? No, he decided, this did not suit the colonel at all. Nope, nope, nope.

"Correction," Mustang coughed a moment later, voice still weak. "Hughes will treat us all to dinner. B-because you boys still need it... good kids, the b-both of you... but the I can't afford y-your vacuum stomach. ...also, w-way I feel... now... I'll fall asleep at the table..."

Ed gave a surprised snort of surprise, rolling his eyes back up to the sky. "That's more like it," he muttered to himself, even as his face flamed red again. Good kids. He'd beat the bastard up for that if it wasn't becoming increasingly obvious the man had just lost his mind. Good to know- ever need to dig out Mustang's soft side? Just hang him upside down! Sure, the colonel would probably not like that too much, but Ed imagined nobody else would have too much of a problem...

But Mustang's ramblings, for some reason, were not done yet, despite Ed being very sure that he was over his word quota for the day. "...an' I'm sure he'd, he'd love it," he was half-panting, half-slurring. "...was supposed to meet him for dinner t-tonight, anyway... he'll kill me for b-being late..."

"And nothing of value was lost," Ed started with a smirk, rolling his eyes back up to the sky.

But then, he stopped.

What was that, now?

"...kill me with pictures..." Mustang was still muttering to himself. "...all the fucking pictures..."

"Bastard?" Ed asked carefully, tilting his head back down to stare at him again.

Mustang reeled to a stop for a moment, still swaying and trembling gently beneath him. "Yeah?"

"Did you just say that you were supposed to meet Hughes tonight?"

"...mmm...?" he drawled again, now sounding almost drunk. "Long time ago, by now..."

"So... you're not going to show up."

"...yeah?"

"So... someone will be looking for you."

There was another brief, dead silence.

"So," Ed tried again, "someone will already have been looking for us. For like... hours."

Mustang swayed stupidly around again. He blinked up at him, slow and blank and in disbelief.

Then, the both of them jerked up in a simultaneous gasp, and began screaming for help as loud as they could.

It was, in fact and thank god, not an hour later that finally found the both of them caught up in a veritable human safety net: Ed settled gently in his brother's arms, trembling and clutching at him with relief to have the pressure taken off his automail at last, Roy red-faced and wheezing against Hughes' back, and Fuery in between them, working with great care to untangle the silver pocket watch from Ed's ankle. All three of them were supported by columns of earth made by Al's alchemy while the rest of the team waited on the ground for them to at last be returned to safety.

They could still hear their laughter, even from all the way up there. Blackmail photographs had already been collected.

"Okay..." Fuery called at last, pulling back a little from Ed's limb while his tools remained buried in the metal. "I think I'm about to get it! Everyone ready?"

A chorus of nods and muttered agreements answered him, Hughes hoisting Roy up a little higher on his back while Al gripped his brother even tighter. Nodding, the sergeant went back in.

A moment later, with a distinctly tiny and unsatisfying clink, the chain that had both caused every last bit of this ridiculous chaos, unending trouble, and eternal humiliation, and saved the colonel's life... popped free.

Roy groaned, sagging a little more against his best friend's back. Ed barely even had the strength left to react at all.

Sighing in relief, Fuery promptly moved to hop to the ground, leaving the other two to proceed much more carefully down with their injured charges. Hughes gingerly shifted around, aiming himself to take the neat little steps Al had made for them, and in doing so again moved so the two alchemists, for the first time since they'd tumbled right off the cliff, could look each other in the eyes.

There was silence for a moment. Then, still sweating, panting, and shaking, the colonel's still red face slipped into a worried frown, and he asked, "Fullmetal?"

Ed let eyes slip shut for a heartbeat, just too immeasurably relieved to have finally been cut down to care about anything more than that, but all the attention was on him and he knew it, so he fought them back open a second later. "I'm okay, bastard," he promised weakly. But Mustang's eyes stayed on him, tired and concerned, so Ed scraped together all the strength he had left to lift up his hand in a numb, aching, and sleepy thumb's up.

The colonel frowned at first, brow furrowed in confusion. He stared up at him wordlessly, very clearly struggling to process what had been said through his own exhaustion and the blood surely still pounding in his head.

Then, his strained face finally relaxed back into a tired smile. With one great gasp of a weary sigh, he nodded back, then dropped his head back to Hughes' shoulder, and went completely limp.

Ed rolled his eyes right back, and took that as his cue to settle back fully into his brother's arms.

Such a stupid bastard.

Stupid, soft bastard.

It was only a few steps away from the cliff face, his brother's arms ice cold in the dark of the night, that he decided on what was best to say. He dragged his eyes open for one last time, shivering now with shock, the unrelenting waves of soreness, and the cold as he turned a little bit more back towards the colonel, licking his lips for one final, parting remark.

"You do still owe me and Al dinner, though."

In front of him, Hughes let out a quiet snort of amusement. Al, on the other hand, started in surprise, the metal arms that were currently his pillow stiffening as he straightened upright. "Brother!" he rebuked, soft but shocked, holding him tighter even as he was already shaking his head, "Colonel, you- you don't have to- I don't know what he's talking about-"

But Mustang, evidently, was not all the way out of it yet either. Because, still limp against Hughes' back, head still pillowed down and face looking as if he wanted nothing more than to sleep for the entirety of the next century, and, in fact, giving every appearance that he'd already started on such plans with beginnings of the deepest nap in the world- despite all of that-

The colonel's eyes still flickered gently at those words. One corner of his mouth gave a weak twitch.

Then, he gave him back one very small smile.