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Board of Squares
Chapter One Part One
Fourteen-Year-Old Fetus
- mirage–
Ed laid his arm over the top of the payphone's square body and bowed his head in exhaustion. His gaze fell to his black leather boots, and the shadow of his body under the noonday sun. The meager population of the town yielded privacy, and allowed the moronic idea of phoning Mustang's office from a public line a level of conceivability, without doing much for the nagging sense of discomfort Ed couldn't displace.
Mustang was dragging the call out on purpose. He didn't like operators patching civilian lines to his desk, and he was less than impressed with Ed's tardy static-filled reporting. This Tuesday was peaceful for him, and courtesy was not much of a motivator. Lazily browsing reports, Mustang let the minutes tick by, peppering conversation with scattered tranquil comments in a tone of indifference.
The message went unspoken, but staring at his feet Ed heard it loud and clear. Call me from a stupid place, and we'll have a stupid call, stupid.
"I have shit to do," Ed said, defensively. "I don't have time to waste, Mustang. What is it you want?"
Sighing, Mustang asked in a slow casual drawl, "Do I have to want something?" There was the faint sound of flipping papers. A sort of magazine perusing that meant two hours North not much was happening in Central. Flip, flip, flip, oh let's see now, let's look at this for a moment.
"I'm hanging up." Ed lied. He didn't need a black mark now. Not when things were so precarious. "You think you're so clever," Ed said, lowering his voice. "Think I wouldn't see this for what it is? That I wouldn't figure it out?" Requesting random calls, at random times, it was like using a baby monitor to watch your toddler. "I know this bullshit is just to keep tabs on me, and I don't fucking have time for it." He'd left the clinic lobby to make this shit call, and he didn't want to miss the appointment. The thought of waiting any longer was torture. In a tone that was harsh and authentic, he said, "Not now. I'm serious."
"These last few days, you haven't much sounded like you know what you're doing, Fullmetal." Mustang meant this kindly.
"I know fucking exactly, what I'm fucking doing," Ed seethed. "Exactly."
"You took a case I didn't assign to you."
"So what."
"You took it to leave Central." So Mustang had figured this much out. "Why aren't you in Central?" Genuine curiosity."You left him home alone?" Disapproval.
"I'm hanging up." After so many hours, after so many days, anxiety became a type of sickness. An affliction that spread into your systems from your own brain. Ed understood this from experience, and it drove a quiet fear his worrying would start saturating his brain muscles like a sponge soaking up grime. Turning the healthy gray matter black, like a rotting fruit, and misrouting signals. It was self-manufactured poison, of which the difficult cure was self-manufactured antibiotics, and it was onerous to produce more than one chemical at a time. When so much of your energy was sabotaged with worry, not enough was focused on problem solving, and Ed could hear this in Mustang's voice. He could hear the stricture. What are you doing on the road, problem solving? Mustang didn't think so.
A slender hand grasped the back of Ed's shirt and began tugging. Without it, Ed felt he could have swallowed Mustang's monotonous torture. Not comfortably, but tolerably it could have gone on with him nervously standing in front of the small town clinic trying to pretend he was somewhere else, while Mustang wasted minutes trying to pretend he was about to discuss something he wasn't, but the prodding pushed Ed over the edge.
"I'm hanging up."
"Where are you calling me from? It's a public civilian line."
Ed rubbed a hand down his face. The tips of his gloves pulled his bangs along, flattening them until released. They lifted with less zeal, and were better fashioned for Ed's tired and overwhelmed expression.
"You know that East Central noodle place Falman loves?" Ed said. "I'm a few shops down, pissing my day away on the phone with your lame ass."
Mustang was quick. "Why don't you bring me lunch?" He didn't buy this for a second.
"Get your own fucking lunch." Ed brushed the tugging hand off his back, and it quickly relocated to his sleeve, and the tugging resumed. "I'm not an errand boy, you overpaid schmuck."
With a tone just as casual and unbothered, Mustang said, "I order you to bring me lunch."
The tugging stopped, and the hand singled out a finger for a rhythmic pocking of Ed's left flesh bicep. Ed slapped a palm over his eyes before turning around and giving Alphonse a sharp look. Mustang was making an argument as to why he could demand an Elric-lunch-delivery sounding whimsically halcyon and unconcerned, when Ed lowered the receiver with maddening exasperation, and choked out, "Yes, Alphonse. What is it?"
Alphonse was incredibly thin at fourteen, and stood silent, staring back at Ed thinking about the question asked to him. Ed looked different angry, and he sounded different when he talked to military personnel, and especially the Colonel. Something about him became diplomatic, his voice charismatic yet authoritative, and his agitation sharp and vicious. It was impressive, and Alphonse was impressed. It fascinated him greatly, because up until a few weeks ago, Ed had been a small squirrely animal dodging around his suit of armor, but now in a flesh body, Ed was bigger than him.
Ed put a finger to his lips, and said, "Just give me a minute, Al." He returned to the phone and spoke quickly. Alphonse watched the automail hand slowly tighten into a fist he was sure Ed wasn't aware of, and Ed's voice came through the meat of Alphonse's muscles, the density of his bones, the twists of his ear canals, the interpretation of his mind, and it was like a black and white conscious evolving to color. Ed's voice was suddenly real the way it had not been real in years. No longer was it a frequency echoing into the armor's metal frame like a poor quality radio down at the hips. It was the baritone of a man, vibrating up Ed's throat and Adam's apple, and snapping out his mouth.
Ed did not like Mustang's insinuations, and repeated this several times. I don't like what you're insinuating. You don't know what you're talking about. He adamantly did not want to bring the Colonel food. Order something in, you pig. He was lying about where they were. Don't call me a cab asshole, I said I'm busy! Before, these things would have made Alphonse curious as to what his brother was doing, but now it felt nervously as if Ed was making decisions quickly, constantly, and Alphonse couldn't keep up.
He had previously been living in a state of omnipresent observance, impervious and indomitable to mortal life. His eyes had been a strip of light in a can of a helmet, and Ed had been a frail trivial organism twiddling about while susceptible to, and sabotaged by, disease and exhaustion. Although Alphonse loved his brother, and while in the armor wanted nothing more than to escape his metal shell, he had done more than adapt to the controlled unwavering existence of its entrapment, he had become it. It was a parallel immortality to the gift of humanity's lethal independence, and Alphonse had never imagined that indefinitely crossing back to a body would bring such an assaulting and gruesome change. He understood he had once been human, but the loss of the quiet metal darkness shook him.
He was robbed his shield and sword, and became a pound of meat capable of being killed, wounded, or eaten. It was horrifying, all of it, and everything, and the only comfort came from the one person always at his side: Nii-san.
But there was a toll here as well.
Ed raised his voice, and yelled at Mustang. Mustang said he was done with this obnoxious phone call and Ed's prevaricating narrative, and Ed said he was done taking orders from a fat-cat too lazy to get his own lunch. Ed's sonorous voice was frightening when he yelled. The automail hand gripping the top of the phone was like a clamp, and it seemed to Alphonse that he wasn't the only one with a new body in all of this. Nothing about Ed was recognizable outside of the armor.
Ed was a bulging eighteen-year-old gladiator, comfortable and oblivious to what seemed a tremendous natural attack power. It surpassed anything Alphonse could remember, and when he was alone and tried his hardest to understand this profound change, he realized it was not his brother, but his own perception of strength that had changed. Occupying the undying armor it had been obvious Ed's strength was coupled with the weakness of his mortal design, because he could and would eventually die. He was only as strong as a mortal could be, and compared to immortality, that was a frail and ephemeral existence. Without mortality, and shrunken into a shaking ninety pound bit of flesh, Alphonse's gaze had changed. Ed had become gargantuan. His quick movements were frightening. The sound and unnecessary force of the metal arm and metal leg, intimidating, because life was at the receiving end of Edward Elric, and Alphonse's delicate skin bag was now subject to the same approach, and he was weary. He was weary of everything.
"Nii-san?" Alphonse reached forward and tugged Ed's sleeve and arm downward. Ed acknowledged with an inquisitive glance. The snarl from his argument still twisting his expression into something mean. Softly, Alphonse whispered, "I don't like this place, Nii-san."
The anger in Ed's expression drained to exhausted forbearance. Alphonse was dressed in loose jeans and a long sleeve white shirt. It was nothing eye catching, and the outfit made him look younger and sicker still. The white of the cotton seemed to bleach his skin, and every place fabric could sag it did. Alphonse was a scarecrow underneath, and they had tried to dress him in human clothing.
"Nii-san?" Alphonse inched a step closer. "I want to leave."
Ed gave a reluctant nod, and whispered, "Alphonse, I know."
Alphonse stepped up and quickly wedged himself between the payphone and Ed's body for safety. Ed might have been a subjugating warrior, but when things were frightening, he was still safe and loving Nii-san. The connection made Alphonse calmer, but Ed tried to step back and separate the flush state of them. He protested with a small uncomfortable sound because it was difficult to explain that wiggling up against another person could cause them to feel uncomfortable with themselves. Alphonse was childishly clingy, and just as unmindful.
"I want to leave, Nii-san," Alphonse whined softy.
"Alphonse, I know. Just bear with me here," Ed said, returning his attention to his call. Mustang was still talking and Ed interrupted. "Colonel, I have to go. I have shit to do. This time I'm really going to hang up."
"Can't we just go?" Alphonse asked. Tugging, whining, tugging and whining.
Mustang still did not believe they were in Central, and the deliberate wasting of time and flipping of papers was being done to send a very clear message. We will not work like this. I know you are lying, and I will figure this out. I am steps ahead of you Elric, steps ahead of you.
Alphonse pushed his face into Ed's chest to block out the light. He felt nervous outdoors. He felt nervous outside of the safety of Central where they knew the people and geography. Through Ed's black shirt he could smell Ed's skin, and he sniffed with curiosity. There was more than one scent. There was soap, and laundry detergent, and the lingering ointment Ed applied to his ports to keep them safe.
With the sniffing, Ed pushed at Alphonse's head the way one might try to push off a licking dog. "You—I," Ed sputtered into the phone, trying to break free without use of force. Can't push, you don't know how strong his neck really is. You could break it. "Okay, I told you I was going to hang up, so I gave plenty of warning! You can waste my life later, Mustang! I'm getting some damn noodles." Ed slammed the receiver down and looked at Alphonse with disbelief. "What are you doing?" Alphonse looked up, worry still tense in his expression. "Are you smelling me?"
"Nii-san, you have not been listening to the myriad of concerns I have about this."
Ed grabbed Alphonse's hand, wagging a finger in chastisement, and said, "Don't smell me, Al. Not in public." Then he started a brisk walk back to the clinic entrance dragging Alphonse along. They were out in the sticks, on the outskirts of Awbeziz as passing travelers, and so far they were fetching no attention. Thank, God.
Alphonse yanked his hand from Ed's and attached them to either side of Ed's hips, curling his fingers in like a cat extending its claws. He was protesting desperately, and whined, "Nii-san, you're not listening to me."
Ed didn't like all the grabbing. Detaching Alphonse's hands with a deep cleansing breath, Ed trapped Alphonse's delicate palms in his own, and said, "Alphonse, I am. I swear I am, but I can't go back-and-forth about this anymore. We have to." Alphonse was silent with disagreement. He couldn't understand Ed's thought process, and as he had clearly stated he disagreed many times, he didn't know what to do with the situation. It broke down to Ed forcing him, and that meant Ed thought this was very important.
Ed kept a tight grip on Alphonse's right hand and entered the clinic. He stalked past the tiny reception counter, and into the familiar lobby. They had arrived forty minutes ago, and waiting was martyrdom. Alphonse's anxiety over visiting the clinic was still exorbitantly high. For the last week Ed had tried to redirect Alphonse toward an approach that might put him at ease, but it seemed impossible.
Alphonse was afraid of the world meeting his new body, and required a controlled and rationed exposure. He could not comfortably handle a location he knew would have a higher probability of disease, and responded like a Mysophobic. He listed fact after fact as to why the trip placed him in unnecessary danger. He went on and on with statistics, and he was convinced his new delicate and sickly body would be made worse by the experience, and not better, as Ed insisted.
Ed returned to his vacant lobby chair. This far South, towns didn't have a lot of excess funds. They were filled with good simple people, conducting good simple lives, and that was why they had come. That was why they had departed at Awbeziz before returning to Central. Mustang was right; the assignment Ed snapped up was barely an assignment at all. It was a basic delivery assignment Edward abused by covertly slipping the parcel into a post box before catching his train. So suspicious, it was obvious. Edward Elric did not consider himself a mailman, and Mustang knew this stunk of ulterior motives.
Ed sat down and Alphonse continued in step and took the next seat.
"Okay, now we're waiting again," Ed said, using what he considered to be his firm-Alphonse tone. Roy said it sounded like the voice of a new dog owner speaking to their puppy: Nice, but trying to be mean.
"Can I sit with you?" Alphonse asked.
Ed groaned. This was constant routine: Question, denial, explanation. Question, denial, explanation. Where we sat, or perhaps better phrased, how we sat, was just one of the many normal activities, Alphonse handled abnormally. For every chair, and every public place, it was posed. "You are, Alphonse," Ed said, droning his words out with dry patience. "These are single seats. One person per chair, stay in yours."
"My skin itches."
"It will be fine."
"My mouth tastes funny, and my tongue hurts."
"Okay, when we get home we'll...do...something about that."
"I want to go." Alphonse slouched down in his chair and tipped his head back. Ed watched. This was the third week, second day, and twenty third hour since Alphonse Elric had regained his flesh body. Edward counted the days. He counted the hours and the seconds, waiting, and hoping against any type of backlash or repercussion to the transmutation that had returned Alphonse. So far there didn't seem to be any.
"Please, can I sit with you?" Alphonse asked.
Other than the skittish way Alphonse regarded real life as it came with the velocity of a baseball bat to his face.
Ed imagined the transmutation peeling Alphonse's metal suit away to reveal a tiny cooing infant with blonde hair. Even though Alphonse had the deceptive physical body of a fourteen-year-old, the body had the mileage of a new born, entirely unused and untraveled.
"Nii-san, please?"
The world was abrasive, an absolute molestation of sensory perception. Alphonse was christening himself with new experiences daily. There was nothing safe, nothing that could be counted upon to be introduced or received well except for the only constant that had every truly existed: EDWARD.
Traveling made Alphonse tired, nearly all foods made him sick, and Ed had more panic attacks than he could stand over the last three weeks. It was time Alphonse's fear of others touching him, was breeched with a doctor. There was only so much Ed could diagnose, and he was beginning to feel a little weird being the only one to poke and prod at his brother.
Ed gave Alphonse a kind smile, and said, "Guess what I have?" He fished into the pocket of his red jacket and Alphonse watched with disinterest. It was doubtful Ed was going to uproot an escape route from the clinic or a two-person chair.
Ed retrieved a small cloth bag and dropped it into his lap with an eager grin.
"Marbles?" Alphonse asked, curiously leaning over the arm rest.
"Nope," Ed said, pulling his gloves off. He dropped both white mitts into his lap and opened the bag. "It's a surprise." Ed opened the top and poured eight solid colored beads into his left palm. "Candy," Ed said, with mild excitement. Roy would have described this as: Puppy-Owner gives puppy treat for the first time. "Try one." Ed extended his hand with excited pleasure to share a new experience, but Alphonse recoiled from the offering. "Go ahead," Ed encouraged.
Alphonse looked nervous, and gave his head a quick shake. "N—no, you first."
"I promise. It won't hurt anything. They feel smooth like a small pebble, and taste sweet like honey." Ed described items now. From sun up to sun down, he found himself describing mundane items to coax Alphonse into experiencing them. Cotton, oatmeal, shampoo, fresh grass, everything. Alphonse was nervous of all of it.
"Okay, but let me see you do it first," Alphonse insisted. With a heavy sigh Ed surrendered yet again. Alphonse one billion, Ed zero. Ed selected a red candy and tossed it into his mouth with Alphonse's wide eyes studying every movement. "Is it good?" Alphonse asked. Ed appeared unchanged by the candy, and sat calmly staring back.
"Yup."
"What does it feel like?"
"Like a smooth pebble."
"And tastes like honey?" Alphonse asked, looking back to Ed's open palm with wavering reluctance. "Let me see." Alphonse scooted closer with interest.
Ed remained silent, waiting for Alphonse to elaborate, but Alphonse did not. He leaned closer, eager to witness his request, and Ed could smell the sensitive sweet scented shampoo and soap he had purchased specifically for Alphonse's new body.
After a long pause, Ed asked, "See what?"
"See you eat it."
"I am eating it."
"No, let me see," Alphonse said, gesturing with a quick flutter of his hand toward Ed's mouth. "Open your mouth."
Ed shifted his weight with a bit of discomfort, and glanced reluctantly about the lobby. The single waiting patient was staring, but this was becoming frequently common in Edward's life since Alphonse was, reborn. Humbly, Ed had to acknowledge it was customary for Alphonse to win these rounds, because verbalizing assurances mundane items would not hurt you, did not equate a guarantee in the eyes of Alphonse Elric. He lived with the sense of wearing his organs on the outside, and was obsessed with the effect of every external variable on his new, very fatal self. When you cut to the heart of it, Alphonse was younger in age, but not in intelligence, and he not only trusted his own judgment, he used it.
"This isn't good for your teeth, Nii-san," Alphonse said. "I don't think I should eat something bad for my new teeth and mouth."
With this comment Ed opened his mouth, and stuck out his tongue so Alphonse could see the small red candy. It sat in the middle slowly dissolving and staining Ed's mouth.
Alphonse stared at the melting candy with intense fascination before whispering, "Slow to dissolve, probably layered glucose with different rates of," but Ed interrupted this thought, closing his mouth, narrowing his gaze into a challenging look, and thrusting his open palm forward.
"Do it," Ed said. Alphonse cringed, withdrawing away from Ed's hand and into his chair. "Alphonse, do it."
"I don't want it to change the pigment of my flesh." Alphonse sounded moderately alarmed. "It's discoloring your mouth, Nii-san."
"It will fade."
Their name was called by a nurse, and Ed was out of his chair in a flash. Balling a handful of Alphonse's shirt into a tight grasp, Ed took after her with Alphonse fumbling in argument and footing.
"Nii-san? Nii-san maybe I—Nii-san I really don't want to be here," Alphonse whispered. "It's so unhealthy."
The clinic was small, with only four patient rooms. The nurse led them to the third and Ed hesitated in the doorway, with Alphonse a pair of fourteen-year-old cat claws digging into his eighteen-year-old waist, before stomping in. How stupid we look.
The exam room was cramped. An old kitchen hutch had been transformed into a cabinet of medical supplies, and aside from a simple wooden chair and old exam table, it was the only piece of furniture. Compared to Central's elite equipment and funding, Ed was bombarded with muddled guilt dragging Alphonse away from world-class professionals to a backwater small-town hack, was arguably too irresponsible to defend. The merciless sterile hive of competition bred in Central's specialists, and worse, impatient military clinicians, offered top of the line care, but they lacked something the country had to offer, and Ed felt the word for it was wholesome. How that translated into medicine, and trying to decide what was best for Alphonse while understanding the equation sacrificed quality for something emotional, was just about as fucking murky as everything else, and that was what Mustang heard on the phone: INDECISION. These last few days, you haven't much sounded like you know what you're doing, Fullmetal.
The nurse left with a kind departure and directions for Alphonse to peel down to his shorts. Ed was glad she was gone, and exhaled a breath he didn't realize he was holding while looking over the available medical supplies with skepticism. They weren't impressive, but they were clean.
Alphonse was not interested in the room, and cried out, "They want me to be in my underwear!"
Ed turned to Alphonse with a scolding expression. "Don't act surprised. We've had physicals before." He grasped the bottom of Alphonse's shirt, and lifted it quickly.
Alphonse was engulfed, and called a protesting, "but!" from inside. He cooperated, and with a final yank he popped free. "But that was back with my real body!"
"This is your real body, Alphonse," Ed snapped. Alphonse's words were a brick to a cracked window. It wasn't easy to make bodies. It wasn't god damn easy, and we had made one! Ed lifted his tone with agitation, and repeated, "This is your new real body."
Involuntarily Alphonse stiffened, went mute with Ed's abrupt anger, and Ed felt this response like a slap. He closed his eyes and released a guilty breath of self-scolding. Don't yell at him, you heartless shit. Since the transmutation it felt like days were longer than they used to be, and sleep was never enough. "I'm sorry," Ed said, opening his eyes and giving Alphonse an apologetic look. "I didn't mean to yell."
"You don't know what it's like," Alphonse said defensively. Ed gave a humble nod. No, he didn't know what it was like. He only knew what it was like to be responsible. Four years inside a metal cell was something he still couldn't wrap his head around, even though he had been at Alphonse's side every day.
"This is very hard, Nii-san," Alphonse said, tone firm with unwavering conviction. "I don't feel good, I'm really sick." That was a drastic understatement. Alphonse wasn't sick as if with flu, he was struggling to live as if with plague. From the moment he returned, things were a disaster. He was a fetus deprived years of acclimation, and without the immunities, coordination, and experience, he lived at the physical age a mother wouldn't take her newborn from the house. Not into that weather, not into that disease, how reckless! The baby could die. Grow sick, grow infected, from exposure, lose the battle, and pass.
"I know you don't feel good," Ed said softly. "I know."
"You don't know."
Ed dropped his gaze. "You're right, I don't know, but I'm trying." Feeling awkward and almost desperate, Ed reached forward and grasped Alphonse's gaunt shoulders. There was no body fat. The curve of Alphonse's bones felt polished under his skin. Crafting something malnourished from a transmutation circle seemed impossible when adding the nourishments into the ingredient pile, but a powder of periodic dust apparently wasn't the same as a lifetime of steak dinners, and they were desperately trying to build Alphonse's frail weight.
"You're really going to have to use your memories for this, understand, Al?" Ed asked, nervous this just wasn't possible. Alphonse relied on his memories to translate the onslaught of sensory data his brain was lapsing. Ed imagined this would be much like a drowning victim trying to remember what air was like in order to breath: suffocating.
"It's hard to always be remembering while I'm in the present," Alphonse said. When things were calm, Alphonse knew he was now an unintentional burden on his brother. He could see that Ed was tired, but it was hard to understand why some bouts of life came with cognitive clarity and others were smog filled pandemonium. The water filling your lungs was hard to meditate past. "I don't think I have the resilience needed to be in such a germ infested place like this, Nii-san. Imagine what a disease would do to this body right now."
Ed was imagining this, and it had driven him here. "Just use your memories, Al. You're going to be okay. I'll help you undress." Alphonse watched Ed carefully unbutton his pants because Ed's fingers were so much better at handling small buttons than his were.
"I…do remember this," Alphonse confessed. He remembered the single doctor in Resembool and getting his physical at Ed's side when Ed had all four limbs. "From when we were younger, going together." Ed felt common ground form, and the stress of not knowing where to stand passed by. "Nii-san, let's do it like that while this is so new."
"Do what?"
"Get a physical together."
Ed felt a rush of awkwardness, and it seized his expression like the response to a bad smell. Alphonse was as ravenously curious about his new body as he was fascinated by it. The thought of giving him a fully matured specimen, and being that matured specimen, surpassed the barely tolerable eeriness Ed tried to endure when Alphonse was visually crawling up and down his own suggestion was frightening to Ed, and Alphonse saw it right away.
"Nii-san," Alphonse scolded. "Don't make me do this alone, I don't want to!"
Ed began shaking his head, and rambled off a fast, "Yeah, but I already had my physical! Now stop messing around, Al. Get this stuff off!" Ed dropped to his knees at Alphonse's feet, and began untying Alphonse's boots with the weight of Alphonse's miserable frown resting on the crown of his head like a stone.
"Think I'm messing around in my new body?" Alphonse's sarcasm was cruel since his rebirth. "Think all this, fever running, and vomiting, is me just messing around?" But the anger faded quickly for trifling concerns. "This is so unfair!" Ed groaned, and shucked Alphonse's right boot off. "You force me to unskilled medical care, in an unsanitary environment, and won't subject yourself to the same treatment!"
"This has nothing to do with that."
"This is a dual standard, Nii-san. I don't want to do this, but I have to, you don't want to do this, so you don't!"
Ed yanked Alphonse's second boot off, with his metal hand hovering about Alphonse's hip to guarantee there would be no loss of balance, and returned to his first argument. The only one he had. "But I already had my physical!"
"That's irrelevant!"
Without the boots Alphonse's unfastened pants dropped to his ankles, and his legs looked like two skeletal stalks overrun with poison oak. His skin was red, sore, slightly blistered in some areas, and incredibly bruised. After the transmutation Alphonse had looked like a burn victim, pink and in pain. His skin could not handle the denudation, and life was cruel. All water and air burning or freezing, all surfaces skin-ripping, flesh-peeling, muscle-scraping, agony. This was largely unknown while Alphonse dipped in and out of consciousness under exhaustion, and quickly learned directly after.
With Alphonse quivering on the couch wrapped in a blanket, Ed felt as if the world inside him was combusting outward and splattering his nervous system as it went. What could you do in this type of condition? Where did you get help when you were supposed to be the one in charge? Couldn't go to a hospital, or emergency room. Here, can you look at him? I made him, and I really fucked the whole process up.
Havoc had been there, standing mute somewhere between shock and distress, and Ed remembered talking, and yelling, and screaming, but didn't remember a single thing he'd said. Havoc used the word ballistic, but the event came to a stop after several crucial events. The least important being Ed's emptying of Havoc's emergency vodka flask, the moderate being Mustang's arrival, and the crucial being Hawkeye's unexpected intelligence.
Roy had been a disappointed scolding voice penetrating Ed's drunken carousel. He criticized in a fury with lots of words that sounded the same, irresponsibility, stupidity, naivety, and Ed remembered agreeing, but his mouth couldn't communicate how he felt like he was going to explode. How his head was pounding so hard he couldn't manage a single thought aside from the one paralyzing fear that Alphonse was going to die. That Alphonse was dying, and he was begging, BEGGING, for that to go away. That he hadn't emptied the flask by accident thinking he might be tipsy, he had emptied it as a desperate broken person looking to get completely hammered and black out in escape, and there was no part of him that was proud of this, and there was all of him that was embarrassed by himself, but even still, he was scared shitless to go back to being sober.
Hawkeye's arrival was coincidental. She had left the office, stopped home to change into more appropriate mufti, and grabbed a baked ziti. She wasn't Mustang's escort and she wasn't his keeper, despite popular office rumor. She showed up at the door, and went to Alphonse without sympathy, but in greeting. Welcome back you, and while they were arguing she emptied an entire bottle of lotion onto Alphonse's arm, and sent Havoc to the pharmacy for supplies. She changed Alphonse's life from unbearable to manageable within the hour, and Alphonse was so grateful he hugged her in slow motion.
Alphonse wrapped his arms about her with such tender care and anticipation Ed felt himself blushing. For a moment, Hawkeye became Riza, and she melted into Alphonse's adoration, enjoying the hug and closing her eyes. The intimacy made Ed uncomfortable, and when she disengaged and went to him, arms opening, it was almost unbearable. He was wire hard because it felt incredibly humbling to be on the receiving end of something so honestly kind.
"I don't want you to be scared with the doctor," Ed said, kneeling at Alphonse's feet. Alphonse's messy hair was cut short and spiking up from his head in every which way. He stepped free of his pants and took a deep breath as his body adjusted in temperature. The lack of clothing pronounced his almost dehydrated appearance, and the look of it became concerning, and placed Alphonse's skin discoloration at a sad second. The scrawny, bone ridden vessel with the rib cage almost entirely visible, and the pelvic bone seeming enlarged in Alphonse's tiny waist, made him look more like a shriveled corpse than something healthy and growing.
But he is growing, Ed's mind whispered, when his heart rate picked up, and he realized that one fear, that one really big fear, was starting to quietly chant in the back of his mind: he might die, he might die, he might die.
Can't just put him back in a suit of armor if that happens, now can we, asshole.
"You'll be fine, Al. You know what you're doing, and it's all the same as it was. He'll look in your eyes, and ears, and mouth, and stuff."
Alphonse looked offended with the string of impending investigations. "Nii-san, my ears are really sensitive." What an understatement. "Nii-san, all of me is really sensitive, what am I going to do? How am I going to do this?"
"It won't be so bad." How the hell did we know what it would be gave a quick uncertain shrug. "And I'll be right outside the door if you need me."
Alphonse's expression contorted with appalled disgust, and the dramatic curvature of his mouth made his head look more like a skull than Ed was comfortable with. "You're leaving the room?" Alphonse asked, tone entirely accusatory.
"What?"
Alphonse pointed to the door in anger, and added, "You're leaving me alone in here!" Ed began to manage the word, well, when Alphonse cried, "No way, Nii-san! I don't want that! You can't leave me unsupervised!"
"Well, I can't stay in here with you!" Ed said quickly. It felt like the walls were closing in. "Al, that's weird. It's embarrassing."
"Why is it embarrassing? I was there when you had your military physicals!"
"You were in the armor!" Ed gestured to Alphonse's skeleton body as if the massive metal plating was still there. "And it's not like you watched all of it, you weren't there for everything!"
"Yes I was."
"Fine!" Ed said, running a hand through his hair. "I can't have this argument. I can't stay in the room, that's not…" and there he trailed off, because no word felt right. Not appropriate? He was the guardian, weren't he? Not normal? What part of this was normal? Not necessary? Not relevant? Not important? It was all fucking necessary, and relevant, and important, and it was all so fucking hypocritical that now, now, he would leave his battered kin in a room with a stranger while sick and uncomfortable, but at home, at home there was no line in the sand. At home he was everything. Mother, father, brother, doctor, everything.
Alphonse was silent, but he wasn't stupid, not entirely, and not consistently, and his golden eyes strung a banner in all capital letters: SELFISH.
Ed's flesh palm fled to his face for some frantic scrubbing. Alphonse wasn't disturbed with the idea of them staying together like Ed was disturbed, because Alphonse was mentally living somewhere else for the time being. Under a magistrate of flu like symptoms he was deprived the commonplace pleasure of life's small luxuries because sleeping and eating were a dreaded chore. Food was a painful donation to a confused stomach, and sleep caused muscles to tighten and loosen, so parts locked up, and things leaked out. He was joining humanity for small intermittent periods of interaction and comprehension, between stomach-twisting retching, body-orifice-bleeding, sight-blurring, mouth-drying, hair falling out, mother-fuckery, and you want to leave him alone like this? You're not man enough to hold your own while your brother might be naked in front of a medical professional? That makes you feel funny? That makes you feel squeamish? And so you're going to leave him in here like a pussy? You candy-ass punk!
"What am I going to do," Ed groaned, speaking into his palm. The question was as general as it could get. What am I going to do about everything, but Alphonse answered it.
"You're going to stay in here with me, Nii-san." Alphonse was soothed with this idea because the fear of complication and damage to his body so far outweighed bashfulness for anything intimate his new vessel might do, it wasn't even an afterthought. "I know something is happening," Alphonse said, tone going soft, because sometimes he knew when he was failing. "You're thinking something, and I can't really understand it at the moment, but Nii-san," Alphonse grabbed Ed's flesh bicep, and his fingers felt like tiny bone poles, "if anything happens that's important, I may not be able to remember it." And that was the kicker. That when you were the one hurling, when you were the one bleeding, when you were the one going blind, and falling down, and leaking, you couldn't keep track of everything else, so in the end, you couldn't understand it if no one else did.
It was reality, and reality was a horror. Alphonse's intellect and manner of articulation commonly remained at pinprick accuracy even while deranged with agony from the meat of his bones. It was always the trade of one evil for another. Nausea for diarrhea, fevers for nose bleeds, the worst for the semi-better, or the miserable for the awful. Product of your hands again. Whose bright idea was this?
Yours Ed, it was yours.
"Staying in the room," Ed said softly, "doesn't mean I have a physical."
Alphonse's gaze narrowed suspiciously, brain moving slowly, so slowly. Nii-san looks…uncomfortable about…something…
"Alphonse, we're not five anymore, things are different now. You shouldn't want me in here."
"But I do want you in here," Alphonse said, nodding enthusiastically. "I want you to make sure he doesn't break my new body."
"Oh, fuck-me." Ed tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He regretted every moment he'd brought Alphonse's armored body with him for his military appointments. It wasn't meant to sound cruel, but with Alphonse in the armor, he carried a human indifference that made his presence appropriate where another human was not. Like a small dog, no one minded if he joined, because it just wasn't the same, and now Ed didn't have a leg to stand on. "Al, you're older now." Ed decided to start like this. "So, it's…not the…and well…" Ed stuffed his hands into his pockets feeling the need to fidget. He righted his head with a drained and exhausted expression. "So it would be odd." Alphonse was listening closely, with a look of perplexed confusion Ed's communication was a delayed fumbling mess. As scientists they were forward, trenchant, and fact-based, but this was the lapsed and repetitive dribble of a fool.
"Nii-san, what are you trying to say?" Alphonse asked impatiently.
"I'm just trying to say, that now that things are different, it would be odd to have another person in the room. Things are more private now, that's, that's what I'm trying to say, more private."
"I don't want privacy!" Alphonse sounded scared. "I think privacy would be inhibiting to us here, and I am not embarrassed! I need you to stay, one of us needs to know what's going on! Nii-san, you look at me all the time!"
Ed panicked. "Don't say it like that!" Hearing it put this way made Ed feel flighty with guilt and nervousness. "That is the wrong way to say it, Alphonse. I look, with you, for deformities." They weren't doing anything inappropriate, but it was easy to make it seem like they were.
"Is this," Alphonse grabbed at his temples, as if focusing this hard was difficult. "Is this, are you meaning to say, that you actually are embarrassed with this?"
Ed felt a near blush form, and fought it off. "No, why would I be embarrassed?" Armored-Alphonse never would have swallowed these pathetic lies. "I'm in great shape. I'm in impeccable fucking shape, Al. I'm completely comfortable. I make the military fucking quiver with my metrics."
"Well good," Alphonse sounded relieved if not a bit annoyed. "That means you're staying."
Roy described Alphonse as psychotic, but Ed felt strangely reassured and damned each time Alphonse talked him into a trap the way his younger brother always could. Without a strong defense Ed stood cringing. He felt powerless against Alphonse's needs. Abandoning the room felt like treachery. And how could you criticize what you'd caused.
"I'm not certain of this doctor's medical credentials, or why you think he's qualified to even look at me, and I'm having a hard time identifying normality. This is really awful of you, leaving me with strangers when it's not certain I'll be able to accurately report," Alphonse said, complaining to himself. "It makes this torture pointless."
"This is not pointless," Ed said, feeling defeated. "This is your entire bill of health, Al. It's all of you. I think I'm out of my league." Mustang could also hear this over the phone.
"We don't have that luxury, Nii-san. Together we're going to have to think of something. I can't last in this infantile conditioning."
That was Ed's term, and it was meant to be honest and not cruel. Slouched into his living room couch on the phone, Ed had confided to Mustang his head felt like the drum section of the largest orchestra, and described Alphonse's new state as, the infantile conditioning of all flesh and systems.
Roy had been in one of his rare listening moods, and was home cooking and letting Ed ramble on in confidence. He could hear that Ed needed someone to talk to, and Ed could feel that he desperately needed someone to listen so it felt less like he and Alphonse were alone through this. The next day Hawkeye had visited with a lasagna, and Ed knew that after their call Roy had phoned her.
"Okay fine," Ed conceded." I will stay in the room, got it? I will stay in the room, but I'm not, get this clear, not, having a physical with you."
Ten minutes later the doctor entered after a soft knock. The man fit the bill of a small town physician: kind and weathered, to be uncanny at diagnosing the common, but stumped by the evolved. He entered with a greeting smile, and pausing with confusion when he met two blonde boys waiting in their boxers. Glancing between them he looked at his single chart and read the only listed name. "Alphonse Elric?"
"We're going together!" Alphonse announced. Thin as a rail and several inches shorter than Ed, Alphonse was hiding almost entirely behind Ed's larger soldier body and intimidating metal appendages.
"I know this is a bid odd," Ed said quickly, feeling like a jack-ass. "But he's skittish and we're brothers, so we're just going to have our physicals together if you can accommodate. We'll pay for two appointments, it won't be a problem."
The doctor was quiet, and shut the door behind him pointing inquisitively to Alphonse, and Ed nodded.
"Yes, I'm Alphonse Elric, me," Alphonse said, looping his arm about Ed's automail and latching on tight. "But my brother is staying, this is my brother, Edward."
Welcome welcome, and hope you enjoyed!
This is a completed multi-chapter story, kicking off today to brighten your holidays! Chapter One Part Two will be posted this Friday 11/25/16, with the remaining eighteen chapters posted biweekly Friday evening (EST).
For those of you who have read my stuff before, and know my style, I allow few adjustments to my posting schedule, with the only exception my international holiday travel. To my common readers, it's great to be here! To new guests, humbled to have you. This should be a fun and adventurous ride. This story is a bit AU, written after I saw FMA 2003, but before I saw Brotherhood. It falls somewhere between, with the concept of Ed returning Alphonse to a body via a transmutation rather than the manga/Brotherhood end. Starts a bit slow and careful, but be patient, once the momentum is in full swing, you'll get the action and intensity I can't help but write.
Chapter One Part Two: Fourteen Year Old Fetus, will be posted Friday 11/25/16
Chapter Two: Military Sabotage, will be posted Friday 12/09/16
I look forward to seeing you – please review.
Author's Note Added 02/05/17:
Addressing the Common Question of Where This Story Falls in the FMA Timeline and with FMA Material
I enjoy writing, and even when I write fanfiction, borrowing the canon data so beautifully created by another…I can't help what happens when it goes in, and comes back out, the filter that is me. Since I've been writing FMA for a while now, I have unintentionally given birth to my own FMA Alternate Universe, and my FMA stories all take place there. This is the byproduct of writing so many FMA pages, covering almost ten years of Edward's life.
This Author's Note it meant to clarify this detail, so those of you looking for additional clarification of where this story falls, can now know…it exists in the Alternate Universe from my own head - lol, I'm so sorry about this! However, if you've enjoyed this chapter, or any of my stories, you're already visited this place, and just didn't know it! I have no plans for mass deviation from canon material, my AU simply includes tiny details, character preferences, and small deviations from cannon plotline as I started writing FMA before Brotherhood, and have never read the manga, and for this reason, my AU was born in, or within the limbo, following the first anime, which left you kinda hanging.
So in short, I write two versions of the character Edward Elric, and the resulting world in which he lives.
My Primary Universe begins with, "The Big Bang Theory," holds a collection of Oneshots from Edwards preteen and teen years, such as, "Hazing, Office Conduct, Say What, The Art of Spelling, (all the ones I haven't yet posted), etc.," continues here with, "Board of Squares," and continues forward in, "Arsenal of Jewels," which is in progress now.
I also run a Secondary Universe in which Edward is homosexual, which starts with, "Foolish For You," includes the oneshot, "Christmas," and an isolated Germany piece meant to continue where the first anime ended, titled, "The Silent Heart."
Everything I write for FMA will continue to align to either my Primary or Secondary AU because when you write a character long enough (yours, or borrowed), they develop with you, and my Edward Elric, while largely true to his canon design, also has parts of him that was born, raised, and tended, only by me.
This is odd to explain, I know, also I always feel it comes off really pretentious, but I've been over worrying about what any reader is judging me for long ago, so here it is, black and white. I hope this clarifies. As many of you may remember, from long ago when FMA had only one anime, an incomplete manga, gasoline was less than two dollars, and we all listened to cassette tapes XD, Alphonse was still in his armor, and there were many of us who wanted him to get out.