Repaire du Diable

by Batsutousai

Ed and Al weren't the sort to settle down, despite their best intentions, so they travel again, eventually finding Noah again, this time working with a circus that has its share of familiar faces, but also some new ones. Can the Elrics finally find people to settle down with?

Title: Repaire du Diable
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Darius/Ed/Heinkel, Al/Martel (Marta)
Warnings: Ed's potty mouth, '03 & Brotherhood cross, grief, regret, keeping secrets, implied homophobia, background racism, voyeurism, size kink
Summary: Ed and Al weren't the sort to settle down, despite their best intentions, so they travel again, eventually finding Noah again, this time working with a circus that has its share of familiar faces, but also some new ones. Can the Elrics finally find people to settle down with?

Disclaim Her: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Arakawa Hiromu and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: For day 5 of FMA Polyship Week on tumblr. Day 5's prompts included imagine your polyship with pets. Which, well, my brain did a little bit of hopping between pets and chimeras and travelling circus and this is eventually what my muse handed me. And since this is the first thing that's sparked even a glimmer of interest in writing since the US election was called, this is what we're getting. (Related: Sorry/not sorry it's so late; when the muse decided it liked this idea, he REALLY liked it.)

You can also read this at Archive of Our Own, tumblr, or LiveJournal.

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-0-

Tracking down and destroying the bomb that had come through ahead of Ed hadn't been particularly difficult, in the end. The remains of the Thule Society may have scattered to the winds a bit, but Ed had years of tracking down rumours and whispers, and Al's warm presence at his side helped him keep his focus in a way that the hope of seeing his brother again someday hadn't.

By the time every last hint of the bomb had been destroyed, Ed had turned nineteen, and Al's de-aged body was thirteen, by his calculations. He returned them to London, intending to give them both a place to settle down at last. He'd considered returning to Germany, especially since the economy seemed to be recovering, at last, from the damages of the Great War, but there were too many ghosts there; Alfons and the Hugheses and a number of other familiar faces that had haunted the corners of his vision. And, anyway, the house he and Hohenheim had lived in when he'd first arrived, had been left to him by their father, likely in hopes of giving Ed a place to return home to, should they never find a way to send him back to their native world.

Ed found a job in a science lab, in London, and Al complained about being too young to do anything for a while, before giving school a shot. But that bored him, too, and Ed didn't really know how to help his brother, especially since he was fighting with boredom himself; what little work he was allowed to assist with in the lab was far below his level, but he had too many holes in his Earth-science knowledge, and no formal education to speak of, so there was little he could do.

They managed to last almost three years, before the itch to move – to get away from the simple monotony of their lives and see the world – got too obvious to ignore.

They started making plans during the middle of Al's term, and once he was on holiday, Ed withdrew him, gave notice at his place of employment, and they collected their travel packs and left London behind.

They travelled in the United Kingdom for a bit, seeing both the oldest remainders of civilisations long gone, and the sprawling metropolises of the modern era, so much more advanced in so many ways, compared to their own world.

Eventually, they returned to the continent, tripping over half-learnt languages that Ed swore he'd been fluent with before, though Al never seemed to believe him.

Neither of them could really say why, later, they'd ended up side-tracking to see the travelling circus they'd happened to cross paths with not long after Al's seventeenth birthday. Perhaps it was the name: Repaire du Diable (Devil's Den, in French), or the almost-familiar fur coat the ring leader wore in the gaudy posters lining the brick walls of long avenues. Or, perhaps it was overhearing a couple of gossips talking about the female snake charmer and her 'intriguing tattoo', the mention of which had left Al staring after them with the same glimmer of grief that Ed was all too familiar with suffering every time he saw the ghost of a person he'd once known.

The first member of the troupe they saw was certainly a familiar face, though not in a way either of them had really been expecting.

"Edward?" a familiar voice had called, and Ed had turned to find familiar brown eyes staring at him, something rather like happiness lighting them.

"Noah!" Al called as he recognised her.

"Al!" Noah recognised after a quick doubletake, and she moved quickly to them. "You've grown so much!"

Al grinned and made a point of leaning on Ed's shoulder, showing off the rather irritating disparity in their heights. "Yup! Brother hates it."

Noah laughed. "I'm not surprised," she admitted.

Ed huffed and shoved at Al until he got off. "I thought you'd given up the entertainer route," he commented, because she had decided, after Alfons' death, that she no longer had an interest in using her gift for the gain of others, or herself. The Romani they'd left her with had seemed plenty happy to accept even someone who'd claimed to not be able to to anything but cook, and Ed had assumed she'd remain with them.

She shrugged, and Ed saw she was wearing lace gloves that weren't unlike the ones Al had kicked him until he'd bought her as a parting gift, intended to act as a barrier between her and others, should she need it. "We fell on some rough times," she explained with a smile that looked a little bit pained; Ed was all-too-familiar with that sort of smile. "This circus was kind enough to allow us to travel with them, for a time, many of the others dancing or telling fortunes to entice visitors. When they had enough savings again to part with the circus, the ringmaster's lady assistant wanted to go with them. I traded places with her."

"Cooking not as much fun as you'd expected?" Ed suggested, mostly managing to tamp down on his sarcasm, though Al still elbowed him for it.

"Something like that," she admitted, appearing unbothered by his tone; it was possible she knew him too well, even with all the years of absence between them. "But this is not fortune work, and I love it all the more for that."

"Well, I'm happy you're happy," Al insisted, beaming at her.

Noah's smile eased into something more peaceful, and Ed knew that she was happy there. Far happier than she'd been when they first met, or even when they'd parted. "Thank you. And you two? I thought you had intended to settle down back in London?"

"We got bored," Al admitted, a wry turn to his mouth, and Ed suspected his own expression was equally helplessly amused. "We've just been wandering, seeing Europe and picking up the occasional odd job when our funds start getting low. It's...not that different from how we lived when we were kids, really," he finished glancing down at Ed.

Ed shrugged. "I miss the bank account," he offered, which had become something of a tired joke while they were hunting the uranium bomb, and Al sighed and shook his head, same as always.

Noah laughed, ducking her head and covering her mouth, like she'd maybe picked up some social graces from a lady of some sort somewhere. (Ed was only a little disturbed; he'd been forced to pick up some graces himself, while living in London, and he could get away with far more than she could, with her Romani heritage.) When she peeked back out at them, her eyes were fond, and she said, "I have missed you both."

"Brother won't say it, but we missed you, too," Al said for them both.

Ed shrugged a bit carelessly, but it was true that he'd missed her, yes; she was the only person, other than Al, who had any real idea what he'd given up the night the National Socialist German Worker's Party attempted their uprising.

Noah smiled and motioned behind them, toward where the line for tickets was much diminished. "Ah, if we wait much longer, we'll miss the show."

"Oh!" Al grabbed Ed's arm, tugging him toward the line, and Noah let out a quiet laugh as Ed let out his most put upon sigh and allowed himself to be dragged along.

The performance was a lot of fun, in the end. Both brothers suffered a couple of shocks from familiar faces: The ringmaster, who called himself 'Monsieur Avide' – Mr Greedy – bore a more-than-passing resemblance to the homunculus Greed, and wore a long red coat with a fur collar, but he was just different enough to make it clear he was, at best, a relative of the Greed of this world. The snake charmer, 'Mademoiselle Enchanteresse', looked exactly like Al's friend, Martel, who Bradley had killed while she'd been hiding in his armour. The strongman, 'Monsieur Force', also apparently looked like a member of the homunculus Greed's band; Al hadn't known his name, but his wide nose and mohawk were apparently quite distinctive.

There were a couple of other members of the circus who reminded them of people they'd only known in passing – one of the clowns had a thin moustache that tugged at Ed's memories, another tripped over his own feet in a way that made Al laugh like he'd seen that move before, etc – but those three had been the most recognisable.

"We could join the circus," Al said once the show was over and people were starting to shuffle out of the massive tent.

Ed turned a flat stare on his brother. "Really. And what skill do you have that's circus-worthy?"

Al opened his mouth, then paused, looking uncertain for a moment, before drooping. "It's something we've never done before," he said, tone just shy of plaintive.

Ed rubbed at his eyes, because it was true that they'd never considered working with a circus or another travelling troupe, though it would allow them to see the world, while also solving their money uncertainties.

"Bad time?" Noah asked quietly.

Ed and Al traded quick looks, the same way they'd done so many times over the years, when they found someone they knew from their world and didn't quite know how to explain that.

And then Ed remembered who they were dealing with and huffed at himself. "We know some of the performers. From our childhood."

Noah's eyes widened and she cast a quick glance toward the centre of the tent. "Oh." She offered them both a slightly helpless smile. "Good friends, or...?"

"It's...complicated," Al offered, shoulders hunched and mouth twisted with an old pain that Ed was familiar with, in his own way. "The..." He cleared his throat and shifted his mouth into something that looked more like a grimace than a smile, but Ed was kind enough to grant him points for trying. "The snake charmer. Her name is...Mar–"

"Marta," Noah offered, a sadness in her eyes like she maybe understood, just a little, Al's pain. "Would you like to meet her? She can be a little rough around the edges, but she's got a good heart."

"I know she does," Al said, so quietly, and Ed didn't have the heart to remind him that these weren't the people they remembered from their world, appearances aside; just because the Martel Al had watched die had been a good person, at heart, didn't mean this one would be.

When Noah looked at him a bit uncertainly, Ed shrugged and nodded, so she smiled and lightly touched Al's elbow, motioning with her head for him to follow her.

Ed sighed and followed them through the performer flap and out into the back of the tent, where carts and smaller, personal tents were set up in a mess that probably made sense to someone. Must have, given the way Noah let them back to Marta's tent without deviating. (Or, Ed assumed she hadn't deviated; damned if he could find his way back.)

Ed stood patiently through the introductions, then had to hide a smile when Al sort of burst out with, "I really like your tattoo!"

Marta had blinked, looking a bit lost for a moment, before she'd grinned, wide and delighted, and said, "Yeah? Thanks. It's based on the movement of snakes, you know?"

Al's rapt stare said he'd be there for a while, probably peppering her with snake questions, just so he had something to say – Ed had met Gracia much the same way, blabbering about flowers for almost an hour because he'd just been that desperate to not have to leave, so he couldn't really say anything – so Ed smiled and shook his head, then glanced around for Noah, but she'd vanished at some point following the introductions.

Frowning a bit, Ed took a couple steps away from Al and Marta, then stopped, because the place was a maze and he didn't have any bearings. But he also didn't really want to stay and listen to Al and Marta go on about snakes – Martel had been a fine travelling companion, but she'd always been more Al's friend (and grief) than Ed's – so he huffed at himself and started into the maze of tents, trying to keep track of the turns he made, so he could find his way back.

He didn't get far, before a monkey jumped from the top of a cart onto his head, fisting its little hands tight in his hair.

"Oiy!" Ed complained, reaching up and trying to gently unhook the tiny fingers with his left hand – he didn't trust his right hand to such delicate work, especially when it hadn't seen any maintenance in five years – but not really getting anywhere with his gloves in the way. So he tugged off his glove and reached back up again, only for the monkey to grab his glove, let out a chittering noise, and jump back onto the cart.

"Give that back!" Ed ordered, scowling.

The monkey put the glove on its head like a hat, only for it to fall over its face entirely.

Ed couldn't stop a snort of amusement and he cast around for something to use so he could reach the top of the cart.

"Omid," a deep voice called from behind him, and Ed glanced back to find the darker-haired animal trainer. He was...way bigger than Ed had expected, honestly, and he couldn't help the way his eyes widened a bit, or the vague stirring in places best left unmentioned.

(And, yes, he totally saw the humour in his inexplicable interest in much larger men, he just tried to ignore it. For his own sanity, if not because of the general disapproval of homosexuality in this world.)

The monkey chittered nonsense, then landed on Ed's head again. Except Ed was in the process of turning back toward it when it did, and it hit the side of his head, making a desperate grab for his hair with all of its hands, while his glove hit the ground.

Ed wasn't a completely jerk, and he did actually like animals – no matter what Al said about his hatred of cats, which was just not fair; he'd been totally willing to get a cat or two while they'd been living in London – so he reached up and helped to balance the monkey, wincing a bit at the pain of pulled hair. "Hey, ease up a bit, would you?" he complained.

"Omid, you trouble," the large man said on a sigh as he came to a stop next to Ed.

Together, they managed to get the monkey to let go of Ed's hair, and Ed ducked down to collect his glove while the guy settled the monkey on his shoulder. "I apologise for your glove," he offered, his French very careful, like it wasn't his native language. (Ed knew that feeling, though he usually just barrelled along and left it to other people to try and figure out what he'd actually meant. Or for Al to translate.)

"It's hardly the worst its suffered," Ed admitted as he shook it out.

When he glanced back up as he slipped the glove on, he found the man watching him with narrowed eyes. "You are a friend?" he guessed, and while his tone wasn't quite hostile, Ed got the distinct impression that he wasn't particularly welcome to go wandering around on his own.

So he quickly nodded and explained, "Noah's an old friend of mine. My brother wanted to meet your snake charmer, Marta? So Noah introduce them, and I'm afraid I got a little bored with the conversation." He tried on his best 'what can you do?' smile, which Al had always promised was irritatingly effective. (To be fair, Ed had stolen it from Mustang.)

The man had relaxed a bit when Ed had mentioned Noah, and snorted when he'd said he'd got bored with the conversation. "Marta loves her snakes very much. Maybe too much."

Ed couldn't quite stop a laugh, at that.

"You know Noah? You know German?"

Ed nodded and agreed, "Ja."

The man let out a loud breath of relief and said in German that was far less careful than his French had been, "Good. My French is shit."

Ed laughed, again, at that, and admitted, "So is mine, honestly; my brother does most of the talking. Saves us from quite a few mistranslations."

The man chuckled like he knew exactly what Ed meant by that. "I'm Darius, and this little scamp is Omid," he offered, motioning to the monkey as he introduced it.

"I'm Ed."

Darius blinked. "Ed... Edward? The rocket scientist?"

Ed sighed, somehow unsurprised that Noah had mentioned him. "It's not like I have a degree or anything fancy like that, but, yeah, I was studying and building rockets when we met."

"That's not impressive?" Darius shot right back, pretty obviously amused. "The most I know about rockets is which way you should point up."

"Or whichever way you want it to go."

Darius laughed at that and held out his right hand. "She speaks well of you; it's a pleasure."

"If you say so," Ed allowed a bit uncertainly, hesitating for a moment before giving in and shaking Darius' hand; it was large enough, he hopefully wouldn't wonder about the automail. (It wasn't that he was ashamed by his automail, not any more. More that he knew quite well the current level of Earth prosthetics, and he'd only had to stumble over trying to explain the origin of his futuristic prosthetics once to know he was best off keeping it hidden.)

The monkey, Omid, took the chance to run down Darius' arm and up Ed's, ending up on top of his head, clinging to his hair again.

"What is your fascination with my head?" Ed had to ask, staring upward, though he couldn't hope to see the monkey without upsetting its balance. "I'm not nearly tall enough for you to think that's a good vantage point."

(Ed was not going to start thinking about how tall Darius was.)

"It may be your hair," Darius offered a bit helplessly. "He does have a habit of going to people with longer hair, especially when it's tied back; it gives him something to hold onto."

Ed just sighed and rolled his eyes. "I swear I'm going to cut it one day," he informed the monkey, though he'd been saying that pretty much since he'd let Winry talk him into letting it grow out so he could use it to train the dexterity of his right hand, and had yet to do more than get it trimmed a few times. Even now that he'd stopped putting it back in a braid – he hadn't been able to for the longest time, and then he'd got used to the ponytail, which made him look at least a little more mature, he thought – he couldn't really imagine getting it all cut off. It was just...familiar.

"Don't!" Darius said in a rush. When Ed blinked up at him, surprised, he cleared his throat and refused to meet his eyes. "It just...looks good. Nice. Suits you."

Ed opened his mouth, a sarcastic comment on the tip of his tongue, before Al's disapproving stare flashed through his mind. "Ah." He cleared his own throat and rubbed at the back of his neck; he'd never been comfortable with compliments, not even for his alchemic achievements. "Thanks," he muttered.

A silence that felt awkward followed.

Ed was just opening his mouth to ask about directions back to Marta, when Darius asked, "Would you like to see the rest of the monkeys?" He coughed a bit at Ed's confused blink. "You get along with Omid, and I'd bet Marta's still going on about her snakes; she can go on for almost two hours if no one stops her."

And, judging by Al's delight at getting to meet this world's Martel, he wouldn't be stopping her anytime soon. Ed sighed and shrugged. "Sure. Not sure I want to try hunting down Noah and getting even worse lost, anyway."

Darius snorted. "It's not that bad," he insisted, even as he turned and motioned for Ed to follow him.

"So says someone who lives here," Ed couldn't stop himself from muttering as he caught Darius up.

Darius let out a pleasant sort of rumbling chuckle, and Ed had about half a minute to reconsider the wisdom in following a large circus man back to his lair, before the other animal trainer came into view, relaxing in a large cage with the lion he'd had jumping through flaming hoops in the tent.

"Is that...safe?" Ed had to ask, staring at the other animal trainer in disbelief.

"Tau's well fed; it's when they're starved that they attack anyone that comes within range," Darius said, looking completely relaxed. "And Heinkel's had him since he was a cub, nearly; Tau used to share the bed with him," he added a bit drily, like there was maybe an excellent story there. Then he raised his voice a bit and called, "Noah's rocket scientist is visiting!"

The other animal trainer – Heinkel, apparently – sat up, hand patting around next to himself for a moment, before he picked up a pair of glasses and put them on. His mouth opened in a quiet 'ah' after looking in their direction, and he hurried to his feet, stepping out of the cage and quickly closing it up behind him.

Not quickly enough, however, to keep the lion wholly in the cage, because the cage door caught on his side, and he shot the bespectacled man what looked very like an insulted look. "Tau," Heinkel said in German, tone dry, "we've talked about this. You cannot be out of your cage between performances. It makes people nervous."

The lion butted his head against Heinkel's side, then rather pointedly stepped fully out of the cage and sat on the ground.

"Tau," Heinkel said a bit more pointedly, before shooting a quick glare at Darius, who was failing at stifling his snickers next to Ed.

The lion flopped over, rolling into his back and casting a pathetic look at Heinkel.

"You're not going to win, Heinkel," Darius called, laughter in his voice, before promising Ed, "Tau won't hurt you, but I can understand if you'd rather try to hunt Noah down."

Ed shrugged and stepped carefully forward, eyeing the lion with a healthy deal of respect, but not particularly afraid. After all, he'd fought savage animals and come out on the top, before, and they would always be far less terrifying than a human with a gun. On his head, Omid's little hands tugged on his hair a bit, like he was maybe tightening his grip, but he didn't start shrieking or try to run away, so Ed assumed he was used to the lion. "I'm Ed," he offered to the bespectacled animal trainer (who was nearly as large as Darius, because fuck his life), holding out his left hand.

"Heinkel," he replied, taking Ed's hand and shaking without hesitating at which hand to use, which Ed was a little bit impressed at. "This is Tau, and I see you've met Omid."

"We're acquainted," Ed agreed drily.

Heinkel's mouth twitched and amusement glimmered in his eyes as he turned toward where a number of other cages lined the far side of the clearing from Tau's abandoned cage. "You're welcome to meet the rest of our animals, if you'd like; I'm afraid there aren't many humans running around over here."

Ed snorted and shrugged. "Sure. Mammals are rather more to my preference, honestly."

"Noah left him and his brother with Marta," Darius explained.

"Ah. Well, mammals we have, certainly," Heinkel said, motioning for Ed to follow him over to the cages and introducing all of the circus animals, with Darius chiming in about little anecdotes and the pair of them occasionally dropping insults that sounded, to Ed's ear, far more fond that malicious.

It certainly seemed a far better way to lose an hour or two, than listening to a stranger with a ghost's face wax poetic about snakes.

-0-

"I didn't expect to find you here," Noah admitted when she managed to find Ed almost two hours later, Al following behind her with wide, vaguely disbelieving eyes.

Ed offered his brother a sheepish smile from behind the monkeys he'd been playing with. "It's not what it looks like?"

Al raised both eyebrows at him and deadpanned, "If I'd known monkeys were your weakness, Brother, I'd have picked them up instead of cats."

"First off," Ed shot back, holding up one finger and trying to ignore the monkey who took that as an invitation to grab his wrist and swing across to hang off it, "we didn't have monkeys back home. Second, that was never my point and you know it."

Al was grinning wide enough to make Ed nervous. "Are you suggesting I wouldn't have been able to hunt down a monkey?"

Ed opened his mouth to agreed, then stopped to consider who he was talking to; Ed may have been the one more prone to doing stupid shit just because he could, but when Al had a mind to do something, he always found a way. So he settled on saying, "We are not getting a monkey, Alphonse."

"You could teach it to get things off the top shelf for you," Al pointed out, a familiar unholy light in his eyes; he'd picked up Ed's skill as a little shit a little too well.

Noah, of course, let out a quiet snort at that, and Ed turned wide eyes on her; he expected this shit from his brother, but, "Noah! You're supposed to be on my side!"

"I," she returned, her eyes bright with amusement, "am not in denial about my height."

Ed...didn't have a good response for that.

Al snorted and turned to where Darius and Heinkel were watching with entertained smiles. "I'm Al Elric, Ed's younger brother."

Introductions went around while Ed did his best to free himself from the monkeys and get them back in their cages. He ended up left with Omid, who seemed to have decided his head was the best place ever.

"Omid, no," Heinkel said when Ed gave up trying to get him off and just walked over to everyone else with the monkey still on his head, doing his best to ignore his brother's snicker. "Darius had to train him to go after blonds."

Darius cleared his throat, looking a little nervous. "I didn't?" he tried, while Ed looked between the two animal handlers with raised eyebrows; long hair, was it?

Heinkel turned a flat look on him. "Yes, you did."

Darius opened his mouth, paused for a moment to cast Heinkel an uncertain look, then cleared his throat and asked, "How drunk was I?"

"Very."

"You can't hold me accountable–"

"I can and I do," Heinkel interrupted flatly, before holding out a hand to Omid. "Come here, you little tree-rat; Ed isn't staying."

Omid switched to Heinkel's hand, looking a little downtrodden, even as Al cleared his throat and glanced at Ed. "Actually–"

"We're not joining the circus," Ed interrupted, pinning Al with a flat look. "Even if they're looking for people, what skills do you have that would be of interest?"

Al crossed his arms over his chest. "There's always your arm."

Ed couldn't quite stop from clenching his right hand into a fist, and he turned to Noah, because she, more than anyone, would understand not wanting to be known simply for the one thing that made him a complete oddity.

Noah nodded and briefly touched Al's shoulder. But, instead of talking him out of his new circus obsession, she said, "Maybe something else."

"Noah," Ed hissed, scowling.

Her smile was a little crooked, but had a familiar fondness, and Ed felt a portion of his stubborn refusal falling away as she said, "It's nice not to always wonder where the next meal is coming from." Then she shrugged. "You know rockets and chemicals, Edward; combustion experts are always for hire in a circus."

" 'M not a combustion expert," Ed muttered, but he did get what she meant; he had more than enough chemical and technological knowledge to manage safe explosive effects, or build and set off fireworks. Some of that was alchemical knowledge, some was from working on rockets with Alfons, and any holes had been filled it while he'd been working at the lab in London.

"And Al can be your assistant," Noah added, clearly content to ignore him. "You know enough, right?"

"Brother's better, but I know the basics," Al agreed far too cheerfully. When Ed turned a scowl on him, Al opened his eyes especially wide and clasped his hands together in front of himself. "It's a new adventure, Brother!"

Ed sighed and shook his head. "Doesn't this circus already have someone to do explosions? I saw them during the show."

"Jerso," Noah, Darius, and Heinkel said, nearly in sync, before Heinkel pushed up his glasses and explained, "Our fire-breather. He has some rather basic chemical knowledge, for his act, and a number of us were soldiers, so we know gunpowder."

"We make do," Darius added with a grimace and a shrug. "Sometimes shit blows up and someone gets burnt, though."

"I know Chris would agree," Noah added, reaching out and stopping her hand just shy of Ed's chest, her eyes alight, like she knew he was going to give in eventually. (She was probably right.)

Ed sighed again and rubbed tiredly at his face with his left hand. On one hand, it would be nice to have a job, especially one he could travel with. And he did miss travelling with Noah some days; he loved his brother, but Al had no real way to understand how it felt to be so utterly alone, not like Ed and Noah did.

But. He knew why Al was so attached to the idea: other than Noah and the Hugheses, this was the first time Al had the chance to meet the mirror of someone they'd known. This time, Ed hadn't got to know them first, hadn't built up expectation of who Al was in advance; this was Al's clean slate to make friends anew with someone he'd lost. And, as much as Ed wanted to say no, because he knew how much that could hurt when it went wrong, he couldn't refuse his brother the chance to save Marta the way he'd never been able to save Martel.

Still, he met Al's hopeful stare and asked, "You're certain?"

Al's jaw tightened the same way Ed knew his own always did when he was being stubborn. "Yes." Then his expression softened, making him look too young and a little lost, and he asked, "Isn't this our second chance?"

Ed's smile ached, and he reached up to take Noah's reaching hand with his right one, being careful not to squeeze too hard. "I suppose it's worth asking the owner," he allowed.

Al's face lit up and he jumped forward to hug Ed, while Noah's smile looked like, maybe, Ed wasn't the only one who missed travelling with her.

Perhaps Al hadn't been the only one with a reason to talk Ed around.

-0-

'Chris' turned out to be the Greed look-a-like, and he was, as Noah had said, more than happy to have Ed and Al join up, pending a fireworks show that night, which Ed easily managed with Al and Noah's help. (She'd looked a bit sceptical when he'd caught her arm to help him set up, but she'd trust him when he'd told her it was easy work, and it was.)

So Ed and Al joined the circus, getting to know the troupe and making friends far easier than either of them had expected, mostly because Noah had spoken well of them often enough. They worked some explosive tricks into various acts, and both brothers picked up their share of new skills from other performers.

When Ed didn't need his help with explosives, Al always seemed to migrate over to Marta's cart. About a month in, Noah sat down next to where Ed was twisting some wires together and asked, "Who was she? Your Marta."

"Martel," Ed corrected quietly, not looking up from his work. "She was a part of a band who kidnapped him. When the army came knocking, he was asked to get her out, and he did. Saved her life, not that she appreciated it." He gave the wires one last hard twist, then set them aside and picked up another set to twist together. "She met back up with us later, wanted to kill the Führer. Al kept trying to talk her out of it, but she made the attempt anyway. Missed or something, I guess, and ran back to Al. She was hiding inside him when Bradley killed her."

"Oh," Noah breathed, and her hair tickled the side of his face when she rested her head against his right shoulder. "Complicated."

"Yes," Ed agreed, not pausing in twisting his wires, but easing his movements a bit so he didn't jostle her. "He blames himself. It wasn't his fault, not really, but no amount of pointing out the facts is going to help him get past that."

"You tried, didn't you?"

Ed shrugged his left shoulder. "He isn't the only one whose stupid actions got someone killed, Noah."

She was quiet for a moment before quietly saying, "Alfons' death wasn't your fault."

"It wasn't," Ed agreed, even though a part of him would always blame himself for it; if he and Alfons hadn't been friends, if he hadn't told him so many stories of his world, if Alfons hadn't grabbed him, strapped him into that rocket... "I didn't shoot him," he said, as much to Noah as to his own regret. "But he was hardly the only person I've lost." He shook his head. "The thing about fighting monsters – human or not – is that you're going to lose people."

If Noah had a response to that, Ed wasn't privy to it, because that was about the moment that Omid the monkey dashed over to them, jumped up to grab Ed's arm – which he immediately held steady; it wasn't a completely uncommon occurrence – then climbed up his arm to his shoulder and sat there, one hand gripping tight to his hair, while he chattered nonsense into Ed's ear.

Noah let out a slightly startled laugh and leant forward a bit, so she could see him. "Did you unlatch your cage again? Poor Darius, always having to chase you down."

Ed snorted. "It's Darius' own fault for not getting that latch fixed."

"Somehow," Darius said, announcing his presence, "it's always my fault."

Ed raised an amused eyebrow at him in response, biting back a wide grin at seeing him; fetching Omid was the only time he saw either of the animal trainers, because none of them wanted to try adding explosions to the animals' routines, which just made the regular visit that much more special. "I can't help that you need someone going along after you, cleaning up the mess you always make."

Darius swung his ridiculously thick arm out in front of him, motioning toward the piles of wires and scraps of metal that was sort of migrating outwards from the stool Ed had set up to work on. "I'm the one who always makes messes?"

Noah snorted and stood, her weight heavy on Ed's automail shoulder. As she made a show of dusting off her dress she said, "You're both mess-prone. And I'm supposed to be finding Tasha to check up on the changes she wanted to make to her routine."

"Hey, you came to me," Ed reminded her.

"My first mistake," Noah promised with that faint, so obviously mocking smile that she'd picked up at some point between when they'd parted years ago, and Ed and Al had joined the circus.

Ed went back to work twisting the wires he'd been working with, while Darius carefully picked his way through the mess to the stool Noah had just abandoned. "Probably won't hold your weight," Ed pointed out, unable to help himself.

"It's too low to the ground, anyway," Darius was quick to return. "We tall people need more room for our legs."

Ed shot him an irritated look, which Darius chuckled at as he carefully cleared himself a spot and sat. Which, well, it wasn't the first time he'd stopped to chat when he came to collect Omid, but it was unusual enough to bring Ed to shoot him a curious frown.

"Bit odd, seeing Noah actually willing to touch someone," Darius said with a smile that looked a bit off, somehow. "You two are clearly close."

Ed frowned down at his wires, debating his options. On one hand, it wasn't his business to share Noah's gift; on the other, he really didn't relish the idea of it spreading through the troupe that he and Noah were sleeping together, even if it would serve as a good shield against his sexual preference.

"What you're thinking," he said after a moment, "is completely off base. We're friends. Lost someone important to us both, and that just brought us closer. It happens."

"Of course it does," Darius agreed with cheer that was so obviously false, Ed couldn't keep himself from blinking at him a couple times. Darius snorted and looked to the side, a bit. "If you want to keep dancing around it, fine, but you know everyone's talking–"

"Look," Ed snapped, annoyed in part because he hated rumours about himself, and in part because the idea that Darius might think he had a thing with Noah just pissed him off for reasons he didn't really want to consider too deeply. "I can't explain Noah's aversion to touch – that's her story to tell – but her being touchy with me is because my right arm's fake, okay? Shoulder and everything, it's all prosthetic."

Darius just sort of stared at him for a long moment, while Ed angrily twisted the last of the wires in his hands and tossed it into his box of completed wires. "Your brother said something about your arm," he murmured before Ed could pick out another set of wires to work on.

Ed took a deep breath, trying to calm his emotions – panic or irritation, he wasn't certain which. Despite the rather close quarters of the camp and the oftentimes delicate detail work involved in explosives, he'd managed to keep his automail hidden so far. Plenty easy to hide his leg, and no one questioned his gloves, likely because Noah always wore her own. And the automail wasn't great for delicate work, really, so he would usually use it to steady stuff and just take off his left glove to work.

But he wasn't an idiot. Eventually, someone would spot a flash of shiny steel and get curious, or he'd get into an accident and the doctor would need to take off his shirt or something equally obnoxious. Point was, it would be seen eventually, so there really wasn't much point in hiding it.

So Ed caught the middle finger of his right glove between his teeth and pulled it off, revealing the too-advanced shine of Amestris automail. "My best friend made it for me, after I lost my arm. But she was the only one who understood the secrets of it, why it's so much better than anything on the market right now. I hide it to avoid the questions."

Darius was staring at his metal hand with an awed light, and he reached forward, a bit, before stopping himself and asking, "Is it okay to touch?"

Ed shrugged and held his hand out to him. "Sure. There's no synaptic feedback, or anything, so it's not like I can feel things."

And yet, somehow, for a brief moment, he almost thought he could feel the moment Darius took his hand, thick fingers running over the metal joints as lightly as though he thought he might break it if he pressed too hard.

"I know former soldiers who would give anything for something like this," Darius murmured, very obviously letting go, as though he was afraid of the temptation it represented.

"The thing about being willing to give anything," Ed returned flatly as he slipped his glove back on, "is that there's always something you're not willing to give, you just don't realise it until it's too late to get it back." He snorted, unable to bring himself to look at Darius. "It doesn't matter; the only person with the knowledge to make something this advanced is beyond any of our reach."

There were days when Ed honestly considered hunting down this world's Winry, just so he could have his best friend back again, or even Mustang or Hawkeye or Havoc, for the familiarity. Because, maybe then, the loss wouldn't hurt as much. Maybe he wouldn't feel so much like he'd forgotten the cadence of Winry's voice, or the turn of Mustang's stupid smirk.

But Ed had done his time living with ghosts, and it never stopped hurting, so he no longer went looking.

"I'm sorry," Darius offered quietly.

Ed shrugged. "It is what it is."

Darius didn't seem to have a response for that, so Ed picked up some more wire and got back to work. Eventually, Darius left, and it wasn't until Al came back to make sure Ed remembered to eat dinner, that he realised Omid had fallen asleep next to him.

"Don't let me stop you from taking him back, Brother," Al said with a smile that suggested he knew something Ed didn't.

Ed pinned him with his best flat look. But he couldn't really let Omid stay over in their tent for the night, not if it might end up leaving Darius and Heinkel in a panic when they realised he was missing, so he huffed a bit, ate the food Al forced on him, then made his way to the animal section of the camp.

The clearing was dark and quiet when Ed reached it, most of the animals either already asleep, or well on the way, so Ed moved as quietly as he could over to Omid's cage, trying not to wake any of them.

Omid waited until Ed was fussing with the door of the cage, then leapt out of Ed's arms and raced over to Darius and Heinkel's cart.

"Omid!" Ed hissed after him, irritated. When some of the other animals near him shifted in their sleep, he winced and mouthed a few curses at himself, then crept after the troublesome monkey.

Omid didn't move from the steps up into the cart, looking totally relaxed as he watched Ed approach. Just as Ed reached out to grab him, though, there was a thud from inside the cart. Ed looked up a bit reflexively, right though a gap in the curtains covering the window, toward where Darius had Heinkel pinned against a worktop or table or something, and was kissing him hard.

Ed's eyes went wide and he felt a little like the temperature had just shot up. 'Holy fuck,' he mouthed, stepping a bit closer to the curtain without thinking about the consequences.

Not that there looked like there would be any, not the way Darius and Heinkel were going at it: Heinkel was already half-naked, and Darius' shirt was hanging off one arm, while his trousers were slung suspiciously low on his hips.

Heinkel's hand had just started pushing its way down the back of Darius' trousers, when Omid let out a loud chatter of monkey speech in Ed's right ear, clearly having climbed his hand while he'd been distracted.

Darius and Heinkel pulled apart, and Ed found himself locking eyes with Heinkel, horror shooting through his blood at the knowledge that he'd been caught.

Except, it occurred to him right before the curtain was yanked aside, Heinkel couldn't actually see distant things without his glasses, so Ed had probably been safe.

"Ed," Darius recognised, his voice gone stiff and formal in a way that was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Ed didn't know how to fix it, though, barely managed to pull his scattered thoughts together enough to say, "Omid. Bri-inging him b-back. Tha-that's all. Sorry."

"Ed," Heinkel interrupted before Ed could get his body to obey the order to get the hell out before this got any more awkward. He'd slipped his glasses on and stopped just behind Darius, leaning against his shoulder, and looking rather calmer than Darius looked or Ed felt. "Why don't you come in?"

"Hei–" Darius started, right before Ed babbled, "Oh n-no, I cho– I should– I mean, Al's–"

Heinkel patted Darius' shoulder. "Go put your tree rat away," he ordered, "and let Ed in."

Darius let out what sounded suspiciously like a snarl, but obediently stepped away from the window, and was buttoning his trousers back up as he shoved his way out the door of the cart. "Omid," he snapped, and the monkey, for the first time in Ed's memory, apparently got that he needed to not fuck around, because he jumped across to Darius' arm without any pause.

When Darius motioned for Ed to go into the cart, the movement of his hand jerky, Ed took Omid's lead and stepped quietly inside.

He hadn't been in many of the circus carts, honestly, but it was clear this one had been built with larger people in mind, because there was plenty of space for Ed to move without feeling even a little cramped.

Heinkel had closed the curtain again by the time Ed reached him, and he was leaning back against what looked to be a washbasin, watching Ed from behind the reflection of light on his glasses, expression as blank as some of Mustang's more inscrutable.

"You've seen ours," he said after a long moment of Ed trying not to squirm, "why don't you show my yours."

"My–?" Ed said, thrown. His...what? Cock? It would apparently quite enjoy that, but Ed couldn't imagine any such event ending well.

Heinkel motioned with his head toward Ed's right shoulder. "Darius told me about your arm."

Oh. Ed paused for a moment, debating just pulling off his glove again. But, well, that seemed kind of...pathetic, comparatively. So he unbuttoned both his waistcoat and shirt, letting them slip off on his right side, then held up his arm between them.

"Is that bolted into your flesh?" Darius asked from behind him, something that sounded very like horror in his voice.

Ed blinked and touched the front anchoring bolt, which he knew from Granny and Winry screwed into the metal 'bone' they'd replaced his collarbone with. "Yes?" He glanced back and made a show of swinging his arm out to the side. "How else would it keep from falling off?"

"I– Shit. Didn't think about that." He grimaced and reached out, his fingers tracing along the edge of the back plate, feeling like a brand against his skin.

Ed couldn't help the way his breath shuddered as he let it out, and he turned back to Heinkel in hopes of a distraction, only to find Heinkel watching him, his eyes sharp and aware in a way that made Ed far too aware that he was only have wearing his shirt, and the other two were both bare-chested. "Happy?" he managed to get out, his voice impossibly steady. (He was pretty sure that deserved a medal.)

"Almost," Heinkel agreed, before stepping forward – a little too close, especially with Darius' fingers still touching the meet between skin and the back plate – and catching Ed's chin with one hand as he leant in to press a firm kiss to Ed's mouth.

Ed went from uncomfortably warm to dizzy with heat pretty much on contact, and he grabbed for Heinkel's arm to steady himself, unable to quite stop a broken noise when he couldn't even pretend to get his hand around his bicep.

The kiss wasn't a particularly long one, as a thick hand pressed against Ed's sternum, pulling him back against a large, warm body. "That," Darius rumbled, his voice low and thick, "sounds like interest. Is that interest, Ed?"

Ed swallowed and stared up at the hungry heat of Heinkel's stare. He was pretty damn certain he was going to regret everything in the morning – he simply didn't have the patience for relationships, he'd discovered while in London, especially ones that needed to be kept secret for their own safety – but he'd already run right past the point where he'd be able to walk out the cart door, so he put on his sharpest grin and covered the hand on his sternum with his automail hand and said, "So fucking much interest." He turned his head to look back at Darius as much as he could, and caught heated green eyes easily. "What're you gonna do about it?"

Darius' hand spasmed against his torso, and he pulled back from Ed's back just enough to lean down and kiss him, so much rougher than Heinkel had done, but no less dizzying.

As much as Ed had always hated people picking him up as a kid, he found it weirdly hot with sexual partners, and he didn't fight at all when his feet left the ground without any warning. He did pull back from Darius' mouth long enough to warn, "My left leg's a prosthetic, too," though. Because he'd done the whole 'shock at the sight of a metal leg killed the mood' song and dance, and it sucked.

There was a brief moment where it seemed like everyone was holding their breath, but then Darius murmured, "As long as you don't bring a lion cub to bed," and Heinkel let out a loud, annoyed sigh, and the topic was dropped in favour of all of them getting naked, quite a bit of heavy petting, and sorting out positions.

Somehow, Ed found himself falling asleep, sated and warm, between Darius and Heinkel's large forms, far too relaxed to worry about what the morning might bring.

-0-

The morning brought Darius yelling obscenities at the coffee press and Heinkel dragging Ed out to feed the animals while Darius cursed about making food for the humans, which turned out way too delicious to be fair, and Ed may or may not have threatened to start popping by for breakfast every morning and received no show of disapproval from either of the animal trainers.

When he got back to his and Al's tent, Noah and Al were both there, watching him with worryingly similar knowing smiles, not saying a word as Ed ducked into the tent and got changed, then ducked back out and pointedly stole Al's coffee.

"So, if you're moving in with Darius and Heinkel, can I move in with Marta?" Al chirped.

Ed spat coffee on him, Al bitched, and Noah laughed at both of them.

And, a week later, when Ed was still falling asleep between Darius and Heinkel each night, and waking to feed the animals and eat Darius' freakishly good breakfast, Ed finally gave in and officially moved in with them. Which the whole troupe knew, and not a one of them seemed to care. (Noah, with her quiet, knowing smile, reminded him that the circus was called 'Devil's Den', and Ed eventually realised that a lot of the troupe were 'sinners', as according to the modern mindset.)

It turned out Ed did have the patience for a long-term relationship, and Al's blinding smile every time he saw Marta made him realise that they could live with some ghosts.

.