He pulled a flat, worn leather wallet from his inner jacket pocket. He flipped it open and the man on the stool at the counter next to him leaned over and squinted at it in the dull yellow light of the lamp overhead. He looked at the ID, then up at the presenter, then down again.
"If you're military special ops, then why aren't you in uniform?" he asked, reaching up with his napkin to wipe at the side of his mouth.
"I'm one of those privileged bastards," the man smirked, folded his wallet and stuffed it back into his inner jacket pocket. "If you need further credentials here's a card," he pulled one out of the same pocket he'd put the wallet back in. "I'm sure the nice people at General Mustang's office can give you all the additional information you need."
"So that's what they call alchemist these days, 'special ops'," the man on the stood nodded to the girl behind the counter and she bent to scribble out his total on his check, but the man bearing the special ops ID put his hand over it as she slid it across the counter.
"Allow me, sheriff," Edward Elric smiled, "after all, if not for you I wouldn't be here."
"That diner ain't no place to talk," he said, leading Edward out onto the sidewalk then across the street. "That girl is sweet, but the first thing you said out of the ordinary the whole town would know it by tonight." He fished a key ring out of his pocket and approached a small building that looked like it had just been hastily attached to the side of the building next to it. He jiggled the key in the lock, got the door open and stepped in, taking his hat off. He beckoned Edward to come in with a jerk of his head and Ed obliged, squeezing in past him and looking around at an office barely large enough to hold a desk.
"I guess there isn't much crime in this town," Ed half joked, turning to let the sheriff squeeze by him to get behind the desk. "Um, where do you keep them?"
"Oh, the place next door has a couple of make shift cells, nothing fancy," the sheriff said, sitting himself into the creaking desk chair. For a moment it looked like the chair might tip backwards, and the sheriff himself looked as if he anticipated this, but he caught his balance, then pulled out a file drawer on the desk. It came part way out before tilting sharply for the floor, obviously broken and the sheriff dug in it a moment before getting out a worn large paperback book and flopping it on the desk. Ed rolled his eyes.
"Alright," the sheriff said, flipping the book open, "because I'm suppose to check for fraud, tell me which alchemist designate you are?" He fished a pair of wire frame glasses from his shirt pocket and pushed them over his nose and peered at Ed speculatively.
"Look, I showed you a military ID, I don't see why..." Ed started.
"Alchemist designate," the sheriff repeated slowly and clearly, tapping the book.
"You know that book hasn't been updated in years..." Ed tried again.
The sheriff cleared his throat loudly.
"Fine, fuck it, Fullmetal," Ed snorted, folding his arms.
The sheriff tilted his head back a little, squinted his eyes, flipped back and forth through the book a few times. The he leaned forward to study something and looked up at Ed a few times as he did it.
"LOOK, I told you that book is out of date, I was twelve in that picture, what more evidence do you want?" Ed unfolded his arms and would have spread them if there had been enough room in the office.
"No I'm satisfied, you still got that fat baby face you got in the book," the sheriff closed the book and the subsequent shutting rearranged the dusk on his desk.
Ed studied the glove covered nails of his left hand, composing himself so he could speak again.
"I'm not here to chitchat, I'm here because I heard some rumors," Ed finally said tightly. "Something about someone who was suppose to be dead?"
"That is the damnedest thing I ever did see," the sheriff removed his hat, scratched through what little remained of his graying hair on top of his head, "we buried him and then about six month later, there he is walking around the town. Well you know that got everyone talking, and then I had to go and check it out. But he weren't at his house, at least not that his wife said. I keep looking and looking, because you know, plain as day and their ain't that many crazy people here."
"Did anyone talk to him, was there anything unusual about his appearance? Did anyone get a good look at his eyes?" Ed perched on the edge of the desk, folded his arms. "Did you get close enough to him? Did you see any red lines on his skin?"
"Not that I noticed, I mean you don't just go up to a corpse that's walking around the town," the sheriff put his hat back on, "I don't remember him wearing those clothes though, when they put him in the ground. I mean, I remember he had a nice suit and all. It was just funny. He got seen, one...maybe two more times, then he vanished."
"How long ago was that? I mean, how long between the incident and the report you filed with the local branch?" Ed questioned.
"Three weeks, closer on to a month," the sheriff said, leaning back in his chair. "I didn't think I'd get such a quick response. I ain't never known the military out here to move their ass for anything."
"I'm not from out here; where I'm from we do things a lot faster," Ed said, moving off the desk and back onto his feet. "Mind if I look around?"
"Help yourself," the sheriff said, waving toward the door, "good luck, let me know if you find him."
Small town locals reminded Ed of those goats. The kind that would freak out and go all stiff legged and wide eyed before falling over.
Myotonic, yes, that was the word. Little myotonic goats who froze up when asked a question by someone they'd never seen before.
He spent most of the day chasing people down sidewalks, playing hide and seek in shops and sitting at bar in the very same diner he'd been in that morning. As he waved for more coffee he though of the General, sitting behind his desk, being smug.
"Edward, don't you think that if any of them were still around we'd have known it by now?" the General in his head said, studying his nails. The Riza in his head just took a deep breath, and stood with her hands clasped behind her back at the General's side.
"You need a better hobby, Fullmetal. One that doesn't involve chasing ghosts," the General said and leaned forward, putting his elbows on the mental desk in Ed's head. "One day, you'll let go of the past."
Ed snorted and jerked, the girl pouring his coffee took half a step back and eyed him warily, but she didn't stiffen up and fall over at least.
"Why're you here?" she asked, returning her coffee pot to the warmer, "Only people who come here are running from something."
That was more than anyone in this town, (besides the sheriff), had said to him, but just to be sure she was talking to him, Ed looked around to confirm he was the only one at the bar.
"I'm looking for something that might have run away from something," he said, "I suppose that makes me even less popular."
"You're not here looking for recognition, no one here is, that's why it's here," she said. "So what's your gripe you gotta be chasing something that doesn't want to be found?"
Ed crossed his arms on the bar top and rested his chin on them.
"I'm fucking stubborn is my problem, I don't know when to leave well enough alone," he puffed air up at his bangs. "All I want to do is chase my past. I don't know why, what am I missing? The glory? Fuck no, I hate it when people point at me in the streets or whisper behind my back in places, I ain't that anymore. The adventure? Fuck no, I had enough adventure in my first 18 years to fill up all the adventure for a family of seven for a lifetime. Revenge? Tougher I guess, but still no, what is the point? It won't gain me anything. So, I sit here before you, not knowing who or what am I, other than this need to tie up every minuscule loose end in my life. I think that makes me obsessive."
"Funny, not what I would have pegged you," she leaned back against the counter under the order window and wiped her ands on her apron. "You remind me more of some lost kid."
Ed turned his head slightly, narrowed his eyes at her.
"I can assure you I haven't been a kid since I was 9," he said. "I'm not above saying I made some childish decisions, hell even now all I want to do is second guess myself, but at least I own those decisions now. No one is going to be there to get in the way of my mistakes."
"I don't know what you're looking for," she said and turned away to take up some odd task associated with running a diner, "but for the life of me, I don't think you should find it."
Ed didn't stay much longer after that because he didn't want to find himself agreeing with her.
In the morning things weren't any different. Well maybe his posture was different from having slept on a piece of plywood supported by iron bars all night. He found a rusted metal chair, the kind that had been painted several times but still managed to peel, in the alley beside the sheriff's office. He pulled it to the broken concrete of the front walk and sat there to wait. He just sat, leaning forward, legs spread, elbows on his knees and was surprised to think of nothing. What was there to think about anymore anyways? Not his brother; whole and human, off having a life. Not his superiors; they could just as soon fire him for all the usefulness he'd been lately; there was just nothing more to do.
He reached up to rub at his metal shoulder; well there was something he could do, but he found the more he thought of undoing it the more he turned away from the idea. Somehow, to loose it now would be to undo everything he had done in the past, and in that way he was undoing himself and then would he exist?
Why did he think these things? Al would tell him he was chasing his tail. Round and round he'd go and never get anywhere. What he needed was coffee, what he didn't need was the girl behind the counter telling him he was doing nothing but living in his own fucking shadow. He was so immersed in this that when a shadow did fall over him he didn't take it for anything but his own morbid imagination.
"Been here long?" the sheriff asked, and jingled his keys. "You heading out now?"
Ed looked up at him, squinted against the rising sun that shone over the brim of the sheriff's hat.
"No, why should I? I haven't gotten any answers, but I think you already know that," Ed said, wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Everyone here is so friendly, you'd think you'd be beating the influx of newcomers off with a stick."
"We like it like this," the sheriff grinned, stepped around him and jammed a key into the lock, but the door shoved in before he even turned it. "Nice and quiet when people think this is the armpit of the world."
Ed stood up, followed the man in and stood in the corner, his back pressed there, his arms crossed.
"So, you pretended to be a dead man, lured the sheriff away and then killed him, returned and replaced him, that's clever," Ed said finally, "but why here? That I don't understand."
"I think you missed the armpit part of the last sentence," the sheriff said, settling back and lacing his fingers over his ample stomach.
"I'm tired," Ed said, head thunking back against the wall, "how long are we going to play this game?"
"I'm the only game you got left," the sheriff said. "We play until we're dead, you know the rules."
Ed closed his eyes, saw his tail before him and took a deep breath to keep chasing.
"I was tired of this place, anyways," the sheriff said, rolling his head on his shoulders, "how much of a head start do I get this time?"
Ed didn't answer, instead he clapped as he kicked off the wall, drove his automail blade through the back of an empty desk chair and slammed it aside. Envy perched, grinning, on the rusting filing cabinet in the back of the office.
"What's wrong Edward, you know you can't do without me, you'll just wither away," the monster grinned, jumped, twisted, evaded the next attack.
"Maybe it's time I stop living my past," Ed said, slowing, watching as Envy moved across the floor like liquid and molded himself into corners, "I'm thinking we should see other people."
"You can't leave me, you would lose your edge, who knows you like I do?" Envy purred, toyed at the door handle and cocked his head. "No one loves you like I do. See all the trouble I go to just to keep you active in your waning years? You say this every time, and every time you come back for me, we both know it's true."
And Ed hated him for being right, and he hated him for being there, and he didn't quite hate him because he stood there with blood pumping through his veins and air pushing into his lung.
And he felt good, and he felt young, and he felt useful.
"I know that look in your eye, lover," Envy purred, throwing the door open. "Catch me if you can."
But Ed didn't give chase, after all, giving him a head start was only sporting.