Ed found himself pleasantly, yet suspiciously surprised to find that Pride was quiet, and much less abrasive (and much less outwardly rude), once he awoke.
Pride was awake already by the time Ed first began to blink the sleep out of his eyes, Edward assumed he had been awake all night due to his comment the night before.
He looked well put together, he had gone through Al's wardrobe and grabbed his most formal garments, though he seemed overdressed for any occasion that they could possibly be attending that day.
"About time you awoke dear brother mine." Pride grinned at him in an antagonistic way.
Ed exhaled sharply out of his nostrils, "Oh fuck off Pride."
Alphonse's face took on an exaggerated, hurt expression, "Is that any way to speak to our precious little brother?" he blinked twice, stepping closer to Edward.
"You'll never pass as him." Ed took a swig of water from his dresser, but found himself gagging on it as sharp, shadow like tendrils forced him backwards onto his bed.
"Oh I'm a very good actor Edward." it sounded as if multiple voices were speaking at once, "I only enjoy messing with you."
A bead of sweat ran down Ed's head as the sharp tendrils retracted, leaving him coughing with water running down his chest, soaking into his shirt.
"Humans are so disgusting sometimes." he turned and promptly walked to the door, "I'm leaving, and it's in your best interest to do so as well."
Ed grumbled to himself as he pulled his clothes out of his bag to dress himself. Once he was dressed with his hair braided, he stepped out the door to find Pride waiting outside, "So what are we doing today brother mine?"
His tone and posture were almost exactly like Alphonse. It had shaken Edward a bit, but he only exhaled and gave Pride a side glance. "I need to speak to the colonel about why he lied to me. It was real fucked up and I want answers."
"You really should be more respectful of your commanding officer, I'm sure he has his reasons." they both walked by the front desk of the military hotel and headed out the door.
Pride stopped and looked around as Edward began to walk to Central Command. "Oh brother?"
Ed looked up with an eyebrow crooked.
"Shouldn't we hail a taxi? Its dreadfully hot out, and we don't want to get all sweaty on that walk to Command."
Ed turned around with a deadpan expression, "It's not far, we walk there every day, sweat never bothered you before, right?" his words hid a challenge for Pride, one the homunculus seemed to begrudgingly accept, simply huffing and following Edward.
Upon reaching their destination, Pride looked slightly miffed at the fact that he was sweaty, but otherwise kept a well done facade of Alphonse.
Upon reaching Mustang's office, they found no trace of the Colonel, only a Lieutenant Hawkeye, completely unfazed by Edward kicking the door open with a shout of 'Bastard!'.
"Hello Edward, Alphonse."
"Where the hell is Mustang?!" Ed demanded.
"He's working on a personal issue that Falman has at the moment, he's unavailable right now." She adjusted her paper stack so it was evened out, "Did you need to see him?"
Ed bit his lip, "Fuck yea I do, I wanna know why he lied to me!"
Riza blinked and looked back down at her papers with a slight frown, "I apologize Edward, he thought it was for the best that you didn't hear it from him."
He shut his eyes and bit his tongue, brooding over his anger as Hawkeye looked to 'Alphonse' who had been oddly silent.
"I hope it didn't hit you too hard Alphonse."
He only smiled at her with a calm expression, "I'm just fine Lieutenant, I'm more level headed than my brother after all."
Hawkeye momentarily gained an odd, questioning expression, before returning to her previous frown, "Right…" she cleared her throat, "If you want to speak to Mustang you will have to come back another time, he may be back later today."
"Then we'll be back." Ed grumbled, walking out the door.
"Of course." Hawkeye responded, giving a salute."
'Alphonse' stopped before leaving, giving her a smile and saying, "At ease." before taking his leave as well.
Hawkeye released her salute and gathered up more of Mustang's messy paperwork as she watched the boys leave with careful eyes.
The walk was silent as they made their way to the exit, Ed was deep in thought about Hawkeye, why had she done that? The lieutenant knows they don't like to be saluted… however his thoughts were interrupted by a sharp shriek.
Ed watched as Pride was sent flying down the large staircase they were descending, hitting every stair on the way down, finally landing face first on the ground.
Edward could only blink a couple times before running down the stairs to see what happened, but a lady at a nearby desk had beat him to it. She helped the boy up and asked if he was okay.
Edward was utterly shocked by his response.
"What the fu-fu-freak!? What? How?!" he seemed disoriented as he allowed her to help him stand. He held his head as Ed caught up to him.
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know!?" tears were in his eyes.
"..." Ed swallowed, "Alphonse?"
"Yea Ed?"
Alphonse was squeezed into a hug, and swiftly pulled aside as Ed called a thanks to the lady who'd helped Alphonse. They rushed into a bathroom where Ed kicked in all the stalls to be sure nobody was there. Once he was sure they were safe, he turned back to his brother. "I'm so glad you're back."
"I guess me too?" Al was sweating and sort of swaying. "I'm sorry brother but I've really gotta use the bathroom."
Ed gained a confused expression before realizing that Al's body hadn't gotten a lot of human necessities since Pride had taken over.
"G-go ahead!" Ed allowed him to relieve himself. Al stumbled out of the stall and washed his hands before splashing the cold water on his face. "I'm so thirsty, and, hungry and tired. What was he doing…"
"Pride refused to eat, sleep, drink, or piss while he was in control." Ed explained, "I think he's too damn arrogant to do so."
"Mm," Al shook his head a bit, "How did I get control back?"
"Maybe he was just so embarrassed by everything." Ed pondered.
"What?" Al gave him an odd look.
Ed held up a hand to his chin, "Well he seems to want to appear as someone who is as perfect as a human can get, he picked out a fancy ass outfit this morning, and then he insisted on a taxi this morning so he wouldn't get sweaty by walking, but I managed to get him to walk with me. Though falling down the stairs must have been the icing on the cake with the background of how bad your body required basic human needs.
"So he got so embarrassed he couldn't bear it anymore?" Al blinked a couple times.
"I guess? Don't you remember that stuff?"
"Not really." Al cleared his dry throat, "I only get bits and pieces of what's going on. He was real awful to poor Mrs. Bradley."
"Yea, we can always count on him to be an asshole…" Ed trailed off, "Anyways, we should probably find Winry while you're still in control. Who knows for how long."
"You're right." Al agreed, splashing some more water on his face before giving Ed a thumbs up.
They rushed outside and began to head back to the hotel, "I think Winry should be back by now, but I don't know if we should tell her… after all she just got a really big shock."
"Yea, and I think it may not be a good idea cause, I can feel Pride watching… its creepy."
Ed's head whipped around, "Is he taking back control?!"
Al shook his head, "No, just watching… I don't think he's able to take it back yet."
"Good." Ed ran up the stairs to the hotel room and threw open the door, halfway unsurprised to find Winry sitting on Al's bed with something in her hands.
"You're back." she gave them a slight, sad smile.
Ed wiped the sweat off of his forehead, "Uh, yeah."
Winry tilted her head in confusion as she looked at Al "What are you wearing?"
"My other clothes are uh, filthy. So I'm a bit overdressed."
Winry chuckled a bit as she held out the piece of folded paper out to the boys. "Elicia made it, she wanted all of us to sign it so we could go and give it to Mr. Hughes together… so he can read it when he wakes up." she sniffled for a moment and looked away.
"Sure." Ed carefully took the card out of Winry's hands and looked inside of it while Al read over his shoulder.
It was scribbled in pink and purple with yellow hearts all around. Elicia had messy letters saying "Get well Daddy" while Winry had written her own message. There was enough room for Ed and Al to add their own messages in a plain space above the scribbled crayon stick figures Elicia had drawn of all of them holding hands.
Ed wrote his own message before handing it to Al, Alphonse ran his fingers over Elicia's drawing before taking the pen from Ed and adding his own words for Maes.
Once finished, Al handed the card back to Winry. She took it from Al's hands and placed it gently in her bag.
"Gracia asked if you guys wanted to visit the hospital with us to deliver it, even though he-he won't be- able…"
"Of course." Alphonse answered.
"We best get moving then…"
They arrived at the Hughes' home with smiles for Elicia that hid frowns of deep remorse.
Winry let the smaller girl ride on her shoulders as they walked to the hospital together as the sun began its descent from the sky, tinting it with orange.
The hospital seemed to clean and too busy, too much life compared to the empty feeling inside of them as they stepped into Hughes' room.
There were tubes and wired and IVs all hooked up to him in many different places. It looked so sad, his face was peaceful, and his face was pale, but the rise and fall of his chest was consistent. And it was enough to put them at ease.
Winry handed the card to Elicia, who carefully stepped towards her father's bed, "Hi daddy! It's me! I have a card! I drew a picture on it! Mommy, me, big brothers, and big sister signed it! Just for you! So… wake up real fast so you can read it!"
Elicia continued her words for her father while Gracia had turned away, tears trailing down her face as her eyes were fixed upon a newspaper.
"Mrs. Hughes, is-" Edward's words caught in his throat as he read the newspaper. "Mrs. Hughes I, what the h-" he looked at Elicia, "H-heck is this?"
"They say this woman put my husband in this condition, this Maria Ross…"
"What?!" Alphonse jumped at the name. "That-it can't be! She would never-"
"I don't know, but it says she's to be killed…" Gracia trailed off.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Hughes but we need to do something right now." Edward grabbed Al's hand and tugged him along.
Winry chased them out, "Wait! Where-"
"Go back to the hotel! We'll be back!" Edward turned to her.
"But-"
"Please, just. Once you're done here, please." Ed exhaled.
"I… alright." Winry nodded and Ed did the same before dashing off.
As Ed caught up to Alphonse he could see tears trailing down his younger brother's cheeks. "Al-"
Suddenly Al's knees buckled and he feel to the ground, "ALPHONSE!" Ed grabbed his younger brothers arm, only to have it thrown back at him. Al stood up and almost casually flicked the tears away.
"How embarrassing, why's he such a crybaby?"
Ed grit his teeth, "Pride."
"I have to admit, you had me there for a bit but you can't get rid of me forever." Pride began to fix Al's tussled up hair.
"Fuck off, I have places to go." Edward pushed by him but was stopped by a shadow wrapped around his foot.
"Not without me, now what is happening with this Maria Ross?" Pride released the shadow and held out a hand to help him up with a shit eating smirk.
"You aren't gonna stop me!"
"I have no reason to, I haven't a clue of who she is. You can do whatever the hell you please as long as I'm watching you." Edward rejected his outstretched hand and pushed himself to his feet.
"Fine just don't get in my way."
"I don't plan to. Just remember that I've got my eye on you." Pride fully sheathed his shadow.
"How could I forget." Ed exhaled before continuing off to where he was going in the first place.
Edward ran into her sooner than expected, "Lieutenant Ross!?" he'd run into an alleyway shortcut but ended up finding Ross, and a couple other unexpected faces.
"Hey Ed! You look cute today!"
"What the fuck are you doing here?!" Ed asked the Xingese boy, who only shrugged in response.
Pride arrived behind Ed and surveyed the situation, one person in particular sparked his interest, in fact it looked like he sparked their interest too.
"You!" The armored man ran towards Pride I almost missed the chance to chop you up!"
Pride's shadows quickly blocked his attacks, "Who's this dumbass?" he turned to Ed.
"Some weird guy in line with you and your freaky friends… I think." Ed shook his head, look we have to-"
"Run!" Barry called to Maria, who took his advice and ran the other direction, into an even darker looking alley.
"Lieutenant Wait!" The struggle continued as Barry went for Ed to keep him from following her.
Then in an instant it felt like Edwards ears were exploding. He covered them up as he heard a fiery boom, clear as day from the direction Maria had gone.
In a frenzy of adrenaline he ripped his way past Barry and ran down the alleyway to find Mustang, standing over charred remains. "Hey Fullmetal."
"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!?"
