Roy was sitting in his study when he heard the crash.

Jolting up from his chair, he rushed to the living room to check on Ed, only to see that he wasn't there.

"Edward?" Roy called out, surely he wouldn't have tried the stairs! There was nothing up there anyway.

"Kitchen."

The groan had surely come from the kitchen, and when Roy entered, he saw Edward kneeling on the ground next to his overturned wheelchair, his hand resting on the bridge of his bleeding nose.

With a sigh, Roy got an old dishcloth from one of his drawers and handed it to Ed, who pressed it up to his nose.

"What did you think you were doing?" Roy asked him, "If you're hungry or thirsty all you had to do was come get me, or call."

"Not it." Edward said, his voice a little nasally. "I need my medicine."

Roy glanced at the clock, and surely enough it was about time for the nightly doses of his medicine, both for pain and his fever.

"Why didn't you call?" Roy asked as he placed the chair back on its wheels, and helped Ed back into it, ignoring the few drops of blood that now stained his shirt.

"I can take some pills without help." Edward tried to explain, still pressing the bloody cloth to his face. "I just can't reach the cabinet from the chair, and when I tried to stand it fell over."

Roy got the two bottles down from the shelf, "Maybe I should leave them on the counter, at least if you're going to be getting them yourself." Pulling out the correct doses, he set the pills on the counter and began to fill a glass with water.

Edward scoffed.

"Well, we're going to need to wait out that nosebleed if you're going to take this." Roy took the cloth from Edward, and folded it over to a clean side.

A trickle of blood made it's way from Edward's nostril, so he placed it back, applying pressure.

"I can do it myself," Edward struggled against Roy's hand, "Stop!"

"You were just holding it there. You need to put pressure on it to get it to stop."

"I know that!" Edward jerked away, and used his own hand to hold the cloth.

The bleeding stopped after a few minutes, and Roy took the now soaked cloth and placed it in the sink.

"That thing had got to be ruined now." Edward commented, a bit guiltily.

"Doesn't matter." Roy said, "I've got a thousand of those things, and they're what I use if I ever get one."

But instead of going for another cloth, he pulled a paper towel from it's roll, and wet it with the faucet before turning back to Ed. "Hold out your hand. We need to wipe the blood off."

Ed held out his hand.

"You're a bit pale, but you didn't bleed that much." Roy observed, but when he wiped at the blood, a bit of skin came off with the paper.

After a split second of panic, Roy realized what was happening as he looked down at the new spot of vivid color.

"You shed your skin?"

Edward nodded, looking at the back of his hand where the skin had come off. "It's never been that easy, though."

"You never used water?" Roy asked, dabbing at the skin again, and Ed watched as bits of shed stuck to it.

"No, it didn't occur to me." Ed said, a bit distracted. "How do you know to do that?"

"I kept a lizard when I was younger." He answered, "Not for very long, my aunt didn't care for it, but whenever it needed to shed I'd put in a wet paper towel and it would shed really easily."

"I think I'll need a bit more than one wet paper towel." Ed commented, earning a small laugh.

"I'll go start a bath for you." Roy got up and tossed the paper towel in the trash. "I just hope your shed doesn't clog the drain."

"That is a complete possibility." Edward told him.

Roy shrugged. "I'll risk it," and Ed felt thankful.

Then he jumped, almost out of his old skin, as his wheelchair started moving. "I can get myself to the bathroom, jackass!"

"But this is much quicker, and can you get all your skin off with only one arm?"

Ed bit his lip. "No."

"I didn't think so."

Ed huffs a sigh and he gets pushed down the hall and through the open door. He leaves him by the sink as he bends down to start the water.

He turns it up to just bearable heat and lets the tub start to fill up.

"You need help getting yourself undressed?" Roy asks as he straightens up.

"Oh," Ed looks down at himself. He's wearing a black t-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants that have one leg tied into a knot. "Probably not."

Ed squirms in his chair and pulls the shirt off, and lets it drop down onto the floor, where Roy picks it up with a sigh. He folds it up and places it on the counter by the sink.

Edward hesitates. He's not wearing anything underneath his sweatpants. "I don't need any help yet."

Roy raises an eyebrow. "Are you embarrassed?"

Edward glares at him for a moment, but he's really not up for being a brat. He's itchy and tired, and he'll have a hell of a time getting all the skin from his back and arm. He strips off his pants with a sigh, and pretends to not notice Mustang looking, even if it was just for a moment.

"You really are covered in scales, aren't you?" Mustang asks, but he's only looking at Edward's stomach, which is covered in ventral scales.

"Yeah," Edward says, his embarrassment temporarily forgotten. The only part of him was, well… Was not something he was just going to out and say. "Can you help me into the bath?"

Roy blinks like he actually forgot the reason the two of them were standing around like idiots in a bathroom.

"Of course." He says, and soon enough Edward is sitting in the half-full tub with the faucet pouring over his shoulder where the automail used to be.

"You're buzzing."

Ed's eyes snap open and he realizes that he is making some kind of noise that leaves a vibrating feeling in his throat.

He tries to stop, but he really can't.

"It's like purring." Roy says as he fetches a sponge from by the sink. "You must really like the water, then. Turn around."

Ed turns his back willingly to hide the flush on his cheeks, and once more tries to stop the noise, but once he feels the sponge on his back brushing away the old scales it only increases in volume.

"What kind of lizard did he fuse you with to make that sound?" Roy asked, "If you don't mind answering."

Edward sighed and relaxed, just allowing the odd purr-like sound to continue. "A lot, actually." Edward began. "There was a monitor lizard, a chameleon, a blue-tongue skink, a couple of geckos, a Gila monster and an alligator."

"That..." Roy didn't know what to say. "Wow."

He actually sounded impressed. Not disgusted or affronted.

"I'd say it's an alligator that makes this noise." Edward said, trying to ignore how happy that fact made him feel. Whenever anyone else heard what had happened to Ed they acted like it was horrible, like it was something that should be fixed.

That was impossible, but Roy just seemed to accept it.

"Why's that?" Roy asked.

"When I was looking for the stone, Al and I ended up at a River town, and there were a bunch out basking on the rocks. The babies were chirping, and a couple of the adults were making this weird rumbling sound. The locals said that meant they were happy."

"Alligator it is, then." Roy said, "...and there. Your back is done."

Edward flinched when he felt something other than the sponge touch him. Roy's fingers were moving around one of his large circular scales. "You're actually quite stunning." Roy said. "The scales and the tail, it's quite amazing."

Ed turns his head, and looks him in the eye. His face is red, Edward can feel it, but so is Roy's. It was probably the steam.

Ed looked around again, and raised his hand to start picking at the skin on his face.

But Roy wasn't finished. The sponge found it's way to Ed's arm, and the skin rolled away easily. "You were stunning to look at before, too." Roy said, "I didn't mean to imply that you weren't, or that this was what made you-"

"That's okay." Ed said, letting his hand drop down. His face was clean, but there was still skin on his scalp and tail. He started peeling back the skin on his tail, "That should be everything I need help with," Ed said, but then the bastard put his hands in his hair, parting it and looking.

"You've got a lot of skin built up in your hair." He said, "There's a comb in one of these drawers."

Ed moved his tail between his legs as Mustang kept combing his hair. The rumbling sound he was making only seemed to grow in volume.

Roy rinsed out Edward's hair and moved back.

"You're done."

Ed drummed his fingers on his knee, looking down into the shed-laden water. "I don't think this is all going to drain."

Roy still reached into the water, making Ed grimace, and pulled the plug from the drain. "That doesn't matter, I'll clean it up after we get you dried off and warmed up."

Ed glanced over his shoulder, Roy was holding out a hand. "I should clean it, it's my skin."

Edward took it and let himself be pulled to his foot, and he let Roy wrap one towel around his shoulders.

"Will you need help drying off?" Roy asked, and Ed realized that he was only asking to give him the illusion of choice, part of Ed was furious. Of course he needed help, and he hated that, but he was also thankful, so he nodded.

It wasn't too hard to accept Mustang's help. He was kind about it, much kinder than he seemed when they were in the office, or if they had met on the street.

Maybe he really is kind, Edward thought as he drifted off to sleep.

Okay!

Story time for anyone who read the previous chapter 10.

I have really, really bad General Anxiety disorder, and recently I was given a medicine to take whenever I had a bad panic attack.

It made me, really, really loopy.

I wrote that last chapter while I was on the medicine, and I just don't know why.

It came out of nowhere and just leaving it up after the medicine wore off left me with even more anxiety.

Then, it wore off and now I'm sick as a dog.

So I just edited the old chapter a bit.

I hope this is better.