A/N: Ahem. *clears throat* Enjoy.
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Title: For the Sake of Science
Author: liketolaugh
Rating: T
Pairings: None
Genre: Angst/Family
Warnings: Child abuse, human experimentation
Summary: A very different Hohenheim stays in Resembool, and Roy Mustang finds the effects of his experiments too late. With his help, Ed and Al set out to discover what he was trying to do, and along the way, find much, much more. Brotherhood AU.
Disclaimer: If I owned Fullmetal Alchemist, would I really be here right now?
'Frozen' was not quite the right word to use. 'Petrified' was closer, were it not for the connotation of fear. Maybe 'fixated' was right; everyone was staring at Ed, unmoving, stunned. Deadlocked.
Ed himself was scarcely breathing, torn between fear of the people who had planned to kill him and startlement at his own newfound ability, gold eyes flickering frantically.
The moment broke when blue sparks erupted from the ground and the men - seven, Ed counted now - sank knee-deep into the ground. Behind him, Al pushed himself up slightly, wincing. Ed spared a moment to smile, vague and out of place and probably a little bit out of shock; Al was a clever little bastard when he wanted to be.
"Brother," Al whispered, slightly hoarse, hand still pressed to the circle he'd drawn in the dirt. "Your side."
Ed looked down, slightly confused, and found red sparks sealing up the graze from the bullet. Within seconds, it was as if he'd never had a near-miss in his life, and even his clothing was fixed back up.
Then Ed heard something, a whisper, just on the edge of his mind. Nothing coherent - it never was. He listened anyway, hard, trying to make it out, trying to hear (Wh- -s H-h-m?) what was being said.
(-h- -e -u?)
(A- y- H-h-e-'s -n?)
(E-r-, i- -t y-?)
(E-w-d, c- -ou h- u-?)
Who are you? Edward thought back. What do you want with me? What are you saying?
(Edward?)
"EDWARD!"
Edward refocused on his surroundings and jolted in surprise.
At some point while he was struggling to hear the voices, everything had changed. The kidnappers had been evicted from the ground and were handcuffed, the last of them being pushed into a car that definitely hadn't been there before, and there was a burn in his shoulder that sparks were sealing up.
He'd actually spaced out through being shot.
Dammit.
Mustang was in front of him, navy eyes intense, looking one step away from shaking him.
"Edward, are you hurt?" Mustang demanded, looking increasingly frustrated and worried.
Slowly, Ed shook his head, shaking slightly. No, he wasn't hurt, not anymore - the sparks were fixing that, sparks just like Dad's old ones - but he didn't understand what was going on, didn't understand for a moment, and that scared him more than almost anything else.
Mustang let out a sigh and released him. "Good." He nodded toward one of the cars he and his team had used to get there. "Alphonse is waiting for you in there. We're going to take you back to Tucker's." With a slightly grim expression, he added, "But come tomorrow, we have a bit of talking to do."
Ed nodded slightly. Yeah. He knew.
"Big brother Ed?"
Both brothers had been nearly silent since they'd been taken back to Tucker's, slightly overwhelmed by the day's events. Facing pain and facing death were two very different things.
Ed glanced up and forced a slight smile. Nina was giving him a worried look with big blue eyes, arms behind her back, fidgeting.
"Are you alright?" Nina asked him, worried.
His smile dimmed slightly. "I'm fine, Nina," he told her.
Her worry didn't ease; that made him feel a little warmer. He glanced to Al beside him, who gave him a slight smile of his own, a little more genuine than Ed's.
"Do you want to color?" Nina asked, tugging on his sleeve to get his attention. "Coloring makes me feel better. Do you want to play?"
His smile softened and warmed. "Sure, Nina."
Tucker found them coloring an hour later, sheets of paper strewn across the table, Nina concentrating intensely and Ed and Al talking quietly, much more at ease than the hour previous.
"Boys?" he asked, startled. "You're back early. Did something happen?"
Tucker, like Nina an hour before, looked slightly concerned, and Ed looked up and smiled slightly, notably more at ease with the man than he had been three weeks ago.
"Yeah," he admitted, setting the crayon down. "Just…" He glanced at Nina, then at Al.
Al gave him a smile and a nod, and Ed got up and gave Tucker an intent look. Tucker understood almost instantly and they went into the library, leaving Nina and Al behind, still coloring.
"Mustang wanted to run some tests," Ed explained, once the door had shut. "He's probably right, thinking back on it, but when he was telling us, I was a little freaked." He grimaced.
"I'm sure anyone would have been," Tucker reassured him.
Ed smiled bitterly. "Yeah, maybe. Anyway, he pushed it, and we bolted, me and Al." He rolled his eyes. "And wouldn't you know it, we hadn't been out twenty minutes before some Mustang-hating bastard snatched us off the street." He shrugged as Tucker inhaled sharply. "Nothing really happened - you know, lasting damage or whatever - me and Al just got a little shaken up." He thought of the sparks. "Found a thing or two out. Anyway, don't worry about it."
"Hm." Tucker studied him for a moment. "I'd say that your standards for what's to be worried about are a little skewed." He smiled wryly. "I suppose I can understand why."
Why wouldn't Tucker stop talking about it?
Ed shrugged. "I guess." He smiled bitterly. "It's kind of obvious."
"I've been meaning to ask you about that." Ed started and looked up at him sharply. Tucker continued hastily, "You don't have to answer if you don't want to, of course, but I was curious - the first time." Ed frowned at him and he clarified, "There has to have been a first time your father ran an experiment on you. Why did you let him?"
Ed studied him for a long time. Finally, he admitted, "I don't know." After a moment, he decided that this needed elaboration. "I was too young, really. About three or four, I think. It was probably just that I trusted him." He shrugged. "He was my dad. I trusted him."
There was pain in his voice as he finished, and Tucker gave him a sympathetic look.
"I see. I'm sorry if my question brought up bad memories."
Ed shrugged. "Don't worry about it."
But he still pushed off the wall and headed back out the door before Tucker could say anything else.
The next day, they were in Mustang's office almost as soon as they were at the door.
"What do you know about what happened yesterday?" he said, quickly and bluntly.
They'd expected the question; that didn't, of course, do anything to provide an answer. Ed shrugged.
"I don't know," he told Mustang, arms crossing, a slight scowl on his face. "We didn't know I could do that, yeah? It's never happened before." He gave him a pointed look. "You know what that means."
Mustang nodded grimly. "I do." It meant that it - yet again - was a result of that final procedure, the source of a good half of the mysteries surrounding Hohenheim's experiments.
That man made him sick. To think he'd once admired him.
"Dad used to transmute that way," Al offered tentatively. "Sometimes he wouldn't even moved, there would just… red spark alchemy. The first time me and Ed transmuted, he had to explain that it was usually blue."
"I see." Mustang cast them an unreadable look. "Can you do it again?"
Ed shrugged. "Maybe. I haven't tried yet, really."
Mustang nodded, like he'd expected that, and tapped his desk. "Transmute this. Something small; it doesn't really matter."
Ed nodded and, strangely hesitant with both Mustang's and Al's burning-hot gazes on him, reached forward. The tips of his fingers brushed the tabletop, and he thought of an array, thought of a suit of armor, strange and big and bulky, drawing the eye like it was once important, could have been important-
And then he flinched back as red sparks erupted from the desk, and the same suit of armor formed from the wood in miniature.
"Yeah," he said softly, breathing hard for a moment before he got it back under control. "I guess I can."
"Yeah," Al agreed, just as soft.
"By the way," Havoc added to Tucker as he dropped them off, glancing over his shoulder with a cigarette between his fingers. Tucker gave him a puzzled look, the door ajar behind him, Nina clinging to Alexander, looking at the military man with wide eyes. "Mustang wanted me to remind you that your assessment is the day after tomorrow."
Tucker's head dropped slightly as Ed and Al both gave him startled looks. "Yes. I know." He glanced back up, eyes and glasses glinting identically. "Don't worry. I'll be ready."
*smile*