Sorry for the delay and the length, I've been very busy and am now quite ill. Hopefully this chapter is up to par, and isn't quite what you expected!
Warnings: Allusions to somewhat risqué activities
Lindsay shoved her way into his room. He didn't stop her—not for lack of ability, but more out of shock that she was actually willingly talking to him. It took him a second to shake himself out of his stupor, in which time Lindsay was already picking up the prosthetic leg that was still in the case and bouncing it in her hand. "What's this for? Mom said you were working on something for someone at the lab."
Ed scowled and snatched the leg from her hand. "It's none of your business."
Lindsay raised her eyebrows at him and crossed her arms. "What, is it illegal?"
"No, it just doesn't have anything to do with you. I'm doing someone a favour."
"By stealing their prosthetic legs?"
Ed rolled his eyes and put the leg back in the case, closing it firmly. "I didn't steal them. I'm improving them."
"Riiiiight. Like you have the know-how to do something like that."
He glared at her. "Well, unlike you, I do have some intelligence."
She glared right back and crossed her arms over her chest. "Just a regular little genius, aren't you?"
He threw his hands in the air. "What do you want? Did you just come here to bother me, or did you actually have a reason?"
Lindsay flipped her hair over her shoulder, and Ed suddenly realized that she was dressed in a rather form-fitting, low-cut dress that fell tightly across her body to about mid-thigh; tall heels that Ed couldn't imagine anyone walking in were strapped to her feet. To his annoyance, those heels gave her a full foot of height on him.
"What are you doing, going to a party or something?" he demanded, trying not to blush at the obviously very risqué outfit.
"I'm going out with some friends."
"And you're telling me this why?"
She pursed her lips. "Because I want you to come with me."
He stopped and looked at her with his patented 'um... what?' stare that suggested she was speaking gibberish and should probably translate for him. She gave an impatient huff.
"You owe me for the shower thing—" Ed made a noise of annoyance and she glared him into silence, "—and I think that you could pay me back by coming."
Ed stared at her. "So... let me get this straight. You want me," he gestured at himself, "to go with you," he gestured at Lindsay, "and your friends to a party as payment for accidentally walking in on you in the bathroom?"
She nodded imperiously.
"Are you serious?" He really didn't understand girls. He really didn't. "How is that payment?"
Lindsay huffed and ran a hand through her hair. "It's not like I want you there for your oh-so-amazing company," she sniffed, glaring. Ed threw up his hands, but before he could express his irritated confusion, she continued. "But I need someone to pose as my boyfriend because I really hate getting hit on at the bar."
Ed felt like he'd been punched in the face. "What the hell?"
She groaned angrily. "I don't want strange guys to start hitting on me and none of my friends are guys, idiot!"
He sat down on the bed, putting his head in his hands. "You're going to a bar? Aren't you a little young?" he asked in bewildered annoyance, before looking up. "Aren't I a little young?" He knew for a fact that his title as a State Alchemist was the only reason he'd ever been allowed into bars in Amestris, and he highly doubted that his pocket watch held any weight here.
Lindsay rolled her eyes. "You don't know anything, do you?" With another huff, she leaned against his desk. "There are places that don't ID you in Vegas. And you wouldn't be ID'd anyway, even if you're a total shrimp."
Ed's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Who are you calling a mote of dust under a mouse's nest?" he growled.
She rolled her eyes again. "You look mature enough even if you're short. But it's not like it matters, I can get us in anyway."
He sighed and put his hands on his knees, looking at the girl seriously. "So you want to go to a bar with all of your little girlfriends, even when you're all underage, and have me pose as your boyfriend so that no one hits on you."
"Basically," Lindsay agreed with a smirk.
"No."
Her smirk morphed into a glare. "What?"
"Absolutely not. That's got to be one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard, and I've heard a lot. Hell, I've come up with a few myself."
Lindsay stood straight and clenched her teeth. "You can't just say no like that. You have to come."
He raised an eyebrow skeptically. "No, actually, I don't. I can just stay here like your mother told me to and work on what I've already promised someone else I'd finish."
Her fists were clenched at her sides, and Ed could make out a strange sort of desperation in her eyes. "But... but you can't just make me go alone!"
Ed shrugged, unconcerned. "Then you don't have to go."
"You owe me! You have to!"
He gave her a look of pure contempt. "If you think that I'm going to get Catherine mad at me because you wanted to act like a rebellious little girl, you've got another thing coming. I like my head just where it is, thanks."
Lindsay stomped her foot and gave a little snarl of anger. "She'll get mad at me if I go alone!"
Ed raised his eyebrows. "Oh, so that's why you want me along. So I can take the blame off of you."
The young woman's face flushed as she glared at him. "You know what? Fine. I'll go alone. Just me and a group of girls, going to a bar all by ourselves and probably getting raped and murdered because we couldn't defend ourselves. You know, perfectly acceptable things like that!" With that proclamation, she stomped out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Ed stared after her, dread suddenly rising in his stomach. He shoved it down.
She's just acting like a child, he told himself. She's not actually going to go if I'm not coming. Anyway, even if she does, it's not my problem. I told her not to.
He heard Lindsay's heels stomp down the hallway, and a few minutes later they stomped back, past his room towards the kitchen.
"I'm leaving now!" she shouted back down the hall, and Ed felt another squeeze on his heart.
No, she's going and it's her choice. She'll be with her friends and there's nothing wrong with that. She'll be fine.
Unbidden, an image of Catherine rose in his mind, standing with hands on her hips and anger twisting her features as she shouted at Ed for letting Lindsay leave.
Following directly on the heels of that was the thought that... there was a killer out there.
And from what Greg had told him in the past few days, that killer was targeting young women. Young, blond women.
He was already half way down the hall before that thought was finished.
"I'm coming with you," he said curtly as he grabbed his jacket from the hook by the door. Lindsay, who was just opening the door, looked back at him and rolled her eyes.
He tried to pretend that the satisfied smirk on her face was just his imagination.
A car was pulled up in the driveway and, after locking the door behind them, Lindsay ran down to the driver's side window. A brunette leaned out the window as Lindsay whispered in her ear. They both looked over at Ed, who was stepping warily down the front walk, and giggled.
It was the giggling that really freaked him out, and the way the brunette girl's eyes travelled up and down his form before giving a huge smile and raising an eyebrow at Lindsay.
The blond girl merely rolled her eyes and pulled open the back driver's side door, motioning impatiently for Ed to get in. With some trepidation, he slid into the vehicle. Lindsay followed him in and closed the door, and Ed found himself wedged between her and a girl whose hair looked like it had been leeched of all colour until it was stark white, then streaked with bright pink. The girl—who Ed decided to dub 'Pinky'—gave him a slightly lecherous smile, which he warily tried to return, but probably ended up looking more like he wore a grimace of distaste.
The car started, and music began to blare out of the speakers. Ed twitched as the first lyrics he heard were 'I wanna take a ride on your disco stick!' Quickly, he did his best to tune it out; wherever the people here got their music, it was definitely not from anyplace worthwhile.
As they pulled out of the driveway, the girl in the passenger seat turned around and eyed him. She had huge blue eyes and blond hair cut to her earlobes. "Who's your friend, Linds?"
He felt Lindsay shrug. "His name's Ed. He's been staying over for about a week now. Something to do with a case my mom's working on."
The other three girls all hummed in a strange way that made Ed feel distinctly uncomfortable.
"A week?" Blue-eyes smirked and waggled her eyebrows at Lindsay. "Do tell."
"Nothing's happened," Lindsay muttered.
Pinky leaned against Ed's shoulder and put a hand on his knee. "Oh come on, Linds. You can't tell me that you've had him at your house all this time and haven't done anything at all?"
Lindsay rolled her eyes, and Ed carefully extracted his knee from under Pinky's hand. He wasn't sure which of them was redder.
The brunette in the driver's seat looked back at them in the rear-view mirror. "Ah, looks like something did happen after all!" she giggled as she saw their brilliant blushes. "Come on, Lindsay, spill it."
"Did you kiss him?"
"Attack him while he slept?"
"Or was it the other way around?"
Ed was really starting to regret coming along as the girls began to spout more and more ridiculous scenarios that would have had even Havoc blushing like a schoolgirl. His face was blazing red.
"It was nothing!" Lindsay finally insisted, running an agitated hand through her hair. "He just... he walked in on me in the shower, okay?"
There was silence in the car for a split second, except for the music, and then suddenly all three girls were catcalling and eyeing Ed with a strange glint in their eyes.
"So he's one of those, is he?"
"Careful, Linds, you'd better make sure you lock your door at night."
"You sure you want him here tonight after all? He might have some date rape drug with him."
Ed covered his face with his hands as he groaned, and all four girls laughed, though Lindsay's was slightly more embarrassed than the other girls'.
"Look at how red he's getting!"
"That's so cute! Look at his ears!"
"Aw, ladies, don't keep poking fun, he'll never want to come out with us again!"
"Come on, Eddy, don't be ashamed, who wouldn't want a peek at a girl once in awhile?"
As the car made its way down the highway, Ed truly wondered where his sanity had gone when he'd agreed to come along on this outing.
Serial killer. Right. Remember the serial killer.
As the seconds ticked by, that reason was starting to feel feebler and feebler in the face of this unique version of torture.
Despite everything that was just wrong with this whole situation, Ed hadn't been expecting something like this.
He growled as another girl 'accidentally' bumped into him, her giggle driving into his brain over the pounding music that was already giving him a headache and her eyelashes fluttering as she gave him a once-over.
"Hey there, cutie," she purred, her breath reeking of alcohol, "wanna come over to my place tonight?"
The blatant proposition would have left him sputtering, if he hadn't already turned down two other such offers—one much less coherent than the other—in the past hour. "No thanks," he muttered, his voice just barely audible over the music.
"Aw, come on, we could have some fuuun, get to know each other a bit..." She wiggled her hips suggestively, and Ed immediately turned away in disgusted embarrassment, only to run into a couple that were grinding quite spectacularly in the middle of the dance floor. Averting his eyes, he quickly shoved his way out of the crowd to the table that Lindsay and her friends had procured at the beginning of the night.
"Yo, Eddy!" Blue-eyes slurred as he sat down. "Whatcha up to?" She eyed him in the flashing lights of the club.
"Where's Lindsay?" he abruptly demanded. "I think we should leave."
Blue-eyes (Lindsay had told him her name sometime earlier, but he hadn't bothered to remember it) leaned over and wrapped her arms around his. He couldn't help but feel slightly grateful that it was his flesh arm, because she probably would have freaked out otherwise. Then again, she may not have even noticed his automail in her currently inebriated state.
"Awwww, Eddy, you can't leave!" she whined. "The party's just getting started! C'mon, stay a little while."
Ed tried to pull his arm out of her grasp, but she was apparently a rather strong drunk and he didn't want to hurt her. Resigned, he sighed and leaned back. Blue-eyes snatched up her glass of electric blue liquid and tossed it back before giggling and snuggling into his side.
A few minutes later, in which the blond girl somehow managed to end up halfway onto his lap with her head on his shoulder and her hand playing with his braid, the brunette—whom Ed had dubbed The Driver—slid into the booth on his other side.
"Enjoying yourself?" she asked casually, her eyes unnaturally bright with alcohol as she eyed Blue-eyes, who was trying and failing to undo the tie at the end of Ed's braid.
"No, not really," Ed said bluntly, pulling the braid out of Blue-eyes' grasp. "Where's Lindsay?"
The Driver rolled her eyes. "She's over at the bar getting another daiquiri." Her brown eyes fixed on Ed's face as she pursed her lips. "You sure you and her don't have a thing?"
Ed blew his bangs out of his face—though that seemed to attract Blue-eyes' attention to them, as her fingers immediately began running through them. The girls had all been trying to attract some kind of confession of a 'relationship' with Lindsay from him all evening. Besides the fact that there was no such relationship—if anything, he figured it was the exact opposite of a relationship—it was frankly getting annoying.
Before he could protest again that no, he and Lindsay were anything but attached in any way, Pinky sauntered up and leaned against the table, before promptly half-lying on it and nearly knocking over a number of near-empty glasses.
"Hiya, Eddy," she slurred in what she obviously thought was a sexy way, but ended up sounding more like she was having difficulty breathing. "Having fun?"
"No," he said bluntly, before slapping Blue-eyes' hand away. Lindsay, who'd followed close behind Pinky, slid into the booth across from Ed. He immediately turned to her. "Are you done yet?"
Lindsay's face was flushed with alcohol as she rolled her eyes at him. "Come on, the night's just starting and you want to leave?"
"Yes."
"Well you're just no fun at all, are you?" she groused, kicking him under the table with a giggle. "Geez, enjoy yourself a little."
"You're so stiff, Eddy," The Driver said suddenly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Live a little. You're only sixteen once!" Her face was unnaturally close to his, and he tried to pull away, only to have Blue-eyes lean against him from the other side. Abruptly, he felt rather trapped.
"Alright, I'm leaving," he said, elbowing Blue-eyes gently away from him and clamouring over the table to get out. Pinky grabbed his arms just as he was stepping back onto the ground.
"Eddy! You can't leave us here all aloooone! What if something happens to poor little ol' me?" She gave him a pout that probably would have been more effective if she hadn't accompanied it with wide, make-up laden eyes and a slight stagger as she stood. Irritation suddenly welled up in his chest.
"Well then, I guess you're just going to have to come with me, won't you?" he snapped, before groaning as he realized exactly how that had sounded.
Apparently the girls had too, because all of them burst into giggles and drunken catcalls.
"What I meant," he corrected, "was that if you don't want to stay here by yourselves, then you're just going to have to leave early, too."
That also didn't seem like the right wording, apparently, because their giggles only increased. Finally, Ed threw up his hands. "Fine, stay here, whatever." With that, he made to stalk off, only to realize that Pinky's hand was still around his arm. "Let go," he growled.
"Aww, I think we made him angry," Pinky pouted again, pushing her lower lip out as far as it would go. "Don't be angry, Eddy! It's supposed to be fun!"
"You can't leave yet!"
"The party hasn't even started!"
Lindsay leaned over the table and gave him a glare that had no real heat behind it. "How do you expect to get home by yourself, anyway?"
...He hadn't thought of that.
Correctly interpreting his silence, The Driver patted the seat next to her. "It's okay, we don't bite."
With a sigh, he slid into the booth again, trying not to grimace as The Driver immediately leaned an arm on his shoulder. "You know Ed, you really need to loosen up a bit. Here, have a sip." She held up her amber-coloured drink to his face.
Even as he pushed it away, Blue-eyes was shaking her head. "Ally, he can't drink, remember? He's DD."
The Driver sighed. "It was worth a try."
Ed blinked. "Wait, what? DD?"
The girls looked at him. "DD. You know, Designated Driver? Ya can't drink 'cause you gotta drive." Blue-eyes slurred.
His eyebrows came together. "Why would I be the designated driver? I can't even drive!"
Three of the girls turned to look at Lindsay, heads turning in an eerily synchronized way that was too precise to have been practised. "Liiiiiiiiinds!" Pinky whined. "That's why you brought him along! You said he had a license!"
Lindsay flipped her hair over her shoulder agitatedly. "I said I thought he had a license. What kind of guy his age doesn't, honestly!" By that point, she was glaring at him as if it were all his fault that he hadn't lived up to her frankly unreasonable expectations.
The Driver was already throwing her hands in the air. "You mean he can't actually drive? Then who's gonna be DD? We're all drunk already, and none of you have your licenses yet."
Ed didn't like where this was going.
Lindsay scowled. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see if anyone wants to give us a lift, or call a cab."
The Driver shook her head vigorously. "Ohhhh no, I'm not leaving my car here for some idiot to steal! No way."
"Well I'm not letting you drive drunk, Ally," Blue-eyes suddenly spoke up, now leaning against the brunette. Her voice was full of what would have been stern concern if she hadn't been slurring her words into each other. "M'mum says that if I ever get in a car with a drunk driver, she'll never let me go out again."
Pinky whined from her spot beside Lindsay. "What'll we dooo?" she huffed, leaning her face into the table.
The look Lindsay was suddenly giving Ed set his nerves on edge.
"Hey Ed, you say you're oh so smart..."
Underage girls going to a club and dragging him along so that they wouldn't have to drive home drunk or get targeted by some kind of predator, he could deal with.
People hitting on him at the club, sure. That was fine.
Being forced to stay somewhat later than he would have liked because of being guilt-tripped by four pairs of wide eyes... okay. He could handle that.
Having to awkwardly hold back a girl's hair as she puked into the co-ed bathroom's rather disgusting toilet... unpleasant, but not too far beyond his zone of comfort.
Having a number of drinks spilt on him over the course of the last hour as the girls got progressively more and more drunk... Alright, that was going a little bit far, but there wasn't really anything he could do about it unless he wanted to let them wander the club as they apparently wanted to.
But this... This he knew he shouldn't be doing.
"Nuh-uh, you press the gas after you change gears," The Driver slurred from the passenger seat, half leaning out of her seatbelt as she tried to reach for the steering wheel and missed. "Shift 'nto drive 'n' then put your foot down."
Ed gritted his teeth and moved his foot over to the brake before carefully grasping the gearshift in his automail hand—he really didn't want to break it—and moved it towards the 'D'.
The car jerked a little bit when he pressed the gas again, but then they were moving. The only thing he felt he could really be grateful for right now was that his left automail foot wasn't the one to be working the pedals, otherwise they probably would have already crashed.
Of course, that didn't rule out the possibility of a crash in the near future.
"I really don't think this is a good idea."
A series of groans and whining sounded from the back seat.
"Eeeeed, you can't wimp out now!" Lindsay mumbled.
"Y're big 'n' smart 'n' handsome, s'not hard," Pinky added.
Blue-eyes was too busy passing out to add her own charming statement of confidence.
"I've never driven a car in my life," he warned them. "We're probably going to crash."
The Driver rolled her eyes. "It's not like 's hard," she grumbled. "C'mon, you're doin' fine."
If fine meant jerking at every stop light and possibly getting whiplash, along with nearly side-swiping a little red van three blocks back, then he really didn't want to see her definition of terrible.
"Y'know, if we get pulled over we'll all be 'rrested," Lindsay suddenly piped up, leaning against the back of The Driver's seat and flopping her arm on the other girl's shoulder.
"Then we won't get pulled over, will we, Eddy?" The Driver gave him a brilliant smile that he barely managed to acknowledge with a nervous grimace before he looked back at the road and jerked the wheel to the side, barely avoiding a cyclist who was wearing all black.
"Of all the stupid..." he growled under his breath, making a rude gesture at the man as he passed. He then immediately put both hands back on the wheel as the car swerved dangerously.
He didn't know why he'd agreed to this. Maybe it was because Lindsay had challenged his intelligence by suggesting he wouldn't be able to learn how to drive fast enough to actually get them home in one piece. Maybe it was because if he hadn't agreed to drive, The Driver would have gotten behind the wheel, inebriated or not, and probably would have killed them all before even leaving the parking lot. Maybe it was because he really didn't want to wait around until one of them was sober enough to drive, because Catherine was totally going to kill him if he didn't get Lindsay home before she got back from the lab.
Or maybe he really did entirely lack common sense.
"Signal light," The Driver slurred indistinctly as Ed moved to merge onto the highway. With a sigh, he flicked the lever behind the wheel, and nearly managed to run into the side of a large truck.
This was turning out to be a long night.
He pulled into the back alley of the house with some relief, pressing on the brake and jerking to a stop before turning the key and sighing.
Finding all three girls' houses when they were almost too drunk to even speak was extremely difficult, especially since he had never been to Las Vegas in his life.
Oh, yeah. And never having driven before didn't help with it.
He was more than relieved that the car—and all of its occupants—had made it through the night. He certainly hadn't hoped for nearly as much.
"Mum won't notice th' car back here 'n' Ally'll pick it up in the morning," Lindsay reassured him as he helped her out of the passenger seat. Strangely, he didn't feel at all comforted. Really, all he felt was relief that this whole fiasco was over.
That relief only lasted until he realized that there were lights on in the house. Lights that he'd been sure he had turned off before leaving.
They were so dead.
Still not sure how I feel about this chapter, but I hope it was enjoyable. I think it was born out of my desire to write something drunk and disorderly and generally cathartic instead of serious.
On another note, I survived Reichenbach. Cried into a pillow and ranted on Tumblr afterwards, but I survived. Now we just have to wait another year to see where Moffat and Gatiss are going to take Sherlock from here.
Review if you enjoyed!
-Akita