Amused observation: I'm now high up in chapter numbers that I need to go manually check what number I'm on, like, perpetually. Also, seeing how my writing style has changed is…. Both painful and interesting. Haha.

TW: mild emetophobia at the end, PTSD triggers, genocide, transmisogyny/queerphobia, minor paranoia trigger re: the Thing Becoming More Obvious with Selim

~36~

In the blazing sun I saw you
In the shadows hiding from yourself
When the lights are on I know you
See you're grey from all the lies you tell

-fallen alien

The town that had served as Marcoh's refuge was called Koberfeld, and as the train pulled in, Selim was struck with the strange feeling that he'd been here before. He probably hadn't; most of the towns around this part of Eastern Amestris looked the same. Still, the red slate roofs, the orchard visible in the distance, all of it struck a strange chord of déjà vu within him.

"Come on, let's go find this guy." Will produced a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, then shrugged. "Whatever. We'll just ask for the doctor."

The moment they stepped out onto the train station, though, Selim could tell something was wrong. At first, he thought he was imagining it – and then, he noticed it. He'd forgotten. Whenever Will was home in Rizenbul, he took the dye out of his hair, he put on farmboy clothes, mostly to keep King happy. That was one of King's rules; while in his house, Will would dress respectfully. But Selim had never really noticed it outside of Rizenbul – never really travelled with Will anywhere else but Central.

The strange glares, the little murmurs and giggles, they weren't at their mismatched group, the six-foot soldier and his two charges. They were strictly at Will.

Armstrong put a hand on Will's shoulder, but he shrugged it off with a disaffected laugh. "Not the first time." He hadn't redyed his hair. Selim had wondered why, but now he thought he might understand. A few minutes later, once they were out of the train station, Will disappeared into a bathroom. A few moments later, he re-emerged wearing a plain black shirt, slacks and a pair of green suspenders.

"Don't look at me like that," he said in response to Alex, Armstrong and Selim's questioning stares. "Who'd you rather give directions to, a punk in a skirt or, well-" He shrugged. "By the way, Armstrong, lose the uniform."

"But –"

"He's a military deserter. Get rid of the blue."

"…You have a good point."

Once Armstrong was off changing, Selim couldn't help a little smile in Will's direction. "Well, I'll be. Look at you, thinking things through."

"Shut up. I'm not as stupid as I look." Then Will glanced up at him, trying – and failing – to hide how complimented he felt. "I grew up with your dad around, and my two superior officers are slipperier than adders in a mudslide. I pick up things here and there."

Selim couldn't see Will basking in his pride, but he could sure feel it. Then the moment was ruined by a stray thought – that travelling together was going to make it even harder to hide what he'd been slowly coming to understand wasn't normal. Not the attraction. There'd been plenty of gay boys at boarding school; that he classified under 'if anybody thought he was keeping that secret, they weren't paying attention'.

No, the problem was that he could no longer chalk up his intuitive understanding of Will's emotions and thoughts as… well, intuition.

"Selim? You okay?"

"Mm? Yeah, fine."

Will pulled his hair into a ponytail at the base of his neck, and Selim hated to even admit it, but he did look like his father. No wonder he made every effort to look as different as possible. "Let's go find ourselves a doctor then."

It was upsetting in a way that Selim couldn't quite describe, when immediately after Will changed from a skirt into trousers, they got directions to Dr. Marcoh's house with a warm, friendly smile.

It upset Will, too, Selim could tell that much, but if you only had his face and body language to go off of, you wouldn't notice a thing. He just put Alex back on his shoulder from his pocket, and took off with breathless anticipation.

Selim couldn't move.

"Are you alright?" Armstrong asked.

The houses had red slate roofs. He didn't know why that bothered him so much.

He looked down. Next to the street in a little ditch ran a creek, fed by rainwater; just where he was standing there was a waterwheel made of scrap wood, just barely touching the water but still moving in lazy rotations.

"I've been here before," he said quietly, his dreamlike suspicions turning to certainty. "I can't – I can't go in," he confessed. "Please, I – go with them. I'll be fine. I just-" He couldn't say it. He couldn't handle it if he'd met Marcoh before, if Marcoh started telling him how much he looked like his mother or didn't, if Marcoh – god forbid – started apologizing.

Coming had been a mistake.

Armstrong smiled, then walked him over to a bench. "Here you go." He handed him one of the buns they'd bought on the train. "Stay here, and we can handle this part."

"Thanks," Selim said weakly.

Then Armstrong left, and it was just him. Will and Alex didn't turn back, and Selim hadn't really expected them to. They were so close. Besides, they weren't used to having him alone.

"That bun looks nice."

Selim startled, nearly dropping his food, and the stranger laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. He was sitting on the other end of the bench, dressed in clothes too big for him and shaggy hair desperately in need of a haircut.

Selim wondered if he was a beggar, then decided it didn't matter. He wanted some light company, anyway. "Chicken and mushroom. Want some?"

"Oh, I-I couldn't-"

Selim tore off a little bit of the bun and handed it to the boy next to him, who took it hesitantly and then stuffed it into his mouth, cheeks pooching out like a squirrel. Selim tried valiantly not to laugh, lips twitching, and the boy wiped his mouth, blush spreading over his face.

"It's good!"

"I can see that. Hungry?"

"No, I just- I don't eat much."

Selim wondered how that was different, but it seemed rude to ask, and a bit of an excuse. "I'm Selim," he said, offering his hand.

The boy blinked, then grinned, taking Selim's hand. "You can call me Alphonse." He pulled his legs up onto the bench, reaching back to tighten his ponytail. "What brings you to Koberfeld?"

Selim wasn't sure how to answer that. "I'm –" He paused. "My friends are visiting somebody who used to know my mom."

"Your mom?"

"Yeah." Selim took a bite of the bun, then as he chewed, glanced back at Alphonse. "…You look like you have a frog in your mouth. Just spit it out."

"…What's she like?"

"She's dead," Selim replied abruptly.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

Selim couldn't help a smile. It was kind of nice, to be somewhere where nobody knew that he was the One With The Dead Mother. At boarding school, he'd quickly realized that he was alone in the dead mothers club. Everybody else got care packages with sweaters and home cooking – he got brusque if loving letters from his dad, and occasionally something that King had bought or discovered. He didn't mind. It just… meant he stuck out.

"She was an automail mechanic," he said finally, and the glow of fascination on Alphonse's face was possibly the best thing Selim had seen all day.

"Whoa! That's so cool!"

Selim laughed, pushing his bangs out of his face. "It's pretty cool, yeah. She taught me everything I know – and what she didn't, my dad did."

"So you're a mechanic?"

"Mechanic and medic. I took extra courses at school for the second one – automail surgery is medical, but it only focuses on certain parts of the body. I wanted a more general overview."

Alphonse nodded sagely, scratching his chin. "That makes sense. Is it hard?"

"Uh, which part?"

Alphonse shrugged. "I don't know! I like knowing how bodies work, but my brother doesn't like me talking to strangers, so it's hard to learn much."

"Like me?" Selim couldn't help a twitch at the corner of his mouth as he tried not to smile.

"I – well –" He shrugged with a sheepish grin. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him! Besides, you're wearing a sweater vest."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Have you ever met a murderer or a serial killer who wore argyle?"

Selim burst into laughter, covering his mouth with his hand. "I never thought about it that way, but I guess you have a point." A thought occurred to him. "Are you here alone?'

"Oh, yeah. Just me."

"…How old are you?"

Alphonse looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Uh –"

A yell of fury split the air. Selim rose in response, but a moment later, a searing headache lanced through his temples. The strongest he'd ever felt it. He'd spent years ignoring it, or brushing it off as not that big a deal, even when he collapsed in pain from wounds he didn't have or found himself seething in anger at a bright summer day.

He couldn't see it, but he could feel it, and hear it – the obvious signs of struggle, the cold and untouched dinner on the table, the silence echoing through the house that had clearly not been empty yesterday – and under it all, Will's temper rising and rising, a beast he could hardly control.

Selim let his feet carry him up the stairs to Marcoh's house, pushing open the door left ajar. Will stood in the middle of the room that took up most of the house, the plate of food that had been left untouched on the table shattered on the floor. He was shaking in rage, fists squeezing and releasing as he struggled to process the storm within him.

Marcoh was gone. And it could have been anything, him stepping out for dinner, him running away from an inevitable military – but all the details of the house that were wrong jumped out at Selim. The broken window. The untouched dinner.

"I think it was the Beast," Will growled. "Or the military, but –"

"If it was the military, they would have moved sooner," Alex finished the thought.

"But how is the Beast getting around so fucking fast? We took a train! He's on foot!" Will started pacing the floor in agitation, and Selim tried to tamp down what of it he was feeling. Denial wasn't going to get him anywhere – and it wouldn't help Will – so he just did what he could. "I don't – fucking – know – how!"

Will punched the wall with a cry of fury at his only good lead in months vanishing into thin air. And instead of denting the wood with his automail, or splintering the planks, his fist disappeared through the wall.

Selim's heart jumped into his throat. Will started pulling the planks away, and Selim joined him, exposing the hiding place behind the wall. It was a briefcase – plain brown leather, battered, with a few odd stains on it.

Will pulled it out, setting it carefully on the table. Then he hesitated.

"Open it," Selim urged.

"I don't know."

"Will, wherever Marcoh's gone, he left this behind. If you don't open it, I will."

"Fine, fine. Don't get your panties in a twist." Will flipped down the buckles, and disabled the lock with a quick clap of his hands. Then he opened the briefcase.

It was filled with vials. Rows and rows of them, tucked into shaped foam. Every single of them was filled with crimson liquid. Not blood – it was too bright for that – but something else.

Will reached forward with shaking hands. He uncorked one of the vials – "Will, don't," Selim urged, thinking about all the poisons he knew that were red – and tipped it over carefully onto the surface of the table. It coagulated into a stone.

"Is that –" Selim breathed.

"It sure fucking is," Will replied. He reached forward, ready to test it. It seemed to fit all the descriptions that Selim had heard, at least in the fairytales. He didn't have the faintest idea what Will and Alex wanted with it – no, that was wrong. He could guess. He just had to pretend he couldn't.

"No," came the bitter pronouncement from their third companion.

"What? Alex, it's right here. I can fix things now."

"No," Alex said again. Selim reflected that Alex had been oddly quiet on the train ride, and on the trip over to the house. Usually Alex was trying to calm things down, smooth things over… "Remember what King said? Not again. Marcoh was stealing this from the military. That was who he made these for."

"Alex, I don't get-"

"How do you not?" Alex cried in frustration. Even behind the emotionless wooden face, Selim could see the face he remembered – the passionate, expressive eyes, bitten and trembling lips, lopsided dimples. "Diana told us. Not – not directly, but you're no good at listening for that kind of thing. And you don't remember it at all? The soldiers in our house and in our backyard?"

Will was starting to look nauseous. "She said –"

"We called it a war. They didn't," Alex quoted.

Selim pressed his hands to his mouth, suddenly understanding. If even half of what he understood about the Philosopher's Stone was true – "No, it's just supposed to – to turn lead into gold, and eternal life, fairytale things –"

"In fairytale hands, maybe," Alex said flatly. "In the hands of the Amestrian military –"

"It's a bomb," Will finished weakly. He pulled his hand back to his chest. Then, he turned around, and threw up on the hardwood floor.