Ed's lip curled in at the stench of burning and the tainted air stinging his eyes. It almost reminded him of spending time with Aunt Pinako and her tobacco pipe, but no, the scent this time was much more sinister. It didn't smell of his nights as a child playing out in the yard with Al and Winry, no, it smelled like decay and destruction and the night he turned his house to a pile of rubble and ash, and that sent spikes of unease through his gut.
A look through the clouded room showed that those around him must have the same idea, as they sat in tense silence, noses upturned to the air, observing, waiting.
Ed didn't like waiting. This kind of waiting was like the climax of a roller coaster, when you're click-click-clicking up the tracks just waiting for the inevitable drop. He got the feeling that in this situation, he wouldn't like the drop as much.
"Something's wrong." Roy commented in a voice thick with concern, unconsciously inching closer to Ed on the couch. The team all hummed in agreement, sitting on the edge of their seats, awaiting an order. As Roy opened his mouth to speak, his words were cut short by a beam from the ceiling weakened with flame cutting through the thick silence. Sparks flurried through the air as it fell, landing in the middle of the couch, separating Roy and Ed. The orangey light flooded over them as Roy jumped away unscathed, but Ed wasn't as lucky.
He could feel the fiery wood searing his skin, burning through the sling and blistering his forearm, demolishing his red coat and scalding his side. He bit back a scream as he tore his arm from the sling and pushed the beam off of him, unharming his metal hand but broiling the palm and fingers of his flesh one.
He slid off of the couch and hit the floor with a thud, scooting away from the source of the flames. The room was overrun with smoke and fire, his throat and lungs lining painfully with soot and his eyes watering as the thick air stung them. He could hear distant voices calling out to him, but he couldn't find it in him to reply over the rasping coughs that had him doubling over on the floor.
He was overcome by stinging and burning enveloping his whole body. His lungs ached for clean air, his side and arm throbbed and pulled with every movement, and every cough had him convulsing on the floor, pulling on his stitches and the fresh injuries as well. His head pulsed and it felt as if there was a tight rope around his skull. He lay there on the floor, and wanted nothing more than to just give in to the sleep pulling at his consciousness.
His thoughts were thrown away the minute he felt a hand grasping his blistered wrist. At first, he was relieved despite the pain, thinking that someone on his team had found him, but then there was another hand, and another, and another, all pulling at his limbs and holding him back, their grip unrelenting and fierce.
He did all that he could think to do, he fought. Fight or flight, kicking and screaming at anything he could land a hit on. He pulled at the strong grip holding him back, despite the agony invading his entire being. Every movement pulled and sent lacerating pains through him, but he still struggled.
Suddenly, there was a rough hand pressed over his mouth. He shook his head back and forth to try to dislodge it, but it pushed against him, pressing the back of his skull into the ground, right against the stitches in the back of his head.
So, he bit. He bit down as hard as his jaw would allow him, he bit and he kept biting until his mouth was filled with the bitter taste of copper and a gravelly scream echoed through the cloud of smoke. The hand buckled and released its pressure, and Ed began to scream again.
His voice was coarse and barbed due to the strain and the ash in his throat, and the yelling was suffocating with his already weakened lungs, but every cell in his body screamed louder that there was danger and he wasn't strong enough to fight back on his own.
He yanked and pulled on his limbs until they were gooey with exhaustion, and he screamed until all that came from his mouth was a raspy whisper. His eyelids were heavy, but he pulled them open again and again the best he could.
The force pushing him down didn't let up, in fact it only felt stronger as he became weaker until he was completely pinned. Despite his best efforts, he didn't have enough energy left to fight against it. Fear and adrenaline still ran wild through his veins, but he didn't have any fuel to act upon it.
One minute it was all there, blurry and distant, but there. Then, there was a sharp pain in his neck, and it was all gone.
･ﾟ: *･ﾟ*･ﾟ: *･ﾟ*･ﾟ: *･ﾟ*･ﾟ: *･ﾟ*･ﾟ: *･ﾟ*
Roy's eyes darted around in a panic despite not being able to see anything through the smoke circling through the air.
All he could hear were Ed's terrified screams, surrounding him from every angle, sending him in crazed circles trying to find him.
He pulled off his jacket and held it over his face to try to keep the smoke from his lungs, but that didn't stop him from removing it every few seconds to call out to Ed, desperately trying to find him in the clouds of fire and ash. By the sounds of it, it seemed like his teammates were thinking the same thing, as he could hear them yelling out for Ed as well from all areas of the room.
What worried him were the sounds of a struggle. There were too many stomping footfalls, and he feared that Ed was caught in the middle of it. Ed's panicked screams were quickly being overcome by debilitating coughs as his voice became more and more croaky and quiet, causing worry to pool and churn in his gut.
His eyes stung and watered as tears drew tracks in the soot marring his face, his feet dancing around as he ran about the room. He moved the cloth from his face to scream for Ed again, when his foot collided with what felt like a body.
His breath hitched in his throat as he looked down, seeing Ed unconscious on the floor next to his foot, along with three large men in gas masks pinning him to the floor, looking like they weren't too friendly. To say Roy was furious was an understatement. How dare they lay a finger on Ed again? How dare they touch him after all they've already put him through? How dare they?
"Hey! Don't you dare touch him!" He shrieked, lunging at the nearest one and knocking him to the ground. The two others quickly released Ed to work on prying the seething Roy off of their comrade. Roy struggled and pulled at their grips on him, his muscles crying to release as he growled and panted through his tightly gritted teeth. He felt as if he would finally break when three gunshots rang out through the air. The tight fingers on his wrists went slack as pained screams echoed through his ears. He whipped around to see Hawkeye, handgun held steady in front of her. He smiled at her gratefully as she quickly put away her gun and raced to restrain the assailants. Roy turned his attention to Ed.
He scanned his eyes over the unconscious boy, noticing some pretty severe burns on his arm and abdomen, and a drop of blood streaming down his neck, and Roy knew with a sinking sense of certainty that those bastards had drugged him again.
He gently picked him up into his arms, scooping him close to his chest and holding him tightly, trying not to upset Ed's many injuries as he hurried out of the room. His team mates dragged their uninvited guests out behind them, despite their kicks and screams of protest.
"How's Ed?" Called Havoc frantically from behind him, kicking one of the large men in the side to stop his struggling. Roy bit his lip.
"He's pretty badly burned in some places but he'll be okay, he's unconscious because they injected him with some kind of sedative, and I'm worried about how much smoke he's inhaled." Roy listed, jogging down the stairs, listening to the raspy breaths radiating from Ed.
By now the fire alarm had been pulled, and there were soldiers all around them hurrying out of the building. Some had stopped to help restrain Ed's attackers, which Roy would thank them for later.
He ran out of the building, his lungs crying in relief as he took in deep breaths of the sweet fresh air. He got a good distance away from the burning mess behind him before kneeling on the soft grass and gently laying Ed down in front of him. He balled up his jacket and slipped it under his head before going to work at tearing Ed's clothes off.
He pulled off his singed red coat and tore off his black undershirt and threw them aside. He carefully removed Ed's arm from the sling, gently peeling the fabric from his blistered skin. Soon, Ed's upper half was bare, and he went to work assessing the damage.
His arm was red and blistered in more ways than one. The burns circled his wrist and stopped before his elbow, and the palm of his hand and pads of his fingers were weeping and blistering, yet the damage didn't stop there. His left side from just under his chest and down to his waistline was even worse, angry red and black in the places it wasn't.
It was hard to look at, knowing just how much pain the kid was already in before this, and just how excruciating burns were. Roy was glad he wasn't awake to feel it.
Their attackers had been handed off and were being detained for questioning as firemen rushed to extinguish the flames licking out from the windows of the building. Luckily, only a small part had been affected, and the rest of the building seemed to be salvageable.
His team was quickly beside him, rushing over and falling next to him and Ed, taking in Ed's damaged state.
"Oh, Ed..." Havoc muttered, fingers hovering over the burned areas as he looked him over. Though no one else said anything, their wide eyes full of worry spoke for them. Roy took a deep breath in attempts to quell the adrenaline pouring through him.
"We need to get out of here."