As Ed drifted into consciousness, he immediately longed to go back to sleep. Every last inch of him ached, his arm and side burned with a vengeance, his ribs throbbed, and his shoulder and leg were still extremely sore from that drug he had been given. Not to mention his throat and lungs were crackling and burning like a bonfire, and he couldn't quite remember why.
Through the fog of sleep clouding his mind, he struggled to think of what had happened last. He remembered smoke, and panic, and pain, and screaming and coughing and hands pinning him down and pulling him away and then there was a needle and he-
Ed shot up from his resting spot with a gasp, filling his battered body with lace rating pains. He let out a few rumbling coughs as his heart hammered in his chest. He took in his surroundings.
He was laying down on a bed, and was covered up with a white comforter. In fact, most of the room was white, with accent tones of grey and black scattered about. Ed recognized that it wasn't a hospital, as there was no annoying beeping or poky monitors or IV's scattered around him. The room appeared much too homey and personalized to be a hospital room, it appeared more like a bedroom. On the other hand, it definitely didn't seem like he had been kidnapped. He hadn't been restrained in any way, and he was on a nice bed in a nice room, and someone had tended to his wounds; though he decided not to get too comfortable anyway.
He looked down at himself. His arm was completely bandaged up to his elbow and his whole hand was mummified. All of his fingers including the two broken ones were covered up with bandages, and the whole mess of cotton was back in the wretched sling. His entire abdomen was also now coated in bandages, gauze circled around his body from his waist to just under his chest. He sighed wearily. Bandages were becoming a bit too normal to him for his liking.
He took another look at his surroundings, trying to decide what his next move should be. He was on a rather large bed, and it was comfortable too. So comfortable he could just lay down and fall back to sleep. His eyelids drooped. That drug still hadn't completely worn off yet, making his body feel heavy and gooey with exhaustion.
No! Danger could be imminent! There was no time to sleep. He could sleep when he had confirmed that he hadn't been taken by crazed foreigners.
He gingerly swung his legs over the side of the bed, touching his automail to the hardwood with a soft 'click'. He scrutinized the clunky boot on his flesh leg. He really needed to take a look around, but if he hopped the whole way it would make too much noise, alerting possible enemies of his location.
The doctors had told him that he would be no weight bearing for six weeks, and it hadn't even been one since there was a mess of metal hammered into his bones.
Well, he had never been one to follow orders. Especially those of a doctor.
He slowly, carefully eased his leg to the floor. The more weight he put on it, the more it felt like his leg would snap all over again under the pressure. He stood up, placing most of his weight on his left leg, and slowly putting more and more onto his right.
He took a step, which was more of a shaky limp, and the second his foot touched the floor, it sent a splitting pain up from his ankle to his knee. He nearly buckled with the pain, but limped towards the door anyway.
He placed as little weight on his injured leg as possible as he quietly inched through the hallway. He leaned against the wall to keep himself upright, hopping along, each step accompanied with a wince.
He wandered through the halls, passing by identical white doors on either side of the hallway. The longer he was on his feet, the more his ankle throbbed in protest. He could hear distant disembodied voices, and luckily they sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite make out who they belonged to.
He hobbled along until he found a staircase. Each hop down the stairs was agony. Even though he was landing on his metal foot, the force sent waves of pain through his ribs and his burned and stitched skin. He stumbled and hopped until he reached a doorway to what seemed to be a kitchen, he peered around the corner.
"The cause of the fire was deemed purposeful, but we haven't been able to get much out of our 'little friends'." He heard one voice say.
"Yeah, and anything we have been able to get out of them is either Drachman or really broken Amestrian." Another one added.
Ed let out a deep breath of relief. Sitting around a kitchen table was his team, and he assumed they were talking about Ed's assailants, who must have been caught. Ed smirked triumphantly. Although, his relief quickly turned to annoyance.
"You know, when someone gets attacked and drugged and then wakes up in some random house, it'd be nice to see a note or something. Oh I don't know, maybe 'you haven't been kidnapped by Drachman forces'." Ed griped, swaying uneasily on his feet.
They all started at the sudden intrusion of his words, their heads darting over to the doorway.
"You have got to stop doing that, kid!" Roy groaned, getting up from his seat and hurrying over to Ed's side. "And what the hell do you think you're doing? You shouldn't be walking on that leg!" He lectured, pushing Ed to sit down in a nearby couch. The rest quickly followed Roy, all crowding around the couch and observing Ed with worried eyes.
Ed opened his mouth to explain, but his breath caught in his chest, illiciting a strain of gut-wrenching coughs. Ed wrapped his arms around himself as every cough rattled his broken ribs, sending spikes of pain through his side.
Roy's eyes widened as he sat next to Ed on the couch. He rubbed comforting circles on Ed's back, muttering soft reassurances to try to calm him down.
It felt like an eternity until the rumbling hacks turned to shaky wheezes, and by that point, Ed was exhausted. His ribs throbbed, his throat felt as if it had been rubbed raw with sandpaper, and his lungs felt as if they would pop under the strain. He slipped his eyes closed and leaned back into the couch, panting softly.
"Are you alright, Ed?" Asked Fuery softly, eyeing Ed with concern. He nodded lazily, cracking his eyes open to see six pairs of worried eyes staring him down. He rolled his eyes with an exasperated groan.
"Stop looking at me like that, I'm fine." He croaked, his weak and gravelly voice much less convincing than he intended. He cleared his throat. "Where are we, anyway?" He inquired, changing the subject.
"This is my house. We could hardly stay at the office, considering it doesn't exist anymore," Roy paused, a look of defeat on his face. "So we came here. It was close and it's safe, plus I have a guest bedroom."
Ed nodded along. He must have woken up in the guest bedroom then, which explained the lack of colour and personalization. He grimaced. He was in Mustang's house, it was so weird to think about the man being anywhere but the office. Logically, he knew that he had a house, but to be in it was a whole other level of unsettling.
Roy stood up from his place next to Edward. Ed followed him with his eyes as he crossed the room to a closet, pulling out a blanket and pillow and padding back over to the couch. He grimaced, but was still too groggy from the drug to fight it when Roy gently pushed him to lie down and threw the fluffy blanket over him. In fact, he was actually a little thankful for the new warmth.
"You really need to be more careful, kid. You just had surgery on that leg, you can't be up and around yet." Havoc scolded, placing Ed's leg up on a pillow. Ed rolled his eyes.
"Give me a break. The last thing I remember are some psychos knocking me out in a burning building and then I wake up alone in some strange house. I'm not gonna just wait around." He mumbled, fighting the drug swimming through his veins.
"I suppose that's fair." Havoc replied, a sympathetic smile on his face. Ed's eyelids bobbed open and closed, the pillow and blanket only further lulling him to sleep.
"I have so many questions." He murmured, his limbs becoming heavier and heavier with drowsiness. Roy smiled at him and ran a hand through his hair.
"Go to sleep, kiddo. We'll talk about it when you wake up. You're pretty badly hurt, and you inhaled a lot of smoke. You need to rest." He reasoned, pushing the bangs from Ed's face.
"Oh, pish posh..." Ed muttered, his eyes slipping closed. He was almost reluctant to fall asleep, everything that had happened to him in the past couple weeks deterring him.
But as he looked at the six faces watching him with worry and love, he couldn't help but feel safe. He knew that they wouldn't let anything happen to him.
So he slept, and he slept without worries, putting all of his trust in his team, and not doubting them for a second.