If there were three things Ed would never recommend, they were human transmutation, getting knocked out, and then getting knocked out and tied up.
He didn't know he was tied up, at first. He didn't know where he was, period, but he knew it was dark. Musty. It smelled slightly electric, slightly fried. As he blearily cracked his eyes open, the flickering, dull light only made his headache worse.
His mouth was parched. He knew he was strapped to something- A chair, it felt like. He was bound to a chair, his wrists attached to the armrests and his ankles to the wooden legs. The seat below him was unforgiving against that familiar soreness. He squirmed, trying to get comfortable, but it barely helped. His chest was tethered to the back of it, almost tight enough to constrict his breath. He still had his clothes on, so he figured that was a good sign if nothing else.
He clenched and unclenched his fists experimentally. His flesh hand moved just fine, but the motion made his automail creak. It didn't take more than a few seconds of retesting before the realization hit him like a sack of bricks that it had been tampered with. His port was all finicky, the nerves twitched and lit up in goosebumps if he bent his fingers the wrong way. That was decidedly not good.
His head was aching and it only grew worse the more awake he became. The ringing in his ears drowned out everything but the sounds of his breath and there was something matted- blood, probably- in his hair. After a few seconds of sitting there and trying to get his bearings, he squeezed his eyes shut and put everything he had into focusing.
He licked his lips and took a deep breath. Step one of waking up somewhere with no idea of how you got there: Try to recall what happened. That's basically common sense, right?
There was a gun. Ed knit his eyebrows. Right, he had been angry, and then there was a gun. Ed had listened to the crack as the metal met his head, and then he'd been out cold-
But now there was scratching. The scratching of chalk. Thick, drawn lines of chalk, the kind that adorns basement floors. Which made sense because the room was dark like one, dank like one, so he was in a basement, most likely.
The scratching stopped.
"Edward," The voice alone was enough to bring everything back in an instant, an instant that left Ed snarling and foaming at the mouth or might've, if not for how delirious he still felt. "You're awake."
"Asshole," Ed spat- or meant to, really, but it came out choked and strained.
Between his vision spinning in nauseating circles and the low lighting, Ed could barely make out more details about Tucker than his figure. But Ed still recognized his shoulders, his stance, his footsteps. At each feature, Ed's mind screamed danger like the bang of a gun marks the start of a race. The panic built, reverberated through the room. His pulse hit the ground running, leaving some of his previous disorientedness behind in the process. He took in a sharp breath and it turned into multiple, his lungs desperately sucking in air like at any moment, it'd be taken from him completely. His thoughts were still a bit garbled, but his body knew a threat when it felt one.
He was aware, now. Hyper-aware.
Ed reminded himself, once more, that Tucker didn't care. Couldn't care. The mirrors were clear of smoke and the sharp, jagged edges of the glass were cutting at Ed, punishing him for his disillusionment.
He really should've seen the signs. He wasn't even sure which ones he meant when he said that, at this point, because they pointed every which way and made him feel even more lost the longer he followed them. Even more stupid. He cursed his shitty fucking life for not coming with a map, or at least a guidebook, because he was expected to navigate this by himself and he honestly didn't know how.
Tucker turned his wife into a chimera.
Ed was still reeling. He wondered how long he'd been here. He wondered if anybody even noticed he was gone.
The thought that something might've happened while he was asleep honestly didn't make him feel any better. He debated if it'd be better to have no idea, or worse, or something in between. Maybe it would've been easier to not remember after it was done.
But Ed doubted that was the case, the more he thought about it. He knew Tucker liked making him react. He liked to hurt him. He liked to draw it out, make him suffer, watch him squirm and hyperventilate and cry. Tucker didn't care.
He didn't care.
And it was sinking in, that Ed was tied up, and this man was fucking bonkers. Ed couldn't do anything. He couldn't do anything before, either, but at least he could move, for the most part. You can almost pretend you're not helpless when there's no rope involved.
Tucker stood from where he was crouched, drawing. The shelves near him were decorated with glinting glass bottles and books with weathered spines. A single lantern was perched on the desk. Its flame crackled softly and warm light permeated throughout the space, illuminated everything but the corners in a soft glow. Across the room, Alexander snored peacefully, curled comfortably on a dog bed that looked remarkably plush.
There were transmutation circles on the walls, but it was too dark and Ed's head hurt too much to even begin to properly decipher them. He caught glimpses of the symbols for carbon and oxygen. Ed had never been in Tucker's alchemy lab before, but he knew it was in the basement, so he guessed his hunch was correct.
Tucker came better into view and Ed noticed the man's crossed arms and pinched eyebrows. Pinched in the way that Ed understood to mean Tucker was pissed and trying to disguise that as minorly inconvenienced.
"You really shouldn't have gone through my things, Edward," he rapped his finger against his forearm lightly. The repetitive motion didn't serve to do anything but spike Ed's anxiety.
Ed tilted his gaze up and scowled with every last bit of strength he could spare. The wound on his head yelled for him to shut his eyes and give it some rest. He barely realized he was wincing until his eyebrows were knit so harshly that it hurt. His face was strained and he might've found it embarrassing if he could've bothered to draw up that kind of emotion. He was a little too distracted by the circumstances at hand to worry about his pride, sue him.
"I can tell that now, thanks for the warning," Ed sounded more confident than he felt, and he felt more confident than he knew he should be. Because the terror was there, definitely, but after the initial shock, it was fading into the numbness that meant he'd probably hit his quota for the day for stress. His brain had had enough of emotions. It was about one bad thing away from shutting down completely and sending him off the deep end.
What that meant, exactly, he wasn't sure, but he wasn't trying to find out. He didn't have time to panic and he didn't have time to lose his mind- He needed to focus. His head hurt, yeah, probably concussed, what the fuck ever. That didn't matter. He could deal with how messed up this was after he got out of here, step two was living long enough to do that.
Ed drew in a deep breath and forced words from his parched, sore throat. "Let me go."
"Not happening," Tucker said.
Ed might've scowled at his words, but honestly, he hadn't really expected asking to work. It's not like Tucker ever listened to him before, starting now would just be weird.
"I didn't want to have to do this, but I'll admit that I am curious," Tucker paused, his hand on his chin, lost in thought. "It'll be a shame, though, that your gifts will be lost to the world."
Ed was almost glad he was sitting, at that moment, because he knew his legs were shaking. His automail rattled slightly and even though he felt so desensitized, his body was revving to launch. There was a chill snaking its way up him, through the spaces in his ribs, coiling and tightening around his chest until it burned. At any moment something would shift and he'd be submerged into a frenzy of emotions and tears. The fact that he could feel the panic attack building honestly just made the entire process worse.
He wondered what Gracia would do, right now.
"So you've finally had enough of me? You're gonna kill me, just like that?" Ed chuckled lowly. It was strained. He leaned his head back against the top of the chair and closed his eyes. The wood dug into his neck at an uncomfortable angle, but it was less painful than supporting the weight of his injury by himself. "You're a sick bastard."
"No, Edward, not kill you," Tucker took a step towards the table and picked up a toolbox. He set it down a few feet away from Ed and opened the panels. Three tiers worth of tools peaked out, glinting metal that shone softly beneath the dim ambiance the room held. "But I need you to tell me how to detach your automail."
Well, that explained the arm problem. Tucker had probably tried to take it off while he was asleep and then given up after he realized it wasn't as easy as it looked. Thank fuck for Winry and her craftsmanship. And from what Ed could tell, his leg worked fine, so that was a win for now.
"Like hell I will."
"You'd prefer for me to rip it off?"
Ed grinned. It was sharp edges and animalistic, nothing good held within it, nothing but the flits of anger he could draw out. He glared harder through slitted eyes, down towards where the man had crouched. "If you do that, you really might kill me," Tucker raised an eyebrow, and Ed elaborated. "You do realize it's connected to my body, right? Arteries and nerves and shit? If you mess it up, the signals will go haywire and you'll electrocute me."
Tucker's eyes widened just enough to be noticeable. He nodded and seemed to take note of Ed's words, his jaw setting ever so slightly in thought. Ed had to stop himself from grinning because somebody didn't do his research before he kidnapped him.
It was a partial lie. It'd shock Ed, maybe, but the chances of it killing him were incredibly low, if not non-existent. But if Tucker didn't want him dead, stalling was really all he could do right now. He needed something, anything, to focus on- And if he could keep the man occupied, he could give himself enough time to get out of here.
It had never been fair, before, Ed had been threatened into a disadvantage. He hadn't had the option of fleeing, because running meant having his brother sent to the lab-
But situations like this were where he thrived. He could come at it with everything he had, now, because no fucking way was he staying after this. He didn't have a plan and he honestly didn't need one. He just needed to escape. He could do this. Maybe he was useless at everything else, but he was a quick thinker and he knew he was a quick thinker. He needed to believe that he could get away from here, or he'd spiral down before he even realized what was happening.
He couldn't afford to do that. Nina and Al couldn't afford for him to do that.
Tucker thinned his lips and sorted through the tools. He drew a few out and set them on the ground next to him, each hitting the concrete with a soft clatter. "Then tell me how to do it properly."
"No."
Tucker examined a wrench. A few seconds passed as he glanced from it to Ed, seemingly debating something, before sighing. "You're just making this harder for yourself," Tucker said.
Ed scoffed. "And?"
"I don't want to have to hurt you more than necessary."
"Oh, we're well fucking past that, aren't we?" Ed clenched his fist and stared Tucker in the eyes, trying to regain some control by doing it, but honestly, it was a useless endeavor. He still felt trapped. He still felt scared. "What are you going to do, huh? Make me have sex with you? Knock me out? Tie me up?"
"Just tell me how to detach your automail."
"Why don't you tell me why the hell I'm here?"
Tucker crossed his arms. The wrench hung loosely over his left forearm, held between the fingers of his right hand. It was precariously close to slipping through the man's palm and hitting the ground. Ed kind of found it distracting.
"Then you're just going to scream at me more," Tucker stood. The motion was languid and with it, Ed snapped back to attention. His wide eyes fixated on the man as he took a step forward, wrench in hand, and Ed knew exactly what he was planning to do.
Ed thrashed away in response. The restraints pulled on him, refusing to give even as he fought with everything he had. They bit into his skin, rubbed the flesh raw, created blistered patches, and it only made him struggle more. His breath was coming in shorter and shorter spurts, catching occasionally as he tried, desperately, to keep himself calm.
It was then, in the thick fog of his exhausted distress, that an idea hit him.
"Al!" Ed screamed. "Alphonse!"
"Alphonse can't hear you," Tucker took another step forward. His shoes hit the concrete and tapped ever so slightly, though Ed could barely hear it over the sound of his own ragged breaths. "I know he waits in your room until we're done and I know he doesn't leave. He isn't even aware that you're down here."
"Alphonse!" He ignored Tucker and kept calling. "Al! Al help!"
"Edward, you're giving me a headache."
"Alphonse-!"
A palm drilled into Ed's cheek and his head snapped back to meet the chair. The dark splotches that adorned his vision made themselves known once more and only grew angrier. His ears were ringing, singing along with the faint hum of the underground. There was something metallic on his tongue, a faint pang in his mouth. He squinted through the pain, his eyes opening just enough to realize that Tucker was in front of him, his hand still raised.
"Quit that," Tucker's shoulders were tense and his mouth was a thin line. Ed stared at him, wide-eyed, the sting on his cheek growing into a dull ache. There was copper on his tongue and he realized he'd bitten it.
Tucker rarely hit him. He really must've been angry.
That was fine, Ed wanted him upset. If Ed was going to be subject to whatever the hell Tucker was playing at, he was going to do it being a pain in the ass. He would do it fighting, in any way he could.
This was sincerity. Tucker wasn't trying to hide his intentions. He was hurting Ed and he was doing it on purpose. Ed knew he was a target here. Tucker wasn't pretending to care and he wasn't touching him like he did, either. That made it easier. Ed liked it more this way.
"Or what?" Ed scoffed.
Tucker crossed his arms and narrowed his gaze. He looked him up and down, and at that moment, Ed knew he was being analyzed. "I could still kill you, you know," he said after a moment.
At his words, Ed's whole body tensed involuntarily. His throat was tight and every single muscle was filled to the brim with adrenaline, trembling as blood roared in his ears and the smell of fear and sweat clung to his clothes. It sucked coherent thought out of him like a leech. He swallowed. "You said earlier that you wouldn't. You said you didn't want to hurt me more than necessary."
"Yes, but I could," Tucker put his hand on Ed's cheek. He stroked it softly, his thumb swiping against the bone. Ed jerked his face away and shivered as the man spoke, "It'd be very easy, Edward. You couldn't do a thing, tied up like this, so keep being a brat and see if I change my mind."
The lingering sensation from the hand tingled so much that it itched. Ed had the urge to scratch at the skin until it was raw and bloodied and he couldn't feel it anymore, until every trace of the touch was gone. The words were so much worse than the caress had been, though, because the feeling of having his body handled without his consent was something he was used to. It rotted him from the inside out, but it didn't literally murder him.
But right now, Tucker could kill him if he wanted to, and Ed wouldn't be able to stop it. He'd known that, he'd been trying to ignore it, faking confidence, but all it had taken was that one phrase and Ed's entire brain was shutting down. He'd been in these kinds of situations before, he'd brushed against the brink of the abyss too many times for comfort-
But this was different. This wasn't a punishment from Truth, or starvation on an island, or anything impersonal out to get him. This was another human. Another human, who was trying to hurt him on purpose. Ed may have liked it more when Tucker was being honest about that, but it was so much scarier, too. There was no illusion of control. Ed wasn't the one calling the shots here. Tucker was, he always was.
Ed didn't have a plan. He didn't. He was tied up and vulnerable. He couldn't even move, much less fight, or defend himself.
He needed to find a way to get out, he needed to focus, but now his brain kept reminding him that at any moment, there could be a knife and his flesh and he'd bleed out like a pig with its belly slit for the harvest. That was kind of how he felt, actually, like meat hanging from a hook in an abandoned warehouse. Rotting as it's picked at by animals and maggots. Forgotten. Left to the wolves in the forest.
"You're not going to, though," Ed's voice was laced with a rash sort of desperation. He worried his lip and played the only bargaining chip he had, the only advantage he possessed here. "You like hurting me too much. You can't do that if I'm dead. You need me alive."
"I'm going to be in prison by the end of the week either way," Tucker smiled. It was fleeting and indifferent, as if he'd already just accepted every word he said as fact. "The government will take you out of my custody and put you into somebody else's care. I have absolutely nothing to lose here, so don't test your luck."
There was a level of resignation in every word. Like Tucker had thought this through and he knew it couldn't be helped. That made the hairs on the back of Ed's neck stand, because now he was wondering how long the bastard had been planning this.
Ed opened his mouth to speak, to say something to turn this in his favor, but all that came out was a whimper. There was nothing he could say. He had nothing. There were no offerings for his life other than his body, but he obviously wasn't here to have sex, because he'd know by now.
He felt a lot smaller than he did a minute ago. The clouds that obscured his thoughts to keep the brokenness of his mind hidden were dissipating. The numbness was leaving and as the vapors cleared, he realized how empty he was. Not unfeeling, but like something was missing, something that had been taken from him sometime within the last few months.
And there was a crushing weight that was trying to force him to just give up. Give up and beg, plead, do whatever he had to live.
The soul-deep, chilling fear that only Tucker could seem to instill in him was present on a deeper level than any physical scar or mark, more painful than even the metal drilled into his tendons. Ed liked to pretend that it wasn't there. He liked to tell himself he'd seen it all, so there was nothing to be frightened of.
But as much as he talked back and acted difficult when he could, it didn't change the fact that he always stood down when Tucker told him to. Because he was scared. This was scary.
Tucker enjoyed hurting him too much to kill him, but what if he didn't? What if this had been the plan all along? Break him down, bit by bit, and then finish the job when there was nothing left. He could've been 6 feet under months ago had Tucker grown bored of him or decided he wasn't worth having around anymore. It would've been an easy cover-up, too, Ed got into trouble more often than not. He could've died. He could die.
It didn't matter if he hated Tucker. It didn't matter if Tucker hated him. It didn't change what happened, and it didn't change the fact that Ed was terrified, so out of his mind with panic that he wasn't even there. Any minute he might just melt into the cracks between the concrete below him, or dissipate into nothingness. He wished he could. He wished he could just close his eyes and rearrange the molecules in his body until he ended up someplace else, some place safe.
Tucker's presence was a massive hole in his mental walls. Ed pasted it over with anger and denial, but that didn't change the fact that his defenses crumbled and rotted when nobody was looking. There wasn't much left of him, now, nothing but atoms and flesh and metal that he knew was his, but didn't feel that way.
There was a crater where he used to be. There had been so many sieges on the barriers he put up to protect himself that it honestly felt like there wasn't much to protect anymore. Nothing felt like it was his. Not his body, or his life, or his consent. He'd been scraped at and chipped at until he was sculpted into something entirely wrong. He had no power. In here and in that room, he was only ever an item to pin down and use and hurt. He may as well have not even been a person. He felt like an object, like a thing anyone could stick their dick in and get away with it, all because he was too weak to stop it himself. He hated it. That wasn't him, he was a person.
Ed didn't like this. He really, really didn't like this. Tucker was too close, a few inches away, and he was too goddamn close. Everything around Ed was suffocating him. The stuffy air, the faint smell of mildew, the flickering light from a nearby lamp that strained his eyes. It was too dark and too damp and the restraints that bound him were too tight. He couldn't move. He couldn't move.
The shiver that had been slithering up his body and into the cavity of his chest tightened its hold on his heart. It strangled it and the icy, frigid sensation was so cold it burned and sent every nerve into an inferno that demanded he fight for his life.
"Get the fuck away from me," Ed's eyes were wide. Constricted pupils contrasted against bloodshot white, tears pooling within them until they threatened to spill. Deep, anxious lines marked the furrow in his eyebrows, raised and slightly pained. His lip was quivering and his body was wound so tightly, flexed so harshly that the rope dug even deeper trenches into his arms and chest, making a grave for him with flesh rubbed raw. His heart was stuttering and stopping and trying to find a rhythm above the fuzz and the fear that made everything that much sharper.
He kept his gaze solely focused on Tucker, every small movement, every down-turned twitch of the man's mouth. He was biding time once more and trying to prepare himself for the worst.
"I said go away!" The words were strained and the syllables hitched with emotion. He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a choked gasp. "Leave me alone."
"No, I don't think I will," Tucker was still gazing at him with that hungry, curious expression. He was the same as always, forever predatory and unapologetically present. Every fleck of color in his steel, cold blue irises was threatening and wrong and sent chills up Ed's spine in the form of memories.
That familiar anticipation twisted into Ed's gut like a knife and yanked a sharp breath from his lips. Before Tucker was only scary because Ed knew what was coming and the suspense drilled into him every second he waited for things to go wrong. Now the man was terrifying because Ed had no clue what was happening, or why he was here, beyond the fact that he knew something he shouldn't.
Tucker was closer, now, touching his automail arm, attempting to find the best way to disconnect it. He peaked around the back of the chair and through Ed's shoulder port before his fingers grazed over one of the insulated wires that weren't plated by metal.
Ed thrashed once more and tried to twist his body away, but the rope was unforgiving as it cut into his chest and stole the air from his lungs. He wheezed painfully. Tucker put a hand on his shoulder to keep him still and the contact was acid that burnt Ed's skin. The last slabs of stone that constructed his once well-built, fortified walls were melting beneath Tucker's touch.
Maybe with alchemy, Ed could reconstruct the elements of his defenses and fix himself in the process. Maybe he could gather the fractured, devastated parts of his mind and reform them into something more fortified with a clap. If he could live long enough to try, he just might do it. There were a lot of things he wanted to do if he got out of here.
Ed's eyes glanced around the room and he tried once again to find a means of escape. Instead, they settled on the gun on the table that brought him into this mess, and then the ropes binding him, and then the door that meant the outside world, which he could never see again if he wasn't careful.
He couldn't let himself spiral, he knew that, but even though he was a quick thinker, he was also used to having his body be his and his mind be stable and his brother at his side. He had none of those things right now. He was lost at sea during a storm and nobody heard his screams above the strikes of lightning. Nobody but the person behind him, who enjoyed it, who fucking got off on it.
"Stop," The word was something between a sob and a whisper and a plea. It spilled through his lips over and over until it was a mantra, a prayer to a God who wasn't listening. It didn't ground him or calm him or do anything, really, other than dissipate into thin air like he'd never said anything at all. "St-Stop."
His eyes were stinging and his lip was trembling and his head hurt too goddamn much. The last shattered bits of his determination were trying to use their edges to slice through the mental fog, the injury, the child in his brain that shut off when things went too far. He was being cut to bits from the inside out. And still the smell of sweat and terror hung in the air, mocking him, potent as the salt in his mouth.
He never understood the philosophy behind the falling trees in forests not making sounds until now, because no matter how many words fumbled from his lips, how many times he jerked and shook and wept, he drew no reaction. Ed wondered if he was even really speaking, or if it was something else possessing his body and he was just watching from the sidelines. It certainly didn't feel like him.
The word, words, phrase, phrases, sobs, pleas- he wasn't sure how many times they were said or how long he sat there, begging, but they had everything Ed had left put into them, and in their wake, he was left grappling for scraps. His energy was drained from flailing and his head was still pounding, pulsating deep staccato beats that resounded notes of pain throughout him. It felt like it was threatening to split open. From there it would spray his blood, his cerebral matter, any remaining intelligent thought onto the cold, basement floor.
Tucker didn't stop. He never did. Instead, he hummed and pulled on something. A sharp pain tugged up from Ed's arm and he let out a sound between a yelp and a whimper.
Ed's thrashing got more half-hearted as his mind began to process that it was a useless endeavor. He was just wearing himself out, he knew that, but going limp felt like acceptance. He wound up his chest and slammed it against the rope once more, still hoping that at any moment it might snap and he'd be free. Tucker's grip got more forceful.
He fiddled with something else. Ed couldn't see the man from where he stood behind him, but he could imagine his eyes as they darted between the metal, the wires, and then back to Ed, concentration present in his thinned lips. Ed didn't want to have to think about him, but the mental image of his expressions was seared into his mind like a brand. They wouldn't go away no matter how many times he sat in the bath with his loofa and tried to scrub the impressions off of his dirtied flesh.
"Why am I here?" Ed asked after a moment. He squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head down. His forceful struggles had turned into squirms which had faded completely, until just breathing felt like too much effort. He accepted defeat, in this, at least. He'd known it wouldn't stop. But that didn't make it any better, because he also knew he was going to bruise thanks to this, and then he'd have to look at reminders of his failure for the next few weeks.
If he lived that long.
"What do you want from me?" Ed asked.
"I want you to answer my question."
"You still haven't told me why."
Tucker didn't respond. After a moment, Ed scoffed and rolled his eyes.
"Are you going to keep me hostage down here? Is that it?" Ed clenched his fist at the thought, before searching, desperately for words he could use to convince him to not do that. "People are going to come for me eventually. And then I'm going to tell them all about your little experiment and what a horrible piece of shit you really are."
"Edward," Tucker chuckled, his voice faintly amused. It made something nasty curdle in Ed's gut. "I have no plans for keeping you down here forever. I hadn't wanted to do this in the first place- Debated it, maybe, but.." He trailed off. "Now I just have to get this over with sooner rather than later."
"Get what over with?"
Tucker didn't respond, but he did continue to trace his fingers over Ed's port in silence.
Ed furrowed his eyebrows. He shifted his head for a better view of where Tucker stood behind him and hated how he still couldn't see what was happening. The only hints he got were the touches and tugs and the single hand on his shoulder. He wondered if Tucker was actually finding a good way to take his arm off, or if he was just doing this because he knew it fucked with Ed's head.
Ed honestly didn't know which was worse, but thanks to it, his reality was mingling with the ghosts of sex that haunted his passing thoughts. He ignored one particularly nasty memory and tried to focus on plans for getting out of here, rather than what it felt like when he was belly-down, pinned to the floor by his shoulders, and there was something up his-
Nope. Not thinking about it. He wasn't going to think about it. His heart was racing and his stomach was spasming as it tried to force him to heave his anxiety, to cleanse himself of everything in the form of bile that stung his throat. The acid slicked his tongue and it tasted like heaven compared to some of the other things had had in his mouth before, things he was choosing to pretend didn't exist and couldn't touch him.
Even after everything, he was still trying to delude himself. That shit is what got him here in the first place. He was irredeemable at this rate, wasn't he? He couldn't even call the acts for what they were, he couldn't even admit it was ra-
He grit his teeth and shut that thought down before it could go any farther. The word just felt too personal, too vulgar, too wrong. He hadn't enjoyed it or desired it or had a choice, but he still consented. It was coerced, maybe, but whatever. Life's not black and white, he'd learned that by now. It was different. He wasn't like the people in the books, he wasn't a victim, he was different.
He could only handle being helpless to one thing at a time, right now. He couldn't take much more than this. He couldn't remember any of that. He didn't want to. It already happened, he didn't have to think about the details when they weren't relevant.
But maybe if he'd faced reality head-on and admitted it earlier, he wouldn't be here. Maybe the real reason he could never navigate the signs in the forest of his life was that he was scared of where they'd lead.
Or maybe he was dreaming. Maybe the Pandora's box he kept stored in the back of his mind was being ripped open by his subconscious and any second now he'd wake up screaming. He just needed to slam the damn thing shut and repress it all somewhere deeper. Perhaps the rope burns on his flesh were really just from the sheets and he couldn't move because he was really just having paralysis and he wasn't here at all. It felt like the end of the world, but the evil that trickled out of the cracks of his mind and into his sleep tended to do that.
He'd look up from where he had been sprawled, flailing on the bed. He'd see the bright red eyes that lit the path to his life and the steel that he promised to protect and the brother who was always there for him, no matter how much he fucked up. Al would be there and he'd hold his hand, watch the door, whisper to him that it was okay. Ed would smile because it was all he could do, before closing his eyes once more. He'd be safe.
Ed took a deep breath in and waited.
A few seconds passed.
He was still there.
He'd known that he would be, but he was still disappointed, like he'd been robbed of something by reality not bending the way he wanted it to.
Ed's vitality was drained. Every sensation that being alive gave him, at that moment, made him feel like he was wading through tar. His body was heavy and his head drummed melodies that tried to use pain as a means to lull him into unconsciousness. His thoughts were scattered and fleeting like ashes in the wind. His tongue was an awkward brick in his mouth and not nearly enough to voice his emotions, far too uncomfortable to sort through every little feeling and put them into words.
But he didn't have room for bricks now that he had no protective walls to put them in and he lacked the energy to rebuild another from scratch, so he bit his tongue and let the blood that spilled from it ground him. It's not like he would say anything anyway, because there were still no phrases that could ever truly describe this.
He tried to sort his thoughts into boxes of 'God, I'm so Scared' and 'None of this is Actually Happening' and 'Get the Fuck Out, You Idiot'. He put every remaining shred of hope into one that laid off to the side, the one he named 'Getting Answers'.
He was back to step one: Figure out why he was here. Compartmentalizing was never something he particularly succeeded at, but right now, it was all he could do.
"Hey," Ed's voice was strained, almost a whisper, as he spoke, "Tell me why I'm still alive right now."
"Edward," Tucker ignored his question as he muttered, "Be honest with me. Would you die from blood loss if I deconstructed your port?"
The question barely phased Ed, at that point. It sounded exactly like the kind of asshole thing Tucker would do to him, because anything that Ed had, he ruined.
Ed had written his name in the devil's book three months ago, sold his soul, gained the marks to prove it, and he was being hung for his crimes. Now he got to listen to the one-person crowd jeer as his neck snapped above the quiet of the basement, because the chances of him dying from blood loss were pretty high. The only reason he'd even survived last time was because Al had rushed him to the Rockbell's within minutes.
The memory made him shiver and honestly wasn't doing much for his growing sense of dread.
"You're the bio-alchemy expert," Ed scoffed. His voice wavered a little with every word. It was hard to talk over his still-trembling lip and the despair that was slowly dicing him into pieces. "What do you think will happen if you take off something that's attached to my body?"
"I only asked because you're more familiar with automail," Tucker sighed. "I can't use you if you'll die, though."
Use. Tucker said use. Ed knew he wasn't here to have sex, or to be kept as a prisoner, or to be killed, even though he felt like he was about to die. That took out the three most likely options. Tucker needed him for something. Something the man couldn't accomplish without Ed being alive to do it. Something that meant potentially deconstructing his ports.
Ed made a list of everything he sensed. He gathered every piece of data, ran it through his mind, and tried to come up with the most likely hypothesis. If he thought about this as an experiment, maybe he could better read the signs. Ed had never been a detail-oriented person anyways, all he needed to do was look at the big picture, all he had to do was be a scientist and try to predict the most likely outcome.
It took a few seconds, but then Ed's eyes landed on the transmutation circles that adorned the walls, and then where Alexander lay, still asleep in the corner. Something clicked. The dread that had been slowly working its way through his body suddenly gripped his senses with ice-cold tendrils.
He knew why he was here. He tried to breathe, but the air escaped his reach before it could fill his lungs. They rasped and deflated, choked on the oxygen, refused to comply. He'd completed the first step of any escape- which he was still not giving up on- But he was dizzy again and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little in denial.
Vertigo was such a pretty sounding word, it had such a sophisticated ring to it, to be used to describe the way his world was tilting on its axis. This was a primal sense of unease, intuitive and entirely too painful. But he knew. Part of science was finding patterns. Ed had measured the stats out on a chart in his head and it all checked out.
"You're trying to make another chimera, aren't you?" As he spoke, some syllables caught on his still bleeding tongue, unpleasant to speak, slightly slurred from the head wound, and rough with horror. "That's why you've been so busy with your assessment project. That's why I'm here. You're trying to recreate results."
There was a nauseating sense of finality to the revelation. Being here was a cement block tethered to his feet and this moment was the part where he got thrown off a dock and into an ice-cold ocean. Even if he fought against the rolling waves, even if he struggled with failing, burning lungs, even if he knew he was drowning, he had no way to prevent it. Recognition of those facts didn't stop it from happening. He would still sink to the bottom, the pressure would still burst his eardrums, the putrefaction would occur and he'd return back to nothing.
He was dying- about to die- he could die- he could have his body reconstructed into something even more not-him than himself, and all he could do was thrash and hope that if he screamed loud enough Tucker just might stop.
Tucker's hands paused over his shoulder. The man took a deep breath in, his fingers still hovering, before he continued with his fiddling. "You're very observant, Edward," His voice gave nothing away about how he felt, simply stating it as a fact and moving on.
Ed clenched his fist. His nails dug shallow trenches within the flesh. His fingers strained and shook under the force, tendons flexing painfully, and it hurt, but that was the point, wasn't it? "I'm not letting you do that to me."
"This isn't a choice."
"Nothing's a choice with you," Ed spat. "You always just do whatever the hell you want and get pissy when people have a problem with it."
"So what if I do?" Tucker asked flippantly. "It's human nature to take what you want. Don't pretend your curiosity doesn't run as deeply as mine, Edward."
"I'd never do this to someone."
"And that's exactly what I would've said, at your age," Tucker's breath tickled the back of Ed's ear. Ed braced himself on instinct and didn't let his muscles untense even after nothing happened. "But you'll grow up. You'll see how dull life can be when you restrict yourself to what other people think is acceptable, to what's been done before. Your need to test the limits will always win, in the end."
So that's all this was? A way to exert control, for the man to see what he could do just because he could? That wasn't fair. Ed wasn't some experiment or an object people got to just pin down and stick their dick in. Tucker had no right to treat him like one, no right to fucking do this. Ed was a person. He was a person and he was sick of being handled like he wasn't.
Tucker wanted him to be malleable. He wanted him to be putty in the man's hands who bent over and didn't fight. He wanted to see if he could make him comply to every whim, how long he'd last, how long he could be hurt until he was broken beyond recognition. Tucker was pissed when he argued and bored when he was too good. Ed really couldn't win no matter what.
And the boy in that room wasn't Ed. Not just in the way that it felt like none of it was actually happening to him, but in how he wasn't someone who just did what they were told to. He didn't shut up and take things instead of struggling against the odds for what he wanted. He wasn't compliant, he'd never done what people told him to do a day in his life, he was always the one in control. He wasn't meant to be this fucking pathetic and used and sore all the time.
And he wasn't a god, either. He'd played God, but he wasn't omnipotent and he made mistakes. Terrible mistakes, unforgivable ones, but he was trying to fix them and be better, so why wasn't that enough?
He'd played the whore, too. He shut up when Tucker said to shut up, pretended to like it when he was demanded to do so, touched himself when he had no other choice but to swallow the bile and get it over with. He'd tried to be a god and he'd tried to be a whore, but at the end of the day, he was really just himself.
He couldn't be anything else. He was Edward Elric. When you put together the memories, the emotions, the metal, every element that composed his not-his body, the mysterious substances that equaled his soul, that's all he was. He hated himself for what he'd done, what he hadn't done, what he'd tried to be, but he literally couldn't be anyone else. He didn't get to exist as someone other than himself.
He'd had his own life before this. His own dreams, his own emotions, his own agency. He was a brother, and a child, and a genius, and so many other things.
He was human. Artlessly, plainly human. He was a person. He is a person. People are valuable, life is precious. Everything moved in circles, it was all supposed to be worth something, part of a bigger whole. Being here had to have a meaning, didn't it?
All is one and one is all, so he was supposed to be worth something, too, wasn't he?
So why didn't it matter? Why didn't his voice matter?
"I'm a person, Tucker," Ed spat. He clenched his fist harder. The red abrasions around his chest, wrist, and ankle were starting to swell and bruise. The marks throbbed, bone-deep. His eyes stung and his heart ached, trapped in his body, it played a symphony of blood that pounded from his sternum to his throat to his ears, growing and growing until Ed was drowning in it. The cords were bitter, resentful, pained, but they were the only direction Ed had, at that moment, because he'd been thrown in an ice-cold ocean with his legs tethered to concrete. The water was consuming him faster than he could stop it. It tasted like salt and it made him feel like he was going crazy, but he still wasn't an object. Being himself was a lot more painful, but he was tired of sex and he was sick of being told what to do and who to be. "I'm human. Just like you, and Nina, and Lillian. Curiosity isn't an excuse."
"I'm not making excuses," Tucker chuckled. "I know you're human, Edward. I wouldn't be interested if you weren't."
"So you just don't care about what I want?"
"I do."
"But not enough to stop, huh?" Ed tilted his head up towards the ceiling and he didn't bother to keep himself from crying. The white of the paint above him danced under the lantern's warm, glimmering light. In a mundane, natural way, it was pretty. If he looked long enough, he could almost imagine the dark silhouettes from the room's objects were shadow puppets that made stories. He could almost watch the shapes morph into a tale that he might've heard when he was younger, one where good things happen to good people and evil was always punished. That was how the world was supposed to work.
He was cold. He'd never liked the cold. He wished he could blame his goosebumps on the lack of heating in the basement, but he felt it inside of him, too. Like the oxygen in his own internal flame had been sucked out and repurposed into a biting, chilling wind. It twisted him up inside like the tornadoes he saw as a kid in Resembool and flung his emotions around like one, too. They flew and crashed against each other, meeting in the middle until they were a muddle of sensations that looped back into the tears that stung his eyes and the thing that ate away at his gut. The thing that whispered above the roaring winds that he'd never leave this place and he'd be dead by morning.
He wondered, once again, how many people would come to the funeral. Especially after they'd learned what had been done to him, after his body had been mutated into a horrific fusion of man and beast. Maybe they'd take pity on him, say that he hadn't deserved this because he was fucking doing his best and he couldn't be more than the parts that combined to make him. Maybe they'd think he had it coming. He wasn't sure anymore, because somehow both options existed as equally valid ideas and they were ravaging one another in his mind, fighting a war that had no end.
"Haven't you taken enough?" A few more tears slipped down Ed's cheeks, their pace steady and refusing to slow. Snot dribbled onto his lips and he couldn't even fucking wipe it because his hands were still tied up. It was gross, but he honestly didn't care. He already felt as disgusting as he did cold and it wasn't like being appealing ever gotten him anything good, anyway.
"When are you done? I did everything you wanted. You fucked me for months and I let you. You threatened my brother and Nina and me and I still didn't run. You kept me hostage in your- your stupid fucking house and used everything you could as leverage to keep me from leaving, and you just won't stop," He squeezed his eyes shut when the need to bawl became harder to control. "I-I was supposed to escape tomorrow, and now you're gonna- you're trying to turn me into- Wh-When are- you fucking- when are you-"
He cut himself off with a sob, thrashing his head to the side as he tried to keep his breaths steady. The pounding from the wound on his crown was aggravated by the sudden movement, shooting enough pain through him to make him flinch. He clenched his fist harder. His nails pierced his flesh palm and blood pooled underneath them, dripping sluggishly onto the wood directly below. He took a few seconds to stew in the misery and exhaustion, before he lowered his voice and tried to find the words he needed. When they came to him, they were entirely too much to share, and yet not enough.
"Wh-When are you done? When you kill me? When I finally off myself because I couldn't keep doing this? Would you even feel bad, if I died because of you?" Tucker didn't respond, but even if he did, Ed was honestly too upset to even care. "Would you?! I could've, you know. The day Al found out I'd- I'd almost- I'd never thought about that before you fucking-"
Ed bit his lip. He couldn't finish the sentence, he still couldn't say it. Something was running its way from his toes to the crown of his head, sending shivers down his spine, before it stopped at his torso and clustered into knots in his stomach. They tangled and tangled and the longer he felt them, the more he realized they'd never come undone. And they were bitter like hate. A loathing so deep it felt intrinsic to his very being, cancerous and multiplying and rotting him from the inside out.
But it was freeing, too, and it let him cut some weight off his shoulders. He was scared and he was hurt and he was going to let himself feel that way, right now, because there was a possibility he was going to die tonight, or be turned into a chimera like Lillian, and he'd never get the chance to again.
He felt so used. He felt so angry. He hadn't felt this justified in his emotions since the first time, since he'd stared at the wall and wondered if Tucker even realized how much he was hurting him. Ed knew the answer, now. It had flip-flopped sides a million times and every instance he'd debated the question had made the twisted string in his gut even more complex, but the smoke had now long cleared from the mirrors. He'd escaped his tar-pit middle ground and he got to stand on the other side, overlooking everything, and know that someone couldn't do this to another person and care.
And even if Tucker had, Ed decided it didn't matter. The man's actions were still the same and good thoughts didn't equal good people. Ed still wasn't sure if him giving a shit would've made the whole thing better or worse, but Ed knew it had happened either way, and he knew that he was livid.
"Edward," at some point, Tucker had stepped out from behind him. The man stared, his eyebrows furrowed, his arms crossed. He was still too close and Ed still couldn't force himself to look at him. He knew he must have been quite an ugly, pathetic sight, but being emotionally naked was still less painful than being stripped of his clothes, posed in front of a camera.
It wasn't as bad as sex, being forced to make sounds that should never have come from his throat, the shame that filled him when his nose crinkled and he peaked. How his eyes had followed the semen as it escaped in a white spurt and stained the sheets. How it judged him, degraded him for reacting the way his body was made to.
He couldn't control it. He'd tried holding his breath until stars twinkled around the edges of his vision, he'd tried staring at the wall, he'd tried keeping it in until the orgasm was scraped out with touches that were razors slicing at his flesh. He wondered how it wasn't scorched and blistered down there. It hurt so much sometimes that it felt more appropriate that the damage be permanent.
The memories made his upper lip curl. He tried to push them away, but they were burrowed so deeply within him that to force them down completely would require taking a spear to his heart and ramming it through until they spilled out the other end. It would slice through the filth that had made a home there, but the only way to do that was to destroy him completely.
He tried to close his legs on instinct. The restraints stopped him halfway, so he sobbed instead, clenching his fist with the blood still sticky on his fingertips.
Tucker tried to meet his gaze once again and Ed turned his head away. Looking at him made Ed feel too exposed, even after everything he'd just said, everything he'd been through.
And Ed knew how bloodshot and tired his eyes probably seemed right now. Far too vulnerable. His lashes were still damp and they chilled his skin every time he blinked, the droplets glistening against the irritated, puffy flesh. Red-rimmed lids and dull pupils, whittled down by exhaustion and that wide, gaping hole in his mental walls.
On the day of the exam, one of the officers had said Ed looked dead on his feet. He'd told him that he needed to come back down to earth because he was too spacey. The thing about space, though, was that it was always alive and forever changing. Ed may be human, but he was stagnant. Pinned. Still in that room.
And he was too tired for this.
"Hey," Tucker's voice was soft, softer than Ed usually heard it, but it held that entitlement, that demand to it that pissed him off. "Look at me."
Ed closed his eyes, thinned his lips, and shook his head. It was childish and petty and that was the point, honestly.
Tucker sighed, which was strange because Ed honestly thought he was about to get slapped again for not listening. "Do you really hate me that much?"
Ed did a double-take, mentally. The words caught him off guard, almost enough for it to be funny. Actually, it was hilarious, because really-
"Wh-What kind of fucking question is that?" The tightness in his throat was still there and he was like 60% sure he was crying, but he was laughing so hard he really couldn't tell. His cackles devolved into giggles after a few seconds, but the more he thought about the statement, the harder it got to control his reactions. "You pulling my leg or somethin'?"
"A genuine one. Answer it," Tucker's eyebrows pinched and Ed found the hysteria very hard to fight with how embarrassed he looked.
"Five minutes ago you were saying you'd kill me if I wasn't quiet."
"Because you were grating my nerves."
"You're unbelievable," Ed chuckled bitterly, cracking his eyes open just enough to glare through the puffy slits. "Go fuck yourself."
Tucker bristled, at that, and he said something, but Ed chose to ignore it because it was the usual bullshit that came from his mouth.
Ed glanced down towards his hand, the man's annoying chatter in the background, and that's when he saw it.
Blood. Crimson streaks that decorated his fingers. It was almost black in the dim light. He almost missed it.
But he didn't.
Drops of it slid from the four crescent-shaped intents in his palm, trickling under his wrist and forming a small puddle on the wooden armrest directly below. The wooden armrest below, which was smooth enough to write on.
It was beautiful. He probably sounded creepy when he said that, but fuck, he'd never been so happy that he could bleed. He'd never been so thankful that his stature was built the way it was because his arms were sh- concise enough to sit comfortably on the armrest. He had an out. Step 3 was simple, find a way to escape, and use it. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought about this earlier.
He averted his gaze before it could become suspicious, but his mind was already drawing arrays. Suddenly every single horrible thought and emotion was thrown out of his brain and replaced with an almost euphoric relief. He wasn't going to die, fuck that bullshit. He was going to get out of here and he was going to grab Al and Nina and he was going to run. Run, and never look back.
He could move his hand. There was just enough room for one circle, if he was careful. Nothing else, but that's all he needed. That's all it took.
Tucker may have separated his palms, but he hadn't restricted his finger movements. It made sense, it's not like Ed had something to write with. And he doubted he'd been knocked out long enough for Tucker to stress over details. The bindings were a rushed job and it showed.
Ed clenched his fist again and grimaced over a smile. The adrenaline was pumping enough to dull his headache and dissipate the fog that clouded his thoughts and scrambled them into the barest of emotions.
The anticipation was back, but the good kind, this time. Not the one where he laid in bed and waited to be violated, or the one where the thing in his gut convinced him he was going to die. It was hopeful.
That probably wasn't good, was it? Hope had never gotten him anywhere. Hope was the thing that led to desperation, that caused mistakes in basements, that pulled him to this doorstep and made him agree to live here.
But he didn't have much else, so he clung to it with every inch of his bruised, battered soul and body.
"Feel any better?"
Tucker's words slipped through his thoughts and pulled him into the real world. Ed kept his gaze locked on the man, waiting for him to look away, biding time for the perfect moment to get sketching.
He sniffled and tried to even his voice. "Untie me and then ask that again after I pound your face in."
"I don't think I will," Tucker frowned. It was easy to miss, teetering the edges of his mouth down, almost non-existent, but Ed knew it when he saw it.
"Do you have any ideas about what to do with the extra iron from your automail?" Tucker asked after a moment. "I don't want to take off your ports and risk killing you, and I figure the other trace elements in the steel are easy to disperse."
"How considerate," Ed scoffed. "Yeah, sure, let me just take some time to come up with ideas that are gonna help you tear my body apart and turn me into a chimera. Because that's something I'm going to do."
Tucker crossed his arms. "I could always use Nina instead."
"Touch her and I'll fucking kill you," Ed glared defiantly, drifting his fingertips against his palm in a painful but comforting motion. Tucker going to grab Nina actually wouldn't be a bad thing, Ed could use the time the man was away to escape, but the thought of her any closer to this situation made his mouth dry and his stomach toss itself in circles nauseatingly. He didn't want to risk her being collateral. It was scary enough when he'd found her under the bed, he'd almost had a heart attack.
He was going to have to talk to her about playing hide and seek in appropriate places. He didn't know how to explain what was happening to a 5-year-old. Had he not noticed her, he would've been forced to figure it out, which was really one of the few things he could think of that would've made this situation worse.
He was starting to get that post-mental breakdown exhaustion. It made his eyelids droop and drained every muscle he had, until he was almost relaxed, in a defeated sort of way. He was so sore and tired that just thinking about moving hurt.
He was going to take the longest fucking nap in history once this was all over.
"Get brainstorming, Edward," Tucker said, oblivious to the fact that he already was, just not in the way the man wanted. Ed chuckled to himself. There was a weird feeling of control to be gained in that knowledge, a shift in dynamic that gave him a sliver of confidence he'd not felt in three months. He'd been told he had a diamond mind and it was a little hellion of a thing when it felt like terrorizing him, but goddamn if it wasn't quick with arrays.
"You're an asshole," Ed's voice didn't hold its usual venom, but that didn't mean he wasn't feeling it. He was saving his energy, now. He knew he'd need it. "Have I told you that?"
"Yes," Tucker rubbed his temple, having the gall to look annoyed, more than anything. "Many times."
Ed made a mental note to get more creative with his insults. He wanted to see him hurt. Genuinely, painfully hurt by words, in the way that Ed had been. That probably made him a terrible person. Resentment never was a pretty emotion. Ed didn't consider himself malicious. Rude, maybe, but not mean, he rarely wanted to see someone wounded.
But spite was something that was becoming increasingly familiar, right now. It made a home out of his chest and it may as well have had owned the goddamn lease to his heart. It had moved in and it vindicated him, validated his emotions until they felt natural and untethered. It was easy to blame himself for this, yeah, because he was an idiot who let himself get taken advantage of-
But it was also getting real easy to condemn Tucker, too, because Ed didn't fuck himself. Ed wasn't the reason Lillian was dead and he wasn't the reason why Nina was motherless. This wasn't a one-man show, his life wasn't just his monologue starring him where every little thing was something he scripted and caused. Some shit wasn't on him. Maybe some stuff he'd deserved, but not everything.
He felt like a bad person for admitting that, too, but who cared, anyway? He was allowed to be pissed, he was tied down in the basement, about to be chimera'd if he didn't escape in time, with a concussion and nobody to help him. His life fucking sucked right now.
"Turn the automail into a separate object or something," Ed grumbled, still not fully convinced that any of these words were actually coming out of his mouth. "Or use the iron to replace some of the blood lost, if there's any."
"That's going to complicate the array."
Ed rolled his eyes. Sewing Life Alchemist his ass, this was kiddie stuff. "It's easy if you do two successive transmutations. Have a different one drawn to the side, activate it in between rounds for the-" He realized Tucker was staring and cut himself off. Shit. He hadn't meant to actually give the man anything useful. He just couldn't resist the urge to correct people when they were either being stupid or wrong.
"Yes, very clever," Tucker nodded, his arms crossed and a pen and paper in his hand. He scribbled something down, before glancing up. "Keep going."
Ed would pass on continuing, actually, because this conversation was drawing him back to nights that he'd spent on the floor next to Al, the ones where he'd laid on his side, floorboards rigid against his ribs. With his voice full of misplaced ambition, he read aloud alchemy books like they could save the world. And he thought they could, back then, or at least help salvage the scraps of his own.
His brother's soft, unknowing smile as Ed mentioned that the best way to summon their mom's soul was to use blood. The way Ed had caught Al grinning to himself, hopeful as ever and his eyes scanning pages for knowledge of the forbidden. How they'd talked about it so openly, so plainly, so full of innocence and ignorance, so ready to delve into the transmutation like they weren't about to ruin their lives, like they weren't about to create something horrible.
The blackened, charred skin pulled taut over bones shaped like snapped toothpicks that stuck out at painful angles. The mouth that hung open, the way it had writhed, his own screams that weren't nearly as loud as the pain of losing his leg. The fear that consumed him when he looked to the side and realized Al wasn't there, but his little brother's clothes laid in a puddle. The fabric pooled mockingly, as if to ridicule Ed because it was there and Al wasn't, because it was his fault his fault Al's gone, give him back-
Tucker stared at him. The gaze struck something primal in Ed's chest, something intuitive that screamed danger, and pulled him out of the flashback with a shiver. The man's lips were thinned like he was debating something, almost like he was worried.
Fucker. Like he had the right to be concerned.
Ed corrected his wide eyes, unwound his shoulders, and took a deep breath in, "Sorry, head hurts," He winced to make it believable and glanced away. "I lost my train of thought," he grumbled.
"Ah, right."
Ed being here had to have been Truth's version of poetic justice. He'd done the unforgivable to his mother, tried to recreate her like she was an object to be replaced. He'd attempted to make a person like she was a thing that just needed the right materials.
And here he was, in a body that wasn't his but was all he could be, and someone was trying to reshape him. Someone had used him like he was discardable, expendable, not a person, just something to get pleasure from. Tucker only kept him around this long to have sex, and Ed had only tried to bring back his mother because he didn't know how to continue without her. He'd done horrible things to people for his own selfish gain, too.
In that way, the situation didn't feel all that different. He knew it was, logically, but it didn't feel like it.
And fuck, that's exactly what Tucker had said, wasn't it? He was so far in Ed's head at this point that Ed had to wonder how much of what he thought was actually him and how much was Tucker fucking up his brain.
The thought made him sick. His stomach was queasy, topsy-turny and he was switching gears towards something darker again. It was exhausting. His emotions were trigger happy and so quick to jump from place to place. He felt like he was constantly operating at extremes. He'd always been a hot-and-cold person, but not like this. It barely took anything to make him furious enough to cry, or so depressive that pessimism clouded every thought, or panicked out of his body.
He needed to get out of here. He was so sick of being a mess. He didn't want to be scared, he wanted these fucking ropes off of him. He wanted to see his brother. He wanted to live and be allowed to be his own person, never have anyone ever touch him again. Maybe that was unrealistic, but he'd never been the type to shoot for obtainable goals.
So when Tucker turned to grab a book from his shelf, Ed took the first chance the world gave to him and started drawing his array. His bloodied fingertips met his palm, and then the wood below. It was difficult, he had to account for the lack of full mobility, switch fingers constantly, and the angle was weird, but he completed it with time.
He didn't see what it looked like, didn't have the option to check. It was too dark and there was too much risk. If it was wrong, he'd know when he activated it. His head was still pounding, and now his heart, too. It was so far up his throat that he almost forgot to breathe at all.
He slapped his hand down. Wood splintered and split. The chair under him turned into dust as beautiful and scientifically calculated as the fractals that spun around his vision-
Because now he was standing, and fuck was the world tilting. He'd prepared himself for mobility issues, but he wasn't able to test his leg fully while sitting and choppy movements came with the territory of head injuries. The brain-body disconnect was stomach-wrenchingly nauseating. The bindings slid off of his limbs and into lumps on the floor, tripping him up as he lunged towards the gun on the table. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
Tucker must've really fucked with his arm. It was almost completely limp when he tried to move it, so he gave up within a split second. The most important thing right then was getting the weapon and not being shot himself. His body slammed into the counter, his sight still fading in and out from exhaustion as he put the puzzle pieces of his appendages together and forced them, by either adrenaline or will-power, to fit in place and move the way he needed them to.
His fingers grazed over metal and he hurriedly clutched the gun, pulled it close to his chest like the lifeline that it was.
There was shuffling behind him. He hadn't bothered to stop and watch what Tucker was doing, his one-tracked, terrified mind far too focused on his goal at that moment, but he regretted it when there was an arm around his chest. The hands yanked him forward and the pistol slipped through his fingers, clattering feet away as Ed hit the ground with a pained gasp. His ribs were on fire from where his side had made contact with an unforgiving concrete, his pulse pounding in his wounds, his muscles threatening to spasm and quit working at any moment, but he didn't care. His thoughts crashed, ripped each other apart until the only ones left were his most guttural instincts.
Tucker was still wrapped around him when he kicked out and tried to use the leverage to reach the gun that laid feet away. There was the sound of metal crunching against bone, but Ed barely minded it. His automail arm was dead weight pulling him down, not providing nearly enough support to put pressure on it, and so he was reduced to a flailing, panicked mess of his flesh-arm and legs. It was less than a fighting stance and he knew Teacher would've been disappointed, but she wasn't there and he was a little too focused on not dying to worry about what she would or wouldn't think.
The light caught the gun and the way it glimmered was a salve to Ed's anger, a safety net, the one thing he needed to ensure his body wouldn't be cold by dawn. His hand scrambled and met metal once more.
Tucker made a groaning noise, before he snarled, almost animalistic. Ed had never seen him this angry, not after Al punched him, and not the first time Ed had fought back. His eyes were blazing, roaring fire like a dragon's breath. There was so much lividity in his gaze that something pathetic whimpered from the throws of Ed's mind and told him that he was making a mistake, that he really should've just gone along with this and not caused a scene.
But the loathing that had sunk its teeth into his heart, infected it until it was pussed and yellowed around the edges, got a sense of satisfaction from the man's reaction. The fear fueled the anger fueled the hatred, and Ed was seeing the world in sharp reds that contrasted against the darkness, stark against the lanterns dim light, or maybe that was a star, Ed didn't know, his sight was too blurry to tell. His pupils were blown wide with the kaleidoscopic colors of the universe and his mind was somewhere far out in space, away from there, and it let his body do the work for it.
He wasn't dreaming, but he definitely wasn't on earth. And he could say that because at that moment, he was moving and he was fucking living and he was going to keep it that way. He wasn't in that room, he wasn't pinned, he was in control and he was never giving that up to anyone else ever again. He was his own person. He was damaged, but he was him, and that had to be worth something, because he didn't get to be anyone else.
And the asshole should be outraged. He should feel just a fraction of what Lillian had, what Al had, what Nina and everyone else had.
What Ed had.
He should hurt. He should be maimed and fucked raw by life, too. He should understand, fully, without room for denial, what he had done.
And Ed wanted him to feel sorry for it. He wanted him to apologize and beg for forgiveness. Admit that he didn't care and he never did, admit that he'd taken Nina's mother from her, that he'd forced Al to watch something terrible unfold, that he'd made a hole in Ed's defenses in the shape of the words 'rape victim' and that was fucking shattering.
The gun was hard, unforgiving, but it protected him in a way Ed hadn't been before. His fingers grazed it and it reminded him that he was finally the person with the power here. Tucker looked at him and Ed wondered what the man saw when he did. The sweat and blood that seeped from his flesh? His hair and eyes, wild and angry? A child, his step-son, a person, an object?
Was he scared? Did he regret the last three months as much as Ed did?
Time stopped and Ed was still out of this world, in the seconds of in-between where they'd laid there, looking at each other. It existed on a different dimension, somewhere within the cracks in the universe, but it felt right, because Ed wasn't the one pinned. He felt sick like he did when he'd been spanked, he wanted to break down like he had with the pictures, he was fighting back like the time Tucker had punched him in the face and told him to stay still like a good little whore or Al was going to die-
But he wasn't in that room.
Ed was in the basement. He wasn't tied up and he wasn't going to be treated like he was something to conquer and mold. He was a person, and he was angry.
He wondered what Gracia would've done. What Maes would've done. What Teacher or Mustang or Al or his mother would've done.
He knew what he did, though.
And then he was running. He didn't look back.