Chapter thirteen
"You said it was a mansion, but... holy fuck, that's massive..." seemed to be all that the kid could think of saying. "You... you seriously LIVE here?!"
Roy sighed, knowing that the mansion was indeed large. "Yes, but not by choice. It's complicated, but it's mostly for Riza and my own protection. And for whomever we socialise with. Moving to a normal house would mostly just tell the vampire community that I'm not a hunter anymore, meaning that I'm an easy target because I'm out of practice."
Ed just stared at him, obviously still struggling to believe that this would be their new place of residence. "We're seriously gonna live here?"
Roy straightened up, sighing again, not because he was exasperated with Ed, but with his own parents. "Yes. The Führer's given me a few weeks' leave to get things in order, plus the trip to Central could take a while because I need to use the family library."
Ed's eyes went wide with fear, and Roy cursed inwardly. "We're staying with psycho-parents for a few weeks?! But I'm not gonna be able to keep myself in check for that long! One shout and it's over!"
Roy was fighting an intense inner struggle, and he pinched his nose, the whole situation getting on his nerves. He was a guardian looking after two kids and things could go to hell in a second if something happened. He was responsible for both of them and it scared him and had kept him constantly on edge ever since they started driving seven hours ago, knowing how risky it all was. "I know, of course I do! But we need those resources if we're to have any chance of knowing what the hell to do with you!"
Ed froze. "What to do with me? What do you mean? You're the vampire expert, you know what to do with me!"
Roy swore loudly this time. It was one of the few times he had spoken too soon. Getting a couple of wards and taking them to his house was a lot more stressful than having them in a town where they weren't as forced to live in the life of one of the most powerful families in the country. "Ed, I'll tell you everything, let's just go somewhere safe to have the talk."
Edward was clearly furious with him. "You lied to me, in other words..." he hissed, glaring at Roy.
"I didn't, not really... I just didn't tell you a lot of uncertain theories that would serve to scare you for weeks, but might as well turn out to be false."
"You're damn well gonna tell me everything now! If you know stuff about me and then psycho-parents find out and it puts Al in danger, then I'm gonna give you hell, you hear me?!" the boy said threateningly.
Roy sighed. "I don't doubt it. Riza, please take Al and put him in one of the spare bedrooms while I have a word with Ed down in the pool room."
Ed glared at him. "What's it with you and baths?! I'm gonna be wrinkled as fuck before we even get to Central!"
"Like I said, Edward, water has the ability to calm down the sensorial overstimulation. That will most likely serve to help you keep your powers under control to a much greater extent. Also, it is one of the largest rooms in the house, but with a lot fewer objects that could become hazardous to our health should something happen. The other rooms are the ball room, entrance hall and the banquet hall. Those are a bad idea because they just so happen to have candelabras."
The kid stared at him. "What the heck?"
"If it helps, my dream house would be a cottage with thatched roof and a medium-sized garden with a hammock. And by medium-sized, I mean by normal human standards, not by my parents'."
"You're weird and annoying."
"I've known that for a long time. Annoying my parents is a favourite pastime of mine. Later today, I'll take you two to see the hedgehog rescue centre I've founded."
"You've founded a hedgehog rescue centre?" Ed asked. Roy knew that the kid would be pissed off, but he would also like Edward's assistance for the next couple of minutes.
And so Roy just nodded. "Yep, it's on the outskirts of town, separated into two branches. It's my money and there are far too many hedgehogs who are starving due to lack of food and thereby don't survive the winter. Sylvia is already headed here to pick the two we found on the drive over here. They're up front with Riza, currently using a couple of blankets plus my coat as a cave."
"So that's the weird smell? I thought I must have been wrong about the extra couple of heartbeats I keep hearing."
"Well, you weren't. Their names are Darren and Sue."
Ed just stared at him wide-eyed. "You're actually serious? You even named the hedgehogs?"
"Of course. They deserve a name. When I came to live here, I found an injured hedgehog in the garden and brought her to the vet, only to have him tell me that he would have to put her to sleep because she wasn't going to survive on her own. So I asked him if she would survive if I kept her and made sure to treat her wounds as they weren't too severe. I ended up having a pet hedgehog by the name of Gwen for the next three years because I couldn't get myself to put her back out into the wild in fear of her getting injured again. It gave me an idea and I already had the money, so now we have a total of fifty staff members, including a total of eight veterinarians, whom I all pay, of course, and with the winter season approaching, we have the capacity for three hundred animals, and the garden here is of course always open for modifications should it be needed," Roy told him casually. "The beauty of it is that the vampires don't dare attack the two branches or my staff because I made sure to have the rescue centres built next to two military offices." He sighed again, feeling anger make its way into him. "It may also have helped that the one time a vampire dared attack one of the hedgehog pens, killing Ernie, Morris and Louie, I made sure to slaughter the entire nest. It sent a rather clear message. I don't take kindly to people being cruel to my animals. They're there to be given a safe haven, and so a safe haven is what they're getting. So if you wouldn't mind helping me carry one of them inside while I take the other, then that would be of great help."
"You want me to carry a malnourished hedgehog before you put me inside a pool to have a conversation about the stuff you haven't told me about me being a vampire?" Ed asked incredulously, his eyes betraying his profound annoyance as well.
"Yes. Riza will be carrying Alphonse, and so I figured we could take a hedgehog each."
"Fine, but you'd better tell me everything!"
Roy sighed. "I swear. Now come on." He began to move to leave, gently lifting Al's head off his lap, but the movement was enough to wake the young boy who immediately sat up, looking about him in confusion.
"Al, you figure out what to do about the hedgehogs with Riza while me and Captain Butterfly have a word," Ed said angrily and swung the car door open, before swiftly jumping out of the no longer moving vehicle. "I'll be talking to you when we're done, but right now I'm too pissed off with him to want to risk being around you, Riza, two hedgehogs and a candelabra."
"Brother? What's going on?"
"Stuff that makes it too dangerous for me to be around you at the moment," Ed said and stomped in the direction of the front doors.
"I'm sorry, Alphonse, but Riza will explain it to you," Roy told him, knowing that if he put things off even longer, then Edward was a lot more likely to accidentally break something, so he got out of the car quickly. Also, one shout of "come!" and Roy would most likely find himself flying gracelessly through the air in the angry preteen's direction.
He decided to jog over to Edward to show his willingness to cooperate.
The kid was angrily holding up four plastic bags filled with new clothes, looking at Roy with sceptic annoyance.
"It's a quarter past eleven, I asked Havoc to pick up some clothes for the two of you, as well as hygienic supplies," Roy explained, already knowing what came next.
And sure enough, the boy picked a pair of swimming trunks out of the bag, looking at him in even greater annoyance as he held them up with a raised eyebrow. "You gonna unlock the door? Or do you want me to push it open? Also, you better have bought a hair tie. I'm not gonna have my hair hanging loose like this all the time."
Roy sighed and stepped up to the large double doors, pulling his keys out of his pocket. "I'm sure Riza will lend you one," then he pushed the door open, the kid immediately walking inside the entrance hall, freezing slightly. "Oh, shit..." he said in a kind of terrified awe. Then he seemed to regain his pissed off attitude and glared at Roy. "Where's the pool?" he demanded.
"I'll take you, Edward," Roy told him calmly, striding forwards in the direction of the stairs to the basement.
"Would you stop being so fucking calm about all this?!" the kid said, and Roy could see a small crack appear in the marble beneath his own feet.
"Edward... You need to calm down," he told him as he paused and pointed to the floor.
The boy froze and clenched his fists. "Dammit," he whispered.
Roy figured that it was best to just send the kid to the wardrobe as quickly as possible. "Down the hallway to the left, walk down the staircase, then follow the hallway to the right for about thirty metres, you'll be able to smell the pool pretty quickly. The men's wardrobe's the second door on the right and then you just follow your nose. Would you like a swim ring or similar? We also have a few swim boards. It'll give you something to lean your arms on."
The kid just looked at him in an offended and sceptical way. "You think I can't swim?"
Roy sighed. "I think that it's a long conversation that doesn't really require for you to constantly bob up and down in the water. It's for comfort, not lack of skill."
The boy glared at him. "Swim board." Then he ran in the direction that Roy had pointed out.
"Remember to shower properly, you were drenched in blood not too long ago, use the opportunity to get it off completely," Roy told him, knowing that the kid could hear him even if he was twenty metres away by now. He sighed and went upstairs to his room to grab his own clothes, having tended to his wounds in the car. And so he dressed himself in his sweatpants and t-shirt and headed for the pool, finding the room empty as Edward was obviously still in the shower, having heeded Roy's words.
Meaning that Roy found the swim board, placed it on the edge of the pool, and dropped to his hands, getting in position for doing some pushups to pass the time.
"What the hell are you up to?" Came Ed's confused voice ten minutes later, and Roy turned around, his left hand still on his back, his right on the floor beneath him and his chest midway down to the floor.
He stood up, fixing his t-shirt. "Like I said, you two will never ever become hunters, meaning that I need to be in peak condition in order to protect you." He then swiftly picked up the swim board and threw it to him, watching as the kid instinctively grabbed it even if he had been completely unprepared for it. Vampire reflexes were something that hunters were always trained to be ahead of. Otherwise, the vampires were too adaptive and it could cost you your life.
Ed looked at the board in his hand and then pointed at his own muscular chest and stomach with his free hand. "I have a six-pack. I didn't have a six-pack when I fell asleep in the bathroom."
Roy sighed again. He was doing it a lot with all that was happening. "Your body's mutating. It's gradually accepting the physiological changes and it was most likely spurred on by the extra blood."
The boy's look turned fierce and annoyed again and he suddenly grabbed onto the swim board and jumped into the water with great force, before glaring up at Roy, his long hair wet and hanging about his shoulders. "Now talk."
Roy sat down, his legs crossed, knowing that towering over this kid would most likely result in even more hostility. "Edward, your father was a vampire, wasn't he? All this time you've had this look of this being especially personal."
Edward's eyes widened. "So that bastard really is the reason behind this?"
Roy looked at him, feeling a bit of confused annoyance at the fact that neither Elric had told him everything about the attack apparently. "Edward, what haven't you been telling me?"
"That vamp, the one who turned me, she said something about turning the eldest son of the greatest traitor to the vampire race or some shit... I thought it was just about how he settled down and had children with a human or something. But you know some stuff about him, don't you?" the kid said with his eyes burning with hate for his father.
"How old is your father?" Roy was maybe pushing his luck, judging by how Edward's anger was rising rapidly.
"I don't know and I don't care! That bastard drank from Mom for years and then he just left us, obviously because he could tell that she was getting sick! And because he'd been feeding from her for so long, she wasn't able to survive! He killed her! He broke her heart, killed her, and so I didn't exactly care how fucking old he was! Now tell me what the hell is wrong here!"
Roy ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair in frustration. "Like I said earlier, these are hypotheses based from rumours that died out centuries ago. Do you want the quick and brutal answer?"
"Just tell me the fucking truth, dammit!" Edward growled. Had he shouted, then they'd have most likely been in trouble.
Roy decided quickly that the brutal way was the safest one right now so as to shock the kid enough to stop him from being so impatient. "Edward, there is evidence suggesting that your father is a few millenniums old and you and Alphonse are direct descendants of one of the three most powerful vampires known to man."
The boy stared. "Wh-what?" he said in barely more than a whisper.
"The two vampires on top of the vampire hierarchy are called Mother and Father. A few centuries ago, there were rumours of Father having a twin. A much kinder one who loved humanity. There is also a source stating that Father's eyes were "made of burning gold". But like I say, all these facts are mere rumours. They are unreliable sources at best."
"So you're saying all this crap because of my eye colour? That's rich. You're supposed to be a vampire expert."
"Yes, and you're supposed to be a Turner who doesn't inhabit the characteristics of a high-level Pureblood and Power-Wielder to boot! You're gonna be almost as strong as a fucking Alpha, and those are the direct descendants of Mother and Father! Problem is that nobody actually knows what Father or Mother or any of the Alphas actually look like, so making sure is a bit hard! THAT is why we need to go through the largest collection on everything vampire there is available in the country, which happens to be the Mustang family library!" Roy took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose with his right index finger and thumb. He was usually so calm and collected, but when it came to his parents and everything that they did, he was very prone to losing his temper slightly. That and the way that people only saw vampires as nothing more than monsters that needed to be slaughtered. That they had no right to live because of an illness. "Hopefully we'll also find something on how to help you control your powers," he added in a lot calmer fashion.
"Why wouldn't you say anything?! You could at least have said that my turning was abnormal or something!" Ed said, his voice laced with something sounding like anger bordering on hurt. "You seriously weren't gonna tell me before meeting psycho-parents that me and Al are... whatever the hell you call us?"
Roy removed his hand and looked over at him"Would it have done you any good? I didn't want to worry you more than necessary," he told him heavily.
Ed's eyes definitely revealed the way he felt like Roy had betrayed him. "You should have told us. You should have warned us. Al's safety is at stake." Then his eyes began glowing with fierce protectiveness. "For someone who's damn tired of having people rule your life, you're sure deciding everything for me and Al."
Roy stood up sharply, leaving the room without another word.
Ed didn't know what to do as he watched the door swing shut behind Mustang. He had obviously hit a nerve.
He was still angry. He was angry as hell. He was angry and scared and he had no idea about what the hell he should do about it, because he wanted nothing more than to shout.
But shouting was definitely not an option.
He looked down at his hands and ran his tongue over the tiny daggers that were lying in wait inside his mouth above his normal teeth.
He winced as he realised how bad that idea had been, judging by the stinging sensation in the tip of his now bleeding tongue.
"...The biggest and worst vampires in known history are my aunt and uncle?" he whispered.
He looked down at his muscular arms and chest.
What's Al gonna think?
And everyone in Resembool were dead.
He didn't bother to wipe the tears away as they landed on top of the swim board with a few tap taps that were far too loud now.
He ended up just lying his right cheek on his right arm, just letting the tears flow, even if he hardly made any noise. "...Dammit." His voice was barely more than a whisper.
Everything hurt and everything was a mess and the Rockbells were dead and Ed was a fucking abomination.
A fucking abomination who might as well have just made the one guy able to protect him and his own brother hate him. He could drag them to some military lab and tell them that he had done it all just to get more information on the two of them so that he knew the scope of Ed's powers.
He had offered them a helping hand and Ed had just...
"What did I just do? What's gonna happen to Al now? What the hell have I done?" he asked the empty room with a croaky whisper.
And he couldn't go upstairs. He couldn't just leave the safest room in the house now. If he lost his control and ended up hurting someone, then he'd just give Mustang an even better reason to hate him.
And so he just floated there for over an hour, nobody coming for him as his tears kept streaming down his cheeks. And he felt so numb. Numb and scared and betrayed and angry and frustrated and-
Perfume, clean clothes and footsteps. Lighter than Mustang's, but heavier than Al's. Definitely Riza...
He used the extra time he gained from sensing her approach before she got there to wipe his face to the best of his ability. If Riza was being sent here, then Mustang was definitely not in the mood to talk to him. He had screwed up big time.
"Edward?" came her voice gently as the door was opened. The same one that Mustang had disappeared through about one and a half hours ago. She too had changed her clothing, and was now wearing a green sweater and a pair of skinny jeans, and over her right arm she was carrying a towel and a bright red bathrobe.
"Where's Al? How is he doing?" Ed asked immediately.
"He's resting upstairs in his new bedroom, keeping his ankle elevated while solving crossword puzzles. He's worried about you, but I reminded him that you had promised to talk to him about it later," she said gently. "Roy told us to give you some time to let things sink in."
Ed just looked at her. "So he's not throwing us out?"
She shook her head. "No, of course he isn't. He's waiting for you upstairs in the gym."
Ed decided that he shouldn't push his luck even more than he already had, and so he began making his way to the pool's edge. He handed her the swim board that she held her free hand out to take, before he got out of the pool and stood up, not facing her as he grabbed the towel. He had basically gravely insulted her big brother after all. So he just began drying himself with the damn softest towel he'd ever been in contact with. He was just finished drying his feet as he straightened up and found himself to have Riza help him into the bathrobe. "Uh, that really isn't necessary..." he told her awkwardly.
"There are a lot of things that we humans do that are unnecessary. We're all weird that way," she said conversationally. "I felt like doing this, and you felt like I didn't need to. To me it was unnecessary for you to say it, because I had made up my mind to do so and I was going to follow through with it." She pulled his hair out of the inside of the bathrobe as she spoke, while Ed tied it closed with the belt.
"...And your point is?" Ed asked uncertainly as she began finger combing his hair.
"You are just as weird as us other humans, and I just felt like reminding you of that fact, Edward. We humans all have our motives and thoughts and feelings and we act differently on them, because that's what makes us weird and that's what makes us human. As we grow older, we learn to accept that a lot easier. And yet sometimes we need to be alone to accept that weirdness."
Ed looked around him awkwardly. The whole mansion really was ridiculously large. The pool was ridiculously big for a private pool. The brick walls were going up to the ceiling to make it ridiculously tall. "This is a weird conversation too," Ed said as he realised that Riza had begun to plait his hair.
"Like I said, Ed, human. Now, if you want any other weird conversations, then please come find me," she said, completing the plait by fastening it with a hair tie.
"Uh, sure... Yeah, I'll remember it..." Ed told her, not exactly sure what else to say. And he was still slightly unnerved that she knew exactly how he liked his plait. And that he wore a plait at all.
"Then you go back up to the entrance hall, go up the staircase to the right, follow the hallway until it turns to the left, and from there you just follow your nose. You can walk right in."
"Shouldn't I like... shower first?" Ed asked carefully.
"The ones next to the gym are a lot nicer, we recently had them redone. Your clothes are lying in the bag by the stairs, including toiletries, soap, shampoo, and, because we weren't sure if you preferred it or not, there's also a bottle of conditioner in there too."
Ed definitely didn't dare look at her at that. These people were far too considerate at times. And that made him awkward.
Awkward as hell.
"Yeah, thanks, I'll go up to see him, then. Please take care of Al in the meantime," he told her, walking out the door.
"Of course, Ed." Her voice was just as kind as before.
Weird indeed.
He made his way up to the bag, noticing immediately that the new soap, shampoo and conditioner smelled like what could best be described as a masculine apple. It seemed pretty okay.
And so he made his way up the stairs, following the described route, looking down at the carpeted floor sternly so as not to get distracted and overwhelmed by the ridiculous décor, the pompousness of the interior, the paintings and the decorative... stuff whose names he didn't even know what were. Even the windowsills were carved and painted in careful detail.
Then he noticed faintly the slowly growing sound and smell of a sweaty Mustang exercising. He was clearly moving up and down but in a way that indicated that the thing he was doing was not a particularly easy activity.
And so he made his way over to Mustang and opened the door, finding the man to be doing hanging sit-ups, a water bottle on the floor next to the slightly low-hanging pull-up bar next to a couple of taller ones. He was wearing a pair of white knee-length gym shorts with a red stripe on each side and a white singlet. The man was sweating and yet he didn't stop what he was doing, he just took a brief look at Ed before returning to looking straight ahead. "Uh, Riza said you sent for me?" Ed said awkwardly, a bit concerned at the cold reception.
"Actually I didn't," Mustang said as if commenting on the weather.
"Oh, uh, would you like me to leave, then?" He was getting increasingly worried about just how much he had messed up.
"Not an option, kid," he said sternly, not even pausing. "Close the door behind you."
Ed did as he was told. Mustang sounded pissed off. Ed was a vampire and had pissed off a Mustang. He would be lucky to leave the room alive. Well, if he didn't, then he was at least sure that Riza would take care of Al. "Listen, I..."
Mustang interrupted him however. "You're not leaving because when Riza tells you to go somewhere to meet me when I haven't asked for it, then she'll be pissed off and scary as hell if I tell you to go." Ed could hear that the man was still angry with him.
Which is probably why he won't face me or show me normal manners...
"Oh," was all Ed could think of saying, waiting for what came next. Too much was on the line here for Ed to be rude or annoying right now.
"Although I'm still going to complete my training schedule, so you may as well join me if you want. You shouldn't really have much trouble because of your new strength. Actually, it'll probably help you get a better picture of how your body has changed. I was going to suggest it later today, but it seems that Riza decided that now's a good time, so I'm guessing that you've got training clothes too in that bag. And that's probably also why she didn't tell you to shower before seeing me."
"She said that the showers were nicer here," Ed said carefully, looking through the bag, finding a pair of gym shorts similar to Mustang's, but light blue with a yellow stripe down the sides, and there was a black singlet in there for him as well. And-
"You bought me leather trousers?" he asked incredulously. He'd never worn anything like it. There was a black tank top and a large, brown belt too, but those were obviously for later, judging by how they had been placed separately from the gym clothes, the two outfits divided by a wall of toiletries.
"Alphonse was awake longer than you, he thought you might like something like that. If it's not your kind of thing, then there are other clothes for you to wear," Mustang told him conversationally. "Now go change in the wardrobe to your right. And Riza wasn't technically lying, these ones are a lot nicer."
"Okay," Ed said, making his way into the door to the adjoining room, finding a very up-to-date wardrobe with booths for showering.
He changed quickly, dropping the bag on the floor before returning to Mustang, having heard him move onto another exercise, this time having proceeded to pull-ups on one of the taller pull-up bars. The guy was strong, that was for sure. Strong and muscular, but thankfully not to the point of it being uncomfortable to look at because of bulging veins and a general shininess that didn't really look natural. He nodded towards the pull-up bar next to him. "I have a feeling that you won't have any trouble reaching up, even if you have to jump first. It's probably a good way to get to know and thereby learn to limit the strength when you jump. I suggest you begin there."
And so Ed spent the next three minutes feeling increasingly ridiculous as he jumped repeatedly with a different level of force for each of them. Then he grabbed onto the pull-up bar, looking over at Mustang, who was seeming a mixture of amused, exasperated and just a bit exhausted. "By the way, what about your wounds? This has gotta sting like hell. And couldn't you like pull the stitches and stuff?" Ed asked.
Mustang just pulled himself up again, obviously not caring. "Probably."
"So why?" Ed said, tentatively trying to pull himself up, and finding it to be working.
Mustang suddenly dropped himself to his feet and walked up in front of him, readjusting his grip. "You've never done this before, have you?" he asked, although there was a hint of kindness to it.
"I lived in the middle of the countryside, we didn't have a gym. We had fields. We ran around and kicked and threw balls to each other," Ed said, lifting himself up, vastly underestimating his strength and finding himself hanging over the bar instead, Mustang halfway pushing and halfway holding his shoulders to keep him from falling forwards completely.
"Okay, we definitely need to do this more often," Mustang told him, his eyes just a bit wider as he helped Ed back into the right position, but not moving from his spot, obviously as a precaution.
And so Ed began tentatively lifting and lowering himself, sometimes succeeding, sometimes nearly breaking his wrists by using too much force, finding Mustang to be there to stop him, for the next two minutes, the older man commenting on each attempt, guiding him.
Ed decided suddenly to just hang a bit, looking down. "Listen, I... I shouldn't have said it like that... I shouldn't have assumed stuff about something I barely know anything about... That was..."
"Edward, stop talking..." Mustang said. "You're not wrong about me controlling just about everything about you. I'd have been pissed off myself if I were in your shoes. Besides, I had just given you some of the most horrifying news you could probably get. I wasn't planning for it to turn out this way, and now I'm even going to train you, although in a very different way than the one I was. Also, you will have to listen to me and follow everything I say once we're in Central and with my parents." Mustang suddenly sighed. "Which is why I made a few phone calls to get an arrangement for you two that'll give you some time away from my parents on a more or less daily basis for about four weeks."
Ed looked at him at that. "What? How?"
"You and Alphonse are, only if you want to of course, entering a crossword tournament."
Ed stared at him. "Say what?"
"I asked around a bit, and there's a tournament that's being hosted by East Central Times the following month. Qualifications officially ended three days ago, but they're willing to make an exception for you two. You'll be entering the team part of the tournament if you qualify, which I don't doubt you will. Of course, they only made an exception because of your age, the fact that I told them that you two are the sole survivors of a vampire raid and could really use the distraction, and me being from one of the most powerful families in the country. You're quite likely going to end up as the talk of the tournament, and even if you won't of course be competing every single day, then you could use it as an excuse to see how the others are doing to get a scope of your opponents. Me and Riza will spend the time researching, meaning that Major Armstrong has volunteered to escort you. He's a State Hunter, yes, but he's a family friend and he's actually a real softie. I trust him and if he should figure out that you're a vampire, then he also trusts my judgement enough not to kill you or turn you in, because he still has a strong sense of morality. You're going to be quite safe and you can do something that you enjoy that my parents won't be able to oppose because you'll be doing qualifications before we go to see them. So what do you say?"
Ed just stared at him. "Seriously? A tournament? But you don't even know if we're gonna lose after like one round."
"Ed, they wouldn't have accepted you if they thought so. Honestly, I think you two are going to go very far in this thing. If you don't like the idea, then you can of course just say no, and I'll tell them that you didn't want to after all."
Ed was nervous. He didn't like the idea of losing in front of so many people, but also, crossword puzzles were some of the most relaxing things he did. It could probably mean that he wouldn't spend everyday terrified of decapitation by psycho-parents. And it sounded a bit fun. "I hafta ask Al."
"Al's already said yes."
Then Ed smiled at him. He genuinely smiled at him. "Then I'm in. Thanks."
He was a bit surprised to find Mustang ruffling his hair all of a sudden, but he didn't really mind that much.
I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and please leave reviews!
(But no flames)