Here we are, chapter five, which I guess can be seen as a bit of a calm before the storm...
Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.
And once again, THANK YOU to all of you wonderful people who have read, reviewed, followed and favourited this story, you guys keep me smiling through the whole day (and I've been having chronic migraines for two years now, so that means a lot to me!)
Chapter Five
Roy had started to worry as the minutes stretched out, and the usual fifteen minutes turned to forty.
He had seen that something was seriously wrong the moment he had seen Fullmetal's face. Waiting for the nurse to leave was tantamount to torture, acting as though everything was as it should be when it obviously wasn't. These nurses had to be gullible fools not to notice the way Fullmetal was tense and obviously terrified.
He was incredibly relieved when the nurse finally left the room, and Fullmetal turned towards him.
"We need to talk."
"What's wrong? What happened?"
"Charles."
"He was here?! Are you alright, did he do anything?" Roy was alarmed as hell as his suspicions were confirmed.
"He just wanted to have a proper look at me."
"What do you mean?"
"He jabbed a needle into my neck and suddenly I couldn't feel my body. Then hen took me into a room and started examining my face. Once he was done he just pushed me back to where the nurse had left me, as though nothing had happened."
"What did he say?"
"He said that he wasn't done punishing me for contributing to his sister's death, but when he has done that, he is going to add me to his "collection". He kept saying that it would be soon."
Roy was furious. The man was toying with them, trying to scare them. And he was obviously planning to take Fullmetal.
"You're not going anywhere on your own from now on, okay?" Roy asked. He could tell by the look on the kid's face that he was scared by all this. And Roy had to admit that the thought of someone like that adding Fullmetal to their "collection" terrified him.
Fullmetal nodded. "Could we go home today, you think?"
"It's not really a good idea, but I'm in."
"Then let's go."
Roy stood up as Fullmetal found his regular clothes folded neatly on a chair. He walked slowly, the movement was obviously causing him a great deal of pain. Roy went over to him, his back may be aching, but it wasn't as bad as a fucking arrow wound. Fullmetal looked curiously up at him.
"What?"
"You're going to need some help, you could rip that wound open again otherwise."
Fullmetal just grunted and Roy helped him change his trousers and swap the hospital shirt for his black tank top and jacket, as well as his trademark red coat. Fullmetal had managed to convince the nurses not to throw them away, as he could fix them using alchemy. Moving his arms caused Roy to bite down on his lip as his back was screaming in protest at the continued movement, but he ignored it. He swapped the turquoise hospital clothes for his uniform and then threw on his black coat. Except for the bags under their eyes and the slight bruise on Fullmetal's right cheek, as well as the fact that the kid's hair was hanging loosely down his back, they looked pretty normal.
They made their way slowly through the hospital, keeping their heads down. It was obviously quite painful for the kid, and he limped slightly.
"Colonel Mustang, what exactly do you think that you're doing?" a voice called from behind them. Roy turned around and was met with the stern face of Dr. Samuels.
Of course they just had to run into the man who had given him hell for sneaking Fullmetal out of the hospital the first time.
"We're leaving."
"What do you mean?! You shouldn't even be out of bed! None of you! Especially your subordinate!"
"Take it up with the Fuhrer."
"You know what? I have half a mind to do so."
"I wouldn't really recommend that, he might be inclined to see it as treason."
The man sputtered. Roy felt an immense pleasure at seeing this after the earful the man had given him almost daily now.
"But still, think of Mr. Elric's health!"
"I'll be fine," the kid said.
And with that they left the hospital laughing on the inside.
There was just one little issue, Roy's car was still at the graveyard.
And his house was a thirty-minute walk away from the hospital.
Which meant an hour with Fullmetal's pace.
Shit.
"Colonel?"
"My house is about an hour away, I guess we'll just have to start walking. You can lean on me if you need to."
"I'm good."
And so they started walking.
Fullmetal's limp became quite pronounced after about twenty minutes, and the continued movement was obviously causing him a lot of pain as he had stopped talking and was just biting down on his lip. Roy knew the kid was too stubborn to ask for assistance.
"Fullmetal, you need some help."
"No, I'm fine."
Roy put his right arm under the stubborn kid's.
"I said I'm fine!"
"Which is why I am now ordering you to accept my help. Now put your left hand on my shoulder so that we can relieve some of the strain on your wound."
The kid grumbled, but did as he was told.
"Good, we still have about forty minutes to go."
This of course, put a much larger strain on Roy's back, but he didn't really care. Fullmetal was a child in significantly more pain than him with a more serious injury, as well as his subordinate. Roy wasn't going to have him collapse on him.
God knows the kid has been through enough pain already.
"Excuse me, Officer, but do you need some help?" a woman asked him, obviously noticing the pained look on Fullmetal's face.
"No, it's fine, this is the Fullmetal Alchemist, I'm getting him some help."
"Oh, okay, Sir." The woman walked away.
The kid started leaning more and more heavily on Roy as the minutes went by. He stumbled when they were ten minutes away.
"Fullmetal? Are you okay?"
Which was when a small drop of blood came down from the bottom edge of his tank top, landing on the pavement beneath his feet.
"Ah, it opened again, then," the kid stated exhaustedly.
Damn that kid for always wearing his black and red.
Roy stopped walking, as did Fullmetal. He sighed and picked him up, his right hand behind the kid's back, the left under his knees. Roy bit back a curse as his back began throbbing with pain.
"Colonel! I can walk on my own! Put me down!"
"I'm not going to have you bleed to death, just use your coat to put pressure on your wound."
The kid did as he was ordered.
They reached Roy's house ten minutes later. He was alarmed when he found the door to be unlocked. He slowly opened it, and the first thing he saw as he came inside, was a note taped to the wall.
Sorry about breaking in, Robbie-Boy, but I just wanted to remove your ignition gloves so that you don't decide to do anything stupid.
Roy and Fullmetal cursed simultaneously, although Roy noticed that the kid's rant was a lot weaker than usual.
He carried him into the living room, laying him down on the couch, before running upstairs to the bathroom to wash his hands and get the first aid kit and some towels. He came back downstairs and kneeled down in front of the boy. He removed the coat and the tank top, revealing that the stitches had indeed been ripped open.
Roy put a towel to Fullmetal's wound before he removed the torn stitches, receiving a few pained grunts from the kid. He then set to work with the needle and thread, apologising as he pushed the little needle through the skin. The kid whimpered repeatedly, and Roy was quite frankly relieved that he at least wasn't screaming.
Roy then pushed the towel against the wound before he went into the kitchen to wash his hands. He felt quite sick with the thought that all this red came from a fucking child. He took a deep breath and returned to the living room. There he grabbed the bottle of antiseptic and poured some of it onto a cotton pad, and began cleaning the wound. He then grabbed a bowl in the kitchen and filled it with lukewarm water in order to clean the rest of the kid's stomach. He dipped the towel into the water and started washing off the blood. Fullmetal kept grunting in pain. Roy grabbed another cotton pad with antiseptic and cleaned the wound one more time, then he sat Fullmetal up in a sitting position and pressed a compress against the wound on both sides and started twisting a thick layer of bandages around his stomach.
"Right, we're done."
"Great, thanks."
"Well, I'm going to put these clothes in the laundry, and then we're going to find you something else to wear."
"Thanks."
Roy threw the bloodied clothes in the laundry basket, then he went upstairs to the loft. There was no way any of the things in his wardrobe was going to fit the kid, and so he was going to search through one of the old boxes of clothes from his childhood. He climbed the staircase and turned on the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. He found what he was looking for after a few minutes of searching. The box contained a lot of things he guessed Fullmetal wouldn't want to wear, but after a while he settled on a pair of black sweatpants and a light blue T-shirt. He went back downstairs and found the kid sleeping on the couch at an odd angle, seeing as how he had slid sideways down on the couch, but his feet had stayed on the ground. Roy went over to the sleeping form and gently shook his shoulder. There was no response. He kept shaking his shoulder, calling his name until he finally got a grunt in reply and a couple of tired, golden eyes stared blearily up at him.
"Hey, Fullmetal, you can't sleep here. You need to get a change of clothes and then we'll set you up in the guest room."
"Uh-huh. Sounds good." He sat back up, whimpering at the pain in his side.
Roy handed him the clothes. "Do these look good enough for you?"
"I guess, where did they come from?"
"I had a box of old childhood clothes."
"Oh."
"Let's get you to the bathroom so we can get you changed." He then carried the kid again, which wasn't as easy now that he had to manoeuvre him up the stairs.
He helped him change into the new clothes and then prepared the spare bedroom, and so he lay the sleepy kid down on the bed before pulling the covers over him.
"Thanks, Colonel," he muttered, clutching the covers before he swiftly fell asleep.
"No problem," Roy answered as he flicked the light-switch, but left the door open just in case something should happen.