"Brother?"

Ed jarred back to the present. His little brother's voice had brought him back from a world of science and knowledge to cold reality. A dozen aches and pains made themselves known, from the movement-induced sting of his automail port, to the dull pain emanating from his lower chest and side with every breath. Not to mention the overall ache his whole body complained with from fever.

"Yeah, Al?" he asked wearily, lifting his hands over his head in a slow, aching stretch.

"Don't you think it's time you went to bed?"

The motion stirred his lungs and he coughed, trying hard to keep it from becoming a fit. This was his favorite shirt, and he was tired of the blood stains. He looked down at Alphonse over the railing of the loft.

It may have been Ed's favorite place in the entire house, but he hated how much trouble it was getting up here.

"I don't need a sitter, Alphonse," Ed groused, but nevertheless grabbed his crutch from its place propped against a shelf and got to his feet, with some trouble.

He glanced down past Alphonse into the living room. Mustang was there, pretending to study a stack of notes Alphonse had given him, but Ed could tell he was listening. That meddling snoop was always listening.

Ed glared at the side of his head for good measure before hobbling to the ladder and making his slow, painful way down. It was a neat trick with a crutch, and it was definitely harder than going up. It left him winded and weak, and he was disgusted with how far his body had fallen in six months. He'd been in his prime, and now a measly ladder had him panting for breath.

Alphonse was still there waiting for him, a cup in his hands. "Here," he said, offering it to him.

Ed took it, grimacing at the colorful cocktail of pills inside. Steroids for the inflammation and automail, painkillers, acetaminophen for the fever. He narrowed his eyes, dipping in a finger and fishing out a small, innocuous-looking blue pill. "Forget it, Alphonse."

Al sighed, accepting the sleeping pill in an open palm. "It wouldn't hurt you to get a good-night's sleep for once."

"I'd rather be conscious when I study. The last time I took that stupid pill, I slept for two days."

With his potentially-limited lifespan, two days was kind of a big deal.

"Doctor Fawn lowered the dose."

"Don't care." Ed dumped the whole cup in his mouth, swallowing them dry. He felt Mustang's eyes on him, but when he turned around, the man was once again nose-deep in a journal. So annoying.

"How do you feel?"

Ed gave a one-armed shrug, avoiding Al's eyes because his little brother could smell truth the way a hound smelled blood. "I feel like a sandwich. Want one?"

Alphonse's eyes narrowed. "Brother, the doctor said—"

"The doctor said don't eat two hours before bed, blah, blah, right. A sandwich never killed anyone," Ed assured him, heading to the kitchen. Alphonse had been shaken from the night before, and if Ed had to admit it, he was too. Al had been micromanaging his diet in order to give his body every opportunity to process food, but something had set Ed off last night, and he didn't realize it was possible to vomit so many times.

He'd lost plenty of weight in the past month, and with that came it's own set of complications. Though Winry had dropped off a casserole earlier that evening, and though it was delicious, the small portion Alphonse had allowed him hadn't lasted and he hoped that a sandwich might make him feel a bit less shaky.

Al let out a weary sigh, leaning on the doorframe behind him while Ed dug out some meat and cheese from the icebox and a jar of mayonnaise and mustard. "So? Want one?" he asked, laying out two slices of bread.

Alphonse stepped up behind him, plucking the mayo from his hand and removing the cheese from the counter, returning them to the icebox. "Sure."

Ed glared, snatching the mustard with an undue amount of force while maintaining the heated eye contact. "Fine." Ed set out another two pieces of bread and set about assembling subpar sandwiches.

"Hey, Roy?" Al called. "Want a sandwich?"

"No thanks," Mustang responded from the living room.

"Good, because I wasn't going to make you one," Ed growled.

Alphonse threw on more lettuce than was necessary and they ate in relative silence.

"Brother?" Al asked after a while.

Ed swallowed his last bite. "Yeah?"

"Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Ed knew very well what his little brother was asking. He took a long drink of water, considering his options.

He'd always known that what he did in Briggs would come back to haunt him. Almost dying in that mine had been a sobering experience for Ed, and the decision to use his own life-force to heal himself wasn't one he'd made lightly, even if he didn't have time to think about the ramifications. It was do or die, and staring at his little brother in the flesh, Ed wouldn't change it if he could.

But he hated watching Alphonse suffer for him, the same way he had hated watching Al suffer in that suit of armor for his mistakes.

"Honestly, I thought I'd die doing something stupid long before this became an issue," Ed admitted.

Al considered that a moment, his expression tired instead of accusing. "You thought you had more time."

It wasn't really a question, but Ed shrugged in response. A sudden rush of shakiness had him pulling out a chair from the table, sitting heavily to relieve his legs. Guess the sandwich didn't help much.

Alphonse leaned against the counter, regarding him. "Did you find anything?"

Ed grimaced. "I told you I'm looking into blood alchemy, right? If I can restore and improve circulation, I can probably stop the scars from spreading. It's not a cure, per se, but it'd certainly help." He didn't tell Alphonse that it was more than likely a dead end.

Ha. Dead end.

Ed rubbed his forehead tiredly. When had he gotten so morbid?

And when had his headache gotten so bad? Maybe he'd waited too long to take the pain meds? "Find anything on your end?"

Al's gaze had turned discerning and sharp. He didn't miss anything. "Brother—"

"Well?" Ed interrupted.

Alphonse looked away, annoyed that Ed wasn't letting him continue with his own interrogation. "I'm still looking into the soul alchemy angle." Ever since he'd returned to his body, Ed's little brother seemed to have a knack for what he'd called 'soul alchemy.' He was able to temporarily plant a piece of his soul into an object, giving it a life of its own until time or distance severed the link. Ed had found it rather creepy and didn't like Alphonse tampering with his own soul after all it had been through, but Al had assured him he'd suffered no ill effects from the transmutations, but agreed to research it further before making it common practice.

Ed nodded, taking note of the sudden swelling of nausea rising up his esophagus. Maybe that sandwich hadn't been such a great idea. Sweat slowly beaded on his forehead and dampened his shirt.

He was absolutely not ready for a repeat of last night.

"Hey . . . Al? Can you . . . alchehestry . . . please . . ."

At the risk of further upsetting his stomach, Ed didn't dare lift his head. He watched Al's feet as they hurriedly crossed the kitchen, deposited the trash bin under his chin and disappeared. Blood rushed through his ears, rendering anything Al might have said completely unintelligible. He froze and waited, bile rising in his throat and he tried to just breathe.

Then something inside him clenched and seized and he vomited.

Most of it went in the trash, just a red-tinted mess of sandwich and bile. Ed gripped it in cold, white-knuckled hands, shaking as his stomach heaved again and again, each time with a wave of pain slamming against his side like an avalanche from the inside, like something was in there trying to claw its way out.

Yeah, no more sandwiches. Maybe ever.

When his body was expunged of food, all that came up was blood.

Ed remembered watching his teacher vomiting blood. Izumi Curtis' episodes always knocked her for a loop, even as strong as she was, and she would sometimes be bedridden for days. Ed didn't claim to be even half as strong as his teacher, so he wasn't thrilled with his new symptoms. He did not want to waste what little time he had bent over a bucket or stuck in bed.

A hand appeared on his back, another sweeping his hair up and behind his neck. Ed thought it was his little brother for a second.

"Breathe," a deep voice that was definitely not Alphonse murmured. "In through your nose, out through your mouth."

As if Ed wasn't already vomiting. Ugh.

Still, Ed took his advice, drawing cool air through his nose, then gagging and his stomach heaving all over again. More blood.

He saw spots, his vision glittering and dancing. He thought he heard Mustang say more, but the rushing in his ears drowned him out.

Then hands were all over him, flattening him on the table. Alphonse was there, pushing his shirt up, a jar of white paint clattering next to his ear. Ed turned his head, more blood gushing from his mouth, dribbling past his lips and onto the wooden tabletop. He choked on it, coughing as it burned his throat. All he could taste was iron.

Mustang smoothed his sweaty bangs away from his sweaty face, dark eyes concerned and mouth a hard line. Alphonse was saying something, lips moving as his fingers traced the familiar circle over his stomach, cold paint raising gooseflesh in its wake.

Finally, an eternity later, he activated it.

Ed immediately felt his stomach quell. The terrible clawing sensation in his side abated, his stomach's spasms calming and easing into just general nausea. He coughed to clear the burning from his throat, more blood splattering on the tabletop, though Ed didn't know if it was from his lungs or his stomach and supposed that it didn't really matter.

He lay there panting for a moment.

"Fullmetal?" Mustang asked. "You alright?"

Ed breathed one more time before trying to sit up.

A flare of fresh pain and nausea had him flat on his back, right back where he started.

"Don't try to move yet, Brother!" Al said, fussing with his shirt before finally leaning over him. "Just breathe."

Everyone was just so full of helpful advice tonight.

His stomach rolled again, but it was nothing but dry heaves; no more blood or bile left at all. He curled on his side, trying to find a position that was a little easier not to choke in.

Alphonse and Mustang exchanged a look over his head. Mustang pushed a wet rag into Ed's shaky hand. Ed muttered a raspy thanks and dragged his arm across the table to wipe at his mouth. Gross.

More gagging and dry heaves later and Ed was getting tired of the way they were staring at him.

He got one arm under him, but it was too weak and too shaky and too tired to lift his own weight. Mustang put a hand under his back and slowly helped him sit up. The thing no one bothered to tell you about alchehestry was that it completely zapped your strength. The process of prodding cells to regenerate and grow and heal taxed the body. The greater the damage, the greater the toll, and after throwing up his insides for the better part of half an hour, he was too spent to even tell Mustang to keep his hands to himself.

"I'm . . ." Ed gagged again, swallowed and continued. "I'm gonna . . . go to bed now."

He didn't miss the next look the two alchemists exchanged. "Alirght, Brother," Al said, taking one arm while Mustang took the other. Between the two of them, they leveraged him off the table and to his feet, then dragged him to his room.

He was almost grateful that Mustang was there, because dragging himself to his room last night had been just a bit more difficult with only Al to help. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open anyway.

When his head hit the pillow, he might have already been asleep.

XxXxX

Alphonse stuffed his shaking hands into his pockets and leaned against the closed door, feeling sick himself.

Seeing his brother like that . . . pale and thin and so sick . . . he couldn't stand it. It felt like every time Ed was in pain, Al could feel himself breaking just a little bit more, pieces of his soul crumbling away into dust. As much as Al hated to inconvenience Roy, and as much as Ed hated for Roy to see him this way, Roy was necessary for both of their sakes.

At least, that's what Al tried to tell himself. There were, of course, others he could have called. Winry would have stayed in a heartbeat, and he knew that Havoc or anyone else on the team would have dropped everything to be there. Mei had even hinted in her letters that she would come if he called.

But it had to be Roy Mustang for three reasons.

The first being Al knew that behind all of his mortification and his snide remarks, Ed would rather it be Roy Mustang than anyone else. Because who better to understand being left, in Ed's words, a "worthless excuse for an existence," than a man that had also gone from recklessly independent to handicapped?

When Roy Mustang had lost his sight, Al didn't know if it were possible to feel more sorry for another human being. Al might have been a bleeding heart, but to see a proud and ambitious man like Roy reduced to being led around his own home by the hand had been unbearably hard to watch.

And now it was happening to his brother.

But Roy had responded to Ed with a gentle patience, one developed by his time blind. Roy understood. He knew how hard it was to swallow your pride and accept the help.

And Ed knew it, too, whether he admitted it or not.

Secondly, no one could give Edward Elric a kick in the pants quite like Roy could. Alphonse hadn't missed the way Ed was slowing, the fire in his gaze and the fervor that he always brought to the table dimmed. Al knew his brother was still fighting, but he wasn't sure how much of his heart was still in it.

Roy had changed all of that by just showing up. Al hadn't heard his brother shout in weeks. Something so very Ed-like had been missing, and Roy had brought it back within minutes of his arrival.

Thirdly, if there were anyone Alphonse wanted around in a crisis, when he wasn't sure if he could handle it anymore, it was the man that Al had always looked up to since he was just a kid trapped in a suit of armor.

That's why it had to be Roy.

He could feel Roy's eyes on him and he looked up, summoning a smile for the older man. "Well, guess the rest will be good for him."

Roy's expression was scrutinizing, onyx eyes narrowed, but he didn't comment. "I'll go clean up," he offered, starting toward the kitchen.

Al couldn't express how relieved he was to hear that, even if he would turn him down.

After Ed's automail surgery, Ed had needed a lot of help. Between Winry, Granny and himself, they'd spent the better part of his recovery bringing him things, helping him with things, and trying to keep his genius, active mind from going mad with boredom. Between the three of them, and with Al's tireless metal body, it hadn't seemed like a huge burden.

After these past few months, though, Al was drained. He was physically exhausted with fetching things and helping Ed around and keeping the place clean, mentally exhausted with research and tracking his diet and symptoms, and emotionally from watching Ed slowly decline and feeling guilty that he was so tired when Ed was the one sick.

So just Roy volunteering to help clean up was enough to give Al a spark of energy. "No, I've got it," he assured, following Roy to the kitchen.

Roy ignored him, grabbing the towel that Ed had wiped his face with and proceeding to scour bloody liquid from the tabletop.

Al grabbed his own towel from a drawer and a glass bottle of vinegar and started on the floor.

"What's on your mind?" Roy asked after several silent minutes.

Al scrubbed the floor hard, the rubbing of cloth against wood soothing, in a way. "It's just . . . it's hard watching."

Roy nodded and looked back to his work. "I know."

"It . . . it wasn't supposed to be this way," he continued, a bit concerned that the words were proceeding from his mouth faster than his mind could consider them. "Ed wanted to see the world, did you know that? I was going to go to the east, and he was going to head west, and we were going to study and meet people. I'd bought my train tickets the day he started coughing up blood. Ed proposed to Winry, did you know that?"

"He never told me," Roy said, voice soft.

Al dragged a hand down his face, feeling tears he hadn't allowed himself to give into prick his eyes. He blinked them back. "He was going to get married. I bet he'd end up with ten kids. He wanted to publish his theories and help Winry with her automail shop and . . . he's got so much to do, why is this happening?"

Alphonse was only half aware of Roy dropping the rag on the table and pushing a chair aside, finding a clean spot on the floor beside Al and sitting down heavily.

"Why him?" Al asked, voice frail.

"I don't know," Roy answered.

"I . . . I thought after everything . . . he's paid his price, hasn't he? Where's the equivalent exchange?"

Roy crossed his legs and leaned forward. "I don't know."

Al wrung the cloth in his hands, feeling the heat sting his eyes. "Ed doesn't deserve this."

Roy sighed next to him, wrapping an arm around Al and pulling him to rest his head against the older man's shoulder. Al didn't fight it, too tired and numb to do anything anyway.

The past few months had been hard and were just going to get worse. Al didn't know if he had the strength to face it.

"I'm scared," he admitted softly.

Roy sighed. "Me, too."

Al took a long second to ask about something else that was weighing on his mind. "Did you . . . did you read my notes?"

The man beside him stiffened slightly, breath stilling just a bit before he fully regained composure not a second later, but Al already knew what was coming. "I don't think that's going to be a viable option, Alphonse."

"Because the risk of cellular destruction is too great," Al finished numbly.

Roy nodded. "Maybe Ed can see a way around it, but as it is, there is too much energy being pumped into the body. If I understand your alchemy correctly, this would be like alchehestry, but magnified to the point his body might overheat, and the cells would deteriorate and die."

Al knew all this, but he didn't want to hear it. Soul alchemy had been his only viable lead, and without it, he had the sickening feeling that they were out of options. Ed had spent months on his blood theory, but they'd both been banking on Al's. He was terrified to put it in front of Ed and hear Ed confirm what Roy was telling him.

Because that would be the final nail in Ed's coffin.

Al blanched, because he wasn't ready to pick out a coffin.

"Al?"

Al shoved the morbid thought away. It wasn't over until Ed was dead or cured. He couldn't afford to dwell on that kind of thinking.

"I have to . . . I'm going to do a bit more research," he said, getting to his feet. "I'll show you the guest bedroom."

"No," Roy said, getting up a bit slower than Alphonse had. "I think I'll join you. For a while, anyway."

Al offered him a half smile and nodded.

Yeah, it had to be Roy Mustang.

Ask me how long this chapter has been done.

But no, don't ask me, because then I'd have to tell you it's been finished and collecting dust on my hard drive for, like, two months, and that's embarrassing :'D

I don't even have a good excuse. Analyzing it to death? Being afraid to post and commit to writing the next chapter when life is so crazy right now? I don't know. Holidays are coming up and I don't know if I can handle the family stress on top of some personal things I'm dealing with O_o Somebody send me some chocolate. I think I'm having a quarter-life crisis, but it's overdue and I just don't know how to handle it. I mean, I know God's got this, but my faith could really use some help. Prayers for guidance and clarity would be appreciated right now.

Vague. Dramatic. Slightly scattered. That sounds like my typical author's notes haha.

Anyway, hope you enjoy! Leave a review if you would, and hopefully I'll see you in the next chapter sooner rather than later.

God Bless,

-RainFlame